To Dream Anew (32 page)

“You’re still young enough to have other babies. You can’t be far along. This should probably pass in short order. If you have any problems, just send for me.”

Portia nodded, by now managing to sound as though she were sobbing. She couldn’t believe how well things were going. Everyone was completely convinced of her condition. “Will you … could you … tell Chester? I can’t bear to break his heart this way.”

Dr. Bufford closed his bag. “Of course. I am sorry, Mrs. Lawrence.”

He studied her for a moment, making Portia feel very uncomfortable. She turned away and pretended to cry even harder, hoping he wouldn’t ask her any questions.
Perhaps he realizes I wasn’t really pregnant,
she thought, fearful that he might reveal her deception.

“Again, I’m sorry for your loss.”

He left the room and Portia smiled in relief. “Oh, I can hardly wait for the results.” She’d heard the cook tell Elsa ten minutes ago that the boys were back. No doubt the little minx had gone to warn her brothers, but it would take more than a warning to get them out of this mess.

She strained to hear what was happening downstairs but didn’t hear anything. Going to the window, Portia watched as Dr. Bufford drove away in his buggy. Perhaps Chester would come to her and offer his comfort and condolences. She hurried back to the bed just in case.

“Whatever possessed you to hurt her?” Chester bellowed. His voice came easily through the floorboards.

Portia couldn’t refrain from grinning. Chester had bought it—he’d bought the entire story. The beating. The baby. He’d believed her.

“We didn’t do anything!” Jerrod yelled back.

“She’s lyin’!” Roy added.

“She’s lying all right,” Chester hollered back. “She’s lying in bed upstairs losing my baby. She’s black and blue and says you were the ones responsible. You’ve been giving her nothing but grief since I married her.”

“Well, that much is true. I hate her. She’s come in here like some sort of royalty—takin’ over our mother’s place.” Portia couldn’t tell if it was Roy or Jerrod who’d made that announcement. No doubt they both felt that way.

“She’s my wife!”

Portia felt the overwhelming sensation of satisfaction. Her face hurt something terrible, but it was worth it. Surely Chester would kick the boys out of the house now. The door to her bedroom opened, so Portia immediately clutched her stomach and moaned.

Elsa came into the room with a tray. Portia could see the pot of tea and shook her head. “I don’t want anything.”

“The doctor told Cook to fix this up for you. It’s got medicine in it and you have to drink it,” the girl replied. “It’s to help you since you’re losing the baby.”

Portia had no idea what herbal remedy they might have concocted, but the last thing she wanted to do was find herself drugged. “Nothing can help.”

Elsa placed the tray on the stand beside Portia’s bed and scowled. “I’m glad the baby died. I just wish you would have died too.”

Portia momentarily forgot about the role she was to be playing. She eyed Elsa sternly. “You’d better be careful of what you wish for, little girl. Bad things seem to have a way of happening around here.”

“Yeah, ever since you came into our lives,” Elsa countered, apparently unafraid.

Portia shook her head and remembered she was supposed to be in great pain. She clutched at her stomach and pretended to wait for the pain to pass before speaking. “I knew this young girl once,” Portia began very slowly. “She was … oh … probably your age. She fell in the river and drowned. It was so very sad. No one was around to know when or where it happened. One day she simply disappeared and then her body washed ashore.” Portia watched as Elsa’s eyes widened. She knew the girl understood the threat, but Portia wanted to drive the point home.

“My own dear friend died when she was probably not much older than your sister, Mara. She had argued with me about a boy we both liked. I guess she was just too upset to know how dangerous an open window could be. She fell out of her upstairs bedroom window and broke her neck.” Portia narrowed her eyes. “Bad things happen—especially to bad people.”

Elsa backed up to the door. Her face had paled noticeably. With a shaky voice she tried her best to sound defiant. “Then you’ll probably be seeing a lot more bad things come your way.” With that the girl fled as though her skirt were on fire.

