The Betrayal

by Diane Noble

  He stood back and crossed his arms and, leaning against the fence, studied her. He let his gaze drift to the stars instead of her eyes when next he spoke. “Everything I’ve said is true.”

  “But not the whole truth. I’m sorry, but I cannot accept your offer. Your feelings toward me are no secret, but we’re kidding ourselves if either one of us feels it’s love. It’s . . . it’s something else. Passion, perhaps? Or the will to take what I will not allow?” She stepped closer to him, this time capturing his gaze in a way that would not allow him to blink. “I’m a conquest, Gabe.

  “It’s taken me a long time to figure it out, but what you feel for me is just that. You are attracted to me because you can’t have me. It’s been that from the day you discovered that Mary Rose and I had vowed my relationship with you would not be physical. You couldn’t wait to conquer my determination to be faithful to my friend.”

  He started to shake his head, but this time she reached up and held his face in her hands. “You can try to convince me of this grand gesture made by Brigham or Foley, but even as you kissed me I had already figured it out. I’ve become too outspoken to keep near the other women. They want me away from the Saints’ new Zion. They’ll go to any lengths to see that it happens—from ‘adopting’ you as a spirit son to sending your outspoken wife as far away as possible.” She laughed lightly. “And best plan of all is to keep me eternally pregnant so I’m unable to travel and can’t stir up trouble.”

  The flicker of something in his eyes told her she was right. “That’s already been mentioned, hasn’t it?”

  Gabe took her hands from his face and held them gently. “I’ve tried to protect you. As far back as the night in Winter Quarters when Coal disappeared, Brigham suggested it.”

  “Why didn’t you press it?”

  “The things he said were too . . . personal, too difficult . . . to hear about you.” He hesitated before going on. “Regardless of what you think of me, I respect you too much to have carried out their suggestions.”

  “So now, their suggestions have turned into orders.”

  “You are in great danger—I’ve said that from the beginning. I want to save you from the consequences.”

  “I can’t do it, Gabe.”

  “I didn’t think you would.” He gave her a crooked smile and touched her cheek gently with the back of his knuckles. “But I had to try.” His waggled his eyebrows, breaking the seriousness of the moment. Bronwyn couldn’t help smiling. “And you must admit, it was a pretty enjoyable attempt.”

  He turned to leave.

  “Gabe . . .”

  He stopped and looked back.

  “What are we going to do?”

  He drew a deep breath. “Let me worry about that.” He studied her face. “About all this other . . . I promise I will honor your wishes from now on.”

  “Thank you.”

  His expression turned somber. “But, please promise me that you’ll practice the utmost discretion with your words and activities. I fear for us all if you don’t.”

  As soon as he left, she considered all he said. Had he too easily agreed with her at the end? Accepted the futility of his attempts to woo her? Was feigned sincerity his new tactic?

  But could she trust him? She honestly did not know.

  She fell to her knees by the garden and dropped her face into her hands. They smelled of loamy and moist soil, of decaying leaves. The lantern still burned to one side. In its light, she turned her hands over, examined the calluses, the broken fingernails, the scars made from driving the oxen and changing wagon wheels.

  She straightened her fingers, tightened them into fists, and then straightened them again. The look of them, the motion, comforted her. They held evidence of what she had done. They told her that nothing was too hard for her. Not even saying no to Gabe.

  She would not go with Gabe. Nothing he, the prophet, or the head of the Avenging Angels could say or do would make her.

  She and the family were being watched. Escape was now the only way to keep the family together. The wagon train that Sarah told them about drew nearer each day. They would somehow get word to its captain. Her mind spun with the details of their plan, the actions that still needed to be carried out, the dangers. . .

  Coyotes yipped in the distance, and a lone wolf howled. She shivered and looked to the house, the evidence of her loved ones inside, for comfort. But the windows were dark, for even Cordelia had turned out her lamp and gone to bed.

