Courage to Love (Flynn Family Saga) (12 page)

She found dry wood.  She cut squares of sod out of the thickly matted prairie soil.  She lined the hole with rocks.  She caught two rabbits and cooked them on a spit.  The smell of hot food cheered her.  She remembered the first time she saw Flynn.  She had been helping Sam train the greenhorns.  She was passing as a boy, so the women of St. Jo didn’t tar and feather Sam for hiring a girl.  And Flynn took her hand.  There was a jolt of sensation, a feeling of coming home that had shaken Maggie.  It wasn't just that Flynn was the best-looking man she'd ever seen with the planes of his face as clean as her grandmother's table and his broad shoulders and narrow waist.  It was the echo of a dream she'd had off and on ever since she was a child, a dream of a white house on a hill with the sound of the stream running at the foot of the hill and the sound of children's voices.

She wanted that dream, and she was willing to fight for it.

Feeling better than she had since Sarah was born, Maggie finished her supper and rolled up in her blanket and slept without dreaming.

In the morning, Maggie kicked dirt over her fire and mounted Lady.  She rode down into the valley that sheltered the cabin.

Wakta stood beneath the lean-to.  His ribs showed through his matted coat.  The woodpile was almost gone, and there was no smoke from the chimney.

Maggie crept toward the cabin with her pistol drawn, keeping to the shadows.  She kicked open the door.

No bullets flew past her ears, but there was no sound coming from the cabin, either.

Maggie’s heart skipped a beat.  She entered the cabin cautiously.  It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dimness inside.

Finally, she saw Flynn.

He lay with his back to the door, shivering, on the bed they once shared.  The mattress was bare, and the hearth was cold.

Maggie holstered her pistol and walked across the room.  She touched his back cautiously.  “Flynn?”

“Let me out!  Please, for the love of God, let me out!”  He turned to her.  He was so thin that his knuckles stood out like walnuts on his long fingers.  His beard had grown, and she hardly recognized him.  But it was his eyes that frightened her the most.  They looked past her, at something only he could see.

Maggie shivered.  “Flynn, wake up.  It’s me, Maggie.”

Flynn shut his eyes.  “Don’t.  Please don’t hit me again!”

Maggie shuddered.  She laid a fire and then she went outside and set some snares.  By the time she had cleaned the cabin, there were a pair of rabbits in her snares.  She brought them in and cleaned them.  She cut chunks of meat and made stew, hoping that Flynn would be able to eat the broth.

She undressed Flynn.  She took off his wooden leg.  His stump was red and swollen.  Maggie sighed.  She took a jar of salve from her saddlebags and rubbed it into his skin.

His eyes fluttered open.  Slowly, he focused on her.  His hand shook as he touched her face.  “Maggie?”  Flynn’s voice was hoarse.

Maggie nodded.

Flynn looked away.  “You’re dead.”

Maggie laughed harshly.  “Not yet.  I’m hard to kill, remember?”

Flynn’s hand grasped hers tightly.  “You’re real?” he whispered hoarsely.

“Last time I checked.”  Maggie forced herself to keep her tone light.

“I dreamed you were here so many times.”  He shut his eyes.  “And then I remembered.  There was so much blood.”

Maggie swallowed hard.  “Yes, there was.”

Flynn opened his eyes.  “You’re really here?”

Maggie nodded.

Hope shone in his face for a moment.  “And our baby?  Is our baby alive, too?”

Maggie shut her eyes and shook her head.  “No, Flynn.  She—she was born dead.”

Flynn made a sound like an animal in pain.

Maggie opened her eyes and touched his face.  “Flynn, what is it?  What’s wrong?”

He looked at her with desperation in his dark eyes.  “I can’t cry.  I haven’t been able to cry since I was five.”

Maggie swallowed hard.  “Well, you don’t have to.  Not tonight.  But you do have to eat.”  She went to the fire and ladled up some broth.  “Here.”  She held the mug to his cracked lips.

He took a sip and shut his eyes.  “Now I know you’re a hallucination.  Maggie can’t cook.”

Maggie started to laugh, but it turned into a sob.  She set the mug down carefully and turned away.  Silent sobs shook her shoulders.

Flynn touched her back.  “Magpie?”

She turned and clung to him.

His arms came around her.  “Magpie.”  He held her tightly.

Maggie cried against his chest.

Suddenly, he pushed her away.  “I’m crazy.  You’re just a hallucination.”

Maggie opened her mouth and shut it without speaking.  She hurt too much to say a word.

