Stephen watched him put a few things away. Home. Did he really have a home? Would he really fit in there after all these years? “Sir, I…you’re so…successful. Everything I hear about you…your intelligence and education…I can hardly read and write. They didn’t teach me those things. I had to ask a friend to read your file to me because I couldn’t make out the names. I can’t hold an important job. Are you sure you want me around?”
Adam glanced at him, realizing how awkward and uncertain the boy must feel. His son, yet a stranger. He closed a drawer. “You are a Chandler, Stephen. You’ll learn fast. In no time at all I’ll have you ready for a university, if you so choose. And I’m buying back my land in Georgia. I’ll explain that later. At any rate, we’ll all go back there someday. We’ll farm, raise cattle, have a fine home there. I promised your mother I’d get that land back, and I got it! Someday you boys will marry, and you can live there the rest of your lives if you want—farm, or teach, or practice law—do whatever you want. Young John Ross wants to be a doctor and might end up doctoring in Indian Territory. You’ll have many options, Stephen. I’ll see that you get an education, and you can take it from there. If you don’t want that, I don’t give a damn if you never read a word. You’re here. You’re home. You’re my son, and a part of Andrea. All our years together she wept over you. I wouldn’t have cared if you’d walked in here with two heads and no arms. I’d be just as happy as I am right now.”
David tapped on the door and opened it, a tray in his hands. “Sir, I thought you might like—”
“David!” Adam interrupted. “I want you to meet someone.” He walked around his desk and put an arm around Stephen. “David, this is Stephen Nathan Peter Chandler, my first-born son.”
David’s eyes widened and he stared from son to father. Adam had spoken often about Nathan. David could not help but feel his employer’s joy, and he grinned broadly. “Congratulations, Mr. Chandler! You found him!” He shook Adam’s hand, then Stephen’s.
“I didn’t find him, David.” Adam looked at his son, admiring the boy’s ability to find his way west, his determination to find his parents. “He found me,” he finished. He turned to David then. “I won’t be in for the rest of the day. I’m taking Stephen home. We have a lot to talk about.”
“Of course, Mr. Chandler. I’ll take care of everything.”
“Thank you, David.” Adam took a deep breath and looked Stephen over again. “Ruth must have just about had a heart attack when she saw you standing in her doorway,” he said with a grin.
Stephen smiled back. “She had a real strange look on her face. I think at first she thought I was you, but she knew that couldn’t be because I was so much younger. She’s awfully pretty, sir. And a nice woman.”
Adam nodded. “My sister has had more than her share of grief, as most Cherokees have. I still work for the People, Stephen. I stay abreast of the latest Congressional moves, file petitions for them, see that their rights in Indian Territory are protected as much as possible.” His eyes teared. “It’s been a long, long road, Stephen. Twenty years ago I fell in love with a beautiful little girl named Andrea Sanders. Her hair was golden and her eyes were blue as the sky. She was only fourteen and I was only sixteen.” His eyes teared again. “But by God, I loved her, Stephen. You are the result of that love. That makes you very special, very special.”
He put his arm out and Stephen walked up to him. As they walked out together, David shook his head. “Too bad Mrs. Chandler can’t be here,” he mumbled. “What a day this would have been for her.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
Two years passed, and the summer of 1848 found Stephen, at twenty-one, managing a supply store in St. Louis. Eighteen-year-old Jonas and seventeen-year-old John Ross were both home from universities in the East, and Jonas was a temporary apprentice in his father’s law firm. The land in Georgia was being leased to neighboring farmers, but it was still Adam’s dream to go back someday. He just didn’t have the courage to return without Andrea. He had been promising the boys for years that they would go back, but he was having trouble keeping that promise. It had been seven years, and still he could not seem to function completely without Andrea. Everything he did was still for her, even though she was dead.
