Connie Brockway

by Anything For Love

  His face was stark with the need to make her understand the extent of his love. “That’s why I didn’t ask you before. I was afraid to. I didn’t think I stood a chance. But now I know you love me. I don’t want to spend my life without you. I won’t. And I won’t let the foundation keep you from marrying me. That would be a sin.”

  His gaze was steady, his sincerity unquestionable.

  If only she could believe the promise in his words.

  She turned and fled.

  Chapter 22

  Crooked Hand and Trees-Too-High strode into Mil-Ton’s camp and dumped the antelope carcass near the fire. There were only the two old men sitting there, Mil-Ton smoking a pipe, Carter reading from a little book.

  Trees-Too-High’s eyes flickered about the area, disappointment obvious in the thinning of his lips. Templeton—the little English valet it was so much fun to torment—was not in sight.

  “Fare you well, Mil-Ton Leiland,” Trees-Too-High said. “We bought you this meat as you paid us to do.”

  “Well, thank you—”

  “Trees-Too-High! Crooked Hand!” a voice hailed them. Noble McCaneaghy slipped from a stand of young fir, a brace of rabbits in his hand.

  “Where is Templeton?” Trees-Too-High asked.

  Crooked Hand scowled at him. He was being badly influenced by the ill manners of these whites.

  “Templeton and Venice have gone to see if there are any berries around.”

  “This Venice is the same woman we led up here with the man with hair under his nose? The woman you watch so hungrily?”

  “Venice is here, all right.”

  Crooked Hand could feel Trees-Too-High’s interest awaken. As far as he, or any man of the Ute nation knew, white women were good for only one thing: harassing. Still, what with Templeton and a white woman . . . the potential for amusement was increasing.

  “We will stay,” Crooked Hand said.

  “Of course you must stay, my dear chaps,” Mil-Ton said. “Remiss of me to keep you standing there. Might I get you something? A spot of tea?”

  Crooked Hand managed to keep his expression sublime. Tea! He had drunk a shaman’s stomach purge that had tasted better than tea!

  “No,” he said. “I will sit.”

  Trees-Too-High had just begun investigating the tents, starting with Templeton’s, when the little man himself bellowed, “Please! Remove yourself from my tent, sir!”

  Trees-Too-High straightened, his eyes dancing with delight. “Ah, Templeton, my friend!” he shouted, approaching the stocky figure. The slight, black-haired woman trailed behind.

  Templeton snatched the silk cravat that Trees-Too-High was holding. “Kindly refrain from touching my personal belongings, sir.”

  Trees-Too-High clapped Templeton on the back. “We have brought food. Now, while the woman cooks it, we will tell each other stories.”

  “Miss Leiland will not cook,” said Templeton, aghast.

  Crooked Hand and Trees-Too-High exchanged bewildered looks and turned to consider Venice.

  “We don’t treat our women the same way your people do, Trees-Too-High,” Mil-Ton said. “Miss Leiland has other things to do.”

  “What?”

  “Miss Leiland is a philanthropist, a . . . a scholar,” Carter said.

  “What is ‘scholar’?”

  “A wise woman,” Mil-Ton said.

  “You are a shaman?” Crooked Hand asked.

  She looked up. Her eyes were as he remembered, the color of a wolf’s pelt, soft and gray, ticked with silver.

  “No,” she said.

  “What is this ‘scholar’?”

  “I have studied things at a university,” she said, struggling for the right words. Crooked Hand could commiserate. English was so limiting. “Mostly old, old things. Things like books, even— like Uncle Mil-Ton—the earth. These things . . . tell me stories.”

  Ah! The Ute nation knew well that the earth told stories. But Crooked Hand had never heard any white people tell these stories. His mother had once said she suspected the whites’ ears had been stopped for some grievous crime they had committed. It was thought-provoking to learn that this white woman heard the earth’s tales.

  The woman had piqued Trees-Too-High’s interest, too. “Where is your man?” he asked suddenly. “The man with hair beneath his nose.”

  “My man?” Venice exclaimed. “Is that what that overweening, self-deluding, paean to male vanity implied?”

  “What does she mean?” Crooked Hand demanded.

