Daughter of the Sword

by Jeanne Williams

  It would be hot later, but the morning breeze was still fresh and swept the grass in undulating shimmers, first pale green, then rosy-russet. The horses trotted briskly, but the surrey was much more comfortable than the Whitlaw buggy, and riding in it, open to air and scenery but shielded by a canopy from the sun, was luxuriously delightful.

  Too, Deborah had worn the green dress that brought out the auburn of her hair and deepened the warm amber of her eyes. It even made her sun-browned skin look richly golden, almost the color of Judith’s.

  It was too bad that Judith couldn’t go to the Fourth celebration, but at least she no longer spent Sunday, after church, hiding in the lean-to. Well before Rolf came, she took Chica and rode to Johnny’s for the day. Strangers didn’t come by the smithy much on Sunday since Johnny said even God needed a day off after working all week, so it was a fairly safe outing.

  “Why so pensive?” Rolf’s voice was amused. “You were sparkling like champagne when we started, but you’ve heaved three sighs in as many minutes.”

  “I—I’m sorry. I was just thinking.”

  “Think about me,” he teased, “or I’ll speed up the horses till you’ll have to hang on to me to stay in the surrey!”

  Deborah laughed in spite of herself. “Father says people don’t know what to make of your putting on this celebration.”

  “Infernal gall or good sportsmanship?” He grinned, handling the reins with practiced skill. He had large, well-kept hands with blunt fingers. Shocked at the sudden, charged memory of how they’d held her so inexorably within a few minutes of when they’d met, Deborah’s blood quickened. She didn’t like him, didn’t trust him, but—“You can tell your friends it’s gall,” he said cheerfully. “I’m a damned poor loser.”

  “Then you’d better learn more grace,” she retorted.

  “Why? I don’t intend to lose.”

  “Everyone does sometimes.”

  His eyes raked over her, burned her mouth and throat and breasts. “I won’t.” In spite of her conviction that she’d never love or yield to him, such determination was unnerving. “How can you say that?”

  His dark green gaze flicked her lightly, rousing once again that treacherous, hateful, but potent awareness. “I gamble high for what I want, Miss Deborah. If I stake my life and lose it, I won’t know that I’ve lost—not long enough to matter, anyway.”

  “That’s how I feel,” said Thos enthusiastically. “If something’s worth trying for, it’s worth all you have!”

  “And it’s a form of winning, anyhow,” mused Rolf, abruptly thoughtful, “to throw oneself completely into risk. I’d rather do that than figure odds, collect my careful winnings, and live a hundred years.” He laughed back at Thos. “There’ll be a turkey shoot today. Want to use my Sharps?”

  “Oh, can I?” cried Thos.

  Deborah scowled. “You’re not really going to shoot at the turkeys?” For sometimes in the popular shooting matches, this was done, and the winner had to at least draw blood.

  “I knew you wouldn’t like that,” Rolf said. “No, there’ll be a target. The other hunters and I have brought in enough buffalo meat and venison to feed the Territory, but there’ll be barbecued oxen and pigs, too.” He chuckled. “I think my biggest triumph was in persuading your rather puritanical city fathers that a ball wouldn’t ruin anyone who wasn’t! Your father helped there!”

  Deborah nodded, remembering a few vigorous dinnertime discussions. Mother didn’t approve of dancing, mostly because of the drinking and fighting that often went with such galas, but Father had placated her by pointing out that the ball would be exceedingly well chaperoned, at least several respectable married ladies for every single girl, and liquor wouldn’t be sold on the premises or anyplace where the ladies’ Temperance Vigilance Committee had a say.

  Deborah had never been to a dance, and her mother’s grudging acceptance of this one didn’t make much difference. Since she couldn’t dance, she’d help with tending babies for young matrons who could, and with serving the food.

  “I’ve got the best fiddlers in the Territory,” Rolf boasted. “They’re set to start with four strings and wind up with two, and Jem Tucker can even saw out a waltz!”

  “A waltz!” breathed Deborah. It sounded deliciously wicked, conjuring up bare-shouldered jeweled beauties whirling seductively in the arms of uniformed hussars or noblemen in Paris and Vienna and London.

