Heart of a Dove

by Abbie Williams

  “No, please no,” I pleaded as I saw Sawyer’s hands also covered in blood.

  And I woke with a gasp, twisting with both fists at the blanket covering my body.

  I sat slowly, as the images in my dream ebbed maddeningly away, leaving nothing more tangible than a chill in my gut. I pressed the base of my palms against my eyes for a moment, collecting myself, picturing Sawyer as I had been picturing him last night before sleep claimed me. Just the thought of him filled me with wonder and anticipation, casting away most of my uneasiness over the nightmare. I realized that I’d not set out my soapstone bear, Boyd’s gift, and determined that I would do so tonight.

  I could hear Angus up and about outside in the very early morning, the stirrings of Malcolm and Boyd in their tent. I brushed my hair, braided it, dressed and then packed my valise full; we would be moving on today. I slipped out of my tent and walked down the river, to the fishing hole. The river gurgled cheerfully in the silvered light of dawn, and I studied the spot beneath the willow where I had talked with Sawyer yesterday, instead of fishing. He was right; talking had been much better. Incredibly better, and my cheeks grew warm at just the memory of it, and of last night.

  I smiled, unable to help it, closing my eyes and seeing nothing but his. All of the things he had shared with me yesterday had been in my mind as I’d tossed fitfully on my bedding last night, the way he blamed himself for surviving the battle at Murfreesboro that had taken his brothers, how he’d watched the moon at night as a soldier. I imagined his golden hair appearing silver under that celestial light, his beautiful, somber eyes lifted to the sky as he faced an unknown future. I thought of his name, wanting to speak it aloud.

  Sawyer James Davis.

  His initials, carved into the hilt of his knife. The last of his family, just as I was the last of mine. How he had stayed alive for his horse, for Whistler, when he had no one else. The very thought of his words created an ache within me and I was not entirely sure I would be able to restrain my need to climb immediately up the river bank, crawl directly into his tent and wrap my arms around him. I wanted to press my face to his neck. I wanted to feel his arms around me.

  Lorie, stop this.

  I could hear increasing activity in our camp as the men and Malcolm tore it down, and now that I was able to help, I had no excuse to be waited upon. I lifted my hem and hurried back, spying Malcolm first. He caught sight of me as I came up from the river, from where he was collapsing his and Boyd’s tent, and called, “Lorie, take that skirt off!”

  I paused at the oddity of such a statement, eyebrows knitting as I figured I’d misunderstood him. Sawyer was laughing then, just beyond Malcolm from the sound of it, and my feet flew over the grass; I came around my tent to see Sawyer collecting the wooden poles from the ground where Malcolm had thrown them. I halted abruptly and every inch of my skin heated as Sawyer smiled just for me, straightening to his full height with the heavy armload. His hair was loose, his shirt unbuttoned two past the collar and with the sleeves rolled back over his forearms; he’d not yet shaved. He looked so good that I couldn’t draw so much as a shallow breath.

  He clarified, “What the kid means is that—”

  Malcolm leaped in with an explanation before Sawyer could finish, saying, “You need to put on my pants!”

  I tore my eyes from Sawyer and regarded the boy in surprise, asking, “Why’s that?”

  “Since you’re gonna ride Aces today, that’s why,” Malcolm said, his dark eyes brimming with excitement. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder to indicate Sawyer, adding, “It was his idea.”

  My eyes flashed back to Sawyer’s at this pronouncement to find his so warm on mine that my bare toes curled against the grass, my blood flared. He said, “I thought you might enjoy riding for a spell. The kid was kind enough to lend his horse.”

  “Until I get too lonesome for you on the wagon, that is!” Malcolm said, and my heart melted all over the ground. I was thrilled at the unexpected prospect of spending the morning riding and caught Malcolm’s upper arm to hold him still long enough to kiss his cheek.

  “Aw, Lorie,” he said gruffly, embarrassed but pleased.

  “This is such a wonderful gift,” I told them sincerely, and Sawyer’s smile widened, lifting the right side of his mouth higher than the left, in a lopsided, teasing grin.

  His eyes danced as he looked towards Malcolm, who was blushing red as an August tomato, then back to me, before commenting, “That hardly seems fair.”

