Wild Flower

by Cheryl Anne Porter

  The man bared his teeth, giving Taylor a start until she realized he was grinning. “Well, you’re quite the elegant little miss, now aren’t you?” His voice was low and threatening.

  Taylor narrowed her eyes. “No, I am not. No more than you are the gentleman you appear to be.”

  He ignored her returned insult in favor of looking her up and down. He then shook his head as if disgusted. “I should have known that Charles’s bastard spawn would grow up like the wild, heathen shoot you always were. He called you his little wild flower, but you were more like a weed. Something ugly to be torn up at the root and tossed away.”

  A start of shock rode Taylor’s nerve endings. Not for the man’s insults, but because of that name. Wild Flower … it was her Cherokee name, given to her by her father. It was private—and this man had spoken it out loud. “Who are you?” she repeated, this time more quietly. Inside, she felt chilled … and uncertain that she wanted to hear his answer.

  He smiled again, taking a step toward her. Almost involuntarily, Taylor took a step back. Her hand inched toward her gun. The man didn’t miss her actions. “You wouldn’t shoot me, would you, Taylor? Not here on a crowded street, in front of all these witnesses?” He never looked away from her but gestured behind himself to the carriage traffic at his back.

  “Yes, I would. And I might anyway if you don’t tell me who you are and what you want with me.”

  “You don’t remember me? I remember you. The last time I saw you, you were just a scared little girl out in the Nation, clinging to that Indian squaw’s skirts. Make no mistake, sweetheart—that’s where you should have stayed.”

  Insult warred with burning anger. Taylor’s chin edged up, but everything inside her urged caution. Heaviness invaded her limbs, and a calm descended over her. She watched every move the man made, missing nothing. Not the slightest twitch or gesture. She said nothing but continued to watch him. As surreptitiously as she could, she flexed her gun hand, exercising her fingers, readying them for a fast draw … should it be necessary.

  The man grinned, as if enjoying her uneasiness. “You don’t have anything to say to me, Taylor?”

  “I have plenty to say to you. And all of it has to do with you stepping away from my horse and going on about your business.”

  He chuckled, a humorless sound at best, and shook his head as if he was amused. “You’ve got guts, girl. I’ll give you that much.”

  Taylor didn’t answer. He’d said nothing requiring one. She blanked her expression, purposely giving nothing away of what she felt inside. She hardly dared blink. Her mouth was a straight line. All her senses were trained on this man in front of her.

  “Well,” he said suddenly into the silence between them, “since you don’t feel like talking, I will. I could hardly believe it, Taylor, when I heard you were alive. All this time I thought you were dead. And all this time I’ve been happy in that thought. Really happy. You should have stayed dead. And you certainly should never have come here to St. Louis.”

  He knew as much—and more—about her as she did herself; that much was obvious. But who could he be? And why was he naggingly familiar? She had no idea but settled for bluffing, for pretending she did know who he was. Maybe she’d say something that would cause him to stumble. “What’s it to you what I do?” she all but snarled. “You never cared about me.”

  His expression changed, became one of deeply ingrained anger, which radiated off him in waves. “Care about you? I have no reason to care about you. And every reason to hate you, to wish you dead. Seeing you sickens me. You’re a walking sin. That’s what you are, girl. A walking sin. And I don’t even think you know it—no more than you really know who I am, so quit pretending.”

  Her ploy hadn’t worked. But … a walking sin? What did that mean? It suddenly occurred to Taylor that she was standing here indulging a crazy man. Her stoic pose slipped. She felt scared, vulnerable … fragile. And tried even harder to appear immune to his ranting. “There is nothing to know. I have listened to you long enough. You will go away now.”

  He put his hands to his waist, brushing his coat back enough to reveal his gun stuck into the waist of his pants. “You’re not in any position, girlie, to be telling me or anybody else what to do. You don’t have any idea what you are, do you?”

  This white man had no idea how many times in her life people had spit at her and told her what she was. She hadn’t liked it then, and she didn’t like it now, so she grinned … threateningly. “A walking sin. Isn’t that what you said? Do you just not like Indians? Is that it?”

