by Untamed
Anticipation and instant worry leaped like twin tigers inside him. He could think of only one reason why Sallie would need to speak with him. His wife’s pains had begun for real this time.
Pushing back his chair, he groped for his cane. “Have you come about Barbara? Is it her time?”
“No. Well, I don’t think so.”
“What’s this?”
The widow pursed her lips. “I merely wanted to ask you why Barbara would go jaunting about in a buggy with her time so near.”
“What makes you think she’s jaunting about in a buggy?”
“One of my field hands saw her. He said she tooled off down the Fort Smith road at a smart clip.”
Zach shook his head. “He must have mistaken her for someone else.”
“I don’t think so. He mentioned that she had Hattie with her. The maid was handling the reins.”
“This makes no sense. Barbara said nothing to me about traveling anywhere today.”
Or any day. In fact, she’d protested vigorously when he’d tried to send her to Morgan’s Falls to wait out her time in more comfortable surroundings.
“It made no sense to me, either,” Sallie said after the slightest hesitation, “until I saw the passenger list from the steamboat that arrived this afternoon. The manifest included a Sir Harry Chamberlain. He’s Barbara’s brother, is he not?”
“He is.”
Just in time he bit back a warning to Sallie to keep her purse close at hand. Zach’s opinion of Chamberlain had not improved during the weeks he’d spent in Charleston, stretched out flat on his face while the Englishman prowled the streets in search of amusement.
Her dark eyes troubled, Sallie shared yet another bit of news. “Sir Harry hired a horse from John Stallworth’s livery, Zach. He rode down the Fort Smith pike shortly before Barbara did.”
In a single heartbeat Zach went from puzzled to coldly furious. Whatever the hell Chamberlain was up to, it spelled trouble of some sort. Zach was damned if he’d let the bastard drag his wife into another of his dangerous schemes.
“Thanks, Sallie. I’ll make a check of our quarters. I’m sure Barbara left a note or word with a neighbor explaining matters.”
A quick search of their two rooms and a survey of their neighbors revealed no note or message of any kind. What he did find was a half-finished meal and an empty peg where his hunting knife usually hung.
His stomach knotting, Zach threw aside his cane and lifted his rifle from its pegs above the mantel. He didn’t know why Harry had returned to Fort Gibson or where he and Barbara were headed, but every muscle and sinew in his body was now strung as tight as a bow.
Three minutes later he was at the stables where he kept his mounts. Peter, the freed slave who’d tended to Zach’s mounts during his time in the army, still served as his groom.
“Bring my saddle.”
The groom’s jaw sagged. “You’re going to ride?”
Gritting his teeth against the pain that speared through his back, Zach threw the saddle blanket over his roan and didn’t waste breath on the obvious.
“You’re in no shape to climb into a saddle,” the elderly groom protested.
“Jump to it, man!”
Peter complied, but muttered the whole time he tightened the cinch and adjusted the stirrups.
“Miz Louise will have my head for this. First that saucy maid acomin’ in here demanding to have the gray put between the shafts of the buggy and sayin’ Miz Barbara done ordered it. Now you trottin’ off with a bullet jigglin’ up and down in your spine. I don’t like this. I’m tellin’ you, I don’t like this a-tall.”
Zach ignored the old man’s grumblings, just as he always had, but he couldn’t ignore the agony that jolted up his back when he put a boot to the stirrup and a hand to the pommel. Fire raced along his nerves. His teeth clenched so tight his jawbones popped in their sockets. Dragging in a harsh breath, he swung into the saddle.
27
“Where is he, Hattie? I don’t see him.”
The tense, nervous passenger twisted in the buggy seat and scanned the dense woods on either side of the narrow road.
“There’s a cave just off the road,” Hattie said soothingly. “See, I tied that bit of cloth on a tree branch to mark the place.”
Barbara spotted the limp rag. “When did you do that?”
“I…er…”
Cursing her slip, Hattie fumbled for an answer. She could hardly say she’d all but run the three miles out and back earlier this afternoon, before the Arabella docked.
