Jodi Thomas (18 page)

The brush was thick and shadows seemed to form bodies beneath each tree. She walked in a circle, widening her area with each round. There was nothing: no saddle, no hat, no body.

Several minutes passed and fear crept up her spine. What if she found his body? What if she didn’t? What if the murderer returned for Cyoty and found her?

Something brown flapped beneath the branches of a huge live oak. Anna moved forward, afraid of what she might find. The brown object moved again, flapping in the morning air.

Kneeling, Anna slid between the branches of the knotted old tree. The sight that greeted her stopped her breath in her throat.

Amid the dark shadows, Chance lay on his back beneath a blanket. His body was twisted with pain as he silently jerked in a violent cramp. Sweat blackened his hair to shiny ebony, yet his face was ghostly white. His eyes were as dark as his hair. His cheeks were sunken, making his face a bony, flesh-covered frame.

“Chance!” Anna closed the distance between them. “Oh, Chance.”

Wild, unseeing eyes rolled toward her. He lifted his hand a few inches, then it fell against the blanket. Anna wanted to yell at him. How could he have been so foolish? What could have made him camp out here so far away from everyone? He had the fever and he needed help. His skin felt cold to her fingers as she reached for a pulse. She knew he was already more dead than alive.

Anna couldn’t carry him to Cyoty, and she was afraid to leave him to go get help. Touching his face, she realized he was as near death as any of those she’d helped in the hospital. Relief at having found him and worry over his raging fever clouded her face. Anna set to work, her hands fumbling at her task.

She collected water from the stream and used his shirt to bathe his head and chest. Over and over she washed his face, cooling the fever only a fraction of a degree. She found his saddlebags and pulled out the small twigs from which she’d seen him shave chips to make tea. He’d told her the Indians called it feverbush. Anna now prayed the name bore some meaning.

The hours passed in a blur. She built a fire; then, undressing him, she bathed him in cold water. She had stopped blushing over a nude male long ago, during her weeks at the hospital. She sponged off his burning body until her arms ached, and still the fever raged.

When the water in Chance’s cup finally boiled, Anna tried to make the tea as he’d made it for her in the cave. She had no idea if she was getting the proportions right, but it didn’t matter—at least she was doing something.

As the afternoon sun turned the shadows long, Anna forced the hot liquid down his throat. He mumbled something about not wanting to leave Maggie alone, but his eyes never opened. Anna sat rocking his head in her arms, for once totally unafraid of him. If she took him to the hospital, he’d be put in a crowded tent with no air. Somehow, she knew her wild Texan didn’t belong in such a place. He’d come here among the trees. He must have known the fever was overtaking him. But why hadn’t he told her? Why would anyone choose to die alone?

She thought of what his life must have been like before they met, and of Maggie, whom he always called for in his dreams. Over the months she’d learned a great deal about him and found it hard to believe he’d abandon someone he loved. She stroked his hair and thought of all the nights he’d slept only inches from her. There was a wildness about him she didn’t understand and a tenderness that frightened her even more.

Finally, Chance rested quietly, and Anna returned to her tent to gather her things. He deserved to die in the open where the stars were within his gaze, and she belonged with him for as long as he had left to live. For with his fever so high, she knew he would die within a day or two at the most. Some folks lived through the fever, but none as sick as Chance. She guessed his time left could be counted in hours now.

As she hurried past the main street, Tobin appeared from one of the doorways where only men ever entered. He fell into step without a greeting, but the smell of whiskey told of his adventures of late.

“Trouble’s brewin’.” He spit brown liquid out of the side of his mouth. “These new folks ain’t happy with the way the society’s treatin’ them. I tell you, it reminds me of a mutiny on board a ship. Men don’t think straight when they’re sick with scurvy. Then you add the cholera to that; well, it ain’t a pretty sight.”

“Cholera,” Anna whispered. She’d known it was more than just a fever, but she hadn’t wanted to put a name to the black death that had been killing her people since they’d landed.

Tobin kept talking, pleased as always to have an audience. “Yeah, the doc says he may lose a third of the town, maybe more. I figure it might be better for my health if I leave in the mornin’ with some men headin’ toward Galveston. There’s still over a thousand folks waiting for wagons and more arrivin’ from Germany every day.”

