A War of Daisies

by A. A. Chamberlynn

  “Well, you’ll need to watch yourself, too,” Willow said, a warning in her tone.

  “I’ll be too far in the lead to worry about those lowlifes.” He grinned.

  “But behind me, of course.”

  The cowboy tilted his hat back, appraising her. “Perhaps. Tell you what.”

  “What?”

  “We can watch each other’s backs. Until the final stretch of the race, that is.” His gaze burned into hers. “Then it’s every man for himself.”

  “An alliance? Interesting.” Willow leaned back against a wooden post, returning the penetrating look. “What’s your name, cowboy?”

  “Zane,” he said, and there was that feeling once again of music up her spine.

  “Well, Zane,” she said. “You have yourself a deal.”

  Chapter Ten

  Penelope

  “I’m entering the rodeo,” Penelope announced at dinner.

  Silence fell around the table.

  Her mother went still and looked down at her steak and potatoes, as if not acknowledging it made it cease to be. Dynah’s mouth hung open, a forkful of food halfway to her mouth. And her stepfather slowly went from pink to red to purple.

  “A little late, don’t you think, girl? If you think for one second we have money to pull together at the last second—” His voice went from a low growl to a high shriek like a train whistle.

  “I don’t,” Penelope said. “I’ll pay for it myself.”

  “And how’re you gonna do that?”

  “I’ve been working here and there.” Penelope shrugged. “Helping unload shipments at the feed store. Doing some cleaning at the hotel.”

  Dynah’s fork clattered back to her plate. “What exactly are you going to enter in the rodeo?”

  “Trick riding.” Penelope raised her eyes to meet Dynah’s. “Don’t worry, sister, I won’t be competing against you.”

  “Well,” Dynah scoffed. “Moon and I have been practicing for months.”

  “So have I,” Penelope said softly. “Not that anyone bothered to ask.”

  “Penelope,” her mother started, finally looking up.

  “Now, listen here, you ingrate!” Her stepfather boomed. “I’m not sure what you’re gettin’ at, but we provide you with everything you need!”

  “Absolutely, Roy,” Penelope said. She stood up from the table quite calmly. “You treat me and Dynah completely equally.”

  And she walked out the front door of the house.

  More silence, for several long moments, and then an explosion of noise as her stepfather went ballistic. Shouting and the sound of dishes breaking. Penelope didn’t know where her wash of courage had come from, but it fled as Roy whipped open the door and began to storm after her.

  “Get back here! Penelope!”

  She had a hundred-foot head start on him, and she was light of foot. Could probably outrun him. But then another wave of heat rose inside her, devouring her fear. She didn’t know where it came from. All she knew was that she felt angry. Angier than she’d felt in her whole life, everything she’d suppressed for all these years rising within her like a grizzly bear. Penelope spun to face her stepfather. It wasn’t like it would be the first time he’d hit her.

  Roy almost had flames coming off him as he approached. “You think you’re gonna talk to me like that at my own table?” he spat. “You’re lucky you didn’t go to the orphanage the first day I set eyes on you.”

  Her mouth opened of its own accord. “A gift for your bride to be?”

  “I forbid you to enter that rodeo, you hear me?” Rage spouted out of him, black and thick. “You need to learn your place, and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna have a rude little Indian girl running around my house. Now come ‘ere.”

  “Why?” she snarled.

  “Because I’m not done with you!” Spittle flew out of his mouth as he advanced on her.

  Penelope raised her hand then, palm out toward her stepfather. Later, she wasn’t quite sure why she did it. He was too far away still to strike her. But whatever the reason, she lifted her hand, and she thought no.

  Roy stopped in his tracks and let out a cough as if a fly had gone down his throat. Then another, and another.

  And Penelope turned and walked off into the twilight without a backwards glance.

