He gave a weary sigh and said, “Yes, Rhawnie. I believe you.”
“I wouldn’t lie,” I insisted. “Only a fool—would tell lies—on her deathbed.”
So why was I lying like a Gypsy, with my death only a few short hours away? I’m not sure. I really did want to make things better between them if I died. And if I lived, Seth wouldn’t resent me so much. He wouldn’t have to torment himself with thoughts of me in bed with his brother.
I had more severe pain and more vomiting. Seth forced me to take more medicine and then just a bit of water. I was drenched with sweat, and when I looked down at my hands and arms I saw that they were blue and shrivelled, like a washerwoman’s. And my thirst, my thirst was so great that I would have given my soul for water. I had visions of myself floating in a vast freshwater lake. I opened my mouth and let the blue waters of the lake flow into my body, down my throat and into my stomach and out into my dried up tissues, which absorbed the water like a balloon fills with air, and grew plump and firm again. I was drinking, drinking, as much as I could hold.
Every time I vomited, Seth made me take more foul medicine, then a taste of water to wash it down. But after my stomach warmed the liquid I was sick again. The miserable business went on and on.
“When—will it end?” I asked him.
His arms felt so strong and steady under my shrinking frame. His face was kind, full of care and concern. It was so beautiful to me, with its straggling mustache and bristling beard—he didn’t like to shave on the trail—and its silly bumps and scars. I wanted to cry.
“It will be over when the vomiting stops,” he said.
‘Then you’ll be able to rest quietly.”
“Or when—I die.” He didn’t say anything to that. I knew there was a very real chance that I wouldn’t live to see another morning. “I’m not afraid—to die,” I told him honestly. “I haven’t been afraid of Death—since London. Remember? You saved me then, too. Remember, Seth?”
“I remember.”
“I was—very young, then. Eager to prove—how brave I was. It was—foolish. Life is too precious—to throw away. But I do not fear Death. He is an—old friend now. You know him—”
“We’ve met,” he said. I was sick again. He held my head and then wiped my face and mouth. “Many times, in fact. But I’ve always beaten him up to now. And so will you.”
“Perhaps, but if not—will you forgive me? I cannot die—without your forgiveness. Please, Seth. Please.” I reached for his hand. He held mine tightly.
“I forgive you,” he said softly, “for all the wrong you have done in your life. And I ask you to forgive me.” He paused, and I remembered all the things I held against him: different cities, different sins. Paris. London. Vienna. “Do you forgive me, Rhawnie?”
I closed my eyes. Could I really forgive all that? I had to, if I wanted my death to be peaceful and happy. “Yes,” I whispered. “I do forgive.” His hand moved on mine, caressing, reassuring. “One thing more. One more— truth,” I said. “I love you. Always. And forever. You are—part of me. And I—love.”
My heart swelled and tears mingled with the sweat on my cheeks. I hoped he wouldn’t see my crying. I felt something warm and dry brush my forehead. A kiss.
The spasms of pain and vomiting continued throughout the night. Then I entered a new phase of the disease. I had great difficulty breathing and I felt cold, very cold, particularly in my hands and feet. Seth told me later that the dehydration caused by the sickness causes the blood to thicken, and that impairs circulation. But I didn't know any of that then. I knew only that I was sicker than I had ever been in my life, and I felt so wretched that I would have welcomed Death as a release from the discomfort and pain.
The rain stopped. Seth moved me outdoors, into the sunshine. He built a bigger fire and he chaffed my limbs to encourage movement of blood. He forced me to drink, even though I was barely conscious and I choked and gagged on the water. And when night came again he lay beside me to give me his warmth. That was only fair; I had done the same for him.
Another dawn broke. I awoke to find myself nestled in the curve of his arm. He was sleeping soundly. I didn’t want to wake him. But after a while I felt him stir and I said, “May I have some water, Seth? I’m terribly thirsty.”
He cradled me in the crook of his right arm and held the cup for me to drink. This time he let me have as much water as I wanted, as much as I could hold.
I looked down at myself. I was utterly emaciated. Skin and bones! I looked like a pale, plucked chicken and I must have weighed only ninety pounds.