“When will you be back?” Tobin wasn’t much, but any friend is a good friend in a storm.

“A month, maybe more. But don’t worry, Chance can take care of you and I’ll be back before the first log’s laid on that cabin of yours.”

Biting her bottom lip, Anna forced the words out. “Chance has the fever.”

Tobin stopped walking. “Where is he?”

“He’s camped in some trees past the cemetery.” Tears welled in her eyes. “He’s in bad shape.”

Nodding, Tobin lifted an arm as if to comfort her, then dropped it in embarrassment. “He’s better off out there than in one of those death tents.”

Anna nodded. “I found him. He didn’t even tell me he was ill. He could have died and I would never have known.”

Tobin scratched his whiskers. “He’s a Texan. Men like him don’t take too well to being pampered and coddled.”

“But he’s just lying out there on the ground with sweat pouring from him.”

“What does he need?”

Anna fought back the tears. “Nothing . . . everything.”

Tobin turned around and began running in the direction he’d come. “Wait for me at the cemetery road. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

Too tired to argue or ask questions, she moved along with her bundles, thankful that the sun was finally setting and the air cooling.

She was too exhausted to notice Walter Schmitz moving from shadow to shadow as he followed her.

T
he last rays of daylight streaked the sky as Anna climbed the road toward the cemetery. Long sunbeams gave a purple-violet cast to the evening and one lone crow glided like a black shadow above her, calling to a mate who gave no answer. The sunset turned the trees around her to a dark green; then they became only shadows resembling foothills on all sides. A dead oak tree beside the cemetery gate pointed toward heaven like a gun balanced on the earth. The barkless wood flashed a milky white against the moody sky. The tree looked strong in the waning light but Anna knew that brown rot lay at its core. For a moment she stared at the dead tree as though looking in a mirror, for in spite of her strong appearance, her fears and her past were eating away from inside her just as the rot was consuming the tree.

Tobin’s voice startled her as he hurried up the hill. He carried several blankets, a lantern with a thick, white candle inside, a pouch of food, and a large bottle of liquor. “I picked up a few things I thought you might need. Fellow down at the store lost a few hands of cards to me last night.”

“Liquor?” Anna raised her eyebrows.

“I reckon it couldn’t hurt for those cramps. Doc says to give them milk, but I figure alcohol will kill off a fever faster. Never did find milk worth the time it took to pull it out. I ever tell you about the time I had these three milk cows . . . ?”

Smiling, Anna fell into step. “No, you never did.” She could almost hear Chance swearing as Tobin related being able to get three buckets a day out of one cow by feeding her clover and milkweed. This wilderness man was full of yarns and always seemed to be missing when work had to be done or a bath was poured and waiting for him, but his chatter gave her comfort tonight.

As she crawled back beneath the oak tree, she found Chance much the same as when she’d left him. Anna began sponging him with cool water while Tobin helped set the camp in better order. He hauled enough wood to last through the night and stirred up a soup using vegetables Anna had never seen before. Then he treated Cyoty’s neck and hobbled the horse so the rope would no longer cut into his hide. Well after dark he made a bed on the other side of the fire without waiting for an invitation, then began his nightly circling of the camp with his rope to protect against snakes.

Anna managed to get Chance to swallow two spoonfuls of soup and several gulps of whiskey. To her surprise, the whiskey did make his violent cramps slacken, and he rested easier. She used her lap for his pillow as she sat watching the fire, her hand gently stroking his hair. The thick, healthy mass curled over her fingers.

Tobin lay on his bedroll, watching the night sky. “You know, I wasn’t too sure you favored our boy here much until tonight.”

“What do you mean?” Anna looked up, but all she could see was Tobin’s shadow.

“Oh, nothin’, just talkin’.” The smoke from his pipe curled slowly toward the stars. “Just that when I met him, I knew right away how much you meant to him, could see it in his eyes, but I didn’t think the feelin’ was returned until tonight.” Anna was silent so he continued. “Not that it matters much. I figure in most marriages there’s one who loves more and one less. Seems like it would take a powerful amount of luck to make such a thing come out even. I asked Chance the other day how long you two been married. He said the funniest thing.”

