Breed True (23 page)

He shook his head in disgust. "Tenderfoot. You can't tell 'em anything. Guess he rode out alone, fell off his horse, and was dragged a while before the animal shook him loose. Damned mess is what he was. Almost looked like he'd been flayed, but I figure that was just the rock and cactus ripping at him while he was dragged."

"Am I still suspected of murdering Frank Rossiter?" The name echoed from a time before and felt so long ago, it was if Grady asked about a stranger.

"Nah, I never put any truck in that, son. Hell, I was with you at Comfort's place. As I pointed out to Hamilton Quince, Teddy seems to have come into some money. He just bought that run-down barbershop next door and says he's puttin' a stage in his saloon. I asked the carpenter working over there how much he figured Teddy would have to spend.

Seems like two thousand dollars would catch it just about right."

"You going to arrest him?" Grady seemed more interested than angry.

"Well, as to that," Hiram punctuated his words with a smile. "Comfort Quince made the most sense, since it was her money that started that ruckus. '
Let him have it as
payment for a deed well done. Teddy did the town a service if he killed Frank Rossiter
.'"

"Hamilton quieted down, but I'm expecting Teddy and the Quince brothers will have an accounting soon. He's about worn out his welcome in Eclipse."

Hiram Potter's audience listened open-mouthed to the events that had taken place over the winter. "Things change, son. Your dad was a fine man. I knew him well." He left off his words, then said as an afterthought, "You'll do."

The sheriff turned for home still talking. "Your shadow riders paced us the whole way up the trail." He removed his hat and mimicked Grady's gesture from earlier. Then he grinned. "I was a mite relieved when you gave your men that signal to stand down."

Julie frowned. She had seen only eight men from the Hawks Nest crew.

Hiram Potter's voice was cheerful as he took up reins to travel. "The damned fools in that makeshift posse didn't even know we had an escort. I feel sorry for 'em if they catch up with that band of Apaches. They say the Indians have got a seer who rides with them and tells them when to strike and when to lay low. But they don't need a witch to hear those fools coming."

He tipped his hat and said, "I'd better catch up with my own fool before Teddy gets his neck slit. Glad to see you two made it. I figure things'll be better now, Grady." He nudged his horse and said, "Myself—I'm done fighting Indians."

And then he was gone.

Chapter Nineteen

Grady had been up every morning at dawn and home every night after dark. But he'd not left her alone in the cabin at night, realizing her fear. She told herself she was glad to see him leave every morning, but she missed him as soon as he was gone.

"Babies are getting all grown up." The night before, he'd lounged against the sink, wiping dishes while she did the supper wash-up. Emma and Amy were under the table, playing peek-a-boo.

"You think you might be carrying yet?" he asked casually, but there was nothing casual in his glance.

"No." She'd been sharp in her answer. So sharp that he'd turned her to him and studied her face.

Neither had said anything, but when they'd gone to bed, he'd rolled away from her for the first time, and she'd lain awake staring at the ceiling until the light through the window had signaled dawn.

He'd dressed silently and hugged the girls good-bye. But he hadn't given her his usual kiss, and she wanted to cry as she stood in the door and watched him ride away.

She knew he was mad by the set of his shoulders, and all the anxiety and confusion that had beset her for days welled up into sobs of sorrow.

She was sitting at the table, head buried in her arms, crying, when the door banged open. "Thought I told you to bar this when I'm not…"

Scared, she lifted her head, vindicated. He'd come back to settle things. He was angry, so she edged away from him as he strode across the room.

"Tell me what's wrong, sweetheart. I couldn't ride away without knowing." Instead of the harsh words she anticipated, he lifted her from the chair and sat back on it, with her in his lap.

Emma and Amy crawled out from under the table where they'd peered at her during her bawling spell.

Grady picked up Emma and put her on Julie's lap. Then he grabbed Amy and settled her on the pile too. "Hope this chair holds," he joked.

