Whispers (14 page)

Despite my resolve, her kindness and apparent ignorance of the horror that had befallen me was my undoing. “My family—” I hitched in a breath. “My family has been killed by outlaws.”

This made Athena pull in her neck turtlelike. She looked around with big eyes as if expecting the outlaws to charge them at any moment. It wasn’t an unreasonable assumption. I wasn’t certain they wouldn’t.

“
I thought you were them.”

“
You thought we was them? What was you gon do? Kills us?” Athena asked, hands on her hips and scorn on her face.

I raised my chin. “Yes.”

That caused looks to pass from one woman to another.

The redhead said, “Sure and now you can see we’re no such thing as outlaws. Why don’t you put your gun down, lass? Won’t be no need of it.”

I followed her glance to the rifle still clutched in my hands. I’d forgotten about it.

“‘
Less they followed her,” Athena said.

They each of them glanced out at the scrub and brush. “They couldna made it past the Captain,” the redhead said.

This seemed to be enough reassurance for them all. I did not have such faith in this captain, whoever he was. One man would not stand against the Smith Brothers.

The golden girl approached me. “That Honey,” Chick said softly. “Honey Girl, cause she’s sweet and creamy— that what Aiken say.”

Honey Girl reached for my hand and guided me closer to the fire. Chick followed, chattering to my back. “They call me Chick, on account I’m small and soft. I told you that Athena. She take care of us.” The big woman glared at me so there’d be no misunderstanding that
I
was not one of
us.
“And this Meaira. She from Ireland.”

The last said with a soft awe. I felt it too. I knew that my daddy thought immigrants were a sea of trouble that flowed steadily on our shores. My family could trace its heritage back to England. Our ancestors had come over a hundred years before, which, according to my father, no longer made us immigrants. “We’re settlers,” Daddy was fond of saying. The distinction was not quite clear to me, but I was sharp enough to understand that somehow the distinction existed. I imagined for Chick anything beyond the ocean was a wonder.

The woman called Honey Girl had a dark sadness in her eyes, but she smiled at me and gestured that I sit on one of the crates by the fire. The look spoke of deep loss. Would I have that same look in my eyes should I stare in a mirror?

I sat hesitantly while Chick bustled over to the spider frying pan that sat in the fire. She picked up a long-handled fork to turn the bacon and Athena snatched it out of her hand. I noticed she walked with a pronounced limp.

“
Don’t mess wit my skillet.”

“
No, Athena, I surely won’t do that.”

Chick gave her a guileless smile that softened Athena’s expression. She gently touched Chick’s cheek. “Go on and sit yourself down.”

Chick scurried over to sit beside me. Meaira came with a bowl and a rag. She began dabbing at my face. When I didn’t wince, she asked. “Is this your blood?”

“
Some.” I didn’t tell them it belonged to my mother. I couldn’t put my thoughts around the words. Did not want to conjure the memory. But there it was anyway, hovering just at the edge of my mind. I felt hot tears filling my eyes again, and I clenched my teeth hard to fight them back. I was a coward, not a crybaby. But they wouldn’t heel. They spilled over and streamed down my face. One plopped onto my hand and mingled with the dried blood there. I must look a sight. The thought made the tears come faster. Meaira put her arms around me from one side and Chick from the other and the two strange women held me while I cried.

***

LATER they fed me and I ate under Athena’s fierce eyes. Why she disliked me so, I didn’t know. But she watched the horizon fearfully—I assumed for the murderers to swoop down on us. I watched for them as well. I spent a restless night with the women, tossing and turning, starting to wakefulness in the grips of nightmares. Chick was there beside me, her luminous eyes full of compassion. On my other side lay Honey, who set her cool hands on my face and murmured comforting words in her sweet tone. Somehow I made it through the night.

