Heart's Surrender

by Rosanne Bittner

  Adam went to his knees near the swollen, smelly carcass. The only thing recognizable was the blue dress and what looked like blond hair. The eyes were missing, the face chewed beyond recognition. He stared, moaning and rocking.

  James approached the body, making a face at the smell. His stomach churned, yet he knew they had to know for sure. He picked up a piece of underwear that lay nearby, then dropped it again. When he stared down at the dress, he swallowed back his horror. “It’s the dress…she was wearing.” He bent a little closer. “My God! Goddamn!” He turned away, his voice choked. “She’s got the locket on, Adam—the locket you sent her a few weeks ago.”

  A strange guttural sound came from Adam. He threw back his head and screamed Andrea’s name, then turned around and vomited.

  Andrea and the others were herded into the plush parlor of the fancy whorehouse. Only five girls were left. Those not pretty or shapely enough had been used by the Comancheros along the way, then killed. The stark cruelty of it had left Andrea dazed. She had no idea where she was, except that she was supposed to be in Mexico. A fat Mexican woman with painted lips was looking her over.

  “You did well, Mary. I will pay you much gold for these lovelies, and I, in turn, will make much money from them.” She grasped Andrea’s face and turned it back and forth. “High cheekbones, lovely blue eyes. When she is cleaned up and her hair fixed nice—”

  “My husband will find you,” Andrea said, her voice dull. How many times had she said it? “Somehow, someday, he will find you, and Mary Means. It would be better for you both if you let me go.”

  “Is that so?” The fat woman laughed hard, and opened the flimsy robe Andrea had been given to wear. When she touched a breast, Andrea jerked away. “Let him come,” the woman declared with a strong Mexican accent. “By the time he finds you, if he ever does, he will no longer want you. Is your husband handsome? Huh? Maybe he will do business with one of my other girls.” She laughed then, and Andrea’s terror came out in a growling scream. She reached out and scratched the woman’s face, and the woman slapped her hard, knocking her down. “Take her upstairs,” she told someone. “Give her the drug. Soon she will beg us to send her customers, for it is the only way she will get the drug which she will learn to crave.”

  Hands lifted Andrea, but all the mistreatment she’d suffered over the past several weeks had left her too weak to fight any further than that sudden lashing out at the fat woman. She groaned Adam’s name, but he was not there.

  All the other horrors she had suffered had been bearable, because she had had Adam. Now she was alone, and how would he find her in this strange, desolate land? And if he found the dead girl Mary Means had left behind in Andrea’s dress, perhaps he would never come at all. Adam! There would be no Independence, no little house, no happy home. And her sons! Her precious sons! How could she live at all without her babies, for that was what they still seemed to her. Who would take care of them? Someone flopped her onto a bed, and a strong-smelling cloth was pushed over her face and held there until she had no thoughts at all.

  Such blackness Adam Chandler had never known. Losing his land had been one thing, but losing Andrea…How could this happen? Why was God punishing him so? Or was it just a matter of fate? Perhaps fate was something even God could not control. All he could see was the young, fourteen-year-old girl who had given herself to him with such sweet abandon under the great oak tree. The oak tree. He had promised her he would one day own that land again and he would take her to it. Perhaps now that could only happen in the afterlife.

  Again he cut himself, this time down the arm. He wanted to hurt. He needed to hurt. He had asked James to leave him, and he sat alone on a rocky ledge. It overlooked the lonely little grave in which they had buried Andrea. Some ancient instinct had led him to strip and to cut himself in mourning.

  What was he to do now, without Andrea? They had struggled so hard together against the horrors of the Trail of Tears, against his own drunkenness and his vengeful killings, against poverty. She had urged him to use his education to bring back his pride and wealth, to give him the hope of buying back his land. He had worked so hard in Independence, just for her. For Andrea. Everything had been so perfect. He would have taken her and the boys back to Independence and they would have had a good life.

