So Wide the Sky

by Elizabeth Grayson

  She turned her gaze to the wide dark sky, to the round, ripe moon and the spattering of stars. To its height and breadth and freedom. To its promise of a better day tomorrow.

  She turned slowly back to the house, where Meggie should be washing up for bed and where Drew might, for this one evening, have relented and read his daughter a story. To where she needed to be.

  Once she crossed that threshold she'd be caught again in things she could not change, but Cass made the only choice she could. She climbed the steps and went inside.

  * * *

  Hunter prowled along the river in the direction of the bridge, past tepees glowing in the dark, past clusters of braves sitting around their campfires smoking pipes, past the telegraph office, where an endless stream of messages clattered down the talking wire. He found a place in the shadows directly across from the sutler's store and watched for his chance to slip inside.

  He knew now that Tyler Jessup was the one who'd sent word to the Sioux about the wagon train. But Hunter needed proof before he could go to Ben McGarrity or clear Cassandra's name. If that evidence existed, it was in the sutler's store. In the trading post itself, in the storeroom behind it where Jessup slept, or in the "gaming room" where Fort Carr's perpetual poker game was just getting started. Judging from the men he'd seen headed inside, two muleteers, an infantry corporal, and a drifter were about to be fleeced by Grenville and Lloyd, Fort Carr's resident cardsharps.

  Once Hunter was sure the game had begun, he eased inside. The darkened front room was ripe with the smell of Virginia hams, briny pickles, horse liniment, and new cloth. He crouched low, moving along beneath the level of the counters and tables where Jessup displayed his goods.

  Hunter decided to look first for Jessup's business records and found a big, clothbound ledger lying open at the counter at the back. He took it and hunkered down on the floor behind the counter, studying its pages by the light spilling out of the gaming room.

  The entries marched down the page in perfect formation, profits and losses and expenditures. Goods ordered, received, and distributed. Credit extended and repaid. To Hunter's untutored eye, everything appeared just as it should be.

  Hunter put the ledger back. Jessup might be a scoundrel and a spy, but he kept good records. He'd just bet there was a second ledger around somewhere, here or in back.

  A burst of masculine laughter and the jingle of money changing hands reminded Hunter how close discovery was.

  To start his search, he felt his way along the shelves beneath the counter. He discovered boxes of nails and cans of paint, bolts of cloth and packets of seeds, a box of three-dozen toothbrushes and several ladies' hat-forms. He nearly set off a mousetrap baited with a sticky cheese.

  He had almost reached the wall when he encountered what felt like a metal-banded strongbox. Hunter pulled it silently toward him and inched his way to the head of the aisle, where the light was better. It was heavy, made of wood, with studwork on every side. It was very sturdy, very imposing—and with a lock a child could pick. He flicked it open with the blade of his knife.

  Several wads of greenbacks were tucked inside. He had to move a sack of coins to reach the ledger at the bottom. Hunter had a feeling that the records in this book were going to cast a different light on Jessup's enterprises.

  But before Hunter had a chance to open the ledger, Tyler Jessup strode into the trading post and turned down the aisle behind the counter.

  Balancing a stack of cigar boxes in one hand and a felling ax in the other, Jessup saw Hunter and slammed to a stop.

  "What are you doing there, In'jun?" he demanded. "You stealing from me?"

  "Just looking for something to read."

  "And you thought you'd find my ledgers interesting?"

  "Fascinating," Hunter answered. "And I think this second volume is going to be even better than the first. I think it's going to show you've been carrying on unauthorized trade with the hostiles. I think it will show you've been selling them powder and shot—and maybe even rifles."

  "Is that what you think?"

  Hunter came slowly to his feet with the ledger in hand. "I think somewhere in here, I'm going to find proof that you're the one who told the Sioux about the rifles. And I'll bet a year's army pay that's not the only information you've sold them."

  Jessup shifted the cigar boxes onto the counter beside him. "Everyone seems to think it's Reynolds's squaw who did that," the sutler hedged. "Like as not she was sent to the fort to spy on us. Who knows what else she's passed along?"

  I know, Hunter thought.

