Heartbreak Creek (26 page)

In the back of her mind, Edwina could still hear Pru’s screams and her mother’s shouts of fury. She could still feel the damp grit cutting into her palms and knees as she’d crawled across the wet floor toward her sister even as the blows had rained down on her back and head.

Mentally jerking her mind back from those horrid memories, she tried to keep her voice even. “Pru, it doesn’t matter. You’re a beautiful—”

Pru whirled on her, that beauty contorted into a snarling mask. “Of course it matters! It’s always mattered! Every time I look in the mirror, it matters!”

“Pru, please . . . don’t do this.”
To yourself. To Thomas. To me.
Edwina felt like she was suffocating under the guilt of what she’d caused.

“Do what? Face the truth?” Pru swept a hand down her robed chest. “That no man could look at this and not be repulsed?”

“You’re being unfair.”

“Unfair!” Lifting her face to the ceiling, Pru laughed bitterly. “And what do you know about fair and unfair? You, who have everything.”

Edwina flinched at her sister’s words. Then indignation overcame shock. “Everything, Pru?” She marched toward her sister, chin jutting, hands fisted at her sides. “A mother who beat me? A father who allowed it? Two brothers dead before their time, and a husband who could hardly bear to touch me? Is that the
everything
you mean?”

“You have white skin. In this world that
is
everything.”

“Good Lord! Is that what this is about? The color of my skin?”

“Yes. No.” With a choked sound, Pru dropped her face into her hands. “I don’t know.”

Edwina’s anger faded into confusion. What was really going on?

Thoroughly at a loss and not sure what else to do, she reached out and rested her hand on Pru’s shoulder. “Pru?”

Beneath her palm, she felt the hitch in her sister’s breathing and knew she was crying, and that scared her. Pru almost never cried. “What’s wrong?”

The answer was a long time in coming. And when Pru finally spoke, there was a tone of hopelessness in her voice that Edwina had never heard before. “I just wanted . . . I hoped they wouldn’t matter.”

They?
“You mean your scars? You think your scars will make a difference to Thomas?”

“They make a difference to me. Because of Thomas.”

Edwina pulled her hand from her sister’s shoulder, shocked that Pru would have these doubts, much less voice them. Her beautiful, brilliant, capable sister had always seemed impervious to the little insecurities and worries that plagued Edwina. Another illusion shattered.

With a sniffle, Pru dabbed at her eyes with the cuff of her robe. “I know. I’m being silly.”

“Not at all.” Edwina understood now why her sister was upset. She had fears about her own scars, which were minor in comparison to Pru’s. “Have you seen Thomas’s chest?”

“Of course not. Have you?”

“No, but he’s a Cheyenne Dog Soldier, isn’t he? Surely he participated in that Indian sun dance ceremony.” Edwina shuddered, just thinking about it . . . piercing their chests with sticks attached by leather strips to a pole, then hanging there until the weight of their own bodies ripped their flesh free. She’d read it could take days. “The scarring would be immense, I’d think. So why would he be repulsed by yours?”

“They repulse me. Why not him?” Pru fussed with her robe and retied the sash. “Just the thought of him seeing . . . I couldn’t bear it.”

Ah . . . vanity.
Edwina understood it well, having suffered her fair share of that vice and all the fears that came along with it. How gratifying to know that her perfect sister had her worries, too. “I know what you mean,” she murmured in sympathy. “I was worried about my flat bosom, too. But when I asked Declan about it, he said it didn’t matter.”

Pru looked up. “You discussed your bosom with Mr. Brodie?”

“Of course I did. If it was going to upset him that they weren’t pointy, I needed to know before we . . . you know.”

Pru clapped a hand over her mouth.

“Oh, don’t be a prude.” Waving an airy hand, Edwina walked back to the bed and the valise waiting on top of it. “Just talk to Thomas. I think you’ll find the scars will make no difference to him whatsoever.”

Pru took her hand away. But her eyes still showed her shock. “Mercy. I could never be so bold.”

Footsteps sounded in the hall. Heavy footsteps, from a big man.

Edwina picked up her valise. She studied her sister. “You’re right. He’s probably not worth it.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“No? Then you admit he is worth it?”

