Dorothy Garlock - [Wabash River] (42 page)

Sometimes it was necessary to be cruel in order to sweep away doubts and distrust.

He turned the horse and they rode toward the clump of cottonwoods on the rise. John knew that his wife was worried. He wanted to hold her, to hug and kiss her, and to tell her that even if Kyle Forsythe was Kirby Hyde they would find a way to be together.

The thought had come to John today that he could kill the captain and then their troubles would be over. But it had been only a thought, quickly dismissed. He couldn’t deliberately kill the father of Addie’s son.

John put Victor into an easy lope, anxious to get this confrontation over. Addie’s cheek was pressed to his shoulder. Her long honey-colored braid hung down over his arm.

“When we get home, I’ll pick out a gentle mare for you and we’ll ride up into the mountains. It’s beautiful this time of day.”

“I have things to tell you.”

“I know, sweetheart. We’re almost there.”

John stopped his horse in the shade. He sat looking down at Addie, then lifted her chin with his fingers. He looked into the violet eyes that had fascinated him since that first day at the store. He lowered his head and placed his lips against hers. The kiss was long and deep and satisfying. As he looked into her eyes, they began to mist.

“I had to do that,” he said huskily, and smoothed an errant strand of hair over her ear. “I missed you last night.”

“I missed you—”

John lifted her down and dismounted. He saw a horseman leave the Van Winkle camp and head their way. Knowing he didn’t have much time, he grasped her shoulders and looked down into her face.

“Addie, love, believe this—I want you and the children with me regardless of whether our marriage is legal. You
are
my wife in my heart. Nothing will take you from me. Captain Forsythe is coming. We’re going to get everything out in the open before we leave here, if I have to beat it out of him.”

She hung her head. “Then . . . what?”

“Then we’re going home to New Mexico.”

The captain stepped from his horse and carefully tied the reins low on a bush so that the animal could easily crop the grass. During that small space of time Addie’s fighting spirit took over. She moved a step away from John. This was something she had to do alone. Anger at the carefully groomed Yankee captain swept over her. It stiffened her back and heightened her resolve to make him admit who he really was so that they could decide what to do about it.

“Hello, Kirby,” Addie said as he turned toward them.

“Ma’am, my name is Kyle Forsythe.”

“Very well, I’ll call you that. Kyle, how did you know my name is Addie
Faye?
”

“I don’t know that.”

“You called me Addie
Faye
yesterday. You said that if I ruined things for you, I’d be sorry.”

“I said no such thing, Mrs. Tallman.”

“Wait a minute. Shall I hit you first for threatening my wife or for calling her a liar?” John asked.

“I’m saying she’s mistaken.” The captain’s face turned a dull red and he began to sweat.

“I am not mistaken, Kirby . . . ah, Kyle. I want nothing from you except for you to admit who you are.”

“I’ve told you.” He turned his back, folded his arms across his chest, and looked toward the camps.

“Kirby, did it not mean anything to you to see your son, that precious little boy who thought you looked so grand in a captain’s uniform?”

No answer.

“That little boy means the world to me. I can’t even hate you for leaving me to fend for myself that long, cold winter, because you gave him to me. My baby and I would have died if not for a young girl who was so skinny a wind could have blown her away. She worked her fingers to the bone taking care of us.”

No reply.

“I wasn’t heartbroken when you didn’t come home from the war. I was dreading it. I knew the kind of man you were even before you left me. But still, I didn’t want you dead.”

He leaned against his horse and remained silent.

“I can prove you are Kirby Hyde.” He whirled to look at her. “You’ve got a mole on your chin under that goatee.”

His only response was to pound a clenched fist on his saddle.

“You can always shave and prove you’re not Kirby Hyde,” John interjected.

Kyle’s control snapped. His handsome face became etched with lines of anger and frustration.

“What the hell do you want from me?”

“I think it’s obvious. If you’re Kirby Hyde, you owe Addie an explanation.”

“All right!” he shouted. “I’ve gone by the name of Kirby Hyde, Kent Wood, and several others. But my real name is Kyle Forsythe.”

Addie leaned back against John and closed her eyes. He put his arms around her waist and held her close.

