Bittner, Rosanne (36 page)

"We found it on a fence post near the gate," he told her. "Moccasin tracks from there led to that stand of trees beyond the gate. We found horse tracks leading north from there, horses with no shoes. Runner has no doubt they were Sioux ponies."

Lettie took the horse with a shaking hand, pressed it close to her breast.

"You know there is no use in gathering any men to try to find him this time, Lettie. If he wanted to be here, he would have stayed. I think he left that horse to let you know he won't forget you. He has given you something of him to keep, something that was very dear to him. He thinks maybe it will comfort you if he never returns."

"No," she answered, so softly that Luke could barely hear her. "He left the horse as a sign that he
will
come back."

"Lettie, don't—"

"He'll come back!" she said sternly, her voice firmer this time.

With that she turned away and walked into the house, past the staring children, up the stairs and to her room, closing the door. Luke went after her, but he found the door to their room locked. He could hear her wrenching sobs.

He turned and walked away. It was nearly time to leave out on the cattle drive. He decided he might as well speed it up and go tomorrow. Maybe she was better off not seeing him at all for a few weeks.

PART THREE

Just as a seed can sprout new life

After being tossed aside,

Forgotten and left to die;

So can love buried by pride and guilt

Come to bloom again...

Stronger, healthier, even more beautiful.

CHAPTER 18

January 1876

Lettie shivered as windows rattled from wicked winds, winds that once nearly drove her insane, but to which she thought she had grown accustomed. Now she hated the sound again, for the howling monster outside brought with it a blizzard that kept everyone buried in their homes. These past winters had become more bearable, with the additional company of Elsie and Mae and all the children, but now winter brought something much more dreadful than the loneliness she'd once felt. Now the wind and snow meant they could not get help for little Paul. Her baby was suffering with a terrible fever, and what she and Mae were certain was pneumonia. She bent over Paul's small bed to bathe his face again with a cool rag, aching at his groans and whimpers of pain.

Straining to lift another pitcher of water, seven-year-old Robbie poured it into a washbowl on the stand near his mother. "What else can I do, Mama?" he asked. "Should I see if Mae has the hot tea ready yet?"

Lettie turned to meet Robbie's blue eyes, blue like his father's. Luke. She needed him, but something kept her from telling him so. He needed her in return, yet she could not bring herself to go to him. What was this barrier between them? And poor Robbie. All her children needed her, but first there had been the agony over losing Nathan again, now this. Little Paul seemed to be dying, and the winter storm outside was not going to allow any Double L man to get into town and back with the doctor quickly enough to help. Robbie tended his little brother almost as faithfully as she did herself, always the little doctor, always wanting to help, just like with Pancake.

"I don't think he can swallow anything," she told Robbie, struggling to keep control of herself in front of the boy. The cloth she'd been holding to Paul's head was already hot, and she turned to rinse it in the water again to cool it off. She wrung it out and handed it over to Robbie. "Would you like do it this time?"

"Okay."

She fought tears at the sight of Robbie gently laying the cloth on his brother's forehead. Her two youngest sons had always been close, always playing together. Robbie watched his five-year-old brother more like a father would. He was so different from Ty, who cared only about learning how to ride and rope and handle cattle; Ty, who was his father's image and worshiped the man like a god. Ty and Robbie had nothing in common, except that they shared the same blood.

She took a moment to stretch and rub her neck and shoulders. Everything ached. She had been sitting by Paul's bedside for two days straight, afraid to go to sleep, hardly eating. She walked to a window, but the snow blew so badly she could barely see the barn beyond the front lawn. Adding to her worry and agony over Paul was her additional concern for Nathan. Where was he? How did he and the Indians survive in this kind of weather? Was he starving? Freezing? She looked down at the ragged old stuffed horse that sat on the window ledge. She had put it in Paul's room, telling him always to take care of it, telling him that someday Nathan might come back for it... come home to stay... but now she knew that was only a fantasy. She surely would never see her firstborn again, and for no truly logical reason, she blamed Luke; just as part of her blamed him now for

Paul's being sick and unable to get help. If they were not so isolated here, so far from civilization...

