Prairie Song (26 page)

Grayson sat back against the headboard of the bed and relaxed. He’d just spent the past hour getting dressed and the simple chore exhausted him. But he wanted to be standing when Maggie came back from settling Westley’s affairs. It had been a week since he’d arrived on her porch and he was sick of the inactivity. Maggie was worse than a mother hen with one chick. It was no wonder Hattie lost her mind after being bedridden for months. He was about to lose his after only seven days. His only goal today was to make it to the chair on the front porch so he could see them coming up the hill, then to stand as she walked up the steps.

Only two guests had come to the house during his recovery. One had been the lawyer to ask Maggie to drop by his office. The other, Holliday, to tell them how happy she was to hear about Westley’s demise. She’d even stopped in to visit with Hattie for a few minutes, but the old woman no longer acknowledged anyone in the room. The disease in Hattie’s body had closed her mind and it would only be a matter of hours before it stopped her heart as well.

Holliday cried when she saw Hattie, then blotted her eyes carefully so she wouldn’t smear her face paint. Like most of the ladies of the evening, she’d gotten her start at Hattie’s Parlor back before the war.

Holliday had stayed for tea, which Maggie served right on the front porch for everyone to see.

Grayson had watched them from the slits in the boarded-up window. He swore he could see Holliday putting on more airs by the minute. Maggie had a way of making those around her change, even without saying a word. By the time they’d finished tea, the old girl of the streets was strutting like she was the mayor’s wife.

The only conversational topic of interest to Grayson was Holliday’s mentioning of how the drunks still talked of a treasure hidden in the house, but she’d said fewer and fewer believed the tale. Westley had believed the lie and lies don’t die as easily as men.

Grayson lowered himself into the porch chair and smiled as he wondered if Maggie would offer him tea today. He’d made it outside and was quite proud of himself.

His glory was short-lived however, for when Maggie saw him sitting on the porch, he could hear her yelling from the bottom of the hill.

When she stepped into the yard her anger was full-blown. She marched toward him. “How dare you get out of bed before you’re told! You could have done a great deal of damage.”

Grayson laughed. He’d learned to love her outbursts almost as dearly as he loved the way she kissed him good night each night with promises of what would come when he was well. “Stop yelling at me, woman. You’re always trying to keep me in bed.”

His good mood only fired her anger. “I liked you much better before you started talking, Yankee,” she answered. “At least then I didn’t think you were an idiot who tried to kill yourself by getting out of bed before you should.”

Bar came through the door absorbed in the piece of pie he’d just stolen from the kitchen. He glanced up and noticed they’d squared off at one another again. With the ease of a dust devil, he twirled around and vanished back into the house. He could hear all the argument he wanted to from any location half a mile around; he didn’t have to stay within throwing distance of Maggie.

Neither noticed the boy as blue-gray eyes clashed with indigo. She stood in front of his chair, tall and slender in her new navy dress. She was daring him to argue; he could taste it in the air between them.

Grayson raised one eyebrow. “You win. I’ll go back to bed, but you’ll have to help me.”

Maggie hesitated a moment, knowing it was unlikely he’d give up so easily. Slowly, she helped him to his feet. His powerful arm covered her shoulder as he allowed her to take only part of the weight from his wounded leg. When they passed through the door frame, he stopped, raising his hands to catch the frame, and blocked her on both sides.

They stood for a moment, touching. He could feel her pressed against him from shoulder to knee and there wasn’t a place where she didn’t feel wonderful. “Maggie,” he whispered as he leaned even closer, “I’m strong enough.”

She didn’t pretend not to understand his meaning. Her arm still circled his waist and he felt like an oak beside her. There was nothing soft or weak in this man. Not even his injuries had made him less virile in her eyes.

When she didn’t answer, he leaned against her, pressing her back against the door frame. Even through their clothes she could feel the heat of his body. “Come to me tonight with your hair down, my Maggie.”

