Amy stared up at him, trying to imagine him with tears in his eyes. “You love a memory. I’m not the girl you knew.”
His fingertips slid to cup her chin, the rasp of his callused skin warming her from the inside out like a gulp of medicinal whiskey. Amy shrank back, but his hand followed. He trailed his knuckles lightly along her throat, his gaze resting on her face, alert to every change in her expression.
“Aren’t you the same girl?” he asked huskily.
“How could I be? You’re not a foolish man. Why marry an unwilling woman when you could find someone else?”
“Are you unwilling, or only frightened?” His mouth twisted in a wry grin, and he closed the remaining distance between them. “You ever stumbled across a snake and thought it was a rattler? The first thing you think of is getting bit, and that scares you so bad you can’t see past it. You don’t look to see if it’s really a rattler or if it’s coiled. If you’ve got something in your hand to kill it with, you strike without thinking.”
To her eyes, he seemed a yard wide at the shoulders. He smelled of leather and horse and gunpowder, distinctly masculine, a strangely heady combination in the close confines of the barn. Crooking a finger beneath her chin, he tipped her head back.
“I’m not a rattler, Amy, and I’m not fixin’ to bite. Give me a chance to wash the trail dust off and have a cup of coffee.”
“Then I have nothing to worry about?” Her voice shook. “I’m misreading you. Is that what you’re saying? You have no intention of holding me to promises made fifteen years ago?”
“I’d like to discuss it later, that’s what I’m saying. You need some time to walk a circle around me. And I need time to come to grips with the reality that you’re alive. I have no intentions of making any announcements of marriage today, so you can relax on that score.” He turned her face to regard her, his eyes smiling. “As for you not being the same girl I knew? You look like her, speak like her, smell like her . . .” He slowly bent his head toward hers. “Ask me to cut off my right arm for you, and I’ll do it. Ask me to lay down my life for you, and I’ll do it. But, please, don’t ask me to give you up now that I’ve found you again. Don’t ask that, Amy.”
“But—I am asking it of you, Swift.” She drew her head back as his advanced. “I’m begging it of you. If you truly love me, don’t destroy my life like this.”
Bent on kissing her, Swift tightened his hold on her chin. At the last possible second, she wrenched her face aside. With a broken sob, she whirled away from him and ran from the barn. Swift stared after her, his hand still uplifted.
After a moment, he stepped to the barn door and watched her fleeing down the center of the street. She bypassed Hunter and Loretta’s house, heading for a small clapboard dwelling set among a cluster of tall pines at the other end of town.
Don’t destroy my life like this. The words whispered in Swift’s mind, a heartbreak he didn’t want to face, but one he couldn’t ignore.
After spending the afternoon and early evening catching up on old times with Loretta and getting to know the children, Swift accompanied Hunter to his lodge, where they sought privacy to talk. Hunter laid a log across the fire, then lowered himself cross-legged to the ground, eyeing Swift across the flames. Night wind slapped against the taut leather walls of the lodge, making a hollow, soft drumming sound that carried Swift back through the years. In the firelight, the age lines stamped upon Hunter’s handsome face were invisible. Dressed in buckskin, with his mahogany hair still long, he looked just as Swift remembered him, a tall, lithe warrior with piercing indigo eyes.
“I can’t believe you’ve kept your lodge all these years, Hunter. With a fine house like you’ve built, what’s the point?”
Hunter glanced around them. “This is where I find myself. I live in one world, but my heart yearns for another sometimes.”
His voice reed thin, Swift replied, “It’s a world that no longer exists.” As gently as he could, he told Hunter about the deaths of all his relatives. Tears filled Hunter’s eyes, but Swift continued, knowing these things had to be said and that Hunter had brought him to the lodge to hear them. “At least they died free and proud, my friend,” Swift finished carefully. “Their world no longer existed, so perhaps it was best they passed on to a better place.”