A tear slipped down her cheek when she noticed something else, a shiny little black stone lying on the ledge beside the horse. She remembered the day she had taken a walk with Paul, before Nathan was found. Little Paul had always demanded so much of her attention, and she had not minded, for he was her precious baby, her last child. When they went for that walk, Paul had found the stone and was fascinated by its color and gloss. He had handed it out to her, telling her he wanted her to have it as a gift. She told him to take care of it for her, that it was very special because it was a present sent from God.

She picked up the stone and rubbed it between her fingers, realizing Paul had put it beside the horse because both were dear not just to him, but to his mommy. It hit her then how she had neglected her baby after Nathan ran off. She had gone into such a depression that she had been lost in it and had not given any of the children the attention she should. That neglect only made Paul's sickness even more devastating now, her agony over his pain made worse by her guilt for not spending enough time with him.

She could not even take comfort in Luke. She loved him so, yet sometimes she hated him. She had taken to sleeping in the guest room since Nathan left, aching to be held, yet needing to be alone. Luke had not demanded that she come to his bed. He had been quiet and withdrawn himself since getting back from the summer's cattle drive. He had dived headlong into claiming more land, involved himself intensely in the Cattlemen's Association, even made a trip to Denver to talk to cattlemen there about ways to deal with farmers and with sheep men who were beginning to filter into Montana. He had invested in the Northern Pacific Railroad and had gone to Helena to talk to the railroad's representatives about the best route to be considered through Montana. The trips had kept him away several more weeks after the cattle drive, and between his absence and the inability on both sides to share their feelings, he was becoming like a stranger to her.

She put her head back and looked around the lovely little room, with its flowered wallpaper. Luke had built this beautiful, elegant home for her. She could live no better, even in more civilized parts, yet in spite of their comfort, the dangers of the land continued to threaten them. She turned to look at Paul lying there, so miserable. Robbie wet the cloth again and put it to his brother's fevered brow. Yesterday her baby had coughed so hard he had spit up blood. Now the coughing had stopped, but his breathing was labored, nearly every breath bringing a gurgling sound. Her once-lively, loving little boy just lay there with his eyes closed, while outside the wind battered everything in its path.

She heard heavy footsteps coming down the hallway then, heard the familiar jangle of spurs. She recognized her husband's gait, slightly off rhythm because of the broken leg that had never healed quite right. His big frame loomed in the doorway, and he glanced from her to Paul, then walked over to the bed to lean down and touch the boy's hot cheek.

"Do you think Tex and Runner will get through the snow to town, Pa?" Robbie asked his father.

Luke straightened, breathing in a deep sigh. "I don't know, son. They should have been back by now. They might be buried someplace themselves by now, maybe had to take shelter."

"Will the cows all die?"

Luke ran a hand through his hair. "Not if this wind keeps up. There will be big drifts in some places, but in other places the wind will blow the snow away and leave bare spots. If the cattle can get to those places, they'll be all right. The biggest danger is when the snow gets deep without any wind, so there's no place to find grass. Cattle won't dig for grass like horses and deer will. They just stand in the deep snow and—" He stopped short, not even wanting to mention the word "die."

He closed his eyes, realizing he had been babbling like a fool. Did Lettie know what Paul's sickness was doing to him? His precious little son was so sick, and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. Did his mother really think she was the only one aching over little Paul's sickness and suffering over Nathan. If he could take the pain into his own body, he would do it in an instant. He would rather die himself if it meant little Paul would live.

He turned to Lettie, knew what it would do to her if she lost Paul. She would in turn be forever lost to him in love and spirit. "We just have to pray Tex and Runner get through to Doc Manning," he told her aloud.

Luke, I feel so guilty,
she wanted to tell him. Little Paul had needed her more than any of the other children, always a mama's boy, always wanting to be held or read to. In these last few months he had grown closer to Robbie because he'd lost his mother's attention.

