Chasing Charity (10 page)

He didn’t answer, didn’t turn to face her.

She nodded at his obstinate shoulders. “All right, then. I don’t need a pine knot to fall on my head. I guess this is good-bye.”

Daniel whirled and caught her by the arm. “Come here now. Where do you think you’re going?” He jerked her against him and tightened his grip on her waist. “I’m sorry, sweetness. Don’t pay me no mind. I’m just confused by all the voices in my head—yours, Mama’s, Charity’s—all telling me different things. I can’t think straight no more, that’s all.”

Emmy stiffened. “Charity’s? You got Charity’s voice in your head?”

Daniel looked like a hound caught in the coop. “Aw, now, not like you’re thinking. I’m just mighty worried about her, that’s all. She’s been carrying on, all giggly and loose, with some stranger in town. It ain’t like her.”

“Stranger? Oh, you mean Buddy Pierce.”

His eyes darkened again. “You know about him?”

“Well, I saw him. He was out at the house last night. Those two old guineas dragged him inside and gave him a bath.”

Daniel blinked his disbelief. “A bath? I get the loud end of a shotgun, and that outsider gets a bath?” He glared as if she’d drawn the water herself. “Is there anyplace in town he ain’t horned in on?”

Wary, she watched his angry face. “I can’t tell why you’re letting him get so far under your skin.”

Daniel seemed to remember himself, but the dark storm remained on his face. “Ain’t nobody under my skin. I just feel responsible for Charity, what with it being so soon after ... well, you know. I feel like we drove her to act that way.”

Emmy walked off from him a ways, hands on her hips, one side of her body angled toward him, the other side in retreat. She raised her head and sought his eyes. “And you’re sure that’s all that’s bothering you?”

He gathered the ends of the reins and led the horses to where she stood. “Let me help you mount up. You’d best be getting back before they miss you. I got all the trouble I want right now. I don’t need the sheriff down my neck.”

Emmy snorted. “Those two wouldn’t call the sheriff. They’d load up and hunt you down themselves.”

Daniel made a stirrup for her with his hands and swung her up onto Rebel. “Then get home quick. I’d sooner face the sheriff than Crazy Bertha with a loaded gun.”

He took to his own saddle, then eased past her and rode out to scout the trail before whistling the all-clear.

She followed and found him studying the sky. “It’s getting on to the noon meal. They’ll be looking for you.”

“And they’ll find me.”

They measured each other with guarded looks. Daniel broke the silence. “Give me some time, Emmy. I’ll set things to right.”

She bit her bottom lip. “You know I’m not the patient sort.”

He nodded.

Emmy nudged Rebel and they trotted away a bit. Then she yanked on the reins and pulled him around. “Daniel?”

He sat in the same spot, watching her. His lifted chin bade her speak.

Pulling one foot close to the saddle, she fiddled with her bootstrap. “Is she all right?” Her gaze flickered to his face then returned to her boot. “Charity, I mean? Did that wolf hurt her any?”

“Never touched her. Charity’s fine.”

Emmy nodded, still not meeting his eyes. “That’s good.”

“Go on, girl. Get home.”

She found her stirrup again. “I’m going.”

Emmy dug her heels into Rebel’s side. He responded by breaking into a gallop and then a run. She rode hard and didn’t look back, fleeing the bitter truth before it surfaced and ruined everything.

The big horse tried to slow before the gully, hesitant to cross the plank bridge. She laid the switch to his side and he leapt for it. They landed with a jarring thud and his hooves beat against the boards, sending vibrations through her body. The wind whistled past her ears as they flew over the marsh. Rebel stumbled, bogging down and tripping over roots. She urged him faster. He risked falling, breaking a leg, but still she pushed him.

On the far side of the swamp, she sent him barreling headlong into the brush. Tangled branches tore at her skirt, exposing her bare legs to deep scratches. Rebel threatened to buck, so she pulled him out again and sent him crashing into a grove of young trees instead. Somehow he made it through, and she drove him toward the house as if the hounds of hell chased them.

Inside the dark, cool barn, she worked feverishly to unsaddle the old horse. Rebel heaved and blew, his body lathered with foamy sweat that ran red from deep scratches. Blood matted his long white mane, now a tangle of sticks and twigs.

Emmy dropped the saddle on the ground and stared at the terrible sight. “Oh, Rebel. What have I done?” Guilt consumed her. She had punished Papa’s horse for Daniel’s sins.

Her tingling legs began to throb and sting. She pulled up her dress and gasped at the state of her torn and bleeding flesh. Her thighs weren’t so comely now. Unlike Rebel, she knew she deserved it.

As if confirming her thoughts, a shadow loomed from behind, blocking the warmth of the sun. Startled, she whirled. Mama stood at the barn door, glaring at Emmy’s bare skin.