  Be brave, she told herself. Think of your hands and what they’ve done. Put your shoulders back. She and Mary Rose had planned their escape for months. Now, finally, they would choose the time and place for a rendezvous with the wagon company.

  She just needed to put fear aside.

  Cordelia always said there was nothing like pulling weeds or cleaning a closet to clear the cobwebs from mind and soul. Tonight cobwebs abounded. The wolf howled again, this time closer to the ranch.

  She moved the lantern closer to the garden and began weeding again, ripping out one tough fat weed at a time, ever conscious of the howling drawing nearer.

  She set her jaw in a determined line and worked her way down the row of cabbages. By the time she moved to a row of beets, slicing deep into the soil with her spade, all was eerily quiet. The coyotes had apparently made their kill, and the wolf had moved on to new territory. Or sat somewhere in the wilderness surrounding the ranch, his yellow eyes watching her every move.

  She had just reached the end of the second row of beets when her trowel hit something hard. Thinking it was a stone, she dug around it until she reached its edge. She gave it a yank to pull it loose.

  It was larger than she expected. Frowning, she got on her knees and felt around the object with her fingers. It didn’t give.

  It was also wider than any stone that could have been left in the garden—just below the surface—when she and Mary Rose planted a few months earlier.

  Strangely, it seemed less dense than stone, even sandstone. She knocked at it with the handle end of her trowel.

  Wood? She knocked again to be sure. A wooden box?

  She moved her fingers around the object, inch by inch, feeling her way along. Only soil met her probing. If this was some sort of lid, it had nothing but soil underneath it.

  She stood, hands on hips, to assess the size. It was at least five feet long and perhaps two feet wide, or a bit more. Probably nothing more sinister than lumber tossed aside at their house raising. Six inches or more of soil with clumps of seedlings covered the object, making it heavier than it otherwise would have been.

  She moved along its length, and then across one width, carefully removing the plants and brushing off the soil. By the time she got halfway up the opposite side, she was able to jiggle the wood. Pleased with her progress, she stood, and yanked the wood upward.

  The hair on the back of her neck prickled. She dropped the object with a thud and backed away as a sickening odor filled the air.

  A foul and distinct odor . . . of death.

  The sheer horror of the thought of what, or who, might be under the wooden plank, twisted her stomach. She bent over the cabbage seedlings and vomited.

  Chapter Twenty

  Soft whimpering cries filled the night air. It took Bronwyn a half heartbeat to realize they were her own.

  She knelt near the garden, shaking so hard she could not stand. She covered her nose and mouth with her apron, tears streaming down her face from a bout of dry heaves, from the lingering stench of death, and from the acrid smell of her own vomit.

  Still crying, she wiped her face again with the edge of her apron and then crawled away from the corpse, backward, half expecting whatever was underneath the boards to lift them and climb out of its grave.

  Her breaths came in pants, short and shaky, as she tried to gather her wits. Something died, but was the corpse animal or human? The stench of death still hung in the air, clung to her nostrils, her clothing. The body hadn’t been there when she and Mary Rose p
lanted the garden. That meant it was placed there recently, and on purpose.

  Not placed. Buried.

  For her or Mary Rose or even one of the children to find.

  She pictured Little Grace or one of the twins discovering the corpse while picking beets. Her stomach roiled, and again she doubled over, fighting the urge to vomit, the bile stinging her throat. After a moment the feeling left her, and she drew a deep breath, forcing herself to breathe easier, slowly, evenly.

  She tried to grab on to a rational thought, make a decision . . . anything to keep the image of what lay beneath the board from her mind.

  Why was the corpse there? Who had buried it? Was she being watched? Shuddering, she glanced around the circle of ambient light from the lantern. What, or who, crouched beyond the light?

  The nausea subsided, and her thoughts came fast and clear. Mary Rose, Cordelia, Little Grace, Ruby, Pearl, Joey, and Spence—all those she loved—were in danger. The monster who left this thing in the garden for any of them to find would win if she cowered in fear, afraid to go for help.

