“You’re right. That would be unwise. A step at a time. Maybe we should start with a rabbit first and then move up to deer.”
“No, let’s look for deer. We’re here on the hotel’s behalf, and that’s what they want.”
They fell silent as they moved through the trees. Giselle was fascinated by how quietly Jesse was able to step through the underbrush, almost as if he weighed nothing. She mimicked his movements and lessened the noise she was making as well.
She wasn’t sure how long they’d been creeping through the forest when he finally raised a hand, and she stopped. He peered through the trees, looked back at her and grinned, then slowly inched forward. She did the same.
Up ahead were two does and one fawn. They found a patch of tender green grass in a clearing and were nosing the leaves out of the way so they could continue their meal.
Jesse crouched down, but he didn’t bring up his rifle.
“Why aren’t you shooting?” Giselle whispered.
“We have to wait and see which of those does is the fawn’s mother. I won’t leave it motherless.”
Giselle’s respect for him doubled as she watched the animals. It would be a shame to force that poor animal to fend for itself. Would the other doe care for it, or would it be left alone to make its own way in the world?
They waited, barely breathing, for a time, and then the fawn nudged up against one of the does and stepped beneath her to feed. Jesse now brought his rifle into position and shot the other deer. Mother and baby scampered into the trees, lunchtime interrupted, but they were together, and Giselle was surprised to find tears in her eyes at that.
Jesse knelt by the side of the deer he’d shot and closed his eyes. Giselle watched curiously until he opened them again.
“Many Indian tribes teach that everything around us—the animals, the trees, the rocks—all have spirits. That we are connected through those spirits, and that we as men and women have a responsibility to the life around us. When they must kill for food, they say a prayer to thank that animal for their sacrifice and to send the spirit on its way. My Indian brothers do this very faithfully. I like to take a moment as well, but I’m not as diligent about it as they are.”
Giselle knelt down next to him. “What do you say in these prayers?”
“Anything you like, really. Some speak aloud, and some speak in their minds—as you saw me do.”
Giselle nodded. “I’d like to try.”
He raised an eyebrow, but didn’t comment. He just closed his eyes again.
She took a deep breath and looked down at the animal lying before them. Then she closed her eyes. “Thank you for this deer, Lord,” she said. “Thank you for the sacrifice it gave. Please help it to have a happy afterlife. And please bless the fawn and doe that ran away. Help them . . .” She had no idea what to say next. If she prayed for their safety, that would mean less meat for those who were hungry. “Please help the mother to stay alive until the little fawn no longer needs her. Amen.”
She opened her eyes to see Jesse smiling at her. “What? Did I do that wrong?”
“There’s not a right or a wrong way to pray, Giselle.”
“Then why are you smiling at me?”
“Because you’re remarkable.”
She ducked her head, suddenly embarrassed to meet his eyes, although she didn’t know why.
“Now, here comes the tricky part,” Jesse said. “This deer is heavy—weighs around a hundred and fifty pounds or so. A little smaller than the deer I brought last week. We need to gut it, and then we’ll put it onto one of the horse’s backs.”
“But it’s dead,” Giselle said innocently. “How will it hold the reins if it’s dead?”
“Funny,” Jesse smirked. He knelt by the deer again and pulled out a large hunting knife. “You might want to turn away,” he said, looking up at Giselle as he hovered the knife over the carcass.
“No, I’m fine.”
“All right. But if you start feeling faint, go for a little walk around or something.”
He began by cutting a slit in the deer’s throat on the side against the ground and allowing the blood to drain out. Giselle forced herself to look at it, taking deep breaths as she did. Once it appeared that the majority of the blood had been drained, Jesse cut a slit in the hide, bracing his knee on the animal. The hide looked thick, and it took some energy for him to cut through it.
Then he began to gut the animal, and at this point, Giselle decided that a walk was a very nice idea.
After several moments, he called out to her that he was done, and she returned, not looking at the area where he’d been working.
“We’ve got two choices,” he said. “We can drag the deer out of here, or we can bring the horses in. Now that we’re not concerned about making noise, it doesn’t matter which we choose.”
“Let’s try dragging it and see if it’s difficult,” Giselle suggested.
They each took a back leg and began to drag it. With the two of them working together, it wasn’t all that difficult.
They had brought the deer about two hundred yards when they heard gunshots from up ahead.
“Hold your fire!” Jesse shouted. All went still, and Jesse shook his head. “I don’t often run into other hunters out here,” he said. “Let’s go.”
They pulled a little faster, and then there were more gunshots.
“I said hold your fire!” Jesse bellowed. He let go of his portion of the deer and held out his hand. Giselle knew without him asking that he needed the pistol, and she gave it to him wordlessly. He crept forward to the edge of the trees, and then he called back, “Stay where you are, Giselle.”
She saw him take a stance and fire. What on earth was going on? She reached out and braced herself on a tree, her heart pounding. Why would Jesse be shooting at another hunter?
After several long minutes, he came back, but he hadn’t holstered the gun. “Giselle, the horses have been shot,” he said.
