Prairie Moon

by Maggie Osborne

  “There’s nothing to be gained by talking about something that shouldn’t have happened.” Her voice was low and she didn’t look at him. But she pulled on her braid.

  She was right of course.

  Why had he forced the issue? What did he want her to say? He didn’t know. It just seemed that when something momentous occurred it should be acknowledged. And for him at least, kissing her had been momentous.

  “I apologize.” She’d know what he was apologizing for. Maybe that was enough of an acknowledgment.

  She started twisting her hands again. “No one’s to blame. The thing is, it would be so easy to . . .” Even in the firelight there was no mistaking the scarlet burning on her cheeks. “And I can’t deny that I . . . but—”

  But he was a man who couldn’t offer a woman a lasting future, and he was the man who had killed her husband and ruined her life. Holding her in his arms and kissing her had made him hope the obstacles could be overcome. Which demonstrated how love could make a fool of a man.

  Love? He sat up straight and blinked. This was the first time he’d actually applied the word. Love?

  But of course he loved her. He’d loved her for ten years. He loved the look of her in the photograph, had loved the angry, feisty young woman who wrote the letter demanding that her husband come home. And he loved the woman she had become. Still angry, still feisty, but seasoned by life. She’d lost the surface artifice that didn’t matter and she’d found an honest center.

  God help him, he loved her.

  “Cameron?” Wetting her lips, she looked at him uncertainly. “Did I say too much?”

  “No.” He stared at her, knowing he could never have her. “I’m going down to the river to have a smoke.” If he stayed with her another minute, he’d say something that would embarrass them both.

  The next day they shared the evening meal with a family heading toward Texas. The Eliots’ son looked to be about Claire’s age, Della thought. Being a boy, he was probably a little taller, a little heavier. Fascinated, she watched his every movement, trying not to stare.

  At the back of her mind, she’d been toying with the idea of talking to Claire. She wouldn’t identify herself, wouldn’t upset Claire or cause any upheaval in her life. She’d just talk to her a while.

  But watching the Eliots’ boy made her aware of how little she knew about children. She couldn’t think of a single thing to say to the boy—why would it be different with Claire? Knowing what interested a child was something a person grew into. A mother started learning about her child from the minute that child was placed in her arms, and she never stopped learning. A mother and her child kept pace with each other.

  Was it possible to make up the missing years? Della considered the Eliot boy and swallowed a rush of panic. She had no idea what a ten-year-old child needed or wanted. No notion of what would make that child laugh or cry. The lost years could not be retrieved.

  At the end of the evening, the Eliots returned to their own campsite, but not before shaking hands all around and wishing everyone a safe journey. The Eliots called Della “Mrs. Cameron,” and neither Della nor Cameron corrected the error. There was no sense scandalizing a nice couple.

  In the beginning, when Cameron first proposed this journey, no thought of impropriety had entered Della’s mind. She’d been so dead to men/women tensions that a chaperone had seemed unnecessary. Moreover, she’d told herself that she didn’t care what other people might think or assume.

  But things had changed. She was starting to care what others thought, and she was no longer immune to desires she’d believed long dead.

  Della stood in the shadows and listened to the Eliots’ receding voices. “It was a nice evening,” she said. Having company around the fire gave her something to think about besides Cameron. Wondering what he was thinking. Wondering why it had become difficult to talk to him. Wishing they could still whistle together and be easy with each other.

  Cameron didn’t say anything. He’d been particularly quiet lately. They’d kept a distance between them since the night of the gypsy camp. Several weeks had passed since that night, but Della remembered every detail as vividly as if she had stepped into Cameron’s arms only last night.

  She gave her head a shake, scattering pieces of a memory that wouldn’t leave her alone. “The Eliots didn’t have an accent, did you notice? Living in the West tends to flatten regional accents. I don’t hear the South when you speak, and I doubt you hear it in my voice.”

  Cameron still didn’t say anything. He stood near the horses, listening to the night, facing the dark flow of the river.