His sons, his friends, his relatives—all had chastised him for letting Lorraine Drake slip through his fingers. They wanted him to be happy, to find love again. And he almost had, with Lorraine. But a deeper love had kept him silent and distant, so distant that another man had come into Lorraine’s life. He knew his sons and the others had loved Andrea dearly, but they seemed better able to face her death. They felt that life must go on, and they simply wanted their father to be happy. They didn’t denigrate Andrea’s memory, but they were worried about him because he immersed himself in work, taking on difficult cases and working so late into the night that he fell asleep from exhaustion.
But that was the only way he could sleep at all, for he was plagued by a feeling of guilt over Andrea’s fate, even after all these years. If only he had brought her north with him right away, if only he hadn’t spent that last year drinking and being so rude to her, perhaps she’d be alive. He had been tempted many times to go back to the bottle, but he’d always seen her sad eyes, begging him not to drink.
And there were the boys to think of. He had a flourishing practice. He did not want to lose it all and jeopardize their futures. He’d made flimsy attempts at establishing a social life, occasionally taking a woman to the theater, the opera, or dinner. But none of them could hold a candle to Andrea, not in looks, not in charm, not in strength of character. Even Lorraine hadn’t filled the emptiness in his heart. Only Andrea had all the qualities he wanted in a woman.
Perhaps he had been a fool to let Lorraine get away from him. Probably so. Finding a good woman was not easy. Lorraine had been a good woman, and she had understood his loneliness. She had been a good friend, too. But when he’d kissed her, touched her, his passion was not aroused as it had been with Andrea. Maybe that was the way it was supposed to be. Maybe a man could love that way only once. Maybe he was searching for the impossible. It didn’t matter now. Lorraine had married someone else.
Still, fate will have its way, and that same summer Adam discovered the reason his God had not allowed another woman to come into his life. In June a young Cherokee girl came to visit him at his office. Hers was a visit Adam Chandler would remember for the rest of his life. The girl had an air about her that indicated she had once been innocent and was still too young to have lost that innocence. But when she stepped into his office, her pretty young face was hard, her lips were painted, and her cheeks were reddened with so much rouge that they looked ridiculous. Adam watched her curiously, standing up and nodding. “Miss Reed, I believe?”
She stood several feet from his desk, seeming to be afraid of him, eying him carefully. “That’s the name I gave outside,” she said quietly. “I don’t want anyone to know my real name.”
Adam frowned. “If I am to be your attorney, I have to know—”
“I didn’t come here for that,” she interrupted quickly. “I came because…because of Mary Means.”
Adam’s heart tightened. How he hated the Means woman! His eyes immediately clouded and his face hardened. “If you’re here to ask me to help that woman—”
“No! It isn’t that, Mr. Chandler. Mary is dead.”
Adam stared at her, totally confused now as to why this woman should be here. He sat down wearily. “Have a seat, Miss Reed, or whatever your name is.”
She stepped a little closer. “I…want your promise…that you’ll do me no harm.”
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his desk. “Why in hell would I harm you?”
“Promise me! I’m Cherokee, just like you. You…you wouldn’t harm a Cherokee girl, would you?”
His eyes ran over her pretty form, and he thought it a waste for such a young girl to be what she obviously was. “You have my promise, but I can’t imagine why you nee
d it.”
She came even closer, cautiously sitting down on the chair near his desk. “I have something to tell you. I just thought…maybe you’d be upset when I tell you and you might hurt me. I only came because of Mary’s dying request.”
His eyebrows arched. “Request? Mary Means sent you to me with a request?” He laughed lightly, but it was a bitter laugh. “I take it you were one of the Cherokee girls she ended up recruiting?”
The girl looked down at her lap. “What else is there for us now?”
“Pride. There is Cherokee pride—and strength!” he shot back. “You’re a pretty girl. Why in God’s name did you turn to the likes of Mary Means?”
Her dark eyes flashed when she raised her head to look back at him. “I was eleven years old when the militia came, Mr. Chandler! They killed my parents, and they took me out behind the house and showed me everything there was to know about men—all eight of them! A girl has no pride left after that!” Her voice broke and Adam looked away.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, feeling sick.
