Though his hand had tightened on her arm, she was numb to everything but fear. “I can’t stay here. I won’t.” She would die of fright before anything else. It was better to face the unknown than to wait for it to find her.
“The army or the Rangers are trying to drive the Comanche out. I’ll be looking for Daniel. I can’t be worried about you, too.”
Comanche.
So close. Suddenly she was too scared to cry. “Go.” She croaked the word, her throat so tight she could barely speak. “Go after him.”
“You’ll wait here? Promise?”
“Go!” She wasn’t about to wait. She couldn’t bear not knowing what had become of him, not knowing if the Comanche were about to come upon her in their flight, but she couldn’t tell him that. Not now. Not when Daniel might be in danger.
“Get down in the gully.” He wasn’t about to leave before she did.
She turned her mare and started down, but then stopped to watch him spur his horse and ride toward the distinct patches of billowing smoke. Just in the last few seconds, more and more fires had bloomed on the horizon.
Unable to look away, she watched Reed ride toward the inferno.
Reed did not have to see what was happening to know that he was riding into hell.
He leaned over his horse’s neck and spurred it on, knowing the raid would be over within minutes, yet each and every one of those minutes would seem like a lifetime to those involved in the conflict.
He was still too far away to hear more than gunfire, but the sound of battle was etched in his memory. Screams of humans and horses, babies bawling, men shouting orders. The smell of fear and death that tainted every thought.
Common sense, fairness, even sanity withered in battle. On both sides, brutality reigned until the dust cleared and the living were left to count the dead. Reed pictured Daniel in the midst of the confusion and hoped to God that he wasn’t too late.
40
It was all over by the time Reed rode in.
Here and there bursts of gunshots tolled as the army rounded up the survivors and killed off the last of the resisters.
He recognized Capt. John Davis, out of Fort Sill. The veteran officer had been stationed in Texas ever since the war. As Reed rode up, Davis was twisting the waxed end of his long, dark mustache, thoughtfully surveying the smoking remains of a small Comanche clan’s camp-site. They exchanged greetings from horseback.
“What are you doing here, Benton?” Before Reed could answer, Davis went on. “We were out on reconnaissance and came across them just after dawn. I decided to round these people up and take them back to the reservation.”
Reed stared at the carnage. “Looks like you did a little more than that.”
“Yeah, well, that happens. Damn Comanche have been taking captives right and left lately, turning them in for rewards. They’re even bringing in scalps and demanding payment. How in the hell am I supposed to tell my men not to avenge the lice-ridden, battered children and women who’ve been tortured and then returned?”
Davis’s men weren’t his concern. “I’m here looking for my son.”
The captain stared at him long and hard, then shrugged with grave doubt in his eyes. “I hope you find him.”
Reed worked his way slowly through the camp, guiding his horse past knots of Comanche prisoners, ignoring the sullen stares of some, the hopelessness in the eyes of others. Most were women and children and a few old men. They would be marched back to Fort Sill, which they would no doubt leave again as soon as they could.
His hope of finding Daniel alive sank with every prisoner he passed, every twisted, maimed body he saw bleeding in the dirt. Pausing beside a fallen cavalry horse, he gazed through the smoking ruins. His gut clenched. A few feet away, facedown, lay the body of a child.
His mind emptied like a broken pitcher. He slowly dismounted and led his horse toward the body. The world narrowed down to the boy lying there with arms outstretched, his cheek pressed against the earth. Reed did not start breathing again until he realized the boy’s hair was waist length. He remembered the weight of Daniel’s long, shining hair in his hand.
Rubbing his hand over his eyes, he let go a ragged sigh and turned, willing Daniel to be alive. Suddenly the hair on the back of his neck stood up. A strange sense of knowing settled over him. With it came a quiet calm as he stood beside the dead child. He turned full circle.
Smoke drifted like fog, then slowly cleared.
He saw him then. His son. Daniel was sitting on littered ground not far away, staring into the distance. His expression was as empty as a blank page.
