To Find You Again

by Maureen McKade

  "You're supposed to wait for Father in the study," Sarah said.

  "I'm going to change out of my church clothes first."

  Sighing, Sarah trailed after her, right into Emma's bedroom, and perched on a dainty spindle-footed chair.

  "Father's not at all happy with you, Emma. Running away was bad enough, but talking with Ridge Madoc..." Sarah shivered. "Father says his mother was a tramp, and the apple doesn't fall far from the tree."

  "Father says a lot of things." Emma reached up to undo the tiny pearl buttons at the back of her dress. "Who's his mother?"

  Sarah shrugged. "All I know is she was married to Harry Piner."

  Emma struggled to place the name. "The mean old man who lives in that shack just north of town?"

  "Yes, but he died last summer. Then, right before you came home, Mr. Madoc claimed the place. Father was angry because he wanted the rest of the land, but since the rightful heir showed up, he couldn't get it."

  Emma paused to look at her sister. "What do you mean, 'the rest of the land'?"

  "Father's been buying pieces of Mr. Piner's land over the past few years. Whenever the old man needed money for whiskey, he'd come to Father and sell some more."

  "But Mr. Madoc won't sell what's left?"

  Sarah shook her head. "He plans on settling there."

  No wonder her father didn't want Madoc anywhere near her. Besides having bad blood, he had also thwarted her father's plans for the land. Still, Mr. Madoc had been kind to her, and Emma had found little kindness since she'd returned.

  She moved to stand in front of her sister, her back toward the younger woman. After a moment, she felt Sarah's fingers undoing the remaining buttons.

  "Thanks." Emma couldn't get the confining dress off fast enough. She hung it in her armoire, and removed two of her four petticoats, placing those in the closet, too. She rummaged past the dresses the seamstress in town had made for her over the last few months, and picked out one of her past favorites, a somewhat faded green-and-blue paisley smock.

  "You're going to wear that?" Sarah asked, staring at the old dress like it was a dead snake.

  "I like it."

  "Father hates it."

  "He doesn't have to wear it." With the buttons up the front, Emma didn't need Sarah's help. The fabric stretched taut, threatening to undo the button between her breasts. The first time she'd worn the old dress upon her return, she noticed she'd gained an inch or two in her bosom, although the rest of the dress was loose.

  "So why does this Ridge Madoc have a different last name?" she asked, oddly curious about him.

  "I heard Father and Mother talking about him one time. I guess his mother was married to Mr. Madoc's real father who owned the place first, but that was before we moved here," Sarah replied.

  "Emma Louise! Get down here!" Her father's bellow thundered from the foot of the stairs.

  Sarah's eyes widened. "Now he's even angrier with you."

  Emma shrugged, almost surprised by her unconcern. "What can he do to me that hasn't already been done?"

  Her sister gasped.

  Emma strolled out of her room and down the stairs where her red-faced father stood. Martha Hartwell stood a few feet behind her husband, her lips set in a grim line.

  "I thought I told you to throw out that rag," he said, motioning to her dress with a slicing motion.

  Emma began to cross her arms, felt the fabric tug across her chest, and instead, clasped her hands in front of her. "It's my dress. I can do with it what I please."

  Her father's eyes sparked with anger, and a muscle clenched in his jaw. "The study."

  Still wrapped in indifference, Emma walked into the dark paneled room with heavy, navy-blue velvet curtains on the two large windows behind his desk. She glanced longingly at the overflowing bookshelves. Without the books, she wouldn't have survived her confinement over the past several months.

  Emma settled into a wingback chair in front of the desk, sitting with her feet flat on the floor and her hands resting in her lap like a proper young lady. She would've preferred to sit with her legs folded beneath her, but she figured she'd provoked her father enough for one day.

  Her mother perched on the twin of Emma's chair, her face pinched with worry. Her father, however, didn't appear the least bit anxious. No, he was spitting mad.

  "What do you have to say for yourself, young lady?" he demanded.

  She met his glowering eyes without flinching. "You and Mother have no right making decisions which affect my life without talking to me first."

