Turner's Woman

by Jenna Kernan

  “Why?”

  That stopped him. It seemed so obvious. “I don’t know if she’s sick or injured.”

  “If she is, that’s her daddy’s business, unless you married her.” He lowered his chin and his eyebrows lifted.

  “I want to marry her, if she’ll have me. Can you get a letter to her?”

  “Don’t know, but I’ll give it a try.”

  Jake’s shoulders slumped with relief. He reached in his bag and handed over his precious maps.

  When he came, Emma feigned sleep. Now that the meals disappeared, her father knew she was conscious. He hovered in the door, his harsh breathing scratching at the air.

  If only she were a little stronger, then she could face him. She forced herself to stillness as her heart pumped madly in her chest. Her breathing followed, gaining speed like a galloping horse.

  “Emma? You awake?”

  His voice sent a chill down her spine. Why didn’t he leave? His footsteps came next as he approached the bed.

  “Open your eyes, girl, I know you’re awake.”

  She did as he ordered and found him looming over her with no hint of concern in his eyes. His fixed gaze reminded her exactly of the vulture that came too close. Only now she did not have her pistol.

  “Can you give an account of yourself, girl?” he said.

  She shook her head.

  He snorted. “Thought not. I knew your mother’s blood would be the ruin of you. Did you whore for him?”

  Her eyes widened, then she turned away. Now at least she could not see the hatred on his face. His words still pierced her.

  “Doc O’Sullivan says you’ll be lucky not to get pneumonia. Serve you right. You haven’t got the sense of a mule. What the hell happened out there? I lost twenty men and I’ll know the reason.”

  She wasn’t strong enough. All the past nightmares of this man rose up. How many times had he reduced her to tears?

  Too damn many.

  Her eyes opened. The first thing she saw was her lion-skin cape hanging from the bedpost. She focused all her awareness on the glowing eyes, remembering the day she shot the animal and how Jake had told her some of the lion’s spirit was hers.

  Where was that courage now?

  “Look at me when I speak to you.” His voice menaced, reminding her of the deep throaty growl of the lion she’d killed.

  Her jaw clenched.

  She was strong enough. Her courage hadn’t disappeared in this room. It was still inside her.

  Emma cast off the covers and swung her feet to the floor. Then she stood to face her father, narrowing her gaze upon him.

  “All right. I’m looking at you.”

  “Don’t you take that tone with me, young lady.”

  She smiled. “I’m not young, nor am I a lady.”

  Confusion wrinkled his forehead. He hesitated as if about to venture onto a frozen lake and not quite sure it would bear him.

  “You looking for a beating, girl?”

  “I wouldn’t try that.”

  “And why not?”

  “Because I’ll fight you.”

  He cocked his head, now certain something drastic had changed. “Emma Lucille, you’ve been ill. You don’t know what you’re saying.”

  “I know.”

  “I don’t think so.” He retreated.

  She drew a breath feeling suddenly taller, stronger and then she heard him throw the bolt. She rushed across the room, tugging at the latch. But the door remained locked.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Bridger returned the letter. “I didn’t see her.”

  Jake’s shoulder’s slumped. “Any word?”

  The big man gave a nod. “No one but her pa and the smithy see her, so I figured while I was at the fort, I’d have him fix my bridle buckle.”

  Jake smiled.

  “He said she was off her head with fever for a while.”

  He stood at this news, ready to ride to the fort, ready to fight.

  “Sit,” ordered Bridger.

  Jake’s knees went to water and he landed hard on the stump.

  “Now the fever broke. But she’s acting peculiar, screaming and such. Her father locked her in his quarters.”

  “He’s keeping her captive.”

  “His men say she’s mad, like her ma.”

  Jake’s stomach dropped. Could that be true? For a moment he dangled in the grip of doubt, then he shook his head. “That’s a lie.”

  “Then I reckon she wants to come after you and that don’t sit right with her pa. Why not offer for her hand?”

  “Because he won’t speak to me. Emma believes he does not wish her to marry.”

