Chapter 36
The hot mid-August wind rippled across Cora’s dress and skin, tossing her straw hat from her head and down onto her back where it swung at the end of a string.
Prairie spread out in front of her. Indian grass, flopping over with its flowery yellow plumes shooting straight up, brushed against her knees as she loped Sandy through the field.
Summer’s heat had long ago withered the bluebonnets and Indian paintbrush, but purple cornflowers and orange Indian blanket blossoms with their yellow tips populated patches not dominated by the grasses.
Rolling hills extended south toward the Brazos River, but the line of scrub oak along the creek up ahead was the end of Scott land.
Her land. And Charlie’s. And Ben’s if he ever came back. Why couldn’t she have opened her stupid mouth the morning he rode off? Her silence had guillotined any hope for a future with him.
Everything he’d done for her and Charlie evidenced dedication and commitment. He’d shown he could be counted on and trusted. Couldn’t she have at least taken his word about the bottle?
She slowed the mare to a walk and fanned herself with her hat.
Sweat dampened her underarms and back. Sleeves rolled to her elbows, her bare forearms soaked in the sun.
What did it matter that her skin wasn’t pearly white?
She had no hope of competing with a city girl like Olivia Edmondson, especially after she’d practically slammed the door in Ben’s face.
The day he’d left, she’d discovered one of his two journals lying atop the quilt she’d loaned him.
Had he left it to share a deeply personal part of himself with her, or was it merely because she was Jeb’s sister, and it contained a portion of Jeb’s story as well?
She could only hope he’d come back to retrieve it someday.
In the four weeks since his departure, she’d started sleeping with the journal beneath her pillow, praying every night for the man who had endured so much.
The small script, written so as to conserve paper, utilized every white space on the page, a challenge to decipher, but it was the descriptions of the hardships and deprivations Ben and Jeb had suffered that tore her heart.
If Ben were here now, she’d wrap her arms around him and never let go.
If he could see her eyes now, he’d know she was sorry, and that her love would win out over all misgivings. She didn’t need to behold the bottle to believe him.
Her horse snorted.
An eagle circled overhead, sailing on the wind.
Suddenly, it dove. Grass parted a hundred yards ahead.
A hare bounded through the thick tassels.
Talons extended, the eagle swooped in and snatched the rabbit from the ground.
A squeal pierced the quiet. Cora followed the bird with her gaze as it pumped its wings and retook the sky with its prey dangling beneath.
As her gaze returned to earth, she startled. A rider sat atop the nearest hill. An Indian. Chest bare and wearing nothing but a breechclout, he held his lance upward, resting the base on the ground.
Her stomach dropped. Two weeks prior in Jack County, a Comanche raiding party had struck two farms, stealing horses from the corral and killing the cattle. A farmer who’d tried to stop them ended up with arrows in his gut and his scalp missing.
She gripped the reins in one hand and slowly drew her Enfield rifle out of its scabbard with her other hand.
Was the warrior alone, or was there a raiding party on the other side of the bluff?
Her heart pounded. If she turned and fled right now, she might have time to get away, but Comanches could outride anyone on the plains, and the Kiowa weren’t far behind.
Even if she made it to the palisade, no guarantee she’d have time to lock it.
And who knew if Charlie would be inside or out?
She wouldn’t risk drawing the one Indian or many to the boy.
Back stiff and a prayer on her lips, she held the loaded Enfield across her lap, ready to snatch the butt to her shoulder in a blink.
The warrior nudged his horse forward at a trot. “Haa.” His voice boomed across the prairie.
The Comanche equivalent of hello. Still, her fingers twitched to raise the rifle. A greeting meant nothing. She might only get one shot, or she might accidentally start a fight that could have been avoided.
Down the hill and across the creek, he rode. His face unpainted, his long braids flapped against his muscular chest. Wolf Heart?
Her finger eased off the trigger.
Driving his black mustang to a lope, the man closed the distance between them, coming to a stop twenty or thirty feet from her. Three eagle feathers hung from his scalp lock. Creases spread out from the corners of his eyes, and a scar marred his right cheek.
He nodded toward the Enfield. She loosened her grip on the weapon.
“Where is one called Ben?” He lifted his cleft chin. A bow string lay across his chest, and a quiver hung from his shoulder. Another scar marred his breast.
