Nan Ryan (55 page)

A large brown hand reached out and picked up the five new cards that had been dealt him. Raising them close to his chest, the man studied them while the expression on his face changed none at all, not even a dark eyebrow raised to give his table companions a much looked for clue as to what the consistent winner of the drawn-out game might be holding. Carefully, he looked at the cards in his right hand, spreading them only enough to be sure of what he had. The top card was the King of Hearts, the second, the Queen. The next two cards, barely glanced at by the man, were the Jack of Hearts and the ten. The fifth, the duce of Clubs.

The dealer looked at him as he tossed the duce, face down, to the center of the table. “One card,” he said and the dealer shot him a card across the green felt. Covering it with his other cards, the man again spread out the five cards. He had drawn the Black Ace.

At the back of the room, a tall, slim man with a black patch covering one eye, a Union greatcoat pulled up around his ears, stood drinking his whiskey. Unnoticed and alone, he watched the card players, his good eye narrowed in revenge. A slim-fingered hand went inside his greatcoat and when he pulled it out, it contained a derringer. Tossing down his glass of straight whiskey, he wiped his mouth on his coat sleeve, raised his right hand, and fired the revolver one time. He dropped it to the floor and fled through the back door near the bar, out into the night.

The bullet ripped into its target with great accuracy and the man holding the four hearts and the ace of spades crumpled the cards in his hand. Slowly dropping them to the table, his right hand came up to his chest. The bullet had entered his broad back directly under his left shoulder blade, made a slightly upward path through his heart to exit his chest, and hit the low ceiling overhead.

The large brown hand quickly filled with blood and the dark eyes looked stunned and dazed. The man’s mouth opened to speak, trying to form a word, but only a tiny trickle of blood escaped the corner of his mouth. His hand left his bullet-torn chest and moved slowly up to clasp a tiny cameo hanging from a gold chain around his neck. Without a groan of agony, he slumped from his chair to the floor, falling over onto his back amid the crowd of gasping, horrified gamblers.

Dawson Harpe Blakely was dead.

Over a year had passed since Hunter had returned home. The warm July air of the late Mississippi evening promised another long sweltering summer. The hour being well past eleven, Scott lay asleep in his upstairs bedroom at Sans Souci, his arms flung over his head, his right foot hung over the edge of his bed. In the nursery next to his room, a chubby, three-month-old baby lay asleep in her crib. Resting on her stomach, a small fist was jammed into her mouth. The downy soft blond hair of her head made a halo around the tiny delicate features of her face. Judith Kathleen Alexander, named after Hunter’s mother, slept peacefully, not knowing she was no longer in her father’s proud arms where she’d gone to sleep an hour earlier.

In the master bedroom across the hall from the nursery, Kathleen lay propped up in bed, reading a novel, while her husband sat at a small desk, his white shirt discarded, his feet bare, carefully going over the many bills they owed. Hunter, completely recovered and back to his normal weight, bent his grayish-blond head over the long column of figures, rubbed his scarred left cheek absently and frowned.

“Hunter, your face will freeze like that if you aren’t careful,” Kathleen said, watching her husband from the bed.

He turned and smiled at her, scratching his head with the blunt end of the pencil, “I sure wouldn’t want to mar my looks,” he laughed. The smile faded immediately and he said, “Dear, I’m afraid I’m not the provider I should be. I’ve been back at my practice for over nine months and we are hardly any better off than when I first got home.”

“You worry too much,” she chided him. “Come to bed and forget it until morning.”

“Honey, I’m serious.” He held up the sheet of paper he had so meticulously figured on, “There’s always more going out than I take in. Sans Souci costs a fortune to maintain, even in its sad state. We’re going to end up paupers. I don’t mind so much for you and me, but what about our children? I can’t stand to think about Judith and Scott being poor.”

Kathleen laid her book on the night table, put her hands behind her head, and said, “You know, Hunter, I’ve been thinking, maybe we should sell Sans Souci.”

Thinking he’d surely misunderstood her, Hunter whirled in his chair and said, “What did you say, Kathleen?”

She looked at the surprise on his handsome, scarred face and laughed. “Come here,” she patted the mattress beside her.

Dropping his paper back to the desk, Hunter hurried to her side, taking a seat beside her on the bed. “Did I hear you correctly?” he looked down at her.

Smiling still, she raised a hand and caressed the scarred left shoulder of his hard, lean chest. “You did, sir. I said ‘Why don’t we sell Sans Souci.’ I’ve been thinking, it might be a very wise idea if moved somewhere else.”

“But where we would go? Any mansion in this city would be just as large a burden as this one. Out of the frying pan into the fire, you know that.”

“Oh, I agree wholeheartedly. I don’t mean move to another home here, I mean perhaps we should seek our fortune elsewhere.” She paused for effect, then looked up and grinned mischievously, “Say, Texas?”

Kathleen watched as Hunter’s dreamy brown eyes widened and excitedly he grabbed her shoulders, “How did you know about that?”

She giggled and sat up close to him, “Darling,” she said and her finger traced his full upper lip, “Colonel Cort Mitchell came here for a visit after the war ended. He told us all about your bravery and what good friends you became. And he said that the two of you often talked of you coming to Texas after the war was over.”

“We did, Kathleen, but that was because at that time I never planned to return to Natchez … or to you.”

“I know that, darling, but if you considered going to Texas, even without us, you must have thought it held some kind of future for you. Would the unplanned addition of a family change it?”

“Of course it wouldn’t.”

“Then tell me about it, what did you have in mind when you were considering going there?”

