Paint the Wind

by Cathy Cash Spellman

  "I know it probably sounds insane to you," she said carefully. "Maybe it even does to me... but I wish with all my heart that you'd take me somewhere for just a little while, so we could be alone together... before you go. But not like we've been, Hart -... not reliving the past anymore."

  "Why in God's name would you ask that of me, Fancy?" he said, shocked by the unseemliness of it. "And what of Chance? Have you really forgotten everything so soon?"

  "Chance and I burned all our bridges long ago, Hart. I loved him more than you could ever guess, but I'm afraid it's a very long time since he and I were truly married to each other."

  Hart digested what she'd said and heard the ring of truth in it, even through his anger; but he was still repelled by the invitation.

  "Why a week and not forever? Why any time at all?"

  "Because I love you in my own way," Fancy replied, honestly. "Because I've decided to leave Leadville behind me forever, and I'd like to take some memory of us with me when I go from here. Because of all the men I've ever loved, or who've ever loved me, you've asked the least of me and given the most in return."

  Hart shook his head, bitter and confused. "I don't want your charity, Fancy."

  She raised her eyes to his and there was something indecipherable in them that stayed his anger. "This isn't charity, Hart. It's just all I have left to give... all that's left of me. I mean it as a gift, such as it is."

  It was the poignancy in her voice that defeated him, he thought afterward; that and his ancient love for her.

  "I've loved you a long time, Fancy. But I could hate you for this."

  "I won't beg you, Hart... if you say no, I'll understand. We've both lost everything now. All we have left of our dreams is each other. All I'm asking of you is a week."

  "One week? And what will that give us but regrets?"

  "Memories. I've come to think they're the only thing that counts in life, the only thing you can rely on to be permanent. I need the memory of you to carry with me, Hart... and I need to give you a memory of me that isn't sad or angry or bitter or frustrated."

  Hart's voice was so charged by emotion, it was barely recognizable. "And in that week, what are we to be to each other?"

  Fancy took a deep breath, fastened her eyes on Hart's so that he felt swallowed up in the hurt he saw there. She answered fiercely, drawing out each syllable with elaborate care. "Absolutely everything," she said.

  Hart turned from her and looked out toward the horizon. Jewel, too, had told him that Chance and Fancy's marriage had ended long before his brother's death... did that really grant him absolution for what she asked, or was it just convenient rationalization for a truly heinous act?

  Whatever it was, right, wrong, or something else entirely—Hart told Fancy he would stay.

  Sometimes, later, it felt to Hart as if their time together encompassed eternity—other times it was no more than the briefest blink of sunlight in a dark world. Could it be true that the sun shone brighter and the air blew sweeter and the rain washed everything cleaner than it ever had before? Could it be that time could be suspended, and that only bliss could exist in the space "between," before the clock of reality began again its inexorable ticking?

  For a while, Hart forgot they had never belonged to each other; for a while, he laid the ghost of Chance to rest between them... or perhaps they simply were as they had been on that long ago day when Fancy had come into their lives and changed them all, forever—all three together, in an embrace of surpassing intimacy.

  He had the strangest feeling, somewhere between guilt and relief, that Destarte would be happy for his happiness. He had been alone for so long...

  Hart watched Fancy as she moved, watched her as she slept, watched her as she made love to him in ways no woman, slut or virgin, ever had. And he painted her in his mind's eye as he would on canvas when she was gone, every nuance branded on his soul. She was his as he had dreamed her in the good times... strong as no other woman could ever be, yet so vulnerable, only he could protect and guard her.

  Fancy felt Hart's love in every cell. She drank in his strength and devotion, storing up against the years ahead. She, too, had suspended time, had given herself this one moment in infinity to live without fear or guilt—for the worst would happen soon enough and she would be alone. "Do what you will to me, Destiny... but this one moment I demand of you in return for all I've suffered at your hand," she said aloud one night as she lay folded in Hart's arms, and he understood.

