Grace of a Hawk

by Abbie Williams

  “As soon as we are able, we’ll resume our original course,” he said, quietly adamant. “It is the immobility that is hardest to bear, being confined, however reasonably, to this place when the both of us long to continue onward. But I do not regret the decision to remain here for these winter months, Lorie-love, I would that you know this. Never would I consider bringing you through perilous weather.”

  “Spring thaw,” I whispered. “We will make ready to travel by spring thaw.”

  “I would see our daughter safely delivered here, in this place.”

  “Rebecca and the boys will accompany us, she and I have spoken of it.” With growing determination, I pressed, “I am healthy and strong, and there is no need to delay once the season for snow has passed. There is no reason I cannot –” But the familiar and unresolved argument was cut short as Sawyer’s expression changed; he lifted his head as though responding to a call only he could hear, brows drawing inward.

  “Rider,” he said, and the faint sounds of an approaching horse met my ears in the next instant.

  “Clemens?” I speculated, and a burst of fear expanded like buckshot in my center; Clemens would only be arriving so late in the night hours if there was trouble.

  “I’ll see what this is about,” Sawyer said, hurrying into his trousers, tugging his suspenders over both shoulders, helping me into my own garments with gentle efficiency, both of us listening as a cantering horse neared. He bent to kiss me, murmuring, “I’ll return directly, Lorie-love.”

  I fetched my shawl, draped over the back of the rocking chair near the brazier, wrapping into its warmth as Sawyer disappeared outside, wishing to be at his side but reluctant to venture into the cold night only half-dressed. Sawyer had not collected his outer garments or his eyepatch, and I gathered these from the floor – where they’d fallen or been flung in our haste to make love only an hour before – moving next to the door, attempting to derive sense from the low rumble of male voices speaking in the dooryard. A sudden burst of wind broke itself in twain around the sides of the shanty; though I could not see it through the canvas over our lone window, I envisioned the resultant chaos of falling snow swirling about my husband and the horse and rider with whom he now spoke. I thought I could discern Tilson’s voice as well. My heart beat a tense and rapid refrain as I waited.

  How I despise waiting, Rebecca had said. And how well I agreed. Waiting was a loathsome task, seeming the lot of womenfolk. We waited at our hearths while men left home to fight and to roam, waiting until the agony of both our imaginations and the dreadful unknown became powerful enough to peel the skin from our very bones. Until we could bear no more the increasing darkness of our thoughts, the subsequent helplessness in the face of not knowing. Left behind, abandoned to this fate unless we chose to act. I drew a slow, calming breath through my nose, as Tilson had taught me, and thought, No more. I will wait no more. Sawyer can be convinced. We will not be kept from venturing to Minnesota, from finding Malcolm and Boyd, and completing our journey.

  I placed my palms upon the swelling of my daughter; the babe responded by returning the pressure, as though privy to the restless resolve of my thoughts. Perhaps it was foolhardy, the result of desperation, but I felt her strength inside of me in that moment, the tremendous vitality of her, and knew in my deepest heart that she would be born far from where I now stood. She would survive; her heart would beat and relay through her body blood of mine, and of Sawyer’s, and she would live long past either of us, carrying forth our heritage for many subsequent generations of the Davis family.

  My daughter, my precious baby, I thought, communing with her, however implausible others might find the notion – but then, was not the connection forged between her father and me of the same nature? Illogical, yes, but more real than anything ever known to me. The tremendous power of what Sawyer and I shared now seemed centered in the midpoint of my body and I promised my daughter, You will thrive, I will make certain of this. And you will do so, we will all do so, in Minnesota. I have felt it to be true, I have dreamed of us there, you at my breast, my darling girl.

  Sawyer’s footsteps were returning to the shanty and I opened the door; the sight of his face sent immediate shards of trepidation through my heart. Beyond his shoulder I beheld Tilson leading Clemens’ horse to the barn, toting a lantern in his free hand; Rebecca was framed in the open door of the main house, her long dark hair hanging loose over her shawl as she stepped aside to allow her brother entrance. The wind’s increase caused snow to fly sideways; the chill air darted beneath my hem, inspiring shivers.

