by Kaki Warner
Doc was right. It wouldn’t be long. Even now the room stank of death.
“Sally,” Declan said, standing at the side of the bed.
Even though the sick woman’s eyes were open, Edwina wondered if they saw anything. It took them a moment to find Declan. “Brin . . . ?”
“She’s safe. Lone Tree is dead.”
Her smile left red smears on her teeth. But when her gaze shifted to Edwina, the smile faded and an intense yearning came over her face. Her mouth opened and her breathing quickened, but no words came out.
Edwina stared back, not sure what to say to this broken, defeated woman. What did Sally want of her? Why had she even asked to see her? She sensed unspoken messages hanging between them but didn’t know what they meant.
“Please . . .” Sally whispered.
And finally Edwina understood. “I’ll take care of them, Sally. I promise.” She glanced at the man beside her and added, “All of them.”
A look of relief came over the dying woman’s face. Her features softened and grew slack, giving Edwina a glimpse of the pretty woman she might have been before disappointment and bitterness and disease had taken their toll. That fevered gaze shifted to Declan. “For . . . give me,” she whispered as the light faded from her eyes.
“I do, Sally.”
They buried her the next day. Doc was concerned that even in death Sally’s body might be able to transmit the disease. At his further suggestion, there was no wake or formal gathering at the church but a processional from the hotel out to the little fenced cemetery beside the church on the flats at the edge of town.
Out of deference to the dead woman, Edwina hadn’t moved with the rest of the family into the sheriff’s house the night before. Declan and the children needed time to come to grips with this second good-bye. For that same reason, she held back now, and flanked by Maddie and Lucinda, walked to the graveyard behind Sally’s family. This was their loss. Their grief. It wasn’t her place to intrude.
Besides, she wasn’t a wife anymore. Sally’s return had negated that. The judge had been adamant that she and Declan would have to marry again if they wanted their union to be legal.
The strains of the ragtag band—minus the piano—wafted back as the marchers left the narrow canyon and followed the road onto the grassy flats. As they cleared the trees and the sky opened above them, Edwina studied the thunderheads building behind the peaks. It would rain later, she guessed. Perhaps that was the Lord’s way of washing away all the heartache and sorrow. She hoped the ceremony would be over before it came.
On a distant ridge, a lone horseman rose silhouetted against the sky. He had stopped to watch the train of mourners walking behind the buckboard carrying Sally’s casket. He sat stiffly, his back ramrod straight. A huge dog stood beside his horse. She wondered idly who he was, and where he was headed, or if he sought his future in Heartbreak Creek. She wondered if Heartbreak Creek even had a future. Or if her sister would be home by the time she and Declan married again.
She had to be. Edwina wouldn’t marry without Pru by her side. Perhaps it would be a double wedding . . . assuming Cheyenne Dog Soldiers even believed in marriage. Meanwhile, Edwina would get to work on the little shack that would house Pru’s school for Negroes and anyone else who wanted to learn.
And life would go on.
She let her gaze travel over the broad back of the man walking ahead of her. That sturdy back was hers now—hers to touch, to lean on, to run her hands down when he moved over her in the night. She smiled, her fingers tingling at the idea. Despite the solemnity of the day, the future stretched gloriously ahead.
By the time Pastor Rickman said his final prayers, the lone horseman was gone, the air had cooled, and the wind was blowing hard out of the west.
A storm was coming, for sure.
Twenty-three
Three weeks later, leading a string of four horses, Declan rode his big bay down into the rocky creek bed, wincing at the pull of the lead rope on his shoulder and across his gloved and barely healed palm.
Several braves waited on the bank, rifles or bows in hand, their expressions ranging from curious to wary to menacing. Ignoring them, he rode up the low bank, forcing them to step aside. Looking neither right nor left, he rode on into the heart of the Cheyenne-Arapaho village.
Despite the yapping dogs, and curious children and women gathering around, he kept the restive bay at an unhurried walk until he reached the tipi he sought. There he reined in and dismounted.
