Heart of a Dove

by Abbie Williams

  In response, I nudged her flank lightly with my heels, simultaneously shifting my hips, and she moved at once forward, prancing with her forelegs as though to show off for me. I took her in a slow circle around the camp, letting myself grow used to the feeling of her gait, smooth as whipping cream. She was a magnificent animal, her ears cocked back at me awaiting command. As I completed the circle, back to Sawyer, who stood observing with his hands on his hips, he called, “Is that the best you’ve got?”

  “Come on, girl,” I murmured, and Whistler’s pointed ears twitched at my voice. I squeezed her right flank with my knee, again urging with my hips, holding her reins with just enough slack. I told her, “Let’s run.”

  She responded immediately, wheeling to the right and moving swiftly into a canter, no jouncing trot in the interim. I leaned over her neck, the wind combing my hair with its restless fingers, hearing laughter burble from my throat as we raced away from the river, her hooves striking the earth with the three-beat rhythm I knew so well. I curbed the intense urge to keep riding, hell-fire fast. The landscape flashed by and I sensed Whistler’s exuberance; she was enjoying herself as much as I was.

  “Good girl!” I shouted to her, knowing I had to turn back before I went too far and thus tried Sawyer’s certainly limited patience. I eased to sit straight, drawing a hair’s breadth on her reins, squeezing with my left knee so that she’d circle ’round. Whistler turned with a motion as graceful as a dancer, tossing her head and then running hard back for camp. I was startled by how tiny the tents appeared in the distance; we’d covered more ground than I’d intended. When we were roughly fifty yards away, I drew back again, slowing her to a walk, entering the camp to find Sawyer standing in observance, his face somber.

  I was slightly breathless as we approached him, exhilarated.

  He called, surprising me, “Why are you stopping?”

  I leaned over Whistler’s neck and rubbed her warm hide briskly. I called back, “You don’t mind?”

  “I’ll join you,” he said, moving for Juniper. “We’ll catch up.”

  Instead of replying, I turned Whistler into the open prairie again, giving her leeway to fly. She had rippled from a canter into a gallop before I realized that Juniper was coming behind us, closing rank swiftly. I dared to peer over my shoulder and saw that Sawyer hadn’t bothered to saddle the bay. He looked so natural on a horse, so effortless, riding as though born to it, the reins draped casually in his right hand. He drew even with us and called over, “Come on!”

  Whistler responded to his voice more than anything, tossing her head and following as Juniper took the lead.

  “Come on, sweet girl,” I urged her. I was rather unwilling to let them nose ahead, though after a minute Sawyer drew back on the reins, elbows jutting, and slowed Juniper to a walk. I did the same with Whistler, who again tossed her head, almost coquettishly, moving to butt it once against Sawyer’s thigh as he rode a horse other than her. To my amazement, he laughed at her antics, shoving her away good-naturedly, unaware of what was happening inside of me to observe what laughter did to his face.

  Oh sweet Jesus, he is beautiful.

  He looked over at me, still smiling.

  “Lorie, look there,” he said then, nodding towards the western horizon. Beyond the river there roamed a lone buffalo, hulking and enormous, even with the distance separating us. Whistler caught its scent and whinnied, while Juniper remained stoically silent. Sawyer drew him to a halt then and I let Whistler dance around Juniper; the quarter horse remained unaffected, not giving in to her provocation.

  “Boyd thought for a time about becoming a buffalo hunter,” Sawyer said as he watched the creature, giving me an excuse to look at him. My heart surged against my ribs, almost painfully. He sat straight, with his hips relaxed, right hand still holding the reins loosely, the other stroking Juniper’s warm neck. His lips were at ease. I knew without a doubt that today I had finally been allowed to see the real Sawyer.

  “He did?” I asked, looking back at the buffalo, roaming alone on the prairie.

  “So many of the men we served with in the War moved west to do the same. Or to work the Union Pacific. There’s money in both, and Boyd’s a hell of a shot.”

  “Buffalo hunting seems a gruesome job,” I said honestly.

  Sawyer shifted in the saddle and said, “It does, and I couldn’t stomach the killing, not after the War. Boyd, either.”