  “At least Harold Eliot didn’t want to shoot you.” Eliot had been the awed, handshaking type. If his son hadn’t been present, he would have asked about outlaws and gunfights. “I liked having company for supper.” Before the Eliots had arrived at their camp, Della had brushed out her hair and pinned it up, and had donned a clean white shirtwaist. Now she started removing the hairpins holding the knot atop her head.

  Out of nowhere, a rush of anger enveloped her. Lowering her arms, she squeezed her fist around the hairpins and stared at nothing. She wasn’t Mrs. Cameron, she would never be Mrs. Cameron. And she would never sit beside a fire and smile proudly as her child recited a poem for company. Clarence would never forgive her. She would never forgive the Wards for stealing her baby. She could never regain those lost years. If she’d had any tears left, she would have wept.

  She would never again live in a fine house or have lace curtains at her windows. Wouldn’t own a satin gown or a velvet cape, and had no need of such luxuries. Never again would she attend a grand ball or have an idle afternoon without a dozen chores waiting.

  Drawing a deep breath, Della lifted her chin and tilted her head to gaze up at the stars. Did those things matter?

  Never again would she listen to the horror of approaching artillery or look back to see flames consuming a house where she had lived. Never again would she stand on a corner and watch wagon after wagon of dead soldiers roll past her shocked eyes. She doubted she would ever be gut-wrenching hungry again. She would never stumble along behind another hearse, blinded by pain and anguish.

  She had a lot to be grateful for.

  At the top of her gratitude list was James Cameron. It seemed a hundred years ago that they had gazed into each other’s eyes across the hotel’s dining room table and said: I like you. Now a kiss had dried up easy conversation, and she couldn’t tell him that she was grateful that he’d been Clarence’s friend, and she was happy that he was her friend, too. Fortune had smiled the day James Cameron rode up her driveway. He was opening the world for her, and because of him, she would see her daughter.

  And he had taught her that all men did not kiss alike.

  As she brushed her hair and plaited it into a long braid, Della watched him moving between the horses, talking to them in a low voice. It would be so easy to love him. In her heart she believed that she could heal the dark places inside him. And she suspected that he could make her whole, too.

  But for how long? A year? Three years? Five? How many years of waiting in fear for the day when he didn’t come home?

  No. She couldn’t walk behind his hearse. And he wouldn’t ask it of her. Sometimes she recognized a certain look in his eyes that made her turn away and swallow hard. But he never followed up on that look. He was a gentleman, and he was proud.

  “Oh, Cameron.”

  With all her heart she wished things could have been different for them.

  At least three major trails poured travelers and immigrants into Santa Fe, one of the oldest towns in the West. Covered wagons lined up along San Francisco Street, waiting to pay duty before they found space at one of the tent towns that had sprung up on the outskirts near the Rio Santa Fe. Stages raced along the narrow streets with no regard for pedestrians or other conveyances. Wagon drivers shouted and waved their fists.

  “It’s sheer chaos,” Della said, her eyes sparkling with excitement.

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nbsp; That it was. They were stuck on the wrong side of a long line of prairie schooners, trying to reach the stables. From where he sat atop Bold, Cameron could see a Mexican cantina, a French bakery, and a rubbish dump. To his left, two Indian men smoked and observed a half dozen German immigrants arguing over the backs of their oxen. Dogs barked, horses reared. The noise and odors made Cameron wish for the clean quiet of the plains.

  The covered wagons moved forward a few feet then stalled again. He could see the stables between the wagons, but no one would yield an inch to let them through.

  “I’m in no hurry.” Della had to shout to be heard. “There’s so much to see.”

  For their entry into Santa Fe, she had aired and brushed her riding skirt and jacket. A crisp white shirtwaist showed at the lapels. Last night Cameron had polished her boots while she mended her gloves. This morning for the first time in weeks, she had wrapped her hair in an elegant bun and teased out a few tendrils at the nape and before her ears. The blue-tinted sunglasses that he’d given her at the start of the journey were scratched and nicked now, but she still wore them. Looked good in them, too. But he should have insisted that she wear one of his dusters. The choking dust hanging over the street was worse than anything they’d encountered on the trail, and already fine particles were settling on Della’s hat brim and shoulders.

