Rain Shadow (Dutch Country Brides)

by Cheryl St. John

  She worked hard in the show, earned her way, earned her pay and respect, depended on no one but herself. If only— What? If only Anton Neubauer hadn’t sought help for Slade and generously taken him home? Would she rather he’d left her son suffering until she’d arrived? If only she’d never allowed Slade to ride on the train ahead with his pony in the first place! If he’d been with her, this never would have happened.

  “Ma’am.”

  She glanced up. Anton Neubauer sat on the foot of his bed, wide shoulders hunched, corded forearms resting on his knees, his long tanned fingers entwined loosely. Begrudgingly, she accepted his logic. She had no choice but to accept his hospitality for her son. “I will pay his room and board.”

  One corner of his mouth turned up. “This isn’t a hotel.”

  “All the same, I’ll provide for him.”

  He shrugged. “I’m insulted that you think I expect payment for human kindness.” His gentle voice belied true insult.

  He didn’t seem the type to take pity on every stray that came his way. “I will pay.”

  “You’ll pay.” He nodded his fair head good-naturedly, and she allowed her muscles to relax.

  His sister-in-law arrived with a sandwich and a glass of milk. Rain Shadow took the plate and glass and thanked the woman, who turned and left. Uncomfortable beneath Anton’s gaze, she took a few bites. She couldn’t help wondering what he saw as he gazed at her. Will Cody was one of only a few white men she’d ever been halfway close to. She had no knowledge of or experience with a man like this.

  She stood, set down the plate and sensed the tall stranger’s eyes on her as she moved to the bed. She touched Slade’s cheek with her knuckles, ran her fingers through his dark, silky hair. Sinking to the bed’s edge, her gaze wandered to the bedside table. A gold pocket watch lay on an embroidered white scarf, its chain forming a lazy S in and around a few silver coins.

  She spotted the dime novel lying open on the floor where it had fallen when he’d awakened. On the cover was an artist’s rendition of Will fighting a Cheyenne war party. Her attention was drawn to an oval-framed sepia-toned photograph on the wall—a wedding portrait, though from this distance she couldn’t make out the faces. A blue chambray shirt hung on the knob of a narrow door.

  An unexplainable sense of voyeurism gripped her. She was an intruder, sitting among this man’s private possessions, perched on his... bed. Everything here was his. His family. His house. His home. Nothing was familiar to her, not the walls or the furnishings or the ease with which he moved in the room. She pictured herself as a wild bird trapped in a cage and seeking escape.

  “You must be tired,” Anton said. “I know I am.”

  She turned her upper body and faced him, irrational resentment flaring. This situation wasn’t his fault, but he’d involved himself by bringing Slade here. “He’s never been separated from me before.”

  “Well, you’re together now.”

  That was it then. He expected her to stay in his room, too. “I can’t stay here.”

  “Why not?”

  She stood. “I can’t stay here,” she said again and glanced around uncomfortably. Outside of one or two hotels in London, she’d never slept indoors. The thought brought more panic than it should have, and she tamped it down.

  “You’d leave him here alone with me, then?”

  “I—” She frowned at Slade’s slight form on the huge bed. Of course she couldn’t leave him alone here. “No. I must stay with him.”

  Anton stood, bent at the waist and plucked the book from the floor. The ticking of his pocket watch on the table amplified the silence of the room. Her child’s breathing was audible. “Why don’t you lay down there beside him... just for tonight? Tomorrow we—you can figure out what to do.”

  She had no other choice. Her lodge was packed in the number-ten excursion railcar several miles away. “My father won’t know where I am. He stayed in Butler for word of Slade.”

  “I’ll get a message to him. He can stay here, too.”

  Two Feathers had never slept in a house in his life. He slept on the ground near a fire as he had since his birth. She couldn’t imagine him spreading his furs on these wooden floors. “He’ll need to camp with the others who are guarding the cars and the animals.”

  Anton tossed the book on the chair seat. “It’s settled, then. I’ll send word. What’s your pa’s name?”

  “Two Feathers.”