  The decision made, she tried to stand. Her limbs would not support her. Half crawling, she made her way to the side door. She grabbed the doorjamb and, clinging to it for support, drew herself up to standing. Her knees supported her weight at last.

  She hurried inside, closed the door, and slammed the deadbolt across. She ran to the great room, latched and locked that door as well. Then she moved a ladder-back chair to the one side, stepped onto it, and reached for the Hawken that hung above.

  Her legs now as strong as her will, she quickly moved from room to room, upstairs and down, securing windows, checking on the sleeping children, Cordelia, and Mary Rose. In her own bedroom, she slipped out of her dirty clothing, washing the filth and smell from her face and hands, and pulled on her riding clothes and boots.

  The mantel clock struck midnight as she came back down the stairs and moved the ladder-back chair to a place where both doors where visible—and the garden, where she’d left the lantern burning. She then doused the indoor lamp and sat in darkness, the Hawken across her lap.

  The wolf howled again in the distance. Another answered nearby. A shudder traveled up her spine.

  All became quiet again. Too quiet.

  Then she saw movement, no more than a shadow, just beyond the circle of the lantern’s ambient light. Fear swept through her once more. She picked up the Hawken and moved toward the window.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Leaning back in the silk settee in front of the fireplace, Enid waited for Gabe to return. She wore her loveliest nightclothes, made of a soft gossamer cloth trimmed with lace, and had pulled her hair back and tied it with a ribbon. The fire had died to glowing embers and with it her hopes for a romantic evening with her husband.

  She stood and placed a few knots of oak on the fire. The resin in them liquefied, and sparks flew up like Chinese fireworks. Sometimes she felt as though her life might fly apart in much the same way. Since marrying Gabe, it certainly hadn’t turned out as she expected. Life with her so-called sister wives wasn’t easy. She’d thought she could make Gabe hers and hers alone. It seemed her so-called sister wives and Gabe himself had other ideas.

  As far as she could tell, each bride wanted Gabe to herself. Well, perhaps Mary Rose didn’t. Once in a great while, Enid noticed a warm glow in her eyes as she watched Gabe—usually when he wasn’t aware of it—but more often than not, her demeanor toward him dripped of cordiality bordering on indifference. Enid did concede that great sorrow might lie just beneath the cool surface. After all, Mary Rose couldn’t have known on the day they married what lay in store for her, for them.

  Bronwyn, however, too often looked upon Gabe with passionate adoration. Anyone near them could see it if they paid attention at all. And, in Enid’s opinion, nothing in the world was more attractive to a man than a pretty woman gazing upon him with dreamy eyes beneath thick lashes, her complexion like that of the finest porcelain and cheeks the color of roses.

  Gabe had ridden out to the ranch earlier to spend time with the children, or so he said, but suspicions filled Enid’s heart as the time dragged on. He should have been home hours ago. She tried not to think that he might be in the arms of Bronwyn or Mary Rose. She pressed her lips together and decided to believe he was on Church business. But the way Bronwyn looked at him was an image that kept returning to her thoughts.

  She checked the time on the mantel clock, and then stood and walked to the bookcase to pick out one of her medical books: Treatise on the Diseases of Animals, Large and Small, published by the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. At least such reading would keep her mind off her jealousies and turn her thoughts to a more productive use of her time. She had never thought herself prone to such a feminine weakness, but life among the Saints, it seemed, had brought out something long dormant.

  She sat down again and opened the book. Several of the farmers in the valley had reported stillborn calves. There had been too many for it to be a coincidence. The Ellises were the latest, and she planned to visit them in the morning to examine the calf’s body, feed, and water.

  Even as she listened for Gabe’s arrival, she leafed through the Treatice, found the references she needed, read through them, considering how the information might relate to the dead calves. She suspected the cause might be the water, the high-alkaline content, but she couldn’t be sure. Brigham had engineers working on a canal system to bring snow water from the mountains into the Great Salt Lake Valley, but the huge project would take some time to finish. Meantime, the calves died.

