Say You Love Me (2 page)

"If it hadn't been for me getting pregnant, like a blessing out of the blue, I'd never have seen him again. But that doesn't matter now, because that blessing turned out to be a curse, and it's all over. All of it. I don't have anything left to live for, but you've got everything. Even the daughter you always wanted. Your baby lived and mine didn't. Now I wish I'd died with her."

Iris had heard enough. "Stop it. Talking this way is blasphemy. You had a terrible delivery, Violet. You could have died, but God spared you, and it's a sin for you to say you wish He hadn't."

Violet began to cry, her whole body quaking. She felt so awful, with her breasts swollen and aching. "I don't care. You said I'd never be able to have another baby—"

"I can't be sure. No one can."

Violet made a face. "Well, you should know. After all, you were the doctor's little helper, weren't you? Always traipsing around with Poppa when he made his calls. After he died you just took over, like you always do. Folks had something else to talk about besides how pretty you are and how your handsome husband adores you and what wonderful sons you have. They started calling you a 'medicine woman' and treated you like some kind of God."

Iris's eyes filled with tears. "Violet, don't say these things. You don't mean them. You're sick, and I understand. Now please take Jacie and nurse her. We won't be leaving today as early as we usually do. Luke insisted you and I should get some rest, since we're only a day away from Nacogdoches now."

Iris did not tell her about the other men's protests that they should keep moving because of the fear of Indians. An old prospector had happened by late the night before and warned them that they should get to the fort at Nacogdoches as soon as possible. Apparently, twelve Comanche chiefs had met with Texas commissioners a few months ago in hopes of a peace treaty—only there had been bad trouble instead. The Comanches had balked at giving up the white prisoners they were holding, and troops had then charged into the council room and started shooting. When the smoke cleared, all of the chiefs had been slaughtered, and the incident had set the Comanche nations on the warpath.

The other men had not told their wives of the danger, knowing how terrified they would be, but Luke and Iris kept no secrets from each other. He regretted that a delay of a few hours was all he could get the others to agree to after telling them Violet was sick.

Jacie began to mew hungrily, and Iris held her out to Violet. "Take her and rid yourself of some milk. We'll talk later, and I'll make you see you're wrong about Judd. He loves you, and everything will be fine once we get to Texas. You'll see. I love you too, Violet. I always have. And so did Momma and Poppa."

Violet started to move away, but then her eyes fastened on the locket Iris always wore on a ribbon around her neck. It contained a daguerreotype of Iris, given to her by their mother, because they looked so much alike. Violet had been hurt, feeling it was a cruel reminder that she was not pretty like her mother and her sister.

Violet's hand shot out, and she gave the locket a vicious yank, breaking the ribbon. Squeezing it in her fist, as Iris stared in wide-eyed wonder, Violet said through clenched teeth, "I am sick of staring at this symbol of the difference between us day after day, year after year. I think I hate you, Iris."

Even as she had spoken the words, Violet felt awful and knew she did not really mean what she was saying. At the same instant, her breasts suddenly began to ache even more. Finally, she yielded to the agony and roughly jerked Jacie from Iris's arms. "Give her to me. I'll nurse her. Maybe then I'll feel like I'm useful for something in this life," she said miserably.

She retreated to the distant scrub, but now she felt worse than before. Her breasts were no longer swollen and gorged; Jacie had drunk her fill and slept contentedly, tiny fists curled against her cherubic cheeks, droplets of milk drying at the corners
of her
little pink mouth. But guilt over the way she had treated her sister was making Violet sick to the depths of her soul. Iris had never been cruel or mean to her. It was not her fault the way life had turned out for Violet.

Violet thought of Judd and prayed Iris had been right in saying he would still want her after finding out their baby had died. Violet loved him with all her heart and could not remember a time in her whole life when she hadn't. She had sworn to be a good wife and was certain that when the babies came, Judd would love her for being their mother if for no other reason. But could she hold him now, she wondered in anguish, when there would never be any children for them?