“Yes. We all have our burdens from those terrible times, don’t we?” Her voice was shaking. “You have your own burdens, so I was told. I…I came here to…relieve you of your greatest burden, Mr. Chandler, and to do something Mary asked me to do as she lay on her deathbed. I guess she thought if she did one good thing, it might get her to heaven after all. She was scared…scared to death of what would happen to her after death. She wanted to…right some wrongs.”
Adam turned to face her then, Andrea suddenly coming to mind. Andrea. Mary Means! Why had he never thought of it before? This had something to do with Andrea! Why else would this girl be afraid to tell him whatever it was she had to tell? He stared at her, his eyes widening. “Mary Means! It was her, wasn’t it? She planned that raid, didn’t she?” His eyes smoldered, and the girl gripped the chair arms. “Didn’t she!” he growled. “Did she think telling someone on her deathbed would clear her of guilt? Did she think that would right what happened to my Andrea?” He rose from his chair, shaking. “Do you want to know how I found her—bloated and rotting in the Texas desert, her eyes plucked out by buzzards!”
He came around the desk toward the girl, and she cringed. “Your wife isn’t dead, Mr. Chandler! She isn’t dead! She’s alive—in Mexico! The girl you found wasn’t her!”
Adam stopped dead in his tracks, his jaw flexing in anger and disbelief. Was this some kind of trick? Andrea? Alive? He gritted his teeth, went quickly to the girl, and grasped the front of her dress. She squealed as he jerked her right out of the chair and shook her.
“What do you mean! What do you mean, coming in here after all these years and telling me my wife is alive! Why now? Why didn’t someone tell me before?” He slammed her against the wall, and Jonas came running in at the sound of all the commotion.
“Father!”
“Where! Where is Andrea?” Adam was shouting, as the girl pushed at him. “Where in Mexico? What did that bitch do with my wife!”
“Father, what are you doing?” Jonas rushed up to him, pulling at his arms, while the girl cried and covered her face. “Father, let go of her! You’re hurting her!”
David rushed in then, and he and Jonas each grasped Adam, but Adam Chandler was a powerful man, again the same, wild man who had been hard to hold back the day the militia came and raided their cabin. He would not let go of the girl, and pushed her hard against the wall while Jonas and David tried with all their might to make him let go. He was squeezing the breath out of her, and she began to scratch his face.
“She says your mother is alive! Alive, somewhere in Mexico! The little bitch! She’s known it all this time.”
“No! No, that isn’t true!” The girl gasped for breath. “I just found out…from Mary…before she died! Please believe me! I came here…to help you find her!” Her face started to turn blue. “You…promised…not to…hurt me!”
“Father, let go of her! If she is telling the truth you must let her talk!”
Adam finally released the girl. As she slumped to the floor, choking and gasping, he turned away and bent over, so consumed by shock that he felt ill. Andrea! Andrea! What in God’s name was she doing in Mexico? And if it was Mary Means who—“My God!” he moaned, clinging to his desk.
David helped the girl to a chair, and Jonas took Adam’s arm. “Father, sit down. I will get you a drink.” He led Adam around the desk and seated him while David stayed beside the girl, patting her shoulder. She was crying and holding her chest, and her painted cheeks were smearing because of her tears. For a moment the office was quiet, and Jonas poured four small glasses of bourbon. Handing one to the girl and setting one on the desk in front of his father, he picked up one for himself and gave one to David. “Go close the door, David, but stay in here in case I need you.”
The young man nodded and walked over to close the door, while Adam raised wild, red eyes to look at Julia Reed, or so she called herself. The girl stared back, frightened, as she raised the drink to her lips with a shaking hand. Adam swallowed his bourbon in one gulp.
“Start talking, Miss Reed.” He glowered. “And you’d better, by God, be telling the truth or I’ll kill you!”
Jonas looked at his father in surprise, but said nothing. Adam Chandler was in no mood to be chastised by his own son. David stood by, totally confused.
“I suppose you expect money for your information,” Adam sneered.