“Is it over?” I asked him.
“It’s over,” he said. His voice held a note of triumph, as if he alone was responsible for my recovery. And he probably was. He had a right to be proud of himself. “You’re alive, Gypsy. To torment me and irritate me and dazzle me with your beauty and your stupid lies.” He grinned at me.
You’re going to have to drink a lot to make up for what you lost. I’d like to get some salt into you—”
“Caviar,” I suggested weakly. “In the bottom of my valise. I have two jars left.”
“You would!” he laughed.
My recovery was remarkably speedy. Two days later I felt as though I had never been sick. I was still weak, and I suspected that my endurance on the trail wouldn’t be what it was, but I felt like myself again. I was alive!
“Camphor, Canabis, and caviar,” Seth said with a shrug. “Never fails.”
“But you,” I asked worriedly. “Will you get it, too?”
“I don’t know. Maybe not. Cholera is strange that way. Very often the ones that are closest to the victims are spared, never get it at all, while it strikes a group of people miles away who have had no contact with a human carrier. It seems to travel on the wind.”
“Like scandal,” I sighed. “Well, I hope you don’t get it.”
“Why, don’t you want to nurse me again?” he asked, giving me a devilish grin that made my heart bump. “We’ve each had a turn now; I think we should call it quits with medicine. No more accidents, no more illness. Fair?”
“Fair.” I looked at him, standing hatless under the sun, his shirt open to the waist and his sleeves rolled up over his brawny forearms. The sun brought out warm red lights in his hair. Funny, I had always thought that his hair was black as pitch.
I wanted to ask him why he had abandoned medicine, if it was because of Julie. But according to Steven he gave it up before that debacle, before he went to fight the Mexicans in Texas. He would have been a fine doctor. But I knew if I said anything I’d only get a flippant, evasive reply, so why bother? I contented myself with musing on the question in my spare time—when I wasn’t preoccupied with disliking him for one reason or another.
“I’ve loaded the horses and we’re ready to ride,” he announced one morning four days after my illness had abated. “We’ll go as far as we can until we get tired. No false bravery. If you feel like you want to rest, tell me. I won’t hold it against you. We don’t have much farther to go anyway. We’re sure to catch up with that wagon train at Fort Laramie.”
Neither of us mentioned that touching scene at my death bed. After all, I hadn’t died, and I decided that all those forgivenesses didn’t count. But I looked into my heart as we rode along—with Seth’s protracted silences and the monotonous scenery along the Platte there wasn’t much else to do—and I discovered that I really had forgiven him for most things; for everything, in fact, except his desertion of me and our baby in Vienna. I didn’t care what demons drove him, what ghosts haunted him: that had been a wretched and heartless thing to do. Well, I sighed inwardly, maybe by the next time I’m dying I’ll be able to forgive Vienna, too. If he hasn’t added a batch of new sins to his roster by that time.
The trail rose steadily. We left the Great Plains. The long waving grasses of the prairie became short, tough shoots that could survive the blistering heat of the summer and the parching dryness. We crossed the South Platte River and passed C
ourt House Rock, aptly named and looking like it could easily accommodate a thousand dusty bureaucrats. We saw Chimney Rock, which rose out of the flat, dry plain and shot up forty feet in the air. And we rode under the wind-eroded faces of the rocks known as Scott’s Bluffs.
As Seth predicted, we caught up with the Murray train at Fort Laramie. As I saw the band of wagons clustered around the thick adobe walls of the fort, I panicked a little. I felt frightened and nervous. This was the end of our quest, the end of my time with Seth. It was over. I would have to go back to New Orleans now, and face Steven with the truth about us. The prospect unsettled me. I felt that I wasn’t ready. I was a coward.
Seth and I found Murray, who was sitting in the shadow of the fort’s walls with his guide, a hirsute mountain man named Blythe. It was noon, and even in March the sun on those plains was hot and devitalizing.
We exchanged greetings. The men never took their eyes from me.