She blinked at him, not understanding. “The horses? Why would a hunter shoot horses?” Then realization hit. “It wasn’t a hunter.”
“No. It was Griffin. I saw him riding off and I shot at him, but I missed.”
“Why would he do something like that?”
“He’s trying to strand us out here. Either to teach us a lesson . . .”
“Or to kill us,” she finished.
Jesse nodded. “Well, I don’t particularly feel the need to be taught a lesson, and I’m not in the mood to die. What say we get ourselves out of here?”
“Agreed.”
Jesse knelt by the deer again and pulled out a large hunting knife. “We’ll take enough meat with us for our food, and leave the rest here,” he said. “I hate to do that, but we have no way to get this animal back to town.”
“Tom’s mentioned a couple of times how you cut up the first deer so as not to waste anything,” Giselle replied. “He was impressed by that.”
“Martha, my stepmother, taught me that when a life such as this is sacrificed, if we don’t take every bit of good from it we can, we have wasted that life,” Jesse replied. “She also said that as our elders grow old, we should listen as they share their wisdom so it doesn’t go to waste when they pass to the next life. I don’t know if that’s an actual Kaw teaching or something she learned for herself, but I believe it.”
“That’s beautiful,” Giselle said. “I could compare that to how Sarah puts the dry bread from the kitchen into meatloaf. Not only does it use up the bread, but it makes something entirely new. Like a rebirth.”
“Exactly.” Jesse pulled a bag from his belt and slid two large pieces of meat inside it. “We’ll build a fire when we’re away from the trees and dead underbrush. We still have the bread you brought, of course, but we can’t walk that distance on just bread. We’ll need more strength than that.” He wiped his knife carefully on the grass and leaves, put it back in the sheath, and stood up. “Are you ready?”
“I am.”
Giselle
paused and looked at the deer one more time before they walked away. A life that had been taken just to rot. She wished there was some other alternative, but they couldn’t drag the animal all the way back to the hotel, and even if they carved it here and made it lighter, they had no way to carry it. “I’m sorry,” she whispered to the deer before she turned and followed Jesse back through the trees.
Chapter Fourteen
When they reached the spot where the dead horses lay, Jesse took a few minutes to go through the saddlebags and pull out everything they’d brought with them.
“I wish we could at least take the saddles, but they’re far too heavy to carry that distance,” he said. “I’ll have to come back for them later.”
“What can I do to help?” Giselle asked.
“Gather up some sticks and pile them over there in the dirt,” Jesse told her. As she did that, he looked over their supplies. He’d just taken about five pounds of meat from the deer, and Giselle’s bread looked delicious. They had two canteens of water, his knife, his rifle and pistol, and some bullets for each. In his possibles bag, he had black powder, flint and steel, and a smaller knife. That would do.
“I’ve got the sticks,” Giselle called out, and he joined her.
He used the flint and steel to start a fire, then took two of the longer, sturdier sticks and used his knife to shave the ends into sharp points. He threaded the meat onto the sticks and asked Giselle to hold one over the fire while he took the other. Before long, the meat was sizzling and snapping, and the smell made his mouth water.
“How long do you think it will take us to walk back to Topeka?” Giselle asked.
“Too long for my tastes. We’ll walk until dark, bed down for the night, and then strike out again at first light. If all goes well, we’ll be there maybe around ten tomorrow morning.”
Giselle nodded. “I’m glad the nights have been getting warmer.”
“Me too.” Jesse turned his stick, allowing the other side to cook as well. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. I just don’t understand.” She shifted her position a little bit, probably to get more comfortable. “Just who is Griffin, and why is he doing this?”
“He’s lived in Topeka for at least as long as I have, and I believe I heard tell once that his family was killed by Indians. It’s true that there are some tribes or individuals within tribes who would do that, but most Indians will only kill during times of war, and that’s for the preservation of their homes and their families.” He shook his head ruefully. “The Kaw, or the Kansa, as they’re also known, are a bit warlike in comparison to some of the others, but I’ve never personally seen them in battle. At any rate, Griffin believes that all Indians are murderers, and he’s let that canker inside his soul for years. It’s bled into all his beliefs, down to the way he treats blacks and Mexicans too.”
Giselle pulled her stick from the fire to check for doneness, then returned it to the heat. “My brother worked with a crew of Chinamen on the railroad when we first came here last year. He told me some stories about how they’re treated. In fact, he moved to China to help with some construction projects there. And Harriet, Tom’s wife, came from the South and has shared some of her experiences with slavery on her own father’s plantation. I’ve never understood hating someone because of their differences. I can understand Griffin’s loss and wanting revenge for his family, but to take it out on every single person he encounters? That’s insanity.”
“I agree.” Jesse stared into the flames, not wanting to meet her eyes as he spoke. “So knowing that I’m part Indian in my heart doesn’t bother you?”
“No. Of course not. I’d say it makes you fascinating. I want to learn from you.”
“Fascinating?” Now he did look at her, a smirk on his lips.
“Yes, fascinating. In an educational sort of way.” Her cheeks were bright red, and it wasn’t just from the heat of the fire.
