Larkspur

by Dorothy Garlock

  “I don’t have a black hat,” she said, and looked as if she would burst into tears.

  “Moss would be glad. Remember how he liked to touch your hair?” Buck gently gripped her elbow and guided her toward the wagon.

  “Is it far?”

  “Not really, but it’s too far for you to walk today. You’re worn-out. We’ll ride here on the tailgate.”

  He lifted her to sit on the end of the wagon, then sprang up beside her. When the wagon moved past the bunkhouse and the corrals, on a grassy plain beyond the ranch buildings the Sioux came into view. Several women had stopped work to watch them. Two small children squatted in the area between the two cone-shaped, hide-covered shelters. A cradleboard was propped against a tepee pole.

  Kristin waved at the women. They watched, silent and still.

  “Is it not their custom to wave?”

  “They are a little . . . ah . . . suspicious of you,” Buck explained.

  “Why? I am a woman just as they are.”

  “They’re shy. I doubt that they’ve seen a woman with hair like yours. And I think they admire the way you stood and didn’t cringe away from Runs Fast when he was going to cut your braid.”

  “I was able to do that because you were beside me.”

  The wagon wheels bumped over the uneven prairie ground. The grass was so high that it almost reached the bottom of the wagon, and their feet, hanging from the tailgate, sliced through it. The wagon headed for a knoll back of the ranch buildings where a lone pine tree stood as a silent sentinel. At first light, Buck and Gilly had gone there to prepare Moss’s final resting place.

  “Why did you choose this place?”

  “Someone else chose it for a burial ground. Not long after I came here, Moss and I found a small grave covered with stones. We figured it was the child of a settler passing through. A few years later we buried one of our drovers here, and right after that a fellow who had been shot came in. We never did know who shot him or how he managed to stay on his horse. Guess he was determined not to die out there in the mountains all by himself.”

  “Was the drover you buried here an Indian?”

  “No. The Sioux take care of their own dead. He was a drifter who happened by and worked for his board. At the time we couldn’t afford to hire drovers.”

  “You get along well with the Indians.”

  “Yes. By and large they are good people trying to hold on to their way of life. But there are bad ones among them just as there are bad whites.”

  “Tell me about Uncle Yarby . . . back then.”

  “Moss was small, quick and wiry. Always good-natured. He could outwork a larger man and liked doing it. When I was sixteen, I was taller and heavier than Moss and had to struggle to keep up with him.

  “He could spin a yarn that would last an hour; and even though you knew he was making it up as he went along, you didn’t want it to end.” He looked directly at Kristin. “I learned about the world outside this territory from Moss’s tales.”

  Buck felt a pang of guilt. Moss was lying dead in the box behind him, and he was enjoying this short time with Kristin. He had never talked much, being one to hold his thoughts to himself, but it was so easy to talk to her that the words just continued to flow from his mouth.

  “I could read only a little when I met Moss, or rather when he found me. He shoved newspapers, books, catalogs and even wanted posters under my nose. He forced me to read until I got to where I liked it.”

  The wagon stopped. Buck hopped down and lifted Kristin to the ground. The sun was shining brightly and a slight wind moved the branches of the pine tree. The men placed two ropes on the ground beside the gaping hole and set the box on them.

  “Bury him facing the east, please.”

  The box was carefully turned; then, with a rope in each hand, the men gently lowered the box into the ground, removed the ropes and stepped back. When Kristin opened the Bible, they removed their hats.

  She stood at the head of the grave and read a Scripture from the Bible, then closed it and held it to her breast while she recited the Lord’s Prayer in a low, trembling voice. When she finished, she raised her face toward the sky and began to sing.

  “Jesus, Lover of my soul, Let me to Thy bosom fly, While the nearer waters roll, While the tempest still is high—”

  Her eyes were on the blue sea of the sky, and she was unaware that the big man with the wild dark hair was blinking tears from his eyes.

