With Endless Sight

by Allison Pittman

  “Well, you’ve had a few days to come to that realization.”

  My head was clear for the first time since arriving, and I’d spent much of the time in that fog trying to reconcile the image of the man who seemed to be taking such great pains to care for me with the monster who had gunned down my family.

  “I’m not sayin’ I ain’t done my share of robbin’ people. But the killin’, that was always Hiram’s doin’.”

  “Is that your brother?”

  “Yep.”

  “Why did you tell him my brother went to Denver?”

  “To send him away from you. Don’t ever want him to find you.”

  “He’s got to come back here sometime, so why bring us—”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Stop saying that. You have to know.”

  “That’s just it. I don’t.”

  Phoebe let out a long, raspy snore and stirred a bit on her cot, and Laurent paused and lowered his voice again.

  “I followed that stagecoach for a good two miles thinkin’ Hiram’s comin’ up from the other direction. Cuttin’ it off. I come up on it, and that driver starts shootin’ …”

  He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, as if trying to rub the vision out of his memory. But I wanted to hear it, and I steeled myself for every detail.

  “I never killed anybody before,” he said, still hiding his eyes.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  He took his hands away and looked at me. Even across the table, in the dim light of the single, low flame, I could see straight into his eyes. They were steady. They were still. And something in my heart told me I was about to hear truth.

  “It was always Hiram did that. So when that driver shot at me, I panicked. Started shootin’ scared.” He laughed, a dark, rueful laugh, and rubbed his beard. “Rotten coward like Hiram always said. Then the shootin’ stopped. All that smoke cleared. And you came walkin’ out of the trees.”

  “And you held a knife to my throat.”

  “I wanted him to shoot me.”

  “He did.”

  “But he didn’t kill me.”

  “He’s not a killer.”

  “Neither am I.”

  “So, it wasn’t you who shot my father.”

  “No.”

  “Why did you hide Phoebe and me?”

  He looked down again, studying his hands. “I can’t explain it. The minute I saw you comin’ out of those woods, I hear this voice. And it’s tellin’ me not to hurt you.”

  “So you held a knife to my throat?”

  “Then when I dragged you out of that coach, I hear it again. Some voice tellin’ me not to hurt you.”

  I couldn’t help but smile. “I think that was Phoebe.”

  “No, it wasn’t.”

  He looked up at me and stretched out a hand. Had mine been resting on the table, I think he would have touched it. Instead, his rested in the space between us, reaching for me.

  “It was a voice. Inside my head but talkin’ just as plain as you and me are now. And it’s sayin’, ‘Not a hair on her head.’ ”

  Just then, I felt that same hair tingle at the root.

  “So you brought me here,” I said.

  He nodded. “Didn’t know what else to do. Figured here I could keep you safe. Get up some supplies to take you to—”

  “Meet up with my brother?”

  “Maybe. I hadn’t thought it all out.”

  Right then a sense of power, the same power I’d felt when I held Laurent’s knife to his chest, came over me. He was every bit as frightened and confused as Phoebe and I were. Maybe more.

  “Will you help us get to him?”

  He nodded again. “Just tell me where you’re goin’.”

  I placed my hand on the table, just inches from his. “Get us down from this mountain first. Then we’ll tell you everything you need to know.”

  The heat from the stove had warmed me through, and though I wasn’t really tired, I had an overwhelming desire to go back to bed. As I walked past Laurent on my way to the cot, he reached out and grabbed my sleeve.

  “I’m goin’ to take care of you,” he said. “Make up for what I done.”

  “Do you really think that’s possible?”

  He released my sleeve after I gave the slightest tug, and seconds later I was nestled down under my blanket. Laurent continued to sit at the table, his back to me. The cabin was completely silent. Too silent. I looked over to the cot where Phoebe slept and saw that she was looking straight at me.

  “Good night again, Phoebe,” I said before turning my face to the wall.