  “And you shall dance it with me,” Rolf promised.

  Deborah shook her head. “I can’t dance at all—and certainly not that!”

  “If you can’t dance, you might as well start with the waltz.” He laughed.

  “But—it’s scandalous!”

  He threw back his head and roared. Sobering, he eyed her with indulgent wonder. “That’s what dowagers said when it was brought to England in 1791. But no one would dare accuse Queen Victoria of license, and it’s probably been the leading dance ever since the Regency period! Would I lie to you?”

  “Yes!”

  “Sara and I’ll dance it,” Thos predicted. “Come on, ’Borah, don’t be starchy!”

  She would’ve danced with Dane—oh, so gladly! To be close in his arms, swirling to music in the air and the slower, deeper, steadily increasing tempo of their blood … But he was halfway to Santa Fe by now. It would be months, if ever, before they danced, and why?

  He hadn’t needed to go off like that, proposing one day and leaving the next, giving her no time to be his acknowledged love, to savor the sweetness. Not a bit of it! When she wouldn’t give up her principles, he’d been gone as soon as he could manage it, and no doubt when and if he came back next spring, she’d be treated to more of the same—an imperative question followed by abrupt departure when she gave the answer she’d almost surely have to give.

  Why couldn’t he have stayed at least a little while? Why couldn’t they have had some time of loving, even if they couldn’t agree, even if it came to parting in the end?

  In her heart she knew, with a thrill of female power, the answer to that. He didn’t trust himself not to take her, and if he did, with his stubborn honor, he’d feel he had to marry her. For a moment, gripped by a rush of savage sweetness, she closed her eyes and gave herself up to the memory of his hard, tender mouth and caressing hands.

  Rolf’s voice invaded her yearning. “Have you left the earth, Deborah? You can’t escape me that way, you know! When you look so dreamy, I want to wake you up.”

  “I’m awake.” Straightening, she saw the ribbon of trees along the Kaw, the buildings around the smithy. Frustrated longing was oppressive within her, a heaviness she felt she must throw off or be crushed by. Dane, Dane, why did you leave me?

  Lifting her chin, she said, “I’ll dance the waltz!”

  ix

  Lawrence was teeming with several times its normal population as Rolf drew up by the imposing three-storied Free State Hotel on Massachusetts Street. A boy ran to hold the team and Rolf gave him a coin, coming around to help Deborah down while Thos did the same for Sara.

  “Thos, if you’ll see to the ladies, I’ll drop the surrey at the livery and be back in a hurry,” Rolf said. He bowed over Deborah’s hand, gave her a roguish look, and left them to survey the jostling crowd.

  Gold-seekers on their way west; former New Englanders in their dark suits; frontiersmen in red shirts, laden with pistols and Bowies; Indians in a mixture of native and white-man clothing. Every woman creature from toddler to grandmother wore her best, and though bright-hued calico dominated, there were lawns, muslins, jaconets, tarlatans, and some silk gowns.

  “Look at her!” whispered Sara.

  Melissa Eden was moving toward them, followed by admiring male stares and envious feminine ones. Her blue silk dress billowed out in three flounces, embroidered with darker blue roses, and a white crepe bonnet fetchingly trimmed with a crimson rose set off her pale blonde hair.

  “Good morning, my dears!” she cried gaily, catching Deborah’s hands in a grip that was su
rprisingly strong, then twinkling up at Thos, who colored and shifted his feet. “How charming you look—so fresh and young you need no artifice!”

  Another way of saying they looked rustic, Deborah thought, though Sara’s yellow muslin deserved no condescension. Perfectly simple and hoopless, the dress molded Sara’s slender frame but softly emphasized the sweet curving of her high, small breasts, and the color, picked by Johnny, made her look like a bright-petaled dark flower.

  Firmly, Sara detached her hand from Melissa’s. To cover the fleeting awkwardness, Deborah complimented the older woman on her gown and remarked that this promised to be the biggest celebration ever held in Lawrence.

  “To be sure,” agreed Melissa, laughter tinkling in a way that gave men an excuse to eye her appreciatively. “Lawrence isn’t all that steeped in age and festivities, of course, though this certainly is more to my taste than that ice-cream-and-cake Fourth we had a few years ago.”

