The Beloved Woman

  “Your father would kill the madman for this,” she whispered brokenly. “No matter the consequences. If I didn’t have you to consider, my love, I would do the same. Tonight.”

  She cradled Mary to her shoulder and rocked. Her mind churned with escape plans, but all of them posed too much risk. If anything went wrong, Mary would suffer.

  Toward dawn Katherine lay down with Mary nestled against her side. She shut her eyes and prayed softly. She would wait. Until the time was right to strike back she would do whatever Vittorio asked.

  OVER THE NEXT few days Vittorio acted as if nothing odd had passed between them. His manner was courtly, his smile genuine. Katherine felt as if she were balanced on the edge of a precipice waiting to be shoved to her death. The distress affected her milk, and Mary protested with hungry wails. Katherine was forced to request a wet nurse from among the servants.

  Vittorio sent a note to her as she was dressing one morning. I will come to your room tonight, my love. You seem ready.

  It was all she could do to sit at the breakfast table with him. Only the presence of a dozen other guests saved her from revealing her fury and fear. With a determination that drained all her energy she focused her attention on a newcomer. “Did you arrive yesterday, sir?”

  The man, a lanky Mexican in clothes still dirty from the trail, nodded. “Sí. I am guiding a group of settlers to the Valley of the Sun.”

  “Where is that, señor?”

  “Two days’ ride east of here. It is a place for farmers. The valley lies too many miles from the coast for the taste of the rancheros. Who wants to haul cattle hides so far to market?”

  “Who named it Valley of the Sun?”

  “The Indians. Many years ago they had a village there—before the priests built missions and offered civilization to the people.”

  “The farmers, where are they from?”

  “They are Americans,” Vittorio interjected. “Too many Americans. But I will not protest as long as they mind their own business.”

  Her own countrymen. Katherine could barely wait until the meal was finished. Carrying Mary, she went outdoors and made her way through the outbuildings until she found the settlers’ camp in the shade of an oak grove. Their group consisted of six solemn, worn-looking families who shared five rickety wagons and five pairs of gaunt oxen. Katherine introduced herself, and as soon as they got over their shock at meeting such an unusual compatriot, they asked her to sit with them and talk.

  “We came by ship from Boston and put every penny we had left into provisions for an inland journey,” their leader told her.

  He was a tall, gray-haired pillar of a man with an orator’s voice and a New England accent. What dream would make such a man travel so far, Katherine wondered.

  “You wouldn’t be missionaries, would you?” she asked cautiously. The furtive looks he and the others gave her confirmed her suspicion. “Your secret is safe with me. What church?”

  “Presbyterian,” a nervous young man whispered.

  “The mission board funded us,” the leader told her stiffly. “We will start a good Protestant community here.”

  She thought their naive piousness spelled trouble, but she told them about her training at the Presbyterian girls’ school in Philadelphia. The growing interest in their eyes made her heart race.

  Trouble or not, they were her only hope. Katherine hid her desperation and said casually, “You need someone with you who knows the Californios and has friends among them. They’re not going to be happy with such a large group of foreign settlers taking root in their country. When they figure out that you’re here to convert good Catholics into good Protestants, they may go hard on you. Perhaps I can prevent that. Also, I have money to contribute to your cause. Gold.”

  Several of the group whispered excitedly. Katherine held up a warning hand. “But you must take me with you. And my child.”

  Their leader gave her fine clothes a stern appraisal. “Are you prepared to share the work and suffer hardships?”

  She bit back an ironic laugh. “Oh, yes,” she said. “I am sure I can adjust.”

  VITTORIO CAME TO her after dark. She had piled pillows in one corner of her room and put Mary there, safely out of the way. When he knocked she swallowed nausea and went to the door with a nonchalant expression on her face. Her nerves felt as if they might break into tiny pieces.

  He stepped inside and shut the door softly behind him. In his hand he carried a short, thick quirt of rawhide. “You are ready?” he inquired politely, glancing toward the corner where Mary lay sleeping.

