The Beloved Woman

by Deborah Smith

  He heard footsteps and quickly checked his appearance. He lived in a cabin at the mine, but he kept his fancy stuff here at the hotel, where it had a better chance of staying clean. Everything was spotless—the dark blue frock coat, the black vest and tan trousers, even the white linen shirt and cravat. The black dress shoes hurt like hell, but they were clean, too, and that was all that mattered.

  “Good morning, Mr. Gallatin.”

  She stepped onto the porch and stopped, gazing at him in quiet amazement.

  “ ’Morning.” He bowed slightly, a black top hat cradled in one hand. He felt awkward and figured she found him ridiculous in nice clothes.

  But when he met her dark eyes he found them solemn and intense, more striking than ever in a face that was thinner than it had been two weeks earlier. Some folks said the Indians had wandered over from China a long time back, and when he looked at Katherine’s tilted eyes he thought the idea might be true. But that nose—No China girl had a strong little nose like that, defiant and just a bit hawked in profile.

  He felt as though he’d waited centuries to see her again. “You need to eat more,” he said. “Beef up a little.”

  “Thank you.” There was an amused tilt to one corner of her mouth. “How kind of you to put it so delicately.”

  She’d pulled her incredible mane of hair into a braided knot at the nape of her neck. The style accentuated the fine bone structure of her face and made him want to touch her smooth, burnished skin.

  “It’s good to see you out of your roost,” he told her. Lord, she wore her simple black dress as if it were meant for a gala, and with her blue-black hair to top it off, the effect was more regal than somber. It made him think about unwrapping her and how lovely her cinnamon-colored skin must be underneath all that ugly cloth.

  “You’ve used my share of the gold-mining profits very well,” she murmured, her gaze flickering over his fashionable outfit. “You must be grateful to my parents for making you a rich man and then having the courtesy to die.”

  Her voice was throaty and low, a bedroom voice with an icy undercurrent. It sank straight to the pit of his stomach and made him ache. Crazy, he thought, to want her more even when she insulted him.

  He held out an arm. “Step nimbly, gal. Do you mind walkin’? It’s not far.”

  After a moment she reluctantly slipped her hand under his elbow. “Fine. Which church do you attend, Mr. Gallatin?”

  “Methodist,” he said firmly.

  To his surprise, she laughed. Cutting wickedly shrewd eyes at him, she announced, “I just won a bet, Mr. Gallatin. Thank you. Rebecca said you’d pick the Baptist church because it’s next door to your favorite gambling hall.”

  Justis stared at her in exasperation. Then, to retaliate, he asked, “What, no blinders, Katie?”

  He stroked the side of her face with his fingers, brushed the tip of her nose, and even trailed his forefinger along the line of her stern, tempting mouth. “Don’t you want to go get that ugly black bonnet and hide your face so nobody’ll know an Injun is traipsing around town like she thinks she belongs?”

  She raised her chin proudly. She knew he was manipulating her, but she could play that game as well. “No, let everyone see me with you. I think a savage and a heathen make a fine pair.”

  He nodded sardonically, but placed a possessive hand over the fingers she curled around his arm. They walked down the steps and into the sunshine side by side.

  CHAPTER 4

  THE CHURCH was just a big arbor built of poles and rough logs in a field down the road from the hotel. The backless benches were interspersed with tree stumps. Katherine decided that the people sitting on the stumps were lucky—the rough plank benches bristled with splinters.

  She looked straight ahead and tried to ignore the stares as she and Justis entered the arbor. How many women were eyeing her with distaste not only for being an Indian but also for having this handsome, well-dressed rapscallion, undoubtedly the catch of the town, by her side?

  He didn’t wear his hat, which was just as well. It would have looked completely ridiculous on his shaggy chestnut hair, much like putting a fancy halter on a wild bull, she thought. Hair such as his made people wary, thinking that its unruliness implied rebellion and anger—which in Justis Gallatin’s case was not far from the truth. She admitted that it intrigued her because of that.