  “But that November there was a ball for the Kansas Rifles here at the Free State Hotel,” Deborah reminded her. “Five hundred people came to that and danced till three in the morning.”

  “I was there,” Melissa said, smiling, “but you, I believe, were not.”

  Deborah flushed. “Mother doesn’t really approve of dancing, and I was only fourteen then.”

  “How nice,” commented Melissa, “that my handsome young boarder has apparently been able to overcome your estimable mother’s rather strict views on this occasion.” Her eyes fixed on Deborah and there was no smile in them, just naked hunger. “Have you heard from Dane Hunter?”

  It was as if a knife plunged into Deborah and ripped upward. “Not since he left.” Her voice sounded normal, though her lips were stiff. He hadn’t said he’d write, and she didn’t expect it, but of course she hoped he’d try to send a message on the mail stage, or by some east-bound traveler or freighter.

  For a moment Melissa’s face looked gaunt, a foreshadowing of how the years would deal with her, before she shrugged. “Then it seems we must make do with his brother,” she said brightly. “But if you hear, I should appreciate knowing how he gets on. He was going to do my portrait before he so suddenly decided he had to get west before snow blocks the passes. Oh, there’s Captain Harrington, down from Fort Leavenworth! How splendid to see him!” And she rushed off to a tall officer of the 1st Cavalry, which, along with St. George Cooke’s 2nd Dragoons had, under presidential orders, tried to keep the peace during the reign of the pro-slavers, thus earning the hatred of Free Staters. Now, though, with Territorial Governor. Denver striving for justice and the national Congress aroused and determined that actual Kansas settlers should determine their laws, the final defeat of slave power, through the coming vote on the Lecompton constitution, seemed assured, and soldiers who’d chosen this celebration over that in Leavenworth mixed freely in the crowd.

  The Independent Order of Good Templars had organized the parade. Led by the marshal and his aides, the band struck up and led the procession from New Hampshire Street to Vermont Street and back to Massachusetts Street to the river, followed by other officials of the day, including the chaplain, Reverend Nute of the Unitarian Church, members of various lodges, the Lawrence Glee Club, children, and then all the people who were crossing to North Lawrence for the celebration. Rolf whisked Deborah into the procession.

  There was no charge for the ferry that day, but it took a while for everyone to cross over.

  Once in the shade of the walnut grove, the flag was hoisted and the guard fired salutes, including one for the United States and one for “Kansas, soon to be the thirty-fourth state!”

  A Mr. Branscomb read the Declaration of Independence, and one oration followed another as men who had almost despaired of the Territory’s becoming a free state strode forward and proclaimed that the spirit of liberty invoked in the Declaration had survived its bloody trial in Kansas and would survive whatever lay ahead.

  “For we’re free men!” cried one graybeard. “And we’ll have no slavery here! Hurrah for John Brown and Jim Lane!”

  He got his cheers, but several New Englanders pushed to the front and shouted that Lane had murdered Gaius Jenkins, a better man than he was and not a come-lately to the cause, either. A general fight was brewing when Reverend Nute called for silence and prayed in a way that calmed hot tempers and reminded everyone that they were celebrating their country’s birthday.

  The band struck up the “Hymn of the Kansas Emigrant,” “Song of Montgomery’s Men,” “Yankee Doodle,” “Old Hundred,” “Auld Lang Syne,” and finished with “The Star-Spangled Banner” and thundering applause. Before the crowd could drift away, the mayor stepped up by the flagpole and raised his arms for attention.

  “There’ll be a turkey shoot next, folks, and then a barbecue in the grove for those who prefer it and a feast at the hotel, courtesy of a most generous guest from England who figured since his country couldn’t whip us, he might as well join us! Mr. Hunter, would you like to say a few words?”

  Smiling down at Deborah, Rolf squeezed her hand and moved with swift grace to the mayor. “Thank you, sir.” He bowed, shaking hands. “I must confess it gave me a strange feeling to know my countrymen were that ‘foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposing,’ but I’m glad we war no more.” His eyes danced, resting on Deborah in a way that made people turn to look. “I’ve found much to admire and love in your Territory, and I’m honored to join with you in this joyous and solemn anniversary. Ladies and gentlemen! Had I wine in my hand, I’d toast to you this great Kansas, the heart of the United States!”