Flynn lay down on his bed with his back to her.  He started to tremble.  “No!  Please!”  His eyes lost their focus, and the mug fell from his hand.  He was gone again, somewhere Maggie couldn’t follow.

Maggie’s heart ached.  She touched him, and he flinched.  She sank into the chair beside his bed, wondering if he would ever come back to her.

*  *  *

In the morning, Maggie started breakfast.  Without a word, Flynn took the coffee pot out of her hand.

She smiled at him, such a tender, fragile smile that it tore at his heart.  He looked away.  He made the coffee, and then he followed her outside.  She started to groom Wakta.  The little horse shivered as she combed the tangles out of his mane.

Flynn took the comb from her hand and took over.

And then, the world faded to black.  He saw Jennie, sitting on the back of her white mare with a noose around her neck.  “Jennie!”

A hand cracked across his face.

Blinking, Flynn returned to the present.

Maggie stood in front of him, shaking.  “How dare you!  How dare you call for another woman, here in this place!”

“Maggie, I’m sorry.  I can’t help it.  I—”

Maggie ignored him.  She turned and saddled Lady.  She mounted and rode away.

Flynn stood there, watching her, until she disappeared over the crest of a hill.

And then, he wondered if she had ever really been there.

He sighed and went back into the cabin.

Outside, the artillery began to fire once again.

*  *  *

Day after day, Flynn fought against the ghosts that haunted him, waking or sleeping.

Day after day, he lost.

He stopped eating or bathing.  His hair was long and matted.  So was his beard.  He lay on the bare mattress and held on.

Finally, he fell into an exhausted sleep.  He dreamed that he walked with Pathfinder.  His foster father was angry.  “Fire-haired Woman needs you, Eagle Heart.”

Flynn shook his head.  “She’s dead, father.”

“No, she lives.  But she will die if you do not go to her.”

Flynn looked away.  “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

He turned and looked at his foster father.  “I am too afraid.”

Pathfinder gathered Flynn into his arms.  “Oh, my son.  You have the heart of an eagle.  You will find the courage to leave this prison you have built for yourself.  You will find a way back to Fire-haired Woman.”

Flynn longed to cry, but still the tears would not come.

Not even in a dream.

He woke with a sense of urgency.  Outside, he still heard the echoes of artillery that was not there.  His heart raced, and his hands shook.  He pulled on his wooden leg and limped to the door.

The screams of the wounded assaulted him.

Flynn shut his eyes and bowed his head.  He reached for the earth, but his fear and his pain blocked it.

“Flynn!”  Maggie’s voice rose above the cacophony of the others.  “Flynn, I need you!”

Slowly, Flynn raised his head.  His hand shook as he opened the door, but he opened it.

Wakta whickered softly.

Flynn stared in horror.  He hadn’t groomed the poor animal since Maggie left.  If she had really been there, if she wasn’t just another illusion.  He could no long tell what was real and what wasn’t.  He picked up Wakta’s comb and started to work on the tangles.  An hour later, he was finished.  He swung up onto Wakta’s back and rode toward St. Jo.

The Union Army blocked his way.

Keening, Flynn bowed his head over Wakta’s neck.

A strong hand gripped his shoulder.

Flynn raised his head.

Pathfinder rode his spotted horse beside his adopted son.  “I abandoned you in life.  Now, I must stay with you until you are well.  Come.”

Flynn swallowed hard.  He had begun to accept that he was insane, but all of his other hallucinations were horrible.

He kicked Wakta into a walk.

Pathfinder rode beside him on Windwalker.  Flynn kept expecting Pathfinder to disappear, but he remained at Flynn's side.  They rode slowly.  Flynn was weak with hunger, and Wakta wasn’t in much better shape.  That night, Flynn caught a rabbit and cooked it on a spit.  He ate slowly, and Pathfinder smiled at him approvingly.  "You remembered, my son."

Flynn nodded.  Tears filled his eyes.  He hadn't realized how much he missed Pathfinder.  That night, Flynn slept without dreaming, and in the morning, he felt stronger.

And then, the hallucinations returned.  He saw the Union Army arrayed against him.  He could not move.

Pathfinder took Wakta’s reins and led the little horse through the line of soldiers.

They vanished like the morning mist.

Flynn swallowed hard.  He turned to Pathfinder.  “I can’t—I can’t go back to Maggie like this.”

Pathfinder nodded.  “It is time for you to go home, Eagle Heart.”  And then, he vanished.

Flynn drew a deep breath.  He turned Wakta away from the road that led to St. Jo.  He rode west, toward the sacred waterfall.