Hunter swept his hand toward the lodge walls. “Ah, but it does exist, and as long as my children live, it will continue to exist, because I sing my people’s songs and teach my children their ways.” He thumped his chest with his fist. “The People are here, forever, until I am dust in the wind. It was my brother’s last request of me, yes? And I have honored it. It was my mother’s dream, and I have made it come true.” He let out a ragged sigh. “I have known of their parting for a long time. My brother’s spirit walks beside me. I feel the sunshine of my mother’s love upon my shoulders. When I listen, I can hear them whispering gladness to me.”
For years Swift had hardened himself against feeling anything, but now Hunter’s tongue laid him open like a knife.
“For the Comanche in me, my life here has sometimes been a lonely path, but within me there is a dream place where my people still ride free and kill the buffalo. When I come to this lodge, I listen, if only for a little while, to the whispering voices of lost souls, and a smile comes upon me.”
An ache spread through Swift’s chest. “I can’t hear the whispers anymore,” he admitted hollowly. “Sometimes, when the wind touches my face, my memories come so clear, I nearly weep. But the place inside me that was Comanche has died.”
Hunter closed his eyes, his muscle-roped arms draped loosely across his knees, his body relaxed. He seemed to be absorbing the very air around him. “No, Swift. The Comanche in you has not died. You have only stopped listening. You feel the same to me as always, except that I sense great pain in you.”
The firelight before Swift seemed to swim, and he realized he was looking at it through tears. “Not pain, Hunter, just a lost feeling. When the People fell, there was no longer a path for me to follow. No one to tell me where to walk, or how. And I began going my own way.” He swallowed. “It hasn’t been a good way. You’ve heard the stories.” He looked up into his friend’s eyes. “They’re true. If you turn your face from me, I won’t blame you. If your woman doesn’t want me in your house tonight, I’ll understand. My heart has little sunshine in it, only blackness. Blackness can spread to others.”
Hunter smiled. “And sunlight chases away darkness. You’ve only to rise before dawn to see that. You’ve risked your life for me in battle, Swift. I trusted you enough to bless your betrothal to Amy. If your path has been a hard one, I’m sorry, but I see only where your feet rest now. You have been a brother to me. That will never change.”
“Traveling here, I thought of you so often—of all the good times we shared. I hoped we could make new memories together.”
A reminiscent silence fell over them. Then Hunter broke it by asking, “Yet you’re planning to leave?”
Swift stiffened. “How did you know?”
“I see the good-byes aching in your eyes.” Hunter leaned forward over his knees and prodded the fire with a stick of kindling. A spray of sparks shot upward. “Why, Swift? You’ve traveled so far to get here, and before one sleep, you’re looking over your shoulder at the trail behind you. When a man finally finds his way, he is a fool to become lost again.”
Swift closed his eyes, inhaling the wonderful smell of Hunter’s lodge, weary in a way that went far deeper than his bones. “Sometimes a man has to do things he’d rather not.”
“You leave because of Amy, don’t you?”
Swift lifted his lashes. “My coming here has upset her. What she says is true. She was just a child when she betrothed herself to me.” He hunched his shoulders. “As much as I love her, I’m not blind. She’s changed, Hunter. The old fear is back in her eyes. I’m not sure I can get past it again. And if I couldn’t, the only alternative would be force. I can’t walk back into her life and do that to
her. It wouldn’t be fair.”
“Wouldn’t it?” Hunter grew pensive. “If you truly love Amy, I’m not so sure a little force would be a bad thing.”
“Force, Hunter? That’s never been your way.”
“No.” Hunter listened to the sounds outside for a moment, as if he wanted to assure himself none of his family had drawn close to his lodge. “Swift, what I’m going to tell you is for you alone. Loretta will burn my dinner for a month if she learns of it.” A twinkle crept into his eyes. “She loves Amy very much, yes? And we don’t always agree on what is best for her. Loretta sees with her woman’s heart, and she shoos away shadows, trying to make Amy’s world one of sunshine.”
“It seems everyone here loves Amy. I thought her students were going to attack me today.”
“Yes, very much love, but not the right kind.” Hunter chewed one corner of his mouth, as if he weighed each word before he spoke. “Amy—she is like . . .” His eyes grew distant. “I once met a man in Jacksonville who caught beautiful butterflies. He kept them in cases, under glass. Amy’s like that, living under glass, where nothing can touch her. You understand? She loves her schoolchildren. She loves me and Loretta and our children. Yet she claims no one for herself, so she can make babies of her own.”
