Christy

by Linda Lael Miller

  He opened his mouth to warn her off again, then shook his head and retreated back into the mission. Christy followed and was nearly overwhelmed by the smell of death. The place was awash in blood, and the bodies were just as Zachary had described them, and so much worse.

  Christy hastened outside, still carrying Jenny in the sling, and was violently ill, but she made herself go back into the cabin as soon as she’d regained her composure. Indian attacks were a grim reality of life on the frontier; she had seen atrocities before, when the wagon train had overtaken such horrors along the trail, but it wasn’t the sort of discovery a person ever got used to. Faced with this carnage, she couldn’t help imagining what vengeance the old Indian woman might bring down on her and Caney and, dear God, Megan, should she fail to save this baby.

  When she rejoined Zachary, he had removed the arrow from the reverend’s throat and wrapped both bodies in blankets. Without a word, Christy laid the baby on the Arrons’ bed, placed pillows on either side for safety’s sake, and then put water on the stove to heat. When it was hot, she found some rags and set herself to the task of cleaning up the evidence of murder.

  Zachary was gone a long time, and when he returned, shovel in hand, his sleeves were rolled up and his clothes were dirty. He’d left his coat somewhere, and he looked haggard. Pale. He glanced around the cabin with weary appreciation.

  “Thanks,” he said. “I’m not sure I could have stomached any more just now.”

  Christy nodded, went to the stove, and poured him a cup of the coffee she’d made after setting the cabin to rights. Something had been puzzling her since their arrival inside the cabin. Mrs. Arron had shed lots of blood, but there had been hardly any in the place where the reverend lay.

  “I’d say the reverend was shot someplace else,” he said, as if reading her thoughts. “Whoever did it probably brought the body home before killing Mrs. Arron.”

  “So horrible,” Christy murmured.

  “How’s the baby?”

  “She still has a fever,” Christy answered. “I was just about to bathe her with cool water again.”

  “I’ll find the reverend’s doctoring bag,” Zachary said between sips of coffee. “Must be some medicine around here someplace.” He paused, nodded toward a window. “There’s a cow grazing out there. I’ll get some milk, and we’ll try feeding Jenny with a spoon.”

  The image of him sitting under a tree spooning water into the child’s mouth rose before her mind’s eye. She bit down hard on her lower lip and nodded, then fled into the cabin’s tiny lean-to bedroom to attend to Jenny. The child’s small body was limp with fever, and when Christy lifted her into her arms, the dark eyes rolled back until she could see only the whites.

  Zachary brought in the reverend’s medical bag, and there was a small vial of quinine inside, but Caney had told her repeatedly never to give an unconscious person water or medicine. Terrified, she frantically peeled off the shirtwaist she’d borrowed from Mrs. Arron’s modest wardrobe to serve as a nightgown for the baby, grasped the basin from the wash table, and began once again to swab the infant’s hot, ravaged flesh with cool water. This seemed to revive Jenny some, and Christy took the opportunity to give the weary baby as much of the quinine as she could tolerate. All the while, she prayed silently for a miracle, prayed even though she didn’t think anyone was listening, even though her granddaddy had died and the farm was gone, even though the South had fallen, even though she was going to marry a man she didn’t love.

  Christy had curled up on the Arrons’ bed and fallen into a sound sleep, and the child was snuggled against her middle, kicking and waving small, plump arms. Her eyes were bright, and she managed a faltering baby smile as she looked up at Zachary.

  He had to deal with a whole tangle of feelings before he dared speak. “So you’re feeling better, are you?” he asked quietly. When he extended a hand toward the baby and she clasped his finger, a sheen of tears blurred his vision. Nightfall was hours away, and already it had been one hell of a day.

  Christy stirred, stretched, awakening slowly.

  Zachary’s insides ground with the desire to undress this complicated, irritating woman, make love to her, start a baby of their own. The first of many.

  She sat up, looking rumpled and alarmed and entirely delectable. “Wh-what time is it?”

  “On toward four in the afternoon,” he answered. “Looks like your partner here is on the mend.”

