“Katie?”
Justis followed her as she stumbled to the bed, hugging herself. She curled up on her side. When he sat down and bent across her, she shut her eyes. “What is it?” he demanded urgently. “You upset because you look so thin? Hell, you look wonderful compared to how you were two weeks ago. And in another two weeks you’ll be beautiful again.”
“I never realized how everything that happened to me shows on my face,” she said in a small, choked voice. “I knew that others on the trail had an awful look of horror in their eyes, but I thought I could hide my own torments.”
He gripped one of her hands. “Tell me what happened to you.”
“I can’t … nothing. The way to fight your troubles is to push them out of your mind. If you act as if you’re strong, you will be strong.”
“Or you’ll sleep all the time to keep from thinkin’ how much you hurt inside,” he rebuked her gently.
“No! I’m just tired! I’m tired now. Really, just let me take a nap. I’ll trim your hair later.”
“No, Katie. I want the truth.” He squeezed her hand, and his voice was troubled. “What kind of things happened to you?”
“I’m perfectly fine!”
“I won’t care … I’ll still want you … even if you did some things you’re ashamed of. Or if somebody did things to you against your will. No matter what happened.”
She rolled onto her back and searched his gaze. “You truly mean it,” she whispered in awe.
He laid a hand on her belly. “Things can still be good between us, even if you’ve been hurt that way. When you’re strong enough to want me, I’ll show you how sweet a man can be to a woman.”
She reached up and caressed his face. “I think you’re already showing me that.”
“What happened to you?”
“Not what you think.” She told him how people had protected the Beloved Woman. “Perhaps if terrible indignities had been done to me, I would feel less sad.”
Bewilderment filled his eyes. “Why?”
“Here I am, safe and well cared for, while so many others are buried along the road from here to Tennessee. Why am I special? Why do I deserve to live?”
“You deserve to live because you fought to live! You fought to help others live!”
“But I couldn’t save them, not one.”
“What? You saved some—you did the best you could.”
“My family, I mean.”
“What family?”
Her throat constricted. “Cousins. Two children. Their mother. If I could have saved them, at least saved my relatives …” Her voice trailed away and tears pooled in her eyes. “Do you know what that means to a Cherokee? Our families are everything to us.”
“You’re not alone. You have me.” He took her by the arms. His eyes were full of sympathy. “Me! I’ll be your family. Are you … the way you look sometimes, like you don’t care what happens to you … is it because bein’ with me makes you miserable?”
She gazed at him, then slowly shook her head. “Sometimes I wonder how much torment we will bring to each other before we’re done, and it makes me sad. I tell myself to think of you as just a partner and not a friend. But then you do or say something that is entirely kind, and I have to admit that we are friends.” Her voice faltered. “No, I’m not miserable with you. I need your friendship. I need … I need you to be my family.”
She sat up abruptly and hugged him. He put his arms around her and rocked her, surprised and very, very relieved by her answer. “Gal, for better or worse, you’ve just adopted me.”
“Welcome, kinsman. What relation are you?”
He thought a moment. “A kissin’ cousin.”
For the first time in months, she laughed.
KATHERINE WOKE UP in pitch darkness and didn’t know where she was. Flinging her hands about in terror, she contacted hard muscle covered in soft hair. “Dream. Bad dream,” she said, panting. “Help.” She patted her hands about, finding broad shoulders and long arms. The arms reached around her. “Katie, shhh.”
She exhaled with shaky relief as Justis pulled her thin, trembling body close to his. He had never come to bed without his shirt before. The silky hair of his chest was more wonderful than even her best imaginings, and she nuzzled her face into the center of it.
He stroked the length of her back as she slowly recovered from her dream. “What was it?” he whispered, his voice a soothing rumble.
“On the trail. My hands, bloody.” She struggled to regain her breath. “Birthing a babe. It died. Mother died too. Had to leave them for men to bury. A snowstorm. Snow everywhere. Looked back. Dogs. Dogs after the bodies. Whole world was … white and red.”
“Oh, Katie.” He brushed hair from her forehead, tilted her head back, and placed small kisses across her face. His mouth touching hers, he murmured, “Go on back to sleep. It was just a bad dream.”
A ragged sound caught in her throat. “No. It happened about two weeks before you found me.”
“The way you told it?” he asked, stunned. “Like in the dream?”
“Yes.”
Drowsiness washed over her, not the sweet, relaxed drifting that precedes happy sleep, but the thick fog of escape she craved. In the last moment before oblivion, she was aware of Justis rising on one elbow to look down at her. “It’s a good sign, you talkin’ about the sad things that happened. Tomorrow you’ll tell me the rest. All right?”
“No. Nothing much left to tell.”
“You’ll tell,” he ordered, and wrapped her in his arms.
KATHERINE WATCHED HIM warily the next day and hoped he’d forget his vow. When he left to take Watchman to a blacksmith over in town, she sighed with relief. She was seated by the window reading when he returned. She stared at the paper-wrapped bundles he tossed on the bed.
“Clothes for you,” he said. “Probably a little too big, but the way you’ve been eatin’, they’ll fit before long.”
