Bright Morning Star (19 page)

Claire noticed Bonnie was sitting stiffly erect, not clinging tightly to the tall soldier. Calum Douglas looked grim as well. Claire ran to grab Bonnie as soon as the soldier released the woman. Bonnie wrapped the little blonde in a bear hug, then opened her arms wider as Mary Anne and the twins flew up to crowd against her. Mother and Father Wimberley waited until Claire released her. Then they hugged Bonnie as though she was a long lost child.

Claire turned to study Bonnie’s tall Lieutenant. Calum stood back and watched Bonnie’s every motion. As her light brown eyes filled with tears and started to overflow, Claire saw the same emotion reflected in the soldier’s eyes. Henry Lambton was the only one to seem withdrawn from all the emotion.

Claire sighed, wishing for a minute that Henry and she could share their feelings as easily. When her parents released the big girl, laughing happily, Bonnie stepped back so she was again beside her Lieutenant. The man seemed to stretch on his toes so he was briefly pressed against her back. Claire saw an invisible change, as for a moment, Bonnie seemed to relax.

Then the Lieutenant lifted his hat once again, and bade them all Goodnight. He spoke to Henry and she heard Henry answer, but noticed all the questions in Bonnie’s eyes. She must have known that Henry was a widower and fair game now. Had Bonnie expected them to be wed by this time? She was the only one to know how Claire really felt about the man. Well, if she was disappointed it was no greater than the disappointment Claire felt.

Claire turned back to finish the dinner, wishing she had some meat or a special treat to serve her friend. Mother stepped up to tell her she could manage if Claire wanted to talk with Bonnie but Bonnie turned back and joined her. “Nonsense, we can talk while we cook.” As the children and the men left to water the cattle, Claire relaxed, instantly back to where they had been when she left.

Claire watched Bonnie staring after Calum, wondered what had changed between the two. She couldn’t wait to talk to her best friend and find out what she had experienced in all this time they had been apart. Whatever they were saying with those looks of longing, it ended when he turned away from her and mounted to ride out to oversee settling his own men.

Bonnie talked, keeping Mother and Claire locked on every word. The way she talked about her time of captivity, you would have thought Indians were as or more civilized than many of the people they were traveling with. Claire could tell she didn’t share everything about her rescue. She would try to get all those details later, when the two were alone. As Bonnie had told her before, Calum Douglas wasn’t a toy soldier. Claire doubted he had just talked to the Indians and they released Bonnie to his care. Then, there was the trip back to the fort with all those men.

The story was just getting interesting when the men came back from tending to the oxen. Mary Anne and the boys had caught some crayfish, but the boys told Bonnie that Gerald had promised they were good eating. You just had to boil them till their shells changed color and they floated to the top. Claire backed away from the things that looked like monster bugs. Bonnie put the small pan over the fire with water in it and waited.

“Aren’t you going to throw them in to cook?” Bonnie said, rubbing her tummy.

“You’ll eat one, won’t you Bonnie?” Tom asked.

Bonnie shook her head, “No, go on the water’s boiling?”

Mother shook her head and moved behind Claire. Mary Anne stepped forward and said, “Silly, boys.” And she dropped her crawdad in the boiling skillet. Amazingly it started to climb back out. Claire knocked it back in with the wooden spoon and they all watched it curl and twist in agony.

Jim shook his head and handed both of his bugs to Tom.

“Baby boys,” Mary Anne teased.

Father told her to stop. “Go on, Tom,” Father said, “I’ll eat one if you will.”

Henry smiled at the boys' faces and said, “Me too, Jim, you eat one and I’ll eat one.”

Tom pitched them into the pan with the dead crawdad, squealing when one pinched his finger. The children danced about the fire in ghoulish delight as the crayfish, squirmed and twisted before dying.

Claire shuddered as she passed out the plates to the men and boys, each with a big pink crawdad in the center.

She ladled Mary Anne’s beans and started to put the last one on top and she shook her head. “No, I don’t want it. It looks too much like a scorpion.”

