by Jodi Thomas
“No,” Hannah answered. “Your brother is the kindest man I’ve ever known.” She watched the disappointment on Gavrila’s face.
“Know that I’m on your side if anything ever happens.” Her sister-in-law held her chin high. “My stepmother always said that someday I’d have to take charge and that I’d better be ready when the time came. If that includes running his ranch, I suppose I can manage that also. She said he was the sort of man who’d move on when too many people settled-around him. He needs his solitude.”
Gavrila patted Hannah’s arm. “But don’t you worry. I’ll stay if he goes, I promise. After all, you’re family now and I’d think it only right that I look after you and, of course, the ranch.”
Hannah wondered if Ford had any idea how Gavrila felt. She was simply waiting in the wings for him to do something wrong so she could step in. What did she think he’d do, go crazy, become wild, or just leave? Hannah could imagine doing all three if she’d had Gavrila for a sister.
But Ford had remained. He’d stayed and built a ranch and seen that his sister was taken care of. He’d turned a deaf ear to everyone’s whispers and done what he could to belong in a town that didn’t seem to want him.
“I’d ask you to join me for lunch,” Gavrila’s voice increased in volume, “but I’ve been invited out. It wouldn’t be proper to bring an uninvited guest.”
“I understand.” Hannah wasn’t sure she could eat with Gavrila across from her. “I have some catching up to do at my desk, and then I really need to get back home.”
She waved good-bye and walked toward the school. The wind was icy cold but Hannah hardly noticed. Ford, as a little boy, stood before her in her thoughts. She understood the loss of a mother, though she’d been twelve and of an age to take care of herself. Ford hadn’t even been old enough to understand. With the death, he lost not only his mother, but his whole family. He’d lost the single person who might have cared about him.
She tried to plan the lessons for Monday, but a little boy with matted hair and dirty clothes stayed in her thoughts. He deserved a loving wife who would fill his home with laughter and children. He deserved someone better than a woman he’d met during a robbery to be the mother of his kids.
She finally gave up trying to plan the lessons and busied herself with cleaning the room. Her contract had very plainly stated that part of her duties included tidying her classroom.
When she swept near the stove, she noticed the coal box was full of coal and knew Ford had placed it there. Hannah knelt beside the box and brushed her fingers lightly over it. He was taking care of her again. No one had ever seen to even her simplest needs. No one but Ford had ever been concerned if she was cold or hungry or frightened.
The sun was almost touching the earth when she realized it was long past the time Zachery had said he’d come for her. Hannah walked out of the school, still thinking of Ford. She made up her mind to convince everyone in town how wonderful he was, so that when she “died,” he could find a decent wife who’d love him and make up for all he’d lost. Hannah didn’t know how to love like that, but he deserved a chance. If she ever got to heaven, she planned to recommend him for sainthood—if Methodists have saints—just for not having killed Gavrila these past twenty years. Gavrila made Hannah thankful she’d been an only child.
When Hannah reined in the bay in front of Lewis’s store and post office, she could see Jinx and Uncle Zachery sitting near the windows, catching the afternoon sun for their game.
Zachery looked up at her and waved, then talked with Jinx for several minutes before joining Hannah.
He climbed into the buggy and took the reins. “Early, aren’t you, girl?”
Hannah smiled. “I’m so late we’ll be lucky to make it home before dark.”
Zachery chuckled. “No need to chastise any further, girl, but I was having me a time.” He let out a long whistle. “That Jinx is something else, isn’t she? She can tell a story that’ll twist moonbeams outa twilight and make me forget how old I am.”
Hannah looked at him for signs that he’d been drinking. The woman had to be almost fifty, and not only stood taller by two inches than Zachery, but must outweigh him by thirty pounds. Jinx’s hair was salt-and-pepper gray and styled like a tumbleweed. Hannah’s smile widened. “Yes, she’s something.”
“I told her I’d ride in with you tomorrow and make the mail run with her. We’ll be back playing checkers by the time you turn the kids loose.”
