The Wedding Kiss

by Hannah Alexander

  Susanna nodded and took a bigger sip, eyeing the bread pudding. “I feel like a helpless child.”

  Elam reached for the only chair in the room, set it next to the bed, and sat down on it. “Then you should be glad you’re here, where you’re safe.”

  Susanna glanced toward the closed and curtained window. “I don’t know if any of us are safe. For your sake and the children’s, I should have never come here. I should have thought of someone besides myself.”

  “US Marshal Frey told me he’d followed you,” Elam said.

  She nodded. “I don’t remember seeing anyone follow me. My other siblings and my parents still live in Pennsylvania, and I would expect that if the authorities tried to find me, they’d go to my family.”

  “He must be a good tracker,” Keara said.

  “I’m not so sure good tracking skills were what brought him here,” Elam said.

  “So you’re saying he knew my destination when he set out from Blackmoor?” Susanna asked.

  “Possibly.” Elam nodded. “Did you tell anyone where you were coming?”

  “If I did, I don’t remember doing it.”

  “What do you mean?” Keara asked.

  Susanna took another few sips of the tea, but it didn’t seem to ease the tension. Instead, the lines grew deeper in her face. “There are blank spaces in my memory, probably from the concussion. As I’ve become more lucid, I’ve become more aware of those blanks. I was thinking clearly enough to make it here after I was shot, but other things have been hazy. I think when I fell from Duchess on the porch steps, that’s when I hit my head.”

  Keara realized why Susanna had been so frightened. That fear was contagious.

  The speed with which Susanna drank the tea told Keara the extent of her pain. She took the final swallow and then lay back on her pillows, eyes closing, face relaxing.

  Keara took half a spoonful of the pudding and held it to Susanna’s lips. “How about something to kill the taste of that nasty whiskey?”

  Susanna willingly opened her mouth, like a child, looking up at them.

  Keara spooned a small bite into her mouth and watched with satisfaction as the enjoyment became obvious on Susanna’s face.

  “If I live through this, you’ll have to give me your recipe.”

  “You’ll live through this.”

  “Help us get you safely through it, Susanna,” Elam said. “I know this is hard, but what happened in Blackmoor? We need to know what you do remember.”

  Susanna reached for the spoon and took another bite, savored it for a moment, then placed the spoon back in the dish. “Nathaniel was the instigator, I’m afraid.”

  “I have trouble believing that,” Elam said.

  “Oh, believe it. He went digging where he wasn’t welcome. Had he chosen politics as his family wished him to in the beginning he likely would have…” Her voice wobbled. “He would have died sooner than he did.” She swallowed. “I blame Nathaniel’s family for his death. His father even threatened to disinherit him at one time—encouraged by his older brother, Sikes—for choosing medicine as his career.”

  “His brother was that hostile toward him?” Elam asked.

  “No, not hostile, he just always thinks he’s right. He takes after his late father.”

  “Didn’t I meet Nathaniel’s family when Gloria and I got married?” Elam asked.

  “Of course.” Susanna’s voice took on a chill. “Neither Nathaniel’s father nor his brother ever missed the chance to be in the public eye. Though they opposed Nathaniel’s career choice, they certainly weren’t opposed to exploiting his natural popularity for political reasons.”

  Elam nodded. “It seemed half the state of Pennsylvania was at our wedding.”

  “Nathaniel and I had married only three months earlier, and Mother asked us to invite all our friends to your wedding. Nathaniel had a lot of friends.” She glanced at the flicker of the lantern flame. “He was generous with his money, and that tends to bring the crowds. We discovered later that it was my father-in-law who manipulated Mother into turning your wedding into a political campaign, Elam. I’m sorry about that.”

  “Gloria loved it,” he said.

  “Of course she would have. I did not.”

  “What does a wedding a decade ago have to do with US Marshal Frey?” Keara asked.

  “Something happened recently that forced Nathaniel to reconsider his decision not to enter politics,” Susanna said. She glanced at Elam and then reached for another spoonful of bread pudding. “This is so delicious. Are these chopped black walnuts?”

