“Oh, Becky,” I mourned, resting my cheek upon her shoulder. If Boyd were to appear before us just now I would dress him down in the manner of the dourest schoolteacher, administer a thorough scolding for the distress he had caused Rebecca. I knew anger was unjustified, and certainly selfish, but it coursed anew in my veins; I did not want to lose Rebecca. If Boyd had stayed to marry her, she would be my sister forever after.
Whistler whickered as we approached the familiar yard, hastening from a walk to a trot. I murmured, “There’s a good girl,” to my horse, and looked up to see the door fly open, emitting Cort and Nathaniel, who approached us at a run, waving and hollering; Sawyer appeared in the doorway behind the boys. He lifted one hand to shade his vision and I felt his relief at our appearance as palpably as a touch. I had brewed willowbark tea for him this morning, in hopes it would ease his headache.
I’m home, sweetheart. I sent this thought to him straight as an arrow in flight, my heart thumping with gladness.
Rebecca squared her slender shoulders and regained her composure, discreetly drying her nose with the back of her hand. Her dark, eloquent brows and her soft mouth quirked with concern as she turned to me to ask, “Would you rather I recount the afternoon’s unpleasantness, or allow you?”
“I will. I wish I did not have to speak of it at all, but likely they’ll hear anyway, before too long.”
“Evenin’, darlin’,” Sawyer said, coming to my side of the buggy. “And good evenin’ to you, Becky.”
I drew Whistler to a halt and smiled at him, despite the stress of the afternoon. Golden as the evening around him he appeared, his fair hair becoming spun gold in the glinting light, his eye a wealth of the rich color. His eyepatch was in place but I saw the way he observed the traces of my earlier distress; of course he could sense it. He reached to help me down as Quade stepped from the house to greet Rebecca; Cort and Nathaniel darted about her skirts, anxious to claim her undivided attention, and in the ensuing hubbub I wrapped my arms about Sawyer’s waist and unapologetically absorbed the solid reassurance of him.
“What happened?” he murmured, gathering me closer.
“I’ll tell you in a bit,” I whispered, eyes closed as I rested my cheek to his heartbeat. “How is your head, love?”
“Much better, especially now that you’re home.” He cupped my elbow in one hand, bracketing my lower back with the other, and I understood anew I could never be thankful enough for my husband.
“THAT REPULSIVE, higher-than-thou old biddy.” Tilson spoke without compunction. “I’ll tell Alice Doherty a thing or two, next we meet. She’s a problem with my decisions, does she?” His thunderous expression softened into its usual tender benevolence as he looked my way. “Lorie, my dear girl, I am ever so sorry. I wish I would have been with. I’d be curious to know how opinionated she would prove in my presence.”
“Rebecca was most forthright in my defense,” I said. The five of us surrounded the dinner table; it was late into the evening and Tilson had only just arrived home. He sat smoking his pipe while Rebecca warmed coffee for him. Quade lingered over dinner and then dessert, during which Rebecca and I related the events at Caroline Hemming’s, keeping in mind the two little boys, both listening with ears perked. Now, hours later, Cort and Nathaniel were safely retired to their loft bed and speech flowed more forth-rightly. Stormy lay on my lap and his purring rumbled pleasantly along my thighs as I stroked his cloudy fur.
Placing a steaming cup before her uncle and reclaiming her seat, Rebecca explained, “And Lorie believed, after all of this, that Alice was about to strike me and darted between the two of us, to protect me. I tell you, Sawyer, your wife is the bravest woman I have ever been privileged to know. Of course, I have known this for some time.”
Though I recognized Sawyer’s distress that I’d put myself in potential harm’s way, he only said, “That is God’s truth. Even still, Lorie-love, I’d like to find this woman and demand she apologize to you, and then I may very well knock the teeth from her head.”
“Sawyer James,” I murmured; I’d harbored a similar urge but as his wife felt compelled to admonish.
He replied, “This Alice woman sounds on a level with Parmley, speaking of teeth I would not mind forcibly displacing.”
