Darkness at Morning Star

by Joyce C. Ware

  “We can leave soon’s we get help hitching up the wagon Quinn’s lettin’ us have,” I heard Belle say.

  Bazz grunted. “We’re doing the bastard a favor by taking that old relic off his hands.”

  I was bewildered. “You mean we’re leaving before Quinn returns from Nebraska?”

  Belle whirled to face me. Her sweat-dampened silver hair hung lankly; droplets of perspiration tracked an uneven course down her dusty cheeks.

  Knowing I must look much the same did little to improve my spirits.

  “Quinn knows we’ve been lookin’ for the gold. Don’t you ‘spect he’d find a reason to poke through the wagon and our trunks lookin’ for it?” She shook her head and sighed. “I swear, Reenie, for all your learnin’, you sometimes got no more sense than a soda cracker.”

  “What about the money he owes you,” I persisted. “Don’t you want it before you leave?”

  “My lawyer’s got instructions,” Bazz said. “That’s the main reason I went to town.”

  No wonder we were so low on supplies! He’d been too busy with the lawyer to bother with getting them. I smothered my annoyance. “But, Bazz, I don’t—”

  “Trust us, Serena.”

  Bazz delivered his answer without looking at me. Plainly, he considered the details of his transactions with his brother and his lawyer none of my business. He was right about that, I suppose, but I couldn’t help resenting his and Belle’s airy disregard of my questions and their taking my trust for granted. Belle was my only blood relative, my sister, my twin, but Bazz and she enjoyed a closeness I could only envy. I had chosen to hitch my poor, tarnished star to their wagon; I would just have to accept the consequences of that choice with as much good grace as I could muster.

  To this day I don’t know how I managed to accomplish so much that afternoon. The house offered welcome relief from the heat, thanks to the thickness of its stone walls, but the coolness was only relative; hardly enough to account for the shivers that overtook me soon after I stepped inside. Perhaps it was the dankness, more pronounced than ever, or perhaps it was my state of mind. Whatever the cause, the tasks I energetically undertook kept my blood coursing warmly and unquiet thoughts at bay.

  After packing my belongings, except for a nightdress and a handful of essentials, I turned out my room and bedding, heedless of the dust and feathers that whirled in my wake.

  Belle barred access to her room. “I haven’t had time to do my sortin’ yet, Reenie, and I can tell you Bazz won’t appreciate you pokin’ through his things, either.”

  “But, Belle—”

  “But, Belle,” she mocked in a tone of honied sweetness. “Who’re you tryin’ to impress with all this spic and spanning, anyway? Quinn’s the only one’ll see it.”

  Hurt, I turned away wordlessly to seek more agreeable company downstairs, my broom bumping along the steps behind me.

  I found Bazz in the parlor, tacking covers on the boxes of music and books he was taking with him. His piano had already been swathed in quilts; Belle’s four hampers of herbs were stacked in the hall. Our clothing, bedrolls, food and water and cook pots had yet to be added.

  “Is all this going to fit in one wagon?” I asked.

  Bazz looked up at me. The tacks he held between his teeth confined his answer to a nod.

  “Including the three of us?”

  Bazz spit the tacks into his hand. “The wagon Quinn gave us may not be much good, but it’s big enough for all this and then some. Besides, only Belle will be in the wagon. She’ll be driving; you and I will be riding.”

  As I suspected, the plans had already been made. Seeing no need for further conversation about them, Bazz stuck the tacks back between his teeth and resumed his pounding.

  I took out my frustration on the floor, ignoring Bazz’s coughing protest as dust eddied up behind my ferociously yielded broom. Within an hour I had restored the big room to a semblance of order, but when I turned to share my satisfaction with Bazz I found myself alone. I trailed out into the kitchen to stir up the soup and bake the bread that had risen to a lovely plumpness through the morning. That done, I decided to set a proper table in the parlor in anticipation of the first decent meal in days.

  I bustled back and forth to the kitchen, my quickened steps accompanied by a hum. Spoons for the soup, forks for the vegetables. I eyed the table critically. I’d forgotten napkins and a basket for the bread, and a bowl of flowers would be nice ... surely there must be something suitable for cutting in Belle’s garden....