  My heart throbbed fiercely, but Boyd and Angus joined us, Boyd laughing about something Gus was saying, a smoke caught in the corner of mouth. I stared at Sawyer for one last moment, before turning my flustered attention to Malcolm, who had retrieved a pair of his trousers and a shirt and pitched them to me.

  “Morning, sis!” Boyd joked, ruffling my hair as he walked past en route to the coffee pot. “Fortune is taking a turn pulling the wagon today, as so you can ride.”

  “Though I’d feel much better about the entire thing if you wore your boots,” Angus added, winking at me.

  “I will,” I assured him, smiling. “Excuse me.”

  I ducked into my tent, which was still erect, though empty of all belongings; only the bare ground beneath my feet. I hurried to tie the laces and then redressed in Malcolm’s clothes, rolling my skirt into a bundle. I ducked back out and then helped Malcolm tear down my tent as the men loaded the last of our gear. It was so much blessed easier to move about in trousers, and I found myself wondering if I could possibly get away with wearing them all of the time. I tucked Malcolm’s shirt into the waistband, as though I was indeed playing dress-up.

  I managed to gulp a cup of lukewarm coffee before Boyd kicked dirt over the fire and then doused it with a pan of water. We’d be eating on the move this morning. I jogged to the wagon and then climbed, with the delightful freedom afforded by pants, onto the tailgate and leaned into the oval-shaped opening in the canvas to stash my skirt and root about for my hat. I had forgotten to set it aside this morning, and no doubt Malcolm had smashed it beneath something again. I located it just as I heard Malcolm approaching with his horse in tow. I jumped down as he brought Aces over to me; Sawyer was already mounted, while Angus did a last walk-through to make certain we’d left nothing behind.

  “He’s ready to run, Lorie, and he’s feisty sometimes. You gotta be firm with him,” Malcolm explained importantly.

  I listened to his numerous instructions without smiling, though it was difficult, tying the green bow to my hat beneath my chin.

  “You need help up?” he finally asked. “An’ here, use my leather gloves, or else your hands’ll get all callused.”

  “No, I’ve got it,” I assured him, taking both the reins and the gloves he offered; they were sizes too big, but the leather was soft and formed to my hands as I curled my fingers inward experimentally.

  “Aw right,” Malcolm said, moving to cup Aces’ nose and blowing on it, nuzzling his horse. “You be good to Lorie, no running away.”

  I patted the chestnut’s sleek brown neck; Aces was tall and high-stepping, and regarded me intently with his left eye as I said, “Hi, boy, hello there,” and though he gave a low, uncertain whinny as my boot slid into the stirrup, he stood politely still as I climbed atop his back. The stirrups were the correct length, as Malcolm and I were almost of a height. Malcolm kissed Aces’ nose and then clambered aboard the wagon. Angus, leading Admiral, walked to my left side and smiled up at me from beneath his hat brim.

  “Again, I’d say the sunlight agrees with you,” he said, before neatly mounting his own horse. “Let’s ride!”

  The wagon lumbered out slowly, Boyd driving, Malcolm peering behind at me. I let Aces walk for a spell, keeping pace behind the wagon as I adjusted to his gait. Angus took Admiral ahead and to the right, and while Sawyer usually ranged far in advance, this morning he lagged with me as
we left the river behind, Whistler nearly prancing in her desire to move faster. At first I couldn’t gather the courage to look over at him, though he was mere feet from my stirrup, but from the corner of my left eye I observed how smoothly he rode, graceful and effortless, his hips relaxed in the saddle; by now I knew that his shoulders were never so, not while riding. Too much of a soldier in him still, for that. His hat, dark brown with black ties tipped in silver, was in place, shading his eyes. He held her reins loosely in his right hand, his left lying flat against his thigh. His hair was now tied back, his shirt yet unbuttoned with sleeves rolled back, exposing his lean forearms, corded with muscle and brown from the sun.

