Paint the Wind

Hart squeezed his wife's hand reassuringly; it was best to face the phantoms of the past that plagued the heart, but it was godawful hard, sometimes.

  Fancy breathed in the air that was fragrant with memory. The need to get back Beau Rivage had pulsed inside her so long, she couldn't remember a time when it wasn't there.

  Coming home. Oh, Atticus, I'm finally coming home!

  The avenue of trees parted and the shell of Beau Rivage materialized on its hill; the unexpected reality made Fancy gasp. "My God, Hart, it's just exactly as I left it that dreadful night. They haven't rebuilt a stick of it."

  The blackening from the fire had been washed away by three decades of rain; the crumbling, ravaged timbers were overrun by the encroaching bayou inexorably taking back its own. Creepers trailed up chimneys, ivy obscured the tattered edges, pungent honeysuckle wafted on the summer air, and wisterias had grown wild so long that they'd become twisted trees, heavy-laden with white and purple blossoms. Bees buzzed unmolested and Fancy could see again in her mind's eye the pickaninnies with their fans and swatters, keeping the insects from the plantation's inhabitants, oh, so very long ago...

  Hart watched his wife's eyes sweep the landscape searchingly; he could see how hard she fought for composure. As they neared the ruined house, Hart and Fancy saw two men and their horses standing nervously near what had once been the verandah of Beau Rivage. They were elegantly dressed and their mounts were excellent animals.

  "Oh, Hart," Fancy whispered as she realized that the middle-aged man before her was her brother Armand. The last time she'd seen him he'd been nineteen, resplendent in his Confederate uniform... "Can we have grown old, too?"

  Armand Deverell was of just above medium height, dark-haired and slender, but with the slightest paunch, to betray the good life. He was dressed in the latest riding gear, his polished boots gleamed in the sun, his jodhpurs and hacking jacket were perfectly tailored to enhance his stature. There was a trace of her father in Armand's manner, Fancy thought, but more of her mother's forebears in his arrogant expression.

  Without thinking, she raised her arms and held them out to her brother, but instead of doing the same, Armand Deverell cleared his throat, looked hastily at his companion, then walked toward Hart and Fancy with exaggerated dignity. He put his arms around his sister in greeting, but there was no warmth whatsoever in the gesture.

  "Fancy, darlin', I can't tell you how shocked I was to find out you were alive." Odd choice of words, Fancy thought as she breathed again; that must explain his restraint. She checked her own desire to hug him, to ask a thousand questions...

  "We never knew what happened to you, Fancy. When I got back from the war everything was gone. Mama and Papa dead. There were crazy rumors about you going off with some old slave, but of course I never gave any credence to that."

  "But surely you must have looked for me, Armand?" Fancy let the question hang in the soft air, her voice low and puzzled.

  The man averted his eyes as he answered. "I can't say I ever did, darlin', what with the war and all. It was nearly a year later, you see, when I left my regiment, it hardly seemed you could still be alive by then..."

  Fancy listened carefully to her brother's discomfort.

  "Later, Armand, after I was famous, didn't you ever think the Fancy Deverell who was written about in all the newspapers might be your little sister?"

  There was a hint of irony in her voice, and Armand shuffled his well-shod feet. "I don't really have any knowledge of theatricals, Fancy. I expect I was so distressed to hear you were a performer, I just didn't know what to do."

  Hart's eyes followed the interchange with grim fascination; he could feel the storm gathering in Fancy and wondered if this dandified twit had any idea what he was up against.

  "Perhaps your delicate sensibilities might have been suspended long enough to inquire whether I wanted my share of Papa's inheritance," she said evenly.

  Armand's eyes closed slightly in calculation, the false smile faded. "If it's money you're after, I've brought my attorney, Mr. Cadwallader, with me to discuss terms. Considering the life you've led, I can't believe you have the starch to come back chasing Papa's money after all these years... not that there's very much left, God knows. With Beau Rivage destroyed and the Yankees in power, I've had to make my way by my wits..."

  "That must have put you at a considerable disadvantage," Hart interjected before Fancy spoke again with studied contempt.

