Sweetbriar

by Jude Deveraux

  He considered her words and then nodded again, seeming to agree with her.

  She turned back to the Squire and Mooner. “Since it is obvious that I do not need your protection, would you please leave now?”

  “Linnet, we can’t leave you in the care of some Indian.”

  “Then I suggest you ride back with us, since I am riding with Yellow Hand.”

  “Linnet, please,” the Squire said, “you can ride with me.”

  She looked at Mooner, who eyed Yellow Hand eagerly. “No, I have my escort.” Linnet was careful to keep her body between the young Indian and Mooner at all times. She rode behind the Shawnee on his horse, her arms tight around his waist, the big bag of rose hips carefully held against her body.

  The rain and the far distance of Yellow Hand’s head above her own made it difficult for her to talk to him. About a mile outside Spring Lick he kicked his horse to an opposite path and Linnet looked to see the Squire and Mooner work hard to keep up with them, but the young Indian was familiar with the trail and was more accustomed to the rain which blinded the two white men.

  Within minutes he led them to higher ground, where they looked down on the confused and lost men. Linnet put her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing at their bewilderment, their struggle to fight the rain. When she looked at Yellow Hand, she saw that the corners of his mouth twitched also, and what could have been a deadly encounter turned into a harmless bit of fun.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “LORD-A-MERCY, GIRL, WHAT YOU BEEN DOIN’ to cause so much commotion?” Phetna greeted a wet and shivering Linnet. “Squire’s been here givin’ orders, shoutin’ and cursin’ so much the young’un took to cryin’, and it took me a while to calm her down.” Phetna looked adoringly at Miranda, who sat on a stool by the fire, concentrating on getting food onto her spoon and into her mouth.

  “How is he?” Linnet went to Devon, leaving puddles of water behind her.

  “’Bout the same; leastways he ain’t causin’ the trouble you are. You gonna tell me what you done, somethin’ ’bout runnin’ off with an Injun and bringin’ a massacre down on Spring Lick?”

  “Posh! I truly cannot understand how these people get so upset over something so minor.”

  “Indians ain’t ‘minor,’ and if you’d lived here as long as me you’d know that.”

  “I am not unaware of the dangers of Indians; after all, my parents were killed by Indians. I saw my own mother—” She stopped. “I must put on some dry clothes first,” she said as she began to unfasten the front of her dress.

  “Yellow Hand is little more than a boy and he was calmly helping me collect the rose hips.”

  Linnet had her back to Devon, facing Phetna, and did not see him laboriously turn his head to face the women. Phetna wondered if it was the mention of Yellow Hand or Linnet’s declaration that she was going to remove her clothes that made him go to such efforts. She saw his open eyes for the first time and, with a strange tightening of her skin, she saw Slade Macalister, just as she remembered him, unchanged even after twenty years. It took a few seconds to remember he was Slade’s son.

  She watched him interestedly, but he had eyes only for Linnet, now down to a wet, clinging camisole and petticoats. Phetna’s eyes lit with amusement. Just like Slade, she thought. It would take more than a body burned raw, excruciating pain and his life hanging by a thread to keep him from watching a pretty girl undress.

  “Well, ain’t you gonna tell me?” Phetna persisted, trying not to show the laughter that bubbled inside her as she surreptitiously watched Devon.

  Linnet peeled the wet petticoats from her body and began rubbing herself briskly with the coarse linen towel. She wore the short camisole top and the underpants that came to just above her knees. “There was a young boy, a Shawnee, in your cabin. I’m sure he only went inside to get out of the rain. I think he was as frightened of me as I was of him.” She untied the strings of the camisole and pulled it over her head, then stepped out of the underpants.

  “Turn around and I’ll dry your back. You think Miranda’s gettin’ enough to eat?”

  Linnet turned, her nude body facing Devon, her head turned toward her daughter. She smiled at Miranda and the girl smiled back while Phetna rubbed Linnet’s back. When Linnet turned her head again to look toward Devon, he lay still, eyes closed, breath shallow and even. She took the towel from Phetna, walked across the room and began to dress in dry clothes.