“You’ve got about a minute to start talking, Forsythe, or I’ll start taking strips of your hide and hanging them on that bush.”

“You could probably do it,” Kyle said, sneering. “I learned how to sweet-talk the ladies, but I never learned to fight dirty.
Gentlemen
don’t indulge in the sport.”

“What brought you to my farm, Kirby?” Addie’s voice was calm and quiet. “Why in the world would you play such a cruel game with another person’s life?”

“Hell!” His cold blue eyes fastened on Addie. “You’ve always been poor, so you wouldn’t know what it’s like to be a rich aristocrat one day and a poor one the next.”

“No, I wouldn’t know that.”

“I got an education because I was a Forsythe, which came in handy when I applied for a commission. Along with the education, I got lectures from everyone even remotely related to the Forsythes on how a
gentleman
should behave. Lectures and handouts are the story of my life.”

John gave a derisive snort.

Kyle’s eyes fastened on him. “You think I’m not worth much, but I’ve done pretty well for myself considering my circumstances.

“My mother never got her hands dirty in her life. My sister cried if she had to wear the same ballgown twice. I was pushed into marriage with a horse-faced, nagging bitch so that they could keep up appearances.”

“You married her before you married me?”

“Yes. She’s dead, thank God. She made my life hell!”

The hatred on his face made Addie’s heart throb under her ribs in a strange and urgent way. Unconsciously, she reached for John’s hand.

“Everything about you was a lie, wasn’t it, Kirby? You never joined the Arkansas Regulars.”

“Hell no! I suppose you’ll not be satisfied until you hear all the wretched details of my life.”

“That’s what we’re here for.” John held Addie protectively to him, her back against his chest.

The captain couldn’t seem to stand still. He walked up and down, never looking at them. A few times while he was talking he pounded his fist into his palm, or let out a derisive, snorting laugh.

“A few months before the war broke out, I was forced to leave Vandalia until a stink I had created died down.” He didn’t seem in the least embarrassed to admit this. “I’d already applied for a commission and decided to
visit
an uncle down in Jonesboro while I waited for it to come through. My uncle had gotten hard-nosed since I’d seen him last and insisted that I work for my keep. Hell, I hadn’t been brought up to lift flour barrels, cotton bales, and syrup buckets. But I did it, and did a damn good job, too.”

He looked at Addie over the back of his horse.

“I never had any trouble getting a woman. The only trouble I ever had was getting away from them. I couldn’t help it if a silly town girl lifted her skirts the first time I crooked my finger. She got the crazy notion that I should marry her because I’d fucked her.”

Addie closed her eyes against the crude word.

“I left Jonesboro in the middle of the night. The next morning I caught a ride on a haywagon with a darkie. I’d been in Freepoint only a day when I heard about the woman living all alone on a farm a few miles from town.

“The farm was a good place to spend some time, Addie Faye. Seducing you was as easy as falling off a log.” Kyle felt he was damned anyway and held nothing back. He watched Addie’s face as he said the cruel words. She showed no emotion at all.

He shrugged.

“In order to stay at the farm until the way was clear for me to go back to Vandalia and pick up my commission, I let you drag me to that hill preacher and go through a wedding ceremony.”

“You really are rotten, Kirby,” Addie said.

“I admit that. A man in my circumstances does what he has to do to get along. I racked my brain trying to think of a way to get away without your raising a fuss. Usually, if I wait long enough, the cards fall my way. I heard about the Arkansas Regulars from old Cash at the store. It was a way to get out of a miserable situation. I ‘joined’ the day I got the letter from my sister telling me that I was no longer being sought by the brothers of the
lady
I was supposed to have violated. The
lady
had run off to Saint Louis with a married drummer, and the brothers had been forced to face the fact that their sister was no lady.

“I left Freepoint, made my way to Illinois, picked up my commission, and got myself a soft job that lasted throughout the war.”

“You’re a real hero,” John said dryly.

“At least I’m not dead.” Kyle laughed. His face was flushed. He sincerely believed that he had blown his chance with Cindy, so he threw caution to the wind.

“I met Cindy Read six months before the war ended. She’s everything I ever dreamed a wife could be: rich
and
beautiful. She’s connected in the right places, too. A perfect wife for an ambitious army man.