  A woman came over and tugged at her sleeve. Katherine gave her cautious attention. “I knowed your family,” the woman said. “And they was fine folks. I was sorry to hear what happened.”

  More people came up to her and offered their sympathies. Some had done business with her parents and prized their friendship; some had been the recipients of Blue Song charity. Stunned, Katherine murmured her thanks. Tears blurred her eyes, and she held them back by sheer force of will. She would never cry in front of these people if she could help it.

  “Come along,” Justis said gently.

  They sat down on a bench and were silent for several minutes. Katherine stared at the grassy earth beneath her feet, unable to talk without showing her grief. She still held Justis’s arm, and the slow stroking of his fingertips on her hand was an act of compassion she couldn’t bring herself to rebuke.

  Finally she got herself under control and looked at him. “Thank you.”

  His green eyes were shrewd and thoughtful. “Reckon church was a good idea. You see that there are some folks who don’t want to run the Cherokees off. You see that you’ve got friends.”

  “Good. Perhaps one of them will give me employment.”

  He frowned. “They’re not gonna stir up trouble by encouraging a Cherokee to settle in town. You’d just get insulted, and then I’d have to beat the tarnation out of whoever insulted you. Besides, you don’t need to work for money. I’ll take care of you.”

  His leg was pressed tightly to hers; his hand clamped her fingers to his arm as if he demanded that she hold on to him throughout the service. She moved away and tugged her hand into her lap.

  “I don’t want you to take care of me. I want my land and whatever gold you owed my family.”

  “I’ll give you anything that makes you happy.” His eyes glinted with determination. “Except your land—which I can’t ever give—or enough money for you to traipse off into the world alone.”

  Gritting her teeth in frustration, Katherine opened the small Bible she’d brought with her. “ ‘The wicked borroweth and payeth not again: but the righteous sheweth mercy, and giveth.’ ”

  He took the Bible from her and thumbed through it. “ ‘Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labor.’ ” He hesitated, deciphering the rest of the passage with difficulty. Finally he smiled. “ ‘If two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone?’ ”

  The slow tightening in her belly did not come entirely from anger. He rested his hand atop hers again and curled his fingers around hers, pressing them snugly into her palm.

  Katherine was suddenly aware of him in a disturbing way that reminded her of the time he’d kissed her. She inhaled his scent and was oddly enchanted by the hint of shaving lather and aromatic cigar smoke. Such simple things, but so masculine that they made her feel very feminine by comparison.

  His gaze held hers, challenging her to examine his features. His nose was charmingly crooked, his eyebrows thick and slightly arched at the centers, and the mustache a rakish addition that drew attention to the sensuality of his lower lip. His features were almost too strong—the kind that could express emotions with powerful effect.

  She sighed and heard a quiver in her breath. What hope would there be for her if she let this man control her both body and soul? A white man. That alone would mean trouble.

  “I like it when you look at me that way,” he said, smiling thinly. “Like you either want to eat me up or bite me. I can’t be sure which.”

  “Bite you, certainly.”

  She faced forward and focused her attention on the arrival of a tall, ski
nny preacher dressed entirely in black. He was a circuit rider, with mud still clinging to his boots and horsehair on his trousers. Katherine fidgeted, feeling Justis still looking at her, his fingers stroking the soft cup of her palm.

  “That passage about ‘two being better than one’?” she whispered. “It refers only to friends, not man and woman, and especially not a white man and Cherokee woman.” She took her Bible and her hand back into her own lap.

  Justis laughed softly and leaned so close that goose bumps ran up her neck. She was certain he was going to touch his lips to her ear. “That’s what we are, Katie. Friends,” he murmured. “The man and woman part makes it a helluva lot of fun. The white and Injun part is just something we’ll have to deal with.”

  The preacher raised his hands for attention. “Welcome, sisters and brothers. Today, seein’ as how I’ve got five couples to marry after the sermon, I’m goin’ to preach about the glory of matrimony.”

