When the Splendor Falls (83 page)

Leigh was placing the photograph back on her desk when she heard a gurgling noise behind her and went to the cradle.

“Hello, sweetheart,” she murmured, bending over and lifting the baby into her arms. “My, you’re growing into a big girl,” she said, kissing Lucinda’s chubby cheek and receiving a tug on her ear in response.

“Ouch, don’t pull on Mama’s earring,” Leigh said naturally, not even aware of what she had called herself as she gently pried the strong little fingers loose from the dangling earring of lavender jade, then pressed a kiss into the tiny pink hand.

Big gray eyes, but a darker shade than Adam’s, and fringed with dark brown lashes, stared up at her trustingly, and Leigh hugged her close to her breast, vowing this child would always know love. “Your father loved you so,” Leigh said huskily, thinking of Neil, and the love he’d been denied because of the untimely death of a mother and the bitterness of a grieving father.

But what of Shannon? Leigh found herself wondering as she sat down in the rocking chair and began to rock Lucinda back and forth gently, softly singing a lullaby well remembered from childhood.

What had been the true fate of Neil’s sister?

What had happened to Shannon Malveen?

* * *

A lone rider approached a cabin in a clearing beneath tall pines. No welcoming smoke rose from the stone chimney, and the small windows were shuttered against the light. The corral was empty. Weeds grew tall before the big double doors of the ramshackle barn and a heavy tree limb had fallen from high overhead, crashing through the roof of one of the weathered outbuildings.

Densely forested slopes swept down low to the valley floor, where a broad sweep of plateau stretched to the low hills rolling toward the snowcapped peaks to the east.

A small mountain river with cool, clear waters meandered through the waving grasses of the meadow before tumbling into a ravine that narrowed into a rocky canyon.
Cañon del Malhadado
fell away to the south, the steep gorge descending through the cottonwoods and sagebrush to the desert floor far below.

The only place to ford the river was where it crossed the grassy plateau, where cattle, sheep, and horses could graze, and the mountains rose protectively around the valley.

Riovado. Vado del Rio.
The ford of the river.

Neil Braedon had come home.

He dismounted, standing for a moment as he stared at his birthplace. Slowly, he walked toward the cabin, the big bay following a step behind.

Finding the rawhide strap, Neil pulled the latchstring, the bar on the inside of the door lifting. Pushing against the heavy crossbeamed door, Neil was momentarily surprised, for the door opened easier than he thought it would, even though the hinges creaked with age and disuse. His hand came to rest on his holster, the butt of his pistol comfortably against his palm as he stepped inside the cabin. He moved easily through the shadowy room to the window, lifting the bar across the shutters and letting the sunshine filter through the dirty panes of glass, and he wondered now why he’d bothered to replace the animal skins five years ago.

Neil glanced around.

Deer antlers hung above the door and held an old flintlock rifle and powder horn his father had carried with him from Virginia. The great stone fireplace almost filled one wall. A bear skin stretched before the hearth, where a black iron pot and a baking kettle swung from a long chimney bar, and a tin coffeepot sat on a trivet in the cold ashes. Other blackened long-handled pans and cooking utensils dangled from hooks nearby, and the long pine mantel held candles, lanterns, and an assortment of jugs and bowls. In the corner, a pole extending from the wall and held up with a notched log on the outer edge, then crossed with poles to the wall, held a soft mattress stuffed with leaves, sweet grass, and moss. A comforter and quilt had been folded across the foot, and feather pillows piled at the head. Next to the bed was a cradle. Across the room, a row of peg-like steps in the wall led to the loft above. A rough-hewn pine table and four chairs sat comfortably close to the hearth, as did a high-backed settle, while a corner cupboard held pewter dishes and cutlery. A long bench, a butter churn, and a spinning wheel had been placed next to it, and close enough to the window for light.

Nothing had changed during the last four years, Neil thought.

Nothing ever changed at Riovado. Walking closer to the hearth, Neil stared up at the painting above the mantel. It was a portrait of his mother, painted the year of her marriage. She could not have been more than seventeen or eighteen at the time. She had posed for the portrait dressed in a riding habit of dark blue cloth with a small ruff of lace around her throat and pinned with a cameo brooch. A black hat trimmed with a long ostrich feather and a blue veil was angled to expose the delicate line of neck and the luxuriant black curls that fell to her shoulder.