As Reed started toward him, he began to take in the entire scene and realized Daniel was not alone. A young woman lay beside him, her buckskin clothing riddled with crimson-stained bullet holes. As he walked toward his son, he saw the boy lift the woman’s lifeless hand and cradle it tenderly before he pressed it to his cheek. When he let go, the woman’s arm fell limply back to the ground. Daniel sat there stroking her raggedly hacked hair over and over, his eyes vacant, his soul empty.
When Reed reached him, he hunkered down on his heels. He was afraid Daniel might run until he saw the emptiness in his eyes. For a time at least, Daniel’s mind had sought refuge deep inside itself, his emotions deadened by all he had seen, by the death of the woman he had called mother.
Though he ached to do so, Reed did not immediately reach for him. He merely squatted beside Daniel until he could not stand the pitiful, utterly lost look on the boy’s face any longer.
“Daniel? Come on, son. Let me take you home.”
Kate wished she had listened to Reed. Wished she had waited in the gully the way he had asked.
Instead, when the shooting had finally stopped, she rode toward the smoking remains of the Comanche settlement.
Two minutes after she arrived, she vomited.
Death as she knew it had always been something quiet and serene. She had attended more than her share of funerals at Saint Perpetua’s because the girls’ choir sang at every funeral Mass. Death meant the pungent scent of incense in the old church. Hymns. Chants. Flickering candles.
A quiet slipping away of life. A journey to the next world.
Here, where blood seeped into the Texas prairie, death was brutal, cold, and ugly. Something not caused by disease or old age, but something horrible done to one man by another. And not only to men, but to women and children, young and old alike.
One or two of the army enlisted men noticed her, but dressed as she was in the baggy pants with the oversize poke bonnet hiding her face, they did not give her a second glance, except perhaps as an oddity. The rest of the troop had its hands full with the prisoners.
She asked one young man if he had seen a civilian among them, praying that Reed had not been wounded or killed during the skirmish. He pointed toward the center of the camp.
Smoke was heaviest there and stung her eyes. She raised her fist to wipe away tears. As she lowered her hand, she saw Reed kneeling beside a fallen woman. Kate nudged the mare forward.
Daniel was sitting on the ground in front of Reed, un-moving as he stared with unseeing eyes at a point in the distance. His fingers were threaded through the fallen woman’s hair.
She stopped her horse, slid off, and leaned against the mare, oddly taking comfort in the solid feel and warmth of the big animal.
Her first inclination was to go to Daniel and see if he would respond to her, but Reed was speaking softly to him. If they were to become father and son again, she had to let Reed have this moment. She prayed he would succeed.
Finally, Reed reached out for Daniel and slipped his hands beneath the boy’s arms. Daniel did not protest when Reed stood and held him close against his shoulder. Reed closed his eyes and embraced Daniel, one hand protectively pressed against the boy’s back.
She gave them time alone before she finally led the mare over. “Reed?” she said softly.
He turned slowly. If he was surprised or angry to see her there, he gave no indication.
“Is he hurt?”
“His heart is broken.” He looked toward the fallen woman. “She must have been his mother.”
Kate could not bear to do more than glance down, take in the blood-soaked buckskin and long dark hair. She did not have to see more. As it was, she might have nightmares of this day for eternity.
Daniel stayed in Reed’s arms, his head on the man’s shoulder.
“Mount up, Kate. I want you to hold him. There’s something I need to do.”
She did as he asked without question; then Reed walked over to the mare and handed the boy up to her. Daniel had no more life than a rag doll. She pressed him against her, tightened her arm around his waist, and negotiated the reins.
Reed went back to his own horse, untied the rawhide strips that held his bedroll behind his saddle, shook out the striped blanket, and covered the Comanche woman with it. Then he gently rolled her over and tucked the blanket around her entire body.
To Kate’s amazement, he tenderly lifted the woman’s shrouded form and carried it over to his horse where he draped her across his saddle.
Daniel had not stirred since Reed set him up in front of Kate. She continued to hold him close, hoping that her love and caring might translate itself through touch. As Reed began to lead his horse toward the outskirts of the camp, Kate slowly followed on the mare.
They traveled away from the smell of smoke and the sound of soldiers barking orders, back to the gully where Reed had told Kate to wait. Once there, he took Daniel’s Comanche mother off his horse and gently laid her body on the bank above the creek bed.
