“I will come for you,” Dancing Cloud reassured. He gestured toward the sky with a hand. “When the moon is full again I will be here for you.”
“God be with you,” Lauralee said softly.
Watching him ride away sent a wave of melancholia through her.
But when Nancy spoke from behind her, Lauralee turned around and stared up at a most beautiful woman, whose dark eyes matched the darkest of all midnights. Although quite fleshy, Nancy’s face was beautifully sculpted. Her brown hair was tied up in a tight chignon. She was short and heavyset, her large breasts straining against the inside of her dress.
“Nancy!” Lauralee cried, breaking into a run until she reached the porch. “Aunt Nancy!”
Lifting her skirt, Lauralee went up the three wooden steps, then stood eye to eye with Nancy Peterson on the porch. She soaked in the wonder of being with Nancy as though she were being reunited with her true mother.
“Lauralee?” Nancy said, reaching a thick, short hand to Lauralee’s face, gently touching it. “You are Lauralee?”
“Yes, Aunt Nancy, I am your niece Lauralee,” she said, then found herself engulfed within soft, thick arms. She returned the hug, the fragrance of her aunt’s perfume pleasantly flaring her nostrils. The perfume was surely from France!
And, ah, the clothes that Nancy wore, Lauralee marveled to herself. Her dress was pure silk, pale yellow flowers dotting across a white backdrop of the expensive fabric.
“I’m so glad that you made it safely from Saint Louis,” Nancy said, then took a step away from Lauralee and held her by the hands at arm’s length, studying her. “And look at you. You are beautiful and such a picture of health.”
She looked past Lauralee, only barely able to see Dancing Cloud as he rode on away from them. “And your escort?” she said softly. “He was an Indian. I wish Boyd had not assigned the Indian to escort you to Mattoon. It has stirred up much gossip.”
Nancy sighed and placed a hand to her brow. “Abner was so anxious to tell everyone that you were coming, he did not think about how telling everybody who your escort was going to be would get so many tongues to wagging.”
She sighed again. “And I am certain you drew much attention along the roads as you traveled them with the savage,” she said solemnly.
Lauralee blanched of color and gasped. “Aunt Nancy, Dancing Cloud isn’t a savage,” she quickly corrected. “He’s one of the most gentle men I have ever met. In fact, I . . .”
She started to blurt out that she was going to marry Dancing Cloud soon, yet felt this was not the time. It was obvious that her aunt had different feelings toward Indians than Lauralee. Nancy’s feelings mirrored most white people’s.
Lauralee was glad that her father had not been among them!
“You were about to say?” Nancy said, taking Lauralee by an elbow. She took her inside the house where they entered a foyer that led to a room on the right and left sides. A kitchen was at the end of the long corridor. A grand, oak staircase to the upstairs rooms was to the left of the door that led into the parlor.
“I was going to say how wonderful it is to see you, Aunt Nancy,” Lauralee said, smiling over at her. “My father spoke so highly of both you and Uncle Abner.”
“After receiving Boyd’s wire, requesting that Abner and I make room in our lives for you, I have counted the days until you arrived,” Nancy said. She suddenly grabbed for the staircase banister and steadied herself. She closed her eyes and breathed hard, frightening Lauralee.
“Aunt Nancy, what is it?” Lauralee asked, placing a hand on her aunt’s arm to support her. “You are so suddenly pale. Are you dizzy? Do you have these spells often?”
“It’s nothing,” Nancy said, breathing hard. “Just a slight heart problem.”
“Your heart?” Lauralee said, her eyes widening. “Aunt Nancy, that’s serious. While working at the hospital in Saint Louis I became acquainted with many heart patients. Please don’t take your illness too lightly. You must take precautions not to have a heart attack.”
“You are making too much of this,” Nancy said, laughing softly. She straightened her back. “I’ll be fine. Just fine.”
“I will make certain of it,” Lauralee said, lifting her chin proudly. “I am here now to see that nothing happens to you.”
“Abner is in his study upstairs,” Nancy said, looking up the stairs. “I will show you the rest of the house, and then we shall see if he can be disturbed.”