Quade, opposite us, snorted a laugh. The marshal sat to Rebecca’s left, hatless, though he never removed his marshal’s badge; it winked in the firelight, the symbol of his station. He was a somewhat stern, long-faced man; I’d been surprised to learn he was, at thirty years, not nearly as old as I would have guessed, and in fact only three years older than Rebecca. I’d mistakenly placed Quade closer to two score. His hair was thinning, the lines of his face sharp, but he smiled readily enough, especially at Rebecca. Sawyer and I had come to enjoy his company, despite his initial introduction into our lives, when he’d arrested Sawyer. I comforted, if not contented, myself with the knowledge that Quade cared deeply for Rebecca and would provide for and treat her as befitting a proper lady, all their married life.
Quade rested a proprietary arm along the back of Rebecca’s chair and commented, “Parmley envisions for himself an illustrious political career, beginning with mayor of Iowa City. He was speaking of as much, just yesterday.”
“Politicking seems a fitting occupation for such a weasel,” Tilson said around his pipe stem. He mused, “Or dentistry.”
Quade asked, “What have you against the dental arts, Edward?”
Tilson grinned. “You mean to tell me you ain’t ever had a tooth pulled?”
Only just seated, Rebecca rose, almost skittishly, and crossed to the woodstove, pouring herself a cup even though she rarely drank coffee after dinner.
Quade was saying, “I’ve never had a tooth pulled, only knocked from my head by a well-aimed fist or two.” His eyes followed Rebecca’s movements as he spoke and I noticed the faintest of frowns crease his brow as he attempted to make sense of her restlessness. Not for the first time, I wondered if he’d ever suspected Rebecca’s feelings for Boyd. Quade was perceptive, but for him Boyd’s absence was surely in line with the old adage – out of sight, out of mind.
Tilson invited, “Becky, honey, have a seat, won’t you?”
Quade stood to draw out her chair, as would any gentleman, and Rebecca reclaimed her seat only to spill coffee on her skirts. Much to the collective stun of the men, she exclaimed, “Goddammit!”
Quade uttered, “Rebecca!”
With a completely different capability for understanding the rising tide of her flustered frustration, I thought, Oh, Becky…
Before she could reply hoofbeats sounded on the lane, further cause for alarm, as all expected persons were currently in the house. Sawyer and Tilson rose at once, while Quade strode to the window and observed, “It’s only Clint, no need to worry.”
Clint Clemens tapped on the door before entering; though reared from boyhood in this house and indeed still occasionally residing within it Clemens was unfailingly courteous in his actions. He ducked inside, wearing a heavy cloak against the night’s chill, his narrow, fine-featured face appearing as he removed his hat. Tilson was there to take his nephew’s cloak and cup a hand over his shoulder; though Clemens was a grown man and a deputy, Tilson always behaved protectively towards him.
Rebecca was already on her feet, moving to her brother’s side. She placed a hand on his back and asked, “What brings you? Is anything wrong?”
Clemens shook his head. “All is well. I am on duty this evening but I wished to deliver this letter to you, Mr. Davis.” He referred to us with consistent decorum; I surmised that he always would. Referring to the proprietor of the general store, which also housed the post office, Clemens explained, “Mr. Sedum bestowed this letter upon me. It arrived this afternoon, though I’ve not found a moment’s time until this late hour, I apologize.”
“Thank you for delivering it,” Sawyer said, relief abundant in his tone. “It must be word from Boyd.”
“No, I believe it is a letter from Jac
ob Miller,” Clemens contradicted, extracting an envelope from his vest pocket, and Rebecca’s entire being seemed to coalesce into a knot of tension.
From Jacob? I wondered. Sawyer met my gaze, the selfsame question in his mind.
The once-ivory envelope, addressed to Mr. Sawyer J. Davis, was much tattered. Sawyer and I hardly knew which of us should read it first and settled for my reading aloud, everyone crowded around. Rebecca was containing her distress with true effort, her knuckles white and strained as she gripped together her hands. I observed that the post date, the twenty-fifth of September, was a solid month past. The grim question hovering over our heads descended, swift and frightening – why had not Boyd written this letter himself? It was almost November and he and Malcolm should have long reached their destination in northern Minnesota. Fingers trembling, I nearly ripped the letter extracting it from the envelope; steadying my composure, I began to read.