  “What is it?” I asked, as Sawyer entered our shanty and latched the door behind him.

  “Yancy has resurfaced in Iowa City this very night,” he said.

  THE JAILHOUSE, OUTSIDE of which we parked the wagon this early Friday morning, January first, remained a place I despised revisiting. Regardless of the passage of time between Sawyer’s imprisonment within these very walls and this moment, nausea clutched at me, allowing no quarter, induced by the scents of the space and the painful remembrance of how close Sawyer had come to losing his life. I held fast to his upper arm on this overcast morning a few minutes past the hour of nine, having insisted upon accompanying him and Tilson on their errand of confronting Thomas Yancy. I refused to let my abhorrence of the man keep me from the task after Clemens had related the astounding news of Yancy’s reappearance. I’d been hard-pressed to keep Sawyer from riding into town in last night’s blizzard, to demand of Yancy every last scrap of information.

  Snow continued to fall by midmorning’s subdued light, dusting our heavy woolen outer layers, the men’s coats and my cloak; I tugged with impatience at my wool bonnet, which, while snugly warm, served to act as would blinders upon a horse, limiting my view of Iowa City as the wagon crunched over the icy ruts in the road. And so it was that I did not observe Alice Doherty stationed before the jailhouse until Sawyer drew the team of mules to a halt.

  “What right have you?” she demanded at once, without so much as a perfunctory greeting. Bundled in layers of dark-colored cloth, she resembled a stout barrel set atop boots; a thick scarf knotted her neck, above which her eyes blazed with contemptuous fire as she carried on. “Marshal Yancy is a man of the law! What do the likes of you know of law, a man who raised arms against the government of the United States of America and a common whore?”

  Her words seemed powerful enough to emblazon the sky above, as though cast in flames for all to see. I was rendered immobile, shocked to silence; passersby on the street paused, footsteps faltering at the sound of her voice, its cadence calling forth a picture of a preacher at his pulpit. I reflected that Alice Doherty’s late father had been a man of the cloth.

  Undying hatred, I thought, the knot reforming in my center.

  Sawyer moved so swiftly from the wagon seat I was scarcely aware of his passage to the ground to plant his imposing figure before the fearsome woman, who drew herself straighter as though in preparation to exchange physical blows. Sawyer, a good two heads taller than Alice, leaned close and spoke in a low voice; I strained to hear his words above the falling snow and murmurings of other people. Tilson reined Kingfisher to a halt, dismounted with haste, and stepped at once to Sawyer’s side.

  Backing immediately away from Tilson and my husband, gathering closer her shawl, Alice took stock of her fellow townsfolk and shouted, “These men make threats to my person!”

  To my great relief, Tilson issued a barking laugh. He raised his voice to say, “Alice Doherty, you noisome busybody! The only one making threats to you is that voice within your skull!”

  There was a stirring of commentary amongst those listening; I yanked the wool bonnet from my head, frustrated at the lack of peripheral vision. I could not manage to clamber from the wagon, swathed as I was in multiple layers, and increasingly ungainly, and so sat observing from above. In the absence of protection, wind swirled around my ears and snow wet my forehead, but I was too concerned to cover up, my gaze roving about the sma
ll crowd. I was shocked anew at Alice’s demonstrable sangfroid, considering, as we learned last night, that she had allowed Thomas Yancy recent quarter in her very home.

  Clemens had further relayed to us that Marshal Quade’s testimony, in addition to ours, concerning the events of the night Zeb Crawford took Sawyer from the jail in order to burn him alive in Tilson’s yard, was sufficient to create a sizeable stain on Yancy’s reputation as a lawman; he had been summarily stripped of his former route in Iowa and reassigned to the newly-formed Wyoming Territory. There was a modicum of satisfaction in learning this, though I would be a liar if I did not admit I continued to wish the man dead and buried; further, it proved even more reason to appreciate Leverett Quade’s help. Quade, as Clemens told us a few weeks ago, had ridden forth from Iowa City, bound northward, but Clemens retained no new information regarding Quade’s current location. I knew it hurt Rebecca to learn of his absence, especially considering how Quade rode from town in haste, with his pride and – I was honest enough to recognize – his heart both wounded.

