He drew near the bed and reached out his hand to touch his father, but drew it back as if burned, for he'd seen his mother's waxen face beneath his father's shoulder. Halle McAllister was dead.
Hart had seen death on the farm; in real life, there was no mistaking it. The life force that had animated his mother's body was gone and her bloodless lips and eyes were bluish white with death's unnatural pallor. Could it be that his father didn't know?
Hart stood for a moment, staring unbelievingly. Nausea and vertigo gripped him, so it took all his remaining strength to stay on his feet. Tears spilled down his cheeks; he didn't even try to wipe them away. Tentatively, he reached for his father's shoulder and the man raised a ravaged face to his son's. Charles McAllister tried to speak but a gurgling, choking sound came from his throat instead. A horrible bone-shaking fit of coughing ensued; exhausted by it, he fell back onto the bed into the oblivion of illness.
A terrible knowingness filled Hart's mind; he gulped back tears and pulled the bottle from its place with trembling hands. He took a spoon from the dry sink and forced the liquid between his father's slackened lips. Even as he did so, he felt it was too late, for the gray of the man's skin was very like the color that had frightened him in his mother's face before he'd left—it was the color that had made him want to kiss her good-bye.
He covered both his parents with a blanket; his father's body was hot with fever, his mother's cold in death. He wondered for an anguished moment what in the world to do about his mother's body, it surely couldn't remain where it was... Hart was lightheaded from fatigue and couldn't think clearly.
Fiercely, he brushed away the tears that blurred the awful scene; he must force himself to do something, anything! He must not stand there seeing what he saw, knowing what he knew.
He made his way back to his brother's side and spooned the quinine between Chance's clenched teeth; then he dosed himself as well with the bitter alum. Mama's gone. Mama's gone! The impossible, desperate thought kept trying to hammer its way past the curtain of oblivion that protected him. He wanted to go to his father for help; his strong, all-knowing father who had always stood between him and danger. But he could not force himself to look again into his mother's face.
Fatigue washed over Hart with a numbing finality that he almost welcomed. He sank to the floor against the door frame between the two rooms that held the three who were his world, and putting his throbbing head between his hands, the thirteen-year-old boy sobbed and sobbed until he slept.
Hart smoothed the damp cloth onto his brother's forehead for the hundredth time, and tried to stand up straight. The fever had broken in the night; Chance no longer fought for every breath, but lay in an exhausted trance, more peaceful than he'd seemed in the seven days since this nightmare had begun. Some ancient knowledge told Hart his brother had passed the crisis now—just as it told him his father had not.
More weary than he'd thought a man could be and live, Hart dropped the cloth into the bucket of well water and moved to the bed where his father lay. Charles McAllister no longer looked indestructible; a deadly gray pallor had drained all life from his face and his eyes were sunken into deep slate-tinged hollows.
Hart knelt by his bedside, reached into the bucket automatically, and laid the wet rag gently on his father's sweat-soaked brow. The man stirred and coughed violently, yet even the force of the cough had ebbed, as if the dying man had no strength left to fight the racking spasm.
The man's dozing was unlike Chance's; it was a stupor now. Without wanting to, Hart looked at the angry bruises on his father's arms where he had gripped him during the worst of his delirium. Tears sprang to the boy's eyes at the horrid remembrance of his father fighting to keep his wife with him when Hart had tried to take Halle's body away for burial.
Hart wasn't sure at all that he could have overpowered Charles McAllister, except that a coughing fit had weakened him at the final moment. His father was bigger than Hart, and had the strength of years and wisdom; to fight the man on any level had taken every ounce of courage the boy possessed.
There would be no more battles now, he thought, the sorrow a dull, insidious ache within him. Each breath rattled with a sound that strangled his heart. Almost at the same moment, Charles McAllister opened his eyes and struggled to raise his head from the pillow; he pointed desperately to his throat and gasped for breath like a fish on the bottom of a fisherman's boat. Hart saw that his father was choking and remembered the doctor's awful words. If you got no other choice, son, go ahead and tear the phlegm from their throats.