  “Who taught you to ride?” he asked me. The sun was glancing over the prairie from our right in the long, amber-tinted beams of early morning. The air smelled clean and sweet as the wagon crunched over stalks of grass, releasing the scent. In the taller grass that rippled beyond the beaten path, miles upon miles of wildflowers bloomed. I looked over at him as I answered, full of a trembling joy that fluttered all through me. I said, “My daddy at first, but I learned more from trying to keep up with my brothers. I remember the first time I was bucked from a horse, Lady Belle, Dalton laughed and laughed, told me that if I couldn’t sit a saddle any better than that, I deserved to be thrown.”

  Sawyer was smiling already. He asked, “How old were you?”

  “Eight or so,” I replied, and then echoed my father, “And don’t let the name fool you. Lady Belle was no lady.”

  He laughed at that, as I continued, “She was a bad-tempered mare, but she was so pretty. A true black, shiny as onyx, and lucky for me, not particularly tall.”

  “Were you hurt?”

  “No, but I was furious at Dalty for laughing at me. Though it made me all the more determined to sit her.” Whistler nickered and I looked at her with fondness. I said to her, “She wasn’t as pretty as you, girl, not by a long shot.”

  Sawyer stroked her neck at that, then patted her twice. “She knows it too, don’t you, girl?”

  I loved how he talked to her with such affection. I said, “It was so splendid to ride her yesterday. Thank you again for that, and for today.”

  He said, “It is my pleasure.”

  His deep voice, his words that swirled over me like caresses; I almost shivered.

  I asked, “Who taught you to ride?”

  “My granddaddy Davis,” he said. “I was named for him and he lived until I was fourteen, he and my grandmother both. He built the livery stable when he first settled in Suttonville as a young man, and was as natural a horseman as you’ve ever seen. He brought Granny Alice from England when they were newly married. They were handfasted. My mama always thought that was romantic.”

  “That is romantic,” I said, fascinated by his history. “Did they live with you?”

  “They moved into the guest house on the homestead, once we were born,” Sawyer said, and I could tell from his expression that he was seeing not the endless prairie, but instead his family home. “Granddaddy and his brother, my great-uncle Isaac, built the house where we all lived. He taught all three of us to ride, Ethan and Jere and me. Though Ethan was the best of us, by far.”

  “Better than you?” I asked skeptically, before I thought, a problem I’d possessed in my old life; at Ginny’s I’d scarcely spoken two words without first calculating how they would be received, how I might use them to avoid harm or distress.

  Sawyer looked over at me with a smile nudging his lips. I babbled, “I meant, you look so well on a horse, so natural,” and realized I had already sunk myself into deep water, biting my bottom lip to forcibly restrain any further embarrassment. My face was scalding hot and it had absolutely nothing to do with the rising sun.

  “Thank you kindly,” he teased me. “But to answer your question, Ethan was a far better horseman. He rode in shows, raced and won the blue ribbon every year at the Fourth of July celebration in Cumberland County. He could have outrun me on a horse any old day.”

  “What did your brothers look like?” I couldn’t take my eyes from him.

  “They looked exactly alike but they were complete opposites. Jere was the baby. He tended to let me or Eth speak for him. He was shy. Considerate. Whereas Eth would have done just about anything that sounded exciting. Him and Boyd egged each other on, something fierce. Eth loved to flirt. I remember Mama worried so for him,” Sawyer said, as I watched him with complete absorption; how animated his features as he spoke of his brothers. How tenderly and yet with a flowing river of wistfulness that ran beneath the words. He laughed a little and added, “Clairee Carter used to tease, speculate which local girl’s daddy was going to show up on our porch with a rifle of an afternoon, claiming that Eth was to be a father. Those days.” He sighed a little, and in it I heard both fondness and sorrow. He said, “They were red-headed, with green eyes, like Mama. A dark green, like the boughs of a cedar. Mama’s family was of County Galway. When we were little she spoke and sang to us in the Irish.”

  “She did?” I asked softly, trying to imagine him as a little boy at his mother’s knee, as she murmured softly to him and his brothers in the language of her homeland. I asked, “How did she meet your daddy?”

  “They met and courted in Tennessee. Mama came to America when she was fourteen, with her father and stepmother. They came to Charleston first, and then traveled to Suttonville when Mama was fifteen. Daddy met her that summer, and they were married two years later.”