She opened her hand and looked down at the locket, murmuring, "I've got to give it back, and I've got to apologize. God forgive me, how could I have said such terrible things to my own sister?"

She got stiffly to her knees, careful not to wake the baby, and was about to stand when she heard a strange noise, like thunder on the plains, piercing the stillness of the day. Glancing up, she noted the sky was clear. At the next moment she realized that what she heard was pounding hooves against the dry, parched land. Then came the screams of the women and the alarmed shouts of the men as they tried to gather their wits and attempt to defend their families against the rapidly approaching Indians.

The whoops and cries of the Comanche drowned out all other sounds as they swarmed down on the helpless caravan, arrows singing through the air. Some were aflame, and they pierced the canvas of the wagons, setting them afire.

Violet watched, paralyzed with horror, clutching Jacie tightly against her. A silent scream constricted her throat at the sight of Iris's oldest boy, Lukie, being taken down by an arrow to his neck.

She fell forward, bracing herself with one arm against the ground as she continued to hold the baby while peering over the top of the camouflaging sage and scrub. She could see it all—the people she had come to know so well in the past weeks and consider friends, family even, all being slaughtered. Shuddering, she felt bile rise in her throat as she helplessly watched Luke trying to shield Iris, who crouched on the ground clutching one of her dead sons in her arms.

The last thing Violet saw before mercifully fainting was Luke falling dead, a tomahawk buried in his skull.

* * *

Iris was denied the relief of fainting. Instead, she was frozen in a kind of shock, unable to speak or move as the wild-faced savages leapt from their ponies to surround her.

She was the only one spared.

The Indians talked excitedly among themselves. She was beautiful, their leader declared, bragging how he had seen her from afar and decided she would bring them much pleasure before following her white brothers and sisters in death. Another argued he should have her first, since it was his tomahawk that had felled her defender.

But one warrior's gaze fastened on Iris's bosom. He shouted to his comrades to leave her alone and, dismounting, walked over and yanked her to her feet for closer scrutiny. Her legs would not support her; he held her up only long enough to make sure the stain on her dress was not blood, and then he let her slump to the ground in a sobbing heap as he announced triumphantly to the others, "She has milk. Our chief will be pleased to have her for his son."

The Indians nodded and muttered approval, thinking how Moonstar, the wife of their chief, had died only a few days before. Her son was being fed by other nursing mothers but now that he was four years old, his demand was great and the supply limited. The chief would be pleased to have a woman with milk for his son alone.

The warrior signaled for her to be taken away. "She will live," he said. "At least until she is of no more use to Great Bear. It will be up to him to decide. Then he will let us take our pleasure as a reward for bringing her to him."

Iris did not understand what they were saying and did not know she had been spared. If she had, it would not have mattered, because she had no reason to live any longer.

Her only solace amidst the carnage was having been spared the horror of witnessing her infant and her sister being slaughtered like the rest of her family—like the rest of her world.

* * *

Violet struggled to pull away from the peaceful oblivion that shielded her mind from the nightmare of reality. But a baby was crying.
Her baby?
No. Her baby had died. Yet she heard the hungry wail and fought to respond, an aching in her arms and in her heart.

Her eyes flashed open, and she looked about in panic as the horror came rushing back. Lying beside her on the ground, Jacie flailed at the air with her little fists, kicking against the warm blanket that constricted her.

Violet ignored the baby as she got to her knees with heart pounding and dared to peek out through the brush that had mercifully kept the Indians from spotting her.

What she saw made her blood run cold. The carnage was sickening, and she couldn't bring herself to walk through it to look for her dead family. She wanted to remember Iris, beautiful Iris, as she was in life.

The baby began to cry louder, furious to be neglected. Pausing only to catch her breath and make impatient smacking noises with her lips, she jerked her head from side to side, instinctively seeking to be fed.

Dizzy, stomach rolling, Violet managed to collect herself. She turned away from the silent, grisly scene but knew the image would forever more be burned into her mind and soul. Buzzards circled overhead. The Indians would have made sure there were no survivors.