  The look on her face when she realized that Jenny’s fever had broken was as magnificent as a sunrise. She touched the baby’s face and beamed up at him. “She is! She is better!”

  He bent, kissed the top of Christy’s head. He’d probably regret it, sooner or later—most likely sooner—but for the moment, it didn’t seem like too much to ask, even in a hopeless situation like theirs.

  “I caught the cow,” he said, and immediately felt like an idiot.

  She smiled at his expression. “Good. Jenny needs milk, so she can get her strength back. Don’t you, little one?”

  Minutes later, in the main part of the cabin, he watched, stricken, as Christy sat in Mrs. Arron’s rocking chair, patiently spooning milk onto the baby’s tongue, a few drops at a time. When Jenny drifted off into a healthy, natural sleep, she gazed serenely down at the child’s peaceful little face and continued to rock gently back and forth.

  Zachary’s throat hurt, and for one moment, he wondered if he was coming down with scarlet fever for the second time in his life. Then, with an inward smile, he told himself he was coming down with something, all right, and no amount of quinine was going to cure it.

  Christy carried the baby into the bedroom when she fell asleep in her arms, then returned momentarily to stand looking out the window. “Do you think they’re out there?”

  She was referring to the Arrons’ killers, of course. He sighed, poured himself more coffee. Left over from earlier in the day, it was already stale, but it packed enough of a wallop to keep him on his feet. “Oh, yeah,” he said grimly. “They’re out there, all right.”

  “You’re sure they were Indians?”

  “Renegades, probably. But Indians, yes. The arrow was Paiute.”

  “We’re in danger, then.”

  There was no sense in dodging the truth. “Yes.”

  “They could have attacked us while we were on the trail. Or camped last night by the lake.”

  “Yes,” he repeated. “But they didn’t. Apparently, they were busy elsewhere.”

  Her eyes filled with tears, and she looked away, blinking rapidly. “It must have been horrible—”

  There was nothing to say to that. The Arrons had suffered, though probably briefly, and the brutality of such an attack was hard to get past. He’d seen worse, of course, but some things a man kept to himself.

  “They might kill us that way,” she said.

  “I’ll look after you,” he replied.

  “The reverend probably made the same promise to his wife.”

  “Christy, we can’t stay here the rest of our lives. We’ve got to go back to Primrose Creek sometime, even if it means facing down a band of Paiutes.”

  She shivered at the prospect, and she was a little pale, but her head was high and her shoulders were straight. She sat down in the rocking chair again, her legs curled beneath her. “You’re right. But I’m scared.”

  “So am I, if it’s any comfort,” he said.

  She gave another shaky smile. “It isn’t,” she replied. “When are we leaving?”

  He thought. “Tomorrow morning, I guess. If the baby is well enough, that is.”

  She nodded. “In the meantime—”

  “In the meantime, we stay here. You and Jenny can have the bed, and I’ll sleep in a chair.”

  She looked away, started to say something, stopped herself. Met his gaze again. “What about the horses? Are they safe?”

  “About as safe as can be expected. I fed and watered them and put them up in the barn with the Arrons’ cow. The reverend had a coupl
e of mares and a gelding, last I knew, but they’re gone. No surprise there.”

  She swallowed in an obvious effort to control a surge of well-justified fright. “It doesn’t seem right, for their killers to go unpunished.”

  “Once we get back, I’ll report the Arrons’ murders to the army. They’ll send out a few patrols, but like as not, nothing will come of it. And if it does—” He paused. “A couple of years back, down near Denver, some Indians killed a family of settlers. The lawabiding white folks took up arms and went out to avenge their friends and neighbors. They wiped out a village full of innocent women and children. In time, the braves gathered a war party and retaliated—it seems they’d been off someplace hunting when the first raids were made. If the army hadn’t interceded, God knows where it would have ended.”

  “I’ve read some dreadful things.” She nodded, glanced uneasily toward the windows. “Things Indians will do, I mean.”

  He approached her, laid a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll take you home tomorrow, Christy,” he said gruffly. “And you’ll get there in one piece. You have my word on that.”

