Captive Angel

by Cheryl Anne Porter

  Working together, in short order they had the two men’s bodies slung over the roan’s strong back. On top of them, tied down by a reata of braided rawhide that Jack pulled from around his pommel, lay the two dogs’ tongue-lolling bodies. A grim load, to be sure, but one her experienced cow pony seemed to take in stride.

  Done with their task, her roan tied by a lead rope to Jack’s pommel, Angel now stood beside his leggy brown gelding, reached for his hand and let herself be pulled up behind him. His superior strength lifted her as if she weighed nothing. Settling herself behind him, and then wrapping her arms around his waist, feeling the hard muscle and the warm shirt-covered body under her touch, Angel said, “I’m ready.”

  Jack’s only answer was to prod his mount with his heels and set them off for home. Rocking along behind Jack, his every sway her own, Angel took a deep breath, inadvertently inhaling the warm, earthy scents of the man in front of her. She closed her eyes, realizing she’d probably never forget this moment, the musky way he smelled … and how very much she wanted to seek the comfort of his reassuring nearness, to rest her forehead, if only for a moment, against his broad back. But she knew she couldn’t.

  * * *

  On that next sunshiny morning, as Jack stood on the verandah, a mug of coffee in one hand, his other gripping a splintery support beam, he pulled back and hit the beam with his fist. All this standing around was going to kill him. He needed to do something.

  What he wanted to do—and the only thing he couldn’t do—was saddle Buffalo and ride hell-for-leather to search for clues to what had happened here. Despite still being bone tired, despite the soreness that cramped his muscles, a soreness from his fight yesterday with Seth and from digging those two graves last night by the light of the moon and the kerosene lamp Angel had held up for him, Jack ached for … just one damned clue.

  Anything that would free him from this feeling of being hog-tied. From sitting here and waiting for something to happen … again. Waiting for something to reach out of thin air and grab him around the throat. That’s how vulnerable he felt, how exposed … just standing here, inviting disaster. As his impatience surged, Jack looked out beyond the low brown hills that rolled in gentle undulations away from the Circle D.

  Once those hills had called to him, but now they seemed only to mock him. Not so long ago, only a matter of months, he’d craved the opportunities he imagined lay beyond them. But now he knew better. He knew what lay beyond their openness. It wasn’t freedom. No, it was a drunken wasting of time that turned out to have been the last precious months of his father’s life. And now, Jack had to live with knowing he’d squandered every last one of them on cheap liquor, cheaper women, and barroom fights.

  He shook his head, wanting to turn away from the memories, from the hills, turn away from the pain he’d caused the old man, away from the last look of sad longing Jack had seen on his father’s face. They had yelled at each other over differences about how the ranch should be run. In light of the fresh graves out back, in light of the slaughter of the breeding stock, and what that meant to the future of the Circle D, what difference did that make now?

  Jack uttered another curse. He’d been so stupid, wanting to get away, fighting with his father about how he never took Jack’s ideas seriously. Jack could still hear himself telling the old man that he could just forget it, then. Just forget the Circle D. Do what you want with it. I don’t want any part of it. There’s a whole world out there, and I want to see something of it. And I can’t do that sitting here. You don’t need me. You don’t care what I think, so the hell with you. I’m leaving.

  He’d wanted only to prove himself, to earn respect, like any man needed to do. But what had all that independence gotten him? Then go. Just go on, his father had said. But don’t come crawling back to me. Make your own way. Don’t take what I’m offering you, son. Go. And he had gone. And now he’d come back. To this. To an empty ranch. To questions with no answers. To a mystery with no clues. And already, he wanted to leave again. But now, Jack knew, he wanted to get away for different reasons, reasons having to do with answers, with making someone pay for what he’d lost … before he could reclaim it.

  Again he looked around the only home he’d ever known. And asked himself what exactly he had lost. Men, cattle, the cow dogs, horses, money … all that. Sad. Senseless. But it was inside himself he discovered his real loss, when his father’s face shimmered in his memory.

