Gypsy Moon (2 page)

Charlotte laughed with glee at her grandmother’s slightly malevolent enthusiasm. Then her mirth faded as she remembered that Fairview was at stake as much as her own future.

“But Granny Fate, Mama says we’ll lose Fairview if I don’t marry Major Krantz. She said you’d be out in the cold and we’d all be begging for bread to keep from starving.”

Fatima Buckland’s laughter echoed about the room like fairies dancing. Her dark eyes glittered mischievously. “It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve begged! Do you think we were always rich, girl? Your grandpa and me didn’t have a penny when we got off the boat in this country. But Slome was a good horse trader, and I have many talents. We built this place, so it’s my say what happens to it.”

Her voice trailed off as her mind traveled some distant path through the past. “Yes, it’s only just. A bride for a bride!”

When Granny Fate rose, Charlotte noticed that she looked far younger than the ancient soul she had seemed only moments before. Her grandmother’s long, bejeweled fingers snapped at the air and her laughter rippled through the silence. She whirled once and then again, sending her gay skirts flaring. Her feet were bare and tanned by the sun. She danced a few steps, then said, “Come child. I have a secret to impart!”

Charlotte followed her to a far corner of the room, where a doll’s crib sat on a braided rug. She watched Granny Fate pull the floor covering aside and press one end of a wide floorboard. A trap door popped open.

“I never knew that was there,” Charlotte said.

“Neither did your mama. That’s why the contents are still safe. If she’d sell you to that Yankee to get the tax money, she surely wouldn’t blink an eye at selling off the few remaining family heirlooms.”

Granny Fate removed a small gold key from a ribbon around her neck. Carefully, she fit it into the lock of the small leather-bound and brass-studded trunk she had taken from hiding. She turned the key with a sort of religious reverence. The lid came open easily, releasing the tinkling notes of a music box. Inside, Charlotte saw the glitter of gold and ivory. Antique jewelry gleamed among folds of old lace. Granny Fate held up the fragile fabric for Charlotte to see.

“This was handmade in Spain nearly a hundred years ago. In the old country they call it a
mantilla.
It’s your wedding veil, child. I wore it when I married your grandpa, God rest his soul.”

“It’s lovely. Granny.”

“Always remember your heritage, child. Remember that the Buckland family goes back more generations than you could count. As a Buckland, you hold yourself proud.”

“I will. I promise,” Charlotte replied.

Granny Fate filled a pouch with gold coins and placed a golden serpent bracelet with ruby eyes about Charlotte’s arm.

“Take the trunk. It contains your past and your future, child.”

She embraced her granddaughter briefly, and Charlotte knew by the trembling of her body that the old woman was weeping.

“Follow your heart and your fancy, Charlotte. Ride the wind, the way we did in the old days. I’ve saddled your horse. He’s waiting behind the barn. It’s not a long ride to the crossroads. You can flag down the train and get on board. But you must go quickly!”

Everything was happening so fast, Charlotte couldn’t think straight. “Go where, Granny Fate?”

“Go west, Charlotte! Seek out your fortune… and your love!”

After one final embrace, Granny Fate disappeared through the door as quickly as she had come. Charlotte, her heart pounding with excitement and a certain amount of dread, dressed in a traveling suit and packed a few things in the trunk. She stood for a moment in the tiny bedroom that had been her nursery as a child. Would she ever see this room again? Tears sprang to her eyes at the thought. But the mournful whistle of a train far off in the distance forced her mind back from the past to the present. As for the future, she hardly dared ponder its uncertainties.

In moments, she had slipped out of the house by the back way and was racing for the big white barn. She could hear Caesar’s impatient snort as she neared.

“Easy, boy,” she whispered. “It’s only me. We’re going for a little midnight ride.” Quickly she strapped the little trunk behind the saddle.

The moon was low, but Charlotte slipped up into the sidesaddle with the expertise of one born to ride. She would have preferred riding bareback, but her skirts hindered her. She gave Caesar his head, urging him to speed. The surefooted stallion raced away into the night, with Charlotte Buckland like a female centaur on his back.

The damp night wind kissed her cheeks and her hair blew free, as untamed as her spirits and her heart. Gone was the depression, the feeling of being trapped and tricked by fate. Ahead, somewhere along those shining tracks, lay her future. She would rush to meet it and embrace it joyfully… lovingly.

