Whitefeather's Woman

by Deborah Hale

  A dark-haired man turned from the bar. “Miss Harris, what are you doing out on a night like this?” asked James Kincaid, the sheriff.

  Jane spotted Dr. Gray, packing his satchel. “Looking for him. Lizzie’s having her baby. We have to get out there right away.”

  The doctor ran a hand through his hair. “I swear babies have an affinity for storms and the middle of the night. I’ll go fetch my buggy from the livery stable.”

  “Don’t bother.” The sheriff glanced over at two men who had obviously just received medical attention. “I brought a wagon to cart this pair back to my lockup. I think a little ride out to Will’s place and back would do them both a world of good.”

  Almost before she knew it, Jane found herself seated between the doctor and the sheriff, with the two prisoners huddled miserably in the back of the wagon. They hurtled toward the Kincaids’ place with reckless disregard for the darkness, the rain and the muddy road. One second Jane wished the sheriff would slow down so they wouldn’t all be killed, the next she thought of Lizzie and wished they could go faster.

  Their noisy entry into the house brought William Kincaid hurtling down the stairs. “Dr. Gray, thank God! I’ve got lots of hot water boiling.”

  “Good.” The doctor peeled off his sopping coat and hat and handed them to Jane. “I could use a cup of coffee.”

  After removing his muddy boots, he hefted his satchel and headed upstairs. Jane wandered into the kitchen and collapsed onto one of the chairs. The cast-iron stove fairly glowed with heat, and steam poured from a dozen pots and kettles crowded on top of it. Jane longed to jump into one of them. Then maybe she could warm up.

  “The doctor wants coffee,” she reminded herself, scarcely aware that she was speaking out loud. “He’ll need dry clothes, too, poor man. I suppose I could do with a change myself. I wonder if Mr. Kincaid’s had anything to eat?”

  Rising from the chair, Jane tried to ignore her own shivering as she brewed a pot of coffee and heated some soup.

  An hour later, the doctor banished William downstairs to calm his nerves with a hefty tot of brandy. Jane thought she’d never seen anyone quite as miserable and frightened as William Kincaid looked just then.

  “What’s taking so long?” he demanded every time he heard Lizzie cry out.

  He raised a pair of haunted eyes to Jane. “I can’t lose her. I can’t. What would I do without her?”

  Such an impassioned outburst from a man usually so calm and composed brought a lump to Jane’s throat. She managed to soothe him with reassurances she scarcely believed herself. Before the night was over, though, she watched William Kincaid twist on the rack of his love for Lizzie. And she recalled with wrenching clarity her mother’s anguish as days had stretched into weeks with no news of her father’s ship.

  When dawn broke over the Big Sky, the wind suddenly eased, though the rain still beat a steady tattoo. A deathly hush fell over the Kincaid house.

  William froze and Jane held her breath.

  Then a lusty infant wail shattered the silence. The cool, reserved banker bent his head to his knees and sobbed. Jane stole away to the kitchen so William could vent his feelings in privacy.

  Later, while Lizzie slept and William made the acquaintance of his new son, Jane served Dr. Gray an enormous breakfast.

  “I hope you won’t take offense at what I’m about to say, Miss Harris.” The doctor leveled a look at her over the rim of his coffee mug.

  “That depends on what it is, Dr. Gray.” Jane wilted onto the chair opposite him. She was too tired and spent of emotion to summon up a proper sense of outrage.

  One corner of his mouth crinkled in a sardonic smile. “I can hardly believe you’re the same young woman who fainted dead away when I tried to make conversation with you in Caleb Kincaid’s parlor.”

  Jane thought about it before answering. “Maybe I’m not that girl anymore.”

  “You showed a lot of pluck last night, hunting me up at that saloon in the teeth of the storm.”

  If she hadn’t been so tired, Jane might have smiled. Dr. Gray didn’t know the half of what she’d gone through to find him.

  “When I first met you,” the doctor continued, “I doubted you had the necessary strength for life here in the West. I’m pleased to be proved wrong.”