  "Besides, half-breed," Jessup went on, wrapping both hands around the handle of the ax, "without proof, who'd believe you? And you're not taking that ledger anywhere."

  Jessup swung the axe and Hunter jumped back.

  The blade whistled past his chest and slammed into the counter to Hunter's right. Fragments of wood flew in all directions.

  Jessup worked the ax head free and stalked Hunter down the narrow aisle. Hunter came up short, with the wall against his back.

  Jessup smiled knowing he had Hunter cornered. He raised his ax.

  Hunter vaulted the counter and struck out for the door.

  Jessup bolted for it, too, and reached it a step ahead of Hunter. He stood poised with the ax cocked over his shoulder.

  Hunter grabbed for something to defend himself. A garden shovel came under his hand. He tossed the ledger aside and wrapped his fingers around the shovel's handle.

  Hunter and Jessup jockeyed for position.

  Sounds from the poker table quieted. "Jessup?" one of the men called out. "What the hell is going on out there?"

  Jessup ignored the question and feinted left. Hunter raised the shovel to block the blow. The ax and iron shovel blade clanged together, spraying sparks.

  The sutler shuffled back, sidestepped a pyramid of cans, and swung the ax as if he were felling a tree.

  Hunter dodged out of the way and brought his shovel around, slamming Jessup across the shoulders and back. The sutler dropped like a rock and lay still.

  "Jessup?" one of the gamblers called out. "You all right out there, Jessup?"

  Hunter rolled the sutler over, trying to assess his injuries. The man had to be all right. He needed Jessup alive to clear Cass's name.

  As Hunter felt for a pulse in the man's throat, Jessup twisted beneath him. He grabbed the knife at Hunter's waist and jerked it from its sheath. He drove the blade up toward Hunter's chest.

  Hunter dodged to the left, but the blade scraped a fiery path along his ribs. In spite of the pain, he tangled his hands in Jessup's clothes and jerked him sideways. They rolled across the wooden floor, kicking and twisting, grappling for the knife. A table went down. Cans bounced and spun in all directions.

  Jessup thrust to his knees and drove the knife toward Hunter's chest. Hunter squirmed away, though the point snagged in the muscle below his collarbone. Pain seared down his arm. He hissed and twisted sideways.

  He shoved with all his strength and rolled over Jessup, twisting the blade between their bodies. Jessup's hand slipped off the knife handle as the blade swooped in a downward arc with every bit of Hunter's strength behind it. The blade plunged through the sutler's muscle and bone. Blood welled warm over Hunter's hands. The big man shuddered and lay still.

  Hunter hung above him, panting, cursing, dizzy with effort, shivering with regret. He crouched over Jessup, angry with himself. He hadn't meant to kill the bastard. He wanted Jessup alive. He needed the sutler's confession.

  And then he realized what he'd done. He'd killed a white man. Lone Hunter Jalbert—an Arikara Indian—had taken Jessup's life. It wouldn't matter that he'd done it in self-defense, or that he'd been the army's trusted scout. It wouldn't even matter that he could prove Jessup had betrayed the troopers on the munitions train. What mattered was that Hunter was an Indian.

  He jerked the knife from the sutler's chest and pushed to his feet. Not three yards away one of the cardsharps from the poker game stood wa
ving a pepperbox pistol at his head.

  "Now just you hold on there, Indian!" Lloyd shouted.

  Grenville and one of the muleteers hovered at Lloyd's back, reluctant reinforcements.

  Hunter glanced from Jessup to the gamblers. If he waited for them to call the sentries he was as good as dead.

  "I—I swear I'll shoot!" Lloyd threatened in a quaking voice.

  Hunter knew a bluff when he saw one. And even if Lloyd wasn't bluffing, it didn't matter much. Hunter bolted for the door.

  Someone had left a horse tied outside. He gathered up the reins, sprang into the saddle, and kicked the animal toward the river.

  The gamblers stumbled out of the trading post a dozen steps behind him. "Shoot him!" they shouted to the sentries on the bridge. "Shoot him!"

  Hunter swept past the guards before they could collect themselves. The horse's hooves drummed across the layers of wooden decking as rifle fire blossomed behind him. The guards at the north end of the bridge ran to cut him off, but Hunter rode them down. They fired after him, but as fast as he was traveling, it was a waste of lead.