  Hart was so different a lover from Chance. His lovemaking was like a force of nature. Powerful, primal as the tide and just as overwhelming. She felt washed clean in his love for it was pure— strange word for anything so lusty. When he took her to himself, she abandoned all thought or question of superiority—she was woman, he was man. They were as they were meant to be, the perfect fit of puzzle pieces, earth and sky, Adam and Eve before the Fall. There was no part of her he did not know, no tiny nuance she held back from him, as she had so often held back part of herself from Chance—in anger or in retribution. With Hart, Fancy was herself, all of herself.

  "Touch me there."

  "Where?"

  "Everywhere. Pick a place."

  "That place?"

  "Oh, yes, that place. And the others."

  She laughed in bed with him and they talked endlessly.

  "You could get pregnant."

  "I could, but I probably won't."

  "In our next life we'll have children. I've envied my brother that."

  "We didn't do so well with our creations, Chance and I."

  "We'd do better. Your looks, my disposition."

  "And exactly what's wrong with my disposition?"

  "Don't be greedy. A boy should get something from his father."

  "If he were half as wonderful as you are in bed, we'd have to fight the girls off with a bullwhip...."

  Hart covered her body with his own and the need for conversation dwindled for a while.

  "What will you think about me when I've gone?" Fancy asked.

  "That I wish things could have been different so we could always be together."

  "Oh, no, Hart, don't you see? That's where we're so much luckier than all the rest of the world. This way, we'll never disappoint each other, never fail. Never argue, never say bitter words that can't be taken back. We'll never even grow old and have to watch our bodies fall apart and become ugly..."

  Hart put his hand over Fancy's mouth to quiet her. "No!" he said gruffly. "Don't profane it. I'd give anything to grow old with you. I'll live without you, if I must, but you can't profane my dreams."

  Fancy heard the pain behind Hart's words and was chastened by it.

  She lay in bed beside him and thought about her past. Had her choices caused the holocaust of her life or had life caused her choices? Were there ever really choices at all, or do we mortals simply follow blindly where Fate leads us, deluded and without recourse?

  Could it be so wrong to want, need something for yourself alone? Aurora wasn't hers, despite all the hopes she'd held for her daughter. Blackjack wasn't... Fancy knew he was the bone and blood of Chance, and she no more than a conduit for his entry into the world of his father. But maybe a child of love could tip the balance... surely anyone who belonged to Hart must be good and full of promise.

  She smiled at her own insanity and tried to imagine Magda's response if she were to appear once again on her doorstep, pregnant for a second time with a McAllister child who had no father. "Imbecile! You are too old to bear a child. Aurora is nearly a woman and you must be nearing your dotage to even imagine such a thing!" But Magda would also understand.

  Fancy shifted in the bed to see Hart more clearly. He was an immense presence beside her, fair skin, darkened on face and arms by the sun; freckled, too, a playful scattering. Strong, manly face, craggy and lived in, but compassionate about the eyes and full of goodness.

  His bigness excited her; the heat his body exuded made her want to insinuate herself into his overpow
ering embrace and stay there forever. Hart raised his arm from the bed without opening his eyes and, smiling, folded Fancy in beside him, sleepily.

  She should do something to protect herself from pregnancy now... before he touched and she responded. Before feeling obliterated thinking, and the hot, hard, loving force of him changed safety into something that existed only in his arms. She should...

  Fancy sighed and snuggled warm against the rising strength of his love and opened her own body to meet it.

  The rest she would leave up to God.

  "Where did you go just then?" Fancy asked Hart as they lay together, one night. "It's beginning to feel very lonely over here." She'd been watching him stare at the ceiling, lost in thought; she felt curious, disturbed by the distance that had arisen between them, despite the fact that they'd made love only a short while before.

  His voice, when he replied, was husky, unfamiliar.

  "There's something I've been wanting to tell you, Fancy... about my past. It's sacred to me and I never really intended to tell anyone. But now, the way things are between us... it just doesn't seem honest not to."

