Daughter of the Sword

by Jeanne Williams

  He hadn’t forgotten her! He’d thought of her as he drew people and animals and scenes of his journey; he’d sent her a way to see with his eyes, mysterious beauty for her hair, a saint to lie near her heart as a constant remembrance.

  It made her sad that there was no way to send a gift back, but perhaps if she prayed very hard, he’d feel that and know how she loved him.

  Rolf read his letter during the meal, including Dane’s wish that he share it with the Whitlaws. It could have been the story of thousands of west-bound travelers. For safety, he’d joined a trade caravan, its wagons groaning under loads of iron and tools, mirrors, gewgaws, powder and lead, ribbons, stroudings, woolen goods, and all manner of cloth from cotton to bombazines, velvets and silks.

  He’d met and painted half a dozen kinds of Indians, traveled along the Arkansas River, Sand Creek, Cimarron, the Rio Colorado, camped at Council Grove, Pawnee Fork, Point of Rocks, Rio Gallinas, and more than a score of other places, including the crumbling adobe ruins of Bent’s Fort, blown up by William Bent when the War Department refused to buy it from him in 1852, five years after his brother Charles, governor of New Mexico, was murdered in the Taos rebellion of Indians and Mexicans against the new power of the conquering United States.

  A group of Texans had tried to annex New Mexico during the time when Texas had been a republic, but though the people of Santa Fe had been glad to see the gringos marched off to prison in Mexico, Santa Fe had come to depend on trade with the United States, first by pack-train and then by wagon, beginning in 1821, when William Becknell took his first wagons over the trail. Merchants and women were glad to see the caravans, and if some of the men weren’t, bloodier brawls could be seen in any frontier town.

  Dane ended by saying that Rolf couldn’t consider his western tour complete without going over the trail and on to the coast. Why didn’t he start early next spring?

  “Will you?” Thos asked longingly as Rolf, tight-lipped, folded the letter and thrust it into his pocket.

  “Who knows?” Rolf looked around at the Whitlaws in a way that gave Deborah an uneasy feeling, as if a hawk had nested among quail or a wolf had curled up by its prey. His mouth lost its grim set, curving in a smile. “California, Pike’s Peak, Oregon—lots of places to go in your country! I want to see them all.” His eyes fixed on Deborah. “Still, for me this will always be the center of your world.”

  Father sighed. “It’s certainly the eye of the hurricane!”

  By now all the Whitlaws must have been as aware as was Deborah that Judith was huddling under her blankets in the dark lean-to, growing hungrier with every minute Rolf lingered. Rising, Deborah began to clear the table, and Mother joined her.

  “We’ve already had Christmas!” said Leticia. “What wonderful presents, and so kind of Dane! Perhaps it’s as well we opened them now so we won’t be distracted by them on the Lord’s birthday.”

  Rolf’s chair grated as he pushed it back. “It’s not time to declare the holiday over yet,” he said, and he looked as if he wanted to say more on the subject but caught himself. “Some people from the literary society are putting on Macbeth this Saturday at the hotel. Shall we see how they manage?”

  “Oh, let’s!” cried Thos. “Sara’s never seen a play!”

  So once again, though with Dane’s presence renewed by his gifts, Deborah felt more troubled than ever about it, Rolf had engaged another evening.

  He told the family good night. Thos went out with him to the stable, and Mother got Judith’s shawl from beneath hers. “I’ll call Judith now. This pretty thing should help make up for her discomfort. It was kind of Dane to remember her.”

  “Mother!” Deborah glanced up from the dishes. “Do you realize that we’re still hiding Judith from Rolf?”

  Father and Mother exchanged startled glances. “I—suppose we are,” Mother said wonderingly.

  “He’s been here half a dozen times to every visit of Dane’s,” Deborah went on. “Yet during the harvest, Judith wasn’t nervous about his seeing her. It seemed perfectly safe.”

  Josiah nodded. “It seemed natural to trust Dane.” His brow furrowed as he pondered over this curious fact that none of them had really noticed before. “Maybe it’s because Rolf’s young and impetuous, a boy in many ways for all his sophistication. Dane’s a man. From the moment one meets him, there’s no doubt of that.”

