by Kaki Warner
It was a difficult climb on a crutch—probably more so on a crippled hip—but he was determined to talk to her. He needed her to look him in the eye and explain in a way he could understand why she preferred death in a leper colony to life with him.
A reasonable question, he thought.
It was another beautiful day with just enough breeze to rattle last year’s few remaining mesquite pods that hung too high for the cattle to reach. Time had rendered them dry and leathery and the hollow sound they made when they bounced against each other made Jack think of skeletons dancing a fandango. A depressing image, but fitting for a graveyard, he supposed, and one that matched his dark mood.
He had a sense of time slipping away from him. Of chances missed and changes to come. Of loss. It was almost like a part of him was dying and he didn’t know how to stop it. And that discouraged him more than anything ever had. Time had always seemed endless to him, the unknown future stretching far into the distance, barely imagined but rife with potential and possibility. What if ...
What if he left the ranch.
What if he went to Australia.
What if he married Elena and took her with him.
It had all sounded so possible when he’d left three years ago.
Then had come the failed operation and Elena’s growing fixation with the church, and suddenly the bright future of his imaginings had seemed unattainable and empty. Endless time had dwindled into purposeless days—how long before his next drink, his next woman, his next sailing. And as the months had passed, all the hopeful “what-ifs” had gradually become regretful “if-onlys” until even they had begun to fade away. Now all he had left was “why.”
If he was ever to get on with his life, he had to hear Elena’s answer to that.
The rusty iron gate squealed in protest when he swung it open. As he limped between the stone markers, lush green grass tangled with his crutch and the ground felt soft and damp beneath his boots. In another few months the grass would wither and the earth would bake dry and the breeze would taste like warm dust. That was a cycle that would never change no matter how much time passed. He took some comfort in that.
He could see she had been crying. Tears still clung to her long, spiky lashes, and her lips had puffed up the way a woman’s did when she wept. It touched something deep inside him and made him want to put his arms around her and comfort her. But he knew he shouldn’t. Instead, he stood there until she got herself in hand and finally looked up at him. “Been avoiding me, Elena?”
Not what he meant to say. He could tell the brusqueness of it hurt her, so he tried to cover his mistake by quickly adding, “You look well.”
The hurt look died in a smile. “As do you.”
He motioned to the empty space on the bench beside her. “Mind if I sit?”
“Por favor. Please.”
He sat.
For a long time they didn’t speak. Like awkward strangers, they sat side by side staring out into the valley, trying to pretend the weight of three years of unspoken words didn’t hang between them.
“I went to the abbey,” he said after a while.
“Oh?”
“The nun at the gate told me you’d come here.”
She nodded and looked down at her hands. “Sister Mary Margaret.”
He watched her fingers move up and down the string of beads that tied a heavy silver cross to her belt and wondered if she was praying or if it was just a nervous habit. “She said you’d be taking your final vows next month.”
“Sí. After retreat.”
Movement caught his eye, and he looked up to see a red-tailed hawk rise from the ground halfway down the hill. A snake dangled from its talons. The bird carried its prize to an outcrop thirty yards away, where it worked at the twisting body with sharp quick pecks.
“So you’re still going through with it,” he said. “Taking your vows.”
“Yes.”
He glanced at her downcast face, wishing she would take that headdress thing off so he could see her hair. She had beautiful hair. The kind a man liked to feel in his hands.
Silence again. Thunderheads crowded the far peaks, promising evening showers along the high slopes. On the outcrop, the hawk pecked and tore.
Had it always been this difficult for them to talk to each other? By nature, Elena was quiet. He was a talker. But had they ever actually talked to each other? It bothered him that he couldn’t remember. It bothered him that despite his desperation to reach out to her, he didn’t know how to do it.
Such indecisiveness irritated him. He thought he’d grown past the stupid, bumbling kid his brothers had always accused him of being. He had traveled halfway around the world, for Crissakes. He had fought in the Maori wars and had watched friends die. He had outrun fire and outswum sharks and he’d looked down into a bubbling caldron of lava and seen the beating heart of the earth. Surely he could think of something interesting to say.
Apparently not.
It was laughable. Jack Wilkins—a man who could spin a line that women on two continents had gladly hung their clothes on—and he couldn’t think of a thing to say to the only woman that mattered.
He ought to shoot himself.
Having finished its meal, the hawk lifted off the outcrop. Jack watched it soar higher and higher on the updrafts until he lost it in the lowering sun.
“Why Kalawao?” he asked.
She turned her head to look at him.
“Why a leper colony?”
“I may not even be allowed inside the settlement. The church has not yet decided.”
“And when they do?”
She spread her hands and smiled. “I will do God’s will.”
He couldn’t let her get away with such an easy, pat answer. “It was God’s will to give the poor bastards leprosy in the first place. Are you thinking to undo His work?” He tried not to sneer when he said it.
“Not undo, Jack. There is no cure for leprosy. But perhaps I can ease the suffering of those afflicted.”
“By becoming a leper yourself?”
She shrugged.
