B000XUBEHA EBOK (5 page)

Over the years, Cameron had spent countless hours studying Clarence and Della Ward’s wedding photograph. Della Ward had occupied his thoughts as he rode across miles of empty prairie or sat before a solitary campfire. He’d propped her photograph on a succession of bureaus in a succession of boarding houses in the succession of rough and rowdy towns where he’d worn a badge. Occasionally during his long drift through the West, in the later years, he had sometimes fantasized that she was his and waiting for him to come home.

He knew every nuance of the girl in that photograph, both real and fancied. The curve of her cheek and breast were as familiar as his own palm. He knew exactly where her hair had caught the photographer’s light, could describe her gown in every detail.

At various times he had read innocence or idealism in her gaze; confidence, apprehension, or vulnerability. The shape of her lips suggested sensuality waiting to be awakened, spoke of sweetness and tender smiles. Other times he saw dreaminess in the shape of her mouth and chin.

The way she leaned slightly toward Clarence told him that she was dependent and in need of protection, a malleable woman-child eager to please and be cared for. A woman raised to be cherished, to bring gentleness into a man’s life.

Her letter to her husband had seemed to confirm his judgement of her character. He’d grasped her bewilderment and desperation in every pen stroke. Had seen the young bride floundering beneath demands and fears and responsibilities that nothing in her experience had prepared her to cope with. Even on his first reading, Cameron had understood the impulsiveness of her plea for help and her momentary flash of resentment and hatred for the man who had abandoned her to an overwhelming situation. He’d guessed that she had regretted the letter almost at once.

The sound of the dinner bell interrupted his reverie, and he drove in the last nail, then climbed down from the barn roof. It had taken three days, but the job was finished. Surprisingly he’d enjoyed the physical labor and sweating under the Texas sun. It occurred to him that he might like a place of his own someday.

The thought made him smile as he walked toward the rain barrel at the side of the house. Men like him didn’t settle down. If he needed a reminder, all he had to recall was the steady trickle of men riding out here to take a look at him or shake his hand. So far, the calls had been harmless. But he was aware that the next man who rode into Della Ward’s yard could be the one who lusted for a footnote in history stating that he was the quick shot who had killed James Cameron.

“It’s hot in here,” Della called through the kitchen window. “Must have reached close to a hundred degrees today, plus I’ve had the stove going all afternoon.”

The water from the rain barrel felt cool on his face and neck. “Whatever you’re cooking, it smells good.”

“Turtle soup and a shepherd’s pie. Baked apples for dessert. I thought we’d eat on the porch. It’s cooler outside than in here.”

She smiled at him through the window, her expression uncertain, as if she didn’t smile often. A lock of damp hair lay pasted to her cheek, her face was flushed with heat.

Only hints remained of the girl in the photograph.

The rounded plumpness had vanished, leaving behind interesting angles and sharper definitions. He doubted her dark hair had felt the crimp of a curling iron in years; she wore her hair simply now, coiled in a knot on her neck. Sun and weather had drawn faint lines beside her mouth and across her brow. Soft pampered hands had become rough, reddened, and calloused.

Her lips still impressed him as sensual and hinting of mystery, but sharp words could fall from her mouth. This was no longer a dependent girl seeking to please and be protected. The most noticeable change, however, lay in her hazel eyes. Sadness had matured her gaze, as deep as the earth.

The young beauty in the photograph had stepped into the fire and vanished. A handsome woman forged by the flames of war and loss had emerged capable, independent, and no longer malleable. She’d become a sad, angry woman.

More deeply than he could ever express, Cameron regretted that she had lost the life she had expected to live. She had been destined for balls and musicales, for silk gowns and cashmere shawls. She had expected to reign over a household of servants, and spend idle days tinkling on a piano, painting delicate patterns on china cups, reading frivolous novels, paying and receiving calls, being the heart and center of a husband and family.

Instead, she lived alone on the edge of nowhere, working dawn to dusk on a property that was deteriorating around her. She raised pumpkins that were useless to her. And her eyes were filled with pain.

The war had done this to her. The war, and James Cameron.

“Supper will be ready in just a minute,” she called as he came up the porch steps.

She’d spread a cloth across the porch table, and she’d made time to gather and then arrange a clutch of willow branches in a vase.

Stepping inside, Cameron hung his hat on one of the pegs, then leaned in the doorway, watching her move from stove to sink. When he realized he was staring, he shifted his glance and saw something that he’d failed to notice before.

There were marks on the doorjamb. Bending forward, he read a series of penciled notations above the rising lines. Three years. Five years. Eight years. Nine years. Frowning, he glanced toward the bookcase and the school primer atop it.

“Would you give me a hand with the soup bowls?” She untied her apron and dropped it on the sideboard. “I already dished up the plates. I’ll carry those.”

There were signs of a child everywhere. The items in the house. A pair of small gloves in the barn. A swing hanging from a thick cottonwood branch. But where was the child? He kept expecting her to mention the child’s whereabouts, but she didn’t.

“It looks like you finished patching the barn roof,” she said, tasting her soup.

Was she relieved, thinking he’d leave now? Or was she disappointed? She appeared to enjoy having company.

Pushing aside his soup bowl, he frowned down at the plate of shepherd’s pie. He should finish his business here and ride away. Every minute that he delayed saying what he’d come to say, was another minute that he deceived and wronged her.

Damn it to hell. He’d performed one cowardly act in his life. That was coming to Two Creeks and finding her years ago, then riding away without telling her the truth.

This time he would tell her. Tomorrow.

But tonight, he would warm himself in the light of her rare smiles. Would let the sound of her voice ease the tightness in his chest. When he looked at her, he didn’t feel like someone who had killed more men than he could remember. When he looked at her and inhaled her scent, he glimpsed what his life might have been.