“He had to travel far away toward the sunrise to a place called Pennsylvania. His father is greatly ill. Might die.”
His hooded, dark eyes studied her from head to toe. “Not winter yet. And he is gone.”
“He will be back as soon as he can.” She leaned forward on her horse. The threat was more subtle than the spear, but it was there. Charlie’s future rested on her words. “Charlie is helping me on the ranch. He is my protector. The man of the family for now.”
“Tsssk. The boy needs a father to teach him.”
“Ben will be back. His father is ill. The duty must go both ways. He has responsibility to Charlie and to his father.”
“Hmmpf.” Wolf Heart nudged his mount to the right and walked the mustang in a full circle around her.
Her tongue felt like sandpaper, but she sat tall. She had a knife strapped to her thigh if he attempted to misuse her.
“What about Cora? What responsibility to Cora?” His circle complete, he aimed his gaze into hers.
There was only one safe answer. “Ben will return to make me his wife.”
“Has not done it?” A glow lit his eyes. “Cowboy is slow. Too slow?”
“He wisely chose to wait until he’s finished caring for his father.” Until he could find a woman who would trust him.
Wolf Heart puffed out his chest. “Will see. If he come back. If he too slow.”
Before she could think of a retort, he wheeled his mustang about and struck out at a gallop toward the hills and the horizon.
Exactly what did all that mean? Had the warrior happened to run across her, or had he been watching? Following her? Maybe he’d come out to see Charlie again. For all she knew, Wolf Heart could have been part of the raid that killed the farmer. He’d been with the party that killed her uncle.
She could tell the men in Weatherford about the Indian that kept showing up on her land. A posse would be more than pleased to stake out the area and wait in ambush. But she wouldn’t do that. She would not break the verbal treaty Ben had brokered between them. But what if Ben never came back?
Collar undone and shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows, Ben settled into the high-back chair by his father’s bedside. Ink and newsprint darkened his fingertips. The smell of carbolic acid stung his nose, overpowering the earthy aroma of steaming mullein tea on the table by his father’s bed.
“What is the news of the day?” His father scooted his shoulders farther up on the pillows.
Dark circles underscored his eyes. The lung fever had broken earlier in the week, but it’d left him weak as a baby.
Yesterday was the first time he could manage a full sentence without it leaving him breathless.
“The Texans finally figured out they lost the war.” Ben chuckled. “Some of them will probably still refuse to accept the fact ten years from now.”
“See, I told you.” His father raised his chin. “You’re better off away from that place.”
Ben pressed his lips together. He’d not argue with a sick man.
“There are some fine people there, in amongst the hard-headed Rebs.” His chest hollowed at the mere thought of Cora.
“But the fact of the matter is that eighteen months after Appomattox, the Texans finally elected a state government and ratified a new state Constitution acceptable to President Johnson…”
His father listened as Ben moved on to the rest of the headlines.
In ten days, he’d receive his first month’s pay.
He’d send Cora half of it. Had LeBeau set up camp on her porch once more?
He shifted in his seat and crossed his ankle over his leg.
If only Cora could see him in the newspaper office, where he was proficient, respected, and more than capable.
Somewhere in the cacophony of odors surrounding the sick bed, the sweet, sickly smell of laudanum invaded his nostrils and turned his stomach.
The bottle wasn’t in sight today, but the doctor had prescribed it for his father along with a litany of cathartics, cupping, and bloodletting.
Ben’s mouth didn’t water, nor did his hand tremble in response.
Had the Lord loosened the brown liquid’s grip on him? He wouldn’t test the possibility.
Upon his arrival, he’d insisted he be allowed to stay in the guest room, not his old bedroom, where the memories of being under the influence of the poison were too strong.
And he’d let it be known that he didn’t want a laudanum bottle in his presence.
His mother had looked at him as if he were out of his head, but she had complied and ordered the servant girl to do so as well.
A cough wracked through his father, shaking his body. Mother rushed over with a handkerchief. Together, Ben and she held him up from the pillows. Reddening in the face, his father held the handkerchief to his lips as his chest crackled.
When he had quieted, Ben lowered him down. “You’ll better rest now.”
“I’ll rest.” His father settled against the pillows. “Knowing my boy…is here to take charge…of the paper.”