  "Money? Armand. Why, I have money to throw at the birds. What I want from you is justice, my dear brother."

  "A fine word coming from a notorious scarlet woman like yourself, my darlin' sister. Oh, yes, I admit I've made it my business to find out all there is to know about you and your infamous past, Fancy. Marriages, illegitimate children, madhouses... auctioning off your body like a common nigger gal. Or maybe you learned all that from Atticus. It was Atticus you ran off with, wasn't it, Fancy? Just like they all said and I wouldn't believe. I can't imagine how Mama and Papa must be spinning in their graves over what you turned out to be."

  "I ought to crush you in my two hands like the despicable slug you are," Hart said, but Fancy stepped in front of him.

  "Every word you've said about me is true—the things I've had to do to survive would probably turn your lily-livered carcass green, Armand. But let me tell you something about Atticus—you aren't fit to wipe his boots. There isn't anything he ever taught me

  I couldn't take with me in pride on Judgment Day. I'm proud to have known him... proud to have called him my friend."

  Armand opened his mouth to respond, but Fancy cut him off.

  "I know what Papa's will was like, well as you do, Armand, and I don't need any shyster lawyer to tell me my rights. Half of everything Mama and Papa had was mine—however much it was, or is. And do spare me your sob story about the Yankees... it doesn't appear you've spent one plug nickel on repairing Beau Rivage.

  "Which brings me to why I'm here, dear brother. It may interest you to know I have more money than God Almighty, so rest assured that isn't what I want from you."

  "Not with silver down the drain, you haven't," Armand countered; Fancy could see he'd done his homework. The Sherman Silver Purchase Act had been repealed the previous year.

  "Not silver, Armand... it's gold I'm talking about. Enough to pave the heavenly highways. Which is simply my way of telling you I want only one thing from my inheritance—the land we're standing on."

  "Beau Rivage? Why ever would you want this place? It's been worthless since the war. The house is gutted, you can't work the land without slaves..."

  Fancy looked at her brother with consummate repugnance. She'd been wrong; he didn't look like her mother or father at all.

  "I want the land where Mama and Papa are buried. I want the land I was born on. My husband's a farmer; he'll know what to do to make it work." Fancy smiled up at Hart and he nodded acknowledgment; this was her show, he wouldn't interfere unless she needed help.

  Armand's lawyer cleared his throat and took a step forward.

  "Now you see here, Miss Deverell..."

  "Mrs. McAllister."

  "Mrs. McAllister, then. You must understand, this land is very valuable. Mr. Deverell wouldn't consider parting with it except under certain very specific conditions. As his lawyer—"

  Hart cleared his throat forcefully and interrupted. "Now let's just cut this charming little do-si-do short, Mr. Cadwallader, and get to the meat of this parlay. My wife wants Beau Rivage. It's less than her fair share, but she's willing to settle for it. What I want is for my wife to have what she wants. We have at our disposal enough money and enough lawyers to keep my less than generous brother-in-law in litigation for the next thousand years or so.

  "Now, out West where I come from we don't take kindly to men who rob women and children of their birthright—and we tend to be real direct in how we deal with them. But in deference to my wife's kinship to that selfish, self-important, squirrel-faced little varmint over there, I'm willing to consid
er more peaceable means of getting what I want. But let me leave you in no doubt whatsoever, Mr. Cadwallader, that get what I want, I will."

  Armand Deverell and his lawyer exchanged meaningful glances before Mr. Cadwallader recovered his speech.

  "My client will give thought to what you've said, Mr. McAllister."

  "I expect that would be sensible."

  The two men mounted their horses and prepared to go; but Armand turned his horse skillfully and moved him in so close beside Fancy, she could feel the breath from the horse's nostrils.

  "I can see every word I've heard about you is true," he said with lofty contempt, "you're nothing but a slut and an opportunist."

  Fancy raised her hand to stop Hart's instantaneous movement toward the man.

  "Better that than a sniveling coward who hides behind his lawyer's skirts to do a dirty deed. If you make me fight you, Armand, rest assured you'll lose. You just aren't up to my standard."

