Painted by the Sun

by Elizabeth Grayson

  With a grunt of frustration, Cam went about finishing up his chores. When he was done, he looked around for his son and found him at the far corral feeding windfall apples to his neat roan gelding. Watching Rand and Jasper together, Cam was struck again by how good Rand was with horses, how gentle and patient, how eagerly they did what he asked. Not once in all his years of riding and tending stock had Cam seen anything quite like the way Rand handled animals.

  Just then Lily rang the big iron bell mounted on the porch, calling them to supper. At the sound Rand looked up, wiped the horse slobber from his hands onto the seat of his trousers, and came running toward the barn. The two of them knocked on the door to the tack room.

  "Supper's ready," Cam told him when Owen Brandt peered out at them. "Come up to the house and have some dinner."

  "Dinner?" Brandt asked.

  "It smelled like pot roast to me," Cam encouraged him.

  "You'd best come with Pa and me, or Aunt Lily'll be down to get you herself," Rand warned him and laughed.

  When it looked like Brandt was going to refuse in spite of the warning, Cam sweetened the pot. "You can look in on Mrs. Waterston after we eat."

  "Shea?" Brandt asked hopefully.

  "She'll probably still be sleeping, but you can sit with her if you like."

  Owen Brandt stepped out of the tack room and closed the door behind him, securing his nest.

  "Come along then, Mr. Brandt," Cam encouraged him. Slinging his arm around Rand's bony shoulders, they turned toward the house. "Supper's waiting."

  * * *

  Cameron Gallimore's farm nestled up to the Platte River the way a wife snuggles up to her husband at night, the swell of her sandy bottomland tucking into the protective arc of his sinuous length. Cam hadn't even been sure they were going to stay in Colorado when they'd come to look at this place, but the moment they'd turned the carriage up the drive, it had felt like home.

  It still felt like home eight years later. Cam reined in his horse halfway up the shady lane and let the warmth and welcome of the place envelop him. Years before, someone had raised a ramshackle cabin out by the road, but Cam had built his home on the rise above the river. In the harsh fall sunlight, it gleamed white as a moonstone, with each shutter and each window box, each turning of the porch posts etched in sharp detail.

  The place had begun as a cozy four-room structure. Four years ago he'd added a good-sized kitchen wing out the back, with narrow porches tucked beneath the overhanging all around it. Last year he'd built a veranda across the front, where Lily assured him they'd sit on summer evenings and sip lemonade with company. Of course, no one but Emmet ever came.

  As he eased his horse past the house on his way to the barn, Cam glanced at the front bedroom window and wondered how Shea Waterston was. She'd lain all but insensible for these last three days while Lily plastered poultices on the woman's wound, wiped her down with basins of cool water, and, when she roused, fed her beef broth from an invalid's cup. Emmet had come nightly to examine Shea and shake his head, but Lily refused to be daunted.

  Once inside the barn, Cameron unsaddled his horse, then took his time feeding and currying him. The routine of brushing, the smell of the barn, and the twitter of birds in the rafters soothed him. Some days he imagined he'd be perfectly content to work the land, give himself over to a kind of endeavor where he had no life-and-death decisions to make, no questions of fairness and justice, no moral ambiguities. The original parcel of land had not been big enough to amount to much, but he'd been slowly buying up the acreage to the north and east just in case. And maybe someday...

  Cam sighed, gave Barney, his big gray gelding, a final pat, and turned toward the house. He'd promised Lily he'd keep an eye on Shea Waterston this afternoon while his sister finished canning tomatoes.

  But as he passed the photography wagon that was parked just to the left of the barn, he couldn't help but stop and peer inside. This dim, cramped wagon was Shea Waterston's domain, the whole of her world while they were traveling.

  Prodded by a curiosity he couldn't in any way justify, Cam let down the tailgate and climbed inside. A dry sink with deep drawers beneath it nestled behind the driver's seat. The astringent smell of photographic chemicals assaulted him when he opened the top drawer. It was filled with an array of big, glass-stoppered bottles labeled with the names of the liquids. A second drawer held working paraphernalia: rubber trays and wooden tongs, measuring beakers, glass stirrers, and a spirit lamp. Another was filled with what he assumed were plate holders and printing trays and padded boxes of lens caps.