How long had she been unconscious? The baby was hungry again, so it had to have been several hours. Then she noticed the sun was melting toward the west; it was late afternoon, which meant she had been asleep most of the day, probably due to her weakness, as well as to her having fainted in terror. It was no wonder the baby was screaming.

Picking up Jacie, Violet fed her, and the baby settled down contentedly. Violet tried to think what she should do, for despite the grief and anguish she felt, she wished to survive. The baby seemed to be sweating, so Violet pulled the blanket away from her, feeling a strange lump in one part of the hem as she did so. Curious and grateful to have anything to take her mind off her woes, she investigated and was startled to realize that Iris had sewn some money inside the blanket. "I will see that she gets it one day, Iris," Violet whispered aloud. "I'll never be able to tell you I'm sorry for the awful things I said to you, but I'll take care of your baby. I'll treat her like she was my own—"

Violet stiffened.

…Like she was my own.

Slowly, she absorbed the words and wondered if she actually dared make them so. Who would know? she rationalized, pulse racing. There was no one left who knew about her baby being born dead, or that the one she would call her own was actually her niece. No one would ever find out. Certainly not Judd, who would mercifully be spared such grief and heartache. There would be no harm in such a deception, only good. Jacie would have parents to take care of her, and Violet would not have to worry about losing the only man she had ever loved.

Her eyes fell on the locket where it had fallen to the ground when she had fainted. Loosening a few threads in the blanket's hem, she hid the locket inside with the money. One day perhaps she would give everything to Jacie and tell her the truth, but not while Judd was alive. Till then, it would be Violet's deep dark secret.

She fell asleep then and was not aware when the soldiers finally arrived after seeing the smoke. They immediately set about the grisly task of burying what was left of the bodies as quickly as possible. It was not until they had finished and were preparing to leave that they heard the sound of an infant crying in the gathering shadows of dusk.

Two of the soldiers went to investigate, daring to hope a mother might somehow have managed to hide her baby before the Indians were fully upon them. They moved cautiously in the dusk, making their way toward the sound. Seeing the squalling infant, arms and legs kicking mightily as it lay beside a woman's still body, the men exchanged fearful glances.

Violet stirred and moaned softly as she tried once more to answer the needs of the baby—her baby, she reminded herself groggily.

"She's alive," said one of the soldiers. He dropped to one knee. "Are you hurt, ma'am?"

Wild-eyed with fear, Violet grabbed Jacie and held her tight against her.

"It's all right, ma'am. No need to be scared. We're soldiers, and we're going to take care of you. But I need to know if you're hurt."

Violet shook her head, Jacie was howling lustily, but she could do nothing for her at the moment and commenced to describe how she, along with her baby, had escaped death.

The soldiers wanted to know how many men, women, and children had been in the caravan so they could tell whether any captives had been taken. Days later, when she was told that there was one woman not accounted for, Violet would not let herself think it might be Iris, that the Indians might have taken her with them. She had seen her die, hadn't she? But the massacre had happened so fast; she could not be sure what she really saw. Still, the missing woman's body had probably been dragged away by wild animals before the soldiers got there. She forced herself to dismiss any doubts from her mind.

Violet was taken to the post infirmary after an all-night ride and put to bed with Jacie in her arms. Toward noon, Judd came into the room, eyes red-rimmed and swollen, shoulders slumped. His deep despair over Iris's death had ravaged him, making him age overnight.

"I don't feel like talking right now," he said in a barely audible voice. "Don't reckon you do, either. We'll have time later." He turned and walked out.

Violet smiled. Yes, there would be time, lots of time, because he would never leave her now, not when they had a child.

Violet knew that Judd was truly hers, at long last, for he would no longer torment himself with wanting Iris.

Then and there, Violet promised herself that if it took till her dying breath to make it happen, one day she would hear him say that he loved her.

Those precious words were all Violet was living for.