Lance grinned back. “A lot of fellas have tried.”
“Get back. I don’t need your damned help.”
“I didn’t think you did,” Lance returned smugly. “Use the stirrup leather.”
As ordered, Reed sat up and half slid, half crawled to where he could grab the stirrup leather and pull himself up to stand beside the horse. When he finally made it, he stood panting for a moment, then said in a voice so low, Summer could barely make out the words, “Lance…I’m grateful to you. More than you’ll ever know. I’ve felt so blasted trapped, being unable to get around.”
“Oh, I know, all right,” Lance retorted gruffly. “But there’s no call for you to feel beholden. Fact is, I’d say we’re even. You just better do a damned good job drawing my new house.” They grinned at each other in complete accord. “Now, get moving. I’ve got work to do out on the range. Can’t spend all my valuable time mollycoddling you.”
As Reed tried again, Lance caught his wife’s approving eye. Summer gave him a smile of such brilliance that it dazed him for a full minute.
She had just picked up her basket of laundry from the ground where she’d set it, and turned toward the big house, when the distant sound of galloping hooves disturbed the calm, cool morning. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Lance quietly check the action of the six-shooter he wore strapped to his hip. Reed, who had managed to mount, turned the sorrel toward the approaching riders.
A group of a half dozen men came pounding up in a cloud of dust. Summer felt her heartbeat falter when she recognized Will Prewitt as the leader.
Prewitt raised his hand and brought the group to a halt near the corral, then sat staring with undisguised animosity at Lance.
Reed broke the silence with a cautious greeting. “Will, what brings you boys out our way?”
“Somebody stole two hundred head of prime stock off my north range yesterday.”
Reed adopted an expression of polite concern, while Lance’s features remained totally closed. Summer felt the knot of tension in her stomach tighten.
Prewitt held up an object—an Indian arrow, by the looks of it. “This was found in place of my beeves. Looks like a Comanche arrow to me,” he added, addressing Lance directly.
Lance’s black gaze swept the arrow casually as he hooked his thumbs on his gun belt. “Could be. What of it?”
“That’s a right good question. How do you figure them stinkin’ Comanche knew to raid my place?”
Reed shook his head. “I’m not sure that’s a fair conclusion, Prewitt. With all the vagrants on the loose nowadays, it could just as well be whites who stole your stock.”
That was possible, Summer knew, but not as likely. During the war, with the frontier crumbling, cattle raids by Indians had occurred frequently, even as far south as Williamson County. The Comanche and Kiowa especially had made off with thousands of head from Texas ranches and exchanged them for blankets and weapons with the ruthless Mexican traders known as Comancheros, who in turn traded the livestock to Federal Army contractors in the New Mexico Territory. After the war, the Federal market had dried up, but there was still a big demand for Texas longhorns by ranchers in New Mexico. Summer had heard of huge Comanche camps to the northwest serving as trading stations for the illicit enterprise.
“It was Injuns, all right,” Prewitt countered. “Where this arrow was found, there was a mess o’ horse tracks—all goin’ barefoot. Them Injun ponies ain’t shod. Looked like maybe two dozen of ‘em. It was Injuns; I think maybe they had good reason to come visitin’ here.”
Reed’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t think I like what you’re implying.”
Prewitt spat a stream of tobacco juice on the ground, a scarce foot from Lance’s boots. “I ain’t implyin’ nothing. I’m statin’ facts. Them Comanche stole my cattle. And I think maybe you know more about this than you’re lettin’ on.”
“What’s your point, Prewitt?” Lance demanded.
“I think maybe you drove off my beeves to give to your red nigger kin.”
Summer didn’t know whether to be more incensed by the ugly slur or the ridiculous accusation. “Why, that’s absurd!” she exclaimed indignantly, stepping forward. “Lance would never be part of such a raid.”
“Oh, yeah?” Prewitt gave her a narrow look before shifting his attention back to Lance. “Where were you all day yesterday, Calder?”