  Katherine couldn’t make herself speak words of agreement. This horror will end, she thought. I must simply wait. I will have revenge. “What do you want me to do?” she asked tersely.

  He smiled. “I will show you.” He grabbed the heavy braid bundled at the back of her head. She shut her eyes and said a silent prayer as he jerked her toward the bed. “Strip to the waist, please.”

  LATER, HIS CLOTHES soaked in sweat and the scent of his arousal, Vittorio sat on the floor beside the bed and stroked the quirt over the welts on her naked back. “These will sting for only a few days,” he assured her.

  Shivering, Katherine fought an urge to scream into the pillow beneath her face. Oh, if only Justis were there! What she would give to watch him strangle this sick creature with his bare hands! Then he would carry her and their daughter someplace safe, where he would treat them tenderly and say words of grief and apology.

  She stifled a groan of despair. No more fantasies! Justis had deserted her to take a respectable white wife. She had to be strong all alone. She would never have his help again. She could not kill Vittorio yet, so she would continue to play the game.

  “Vittorio?” she asked, raising her head to look at him. The satiated expression on his face hinted that he might be generous at the moment.

  “Hmmm?”

  He lazily flicked the quirt over her shoulders. She struggled not to jerk with pain. “I would like a small portion of my gold, please. I feel sorry for those silly American farmers. I want to give them a gift. A few hundred dollars, that’s all.”

  “Certainly. I approve of your kind spirit.” He sighed. “I will be away for a short while. Tomorrow I am leaving to visit a friend in Monterey. He is getting married.”

  “Oh?” Excitement hammered in her stomach. “How long will you be gone?”

  “Several weeks.” He stood, snapped the quirt down on her back one more time, then yawned. “I will send a boy to your room in the morning with the gold.”

  She sat up, her flogged back to him, and straightened her clothes with as much dignity as she could. She heard him open the door to the gallery. He paused there. “You never cried or begged,” he said thoughtfully. “Amazing. I haven’t even begun to hurt you.”

  The next morning a servant boy brought her a pouch filled with gold coins. She held it to her lips for a moment, praying that the missionaries could be persuaded to hide her and Mary when Vittorio came looking.

  IN JUST OVER two weeks the missionaries marked off a valley for their small community, designating a pretty glen nearby for their church site and a spot next to a creek for their school. Each family had a hurriedly built but sturdy cabin, and the tiny home they’d constructed for Katherine at the far end of the valley was secure, if not particularly comfortable.

  She had already proved to them that she could work as hard as they, though her enthusiasm was fueled by dread of Vittorio rather than a grand desire to bring civilization to a barbaric Eden. The more settled she was there, the more the missionaries considered her an asset and a compatriot, the less likely they’d be to give her up without a fight when he tracked her down.

  If the missionaries wanted heaven on earth, they’d found it, Katherine mused one day as she sat on a warm, grassy hilltop. She curled her legs under her and rocked Mary, who had fretted all night and most of the day.

  “Poor love,” Katherine crooned to her, stroking her head. “I promise that you w
ill have strong white teeth when all their growing is done. You’ll be the most beautiful little girl in all of California.” The contrast between the baby’s black hair, fawn-colored skin, and green eyes already made for surpassing charm.

  “I wish your father could see you,” Katherine whispered. “How could he resist such a combination?” She bent forward and, shutting her eyes, touched her forehead to Mary’s. Had it really been a year since he’d left for Gold Ridge? Would she ever stop listening for his voice when other men talked? Would she always hurry to meet strangers, hope warring with bitterness?

  Mary’s soft cry of dismay made Katherine look at her closely. The baby gazed up at her with unhappy eyes, appearing almost comically put out. “You angry little fox,” Katherine teased. “I know I haven’t had much time to hold you lately. I’ve been helping to build us a home. A fine log shanty with pretty mud between the cracks. Nothing fancy, but we’ll be outdoors most of the time anyway. The weather is so pleasant here.”

  She raised her head and swept a loving gaze over the countryside. The hills wore ever-changing patterns of emerald grass dotted with groves of oaks; the sky was a rich blue, and the September breeze that curled out of it was deliciously hot. A creek flowed through the shallow valley in front of her, shaded by sycamores. This secluded paradise looked more like the pastoral estate of a king than a wilderness.

