No Other Man (13 page)

"Turns out she is Lady Douglas," Hawk said.

Sam's big blue eyes went moon wide. "You were married
up with David—"

"No, she's married up with me," Hawk informed him.
"Seems my father made the arrangements, just forgot to tell me. Sam, did
you bring my father in yet?" he asked quietly.

Riley had come by then to stare at him and Skylar. "Your
pa is in the parlor. Hawk. I sent word out to May- fair; guess you weren't
there. I'm expecting someone back with a wagon so your pa can be laid out right
at his home." He spoke to Hawk. He stared at Skylar, then scratched his
head. "So—you're married?" he said in astonishment to Hawk.

Hawk
tethered Tor in front of the inn. "Seems so. I'm going to see to my
father. Have you anything good on the menu today, Riley? I'm starving."

"Some
of the best damned venison you'll find either side of the hills!" Riley
said proudly. "Fresh bread, apple pie—"

"We'll
take the lot," he said. Without glancing in Skylar's direction, he walked
into the inn.

Sam
turned to Skylar then. "Lady Douglas." He spoke quickly. "I'm
rightly sorry, miss, I am. Taking part in— what do you call
it—sub-ter-fuge."

"Downright trickery," Riley said sadly.

"But
you got to forgive us. Hawk didn't know who you were no how, and it just seemed
as if you had to be playing some kind of that trickery on the lot of us. Do you
understand?" Sam asked anxiously.

"Do
you forgive
us?
' Riley demanded. "Wait
a minute, now, I didn't really have a part in it—"

"As much as me!" Sam insisted stubbornly.

"Ain't
much company out here," Riley warned. "What speaks English, anyway.
You need to forgive us, really."

"You
were both horrible," she assured them. "I thought that I was being
attacked, that I was going to be murdered."

"But
you've had your chance to explain yourself instead!" Riley said happily.
He shook his head. "And turns out you two are man and wife. Don't that
just beat all?"

"Oh, it does!" Skylar agreed.

"Rich
folks! They wind up married and don't even know it. I say again, don't that
beat all, Sam? Don't that just beat all?"

Sam
shrugged. "Lady Douglas, you come on in and sit and we'll get you some
cool water, a cup of coffee, a glass of wine, whatever might warm your toes,
eh?"

"Water would be lovely at the moment."

"Coming right up. Wolf, you go on out
to the kitchen. Lem's in there cooking, and he'll find a bone for you."

Wolf barked and ran off, seemingly having understood every
word Riley had said to him. Then Skylar was escorted inside by the two
graybeards.

A young half-breed Indian woman worked for Riley. She had
coffee poured when they came into the public room, offering Skylar a cup before
she was seated. Skylar thanked her, recognizing her as the girl who had brought
her to her room when she had spent her one night here on her way west before
the stagecoach incident. The girl was very pretty, she realized, and though she
had been pleasant enough before, today she seemed to resent Skylar. Skylar
didn't know why but determined that she would ignore the girl's coldness. Riley
asked the girl to bring Skylar water as well as the coffee. The girl did as
bidden but left them as quickly as possible.

"Been to Mayfair yet, Lady Douglas?" Riley asked.

"Into Gold Town?" Sam queried before she could answer
the first.

She shook her head. "I've not seen much yet."

"They're newly weds of a sort, Sam," Riley advised
sagely.

"Well, you'd think he'd take her on to Mayfair,"
Sam said with a humph. "It's a fine house, a very fine house. You'll be
pleased as punch when you see it."

"I'm sure," Skylar murmured. She sipped her coffee
but then rose. "Where is the parlor, gentlemen?"

Sam indicated a hallway. She thanked him and walked along it
until she entered a room somewhat smaller than the public room but more
tastefully furnished. In the center of it, set upon a long table, was the
coffin she'd purchased for David Douglas in Baltimore. It was fine wood, handsomely
carved, cushioned inside with red velvet. She could see that because the man
standing in front of it had thrown aside the top, heedless of the fact that the
man inside had been dead many days now. Thank God the weather had been cool.
Still, the scent of death permeated the parlor.