“I see.” Jesse looked at both skewers of meat. They seemed ready, so he took the stick from Giselle’s hand and laid both of them across the remaining pile of wood so the meat wouldn’t fall into the dirt. Then he took her hands and pulled her up to a standing position. “There’s something I really ought to tell you,” he said.
“Oh? And what’s that?”
He let go of one hand and ran his finger down her cheek. It was just as soft as he’d imagined it would be. “I find you fascinating too. And not just in an educational way.”
She pulled in a small breath, and he lowered his mouth to hers.
She melted into his arms like butter on bread, fitting there as though they’d been measured and then created just for each other. He could hold her for hours without ever growing tired, and that was a very tempting thought indeed but for the small reality that they both needed to breathe. And get back to town before Griffin found them out here in the open. Reality was very inconvenient sometimes.
When he released her, Giselle looked up into his eyes and smiled. “See? You’re teaching me already.”
“First kiss?” he asked, very much liking that idea.
“Yes. But not yours, I’m guessing.”
He grinned. “My first one in years, actually, so it could count as that.”
Giselle laughed and stepped away, picking up one of the loaves of bread. “Tell me about your first kiss.”
“I was eleven, and it was on the school playground. She was ten, her name was Louise, and her brother gave me a black eye. It was worth it, though.”
Giselle laughed again as she handed him a piece of the bread she’d broken off. “And your second?”
“My second was actually the last before this.”
“So this was your third kiss, then.”
“Yes.” He sliced a bit of meat off one of the sticks and handed it to Giselle, then cut one for himself.
“And . . . are you going to tell me the story?” Giselle asked when he didn’t continue.
“I was twenty, and she lived a few houses down the road from Auntie Coral’s. I’d just asked for her hand and she accepted, but her father couldn’t stand the thought of her marrying someone with Indian connections, so he demanded that she refuse me after all, and they moved the following week.” The memory still ached a bit, and yet, not as sharply as it once had. It was far enough in the past, and looking at Giselle, it was hard to regret anything that had brought him to this point.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up something painful.”
“No, it’s nothing to concern yourself with. You couldn’t have known, and I find that I can’t even remember her name.”
“You can’t?”
He reached out and touched her face again. “You’ve washed it out of my mind entirely.”
***
They ate, then wrapped the rest of the meat up in the cloth with the remaining bread. Giselle found it hard to concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other as they began their trek back to town—she kept reliving that kiss over and over again in her mind, surprised and yet not surprised at how very right it felt. She’d always believed that you had to know someone for a long time before you could truly love them, but that simply wasn’t true—she was in love with Jesse McVey, and no amount of time would change that or make it any more true.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked after a few minutes of silence.
“You,” she replied. “Just being honest again.”
He laughed. “I was thinking about you, too.”
“Oh? Were you contemplating my amazing fortitude as I watched you take care of the deer? I mean, until the gutting part? It was rather amazing, wasn’t it?”
“It was so amazing, I’m still stunned by it.”
“Good. And what else were you thinking?”
“I was thinking about your beautiful eyes.”
She nodded. “Also a very acceptable answer.”
He laughed again and shifted his load a little higher in his arms. “You see that cluster of trees ahead?”
&n
bsp; She squinted. “You mean that patch of whatever that’s just slightly darker than the other whatever?”
“That’s the one. I’d like to make it there by nightfall. Think we can do it?”
“Of course we can.”
It had just become dark when they reached the trees. It had been the longest day of Giselle’s life—riding and hunting for the first part, and then walking endlessly for the rest of it. Not to mention the terror of knowing they were being targeted. And yet, somehow, everything was going to be all right—she was with Jesse, and that fact made everything else seem less difficult to bear.
“We’ll stay here for the night,” Jesse said, motioning to a small clearing in between the trees. “It will give us protection from the wind.”
“And from other dangerous things?” Giselle asked.
“That’s what the weapons are for.” He arranged everything out on the ground. “I’m putting you in charge of the pistol,” he said, handing it to her. “Put it in one of those big pockets of yours. Why are your pockets so big, anyway?”
“To hold pistols in, of course.” She scowled when he laughed. “I’m serious, actually. Mr. Brody asked us to put large pockets in our dresses so we’d be prepared for anything.”
“He’s a thoughtful man, isn’t he?”
“Yes, very. He thinks of everything.”
“I’m glad of it.”
Giselle slid the pistol into her pocket, then sat down on the ground. “Oh, it feels so good not to be walking.”
“You’ve been wonderful today, Giselle. I don’t think I’ve heard one word of complaint out of you.”
She shrugged. “What good does complaining do? It certainly wouldn’t have brought the horses back to life or done anything else for us.”
He grinned at her. “You’re something else, you know that?”
“Right now, I’m something that doesn’t want to move for hours and hours.”
“You shall have your wish. We’ll leave here at first light, and not until then.”
Jesse built a fire, and they warmed up some of the meat. After they’d eaten, making sure to leave plenty for the next morning, they lay down, one on either side of the fire. Giselle rolled onto her back and looked up through the canopy of leaves to the stars above. “What are you thinking about, Jesse?”
A Twisted Fate Page 9
