Firebrand's Woman

by Vanessa Royall

  He glanced at Phil and gave him a nudge.

  “Some truth in that,” agreed Phil nervously. He knew that Rupert Harris was speaking of Delia and Jason. He also knew that Rupert Harris was being as gallant as he would ever be about the subject. It was not difficult to see that he wished to possess Delia, one way or another.

  “There’s always a proper time to decide,” said Jason evenly, catching and holding Harris’s gaze. The men looked at each other for a long moment, until finally Harris glanced up at the sky and broke the tension. “Looks like the rain’s easin’ off a bit,” he said. “Sooner you get that field cleared, sooner you’ll get to that ’proper time’ you was talkin’ about.”

  After a few more squalls the thunderstorms swept away from the valley. Gray, scudding clouds replaced the black-and-purple veil of the storm; and presently rays of sun—wan at first, then more powerful—slanted down onto the steaming earth.

  “Well, Phil,” Harris grunted, “guess it’s back to town for the two of us, an’ let these two get back to clearing that field. Then we’ll see how things go.”

  Harris was right, Delia reflected as she and Jason returned to work. Something had to happen. The air of irresolution was greater than ever. She examined her feelings, her soul. If what she had had with Torch was love, then she did not exactly love Jason; but it would have been hard to say why she did not. Perhaps the difference was that Torch had been her first love. Or perhaps that had been something else, more mysterious, more profound—something that, in any case, she would never have again.

  Jason and Delia worked well together, and soon but one tree stood where the field would be. (Jason had left a thick grove where he wished to erect the farmstead itself, the better for shade and for beauty.) Now he clucked at the horses and eased them toward the final pin oak. It was an ancient, massive thing, easily seventy feet tall, a vast plume of foliage; and its dark, rain-wet leaves gleamed like jade. Delia came across the field carrying the axes and the shovels. First they would have to dig all around the mighty trunk, exposing the roots. Then the roots would be cut, and the tree would come roaring down in a blast of dust and leaves and branches, to be divided for lumber or firewood. Sometimes the tree was cut down first, and then the stump cut away from its roots, to be pulled away by the horses, all the stumps piled together at the edge of the field and put to the torch. Jason meant to fell this tree first, and then rip out the roots. Delia saw him sharpening the crosscut saw as she came into the shade.

  Placing the implements on the ground, she sat down with her back to the tree and closed her eyes. The scraping of the whetstone on the jagged steel blades of the saw drowned out all other sounds; and when Delia looked up into the tree, the leaves fluttered, the branches moved soundlessly in easy wind, like plants under water. For long moments she was mesmerized by motion, and even the rasp of the whetstone did not intrude. Suddenly she left the reverie.

  “Don’t cut it,” she told Jason.

  He stopped sharpening and looked at her. “What?”

  “Don’t cut it down.”

  He looked puzzled.

  “It doesn’t have to be cut down,” she said. “You can plant your field around it.”

  Jason was doubtful. It seemed odd to leave a tree standing alone. It might attract lightning. Worse, it would shelter birds who would gather to feast upon seeds planted in the earth. And wouldn’t the effect itself appear to be slightly bizarre? Leave a cluster of trees, or a grove, or a windbreak, certainly. But one tree? •

  “Why?” he asked her.

  “Because,” Delia said, “I want you to. It is important to me.”

  Jason put down the whetstone. “A high wind, a storm, could smash this oak down on crops or cattle.”

  “I… I know that.”

  “Then why…?”

  Delia felt a touch of emotion in her voice, and her throat was tight and hot. “It is… it reminds me of something I want to remember.”

  He came near her and sat down beside her. “Of course,” he said, “a tree is just a tree. If you like, I’ll leave it standing for you, but…”

  Delia felt that she owed him some form of explanation, but the reason for her request was difficult to put into words. The life she had known in her village was behind her now, forever, and Four Bears was dead. Torch-of-the-Sun was as remote to her now as the North Star. And here on the banks of the river, which was eternal, the white men were striking down trees Ababinili had meant to be eternal, else why had he caused them to live? These lands, which had been of her people, would never be the same.

