Rain Shadow (Dutch Country Brides)

by Cheryl St. John

Miguel sat forward. “Do you want the necklace or the woman?”

  Philippe unfolded himself from his chair and stood behind his father. “Mr. Ruiz, this is a painful subject. I think it best if we—”

  “No, Philippe.” Fredrico Avarato brushed a trembling hand over his brow. “I wish to talk about her.”

  “Perhaps I can be of help to you,” Miguel prompted.

  The old gent studied the portrait, his eyes misting. “Juanita met a young man when she was eighteen. A tailor’s son, a man of no position or wealth.” His voice was unsteady as he continued. “Juanita was a most unusual girl, uninterested in jewels or clothing like other girls her age. Her tastes were simple. The locket suited her well.” He turned away from the portrait of his daughter. “I discouraged her from marrying the man.” He shuffled uneasily in his chair.

  “As any father would,” Miguel encouraged.

  “I have wondered a thousand times over in the years since.” He placed his hand over his son’s on his shoulder. “The foolish young man had dreams of going west and making his fortune. Juanita went with him. I learned they were married and joined an ill-fated wagon train.”

  “Did your daughter survive?”

  “I didn’t believe so. But if you’ve seen the locket...”

  “I have seen it.” Miguel stood. “Mr. Avarato. Let me do this for you. Let me try to locate the locket and perhaps your daughter if she is alive.”

  The older man’s slate eyebrows rose.

  Phillipe stepped from behind his father and perched on the edge of the desk before Miguel. “Why would you want to do this? We are strangers to you and your family.”

  Miguel nodded as though he understood the other man’s hesitation. Make him believe it. Make him buy it. “I know the woman who wears the necklace.”

  “Tell us who she is, and we will have our own people look into it.”

  Miguel gave him a half-smile of regret. “Mr. Avarato, I am a man of my word. I am in her confidence, and for reasons I cannot disclose, she lives under an assumed name. If she thought anyone was seeking her out, she would disappear.”

  “Don’t you think we have exhausted every trail in searching for my sister?” Phillipe interrupted. “This issue is best left closed.”

  “Phillipe.” Fredrico placed a hand on the desk. “I am still the patriarch of this family. I understand your concern for me. I have grieved for her all these years, and you think it best I forget.” He opened a drawer and took out a key. “I cannot forget.”

  From another drawer Fredrico withdrew a strongbox and unlocked it. After shuffling through the contents, he held up several papers. “I want to know before I die.”

  Philippe’s dark gaze slid from his father to Miguel, his impotence in the situation an obvious frustration.

  “The passenger list,” Fredrico clarified. “No survivors were ever located... but communication from the west was poor.” He handed the sheets across the desk. “Reward probably means little to you, but I will pay handsomely for any information.”

  Solemnly, Miguel took the papers. “I will donate the reward to charity.” He glanced through the lists. “I may have a problem,” he said distractedly. “My cash is tied up right now.”

  “Your expenses will be the least I can do.” Fredrico stood and stepped around the desk. “Please, wait here.”

  Avarato left the room, and Miguel met Phillipe’s piercing gaze. “Do not play my father for a fool, Mr. Ruiz. You will find nowhere to hide if you lead him into a hurtful situation.”

  “What reason could I have to mislead your father? You must know I would do nothing to lower my esteem in your daughter’s eyes.” Miguel glanced at the papers in his lap and stifled a smile. His stay in Boston was proving much more pleasant than he had imagined. Researching the wagon train could be done while enjoying the finest hotels and restaurants.

  He ran through the possibilities. Perhaps Juanita Avarato had been captured by an Indian and Rain Shadow was her daughter. If Rain Shadow did turn out to be an Avarato heiress, marrying into the family might not be quite as unpleasant or take as long as he had feared.

  The Wild West Show would be in winter quarters now, an additional stroke of luck. Will Cody didn’t spend the winter with the others, and Miguel didn’t need to run into Cody. Miguel’s welcome had worn thin by the time he’d met Rain Shadow, and Will had been ready to let him go.

