Anita Mills (19 page)

“I thought you might want to sit out a spell.”

“Yeah.”

The night sounds of an Indian summer carried on the air like a lullaby, while the lanterns in the camp below glowed like lightning bugs in a Georgia swamp, gaining brightness as the sun sank deeper into night. Sitting there in silence, Spence realized it was the most peace he’d known in a long, long time.

“I come out here every night it’s warm enough,” Laura said, her voice low.

“I can see why.”

“I expect I’d better go in, she said finally. “I’ve got all that ironing to do tomorrow.” When he said nothing, she turned to him. “Did you find yourself a place to stay in camp?”

“No.” In the moonlight, he could see her moon reflected in her widening eyes. “I’ve been sitting here, thinking some.”

“Oh?” she asked cautiously.

“Yeah. A woman in your condition needs a man around, and…” He could sense her stiffening beside him, but he plunged ahead. “I’m not talking an impropriety, you understand, just an arrangement that’d benefit both of us.”

“Oh, I don’t…like how?” she managed to ask.

“I don’t think Jesse’d like to see you taking in laundry, and—”

“Then he should’ve thought of that before he brought me out here,” she cut in.

“I was just wondering how you’d feel about taking in a boarder for the winter,” he went on. “I’d pay you for cooking and cleaning, and you wouldn’t be out here hanging clothes in the dead of winter. And you wouldn’t be alone if there was any trouble with the baby—you’d have someone here.”

“I see.”

He could tell she wasn’t exactly enthusiastic. “Look—I’m not looking for another wife, and you say you don’t want another husband. The next hard-case that comes up that hill to court you won’t get past me. All I want is a place to stay, and I’ll move on next May.”

“There’s only one room—and one bed, Dr. Hardin.”

“I’ve got a bedroll—all I need is a place to put it. And we can figure out a way to divide the room.”

“Well,” she mused slowly, “I sure never expected anything like this to come up. I don’t expect anybody’d think much about you staying here, but there’d sure be some talk about me.”

“I’d be a boarder, nothing more.”

“Nobody looking at you would think that—they just wouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“You’re a very handsome man. I’d be the widow trying to trap you.”

“I’m not trappable. Hell will freeze solid before I go looking for another wife.”

“Oh, I understand that. And if I learned one thing after Jesse came back, it was that I’d become too sure of myself to suit either of us. I don’t want another husband, Dr. Hardin, and I probably never will. I loved Jesse, but I wanted my say-so, too, and he couldn’t see why. A man and a woman have to pull together to get anywhere, and I don’t aim to be the only ox in the yoke while my husband cracks the whip.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard matrimony put in those terms,” he admitted.

“That’s what I mean. None of you understand.”

“But I suppose you’ve got a point about the talk,” he conceded, heaving himself out of the chair. “Maybe we can make some arrangement for meals, and I’ll see if I can get a place down there to sleep.”

“I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings.”

“No. It was a selfish, idiotic idea, anyway. I don’t even know where it came from. I was just sitting there, thinking how peaceful it was up here, that’s all. I just didn’t think about the consequences for you, and I’m sorry.”

He’d started for the cabin, probably to get his gun belt, and when he came out, she knew he’d be going. She sat very still, trying to figure out if it would work.

Sure enough, he came out strapping his gun to his hip. As he walked toward the place where Dolly grazed with the chestnut and the mule, she heard herself call out, “Wait…” As he turned around, the moon glittered in those blue eyes, making them look like steel. “That is…how much money are you talking about?—for room and board, I mean.”

“How much do you make doing dirty laundry?”

“Oh—now, that’d be too much!”

“How much?”

“Well, it varies, but last week I took in fifteen dollars. That’d be sixty for the month, and I wouldn’t pay that to stay with the queen of England,” she declared flatly. “And all I’ve got is half a room, anyway.”

He let out a low whistle. “You get fifteen dollars a week for doing laundry?”

“Well, I expect a decline in that now that you’re here,” she admitted frankly. “I think some of them just bring up their clothes so they can make eyes at me. I imagine your being here will discourage a lot of that.”