Charlotte felt numb all over. The steady clickity-clack of the iron monster’s rotating feet and its deep rumbling, which muffled all other sounds, seemed a part of her after many days’ travel. Other passengers boarded and detrained. But still she sat as the minutes ticked by with the rhythm of the wheels.

At first she’d felt nervous and strangely out of place on the westward-bound train. Before the war, she wouldn’t have dreamed of traveling without a chaperone—not even for a short distance, let alone across the entire country. But this was 1870—the dawn of a new era. Never again would she fall back on her Southern-belle ways. This new land was tough. Charlotte Buckland would be just as tough. She saw herself as one of a new breed—a refugee of the ravaged South, hungry for adventure, longing to leave the torment of the war years behind and experience the exotic wonders of the golden West. If she found love along the way, that would be all right, too.

But gazing out of the dust-and-cinder-frosted windows of the Kansas & Pacific Railroad coach, the diminutive beauty with hair the color of the last two gold coins left in her purse didn’t feel quite as brave as she pretended. For the first time in her life, she was completely alone. And the brown plains and wide rivers outside were alien to her after a lifetime spent in the Bluegrass State.

Still, she had made her choice. Now she would live with it. Better to be alone in a strange land, she thought, than married to Major Winston Krantz. And what a narrow escape she’d had from becoming the bride of that U.S. Cavalry officer! One more day and…

“Leavenworth! Next stop!” the leathery old conductor called out tonelessly.

“How long, please?” Charlotte asked.

He looked her up and down with rheumy eyes before he replied, “‘Bout a half hour, miss. But you ain’t gettin’ off there, are you? Thought you were going on down the line a piece.”

Charlotte felt a pink tinge stain her cheeks. Never would she get over her embarrassment at having to admit her straitened circumstances. But she lifted her head to a proud tilt, offered the man a radiant smile, and answered, “I’m afraid my dreams stretch farther than my purse strings. But I’ll find work. I’ll get where I’m going. Don’t you worry.”

“You mean you’re all on your own… no family or friends hereabouts?”

“I make friends easily.” She gave the conductor such a confident look that he couldn’t doubt her.

“Well, you just watch yourself, miss. Leavenworth’s a rough place. A circus town, you know.”

“Circus town?” Charlotte’s curiosity was piqued.

“And worse! Seems like the whole world’s moving west and Leavenworth’s the jumping-off spot. This town gets every kind. Even them wild Romany folk that come over from Europe right after the war.”

Charlotte frowned slightly, not understanding.

The conductor looked this way and that, as if to make sure none of the other passengers could hear, before he leaned toward her and whispered, “You know—Gypsies! A bad lot. I’d hate to see my daughter stopping over in Leavenworth all by herself.”

Charlotte was fascinated. “What are Gypsies doing way out here?”

“They’re carney types. Great horse people, you know. And out of that comes their traveling shows—circuses. C. W. Parker Company of Leavenworth caters to their kind, mending tents and selling all manner of stuff you can’t get nowhere else.” He straightened up and made a clucking sound of disapproval with his tongue. “Draws a bad crowd. You be mighty careful, miss. I hear tell they ain’t above stealing an occasional pretty girl, ‘specially one that’s got hair like a summer noontime.”

“I will,” she promised, controlling a wayward laugh at the old man’s outrageous fears.

He moved on down the aisle, secure in the thought that his warning was well placed.

Charlotte leaned back with a sigh and watched the Missouri River slide past outside. Her mind left Leavenworth and the Gypsies and returned to Fairview Plantation, to her mother and grandmother. Would she ever see them again? Of course she would! She had to believe that. Nothing in life meant anything without family and roots. And Charlotte Buckland’s roots grew deep in the fertile soil of Kentucky. Yes, she would return—someday—once she’d proven herself.

But now that all ties with home and family had been broken—now that she had literally and figuratively stamped her foot and stormed out—Fairview seemed a lifetime away, more fantasy than reality. The only tangible things in her life this minute were the wide stretches of country outside and the rumble of the train. She wondered what awaited her in Leavenworth, Kansas. Had Granny Fate done right to help her run out on her old life?

