Bittner, Rosanne (15 page)

"Well,
there's the railroad comes through El Paso now, and wagon trains of trade
goods. I expect you'll find somebody sellin' books or who knows how to get
them. If we had a schoolteacher around there... Say, there's somethin' you
could do to make a livin'. You could teach folks around town how to read. Maybe
even John here would like to learn."

"Shut
up, Ken," John warned. "I've got no need to learn how to read. All I
need in this life is a horse and my guns. I don't want to hear any more about
big words and reading."

Ken
pursed his lips in thought, and Tess wondered if it embarrassed John to have
her know he couldn't read.

"Where
would you like us to take you once we reach El Paso?" Ken asked, figuring he'd
better change the subject.

Tess
rubbed at her gritty neck. "I'd like to visit my father's and husband's
graves first," she answered. "Mr. Hawkins told me the Army found what
was left and buried them."

"Yes,
ma'am. We'll take you there. What will you do after that?"

Tess
sighed. "I don't know, Mr. Randall."

"I
figured Jenny would gladly give her a room for a while," John told Ken.

"Jenny?
She'd be livin' over a saloon. A lady like Mrs. Carey can't live over a
saloon."

"Well
then, we'll have to find somebody else, won't we?"

"I'll
find my own accommodations, thank you!" Tess told them. "I am
perfectly capable of taking care of myself."

John
just rolled his eyes. "Whatever you say, but you'll need help for a few
days while you let that ankle rest. There isn't even a doctor in El Paso."

"I'll
manage."

"I'm
sure you will." The words carried a ring of sarcasm.

And
you will probably go straight to Jenny Simms's bed,
Tess thought
with disgust. She looked around, still worried about more Apache. She would be
glad when all this tension was over with, when they were back to civilization
and she could leave the company of one John Hawkins. She didn't like the
feelings he stirred in her, didn't like his attitude, didn't like his vicious
nature, or the way he sometimes snapped at her. Most of all she didn't like
being around a man who had practically known her intimately when at the same
time they hardly knew each other at all. Would he tell others about that? It
sickened her to think that he might. Maybe he would tell that Jenny Simms and
that evil woman would laugh about it!

She
watched him walk ahead of her, all broad shoulders, sometimes such a silent
man. She remembered their conversation about his mother. Maybe he
did
understand
what she'd been through. If he did, he surely would not tell others and make
light of it. He'd promised to keep it a secret. He already even had Ken
convinced she'd not been touched, but she suspected a man like Ken knew better.
The biggest problem would be convincing the general public she'd not been
touched wrongly. People could be so cruel about those things.

"I
have a little money in the bank in El Paso," she told them. "I'll use
it to rent a room for a while until I decide what to do or if I'll even
stay."

"If
that's what you want," John answered.

"That's
what I want. And I would somehow like to repay you both for what you've done
for me, especially you, Mr. Hawkins."

"No
need. It's just what we do for a living."

So,
now he was back to pretending he didn't have an ounce of pity or concern in his
blood. She suspected the closer they got to civilization, the more quiet and
callous he would become. God forbid anyone should know he had feelings. "I
wouldn't feel right if I didn't give the two of you some small reward,"
she told them. "It's only right. A person has to do the decent
thing."

John
just shook his head. "By all means, let's be decent."

Ken
just laughed again. "John Hawkins, you don't know the meanin' of the
word," he teased.

"Right
now not slugging you in the mouth is being pretty decent, as far as I'm
concerned." John stopped and watched the horizon. "The Rio Grande is
only a few miles ahead. I can almost smell the water. We'll keep going until we
get across, then make camp on the other side."

"Fine
with me."

John
looked up at Tess. "You able to ride that far?" She scowled at him.
"Of course I am." He closed his eyes and turned away. "I should
have known better than to ask."

"Do
you think we're out of danger, Ken?" Tess asked the question softly. The
night was so still, except for the singing of nocturnal insects, it just didn't
seem right to talk loudly. Besides, John had said voices carry far in the
night, and Indians had ears that could pick up the tiniest sound a mile away.
She suspected his own hearing was just as keen. He was out there somewhere in
the darkness right now, keeping watch. They had made no fire, afraid some enemy
out there might see its glow.

"Hard
to say," Ken answered. "But if somethin' is out there, you can bet
Hawk will know it."

She
stared up at a nearly full moon and millions of stars. "Well, he didn't do
a very good job of detecting those Apache who attacked us this morning."

Ken
chuckled. "I'll give you that one. But it was daylight, and we didn't see
no tracks of any kind. They must have come up on us from another direction, got
there long before we did. At any rate, we was all talkin' and not payin'
attention. That's not like Hawk. Normally he scouts way ahead of me. He's damn
good at it, and he's mad that he didn't know them Apache was up ahead waitin' for
us. That's why he had you ride with me the rest of the day and went on ahead
with his horse after we started ridin' again. He wasn't gonna let that happen
again. And that's why he's out there somewhere now, although most Indians don't
go out raidin' at night. They don't like the dark. They figure evil spirits
lurk about in it."

Tess
turned on her side to face the man. "Just how Indian is John
Hawkins?" she asked quietly. "Does he practice their customs, pray to
some strange God?"

