Guarding Hearts

by Jaycie Morrison

  “I’m talking about forgiving yourself, Whit.” Rains kept her voice subdued, and Whit’s posture relaxed. “You did what needed to be done. You took care of Kathleen, and you helped keep the rest of us out of danger as well. Miriam Boudreaux recovered, and her dismissal from the WAC doesn’t merit your guilt or your regret, or especially your resignation from the Medical Corps. Rather, everyone at Fort Des Moines owes you a debt of gratitude. I know I do.” Rains held out her hand. “I thank you for what you did and how you did it. If you ever need anything—”

  “Shit.” Ignoring the hand, Whit hugged Rains awkwardly, brushing an arm across her eyes as she did so. “It means a lot to hear you say that.” As they broke apart, she added, “I was going to ask you about working in the motor pool. But maybe I’ll give that forgiveness thing a try first. Does it work for you?”

  Rain didn’t answer at first. Beyond simple forgiveness, she needed redemption. But no one alive could give her that. “It works for all who are worthy,” was all she could say.

  They rejoined the group and Rains noted that Kat’s eyes never left Whit’s face as she made her way across the room. They spoke quietly for a moment while Rains teased Sophie about her latest article. “Three photographs and five paragraphs? You must think you’re working for Look magazine.”

  “Why, Lieutenant, I had no idea you were that well versed in popular culture,” Sophie countered.

  “She isn’t,” Bett put in. “I subscribe, but I have to hide each month’s new arrival or she’ll use it for kindling.”

  “Maybe I look before I light,” Rains suggested and everyone laughed.

  Kat and Whit were holding hands as they waved good night to everyone.

  * * *

  Seeing Sophie and Patrice again had added to the evening’s enjoyment, and Bett convinced Rain to have the two women over for dinner so they could get to know them better. Rain agreed, but only if Lilly was invited too. When the little family arrived at their home two weeks later, Lilly and Rain were so excited to see each other that Bett ordered them to stay outside and run around in the street for a minute to calm down. When they came in, both chilled, Lilly helped Rain put another log on the fire. Then they warmed their backsides while the remaining adults sipped their drinks and chatted.

  Lilly pointed at the hallway. “Do you have a bird clock too?” she asked Rain.

  Rain made a sad face. “No, we don’t. There’s not much back there at all.”

  Lilly lifted her chin. “I want to see anyway.”

  They were given permission to explore the rest of the house, and Lilly spent quite a bit of time examining Bett’s collection of cosmetics. When Rain opened the door to her bedroom, Lilly looked back at her, puzzled.

  “Don’t you and Bett sleep in the same room like Mommy and Patrice do?”

  Sophie and Patrice were in the den, leaving Rain with no guidance about what to say, so she answered honestly, “Well yes, we do. But we call this my bedroom because this is where I have my clothes.”

  Lilly was satisfied with this explanation and repeated it to Sophie and Patrice during dinner. Bett began to giggle and Patrice acknowledged her with a tip of the wine glass. “I can’t wait for the talk about s-e-x.” She rolled her eyes. “Especially given our…complications.”

  Sophie talked about her current story about the struggles of wounded veterans in the area. Bett told about some experiences with the latest batch of recruits that had visited the cryptography office. Lilly asked if she could come back to the motor pool.

  “We are very busy right now,” Rain tried to dissuade her, “but I do have something for you.” Producing a package, she watched as Lilly opened it eagerly. Sharon had helped by calling every supply company the WAC used, and the result was the smallest hat they could find. Lilly’s eyes lit up and she wore the slightly oversized hat until Sophie made her take it off for dinner.

  After dessert, a drowsy Lilly was leaning against Rain on the couch. Bett came around to Rain’s other side and did the same thing. Rain looked so contented that Patrice laughed. “I guess you’re sitting in the catbird seat, Gale.”

  Rain hadn’t heard that expression, but she smiled. Sophie said, “You’re such a natural at caring for little ones. Maybe you’ll have one of your own some day?”

  Bett grimaced, recalling what Rain had said about children at that first dinner party at Kathleen and Whit’s. She knew her lover would not intentionally be rude, but she suspected Rain would not reply.