  She touched his fingers with her own, lightly, and fire shot through him.

  “I believe you,” she said.

  Christy made a supper of sorts from potatoes and onions found in the Arrons’ root cellar, and she brewed fresh coffee. She’d fashioned diapers from a muslin bed sheet—tragically, it would never be missed—and given Jenny more milk and, once it had cooled, some of the water she’d used to boil the potatoes.

  While she and Zachary ate, alone at the well-worn table where countless graces had surely been offered, Christy listened to the howls of distant coyotes and wondered, were they really coyotes, or Indians calling to each other?

  “Christy,” Zachary said.

  He’d been reading her face. She looked at him, tried to smile. “What?”

  “Don’t let your imagination run away with you. Indians usually don’t attack at night. Something about spirits and ancestors.”

  “Then why aren’t we traveling now? Why wait for daylight?”

  Zachary heaved a sigh, and she realized how spent he must be after discovering the bodies and burying both Reverend and Mrs. Arron without help. “We can’t risk taking that baby over the trail so soon. It’s a miracle she made it as it stands.”

  She considered that. Considered the two devout people who had spent their lives in service to others and died at the hands of savages for their trouble. Two lives taken, one spared. The unbelievable beauty of the landscape, the ugliness of a cabin splashed with blood. Sometimes it was hard to know whether to despair or be thankful—creation seemed to be one big paradox.

  Indeed, the ways of the Lord were past finding out.

  Chapter 6

  Through most of the night, Christy lay in the Arrons’ bed, staring up at the dark ceiling and following every sound she heard through a labyrinth of possible horrors. Occasionally, she heard a creak from Zachary’s rocking chair, and each time she took fresh comfort in his presence. Although she was most definitely afraid, she felt safer with him than she would have with a whole platoon from Fort Grant.

  When morning came, and it took its sweet time, Christy was numb with exhaustion, and she counted that as a blessing. The day ahead was sure to be a difficult one, and the effects of a sleepless night might serve as a sort of buffer to her already raw emotions.

  Zachary turned the Arrons’ cow loose before they rode out, and Christy stopped briefly beside the unknown couple’s fresh graves. She did not pray for them in words, would not have known what to say. Instead, she imagined the pair rising into the light, hand in hand, and with that picture in her mind a cer tain peace came over her. Holding a rapidly recovering Jenny in the familiar sling, Christy turned her back on death and set her thoughts and her heart on life.

  They camped beside the lake that night, and while Christy and Jenny slept, huddled together under the blanket he provided, Zachary sat up, keeping watch. It was cold, and they went without food, not daring to light a fire lest they attract unwanted attention. The following day, around noon, the town of Primrose Creek sprang up in the distance.

  “Do you suppose she’s still contagious?” Christy asked Zachary. Jenny was smiling up at her from inside the sling, eyes bright, even after sleeping on the ground with no fire to warm her and jostling along on the back of a horse for the better part of two days.

  “I doubt it,” Zachary answered. “What do you want to do with her?”

  Christy’s heart swelled in her chest, threatening to break right in two. “I suppose that old woman will come for her pretty soon. It’s going to be hard to give her up.”

  “She belongs with her own people,” Zachary said reasonably. “You know that.”

  She nodded, then looked directly into his eyes. “Knowing something isn’t the same as believing it,” she said.

  “Amen to that,” he replied, and both of them knew they weren’t talking about Jenny anymore.

  Caney came to meet them as they crossed the meadow toward the lodge. She wiped both hands on her apron and narrowed her eyes. “Ain’t you a sight,” she said to Christy in a scolding tone that conveyed an equal amount of relief, as she held out her arms. “Let’s have a look-see at that baby.”

  Christy surrendered Jenny to her old friend, watched as Caney peeled back the sling and peered at the child for a long time before speaking again. “Well, now. First I’ve seen of scarlet fever in a while. But she’s on her way back, that’s for sure.”

