Desert Angel

by Pamela K Forrest

  “My husband’s life is threatened and I expect you to do as you’re told. Do I make myself clear? Get the doctor!”

  Breed smiled. He knew it was the wrong thing to do, that it would just further ignite her rage, but he couldn’t help it. She was a mother mountain lion fighting for her cubs, and, as are all mothers, she was magnificent.

  When the grin slashed across his handsome face, March saw red. She had heard the expression used, but had thought it sounded kind of silly. Now she understood it … Lord, how she understood it!

  Seeing his smile and misinterpreting it for derision, she wanted to attack him. She even went so far as to look around the barn for a safe place to put Jamie so that he wouldn’t be in danger. Never, ever, had she been so violently angry or so powerless to retaliate.

  “Sheathe your claws, little cat,” Breed said quietly. “My humor is not at your expense. Since I left my people, I’ve never seen a woman so determined to protect her mate. Most white women I’ve seen are weak and helpless. They demand to be treated as fragile flowers.

  “You are like the women of my tribe. You will bring about your own death to protect those you love. It has made my heart lighter to know that my friend has such a wife.”

  “Go for the doctor … please?” Tears clouded her eyes, belying the strength she had shown earlier. His words had been so gentle and sincere, that she felt like the biggest fraud in the world. She wasn’t strong … she just wanted, needed Jim to live, to be well, to return her world to the safe, dependable thing it had been before he’d been hurt.

  “I will go. We will take the risk, if only because you need the reassurance the man of medicine can give you.”

  “You’ll go now?”

  “As soon as I saddle my horse.” Breed reached up and stroked Jamie’s soft cheek. “Take the little warrior into the house to be near his father. He will feel your presence, and know that he is surrounded by your strength and your love.”

  “I’m not strong,” she sighed wearily. “I wish I were, but I’m not … I’ve tried so hard …”

  “You are one of the strongest women I’ve ever known, either Indian or white. You are like the plants of the desert, you will struggle against any hardship, and then will blossom to show that you have won.”

  He reached for his saddle and carried it past her toward the corral. A shrill whistle pierced the air, and a magnificent Appaloosa stallion responded by raising his head. Another whistle, and the animal raced toward the man who beckoned.

  In a matter of minutes the horse was saddled and restlessly pawing the ground in anticipation. When Breed mounted, it was difficult for March to decide which was the more impressive animal;

  both were flawless examples of perfection, neither of them quite tamed.

  “Go do your job, Angel of the Desert,” he commanded, giving her a name that seemed appropriate for this tough but gentle woman. He found himself almost regretting that she was the wife of another. He had never considered taking a wife before now … now that it was too late.

  “My job is to worry,” she replied, a slight smile creasing her lips when she remembered their conversation so many months earlier.

  “No, your job is to be a woman. You do it well.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  March stood at the kitchen window, a cup of coffee slowly cooling in her hands. As she stared out at the mountains on the horizon, she let her thoughts drift in a hazy web of exhaustion. It had been five days since Jim had been shot. Five days of hell, relieved only by occasional moments of intense relief when his fever would break and he would be lucid for a few hours.

  At first she had been fooled into thinking that the worst was over, that he would survive. Now she knew better, for all too soon the fever returned. It would climb until he felt on fire, until his skin was too hot to touch.

  The doctor had come, complimented March on the fine row of stitches, and commented on Breed’s excellent care. Stating that there was nothing more that could be done other than to keep Jim as comfortable as possible while he fought the raging fever, he had gone.

  March’s own rage had known no bounds, as she had ranted against the seemingly indifferent doctor. It wasn’t until she had seen Breed’s smile that she had finally stopped raving. It was downright aggravating the way that man seemed to enjoy her anger!

  She finally agreed with him that there was nothing the doctor could do that they couldn’t. She knew that the doctor had other patients he needed to tend to, making it necessary for him to leave. But that didn’t matter. Those people were strangers to her; Jim was her husband. The doctor could have, should have stayed just in case … just in case.

