Color of the Wind

by Elizabeth Grayson

  Ungrateful chit! Ardith thought, aggravated by the girl in spite of herself. When she'd promised Ariel to see the children to their father, it had never occurred to her that her responsibilities might include the role of duenna.

  But then, why not? China had been blessed by the same kind fairy who had waved her wand over her mother. Ariel had been little more than a child when she discovered the power her beauty gave her and from that day on she had used that power without a qualm.

  Beauty was not something to which Ardith had ever aspired. How could she be beautiful when her hair was mud-brown and her eyes were the color of agates? When she far more resembled an Amazon than a sylph? Ardith had accepted long ago that there was no sense wanting things she could not have. Things like beauty, or a father who adored her, or marriage to a man who set feminine hearts aflutter.

  Instead Ardith had devoted herself to being astute and dependable, the kind of woman her Uncle Franklin found so useful. Yet even in Concord, she had suffered for her plainness. Men with whom she'd been discussing Plato would look up to follow Dulcy, their sweet-faced parlor maid, with their eyes. Or take note of ravishing Cecily Mayhope's entrance into the room. They were small defections, but each of them was a reminder of a larger one—the scandalous defection that had sent Ardith fleeing England for America.

  China had yet to understand the power her beauty would give her over some men's hearts, or the responsibility that wondrous gift required. It was something Ariel had never learned. And though the scars Ardith bore had long since faded to white, there were nights when she lay alone in her narrow bed and cursed all she had surrendered to her sister's loveliness.

  Pushing memories of Ariel to the back of her mind, Ardith took out the Ned Buntline novel she'd bought that afternoon and began to read aloud. It was one of what her uncle referred to as "ten-penny dreadfuls," but the children had seemed to enjoy the book she'd read them on the train, and they seemed as eager to hear this new yarn as they had the last.

  The Western novels were Ardith's secret vice, tales of men who wore guns on their hips and fought for justice and honor. Of course, no one else in Concord read such sensational tripe, but Buntline's stories were colorful and fast-paced. There was an allure in the way he portrayed the west that Ardith found irresistible.

  Truth to tell, her reading material had played no small part in her decision to take her niece and nephews to their father. She might well have stayed on in the Wyoming Territory—the setting for many of the books—if not for her loathsome brother-in-law. Being civil while she dealt with Baird over the matter of Ariel's death and the children's future would tax her almost beyond bearing. To stay longer would mean accepting Baird Northcross' hospitality, and she utterly refused to do that.

  Once they reached Wyoming, she would relinquish the children's welfare to their father and climb aboard the first train she could find that was headed east, rejoicing at having discharged her responsibility to her sister, her sister's children—and their father.

  * * *

  "Durban! Come away from there, Durban. You're not having another of those meat pies are you?"

  Ardith felt as if she'd been trying to herd feathers through the warren of waiting rooms, baggage areas, newspaper stands, and food vendors on the platform of the Omaha station. The overnight trip from Chicago had been uneventful, but she had just barely had time between trains to recheck their baggage and telegraph Baird that his children would be arriving at Rock Creek this evening. And now Durban was dawdling.

  Leaving Khy in China's care, Ardith stalked toward the pie vendor. She saw the flash of wariness in the vendor's face as she bore down on him, and for once she was pleased that she cut such an intimidating figure. "How many pies have you sold this young man?" she demanded.

  "I sold him five," the old man answered, drawing back into the folds of his coat as if it were a turtle's shell.

  One look at the man's grimy clothes and hands convinced Ardith she wouldn't eat anything he sold her. But by now she'd learned that eleven-year-olds weren't nearly so discerning.

  "Five pies?" she echoed.

  "I was hungry," Durban defended himself.

  Ardith shook her head and put her hand on Durban's shoulder. She steered him back toward the spot where China and Khyber were waiting, and together the four of them hauled their baggage up the steps of the first-class car.

