Wild Flower

by Cheryl Anne Porter

  “I have refused nothing because he has given no such order.” Rube now turned on Ned. “You take me for an old fool. There would be no need to hide your faces from honest men if these papers are as you say.”

  Through the black veil, which to her suddenly seemed funereal, Taylor saw the hesitation in her uncle’s eyes, felt the stirrings of his friends behind them. She had to do something, say something. She couldn’t allow the men to waver now. “No, Rube, it is as he said!” she cried, pointing at her uncle. “Those papers are legal.”

  Rube held her gaze. “These papers are not what they seem, Taylor. If they were, would they take my gun and lock me up?” He then skewered Ned with his dark-eyed stare. “Why do you have your gun drawn, Ned Christie? No one here threatens you or your friends. But know this—if you do this thing, you will be wanted men from this day forward.”

  Taylor heard Ned suck in his breath. John and Tom stirred and muttered. Taylor looked up at Ned, who was a good six or seven inches taller than she was. Would her uncle change his mind and put her back in the cell and leave without her? But Ned’s attention was focused on the guard. “Tell your warden that no jail can hold a Christie.” With that, Ned grabbed her arm and pulled her along after him. “Come on, Taylor. Why do you stand here listening to that old woman? We need to get you away from here.”

  For some reason she couldn’t fathom, Taylor took one last look at Rube before she and her uncle and his accomplices turned the corner that would take them out of Rube’s sight. With one hand clutching at his shirt over his heart, with his face deeply red, as if he was in pain, Rube stretched his hand out to her. His dark eyes were imploring. “You will know a sign, Taylor. Look for it. It will be your spirit guide, and it will protect you, my child. If you do not believe, then you cannot be saved.”

  Saved? A sign? What did he mean? She didn’t believe in signs or spirit guides. Those were only in stories the old ones told to entertain or frighten children. But Taylor suddenly realized that she had her hand out to him and was tugging against Ned’s hold on her. Some deep and wounded emotion inside Taylor’s heart had her crying out for the old man and the salvation he promised.

  But then, too late, she was pulled around the corner. In her heart she knew that with that act, the die was cast, her fate was sealed, along with that of those she already loved … or would come to love. From this day forward, because of her choices, no one who came into her life would know happiness. Or peace. Or a long life.

  * * *

  Taylor couldn’t believe it. They’d got clean away from the prison without once being challenged. So maybe Rube didn’t know anything, what with his talk of choices and of innocent blood being on her head. Because her escape had been ridiculously easy. Once they’d been around the corner, out of Rube’s sight, Ned and John and Tom holstered their guns and removed their bandannas. Again they were respectable citizens. As such, they’d simply walked Taylor out of the building, right past guards who’d been on duty, as Ned explained to her, for about fifteen minutes. Apparently Ned had planned it this way, around a change in shifts. It was perfect. The guards on duty when the foursome emerged hadn’t been there earlier when the three men had first entered the prison. So the second-shift men had no idea that the black-coated, stooped, and veiled old lady from the Baptist mission hadn’t been with them when they’d entered.

  It was a brilliant plan. Sitting in an open carriage drawn by two horses, with Ned at the reins, he and Taylor had calmly ridden away at a stately pace. John and Tom had flanked them on horseback. And it had worked.

  Taylor waited until they were well away from Tahlequah and out among the surrounding forest of hickory, oak, and elm before she threw off her disguise and whooped her pleasure. Ned brought the carriage to a halt. Taylor threw herself into his arms, hugging him fiercely. “You did it. You came for me, and you got me out.”

  Ned hugged her back and laughed with her. Then Taylor stood up in the carriage, her arms out-flung as she breathed in deeply. “Aah, fresh air. Freedom, Ned. Freedom. I can hardly believe I’m no longer in that musty cell with only Rube for company.” Happy and smiling, she abruptly sat down, turning to her uncle, a blacksmith and gunsmith by trade. “How’d you do it? How’d you get in the prison?”

