Dorothy Garlock - [Wabash River] (41 page)

Damn her!

“I’ll report this to the commanding officer at the fort. Which one of you killed him?” Van Winkle’s eyes went first to John, then to Buffer.

“I did it.” Trisha spoke up before either of the men could speak. She took a step out from the wagon and faced the men, her hands on her hips. “I kilt the nasty old pile a . . . horse-hockey! I’m glad ’twas me. I stabbed the sucker in the back. Same as he’s done to lots of other folks.”

“Trisha . . .” Addie said softly. She feared the girl would reveal too much.

“I did it, Miss Addie, and I’m glad I did. I ain’t carin’ if this puffed-up bullfrog knows it.”

Buffer grinned.

John’s eyes sparkled with amusement when he saw the look of outrage on the judge’s face. He doubted if he had ever heard anyone refer to him as a “puffed-up bullfrog.” Van Winkle was trying hard to maintain his stiff-necked dignity.

“What’s your name, girl?” Van Winkle took a pencil from his pocket, then an envelope, and began writing on the back of it.

“Trisha.”

“Well—?”

“Trisha Hyde. Spelled
H-y-d-e,
” Addie cut in quickly, looking directly at the captain. She saw him clench a fist and was pleased that he was bothered.

John’s insides began to quake.
Addie still isn’t convinced that the captain is not her dead husband.

“How long have you known Hopkins . . . er, Blessing? Have you been leadin’ him on?” Van Winkle’s demanding voice broke into John’s thoughts.

“That question is unnecessary, and you know it.” John spoke firmly, looked at Buffer, and hoped he would keep his mouth shut. “Blessing followed her to Van Buren. He almost killed her there. You hired him, giving him another chance at her.”

Ignoring John, Van Winkle looked at Addie and continued his questions.

“Did her pa die in the war?”

“Yes.” Addie’s eyes were on the captain. “His name was Kirby Hyde.”

The tension was heavy. Only Addie, Forsythe, and John were aware of what Addie was doing.

“All right. Get him out from under there.” The judge put the envelope and pencil back into his pocket.

The men went to the other side of the wagon and pulled on the ground sheet, bringing the body out into the bright sunlight. At John’s suggestion, they rolled the dead man in the canvas. While they were doing this, the captain managed to move his horse into a position that blocked Addie from the others. He reached out and grasped her arm.

“If you ruin things for me, Addie Faye, you’ll be sorry!” He stepped away, leaving Addie stunned.

Up until that moment she had not been
absolutely
sure that the man was Kirby. John’s story and the letter he produced had caused her to believe that she might be mistaken. The captain
could
be someone who looked like Kirby—a rare coincidence, one of life’s strange little quirks.

Addie felt a numbness start at her knees and work its way up to form a cold ring around her heart. She was married to that cold-hearted man.
Addie Faye. Addie Faye.
The Kirby she had known had teased her when he found her full name written on a sampler her mother had made when she was a baby. The precious keepsake was still in her trunk.

She went into the wagon and sat down. She didn’t want to bring the matter up to John again. But how could she not? She couldn’t live the rest of her life not being sure that the man she loved with all her heart was her legal husband. She pressed her palm against her stomach.

Our children would be . . . bastards.

“Ya in here, Miss Addie?” Trisha stepped up into the wagon. “Well, they’ve gone. Ain’t that judge the beatin’est? Things don’t go to suit, he swells all up.” She puffed out her cheeks. “He shore do look like a bullfrog.” She leaned down and peered into Addie’s face. “Ya tired, ain’t ya, Miss Addie?”

“I reckon I am. We’ve had lots of excitement the last couple of days.”

“Ya sit right here. I’ll go get the younguns and keep ’em outta yore hair while ya rest.”

“Thank you, Trisha. Give me an hour and I’ll be all right.”

Addie closed her eyes. She wasn’t sure that she’d ever be all right again.

*  *  *

Captain Kyle Forsythe was almost sick with worry. He went through the motions of overseeing the burial, leaving most of the details to Lieutenant Shipley. They buried the man, still wrapped in the ground sheet, on a small rise where the earth was not rain-soaked. After the judge said a hasty prayer, one of the men threw a loop around a dead tree branch and dragged it up to cover the grave.

