Fern

by Greenwood, Leigh

  Then the tears came. She cried softly, her body shaking as he held her, tears rolling down her cheeks and dropping onto his arms.

  "He did love me," she said. "He just wanted a son so much he sometimes forgot."

  Madison didn't tell Fern what he thought about Baker Sproull but if he could have gotten his hands on him, Baker Sproull would have died a second time that night.

  "We have to get him to town."

  Madison brought up her horse. Fern, her gaze never leaving her father, gripped the horse's bridle while Madison draped the body across the saddle. Madison shivered with loathing. Everything felt loose inside Sproull's skin, like beans in a bag. Securing the body was almost more than he could endure.

  He was glad Fern hadn't been alone when she discovered her father. He doubted she would have ever gotten over it.

  "We can take him to the livery stable until you can make arrangements," he said.

  She stared at him out of sightless eyes. She had no strength left, no more resources to absorb shock. He led her to Buster and lifted her into the saddle. She made no comment when he mounted behind her. Leading her horse, they started toward Abilene.

  * * * * *

  Eddie Finch glared at Madison out of wrathful eyes. "I ain't eating a bite."

  "You might as well," Madison answered, unmoved by Eddie's anger. "It's not easy to get food to you without anybody wondering where it's going to."

  "I don't care. I ain't eating it," Eddie repeated.

  "Suit yourself, but you're staying here until Hen's hearing in Topeka. You'll get awfully hungry before then."

  "I won't testify. I won't say a word."

  "After staying here so long, that would be a waste. Besides, then you wouldn't get your twenty dollars a day."

  "This is kidnaping. I can have you put in jail."

  "It sure is," Madison agreed. "But you're withholding evidence. That's illegal, too. You'd probably find yourself in the cell next to mine."

  Madison heard the sound of hoofbeats and looked out the window to see one of George's men ride up. "Here's Spencer. Maybe you'll feel like eating for him."

  "Maybe I will testify after all," Eddie said angrily. "Maybe I'll tell the judge you tried to bribe me. Maybe I'll tell him I saw Hen riding straight for the soddy."

  Madison smiled at Finch, an overtly friendly smile, but one that made Finch suddenly very nervous.

  "I sympathize with your irritation," Madison said, his voice cold and threatening, "but you will testify, and you will tell the truth. If you don't, you won't live one day past that hearing."

  * * * * *

  Despite the limitations caused by his wound, Madison spent most of his time at Fern's side. She made all the decisions about her father's funeral, but she wouldn't discuss the farm.

  "There's nothing to discuss," she said, and apparently dismissed it from her mind.

  But Madison's experience with longhorns gave him more faith in the ability of these irascible animals to survive, even a tornado, so he hired Reed and Pike to see what they could find. He also saw to it that every piece of the house and farm buildings which could be found was gathered up and burned. He didn't want Fern coming across something she recognized months later and having to relive the pain of her father's death.

  Justifying Madison's faith in their hardiness, the herd had escaped without loss, but not even that news could rouse Fern from her lethargy. Rose and Mrs. Abbott tried to lift her spirits by keeping up a steady flow of talk and quiet activity. Fern would join when invited, but only did as she was told.

  "How long is she going to be like this?" Madison asked Rose. It had been a week since her father's funeral, and he didn't see any change.

  "It's hard to say," Rose replied. "Not everybody recovers at the same rate. It must be even worse for Fern because she doesn't have anybody else. She has so many decisions to make, especially about the farm, she must feel overwhelmed."

  "I'd be happy to take all the work off her shoulders, but she won't let me."

  Rose regarded her brother-in-law with narrowed gaze. "Are you in love with her?"

  Madison had avoided putting that question into words, even in his thoughts. In his own mind, he had kept his life in Boston very neatly separated from Fern and his family.

  But these last few weeks had breathed new life into a part of him he had left behind years ago. He liked the physical activity of riding miles across the trackless prairie. He liked the challenge of the inhospitable environment, the taciturn natives. He even enjoyed some aspects of the rough-and-ready frontier society, the adventure, the feeling of living on the edge. He had even learned to accept Fern's pants without wanting to throw them away.

  Now that he'd found this part of himself, he wasn't sure what to do with it. But whatever he did, it would involve Fern.

  "I'm not sure," Madison answered Rose. "Sometimes I'm sure I couldn't possibly be. I must be crazy. I've never been so addlebrained in my life."

  "Have you said anything to her?"

  "No."

  "Then don't until you're sure. Right now the last thing she needs is to have that thrown in her lap as well."

  "You make it sound like a burden," Madison said, feeling a little crestfallen. He hadn't expected his feelings for Fern to be looked on as a hardship.

  "Who you marry is none of my business," Rose said, "but I would hate to see her hurt. And don't get in a huff," Rose scolded. "I know you'd try very hard to make her happy, but think very carefully before you decide. You two have been at each other's throats since you got here. There's not much you approve of about each other. Then there's the question of where to live. You can't stand it here, but would Fern do any better in Boston?"

  "I'm sure we could reach a rational decision." He hoped he didn't sound miffed, but he was sure he did.

  Rose laughed easily. "If there's one thing missing in this relationship, it's rationality," she said.

