Heart of a Dove (23 page)

“She did?” I asked softly, trying to imagine him as a little boy at his mother’s knee, as she murmured softly to him and his brothers in the language of her homeland. I asked, “How did she meet your daddy?”

“They met and courted in Tennessee. Mama came to America when she was fourteen, with her father and stepmother. They came to Charleston first, and then traveled to Suttonville when Mama was fifteen. Daddy met her that summer, and they were married two years later.”

“My mama was of Charleston too, originally,” I said. “Daddy was staying with his aunt and uncle the summer that he met Mama, at a ball. She still had the very dress she was wearing the evening they met, green as emeralds. I can picture her holding it up on its hanger and letting me touch it. Daddy remained in Charleston to court her and they married the following winter. She came west with him, back to Tennessee. Daddy’s family had been settled in Lafayette for decades by then.”

“You were the youngest of your family?” Sawyer asked, his voice low and soft.

I nodded. “Dalton would have been your age by now. Jesse was a year behind him. I loved them so. My earliest memories are of trying to gain their attention.”

“Your mama must have been happy for a daughter, after two boys,” Sawyer said. “I recall Mama wishing she had a daughter, especially when we’d cause trouble.” He asked then, with a hint of teasing, “How old would you say I am?”

“Gus told me that first morning,” I explained. “He said you and Boyd were of an age, twenty-four.”

Whistler and Aces were taking advantage of our lack of attention to them, and were absolutely ambling; even the wagon was yards ahead of us.

“That’s the truth,” Sawyer said. “I try sometimes to imagine my brothers aging along with me, what they would be like now. Sometimes I dream of them as though they were yet living. And Jere is usually quiet, letting Eth do all the talking even still.”

“Sawyer,” I said softly, needing to speak his name, aching for the grief beneath his quiet words. I admitted, “At least you can see them that way. Sometimes I am unable to exactly recall my brothers’ faces, or hear their voices. And it scares me so. I haven’t so much as a picture of either of them, outside of my memories.”

“I know that fear well,” he told me. “I do. But they are in your heart, always. No one may take that from you.”

To distract myself from the quite desperate urge to smooth my fingers over the top of his right forearm, so close to me as we rode along, I changed the subject abruptly and said, “I am trying to imagine you with red hair. Or as a little boy.”

He laughed a little at that, humor again in his voice. I could sense his eyes upon me, though I was too flustered to return his gaze. He asked, “Do you remember Lake Royal, back home?”

I nodded at once. “Yes, we crossed the bridge there on the way to Suttonville.”

“That clear water glinting under the sun, blue and green, both,” he remembered.

“Yes, it was a beautiful lake,” I said, picturing its vibrant colors.

“It was the most beautiful lake I’ve ever had the privilege of seeing,” he agreed. “Your eyes are the same color, exactly.”

I ducked my head at once, my face on fire, though I could sense his smile.

Yards ahead on the wagon, Malcolm peered back at us. He lifted his hat brim and called, “What you two doing back there? Holdin’ hands?”

Sawyer called back calmly, “We’re just chatting, kid. Did you think we’d be racing the horses all morning?”

“I would!” he returned. “You two ain’t having any fun.”

Aces nickered and tossed his head, side-stepping to the right, as though in agreement with his master. I tugged him back into line.

“You want to run, don’t you, boy?” I asked him, patting his shiny brown neck, firm beneath my hand. “Maybe later.”

“Look there, Lorie,” Sawyer said, and pointed west before rising in his stirrups to call, “Boyd, look to the left!”

The lone buffalo that we’d seen along the river had joined his herd. In the distance dozens of the creatures roamed complacently. I stood in my stirrups to get a better look, as Angus circled around and flanked us.

“Boyd!” Malcolm was visibly jittering with excitement, standing now, while Boyd halted the wagon and stood as well. Malcolm begged, “Boyd! Can we shoot one, can we?”

Boyd knocked his hat back on his forehead, his dark hair sweating and disheveled, and regarded the herd with his eyes shining, too. He said, “I’d need a far bigger caliber, boy, to go after one a-them things. But I can’t say I wouldn’t mind riding over there for a closer look.”

“Me too, I’ll join you!” Malcolm pleaded.

I looked at Angus, certain he would disagree with this idea. As I’d known he would, Gus said, “I’d not, Boyd, they’re unpredictable creatures, at best.”

