Heart of the Hawk

by Justine Davis, Justine Dare

  “Yours?”

  His mouth twisted. “Yes.”

  She studied him for a moment, then pulled the book back. For a moment she fumbled with the other books she held, and he reached out and took them from her. She gave him a wary look, but he nodded at the Hawk volume, and her slender hands moved at last to open it.

  She found the blank pages and worked her way back. She paused, her lower lip caught between her teeth in a way that made Josh’s stomach tighten as she began to read. After a moment she looked up at him.

  “You wrote some more,” she said.

  He let out a long, compressed breath. “So you see it, too. That it’s changed.”

  “Changed?”

  “From what you read before.”

  “Well, yes. There’s more here. You’re finishing the story, aren’t you?”

  He hesitated, knowing how this was going to sound, yet also knowing if he didn’t tell someone, he was going to slowly go out of his mind. Luke was too young, Pike would laugh him out of town, Rankin couldn’t read it anyway. . . .

  “No.”

  Her forehead creased. “No, what?”

  “I’m not finishing it. I didn’t start it. I haven’t,” he said, gesturing at the book, “written any of that.”

  “Then who did?” she asked simply.

  “I wish I knew,” Josh said grimly.

  “What do you mean?”

  Josh rammed his fingers through his hair distractedly. “I mean the damned thing’s writing itself. I mean the legend is true. I mean the Hawks are either hexed or insane. I mean I’m going crazy as a loon.”

  Whether she was reacting to his tone or his expression he didn’t know, but after a moment of contemplating his face, she said, “Come into the kitchen and sit down. I’ll put on fresh coffee.”

  She moved around the kitchen with quiet efficiency, firing up the woodstove once more, preparing the coffee to go into the pot. Josh glanced at the small window in the back wall, at the fading light outside, and went to light the kerosene lamp on the table. The routine, ordinary task somehow eased his agitation, as did the fact that Kate thankfully didn’t feel compelled to chatter to fill the silence.

  But at last, when the coffee was ready, and she had poured him a cup, then poured one for herself and taken a seat opposite him at the table, she looked at him expectantly.

  He didn’t know where to start. Or even if he should. But he could hardly change his mind now. He’d started this, now he had to finish it.

  “That story Luke was talking about,” he began. “The one about the very first Hawks?”

  She nodded. He hesitated, still not sure what to tell her, or how much.

  “What about it?” she finally asked.

  “I’ve heard it all my life,” he said, figuring this was as good a place to start as any. “It’s sort of a family legend. One of those stories that get fancied up with magic and miracles for children. One of my earliest memories is my grandfather telling me the story of Jenna and Kane.”

  “That’s the first story in here?” She was still holding the book, but looking at him.

  He nodded. “Jenna was the first Hawk. She was . . .” He stopped, pondering. Then, still somewhat reluctantly, he told Kate Jenna’s story, much as his grandfather had told it to him. When he finished at last, she sat staring at the drawing she’d turned to early in his recounting of the tale.

  “She must have been an incredible woman,” Kate said, her voice quiet and as heartfelt as if she believed every word of the preposterous tale he’d told her.

  “Yes.”

  Then she looked up at him. “But I don’t understand about the book.”

  Josh laughed, more sour than amused. “Neither do I. I always thought it was just part of the legend, as imaginary as the wizard or magician, or whatever it was that she saved, and the promise that the Hawks would go on forever. I’d never seen the book, my father hadn’t, my grandfather hadn’t, nor had his father or his before him.”

  “But . . . you said the legend says it appears only to the last Hawk of the bloodline.”

  “Yes,” he said, sounding bleak. “According to the legend, the last of the Hawks are the only ones blessed—or cursed—by the appearance of the book.”

  “So it wouldn’t have appeared to them, because they weren’t the last.” She glanced down at the book, then back at his face. “You are.”

  “I know.”

  “But why? What are you supposed to do with it?”

  He gave her a quizzical look. “You sound as if you believe in it.”

  She looked down at the book, then lifted it in her hands. “It’s here, is it not? You have to believe at least that much. How do you deny what you can see and touch with your own eyes and hands?”

  “Don’t ask me,” Josh said sourly, “I’ve been trying to do just that ever since the thing appeared.”

  “It just . . . appeared?”

  “In my saddlebags.”

  He hesitated, then went ahead, figuring at worst she’d tell him he was crazy and to leave for good, which just might solve a couple of his current problems.

  “And when I looked at it,” he said, “the writing ended with my name on the tree. Only on the tree. It wasn’t on that next page.”

  Kate looked startled, then thoughtful. “That’s why you asked Luke yesterday if he’d seen your name in it, isn’t it?”

  He nodded. Kate’s expression didn’t change, and Josh didn’t know if he wanted to know what she was thinking, or was better off in ignorance.

  “But what are you supposed to do with it?” she asked again.

  He sighed. “I think it’s more what it’s supposed to do with me.”

  “That sounds almost . . . threatening.”

  “It’s not supposed to be. At least, not according to the legend. The book is supposed to help that last Hawk find his way.”