  We were scarcely three feet from one another. I said with heartfelt sincerity, “Thank you so very much for letting me ride her.”

  “You are so very welcome,” he said, his deep voice that I seemed to feel in my belly.

  I wished so many things, improbable, impossible things…that he would dismount and climb behind me on Whistler, his thighs aligning with mine from behind, his powerful arms wrapping around me to hold the reins, his chest against my back. He was stroking Juniper’s neck, the way he usually did with Whistler.

  No, Lorie. He isn’t yours, and he cannot ever be.

  But my heart ached with a desperate insistence that he was indeed mine.

  I swallowed hard and made myself turn away, saying, “We best head back.”

  “You’re right, they’ll be back directly.”

  I turned Whistler with firm movements, urging her into motion; she sensed my agitation and responded accordingly, flowing back the way we’d come. Behind us I heard Juniper gaining ground and dared a peek over my shoulder. Sawyer was leaning low over Juniper’s neck and it was clear he intended to outrun us. I turned back to Whistler, imploring her rather desperately, “Giddup!” and heeling her flanks. I leaned over her neck, suddenly steeped in competition, the kind I hadn’t felt since trying to beat my brothers long ago.

  I felt Whistler’s muscles ripple beneath me as she maintained the lead, and Sawyer shouted, “No, ma’am!”

  “Ha!” I shouted back, laughing almost hysterically, though he was closing fast.

  “No!” I yelped. “Whistler, giddup, girl, go!”

  We galloped hard, my long braid slapping my spine; mere feet from my right stirrup, Juniper nearly edged into the lead, Sawyer bowed low over his neck, his eyes intent. As we closed on the camp, I realized that the men were indeed back, dismounting and certainly wondering what we were doing. I reached the edge just a fraction ahead, though at the last instant Sawyer took Juniper to the right and I took Whistler to the left, circling the tents while Malcolm whooped at us and shouted, “What the heck you two doing?”

  Juniper and Whistler slowed into walks, crossing paths at the far side of our camp. I reined her around to face Sawyer, hearing the sound of my triumphant cry, “We won!”

  “Not by a long shot,” he returned, teasing, reining around to face me at the same instant. The horses danced around one another, Whistler high-stepping as though to taunt them. I found myself again much too intent upon Sawyer’s gaze and darted my own away, just as Malcolm came bolting into sight and yelled, “Hey! Lorie, you wearing my clothes?”

  My face was hot; I slid easily from Whistler’s back, keeping the reins in my hands. Sawyer was there in an instant to collect them, also holding Juniper’s, and I found I couldn’t draw a full breath, let alone meet his eyes. Instead I focused with welcome upon Malcolm, who caught me unceremoniously by the wrists the instant my hands were free, and held my arms out to the sides as Sawyer led the horses away.

  “I knew it,” he said, releasing my wrists and shaking his shaggy head as though irritated. I knew he was not, just teasing me. He added, “You look like a girl playing dress-up in her daddy’s clothes.”

  “You don’t mind, do you?” I asked him, my voice embarrassingly unsteady. I hoped he figured it was from the race.

  “Heck, no,” he said, and then added, “But c’mon, you best change, Lorie-Lorie. We been invited to dinner.”

  - 13 -

  An
hour later the sun was melting into the west in a hot river of molten gold. Boyd was especially disappointed that we’d not caught so much as a single fish.

  “You two was having too much fun racing horses,” Malcolm complained as he, Angus and I rode three abreast on the wagon seat, me squeezed comfortably in the middle, Admiral tethered on a long lead line to the back of the wagon, clomping along behind. No matter what, the men refused to leave their horses behind, even such a short distance. Sawyer and Boyd were just ahead on Whistler and Fortune, chatting together.

  I could not keep my eyes from Sawyer as he rode; no matter how many times I redirected my gaze at the magnificent setting sun, or to my hands in my lap, or Malcolm’s profile as he chattered, my eyes moved relentlessly back to Sawyer. I fidgeted endlessly, tucking hair behind my ears as it escaped from its pins; I’d dressed properly and pinned up my hair, in deference to the strangers who had invited us to dine with them. I was nervous about meeting them, my face warm and my heart refusing to stop fluttering.