  My strength tripled the next morning the minute I slipped on my dress—newly laundered by Phoebe—and stepped outside. The dark confines of the cabin were swept away with the first gust of mountain-cold wind, and though I felt strong, I also felt compelled to grab Phoebe’s arm for fear of blowing away.

  Holding me steady, she showed me a small lean- to behind the cabin. Inside were sacks of cornmeal, beans, tea, and coffee setting on a shelf supported by two barrels.

  “I think one of them is full of whiskey,” Phoebe whispered, even though we were alone. “I don’t know about the other one. And see those cans? There’s milk, oysters, maybe even peaches.”

  “Well, if he was planning to kill us, it wouldn’t be from starvation.” I ran my finger along a neatly formed pyramid of shiny tin.

  “He is quite the little squirrel, isn’t he?”

  Laurent had left us to our own devices that morning, as he did most mornings, and the echoes of our midnight conversation were still ringing in my head.

  “How much did you hear last night?” I asked Phoebe.

  “Almost everything.”

  “Do you think he was telling us the truth?”

  We were walking farther from the cabin, going down a clearly marked path on our way to fetch water—something, I came to understand, that had become Phoebe’s daily chore. I don’t know that she’d ever had a chore back home.

  “Watch your step.” She pulled me up short beside her before gesturing with her empty bucket. “Look. Isn’t it beautiful?”

  We were standing on the rim of what looked like a bowl scooped straight out of the mountain. Not a bowl, exactly, because the walls did not slope gently down from where we stood on a ledge just a few feet away from plummeting into a lake at the base of this unexpected valley. I’d never before seen water so still. The wind that threatened to blow me right over the edge seemed unable to reach the lake’s surface, and it shone in the sunlight like mirrored glass. Indeed, the trees and rocks that lined its other shore were perfectly reflected, and I imagine if God Himself had a face, this is where He would come to study it.

  “That’s not where we need to go to get the water, is it?”

  “Don’t be silly,” Phoebe said. “The water there is formed from melted snow. Nearly solid ice in the dead of winter, but in the spring it melts and runs off into little springs.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “He told me. Come here.”

  She took my arm and led me away from the edge, back toward the cabin—I could actually see it out of the corner of my eye—then past it, going deeper into the woods, following the faint sound of water until it became a full, lush, gurgling stream. Phoebe knelt at the water’s edge and filled the bucket.

  “It’s still quite a walk back to the house,” she stood tall and squared her shoulders, “but worth it. This is the best water, after all. Isn’t it?”

  Phoebe walked right past me, heading back to the cabin. I stood there, a bit puzzled by the uncharacteristic cheerfulness of her labor, before struggling to keep her pace.

  “You still haven’t answered my question,” I said.

  “What question?”

  “About Laurent. About whether or not he was telling me the truth last night.”

  “Oh, that. I want to believe him. It would make everything … easier.”

  “It wouldn’t bring my par
ents back. Wouldn’t get us away from here.”

  “No, but if he’s telling the truth, then we’re not in any danger. And to be honest, I don’t feel afraid of him anymore.” Her voice was soft, almost shy, and a glance over revealed her cheeks to be pink, a slight smile tweaking the corners of her mouth. “I think he’ll take care of us.”

  “Here?”

  “Yes. Or maybe he’ll even help us find Chester and Del.”

  “We can’t forget what he did, Phoebe. No matter what the circumstances were, he’s still a murderer.”

  “I know.” She slowed her steps to a listless stroll, placing one foot in front of the other, eyes down studying each step. “But after these past few days, that part doesn’t seem … real.”

  She couldn’t have shocked me more if she’d thrown the bucket of water full into my face.

  “Well, it seems real to me.” I stopped in my tracks. “That was my mother! My daddy—”

  “I know, but—” She stopped too. “You’ve been sick … and sleeping these past days. You haven’t had a chance to get to know him. If you did, well, you just wouldn’t believe that he could be capable of—”

  “So, bringing us back to the question at hand. You believe him?”

  She nodded, but swallowed her words.