“Months ago,” she lied. “When I was picking blackberries. I stashed some in the cave and thought to come back for them but never did.”
Deftly, she maneuvered the buggy off the dirt track and as far into the trees as she could. The Fort Smith road was nowhere near as busy as the National Pike. Riders or wagons rarely passed down it more than once a day. Still, there was no need to leave the buggy smack in the middle of the road.
“Here, let me help you down. You don’t want to stumble and fall.”
Not here, anyway. She could drag the fat cow to the cave if she had to. Years of chopping firewood and dressing carcasses had certainly given her the strength for it. But why drag a dead weight through the underbrush if she didn’t have to?
“Here’s the path. Watch those tree branches.”
Barbara plowed ahead of her, clearing the way like the prow of a boat. Hattie followed in her wake. Her blood began to pump. Sweat slicked the palm she slipped into her pocket.
“Harry!”
With a little cry, Barbara broke through the trees and rushed into the arms of her golden-haired brother. He wrapped her in a fierce hug. Hattie’s fist tightened around the knife handle. She waited, her heart hammering against her ribs, until they broke apart.
“Oh, Harry!”
The skirts of her tentlike gown swirling about her ankles, Barbara took a few agitated paces before swinging around to face her brother.
“How could you plunge into another disastrous scheme? Didn’t you learn from the last one?”
“Now, Babs, this scheme is hardly disastrous. You can’t imagine how much I’ve raked in these past months.”
“No, and I don’t wish to. Do you have any idea of the grief you’ve caused?”
“No, and I don’t wish to,” he echoed with a shrug.
They didn’t so much as remember she was there, Hattie thought on a wave of hate so strong it carried her right up to the golden-haired bastard. He turned to her with a sharp look, as if questioning why someone like her would dare to interrupt her betters in the midst of a heated discussion.
In one swift move, Hattie dragged the knife from its sheath inside her pocket and plunged the blade into his belly. She yanked it upward, gutting him as swiftly and skillfully as she’d gutted any hog or deer.
28
Barbara didn’t understand at first what was happening. Hattie’s back was to her. Her slender figure had blocked all but the sudden movement of her arm. But when Harry tottered back a step, she saw the knife buried in his belly.
“Nooo!”
Wild with shock and disbelief, she threw herself forward. The sheer bulk of her knocked Hattie sideways.
“Harry!” Barbara spun back to her brother. “Dear God, Harry!”
As if in a daze, he looked down at the intestines bulging through the slit in his stomach. He raised his head, gave her a look of utter astonishment and sank to his knees.
Sobs ripped from Barbara’s throat. She dropped awkwardly beside him. Desperate, she tried to shove the bloody white ropes back inside his gaping wound. In her horror, it didn’t occur to her that she might suffer the same fate until Harry’s lips curled back in a rictus of agony.
“Babs! Look to…yourself!”
She threw a terrified glance over her shoulder, saw Hattie observing them with a smile.
A smile! She stood there with Harry’s blood staining her entire dress and smiled!
“You murdering whore
!” Barbara screamed, her frantic hands still squishing and plunging among Harry’s guts. “Are you mad?”
“Some might say so, I suppose. But quite clever in my madness, wouldn’t you say?”
“Clever!”
The piercing shriek startled a flock of birds. Wings flapping, they whirred into the sky.
“This is hardly clever, you stupid bitch. You’ll hang for this.”
“Oh, I think not. Who’s to say what happened here?” She flicked Harry a smug glance. “Not him, certainly.”
A whimper escaped Barbara as she, too, looked down at her brother. His eyes had closed. His mouth was slack. Choking back sobs, she stilled her bloody hands.
“Now, mistress, I shall attend you one last time.”
With studied casualness, Hattie tested the bloody knife tip with a finger. Nausea flooded Barbara’s throat. Swallowing convulsively, she wrapped her arms around her belly.