  “That must be it.” Sounding relieved, for she was fond of Rolf, Mother hurried off to call Judith.

  “You’re scowling, daughter,” Josiah observed. “You must know Rolf better than any of us. It’s clear he’s much attracted to you, which has worried your mother and me, because we knew you cared for Dane. Have you reason to mistrust Rolf?”

  He likes excitement,” Deborah said evasively. “He needs to prove himself as much a man as Dane. I’m afraid he might do that, on a whim, in ways that could be … well, pretty terrible.”

  But Judith was back, delighted with the shawl, which she stroked as if it had been a soft animal. And after the dishes were done, the family had to look at Dane’s sketch pad again before they went to bed.

  So did Rolf when he brought the bobsled that Saturday and had early supper with the family before he drove the twins to collect Sara. While Thos ran up to the cabin for her, Rolf turned to Deborah. The bobsled had bracketed lamps, but the moon was so bright they weren’t lit, bright enough for Deborah to feel apprehensive at Rolf’s expression, or lack of it.

  In the pale white luminance, his face was a mask. “You must be flattered, Deborah.”

  “Why?”

  “Haven’t you studied the women in Dane’s sketch pad?”

  She had, often. There were old women, lined faces reflecting all their seasons and griefs and joys, women of years, proud or submissive, trusting or suspicious. Deborah was sure all these were chosen for character, the challenge to capture the essence of a human being. But the younger women—something about them troubled Deborah, haunted her more than could be explained by tormenting doubts about how well he’d known them.

  “I’ve looked at all the drawings many times,” she told Rolf coolly.

  “I’ll bet you have! Especially the handsome wenches!” Rolf’s lips peeled back from strong, perfect teeth, a rarity in the frontier men, where tobacco-stained stumps were often seen in fairly young people. He laughed harshly. “I thought it the night you opened the pad, and I had a chance to make sure of it after supper tonight. Every young woman in those sketches—Cheyenne, Osage, Comanche, or Mexican—is really you!”

  “But—” Her protest died as she remembered the various faces, some gay, some moody, looking from the pages, framed by plaits, mantilla, or blanket, hair blowing free in the wind.

  That was what had nagged and eluded her. Costumed and changed to fit the parts, she’d appeared to Dane all along his journey! Had he done it on purpose?

  “Now you’ll wonder,” continued Rolf, deftly reading her mind, “if he did more than paint those images of you, if he made love to you along the trail in the bodies of other women—”

  She covered her ears. “Stop it!”

  Regretfully, he shook his head. “I can’t. This shows me more than anything else possibly could how deeply you’re set in my brother’s soul. He’s always taken pride, when drawing from life, in rendering exactly what’s before him. Now, either as a tribute or because he couldn’t help it, he’s painted you into every likely female between here and Santa Fe!”

  Deborah didn’t know how to answer. A fated sadness in Rolf’s tone made the nape of her neck prickle. She was glad that Thos and Sara came out of the cabin at that moment and hurried to the bobsled.

  Melissa Eden as Lady Macbeth had a chance to prowl daringly in a white silk nightgown that exposed her arms and ankles and would have, under any other circumstances short of a fire in her chamber, made her an exile from decent society. Mr. Montmorency, a lawyer, played Macbeth with much flourishing of a cutlass, which made Deborah think involuntarily of John Brown’s merciless u
se of his sword at Pottawatomie Creek. Macbeth’s feet were pointed to the audience so that his death struggles provoked more laughter than horror, but this was compensated for by the most ingenious contrivance of the evening when Macbeth’s gory head appeared, reeking with blood, held aloft by the hair. This illusion was created by having Montmorency stand behind the other actors, who hid his body.

  Deborah shrieked along with most of the women, then clapped wildly as the gratified thespians took their bows, Mr. Montmorency still gruesomely bloody.

  Rolf invited the performers to a late meal, which he’d arranged for ahead of time. Melissa, sitting on one side of him, prettily returned his champagne toasts, though Deborah, Thos, and Sara drank milk.

