Heart of a Dove (32 page)

I’m just behind you, Lila. Just behind
.

I wept at his vicious words, struggling to get away, but his fingers were unbreakable in their hold. When I looked over my shoulder at him, his eyes appeared as flames, reddish and demonic, his lips curled back over blackened teeth.

Just behind
, he told me again, and I woke with a sickening gasp, hot beneath the blanket. Immediately I looked to my upper arm, exploring it with tentative fingers, expecting to see again the marks of his fingers upon my flesh. It was very early morning, already warm and humid, and I flung the blanket from me, shuddering.

It was a dream, only a dream
, I told myself, willing it to fade to non-existence, as did most of what I dreamed. I sat cautiously, gauging the reaction in my head, and then cringed at the pain. It was worse than it had been last night.

“How are you this morning, Lorie?” Angus whispered, just outside my tent. Surely he had been there since last night.

“I’m just fine,” I lied. “I’ll be ready directly.”

“There’s no hurry,” he told me.

There was however a strange urgency that filled me as I brushed and braided my hair and then dressed. I wore my own clothes today, as I couldn’t imagine riding with my head aching so. What I felt wasn’t an outright panic, though close, and the jittering awareness of it was all along my limbs. When I emerged from the tent, Angus had the fire going, the coffee kettle atop the iron grate, back in its place after holding the tin cans for my target practice. I managed a smile for him, my eyes darting to Sawyer’s tent, though I knew he wasn’t in it; he was shaving, with Boyd. I blinked at the brightening sun.

“Did you rest well?” Angus asked, regarding me with his gray eyes worried. “You look a bit peaked, my dear.”

“I’m fine, Gus, truly,” I said.

But a terrible feeling in my gut insisted that I was not.

It’s all right. You just need to rest
, I told myself.
Just rest on the wagon.

I went to the river and knelt, splashing water over my face repeatedly, but was forced to draw several deep breaths before I felt able to stand.

Oh God, what’s wrong?

Malcolm was tearing down the tents, Sawyer just coming from the horses as I walked carefully back to camp. I wanted to go to him and be held in his arms, and I wanted this so much that my body tightened with pain. Sawyer moved to me at once and touched my right shoulder, caressing me for far too brief a moment. He was so worried for me and I tried to smile up at him, but he would not be fooled.

“Did you sleep at all?” he asked.

Lorie, I’m so worried. You don’t look well
, his eyes said.

“I did,” I said, and I could sense his pain at not being able to take me against him. My own agony was as palpable.

Boyd walked over, and his tone was full of a sense of forced lightness as he said, “Lorie-girl, me an’ you’ll take a turn on the wagon, how’s that? We’ll chat a spell.”

There was a knot of tension between Boyd and Sawyer. I looked between the two of them and felt my stomach clench.

I nodded weakly.

“Why don’t you go an’ sit on the wagon an’ rest?” Boyd suggested. “We’ll get this camp tore down.”

It’s all right
, Sawyer assured me as my eyes went at once to his. He said softly, “Come, I’ll help you up.”

He did, tenderly, one hand on the small of my back, the other grasping my hand. He squeezed my fingers gently, his hand lingering upon mine. I watched as he hitched Juniper and Fortune and then came to my side.

“Are you and Boyd…” I asked, but I needn’t finish the question for him to know what I meant.

“We’ve been at odds,” he said quietly. “We were up most of the night talking. But it’s all right. I don’t say that to placate you, I promise.”

“I know,” I said. “I just worry so.”

Angus headed our way and Sawyer said, low and quickly, “Don’t worry about anything but feeling better, sweetheart. Please.”

Facing away from Angus, his eyes pleaded with me and I caressed him with my own, before nodding.

Boyd took his place on the wagon seat. Angus, Sawyer and Malcolm rode just ahead, and try as I might I could not keep my eyes from Sawyer, from his wide shoulders in the white muslin shirt he alternated every other day with a dark green one, his suspenders criss-crossing his broad back. His hair was tied back beneath his hat, his hips rocking just slightly with Whistler’s gait, his posture even more rigid than usual as I sensed the difficulty he was having not looking back at me.

I’m all right, love
, I told him.
I love you, I love you with all my heart. I haven’t said it in so many words, but I know you know it for truth.

At my thought Sawyer did look back, and I felt the ripple of his own.

