Knight in a Black Hat

by Judith B. Glad

  I wish I may, I wish I might... "Tarnation!" He pushed himself upright, knowing he wasn't going to sleep. Not until he had some answers. He pulled his britches on, slipped a shirt over his shoulders. The sand under his tent still held the day's warmth. His bare feet made not a sound as he walked to Nellie's tent.

  "Nellie?" he whispered, scratching lightly on the canvas tent wall. "Nellie, are you still awake?"

  The flap opened. "Yes, come in."

  He ducked through the narrow slit, went to his knees just inside. She was a pale shape just before him, a shape that moved and flung itself into his arms.

  "Oh, Malachi, I knew you couldn't be so cold, so hard. It was all an act, wasn't it? An act so Uncle wouldn't see how much you car-- how happy you were to have me back."

  Her hair smelled of honeysuckle, her soft body molded itself to his. Malachi did not resist as her weight pulled him to the bedroll.

  How could he resist? This was where he wanted to be, never mind that no good could come of it.

  Nellie clung to him, as she'd longed to do all through the days of her captivity. Even after she'd understood why Gertie had taken her, she had not given up wanting Malachi. Wanting to be with him, wanting to be held safely in his arms.

  His penis was hard against her belly, but he made no move to possess her. His body was stiff, whether with suppressed desire or with anger she had no idea. For a long time he held her closely, stroking her hair. Nellie felt herself drifting, with no sense of danger, no dread of waking up alone and lost.

  "Tell me," he murmured, pulling her back from the edges of a dream. "Tell me everything."

  She supposed she owed him the truth, however unlikely he was to believe it. "I woke when someone put a leather bag over my head. Before I could do much more than flounder about, my hands were tied. Then I was dragged for a long ways...."

  He didn't move while she spoke, never stopped the soothing motion of his fingers through her hair. Nellie wished she could see his face. Did he believe her?

  "Even though Gertie was kind to me, I could only think of escape at first. She wouldn't talk about bringing me back, so the first time she left me alone, I..." She told him of her terrifying journey through the pitch-dark tunnel. Of her defeated return. "After I made my way back inside the cave, I wept for a long time. Then I took myself in hand and snooped. I hoped I'd find something that could help me escape the next time I found the courage to try."

  She paused, remembering her surprise at the contents of the several packs and bundles that lined one wall of the cave. "Malachi, she must have been pilfering from every miner who ever came into this valley. She had clothing, pots and pans, tobacco, two small flasks of alcohol, and any number of personal items, notebooks, diaries, photographs... Oh, I don't know what else! It was pathetic, and a little frightening. I couldn't help but wonder how many times she'd come into our camp, to snoop and steal.

  "I was more than ever determined to get away, but by morning I'd decided that the best way was to use her belief that I was her daughter to convince her to let me go."

  When had her trickery turned to honest affection? Sometime over the next few days, she had realized that there was no harm in Gertie, in spite of her prickly bearing. Nellie's own craving for a family--since Aunt Temperance's death she and Uncle had merely co-existed in the same house, without mutual respect or affection--had certainly contributed to her feelings about Gertie. So had pity, for she could think of nothing more tragic than the life the old woman had led since her husband's disappearance.

  "I was afraid that she'd be angry when I said that I...I wanted to come back to you." I'll die without him! was what she'd said, but no need to tell him the exact words. It would lay a great obligation on him, one he might not be prepared to fulfil.

  His arms tightened around her, but he remained silent.

  "She didn't respond, and I was sure I'd angered her. Then one morning--I supposed it was morning, for I had no sense of day or night in the cave--she told me she was taking me back." Nellie skimmed quickly over their adventures since leaving the cave. "I tried to get her to come into camp with me, but she refused. But I want to take her out with us when we go. I must! She can't be left alone in this wilderness any longer."

