So Wide the Sky

by Elizabeth Grayson

  "Then if we're done, perhaps Mrs. McGarrity could take Cass home?" Jalbert suggested. "Talking about this can't have been easy for her."

  Sally McGarrity came to her feet. "It's been a rather taxing morning for all of us."

  "Please," Drew spoke up, appalled at the way his voice broke on that single word. "I still don't know what happened to my sister."

  Cassie turned her eyes to his, her face marked with compassion and regret. "We must—speak—of Julia—when—we are—alone."

  The words, carefully enunciated in clear but halting English, stunned them all.

  McGarrity was the first to recover. "By all means," he offered, "use my office."

  Jalbert turned to Cassie, obviously reluctant to leave her. "Do you want me to stay? Do you want me here to explain to Captain Reynolds—"

  "We will—manage," she told him.

  Drew saw the flush rise in Jalbert's face. The mixed-blood didn't like being shut out. Still, Drew was glad Cassandra had chosen not to share their secrets.

  Jalbert followed the major and his lady out the door.

  With a knot in his chest Drew watched them go, wondering if he really was ready to learn what had befallen his Julia.

  * * *

  Cassie's throat tightened as Alain Jalbert and the McGarritys left the confines of the major's office. Talking about her captivity had forced her to remember days when terror clawed her raw, weeks when she'd been forced to submit to a life she had not chosen. She was exhausted by the memories, by the explanations, by a sense of failure. She wanted the telling to be over, but she knew the worst still lay ahead.

  She dreaded exposing the parts of her captivity that dealt with Julia. Those days were too painful, too filled with her own powerlessness and guilt. Yet she could not refuse to tell Drew Reynolds Julia's fate.

  She felt his gaze on her and looked up into the pewter-gray eyes she remembered so well. He sat before her so much harder and grimmer than the boy she'd known. Lines were scored deep around his eyes and mouth. A few silver threads streaked his chestnut hair. Had she changed as much as he had since that day in the canyon?

  "I—I thought—you were—dead," she told him, fumbling for the English words. She needed to hear how he had survived. She needed to buy herself a little time before they talked about Julia.

  "The Kiowa came damned close to killing me," Drew admitted, glancing away. "I crawled under one of the wagons and very nearly burned to death."

  "I could not—watch—" she whispered, "—once they began the—" She made the motion with her hands. "—scalping and—the killing. I saw you fall. I saw you—take an arrow in the back. I thought you..."

  Drew nodded, and silence swelled between them. She began to think that talking about that day was as hard for him as it was for her.

  "It was the smoke from the burning wagons," he finally went on, "that brought a patrol from Fort Union. They were the ones who rescued me. They were the ones who buried our families."

  Her throat closed up and her eyelids burned. She had learned not to cry during those early days with the Kiowa. Indians thought tears were a sign of weakness, and she could not afford for her captors to think she was weak. Weak like Julia.

  "I am—pleased that someone—buried them."

  She did not tell him that she had imagined vultures circling above the canyon, gliding down to tear at the mangled remains of the people she'd loved. No one must ever know that was part of the nightmare haunting her.

  "The men from—Fort Union—did they—care for you?"

  Drew gave an uncomfortable shrug. "I was more dead than alive when they found me. I had taken a ball in the leg. It was broken. The arrow cracked a couple of ribs and one of them had put a hole in my lung. And there were burns..."

  She could see the sweat bead up on his brow. He knotted his hands to still their trembling.

  She understood how painful the memories could be. Yet to see Drew respond to that day the way he was shocked her. She had thought a man would be stronger than a woman, that Drew would be stronger than she.

  But then, Drew had suffered as much as she had. They had been so young and fragile and unformed that dusty afternoon when they had lost everyone they cared about—including each other.

  Drew's unexpected vulnerability gave them common ground where the truth Cassandra had to tell might come a little easier.

  "I did recover from my wounds," he continued suddenly, "and all I could think about was riding out and killing Indians."

  "Did you?"

