A Place Called Harmony (7 page)

The next morning, when they finally hitched the wagon to head north, Mrs. Dixon hugged them both and wished them well. They’d told her their story about running away. As they climbed in, the widow gave them a box, saying it was a small wedding gift, but they couldn’t open it until they had a house.

Annie didn’t care what was in the box. It was a gift. Her first and only real wedding gift.

Three hours later, when they passed a small cluster of buildings that seemed to be built with no order, Patrick stopped in at the general store and ordered a dozen chickens to be delivered out to Mrs. Dixon’s place along with ten pounds each of potatoes, sugar, and flour. While the owner, a man named Brown who’d lost the use of his arm in the war, gathered up everything, Annie added seeds for Mrs. Dixon’s garden next spring and two nightgowns for herself.

When Patrick said he’d done some carpentry work out at Mrs. Dixon’s place, Mr. Brown said he didn’t even know anyone lived out there, but now that he did he’d stop by when he made deliveries out that direction and check on her.

As they loaded up to leave, Mr. Brown followed Patrick out and asked, “I got a load of furniture that came in three weeks ago. Factory shipped it in parts. With this limp arm I can’t manage to handle it and hammer at the same time. Can’t sell it when all it looks like is a pile of firewood. Any chance you’d stay a few days and help me out?”

Patrick hesitated. He’d like to help, but two days’ more delay could cost them if, on a long shot, Solomon was following them.

“I could pay,” the owner added.

Patrick figured he had plenty of money and a job already waiting for him.

“How about I pay in chickens to the old lady? A crate every fall and spring for three years if you’ll work a full day.”

Patrick glanced at Annie.

She smiled, reading him easily. “All right. I know you want to. I’ll even help.”

An hour later their wagon was pulled behind the store and they were working. Annie might not be able to lift a man’s load, but she was a great help, and talking as they worked made the time fly. Before dark they’d completed all the furniture. Patrick, with his carving skills, carved the store name on a long board over the door. The owner offered them supper and breakfast and, of course, six crates of chickens as payment.

They ate, collapsed in their wagon bed, and slept until dawn. Just in time to eat again before they headed out.

As they moved on down the road, Annie said, “You know, Patrick McAllen, I think I’m falling in love with you.”

He winked. “It was bound to happen, wife. I always figured I’d be irresistible if I ever stayed around a girl long enough for her to discover it.”

That night, when she opened her nightgown just as she’d done the shirt for several nights, he smiled. “I’m afraid I may have started something. If we’re not careful this nightly thing we do could become a habit.”

“You’re no longer interested in touching me?”

He pulled her down in the wagon and covered them both with a blanket. “Wife, I promised I’d never lie to you. I’d have to be dead not to be interested in you. All I think about is what might happen after dark.”

She giggled, knowing that tonight they’d be giving up sleep while they got to know each other better.

“Can we take our time?” she whispered. “I want to remember everything about tonight.”

His hand slid over her hip. “I’ve many parts of your lovely body to explore if you’ll allow me, but you don’t have to remember everything. I’ll be happy to repeat each step.”

She cupped his face in her hands. “You make me feel beautiful.”

“You
are
beautiful, Annie. You always have been, just no one took the time to tell you.” Patrick whispered his first promise again. “I’ll never lie to you, remember.”

Captain Gillian Matheson

M
ARCH

Captain Gillian Matheson didn’t bother to sleep. He’d been out hunting outlaws for three months only to find trouble waiting for him at the fort. His wife had sent a letter saying he had to join her at a trading post run by Harmon Ely by the second week in March. No details. Just the place and time.

Hell. It was already the seventh of March. He’d have to ride hard and fast to be on time. He dug his fingers through black curly hair that was so dirty it looked brown.

She hadn’t said why, but Gillian knew it must be life or death. She’d never leave her family farm in Kansas otherwise. His wife, Daisy, was the most nesting woman he’d ever seen. He usually couldn’t even talk her into going into town for supper when he was home on leave.

He swore as he stuffed a clean uniform into his saddlebags. He had to get to her. She might refuse to travel with him, but she was his wife. If she needed him, he’d be there.

His blond, beautiful, smiling Daisy. Her pure sunshine had blinded him the day they’d met and he’d tumbled straight into love five years ago. They’d been married two weeks after they said hello, only to discover she wanted him to quit the army and stay on the family’s farm. He thought she’d pack up and go with him.

He’d left her after a short honeymoon, planning to return on his next leave and change her mind. Only she’d been with child when he returned, and the option of her being with him was dropped.

Somehow, with time and another baby, they’d settled into a life apart. He’d always thought someday she’d change her mind, and he guessed she felt the same. Now, if she was in real trouble, it might be too late for them. They were both in their twenties. He’d figured they’d have years together eventually.

