CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR attic loft in a hunting lodge, at Widow's Retreat,

outside Pine Bluffs, Wyoming Territory, the 1870s

As Pascale hoped, and as she'd half expected, Moray was gone on his 'errands for her' quite a bit longer than either would have normally taken. No doubt the former prosecutor was busy at whatever means he might still have to defend himself and his steadily shrinking 'Command'. No doubt he would fight tooth and nail to protect himself and his ill gotten assets, and no one else. Pascale only hoped Moray wouldn't decide on some means of escape, rather than coming back to confronther at least once more. Whatever happened after that, as long as 'the boy' she'd taken charge of once more was safe and speeding home, Eugenie Pascale found she scarcely cared.

For ten years and a little more, she'd fought to deny her beloved husband was dead, by his own hand. Phillips Napier Pascale died on April 3, 1865, as Richmond fell to Union forces at last. That her heroic major general of cavalry volunteers wasn't able to face defeat or imprisonment never surprised his devoted spouse. That he'd not come home to her first, left her bitterly shocked, to this day.

For six years she'd battled the very idea that her dearest young brother might have taken his own life, as well. Now she knew she'd at least been right to wage that struggle. Now she knew 'her dearest darling Neddy' had not been defeated by any weakness of character or loss of pride. That he'd in fact been murdered, while less than a quarter mile from their home, left her terribly angry, now.

For much of that time she'd indulged in fancies and fantasies, most of which she'd convinced others she reveled in, still, some of which Pascale knew she'd almost been able to believe, at times. Only the brightest memories and dearest dreams were allowed access to her imagination for hours, for days, for weeks and months at a time. Only the bitterest, most furious desires for vengeance, only the angriest, coldest longings for what she'd lost to be repaid in kind were permitted to 'visit' her thoughts for years.

For all of that time, most of those who saw her, heard her or thought they knew Pascale also 'knew' she'd gone utterly mad. And as much as she'd once feared she might be, as much as she once nearly wished for it, that odd surcease had never been hers, not entirely. She'd 'visited, memorized, and even sometimes hid in that parish' but never dwelt therein. Her despair, vengeance, bitter loneliness and her remembered love somehow extraordinarily combined to hold her back from those depths.

Now she set all that well aside. Now she released her loving, adored, hovering spirits, and laid all of her ghosts. And now, astonishingly, they seemed closer than ever they had for years. But now she would keep one and only one solemn promise. Whatever she need do, she would do now, to keep it. And that promise she'd made not to her heart's own dearest love, not to her dearest darling, not toher dearest Twin, but to a 'young stranger'. Now that young stranger was rousing from a fitful sleep, and the Widow turned back from her musings to watch him open his bright blue eyes.

"Well, good evening." Pascale smiled, and took back her place by his bed.

Jess stared at her, knowing he shouldn't. But she looked as if something lit her from within. She looked amazing and completely, wonderfully lovely. And he guessed that was the last thing she needed him to be saying to her now. Maybe he shouldn't say anything at all. Yeah, that was probably his best bet. But try as he might, he coldn't seem to help letting loose with the first question that came to his bleary mind.

"Are… are you… real? Are you really… here, now?" Jess blurted and felt his face growing hot but not with a fever.

"I am. I am entirely guilty on both charges, young sir Knight." The Widow nodded, smiling again in that way that warmed him clear through. "And I'm also guilty of being away from your side far too much and too long while you were ill. I do beg your pardon. I've already sworn not to leave you alone again. And I shan't."

"And that… Moray… is he gone?" The young Texan asked. "He didn't harm you, did he? 'Cause if he did…"

"He did not and will not harm me, my true, brave young Knight." Pascale shook her head, which Jess loved as it made the curls dance about the sides of her face. "And he's apparently once more occupied elsewhere, for a time. We can talk, or … no, I do think you're still too wearied for that. I'll read to you, but from something other than Mr. Dickens."

"I … like your… reading." Jess agreed, thinking she could read old schoolbooks or newsprint to him and he wouldn't care.

'' I've always loved reading aloud. That was something else I shared with Neddy… Now, where … yes, here is the other portion of your friend Aaron's journal I've been wanting to share with you, my lad. It seems Sgt. Caulder wrote at some length about another one of his cohort in those days, one of his friends from east Texas, from one of the oldest Spanish towns there…

That young man was not yet sixteen years old when he enlisted in the Eighth

Texas cavalry, as it turned out. Like a great many other boys that spring, this very determined lad falsified his age, in order to join the fighting 'before the Ball could get over'. He wasn't to turn sixteen until the end of July that year, as Aaron Caulder and my brother Neddy only found out, much, much later.'' the Widow went on.