Fury burned through him. “And how will that help? Is that what your God wants?”
“He is your God, too, Jack.”
A bitter taste rose in his throat. “I don’t want Him. Not if this is His doing.”
Reaching out, she rested her fingertips on his arm. “Please. Do not hate God or blame Him for my decisions. He simply opened the door to me. It is my choice to walk through it.”
He saw that his hands had curled into fists. Forcing them open, he wiped his palms on his thighs. “Was the idea of being with me so bad, Elena, that you’d choose to live with lepers to avoid it?” He hated the way that sounded, hated the self-pitying tone. But he needed to ask the question as much as he needed to hear her answer it.
She sighed and took her hand off his arm, sadness etched on her beautiful face. “I do not know how to explain this to you, mi amigo.”
Friend. Was that what he’d been reduced to after all they’d shared? “Try, Elena. Please. Just try.”
For a time she stared out into the valley, her fingers dancing over the beads. Then, in a hesitant voice, she said, “In the hospital, when Dr. Sheedy told me of the damage Sancho had done, and how I could never live as a normal woman—”
“That doesn’t matter.”
She held up a hand before he could say more. “Shh, querido. You must let me say this.”
When he reluctantly nodded, she continued.
“I cannot share a marriage bed without pain. I cannot bear children. You heard him say that.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said again.
“It does to me.”
“I swear I don’t care about that, Elena. I just want you safe. And with me.”
But in truth, he did want more than that. He wanted all the things a man shared with the woman he loved. He wanted more than prayers and pious looks and a cold bed. He wanted everything he’d dreamed his life could be.
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And he wanted her in it.
Elena’s pale hand brushed along his cheek, sending a warm pulse all the way to his heart. “I am unsuited to be a wife, querido. But I can still do other things. Good things. Things that will bring meaning to my life and perhaps help others. Would you deny me that?”
Unable to answer, he looked away from her searching gaze. He could feel them coming—the final words—the words that would kill his last remaining hope and change everything forever.
Dread perched like a demon on his chest.
“Dear one,” she said softly. “My love for you will dwell inside me forever. I will never forget that no one on this earth has ever cared for me as you have. But all of my life I have sensed that I did not belong in this place. Over the years, every tie that has bound me to it has been broken—my parents, my brother, your kind and generous family. You are the last thread and the hardest to break. You are wrapped so tightly around my heart that parting from you will tear a hole in it that can never be filled.”
He watched tears well up and course down her cheeks. Yet she smiled. How could she smile when he was dying inside?
“You are the very best of all that I leave behind, mi hermano. Te quiero para siempre. I will love you forever.”
“Then why—”
“But I love God more,” she cut in gently.
Jack’s throat ached. His chest burned. Every fiber in his being rebelled against her words.
“I can’t accept that,” he said hoarsely.
“You must.”
“I won’t.”
Then because he didn’t know what else to say or do, he picked up his crutch and left the cemetery.
It wasn’t until he was near the bottom of the hill that an odd thought came to him. He’d wanted to shake some sense into her. He’d wanted to hold her and comfort her when she wept. He’d wanted to stroke her fine, silky hair and take her pale hand in his. But he’d never had the urge to kiss her. Or taste the tears on her cheeks, or feel her body pressed against his.
And he didn’t know why.
Six
“HEARD YOU WERE LOOKING FOR A RIDE TO THE WILKINS place?”
Hitching Kate higher on her hip, Daisy turned to see a well-dressed gentleman picking his teeth and watching her from the doorway of the Val Rosa Hotel situated next door to the Overland Stage Office.
“Maybe I can help.” Flicking the toothpick into the street, he moved toward her. “As it happens, I’ve got business out that way. You and the little one are welcome to ride along.”
Daisy frowned, so exhausted after a week of travel with a restive toddler she could hardly think, much less make coherent decisions. “Well, I ...”
“Franklin Blake,” he said, tipping his broad-brimmed hat. His eyes flicked over her, small eyes, set a bit too close together, but sharply intelligent. “You a friend of the family?”
“Not exactly.” Kate twisted in her arms to study Mr. Blake. She didn’t usually take well to strangers. Especially men, and especially after that horrid scene when Bill Johnson had tried to take her away. But the child was as weary as Daisy and offered no reaction other than to stare at him with solemn smoky blue eyes.
Ignoring her, Blake smiled at Daisy, showing an abundance of small crooked teeth the color of aged ivory. “Ask around. Anyone can vouch for me.”
Daisy tried to think. He seemed kindly enough—a smooth-shaven, middle-aged man with the hands of a banker and the sound of authority in his voice. He was mannerly and clean and seemed to pose no threat.
She had little choice in the matter anyway. The trip from San Francisco had taken longer than she had anticipated, and the extra two days had severely depleted the last of her savings. Without enough money left to cover the cost of a hotel room, she couldn’t wait around on the hopes that someone from the ranch would come to town. Nor could she hire anyone to ride to the ranch with a request to send a wagon back to get her. Not that she had any assurance they would honor such a request from a complete stranger.