“Occasionally I do something very stupid. I stopped by Jonesboro on my way out to Fort Smith to meet Van Winkle and Cindy. Uncle Kirby enjoyed giving me the letter from Addie.”

“ ‘Uncle Kirby’?”

“Another stupid mistake. When I got to the farm, Kirby Hyde was the first name that came to mind.”

“It meant nothing to you that you had fathered a son?” Addie asked in as cool and steady a voice as she could manage.

“Frankly, no. I’ve scattered seed around, as have most men.”

Now Addie’s control snapped. She took the two steps necessary to reach him. Her hand flashed up and she struck him a resounding slap across the face. She was as stunned by her action as the man in front of her and the one behind her. It was something she had never done before and had never expected to do.

Kyle stood motionless. “Do you feel better for that?” When she didn’t answer, he said: “I seem to bring out traits in women they don’t even know they have.”

“You were at the crossroads the night I killed the Reb.” John reached for Addie and pulled her back away from the captain.

“Yeah. When you asked for someone to put a name on him, the opportunity fell right into my lap. A way to put Kirby Hyde to rest. I took the letter out of my pocket and gave it to you.”

John’s eyes narrowed as he studied Kyle’s face.

“You’re different from that man.”

“The mustache and goatee do wonders.” He fingered the short beard on his chin. “I recognized you the night we met in the hotel in Van Buren. Same hat, same clothes, same long black hair. When I saw you again the next morning, Addie was with you.” He laughed. The sound was short and dry. “I thought, well, Kyle, if you get out of this one, you should get a medal. You know, Addie, it wasn’t flattering to find out that my
widow
hadn’t grieved for me very long.”

Addie felt choked with bitterness. She allowed her lips to form a contemptuous sneer, then realized the futility of the gesture, for it was completely lost on this self-serving man.

Behind her, John took her shoulders and moved her aside. Before she or Kyle knew what he planned to do, his fist slammed into Kyle’s face. The blow sent him staggering backward, then he fell heavily to the ground. He lay there fingering his split lip.

“What was that for?”

“For deserting a little boy—one of the ‘seeds’ you so carelessly spread around.”

Kyle got to his feet, pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, and dabbed at his lip. The instant he returned the cloth to his pocket, John’s rock-hard fist slammed into his face again. The blow rocked Kyle’s head back and knocked him to the ground. Blood spurted from his nose. He lay there holding the cloth to his face.

“Goddammit! Are you going to keep this up?”

“I don’t have enough time to give you what you deserve. It’ll be dark soon. But that was for the Reb lying in a grave near Jonesboro. His folks will never know what happened to him.”

“He was trying to kill you, for chrissake.”

“He was human. Some take life. Others, like you, take a person’s self-respect.”

“Hell, I haven’t killed anybody.”

“John.” Addie put her hand on his arm. “Hurting him won’t help. I can’t believe I’m married to such a sorry piece of trash.”

Kyle got to his feet, keeping a wary eye on John.

“I’m not married to you! Do you think I’d tie myself to a farm woman who doesn’t know a napkin ring from a mule’s ass?”

Addie held John’s arm to keep him from lashing out. Her heart was beating wildly. Unconsciously, she raised her hand to press against it.

“What do you mean? You said your wife died.”

“She did. She killed herself the day I returned to Vandalia. She thought I’d come back to her. I was married to the bitch when I married you.”

“Oh . . .” Relief so acute that it was painful washed through her. “Oh,” she said again, and yielded to the arms that came from behind her and pulled her back against a hard, warm chest.

Obviously unconcerned with her feelings, Kyle had taken a canteen from his saddle and wet the cloth he was using to wipe the blood from his face.

“I suppose your revenge will be to go to Judge Van Winkle and ruin things for me there.” Kyle scrubbed at the blood on his coat.

It was John who answered him. “No, we won’t do that. I think you and the judge deserve each other. I do feel somewhat sorry for his niece, though.”

Kyle’s laugh was a snort. “Don’t. Cindy can take care of herself. She’s got the instincts of a barracuda.”

Addie turned questioning eyes up at John. “A man-eating fish,” he explained.

Addie turned back to Kyle and wondered how she could ever have been so blind as to believe he had a sincere bone in his body.