by Kaki Warner
“It isn’t from Pru, is it?”
“It’s from Maddie’s London publisher.”
“How strange. Here, go change Rosie. She smells like poop.”
Odd, how quickly babies brought those around them down to their level. Within just a few short weeks, hers and Tait’s lives had come to revolve around the three Ps—poop, pee, puke—words that before motherhood, Lucinda would never have allowed into her mind, much less her vocabulary.
It was disheartening how far she had fallen. From astute businesswoman to wet nurse. Where was the romance in that? She and Tait had hardly made love at all since the birth. Initially, because the doctor told them to wait at least six weeks—thank you, Doctor Boyce. But even after that restriction had been lifted, Tait seemed more interested in courting smiles from his daughter than in coaxing his wife into amorous activities. Probably because her breasts leaked all the time, she constantly smelled like one of the three Ps, and most nights she was so worn out that if Tait even attempted such a thing, she would have used her double Derringer on him. Besides, it seemed that every time the mood struck, Rosaleen was crying for her next feeding. Still . . . he might not have given up so easily.
God. She was starting to sound like Edwina.
With a sigh, she pushed out of the chair and took her daughter. “What are you doing?” she asked when she saw Edwina bend over the crate.
“Testing the weight. It’s heavy. I wonder what it is.” She tugged at a loose corner.
“Books, I presume, since it came from a publisher.”
“Why would a publisher be sending books to Thomas? Do you have something I can pry this up with? I’m getting splinters.”
“It’s not addressed to you,” Lucinda reminded her.
“A shoehorn, maybe. There, those scissors would work.”
“You’re a bad influence on my daughter.” Lucinda swept from the room, knowing that when she returned, the box would be open. At least she’d tried.
As she gently laid her sleeping daughter on an old blanket atop what had once been her desk, she had to smile. Rosie was so cute when she slept, her little hands curled into fists, her tiny mouth parted like an unfurling blossom. Unable to resist, Lucinda kissed her daughter’s downy head. Despite her preference for food over sleep, Rosaleen truly was adorable. And she must be as exhausted as her mother—she scarcely moved while Lucinda changed her napkin.
“Well?” she asked when she returned a few minutes later and found Edwina sitting on the floor, staring at an open book in her lap.
“It’s a book.”
“I can see that.”
Edwina lifted her head, a look of amazement on her face. “It’s a book that Thomas wrote.”
“Our Thomas?”
Edwina held up the volume so Lucinda could see By Thomas Redstone, Cheyenne Dog Soldier emblazoned across the front below the title Tracks in Blood: A True Account of the Sand Creek Massacre. “It’s about some Indian chief named Black Kettle. Did you know about this?”
“Not a thing.” Shaking her head in bemusement, Lucinda sank into the rocker. “Do you think he actually wrote it?”
Edwina didn’t answer, her head bent over the book as she scanned the first page. “Laws amighty.” She gave Lucinda a stunned look. “It’s good. Listen to this: ‘Our land is sacred to us. It is soaked with the blood of our People and marked with the tracks of those who died defending it.’ Isn’t that beautiful? And sad. From what I’ve read so far, this is really good.”
“It sounds like Thomas. He has a rather violent outlook on life.”
A knock on the door sent them both jumping with guilt. “Quick. Put it back in the box,” Lucinda whispered. “Who is it?” she called in a louder voice.
“Yancey. You might oughta come.”
“Probably Joe Bill,” Edwina muttered. “He’s always getting into mischief.”
“Is something wrong?” Lucinda waved for Edwina to put the lid back on and shove the crate into the corner.
“It’s Mrs. Bradshaw,” Yancey whispered through the gap between the door and the frame. “She’s crying again.”
Again? Lucinda and Edwina looked at each other.
At Lucinda’s nod, Edwina went over and opened the door. “Is she hurt?”
Yancey shrugged. “I ain’t about to go see. Her and Quinn was talking in the closed dining room, then he leaves, and I hear her crying in there. Think I should get the sheriff?”