  “It is something I want to remember,” was all that she could say.

  Jason did not press her for further explanation; he simply sat beside her, thinking it over, now and then glancing at her as she gazed off down toward the river. He knew her well now, and sensed the ebb and flow of dark currents in her soul. Admiring her dignity, her bravery, and grateful to her for saving his life, he nonetheless sensed in her many things he would never know. This puzzled and saddened him, but he accepted it. Delia had been raised in a manner alien to him, and there were forces molded in the heart, infused in the blood, forces that could be neither translated nor transmitted to an outlander, however bright he was, however much he wanted to share.

  He pondered her, sadly, lovingly, while Delia sat motionless, watching the slow silver slip of the river moving down among the trees, flowing at the bend there, out of sight.

  A bend in the river.

  She remembered Torch’s vision, a golden stick in the sand at the bend in the river on which were inscribed the words of the secret of life. Why had he forgotten those words? How could he have forgotten them? If he had not, perhaps everything would have been different, and she would be with him now, and happy.

  Perhaps not.

  And no, she was not truly unhappy. She could not say that. One day, very soon, she would steal down where the river turned westward, and search the river-bank sand for the stick…

  “You are thinking of home, are you not?” Jason asked softly.

  Delia turned to look at him, and he was there, close and gentle as he always was, strong and reassuring.

  “And that is what the tree means? Home?”

  Delia nodded, but could not find words. He had understood, and knew the depth of her heartbeat, knew also that her sorrow could not ever be fully shared.

  “This land is still your home,” he said. “And it can always be your home, if you wish it.”

  Time hushed. Silence was everywhere, shimmering like light. He was inches away from her, and her soul knew the gentle power of his love. Mysteriously, the tension between them was breaking down even as it was increasing. I should move away, she thought, her mind working slowly, the words of the thought coming in tatters: I…should…move…away. But she knew at the same time that she did not wish to move away, and knew, too, that he would not permit it. Not anymore.

  Beneath the lone tree Jason reached for her, and Delia came to him. She did not simply acquiesce, but rather she came of her own accord into his embrace, and the two of them lay down upon the earth. Their kisses were tender at first, a reading of each other, but the kiss of love is like a burning spark destined by God or Ababinili to burst into flames, to rise blazing until all who lie beneath it are consumed.

  And so it was with Jason and Delia, still Beloved-of-Earth, although she did not think of it just then. She could not think of it; she did not think. His caress upon her was like the living wind that fed the fire, and without thought she reached to pleasure him. The earth beneath them, which they together had prepared for planting seed and harvest, now cradled their fire and their love, making them rich as it was rich. Above them, sheltering, stood the great oak that Delia had saved, and beneath it Delia made love with the man she had saved, who gave himself to her now, and gave with himself a place on the land that was her birthright and possession.

  Then they were bare upon that earth, and his lingering, hungry kiss touched points of fire, darts of liqu
id heat that quivered along the soft curves of her body, spinning down along the length of her like tiny pillars of flame. He would have kissed her there forever, it seemed, but behind the closed lids of her eyes even the leaves of the tree had burst into gorgeous tongues of blue-and-yellow fire, so she took him then, and gave him what she knew with an honest heart, a needful body, and he was to her, gladly, all that he was or could ever be.

  The leaves were a beautiful green, no longer ablaze, as Jason and Delia lay in drowsy embrace. The pin oak lanced upward, strong, into the sun. In the distance the river murmured, flowing down toward the bend. Delia thought again of the golden stick. Perhaps there was no golden stick. Perhaps no secret of life, either, save this love upon the earth.

  “You’ve given me great pleasure,” Jason whispered hoarsely, “I cannot say how…”

  “Then do not say, because the pleasure itself, and the love, may be enough, may be…”

  “…all there is,” he finished.

  I do not know, she thought, stroking him gently, soothing and dazzling his afterglow. I do not know. But if this love is all there is, it is for me more than enough.