  The missionaries were a stern, complaining lot who never took time to admire the land. Instead, they worried over how to tame it and attract heathen Indians to their ministry. Still, Katherine lauded their hard work and determination.

  Mary made a mewling sound that carried a more serious note of distress. Frowning, Katherine unwrapped the light blanket that covered her and probed her velvet-skinned stomach with quick, expert hands. “You’ve not got the colic, have you? Well, I’ll fix you some tea that will help that. You’ll be just fine. Yes, my love, my sweet little Dahlonega.”

  She whispered a medicine chant in Cherokee, then, gathering Mary in her arms, walked down to the valley settlement, humming contentedly. By evening a terrible scarlet rash covered Mary’s body. By dawn her fever was so high, she suffered convulsions. By noon the light began to fade from her beautiful green eyes. At sunset she whimpered softly and died in Katherine’s arms.

  “BRING SEÑORA GALLATIN to me, please,” Vittorio commanded, jabbing his mount’s sides with his spurs until the palomino lunged forward, nearly crashing into the group of worried Americans. He jerked a gloved hand toward the vaqueros waiting with rifles resting at lazy alert on their thighs. “I do not wish to use force, but I will if I must.”

  “A moment of patience, please, Don Salazar,” the Americans’ leader asked in a nervous voice. “The woman is not in a frame of mind to—”

  “Vittorio!”

  He turned to see her running up to him. He didn’t notice the primal smile that was not a smile at all, or the lethal gleam in her eye, because he was staring at her once-magnificent hair. It whipped around her shoulders in a chopped, ragged mass.

  “You have nothing to threaten me with now!” she screamed, and threw herself at him with the ferocity of a rabid beast. Silver flashed in the sun as her hand swung. Agony slashed from his hipbone to his knee as he spurred the palomino away from her.

  Her countrymen and their wives grabbed her and wrestled her to the ground. A scalpel fell from her grasp. Caught by their restraining hands, she spat at Vittorio with frustrated violence. “You will pay for your betrayal and cruelty,” she promised. “I will kill you the first chance I get.”

  “Her babe died two days ago,” a man explained. “Took some kind of sickness and passed away quick. She’s near out of her mind.”

  Vittorio stared at the half-mad beauty and pressed a hand against the long gash in his leg. She didn’t know how much her maddened fury excited him. He would bide his time and let her hatred simmer into something even more deadly, even more wonderful to tame. “I will come back for you, Catalina, but first I will give you time to find your senses. My poor angel. I promise not to forsake you.”

  “Good,” she retorted, her eyes vivid with murderous lust. “Come back. I’ll cut your throat and watch you strangle on your own evil.”

  He gestured to his men to follow him. Then, tipping his sombrero to her, he whirled his blood-flecked horse and rode away.

  * * *

  JUSTIS HAD TAKEN to working with the ship’s crew out of necessity. He was sick of the ocean, but more than anything else he was sick of lying in his bunk sweating over Katherine’s fate. Several times he had thought he heard her voice. Worry and impatience were addling his senses, he feared. He’d be no good to her that way. So he spent his time on deck.

  “Raise tacks and sheets!” the captain called.

  His face stinging in the briny wind, his bare chest wet with ocean spray, Justis copied what the sailors beside him did, letting heavy rope slide through his gloved hands. As usual, he forgot his worries for a few minutes as he concentrated on the swift litany of commands yelled by the captain in his booming voice. When everything was done, the calls came back from the crew—“Cross-jack yards all well!”

  “Well the mizzen-topsail yard!” and others.

  “Give the call, Mr. Gallatin!” a grinning sailor urged.

  Justis threw back his head and called, “Well all!”

  As he coiled the rigging, the captain came to his station and clapped him on the shoulder. “Your wait is about done, sir. I’ll be sorry to lose you, but I hope you find your wife.”

  Justis grabbed his arm. “Are we near?”