  "I met an old mountain man once, up in Montana," he said, as if her plea had meant nothing to him. "He'd come to town for his annual spree, he said. One thing he said stuck in my mind. 'Folks all about, they rub on me like grit on glass. Long as I never stay in town more'n a day, I be fine, but any longer and I go crazy mad.' Are you sure your Gertie isn't like that? You said at first you thought she was crazy. Maybe she is"

  "Perhaps she is, but I must try. I've grown to love her, you see."

  "Just think about it, that's all I ask."

  She had. She would. But right now, she had something far more immediate to consider. "When I was so frightened, before I knew...before I realized Gertie meant me no harm, my greatest regret was that we had wasted so much time." She pushed back and looked into his face, but there was not enough light for her to see his expression, let alone to read anything in his eyes.

  Well then, never mind. He's here in my bed, with neither of us fully clothed. I might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. She took a deep breath.

  "I want you, Malachi Breedlove. Will you love me tonight?"

  When he didn't respond, Nellie's heart all but stopped. He's going to refuse!

  "Ah, Nellie," he said, at last, "you know there's no good can come of this."

  Chapter Twenty-four

  His hands left off stroking her hair and slid down her arms. He caught her hands, lifted them to his mouth, where he kissed each fingertip. "But God save me, I can't resist you."

  The heat from his kisses swept up her arm, warming her whole self, replacing the emptiness that had held her in its icy grasp since Gertie had stolen her from her tent. For the moment she was content to be held, to be kissed. Her need was not so much for passion as for tenderness, not so much for reassurance as for contentment. In his arms, Nellie felt as if she belonged, a notion that had been all but missing from her life since her parent's death.

  "You say nothing good will come of this, Malachi Breedlove, but I tell you that you're wrong. Anything that makes a human being feel less alone in the world is a good thing. " She gasped as his teeth closed lightly on the bare skin of her throat. The small pain was quickly soothed when his tongue licked it away.

  Although she found it increasingly difficult to string two coherent thoughts together, Nellie did her best. "You fascinated me from the first, even when you infuriated me. You...ahhhh!" His mouth closed over the peak of her breast. When he suckled, she felt as if he was drawing her very soul into himself.

  Nellie gave herself up to sensation. Philosophy could wait.

  Each touch, each whisper went clear to the center of her being. They might have been in another time, another place, for all the awareness she had of anything but him. She floated, she drifted...

  She soared. Malachi's touch was gentle. It was fierce. His mouth was scalding, his breath chilling on her sweat-dampened skin. When he lifted her above him, she saw his ardent expression, saw the glow of passion in his face, as if he were lighted from within. Their bodies were pale phantoms in the pitch black of her tent, yet she saw how his mobile lips widened in a loving smile, how his blue eyes were hot, how his face tightened in a rictus of pain when he at last filled her with his seed.

  In that priceless moment, she knew that he loved her.

  In the next, her own climax overcame her and she thought of nothing but the sublime joy they shared.

  Even if tomorrow brought back his coldness and his control, she knew that tonight she had touched his soul. As he had touched hers.

  Their breathing slowed while she snuggled against him, and their skin cooled in a small draft from the unfastened tent flap. When she shivered, he pulled the blanket over them. His arm, under her shoulders tightened, and he moved his head enough that he could kiss her, a ligh
t, sweet touch of his lips to her brow. Nellie wanted to lift her head to return the kiss, but it was so heavy and her neck was so weak.

  "I should go," he murmured, "before I fall asleep."

  "Must you?" she said, slipping an arm across his middle. "This feels so good."

  But he unwrapped himself, from her and from her bed. When he sat up, his back was to her. "Nellie, I told you that nothing good can come of this. I meant it. Come the end of the summer, we'll go back to where I'm Malachi Breedlove, shootist and--sooner or later--target. You'll be a respected botanist, with fame and maybe even fortune ahead of you."

  She sat up and crawled around so she could see him--see his face as a pale oval, at least. "You don't have to be a target. I was thinking, while I was with Gertie." She was excited now, because he'd given her the perfect opening to propound the scheme she had spent so many hours inventing. "There's no reason why you have to stay in the West, is there? Come back East with me. Back where not every man carries a gun."

