No one could possibly know that this sentiment was nearly the exact one the man called Dixon had spoken to me in Missouri, only minutes before he killed Angus; I had not even told Sawyer. Nausea rippled through my center. Not for the first time, I despised that men found me beautiful, utterly loathed the unwanted attention this had garnered time and again. And, just like Dixon, there was a faintly insulting tinge to Yancy’s voice that contradicted what should have been a compliment.
“Perhaps you should keep such opinions to yourself,” Sawyer said quietly, without overt challenge, but even I shivered at his tone.
The song ended, Boyd laughing and swiping his sweating face with the back of one wrist. He had been playing wholeheartedly, oblivious to anything but the flow of notes from his strings, and most everyone was clapping.
Yancy held Sawyer’s gaze in the relative silence that followed the absence of music and I tensed, but then Yancy looked over at Boyd. I could hardly believe the next words he dared utter, again with an air of calculated joviality that did not quite succeed in masking the venom in his tone, “How about ‘Dixie,’ son? Or perhaps a little ‘Bonnie Blue?’ You surely know how to fiddle that one.”
Boyd’s black eyebrows drew together; I sensed more than saw Charley give his neighbor a hard look.
Yancy tried for a smile, gesturing with the whiskey. He asked, “Hasn’t anyone a goddamn sense of humor?”
The edge of tension was softened by the boys, who were unaware of any undertones whatsoever, all them still roughhousing. Boyd’s eyes met Sawyer’s, the two of them exchanging a message, before Boyd took up the bow and began a Tennessee waltz. I could not tell if this was somehow an unspoken jab at Yancy’s provocative comment; I hoped not. The Rawleys had been so kind to us, had welcomed us into their evening of festivities. I would not have that ruined because of a few words spoken by their neighbor. However, I could no longer sit at the fire. I kept my movements unhurried as I rose, bending near Fannie to murmur, “I am to bed. Thank you ever so much for this evening.”
She turned and caught my hands in hers. “You are ever so welcome. Good-night to you, dear Lorie.”
- 7 -
I knew that of course Sawyer would not let me go alone; I counted on it, and paused as he caught up with me in the darkness, well away from the noise and glow of the fire.
“Come with me,” he whispered, taking my hand and leading us to the corral. At first I did not understand, but then he whistled and our horse came walking, her hooves striking the ground with comforting clomps.
“There’s a sweet girl,” Sawyer said to her, as Whistler lifted her nose over the topmost beam and nuzzled him. I climbed upon the bottom rung and hugged her, clinging, breathing her familiar scent. I murmured nonsense to her, letting my cheek rest upon her hide, and at last began to calm.
“I saw you kiss her nose, and embrace her, that second night,” Sawyer said after a time.
I turned to look at him in light as bright as midday, spilling silver-white over us as the moon lifted towards its zenith. I whispered, “You did?”
He nodded. “I intended to brush her and I saw you, already there. You touched her so tenderly, and I wanted so much to take you into my arms it was near physical pain.”
I encircled him with both arms, and said softly, “Gus had told me that afternoon how much you loved your horse. I didn’t fully understand at the time, but I sought her out, I hugged her close, simply because she was yours.”
“My Lorie,” he whispered. “Mo mhuirnín milis.”
“I am sorry I left the fire just now, but—” I said, though Sawyer cut short my explanation.
“You needn’t apologize,” he told me, almost severe in his sincerity. “You needn’t apologize to me for anything. Please know this.”
I confessed, “I despise…that men look at me in a certain way. I feel near ill with guilt.”
“No,” he said at once. “You’ve nothing to be guilty for. Perhaps I should have bitten my tongue as Yancy seems the sort to welcome a fight. I was on edge, as it was.”
“I despise most all men,” I admitted.
“I can understand that,” he said, and gently kissed my closed eyelids, one after the other. He whispered, “Darlin’, never be ashamed of what you feel,” and I opened my eyes to the intensity of his.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
“Not ever,” he repeated.
