In Love's Territory

  ~ ~ ~

  He didn’t tell her.

  Sam worked up a head of steam on the ride home, talking himself into confessing to Kate how crazy he was about her. He even imagined her reaction—first, of course, she’d be stunned. He’d been as careful as he could to not let his feelings show—well, kissing her as he’d ridden out of town with her on his lap might have given her a clue, but this would probably still be a big shock. Maybe she’d even be offended at how he’d had the nerve to speak to her about it. Him, a simple man whose big moment in life so far had been winning first prize at the county fair. And her, well, she was Katie. High class, and engaged to boot.

  But he would keep going through the shock, explaining how he’d felt when he first laid eyes on her, and how every day since had just been adding to that. He’d tell her how he sat on the stump outside his door every night, just watching the light in her window because it somehow made him feel closer to her. He’d explain how he changed his entire plan once he realized how strongly he felt about her. Hell, his whole life had changed the day he met her. There was nothing he could do; he just loved her. And he was sure that when he’d finished saying all this, she would tell him that she loved him too.

  By the time Racer had brought him up to the house, he had practiced everything in his mind and he was ready to go. He went up the steps in a single leap; it felt like he had a shirtful of bees all buzzing away, filling him with energy, and he had to fight himself to keep from bursting in the front door unannounced. Instead, he knocked and stood there waiting, shifting his weight from foot to foot while waiting for somebody to answer the door.

  After a moment he saw Becky through the glass, coming to let him in.

  “Is Kate busy?” he asked, stepping into the foyer.

  “Busy? No, I guess not,” she said. “She’s in the dining room.”

  “Is she alone?”

  Becky gave him an odd look. “Yeah, she’s alone,” she said. “Why?”

  Sam flashed her a huge grin as he went down the hall. “You’ll find out in a little while,” he said. “Would you mind hanging back for a bit so I can talk to her?”

  “What’s going on? Is everything all right?”

  “You know, I think everything’s going to be just fine,” he said, taking Becky by the elbow and walking her into the parlor. “Just give me a few minutes.”

  When he entered the dining room, Kate was seated with her back to him, reading a letter. A vase of freshly cut flowers was in the center of the table, bringing a splash of color to the room. He closed the door to the hall, catching her attention.

  “Sam, I haven’t seen you all day,” she said. “Look at these flowers. Aren’t they beautiful?”

  “They’re pretty,” he said. Not close to as pretty as you are, but not bad for flowers. “Did you pick them?”

  “No. Would you believe Edward had somebody ride all the way out here just to bring them to me?”

  “What?”

  “I know, it surprised me too,” she said. “But earlier this afternoon a delivery boy came out with the flowers and a letter from Edward,” she said, raising the paper in her hand. “He said that he felt bad about what happened last night.” Kate stood and turned to face Sam. “I suppose you heard us arguing out on the porch,” she said, her cheeks reddening until they matched one of the tulips in the vase.

  “Well, I, uh…yeah, we could hear a little bit of that,” Sam said. “Actually, that’s one of the reasons I wanted to come talk to you.” He eyed the flowers. They looked expensive, probably from the shop that Al Roberts had opened last year. Not quite like the wildflowers Sam had picked, that was for sure. “Kate, ever since you and your family arrived here, things have been…different for me,” he began.

  “Sam, I know why you’re here,” she said.

  “You do?”

  “Yes, I do,” she said, folding the letter and putting it back into the envelope. “And I want you to know that you have nothing to worry about.” She reached for his hand; her skin was warm and soft against his.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your job here is safe,” she said. “No matter what you might have heard.”

  “My job is safe?”

  “Absolutely,” she said. “One hundred percent. Edward was just blowing off steam, but regardless, he’s not in charge around here. He’s just my fiancé, not the boss.”

  Sam let out a long sigh, as if he’d been holding his breath forever without noticing it. “Well, that’s good news, I guess.”

  “I figured you’d be happy to hear that,” she said. “Was there anything else you wanted?”