Less than a minute later we sat staring at each other, wordless for the space of a horrified, disbelieving heartbeat. Rebecca brought one hand to her lips but a gasping cry rose before she could muffle it – before there was a hope of attempting to offer an explanation. None of us knew what to think. I grasped the letter, sweat collecting along my ribs and temples, and studied the slanting lines of one particular sentence of Jacob’s precise handwriting, willing it to be untrue:
I am greatly troubled that my nephews have not yet arrived, nor have I received a word as to their current whereabouts.
“I WILL not bring you and our child into unknown territory with winter advancing. And I will never ride away from you again. Not ever.” Sawyer’s voice was taut with angry tension. I knew from past experience that such a tone indicated he would not be moved from his present mindset, despite anything I said.
“But where could they be?” I sobbed, sprawled atop our bed; Sawyer paced in worry, incapable of remaining still, while my knees gave out. Another bout of weeping seized me, as did nausea. I was quite unable to staunch the surge of terrible images, those of the two of them hurt beyond repair; I could conceive of no other reason Boyd would fail to send word to us or to Jacob. He was a reluctant letter-writer, this I knew well, but he loved us; he was not thoughtless. He would know how we worried, how we waited for word. Such silence could only suggest he and Malcolm’s circumstances had grown unquestionably dire; all evidence in our possession suggested that the two of them had inexplicably vanished between here and Minnesota. I refused to harbor the idea that they had been killed. I insisted, “Oh Sawyer, we must go after them. Why wouldn’t Boyd write unless something dreadful has occurred…”
“I am every bit as worried!” Rarely did he raise his voice to me. “I am sick with worry. I would ride from this place as quickly as I could saddle Whistler but I will not ride away from you, not even for them. Do you hear me?”
“We must do something!” I cried, unwilling to heed his words, however sincere and reasonable.
Sawyer continued to pace the floorboards, clutching his temples, the picture of agony. He’d removed his eyepatch but not one other piece of clothing, even his boots, too overcome since Clemens delivered the letter only an hour ago. I lay in my shift, miserable with helplessness; I could only imagine Rebecca’s present state. She had left the house almost immediately after I’d concluded reading the letter, wrapping into her shawl; when Quade moved to follow her, more bewildered than concerned, I caught his arm and implored, “Please, let me.”
I found her in the barn, leaning her forehead against her bent arms, braced along the top edge of the stall Boyd had used for Fortune last summer. She cried with quiet fervor, slender frame heaving, and flinched when I put my hands upon her back.
“I should not have let him go,” she wept. Her face was hidden from me, her voice muffled, but I discerned each painful and self-punishing word. “How could I have let him go away from me?”
Still gripped in the coldness of shock, I found I could not offer comfort by any other means than wrapping my arms about her, as I had earlier in the buggy; I pressed my cheek to the soft, loose weave of her knitted shawl. Her words seemed to fall to our hems and spread across the barn floor.
“I shall never forgive myself, oh Lorie, never.” Rebecca gulped and moaned at the same instant. “Boyd rode from this place and I was too cowardly to tell him I love him, or to stop him. I should have stopped him.”
“Becky,” I whispered. It did no good to remind her little could stop Boyd when he set his mind; this she already knew. I did not wish to cause her more pain, praying I did not as I said, “He knew. He is in love with you but he was too stubborn to say so.”
She lifted her head. The delicate skin beneath her eyes was swollen and purple as a new bruise but hope burned in her irises; hope which she buried at all other times now flaring to the surface, bright as a line of fire along a nighttime horizon, before she could submerge its passionate presence. She whispered, “I must find him. I shall not rest until I find him.”
“We’ll find them together,” I had vowed.
“Sawyer,” I implored now in our sleeping quarters, the space made tense with our worry, coiled like wire springs between us. I rose to my knees upon the bed and reached for him. “Come here, please let me comfort you.”
