Pale Moon Stalker (The Nymph Trilogy) (28 page)

Before he could digest her angry remark, she stood up and thrust a telegram at him. "W-what's this?" he said idiotically.

"The answer to your wire to Jerome Bartlett. It arrived shortly after you left with the deputy. Your solicitor is a very efficient man. Read it," she commanded coldly.

Squinting in the pale light, he skimmed the contents of the wire. "Damnation, Phillip has drowned in some kind of accident. Never had a chance to spend much time with him, but he was a decent fellow. And young. Jerome will let us know the circumstances as soon as the investigation is complete." He frowned and cursed at the second paragraph. "Cletus has dropped out of sight. Bartlett urges us to be wary," he said, looking up at her.

"Read on." Her words dripped icicles in the warm room.

He did so and his hand began to tremble. Every ounce of blood seemed to drain from his veins. As if Deuce's revelations were not fat enough on the fire, Jerome now had to be a chatty bastard as well. The solicitor said that it would have been better if Cletus had been the one to die instead of their cousin. He then cautioned Max that the codicil to Harry's will regarding their marriage was still in force. Had he and his wife succeeded yet in starting a family?

He looked down at her set expression. "Sky, love, I can explain—at least I hope I can if—"

"That codicil you never told me about. It says you have to get a child on me in order to stop Cletus from inheriting the fortune. Do I have it right?"

His shoulders slumped. "Harry wanted to see me settled, but that doesn't mean I—"

"I don't want to hear any more. Not tonight," she whispered fiercely as she stood up, none too steady herself. "It's been a long, terrible day. I can't handle your glib explanation, Max...even if you were capable of giving one. True Dreamer and I will take turns watching over Fawn. He's gone to the stables to check on our horses now. Dr. Torres says she should be able to travel in a couple of days if we use a wagon. I've booked you a room down the hall." She thrust the key at him.

"Don't do this, Sky, love, please," he said, knowing he was begging now and not giving a damn.

"Get some sleep, Lord Ruxton. I have a feeling you're going to need a clear head in the morning." With that, she shoved him out the door and closed it behind him. He stood in the hall as the lock clicked from inside. It sounded sepulchral in its finality.

Well, what had he expected? Sooner or later he would have had to tell her about Harry's damnable will. Her reaction now was the very reason he had been too cowardly to do it. But her finding out this way was so much worse. If he'd at least tried to explain after he realized how much he loved her...but he had not. "Now I'll never know," he muttered thickly as he walked down the hall.

He opened the door to another room, with a single bed, furnished as comfortably as the one Sky and Fawn occupied. Moonlight filtered in from the window on one side. He did not even bother turning up the gaslight. God, the empty bed looked bleak and lonely. There were things he, too, could not handle after this terrible day.

Max closed the door and went downstairs, headed back to the Acre, in search of a barrel of rotgut whiskey.

Sky sat, staring woodenly at the closed door after Max left. Tears silently trickled down her cheeks. She could forgive his boyhood indiscretions, but this...this...
Why, oh, why, Max? Why did you deceive me so cruelly? Do you really hate Cletus that much? Was your vengeance worth it?

She could be with child right now! Max could have a mixed-blood wife and child to deal with—and to make matters even worse, Cletus on his trail hiring gunmen to kill them all. The irony of it only brought more bitter tears.

In the morning she would have to decide what to do. They had to remain together to see True Dreamer and Fawn safely back to their home. They both owed the old man and innocent girl that much. After that...she rubbed her burning eyes, uncertain of what she should do, too exhausted to think about it any longer.

When the old Cheyenne entered the room, he found her asleep in the chair. He could see that she had been crying and knew the white man's message from the singing wires must have occasioned it. He and Fawn had both learned to speak English from a white man on their reservation who had married a Cheyenne woman and chosen to live with them.

But Fawn had also been taught to read and write by the government agent they called Good Heart. True Dreamer had felt he was too old to master what came so easily to his granddaughter. Now he wondered if that was the reason the Powers gave him no indication about what troubled Sky Eyes and her man. No matter what had happened, he knew they were fated to be together.

