Whitefeather's Woman

by Deborah Hale

  John wanted to shut his ears to Ruth’s words, but he couldn’t. He’d entertained those same misgivings, until the power of his attraction for Jane had hog-tied his reason.

  “Besides,” his sister reminded him, “you have responsibilities to our people. I worry that if you’re a good chief to them, you won’t have anything left for Jane, and if you’re a good husband to her, you won’t have anything left for the band.”

  “Will you stop chewing on me if I admit you’re right?” John paced the short length of his cabin like a wild creature caught in a trap of his own making. “I was crazy last night. Jane and I are wrong for each other in more ways than I can name. Even if she was a pretty little Cheyenne girl and I tugged on her dress, our families would object to the match.”

  Ruth lowered herself onto one of the chairs, letting Barton balance on her knees. “I used to think our people’s way of courtship was too formal. Too strict.” She ran a hand over the baby’s dark hair. “Now that I have a child of my own, I see things differently. A man and a woman feel that pull to each other and it makes them simple-minded. How can they tell if it has the makings of a good, strong match that will last for life?”

  She gazed up at John with the same anxious fondness she lavished on her son. “That’s my biggest worry for you, John. I’m afraid after this first glow of craziness wears off, Jane will find life here too hard for her and she’ll run away from you. Like she ran from that Endicott man in Boston.”

  John flinched. Maybe he’d rather take his chances with a frying pan, after all. If he’d been certain Jane felt about him the way he felt about her, the fear of her leaving him would not have loomed so great. But if she’d only bartered her body in exchange for his protection…

  Shaking her head, Ruth continued. “Better if she did leave outright than stay and hurt you the way Caleb’s first wife hurt him. I feel so bad for putting you both in the way of temptation like this. You just never paid much attention to other women, and you’ve always been so wise and steady, I never thought of you taking a notion of Jane for yourself.”

  “This isn’t your fault, Ruth.” It was his fault—all of it. Jane had asked him to show her the ways of mating, but she hadn’t put a gun to his head. “I’m a grown man, even if I have been acting more like a calf-eyed boy lately. I made my choices, and even if some of them weren’t very wise, I’m going to stand by them. I’ll do everything I can to take care of Jane and make her happy.”

  Jamming on his hat, he fled outdoors, hoping it might ease the sense of confinement strangling him every time he thought about his doomed future with Jane.

  To himself he muttered, “I hope it’ll be enough.”

  The vast spaces of the Big Sky were suddenly closing in on her and she couldn’t get enough air. Jane backed away from John’s cabin, wishing she could scour her memory clean of the words she’d just heard.

  “…throwing all those suitors at her.”

  “…get her ready for Amos Carlton to court.”

  “…the only honorable thing to do…”

  “Jane and I are wrong for each other in more ways than I can name.”

  The faster she gulped in air, the more her head spun and the higher her panic mounted. She’d felt like this the evening Dr. Gray had come to dinner.

  Dr. Gray! A hiccup of mirthless laughter shuddered out of Jane. What a perfect idiot she’d been, not to have seen how desperately the Kincaids had been trying to find her a husband. Desperate enough to recruit their resident horse trainer to domesticate the troublesome mare. Well, they’d all gotten a whole lot more than they’d bargained for!

  After she and John had finally managed to pry themselves apart that morning, Jane had tried to sneak into the ranch house to wash and change clothes. Instead, she’d found Ruth waiting in her bedroom.

  “I worried when you were so late getting up this morning. But it looks as if you haven’t been to bed at all.”

  Glancing down at the wreck of her lacy pink dress, Jane blushed to a similar shade. “It’s all right, Ruth. I’ll just wash and change and get to work.”

  “I’m not anxious about you missing work. I’m anxious about you, Jane. Do you want to tell me where you spent the night?” Ruth didn’t look any more inclined to accept evasions than her formidable aunt, Walks on Ice.

  Suddenly Jane felt ashamed of what she’d done. Asking, practically begging, a man to teach her the mysterious ways of married folk, when they weren’t married and he didn’t even love her. Why, the ladies of the Boston Temperance Society would keel over in a dead swoon if they knew!

