by Rita Hestand
Hawks tied her hands with a rope and held the other end. He hadn't been gentle with her. The more she struggled to free herself the more the rope cut into her skin. She stopped struggling after a long while.
He chuckled at her futile attempts to free herself. "No use fightin' it, jest get yourself hurt, is all. No skin off my back, but I'll need you able to dig."
"Dig? For what?"
He checked his saddlebags, "Let's see what we got in here. I think I stole the Captain's horse back there in the draw where the Indians came at us. Maybe he's got provisions. Soldiers don't go nowhere without rations. He's all army. He should have some things in here for survival purposes."
After a while he pulled out some bacon, wrapped in a small cloth. "Captain thought of everything. Even found some coffee beans. Now ain't that odd he'd have all this on his horse when he knew we was starvin' in the shack. Maybe he planned on sneakin' out too for food."
"Why are we going back to the station? There's nothing there. They burnt it." She asked as he pulled her to the small fire he'd made. Then after realizing he needed both hands to cook with, he hobbled her to the horse. Her arms grew tired from having them pulled by the horse. She needed to clean herself, but there was no chance of that now.
Hawks didn't seem to notice her discomfiture. Instead he began cooking the coffee in a skillet he pulled out of the bags then proceeded to make it in the blackened pot tied to the saddlebags. "Yep that Captain, he sure is a surprise. If he'd brought this horse to the shack there wouldn't have been any need to sneak out for food. All we'd of had to have done is get to the horse. And he knew that Rivers fella was gonna try to scrounge up some grub. If that don't beat all."
"Could I wash?" she muttered. "I feel like I've turned to sand."
Hawks glanced at her and then the creek. He shook his head. "Okay. Go ahead, but make it snappy. I'll hobble you to my horse, next to the creek and you can wash up a bit, I reckon. I like a clean woman, myself."
Katherine ignored his remark.
Her legs shook as she ambled towards the water. Barely able to reach the water, she splashed it and tried to refresh herself. She saw her reflection in the water and was astonished at herself. Life had come back to Katherine through this hell and she felt like fighting for it, because it suddenly seemed so precious. But shock riveted through her when she saw the blood running down her leg. It was only a dream. Yet, she saw the proof of his taking. It didn't scare her, it made her feel proud. Discreetly, she washed herself so that Hawks knew nothing of it. The dream…had it been that real? Chase might be dead, but he'd brought her out of her depression and strangely gave her something to live for. She washed herself and it revived her some.
After cleaning herself she felt better and pulled the horse toward the camp Hawks had made.
Hawks went to the creek and got water for the coffee.
When he returned he eyed her. "Feel better?"
"A little, yes," she muttered.
"Good, 'cause we got work to do when we get back to the station."
He'd already cooked the coffee beans and now put them in the pot to boil by the fire. When he had the meal on the way, he turned to look at her. He released the hold on the saddle and led her to the fire. "The biscuits are hard, but the bacon will soften them some."
"We need to talk now." He glanced at her as she plunged to the ground with a thud. "I've waited long enough. I want to know where your daddy hid the money. And I want to know now." Hawks flipped the bacon with a stick and grabbed the coffee pot setting it on the fire by the bacon. He reared back to sit down on the hard ground. He studied her for a long moment, his eyes going over her once then landing on her stunned expression. "So where did he hide it?"
"Hide it? You expect me to know. I've no idea what you are talking about. It's your story, not mine." Katherine shook her head and screwed up her face into a frown, feeling the slight breeze that kicked up from the north. "You're crazy Hawks, my father had no money."
"Now lookie here girl, I been a patient man, but I'm running' out of that, you hear me." He jerked on the rope, making her jump to face him. "I've waited five years, nigh on to six to find out what he did with the money. I let your folks be, I didn't do anything, didn't hurt anyone. Why do you think I came upon him so much at the station for? He'd talked me out of my share more than once. Now it's gonna be mine. All of it," He informed her, his grin showing teeth that were rotting and brown. "And rightfully so."
"I don't know what you're talking about," she gasped ignoring his ranting.