“The sheriff is out beating a tom-tom somewhere,” Edwina snapped. “Is she still in there?”
“I ain’t going to see. Crying women give me the shivers.”
Lucinda came up behind Edwina. “Attend your duties, Yancey. And say no more about this. Do you understand?”
“Yes, boss. I gotta restock the coal bin in the washroom anyway.”
As soon as the old man clumped out of earshot, Edwina turned to Lucinda, her blue eyes tearing. Ever emotional, the pretty Southerner was. Lucinda envied her that openness. “We should go to her, Luce.”
“Of course we will. But we mustn’t dally too long. The jewel will be hungry again in a few minutes.”
They were crossing the lobby when Tait came through the front doors with a package under his arm. When he saw them, his face reddened and he shifted the package to his other arm, as though trying to hide it. Not very subtle.
Naturally, Lucinda stopped to find out what he was hiding. The parcel had postal stamps all over it, but she didn’t remember ordering anything. “What’s that?”
“Nothing. Some equipment I sent for.”
Tait was usually scrupulously honest—especially with her. But her female nose for male misbehavior told her he was hedging. She narrowed her eyes at him. “What sort of equipment?”
He opened his mouth—to lead her off the scent, no doubt—then closed it and gave a crooked smile. “It’s a surprise.”
She instantly perked up. “For me?”
“In a way. But the whole family will benefit. Good morning, Edwina,” he added with a smile to the woman he’d hadn’t yet acknowledged, even though she stood less than a yard away. “Where are you ladies off to in such a hurry?”
“To talk to Mrs. Bradshaw.” Lowering her voice, Edwina nodded toward the closed dining room doors and added, “She’s in there crying.”
Taking that as her cue to do the same, the jewel opened her eyes and took a deep breath. But before she let loose the first squawk, her gaze found her father, and she immediately broke into a toothless grin.
“About Quinn,” Tait said to Edwina, even though he was making kissy noises at his daughter. “I was wondering when he would break it off with her.”
“Break it off?” Both Lucinda and Edwina crowded closer to Tait. The jewel waved a pudgy arm.
“You mean he’s not going to court her anymore?” Lucinda asked in a whisper.
“He was never courting her.” He cooed at his daughter.
She cooed back.
It disgusted Lucinda how taken with the man the child was when it was her mother who did all the work. “You’re trying to change the subject,” she accused.
“Of course I am, sweetheart. It’s none of your business why Quinn won’t court her, or why Mrs. Bradshaw is in the dining room crying. I suggest you let it go.” He punctuated that with a kiss on Rosie’s tiny nose, which sent the child into thrashing pleasure. Then he straightened and looked at Lucinda with piercing intensity.
She saw laughter and a flicker of something else in his dark gray eyes. Mischief? Arousal? Surely not.
Footsteps sounded on the stairs. Lucinda recognized the halting tread of Mrs. Throckmorton.
But before she could greet her guardian, Tait put his arm around her shoulders and turned her back toward the hallway. “If you’ll excuse us?” With a nod to Edwina, he quickly ushered Lucinda out of the lobby. “May I see you in o
ur rooms for a moment, Luce? It’s important,” he added with that devastating smile.
Flustered, she jiggled the baby to ward off a crying fit. “Rose is hungry.”
“Excellent timing. Hurry, sweetheart. You know how cranky Rosie gets when she doesn’t eat on time.”
But before they reached their room, an imperious voice rose behind them. “Where are you going with my granddaughter?”
Rosie let loose a chorus of delighted squeaks and coos. The infant had deplorable taste.
“It’s time for a feeding,” Lucinda called back as her husband relentlessly steered her down the hall.
“I’ll bring her up to your room as soon as she’s finished,” Tait promised, without slowing his stride.
“But I could help.”