  Jack closed his eyes, felt the moisture under his lids, and opened them, blinking away the tears. Grimacing angrily, he decided all he needed was one name. Someone who would pay for everything that happened here in the four months he’d been gone. Someone to take his guilt away, he finally admitted, for not being here when he’d so obviously been needed. But no name presented itself. Other than the roll call of the dead. Tex. Calvin. Pa. Dammit, Pa, I never meant to—

  Shifting his weight from one booted leg to the other, Jack shied away from the swamp of emotion that threatened to drag him under. Instead, he concentrated on another part of the overall mystery that was the Circle D. Just where in the hell had Lou and Boots, those two old drover setting hens, gotten off to? Hell, they’d never leave here. Jack’s expression hardened. Not of their own free will.

  Don’t think about it, he warned himself. Because, given everything else that had gone on around here, whatever their fate had been, it couldn’t have been good. Using his free hand, Jack scrubbed at his jaw and chin, not sparing the fresh cut Seth’d given him yesterday … as if the physical pain could take away that of the soul. But he knew better. He also knew that with everyone else dead or missing … only Angel was left. She was his only link—and a weak one. She didn’t seem to know—or wasn’t telling—anything. Which one is it? Does she not know? Or is she just not telling?

  Frustrated, agitated, locked into this forced inactivity that kept him standing on the verandah, Jack felt more like pitching his mug of strong, black coffee than sipping at it. But he continued to stand there. On the verandah. Staring at the chickens. Even those happily occupied birds out in the yard seemed to mock him with the direction and purpose in their lives, seemed to say that even they knew what to do next. Jack narrowed his eyes, venting his sour thought. Yeah, keep on pecking. You’ll be Sunday dinner soon enough.

  Just then, the front door opened behind him. Jack turned around, knew who he’d see. Angel Devlin. She stepped outside, a mug of steaming coffee cupped in her hands. She nodded when she saw him looking her way. Jack returned her greeting, noting—as she turned to close the door behind her—that she was all but swallowed up in his clothes from yesterday. Her long black hair hung thick and loose, curling at the ends that brushed her waist.

  Jack swallowed his hiss of wanting … of wanting to run his hands through that hair, of wanting to feel it on his body, brushing over his naked skin …

  Her sudden graceful movements broke Jack’s reverie. Careful of her mug, and flinging her hair back over her shoulder with her other hand, she settled herself in one of the two wooden rocking chairs that adorned the verandah. Then she glanced up—and caught him staring. “Mornin’,” she said, making it sound less like a pleasantry and more like a statement of fact.

  Embarrassed to be caught staring, and still burning for her, but chuckling at her early-morning bad mood, Jack came back with, “Yes, it is.”

  Angel shot him a pissy glance and sipped at her coffee. But then, and without any preamble, as if she’d been inside and thinking, and had come outside only to ask him, she said, “Those men we buried last night, next to your father … Tex and Calvin? Who were they, Jack? How well did you know them?”

  Jack stared at her, cocking his head, and wondered why she was asking. But deciding that talking to her was much better than entertaining his own thoughts, Jack stepped over to the other rocker and lowered himself onto it. Sitting next to her, careful of his coffee, but with his attention focused on the prairie landscape in front of his house, he shrugged, saying, “I knew ’em well
enough, I suppose. They rode the grub line. Good men. Hard workers. Been showing up together every spring for the last three years and right on time for the drive up to Abilene. Why?”

  Now she shrugged. “No reason, really. I was just wondering. Wondering if they had any family who might want to know.”

  Well, that surprised him for its thoughtfulness. Jack considered her, and the constant surprise that she was. One minute she was damning the whole world and in the next, she was playing nursemaid to it. Interesting. He sipped at his coffee and then said, “I don’t know. Didn’t know them that well, myself. My father hired the men. He might’ve known that answer but…” A sudden catch in his emotions had Jack’s intended words—he’s gone now—trailing off unsaid.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Angel said. “Just an idle thought.”