  He glanced from the flowers to the envelope with its careful handwriting to Kate’s beautifully bright smile. “No, I guess that was about it,” he said. He looked down and realized that he was still holding her hand. “I’ll see you later,” he said, and he let her hand fall away as he turned to go, closing the door to the dining room behind him.

  As he walked toward the front door, Becky popped her head out of the parlor.

  “Are you finished? What’s going on?”

  “Nothing,” he said, reaching for the doorknob.

  “Come on, you said you’d tell me,” Becky said, following him out onto the porch. She closed the door and leaned close. “Is something going on between you and Miss Taylor?”

  “Nothing’s going on, now leave me alone, goddammit!” As soon as the words had flown out of his throat, Sam was sorry for it; Becky blinked in shock as if he had just slapped her. His chin dropped down to his chest and he took a deep breath. “I didn’t mean to snap at you, Becky,” he said, reaching out to squeeze her shoulder. “I’m sorry. Look, I’ll tell you all about it later on.”

  “Don’t bother,” she said, pulling away from him as she turned to reenter the house, leaving him alone on the porch.

  A snort from Racer drew his attention, and if Sam hadn’t known better he’d have sworn that the horse was looking at him accusingly. “That’s enough out of you,” Sam muttered as he went down the steps. “You think I don’t know I stepped in it?”

  He made himself scarce for the rest of the day, busying himself with work in the farthest reaches of the fields, redoing tasks that he’d already assigned to the farm hands, doing anything he could to keep the house out of his sight and vice versa. As the light began to fade and the blue sky started to turn violet, he found himself repairing a section of fence that didn’t need it; it was only when it got too dark to see that he made his way back to his cabin.

  Sleep, when it arrived, was late and hard-fought; Sam’s body was exhausted but his mind refused to quietly sink into slumber.

  Not a great day. Let’s see…I had a chance to tell Kate how I felt, and now she thinks I’m just concerned about my job. Nope, not great. One of the tribes up north had a saying: a man must make his own arrows. Sam rolled the thought around in his head. If he kept waiting around for the right time, kept putting things off and just hoping the perfect opportunity would fall into his lap, he’d be too late. How long are you going to wait? You going to wait until she has a ring on her finger? Until she has kids with him? You going to tell her then?

  I’ve got to make my own arrows. There’s still time yet, he told himself, rolling over and closing his eyes. Unless there isn’t, the dark voice responded.

  Like so often happened, things seemed a little better in the morning. The sun was just rising when he woke up and rolled out of bed; he made himself some coffee and fry bread and moved out to the stump to sit and watch birds cross the red sky as he ate.

  The house seemed entirely quiet, still sheltered in the shade from the tree line that ran behind, while the rays of the rising sun played off the dewy grass on the hill, making it look like the slope had been covered with a million diamonds overnight. Forget what happened yesterday. It doesn’t matter now. Every day is another chance for something good to happen, or to do something good, his mother had once told him. Don’t forget that.

  After he finish
ed breakfast, he quickly made another fry bread and ran it down to the house, going around back to the kitchen door. Mary was up too, already baking, and he accidentally startled her when he knocked on the glass. She jumped and almost let the flour tin fall from her hands as she whipped around to see who it was.

  “Sam, you scared the tar out of me,” she said as he stepped inside. “What are you doing down here so early?”

  He held out the bread, which he had wrapped in a cloth to keep it warm. “Can you give this to Becky? She always liked it, so I thought I’d make her one this morning.”

  “Is this your fry bread?” Mary held the bundle up to her nose and breathed deeply. “This smells terrific,” she said, then looked at him and narrowed her eyes. “You do something you shouldn’t have?”

  “Nothing I’m too proud of,” he said. “Just tell her I know I acted like a jackass and I’m sorry. And have her sprinkle a little cinnamon and sugar on it; she’ll love it.”

  “If there’s any left by the time she gets up, I’ll let her know,” Mary said, grinning at him as he stepped back outside.

  Sam snorted a laugh and headed for the barn. By the time he’d brought the cows out to pasture and taken his usual early ride around the farm’s perimeter, the red sky of the early morning had turned the usual brilliant blue of a Wisconsin summer day.