Well, not a complete stranger—to Jack anyway. Although he’d been so drunk the last time she’d seen him, and for most of the time before that, in fact, he might not even remember her name.
Ridiculous. Of course he would remember her name.
If he was even at the ranch.
“When would you be leaving?” she asked, hoping she was doing the right thing. At least she was younger than Mr. Blake, and fit, and Lucy had shown her a few tricks on managing a rowdy male, so she wasn’t completely helpless. Although she did wish she still had her little derringer, just in case.
“I was on my way to the livery to get a buggy.” He motioned to the small valise at Daisy’s feet. “Can I carry that for you?”
Reluctant, but not sure how else she could get to the ranch, Daisy nodded. Picking up a pouch of baby items with one hand, she resituated Kate on her hip, checked to be sure her daughter still held her stuffed cat, then set out after Mr. Blake.
“Do you know how far it is to the ranch?” she asked, hurrying to keep up with his longer strides. The day was warm enough, but if they had to travel far, it might turn cool later, and she wanted to have ample clothing on hand for Kate.
“A good twenty-five miles,” he said over his shoulder.
That far? Daisy was already bone-sore from spending two days in a bouncing stagecoach. The thought of hours more in a jostling buggy almost made her weep. And what if they wouldn’t see her and she was forced to suffer another twenty-five-mile trip back to Val Rosa? No, by God. They would see her. She would insist.
Blake slowed so they walked side by side. “Are they expecting you?”
“No.”
For some reason that made him smile. “Not to worry. The Wilkins brothers will always welcome a pretty little thing like you.”
That comment almost stopped Daisy in her tracks. “I thought they were married.” The older two anyway.
“That they are. The two I’ve met, anyway. Kids and all. Quite a clan they’ve got going out there.”
Well, that sounded ominous. “What do you mean, clan?”
If Blake sensed Daisy’s growing doubts, his smile didn’t show it. “Why, not a thing. Not a single thing.”
They spoke no more until they reached the livery. Once there, he told Daisy to wait beside a four-wheeled buggy with a fold-down top, then went inside the barn to speak to the hostler.
Kate was becoming fidgety again, so Daisy let her climb around in the buggy to wear off her restlessness while they waited for Blake’s return. He seemed to be taking a long time. At one point, she thought she heard raised male voices coming from inside, but when Blake emerged a few minutes later, he was smiling. However, the livery owner, a muttering, sour-faced elderly man leading a spiritless horse with a runny nose and drooping head, didn’t seem as pleased.
“Clem will have us ready to go in no time,” Blake assured her.
Daisy eyed the listless animal the hostler was backing between the shafts of the buggy. “You sure the horse is up to the trip?” She’d heard about the horse flu sweeping the country. As it hadn’t yet reached San Francisco, she hadn’t witnessed it firsthand, but she recognized a sick horse when she saw one. “That horse looks ill.”
Blake laughed. “He’ll be fine. Just a little dust in his lungs. Right, Clem?”
Clem continued to mutter under his breath as he buckled the horse into the harness then attached the harness to the buggy. A few minutes later, after Daisy made a spot for Kate behind the front bench where she could move around without risk of falling out, Blake reined the horse back down Main Street.
As they passed the Post Office, a man came out and waved them down. “Heard you were heading out to RosaRoja,” he said, approaching the buggy after Blake reined in. “Mind delivering this?” He held out a string-tied bundle of mail.
At first Blake seemed reluctant, but finally he took the parcel and threw it under the seat. Ignoring the other man’s thanks, he slapped the reins on the horse’s rump, and
they were off again.
For the first two hours they made good time. Then they started up into rolling foothills, and from that point on, the road climbed steadily and the horse began to struggle. Several times it stumbled, coughing and wheezing, and Blake had to use the whip to get it moving smartly again.
Daisy felt bad for it. The horse was obviously quite ill, and it angered her that Blake would abuse an animal that was already suffering. “Please don’t do that,” she said as Blake drew back the whip again.
“You want to get there or not?” The whip popped. The horse crouched away from the sting on its rump and picked up its speed.
“I can’t believe the livery didn’t have a sounder horse,” she complained, aggravated with both the hostler and Blake for their callous disregard of the animal, and with herself for coming along even after she had seen the condition of the poor creature.
“Oh, he’s just the horse I wanted,” Blake said, then laughed as if he knew something she didn’t.
Barely able to hide her growing disgust and irritation, she gave up trying to talk to the man and stared stonily ahead. She wished she had never come.
She wished she had never left San Francisco.
She wished a lot of things.
Disheartened and weary, she tried to ignore the horse’s struggles and focused instead on entertaining Kate until finally the exhausted child fell asleep on her blanket behind the bench seat. Daisy was about to doze off as well when Blake’s voice roused her.
“How do you know the Wilkins brothers?”
Blinking groggily, she looked around. It felt like they had been traveling forever, but if she read the position of the sun correctly, they still had miles to go. Keeping her voice low so she wouldn’t wake Kate, she told Blake the only one of the family she knew was Jack.
