He could tell by the look on her face that arguing would get him nowhere. Without another word, he walked past her and headed up the stairs.
Daniel proved to be more cooperative than Reed had guessed. Kate signed as if she was eating, pointed down and told him that they were taking him downstairs to eat. The boy was listening in earnest. Reed could only guess what he was really thinking. Kate reached for Daniel’s hand and held it, smiling encouragement as Reed picked him up.
The child stiffened but let Reed carry him downstairs. Kate opened the dining-room door with a flourish, and Charm was standing beside the table expectantly, obviously ready to serve. She couldn’t hide her excitement. By candlelight, the remnants of the bruises on her face were barely visible.
The room had been transformed, not only with candles glowing in the brightly polished silver candelabra, but by a huge bouquet of Texas wildflowers that stood in a tall crystal vase on the sideboard.
Both women seemed to be expecting something. He looked from one to the other.
“It looks real good in here. Real pretty.”
He set Daniel on a chair. Once it appeared he was going to stay put, Reed quickly took both the fork and knife from the boy’s place setting and handed them to Kate.
“My expectations still aren’t high enough to let him have any sharp objects,” he said.
The plates were soon filled with succulent Lone Star beef and potatoes smothered in gravy, carrots with butter and cinnamon, and plenty of onions. Despite all the compliments Reed lavished on her, Charm was nervous as she set the meal down in front of him. Daniel started to reach for his plate, but Kate held up her hand and shook her head no.
“Reed, you are closer than I. Will you hand him his spoon?”
Reed did. Daniel held it clenched in his fist like a spear.
“I think we should say grace,” Kate announced.
Charm looked uncomfortable. Reed’s stomach growled.
Daniel tossed the spoon on the floor, grabbed the thick slice of pot roast off his plate and began to gnaw at it.
Reed started to come up out of his chair, but Kate laid her hand on his arm. He slowly sat back down. By now, gravy was smeared all over both Daniel and the formerly pristine tablecloth.
Charm’s eyes were huge; Kate folded her hands and bowed her head. Despite the smacking sounds Daniel made as he stuffed and chewed and tore at the pot roast dripping in his hands, Kate said grace as if his behavior were nothing out of the ordinary.
Then she raised her head, sweetly smiled at Reed, carefully lifted her fork, and said, “Shall we begin?”
Reed began to doubt not only her methods with Daniel, but her sanity.
23
After Reed left, it was the land that slowly seduced Kate with its ever-changing, endless sky and supple golden grass dancing on the wind. Cloud shadows rolled across the land. Summer showers would surprise them with lightning and thunder and move on. Rainbows arched across the sky, shimmering prisms that echoed all the colors of the wildflowers blooming in mass profusion.
She spent at least an hour a day walking outside with Daniel, and sometimes, when her work was through, she was tempted back outside to sit on the veranda alone, to think about Reed and the impossible situation she was in.
What of him? Could he ever trust her or any other woman after what Becky had done to him?
Even though he was gone for now, she still had her mind set on bringing Daniel and him together somehow. Did it really matter anymore if Daniel was Reed’s son or his father’s? Reed Senior was dead. The boy was a Benton. He belonged here on Lone Star, on this land. Maybe Reed wanted to turn his back on his father’s legacy, but the least he could do was see it survive for Daniel.
In the passing weeks, Kate, Charm, and Daniel melded into a family of sorts, not the kind Kate had imagined on her way west, but they gradually settled into a whole.
Neither Kate nor Charm ever talked about the impermanence of their situation, because it was so tenuous. Kate tried not to dwell on the future. Instead she awoke to each new day content with the routine of life they had established.
The big white house seemed to settle more comfortably around them, embracing them all.
Charm’s considerable homemaking talents lent themselves to making the place a home. Not only was she a talented cook, but she proved to be a creditable seamstress, too. Kate took Reed at his word about funds and sent Scrappy to Lone Star to buy fabric. Since she had no idea whether Charm would actually succeed, she told him to purchase an inexpensive bolt of white muslin.
Instead, he had returned with yards and yards of robin’s egg blue silk and a bolt of colorful calico, insisting that was what Reed would have wanted him to buy. “No sense in you ladies looking like inmates in an asylum,” he had said.
When she wasn’t baking or putting meals together, Charm would disappear into Sofia’s room with paper and scissors and thread. Within a week she had completed a modest gown for herself and then set to work on one for Kate.
Even Daniel benefited from Charm’s enthusiasm. She was all smiles the day she proudly presented him with a long-sleeved blue silk shirt that matched their gowns. Soon he had one of calico, too.
Charm healed faster than Daniel. Early on, Kate had explained to her how she came to be at the ranch. Then, one day while peeling carrots for dinner, Charm asked a personal question.
“Have you ever kissed Reed?”
Kate blushed, giving herself away.
“You have!” Charm laughed.
Kate shook her head thinking, if she only knew.
“He kissed me.”
“Did you like it?”
Setting the paring knife down, Kate sighed. “Actually, I was frightened.”
“Of Reed? He seems like a real good man. Jonah always speaks highly of him.”