  Hitching herself onto her knees, she laid one hand on each of his shoulders and leaned forward, so that her face was so close to his he could feel her breath. "Malachi, it's a shame that an intelligent, able man like you should have to make a living guiding tourists. Why back in Ohio, you could be--"

  "A fish out of water," he finished for her. Gently he moved her aside so he could reach his britches. "I turned my back on the East when the War was over, Nellie, and I'm not going back. There's nothing for me there, no home, no kin I'm willing to claim. No work, for I have few skills save those of a gunman and a guide."

  "But--"

  "But nothing," he said, pulling his shirt on. "When summer ends, so will...this." He made an uncertain, all-inclusive gesture around the tent.

  "So," she said, "you don't intend to reject me out of hand? You'll be my...my lover until the summer ends?"

  Put that way, it did sound heartless and mean. "Would you rather end it tonight?" As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he knew how much he wanted her to say no.

  "Would you?" she countered.

  Knowing himself for a craven, Malachi shook his head. "I should, but I can't." He cupped her face between trembling hands. "Nellie Sanders, I can't promise you a future with me, but I can pledge my heart for as long as we have together. Will you accept that?"

  "I think you're a fool, Malachi Breedlove. We could have a lifetime together, but you're willing to settle for a summer."

  "A lifetime with me might not last much longer than that."

  "You are the most fatalistic man!" Throwing both arms around his neck, she hugged him tightly. "But if I can have the rest of the summer, it will give me time to change your mind. I accept."

  Without giving him a chance to say a word, she kissed him, a bold, devouring, open-mouthed kiss that brought him to full readiness again.

  Hours later, when Willard called him to stand watch, he untangled himself from her clinging arms and groped for his clothing. "Coming," he replied, wondering if he would be able to keep his eyes open until dawn.

  * * * * *

  Nellie woke well after dawn. Outside the tent she heard the angry squawk of a camp-robber, the big gray jay that feared no human being. Then a murmur of men's voices, raised in anger. Uncle's strident tones were unmistakable.

  Her first impulse was to dress quickly and rush to make peace, as she so often had, back in Ohio. Then she paused, blouse half-buttoned. None of these men need my feeble protection. Not even Beckett. I do believe he's developing a backbone. She relaxed back onto her bedroll, half-dressed, and closed her eyes. How could Malachi be so alert and active after a night like they had just shared. She felt drained, languorous, replete. If she were to lie here all day, reliving the night in her memory , she would be perfectly content.

  She drowsed. Until Uncle called from outside her tent, "Nellie! Come here! Immediately!"

  Struggling from the sweet dream of Malachi's arms to the cold reality of a stuffy tent, Nellie felt almost as if her limbs were caught in clinging spiderweb. Her eyelids were sticky, her mouth dry, her body aching.

  "Nellie! Did you hear me?"

  "Yes, Uncle, I heard. Just a moment." She struggled upright, wiping matter from her eyes. A beam of sunlight on the floor told her that the sun was high in the sky. I can't believe I slept this late! As quickly as her strangely awkward body would move, she finished dressing. Her hair was a rats' nest and she brutally forced her ivory comb through its matted strands. At last it was smooth enough that she could braid it, and knot the braid at her nape. Then she discovered that her hairpins were not in the pouch where they belonged. She tore a narrow strip from the tattered skirt lying on top of her pack and tied the end of the braid. Uncle disapproved of such informality, but today she simply didn't care.

  He called thrice more before she emerged.

  "It's about time! I declare, Nellie, you are next to useless. Lying about half the day, when you knew I had tasks for you." He gestured her toward his tent. "The first thing you'll do is transcribe my notes from yesterday, then I want you to update the map, putting my new collection sites on it. You know how I like it. And after that, you'll need to make sure I have enough dry blotters to take with me tomorrow. I'll want all the presses, since we'll be out for two or three days."

  Her stomach growled, reminding Nellie that she had eaten next to nothing for supper, and had missed breakfast.

