Above the squalling of babies and shouts of people she heard a small, stern voice. “The Beloved Woman did not wait for me!”
Katherine squinted through dust and sunshine at the child stomping toward her. His hair was gathered in two long plaits. He wore nothing but a long deerskin shirt that ended above his knees, and moccasins.
Squirrel was the son of traditionalists. He didn’t speak English and had encountered very few white people before the soldiers came to drive his family from their farm in the mountains. He was of the Blue clan, so he was a distant cousin of Katherine’s.
“I did not run away,” she assured him. “I told your mother I would stay right here. You went to play and forgot about me. Where is your mother?”
Squirrel jumped over a small rock and bounded to a stop beside her. He tilted his head back and grinned. “She sits in the woods to nurse my sister. A soldier said he would let her drink from his bottle as long as she let him watch. So she is not hurrying.”
Katherine kept her expression calm, while distaste soured her stomach. Walks Smiling was a drunk, and had been since her husband had sickened and died two months before. Katherine understood the need to escape pain—too many nights she slept in her own tears, thinking about Justis—but if Walks Smiling kept up this kind of behavior, she wouldn’t live to reach the Indian territory beyond Arkansas.
Katherine took Squirrel’s hand. “You wait with me.”
A few minutes later Walks Smiling ambled out of the woods, her toddler, Little Bird, tucked in the crook of one arm. A young soldier followed, adjusting his britches in a way that told Katherine he’d done more than watch while Walks Smiling nursed her daughter.
“He will carry my pack,” Walks Smiling called, pointing at the soldier. She was a small, pretty woman, still a little plump despite weeks of poor food. Her baggy woolen dress didn’t hide the sensual sway of her hips, now accentuated by the whiskey.
Katherine said nothing. Grief had etched lines around Walks Smiling’s eyes, and the shaming words of a kinswoman would only make those lines deeper. Walks Smiling waved to the soldier as he went to his horse and tied her bundle on its saddle.
“You should find one of those,” she told Katherine, winking. “An a-sga-Ya who wants to carry your load.”
Katherine shook her head. Thoughts of Justis burned inside her. What had he done after she’d run away? Certainly he had looked for her, but by now he would have given up. Perhaps he had a new woman, maybe several women, to ease his anger and disappointment.
Her throat tightened. Today she would walk farther away from him, and every day afterward, for weeks and months, until she crossed the big river and left him behind in the Sun Land.
A chief rode down the line, his white-haired head lifted high as he held his pony to a slow, dignified walk. A plume of feathers bobbed in his turban, and below his hunting shirt he wore fringed leggings rather than army-issue trousers. Several young men rode behind him.
“Make ready to go!” they called. “We lead the way!”
Along the line people climbed onto wagons or took their children by the hand to walk. Soft wails went up from men and women alike. Shamans began to chant. Walks Smiling sank to the ground and drew her children to her, sobbing.
Katherine turned toward the southeast and the ancient mountains. Tears ran down her face. She thought of her family, of her home, and of Justis. Good-bye, my beloved, she said to all.
As the line began to move, thunder rumbled in the distance, though the sky was bright. It seemed a very bad omen.
REBECCA STOPPED ROCKING and laid her needlework down on her stomach. “You make a very fine table,” she told the babe inside. “But I hope you come out soon.”
The harsh patter of rain made her glance at the window in dismay and hitch her chair closer to the fire. A week before the weather had been beautiful, but now the dreary autumn rains had settled in for good. A cold wind whipped them, moaning under the eaves of the hotel. An early dusk darkened the already gray afternoon.
She pulled the lamp on the table beside her nearer, then resumed her work. Soon she would have to go check on Cookie’s progress with supper. They had a full house tonight—ten boarders—so the table would be sagging with food.
Rebecca bit her lip. Nearly a full house. One room was never used anymore—Katherine’s room. Her trunks and clothes remained there, just as they had been when she left three months before. As he had ridden off to Philadelphia, Justis had asked that they be kept that way. He had followed her as soon as his recuperation allowed, less than two weeks after her departure.
