Prairie Song

by Cheryl Anne Porter

  And Cole Youngblood had gotten it for her.

  Kate stilled, felt her elation slip away. The man had done everything he said he would. A killer he might be—and she knew he was—but he didn’t appear to be cold-blooded, not as the stories she’d heard made him out to be. At least, not in his treatment of her. Instead, Kate knew him as a man of his word. A man she could respect and, surprisingly enough, a man she could have come to have warm feelings for, had it not been for what Mr. Talmidge had done to her.

  Her hands resting atop her bent knees, Kate sat back, feeling terrible. Not so much from her urgency to relieve herself, which wasn’t painful yet. But about running away. About stealing from Cole. About cheating him. About lying to him. She no longer thought it was something she could do. Because he’d honored his part of their bargain. She would now honor her part. She would stay. And trust that the risks wouldn’t be too high, that the good Lord would take into account that she was in a hard place and trying to do the right thing.

  Finally feeling better about herself, Kate excitedly reached into the bag and plucked out the stake. She just wanted to hold it for herself. Just once. But caught up in the splintery wood was a folded piece of paper that came with it.

  Kate grimaced, pulling it away from the all-important stake. Does the man keep every scrap of paper given to him? She meant to stuff it back into the pouch. But something about it, maybe just the way it was folded, stopped her. Or maybe it was the word Anne—uncomfortably close to her own given name of Anna—visible on the paper’s other side that caught her attention and had her heart pounding.

  Licking at her suddenly dry lips, her heart dully beating, Kate held onto the paper, stared at it, and laid the wooden stake down beside her. She knew what this was. She’d seen them before in New York. A telegraph. Suddenly sick inside and not able to draw a deep breath into her lungs, Kate raised her head, stared at the sheltering canvas dome above her, and blinked back tears. No. Please, no. Please let me be wrong.

  Then, and fearing she wasn’t wrong, but knowing it was a matter of two lives or two deaths—her own and her baby’s—Kate lowered her head, telling herself she was ready to face whatever was written on this paper. But slowly, as if she’d been ordered at gunpoint to do so, she unfolded the square of paper. And, angling it more to the lantern light outside, read about her intended fate. Instantly heartsick, with tears blurring her vision, she read about how much advance money had been deposited in a bank. And how much more was awaiting Cole Youngblood if he killed Anne Candless, thieving maid to Edgar Talmidge.

  Some of the details were wrong. Her name, for one thing. And there was no description of her. She thought that odd. But she didn’t doubt that the so-named Anne Candless was her, Anna Katherine Chandler. Hadn’t Cole questioned her about her name yesterday when she’d told it to him? Hadn’t he been full of questions only today about where she was from? Yes, he had. It was all so awful. And now so obvious. But the worst outrage to Kate was the reason Mr. Talmidge gave for wanting her dead. A thieving maid. Anger boiled in Kate’s heart. She hadn’t stolen a thing from the rich and grasping man, a man whose awful touch she knew all too intimately.

  Kate felt her expression harden, felt the blooming of hatred in her soul, a hatred she’d worked hard not to feel, fearing as she did that it would mark her baby, maybe even scar it. But how could she not feel it? And how could she let it go? She hadn’t stolen a thing from Edgar Talmidge. But he’d stolen everything from her. Her innocence. Her life in New York. Her reputation. Her good name. Her future. Everything but her very life and that of her baby’s.

  And now it appeared that he wanted those, too. Her life. And her baby’s. For once, Kate allowed herself to carry the thought one step further, allowed herself to name her baby’s father. Edgar Talmidge wanted the very life of his own child ended.

  A mewling heartsick gasp escaped Kate, had her putting a covering hand to her mouth. How could he be so heartless? An innocent babe. Fearing her sanity, fearing she’d simply lay down and die from her own willing of it to be so, Kate forced herself to think of the money that had already exchanged hands and of the remainder of the money that awaited only the news of her death before it also was handed over.