Nancy ushered Lauralee into the dining room to the left. “You see, Lauralee, Abner is a powerful judge,” she said, almost too wistfully. “He is not content to keep his work at his office. He often brings it home and works by lamplight into the wee hours of the morning. Too often he does this. I get quite lonesome.”
“You shan’t be lonesome anymore,” Lauralee reassured, yet even as she said this to Nancy she knew that nothing she promised could last for long. When Dancing Cloud returned for her, she would say her goodbyes to the Petersons.
As she toured the house, Lauralee became in awe of everything. The beautifully wallpapered walls of the dining room where a huge oak table sat beneath a chandelier that displayed at least a hundred candles ready to be lighted. The china and crystal in the hutch were illumined by a beam of sun that splashed through a lacy froth of curtains at the window.
They left the dining room and went across the hall into the parlor. Lauralee stared disbelievingly around the elegant room. The walls were painted creamy white, embellished with hand-painted ivy motifs. More ivy circled the edges of the ceiling, creating a wonderful false domed effect.
Jewel hues—ruby, jade, green, topaz, and honey amber—were embodied in the silk stripes of the very traditional down-filled sofa and chairs. It looked like furniture you wanted to sink into and fall asleep in. An oversize leather ottoman topped with a lap rug was an inviting place to prop one’s feet.
Lauralee looked further around the room, at the soft, stuffed armchairs upholstered in silk brocade, and at an enormous gilt mirror that hung beside one of the tall windows that were ornamented by looped and corded drapes.
Other various chairs, and tables upon which sat beautiful figurines, were artfully arranged around the room.
Upon one wall hung two gilt, oval-framed portraits. One oil painting was of Nancy, when she was younger and very petite in build.
She studied the other portrait. She knew that it must be her uncle Abner and found him handsome and dignified, and surely much younger than now.
“We shall leave the kitchen till later,” Nancy said, sweeping Lauralee back out into the corridor. “I shall now show you your room.” She paused, then said, “And then you will meet your uncle Abner.”
Her own room, Lauralee thought excitedly as she climbed the stairs beside Nancy. At the orphanage she had always been forced to share a room with several other girls. Even when she had reached her teen years she had not had any privacy.
And now?
To have a room all her own?
Her heart thundered as she reached the second-floor landing. A hallway led to four doors. One of those would be the room that Nancy and Abner had chosen for her.
Nancy walked down the hall just a short distance and opened a door.
“Tell me how you like your room,” Nancy said softly. “Come on, Lauralee. I’ve prepared it just for you. I so enjoyed doing it. I have always wanted a daughter.”
Her knees weak, her eyes wide, Lauralee looked upon a room that could charm the cockles of any young woman’s heart. She slipped past Nancy into the room. Her breath was taken clean away. A huge white-lacquered four-poster bed centered the room, the spread trimmed in frilly lace to match the lacy drapes at the two long windows and a wall covering festooned with vines, birds, and butterflies and flight-of-fancy paint treatments. A carpet, as soft and plush as balls of freshly picked cotton sank with her weight as she walked across it.
She stepped into a small alcove off the bedroom and found herself standing in a small powder room. On the
walls, periwinkle-blue moire, backed with knit fabric, provided a rich backdrop for the furnishings. A porcelain basin sat on a commode, a gilded French mirror placed in the center echoing the beauty of the room beyond.
A dressing table, upon which sat a gilded mirror that reflected many bottles of perfume in it, as well as a gilt-trimmed hairbrush, made her gasp from utter delight.
She went to the bed and pressed her fingers into the plush feather mattress, and then the plump pillows. The Peterson House meant many things to her. Security, family, and now that she was there and saw its grandness, she could hardly think of anything else—eiderdowns, smooth, clear sheets, soft down pillows.
Lauralee turned to Nancy and gave her a soft smile, then gave her a gentle hug. “It’s more beautiful than I had ever dreamed,” she said. “Thank you. Thank you.”