"Yes," she answered Luke, turning back to look out the window. Piano music floated into the room from the parlor downstairs, where Pearl sat playing some of Paul's favorite songs. Katie was in the kitchen helping Mae fix supper, but no one had much of an appetite. She felt a big hand on her shoulder then. Why couldn't she turn around and let Luke put his arms around her?

"He'll get here, Lettie. Paul will be all right." When she did not answer, Luke went to Paul. "I love you, Paul," she heard him saying softly. "Daddy's here."

"He's a lot cooler now, Pa," Robbie spoke up. "Touch his hands. They're not hot anymore. See what a good doctor I am?"

"Well, I guess you must be, Robbie. He
is
—" There came a moment of silence, and then Luke let out a strange, guttural sound. Lettie felt a knot come into her stomach. "Oh, my God! My God!" Luke groaned. "Not my son!"

Lettie managed to turn around. Luke sat on the edge of the bed holding Paul close to his chest, bent over the boy, his shoulders shaking with the deep sobs of grief. She did not have to ask why. Her son was dead. She should have been holding him when it happened, not standing at the window. All these hours she had kept such a close watch, and the moment she got up and moved away, her baby's spirit had left them.

Robbie stood staring in disbelief, his eyes wide and full of terror and sorrow. He ran out of the room then, screaming Paul's name.

"More nesters!" Luke was almost glad to find them. His search to find ways to vent his anger had become almost an obsession. "Cut those goddamn barbed-wire fences and ride through their crops!" He pulled his six-gun and began firing into the air, charging forward ahead of his men, the first to cut down enough barbed wire to ride into a cornfield and begin trampling it. The eleven men with him followed, cutting more fence, stomping their horses over vegetable gardens and through more corn, all of them firing their guns to bring terror to the hearts of the family that had unwisely chosen to settle on government land Luke considered his own for grazing cattle.

Luke charged his horse to the sod house, and a woman came running out of it, hoisting a baby on her hip, screaming obscenities. Her straight hair hung limp and unwashed, and her face was that of a young woman aging too soon, dry and drawn, her lips parched. A worn calico dress hung on her too-thin body. "What do you think you're doing?" she screamed. "You men get out of here!"

Luke recognized her as Betty Walker, the wife of Johnny Walker. The young man and his brother, Jeeter, and his father, Zack Walker, had been warned several months ago to get off Fontaine land. They were squatting there in hopes of farming the land without legally paying for any of it. Luke suspected when he first found them that they had stolen some of his cattle for their own meals. They were a sorry lot, better at making trouble than at farming.

"Where's your husband?" Luke demanded.

The woman looked around frantically. "He's in town! They're
all
in town! I'm here alone." She backed away. "You get out of here, Luke Fontaine! How dare you do this?"

Luke rode closer to her. "And how dare you Walkers come back here to settle on someone else's land! When Johnny Walker and his pa and brother get back here, you tell them to get their things together and find someplace else to settle! I warned you last spring! This is Fontaine land, and I won't put up with grazing land being plowed under, or with barbed-wire fencing. You understand that? If you stay here, we'll keep destroying the fences
and
the crops! We don't want any nesters around here! Next time somebody is going to get hurt!" He turned his horse and rode off, the woman's curses filling the air around him.

"Damn you, Luke Fontaine! You're a bastard! A bastard!"

"Maybe so," Luke muttered. His father had said so, hadn't he? Maybe the real Luke was now emerging, the one who hated his father, hated everything, hated himself; the bastard child who was doomed to fail. Yes, he was achieving his dream of building his own wealth, of proving he could succeed on his own; but he had failed as a father, failed as a husband, even failed as a son. He had never received one reply to the letters he'd written to his father. His dream had cost him two sons... and a wife. As much as he loved Lettie, he had never realized just how important she was to him until he had lost her. They still shared the same house, but it was as though she was not there at all; and he had withdrawn his own presence as much as possible. He could not bear the way she looked at him, could not bear sleeping alone in their bed at night.