  He took a deep breath, letting the clean air fill his lungs as he watched the breeze ruffle the tips of the cornstalks; the entire emerald field seemed to rise and fall like a wave on the ocean. Birds were chirping in the trees behind him, the sunlight was warm on his back, and Sam felt like he had been renewed. He was full of an energy that demanded that he do something.

  He glanced down the hill toward the farm house. It was still a bit too early to talk to Kate—if she were even up, she’d only be having breakfast now, and interrupting her like that probably wouldn’t be the best way to start.

  There were a few things he needed from town, however. After thinking about it for a moment, Sam rode down to the carriage house and harnessed Racer to the runabout. He stopped back at the cabin only to grab a hat, but paused for a moment on his way out the door and then went back for his gunstock club. The last time he’d spoken to the neighbors, John Tilton had told him about seeing a wolf walking alongside the road in broad daylight, though it had leaped into the brush before Tilton was able to load his rifle. I wouldn’t mind company for the ride, but a rabid wolf might be a bit much, he thought as he hung the club from his belt, made his way down to the carriage house and set out for town.

  As Sam pulled the runabout into a spot in front of the general store, he seemed to rouse a pair of miners who were sprawled out on the raised sidewalk, leaning back against the wall. One of them raised his head enough to get a good look at Sam, studying him closely, and his grey eyes widened when he saw the club hanging from Sam’s belt. He elbowed his friend and leaned over to whisper to him as Sam passed; once inside, Sam glanced out the window and watched as the second digger got to his feet and hurried away.

  Sam put it out of his mind as he browsed around. There were plenty of people around who made it clear that they weren’t fond of Indians, but Sam tried to pay them no mind. You’d never be able to please everybody, and it wasn’t something he tried to do anyway. The Lakota were here first; if the diggers didn’t like it, they could leave.

  Sam quickly found everything he’d wanted—some undershirts, shaving soap, flour and sugar—and even let John Gray talk him into trying a half-pound of coffee beans supposedly from some unpronounceable place in distant Mexico. When he’d paid and stepped outside, he saw that the two diggers had been joined by two others; the four men were now set up across the street, watching the mercantile as they leaned against the railing like turkey vultures on a tree limb. The tallest of them—the boss, evidently, from the way he’d sent the first one running—wore a dirty red handkerchief tied around his neck that was the only splash of color to be seen among them.

  Sam stowed his things in a sack under the seat and set out for the farm, ignoring the stares of the miners. It had been a rough night but was turning into a beautiful day, and he wasn’t about to waste any time worrying about fools like that. Today’s the day, he thought, and he felt a surge of energy fill his chest. He had thought about it all during the ride into town, and he’d finally decided that the best thing to do was invite Kate out for a walk to the creek. Seems like she really likes that place. There, in the shade of the aspen, with a warm breeze flowing by and the gurgle of the stream alongside, he’d sit her down on the rock and finally tell her how he felt about her. The mere thought of doing it made him swallow hard; like one of those daredevil acts in a traveling circus, it was both thrilling and scary at the same time.

  He was headed up the long road that rose out of town when he heard the sound of horses galloping behind him; Sam turned to see four men racing toward him. As they approached, Sam recognized the dirty red handkerchief around the neck of the lead rider, and for a split-second they looked at each other, the digger’s grey eyes aimed at Sam like lead shot. The horses split and passed the runabout on both sides, spooking Racer as they went and raising a cloud of dust as they continued quickly up the hill.

  “Hold on there, boy,” Sam muttered, reaching out to pat Racer as he watched the riders climb the hill. “I’m not sure these guys know what they’re doing.” It was clear that none of the men were very experienced riders; they were bouncing around like beans in a can, barely holding on as the horses climbed. Those boys are going to kill themselves if they keep going like that, he thought. Every once in a while a digger would decide to borrow somebody’s horse—usually after an extended visit to the saloon—and end up breaking his neck in a fall. Spending twelve hours underground every day just wasn’t the best preparation for skillful horsemanship.