Gillian walked out of the bunkhouse at dawn and headed to the livery to saddle his horse. She wouldn’t be dying, he decided. She couldn’t be dying. The letter might be a month old, but he’d get to her in time. She’d already traveled half the distance between them; he’d make the rest. If she was dying, he’d not leave her side.

Sunrise sparkled along the horizon as he tried to think. The commander had told him to take all the time he needed. Gillian wished it were a battle he faced now. He could handle that, but he wasn’t so sure he could deal with losing Daisy. He picked up his step, knowing the sooner he got to the trading post, the better.

The girl Gillian had found in an outlaw camp last week was waiting for him at the corral. She hadn’t spoken to him all the way into the fort, but now she looked like she planned to talk to him.

Sergeant Watson’s wife stood beside the girl. She must have outfitted her in a coat, boots, and wool trousers. All looked two sizes too big. The wild girl didn’t look happy to be cleaned up. In fact, she’d shown little emotion at all since he’d loaded her up with the two Osborne brothers he’d arrested and brought here. The only time she looked interested in anything was when her eyes darted toward the gate, as if she planned to bolt as soon as possible. Who knew how many years she’d been with the outlaws or where she’d been before that? For all he knew she might be more wild animal than human. He’d seen it before.

The sergeant’s wife didn’t waste time with hellos. “She’s older than she looks, Captain. I’m guessing fifteen, not twelve like you thought. Commander told me to have her ready at dawn and tell you to drop her off at the mission. He says it’s on your way south.”

Gillian shook his head as he saddled the first horse. “I haven’t got time, Livia, I have to meet my wife.”

“Well, with my five kids, I ain’t got time to keep up with her. We can’t just toss her out. You found her. She’s your responsibility.” Livia was a woman few men argued with. At five feet ten she stood eye to eye with Gillian. “She ain’t said a word to me, but if I were you, Captain, I’d sleep with my weapons handy.”

He gave up and started saddling another horse. “If she don’t talk, that’s fine with me as long as she can ride well enough to keep up.” He’d seen kids like this before. Maybe they were captured during the war and didn’t remember where they were from or who they were, or sometimes their parents died and they were taken in by first one family, then another. For all he knew she could have been born in the outlaw camp, though it would have been hard for a baby to survive.

Since the war, the orphanages were crowded and no one kept a record of every child born.

Gillian looked down at her. “Want to tell me your name, girl?”

She shook her head.

“All right. I guess it don’t matter much anyway.” She hadn’t cared when he’d shot one of the outlaws she’d been with, or waved when he’d hauled the two Osbornes away. They were nothing to her and, as far as he knew, so was he.

“Climb up if you’re going with me,” he said, and watched her jump up onto the mare. At least she understood what he said. That was enough. He didn’t need to talk to her. The only word he’d probably need to say to her was good-bye when they reached the mission.

They rode until full light, and then he passed her a biscuit he’d lifted from the mess hall.

She ate it, but didn’t even nod a thank-you. Her mud-colored hair hung at different lengths, and with the big hat he’d probably never see her face again.

By dark, he was feeling more like he was riding alone across the open country. She kept up, never got in the way, and never complained. Without her saying a word he’d learned a great deal about her. One, the sergeant’s wife was right; she must be small for her age because she handled a horse with far more skill then a twelve-year-old would have, and two, she knew how to live off the land. She never overwatered her horse or went too fast down a ravine. She moved over the prairie leaving no sign she’d passed.

When they made camp, he asked her to water the horses while he built a fire. By the time she came back he’d made coffee and warmed beans,
and
had time to worry that she might not return. He’d watched her all day and guessed she was waiting for the right moment to run. Watering the horses had been her chance, but she’d stayed. Gillian guessed she’d been studying him too and figured out that when she did run, he wouldn’t chase her.

As usual, she didn’t say a word as she sat down on her blanket and stared at the fire.

Gillian was tired of the silence. “This place I’m taking you to isn’t so bad. The priests from the mission run it. When my family was all dead, I went to a place just like it.”

He didn’t add that he ran away after two weeks and caught a freighter wagon back to the fort where his dad had last been assigned. The soldiers decided to let him stay and he worked with the blacksmith until he turned seventeen and joined up. Back then he’d been too young for the soldiers in the barracks to pay much attention to, so he used to curl up with books while they talked or played cards until lights out. The post had a set of law books, and by the time he was grown he’d read them all several times.

Gillian glanced at the girl. He decided she might not have the options he had. This country was hard on women.

