Deborah Camp (16 page)

“Four.”

“Four children.” Elise shook her head, feeling left behind in a cloud of dust. “Boys, girls?”

“Three boys and a girl. We left them on the reservation with my family.” She placed a hand on her stomach. “I will have another baby when the leaves fall.”

“Another one? Congratulations.”

“You’ll have a baby soon. You look more healthy than Julia. If you need a midwife, I will come.”

“Thank you, I’ll remember that. Was Julia ill most of the time?”

“She never carried past three months.”

Elise laid down the fork she was using to turn the ham slices. “Are you saying that Julia lost a baby?”

“One. Maybe two.” Mary shrugged. “She wanted children and Blade tried to give them to her. But the Spirits wouldn’t allow it.”

The front door opened and James came inside with Penny.

“Blade’s checking on Janie,” Penny said before Elise could ask. “ ’Lise, Mr. Walkingbird smokes a pipe just like Papa did.”

“That’s nice. We’ll have supper on the table soon, Pen. You’d better wash up.”

“Pigs’ feet,” Mary said, pointing to the platter and getting a big grin from her husband.

“Ewwww!” Penny made a face and dashed outside.

Mary smiled. “You don’t like pigs’ feet either?”

“I must confess that I’ve never eaten any, but I don’t like the looks of them.” Elise set the platter of fried ham steaks on the table. “You and James can eat all of them.”

James glanced at Julia’s closed bedroom door, then around at the main room. “Everything looks the same.”

Elise examined her surroundings in light of
James’s comment. He was right. Everything was the same. Julia’s touch was all around them. It was as if she were still in residence and Elise was only a visitor.

“I didn’t want to upset the cart too soon,” she explained to James and Mary. “But I’m thinking I might move the supper table closer to the window so that we can look outside while we eat.”

Mary nodded. “That would be good. James, you move it now.”

“Now?” Elise repeated.

“Why not?”

Elise studied Mary’s bright eyes and encouraging smile. “You’re right. There’s no time like the present.”

That night Elise awoke, her heart in her throat, her eyes wide with alarm. Something had awakened her … but what? Pushing her hair off her forehead, she reached for her dressing gown and slipped into it. She slid her feet along the cold floor in search of her slippers; then she heard a faint cry.

“Penny?” She squinted against the darkness and was able to make out the small lump in the bed. “Pen, are you awake?”

The muffled cry came again, and then Penny thrashed violently and a high-pitched scream violated the stillness of the night. She shot up straight in bed and screamed again.

“Pen!” Elise flew across the narrow space and grabbed her sister by the shoulders. “Penny, wake up!” She shook her until Penny blinked and shuddered. Her face was ghostly white in the darkness. Her lower lip trembled and her eyes watered.

“Elise?”

“Yes, sweetie.” Elise combed Penny’s long hair
with her fingers. “You had a bad dream. Do you remember?”

Penny nodded as tears spilled onto her freckled cheeks. “Uh-huh. Mama and Papa … they’re sobbing … they hurt! Blood on them … they’re holding out their arms to me and calling to me! Why can’t I touch them?”

Elise embraced her, rocking back and forth. “It’s okay now. Hold onto me.”

A soft knock sounded on the door.

“Yes?” Elise called.

“It’s Blade. Is everything all right in there?”

“It’s Penny. She—” Before Elise could say more, Blade had opened the bedroom door. He held a lantern, and the light bathed his face and naked chest and shoulders with gold. “Is she ill?” He strode into the room, the lantern filling it with bouncing light. “Should I go for the doctor?”

“She had a bad dream. She does that sometimes, ever since Mama and Papa died.” Elise used the hem of her dressing gown to wipe away Penny’s tears.

“They were calling to me,” Penny said brokenly. “They were bloody and sobbing.”

“Oh, honey, I wish you didn’t have these bad, old dreams. I wish there were something I could do.” Elise looked up at Blade.

He set the lantern on the table and reached for Penny. Surprised, Elise let go and he swept Penny into his arms. He dipped his head to look her straight in the eye.

“Your parents are not hurting, Penny,” he said solemnly. “They are in the spirit world, where there is no pain or unhappiness. You don’t have to worry about them. They are safe and well. If they could return here, they would not.”

“They wouldn’t?” Penny asked, her eyes rounding. “Not even to see me again?”

