Deborah Camp (30 page)

Blade sat at the kitchen table. “I should never have told the judge about the train.”

“What?” She looked at him, and the glow of the lamp gave her face an ethereal quality.

“I told the judge about the orphan train. I never thought he’d ask for a child, too. He encouraged me to go ahead and adopt, said he’d loan me the money.”

“All he wanted was your land, Blade, and to keep his foot on your neck. I know his kind. He’s a lot like my grandparents. They must control. They must be obeyed. I think it bothers Judge Mott that you have land and that you married two white women.”

Blade grinned. “He thinks I’m less than human and should be on a reservation.”

“He won’t rest until he has you on your knees.”

“Never.” Blade set his jaw. Did she think he would kneel before any man?

She stood up and moved like a sleepwalker to the door. Opening it, she gazed outside. A breeze scampered in, ruffling her skirt and hair.

“I was so happy today at the bake sale.”

He studied her, unable to follow her quicksilver moods.

“The people were nice to me. They thought it was clever of us to spike the cakes with home brew. They called me Mrs. Lonewolf, and for a while I thought I could fit in here and make a happy life for myself.”

“I saw the happiness in your face and I heard it in your laugh.” He stood and moved close enough to drag a fingertip across the back yoke of her dress. “It gave me hope.”

“But are we foolish to hope? I hate Julia for talking you into putting your family’s land in jeopardy.”

“It was my decision, too,” he reminded her. “Julia never made me do anything I didn’t want to do.”

“So here we are, hanging on by a thread.”

Her voice quivered and he realized she was close to tears. He curved a hand over the top of her shoulder, but she shrugged it off.

“I’ve grown accustomed to this place,” she confessed, then tried to laugh, but couldn’t quite do it. “Maybe I’ve always been a farm wife at heart. I’ll miss it.”

He bit back a curse. “What are you saying? I haven’t lost this place!”

“But you will, don’t you see?” She turned to face him and tears striped her cheeks. “Adam can’t stay at the judge’s. That’s asking too much of a young boy. The judge has everyone jumping when he snaps his fingers, except for you. Once he has your land, he’ll have you.”

“I will burn this cabin to the ground and leave. He will never own me.”

“Oh, Blade.” She choked back a sob. “He already
does. He owns me, too, in a way. Neither one of us would be asking my brother to stay with him if that weren’t true.” Her eyes swam with tears. “I’m so ashamed. I should never have sent Adam back to that demon!”

Blade reached for her, but she sidestepped him. “Elise, please—”

“No, I can’t. I feel terrible for being happy here while Adam is so miserable. I’m going to bed.”

She went into the bedroom. Blade extinquished the lamps and followed her. Undressing by the window, she turned her back to him while removing her chemise. Moonlight painted her shoulders silver and brought out the fire in her hair. She reached for the nightgown she’d draped at the foot of the bed, but Blade snatched it out of her reach and held it away from her.

“Blade, please …” She covered her bare breasts with one arm and twisted around so that her lower body was curtained in shadow. “Not tonight. I have a headache and I’m not in the mood. I told you—”

He pitched the nightgown aside and took her in his arms. She was resistant at first, but gradually her lips relaxed beneath his and her hands moved gently over his shoulders. He looked into the deep blue pools of her eyes.

“Don’t push me away, Elise. I have done nothing wrong.”

“I know.” She framed his face in her cool hands. “I should be eternally grateful to you, but I—”

“It isn’t your gratitude I want,” he interrupted. “I have never wanted that.”

She lowered her lashes. “What will become of us, Blade? What will we do when we have to leave this place?”

“It might not come to that.”

Her hands slipped down his face to rest on his shoulders. She delivered a glance that chided. “And how will you come up with the money in time? Will you borrow from Peter to pay Paul?”

“I will borrow no more. I’ve learned my lesson. Perhaps the judge will extend the time period.”

“Ah, yes. And perhaps pigs will fly.” She made a joshing sound and eased away from him to retrieve her nightgown. He frowned when she slipped it on before climbing into bed and burrowing under the top sheet.

“I haven’t talked to the judge and neither have you. He might be willing.” Even as Blade said it, he knew the improbability of such an act of generosity from the judge. He sat on the side of the bed to remove his boots and socks.

