Grace of a Hawk

by Abbie Williams

  What meager color there was in Yancy’s face drained; for the first time I spied a glimpse of the man beneath the beast I’d known while existing as his captive, and found the former almost more unsettling than the latter. He appeared in that moment not a fiendish lawman bent on revenge but instead a father whose concern for his child overrode all else. He rested his remaining hand upon the top of a nearby ladderback chair, as though unbalanced both physically and mentally, and spoke with quiet despair. “Fallon was in a black rage after seeing my missing arm. I ordered him to remain on our homestead and await my return, which he did not. And now he is missing. I have only learned of this since returning to Iowa City.”

  “Charley Rawley has inquired after him in St. Paul, as I told you,” Billings said. “But the boy has not appeared, nor have the Carter brothers reached their intended destination.”

  It was a strange, otherworldly sensation, each of us pinned beneath the same slab of sudden and heavy silence, Tilson, Sawyer, and I staring at Yancy; I did not in that moment believe Yancy was lying about Fallon. His desire to protect his son overruled any acknowledgement of that which his eldest was likely capable; despite having committed numerous heinous acts of his own, perhaps Yancy was unable to comprehend his son doing the same. I shied away from the memory of Fallon, whose smooth, deceptively angelic face belied what I truly believed to be a dark and twisted soul, one far worse than his father’s. A boy who was not a boy, who was instead empty, devoid of some vital component; I could not articulate what I felt any more clearly. It was as Sawyer and I had first suspected, and I could sense my husband’s galloping thoughts.

  Boyd can handle himself. He’d protect Malcolm with his life. Yancy’s son is no match for him.

  I asked in unspoken response, But what if he ambushed them? Came out of the night and fired upon them? Boyd had no way of knowing they were being trailed…

  I tightened my grip on Sawyer’s arm, abruptly rushed by nausea.

  “We are through here,” Yancy said then, all traces of vulnerability hidden away. I understood that he despised having fleetingly appeared weak; this side of him would never again be visible to me. His eyes burned with a hatred approaching fanaticism as he regarded us anew, his voice scratching over his parting words. “My only concern is locating my son. I pray I never see the lot of you sorry Rebs again in this life.”

  “A notion we firmly second!” Tilson heralded, tipping his hat brim with a gesture which mocked his usual effortless courtesy.

  Sawyer remained rooted, at long last facing the marshal with no qualms, no threat of Yancy’s power hovering over him. All former charges against Sawyer had been absolved, allowing him the freedom to declare, “I do not believe you. So help me if I find that you or your kin caused harm to the Carters. You will never again threaten me, or those I love, do you hear me, Yancy? I have no fear of you. Ride from here in disgrace, you miserable, armless wretch. And pray we never meet outside the boundaries of law.”

  “Dammit, that’s a threat, Davis, you’re pushing your goddamn luck. Besides, your time is up,” Billings announced, flinging open the door to the snowy morning. “Tilson! Get him out of here!”

  Yancy’s face was awash with fiery red, displacing his winter pallor. Sawyer’s jaw was set, his expression as ferocious as I’d ever seen it; I hated that Yancy retained the power to rouse in him such powerful vengeance.

  “Come, son,” Tilson urged, laying a hand to Sawyer’s back; I tensed, but Sawyer relented, not before stabbing an extended finger into Yancy’s chest, sending the man quickstepping backward.

  Tilson hustled us out, muttering at Sawyer, who allowed himself to be led summarily away. I made the mistake of looking back at Yancy, catching a final glimpse of his reddened face in the view made narrow by the closing door; his eyes glittered viciously as he mouthed a single word at me.

  Whore, he said.

  Part Two

  ST. PAUL BENEATH the April sky was a sight to behold.

  Brilliant sunshine heralded our arrival in the bustling river town, the air warm and humid, the Mississippi like an old friend, the original waterway which served to guide Sawyer and Angus, Boyd and Malcolm, from their home in Tennessee well over a year ago, its indigo length leading eventually to St. Louis, where they’d found and subsequently saved me, fate bringing together our paths. We’d left the mighty river behind for a time to cross through Iowa and now stood again along its rushing banks, at last in the state of Minnesota, marveling at the grand coursing of the water, flowing all the many thousands of miles south to Louisiana, to empty into the Gulf of Mexico.

