Darkness at Morning Star

by Joyce C. Ware

  Strong language issuing from the direction of the barn preceded Jed’s arrival with a pair of round-barrelled bay mules. As he backed them into the traces, the discordant plonking of the iron utensils set in motion by their balky maneuvers caused the near mule’s ears to twitch irritably.

  “Hey, watch out for ol’ Dan, there!” Cobby called, peering around from the back of the wagon. “When he twitches he kicks.”

  Sure enough, the next moment the mule lashed out sideways so fast I wouldn’t have seen it had I blinked.

  “Damn jughead,” Jed muttered, “ain’t even fit for crowbait.” The mule accepted the rough hooking-up that followed with surprising placidity. “I’m a bronc buster, not no mule skinner,” Jed shouted back over his shoulder in Cobby’s direction.

  “That a fact.” Cobby seemed unimpressed. “Anyway, it won’t be you bouncin’ in the wagon.”

  “Oh, yeah?” Jed sneered. “Who’s the lucky one?”

  “Sharo.”

  Jed looked as surprised as I felt, having viewed Sharo and Quinn’s openly expressed antagonism more than once. “So, am I goin’ or stayin?”

  “Not up to me. Quinn’ll tell you himself what he’s got in mind,” Cobby said.

  Jed’s glance darted toward me. I didn’t care for the way his tongue slid along his lips.

  Cobby followed me into the barn. “Best stay up to the house while we’re gone, Miss Serena.”

  “But Bingo—”

  “Just turn her out into the fenced pasture with the other horses when you come back in today. I don’t want you here,’’ he said, jabbing his pipestem toward me, “an’ I don’t want him up to the house neither. If he bothers you, I want to hear about it.”

  It was on my lips to protest I wasn’t about to play spy for anybody until I realized that was exactly what I had been doing for Belle and Bazz. “I won’t come down,” I promised. “Not alone anyway.”

  Cobby grunted, gave Bingo’s round little tummy a couple of judicious jabs, then cinched her up tight. When we came out of the barn, Sharo had already taken his place on the wagon. As I prepared to mount Bingo, Quinn ambled across from his quarters, a bulging canvas sack slung over his shoulders and Spotted Fawn trotting at his heels. She was still very thin, and although her abrasions had largely healed, her skin still showed blotches of lavender and yellow discoloration.

  My pity for Fawn vied with my anger with Quinn. Had she come out at his bidding for a public farewell? Whatever his purpose, I dropped Bingo’s reins and strode over to offer my services as Bazz had suggested. Before I could reach them, however, Quinn had lifted the girl and his sack into the wagon along with extra clothes for the men, bedding and foodstuffs. Was Fawn just another provision for the trail? I wondered that he hadn’t earmarked her along with the calves.

  “I was going to offer to look after Spotted Fawn while you were gone, try to put some roses in her cheeks, but I can see I needn’t bother.”

  “Fawn don’t need the kind of roses you and Belle’d give her, and she sure don’t need Bazz lookin’ at her with or without ‘em.”

  “Bazz looking at her is a sight better than what you’re doing to her!” This time I didn’t bother to lower my voice. The hands, hugely entertained by our exchange, sniggered.

  Quinn glared at me, ordered the men into the bunkhouse to await his instruction, then clutched my arm and hauled me into the barn. Bingo, left outside, her reins trailing in the dust, whickered plaintively.

  “Don’t you know better than to pass your high-and-mighty judgment on what I do where the whole world can hear you? Damned if I know why you’re so blamed set on thinking the worst of me, S’rena, but I’m telling you, from now on keep it private.”

  I looked down at the gloved hand clenched around my arm. “Telling me?”

  He released my arm as if stung. “Asking you,” he amended. His mouth was a grim line; his tone was belligerent. I judged him a man who would think it a weakness to plea innocent to murder even if he were.

  “request noted,” I said coldly. I turned to leave.

  “It was ... decent of you to want to look after Fawn.” His reluctance to make this admission roughened his voice.

  “The offer still holds.”