  Drew shook his head. "The commander at Fort Union wouldn't let me. He said he wouldn't waste his men and horses chasing Indians they'd never catch. He wouldn't let me go alone. He kept me confined to the fort so I wouldn't run off. He convinced me that if I wanted to kill Indians, the way to do it was to join the army."

  Cassie nodded.

  "I gave him permission to submit my name to the military academy at West Point, but I didn't want to wait through four years of schooling to go to war. When the appointment came through, the colonel all but threw me on the stage and sent me East. It didn't take me long to realize that fighting Indians as an officer was going to be a whole lot different than fighting them as an enlisted man."

  "Is that why—you came back. To fight Indians?"

  Drew nodded. "I'd have come back sooner, but the war—" He must have seen the confusion in her face. "Do you know what has been happening back East while you've been here?"

  "Gray Falcon said—the army was—ordering soldiers away from the forts—to do battle—with each other. That was why—it was a good time—for the Cheyenne to fight..."

  ... the invasion of the whites.

  It was only here and now that she realized how much her view of the world had changed during her years with the Indians. Turmoil rose in her chest like smoke from a smoldering fire. She felt raw inside, ashamed and confused.

  Cassie had known there were enemies who threatened the hunting ground and the welfare of the Cheyenne nation. The warriors talked of little else. She knew those enemies were white like her. Yet when Gray Falcon had ridden out, she had helped him prepare for battle. Being who and what she was, how could she have done that?

  Drew was so caught up in explaining the war to her that he didn't seem to notice how ragged her breathing had suddenly become. He didn't seem to see the shame burning in her face.

  As he talked, Cassandra fought to gain control of her emotions. She couldn't think about this now. Not while she was with Drew, not when there were other things they must discuss.

  "...after I got my commission from West Point," Drew was saying, "I married Laura. Her father had been my cartography instructor. She and I—"

  "Laura?" Cassandra started as if awaked from a daze. "Are—are you—married?"

  "I'm widowed," he answered. "My wife died on our way out west."

  "Widowed," she echoed.

  It seemed so strange that Drew's life had gone on without her, that he had been wounded and resurrected, that he'd gone to school back East, fought in a war, and gotten married. Once he had been at the center of her world. How could all of this have happened and her not know?

  She felt as if there were a hole in her life, years ripped from the fabric of who she was. She had the past and she had now. The only thread that spanned the gulf between them was Drew, and now even he had become somebody else.

  "Do you have children?" Cassie asked, dreading the answer.

  "I have a daughter."

  Cassandra nodded, her throat too tight to speak. Once, she had dreamed of being the mother to Drew's children, of holding his gray-eyed babies to her breast. She knew now that she would never mother any child, much less one of Drew Reynolds's children.

  "Oh, Drew," she breathed. "How old—"

  "Meggie's four."

  He didn't say any more about the girl. Perhaps that was because he didn't want her to know about his Meggie, that by knowing she might somehow taint his daughter. It was a realization that twisted inside her lik
e the blade of a knife.

  "But then," Drew went on, "there is time enough for us to talk about this later. Now I want you to tell me about Julia."

  The moment was upon her, and Cassie felt less prepared to tell him about Julia now than she had been when the others left.

  He sat beside her, tense and grave, hunched as if he were husbanding his strength against the pain. But it was Cassie who would determine how much pain Drew Reynolds would bear, and how much she would take upon herself.

  She began to speak because she had no choice. "I—told you—that when I saw Julia at the summer—gathering she was"—Cassandra motioned to the shape of her own face—"pale and thin. The next year—she was very sick. She—" Pantomiming, Cassie breathed fast and low.

  "Panted?" Drew asked and Cassandra nodded.

  "—when she went for water or wood. Fevers came on her in the night. She—coughed, and there was—blood. It was the wasting disease."

  "Consumption."

  "Yes."