“You do too much as it is, Mrs. T.,” he lied. “Please allow us to indulge you every now and then.” Opening the door into their room, he shoved Lucinda inside, then turned back to give his best smile to the old woman leaning on her cane at the end of the hallway. “An hour. Maybe less.” Then before Lucinda’s guardian could offer further protest, Tait closed the door and locked it. “That was close.” Ignoring Lucinda’s look of astonishment, he tore into the wrapping on the parcel. “Hurry. Take off your dress.”
She couldn’t even summon a response.
Rosie could, and it rose in a lusty cry, her tiny fists waving in impatience.
“Trust me, Luce.” He winced as their daughter’s cries escalated into furious wails. “Get your dress off. Now.”
The last time she had heard that was just before Rosie was conceived. Had it been almost a year? It seemed like the little tyrant had been with them forever.
Knowing the shrieks wouldn’t stop until the baby was fed, Lucinda set her outraged daughter on the couch, unbuttoned the front of her dress, and slipped it down her arms. “I don’t know what you have in mind,” she said over her shoulder as she undid the tabs on her chemise, “but Rosie won’t brook delay in her feeding schedule. For any reason. Not even for you.”
“I’m not asking her to. You undressed yet?”
Ignoring him, Lucinda let the chemise fall to expose her breast. Picking up her irate baby, she sank onto the couch just as Tait pulled his “surprise” from the box.
“Use this.” Beaming, he held up a device that must have come straight from an Inquisition dungeon. “It’s called a breast pump.”
Lucinda was aghast. “Like a milking machine?” She had heard about milking machines and the terrible things they did to cows. “I will not put a catheter in my breast.”
“It’s not a catheter.” Tait dug in the box for a small pamphlet that explained how to use the mechanism. He held it toward her. “Read this. You’ll see.”
With a sniff, she settled Rosie at her breast. To be attached to some farm implement was unthinkable. And highly insulting. “I can’t believe you would suggest such a thing,” she said, struggling not to cry. Was that how he saw her now? Little more than a milk-swollen bovine?
Her husband—the cad—sat beside her on the couch. “It’s not a machine, sweetheart. Just a little pump. See? You put this over your nipple, then push up and down on this little lever. Just like a hand pump on a water well.”
God. This got worse and worse.
Blithely unaware of her growing distress, Tait wiggled the lever, studying it with that rapt expression he wore when confronted with some new and innovative locomotive part.
“How could you ask me to use that thing?”
The quaver in her voice must have finally pierced his fascination with his new toy. “It’s perfectly safe, Luce. I read about it in Scientific American Magazine. They’ve been around since the first patent was issued almost a decade ago.”
Tears spilled over. “I’m not a cow, Tait.”
“Sweetheart.” With a look of chagrin, he tossed the pump aside and put his arms around both her and Rosie. “I didn’t get this to insult you, Luce, but to free you. You said you wouldn’t use a wet nurse, so I thought this might work.”
Confused, she drew back to look at him.
“If you pump enough milk for a feeding and save it, I could put it in a bottle and feed Rosie at night, so you could sleep.”
Sleep? Lucinda stared from him to the pump on the couch, then at Rosie, happily nursing in her arms.
Sleep.
“Wash it first.”
Eighteen
A few days later, Rayford Jessup’s stepson, Jamie, burst into the sheriff’s office, a look of panic on his face. “You must come, Father! Straight away! There’s trouble at the saloon by the hotel!”
Rafe set his book aside, glad to have something to do. Things had been so quiet in Thomas’s absence that he had been spending the better part of his days reading.
Grabbing his gun belt off the desk—it was too uncomfortable to wear a holstered weapon while he sat and read—he buckled it on and bustled Jamie out the door. “Is anyone hurt?”
“I’m not certain. It sounded like there might have been some hitting, but it’s hard for us to see over the adults.”
“Us?”
“Me and the other children.”
Rafe almost stumbled. “There are children involved? What are you doing out of school?”
“Miss Adkins quit.”
“She did? When?”
“This morning. She told us she was leaving to get married, but I think it was because of Joe Bill and Lillie. They’re quite disruptive.”
The whole town knew of the animosity between the blind girl and the Brodie boy. Since Jamie was often caught in the middle of it, Rafe and Josie got a daily report over supper.