  “Son of a gun. I know you.” A man came out of the cantina and peered up at Cameron. “That there is James Cameron,” he said to everyone within hearing. Rocking back on his heels, he sized up the situation in the street.

  Cameron didn’t recognize the man. When they’d entered town, he’d eased back his duster and checked that his pistols were easy to reach. He placed a hand on the stock of his rifle, checked that it slid handily within the leather scabbard. And hoped there wouldn’t be trouble now, on a street crowded with bystanders.

  “Hey, you.” The man walked into the snarl of traffic. “Turn them oxen aside and let this man and his lady get through. This here is James Cameron.”

  “Und who ist James Cameron?” The oxen’s owner scowled up at Cameron and Della.

  “He’s about the most famous lawman in the West, that’s who he is. He could draw those pistols and shoot you dead, mister, and you’d never even see his hand move.”

  Cameron didn’t glance at Della. If she looked as if she agreed with his admirer, he’d be disappointed. If she looked as if she might laugh, he’d be irritated. It was better not to know what she was thinking.

  The man from the cantina and the oxen’s owner turned the oxen across the street, blocking traffic in both directions. The man from the cantina waved Cameron forward. “You come on through, Mr. Cameron.”

  “I’m obliged.” He touched his hat brim and nodded.

  “Glad to do you a service.”

  He heard Della say, “Thank you very much, sir.”

  “My pleasure, ma’am.”

  If he’d been by himself, he would have turned over the animals to the stablemaster then slung the saddlebags over his shoulder and walked up to the Palace Hotel. But he couldn’t expect Della to check into a hotel carrying saddlebags. He told the stablemaster to send their things to the hotel, then he offered his arm and escorted her past the plaza.

  This time he left her in the ladies’ saloon while he arranged for a room, returning to find her having tea and tiny rounds of toast with a half dozen other ladies. The moment she spotted him, Della came to the doorway.

  “It’s like turning back the clock to another time,” she said in a low voice, her hazel eyes shining. “Each lady is trying to outdo the other with the quality of her refinements.” She looked as if she was struggling not to laugh. “I’m afraid I’ve already disgraced myself at least a dozen times.”

  “Della, you saw how crowded the town is. The only room I could get is a suite.” He examined her face, watching her expression. “It’s the bridal suite. I’ll leave you there, and I’ll bunk in at the stables,” he hastened to add.

  She gave him a long, thoughtful look. “I’m not going to be silly about this,” she said after a minute. “There must be a sofa in the suite. Sleep there. We’ll be sleeping farther apart than we ordinarily do.” Crimson stained her cheeks. “That is . . . well, you know what I mean. It’s all right, really.” She took his arm. “I suppose the hotel clerk thinks we’re married . . .”

  “I don’t know what he thinks. I booked the suite in my name, mentioned that a lady would be staying in the rooms.” Cameron tugged at his shirt collar and cleared his throat. “I don’t mind putting a bedroll down at the stables.”

  “That’s not necessary, really. You’re paying for a suite, you should enjoy it. We’ll manage.”

  Her hand on his arm felt hot and heavy. When she moved, he caught the scent of dust and lavender and boot polish. He couldn’t tell if she was just putting a good face on things.

  As if she’d read his mind, she pressed his arm and looked up at him as they climbed the staircase. “Cameron. I worked in a saloon. Most of the folks in Two Creeks wouldn’t be at all surprised that I’m sharing a hotel room with a man. I stopped caring about that sort of thing a long time ago.”

  “Really?”

  “Well, most of the time.” Lowering her head, she studied the flowered pattern twining across the carpet. “You and I know we’re not engaged in any impropriety. It’s the truth that matters, not what other people think.”

  She gave him too much credit. He spent hours speculating about improper behavior.

  Cameron straightened his shoulders. “It’s early. I’ll take care of boarding the animals and arranging our train tickets. You can do some shopping, get some rest.”