'' one of th' oldest towns… '' Jess echoed, furrowing his brow with a new, abrupt set of worries.'' an' this boy, he turned sixteen, end of July, you say?''

'' That's right. That's what young Caulder noted. And there's more. This boy was just as scrawny and as scrappy, on first sight, as a rained on bantam rooster. He had a mop of thick, black, curly hair and no beard at all yet, to take any note of. But woe betide the man or boy who cracked wise about the former, or made too much of the latter.

They'd soon find themselves flattened to the nearest patch of ground, put there by that same east Texas whirlwind, with one heck of a right cross to his name, and a sharp left jab to match it. Onliest thing was, in the next instant, they'd find themselves pulled up again by that same whirlwind and carefully checked over for 'any hurt they might've took, fallin down like that'!

And this same boy always was the first to note that he had a black-Irish temper that bore watching, and watching out for. He said he was raised up to never suffer cheats, liars or fools gladly. And he said that low tolerance might get him ' in Dutch' from time to time, but usually for all the right reasons.

But what really charmed the boys, and no few of the girls and ladies, was not only that bright eyed, wide as the Braxos grin he could get all over his face, but the way he'd come off all shy with folks he didn't know. That boy could charm his way into and out of all sorts of chaos, mayhem and just plain catastrophes with either that grin or that head down, lookin up shy glance he owned … And he did so, regular.

Now bein' from east Texas, it was always a given that boy could shoot, and hunt , scout and track like the wildest Injun a body could wish for. We none of us were that much surprised either to find he could ride as if he were born forkin' a mount of one kind or another, and likely a wild one. The boy would have a fine time with newer recruits, tryin his level best to make them believe that was exactly how he got birthed, for real, too.

And of course, the boy could always take on the worst brute of a new mount he was given and end up with the creature ridin' easy as a danged velveteen davenport! But what seemed to surprise that boy as much or more than the rest of us, was how he downright took to soldierin'… and all the Army foofarah that rode alongside it.

Now, it wasn't ever that th' ol boy, as we loved to call him, to rile him, liked the killin' anymore than the rest of the boys. None but the worst blood-crazed boys ever took to that… We couldn't, not when it got clearer and surer all the time, we were killin' and maimin' fellas, men and boys just like us!

And what this boy took to wasn't so much the danged drillin' and such… Seemed as though he just glommed onta the whole, entire idea of bein' part of a unit, part of H Company, part of the Rangers… An' knowin' the hard way he'd lost so much of his kin… we could pretty much figure how he could feel that way.

But what I want to note down, and remember… and maybe, someday, jibe the boy about is what surprised most folks that got to know him back in those days. He had that temper, and he let it ride him and somethin' fierce, sometimes. Jess had a real fine bunch of reasons to be mad at the world, and take that mad out on just about anybody that crossed him. But that ol' boy had somewhere, somehow learned to rein that temper and that mad-on, a lot better and more often than a lot of the fellas could. And whilst I knew him, he never let onct loose of that black Irish ragin' except where and when it was well and truly called for.

As a matter of fact, seems as though one or two of the boys asked Jess how he checked it that way. And as I can best recall now, that boy said when he needed to know just that, more than ever, somebody he thought the world and all of showed him how she fought her own 'Apollyon', by which she meant, her own bent towards getting angry. He said he never knew how to thank her for that, or for how she forgave the way he acted, the way he talked at his 'real bad times'. But he said, when he asked her how he could repay that… his mother's sister told him, just his wanting to keep up that struggle, just his asking to come home again, and let her care for him, was all she'd ever need to know or hear, or have from him.

And Neddy, surprising all of us boys, including that boy, seemed to see the way he fought that fight, along with the one we were fightin' together. And Neddy always said to me, anyway that he truly cherished and honored the younger boy for just that struggle. And the boy I'm talking about, surprising all of us, including Neddy, seemed to see the way that Neddy wanted to be part of the Rangers, part of that bigger fight, and part of H Company, especially, just as much as he did. And that east Texas boy, he told me, when he'd just about given up arguin' with Neddy, whether or no Neddy would cart him off to a hospital inside Atlanta, that he'd never before known or expected to find such a friend so far from home. He had dozens and scores of cousins back to home, we all did, he said.