“Not even for that, because they know you have a fine home again and are taken care of and loved. Where they are, it is paradise.”

“Is it Heaven?”

“Yes, that is what some call it. It is a place where no one wants to leave. Someday we will all live there forever. Someday we will all be together again. Until then, you should not be afraid for your parents. They left this world hand in hand, the way it was intended. They had done all that was required of them here, but you and your brother and sister have not yet fulfilled your purpose.”

Guilelessly, Penny trailed a fingertip down Blade’s lean cheek to the corner of his mouth. “I like your lips. I think I’ll give you a kiss.” And she did.

Blade laughed and rubbed noses with her. “I like everything about you, little Penny.”

Oh, to be a child, Elise thought miserably. To be able to simply kiss him, to tell him what a beautiful mouth he had and to trace the shape of it as Penny was doing. Elise tore her gaze from the tender display, chiding herself for feeling envious of her little sister. She tidied the bedclothes and plumped the pillow. Blade slid Penny under the covers, and Elise tucked her back in.

Standing beside the bed, Blade leaned over to pat Penny’s shoulder. His chest pressed against Elise’s shoulder and she closed her eyes, momentarily shaken by the picture they must make. A family. Papa standing beside the bed and Mama sitting on the side of it as they said goodnight to their child.

Looking up, Elise fell into his eyes. A yearning careened through her, bouncing against her heart, ricocheting in her stomach and spreading fire along
her inner thighs. She stared at his mouth, transfixed, and wanted desperately to trace the outline of it with her fingertip, to kiss him softly, then lavishly.

He straightened away from her and she saw that he was disconcerted. Retreating, he grabbed the lantern and made for the door.

“No more bad dreams, Penny,” he murmured, losing some of his natural grace as he backed into the wall. He ducked out of the room, taking the light with him.

Elise frowned into the darkness. What had she done to make him practically trip over himself to get away from her?

“Will you sleep in my bed?” Penny asked. “Just ’til I fall asleep?”

Elise removed her dressing gown and pulled back the bedcovers. Her white nightgown matched Penny’s, Christmas gifts from their parents two years ago.

“Don’t mind if I do,” she said, snuggling next to Penny. “I could use a hug. How about you?”

Penny flung an arm over Elise and squeezed. “Elise, will I have to go to school again?”

“Yes.”

“When? Will Adam be there?”

Elise smiled at Penny’s new usage of the
r
sound. She’d been practicing daily. “I’ll talk to Blade about it, but I think it would be good if you started school soon. Next week, perhaps. I suppose Adam will be there. I can’t imagine why he wouldn’t be in school.”

“Then I can see him ev-wee day.”

“Everrry day,” Elise corrected her. Then she grasped Penny’s comment. “That’s right. We can see him every day at school!” She hugged Penny
doser. “Won’t that be wonderful? Oh, Pen, I think you should begin school tomorrow. Why wait?”

The school was set on the southern edge of Crossroads and consisted of three rooms. Children of all ages played on rope swings and scampered across the grassless yard. A few women stood at the front gate, catching up on the news after having dropped off their children.

The new teacher, Mrs. Doris Wheeler, rang the bell and the children raced one another up the steps. Elise moved out of their way and headed for the wagon parked near the entrance. Blade waited for her there. She accepted his hand and he helped her up to sit beside him.

“Mrs. Wheeler says there is a school wagon that can come out our way to pick up Penny for school and bring her home. It costs a dollar a month.”

He nodded. “That’s something to consider. Was the teacher nice?”

“Yes, and Penny is glad to be back in school.” Elise adjusted her blue skirt over her petticoats. “Adam hasn’t been to school yet, Blade.”

He unwound the reins and released the brake. Clucking at the mules, he guided the wagon onto the road.

“You
do
think the judge will bring Adam to school, don’t you?” Elise persisted.

“I suppose.”

“The teacher said that sometimes boys Adam’s age quit school and work in the fields.”

“That’s true enough, especially around here.”

“But Adam
must
continue his schooling. If he’s not in school by next week, I’ll speak to the judge about it.”

“Elise, you’re not his mother.”

“No, but I’m his sister and—”

“And the judge is his guardian now. He’ll decide whether Adam attends the school.”