He looked at the twins and asked, "Why's Mama crying, girls?"

She struggled to free herself from the pile of bodies, wiggling out of his grasp.

"I don't want a baby." She rushed to tell him before she could stop herself. "Not now, I'm not ready. I know I said I would. I know you need a son. But I just can't." And she started to cry again.

"I don't know why." She sobbed, turning to lean against the sink and away from him.

She heard him move quietly behind her, and then he was back. "Penned the kids in for a minute while we talk, okay?"

Julie had the urge to hit him for being nice. Why wasn't he yelling at her? She had no frame of reference for his behavior.

"You want to leave me?" He stood beside her and looked out the window while she struggled to compose herself.

"No." Her answer was quick and sure, and some of his stiffness disappeared.

"I don't understand, then. That's what men and women do. They get married and make babies."

"I know. I know that's why you married me, and that's what you expect. I know I owe you a baby—but…" Her voice trailed off, desperately trying to put into words her need for more time.

"That's not why I married you. That's the excuse I gave myself, in order to have what I'd been wanting since I saw you at the Eclipse Social the first time almost five years ago."

As she pondered his words, he turned to pull her close. "So, it's not me you don't want. It's just not time yet for us to have another young'n?"

She nodded, and he said, "Well, I reckon we can find ways to hold off on that."

"But you need a son, I promised…" Anxiety filled her voice again.

"Come here," he urged her. "I didn't get my morning kiss."

But she turned away and walked to the mantle and took the box from where it always rested.

"All right," he said, stoic—resigned.

But instead of taking off the ring, she threw the box in the fire that burned on the grate.

It lay there for a minute, a cruel reminder of another woman's betrayal. But then flames consumed the ancient wood, turning it to ash.

"Now," she said defiantly. "You can quit looking at it and wondering when I'm going to put this ring back in it. The answer is never."

He crossed the distance between them and stood watching the ashes disintegrate and turn to nothing.

"Did our bargain not say you would give me a child before the end of the year, Julie?" His voice was stern, implacable, and she felt her stomach twist in disappointment.

His voice cut through her distress as he continued. "I think the neighbors got a look at my family and saw that we already made a good start with two."

At her indrawn breath of surprise, he scolded her.

"Who is the father of your babies, Julie Hawks?" he demanded in his warrior voice.

But she smiled, understanding at last.

"You are,
Cetan Ate
," Julie whispered, turning into his embrace. "You are Father Hawk." She wrapped her arms around his neck. "You are my love," she murmured as she drew his lips to hers.

Epilogue

Eighteen months later

Grady leaned next to Dan on the fence, watching the twins cast the chicken feed out to the greedy hens. He kept one eye on them and another on the cabin where Julie was being examined by a doctor.

"She seems all right," he muttered. He didn't like the idea of anything being wrong with his family, and Julie was the heart of his home.

"You worry too much,
Cetan Nagin
," Dan chided him easily. "All your impatience to have a son has brought you a family to be proud of. Your woman is fine."

"You sure this doctor knows what she's doing?" Amy took that moment to drop her bucket and chase after a biddy hen, trying to catch it by its tail feathers.

"I don't know how I'm going to keep the wolves at bay once those two grow to womanhood. I'll be damned if they don't look just like their mama."

He opened the chicken fence and rescued the red laying hen from his daughter.

He was about to scold her when the door to the cabin opened, and Dr. Grace Souter emerged.

His cousin's gaze rested on the doctor too, but his possessive stare said more than he revealed in words.

"So does she know she belongs to you, yet?" Grady asked him casually.

Dan's pensive look told the tale. "She will," he assured Grady. "Soon."

Grady forgot about his cousin's woman troubles when Julie joined the doctor on the porch.

"Watch the girls," he ordered Dan, already striding toward the two women.

"Everything all right?" He tried to remain casual but failed to fool even himself.

Julie laughed at him. Stood right there in the open of the porch and made fun of his worry. "I'm fine, Little Henry is fine, but it looks to me like the girls are getting the best of Dan."