  A few minutes later she sat astride Domino. She skirted south around the birch forest and out into the open fields. She planned to loop down around Hawk’s Hollow to Willow’s house in the southeast. But as she rode, the desert plains came into view to the west, and she found herself drifting toward them. That pulse in her blood, that pull in her blood. A call waiting to be answered.

  A wolf howled, and then, far in the distance, she saw him again. The lone rider, the one she’d seen the other night from atop the butte. A blot of ink against the sliver of sun setting on the horizon. She didn’t even try to imagine how he could be here, now, after what had happened back at the homestead.

  Penelope turned Domino and headed out into the open plains.

  Chapter Eleven

  Felicity

  Felicity escaped to the barn as soon as she’d finished dinner. She didn’t know what she would do if she didn’t have these brief bits of time to herself. Everywhere else she went, she went under her mother’s watchful gaze. The house. The store. Her music tutor. Church. It was simply improper for an unmarried young lady such as herself to leave the house without a parent, her mother said. Lord knows the things that could happen. And worse, the things people would say.

  It’d been three days since the dust storm at the arena, but it seemed an eternity. She still felt a blaze of energy running through her. And she didn’t even know what to think of the light she’d seen shimmering out of her hands. She must have been in shock. That was the only logical explanation.

  Felicity wished she’d gotten a chance to talk to the other girls (not the fair-haired cowboy, she’d never talk to a man alone) after the storm. But what would she say to them? She didn’t know any of them. Well, she knew who Dynah was, but everyone did. That didn’t mean Dynah knew her.

  An ache of longing tightened her chest.

  She’d spotted Dynah earlier in the day when she went to borrow some lamp oil from the hotel next to her family’s millinery shop. Her mother had actually let her walk next door by herself. That’s when she’d caught a glimpse of that flame-red hair. It burned a shade of red unlike any other.

  Felicity had stopped to watch Dynah practice for just a moment, and then had seen a group of nasty-looking cowboys approach her. It had been clear, even from a distance, that they were not a pleasant sort. As they’d circled Dynah, Felicity had begun to wonder if she’d need to call Sheriff Longford. But then Dynah had swung up on her horse and galloped away.

  Beautiful, even in flight.

  By that time, of course, her mother had noticed her absence and had come to look for her, which earned her a string of chastisements. The day had gone downhill from there. As Felicity and her mother made the rounds, checking on their store clerks, cross-referencing ledgers, picking up money, checking the stock of supplies before the annual fair, they’d discovered that a group of vagrants had been stealing from the haberdashery. Which had put her mother in a ripe mood for the rest of the day. Aside from being the center of unwanted gossip, there was nothing her mother hated more than losing money.

  This had somehow led to Felicity needing to do extra harp practice and extra prayers for the day. When she’d finally finished that, along with household chores and dinner, she was exhausted.

  Out in the barn, she groomed the horses for a bit, and spoiled Music with extra carrots. She’d had the mare for about five years, since her father had shipped her in from Kentucky. A Thoroughbred in a land of Quarter Horses. They were both fish out of water in this place. But it made a statement, and her parents did love to make a statement. It had made Felicity uncomfortable at first and gave people yet another reason to stare at her as she rode about town, but Music had soon become
her only friend. She had no one else to talk to.

  So, Felicity told Music about the cyclone and the lightning and the strange light she thought she saw coming off her hands. And Music listened, with a twitch of an ear here and a snort of understanding there, and an occasional wiggle of her velvety nose across Felicity’s arm. Well, the last part was likely a search for more carrots.

  Afterward, Felicity climbed into the hayloft to get out her book. Inspiration rose strong within her. Ink flew across paper, her pen making a steady scritch-scratch sound against the ivory pages. It soon stained the tips of her fingers, but she ignored it. She could wash that off later.

  In her story, there were no white houses encircled by white picket fences. No harps. No church (this part made her insides quake with guilt). And no parents. Instead, there were girls with blue eyes and flaming hair. Or, rather, one particular girl.

