The Five Dollar Mail Book 3: The Road Home

49: Gauntlet

Cover painting by Angela Taratuta. Chapter artwork found image of Fort Bridger. All graphics by me.

Book 1: The Green, Book 2: Lynch's Boys, Book 3: The Road Home, and the Riders & Kickers Anthology are available on Amazon under the name Regina Shelley. So if you hate waiting for chapter posts and/or want a more polished read, the finished product is available now.

First Lieutenant Geoffrey Collins was, as he often found himself, unhappy. That his commanding officer had apparently gone completely soft didn't do anything to allay his own foul humor. It was becoming increasingly hostile out here in the empty end of nowhere, and Collins would have felt much better about things if Scarcliff was spending a little more time making sure that the fort was secure, and a little less time on his campaign to get into the redhead's petticoats.

Collins wasn't falling for it. Miss Lewis-Smythe was playing Scarcliff for a fool, and Scarcliff was enthusiastically letting her. What the hell was that business out at the gate? Those two uppity reds should have been shot, not taken in and coddled. She showed up and he fell all over himself doing her bidding.

He stood in front of the officer's mess tent and narrowed his eyes, glaring across the stockade parade grounds at the disgusting display of inappropriate fraternization on the porch of the guest quarters. Miss Lewis-Smythe sat in the rocker, talking with the man leaning on the porch rail. Lynch's scout. Peltier. How is Lynch tolerating this?

Several days ago, she had been talking to the Bridger scouts, too. What kind of woman goes alone to talk to a pack of reds in a military fort? His scowl deepened. One who's trying to stir up shit. One who doesn't care who looks at her. He spat into the dirt and rubbed his lips with the back of his hand. She walks around here in her fancy dresses and her hair hanging down her back, all smelling like perfume and talking posh. She knows what she's doing. I don't care how fancy she talks. A whore's a whore. And that mouthy injun Peltier is not hanging around her just to be polite.

He realized he was walking, his feet moving purposefully towards the guest house. I don't care who or what she gives her favors to...but I sure as hell ain't watching her give them to a red right here in front of me. Lynch and Scarcliff might be fools, but I'm not. I'm not sitting still for that.

"Hey!" he barked as Miss Lewis-Smythe and Peltier turned to look at him, startled. "What are you doing over here, Peltier?" He felt heat and fury flush over his skin, settle in his chest and face. His hands had started to sweat and he felt his heart pounding. A flush of hostile excitement flashed over him.

"Mr. Peltier is having a private conversation with me, Lieutenant," Miss Lewis-Smythe snapped. "I assure you, there's nothing being discussed over here that requires your attention."

Collins threw his shoulders back and crossed his arms, giving her a withering look. She's got some nerve, looking and smelling like that and then pretending she doesn't want attention. He thought about how she'd walked past him in the officer's mess, and the sweet floral scent of her lingered in his nose and haunted him for hours afterwards, distracting him. Cluttering his thoughts. She doesn't want attention...oh, that's rich. "Miss Lewis-Smythe, everything in this fort and around it 'requires my attention.' He shouldn't be here fraternizing with you. It might give the men the wrong idea."

"It would appear that the only one here 'getting the wrong idea' is you, Lieutenant," she said, boldly meeting his gaze. "How dare you intrude on my private conversation with my employee?"

Bile rose in Collin's throat, and his vision began to go red and hazy. She hasn't been put in her place often enough by half. If she wasn't Express...if she didn't have half her crew out here... "You don't have any privacy here, miss. This is a military installation."

Collins turned his attention away from the woman's haughty, brazen gaze and fixed it on the Indian. Peltier had a stony, unreadable look on his face and he straightened up, slowly sliding his hands out of his pockets. "I'll walk back with you. Sir." He noticed the scout kept his hands where they could be seen, avoided his gaze.

Shifty-eyed mongrels. All of them. "You'll walk back now."

Peltier glanced up at this, meeting his gaze with eyes sharp and full of unspoken threats. He shook his head. "No. Sir. We leave here together."

He doesn't want me alone with her. She's playing every man here. He thinks he's got a chance. He snorted dismissively, then stopped, thinking. What if he does have a chance? What if that's what this is about? He rode all this way and damn near got himself shot because he wanted a word with Lynch? That's a load of shit. "What's the matter, Chief," he spat, this new thought fanning the flames of his resentment and rage. Did I interrupt your chance to get your hands under her skirt?"

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