  He shrugged. “It was simple. We didn’t come in together. Or use our real names. I signed in as a representative from the Principal Chief’s office. I said I had official papers you had to sign. John came in a few minutes later and said he was a reporter from the Cherokee Advocate here to get the prisoner’s final words. And Tom—” Ned stopped and turned to Tom, who was still on horseback. “Who did you say you were?”

  He grinned and tugged his hat up, revealing a tan face and dark hair. “I said I was the dead man’s brother, come to forgive her. The guard was new and overwhelmed with all the official visitors Taylor has already had. He said the people in and out of the prison today were like busy ants, coming and going. He didn’t question me closely, just waved me through.”

  Taylor grinned and shook her head at their ingenuity. Her heart swelled with gratefulness for their loyalty to her. Loyalty. Where was Monroe? She hesitated to ask about him, knowing the bad blood between her uncle and Monroe over Taylor’s relationship with him. The last thing she wanted to do at this moment was start a fuss with Ned.

  “We’re lucky no one is required to sign out,” Uncle Ned was saying. “Or the number of names on the two registers wouldn’t have matched.” The men nodded their agreement.

  Taylor added hers to theirs and then asked a question of her own: “There is something I don’t understand. With your stories having gotten you safely inside, why did you pose as a gang of outlaws for Rube?”

  Ned sobered. “Because those papers I had weren’t official papers for your release, Taylor.”

  Taylor looked from one handsome Cherokee face to the next. “I didn’t figure they were. What were they really? Something to embarrass Principal Chief Thompson?”

  The men exchanged uneasy glances. Taylor’s heart began thumping leadenly. The papers had nothing to do with the Principal Chief. “Tell me,” she demanded.

  It fell to Ned to speak. “They were just … papers I put together to get me inside the prison. I couldn’t use them on Rube because he’d want to read them to verify our story. We couldn’t risk it or take the time for him to do so. We could have been discovered at any moment, as it was.”

  What he said was true. But he still wasn’t telling her something. Taylor just knew it. “Then why’d you throw them in the cell with Rube if they were worthless?”

  Her uncle exhaled and ran a hand over his clean-shaven jaw. “They weren’t worthless, Taylor. They are very important. My hope is he will read them and turn them over to those in power. But we also went in masked so he wouldn’t know who we are. That ought to slow the deputies down. They can’t begin their search until they know who to look for.”

  “But the sheriff and his deputies are smart men,” John Wolf interrupted. All eyes turned to him. Taylor recalled how at one time, when they’d been much younger, she and John had been sweet on each other. “We still don’t have a lot of time, Taylor. The sheriff will begin with questions to your family and friends.”

  She nodded, knowing what lay behind his words. The men needed to separate and go their individual ways in order to establish their alibis. And she needed to get as far away from here as she could. “One thing.” Taylor looked at her Uncle Ned. “Rube knew who you were. He even called your name.”

  Ned’s expression clouded. “I know. But I never told him he was right. It’s only his guess.”

  “A guess, yes. But a true one.” Just as she had been earlier, Taylor again felt wooden with fear for Ned. The deputies were relentless in their pursuits, how well she knew. And now they’d be after him. He could become a wanted man, an outlaw. Just like her. Suddenly it seemed that Rube’s curse was starting to come true. “I’m grateful for what you did for me.” She included John Wolf and Tom Keen in her attenti
on. “But I’m afraid for you now.”

  Ned gave her arm an affectionate squeeze. “You’re not to worry about us. We can take care of ourselves. It’s you we must worry about.” His expression became grave, as if he dreaded her answer before he’d even asked her anything. “Tell me, Taylor, where is it you will go now?”

  She looked down at her hands and then at her uncle, meeting his gaze. His black eyes hardened. He knew, she supposed, what her answer would be. “I will go to Monroe Hammer.”

  Ned’s jaw clenched. Neither John nor Tom said a word. “You cannot,” Ned said. “Monroe Hammer is … dead.”

  Taylor’s heart froze. She felt ill and clamped a hand over her mouth. She stared at her uncle. That was why Monroe hadn’t come for her. He couldn’t. “What happened?” Her voice was barely a whisper of sound.