  Hunter galloped as far as the first rise and pulled up to look back at the fort. He'd destroyed his life tonight. Destroyed any chance he might have had to clear Cass's name. Destroyed any hope for a future with her. He could never go back.

  If he wanted to live, he needed to head for Montana. Ride so deep into the mountains that only the coyotes could find him. Yet as long as Cass was at Fort Carr, he couldn't leave. He couldn't go because he was afraid for her, because he loved her. Because he couldn't imagine building a life in those distant mountains without her. He had to stay. And when Cass needed him, he would find a way to help her.

  Chapter 19

  A polished silver sun beat out of a lowering sky, casting a harsh, stark light across the landscape and turning the Platte River to a ribbon of quicksilver. It soaked up the shadows, drained the dimension from the buildings, and leached the life from people's faces. Clouds like dirty batting rolled up in the west, promising rain that never came.

  Cass stepped out onto the porch of the cabin, hoping to catch a breath of breeze. She couldn't seem to get enough air in the August heat. She couldn't swallow for the knot always lodged in her throat, or lie down to rest without the walls closing in on her. Whenever she could she fled onto the porch.

  Today, while Meggie was taking her nap, Cass had brought her sewing outside to stitch on the dress she was making for the little girl. She settled on the bench and stared up at the tattered bit of sky that hung above the fort. Just being able to see it calmed her, made it easier to breathe. But it also left her hungering for changing colors, bellowing wind, and racing clouds. Only Hunter had ever been willing to give her the sky, and Hunter was gone.

  She balled the fabric of Meggie's dress in her fists, remembering how Drew had burst into the kitchen that night two weeks before.

  "I knew we were wrong to trust that Indian," he announced, bristling with news.

  Cass looked up from where she had been wiping the wide pine table. She could see the malice in Drew's smile, smell his almost feral satisfaction. Her stomach turned inside out.

  "It's your friend, Jalbert," he said, as if he were testing her. "He killed the sutler."

  "Hunter killed Jessup?" Cass breathed. Her fingers tightened around the cloth, deepening the pool of water on the tabletop. She had been with Hunter not much more than an hour before.

  "What—what happened?" she stammered.

  Drew sauntered toward her. "They say Jalbert was stealing from the trading post, and Jessup caught him. He knifed Jessup to get away," Drew went on. "The Indian bastard killed him in front of witnesses."

  Cass had seen the warrior in Hunter Jalbert. If he had killed someone, he had done it honorably and effectively—and only if he'd had no choice.

  "Hunter wouldn't steal," she answered almost reflexively.

  Drew moved in closer. "All Indians steal."

  Cass staggered under the scope of that condemnation. All Indians—as if the nations and the tribes and the clans were a single entity. As if instead of seeing the human face, what Drew saw was a paper silhouette.

  What did Drew see when he looked at her?

  But Cass knew. He didn't see his Cassie anymore. She had become someone else. Someone Drew couldn't bring into focus, someone he would never in this life recognize or understand.

  She straightened slowly, thinking back to her first encounter with Jessup and the incident with the embroidery scissors. That first mistake had marked her—in Drew's eyes, in the eyes of everyone here. In some odd way it had declared what she was even more clearly, even more decisively than the mark on her face. It showed them how she thought, what she felt—what she was beneath her skin. Now it was time to confirm what both she and Drew had been trying so hard to deny.

  "While I may have stolen," she told him softly, "you'd be wrong to judge all Indians by me."

  Cass brushed past him, knowing now that she'd declared herself there was no going back.

  The days since Hunter left had passed for Drew and her in stewing heat and icy silences. He stayed away from the cabin as much as he could. She toiled from dawn until dark and stared at the fort's small swatch of sky, as if it was all she had.

  But for now at least, she had Meggie.

  As August crawled by, Cass treasured every question Meggie asked, every snuggle they shared, every scrap of foolery and laughter. She tried not to cling to the little girl and very nearly succeeded. On nights when she couldn't sleep, Cass paced to the foot of Meggie's bed and drank in the sight of that soft, sweet face and those delicate hands. Cass remembered how they'd felt against her skin as they'd traced the lines of her tattoo. She remembered how they'd looked tucked into Hunter's larger ones the day he'd showed Meggie how to fish.