  “Ever?”

  Jake nodded.

  “That’s unnatural.”

  “I have to get her out.”

  “They got a small cannon up there. Guns, too. I don’t think you’re walking through the front gate.”

  “I mean to try.”

  “Funny thing. Those traders ain’t much at hunting. Fact is my men supply them with game or they’d starve to death.” Bridger smiled. “More than one trail to a place, Jake.”

  “That there is.”

  The food shortage began immediately.

  Emma faced them both.

  The bristly cheeked smithy named O’Sullivan and her father stood like a human wall, barring her exit.

  “He needs to examine you,” said her father. He used the tone he often adopted when there were outsiders about. His voice sounded authoritative and concerned. None of the venom or contempt would do now. All her life she’d played this game. In public she was dutiful and suffered in private.

  She set her chin, considering the retribution she would reap by her defiance. After her last outburst, he’d locked her in this room for a week. Here were her first visitors, O’Sullivan and her jailer.

  “He’s no doctor. He’s the blacksmith,” Emma said.

  “He treated your fever,” said her father. “Now sit down and do as you’re told.”

  She glanced toward the shuttered window and in that instant realized she looked for Jake. Some part of her still pined and hoped he would ride in on Duchess and rescue her.

  Why should he? More than likely he was happy to be quit of her. He didn’t come. Her father said he’d run him off. She knew it was a lie. If Jake stayed away, it was because he wanted to. Had he given her to this tyrant or had her father killed him? The emptiness echoed like a rock thrown down a well, bouncing along the wet stone walls until the water gobbled it up.

  When she returned her gaze to the men, something inside her hardened. At first she did not realize the difference. Her heart beat in even rhythm, full of strength and power, when by rights it should be pounding with the speed of a captured sparrow’s. Her knees locked straight and stiff instead of turning to liquid.

  She swallowed the last of her doubt and was ready.

  “No.”

  O’Sullivan turned to her father who had barely time to contain his snarling expression into a mask of rigid concern.

  “You’ve been ill,” he reminded her.

  “With good cause.”

  “What cause?” asked O’Sullivan, hesitating as if afraid to approach. She almost pitied him, having to face a hostile female.

  “I am with child.”

  Her father gaped and she allowed herself a triumph at his shock.

  Then he turned to the smithy and asked, “Can you do anything about this?”

  Now Emma gaped. Did he mean to kill her child? She’d not allow it. All her life he’d controlled her. Now she would fight.

  The blacksmith had not recovered so quickly. He stammered as he spoke. “D-do? To aid her you mean?”

  Her father scowled. “To remove it.”

  He spoke as if she brought some weed to his garden.

  The man balked. “That is not only illegal, it is immoral.”

  Emma stepped toward the door.

  Her father gripped her upper arm, squeezing until she had to force h
er lips together to keep from crying out.

  “Where do you think you are going?”

  “To visit my mother.”

  He shook his head.

  “You misunderstand,” said Emma leveling her gaze upon him. “I am not asking you. Let go.”

  “Just who do you think you are?”

  “If you mean to keep me you’ll have to lock me in again, just like you did to my mother.”

  Her father’s gaze flashed to the smithy and then to his daughter. He clearly did not want a scene. His grip tightened as he turned to his man.

  “Out,” he ordered.

  The smithy looked greatly relieved and took a step toward the door.

  Emma met his gaze and held it. “He means to lock me in. If he doesn’t release me, he’ll break my arm.”

  The man hesitated.

  “Sir, I think you should let go.”

  “Oh you do, do you? Well, I don’t give a damn what you think. She’s my daughter and I’ll have her disciplined. Now get out.”

  O’Sullivan could not meet Emma’s eyes. He kept his gaze on the floor as he departed.

  Emma met her father’s look of derision. “Let go.”

  A smile twisted his mouth. “Insolent bitch, I should break your arm.”