“Aw, Gus,” Boyd wheedled, and I giggled at his expression; he looked exactly like Malcolm.

I feared that Boyd, judging from his face, might still decide to angle the wagon that direction, and said to him, “As your sister, I’d much rather you stay in one piece. You too, Malcolm!”

Boyd laughed, leaning to root in the leather haversack on his waist, extracting a smoke. “For you, sis, I’ll stay here then. Don’t want to disappoint you.” Planting the tobacco roll between his lips, he flicked the reins neatly over the team and muttered, “
Hee
-up, there.”

The horses were responding to the strange animal scent on the air, restless and noisy, tossing their heads. I could even catch the slightest smell of the buffalo, dusty and sharply distinct.

“Gus, we’ve been talking about who taught us to ride,” Sawyer said, and Angus led Admiral to my right, slowing his pace to keep with ours, resettling his hat.

“Have you told Lorie the story of Charley Bean?” Angus asked, leaning forward to regard Sawyer, his gray eyes fond and merry with amusement.

Sawyer laughed at that, then added ruefully, “No, but I suppose you will.”

In his storyteller voice, Angus began, “Summer, deep summer, ’fifty-three. This one,” and he nodded to Sawyer, “would have been nine years old, and the twins eight. Dear Ellen, it was all she could do to keep the three of them in line. Wouldn’t turn her back but for a moment before they’d be into trouble again.” He looked at Sawyer and said, “I recall your daddy suggesting that she tie you boys to her apron strings, and Ellen replying that she would be pulled three directions at once and suggested to James that he might take a strap to you instead. Ellen was of Ireland, and it was still strong in her voice.”

Sawyer was smiling and it resounded in my heart. I smiled too, unable to draw my eyes away from him. He said, “Believe me, when she was in a temper it was even stronger. Then you knew you were in trouble.”

Angus continued, “Now, James Davis was a firm hand with a horse, and no one was more stubborn in a bargain, but when it came to his boys, he had a soft spot a mile wide. He could no more strap the lot of you than he could a newborn. Now, this particular afternoon the Carters were hosting a picnic. If I recall, Bainbridge had just tapped a new barrel of his best corn whiskey, which was a call for celebration if I ever knew one. The day was fine enough to tuck into a pocket for safekeeping. Grace and I were courting then, we’d driven over in the buggy.”

“I remember her white parasol, with the roses, she was never without it,” Sawyer said. “She was fair as the moon, Gus, truly.”

“That she was,” Angus said and sighed a little, before repeating, “That she was. On this particular afternoon, a Sunday it was, Bainbridge had more than one reason to celebrate, as he’d purchased a new horse only the afternoon before, a fine tall stallion, sleek and shining, very nearly a true black. His name was a bit misleading, as ‘Charley Bean’ sounds more like an old plow horse. But this was a yearling, still wild, and if I remember, all of the boys were hanging on the corral fence like flies at a slice of watermelon. I must say I joined them for a fair amount too, though when Clairee called for us to eat, everyone went running.” Angus paused dramatically for a moment, before adding, “All but one, that is.”

“Ethan dared me,” Sawyer said, looking at Angus with a grin. “Though it didn’t take much, I’ll admit.”

I listened delightedly, clearly able to picture the summer afternoon in our home state, the rich humid air and the sunlight filtering through the spruce needles and spicing the air with their scent, the deep ditches where orange lilies bloomed in dizzying profusion, the delicious perfume of the honeysuckle vines that climbed every fence and sign post in the county.

“How in the world you ever managed to mount him, that’s what I’d like to know,” Angus said. “I never did ask, though I know you’ve an uncanny way with horses, just like your daddy.”

“I coaxed my way to his side. If you’ll recall I had a bruise that covered my entire foot, where he shied and then stepped, but I was determined. I caught hold of his mane and clung, and climbed for all I was worth, and before I knew it I was on top of what felt the whole world.”

I watched Sawyer speak, his voice with the dream-like quality of remembrance. He added ominously, “And then he reared.”

Angus picked up with, “Here we all sat at Clairee’s lovely, fine spread, do you recall that cucumber salad she was known for, Sawyer? And her jellies, those blackberry preserves. Bainbridge had just lowered his head to lead grace when there was a fearsome racket from the corral. I was just opposite Bainbridge and his eyebrows curled. He overturned his chair and yelped ‘Goddammit to hell!’ Excuse me, Lorie. And here comes Charley Bean, who had leaped the corral, four beams high to be sure, a most impressive jump. He was running like the devil, James Davis’s eldest son clinging to his mane, not quite sitting, more flat on his belly, holding with both hands—” He was laughing too hard to continue, as was Sawyer.