  March shivered at the thought of what “just in case” meant. They had fought so long and hard to save him, surely they would be rewarded. He had to live … he had to! She couldn’t let him go. She hadn’t told him about the baby they had made together, or that Jamie could crawl across a room now … or that she loved him.

  Sometime, during one of the endless nights, while the world slept and she kept a lonely vigil, March had accepted that she was in love with her husband.

  The realization had come quietly, settling comfortably around her like a soft mantle. She had watched his fever-ridden body toss and turn, listened to his constant mumbling, and knew that her life would never be the same if she had to live it without him. She knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she didn’t want to live it without him.

  Leaning against the window frame, the coffee cup forgotten in her hands, March felt a restless yearning to find solace in Jim’s arms, to turn back the clock to a time before he had been shot, so that she could tell him of her love.

  She knew that he didn’t love her, might never love her. She thought she could accept that, even understood why he might never be able to love again.

  During some of his fever-induced ramblings, she had learned how his love for Melanie had slowly eroded to pity and dislike. Tears had filled her eyes, while she listened to him beg Melanie to forgive him, and she longed to offer comfort, to give him the kind of love he deserved, to wipe away his feelings of guilt because of her death.

  But all she could do now, all she had done for days, was wait, wait for either the fever to break a final time, or for death to release him from his pain.

  It was there again, that soft misty cloud with its pristine facade of newly fallen snow and its promise of tranquility. He didn’t know his own name, or why he was being punished in such a tortuous way. He wasn’t sure if he still lived. Maybe he had died, and this was hell with its unrelenting fires of eternal damnation.

  He did know, almost instinctively, that if he just reached out, he would be enveloped in a mantle of coolness, the savage heat would be tamed. That it was a false promise was of little concern to him; after days of being burned alive, he cherished even the thought of reprieve.

  He was tempted. It was an offer so filled with temptation, that he began to wonder why he hesitated. The desire, the need, the demand of his own body, commanded that he accept.

  But each time he nearly gave in to the enticement, a voice called softly to him, staying his hand. A sweet voice, so filled with love and longing, begged him not to go.

  He found that he could resist the lure of the cloud, but not that of the voice. Somewhere in his fever-induced delirium, he fought to identify the voice, to put a name to the person calling to him. It became a challenge to search through his jumbled memories to discover her name.

  Finally the cloud drifted away, changing shapes as clouds are wont to do. First a beckoning hand, then a velvet field thick with soft spring grass, and finally a concealing curtain, each inviting him to come and explore. He was tempted … but then the voice …

  Always the voice, calling sweetly through the pain, promising a world of paradise in words he couldn’t quite understand.

  A soft tapping on the back door released March from her thoughts. Expecting to find one of the ranch hands inquiring about Jim, she was startled speechless to see her fa
ther, hat in hand, a lopsided grin on his face.

  “It’s me, girl. Ain’t been that long since ya seen your pa that you done forgot my face,” George Evans said jovially.

  March had thought that if she ever saw him again, she would feel an overwhelming desire to cause him the kind of pain he had caused her. She was startled to discover that she felt nothing for the man standing on the back stoop; not love nor hate nor even revulsion. She tried to ignore the need to ask about her mother and the children. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of letting him know that she cared.

  “What do you want?”

  “What do I want? Why, I come to see my baby girl.”

  George pushed his way into the kitchen, his wary gaze rapidly searching the room. Finding it empty except for them, he turned to his daughter. His manner was exceptionally meek, uncharacteristically humble.

  “I heard ‘bout you marryin‘ up with this rancher. Seems I done you a good turn, fixin‘ you up with him and all. Now it’s yore turn to help out your old pa a little.” He shuffled his feet and twisted his hat in his hands. “Jan and Feb runned off a while back. You know I ain’t never been much with a rifle. I could use some vittles, it’s been a bit since I ate.”