  Jack doubted if she’d ever entertained any thought for idle purposes, but kept that observation to himself. In the ensuing quiet that seemed to invite his belated appreciation for the budding spring day, Jack rocked his chair back until he could stretch his legs out in front of him. Resting his booted feet atop the porch rail and nestling his coffee mug in his hands, he again looked over at Angel, noting now the tired look hovering around those black eyes of hers.

  Damned if he didn’t feel responsible. Again he saw her standing there last night, uncomplaining, holding that heavy kerosene lamp while he dug the graves, saw her helping him lay the blanket-rolled bodies into the deep holes, saw her trudging listlessly back to the house, heard her mumbled good-night. As if he couldn’t stop himself from asking, Jack heard himself saying, “You sleep okay last night?”

  She turned her head, staring at him, arching a black-winged eyebrow. “Yeah. Why?”

  Her standoffish attitude had Jack feeling pretty silly for asking. “No reason. Just an idle thought,” he drawled, using her own words and trying to keep himself from staring openly at her surprisingly delicate, dark-haired beauty. She was one of those women you could look at every day of your life, he decided, and never tire of the sight of her.

  For a stretch of time after that, during which she sipped at her coffee and rocked her chair, its repetitious squeaking somehow reassuring, Angel said nothing else. Jack waited, figuring something bigger was on her mind. Then, looking straight ahead, she said, “Doesn’t look much like rain today.”

  A faint smile tugged at Jack’s lips. He glanced at the clear blue sky, at the hot yellow sun shining down from a cloudless sky. True. It didn’t look like rain today. But curiosity had him wondering what was going on in that mind of hers. Because she didn’t talk just to pass time. Hell, she spoke only when she had something to say. And answered him only when she felt like it, it seemed. And so, he looked over at her and cut to the heart of it. “What’s wrong, Angel?”

  With a sharp turn of her head, she was looking into his eyes. “Nothing.”

  Jack nodded, took a sip of his coffee, and called her bluff. “Liar.”

  Her black-winged eyebrows dropped low, matching the frown of her expressive mouth. She leaned forward a bit in her chair. “What did you just call me?”

  Jack narrowed his eyes, cutting her no quarter, but loving how her black hair, like so much soft velvet, fell forward, all but shielding her face from his view. “You heard me. I called you a liar. Now, tell me what’s wrong.”

  With an unconsciously feminine move that had Jack’s blood stirring, Angel swung her head in such a way that her hair slipped over her shoulder and trailed down her back, out of her way. Even glaring at him, as she did now, she was one striking woman. Then she blurted, “First you take that back—calling me a liar—cowboy.”

  Jack chuckled. Cowboy. So they were back to that. “Can’t. Because I was right. You are lying. So, speak your mind.”

  She firmed her lips together until her bottom one was in danger of poking out. Jack was willing to bet a gold coin she did that as a kid, poked that bottom lip out. “All right, I will,” she said, acting like she wasn’t giving in. “There’re some things around here I don’t understand.”

  “Only some things?” Jack remarked, squinting as he took another sip of his coffee. “Hell, you’re one up on me, then. Because I don’t understand even one blessed thing going on around here. But give me a for-instance.”

  “All right,” she said again. “For instance, your mother.”

  Eleven

  Everything inside Jack, even his blood, seemed to still. He looked over at Angel. “What about her?” he said, hearing the tightness in his own voice.

  Angel blinked, suddenly looking unsure of herself. Jack waited. Finally, she asked, “Is that her picture on the mantel above the fireplace?”

  “Yep.”

  “She’s … she’s a pretty woman.”

  “Yep. She was.”

  “You favor her.”

  Sudden impatience, stirred with a dose of painful memory, had Jack snapping, “What do you want to know about her, Angel? Why are you even thinking about my mother?”

  Angel’s eyes widened a fraction, then she stared down at her coffee. After a moment or two, she again looked up at him, her black eyes wide and innocent. “I don’t know. I just—what happened to her?”

