A Restless Wind (2 page)

     Maybe the place did harbor ghosts, Hetty thought, for it did seem to her that the shadows had eyes and that they watched her every move though they kept their secrets to themselves.

     Hetty remembered the day she had received a letter in Boston telling her that Sara Cade and her four-year-old daughter were missing.  In spite of search parties being sent out, there were still no answers.  Months had passed but both mother and daughter had vanished without a trace.  If Sara had left some clue behind, so far no one had been able to find it.

     Most people believed that outlaws were responsible.  The hills were full of them and their crimes had been growing bolder and more violent.  Recent depredations proved that at their hands no one, not even a woman, or a child, could expect mercy.

     Hetty and Sara had been more than neighbors.  They had been friends.  Sara was honest, genuine and uncomplicated, rare enough virtues in the world.

     Life had never been easy for Sara.  Her husband’s weakness for liquor and gambling had always kept them on the edge of poverty.  And when he was drinking . . .   Hetty had seen him drunk.  Her opinion of Lubin Cade had never been a favorable one.  The man should have been here to protect his wife and child.  Obviously he had failed at that the same way he had failed at everything else in life.

     On the hill behind the cabin was a small headstone.  A memorial for the infant boy that had died shortly after birth.  It had been another hard loss for Sara.

     Glass crackled under Hetty’s boot as she turned towards the window.  Several panes were missing.  A sudden breath of wind lifted the curtains, made them float like pale ghosts into the room.

     It was at that moment that Hetty noticed a book on a shelf above her.  She had to stand on her toes to reach it.  In the book she found a crocheted marker.  A fragile flower was pressed between two pages.  There was also a lock of child’s hair and a verse in Sara’s handwriting. 

    
The wind, it whispered memories.

     My heart had gathered these.

     The woodland wove a secret spell

     As misty darkness fell.

     And when a restless wind arose

     There among the silent rows

     The wind continued to move the curtains as Hetty contemplated the unfinished rhyme.  And then a rustling sound caught her attention.  It was no more than a faint fluttering but it caused her to look up.

     A small white triangle, the corner of a piece of paper, showed over the edge of the shelf.  It had been moved by the wind, perhaps, or by her hand when she had removed the book.

     She found several sheets of blank paper and, further back on the shelf, there was an envelope, still sealed.  In Sara’s handwriting a name was written across the envelope.  It was the name that caused the sudden change in Hetty’s face.  That name was responsible, as
well, for the frown and the far-away look in her eyes as they lifted to the distant hills beyond the window.

     Hetty’s hand lifted absently to the row of black buttons that ran along the bodice of her riding habit.  She was still frowning as she noted how the sunlight touched the leaves hanging over the porch and how the sun’s warmth held the morning almost in a spell.  She closed her eyes, lost for a moment in the past and in remembering.

     With an effort, Hetty shook off the memories.  She forced herself back into the present, closed the book and, along with the unopened envelope, slipped it into the pocket of her riding skirt.   She stepped out into the sunshine, leaving the shadows and the unanswered questions behind her.  Mounting her horse, she gave a last fleeting glance at the cabin before she turned her horse’s head in the direction of the ranch and began her ride back home.

     The silence inside the cabin was broken by boot heels that echoed hollowly across the wide planks of the wood floor.  They were unhurried steps,
accompanied by the faint, metallic sound of spurs.  Where the woman had stood only minutes before, a man now stood.  He leaned a gray-clad shoulder against the door frame while his gaze thoughtfully followed the path that she had taken.

     The blaze of morning sunlight was full upon him except for that portion of his face which remained shadowed by his hat brim.  It was a strong face with hard masculine lines.  It was a contemplative face at the moment.  The man’s dark brows were drawn into a slight frown as he, too, felt the lure of the past.

     The years had not changed her, he decided.  He recalled much the same expression in those pale blue eyes as they had looked up at him two years ago.

     His own eyes sobered.  He ran one hand along his unshaven jaw and frowned slightly as he took in the details of the porch.  The wisteria had flourished in spite of neglect, twining rampantly around whatever it could find for support.  As had the roses.  The memory of the one who had tended those flowers followed and his eyes changed.  Like stormy skies, they had depths that were unfathomable. 

     Sara had told him of the envelope and its contents.  And she had told him when he should come for it.  He had come here to find that envelope.  He had seen the look on Hetty’s face and he knew that she had found it first.

     He stared southward to the hills where the mists were still clinging, though faintly.  He knew those
hills, knew them as well as he knew his own name.  As he stood in the doorway, the wind whispered against him, warm and fragrant and familiar.  And alive with the secrets it held.

Chapter 2

     “I don’t need a man to speak for me,”  Hetty said as she set a cup on the table and poured hot coffee into it.  “I have my own voice.”

     Her uncle, who was sitting at the table, lifted the cup to his lips, scowled when he found the coffee too hot and set the cup down again.  Zebadiah Parrish was an imposing man past sixty with iron-gray hair and a direct, piercing gaze that was capable of making ranchers and ranch-hands alike quake in their boots.  He fixed his niece with that gaze now.

     “And just where did you learn to express such notions so freely, young woman?  Certainly not in Boston.”

     “Yes.  In Boston,”  Hetty replied as she set his breakfast plate on the table.

