Grace of a Hawk

by Abbie Williams

  I hear. I hear you, Boyd Carter.

  THE NIGHT HAD grown deep and quiet. I lingered in a rocking chair positioned near the bed, Rose in my arms; I had sat at a bedside thus vigilantly before, and in the same company. The thought of sleep was repulsive. I kept the chair in a gentle, creaking rhythm, my anxious gaze flitting between Rebecca and Boyd, who sat in the dimness with his head bowed over his forearms at Rebecca’s hip, his protective hands interlocked about one of hers. I had not been allowed to witness the stitching of the bullet wound, the exit point of which had torn apart the flesh near the lowest rib on the right side of her abdomen, leaving a ragged tunnel in her body, though I had heard the process through the thin walls of the Jeffries’ boardinghouse, crawling from my skin in agony at the sounds of her cries.

  Sawyer had assisted Tilson – dear Tilson, who’d first proceeded to bandage his own injured head with a hastily-tied length of linen. “No time, I’ll tell the story later,” was all he would say on the matter, worrying not a whit over the state of his injury. Fiendish with purpose, Tilson had cleansed the bullet wound with a tincture of vinegar, crushed garlic, and witch hazel, and had then sewn closed both entry and exit points with the precise stitches at which he’d long since grown expert. Despite his outward unflappability, however, I knew Tilson well enough to see the strain that performing surgery upon his niece had taken on him, the tremble in his sturdy frame when he came to check on Rose and me, afterward.

  I had but one question, a husk in my throat as I whispered, “Will she…”

  Tilson studied my face and I knew he would not lie to me. His voice, already made hoarse by an injury sustained in the War, was scarcely audible. “I pray so.”

  Sawyer, himself drawn and pale, a toll exacted upon each of us this long night, sat without words upon the bed and collected both Rose and me close, holding fast, resting his face upon my hair, bending farther to kiss our daughter’s rounded cheek as Tilson offered a rudimentary explanation of how he and Sawyer had treated Rebecca’s wounds; as his student, he knew I would wish to know.

  “Aw, Lorie,” Sawyer whispered, and I heard the ancient ache in his voice, that of his desire to protect those he loved and his subsequent understanding that harm came creeping no matter what safeguards he placed between it and us, with no regard for the resultant damage. I thought, sending the words straight to his mind, I am here. I love you, and I am here.

  “Boyd is with her,” Tilson said, sinking to the foot of the bed, wrapping his grip about one of the posts. His shoulders sagged but his voice held a note of tenderness, and acceptance, as he added gruffly, “He won’t leave her side.”

  “Is he all right? Where’s Malcolm?” I persisted, aggravated at my lack of knowledge. I’d not seen him since he had, after a hasty explanation, chased after Boyd; I could only imagine the torture Boyd had endured this night.

  “Malcolm is at our camp,” Tilson assured. “And Sheriff Tate is downstairs, he’s come direct from speaking with Jacob.” Tilson shifted, passing a hand over his craggy face. The bandage he’d tied about his head was askew, exhaustion weighting his frame as he said to Sawyer, “Son, we best meet with him. Tate’s got a few questions and I figure Boyd ain’t up to it, not just now.”

  I clutched at Sawyer’s elbow. “Let me go to her.”

  He tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “Lorie-love, I would that you rest.”

  “Sawyer,” I implored. “Please, I cannot sleep. I will only lie here awake and wondering.” He knew me well, realizing I would persist until he relented, and gathered my shawl and tucked it about me with the sweet and husbandly gestures so natural to him. And so I came to sit in a rocking chair at Rebecca’s bedside, Rose a soft, weighted bundle in my arms.

  Rebecca lay now in drug-induced slumber, paler still than the sheet drawn modestly to her shoulders. Her slender arms were bare, the delicate contours of her bones appearing almost unbearably fragile beneath her skin, bandages swathing her torso; Tilson ascertained that at least two of her ribs sustained fractures, and I had assisted him long enough to realize, without being told, there was very little to be done in the way of setting broken ribs. Even bound tightly, one could do scant more than allow them to heal, and endure the subsequent weeks of painful waiting.

  Rebecca’s blood loss was significant, evidenced by the bruise-colored shadows beneath her eyes, her ashen appearance. Doses of laudanum had not proved enough to completely dull her pain and I found room to be thankful that Cort and Nathaniel, kept at camp with Jacob, had been unable to hear their mother’s distress. Too much had occurred this day and I struggled to make sense of it, finding meager comfort in the repetitive, mind-numbing rhythm of the rocker, the gentle heft of my sleeping daughter in my arms. Rose stirred and I murmured to her, and Boyd’s wide shoulders shifted as he straightened incrementally, refusing to release his hold on Rebecca.