  She looked down at the book, thumbing through the pages, pausing at the drawings that occasionally appeared, every century or so.

  “His way where?” she asked at last.

  For the first time in longer than he could remember, as he watched her long, graceful fingers turn the pages, Josh felt his face heat. It was a moment before he could answer.

  “Er . . . his way to no longer being the last Hawk.”

  She kept going a few more pages, then her hands stopped. Her head came up and she gave him a wide-eyed look. “Wouldn’t that mean he would have to . . . have a child?”

  He’d had a feeling it wouldn’t take her long to make that jump. Wishing now he’d never begun this, Josh nodded. She kept looking at him in that astonished way, and he shifted in his chair uncomfortably. And suddenly he was the one who felt the need to fill the silence.

  “That’s when it disappears again. When the next Hawk is born, assuring the line will go on. It’s all part of the promise the man gave Jenna when she saved his life.”

  “Aren’t you leaving something out?” Kate asked, her voice abruptly very cool. “A child means a mother. Does the book take care of that, too? How?”

  “I . . .” Josh felt his face heat again, and groaned inwardly at the thought of anyone knowing The Hawk had suddenly become prone to blushing. “I don’t know. They weren’t very clear about what it does, or how, just the results.”

  “Oh.” Her tone left little doubt of what she thought about that. She tapped the page she’d now turned back to, the page where his name was inscribed. “If you didn’t write this, then . . . is it right?”

  “Right?”

  “Is this the truth? Did your sister Ruth really . . . drown herself?”

  His jaw tightened, but he nodded. “The day we got word my father had been killed at Franklin.” His mouth twisted. “We didn’t even think she’d understood
the message. But she did. She walked out that night, straight into the river.”

  “I’m sorry, Josh.”

  He tried to acknowledge her, but for some reason the memories were riding him hard tonight and he could only go on.

  “Less than five months later, Lee surrendered. On my twelfth birthday,” he added, although he wasn’t sure why. “Gramps sold everything that was left, which wasn’t much, bought a couple of horses, and we headed west.”

  She glanced down at the first page of his entry again. “Did you really go to all these places?”

  He shrugged. “We moved around a lot. Gramps wanted to see as much as he could. Said he just wanted to be on ground war hadn’t touched.”

  “It must have been hard for you when he died.”

  “He was all I had left,” he said, then wished he could call back the words. What was it about this place that made him let his mouth run on like this? First Luke, now Kate. Twice he’d talked about things he never spoke of, to anyone.

  “Did you really win your first shooting contest when you were fifteen?”

  He smiled at that. “Yep. Down in Abilene. October, end of the trail drive season, they were having a big shindig. Beat a man called Hatch, who’d been the champion in those parts for years.”

  “Was he angry?”

  “Hatch? No. He said it just meant he’d stayed too long in one place, and it was time to move on.” He hadn’t thought of the lean, rangy man with the thick brush of a mustache in a long time. “Funny,” he added, remembering, “he used to talk about taking his winnings and coming up here to Wyoming Territory. But instead I won, and I ended up here.” He gave her a sideways look. “Almost permanently.”

  Kate looked away, as if uncomfortable with the reminder. After a moment, Josh went on.

  “Anyway, I won enough money at that shoot to keep us going for a month.”

  Kate fingered the open page of the book. “And killed a man for the first time two years later.”

  His smile faded then. “Yes.”

  “Is it true that that man just came up and hired you after he saw you shoot?”

  He didn’t want to talk about this, but he found himself answering her anyway. “I was broke. Hadn’t eaten in a while. He offered me double his cowhand’s pay to stand guard on his stock. He’d been having trouble, and expected more.”

  “And it came?”

  “It did. They thought because I was young I was the weak link. Their mistake.”

  “And the next time?”

  “He tried to backshoot my employer,” Josh said curtly. “I stopped him.”

  “Then how—”

  “No.” He cut her off. “We’re not going to sit here and chew over my no-account life.”

  “I thought we were trying to . . . understand this,” she said, toying with a page of the book.

  He stood up and shoved a hand through his hair again. “Understand? It appears out of nowhere, it adds bits and pieces to itself, writing things no one still alive could know. . . . How do you understand that?”

  “I don’t know.” She gave him a sideways, nervous look that made him realize he’d sounded a little agitated. “It’s your legend.”

  He sat down again. He looked at her across the table. “I didn’t mean to be so . . .”

  He shook his head, not knowing what to say. Uncomfortable again, he reached out and picked up the top book of the four she’d been carrying when he’d scared them out of her hands. It was an often-read volume, judging by the wear on the cover and the corners. When he looked at the title printed on the spine, he smiled.

  “Moby Dick?”

  For an instant she cringed, then she drew herself up. “Is there some reason I should not read it?” she said, a defiant undertone in her voice.

  “No,” Josh said gently, “not anymore.”

  The air of defiance faded, to be replaced by chagrin. “There is a reason,” she said with a sigh. “I can’t. At least, not well enough.”

  “You read well enough to teach Luke.”