  Now all she wanted was a few private minutes to make herself appear respectable again. “May-maybe you should ask your brother about that.”

  “My…brother?”

  Why did Ruth sound so shocked? Hadn’t she seen the attraction between them? She’d been the one pushing them to attend Brock and Abby’s party together. The one who’d urged Jane to go off riding with John and visiting Sweetgrass. She’d even lectured Jane on all the reasons a woman in Montana needed a husband.

  Backing up to the window, Jane glanced out at the foreman’s cabin. The sight heartened her a little. Would it be her home soon? Or might Caleb offer her and John a place in the big house?

  “I’m sure if you talk to John, he can explain everything.”

  Ruth sighed. “I hope he can, because I’ve got plenty of questions that want answers.”

  She’d left Jane to change clothes, shutting the door behind her with barely restrained force.

  Wishing she could enjoy a nice long soak in a tub of hot water, or even a brisk dip in the creek, Jane had settled for a quick change of clothes. Then she went looking for Barton.

  Her search put her right outside the foreman’s cabin. She knew John and Ruth would be talking about her, and for a moment, she considered joining the discussion. After all, she was going to be part of the family soon.

  What she overheard sent her stumbling away, dizzy with renewed fear for the future and a pain in her heart as big as the Montana sky. Emery had battered her body and her spirit, but because she hadn’t truly cared for him, he hadn’t been able to inflict any lasting damage on her heart.

  John Whitefeather, with his genuine attraction, kind heart and fierce honor, had hurt her far worse than Emery ever could. Making her love him when he was only doing a favor for his sister. Letting her seduce him when he didn’t love her. Proposing to her simply to satisfy his idea of Cheyenne honor. What distressed Jane most was that she had forged his weapons herself. She had placed them in his hands and bared her heart for his assault.

  Looking back, she realized that Emery’s violence and Mrs. Endicott’s unspoken censure had hurt less than Papa’s long absences and Ches and Mama’s deaths. No wonder writers referred to love as “losing one’s heart.”

  Somehow, Jane managed to calm herself enough to march back up to her bedroom and put on the clothes she’d come to Whitehorn wearing.

  She’d lost her heart to John Whitefeather, but she was going to get it back. And once it was safely in her possession again, she’d never surrender it to anyone.

  It was suppertime before John finally surrendered to hunger and weariness.

  Though he shrank from admitting it to himself, he’d been doing his level best to avoid Jane. Part of him longed to see her again. Feast his eyes on her beauty. Talk to her and touch her as only a husband had the right to do.

  And yet he worried what he would say to her in the bald light of day, with the ordinary routine of the ranch going on around them. What if the magic of their night together had vanished like the early morning mist?

  Without friendly shadows to shroud his eyes, Jane might spy the regret and the uncertainty that brooded in his heart, ready to ambush those defenseless pioneers—happiness and contentment. Strange how one slender waif of a woman could turn a Cheyenne warrior into such a yelping coward.

  He began to eat supper with Ruth, Caleb and Barton, eyeing Jane’s empty chair for a while until it
became obvious she wouldn’t be joining them.

  “Where’s Jane?” He nodded toward the place Ruth had set for her, struggling to keep his tone casual.

  Ruth shrugged. “I haven’t seen her since this morning, hestatanemo. I knocked on her door to tell her supper was ready, but she didn’t answer. Maybe you’d better go up and talk to her.”

  Swallowing the mouthful of food that had kept him from answering sooner, Caleb shook his head. “Did you not know? Jane’s gone. Came to me and asked if I’d give her a lift into town. Under the circumstances, I figured it was the best thing.”

  Seeing the looks on the faces of his wife and brother-in-law, he added, “I paid her handsomely for the time she’s been with us. Most handsomely, considering she got room and board and even clothes from us. What are you looking at me like that for?”

  John rose abruptly and strode to the door. He felt as if someone had pulled a plug in each of his hips, allowing his internal organs to seep down into his feet. “Where are you going?” Caleb barked. “The last time I talked to you, I got the impression you never wanted to lay eyes on Jane Harris again. I reckoned I was doing you a favor getting her away from here without a big fuss.”

