Daughter of the Sword (16 page)

“I'd like to go.” Thos flushed with excitement. “Depends on what work there is here.”

“I hope,” said Dane blightingly, “that one from this group's been buffalo hunting before!”

“They all have,” retorted Rolf. Pointedly turning his back on Dane, he looked eagerly at Deborah, sure of her approval. “I talked to your father this morning, Miss Deborah. He's agreed to arrange the program so it'll be a proper Fourth, even if an Englishman's putting it on.”

If Father helped, involving the older, more settled community, it should go off beautifully. Though Lawrence had celebrated in 1855 with an ice-cream supper, festivities often were boisterous, attracting people from miles away, including Indians. Youngbloods and drifters would always flock to free food and gaiety, but an Englishman's appropriation of the holiday might have been taken amiss by Lawrence's New Englanders, who had a fresher memory of the origins of the Fourth than did native Midwestemers.

“You become a diplomat!” Dane marveled. “Sir Harry would admire your tactics, if not the cause on which you mean to lavish his money.”

“Why don't you contribute, too, elder brother, so that if we run short of funds and have to tell why,
pater
can be angry with us both?”

“I'm living off commissions I carried out before I left England, and an advance from my publisher,” Dane said. “I haven't spent a penny of Sir Harry's remittances.”

“All the more for me!” Rolf laughed. He sobered, pushing back his raw-gold hair. “Come now, Dane, you know I've lost more than this fête will cost in one night's gambling! And you can't deny I've mended my ways. I haven't been up all night since we left Leavenworth!”

The twins had to smile at his idea of virtue, but Dane balled his fist and rubbed it affectionately against his brother's jaw. “You've done rather well, youngling. Not bosky above a half-dozen times in a whole month! But we needn't fear, just at present, that your sprouting wings will waft you beyond our ken!”

“But you want me to ride beyond it,” Rolf said with remarkable good nature. “I suppose you deserve a reward for helping with the harvest, but I'm hereby bespeaking Miss Deborah's company for the Fourth of July.”

“She can answer that later, you rapscallion!”

“All right, I'm going.” Rolf cast down his eyelids and said in a comically sultry tone, “Melissa's invited us to tea this afternoon. I'll have to comfort her for your absence.”

“With you there, she'll have no time to think about me,” Dane chuckled. If he were jealous, he didn't show it. “Now go, or unsaddle your horse. It's not right to leave him standing like that for hours.”

Rolf pulled his forelock exaggeratedly across one eye. “Right, sir! This instant, Captain Hunter! I was just about to do it, sir—”

He dodged his brother's forceful hand and went out, whistling jauntily. Dane's breath came out in a sigh.

“That's a relief. Never know with that young cub!”

“What do you mean?” asked Deborah after she'd called to Judith that it was safe to come out.

Rolf left at a canter. Dane frowned as if debating how much to say. “For less than thwarting him in the way I did this afternoon, he's pulled a pistol on me. He's like some tricky explosive, sometimes igniting at a feather touch, other times taking mortal insult as a joke.”

“That must be difficult for you.”

Dane shrugged. “Father's despaired of him. He looked on this journey as kill-or-cure. Of late I've dared to hope it's cure. Rolf has, for him, been well behaved.”

Deborah had started doing the dishes, but Thos firmly walked her out of the kitchen space. “Judith and I'll do these, 'Borah. You two get on with your ride.”

“But—” she protested. He shook a chiding finger. They hadn't really spoken since her outburst yesterday, and she was joyous to see the old tenderness back in his warm brown eyes.

“If it hadn't been for Dane, we'd still be in the field.”

“Go along,” Judith commanded, taking over the dishpan.

Thus evicted, Deborah changed from her dusty dress to her best one, except for Sunday's dark green poplin. This gown showed the wear of use and washing, but it was her favorite, a soft gray-green cotton with gathered sleeves, ruffles at the throat.

She'd washed her hair the day before the harvest. In spite of perspiration and chaff, a vigorous brushing brought it to lustrousness and she tied it back with a matching ribbon. Staring in the small mirror at eyes dancing with eagerness, she thought she looked at least pretty till she remembered Melissa. Then she felt young, sunburned, awkward, and plain, with a too-large mouth, too-firm jaw, and eyes so big that they gave a waifish look to her thin, almost triangular face.