  He nodded. “I’ll carry my son down to the parlor. We’ll sleep there.”

  His son? Where was his wife? She’d seen no evidence of a woman sharing the room.

  “If you want a nightshirt, grab one from the second drawer of the chest.” He knelt and easily scooped his sleeping child, pallet and all, into his arms. “If Slade wakes up, give him a spoonful of this.” He nodded to the corked bottle on the chest of drawers. “See you in the mornin’.”

  “Jack!” She’d belatedly remembered her pony waiting patiently outside.

  “Ma’am?” Anton paused and raised his sandy brows in puzzlement.

  “Jack. My pony. He’s outside.”

  “I’ll put him up in the barn for you.”

  “I’m obliged.” I don’t want to be, but there’s not much I can do about it tonight.

  The door clicked shut.

  Rain Shadow glanced around, avoiding the sight of the portrait on the wall and stifling the turbulent emotions vying for prominence in her mind and heart. What was it about Anton Neubauer that threatened her so?

  She took a deep breath. She was more exhausted than she’d realized. With inbred stealth, she slipped off her moccasins, lay atop the coverlet and comforted herself by touching her son’s hair and cheek.

  Slade was alive. That was all that mattered. Everything—everyone—else she could deal with. With that determination her body relaxed, and eventually she slept.

  Chapter Two

  The morning was unseasonably warm for late October. Anton stripped off his shirt and tied the sleeves around his waist. Raising his right arm and swiveling it in the shoulder socket, he tilted his head to the side and worked out the kink between his shoulder blades. Hitching dead buffalo to teams of oxen was exhausting work. The animals had to be dragged far away from the train cars before being burned. Trenches had to be dug around each pile to prevent the fire from spreading to nearby woods and farmland.

  The smell of overturned dirt snagged a memory. He’d plowed acres of fertile ground each spring, and the earthy smell always carried the promise of new life, a new season. This time the scent stirred the recollection of a dismal day nearly ten years ago—before Emily, and before Jakob had married Lydia. Franz and Annette had buried their tiny baby boy in the family graveyard on a rise behind the house.

  A fresher memory, buried deeper than any other, bobbed to the surface. The pain scissored through his chest as it always did when he remembered. Emily was buried on that same rise. A crisp fall day with acrid ash floating on the autumn air, he’d dug his wife’s body from the charred ruins of the barn.

  “You gonna lean on that shovel all day?”

  Anton realized Jakob must have spoken twice, but since his brother was off to the left, Anton hadn’t caught the question the first time. A near fatal case of measles as a child had left him deaf in that ear. Letting go of the memories, he scooped a shovelful of earth and flung it at Jakob. Jakob dodged and the dirt hit Franz and clung to his perspiring chest.

  Franz jerked his gaze up to his older brother. He snatched a dirt clod from the pile at his feet and let it fly. Within minutes, others joining, the game became an impromptu contest of mosche balle with one bizarre deviation—more than one ball was in play. The nearby sound of men grunting as they shoveled earth on escaping embers brought the game to an end. The carcasses were ablaze, and Anton pulled his kerchief up over his nose. The perspiring brothers picked up their shovels and resumed their gruesome task.

  Anton couldn’t remember the last time he’d missed a Sunday church service, but eve
n Reverend Mercer had turned out to help this morning. They dragged, dug and burned. And all the while Anton’s thoughts returned to the boy in his bed... and to the boy’s mother.

  The more he thought, the more convinced he was that the boy wasn’t Indian, either. Black hair, black eyes, teak-colored skin—quite possibly from the sun.

  Anton’s memory unfolded the young woman in vivid detail. The garb, her hair and skin—even her silent walk was misleading. Everything about her suggested Indian ancestry at first glance—everything, that was, except her eyes. Her eyes...bewitched. This morning as she’d returned from tending her pony, he’d stepped off the back porch.

  “Mornin’.”

  “Mr. Neubauer.”

  “How was Slade’s night?”

  “He woke several times. I gave him the medicine twice.”