When he pulled open the edges of the blanket, exposing her face and neck, Kate looked away. A few seconds later he had the blanket secured again.
As Kate sat there holding Daniel against her, she was amazed at the time and care Reed took to dig out a shallow grave with little more than his bare hands and a flat rock. After he had positioned the woman’s body, he gathered more rocks from along the streambed until the grave was well covered and safe from animals.
Reed remained beside the cairn with his head bowed. Deeply moved by what he had done, inspired by such a giving gesture toward the woman who had cared for his son, Kate whispered a silent prayer of her own.
Moments later, Reed mounted up and walked his horse over to her mare.
“I’ll take him now,” he said. “It’s time to go home.”
He reached for Daniel. Again, the boy was indifferent to whatever they did. Her heart melted as she watched the big man tuck the boy in front of him and cradle him so tenderly.
If she had not witnessed what Reed had done this afternoon, the care he had taken with the Comanche woman and his gentleness with his son, she would not have believed him capable of it.
She tucked the memory away in order to concentrate on the journey ahead. The sky was still clear, the air surprisingly calm as they turned their mounts toward Lone Star.
A few miles later she spotted the white Andalusian on a rise, magnificent, like a fanciful cloud against the deep blue sky. Reed said he thought the animal was heading back, guided by instinct. He gave a sharp whistle, and although the horse did not come any closer, it followed at a distance all the way home.
41
Filthy, hungry, and silently thoughtful, Kate and Reed had been gone four and a half days by the time they rode into the corral area behind Benton House. Daniel had not spoken a word or made a sound. Nor had he cried. He had escaped to a place where hurt could not touch him anymore.
Scrappy hurried out of the kitchen door to take their horses. When he saw Daniel, the disconcerted expression on his face lightened, but not entirely. “You have any trouble?” he wanted to know.
Reed shook his head.
“Give you much of a fight, did he?” Scrappy studied Daniel carefully.
“None,” Reed said.
“He don’t look so good. Is he all right in the head?” Reed quickly explained that Daniel had reached the camp and he and Kate had gotten to him shortly after an army raid on the small village and that his mother had been killed.
Scrappy shook his head, muttering something about Daniel being too young to have had such a passel of trouble in his life.
Kate couldn’t have agreed more.
“Glad the boy’s back,” Scrappy grudgingly admitted. “Thought after you found him that life could get back to normal around here, but that ain’t gonna happen any time soon.”
“What do you mean?” Reed shifted Daniel on his shoulder.
“Preacher’s here. Brought bad news about Captain Taylor.”
“Oh, no,” Kate groaned. “Not Jonah!”
Reed cursed and quickly shot Kate an apologetic shrug. “What happened? Is he alive?”
Scrappy bobbed his head. “He’s alive. Took a bullet when the regiment went after a bunch of rustlers made up to look like Comanch’. Seems like ever’thin’s going to hell around here this summer. Damned if it don’t.” Without further explanation, he led the horses off toward the barn.
Bone tired, sick with worry over how Charm must be taking the news, Kate trailed Reed across the veranda.
Inside the kitchen they found Charm crying at the table. Preston was there, too, sitting beside her, encouraging her in low, even tones. The minute they walked in, he stood and went directly to Kate. Reed pulled out a chair and sat Daniel down.
In her concern for Charm and Jonah, Kate had not thought of what Preston must think about her traveling alone with Reed. When the minister took his time noting her curious garb, she could only guess what he must be thinking. She tugged the ribbons on the poke bonnet, pulled it off, and set it aside. Before she could say anything, Reed asked Preston about Jonah. Kate hurried over to Charm and put her arm around her.
“He was tracking down some rustlers near Fort Griffin when he was wounded.”
“How bad?”
“Enough that they brought him in to Lone Star yesterday. That’s where he wanted to be. I knew the two of you were good friends and that you would want to know.”
“Thanks.” Reed’s fingers pressed into the back of Daniel’s chair, his knuckles white. “I appreciate it.”
Kate hugged Charm tight. “Go to him,” she urged softly. “We’ll manage here.”
“Do you think I should?” The girl wiped her tears with a checkered napkin.