  Drew stared past her as if he were trying to conjure up Julia before his eyes. Cassie hoped he was seeing his little sister as she was that last morning at the campsite, with her reddish hair shining in the sun and her voice filled with laughter. She didn't want Drew to imagine Julia the way Cass had seen her last, with empty eyes and skin so translucent you could see her life's blood seeping away.

  "Did you care for her?" She could hear the ragged edge to Drew's deep voice. "Did anyone care for her?"

  She looked deep into his eyes. "The woman Julia—belonged to was very—kind. She took plants and made—medicines for Julia—to drink. She—bathed Julia with water—when the fever was high. She let us talk in English when I came to—visit in her lodge."

  Drew's mouth thinned before he asked the question. "Did Julia die?"

  She reached across and took his hand. It was a gesture completely foreign to the way she'd been living. The Cheyenne were warm and giving people, but they did not touch to offer encouragement or comfort. The impulse harkened back to her childhood, to the closeness she and Drew had shared before the Kiowa raid had destroyed their world.

  She curled her fingers around his palm. It was callused and warm. With the contact, Drew seemed to become more real to her, more vivid and intense. He became more the boy she'd admired, more the man she'd once loved.

  "Yes," she whispered.

  He brought his opposite hand to cover hers. "Were you with her?"

  "No." She waited, tense and trembling, wondering if he would ask more about his sister's death. Wondering if she would lie to him or tell him the truth.

  Drew let out his breath, and when she looked up he'd closed his eyes. "Then may God grant peace to our Julia's soul."

  At his words, the fear went out of her.

  They sat silent for a few moments more, and Cassandra could sense that Drew's grief for Julia was already seasoned by time and tears. He had given up on his sister long ago.

  Cassandra was weary, too. Worn by the day and the memories and the terrible confusion. The weariness made her want to lie down with her back to the earth and stare at the sky. Made her want to feel the wind blow over her as if she were dust.

  Then Drew's hands tightened on hers, and she felt the tide of strength and fortitude rise up between them—renewing him, renewing her.

  "Thank you for telling me the truth," he whispered. "I know talking about this is difficult. But I had to hear about Julia from you."

  Cassie inclined her head in answer and curled her fingers more tightly around his hand.

  * * *

  Hunter watched Cassandra and Drew through the half-open door. He hadn't meant to watch them. He hadn't planned it. He'd looked up from the map spread out on the table in the front room of the headquarters building and seen them framed in the narrow opening.

  They had asked to be alone so they could speak of the captain's sister, and in spite of understanding the reason for the request, Hunter resented being shut out. He'd liked Cassandra's dependence on him, enjoyed the intimacy of giving voice to her words, the responsibility of filtering this strange and confusing world for her. He'd liked knowing she trusted him to do that. It had made him feel connected to her in a way he'd rarely felt connected to anyone.

  Now she'd made it clear that there were some things too personal for him to know. Yet he knew. By watching the dip of her head and the way Reynolds looked at her, Hunter could surmise at least a few of Cassandra Morgan's secrets.

  Cass sat with her shoulders bowed toward the captain, her profile framed by the brim of the deep blue bonnet. She talked quietly, the gravity of the words and the difficulty of expressing herself in English drawing her brows together. As she spoke, the harsh, proud lines of Drew Reynolds's face crumpled, going vulnerable, revealing a depth of love and pain Hunter had never imagined the man could feel.

  Reynolds's sister must have died while she and Cassandra were captives. Hunter saw the captain's hands knot in futility and frustration as Cassie spoke. His lips compressed, and he looked away.

  At length the captain bent closer, his words soft, intense, demanding.

  When he was done Cass lowered her lashes, drew a long, unsteady breath, and raised her gaze to his. Hunter could see how she was struggling with the words, read the frustration in her gestures as she explained. What she was telling him was either a difficult truth or a desperate lie.

  Then, as if to make what she was saying easier to bear, Cassandra reached across and touched the captain's hand. It was a simple gesture, one of comfort and compassion, one appropriate to a conversation as deep and serious as this. But at that contact, something inside Hunter shattered.