  Tilson, Clemens, Rebecca, Sawyer, and I debated long into the hours of last night, gathered at the table near the woodstove, speculating over Alice Doherty’s role in harboring Yancy; had she been motivated to extend this invitation and resultant shelter because of Yancy’s shared hatred of former Confederates? Or was there something perhaps deeper, a relationship of a physical nature between them? Of course Alice, being a self-appointed paragon of virtues, would hardly admit to taking a lover. She would likely cleave to her story that she offered the marshal a place in which to recover. Since last we saw him, Yancy’s right arm had been removed at midpoint; the surgeon had not been able to save the elbow joint, leaving behind a stump approximately six inches in length. Clemens explained that Yancy had walked into the sheriff’s office yesterday evening, for all the world as though he hadn’t been missing a single day.

  “Clear outta here!” Tilson ordered the small crowd in the no-nonsense tone I admired so in him. He wore his wide-brimmed duster, long gray hair hanging past his jaws. Having served as the town’s physician long enough that his reputation was well established, and subsequently untarnished, people obeyed without trouble; all except Alice.

  Sawyer lifted me from the wagon, murmuring against my temple as he set me upon the snowy ground, “I am sorry, love.” I could feel the angry tension vibrating from him, as strings upon a fiddle when struck soundly by the bow. That someone would speak so to me infuriated him; had Alice been a man, I retained no doubts that Sawyer would have taken him to his knees for directing such insults my way.

  Alice insinuated herself in my path, hissing, “Whore!”

  Sawyer’s ire was so heated she should have been incinerated; he ordered through his teeth, “You will not speak so to my wife, you wretched woman.”

  “Or what?” she challenged, and belligerently jutted her chin closer to my face; I refused to shy away. Sawyer’s desire to smash a fist against Alice’s jaw grew more potent with each heartbeat and I eased between them, as subtly as I was able.

  “Or I’ll set you toppling into yonder stock trough, frozen over or no,” Tilson answered instead, his tone conversational. “Get yourself gone, woman, this instant.” Not waiting to see if Alice followed this command, Tilson ushered Sawyer and me into the jailhouse, shutting the outer door firmly behind us.

  No respite, I understood, confronted suddenly with Sheriff Billings, a gaunt, angular man whose patience was usually as thin as gauze. And, beyond his shoulder, there stood Thomas Yancy. At once encompassed by a sensation not unfamiliar, I nonetheless held my ground as the overcrowded room seemed to crush inward around our bodies, rotating on a large axis. I fought the sensations and drew a steadying breath, taking comfort in the fact that Sawyer and Tilson stood to either side, unwilling to allow any harm to me – but even their combined reassurance could not fully negate the darkness of my memories. It had been on Yancy’s order last summer that I become Zeb Crawford’s prisoner, a man who would have killed me within a day and a night, but not before exacting torture upon my person. Yancy had run my dying pony to ground, had witnessed my desperate struggle with Jack Barrow and my subsequent shooting of the loathsome little man.

  Far worse than any of these things, Yancy’s sole desire had been – and likely remained – to cause as much pain to Sawyer as he was able; despite a judge having absolved Sawyer of the charges against him, Yancy continued to wish him dead by whatever means necessary, of this I harbored no false assumptions. The air in the space melded into a hard lump of antagonism. My eyes darted over Yancy’s imposing form; even short an arm, he retained a sense of arrogance afforded to him by his station as a marshal. Though, he wore not his marshal’s badge this morning, cloaked instead in dour grays this snowy day, his shirtsleeve trimmed and pinned to accommodate the missing appendage; he was thinner in frame and feature, pale with winter, full beard neatly trimmed beneath the shadow of his hat. I squelched, with effort, the need to turn away from his cruel gaze.

  “Where have you been?” Sawyer demanded, without hesitation. “Where are Boyd and Malcolm Carter? Did you follow them north?”

  “So quick to assume,” Yancy said, and his voice was all too familiar, faintly hoarse; he spoke around a sore throat. “I have no answers for you, Davis. If I’d had my way, summer past, your rotten carcass would have swung in the town square.”