*  *  *

Maggie rode hard.  She reached St. Jo a day and a half later.  She tied Lady’s reins to the hitching post outside Kate’s house and ran up the stairs.  The door opened, and Sam stood there.  Maggie ran to him.  Sam put his arms around her and drew her back into the house.

Maggie started to cry, sobbing so hard she could not speak.

Sam led her into the parlor.  He sat her in front of the fire.  Kate came in with a cup of tea and handed it to Maggie.  Maggie’s hands shook so badly that the tea slopped over the rim.  She took a sip.  The tea was hot and sweet.  She took another sip, and her hands stopped shaking.  She set the teacup and saucer on the mahogany table beside the chair.  “He doesn’t want me!  He wants Jennie!”

Sam swore.  He stood up and went to the window.

Kate was silent a long time.  “Maggie, do you even know who Jennie is?”

Maggie shook her head.  “But whenever he’s sick or wounded, he calls out for her.  I went—I went there to see if he was all right, and he called for her instead.”

“Sam?”  Kate stood and went over to her husband.  “Do you know who Jennie is?”

Sam shook his head.  He turned and faced Maggie.  “All I know is that the one time Ben asked about her, Flynn nearly hit him.”

Maggie looked down at her work-worn hands.  “Maybe she’s a southern belle.  He was born in Virginia.”

“I don’t think Flynn would give a southern belle the time of day,” Sam said gruffly.  “Was he all right?  Besides being an idiot?”

Maggie laughed shakily.  She raised her head and met Sam’s gaze.  “No, Papa.  Most of the time, he didn’t know where he was.”

Sam nodded slowly.  “It was the war, wasn’t it?”

Maggie nodded back.  “He thought he was back in Camp Sumter.”  She frowned.  “Only he fought for the south, and Camp Sumter was a Confederate prison camp.”

Sam nodded.  “He protected a member of the Underground Railway.  He was tried as a traitor and sentenced to Belle Isle.  That’s where we met.  Later, we were transferred to Camp Sumter.”

“Oh.”  Maggie shut her eyes.  She had read the newspaper reports of the prison camps.  She shuddered when she thought of Flynn in a place like that.  She opened her eyes again.  “But how did he end up in Elmira?”

Sam sat down in the chair across from Maggie’s.  He took her hands.  “He risked his life to let us escape, Ben and me.”

Kate put her hand on Sam’s shoulder.  “I didn’t know that.”

Sam turned to her and nodded.  “There’s a lot I haven’t told you about the war, Kate.”  He turned back to Maggie.  “Afterwards, he escaped.  He was taken prisoner by a Union patrol.  They tried to find me to verify his story, but they couldn’t.”

“Why not, Papa?”

Sam drew a deep breath and let it out.  He turned to Kate.  “This is one of the things I never told you.”  He turned back to Maggie.  “I was...ill for a long time after Ben and I escaped.  I was in a hospital, near Washington.  I was out of my head.  I kept reliving the war.”

Kate gasped.

Maggie merely nodded.  “I knew a lot of men like that when I lived in Manhattan.  Brother Joseph and I used to take them soup.”

Sam smiled tenderly at her.  “That doesn’t surprise me, Maggie.”  He drew a deep breath.  “But if the same thing is happening to Flynn, he shouldn’t be alone.”

Maggie blinked back tears.  “I let him down, Papa!  It hurt so bad that he wanted her instead of me that I ran away.”

Sam stood up and put his hands on her shoulders.  “Maggie, you’ve been through a lot.  You lost a child, and your husband abandoned you.  Don’t be too hard on yourself.”

Maggie tilted her chin up.  “I’m going back there.  Tomorrow.”

Slowly, Sam smiled.  He pulled Maggie to her feet and hugged her.  “Maggie O’Brien Anders Flynn, you are the daughter I always wanted.”

Maggie let Sam hug her, let his strength flow into her.  Then, she stepped back.  “Mama?”

Kate hesitated.  Then, she nodded.  “Go, Maggie.  There are so many times that I almost looked for Richard.  Maybe if I had, things would have turned out differently.”

Maggie nodded.  She drew herself up to her full height.  “Can I help with supper?”

Kate nodded.  Together, the two women went into the kitchen.

*  *  *

Three days later, Maggie rode into the valley where Flynn and Ridgeton had built their cabin.  There was no smoke coming from the chimney, and Wakta gone.

Maggie sat on Lady’s back a long time.  Finally, the cold wind from the prairie made her shiver.  She rode Lady to the lean-to and dismounted.  She opened the cabin door.