  How could he fault his brother-in-law’s perception? John asked himself as he grabbed his hat. If he hadn’t been so quick to swallow all the lies in Emery Endicott’s letter, Caleb would never have spirited Jane away. And if John hadn’t been so yellow-bellied scared to risk a daylight encounter with Jane, he’d have missed her long before this.

  He wasn’t sure what frightened him worse, the notion of Jane alone and defenseless in Whitehorn, or the thought of her boarding a train bound far away from him.

  “Caleb…” He swung the door open. “The next time you want to do me a favor, would you ask me first?”

  Dashing to the stable, he threw a saddle and harness on Hawkwing with the kind of sloppy haste that would have made him chew out the ranch hands.

  He had just mounted when Caleb appeared at the stable door looking well chastened. “Jane’s not headed out of town, if that’s what you’re worried about. I asked her if she wanted me to drive her into Big Timber to catch the train, but she said to let her off at the hardware store.”

  John curbed a wave of relief that surged through him. “I’d like to check that out for myself, if you don’t mind.”

  Caleb shrugged. “Do what you want, John. You’re a big boy. But on your ride into town, maybe you ought to think about leaving well enough alone. Jane Harris landed on us from out of nowhere, and she’s managed to keep life around here in a bit of commotion ever since. We didn’t ask for her to come, but we tried to treat her decent while she was here. Maybe we’d all be better off if she moved on.”

  “Speak for yourself, Caleb.” John nudged Hawkwing.

  The horse’s hooves tapped across the rough wooden floor of the stable. Once they were outside and pointed down the long lane to the main road, Hawkwing rapidly sped up to a strong, mile-eating gallop.

  Hard as John tried to leave Caleb’s words of warning behind him, they dogged Hawkwing’s hoofprints.

  John had been worried about Jane running off, and sure enough, she was all set to abandon him when life was going along smoothly. That didn’t exactly bode well for their first hard winter, or a bout of illness, or a hundred other hard certainties of Montana life. Maybe he would be better off saying goodbye now than later, when Jane had worked herself so deeply into his heart that he couldn’t dislodge her without cutting himself to pieces.

  But what if the seed he’d sown in Jane bore fruit? Like a low-hanging bough, the thought almost knocked John off his horse.

  Last night, as he’d been rocked by wave after wave of conflicting emotions, he’d deliberately blinded himself to the consequences of what he and Jane were doing. This morning he’d worried only about satisfying Cheyenne honor. A woman’s chastity had high value among his people, whether or not a child resulted from her first mating.

  Though he couldn’t bring himself to regret the most blissful night of his life, John wondered if he was destined to pay a very dear price for that intense but fleeting pleasure.

  When he reached Watson Hardware and asked after Jane, Sam Roland nodded.

  “Pretty little thing.” He cast a nervous glance back to see if his own pretty little wife happened to be within earshot. “Mrs. Kincaid was in here looking over the books this afternoon. She and Miss Harris talked for a while, then they went off in Mrs. Kincaid’s buggy. If Miss Harris comes back, should I tell her you’re looking for her?”

  “No.” John tried to smile to cover his abruptness. “That’s all right. I’ll find her, I’m sure. Thanks for your help, Sam.”

  Dusk was beginning to gather by the time John backtracked out of town to Brock and Abby’s place. The fading light and the odor of sawdust put him in mind of the night he’d danced here with Jane, under the stars. In his imagination, he could hear a faint echo of Harry Talbert’s fiddle crooning “Beautiful Dreamer.”

  His empty arms ached for Jane.

  A dog barked, summoning Brock to the door. “Oh, John, it’s just you. What can I do for you?”

  Caleb’s brother relaxed from his wary stance. John wondered if he was armed. Perhaps Brock Kincaid hadn’t entirely shaken off his exciting, shadowy past, but he seemed well satisfied with his new life. He was clearly a more contented, happier man than the one who’d shown up at the ranch a few months back.

  “Is Jane Harris staying with you folks, by any chance? I’d like to talk to her.”

  Brock sauntered down his front steps, shaking his head as he approached. “She’s not here, John. You’re welcome to check, if you like.”

  “No. If you say she isn’t here, that’s good enough for me.”