  “No.” Hating for anyone to be hungry if she could do something about it, March frequently offered food to strangers. He was certainly no stranger, but she didn’t care if he starved to death. She wanted him away from the house, before his taint of corruption could somehow infiltrate the room.

  “How can you be sayin‘ no to me, girl?” he whined. “I’m your pa.”

  “No,” she repeated, feeling a new strength begin to spread its wings. “You have never been a father to me. You don’t even know the meaning of the word.”

  “I done the best I could!”

  “How? Tell me one time that you considered anyone except yourself first.”

  “Why, there was many a time when I knew my babies was hungry, and I found money to feed them.”

  “Stole it, you mean. And then you spent it on whiskey. The only time we had money is when you came home drunk and passed out. Then I’d dig through your pockets and take what was left.” March looked at the man who had fathered her, and felt a growing disgust that she was related to him.

  George Evans felt a growing frustration. This wasn’t going at all the way he’d planned. March was supposed to be scared, more than ready to accept his guidance. The woman facing him was a stranger, with a strength he wasn’t accustomed to encountering in a woman. Of course, March always had been a stubborn one.

  “You’d lie, cheat, and steal to get what you wanted. But you finally reached the bottom, when you sold me to a man who only wanted my innocence. You tried to make a whore out of me, and when that didn’t work, you sold me again. A father doesn’t abandon his child to a total stranger.”

  “I done you good!” he argued, his face turning red with anger. “Lookee here at this fine house! Why that dress yore wearin‘ is better than anything yore ma has! Now get me some food, afore I have to take my belt to you. I have a lot of decisions to make, and I ain’t makin‘ ‘em on an empty stomach.”

  Expecting instant compliance, George turned away. His greedy gaze noted the well-made furnishings and the trappings of a comfortable life. There was money to be had here, probably more money than he’d seen in his entire life.

  “Get out of my house,” March said quietly, a thread of steel lacing the words with conviction. “You aren’t welcome here now or ever.”

  “Yore house? Well, ain’t you the high-and- mighty one. You ain’t been a widow a week yet, and you’re already givin‘ orders! Well, you better be thinkin‘ about who yore tryin‘ to order around. I ain’t some hired hand.”

  March didn’t hear his entire tirade. She hadn’t heard a word after his comment that she was a widow. How could he know that Jim had been shot? It wasn’t common knowledge, since Breed had made every effort to keep it quiet.

  Suddenly she had an idea how he knew, an idea so vile, it made her blanch. Breed hadn’t found any traces of the shooting, since he had been unable to determine exactly where it had happened. It was a big desert, and the trail had grown cold long before he had been able to backtrack it.

  “Have you gone stupid on me, girl? Get me some vittles.”

  “You shot him,” she stated quietly. “You shot my husband.”

  “Ain’t no way you cain prove it.” George puffed up, as pride filled him at his achievement. He hadn’t lied when he had stated that he wasn’t too good with a rifle. He figured that luck was on his side that day. “No siree, you cain’t prove nothing.”

  “I don’t need to prove anything to anyone. I know the truth, that’s all that matters.”

  “I’ll tell you what matters, girlie,” he snarled, tired of her disrespect. “I’m yore pa, and yore a widow-woman who needs a man to take care of her. Me and yore Ma is moving into this fine house, and you’ll do everything I say. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Go to hell,” she replied softly.

  “I’ve had enough of yore backtalk.” George crossed the room until he stood within reach of her. “I done what I had to do, just like I’ve always done what I had to do. There ain’t gonna be no more talkin‘ about it. And from here on out, yore gonna do exactly like I tell you to do, or you’ll be sorry.”

  March smiled as his threats drifted past her like snowflakes on the wind. He couldn’t hurt her again. Finally, after all the years of painful beatings and harsh humiliation, George Evans couldn’t touch her.

  “Go to hell.”

  With a speed common to small men, George reached out and backhanded March. He watched with satisfaction, as her head snapped back and blood welled up from her lips.