  Sunshine made her hair a bright halo around her face; the wind teased it with its fingertips, and sighed in the grasses around them. Her voice was clear and sweet, full of love and pain. It had an unearthly quality and floated over the grassy knoll like the song of a bird. Buck had never heard anything so beautiful.

  Even Gilly, filled with awe and wonder, watched and listened.

  There was a moment of utter silence when her song ended. She stooped, picked up a handful of soil and dropped it on the wooden box. Then she stood by, wordlessly, while Buck and Gilly filled the grave. It seemed symbolic that, at that moment, from the forest behind them came the lonely, plaintive call of the mourning dove.

  Buck put the shovel back in the wagon and came to stand beside her.

  “We’ll bring up a load of rock and cover it.”

  “Do you suppose we could make a marker?” She looked around at the other stone-covered unmarked graves.

  “I’ll burn his name in a board.”

  “Someday I’d like to plant larkspur on his grave.”

  “You can do that in the spring.”

  There appeared to be no question in the mind of either of them that she would still be at the ranch in the spring.

  Gilly climbed up onto the seat.

  “No matter what happens now,” Kristin said, as Buck lifted her again to sit on the back of the wagon, “Uncle Yarby will stay on his Larkspur until the end of time.”

  * * *

  The rest of the day was filled with a strange quiet. Kristin prepared the noon meal. When Buck and Gilly came in to eat, hardly a dozen words were spoken during the meal and none of them were directed to her except to thank her when they left the table. While she was cleaning up after the meal, Kristin saw Gilly leaving the homestead. One of the Indian drovers rode behind the wagon on a spotted pony.

  To Kristin it did not seem fitting that she plunge into the cleaning or other household duties on the day a beloved relative had been laid to rest. At home in River Falls only the most essential chores would be performed and the rest of the day spent in remembering.

  After wandering about the quiet rooms for an hour, she put on her shawl and left the house. She walked out to the corral and looked at the horses. They appeared to her to be wild and rangy; not at all like the stocky, well-fed horses back in Wisconsin. As she stood there leaning on the top railing, an Indian with shoulder-length hair and a doeskin band wrapped about his head moved among the more than a dozen animals. It was impossible to tell his age. He was short, his face scarred, and his legs bowed. He tossed a rope around the neck of one of the horses, led it through the gate, grabbed a handful of its mane, leaped up onto its back and rode away.

  The Indians here were different too, Kristin mused. Back home they had not appeared to be so uncivilized. Here they were more like the country they lived in: wild, fierce and unbroken. Not one time, as far as Kristin could tell, had the Indian looked at her, but she had the feeling that he was aware of every move she made even when she lifted her hand to shoo away a large fly that settled on her cheek.

  At the end of the bunkhouse she leaned against the wall and looked toward the mountains. A thin trail of smoke came from the Indian camp. The cone-shaped tepees looked small from this distance. She would like to go there and talk to the women but feared that she would not be welcome. One of the women bent over a campfire, another pounded something with a wooden mallet. The third woman worked on the carcass of an animal that hung by its hind legs from a tree branch. Kristin wondered if they intended to live in those flimsy sh
elters when winter came.

  Beyond the barn stretched a long slope of meadowland, backed by the woods from which the Indians had come that day. Kristin began to move through the knee-high grasses.

  Beautiful monarch butterflies flitted restlessly to and fro. A black ladybug with bright orange dots clung to a blade of grass. When Kristin reached to touch it with her fingertip, the clever little beetle spread its tiny wings and flew, reminding her of an old rhyme.

  “Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home. Your house is on fire and your children all gone.”

  She was suddenly overcome with homesickness for Cousin Gustaf, the smell of the river and the rich, black Wisconsin soil.

  She paused.

  Instead of seeing the grassland leading to the mountains, she saw the road that wound between her father’s farm and Uncle Hansel’s. It had deep triple ruts made by wheels and hooves and was lined with a thick border of wild plum bushes. It passed the schoolhouse where purple iris bloomed. Tall bushes of lilac grew beside the door and a vine of wild yellow roses climbed the stone chimney.