“You wicked girl.” She spoke quietly, matter-of-factly.

Emmy dropped her skirt. “I’m sorry, Mama.”

“Where have you been, Emily? What have you been up to that put your legs in that condition?”

“It’s not what you think.”

“So it has nothing to do with Daniel Clark? That’s what you’re telling me?”

Emmy couldn’t summon the right answer.

Mama shook her head. “Just as I thought.” She caught sight of the horse and rushed inside the barn. “For heaven’s sake! What happened?” She ran her hands over the bloody cuts. Rebel flinched, and tears sprang to her eyes. She spoke without looking at Emmy, her voice jagged iron. “Find Nash and have him come tend to this animal. Then get upstairs to your room. This time I say when you come out.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Emmy hurried toward the barn door, but Mama called her back. She turned slowly, dreading what she might hear.

“There won’t be no hiding this from your Papa. No telling what he’ll do to you, but I won’t lie to him on your account.”

Emmy forced herself to look at her mama’s face. “No, ma’am,” she whispered.

Mama nodded. “As long as we understand each other. Now git.”

Even more than having Papa find out, Emmy dreaded telling Nash. She could already imagine the look on his face. He had tended Rebel since the horse was a colt.

She found him and delivered the message, careful to avoid his eyes. Then she trudged to the house, feeling like she’d sooner face a noose. Not that she minded going back inside her rose-covered prison. Her actions merited worse. The part she couldn’t bear was being shut in with the memory of what had just happened between her and Daniel.

The morning dawned clear and milder than days past. The sun, bright and hot outside the window of the Lone Star Hotel, arched warm, hazy rays through the open shade, chasing the chill from the room.

Not ready to leave the soft cotton mattress, Charity lay on the bed and watched the sky, enjoying the heat of the sunshine on her feet. A pleasant day in the middle of January was common for Texas and a welcome change from the one before.

Buddy never took her to see Amy Jane like he’d promised. After the wolf encounter, he hustled her to town instead and delivered her straight to her room. Then he ordered a bath brought up and made her promise to take to her bed right after. She found the special treatment downright silly, since she’d only sustained a few bruises and muddy knees, but he insisted. She didn’t argue long. Buddy’s determination and size made him a formidable opponent. Satisfied he had her settled in for the night, he headed back out to her place, and she hadn’t seen him since.

Wide awake now, Charity stretched then winced at the pain.

I guess we can add rattled bones to bruises and muddy knees.

It seemed Buddy was right after all. She had hit the ground harder than she thought. With great care, she rolled to the side of the bed and sat up.

Patting her hollow stomach, she felt more than heard the familiar growl. Buddy had paid for her breakfast the day before. She wouldn’t allow him to do it again. Today she became mistress of her own fate.

Amy Jane Pike had expressed interest in her wedding dress. Charity intended to find her first thing and speak to her about buying it. If things went the way she hoped, she could soon afford to pay for her own breakfast.

Aware of every sore muscle, she stood and hobbled to the basin of water. Cold, but it would have to do; she couldn’t wait for more. She tended to her toiletries, pinned up her hair, and pulled on a faded day dress. The comfortable jeans had beckoned, but they were a mess. Besides, she wouldn’t be traveling on horseback today. She’d have to rely on her feet instead.

When all was in order, Charity limped into the hall. On impulse, she knocked at Buddy’s door. He didn’t answer. Up and gone before daylight most likely.

She shuffled past his room and made her way to the stairs. Halfway down, she noted that each step came easier than the last. Moving and using her taut muscles warmed and relaxed them, bringing some relief.

Sam looked up as she tottered past the front desk. “Miss Bloom, will you come here, please?”

Too late, she realized Buddy had likely set the old clerk to watch out for her. If so, she might never get out the door.

Balderdash! Let him try to stop me.

She steeled herself and turned on her brightest smile. “Morning, Sam. Lovely day, is it not?”

He glanced toward the window. “Yes, I reckon it is.”

She approached the desk, determined to move with grace. It wouldn’t do for him to notice her stiffness. “Did you wish to speak to me?”

“Surely you’re not going out?” He posed it as a question. Implied it as a fact.

“But I am.” She raised her brows. “Is that a problem?”

He gestured toward the dining hall with a palsied hand. “You haven’t had breakfast, miss. Mr. Buddy says I’m to make sure you eat. Said to put it on his tab.”

Mr.... who?

She focused on Sam’s face. If she allowed her gaze to follow where he pointed, she’d be undone. Her nose would take over and chase the wafting aroma of biscuits and crisp bacon down the hall to the dining room.

“I’m not”—to say she wasn’t hungry would be false—“ready to eat just yet.” A contradiction rumbled in her inward parts, but at least she’d spoken the truth. She would be ready to eat when her own money lay in her hand.