  If Jane was taking refuge in this house, Brock might hold him off at gunpoint if necessary, but he wouldn’t lie about it. Dealing with men was so much more straightforward than trying to cipher the contrary riddles of women. Jane wasn’t at the hardware store. She wasn’t at Brock and Abby’s. Where had she gone?

  “Could I talk to your wife for a minute, then? Sam Roland told me she spoke to Jane earlier today.”

  Brock swiped his knuckles back and forth across his chin. “I reckon that’d be all right. I’ll tell you what, John. Abby did ask me if maybe we could hire Miss Harris to help her around the house so she’d be free to supervise the store a little closer. Can’t say I cared for the idea. That gal kinda gives me the creeps, she’s so on edge all the time. Did that widow woman finally show up to work for Ruth and Caleb? Is that why Miss Harris is looking for a new job?”

  “No.” John wondered how much he could safely tell Caleb’s brother. Best to keep his own counsel for the moment, he decided. Considering he didn’t know all the ins and outs of what was going on. If Jane ended up staying in Whitehorn, he didn’t want folks gossiping about her.

  “Mrs. Muldoon should be here before long, though. Maybe Jane thought she ought to get something else lined up.”

  Brock chuckled. “If she wasn’t so dadblained jumpy, she might’ve landed a husband by now and not needed to look for work.”

  “Just between you and me…” John lowered his voice “…Jane’s got good reason to be jumpy, just like you’ve got good reason to be cautious when a stranger rides up to your door at sunset. Once she finds out folks aren’t going to hurt her or make fun of her, she’ll settle down.”

  “I see.” Brock ran a hand through his tawny hair. “Maybe if she can’t find anything else, we could reconsider giving her a place.”

  He called back over his shoulder, “Abby! John Whitefeather’s here trying to track down Miss Harris. You want to come and talk to him for a minute?”

  Abby Kincaid emerged from the house carrying a lantern. The light from it flickered over her coppery hair.

  “I know where Jane is and I know she’s safe.” Abby spoke with the confidence of a woman who’d looked after herself and her son before Brock Kincaid came back into her
life. “What I don’t know is whether she’d welcome a visit from you tonight, John.”

  Abby would probably have said the same thing to Emery Endicott if he’d shown up in Whitehorn looking for Jane. That thought struck John like a physical blow. Why was Jane hiding from him? He’d never done anything to hurt her and he never would.

  “I have to talk to her. Please, Abby. It’s important.”

  Her reply was regretful, but firm. “I give you my word she’s safe. Anything else you need to discuss with her can wait the night. I’ll go see her and get her permission to let you know her whereabouts. If you come back here after noon tomorrow, I’ll have her answer for you.”

  What if Jane took it into her head to leave town in the meantime? Caleb had paid her enough to buy a train ticket just about anywhere. John couldn’t let her slip out of his life without understanding why.

  “Whitehorn isn’t that big a town.” His voice came out sharper than he meant it to. “And some folks don’t have much else to do with their time but find out everybody else’s business. I reckon Mrs. Dillard must have some idea where Jane is by this time. Or old man Waverly. It’d be quicker if you’d just tell me. For Pete’s sake, Abby, you and Ruth are sisters-in-law. That makes us almost family.”

  Urgency seethed inside him like the sulphurous water that periodically gushed up out of the ground hereabouts. He slid out of his saddle, the better to confront Abby.

  “Or do you think just because I have Cheyenne blood that I’d harm Jane? Let me tell you something, ma’am. My father’s people prize courage above every other virtue, and we know it doesn’t take courage to harm a weaker opponent. The greatest bravery a Cheyenne warrior can show is to face an armed enemy with nothing but his bare hands. To hurt a woman, a child or an elder is the mark of a coward.”

  Reacting to John’s fierce outburst, Brock took up a defensive stance.

  His wife didn’t flinch a muscle. “I didn’t know that and I thank you for telling me. It doesn’t change anything, though. It never occurred to me that you might mean Jane harm. Not because of who your folks are, but because I’ve known you a while and I count myself a pretty fair judge of character. Prove I’m right about you, John. Please. Go back to the ranch, let your temper cool and get a good night’s sleep. I don’t think Jane’ll thank you for hunting her down at this time of night.”