“No,” she answered, lifting her chin. “I’m not the kind of woman who crawls into a man’s bed in the middle of the night.”

“Then marry me,” he answered, and his words shocked him almost as much as they did her.

“Certainly not. I only buried a husband this week. I can hardly marry again so soon.”

“You buried him four years ago. He only finally died this week.” Grayson’s hand moved over her shoulder, caressing her slender arm.

Maggie’s brow wrinkled in confusion. “Also, I’m not sure I could marry a Yankee after spending the past years mending the men the North shot.”

Grayson slid his hand from her arm to her fingers. “The war’s over. Let it end between us.”

She looked up at his wonderful eyes that blended the colors of the North and the South. The war had never been against the North for her. It had only been against pain and death. She could lay it aside, but could he? He might want her, but she knew part of the reason he’d remained by her side was because he hunted the southern outlaws who were somehow tied to this house.

“I’m not sure,” she whispered, and for the first time he saw how very much she needed him—almost as much as he needed her.

His knuckles brushed the side of her face. “Marry me.” He breathed the words against her cheek. “Marry me and live with me the rest of our days on this earth. It doesn’t matter if we live in the North or the South as long as we are together.”

Just before his lips reached hers, Cherish called from Hattie’s room. The moment snapped between them and was lost. She wanted to pull him back until there was only the world of the two of them, but she knew she had responsibilities. Maggie quickly helped him to his bed. As she turned to rush to see what was wrong with Hattie, Maggie heard him mutter that he wished they were alone again on the trail. For a moment she closed her eyes and would have given her house for an hour alone with him.

Grayson lay back and watched as the women came and went from the old woman’s room. He didn’t have to ask to know Hattie’s time had come. As the hours passed he knew she was fighting death, even though she no longer had the mind to ask why.

Finally, just before sundown, Grayson pulled his way along the hallway to her door. There he saw Cherish and Maggie sitting on either side of Hattie’s bed, doing what little they could to help. Bar was asleep in a chair in the corner.

After several moments of silence, Hattie mumbled, “Is my daughter here yet? Is my daughter here?”

Cherish and Maggie exchanged glances before Cherish took the old woman’s hand. Maggie nodded as Cherish whispered, “I’m here. I’ve come to take you home with me.”

Hattie smiled and took a deep breath. When she let the air escape, she let go of life. Everyone waited for several minutes before moving. Then the living stood and did what the living must do.

Grayson walked out on the porch. He had never even spoken to the old woman, but somehow her passing saddened him, bringing back all the memories of loved ones’ deaths. He looked at the night sky and tried to remember what his wife had looked like, but the years and the miles he’d traveled blurred her face. He’d thought he’d never feel anything again, until he met Maggie.

Bar ran down the hill to order the second coffin in a week. Cherish helped prepare the body, then vanished into her room.

It was well after midnight when Maggie sat on the edge of Grayson’s bed to say good night. “Are you asleep?” she whispered, and her voice sounded tired.

“No,” he answered, covering her hand with his. She was only a shadow, but he could feel a trembling of need in her touch, a need all have to hold the living when Death walks too near.

She was silent for a long while, feeling the warmth of his hand covering hers. “I don’t want to die alone, childless and among strangers.” She bit her lip to fight back the tears, but she knew the only way she’d find strength was to admit her weakness. “Sometimes, I’m so afraid. It seems like everyone I care about leaves me. I get so tired of always feeling so alone.”

Grayson silently pulled her down beside him and held her against his heart. He wanted to tell her all the words that he’d been thinking of while waiting for her, but none would come. It had been ten years since he’d talked of love and lifetimes together.

Slowly, he brought her hand up and kissed her palm. Then he spread her fingers over his heart and whispered, “Go to sleep now, Maggie. I’m with you.”

She cuddled against his shoulder and did as she was told for the first time since he’d met her. He held her gently all night, wondering how he’d ever found such a woman. Somehow, he knew it was going to be far more difficult to whisper words of love than yell words of anger at her. But he’d best be practicing both, for she would always give as much as she demanded of love.