“They feed you regular meals at the mission and make you go to school every morning, and then everyone has a work duty in the afternoon.” He thought of adding that it was the most boring two weeks of his life, but he guessed that wouldn’t be too helpful. “You could learn to read and maybe cook or sew.” Any skill might give her a chance. “You could become one of the sisters. They have a quiet life, I think.”

She didn’t answer. He gave up trying.

She rolled up in her blanket while Gillian tossed a few logs on the fire and decided to worry about Daisy’s letter. If she was dying, a part of him would crumble. He might not see her often, but she was the keeper of all the goodness in him. The kindness. The laughter. The love. And he had never told her that. If she died, he’d have two boys to raise. It wasn’t fair to drag them from fort to fort but, like his father, he didn’t know any other life.

Prairie winds kicked up, making the fire dance in the starless night. Gillian stood and tossed his blanket over the girl before walking away from the fire. He needed the night’s blackness to count all the things he’d done wrong. Daisy’s face kept drifting through his mind. Her big sparkling green eyes. He could have stayed a week longer last time. He could have made time this summer to ride back to her. He could have explained how hard it was to be in the middle of her huge family when he’d never known any family except his dad.

They all loved her back at her family farm. Gillian wasn’t sure his own father loved him. Every time he’d ridden off, he’d yelled back for Gillian to stay out of trouble and make himself useful and be a good soldier. Then, one day when his father hadn’t come back, Gillian had done exactly what he’d been told. He’d become a good soldier.

Only he’d been a lousy husband. He hadn’t been a father at all. And now it might be too late. Maybe one or both of his sons were hurt or ill. Daisy had written once that they both had his black hair, his good looks, his ornery nature. He barely knew them.

He pushed hard the next day. The girl never complained. When they reached the mission, he had to pull her off her horse. Much as she seemed to dislike him, it appeared she hated the idea of staying at the mission more. She fought, but in the end, she stayed.

Gillian rode away feeling as if he’d added another layer of guilt on like paint. If there had been time he would have tried to settle her with a family. Maybe they’d treat her as one of their own kids. She still had a year or two of growing up to do. Or maybe they’d treat her like a slave. He’d seen it before.

He’d left her the little mare at the mission, asking the brothers to let her have it to ride when she’d settled in. The mare wasn’t much, but at least the girl would have something to call her own.

By dark, he’d crossed farther into Texas and was riding hard. He didn’t bother to build a fire when he finally stopped. He just staked the horse and curled against a rock. Out of the wind, he slept solid, dreaming as he often did of green eyes and silky blond hair filling his hands.

The next day dawned sunny for a change. The traveling was easy now over flat land. About noon he shot two jackrabbits and decided to stop before dark so he could build a fire. Another few days and he’d cross the road heading south that would lead him to the trading post. It might be little more than wagon ruts, so he’d need to be alert. In this part of the country there was a good chance that anyone he encountered would be more outlaw than law abiding. Even teamsters traveled fully armed. The uniform he wore would keep outlaws at a distance, he hoped.

When Gillian returned from watering his horse, one of the rabbits he’d staked for roasting was gone. For a moment, he frowned, wondering how someone could get so close without him hearing. It didn’t take much to figure it out.

“Come on out, girl. I know you’re there. You might as well be warm by the fire.”

The girl he’d delivered to the mission moved out from the brush, a half-eaten jackrabbit-on-a-stick in her hand. “If you take me back I’ll just run again as soon as I get the chance. I don’t want to go anywhere with you, but I wouldn’t mind riding along until you hit civilization. After that, I can take care of myself.”

Fat chance, Gillian thought as he sat down, leaned against his saddle, and started eating. “I agree that taking you back would probably be a waste of my time, so I vote we ride together for a while.” Someone would have to keep her out of trouble. In this country a girl could wander around forever without bumping into a town. “Glad to see you can talk. How long did it take you to break out after I left?”

“Two hours. You were easy to track, but hard to catch.”

“Why follow me?” He wouldn’t have admitted it to her, but he was glad to see her. Talking to himself had been downright depressing of late.

“I ain’t got nowhere to go and you seem in an all-fired hurry to get somewhere. I’m not joining up with you and I won’t cook or clean up after you. I’m just headed in your direction.”

“You got family somewhere?”

She shook her head. “All dead.”

“You got a name?”

“Jessie, just plain Jessie. I don’t have a last name.”

“All right, Jessie, you can ride with me, only you cook every other meal, understood? I don’t have time to turn around and take you back. I need to get to my wife. She’s meeting me at this little place where two streams cross. Once we come across the wagon tracks all we have to do is head south to find it. So you can come, but if you give me any trouble or slow me down, I’ll leave you out here for the coyotes.”