Daughter of the Sword by Jeanne Williams

due for a terrible one in this country, sir. I’ve traveled north and south, and the way that tempers are running, there seems little chance of compromise.”
    The Whitlaws regarded each other somberly. “Well, let it be war!” cried Thos, eyes shining. “Look at the way pro-slavers have bullied and terrorized us since even before the Territory opened! Better have a declared, clean, open war than all this raiding and shooting of defenseless men!”
    Dane turned and watched the young man’s defiant face. “There’s no clean war, Thomas—not ever.”
    â€œBut you fought in the Crimea!”
    â€œAnd it was foul and hideous. What happened here tonight was bad and could have been much worse. But in war, Thomas, hundreds die in the same short time, hundreds more are wounded, and they’re forgotten in the next carnage.”
    Thos stared, plainly unable to reconcile this attitude with his budding hero-worship for the older man. “But … but some wars have to be fought!”
    â€œNot by me. I’ll defend myself or my friends, but I’ll not put on a uniform and go off to slaughter men in a different uniform because of trade routes, territorial wrangles, or, worst of all, ideals!” Rising, Dane bowed. His gaze touched Deborah so briefly that she felt snubbed. “Thanks for your hospitality and care of my brother,” he said. “I’ll be out tomorrow to see how he mends.”
    Thos and Father went out to the stable-yard with him. Deborah stood looking after them, bewildered, half angry. Once, just once, yet unmistakably, their natures had seemed to rush together, fill, at least for her, the void of separateness she had supposed was inevitable as a person grew up. Surely she hadn’t imagined that! Why, then, did he virtually ignore her?
    â€œA driven young man,” Mother said. “He may not go to war, but he has one inside.”
    â€œFor one who condemns war, he was ready enough to kill those men tonight.” Deborah was shocked at the harshness in her own voice.
    â€œDaughter! He did it to protect us.”
    That couldn’t be argued. But Deborah still felt disturbed and rebellious long after Father and Thos had come back inside and the family had prayed for the relatives of the dead Missourians and their victims of the morning, for the fugitive slave Judith to escape, for peace to come, and for Rolf’s speedy recovery.
    Lying awake in the lean-to, Deborah turned from side to side on the rustling shuck mattress, unable to rest, though bone-weary.
    So much had happened that day that she couldn’t take it in: the encounter with Rolf and Dane, the first outsider’s kiss she’d ever had, and then the nightmarish visitation of the Missourians fresh from a slaughter that was bound to throw Kansas into renewed conflict! She broke into a cold sweat when she pictured what Jed and his men would have done had the Englishmen not taken a hand. Father and Thos would have fought, certainly; she and Mother would have defended themselves with kitchen knives or whatever they could snatch up. But there was little doubt that, balked of finding and punishing the runaway Judith, the Missourians would have killed the men. It was true that so far even the worst Border Ruffians had seldom attacked women, but Deborah still felt soiled by the raking of Jed’s hot glance.
    And now Rolf Hunter, who’d at the least exceeded the bounds of rough frolic with her, lay in her bed and she’d have to help nurse him! Indignation at being thus trapped battled with softer feelings roused by the way he’d watched her dreamily that night, seemingly content to have her company. Perhaps he was only high-spirited, wild but not reprehensible. From reading smuggled copies of Samuel Richardson’s Pamela and Clarissa Harlowe, Deborah suspected that the sons of English gentry might consider as fair prey young women beneath them in the social