And some of them had been real close friends, growin' up together, so in a way, the boy expected to help them out of any trouble they got into, and to have their help in turn as needed. But not Neddy, who was no sort of kin, not an old schoolmate, not even an east Texas neighbor, he was a rich man's son from N'Orlins.

See, that boy, that east Texas whirlwind, took some real bad hurt in one of the last fire-fights that September, he took a wound to his upper chest that broke his collarbone, and another that had his left leg above the knee, bunged up something awful. And he was comin' down with bad fever. Well, none of us, not that we knew of in the whole, entire regiment, maybe the whole danged Army had the supplies or medicines our wounded fellas needed.

And goin into Atlanta meant surrender, meant capture, meant G-d alone knew what Yankee prison a fella could wind up at, if what we heard was true and no paroles were bein taken any more, that fall. But Neddy plumb wouldn't take any argument on it. He took me an' that boy to a Yankee r'cievin' hospital and saw him patched up there. I know, cos I was nearly as bunged up and went on in with 'em. And only when Neddy was sure Jess Harper an me would likely be okay, did he take the time to mention he'd got hurt himself.'' Pascale finished reading and turned her gaze back to the boy on the cot.

'' Dang that ol' Aaron anyways!'' Jess whispered, frowning. ''What'd he go an' write all that nonsense 'bout me, for?''

''Because, I'd have to suppose he wanted to remember the staunch young friend he had, at a time when friendships mattered as much or more than kinship.'' The Widow told him.

'' Well, my friend Aaron got a lot of that wrong… the parts about me an' my temper… But he got it right… on that part …where Neddy… took a real bad hurt, while we were fightin' around Atlanta.'' Jess said watching her face grow somber

once again.

''Only he did his level best t' keep it quiet. He was just too …darn busy, you see, getting me an' ol' Aaron seen to. Never mind getting seen to by that time meant th' hospitals in the city… an' meant th' Yankees… That's what I meant… sayin' Neddy saved my life, ma'am. Cos that's just what he did, back then. 'M sorry I … I'm so awfully sorry I didn't return the favor.''

'' Ah, now that I know!'' the Widow nodded. ''And I know now, which I'm ashamed to say I didn't, that my brother did his best for all his friends… always. He did his very best for everyone … except perhaps himself… That … was a great part of my brother's spirit… And, I long feared, the major part of his … doom. I know the truth of that, as well, from you, yourself and all these sheets of paper!

I know now precisely what, specifically who 'doomed' my Neddy… And I am resolved, just as I have been all these years… to exact fair recompense for the wrongs done him! You've nothing more to fear from me, my dear young Jacob. And I shan't ask you to take part in what I must do now, for my own peace and for my Neddy's. No, no, that's not your duty here.'' Eugenie Pascale shook her head now, the soft curls around her face almost dancing.

''Aaron Caulder, and you, young Jacob have given me … in an extraordinary way … You've given me back my lost brother. You've done so yourself, by reminding me so much of Neddy… What he was truly, not what I've built up as part myth and part imagination. And Sergeant Caulder … yes, I almost think he would be glad I know what he wrote about my brother… what he wrote in his journals and … letters… ''

''Aaron was a great one for keepin' his old journals… A mortal lot of th' boys begun t' do that… I never seemed t' …'' Jess told her, rubbing his left hand through his hair. '' But … figure I'm kinda worn out… just now… I don't rightly understand… An' that other fellow… that angry fellow, who's been here… Just lately I can hardly make heads or tails of what he's jawin' about. Just he seems t' be … ''

A soft knock at the loft entryway sounded the alarm Pascale had been expecting all this while.

"He's coming back.'' The Widow exclaimed softly. '' Now, as I said before, Jacob, you need pay no heed at all to what I do or say as regards Heydon Palmerston… that angry fellow is a very apt description, truly. How he's chosen to display his anger, his need for recompense and vengeance… that's another matter entirely.

Please, do not involve yourself any further in conversation with our 'master prosecutor'. I came back expressly to make sure of your safety and … of my own dealings with him. Please, promise me you will not intervene, young Jacob. Please, my dear young sir, your word on that?''

''My word on that.'' Jess nodded, uneasy with the promise. He couldn't deny her, though. She'd come back to see to his safety, once again, and he couldn't deny he still loved her, widowed or otherwise. She was the best part of what seemed a painful, clouded nightmare to him. She was stronger, wiser, fierier and more beautiful than he could put into words.

''I do most sincerely thank you, kind young sir.'' Pascale said, and it seemed to Jess she was almost grinning.