He had yet to return.
Rebecca put her needlework down once more and rubbed her forehead wearily, remembering his fury. It had frightened her, more so because it contained so much pain. Sam had told her privately that Justis had used terrible language about Katherine, and then had sworn he’d bring her back to be his doxy, just out of spite.
It wasn’t spite, it was the most desperate kind of love, she’d told Sam. The kind that couldn’t give up even when there was no hope. If Justis came back without Katherine, he’d be a ruined man. Sam had said pshaw to that notion. There wasn’t a tougher hide around.
“I’m not talking about hide,” she muttered now, as she had then. “I’m talking about heart.”
HE WAS HOME, not that it made a damn bit of difference to him, no more than the blood dribbling down the side of his face made a difference, nor the blood covering his knuckles.
Justis staggered out of the Gallatin-Kirkland Saloon, leaving a wake of awed miners, five of whom—the ones who had intended to beat him up while he was stinking drunk—lay on the floor groaning in pain. He was drunk, so drunk that he knew he wasn’t going to care when he threw up.
Cold rain hit him in the face as he reeled off the saloon’s porch. He patted Watchman’s wet, muddy shoulder and cursed himself loudly for letting the weary stallion stand there loaded with gear. After all the weeks of travel, Watchman deserved better than that.
Justis held on to the saddle and bent forward, clutching his stomach. After he’d emptied it of half a bottle of whiskey, he sat down in the mud by Watchman’s legs and looked around the town square.
Gold Ridge appeared the same as when he’d left. To hell with it. He wished he were anyplace else, and if he could think of a better place to be miserable, he’d go there.
“Got to start over,” he said out loud. Dimly he realized that the crowd in the saloon had filtered outside to watch him. In fact, people had come out of the adjoining establishments to watch him.
Someone splashed through the rain and the mud toward him. “You organized your own welcome home party, I see,” Sam yelled, bending over him.
Rain dripping in his eyes, Justis looked up his partner. “I didn’t find her. Not nowhere, not any of the way between here and the whole goddamned state of Pennsylvania. That doctor in Philadelphia hasn’t laid eyes on her since she left to come here. She’s hid out. She knew I’d look for her.”
“Come on, get out of the weather, friend,” Sam ordered gently. He and another man helped Justis up.
“Don’t mess with me. Take care of m’horse.”
“I’ll send Noah after him. Let’s get you to the hotel.”
Justis swayed. “That damned room,” he said in a deadly soft voice, as new bitterness and pain washed over him. “That room full of her things. Yeah.”
Now he knew where he could go to be even more miserable.
* * *
THE WEATHER HAD remained rainy for the past several weeks, and now that the march was so much farther north, sleet mingled with the rain. Katherine had gotten used to hearing her teeth chatter and to struggling through mud that made her feet feel like lead blocks.
When they made camp for the day she helped Walks Smiling get the children settled under a wagon, then went on her rounds, wearing a piece of heavy blanket wrapped around her head like a scarf and another blanket around her shoulders as a coat. She had given her gloves to a child, a
nd she stopped frequently to warm her fingers over the cooking fires.
She could only dole out what few medicines the government made available, and those were only what the suppliers could scrounge from towns near the trail. Fevers and pneumonia were epidemic. A crew was kept busy digging graves each time the marchers camped for the night.
Katherine tried not to think about the fact that the journey was only a third finished. November had not yet ended. Thanksgiving, a holiday she had enjoyed while living in Philadelphia, had come yesterday. No one had noticed.
THE SOFT KNOCKING at the cabin door woke Justis from a groggy sleep. Fully clothed—the way he slept most nights because he got drunk before he got undressed—he rose from bed, shoved an untouched plate of biscuits onto a table, and carried his whiskey bottle to the door with him.
“Who the hell is it?”
A timid female voice answered. “It’s a … a gift, Mr. Gallatin.”
He swung the door open and glared down into the fearful eyes of a dark-haired young woman. Lamplight cast her small shadow toward a black, windswept night. “Who sent you?” he demanded.