  “He’ll still have to answer for what he’s done. At the very least, to God. But if he feels as bad as he says, he should turn himself in.”

  “That’s not up to us to decide.” The defense in Phoebe’s voice confirmed my suspicions.

  “You like him, don’t you?” I started walking again, and she joined me.

  “No. You know my heart belongs to your brother.”

  “And you don’t think you’d be able to push your feelings for that gambler aside to make room for a thief and murderer? My, Phoebe, what discriminating taste you have.”

  “Oh, shut up.” She nudged me with her shoulder. “Now, you tell me. Do you think you’ll ever be able to forgive him?”

  “Who, Chester? Or Laurent?”

  She giggled. “Both, I guess. But Laurent. Do you think, knowing all of this, that you could forgive him?”

  I sighed. Even if I could believe what he said, forgiveness was a completely different question. One I couldn’t answer.

  16

  The next day was ushered in with a thunderous rainstorm—the last we’d see before the onset of snow, according to Laurent—making the footpath treacherously slick with mud. After allowing two days for the conditions to improve, Laurent came into the cabin early in the morning, swearing—then apologizing—and throwing his hat on the floor.

  “Horses are gone.” He held a hand up to refuse the cup of coffee Phoebe offered.

  “What do you mean, gone?” Phoebe asked, her eyes narrowed in suspicion.

  “Gone from where I left ’em.”

  “From where you left them a week ago?” Phoebe fairly slammed the cup on the table. “Didn’t you tie them up?”

  “No, I didn’t tie them up. You can’t tether a horse for days on end.”

  “So, what did you do? Politely ask them to wait for you? I had no idea you were so gifted in languages, Laurent. Of course, it shouldn’t surprise me that you speak horse, seeing that half the time you behave like a complete—”

  “Phoebe!” I said. It was bad enough she sounded like a bitter fishwife, she needn’t be a vulgar one as well.

  “I winter in this cabin every year and leave my horse at the footpath. Usually I can whistle him up until the heavy snows come. Right now, he ain’t around.”

  “He comes back every year?” I asked.

  “This one has, past five,” Laurent said. “Hiram, he usually ends up stealin’ himself a new one. Figures it balances out ’cause someone out there got his.”

  “So what do we do?” Phoebe asked, managing, as always, to sound accusatory.

  “Too close to winter to head anywhere on foot.” Laurent finally picked up his coffee.

  “But it can’t even be—” I searched my brain for a date, trying to calculate how long it had been since the days were warm with summer.

  “It’ll snow before we know it,” Laurent said. “But I’ll head back down there today. Keep tryin’. Plan on leavin’ first light tomorrow.”

  As the day wore on, though, I knew we would not be leaving at first light.

  Left to ourselves that morning, with my health and the surrounding terrain fully restored, I was eager to spend some time exploring the surrounding woods, enjoying the bracing gusts of mountain air filling my lungs after so much time cramped up in a dark, crowded room.

  “Let’s walk to the crevasse,” I told Phoebe. “I want to throw a stone down and see what the lake looks like with ripples.”

  “How fortunate you are to be so easily amused.” She was sitting at the table, her head draped on her arm. “Maybe I can find you a little ball of string and you can just bat it around here for a while.”

  “Well, we can’t stay cooped up in here all day. Let’s go down to the creek and get water for the canteens.”

  “We don’t even know when we’re leaving.”

  “But we know we are. We need to fill the barrel anyway.”

  “So, go. You know the way.”

  “It’s more enjoyable if we go together.”

  “Look, Belinda. I was your water girl for days on end. Would it kill you to do it yourself just one time?”

  Although I’d often observed Phoebe’s verbal eviscerations on unsuspecting family members, I’d rarely been a target myself, and I physically recoiled at the sting. Rather than retaliate, however, I took a closer look at her and noticed an unfamiliar glint in her eyes. It was more like a glaze, really.

  “Do you feel all right?” I said.