  Cam stepped back and slid the lid from one of nearly a dozen wooden crates sitting side by side on the floor. Inside, fitted into grooves to keep them from clattering together, were a score of glass plate negatives. These must be the photographs Shea Waterston and Owen Brandt had taken while they were up in the mountains.

  He looked through their foodstuff and camping supplies and bedrolls, finally finding what he was looking for—a scuffed leather valise. Though he knew he had no business pawing through Mrs. Waterston's things, he wanted to learn everything there was to know about the stranger he'd brought into his home. He needed to discover what he could about the woman who'd appeared out of nowhere and had probably saved his life.

  In truth, there wasn't much inside Mrs. Waterston's bag, just a brush and comb, a few sturdy, dark-colored skirts and bodices, two pair of stockings, some serviceable underthings, and an extra pair of boots. At the bottom he found a neatly kept ledger, a Bible and a rosary, a bound cardboard folio of children's photographs, and a big tin box fitted out as a sewing kit.

  Shea Waterston clearly was not a woman who indulged herself. There were no lengths of ribbon or lacy collars, nothing frivolous or pretty. It was as if this woman had pared her life down to the essentials, narrowed her focus to the thing that mattered most to her: her photography.

  Cameron stared at her belongings arrayed before him and knew there were no insights into her character here. There was nothing at all to tell him—Cam frowned in exasperation—to tell him whatever it was he needed to know about her.

  With an oath of irritation, Cam stuffed the clothes back in the valise and headed for the house. The steamy smell of stewing tomatoes greeted him halfway across the yard.

  "How is she?" he asked as he pushed open the kitchen door.

  Lily stood at the stove, doing her best to allay any anxiety she might have about Shea Waterston's recovery with tomatoes, salt, and canning crocks. She broke off the hymn she had been singing and glanced at him.

  "Her wound's not nearly so inflamed as it was yesterday," she answered, trying to sound encouraging. "But she hasn't stirred. Owen's with her." The narrowing of Lily's mouth gave evidence as to what she thought of Owen Brandt's bedside manner.

  Cam himself understood it. "I'll just go look in on them," he suggested, and strode toward the front of the house.

  In Cam's bedroom Owen sat hunched beside Shea's bed. His hands were clenched between his knees as he rocked back and forth, back and forth.

  Cam cleared his throat to warn Owen he was standing in the doorway. The moment he turned, Cam was swamped by the wave of Owen's agitation and panic. He did his best to fight through it, fight free of it, then rode the swells of his own answering emotions like a skiff in choppy seas.

  When he felt steady again, Cam laid his hand on Owen's shoulder. "How is she?"

  "No better," the little man reported.

  "Well, healing takes time," he reassured him. "Lily says Shea's wound is looking better."

  "Has to get well," Owen mumbled, glancing up at Cam with red-rimmed eyes.

  Cameron couldn't imagine what Owen Brandt would do if this woman died. Shea Waterston seemed to be all he had in the world, his only friend, his only tether.

  "Lily and Emmet are doing their very best for her," Cam said quietly. "Would you like me to sit with her for a little while so you can get a breath of air?"

  So you can escape to somewhere safe.
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  Owen nodded, all but quivering with relief. He pushed hastily to his feet, then still seemed reluctant to leave. "Call me if she..."

  Cam patted him again. "Of course I will."

  Once Owen was gone, Cam settled into the chair beside the bed and took Shea's hand. It lay small and limp and cold in his. He covered it with his opposite palm and chafed it gently. He'd been preoccupied with this woman ever since he'd confronted her at the hanging in Breckenridge, and plagued by her presence every moment since she'd risked herself to protect him. Her bravery and determination confused him; that he'd needed her help disturbed him in ways he preferred not to contemplate. That he owed her upset the balance he was always fighting to maintain within himself.

  He figured he'd feel less beholden if he could talk to her, if he knew who she was and why she'd tried to help him. But she couldn't say, and those questions would poke him like a stone inside his boot until he got his answers. If he ever got the answers.