“Maggie,” he whispered into her hair, “I’m not leaving you, for you belong right where you are at this moment. I never thought a woman like you lived, and now I’ve found you I can’t think what it would be like to live without you. As long as there is breath in me you’ll never be lonely again.”

He moved his hand over her sleeping body and felt her move toward his touch.

*    *    *

Cherish closed her door and ran to the lamp. Quickly she opened the letter she’d carried in her pocket all day waiting for a chance to read it.

Brant’s words were simple. He’d gone to find Daniel and would be back as soon as he could. He ended with, “Look for me at dusk tomorrow. I’ll come through the tunnel.”

There were no words of love. He hadn’t even signed his name, but he was coming to her and that was all that really mattered.

Cherish’s joy was short-lived, for the next day dawned amid a downpour. The rain hung like a damp curtain over the air as clouds hid the sun and thunder rumbled through the house.

Around noon, the carpenter brought the coffin and Hattie was placed inside. Her thin body needed only half the space, so Maggie surrounded her with the quilt that always lay over her in life. Cherish gently put the box of letters on one side and Bar placed her ancient gun on the other.

It was well into the afternoon before the mourners started to gather in the living room. Grayson’s bed was moved to the corner and every chair in the house circled the room to make the visitors comfortable. As the rain slowed, their numbers grew until the house was full of a few grievers and numerous curious townspeople.

Grayson ached all over, but he wasn’t about to go to bed with all these folks looking at him, and he wasn’t sure he could climb the stairs. He sought refuge on the back porch and it wasn’t long before Bar joined him.

The boy propped himself up on the damp porch railing and watched the last bit of rain dribble off the roof. “Where do you think all those folks come from?” he asked. “Except for the doc and Holliday, I ain’t never seen them in this house.”

Folding himself slowly into an old wicker chair, Grayson replied, “Folks like to come around when someone dies. Some are grieving and need to touch the living, but some just want to watch and talk. I reckon most of these are the latter. Hattie had quite a reputation in this town and them that wouldn’t visit her alive will come to look now she’s dead.”

“I was thinkin’ that on a day like this, there ain’t much to do. But I’d have to be real hard up to go visit a dead person.”

Agreeing, Grayson pulled a thin cigar from his pocket and lit it.

Bar shrugged his bony shoulders. “Hattie wouldn’t have wanted them here. She threatened to shoot almost everyone who walked in her room with that old gun of hers. She told me once that she had enough powder in it to destroy half the men in town, but when I looked at it once I found it stuffed with rolled-up paper.”

Grayson stood and moved closer to Bar. Keeping his voice calm, he asked, “What was on the paper, son?”

“Just a bunch of names.”

Grayson slowly lowered himself to the first step and allowed the damp air to clear his head. He tossed the cigar into the mud. From inside he could hear the tapping sound of the nails being hammered into the lid of Hattie’s coffin, but he didn’t move to stop them.

Taking a deep breath, he listened to the sound of the hammer, knowing that it was forever closing inside the coffin the only list ever made of the Knights of the Golden Circle. All he had to do was go inside and demand the box be opened and he’d have the list he’d been looking for since the war ended. But if he found the list, would the war end? He’d probably find the names of a few men, like Wallman who were up to causing trouble but most of the men had probably gone on with their lives or died in the war. What good would it do exposing them now? He’d demanded that Maggie let the conflict die. He could ask no less of himself.

Let the conflict and the secret die and be buried with Hattie, forever concealing the list, forever ending the bloodshed. She could keep the list safe in death as she had in life.

As the hammering continued, Grayson stared into the gray clouds and buried his hatred. This rainy afternoon almost a year after Lee’s surrender was the day the war ended for him in his heart. Pain had torn wounds on both sides, but it was time to let them heal. Now he could look to the future and not the past.

Now he could talk to Maggie of dreams … of forever.