  The riders topped the hill and disappeared down the other side as Sam snapped the reins lightly and Racer began to move. They had lost momentum when Racer stopped, but the carriage was nearly empty, and they reached the top of the hill in only a few minutes. There, laid out before them, was the scene that Sam had suspected was going to happen. All of the horses now stopped perhaps a hundred yards ahead. Three of the riders were standing at the side of the road and staring down at the fourth rider, who was lying motionless at their feet.

  The boss caught sight of Sam’s carriage and took off his hat, waving it in the air as if there were a chance that Sam hadn’t seen them. “We need help here,” he shouted. “We got a man hurt!”

  Sam snapped the reins and put Racer into a trot, quickly rolling up to where the men stood.

  “Looks like he hit his head when he fell off,” the miner said. “We need your help.”

  Sam stared down at the miner on the ground. He was the heaviest of the four, and Sam briefly wondered how he was even able to work in the mines. “I don’t know any more than you, most likely,” Sam said.

  “Please, just come and take a look at him,” the digger said. His eyes bored into Sam’s. “He’s got a wife and three kids.”

  Sam hopped down from the carriage. “One of you should go back for the doctor,” he said. “If you hurry, you can be back here in fifteen minutes.” He knelt alongside the man’s body and gently rolled him onto his back; Sam could see the man’s chest rise and fall. “Well, he’s still breathing,” he said quietly. “That’s some good news right there.”

  The miner’s eyes fluttered open and he let out a soft groan as one hand gently rose up to grab Sam’s shirt collar. The other diggers moved in closer and Sam could hear the breath of the boss just behind him.

  The injured man’s grip tightened on Sam’s shirt, and his eyes fully opened. “Get him,” he said, and Sam realized too late that the man’s other fist was whipping up toward his face. The punch landed square on Sam’s cheek, knocking him backwards into the dirt as his shirt ripped free of the man’s grasp. Before he could get to his feet on his own, the three other men had grabbed him and roughly pulled him up.

/>   “What the hell are you doing?” Sam said, wrestling with them. He slipped one arm free and shot his hand out flat against the fat miner’s face, pushing hard and sending him tripping back onto his behind in the dirt.

  The others grabbed his arms as the boss stepped forward. “You know what to do,” he said, then turned and walked toward Sam’s carriage.

  The fat miner clumsily got to his feet and stepped directly behind Sam, hooking his arms around Sam’s elbows and pinning him tight against his chest. “Boy, you shouldn’t have done that,” he said, the smell of whiskey thick on his breath.

  “You all are making some kind of mistake,” Sam growled. “Either you let me go now or you’re going to have hell to pay, I promise you.”

  The shorter miner stepped up and slapped him hard across the face; the sharp crack of his hand on Sam’s cheek was followed by a burst of laughter from the taller one.

  “That’s how you’re going to hit him?” he said, pushing the short one out of the way. “You a woman or what?” Almost before he’d finished speaking, he had punched Sam twice in the gut, doubling him over and stealing his breath away. The digger grabbed Sam by the hair and pulled his head back up. “You see, this is how you do it.”

  He let go of Sam’s hair and threw a quick jab that connected just to the side of Sam’s nose, then another uppercut that landed squarely in the middle of his chest.

  “See that? You gotta punch like a man,” the miner said, turning back to the short one.

  It felt like Sam was drowning, and he had to fight for the smallest breath. He could taste blood on his lips. Sam glanced down and saw that miner behind him was standing with his feet spread wide, no doubt trying to make himself as steady as possible. Perfect. Sam shot his foot up and back as fast as he could, catching the digger right between the legs with the sharp heel of his boot.

  The squeaky, whiskey-scented groan that the digger let out almost made Sam feel sorry for him. Almost. The man’s grip loosened and he slowly fell to his knees, grasping himself and turning to his side in the dirt. He looked like he was about to vomit.