  He scowled down at where Shea Waterston lay so silent and still. Her eyes were closed; her face was as blank as a sheet of fresh parchment.

  "So are you going to get well, Mrs. Waterston?" Cam asked, as if she could hear. "Or will you leave us here to puzzle after you?"

  * * *

  The sea lifted in a swell of liquid jade, poised in sharp anticipation, then rushed in leaping, frothing waves toward the jagged shore. It shattered on the beach, shimmering like spilled gems that winked amber and scarlet in the fading light. The voice of the sea roared back from the craggy headlands that cradled this narrow crescent of sand. And as the sea howled around her, Shea Waterston spun and danced on the ocean's threshold amidst the fizzing, ice-cold foam.

  She laughed with joy at being here again, just down the path from the cottage where her da had brought her mam the night they were wed, from the cottage where she had been born and lived as a girl. She laughed again and fought for breath as the wild wind tore at her hair and flapped the hem of her wet skirts against her legs. It hummed around her, its melody fierce and familiar, as old as time. As comforting in its way, as a lullaby.

  Then above the wail of the wind came a shout, a voice she did not recognize. Shea turned from the crashing waves and saw a boy at the crest of the path that led up to the windswept headland. She ignored the bawl of the tumbling sea and fought to hear what he was saying.

  "Mam!" the boy was shouting. "Mam!"

  The cry reached her, and warm, sweet recognition wrapped around her heart. "Liam!" she cried and reached out to him.

  Her son waved in reply as she ran toward him across the cold, packed sand of that crescent beach. She scrambled up the rocky path as fast as her shaking legs and sodden skirts allowed her. With her heart hammering and the breath puffing dry in her throat, Shea crested the rise.

  "Mam," he cried again.

  Liam was running toward the rocks at the very edge of the earth, toward where the headland merged with the sky, toward where the streaks of amber and orange had stained the surface of the shifting sea.

  "Liam," she cried and scampered over stones turned coppery in the dying light. She darted over deep fissures nibbled into the promontory by raging storms and restless tides, between patches of lichen that carpeted the rocks.

  At the edge of the cliff the boy turned to her. The setting sun was at his back, limning the outline of his head and shoulders, casting his face in shadow. She reached for him again, wanting to hold him against her heart, to embrace him for the first time since he was a babe. But before she could claim him and take him home, that silhouette winked like the guttering of a candle flame and disappeared.

  Shea stood sobbing for breath, staring at the last slice of blazing sun as it bled into the darkening sea. The light faded, leaving her helpless, hopeless, blind and lost, her mind echoing with an afterimage of what might have been.

  Then light flared again, brighter than before. She blinked against the glare as it resolved itself into the flame of a kerosene lamp set on a table beside the bed where she was lying.

  Her boy was sitting just beyond the arc of lamplight. She could see his smooth, soft face; his wide pale eyes. His hair was the color of years' old rust and fell crisp against his collar.

  "Liam," she whispered and pushed up in the bed, reaching again, determined to clasp him to her this time.

  Pain ripped through her, swelling in a fierce, inexorable tide. It filled her chest, roared in her ears, and rose before her eyes like a veil of fire. She gasped in agony and fell back. Beyond the pain the image of the boy faded, engulfed in a blackness so dark and deep it might well have been the depths of eternity claiming her.

  * * *

  "Awake again, are you, my dear?" someone asked her.

  Shea shifted sluggishly in the center of the big bed and blinked to clear her vision. A tall woman in a plain black gown was standing over her. She was slender and dark-haired, and would have been pretty except that one side of her face seemed puckered somehow. Shea did her best to squint those puckers away, then realized the woman was scarred, burned perhaps some years before.

  Frowning a little, the woman bent nearer and pressed the back of one rough-skinned hand against Shea's cheek. Something about the gesture and the faint lavender scent that lingered afterward made Shea think of her mother.

  "I think your fever's down," the woman said, in a warm, throaty voice, "but I'll warrant you feel as if you've been wrung out and hung up to dry."