  Finally, her spine stiffened with the resolve that also firmed her lips. At least her life was worth a huge sum to the man. Somehow, in some sick way, that was comforting. Mr. Talmidge didn’t consider her life cheap. Good. If he wanted her gone, then it was going to cost him plenty. Because he’d certainly paid Cole Youngblood handsomely to see the dirty job done.

  And Cole Youngblood had agreed to do it, to kill a woman carrying a child, a woman who now bore his own last name.

  What a wonderful wedding present this is. The thought became an angry grimace. Only then, when Kate looked down at her hands, did she realize she was refolding, along its original lines, the paper that detailed her demise, refolding it with exacting motions, with controlled and murderous rage in her heart and in her surprisingly steady hands. As she did, she determined that she wouldn’t die easily. She wouldn’t let Cole Youngblood, her husband and her intended killer, just have her life. No. He’d have to take it. Violently. Hurtfully. Bloodily.

  Or maybe … she’d take his life first. Right now. While he slept. In her mind, she saw herself sneaking up on him, his own rifle removed from its saddle boot and in her hands. She thought she could feel the cold metal, the hard wood stock, could feel its weight, could feel the cool night air in her lungs, the spongy ground under her feet as she stalked him. Then she tried to picture herself firing the rifle … into his chest.

  Kate gasped, wrenching herself back to reality. She shook her head, desperate to clear her mind of such soul-numbing images, and felt sick inside. She’d eaten the man’s food. He’d kept her safe. Given her a place to sleep. Given her a chance. And given her baby a name. Even so, she called herself a coward because she couldn’t do it. Couldn’t even picture herself killing the man paid to do the same thing to her. She sat quietly, a hand over her mouth, and gave that thought time to take root in her mind. That’s what she needed to remember. He’d taken money to kill her. She lowered her hand to her lap. She’d remember that. She would.

  But still she sought forgiveness for herself with the realization that she hadn’t sunk so far that the notion of committing a cold-blooded murder couldn’t still shock her. And for another, she asked herself, what good would it do her if she did kill Cole Youngblood?

  Cole Youngblood. Immediately she remembered the feel of his hands atop hers as he’d steadied her first attempts at driving the team. How reassuring and kind he’d been when she’d gotten ill this morning, what good care he’d taken of her then. And how he’d been paid to kill her, this same man. Why couldn’t she stay focused on that, instead of giving in to the warm feelings he had no right to make her feel … and she had no desire to feel? After all, she still may have to kill him. But what good would it do? she argued with herself.

  Even if she did, she’d still spend the rest of her life on the run. Because Mr. Talmidge would send someone else. He wouldn’t give up, she knew that much. He wouldn’t stop until she was dead. And he’d want her dead long before it became obvious to anyone that she was carrying a child.

  No one had to tell Kate that getting a hired gun to agree to kill a grown woman had to be a simpler thing to do than it would be to get him to agree to kill a very pregnant woman. Or even one who’d just delivered herself of a tiny helpless infant. Because hired gun or not, she had to believe that somewhere there was a line drawn, a point past which no hired killer would go. Except for Cole Youngblood. Kate sighed her pain, felt the tightness in her chest. It was true. She had proof right here. Cole Youngblood obviously had no problem stepping over that line.

  Kate’s eyes narrowed. She refused to forgive him, even believing as she did that he actually had no idea that she was pregnant. But what difference did her pregnancy really make? Because he already had, in his saddlebags, the money he’d accepted to kill
a woman … at the same time he was denying to her that he would do such a thing. She remembered him saying that to her only yesterday evening as they’d stood there in the dark negotiating the deal that led to their marrying. He’d said he wouldn’t shoot a woman. And here she’d taken that to mean he wouldn’t kill a woman. Well, it occurred to her now that there were other ways to kill. It didn’t have to be with a gun.

  A sudden start made Kate shiver. Finally, she heard herself, acknowledged her own thoughts. What am I thinking? But she knew. And she couldn’t believe the paths down which her bloody thoughts had taken her. Murder. Guns. Killings. Babies. This path of sin, once followed, just kept getting wider and more twisted. She couldn’t believe, either, how one simple lie on her part had brought her to this, to all these lies, to all this thought of sin, thoughts that all too quickly translated into doing, into acting them out.