The girl blinked back tears and shook her head. “No. I told you…why I am what I am, Mr. Chandler,” she said in a shaking voice. “I’m…not bad…like you think. I don’t want to be bad. It just…happened. After the militia…I couldn’t…” She took another sip of the bourbon and Adam sighed, then held his head in his hands.
“I know,” he said quietly. “We’ve all suffered—me, my sons, my mother, my sister, my father…young girls like yourself. We’re all still living with it. Tell me what you came to tell me, Miss Reed, from the beginning. I won’t hurt you.”
He sat there quietly then, not looking at her, only holding his head and looking like a broken man. If Andrea was in Mexico…
“Mary Means ran the house where I worked…down in Austin, Texas. She came to the Cherokee settlement a couple of years ago, found me working in a saloon there…said she’d see that I got rich off the white men down in Texas.” The girl swallowed some more of the whiskey. “She told me later how…how you and some others ran her out of Cherokee Territory a few years back…killed Luke Cloud and all.”
Jonas glanced at his father. He had never known everything that had happened during those terrible times after they’d arrived in Indian Territory, but he remembered that his father had been gone a lot, had drunk a lot. He loved his father dearly, and had never blamed him for any of it. In his later years he’d understood what had really happened to his poor mother at the hands of the militia. How could his father help but be full of hatred.
“Mary Means hated you,” Julia Reed continued, watching Adam carefully. “She wanted to hurt you somehow. She could never prove anything against you, and I think…I think she was kind of jealous, too. Sometimes she talked about you like you were special to her. I think she…was attracted to you…a long time ago…when she and your wife were young…back in Georgia. I could tell by the way she talked that she was jealous of your wife.” The girl sniffed and rubbed at her eyes. “I knew Mary also dealt with Comancheros and sold women into white slavery in Mexico. I tried to pretend I didn’t know. She was bad, Mr. Chandler. It took me a while to realize how bad. It wasn’t so bad using girls like me. But she had innocent white women kidnapped to be sold down in Mexico. And you’re right…she’s the one who had the Comanches take your wife.”
Adam raised dark, agony-filled eyes to meet hers.
“I swear I never knew any of this until just a few weeks ago, Mr. Chandler!” the girl hastened to add. “Mary got some kind of disease that ate her up…made her all thin. Her hair fell out, and at the last, she was in a lot of pain. She g
ot scared then…knew she was dying. I helped take care of her. And this one day she took my hand and held it real tight, said she’d been bad and was scared of going to hell. She said she didn’t want to go there…and she thought if she did a nice thing for somebody, maybe she’d be saved. That’s when she told me…about your wife…about Andrea. She was sold, Mr. Chandler…to a…to a house of prostitution down in Mexico. I’ve heard of it. Women are taken there and drugged…drugged so much that their minds and memories leave them and they don’t even know what they’re doing. The Mexican men pay a lot of money for the white women…especially the ones with blue eyes and blond hair.”
Jonas turned away, his stomach churning, but Adam struggled to stay in control. “I found my wife lying dead in the Texas sun…years ago,” he told the girl, his voice gruff with emotion.
Julia shook her head. “No, sir. That wasn’t your wife. Mary had a girl raped and killed, had your wife’s dress put on her, had your wife’s locket put around her neck. She knew that by the time you found the body, if you tracked her that far, all you could recognize would be the clothes and the locket. The girl had blond hair like your wife’s. Mary figured you’d think Andrea was dead. She was going to tell you one day…send you a letter…just to be mean. Let you know your wife has been a…a whore for years down in Mexico.”
He slowly rose, anger emanating from his body until it seemed to permeate the room. “Don’t you call my wife a whore,” he said in a near whisper. “A woman drugged and forced is not a whore! How dare you call my Andrea a whore, you little slut!”
He headed toward her. “Father, don’t!” Adam stopped, meeting his son’s eyes. “If she hadn’t come here, we never would have known. Don’t hurt her, Father. Find out where mother is and free her.”
Adam looked at the girl again, his emotions mixed. He hated her, yet he felt sorry for her. She was just another tragic product of the Trail of Tears. “Why don’t you go back to Cherokee country and stop what you are doing?”
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