I do know it, Lorie, and I love you so.

Boyd and I rode in companionable silence for a long time and I found that if I kept my head still, the pain wasn’t as intense. Likewise, Boyd kept the pace of the wagon slow, and eventually Sawyer, Gus and Malcolm were many yards down the trail, out of earshot. Finally he said, quietly, “Lorie, I feel like I’ve known you far longer than I have. You were meant to be with us, I believe that, an’ I’d be happy to claim you as my sister, truly. An’ I didn’t mean to imply nothin’ unseemly the other night, when I came upon the two a-you, you know that, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I told him honestly, my voice likewise quiet. My hat brim was pulled low, shielding my eyes as best I could from the brilliant sunlight.

We watched Juniper and Fortune plod along another few paces before he continued, “I’ve knowed Sawyer all my life, an’ I love him like a brother. An’ if I don’t mistake myself, you love him too, don’t you?”

My heart panged and I could not deny it; my eyes told him the truth. I should have known Boyd would realize. I whispered, “I do, I do so very much. I know it seems impossible…”

“No, it ain’t impossible, furthest thing from it,” Boyd said. “Love just plain strikes a body, whether you’re expecting it or not. My daddy knew that my mama was for him the first time he ever saw her. He set his sights and went after her, an’ they loved each other something fierce. Sometimes that’s the way of it. If we were back home, an’ life was different, an’ there’d been no goddamn war, Sawyer could come an’ court you, an’ pay respects to your own daddy. He would do everything proper, Lorie, he is the most honorable man I know, perhaps savin’ Gus. An’ Sawyer loves you, I ain’t ever seen the like in his eyes.”

I choked up, tears in my own eyes, and Boyd noticed, though I hadn’t intended that. He paused and neatly collected my arm into his, tucking my hand in his elbow. Again I marveled that I had found such a group of men, who were indeed honorable, and kind, and good. God knew, the devil knew, that most were not, at least in my experience.

“Oh, Boyd,” I said, using my shoulder to swipe at my tears, though the movement aggravated the pain in my head.

Boyd studied me with his dark eyes a mix of candor and compassion. He explained, “When we left home, we were all so full of ourselves. When I think back now, how we was gonna whip the Yanks in a couple a months an’ come home heroes. It makes me sick to near death, it does.” He sighed before continuing. “War destroyed us, I ain’t gonna sugarcoat. I lost me Graf an’ Beau, an’ Sawyer lost Eth an’ Jere. You lost your own brothers, Lorie-girl, so you know. But Sawyer, he watched them killed before his eyes. They were shot down before him, an’ he dragged their bodies from that rocky field. He saved them to be buried back home, as he knew his mama couldn’t bear otherwise.”

Oh Sawyer
.

My heart clenched at the pain of this information I had not known. Of course he would do so, of course he would risk himself for those he loved.

Oh God, Sawyer
.

Boyd continued, “An’ then coming home to Suttonville, findin’ near everyone gone. At least I had me Malcolm yet, an’ Mama’s brother an’ his family in Minnesota. But Sawyer, Gus, they had no one. Sawyer near went crazy with grief; Gus, being older, was better equipped to handle it, I do believe, though I know he was hurtin’ terrible. But Sawyer is…” and he paused, his eyes drifting up and to the left as he searched for an appropriate adjective. He finally settled upon, “Hot-tempered. An’ passionate about things, in a way that most men ain’t. Always has been. I’m only telling you this, Lorie, ’cause I fear for what’s to come. You saw the way he would have killed that son of a bitch who tried to steal you away. I saw his eyes in that firelight, an’ I knew right then that he was feeling something fierce for you.”

He studied me carefully and continued, “But Gus, he’s quiet, considerate. He wouldn’t just come right out an’ admit to something as directly. Do you know that Gus aims to marry you, Lorie?”

I faltered, closing my eyes, breath lodged in my chest. I nodded, feeling weak as a kitten.

“Aw, Lorie, I ain’t telling you this to hurt you none, I’m just worried. Far back as I recall, Sawyer’s done had this notion in his mind that he’d one day meet the woman for him an’ know her for his, an’ he’s had his heart set on it. He’s a goddamn romantic. He never did finish that story in of the cave in the Bledsoe holler, when he went back for his boot. He swore to me that when he picked up his boot, he had a vision. Well more like he heard a voice. A voice vision, I guess. An’ it told him the words ‘the angel.’ I laughed an’ laughed, but he was certain he’d heard it, I couldn’t sway him from it. He could explain it better’n me, that’s for sure. But you’re her, I do believe. His angel.”

