Sioux Dawn, The Fetterman Massacre, 1866 (37 page)

Seamus turned to find Abigail Noone still nursing her infant daughter, sitting in the only chair in the room. For a moment he questioned again why he had come here tonight after the funeral. Bowers and Bingham and Noone. But looking around the little hut, he again realized he felt sorry for her. That sympathy he rarely showed brought him to her doorstep this night as the wind howled beyond the plank door. Taking pity on her, for Abigail had followed her husband west with the 18th Infantry. Bringing their daughter, now six months old, and all they owned in the world.

One chair. And two battered trunks.

The army had provided a small pine-board and rope bed on which lay a lumpy tick bulging with musty straw. Atop a crude washstand Abigail had placed her fine china washbowl and pitcher. Suspended from a nail above them hung a mirror, a corner of its mercury-glass broken, like one spindly strand of spider's web.

He pulled up one of the old wooden trunks by the stove and eased himself down. For the longest time he watched her nurse the baby. Fascinated, for it was the first time he had witnessed this passing of life from one body to the next.

When Abigail looked up to find him watching, she turned slightly, more to give the impression of propriety than to hide her engorged breast pendant from the front of the black dress borrowed from Margaret Carrington.

“I … I've never owned anything black,” she had explained to him when he first came here this evening, not long after the last stragglers scurried back to the fort from the post cemetery. “Mrs. Colonel Carrington let me wear it. I'm … good that she's so … full-bodied that a nursing mother has room to fit in it.”

He remembered her saying it without embarrassment. Talking to him as if he were but one of the women here when he had approached her door.

Sitting there in Kinney's place earlier as the light seeped from the sky like a room gone dark when a lamp snuffs itself out, Seamus had stared for the longest time into his red whiskey. Sensing what, he was not sure. Having himself experienced loss before. Grappling with it like a man might work at skinning the hide off a deer he had shot. Slowly, working his knifeblade through the thin, opaque membranes like a sharpened finger on his hand. Careful not to cut through the spongy hide itself. Steadily working down, down until he had decided he had no choice but to visit her.

To console another with a need at this hour greater than his own.

Finding the Noone cabin easy enough, he had listened at the door to the subdued voices of several women. Donegan withdrew to the shadows and waited out of the wind. Nearly an hour later he recognized the scrape of the plank door on its doorjamb. The soft glow of lamplight spilled across the entry as three women stooped out the door, bid their good-byes and hurried off across the snowy parade.

Margaret Carrington. Lieutenant Grummond's pregnant wife. And a third he could not identify. Likely the wife of the post surgeon.

Looking back on how he had shown up at her door, Seamus found it interesting that no look of surprise or wonder had come into her reddened eyes when she found him there in that pale lamplight seeping onto the trampled snow. Instead, it was as if she had expected him all along, motioning him inside without a word. She had offered him the last of some tea she had warmed for her guests. They sat for the longest time, talking of the trip north from Laramie last summer. Both of them carefully avoiding that awful day spent on the Crazy Woman, until the baby awoke and began to cry.

“It's not normal for her to wake up,” Abigail had apologized, with her eyes mostly. “It's been … a trying day for us all.”

“I'll build up the fire.” He had risen from the trunk as she went to the rifle-case Frank Noone had made into a crib with soft cotton batting and blankets. “Knock some of the chill off, Mrs. Noone. Most like' the baby's cold.”

“Thank you,” she had replied, settling to the one chair. Then slowly, deliberately slipping one button at a time from their tiny loops at the front of her mourning dress. Sensing his eyes on her, but resolved to feed her daughter in front of him. “You must call me … Abigail. We are not strangers, Seamus.”

“No, we're not … Abigail.”

She slipped the rigid nipple between her daughter's open, grasping lips. “All of us who survived that horrid day share a bond few others can ever appreciate.”

“You and the others … you women—come through something that made many a man tremble and cry out in fear during the war,” he explained quietly.

She had nodded silently, stroking her daughter's face. Seamus waited a few moments, then pushed split firewood through the stove door. As he listened to the wet
nng-nng-nggg
sounds made by the hungry, confused infant eager at her mother's breast.