“I’m looking for a couple named Anderson,” Seth told them. “They might be using a different name, but I’m sure they’re with you.” He started to describe them but Murray stopped him.
“They was here, but they ain’t here no more,” the man said, spitting a wad of tobacco juice out of the corner of his mouth without even turning his head. His bright eyes never left my face. “Left the train nigh on two weeks ago, warn’t it, Blythe?”
Blythe, too smitten to speak, drooled assent.
“What do you mean, they left you?” Seth said. “Who did they leave with? Another train? Why? Which way were they headed?”
“One question at a time, young fellow,” Murray said slowly. “Young varmint never could see eye to eye with any of us. Most argumentative, stubborn fellow I ever met up with. Ain’t never seen the other side of the Mississippi and he kept tryin’ to tell me I was takin’ the wrong trails. He had this book with him, you know. By that fellow Hanson. Hanson's Guide, warn’t it, Blythe? Told all about easier passes through the Rockies, how you kin git to California in two weeks less time. Now, boy, you and I both know that book is a load of—you’ll pardon me, Ma’am—buffalo pies. That varmint Hanson ain’t never even seen the Rockies! But I couldn’t talk sense into him, and neither could Blythe here, who knows these mountains like the backs of his very own hands.”
Blythe acknowledged the compliment with a grunt. “So this Anderson took his wagon and lit off by himself. Said that if any of us tried to follow him he’d blow a hole through ’em. I say if a man’s that eager to play the fool, it ain’t my business to stop him.”
“What about his wife?” I said eagerly. “Is she—was she all right?”
Murray shrugged. “I guess so, Ma’am. We didn’t see too much of her. Stayed in the wagon most of the time, sick-like.”
“Sick?” Seth said quickly.
“Mornin’ sick. Green sick.” I thought I detected a faint blush under Murray’s abundant facial hair. “She was real porely for a while, I heard. Too bad. Purty little thing, Miz Anderson. Real purty.”
Blythe grunted enthusiastically. Seth turned on his heel and stalked away.
“It’s all right,” I assured him. “Don’t worry. Women have babies every day. She can’t be very far along, only a few months. We could even get her home before the baby is born, don’t you think?”
“Be quiet,” he said. “I have to think. They won’t make any time in the mountains, not with the wagon they’re hauling. We shouldn’t have any trouble finding them. We’ll stay here a couple of days, to rest the horses and pick up some supplies.”
It felt good to wear a dress again. The soldiers at the fort made much of me, and I had a good time visiting with the other travellers and gold seekers and pioneers who were staying there. I caught up on my laundry, replenished my supply of brandy, and even won a few dollars at cards. The captain of the fort invited Seth and me to use his room and his bed. Seth declined and told me to go ahead. Our relationship probably baffled that poor captain, but I didn’t feel that I wanted to explain. On our last night at Fort Laramie the members of the Murray train gave a square dance and invited Seth and me.
I had a wonderful time. I learned new dances and new songs and I even got a little drunk on some powerful applejack. Seth didn’t dance, but he watched me closely from the sidelines.
After a particularly exhausting reel, I joined him. He was sitting on top of a large trunk and when I came over he shifted to make room for me.
“You picked that dance up quickly,” he said.
“It’s not hard,” I said breathlessly, fanning myself with my hand. “Not so different from Gypsy dances.”
“Only the men and women dance together,” he said mischievously. Then, “Tell me how you met Steve.”
“You mean your brother?” I said stupidly.
“The same.”
“Why, in Munich. Your mother told you. Steven helped me to escape when the revolution broke out.”
“The revolution that you caused,” he said playfully.
I tossed my head. “Some would say that. But it’s not true. While I was in Bavaria I made some very powerful enemies. One Baron in particular. He used me to start that revolution himself, just so he could throw my dear Ludwig out and put his own man in. The whole affair was a disgrace. Von Zander was a greedy, opportunistic fiend. Utterly ruthless!”
“Sounds like a man after my own heart,” Seth grinned. “And Steve got you out in the nick of time, eh? How? I want to know the gory details.”
