Solitary Horseman (10 page)

She hitched up her chin. “Thank you.” She glanced toward the house. “Your pa won’t like it.”

Callum looked over his shoulder to where his father sat on the porch like a hulking watchdog. “He doesn’t have to.” He gripped her elbow and guided her toward her vehicle. “You should go now. It’s getting late.”

He held onto her arm as she climbed up into the wagon. Taking up the reins, she looked toward the house again and waved goodbye to his father. She wrinkled her nose before focusing on Callum. The setting sun created a halo over her hair. “He won’t even wave back. Some things aren’t meant to be, no matter how hard you try or how much you want it to be different.” Her clipped tone and the sadness in her eyes stabbed at him.

He rested a hand on her wrist. “He’s been trying to walk up and down the steps every night. I help steady him.”

“What?” A smile captured her lips as wonder filled her eyes.

He rubbed his thumb against her threadbare cuff. “And every morning he walks the length of the porch twice before he settles in his chair. He told me not to talk to you about it, but I figure you deserve to know that you’ve gotten through to him.”

“Thank you.”

“Thank
you.
” He stepped back from the wagon, feeling that something else needed to be said. “About what happened just now . . . between us.”

“You don’t have to—

“You’re a good woman, Banner, and I know you’ll find yourself a good man.” He met her gaze and saw her smile dissolve. “That’s not me.”

Her brows dipped. “What are you saying? That you aren’t interested in me in that way or that you’re not a good man?”

He heaved a sigh. “You think I kiss a woman like that when I’m
not
interested?” He shook his head. “No. I’m not a bad man, but I left the best of me on the battlefields.” He turned away from her and strode back toward the stables. After a few steps, he heard her cluck softly at her horse and the sound of the wagon pulling away.

The next morning Banner arrived at the Latimer ranch earlier than usual. The sun was just peeking over the horizon when she stopped the wagon out by the stables. Callum or one of the other ranch hands would unhitch Pansy later. She set the brake and climbed down, her joints feeling stiff. Hollis had experienced a particularly restless night, hollering in his sleep and waking her up. By the time she’d thrust her arms into her dressing gown and dashed out of her bedroom, Hollis had been pacing outside, running his hands through his hair and making it stand on end.

“Hollis, it’s all right. Come back inside,” she’d said, keeping her voice calm and gentle although everything inside of her had been twitching.

It had taken her a couple of hours to get him calm again. She’d wrapped him in a blanket and made him sit in the rocker while she brewed a pot of coffee. He’d drank a cup of it and stared at the floor, his eyes glimmering with unshed tears as he flinched every once in a while when some particularly horrible memory pierced his mind. She had curled up in the other rocking chair and dozed for an hour or two. When she’d awakened, Hollis seemed to have come back to himself. He had given her a hug and had gone out to hitch up the wagon for her and saddle his own horse, getting ready for the day ahead of them.

She felt tired already as she trod across the dew-wet grass toward the house, but her steps faltered when she noticed that someone was sitting in one of the porch chairs. Was Mr. Latimer up already? Hurrying forward, she gasped a little when she saw that it wasn’t the elder Latimer, but his son who was slumped in the chair, fast asleep.

###

The smoke cleared and all he could see were bodies. The first soldier he recognized was Private Thomas McCoy, a nineteen-year-old from Greensboro, Mississippi. He was missing an arm and a leg. He opened his cloudy blue eyes and his voice came out squeaky and full of pain.

“How come I’m dead, sir? And you ain’t?”

Callum came awake with a jolt that sent a spear of pain up his spine. Straightening slowly, he groaned, realizing that he wasn’t in bed, but was slumped in the front porch rocker. He had only a vague memory of how he got there. The nightmares. They’d been bad last night, chasing him from room to room until he’d shoved himself back into his works clothes and ended up here.

Forcing his eyes open to slits, he stared at the lightening sky where only a few stars still shone. He lifted his arms above his head and was in the middle of a spine-cracking stretch when he spotted her.

Banner sat on the porch step, leaning back against the bannister, a coffee cup cradled in her hands. She held it out to him.

“Good morning, Callum. Want some?”

For a few moments, he thought he might be dreaming, but then he caught the aroma of the coffee mixed with the scent of lavender and he knew he was awake.

“What are you doing here? It’s too early.” His voice sounded like he had gravel in his throat.

“Hollis had a bad night, too. I figured I’d get a jump on the day, since I was already awake.”