  Armand steadied his horse with a violent tug on the reins. "If you were a man, by God, I'd challenge you for that."

  "I wouldn't be too swift to do that either, Deverell," Hart said, half amused. "The lady could trim that dainty little mustache of yours right nicely with a forty-five."

  Armand wheeled his horse around and Cadwallader followed suit. Fancy and Hart watched the pair canter down the avenue of untended trees and disappear from view.

  Concerned for his wife, Hart put his arms around her from behind and turned her to face him, expecting tears. But Fancy was smiling, the cat-that-ate-the-canary smile he knew so well.

  "Selfish, self-important, squirrel-faced little varmint indeed!" she said. "You really are a fine judge of men, Mr. McAllister."

  "Never anything but a surprise, are you, Fancy?" Hart said, as she took his hand in her own and walked him over the land that had lived in her memory for an exiled lifetime.

  "Are you really a farmer?" she asked as they surveyed the fertile bottomland, long gone to nature, but magnificent in its savage lushness. Hart bent to scoop a handful of the rich alluvial soil and let the blackness trickle through his fingers. He spoke without looking up at her.

  "Can't help-but remember what my daddy fought against in that hard Kansas land, Fancy. With soil like this he could have planted the Garden of Paradise."

  "Chance always said you were just like your daddy." She touched his shoulder with her hand and thought about how very much she loved him.

  Hart looked up, squinting against the sun or tears, she wasn't sure which.

  "God, but I miss him!" he said from his heart, and she knew he spoke of Chance. "I miss him damn near all the time."

  "I miss him, too," she answered. They were both past jealousy or anger; time had brought forgiveness and left in its wake only memories of the good that had been among them all.

  "Love takes you down some real strange highways, doesn't it, babe?" Hart asked, and she knew that every one of them lived in him, as they did in her.

  When had it been that she'd discovered that life was nothing more than a learning process? Sometimes tragic, sometimes gold with glory... a road with many turnings, each with its own gift of hard-won wisdom.

  Hart had brought her home to where she'd always longed to be, but now she knew it wasn't the destination that counted, only the road that led there. That its endless twists and turns, its obstacles and roadblocks, its occasional inexpressible beauty, and its ceaseless wonder were the gifts in themselves.

  Would it end here where it all began? Or was this simply another crossroads and a new beginning?

  "I love you, Matthew Hart McAllister," Fancy said with all the fervor of her passionate nature. "I think I might be getting the hang of this."

  "Of what?"

  "Of life, Hart. I might be getting the hang of what it is God wants from me." And so she was.

  From the Journal of Matthew Hart McAllister

  Hart raised his head from where he'd rested it, on his big gnarled hands. His glance lingered for a while on a tiny music box, glued together from fragments, and a map made of oilcloth that was framed behind it on the wall. He picked up his pen a final time.

  "So there it is," he wrote definitively on the last page of the lengthy manuscript. "Their story... and mine."

  Some of it I'm proud of, some not. Some I'm going to have to answer for at God's great Judgment Seat, but I'm willing to take my chances that He'll understand. I had two fine gifts in this life— one for painting and one for taking care of Fancy—so if that was what He had in mind for me, I intend to tell Him with a real clear conscience, I tried my best on both scores.

  Blackjack has relived his father's life, but in shoddier times. He was wildcatting for oil in Louisiana, last time I heard. Aurora lives in England now, the wife of an earl or a duke, I don't remember which. She and Fancy maintained a fragile peace with each other through the years. Sally is a lawyer who spends her time fighting for Indian rights and Gabriel paints pictures that would make the angels sing... they're both the kind of people who make you feel real good about the human race. Wu and Jewel went off to San Francisco and started a successful bank there for the Chinese community. They say Wu died as rich as any Mandarin in China. Ford never touched a gun again, far as I know—they made a moving picture out in Hollywood about his life, but they got most all the facts wrong. He and Jewel finally got to stay together and made a damned good life as upstanding citizens. Destarte's and Charles Paint-the-Wind's bones lie bleaching somewhere on the desert's unrelenting vastness... and I remain.

  So there isn't any "fair," I've lived to learn. But there is truth... and occasional justice. And, believe you me, there is love.