  Before they were five miles out of Omaha, Khy was tipped upside-down in his seat, and China was complaining she was bored. Durban watched through half-closed eyes as Ardith took out the Buntline book she'd begun to read them the night before.

  "Chapter Five," she said, struggling to keep the print in focus on the swaying train. "The Midnight Raid."

  The children were immediately caught up in the story of Will Stanton, who had been steadily losing the cattle in his herd to rustlers. Having determined who the culprits were, Will was setting out to confront them.

  She was halfway through the chapter when Durban interrupted her. "Aunt Ardith?"

  The boy was bent nearly double in his seat, his face slick with sweat and faintly gray. Ardith's heart slammed to a stop against her breastbone.

  "I think I'm going to be sick," he said, his mouth gone slack.

  "Not now!" Khy protested. "I want to find out what happens!"

  Ardith had no such compunctions. She tossed the book to China and leaped to her feet, hustling Durban toward the gentlemen's washroom at the end of the car. Two or three men were waiting for their turn at the privy, but she pushed past them without so much as an apology. The man washing his hands at the sink squawked in protest at a woman bursting into this male sanctuary, but Ardith was too busy maneuvering Durban to his knees in front of the commode to take much notice.

  The boy was horribly ill, shivering and choking up everything he'd eaten since breakfast.

  "I'm sorry," he whispered. His knuckles shone white as he clung to the wooden seat of the commode. "I'm so sorry."

  "It's all right, Durban."

  "I didn't mean to be so much trouble," he murmured and, with a shiver, was sick again.

  He looked so defenseless crumpled there on the floor, not a prickly boy but a helpless child. Ardith bent above him, gnawing at her lower lip in sheer frustration. Her palms itched with the need to touch him, to hold him, but she didn't have any idea how.

  "It's all right," she finally said and reached across to steady his head.

  Even after the worst of the nausea had passed, Durban hunched over the commode as if moving would take more energy than he could muster. He began to cry.

  It was the very last thing in the world Ardith had expected. Durban was usually so aloof and self-contained, so stubborn and defiant.

  Ardith tasted tears of her own in the back of her throat. If ever a child needed comforting, Durban did. He was ill and alone, except for her. His mother was dead, and there was no one in the world for him to depend on. There was no one but her for any of these babies to depend on.

  Ardith longed to hunker down and wrap her arms around the sobbing boy, but something about the way he curled in upon himself held her back.

  Desperate to do something, Ardith pumped water into the sink and sacrificed another of her lacy handkerchiefs. She handed Durban the square of dampened linen and supervised as he mopped his face and throat.

  A modicum of his color was returning, and the tracks of his tears were fading when Durban finally struggled to his feet. "I—I think you were right about the pies," he allowed.

  Hearing him admit that should have given Ardith a twinge of satisfaction. She felt responsible instead, totally ineffective at protecting the children, stewing in regret. She should have done better.

  She brushed back a few limp strands of his sweat-slicked hair, straightened his collar, and patted his rumpled clothes into place. She might have done more if she hadn't suddenly realized how tall he was and how rigidly he was holding himself.

  "Are you feeling better?" she asked, knowing there was nothing she c
ould do to prevent him from withdrawing again, from becoming that aloof, sullen Durban Northcross. She could see it happening before her eyes.

  "I think I'd like to sleep for a while, if that's all right."

  "You're not going to be sick again?" she asked, her hands still fluttering over him.

  He shook his head. "I don't think so."

  Ardith followed Durban out of the washroom and back to his seat. "You just rest," she told him and snugged the wooly folds of her shawl around his shoulders.

  He hunkered down in his seat and nestled his head into the crook of China's shoulder. Wrinkling her nose with distaste, his sister grudgingly let him.

  Ardith stood over them feeling useless, inept. Left out somehow. Instead of resuming her seat, Ardith wheeled toward the front of the car.

