Summer Moon

by Jill Marie Landis

  “Table manners seem to be our battleground. I’m certain he understands perfectly well what I expect of him, but so far he refuses to cooperate.”

  “I think it’s a miracle you have him in the chair at all, if you ask me.” Jonah ignored Daniel again.

  Preston set his coffee cup down, and Kate refilled it. The preacher said to Jonah, “Kate has actually done a remarkable job with Daniel. He goes to bed without a fuss and usually does whatever it is she asks of him. He has adjusted to using his crutch, too.”

  “He can’t walk yet?”

  Sadness crept into Kate’s heart. “I’m almost afraid he’ll be crippled for life,” she said softly. “His ankle was badly damaged.”

  “I doubt a limp will slow him down,” Jonah commented, nodding at Daniel again. “You still lock him up at night, don’t you?”

  “Regretfully, yes,” Kate admitted. Like Reed, the captain probably knew too much to trust a former captive. “I lock him in his room at night, but only because Reed was so adamant about it.”

  She sighed, wished she could believe otherwise, but it would be hard for a blind man to miss the look on the boy’s face whenever he stared out across the prairie. There was such an intense longing there that she could almost feel it. Lately she found herself wondering if it might not be better just to let him go, but that was not her choice to make. She was caring for Daniel in Reed’s stead, keeping him here so that he would survive. Despite the circumstances of his birth, Daniel was without a doubt a Benton. Lone Star would one day be his.

  What the child needed most in his life was Reed. But she didn’t know how to get the man to come home and take responsibility for his son.

  Preston set his cup down again, and when Kate started to refill it, he thanked her, but declined.

  “It’s time I head back to town,” he said. “Aunt Martha will be looking for me. Kate, as always, I thank you for including me. Charm, the meal was delicious.” He pushed away from the table and then said to Jonah, “Captain, it was good to see you again. Take care of yourself.”

  Finally, Preston walked over to Daniel’s chair and hunkered down so they were eye to eye. “Bye, Daniel. I’ll see you again soon.”

  Daniel met the preacher’s eyes, stared into them without blinking.

  As Preston rose, Kate noticed Charm staring down into her untouched coffee and decided to give her time alone with the captain.

  “I’ll see you out, Preston,” she said, rising from her chair. Accompanying the preacher out of the dining room, she left Charm and Jonah alone with Daniel.

  The front entry was lit only by the fading light of a summer’s eve as Kate and Preston stepped out onto the veranda. Twilight was a purple hush over the land. There was no hint of a breeze tonight. A barn owl hooted somewhere nearby, a salute to the full, buttery moon.

  “Please bring your aunt out for dinner next Sunday,” Kate said, then immediately apologized. “I’m sorry, Preston. I shouldn’t assume that you will be coming out here every Sunday.”

  She saw his smile even in the gathering darkness.

  “And here I was hoping that I wasn’t wearing out my welcome. As for Aunt Martha, she doesn’t like to leave town. The thought of her coming all the way out here in a buggy is more than she wants to contemplate these days.”

  “I hate to think of her sitting there alone for Sunday supper.”

  “Someone from the congregation always invites her over. She would love to have you come to break bread with us sometime soon, Kate. Naturally, I’ve told her all about you and Daniel. I’d be more than willing to drive out and get you both.”

  “What about Charm?”

  Slowly, he shook his head. “Surely you understand why I cannot invite Charm into my home.”

  “And yet you take supper with her here every week. You’ve never shown her anything but kindness, Preston.”

  “Lone Star is a very small town. People would talk.”

  “And say what? That their reverend is not above forgiveness?” It was hard to forget the shame of her own childhood. She could not help but defend Charm.

  He sighed, a long frustrated sound that lingered heavy on the hot summer air. “Please understand. Don’t hold the image I must maintain against me, Kate.”

  What would he say if he knew her own mother had been a whore? How might that alter their friendship? “I do understand,” she said softly. “But I don’t have to like it.”