  Fancy sat up in bed, chilled by his tone. She pulled the covers up over her shoulders to shut out the cold, not to cover her nakedness.

  "I never think of you as the kind of man to have secrets, Hart," she said warily.

  He didn't look at her when he answered. His arms were crossed beneath his head and he stared off into space, as if he'd drifted into another landscape.

  "I had a wife, Fancy... I had two children. They meant everything in this world to me."

  Fancy blinked hard. What was he saying? How could he possibly have been married without her knowledge? As realization dawned, she blurted, "Oh, my God, Hart, you had a squaw, didn't you?"

  "I had a wife, Fancy. I loved her... we had a son and a daughter. I loved them too. My wife's name was Destarte."

  A lump had risen in Fancy's throat; questions tumbled inside her and a queer, deep hurt wrenched her stomach. How could he have married someone else if he'd always loved her? How could he think of a squaw as a wife? He spoke her strange name with such reverence....

  "Where are your children?" she whispered. She felt she'd been plunged into water too deep to swim in. She wanted to know everything... she couldn't bear to hear another word.

  "My son is dead... the soldiers murdered him. My daughter never was found after the raid that killed Charles and Destarte. I searched for her for a long while, but I never could find a trace. She was only a baby, Fancy... only a newborn baby."

  The anguish in Hart's voice touched Fancy, dissipating the sense of betrayal she'd felt just a moment before. She, too, had loved and lost. Fan... Chance. She, too, knew the bitter sorrow of regret.

  "What was she like?"

  "I don't think I can talk to you about her, Fancy... it doesn't seem right to do that." Fancy's heart constricted at the love she heard beneath the words. "Oh, God, Hart... I am jealous of her," she breathed, barely able to say it aloud. "I can't bear to think you ever loved somebody else so much...." She tried to push the hurt of it down, down where it couldn't undo her. "But I'm afraid to let you keep her bottled up inside you. I can talk to you about Chance, because he belonged to you too. It isn't fair for you not to have anyone at all to talk to about your... about her, Hart. Maybe that's a gift I could give you... maybe you could share your grief with me."

  Hart was so still Fancy wasn't certain he'd heard a word of what she'd said. Then suddenly he turned with a strangled sound and crushed his head into her lap. Sobs shook his huge frame as he clung to her and Fancy put her arms around him, as if he were a fevered child.

  "She was so good..." he murmured. "So gentle and kind..." And then the floodgates burst and his cries were great spasms of pain and loss. Fancy felt caught up in his anguish, felt it flood her senses. There was fury underneath—frustrated, passionate rage that raked him. Christ! He had been brutalized in ways she could barely imagine.

  "Hush. Hush, my love, it's all right. Please don't cry so..."

  He gripped the bedclothes that covered her, speaking muffled secrets, baring himself of bitterness in merciless confession. Fancy bent her head over his, her long hair covering his shoulders like a veil. She soothed him as if he were a baby.

  "Let it all out, love," she whispered, wanting desperately to ease his hurt. "I'll try not to be jealous or foolish... just please don't hide her inside your soul anymore. Please tell me..."

  And he did. In tiny fragments, at first. And then a torrent of memories tumbling out of hidden places until, at last, he felt drained of everything, even remorse, and he fell into an exhausted slumber, his head still pressed against her flesh.

  Fancy sat cradling the sleeping giant, tears obscuring the world around her, as visions of a beautiful Indian woman lying in Hart's arms called forth the worst and best within her, jealousy and compassion. "If the eyes don't see, the heart doesn't bleed," the adage said. There was so much in life she wished she'd never seen.

  "I love you, Hart," Fancy whispered into the moonlit air around him, but he made no reply.

  Chapter 112

  Their week became two, and then the better part of summer had mysteriously passed them by. Fancy brooded about what must happen next, but Hart seemed lost in their idyll and unwilling to face the fact that perfect moments end.

  What was she to do with this strangely leftover life of hers? What would she make of herself when Hart had gone and she was once again alone? Who would she be then? Not the childhood Fancy, nor Jason's mistress nor Chance's wife nor Hart's love. Someone new.