He buttoned up his shirt before leaning forward to accept the cup of coffee from her. What she’d said fully lodged in his spongy brain.
Hollis had a bad night, too.
He took a sip of the coffee, needing it to clear away the vestiges of sleep.

“Sometimes I dream of the war,” she said, her voice almost a whisper as she gazed up at the sky that was changing from dark to light blue. “I wake up in a cold sweat, my heart trying its best to beat its way out of my body. But my dreams aren’t like my brother’s – or yours, for that matter. When Hollis dreams, it’s like he’s in the clutches of a monster. He screams and his eyes go big and sightless. He walks the floor, moaning and groaning. I try to get through to him, but it usually takes a spell before he can even hear me.”

A shiver licked up his spine and he took a long swallow of the hot coffee. He locked onto her profile, finding it more than pleasing. He liked the way the tip of her nose angled up ever so slightly and how her lower lip was full and lush while her upper one reminded him of an archer’s bow. He’d started off the night dreaming of her, but those steamy scenes had given way to the sound of gunfire and her moans of lovemaking had become the moans of dying men.

“It’s like I tell Hollis. Horrible things shouldn’t be stuffed down deep in your soul. They need to be brought out into the light so that they can’t keep rising up out of the dark to torture you.”

He took another gulp of coffee and it scalded the back of his throat. “How do you wrestle the damn things out into the light?”

“By talking about them.”

The shell around his heart hardened. He shook his head. “That won’t work.”

“How do you know?”

“I just know. Women place too much importance on talking.”

“Men are too bull-headed for their own good.”

He ran a hand down his face as frustration began to simmer inside him. “Thanks for the coffee. We both have chores and talking won’t get them done.” He stood up and so did she. She grabbed him by the arm, startling him.

“I’m not just good at talking, Callum. I’m also good at listening. You’ve tried your way – balling it all up inside – so why not try another way?” Her fingers slid down his arm, along the back of his hand, and then away as she preceded him into the house.

He examined his arm and hand, almost expecting to see a smoking trail. Shaking off the ridiculous notion, he set the empty coffee cup onto the porch railing instead of taking it inside to the kitchen where she would be stoking the stove. He headed for the stables to unhitch her horse from the wagon. It was safer out there.

###

The night before the barbecue Banner was up almost all night working on something to wear to it. She’d found an old white curtain stuffed in the bottom of a chifforobe and cut it into strips, which she gathered into ruffles and attached three rows of them to the bottom of her blue dress. It had white ruffles down the bodice already, so the new ruffles gave it a more “fancy” look. She had enough of the material left over to make white cuffs for the dress since its cuffs were frayed and even torn in places.

After ironing it and fluffing the new ruffles, she slipped into it and admired herself in her bedroom mirror. She put on her only good bonnet and wished she could remake it, too. Maybe she could pick some meadow flowers and braid them along the crown of it. She decided to give that a try. Just about anything would improve it, she thought with a defeated sigh. The dress, while attractive, didn’t look new, but she lifted her spirits by reminding herself that almost every woman in the county was doing with “old” because “new” was too expensive.

Still, she was as nervous as a bride on her wedding night as Saturday dawned. Callum had given everyone the day off and had told her he’d ride over to her place around eleven and they’d go to the barbecue in her wagon. After breakfast, she’d taken a walk and picked a basket full of wild flowers. She sat on the porch and pinned some of gold and burgundy blooms in a sweeping design on one side of her old blue bonnet. Pansy munched on grass near the porch, her long white mane falling across her neck and into her eyes.

“Pansy, you should look extra pretty today, too,” Banner said. Taking the basket with her, she approached the horse and braided the remaining flowers into Pansy’s mane. As she worked, her thoughts scampered to the searing pleasure of Callum’s mouth on hers. She had imagined that, if he ever took liberties with her, that he would be hesitant and gentle. “I couldn’t have been more wrong about that!” she muttered, only realizing she’d spoken aloud when Pansy nickered in response. She patted the horse and then sat on the porch again, staring straight ahead at nothing while she replayed that kiss – those passionate kisses that she’d never forget, that had redefined for her what kissing could be.

She’d had her share of suitors and a few of them had made her head swim and her blood thicken. When Callum had boldly claimed her mouth and his hands had caressed and explored her, desire had pooled between her thighs and every pulse point in her body had throbbed in unison. She had felt like a wanton creature in his arms, ready to give him whatever he demanded of her.