  “Much better to be standing at the headwaters than its tail end,” I reflected, speaking over the energetic rush, leaning my cheek upon the hard warmth of Sawyer’s upper arm. The sun dusted our heads with golden radiance, dazzled our eyes with its unceasing dance atop the water, so that we saw floating starbursts upon blinking. Its warmth seemed a benediction and despite everything I was overtaken by satisfaction, a sense of powerful accomplishment. We’d made it here to Minnesota, however diverted from our original schedule.

  Sawyer marveled, “We have never been as far northward as we stand just now, darlin’, can you imagine? I figured the farthest I’d ever roam from Suttonville was perhaps Nashville.” He kissed my hair and proclaimed, “It is quite the most beautiful landscape I’ve ever imagined.”

  I nodded agreement. “It is far more wild than home. But gorgeous for its wildness.” The past fortnight of travel, wolves had distantly serenaded our night hours. If not for the comfort of knowing Sawyer and Tilson were armed to the teeth, I would have been quite unsettled; eventually the mournful howling of the creatures grew familiar, at last becoming a sound I no longer feared but instead oddly anticipated. Spring, the season of renewal, turned the prairie into a pallet of bursting color, wildflowers overtaking the gently-undulating landscape to the horizon on all sides. Birds – prairie wrens and sparrows, hummingbirds and hawks, meadowlarks and pheasants – existed by the hundreds. I felt I could never grow tired of simply staring into the distance, imbibing the joyous rioting of bloom and trill of birdsong. Poems from my childhood lessons at Mama’s knee sprang to mind as though unbidden and I recited bits of them for Sawyer as we rode together on the wagon seat; I thought, A springtime prairie possesses the power to rouse inspiration for such lines.

  “Did they stand just here, do you suppose?” I wondered, resting one hand to the enormous curve of my belly; I expected our daughter’s arrival within the month. Clad in the loosely-gathered dress, one of two which Rebecca lent me, let out to accommodate the swelling of a growing child, I pictured Malcolm and Boyd gawking at this same view last autumn.

  “It is an ideal place to appreciate the river cliffs,” Sawyer said, tightening his arm, drawing me closer to his side, cupping his free hand atop mine and intertwining our fingers over my belly. In response to his unspoken words, I rested my cheek on his chest.

  If Boyd and Malcolm had wintered in the vicinity, as we chose to believe until evidence proved otherwise, then the logical place for them to travel with the spring thaw was St. Paul. In that regard, and for the sake of giving birth near a town, we were reluctant to ride out before mid-May. We had left word at the land office and with as many local merchants as we were able this very morning; if May waned and we’d not heard a word, the tentative plan was to resume our northward course to Jacob’s homestead. Boyd and Malcolm, should they appear in town after that time, would quickly come to realize we looked for them; there was no shortage of people in St. Paul informed of our purpose. We had also sought any information regarding Fallon Yancy, thus far to no avail.

  “Young Sawyer! Young lad woodcutter! Are you and Lorissa about?” yodeled a voice altogether familiar despite my very recent introduction to its owner. The man attached to it had known Sawyer from boyhood, had himself been raised in the Bledsoe holler, and the intonation of Tennessee lingered in his words, even years after leaving the state. At this lively summoning Sawyer and I turned t
o greet Jacob Miller, uncle to Boyd and Malcolm, younger brother to Clairee, a man of three-and-thirty years whose teeming energy seemed capable of righting any wrong. As did we, Jacob refused to believe his nephews were dead; as agreed upon through written correspondence earlier in the spring, he’d met us in St. Paul only yesterday afternoon, having himself arrived but a day past, and vowed we would determine the truth of their fate.

  “I didn’t want to approach from the left and startle you, Davis!” Jacob said. I was still growing accustomed to his outrageous humor, though Sawyer minded not a whit, explaining that he expected nothing less. It was just like coming home, Sawyer told me last night, after my initial introduction to Jacob; it seemed he had been known in Suttonville for his blunt-spoken nature, could be counted upon for unvarnished opinions, and seemed predisposed to tease – though I sensed in him a kind spirit; his devotion to kin proved his loyalty.