  “Will you come to dinner?”

  She shook her head. “No. Under the circumstances, I cannot. I won’t leave Charm behind. To do so would be a slap in the face.”

  She had no warning before his fingers gently enfolded hers. Her breath caught in surprise.

  What will I do if he takes a step closer?

  What will I do if he tries to kiss me?

  But when he made no further advances, Kate was relieved, for she had no idea how she would have reacted if he had kissed her, no idea if she would have responded to him in the way she had to Reed.

  His fingers moved against her palm. “Let’s just leave things as they are for now, all right? I would miss your company too much to jeopardize our friendship by pressing the issue. You will meet Aunt Martha someday.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered, stunned by his overture.

  When he let go of her hand, she could still feel his touch. “Good night, Preston.”

  He lingered a moment longer before he promised, “I’ll see you next week.”

  Kate watched Preston ride into the night, and then she walked back inside. She found Daniel alone, kneeling on the floor before the kitchen door with one eye plastered to the keyhole.

  Without a word, she walked over and knelt down beside him.

  When he realized she was there, he started, his eyes growing wide with surprise. He grabbed hold of the sideboard next to him and pulled himself to his feet.

  “What are you looking at?” Kate whispered, still on her knees.

  He crossed his arms over his chest. He glanced toward the door and then back at her expectantly.

  Kate was tempted to peer through the keyhole, but was half afraid of what she might see.

  “Why don’t I take you up to bed?” She got to her feet and extended her hand, expecting him to take it. He didn’t budge.

  “What’s wrong?”

  His eyes cut to the keyhole and back, his meaning perfectly clear. She went back to his chair, collected his crutch, and carried it to him. The act of shoving the padded top beneath his arm had become second nature to him. He looked up at her, silently insisting she open the door.

  She knocked and called out Charm’s name before she walked into the kitchen. Since she had expected to find Charm and the captain together, Kate was surprised when Charm was all alone, finishing up the dishes.

  “Did Jonah already leave?”

  The girl nodded but said nothing.

  “Charm?” Kate crossed the room. Daniel followed close behind, silent as a shadow. The only sound in the room was the splash of dishwater and the thump of Daniel’s crutch against the floor.

  When Charm turned her head, Kate put her hand on the girl’s arm. “Charm, look at me.”

  Charm shook her head. Kate heard her breath catch on a sob. She slipped her arm around the girl’s shoulders. “Did he hurt you?”

  Charm shook her head no.

  “Tell me the truth, please.”

  “He didn’t hurt me,” Charm whispered.

  “Then what happened?”

  Finally Charm turned, soapy hands and all, and threw herself into Kate’s arms. She gasped out something unintelligible.

  “What did you say?”

  “He—he—asked me—to—m-marry him!” Charm burst into soul-racking sobs on Kate’s shoulder.

  For a moment Kate was too stunned to speak. She rubbed Charm’s back, held her tight, and then finally eased the girl’s hair off her tear-soaked cheek.

  “He gave me a new—locket and he—he asked me to— marry him.”

&
nbsp; “Do you love him?”

  Charm nodded yes fiercely.

  “Did you accept?”

  “I—told him—no. Because I don’t want to—to ruin his life.”

  “Captain Taylor is a grown man, Charm. He knows what he’s doing. He knows what you were, but he can also see the woman you have become. He sees what I see when I look at you, someone with so much love to give, someone who deserves a second chance. If you love him, you should be with him.” Kate saw the shining gold locket on a fine chain around Charm’s neck. She glanced toward the back door.

  “Did he leave?”

  Charm wiped her face on the backs of her wrists and hiccupped another sob. Daniel thumped over to the kitchen table and slipped a cookie off a platter.

  Charm sniffed. “He’s gone. He—said he knew he was too old for me. He thinks that’s why—I said no— because he’s too old. I tried to tell him that wasn’t true, but he didn’t believe me.”

  Kate grabbed the dish towel and used it to mop Charm’s streaming tears.