  He fell silent behind me. Could he be having second thoughts? At length, I felt his hands rest on my shoulders. The pressure he exerted was too slight to force me to face him, yet I did. The barn was dim, smelling sweetly of clean hay and warm horses. A narrow beam of light filtered down through a splintered plank of siding to glaze his dark hair with silver. He tucked his gloved forefinger under my chin and lifted my head to meet his dark, searching gaze.

  “Maybe you aren’t like Belle,” he whispered. “Maybe—”

  I closed my eyes, expecting his kiss. Wanting it...

  “Quinn?” It was Cobby’s voice. “The men’re waitin’ on you ...”

  His hands fell away, and he walked past me out into the sunlight.

  Feeling empty and oddly bereft, I waited until I was sure the yard was empty before walking out to mount Bingo. The sun was very hot now. The harnessed mules stood square and solid, eyes half-closed, steady as time, and although I could not see her, I assumed Fawn still crouched in the wagon box, as patient as the mules, as afflicted as Sharo, who sat on the seat above her hunched in misery.

  Neither Bingo nor I had the heart for a lengthy excursion that day. A hot, dry wind began to blow from the west, steady enough to dry my lips painfully but not strong enough to dispel a cloud of biting flies that caused Bingo to toss her head, distracting her attention from the gopher-hole-pocked terrain. The rattle of a snake, disturbed by our passage past the scruffy bush affording it shade, was the final straw. Our moods in disconsolate harmony, my pony and I turned back, topping the ridge above the corrals just as the train of riders, horses, bleating calves and creaking wagon set forth below on a long curving course that would take them well north of us.

  Quinn headed up the party, his tall, black Appaloosa setting a pace slow enough for the others to follow without strain, steady enough to keep the calves close-herded. A cowpuncher, too shrouded in dust to put a name to, kept his horse moving back and forth along the line of calves; I could not tell if the whistle that floated up to me was for his own amusement or meant to distract his charges from their mothers left behind. Woody’s blaze-faced bay moved up fast on the other side of the herd; Cobby brought up the drag on his agile little sorrel, clever enough to round up a wild, range-wintered bunch on her own, or so he claimed.

  Trailing the herd was the chuck wagon, with Sharo’s high-spirited gray mustang jittering unhappily at the end of the rope that secured him to it, unable to escape the flapping of the canvas cover fingered by the wind. The clank of the pots and pans carried up to my perch on Bingo. I sighed to think of Spotted Fawn jolting all this day and the next in that springless, airless, noisy box.

  Upon entering the yard, I was bewildered by the scene that greeted me. Jed and Cookie and Smiley and all the rest had either mounted or were about to mount the handsomest of the horses in their respective strings. The astonishing part was not the smart look of the horses, however, but the men themselves. Spit and polish, every last one of them.

  “Going to town, miss,” Cookie said, with a nod of his head, politely pinching the brim of his Stetson between his fingers. “The old man tol’ us not to come back ‘til Sunday,” he added. “We left everything shaped up.”

  Sunday? That was five days away. I knew it was customary for the hands to be given some time off after the spring roundup, but from what Cobby had said, I doubted this was what he thought Quinn had in mind. If the news had come from Jed, I might have been suspicious, but Cookie, an older man, had always seemed to me a reliable sort. Five days. Why, they wouldn’t have a cent left among them, considering all the cards that could be played, whiskey drunk and women bought in five days.

  I surveyed them anxiously. Anticipation gleamed in every eye. Smiley, a light rider, had infected his prancing piebald
horse with his spirits; even Jed’s big, raw-boned roan, as heavy as his rider’s style of saddle-sitting, snorted impatiently. What call had I to pass judgment?

  I forced a smile. “Easy come, easy go, eh, boys?”

  The men relaxed and grinned. Jed sidled his roan up beside me. “I’ll come back sooner if you like,” he whispered insinuatingly. His words were oddly drawn out; his eyes unfocussed. “I already spoke with your sister up to the house ... mebbe the three of us ...”

  Deprived of its usual scruffy growth, Jed’s razor-nicked, blood-streaked chin proved to have little in common with the bold jawline popularized by illustrators of western tales. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him he would have done better to visit the barber shop in town, but thought better of it. A tart reply would do little to chasten a man like Jed, especially if he had already begun his whiskey drinking in the bunkhouse, as I suspected. I decided instead to misinterpret his insulting offer.