The boys had found and killed one of the small desert pests their first day outside the last fort. They had carried it around on a stick to tease their little sister until Father told them it could still make them sick or even kill them if its tail stung them. The boys flung it far away into the bushes. Now every morning, everyone went through the new ritual of shaking out boots and shoes before putting them on.

“Nonsense,” said Father. “These have wide flat tails instead of stingers. Here,” he held out his hand. “If you’re sure you don’t want to try it. It probably tastes like shrimp or lobster, looks the same only a lot smaller.”

Mary Anne didn’t answer, just scrunched up a little to stare at the bugged eyes and the waving tentacles. Decided she shook her head and passed it to Father.

“Did this friend of yours tell you how to eat it?” Father asked.

Jim was staring at his crawdad, the same way Mary Anne had looked at hers. Claire felt her stomach swirl at the thought of eating the horrible thing.

Tom looked as reluctant as the other two as he said, “He said you pull it apart, and eat the meat out of the tail, then put it in your mouth and suck out the green stuff in the head. He said that’s the really good part.”

“Ooh, bug brains,” said Mary Anne.

Tom didn’t want to, but with everyone watching he pulled his apart. The meat in the tail half stuck out a little.

Father and Henry copied his action with their first crawfish. Father sucked on the white meat and pulled it into his mouth to chew. Henry did the same, and finally Tom chewed his.

“What does it taste like?” Bonnie asked.

“Nothing. I’ve had lobster, which is delicious. This tastes like nothing. What do you think Henry?”

Henry managed to swallow his bite, then toss the tail down for the dogs to nose around. When Tyler barked in complaint, Henry tossed him the head as well. “Here, if one of you ladies want to try it, you can have my other one.”

Father leaned forward with his plate at the same time.

All of them motioned them away. Jim reached out and took one and copied Tom’s actions, forcing himself to eat the meat. He smiled when he finished, shrugging. “One’s all you need of something like this.”

“Are you going to eat its green brain?” asked Mary Anne with a squeal. Both boy’s sat holding the ugly heads.

“I will if you will,” said Father. He pulled his last one in half and ate the other tail, then turned to wave the tentacle half at them. Both boys suddenly tossed the heads to the eager dogs and Father did the same with a laugh. Soon they were all laughing.

Claire relaxed, pressing her hand into Bonnie’s to squeeze her fingers. “I’m so happy now you’re back.”

Bonnie smiled at her, wondered why she wasn’t. For a minute, she wished there were another of the horrible crawdads. She wondered if Calum would have eaten it, even the head.

“Thank the Lord you still have a little good sense. Now finish your plates. Next time, let those gentlemen have your catch as well,” Father said.

Mary Anne and Mother cleaned and put away the dishes.

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Bonnie and Claire were still talking, long after the others gave up and left the fire. Dark clouds suddenly hid the moon and stars. “Thank heavens you are back. That’s the first decent meal we’ve had all month.”

Bonnie laughed. “You two had everything going when I arrived. Besides, the little I know about cooking I learned from my Mum and yours.”

“Yes, but you cooked the crawfish.”

Both shook their heads, still repulsed.

Bonnie stared at her and said. “Now tell me what’s really wrong. Where’s my sunny little canary, chirping about fashion, and what everybody’s doing?”

Claire’s lower lip began to tremble and she blurted out, “Oh Bonnie, I’ve done everything wrong.”

Bonnie’s laugh was hollow as she rolled the young woman in for a tight hug. “You’re not the only one. I’ve finally found the perfect man. Calum is big, strong, honest, and a terrific kisser.”

Claire bumped shoulders with her. “What’s wrong with all that?”

“I’m afraid to accept what he’s offering because of my past with Tarn, and the fear that I’m not worthy of his love.”

Claire said pooh and stared at her friend. “You are more than worthy. Besides, this is the wild West. People make their own laws. You don’t intend to take Tarn back, do you?”

Bonnie shook her head, “Never, but I’m not worried so much about what people will say, but what’s right in God’s eyes.” They sat there beside the dying fire and Bonnie sighed, “But Lord, he is a temptation.”