“I didn’t say that, either.”

Edwina reached the door just as a knock sounded. “Good-bye, Pru. I’ll see you in a few days.” She turned the knob, then paused to send her sister a teasing grin. “And hopefully when I return we’ll both have news to share.”

They traveled fast, everyone on horseback except for Edwina and Amos, who rode in the wagon. Unloaded, the ill-sprung buckboard bounced over the rocky road, and Edwina had to grip the arm rail tightly to maintain her balance. Hopefully on the way back it would ride easier, loaded down with items salvaged from the ransacked ranch house. If not, she was determined to ride horseback, rather than spend another day tossed about in this bone-jarring conveyance.

When they crossed Satan’s Backbone, the sun hung high overhead and as soon as they cleared the trees and rolled into the home valley, the sickly sweet stench of putrefying flesh rose on the warming air. Edwina swallowed hard and pressed a handkerchief to her nose and mouth, but it didn’t help much. Except for dark-winged shadows circling in the sky, the ranch buildings stood stark and lifeless on the horizon . . . until they drew closer. Then as they approached, more shadows flew up from the bloated, half-eaten carcasses of arrow-riddled cattle, and gore-spattered coyotes slinked into the brush.

Declan rode on ahead of the soldiers, his expression grim.

Suddenly dizzy, Edwina closed her eyes as her mind spun back to the night the Yankees came through Rose Hill, leaving death in their wake.

Gunshots, screams. Black, greasy smoke coating her throat, burning in her eyes. Mama laughing as blood dripped down the steps.
Oh, Daddy
.

She pressed her lips tight to keep from gagging.

“Ed? Ed, are you all right?”

Startled, Edwina opened her eyes to see that they’d stopped and Declan was standing beside the wagon, frowning up at her. Air rushed out of her. She sagged in relief. “Y-Yes. It’s just the smell.”

His fingers dug into her waist as he lifted her out of the wagon. The pain of it restored her balance, and by the time her toes touched the ground she was able to push those hated memories to the back of her mind.

“It’ll get worse before it gets better,” he said, watching two troopers lean into ropes as they dragged what was left of the milk cow away from the house. “We’ll have to burn them. But once the smoke clears, it won’t be so bad.” He turned to Amos. “Help the boys collect the dead chickens, then load the wagon with firewood and take it to where the troopers are stacking the carcasses. I’d like to get the worst of it done by dark.”

Amos nodded and walked toward the soot-streaked barn.

Lifting her valise from the back of the wagon, Declan motioned her toward the house. “Luckily, Lieutenant Guthrie and his men are helping. I don’t know how we would have cleaned this up without them.”

As they walked across the yard, Edwina felt again that odd sense of being pulled back into the past. Like Rose Hill, Declan’s house had been spared the torch, but the wanton, purposeless destruction seemed almost worse. More than an insult. A violation.

The kitchen door gaped open, hanging by one hinge. The parlor door was out in the yard. All that remained of the settee and several other pieces of furniture was a half-burned pile of upholstery and splintered wood. As they walked past it, a gust of wind sent a tuft of singed cotton racing across the ground like a scurrying rodent.

“The kitchen is a mess.” Declan stepped ahead of her over the threshold. “But Thomas said they didn’t do much to the loft, so it’s usable.”

Edwina felt like weeping. Shards of broken crockery littered the floor. Cabinet doors were torn off. All the lovely linens had been pulled from the cabinet under the stairs and ripped to shreds. The table and chairs were no more than scraps of broken wood and the cook stove had been tipped on its side. Even canned goods had been attacked, their contents spattered across the counters and floor where the decaying food and cow dung drew swarms of flies that droned and circled in the fetid air.

She touched her husband’s arm. “Declan, I’m so sorry.” She had been here only a few weeks, but this house had begun to feel like home. Her home. How much worse it must be for the man who had labored to build it.

“I’ll send the boys to help you after they move the firewood.” He looked around, then his gaze found hers. “We’ll fix this, Ed. I promise.”

She forced a smile. “I know.” She lifted her arms to unpin her bonnet, then froze at a scrabbling sound from one of the lower cabinets.