On returning to camp, Kyle dismissed the detail and went directly to the wagon he shared with Lieutenant Shipley. The four enlisted men shared the other wagon. The burying had interrupted a card game Shipley was having with two of the enlisted men and a driver. Kyle was relieved when the lieutenant went back to it. He needed time alone. He had to think.

He sat down on the shelflike bunk that served as his bed, rested his elbows on his thighs, his head in his hands, and stared at the floor.

Unless he did something to stop her, that blasted woman was going to ruin the best chance he’d ever had to be somebody.

The farm had been a good place to bide his time. Seducing Addie had been as easy as falling off a log. The country girl had never heard sweet talk. She fell for him and opened up like a ripe melon. In order to stay at the farm until the way was clear for him to go back to Illinois and pick up his commission, he had let her drag him to that hill preacher and go through the mockery of a wedding. What a farce that was!

Hell! He couldn’t let his big chance blow up in his face.

The damn ridge-runner had gone to Freepoint and found Addie. Why had he married her, for chrissake? If he’d wanted to bed her, all he had to do was sweet talk her a little. It wasn’t very flattering to learn that his “widow” hadn’t grieved for him but a few weeks before she took another man.

Kyle didn’t know where the girl Trisha had come from. Lord, but she was a beauty. Cindy would be green with envy if she saw her. He had been getting aroused just looking at her, then Addie had knocked the props out from under him when she said the girl’s last name was Hyde. Damn her! She was trying to trip him up.

What to do now? He would deny, deny, deny. It was her word against his. He had to keep telling himself that. He couldn’t let anyone or anything get between him and Cindy.

Kyle got off the bunk, washed his face, combed his hair, and left the wagon. Walking on the outside of the circle to avoid Van Winkle, he went to Cindy’s caravan and tapped on the door.

“Who is it?”

“Me, Kyle.”

“Let him in, Ivy, then get out.”

“Yas’m.”

The maid opened the door and slipped out.

Kyle stepped in and threw the latch, locking the door. The window was open and a cool breeze came through. Still the place smelled deliciously like a woman. Cindy, wearing a loose robe with ribbons at the neck, put the novel she was reading aside when he entered.

“Hello, my sweet and beautiful girl.” He stood with his back to the door and looked at her for a long while.

“I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too. Your uncle is a demanding fellow.”

Cindy held out her hands. “Don’t waste time,” she whispered.

Kyle sat down beside her and scooped her up to lie across his lap.

“I stayed away as long as I could. I’m going to have some of your sweet kisses and I don’t care if your uncle pounds the door down.” He buried his face between her breasts and nosed aside the opening of her robe. He stroked her soft skin with his tongue. “Mmm . . . you taste good enough to eat.”

She gave a wanton little cry, wrapped her arms around his neck, and pressed herself against him.

*  29  *

T
rying to keep uneasiness about Addie from his mind, John rode ahead of the train, his eyes searching for a cloud of dust, a startled animal, or the sudden rising of a flock of birds. His experienced eyes scanned the ground from fifty feet ahead of him to the horizon in all directions, looking for a sign that they were not the only humans on the vast prairie. He saw only prairie grass, jack oak, and every now and then a clump of cottonwoods.

He had waited until daylight to move the train out and cross the rain-swollen stream. Thankfully, the stream was rock-bottomed and not much trouble to cross. Later on, when they reached the wider sand-bottomed creeks flowing into the Canadian River, the bull-whackers would hitch extra oxen to the freight wagons to pull them across.

Because of the late start John decided to cut out the midday rest and travel until late afternoon. He had sent Buffer back to let the cook know the change in plans.

His disturbing thoughts of Addie persisted.

Last night, for the first time since they had married, she had not slept in his arms for at least part of the night. He had missed not only the sweet agony of losing himself in her warm woman’s body, but the smell of her hair, the soft kisses, the whispered words they always exchanged before falling asleep. She had become not only his lover and wife but his friend. They had shared many confidences, but not since he had told her he had killed Kirby Hyde had they spoken of him. John frowned over the knowledge the man had come between them.