  “Oh, Kate. You should have seen his face. I know I hurt him, but I had to do it. I—can’t be—responsible for ruining his life. He’s so good. So honorable. What would folks say if they found out that he married a whore?”

  Another woman might have tried to dissuade Charm from thinking the worst, might even have offered platitudes, but Kate knew exactly what people would say.

  The insults that sprang from the tongues of the righteous and narrow-minded were as sharp and deadly as the mightiest of swords.

  28

  Day had already dawned when a party of settlers rode into the Ranger camp, three men dazed and shocked, one wounded. Their outpost on the Brazos had been attacked by a raiding party, their cabins burned to the ground. Female captives were stolen along with all the outpost’s horses.

  As second in command, Reed had readied the men and ordered a supply mule loaded, then he had stalled, waiting for Jonah to get back. For some reason the man had insisted on accompanying the sutler into Lone Star for supplies. At first Reed thought maybe government money allocated to the Rangers had been reduced again and that Jonah had gone in to haggle over prices. Then he remembered Charm was out at the ranch, less than an hour’s ride from town.

  It was nearly nine in the morning now, and there was still no sign of Jonah.

  New recruit Tommy Harlan, the youngest of eight strapping Harlan boys and the only one to leave the family farm and join the Rangers, left the picket line where the other men were sober as they tied gear and weapons to their mounts.

  “The men are ready to ride, sir. Any sign of Captain Taylor yet?” Overenthusiastic, young Harlan did everything but salute.

  Reed wanted to give Jonah another ten minutes. He would have led the men out long before now if they weren’t tracking a party of fifteen warriors and twice as many horses. With so many tracks cutting a wide swath across the prairie, the trail would be impossible to miss.

  “Tell the men to mount up. We can’t wait any longer.” Reed slapped his hat against his thigh then shoved it on and tapped it down. His gut was knotted tighter than a short belt around a fat man’s belly by the time he saddled up.

  The men were silent, intent on what they had to do. He gave orders, told them that captives had been taken, warned them to stay together and wait for his commands. Then he sent two scouts on ahead. Just as he was about to issue the order to ride, the sutler’s supply wagon came rumbling over the rise with Jonah riding beside it.

  When the captain saw his troops mounted, he spurred his horse and quickly rode up to Reed, who gave the signal for the column of riders to head out. He and Jonah rode side by side.

  “Comanche war band hit south of the Brazos before sunup,” Reed explained. “The settlers tried to hold them off. They sent for help, but the rider didn’t make it through. Three of them came in this morning for help. Two farmers were killed, four captives taken along with about twenty head of horses. I sent the men back to their families. The raiders slaughtered a few head of beef and left them to rot. They weren’t after food.”

  “How much time do they have on us?”

  “Three, maybe four hours.”

  They rode in silence for a quarter of a mile before Reed decided Jonah wasn’t going to tell him voluntarily why he had suddenly taken it upon himself to go into town with the sutler.

  “Mind telling me why you had to go for supplies?” The minute the question was hanging on the air Reed wished he hadn’t asked it.

  Jonah’s mouth hardened into a tight line. When he turned to Reed there was a bottomless ache in his eyes. “I stopped by the ranch to see Charm.”

  Reed’s gut cinched another notch. They rode on a piece, Jonah’s silence eating at him until he was raw. “Everything all right there?” Reed finally asked.

  “Oh, yeah. Just fine. Better than fine from what I could tell.” Jonah went stone silent again.

  “Mind telling me what ‘better than fine’ means?”

  “Well, they’ve got a preacher coming for Sunday suppers. He was there when I arrived. It wasn’t the first time, either. Both women were gussied up in matching blue dresses. Even the boy was cleaned up, sitting at the table.”

  Reed strained for a scrap of memory that would help him recall what the Lone Star preacher looked like. He remembered hearing about a church starting up a couple of years back and something about the man being a war hero. The church building was being framed on one of his infrequent trips into town, and he had seen the preacher, but just now he couldn’t put a face to a name.

