Prairie Moon

by Maggie Osborne

  “Before I go, there’s a question . . . something I’ve wondered about for years.”

  Here it came. The question she had expected and dreaded. Dropping her head, she looked at her hands twisting across her lap. “I know what you want to ask.”

  “What happened to your child?”

  All the pleasure of the evening vanished with her next breath as if a tight band squeezed her chest. As always when she thought of Claire, her eyes felt hot and scratchy and the back of her throat went dry as if she’d swallowed sand.

  Cameron must have seen the color drain from her face because his voice was gentle when he spoke again. “I figure the child died. If you can bear to confirm it, we’ll leave it at that.”

  “Her name is Claire. After my mother.”

  He hesitated. “Did she die recently?”

  “I guess by now you know I can’t answer without explaining.” She drank the last of her coffee to moisten her throat. “After my last letter to Clarence, Clarence died, we fled to Atlanta after the plantation was burned, and I gave birth to my daughter.”

  She couldn’t sit still while she told the story. Standing, she moved to the rail and walked back and forth across the porch. “Mrs. Ward lost her home, all her belongings, and her servants. Then she lost her son. The Yankees did this to her. The Yankees destroyed everything she valued. And there I was, every time she turned around. After Clarence was killed, Mrs. Ward started attacking me verbally. This wasn’t new, but it got a lot worse. When I didn’t go away, she shut herself in the bedroom of the Peachside house rather than look at me or talk to me. She didn’t come out of her room until the night Claire was born.”

  Della hadn’t seen her mother-in-law during her long difficult labor, but she’d heard Mrs. Ward in the hallway issuing orders to the midwife. And Mrs. Ward had taken charge of the nursery after Claire’s birth.

  “This part is hard,” she said, drawing a deep breath. She gripped the railing and stared blindly into the darkness.

  “A week or so after Claire’s birth, I went to fetch her to feed her. She wasn’t in the nursery. I looked everywhere. Finally I ran into the parlor where Mr. Ward liked to sit in the mornings and read the day’s news.”

  Nothing in her voice conveyed how frantic she had been, how terrified that something unthinkable had happened. Her voice was flat, unemotional, the words tumbling out in a rush to reach the end of the story.

  “I told him that Claire was missing. And Mr. Ward said no she was not. He had a speech prepared. It was a long speech, which said, in essence, that Claire was all the Wards had left of their son, and the Wards would raise her. But I had to leave at once. Mrs. Ward would never recover her health as long as I was present.”

  The words scraped her throat and the hot evening air choked her.

  “The Wards had money and I didn’t. The Wards could give Claire a comfortable life while I couldn’t. Leaving her with the Wards was the best course for everyone.” She drew a long breath and pressed her fingertips to her lips. “I took the deed that Mr. Ward gave me, and enough money to get here.”

  Cameron cleared his throat. “The bonnet on the hook? And the primer and the growth marks on the doorjamb?”

  “Only pretend things. I imagine she’s here, just out of sight. Sometimes I call her for supper and wait for her to come running up the porch steps.” She couldn’t believe she was telling him of her private madness. “I picture her in my mind. How tall she’d be now. What she would be learning in school and what Mrs. Ward is teaching her about managing a household. I’d like to think she knows how to whistle.”

  She hadn’t heard Cameron stand, but suddenly his arms came around her waist. For an instant she stiffened, then sagged against the warm hard length of him, hoping to absorb his strength as memories flooded her mind and she thought her knees would buckle.

  “She smelled so good,” she whispered. “Her hair was like corn silk. And her little mouth reminded me of a rosebud.”

  “I’m sorry,” Cameron murmured against her hair.

  “What hurts the most, what I can’t stand to think about, is that they’ve probably told her I’m dead.” Now her voice broke and she turned to bury her face against his chest. She didn’t cry, but her eyes burned and her hands trembled. “She’s so real and alive to me, but to her, I must be . . .”