Addie had laid out their bed beneath the wagon as usual, but then had asked him if he would mind if she slept inside with Trisha and the children. At first he had thought she didn’t want to sleep in the place where a man had so recently died, but as he lay alone, looking out at the star-filled sky, her motive became clear: She was holding herself away from him because she still believed that she was married to another man.

John looked back at the ribbon of wagons stretched out for a mile behind him. Following the wagons were two groups of stock, his and the judge’s.

Tomorrow they would reach Webbers Falls and part company with the Van Winkle train. John would lead his freight wagons across the Arkansas River and follow the Canadian River. The judge would follow the Arkansas north to the fort. John had looked forward to the day. But now he realized that things must be settled between Addie and Kyle Forsythe, or the opportunity would be lost—perhaps forever.

He wouldn’t allow the shadow of another man to stand between him and his wife for the rest of his life. He muttered an expletive. It was time the air was cleared.

It was not yet five o’clock when John gave the order to “swing in.” The animals had been working for ten straight hours with only a half-hour stop for rest and water. He left the placing of the wagons to Cleve and rode Victor down the line to where the Van Winkle party had already begun to turn in for the night.

John reined up beside Captain Forsythe. He lifted his arm and pointed to a clump of cottonwoods a quarter of a mile away.

“Be over there in a half-hour.”

“What the hell for?”

“To clear up whatever is between you and my wife.”

“There’s nothing between me and your wife. I . . . never saw her before.”

“You’re lying. Be there, or I’ll bring Addie here and we’ll say what we have to say in front of the judge and his niece.”

“God damn you!”

“God damn you for whatever it was you did to Addie!”

“All right. I’ll be there.”

John nodded and rode back to his camp.

*  *  *

Addie was perfectly miserable and had been since learning for certain that Captain Kyle Forsythe was the Kirby Hyde who had come to her farm, married her, and fathered her child.

It had been a long day. Crossing the swollen creek had been scary. It would have been worse but for their driver, who seemed to think it was nothing at all. Nevertheless, Addie and Trisha held on to the children, and Addie worried about Colin in the wagon ahead.

During their one brief stop, they had all had a drink of water and Addie had handed out the candy sticks, insisting that even Trisha and Huntley each take one.

“Seems a shame, ma’am, to be wastin’ this on me,” Huntley drawled. “The younguns oughta be havin’ it.”

“There’s plenty. The candy will help tide you over till supper.”

Knowing that Addie was troubled, Trisha had worked hard at keeping the children amused. She cast worried glances at her friend who sat at the back of the wagon staring at the plodding beast pulling the wagon behind them.

Addie’s mind went over and over the events that had led to this crushing despair. John had been so sure the captain was not Kirby Hyde when he brought her the letter taken from the dead man. Even then there had been a small doubt in her mind, but one she could live with.

Now, she had to tell him that their marriage was not real. That her real husband was Captain Kyle Forsythe, the man she knew as Kirby Hyde.

She thanked the Lord when the order came to swing in. While the wagons circled, Addie brushed her hair and rebraided it. They all climbed down as soon as the wagon stopped. It was good to have their feet on solid ground. The children chased each other while Addie washed the dust from her face and hands and prepared to go to the cook wagon to help Bill with supper.

John rode up on Victor.

“Trisha, Colin is coming to take charge of Dillon and Jane Ann. Will you take Addie’s place helping Bill with supper? She’s going with me.”

“Where are we going?” Addie turned an anxious face up to his.

He looked down at her for a moment. She was beautiful, but that wasn’t the reason he had lost his mind and fallen so completely in love with her. It was her inner beauty that reached out to him. He had never thought to meet the likes of Addie. When she was old, that inner beauty would still be there. He had no doubt that as the years went by, she would become ever more precious to him.

“John—”

He took his foot from the stirrup. “Put your foot in there, honey, and I’ll lift you up. We’re going to take a little ride.”

“Can’t we walk?”

“No, sweetheart. Come on, I’ll not let you fall.”

The anxiety was still on her face as she obeyed his instructions. He lifted her and settled her on his lap. She wrapped an arm about his waist and held on to him. His arms enclosed her, sheltering and protecting her. He could feel the frightened trembling in her body. She was so damned sweet and giving. He wanted desperately to kiss her and ease the worry from her mind, but that would have to wait.