  How had they happened, these images of herself killing a man? Why had it seemed so easy to plot? She was a good person, after all. She’d thought so all her life. She’d certainly called herself one. And even Cole Youngblood, given his treatment of the kids and, yes, of her too, was what she would call a good man.

  So, how awful this all was. She could scarcely take it in. Then it occured to her that Cole intended to stake her with the very same blood money he’d accepted to kill her. So, how would he see all this, if he knew the whole truth? Would his own plans for her—meaning putting the children in her care—have all been for naught? Is that how he would see it? Or would her death, having to kill her, be nothing more to him than an inconvenience?

  Perhaps so. So what was she supposed to do? Just bide her time here with him until one day soon he learned the truth of who she really was and killed her? She shook her head. No. She couldn’t do that. But neither could she run away and thereby be forced into doing dangerous things that threatened her unborn child.

  Kate put a hand to her still-flat belly, rubbing through her skirt as if she could feel her child there. She could allow nothing and no one to hurt her. Because she had too much to live for. But now that she knew for certain what she had only suspected and feared, now that she knew who she would finally face, what should she do?

  What will you do, Kate? What are you capable of doing?

  To protect her baby? Most anything, it seemed. So Kate sat for a moment longer, mulling over her options. But a moment became ponderously ticking minutes. Then … it came to her, the what she needed. With sickening, blinding clarity. The what that widened that path of sin for her.

  Breathing in deeply, too afraid, too fragile even, to question herself, knowing that if she did, she could never go through with it, Kate replaced the telegraphed message back in the pouch where it had been …

  … and turned her head, focusing on the three sleeping children with whose well-being she’d been entrusted. Cole Youngblood’s kin. Here. In the wagon with her. She felt sick. But Kate knew what she had to do, if she had any hope of saving herself and her own child.

  And with that knowing, she was lost. Forever. Her twenty-year-old soul was forfeit. Because if it came down to it—came down to her child or someone else’s—then someone else’s child, or children, would have to be sacrificed. And in the only way she knew how.

  Chapter Eight

  Cole awakened in the early grayness of the next morning, the day he was to leave the kids with Kate and move with the thousands of other would-be settlers down through the Cherokee Outlet to the actual border of the land run. Instantly, the second he turned over, cradling his head with his bent arm, his mind filled with the numerous details he’d have to consider before he left. Such as his horse’s overall condition. Especially that of the roan’s legs and hooves.

  The gelding was fast, Cole knew that, and he had tremendous heart and stamina. But given the magnitude of this race, with a rumored fifty thousand or more people poised at the different borders and literally ready to give him a run for his land—no, Kate’s land, he reminded himself—how would the animal hold up?

  But knowing that only the race itself could answer that worry, Cole moved on to the next consideration. Food. The roan could graze, like it’d been doing. But Cole needed to take enough food for himself for about a week, he figured, until he got back here after the run, which was still four days away and was only the beginning of the ordeal. Because after getting the land, he’d still have to register the claim at Guthrie Station. No telling how long a wait that entailed, given the untold thousands of others who’d be trying to do the same thing at the same time. And then, after all that, he’d have the ride back here for Kate and the kids. So, about a week, by his best figuring. And that meant he’d need bedding. He’d take his bedroll. No problem.

  Muttering about the details of such an undertaking, but not quite ready to jump up and start the long day ahead, Cole lay there, trying to organize everything in his mind. Uppermost was how best to transport what he needed and yet still retain a light enough load atop his horse, combined with his weight and that of the saddle, to keep the roan in the running. It was about to worry him gray-headed. That and the startling fact that he was even making the land run.

  Cole considered the uncountable hundreds of wagons surrounding his own. What in the living hell was he doing here, making the land run? It had never been his intention.