  “Let’s go,” Justis whispered teasingly. “You got no interest in marryin’, remember? You won’t be owned by anybody but yourself, remember?”

  “Let’s stay for your sake. You ought to learn a little something about marriage, don’t you think, before you try to capture a wife from the halls of haute society?”

  “What kind of society?”

  “Haute. It’s a French word. It means ‘high.’ High society.”

  “You know French?”

  She nodded. “And Latin, plus bits and pieces of a few other languages.” She put her finger to her lips. People were frowning at them for talking.

  “You know French,” he said softly, more to himself than her. He plucked a blade of grass, stuck it between his teeth, and stared off into space, absorbed in thought.

  * * *

  A WARM GUST of April air swept over the new graves, carrying the fragrances of pine, oak, dogwood, and honeysuckle toward the valley. The breeze lifted specks of red-tinted soil and dried the tiny spots where Katherine’s tears had fallen. The already baked earth hinted that the coming summer would be dry and hot.

  Justis leaned against a tree and watched Katherine place dogwood boughs on the graves, her face composed now, her manner as formal as her black dress. After church he’d changed back into his comfortable trousers and white work shirt—and his regular boots, too, which made him feel a hundred times more human—but she still wore the solemn outfit with its high neck and long sleeves.

  She murmured Cherokee words over each grave, then added prayers in English. “I have to make certain that my family’s spirits are residing peacefully in the Dark Land,” she explained.

  “You still cater to the old ways. Jesse and Mary did too. I’ve seen ’em throw food to the fire when they sat down to eat supper—asking the blessing of the fire spirit, they said.”

  Katherine glanced up at him and smiled wistfully. “A part of me will always believe the old teachings.”

  “I like ’em, especially the Cherokee idea of the hereafter,” Justis assured her. “When you’re alive you live in the Sun Land, and when you die you go off to a village in the Dark Land, where you get to carry on just as if you were still flesh and blood. Nobody makes you fettle with angels or harps or any of that.”

  “Do you know where the Dark Land is?”

  He gave her a troubled look. “Toward the sunset.”

  “Yes. That’s one reason so many of the people don’t want to go west. They think of it as the Dark Land.” She paused, her expression tragic. “In a way, it is.”

  Justis took a deep breath. He might as well give her the news now. “The army’s settin’ up a stockade south of town. To hold the Cherokees for removal. It’ll be finished in a couple of weeks.”

  “I know.” She hugged herself. “I overheard some of the hotel guests talking about it the other night as they passed my door.”

  “Don’t worry about going to the stockade. I’m going to write the governor and ask him to give you an exemption. You’ll be my responsibility.”

  “A white man’s ward.” She smiled coldly. Then her shoulders slumped and she looked at the graves again. “I’m finished. You may do the rest now.”

  Justis climbed onto Watchman and touched a blunt gold spur to the stallion’s gray flank. Feeling sorry for her and not knowing how to say so, he tipped his wide-brimmed work hat in silent salute.

  “Step back, gal, so you won’t get trampled.”

  She walked down the slope a few feet and stood staring into the distance, her hands clenched together. While Watchman’s hooves destroyed the mounds of her family’s graves, she resolutely faced the ancient blue-green mountains. They had belonged to the Cherokees for centuries.

  Justis finally reined the stallion to a halt. Katherine continued to gaze into the distance. After studying the rigid control in her posture and the quiver of restraint at the base of her throat, he knew she was very near to crying again. He’d never seen a woman so determined to be strong, and it filled him with both respect and tenderness.

  He didn’t want to examine those feelings too much because he’d never felt them so strongly before, and they worried him. It was hard to care this much about a woman who had good reason not to care back. He had never belonged to anyone heart and soul, and he wasn’t certain that he wanted to now. But he knew without doubt that he wanted Katherine Blue Song to belong to him that way.

  Justis sighed. He hoped that she’d come to feel something for him, even if it were only desire. He knew he could make her want him in bed.