  Usually, her cheeks flamed as she wrote. If ever her mother found this book… the horror of it was too great to contemplate. It was Felicity’s greatest danger and the air she breathed, both at the same time. She couldn’t not write it. But it was so, so wrong. At least, that’s what the church would say.

  Tonight, however, whatever spirit moved within her moved freely. Confidently. The story unfolded without limitation, without the judgments of her own mind. The heat she’d been feeling since that lightning strike grew and grew and grew inside her. Felicity lost all sense of time as the story consumed her. She bowed willingly beneath the altar of this creative force, and it was the truest form of worship she’d ever experienced.

  And then a flicker of light spun off her hands.

  Felicity squealed and dropped her book and pen. Her book fell into the vial of ink at her side, tipping its contents into the hay. This time she shrieked. She scrambled to pull her book out of the pool of ink before it was ruined, and to right the overturned bottle before every last drop vanished. Ink was expensive. She’d barely gotten away with sneaking this one into the barn as it was. Tears pricked the corners of her eyes as she tried, to no avail, to wipe the huge smear of ink off the words she’d just written. Some of her best words ever, gone in an instant. Along with most of her ink.

  A creaking sound below directed her attention away from her predicament. Had her mother come to check on her? Or her father?

  Panicked, Felicity stuffed the book, the pen, and the vial of ink back into their hiding spot. She covered the ink-stained hay with fresh hay and hastily tiptoed to the top of the ladder. From there, she peeked down into the barn to see who it was.

  The door to the tack room stood open, but she couldn’t see anyone. After a moment’s debate, she climbed quickly down the ladder. The soft cadence of voices drifted up the barn aisle. Felicity cocked her head. It didn’t sound like her parents. But if it wasn’t them, then…

  A woman stepped out of the tack room, her arms laden with a saddle and several bridles. Farther down the aisleway, a man led Music out of her stall. She snorted and pranced, eyes wide.

  One look at their dirty faces and tattered clothing told Felicity all she needed to know: these people were stealing from her family. Her family, who worked so hard for everything, who were always trying to keep up with the other townspeople. Her family, who was always looked down on, despite everything they did. And worse, they were trying to steal her best and only friend.

  “Unhand my horse!”

  Felicity realized that the words spoken in a cold, commanding voice were her own. They’d come out of her mouth unbidden. She felt as surprised as the expressions on the faces of both thieves.

  They turned to flee.

  “How dare you!” she screamed.

  The woman dropped the saddle but kept the bridles which she had flung around both shoulders. The man dropped Music’s lead rope. They ran out the other end of the barn, and Felicity found herself chasing them. She didn’t know where this rage inside of her came, but it boiled hotter than the lightning.

  She followed the thieves to the fence at the back of the property, where they had loosened a couple of boards. As they tried to slip through, Felicity shrieked again. “Thieves! You don’t know the meaning of true hunger!”

  That white glow shot off her hands again, and she shook her fists at them. The man looked at her, eyes huge, and shoved his partner through the gap in the fence.

  “Felicity!”

  Her mother and father came running out of the house. “What’s going on?” her father asked in a stern voice.

  “I caught two people stealing our tack from the barn! And they tried to take Music!”

  “Stealing?” Her mother placed a hand over her heart and looked as if she might faint. “Harold, the same ones from the store, you think?”

  Her father’s forehead wrinkled in consternation. “It seems likely. A mighty big coincidence, otherwise.”

  “We need to call the Sheriff,” said her mother. “Oh, what will the neighbors think?” She fanned herself with her free hand to indicate how close she was to swooning to the ground.

  “It’s not our fault we had thieves!” Felicity said indignantly.

  Her mother straightened somewhat. “We need to manage the story, is all. If the neighbors just see the Sheriff here without knowing why, the rumors will spread faster than wildfire. By then it will be too late.”

  Felicity’s father ignored his wife’s antics. “I’ll go fetch the Sheriff.”