“You can’t… You must not… My babe…”
“Your bastard, you mean.”
Like a snake shedding its skin, the brunette abandoned her mocking pretense. The hate Barbara had glimpsed before in her eyes now burned bright and fierce.
“You thought to tie Zach to you by spreading your legs and letting his seed take root.”
“No!”
“Zach married you because of that babe. Everyone knows that.”
“Hattie, listen to me…”
“It will shatter him when he learns you ran off the moment your brother came for you.”
She took a step forward, the knife tight in her blood-drenched fist.
“You told your brother you couldn’t continue in your farce of a marriage. I tried to stop you from leaving with him. When you insisted, I had no choice but to drive you to your arranged meeting place. I argued. I pleaded. I cried bitter tears when you went off with him, never to be seen again.”
Barbara stumbled back. Her smothering fear for herself came nowhere near to the terror she now felt for her unborn child.
“Please, don’t kill my babe. Please!”
All the while she choked out pleas, Barbara’s terror-filled mind searched for a way to save her child.
She couldn’t run. She was too big and clumsy. She wouldn’t take three steps before the madwoman plunged the knife into her back. She’d have to use her bare hands to fight off the vicious blade. Or a rock! A heavy rock.
She took another step back. Threw a glance at a tumble of boulders. She’d never make them. Hattie was only a few yards away.
“Listen to me!” she pleaded. “You could cut the babe from my belly. Slice me open the way you did Harry and take the babe to Zach.”
The maid’s lip curled. “Do you think I didn’t consider that? No, it won’t answer. I can hardly show up at the fort with your brat in swaddling blankets.”
“Yes, you can! You can say I went into labor and dropped the child, but didn’t want to take it with me. Zach will believe you. He thinks I tried to rid myself of the child in Washington.”
“Too bad we didn’t succeed in that attempt.”
“We! Did you…? Did you poison me?”
“I tried my best to.”
Her mouth curving in that same murderous smile, Hattie stepped over Harry’s body.
“The knife is faster than cowbane, thank goodness, and more—”
She stopped dead, her skirts snagged by a bloody hand. Like a ghoul rising from the grave, Harry lifted his head and gasped out an agonized cry.
“Run…Babs!”
Shrieking in rage, Hattie twisted around. Her arm swept up. The blade slashed down.
Once. Twice. Again.
With a sob of pure terror, Barbara ran for the tumbled boulders. She scrabbled for a loose rock, tearing off her nails, bruising her knuckles. She got her hands around one. Swung her bulk around. Raised her arms. Drew her lips back in a snarl.
“You’ll not kill my babe!”
Using every ounce of strength she possessed, Barbara heaved the rock at the woman rushing toward her. The missile left her hands just as the crack of gunfire split the air.
A red hole blossomed between Hattie’s eyes an instant before the rock smashed into her face.
29
Her clothing and arms stained with blood, Barbara cradled her brother’s head in her lap.
Zach ignored his blinding pain and went down on one knee beside them. A single glance told him it was useless, but he made the effort for Barbara’s sake. Dragging off his linen shirt, he stuffed it into the gaping hole in Harry’s stomach. The stab wounds to the throat and chest were still pumping blood. Zach covered the worst of them with his palm.
Chamberlain’s lids fluttered up. He stared at Barbara through eyes already glazed with death.
“Babs…”
The hoarse whisper brought a bubble of blood with it. Tears streaming down her cheeks, Barbara dabbed at the froth with a corner of her skirt.
“I’m here, Harry.”
His lids drifted down. Zach was sure he was gone, but the muscles under his palm moved.
“Didn’t…know.”
Barbara bent closer. “What, Harry? What are you trying to say?”
With agonizing slowness, his lids lifted again. This time his gaze fixed on Zach.
“White…stone. Babs…didn’t…know.”
Aw, Christ. Chamberlain was behind those false deeds. Zach should have guessed. Feeling a thousand years old, he nodded.
Chamberlain gave one more rattling breath and died.
