Dorothy Garlock (39 page)

“I can’t stop!” she croaked. His arms tightened around her and he rocked her as if she were a baby.

“I’ve been so afraid you’d go off and leave me!” His arms relaxed a little. “I never thought about someone stealing you away.”

“I’ll not leave you, unless you want me to go.” Johanna tried to put her arms around him, but they were too heavy.

He kissed her again, burrowing his face into her hair, mumbling words she couldn’t decipher. The stubble on his cheeks and chin scratched her skin as he kissed every inch of her face. “You don’t hate me? Say you don’t hate me!” He spoke in a kind of desperate whisper, then lifted his face to look closely at hers.

“No. No. I don’t hate you!” Her arms reached for his neck and he helped her place them there. “How could I hate you when I love you so?”

She must have drifted back to sleep, for suddenly he was carrying her, trying to kiss her eyes open. His voice was strange, as though he had been crying.

“Help me on the horse, Luis. We’ve got to get her home.”

Other arms held her for a moment, and she heard the creak of the saddle. Then she was lifted up and she lay against him again, feeling the strength of his arms as he took the reins. Every part of her body throbbed with pain.

“How did you find me?” she asked.

“Luis tracked you. Didn’t you know I’d come? I told you you’d never get away from me.” He wrapped her in a coat and tucked her skirt about her legs. “Are you all right? Do you want more water?” His questions were anxious, loving.

“I’m all right, now.” She snuggled her face in the curve of his neck. “Burr!” She tried to sit up. “The . . . Indian?”

His arms tensed and he held her tightly to him. “Dead. Nothing will ever hurt you again. I swear it.”

T
wenty-four

T
hey were approaching the stone house. Johanna knew it as soon as she opened her eyes, for light shone from every window and long streaks of it fanned out into the darkness. As her eyes began to focus she could see two figures standing on the porch and two coming across from the bunkhouse. The place was alive with activity. Anxious voices called out to Burr.

“Is she all right?” Ben’s voice was trembly.

“She’s worn out,” Burr called, “but all right.”

“By gol’, Burr, we been mighty itchy. It didn’t seem right, us jist a-sittin’ here doin’ nothin’.”

Johanna looked down into Mooney’s worried face and began to cry.

“What’s the matter?” Burr whispered, his neck and chin hiding her face.

“I’m . . . just glad to be . . . home.”

“Where’s Luis?” Ben asked.

“He turned off and hurried home. He didn’t want Jacy to know Johanna was missing until she was found.”

Arms reached up to help her down. Her body ached all over and her legs were too weak to hold her. Burr was by her side almost as soon as her sore feet touched the ground, and he picked her up as if she weighed no more than a child. She let her head fall to his shoulder, and he cuddled her to him. He started walking very slowly, then stopped.

“The son of a bitch ’bout run her to death,” he said huskily. “Sofia,” he called sharply, “bring water to wash her and a gown of some kind. She’s got to have something to eat, too. Ben, I promised Bucko I’d not come back without her. If he’s sleeping, wake him and bring him in.”

“He fell asleep about a half-hour ago, Burr. Poor little tyke was worried sick.”

Burr waited in the doorway for Ben to light a lamp, then carried her into his room and lowered her onto the bed. Her eyes questioned his.

“Our room and our bed, Mrs. Calloway,” he whispered in her ear.

Johanna sank into the soft bed, hardly aware that Burr was removing the shoes from her swollen feet. Her eyes rested on the curtainless window, the stark walls, and the crude pieces of furniture. A well of pity, pushed by nerves taut as a bowstring, surged up within her. This poor house! This poor, sad house was just sitting here waiting to come alive. Too exhausted to move, she gazed into the corners of the room. The sadness of the house and those who lived in it, and the gentle ministerings of the crude, hard man who bent over her, suddenly overwhelmed her. She turned her face into the faded quilt and wept silently for the house, for the small motherless boy, for Ben and his lost love, and for herself.

“Johanna.” Burr’s hand was gentle on her shoulder.

She looked up to see Bucko standing beside the bed, his big, solemn eyes bright with tears. She held her arms out to him, and he clutched her tightly, burying his face in the warmth of her body.

“Bucko, darling—”

“Me no . . . cry . . .” he sobbed, denying the obvious

“It’s all right for you to cry if you feel like it. Because you’re a boy doesn’t mean you don’t have feelings.”