Confidence waning, she glanced at her brown, stubble-scratched hands, with blunted fingernails and work-toughened palms. Not hands a man would long to press to his face or lips! And her dress was faded, her hair wild and curly—not at all like Melissa's smoothly sculptured coif.

Oh, oh—damn!

Shocked at the profanity, Deborah gritted her teeth, then glared at the trembling-lipped mirror image.
Stop it!
she told herself.
You work and you look like it. You're a frontier woman, not an aristocrat or even a townswoman like Melissa, with little to do but tend to her face and body. It's a battle, here, even to keep clean. Anyway, Dane Hunter's known countless handsome, cultured women, dressed and styled in the latest Paris modes. You'd only be ridiculous in trying to ape them. Be what you are. At least you can show him all women aren't the same!

Aren't they?
mocked an amused, cynical inner voice.
Doesn't every woman want to seem beautiful to the man she loves?

Quelling this treacherous inquisitor, Deborah marched into the main cabin, told Judith and Thos good-bye, and stalked past Dane, head defiantly high.

She thought irefully that she detected the slightest tug at the corner of his long mouth, but he said nothing as they approached the horses he'd saddled and bridled while she was dressing.

The gray, clean-limbed and mettlesome, stood two and a half hands higher than the mare. Curried to shining, flowing manes combed, they made a breathtaking pair. Deborah caressed the horse's neck and muzzle, the broad space between the liquid eyes where a little star-like whorl of white grew in all directions.

“Pretty, pretty thing!” she crooned. “What's your name?”

“What would you suggest?” asked Dane. “Fall Leaf got her from Californios. They called her Chica, or Chiquita, which means ‘little girl.'”

“Chica. Chiquita.” Deborah tasted the words.

Endearing but not splendid. Something like Glory or Beauty came closer, but might be grandiloquent for every day.

“It's nice to have a Spanish name for a Spanish horse,” Deborah said. “Chica's easy and sounds happy.”

Dark eyebrows quirked. “Now, how does a name sound
happy?
”

She thought, couldn't explain, and said helplessly, “Some just do.”

“Is Deborah a happy name?” he persisted, smiling in that teasing, tender male way that utterly weakened and confounded her.

“No.” She sighed. “It sounds stern and righteous and Old Testament—but I hate ‘Debby,' and ‘'Borah' isn't much better!”

Dane chuckled. “Deborah's clean and honest. Strong. Musical, too, if one gives the syllables full value. But I'm sure your lover will find you a sweet, soft name.”

Could he have any notion of how his eyes, gentled to a misty gray-blue like autumn haze along the Kaw, managed to overwhelm and engulf her? Drowned in their depths, she tried to speak several times before she blurted out, “I—don't have a lover!”

“No?” Again the cocked eyebrow, the smile that deepened the cleft in his chin, tempered the formidable hardness of his jaw. “That's bound to be soon remedied. I couldn't get a sidessaddle, so I hope that, for safety, you'll sit astride.”

She hesitated, torn between propriety and comfort, but he swung her up as if there were no question, then held the reins while, in blushing confusion; she tugged and wrestled with her skirts. Arranging these as best she could, she was mortified to see that moccasined feet and legs were exposed almost to the knee.

Merriment lurked in his eyes, the curve of his mouth, but to scold would only amuse him further. He'd certainly seen a good deal more of some women than a glimpse of leg; she mustn't let him disconcert her even more. She took the reins from him. Their fingers brushed, and in spite of all her self-lectures and chidings, flame shot through her, seared deep into' secret parts never reached before.

What
could
she do about this? It was surely too wild, too desperate and wanton, to be in love, the kind uniting her parents. Sara and Thos might feel something like this, but that was different. They loved each other; each held the quenching, the peace, for the other's fire and storm.