  His wide, mocking grin, like that on a skull, and his knowing nod told Taylor plainly enough that she’d just said something he’d wanted her to say.

  He shook his head, looking disgusted now. “You really don’t know, do you, Taylor? Well, I’ll be … they didn’t tell you. I don’t suppose I should be surprised. They didn’t tell me, either. No, I had to find out for myself. I had to do some snooping on my own, read some letters that weren’t addressed to me. But it was worth it. Oh, it was worth it for a lot of years. Then you came back. They tried to keep that from me, too—that you were here—but I found out … as you can plainly see.”

  “I will not listen to you.” Taylor was becoming very concerned. Night was rapidly falling, the streets were emptying, and she had important business to conduct. And still this man was accosting her, essentially holding her prisoner—something she’d sworn she wouldn’t allow to happen ever again. But still, for the life of her, she couldn’t move, not while he was so close to her and to Red Sky. Every finely honed instinct she possessed said she needed to get him to move away before she dared come out from behind the fence. “I have no more patience for you and your words. Either say who you are and what this is about, or leave me be.”

  Insult and anger waged a battle for supremacy in his expression. “You’re pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you, Taylor? You talk big now, but you won’t for long.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “You’ll find out soon enough. You sure you don’t have any idea who I am? I haven’t seen you in a lot of years, but I’d know you anywhere. You look a lot like your … your mother. Got your father’s eyes, that’s true enough. But mostly, you look … just … like your mother.” He drew out his last words ominously.

  Taylor’s mouth dried. She thought of her mother alone in her cabin out in the Nation. And wondered if this man had followed her here from Tahlequah. “What have you done to my mother?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing. And I don’t intend to do anything to her. I love her. It’s you I hate.”

  He loved her mother and hated her? “Why?”

  “I already told you, girl. Pay attention. You’re a walking sin … well, a reminder of a sin, I suppose. A sin I can’t forgive or forget. And one I don’t want walking around here and staring back at me. You can understand that, can’t you?”

  “No. I cannot. Tell me who you are, that you would know my family.”

  “Oh, I know your family, all right. Better than you do, I’d wager. And you still don’t know who I am?” He rubbed thoughtfully at his chin. Every pose or stance of his struck Taylor as studied and false, as if he sought to hide his evilness behind a friendly facade. “Well, I guess you wouldn’t. You did only see me that one time—when I came out to the Nation after the war to collect my wife and daughter.”

  His wife and daughter?

  Then she knew—with the certainty of a lightning strike. How could she have not known? Now she knew why he seemed familiar. He was related by blood to her. She had to stiffen her knees to remain standing. Her heart pounded erratically. She thought of Aunt Camilla and Amanda. She thought of her father. This man was his brother. Taylor’s voice, when she spoke, was that of an uncertain child. “Uncle Stanley?”

  “Finally,” he said … as he started around the fence toward her.

  * * *

  “Why didn’t you stop her?”

  “Stop her? I daresay, sir,” Bent
ley said, “that a brick wall wielding an iron club could not stop Miss James from a course of action once she’s made up her mind to do something.”

  “You’re right; you’re right. I’m sorry.” Grey ran a hand through his hair and resumed his pacing. He’d never been so scared in his whole life. He’d just arrived home from the club to find Taylor gone. The things Charles had told him had sickened him. The betrayal, the abandonment. An awful tragedy ripe for danger—all of it directed at Taylor.

  Grey stood in the foyer of his town house with his butler and his housekeeper essentially called on the carpet. Mrs. Scott’s hands were folded together in front of her. And Bentley stood at formal attention, hands to his sides, his beaklike nose in the air.

  On his next pass, Grey asked a question he’d already put to them. But he couldn’t help repeating himself. After all, he was clutching at straws here. Desperate straws. “And you don’t have any idea where she went from here? She didn’t say anything?”

  “No, sir,” Mrs. Scott answered. “After she ordered me to get her some britches and a man’s shirt—”

  “What?” Grey stopped in his tracks and spun around to face her. “A man’s shirt and britches? What on earth for?”