  Sure enough, Rain stood abruptly, directing Lilly’s limp form onto Bett’s lap. “Excuse me for a moment.” She went down the hall and into the bathroom.

  Sophie looked embarrassed. “I’m sorry. Did I say something wrong?”

  “It’s all right. You couldn’t have known. It’s a subject we’ve only touched on briefly one time. I’m not sure why, but Gale has made it clear to me that she doesn’t want children, although she obviously loves them. Once I thought she didn’t even like them.” Bett looked at the sleeping girl in her lap. “Now I think maybe she likes them too much.”

  When Rain came back in, Patrice asked, “So are you still interested in that hunt?”

  “Yes, but my work schedule will have to come first, I’m afraid,” Rain said, turning away from them again as she went into the kitchen and poured a glass of water.

  “Oh sure. I can check back with you in a couple of weeks,” Patrice offered.

  Rain nodded, “Thank you. That sounds good.” She came back into the den and looked at Lilly, then at Bett. She drank, closing her eyes against the pain.

  There was a quiet moment. “I guess we’d better take our rag doll home,” Sophie said, and they began gathering their things. Patrice picked Lilly up and she fussed for a hug from Rain.

  Rain obliged and turned away quickly when Lilly let her go. “I’ll get your coats,” she said, clearing her throat.

  Bett walked them out, chatting while everyone got settled for the ride home. Rain tidied the kitchen and put another log on the fire. She was standing at the hearth staring into the flames when Bett came back in.

  When Bett stood beside her, Rain said, “Yes.”

  “Yes what, Beloved?”

  “Yes, I will talk about it.” She took a breath, turning back to the fire. “I need you to know. Right now.”

  “Are you worried? I promise nothing you say will come between us, Rain,” Bett said quietly.

  “You can’t say that until you hear what I have to say.”

  “I can say it. I love you. That will never change.”

  Rain turned to her, her eyes intense, though Bett thought she caught a hint of tears in them. “Even if I told you that I killed a child?” Rain had already dropped her head, but she heard Bett’s involuntary gasp very clearly. She gave Bett a few seconds to recover her composure, wondering if she’d want to hear the rest or if that would be the end of them. When she felt Bett’s hand on her arm, the sadness in her voice almost gave her hope Bett might understand.

  “Tell me, Rain.”

  Rain took a moment to remember how torn she was about leaving Coaldale—wanting to follow her brother Thomas but hating to leave Nikki. “I did all right on my journey back to the reservation until Nebraska, when I hit a hot, dry spell. After my supplies ran out, I got very weak. I missed the warning signs and got caught in a bad storm.” Rain ran her hands over her arms, trying not to feel that same exhaustion and panic again. “A lightning strike hit so close to me that it knocked me down. I lost my breath, and everything in my body felt like it had been singed. I lay on the ground, knowing if I didn’t get up, I might very well die there.”

  She shivered, even with the heat of the fire in front of her. Bett’s touch on her arm pulled her back to the present. “Come sit with me, Rain.” Numbly, Rain followed her. They settled on the couch, Bett’s head on Rain’s lap. Bett looked toward the fire and not at her, and Rain sensed it might be almost as hard for Bett to hear the story as it was for her to tell it. “Fortunately, I was drawn to
a house light in the distance and made it to the porch before I passed out.” There was a frightened girl’s voice calling, and then she’d been looking down the barrel of a rifle. “The next morning an angry woman told me to get myself up and off her porch. She wasn’t sympathetic to my weakened condition until I suggested that if I died there, burying me would be a lot of extra work. After yelling for someone to bring some milk from the cool shed, she started helping me to my feet. When my hat fell off, she realized I was a girl. The next thing I knew, I was lying on something softer than the porch with a glass bottle pressed against my mouth. I swallowed as much as I could and then passed out again.”