Nancy patted Lauralee’s back. “Thank you for coming to be a part of our lives,” she said, her voice breaking. “I gave up long ago thinking about children. I had to accept what God gave me. A good husband. A beautiful home. I learned to accept my lot in life without regrets. Then came the wire from your father. That changed everything for me and Abner. You are a blessing, child. A blessing.”
Knowing that she would soon disappoint Nancy, Lauralee swallowed hard. She was a lovely woman. And ill?
Lauralee blocked the worry from her mind. She wanted to savor this moment, when she had finally become a part of a family. She would live every second of it as though it were the last. Then when the time truly came to leave, it would surely not be as hard.
“Shall we now go and introduce you to your uncle Abner?” Nancy asked as she swung herself away from Lauralee. She took Lauralee’s hand. “Just across the hall. When we had this house built, Abner made sure he had a large study. It also serves as our library.”
They left the bedroom and stepped out into the hallway. Nancy led Lauralee to another door. There they stopped long enough for Nancy to tap lightly on the closed door. When a voice said to enter, Nancy opened the door slowly, then stepped aside so that Lauralee could enter ahead of her.
Again Lauralee was amazed at what she saw. The mahogany and green damask study had walls lined with shelves filled with books and photographs and memories. It was surely a place to go and feel good about one’s family and one’s life.
A needlepoint rug filled the center of the room in Chinese lacquer red with a floral pattern in creams, beiges, and greens. The strong red lent a masculine feel even with the flowery motif. Both the crown molding in Chinese red and the yellow tone-on-tone wallpaper tied in with the colors of the rug, as did the richly upholstered seating pieces.
To soften the windows but not cover them completely, floral glazed chintz were swagged over black lacquer rods with an undercurtain of white lace edged with red ribbon.
A grand old mahogany desk sat at the far end of the room where she found her uncle sitting behind it in a sumptuous chair. He was edging middle age but his muscled body gave the impression of competence. His clean-shaven face was broad and long. His features were heavy in a cushioned, boneless way. He had a mild expression and wore a half smile as he stared back at her.
When he rose from behind the desk and spoke to her, his voice was soft with courtesy. He was dressed in well-fitted dark trousers and a frock coat where a cravat displayed a diamond stickpin in its folds.
“And you are Lauralee?” Abner said, taking long, wide strides as he walked toward her. “If I didn’t know better I’d think I was in the presence of your mother. You are the very mirroring of Carolyn.”
He swept Lauralee into his muscled arms and she suddenly felt that she belonged there. If she closed her eyes and pretended, she could very well think that she was in the arms of her father when he had been well and as muscled. She now wondered how she could ever leave this place, where there was so much love, where there was so much security.
Dancing Cloud, she thought desperately. Oh, Dancing Cloud, what am I to do?
She knew that she could not be two people living in two places.
She went with her aunt and uncle to the downstairs parlor. As Lauralee’s aunt served a delectable orange poppy seed bread that was stuffed with sweet fillings, she tried to enjoy it, yet could not deny the emptiness within her that Dancing Cloud’s absence made.
* * *
Feeling downhearted, with an emptiness within him that Lauralee’s absence made, Dancing Cloud forged ahead through a thick stand of trees. He made his way along a narrow trail left there by others who had veered away from the main, more-traveled roads.
Wanting to take advantage of the last light of the fading sun, he sank his moccasined heels into the flanks of his horse.
His horse bolted with alarm when a man on horseback was suddenly there, blocking the way. Dancing Cloud patted his steed to steady him, his eyes narrowing on the pistol aimed at him.
Then his eyes shifted upward. A hate he had felt all those years ago, when Boyd had been shot by the red-haired, blue-eyed Yankee, came to him in a heated rush. It was as though he was reliving that day, when the Yankees had ambushed what had been left of Colonel Boyd Johnston’s regiment.
The same man, with the same leering, cynical smile, and the same red hair and blue eyes, was there now. It was obvious that the Yankee wanted to finish what he had started all those years ago.
Dancing Cloud made a quick movement for his rifle in the gun boot at the side of his horse....