Portia would have laughed out loud had the open door not afforded her the sound of Chester threatening his sons.

“If anything like this ever happens again—if she so much as tells me that you looked at her wrong—I’ll kill you both. Understand?”

“But, Pa—” Roy protested.

“I don’t want excuses or denials. I want you and your brother to pack up your things and bed down in the bunkhouse. I won’t have animals in the house, and anyone who’d beat a woman like you did Portia deserves to lose the comfort you’ve grown so accustomed to.”

“You didn’t think it was a problem when we taught Maggie Farley a lesson.”

“I’m not married to Maggie Farley,” Chester raged. “She was no-account trash. Portia’s my wife and you’ll treat her with respect.”

Portia smiled and settled back in great satisfaction. With Elsa afraid of what might happen and Jerrod and Roy dealing with their enraged father, Portia felt that she had once again gained the upper hand.
Let them all fight amongst themselves,
she thought.
Let them be divided … because surely they are much easier to destroy than when they are united
.

“Are you suggesting that Chester Lawrence stole our calves?” Dianne asked. Cole had only returned from roundup the day before. It had been hard to remain at home after planning for months to be with everyone at roundup, but Ardith’s miscarriage had made it necessary to put the venture aside. Now Cole had returned and informed her that the number of live calf births was way down and that a number of cattle had gone missing all together.

“I’m just saying it’s a possibility,” Cole replied, waving Koko off when she offered him a third cup of coffee. The children were finishing their breakfast and chattering amongst themselves. “There are a lot of cows without calves, and no sign of dead animals. Well … there were a few, but not enough to account for the missing stock.”

“Then what else could it be?” Dianne asked. “You said yourself that some of the men had seen the Lawrence boys skulking around.”

“That doesn’t make them thieves. They could have been in the same area for another reason.”

Dianne’s anger grew. “I can’t believe you are making excuses for them.”

“I can’t believe you’re so willing to judge them without proof.”

“Are you mad at Papa?” Luke asked his mother matter-of-factly.

Dianne was ashamed of the way she’d behaved. Every time Portia or the Lawrences came up, she always ended up angry. “Mama is just mad at the situation, Luke. I’m mad because of all the missing calves.”

She tried to further calm her temper before continuing. “What do you plan to do about it?”

Cole shrugged. “Not a lot I can do short of going to the Walking Horseshoe and accusing the man of stealing my stock. You know how he’s set with the law. The sheriff won’t do anything about it, and Lawrence will have the satisfaction of throwing the entire matter in our face.”

Dianne held a fragile hold on her rage. “So you’ll let him get away with it?”

Cole frowned. “I hardly said that, Dianne.”

“Well, if I were allowed to own and run my father’s ranch,” Jamie Vandyke piped up, “I’d go to the Lawrences and demand my property.”

Dianne looked from the boy to her husband and waited for some response. Cole toyed with his silverware for a moment, then looked at the young man. “Do you suppose they’d keep such animals in plain view for everyone to find? And even if I found his herd with all my calves, how would you suggest I go about proving the matter? They weren’t branded, and I can hardly bring every mama cow who’s missing a calf with me.”

“But if he has a large number of calves—say, a lot of twins,” Dianne began.

“You mean like we had last year?” Cole asked with an almost sarcastic tone.

Dianne couldn’t argue with that. The Lawrences had made it clear that they thought the Selbys had stolen their calves. “It just seems ironic that the thing they accused us of last spring is the very thing we’re facing now.”

Jamie slapped the table with the palms of his hands. “This isn’t fair. My father worked hard to build this ranch. Are we going to do nothing?”

“That’s my question,” Dianne said, looking once again to Cole.

“What would you have them do, son?” Koko asked Jamie.

He appeared to consider his mother’s words for a moment, reminding Dianne of her uncle. Jamie’s dark hair and eyes were the only real indicators of his Indian heritage. He clearly looked more white than Blackfoot. Dianne thought it a pity he couldn’t have inherited the ranch for his own. Maybe her entire life would be different if Bram had married a white woman instead of a half-breed Blackfoot.