  When Phetna looked again at Devon, he seemed to be sleeping, but she was sure she saw a hint of a smile on his lips. “Ain’t nothin’ gonna kill a boy what still looks at women,” she muttered and breathed easier because she hadn’t liked the idea of one of Slade’s sons dying while under her care.

  Linnet knelt by Devon, touched his hair, ran her finger along his ear. “His color looks better, doesn’t it, Phetna? Or am I just imagining it?”

  Phetna’s face twisted into some semblance of a grin. “I think he’s gonna be just fine. In fact, I’m right sure of it.”

  “You are!” Linnet was exhilarated but just as quickly deflated again. “I’ll only believe it when I see for sure myself, when I know he’s Devon and not just a rag doll.”

  “Oh, he ain’t just a rag doll. I’m about as sure of that as anythin’ in my life.” Phetna stood. “Enough of this jawin’. We got us a lot of work to do now. You feelin’ strong, girl?”

  “I’m as strong as usual, I guess. What must we do?”

  “We gotta lift that boy up and get him to settin’ up, ’cause he’s gotta start drinkin’ some of my tea. And do you realize he ain’t had a relief a’ nature since he got burned?”

  In spite of herself, Linnet blushed, and Phetna enjoyed her red face greatly. “I told you carin’ for a burned man ain’t no sweet job. Now you get them pillows and put ’em on that bench like I showed you.”

  It took the two women a long, strenuous time to lift Devon and put him on the bench. They couldn’t touch his burns, and since his feet were hurt badly, he could give them little help, and they both could see the lines of strain in his face; and how the raw, fragile skin pulled and seemed as if it might break apart. They draped a mattress across the table, and Devon was able to lean forward, his ribs heaving after the exertion. There were tears in Linnet’s eyes as she felt his pain with him.

  It took her a few minutes and a silent lecture to get over her embarrassment at helping Devon relieve himself. Phetna didn’t help any and seemed to thoroughly enjoy Linnet’s confusion.

  When the tea was ready, Phetna added a bit of salt to the brew, explaining that all the water that left Devon was salty (Linnet refused to ask how she knew this) and needed to be replaced. Devon struggled to drink the tea, not wanting it, choking on it.

  “You got to make him drink,” Phetna said. “It’s the same with all of ’em. They just wanta die and can’t nothin’ convince ’em they ain’t goin’ to.”

  “But he won’t drink any more,” Linnet said in frustration. “How can I make him?”

  “I don’t know, people use all different ways—hold their noses, threaten ’em, cry, kiss ’em—you been doin’ a lot of that lately—anythin’ to make ’em drink. This is the easy part. You gotta make him start eatin’ pretty soon.”

  “How can I do anything when he can’t hear me? He’s been unconscious since the fire.”

  “Ha! He hears as good as you, and I ’spect a sight better’n me.”

  Linnet was astonished. “Then why doesn’t he say something?”

  “Pain, girl, burnin’, horrible pain! No need to talk when all you can do is feel your body on fire.”

  “Devon,” she said softly in his ear. “You have to drink the tea. We want you to get well. Miranda wants to meet you. She thinks you’re just some big stuffed doll, not real at all. When you get well you can carve the head of a doll for her, and I’ll make the body. Would you do that for your daughter?”

  Something Linnet said was right because Devon finally made an effort to drink.

&
nbsp; By the third day Devon’s burns stopped oozing, and the blisters began to shrivel. It was on the third day, while an exhausted Linnet was forcing more tea down Devon’s throat, that he said his first words to her.

  “Kiss me,” he rasped.

  “What?” She set the tin mug down on the table. Phetna and Miranda were outside, and they were alone in the cabin.

  “Kiss me,” Devon repeated, and he turned his head to look into her eyes.

  How good it was to see the brilliant blue eyes again!

  “I won’t drink unless you kiss me.”

  “Devon! What are you saying? I don’t hear your voice for three whole days, your back is burned beyond recognition, and now you make absurd requests of me.”

  “Not fight, Lynna, please.” His head sagged and his eyes closed once again.