  I recalled the new spurt of rank growth as we passed by that morning. Contrasted with the parched prairie wildings, I had found its undiminished vigor odious. On our return, after the wind had died, I could have sworn I heard a hushed leafy rustle as we passed, as if the plants were jostling for position. The thought of forcing my way through them was abhorrent. I decided the improvement in the menu would have to make up for the lack of floral decoration.

  I stepped back from the table and surveyed the room, pleased with the results of my afternoon’s handiwork. There now, I congratulated myself, even Quinn will have to admit I’m worth my keep.

  No sooner had the thought entered my head than I realized I would not be here when he returned. I slumped into one of the big wooden chairs, as drained of buoyancy as a punctured balloon. My fears returned to assail me. Where would we go? What would we do? I had not come all the way to Kansas for adventuring; I had come seeking a home. Not just any home: I could have married Ernest if that was the sum of my desires. I had traveled to Morning Star prepared to work hard to secure a place alongside my sister; I had arrived to find her not only dispossessed, but changed.

  I loved Belle, I always would, but the cruelties she had suffered at the hands of men she trusted had scarred her; she trusted no one but herself now. I doubted she could understand my need for a purposeful life, much less wish to share it. Unwilling to curb the independence I had so newly secured for myself, I had for a time lost sight of that need, but now, on the very eve of departure, I realized it could not be denied.

  Purpose. I thought of Sharo’s quiet, sure handling of the horses, and of Cobby’s way with the men, knowing when to let well enough alone, coming down hard only when the need for it was clear. A demanding life, but a satisfying one. Especially for the cocksure new master of Morning Star. Oh, yes, Quinn Cooper had purpose in abundance.

  My gaze settled on Bazz’s piano, shrouded in quilts to keep out the dust of the journey. Did he have ambition enough for a career in music? I had no knowledge of what might be required, but I suspected it took more than a clear tenor voice and a talent for writing pretty songs. If he lacked the will to resist my sister’s demands, how could he cope with the world’s? I didn’t like Quinn—his coarseness and arrogance deeply offended me—but there was no denying his energy or the respect, even if sometimes grudging, paid him by the men in his employ. If Bazz’s kindness and charm had blinded me to his weaknesses, perhaps my ruffled feathers had prevented me from seeing any good in his roughneck brother.

  I continued to sit, hands limp in my lap, only dimly aware as yet of the subtle shift in my perceptions, an all but imperceptible reordering. I stared unseeingly at the wall of closely joined stone. As my glance flitted along the course of the smaller, rougher stones framing the window above the table, the look of them nudged free the memory of a fieldstone wall built on a farm near the Roggs’ house. The site lay on my route to school, and in good weather I had dawdled along that stretch, wondering why the builder chose this stone instead of that, glad it wasn’t me doing the hard digging.

  I remember thinking it queer that the trench was deeper than the wall was high, and once, in passing, I said as much. The man looked up at me and spat, just missing the dusty toes of my shoes, but his voice, when he spoke, was amiable enough. The first course had to sit below the frostline, he told me, otherwise nothing would stay put for long.

  We became friends, the wall builder and I. He taught me about choosing stones; sometimes
, he even allowed me to lay a few. Two on one; one on two.... It was orderly work, and on mornings when it was going particularly well I would pause to sit and watch, arms clasped around my legs, chin resting on my knees, losing myself in the satisfying rhythm of it. Those were the only days I was ever tardy at school.

  I curled my fingers over my palms as the long-ago sting of the teacher’s ruler came freshly to mind. I recalled Malcolm’s later rephrasing of the wall builder’s advice: Dig deep and lay your foundation well, lest adversity nudge the stones laid on it awry. My fingers relaxed. It had, after all, been a small price to pay.

  I gazed out at the lengthening shadows, out to the eastern ridgeline, up to where the sun would rise the next morning, ushering in my day of reckoning. An overwhelming sense of loss gripped me. What kind of life could be built upon a wagonful of elixirs and a rosewood piano? Belle and I may have been paired in our mother’s womb, but our paths since, separated in childhood and forked by bitter circumstance, had distanced us, stretching the bond of twinship to the breaking point. It was time to face the hard truth of it: she and Bazz would fare better without me.

