“I’m all right.”
“I know you’re all right, Will, but I can also tell you’re tense. It must be strange, after four years of fighting Union troops, to see them here.”
“I hate it,” Will said, honestly. “I hate seeing them here in my hometown.”
“I don’t like it myself, even though my own father wore the blue. They don’t belong here.”
“No, they don’t,” Will said. He realized, despite the mild weather, he had broken out into a sweat.
It wasn’t fear. Far from it. Those men were raw recruits who barely knew a butt from a muzzle let alone how to fight from horseback.
Besides, Will had rejected his fear as a nine-year-old boy, rejected it wholesale as part of the vow he’d made to his dying father. If he was to be the man of the house, he couldn’t afford to be frightened like a little kid.
Only later, when he went off to war and saw soldiers unmanned by fear, did he realize how rare that was.
So no, he did not fear these bluebellies. His body had broken out in a sweat because seeing them triggered his fighting instincts. After four years of doing his best to put bullets throughthe buttons of those blue uniforms, he felt tense and edgy and ready for a fight.
“Aren’t you going to stop at the mercantile?” Maggie asked when he rode past. “Later,” he said, enjoying her confusion, which helped put the bluebellies out of mind.
“Oh, you’re starting at the hardware store,” she guessed.
“Nope. Something else.”
“What?”
“You’ll just have to wait and see. A man’s got to have his secrets.”
Maggie laughed and bumped into him.
A short while later, she said, “I wonder why there are so many people out.”
Will stopped and helped Maggie down and secured the horses and wagon and asked a passing man, “What’s with all the people? Something going on?”
“You missed it,” the man said. “Last night, a fella named Weatherspoon got in a fight with a bluebelly then shot another one. They just apprehended him over at the café.”
Will grinned. “Weatherspoon? Sully Weatherspoon?”
“No, sir. A cousin of his, I think. Carter’s the name.”
“Oh well,” Will said. “Better luck next time.”
The man looked at him strangely and moved on.
Will led Maggie in the other direction.
“Too bad it wasn’t Sully,” Maggie said. “He gave me an awful time back before the fire.”
Something rose in Will then, a savage darkness, fierce and possessive. “What do you mean, he gave you a hard time?”
“Oh, he got it in his head that he was going to court me. I wasn’t interested. He didn’t like that.”
“He didn’t try to force anything, did he?”
“Not exactly. I mean, he just wouldn’t give up, no matter how clear I made it. He would tell me that I was going to marry him, Ijust didn’t know it yet, that sort of thing. He even started coming to the farm. That was the final straw. My brothers stepped out with their guns, and I told Sully exactly what I thought of him.”
Maggie laughed, but he could tell the memory troubled her.
“I wasn’t very nice,” she confessed. “It really bothered him. You should have seen his face. He looked like he wanted to kill me.”