  Her cheek, bearing its usual patchy ruddiness, was hot to the touch, and the minute I felt it, her eyes filled with tears; she turned her head away from me, burying it in her arms.

  “Phoebe! How long have you been sick?”

  “Shut up.” Her voice was wet and muffled against her sleeve.

  “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “Because it’s time to go.”

  I put my head down on the table and peered through the dark tunnel of her folded arms, hoping to catch her eye. “Phoebe, we can wait until—”

  “I’ll be fine!” She reared her head, then balled her fists and slammed them on the table. “I’ll rest up today and be good to go tomorrow.”

  “There’s no hurry.”

  “You heard him! Winter’s closing in—”

  “A few more days won’t matter. He’ll understand.”

  “No.” Phoebe wiped her nose with the back of her sleeve. “Don’t tell Laurent I’m sick.”

  I laughed. “Phoebe, dear, I think he’s going to figure it out. One look at you—”

  “He never looks at me, Belinda. Nobody ever looks at me.”

  “This is not the time to indulge in self-pity.” I dipped a rag in the water barrel, wrung it out, and gently wiped Phoebe’s face. “You can bet he’ll be looking at you once you collapse halfway down the trail and he has to carry you back here.”

  “I’ll be fine,” she said again, only this time there was the slightest hint that not even she believed it anymore. “I’m stronger than you think.”

  “That’s just it.” I took her arm and led her—amazingly without protest—to her cot. “You don’t have to be this strong. Not today, anyway. Just lie down, close your eyes, and sleep. You’ll have plenty of time to be strong later.”

  It was comfortable inside the cabin—just the slightest chill—so I saw no need to make her get under her blankets. I took off her shoes and suggested she might be more comfortable if she took off her corset.

  “I’ll stand watch for Laurent to be sure he doesn’t walk in while you’re changing. We can keep it hidden under the pillow if you like.”

  “Don’t bother,” she said, and I was glad to see a glimpse of her familiar, wicked smile. “I haven’t worn it since w
e got here.”

  “You’re joking,” I said, dropping my voice to a whisper and looking over my shoulder as if a conspirator to this quiet act of rebellion. “Where is it?”

  “I threw it over the ledge. Down by the lake.”

  “What if someone sees it?”

  “Like who?”

  Again, I gave a meaningful glance over my shoulder.

  “Oh, please. It’s at least a hundred feet down. You can’t even tell what it is.”

  “Well then, I guess you’re comfortable enough.”

  “Oh yeah.” She settled in and closed her eyes. “Besides, there has to be some benefit to being a hostage.”

  When Laurent came back later that afternoon, I could tell by the scowl on his face that the elusive horses had failed to appear, but his expression changed immediately to one of concern when he saw Phoebe.

  “I’m afraid she’s caught my cold.”

  “Just as well,” he said, quickly adopting a gruff demeanor. “Can’t go nowhere without the blamed horses anyway.”

  He shouldered right past me to the table and scooped out the remains of a pan of cornbread baked over the outside fire last night.

  “Mind if I take the rest of this?” He wrapped the bread in the cloth that had been covering the pan.

  “Take it where?” I wished I’d been quick enough to snatch off a corner for myself.

  “Goin’ out to look for them horses.” He filled a canteen with water and took the whiskey bottle off the shelf, stuffing all of this along with the cornbread into a small canvas sack. “Goin’ to take one of these blankets too. Just in case.”

  “You’re leaving us alone all night?”

  “Won’t be no different from when I’m here. I’ll still be sleepin’ on the ground, ’cept I’ll be sleepin’ better not listenin’ to you two yammer all night.”

  “There won’t be much of that.” I looked over at Phoebe, who was sleeping soundly, her mouth hanging open.

  “Keep watch over her.” He took a blue wool blanket from the foot of the cot and rolled it tight. “And put on a pot of beans if you want any for supper tonight. Know how?”

  I nodded, though I wasn’t sure at all.

  “I ain’t goin’ far. Two, three miles, then circlin’ back. If I can’t find ’em … well, we’ll just see.”