  "I'd like to keep one, Uncle. I saw some plants yesterday--"

  "You'll not be doing any more collecting. This latest start of yours has shown how irresponsible you are. You know that I only brought you with me this summer because of our relationship. Well, now I must set such sentimental considerations aside and treat you like the incompetent you are."

  "But Uncle--"

  "Enough! You have work to do." He stalked off toward the common tent. Nellie stared after him, unable to believe what he had said.

  Incompetent? I'll show you incompetent! Why you couldn't press a plant if your life depended on it, and if it weren't for my editing your notes, they'd be incomprehensible. She would not obey him this time. The balloon plants were worth study, and she would study them, no matter what her uncle said.

  Fortunately the call to dinner came less than an hour later. Otherwise she might have eaten Uncle's notes.

  She filled her plate and retreated to the tent. The skin of her face still felt stretched and tight from exposure to the sun, and she didn't want to risk more. Whenever the white patches of skin burned, they swelled, as if the blood vessels and subcutaneous tissue were sunburned as well. Although the family doctor back home had said that was not possible, she was convinced she knew her body better than he did. Until she had a moment to dig out a bonnet, she would stay out of sunlight as much as possible.

  The men's voices were indistinct, with only an occasional word or phrase making sense. She gathered that Uncle was telling the others what he wanted to do, and they were telling him why he couldn't.

  Or shouldn't. She heard Mr. Willard say, "God damn it, Perfessor, if you want to get yourself kilt, you go right ahead. Ol' Ephraim, he's always ready to take on a fool."

  Old Ephraim?

  "Nonsense, man," Uncle said, his voice almost a shout, "those bears are terrified of humans. Didn't you see that one run away from us the other day? Bring your rifle. If one decides to be foolish, you can simply shoot him."

  Malachi's voice cut into the argument. "There will be no collecting along the river unless we can be sure it's safe. You'll just have to be patient, Dr. Kremer."

  Uncle argued. She couldn't hear his words, but she could imagine their content. Nellie smiled to herself, and was immediately ashamed. Uncle was a scientist, and like many scientists, he was inclined to ignore anything that did not relate directly to the achievement of his goals. He would have never achieved his present eminence if he had been easily turned aside from his objectives.

  She waited until the argument had died down before joining the others at the fire pit. Malachi look
ed up and smiled at her, but said nothing. He and Mr. Willard were studying Uncle's map, drawing imaginary lines with their fingers and speaking softly. Uncle watched them, his mouth tight. She set her plate and utensils in the washpan with the others, then went back to her tasks. If she hurried, she would get the notes transcribed early enough that she would have time to wash her clothing.

  Uncle returned to his tent a while later. "Aren't you finished yet?" he demanded, when he saw Nellie still working on his notes.

  "Almost," she said, squinting at a word. Was that Artemisia or Anthemis? Sometimes Uncle's writing required great imagination to comprehend.

  "Well, when you are, I want you to get that map done. I've decided to go up to the head of the valley for a few days. There are tributaries of the river that emerge from wide ravines, all with different aspects. I suspect that the plant assemblages in them are quite varied, since insolation would vary considerably."

  Privately she suspected that elevation had far more to do with what plants he would find than angle and duration of direct sunlight, but she merely nodded. I'll have to do my wash after supper, I guess.

  If he was going clear up to the head of the valley--no great distance, but too far to travel there and back in one day--she would have some freedom to do her own exploration. She could always improvise a press from the blotters he left behind. I must get back to that glade where Gertie showed me the in-between balloon plants. What a clever insight. I hadn't seen the resemblance. Perhaps, if they're a new species... Another unintelligible word halted her daydreams and she went back to the task of translating chicken scratches into erudite prose.

  Only later, as she was putting the finishing touches on Uncle's map, did she wonder who would make up his party. Surely Malachi would not agree to leave her alone in camp with Tom Ernst. While she might be competent to care for him, she was certainly not qualified to watch over the livestock.