  Momentarily, disturbingly, a pale vision of Torch glowed in her memory. She started suddenly in Jason’s embrace.

  “What is it?” he murmured.

  “Nothing,” she soothed. “Nothing. Just rest with me here until the day is gone.”

  “There are many more days to come,” he said. “Thank God.”

  “Ah!” sighed Delia. “Do we not so wish.”

  Torch rode through the mountains, following secret trails, dismounting many times to lead his pony down rocky embankments, across grassy clearings pitted with leg-breaking gopher holes. Finally, north of the Twin Mountains, he could smell the cooking fires of the Red-Beard’s village, and urged his horse down toward the river. If he happened to be spotted, and tracked by dogs—the demon Harris thought of everything—then he might use the river to hide his trail.

  Torch was filled with awe and sadness when he saw how the land along the river had been desecrated. Great patches of earth were bare and dry in the sun, all the trees gone, never to be again. What manner of vileness had created these white jackals, to strip the earth itself, when all knew that man could live best when he accepted the earth as it was? Maybe the skill of the hunt had not been given to the white man when Ababinili breathed life into his creation. That must be the reason they had such passion for filling the earth with seeds. Yes, they had great energy. Even Torch did not deny it. To cut down one tree was labor enough—ill-advised though it might be. But to cut down hundreds, thousands! It was an endeavor beyond imagining.

  So it was with dull awe that Torch rode along the river and came to a great field upon which one lone tree still stood. What is this? he thought.

  From behind deep folds of greenery he saw it, and a part of him died. Not because he saw what was happening, nor even because he knew to whom it was happening—and thus who was at once aggressor and recipient. No, his heart could no longer enjoy its full measure of life because there was undeniable love in the act of wonder and tenderness that he beheld; and the lovers wrapped together beneath the solitary tree, in their trembling communion, created a unity from which, forever, he would be excluded.

  That much was clear.

  It was clear, too, that he must now return to his people, and serve them, and lead them, and fulfill their expectations of him.

  After what he had seen today, he was now free to take a wife. Someone, someone…

  She would have soft skin, fine breasts, and know how to please him. She would have beauty; her breasts would be sweet. She would be comely of face, wise with children, judicious in trial, respectful of elders.

  She would be all, everything necessary to the wife of a Chickasaw chieftain.

  Torch did not expect more, and he deserved no less. Yet, as he rode back through the mountain passes on his way to the ancient town of his people, Torch knew one other thing: No matter how fine a wife he chose, always in the dark of night, when she could not see him, nor he her, even when they were locked in love together, that woman-to-be, that nameless wife, would always possess the beautiful face of Dey-Lor-Gyva.

  Chapter X

  In the beginning she dreamed at night that Torch had come for her. She heard the pounding of hooves, the wild, blood-curdling war cries, the hiss of arrows slashing through the air, finding their targets. She dreamed these things, and they were so real that she leaped up in the darkness and flew from bed to window.

  But outside there was only the Tennessee night, filled in summer by the sounds of crickets, bullfrogs, the ominous whoosh of darting bats, and in winter by the rustle of dried leaves, the mournful wind in the branches of trees, and the slow mutter of dying cinders in the fireplace.

  Time had passed. Torch did not come, and after a while he came not even in dreams. She would stand by the window for a time, looking out into the night.

  And then Delia—Mrs. Jason Randolph—would return to her husband, and curl next to him in bed, as first she had done in the mountains of her homeland. In her other life.

  “Andrew. Andrew?”

  No answer.

  Where could he have gone? One moment he had been at the kitchen table, then Delia had heard the door slam. But she’d been busy laying out the crystal, silver, and china for tonight’s party—fine wares shipped all the way from Virginia—and the familiar screech and slap of the opening, closing screen door possessed no immediate meaning.

  But when she was done with her task, Andrew was gone.

  “An-drew!” she cried, trying to suppress a note of panic that had crept into her voice.