After a moment, Lean Bear stepped from behind the deer-hide door flap. He looked at Declan without speaking, his face twisted in a scowl. Or maybe that was the scar.
Declan held out the rein on one of the unsaddled horses, Lone Tree’s stocky pinto with fading war paint on its shoulders and rump, and wearing a bosal halter with an eagle feather. “For his family,” he said in broken Cheyenne, knowing not to speak the name of the dead. Turning, he motioned to the three other unsaddled horses beside his bay. “For his tribe. To ease the loss of a warrior.”
The chief’s gaze flicked from Lone Tree’s pinto to the three young horses restlessly kicking up dust. Declan had pulled them from his own small herd, wanting to show good faith and hoping if the chief accepted this offering, it would put an end to this sorry business once and for all.
Lean Bear finally motioned to a young brave. As the grinning boy led the horses away, the chief nodded to Declan. “It is well,” he said in his slurred voice.
Declan nodded in return. Feeling as if a great burden had been lifted from his shoulders, he remounted and rode out of the village toward the shadowed silhouette of the Raggeds.
It was over. Finally. “Later” had come and now he could start his life anew. Grinning, he nudged the bay into a ground-eating lope.
He was still a day from home, crossing a low aspen-topped ridge, when he saw movement in the draw below him. He reined in. Two riders were working their way up a switchback trail toward the bench where he sat watching. The rider in front was quite a bit larger than the one following and wore the traditional Cheyenne topknot. There was something about the way he sat his horse . . .
As they drew closer, Declan grinned and spurred his gelding to intercept them as they reached the top of the ridge. “Ho, Thomas,” he called, riding toward them.
Thomas reined in. The second rider stopped beside him. Pru.
As he pulled the bay to a walk, Declan studied Pru’s face, hoping she was recovered and had returned to the pretty, smiling woman she had been before Lone Tree had abducted her.
The bruises had faded. The swelling was gone. She was smiling, and as pretty as he remembered. But as he stopped before them, Declan saw her smile lacked animation, as if it had been carved into her face with a chisel, and there was a wariness in her dark eyes that hadn’t been there before.
Thomas showed as little expression as he usually did, but Declan recognized the weary droop at the corners of his mouth, the exhaustion and worry in his eyes. It was apparent things hadn’t gone well, and the sweat lodge hadn’t accomplished what they’d hoped.
“You’re early,” he said to Thomas. “I didn’t expect you for another month.”
“Prudence wanted to return to her sister.”
“Ed will be glad.” Declan smiled at Pru and added, “She’s missed you. We all have.”
Pru acknowledged that with a nod, but her fixed smile remained unchanged. “I have missed all of you, as well.”
“You are far from your ranch,” Thomas said.
“I’m headed there now. I was visiting Lean Bear.” As their horses fell into step down the trail, Declan told them about Lone Tree coming to the hotel, Sally’s beating, and that gut-churning scene on the platform at the mine. “He would have killed all of us if Ed hadn’t hit him with a shovel.”
For the first time, true emotion flashed in Pru’s eyes—fear. “She killed him?”
Declan gave a wry smile. “She just hit him. It was the seventy-foot fall that killed him.”
A shudder rippled through her. “And Brin is all right?”
“She’s still skittish, and I doubt we’ll ever get her on anything higher than a chair, but the nightmares have stopped.”
“Poor child.”
Thomas said nothing, but the way his mouth tightened indicated his disappointment that he hadn’t been the one to take care of the man who had hurt Pru and endangered the little girl he loved like his own blood.
They rode in silence for a while. Then Declan said, “We buried Sally last month. She never recovered from the beating Lone Tree gave her.”
“Perhaps her spirit can rest now.”
“How are the children taking it?” Pru asked.
“It’s complicated things,” Declan admitted. “More so since her being alive made my marriage to Ed illegal.”
Prudence gave him a sharp look. “You’re not married?”
“Not anymore.”
“What does Edwina say about that?”
Declan reached down and brushed a horsefly off the chestnut’s neck. “Haven’t talked to her much lately. She’s been staying at the hotel ever since Sally’s passing.”