  Once again her hair hung braided in a long, black rope, the end tied with a leather thong from which intricate silver leaves hung. She regarded him solemnly, the morning sun catching blue-black highlights in her hair. Her most unusual feature, her eyes, were almost exotic, the color of a stormy sky at sunset. Anton had to force himself to think about what she was saying.

  “If your sister-in-law will be kind enough to sit with Slade later this morning, I’ll bring my things from the train.”

  He’d tried not to let his surprise show and nodded toward Franz and Annette’s smaller house, only a few hundred feet to the west of the main house. “I’ll stop over before I head out. She’ll be coming to tend the others anyway, so I’m sure she won’t mind.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Surely.” He’d moved aside, and she’d gone into the house.

  Now, leading a lumbering team of oxen back to the overturned railcars, he wondered what her position in the show was. He’d never been to a performance of the Wild West Show, but he’d read about it and seen photographs. He had listened to several men this morning, and their jobs ranged from singers and musicians to blacksmiths and cavalry soldiers. She could be a seamstress or a cook. Or perhaps her husband was the show person.

  Anton shook himself. What did it matter anyway? She would be gone as soon as Slade’s leg healed.

  The question slunk back like a fox worrying a mongoose. Where was her husband?

  * * *

  Anton gave his enormous bay his head and galloped up the drive toward the barn. Attention drawn to the dooryard, he reined in the animal, leaned across the saddle horn and studied the alien sight from beneath the brim of his dusty Stetson.

  A tepee stood in his yard.

  Centered in the dooryard, it was almost as tall as the second story of the house and painted with geometric designs and hunting scenes. Anton noted smoke curling out of a hole in the top, where several poles were lashed together as supports. An occupied tepee.

  Nudging the bay into a walk, he circled the hide structure. Who had set it up here? Maybe the family of one of the Pawnees in the upstairs bedroom. Annette and Lydia must be befuddled now that a band of Indians had invaded their homestead. His thoughts raced ahead. They had an autumn barn dance scheduled next Saturday night.

  He slid from the saddle and whacked the horse’s rump, and the General galloped toward the barn. Anton stood before the closed flap. How did a body knock on a tent? “Hello?”

  Movement sounded inside. The flap opened, and Rain Shadow stepped out. “Mr. Neubauer.”

  “You?” He couldn’t help noticing the cream-colored doeskin dress she wore, quills and beads gracing the front. The soft leather clung to her petite body’s every curve. “What’s going on?”

  “What do you mean?”

  He gestured. “The tepee and all, I mean.”

  “I got my things this morning, as I said.”

  “Yeah, well. I didn’t know you were gonna set up your...”

  “Lodge? Your father said it would be no inconvenience to set it up here.”

  “You discussed it with my pa?”

  Her tempestuous lavender eyes narrowed under graceful jet brows. “Is there a problem?”

  Behind him, the springboard rolled up the drive. Uncomfortable under her gaze, he turned and watched his father lead the team into the barn. “Something wrong with the house?”

  “Pardon?”

  “I’m guessing you figure to stay out here.”

  “I’ve put your family out enough already, Mr. Neubauer. And I prefer my lodge.”

  “But it’s extra trouble for you to come and go taking care of the boy.”

  Rain Shadow half smiled and shook her head, her black braid brushing the front of her dress in a caress he tried not to notice. At the same time, he thought how unfair it was that the first woman to catch his attention in all those sensually riveting little ways couldn’t have been Sissy Clanton.

  “Hardly. I’m used to more activity than a little walking.”

  Determinedly, he kept his gaze nailed on her amethyst eyes, ignoring the way her bow-shaped lips curved up provocatively at the corners. “But there’s frost on the ground at night. You’ll get cold out hoe.”

  She laughed outright. Her teeth were the perfect foil for her rich black hair and honey-hued skin. “As long as we can make a fire, it’s warm inside. The hides hold in the heat, just like they did on the buffalo.”

  “What if it rains or snows?” Anton gestured to the smoke escaping the off-center opening.

  She pointed to the two lightweight poles holding the smoke flap open. “By moving those, the flaps adjust to compensate for wind and weather. The lodge faces east, and the greater slant of the front braces it against wind from the back.”