Angus gathered himself and finished, “And Bainbridge shouted that if James wouldn’t take a strap to you, then he planned to as soon as that horse slowed down, which at his rate looked to be in Kentucky somewhere. And Ellen, bless her, and your granny Alice, both sobbing that you’d be killed, their little boy. If I recall correctly, Ethan was a little green around the gills and made himself scarce.”

“How did you get down?” I asked, breathless with the excitement of the long-ago afternoon.

Sawyer grinned at me, his eyes dancing with amusement and flooding me with warmth. He said, “Well, I fell, though I can’t remember exactly what happened, as the ground gave me quite a blow. I was lucky that Charley didn’t crush me, when it comes right to it. I recall waking with Mama and Granny and about a half dozen other ladies leaning over me, though I could only see stars at first.”

“Were you strapped?” I asked. I was immeasurably glad he’d not been crushed on that afternoon either.

I must have sounded more worried than I intended, because Sawyer laughed again and assured me, “I was, but not terribly, and I deserved every lash. Though Daddy told me to tell anyone who asked that he’d dealt ten, instead of just the three. Aw, those days. I miss them so much it hurts, even still.”

“As for Charley Bean,” Angus said. “He didn’t quite make the state line, but Bainbridge and his brother Malcolm saddled up to chase him down and ruined Clairee’s picnic. Though if I’m not mistaken, the two of them considered it a fine adventure. Grace and I sat up discussing it on her mama’s front porch well into the evening that night.”

“What happened to the horse?” I asked.

Angus responded, “He became one of the finest Bainbridge ever owned. Beaumont took him to War, though neither survived.”

I shivered at that; so many lives lost, the War that had intruded upon the peace of those lazy summer days and had subsequently ripped all our families to shreds. My heart hooked on something sharp at that thought. I looked ahead to Boyd and Malcolm, the last of the Carters, both still angling their heads to catch a glimpse of the buffalo herd to the west, and the notion lingered in my mind as I studied them. Each of us was the last of our kin now, our families lost forever, alive only in our memories. Before the War, I would never have imagined that I could feel so strongly for people I had only just met; there would never have been occasion. I had loved my parents and my brothers dearly, had innocently trusted in their presence and the promise of security they provided. At Ginny’s, Deirdre had shown me that I was still capable of being loved, of giving love in return. Now, under the bright sun and free from both of my old lives, both the dear sweetness of Tennessee and the prison of Hossiter’s, I understood that I belonged with these three men and this boy, that they were my family now. That life had allowed me such a gift was almost beyond my ability to comprehend.

“We’d best pick up the pace a hair,” Angus said, tipping his hat to me before spurring ahead to speak to Boyd.

“What do you say?” Sawyer invited. “Should we canter a spell, Lorie?”

In response, I tightened my knees and tapped Aces’ belly with my heels, taking him right. Sawyer took Whistler to the left around the wagon, as Malcolm whooped after us.

“No fair!” I heard Malcolm wail, but his voice was soon lost to the rush of the breeze in my ears as I let Aces have his head, feeling his muscles ripple against my calves as he flowed into a full gallop. I leaned over him, clutching the reins in my gloves, seeing Whistler on my left, racing north.

I laughed excitedly, maintaining the lead by a nose, though I sensed it was only because Sawyer was allowing it; he could certainly have taken it with little effort. Then I gasped as my hat went sailing. Immediately I reined in and slowed, meaning to circle Aces, but Sawyer was already there, Whistler at an easy lope back the way we’d come; just as they reached my errant hat, Sawyer leaned from his saddle and swept it from the tall grass with one hand. We were perhaps a half-mile from the wagon, and I kicked Aces forward to collect my hat from Sawyer, who handed it over with his hawk eyes smiling; he’d no more than passed it into my hands before he gathered the reins and then wheeled about on Whistler, taking the lead.

“No fair!” I yelped after him, digging my heels.

We spent the morning running them, enjoying every moment. As the sun began to crawl westward, I did switch with Malcolm, though with utter reluctance, riding with Boyd at the almost maddeningly sedate pace of the wagon, my eyes following the horses as they ranged far and back. Malcolm assured me that I could share Aces with him, from here on out.