“You can talk, talk, talk, Blade Lonewolf,” she said, sitting ramrod-straight and firming her jaw with resolve, “but I
will
speak to that man about Adam’s schooling if I must. If Judge Mott thinks I’m interfering, that’s too bad.”

Blade scowled and muttered something under his breath.

“Did you notice those women back there staring at us?”

“You’re white and I’m a half-breed. People will stare. I told you that.”

“I don’t think they would stare if you weren’t so unfriendly.”

He whipped his face around to glare at her. “Unfriendly? I don’t stare at them as if they have two heads and horns.”

“No, but you don’t smile and greet them either.”

He frowned. “That’s not my nature. Besides, in the eyes of those white women and not a few Indian women, I am lower than a snake’s belly.”

The wagon rumbled over the rough road, heading out of town and toward fence rows and mooing cows in pastures.

“I happen to be a white woman,” she said archly, “and I don’t think you’re dirty or beneath me.”

“Oh, yes?” he sneered.

“Yes,” she insisted.

“Then you would lie with me?”

“Lie …” She faced front, stunned speechless by his request.

“That’s what I thought.”

His smug tone incensed her.

“I would not sleep with any man I didn’t love,” she stated emphatically. “But if I did, then I would have enough sense to do it for money at the Rusty Keg Saloon. You’re familiar with those painted women, I hear.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Who told you this?”

“It doesn’t matter. What needs to be said is that I just don’t understand you. You’re a good man, so why not allow people to see that more often?”

“I’m friendly to people who are friendly to me. I learned long ago not to hold out my hand first unless I want it chopped off.”

“Blade!” She stared at him, shocked. “What a horrible thing to say. Why would you assume that everyone is out to do you harm?”

“Why?” His dark eyes swept over her. “You have led a life—up until recently—that was safe and happy. In my early years, I watched my people go off to war and never come back. I saw the white armies force us off our land. Later, when I lived with my mother’s people, I was treated with scorn by other children. They laughed at me, made fun of the way I talked, the way I wore my hair, the color of my skin. And you ask me why I think I won’t be accepted by every man, woman and child I meet?”

“Oh, Blade.” She shook her head, appalled at the glimpse of his life he’d given her. “I wish I could take away your pain.”

He stared ahead, not saying anything for a few minutes. “You can do something for me, Elise.”

“What?” she asked, eager to help.

“Let me handle the judge.”

“Will you ask him about Adam’s schooling?”

He nodded. “I will.”

Elise released a long breath. “That’s all I ask. For now.”

He chuckled and shook his head at her. “For now, huh? I don’t like the sound of that.”

She laughed with him. “Am I such a trial, Blade?”

The humor in his eyes faded, replaced by something far more fetching—desire. Slowly, he lifted a hand. Elise’s heart bucked. What was he going to do?

With infinite care, he plucked something off her hat and showed it to her.

“A butterfly!” she breathed.

Its white-and-yellow wings were held motionless by Blade’s fingers. He released them, and the butterfly rose and floated on the breeze.

“It must have thought you were a sweet blossom. Easy mistake to make.”

Elise smiled at him and felt her cheeks color at his softly spoken compliment.

Blade cleared his throat and took up the reins again. He slapped them against the mules’ rumps and the wagon lurched forward. “Step spritely, boys. I’ve got cotton to plant!”

B
ob topped a rise and Judge Mott’s house appeared. Sitting astride his flashy pinto, Blade clucked the agile animal into a trot. He’d left his fields in the middle of the day and told James that he’d be back soon. Having been raised in the Apache way, James had asked no questions.

In all his years Blade had never met a woman as stubborn as Elise. She was deaf and blind to common sense. Why couldn’t she simply do as he asked? Mainly, he’d told her to let him handle the judge, but she had forced this confrontation when Blade knew damn well he was sporting with the devil. Judge Mott could ruin him, but what did Elise care? All that concerned her was her own kin and what she thought they deserved out of life. To hell with everyone else!

A softer, kinder inner voice tempered his foul mood as he neared the judge’s house. He was being unfair to Elise. She was trying to make a home for herself and Penny with him. She’d learned to cook and clean and do laundry. She’d taken over the tending of the small animals. She’d even started moving the furniture around and placing vases of fresh flowers in the rooms. He hadn’t liked it at
first, but Mary had told him that it was necessary. Every bird wants to feather her own nest.