Somehow, Hart had known for days that this awful effort would be required of him. He grabbed the square of cloth he'd placed on the bedpost, and thrust his fingers into his father's mouth, forcing them toward the vile membrane. He felt the rubbery thickness and grappled with it, horrified by its clinging strength. His stomach clutched at the indignity of the task and he forced back rising bile. His father gasped and choked and fought his son's hands madly, but Hart triumphantly pulled the mucus free and flung it hissing into the fire... but he saw as he did so that the mass was tinged with bright red blood.
Dark, overpowering despair that he'd fought so hard to keep at bay washed through the boy. All prairie people knew the red of lung-blood, bright and frothy, almost pretty in its effervescence. Unlike that of surface wounds, it was almost always the harbinger of death.
His father lay quiet now; the ghostly rattle no longer sounded, but a terrible stillness had replaced it. Hart knew, deep within himself, that no miracle would save him now.
"Son..." The hiss was small and soft, like a whispering wind in summer leaves. Hart leaned his tear-streaked face as close to his father's lips as he could; he was far beyond the fear of contagion, and dying no longer seemed to him the worst that could befall him.
"I tried," he whispered to the dying man. "Oh, Pa, I tried so hard..."
Tears ran from his cheeks to his father's and he brushed them tenderly away.
"I'll take care of Chance," he whispered, but he was never certain if his father heard the words. "He's all that's left of us."
Hart, defeated finally, beyond all strength except that of endurance, laid his head on his father's great chest, wrapped his arms around the once stalwart form, and waited patiently for death to end his vigil.
The disconsolate boy stood beside the new-made graves, too drained by sorrow even for tears. His father and mother now both lay beneath the fresh-turned ground, beside the four babies they had buried over the years, wrapped only in fragile muslin. Ashes to ashes. Flesh to dust. Strength to nothingness...
Hart's mouth was set in the bitter knowledge of life's perfidy. He had not slept, in longer than he could recall; he had feared to sleep, the McAllister farmhouse had become a battleground now for Hart—he would not let Chance go.
His father's immense body had been nearly impossible for the boy to move alone. You were so big, Pa, so strong, he'd thought as he dragged the two-hundred-and-seventy-pound man to his final resting place. How could you die? How could something too small even to be seen have killed you? The thought had come to him then, that perhaps it wasn't the disease at all that had killed his father, but rather the knowledge of his wife's death. The two were as one life... perhaps one simply could not be without the other.
And what of us? some unreasoning desperation within the boy raged at the abandonment. I need you, Pa! I don't know what to do without you! But Hart fought the childlike weakness down with his remaining strength. He would bear this like a man, for that was what he must be now. Chance, too. If he lived.
Chapter 15
"Chance, wait!" Hart called to his brother to be patient, not an easy matter for the older boy.
All salable goods had been sold, all personal belongings rooted through to find what would be worth taking with them. There had been few buyers for the goods and none for the farm itself; the entire area had been decimated by epidemic and nearly every farmer had his own losses to contend with. Now it was time to go, and the knowledge wrenc
hed at Hart with unbearable intensity.
He fingered his mama's Bible reverently and took one last lingering look at the cabin that had held so much of love and life. The sketch he'd made of it would have to do, he thought with a sigh. Why had he never noticed before what an insignificant structure it was, so lonely against the immensity of the Kansas plain? Untenanted it stood, useless as a bird's nest once the birds have taken wing.
Resolutely, Hart tucked the drawing into the Bible and placed it in the saddlebag beneath his leg, trying to keep the tears from flooding embarrassingly down his cheeks.
"I don't like to leave them alone like this, Chance," he said as his brother reined in next to him. The two side-by-side crosses, with the little child-markers next to them, looked forlorn and inconsequential now that the cabin was bare.