“What?” Anna hoped Chance hadn’t told Tobin about why they’d married. She could just see the man telling everyone of their strange arrangement.

“He said, ‘Long enough to know what I’m doing wrong and not long enough to fix it.’ ” Tobin laughed. “I told him that’s about what every man married less than twenty years would say. And them that’s been married more than that either don’t care anymore, or gave up tryin’ to understand their women. I told him to give it a few years, but he didn’t seem in too much of a mind to wanna wait.”

Anna wrung out a rag and brushed Chance’s chest lightly. Despite his illness, his muscles were firm beneath her touch. His chest was hairless except for a dark patch in the center. Dark, sunbaked skin covered cords of muscle. Suddenly embarrassed, she pulled the blanket tightly about his shoulders, noticing that his strong jawline was covered with short black hairs. Hesitantly, she brushed her fingers over them, expecting to find the stubble coarse and scratchy, but it was soft.

Without a word of warning, Tobin jumped up as though someone had thrown a hot coal into his blanket. “Someone’s out there in the dark,” he whispered. “I hear ’em circlin’ the camp.”

Afraid to move, Anna watched as Tobin lifted his gun and melted into the shadows. Her ears strained to hear movement, but there was nothing. The moments passed with only the sound of Cyoty’s snort and the leaves rustling gently in the night air.

Her mind could see a hundred Indians surrounding them. Walks Tall’s woman would be their leader. A chill ran down Anna’s back as she pictured the beautiful Indian woman, her face transformed in rage, running toward Anna with a knife held high above her head. She would slash into Anna’s stomach and destroy the child the old medicine woman had said would someday kill her own.

Brushing Chance’s hair back from his face, Anna whispered, “I’m so afraid.”

He was too ill to answer, but she continued needing to tell her feelings, longing not to feel so alone. “This child is the one good thing that has come out of the ruins of my life. It’s my hope for the future. If it died, I would surely die also, for there will be nothing left of me but rot and hate.” Placing her forehead against his, Anna hoped the chill of her fear would melt in the fire of his fever. “Help me!” she whispered. “Don’t die, please don’t die.”

Tobin climbed from the bushes as fast as he had disappeared. “Whatever or whoever it was is gone now.” He stared into Anna’s wide eyes. “Now don’t you worry none. Before I leave in the mornin’, I’ll show you how to load Chance’s pistol. You can hold off half an army with that Patterson gun. They don’t call it a Texas pistol for nothin’.”

Anna tried to swallow the lump of fear in her throat. “Thanks, you’ve been a great help.”

“Hell.” Tobin lay back on his blankets. “I ain’t done nothin’ but keep you company.” He relit his pipe. “By the way, is there anythin’ you need? Chance gave me twenty dollars in gold to buy seed and things he’ll need for the farm, but there’s gonna be a few coins left over unless this war with Mexico has driven the prices up.”

Leaning against the oak, Anna tried to think. Chance had given Tobin twenty dollars of his own money for supplies. That simple fact told her two things: that he had no faith that the society would provide what was needed, and that he hadn’t been as desperate for funds as she’d thought the night they’d married. But if he hadn’t needed the money, why had he left her for several hours on their wedding night?

“Flour,” she said to Tobin. “I could use some flour.”

Tobin pulled his hat low and within minutes was snoring, but Anna stayed awake for a long time wondering why Chance would give Tobin twenty dollars. She didn’t understand it at all, but it somehow made her feel cared for.

The night passed in slow hours of backbreaking work. Chance tossed with the fever like a man fighting a grizzly. Anna sponged him when he was hot and held him in her arms when the chills came. When morning finally dawned, she was exhausted and he seemed no better than he had the day before. He was staying alive on pure stubbornness. His breathing was so shallow that Anna repeatedly felt his pulse to see if he was still alive.

Just after sunup, Tobin packed, promising to return, but Anna had a feeling he’d made such a speech many times. He piled up enough food and wood for another day with neither having to say what both knew: If Chance wasn’t better by tomorrow, he’d be dead and there’d be no need for Anna to stay among the trees.