Charlotte shook her head as if to clear it of all doubts. Her neat curls bounced beneath the faded green velvet bonnet perched upon them. She looked down at the small trunk at her feet, which contained, as Granny Fate had told her, “your past and your future.”

What had Fatima Lee Buckland meant? Charlotte still didn’t understand. Maybe she never would. Her grandmother had a way of talking in riddles.

“Leavenworth… coming up!” wailed the conductor.

Charlotte reached down and touched the trunk. Everything she owned in the world was safely locked inside. Granny Fate had given her something of home and family so that Charlotte wouldn’t feel lonely once she was far away.

Sudden excitement gripped Charlotte. All sad thoughts vanished, leaving a kind of childlike wonder in their wake. She leaned forward in her seat, anxious to see this new place. As the train puffed into the station, she knew by a sign on the corner that she would be stepping out on Olive Street. She hurried to get her things together.

When the fatherly old conductor offered a hand to help her down, she thanked him and smiled brightly.

“You mind yourself now, young lady,” he admonished.

“Oh, I will. You don’t have to worry about me.”

Leavenworth came as a surprise to Charlotte. She had imagined a sleepy, rough little crossroads, where men sat in the shade playing checkers and mongrel dogs lazed in the sun. But the town bustled with activity. Steamboats lined the wharf near the tracks. Teams of oxen lumbered to and from the station, and wagons of every size and description waited to load or unload. People hurried in all directions, busy at every conceivable task.

Once she got over her amazement and caught her breath, finding a hotel was her first order of business. She looked about for someone to ask, but everyone was in such a hurry. Three rough-looking men on the platform were passing a bottle around and eyeing her. She thought of the conductor’s warning and started to move away.

“Hey, pretty lady!” One of the dirty loiterers, his breath stale with rotgut whiskey, reached out and grabbed her arm. “If you’re sellin’, me and my buddies are sure in the market for whatever you got to offer.”

Charlotte’s heart seemed to shrink inside her breast. She pulled away from the man, but he moved in to block her way. She was about to scream for help when a stranger pushed through the crowd and shoved the masher away.

In a voice exotically accented, the tall stranger ordered, “On your way, mister. I would not want to have to hurt you.”

What the man’s quiet tone failed to convey, the crack of his bullwhip added with authority. The drunken trail hand stumbled away without an argument.

Charlotte turned toward the man with the whip to thank him, but her breath caught in her throat, choking her words. The stranger who had rescued her was out of another time and place. He towered over her, gazing down, his sun-bronzed face unsmiling. She thought with an odd sadness that had he not been so ruggedly built and hardened by the elements, he might have been called beautiful, though never to his face. A riptide of black curls swirled about his collar, bringing out the mysterious darkness of his eyes. He wore golden earrings and a heavy chain, hand-wrought, about his neck. The jewelry was no more in keeping with his rough workman’s britches, shirt, and knee-high boots than was the vivid scarlet silk kerchief wound about his neck.

She realized suddenly that he was examining her with a curiosity equal in intensity to her own. She felt as if his jet eyes were piercing her very soul. Unsettled by his scrutiny, she looked away.

“You are unharmed?” His voice was as mellow and rich as aged Kentucky bourbon.

“Yes… thank you… sir,” she stammered.

“It is not wise for a woman to be alone in this part of town. If you do not live far, I will see you safely home.”

Without waiting for Charlotte to give her consent, he hoisted her trunk to his broad shoulder, grasped her arm, and hauled her along with him toward the main part of town.

“Wait a minute! Where are you taking me?” she asked, annoyed by his brusqueness. “I don’t have a place to stay yet. I just got off the train.”

“Then I will see to your lodgings myself.” He never slowed his pace, hurrying her along the bustling thoroughfare.

Charlotte Buckland could do nothing. The man seemed set on his mission. She wasn’t sure whether to be grateful or terrified. Hadn’t she heard tales of girls traveling alone who were kidnapped, forced into brothels, and never heard from again? She might have handled the drunken man earlier, but she was powerless against her present captor.

“Please!” she cried, pulling back to slow his progress. “You must tell me where you’re taking me.”

“Please indeed!” he replied, moving on, hauling her with him along the wooden sidewalk. “I do not have time to answer questions. I will see to it that you are taken care of.”