“Might we look in the trunk before we sleep?” I asked, as its contents also comforted me.
Sawyer knew exactly what I meant, and nodded before leading us to our tent. I lit a lantern to carry inside after fetching our bedding, creating for us a cozy, insular space, while Sawyer found his trunk in the back of the wagon and then joined me, kneeling to unbuckle the strap. I traced my fingers over his surname, carved upon the leather. As he opened the lid, I lifted the small, framed pictures of his brothers, taken upon their enlistment into the Army of Tennessee in late 1862; I had been correct in my guess at which twin was Ethan and which Jeremiah.
“I imagine them so well from your stories,” I said, studying their silent faces in the candle’s warm, wavering glint.
Sawyer stretched comfortably at my side, propping on an elbow, while I sat with legs folded beneath me; I had kicked off my boots. He said, “Not a day goes by when I don’t think of them, somehow. I never considered a life without them as part of it. I reckoned we would always live close and our children would play together. That Daddy would set on the porch and hold his grandchildren on his knee, and Mama would spoil the daylights out of them.”
“Even if you and Boyd hadn’t told me so, I’d guess that Ethan was mischievous,” I said, heart aching at the scene he described—that which should have been, but never would.
Sawyer laughed a little, reaching to trace a fingertip over the image of his brother. He said, “Aw, Eth got me into a fair amount of trouble. He even…we even…”
His deep voice trailed away and I saw that he was staring up at the canvas above us, back into time. His gaze came back to me and he said softly, “Scarce a week before Ethan, Jere, and I left home as recruits, I accompanied Eth…” He paused, before whispering, “Boyd and Jere were the only ones who ever knew.”
“Knew what?” I whispered, tracing my fingertips over his cheekbone.
He cupped my knee, stroking with his thumb, and said, “I was nineteen, Eth eighteen. We were about to head to war, and Ethan didn’t want…he didn’t want to die without knowing what it meant to be with a woman.” His eyes held mine steadily, though I could sense his hesitancy to tell me such things and risk my offense. At last he said, “Ethan somehow arranged to call upon a woman from Suttonville, who was widowed. Mary Douglas was her name, and her husband was killed in action the summer of ’sixty-two. Eth had it in mind that he would sweet-talk Mary and then she would…well, that she would let him…”
I blinked and several questions wanted to leap forth, but I restrained these as he continued, somberly, “I rode with Ethan to her house that night. I thought he was plumb crazy, but Mary let us in and was clearly expecting company. Ethan took her hands and kissed them, and I could tell he was smitten with her, more than he’d let on. She had coffee boiling, I remember that. We sat at her table and she asked after our parents, and Jeremiah, as though we’d come to pay a polite social call, when all the while her eyes kept lingering on my brother, speaking far more than her words. Even I could see it.” He paused to sigh. “I had known Mary most of my youth but I’d never noticed how pretty she was, and not terribly much older than us, when it came to it. I sat there mute while she and Ethan spoke, wondering why my brother had even wished for me to accompany him in the first place. Now that I look back, I can understand how lonely Mary must have been, how she longed for company, even ours. I figured that once she understood what Ethan wanted she would throw him out like dishwater. But she was charmed by him, it was obvious, and the next thing I knew, I was riding Whistler home while my brother stayed behind, with Mary.”
; “And they…”
Sawyer nodded before saying somberly, “Even that night I wanted to ask Mary forgiveness for my brother’s brashness, for wishing to use her body in such a fashion, simply to satisfy a curiosity. Ethan and I were not raised that way. Daddy would have skinned us alive. But then, there were nights after we’d left home and lived as soldiers that my brother would speak of her. I believe he loved her. After the War, in ’sixty-five, I went to her home, not exactly certain why, perhaps just to see another person who had known my brother, maybe even loved him. But poor Mary had died months past, as it was.” He lifted his face and the concern in his eyes leaped into mine. “Should I have told you this?”
