Nicademus: The Wild Ones (26 page)

“No!” he said, alarmed. “I want you. I love you. But it’s my family land. My dad died for it. I have to … go home. To set things right. Hell, to put tombstones on their graves, Annie.”

She scrambled over him. He tried to grab her but she kneed him in the groin and he howled in pain. Annabelle stomped back and away from him. “You be out of here before sunrise. You hear me! I don’t want no goodbyes, no excuses, no, no, no ... none of your lies! I don’t want to hear it. Just get!”

“Annabelle!” he fell off the cot. He held his dick in his hands. The pain reached all the way to his balls. He staggered a few steps but she was already behind the door. It slammed shut. He went to the door and tried it. “Annie, honey. Hear me out. I can think of something for us. I can. Maybe I just go down to tend to my land and come back? Maybe? Or, maybe with the war being over the laws will change and I can send for ya. They’ll accept you and me eventually. Maybe? Please, honey. Listen to me. I love you. I won’t lose you. Don’t make me choose.” He tried the doorknob. He beat his hand against the wooden surface. “Annabelle!”

She didn’t say a word. He sighed and returned to his cot. He sat on it and put his head in his palm and rubbed his dick with the other. “Shit.”

The Burial –

They buried the dead. She rose early to dress and be clean. Thankfully he slept. She was out the door and back in town to see the processional. All in all they had thirty-eight men and women to bury. And the graves had already been dug. Her town had come out in their Sunday best for the service.

Jacob, Joshua’s brother, was dead too. Molly was dead. She listened to the reverend as she stood next to Henry’s grave. She had grown up climbing trees and fishing with Henry. He gave her her first kiss. Everybody thought they would marry. Annabelle hung her head in shame. She had brought the outlaw into their lives. Gave him her virginity. Fought to free him from his burdens. Now he was free and the people she loved and who trusted her were dead.

She cried.

Red Sun’s hand went to her shoulder. She turned and cried against his chest. He stroked her hair. When it was over she was asked to sing. Annabelle swallowed her grief. She closed her eyes and sang “Amazing Grace.” She did so from the deepest part of her soul. Tears rolled down her cheek to reveal her anguish, but the song brought smiles to everyone’s faces. Even the sheriff, who was in a wheelchair, attended the service with his hat on his knees. He smiled at her.

When the song ended Annabelle looked up. Her outlaw was there. He sat on his horse Randy staring at her from the distance. He had saddled up his things, including his gold. He gave her a nod and turned the horse away. He rode off.

“It’s best this way,” Red Sun said. “He and you would have never been right. Never.”

Annabelle nodded. “I know. But why it hurt so bad?”

Red Sun lifted his head and looked out to the west where the outlaw rode off to. “Pain is part of love. Price we have to pay for knowing the difference,” he said.

Annabelle shook her head. “Then I don’t want to love nobody. Ever again.”

One year later –

“Okay, Cora!” Annabelle said with a wide grin. “When I tells you to, you gotta push. On the count of three.”

Cora groaned. Honey was on one side of her and Jessiemae on the other. Cora’s face was drenched with sweat. She was weeping, and Annabelle knew it was partly from pain and happiness. She reached into Cora and felt the crown of the baby’s head. “One ... two … three … push!”

Cora squeezed the hands of the girls and shot forward. She pushed with all her might. The baby turned and his shoulders breeched next. The rest was easy. Annabelle chuckled with delight. She brought the little one up on Cora and put him on her belly. Everyone was crying now. Jessiemae ran from the room to tell the men the news.

“He’s beautiful,” Cora said. “So beautiful.”

“Yes he is. What you gon’ call him?” Annabelle asked as she tended to the umbilical cord and the afterbirth.

“Little Sun,” Honey said.

Annabelle chuckled. Cora shook her head. “We gon’ call him Koi, for brave love.” She kissed his little hands.