“I suppose that's why I came here this evening. I know everyone else tells you they're sorry for what—for Frank. But me—I want you to know I really am sorry for the way things worked out for
you
here. The baby.”

As she sighed, he heard the rattle of a sob in her chest. For the moment she tried to conceal her hurt by cooing at the infant, then turned again to the Irishman.

“We had such dreams, Seamus. Frank and I.” She stroked her daughter's hair. “Frank asked for duty assignment. We talked about it before coming West. He knew he could not be a musician the rest of his life … to support a family.” Abigail held one of the tiny, pink hands wrapped around a single finger. “He asked for duty out here. But now Frank's girls must go on … without him.”

“Will you head East?”

She nodded once without looking at him. “The next chance there is to leave. Colonel Carrington says it will be at least a week before the next mail escort attempts a trip south. Lieutenant Bisbee took his family south today after the … the ceremony. I imagine we'll be able to leave with an armed escort as well.”

“You need anything between now and then, Abigail—have someone come for me.”

She looked at him full now, her face alive with a soft glow radiating from the single oil-lamp perched atop the table made of rough-hewn planks laid across hard-bread boxes. With those eyes so stark and reddened, the soft light made it appear as if her face itself was aglow. Translucent.

“Do you have any whiskey with you?” she asked.

He started for his coat hung from a peg by the door. “I always——”

“Just that I remember that day by the Crazy Woman——”

“… carry a small flask with me——”

“… how good your Irish whiskey tasted——”

“… tell everyone it's for medicinal purposes only——”

“… watching you pull that arrow from the lieutenant.”

“I'm sorry you had to see that … I wasn't thinking——”

“Don't apologize.”

“In a fight, I forget me manners.” He sighed. “Sorry you ripped up your petticoat for bandages.”

“There was nothing better we could use.” She eyed the small flask he held in his lap. “May I?”

Wordlessly, Seamus worried the cork free and watched her drink, delicately at first. Taking a sip, and licking her bottom lip with the pink tip of her tongue. He found himself aroused, watching her draw at the neck of his flask. Without breaching the silence in that tiny cabin, the Irishman watched the baby feed at the rounded breast, watched Abigail nurse at the bottle. When finally the infant slipped off the damp nipple, soundly asleep, Abigail made no attempt to cover the breast as she passed the flask to Seamus.

Once the baby lay buried beneath her covers in the rifle-case crib, the young mother turned to find Donegan standing at the stove. She started toward him, her boot-toe stubbing an uneven plank on the rough floor. As Abigail pitched forward, he caught her before she fell to the burlap sacking she had stretched out in her little home as proudly as any rich carpet.

Slowly he rose with her cradled in his arms. Finding her shudder, gently at first. Growing in intensity until Abigail sobbed pitifully, her shoulders shaking violently, like the frantic efforts of a bird to free itself from his hand.

Yet this bird clung to him. Reluctant, refusing to let go. Not wanting him to free her.

It was some time before she calmed herself, huddled there against him. As he stroked her fragrant hair. So, so damned long since he had smelled a woman's perfume. Seamus encircled her within his arms as he watched the solitary lamp slowly burn itself out, the wick become a red glow, the chimney filled with curls of black smoke as the room snuffed into darkness.

Dark, but for the orange glow of firelight creeping round the stove's ill-fitting door.

Abigail pulled herself away from him, gazing up into his eyes. She made no attempt to swipe at her damp cheeks, to clear away the tears smudging her face-powder and rouge. Nor did the young mother hide her breast. As if it were again that hot July day at the Crazy Woman, both brought together here, as they had been in the cool, dim light of the Noone's ambulance.

He felt his heartbeat throb at his temples, gazing at her flesh. The muscles along his jaw tensed like rope gone taut as his eyes fixed on the firm curve of that milky breast. He looked up once. And found her eyes locked into his, as if she wanted him to admire her. As he had that hot summer day on the Crazy Woman.

Tenderly Abigail slipped her tiny, slim fingers round his big, callused hand and raised it to her bare breast.