  Cameron held her, inhaling the lemon scent of her hair. He’d guessed that her daughter was dead, but the truth was worse. Because of him, Della had lost her husband, a way of life, and her baby. Because of him, a little girl was growing up without either of her parents.

  He could continue killing outlaws and cleaning up corrupt towns for the rest of his life, and it would never atone for what he had done to this woman and her child.

  Chapter 6

  Cameron tilted his chair against the back wall of the Silver Garter. From this position he could observe the room and who entered and exited the saloon doors. Placing one’s back to the wall had become a cliché in the West, but necessary for men like him.

  Sheriff Cowdry refilled their glasses from the whisky bottle on the table. “Joe Hasker won’t be a problem. After I finished with him, his daddy took over. I heard yesterday that Hasker Senior is sending young Joe to a military school back east.”

  It took Cameron a second to recall who Joe Hasker was, then he nodded.

  The sheriff turned the shot glass between his thick fingers. “For the most part this is a quiet town. But young Hasker has friends who are as hotheaded as he is.”

  “I’ll be leaving in a few days.”

  “You know how it is; you’ve worn the badge. A name comes to town and everyone wants to shake his hand and buy him a drink. Then the speculation starts. How fast is he? Sooner or later some misguided pup decides to find out, and people get killed.”

  The sheriff continued talking, but Cameron let the words flow over him, only half listening. His gaze followed one of the bar girls, watching her deftly fend off hands that reached for places they shouldn’t. On her return to the bar, she leaned in and said something in the piano player’s ear. The piano man shook his head and shrugged as if to say that’s how things were.

  Years ago Cameron had sat in this same chair and watched Della slip away from grasping hands and murmur something to a piano man. He’d made the right decision that day in not telling her why he’d come, but he hadn’t taken his decision far enough. Earlier today he’d corrected his mistake by sending his banker a telegram, worded so his instructions would be clear but meaningless to the Two Creek’s telegraph operator.

  His attention sharpened and refocused when he heard the sheriff mention names he recognized.

  “I’d have taken those boys myself, except I didn’t learn they were in town until after they’d gone,” the sheriff said uncomfortably. “They only stayed the one night.”

  The sheriff was talking about the bank robbers that Cameron Fort Worth?”

  “Looked that way.”

  If he lived to be a hundred, Cameron would never understand the criminal mind. The bank robbers were heading exactly where he expected them to go.

  “What are the chances that someone mentioned I was nearby?”

  Sheriff Cowdry shrugged. “Pretty good, I’d say. You’re about the only thing folks have been talking about for two weeks. How many people have been out to the Ward place to shake your hand? A hundred?” The sheriff gave him a long look. “You’re going after them, right?”

  “Not this time.” Cameron’s priorities had changed yesterday evening. Even so, he hadn’t realized until now that he’d already made the decision, probably before Della finished telling him about her daughter.

  “Well,” Cowdry said eventually, “I suppose you can’t go after them all.” Clearly he wanted to ask what could be more important than capturing a pair of notorious robbers, but he glanced at Cameron’s face and remained silent.

  “It’s time I headed back to the Ward place.” He brought the chair legs to the floor and stood. “Thank you for
the drinks.”

  Cowdry also wanted to satisfy his curiosity about Cameron’s connection to Della Ward and why he was staying out at her place, but he didn’t ask that question, either. A prudent man.

  As Cameron was also prudent, he chose to ride across the range. He doubted an ambush waited by the roadside, but a man couldn’t be too careful. And he had things he wanted to ponder aside from shadows along a road.

  It was late when he arrived at the barn, but he suspected Della hadn’t been sleeping any better than he was. After he turned Bold in to the corral, he walked up to the house and stood beside her bedroom window, listening for sounds inside.

  “Are you awake?” he called softly when he thought he heard a rustle of movement.

  “Mr. Cameron?” She didn’t sound as if she’d been asleep. “What time is it?”

  The moon was waning, but the stars were still bright. “I don’t know. Late.”