  Rain Shadow had succumbed to his charms easily enough once. He’d make sure she would again. And, remembering their shipboard romance, he thought the task would not be an unpleasant one.

  * * *

  The blazing barn undulated, one moment graphically clear, the next blurred by shimmering orange waves of heat and, tears. Anton watched keenly, helplessly. Horrible, tortured screams raised the hair on his neck and arms. The sound came from inside—from the woman trapped inside the blazing barn. Heat blasted his face and scorched his eyebrows while a cool breeze flirted with his back.

  The other sound prickled his scalp, sent shudders along his spine and tore the breath from his lungs—a baby crying.

  His feet were lead, the earth a gigantic magnet, securing him to the spot. His hands weighed hundreds of pounds apiece, hanging like window weights at his sides. Blisters erupted on his face, the skin stretched and peeled, and still he stood helpless.

  And still the baby cried.

  The baby.

  Anton bolted upright. The coverlet lay twisted around one ankle, trailing onto the floor. On the night table his pocket watch ticked in the silence of the dark room.

  Tick. Tick. Tick.

  His baby. The child he had planted inside a wife who’d never loved him. Nikolaus’ brother or sister. A child who would have been a few months older than Clara and Seth, Jakob and Franz’s two oldest children.

  He hadn’t had the dream in ages, and he didn’t understand why he’d had it now. The dream wasn’t always the same, there were a number of variables. Sometimes he could barely walk or crawl, but he never got any closer to the barn. Sometimes he ran inside the building, smoke and flames blinding him so that he couldn’t find Emily or the baby.

  But the scene never happened the way it had in reality. The screams had been Lydia’s. Emily had been beyond rescue. And of course, an unborn baby couldn’t cry. And most importantly, he had tried to save her. He’d fought his brothers like a wild man, and they had prevented him from getting himself killed.

  Anton adjusted the coverlet and lay back on the pillow.

  Tick. Tick. Tick.

  There were so many things he hadn’t known about Emily that he wondered if anyone had ever really known her. He’d never met her parents or seen the home she’d come from or even heard her speak of herself as a child. It was as if she hadn’t existed until she’d come to him. He’d never really known her and definitely hadn’t understood her. Rain Shadow had been more direct with her replies to his questions than Emily had ever been.

  Perhaps he could have spared her. Spared their child. There were times he mused on what their second child would have looked like. He’d always fancied a house full of tall, blond-haired sons like his parents had. Once in a while he’d look at Nikolaus and picture a brother alongside him, a towheaded boy a year and a half younger.

  Maybe if he’d built them a house of their own none of it would have happened. Maybe a home of her own would have made her happy.

  But he hadn’t. Tick. Tick. Tick.

  Morning couldn’t be far off. Anton willed himself back to sleep. As was often the case when he couldn’t sleep, odd images entered his mind. He dwelled on things he couldn’t fathom why he’d thought of. A picture of Emily rocking Nikolaus bloomed in his mind’s eyes. She had loved their son. He believed she’d loved him, too, in her own way.

  He remembered a particular Christmas morning Annette had presented Franz with an exquisite powder blue silk shirt she’d painstakingly sewn for him. Lydia had once used her egg money to buy Jakob a hand-tooled saddle he’d admired. Try as he might, Anton could not reca
ll Emily ever giving him one single thing. Nothing.

  Had he withheld as much from her? He didn’t think so. He’d bought her gifts, offered her brief trips and seen to it her life was as pleasant and comfortable as he could make it. He rolled and punched the pillow into a ball under his head. It did no good to go over it again now.

  The memory of Nikolaus running alongside Rain Shadow came to him. He admired the woman.

  Another irrepressible vision kindled warmth and a powerful yearning. Rain Shadow had kissed him as Emily never had. The way no one ever had.

  And he’d liked it.

  Obviously, he’d been without a woman too long when a gun-toting female who fancied herself an Indian could set his skin on fire. She must be the reason he’d had the dream. Working beside her wasn’t like toiling with one of his brothers.

  She’d told him to forget that kiss, and he was trying.

  Oh, but he was trying.