Neil stood staring at the graceful figure in the portrait for a long moment, meeting the brilliant blue of eyes the artist’s palette had managed to capture, the expression full of warmth and good humor, the slant of the eyes alluding to a touch of impishness in the young woman’s demeanor. “Mother,” he said softly before turning away.

Neil pulled the shutters tight, unwilling for nocturnal visitors to make a shambles of his home during his absence. With a last glance around the silent room, he closed the door shut behind him, hearing the heavy bar slide back into place.

For a moment he watched the grasses as the breeze gently stirred them, the sound of the river drifting melodically to him across the distance. “Come on, boy,” Neil said, patting the big bay as he walked by him toward a small copse of pine and spruce, the springtime air heavy with the sweetness of meadow grasses. Bending down, Neil picked up a pine bough studded with tiny cones, the spicy pungency of the pale sap sticking to his fingers.

Neil was about to stand, when he suddenly noticed the tracks; the hoof marks of unshod ponies. A number had been through here not more than a day ago, for the prints were still clearly marked, and had not been disturbed by even a pine needle floating down into the imprint.

But the tracks had not come from a herd of wild horses. These hoof marks followed in single file, and they were too deep for riderless ponies. Slowly, Neil stood up. Unhurriedly his narrowed eyes scanned the horizon.

Comanche rode unshod ponies. So did Apache.

Neil glanced back at the cabin, remembering the ease with which the door had opened. He reached automatically to touch the leather pouch at his throat, then dropped his hand halfway, remembering that it was still in Leigh’s possession. His hand settled instead on his hip, close above the smooth butt of his pistol, and at his shoulder, Thunder Dancer walked beside him, the rifle within his grasp.

Reaching the shady copse of trees, Neil quickly searched the shadows for any that moved, listening for a distinct call to sound through the stillness.

But there was only the soughing of the wind through the trees.

Walking into the glade, Neil’s soundless steps carried him to the small cross over his mother’s grave.

FIONNUALA ELISSA BRAEDON

BELOVED OF NATHANIEL

B. 1805

D. 1829

This was the special person Fionnuala Elissa Braedon’s son had wished to see. It had been four years since last he’d been at Riovado. Someone should stand by her grave, Neil thought, for his father, after burying his beloved, had vowed never to come to Riovado again. And he had kept his promise. Nathaniel Braedon had never again set foot on the mountain.

Gradually, Neil became aware of the footprints, softly implanted in the earth, as if others had stood beside his mother’s grave. Neil’s glance roamed over the area, finding the footprints that trailed away into the trees toward the meadow. Partly out of anger that anyone should trespass, and partly out of curiosity as to why, Neil followed the footprints into the deep shade of a stately pine close by, its boughs stretching to the heavens above.

Neil stilled.

At the base of the tree, overlooking the peaceful meadow below, the river a silver ribbon woven through the green grasses, was a cross. Neil didn’t have to move closer to know who was buried there, for the softly spoken words came whispering back to him now, and he remembered his sister’s words…

There was a beautiful white dove that flew in a sky so blue it had no end, the sun glinting on her outspread wings. She flew above a green field of wild flowers. She flew higher and higher and one day she flew too far. She flew through the sun, and was captured by the sky. Thunder surrounded her, and the white dove of the sky was frightened. The winds blew, and the world became dark, and the dove fell to earth, her proud wing broken. That was when she met the wolf, who stalked alone through the night. He protected the dove, healing her broken wing. But when the light came again, when the dove would have flown away, back to the green meadows, she discovered that the wolf was blinded by the light of day, and she could not leave him, for he had saved her when she had been lost. They roamed the lands together. She flew high into the skies during the day, guiding them, and he protected her at night. And they searched for the land where they would live together, where there was no light and darkness. But the land always eluded them, and their children flew through the skies during the day, and hunted at night, and knowing no other life, the children of the dove and the wolf, rejoiced in their freedom.

One day, when the dove knew she was dying, she found the passage through the sun, and she flew home, to the dancing grasses and the singing silver waters, where the guardian trees stood tall.

Neil knelt down beside the slender cross.

Shannon Malveen, She-With-Eyes-Of-The-Captured-Sky had come home.