He pulled her by the hair and turned her head around so he could look her in the eye. "Don't be playin' no games with me girl. I'm in no mood. I'm hot, tired, and put out with that Captain just a might. Hadn't been for him and his men messing with you at the station, I could have had this done by now. Now you. You know, and you're gonna tell me. No more stallin' me off. I want my money," Hawks said and threw his tin plate over by the fire.
It was the fashion in which he threw it that told Katherine she was in deep trouble.
"But I don't have any idea what you're talking about. What money?" Katherine squirmed and winced when he finally let go of her hair. The roots of her hair seemed to pulse against her scalp. Pain, that's what she needed to remind her she was alive.
"My money, that's what money," he barked. Then shaking his head he rambled on. "Near six years ago," He looked at her, "that's when we did it. Me and yore daddy held up a bank." Hawks was saying as he pulled out a paper to make a smoke. He fumbled with the paper, but had a small smoke made in no time.
"A bank…? My father? I don't believe it." She hollered mutinously, "You're lying…"
"Almost wish I were. Don't matter, it's the gospel. Me and yore daddy held up the Mercantile in Saint Jo. There were a powerful lot of lawmen in that town too. Bold as brass we took that money, in broad daylight. It was raining that day, hard as nails, but that didn't stop us. Yore daddy planned it right down to the last minute. Wasn't nothing gonna stop him once we got started. He already had the plans to come out here to run the station."
His sinister sneer made her skin crawl. "I don't believe you." She frowned and turned away.
"Don't much matter what you believe missy. It's the gospel. They had a posse on our tail for weeks. So we finally split up. He went to Texas, and I went to Indian Territory. We agreed we'd meet in Texas and divide it up, soon as it were possible. Had to let the law cool down, and ferget it. Only they never did. They chased us up everywhere we went. And yore daddy hid it before they caught up to him. We never split it. Yore daddy went and buried it out there somewhere, figurin' on keepin' it all to hisself, he did. But I hunted him up and found him and I knew it was there. I knew all I had to do was wait. If I waited long enough, the law would plum ferget about it. So I did. I waited. Oh I tried to get it out of yore daddy, but he wouldn't talk no matter what I threatened. Even offered the squaw but he wouldn't tell nobody. Now my time's come. Now I'm takin' what's mine. And yore gonna help me." Hawks laughed.
"But…I don't know where it is." Katherine stood on her feet and looked down at him with tears in her eyes. "My pa wouldn't touch an Indian. I don't believe you for a minute. You are full of lies."
"Such an innocent you are. Hard to believe yore his kid. Oh, he'd have her all right. He had her several times as a matter of fact. He liked Indian women because they submitted easy like. Bragged about it to me, years ago how he'd taken a couple of them up in Missouri. Course yore right, he had no real use of her or the others, she weren't good enough for him. That gal had her plenty of white fellas, she was pretty. I sold her a couple of times, but she always came back to me. I reckon she had come to care for me towards the end…"
"What happened to her?" Katherine faced him again.
"Got between me and yore pa and a bullet, that's what happened. He got tired of me hangin' around, came up to my cabin. Told me to stay away, that yore Ma was gettin' suspicious. Told him I'd stay away as soon as he came up with the money. That's when he said
he'd buried it, to keep it safe and when the time come, we'd split it an' I should pack up and get. I told him I wasn't goin' no wheres till he got the money out and gave me mine."
"He got mad and pulled a gun. So she moved between us, to try to stop us from fightin'. Yore dad had pulled the trigger, killed her, shot her in the head. He didn't mean to, he was a little flustered himself when it happened."
"I don't believe you!" Katherine cried out loud. She put her hand over her mouth and shook her head, "Pa would never hurt a woman."
"Now if that don't beat all. First you don't believe he'd take an Indian gal, and then you think he thought something of her life. She was dirt to him. Yore right, he didn't like 'em, not like me anyhow. I never paid no attention to what she was. Yore Pa did, though. But I reckon he didn't want to kill her, that's a fact, it were an accident, pure and simple. Even I admitted that. But yore right about that. He thought of her as trash, 'cause she were Indian, but he didn't mind using her. Besides, she was young and pretty too. He'd done it before. He helped me bury her and promised he'd have the money dug up within the week. I think killin' her kinda changed things. Things were getting a little bit peaked there. He was sweatin'. Yore ma weren't no schoolgirl. She was beginin' to sniff us out. He knew it."