“Friends of yourn over to Pearl’s house. They p-paid Pearl already. She sent me over fer the whole n-night. They says you n-need some cheerin’ up r-real bad.”
“Come in ’fore you shiver to death.”
She stepped inside, hugging herself through a heavy shawl that covered a low-cut cherry-red gown. Justis slammed the door and she jumped. He eyed her angrily. Women. More trouble than they were worth. And this one was just a little bony nip. But a pretty one. She tried to smile. At least she had all her teeth.
“Don’t be scared of me,” he told her.
“I heerd that you got a bad temper.”
“Not the kind that hurts women.”
“Oh.” She dropped her shawl on a chair, then surveyed the place with furtive glances. “It’s sure warm and cozy in here.” She stared at logs scattered around the stone hearth and whiskey bottles lying about the floor. “A mite messy, though.”
“What’s your name?”
“Franny.”
“Well, Franny, I’m drunk. And I haven’t had a woman since last spring. So maybe you’re the best present anybody ever gave me.”
“I’m sure good at my work. You wanta see?”
He squelched an urge to shrug, and nodded instead. Then he went to his bed in one corner and sat down with his back against the rough log wall. She removed her gown and stood by the fireplace wearing nothing but red slippers, black stockings, and red garters.
Justis directed her to turn around, to walk across the cabin, to stroke her breasts and thighs. She complied without the least bit of shyness and began to sway sensually under his intense, slit-eyed gaze.
All he would have to do was give a few more simple orders and she’d be lying on the bed with her legs around him. He waited for the impressive hardness to grow between his thighs, and he cursed it when it didn’t. This was what Katherine had reduced him to, Katherine and the liquor he drank every night to keep her face and voice out of his mind.
“I heerd that the Injun women used to call you The Stud,” Franny said, and winked.
“Not anymore.” He threw the whiskey bottle against a far wall and it shattered. Franny screamed. “Get dressed,” he told her. “Don’t go bug-eyed—I’m not turnin’ crazy. Here.” He reached into a trouser pocket and removed a five-dollar gold piece, which he tossed on the red heap of her gown. “You’ve a grand-lookin’ pair of tits, Franny, but I’m too tired.”
“You’re what they says you are,” she murmured in a frightened tone as she jerked her gown on and threw the shawl around it. “You’re cursed.” She left the cabin without looking back.
Justis put his head in his hands and laughed cruelly.
“BELOVED WOMAN, my son needs you quick!”
Katherine felt a hand shaking her shoulder. For a second she fought the cruel intrusion of reality into her dream. She was safe in a world she’d never seen before, a world of balmy winds and treeless green hills dotted with cattle that were being herded by horsemen outfitted in the Mexican style. Justis was there—somewhere—if she could only find him.
“Beloved Woman, wake up!”
The coldness came back, mantled in freezing December wind. Katherine sat up, shivering. Her whole body ached from sleeping on the icy Kentucky ground. Squirrel and Little Bird were bundled next to her in the better blankets; Little Bird twisted fitfully and coughed. Walks Smiling, her face no longer plump, curled herself against the toddler and cooed to her.
Katherine held two thin blankets around her shoulders and squinted at the woman who bent over her. Even in the shadows of the waning campfires the woman’s face revealed terror.
“My baby,” she said hoarsely. “He is jerking all over.”
Katherine licked her lips in the hope that the chapped skin wouldn’t break when she spoke. “Mother, I can do nothing but hold him and speak a sacred formula. I have no more white medicines and no more herbs.”
“Your touch alone heals sometimes, Beloved Woman. I have heard people say so. Please come.”
Squirrel stuck a small hand out of his blankets and grasped Katherine’s hair. “Your helper will go too.”
She kissed his grimy, chapped fingers. “My helper will stay and keep his mother and sister safe.”
That flattery satisfied him, and he burrowed inside his blanket once more. Katherine stood weakly, giving her head and her empty stomach time to adjust to the new position. The wind seemed to push icicles through her worn skirt.
“Hena,” she told the woman gently. “Go.”