Confident in that, he let Fawn sleep and lay down beside her bed to rest himself.

The next morning Max awakened, miraculously in the hotel bed he'd rejected the night before. He lay half across it, fully clothed. Even his boots remained on his feet. He rolled over and sat on the edge of the mattress, holding his aching head in his hands. What a bloody tangle he'd made of their lives. But at least he had an idea that might redeem himself in Sky's eyes.

Before he began drinking himself into utter oblivion last night, he had managed one important task—rescuing the remittance money Deuce had hidden in his room at the Excelsior. Sooner or later that vile clerk would've gathered nerve enough to search for whatever the dead man had left behind. The wastrel Englishman had gone through at least half of it, but Max had added a generous amount to the saddlebags he'd found beneath the bed. Now he had to put his plan into action.

He stood up on shaky legs and paused until the room righted itself before he proceeded to the mirror and looked at himself. Not a pretty picture. Sighing, he noted the bellpull. This certainly was a giant step up from Deuce's filthy hideyhole in the Acre. He rang for hot water and set to work repairing his appearance. As he dug his razor from his own saddlebags, which Sky had put in the room last night, he considered that he might just cut his throat while shaving and save her the trouble of divorcing him.

After a bath, shave, change of clothes and several cups of hot coffee, he began to feel marginally human. When he opened the door of his room, he heard Sky and True Dreamer talking down the hall. She was going to buy some boy's pants and oversized shirts made of soft cloth to replace the destroyed tunic, as well as some kind of footwear for Fawn. After he heard the sounds of her footfalls fade down the stairs, he approached the old man, who turned as if expecting him.

True Dreamer smiled and beckoned him. "Come, meet my granddaughter, whose life you saved."

"Are you certain she'll want to meet another Englishman?" Max asked dubiously.

The old man grunted impatiently. "She is not foolish. She knows the difference between a good heart and a bad one." With that, he opened the door and stepped inside, making room for Max to follow.

Fawn was seated in the bed with the covers pulled up to her neck. One ugly red weal marred an otherwise lovely little face with strong, straight features. Max hoped the mark would not leave a scar. It appeared superficial. As to the wounds inside...only time would tell. He smiled at the girl as the old man made introductions.

"Child, this is the warrior I have told you of, the Pale Moon Stalker. He destroyed the weasel-snake and restored our honor."

She nodded politely, her large luminous eyes round with wonder and a bit of apprehension, when her grandfather added, "He, too, is an English. They are not all evil."

Max swept his hat from his head with a courtly flourish. "It is a great honor to meet the granddaughter of my friend True Dreamer."

The girl's eyes widened even more as she began to speak rapidly in her native tongue. Her grandfather interrupted with a patient smile, admonishing, "Do not be discourteous, Fawn. You speak Pale Moon Stalker's tongue."

She flushed becomingly. "I meant no insult, Pale Moon Stalker, but I have never seen hair such as yours before. It is beautiful. You walk always in the moonlight, gleaming like a ghost spirit guiding people on the Hanging Road to the Sky."

Now it was Max's turn to flush. Lord save him from girlish infatuations! "Er, well, when all's said and done, it is only hair. It confers no special powers. Among my people it's quite common."

"Oh, no, Stalker," Fawn said impulsively. "I have seen many whites and none look like you. You are beautiful. Sky Eyes has good fortune to have you for her man."

"I think Sky might not agree at present," he replied wryly.

"Then she is foolish. If she throws you away, I will have you if—"

True Dreamer interrupted her infatuated outburst while hiding a smile behind the hand covering his mouth. "Fawn, you should not speak so of a brave warrior-woman who has aided us. Besides, Sky Eyes will never let this one go."

If only that were true. Max took heart. Did the old medicine man know how this would end for them? He watched as the child lowered her head under the rebuke. "I am sorry, Grandfather. You speak true...but I do not understand how a wise woman like Sky Eyes would leave such a man as this."