As Blade undressed, he pondered her question. What would happen to them? How could he make a living for a family without land to farm?

“We could go back to the reservation,” he said, mostly to himself.

“Would that be a good life for Adam and Penny?”

He shook his head and lay down beside her, not touching her, feeling as if a mile separated them instead of inches. “They wouldn’t like it there. You have no family to take you in while I look for other means to support us?”

“No.” She turned onto her side, her back to him. “I won’t go begging to my grandparents, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”

He glared at the back of her head. “I wasn’t,” he assured her. “I’m only trying to answer your question about what will happen if I lose the land. Without it, I can’t make a living. Not for a while,
anyway. I’d have to find work somewhere—on a ranch or a farm. Even then I probably wouldn’t make enough to support a family.”

“I could find work, too.”

He scowled into the darkness above him. “No.”

“No?” She twisted around to face him. “And why not?”

“You’re my wife. Your place is in the home.”

“What home? If we lose this land, any work we find will be a blessing. What’s important is keeping the family together.” She didn’t speak for a moment before adding, “That
is
important to you, isn’t it, Blade?”

He frowned at her, resenting the question. “Yes, of course. I want to earn the living, though. I don’t need a woman to work and pay my way.”

She flopped onto her back. “I will work if that’s what it takes to keep Penny and Adam with me. If I could have found a good job in the short amount of time they gave me back in Baltimore, I wouldn’t be in this spot now. I would be working and making a living for them myself.” Resentment colored her voice. “But the Society wouldn’t give me time to find decent employment. I’m sure I could hire on somewhere as a cook or a nanny or even a sales clerk.”

He told himself he shouldn’t be so touchy, but her comments rankled. She talked as if Penny and Adam were her only family and he was nothing to her. She also sounded as if she had no faith in his finding work and providing for them. She stared at the ceiling, worry pinching lines along her brow and at the corners of her eyes and mouth.

“You forget that Penny is mine to provide for now. And Adam is the judge’s.”

She whipped her gaze to his. “But they’re my flesh and blood!”

“You aren’t my flesh and blood, but you’re my wife. I am responsible for your welfare, too. You let me worry about providing a living—
if
this land is taken from me.”

“Oh, Blade, don’t wear a blindfold. You know the judge will take this land if you don’t pay him.”

“I know that only Usen can shape the future.”

She looked at him. “Who?”

“Usen, the Giver of Life. The Apache’s great spirit. Anything could happen in the next few weeks. The judge might fall ill by chance. Perhaps a snake or a coyote will cross his path and bring him bad luck.”

“You don’t really believe in that stuff, do you? Sounds like witchcraft to me.”

He propped his head in one hand to face her. “Do you believe in people being turned into pillars of salt, in burning bushes that talk, in seas that divide so they may be crossed?”

She had the grace to blush. “Usen, you say?”

He smiled. “That’s right. Anything could happen. The judge could even die.”

Her eyes widened and she clutched his arm. “Blade, you wouldn’t!”

“No, but it could happen,” he insisted. “Only a fool plans each day before the dawn breaks.”

“But we
must
plan, or we’ll be forced out with nowhere to go.”

“Maybe, or maybe we’ll remain here.” He trailed a finger down her cheek, which felt cool and satiny soft. “Who could have predicted that I would find a wife on that train? Who could have known, other than Usen or your God, that I would be lying next to her and wanting her so much that it takes all my
strength not to force my will on her?” He captured one of her hands and guided it beneath the sheets to his straining, burning, rock-hard flesh. Her fingers shied away, then returned to close around him.

“Ah, yes!” he hissed between clenched teeth. He rocked his hips to create a delicious friction. He kissed her, his lips plucking at her, striving for an answering display of mindless desire.

Elise kissed him back, but her usual fire was lacking. Blade tried to stoke her banked embers by fondling her breasts, raining kisses over her face and lips, nuzzling the sensitive patch of skin behind her ear. She responded, but only that.