  Anton shifted his weight. He could hardly argue his position with, “What will the neighbors think?” That would be pompous.

  “All settled?” His father stepped up beside him, his question directed at Rain Shadow.

  “Thank you, yes. I gathered firewood this afternoon.”

  “There’s a whole pile out behind the house,” Anton offered, and wondered why his usually dexterous father stepped on his foot and elbowed him in the ribs.

  “Good, good,” Johann continued as though his son hadn’t spoken. “Doc been around yet?”

  She shook her head.

  “Well,” the older man said with a shrug. “I reckon he’s still busy tending folks hurt worse. He’ll be by shortly.”

  Rain Shadow nodded.

  “Anton, do you think this is a snake hole over here?”

  He followed his father to a spot on the ground where he saw nothing out of the ordinary.

  “You know,” Johann said and rubbed his chin. “I’ll wager it helps her feel safe havin’ her own place to stay. She might be white on the outside, but inside she’s an Indian. This tepee is part of their culture. She and Two Feathers would no more move into our house than an eagle would build a nest in the barn rafters.”

  Anton glanced over his shoulder at the young woman in the beautifully decorated dress. His pa approved. No use arguing.

  “I guess that wasn’t a snake hole after all.” Johann’s faded blue eyes revealed a sparkle of mirth. He appeared to be enjoying the whole situation enormously.

  The tent was staying. It didn’t matter to him. He headed for the barn. “I have cows to milk.”

  * * *

  Dawn spread its first golden rays through a stand of eastern hemlock’s sparse boughs, and a pair of thrushes called to one another. Two Feathers’ breath hung in the brisk air. Morning was his favorite time of day. From the rise behind the house, he surveyed the Neubauers’ wooden lodges and animal quarters. To the west, meadows and woods stretched as far as his no-longer-youthful eyes could see, to the east, acres of fields plowed under. Rich, fertile soil. Land and crops blessed by Waken Tanka.

  Here there was game—pheasant, turkey, and ruffled grouse. He’d seen signs of possum, rabbit and squirrel. A person living on this land could support himself indefinitely. It had been two days since he’d heard the piercing whistle of the iron horse, two restful moons since he’d listened to me
n roll dice and play cards until the sun rose.

  How long would it be until the farmer’s medicine man proclaimed the injured ready to move out of the house? Colonel Cody was overseeing the restoration of the train, and it would soon be time to ride it south. Slade would not be ready to leave with the others. Rain Shadow had already spoken of her plan to stay with her son. If Two Feathers left without them, would she catch up soon as she’d planned? A wary sensation brought unease to his spirit. He didn’t want to go without her.

  The sun appeared over the horizon, a glorious fiery sphere. He raised his palms toward the earth’s sustenance and chanted.

  As he finished the prayer, Johann Neubauer ambled up beside him. Two Feathers appreciated the pungent aroma of the pipe the silver-haired man held between his teeth. Smoke curled past his faded blue eyes. He squinted at Two Feathers.

  “Nothing like a peaceful mornin’.” Johann took his hand from a deep pocket in his wool jacket long enough to adjust the pipe.

  What kind of spirit sense did the old man have? Two Feathers eyed him.

  “Your daughter gets up mighty early, too.”

  “We have always risen to greet the sun.”

  “Nice girl.”

  "Fine sons you have. Land to call your own. You have been blessed.”

  Johann nodded. “I have.”

  “Living with our children beside us is how the Indian chooses to live.”

  “Yep. We’ve got a lot in common.”

  “Many seasons have passed without your wife?”

  “Many. I always pictured us growing old together. Watching our sons grow into men.” Johann shrugged. “God didn’t have the same plan.”

  Two Feathers heard the pain in his voice, knew Johann’s joy was half because he had no woman to share it. “I, too, lost a wife.” Strange that he should reveal his sorrow to a near stranger, but sharing it seemed right. “And a daughter.”

  Johann nodded in empathy.

  “Rain Shadow took their place in my heart.”

  No doubt Johann’s curiosity was unsatisfied, but he remained politely silent.