  “Yes. Susanna,” Keara said gently, “you’re stalling. Can’t you remember?”

  Despite the prodding, Susanna indulged herself in a final bite of the pudding. She glanced once more at Elam then at Keara.

  “Unfortunately, though Nathaniel was much more open-minded than the rest of his family, he did have a little too much of the Luther mindset. He encouraged my pursuit of medicine, but when it came to his new activities in the political arena, he was a bit too close-mouthed for my liking.”

  “Was he involved in something top secret?” Keara asked.

  Susanna grimaced. “Sikes knew better than to place his loquacious younger brother in such a sensitive position. All I knew these past few months was that Nathaniel grew quiet, even sullen at home. It wasn’t like him at all. When I questioned him he would snap at me.”

  “You’re right. From my memories of Nathaniel, he was soft-spoken, always ready with a joke or humorous story,” Elam said.

  “That’s why I watched him more closely,” Susanna said. “I even followed him into town a couple of times. The second time I did that, I caught him arguing with a big man with long red hair. It was the same man who shot me on Monday.”

  “Frey?”

  “Who else has long red hair like that? Two days after seeing the man with Nathaniel, I returned home with a wagon full of supplies and found our office door standing open.” She swallowed again and paused as the pain of memory shadowed her eyes. “I found Nathaniel in his study, lying in front of his rifle cabinet, with a shotgun on the floor beside him.” Tears formed at the corners of her eyes and trickled down her face. “He bled to death from a shot to the neck.”

  Keara took her hand and squeezed. “What awful things you’ve been through. What kind of monster would do such a thing and then follow his victim’s wife to shoot her as well?”

  The sound of a bell reached them from downstairs, startling Keara.

  Susanna squeezed her hand more tightly. Her eyes widened with fright. “What was that?”

  “Someone’s at the front door,” Elam said. “I’ll go see who it is. Keara, you stay here with Susanna. We have more to discuss.”

  Susanna wouldn’t release Keara after Elam walked from the room. “Could that be Frey?”

  “I doubt it, but if it is, Elam will handle him. Maybe I should bring you another cup of tea.”

  Susanna took a shaky breath. “No, I’ll be fine. Thinking about Nathaniel’s death always does this to me.”

  “How you must have loved him.”

  Susanna gradually released her hold on Keara’s hand. “Oh, I did. Had I known how our marriage would end, I’d still have married that man a dozen times over any other.”

  Keara remained by Susanna’s side and waited in silence as she listened to the sound of Elam’s footsteps down the stairs.

  Eighteen

  Elam lit another lantern and carried it through the house to the front door, where he found Jael standing on the front porch.

  He opened the door and stood back. “Why didn’t you just come in like you always do?”

  She gave him a sassy grin as she stepped inside, her riding boots echoing on the wooden floor. “Because you’re married again, and I wouldn’t want to come barging in on—”

  “What are you doing out this late?” He noted she had a fine coating of dust on her clothes, and several long strands of her brown hair had fallen from their fastener.<
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  “I’m on my way home. I thought I’d stop and let you and Keara know that I hired one of the Johnson boys to ride to Clifty with a message about Timothy Skerit. The boy was already heading out when I left their house, so I’m sure the Skerits know by now. Did you know there’s only a part-time telegraph operator in Clifty? How’s Susanna doing?”

  He drew her to the sofa and kept his voice down just in case all the commotion hadn’t already awakened the children. Quickly, he filled his sister in on everything that had transpired that day.

  She whistled softly when he finished. “So you still don’t know what that fake marshal’s planning to do with the Skerit boy? Because I’m telling you, Elam, something’s all wrong. I stopped by the sheriff’s office just to drop a bug in his ear—you remember Sheriff Nolan and I courted for a few months before I met Kellen—anyway, he wasn’t happy to hear about the arrest. Folks think highly of the Skerits around these parts.”