Desperate to redirect the conversation and escape from his adoring new charge, Max turned to True Dreamer. "I have something we must discuss, regarding the return journey to your home," he said, patting the saddlebags carelessly slung over one shoulder.

True Dreamer nodded, then turned to Fawn. "We must speak of our journey home, child. Only remain quiet until Sky Eyes returns with gifts for you as she promised."

The girl nodded, but Max could feel her gaze on his back as he walked through the door. Once out in the hall, he said, "It might be safer to talk about this in the privacy of my room."

The old man followed him down the hall and into the single room without making a comment on the peculiar sleeping arrangements Sky had made. Max opened the saddlebags and pulled out the money, saying, "This belonged to the weasel-snake. I found it beneath the bed in his room last night." He pulled out the fat bundle of greenbacks. "He has no use for it now."

"But, my son, we have no use for it either," True Dreamer replied.

"Ah, but that is where you are mistaken, my friend. This," he said, shaking the cash, "is better than lifting Deuce's scalp. Fawn will need to ride in a wagon for several days of the long journey. First, we will use it to buy that wagon and mules to pull it. Also last night at the whiskey lodge where Deuce died, I found an old man, a drover. With this money I can pay him to help me select and drive a small herd of cattle back to your people."

True Dreamer considered this for a moment, then grunted. "You are not only brave but also wise, Pale Moon Stalker. There is much hunger where our people are forced to live. The spotted buffalo will feed many hungry bellies through the next winter."

"That isn't all. I took the weasel-snake's gelding and the pony he obtained for Fawn and moved them to Watson's livery. As far as anyone is concerned, they belong to us now."

The medicine man beamed with pride. "My son, truly you are a great warrior. You have captured an enemy's horses and seized his weapon," he said, pointing at Deuce's Winchester, which Max had also taken from the room the previous night.

"And you have not only destroyed him but also now possess all of his wealth. You have counted so many coup that you would be a great chief among our people."

The approbation soothed a bit of the pain caused by Sky's angry rejection. He would find a way to win her trust. He simply had to, but for now, there were other matters to attend. "There is one question I must ask, Grandfather. I mean no insult, but those men in Tumbleweed accused you of stealing the gruella. Sir, did you, ah, count coup by taking it?"

"No, I did not, although I can see why you might think that," True Dreamer replied, choosing his words carefully. He appeared to grope for the proper explanation in English, then continued, "When I learned Fawn was taken, I needed a good horse to pursue the weasel-snake quickly. I took the one I ride from my friend the trader, Campbell. He is known among our people as Good Heart. In return I left my talisman in the stall so that he would know who took the gruella. He will trust me to return it. This I know."

Max sighed in relief. At least they wouldn't be greeted in the Nations by a federal marshal waiting to take them to Fort Smith to face the "Hanging Judge's" justice! "You are fortunate to have such a friend. When you return his horse, you will have the weasel-snake's to ride in its place, and his new rifle with which to shoot rabbits. It is only right since Sky and I could not have found him so quickly without your aid."

The old man nodded. Then some imp made him say, "Come, let us tell Fawn the good news."

There was nothing for it but to follow True Dreamer back to the girl's room. As her grandfather explained all of Pale Moon Stalker's valorous deeds to the child, she gazed at Max with rapt awe. "I will even have that pony to keep as my own. You are very generous, Stalker," she said coquettishly, again shortening his name, making it sound more familiar.

Max simply smiled at her, then said to the old man, "I have to go now, to meet the drover who'll help me buy the cattle. Do you think that you and Sky can help him herd them all the way back to the Nations?"

"They will not be as wild as a herd of half-tame Indian ponies. I have managed those many times. So has Fawn—and your wife, I think."

"Excellent," Max said, eager to get about business now that everything here was settled. He was not quite ready to face his wife yet. He feared she would veto his accompanying them on the trip, but knew once she found out about his plans for the cattle drive, she could not accomplish it without him. Still, it would be wise to allow time to cool her temper.