“I saw the bad Indian hit you, Johanna. I stand by the tree so still he couldn’t see me. I saw him tie you up and kick you. I run to tell Burr. Isabella saw too but she say I lie. Isabella say Burr at the windmill. I hate Isabella!”

“Bucko’s been following you ever since . . . well, for days now,” Burr told Johanna. “He’s been like your shadow, trailing you everywhere. Thank God he was.” Burr’s voice became husky. “He told Rosita and she rang the bell to sound the alarm. He took me to the place where he’d seen the Apache take you. I sent Paco for Luis and started tracking, but lost the trail. Luis got there while it was still light and picked it up again. If it hadn’t of been for Bucko we’d not have had any idea where you’d gone.”

“Thank you, Bucko. I’m proud of you and I’m proud of the part of you that’s Apache. It was your Apache blood that let you stand so patiently and wait until it was safe to go to Burr.”

His lips trembling, his eyes ashine with tears, Bucko looked up at Burr. “I no want Johanna to go,” he said in his halting English.

Burr squatted down on his heels and Bucko, beaming with pride, threw his arms around his neck. “Neither do I,” he murmured and stood with the boy in his arms. “Let’s get you to bed. After Johanna’s rested you can talk to her again.”

Later, when Johanna was washed and in a clean nightdress, she drew the quilt up to her chin and stretched her legs in sheer luxury. The kindness and concern of everyone made her realize how fond she had become of all of them. It was pure heaven to feel so wanted, so cherished and loved.

When she awakened, evening was approaching once again. She could hear the ring of boot heels on the stone porch and Sofia’s high musical voice talking to the men. Through the window she could see that almost all the light had gone from the sky. It was the golden time of day, as her papa used to say.

“Do you feel better?” Burr came through the door and stood beside the bed. He reached down and tucked the quilt about her shoulders. He spoke gruffly and did not look at her.

“I’m hungry. I feel like something is gnawing a hole in my belly.” His head jerked up and he saw the teasing laughter in her eyes. His face broke into a grin and his eyes were brilliant as he gazed down at her.

“Sofia!” It was a shout of jubilation. “She’s awake.”

“Burr! I’m sure they heard you down at the bunkhouse.” There was laughter in her eyes and on her lips.

“Just so Sofia did. I told her to fix you some broth.”

Johanna couldn’t decide if he were teasing her, but laughter bubbled up, and she held her palms against her bruised ribs. “Please don’t make me laugh. I’m too sore.”

Sofia came in carrying a bowl on a wooden tray and set it down on a chair beside the bed. “Señor Burr say you no need broth, you need meat.”

Johanna couldn’t force her eyes to leave his smiling face. “Señor Burr is right, Sofia. It smells delicious, and I’m so hungry I could eat shoe leather.”

“Shoe leather? Aye-yi-yi!” Sofia rolled her eyes and scurried out of the room.

“Burr, about Jacy . . .”

“Luis was home before she awakened.”

“I’m glad.” She reached up and took his hand. “Thank you for coming for me—” Her tear-filled eyes looked like twin stars shining up at him.

“God, Johanna, did you think I
wouldn’t
?”

She looked away from him. He dropped her hand and turned to leave. “Burr—stay and talk to me.”

“You’ve got to eat,” he said gruffly. “I’ll be back.”

Johanna felt so much better after she emptied the bowl of meat and potatoes that she asked Sofia to bring her hairbrush and to light the lamp on the mantel. She sat up in bed and brushed her hair with long, even strokes, pulling it forward and holding a great handful so she could brush the tangles from the ends. It was calming to her nerves to be doing something. Now that she was stronger, she didn’t know what Burr expected of her. She was in
his
room, in
his
bed. She vaguely remembered him telling her it was their room. Had she dreamed the soft endearments he’d whispered during the ride back to the ranch?

He came into the room and closed the door behind him. Their eyes met and held. His eyes were bleak, hers questioning. He stood at the foot of the bed looking at her.

“Do you want me to go?”

She carefully placed the hairbrush on the chair beside the bed. “No.” The word came out on a breath of a whisper.

The lamplight cast shadows on his cheeks and softened the lines of his mouth. He looked younger and so vulnerable that a pain clutched Johanna’s heart. She thought of the small, motherless boy growing up with only Ben’s love to protect him from old Mack’s hate.