  She stepped out onto the open platform and wrapped her hands around the railing. She let the wind and cold beat over her. She was shaking inside, not so much from Durban's bout of illness, but from what those minutes in the gentlemen's privy had made her realize. How terrible she was at dealing with these children. How utterly lacking she was in humanity.

  She should have known enough to get down on her knees beside Durban and hold him. She should have known what to say to Khy about his mother. She should have been able to put her own feelings of inadequacy aside and ease China through her first encounter with a man's less-than-noble attentions.

  She was only beginning to realize how desperately fragile these babies were in the wake of their mother's death. They had been abandoned, deprived of their stability, stranded four thousand miles from their home with a woman they barely knew. With a woman who wanted nothing more than to shunt them off to their father and didn't even know enough to hide her feelings.

  Like most women who'd never had children of their own, Ardith had always wondered what kind of a mother she might have been. She'd told herself she'd be warm and tender and caring, but in these last few days she'd proved she wasn't strong enough or compassionate enough to give these children the kind of safety and security they cried out for.

  She was without the most fundamental maternal instincts. She was more given to ideas and theories and stories in books. She was more concerned with herself than providing the stability these children needed. Knowing that shamed her, tormented her—made her feel as if she was only half the woman she should have been.

  Well, at least when they reached the Rock Creek station they'd have their father. No matter what had passed between Baird and her years before, no matter what she thought of how he'd treated her sister, these children were his. He'd know what to do with them, how to comfort them, how to protect them.

  She would be able to give the children up to someone who loved them. She would discharge the promise she'd made to Ariel, and knowing the children were safe, she could climb on the train bound for Massachusetts.

  Once she was back in Concord, once she was immersed in her world of books and painting and lectures, she'd be able to ignore the terrible inadequacy she'd discovered in herself and take comfort in the cold but inevitable fact that she would never have children of her own.

  Chapter 3

  Ardith glowered at the balding telegraph operator who stood behind his grill at the Rock Creek station. "What do you mean Baird Northcross isn't here? I telegraphed him this morning advising him that his daughter and sons would be arriving on this evening's train."

  The man nodded and peeked at her from under the curve of his green eyeshade. "Yes, ma'am, you did. I see here Charlie took down the message neat as you please."

  "You mean the message hasn't been delivered to Mr. Northcross's ranch?"

  "To the Sugar Creek?" The telegrapher looked at her in surprise. "No, ma'am. Our job's to transcribe and send messages, not see they get delivered, especially since the ranch is a full two hundred miles from here."

  Ardith stared at him. The ranch Baird Northcross was running was two hundred miles from a telegraph line? Two hundred miles from any semblance of civilization? Had Ariel had any idea what she was getting into when she agreed to spend the spring and summer in Wyoming with her husband?

  Obviously not, Ardith thought. Ariel had always abhorred rustication.

  "Well, then," Ardith continued, shifting her attention back to the telegraph operator. "Just how can I get word to Mr. Northcross that his children are here?"

  "The fastest way's to take it yourself," the man suggested.

  A trip across miles of open country in the last wheeze of winter wasn't part of Ardith's plan. "Isn't there someone I could send?"

  The clerk shrugged. "You might ask at the hotel or the saloon and see if there's someone headed up that way." Just then the telegraph receiver began to clatter, drawing the man back to his duties.

  Ardith turned and stomped across the station's waiting room, furious at Baird Northcross for living so far from the station, furious at herself for not sending the message sooner.

  The children were waiting on the platform in the quickly gathering dusk. China perched primly on one of the trunks. Durban still looked pale and wilty even though he had slept most of the afternoon. Khyber was racing from one end of the station's boardwalk to the other whooping like an Indian savage.

  "Is Papa coming?" China asked above the din.

  "It seems as if your father never got the telegram I sent him," Ardith answered, peering toward where Rock Creek's unimpressive cluster of buildings hunched together in the twilight. "The ranch is some distance from here, and we're going to have to get someone to take us."

  "How long will it take to get there?" Durban wanted to know.