  “I’ll go ‘round to the neighbors,” her mother said. “Tell them what happened. Just need to go freshen up first. You should come with me,” she said to Felicity. “Tell everyone what you saw. How frightened you were.” Her mother began to walk back toward the house.

  Felicity ran to put Music back in her stall. She caught up to her mother at the steps of their massive wrap-around porch. Ostentatious white columns towered over them. “I wasn’t frightened. I was angry.”

  Her mother didn’t say anything. Felicity wasn’t sure she had even registered the words. “Go change into the pale blue dress. White bonnet. And—” She cut off with a gasp.

  “What is it?”

  “Your hands, girl!”

  For one horrifying moment, Felicity thought her hands were glowing again. But when she looked down, she realized what her mother had seen.

  Ink.

  “How on earth did you get so much ink on your hands?!”

  “Um, I had a spill earlier.”

  “In the barn?”

  “Of course not!” Felicity took a deep breath, though her heart raced. “Before that.”

  “Why didn’t you wash up properly?” Her mother started fanning herself again. “Go, Felicity. Now. You will not disgrace this family.”

  As Felicity turned and headed toward the washroom, she realized two things: first, her mother was more concerned with reputation than the fact that someone had trespassed on their property and stolen from them. And second, neither of her parents had once asked if she was okay.

  Chapter Twelve

  Dynah

  To say that things were tense inside the Johnston residence would be a grave understatement.

  Dynah didn’t think she’d ever seen her father as furious as he had been after Penelope mouthed off and stormed out of the house. He’d always had a temper—it seemed most men did—but his mood that night made the fires of hell seem mild in comparison. She and her mother tried to stay out of the way as he stomped around the house, knocking things over and kicking the dog when it got in his way.

  To make matters worse, it seemed he’d developed a nasty illness. In between shouting at Dynah and her mother (especially her mother, for birthing such a disgusting creature as Penelope, for defiling herself with an Indian man), he’d been taken with bouts of coughing so intense they doubled him over. Which only made him angrier. Which made him yell more. Which made him cough more.

  Dynah had been sure she was in for another sleepless night, but shortly before midnight, her father had gotten so weak he couldn’t get out of bed. She felt intense relief, followed quic
kly by severe guilt. With a pillow over her head, she managed to sleep despite the sounds of coughing in the next room.

  The next morning, Penelope was still gone, and her mother sent Dynah into town to fetch the doctor. She saddled up Moon and headed east, out of the birch forest and red buttes toward Hawk’s Hollow. Usually, she made the trip in a leisurely half-hour, making sure to arrive fresh-faced and with hair perfectly windblown. Today was not such a day. Today she galloped, giving Moon only short trot breaks in between.

  When she arrived in town, she looked a hot mess, quite literally. Covered in sweat and dust, hair in a tangle. Moon’s nostrils flared in and out, and when she pulled him up outside the doctor’s office on Main Street, he hung his head wearily. She tied her reins to the rail outside and ran up the steps.

  “Miss Johnston! What’s the matter?” asked Helena, the doctor’s office assistant, as Dynah threw open the door.

  “My father has taken ill,” Dynah said. “He’s been coughing all night. Can’t get out of bed.”

  Helena’s face wrinkled in concern. “Let me go get Dr. Hudson.” She got up from her desk and headed into the back room where the doctor saw patients, her plaid petticoat swishing behind her.

  Dynah took a seat in a leather-back chair and waited. The front room was sparsely decorated, just a large bookshelf on one wall, holding all manner of medical texts and periodicals, the desk, two chairs for customers, and Dr. Hudson’s medical degree framed on the back wall. Dynah’s eyes wandered every surface, looking for something, anything, to distract her.

  She still couldn’t believe Penelope had up and left like that last night. Where did she think she was going to go? Who would take her in? She loved her sister, but the townspeople only tolerated her unfortunate blood because of their mother. She’d end up having to come back home and take her punishment from Dynah’s father. The longer she was gone, the worse that punishment would be, of that, Dynah had no doubt. She cringed to think of it.