  Sam turned to find the others rushing back to him; the tall miner arrived just in time to catch Sam’s elbow in the eye, which sent him spinning to the ground; the little one shoved him and Sam stumbled backwards, tripping over the one he had just kicked.

  He scrambled to his feet as he heard Racer snort close behind him. My club. Sam turned and sprinted to the runabout.

  The seat was empty.

  “You looking for this?”

  The boss came around from the back of the carriage with Sam’s club in his hand. He held it at arm’s length and looked it up and down like it was some unknown artifact. “Yeah, I heard you were pretty good with this thing.” He swung it in the air, testing its balance as he walked over toward Sam. “Now let’s see how good I am.”

  His swing was too high, though it would have taken Sam’s head off if he’d connected. Sam ducked under the club as it shot past his head and then leaped up, his body twisting like an uncoiled spring as he swung for the digger’s jaw. There was a snapping sound as the miner stumbled backwards toward the others.

  “You son of a bitch,” he growled. He raised a hand and dug around in his mouth, then pulled out a tooth and stared at it as a torrent of bloody spit poured onto the ground. “I’d say you were going to pay for that, if we weren’t going to beat you to death already.”

  The threat sounded almost funny. There he was, blood dribbling down his chin while one of his companions tended to a hurt eye and another was still on the ground suffering from dislocated family jewels. Only the short one had escaped unscathed so far. Still, it was no joke. The boss leaped forward again, swinging the club as if it were an ax and Sam were the tree.

  Sam tried to leap backwards, but the miner’s aim had improved, and he caught Sam in the ribcage. The pain was sudden and sharp, unlike anything he had felt before, and he stumbled backwards again, crashing into the side of the runabout. He threw one hand up to the carriage to help steady himself. It even hurt to breathe. Sam threw a glance up and down the road, but there was nobody else in sight. He was on his own.

  The other diggers had been hanging back, but now that they saw Sam was hurt, they surged forward like scavengers getting ready to feast on an injured animal. Sam could see their eyes flare, almost lusting after violence as they circled around.

  The boss raised the club high overhead and brought it flying down; Sam hurled himself to the side as the club made splinters of the carriage side rail. With a squeak, the boss freed the club from the wood and whipped it toward Sam again.

  He was too fast for Sam this time. The club twisted in his grasp as he swung, turning the edge away, but the flat side slammed into Sam’s temple. He crumpled to the ground. Everything had gone blurry and he could feel something warm running down his cheek. Sam clumsily swiped a hand across his face and pulled back a palm full of blood.

  “Boy, you got him good!” the short miner yelled. As Sam struggled to get to his knees, the digger jumped in front of him and gave him a boot in the stomach, sending Sam flat onto his back in the dirt.

  The boss held the club high and studied it. “Not bad for a redskin toy,” he said, tossing it down, where it landed on Sam’s chest.

  “Just take what you want and go,” Sam croaked. He tried to get back to his feet but a sheet of pain covered him. He’d never had a broken rib before, but he was pretty sure he did now, and even if he were to make it to his feet, he was pretty sure he wouldn’t stay upright. He felt his insides churning and fought to keep from throwing up.

  “You got nothing we want,” the fat one said, limping forward and still clutching himself between the legs. “We’re just here to teach you a lesson. This is what happens when you go after the wrong woman.” He swung his arms as he gave Sam another kick in the side, like a chubby toddler kicking a dog. The pain streaked through Sam and took his breath away.

  “Carter sent you?” Sam said. He could taste blood in his mouth now. “Doesn’t that son of a bitch do anything himself?”

  The boss approached again. He towered over Sam, blocking out the sun. “That’s nothing you need to worry about. Matter of fact, you don’t need to worry about anything ever again.”

  “Go to hell.”

  The boss snorted, and one side of his mouth drew back. “You’re the one who’s going to hell. It’s a sin to covet another man’s wife,” he said. “Don’t you know the Bible?” The digger raised his foot high, and Sam had time to notice a hole in the worn sole, about the size of a penny, before the boot came rushing down to him. Then, as if a great blackness had opened up beneath him, Sam felt himself slipping away into the dark.