Caress of Fire (23 page)

She itched to confront him, and ask
why
. And why did he expect her to be as virtuous as Caesar's wife? When it would take almost a Caligula to throw her back into the clutches of Adolf Keller.

What was the matter with her? Gil in no way resembled an evil Roman emperor. Yet it hurt, that letter.

Her brother lifted her chin. “You haven't answered, sister.”

“I'll be home in the new year, and Gil and I will bring a cousin for your sons to play with.” She hesitated. “If Monika will allow them to fraternize.”

“You were like two cats, fighting with each other, but in your absence Monika has grown to appreciate you.” Adolf chuckled. “She complains loudly that she has no female relatives to talk with.”

Lisette eased against the sofa back. “Most likely she misses the fruits of my labor.”

“Not at all. We have hired a black couple. There are so many former slaves who beg for work, and a few have found their way to Fredericksburg. Mose and Hattie Mae have taken over your responsibilities.” Adolf smiled. “Monika misses
you
.” “I am touched,” Lisette replied honestly, and anger at her husband receded in a slight amount.

And the strangest realization hit her: she longed to be in Fredericksburg again. To cuddle her nephews, to chat with Anna, to make peace with Monika. There was church. She missed the verdant hills and the cool streams. She yearned to see the Four Aces. She was homesick.

“It will be a nice homecoming, when Gil and I return to Fredericksburg.”

“Haven't you heard what I'm trying to say? I cannot leave you alone, none of your family within weeks away. When you have your lying in, you must be with us.”

Perhaps Gil wouldn't return in time for the birthing. If he encountered no problems, it would take a minimum of two to three more months to reach Abilene; he'd have to sell the longhorns; there was his return with the cowboys, the saddle horses, and Tecumseh Billy, which would take another six or eight weeks. If a problem arose on the cowpath–and that could happen, since no rain had fallen in more than three weeks and they had yet to trail through Indian Territory–his return could happen well after his child drew a first breath.

Maybe she should be with her family. No; Gil might return. And even if he didn't, she wanted their quickest reunion. If nothing else, to get a certain matter straight between them: the letter.

Another thing . . .

“Adolf, there's more than me to consider here. Do you know why I was jailed?”

“Ja,
for attacking a magistrate over an Indian woman.”

“Not just any Indian woman. She is my friend. And she's Matthias Gruene's wife. Oh, Adolf, she is in great danger. I must help her. And I have tarried precious hours.” Lisette swallowed. “Adolf, I hope Matthias is with her.”

“Don't count on it. I understand he was seen at the edge of town this morning, alone.”

“Then he didn't go after her. Poor Blossom.” Lisette quit the sofa to traverse the sitting room, twice. “Adolf, I think you should leave now. I must do my own leaving. I've got to find Blossom.”

“Not without my help.”

“What?”

“If you seek the Comanche woman, I will go with you.”

Nonplussed, Lisette stared. Today had certainly been a day for discovering new facets to the brother she had long thought cold and heartless.

“Adolf, you can't. You've the return home. And your leg . . . If I can't find Cactus Blossom in town, and I doubt I can, I must ride after her.”

“Your condition is more serious than my lame leg.”

“I am fit. I am not a hothouse flower. And I can ride like the wind.”

“Sister, we are bred of the same blood.” He stood straight. “I may be lame, but I can still ‘ride like the wind.' If Matthias has not seen his way clear to find his bride, then the Kellers will find her. Get packed.”

“I never dreamt you would make me this happy.” Lisette took Adolf's hand. “Dear brother, let's find Cactus Blossom.”

Cactus Blossom ran through the woods north of Fort Worth. The full moon guided her to the old shack Dung Eyes had used last year. Stopping to put an ear to the ground, she heard the hooves from his mount, plus three more ponies. She followed the sound; her aching legs picked up speed. Before this night was over, she would confront him, would make him understand why she had taken Weeping Willow's life.

This she had to do for their daughter.

But her instincts shouted, “Be careful.”

By the time Cactus Blossom stopped, Dung Eyes and his companions had unsaddled their mounts and had made a fire in front of the shack. She hid from them, listened.

“You're not too bright, Hatch,” said the smartest-looking of the four. “You should've ridden out with McLoughlin. He'll be suspicious, your showing up in the Territory.”

While the other two tended the fire, Hatch waved a dismissive hand. “I'm not taking up with him again. I have plans to bring misery on his undertaking.”

“You do anything to mess up this deal, and I'll personally make a gelding out of you.”

“You worry too much, Hitt. We'll have those cows under our control, easy as pie.” Hatch pranced around the orange flames of the fire. “Then I'll have my revenge against that damnyankee.”

“You're crazy, Hatch–crazy as a hunting dog.” The one called Hitt shook his head. “You ought to keep your mind on the money rather than revenge. Okay, McLoughlin burned Charlwood, but there's nothing you can do to get the place back.”