  She lowered her eyes. “We read . . . simpler things.”

  He leaned across the table and handed her the timeworn book. “This isn’t that hard. Just take your time. Try. Perhaps I can help.”

  “Oh, no, I couldn’t. Not in front of . . . you.”

  “Me? I’m just a hired gun-toter, remember?” He nodded at the book. “Besides, this seems rather . . . appropriate. Captain Ahab was mad, as I recall.”

  “You don’t really think you’re—”

  “I know I will be, if I don’t think about something else for a while. Read. Please.”

  After a long, silent, rather strained moment, she did. She read, floundering at first, then more easily. Her hesitation over the longer words tested his admittedly rusty memory of a story read long ago, but her enthusiasm for the tale made him smile inwardly.

  When after a few pages she came to a halt, he looked over at her.

  “I wish I was better at this,” she said.

  “You’re doing fine.”

  “You . . . went to school, didn’t you?”

  He blinked. “Yes. Back in Missouri. At least, until the schoolhouse became a hospital, and our teacher left to go north. Then my grandfather taught us at home. He used to be a teacher himself.”

  “Us?”

  “Ruthie and me.” He was glad his voice was steady, because Kate looked at him as if she was searching for signs of distress. “Rebecca and Amanda were older; they’d already finished school.”

  “Your . . . sisters went to school?”

  She said it so longingly it made him look at those days he’d so often hated, trapped inside a classroom when he yearned to be outside, as perhaps a privilege rather than the punishment he’d thought it at the time.

  “Yes,” he said, “they did.”

  “My father didn’t hold much with schooling, especially for girls. He said a man needed to know how to read and figure numbers, so he wouldn’t be cheated by those that can, but girls . . .”

  She let her voice trail away as she lifted one shoulder in a shrug.

  “Then how did you learn to read?”

  “In one of the towns we lived in for a while, there was a reverend. Not like Reverend Babcock, but a real, living and believing reverend. A good man. He taught me. Told my father that all of God’s children should be able to at least read the Lord’s words. My father was a God-fearing man and didn’t dare to go against him.”

  “And you’ve kept on yourself?”

  “I try. Deborah helps when she can, but she’s always so busy, I hate to ask her. It’s hard, because I don’t know if I’m working some of the words out right.”

  “You do fine.”

  “Still, I wish I could have gone to school. There’s so much I want to learn, to know about.”

  Ruth had had that same kind of eagerness, that same kind of quick intelligence that had made her look forward to the lessons Josh had so dreaded. For the first time he began to look at what he’d considered the curse of his childhood as something to be appreciated.

  “Maybe . . . I could help. While I’m here, anyway,” he amended, wondering what had possessed him to say it, to offer to do something that would force him to spend even more time in her distracting company.

  Kate blushed furiously. “Oh, no, I couldn’t ask that.”

  “You didn’t ask,” he said, a bit irritated at her instant rejection. “I offered.”

  “But you—”

  “I what?” An edge had crept into his voice. “I can read. Fairly well. That’s all you need, isn’t it? Or are you still afraid of me?”

  That, as he’d expected, did it. Her head came up. “I’m not afraid of you.”

  “Then it’s settled.” She
looked at him warily, and with an effort he softened his tone. “I helped Ruthie, when Gramps was busy.”

  “You did?”

  He nodded. “She loved to read. Anything. Everything.” He had kept it long buried, this memory of the lively, quick mind lost behind the vacant stare of the girl who had once been his sister Ruthie. “My grandfather used to tell me you can find the whole world and more in books.”

  “And more . . .” she said slowly. Then she reached out to touch the dark blue cover of the Hawk book. “Like this.”

  Josh exhaled slowly. He’d needed this break she’d given him, this respite from the chaos of dealing with an impossibility that had apparently turned into reality. But nothing had changed. The Hawk book hadn’t vanished as it had appeared, leaving him free to blame the entire occurrence on some mental lapse perhaps brought on by too many legends heard, and too much time spent alone in the mountains of late.

  He watched her as she toyed with the book, watched her long, slender fingers touch the gilt edges of the pages, stroking them as if she like the feel. He studied the twin semicircles of her lowered lashes, noticing the thick softness of them. Her eyes, he thought, were really more than just striking; they were beautiful. It was as if all the beauty that in other, more classically lovely women had been divided among their features, in this woman had been poured into those eyes, making them so clear and gold and haunting that they were impossible to forget once you’d seen them.

  He didn’t know how long he’d been sitting there, watching her as she slowly turned the pages of the book, but when he realized that he was wondering what it would be like to have those long, lovely fingers sliding over his skin in the same slow, torturous way, he yanked his gaze back to his now-empty cup.

  A few moments later, he sensed rather than saw her sudden stillness. He raised his head. Her hands were no longer moving. She was staring down at the book that was open before her, to the last page where the elegant lettering ended about halfway down. And she had gone very pale.

  His heart seemed to slam up into his throat, and for an instant he couldn’t breathe. He tried to say her name, but it came out as an odd sort of croak.