Daughter of the Sword (11 page)

He spoke of the plums, nuts, sweet grapes, and mulberries, doubtless in an effort to assuage the disappointment of his gold-hungry sovereign. Spain never colonized Quivira but though she'd had to surrender her claim, first to Mexico, then to the United States, to the region north of the Rio Grande and her settlements in Texas, California, and that vast area in between, those lands were lost to the Indians as surely as was New England and the East Coast. Here on the plains in the heart of the country, proud Comanche, Kiowa, Cheyenne, and Sioux would challenge the white man for a little while, but they were few and scattered.

Thos said in a strained voice, “I guess you'd be glad, Sara, if all of us whites killed each other off!”

She turned on him in a swirl of yellow skirts. “How could I want you or your family dead? Or Johnny?”

“Whoa!” Johnny, too, rose and stretched, went over to tilt up Sara's flower face, gaze down at her in stern tenderness. “Listen, honey! Weren't the Shawnee driven from Ohio by the Iroquois and later from the Cumberland Valley by the Cherokee and Chickasaw? Did they pay you for the land or help you settle elsewhere?”

She gave him a mutinous stare, lovely and small in his gnarled brown hands. “If one must be robbed, better by one of the same color!”

“Maybe. But the Lakotah who now watch the Holy Road, the Overland Trail, and see thousands of wagons use up the game and grass and firewood, ruin the hunting and wintering grounds so that Nebraska comes from “Nablaska”—trampled flat—those Lakotah whipped Mandans and Arikara on the Missouri and got their lands, took the Black Hills from the Kiowa, fought Crow and Cheyenne for their hunting grounds. Red, white, yellow, or black, when human's
can
take, they generally do. Ain't right, ain't fair, ain't good, maybe. But it's so.”

Sara stood still beneath his touch, but resistance was clear in every line of her body. “Why do you say these things, Johnny? They're true, but this can't make me glad that the whites devour land like prairie fire.”

“Not glad,” Johnny said carefully. “Not ever glad. But not so bitter that your food's poisoned on your tongue and your soul withers. Then for sure would you be destroyed, little Sara. You can defeat the whites in this, not letting them ruin your joy in the sun.”

He let her go then and went out to the forge, flanked by Laddie and Maccabee. Dane followed. He had permission to draw and paint to his heart's content; in fact, to Deborah's chagrin, he'd made swift impressions of her and Thos as they dueled. Probably he'd show them to his highborn friends, who'd conclude that Americans were so barbarous that even their women fought!

Rolf lounged against the wall, dark green eyes as contemplative as a cat's, but Thos looked so miserable that Deborah caught his hand, closed it over Sara's, and gave them a shove.

“Isn't there enough war without you two starting one?” she demanded. “Go for a walk and don't come back till you've made friends with one another!”

“But the dishes—” protested Sara, hanging back.

“I'll do them. Just get along with you! We'll have to start home soon.”

Thos linked his arm with Sara's, drew her toward the door, shooting his twin a grateful look. Deborah, too late aware that she'd left herself alone with Rolf, attacked the delft soaking in the pan.

Why was it that his caressing gaze made a strange, half-sweet, half-frightening warmth tingle through her? Thanks to Dane's nursing of him, Deborah had seldom been alone with Rolf during the week he spent at the Whitlaws', and then, warned by his previous tricks, she'd kept out of reach, though his lifted eyebrows and aggravating smile said that he noticed her avoidance but could wait.

Now he strolled across the room and took the dish towel off a peg. “I don't have my full strength back, Miss Deborah, but I think I can wipe up for you.”

“Thanks.”

“What a stiff and starchy tone!” he chided. “Why so unkind, Miss Deborah? I vow I can feel your artillery swinging toward me the instant I approach!”

“You very well know why!”

“I was only trying to treat the bites you'd gotten from my hounds.”

“Indeed!” She clanged down a soapy kettle, giving it such a vigorous swish in the rinse water that he was well besprinkled. “I wasn't bitten on the mouth, sir!”

Why
had she blurted that out, let him know how well she remembered? He laughed softly, so close beside her that she moved away. “Have you no charity at all, my sweet, for a poor, bedeviled man? How wild you were in my arms! I dream of it still—your writhing that pressed you against me till I swear on any martyr's bones you please that only a statue could have kept from doing as I did!”