  Sometimes she allowed herself to wonder where Hunter was. Far away from here, she hoped. Off to his land in Montana. His tepee had disappeared from the fort's encampment, and she hoped that meant he was beginning a new life somewhere safe.

  When Cass came back out onto the porch after checking on Meggie, she noticed that a light wind had begun to ruffle the parade ground's yellowed grass. Halfway down its length she saw Lila Wilcox lumbering toward soapsuds row. She was loaded down with wash baskets and walking as if her bowed back hurt. A few weeks before, Cass would have hurried out to help her, but not today. Not ever again.

  Cass thought back to the last visit she and Meggie had paid to Will and Lila's cabin.

  Lila had been elbow deep in soapsuds when Meggie ran toward her, waving a bouquet of wildflowers. Lila had wiped her hands and hugged the little girl.

  "Cassie says Josh went away like Mama did," Meggie began. "She says you're feeling sad, so I brought you flowers."

  Lila took the wilting bouquet. "I thank you for your kindness, Meggie girl."

  "Cassie says mothers come back from Heaven to watch over their children, so maybe Josh will come back to watch over you and Sergeant Wilcox."

  "Maybe he will," Lila said, and blinked back tears.

  Cass instinctively reached out to comfort her. "Lila, I want you to know how sorry—"

  The older woman jerked away and glared at her. "I told you what I thought the day the wagons came, and I haven't changed my mind."

  "Lila, please just let me explain."

  "I can't think how explaining would matter much."

  Then, ignoring Cass, the older woman squatted down and spoke to Meggie. "I like the flowers, Meggie-girl. And I appreciate you saying you're sorry about Josh. But I'm busy here, and I really need to get back to work." She gave the child a shove in Cassie's direction.

  "Lila, please," Cass tried again.

  "No," Lila said, and went back to her washtubs.

  Cass bent to her sewing again, swallowing down the memory. She'd valued Lila's friendship and Sally McGarrity's kindnesses, and she'd lost it all.

  At the sound of footsteps thumping along the path, Cass raised her head. Drew wa
s striding toward her, his shoulders stiff and a scowl twisting his handsome face. Her stomach flip-flopped at the sight of him. He never came back to the cabin in the middle of the day unless something was wrong.

  He stomped up the steps. "I have a report to write," he offered by way of explanation.

  She stuffed her sewing into her basket and pushed to her feet. "Would you like some lemonade?" she asked, following him into the house.

  Drew didn't answer, just jerked to a stop two steps inside the door.

  "Meggie!" he yelled at her. "What the devil are you doing with my things?"

  Cass stepped around him to see what Meggie had gotten into now. She was perched on the seat of Drew's desk chair, with a paintbrush in one hand and Drew's shaving mirror in the other.

  "I painted my face," she announced, and turned her head so they could see.

  The child had copied the design of Cassie's tattoo with surprising accuracy—that circle with a star burst radiating from the center. Cass raised one hand to her own cheek, flushed with overwhelming tenderness.

  Beside Cass, Drew was quivering like an aspen in a gale.

  Reading their expressions, Meggie tried to explain. "I—I just wanted to look pretty—like Cassie."

  Drew burst across the room and jerked Meggie out of his chair. "Goddamnit, girl!" he bellowed, shaking her. "Why would you want a filthy tattoo? You're not an Indian. You're white!"

  Meggie shrieked and stiffened in her father's grasp.

  Cass flew at him. "Don't you hurt her!" she spit. "Don't you dare hurt her. Meggie doesn't understand what she's done. She doesn't understand how much you hate the Indians. How much you hate me!"

  Drew released his hold on Meggie and turned on Cass.

  The child scrambled back and slumped against the wall. She was tousled from her nap, barefoot, half-dressed, and terrified. Cass wanted to go to her, but knew she had to face Drew first.

  "Oh, Meggie understood perfectly well about redskins until you came here," he told her. "She understood everything until you told her your wild stories and your heathen superstitions. She was my sweet, obedient girl until you turned her into a savage."