  "Several days, I should think." Ardith took a bracing breath and in spite of their predicament, liked the crisp taste of the prairie wind. "Our first priority is to find rooms for the night. We'll have a good sleep and figure out the rest in the morning."

  Unfortunately, accommodations at the rickety building that passed itself off as a hotel were far more suited to tired cowboys than to a New England lady and her charges.

  "We're staying here?" China asked incredulously when she saw the small, dim room with its sagging bed and graying linens.

  Ardith's reaction might have been the same if she hadn't been wrestling with their baggage and trying to keep Khy from bolting down the hall. When she did have time to notice, she concluded it was probably the best room they were likely to find, and set to making up pallets on the floor where the boys could sleep. When she was done, she gathered up her coat and reticule.

  "You're not leaving me alone with the two of them, are you?" China gasped.

  Ardith swallowed a surge of irritation. "I need to find someone who'll take us to your father's ranch," she explained as patiently as she could. "And there's no one to keep an eye on the boys while I'm gone but you."

  "Mother would never have expected me to look after them," the girl complained, her azalea-pink lips puckered mutinously.

  Your mother would never have gotten as far as this without a maid, a governess, and a battery of footmen. Just what arrangements Baird might have made to convey his wife and the children to the ranch, Ardith could only guess.

  "Just keep the door locked while I'm gone," Ardith instructed. "I can count on you to do this, China, can't I?"

  The girl grimaced, shrugged and finally nodded.

  Promising the children she would return with something for supper, Ardith went downstairs. She was consulting with the desk clerk about how they might reach the Sugar Creek Ranch when a man came in from the street.

  "This is the very fellow I was telling you about, ma'am," the clerk said by way of introduction.

  Ardith turned to a tall, sandy-haired man dressed in a pale buckskin shirt stitched thick with beads and a pair of tight, fringed trousers. He sported an impressive blond mustache and wore a six-gun on his hip. A real cowboy, Ardith thought with a start of delight.

  But her hopes were dashed a moment later when she heard the clipped articulation of English public school speech. "May I be of
service to you, ma'am?" he asked, doffing his hat.

  "Mr. McKay?" she began. "Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Ardith Merritt. I am escorting my niece and nephews to their father at the Sugar Creek Ranch."

  The man's sun-bleached eyebrows angled upward in surprise. "Do you mean Baird Northcross' children?"

  "Do you know Mr. Northcross?"

  McKay hesitated then nodded. "Mr. Northcross and I were at Harrow together. I saw him shortly after he arrived at the ranch. But I was under the impression that his wife was to accompany the children west."

  "Regrettably, my sister passed away while she was visiting me in Massachusetts," she volunteered cautiously.

  His face drew taut with sympathy. "I'm sorry to hear that. Though I never had the pleasure of meeting her myself, Mrs. Northcross was reputed to be a lady of great beauty."

  Ardith experienced a familiar stir of resentment. "Indeed she was."

  "Does Mr. Northcross know what's happened? I haven't heard..."

  "This isn't something one wants to put in a telegram." Ardith had wanted to tell Baird about Ariel herself, to see the expression in his eyes and gauge his feelings. If there was a touch of vindictiveness in that—well, Ardith had a right to be vindictive where Baird Northcross was concerned.

  "I did telegraph him asking him to meet the children's train," she went on, "but unfortunately the message was never delivered."

  McKay nodded solicitously. "Communication is difficult out here sometimes."

  "Which brings me to what I was discussing with Mr. Norton." Ardith gestured toward the clerk. "The children and I need passage to the ranch, and I understand you live out that way."

  "On the property just to the south."

  "Then I was wondering if you would be willing to take us to the Sugar Creek on your way home. I'd be more than willing to pay you for your services."

  McKay looked her up and down. "It's a rough trip, Miss Merritt," he answered. "And all I have is my horse and the supply wagon I brought into town."

  "If there's not a carriage I can let, we'll make do, Mr. McKay. It's imperative I get these children to their father."