The Pride of Hannah Wade Read Free

uniform and the job.
    He was an officer, but he didn’t fit in with them; Jake Cutter was a soldier, but he didn’t belong in the ranks. At thirty-two, he was an outsider to both, and the years in between had calloused him with a hard self-sufficiency. So when he looked at the proud major’s wife, she represented a class and lifestyle he didn’t seek—the formal soirees and teas, the petty post intrigues and politics, and all their accompanying emptiness and greedy ambitions.
    “Tell me, Captain Cutter”—the scented lace was lowered and smoothed by her slender white hands— “how did you know those Apaches intended us no harm when they rode in? You didn’t even put a hand to your pistol.”
    Her observation produced a brief flicker of admiration in him. “A collection of things, but most notably their clothes,” he answered, smiling as he held the cigar in his hand. “Only one of them was stripped to ... his native gear; the rest were fully dressed. Nah-tay, the Apache scout at the fort, told me it’s bad to wear clothes when fighting. If you’re shot, a piece of material can get inside the wound and cause an infection. Don’t ever underestimate the natural intelligence of an Apache, Mrs. Wade.” He shifted to survey the clearing with its scatter of adobe huts. “Perhaps you should jointhe other ladies and finish your shopping. It might he best if we don’t linger here too long.”
    A small question flared in the brown wells of her eyes, but she was too well-trained a military wife to ask it. Army discipline dictated that one accept orders without questioning the reasons for them.
    “Of course, Captain.” The long folds of her skirt made a swishing sound as she turned to rejoin her companions.
    His gaze lingered on the gentle slope of her shoulders and the fashionably nipped-in waist of the black-and-green-striped dress top. A beautiful woman. Then his thoughts moved on to more pressing matters as he left the shade of the brush arbor and crossed to the army ambulance.
    The driver, a tall, leanly muscled black sergeant named John T. Hooker, stood by the four hitch of long-eared mules. Sergeants were the officers’ communication links to their troops; all orders were funneled through them. John T. Hooker was A Company’s top sergeant. He’d served under Cutter during those long border years in Texas and had earned the chevrons on his sleeve through skill, courage, and intelligence. Unlike most of the black troops, where literacy was a problem, Hooker could read and write. He was officer material, but Cutter knew no black trooper would rise above a noncommissioned rank in this white man’s army.
    “Came outta nowhere, didn’t they?” Hooker studied the brush.
    “They usually do—if you’re going to see them at all,” Cutter replied.
    “Think they’ll be waitin’ for us?” Hooker wondered. The two accompanying troopers stayed by the military ambulance where their horses were tied, standing at ease now that the threat was gone, yet remaining watchful and alert.
    “They stopped here for one of two reasons— ammunition or supplies.” A mule stamped its foot at a fly, its brace chains rattling. “Let’s hope it was ammunition. They’ll be less likely to waste what they’ve got left on us.” A humorless smile lifted the corners of his mouth.
    “That was a raidin’ party on their way to Mexico, and I’d bet my stripes on it,” the sergeant declared, perspiration from the desert heat giving a sheen to his brown-black skin and accenting his strong cheekbones and jaw.
    “I don’t think you’d lose.” With an idle slap on the curried-slick neck of a mule, Cutter turned to bring the women into his view. They were still outside poking through the odds and ends stacked under the
ramada,
nicknamed the “squaw cooler” by some whites, in search of some house trinket.
    The owner of the store emerged from the adobe building, a potbellied white man with a bushy mustache and long, flowing