     “And did Boston also teach you that it is considered unseemly for a woman to be so outspoken about such things?”  he queried as he unfolded his napkin.

     “Why, Uncle.  Did you think that Boston was going to change me so much?”

     Zebadiah leaned back in his chair and considered his niece.  The truth was, Hetty had always been outspoken.  She had always voiced her opinions straight out.

    
“I thought that Boston would-  ”  He frowned as he searched for the right words.

     “Teach me that straightforward expression is reserved for men only?”  she suggested as she set a tin of maple syrup on the table before him.

     He hadn’t meant that.  Not exactly.  Not the way she made it sound.  “I wasn’t meaning that, Hetty.”

     “Then perhaps you are of the opinion that a woman never speaks unless she first asks permission from a man.  To make sure that he approves of her thoughts?”  She was standing at the cupboard, reaching for another plate and she glanced at him over her shoulder.

     “I’d never expect that from you,”  he sighed as he adjusted his napkin in his lap.  “Why don’t you tell me exactly what you did learn back East.”

     “I learned a great deal,”  she said as she came back to the table with the plate and a cup and saucer.  “For one thing, that I wish my life to have meaning beyond simply wondering what the latest fashions are or what color dress I will wear or how I will arrange my hair each morning.  Or what my husband would like for dinner.”

    
And that was new for Hetty
?  Zebadiah thought to himself.  Though he did find himself wondering what she had planned for dinner that night.  Two years of his own cooking was about a year and eleven and a half months too long.

     “I don’t want to spend my life thinking how best to please a husband,”  Hetty went on as she slid two eggs onto the plate before him.  “The notion that a woman exists for the sole purpose of being some man’s wife is fast becoming outdated.  As well it should.”  She went to the stove and poured flapjack batter on a hot iron griddle.

     “Women are doing a great many things these days,”  she said with her back to him as she waited and then turned the flapjacks.  “They are thinking beyond the old
accepted
, but very limiting, roles of wife and mother and awakening to the fact that life can offer more than simply bearing children and seeing to a man’s needs, his comforts, his pleasures-  ”

     “By God, Hetty!”

     “Don’t swear at the table,”  she remonstrated him gently.  “I am merely expressing the truth.”

     “You’re not intending to marry then?”  he questioned, hesitating with his fork halfway between his mouth and the plate.

     She looked thoughtful as she set a plate of steaming flapjacks before him.  “I don’t mean that there is anything wrong with being a wife and mother.  And you know as well as I do that most women work as hard as men do.  In some cases they work harder.”

     Zebadiah grumbled his agreement as he reached for the syrup.  He wasn’t going to argue with her there.  Caring for a husband and children, in addition to cooking, washing clothes, gardening and putting up
food was a rough job.  Taking care of a home and family required endless, heavy labor.  And too often it was thankless labor.

    He glanced at Hetty who had taken a seat opposite him.  Urged to the decision by his sisters in Boston, Zebadiah had thought that sending Hetty back East to get an education was the right thing to do.  He had been told it was the logical step in teaching her how to be a proper young woman.  To his dismay, however, she had come back with even more radical views and newfangled ideas about things like reforms and women’s rights.

     “You might find the cause of women’s rights out of place out here, Hetty.”

     She shrugged one blue-clad shoulder as she sipped at her tea.  “Speaking out about it might be.  But not the cause.”  She looked directly at him.  “Women’s rights conventions, Uncle Zebadiah, are regularly attended by some of the most socially prominent women of Boston.  I attended one of those conventions myself,”  she informed him, obviously proud of the fact. 

     Zebadiah drew a deep breath and groaned audibly before devoting his attention to the stack of flapjacks.  Talking about suffrage and women’s rights made him uncomfortable.  And temperance.  He didn’t even want to think about that one.  But she went right on while he ate.

     “Why, what would you think if I told you that there are men who support the cause of women’s emancipation?  That some of those men have even organized and financed several of the campaigns?”

     “H’m,”  was his muttered comment between bites.

     “It’s all well and good to be a partner in life with a man. 
Equally
,”  she was saying.  “But the old-fashioned idea that a man owns his wife and children as he does his horses or his cattle and that she is to be at his beck and call without any rights whatsoever is thankfully becoming a thing of the past.

     “The slaves have been set free, Uncle.  What rational person would expect that women should remain enslaved to men?”  she asked as she stood up.  “When and if I do marry, I should like to gain a partner in life.  Not a master.”  She took off her apron and laid it over the back of her chair.

     “H’m,”  Zebadiah muttered again as he lifted his coffee cup to his mouth.

     “Things are changing, Uncle.  Even in the West.  Perhaps moreso in the West.  Women have already won the right to vote in several of the territories.”

     “Well, things have changed here, too, Hetty.  It isn’t safe for a young woman to be riding about alone.  Why, when I found out that you went riding alone in the timber yesterday, it scared ten years off my life.”

     Hetty flashed a smile at him.  “Are you going to tell me those stories about bloodthirsty wolves as you used to tell me to keep me from riding there?”

     “If they would do any good, I would tell them,”  he answered.  The truth was, though, that his stories about wolves hadn’t stopped her then.  And he doubted they would stop her now.