First kisses were supposed to be soft, gentle, even tentative. Callum’s first kiss was a stampede, running past her previous notion and laying to waste every kiss she’d had before his. He had stolen her breath and then given it back. He had shown her that tongues could be sex organs. He had told her with his lips, hands, and guttural moans that he wanted her—not just her kisses, but her. All of her.

With the last scrap of her propriety, she’d managed to halt his advances. Stopping her thoughts of him was more difficult. She had to keep reminding herself that they were in business together and that allowing him such liberties could end badly. After bedding her, he might feel awkward around her or decide he
was
her boss. The partnership they’d forged could falter or even disintegrate because of an emotional involvement they weren’t equipped to handle. She’d lose the ranch. That could not happen!

Hollis stepped out onto the porch and looked at her and then Pansy. “Taking it a little far, ain’t you?”

“What?”

“You’re dressing up the horse, too?”

“Pansy deserves to look her best.” She motioned to the hat that she’d left in the chair. “What do you think of my new bonnet?”

He eyed it and shrugged. “Those flowers will die.”

She scowled at him. “Yes, thank you, Mr. Storm Cloud, for raining on my picnic. Why don’t you come with us?”

He scratched at the white whiskers on his chin. “Don’t feel like being around a passel of people. I’m going to read poetry and break in my new rope.”

“Sounds like you’ve planned a nice day for yourself.” She mounted the dilapidated front steps. “You could repair these stairs and porch railing,” she said for probably the hundredth time and, for the hundredth time, Hollis shrugged, jumped off the end of the porch, and sauntered toward the barn. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” she murmured as she grabbed her bonnet and went inside to inspect herself in the mirror one final time.

With a weary sigh, she put on the bonnet and secured it with a big bow under her chin, but her thoughts were not on her mirror image. She loved Hollis. She’d loved all of her brothers and her father, but they had been a slovenly lot. That hadn’t been apparent to her until she was about ten and she went with her father to Van and Edna Dyersburg’s house one afternoon to purchase a pig. They’d had a small farm, but it had looked like a pretty painting to Banner. The fences had been painted white and bright red and yellow flowers had grown in carefully tended beds along the front and sides of the house. Hand-crocheted pillows had adorned a porch swing and ivy and other plants had spilled over big flower pots near the front door.

Inside, everything had been clean and shiny and it had smelled like fresh laundry with the faint perfume of roses wafting through the air. Snow-white scarves had covered the side tables and a bright red cloth had stretched across the expanse of the dining table. White curtains with red ruffles at the windows had fascinated Banner because she’d never seen window coverings before. Transfixed by the beauty and cleanliness surrounding her, she recalled moving slowly toward a wall in the home and touching the paper on it – paper that had pale blue vertical lines and tiny blue flowers in between the lines. Pretty paper – covering the walls!

Returning home, she had seen the place with cleansed eyes and the dirt and grime became intolerably offensive to her. She had taken a hard look at her clothes and had seen that they were faded and stained. That’s when she’d understood why the children at school made fun of her and her brothers and taunted them with, “Here, piggy, piggy! You Paynes stink to high heaven!”

That very day she had heated buckets of water, poured them into the copper tub none of them hardly ever used, and scrubbed her body with lye soap. The water had turned black and she had burst into tears. That’s how her father had found her, sitting in the tub she’d dragged into the kitchen, bawling like a newborn calf.

“What in tarnation?” he’d asked, standing beside the tub, but looking past it to protect her modesty. “You paining?”

“I’m dirty!” she had wailed. “We’re all dirty. And our h-house is d-dirty!”

“Ranching is filthy work, Banner love. Stop your yowling. If you ain’t noticed, we’re working from sun up to sun down, rasslin’ cows, sloppin’ pigs, and muckin’ out stalls! You want the house clean? Then pick up a broom and get to it! Nobody’s stopping ya.” Then he’d batted a hand at her and stomped out of the kitchen.

She’d made a promise to herself as she sat in the cooling, stinky water to not live one more day in a house others saw as a pig sty. And she’d made good on her promise, spending the next week sweeping, mopping, and washing everything she could reach.

But getting her brothers and her father to change their ways had been impossible. They never picked up after themselves and they had thought nothing of tracking in mud and horse and cow manure all over her clean floors. She had asked them to make repairs – reattach cupboard doors, put new panes in the broken windows, shore up the front steps. They never found the time or inclination to fix anything around the house. She could only do so much, so their home had never been as pretty as she’d hoped. At least, it was clean. Falling into disrepair, but clean.