Lance tipped his hat back, eyeing Prewitt steadily. “I rode down to Austin to order some supplies.”
“Time enough to swing by my place to lift my beeves and meet up with them red devils.”
“That’s enough,” Reed broke in. “You’ve no call to come around accusing innocent men.”
“How can you be so damned sure he’s innocent?”
“Think about it. It doesn’t make sense, Lance stealing from our neighbors.” Reed made a sweeping gesture with his arm, encompassing the Sky Valley ranch. “Why would he jeopardize everything he has here?”
“How the hell should I know? Maybe he wanted to pay somebody back for what happened to his livery t’other day.”
“How do you know about what happened to my livery?” Lance asked, his tone grim.
Prewitt smirked. “Everybody heard about that. Could be you blame me.”
“You’re clutching at straws,” Reed insisted.
“I sure as hell don’t think so. It’s a fact Comanches’d rather steal horses than steers. I didn’t hear tell of any of your stock goin’ missin’. Why would they bypass your place lessen he was in on it?”
“You’ll have to have more proof than that, Prewitt.”
“I’ll get you your proof. And then he’s gonna pay.” He looked directly at Lance. “Around these parts a man gets strung up for stealing beeves. I don’t give a shit what your Yank traitor and your purty squaw say to protect you—”
Lance struck faster than a rattler. Ducking through the rails of the corral, he had Prewitt by the shirt collar and was dragging him from the saddle before any of his henchmen could even think of reacting. His fist made a sickening thwick as it contacted with Prewitt’s jaw and sent the man sprawling face-first in the dirt.
Flexing his knuckles, Lance stood over him threateningly. “You can say what you like about me, but you talk filthy about my wife and you’ll find your face rearranged.”
Working his jaw gingerly, Prewitt turned his head and spit out blood, although still keeping a cautious eye on the dangerous man above him. “Who the hell are you to threaten me?”
Lance’s mouth twisted in a not-very-nice smile. “Not a threat, Prewitt. A fact. You’re so big on facts. Keep it in mind—and get the hell off our land.”
Prewitt, finding no one among the men he’d brought willing to push the issue, picked himself up off the ground and climbed back into his saddle. With a malevolent look at Lance, he jerked the reins and turned his horse. “You ain’t heard the last of this,” he called over his shoulder before he galloped off, his men following.
The silence they left behind seemed hollow and ominous.
“I wouldn’t let Prewitt get to you, Lance,” Reed said finally.
“It’s not me I’m worried about.” He was looking at Summer.
Reed nodded grimly. Considerately then, he backed the sorrel away to resume his training, giving them some privacy.
“I’m sorry about what he called you,” Lance said in a low voice.
Summer, finding her knees strangely weak, put a hand out to hold on to the corral fence. “It’s all right.”
“No, dammit, it’s not all right.” He took a step closer, but stopped, as if afraid to touch her.
Summer closed her eyes, feeling somehow violated by Prewitt’s ugliness. She had known the attitudes of some of her neighbors would be poisoned against her because of her marriage to Lance, but she had thought she would be safe at Sky Valley. “Sometimes I wish…”
“What?” Lance demanded quietly when she faltered.
“I just wish the world would go away and leave us in
peace.”
He closed the distance between them then, his arms a protective weight as they slid about her waist. Blindly she turned and melted into the shelter of his embrace.
He held her like that for a while, his throat closing on old and familiar emotions…sick helplessness and impotent rage. Squaw was such an ugly word the way whites meant it. An Indian’s whore. He’d learned to despise that word, watching his mother shrink a little more each time some holier-than-thou bastard taunted her with it. But the sensation that gnawed deepest in his gut was fear. Summer was being treated just the way his mother had been—and sooner or later she would come to hate him for it.
“I guess I’ve let you in for a hard time.”
She stiffened in his arms. “It isn’t your fault!”
“I made you marry me,” he said quietly.
“I’ve told you before, I consider my sister’s life a fair exchange—but that is entirely beside the point. Oh, I wish I could have been the one to hit that horrible Will Prewitt!”