  “My mama was of Charleston too, originally,” I said. “Daddy was staying with his aunt and uncle the summer that he met Mama, at a ball. She still had the very dress she was wearing the evening they met, green as emeralds. I can picture her holding it up on its hanger and letting me touch it. Daddy remained in Charleston to court her and they married the following winter. She came west with him, back to Tennessee. Daddy’s family had been settled in Lafayette for decades by then.”

  “You were the youngest of your family?” Sawyer asked, his voice low and soft.

  I nodded. “Dalton would have been your age by now. Jesse was a year behind him. I loved them so. My earliest memories are of trying to gain their attention.”

  “Your mama must have been happy for a daughter, after two boys,” Sawyer said. “I recall Mama wishing she had a daughter, especially when we’d cause trouble.” He asked then, with a hint of teasing, “How old would you say I am?”

  “Gus told me that first morning,” I explained. “He said you and Boyd were of an age, twenty-four.”

  Whistler and Aces were taking advantage of our lack of attention to them, and were absolutely ambling; even the wagon was yards ahead of us.

  “That’s the truth,” Sawyer said. “I try sometimes to imagine my brothers aging along with me, what they would be like now. Sometimes I dream of them as though they were yet living. And Jere is usually quiet, letting Eth do all the talking even still.”

  “Sawyer,” I said softly, needing to speak his name, aching for the grief beneath his quiet words. I admitted, “At least you can see them that way. Sometimes I am unable to exactly recall my brothers’ faces, or hear their voices. And it scares me so. I haven’t so much as a picture of either of them, outside of my memories.”

  “I know that fear well,” he told me. “I do. But they are in your heart, always. No one may take that from you.”

  To distract myself from the quite desperate urge to smooth my fingers over the top of his right forearm, so close to me as we rode along, I changed the subject abruptly and said, “I am trying to imagine you with red hair. Or as a little boy.”

  He laughed a little at that, humor again in his voice. I could sense his eyes upon me, though I was too flustered to return his gaze. He asked, “Do you remember Lake Royal, back home?”

  I nodded at once. “Yes, we crossed the bridge there on the way to Suttonville.”

 
“That clear water glinting under the sun, blue and green, both,” he remembered.

  “Yes, it was a beautiful lake,” I said, picturing its vibrant colors.

  “It was the most beautiful lake I’ve ever had the privilege of seeing,” he agreed. “Your eyes are the same color, exactly.”

  I ducked my head at once, my face on fire, though I could sense his smile.

  Yards ahead on the wagon, Malcolm peered back at us. He lifted his hat brim and called, “What you two doing back there? Holdin’ hands?”

  Sawyer called back calmly, “We’re just chatting, kid. Did you think we’d be racing the horses all morning?”

  “I would!” he returned. “You two ain’t having any fun.”

  Aces nickered and tossed his head, side-stepping to the right, as though in agreement with his master. I tugged him back into line.

  “You want to run, don’t you, boy?” I asked him, patting his shiny brown neck, firm beneath my hand. “Maybe later.”

  “Look there, Lorie,” Sawyer said, and pointed west before rising in his stirrups to call, “Boyd, look to the left!”

  The lone buffalo that we’d seen along the river had joined his herd. In the distance dozens of the creatures roamed complacently. I stood in my stirrups to get a better look, as Angus circled around and flanked us.

  “Boyd!” Malcolm was visibly jittering with excitement, standing now, while Boyd halted the wagon and stood as well. Malcolm begged, “Boyd! Can we shoot one, can we?”

  Boyd knocked his hat back on his forehead, his dark hair sweating and disheveled, and regarded the herd with his eyes shining, too. He said, “I’d need a far bigger caliber, boy, to go after one a-them things. But I can’t say I wouldn’t mind riding over there for a closer look.”

  “Me too, I’ll join you!” Malcolm pleaded.

  I looked at Angus, certain he would disagree with this idea. As I’d known he would, Gus said, “I’d not, Boyd, they’re unpredictable creatures, at best.”

  “Aw, Gus,” Boyd wheedled, and I giggled at his expression; he looked exactly like Malcolm.