  Why? Why had this happened? Over and over he asked himself this question, but was unable to come up with any kind of answer except that someone had retaliated for what he had done to the traitors who’d first arrived in Indian Territory. But even that did not make sense. Everything was peaceful among the Cherokee now. There was still some bitterness, but it had not erupted into violence. And Andrea was always a favorite, well liked by all of them. If there was vengeance to be sought, it should be vengeance against him, not Andrea.

  But perhaps it was simply fate after all. There had been a lot of raiding along the borders. James had said so. Now that the Cherokees were done fighting among themselves, they had the Plains Indians to fight. In a sense he could not blame the Western Indians. What had happened to the Cherokees was now happening to them. It was their turn to fight for their land. The raids were just one way of telling the Cherokees and other Eastern Indians to stay out of their territory, and to them stealing women was the ultimate insult. Perhaps when they’d seen a white woman living among the Cherokee, they’d become enraged and had taken her for spite. Who could know? And it didn’t matter anymore. Andrea was dead, and he could not go after the entire Comanche Nation, much as he would like to. Someone else needed him—his sons, his precious sons.

  He rolled onto his back, letting the hot Texas sun beat down on his bleeding body. He wished he could die! He longed for whiskey. But because of his sons, he dared not grant himself either desire. For the sake of Andrea’s love, and because the boys were a part of her, he must somehow go on. He could hear her, telling him that the boys needed him, hear their own young voices, see their joyous faces as they ran to greet him when he came home. They’d been sure he could find their mother. And he had. But he’d been too late. How could he live with that? So much suffering. Now this. Perhaps if he had been home…

  The tears came again, deep, wrenching sobs that hurt his stomach and chest. He screamed out her name, and it echoed against canyon walls and through the dead, hot land where her body lay. James waited in the shadow of an overhanging rock, and he doubled over and wept at the pitiful shout, understanding Adam’s anguish. He could only hope the boys would give Adam an incentive to carry on.

  Dusk fell; then darkness came. James made a small fire and waited. It was quiet on the ridge top. He hoped Adam Chandler had not killed himself. The night was silent, with not even a stirring of the air. Indeed, the silence was so heavy that it actually hurt James’s ears. When he awoke in the morning, Adam was standing over him, his nearly naked body covered with blood, his eyes bloodshot and wild. James stared, rubbing his eyes and slowly rising, his first thought of wilder Indians, because of the way Adam looked at that moment.

  m?”

  “Let’s go home,” he replied quietly.

  “Are you…all right?”

  “I will never be all right. But my sons have been through enough. I’ll not desert them. It’s bad enough that I go home without their mother.”

  His voice was cool and quiet, all his grief and despair now buried somewhere in the deep recesses of his mind.

  “What are you going to do, Adam?”

  “Go home to my sons. I will tell them…I found their mother…very sick…and that she told them she loved them and to be good boys…that she’d see them in the afterlife.” He swallowed. “I made Andrea a promise, James. I promised I would get back my land, and I will.”

  “You can’t go back anymore, Adam.”

  “I am going back!” Adam snapped. “One way or another I’ll own that land again, and I’ll go sit under our oak tree, and she’ll be with me. I’ll feel her there. She’ll be with me.”

  James sighed, forcing back his own tears. “What
ever you want, Adam. You’re right about the boys. They need you. And Andrea would want you to be strong, to get rich and get that land back, just as she’d want you to take care of the boys and make fine men of them.”

  Adam stared at a distant mountain. “I will never love that way again. Never. I would prefer to die now. It is only for her that I go back to my sons. Our first son was taken from her, and that just about broke her heart. It would be a disgrace to her memory if I abandoned Jonas and John Ross. For now I must be glad that I have something that is a part of her, two sons who carry her blood.” His eyes went to James. “Will you watch over them for another year or two? I need some time, and they should be a little older before coming to Independence. I will be very busy, but I will send you money. I will visit them often, and as soon as possible, I will take them back with me so we can all be together.”