Chapter 10
Parting is all we know of Heaven,
And all we need of hell.
—EMILY DICKINSON
Even though the Yankee’s pistol was aimed at him, Dancing Cloud could not allow himself to be shot without a fight.
But his hand had no chance to get even near his rifle. The bullet, as it entered his right shoulder, was so forceful, it threw him from his horse.
Dazed from the fall, Dancing Cloud lay there for a moment.
Then when he came to enough to realize that he was losing much blood from his wound, he covered it with his hand and tried to get up.
But his shoulder seemed to weigh ten times what was normal. And he felt himself drifting away again, a dizziness sweeping through his consciousness that threatened to make him pass out.
Suddenly a foot kicked him over onto his back. Through hazy eyes Dancing Cloud looked up at the face that he had seen in many of his midnight nightmares.
Clint McCloud.
Dancing Cloud had never thought that he would see him again.
But when he had come north and had entered territory occupied by those who had fought on the Union’s side, Dancing Cloud should have known there was always the chance of coming face to face with this heartless villain.
“Die, you son of a bitch Cherokee,” Clint McCloud hissed out between his narrow, clenched lips. “Fate brought us face to face again so that I could finish what I started at the end of the war.” He laughed throatily. “Just look at you groveling in the dirt. You were a mere kid when I last saw you. Now you’re a man. Die like a man. Get it over with so I can be on my way. I don’t dare shoot you again. Someone might hear.”
Dancing Cloud fought against the waves of unconsciousness that were washing through his brain. He only half heard what Clint was saying.
But it was enough to know there was no way that this Yankee would allow a Confederate Cherokee to get out of this skirmish alive.
Again Dancing Cloud struggled to get to his feet.
Each time he managed to get partially to his knees, Clint kicked him back down into the pool of blood that was spreading on the ground beneath him.
The sound of an approaching wagon on the narrow trail made Clint jump with a start. He turned his back to Dancing Cloud and lifted his pistol in the direction of the sound and waited for the wagon to make the slight turn in the road.
And when the driver of the buckboard wagon made the turn and his face became visible to Clint, he lowered his pistol and met the wagon’s approach.
“Noah Brown, I didn
’t expect you to come this way,” Clint said, stopping beside the wagon as Noah drew his one horse to a halt. He glowered up at the man in overalls. “Your farm lies yonder. What brings you this far from your farm grounds?”
“I just purchased this acreage today,” Noah said, peering past Clint, his face ashen at what he saw lying in the road a short distance away. “I intend to farm it, as well.”
“Come back another time, Noah,” Clint said. He took the reins to Noah’s wagon in an effort to get the horse turned around. “I’ve business on this road. Don’t go stickin’ your nose in it. I wouldn’t want to be forced into doin’ somethin’ I might regret later.”
Being a strong-willed man, who took orders from no one, Noah grabbed his reins back from Clint. “Clint McCloud, don’t try tellin’ me what to do,” he said gruffly. “As I see it, you’re trespassin’. I’ll have you locked up if you force my hand.”
“Not if I shoot you first,” Clint said, slowly raising his pistol again. “Don’t force my hand, Noah. I’ve grown to like you durin’ my stay in Mattoon. And remember. Your son Brad fought side by side with me durin’ the war.”
“And my Brad is dead and you’re alive,” Noah said, stepping down from the buggy. He leaned his face into Clint’s.
“And that can change mighty quick,” Noah said, slipping a derringer from his rear pocket. He thrust it against Clint’s abdomen. “Now step aside, sonny boy. Let me see to that gent in the road. Seems you’ve not left your warrin’ days behind you. It’s a pity that someone as smart as you can in the same breath be so dumb. Do you think shootin’ that Cherokee is goin’ to solve any problems for you? It’s just one more thing that’ll keep you awake nights.”
“Because of that damn Cherokee and those who fought with him on the Confederate side, I’m forced to walk with a wooden leg the rest of my life,” Clint growled. “I’ve not thought of much else but gettin’ my revenge one way or the other for being disabled.”
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