Apache Caress by Georgina Gentry - Panorama of the Old West 08 - Apache Caress

warm on her. He had killed men–the last one only yesterday. She was going to have to accept the word of a killer because she had no other choice. Still it was the only hope she had to cling to. If she could just get him across the river, maybe he would slip away and she could get on with her original problems. Funny how not having a job or a roof over her head seemed so unimportant when she was staring death in the face. If she could deal with this and survive, she might not ever be afraid again.
    “What are you thinking about?” he asked, behind her, as his hand touched her shoulder.
    “Nothing,” she lied. Sierra watched the road and kept driving. The wheels creaked in the stillness as they approached the outskirts of East St. Louis. Here and there were houses, sheds, small businesses. Women stood on the streets visiting with each other as men drove laden wagons by. The elegant Griswold carriage, drawn by two fine black horses, passed by, and Sierra recognized Toombs’s snooty wife and her stingy old father inside.
    A lot of foot traffic and many horse-drawn vehicles clogged the street approaching the big bridge. Sierra sighed, remembering when she and Grandfather had parked their wagon in the shade of that elm up ahead and had sold vegetables to the passersby. This section of town, near the bank, was old and full of warehouses, rundown hotels, and freight yards. It smelled almost as bad as it looked. Sometimes men came out of the hotels, looking both ways before they hurried down the street. Occasionally, she saw women wearing face paint and once she even saw one with a cigarette in her mouth!
    She felt her captor’s big hand on her back again. “Is the bridge up ahead?”
    “Yes.” She nodded. “But I’ve never been on the other side of the river–”
    “You let me worry about that. Your job is to get me across. The army’ll never think I can cross it.”
    Sierra looked at the giant Ead’s bridge as her mule moved slowly toward it. She studied the wagons and carriages pulled to a stop up ahead, the trains moving across the lower level of the bridge. She saw them then–her rescuers, all dressed in blue uniforms. She laughed out loud without thinking.
    “What’s the matter?” Cholla whispered behind her.
    “Merciful heavens, an Army patrol,” Sierra said triumphantly. “You can’t cross the river here. Soldiers are searching every wagon!”

Chapter Four
    Lieutenant Quimby Gillen stood at the street corner, thinking he probably shouldn’t have left the bridge patrol unsupervised. But, blast it all, didn’t he deserve a little rest and relaxation after that damned Cholla had almost killed him?
    Gingerly, Gill touched his bandaged head and looked up at the afternoon sun. Blast, but it was hot for September! Everything his friend, Forester, had told him about East St. Louis must be true.
    Gill paused on the curb, ready to cross. He clutched the sack of bottles closer, wondering if he were in the right neighborhood? His teeth were bothering him again, but he wasn’t going to give up the candy. The toothaches, combined with the bruises and cuts from the fight that had left him unconscious in the baggage car, put him in a foul mood.
    A canvas-covered wagon, the kind Gypsies might drive, passed him. An elderly mule pulled it slowly toward the big bridge at the end of the street. The dark, rather shy-looking woman driving the mule glanced at him and Gill suddenly thought she seemed exotic and mysterious. Maybe it was the magnetism of her eyes. At the very least, he felt a sudden recognition as if he knew her.
    Gill thought about that for a minute, searching his memory as he shifted the sack to his other arm, reached in his uniform jacket for the little bag of hard candy he always carried, popped a lemon drop in his mouth. No, he had never met her before, because he had only been through this area on the train. Then why did she look familiar to him?
    Hair as black as a crow’s wing, and somewhere in her