"Hawk
don't pray to
no
God that I know of. Mostly what's Indian about him
besides his looks is that wildness about him, his keen senses and such. But he
don't practice no special customs that I know of. His ma never really had the
chance to get involved with Indian ways herself. It was
her
ma
that
was all Indian. She married a white trapper, a Frenchman. He brought her to St.
Louis to live, and then he was killed in a tavern brawl."

"I
know. He told me about his mother and grandfather."

"He
did? That ain't like him to tell no stranger about them. He only just told me a
few weeks ago. You ought to feel real privileged."

Tess
shrugged. "We were alone, and I needed to forget a nightmare I'd just had.
I guess he figured telling me would help."

"Well,
generally ole Hawk has to know you good before he'll open up to you. He's
basically a good man, believe it or not, but he's carryin' a lot of hurt and
anger inside because of things that happened to his ma and abuse he took as a
boy for lookin' so Indian."

They
both kept their voices to a near whisper. Tess was glad Ken was along. Unlike
John, he liked to talk, and she welcomed the conversation, as well as the
opportunity to learn more about John Hawkins. "How old is he?" she
asked.

"I
ain't sure. Thirty-one or-two, I think." Ken was not surprised she was
asking questions about Hawk. He was the kind of man who spurred questions from
a lot of people.

"Where
do Rangers live?" Tess asked, eager to talk about something that kept her
mind off herself. "I mean, you surely don't just ride all over the place
and never settle anywhere."

"Actually
we
do
travel most of the time. When we get a break we sometimes stay in
tent camps with other Rangers, and sometimes we just go to a town and stay in a
broth— well, we find a room for a couple of days."

Tess
rolled onto her back. "Like with Jenny Simms?"

He
grinned. "Sometimes. But not me. Just Hawk."

I'll
bet,
Tess
thought. "He thinks I should go there and stay at first. I can't do that.
It would look bad."

"Oh,
Jenny ain't so bad. She's really a pretty nice woman. It's just that folks
judge her without knowin' her. And listen, you can tell her anything, anything
at all that bothers you, and she'll talk to you about it. You remember that.
You might like her better than you think you would."

"I
will get a room and a job. Maybe I
could
teach reading. Maybe people
would pay me for that."

"It's
worth a try."

"What
will you and Mr. Hawkins do next?"

"Depends
what the captain has waitin' for us."

"Well,
I don't like the way I had to meet you, but I am glad to know both of you. I
don't exactly approve of some of your methods, but someone has to do something
about the lawlessness out here. Sometimes I wonder if things will ever be truly
civilized."

"It's
women like you who will do that. The women bring the preachers and the teachers
and the doctors and such. Basically most men ain't civilized at all."

Especially
the ones like John Hawkins.
Tess looked around, saw no sign of him.
"Do you think Mr. Hawkins is all right?"

Ken
snickered. "Sure he is. He's just bein' extra quiet. He could be anyplace.
He can sneak up on a bird. I seen him grab one once."

"Really?
He didn't hurt it, did he?"

"Hell
no. He let it go. Hawk only kills men, not animals."

Tess
rolled her eyes. "How kind of him."

Tess
stared at the shell of what had been her home the past three years. Everything
was gone, but she reminded herself that no fire could burn away memories. The
fire in Georgia hadn't taken them away, and neither could this one.

"You
want to get down?" Ken asked her. She sat in front of him on his horse,
and before she could answer John rode up beside them.

"There
are two wooden crosses and fresh graves behind the barn. The crosses have your
husband's and father's names on them." Without asking if it mattered, he
reached over and wrapped an arm around Tess, pulling her onto his own horse.
"I'll take you over."

Ken
looked at him in surprise, then grinned. That one simple gesture told him Tess
Carey meant something to John Hawkins. He knew this was a tough moment for her,
and he wanted to be with her. "Well, well, well," he muttered,
watching John ride off with Tess.

"Mr.
Randall could have brought me over here just as well," Tess told John.

"I
know. I just wanted to do it myself. Don't ask me why, because I don't
know." He stopped at the graves and dismounted, lifting her down. She
winced with the pain in her ankle, and he handed her a long piece of wood he
had torn away from the unburned parts of the barn. "Here. Use this to lean
on. Try to keep your weight off that ankle."

Their
gazes held for a moment, both realizing they would soon go their separate ways,
both unsure how to feel about it. "Thank you. I would like to be alone, if
you don't mind."

John
glanced at the graves, then took hold of his horse's reins and led it away.

Tess
stared at the graves, which had rocks piled on top of them. A crude cross
marked each one simply with a name. Abel Carey. Henry McDowell. It seemed it
should be normal to mourn a husband more than a father, but try as she might,
she could dig up little feeling for Abel. She had thought him so kind and good,
and truly he was. But she had discovered he was also very timid. She had ached
sometimes to have him make love to her, but often he had made excuses as to why
they could not make love. He had never given her the true spiritual, physical,
and mental support—and love—a woman craved.

It
almost startled her to realize that the one embrace John Hawkins had given her
in the wagon had been the first truly manly, genuine, compassionate embrace
she'd ever experienced. That was the hell of it. Ornery and vicious and
uncivilized as he was sometimes, let alone part Indian, John Hawkins was all
man, a real man. He feared nothing, challenged everything; and she suspected
that any woman he loved would never have to worry about being fulfilled as a
woman, or being protected from all harm.