Sam grew agitated. “Mr. Buddy will be cross with me if you don’t eat something.”

There. He’d said it again. Her brows rose higher than before. “Mr. Buddy?”

“Yes, miss. That nice Mr. Pierce.”

“Two days ago you were ready to string him up. Now he’s
nice Mr. Buddy?
”

Sam grinned so wide his mustache fanned out above his mouth. “Well, you see, that was before.”

“Before what?”

“Before I came to know what a fine young man he is. He’s taken right good care of you during your”—he cleared his throat—“financial inconvenience.”

That much was true. Buddy had tended to everything out of his own pocket, all for a woman he’d met only days before. It reminded Charity of a Bible story, the tale of the Good Samaritan. Except this battered traveler was all better now and ready to make her own way.

“Mr. Pierce has been more than kind.” She leaned in and furrowed her brow. “I’m grateful. Don’t think I’m not. I just can’t let him do it any longer. It’s not fitting. I won’t eat another meal I haven’t provided for myself.”

“But, Miss Charity, breakfast is included in the cost of your lodging.”

“And thereby you’ve made my point, Sam. I’m not exactly paying for my lodging, am I?”

His wide eyes challenged her over the top of wire-rimmed glasses. “Mr. Buddy won’t like it.”

“Then don’t tell him.” She pressed a gloved finger to his mouth. “Sam, I mean it. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to be about looking after my own needs for a change.” She left him there, still scowling his disapproval, and sauntered outside to the boardwalk.

The sun seemed bent on drying up the mud. Except for a few shaded puddles, only the deepest holes still held water. Charity gathered her shawl about her, ducked into the noisy, milling crowd, and allowed herself to be swept eastward in the general direction of Moonshine Hill. Where the walkway ended just past the hardware store, she took the two steps down to the ground and set out for the Pikes’ place. She breathed a sigh of relief when the drier streets and thinning crowd made her walk to the edge of town easier than she’d anticipated.

Moonshine Hill, a thriving community two miles east of Humble, sprang up overnight amid the clamor for oil and the clatter of drilling rigs. It had fast become bigger than Humble, the town that spawned it. Shamus and Elsa Pike owned a fair-sized patch of land northwest of there. Not as far from town as her own place, but still a good long stretch.

The midmorning sun warmed Charity’s face. If not for a brisk north wind, she could have removed her shawl. The day felt crisp and clean with no hint of the oppressive Gulf moisture that often saturated the air. She found herself enjoying the walk.

Where the path leveled out for a good distance, Charity lifted her face to the sky and closed her eyes. She followed the sun blindly, until the bright light turned the backs of her eyelids white. When she opened them again, for fear of veering off course, shadowy squiggles darted about in her field of vision. She smiled and blinked them away.

Turning north, she found the trail leading to the Pikes’ house suitably dry as well, so long as she dodged the deeper ruts in the dark, crumbling clay. Overhead a woodpecker knocked on a tree trunk, while a frenzied crow swooped by with a meal in his beak, a contender for the prize hot on his tail. She stopped to watch, curious about the outcome.

A buck stepped into the clearing a mere thirty feet in front of her and checked the air for danger, his nose tossed to the sky. Charity was still and stood downwind of him, so he took no notice of her. When he crouched and lunged from the brush then sprang into the forest on the opposite side of the trail, it had nothing to do with her. Something had startled him and sent him darting for cover—something already chasing him.

The thicket from where the buck had first emerged began to shudder and sway, pulling her attention from the quivering undergrowth that had swallowed him on the other side. With a jolt, she realized another creature had taken the deer’s place. A piteous whine, unmistakably canine, arose from the scrub, followed by a mournful growl. Charity stared hard at the bushes, her heart hammering apace with the woodpecker’s beak.

Don’t be silly. The wolf is dead. Daniel shot it. You saw it yourself.

Charity reversed her steps, determined not to turn her back on the devil that lurked in the brush.

Then what? A second wolf? Something worse?

She cast around in her mind for a way to protect herself. Could she outrun it? Not likely in a dress. Should she climb a tree? The tall straight pines nearby afforded no low branches. Would the Pikes hear if she called out? She filled her lungs and opened her mouth to scream. By golly, she’d make sure they heard.

The bushes rustled then parted to reveal the long velvet ears and wrinkled snout of the Pikes’ bloodhound. Red pushed onto the trail, still dragging his ears, his frantic nose snuffling and sweeping the ground. He sensed or smelled Charity and jerked up, eyes alert, body tense. When he recognized her, he wriggled from head to tail. Torn between tracking the deer and greeting his guest, he finally ambled in her direction, grinning up at her through droopy folds.