It was Lance’s turn to stiffen. “This isn’t your fight, princess.”
“It is now,” Summer vowed grimly. “You took on my battle for my sister, Lance. It’s only right that I take on yours now.”
“Uh-uh. I don’t want you involved.”
“I already am involved. I’m your wife. For better or worse.” She gave a small, mirthless laugh. “I guess this is just the ‘worse.’”
He was silent for a minute. “I’d rather you didn’t go to that barbecue Saturday night.”
She shook her head violently against his chest. “Wild horses couldn’t keep me away now.”
“It may get rough.”
“Just let it.”
The grit and determination in her voice sounded so much like his ma that it took him aback.
“Besides,” she added adamantly, “you should know better than anyone that you can’t escape bigotry and hatred by doing nothing. The only way to deal with it is to face it squarely.”
“Maybe, but I don’t want you having to face it at all.”
Suddenly drawing back, she looked up at him with shimmering eyes. “I know what you’re trying to do, Lance Calder. But you’re not wiggling out of Harlan’s invitation. We are going to that barbecue.”
He searched her face for a long moment, relief stealing through him like a guilty thief. As long as Summer was fighting mad at bigoted bastards like Prewitt, she wouldn’t be thinking about how she could get out of her marriage to him. He just wished like hell she could hold on to that anger. She would need skin as tough as rawhide if she meant to stay his wife.
“We are going, Lance, and that’s final,” Summer repeated.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said with unaccustomed meekness. He reached up and brushed the dampness from her cheek with his thumb. “I guess you ought to know something about me I never told you, though.”
“What?”
“I can’t dance.”
“Oh.” She smiled tremulously at his faintly sheepish expression.
“I never got invited to parties, so I never learned.”
“It doesn’t matter. Reed can’t dance either now. And in any case, we aren’t going for the dancing. We’re going because we have as much right to be there as the next person.”
Lance forced his lips into a semblance of an answering smile, though his thoughts responded differently. Sure, princess, and I hope you go right on believing that. You’re going to need every ounce of grit you have if you’re to stick by me when the going gets rough.
And unless I miss my guess, if Prewitt has his way, the going is about to get mighty rough indeed.
Chapter 21
The Saturday of the barbecue dawned clear and cool, but held a nerve-racking tension that, for Summer at least, only built as the day wore on. She spent the morning at the big house, baking four sweet potato pies to take to the party, and the afternoon getting ready for the evening.
They left for the Fisks’ ranch while it was still light. Determined to use every advantage at her disposal, including her beauty, Summer wore an outdated yet stunning gown of forest green silk that brought out the red highlights in her dark hair and exposed a great deal of pale white shoulders, which she modestly covered with a black lace shawl. If someone dared condemn her because she had shed full mourning, she intended to respond that her brothers and father would not have wanted her to dwell on their deaths forever. Maritza had come to the cabin to help her dress and to arrange her hair up in soft ringlets—which, to Summer’s delight, made Lance’s gaze narrow in heated speculation.
Lance, to her great surprise, had allowed Reed to unearth for him a handsome suit of black wool that belonged to their late brother Tyler, along with a white cambric shirt and black tie. The colors looked striking against Lance’s dark skin, but the civilized tailoring only seemed to accentuate the harshness of his features. And for once, his air of defiance was gone. In its place was a quiet uncertainty, a vulnerability that absurdly made Summer want to wrap her arms around him and hold him close, protecting him from the cruel world.
She settled for a gentle kiss and placed her hand on his sleeve, allowing him to lead her to the buckboard waiting outside.
To her further surprise, Reed was handing Amelia into the buggy. Or rather, Dusty was, while Reed fiddled with storing his crutches.
Summer wondered what had made her sister decide to attend the party, but she doubted it was a change of heart toward Lance. Most likely they were taking separate vehicles because Amelia refused to associate with him.