“Well let me clean the little papoose up,” Honey said. The baby wailed the minute he was taken from Cora. Annabelle could barely contain her excitement. She had a brother. After all these years Red Sun had a wife and son again. Annabelle washed her hands and stole several long looks at the red baby with a crown of dark black curly hair. “Let us get this place tidy and we’ll bring in Red Sun,” Annabelle said. Her back hurt. She lifted the pail of murky bloody water and carried it over to the open window in the room. She tossed it out. Two of the saloon girls returned and replaced the sheets with Cora in bed. One cleaned her face of sweat and changed her soiled nightdress. Annabelle watched from the window seat as Red Sun was walked inside. She’d never seen him look so nervous and worried. It made her heart surge when little Koi was placed in his arms. He was so tiny, and Red Sun so nervous the girls had to help him sit down as he held him. He spoke softly to his son who stopped crying and nestled up against him. The baby opened his eyes and looked at his father.

This is what life was supposed to be about.

“Let’s give them some privacy,” Annabelle said.

The girls all filed out. She was the last to leave. Neither Red Sun nor Cora noticed. They were so in love with their new blessing. She closed the door.

“You want something to eat, Annabelle? You been in there for six hours,” Jessiemae asked. “No. I’m going to head home. Can you tell Doc Samuel that we delivered the baby just fine? I’ll see him tomorrow.”

“Okay.”

Annabelle went down the stairs. It was her third delivery and the most precious. It was the first one that the doctor had trusted her to do on her own. She was so proud and exhausted. She could barely keep her eyes open. She walked out of the saloon and waved at a few folks. Nicademus had grown in the past months. Word spread about how the town had stood its ground and won against a railroad baron. Freed slaves and outcasts flocked there. They went from a population of eighty to close to two hundred.

She stepped down off the saloon porch and walked over to her horse. She could afford one now. She didn’t have to sing in the saloon anymore. She was the nurse. After the war with Tyler Shepherd many of their people were hurt, a few maimed. She spent months nursing them to health. It helped heal her too. Soon the pain over Jeremiah’s betrayal of her heart burned less in her chest. Now she rarely thought of him. Rarely. And she had reason to be happy. A new man in her life named Sampson. He belonged to the 9
th
Calvary, and next year when he was free to join her they planned to marry.

Life was sweet. For them all.

“C’mon, Charlotte, let’s go.” She urged the horse forward. She glanced over to the jail when she passed. Sheriff Ben Taylor was no longer with them. After his resignation his deputy, Samuel, replaced him. Cora once told Annabelle she had received a letter from the sheriff. He said he had found happiness. She didn’t share the details, but Annabelle sensed that the sheriff and Cora were at peace with each other.

As she rode her horse toward her home her gaze fixed on the sun. She loved watching the sunset. If she made it home soon she might be able to eat on her porch and enjoy the end of the day. Annabelle’s smile faded the closer she drew to her land. A horse was tied to her post. Was it Sampson? He wasn’t expected for another month or so. She strained her vision to see who the person was that stood there, and the closer she drew to her cabin the more rapid grew her heart beat.

It wasn’t Sampson.

Jeremiah Polk stood on her porch with his hat in his hand as if he had never left. Annabelle slowed Charlotte. A few times in her dreams he had returned to her in this romantic fashion. Set to apologize for abandoning her and vowing to love her always, no matter what the world said. But it had been nine months and she had learned the hard way that dreams were never to be trusted.

Jeremiah wasn’t sure it was her. He stepped forward on the porch. The flowers he had picked off her land were behind his back. He’d ridden all day to be there after coming in on a train and buying a horse to take him the rest of the way.

Annabelle stopped her horse. She stared at him for what felt like an eternity, and then galloped hard and fast. He stepped off her porch and waited with his heart in his throat. She stopped the horse only a few short feet in front of him.

“Annie,” he said. Just saying her name again warmed him with emotion. She came down off the horse. She was as beautiful as she was the day he had last seen her, with her riding pants and white button down blouse. She wore a hat with her hair in braids underneath. She marched right past him. Jeremiah frowned. He turned and watched as she stormed into her cabin and slammed the door shut.