Hunter’s eyes sparkled and he kissed her fingers and pulled her hand away from his mouth. “Sweetheart, it’s like a new frontier there. Cort tells me things are just beginning to happen there, whereas here, we both know, the best and most prosperous days are in the past. Things can never be the same here, we both know it’s true, even if it’s a somewhat bitter pill to swallow. Cort tells me in Texas the land is cheap and there’s lots of it and …” Hunter was talking a mile a minute and there was more excitement shining in his brown eyes than Kathleen had seen in a long time. Laughing wildly, Kathleen threw her arms around her husband’s neck and hugged him while he continued with his obvious sales pitch on the bright future Texas had to offer.

“Darling, darling,” she said at last, “no more, please. You’ve convinced me. I’ve only one question. It sounds to me as though you wish to become a rancher. Are you already weary of being a doctor?”

Hunter took her arms and set her back, “No, Kathleen, certainly not. I’ll set up practice in Texas. You know I could never give up medicine. Next to you and the children, it’s the most important thing in my life.” He had bounded from the bed, walking around the room, the limp now hardly noticeable, healed considerably from the proper care and exercise of the past year. He rubbed his palms together and marched around the room while her eyes followed him. “I’ll set up practice in Texas, but at the same time we can own and live on a ranch. Nothing large like Cort owns, of course, but small spread somewhere with a few cattle and a couple of hired hands and …”

“Hunter,” Kathleen smiled, “When do we leave?”

Hurrying back to the bed, Hunter once again sat down be her, “Oh, honey, do you really mean it?”

Gathering her happy husband into her arms, Kathleen whispered, “Yes, darling, I mean it,” and raised her face for his kiss.

Not a month later, Kathleen closed the door of Sans Souci for the last time. Waiting for her in the drive, Hunter stood beside the carriage. His independent daughter, who’d arrived over two weeks early in order to enter the world on his birthday, lay cradled in his long arm, plucking contentedly a his shirtfront while he patted her full stomach gently and made foolish faces at her. Scott stood at the front of the carriage, the reins in his hands, ramrod straight, but more than a little impatient at the dawdling of his mother. He was anxious to be off and longed to set out on his new adventure in strange land where he envisioned of himself in buckskin pants and fringed leather shirts, atop his wild stallion, riding the range in wild abandon while strong winds whipped his thick hair around his head and the call of coyotes filled his ears.

Earlier in the day, Kathleen had made her last visit to the graves beyond the summer house where she and Hunter stood quietly side by side and said goodbye to the dear one resting there. Hunter had sold Sans Souci and though it was harder than he knew for Kathleen to understand how a property once worth well over half a million dollars would bring; no more than eight thousand now, he could get no more for it. The packing had been done, goodbyes to all their friend had taken place the evening before at a going-away party a Julie and Caleb’s house. Uncle Rembert had been invited to accompany them to Texas, but he’d declined, saying Natchez was the only home he’d ever known and, since it was well past the September of his life, he had no intention of spending the remainder of his days anywhere but there.

Everything had been settled and taken care of and her family waited for her at the end of the long walk; only her appearance was holding up their departure. Dressed and ready to leave, she took one last look at the high-ceilinged rooms where she’d been born and raised. Echoes of familiar voices filled each room and Kathleen could almost hear the conversations of the past filling her ears when she stood in the empty foyer. Cold in spite of the heat of the day, Kathleen felt the much dreaded lump rising in her throat, though she had promised herself she would not cry and upset everyone. She closed her eyes tightly for only an instant, opened them, and ran out the door and into the yard.

Hunter and Scott saw her coming and Scott quickly took his place on the seat in back of the carriage. Hunter handed his baby sister up to him and went to meet his wife. He saw the set jaw and the mist behind her big blue eyes threatening to spill into tears. He took her arm and said very softly, “Are you all right, darling?”

Afraid if she tried to speak her resolve would disintegrate, she stiffly shook her head up and down and refused to meet his eyes. Hunter smiled at her, reached his hands to her slim waist, and easily set her up in the carriage. Walking around the horses, he swung up beside her and applied the whip. The carriage moved down the long drive, away from Sans Souci. Worried about Kathleen, Hunter kept stealing glances at her immobile face and finally he said in a whisper, “Darling, do you want to take one last look back?”

The blue eyes lifted to his and, when finally she was able to speak, she said, “No, I don’t want to look back. I only want to look ahead,” and the trembling lips smiled and she scooted over closer to him and slipped her arm through his.

Hunter laughed, kissed her cheek, and said loudly, “Then let’s head for Texas.” He cracked the whip over the horses’ backs and they quickened their pace, leaving forever Natchez Above and Natchez Below.

“Yippee,” Scotty shouted, startling his new sister, who promptly cried. “Here, Mother, take her, she’s bawling again!”

Kathleen smiled and took the little girl from Scott’s arms. Settling the child in the crook of her arm close to her breast, she cooed down to her and Judith sighed and went to sleep. Hunter looked down into Kathleen’s arms at the dear little bundle, so plainly a mixture of Kathleen and himself. He looked from her tiny face to the lovely face of his wife bending over their child. Pride and love swelled pleasantly inside Hunter’s scarred chest and he shocked his entire family when, for the first time ever, they heard his resonant baritone voice break into a catchy, happy song, “Oh it rained all night the day I left, the weather it was dry.…”

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1983 by Nancy Henderson Ryan

Cover design by Connie Gabbert

This edition published in 2012 by Open Road Integrated Media

180 Varick Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com