“He told me the story,” I affirmed quietly. I understood better than Boyd thought. Hadn’t I a similar experience, with the woman in silver?

The woodcutter
, she’d said.

“He’s set his sights on you, an’ Gus has too, an’ I’m a-worried, Lorie.” He regarded me with his eyes serious. “What of you?”

My culpability was strangling. I said, “I never intended to cause any trouble. When Angus said he knew my father that night, I couldn’t believe it.”

“Fate,” Boyd said.

“Maybe so,” I allowed. “I could never thank Gus enough for what he did for me, taking me from Ginny’s. I would have been there until I died, I’m sure of it. He rescued me from that, and I will never be grateful enough. And I care for him, I do.”

“But that don’t matter when you love someone else,” Boyd said, and I knew he understood. “A heart can’t be made to love someone, that’s one thing my daddy told me. Aw, Lorie, I long for my daddy something fierce. For Mama, too. There’s times I can’t bear to have to make a decision that affects more’n just me. The responsibility of it rips at me. My God, Daddy never felt that, he was always strong as an oak.”

“I know just what you mean. My daddy was too,” I told him, as my vision swam. “He spoiled me. I thought as long as he was alive, there was nothing in the world that could hurt me.”

“Sawyer told me a bit about how you come to that whorehouse,” Boyd said. “It pains the both of us, something fierce. I swear, Lorie, I never thought before about where the girls who live there come from. It puts me in a right terrible frame of mind, so guilty-like.”

“Who did you see that night?” I asked him.

“Lisette was her name,” he told me. “Was she your friend?”

“No, I didn’t trust most of them. It was a terrible place. I would rather die than ever go back.”

“You won’t ever have to,” he assured me. “Lorie-girl.” He sighed, blowing out the resultant breath with cheeks puffed. He observed, “You look right pale yet. You can lie in the back for a spell, if you’ve a mind to.”

“No, I’ll stay here,” I said, though I knew I should take his suggestion. But in the back of the wagon I would not be able to see Sawyer. He and Malcolm were riding close together, not too far ahead, and my shoulders eased a little at the sight. Though I considered Boyd’s words with a sinking in the pit of my belly; if Angus intended to marry me without knowing about the possibility of a child, then nothing would deter him if it was true. I closed my eyes, knowing that was what had caused panic to cross Sawyer’s face, the same knowledge that I held in my mind like so much lead, dense and immovable.

The irony of the situation was not lost on me; a former whore, and surely a pregnant one at that, should count her every last blessing to have a man as kind and good as Angus Warfield aiming to marry her. It was more than I could ever have hoped for, in my old life. I pressed hard against my temples, trying to ease back the ache there, the onrushing sense of dizziness.

What would I be willing to do, in desperation? My mind scattered through possible options as I rode in silence beside Boyd, while he smoked a tobacco roll. Run away, Sawyer and I could run away together. Would he be able to raise another man’s child, even for me? And though he was an honorable man, would that knowledge destroy him over time? What could be more dishonorable than for me to deny a man his rightful child? My head throbbed and I felt hot, far too hot for even the bright day to warrant.

Oh God, oh God, oh God. I deserve your every punishment for this. Whore, whore, whore, you deserve nothing less than punishment
.

I knew suddenly that I was about to faint, as spots danced, wild and gray, at the edges of my vision. I said breathlessly, “Boyd, I need to get…I need to get down,” and he looked over at with sudden alarm, halting the horses with a jerk.

“Hold up,” he said. “You’re pale as milk.”

He vaulted to the ground and helped me gently over the side, his dark eyes wide with concern. A roaring was in my ears and I swayed, and then the spots closed out all the sights around me and I fell. I was vaguely aware of Boyd catching me.

For a time I seemed to drift, and I fancied that I was just beneath the sun, feeling its scalding heat over my face, my ribs, my limbs. Its heat was all-consuming. I tried to open my eyes enough to see back to the earth, which I could sense far below me, where Boyd whistled shrilly across the prairie, kneeling and holding me in his arms. The sound was piercing and ricocheted through my aching head. The throbbing within my skull was almost unbearable.