  “For her to wear, sir, I’m sure. Miss James purely does not seem to like the clothing of a, um, lady. At any rate, seeing as how there were none to be had inside—besides yours and Bentley’s … which simply wouldn’t fit—I had to think quickly. She was in an awful hurry to be off, I don’t mind saying. The poor girl. She looked very troubled. So I finally realized that—” Mrs. Scott stopped herself in mid-sentence, frowned, pursed her lips, and looked lost. “Good heavens, I’ve forgotten what I was saying. Where was I?”

  Bentley unbent enough to say, “You were dashing outside, I believe.”

  Grey gritted his teeth—to keep from roaring in frustrated anger. He needed only a direction from them, Taylor’s route, a destination, a name, anything. He couldn’t just go haring off into the night, wildly calling out for her. In a city the size of St. Louis, where would he even begin? All he needed was a starting point. He had to find her before, in her innocence, she got herself killed.

  “Oh, that’s right,” Mrs. Scott was saying. “Thank you, Bentley. At any rate, I dashed outside to the men’s quarters. They’re over the coach barn—”

  “I know where the men’s quarters are, Mrs. Scott. Please get on with it.”

  Mrs. Scott’s lips pursed and her chin came up a notch. “Yes, sir. At any rate, as I was saying, I dashed out to the men’s quarters over the coach barn and looked for Albert. Do you know him, sir?”

  Grey fisted his hands at his sides—to keep from reaching for his housekeeper’s throat. “I do. I hired him. Will you, for the love of God, Mrs. Scott, get to the point? This is extremely important.”

  “I understand that, sir. And I am trying. At any rate, he’s a slim young lad, not a lot bigger than Miss James, so I supposed his clothes would come closest to fitting her without being, well, revealing. Ahem. Anyway, it took me a while, but I finally found the young rascal. He was smoking out behind the property—not that I’m a one to tell on a person. I only mention it because that is where I found him. At any rate, a discussion followed in which he said his work was done and he wasn’t doing anything wrong. I told him I was sure I didn’t care; he was not my concern. Then I told him to take his clothes off.”

  If Grey was shocked, it was nothing compared to Bentley. The butler’s sniffing intake of air through his nose had a whistling quality about it. He turned fully to the housekeeper. “And I should hope he did not, Mrs. Scott.”

  “I should say he did,” she assured Bentley. “But up in his room. I marched him up there and waited outside while he changed. The britches and shirt he had on were clean enough. So then I took the bundle to Miss James.” Mrs. Scott’s face wrinkled with concern. “Was I wrong to do that, sir?”

  “No,” Grey said distractedly, rubbing at his temple. “I’m sure your cooperation with her at that point is the only reason you still have your hair.”

  His housekeeper gasped and put a hand to her bun. She patted it as if assuring herself that it was indeed still there.

  “Did she say anything to you, Mrs. Scott, about where she was going, what she intended to do?”

  “No, sir. No more than you did before you left on that black horse of yours. And she asked me the same thing—if you’d said where you were going before you left. And I told her I was not privy to my employer’s plans for the evening.”

  Grey exhaled, ignoring his housekeeper and butler for the moment while he tried to think like Taylor. He recalled their afternoon of lovemaking … and how it had ended. A sudden fear had him once again focusing all his attention on Mrs. Scott and Bentley. His gaze flitted from one to the other of them. “What did she take with her? Did she say she’d be coming back?”

  The two looked at each other and then at Grey. Bentley spoke first. “Not specifically. But when I checked out in the barn, her saddlebags were still there. That’s a good sign, I believe. But, oh dear, I didn’t want to upset you further, sir, but she, uh, found her gun in your desk drawer … and took it with her.”

  Right on the heels of that potentially disastrous news, and while Grey was still reeling with its implications, came Mrs. Scott’s report. “As Bentley said, she didn’t say as much, Mr. Talbott, but I think she’ll return. After all, she didn’t pack anything, and she left the lovely dresses you bought her. Any young lady would want them if she was going away for good.”