“She’s not with you and the children?”
Hearing the anger in Pru’s voice, Declan took heart. If the poor woman could worry about Ed, then she hadn’t completely shut herself off. “It was her idea. She thought the children might adjust better to their mother’s death if she wasn’t there to confuse the issue.”
“And you agreed to that nonsense?”
Definitely angry. “I’ve been pretty busy lately,” Declan defended, “getting the new sheriff up to snuff, and moving out of the house in Heartbreak Creek, and doing repairs at the ranch. But I suspect we’ll talk soon.”
“Men.” Prudence said it like a cuss word. “You all think you know best. But you don’t. You just make everything worse.”
Surprised at the vehement tone, Declan glanced past Pru to meet Thomas’s troubled eyes.
At the unspoken question, Thomas gave a small shake of his head and looked away. But Declan had seen that shadow of sadness behind those dark eyes and knew it was as he had suspected; things hadn’t gone well at the sweat lodge, and apparently Prudence Lincoln was nursing anger about more than just Lone Tree.
Late the next day, Edwina was sweeping the boardwalk in front of the hotel when she noticed two riders coming down the street. Raising a hand against the afternoon glare, she studied them, then gave a whoop when she recognized Thomas and Pru.
Flinging the broom aside, she yelled through the double doors to Yancey at the front desk. “Get Miss Hathaway and Mrs. Wallace! They’re back! Pru and Thomas are back!” Then she rushed to the edge of the boardwalk, one hand gripping her apron, the other waving frantically.
Tears blinded her. Thank you, God. Thank you, Thomas.
By the time the Cheyenne reined in at the hitching post by the step, she was sobbing and babbling uncontrollably. “Pru! Thank the Lord. I’ve been so worried!”
Lucinda and Maddie rushed onto the boardwalk behind her, and soon all three women were laughing and crying and talking at once.
Pru smiled back, her own eyes shimmering.
Thomas slid down and went to help her, but Pru had already dismounted and was rushing toward Edwina.
Edwina grabbed her the moment she came up the steps, wrapping her so tightly in her arms she could feel the thud of her sister’s heart against her own. “Oh, Pru. I feared I’d never see you again.” She laughed, tears running down her face. “Have you truly come home? Are you all right?”
“I will be when you stop choking me.” A final pat on Edwina’s shoulder, then Pru pulled out of her grip and stepped back. “And yes, I’m home.”
Swiping tears from her eyes, Edwina studied her sister from head to toe, desperate to assure herself that Pru was truly all right.
She looked weary and dusty and odd in those buckskins. She had also lost weight and her smile seemed a bit strained, but that was no doubt because she was tired. Pru wasn’t much of a rider. Yet when Edwina looked past her sister’s shoulder to greet Thomas, she saw such a troubled look on the warrior’s face, she knew something was wrong. But before she could question him, Thomas turned back to his horse.
“Wait!” Edwina rushed down the steps toward the Cheyenne. “Where are you going?”
“I have fulfilled my promise, Edwina Brodie. I have brought Prudence Lincoln back to you.”
“And that’s it? Now you just ride away?” Edwina looked back at Pru, willing her to speak up. But her sister wouldn’t meet her eyes and quickly turned to speak to Maddie and Lucinda. Puzzled, Edwina faced the warrior. “I don’t understand. What happened? Why are you leaving?”
Thomas studied Pru’s back, a look of yearning softening his stern features. “If Prudence Lincoln needs me to stay, I will.” He said it loudly enough for Pru to hear, but her sister never turned to face him.
His face grim, Thomas gathered the reins on his bosal bridle and vaulted up onto the horse’s back.
Panicked and confused, Edwina put her hand on the horse’s rein. Lowering her voice so the others wouldn’t hear, she said, “You can’t leave. She needs you, Thomas. She may not want to admit that right now, but she does. We all do. You’re part of our family.”
“I will not be far. Good-bye, Edwina.” Reining away from the hitching rail, he kicked his horse into a lope. Only then did Pru turn. And as she watched Thomas ride back the way they had come, Edwina saw in her sister’s face that same look of yearning she had seen in the Cheyenne’s.