  “Boyd,” I whispered. I wanted so badly to tell him Rebecca would be all right, that she would wake with morning’s light and restore to him his reason for living, but I remained hesitant to speak in absolutes. Tilson’s prognosis was cautious, at best, which Boyd well knew. Tilson explained Rebecca’s stomach had not been compromised, a fact which offered a measure of relief; had the stomach lining been punctured by a bullet’s flight, not even Tilson could have saved her from a septic death. He’d done his damnedest and Rebecca was now, as Mrs. Jeffries had said, in the care of the angels.

  Boyd acknowledged my speaking of his name with a slight movement of his head. I’d never heard him in such a state as that which he’d been upon carrying Rebecca into the boardinghouse earlier this evening, and prayed I’d never witness him in such torment again. I’d gleaned only incremental information since; Tilson and Sawyer continued to speak with the sheriff, downstairs in the Jeffries’ lobby. I knew poor Mary had been killed, and a man named Royal Lawson, who had ridden in from the Territories along with Boyd; Virgil Turnbull was also dead this night. Boyd, assured that Malcolm was safe at camp with Jacob, refused to otherwise acknowledge the sheriff’s presence.

  “This is my fault,” Boyd said, so quietly the words were almost lost in the thick air of the little room. His back was to me, shoulders hunched. His hair and beard were at riotous lengths but his deep voice retained its familiar Tennessee drawl. I recalled the gaping, jagged-edged rending in my heart when it had been Sawyer unconscious upon a bed; seeing Rebecca in a similar state was nearly as agonizing. I knew Boyd well enough to realize that any word I spoke to the contrary would provoke his adamant ire. And so I waited.

  “I rode away from her,” he whispered, rife with the desire to punish himself. “I left her behind. I should have listened to you, Lorie-girl, and to Sawyer, oh dear God, I should not have left. It’s the worst mistake I’ve ever made.”

  I risked saying, “You are here now.”

  He looked over his shoulder and his eyes were raw and red, his voice cleaving around a dense husk. “Fallon was after the boy an’ me, from the beginning.”

  “You are not to blame.” Tears stung the bridge of my nose and flowed over my cheeks; so recently he and Malcolm had yet been missing and I’d believed I would never see them again. “You are not to blame. Rebecca understood why you must go, last summer. She blamed herself for not confessing the truth of her feelings for you before you left.” My voice gained in intensity and I leaned forward. “She is the dearest friend I have ever known and I mean to have her for a true sister, which she will be as soon as the two of you are wed. Do you hear me? I mean to see our children raised up together, Boyd Brandon Carter, as you yourself spoke of the night Sawyer and I wed, when the four of us saw the shooting star. Y’all will recall.” Swiping at my tears, I badgered, “Do you recall?”

  “I recall,” Boyd whispered at last.

  “Good.” I drew a deep breath. My lips trembled as I whispered, “We thought we’d never see you again.” Rose twitched, issuing a chuffing squawk; Boyd’s gaze dropped to her and a ghost of a smile touched his mouth. His upper l
ip was all but obscured by the tangle of a full black beard. I thought of the myriad and often ribald stories I’d heard of his father, Bainbridge Carter, and understood I was looking upon that very man’s face, here in his son. A man whose love for his family overrode all else.

  “Might I…” Boyd nodded at Rose, his voice hardly more than a breath, and I nodded, smiling through my tears. He stood, slowly as an old man, first bending over the bed to kiss Rebecca’s lips with utmost care, caressing hair from her brow, trailing tender kisses along her neck, her shoulder, her bare arm. Rather than a flush of embarrassment that I was witness to such intimate ministrations, I instead felt blessed, buoyed with simple gladness; how I wished Rebecca was awake. Boyd ended with his face at her upturned palm, which he cradled to his cheek. Addressing her, he whispered, “I aim to give you a daughter first thing, darlin’.”

  “Many daughters,” I amended for him as he lifted Rose from my arms and reclaimed the low footstool beside the bed, holding her to his powerful chest.