He came at once, bringing me to his chest, cupping his right palm over my belly; in the past few weeks the child’s presence had created a firm bulge, a round smoothness like that of a summer melon tucked beneath my skirts. I slipped the suspenders from his shoulders with deft movements, drawing the shirttails from his trousers, removing every stitch and then pressing my lips to the juncture of his collarbones. He took us to the bed’s surface, drawing the quilt over our hips. In the meager light we lay on our sides, studying one another. Sawyer’s mouth was solemn, his face cast in flickering shadows. I latched my right leg over his thighs in a gesture of possession, hooking him closer to me as he traced his thumb along the top of my shoulder, pressing into the hollows near my neck.
“I do not believe they are dead,” he said after a time, his throaty voice so familiar in its intensity. “Though I admit I am unable to sense Boyd as I sense you, mo mhuirnín milis, I believe he is alive. I truly believe I would feel it if he no longer walked the Earth.” His sincere words struck at my heart. Sawyer was, as always, so powerfully dedicated to those he loved.
“I do not believe them dead, either, I promise you,” I said, scrubbing at the last of my tears. We’d been at odds with one another ever since the letter’s arrival, arguing over the possibility of heading for Minnesota without delay. I’d observed the disquiet on Tilson’s face as Sawyer and I took our leave, retiring to bed; I knew Tilson feared we would depart with morning’s light. Rebecca had not reemerged from the barn; Quade went to her there and I could only speculate what words were exchanged between the two of them. Surely her distress indicated to Quade that she harbored stronger feelings for Boyd than he’d suspected; I recalled that Quade had not been wildly fond of Boyd during their brief acquaintance, though he had not allowed this to color his obligations as marshal. Perhaps Quade had ascertained an undertone, sensed that which existed between Rebecca and Boyd, even if neither of them ever gave words to their sentiments; Rebecca’s reaction to tonight’s news was further evidence, had Quade been seeking any.
“They’ve been delayed and I have been considering why, without letup.” Sawyer cupped a hand over my calf, applying soft pressure along its length. “There is one conclusion I fear more than others…”
Yancy, I heard him think, though he was reluctant to speak the name aloud, as though to do so would be to give Thomas Yancy additional power over us, more than the despicable man had already claimed.
I whispered, “Could it be that he followed them? Would he have been tracking them? Searching for them?”
Sawyer shook his head even before I finished speaking. “I don’t believe Yancy is searching for them, at least, not the Yancy we’re thinking of. Ever since the night Charley related to us that Yancy’s eldes
t ran away, I’ve been unduly troubled. You know,” and I did, as Sawyer had mentioned these qualms, which I shared. He continued, “The boy, Fallon, is fourteen. At that age I recall being easily provoked. Most boys are so, and on the lookout for even the slightest insult. I have tried, many a time, to imagine my feelings upon knowing someone shot at my father, perhaps grievously injured him. Would not I attempt to find this man…this boy…and force from him my retribution?”
A bitter dread clamped hold as I considered his words. Malcolm had fired the rifle after Yancy’s fleeing form that dreadful night last summer, but we’d been granted no knowledge of the damage rendered. My mind leaped again through possibilities – those of Yancy wounded beyond repair that July night, furtively calling upon his eldest to seek revenge. Heaven knew revenge had long motivated Yancy’s desire to destroy Sawyer, and anyone close to him, as Sawyer had killed Yancy’s brother, long ago in the terrible days following the Surrender.
“Fallon’s eyes were so very empty,” I whispered, recalling the evening of our first meeting, July the Fourth, at the Rawleys’ homestead. Fallon fought with Malcolm the next morning, over matters no doubt petty; unfortunate animosity bristled between the two boys, as I had plainly witnessed. And if Fallon knew, somehow, that Malcolm was the one to fire the repeater after his father’s retreating figure…
Sawyer read my thoughts as effortlessly as I read his. “And this is a matter far from trifling. I should have considered the seriousness. I should have figured the boy would possess the gumption to go after them. Why else would he run away?”
“But we are only speculating,” I said, unwilling to believe what I suddenly knew was true. I sat straight, a band of fear cinching my ribs as would a leather strap.
Sawyer studied me as understanding grew between us; we both realized the time for speculation was past. He saw the gathering determination in my eyes and reiterated, “No, Lorie. I will not allow it.”
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