As his flesh met hers, the woman's head tumbled back, rocking from side to side as she slowly ground her hips against him.

“Abigail——”

Her fingers flew to his lips. Silencing him. “I … I need you tonight, Seamus. I'm so … never been this alone before.”

He shook his head, confused. Feeling such an overpowering lust for this young mother barely three days a widow. Her flesh like soft velvet to his hands grown more accustomed to clutching hickory axe-handles or mule-harness. “I … I can't, Abigail.”

“You must … please—you must,” she pleaded. “Surely your need is every bit as great as mine.”

She whispered against his chest, unbuttoning his wool shirt quickly. Her breath-words warm and moist against his flesh as she pulled aside his long-handles.

The Irishman shuddered. Knowing at once he tread on dangerous ground. Believing he should flee. Realizing he was already powerless to stop. Admitting he hungered for a woman as badly as she needed him. A part of him feeling like a sham dodger, for Abigail had chosen him among the many. While Seamus Donegan would likely have bedded most any moist and warm female given half an invitation.

The simple elegance of Abigail Noone's graceful body was an added pleasure.

She stood before him now as his hands pulled away the top of her widow's dress, hurriedly ripping open her white bodice to free both engorged breasts, her clothing hung a'swirl from her waist. Like the paws of some fevered animal, Donegan's hands raced over her warm, trembling flesh. While most men would look at Abigail and see a plain woman not attractive enough to warrant a second glance, Seamus instead now gazed upon the striking firmness of her slim body. And found a wanton embodiment of physical desire that had for too long remained hidden by layers of restrictive clothing.

At the edge of the bed where he removed her high boots and long stockings, he at last found beneath all those layers an even warmer flesh tingling over a body that yearned up at his hungrily. Pulling him downward atop her, seeking a fevered, anxious mating.

Instead, the Irishman drew back when she held her arms up to him. Gazing upon her while he ripped his own clothes free. Watching Abigail writhe atop the coarse blankets as her eyes narrowed on his readiness for her. She reached out as he came to her. Took him in both hands, kneading him gently as he sank to the protesting bed beside her.

His nose and mouth found the nape of her neck, pushing her black hair aside to suck deep of the smell of that perfume he had been too long in recognizing. Too many months. So many lonely nights without a woman. And thanking his God that the woman who would break his fast was one as hungry for him as was Abigail Noone.

When his lips wandered down her neck, into the crevice of her rigid flesh, Seamus heard Abigail gasp once, then a second time. Perhaps for how he excited her now. Perhaps as she felt him grow in the midst of her pleading hands.

Grow he did. For with each breath he took in the heated, moist musk of her rising to his nostrils.

And when his tongue found a rigid, milk-damp nipple, Donegan heard the groan rumble from the back of the woman's throat. Like some untamed beast. At once her body grew rigid. He worried that he should not touch that flesh. After all, he sensed immediately, perhaps Abigail believed her breasts belonged to her infant daughter alone. He pulled back, licking his lips damp from the brief taste of her warm, sweet milk.

Surprised was he when she suddenly relaxed, putting her fingers in his curly hair, pulling his head down to her once more. Nuzzling his face in the warm, moist, milk-fragrance of one breast. She wanted him there. Donegan licked the droplets oozing from her motherhood. Gently taking the nipple in his mouth. Sucking hungrily at her breast. Everytime he drew her more insistently between his lips, Abigail pressed him against her with a greater need.

Until she could wait no more and one hand again found his rigid flesh, guiding it within her.

Abigail arched her back, throwing herself against him frantically as he began to rock above her. She clawed at him, crying out in her own way at this flushing of her overpowering grief. Lunging at him, fighting the Irishman moving atop her, within her. Lunging to exorcise the devils of loneliness and despair.

Until they both found together what Abigail had wanted. That release of the poison for three long days building at the core of her being. Finding this private healing that would allow her the strength and dignity to carry on, if only for her child. Rather than collapsing into a hideous, grieving, incomprehensible mass unable to stand the test of this great wilderness.