  His grip turned cruel and she fell to one knee in a vain effort to relieve the bone-crushing pressure. She glanced about, but he’d left her no weapon. The fingers of her free hand curled into a fist and she struck him in the belly. A whoosh of air escaped him as he doubled and his fingers slackened.

  She stood as he fell. In an instant she held his pistol, barrel raised.

  “Have you gone mad?” he gasped.

  A flicker of doubt licked her insides. Had she? This was her father and she held him at gunpoint.

  He seemed to pounce on her hesitation. “Mad, like your mother and a whore. Now put the gun down, Emma, and we will see to this quietly.”

  Her hand trembled and he lifted one foot, placing it upon the floor as he prepared to stand. In his eyes she saw the glow of victory within his grasp.

  She steadied her hand and aimed the pistol at his heart.

  “I’ve never been more sane in my life. Now sit on that bed.”

  He did.

  She recovered her coat, lion-skin cloak and stepped out of her room for the first time in weeks.

  “Emma, don’t go.” He held his open hands before him pleading as he made his entreaty. “Don’t leave me.”

  A flicker of sorrow ignited within her at his look of utter despair. The throbbing of her arm brought clarity.

  “Goodbye, Father.” She closed the door and slid home the bolt. An instant later he hit the stout wood with a howling cry. A shiver danced down her spine at the familiarity of the scene. The last time she’d heard such a wail, it was her other parent locked in her room and raving.

  In the parlor she took her shotgun and rifle down from above the hearth and packed her buffalo robe, provisions and needed supplies, then headed to the stables.

  Two of her father’s men looked startled as she galloped through the open gate, but none could stop her.

  Lancing came to see Bridger personally. When he saw Jake his color darkened.

  “What’s he doing here?”

  “Parlaying, same as me,” said Bridger, never losing his easy tone of authority.

  “I won’t negotiate with him.”

  “Fair enough.” Bridger stood, calling an end to the meeting.

  Lancing’s hand lifted. “Wait. I have to speak to you about supplies.”

  Bridger glanced at Jake and winked.

  Jake faced this new enemy. “I need to see Emma.”

  The man ground his teeth together. “You can’t.”

  “That’s my condition.”

  “It’s blackmail.”

  Bridger folded his arms. “How those boys coming at deer hunting? Seems I seen them head out every morning, but they don’t look to be bringing nothing back. They eating all that meat in the hills?”

  Lancing glared from Bridger to Jake. Then he spoke in a rush as if trying to expel something foul from his mouth.

  “She’s gone. I don’t know where.”

  Jake rose bellowing like a wounded bear. “What?”

  “Alone?” asked Bridger.

  “Took her horse and supplies. Stole them.”

  “How’d that little gal get by your men?” asked Bridger.

  Lancing rounded on him. “None of your goddamn business.”

  “Oh, like that is it?” said Bridger. “I guess you seen the last of that gal.”

  Jake faced Lancing.

  Her father inflated his lungs in a failed attempt to look intimidating but did not match Jake’s height or bulk. “I should shoot you where you stand.”

  “Same thought occurred to me.” Jake hoped he’d reach for his pistol.

  Lancing broke eye contact and sat, showing his true colors. A tyrant, a bully and a coward. Jake turned to Bridger. “Thanks, Jim. I’m heading out.”

  Bridger followed him to his horse, laying a gentle hand on his arm.

  “That girl know how to navigate?”

  “I taught her.” Jake felt confident in Emma’s ability.

  Bridger’s concerned face made him uneasy.

  “Then maybe she ain’t looking for you. If she was, you would have seen her by now.”

  Where did you go, Emma?

  He’d searched the rivers and trails for weeks. No one had seen her. He had to accept the possibility that she was dead. The skills she’d gleaned might not be enough to help her evade Blackfoot, find shelter and hunt for food.

  He’d been everywhere, spoken to all friendly tribes, offered rewards for information to no avail. He feared the worst.

  If she lived, she’d now be heavy with his child. He tried to picture her that way. Instead the vision of her alone and unconscious at the feet of a grizzly filled his mind.