  “No, my love, I’m sorry. I’ll kiss you.” She kissed his cheek, his temple, his eyelids, all as she’d done many times in the last few days. Had he been aware of those kisses, as Phetna said he was, or was he unconscious, as Linnet believed?

  By the fourth day he seemed to be stronger, and although he rarely said anything, Linnet was aware that he was awake and knew when she touched him, and there were certain times in the day when she thought her embarrassment would devour her.

  “Looks like he’s gonna make it now,” Phetna said the afternoon of the fourth day.

  “I wish I could be as sure as you. Why doesn’t he talk?”

  “Lord help us, but give him a couple more days. All burned people are alike, first they hurt too much to complain and then they get well just enough to tell you everythin’ that’s wrong with ’em. It’s then they try your patience, but once they’re well enough to start complainin’, you know they’re all right.”

  “At this point I’d like to hear a complaint. This silence is deafening.”

  “I’ll remind you of them words later.”

  Linnet picked up the wooden buckets. “I’m going to the spring.”

  “Why don’t you stay a while, walk around, pick some flowers,” Phetna called after her. “He ain’t goin’ nowheres, and you need a change.”

  The spring air smelled good, especially after the stuffy cabin, and rather than going straight to the spring she went to a quiet place under some elm trees, the ground covered with clover, honey bees everywhere. She felt almost guilty at leaving Devon alone, at being able to escape when he must stay indoors while the birds sang and the flowers moved in the soft breeze.

  “Linnet.”

  She closed her eyes for a second against the unwanted intrusion. She hadn’t seen the Squire since the day she and Yellow Hand had stood atop the hill in the rain and laughed at the Squire and Mooner. “Yes.” She forced herself to smile. “How are you?” He didn’t look well at all, as if he hadn’t been sleeping very well or very much.

  He sat down beside her, fell almost. “I guess I should ask how you are. I haven’t seen much of you lately. I guess you stay with him all the time now.”

  “I stay with ‘him’ because Devon is burned and needs me. I really shouldn’t be here now since he needs to be fed again soon.”

  “Fed? You feed him? A grown man?”

  “Squire, he nearly died, saving my daughter I might add. He is weak and can do nothing for himself. I would do as much for anyone who saved Miranda.”

  “Would you, Linnet, I wonder, or is it that you still love him and want to help him?”

  “I don’t guess there’s an answer for that since I doubt if anyone but Miranda’s father would have run into a flaming building.”

  The Squire looked away from her. “I guess you are right. I didn’t see any hope of rescuing her that night, but if she’d been my own child, maybe then…who can say?”

  Linnet was silent.

  “You look tired,” he continued.

  “So do you.”

  Linnet was suddenly angry. “What is it you want to know? The exact details of the night I spent with Devon Macalister, or is it now that so intrigues you? Do you want a report of every time I touch him? What exactly do you want? He is a very sick man.”

  The Squire was quiet. “You know, I’ve learned a lot about you in the last few weeks. I’ve learned how you don’t even make an effort to get along with people, that you even seem to delight in causing gossip, in doing everything you can to make yourself different. It isn’t enough that you’re English, that your ways are already different, but you work at standing apart.”

  Linnet’s eyes flashed, her mouth set in a firm, hard line. “In England I had what may be called an unusual upbringing. I was taught to accept people for what they were, not what someone else told me about a person. When I first came to this town the people were willing to accept me, but only if I became exactly like them. Jule and Ova wanted me to hate Nettie and her daughters, wanted me to constantly say vicious things about people who were absent, but I couldn’t do that.”

  “But it was your sneering at them that has caused so many problems.”

  “I’m very sorry I sneer, I certainly don’t mean to, but I cannot understand why you would want me to join them.”

  “It’s not that I want you to join them.” He took her hand and held it between his. “I thought that when I paid your way to Kentucky, gave you this job in spite of the fact that you had an illegitimate child, that you’d want to repay me.”

  She jerked away from him. “Did you think you were buying a mistress? Or did you want me to help your prestige? It could look good on your record and help you become governor if you took in penniless, downfallen women and saved their souls. But here I am ruining everything. It’s not going to look good to your constituents if the woman you ‘rescued’ and made a teacher has her lover living with her, is it? You were willing to forgive me my sins as long as you had hope that I’d become your mistress, but things are changing now.”