  Though she acknowledged his compliment with a nod, in her heart of hearts Jane knew it wasn’t so. Oh, she’d managed to prevail over her fear of physical threats to herself. But watching Will Kincaid last night, she’d witnessed the test of a different kind of strength.

  Would William have given Lizzie his heart if he’d understood how deeply any threat to her would threaten him? Probably.

  As she thought about John out on the range in such a terrible storm, Jane wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to muster that kind of courage.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The rain they’d prayed for all summer slammed into the Kincaid roundup with the force of a stampede. Wind seemed to rage from every direction at once. Thunder and lightning spooked the horses. In all his years under the Big Sky, John Whitefeather couldn’t recollect a worse storm.

  The first night passed in a violent blur. One fierce gust ripped the canvas off Cookie’s chuck wagon. Lightning struck a tree, killing a cow and calf huddled nearby. A couple of the horses bolted.

  Fortunately, the tepee Walks on Ice had brought from Sweetwater on a travois remained standing. Most of the Cheyenne and a number of Caleb’s men crowded inside to snatch a few minutes sleep sitting up, leaning against each other. When a sullen gray morning dawned to a steady downpour, the old Cheyenne woman still had a small fire and dry supplies with which to brew tea and fry bread for everyone’s breakfast.

  “We’ve got the lion’s share of our stock collected,” Caleb told his crew. “And who knows how long this’ll keep up? I say we head straight back to the ranch. I’ll send a few cowboys to round up the rest once this breaks.”

  As the men nodded and grunted their agreement, John’s thoughts turned anxiously toward Whitehorn. How had Jane weathered the storm? Would this show of the Big Sky’s ugly temper have sent her scurrying back East in spite of her promise to wait for him?

  They were a good day’s ride from the ranch, with a branch of the Yellowstone River in the way. Not to mention how this enormous herd of cattle would slow their progress. He could only try to keep his mind focused on the job at hand and hope Jane would honor her word.

  Through the morning and early afternoon, Caleb’s crew drove the cattle, which only wanted to sink down onto the mud and wait out the storm. Rain collected on the wide brims of the cowboys’ hats and sluiced off the back. Tired, hungry, cold and wet, they pressed on, hoping to glimpse the lights of home before day’s end.

  Riding ahead of the herd to scout terrain, John and Caleb crested a rise, then reined in their horses abruptly. Caleb loosed a stream of the foulest curses John had ever heard pass his lips. John was tempted to add a few Cheyenne profanities of his own.

  They stared down at the swollen, turbulent waters before them.

  “This storm must’ve dumped a pile of rain up in the mountains.” Caleb slumped in his saddle. “It’s going to be a miserable job fording these cows across that mess.”

  John swiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “Have we got any choice?”

  After gazing upstream, then down, Caleb shook his head. “One way it gets wider and the other way it gets deeper. Trying to go around it will take us days out of our way.”

  “I’ll go tell the men.” John rode around, alerting everyone about what lay ahead.

  By the time the first cow made her way across the raging stream, half wading, half swimming, the crew all knew their tasks. A couple of the best ropers positioned themselves on either side of the river, downstream from the herd, to lasso any calves that might lose their footing. A small number of men led the first of the herd across and kept them moving once they reached the opposite bank. Others drove the animals from behind and kept a looko
ut for stock straying up or down the near bank.

  The thin trickle of cows making their way across gradually swelled as pressure from behind nudged the front ones forward.

  In the barely controlled confusion, Floyd Cobbs managed to come unsaddled, and for a while it looked like he might be swept beneath a churning sea of bovine hooves. Then Ravencrest wheeled his pinto and managed to catch Floyd’s arm. The young Cheyenne pulled the cowboy up behind him, and the tough little range pony struggled ashore, carrying them both.

  Seeing Floyd’s horse struggling in midstream, John nudged Hawkwing into the water. “Might as well get our baptism now as later, old friend. Let’s go.”

  He shivered as the water crept up his legs, though it wasn’t as cold as he’d expected. Then again, perhaps he was too thoroughly chilled from the rain to notice much difference. Reaching out to grasp the reins of Floyd’s mare, he called soothing Cheyenne words to her. Whether that helped, or whether she just needed the familiar assurance of a tug on her bridle, she settled down and headed for shore.

