“Tell me,” she said. “What happened to the panther?”
Forrest smiled broadly in the dim. “I’ll give ye his hide for a wedding present if ye want. I’m sorry to say a good deal of the har has fell out.”
“I thought so,” she said, and drew him to her. The outside curve of her breast fit naturally into the palm of one hand, as the other slid over the round of her hip to the small of her back. The kiss seemed to open her whole being to him.
“Oh,” she gasped, coming out of it at last, one hand pressed to her high-buttoned throat. “Oh my God. Well I never.”
Forrest was struck by a horrible thought. “Have ye let one of them rascals tetch ye?” he blurted.
“Hush, Bedford,” she said, folding herself into his side, and covering his mouth with her fingers. “Nobody ever touched me like that.”
CHAPTER FOUR
IT CAME ABOUT after some battle or other—Shiloh, Fort Pillow, Franklin (or no, it wouldn’t have been Franklin)—that Henri found Willie and Matthew fighting. Or they found him, brawling out of the undergrowth to swarm each other on the bare packed ground before the hollow tree. It was just dawn, the white mist rising, and all around the graybacks lay, some few snoring, most just barely breathing, exhausted from the work of war. None would rouse to intervene. Those two were fighting to hurt each other, knuckles and elbow, sharp knees and mean kicks aimed to the groin. Both were banged up and a little bloody, from each other’s efforts as much as from yesterday’s fighting; Henri knew that neither had been gravely wounded the day before.
“Eh!” he said, and rolled up from his scrap of blanket. “Stop that.”
The two ignored him, panting, circling each other, looking for a way to close. Willie was bigger of the two, long and rawboned, though gaunt from scant rations, but Matthew was older, cannier, and probably more dangerous. He slipped and struck and coiled and sprang, like a bobcat or a snake. On happy days he could do a back flip standing, and all the men would laugh and cheer, and Matthew smiled bright with all his white teeth, but this morning his jaw was hard set and even his eyes had turned yellow with rage.
Henri took a step and stood between them. Willie let down, just a little, when he did that. But Matthew whipped from behind Henri, throwing a quick one-two that caught Willie hard on the breastbone and the eye socket, the second punch twisting to cut around the eye. The first blow had clipped Henri in the back of his ribs as it went through. He stepped aside. Willie gave his head a hard shake and dropped it and ran at Matthew with his head low and his hands high.
“Bon, si c’est comme ça,” Henri said, raising his shirt tail to touch the bump that had risen on his rib cage, “Allez-y.”
A handful of other soldiers of the camp were getting up to the watch the fun. One bet on Willie, another on Matthew, all merely for sport as no one had a crying dime to pay real stakes. Henri was inclined for Matthew, but Willie had a plan. He charged in hard and lumbering like a bull, took a punch on the fleshy part of his nose and didn’t let it slow him. He threw his whole weight on the other like a sack of corn, and brought the both of them to the ground. Wrassling, stomp and gouge in the dirt, gave Willie’s greater weight and longer limbs the advantage. He seemed to pin Matthew, just for a moment, and certainly slammed the back of his head against the hardpack.
“You give?” he said. “Say calf rope!” His voice was muffled by his bloody nose. Matthew stuck a stiffened finger into his throat and weaseled free, landing a swift kick in Willie’s midsection as Willie struggled up, then catching him with an open hand across the cheek when Willie came upright. Matthew danced back, out of range. A demon was in him, Henri saw—it unnerved him more than a little. Some of the graybacks had begun to clap, on a pounding rhythm, to move the fighters harder.
Henri whipped in and caught Matthew on the forearm. “Mathieu,” he hissed, distracting him with the queer pronunciation. “Come back.”
Matthew’s arm throbbed against his palm like a strummed brace wire. His hand and the arm it grasped were much the same shade: coffee with a