  With that clasp of hands, with the brush of Reynolds's flesh and hers, Hunter knew he'd lost his chance for something he was only beginning to realize he wanted—a lasting bond with this strange and beautiful woman.

  When they had completed negotiations with Standing Pine the day before, Cassandra Morgan had stepped into the no-man's-land between whites and Indians, the world Hunter had inhabited all his life. Over the years he'd come to appreciate its subtle dichotomy, the advantages and the compromises, the freedoms and the injustices. But until Cass stepped inside, Hunter had never realized how isolated he had become. Until she came, he never dreamed his life could be more than what it was.

  He had never thought to find a woman whose life had taken on that same frustrating duality. He had never considered seeking a woman like her to be his companion, but now he felt as if Cassandra Morgan had been sent to him to care for and protect.

  He was the only one who would ever understand the bigotry and suspicion she would face by being marked, the insults she would bear, the inequities she would live with every day. Only he would know how to ease her way and comfort her. By rights, Cassandra Morgan should have turned to him.

  Yet Hunter could see that already she was reaching out to Drew Reynolds, to the life and society that once had been hers by birth. Hunter had seen enough of the captain's motives and prejudices to doubt that Reynolds would give much of himself to a woman like her. But perhaps with his help, with his sponsorship, Cass could make a place for herself in Reynolds's world. It would be a perilous place, a tenuous place. A place where survival would have to pass for happiness.

  And if Cass failed...

  Hunter didn't want to think about what it would be like for Cassandra then. He didn't want to think about what it would be like if she turned to him as second-best. And no matter what happened, Cass Morgan could never want or need to be with him as much as Hunter suddenly wanted and needed her.

  Weary all the way down to his bones, Hunter turned from the crinkled map, from the scene taking place behind that half-open door, and made his way outside.

  He stood on the wooden porch while the world went on around him. Mule skinners cursed their teams. Soldiers on fatigue duty hammered new shingles onto the roof of the barracks across the way. A few friendly Indians wandered up toward the sutler's trading post. Hunter stood in the midst of th
e activity and the people and the noise and had never felt more alone.

  Chapter 7

  Drew couldn't help thinking how good it was to be with Cassie even after all this time. How natural it seemed to help her with her shawl and offer his arm. How right it felt to ask if she wanted to meet his daughter.

  "What—happened to your—wife, Drew?" Cassie asked as they made their way out of the headquarters building and onto the path that skirted the parade ground.

  "She died of a fever on the way out west."

  "How long—" she wanted to know. "How long ago was that?"

  Drew had to think back. The last months seemed jumbled, compacted somehow. They had left Fort Leavenworth the first of October—too late, as it turned out, to miss the first of the season's howling blizzards. They'd been caught on the flats west of Scott's Bluff and hadn't known whether to batten themselves down to withstand the storm or forge ahead to Fort Laramie. They'd decided to press on, and with Laura and Meggie lying bundled in layers of blankets and buffalo skins in one of the army ambulances, they'd fought their way through the freezing wind and pelting snow. Meggie had done fine in spite of the hardship, but by the time they reached the fort, Laura was coughing and feverish. The following morning the doctor diagnosed her ailment as pneumonia, and by midnight she was dead. It had happened too fast for either Drew or Meggie to comprehend.

  "Laura passed on in November," Drew finally answered.

  "I am—sorry—for your loss," Cassie said, fumbling with the English words. "How is your—little girl getting on—without her mother?"

  Drew felt a nudge of conscience that he hadn't been more attentive to his daughter's needs. "Well enough, I suppose."

  Their walk had taken them across the compound to the bake house, one of the two sandstone buildings in the fort. After Lila Wilcox's tiny cabin, it was Meggie's favorite place.

  Though a chill, damp wind that promised snow had pursued them all the way, when they opened the door the bakery breathed summer in their faces. The air inside was heavy, ripe and yeasty with the smell of baking bread.

  Meggie was wrapped in an apron from her neck to her toes and up to her elbows in bread dough. As soon as she caught sight of him, she abandoned her work.