Barbara clutched her brother in silent, stricken grief. Zach turned his head away to allow her a last moment with her brother and fixed his sight on the body lying in a crumpled heap a few feet away.
He’d hear the echo of Hattie’s enraged shriek for the rest of his days. It had brought him plunging through the underbrush, thumbing the hammer on his rifle as he ran. Things had a way of coming back to haunt a man, Zach thought. He’d rescued Hattie by putting a bullet between the eyes of her brutish master. He’d ended her life the same way.
With a ragged sigh, Barbara lowered her brother’s head to the earth.
“He told you the truth,” she said with infinite weariness. “As difficult as it must be for you to believe, I never heard a word about Whitestone Title and Deed Company until the sergeant showed you that bloodstained deed.”
She rested her hands on her belly. They were stained with blood and scraped raw at the knuckles.
“I guessed at once Harry was behind the company. He’d used the same name for the railway scheme that landed him in the gaol.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I wanted to. The night before Nate’s funeral, I almost did. But you had vowed vengeance.”
Her gaze lifted to his. Death had stripped away the lies and half truths. All that remained was a desolation that went bone deep.
“Harry wouldn’t have let you take him. He swore he’d never go back to prison. He would have killed you…or hired someone to do it. I couldn’t bear the thought of losing you.”
Zach believed her. Not because he wanted to. Because he knew she wouldn’t lie to him over her brother’s body.
Clenching his jaw against the pain in his back, he pushed to his feet. “I’ll send a detail back for the bodies. Let me take you home, Barbara.”
Home. Two small rooms at a remote outpost in the heart of Indian Country. They beckoned to her like a shimmering alabaster palace.
Not until she put her hand in Zach’s strong, callused palm did Barbara understand those two rooms didn’t represent safety and stability. That came from Zach, and knowing he loved her despite all.
With a last glance, she said goodbye to her brother and turned her face to her husband.
30
Barbara delivered a son six days later.
The birth was relatively easy according to Sallie Nicks and the midwife, who washed and swaddled the babe with brisk cheerfulness. Barbara rather thought they made light of her ordeal.
Exhausted an
d drenched with sweat, she fell back on the birthing straw while the midwife fussed and cooed over the squalling infant. Sallie attended to Barbara, helping her into bed, cleansing her with a damp cloth, whisking away the soiled straw. Not until the new mother had donned a clean nightdress and had her hair brushed did the midwife go to fetch Zach. While she waited for her husband, Barbara cradled her son in her arms.
To Sallie’s delight, the babe took to his mother’s breast immediately and began to suckle. “He knows what he wants, that one.”
Disconcerted by the tingling sensation, Barbara cupped a hand over his soft, downy hair. It was as black as night, like his father’s.
“And his eyes are so blue,” she whispered, both awed and amazed at what she’d produced.
“Most babies’ eyes are blue at birth. They’ll likely change within six months or a year.”
“I hope so! My mother-in-law told me of a legend that has haunted her for most of her life. She’s convinced a blue-eyed child brings disaster.”
“Only if that child is female,” Zach said from the doorway.
He limped into the room, still wracked with pain from the jarring gallop down the Fort Smith Pike. Barbara’s wonder in her son dimmed when she saw the harsh lines that ride had etched in his face. His thought wasn’t for his pain, though, but for hers.
“Are you all right?”
“Now I am,” she said with some feeling. “I shall have to think a while before deciding whether to give your son a brother or sister.”
Chuckling, he brushed a knuckle down the babe’s red, mottled cheek. “My mother said the same after each of my brothers and sisters made their appearance. Lord, he’s a lusty little devil. Have you fixed a name?”
Barbara raised her gaze to his. “I thought we might name him Nathaniel.”
At the soft suggestion, Zach felt something shift inside him. He’d been sure that if she bore a son she’d want to name him after her brother. Much as he would have disliked it, Zach would have agreed. Harry had been her only family, her only anchor in her topsy-turvy world.