  Bett would be concerned about her physical suffering, so she hurried on. “When I came to and was able to get up, we ate and they introduced themselves. The woman was Iris Murphy and her daughters were Daisy and Rose. I said I was Faith Lowell, which was what White people had always called me.” Rain looked away for a moment, knowing her lover would understand how she felt about that name, even now. “In the middle of dinner, a chiming sound startled me. Daisy, the older girl, explained that it was their clock, and the only one like it in town. She said it was her job to wind it but that I could help her sometime. I nodded and she smiled. It was odd to feel such warmth for and from someone I didn’t even know, but Daisy was something special from the beginning.” The clock. Such an odd connection to Lilly. And their innocent way of asking about the world. “I found I didn’t even mind when Daisy asked if I was an Indian. I told them I was half Indian and half white. When Daisy asked, ‘Which half is which?’ she seemed so innocent that it made me smile. ‘That’s a good question,’ I told her, looking down at myself. ‘I’ve been trying to figure that out my whole life.’

  “Everyone seemed to relax after that. Iris even shared her worries about her husband, who had been gone for over a week, explaining that he’d driven over to Omaha to pick up his second cousin, Noreen. It was obvious that she didn’t care for this person. She sneered slightly as she said, ‘That girl is nothing but trouble. She’ll lie to your face and smile doin’ it. She don’t even like it here on the farm, but he wanted to get her out of the city where she don’t even have to go lookin’ for trouble, it finds her. And now, I guess her trouble’s found Hugh too.’”

  Rain had seen then that Iris was a good person at heart. But alone with two young girls, she hadn’t wanted to present herself as an easy target. “I offered to help around the place, wanting to prove I was worth saving. I was still too weak to start that evening, but after a good night’s sleep on a full stomach and breakfast the next morning, I felt well enough to fix the chicken coop. When she saw my work, Iris asked me to patch a hole in the roof of the barn. I felt funny about sleeping in their house, so I made a pallet for myself in the hayloft, but I had my meals with the family.” She’d gotten stronger as the days passed and kept finding other chores to do, trying to thank Iris for her hospitality and help her feel a little more self-reliant.

  The image of Daisy, eyes bright and curly hair blowing around her face as she’d watched Rain working outside, filled her mind. “Gradually, the little girls warmed to me, especially Daisy. Rose was a toddler who kept close to her mother and seemed to have a permanently worried look on her face, but Daisy followed me everywhere. For a time, I half suspected Iris had told her to keep an eye on me, but Daisy was always smiling. Since she seemed to enjoy being outside as much as I did, I began talking to her about what I was doing and why. She caught on quickly, and I put her to work, holding or fetching things. I asked her once if she worked with her daddy too. She said no, she usually had to stay in the house and cook or sew with her mama. I asked if she’d rather do that, but she shook her head and gave me a shy smile. ‘I’d rather help you,’ she said. We talked about plants and animals and about school. She told me her favorite subject was math. I told her my favorite subject was summer.”

  Rain stopped for a moment, hearing Daisy’s laugh and feeling her small arms around her when Daisy said good night or good morning. She loved her two brothers, but she’d felt oddly maternal toward Daisy, and that feeling that had never gone away. She cleared her throat. “We spent a lot of time together, doing chores, minding the garden. When Iris asked me to butcher a cow, I sent Daisy inside to go through the larder, and she reported most of what her mother had put up last year was good. I wanted them all to feel secure before I left. I understood Iris was concerned about her husband and about the coming winter, but in my mind, they were nowhere near being impoverished or starving to death. I had a pretty good idea of what both of those were like.”

  “They had two mature plow horses, and one young paint who reminded me so much of my childhood friend Bird’s pony that it made my heart hurt. Daisy told me his name was Sage, and they were afraid to ride him because he had bitten Mr. Murphy once. Eyes wild, he snorted and blew the first few times I came near him, but I gentled him with carrot treats, soft talk, and some brushing. I put a lead on him and began working him in the corral while Daisy watched. I could tell he enjoyed it.”

  Bett sat up. “Sage? Isn’t that the horse you still have? The one you wanted me to ride?”

  Rain nodded, feeling another thread that connected her past to her present begin to pull at her heart. Daisy wanting to ride Sage a few days later and her asking him…in Lakota. Lilly and the stuffed pony asking the same question, and her giving the same reply. The darkness crept into her spirit again, that terrible desolation that had taken her so long to move past. If it hadn’t been for Bird… Rain rose and put another log on the fire, remembering the evening when the sound of a laboring engine and a distant light drawing closer changed it all. Turning back to Bett, she went on.