  “She says she’s not married to Reed,” McCaneaghy said.

  Crooked Hand nodded. It was as he suspected. “This Reed tried to steal her from you, yes?” he asked McCaneaghy.

  “I’m not his to steal from!” Venice said fiercely, pointing at Noble. “I am not married. Nor will I be married!”

  “Why not?” Crooked Hand turned to McCaneaghy, repeating the question in the mother tongue.

  “She is having no man who cannot . . . bring ponies to her father.” Crooked Hand wished McCaneaghy would not insist on speaking in the tongue. He hadn’t any idea what McCaneaghy meant with his babbling about ponies.

  “You want her,” Crooked Hand said.

  “More than the breath of my enemies.” That, at least, was succinct enough, Crooked Hand thought.

  Even Trees-Too-High looked impressed.

  “What did you say?” asked the woman.

  “I said you were too nasty-tempered to take on.” Noble grinned. The woman almost answered his smile with her own. Crooked Hand could see it forming on her lips. He turned. There were better things to do than watch McCaneaghy and this woman.

  “Templeton!” Crooked Hand hailed the little man who was darting about on the fringes of the camp.

  “Sir?” Templeton said.

  “I have new stories for you.”

  “Really, sir, don’t put yourself out on my account.”

  “I am not out, Templeton,” Crooked Hand said. “You like.”

  “I don’t really care to—”

  “I’d like to hear the stories,” the white woman said.

  Crooked Hand stopped where he was. His back was to her. Every man in the camp could see his eyes gleaming with anticipation. Smiling broadly, he swung around and strode back to Venice.

  “Sit.” He pointed to the ground.

  Carter covered his face with his hands. Mil-Ton sputtered worriedly and Templeton went rigid with shock. McCaneaghy, on the other hand, sat down, propped his back against a nearby tree, crossed his long arms behind his head, and stretched out his legs in an attitude of utter relaxation. He was smiling.

  “Really, Trees-Too-High,” Mil-Ton said. “I don’t—”

  “It’s all right, Uncle Mil-Ton.” Venice waved away his protest. “I’m sure I’ve heard—or read— worse.”

  “Don’t be at all sure of that, Miss Venice,” warned Templeton, edging his way backward out of camp. “I think I’ll see if . . .” He disappeared.

  Venice slid gracefully to the ground, crossing her legs and looking expectantly at Crooked Hand. With a shrug, he sat down across from her. This wasn’t going to be nearly as much fun as baiting little Templeton. It was a well-known fact that white women didn’t have a shred of humor. She would be scared away before he’d finished his first sentence.

  “This story is about old Bear, who was very proud because his member was the longest of any animal’s in the forest . . .”

  Mil-Ton and Carter choked. McCaneaghy laughed and Trees-Too-High smiled. The white woman did not respond for a minute. She scowled.

  “Did I hear you right?” she demanded.

  Crooked Hand nodded happily.

  “I thought so,” she said. “Forgive my interruption. I had always heard this story with Coyote as the animal with the longest member,” she said. She leaned back on her elbows. “Do go on.”

  “. . . she rode that bull until he shriveled up and vanished!” Venice finished with a flourish of hand movements.

  Noble
wiped the tears from his cheeks, struggling for breath. The inimitable and impassive Trees-Too-High had given up his composure about half an hour ago and was slapping his thighs right alongside Crooked Hand. Venice beamed with delight, her laughter rippling through her words.

  She’d even forgotten her anger at Noble long enough to wink at him. It was hard for Noble not to jump up there and kiss the saucy lass.

  Gray eyes sparkling, Venice had regaled the two Utes with every bawdy piece of Greek mythology Noble had ever heard. After her store of those had been depleted, she’d switched to German and Celtic fables and then to Egyptian tales.

  There was no doubt about it, Venice Leiland had a way with a dirty story

  Carter and Milton had stopped looking as if their eyes were going to pop out of their heads, even relaxing enough to add a few embellishments of their own. Only Templeton, having returned from “berry hunting,” had continued to look as if he was sucking a lemon.

  “Wherever did you hear such, er . . . colorful tales, Miss Leiland?” Carter asked.