  My need for order and purpose would only hold them back. Here, at Morning Star, it could be put to good use. I had no quarrel with Quinn Cooper. I cared little for his roughshod ways, but he was a practical man: with Rita gone and Spotted Fawn too frail to take her place, I figured if I offered an honest day’s work for a place to lay my head at night, I had a chance of striking a bargain with him—he’d be getting the best of it, after all.

  I could move out of this mausoleum into Rita’s vacated hut next to the vegetable garden. It was small and simple, hardly more than a lean-to, but the sagging porch, built of odds and ends of scavenged lumber, looked out over the barn and corrals. I would welcome that. Nothing like the sight of the ranch’s busy comings and goings, early and late, to help keep loneliness at bay.

  The gold, my conscience squeaked. You’re forgetting the gold.

  I hadn’t, of course; how could I? A pot of gold at the end of a sunbeam. The more I thought of it, the crazier it seemed, this elaborate riddle concocted in the gold fields by an architect down on his luck for a cowboy with a lucky strike. Had Ross Cooper intended what remained of his cache as spoils for whoever had the wit to find it? Even if Quinn inherited the right to the gold along with the ranch, how could he be expected to make the connections I had? What did Quinn know of druid stones and solstices? Besides, didn’t I owe Belle and Bazz something in return for their kindness?

  In the end, I compromised. I would make a separate peace tomorrow with my sister; another with Quinn when he returned. Let Belle and Bazz take the gold; if Quinn allowed me to stay and work at Morning Star, I would strive to prove myself worth my weight in it.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Belle took another piece of bread from the basket I passed to her, and sighed. “I swear, Reenie, that dress looks a whole lot better on you than it ever did on me.”

  I looked down at the pretty costume I had changed into for dinner. It was of fine white cambric figured in cornflower blue, with lacy ruffles at the wrist and neck, looser and cooler than anything of mine; nicer than any Mother Rogg had ever made for me.

  I laughed, pleased by her comment. “How could it, Belle? We do look alike, after all.”

  Belle’s fingers came up to explore her sun-roughened cheeks, patting the skin around her eyes as if to smooth the lines away. “Not exactly alike ... not anymore.” Her voice was uncertain; I sensed a plea for reassurance.

  I paused. “Of course we do!” But I had waited too long, and my voice was too hearty. She turned abruptly away.

  “Remember how we used to fool Mama and Pa, Belle? Mama giving us half a scolding each, because she could never tell which of us deserved it?”

  “Belle, probably,” Bazz said, offering his bowl for a second helping.

  Belle’s eyes narrowed. “What in hell do you know about it!”

  Bazz smiled. “I know you, Sybelle Garraty.”

  Her mouth pouted, then flicked up at the corners. “I guess you do, Bazzy ... ‘bout as well as I know Basil Cooper.” The look they exchanged, amused but wary, implied not affection so much as hard-won understanding.

  I refilled both their bowls with pea soup. “Maybe if we’d been allowed to stay together, Belle. Maybe if after Mama died—”

  “‘If, if, if,’“ she cut in, mocking my earnest lone. She counted them off on her fingers: “If Mama hadn’t died. If you hadn’t been sickly. If Paw had been King of England instead of a drunken, filthy old rooster.”

  “I’d exchange with you those two years you suffered with him if I could!”

  “Would you, Reenie? Would you, really?” Her expression hardened. “A lot can happen in two years. More’n a good little girl like you can dream up in your worst nightmares.”

  Why did I feel as if she were accusing me of disloyalty? What could I have done? We were children! “I’m sorry, Belle,” I heard my self whispering. “Truly sorry.” And I was. Sorry for all our lost opportunities, past and future.

  Belle put down her soup spoon, threw up her hands, and rolled her blue eyes at Bazz. “There she goes again, always sorry about something. But maybe we can fix that. What d’ya say to some of that port wine of your paw’s with our coffee, Bazzy?”

  “I’m afraid I didn’t make a dessert,” I blurted.

  “Hallelujah!” Belle crowed. “For once she’s not sorry, only afraid.”

  I lowered my head and began clearing the table.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Reenie, no need to pull a long face. I was only teasin’. ‘Sides, “we don’t need a dessert—that old port wine’s sweet as sugar candy.”

  “Then I’ll get the coffee and the wineglasses for you,” I offered.