  Her father blinked, apparently startled by her forthrightness. "You're our daughter and you live under our roof. That gives us the right."

  "Would you ship Sarah off without talking to her about it?"

  "Sarah is not you."

  Boiling anger and hurt engulfed Emma as she gripped the armrests. "What you mean is that Sarah is still clean and pure, but poor Emma is used and soiled." Her nostrils flared and her fingernails dug into the armrests. Long-held silence exploded in defiance. "I am not a thing you can cast aside and forget about. i have a life. i have hopes and dreams."

  "Which will never be realized around here," Emma's mother interjected almost gently. "No respectable man will have you."

  Emma's stomach caved and she stared down at her fisted hands, which had somehow ended up in her lap again. She absorbed the pain of her mother's words, praying her expression didn't reveal her anguish. Once upon a time when she was a young girl, Emma had dreamed of meeting a handsome, dashing young man and living happily ever after. A part of her still yearned for that happy ending, but fate had stolen that wish, leaving no hope of ever realizing it. She raised her head and turned to the older version of herself. "Thank you for sharing that with me, Mother."

  Her mother flinched, and even Emma was shocked by the depth of her own bitterness.

  "That's enough, Emma Louise," her father ordered. He stood and paced behind the desk, his body silhouetted against the windows. He'd taken the time to remove his jacket, but still wore one of his white church shirts with a string tie and vest.

  The regulator clock ticked loudly in the muffled silence. Emma concentrated on its steady rhythm—tick-tock, tick-tock—to block out the other sounds swirling through her head, but the memories were too powerful to be denied any longer.

  Pounding hooves.

  Gunshots.

  Screams.

  Blood.

  Her heart hammering, Emma stared at her hands, almost surprised to find they weren't scarlet stained. Instead, she noticed how they'd finally lost their dried parchment texture, but weren't nearly as smooth as they'd been seven years ago.

  Her father stopped pacing, but remained standing behind his desk. The silence was so intense that when he rubbed his jaw, Emma heard the rasp of his short whisker stubble against his hand. "Maybe it was wrong of your mother and I to make plans behind your back, but we were only thinking of your best interests."

  Emma bit her tongue.

  "As you know, your aunt Alice is a widow with no children. Your uncle left her very comfortable financially, and we doubt she'll ever marry again. She's willing to let you move in with her and begin a new life."

  It wasn't that Emma didn't like Aunt Alice. She did. She admired her aunt's independence and used to enjoy watching her put her brother—Emma's father—in his place. There were few people who could tangle horns with John Hartwell and come out unscathed and victorious. His older sister was one of them.

  Emma took a deep, steadying breath. "I'm fond of Aunt Alice, but I want to stay here. This is my home, where I was raised. I don't want to leave."

  Her father's stern expression faltered and Emma caught his helpless look directed toward her mother. Emma had no doubt he loved her—still loved her after everything that had happened, but didn't know how to show it. The only time she'd seen him truly emotional was when he'd come to the infirmary at the fort after the cavalry had brought her in, wounded and weak from blood loss and shock. For the first
time in her life, Emma had seen tears in his eyes. Since then, though, he'd gone back to his characteristic detachment.

  Her mother leaned forward to lay a hand on Emma's. "Believe it or not, we don't want you to leave either. Your father and I discussed this for weeks before we contacted Alice. But surely you must see it's for the best. In St. Paul, no one knows of your time with the... Indians." Martha Hartwell's voice quavered. "Although you won't talk about what happened while you were with them, we can imagine how you must've suffered."

  "I was treated well." That was true. Emma hadn't told them much about her years with the Lakota tribe. At first, it had been because she hovered on death's door for a week after coming home. In the days that followed, her body healed but her mind had shut down after the horrific visions and sounds she'd experienced the morning the soldiers attacked the village. And now it was too late to tell them. Everyone seemed to think they already knew, and anything Emma said would invariably be seen as the ravings of a madwoman.