“Yes,” I said firmly, stroking the side of his face, letting my fingertips linger. I clarified, “I am not upset. Just as you once told me, there is nothing you could say that would shock, or offend, me. I wish to know everything about you, Sawyer James Davis.”
He rolled from leaning on his elbow and moved swiftly, pinning me beneath him on the bedding, bracing on his forearms and studying me at close range, his fair hair falling over one shoulder and his eyes so full of love that my heart beat wildly. I held his shirt, curling my fingers into the material of it, feeling his heart thrusting just as strongly as we studied one another.
He murmured, “You blinked first,” and kissed my nose, then my eyes, one at a time, closing them momentarily; he said quietly, “For me, there haven’t been many women, no matter how Malcolm teases me about…”
“About women running their fingers through your hair?” I supplied. Malcolm was known to poke fun at Sawyer for this comment, which he had supposedly once made.
Sawyer grinned, admitting, “I told Malcolm that, mostly in jest, near last Christmas.”
“Well, I aim to run my fingers through it, and often,” I said with a proprietary air, doing so. His grin deepened and he rolled us so that I lay atop him.
You may do anything you like, as long as you’re touching me, he said silently, his eyes taking on heat.
“How gracious of you,” I murmured, and shifted so that I could gently kiss his face, soft little kitten-kisses. We were unable to keep from touching and I considered how different our circumstances would be, in our old lives; the idea of an unmarried man and woman, even two who were promised, sharing a tent, let alone a bed, was so far beyond etiquette that it was unimaginable. Neither of our families would have fathomed allowing such; there would have been absolutely no question. And yet here we lay in this place, far removed from Tennessee and wrapped in one another’s embrace.
Sensing my thoughts, Sawyer said, “Had there been no War, I would have come every evening to your daddy’s house to pay a call, and properly court you. I am able to picture that so well, Lorie, it seems almost within reach.” He caressed my jaws with his fingertips, and his eyes were deep with feeling as he continued, “But I would not wish for things to be different than they are right now. The two of us, here together on the prairie—I feel with my entire being that this is how it was meant to be. If there had been no War, I would have lived out my days in the quiet peace of Suttonville, would probably have married a feather-headed girl like Emily Ingram, and I would have never known what it meant to love a woman the way I love you.”
Tears blurred my vision and a husk impaired my voice as I whispered, “But you would have your family, your brothers…they would all be alive…”
“I loved them all dearly, and I will never stop missing them to the day I die. But this is the only place I am supposed to be,” he said intently, and my tears streaked forth and spilled onto him, as he lay beneath me.
“Sawyer,” I whispered, and moved so that I could hold his head to my breasts. His arms went around my waist and we clung as closely as new leaves drenched with springtime rain. He pressed his mouth to my heart, just above the fullest part of my left breast, kissing me through the fabric of my clothing, before speaking.
“I have lain with other women, I have felt fondness for them, and desire, but never have I come near what I feel for you. I have never been promised to a woman, nor asked for a woman to promise herself to me. Not until you, Lorissa Blake. War changed so many things, caused me to consider that which I would never have dreamed of considering in my old life, and yet I would not ask for that old life to return, even had I the power, because this life led me to you,” he said. Our eyes held fast. The candle encased us in its warm intimacy; the soft light, cast through small holes punched into the sides of the lantern, tinted our skin with a ruddy glow. He whispered, “It is such a weight from my soul, to know that I may speak freely to you, and hide nothing.”
“I will always listen. And I long to tell you everything, in return,” I whispered. I thought of sitting in the warmth of the bathwater in the small border town days ago, of the thoughts that had plagued me. I admitted, “But it is not easy for me.”
“Your heart is beating so fast,” Sawyer whispered, his face resting just there as he held me close. “I will listen to you, to anything you choose to tell me, mo mhuirnín milis, please know this.”
I nodded. I knew he meant this, sincerely, but I imagined all of the secrets I kept so tightly bound within the dark corners of my mind and heart, pictured them as resembling snakes, creatures poised to spring and sink their fangs into the unsuspecting. I would not let Sawyer be savagely bitten in this fashion, not ever.