"Then why didn't he just pay you and get rid of you?" She screamed.
"Because he took sick, and died. I believe if he'd a lived, that he would have dug it up hisself and give me my part, to be rid of me. 'Cause after he did the squaw in, I was a might put out about it. We had some feelin's for each other. Jest like I knowed you were sweet on that breed."
Katherine didn't want to think about Chase lying dead somewhere. She only wanted to remember the dream. Silly and foolish maybe, but it fed her hope for a future.
Hawks eyed her, his smile fading as truth shone in his eyes. Katherine wanted to cry, but it wasn't in her. There were no more tears. If what Hawks said was truth, then she hadn't known her father. Didn't want to know him. And her poor mother obviously began to suspect something was wrong.
"So now you know and now you are gonna find that money for me." Hawks sighed as though he were as bone tired as she.
"But I don't know where it is?"
"Why shore you do. 'Cause yore daddy told you. And you been diggin' in that land for some time, cain't remember where I guess. But we'll find it." Hawks shook his head and chuckled again to himself. "I've been a patient man, but I knowed I'd get that money some day."
"My father wouldn't hold up a bank!" Katherine glared at him, even though he paid her no mind.
Arrogance didn't bother him. "You can say it a hundred times, but it ain't gonna change things."
"He wasn't that kind of man."
"You don't say. You take after him with your high and mighty gall. Didn't you wonder why I kept comin' around? Did you all wonder? Shore he robbed it. He planned the whole thing hisself. He wanted to make that Ma of yours proud. He wanted to start a station in Texas and own land. And he did. Only the land weren't his. Now he's gone, and the money is mine. And you are gonna help me find it, girl."
"You're out of your mind. I didn't know anything about all this," she cried aloud. "I still don't believe it."
"Don't matter if you believe it or not. You're gonna help me find it"
"And if I refuse?" she rebelled.
"I've killed a woman before, ain't hard." Hawks glanced her way with a knowing smile.
"Did you kill your wife?" Katherine asked bravely. "And blame it on my father?"
"Nope, done told you girl. Yore Pa did that. Not that he wanted to kill her. He didn't mind usin' her. Seems yore Ma shut him off there at the last and he got mighty raunchy, let me tell you. He was glad of the squaw. And she never minded him. She'd lay down for any man if I told her to." Hawks stopped what he was doing and looked at her sharply. "No, I didn't kill Soshe, I loved her. Even though I knew she'd been with your Pa a time or two. She liked me better. I knowed that 'cause she kept comin' back to me. I didn't cry none when she died, though. Why should I? She found out yore Pa was the one that had the money and she shimmied up to him. That was at the end. Jest afore he got sick. From her tellin' I found out he liked her too. Yes sir, most men liked little Soshe. Aw now…don't look so surprised, he didn't want to like her, but she gave him what he couldn't get from yore Ma. That's all. He used her, and she used him. She might have left me if she'd got the money out of yore Pa. But she miscalculated the man. He wanted to bed her, not wed her. He loved yore Ma, it's true. But there was somethin' stuck in his craw about yore Ma."
"What do you mean, what are you saying now?"
"It ain't my place to tell it, girl."
"Tell what?"
"You jest like yore Pa in some ways girl. Won't let nothin' rest. I ain't got no right to tell you this but you do have a right to know it. Yore Ma was a right proud woman too. Yes ma'am, she was. One of them high bred ladies from the north, she was. But well, when yore Pa got to drinkin' he let it all slip out. It seems, once, on the way to Missouri, yore Ma was captured by the Indians. Shawnee I think he said. Oh, yore Pa went after her, tore out like a mad man, according to him, but she'd been gone weeks before he found her. He told me about it one night when he was laid up drunk and we was talkin' about the money. Said he weren't sure what happened at that Indian camp. She was sittin ' in the chief's tent when he found her and drug her out of there. But it bothered him night and day. He said he never told nobody because he didn't want anyone thinkin' bad about her. It were a long time ago, and he put it behind him. But he never forgot it. To protect her reputation, he told everybody she'd left him and gone back home. Nobody doubted that. But her capture is not somethin' a man could forget, I reckon. Only he kinda thought she had eyes for that Chief, because she didn't want to go back with yore Pa."