  The cheers echoed and reechoed. For all his accent and fine tailoring, the handsome young Englishman had captured them, and when he moved back to Deborah, it was like a conqueror.

  There must have been fifty contestants in the shooting match, firing at a target painted on a stump from a standing position without steadying their pistols.

  Thos, using Rolf’s Colt, was lucky enough to hit the mark, but lost in the second round when only Rolf and two rough-looking professional hunters were left.

  To the crowd’s astonishment, Rolf hit the center on the third try, while his rivals, perhaps the worse for drink, badly missed. There was silence for a moment after the mayor announced the winner, but then cheering burst out.

  More to this English lord than met the eye! Be a proper man yet if he stayed in this country! One of his opponents, though, was less forgiving. Spitting a brown mess of tobacco near Rolf’s feet, he squinted and growled, “I’m used to movin’ targets, stranger. Movin’ targets. Bet you wouldn’t show so fine at that kind of real shootin’?”

  Rolf’s body went so still that it seemed he didn’t breathe. “Why don’t we both move?” he suggested. “Walk away from each other and fire when we’re ready?”

  “By God, you’re a sport!” The hunter eagerly began to walk backward, but the mayor dropped a hand on his arm.

  “None of that!” he commanded. “Come along. Can’t you smell that barbecue?”

  Rolf stared after them a moment, shoulders hunched as if to attack. Then he saw Deborah. Tension eased from him and he smiled, coming back to her and giving her his arm. “Now you have a turkey,” he said.

  Deborah looked at the big caged bird. She could have eaten him with appreciation had he appeared well cooked on the table, but, as always, seeing the creature alive first ruined her appetite for its flesh.

  “Do you suppose we could just … let him go in the woods?”

  Thos gave an indignant whoop. “’Borah! Think how good he’d be for Thanksgiving! Don’t be a ninny!”

  “Oh, doubtless another turkey can be found for that.” Rolf shrugged. “I’ll bring one out and you can kill it before your sister lays eyes on it and starves us out of mercy! This one can be a live offering for your national holiday. A shame it’s not an eagle, but I believe your Benjamin Franklin thought the turkey should have been your country’s symbol.” He laughed down at Deborah. “Shall we turn him out now?”

&nbs
p; She nodded, grateful to him for not deriding her. In spite of his disgust, Thos came along, as did Sara, and after the willow cage was opened, the four of them shooed the bewildered bird deeper into the trees till its bare blue head and irridescent bronze, green, and blue body blended into the bushes.

  “Doggone foolishness!” growled Thos, but Sara stopped his grumbles with slim brown fingers on his mouth and drew him on ahead.

  Rolf stopped Deborah behind a large cottonwood. “Since I gave up my reward, do I get another?”

  Useless to pretend ignorance of the current that ran between them, though it was heavily charged on her side with hostility and fear. She couldn’t endure the burning of his gaze; she looked down at the dead leaves underfoot.

  “I—I’ve aready said I’d dance with you.”

  His hands tightened. “Deborah, I’ll swear I was the first man to kiss you. I still remember the taste of your blood, the sweetness of your mouth.…”

  “Dane should have been the first!” she said fiercely.

  “Dane’s gone and I’m here.” Rolf’s tone was husky. Shifting her wrists to the grasp of one hand, with his free one he caressed her face, her frightened eyes, the side of her throat. Liquid fire trembled through her.

  “No!” she whispered. “No!”

  With a strangled sound, he put her away from him, almost dragged her after Thos and Sara. “I could kiss you, Deborah, and you’d like it, though you’d swear you didn’t. But I want more than a kiss—I want you.”

  “I love Dane.”

  “Who’s gone kiting out to California and may never come back? Who won’t marry you unless you’ll leave your people?”

  Tears filled Deborah’s eyes. She couldn’t answer. After a few minutes, during which he was plainly struggling with himself, Rolf spoke roughly.

  “Do you know the story of Boreas, Deborah?”