Singing Heart

by Purcell, Darlene

  Everyone in the cabin was miserably uncomfortable except for her husband who was now snoring loudly having satiated his own selfish lust. She couldn’t look any of them in the eyes the next morning. Sean ate his eggs heartily. Grinning and winking like an accomplice he blew her a kiss and left whistling happily. Robert tried to keep up a lighthearted banter before he departed and Kerrie was exceedingly helpful with the dishes. When the men returned at sunset Sean was in a fowl mood. He ate without saying a word scowling when Xzan accidentally plopped mashed potatoes on the side of his plate. In the process of trying to clean up the mess she spilled his coffee. He jumped away from the table his fingers biting punishingly into the tender flesh of her dainty wrist as he shoved her out of his way.

  “You stupid idiot!” he roared.

  She staggered back as if a bullet had struck her. Robert tensed and Kerrie’s eyes widened in alarm. Nerves frayed Xzan shouted back.

  “Don’t call me names. It was an accident. Don’t you tell me you’re so perfect you don’t ever have one.”

  She threw the towel down on the table to force him to have to do his own clean up and sat in her own chair huffily picking up her fork and starting to eat. Her plate shattered as the towel hit her arm and it flung sideways on the floor. He cursed calling her names she couldn’t believe he would ever accuse her of. Names that didn’t even come close to her character. She had been so hungry she couldn’t wait to eat. Had forced herself to serve everyone else first. She looked dumbstruck at her portion of food that it had taken her three hours to prepare, all over the floor that it had taken her a full day to scrub. One of Maggie’s irreplaceable plates was broken into a million pieces.

  Xzan stood up seething with indignation. Sean towered over her twice her size glaring down at her. His fist was raised to strike. She was furious too but not insane. As much as she wanted to hurt him in return she sat back down mutely refusing to show fear wisely unwilling to egg him on. Sean emphasized his rage slamming his hand on the table so hard it shook the contents ruining the rest of the meal for everyone else.

  He strode out of the cabin without a backward glance riding like a bat out of hell towards town a few moments later. Xzan’s knees shook so hard with the stress of frayed nerves she could barely stand to begin clearing the mess. Part of her was glad he had left. The part of her that still loved him was totally devastated. He was probably going to town to get drunk. He might even seek solace in the arms of another woman. There wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it. Robert and Kerrie looked at her pityingly. Robert tried to apologize for his cousin.

  “I didn’t know what to do. I’ve never seen Sean like this. I didn’t want to come between a husband and wife but I wouldn’t have let him hurt you.”

  The tears she had been holding back for weeks surfaced. She pushed them back defiantly.

  “It’s too late. He already did.”

  She held her swelling wrist. It hurt but it wasn’t the pain she was referring to. Sean knew what no one else did about her past. How long and hard it had been for her to trust. To open up and give herself freely to a man. She didn’t know what to think. She couldn’t believe this was the same man she had married. He had no where else to go permanently so she knew he’d be back once he calmed down. She made up her mind when he did they were going to have a long talk. If he refused she would find another place to go. Even if it meant living in the barn until she could get there. She would not continue to live like strangers. Nor would she be abused any further. When Sean returned the next morning he had three other men with him. He grinned at his wife who came running to the door at the sound of horses hooves gawking wide-eyed at the massive men beside him.

  “Xzan this is my friend Luke…his brothers Mark…Zachary. I hired them to help us out on the farm…for a few months.”

  So much for taking refuge in the barn. She also felt a little put out wondering how he intended to pay them. Surely he didn’t expect her to take the money out of her account without even asking if she minded. He was the one that had always urged her to spend only what was necessary and save the rest for the years to come. Just feeding this small army would add to their food cost. Not to mention her own workload. She didn’t get to speak to him in private. By the time they had all been fed and were bunked down for the night it was late and he crawled into bed wearily turning his back on her.

  “We need to discuss this Sean…”she began.

  “There’s nothing to discuss woman. I am the man in this family. I make all the decisions. If you don’t like it you can leave.” he interrupted abruptly.

  She was so flabbergasted she didn’t know how to respond. He was snoring before she could think of the right words to express the injustice of how he was treating her which further stabbed at her heart knowing that he didn’t care about her. What had happened? She had been through the same nightmares that he had the past few years. What had she done that turned him against her? Well one thing was for sure. If Mr. I wear the pants is this family wanted to hire those big lugs he was going to have to find a way to pay them. So far they had already proven to her that they could eat more than their pay was worth. She didn’t want to leave him. Neither would she willingly live as victim of a bully. She was saddling Silver one of the two horses they had left the next morning when Sean strode in from the fields for a drink of water.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he demanded yanking her arm smartingly.

  “I’m going in to town for supplies.” she lied. She didn’t want to get into a physical confrontation with him. The horse was hers more than his. She had bought them both.

  “You’re not going anywhere!”

  She looked his square in the eye with more aplomb than she really felt. “Yes, I am Sean. You don’t have time to go into town for supplies and I don’t have enough food to feed us all.”

  “I’ll send one of the men this evening. You are not going into town alone. It isn’t safe.” he decided with finality.