As Skylar paused, wondering if she could take another step
forward without being sick, she saw Riley's Indian girl approach Hawk from
another doorway. The girl easily slipped an arm around his waist, said
something softly about the corpse, and leaned her head against Hawk's arm. Hawk
made no protest, replying to the girl in an Indian tongue.

Skylar straightened her spine and turned quickly to return to
the public room. She paused again because another man had come into the inn,
one she recognized.

Like Hawk, he was dressed today in a cloth shirt and
trousers. He had long, ink-black hair, worn straight down his back, a darkly
bronzed face, and strong, handsome features. He appeared to be civilized, but
she knew he had been one of the three Indians who had accompanied Hawk the
other day, shrieking out their bloody war cries. She stared at him, and he
returned her gaze but said nothing to her. She wondered if he spoke English,
but then she heard Hawk's voice, uncomfortably close behind her.

"Willow. You've brought the wagon in?"

He nodded gravely, still staring at Skylar. He arched a brow
at Hawk.

"Seems she is Lady Douglas." "Oh?"

"My wife."

"Ah." He stared at Skylar, still offering no
apology or explanation. "Sam, do you have the lady's trunk? Tell me where
and I'll fetch it while Hawk and his, er, wife have their meal."

"I'll help you with my father later," Hawk said.
Skylar felt his hands on her shoulders, propelling her back toward the table.
The Indian girl appeared again with heavy wooden bowls of venison swimming in
gravy. She set them down without comment and disappeared to return with a
platter of fresh-baked bread. Her eyes were on Hawk, but he was apparently very
hungry. He ate, heedless of her regard.

Skylar didn't think that she could manage anything after
having inhaled the scent of the corpse. But she'd eaten almost nothing in two
days, and when she took a bite of the venison, she found it delicious and
realized that she was starving herself.

' 'When you going to have a proper service for his Lordship?"
Riley asked Hawk.

"Tomorrow night."

"I heard as how some suggested he should be buried in
some big family vault in Scotland," Sam said.

"His wishes were always clear. He wanted to be buried at
Mayfair, next to my mother," Hawk said. "He'll have what he wanted.
I'll get the Reverend Mathews out tomorrow around dusk to say the words. You
all ride on out if you wish."

"Be fittin'," Riley said.

"He was one fine man."

"He was."

Riley was suddenly staring at Skylar. "Did you know him
well, Miss—Lady Douglas?" he asked politely.

Hawk had suddenly ceased to eat. He was watching her, just as
politely, his coffee cup in his hands. "Did you know him well, my
dear?"

"I knew him well enough to know that he was aware he was
ill, though he had told no one else," she said, returning Hawk's
challenging stare.

His eyes darkened. He lifted his cup to her. "What a
deep and binding friendship," he murmured, and only she, Skylar was
certain, could hear the biting sarcasm in the comment. "I can't wait for
you to tell me all about it," he continued politely. "Which I'm sure
you'll be doing very soon."

"It's difficult these days to be too sure about
anything, isn't it?" she inquired pleasantly.

He smiled. Sipped his coffee. "There are some things of
which I am very sure," he said softly.

"But you're determined to find out things on your
own," she reminded him.

"You've suggested I do so." "From experience I know that
you do so."

"Sometimes it's easier when I'm given a little information."

"Pity is that you don't seem to like to accept
information when you're given it," she said very sweetly, very aware that
both Riley and Sam had grown very silent, their eyes darting nervously from her
to Hawk and from Hawk back to her again.

Hawk stared at her hard, setting down his cup. "You're
right. What I have to find out, I will," he said simply. Then he stood
abruptly. "Riley, you are managing to have food here good enough to
attract a crowd. We're trying to keep the population down around here,
remember?"

"There's gold here, Hawk. Ain't much chance of
that."

"Reckon you're right. I'm going to give Willow a hand
with the coffin, then we'll be on our way. Thanks for taking Pa in,
Riley."

"There's nothing I wouldn't have done for him,"
Riley said sadly.

Hawk nodded, acknowledging the compliment. His eyes suddenly
riveted on Skylar. "We'll be on our way in a matter of minutes. Be
ready."

She resented his tone and didn't reply. It didn't matter. He
didn't expect a reply. He went down the hallway. It didn't seem that a full
minute had passed before she could see him and Willow through the doorway,
carrying the coffin out to the wagon.