“You don’t talk much,” she said when they’d finished the baked apples.

“I guess I’m out of practice.”

“I would have said that myself, but listen to me go on.” She made a face and lifted a hand. “It’s like I’ve stored up all these words. Dull words about Daisy’s milk going sour last year, and silly words about seeing pictures in fallen leaves. I’m talking you half to death.”

He waited until she’d fetched the coffeepot and filled their cups. “I wonder if I might have permission to ask a few questions.” Her eyebrows lifted in surprise, and he felt himself flush beneath his sunburn. “All these years . . . there are things I’ve wondered . . .”

“Like what?”

“Like why are you living in North Texas? I spent a year after the war looking for you in Georgia.”

“A year?”

“Off and on. You know how chaotic it was in the aftermath. Or maybe you don’t, maybe you were here by then. No one knew what had happened to neighbors and friends. People died, moved, were relocated.”

“It’s a long story,” she said finally, stirring her coffee.

“I found what was left of the Ward plantation. Months later I located a woman who said she thought the Wards had taken a house in Atlanta. It took a while, but I found the place on Peachside. Weeks later I tracked down the people who had lived across the street. A family named Beecher. Mrs. Beecher said the Wards had moved again, to a grander place, but she felt certain that you had gone west to Texas.”

“You read my letter to Clarence,” she said, turning her face to the shadows stretching toward the road. “There were difficulties between myself and Mr. and Mrs. Ward.”

“Because you were a Yankee?”

“I guess they saw it that way, but I wasn’t much of a Yankee. Not in my mind.” She made a sound of dismissal. “Mama sent me to Atlanta to visit a cousin when I was thirteen. Six months later, when I was due to go home, there was talk of war. Already it was becoming dangerous to travel. My cousin advised me to stay in Atlanta until things were resolved, and Mama agreed.” She tasted her coffee. “Those were impressionable years. By the time I married Clarence, I was sixteen. All the young men I knew were Southerners. All the
people
I knew were Southerners. My loyalty lay firmly with the South. That’s where I saw my future.”

“The trouble with the Wards . . . did they oppose your marriage to Clarence?”

She clasped her hands in her lap. “Clarence never told me straight out, but it was clear later that his parents were horrified by his choice. I imagine they did what they could to change his mind. To them, I was and would always be a Yankee. It was especially hard on Mrs. Ward to have her son married to a Northerner. After the war, I came here, as far from Atlanta as I could get on the money I had.”

“If these questions are upsetting you . . .”

Standing, she moved to the porch rail, where he couldn’t see her expression. Her slim back was stiff and as straight as the barrel of his rifle.

“My courtship and my wedding day were the happiest days of my life, Mr. Cameron. War raged across the South and it was all anyone could talk about. We rationed provisions, gave our horses to the army, sold our jewelry to buy uniforms for the soldiers. We read about slave revolts and cities burning. But it was all a dream to me, not real or even important. What mattered to me was that I was in love and loved in return.”

She turned to face him. “Others talked about battles that later became famous. I talked about wedding plans. Others read newspapers and learned the names of the generals on both sides. I read romantic poetry. All around me, people saw blood on the moon. I looked at the same moon and smiled because it shown down on my beloved. Does it upset me to talk about the war years? No, Mr. Cameron. I floated happily through the conflagration without ever looking at the flames around me. Not until near the end.”

She made herself sound shallow and superficial.

“Clarence and I had a week together, then he returned to his regiment and I moved to the Ward’s plantation. That’s when the war became real, and yes, that part is upsetting to remember. Before the slaves ran off, we worried that they’d murder us in our beds. If the slaves didn’t kill us, we were certain the Yankees would. Except for me, of course. Mrs. Ward believed the Yankees would spare me and take me to safety. If the slaves or the Yankees didn’t murder us, we feared illness would. Dysentery and fever and malnutrition killed people by the hundreds. If illness spared us, then starvation would surely get us.”

He’d known what it was like in the towns and countryside. But he hadn’t heard it described like this, in a flat voice and without expression.

He cleared his throat and tried to think of something to say. “I believe I’ll start on the corral tomorrow. The poles are rotting, and many of the rails are splintered.”

“Mrs. Ward lost her home and all her belongings to the Yankees, Mr. Cameron. The Yankees killed her only son, the son she adored. And there I was. A Yankee. In her home, under her nose. If she hadn’t needed my help so desperately, I believe she would have figured out how to use Mr. Ward’s hunting rifle, and she would have shot me. I was an abomination in her eyes.”

Standing, he set down his cup. “I thank you for a fine supper.”

Her hands trembled and waves of heat radiated from her rigid body. “The Wards didn’t invite me to accompany them to their new home. Mr. Ward gave me the deed to this place and enough money to get here. That’s how I ended up in North Texas.”

“I apologize for intruding into areas where I have no right to be.”

She stared at him, then the air rushed out of her body and her shoulders slumped. She shoved back a lock of heat-damp hair.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “You asked a straightforward question. It was me who strayed into areas I haven’t examined for a while. Please. Sit down and finish your coffee.”

Uncertain, he took his chair and didn’t protest when she refilled his cup. “It’s hot tonight.” The triviality of what he’d just said disgusted him.

“Do you talk about the war, Mr. Cameron?”

“No.”

“I guess most of us don’t.” She added sugar to her coffee as if to sweeten a bad taste in her mouth. “But it’s always there. The war changed everything.”

They sat in the twilight silence, watching shadows lengthen and occasionally waving away a mosquito or gnat. At some point Della entered the house and returned with an old palm fan which she waved in front of her face. He noticed damp patches beneath her arms and breasts, felt his shirt sticking to his back.

“If I were alone, I’d probably go down to the creek on a night like this,” she said after a while, “and dangle my feet in the water.”