  Neither had getting married been his intention. And yet … here he was, married to a girl he’d met one day before wedding her. A girl he hadn’t even done more than kiss, much less take to his bed. She plainly didn’t want that. And Cole supposed he didn’t blame her. It was different for a young woman like herself. A decent young woman. He could see that. Hell, it was written all over her. Innocence. Good upbringing. Just caught up in hard times. Not someone to be taken lightly, despite what every male instinct he possessed urged him to do.

  Last night—her wedding night … hell, his wedding night—he’d told her she was pretty. But he knew that wasn’t true. She wasn’t just pretty. She was downright beautiful. He’d never seen eyes that green before. But looking now beyond her beauty, Cole realized that Kate was the perfect type of woman to settle a place like this Oklahoma Country. Young. Strong. Independent.

  The perfect type of woman. Cole lingered there a moment in his thoughts. He thought about her closeness to him at this very moment, and knew all he had to do was turn his head to see where she even now slept in the schooner with the kids. She was as untouched as this land they were all getting ready to settle. He knew that from her kiss. She’d been scared and stiff, her teeth clamped against his tongue. He shouldn’t have done that, shouldn’t have tried to kiss her that deeply. But he hadn’t been able to help himself. She stirred something deep within him, something that wanted to protect her, to keep her always with him. To hold her …

  That did it. Grabbing for his Stetson, Cole rolled onto his back, dislodging Kitty the hound dog from his curled-up slumber right against Cole. “Go on,” Cole urged, nudging the dog, trying to get him to stand up. “Get up now, Kitty. I’ve got things to do.” And no time to lay here and pine for a woman I can’t have.

  In a half-crouch, the dog crawled out from under the buckboard wagon and, yawning mightily and stretching, headed off through the underbrush to do his business. Cole followed suit, rolling out from under the wagon and coming to his feet in one smooth motion of hardened muscles. He settled his hat on his head, low on his brow, and then, like Kitty, he stretched and twisted from side to side. Damn, that ground didn’t get any softer last night.

  Around him, the early morning song of folks waking and arising throughout the camp greeted him. The metallic clank of pots and pans filled the air. Babies’ cries and children’s laughter rang out. Called-out greetings of “good morning” welcomed the slanting sunshine through the trees. Thankful that it hadn’t rained, Cole spared a glance for the schooner to his right. No sounds or signs of anyone inside being awake. The canvas flap at the back of the wagon remained tied. Not too surprising. Yesterday had been a big day for everyone. P
robably just plain tuckered out, they all were.

  Cole chuckled as he went off through the undergrowth to relieve himself. Damned kids. Just ran till they dropped. Once he finished his business and was back at the campground, he stood there a moment, taking in deep breaths of fresh woodsy air coupled with the smoky scent of the various surrounding campfires. Cole shook his head as he wondered how his life had come to this. Why, right now, if a stranger were to consider him in these environs, he’d appear to be no different from the thousands of farmers here with a wife and kids trailing him, wanting only a plot of good land and a chance to survive. Or maybe a city plot on which to open his business and make his fortune. All so he could put a roof over his family’s heads and dinner in their bellies.

  It was amazing. And not for him. Yet here he was, among them. Cole Youngblood—hired gun, lone wolf—making the land run. That got a chuckle out of him. Life sure was funny sometimes.

  But what wasn’t funny to Cole about the whole situation was that he liked this feeling. This standing right here and observing and being a part of something. The excitement of it all. Even worse, he liked feeling settled. Liked having kin relying on him. Liked being part of—what?—of belonging to something bigger than his saddle, his horse, his gun, and his bedroll? Maybe. All he knew, as he tugged his bedroll out from under the wagon, was … this feeling had better pass. Because before he’d ridden onto Charlotte and Mack’s land this last time, and had buried his sister and taken the kids, all he’d ever been responsible for was himself. And he’d liked that, too. Which was good because that was how his life would soon be again, he rushed to remind himself. Alone and on the trail of some worthless scum. That was the only way he could ever be.

  But for now—and only for now, a very short time, he promised himself—all that seemed to have changed. How? How had it happened? He stopped in the act of shaking out his bedroll and stared out toward the rushing waters of Walnut Creek. Then he remembered.