  She dimpled. “At Uncle Milton’s knee.” Milton immediately blazed with color and started making sputtering sounds of protest. “Rather,” she hurried on, a gleam of devilment in her eye, “at his camp. He used to send me to bed just after dinner. But I would lie awake and listen to his crew trade stories. The local workmen were invariably inventive.”

  “Well, I never—” Milton said.

  “This woman might have some value after all,” Trees-Too-High said to Noble. “She would be . . . entertaining during long winter nights,” he continued slyly, punching Noble in the ribs. He winced.

  “Ribs broken up pretty bad?” asked Crooked Hand.

  “Nah, they’re okay,” Noble replied.

  “Look like a pretty good ride you take down the river. Surprised you are not dead,” Crooked Hand said.

  “You saw it?” Noble asked.

  “Yes. We were at top of—what is this?—cliff? Saw that Reed kick until you fell.”

  “What?” Venice said, her eyes riveted on Crooked Hand. “Cassius deliberately kicked Noble loose?”

  Crooked Hand nodded. “Yup. Kicked until McCaneaghy fell. We watched McCaneaghy try to swim to shore until we saw he got hung up on that bunch of logs.”

  “Why didn’t you help him?” Venice asked.

  Crooked Hand shrugged. “Had things to do. We come back later, but he’s already gone. McCaneaghy’s tough . . . for a white man. Lived through that knife fight with that loco man.”

  “Even the bear didn’t kill him,” Trees-Too-High added casually.

  “The bear? Knife fight?!”

  Ah, shit, thought Noble.

  “There was this loco white man. He was a wound in the Shining Mountains. It is good McCaneaghy killed him.”

  “What?!”

  “Now listen, I didn’t kill anyone, he fell on his knife—” protested Noble.

  Venice rounded on him, eyes flashing. “You be quiet. Crooked Hand, what happened? Tell me the story.”

  Happily, Crooked Hand obliged. “The loco man was a long time here. Like an outlaw wolf that feeds off the dead of his own kind, the loco man tracks in the mountain. Only whites, though. He was loco but not stupid.

  “He was made sick by wanting gold. He sees McCaneaghy and thinks McCaneaghy’s bags hold the yellow rock. He attacks him at night. They fight. Noble gets cut up pretty bad. The loco man dies.”

  Venice’s eyes had darkened to the color of tarnished steel.

  “Gee, thanks for relating that, Trees-Too-High,” Noble said, knowing his sarcasm was pointless.

  “And the bear?” Venice asked.

  “The bear was McCaneaghy’s own damn fault.” Trees-Too-High shrugged. “He should have seen tracks. Lucky for him she was an old sow. Still plenty of teeth though, eh, McCaneaghy?” He grinned at Noble as though the whole thing was an enormous joke.

  “Do you get some sort of titillation from courting death?” Venice demanded, rounding on Noble. “Running around getting knifed, bit, clawed, falling into raging torrents, and . . . and . . .”

  She loved him. It couldn’t be clearer. And come hell or high water, he was going to convince her that they belonged together.

  “Don’t you have anything to say?” she demanded, her booted foot tapping the ground.

  “Yeah.” Noble bent over and blew the soft, raven hair from her temples. “You better stick around and make sure I don’t get into any more trouble.”

  Her lips pressed together in a tight line. “Aha,” she said after a few seconds, “I see. Blackmail.”

  “Huh?” Noble, Mil-Ton, and Carter asked in unison.

  “Blackmail. If I don’t” —she flashed a quick glance at the other men— “if I don’t do what you want me to do, you’ll put your life at risk.”

  “What a gift you have for words, Venice!” Noble shouted, his face burning. He jumped up and stood over her. “Just how do you think that sounds to Milton and Carter? ‘If I don’t do what you want . . .’!”

  “Ahem.” Milton cleared his throat, casting a grave look in Noble’s direction. “Just what does Noble want you to do, Venice?”

  “Oh!” Venice said, color flooding her throat and cheeks. “Not that!”

  “Not what?” Carter asked in confusion. Trees-Too-High and Crooked Hand looked bored.