  The captain pointed. Justis swung to his right and gazed desperately toward the shimmering blue line on the horizon. “We’ll be putting in near the Presidio de San Diego,” the captain told him. “It’s hundreds of miles south of where you’re headed, but it’s California land. We’ll be harbored there for a month or more.”

  “I can’t sit and stew for another month. I’ll go ahead on horseback.”

  “But that would mean weeks of hard travel, sir. The Mendez and Salazar ranchos are up beyond the mission at San Francisco de Asis.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” he said softly, searching the coast as if he could already see Katherine. Nothing mattered but finding her.

  KATHERINE GREW ACCUSTOMED to being by herself, buried in her grief. She ventured into the missionaries’ lives only when they needed her doctoring skills or when she needed to replenish her food supplies, to which she was entitled by the money she’d given them.

  Otherwise, in the weeks following Mary’s death she became a hermit. October passed; November arrived and brought cool, rainy days. She spent much of her time beside the primitive mud-and-rock fireplace in her cabin with a shawl hanging loosely around her shoulders, or she went to the crude log church in the glen, where one tiny grave marked the cemetery.

  That grave, surrounded by the stumps of trees, was where she carried out her two most important duties in life. First she sat on a stump beside the grave and spoke as if Mary could hear, telling her Cherokee legends, stories about the Blue Song family, and loving anecdotes about Justis.

  Then she took out the long, slender knife she’d bartered from one of the local Indians who came regularly to trade with the missionaries. She honed the blade a little finer each day and waited for Vittorio to return. Out of all she had lost—her family, her home, her husband, her child—she would have only one victory. But it would be sweet.

  A COOL, MISTY dusk had settled into the slopes of the hills. Justis reined his horse to a halt on a rise that gave him a long view. He squinted in the failing light at log cabins scattered on the valley floor. Smoke rose from their chimneys and mingled with the fog rising from the nearby creek. Across the valley, one tiny cabin sat off to itself. No smoke curled above its pole-and-thatch roof.

  The pulse pounded in his throat. Katherine lived there somewhere. She had left Salazar’s rancho for unknown reasons almost three months earlier according to the servants he’d bribed to talk. He had wan
ted to confront Salazar, but the Californio was away on a hunting trip. No matter. If Salazar had done anything to hurt her, there would be time for killing him later.

  Justis urged his tired horse into a lope and entered the valley. A small boy rounded the corner of a cabin, carrying firewood. He dropped his load and stared in fear as Justis slid the horse to a stop.

  “Hello, young feller. Don’t be scared of me.”

  “You’re dressed like a Californio but you sound like a Yank.”

  “Yeah. I’m a Georgia Yank. I’m lookin’ for a Injun lady named Katherine Gallatin.”

  His eyes still wide, the boy pointed toward the end of the valley. “Beyond the trees there. She always stays by our church building until dark.”

  “Thanks for the help.” Justis put his horse in a walk, though he could barely keep from kicking the animal into a sprint. He didn’t want to go tearing up to Katie in the shadows and scaring her half to death. Katie. After more than a year. He felt like a man about to enter battle—excitement pumping through his veins, every nerve alert to the fullest, emotions stretched taut under a calm veneer.

  “Mister!” the boy called. “Be careful! My pa says she’s got a devil on her shoulder!”

  Justis almost smiled. And another about to come back into her life.

  KATHERINE TILTED HER head toward the faint sound of hooves on wet ground. The shadows were so deep she could hardly see past the clearing to the narrow trail that led to the settlement. The hooves came closer, moving fast, sucking into the soil. Now she even heard the soft clink of the rider’s gear.

  She leapt up from her sitting place by Mary’s grave and ran to the church. She hid behind a back corner and watched carefully, her breath short. Slowly she withdrew her knife from the sheath in her belt, then pulled her shawl over her head like a hood, draping the ends down her back where they wouldn’t hinder her arms.

  The man who rode into the clearing was a dark, indistinct form in the dusk, but his height and the outline of his wide sombrero were enough to confirm her suspicion. Vittorio. Who else would come so boldly to her sacred place? This was no missionary.