  “That’s very thoughtful of you, but Mr. Basil Cooper will be looking out for my sister and me. There’s no need to cut short your holiday on my account.”

  He glowered at me and moved his horse closer—I think it was my reference to “Mr. Basil Cooper” that particularly riled him—but by then the other men had begun to move out. Jed roughly wheeled and spurred on his roan. Soon, the eager, squeaky-voiced yips of the youngest among them swelled into a chorus of full-throated whoops as the pack of them galloped off, billows of dust rolling in their wake.

  There was something both grand and sad about the sight of them hightailing it across the prairie, full of foolish expectations unlikely to be realized, sure to return broke and weary to start the cycle all over again. The cards would never get better, nor the whiskey, nor the women, but men in exile feed on dreams; it would have been cruel to remind them of truths that deep down inside, they already knew.

  I turned Bingo out into the pasture, and as she trotted off to greet Bazz’s Dancer with a friendly nudge of her soft muzzle, I envied her the built-in protection of her satin-smooth coat. Despite the shade provided by my hat’s wide brim, my face felt tight and tender; the dust-hazed glare made my head throb, and the clean cool water I pumped up at the trough did little to ease my mouth’s stale dryness.

  I didn’t walk so much as trudge up the incline to the big stone house. If I entered through the kitchen, I would have no excuse not to tell Belle about seeing Quinn leave for Nebraska and the men for a holiday in town, and she would press me to start my search.

  Longing for the quiet of my room, I turned up the front path instead. The cool dankness I had deplored earlier now seemed inviting. As I approached the arc of stone that contained the garden’s unnatural growth, my intent to look neither to the right nor left proved as impossible as avoiding thinking of something one is told not to. The deeply cut leaves I had first noticed that morning had grown another foot, almost to shoulder height, and thick veins now swelled above the dark green surface slicked with oozing sap. From below, coarse liver-red stalks thrust up clusters of seed pods whose purplish, fleshy spines writhed in the hot sun, as if a brood of bizarre deep-sea creatures, impaled there, had been flung up on a hostile shore. Their stench hit as hard as a closed fist.

  I lurched, my breath coming in quick gasps, my vision blurring. A swimmy feeling overswept me as the looming semicircle of stone shafts seemed to edge closer, closing the gap behind me, surrounding me....

  I took a deep breath and forced myself to close my eyes. When I opened them, the pillars had retreated to their accustomed places. Around the central pair I saw that vines, pretty vines, had begun to twine out of the rankness below: one was a morning glory, quite ordinary except for the intense blueness of its flowers;

  the other, delicately tendriled, with heart-shaped leaves and dainty greenish white flowers, must be the briony Belle had pointed out earlier along with the nightshade that clothed an adjacent pillar. Their unremarkableness cheered me immensely.

  My room, thanks to its eastern exposure, was blessedly dim at that late-afternoon hour. I filled my washbasin with cool water and dipped my whole face in, rejoicing in its refreshment. I crossed idly to the window as I gently patted my sun-reddened skin dry. Before long, I reflected ruefully, my complexion would become as weather-roughened as Belle’s.

  I leaned against the cold stone of the sill and slowly shed my dusty riding clothes. The big house’s long, dark shadow sprawled across the near landscape; beyond it, through the slanting light, now copper, now gold, a dust devil danced. Or was it?

  I squinted, fancying I saw in the whirling, shifting shape the form of a horse and rider galloping headlong upon some urgent errand, but how could that be? Basil had taken a wagon to town; Morning Star was empty of riders. A neighbor, perhaps? I squinted again, harder, but saw only settling dust. It had been a whirlwind, nothing more. After all, how urgent could a neighbor’s errand be that would take him to the east side of the house where there was no door to admit him? I turned away with a sigh. Everything here, like the pioneers seeking a new life, looked to the west. Was I the only one who preferred to see the sun rising?

  But the sun was not all that rose in the east. So did the morning star. And here, on this very site, upon the shining of its bright, cold light above the horizon, the cruel god Ross Cooper defied had ordained death.

