Jessie's War (Civil War Steam) (43 page)

Parker began
shouting, and Whitfield jumped back and drew his weapon.

Jessie closed
her eyes and ignored them.

Let her long
departed ancestors have their war.

“Granddaughter,”
a voice said.

She raised her
head to see her grandfather and Cheveyo standing before her, surrounded by her
tribesmen, who faded in and out of the ever thickening dark like shadows and
mist.

Somehow, she’d
known he’d come, because even though it made no sense that he was with them,
she wasn’t surprised to see him standing among the ghosts of her ancestors.

Behind him
lurked the shadows of her Shoshone brothers.

“Grandfather,”
Jessie whispered. She didn’t bother to hide the tearstains on her cheeks. She
let him see these marks on her face as he could not see the scars on her heart.

“You saw what
was at your feet.”

She choked on
those tears. In the distance, she heard the plaintive wails of the wolf, and
wished she could do the same. Howl her anguished song over the Earth, so
everyone would hear her pain.

Muha’s sisters
already mourned. She would not allow herself to do the same.

“Yes.” She
brushed Luke’s hair out of his eyes with tender fingers. “Save him,
Grandfather,” she begged him in Paviotso, her voice as broken as her heart.

Her grandfather
was silent for a long time. “I am not sure that is the will of the ancestors,
Little Singer.”

No one had
called her that name since her mother’s death, and another piece of her heart
splintered and died.

“I don’t care
about the ancestors. It’s
my
will.”

“You are as
stubborn now as you ever were.” His voice was quiet and melancholy.

“Save him. I
know you can.”

Grandfather
nodded solemnly, more an acknowledgment of her request than an agreement.
Behind him, the others weaved in and out of the darkness. She heard their
chanting on the wind, their singing in the crackling of the fire, and saw their
dancing in the glittering of firelight.

Luke.

She shook she
head, refusing to see what was right in front of her, as she always did.

“No,” she
whispered.

Grandfather
began to sway. “Let him go, Granddaughter.”

Her heart
fractured yet again. She couldn’t. Not when she’d only just found him. He was
hers
, and she was
his
. “I—I can’t.”

Her grandfather
turned in a small circle. “Let him go.”

“Stop it! You’re
not dancing him into death! He’s going to live! He has to! They can’t have him!”

She screamed.

Grandfather
ignored her, his deep voice heavy in the wind as he began to sing the song of
life and death.

Cheveyo,
wearing the bone pipe chest plate of a shaman, knelt beside her and touched her
arm. “You must let him go, cousin.”

“No.
No.
” There was a tug on the invisible
tether binding Luke to her.

“It’s not your
time. You cannot follow where he is going.”

Cheveyo looked
up at their grandfather, whose dancing had become stronger, the chanting no
longer susurrus on the wind. His song swam around her, loud in her ears, his
magic heavy in the air as he danced Luke to the next life.

“Jess…” Luke
whispered, his pale lips dry and cracking. Love shone in his glassy eyes.

“You’re gonna
be fine, Luke.” She touched his forehead. There was a surety in her voice that
surprised even her, as if she believed she could force him to live simply by
the strength of her spell and her own iron will.

Who knew? Maybe
she could.

If her
grandfather could weave a spell to separate the souls of a hundred men from
their bodies, surely she could weave a spell to do the opposite for one man.
Her ancestors had allowed her grandfather to weave a spell of death; surely
they would allow her to weave a spell of life.

They would
never be so unfair.

“Dyin’ ain’t so
bad, Jess.” Luke shook off the braid binding them together and pressed it into
her hands, and her spell began to break apart. “Not knowin’ you’re here, safe.
Let me go.”

“No.”

He closed his
eyes and shuddered. Death rattled in his throat, uncoiling like a nest of
vipers.

She refused to
acknowledge what was right in front of her and clear to everyone else, as she
always had. He’d live. She’d make sure of it.

After a moment,
Luke opened his eyes.

He squeezed her
fingers. “This is why I fight... So I could be someone good enough for you.”

A strangled sob
escaped her before she viciously tore it from her own throat. She wouldn’t
mourn him. She wouldn’t let him pass.

Cheveyo
produced a litter, and she allowed Parker and her father to pull her away from
Luke as they placed him on it. She felt sick. She felt empty and alone.

She was broken.

“Let me go,
Jess.”

Her grandfather’s
singing washed over her as he wove his ancient song around Luke. Dancing him
into death, as he would have with her mother and Gideon if he’d been able.
Giving Luke to their ancestors to protect.

Let me go, Jess
, Luke had said.

She’d heard the
plea in his words, even if she hadn’t wanted to listen to it. Instead, she’d
tied him to a broken, painful body for her, because
she
couldn’t stand to lose him. She didn’t do it for him.

He asked only
to be released.

Something deep
inside her cracked, and her heart was split in two as she did the hardest thing
she would ever do.

She clasped his
hand to her chest and allowed her spell to break apart in the wind like dust.

And she let him
go.

“I love you,
Luke Bradshaw,” she whispered. Her tears fell upon their joined hands. She
wrapped her hair around his hands, her gift for him to take into the next life,
in the way her mother’s people mourned the passing of the beloved dead.

“I know you do.”
He closed his eyes.

For a moment,
she was transported back to that night he had held her in the Shaeffer mine,
when she told him she hated him. She would have given anything to go back to
that night and make love to him then. Not waste all the time she had being
angry for what had happened in the past.