“Oh, thank you!” Pleased, she got up and padded barefoot toward the bed. It would be wonderful to trade her nightgown and robe for a nice dress. She even thought her feet were healed enough to take shoes. “Let me see!”
“Nope.” He blocked her way and stood with his fur coat shoved back, hands on his hips, long legs braced. “Not until you agree to tell more of what happened to you on the trail.”
She halted. Damn the man! “Why must you hear all that? It’s over with.”
“Not as long as you have nightmares and cry over it every night.”
“I had one nightmare, and I do not cry every night.” She huffed loudly but crumpled inside. It was no use lying. He had heard her sniffling like a child at night! Humiliation burned her face. “I thought you were asleep!”
“Every night,” he repeated, nodding. “And even though you’re not sleepin’ most of the day anymore, half the time you just sit starin’ into space. Might as well be asleep. How can I take you to New York and get any good out of you if you stay like that?”
“I see. Your concern has to do with my worth to you.” She waved a hand toward the gifts on the bed. “Take your bribes straight to hell, sir.”
“You’re goin’ downstairs tonight and eat at the table with the other boarders.”
“Not in my nightgown and robe, I’m not.”
“You’ll go nekkid if you have to, but you’ll go. Best if you put on a nice dress and some drawers, instead.”
“I will. Get out of my way.”
He pointed toward her chair by the window. “Plant yourself over there and start talkin’.”
“About what?”
He threw his head back and yelled in exasperation, “About the things that make you act like a broody old hen!” His gaze leveled on hers, hard and demanding. “Did you fall in love with some feller on the trail? Is that what you’re sorrowful about?”
“Fall in love?” The idea was so absurd, she laughed. How could she fall in love with anyone else when she loved Justis with all her heart and soul? She had nothing
left to give another man.
“Stop, dammit,” he said fiercely. “Forget I asked. The notion of lovin’ a man that much is so strange to you that you don’t know what I mean.”
She grew quiet and gave him a grim look. “No. I couldn’t fall in love with anyone on the trail. I was too busy trying to keep me and mine alive. And I did a terrible job of it. I lived and they didn’t.”
“Stop feelin’ sorry for yourself!”
“This is not self-pity! It’s the truth!”
His mouth curved sarcastically. “Why am I alive?” he mimicked her in a high-pitched voice. “I don’t deserve to be alive. Why, I want Justis to think I’m sorry to be alive.” His voice dropped. “Bullshit. You’re tickled silly to be alive. You just feel bad about admitting it.”
Katherine wavered, fury flooding her until she felt weak with it. He was right. She tried to say something in her defense, sputtered, then finally groaned in disgust. “Leave me alone.” She went back to her rocking chair and sat facing away from him, her back rigid and her hands clasped in her lap.
He strode to her, grabbed the arm of the chair, and swung it around to face him. “Tell me about those cousins of yours.”
“They all died! That’s all there is to know!”
“How did they die?”
“The youngest died from fever, the mother died from a stomach ailment, and the other child—” She stopped, her throat closed.
“The other? Yeah?” He glared down at her, his eyes intense as he scrutinized her stricken face.
She beat her fists on her knees. “Squirrel died. He had a cough and he simply died! Leave me alone!”
“How did he die? Is he the one you wanted the medicine for when you bartered my gold piece?”
“Yes.”
“Then you did all you could do for him.”
“I killed him!”
She buried her face in her hands. Justis knelt in front of her and grasped her arms. “What happened?” he asked in a low, soothing voice.
“I told you. I killed him.”
He shook her lightly.
“How?”
She made soft choking sounds. “I gave him too much of that worthless medicine.”
“How do you know that?”
“He kept coughing. He couldn’t sleep, he coughed so much. There was blood in his spittle. He cried and begged me to make his chest stop hurting. I gave him an extra dose of medicine to help him sleep. That’s all it was good for, to make him sleep. But I gave him too much, because he never woke up. I killed him.”
“Aw, Katie, shhh.” He pulled her into his arms.
She knelt on the floor, clutching his coat as tears ran down her face. “I’m no doctor. He trusted me and I killed him. But I lived. I was rescued. I’m alive and safe now. Why?”
“He would have died anyhow. You just made it kinder.”
“I don’t know that. He was dear to me—bright and loving and courageous.”
Justis stroked the back of her head. “What can I say to you to ease this blame in your mind?”
“I keep thinking that perhaps he might have gotten well if I hadn’t used the medicine.”
“Katie,” he said in mild reproach. “You’re a doctor—think like one. Use your smarts instead of your grief. Did he have the whooping cough?”
“Yes.”
“And how many children live through that?”
“Not many, but—”
“And him with no place to rest out of the cold and wet, probably worn down from hunger … How far did he make the trip? No more than halfway, I bet. He wouldn’t have lasted till you got to the western territory. If the cough hadn’t taken him, something else would have.”
She drew her head back. Tears streamed down her face. “You don’t understand,” she whispered. “He was strong. He’d come almost the whole way. We were at the Mississippi. He died the day before you found me.”
“Oh, Katie.” He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her, then held her cheek against his. “I’m sorry, gal. I see now. He nearly made it. That’s what hurts the most.”