"So his attacking 'Indians' all speak excellent English
as well!" Skylar murmured aloud.

"Now, young lady, that's not quite true," Sam said.
"Lots of his kin learned some of the language from David, and some Indians
as of late have been learning what they can of the white man's tongue in
self-defense, but don't you go assuming anything around here. Willow lives not
far from Mayfair. He's got the prettiest little half-breed baby girl you'd ever
want to see. But the other two Oglalas with Hawk the other day are just about
ready to turn their backs on all that's white, period, plain and simple. Then,
you gotta remember this—many Sioux don't think a thing about trading with a
white man one day and declaring war on him the next. These are dangerous times.
You remember to take care out here, young lady. Great care!"

Skylar nodded. "Thanks for the warning. I'll do
that."

"We'd best be getting you out there," Riley said
anxiously. "Looks like Hawk's about ready."

"And Hawk can't wait a minute like anybody else,
hmm?" Skylar asked him.

Riley stared at her, shaking his grizzled head. "Why,
ma'am, I guess he's just ready to get his father back home again."

She nodded, sorry to upset these two. Despite the roles they
had played in the charade, she liked them. They were comforting old fellows,
two peas in a pod. And she might find friends few and far between out here.

"Then I'd best be going," she said, striding by
them out to the wagon. The coffin and her trunk lay in back. Wolf was in the
back bed of the wagon as well, his muzzle set mournfully on the coffin.

Willow held the wagon reins in his hand while Hawk waited
impatiently by the single step to the open front seat. Before Skylar had quite
reached him, he lifted her up, setting her down next to Willow. "I'll be
riding ahead," he told her flatly. "It's only a couple of hours to Mayfair;
the weather should hold." He looked at Willow. "All set?"

"Yep, all set."

"See you at home, then."

He stepped back, slapping the backside of one of the two
heavy draft horses pulling the wagon. Willow lifted the reins, and the wagon
wheels began to turn. They headed out from the flat expanse of rocky lawn in
front of the inn to the road. Skylar looked ahead as they jounced out onto it.
Then she turned back.

Hawk had mounted, but he hadn't yet left the inn. The Indian
girl stood by his side, her hands on his foot where it rested in his stirrup.
He looked down at her, speaking with her.

Skylar turned her eyes back to the road ahead. The man
Willow, at her side, drove in silence, his eyes ahead as well.

"I don't suppose you're going to apologize for your part
in that pathetic act the other day?'' she inquired pleasantly.

A slight smile curved his mouth, but he didn't glance her
way. "Act? He says that you are Lady Douglas, so you are. But that was no
act, ma'am. We are all Sioux warriors; we have all raided, seized wagons,
stolen horses. . . women." He shrugged. At last he turned to her, looking
her up and down. "He needed to know who you were. It was the way he chose
to find out. Apparently, he did. And you're still here. You haven't run. So we
didn't frighten you so badly after all."

"You scared me half to death," she told him.
"But I don't run easily."

He smiled again, looking ahead at the horses. "Then
maybe you'll survive the Badlands," he told her, adding softly, "and
the times to come."

"And your friends," Skylar added beneath her
breath. She wondered if he heard her. Perhaps he did, because he laughed
quietly.

The sun was just beginning to set. Burned into dark pastels,
it sank into a mauve splendor that edged the hills in the distance.

From somewhere, a wolf howled.

And against the shadow-draped sky, the moon rose even as the
sun sank. The air became chill and sharp. Flatlands stretched ahead until the
abrupt rise of the hills. The night was suddenly silent.

But then she started as she heard the sound of horse's hooves
bearing down upon her.

She turned. Hawk rode at her side, looking down at her, his
face as shadowed and dark and forbidding as the landscape.

"You've crossed onto Douglas property again," he
told her. "Mayfair lies ahead. As do the rivers, the hills—and true Sioux
country."

"So which is home?" she asked him.

"All of it," he told her flatly. "But Mayfair
is all you need to concern yourself with. I'll be waiting there. Just what was
your exact comment last night? What you want to know, you can just find out on
your own? Ah, yes, that was it. There's a damned lot I still want to know. I'll
be waiting to find out on my own."