Claire giggled and Bonnie looked at her in the firelight, studying the small red mark on her cheek. She reached out to touch it. “What about Henry?”

Bumbling, crying, Claire told her everything. She explained the miserable morning, then said, “And that’s not the worst. Now Bella is gone, all the single women on the train, even the widow Raglon, are pursuing him. Nearly every day they bring him some sweet treat. A fried pie, a lump of fried dough, or a dish of cobbler. I don’t know how they do it, they have no more sugar or lard than we packed along. But he accepts all their gifts, then calls on them at the end of the day to help them with any chores that need a man to do. I don’t even dare think what that means.”

Bonnie sat there looking at the tearful girl until Claire said.

“It’s too late, I’ve hurt him and destroyed any chance we’d have to ever be happy.”

Bonnie knew not to laugh this time, the words had rung with truth. As she listened to Claire confess her sins, Bonnie stared into the dying flames. Had she done the same thing? Turned aside the man she wanted and admired for a moral obligation to one she hated?

“Oh Bonnie, what can I do? Some days I feel as though my chest has been hollowed out and filled with jagged rocks. Henry never even looks at me. If I’m standing in front of him, he looks through me like he is still seeing Bella and Barney. Oh Bonnie, he really loved her. I don’t think he ever noticed me the way I did him. And after she died, I accused him of trying to smother Barney.”

Suddenly Bonnie raised the blubbering girl from her arms to look at her. “You what?”

Claire trembled at the horror in Bonnie’s eyes. Even her best friend couldn’t understand how she’d said it. Slowly, carefully she tried to justify it by what she saw and heard and how she had misinterpreted things. “I was cruel and cold to Henry when he was at his lowest. When I heard him explain it to Calum, I told him I was sorry. But I could tell I hurt him and it was too late. Now, I’ve lost him forever. Bonnie, I don’t know what I’m going to do?”

Bonnie shook Claire until her head wobbled and then she hugged her. “Stop crying. If you’ve given up, there’s no reason to cry. If you want to change things, then you’d better start. I was shocked when I saw you. Your hair is dirty and uncombed. Your dress is stained and torn. I’ve never seen you look so terrible. Don’t you care at all how you look?”

Claire sniffed, but sat up a little straighter. “I’ve been broken-hearted,” her lip began to tremble again.

“Pooh. Stop thinking about your own problems. Clean up and straighten up. If you think about what you can do to help Henry, the man will notice you.”

Claire interrupted. “No, I offered to mend his shirt, and he said Bella would do it.” She ended with a howl and her eyes filled with tears, “It was before she was killed. Oh, Bonnie, I didn’t want her to die.”

Bonnie looked at her, ready to shake her again. “First, we will get you clean and looking pretty again. Then you can work on the rest. Once he’s looking at you, if you apologize and ask for forgiveness, he’ll hear you.”

For the first time in a week, Claire looked hopeful. As usual, her mood changed instantly. “All right, now tell me what you’ve done wrong, lately?”

Smiling, Bonnie hugged the sweet blonde beside her, holding back nothing. She told about her rescue and each of the heated kisses. “I just don’t know if I can continue to resist him.” She described the temptation and her fears of surrendering. At her protest that she was still a married woman, Claire scolded her. “To that animal, Tarn.”

“Right, I guess I can change my religion and do it, divorce him. But I don’t know how my family will view my abandoning my faith and going to hell. Besides, Calum is Catholic too.”

“Did you ever just want to shoot him?” Claire asked.

“Tarn?” Bonnie laughed. “Only a thousand times. Each time I feel so guilty. I mean, who can I confess to or do penance. I haven’t been in a church since St. Louis. You can’t imagine all the guilt.”

“Oh, I understand the guilt. All the times I’ve imagined…” her voice broke. “I haven’t even had one tempting kiss, but oh, how I’ve wanted them.”

She laughed as Claire again howled in pain. Bonnie stared around at the deserted campfire. “Everyone is asleep. Hurry and get your soap and things and we’ll go down to the river to clean up before it rains.”