  Madison withdrew, his feelings abraded. He still hadn't come to a decision when Fern unexpectedly came out of her room dressed for riding.

  Chapter Seventeen

  "I'm going to the farm," she announced. "I've asked Reed and Pike to meet me there."

  "I'll go with you," Madison offered, getting up from the table.

  He thought for a moment she was going to argue, but instead she smiled and said, "I'd like that."

  "Would you like Mrs. Abbott to pack you a lunch?" Rose asked.

  "Of course she would," Mrs. Abbott said. "And if she doesn't, I'll warrant Mr. Madison does."

  At first Mrs. Abbott had called Madison Young Mr. Randolph, but with Hen now a constant visitor to the house, she was driven to using first names. And Mrs. Abbott didn't like using a man's first name. It was familiar, and anything of the familiar concerning men made Mrs. Abbott fidgety.

  "You go see about your horses," Rose said. "We'll have everything ready by the time you get back."

  * * * * *

  "Why did you fight me so hard when we were in the gully?" Madison asked. They had passed the outskirts of town and their first topic of conversation had fizzled out.

  He hadn't thought much about her actions right after the tornado, but for the last two days he hadn't been able to ignore the feeling that she had tried to throw him off because she was frightened, not because he was crushing her. That didn't make any sense, but the more he thought about it, the more convinced he became he was right.

  "I don't know what you're talking about," Fern said. She kept her eyes on the trail.

  "You kicked and screamed like you were in a frenzy."

  "You hurt me. You're a big man."

  "Maybe, but you acted like I was about to tear your throat out."

  "The storm made me nervous."

  She wasn't telling him the truth. He knew that. She wouldn't meet his eyes. She even urged her horse ahead of his. Madison caught up.

  "It's something else. Why won't you tell me?"

  "It's nothing," Fern said. She looked at him this time, her express
ion blank. Too blank.

  They rode in silence for a little while.

  "I used to have a nightmare," Madison said. "Always the same one."

  "I never have nightmares," Fern declared.

  "I was locked in a closet and nobody knew where I was. The more I shouted to let someone know where I was, the more the walls closed in on me."

  "I don't even dream."

  "Sometimes, if my father caught me reading when I was supposed to be riding or cleaning leathers, he would lock me in the stable feed room. There weren't any windows. The mice made tiny squeaking noises as they looked for kernels of dropped grain to eat. If I was locked up for very long, they would run across my legs."

  "What's the object of this story?"

  "To assure you we all have nightmares. It helps to share them. I still hate small rooms, but I haven't had that nightmare in years."

  He thought of the many hours he had spent talking to Freddy. Fern had never had anyone to talk to.

  "Is it so bad you can't tell me?"

  She didn't answer.

  "Maybe you don't trust me not to repeat it."

  He really couldn't expect her to trust him with a secret she had refused to share with her own father. But in the last few weeks he'd developed a very strong proprietary interest her well-being, and it hurt that she might not trust him.

  "That's not it," Fern hastened to assure him. Her expression showed she realized she had virtually admitted there was something to hide.

  "Does it have something to do with the reason you wear men's clothes?"

  "Why are you so persistent? You know I don't want to tell you. It should be obvious, even to someone from Boston."

  For a change he wanted to help someone else. Ever since he had come to Abilene, since he met Fern, he hadn't been running from anything. He wasn't asking for help. He wanted to give it.

  "You've been alone too long. You've buried everything inside you, denied it existed, until it has become a part of the way you think, the way you act, the way you face the world."

  "There's nothing wrong with that."

  "There is when it keeps you from doing what you want to do and being what you want to be."

  Just as his own fears had made him hide from his family for eight years. He had lost too much by that. Fern had lost, too. Now it was time for both of them to stop.

  "How do you know I'm not?"

  "Rose is doing what she wants, being what she wants. I've never seen a more contented, happy, outgoing, honest, giving, sharing person in my life."

  "So now I'm selfish and mean."

  "No, but you hide from people. You're not shy about attacking me when you think I'm wrong, but let me ask you about yourself and you run for cover."

  "I'm none of your business."

  "You weren't when I stepped off that train, but you are now."

  Their lives would be entwined forever. He could no more forget her than he could forget his family.

  "I don't want to be."

  "Then why have you stayed?"

  Silence.

  "Fern, I'm not prying out of idle curiosity. I know something has hurt you, and I'd like to help."

  "It's over and done with," Fern said. "Nothing can be changed."

  "But your feelings about it can be."

  He could see her stiffen, like she was closing her ears, blocking out his voice. He could almost see the walls going up between them, high and topped with broken glass. Then without warning, her resistance collapsed.

  "Eight years ago a man tried to rape me," she shouted, emptying her bottled up anger and pain over him. "Can you change that?" With a sob, she kicked her horse into a gallop.

  Madison spurred his horse to catch up with Fern.

  He had been prepared for many things but not attempted rape. What could he possibly say or do that would make any difference? But now that he had practically forced Fern to tell him, he felt obligated to do something. Otherwise he had been just prying.