  She’d borne a child out of wedlock. Sixteen years old. Land sakes, she’d been a mere child. What kind of man would take advantage of an innocent young girl and then marry the first well-to-do woman who came along? A gold digger, that’s who. And she’d been left to face her father and society and raise the child herself. He’d hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d told her she’d done a good job,

  Anton gave up on sleep and rolled to his feet. This was crazy. He’d asked Sissy Clanton to marry him, and he should be envisioning Christmas mornings with her, wondering if she would be a good mother and wife. Instead he lost sleep over his ill-fated relationship and a tetchy little menace who wore pants and a Smith & Wesson and shoveled cow dung like a man.

  As Anton lit the lantern, the match burned too short, singeing his finger. He cursed into the silence, and his irascibility felt good. Ultimately satisfying.

  And safe.

  * * *

  “Whoa! Them horses have to start a stampede. Let’s say this one’s mine.” Positioned on the floor, his good leg curled with sole touching the knee of his splinted leg, Slade demonstrated by standing a wooden horse on its hind legs.

  “Just like Buffalo Bill, huh?” Nikolaus reared another carved figure on its wooden legs and whinnied his best horse imitation.

  “Hush up or they’ll come in here and see me out of bed,” Slade warned in a loud whisper.

  Nikolaus hunched his shoulders up to his ears and pulled a face.

  “You want ’em to find out it don’t hurt as bad as I let on?”

  “Nope.”

  “I can probably stay on till winter if they don’t find out. Got any more puzzles like that one we did yesterday?”

  “Yup. Got a whole pile in my room.”

  Slade’s dark eyes lit with eagerness, which immediately turned to regret. “I wish I could go in your room. Do you have a big bed like this one and furniture and all?”

  “Yup.” Absently, Nikolaus scratched his neck inside his shirt collar. “Hey, I got a idea.” His let his hand slide to the wooden floor. “Maybe when everyone’s working after lunch, we could sneak down the hall.”

  “Yeah? How am I going to get there? It really does hurt some, you know. I can’t stand up or walk or nothin’.”

  Nikolaus’ blue eyes scanned the room. He jumped to his feet. “I got it! You sit on this rug.” He slid the braided oval rag rug from the other side of the bed to where his friend could see it. “Aunt Annette’s got these floors waxed so slick I can drag you clean down the hall!”

  Slade’s expression lit with excitement. “Aw-right!”

  * * *

  Two Feathers ignored the curious stares of the few townspeople gathered on Butler’s boardwalk that afternoon and tucked a brown paper-wrapped parcel under his arm. Johann met him in front of the livery.

  “Get what you wanted?”

  Two Feathers nodded.

  They climbed onto the seat of the springboard waiting near the hitching post. Johann settled his dun-colored hat so the brim shaded his eyes. “I’ve a hankering for some of Lydia’s fresh pie. What d’ya say we make a stop? I got her a sack of flour and some nut meats we can drop off.”

  His Indian friend’s smile creased the corners of his wizened eyes. “I, too, have a gift for Lydia.”

  Johann cocked his head and peered at Two Feathers.

  “I have a favor to ask of your son’s wife.” Two Feathers placed the package at his feet and enjoyed the leisurely sway of the springboard as the horses drew them toward the Neubauer homestead. The package contained thread and needles for Lydia, and dress fabrics for his daughter.

  He’d raised Rain Shadow. He understood her. He’d seen her secret admiration of the clothing the other women wore and knew she was afraid to express her interest. Not only did she wish to spare his feelings, but he sensed her uncertainty over her position. She would like to be like the white women, but she feared failure.

  It was the only thing he’d ever known her to hesitate over.

  He’d watched her as a girl, fearlessly learning to ride standing barefoot upon the back of a dappled pony. Many times he’d patched her knees and elbows and watched her leap back on until she got it right. It took unwavering confidence to throw a hatchet at a target six inches from his head, but she had done it hundreds of times. Her own worth was of more value to her than money or property. She longed for security and comfort, but trusted only herself to provide them.

  Two Feathers beheld the stand of beech trees on the horizon, dozens of crows darting through the branches and streaking into the sky like sparks from a fire.