  “She’s a right beautiful little thing, Lorie-girl,” he murmured, cradling Rose in the crook of his elbow. “I can’t rightly recall the last time I held a little one. Fact is I don’t know that I ever held one this small. She ain’t but a sprite.” He looked up and met my solemn gaze. His shoulders lifted with a half-sighing shudder as he whispered, “By God, it’s good to be back. You can’t know how much we’ve missed you-all.”

  I wanted to demand answers, to understand what they’d seen and where they’d been, for Boyd to elaborate, with far greater depth, Malcolm’s hastily-told tale, which had most tenderly focused its primary attention upon a little girl named Cora Lawson. Further, I wanted to lay eyes again upon Malcolm; I’d not come close to satisfying my need to hug my sweet boy. On the heels of the thought bounded another – he is hardly a boy any longer. As much as I might rebel against the idea, I must acknowledge this truth. Before I could speak there was a soft rap on the door and Sawyer entered, followed by Tilson. Sawyer crouched beside my chair and Tilson went at once to the bed, leaning over Rebecca; I studied his back with a wary eye, on guard for any hint of concern in the set of his shoulders. Boyd was also rendered motionless, watching as Tilson rested the back of his left hand to Rebecca’s brow.

  “No fever, she’s breathing well,” Tilson murmured. He turned to us and his stern gaze fell upon me. “I would that you rest a spell, honey.”

  I shook my head, unable to relent to this request. Exhaustion dragged at me but I could not sleep, not yet. Sawyer stroked his thumb up and down along the nape of my neck, wordlessly telling me he agreed with Tilson, but he understood why I would remain here rather than retreat to bed.

  “Is he gone?” I asked, referring to the sheriff.

  “He is,” Sawyer affirmed, and then addressed Boyd, saying in a hushed tone of concern, “Tate said they recovered one body near the river. No mounts.”

  Boyd’s dark eyebrows knit, his spine straightened. He cast his gaze about the room as though to search for unseen intruders. I rose from the rocking chair, not without difficulty, and fetched Rose from his grasp, lest he forget he held a newborn. “Do they know who he is?”

  “Hoyt Little, the sheriff said,” Tilson explained, as Sawyer helped me to sit, adjusting my shawl. Beneath a linen dressing gown my nether regions were bound with cloths similar to those I used during my monthly bleeding, my entire lower body beset by a dull, lingering ache, however unwilling I was to acknowledge my discomfort in the face of Rebecca’s.

  Boyd plunged both hands through his overgrown hair – under happier circumstances, I would have poked good-natured fun at him, my surrogate brother, for this copious mop of curls as luxurious as any locks I’d ever beheld – and further stood its length on end. He all but growled, “What about Fallon? Malcolm said he was dead.”

  Tilson said, “Jacob’s bringing the young’uns to town just now, Tate told us, as he figured it’s better to be safe than sorry. Tate and his deputy are both on the alert, I reckon, after three killings in their town, four if you count the fella by the river.”

  Sawyer was watching Boyd; speaking low, Sawyer said, “I’ll sit watch with you.”

  Boyd’s agitated movements stilled as he gained a measure of calm from Sawyer’s words. He nodded, looking at Sawyer with gratitude carved upon his strong features. “I don’t believe them bastards’ll chance a rush this night, even if they did survive to regroup, but I feel better knowing you’s here, old friend, I can’t tell you.”

  “What else?” I asked of Sawyer, studying the planes his angular cheekbones created upon his familiar face, sensing there was far more; his eye held mine for a heartbeat as he acknowledged this.

  Sawyer continued, “The woman named Isobel told Sheriff Tate what she knew. Last August Virgil Turnbull strangled a woman named Emilia, who was employed at The Dolly Belle. Isobel knew he’d done it and kept his secret, for a price.”

  Tilson picked up the gruesome account. “The proprietor, Jean Luc Beaupré, was also privy to this sorry secret but rather than cause a scandal the likes of which could run him out of business for good, he ordered Virgil to get rid of the poor girl’s body and then put out word that Emilia had run off for greener pastures.”

  Boyd drew an elongated breath through his nose, staring into the middle distance, dark gaze directed at the floorboards; at last he muttered, “It makes sense. Virgil fancied a girl who didn’t fancy him, this Emilia. And I recall Grady once saying that Isobel was sweet on Virgil but he didn’t return the affection. I s’pose a secret like that, a murdering, gave her something to hold over him.” His gaze sharpened. “What of Dyer Lawson?”

