Dreaming Of A Western Christmas. Carol Arens

       Chapter One

      Fort Hall, 1868

      Smoke? Smoke was the last thing he wanted to see. The very last thing. The puff of black dust rose higher, and Brand’s heart sank. What now? A Sioux raid on a wagon train? A pine tree struck by lightning exploding into flames and starting a fire?

      He reined in the black gelding and sat studying the sky. Hell’s bells, another puff of smoke. Dead west. Not the direction he was riding this morning. Not the direction he wanted on any crisp December morning, not after the telegram about Marcy.

      Back in Oregon his sister had loaded her pockets with rocks and waded into Lake Coulter. What Brand didn’t know was why. Why would his sweet, beautiful little sister take her own life? Maybe he’d never know why. But he sure as hell didn’t want to head west, back to Oregon. Made his gut shrivel just to think about it.

      Another puff of smoke climbed into the cloudless blue sky and he groaned aloud. What the...? Those were smoke signals! And he knew exactly where they were coming from.

      He leaned out of the saddle to spit onto the hard brown earth of eastern Idaho and reined the black around.

      * * *

      Fort Hall looked just as run-down and dingy as it had a year ago. He rode in past the bored-looking sentry and headed straight for the sutler’s squat stucco building. As he tied up his mount, two disheveled cavalry soldiers clumped down the wooden steps. One snapped a salute.

      “Major.”

      Brand gritted his teeth. He’d mustered out a year ago and now served as Colonel Clarke’s scout, but every so often someone forgot he no longer needed to salute him. He tramped up the rickety board steps, his rowels chinging in the hot, still air, and pushed through the open door.

      “Jase?”

      A bearded older man with intelligent blue eyes looked up from the cash register. “’Bout time,” he growled. “I hoped you might see my smoke. Somebody said you’d been spotted hereabouts. Where ya come from?”

      “Oregon. What’s up?”

      Jase grinned, revealing a jaw full of yellow teeth. “Seen my signal, huh? Didn’t think ya’d ferget how we done it in the old days, but ya never know, do ya? You might be gone back east. Or dead. Or—”

      “Well, I’m not. I’m goin’ to that cabin I got in Montana for Christmas. So why the signal?”

      “Got a problem,” the older man said. “Big problem.” He tipped his graying head toward the back room.

      Brand studied the curtained doorway. “Yeah? What kind of problem?”

      “You’ll see. Whynt’cha go on back?”

      “Jase, I can’t help wondering why this isn’t Colonel Clarke’s concern and not mine.”

      “You’ll see, Brand. C’mon, I’ll show ya.”

      Brand followed his old friend through the dusty curtain and stopped short. A young woman made an attempt to straighten up on the rush chair Jase had provided, then gave up and hunched over her belly, her arms clasped across her waist.

      Jase laid one leathery hand on her shoulder. “Miz Cumberland, ma’am?”

      She jerked up as if somebody’d just shot an arrow into her spine, but she said nothing.

      “She sick?”

      “Don’t think so, Brand. She’s damned scared is what she is. Kinda like battle-tired, I guess you’d say.”

      Brand studied her. No apron. Faded blue dress. Shoes that hadn’t been walked in that much. Not sunburned. That was odd. Nobody, especially not women out here in the West, escaped the punishing rays of the sun.

      He looked closer. Her skin appeared pale and as smooth as cream. Even the hands clasped tight across her middle were white and soft-looking. No red knuckles, and no telltale freckles. Looked as though she’d never washed a plate in her life. A hothouse rose if there ever was one.

      He stepped back and spoke to Jase, keeping his voice low. “How’d you get mixed up with her?”

      Jase