  “For us,” Belle corrected. “Bazz already has the glasses ... he put them out earlier, on a tray in the fireplace alcove. He don’t need your help,” she added as I moved automatically to do so. “This is our thank-you for the fine meal you gave us.”

  Since it was Ross Cooper’s wine and Bazz doing the honors, I couldn’t quite see what Belle had to do with it. “I appreciate the thought, but—”

  “No buts. This is by way of bein’ a celebration.”

  “What are we celebrating?” I asked. “Leaving Morning Star or going out to meet adventure?”

  “I don’t believe in looking back,” Belle said.

  Her defiant tone puzzled me. “You can’t look back on something you haven’t done yet,” I said reasonably.

  “As good as done,” I heard her mutter as Bazz returned bearing a handsomely embossed, if tarnished, silver tray with three cut-glass goblets filled with a mahogany red liquid. She accepted the glass Bazz offered her. He took a glass for himself and extended the tray to me. I hesitated. I was already tired, and there was still much to do.

  “C’mon, Reenie! This is fancy imported stuff, not like that homemade jackass brandy Jed sneaks into the bunkhouse.”

  I hadn’t known about Jed’s secret store of brandy, but I wasn’t surprised. “He was all set to come back early and give us a good time,” I said dryly. “I allowed as how we had better things to do.”

  “Jed’s not such a bad sort... he always pays right up for what he wants.”

  I stared at her, speechless.

  She laughed. “Not what you seem to be thinkin’, Reenie. It’s that white poppy elixir of mine. He finds it real relaxin’.”

  “That’s not the only relaxation he gets from you,” Bazz muttered.

  “You hush up, Bazz! Pay him no mind, Reenie,” Belle commanded archly, as she refilled his glass. “Like I was sayin’, this port wine slides down slick as silk.”

  Slick as silk? Maybe one glass... a toast to a farewell different from the one Belle had in mind. I took the remaining glass and clinked it to theirs. Should I tell her I’ve decided to stay now? Her mouth parted in a smile; her eyes were alight with anticipation. No, tomorrow would be soon enough —after we found the
gold. I forced a confident smile. “Tomorrow at sunrise.”

  “At sunrise,” they chorused.

  The ruby liquid was as smooth as syrup on my tongue. Candy sweet, just as Belle had said, almost cloying, save for the hint of bitterness in the aftertaste. Belle and Bazz looked at me anxiously.

  “It’s lovely,” I said. “What did you say it was?”

  “Port,” Bazz said. “It’s a special kind of wine from Portugal. Someone once told my father it was what gentlemen drank after dinner, so he ordered a few cases sent out from San Francisco. This is the last bottle. I wasn’t about to leave it for Quinn to guzzle.”

  “Lovely,” I murmured.

  Belle poured coffee for us; Bazz kept our glasses filled. As darkness fell, we chatted of this and that, our voices hardly rising above a murmur. Presently Bazz got up to light the lamps. It should have been the signal to bid my companions good night; but I found the pulsing glow mesmerizing, and I felt too languid to give the chores awaiting me more than a passing thought. Before long, their urgency and specifics escaped me altogether.

  “More wine, Serena?”

  I peered up at Bazz. His face and the glass he held out to me wavered like reflections on water rippled by the wind. I tried to speak, but the words stuck to the end of my tongue. My arms slipped oft the arms of my chair; my head lolled to one side. “Sorry,” I whispered as I slid slowly to the floor. “I’m so sorry ...”

  I felt myself being lifted up, and I heard Belle’s voice, very far away, saying something about chickens. “The hen, Bazz. Bring the hen.” As I struggled to make sense of it, I felt liquid pouring over my head, trickling coolly down my arms and my back. Then the shadows closed in, and I felt nothing at all.

  I woke in darkness relieved only by a flickering golden glow. Could it be sunrise? Why hadn’t someone wakened me! I scrambled to my feet, only to knock my head a stunning blow. I instinctively hunched, then reached up cautiously. My hand traced along a rough wooden beam. I stepped back, and bumped into another, my shoes grating over finely graveled earth. Where could I be? My head began to throb, but when I gently explored the swelling bruise on the top of my head, the crimped texture of my hair was as unfamiliar to my searching fingers as the low-beamed place in which I found myself.