  Elam nodded. “I’m concerned White River Hollow may be in for trouble, and you should keep the kids close to home. I think you and Kellen need to be prepared for anything.”

  “After Susanna got shot, you think we aren’t? Now, just let me tell David and Pen. It’s been killing me to keep quiet about all this—”

  “Tell them. I want you to tell every family member along the hollow to keep their ears open for trouble. Don’t mention Susanna yet, though, except to David and Pen. One stray word to the wrong person could lead to trouble.”

  “I’ll be glad for the day when that woman is out of danger.”

  Elam thanked her and gave her a hug then saw her to the door. He’d be glad when they were all out of danger.

  As he listened to the sound of hoofbeats racing away along the road—his sister always rode like she was running from a pack of hungry wolves—he stopped in the kitchen to mix another cup of Keara’s brew for Susanna with an extra splash of his wedding present from the men. She could use a couple more swallows to help her calm down.

  At this rate, if they kept pouring alcohol down her throat like they’d been doing, her liver would be as pickled as Brute McBride’s.

  Before he turned away from the stove to return to the sickroom upstairs, he opened the cooling oven door and pinched a bite of drying bread pudding. It had just the right blend of sweetness and spice—sort of like one golden-eyed Irish lady he knew.

  He was smiling when he entered the sickroom. The women looked up at him expectantly.

  “It was Jael,” he said. “She got word to Timothy’s family about his arrest. She and Kellen will spread word to the rest of the family along the hollow to be on the lookout for trouble. Don’t worry, Susanna.” He handed her the cup of Keara’s brew. “Your name is staying out of it for the time being.”

  He returned to his chair as Susanna took a deep swallow of the tea. “Now, why don’t we pick up where we left off? We need to have an idea what Frey’s up to, and what we could be up against.”

  Susanna handed the cup to Keara and dabbed at her lips. “I hesitate to reveal a secret about Gloria that you may not have known, Elam.”

  “Gloria and I had no secrets.”

  “You knew of our ancestry?”

  “Of course. You and your siblings are American, with a little mix of many nationalities, including Italian and Cherokee.”

  “You knew we were part Cherokee?”

  “Yes. Cash had a Cherokee wet nurse over the winter. Her family was on their way to the Oklahoma Territory. We shared several stories over those long, dark winter months, and I found myself wondering if they might have been distantly related to Gloria.”

  “She never told me that,” Keara said softly.

  “Old history,” Susanna said. “She probably didn’t think to mention it. At one time, it wasn’t safe to reveal too much when the wrong person may be listening. Not that you would be the wrong person, but old habits don’t die easily. When Gloria and I were growing up, our Cherokee cousins lived on our land.”

  “In Pennsylvania?” Keara asked. “All Cherokee weren’t forced to move to the Oklahoma Territory in the march of ’38?”

  “Most were, and the government continued to move them out of the East for the next forty years. My family protected our own.”

  As if by instinct, Keara pressed the backs of her fingers against Susanna’s forehead then nodded with satisfaction. “Good for them. I’ve heard too many horror stories of that death march. How were your ancestors able to hide them for so long?”

  “When my great-grandfather moved to Pennsylvania from Northern Italy in 1834,” Susanna said, “he was a wealthy man. It cost a lot to buy land and settle it, but he knew how to handle money. He married a Cherokee woman whose family lived on the adjoining land, and they taught him what crops to grow on the soil, how to rotate those crops, how to use the native plants for medicines.”

  “And yet you turned up your nose at my teas and treatments?” Keara asked.

  Susanna gave her a grin. “Did I ever refuse them?”

  “You complained a lot.”

  “How was I to know you were truly knowledgeable about the proper preparation and use of the local herbs? I could have taught you, but I was a little under the weather.”

  “So the American government wasn’t able to force your relatives to leave their homes?” Keara asked.