“I could probably manage to pay twenty or twenty-five a month, considering the meals.”

Now that she’d made up her mind, she couldn’t help smiling at him. don’t suppose you’d consider doing laundry, would you?”

“Only as the absolute last resort to keep from starving. But maybe with the board money, you could hire somebody.” Coming over to pick up his chair, he studied her face through the darkness. “What made you change your mind?”

“With you around, I’ll have somebody to talk to besides myself. I figure when a norther hits, and they say you can count on at least one every winter, we’ll need the company.”

And her Creator had certainly endowed her with an indomitable spirit. She was totally unwilling to give up on anything until she’d given it her all. He was beginning to think there wasn’t anything she couldn’t do, even though he knew it sounded ridiculous to say it. He’d thought he was doing her some sort of favor by staying there, but he was beginning to think she didn’t need him.

She looked up from the table where she’d been counting her money. “Is something the matter?”

“No. I was thinking about getting a job with the railroad.”

“They’ve got a doctor.”

“I hear they might be hiring more men on the repair track.”

“The rep track? It’s hard, dirty work—a lot worse than washing clothes.” Holding up the money jar, she said, “There’s twenty dollars in here and another fourteen on the table.” Stuffing the new money in with the rest, she added, “You’ve got too much education to work the rep track, Dr. Hardin.”

“Hard work never hurt anyone. If it did, you’d be dead.”

“But I’m used to it, she pointed out mildly. “I wasn’t born to the purple like some folks I know. You don’t need to be swinging a hammer—you’ve got a higher calling than that.”

“I wasn’t born to the purple, as you call it.”

“What about that plantation you grew up on?”

“My stepfather inherited a share of it—he didn’t own it all. Miss Clarissa had half.”

“Well, all my daddy had was forty acres, and every time it looked like there’d be a good crop coming in, something would. happen to it. It’d be too wet, or it’d be too dry, or the hail would beat it to pieces.”

“Why did he stay on it?”

She rubbed the side of her nose pensively before answering. “He was a farmer, just like his father—he came from a long line of farmers. He didn’t think he was poor as long as he had his land.”

“Yeah, but if it didn’t make a living for him—”

“Now, you’re sounding just like Jesse. There are some things a lot more important than money. Like being honest, for instance. Or caring about your fellow man. Daddy never had a slave in his life.”

“Bingham didn’t want any. He didn’t believe in slavery either.”

“Then why didn’t he free his and hire men to get his planting done?”

“It wasn’t that easy.”

“He wasn’t forced to keep them, was he?” she countered.

“He didn’t own them outright,” he answered evenly. “His sister owned half of everything.”

“Then he should have sold his half. You can’t say you don’t believe in something and keep on doing it, can you?”

“Look—I’m not Thad Bingham, so I can’t answer that. I was a kid, so I didn’t pay much attention at the time. I just know he preached against slavery.”

“I see.”

“No, you don’t!” he snapped. “I don’t know where you think you’re going with this, but it must be somewhere, or we’d still be talking about your family’s farm.”

“I was talking about making amends.”

“What?”

“Reverend Bingham put you through medical school didn’t he?”

“What’s that got to do with slavery?”

“It was slaves that made all that money for him. You went to medical college on that money, Dr. Hardin.”

“Go on.”

“Don’t you think you ought to atone for it by practicing what you learned?”

“I did my atoning in the Confederate Army. I sawed off legs while men screamed for me to stop—I held guts together with my bare hands, trying to stop the blood pouring through wounds that’d make a pig butcher sick—I watched boys
too
young to grow beards die on my table—I saw enough misery and death to last me a lifetime, Mrs. Taylor—and if I never see another capital saw or gaping gut, I’ll still have the nightmares until I die,”

“I’m sorry. I just thought—”

“Well, don’t!”