  John was concentrating so intensely on retrieving Floyd’s horse that at first he didn’t notice the commotion from both sides of the river. When he heard the men shouting his name and pointing upstream, he glanced that way just in time to see a large tree bearing down on him.

  In the endless few seconds while he urged both horses forward, John found himself wondering how the tree had come to be sailing downriver. Perhaps the earth around its roots had dried and been blown away during the dry summer. Then wind and the force of the river must have uprooted it.

  It went speeding past him with inches to spare.

  John opened his mouth to say, “That was close.”

  At the last moment, the tree trunk fishtailed, and a thick length of root snagged him. For an instant his boots caught in the stirrups and he feared he would be yanked clean in two. Then one boot pulled loose and the other foot worked free.

  A heartbeat of relief drowned when the river’s powerful current hurtled the tree into the fording cattle. It smacked John into the hindquarters of one shorthorn, then dragged him on, momentarily stunned. Before he could recover his wits, the tree spun, hauling him underwater.

  Vaguely aware that his belt had somehow caught on the tree root, he thought he should do something to free himself, or at least raise his head above the water. As a strangely seductive sense of warmth and peace began to steal over him, John tried to remember why he should struggle. A vision of Jane beckoned him and he longed to surrender to it.

  Perhaps this was the only way he could be with her.

  “Ruth! Caleb? Come in.” Jane struggled to hide her surprise as she ushered them into William and Lizzie’s front hall. “You must be here to meet your new nephew.”

  Peering over Caleb’s shoulder, she hoped to see John striding up the porch stairs behind them. She fought down a pang of disappointment over his absence. If Caleb had returned from the roundup, John would likely be paying a call soon.

  Perhaps he was in town at Harry Talbert’s this very minute, having a bath and getting barbered after his weeks on the range. By the look and smell of Caleb, he’d dispensed with those niceties.

  “Lizzie had her baby?” Ruth appeared dazed, as if she was walking in her sleep.

  “A boy, you say?” Caleb tried to smile, but made a miserable job of it.

  A queer flutter of panic down deep in her belly reminded Jane of the first time she’d stepped into the Kincaids’ kitchen. Something was very wrong and everyone knew what. Except her.

  “Yes, and a big, strapping fellow, too.” John. Something had happened to John.

  If she kept on talking and didn’t stop, no one would be able to tell her. And if she didn’t hear, it wouldn’t be true.

  “A real Kincaid, William says. Arrived the other night in the middle of that dreadful storm. I had a devil of a time hunting down Dr. Gray. Finally found him in the saloon, mind you. Not drinking, of course. Just stitching up a couple of fellows who’d gotten in a fight. Thank goodness your cousin James was there to arrest them, for he had a horse and wagon ready. Otherwise—”

  “We didn’t come about the baby.” Ruth cut Jane off when she paused to gulp a breath. “I reckon you’ve probably guessed that by now.”

  Jane clamped her lips shut and nodded. She looked from Caleb’s blue-gray eyes to Ruth’s dark brown ones, searching for some sign of hope in either pair. Instead she found only a reflection of her own anguish. She longed to turn and run until she was too far away to hear them. Or perhaps cover her ears and hum very loudly. Sooner or later, though, she’d have to stop and face the truth.

  “Take me to him.” Perhaps John was still clinging to life and her presence could make a difference.

  Caleb scraped his hat off. “We can’t, Jane. That’s the trouble. All the Cheyenne and as many of my ranch hands as I can spare are out combing both sides of the river for him right now. I wish I could tell you and Ruth to keep hoping, but that wouldn’t be right. I saw the whole thing….”

  In broken words he told her how they’d had to drive the cattle across a swollen river. How one of the cowboys had come unseated, and John had plunged into the water to lead the riderless horse to safety. About the uprooted tree that had dragged him downstream, through the fording herd and away.

  Jane listened. Unmoving. Unblinking. Unbelieving.

  Of all the dangers this land could throw at her and those she loved, she’d believed they were safe from her worst fear. They’d never found the body of her shipwrecked father, and now Jane wondered what had killed her mother in the end. Despair or hope?