Swift ran his palms over the black denim that skimmed his thighs, then clenched his fingers over his bent knees. “Maybe she doesn’t want babies, Hunter.”
“Oh, but she does. I have seen the yearning in her eyes. But there is a great fear in her. She has . . .” His voice trailed off. “When she came to us from Texas, she had changed. She no longer has the courage she once had to fight for what she wants.”
Swift circled that, remembering the dusty, barren farm and Henry Masters, swaying drunkenly in the doorway, a mescal jug dangling from his finger. “Did something more happen to her in Texas? Aside from the comancheros kidnapping her, I mean.”
Hunter tossed the stick onto the fire. “I don’t think so. Amy has no secrets from us.” He shrugged. “What Santos and his men did to her—that has walked with her, always. Fear’s a strange thing. When we face it, as she did that summer when you befriended her, fear becomes small. But when we run from it, it grows and grows. For a very long time, Amy has been running.”
Swift considered that, trying to read Hunter’s expressions.
Hunter met his gaze. “When she first came to Wolf’s Landing, she made dreams about one day, when the Comanche fight for survival finally ended and you would come for her. They were very good dreams, and dreaming them was safe. You understand? You were her great love, but always for someday, never for today. She held herself away from others because she was promised to you. As the years went by and the dreams turned to dust, she filled her life with other things. My family. Her students.” Affection warmed his voice. “She’s a beautiful woman. There are many men who would marry with her and give her children, but she stays under the glass, where no one can touch her.”
“More than twenty men raped her.” The words came hard, catching behind Swift’s larynx. “The hell they put her through would have destroyed most women. Amy was just a child. I guess if anyone has a right to live under glass, it’s her.”
“Yes, she has that right if you grant it to her and ride out tomorrow.” Hunter arched a challenging eyebrow. “But is she happy? Being safe can also be very lonely.”
Swift glanced away. “What are you saying, Hunter? I hate it when you talk around things. I remember when I was a kid, I always felt like I was on hot coals when you lectured me.”
“The reason I talk around is so you will think through,” Hunter replied with a grin. “I learned it from a very wise man.”
“Your father.” Swift laughed softly and then, on a sigh, whispered, “Many Horses . . . what I wouldn’t give to see him again, just for an hour. To this day, I can remember sitting in his lodge, smoking with him and turning green, too young and proud to admit his pipe made my stomach roll.”
“He was very good at talking around.”
Still smiling, Swift pulled his Bull Durham pouch and La Croix papers from his pocket, then deftly rolled a smoke. Picking up the stick Hunter had tossed on the fire, he lit up and inhaled deeply. “Well, I like straight talk. What I hear you saying is—” He spat a fleck of tobacco. “You think I should stay. Even though she hates everything I’ve become.”
“Does she? Or is it that she knows you will break through the glass and claim her, when no other man has dared? I think she is very frightened to have her dream turn out to be a flesh-and-blood man, a man who may not run if she lifts her nose high and scorns him.” Hunter flashed an indulgent smile. “She is very good at lifting her nose. The men here try to impress her with their manners and end up tripping over their own feet.”
“And you think I’ll succeed where they’ve failed?”
“I don’t think you’ll approach her with a book of manners in one hand and your hat in the other.”
“I couldn’t read a book of manners if I had one. Jesus, Hunter . . .” Swift shoved the stick deep into the ashes, his thrust hard and angry. “She looks at me, and all she sees is the past coming back to haunt her. And she’s right. I’ve seen things that haunt me! I’ve done things I couldn’t forgive another man. She claims we no longer know one another, but the truth is, Amy knows me too well. If I stay here, I’ll rip her life apart. She made promises to me long ago that give me the right to do that, but if I care anything about her, should I?”
“That is only for you to know.” Pausing, Hunter stared for a moment into the fire, then looked up. “What will she have if you disappear over the horizon, Swift?”
“Her life here. Peace and quiet. Good friends. Teaching the children.”