  Jonah smoothly guided his bay around a prairie dog hole. “Nice and cozy.”

  “What did you say?” Reed thought he had heard right. Heard plenty of resentment in the tone, too.

  “I said, they looked nice and cozy. Laughing and talking at the dinner table. Charm’s been teaching Kate to cook. The boy’s using a crutch to get around. Still looks wild around the eyes, to me, but it appears he listens some to Kate now.” A flash of a smile flickered across Jonah’s mouth but didn’t come near to touching his eyes. “Still eats like a Comanche, though.”

  Reed wished his imagination wasn’t working overtime but with credible ease he remembered Kate, all prim and proper, seated at the dining table presiding over a fine meal. Now she could smile at some whey-faced preacher with soft hands and a kindly, practiced smile.

  It was harder to imagine Charm breaking bread with a preacher, but any man in his right mind would be hard-pressed to turn down an invitation from not one, but two such good-looking women. The ranch house was far enough from town for the preacher to avoid gossip, too. Anything could go on out there, and no one would be the wiser.

  “You all right?” Jonah was watching him closely.

  “About as right as you.” None of it sat well with Reed. He could see that it didn’t with Jonah, either.

  As he let his friend mull things over, he soon spotted their scouts high on a swell on the open prairie. One of the men raised his rifle in the air. They had picked up the trail.

  The women forgotten for the time being, Reed and Jonah urged their horses on, and the column followed. Once they reached the knoll, the wide-open prairie spread out in every direction. There was no sign of the raiding party, but that didn’t mean a hell of a lot. Comanche could be anywhere, below a rise or riding along a creek bottom. Everyone was quiet, the teasing banter, the jovial exchanges that usually filled the campground had been left there.

  Hunting down Comanche was a cold and dangerous business. Young or old, there was not a man among them who didn’t know that. One wrong move, one misjudgment, and a man would be making the ride back slung across a saddle and carried home to be buried.

  The sun was slinking across the afternoon sky, and tensions were as high as the temperature. The Rangers were trying to circle ahead of the Comanche trail in order to head them off in a narrow river bottom.

  Jonah called a halt on a ridge and sent a scout out.

  Reed shifted in the saddle, heard
the familiar creak of leather beneath him. “Sundown is going to catch us out here in the open,” he told Jonah.

  Reed’s concentration had been scattered all day, plagued by what Jonah had told him about Kate, Daniel, and the minister dancing attendance on the women at Lone Star.

  Kate had sent no message, not even word of Daniel. A woman like her, someone as conscientious as Kate surely would have thought to send some news—unless maybe she had gone starry-eyed over the preacher.

  All worry over what Kate might be doing fled as Reed watched Tommy Harlan come streaking across the landscape riding low over his horse’s neck. Not so much as a whisper whipped through the ranks as Harlan galloped up and reined in.

  “Small Indian encampment, sir.” The young recruit reported to Jonah. “This side of the river, out in the open. Got close enough to see women and young’ins moving around.”

  Jonah squinted. “Looks to be a ravine cutting across the open plain following the creek bed. The raiders would be able to hide the horses there, and they would be easy enough to collect when they are ready to move on. Any sign yet?”

  Harlan shook his head. His freckled cheeks glowed pink with sunburn. “None. Although there’s a small stand of trees along the riverbank. Could be working their way back through there, but I didn’t see or hear any sign.”

  Reed shoved his hat to the back of his head. “How many in the camp?”

  “It’s a fairly small number. Just a few tepees spread out along the river. Cook fires lit.”

  “Any sign of captives?” Jonah raised his hand to shield his eyes against the sun.

  Tommy shook his head. “None that I could make out. That’s not to say there aren’t any down there.”

  By taking the women and children hostage they would have leverage with the bucks when they returned and could easily barter for the release of the white captives and the horses. It would mean avoiding more bloodshed, but they would not be able to ride in without the occupants of the village retaliating. Even the women and older children would put up resistance.