“You did some good, too,” she said softly. “Jesse wouldn’t have had both his legs without you. And Danny—”

“That’s another one,” he cut in harshly. “I was the one who held Danny Lane down while he died. So don’t talk to me about a calling, because I answered mine, and look what it got me—a thousand dead men—tens of thousands maimed! A wife who took off with another man because I couldn’t go home! I answered that call once, Mrs. Taylor, and so help me God, I won’t make that mistake again!” As she blanched, he realized he’d gone too far. “I’m sorry,” he managed hoarsely. “I had no right to tell you that.”

Rising awkwardly from the table, she crossed the room to lay her hand on his shoulder. “I don’t know how you managed to live with that inside you,” she said quietly. “At least I know now that Danny had somebody who cared about him there when he died.” Moving behind him, she rubbed the back of his neck, feeling the tautness beneath her fingers. “As much as you blame yourself for what you couldn’t do, you have to remember all the men who made it home because of what you did for them.” Her fingers crept into the thick black hair that waved at his nape, stroking it. “You’re every bit as much the hero as the majors, colonels, and generals who led them into battle. They lost the war, but you got men home alive.”

He closed his eyes, feeling foolish for his outburst, as her hands eased the terrible tension in his neck. “Everybody at home reads the newspapers about how glorious the victory or about how devastating the defeat, and they think it’s some sort of contest,” he said softly. “It isn’t—it’s a blood-soaked hell. If people could see for themselves, there’d never be another war.”

“Maybe there won’t be—not for a long time, anyway,”

“No. Politicians will trade insults and plot the destruction of a perceived enemy; then they’ll sit back and watch somebody else’s husband or son die for their mistakes. The world gets bloodier, not wiser.”

“You have to think it’ll get better, or you can’t live.”

“It won’t.”

“Bitterness eats a man’s soul, Dr. Hardin. Sometimes, to live, you have to let go of it.”

“Bingham used to say something like that.”

“I’m sorry I said such things about him,” she conceded. “I didn’t even know him. I just think we paid too high a price for slavery, that’s all.”

“We did. For that, and a lot of things.”

“I didn’t mean to pick that sore when I said you should practice medicine, either. I didn’t know about your wife—or any of those other things.”

“I figured when you saw the grave, you knew she’d left me.”

“No. I thought it a little strange that she was buried out here, and that you were going to San Francisco to look for your son,” she admitted. “But I figured there was some explanation I hadn’t thought of, and if you wanted me to know, you’d tell me—that it wasn’t my place to ask.”

“I guess she just got tired of waiting. I blame myself for sending a wounded friend home to her, asking her to welcome him. She welcomed him, all right,” he added bitterly. “They took off together last March.”

“He couldn’t have been much of a friend, and she couldn’t have been much of a wife. But I guess she paid a high price for her foolishness, seeing as she died on the way.”

“I feel cheated about that, too. I wanted her there when I killed Ross. I wanted both of them to know they hadn’t gotten away with it. Now he’s out there somewhere, and I don’t even know if he’s still got my son,”

“And you had to turn back,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “That had to be hard to do.”

“It was. I should’ve known better than to start out this late. I should’ve known when there were just two railroad surveyors on the road with me, there was a reason. Hell, they weren’t even going through the pass.”

Her hand stilled, then dropped. “I don’t guess you heard, did you?”

“What?”

“They didn’t get back. A cavalry patrol out of Fort Laramie found what was left of them. A rider came over to notify Mr. Hawthorne they’d been murdered by Indians.”

He had to wonder if that was why he’d seen those buzzards. ‘They were just a few hours ahead of me,” he said, shaking his head. “If I hadn’t been having trouble with a skittish mule, I’d have been with them.”

“Then you were just plain lucky.”

Yeah, for the first time in a long time, maybe. But he sure hadn’t thought so then. Twisting his head to look up at her, he was struck by all that gold in those brown eyes. For a woman who’d had more than her share of grief in her young life, she’d managed to come through it with a dignity he had to admire. There was a calmness, a steadiness about her that went beyond any twenty-four years. As far apart as they’d been in character, it was hard to believe she and Lydia Jamison were close in age.

Moving away, she stood at the small window to peer outside. “I’ve been thinking about what you said last week,” she said, breaking a short silence.