  Shea wasn't sure how she felt. She was beginning to realize she was occupying a sunny room where sheer muslin curtains fluttered at the windows and ivy-printed paper ran up the walls. Surely Owen hadn't been so foolish as to squander the last of their money putting her up in some fancy hotel, had he?

  "What is this place?" she asked, then was surprised at how raw and strained her own voice sounded.

  "This is my home. My brother's home," the woman corrected herself. "I'm Lily Gallimore."

  Gallimore. Shea recognized the name, but for the life of her, she couldn't place it.

  "My brother brought you here," Miss Gallimore went on.

  Gallimore. How did she know that name? Her thoughts stirred lazily like weeds beneath the surface of a pond.

  "My brother's a judge," Lily offered helpfully.

  Judge Gallimore.

  "Oh, damn," Shea whispered. The memory of Judge Gallimore tossing her into jail the day of the hanging sharpened as if she'd turned the focusing knob on her camera. "Him? The judge brought me here?"

  "Yes." Cameron Gallimore's sister seemed to be biting her lip to hide a smile. "He'll be glad to know you remember him so fondly. From what he tells me, you came to his rescue when he—How did he put it?—ran into some trouble coming out of the mountains."

  Shea had a hazy impression of three men trying to lynch a fourth. "Is he all right, your brother?"

  "Right as rain—for which I'm profoundly grateful to you."

  "I don't know that I did anything much," Shea responded, trying to remember. The effort made her almost unbearably weary, but she fought the urge to sleep long enough to ask one last question. "Is Owen all right? Did the judge bring him here, too?"

  "Owen's fine. We've put him up in the tack room out in the barn," Lily Gallimore told her as Shea closed her eyes. "I'll see that he's here when you awaken."

  The woman was as good as her word. Owen was settled in a chair beside her bed when Shea next came to herself.

  "Owen!" she breathed in relief.

  Tears welled in the old man's eyes, and he reached to take her hand. "Here, Sparrow," he whispered. "You better?"

  "You dear old thing," Shea murmured, touched by his concern. "I'm sorry if I worried you."

  It seemed odd to have Owen hovering over her. She was used to looking after him.

  "Doctor was worried, too," he informed her.

  Shea nodded and tried to take stock of herself. Her head ached, and there seemed to be some sort of stiffness along her hairline. Beneath what must be a borrowed nightgown, a bulky bandage e
ncircled one arm, and her chest was bound tight enough to make breathing a misery.

  "What happened? I can't seem to remember."

  "Saved Cam's life."

  "Cam?" she asked.

  "The judge."

  With Owen's help Shea managed to put together the bits and pieces of that day on the road. She remembered the miners and their intention to hang the judge. She'd forgotten she'd shot a man in his defense, and her stomach dipped queasily when Owen reminded her about it.

  "Did I kill him?" she asked, not sure she wanted to hear the answer.

  Owen shrugged in that way he had when he wanted to avoid something upsetting.

  She tried again. "How long ago did all that happen?"

  "A week."

  "I've been lying here for a week?" In spite of her weakness and the pain that tore along her side, Shea pushed up on her elbows. "What have you done about the plates we exposed up in the mountains?"

  Owen bobbed his head. "Safe."

  "Where are they safe?"

  "In the wagon."

  "You didn't send them to New York?" she demanded.

  "Now, Sparrow," he cajoled.

  "We need to get those plates off to New York," she insisted.

  "Ask Cam," Owen suggested as if Judge Gallimore were the final authority on everything that went on here.

  In spite of her concerns about the photographic plates and the money they needed to live on, it was only a few more minutes before Shea's eyes drifted closed.

  The woman—Lily—awakened her a good while later and fed her soup. The doctor came, a slow, soft-spoken southerner from the sound of him. He re-bandaged a wound in her arm and another along her ribs. He told her she was doing better than any of them had a right to expect. When he was done, he dosed her with laudanum to make her sleep.

  Night had darkened the windowpanes when Shea next opened her eyes. The room was dim, illuminated only by a lamp turned low on the desk in front of the window. A dark-haired man sat hunched beneath it, poring over the papers and books piled high on the desk's cluttered top.