  Christy got down from the mare’s back, while Zachary remained mounted and silent. The brim of his hat cast his features into shadow, and so she could not see his eyes, but she was intensely aware of him, all the same. She could, in fact, feel his regard in every nook and corner of her being. “Is it safe to take her to the lodge with Megan there?”

  Caney fixed her with a level gaze. “I reckon so, but it seems likely to me that this little papoose’s own people will want her back sooner instead of later. Indians cherish their children, you know.”

  Biting her lower lip, Christy nodded. She had had Jenny in her care for such a short time, less than two days, in fact, and yet she’d become deeply and permanently attached to the child in that time. She wanted to keep her, raise her as her own, though she knew that was impossible.

  Caney looked up at Zachary. “I appreciate your lookin’ after my girl here,” she said with a slight toss of her head to indicate Christy. “Bringin’ her home safe and all.”

  “Ma’am,” he affirmed, with a tug at his hat brim. That was all, just “Ma’am,” and not a word to Christy. He simply bent from the saddle to gather the mare’s dangling reins in one hand and rode away, headed toward town. He was out of sight before Christy realized that she hadn’t thanked him.

  “Come on back to the house now,” Caney commanded gently, taking Christy’s arm and at the same time retaining a secure hold on the baby. “I want to hear all about how you tended this baby. ’Sides, you’re wanting a bath, a hot meal, and a good night’s rest, by my reckoning.”

  Christy could only nod, and even as they started toward the lodge, she was still watching the place where Zachary had disappeared onto the road to town.

  At home, Caney took care of her as though she were a child, sending Megan and Skye across the creek to borrow Bridget’s bathtub. When she was clean and clad in a flannel nightgown, Christy consumed a bowl of stew, telling the grim story between bites. She climbed into her hay bale bed and fell into a deep and mercifully dreamless sleep.

  When she awakened, it was morning, and Caney was singing to baby Jenny as she spooned something into her mouth. Jenny laughed up at her between bites, as if trying to join in. Christy’s heart constricted, but she managed a smile and what she hoped was a cheerful tone.

  “Good morning,” she said.

  Caney gave her a smile tinged with sadness. “ ’Mornin’, missy,” she said. “This sweet thing here is in fine fettle today.” She wriggled a small toe betwe
en two fingers, prompting more gurgling glee from Jenny. “Ain’t you, darlin’ girl?”

  Christy was glad of Jenny’s recovery, of course. It was something of a miracle, since scarlet fever was so often fatal, but it still meant letting go, and she wasn’t looking forward to that. She’d had to let go of so much in her lifetime, so many people, so many places, so many things.

  After dishing up a bowl of cornmeal flavored with molasses and handing it to Christy, Caney broached the subject they had both avoided until then. “You mean to tell me what really happened on that trip, or do I have to guess?”

  Christy looked away, blinked, looked back. She knew Caney was asking if a romance had developed between her and Zachary, but she pretended not to understand. “I’ve already told you. The missionaries— the Arrons—were dead when we got there. Massacred. Zachary—Marshal Shaw—buried them, and we passed the night in their cabin. The morning after, we set out for home.”

  Caney’s lips moved in what Christy knew was a private prayer for the Arrons, but the expression in her dark eyes was a relentless one. “Nothing happened? Between you and the marshal?”

  A hot blush moved up Christy’s neck to pulse in her cheeks. “Of course not,” she said, perhaps too fiercely.

  “It don’t necessarily have to be physical, you know, for something to happen between a man and a woman. There’s deeper things than makin’ love, and I suspect you know that, even though you’ve been sheltered for most of your life. Things that fix one person in somebody’s heart for good.”

  Christy shifted uncomfortably and lost all appetite for her cornmeal mush. The hay bales prickled her bottom and the backs of her thighs, even through her nightgown and the quilt beneath her. “I haven’t changed my mind about marrying Jake, if that’s what you’re trying to find out.”

  Caney sighed, rocking the baby distractedly in her capable arms. “I reckon he might have changed his mind about you, though. Everybody in town knows you and the marshal were alone together all that time. A thing like that stirs up talk, Christy, right or wrong.”