"Hawks, you are lying…"
"No skin off my back if you don't believe it."
"I don't. I know my folks better than that."
Hawks firmed his lips and shook his head. "Okay, have it your way. But ain't you ever wondered why you are darker than the rest of 'em?"
"Are you saying…" her eyes widened and she screamed, "No…it isn't true." Her eyes mirrored her shock, she knew. Just looking at Hawks and realizing what he was suggesting had her shaking.
How could one man turn her world upside down? He had to be lying. After all this time, surely her folks would have said something. And yet, deep down somewhere, she had wondered for a long time why there was such a difference and only with her.
"Suit yourself, girl. Maybe it ain't. How would I know? I just wondered why you was dark and they was light. It happens in families sometimes, but a lot of the time there is a reason for it too."
Katherine threw sand in his face and screamed.
She moved away, but not far, and she fell down into the dirt and cried. It couldn't be true. It just couldn't be!
Could this be why being with Chase felt so right. She was a breed too?
But later, she looked at herself in the water, then at her skin, and at the many times she had compared herself to Josh and the others. Could it be true? Believing it was hard, thinking on her folks who died with the secret.
Hawks saw her fretting and shook his head. "It's time you knowed…"
"You lie. It wasn't enough to dirty my pa's name, now you do so with my mother? You are no good, Hawks. Besides, my pa wouldn't rob and kill and take an Indian woman to bed. He hated Indians. And my mother, you dare to dirty her name. It's unthinkable." Katherine choked on her own tears. "They both hated the Indians, so stop lying."
"Ah, shut up. You don't know nothin'. Yore Pa was a liar and a cheat. He lied to me about the money and to yore Ma about the squaw. He just took the squaw to get even with yore Ma. That's all. That's the reason he never invited us in. 'Fraid that squaw would tell on him, and she probably would have. She only wanted the money herself."
"You're the liar…"
"Got me pegged, don't you? Think I'm the only one could be that low. Well,
it were yore Pa that robbed the bank and I held the horses outside. He didn't trust me to do the job. He thought I was dimwitted. Thought me too ignorant. He took the money, shot a deputy, and we high-tailed it out of that town pronto. If he hadn't shot that deputy, they wouldn't have chased us so long."
Katherine turned away from him. "I don't believe a word of it."
"I took a bullet in my leg back then, too," Hawks said.
"I still don't believe it!" Katherine yelled.
"Don't matter, it's the gospel." Hawks sat back now and studied her. Then suddenly he pulled up his pants leg and showed her where the bullet had gone. "Now, see there, I did get shot.
"You think yore Pa was too good to do them things? Now yore Ma, she had no choice. If she hadn't given that buck what he wanted, he'd a killed her. She were smart to give in like she did. Gotta give her credit. She couldn't have known that she carried you so soon afterwards. But in time your Pa figured it out. Especially since you weren't like his other kids. He was bound to knowed. And I reckon you'll believe the rest when we get that money out of the ground." Hawks sipped his coffee and offered her some supper.
She shook her head and moved away to think about all Hawks had revealed.
***
News of her father's deed stunned her and made her wonder. Katherine cried for the father she thought she knew so well. And then she fell silent. She slumped to the ground and tried to think, as tears rolled down her cheeks. Had her father ever said anything to confirm Hawks story? She doubted it. Certainly not in front of her. But Hawks thought she knew, so what could she do? He expected her to find the money for him. Obviously someone robbed the bank or there would be no money. So some of his story had to be true.
That didn't worry her, death didn't worry her now. What worried her was that Hawks might have been telling the truth about her mother's capture, and that would make her a half-breed too. And her father a common thief. This was like a horrible nightmare. She couldn't take it all in.