At last I spoke the foremost of my terrible thoughts.
“I try not to think about what happened the night Sam took me, Sawyer, I try to keep it from my mind, but it comes back. His face comes back to me. I suppose Yancy reminded me a little of Sam, however unfairly,” I said, and shuddered, unable to restrain it.
“Tell me,” he whispered. “And in telling, let it go from you.”
“I…” I faltered, unsure where to begin. I thought of the way I felt just earlier at the fire, as though Lila, the most sought-after whore at Ginny Hossiter’s, was still alive within me. I longed for the ability to rip her forever from my memory, fling her soiled body into a raging fire, reduce her to ash. How could I confess to the man I loved the sheer amount of strangers that had requested Lila’s services, above those of the other whores? How long would she cling to her hateful handhold in my soul? At last, quietly and without drama, I said, “When I lived at Ginny’s, I buried my real self deeply inside. You know that Ginny called me…Lila.” I could barely speak the hated name. “When Sam took me, I felt her coming back inside of me. The way they treated me, as though I was worthless, nothing more than a whore, and would never be anything more.”
Sawyer shifted our position again, so that I was cradled protectively.
I said faintly, “When I found an arrowhead on the grass that morning, it seemed like a sign I must heed. I knew what I had to do with it from the moment I saw it. I thought that even if they killed me after, I would do my best to hurt one of them first.”
Sawyer’s arms were like bands of iron about me. He whispered, “It breaks my heart that you had to consider such a thing. Oh God, that thought will plague me always, knowing that I might have been too late.”
“But there’s a part of me that wanted to kill them, especially Sam, a part of me that found joy in the prospect. I have no regret for harming him,” I confessed. “It seems wrong that I do not.”
“No, it is not wrong,” Sawyer said, decisively. “It’s not wrong to defend yourself. Those bastards that took you deserved everything they had coming to them. I only wish I could have made them suffer instead of killing them so quickly, for hurting you, for intending to kill you.” He asked somberly, “You do not think less of me for wishing this, do you?”
I whispered, “When I heard your voice, when I knew you had come for me, I have never known such relief. Oh, Sawyer…”
“If they had taken you from me, my heart would have shattered apart for good.” He drew a slow breath before he continued quietly, “For years after the War I felt the guilt of what I’d done as a soldier. Those I killed, Lorie, they were
men just like me. They weren’t my enemy. Someone had told them they must fight, just as we’d been ordered, and so we fought. It was an unforgiveable waste of human life.”
He drew a second deep, sighing breath and then said, “Gus helped me to see that. He was so calm, so reasonable. He would come to find me in the Suttonville graveyard where I drank myself into a stupor, night after night, and it was he who convinced me to keep living. He said that those who died perhaps had the easier task, though I didn’t understand what he meant for a long time. Living takes courage. Gus showed me that. Living with what you’ve been through. It’s not an easy task for anyone.” I listened with my whole heart as his quiet words continued. He whispered, “The night Whistler and I rode away from you I thought I would die from the pain of it, but I told myself that you were with Gus, that he would care for you as he’d once cared for me.”
Tears leaked across my face, wetting his shirt.
He whispered, “Your memories are full of pain, but always know I will listen, and understand. You are an incredibly brave woman, Lorie-love, brave and strong. Know that, I would that you know that.”
I kissed his neck and let my lips rest there, and my tears no longer flowed. His words gifted me with a fleeting peace. I whispered, “Thank you. I do know it, deep down.”
He said, “Together we will make new memories, and they will be sweet. Slowly the terrible ones will fade away. I promise you.”
He saw the tenderness in my eyes and smiled softly, sliding his hands along my ribs to anchor around my waist. At the fire, Boyd continued wielding the bow, sweet and haunting.
“Do you wish to go back outside?” I asked, hoping he did not.
“No, I would that you stay in my arms right now,” he said.
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