Grady didn't give a shit about Dan and the chickens. He stepped onto the porch and closed the space between them. "What did you need to see the doctor about, then?"

His voice was truculent. She'd been evasive when she'd asked him to send Dan to fetch Grace Souter to their home.

"I'll tell you later," she shushed him with a smile.

"You'll tell me now, damn it. If there's something wrong, you don't need to keep me in the dark. I want to know now."

The woman doctor had apparently heard enough. "Six-week check-up, Mr. Hawks.

Your wife and son are in perfect health. Julie just wanted to make sure…"

He felt the tension ease from his shoulders and had just begun to relax when the lady doctor completed her sentence. "Sure that she could resume her marital duties."

"What marital duties? Julie doesn't need to think about doing anything until I say she can."

Even the doctor smiled at that remark. "Somehow I don't think you'll find this task too arduous for your wife."

She turned to Julie and said, "Henry is gaining weight just fine. He was a little early." She cast Grady another look. "Impatience seems to run in the family. But he's a healthy boy, and I don't expect to see him again before the fall.

Julie had slipped away and returned now holding Grady's son in her arms. Not being able to decide which one he wanted to hold, Grady slung his arm around Julie's shoulders and held them both.

He inspected his son smugly. Gray eyes set in tan skin stared into his own. Young Henry's thatch of black hair mimicked his father's, his gray eyes were the same as his grandfather's, but bronze skin had been replaced with a golden tone closer to his mother's.

Faint signs of freckles splattered across the nose that already shaped itself like his Kiowa ancestors.

"We did good, didn't we, Julie?" Grady meant it. His son was a fine cross between two unlikely parents. The next generation of Hawks would be a whole new breed, adding strong bloodlines to the state of Texas.

Grace Souter frowned as Dan untied her horse from the hitching rail, lifted the twins into the saddle, and walked horse and riders to the porch. When he presented the giggling girls to Grady and silently waited for the doctor to mount, she gave an exasperated sigh.

"You don't have to wait on me."

"But I will." Dan's growled response made it clear that he spoke of more than a trip to town.

Grady held the squirming twins in his arms and shook his head as he watched Dan and his lady doctor ride toward Eclipse. "Reckon Dan has found something he can't
whisper
and make tame."

"Time will tell." Julie kissed Grady's jaw and then moved to return to the cabin.

"Wait just a damned minute." He stopped her. "What the hell are marital duties?"

Julie laughed softly and hugged the baby close in her arms. "Ask me after the kids are in bed tonight,
Cetan Nagin,
and I'll show you."

Historical Notes

Apache
is a combination of two words, from the Yuma dialect meaning "fighting-men" and from the Zuni language meaning "enemy." It is a collective term referring to several culturally related groups of Native Americans who inhabited the Southwest. The Apache tribe consisted of six sub-tribes—the Western Apache, Mescalero, Jicarilla, Chiricahua, Lipan, and Kiowa. The Kiowa roamed over the southern plains of Colorado, Oklahoma, and Texas, but by 1868, like most of the Apache tribes, they had been driven from their homes and relocated on reservations.

Victorio, a Chiricahua Apache, and his followers escaped the San Carlos Reservation in 1877 and made war on the white settlers who had taken the Apache homeland. At this time, many Apache renegades from all six sub-tribes banded together to fight.

Victorio and his followers were accompanied by his sister, Lozen. According to reports from that time, she could ride, shoot, and plot battle strategy as well as her brother. When Victorio was ambushed and killed in 1880, Lozen joined the 74-year-old Chief Nana, who led the remnants of multiple Apache tribes in a bloody campaign of vengeance across southwestern New Mexico.

The Texas Indian Relocation Act mirrored the U.S. government strategy used to gain control of land that was still occupied by the Apache tribes. It was an attempt to remove the few remaining Native Americans from the little land they still controlled.

The End

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