  “Much different here than where you’re from?” Johann asked.

  Two Feathers studied the sky before replying. “Different, but the same in many ways. When I was a young brave the Dakotas were my home. There was game...and beauty. Wakon Tanka owned the land and the sun and the sky and shone his face upon it. Now men say they own the rivers and land and sky because they have pieces of paper.”

  Johann handed him the reins and drew his pipe from inside his coat. Thoughtfully, he tamped tobacco into the bowl and lit it. He’d always appreciated his heritage, been proud of parents who’d come from the old country as bond servants and earned this land that now “belonged” to him and his sons. Looking through Two Feathers’ eyes, he was an intrusion himself. His German parents had come here to practice religious freedom as had hundreds and thousands of immigrants, but what had that done to the Indians’ freedom?

  “I’m sorry,” he said at last. What could one old man do to change the loss of an entire nation?

  He met Two Feathers’ eyes, and an understanding passed between them. They were old men, and it was pointless to hate or resent or pine for what was lost. The future belonged to the young, and each had a valuable stake in his children and grandchildren.

  “Your son looks at Rain Shadow like she is the sun he has gone many summers without.”

  “Your Rain Shadow looks at my son like he’s a piece of Lydia’s pie.”

  The two men laughed heartily, the sound carrying across the open countryside.

  Rain Shadow needed to blend into the white man’s world, needed to find a spot for herself and her son. She tried so hard and looked so far that she’d missed the obvious. Two Feathers would help her see it.

  Ever since that first stormy evening many summer ago, she had demanded little for herself, yet given unsparingly. Rain Shadow’s happiness meant more to him than the show. More than anything under the sky. She was his daughter. His Rain Shadow. He would do his best to give her the desires of her heart.

  * * *

  Lydia was overjoyed to help Rain Shadow with the dress patterns. They spent an afternoon cutting and basting the fabrics Two Feathers had selected. Annette dropped by and offered material for undergarments, as well, and the three sewed drawers and something Lydia called a shimmy. Rain Shadow finished them herself, stitching and hemming by firelight.

  While she worked, Two Feathers contentedly smoked his pipe and dozed. She couldn’t imagine her flesh-and-blood father caring for her any
better than Two Feathers had. He was a kind and honorable man. She loved him unquestionably, and at times almost felt guilty for her curiosity over her parents. She could never have proceeded with her plans if he had not understood her desire to locate her family and to blend into the white man’s society.

  Alone in the lodge the following afternoon, Rain Shadow tried on her favorite new creation, a high-necked white blouse followed by a sleeveless shirtwaist of blue and white checked taffeta silk. The full skirt had taken nearly three yards of material and was trimmed with five vertical bands of white taffeta. Rain Shadow spun until the skirt blossomed out in a full circle like a flower twirled by its stem.

  She combed the braids from her hair with her fingers and brushed its length until it crackled. With unusually clumsy fingers she attempted an upswept style, but the heavy black tresses fell across her shoulders.

  Caressing the skirt with flattened palms, she wished she had a mirror. Brush and hairpins in hand, she peeked from the tent flap. No one in sight. If she ran now, she could use a mirror in the house before anyone spotted her.

  The kitchen was deserted as usual. In her hurry, she dropped her hairbrush on the stairs and had to hop down after it. Reaching the hall, the door to the room Slade used was closed. “Slade?”

  “Yeah, Ma?”

  She entered and studied the two boys. Her son sat back against the pillows, and Nikolaus popped up from the other side of the bed and stared at her. Both of them breathed as though they’d run a foot race. “What are you two doing?”

  “Playing.”

  “Why are you out of breath?”

  “We was seeing who could hold their breath the longest. Mama, you look pretty!”

  “Were seeing who could hold their breath the longest, and thank you.”

  She stepped to the mirror over Anton’s low chest of drawers and surveyed the different woman staring back at her. Why, she looked like any one of the young women who’d been at the Neubauers’ barn dance. Except for her face and hands, tanned as they were from going unprotected in the sun. Now able to watch her hands, she attempted another coil on the back of her head, and this time it stayed.