Suddenly, a woman’s scream from across the street distracted Charlotte’s attention. “Mateo!” the woman yelled. “Mateo, answer me!”

“A thousand devils!” Charlotte’s dark stranger muttered angrily, but he neither turned nor responded to the summons.

“Come back here, you!” the woman demanded angrily.

“When I finish my business, Phaedra,” he called back. But he still refused even to glance in her direction.

Charlotte did manage a glimpse of her and gasped at what she saw. The exotic beauty stood on the far curb, holding her skirts up to keep them out of the dust. And
such
skirts! Charlotte had never seen anything like this person’s costume. She wore a tight-fitting bodice of silver, her full breasts straining at the fabric and threatening to spill out over the top when she leaned forward to shout again. From the tight waist, layer upon layer of heliotrope-and-emerald gauze flared about her. Charlotte recognized the unmistakable outline of shapely bare limbs through the gossamer skirts.

But amazingly enough, Charlotte seemed to be the only person in town who even gave the woman named Phaedra a second look. And obviously this man—what had Phaedra called him…
Mateol
—was trying to avoid her.

“Aren’t you going to answer?” Charlotte said.

“Pay her no mind,” Mateo ordered. “If luck is with us, she will go away.”

“But she sounds desperate. Shouldn’t you find out what she wants?”

A laugh rumbled from his full lips. “Phaedra is always desperate and she always wants the same thing—to start trouble. Believe me, it is of no importance.”

As Mateo hurried Charlotte down Delaware Street, she happened to glimpse a “Help Wanted” sign in the window of C. Clark’s china and glassware shop. She decided to return later and inquire about the position.

Beyond the buildings on the far side of the street, she saw a collection of brightly painted wagons and tents set up at the edge of town. She was reminded of the horse fairs back home.

Suddenly, everything became very clear to Charlotte Buckland. The tents and wagons, the woman called Phaedra in her outlandish garb, and Mateo with his golden earrings and fancy whip.

“Why, you’re with the circus, aren’t you?”

“Some call it that.”

“You’re one of the Gypsies!” The thought both thrilled and frightened her.

He stopped and turned Charlotte, none too gently, to face him before he answered, “I am Rom Mateo, son of Queen Zolande. I work with horses, so I am known by the title
Graiengeri.
It is an old and honorable profession among my people.”

Charlotte could tell by his tone that she had offended him in some way. “I’m sorry, Rom Mateo. I didn’t mean any insult.”

He let go of her arm and looked directly into her brown eyes for a moment—long enough to make something inside her warm under his gaze.

“I, too, am sorry. You did not speak the name Gypsy in the ugly manner of most
gajos.
I was too quick to defend what needed no defense. But my people—my
familia
—are dear to me. I will allow no slur on the Gypsy name.”

Charlotte felt somewhat embarrassed by the passion of his words. She cast about for another subject and said, “My father was a horse breeder and trainer, and his father before him. We have a farm in Kentucky.”

He nodded gravely. “It is a good life with the horses. But your father is gone now?”

“In the war,” she answered quietly, her eyes downcast.

“Do not be sad. He left a daughter to be proud of,” Mateo declared, pressing Charlotte’s hand with his for the briefest moment.

“Thank you, Mateo.”

“Ma-te-o!” Phaedra was at it again.
“Dinilo!”

Mateo threw back his head and laughed, then shook his fist in Phaedra’s direction. Charlotte looked at him quizzically.

“She called me ‘stupid one,’” he said. “I will get her for that!”

“Is she your sister, Mateo?” Charlotte was frowning, puzzling over the connection between this wild Gypsy pair.

Mateo shook his head until his dark curls tossed in the breeze. He laughed. “God forbid we should be from the same womb! She is only my cousin.” Then the humor in his voice vanished. “But we will be closer than that soon. Now I will take you into the hotel. Phaedra, for once, is correct. It is time I was about my business.”

Mateo ushered Charlotte into the cool, spacious lobby of the Planters Hotel. The clerk, looking very staid and officious in his celluloid collar and spectacles, presided over the wide mahogany desk. The place seemed entirely respectable; her worry had been wasted.

“This is quite nice, Mateo. I’m sure I’ll be comfortable here. Thank you so much for helping me.”