“That’ll be nice,” Hannah answered, without really listening. She was thinking of getting home and seeing if possibly Ford had made it back yet.
But when she got there, the house was dark. She fixed Zachery and herself a cold plate of fruit and sliced ham with cheese between the slices. Zachery talked as if nothing were wrong, but she noticed he looked at the door several times, as if expecting Ford to walk in at any moment.
While Hannah cleaned the dishes, Zachery excused himself and vanished into his bedroom. She followed his lead and went to bed, but sleep didn’t come, and again Hannah spent the night listening to the wind call for her to come battle the night breeze.
When she’d been a little girl she’d believed the wind followed her and whined outside her door, wanting her to play. Her mother had told her once that lost spirits travel in the wind. Right now, Hannah felt very lost and alone. She could almost hear the wind spirits whispering her name.
* * *
Ford also lay awake listening to the wind. His line shack didn’t provide the protection of adobe walls. Dust seeped through the cracks between the logs. Shadows, made from the single lantern, danced on all four walls and across the empty cot on the other side of the shack from him.
Stretching, he tried to relax on the rough ropes, but he couldn’t quit thinking about how much he missed having Hannah at his side.
“Get used to it,” he mumbled to the wind. “She’ll be gone in three weeks anyway.” In no time he’d forget what it was like to lie in the blackness of the night and breathe deep of the smell of her, or listen to the soft sound of her sleeping against his shoulder. “She’ll be gone soon,” he said again louder, trying to make himself hear.
But his muscles weren’t listening and sleep was no closer now than it had been just after sunset.
All his life he’d been alone. Why should now be any worse than the other thousands of nights? As a boy he’d slept outside or on the porch, unless the weather made it impossible. Since he’d been fifteen, he’d spent many a night with only the bay to keep him company.
“I like being alone,” Ford told himself, as if saying the words aloud could make them true. Yet if he’d liked being alone so much, why had he built a house with two bedrooms? Why hadn’t he stopped Hannah the moment she’d climbed into Smith’s wagon a week ago? He could have said a few words and she’d have grabbed her cat and run. He wouldn’t have her in his house, her carpetbag with those bracelets wouldn’t be on his shelf, a cat wouldn’t trip him every time he got up in the morning, and an uncle wouldn’t be living with him.
Ford laughed. His life had certainly changed. To add to his worries, he seemed to have lost his senses if he was sleeping out here in this line shack when he could be home in a warm bed.
Slowly, he realized that it wasn’t the loneliness he was hating; he was missing Hannah. He’d tried for years to do everything right. Never lied, never stole, never did anything that would give reason for people to talk…always went to church, took care of Gavrila, worked hard. And now a woman had stormed into his life who had different values. If he wasn’t careful, she’d upset all he’d built; but for the first time in his life, it didn’t matter.
He couldn’t stay with her and he couldn’t run.
Ford twisted on his side and slammed his fist against the rough wall of the shack. Though dust showered down on him, he slammed again, harder.
“I have to stay away!” he shouted to the wind moaning through the cracks. “I have to stay away from her….” Or what? he thought. Or I’ll turn into the anima
l everyone’s always thought I might be.
Chapter 14
THE SUN REFUSED to brighten the cloudy sky as Hannah opened her eyes to her second day without Ford. She dressed with only the watery light from the window and hurried to the kitchen to cook breakfast.
Zachery was already sitting at the little table she and Ford usually shared. He had the coffee boiling and was stuffing the last of an apple pie into a huge basket. “I thought I’d take lunch for Jinx and me today. She said yesterday that the meal she fixed me was the first one she’d cooked in a month of Sundays.” He laughed. “I guess cooking isn’t one of her finer qualities.”
Hannah couldn’t help but wink. “You might check into how some of those husbands died before you eat too much of her cooking.”
Zachery crammed a loaf of Hannah’s best bread into the basket. “She already told me. Two of them died in the War Between the States. One Yank, one reb. I guess that kind of evened the score for her in the war widow department. Then she married and moved out here with number three. He was killed herding cattle into Kansas. The last one died in bed.”