All of a sudden the pieces came together. Cactus Blossom knew why Dung Eyes wanted revenge. For all the seasons she had known him, he had ranted and raved about the “damnyankee” who'd burned his tepee in Georgia.
Long Legs
was the “damnyankee” he had long hated.

She must get word to Albino's man.

Or she must stop Dung Eyes.

Both . . . she must do both.

But she was outnumbered. She eyed each man, noting that each wore Irons of Exploding Furies. Her knife was no match for their power–unless they slept. Then she could disarm them, could . . .

She backed away, slowly, quietly, but her ankle connected with a tree stump; she fell backward and sprawled to the ground.

“What was that?”

As she tried to right herself, Hatch and the others advanced.

“You bitch.”

She scrambled away, but not before a knife whizzed through the air. The blade caught her back, pain bursting. The ground came up to meet her; she tasted dirt and leaves. Before falling unconscious, she thought,
I must not go to the Great Hunting Ground before making peace with my husband. And I must warn Albino's man of danger.

 

Night fell on the River Trinity. A couple of miles in the distance, Matthias saw the lights of Fort Worth. He wished a thousand miles separated him from civilization.

He'd been here since yesterday, when he'd needed solitude to deal with the awful truth about his bride.
“Mörderin!
Murderess!” he yelled, clenching his fists. “Why? Why? Why?”

He had thought he'd found heaven with Cactus, but hell had seized him.

It was dawn before he pulled himself together. He had to go back, had to find out
why
she'd taken her daughter's life. He trudged back to their rented house, but she wasn't there. He searched the town over, his efforts in vain.

 

 

They found her two days after Adolf appeared.

Lisette and her brother had combed Fort Worth and its surrounds, finding neither Cactus Blossom nor Matthias. Bertha Two Toes had given the best clue: she'd heard the squaw was headed up the Chisholm Trail. And that was where they found her, in a farmer's soddie a few hundred yards from the Trinity.

After discovering Cactus Blossom on the edge of his cornfield, the kindly sodbuster had administered aid to the best of his ability. Eldon Bird led Lisette and her brother into the mud home. On a narrow bed, Cactus Blossom shivered beneath several woolen blankets.

“Albino.” She lifted an arm from under the covers. Her voice held a faraway quality, her eyes the glaze of pain. “Dung Eyes was wrong. It hurt me to take my Weeping Willow's life.”

Lisette soothed the waxy hand. “I know.”

“I will soon be with my papoose.”

“Don't give up, Blossom.”

“Do you hate me, Albino?”

“No.”

“I am glad. You are much in my heart.” Cactus Blossom closed her eyes. “I have made peace with the Great Spirits over my Weeping Willow, but my Mouth That Beckons will never forgive me. Just as Dung Eyes could not. Lisette”–this was the first time she'd used her friend's true name “–there is something you must know about Dung Eyes. He is–ohhhh.”

She tried to scream, tried to clutch her wounded back, and squirmed on the straw-filled mattress. Lisette attempted to calm her, touched the poker-hot brow. Cactus Blossom began to ramble in her native tongue, then fell unconscious. Lisette kept a vigil at the bedside.

What had she tried to say about Frank Hatch? Lisette wondered over and over.

The sun waned outside the soddie. The farmer–a single man in his mid-twenties–prepared a pot of chicken soup over an outdoor cookfire. A tray of bowls in his hands, he offered food. Cactus Blossom stirred, and Lisette tried in vain to coax her to eat. Once more, her friend fell comatose.

Adolf demanded that Lisette take nourishment, and she understood his concern for her condition. She emptied her bowl, set it aside.

Wetting another washrag in a basin of water, Adolf placed the cloth on Cactus Blossom's forehead. Lisette knelt at the bedside, and for hours on end, she prayed–to God and to Cactus Blossom's Great Spirits.

As dawn broke, Lisette realized all efforts were in vain.

Cactus Blossom was dying.

“Mouth That Beckons?” was the plaintive appeal as Cactus Blossom opened her glassy eyes.

“He's on his way,” Lisette lied.

Huddled next to the bed, she turned to her brother and whispered, “Go back to Fort Worth. Ride fast. Make one more try at finding him. Bring him, if he wants to be with her.”

Adolf set out. He returned at midnight, Matthias beside him. Matthias rushed to his wife, begging forgiveness and holding her in his arms.

Although Lisette drew comfort in his appearance, she said to her brother, “This might have been avoided if he hadn't deserted her on that riverbank.”

“Be careful of your words. Bitterness isn't like you.”

“Always, I thought Matthias too noble to abandon a loved one. Even for a moment.”

“Humans are frail, sister.”

“And I am only human.” Wondering if she'd ever be the same about anything, she glanced at the repentant Matthias. “Odd, how we don't appreciate what we have until we're in jeopardy of losing it.”

“Ja.
I understand.” Her brother squeezed her shoulder. “I did not know how important you were until you were gone.”

Eldon Bird entered the soddie. He carried a pot of coffee and another tray of food. “Anything more I can do to help?”