Twenty-four

In a land of sand and ruin and gold

There shone one woman, and none but she.

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Standing in her stockinged feet, a smooth length of silken calf showing beneath the lacy, beribboned hem of her pantalettes, Leigh drew a deep breath, her waist becoming even smaller as she sucked it in beneath her ribs. “Hurry, Jolie, I can’t hold it much longer,” she said, beginning to feel faint as Jolie pulled the laces of the corset tighter, the front of the boned silk curving just beneath her breasts and lifting them upward, the pink-areolaed crests teasing the lace of her chemise.

“Don’t know why you have to have it so tight all of a sudden. Figured you were goin’ to stop wearin’ one all together, along with your drawers, so forgetful of being ladylike had we become, ’course, we also got so skinny we didn’t need a corset. But I’ve had this laced for twenty inches for the last five months, an’ you’ve never complained before, an’ why you want it smaller now I don’t know,” Jolie said, grimacing as she tried to hold the laces taut and tie them tight. “Goin’ to break my ol’ stiff fingers in two, honey child,” she complained, wondering what had gotten into Miss Leigh. Then she remembered the tight lacings on Miss Beatrice Amelia’s corsets, and close to thirty years
after
being courted, and, later, on Miss Althea’s corsets, especially after giving birth to her first child, and she smiled knowingly.

“What are you smiling about?” Leigh asked suspiciously, catching sight of Jolie’s smug grin as she looked up from straightening the lacy trim on her chemise, the silver hand mirror reflecting Jolie’s coppery face.

“Hmmmm, just remembering, honey, just rememberin’. There’s nothin’ Jolie forgets ’bout,” Jolie said, for Travers women were that proud when it came to their menfolk.

“Hmmmph, don’t understand Mister Neil leavin’ yesterday mornin’ an’ not comin’ back last night,” she said, shaking her head in puzzlement. “You know where he went off to, honey?”

Leigh’s jaw tightened slightly as she gritted her teeth. “No.”

Jolie sniffed. “You didn’t say something sharp-tongued to him, did you?”

“No.”

“I know you, missy, you got a lot of your mama in you, ’ceptin’ when it comes to common sense, then you’ve too much of your papa in you.”

If Leigh could have drawn in her breath in indignation, she would have.

“No. I said nothing to him.”

“Hmmmph! That’s probably the problem. You’ve got to sweet-talk him.”

“I didn’t have time to say anything, he left so abruptly. And I’m not going to sweet-talk Neil Braedon,” Leigh told a crestfallen Jolie. He’d laugh in my face, she thought privately.

“Well, you better be mindin’ your tongue then, honey, ’cause a man doesn’t like a sour-faced, vinegar-tongued woman ’round him. An’ I’ve never seen such crazy goings-on in the rest of this household. Reckon everybody’s actin’ addlepated. Miss Camilla hasn’t come out of her room since yesterday mornin’. Mister Gil’s got the fattest lip I ever seen an’ his nose is twice as big, an’ that sure wasn’t a little scratch on his arm. An’ I thought those misses were goin’ to have vapors when they saw him, jabberin’ ’bout that
Oncle Gilbear
of theirs who was chopped up into so many lil’ pieces. An’ I swear that poor Mister Gil turned pea green when they said that. An’ then there’s Miss Lys Helene, who’s not talkin’ more than two words at a time to Mister Guy, an’ Mister Nathaniel’s hardly said even two words, an’ they were hardly more than a growl. An’ I don’t like the way Mister Guy’s been actin’ lately, real sneaky, like when he was a boy an’ didn’t want me to find out ’bout somethin’ bad he’d done, an’ Miss Althea sashayin’ over to that shed to teach readin’ and writin’. Not proper. An’ that lil’ Mister Steward needs a hickory stick taken to that chubby bottom of his, throwin’ all those tantrums when he doesn’t get what he wants, an’ Miss Noelle never smiles, an’ she was such a sweet lil’ thing, an’ that Steban diggin’ in the dirt like some bumpkin. I’ve never seen such goings-on.”

“Tighter, Jolie, please. I can still breathe too easily,” Leigh said abruptly, not wishing to think about what was going on—especially the goings-on she was partly responsible for—as she began to brush her hair, the heavy length looking like bronzed silk as it cascaded over one shoulder to fall past her hips.