  The curtains twitched and he inhaled a faint lemon scent, but she stood in the shadows and he couldn’t make out more than a silhouette. “What’s wrong? Did something happen in town?”

  “I’ve thought about everything, and I’ve decided to go to Atlanta and fetch your daughter. You can come with me or wait here.”

  A gasp came from deep in her throat, then she stepped directly in front of the open window and stared at him. He still couldn’t see her face, only a pale starlit oval.

  “What . . . I . . .”

  “This is the right thing to do.”

  “Mr. Cameron.” Her hands fluttered near her breast. “I don’t know what to say. This goes far beyond . . .”

  “Can you be ready to leave by the day after tomorrow?”

  She was silent for so long, he peered in the window to see if she was still there. “Mrs. Ward?”

  “It appears neither of us is going to sleep tonight, so you might as well come inside. I’ll heat up the coffee.”

  By the time he’d walked around the house, she’d lit a lantern in the kitchen and fired up the stove beneath the coffeepot. One of his questions was answered—she didn’t wear her hair loose for sleeping. A long, dark braid swung down the back of a light wrapper.

  “I suppose this could have waited until tomorrow,” he said uncomfortably. It wasn’t proper or seemly for him to see her in her nightclothes. He hadn’t considered that, before calling at her window. And he hadn’t anticipated the powerful effect of seeing her in a state of undress.

  Men didn’t see women with their hair down and wearing a wrapper unless the women were wives or intimate relations. If someone were to discover them in this state, Della Ward would be irretrievably ruined.

  Cameron backed toward the door. “I apologize, Mrs. Ward. We’ll talk in the morning.”

  “No, Mr. Cameron,” she said firmly. “We’ll talk now. No one is going to come to the door at this hour. At least I hope not.” Gathering the collar of the wrapper at her throat, she glanced at the coffeepot. “Sit down.” They didn’t speak again until the coffee was brewed and poured. “Now. Tell me why you want to fetch Claire.” Her shock was wearing off, but her reaction wasn’t what he’d expected.

  “Your husband wouldn’t have wanted Claire to grow up without her mother.”

  “Given the circumstances, I’m not sure that I agree,” she said, speaking slowly and thinking about it. Cradling her cup between her hands, she studied a pair of moths batting against the lantern glass. “The reasons I agreed to leave Claire with the Wards still apply.” Finally she met his gaze. “Look around you, Mr. Cameron. Is this any life for a little girl? I can’t give her the things the Wards can.”

  He returned her steady look and said nothing, trying to figure her out.

  “There’s no second bedroom here, but I imagine Claire has her own room where she is. I doubt she has a list of chores to accomplish before she goes to school or when she returns. Undoubtedly there are servants to do her laundry, prepare her meals, clean her room. I assume she has friends and goes calling with Mrs. Ward. I take as a given that she has an armoire filled with dresses and cloaks and trimmed bonnets. Do you really believe Clarence would want his daughter to exchange that life for . . . this?” She spread her hands.

  “You’re her mother. She should be with you.”

  “Most of the people in Two Creeks don’t have that high an opinion of me. Maybe they don’t believe I’m an outright whore, but they don’t consider me respectable, either. Would Clarence want that taint to fall on his daughter, as well? I don’t think so. Would he want his daughter to grow up with no friends and no place to wear a pretty party dress? With none of the refinements, like piano lessons, and dance and singing lessons, or time to learn how to embroider? Would Clarence want his daughter to go to bed lonely and exhausted from chores? Do you really believe that’s what Clarence would have wanted?”

  “You don’t have to stay here, Della. You and Claire could make a fresh start somewhere else.”

  She looked at him as if he’d lost his senses. “If I could afford to leave and start over anywhere else, don’t you suppose I would have done so?” She shook her head. “Claire is better off where she is than she ever would be with me.”

  She was so hard on herself, never flinching from hard truths. “None of your arguments stand against the fact that a daughter should be with her mother.”