  “I hear you received a most fascinating sketch pad from the other Mr. Hunter,” Melissa said to Deborah. A shawl draped loosely around her did nothing to conceal the molding of her legs beneath the silk. “Do please bring it by, my dear. I’d like to see what he discovered on the way to Santa Fe.” She gave a limpid sigh, smiling at Mr. Montmorency, now scrubbed till his freckles shone, and obviously entranced by her. “Such intriguing men, artists, but highly undependable, I fear.”

  Rolf snorted. “Undependable? Dear madam, you don’t know my brother! All discipline, control, and duty! He should have stayed in the army and would to God that he had! I could have made this trip then without his shadow over me even when he’s in California!”

  “Dear Rolf! Is it so hard to be a younger son?”

  “I don’t mind that. What hurts is being a younger brother!”

  Melissa laughed softly. “To someone like Dane, I can see that it might.” Her wide blue eyes slipped to Deborah. “But he is gone, and you seem to be most adequately filling his place.”

  “That’s right,” toasted Mr. Montmorency. “Here’s to constant lovers!”

  “It’s late.” Deborah pushed back her chair and rose. In that moment she almost hated Melissa, with her sweetly mocking innuendos.

  Rolf glanced at his ornate gold watch. “We had better be going. I told the boy at the livery stable to have the sled out front at eleven o’clock sharp.” Rising, he made a careless gesture to the waiter. “Please see that these ladies and gentlemen have everything they want, and I’ll settle with you tomorrow.”

  “Everything?” queried the waiter, glancing at the champagne.

  “Everything,” Rolf said carelessly. He bowed to the performers. “My compliments once more for a most spirited entertainment!”

  He escorted Deborah out to a chorus of thanks and good wishes. The horses were waiting, jingling their bells. Rolf gave the boy a coin and helped Deborah in while Thos assisted Sara.

  “You’ve got style!” Thos said with an admiring wistfulness that grated on Deborah. “You do everything smooth and gracious as a lord!”

  “Money helps,” Deborah couldn’t keep from saying.

  Sara sputtered into her lap robe.

  Thos said, “’Borah!”

  But Rolf laughed. “Why, Miss Deborah, I’m glad to hear you say that. It betokens the first faint emergence of realism I’ve detected in you! If it thrives, who knows what may happen?”

  Snow crunched under the horses’ hooves. The moon possessed the silver rolling prairie stretching to where it melted into the crystal night. If only Dane were here.…

  Rolf cast her a grimly merry look. Disconcertingly, he said, “He’s not here, my sweet. But I am. And I have for you the most elegant present you can imagine.”

  “I’d prefer that you didn’t give me presents.”

  “But I prefer to.”

  “If it’s too fine or costly, I can’t accept it.”

  “It cost almost nothing. You might say it was a labor of love.”

  Deborah gave up the joust. She stiffened as Thos leaned forward and said eagerly, “Did you hear what some people were saying at intermission? Fiddling Williams, that rascally pro-slave judge, sent two Free State men to jail in Fort Scott. Montgomery got together a rescue force. John Brown turned up and was for burning down Fort Scott, but Montgomery just wanted the prisoners loose—and he got ’em! Captured Fort Scott and broke out the Free Staters.”

  “Then it’s all over,” said Deborah, relieved.

  Thos shook his head. “Not by a long shot! Brown’s going to invade Missouri!”

  “What?” she demanded.

  “Well, he’s getting men together—going into Missouri to bring out slaves, maybe horses.”

  “Helping slaves get away’s one thing; taking horses is plain stealing!”

  “Doggone it, ’Borah! Brown’ll sell the horses to help escaping slaves get north and on their feet!”

  “It’s still stealing.”

  Thos gave a grunt of exasperation. “That’s like saying killing in war’s murder!”

  “Some people say it is, though I think it may have to be done.” Deborah thought of the Bowie knife under her mattress, the frightening responsibility she’d undertaken when accepting it. She clenched her hands as she tried to reach the twin she loved and feared for. “Thos, you may have to do something awful because of what would happen otherwise, but you don’t have to pretty it up and pretend it’s good or heroic or anything but plain, ugly have-to!”

  “You just don’t understand!”

  “I do. Thiefing’s thiefing, killing’s killing, and why they’re done doesn’t make them glorious.”

  “That’s right,” confirmed Sara. “Men are always thinking honor, big name, fighting. Women think about an empty bed, children without fathers, winters with no food, no one to care for the aged.”