  "Where will you go when you leave me?" she asked as they lay together.

  "To Paris. I'll paint your portraits so the whole damned world can see how much I love you. Come with me."

  "What do you want from life, Hart? Has it changed for you since we were young?"

  "No... I guess it hasn't changed at all. I still want peace of mind and a loving family. Still need to put on canvas all I've seen, learned, grown into. Need to try to set the record straight about the Apaches..." He put his arm around her, for there were tears in her eyes that he didn't understand.

  "Most off all I want to take care of you, babe. Make you happy. Have a bunch of babies that look like their mama. Maybe buy a farm..."

  But I don't want any of that, she thought bleakly. Even if she didn't know for sure what she did want, she always knew what she didn't want. So no decisions were made and finally the waning summer days made them both restless and in need of a definitive future.

  Hart took the train to Denver and came back with tickets in his pocket, hoping. He'd wired the Canfields of his plans to be in Paris by the opening of classes at Beaux-Arts in September and it seemed impossible that after all they'd shared, Fancy would stay behind.

  "I've made arrangements for the trip, babe, for both of us. We could stay in New York for a few days to shake the railroad dust, then board one of those grand boats that make the crossing..."

  Fancy broke through his nervous rush of words. "I can't go with you, Hart... I think you know that." She saw the tendons tighten in his neck, but his voice was steady.

  "I'm going to Paris, Fancy. That's where I'm going to earn my keep. I need to get these paintings out of my head and down on canvas."

  "I know that, Hart, and I understand why you can't stay with me..."

  "In another world, Fancy, women go with their husbands..."

  "I've done that, too, Hart. I know all about that other world. I just don't belong in it."

  "What are you saying to me, Fancy?"

  "I'm saying that this is my last chance to prove myself... to myself. Just as you need to paint your pictures, I need to find myself again. I lost me somewhere, with your brother's death, maybe even with our life together. I need to find me again before I'm lost forever..."

  "Christ Almighty, Fancy, don't do this. Don't throw us away."

  "What would I do in Paris, Hart? I don't speak the language, I couldn't perform
..."

  "You could be my wife, Fancy. I want you to marry me. I'm so much in love with you, I can't see straight. I want to spend my life with you."

  "I love you, too, Hart. How could you ever doubt that after these past weeks? But I can't marry you. I thought you understood that from the start."

  The color rose in Hart's face. "You're serious, aren't you? You can just walk away from me like none of this ever happened. All of this has been no more than an elaborate affair for you, Fancy, hasn't it? Everything we've had, done, shared, has meant nothing more to you than some casual fling. Son of a bitch, Fancy! I just plain don't believe you could be that calculating and coldblooded." He paced up and down the room, too agitated to stay still. "I've held you in my arms... it's not possible that what you felt there was an act! Your love, your passion, they weren't casual. You can't tell me what you felt for me wasn't real." His fists clenched, heart pounded.

  She looked genuinely stricken. "No. Of course, I don't mean that! I do love you, and every minute we've shared has replenished me, given me hope again. I only mean that I can't marry you, Hart, and give up my own identity again. Sublimated, lost... I just don't want to be some man's wife again. It's too soon. I need time to find out who I am now."

  "Some man's wife!" he repeated, his voice choked with anger. "For Christ's sake, Fancy, is that what I am to you... some drifter off the street?"

  "No. That isn't what you are! You're deliberately misunderstanding me."

  "Who, then, Fancy? By God, who am I to you?"

  She looked miserably at the furious giant and tipped her chin up, defiantly. "You're the man I'm in love with... the man who's given me more love and kindness than anyone I've ever known. But I cannot marry you, Hart. Not now... maybe not ever."

  "How could I have been so fucking wrong about you, Fancy? You're nothing but a hardhearted, selfish user. You use whoever you need for whatever you want and then just walk away when you're sated, don't you? Like a goddamned vampire." He searched her eyes and she could see there were tears blurring his.