  Oh, Emma.

  After three months, he ran out of places to search. The trip east would take at least six weeks. He could put off his mission no longer. Somehow he had achieved his goal, done the impossible. Instead of elation, he felt dead inside. This final journey became only one more obligation to be done with.

  He turned Duchess east.

  In St. Louis an idea struck. Baltimore lay between him and Washington. Could she be there? She once had mentioned she’d like to see her mother. But to make such a journey alone—he shook his head admitting the idea was desperate. Emma’s mother was in some sanitarium. But he’d go, tell her about her daughter and hope the woman could understand. Perhaps she had word of her Emma.

  He knew the possibility was too slim to foster hope, but he grasped it just the same. When there is nothing else, small hope is better than none.

  Emma stood before the private residence and checked the address written on the calling card. On arrival in Baltimore she visited both sanitariums and found neither had any record of a patient named Lucille Brady Lancing. They assured her that if she had been a patient, they would know, even if she had died.

  Bewildered, Emma went to the only home she knew in Baltimore, that of her mother’s sister, Alma Brady Webb. The woman would not see her, but her butler gave Emma this card.

  “You will find your mother at this address.”

  But the address was a private home of modest proportions. How could that be?

  If her mother was well, why hadn’t she written?

  Perhaps she wanted nothing to do with her daughter. The possibilities rolled endless as wind across the prairie. Emma considered that living with the uncertainty might be preferable to facing her mother’s rejection. If she hadn’t wanted the child, certainly she would not welcome the unwed daughter now in desperate circumstances.

  She had been lucky in her journey from the Rockies, coming across a group of missionaries only eleven days into her travels. She had supplied them with fresh meat and they had provided protection on their journey to St. Louis.

  Tradi
ng the stolen otter furs for passage, she reached Cincinnati. There, she lost her shotgun and rifle to a pawnshop in order to secure a rail ticket to Baltimore.

  She had arrived, barely able to climb onto her horse and well past the time when a woman in her condition should ride. She hesitated on the doorstep of the house of the mother she no longer knew.

  Where else could she go?

  She wiped the dampness from her forehead with the back of her hand and mounted the steps of the simple limestone town house on Bond Street. Her fingers trembled as she reached to pull the bell. She paused watching her hand quake like an old woman’s.

  Her fingers clenched into a fist and she tried once more, this time pulling the bell.

  Footsteps approached. A shadow moved behind the lace curtains and the door swung open.

  There stood a girl on the threshold of womanhood. Her pale blond hair resembled her mother’s. The girl did not smile, but instead looked Emma up and down and seemed to find her lacking. A frown creased the girl’s forehead as dark eyebrows descended over green eyes.

  Emma had shed her buckskin in St. Louis, but her tanned face and swollen belly made her feel like a crow before a dove.

  “Yes?” said the girl.

  “Does Lucille Brady Lancing reside here?”

  The girl maintained control of the door as she spoke. “She’s my mother.”

  Emma’s insides jumped and her gaze fixed on the girl before her. Mother, did she say?

  A familiar voice drifted out from inside the house. “Who is it, Ann?”

  The girl lifted an eyebrow.

  Emma’s dry mouth made speech nearly impossible. She choked on the word. “Emma.”

  “Someone named Emma,” called Ann.

  The sound of a dish shattering came an instant before the drumming of running feet. Ann turned toward her mother, now hurtling down the hallway, her arms outstretched to Emma and had time only to swing the door open wide. Emma braced as her mother clutched her, weeping madly, and fear gripped her once more.

  “You came, you came after all these years. You got my letter at last, you came.”

  Emma wrapped her mother in her arms and inhaled the familiar mixture of violets and dusting powder she’d long since forgotten.

  Emma patted her mother’s back. Had she always been so small? Her head now only reached Emma’s shoulder. She glanced at Ann, who stood clutching the doorknob as if it was all that kept her standing. Her mouth hung open like a garden gate and she blinked in disbelief.