  “You know Ruth and I will take care of them as long as necessary. They’re fine boys.”

  Adam grinned sadly. “Fine because of her. She was a good mother, taught them well. For her sake I will see that they get the best schooling in Independence, or maybe St. Louis. I am thinking of going to St. Louis soon, to open my own practice. It is a bigger city, with more businesses. And it is farther east, closer to the universities where I intend to send my sons.” His eyes hardened. “They will be educated, James, and Indian or not, they will do whatever the hell they want with their lives! They will be successful, and they will show the white sons of bitches what an Indian can do! And if they want to marry white women, they will marry them without going through the hell Andrea and I were put through. All we ever wanted was to be left alone…to just share our love freely…to be one and to—” His voice choked and he turned away. “Let’s break camp and head for home.”

  He said no more. They packed their gear and mounted up, then rode out to look once more at the grave. A breeze kicked up the sand and swirled it around the makeshift headstone.

  “One day no one will even realize there is a grave here,” Adam groaned. “It isn’t right…leaving her here all alone.”

  “Her spirit isn’t here, Adam. Just her bones. Her spirit is with you, in your heart, and through your sons she will always live.”

  Adam’s body shook with grief, and he turned his face away. He reined his horse around then, and headed north. He would not look back. He could not. Andrea! How did a man go on after losing his lover, his friend, his reason for living?

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  There was nothing for Andrea now but mere existence, and the craving to breathe and drink the blessed drugs that kept her from reality. She had no concept of time anymore, and hardly realized that five years had passed since that dreadful morning when the Comanches had come. Had there ever been another life? Men ravaged and abused her, mostly Mexicans, some white, all rude and revolting. At first she had fought, despite the drugs that were supposed to make her more submissive. But starvation, beatings, and being constantly tied while more drugs were given her soon took their toll. She stopped fighting. And now she would do anything they told her in order to have the drugs; without them, her pain and the torture to her body was unbearable.

  Sometimes fat Rosa would withhold the drugs just for punishment—for not showing a customer enough pleasure, or perhaps for crying. Andrea stopped crying. There was no room now for love or any other kind of feeling. There was room only for the drugs. Occasionally she would remember…a man…a handsome, dark Cherokee man who had been gentle and loving. Adam? Yes, that was his name. Adam. Sweet Adam. At times the memory would become very clear, and she could see him vividly, feel him holding her, look up and see golden leaves. But when she remembered, she knew he must think her dead, and she also knew that it was best now that he did consider her dead, for she might as well be. There was nothing left of Andrea Chandler for Adam Chandler to love. No matter what happened now, she could never go back. She was a used, destroyed woman, a far cry from the young Andrea who had once lain under the great oak with her Cherokee boy. The oak tree, innocence, youth, carefree days in the Cherokee land were all gone.

  And sometimes she would remember the faces of two little boys, so sweet, so trusting, so loving. Were they hers? Of course! Little Jonas and John Ross. Her sons! Oh, how it hurt to remember! She wanted to go to her sons and hold them. How long had it been? Who was taking care of them? She should be doing that. That was when the tears came, bringing severe punishment by Rosa. But Andrea couldn’t hold them back. And the pain in her heart was even worse when a third face tried to appear in her memory, a blurred little face. Whose was it? Who was the third little boy who tried to come to her mind? She struggled to remember, but the drugs had clouded her mind, making clear recollections few and far between.

  She had often contemplated suicide, especially when first brought here and thrust into the horrors of forced prostitution. But she had always been tied. Even so, a deep inner strength had not let her give up on life. She had held onto the distant hope that somehow she would wake up in Adam Chandler’s arms, that all of this would be some kind of nightmare. She had told herself she must hang on for Adam, yet as the years passed, she could not always remember who he was. And when she did, she realized it was foolish to ever hope to see him again, for even if he should find her, things could never be the same. Not now. Not ever again. But she would think of him with great, wrenching grief. He had gone through so much hell—losing his land, his parents; falling into drunkenness. But he had worked so hard to overcome it all, only to come home and find her gone.