“No, not of Reed. Of myself. I . . . I’m afraid I could very easily lose control of my emotions and let things . . . go too far.”
She could never explain everything to Charm. She would die of embarrassment.
“When he gets back, let him know you are interested. Surely you must know what it takes to seduce a man,” Charm said.
Nothing her mother had done had anything to do with seduction. It hadn’t been like that in the dingy old shack. She was visited by sailors and fishermen with fistfuls of coins who wanted relief, pure and simple. There was nothing magical or seductive about it.
“I didn’t learn anything from my mother,” she admitted, picking up the knife again and turning her attention to the carrots. “I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”
“When you’re ready, I’ll tell you everything I know.”
Kate wasn’t certain she would survive the telling.
Although she spent hours reading to Daniel, talking to him, naming objects from around the house, day after day he disappeared further inside himself.
Scrappy came to the rescue and surprised Kate when he knocked at the back door one morning and handed her a crutch made of a long willow branch padded with ticking on top.
“Thought we ought to get that boy up and walking,” he said by way of explanation.
Kate noted the care the cowhand had taken with the crutch. It was sanded smooth, polished to a high shine.
“You’ve quite a talent as a woodworker, Mr. Parks. This is not only useful, it’s lovely.”
“If it’s too long, I can cut it down,” he said, looking everywhere but at her. “If you think it’ll be all right to give it to him, that is.”
His sudden shyness moved her to smile and ask him to come up with her to Daniel’s room and give it to the boy himself.
“I’m worried about him,” she admitted as they walked upstairs together. “He’s grown so pale and listless. He eats, but not really enough for a growing boy. I know he’s desperately unhappy, but I have no idea how to help him.”
“He’s not used to bein’ inside. I thought if he could learn to use the crutch, at least then he could move around some, maybe
get outside.”
“Reed told me he would try to run away the first chance he got.”
“I’ll help you keep an eye on him.”
Kate had paused outside Daniel’s room, handed the crutch back to him so Scrappy could give it to the boy. Over the past few weeks he had volunteered to sit and watch Daniel whenever she had work to do. She had come to realize Scrappy Parks’s grousing and grumbling hid a soft heart.
“I’m glad you’ve set aside your feelings of animosity toward him, Mr. Parks.” She wished Reed would have stayed and devoted as much time to the boy.
“Well, ma’am, I can’t help but think of the old days whenever I look at him. They lived here for a time, you know, Reed Junior and Becky and little Dan’el. Used to carry him around on my shoulders when he was a little ’un.”
They showed Daniel the crutch. First Scrappy and then Kate demonstrated how to use it. Although Daniel gave no outward indication that he understood, his eyes lit up, and he straightened away from the pillows.
It wasn’t until Scrappy actually handed the boy the crutch and Daniel held it in both hands across him like a weapon that Kate realized they may have underestimated him. She and Scrappy stepped back, and after a tense moment or two, Daniel laid the crutch on the bed beside him and scooted over to the edge. Then he eased himself to the floor onto his good foot and placed the padded top beneath his arm.
He teetered at first, shoved aside Kate’s hand when she reached out to steady him. Trying to work the crutch, he frowned in fierce concentration. He was the image of Reed as he slowly negotiated the empty floor space around the bed. Within minutes, he was moving about with ease.
“I don’t know if this is such a good idea.” Scrappy shook his head as the boy hobbled faster and faster around the room.
“Oh, but just look at his face. It’s the first time I’ve seen him smile,” Kate laughed, relieved. “Of course, we’ll have to be vigilant now that he’s up and moving, but that smile is worth the extra effort, don’t you think?”
Scrappy did not look very sure at all.
With Soft Grass Hands close beside him, Daniel lay on the ground relishing the warmth of the sun on his face. Until a few days ago, he thought his spirit would leave him if he did not get out of the prison where they kept him. Then Hairy Face had brought him the walking stick and given him back a piece of his freedom.
They let him go outside with Soft Grass Hands who would sit beside him with a faraway look in her eyes as she was doing now, staring across the land in wonder, touching the flowers, running her hands over the grass. She seemed to be amazed by everything he pointed out to her. Natural, everyday things that she would never have seen if it hadn’t been for him.
Slowly he sat up and watched the ground to the right of them. The woman turned, waiting expectantly. He patiently pointed until she squinted and finally saw a fat badger that had poked its striped gray head out of a hole in freshly dug earth.
When she smiled in surprise, he felt a swell of pride. Silly woman. She would never have known the badger was so close by without him.
It could have been a rattlesnake, or a stealthy coyote. Soft Grass Hands would not survive more than a few days on the prairie alone.
He had never seen such a lazy or talkative woman in his life. His true mother, his Comanche mother, was always busy from dawn to dusk, scraping hides, carrying water, cooking, making clothing. Thinking of her now, wondering if she was dead or alive, choked him with sadness.
He looked over at Soft Grass Hands. The delicate white woman seemed to have no responsibility other than to spend her days sitting with him. Sometimes she would point and name useless things around the house but he ignored her, refusing to learn the white man’s words. He would not need them where he was going.