  “No. It cost my great-grandfather everything he had left, but he purchased the land where his in-laws lived and kept them there. My grandfather followed his father’s lead. Our Cherokee relatives were saved from the forced move because of my great-grandfather, and because they lived so far out in the hills that they were able to conceal themselves. Some of my other ancestors also married into the Cherokee tribe who lived there. Even though they wouldn’t be forced to move now, many of my relatives moved west in the past couple of years to take private ownership in the division of Cherokee reservation land executed by the Dawes Commission.”

  “After this much time, there must be hundreds of descendents,” Elam said.

  “Many of them intermarried and blended in with the immigrants from other countries, but they were able to prove their lineage.”

  “I thought Cherokee didn’t believe in ownership of the land,” Keara said.

  “They don’t, but the white man does, and because of that he can take advantage of my Cherokee relatives. They’ve already lost so much.”

  “I remember hearing a few years ago that the Dawes Commission was not able to convince the Cherokee to cooperate,” Elam said.

  “Of course, so the commission delegates went back to Washington and requested more clout from the federal government.” Susanna shrugged then winced at the movement. “The final division of Cherokee reservation land was doled out to individual families last year, and the reservation land that wasn’t given to private Cherokee citizens was returned to federal hands for development.”

  “But didn’t private land ownership also give the Indians American citizenship?” Elam asked.

  “I don’t think my Cherokee relatives see that as fair,” Susanna said. “But much is unfair in this life, isn’t it?”

  “What’s to stop the government from claiming eminent domain if they want more of the privately owned land?” Keara asked.

  “The treaties were written in a way that would prevent that. They varied for each tribe, but the lands allotted to the Indians could not be taken away for a minimum of twenty-one years.”

  “I still don’t understand what this has to do with Nathaniel’s decision to enter politics,” Keara said.

  “Nathaniel’s brother Sikes is an operative in the Dawes Commission,” Susanna said. “Earlier this year, he let slip to Nathaniel about a small but powerful faction of our government that’s making noise about oil discovered on parcels of that privately owned land.”

  “Oil?” Keara asked.

  “It’s a commodity in the Oklahoma Territory that’s becoming more valuable by the day,” Susanna said. “These government men are after that oil, and they�
��re frustrated that Dawes may have handed over a great deal of wealth to people they consider to be below themselves on the social ladder. Nathaniel was worried about what might happen.”

  “But the land division was legal,” Elam said.

  “Greedy people can stoop pretty low when it comes to that kind of wealth,” Susanna said.

  “What was Nathaniel afraid would happen?” Elam asked.

  “Genocide. Or at least decimation.”

  “Because of oil? And the American government would do such a thing?”

  “Not again. There was too much public outcry against the Trail of Tears. Nathaniel was afraid that the next attempt would be more subversive, even more lethal, by a small number of agents.”

  “In what way?” Elam asked.

  “That’s what Nathaniel was trying to find out.”

  “But you’ve no idea if there was an attack of any kind being planned?” Keara asked.

  “None, but I don’t believe my husband would have been so willing to enter the political arena with his brother this year if he wasn’t convinced of the danger.”

  “What did he intend to do about it?”

  “Investigate until he found the truth and then stop it by any means possible. Nathaniel would have given his life doing anything he could to stop such a massacre.”

  Silence filled the room so profoundly that they could hear the clock ticking from downstairs and Duchess whinny from inside the barn.

  “And he did,” Elam said softly.

  Susanna’s face reddened, and tears filled her eyes. “It seems someone must have thought he knew more than he did.”

  “Did he tell you anything?” Keara asked.

  “Only what I’ve told you. I’m afraid Nathaniel was too outspoken with too many people, except for me and for his family. I think he felt he was protecting me from the cold harshness he was encountering, and he didn’t want Sikes to know what he was doing, because Sikes dismissed the faction as a small group of riffraff. I suspect Nathaniel said the wrong thing to the wrong person.”

  Susanna closed her eyes and breathed a weary sigh. “Personally, I don’t know why Sikes even wanted Nathaniel working with him, except to keep him closer so he could prevent his little brother’s outspokenness from interfering with family politics, especially after my father-in-law passed away last year.”