“Well that didn’t go well,” he said. He tossed the flowers. Annabelle wouldn’t respond to them as a peace offering. What she needed was an explanation, and he intended to give it to her.

He climbed the steps and her front door opened. The business end of her rifle was pointed directly at him. Stunned, he stepped back down. “Whoa, baby,” he said.

“You got to the count of ten to get on your horse and ride off my land,” she said.

“Annie, it’s me. Let me explain.”

She fired the rifle directly above his head. He ducked out of shock.

“One … two … three …”

“Okay! You need time to think on it. To get used to the idea that I’m back.”

“Four … five … six …”

“I’m leaving, I’m going,” he said and walked to his horse. He climbed on. And she was still counting. He was barely out of the gate before she reached ten. He glanced back. Annabelle slammed her door shut. Jeremiah sighed. He glanced back to the town. It would most certainly take some convincing.

“Yah!” He charged his horse toward the town.

Annabelle dropped the rifle. She pressed her back to the door and closed her eyes.
She felt empty, drained. It took several minutes to capture a much-needed breath. How many months had she gone to the post office in hopes of receiving a letter? How many nights had she sat at the bank of Buck Creek and wondered where he was, who he was with? No word from him and then he appears from nowhere. As if he had the right. She put her hand to her heart and tried to stop it from racing so fast.

“No matter what, Annabelle, no matter what he say, you won’t hear it,” she said aloud to her empty cabin. Slowly she eased down the door and wrapped her arms around her knees. “No matter what.”

**

The town was bustling with people. He could tell immediately it had grown. Several waved at him as he passed. Others paused to stare at him curiously. He rode his horse all the way to the Blue Moon Saloon. It had fresh paint and a new sign. He climbed down from his horse and walked it over to the post to tie it up. A girl came out of the front of the saloon. She paused when her eyes landed on him.

“Jeremiah Polk? That you?”

He took his bag off the horse and turned.

“Well as I live and breathe. It is you!” she said. “Jeremiah ‘One-Finger’ Polk!”

“Hi, Jessiemae. How are you?” he asked. He walked up the steps.

“How am I? How is you? It’s been, what, a year?” she asked.

“Closer to thirteen months. Yeah, it’s been awhile.”

“Annabelle know you here?” she asked.

He scratched his brow. “She’s not speaking to me right now. Was wondering if I could get a room.”

“This ain’t no hotel, outlaw,” Jessiemae laughed.

Jeremiah nodded and glanced around, not sure where one would be.

“Oh come on in. We gots room for you. Come inside.” Jessiemae came down the steps and hooked her arm around his. Together they climbed the steps and went inside. The place wasn’t too busy. Only a few occupied the barstools.

“Ms. Kitty here? I’d like to—”

“Well look here. If it ain’t our heartbreaker outlaw.”

Honey stepped out from around the bar. She wore a green satin dress with a black middle corset. She smiled. He smiled. She walked over and gave him a hug. “I told her you would come back. Men. You were a fool to leave her!” she shoved at his shoulder playfully.

He nodded. “I’m still a fool. Is Ms. Kitty here?”

She glanced to Jessiemae and then to Jeremiah. “You didn’t tell him?”

“Tell me what?” he asked.

“Ms. Kitty gave birth today. Had her a baby boy.”

“It’s a papoose!” Honey corrected Jessiemae.

“It’s a baby boy! I ain’t calling no infant a pappy!” Jessiemae huffed.

“They named him Koi. She up there with Red Sun,” Honey said.

“Wow. I didn’t know,” he said.

“Have a drink with me. Jessie, take his bag to Molly’s old room. Looks like he’s here for the night.” Jeremiah accepted the offer. He was thirsty. He sat down on the bar stool and Honey went back behind the bar.

“Slow night?”

“It’ll pick up later. So you see her?” Honey asked as she poured his glass.

“She shot at me,” Jeremiah chuckled.