Other times, she stared at tiny marks on papers bound together, talking and talking. But the best part of the day came when she would set aside the bound pages and smile. Then they would go outside to walk the land as they were doing now.
While she watched huge white clouds float across the blue sky, he slyly studied the Tejano buildings where the horses were kept.
Soon, he promised himself. Very soon he would be strong enough to slip out alone, steal one of the many fine horses, maybe even two or three, and ride back to the Comancheria in triumph.
The woman beside him said something and then sighed softly before she stood up and shook the folds of her brown dress. It was time to go back.
That she might be hurt if she was alone on one of her walks after he left should not have been his concern. But as they walked back to the big dwelling together, he found himself thinking of all the dangers that might befall her once he was gone. Though he tried not to let them do so, the thoughts made him sad.
Encouraged by the way she and Daniel could communicate without words, Kate walked slowly beside him as they made their way back to the house. When they had almost reached the back door, Charm stepped outside, taking care to close the door without letting it bang.
She wiped her hands on an apron as she hurried over to Kate.
“What is it?” Kate could tell by the girl’s face that something was definitely wrong.
Charm kept her voice low. “We’ve got callers. Scrappy’s got them out on the front porch. They’re asking to see Daniel.”
Kate shot a sideways glance at the boy. Although his attention was focused on the stable, she could tell by the way he had stiffened at the sound of his name that he knew they were talking about him.
“Who are they? Where are they from?”
“Their name is Greene. From what I heard, I think they were Reed’s wife’s parents.”
Reed’s wife.
Was it just a few weeks ago that she had thought of herself as his wife? That she had washed his fevered body and dreamed of the day he would recover and their life together would begin?
“Kate?” Charm had touched her arm, calling her back.
“Yes, I’m sorry. Reed’s wife. Becky.”
“They heard Daniel has been found and want to see him.”
“Scrappy’s with them on the veranda?”
Charm nodded. “He saw them drive up and stopped them right there. Told me to find you quick. He didn’t have to say it, but I could tell he’s not pleased to see them.”
Kate turned to the boy, reached out, and touched the sleeve of his new blue shirt. He remained silent as always.
“Come with me.” She crooked her finger. Then she turned to Charm. “Put on some coffee and slice some of that wonderful chocolate cake you made yesterday. Daniel’s grandparents have every right to see him.”
Charm hurried away. Kate matched her steps to Daniel’s slow uneven ones as he hobbled along with his crutch.
She imagined the imminent reunion. How thrilled the Greenes must have been when they received word that he had been found.
As they crossed the yard in back of the house, she realized how much a part of her life Daniel had become in so short a time. She devoted hours of the day to him, trying to teach him English, trying to get him to respond. But he was more at home on the land. That was evident in the way he sniffed the air, listened to the wind and the birds, and drank in the sunshine. There was so much he could teach her if only they could communicate in words. So much she would miss if he were not here, but she told herself to be happy that he had blood relations.
These people, the Greenes, had as much right to the boy as Reed. If they wanted him, if they would love and cherish him, then despite her own feelings, it would be best for Daniel to be with them.
Again, she looked at the child walking beside her. His long dark hair swayed with every uneven step. He had gained weight since Charm began plying him with delicious sweets, but he was still small, so vulnerable and so stubborn.
But he was making progress. Even Reed, if he were to return today would see it, but there was so much further to go.
You have no real claim to him.
This is what you wanted for Daniel.
Family to love him.
Even after so short a time, it hurt to think that she might no longer be a part of his life.
24
Gideon and Winifred Greene were self-proclaimed God-fearing folk who had immigrated to Texas from Illinois. Even in the heat of summer they wore black wool from throat to toe; the couple finished each other’s sentences and addressed each other as Ma and Pa. They sat ramrod straight on the edge of the settee in the Benton parlor as if relaxing might seduce them to sin.
The frontier had eroded a mass of lines and creases on Winifred’s long, thin face. Her hands were hard and callused on her palms, the backs spattered with noticeable brown spots. Gideon still had a head full of white hair and sported a narrow, carefully trimmed white beard that outlined his firm jaw. His thin lips were set in a harsh line that gave him the appearance of a man who had forgotten how to smile long ago.
After witnessing their initial encounter with Daniel, while they stood a good six feet away from him, staring, without even trying to disguise their shock and disapproval or touching him at all, Kate took an immediate dislike to them.
“We heard the news from a tinker traveling close to Willowbrook that Daniel was rescued.” Gideon Greene balanced a good china teacup in a saucer on his bony knees and looked straight into Kate’s eyes without blinking once.
“We live two days’ ride from here. We’re staying with some friends not far away. Nobody from Lone Star saw fit to tell us about Daniel or––”
“To invite us to Reed Senior’s funeral,” Winifred finished. She had refused cake altogether but was on her third cup of coffee.
Kate wondered why Sofia had not contacted them.
“As I was saying,” Gideon cleared his throat, “we see the boy’s return as our God-given chance to make up for failing with Rebecca, who—”
“Was always a willful, headstrong girl,” Winifred went on. “Wild at heart, that one. Pa here couldn’t even beat the stubbornness out of her.”
Summer Moon Page 17