He pulled away, frustration writhing in his belly. For an instant their gazes met, and he saw acquiescence in hers. With a muttered oath, he moved on top of her and entered her. She opened her thighs, taking him in, and matched his rhythm, but she never shuddered beneath him, never sighed his name like a prayer. He released his seed into her, his own burst of pleasure too brief. He felt cheated and incomplete.

When it was over, he kissed her lips softly. “What can I do to make you happy, Elise?”

“Nothing.” She shook her head and turned onto her side. “I’m tired, Blade. Good night.”

He lay in the darkness, bereft, burdened. She shifted onto her stomach and rested her hand near his head. He glanced at her hand. It was bare, with no ring to show that she was married. Did she not feel married to him? Was she thinking of taking Adam and Penny and leaving him? Where would she go? Baltimore?

She said they had no relatives there who would help them, but he knew she had friends there. That
woman she’d written to, he thought. Donetta? They seemed very close. Almost like sisters.

The thoughts bedeviled him, denying him peace or sleep. He couldn’t let Elise go. Looking out the window, he stared at the spangled sky and knew he’d have to confront the judge again. He had nothing to bargain with—except for the boy.

The judge was having trouble with Adam. If Blade could strike a deal With him—more time in exchange for teaching Adam about farming, maybe even farming some of the judge’s land with the boy—then that would serve them both well.

It was a long shot, but it was all he had. If he lost the land, he was afraid he might lose everything—namely, Elise. If tonight was a sign, she was already pulling away from him … and he knew that life without her would be no life at all. After Julia died, he had been lonely. He’d missed her company.

But Elise had shown him a life he’d only dreamed about. If the dream died, then he’d want to die with it.

He, Lonewolf, couldn’t bear to be alone again.

B
lade hoed between the rows of his planted cotton, his mind worrying with his plan like a tongue worries with a painful tooth. He leaned on the hoe and uncorked his canteen. As he drank deeply, he thought of the boy.

Earlier, Elise had taken Penny to school, only to return with a frown marring her delicate features because Adam hadn’t been there again. Blade mopped his face and neck with a handkerchief and stared at the horizon, picturing Adam toiling in the fields. If the boy was being mistreated, as Elise suspected, he’d have to take him from the judge. No compromise. No deals struck. Such an act would seal his fate—and everyone else’s.

He dropped the hoe and walked to the road. He’d get no work done as long as this cloud hung over his head. Cupping his hands around his mouth, he whistled shrilly. Scanning the area, he listened, then whistled again. He felt the ground tremble beneath his feet and he turned in a circle until he saw Bob coming at him hard from the north. The thunder of Bob’s hooves reached his ears. Probably been out by the stocked pond, he
thought. Out there in the deep shade, just a step from a cool drink.

The pinto stopped a ways from him and reared, showing off. He pricked his ears forward, waiting for a word.

“Come here, son.” Blade held out a hand. The stallion pawed the earth. “Now, don’t go messing up my fields. Come here and behave yourself. I need a ride.”

The horse high-stepped nearer, nostrils flared, tossing his head. Blade laughed as he grabbed a handful of the thick mane. He gave a hop and slid onto the horse’s back. Bob pranced and snorted, waiting for Blade’s next move after he’d gained a comfortable seat.

“Let’s go.” Blade tapped his heels against Bob’s sides, and the pinto responded with a canter. Giving a tug on Bob’s mane, Blade directed him toward Mott’s land.

The sun was already hot, although it was only nine in the morning. Nearby, a mockingbird imitated a cardinal, a whippoorwill, a sparrow and a crow with rapid expertise. Blade looked at his land with eyes that paid close attention to detail. It was good bottom land, well known for its richness and deep top soil.

When he’d first seen it as a young boy, it was being farmed by his mother’s uncle, who had been wounded in the war and was having a hard time making the farm pay for itself. Blade’s father was dead and his mother was trying to find a place of her own again. She and Blade spent six months on the farm helping the uncle, who had shown Blade the satisfaction of field work. He and his mother had journeyed on, back to her parents’ home, but Blade had never forgotten the farm.

He’d talked to his mother about the peace that had come over him when he’d worked under the sun and put things in the soil, joining partners with nature. She had understood and had drawn up a will, leaving the farm to him. When word had come of his uncle’s illness, she’d sent Blade to stake his claim.