“Pray.”

Prayers went unanswered. As the sun rose on the sixth day after Cactus Blossom had become Mrs. Matthias Gruene, she drew her last breath.

Kneeling beside the corpse, Lisette took the rigid hand of her friend who had suffered much from life. Sadness held her in its grip as her finger closed the lids of those beautiful dark, dark eyes for the last time.

“Go in peace, find your Weeping Willow,” she murmured, the words pushed past a closed throat. “I'll never forget you, rare friend.”

 

 

They buried Cactus Blossom beneath the shade of an elm tree, shovelsful of earth thudding on the simple coffin fashioned by Farmer Bird and Adolf Keller. Matthias stood motionless. When the last bit of soil topped her remains, he fell on the grave. And cried.

Eldon Bird crossed himself. Adolf put a comforting hand on the widower's shoulder, saying, “I'm sorry.”

Cloaked in sorrow, Lisette hung her head.

Adolf pulled her aside. “We'd better find your husband. He needs to know what she had to say at the end.”

“You're right.”

“We must speak with the sheriff in Fort Worth before we set out.”

“Mister Bird can go back.” As soon as she said those words, she decided they weren't such a good idea. “No, I can give a firsthand description of her killer.”

But, once they had finished at the sheriffs office, could they find Gil? He had a week's start on them, and it would take another day just to circle back to town. They could catch up with the outfit, provided they didn't spare the horses.

Horses were the least of her concern. Cactus Blossom had warned them about Frank Hatch's evil designs against Gil.

What should they do about Matthias? In his grief, he was in no shape to go with them, and might not want to, anyway.

Lisette went to the grave, put her arms around him. “You made your peace with Blossom. And she wouldn't want you to grieve. Let's go in the house,
mein Freund.
I will make some coffee.”

“Coffee isn't what I need.” He turned his tortured eyes to her. “I must see that Frank Hatch pays for his crimes.”

Lisette replied, “Then you are welcome to leave with us.”

Matthias jackknifed to his feet. “We mustn't tarry.”

A fortnight had passed since Gil had ridden away from his wife. Troubled days, abysmal nights on the plains of north Texas. Grasses were brown; creekbeds had run dry. Rain, there had been none of it, and finding water to slake the cattle's thirst had been nearly impossible.

During each of those fourteen nights, dry lightning had skittered through the heavens like fingers of hell. A week ago the sounds had sent the herd on stampede. A hundred longhorns had been lost–and two cowboys were trampled to death in the melee.

Dinky Peele and Fritz Fischer had joined Willie, Ernst, and José as casualties of the trail. Fischer had been a hard-working wrangler, an asset to the outfit. Dinky had been more than an asset. Gil mourned the death of the little black man who, after being found half starved in Vicksburg, had become a trusted and dependable cowhand.

Life had a way of not playing fair.

There was another problem, one that had him worried, but with so many other problems, Gil hadn't spent too much effort mulling. And wouldn't, unless forced to.

Right now, the outfit had made camp for what looked to be another chaotic night. Astride Big Red, Gil kept an eye on the herd, kept them corralled between a bluff and a dry creekbed. While the majority of his men rallied around the chuck wagon, he rode along the cattle's perimeter, Deep Eddy Roland taking the other side.

Sadie Lou trotted alongside her master's mount, occasionally barking and feinting a recalcitrant cow into line.

As they were wont to do, Gil's thoughts turned to his wife. While he had promised her that fantasies would keep him going, they were no match for the real thing.

The drive missed her touch as well. Gil turned his line of sight in the chuck wagon's direction. Cencero Leal was no Lisette where cooking was concerned. His overspicy food had sent several cowboys running for the bushes on a regular basis.

Manpower was a problem, period.

Oscar Yates, though an acceptable cowpuncher in spite of his advanced years, had been plagued by aches and pains, and he'd done little to inspire his underlings. Thus, Gil had had to act in the roles of boss, strawboss, and occasional cowboy.

On horseback, Deep Eddy Roland approached him, Sadie Lou running to him. She had taken to the quiet man from New Hampshire.

The normally taciturn cowboy asked, “Shouldn't we be halfway to Red River Station by now?”

Gil didn't take the question as criticism. Over the past few days, he had grown to appreciate the New Englander and had given consideration to making him second in charge.

“We should be nearing the crossing,” Gil answered, “but the Red River is weeks in the future.”

Deep Eddy squinted at the night sky. “Better we should get there in all haste.” He exhaled. “I found another cow. Her throat was cut.”

“Damn. That makes ten since we left Fort Worth.” Gil crushed Big Red's reins in his fist. “Wish we could blame it on Indians. But they wouldn't be wasteful enough to leave meat for the buzzards.”

And Gil had his ideas on the culprit's identity: Wink Tannington.

He couldn't prove his theory, but all fingers pointed to Tannington. The Mississippian had sided with Frank Hatch prior to their entering Fort Worth, and here lately his attitude had been bad.