  She placed the book on the settee beside her, patting the cover almost affectionately, and then smiled as a memory filled her mind. What excitement she’d felt when it arrived—sent to Nova Scotia from the doctor in Scotland who’d become her mentor, one of the first to study in the field of veterinary medicine. She had written to Hosea just before his last voyage, and he had received the letter in Liverpool before the Sea Hawk set sail for Boston.

  But his return letter had been bittersweet. He told her that he had arranged for her to see a fertility doctor in London and wanted her to accompany him on his return trip to England. She’d been dismayed, shocked, and frightened, for it was an appointment she could not keep. Her secret would be found out. The child she’d borne with Gabe.

  She recalled her anticipation as the Sea Hawk neared harbor. Her man, her captain, was coming home from the sea! Their love had been fierce from the beginning, so fierce she thought it strong enough to withstand the harshest of storms.

  Looking back, she should have told him about the secret she’d kept so long. Instead, she asked Gabe, his comrade and friend, to break the news. Her cowardice destroyed their long friendship; it destroyed Hosea’s love for her.

  Her eyes filled at the memory of her husband. Oh, what a sight he’d been . . . tall and handsome, elegant and strong. A commanding presence, especially when in his captain’s uniform.

  A sigh escaped her lips as she tried to imagine how life would be if she hadn’t betrayed his trust, if he hadn’t died. Would they have settled in Nova Scotia in the little cottage by the sea? Or would they have sailed together around the world, the captain and his bride, as Hosea had always wanted to do?

  She stood, trying to shake his memory from her mind. Hosea was dead. Gabe was her husband now, for better or worse. With a heavy sigh, she stood and reached for a lamp, and then she made her way up the stairs to retire to bed, downhearted that Gabe thought so little of her to keep her waiting.

  She lay awake for a time, listening for the beat of horse hooves, but the only sound was the flutter of leaves against her window and the hoot of an owl from a cottonwood a few houses down the street.

  Her eyes grew heavy, and finally, she turned down the lamp and settled against her pillow.

  As she fell asleep, Gabe’s image came to her. He was a boy again, grinning at her playfully as they raced their horses along the lacy waters of the beach. He shouted that he was faster and b
etter, but when she overtook him, riding around his horse, deeper into the water, he called out that where she was going was dangerous. “Come back,” he cried. “Come back!”

  But still she rode on, laughing as her horse’s hooves sprayed water on them both.

  She turned to see if Gabe followed, but he had halted his horse. His face was filled with fear. He seemed to be pleading with her, but she couldn’t understand his words. She called to him to join her, but he kept crying, “Come back.”

  A wind came up, and in the distance a storm brewed. Still she laughed and danced her horse along the edge of the Atlantic. She knew Gabe still called to her, but she ignored his warnings.

  And then a new voice joined his and she looked up to see Hosea standing by Gabe. He was no longer a boy, but a man, full of hearty laughter and eyes full of life’s joy. They stood together on an outcropping of granite, these friends. Hosea! Her heart leapt when she saw him. His eyes caught hers, and her heart danced as surely as the mare she rode danced in the shallow waves. They laughed together, these friends. They beckoned to her to join them.

  She slid from her horse and ran to them. Both opened their arms to claim her, but she ran straight to Hosea, taking joy in the rough feel of his arms around her. “You live!” she shouted. “You live!”

  He twirled her and laughed when he set her down again.

  Gabe ran from them, calling over his shoulder that they needed to hurry, that the storm was still coming and nearly upon them.

  Hosea held her but seemed distracted by the coming storm. She turned to follow his gaze. Gabe was right. The sea and sky had turned a dirty shade of gray. The storm had circled and approached again, this time its thunder violently shaking the ground.

  “We must jump,” Hosea said, pulling her with him to the side of a cliff. “It’s the only way we can survive.” He gave her a pleading look. “I love you, it’s always been you, only you. . . .”

  The storm raged around them now, whipping her hair into her face. “I’m afraid,” she cried, now sobbing. “How can you love me? How can anyone love me?”