  “Seems to me women like uniforms,” thrust Thos. “They flirt and fall in love with soldiers even if they do an about-face, weep and wail, and don’t want them to go to war!” He made a sound of disgust. “Women want it both ways! A strong fighting man who’ll stay home for their sakes and plow or have a business!”

  Even Deborah and Sara had to laugh at that, but when Rolf spoke, his tone was scathingly serious. “Most women may be like that, Thos, but your sister isn’t! She’s a stern judge, like her Old Testament namesake, and has no patience with hot blood. According to her lights, El Cid was a brigand, Roland a fool, Siegfried a bully, Julius Caesar a disaster, and knights errant a plague of grasshoppers consuming the labor of honest peasants! No use in waving pennants or banners at her—she’d use them for babies’ diapers or scrubbing cloths!”

  That stung, though perhaps because there was truth in it. Deborah remembered the flag waving high and free on the Fourth of July and her eyes misted. To her, in spite of everything, it stood for liberty, for faith in man, for justice. For these, she’d given up her love; for these she’d taken the knife; for these she’d die.

  “I might wrap a baby in the flag if there were nothing else,” she said, “or use it to bind up wounds. But it means as much to me as it does to any man.” She turned on her brother. “And I still say, Thos, that—”

  “Thiefing’s thiefing!” he groaned. “All right! Maybe I won’t take horses.”

  “Thos, you won’t join those raids across the border! That’s what we hated the Missourians for!”

  He turned provokingly gay. “If Sara won’t marry me soon, I may do a lot of things!”

  “Hush!” blurted Sara. There was a laughing scuffle. At the end of it, she said desperately, fondly, “What can we do, Deborah? One week Thos says we can’t marry because he’ll probably have to go to war. I want to marry him then. The next week he wants to marry, but I say no, your parents won’t like it. And besides, how can I marry white, desert my people? We turn like those new machines, those windmills!”

  Deborah reached back and squeezed her friend’s small, capable hand. “It’s a time of shifting winds, but it won’t always be this way.” Pray that it won’t. “And you know we’ll all welcome you into the family. Mother and Father know you and Thos have been keeping company for months. Most couples would’ve been married long ago!”

  “Really?” murmured Rolf. “Surel
y, Miss Deborah, you and I’ve been publicly together for the same length of time. Am I to take it that your reputation will be compromised if we don’t marry?”

  Aghast, Deborah stared at him. Because he’d never directly asked her out, because she went so Sara and Thos could, she’d never, incredibly enough, realized that people would assume Rolf was courting her.

  Keeping company for pure amusement’s sake was frowned upon. When a couple started being seen together frequently, it was expected to lead to marriage. People could and did change their minds, of course, but a young man who had a succession of attachments became known as wild and was banned by the parents of respectable girls, while a woman who repeatedly gave her swains “the mitten” acquired a reputation as a jilting Jezebel.

  All this shot through Deborah’s head, but she was more annoyed than dismayed once she faced the undeniable fact that, in community eyes, she most certainly was being courted. “I’m not that worried about my reputation,” she said fiercely. “The only man I want to marry is Dane. He’d understand perfectly how this has been!”

  “I wonder if you do,” mused Rolf.

  Deborah ignored that. “Don’t hurry,” she advised Sara. “But don’t wait all your life, either, because you’re afraid you might be wrong. If you make a mistake, you can usually recover. But if you never try, what can you do?”

  They were drawing up at the smithy. Eyes shining in the moonlight, Sara hugged Deborah. “You—you’d want me for a sister-in-law?”

  “You are like family, whether you marry my harum-scarum brother or not!”

  “Oh, stop talking like a matriarch of the tribe!” growled Thos. “You’re exactly two minutes older than me!”

  He took Sara to the cabin. While he was gone, Rolf watched Deborah, but she, feeling his gaze, afraid to meet it, stared over the dazzling blue and silver snow and at the ghostly trees along the river.

  “Have you heard about the Medary Ball in Lecompton on Christmas Eve?” he asked. “It’s a cotillion party at the American House to honor the new governor. May I take you?”

  It was his first direct invitation. She took it as a kind of testing. “Thank you, no,” she said.