  “Come back to the ranch with us, Jane.” Ruth took her hand. “I’ll send Mrs. Muldoon to help Lizzie. Your place is with us.”

  Somehow Jane found her voice. “Maybe later, Ruth. For now, I have to stay here. Lizzie and William need me.”

  If she let Ruth and Caleb take her back to the ranch, comfort her, cosset her, she would shatter as easily and irrevocably as an eggshell. But if she kept moving and working, if there was someone depending on her, she might just hold herself together. The way John would have wanted her to.

  “We need you, too, Jane. Besides…” When Ruth tried to persuade her, Caleb shook his head at his wife.

  “Go up and visit with Lizzie.” Jane almost didn’t recognize her own voice, it sounded so hollow. “I have to fix dinner, and you must stay to eat.”

  She needed to keep her hands busy. Do the chores she was accustomed to doing at the time she was accustomed to doing them. Cling to some tattered shred of routine and normalcy in a world suddenly turned upside down. Without another word to Ruth and Caleb, Jane took herself away to the kitchen. There she stoked the fire in the stove and began peeling potatoes.

  She didn’t feel like crying. Her heart didn’t even hurt. From old, bitter experience, Jane knew this blessed numbness would soon wear off. Then pain would land on her with the weight of a granite boulder. She would either become strong enough to carry it or it would crush her, the way it had crushed her mother.

  No, Jane would not let that happen. If she did, it would make a mockery of all the qualities John had tried to foster in her.

  Before Mama had run away to marry against her family’s wishes, she’d been a child of privilege. Pampered and indulged until she’d come to feel entitled to pleasure and endless happiness. When life had turned and treated her harshly, she’d had no resources of character to draw on.

  For the first time she could recall, Jane looked back on her own past struggles with gratitude. They had made her who she was. Appreciative of life’s smallest pleasures. Sympathetic to others in trouble. And stronger than most people might realize. Herself included.

  Somehow she survived that day, her body going through the motions of her household duties, while her thoughts swirled in a thousand different directions at once. Her detachment was not so complete, however, that she failed to note a muted glow of admiration in Caleb’s cool eyes and a tone of newfound respect in his
voice.

  Her composure began to chip away at bedtime when she peeked in on Lizzie to ask if there was anything she needed before Jane retired for the night.

  “No, dear,” Lizzie murmured, casting an anxious eye toward the cradle. “Even if there was, I wouldn’t tell you. You’ve been amazing today, keeping the house running, when I can hardly guess how you must be feeling. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather go spend a few days out at the ranch? Will and I would feel just awful if we thought you were pushing yourself to stay here on our account.”

  “It’s kind of everyone to want to look after me.” Jane shook her head. “But I need to learn how to look after myself. And I need to keep busy. Out on the ranch, there’d be so many…reminders.”

  Lizzie patted a spot on the edge of her bed, and almost against her will Jane accepted the unspoken invitation.

  “He loved you, you know.” Lizzie clasped Jane’s hands. “More than you may realize. Probably more than he ever realized. For the first little while I knew John Whitefeather, I was scared to death of him. He had this anger in his eyes, and I felt like whatever was bothering him must be partly my fault. After you came to Whitehorn he was a different man.”

  The first true pain of grief pierced Jane’s swaddling of disbelief. She would never see John again. Nothing in the world could be worse than that. As she struggled to hold her heart together, Lizzie’s voice seemed to reach her from a long way off.

  “Toward the end of my labor, when the baby was coming, I was sure I was going to die. I was scared and sad that I’d be leaving the folks I love. But I knew I wouldn’t trade my short life for a longer one without Will. I’m sure John felt the same about you.”

  Jane couldn’t speak and she couldn’t stay. Lizzie’s sympathetic wisdom might thaw the cracking sheath of ice around her heart and trigger an avalanche of pain. Giving Lizzie’s hands a squeeze, Jane fled to the privacy of her own room.

  Drawing her knees up almost to her chin, she curled up on her bed, lost in a blackness deeper than night. One for which she could not imagine sunrise. With a dry ache gnawing at her heart.