How many such wooden crosses dotted the prairie from St. Joe to California? he wondered—monuments to forgotten thousands who had once been loved. His father had told him that when people died on a wagon train, the trainmaster conjured up a name for the spot where he buried them, christening the place right then and there so the folks back home could say their kin was buried in "Tombstone" or "Devil's Crossing," not just some nameless grave in the trackless wilderness. What would the world remember of where his mama and daddy rested? Somewhere between Pawnee and Grannel Springs—somewhere reclaimed by nature, where no one lived anymore.
Chance's voice had a catch in it; he cleared his throat to sound more in control. He was pale from his own ordeal, and the hand he placed on his brother's showed the tracery of bone.
"They're not here, bro," Chance said gently to Hart. "Mama and Daddy are long gone. Don't fret for them. He'll take good care of her."
Hart looked over into his brother's eyes and seeing tears there, couldn't trust himself to speak. He simply nodded, then turned his horse's head toward the open range. It was the strangest thing about Chance—he could seem so frivolous and insubstantial at times, then turn around and say something real important. Hart watched his brother's figure pull ahead of him, mounted on their father's great black horse.
He had been momentarily miffed that Chance had never questioned his right to the animal, never asked if his brother would mind being left with the dun. But Hart had been ashamed of the pettiness of the thought and said a hasty prayer; it wouldn't do to let God think he was ungrateful that Chance had been spared. And, too, he had taken his father's timepiece for his own legacy.
Hart looked back over his shoulder one last time as the horse's motion pulled him toward the future. "I love you, Pa," he murmured in farewell. "I love you, Mama. I'll never forget you..."
He was a man now. There was nothing left that he could do for them but be a man they could be proud of.
They first headed northward into Nebraska Territory, but it was flat as Kansas and they had a mind to see the mountains, so they followed the Platte into Colorado. They had no clear notion of where they would go or what they would find there, but once the worst of their sorrow had passed, they began to feel the excitement of having no one to answer to but the small voice of conscience. There was no dearth of game or forage and they provided each other all the company needed.
Chance and Hart, bred to miles of golden-brown infinity, saw countryside so mighty, it took their breath away. Rivers emerging from mountain snows, trout streams rampaging out of narrow gorges, cottonwood flats so wide and bright, they made the plains look mystical and rich as a king's ransom.
The beauty of this new world, so far beyond the borders of their childhood, made Chance feel powerful and free. His spirit had never been easily contained; all his life he had sensed an immensity out there, just waiting for him to reach for it. He felt enlarged and immortal.
Hart was roused to a different expansion. This was the West his father had made him long for with his tales—the unspoiled, unfettered territory where a man could be anything he had the strength to be. He would sometimes lie full length on the grass and stare at the immense perfection of the sky and dream of following the Indians to their hunting grounds and chronicling their world before it disappeared forever. Although the pain of what had been lost and what he had suffered alone was still unhealed, he felt the strength inside himself that is called forth by hardships borne in a manly way. Hart felt a special kinship with his brother, too, for he had seen close up how fragile even the strong are when Death lays his hand on their shoulders. Sometimes he would watch Chance surreptitiously and allow himself a sense of pride that his brother lived because he had cared for him through the worst of times.
Hart wanted to be an artist one day; Chance wanted to be rich. But one day seemed a long way off, so for the first few months on their own they simply meandered, getting odd jobs, shooting game for food, enjoying their freedom like forbidden taffy.
Hart sketched everything he laid eyes on; he had a special knack for drawing animals, an ability to capture their wildness in a frozen moment. The screech of the mountain lion still in its throat, the onrush of a wolf in flight, the upward thrust of a bird scared rustling out of its thicket—these were the skills Hart worked on without ever knowing it was work.
Spring had leapt into being in the mountains with a verdancy that the prairie-bred boys found magical. Stately aspens with their silver-green leaves stood up like sentinels in elegant coveys, meadows rife with mariposa and nodding onion spilled color after color into their path. They could not have been more content had they stumbled into Eden, but like Eden, paradise was not as perfect as it seemed.