  “They’re a kind couple,” Angus told me, on my right. “Bound for Montana Territory.”

  “And they’ve five young’uns,” Malcolm explained again. “Two boys an’ three girls. Though I’m older’n all of them.” He turned to me and complained, “Why’d Sawyer let you ride Whistler? I been begging an’ begging.”

  “Perhaps it was his way of apologizing,” Angus said quietly, his tone hushing Malcolm’s petulance.

  “For what?” Malcolm piped then, and I asked immediately, “What are the children’s names?”

  Malcolm’s lips protruded as he struggled to recall, at last reciting, “Cole, Annabel, May, Charles, an’ Susanna. She’s the baby, still on the breast, she is.”

  “Son, I’ll ask you to mind your manners one more time,” Angus said mildly.

  “Gus, I know, I know,” he said, and in the next moment I could smell a cookfire and caught sight of two covered wagons, a passel of children running through the grass like prairie chickens. This family possessed six horses I could see, plus a pair of dirty-white pigs. A lean, spare man rose from his seat at a wooden table one would normally see in a farmhouse kitchen and lifted his hand to greet us, joined momentarily by a woman in a full-skirted dress, a child of perhaps a year or so caught on her hip. Anxiety rippled across my skin, though they smiled and called over; I reminded myself that they had no idea I’d spent the last three years of my life as a whore.

  “Gus, welcome,” the man said as Malcolm drew Juniper to a halt. Boyd and Sawyer dismounted, immediately removing their hats.

  Angus hopped down and then lifted me; I was overwhelmed as the children came running and the woman moved to me at once and hugged me briefly with her free arm, then drew back and smiled into my eyes.

  “So good to see a woman,” she said. She was perhaps middle thirties, thin as rake handle, though I would have known her for a nursing mother had Malcolm not mentioned; her breasts were large beneath her faded dress. She had red hair swept into a bun and blue eyes in a deeply-tanned face. “I’m Una Spicer. Welcome, Lorissa. We’ve heard all about you from your brothers today, haven’t we, children?”

  The group of them all spoke at once, the girls with their hair in long braids that fell over their shoulders, sunbonnets trailing down their backs. The eldest boy was no more than a year younger than Malcolm, with beautiful red-gold hair, and he looked just as full of mischief. I made up my mind to keep at least a partial eye on the two of them.

  “Welcome,” the father said, coming to shake my hand. “Henry Spicer, ma’am. Pleased to meet you.”

  “Please, call me Lorie,” I told them, smiling in return. Una Spicer appropriated my elbow and led me to their table.

  “We’ve brought as much of our furniture as we could stuff within the supply wagon,” she explained. “The chairs don’t set quite right on the ground, but it beats the dirt. Girls, fetch Miss Lorie a glass of lemonade.”

  “You’ve lemonade?” I asked in awe.

  Una smiled and sat near me; the child on her hip regarded me with wide blue eyes, hooking a finger into the side of her mouth. “Yes, though not for long, as our lemon supply is running low. Here,” she added, as I beamed at the baby. “Would you like to hold her?”

  I nodded and she passed the little one to my arms; she was swaddled in linens about her bottom, dressed in a faded calico pinafore. She smelled of milk and some indefinable sweetness, and came willingly to my arms, studying me frankly.

  “My arm does ache after a spell,” Una said. “Susanna gets right heavy. My, but you’re lovely. I must tell you.”

  My eyebrows lifted in embarrassment at the compliment. I murmured, “Thank you,” as one of the older girls deposited a tin cup of lemonade before me on the table. Again I said, “Thank you,” and flushed with nerves.

  Una smiled and said, “If you don’t mind holding the baby, I’ll get our dinner directly. Do please make yourself at home.”

  She rose and I marveled at the simultaneous luxury and strangeness of sitting at a real table, how incongruous it was to be doing so outside on the prairie. It was a gorgeous evening, the humidity of the day creating a haze over the setting sun; one could look upon it without squinting, a perfect, shimmering magenta, dazzling to the eyes. It streaked long beams of the same tint over the rolling expanse of prairie, and I found myself thinking yet again of what I’d discussed with Sawyer at the riverbank today.