I gave him a fairly accurate account of our escape and our journey to Le Havre, expurgating, of course, the story of our night of love at the Chateau Lesconflair. That tale, I was sure, would never leak out. Steven was far too polite and discreet.
“So you see,” I concluded, “your brother is not the dry stick you think him. He is brave and resourceful. A man of action!”
“That’s not the kind of action that interests me right now,” he said. “Do you mean to tell me that you spent over a week in each other’s company and you didn’t seduce him?”
“Is that so strange?” I said stiffly. “You and I have been together for two months—longer!—and I haven’t tried to seduce you.”
“Why not?” he wanted to know.
I flushed. “I really don’t want to discuss it. I—I’m engaged to Steven, remember?”
“I remember. But you love me. Always—and forever.” His voice was caressing, soft. He took my hand. I pulled away quickly, as if he had burned me. “Don’t you remember saying that?”
“Oh—I—I was sick and delirious!” I answered quickly. “I was delirious! I lied!”
“You weren’t delirious. You thought you were dying. You were telling only truths that night.”
“I think it is very mean of you to hold that against me!” I said tartly. I hopped off the trunk and rejoined the dancers. I felt angry with him, but even angrier with myself. The minute he had started talking about love and seduction the little imps inside me started racing around, making trouble.
We left the fort early the next morning. I thought Seth looked particularly handsome as he rode along. He sat his horse so well, so easily. The muscles of his broad back and shoulders swelled under his coat, his thighs bulged inside his breeches, and they looked firm and hard on the saddle. His beard was neatly trimmed, and he narrowed his blue eyes slightly against the glare of the sun.
A vast herd of buffalo crossed the prairie in front of us, and we had to wait for them to pass. They moved in thick clouds of dust, and even from miles away we could hear the low thunder of their hooves on the hard ground. The rains had stopped long ago, and the grass under our horses’ feet was dry and crunchy.
“Do you want buffalo steak for dinner?” Seth asked.
“They are so big,” I said. “So much waste!”
“We could take a couple of days out to dry some meat. There aren’t any more herds west of the Rockies. Food may be scarce. I hope we don’t have to go that far.” He gave an amused grunt. “I haven’t killed a buffalo in years.”
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“Leave them,” I said. “It would be dangerous to get too close.”
“Easy enough to drop a straggler with a rifle. Last time all I had was a bow and arrow.”
“How brave you were!” I marvelled.
“Foolhardy,” he grinned. “Nearly got myself killed.”
That night when I was talking to Fire he sneaked up behind me. I was finished with the horses for the night but I didn’t feel like joining him at the campfire yet. And I liked telling the horses my problems, in Romany, of course. They always listened politely and never talked back.
I didn’t even hear him approach. He could be as quiet as an Indian when he wanted to be. The bastard. He slid his arm around my waist and cradled my breast in his hand. He kissed the nape of my neck and sweet pain consumed me, flowing from the top of my head to the soles of my feet. After a minute of that, he turned me around and held me close, then he kissed me slowly and deeply. Shocks of pleasure shook me to my core. Only by the greatest act of will did I stop myself from giving in to him then and there. Instead I kept my head and remained unresponsive and stiff.
He released me and stepped back slightly, still holding my arms. I wiped my lips with my fingertips and said, “If that’s an invitation to something better, I will have to refuse.”
“Why?” he asked softly. “Do you have somebody better waiting in the wings tonight? You’re just trying to stay faithful to your betrothed, is that it? Admirable, darling. I take note, and I’m duly impressed. But Steve is a couple of thousand miles away. And we’re here. Now. And I want you.”
“I don’t trust you,” I said with perfect truth. “And I don’t trust myself. We were finished with each other a long time ago. It’s better if we stay finished. I do have some pride, you know. A Gypsy’s pride doesn’t mean much to you. But it’s important to me, Seth. It’s not easy for me to keep my self-respect when you start manipulating me like this. It’s not fair. You tried to subjugate me by harsh treatment and harsh words, and you failed. And so now you’ll change your strategy. You’ll dominate me by desire, because you know that way you’re assured of success. I don’t want to be hurt by you any more. Please, Seth, just leave me alone.”
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