  “Goddammit,” Billings grunted, on a sigh. “I’ll not stand for wayward bickering. Davis is cleared, Thomas. And Davis, Clemens said you wished to ask a question or two and be on your way.” Billings drew from his vest a pocket watch and ordered, “You’ve the space of five minutes, starting now.”

  Sawyer squared his shoulders and began afresh. “Where have you dallied these past months?”

  “My whereabouts remain none of your concern,” Yancy said. “I am passing through Iowa City solely to collect my youngest son from the Rawley homestead and be on our way. I’ve been reassigned to the Wyoming Territory but I intend first to find my eldest.”

  Tilson barked, “Fannie Rawley is a good woman, much aggrieved by your boy’s disappearance. Charley Rawley has exerted considerable effort searching for him.”

  Yancy allowed, “And I remain indebted to them.”

  “When did you last see Fallon?” Sawyer pressed.

  Yancy’s nostrils narrowed with an indrawn breath and it was apparent he grappled with the desire to say nothing; conceding that we would discover the information regardless, he finally admitted, “The last I saw my son, Fallon told me he intended to track the Carters and bring them to justice, dear and loyal lad that he remains. I did not consent to these wishes of his, nor did I believe at the time that he truly intended to ride out after them. I would have prevented him, had I suspected the depth of his resolution.”

  “When was this?” Tilson demanded.

  “‘Justice?’” Sawyer repeated, tensed as though to spring forward. His words flew, clipped and fiery. “Your son is no lawman! He has less than no right! Where the hell is he this day?”

  “He had every right to demand justice for the Carter boy’s unlawful actions! I lost an arm for my trouble!” Yancy blustered, gesturing unnecessarily at the stump. “I’ve not spoken a word with my boy since August last, that is God’s truth, and I’ll not deny I fear for his continued safety. I would have stopped him from riding forth, had I been able, but I didn’t believe he would leave Iowa. I ordered him to wait for me and he disobeyed.”

  “You admit that Fallon intended to pursue the Carters and now we’ve even more reason to believe that he has delayed their journey,” Tilson said, eyeing Billings to include the sheriff in the accusation. “They’ve been missing these many months. By God, if we learn that Fallon had a thing to do with it –”

  “Are you threatening my son?” Yancy thundered.

  “If your son took unlawful actions against Boyd an’ Malcolm Carter, then yes, I am!”

  Billings all but growled, “Enough of this!”

 
“It was on your orders that Crawford attack my home, might I remind you, Yancy,” Tilson went on, stepping aggressively ahead, undeterred by Billings’ aggravation. “Upon two separate occasions last summer!”

  “I ordered no such thing! Crawford was mad as a tick-bit hound. He acted alone, as I’ve recently stated before my superiors in Washington.” Yancy’s tone was again circumspect, controlled. “I did my best to stop Crawford that night.”

  “You lie,” Sawyer accused, quiet and dangerous. “You told that bastard to come to the jailhouse for me, and later to Tilson’s homestead. You told him to finish it. You hid and watched, and rode like a coward when you saw that Crawford was dead.”

  “I am no coward,” Yancy hissed. “Nor a liar! I’ll not be accused of such by the likes of you, Davis. Shameful enough that a fellow marshal speak out against me. Thanks to Leverett Quade, in my absence I’ve been stripped of my route in Iowa and reassigned to the Territories. I’ll not be accused of further untruths, not by a goddamn murdering Reb.”

  I found my voice, facing Yancy for the first time in months, refusing to flinch away in fear, as instinct dictated. Thinking of the empty-eyed boy I’d first met at the Rawleys’ homestead last summer, I said, “You admit your son spoke of following the Carters. What was his intent for them? Did his ‘justice’ include killing them?”

  All eyes came to rest upon me as I made these queries; there was a sustained lull as Sawyer and Tilson reined in their anger. Yancy drew a breath and I imagined his thoughts whirling as he endeavored to fashion a response which would not unwittingly incriminate his offspring.

  Billings spoke, this time with a marked lessening of ire. “Charley Rawley claims the boy ran away last September. Rawley has put out a great many inquiries regarding him, Thomas. The Rawley family has been greatly distressed over his welfare, this you must acknowledge.”