Lance did not seem in any hurry to reach the Fisks’ place. He let the buckboard fall behind to avoid the dust and maintained a plodding pace, but Summer didn’t mind. Not with the glorious sunset turning the hill country gold and red. She rested her head on her husband’s shoulder, letting contentment steal over her. If only every day could be so peaceful, life could not offer much greater happiness.
They spoke little on the drive, neither of them wanting to consider the approaching ordeal. By the time they arrived at the Fisk ranch, Reed had slowed the buggy he was driving in order to wait for them. Strength in numbers, Summer remembered her brother saying. If they were to win over their neighbors, they would need to stick together, for they were all outcasts. Lance, with his Comanche blood. Summer, who had married him in defiance of society’s mores. Reed, who had fought for the Union when Texas declared for the Confederacy. And Amelia, a gentlewoman cruelly violated by her brutal captors. Only Dusty Murdock had no past to live down. Summer found herself murmuring silent thanks for his quiet strength and his determination to stand by them.
The Fisks’ home, built of whitewashed weatherboard, was even bigger than the Westons’, for Harlan had prospered raising stock as one of the first settlers. The barbecue was being held outdoors, on the front lawn, where already a crowd of gaily dressed people milled about.
To one side stood tables groaning with dishes brought by the guests, and beyond, smoke rose from the cook fires, where whole steers were roasting on giant spits. Above the murmur of laughter and conversation, Summer heard someone warming up a fiddle in preparation for the dancing.
Parking the carriages, Dusty and Lance tied their teams to the temporary picket line and then helped the ladies down. Summer, collecting two pies and giving the others to Lance to carry, led the way toward the gathering, allowing Amelia to hang back with Reed.
Their hosts must have been watching for them, for as soon as they had deposited the pies on a table, Harlan and his plump wife, Becky, strolled over to meet them. Summer held her breath during the exchange of greetings, remembering Lance’s rudeness the last time the two men had met. But her husband seemed to be on his best behavior, or at least he allowed Harlan to pump his hand with no show of animosity.
“How do, Mr. Calder, sir. Glad you-all could come. You know my wife, Becky?”
Mrs. Fisk, although looking nervous, smiled and offered her fingers politely. Just as politely, Lance bowed over her hand. “Good evening,
ma’am. It’s kind of you to have us at your party.”
She looked a bit surprised by his polished manners, but after a courteous response, she seemed to forget Lance altogether. Brushing past him, her arms outstretched, she exclaimed in delight, “Amelia! Oh, dear Amelia, praise the Lord you’re safe. We were so worried about you.”
Summer watched in concern as Amelia momentarily seemed to shrink back, but Becky’s arms came around her in a motherly embrace, refusing to be denied, and her disarming chatter soon had Amelia responding with a tentative smile.
The warm welcome for her sister didn’t end there, either. Dozens more of their friends came over to greet Amelia, surrounding her and accepting her back into the community while Dusty hovered protectively nearby. Summer felt the tight knot in her stomach relax a degree. If Amelia could see that her life truly wasn’t ruined, then perhaps she would stop blaming Lance for the violence the Comanches had committed against her.
Summer was about to ask Lance if he wanted to join the crowd when Reed hobbled over to them. “Looks like she’s going to be okay.”
“Yes,” she murmured gratefully.
“That leaves the rest of us.” Reed gave Lance a friendly cuff on the shoulder. “You ready to beard the lions with me?”
Lance’s mouth curved in a wry grin. “I rather face a dozen real lions, but yeah, I guess I’m ready.”
They strolled toward the crowd, intent on mingling. They were met with looks of hostility and wariness, but also of curiosity and welcome. Some of the guests gave them a wide berth, but one by one, others—those willing to overlook Lance’s ancestry and forgive Reed’s political persuasions—began to gather around them. They were mostly young men, the boys Summer had known all her life, all eager to get back into her good graces, as well as a few older women, those who had known her mama and still felt a responsibility toward raising a motherless girl.
Lance watched in unwilling admiration as his beautiful young wife worked her magic, slowly gathering her court, charming and wooing them to her side. The males were like bees buzzing around a rose, unable to resist her alluring scent.
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