  “None of the grave-robbin’ bastards around these parts will find your family now, Katie. You can count on it. If the greedy fools weren’t so convinced that Cherokees bury gold with their dead—”

  “Thank you,” she said in a small, sad voice. “I know you had to make certain no one would find them. I understand.”

  He stepped down from Watchman, went to the small mare tethered to a sapling, and led her to Katherine. “Up you go, gal. It’s not safe for us to stay here long. Too far from town.”

  She faced him, and grief and bitterness made her eyes glow like polished onyx. “Of what concern is my safety to you, sir? You’ve done your duty. Buried the dead. Rescued the orphan. I’ll go west with my people, and you can put your conscience at ease.”

  “Goddammit,” he said fiercely, hurt by her disdain. “You’re determined to leave me. But I’m not gonna let you end up alone and like the rest of the Cherokee women around here. If you don’t know what the gangs are doing to ’em, I’ll tell you.”

  She swayed and raised a hand to her mouth. “Are you saying that my mother and sisters … even little Sallie …”

  “No.” It was easy to lie, easy to tell any lie that would wipe away the horror in her eyes. Cursing his thoughtless tirade, he quickly wound the horses’ reins around a tall shrub, then pulled Katherine into his arms. Her pride failed her, and she leaned against him.

  “Forgive me, gal,” he murmured. “No. That didn’t happen to them.”

  “I don’t believe you,” she said sadly. “But I don’t want to know the truth either.”

  He eased her head against his shoulder and felt her tears on his skin, though she made no sound. Finally she managed to say, “Not many people care. Why do you?”

  He shut his eyes for a moment. Sitting there in church this morning, he’d made his decision—not that he’d been moved by some spiritual revelation. No, he’d simply admitted what he’d wanted all along, no matter how much trouble it caused.

  “Come over here and sit down.” He led her to a shady spot under a maple tree, and when they were seated he put his arm around her shoulders. “Why do I care?” he repeated. “I guess I’ve got selfish reasons, gal—Katie … Miss Blue Song.” He cleared his throat. “You’re a beautiful woman, a woman with education and culture. I want you for my wife.”

  She gasped softly, then gazed at him in absolute disbelief.

  “I do mean it,” he said grimly. “I really do.”

  “Do you think I’d ever marry a whi
te man? Sitting in the midst of what white men have done to my family, how can you ask me to marry you?”

  “Because I’m not your enemy, and you know it.”

  She pressed her temples as if trying to force calm thoughts into her mind. “This is amazing, sir. You think you can have whatever you ask for. And why do you ask? It doesn’t make sense. You can have so many other women.” She looked up sharply. “I knew Qualla and Big Pumpkin. They were friends of my mother’s.”

  “And they were fine gals too. I cared about ’em. It wasn’t easy for me to say good-bye when they decided to go west last month, but I knew that every day they stayed just put ’em in more danger.”

  “You’ve done without women since then, and now you’re desperate?”

  He made a sound of disgust. “If I was just lookin’ for a pretty piece, I wouldn’t have to marry to get it!”

  “You should be perfectly happy using the girls at the houses of entertainment in Gold Ridge. Rebecca told me that you even considered buying one of the establishments, but Sam talked you out of it.”

  “I thought I could run it a lot more kindly than the old bitch who was in charge! If you’d seen the way those places treat their girls, you’d want to help too!”

  She gazed at him askance. “You’re a commendable humanitarian. Or so it appears on the surface.”

  “Look, Katie.” He squeezed her shoulders and exhaled wearily. “I don’t want to use those girls, all right? I don’t want to pay for that particular kind of pleasure. I’d rather go without.” He arched a brow. “Or get married.”

  “What about Amarintha Parnell? Or some other respectable girl in town?”

  “Too much trouble. They got more webs than a spider. And Amarintha has a mean streak. Besides, what good would one of them do me? They don’t know anything about the outside world. They don’t speak French.”