“Ah, yes. Like you, she walks her own way. But is it good?”
“It may be a whole lot better than what I can give her.”
“No, because her life here is nothing.” Hunter grew pensive again. “Chase found a wounded raccoon once, which he healed and raised to adulthood inside a cage.”
Swift nearly groaned. “I hear one of your stories coming. How in hell can a raccoon possibly relate to this discussion?”
Hunter held up a hand. “Perhaps if you open your ears, you will find out.” He smiled and settled back. “The raccoon—he always looked through the wire at the world, sniffing and yearning for freedom. Like Amy, he dreamed of yesterday and someday, but his todays were nothing. Chase decided it was cruel to keep him imprisoned, and he opened the cage door. The raccoon, who had been badly injured by another animal, was terrified and cowered in the back corner of his prison.”
Swift set his jaw. “Amy isn’t a coon, Hunter.”
“But she cowers in the back corner, all the same.” Hunter squinted against a trail of smoke. “The raccoon was a biter when he grew frightened, so instead of dragging him out of the cage, Chase prodded him with a stick, until the coon got so mad he forgot he was afraid and went out the door. Chase prodded him every day with that stick, and each time the coon left his cage, he stayed outside a little longer, until he finally lost his fear of the outdoors. It’s a story with a happy ending. The coon’s dreams of yesterday and someday became his today.”
Swift snorted. “I can’t go poking Amy with a prod. Talk sense, if you’re gonna talk.”
“I’m talking very good sense. I rescued Amy from Santos, yes? And I tended her wounds, just as Chase did the raccoon’s. And like Chase, I have made a very safe world here for Amy, where she can hide and dream.” Hunter swallowed, the muscles along his throat distended. When he resumed speaking, his voice rang taut. “My heart held only good things, but what I have done is very bad. The safety has become her cage, and she is trapped inside, afraid to leave.”
With an index finger, Swift traced the Maltese cross imprinted on his folder of cigarette papers. “Do you realize that I have nothing? A horse, some gold pieces, and a pack of trouble riding my heels. That’s it.”
Hunter mused on that for a moment and, as a
lways, offered no solution.
“It’d be a hell of a lot easier on both of us if I just rode out,” Swift argued.
“Yes.”
That single word held an unspoken challenge. “Doesn’t it matter at all to you that I’m a gunslinger? That I rode with comancheros? If I met myself on the street, I’d say, ‘Now there’s a no-good bastard, if ever I saw one.’ ”
“I only know what I can see in your eyes.”
“What if I turn her world upside down and my past catches up with me?” Swift tossed his smoke into the fire. “Tomorrow, next week, a year from now. It could happen, Hunter.”
“Then you must turn and face your past. Just as Amy must turn and face hers.” Hunter pushed to his feet, his shadow looming behind him on the leather wall. “Stay here in my lodge for a while, and listen to your heart. If, after you listen, you still ride out tomorrow, I will know it is the best thing and accept it. But find yourself first. Not the boy you were, not the man that boy became, but who you are tonight. Your path will then be marked for you. I leave you with one great truth. A man whose yesterdays rest on his horizon travels forward into his past. The result is that he goes a very long way to nowhere.”
Chapter 4
VOICES FILLED THE WOLF HOME, BOUNCING cheerfully off the planked walls, drowning out the sound of silver chinking against china. Swift was full of questions about Hunter’s mine, seemingly fascinated that his old friend had been so successful at unearthing gold. With his usual patience, Hunter explained the difference between placer and lode gold, describing the equipment and techniques used to mine each, and that his operation employed both. Loretta and the children inserted amusing anecdotes now and again, telling stories about the panned-out claims around Jacksonville and the more recent finds around Wolf’s Landing.
“These hills are full of gold, no doubt about that,” Indigo said excitedly. “Over in the Jacksonville jail, an inmate panned the dirt in the floor of his cell. It proved so profitable that he wasn’t any too anxious to be turned loose. Then, right before his sentence was up, he hit bedrock and insisted he was staking a claim. The sheriff had to force him out of there at gunpoint.”
Comanche Heart Page 6