“Yes. And I don’t understand why I couldn’t save even him.”
“I’ll never be able to answer that one for you, gal. I’m a selfish son of a bitch, and all I care about is that you’re safe, and you’re gonna be just fine”—his hands tightened—“just fine, Katie Blue Song. You can’t bring nobody back from the dead, but you sure can make the living happy.” Guiding her head to his shoulder, he raised one of her hands and held it in front of her eyes. “Look at that. There’s a whole lot of doctoring left in that pretty paw. Think of all the lives it’ll save.”
“I need to believe that.”
They were quiet for a moment, holding each other in companionable sorrow. Finally he moved to the rocking chair and pulled her onto his lap. Katherine curled an arm around his neck. Together they gazed out at a clean, snow-covered world.
“It’ll be spring before long,” Justis said.
“New beginnings. Good.”
“That’s right. Try to think of it that way. Try real hard.” He cleared his throat. “I want you to be happy.”
She tugged at one end of his mustache. “Is that an order, sir?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll do my best to carry it out.” She looked at her hand thoughtfully. “I suppose I do have some good doctoring skills left in my ‘pretty paws.’ ”
“Believe it. Think of the lives you’ll save and the babes you’ll help birth.” He added after a second, “You cared for Squirrel like a mother for a son. You love children—that shows it. You’ll have your own someday.”
Katherine stiffened. Why did he have to make such a callous remark? She’d have her own children—with some man besides him, he meant. She’d never forget his words that last night in Gold Ridge. I don’t want any half-breed babes any more than you do. She trained her anger on a dash of snow along the windowsill and half expected to see it melt under the heat.
“You sound so certain of my future,” she said.
“Well, I have to be the practical one, I reckon. All you do is argue.”
“You’ll take charge of the whole procedure, then?”
He studied her, his brow furrowed in concentration as if he were trying to figure out something new about her. “If you want me to,” he said carefully, watching her reaction. “Birthin’ babes is pretty hard work, I figure, and it’s easy to see why a woman wouldn’t look forward to it. But if you have the right man to look after you, and encourage you, and help care for the babe after it comes, well, that would make a difference, wouldn’t it?”
“Good heavens. You’ve planned this all out, I can see. What do you think I am, a mare you must be responsible for breeding? Will you pack me off to the broodmares’ pasture when our partnership ends, then select a stud for me? I can picture you interviewing prospective fathers on my behalf. Thank you, no. Perhaps I’m not suited ever to become a mother. And what makes you think I’d want children with some other white man if I don’t want them with you?”
Dead silence filled the room. Katherine didn’t know what to make of the sudden tension in his body. She was only stating the situation as he had outlined it. He pulled her arm from around his neck. His expression might have been carved from ice created by the chill in his eyes.
“Maybe you can find yourself a rip-snortin’ redskin stud and he’ll give you the kind of younguns you can be proud of. You and me won’t be together forever.”
She lifted a hand to her head, dizzy from the strain of their conversation. “I can’t tell what I’ll do so far in the future. I can’t think that far ahead right now.” How could he care for her so tenderly one moment and the next talk bluntly about turning her loose to find another man?
He set her off his lap and stood up. She looked at him and found an almost cruel gleam to his eyes. “You don’t have to think any further than New York,” he told her. “We’re leavin’ for there in the morning.”
He walked out
of the room without looking back and slammed the door behind him.
JUSTIS HELPED KATHERINE across the inn’s snowy yard to a private coach he’d hired for the long trip east. She wore her new dress, a lovely blue wool with draping sleeves and a voluminous skirt, and a matching cape lined with satin. The dress and all her underthings were almost comically baggy, but she was so proud to have decent clothes again that she didn’t care.
“I’ll be ridin’ right behind,” Justis told her as he closed the door to the compartment. “If you need me, just tell the driver to stop.”
“We’ve got weeks of travel ahead of us. Surely you’re not going to ride Watchman the whole way?”
“We’ll see,” he said, and walked off.
She distractedly pulled a lap robe over her knees. What had she done to anger him? He’d been cool since that strange scene in the room the day before, when the subject of babes arose. He’d stayed downstairs playing cards most of the night, and when he had come to bed he’d kept to his side. During all their preparations to leave he had been polite but not friendly.
You and me won’t be together forever. She felt as if she’d been struck whenever he said something such as that, something to remind her that friendship and loyalty were hardly the same as eternal love.
Katherine stared out the coach window at the long road winding through barren winter fields in the distance. The bittersweet emptiness inside her was a good thing, she decided. She would fill it with the excitement of living in New York. She would fill it with helping Justis turn Blue Song gold into a fortune. She would be the perfect partner, companion, and teacher for him.
But she would build herself a separate life as much as possible, so that when their partnership ended, she could walk away with at least a façade of dignity.
THEY COVERED 150 miles in the first week, with five or six times that much to come, and a March thaw turned the roads into slush. As they reached yet another stagecoach inn, Justis climbed stiffly down from Watchman’s back while the driver pulled valises from the carriage. Twilight was broken only by a yellow stream of light coming from the door of the inn.