  Her uncle gripped her wrist and leaned in toward her. “Listen to me well, Taylor. And do not interrupt. Monroe Hammer was not coming for you. He’d already taken up with another woman.” Taylor jerked against her uncle’s hold on her. He tightened his grip, never looking away from her eyes. “Listen to me. There is not much time. Two nights ago, Monroe was drunk and bragged about how he’d killed that man whose horse you stole. Bragged about how he let you go to prison and even to death for him. He was a coward. His words got back to me. I confronted him … and then I killed him.”

  A cry escaped Taylor. Her uncle jerked her arm hard. “Hear me. I put a knife to his throat and made him write his confession. And then, we fought and I had to kill him. I didn’t want to, Taylor. I wanted to bring him in with his words and have you freed legally. But that was not to be. Without the man being alive to say the words on those papers were truly his, I did what I had to do. I broke you out of jail and left them Monroe Hammer’s words to consider.”

  Taylor felt as if she were dying. She couldn’t stop the keening wail that tore from her. Ned immediately clapped a hand over her mouth, forcing her to look at him. “Monroe Hammer was a worthless man, Taylor. He had no honor. He was a coward who hid behind women’s skirts. And now, with his death on my head, I will become a wanted man. But the confession I threw in the cell with Rube could take this death sentence off your head, Taylor. Or not. Because Hammer’s confession might not be believed. It may be that no one except you would believe the words of a liar and a cheat and a killer.”

  With Ned’s hand still clamped over her mouth, all Taylor could do was stare back at him. Ned’s expression became hard and ugly. “Tell me why you went to jail for him, Taylor.”

  With that, Ned finally took his hand away from Taylor’s mouth and let go of her arm. As he’d spoken, a hot, wicked anger had overtaken her, replacing her grief and making her deadly calm. “Monroe never asked me to go to jail for him. I was the one who was caught for the death of that man. Not Monroe. There are those who would say I have no honor. But I do. And so I would not cry and beg for my own life, only to have the man I love lose his for my cowardice. But now, he is dead. And you did it. He would have come for me. He would. I know it. And so I will never forgive you. I hate you.” Taylor all but spit her words out at her uncle.

  “Hate me all you want, Taylor.” Ned’s stare was level, as was his voice. “I risked everything I have to see you free and alive, my niece. Monroe Hammer was not coming for you. So don’t waste time grieving over such a man as he was. And know this: I did what I had to. Only time—time you didn’t have and still don’t—will tell if Hammer’s words will be believed. What I did, right or wrong, was because of my love for you and my sister. I have given you another chance, Taylor. Use it wisely.”

  Taylor stared at her uncle. Then she looked to Tom and John, her childhood friends. They would not lie to her. “Is what he says true? About Monroe?”

  Their silent nods spoke for them. She wanted to curl up and die. The man she loved—or thought she’d loved and who had loved her—was dead. She’d given him her loyalty and her body. And he’d never intended to come get her out of jail. He’d been going to allow her to die for his crime. And he’d already taken up with another woman. It was too much to take in. She had no time for grieving, as her uncle said. Something hard formed in Taylor’s chest around the aching hurt balled up there. In this place, then, deep in her heart, would she keep her grief. Her uncle was right—she had little time and far to go.

  “I will go home,” she decided, speaking it in the same second as she thought it. Her chin came up. “I will go to the cabin of my mother.”

  Chapter Two

  Taylor watched Ned exhale as if relieved. John and Tom also shifted in their saddles and made approving noises. “This is good,” Ned said. “Your mother is anxious to see you. But you can’t stay there, Taylor. We can’t even risk being seen taking you. If Rube has already alerted the other guards, then they could even now be organizing the deputies to begin the hunt for you. They will go first to your mother’s home.”

  Despite the hurt and hate in her heart toward her uncle, Taylor determined to keep a cool head so she could think in a practical manner, even if it meant taking his advice. “You’re right. What you say is true.” Her mind cruelly showed her an image of her mother’s log cabin surrounded by the deadly efficient deputies and of a gunfight that could end up with not only Taylor dead but also her mother. She put her hands to her head and shook it, trying to dislodge the awful scene.