  He couldn't begin to imagine the horrible memories she had lived with all these years, the feeling of being defiled, the fear that another man might do the same. He thought of the years she had spent hiding behind her clothes, laboring to become something she wasn't, slowly squeezing the life out of the girl she should have become.

  Following close behind Fern, Madison could taste the salty spray of her wind-whipped tears. It kindled in him a murderous rage at her unknown assailant. If he could have met the man at that moment, he wouldn't have hesitated. He would have killed him.

  The sight of Fern's tear-stained face as he drew alongside only made him angrier. Madison pulled both their horses to a halt. He vaulted from the saddle, and Fern slid into his waiting arms.

  And they stood there in the middle of the empty Kansas prairie, under a clear summer sky, while Fern cried out the hurt and grief and anger that had been buried inside her for eight long years. She clung to him with all the tenacity of a woman who has finally shared her most closely held secrets with the man she loves.

  Madison almost smiled at himself. He had always prided himself on his rigidly correct conduct, yet here he stood wrapped in the arms of a weeping female with no chaperon but their two horses. He had no idea what his friends would say, but he didn't care. He intended to stay here just as long as Fern needed him.

  You want to stay because you're in love with her.

  The realization so stunned Madison that for a moment he felt Fern was holding him up rather than the other way around. He must be mistaken. He couldn't be in love with Fern. Not that he didn't like her a great deal. He did. He had come to have a great deal of admiration for her courage and her integrity, but that had nothing to do with love. He didn't even like her kind of woman.

  Wouldn't Freddy laugh. He had spent years avoiding the clutches of some of Boston and New York's most practiced and enticing femme fatales only to be snared by a farmer's daughter in pants.

  Madison didn't know whether he was more shocked by the fact he was in love when he least expected or that he was in love with Fern. Either way, the turn of events was staggering.

  Fern's sobs had stopped. Giving a determined sniff, her arms slipped from around Madison, and she pulled out of his embrace.

  "I didn't mean to start blubbering," she said. "That's what you get for trying to make me act like a woman."

  "I'll risk it," Madison said, still feeling shaky but rallying. "I like it better than your trying to run me out of town."

  "I'm sorry for that. Troy saved me that night. I owed it to him to see his killer hang. We'd better get going," she said, and remounted her horse. She pulled out a handkerchief and attempted to remove all traces of her tears. "Reed and Pike will be waiting. I don't want them starting another fight."

  Her moment of weakness past, she slipped back into her shell. She didn't even wait for him to climb back into the saddle before she clucked to her horse and rode away. But Madison wasn't willing to let her close the door on him now, or ever again. He meant to share her burdens. Now and always.

  Fern couldn't go it alone. The damage had gone so deep, had been so profound, it had changed her whole life. This, combined with her father's coldness, had distorted her view of everything. She thought no one loved her, that men could only lust after her. He must help her learn to believe in herself, to believe a man could love her for herself, not for the work she could do or the pleasure she could give to his body.

  At the same time, it was crucial that he control his own growing desire for her. If she even guessed how much he wanted to make love to her, she might never let him come near her again. He would certainly lose her confidence.

  And at the moment, that was about the most important thing in the world to him.

  "Tell me about it," he asked as he came alongside.

  "Why," she demanded, whipping around to face him, "so you can relish the gory details?"

  "Do you believe that?"

  She turned away, fighting to control the anger and the tears. "No, but it happened a
long time ago. It's over."

  "Not yet. You're still afraid. That's why you wear men's clothes."

  "That's absurd. I wear pants because it makes it easier to work."

  "You're afraid if you dress as a woman, you'll attract attention and some man will force himself on you again."

  "That's not true."

  "Then why did you fight me like I was trying to rape you?"

  "You were crushing me."

  "You're lying, Fern, to me and yourself."

  "Did they teach you to read people's minds at Harvard?"

  "No, but when you start to care for someone, you can sense things you never saw or even suspected in the beginning."

  He'd never believed that before. He had thought cool, impersonal intelligence could tell you more about a person than clouded emotion. But now that he loved Fern, he not only sensed her mood, he could guess the reason behind it. When she hurt, he hurt. When she tried to hide from the truth, he understood.

  "You don't care about me," Fern said, "not really. You probably decided it would be fun to teach this peculiar female to walk and talk and dress like a proper woman. Then you could go back to Boston feeling you have brought a little refinement to at least one person in the wilderness. It probably stems from a highly developed social sense. I'm told Bostonians are like that. Probably a leftover from the Puritan days."

  "That's not how I feel. I--"

  "I hope you're not going to say you love me because I won't believe it. I'll bet you've got half the females in Boston chasing after you."

  He couldn't miss the hard, cynical edge on her voice. Her defenses were all in place. She had told him what happened, but she didn't intend to let him any closer. She didn't believe he cared. She wouldn't let herself. She was too afraid.

  "What did your father do when you told him?" Madison asked.

  "I never told him."

  Her answer shocked him. "Why not?"

  "There was no point. Troy chased the man out of Kansas."

  "You should have told him."

  "No. Papa would have gone after him, and everybody would have found out. I'd always be the woman some man tried to rape. Some of them would even start saying it must have been my fault. I already suffered for it once. I didn't see any sense in paying for it twice"