  “Living on a crumbling farm on the edge of a crude little Texas town? Doing without things she takes for granted now?” Her eyes were tired and defeated, dark with pain. “I love my daughter. I want her to have nice things and a comfortable childhood. I like to think of her laughing with friends and going to parties wearing pretty dresses.”

  “You said you pretended that Claire lived here with you.” God help him, did any man understand a woman’s mind? He had believed she would burst into tears and embarrass him with gratitude. Instead he was beginning to grasp that she didn’t want him to fetch Claire home to her. He didn’t understand it.

  “I’m not crazy,” she said sharply. “I know the difference between pretending and what’s real. When I call Claire to supper, I know damned well that she isn’t going to appear in the doorway. That’s when I imagine her sitting down to real silver and real china and real damask. That steadies me, Mr. Cameron.”

  “You can drop the mister.”

  “I like knowing she’s learning good manners and living with people who use them. I’m glad she has the opportunities she has. I’d give up everything I have, if it meant she could keep the life she has now.”

  Frustrated, he reached out and grabbed the moths, crushed them in his fist. Three more appeared, and he ground his teeth. “Let me ask you something. Are you in regular contact with the Wards?”

  “No.” Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Why would I be?”

  “Then you don’t really know what kind of life Claire is living. Do you?”

  She stared. “What are you saying?”

  He leaned forward. “Do you know for certain that Mr. Ward’s fortune survived the war?”

  “Well . . . he sends me money every month . . .”

  “Or are you making assumptions that might not be true? About servants and lessons and expensive dresses. All of it. Do you know that Claire is hale and hearty? Do you know if she’s even alive?”

  Della started violently and spilled coffee across her wrapper. “Of course she’s hale and of course she’s alive!”

  “But you don’t know it for a fact.”

  “All right, damn it. I don’t know it for a fact! Is that what you want to hear?” Upset, she went to the door and kept her back to him. “If something terrible had happened, the Wards would have informed me.”

  “Would they?”

  “Why are you doing this? Why are you putting these terrible images in my mind?”

  He wasn’t ready to tell her that he needed to put together two lives that he’d torn apart. “Reuniting you and Claire is right, and it’s important.”

  “Did Clarence ask you to look after us? Did you make
him some kind of promise?”

  “Della, what are you afraid of?”

  Her braid twitched as a ripple traveled down her spine. Finally she returned to the table, her face expressionless. “This is a moot discussion because I can’t afford a trip back east.”

  “I can.”

  “That goes beyond friendship. You don’t owe this to Clarence, he wouldn’t expect it. Mr. Cameron . . . I appreciate what you want to do, truly. But it’s too much. I couldn’t possibly repay you for the expenses of the journey you suggest.”

  “My reward would be knowing you and Claire are together.”

  For a long time she sat silently, gripping her coffee cup and studying him with a skeptical expression.

  “I want to do this,” he said stubbornly.

  When she finally spoke, he had to lean forward to hear. “What if Claire refuses to see me?”

  Cameron had no answer. But now he grasped an inkling of why she was so resistant to the notion of fetching her daughter. “That’s a bridge to cross when you reach it,” he said eventually, knowing the comment was no help.

  “She’s only nine years old. A child. She’ll never understand why I left her. Very likely she’s been told that I’m dead. It would be a shock to discover that I’m alive.”

  His instinct was to take her into his arms and comfort her. Before he weakened, he stood and reached for his hat. “Think about it.”

  She gazed up at him, her eyes golden and confused in the lamplight. “You’re turning my life upside down.”

  Never in all his days had he wanted to hold a woman this badly. Just to fold his arms around her and inhale the scent of her and move mountains to make her happy. “We’ll talk again tomorrow.”

  She glanced toward the band of pale color rimming the eastern horizon. “Tomorrow is rushing toward us,” she said quietly. She didn’t sound happy like he’d thought she would be.

  There was no point going back to bed. Della knew she wouldn’t sleep, her mind was spinning like a tornado.

  Because it was easier than thinking about Claire, she asked herself again and again, why had James Cameron made this astonishing offer? What was in it for him?