Caught in sudden yearning, she wondered how he truly felt about this marriage. Her own emotions were so mixed. She was scarred from the battles with both Macklins. Her love for this man had come slowly, and the new harmony between them was fearfully fragile. As Johanna was mulling over the situation, she realized that this relationship was as new to Burr as it was to her. She held out her hand and struggled to find a subject they could talk about.

“Sit by me and tell me about finding Bucko in the Indian camp,” she said.

Burr sat on the side of the bed and studied her with an intensity that puzzled her. He dropped his eyes for a moment to look at her hand, now resting so naturally in his, then met her eyes again, willing her to understand what he was about to say.

“When I first saw Bucko he was lying alone under a scrub oak on a piece of dirty blanket and making a weak, mewling sound. Camp dogs surrounded him, sniffing at the filth.” Johanna drew in a trembly breath and tightened her fingers on his. His compassionate tone affected her as much as did his words. He continued, “I thought,
Oh, God, how can they treat their little ones like this?
Then it occurred to me that this one was an outcast, a male child with a less than perfect body. When I got closer to him he looked up at me with big blue eyes and I almost fell off my horse.” Burr stopped speaking; the telling was painful to him. He looked down at the slim hand engulfed in his, then met her eyes and spoke firmly. “It didn’t seem possible he could belong to one of us, but I had to get him and give him his chance.” Johanna felt her heart swell with love for him as he continued the story and told her how he had traded ponies to Black Buffalo for the boy. “He’d not have made it if not for Rosita and the other women. I didn’t know anything about how to take care of him, and Luis and Ben didn’t know much more.”

He sat silently, his fingers gripping hers. Johanna felt compelled to ask, “Why didn’t you tell me you weren’t his father?”

“It was a matter of not knowing,” he said simply. “About ten or twelve years ago, when Luis and I were just a couple of young scutters and just finding out what it was all about, Mack took me to El Paso. He turned me over to a couple of women . . . you know the kind. I came back, and, boylike, I told Luis all about it. Now that I think about it, I know we didn’t have any more brains than a couple of fleas.” He lowered his head and looked at the floor. “The Apaches came down that year. They were a small, friendly bunch. We were out one day and came onto these two girls down by the creek . . . and they were willing. Both of us regretted what we did. That spring we saw them again and they didn’t seem any different, so we figured nothing had happened. We swore then that we’d never father a bastard.” He got up and went to the fire. Johanna followed him with her eyes. His voice lowered on a sigh. “Thank God the old man lived long enough to admit that Bucko was his.”

Burr was a curious mixture of compassion and bitterness, Johanna thought. He had carried the guilt all these years of not only looking like the man who had raped his mother, but perhaps of having done the thing he had sworn not to do—fathered a bastard. Her heart went out to him, and she wished she could think of something comforting to say.

Burr sat in the chair and stretched his long legs out toward the fire. It seemed hours but could have been only minutes before he broke the silence.

“Isabella will be leaving the valley.” He paused, glanced at Johanna, then looked away. “She’s never been in my bed, Johanna. It was pure cussedness on my part that let you think she had. Paco knows she’s a feisty little thing, but he wants to marry her. I’ll see that they have a start somewhere.” Johanna started to tell him about ordering Isabella from the house, but he was speaking again. “I’m right sorry you don’t like it here, Johanna. I realize that because Luis and I think it’s the best place to be don’t make it so for everyone.” He cleared his throat nervously. “What I want to say is . . . well, what’s done is done. We’re married . . . all legal and binding . . . and I want my wife with me.”

He looked at his feet, shifted them nervously, then, for lack of anything else to do, he drew the makings of a smoke from his pocket. His fingers were shaking so badly that he spilled some tobacco on the floor.

“You know,” he said, trying to roll the smoke, “there’s never been a woman in this house before, except my mother, and Ben tells me she stayed in that one room of his. It’s been good having the house like it is and a meal ready . . . and knowing there’d be a pretty woman to look at while you ate it.”

“Now that Mack’s gone there’s no reason why one of the Mexican women can’t come and clean house, and Sofia is an excellent cook. They’ll keep your house neat and running smoothly.” The words were softly spoken, but his head jerked up as if she had shouted.