“I would sneak around and find the animals. I would see if They were the same breeds as the other Lawrence cattle or if they were Diamond V cattle.”

“That’s a possibility,” Cole replied. “However, if Lawrence has stolen our calves, he’ll have them well guarded or already removed to some other location altogether.”

Dianne knew her husband was probably right. Lawrence was no fool—he and his boys had planned and accomplished too much.

Cole got up from the table. “We definitely need to pray on it.”

“Prayers are for weaklings,” Jamie protested, getting to his feet also. “I’m not a weakling. I’m a Vandyke and we are strong.”

“Yes, you are strong,” Cole affirmed, “but you can never be so strong as to not need the Lord.”

“God doesn’t care about Indians.”

Dianne was taken aback by Jamie’s words. “Why would you say that?”

Jamie turned a fiery expression on her. “How can I not? Look at what has happened to my mother … to my uncle … To Susannah and me. Look what has happened to the Blackfoot people—to all the Indian nations. If that’s God’s way of showing His care, then I hope He forgets about me.”

“Jamie, you can’t mean that. Your father was a man of God. He cared deeply for God’s purpose and direction in his life,” Dianne replied.

“My father trusted God and now he’s dead. Why should I trust God?”

Koko shook her head. “I did not know you felt this way, Jamie. You have never spoken to me about this before.”

Jamie softened. “I’m sorry, but I knew it would make you sad. I thought you were sad enough from losing Father.”

“I am sometimes sad from your father’s death—even after all these years. I will never love another man in the way I loved your father. He was a good man and he loved us. Which is why I am most grateful that he looked out for us by giving the ranch to Dianne. We would be on the reservation now if not for her and Cole.”

“I’d rather be on the reservation. At least there I’d be a man—a Blackfoot, proud and sure. Here I’m nothing. I’m not white and I’m not Blackfoot.”

“You are wrong, son. The Blackfoot would not accept you. They would see you as white. My brother was only accepted because he lived from time to time among our mother’s people. They accepted him because he proved himself to think like they did. You do not think as a Blackfoot.”

“But I could!”

“Jamie, you’re more white than Indian. You cannot deny that heritage,” Dianne protested. “You would dishonor your father to deny your white ancestry.”

Jamie lowered his gaze to the floor. He stood in silence for a moment. “My father was ashamed of his ancestry too, or he’d have never come west. You told me that he left his people and came west because he was unhappy with them.”

“True, but he didn’t deny who he was, and you mustn’t deny it either,” Dianne replied.

“But you’re asking me to deny that I’m Blackfoot.” His anger was evident.

“No one is asking you to deny it,” Cole interjected. “We just don’t want you to deny your white heritage either.”

“I don’t have to deny it,” Jamie spat, “the world denies it for me.” With that he stormed from the room.

Koko got to her feet to go after him, but Cole shook his head. “Let me go talk to him. I’m the one he resents. I’m the one he needs to vent this out on.”

Cole followed after Jamie, leaving Koko and Dianne alone with the children. “I hope he can reason with Jamie.”

Dianne shook her head. “I had no idea he was so angry.”

Koko turned to eleven-year-old Susannah. “Why don’t you take the boys to wash up. Then we can get started with our lessons.” The young girl did as she was asked, helping Micah from his chair as Luke slid down from his.

Luke paused and looked up at Dianne. “Is Jamie an Indian?”

Dianne looked to Koko. The expression in the older woman’s eyes was a mix of frustration, fear, and sadness.

Dianne looked back to her son and smiled. “Jamie is a Vandyke. His father was my uncle. His mother is Koko, but you already know that.”

Luke nodded. “Why is Jamie mad?”

Koko spoke up. “He’s mad because he misses his papa.”

Luke seemed to understand this concept. “I would be mad if my papa went away. Will Jamie’s papa come back?”