  “Tell them, Venice,” Noble urged in low, melodramatic accents. “Tell them about the dark and unnatural thing I’m asking you to do.”

  “You are pathetic.”

  “You don’t have to tell me. I’m the one who wants a crazy woman to marry me!”

  “Crazy?” Venice asked in a deadly calm voice.

  “Marry?” asked Milton.

  “Yes, crazy,” Noble said. “Only a crazy woman would think I was trying to blackmail her into marriage. Of all the fool, self-absorbed . . . Believe it or not, Venice, I like my hide whole. And you’ll agree to many me without blackmail!”

  “I wouldn’t hold my breath!”

  “Marry?” Milton asked again.

  “This isn’t any of your business, Milt,” Noble said. “No offense intended.”

  “None taken.”

  Templeton appeared from the woods with a pail of berries in his hand, his face alight with the success of his hunt. “Would anyone like some cobbler?”

  “I would!” Venice sprang to her feet. She stomped over to Templeton and grabbed the bucket from his hand. “There should be something palatable around here!”

  “You had an exemplary service record,” Milton said the next day. He had appeared beside Noble as he started packing the mules for their trip down the mountain.

  “So? And how would you know anything about that?” With a grunt, Noble jerked the leather straps tightly around his bedroll.

  “Oh, I’ve been kept apprised of your movements ever since you were drafted. I felt it was rather a family obligation,” Milton returned easily.

  On his knees beside his gear, Noble sat back on his heels and squinted up into Milton’s tranquil face. “That why you looked me up when I first came out here? Family obligation?” Noble grunted. “Keeping track of the people Trevor used and discarded must amount to a full-time occupation.”

  “No. I looked you up because I remembered you as a bright, mature lad and I liked you.”

  That was the thing about Milton, Noble thought. He was as direct as Trevor was devious. “Why the devil are you standing here discussing my army record? I thought we were trying to break camp before noon.”

  “Oh, yes,” Milton said vaguely. “Noon.”

  “How come you’re not all in a lather to get to Salvage? I’d have thought Venice would have you and Carter mounted on ponies and trotting down the trail by now. She sure isn’t going to like your wasting time chatting about the war when she wants to get away from me.”

  Milton gazed thoughtfully at him. “Answer me Noble: do you love Venice?”

  Hell! How’d he get drawn into this?

  “Yeah,” he snappe
d. “I love her.”

  “Then why are you both so miserable?”

  “Listen, Milt,” Noble said, “I asked her to marry me. But when it came to a choice between her father and me, Daddy won and I lost. That’s all there is to it.” There, he’d said it and it hurt like hell.

  “I can’t believe Venice chose Trevor over you. It’s been a long time since she was his adoring little girl.”

  “Yeah, then why is it still so damn important for her to win Trevor’s respect?”

  “She needs Trevor’s respect if she’s ever to have any say in the administration of the Leiland Foundation.”

  Noble sighed, releasing some of the hostility that had been building all day. He suddenly felt old and defeated. Tiredly he draped an arm across the mule’s back. “You know, Milt,” he said, “it isn’t doing a whole lot for my pride to have you tell me that my rival for Venice’s affection isn’t her father, but a foundation. Wanta tell me why that damn foundation is so important to her?”

  “Venice sees the foundation as the only permanent thing of value in her life. But it’s not only something she can be sure of, it’s something that just might garner her, if not affection, at least the regard of the people she wants to help.”

  Noble scowled at Milton.

  “Oh, I know it sounds absurd and I’m sure Venice would be aghast to learn that I’d ever suggested such a thing to you. But I’ve thought about it, Noble. And I believe it’s true.”

  Milton leaned forward, his elbows on his knees his hands clasped tightly together. “Ever since she was a little girl, she’s held the gift of her love out for anyone, anyone to accept. And each and every time, the people she loved left her. The nurses, the governesses, the maids. Me. You. Her parents. Is it any wonder she wants something permanent in her life? Something that has always been there and always will be there? Something she can devote herself to without fear of being abandoned?”

  “Come on, Milton. Her father was there.”

  “Trevor might have been there in body, but in any meaningful way.”