  “You’ll regret this, Linnet. I’m going to become governor of this state, and no two-bit whore like you is going to stop me.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t. As soon as Devon is well enough to travel, I’ll leave this place, even if I have to crawl out.”

  “And go where?” he snapped. “Back to that town, Sweetbriar, you revere? You going to spread the word that Squire Talbot isn’t good enough to become governor?”

  She gave him a cold look. “I doubt very much if I’ll so much as mention you. Now I must return to Devon.” She turned and left.

  Linnet was so angry when she entered the cabin that she slammed the door behind her, her eyes wild and unfocused. She didn’t notice that for the first time Devon was sitting up by himself, a quilt about the lower half of his body.

  “You get caught in a storm or you plannin’ to start one all by yourself?” Phetna asked, but Linnet ignored her, still too angry to see or hear.

  “Miranda, honey,” the older woman said, “why don’t we go outside and see if any of them peas come up yet.” She held her scarred hand out to the child.

  Miranda took one look at her mother, who was not at all like the mother she knew, and gladly went outside with Phetna.

  Neither Devon nor Linnet spoke when they were alone, Linnet staring at some point beyond the back wall, Devon watching her. “Lynna,” he said quietly, his voice hoarse from lack of use. “Lynna,” he said again when she didn’t move.

  She turned and saw him for the first time. “Devon! You’re sitting!”

  He grinned. “Thought you’d never notice. Come sit by me, I need somethin’ to lean on.”

  She sat down beside him on the bench, and he lifted the quilt across his legs and spread it over her as he moved nearer to her. She could feel the warmth of his bare skin through her skirt and petticoats. Suddenly he was no longer a sick, helpless nonentity, but a man, warm, vital and very much alive. She started to move away from him.

  “Please don’t,” he said and she stayed where she was. “Tell me, what made you so angry?”

  She couldn’t look up at him. “I had, I guess you could say, an argume
nt with the Squire.” She didn’t see him smile.

  “A love quarrel?” he asked.

  “I don’t love—” She looked at him, then smiled. “I have never loved the man. He gave me a job, nothing more.”

  Devon was quiet for a moment. “It upset you about Yellow Hand, didn’t it?”

  “Yes, that and other things, too, such as when the men refused to help carry you here. How can two towns be so different, Devon? How can Sweetbriar be so different from this…this place?”

  “I don’t know and I don’t think I’d like to know. It’s a good thing nobody shot Yellow Hand, or this town’d be nothin’ but some heaps of smolderin’ wood.”

  “I was right about him!”

  “Lynna, you have to understand somethin’. The Indian way of life ain’t the same as a white man’s. You can’t go around thinkin’ all Indians are good, honorable people that you can trust with the protection of your pretty little body.” Lord! But he wished he weren’t so weak. Even talking was making him feel as if he’d been the ground part of a stampede.

  “But he was a Shawnee.”

  Devon opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again. Sometimes talking to Linnet was like trying to reason with a tree. “I don’t think I wanta talk no more. You wanta help me to the mattress?” It looked to him to be miles away.

  “No, Devon, you have to eat. I’ve boiled a chicken and made a strong broth. I’m going to feed you some of it.” She threw back the quilt and went to the fire to fill a mug with the broth.

  Devon sat there dejectedly. He couldn’t lean back and he couldn’t fall forward, and the strain of sitting was too much for him. He’d felt good when he first sat, careful to keep his feet off the floor, but now he just wanted to rest, to sleep, to not think or talk and especially not to eat.

  Linnet stood in front of him with another mug of something steaming. Those two women had done nothing but feed him for what seemed like months now. Didn’t they know that he hurt, that the skin on his back was much too small and that it was going to tear apart at any moment? Didn’t they know how tired he was, how he couldn’t stand, couldn’t even go to the outhouse by himself? Didn’t they know he was a man? All they cared about was crammin’ food down his throat. Suddenly he was mad.