Deborah knew enough of men to think that perhaps if she told Dane how she felt, he would kiss her, make free with her, ease this fever in her blood. But she wanted more than that, more than temporary quieting of what she was sure the Bible would condemn as lust. She wanted his tenderness, his smile, to hear his voice, to feel his touch. She wanted him to be with her their whole lives long.

“Where would you like to go?” he asked, swinging lightly into his saddle with an authority that reminded her he'd been an officer.

With you—just with you. Where there'd be no Melissa, pro-slavers, or John Brown—and no ugly, forbidden “lust,” either, only this shattering, heart-catching way I want to be in your arms, feel your hands, so strong and sure on the reins, touch me instead
.…

Drawing back to reality, she laughed with disbelieving pleasure at the freedom she had this one afternoon, the range of choice, even without letting her dreams sweep her away. Being mounted like this was so different from perching on Nebuchadnezzar, hanging precariously to Thos, so different going the five miles to the smithy or the river between chore time, and chore time was the most they could reasonably do without exhausting the old horse, and she wasn't allowed to ride alone.

But today—oh, they could ride along the Kaw, or into Lawrence, or west across open prairies where the only shade was cast by clouds passing before the sun! They could visit Johnny and Sara, or go south to the Wakarusa and maybe find blackberries there.

She drew a deep breath of exhilaration. “Why, it—it's wonderful!” she sighed. “On Chica I can go anywhere!”

He laughed and she remembered how small even her widest world must seem to him. “Perhaps not
anywhere
,” he said. “But most places you could wisely consider.”

She'd better make the most of her chance! “Could we ride to the river?” she asked. “And then come back by the, buffalo wallow?”

“Whatever you say,” he nodded. “Chica has a tender mouth, so you don't need much pressure, just a light, firm touch.”

The mare was a joy, responding to the lightest touch of reins against her neck. High-strung but gentle, she mouthed the bit a little, hinting she'd enjoy a faster pace.

“Shall we let them out?” Dane asked when Deborah began to feel fairly sure of herself and Chica.

Deborah nodded, leaned forward, and gave the mare her head. Lightning was the rangier, bigger horse, but Chica's rocking, exhilarating lope kept her even with him till Dane began to slow the gray horse, and Deborah, hair flying, gasping with excited laughter, patted Chica's neck and carefully drew in the reins.

“Like flying!” she cried. “Oh, Dane, she's perfect!”

He scanned them judiciously. “I believe you're a good weight for her. She could carry you all day without tiring.”

They left the trail leading to the smithy and rode through unmarked prairie, sending jackrabbits bounding and sending meadowlarks into warning song. Several times prairie chickens rose up from under Chica's feet and she started, but she never panicked or reared.

“How do you mark your boundaries?” Dane asked.

“There are charred posts at the corners, and we'll fence someday if we get neighbors with livestock. They might help us put in and tend an Osage orange hedge. If everybody cut and hauled posts made from river trees, it'd be terrible, because there's not much wood.”

She looked across the vast, shimmering ocean of grass, rippling in the breeze, changing color like velvet according to which way it was touched: now rose, now russet, now green. “I love it like this,” she said, “open and free. The claims next to us are owned by people who live in town and do just enough to keep the claims in force. But when the troubles quiet down they'll start farming or sell to someone who will. And I suppose there'll be some kind of cheap, easily raised fence before too long, now that settlers are coming out where there's neither stone nor wood.”

“The plains Indians are going to hate that,” said Dane. “Their men, at least, have lived a life most whites would regard as leisure—hunting, fighting more in the spirit of winning tournament honors than to wipe out an enemy.” He gave a wry laugh. “When whites call Indians lazy, I suspect they're jealous.”

“Indian women aren't lazy, however you look at it,” retorted Deborah. “They gather wild foods, prepare game, tan hides, and make tipis and clothing.”

“Yes, most of what whites call work is beneath a warrior's dignity,” teased Dane. “Excellent system, for males. But now the white man's trying to saddle the warrior with his own humdrum workaday habits like a little boy who doesn't want his friends to play if he can't.”

The comparison was apt, but Deborah didn't smile. She feared it would be a long time, and much blood would be shed, before white and red man lived peacefully, longer, probably, than it would take for the North and the South to settle their quarrels.