Charity released the breath burning in her lungs, and weakness flooded her limbs. “Red, you old scoundrel. You scared me half to death.”

The big hound wagged his tail and pushed his muzzle into her hand. Red was one of Papa’s, or had been. Six years ago when Doozy birthed nine pups, Shamus Pike set his cap for the pick of the litter. Or, as Mama liked to say, he downright coveted Red. But Papa loved the little whelp from the moment he was born and wouldn’t turn him loose. A year later Papa died, and Mama couldn’t afford to keep the dogs. She sold the rest but gave Red to Shamus in memory of their longstanding friendship. Shamus had cried openly.

Charity knelt on the trail and pulled Red’s big head close to give him a good scratching behind the ears. “Truth be told, darlin’, I’ve never been more glad to see you.”

Red accompanied Charity the rest of the way. He marched her through the yard and delivered her to the house, circling and collapsing in a panting heap as soon as they stepped on the porch.

Charity raised the brass door knocker and let it fall. It struck her as odd, considering Shamus and Papa’s close ties, that she had seldom visited the Pikes’ home.

In fact, despite Papa’s friendship with Shamus, Mrs. Pike had always regarded Charity and her mama with an upturned nose, due in part to Mama’s scandalous behavior but mostly because she envied Mama’s relationship with Mother Dane. Elsa considered Magdalena Dane’s influence in Humble society to be a prized feather for her cap, so she had sought Mother Dane’s favor for years. Mama she could do without, and she had never found Charity worthy either before her betrothal to Eunice Clark’s son.

Biting her bottom lip, Charity knocked again. She hadn’t considered that they might not be home, which would mean the long walk was for naught ... and her stomach would remain empty.

While she waited, she looked around the place. Fronted by trees and bordered by acres of plowed ground, the house was smaller than Mother Dane’s but somewhat larger than her own. The Pikes farmed cotton. Shamus, with the help of hired men, planted every spare inch of his ground and leased more from other landowners, including Charity’s mama. If not for the money he paid to farm their best ten acres, they wouldn’t have survived after Papa died.

In three directions, the fields were plowed under in preparation for spring planting, with the exception of a patch of winter vegetables behind the barn. The bare, harrowed ground butted up against the tree line, with no other homes in sight. It seemed a lonely existence.

She raised her fist and knocked again, sure now she’d come all the way to the Pikes’ for nothing.

“One moment, please.”

The muted voice behind the door would be Mrs. Pike, because in the distance Amy Jane stepped out of the barn and headed up the path leading to the back door. She carried a galvanized bucket and moseyed along like someone in no kind of hurry. The pail contained milk that sloshed with every careless step, soaking her dress and leaving frothy white puddles on the ground.

Her attention on Amy Jane, Charity jumped when the door jerked open with a flourish.

Elsa stood with both hands clasped to her chest and a huge smile on her face. “Charity, dear! How grand.”

She suppressed a smile. One would think royalty had come to call. Quite curious that Elsa Pike, who claimed to be descended from nobility herself, still seemed to consider Charity of social importance, despite her breakup with Daniel. Perhaps she thought it wise to hedge her bets, in case they reconciled.

Charity gave in to the smile and extended her hand. “Good morning. I apologize for the early hour.”

“Nonsense. We’ve been up since dawn.” Elsa stepped back and widened the opening. “Come right in.” She wrinkled her nose and cast a disparaging glance at the ever-optimistic Red. He had risen halfway when she appeared, his droopy eyes hopeful. She shooed him with the hem of her dress. “Scat! Scat, you filthy beast! Charity, don’t let him near you, honey. He stinks to high heaven.”

Charity had to admit an impressive stench emanated from Red. She sidestepped the fleeing dog and crossed the threshold. “You’re very kind to receive me without notice.”

“We’re glad to have you. Right this way, dear.”

Charity followed Mrs. Pike along a dim, narrow hall adorned on both sides with framed tintypes of Elsa’s supposedly blue-blooded ancestors. Staid men trussed up in dark suits and sporting handlebar mustaches scowled at her from the wall. Demure women with upswept hair and high-buttoned collars censured her as she passed. Charity made faces at them before turning her attention to Elsa’s back.

She had dressed in a gown fit for a party, yet it gaped where she’d left two buttons unfastened. It appeared the crooked sash at her waist, inside out and mismatched, had been snatched up and tied on at the last minute. The state of her explained why she’d left Charity standing so long on the stoop.

They came to an arched doorway on the left, and Elsa waved Charity inside. “Have a seat in the drawing room, dear. Make yourself easy while I pour you some tea.”

“Please don’t trouble yourself, Mrs. Pike. I can’t stay long.”

“No trouble at all. There’s a pot left from our morning repast, along with fresh blueberry scones. Would you care for one with your tea?”