  At the farm, Cousin Lars, the eldest of Uncle Hansel’s boys, would be in the open shed beside the barn working at the forge. The sharp smell of singeing hooves would be in the air as he shod the Anderson family horses or those of a neighbor. And Gustaf, her childhood playmate, would come to meet her and tease her with a long, slimy worm or a warty toad.

  Unaware that her feet had continued to move, Kristin reached the creek and looked down into the clear water racing over the stones.

  “Where are you going?” she murmured. “And where did you come from?”

  She walked along the bank of the creek, not thinking to look back or to note how far she had come from the ranch house. The sun was warm on the top of her head, the air sweet and clean. She stooped to pluck a tiny blue blossom that struggled to survive amid the grass that grew along the creek bank. She held it to her nose and glanced across the stream.

  Her heart did a crazy little dance of fear.

  Not a dozen yards away, the Indian called Runs Fast sat on his horse watching her. Where had he come from? Why had she not heard him?

  He was bare-chested as before: fringed leggings, beaded armbands around his upper arms. A shiny metal amulet hung from a thong about his neck. Today his braids were entwined with a strip of red cloth and white feathers hung from the ends. He held a rifle in his hand, the butt resting on his thigh. His raven black eyes were fixed on her face as he moved his horse toward her.

  Keep calm. Show no fear. Buck’s words rang in her ears.

  It took all Kristin’s willpower to stand still. She didn’t dare glance over her shoulder to see how far she was from the house. Common sense told her that she would never be able to outrun him no matter how close she was, and it would be better to try to bluff him. So she waited, head up, heart pounding, her face expressionless.

  The Indian came close to her, so close, she could have reached out and touched his foot. She stood her ground, hugged the shawl tighter around her and hoped that he could not hear the pounding of her frightened heart. He looked her up and down for a long moment. It took all her control not to cringe when he reached out and snatched one of the pins from her hair. When he reached for another, she stepped back.

  “No!”

  “You not Lenning’s woman.”

  “I am.”

  “Not,” he hissed angrily. “You not sleep in his blanket.”

  “How . . . how do you know?”

  “I know.”

  “You don’t know.”

  “You say I lie?”

  “I say you are mistaken.”

  “Mis . . . take-on? What that?”

  “Means you think you know, but you don’t.”

  “I know. I see it in my dream.”

  “That’s foolish.”

  “You talk too much. I not like my woman talk back.”

  “I’m not your woman, and I’ll talk any way I please.”

  Buck! Buck, where are you?

  Her heart was pounding heavily, and she could not seem to swallow, but she continued to look at Runs Fast squarely, remembering Buck telling her not to cringe.

  He lowered the rifle and in a lightning move poked at her crotch with the end of the barrel. She jumped back.

  “You got white hair there, too?”

  It was a moment before she realized what he meant, but when she did, a hot flood of anger washed over her.

  “You . . . you . . . low-down, loathsome creature! You’ve got the manners of a . . . a hog!”

  Her anger had no effect on him. He urged his horse to take another step toward her.

  “You no wear white drawers when you my woman. Up,” he snapped and swiped her skirt with the end of his rifle. “I want to see.”

  Kristin gasped in outrage.

  “Get away from me, you uncivilized lout! Buck Lenning will kill you when—”

  Her words ceased when she saw the Indian’s inky black eyes go beyond her. She dared to turn her head in hope that Buck was coming to her rescue.

  Renewed fear coursed through her.

  Not more than a hundred feet away the Indian who had taken the horse from the corral was motioning with his rifle toward the woods, plainly telling Runs Fast to go.

  What did it mean?

  Runs Fast yelled something and his face creased in an angry scowl. He jerked his head in a negative reply and gestured wildly for the other man to leave.

  Kristin turned her back and as if going for a stroll, began to walk toward the ranch house. Runs Fast jumped his horse in front of her.

  “You stay.”