One night they camped halfway up a mountainside in a friendly-looking hollow. Chance lay dozing near the fire, one hand thrown up over his face to shield the light—Hart's head rested on his saddle, a blanket tucked up under his chin to thwart the dampness.
The click of the Colt's hammer being cocked near his ear jolted
Chance into wakefulness; he called his brother's name softly but sharply as he struggled to his feet.
Hart's eyes opened slowly and he looked up into meanness; a man with a black beard on a skeletal face stared down at him from behind a Smith & Wesson revolver. A zigzag white scar pulled the man's right eyebrow askew and there was nothing in his atavistic expression to suggest goodness or mercy.
"You got a poke, boy?" he growled.
Hart looked to his brother for guidance.
"Don't tell him, Hart!" the older boy snapped. "Let him work for it."
A boot snaked out and kicked Chance's legs out from under him. The boy buckled with pain and surprise.
The ugly bearded face looked amused by the interchange and another man, younger and leering, laughed aloud as he ransacked their belongings. Triumphantly he held up the gold pocket watch that had been Charles McAllister's wedding gift from his wife.
"Bastard!" Chance yelled at the robber. "You're not fit to touch my daddy's timepiece."
Without thinking of anything but the possible desecration of his father's watch, Hart lunged out of the grip of the man who held him. A gunshot ripped the ground beside his feet, spitting rocks and dirt, and Hart skidded to a halt before he could attempt a rescue.
"Son of a bitch!" spat the bearded leader with a laugh. "Ain't we got us two feisty pups by the tail. What say we have a little fun with 'em and see how much starch they really got? Get the goddamned rope, Shep."
The youngest robber giggled as he did so, and both boys knew from the foolishness of his slack-mouthed expression that he was feebleminded.
"Shit! Ned," said the third man, "we ain't had a good neck-stretchin' party in a hog's age. That's a damn good idea."
"You don't scare us!" Chance shouted back at them. Hart wished his brother wouldn't sass these men; it was easy to see they fed on violence, and all the firepower was on their side.
"Let's make this hangin' a mite more interestin' for these boys who don't scare so easy," Ned replied amiably. "Stand the cocky one on the redheaded kid's shoulders."
Hart's stomach lurched violently; it wasn't human for any man to do that to an
other.
The two robbers looked at their sadistic leader with admiration. "Jesus, Ned, that's a damn good idea. Let's see how long the big kid can hold out before his friend swings."
"No, mister!" Hart blurted. "Please. You can't do that. He's my brother."
Ned moved his face so close to Hart's, the boy could smell the man's foul breath. "Well, now, ain't that interestin'," he said with a smirk. "That should make you stand up real tall, boy—for as long as you can, that is." His malicious chuckle was half mad and Hart felt the nausea of despair.
The boys struggled wildly as the three men dragged them beneath a sixty-foot pine. Shep shimmied high up the tree to string the rope and Chance was lifted with great difficulty onto his brother's shoulders; both boys' hands were tied behind them. Hart nearly buckled beneath his brother's weight, but the two younger men steadied him until Chance found his balance. It was obvious from the skill with which they managed the feat that they had played this trick before.
Hart squeezed his eyes closed hard against tears, and fought desperately for equilibrium.
"Hell, you should be grateful to us, son," Ned sneered as the other desperadoes rounded up the boys' belongings and prepared to leave. "We're giving you a sportin' chance here. Why, we could just as leave have scattered your brains where you laid, had we a mind to."
Hart didn't even try to respond, but braced his back and legs against the impossible strain of his brother's weight and struggled against the rope that secured his wrists. He could barely breathe.
Chance, heavy on Hart's shoulders, teetered precariously. The thick cord of rope noosed around his neck tautened against the pull of the great pine, and he had to fight the vertigo that could kill him if he lost his balance.
"Sweet Jesus, Chance!" Hart whispered through teeth clenched with pain and fear. "I can't get my hands loose!" Chance could hear the anguish in his brother's voice and gritted his own teeth against the hopelessness of their plight.