  "They're a lot like us," she finally said. "The children play, the women cook and clean, and the men hunt and protect the women and children. Parents love their children and want them to grow up to be good and responsible adults, too."

  "They're heathens," her father said curtly. "They murder women and children."

  Emma smiled, but there was no warmth behind it. "Then I guess the whites and Indians have more in common than most folks think, don't they?"

  Her mother gasped. "You sound like you're defending them."

  "They stole you away from us, away from your home," her father added, his husky voice revealing both anger and distress.

  "They saved my life," Emma corrected.

  "And God knows what they made you do while you were with them," he continued as if she hadn't even spoken.

  "They didn't make me to do anything I didn't want to."

  Her mother squeezed her hands. "Thank God. We prayed that you wouldn't be forced to—" She broke off.

  But Emma knew exactly what she meant. She had lived with that fear for weeks after she was carried into their camp, not realizing she wasn't a captive. She was treated decently and her adoptive parents had cared for her and protected her. And when the time came, Emma hadn't been scared. Nervous, yes, but not frightened.

  Not of Enapay.

  She'd chosen to hide that fact from her parents and Sarah. They wouldn't understand. Nobody would understand unless they had walked her path.

  "We're relieved," her father broke the stillness. "That way, when you do find a man to marry, he won't know."

  "Know what?" Emma asked.

  "Of your circumstances."

  Dare she tell them? Did it matter?

  "Please let me stay," Emma pleaded, ready to put an end to the conversation.

  Again, the mute exchange between her mother and father. Emma was beginning to hate those secret looks.

  "In two weeks you will go on an extended visit to your aunt's," her father proclaimed. "That'll give you some time to prepare."

  Emma wanted to kick and scream, to throw a tantrum unpleasant enough that her parents would change their minds. But she wasn't five years old, and John and Martha Hartwell truly believed they were doing the right thing for their eldest daughter.

  There would be no changing their minds about this.

  Emma nodded even as every muscle in her body rebelled against the simple motion. "Two weeks."

  "Two weeks," her father repeated.

  "It's for the best," her mother reiterated, as if trying to convince herself.

  Emma stood and walked out of the room. Her legs moved as if someone other than herself was controlling them. Keeping her mind and expression blank, she climbed the stairs and entered her room, locking the door behind her. Once there, she opened a dresser drawer and dug beneath her underclothing to find what she sought. Her fingers recognized the soft leather and they closed around a small moccasin.

  Slowly she brought it out and hugged it to her chest.

  Chapter 2

  Dusk was falling as Ridge and Colt sat in companionable silence in the cabin. They had turned two chairs toward the stove and were drinking coffee after finishing the pot of venison stew Ridge had made.

  "How're Pres and Sarge doing?" Ridge asked.

  Colt stretched out his long legs and crossed his ankles. "They're getting tired. They would've come with me, but the colonel's got them going out again, looking for those Indians that hightailed it off the reservation."

  Ridge scowled. "From what I heard, most of 'em were women and kids. They ain't going to hurt anyone."

  "Maybe, maybe not. But I guess there were a few young bucks with them—the kind that got something to prove."

  Ridge stood, plucked a rag from a nail on the wall, and used it to pick up the hot coffeepot on the stove. He raised the pot to Colt, who nodded and held out his cup. Ridge topped it off, then refilled his own. After returning it to the stove, he sat down and tipped his chair back so that the two front legs were off the floor.

  This was Ridge's favorite time, when he could sit back and enjoy some peace and quiet after a day's work. When he'd been with Colt and the others in the army, evenings were spent in easy camaraderie, usually playing poker for matchsticks and drinking coffee.

  Ridge had left those days behind. His last order had been to find an Arapaho village. After he found it, the peaceful camp had been destroyed by soldiers drunk on glory and vengeance. It wasn't a battle as much as it had been a massacre. Even now, Ridge could see and hear the carnage. It made him sick to remember.

  "You should've stayed on," Colt said in a low voice.

  A cold fist wrapped around Ridge's spine. "No. I couldn't."

  "Maybe if you had, they wouldn't a done the same thing to that Lakota village."