  “In spite of having grown fond of them all, I’d already told Iris I needed to leave soon. They were pretty well set for the winter, and I knew I should go before fall temperatures set in. Iris had drawn a new map for me, and I reset my mind on the way I needed to go. But I’d promised to go into Omaha first, to see what news there was of Hugh or Noreen Murphy. If I found any useful news, I’d come back by.”

  “But wouldn’t that have been a lot of extra walking?” Bett asked.

  Rain looked at her for the first time since she’d begun her story. “I owed Iris Murphy my life, Bett. That was a debt I could never repay.” Her voice weakened and she moved to sit again. “Though I tried.”

  Bett nodded and went to get Rain some water. She tried to hand it to her, but Rain was already staring into the fire again. She set the glass on the coffee table as Rain went on.

  “The night Hugh Murphy returned home,” Rain said, recalling the small man with a broad, freckled face, and a light tenor voice, “he hugged his family somewhat awkwardly and I noted a cast on his right arm. Then the other car door opened, and a young woman stepped out.” Rain tensed and reached for the water, taking a long drink. “She was short, with brown hair and green eyes, and clothes much too fancy for traveling—petticoats and skirts that rustled when she walked. When the hugging and crying was done, Iris introduced me and told Hugh of the work I’d been doing. He shook my hand and thanked me for taking care of his family, and then introduced me to Noreen, who gave me a long, appraising look before turning to meet the girls.”

  She’d sat with them for a while as Hugh told tales of his adventures in Omaha, including breaking his arm. Noreen hadn’t said much, only glanced at Hugh from time to time. And more than once, her eyes had found Rain. “Eventually, when the little girls begin to droop, I offered to take them to bed, bidding everyone good night. On my way outside to the barn, I overheard Iris and Hugh’s voices. Though I couldn’t make out their words, it sounded like arguing.”

  As Iris had predicted, Noreen didn’t care for farm work and never offered to help with cooking, sewing, or any of the other daily tasks. Mr. Murphy wasn’t able to help much either, and the tension in the home seemed worse every day. “Since things seemed so unsettled, I volunteered to stay on until Mr. Murphy’s arm healed.” Besides her debt to Mrs
. Murphy, her affection for Daisy had made her feel uneasy about leaving an unhappy house.

  “That following Saturday, Iris took the girls into town to do some shopping. Mr. Murphy asked me to get the calves rounded up for branding, saying he would come and help when I had them all in the corral. Sage and I had worked the herd quite a few times by then, and the job didn’t take very long. When I dusted myself off and went inside to find Hugh, the house seemed very quiet at first. Then I heard a squeaking sound from one of the bedrooms.”

  Rain closed her eyes, but the scene remained in her memory…Noreen naked on the edge of the bed with her knees parted. Hugh standing with his pants around his ankles. His back to the door, his hips moving as he pumped himself into Noreen. His head back and his eyes closed. Noreen had looked over and, seeing her, had run her own hands seductively over her voluptuous breasts, licked her lips, and blown a kiss. Rain had stumbled backward with shock and hit the wall before she turned and fled.

  “You caught them, didn’t you?” Bett asked, turning to touch Rain’s face. Rain jerked slightly before nodding. “Have some water, Beloved,” she said, and Rain took a long drink, recalling her escape to the barn and how Hugh had come after her, pleading for her understanding. He’d spoken of Noreen’s looks and admitted to his own weakness. He swore his love for Iris and his girls, and implied that if she told, it would break Iris’s heart.

  “Mr. Murphy found me, and while he was trying to explain himself, Sage made a snorting sound and my eyes moved toward him. Mr. Murphy saw and told me he’d give me Sage in exchange for all my work. I knew if I accepted, it meant I wasn’t to mention what had happened. But his offer made me feel unclean, as if something soiled had fallen on me. I told him he didn’t owe me anything, and since Iris had saved my life, I wouldn’t do anything to hurt her. ‘And neither should you,’ I added. I told him Noreen needed a husband and that she should be gone before winter set in. He agreed to talk to Iris about inviting some of the young men at their church. I pulled out my knife, wiping it slowly across my pant leg, as if to dry it. ‘And cut it off with her,’ I said. He flinched as he felt my warning before scurrying away, nodding.”