  She stared into eyes as dark as midnight. His handsome face could have been chiseled from stone. The commanding voice of this arrogant savage plucked at her taut nerves, and only a momentary burst of common sense prevented her from yelling vicious words at him. After taking a deep breath to calm herself, she lifted her chin and returned his gaze with one of cool superiority. When she spoke, it was with much more confidence than she felt.

  “The next time we meet, I will have my gun. And if you bother me . . . I’ll shoot you.”

  He looked at her with fathomless eyes.

  “You name White Flower.”

  “I suppose you got that from a dream, too.”

  “It is name,” he insisted.

  “My name is Kristin Anderson, but call me whatever you like. Just get out of my way!”

  “You stay. We talk.”

  “Get away from me!”

  “BOOM!” The sound of a gunshot blasted the silence and echoed in the hills beyond.

  Runs Fast looked over his shoulder, then back down at Kristin.

  “I come again.” To her surprise, he wheeled his pony, crossed the creek and sped into the woods.

  Kristin turned to see Buck, on his big gray-spotted horse, coming across the grassland at a dead run. He was hatless, his black hair whipping in the wind. He had fired a warning shot and was shoving his gun back into the holster.

  At the sight of him, Kristin’s feet moved of their own accord, and she ran toward him. She had held her fear in check, but now tears of relief filled her eyes and blurred her vision. She stumbled as she ran. Her shawl fell from her shoulders and floated to the grass. Buck jumped from the horse before the animal had completely stopped and came to meet her.

  They came together, her arms locked around his waist. He held her tightly to him.

  “Did . . . he hurt you?” he whispered in anguish.

  “No. But I thought . . . he would!”

  “I’ll kill him if he comes near you again.” Buck’s relief had turned to anger.

  “No.” Kristin rolled her head back and forth, her tears wetting his shirt. “It’s my fault. I’m sorry—”

  Buck wanted to beat the damn Indian to a bloody pulp. Runs Fast already had three wives. He wanted Kristin because it would add to his prestige to have a woman with silvery blond hair and because he believed that she was the woman of a man who had once beat hi
m in a footrace. If the Indian persisted, he would make a trip to the Sioux camp and have a talk with Iron Jaw.

  “You told me to stay close to the house, and I didn’t obey you.”

  “It’s all right. It’s all right.” Pretty woman. Sweet woman.

  The wind blew her skirt around his long legs and a strand of her hair across his face. It was like a caress. His heart almost stopped beating when she turned her face, and he felt her warm breath on his neck.

  He gently stroked the head of silky blond hair pressed to his shoulder. She had dominated his thoughts since she had come here. At night he lay flat on his back, his chest tight, his face hot, and his manhood tenting the covers. During the day he was alert to her every move, every glance in his direction.

  He became aware that she was no longer crying and was standing quietly in his arms. He trembled with the desire to crush her to him, to move his hands down her back to her buttocks, to press her against the aching arousal that tormented him when he was near her. His fingers itched to caress the softness of the breasts pressed against his chest, and he longed to kiss her until she wanted him as much as he wanted her.

  Good Lord! What was he thinking? He cursed silently to himself. She wasn’t for the likes of Buck Lenning, a man who had no idea who his parents were, a drifter, scrounger, and at times a thief.

  She had endured more than any woman should since she had come alone to this place and today that arrogant bastard had nearly scared the life out of her. How could she ever accept him, the rough, uneducated wanderer her uncle had taken in out of the cold? His arms loosened. He moved back until the delicious softness of her breasts was no longer touching his chest.

  “I was praying you’d come,” she said in a breathless whisper, and looked up at him with tear-wet eyes.

  “I came as soon as I heard the signal.”

  She moved farther back, but held on to his shirt with both hands as if afraid to let him get away from her.

  “Signal?”

  “Red-bird whistles. Bowlegs was keeping an eye on you. We keep in touch by birdcalls. It’s such an old, well-known trick that hardly anyone pays attention to it anymore.”