  My eyes immediately found him; I knew his exact location, though I hadn’t been looking his way. He was standing, chatting with Henry Spicer, Gus and Boyd, and just the sight of him across the way made my throat ache with something I could not have articulated. All of it, the angle of the sun, the very air, combined to make my eyes sting with unshed tears. As I watched, his eyes sought mine and he held my gaze, his lips softening into a smile. I smiled back at him before I could help it, radiantly, the force of it swelling within me.

  Malcolm dashed to me and broke our line of sight, saying, “Lorie, you want to play tag with us?”

  Malcolm’s dark eyes sparkled at me; just beyond his shoulder, Cole, the eldest Spicer boy, regarded me with a similar naughty twinkle. I said, lowering my voice, “I’m chatting with Mrs. Spicer.”

  “No, you ain’t, she’s at the fire,” Malcolm observed and I gave him my best approximation of a big sister’s stern gaze.

  “And I’m holding this little one,” I said, bouncing her on my arm. “You play a bit before we eat.”

  “Aw right, but you must dance with me later, when they play music,” he said, and I nodded.

  Una’s girls set the table with practiced motions, bringing to my mind images of the dining room at home, its walls decorated in draped cream silk, Mama’s china cabinet of gleaming cherrywood, from which I’d pluck the delicate plates to set our dining table. The Spicer girls regarded me with shy smiles, assuring me I needn’t move or assist them when I offered. I scooted back my chair, with difficulty, so I could set the baby on my knees. She watched her big sisters work with solemn eyes. I found myself stroking through her feather-soft blond hair, taking pleasure in its downy softness. The girls loaded the table with a platter of biscuits, a bowl of boiled potatoes and another of roasted pig. I eyed the other two pigs, grazing a few yards away, guessing they must have numbered three before this morning.

  “Gentlemen, children, dinner!” Una called, and swept to me to collect her youngest, who she placed gently into a woven basket on the ground near the table, handing the little one a dry biscuit to gum.

  “We’re here, at the blanket,” explained one of the girls, importantly, as Malcolm began to pull out the chair beside mine.

  Malcolm turned and studied the blanket with skeptical eyebrows and the girl added, with an edge of irritation, “There ain’t enough chairs, otherwise,” and yanked at his elbow.

  I giggled at Malcolm’s expression, thinking perhaps h
e’d met his match. The men remained standing until Una was seated at the foot, to my right, with Henry at the head of the table. Angus took the chair across from me, Boyd to his right, and Sawyer to my left. Henry bowed his head to pray, and we all did likewise, even the children on the blanket. I bit back a smile as I heard the girl who’d reprimanded Malcolm scolding him again, saying, “Pa is praying, hush!”

  “Dear Father,” Henry said. “Thank You for the gift of this food we are about to eat, and the gift of company to share it with us. I ask that You continue to bless our family on our journey. In Your name we pray, amen.”

  “Amen,” we all murmured, and then waited as Henry loaded a plate for each of us by turns. The children formed a line after the adults had been served and Henry patiently dished up each of theirs before at last taking his seat.

  The men chatted of horses and wagon wheels, the price of silver, while Una engaged me in eager conversation; it was apparent she was delighted to have a woman to chat with.

  “You’re all from Tennessee, is that correct?” she asked, using her toe to gently rock the baby’s basket.

  “Yes, ma’am, the eastern part of the state,” I told her, reminding myself that she believed me to be Boyd and Malcolm’s sister, and no idea where I had truly been living the past three years.

  “Do you find the journey difficult?”

  “There are difficult parts, but I enjoy it, too,” I answered with honesty, despite keeping the response vague.

  “I am finding it a right adventure,” Una said. “I spent my entire life in Illinois. I was worried so, at first, to take the children from what they’d always known. But they have enjoyed the travels, the new country. I’m anxious to see Independence, after hearing so much about it these past months as we’ve been preparing for our journey.”

  After we’d eaten our fill, Una apologized profusely for having no dessert to offer.