  “That’s just a taste of it, little girl. Anymore of yore backtalk and you’ll get a whole lot more. There ain’t nobody to tell me what I cain or cain’t do.”

  March wiped the blood from her mouth and looked at the bright red stain on her hand. One time, a long time ago, she had run from him when he had started to hit anyone near at hand. But that was a long time ago, a lifetime ago. She had been a child; now she was a woman.

  March felt free, incredibly free. The pain of her split lip was negligible in comparison to the years of agony she had suffered at his hands. But now it was at an end. There was nothing he could do to her. He had tried his worst and failed.

  Just a few months as Jim’s wife and a lifetime of self-recrimination was put into its proper perspective. She had nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to regret.

  She was free of her father’s corruption. Free to be a wife to Jim, a mother to Jamie. Her hand came to rest on her still-flat stomach. She could hold her head up with pride, meet the gazes of friends and strangers, and know that she was as good as any of them, maybe even better than some.

  “Go to hell,” she said slowly, distinctly.

  George’s fist swung again, connecting solidly with her jaw. March didn’t try to dodge that blow, but from the corner of her eye she saw his other fist aimed for her stomach. She twisted away; it landed on her hip with enough strength to knock her from her feet.

  Fury unlike any she had ever known ran like fire through her veins. She could take the punishment for herself, but he was threatening the child that nestled within her body.

  Rising from the floor, her hand sought the derringer in her pocket. She turned to face George, a magnificent mother protecting her offspring.

  Holding the small gun in both hands with it pointed at his belly, her face was a twisted snarl of hate. Even at this range there was a slight chance that the bullet would miss him, since the gun was known to be inaccurate. It was a chance she would gladly take to protect her baby.

  “Get out of my house, now!”

  “Put that toy gun down!” George demanded. “I ain’t gonna be threatened by my own daughter, and I ain’t gonna forget it neither. You’ll do as I say, or you may just find yourself havin‘ an accident someday.”

  March c
ocked the weapon. “This is your last warning. Get out!”

  He raised his fist and swung, but it never connected with its target. Two shots rang out, one seeming to be the echo of the other. George grabbed at the burning hole in his stomach, and watched the crimson blood flow between his clutching fingers.

  “Ya shot me … I’ll be damned, ya really shot me.”

  Slowly, like a wind-up toy that has run down, he crumbled to his knees. March watched as his eyes turned glassy, and his body relaxed in death.

  “Oh, my God …” she muttered, letting the gun slip through her fingers.

  “It is done, a coyote has been destroyed,” a deep voice said from behind her.

  In shock, March turned in time to see Breed holster his Colt. “He was your father, for that I ask that you forgive me. A child shouldn’t witness the savage death of a parent, whether he deserved to die or not.”

  “You shot him?” she asked in confusion. “Are you sure? I thought / had done it.”

  “It is my bullet buried deep in his belly. Your shot went wild, and is in the wall by the fireplace.”

  “I couldn’t have missed.” March shook her head with disbelief. “At this distance I couldn’t have missed.”

  Breed’s silver eyes softened with compassion. “It is not an easy thing to kill a man. It is harder still to kill your parent. At the last you turned your gun away enough that it missed.

  “I wasn’t so generous. My bullet raced true.

  Had there been more time, I would have used other means to stop him, but I came into the kitchen when it was too late to do more than to protect you with my gun.”

  March believed him, maybe because, in the end, she wanted to. She stared down at her father, and remembered her promise so long ago to someday gut-shoot him and laugh as he died. She hadn’t been the one to shoot him, and she wasn’t laughing.

  “He was going to hurt my baby,” she mumbled quietly.

  Breed looked at her hands protectively cradling her stomach, and understood her fear for her unborn child. “Your last memory of him shouldn’t be that you were the one to cause his death. He wasn’t a good father, but he was your father. Search your mind until you find a happy memory of him, and keep that with you. Let the pain of the truth drift away until it is gone.”