Dawn found us back around the fire drinking Athena’s coffee. I offered to help with breakfast and she gave me a withering stare. I didn’t know if she resented the implication that she might need help, or if it was just me she took exception to. I thought it was probably me, but I still didn’t know why. She made breakfast from last night’s meal and then the camp became a hive of activity. I felt useless in the midst of it and tried to help. Chick kept a steady conversation, telling me that soon Aiken and the Captain would be here.

“
Who are they?”

This question stilled all the women. They stared at me, then from one to another, none of them answering.

“
A businessman, the Captain is,” Meaira began, hesitantly. “You understand?”

I nodded, though I didn’t think I did. “My father was a businessman. He was a banker.”

This produced another round of stares. “That not the kind Captain is,” Chick said. “He work the tables. You know. Cards. He won hisself a saloon.”

I raised my brows at this. My father had been a player of cards, although my mother had disapproved. Perhaps if he’d ever won she’d have considered it a business venture, too, but unfortunately he had not been very skilled. He understood the rules of gambling, but not the concept of the game. He’d taught me when I was only eight and by the time I was ten I could beat him every time. He’d often joked that he wished he could smuggle me in with him. Many a night my entire family had settled around a table with a deck of cards and my daddy’s hope that practice would make perfect. For me it had, but for Daddy ... I bit my lip, knowing he would never learn to win now.

“
And Aiken,” I asked. “Who is he?”

“
He the devil,” Athena said, turning her back on me and the conversation.

“
The devil,” Meaira scoffed. “What will she think? No lass, not the devil. A man of business, he is.”

Athena snorted and jabbed a finger at me. “Well, he ain’t gon’ be happy to see her.”

The devil and a gambler who thought themselves businessmen. I still didn’t know where the women fit in, but Athena’s words inspired them all to move faster in their efforts to be packed up and ready.

It was close to nine in the morning when Honey stood up and shielded her eyes from the bright sun. The camp was tidy, and the women waited in a circle around the dying fire.

“
Captain’s coming,” she said.

“
Is Aiken with him?” Meaira asked, looking very hopeful about the prospect of the devil’s arrival.

“
Just the Captain,” Honey said. Meaira’s disappointment had a pale and shaken air to it. I wondered at her relationship with Aiken.

I looked but saw nothing of either man. Honey must have excellent eyes or a sixth sense where the Captain was concerned. After a few minutes of staring, I made out a spec on the horizon. Possibly a man on a horse, but how could they be certain it was the man they called Captain?

The declaration of his imminent arrival had a galvanizing effect on the other women, however. Apparently, they didn’t need to see him to believe it. They all began to move about with feigned casualness, as if they’d risen on a whim to dust off their skirts or straighten the already neatly stacked crates by the wagon. But the tension hung thick in the camp. Athena clicked her tongue and looked around like a soldier at her troop.

Honey disappeared into the back of the wagon. When she came out, she’d touched up her makeup and changed into a dress that looked very fine for camping. Meaira slouched on a crate dejectedly. I noted the dark circles under her eyes and a grayish cast to her skin. She did not look well in the least.

Chick fussed with her hair and adjusted her dress over her underdeveloped breasts. Even Athena, though unconcerned with her appearance, busied herself around the fire. She retrieved her skillet from a crate and started cooking. By the time the Captain came into sight, the bacon was popping and Athena began cracking eggs in beside it.

He was a big man riding an enormous horse. The mount was a mottled blend of grays and white with brown mixed in at intervals as if by mistake. My brother would have known the name of it. He would have run out to meet the rider, hopping alongside as he admired the horse. I swallowed thickly.

The Captain’s saddle was worn, dark leather. A workingman’s saddle, not a fancy tooled thing as my daddy’s boss at the bank had. The Captain wore boots and dark pants with a gold strip down each leg. They were faded pale and the cording sapped of color until it looked more lemon than golden. His work shirt was grayed and buttoned casually up over a broad chest. He wore no jacket. The hat on his head was low, keeping his face in shadow.