  That didn’t comfort Grey in the least. Taylor was not anyone’s idea of an ordinary young lady. Then he had another question—for Bentley. “She didn’t want you with her? After this afternoon, I find that strange. She’s insisted before now that you go everywhere she does. What did she say to you?”

  “Nothing, sir. As I’ve told you, I had no idea she was gone”—he turned an accusatory expression on the guilty-looking Mrs. Scott—“until you told me, sir. Which is when I checked the barn, as you know. But I really should report, sir, that as silly as it may seem and as hesitant as I am to mention it for fear of—”

  “Bentley, for the love of God…”

  “Yes, sir. A bit earlier in the evening, I had the oddest premonition of danger. I was passing through the dining room when suddenly I stopped and looked into the mirror over the buffet. I could see Miss James, but it was as if everything went black around her until she, too, faded out of the picture. It was most upsetting. It was only fleeting, but I must say it completely unnerved me. And then I—Sir! Where are you going?”

  Grey had taken off at a run for the back door. He heard footsteps running after him, but he ignored them. His mind was totally absorbed with details. He’d handed his horse to Smith out in the coach yard only minutes ago, so maybe it wasn’t yet unsaddled. Even if it was, he’d ride it bareback. And where he was going, what direction he should head, he still had no idea. All he knew was that Bentley the man-bird, the spirit guide, had experienced an awful vision. That much was clear. It wasn’t until this moment that Grey realized how great Taylor’s influence on him had been. He believed her totally about Bentley. And Grey no longer believed that Bentley was a threat or a spy. The very notion, in light of the older man’s vision and his steadfast loyalty on all other occasions, now seemed ridiculous.

  Grey hit the door, almost running through it before he had it open. The cool night air hit him the moment he stepped outside—and ran right into Taylor, knocking her flat into the dirt. She yelped and spit out something in Cherokee that needed no translation. Grey staggered and cursed and jumped over her so as not to fall atop her and crush her under his weight. He had a glimpse, no more than a fleeting peripheral impression, of Calvin frozen in his tracks, staring their way, and holding the reins to Taylor’s horse. The animal’s ears pricked forward. His wild-eyed start of surprise matched Calvin’s expression.

  They were forgotten as instantly as they’d been noticed. Almost before Taylor hit the
ground in a rolling tumble, Grey had righted himself and jerked around and grabbed her up off the ground and into his arms. “Taylor! Thank God. I thought … I feared—”

  All he saw was widened blue eyes staring up at him. Grey lowered his head to hers, taking her mouth in a crushing, hungry, bruising, relieved kiss. He was out of control and he knew it. He could not stop himself. His tongue sought hers—his hand was at the back of her head; his other was wrapped around her waist. He’d thought he’d lost her; it was all he could think. And now she was here and alive. He needed to feel her against him, to taste her, to know she was real, that she was truly more than his imagination—

  Taylor suddenly pushed against his chest and twisted her mouth away from his. She shoved herself out of his arms and stepped back, swiping the back of her hand over her mouth. Her stare was hard and glinting … and her strung-together angry Cherokee litany put Grey exactly in his place. And he couldn’t have been happier. He grinned to show it.

  Taylor abruptly stopped talking … cursing. She frowned, her finely arched eyebrows lowered dangerously. “What the hell are you grinning at, white man?”

  White man. Never had he loved hearing two words so much before in his life. Taylor was alive and intact emotionally, so it seemed. “You. I’m grinning at you. I thought you were dead.”

  She cocked her head at a disbelieving angle. “And now you know I am not. Why did you think I was dead?”

  “Because … well, Bentley had a vision. A dark one involving you.”

  Taylor’s stiffening stance told its own story. She opened her mouth but didn’t say anything. She looked frightened.

  “Something did happen, didn’t it?” Grey asked, watching her carefully, looking for any sign that she … knew. He very much wanted to go inside. He felt too vulnerable out here, as if he feared the sharp crack of a gun being fired … and of its bullet finding its mark. But for the life of him, he couldn’t make his feet move. He fisted his hands at his sides and waited for whatever she had to say.