  Now, some might think that Fancy didn't love me in the same way she loved Chance... nor maybe even the same way I loved her. But she loved me real well in those twenty-odd years we lived together as man and wife, and that was a hell of a lot more good than comes to most men in any single lifetime. Whatever you may think about the story I've just told, you must have noticed she was one of a kind.

  We bought back Beau Rivage and restored it to near its former loveliness. We brought Atticus' broken banjo and Chance's body there for burial, after we'd decided to make our home in Louisiana. And Jewel's, too, years later, to lie in hallowed ground. Fancy sleeps beside them now, beneath her great stone angel, these five years past. Which is why I guess I decided to try to write this memoir.

  Fancy and Chance... Chance and Fancy... There isn't a day that goes by they aren't in my thoughts, those two I loved best— and it seems to me their story should be told before the last of us is gone.

  I guess you might say the world has turned round a time or two since Fancy and Atticus set out together to find their destinies, and my brother and I left Kansas. The rustlers are gone now... or they rustle on Wall Street or on the London Stock Exchange. The gunslingers win or lose in more elegant crapshoots than in the old days. The Sante Fe Trail is covered with macadam and the cows are shipped to market on trains that were only a gleam in someone's eye when I was a boy.

  But if you're real quiet and you close your eyes a little, just around sundown on a certain Colorado mountaintop, by God, you'd swear Bandana McBain was out there playing that banged-up banjo of his, and old Jewel had her soiled doves spiffying up for the evening's fun.

  And Fancy. Well, I like to think she's riding on ahead... she always did lead a man a merry chase. And I'm like some old desperado waiting for the last train out, anxious to be on my way to meet her.

  I can almost see her, yonder on the trail: her dark hair flying out like a mustang's mane, her untamed laughter riding the wind like an eagle; fearless she is and free at last.

  She'll be trying to make me believe she doesn't want me catching up, of course, but she'll be leaving sign along the trail for me just the same, like she always did, in hopes I'll pay no mind to her headstrong foolishness.

  When I get to where she's camped in the Spirit World, I expect she'll toss back her head and look at me, the way she used to. "You
took your own sweet time in getting here, Hart McAllister!" she'll say to me with mischief in her voice, and then we'll set a spell and

  let the night air still the woods around us. I'll hold her in my arms so she feels real safe, and she'll tell me stories in the glow of the campfire like the ones old Atticus told to her when she was just a little girl.

  And we'll talk about them all... and maybe figure where the rendezvous will be. The Apaches say the Great Spirit will show you the Way over there like He never did in this life, and I can tell you for certain, the Indians know a heap more about such things than the rest of us. I've got a hunch He has a real stable home in mind for Fancy there—she never meant to be so reckless—life just never let her be too peaceable, until she married me.

  Then again, I might just arrive and find she's staked out a claim or two on those Streets of Gold... she could be damned unpredictable.

  The Indians call memory the haunting of the heart... they're right about that too. If ever a heart was haunted by remembrance, it was mine.

  "The Fancies" hang now in the Louvre in Paris, but I kept up painting those pictures of her that I used to do each year, even after she was gone—every year another, same as if she was with me. Never would sell them, either, although I did let the Metropolitan borrow them last spring for an exhibition. I expect the one I'm doing now may be the last I need to do from memory.

  You know, sometimes I talk to her aloud while I paint, in case she's over there listening and wondering if I'll be there to catch her, should she falter.

  "Won't be long now, babe," I tell her.

  But I know she knows.

  AUTHOR'S NOTE

  So much of what we know of the West is the story of men's adventures... yet women won the West as much as they... women worked, loved, laughed, cried, fought, died, too, a truth that seems to have been somewhat lost to history despite the fact that these westward-bound women helped create life, and sometimes they helped create legends.

  There isn't a single act of Fancy's, Jewel's, or Magda's lives that couldn't have been accomplished by some woman, in those turbulent and exacting early days of America, when only the most outrageous facts were true. My tale and everyone in it, with the exception of those noted at the beginning of this book, is entirely fictitious, but the spirit is factual.