  "They didn't listen to me before." Ridge sipped his coffee, his stomach churning with guilt and bitterness. "Why would the next time be any different?"

  Colt continued as if his friend hadn't spoken. "The Hartwell woman almost got herself killed." His lips turned downward in disgust. "She was dressed just like one of them, acted just like 'em, too, from what I heard."

  Reining in his anger at Colt's disapproval, Ridge pictured the woman with the fawn-colored eyes as she thanked him for his coat. It was a damned shame her life was ruined. No white man wanted a "squaw woman."

  He became aware of Colt's scrutiny.

  "You ain't thinking of ignoring Hartwell's warning, are you?" Colt asked.

  Ridge shook his head. "Nope. Miz Hartwell's got enough problems."

  "Damned shame she's ruined," Colt said, unknowingly echoing Ridge's thoughts. "She's a pretty filly, but no man in his right mind's going to want to get hitched to her."

  Ridge's hand tightened around his cup. He recognized the truth in his friend's words, but that didn't mean he had to like it.

  Colt finished his coffee and glanced out into the disappearing daylight. "I'd better get back to the fort. Colonel

  Nyes wants us to check on those folks settling along the river tomorrow so we'll have to leave early. Wants to make sure they haven't had any Indian troubles."

  "My guess is they haven't. Too far west."

  Colt nodded. "Yep, that's what I figure, but what the old man says goes."

  "Nyes must be running out of Indians to kill if he's looking for more." Sarcasm sharpened Ridge's words.

  "I don't like the colonel, but I can understand his position. The man has his orders, just like the rest of us," Colt said with a hint of defensiveness.

  "A man like him can hide a whole lot of hate behind orders."

  Colt's jaw muscle clenched. "Maybe it is a good thing you quit."

  The two men parried sharp looks until Colt turned away to retrieve his hat and jacket. Ridge sighed and donned his, also. They'd been friends too long to let a difference of opinion get between them.

  "I reckon it was," Ridge said quietly.

  Colt dipped his head in acknowledgment. They walked out to the stable where C
olt's horse was penned next to Paint. While the cavalry captain saddled his gelding, Ridge leaned a shoulder against a post.

  "I appreciate you coming out to help me, Colt," Ridge said.

  Colt paused long enough to give him a crooked grin. "You'd do the same for me."

  Ridge smiled. "I reckon, even though your venison stew tastes like chewed-up leather."

  "And how the hell do you know what chewed-up leather tastes like?"

  "I've eaten your stew."

  The two men chuckled as Colt led his horse outside. Ridge extended his hand, and Colt clasped his forearm as Ridge did the same.

  "You take care, soldier," Ridge drawled.

  "You, too, pard."

  Colt mounted in one fluid motion, lifted a hand in farewell, and urged his horse into a trot.

  Ridge folded his arms on the top corral pole and watched his friend swallowed up by the dusky shadows. He took a deep breath and let his gaze wander across his land.

  His land. That sounded good, even if instead of five hundred acres, only one hundred remained. Damn Harry Piner for selling off what was rightfully his.

  Ridge didn't remember much about his real pa, but what he could recollect filled him with both warmth and soul-deep loneliness. He recalled his pa lifting him onto the saddle in front of him and the two of them riding around the yard as his ma had watched with a gentle smile; helping clean the tack and the smell of oil and leather and his pa's wool shirt; carrying in two pieces of wood because he was too small to handle anymore and his pa's big hand patting his shoulder to thank him for helping fill the woodbox.

  Then his pa had died and his ma married Piner. It hadn't been bad the first year. Harry had seemed like he cared for them, and had tried to make the ranch profitable. However, the harsh winter and falling market prices had seemed to conspire against him. He started drinking, and his temper grew shorter, especially with his stepson and later with Ridge's ma. His violent outbursts often left both mother and son with painful bruises.

  In the end, Ridge's ma gave up, and twelve-year-old Ridge was left with his stepfather's mean temper and painful lessons learned with a leather belt or a fist. When Ridge turned fifteen, he ran away and never looked back.