  Festus Farson, the new overseer Jason had hired, ambled out of the big new barn and looked over to the house, where she stood calling and looking about. He ought to have been out in the field’s this time of day, supervising the workmen, and she suspected he often holed up in the cool barn to drink corn liquor; but her suspicions were unimportant just now.

  “Missus?” he asked, coming over. In spite of her anxiety she noticed that he stopped far enough from her so that she could not catch a smell of his breath.

  “Fes, have you seen Andrew?”

  “Nope, Missus. Can’t say as I have. Anyway, he ain’t been in the barn.”

  Fes stood there looking at her dully. He had been drinking. A well-built, sturdy fellow, he made an appearance of stolidity and even intelligence when he wanted to, which was why he’d been hired. But there was either more or less to him than appearances conveyed, revealed now and again by a sudden, ominous grin that crossed his face for no reason and just as quickly disappeared.

  “Run away, did he?” asked Fes Farson, as the grin came and went.

  “Hurry. We have to look for him. He might have wandered down by the river.”

  Delia raced off, as fast as she could go, down through the orchard and along the cattle path. She thought Fes was right behind her; but when she turned to look, she saw that he was trotting along quite a distance away.

  “Fes! Please! Is the bull locked up?”

  He stopped. “What, Missus Randolph?”

  “The bull! Is he locked in the barn?”

  “Geez, Missus, no. Mr. Randolph told me to turn him loose in the pasture. It’s servicing time, you know, and…”

  That, too. She did not want to think of it, began to run again toward the river bank. Jason had purchased a prize bull for his growing herd of cattle, and because of the danger posed by such a beast should he become enraged, Andrew was to be most carefully watched. Oh, what a fool she had been, thinking of her party! She knew her little son loved to go down to the river with her, for picnic lunches, or to hold a stick and a string out over the water and “fish.” He had been cautioned innumerable times’ against going by himself, but what did he understand? He was barely two years old.

  Jason would die if anything happened to the boy.

  She would die.

  She reached the pasture fence, climbed
up on the lengths of wooden railing that bordered the grazing area, and scanned it at a glance. There he was, toddling along in the tall hay, his sturdy little body wobbling when he tried to run. He had her fair skin and Jason’s hair and eyes. As always he was eager for adventure, the burst of blond hair like a sunflower moving across the pasture.

  “Fes!” she cried in anguish, as the foreman jogged up beside her. “We’ve got to do something.”

  “Yup,” admitted Farson, squinting after little Andrew.

  She caught the blast of his corn-fragrant breath.

  “Fes!”

  “Oh? Oh, yeah…”

  The man climbed over the rail fence, none too quickly, and Delia saw the cows look up from their grazing. They had seen, or sensed, something unusual in their pasture. Festus Farson chugged along after Andrew; the cows scattered a little when they saw him coming.

  “Andrew!” cried Delia at the top of her lungs.

  Her call was loud and full of panic. But it was the wrong thing to have done. Because, down among the cows, the big black bull ceased grazing, too, jerked up his massive block of a head, and sniffed the wind belligerently.

  Andrew stopped and looked back, saw his mother at the fence. He waved. The bull caught the hint of movement there in the grass.

  Fes Farson saw the bull, too, stopped, looked back, measuring the distance between himself and the fence, as opposed to the open space between himself and the bull.

  The bull stomped a bit and pranced from side to side, turning his head. The bull’s bloody eyes reflected Festus, and then the little boy’s image gleamed in them.

  “Fes, get him,” pleaded Delia, over the fence herself now. “Get Andrew!”

  The bull let out a great bellow, and the cows scattered, only to stop and turn a moment later, dumb observers of the scene. Fes drew upon whatever speed the corn liquor allowed and dashed toward the fence, and safety.

  Although Delia was too angry and afraid to consider it at the time, Farson’s panic decided Andrew’s fate. The huge beast flipped the iron ring in his nose a couple of times and studied the thing that ran on two feet. He did not like it, not at all, but his brain was so small that it took a few moments before he decided to pursue. When he did, when the bulky, stiff-kneed trot turned into a full-fledged charge, the bull’s momentum was unstoppable.