Made weak by his urgent voice recreating that afternoon, Deborah swallowed hard and grimly told herself this must be how he'd laid successful siege to many women. If he thought it'd work with her, he was due for a surprise.

“Mr. Hunter,” she said icily, “while you were an invalid, I could understand, if not appreciate, your attempts to … to inject a bit of interest into your monotonous days. But now you're in town, able to fare about and seek diversion. Seek it elsewhere!”

“You're not forbidding me your house?”

“Not so long as you behave yourself.”

He worked silently a moment. “How can I convince you that I'm not just seeking ‘diversion'?”

“Respectful behavior would be a start.”

“That's so dull,” he said with such scapegrace mournfulness that she had to force back a smile. “What if I proposed to you?”

“Your proposals could earn you a knife in the ribs! Johnny's making one especially for me that I'll carry when I leave the house.” She gave her head an emphatic nod. “Next time you or your dogs come at me, Mr. Hunter, you'd best beware!”

He chuckled. “Don't I already go in awe and dread of you, Artemis?”

“I'm not a huntress. If you'll remember, that was precisely the reason of our first … difference of opinion.”

“Prim prunes and petunias! Is that what you call it—you in my arms, soft hair in my eyes, your blood on my mouth as I found yours? Difference of opinion? Deborah—”

He shook with laughter, winced as his shoulder pained him, sobered abruptly as she turned her back on him, close to mortified tears, as she wiped out the big cast-iron skillet.

“The kind of proposal I had in mind is made from bended knee,” he said. “But I don't want to get into that absurd posture, Deborah unless you give me some encouragement.”

Astounded, she whirled on him. “Your words are more absurd than any posture, sir!”

“I must agree with you.” Dane stood in the doorway. His tone had a lash-like sting. “I'm glad, Miss Whitlaw, that you put no credence in my brother's impetuous statements. If he married without Father's approval, I doubt that either he or his bride would have much joy of it.”

“That's an insulting remark!” Deborah flamed. “If my feelings for your brother, sir, were such that I'd marry him, then I do assure you that a cut-off of your father's money wouldn't matter a bit!”

“Perhaps not to you,” said Dane, unruffled. “But it would to Rolf.”

“Now plague take you, Dane. I—”

“Seem to be running a fever which has impaired your judgment.” Dane turned from his brother. “I came to tell your Miss Whitlaw, that Mr. Chaudoin says your knife is ready. Rolf, we should be starting for town.”

“Go when you're ready, and so will I.” Rolf set his back to Dane, but the gesture was lost. Dane was already disappearing. “Absurd or no, Deborah, I'll ask my question another time.” Rolf dried the last pan and hung up the towel, good humor returning. “How will you carry your Bowie, love? In a sheath at your belt? Around your neck on a thong, strapped above your knee?” Sunlight made his eyes like green glass. “To glimpse its hiding place would be worth a stabbing!”

“You may get one if you keep on like that,” Deborah retorted, but she was too excited about finally having her own knife to be really annoyed. She hung up the dishpan and hurried out to the forge.

Maccabee was shaping what looked to be a hinge, and Johnny sat on a stump, whittling away at a block of wood with a Bowie Deborah thought to be her own.

“Oh, you'll blunt it!” she cried.

“That's what I'm trying to do.”

“But, Johnny—”

“My gal, if Black couldn't whittle on hickory for an hour and still shave the hair off his arm, he wouldn't sell the knife. I've whittled the hour, so now let's see.”

Lifting his brawny arm, he smoothed the gleaming blade along it, leaving a bare swath beside an earlier testing patch.

“So here you are.”

Rising, Johnny twanged the tip of the knife with his thumb. It gave out a bell-like crystalline sound. While it was still singing, Johnny put it into her hands.

Sun dazzled off the ten-inch-long blade, razor-honed on both sides of the last two inches, where the tip curved wickedly. The broad back of the blade had a brass guard for parrying. The crossguard at the hilt was almost three inches long.

From the curve, beginning as roots and following the back of the blade, where it tendriled into leaves and fruit at the hilt, was worked a grapevine of gold and silver, a pattern repeated in the seasoned black walnut handle through which the shank of the blade ran, ending in a knob.