  Where was he now? What was he doing? And what about the boys? How much time had passed? How old were they?

  Such vivid memories came to her about every three months now. Most of her time was spent in a daze, while men pawed over her, used her; and she pretended to like it, just so Rosa would bring her more of the strange concoction that kept her floating in that blessed world of unreality, where she did not have to feel or think or care. She knew that sometimes Rosa stood and watched while men used her, laughing and making dirty remarks. Andrea had dared to object once, and had been punished with a beating and the withdrawal of the strange drinks and the burning incense until she had screamed and begged for the drugs to take away her terrible pain. She never again complained.

  At first the real Andrea had struggled violently against what was happening to her, clinging to sweet memories of Adam, fighting the drugs and the attacks by Rosa’s male customers. But finally all reality left her, except for those occasional moments when memories came to tease and haunt her and make her cry.

  It was gone now…all gone. Even if she were to come out of this drugged state and be released, there was no going back. A woman did not go back to hearth and family after doing what she had been forced to do. What decent man would have her? Certainly not Adam Chandler, so beautiful, so tender, so intelligent and honorable. And she was not worthy to be a mother to her sons now. She wondered if Adam had remarried and some other woman was raising her boys. She could not blame him if that was the case, yet the thought of Adam loving another, lying with another…

  How horribly painful was the memory of being in Adam’s arms! Painful because she knew it could never be that way again. And it was painful to think of him loving another, giving himself to another. Adam! He belonged to her! He was her husband! But no. He could not be her husband now. She was spoiled and worthless. The wicked Mary Means had seen to that. She had punished Adam Chandler in the worst way, by stealing his wife and then letting him think she was dead. And she had punished Andrea by forcing her into this horrible sexual slavery.

  She was wicked, more wicked even than her brother. Because of her, Andrea Chandler had turned into a pitiful, begging whore, who panicked every time Rosa threatened to take away the drugs. Yet something inside her still made her want to fight sometimes; a part of her still clung to the old Andrea. But such feelings were being buried deeper and deeper. They had almost vanished now. All hope of Adam coming for her was gone, as was all hope of ever again leading a
normal life. If she was lucky, death would come to claim her. The sooner, the better. There was nothing else to wish for.

  “Siyu, asgaya,” she muttered as another man came into the room, grinning, bending over her. Rosa was there, too, putting something strong-smelling over her nose again.

  “You be a good little girl now for this man,” she said with her strong Mexican accent. Then she laughed, the ugly laugh that Andrea hated.

  The man laughed as well, and hands moved over her. Memories of Adam and her sons faded then, and she became just a thing, just a body existing somewhere in Mexico. Was it summer? Winter? How old was she now? It didn’t matter. Perhaps soon she would awake, look up and see the great branches of a golden oak, and know she had died and was finally released from this hell.

  Adam stopped on his way inside to adjust the hook that held the sign bearing his name: Adam Chandler, Esquire. He gently ran a hand over the carving. How proud Andrea would have been, and his mother and father as well. But they were all dead now, victims of hatred and greed and violence. The pain tore at his heart again, and he wondered if he would ever really get over those black years of struggle and exile and whiskey.

  He thought again about Lorraine. Lorraine Drake. She had come to him as a client, to settle a detail in her late husband’s will. Their business relationship had grown into a friendship and he’d been her escort on a few evenings out. Lorraine was pretty, a thirty-year-old childless widow, and she was lonely. Adam knew that she loved him, and he had strong feelings for her. But another woman still occupied his heart, refusing to make room for someone new. For twenty years he had held Andrea there, treasured her, loved her. Her death had not changed that. And he was sure Lorraine sensed his feelings, sure that Lorraine struggled with a similar problem, for she had loved her husband very much. Perhaps because of their mutual understanding, their own affection could grow and someday he could allow himself to love again—to love Lorraine, maybe even marry her.