“You have to. If you don’t, you’ll never forgive yourself.”
Charm threw her arms around Kate’s neck, and Kate whispered, “If he proposes to you again,
promise
me you will say yes. If . . . if his life is in danger, it might keep him alive.”
Charm’s breath caught on a sob, then she whispered back, “I will.”
Kate straightened and looked to Preston for help. “Will you please take Charm into Lone Star? She needs to be with Jonah. I think she can do more for him than any of us.” She turned to Reed. “Besides, we can’t leave Daniel right now.”
After the slightest hesitation, Preston agreed.
Charm finally pulled herself together enough to stand, her eyes swollen from crying, her nose red. “I’ll just go up and pack a few things, Reverend. I’ll be right back,” she promised.
As she hurried away, Reed took Daniel’s hand. Kate was surprised to see the boy walking alone. She noticed, too, that he was barely limping and realized that he must have been fooling them for quite some time. Like a phantom, he followed Reed to the hall door.
“I’ll get him to bed,” Reed told her.
“I’ll be right up.” She could tell by the way Preston was lingering near the back door that he wanted to speak to her alone.
As soon as Reed was out of hearing, she walked over to the sink and pumped a glass of water. Taking a few sips eased her dry throat, but not her mounting agitation.
When Preston took her hand, her jitters multiplied.
“How are
you
holding up, Kate? You look exhausted.”
“I am.” There was no use dancing around the bald truth. “We were gone four days.”
“Are you all right?” Preston studied her closely, searching for the truth in her eyes.
“Of course.”
He seemed to be waiting for more, expecting her to say something else. “Have things changed at all between you and Reed?”
She wished she could have assured him that nothing happened, because nothing
had
happened other than a kiss, but on the ride back she had never stopped thinking about what Reed had done for Daniel, of his attention and concern. Nor could she dismiss her own reaction to him.
Nothing had changed and yet everything had changed.
As she stood there trapped in awkward silence, she tried to convince herself that Preston was by far the best choice. She tried to convince herself to go pack her things and leave with Charm, to move into town and take that job at the dry goods store. Then she would no longer have to see Reed day after day, no longer have to wonder what it would be like to be his wife, not just on paper, but for real. Forever.
She was so open, so vulnerable to temptation right now.
But she couldn’t leave Daniel yet. Not when he needed her so. As did Reed, at least until he and Daniel were able to cope on their own.
“Everything is the same,” she said, trying to assure herself as well as him. “I went along because I was afraid Daniel wouldn’t come home with Reed.”
As if he were aware of the debate going on inside her, he said, “This isn’t the time or the place to press you. Just know that I still want you for my wife.”
He was so genuine, so understanding and patient that she hated not being able to give him a definite answer.
Much to Kate’s relief, Charm walked back into the room with a small bundle of her things. “I don’t know when I’ll be back,” Charm said.
“Don’t worry.” Kate hugged her. “Take care of Jonah and remember what you promised. Keep your pretty chin up. Everything will be fine.”
As Charm walked out, Kate thanked Preston again for taking her to town. “I know it can’t be easy for you,” she added. “People might object to you helping someone like Charm, but—”
“My job is to serve everyone in Lone Star. Saints and sinners alike. I’m happy to carry her back.”
Saints and sinners.
How much would he be willing to forgive in her own case? The fact that she wasn’t a virgin? Her past? Her own lustful thoughts?
Preston was kind and gentle, handsome and sincere, but Reed had gotten under her skin.
“Kate?” Preston squeezed her hand.
Nudged out of her silent debate, Kate started. “I’m sorry.” She looked into his eyes and saw such unbridled hope that it made her want to cry. “I’m not much of a rider. I’m afraid I’m on edge and worn to a frazzle.”
He had been holding her hand throughout their conversation, but she had forgotten that entirely. She looked down at her hand in his, ashamed of her ragged, dirty nails.
She needed a bath in the worst way. She longed to be alone, to wash her hair, slip between clean sheets, and sleep on something besides the hard ground, but the idea of heating water and carrying it upstairs was beyond conception.
“I hope I see you again soon,” he was saying. “Maybe you could have Scrappy bring you into town later this week. When things settle down.”