Because she
understood that
now
was the important
thing, and clinging to the past only brought pain. If only she had recognized
that sooner, she would have treasured every minute of every hour she’d spent
with him. They would have lived lifetimes in these last few days. If she had
been able to see through the cloud of her hurt, she would have recognized she’d
loved him her whole life, and nothing would ever change that. Nothing.

Not even a
future where she would be forced to live without him.

Cheveyo touched
her shoulder, and two men picked up the litter. “We must go.”

“A moment,”
Luke croaked. He motioned to Parker. “Take care of her for me.”

Parker nodded
tightly and put his arm around Jessie’s shoulders. “I will.”

“Love you,
Jess.” Luke closed his eyes. “It’s all right. I’m ready.”

Jessie wasn’t,
and she never would be.

Cheveyo
approached her, cupped her head in his hands, and kissed her forehead. “It’s
time, sister.”

Jessie nodded,
trailing after them as they carried Luke away. The singing had become louder,
drums pounding in rhythm with her heart, the dancing of her mother’s people
fast and furious, their song mournful and plaintive. She turned in unison with
them.

Cheveyo clapped
a big hand to Jessie’s shoulder, halting her dance mid-step. “Stop. You can’t
come where we are taking him. You must let him go.” He pointed to Parker and
Whitfield. “She can’t come with us. You must make sure she doesn’t follow. I must
have your word. You are responsible for her now.”

“What?” she
cried, starting after him.

Parker and
Whitfield grabbed her by the arms and held her fast.

Panicked, she
struggled against their hands. “No! Take me with you!”

They couldn’t
do this. She needed to be there as Luke passed from this life to the next, as
she hadn’t been for her mother and Gideon. If she had to let him go, she would
be there until the bitter end. She
would
see him to the next life and give him over to the ancestors. Grandfather could
not be so cruel as to deny her that. It was her duty as Luke’s wife.

It was her
right
, since she was letting go of the
other half of her soul.

“It’s time. We
will take care of him.” Cheveyo motioned to the warriors who carried the
litter, and his eyes carried a warning for Parker and Whitfield, who stood at
her elbows.

The Shoshone
began to close in, forming a line between Jessie and her tribe she knew she
would not be allowed to cross.

Cheveyo took up
the chant, his feet turning in slow circles as he began the dance of life and
death.

“No! Luke!
Grandfather, don’t do this!” Jessie screamed, pulling against the hands holding
her. “Cheveyo!
No
!” She looked over
at Whitfield. “Please, Jonah. Don’t do this. Don’t let them do this to me.
Please.
”

His face twisted,
and he shook his head.

“
Please
,” she begged, and hot tears
splashed onto his hands where he held her. “Let me go with him. Please.
Please.
”

Whitfield
looked over her shoulder at Parker. “I can’t do this, mate.” His voice broke
and he dropped her arms. “She’s right. We should let her go.”

But Parker
grabbed the arm Whitfield had just released and held her tight, wrapping her in
an embrace.

“Please,
Parker.”

“No,” he said
gruffly.

“Solomon,
Please
.”

“No.”

Jessie’s eyes
found Cheveyo as he pushed through the brush and dry grass and faded into the
trees. “Cheveyo!” She struggled against the strength of Parker’s arms. “Oh,
God, please no! Luke!”

They faded into
the dark.

“Luke! No!
Luke!
” Jessie collapsed to her knees in
the dirt.

Parker knelt
beside her, holding her in his arms, and she beat against his chest with her
fists.

“
Luke
!”

What was left
of her heart shattered and her soul was cleaved in two as Cheveyo and her
grandfather danced the one great love of her life into the abyss.

Luke.

The next few
weeks passed in a blur.

Jessie’s first
memory after Cheveyo and her grandfather stole Luke from her was of Parker
carrying her back into the Great Salt Lake house, and the sound of Elizabeth’s
cries when her brother told her Luke was dead.

She recalled
the smell of the room Luke and she had shared. She remembered holding his
pillow against her chest and inhaling the scent of him, and falling asleep like
that. She remembered crying into that pillow and erasing the smell of him with
her tears, and mourning that loss, too.

At some point,
her father told her he had to leave for Chicago, and he insisted she join him.
Jessie listened, she heard him, but she didn’t move and she didn’t answer. She
had no voice to answer him with. The mere act of waking took too much effort.

She slept at
all hours, brief periods of relief from the sorrow.

During her
waking hours, she silently begged Luke to visit her. She plumbed the depths of
the abyss, searching through the voices as she begged her mother to keep him
safe. Every time she closed her eyes, she begged her ancestors to take her.

Take me
.

But her heart
continued to beat, and each morning when she woke, she tasted grief on her
tongue. She watched the sun rise each morning and set each evening. Time passed
as if the world hadn’t just ended.

And in those
long, dark hours between dusk and dawn, she would pace the halls, listening to
the stillness and the emptiness that had become her life.

She was
shattered but her body refused to break.

Take me,
she begged.

Her prayers
were answered by empty silence.

And then one
night she woke to the moonlight streaming through her window. She sat up and
looked at the moon for a long time, and Luke’s face flashed in the silvery
light.

Jessie
, a voice whispered. She wanted it to be Luke’s, but it wasn’t.
Come.

She stood up
from the bed and found her legs wobbly and shaking, as if she hadn’t used them
in quite some time. Reaching out, she wrote Luke’s name in the condensation on
the window, and remembered a time when they had sat side by side under the
light of a moon just like this, when he’d had her heart and she hadn’t wanted
to admit it.