“Well, where are they?”
At Edwina’s words, Lucinda looked up from the curtain she was threading on the wooden rod. “Are you referring to Pru, Thomas, or Declan and the children?”
“Either. Any. All of them. We shouldn’t have to do all this by ourselves.” Edwina frowned at the half-painted walls, the rough floor that needed sanding, the windows awaiting curtains. “This is her school. She should be helping.”
And usually she was. Pru was as excited as any of them about the school and seemed at her happiest within these rough walls. But this morning she had already been gone when Edwina awoke, and was still absent when the ladies walked to the little school on the outskirts of town.
Maddie brushed back an errant auburn curl, leaving a smear of white paint on her cheek. “Perhaps she and Thomas are busy.”
“Busy doing what?” Edwina groused. “They don’t even speak.”
She was peeved, irritated, hurt, and so worried she was chewing her nails. She hadn’t seen Declan and the children in weeks, and whenever she tried to talk to Pru, her sister avoided her. She felt like a pariah.
“I’ve seen the way they look at each other.” Smiling wistfully, Maddie dipped her brush into the bucket of whitewash that Edwina had coerced Cal Bagley into donating. “And sometimes looks say more than words.”
“Not to me,” Edwina muttered, fitting a new sheet of sandpaper into her sanding block.
Lucinda looked over at her. “She still won’t talk to you about what happened when she was abducted?”
Moving to one of the tall windows, Edwina knelt down. “No,” she said, rubbing the sanding block over the sill. “Every time I bring it up, she changes the subject.”
Which was only partly true.
After Pru had first come back, Edwina had tried to talk to her about her ordeal, hoping if she could get her sister to share those terrors with her, then maybe that lost look would leave her eyes. But Pru had cut her off each time Edwina had broached the subject, saying curtly that “some things were best forgotten.”
When Edwina had tried a different tack, asking why she was so upset with Thomas, Pru had been ever more snappish.
“He hovers. You know I don’t like that. I don’t need his help. I just want everything to go on as it was before and for everyone to quit pestering me about it.”
She must have seen the shock on Edwina’s face, because she had tried to cover her sharp words with a half ap
ology. “I know everyone means well. Thomas, too. But I’m not ready for that right now. Perhaps I never will be.”
“Ready for what? Is he pressuring you?”
“No, of course not. Thomas would never force me to do anything.” She gave a laugh that sounded false. “Except crawl into that stifling sweat lodge. What a disaster that was. It’s just that . . . well . . . he wants something from me that I can’t give right now. Or perhaps ever.”
Edwina studied her sister, seeing such a mix of emotions move across her usually serene face she could scarcely sort them out. But one seemed especially prominent . . . one Edwina had rarely seen there. Fear.
“He wants something you can’t give, Pru? Or offering something you won’t take?”
“Both. Neither. I don’t know what you mean.” Perhaps realizing how confusing that sounded, Pru had reached out and patted Edwina’s arm. “Please, Sister. Don’t press me about this. Perhaps soon we’ll talk. But right now I can’t bear to think about it.”
That was almost two weeks ago. And Pru still hadn’t spoken about it. She still avoided Thomas, and still cried herself to sleep every night. And Edwina still waited for her beloved sister to return.
Poor Thomas. Edwina rubbed harder on the rough wood, and the smell of raw pine rose from beneath her sanding block.
Thomas had seemed as confused as she by Pru’s silence. Yet he hadn’t given up. Many times Edwina had seen him seated on the bench across the street, arms folded, his expression set, his gaze fixed on the front door of the hotel, as if expecting Pru to come to him or perhaps letting her know he was still there, watching over her. And like Edwina, waiting.
Last week, Edwina had gone to speak to him, determined to get some answers. Plopping down beside him on the bench, she had said, “She won’t talk to me, Thomas. It’s like she’s pretending nothing happened. Yet at night I hear her crying, but when I ask her about it, she just brushes me off. So what am I supposed to do? I want to help her, but I don’t know how.”