Down the boardwalk, a crowd gathered outside the Red Eye. Even from this distance, Rafe could hear the blind girl’s shrill cries and the voices of the other children milling through the crowd.
He quickened his pace. “What did she and Joe Bill do this time?”
Jamie ran to keep up. “Nothing. They didn’t start it.”
“Who did?”
“A man outside the saloon.”
Up ahead, Tait came out of the hotel and pushed his way through the crowd, shouting and shoving onlookers aside. By the time Rafe and Jamie arrived, he had managed to clear a circle around the combatants.
“Stay back,” Rafe told Jamie and the other children, then elbowed his way past the gawking saloon patrons.
Lillie Redstone stood in the center, swinging her blind stick around like a sword. Her father would have been proud. Joe Bill stood beside her, his slingshot loaded and ready to fire. But neither child was menacing the other. Instead, all their anger seemed directed at a man at the front of the crowd.
Rafe stepped forward. “Put the stick down, Lillie. Joe Bill, drop the slingshot.” He spoke in the same calm voice he used with restless or frightened horses.
It didn’t seem to work on the little colored girl.
She rounded on him with what sounded like a snarl, and jabbed the end of her stick uncomfortably close to his groin. “Who that?” she cried.
With an expression of relief, Joe Bill eased the tension off the rubberized bands on his slingshot. “The sheriff.”
Lillie’s scowl gave way to a hopeful grin. “Daddy?”
“No, Mr. Jessup.”
“What’s going on here?” Rafe shoved the onlookers back.
Immediately, as if reminded of her purpose, the blind girl assumed her battle stance. “He hittin’ Tombo.”
Only then did Rafe see the man crouched against the front wall of the Red Eye, blood streaming from his nose and a cut in his lip. One eye was almost swollen shut, and he held an arm around his stomach.
“I didn’t do nothing,” Tombo Welks protested weakly. “I swear.”
The object of the children’s ire—a man Rafe didn’t recognize—pointed to a half-starved, bleeding horse tied t
o the hitching rail in front of the boardwalk. “Goddamn dummy was trying to steal my horse. You ought to arrest him.”
“He savin’ him!” Lillie cried, jabbing in his direction with her stick. “You the dummy, hit a horse that way.”
“How could you see me hit him, you blind-assed nigger?”
That’s when Rafe hit him. He shouldn’t have. He knew he was setting a poor example for the children, but the impulse came over him so fast he acted before he could control it. A man shouldn’t talk to a child that way. Plus, the bully had abused a horse. Rafe couldn’t allow either.
“Everybody clear out!” Rafe ordered.
Children scattered. The crowd thinned, except for Tait and another fellow new to town—obviously a cohort of the stranger groaning at Rafe’s feet.
“You had no call to hit Frank,” he accused. “Sheriff or not.”
Rafe looked at him until the man edged back. Then, with quiet emphasis, he said, “I’m only the temporary sheriff. The regular sheriff is a Cheyenne Dog Soldier. He’s away right now—probably sharpening his war axe and skinning things—but if you’d care to wait in jail until he gets back, he’d probably like to hear your reasons for defending the coward who called his ten-year-old daughter a blind-assed nigger.”
“Daughter?” The man’s gaze swung to Lillie. His face paled. He took another step back.
“You’re ten?” Joe Bill looked at Lillie in surprise. “But you’re so small.”
“I nearly ’leven, same as you. But I sho’ ’nuff smarter.”
The boy wisely didn’t argue the point. Lillie Redstone was smarter than most kids in town—except maybe his Jamie and Lucas Brodie. Smarter than a lot of adults, too.
Rafe waited to see if the man had anything else to say. When he didn’t, he nodded. “Then unless you want to share a cell with your friend here, I suggest you step out of the way.” Bending, Rafe roughly yanked the woozy man to his feet.
“You’re locking him up? Isn’t a man allowed to defend his own property?”
“Sure. But abusing horses and children is a whole different matter.”