  To emphasize his point he took the saddle which she was still fastening off of the horse and marched back into the barn with it. She couldn’t visualize walking to town on foot. It was a little over half a day’s ride on horseback. Even slower in a wagon. But it appeared she had no other choice. She waited for him to return to work. Getting her shawl she told Kerrie not to worry about her. Pretending to go for just a walk she began the long dusty trek. Xzan had been walking for nearly an hour when she heard the thunderous pounding of horse’s hooves behind her. With a sinking feeling she knew it was her husband looking for her. She had no desire to be caught and face his unpredictable wrath. Remembering some of what Jaskarra had taught her long ago about survival she threw herself flat on the ground behind some rocks. Holding her breath she waited for him to pass.

  He stopped for a moment as if he felt her presence staring at every inch of the ground. She remained invisible to him and he rode on. Xzan breathed a sigh of relief. She couldn’t continue going that way. Eventually Sean would turn back and they would meet one way or the other. She decided that even if it was out of the way she would take the road by the creek. She could get to town in that direction and the thought of a cool drink of water didn’t sound too bad either. She hadn’t gone ten feet when powerful arms wrapped around her. She screamed in terror. A brown hand clamped over her mouth.

  “Shh, or he’ll hear you! He’s already circling back.”

  Her heart skipped a beat in relief and shock. Jaskarra! He released her and she threw herself in his arms sobbing. He shook her gently whispering. “Not now. He’s close by.”

  He made a bird sound and his horse came out of the bushes where he’d hidden him. Jaskarra lifted her up easily leapt on behind her heading for his camp which was a few miles in the opposite direction. He felt good. Familiar. She leaned back against his muscular body breathing in the scent that belonged so uniquely to him. Relishing the combined fragrances of animal hides and herbs he carried in a pouch on his side to the fresh mint leaves he always crushed and at
e for his stomach each day. She had pushed him so far from her mind she couldn’t believe that being in his presence it was as if they had never been parted. How could she have forgotten his musky scent? The strength of his arms? The way his long dark hair whipped them as they rode against the wind?

  She relaxed letting herself simply absorb his presence. How had he happened to find her? Was it coincidence or had he been watching her? He knew she was running away. Jaskarra was a man of principles. He wouldn’t have helped a woman escape her husband unless he knew there was a reason she needed to. The only way he could have known that was if he’d been observing Sean’s strange behavior. Her questions were all answered shortly. His camp was well hidden. Behind rocks and trees. Deep in a cave where even a bear would think twice before hibernating for the winter. There was a perpeptually burning fire which proved he’d been here for awhile along with the buffalo hides he always slept on. She sat on them now her nose watering with that familiar allergic sensation. Jaskarra sat cross-legged beside her with a muscular arm draped possessively across her small shoulders.

  “How did you find me?”

  “I’ve watched you for many moons.” He shrugged like it wasn’t important.

  “Why?’ she prodded.

  He didn’t answer. He was a stubborn a Sean. She knew it would be futile to persist in trying to get a straight answer.

  “Did you miss me as much as I missed you?”

  He snorted jealously. “You missed me enough to take a white man as your husband and build a house big enough to hold my whole village.”

  She winced.

  “You’re the one that sent me away. I didn’t expect to ever see you again.”

  He shrugged as if it didn’t matter moving away to stoke the fire.

  “Jaskarra…I want to go home. Back to England. I want to see my family.” she announced to his broad back quietly.

  He kept his back to her. She saw his shoulders slump for a brief moment in resignation. His eyes were silver with emotion when he finally turned to look at her. He reached out to touch her slightly swelling belly.

  “You carry his seed. He has a right to know.”

  She gasped in shock. Until that moment she hadn’t even known. There had been so much turmoil in the past few months she hadn’t even thought about the signs of pregnancy. She wasn’t nauseated either. That was odd. She looked in disbelief at his muscular hand scarred with so many battles lying on her abdomen.

  “How did you know?”

  He shook his head.

  “I felt more than one soul when I was holding you on the horse.”

  She was so stunned. But she felt even more resolute than before in her decision regarding Sean. She feared him. She wouldn’t risk losing her child in a fight if he chose to use her for a punching bag.

  “I won’t go back to him. He doesn’t love me. I can’t trust him. He might hurt me and my baby. I won’t stay with him to raise a child. I’ll go home to England. My family will take us in.”

  Gray Wolf felt her inner turmoil. Even though she had obviously tuned him out Singing Heart had haunted him day and night since the moment he rode away. Since his confrontation with the grizzly bear his visions had grown stronger. He understood them better. Could decipher their meanings. He had seen her life. The love she had for the tall man with the corn colored hair. He had felt the man’s rage and knew that she must leave to protect her own sanity. But the child he felt stirring in her womb belonged to both of them. If she went across the sea that love would be lost forever. Just as his own love and the chance to capture it had been lost when he forced her to leave in order to protect her.

  He didn’t know what to do. He could take her back to his village they way he had before. Give her time to heal. For her husband to miss her. The way he had. To give life to her child and let them meet again. Jaskarra didn’t know how he would keep her that close and never touch her. He did know that he loved her too much to let her make a mistake that would destroy the true happiness she and her child deserved.