  Ned grabbed her wrist and her wide-eyed attention. “Taylor, from this day forward, you must think in a way that keeps you at least one jump ahead of your pursuers. You are convicted of killing a man. I know you didn’t do it. And so do John and Tom and your mother. But that’s all. To everyone else, you are an escaped prisoner. I don’t know what will happen to the confession I gave the law. They may just throw it away. You can’t stay here until we know what they do with it. Remember, no matter what, we broke you out of jail. Your lot is now ours. So you must think what it is you will do from here. While you do, Tom and John and I also need to talk about what we’re going to do.”

  With that, Ned let go of her and jumped out of the carriage. The other two men dismounted. With Ned, they stepped away from where Taylor sat and stood in a knot, their backs to her, and spoke together in low and worried tones.

  As instructed, Taylor stayed where she was and tried to digest everything Ned had just said. But her mind shied away from everything except what her plans should be from this day forward. First, she would go home … because she always went home. No matter what her escapade or how much trouble she got into, she always went home to her mother, her fiercest defender. In fact, that was how Taylor had known something like Ned’s showing up today at the prison to break her out was going to happen—because her mother hadn’t come to see her on what was supposed to have been Taylor’s last day on Mother Earth.

  So, there it was. She would go home, say good-bye … and then she would leave. Go away. Disappear. Maybe forever.

  Her heart and head swimming with woes, Taylor exhaled, only now suspecting the monumental price her freedom would exact upon what remained of her short life. And it would be short. She’d known that always. She wanted to cry—not for that reason, but for all she’d already lost in her life. Her youth, her homeland, her innocence. Taylor’s chin, though it quivered, came up a determined notch. “I know I can’t stay at home, Ned!” she called out to the man. Three pairs of deep-set black eyes looked her way. “I will go to my mother and let her know I’m free. And then I will … go.”

  Looking grim, Ned exchanged glances with his friends and walked back to the carriage. Standing beside it and reaching over to her, he took Taylor’s hand in his, rubbing it as if it was cold. She realized it was. She was still very angry with him but didn’t pull her hand out of his affectionate grasp. “My beloved niece, you sound like a child. You are not at all the hardened killer of your reputation, are you?” His gaze roved lovingly over her face. “But I see it on your face, in your eyes. You will do what you must.”

  For Taylor, his words were like the dying winds at t
he end of a spring day. Just as they settled back to the earth, so had her future. She was being cast out. Her newfound freedom meant banishment from all she loved. From the hills and bluffs and cliffs of the Nation. From the flowing streams and the forests thick with ash and oak and cottonwoods. Never again could she see the native redbud trees burst forth in spring with pink blossoms. Or hear the redbirds and the blue jays and doves sing. Never again could she attend the gatherings at the campgrounds for the tribal celebrations. Never again would she see Tom or John. Or her uncle and his family. But worst of all, never again could she see her mother.

  Taylor looked from one to the other of the men. It was true. They were asking her to leave. She accepted this. How could it be otherwise? After all, if she hadn’t been with Monroe when he killed that man for his horse, then none of this … not the trial, her imprisonment, or her jailbreak … would have occurred. It was as Rube had said. Their blood—Ned’s, Tom’s, and John’s—was on her head.

  “All right,” Taylor said, pulling her hand away from Ned and striving to sound as hard as people said she was. “You have done enough. I will make my own way from here.” She stood up in the carriage and made as if to get out.

  Ned clutched at her wrist, stopping her. She turned to look at him. Lines of unhappiness creased his face. “I’m sorry for what I had to do, Taylor. I’m sorry it must be this way.”

  She swallowed past the growing lump of emotion in her throat. She wanted to hate him but couldn’t. “So am I.”

  Ned didn’t seem to want to let her go, though. He still held onto her. “You’ll need things, Taylor. You can’t go as you are now, on foot and unarmed.”

  “I won’t stay that way for long. I’ll soon get what I need from home.” She watched his face, saw by his expression that he was about to caution her. “I’ll be careful,” she said first. “When I get home, I’ll stay hidden until I make sure no one is around. If all is well there, and quiet, then I’ll say my good-bye and leave. But if there are deputies about, then I will go as I am.”