It was a rare knife, beautiful, awesome—terrible because of the purpose for which it was so perfectly crafted.

“I—I can't take it, Johnny!” Deborah held it out to him. “The gold and silver, all the work! You could get a hundred dollars for it!”

“I made it for you and you alone,” said Johnny. “It's a lady's Bowie, if there can be such a thing, shorter and lighter than most, but tempered to last through fire, flood, and battle.”

A chill prickled the nape of her neck, then traveled down her spine. While she and Thos had practiced, using the Bowies had been a game, a test of skill. Holding this knife, her own, forged especially, made her realize that accepting it ended the game. If she took the blade, she might die by it. She might have to kill.

Could she do that?

Then she remembered the night the Missourians came. How glad she would have been of this knife! And she knew she would have used it, if forced, to defend herself and her family. The runaway Judith hadn't been there that night, but those like her had been sheltered at the Whitlaws' before and surely would be again.

With a sighing breath, Deborah closed her fingers around the grip. “Thank you, Johnny.”

“He should really tap you on the shoulder with it and say, ‘Be thou a good knight!'” Rolf's voice held light-hearted mockery, but his gaze rested avidly on the blade. “Isn't Thos to have one of these?”

Thos, who'd been standing by Sara, pulled a buckhorn-handled, longer, larger knife out of a brass-tipped sheath. “Mine's different. Fourteen inches long, wider, and broader. We hope Deborah never has to use hers, but I'm bound to use mine.”

Rolf whistled. “May I see it?”

Once it was in his hand, he hefted it, admired the blade, then tested it on the fine golden hairs of one knuckle. “What a weapon!”

“It is,” said Johnny. “When Jim Bowie got back to Texas after collecting the great-granddaddy of this knife from James Black, three men who'd been hired to kill jumped on him from out of the brush. Bowie leaned over his horse's neck and with one swoop took off the head of the one who'd grabbed his bridle. Meanwhile, Bowie got stabbed in the leg, but he swung out of the saddle, cut upward, and spilled the guts of the man who'd knifed him.” Johnny chuckled. “The third figured to make tracks, but Bowie caught up with him and split his skull right into his shoulders. In 1830 that was, and after that nearly everyone who came to Black for a knife wanted one like Bowie's.”

“I want one of this size and weight with a design of gold,” said Rolf. “When could you have it done?”

“Wagons'll be rolling west for the next month or so,” said Johnny. “They have to make it across the mountains before the passes snow up. So I'll be shoeing oxen and fixin' wheels and yokes. Can't take on any special jobs.”

“I'll pay whatever you ask, half in advance.”

“Cain't do it. Sorry.”

Johnny sounded not at all sorry, nor was he all that dedicated to speeding westward travelers smoothly on their way. When broken-down wagons had camped near the forge for days or a week while Johnny made or fixed whatever was broken, or shod uncooperative oxen, a job he loathed, Deborah had heard him tell complaining travelers that if they didn't like his gait, they could learn smithing themselves.

A frown drew Rolf's tawny eyebrows together. “You'll surely make more from my knife than from weeks of regular work!”

“Ain't the point. I'm a smith. Folks count on me to make a new kingpin or axle or shoe their horses and oxen. This time of summer, I have to tend to necessaries.”

Rolf flushed and swallowed. He clearly wasn't used to pleading with craftsmen to accept his custom. “Mr. Chaudoin, I'm willing to wait till you have the time.”

Johnny didn't answer. “Well?” pressed Rolf.

“Won't be no time,” said Johnny.

With an outraged gasp, Rolf tightened his grasp on the knife. “You're saying you won't make me a knife, any time at any price.”

“That's the size of it.” Johnny looked relieved. Subtlety wasn't his forte, but he clearly hadn't wanted to offend the Whitlaws' friend with a straight refusal.

“May I ask why?” Rolf's eyes had gone near black and his tone was silky.

Johnny considered, massive head to one side. “I'll shoe your horse or fix your buggy, make you a stirrup or mend your saddle. But I don't make knives for everybody.”

Showing his teeth in an unpleasant smile, Rolf said, “Yet you made one for a woman.”