  She interrupted his revelry sensing his turmoil.

  “I must leave. Please help me.”

  He closed his eyes. Threw back his head, meditating, praying to the grandfathers. Closing her out the way he had so many times in her dreams. She lay down as he chanted in that guttural language knowing that he wouldn’t give her an answer until he got the one he felt was right. She closed her eyes wearily. Today she had taken her life back into her own hands leaving the man she loved, only to discover that there was part of him inside of her that would never allow her to forget him. Ironically the man she had begged to hold on to her, sitting only a few feet away, confusing her heart all over a second time. She had never forgotten him. As long as she had been away from him, as intimate as she had been with Sean, Jaskarra was still part of her soul. She still loved him. Was it possible to love two men each just as deeply as the other? How could she? They were each so different.

  It wasn’t fair to her or them. They each called to her fulfilling something that was empty inside. They had both rejected her in their own ways. She didn’t want to hurt anymore. She was fed up with illness, death, unrequited love and the hardships of living in a land that hated her. Of fighting even the weather and natural elements to survive. She longed to see her mother. All of her family. To belong. Xzan had enough money left to live independently if she were frugal. To raise her child without their help if she could just get home before either one of these men tried to stop her any further.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Jaskarra’s verdict hadn’t been the one she wanted to hear. Even though it made perfect sense Xzan didn’t particularly like hearing the truth. He told her she could go to town where her husband would make inquiries and find her and drag her back home. Or she could let him help her until the baby as was born and she was able to travel with the child. The odds were that if she left now it would be born in worse circumstances. The hardship of the long journey itself might cause them both to die.

  She estimated that she was at most four months pregnant. If she waited until the spring it would be the perfect time to travel with her newborn. The last part of her arduous journey would be aboard ship during the winter months and this time they could be warm in the confines of a cabin with her quilts instead of sleeping on the snowy banks as she had coming west during the winter months. If Xzan left now she would still be on foot during the long winter months. Struggling not only with the harsh realities that faced a wagon train but heavy with child. She remembered Janice Cavendar’s early demise in childbirth and how little Cody had barely survived even with all the people who cared helping Frank with his little son.

  This baby didn’t have anyone but her. She had to be strong and she had no intentions of dying on the trail and being another unmarked grave along the path forgotten or unknown. Jaskarra’s closing argument was a horror story about a pregnant white woman he had seen mutilated by another bloodthirsty tribe. She had been raped then tied to a wagon wheel with her belly slit open. Her unborn child fell out while she was alive still watching. It was a gruesome death. One that he hated the other Indians for. He knew how to torture a man as all the braves in his tribe did. Had done so without mercy. He believed no pregnant woman white or otherwise carrying life inside of her deserved that kind of disembowelment.

  Women went where their men led them. With the exception of this one. She had come across the world alone to follow her dreams. Or maybe he had led her here somehow. It would be excruciating to let her go forever. Never to see her even at a distance if she chose to return home. In his own way he felt responsible for what she had suffered. Coming together had served no great purpose as he first believed it might. It had only broken both of their hearts. Still he could not allow her to leave unprepared simply because she was homesick. She had to act logically so that no further harm would come to her or her child.

  They traveled for three days. His entire village had moved as they did periodically to follow the buffalo or seek mo
re fertile soil. His teepee was set apart from the rest of the village because it was his calling to seek greater truths and he needed privacy. She didn’t have her copper tub to take a bath in now. When he went to swim in the creek she shed her clothing joining him to cleanse her body too. He was shocked by her display of immodesty knowing how shy she had been before. He couldn’t believe she had changed so much.

  Her body was a beautiful as ever. She still had a young girl’s soft skin, unwrinkled despite the harsh elements she was forced to endure. She had cut her hair. The last time he’d seen her it was to her knees. Now it fell swaying to her hips in a dark mass of wet ringlets matching the curls between her thighs. Her skin was pale nipples blushing peaches atop creamy mounds. He felt his desire cut like a knife. Turning his face away he shared the water with her forcing himself to think about any thing except this luscious naked beauty swimming near him.

  Xzan didn’t care what her lack of clothing was doing to Jaskarra. This was for her healing. She scrubbed off the old skin roughly with a leaf she found floating as if the pain would go with it and freed herself to go forward. Her first step was to end her own inhibitions and become one with the earth and also comfortable with Jaskarra. He might as well get used to it. They would be sharing quarters in close proximity for several months and she wouldn’t pretend they had never been lovers. She didn’t intend for them to tiptoe around each other miserably aware of the attraction between them. She would never go back to Sean and in her heart she was letting him go as her husband. After she left America she would never see Gray Wolf again in this lifetime. She intended to make the most of this time with him the way she should have before.

  To learn all she could from him. To love and be loved so that no matter how lonely the years ahead might be she would have memories to sustain her. She wasn’t thinking about the physical. What they had was so much deeper. He didn’t hunger for her as a woman anymore. He’d made that clear. She carried another man’s brand. His child inside of her. What she wanted was spiritual. With nothing barring them from each other.