“Of natural causes?”
Zachery laughed. “What he was doing was as natural as breathing.” He closed the lid on his picnic basket and moved toward the kitchen door. “I’ll get the buggy ready. I sure wouldn’t want to keep Jinx waiting.” He giggled to himself as he opened the door. “I plan on taking me a long breath today.”
Hannah had no idea what the man was talking about, but she was glad one of them looked like he’d had a good night’s sleep. She’d have trouble staying awake in school today after all the tossing she’d done before dawn.
Hurrying, she grabbed her things and joined Zachery. All the way into town, he talked about how much he liked this country. Sometimes Hannah would have to take a close look at him to remember the man she’d known two weeks before. His speech was clear now and he stood straighter than she’d ever seen him stand. Though the puffiness was still under his eyes and deep wrinkles crisscrossed his cheeks, he looked younger by ten years than he had the day Jude was shot. With Jude’s death, it seemed, Zachery was reborn.
When he left her at the school, he promised he’d be back by midafternoon to see her home and not keep her waiting again. Hannah waved him away and walked inside to a waiting class. The Burns brothers and the Madison twins still grumbled about getting started, yet everyone else looked excited, causing Hannah to abandon her weariness and take joy in teaching.
As all days seemed to with the children, the hours passed by so quickly she couldn’t believe it was time to go. Even after she dismissed her pupils, she stayed to do a few of the things that must be done to get ready for tomorrow’s lesson.
An hour after school was out, no one waited beside the buggy. Hannah finally climbed in and drove around to Lewis’s store and post office. She expected to see Jinx and Uncle Zachery playing checkers by the front windows of the post office, but they weren’t there. Lewis’s store, which shared the same building, had a sign that read GONE FOR SUPPLIES barring the main entrance. Hannah walked to the middle of the dusty street and stared up. The second floor was dark.
A prickly feeling that something was wrong crawled up her spine. Jinx lived above the store and spent most of her time there, when she wasn’t making a run for the mail or rewarming the coffee for anyone who dropped by. Zachery had told Hannah that Jinx always finished the run by early afternoon, sometimes even before noon.
Hannah walked around the building, trying every door.
Nothing.
What if Harwell’s men had ridden into town? They couldn’t have missed seeing Zachery sitting in front of the window at the post office. Maybe they didn’t know he’d witnessed the murder, but they might have guessed he’d know where to find Hannah. What if Jinx and Zachery had encountered the three killers on the road and now the two were both dead in the ditch. Even if they’d been younger, three against two couldn’t have been much of a fight.
Zachery had told her more than once that he’d heard enough after the shooting to know that the three killers would never give up until they’d cleaned up after the job. As far as they were concerned, Hannah was that messy part they’d left behind.
Hannah forced herself not to panic. At this point she was only speculating. Perhaps nothing was wrong. Zachery and Jinx might have gotten bored playing checkers and decided to go for a ride. Maybe the mail had taken far longer today. What if they’d broken a wheel and had to walk miles to a farm? A hundred explanations besides Harwell’s man catching up with them were possible.
Yet the three men in yellow slickers with guns drawn seemed to wait in the corner of her mind.
She looked at the sun. Zachery knew she always wanted to be home before dark; they’d talked about it yesterday. If she didn’t leave now she wouldn’t make it home before sunset, and the last thing she wanted to do was to be on the road, unarmed, after dark. Climbing back in the buggy, she drove down the road toward Tascosa until she reached Professor Combs’s house, then she turned and backtracked through town. No sign of Zachery or the wagon Jinx hauled mail in. All the businesses were closed for the night, and everyone except Hannah had vanished to their supper tables.
Looking at the sun, Hannah tried to think logically. If she stayed in town and waited for him, the only two places where she could spend the night were the school and Gavrila’s house. Though there were no curtains on the schoolhouse windows and no place to sleep, it still seemed more inviting than Gavrila’s.
Her only other choice was to leave for home alone and hope Zachery could find a place for the night…assuming he hadn’t been kidnapped or killed by Harwell’s men. If she were home, she could protect herself, but here she was an open target.