  His mother, the one person closest to his heart, was the last person Jack wanted to talk about. He turned away from Angel, seeking the quiet anonymity and the gentle washboard roll of the grass-covered hills. “She died a few days after Seth was born,” he finally gritted out.

  He meant for those words to be the only ones he said as he sat there feeling the warm and gentle breeze, like a kiss, brush across his face. But then he heard himself say, “And there wasn’t a damned thing I could do to save her.”

  A wordless quiet passed moment by moment, deepening with each second. A sad-sounding sniff came from Angel. Then she spoke. “I know something about that feeling. But … save her from what?”

  Jack huffed out his breath, ready to tell her to drop it, but then her words sunk in. Who’d she mean that she hadn’t been able to save? His father? No, most likely her own mother. Now that he thought about it, he wondered what Virginia Devlin thought of her daughter being here … and why Angel hadn’t brought her here with her. But then he remembered the stories—Angel and Virginia didn’t get on well. No one had to tell him why.

  Finally, and belatedly, Jack recognized Angel’s words for what they were. A rare insight into her feelings. And felt—silly as it sounded, even in his own mind—honored. So, he returned her barest of confidences with, “I couldn’t save her from bleeding to death.”

  Angel pulled back some, her color blanching, her expression showing that she looked inward as she repeated, all but whispering, “Bleeding to death.”

  Her reaction brought a frown to Jack’s face. Why would talking about his mother cause her to—Jack’s breath caught, his mind paused right there. Something happened to her mother. His frown deepened as his curiosity intensified. It was quite a leap, he knew, but one he felt more certain of, the longer he stared at Angel, the longer he entertained the thought. And began putting events together. Something had happened to her mother. His father went to Red River Station. And Angel was returning with him when he was killed.

  Were these events connected to everything else that was happening? Was there a common thread he was missing? And if so, what was it?

  Jack blinked, came back to the moment when Angel cleared her throat and took a sip of her coffee. In profile to him, her face revealed an arched brow, a high cheekbone, and a slender, curved jaw. Touched by her air of vulnerability, one not evident in her manner or her words, Jack felt a flood of compassion for her. He wanted nothing more than to hold her, to draw her over to his lap and wrap her in his embrace. But instead, he said “Angel?” and drew her black-eyed attention. “What happened to your mother?”

  Her expression hardened, narrowing her eyes. But under her tan, she paled, a hurt cast settled itself around her eyes. Then she said, “She took ill and died. I buried her the same day I left Red River Station.
”

  And you’re going to act like you don’t give a damn, came Jack’s silent accusation. But what he said was, “I’m sorry for your loss. I didn’t know.”

  She shrugged, sipped at her coffee. “No reason why you should.”

  Watching her, wanting to shake her out of her air of toughness, wanting to break her until she cried it all out and healed herself—Look who’s talking, his inner voice railed—Jack cut off his thoughts and gave in to his own need to talk about his mother. And so, with no preface to his remarks, he said, “I was little more than five years old that spring. But I remember it well.”

  She turned to him now, her dark eyes acknowledging his opening up. “What happened?” was her quiet question.

  Jack felt his chest constrict, felt his heart thud dully … just as it did every time he thought of those awful days. Suddenly he found he had to speak rapidly and not give anything but the barest accounting. “Pa was gone to Red River Station—more than a three days’ ride away, as you know—when her time with Seth came early. I did what I could, what she told me. But … she lost too much blood. By the time Pa got home, she was all but dead. She died the next day.”

  “Jesus,” Angel said softly. Then, “Who—Seth was just a tiny baby. Who … took care of him?”

  “She did. Kept him in her bed, nursing him. Until the end.” Jack swallowed a lump in his throat. He’d never talked about this before with anyone. And had to wonder again why he was spilling his guts to Angel Devlin, even as he continued … without looking over at her. “But then—and this is the hell of it—that afternoon, when Pa’d no more than buried her and had to be wondering what he was supposed to do with a hungry baby, over that hill right there”—he pointed to it, in the distance—“came Old Mother.”