Declan heard it, too. “Probably a rat. Stay back.” Pulling her behind him, he picked up a busted chair leg and advanced toward the cabinet.

The scrabbling became a whimper, then a whine. A filthy canine face appeared in the opening.

Declan lowered the chair leg. “Rusty?”

The dog, his coat matted and caked, crept tentatively from the cabinet. Then recognizing Declan, he lunged forward, whining and barking and flinging flour and bits of food from his furiously wagging tail.

Setting down her valise, Declan dropped to his knee amidst the broken crockery of his ruined kitchen and let the ecstatic dog lick his chin.

A simple thing. But it brought tears to Edwina’s eyes. And as she watched the enthusiastic reunion between her husband and his dog, she knew that despite the destruction of their home, this family would be all right. Together they would clean what they could and rebuild the rest.

They would persevere.

Swiping away her tears, she rolled up her cuffs and set to work.

 

 

The afternoon passed in a haze of rage for Declan. The years he’d spent carving out a home in this wilderness, the endless backbreaking work. For nothing.
Christ.
He wanted to shout his fury into the coiling smoke that hung in the still air from the burning carcasses of his cattle.

It could have been worse, he told himself. But still, it was bad.

The well was fouled with dead chickens and had been used as a latrine. Until they could dig a new one, they would have to lug water from the creek and boil it for cooking and drinking. The barn they could repair, although not anytime soon. The house was salvageable, and by dusk, through the efforts of Ed, Amos, and the boys, the kitchen was fairly clean: the broken crockery gone, the smashed furniture carted to the burn pile, the food and dung scraped off the counters and floor. Luckily, most of the flies and stink had departed with the decaying food and manure. Declan righted the stove, boarded over the broken window to deter varmints, and re-hung the front and back doors. The cabinet doors would have to wait.

The loft wasn’t so bad. Even though the log furniture had been defaced with war axes, and the window broken, the bedding was usable and the water closet appeared to be untouched.

It was dark when they finally stopped for the day, exhausted, filthy, and hungry. Luckily Ed had insisted they bring two boxes of canned goods from town, one of which Declan traded to the lieutenant for a share of the small buck a trooper had shot. Since he hadn’t had time to check out the cook stove, Declan built a fire outside and they cooked their supper under the fading sky and upwind of the burning cattle carcasses.

It was a quiet meal. Even the boys were subdued, although they managed to pack away a substantial amount of food before turning their attention to working the crust out of Rusty’s matted coat. Declan didn’t eat much—the reek of rotting meat and singed fur pretty much dampened his appetite. Ed just picked at her food, her head nodding between bites.

Declan studied her across the campfire, admiring the way the flickering light played across her features, highlighting the rise in her top lip, the curve of her cheekbones, shining up through her long eyelashes to cast dark, spiky shadows under her brow. She was so weary she could scarcely keep her eyes open. He smiled, watching her try.

She’d worked like a demon all afternoon. Toting and carrying and sweeping and bossing Amos and the boys around like a regular tyrant. Guthrie’s sergeant could take a lesson.

He watched her eyes drift closed and stay closed. “Ed.”

When she didn’t respond, he said it again, louder, which brought her drooping head up with a jerk.

“Go to bed.”

She looked blankly at him, her gaze unfocused. “What?”

“I had Amos carry up wash water. Go on before it gets cold.”

“But . . .” She glanced over at the darkened house, then back.

“R.D. and Joe Bill will walk with you.” Declan would have done it himself, but he didn’t trust himself not to climb into bed with her. She was obviously too tired for that. And he was too tired to do it right. Later.

“Boys, take Ed to the house.”

R.D. folded his knife and rose.

“It’s just over there,” Joe Bill argued. “She can’t get lost.”

“Shut up and get up,” R.D. ordered, jabbing a toe into his little brother’s butt. “I’m tired.”

“But where we going to sleep?”

“I left your bedrolls on the porch,” Declan said. “We’ll clean up the rest of the house tomorrow. Ed, wake up.”

It took her a moment to get her bearings. With R.D.’s help, she got to her feet, then wobbled until she found her balance. A big yawn, a slurred “G’night, Declan,” and she turned toward the house, steps dragging, shoulders slumped with weariness.