Hannah reached in her purse and pulled out paper and a pencil. She scribbled a note to Zachery and stuck it in the crack of the door frame of Lewis’s store. “Gone home,” was all she wrote, knowing Zachery would understand. If the trouble was only a broken wheel or something, he could always sleep in the little room at the post office folks sometimes rented while waiting for the stage. If he was fine, he could take care of himself, if there was trouble, Hannah wasn’t sure she’d be of any help without even a gun at her side.
The bay navigated his way to the ranch with no guidance from Hannah. She spent the thirty minutes watching for danger alongside the road. The endless plains stretched for miles in all directions, soothing her worries that someone might sneak up on her. A winter sun turned the sky brilliant with color, then disappeared, leaving the land cold.
By the time the horse turned into the gate and started the short distance down the road along the canyon rim, he was in full gallop. He seemed as ready to get home as Hannah.
“We made it,” she whispered as she jumped from the buggy and opened the barn door.
She’d seen Ford pull the rigging from the horse several times, but she’d never realized how difficult it might be. The old bay appeared in no hurry now that he was home and stood patiently waiting as she worked the tight leather straps.
“I should call you Patience.” Hannah fought her nervousness by talking to the horse. She told the bay all about how unafraid she was as she rubbed him down with a handful of dry straw and filled his trough with feed.
Once she was finished, she had to face the house alone. Walking slowly across the moonlit yard, she forced herself not to run for the lantern. If someone was watching, she’d spot him more easily if she wasn’t carrying a light. Ford’s house wouldn’t be an easy place for strangers to find, but the people in these parts were so friendly they’d probably lead Harwell’s men right to her…if the killers knew enough to ask for Ford’s place.
The kitchen doorknob turned easily in her grip and the door opened soundlessly. She tiptoed inside, listening for any sound, looking for anything out of place, trying to sense if even the air had been disturbed lately. Silence met her. Only silence.
Feeling her way through the kitchen, she then crossed the wide living space
to her room. Sneeze jumped from a blanket on the rocker and followed her, stretching his limbs as he moved.
Hannah let out a long breath. If anyone had been in the house, Sneeze wouldn’t have slept through it. Ever since half the town had showed up the morning after their marriage, Sneeze made a habit of disappearing under the table whenever a stranger came into the room.
Once inside the bedroom, Hannah lit both lamps and retrieved Ford’s Winchester from above the wardrobe. She locked both doors leading from her room and collapsed on the bed, relaxing for the first time in over an hour. Finally she was safe. If Harwell’s men had Zachery, they wouldn’t get her—not tonight anyway.
But when she crawled into bed, she could hear the wind whining through the canyon. Locked in the corral, the horses’ whinnies grew louder, then faded again, making Hannah realize they were pacing back and forth like worried souls at hell’s gate. The night held the chill of promised rain, but none fell to muffle the sound of the wind and horses. Within an hour Hannah also paced her confinement.
She finally abandoned the safety of her bedroom and followed Sneeze into the living area. The huge drawing pad Ford had bought her was leaning against the corner of the rock fireplace. Blank paper seemed to wait patiently for her to give shadow to her thoughts with charcoal, as she always did when she couldn’t sleep. There was more than enough paper and firelight to draw by.
Hannah curled her feet beneath her and opened the tablet. Tonight no fairy tales came to mind, only the memory of the men in Hickory’s place. Though no one might want to see the pictures, she drew all the ugliness of the moment Jude had been shot. In charcoal the sketches took form as she remembered; they were dark, ugly, haunting. The room seemed as it always had to Hannah, without warmth or color. She drew Jude falling into a river of his own blood…and a man with twisted features firing as his mouth opened to yell something lost beneath the noise of the gun…. She drew herself curling up as small as she could in a darkened corner.
Finally, when the sketches were petaled out from her like the leaves of a flower, Hannah felt the exhaustion she needed to sleep. With her head against the cushion of the couch, she finally rested.