On the saddle behind him hung a string of rabbits. He untied them and dropped them by the fire.

Athena picked them up and said sweetly, “Thanky, Captain.”

He gave a half nod and backed up his horse. As he began to turn, the angle shifted and the shadows cleared from his face. For the first time, I saw him full on. He had eyes the color of the Mississippi River—all muddied browns and swirling greens. Dark, yet glimmering with light and current. I recognized him, of course. He was one of Lonnie and Jake Smith’s riders.

I’d seen him once in town, before the trial. I’d been coming out of the dry goods store as he went in. We bumped into each other and for a moment he held my arms between his big hands. I remember looking into those eyes, seeing the ebb and flow of the powerful tide of emotion and hot-blooded man thoughts that swept across his face. I’d felt the sensation of his look as it skimmed over me and lingered on my breasts. I’d never seen a man like him before. He was hard and weathered, his face tanned. He smelled of a fresh bath and his cheeks were smoothly shaven but for the blond-gold mustache that curled over his lip.

He had held me longer than was necessary, and I didn’t protest, as I should have. My hands were pressed against the hard warmth of his chest and his heart beat steady beneath my palm. My imagination took flight with thoughts of him pulling me tight against the solid breadth of him. Bending me back over his arms as he kissed me. I didn’t really know what he might do next. I had an idea of what went on between barnyard animals, but no clue how that really applied to humans.

He’d smiled at me then and the look had a hint of devil-may-care. It took my breath away while at the same time making me smile back. His attention focused on my mouth, and it seemed he was as fascinated by me as I was of him. He’d even leaned forward, ever so slightly.

That was when my mother noticed us. She’d already walked out of the door, pushing Grandma’s chair and chattering about the new fabric she’d purchased. She hadn’t realized I wasn’t at her side.

“
Sir, kindly release my daughter,” she snapped.

He’d dropped his hands instantly, tipped his hat at us both and stepped aside. I allowed my hands to trail his chest as I lowered them. He recognized the gesture for what it was. Even though I’d never been so bold with a man before, I wanted him to know that I liked his touch. I succeeded.

My mother angrily grabbed my arm and marched me home where my father told me who he was. Sawyer McCready. A Smith rider.

He narrowed his eyes at me now, noticing for the first time that I sat near the fire. I held my breath, wondering if he recognized me. He didn’t say a word, just cut his eyes from one woman to another as he sat astride that huge horse.

“
Captain,” Honey said, moving up to his side and setting her hand on his thigh. She had long, slender fingers, slightly darkened at the knuckles, but smooth as the rest of her. “This young woman found her way to our camp last night. Her family has been murdered.”

Those eyes snapped to me again and I felt them drilling into me. I inched my hand down to my pocket and eased it in. My father’s knife lay heavy and warm against my legs. It wasn’t the shotgun—they’d taken that from me last night— but it would do. My fingers closed on the smooth metal, and I slowly pulled it out, keeping it hidden in the folds of my skirts. He was still watching me and I knew I would have to act fast before he figured out why I looked familiar.

Hands behind my back, I pulled the knife from its leather sheath and I charged. I’d moved so quickly and unpredictably that everyone was frozen into stillness. No one thought to stop me. It didn’t occur to me that they might. I was focused only on one thing—this man had helped slaughter my family. One way or another I would be dead soon, either by starvation or murder, but I would be a coward no more.

I didn’t hesitate as I took a running leap off a crate and hit him square on as he sat horseback. I knocked him off balance and ruined any angle I had at bringing my knife down in a fatal blow. We fell off to the other side and my blade glanced his arm. He cursed and rolled with me, the weight of him far too much for me to fight. That didn’t mean I wasn’t going to try. I kicked and bit and swung wildly with my knife until he got me pinned on my back, both hands captured by one of his. I had the satisfaction of knowing he was breathing heavy as he looked down at me. I stared defiantly back and saw the dawning of recognition.

“
Ella,” he said.