  Because Boyd and Malcolm resembled their father, Bainbridge, to a marked degree and Jacob’s relation was to their mother, Jacob did not look as much like them as I’d hoped, but there was a similarity in the way he moved, a set to his wide shoulders and sturdy, long-limbed frame that called Boyd to mind, especially. His hair was a pale brown, as of autumn oak leaves, grown long enough to be arranged into a thick braid, around which he had ceremoniously wrapped otter fur. His skin bore a ruddy tan from relentless exposure to sunlight, white squint lines at the outer corners of wide-set eyes, a shade of brown to match his hair. Lower face swathed in a full beard, into which were twisted many small braids, some adorned with indigo-colored trade beads shaped like tiny barrels, and clad in leather from shoulders to boots, Jacob cut an intriguing figure. He proved an incessant talker – just like Malcolm, I kept thinking – and smiled with affable frequency.

  “My youngest favors my face decorated,” he’d explained upon our first meeting, catching a bead between forefinger and thumb. “I am a gol-durned softhearted fool for my little ones. And don’t they know it! Their mama is the disciplinarian in our household, mark my words.”

  “You’d hardly approach unannounced from right or left, the way you crash through the brush,” Sawyer said in response, and Jacob laughed, tipping at the waist to direct his merriment at the sunny sky.

  “Aw, young Davis, it does my heart a good turn to hear your voice, to see you married up, proper-like, with a little one on the way,” Jacob said, winking amiably at me. In the tone of a conspirator, he added, “This one was a right devil as a boy, always seeking trouble with my nephews.” And then to Sawyer, “Bainbridge and your daddy was as busy thrashing your hides as they was farming. That is, if they could catch the rowdy lot of you. Them days was golden as sunlight. I ain’t got a bad memory from that time, I swear. You done grown a piece, might I observe, young lad. Last I saw you, you weren’t rightly at my shoulder, and now look. Sweet Clairee, God rest her dear soul, always expected you’d marry the pick of the ladies, and of course she was right as the rain.”

  Jacob paused for breath and I managed a word. “Had you any luck this morning?”

  “That’s what I’ve come to tell the both of you,” Jacob said, indicating the gradual incline which led to the town itself, a humming wasp’s nest of activity this fair Saturday, the last week of April. The Mississippi provided its primary industry, and cargo flats and paddlewheels were in the process of being loaded even as we stood idle, watching from above. Docks led to anchored riverboats, barrels rolling along gangplanks and men scurrying, toting goods and pushing wheelbarrows, leading livestock. Warehouses dotted the length of the river, the levee stretching east and west, and the busiest streets were those adjacent to the water. I spied saloons and boardinghouses, a hotel, mercantile shops and dry goods; there was the livery stable, bustling with plenty of business of its own.

  “You’ll think me licentious for the getting of it, though I am not,” Jacob continued. “A young woman employed in yonder cathouse remembers Boyd and Malcolm, both, from last fall!”

  Hope pulsed at the juncture of my ribs. It was the first confirmation we’d been given that the two of them had indeed reached St. Paul. I wanted to sprint to our camp – never minding that I could hardly walk unassisted, these days – and relay this good news to Rebecca and Tilson.

  “What did she say?” I begged.

  “I bid her wait and let me fetch the two of you before she told me what she knew. Lorissa, your sensibilities ain’t easily offended, are they? My Hannah would have a thing or two to say about my setting foot within such a place, but in this instance I do believe it was a necessary act.”

  While Jacob was kin to people I dearly loved, and indeed considered my own kin, I was unready to trust him with the magnitude of my past and so replied with only the briefest truth. “No, I am not easily offended.”

  We had departed Iowa City just after dawn on Monday the fifteenth of March, a journey since well documented in the journal with which Sawyer gifted me before we left. Our first week proved arduous, as my comfort was Sawyer’s primary concern and our resultant pace was suitably slow; however, as the weeks progressed and I showed no signs of overt fatigue, or ill health, and in fact felt more spirited than ever at the prospect of at last moving onward, we made better headway. In our company were Tilson, Rebecca, Cort and Nathaniel, and Malcolm’s gray cat, Stormy; the house and shanty cabin, the barn and surrounding land existed now in the sole possession and care of Clemens, who did not wish to leave Iowa with us. Rebecca parted tearfully from her brother, with whom she’d lived since her husband’s death, and promised to write frequently; Tilson told him there would never fail to be a place for him if ever he chose to join us in Minnesota.