  “Cora’s father?” I clarified. I’d not yet met Cora for all that Malcolm had spoken of her earlier this evening. The poor girl had lost her father, and now her uncle this very night; Malcolm had been in dread to tell her.

  “Dyer must have known what Virgil did, that he murdered a woman,” Boyd mused. “It would explain so goddamn much. Cora knew Virgil for a killer long before I ever suspected.” He blinked, abruptly returned from his speculation. “Does Cora know her uncle is gone? Christ, I’ve not seen her since we left her with Jacob what seems like a hundred years past.”

  As though summoned by this mentioning, footsteps sounded on the stairs; from down the hall a hushed voice queried, “Boyd? Lorie? You-all in there?”

  Tears sprang to my eyes; Tilson swung open the door to reveal Malcolm, his expression graced by a solemn formality I was unaccustomed to seeing. His lips parted as though to speak, his gaze fastening upon Rebecca, then jerking to Boyd. He whispered, “Is she…”

  “She is doing as well as can be expected,” Tilson was quick to say.

  Malcolm entered the room, dropping to his knees at his brother’s side, and Boyd engulfed him in a hug, pressing his face to Malcolm’s shaggy hair. I thought of my first days in their company, of gaining a tentative confidence, enough to suggest that Malcolm required a haircut which I would be happy to provide. I thought of his dusty toes, a result of a daily reluctance to wear his boots, his keen interest in every matter large or small; his sweet, boyish wonderment I could not bear to imagine the past year dashing to nonexistence. I thought of the exultation of Boyd playing his fiddle along the trail back in Missouri, of him making a kind gift of a soapstone bear to ward off the nightmares that plagued me in those early days. Of what the Carters had done to help me when Sawyer was endangered, jailed in Iowa City and threatened with a hanging.

  Further, I considered what my existence would be today if these men – Sawyer, Boyd and Malcolm, Tilson, and dear Angus Warfield, who’d died so that I might live – had not entered into it; I who had not so very long ago come to believe all men were brutal and loathsome creatures bent on one desire alone. I was so overwhelmed by the strength of these thoughts my vision wavered.

  “C’mere,” Boyd gruffly requested, stretching an arm towards us, tears staining his dirty face. Though I did not believe he could read my mind, it was nonetheless exactly wha
t I’d been about to request of them.

  Sawyer helped me to rise; Boyd and Malcolm stood so that we might all six, Tilson and tiny Rose included, braid together in a hug. Malcolm’s breath touched my neck as he rested his head to my shoulder. I sagged against Tilson’s side, his muslin shirt scratching over my cheek, his big, gnarled palm smoothing my hair in a repetitive and bolstering motion; I felt as cherished as a beloved daughter. Rose kicked and fussed; Sawyer cupped her head, all of us simultaneously giving and seeking reassurance in the lantern-lit space, deep with night and quietude.

  And I reflected for the countless time that the truest of loves requires not a single word to convey meaning, not one single word.

  I WOKE from a dream of a feather brushing my ear. The light of a silvering dawn poked into my eyes, my mind muddy with lingering fear and tired confusion. It took me seconds to realize Rebecca’s fingertips were the feather and that she was caressing my hair, her face tipped towards me on the pillow. Tears burst from my chest and into my eyes like a dam cracked by a spring flood – I sprang straight, staring at the wondrous sight of her open eyes. The bruise alongside her lips had purpled to the color of a plum and renewed my need to kill the man who’d left it there.

  “Rebecca,” I breathed, choked and rough-voiced, dirty and blood-stained and bedraggled as I was, hardly fit to be in her presence. I took her hand between mine, bringing it to my cheek, absorbing this gift of her, thankful beyond all earthly measure. “Thank God, oh thank God, sweetheart. I was so scared. Are you hurting? Let me get you water…” Tripping over myself, I scrambled to the porcelain pitcher Sawyer had filled with water and fetched up the matching cup.

  Her face was wan and impossibly delicate; violet shadows encircled her exhausted eyes but she managed a smile. Her pale lips parted to whisper, “Boyd.”

  “I’m here, darlin’,” I said, shaking with relief, quelling this trembling with all my might. I cupped her head as gently as I’d cupped little Rose’s last night and helped her to take water, of which she managed half the cup. I set it aside and took her left hand back into mine, lifting her fingertips to my mouth and kissing them one by one, tears falling to the bedding over which I leaned. I pressed my lips to her knuckles, her palm, the inner curve of her wrist. She twined her fingers around my hand. I shivered at the depth of relief offered by her touch.