  Chapter Eleven

  I opened my door the next morning on a profoundly silent corridor. Obviously no one else was astir. The kitchen, too, was empty. Had Rita taken advantage of the exodus of the hands to garner an extra hour or two of sleep for herself?

  I found half a loaf of bread in the larder, slathered a slice of it with preserves to disguise its staleness, and took it together with a cup of tea into the parlor, grateful for some quiet time for reflection. Nothing seemed to be working out quite as I had hoped, but the hard truth was that I could hold no one but myself responsible for those hopes. Come share this wonderful place with me. Belle had written, but she hadn’t said anything about sharing it for a lifetime— in fact, she had been ready to settle for a visit if that was all my circumstances allowed.

  I stared unseeingly into the dark fireplace, hardly conscious of the sour smell of the half-burnt logs, of the musty aftertaste of the bread or the tepidness of the tea. Perhaps a visit was all Belle had really expected or wanted. As I realized how flimsy the foundation of my castle of dreams was, tears stung my eyes. Just a visit? After so many years? I had no wish to lose again the sister twice torn from me in childhood, but what proof had I that Belle shared my longing? Or that Basil’s mildy flirtatious attentions arose from anything more deeply felt than gentlemanly courtesy? Belle, Basil and Serena. A third wheel, as always. Useful, perhaps, as I had been to the Roggs, but not wanted; not loved.

  But I was no longer a child, I reflected, and for too long now I’d been acting like one: eager to jump at Belle’s bidding to earn her smiles, no questions asked. I set down my cup and raised my bowed head out of my wallow of self-pity. Quinn would be returning in a few days to pay Belle and Basil what was owed them and turn them out, and yet their plans remained undefined, as if waiting to be shaped by the finding of a cache of gold no one was really sure existed. I had stood by patiently, passively, long enough. It was time for answers.

  I mounted the stairs resolutely and entered Belle’s room without knocking, sensing I might fare better if I caught her unawares. The room was dim; the air close and heavy with perfume. To my surprise, I saw Belle standing at the window, dressed and motionless, as if intently viewing an absorbing scene through the lace curtains.

  “Belle?” There was no answer; she remained turned away from me, rigidly erect and unhearing. “Belle?” This time my voice was, I confess, tinged with alarm.

  “Go ‘way, Reenie!”

  The cross, sleepy, familiar voice seemed to come from behind me, but how could that be? Bewildered, I crossed to the figure at the window. Seen closer, it was a fully clothed dressmaker’s dummy, and what I had thought were Belle’s strawberry-blond
ringlets were attached to a wig framing a featureless wire-mesh face. I whirled toward the rumpled bed. What on earth. ...

  The surprise of my unexpected entrance, which I had naively hoped might work to my advantage, was more than matched by my shock when Belle abruptly sat up, the gesture setting in motion the silvery fall of fine white-blond hair that brushed her bare shoulders. It was like looking into a mirror.

  We stared at each other for a long moment. Belle recovered first; she beckoned me closer.

  “I wanted us to leave here as real twins again, Reenie, so I decided to wear a wig until my hair was its own color again, just like yours. See?” Belle fanned her fingers up through the silken strands, which, when released, joined glimmeringly together again like a glide of water.

  I blinked. “But why—”

  “It was to be a surprise.” She pouted prettily. “I always did like surprises, Reenie, remember? Not that we ever had many,” she added in a resentful tone. “But now that you’ve found me out I won’t have to wear that hot old wig anymore.”

  “Does that mean Bazz knows about it?”

  Belle smiled. “Well, of course, silly. Fact is, he’s the one got it for me. I gave him a lock of my hennaed hair for the matching, but when the wig arrived I could’ve sworn it’d been matched to a pull from a horse’s tail. Have you ever seen anything so coarse and common-looking?”

  It seemed to me an awfully elaborate surprise to little point; but Belle had spent many happy hours at the orphanage devising similar jokes, and I found myself as unable to decide now as then whether Belle was by nature a schemer or I a humorless prig.

  I gave a mental shrug, laughed, and plumped down beside her. “Well, I did wonder what on earth could have happened to it. I thought maybe it was something to do with the water out here—in fact, I’ve been inspecting my own hair with more than a little anxiety.”