  Tilson’s decision to venture from home was one he made only after careful deliberation; his final say on the matter was, “I can’t rightly let my niece and great-nephews roam so far without me. Nor can I allow an expectant young pair, a pair I love as dearly as any daughter or son of my own, to travel without a physician. And beyond that, the picture of myself without you-all is more than I can bear.”

  We had passed the dreary winter with preparations for the journey, which helped to ease the restless agitation of necessary immobility, and at last set forth with two covered wagons, one with a pallet made up for my use – Sawyer would not allow me to sleep upon the ground – a contingent of livestock, including Whistler, Admiral, and Juniper, and Tilson’s Kingfisher. Pete and Penelope, the mules, pulled Tilson’s wagon, which Rebecca and Tilson took turns driving, while Juniper and Admiral pulled ours, loaded with all of the supplies Boyd and Malcolm had been unable to carry with them last summer. Food, tools, crates and tins, equipment and tack, all stowed neatly; we would build what furniture we needed upon arrival. Tucked carefully into the bundle of Clairee’s silk wedding dress, which I had worn for mine and Sawyer’s handfasting, were my mama’s ivory hairbrush and my wedding ring, awaiting a time when, post-birth, my finger could again accommodate it. The dress itself was folded into Sawyer’s old leather trunk, the one which contained the pieces of his past he had recovered from his family’s burned-out home after the War.

  Occasionally I drove our wagon so that Sawyer might ride Whistler, an act once as familiar to him as breathing; since the loss of his eye he had resumed riding with subsequent difficulties, but his determination eventually won out. He used the hours of daily travel to grow accustomed to sitting the saddle with the altered perspective of one-sided vision; with the same concern in mind, he and Tilson spent many an evening hour target-shooting, or hunting if we set up camp early enough. His noticeable pleasure at taking the saddle, of cantering our dear Whistler over the prairie, filled my heart with quiet joy.

  “Look there, little one, there’s your daddy,” I would speak aloud to my bulging belly, watching as they raced along, as swift as water over rocks in a creek bed. Whistler’s legs appeared a flowing blur of motion while Sawyer bent low over her head, effortless and beautiful, as though they were a single entity instead of two. He would circle her back to the wagons, drawin
g near just slightly out of breath, Whistler prancing in her delight at once again carrying him upon her back, and grin at me in the way he had – a grin belonging to me alone, that spoke of happiness and contentment, and of promises yet to be fulfilled.

  “How I love to see you sitting there in the sun, mo mhuirnín milis,” he would say, without fail. “A simple pleasure I am eternally grateful for.”

  “How I wish I was riding alongside you.”

  “I wish the same,” he said, Whistler at a graceful walk beside the wagon; she whickered her agreement and Sawyer angled close enough to reach and grasp my outstretched hand. As he asked every day, multiple times, “The ride isn’t too rough, is it?”

  I felt each and every rut; it was difficult to sit upon the hard wagon seat for hours on end, even with a blanket tucked beneath, and the discomfort banded my lower back by day’s end. I admitted, “A little. But I am well, love, don’t fret.”

  “I’ll rub the knots away this evening,” he promised, and he had, without fail, every night of our journey as we lay together in the cramped quarters of the wagon, Sawyer cradling me through the night, listening to the spring wind as March gave way to a mild and sunny April. Tilson’s pipe smoke often drifted into the wagon, as he preferred to sit near the fire just as he had back in Iowa, long after everyone else retired. Many a night Sawyer joined him, the two of them speaking in low, comforting tones.

  “So Fallon has more gumption than we’d figured,” Tilson had said shortly after the confrontation in the jailhouse. Yancy had departed Iowa City the very winter morning we’d spoken to him, presumably bound to retrieve Dredd from the Rawleys’ homestead; from there it seemed he would not rest until finding Fallon – and, God willing, then make haste to Wyoming Territory, our paths never to cross again.

  If only it were that uncomplicated, I thought, too distrustful to assume we’d heard the last of them.