Maureen couldn't deny Charles the raising of his own son, even if she did disapprove of everything about the man, from his raffish dress to his cigars, his temper, and his undependable ways. Here one minute, dashing off the next. He'd stayed three nights and ridden away to see the actress.
No, she couldn't deny Charles; he was the boy's father. On the other hand, ever since the brigadier had brought her from the East, Maureen had hoped, assumed, that the raising and educating of little Gus would fall to her because Charles was too wild and unsettled to manage it. Now he'd come back, saying he wasn't.
Once he took the boy, her dream of the brigadier regularizing their relationship with a marriage proposal would never come to pass. She had almost decided she would have to marry Jack Ford, a white-haired quartermaster sergeant on the post. Ford, Irish, a widower, loved the cavalry life but claimed he loved her almost as much. She didn't love him, though if she married him, at least her life would have some stability.
Duncan's quarters were quiet except for the sound of Gus playing and the usual drift of noises from the post: trumpet calls, gun caissons rattling, men drilling to shouted cadence. The brigadier was gone again on one of the circuits of the Kansas forts he made every two months with an armed escort. The routine was the same at every post. He would set up a small office while the soldiers queued up outside. The soldiers wore white cotton dress gloves, and each man peeled off the right one when he stepped before the paymaster. After the soldier signed the payroll sheet, Duncan, helped by his orderly, counted the appropriate amount in greenbacks into the soldier's hand. The soldier saluted with his left hand, about-faced, and the next man presented himself. Maureen had watched the procedure at Leavenworth many times.
She expected the brigadier back by nightfall. She was glad. She loved him, though he never uttered the word; probably never thought it in connection with her. She finished cutting the biscuits and laid them in rows on an iron sheet for baking after the sun went down; the stove's heat would take the chill off the shabby rooms.
She thought she heard a wagon somewhere close by. Looking out the window, she saw nothing. On the sill, burnished by sunshine, lay a clumsy six-barrel Allen pepperbox Duncan had bought for her soon after their arrival in Kansas. The Allen dated to the 1840s, but it was dependable for its purpose. In the event of an Indian attack, and impending ravishment, a woman was supposed to use a bullet on herself. The likelihood of Cheyennes or Sioux coming to loot, burn, and rape at a post as civilized as Leavenworth was ridiculous. Nevertheless the custom persisted; most Army women kept a loaded piece handy.
She heard a sound behind her. Gus was there. The sight of him, soon to be denied her, made her all the more blue.
Charles's son was four. A sturdy boy, he didn't resemble his father except for the warm brown eyes. Those were definitely Charles Main's eyes, but the shape of his face was squarer. Gus must have gotten that from his mother, the brigadier's niece, along with his dark blond hair, which formed a cap of tight curls. This morning he wore a gray work shirt and jeans pants with a strap pinned over the shoulder, and quilled moccasins bought from a hang-around-the-fort.
Gus was a smiling boy, but afraid of his father, which made Maureen all the more resentful of Charles's return. He was quick-witted, too. Maureen read to him every night. He knew most of his letters already.
"Reeny —" That was his name for her, a corruption from his first attempts to say Maureen. "I want to go out and play."
"Will you be warm enough?" He nodded. "All right, but stay in the garden where I can see you. Watch out for Indians."
"There aren't any Indians except the old fat ones who sit around."
"You never know, Gus. Just keep your eyes open, because you never know."
He sighed, feeling put upon, and from behind the partially open door fetched the broomstick horse Duncan had made and painted for Christmas a year ago. The horse was a golden color, with a foamy white mane. Duncan had put amazing realism into the painted eyes on the cutout head.
Gus took hold of the rope rein and was soon galloping up and down beside the garden plot, switching the broomstick with an imaginary quirt and then raising the same hand as a pistol fired by the index finger. Watching the boy romping in the sunshine, Maureen grew sadder still. He made her so happy. Why must she lose him?
She went to her room to lie down for five minutes. Perhaps what she was feeling was the onset of the female vapors; she was no longer a young woman. There was gray in her hair. She was very tired. The five minutes lengthened to fifteen.
Gus had slain about three dozen wild Indians when the wagon creaked out from behind the last dwelling in the row of identical houses. The peddler man wrapped the reins on the brake lever, glanced around as if hunting for customers, then climbed down.
Little Gus stood still, watching. He'd been slightly alarmed by the wagon's sudden appearance. Although there was no lettering on the side, he knew the wagon belonged to a peddler because some tin pots were hung on hooks above the driver's seat. Now he was more curious than scared, because the grinning peddler in the plug hat carried a fancy cane with a large gold knob that shone in the sunshine. Something else glittered below the peddler's left ear. Gold and white, it reminded Gus of similar ornaments he'd seen on the ears of officers' wives around the post. He'd never seen a man wearing one.
Assisting himself with his cane, the peddler came down behind the row of houses toward the boy. At each house he glanced at the back window, as if continuing to search for ladies to whom he might sell his tinware. The man's left shoulder was tilted slightly below his right one. From the way the peddler's mouth worked, Gus had the idea that it hurt the man to walk."
"Good morning, my lad. I'm Mr. Dayton, purveyor of kitchen goods and domestics. What's your name?"
"Gus Main."
"Is your mother inside?"
"Don't have a mother. Reeny takes care of me." He ran up the steps and peered in the door. He didn't see Maureen or hear her. "Don't know where she is. She was making biscuits."
He stayed on the bottom step. The peddler had a stale, bad smell, and something in his eyes upset Gus; he didn't know why. The peddler kept staring at him and rubbing the gold knob of bis cane. Gus swallowed, trying to think of something to say.
He pointed suddenly. "What's that?"
The peddler stroked the bauble hanging from his ear. "Oh, just a little present from someone who owed me something. Would you like to pet my mule? He's a good old mule. He likes his ears scratched."
Gus shook his head, determined to have nothing more to do with this pestering, vaguely alarming man. "I don't think so."
"Oh, come along, pet him; he's hankering for it." Without warning, the peddler grabbed his hand, so tightly Gus immediately knew something was wrong.
"Gus, who's out there with you?" It was Maureen. The peddler's voice had carried, and brought her from her room. She pulled the door open and confronted a sight that frightened her for reasons she couldn't altogether explain. It was the stranger's eyes, possibly. Bright as those of a rabid dog she'd seen one time. In his greasy old claw-hammer coat, he didn't look respectable. He held Gus's wrist so tightly his fingers were white.
"You'd better let go of that boy, whoever you are," she said, starting down the steps. With a tremendous grunt, the man raised his cane over his head and bashed her skull.
Maureen pitched backward into the kitchen without a sound. The peddler lifted Gus off the ground, pinning him under his arm and covering his mouth with his left hand. The boy was strong and kicked and tried to cry out. The peddler scarcely had time to scratch something in the dirt with the ferrule of his cane.