Katherine followed her through the darkness of the sprawling camp, treading gingerly so that the blisters and cuts on her feet wouldn’t start to bleed again. The brogans had fallen apart, and her crudely made moccasins were poor protection from sharp sticks and rocks. The woman who’d summoned her limped noticeably.
They reached an old wagon. In the light of the campfire beside it sat a squat man with skin the color of leather. His dirty turban was askew and his eyes were swollen slits. In his lap he held a toddler wrapped in the filthy remnants of a blanket. As Katherine watched, the child’s eyes rolled back and its body convulsed violently. Its mother began to whimper.
“Greetings … Beloved … Woman,” the man said in a thick, slurring voice. He grinned at her as she knelt beside him and reached for the child. The odor of rotgut whiskey swept over her.
“Poor little one,” she crooned to the child. She cuddled it to her chest and sat down close to the fire. Rocking back and forth to distract herself from the bitter cold and the pain in her chapped hands, she began to chant. A few seconds later the child relaxed, and its eyelids fluttered together.
“Thank you,” the mother said softly.
Katherine closed her eyes for a moment, willing away a weariness that made her dizzy. She knew the convulsions would return, but she didn’t say so. Instead, she handed the feverish child to its mother. The father rolled sideways and stretched out to sleep, his shoulders hunched under his thin coat.
“If the jerking comes back, rock the child as I did. The charm will keep working, and the jerking will go away soon.”
“Thank you, thank you,” the mother repeated. She handed Katherine a cold chunk of boiled bacon. Katherine accepted it and hobbled away.
A man called to her as she shuffled along. “Come here, long legs, and keep me warm.” She looked straight ahead and kept moving. She wished she hadn’t left her knife at her sleeping spot. “Come here!” he yelled louder. She heard someone shush him. “It’s the Beloved Woman,” the person said. “Be quiet.”
“Forgive me,” the rowdy called. She nodded and didn’t slow her pace.
Squirrel’s dark eyes gleamed at sight of the bacon. Walks Smiling shook her head—she vomited blood these days, and food had little appeal to her. Little Bird was too young to chew the meat and too feverish to want it. Katherine pulled Squirrel onto her lap and handed the precious
bacon to him.
He tore into it. Grease ran down his chin and onto his thin chest. She held him close while he fed her several pieces of the salty pork. “Enough,” she told him. “You eat the rest.”
“Did the Beloved Woman make the babe well?”
Her eyes stung. She knew that he’d seen too much death to be fooled. “No. The babe will travel to the Dark Land, just like the others.”
“Do not cry,” Squirrel said anxiously. He put his arms around her neck. “I forbid it.”
She laughed raspily. “You give silly orders. You are truly becoming a man.”
The next morning Katherine dug a trench in the icy ground a little distance from the road. Walks Smiling sat limply beside the shallow grave, holding Little Bird’s body in her lap. Squirrel cut his long braids off and laid them across his sister’s chest.
“Fly now, Little Bird,” he whispered as Katherine wrapped the toddler’s blanket around his shoulders. He limped away, his face wet with snow and tears.
His mother smiled. Blood rimmed her lips. “Her spirit has gone west. And we are following.”
NOAH AND LILAC, both crying, huddled in bed with Rebecca. She kept one arm around their shoulders and cradled her sleeping babe in the other. Cold December sunlight filtered through the room’s heavy drapes.
Her throat dry with fear, Rebecca listened to the clomping sounds of boots on wooden floors, then the door to their private parlor opening and closing. Sam walked wearily into the bedroom, bringing cold air with him as if it clung to his coat. She had never seen his face look so drawn and colorless.
Lilac wailed. “Did they whup Mr. Justis for shootin’ that man?”
He nodded. Lilac wailed again and Noah snuffled noisily. Rebecca shut her eyes and murmured a prayer. Then, fighting tears, she shooed the children from the room. Sam took his daughter, grown restless from so much noise, and placed her in the cradle near the bed. He slumped into a chair and stared, hollow-eyed, at the floor.