  She dropped his arm when they reached the third floor. “I doubt I’ll do any shopping.”

  “I’d like to buy you a go-out-to-dinner dress.” He’d never said such a thing in his life, had never imagined that he would. To his irritation, he felt a flush under his tan. “As a birthday gift,” he added when she stopped to stare.

  “It’s not my birthday.”

  “As a reward then, for making a long and difficult journey.”

  “It was lengthy, but not especially difficult.”

  “Damn it, Della, I want to buy you a nice dress to wear out to dinner.” He wiggled his fingers near his hat brim. “And a bauble thing to wear in your hair like those other women wore at the hotel in Rocas.”

  She stiffened. “I don’t want to owe you any more than I already do. What did this suite cost? What will the train tickets cost? And what did it cost to feed me all these weeks?”

  “What the hell does it matter? I don’t care about the cost. I can afford it. If you want to thank me, then give me the pleasure of taking you shopping for a fancy dress.” He could see by her expression that tying the dress to gratitude gave her pause.

  He opened the door to the suite and stepped back so she could enter.

  “Oh.” She stopped and he almost stepped into her. “I haven’t seen a room like this since I left Atlanta. Not since the Ward’s plantation burned.”

  The suite’s parlor faced large arched windows that opened to a balcony. That’s what Cameron noticed first, but he suspected Della referred to the multitude of tables, desks, chairs, tasseled lamps. Some of the items appeared to be antiques, others were of more recent vintage. Everything was draped or swagged or trimmed or tasseled in the fashion of the day. He spotted the sofa where he would sleep and realized his feet would hang over the end.

  “Look at these ferns. I tried to grow ferns at the farm-house and never could. And the carpet! Oh my. It looks like a genuine Turkish carpet, not an imitation.” She peeked inside the bedroom. “Our saddlebags are already here. I have things to send to the laundry, things to mend.” Then she discovered the water closet and a claw-foot tub with brass fittings. “Oh my heavens.” She clasped her hands on her breast. “A tub right here in the room!”

  “I take it you like the accommodations,” he said, pleased.

  “You have to go now.�
�� Grabbing his hand, she tugged him toward the door.

  “Go where?”

  “I don’t know, just go.” Eyes shining, she smiled up at him. “I’m going to have a long, soaky tub bath, right here in the room. So, you have to go.”

  He laughed. He didn’t recall seeing her this happy before, with her eyes glowing in anticipation and an easy smile on her lips. If he stayed another few minutes, he suspected she would spin around with sheer exuberance. He would have liked to see that.

  “Out, out, out.” Giving him a little push, she followed him to the suite’s door. “Oh, Cameron, this is wonderful.”

  “Enjoy yourself.” Her cheeks glowed and her eyes sparkled. “I’ll go by the barber-and-bath shop, take care of some things and come back . . .” He pulled his watch out of his vest pocket. “About seven. In time for dinner.”

  “That’s seven hours!”

  “Plenty of time for you to do whatever you need to do. You can explore the town, go shopping, or you can spend the day here, resting. If you get hungry, order something—”

  “I know. Good-bye.” She closed the door.

  This is what it felt like to have a woman of one’s own. Absurdly happy when she was happy. Eager to put that shine in her eyes and that glow on her cheeks.

  Feeling better than he’d felt within memory, Cameron settled his hat at a jaunty angle and set out to find the Santa Fe sheriff. It was a courtesy for men like him to let the sheriff know he was in town. But he wouldn’t surrender his guns, even if that was a town rule.

  As it turned out, the sheriff didn’t raise an objection. Any other time, Cameron would have accepted the sheriff’s invitation to come back after supper and drink and jaw a while. But this time he didn’t have that restless, solitary hole behind his ribs. This time he had Della. For tonight, at least, he had a woman of his own.

  Chapter 14

  Cameron was only steps from the entrance to the barber-and-bath shop when a man he’d noticed in passing shouted his name in a tone that Cameron had heard to the point of weariness. There was nothing novel in what happened next. Both men drew and an instant later the man lay dead on the street, and Cameron’s good feeling was gone.