She did not know how soon she could see him again, so she made no promises. He lingered, as if loath to leave. She felt the need to assure herself as well as him that she would be all right alone with Reed, so she put on a smile.
“Everything will be fine, Preston. We’ll talk again soon. Please send my regards to Aunt Martha and take care of Charm. If anything happens to Jonah . . .” She could not bear to voice her fear.
“I’ll get word to you as soon as I can. Tell Reed good-bye.”
“I will.”
He put his hand beneath her chin, tipped her face toward his. “May I kiss you?”
A test,
she thought.
Nothing more.
She nodded.
His lips touched hers in a feather-light kiss. She fancied tasting respect, admiration, and boundless honor. Unfortunately, none of those sparked her passion the way Reed’s kiss had done.
“Good-bye, Kate.” He put on his hat and turned to go.
“Take care.”
Watching him clear the veranda, she wished that she could be everything he wanted, wished that she welcomed his ardor, as would any woman in her right mind.
But as she watched him help Charm into the carriage, all she could think about was hurrying upstairs.
To Daniel. To Reed.
She heard Reed moving around in his own room, heard water splash in the washbowl, so she walked down the hall to Daniel’s door.
The boy was in bed, lying on his side, curled in on himself. His huge blue eyes were still open. She lowered herself to the mattress beside him, listened to the soft sound of his breathing, offered him nothing but silent companionship.
She reached up to stroke his hair, and he listlessly batted her hand away. It was the first real response he had made in two days.
Sensing movement behind her, she looked over her shoulder. Reed was framed in the doorway, watching them with worry etched around his eyes.
“My heart aches for him,” she whispered. “I don’t know what to do, what to say. Before he had hope. He had someone to return to. Now, he has nothing.”
Reed walked over and stood with his thumbs hooked into his waistband, contemplating Daniel.
“He has us,” he said.
Us.
A single father and a housekeeper.
He needs a real family. A permanent family.
The last thing this little boy needed was another temporary mother in his life.
As she sat there beside him, Kate realized that for Daniel’s sake, she had to make a decision soon. She could not let him come to care for her, to think of her as a mother now that his Comanche mother was gone.
She stood up. “Would you like to tell him good night?”
Visibly uncomfortable, Reed shifted as he gazed down at the boy. Then he sat down where Kate had been perched beside Daniel’s shoulder. Slowly, he reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out a choker beaded with multicolored glass of every hue. A dollar-size white shell, bright as a polished moon, dangled from it. Kate listened as Reed spoke softly to Daniel.
“I can’t bring your mother back, but I saved this for you. You’ll always have it to remember her by.” Reed pressed the necklace into Daniel’s hand. Slowly, his little fingers coiled around the choker and held it tight.
Kate could not bear to watch anymore, so she left them alone and walked out into the hall. Leaning against the wall, she let the tears come. Daniel would fall asleep tonight with his mother’s choker clutched in his little hand, just as she had once clung to her mother’s ragged handkerchief. The tattered piece of thin cotton was all she had left of Meg Whittington, a piece of her mother that she had never surrendered, even to this day.
Reed followed her and closed the door behind him, but tonight he did not lock Daniel in. “Are you all right?” he said softly.
She nodded, her throat working as she tried to swallow, searching for the right words. She, who knew the value of such a remembrance, had not thought to bring something back for Daniel, and yet Reed, a man she was convinced had a heart of stone, had managed to make the small gesture that would one day mean everything to his son.
She had seen a caring, loving, thoughtful side to him that threatened to make her even more vulnerable to him. As she watched him through her tears, he slipped his arm around her shoulders and started walking her down the hall.
“Why don’t you go in and rest a few minutes? I’ll get a bath ready for you.”
Right now, nothing sounded more tempting than a bath, except remaining in the comfort and warmth of his embrace.
She sighed in resignation. “That sounds wonderful.”
“Just promise to save me some room.” Then he startled her by letting go a short laugh. “Don’t look so shocked, Kate. I’m just teasing.”
Smiling, she went into her room and sat down on the edge of the bed, afraid that if she closed her eyes even for a second, she would not stir until noon the next day.