Soul of a Crow (12 page)

“Their father beats them?” I asked, and a spurt of anger flared to life.

“They ain't the first or the last boys to take a lickin' from their daddy,” Boyd said, not without sympathy.

“But, even so…” I let my voice trail away, realizing there was nothing to be done. Sawyer squeezed my hand, stroking his thumb over the back of it.

“They have good neighbors in the Rawleys, at least,” Sawyer said. “Fannie cares for them.”

“That's the truth,” Boyd said, then shifted in his saddle, inviting Malcolm, “What do you say, boy, should we ride on a spell?”

Malcolm heartily agreed, and Boyd concluded, “Besides, we ain't like to run across the Yancys again,” before the two of them heeled their mounts and cantered north, the sun glinting on their stirrups.

I was to think back many times in my life on those words.

* * *

We camped in the late afternoon, near the banks of the Iowa River. While Sawyer and Boyd cared for the horses, Malcolm and I worked to set up the tents and hang the clothes line, and then I gathered the laundry and carried it down to the shore, spending an hour scrubbing it in the shallows. It wasn't unpleasant work, as the day was so fine. I watched spindly-legged water bugs skate over the surface of the water, which was decorated with a rippling patchwork quilt of sunbursts, observing minnows that swam in shiny clouds just under the surface. Water lilies grew in profusion to my left, flat green lily pads so thick it appeared I could step atop them and walk along as though on a carpet. Dragonflies skimmed the lily pads, their tails incredible tints of glinting blue, and golden-green to rival Sawyer's eyes.

A few yards up the bank, Boyd whistled under his breath as he fried bacon and Sawyer came to help me, gathering the clean clothes and hanging them on the line as the sun angled towards evening. As he took the first armful of them, I could not help but watch him walk in his effortlessly graceful way up the low-pitched bank, caressing his wide shoulders with my heated gaze, his trousers that fit the shape of him so well, and I had sudden difficulty drawing a full breath.

“We should try fishing again,” I said on his second trip, having regained my composure. I used the back of my wrist to wipe away sweat, my hat abandoned on the sandy bank. My hair hung in an inelegant braid and I had changed into a pair of Malcolm's trousers, though I wore them often enough that they were mostly mine anyway; I had decided, stubbornly, that I would continue to wear them until forced by necessity into more feminine clothing.

“We could this evening, but it will be raining by then,” Sawyer said, crouching alongside me. He was hatless, the gold in his eyes highlighted by the sun. His lashes nearly cast shadows over his cheekbones.

I tore my eyes from the beauty of him and searched the cloudless blue heavens.

“If you say so,” I allowed. A pair of dragonflies alighted on my wrist and I went motionless, admiring them at close range.

Sawyer rested his hand on my back and rubbed gently, sending warmth all along my limbs. He observed quietly, “They're mating.”

Just that quickly the warmth became heat that flared upwards from my thighs and downwards from my belly, simultaneously, and I studied him with everything I felt pouring directly into his eyes. He swallowed and moved to cup my jaw.

“Soup's on!” Boyd called from the fire. “Boy, where'd you get to? If you done et all of that bread, I will pitch a hissy fit the likes you ain't
never
seen!”

The heel of the cinnamon bread was all that was left, as Malcolm had been snitching it all day; Boyd sat on his brother and threatened to rub his face in the dust, while Malcolm struggled and pleaded. It was Boyd's turn for the dishes, though he ordered Malcolm to fill the wash basin after we ate, while he smoked. Coming up from the river toting the basin minutes later, Malcolm pleaded, “Might we swim just a bit? Please, Sawyer? It's so pretty here, an' it seems ages since I had me a good swim.”

Sawyer regarded the sky. There was still no trace of clouds, but if he said it was going to rain, I believed him. At last he decided, “Perhaps for a bit.”

Malcolm whooped and shucked his shirt, suspenders, and trousers as he raced back to the river, bounding in with a tremendous splash; the lower half of his union suit, all he was still wearing, became immediately transparent, and I giggled. Sawyer rose more slowly and helped me to my feet. He asked, “Would you care to swim?”

“I think I'll just watch,” I said. “I haven't any dry clothes, if I get these wet.”

“Boyd?”

“
Hell
no, I'm not about to get wet before bed. I'll just wash up these dishes for y'all ungrateful wretches.”

I sat on the bank with Fannie's basket situated upon my lap, rummaging within the small linen bags of herbs that she'd labeled with neatly-penciled tags, prepared to continue my sorting. But I watched, absorbedly, as Sawyer stripped his shirt and boots. He directed a smile over his shoulder, surely sensing the ardor of my thoughts, as he waded out to his hips, the sun tinting his skin golden, each muscle along his powerful torso sharply defined in its light. He dove under, surfacing with a roar, and Malcolm jumped immediately upon his back, trying to dunk him under the water. They wrestled and Malcolm coaxed Sawyer into throwing him; Sawyer made a brace with both hands, upon which Malcolm stepped and was subsequently chucked into the air. Malcolm hollered and wind-milled his arms, flying farther each time.

“Well, if there's any snakes the boy'll scare 'em away,” Boyd said, finished with the dishes, coming to squat beside me, smoke dangling between his teeth. “What you got there, Lorie-girl?”

“Herbs that Fannie sent along,” I told him. “I wish I knew more about each. They're labeled so well, but I don't know the uses of all of them. Ground willowbark, that's for pain. Chamomile, that's to encourage good sleep. But what about comfrey?”

“That's to aid a healing bone,” Boyd said, rooting in the basket, blowing smoke from both nostrils. He lifted out another packet. “Garlic. Mama used it for poultices, bruises an' the like. Mint tea, as well?”

I nodded. “Fannie made such a fine gift for us.”

Boyd eventually ambled down the bank to smoke and skip rocks across the surface of the water. I set aside the basket after a time, thinking I might bathe in our tent while everyone else was occupied and our clothes were clean, fluttering in a soft breeze as though touched by gentle fingers; an unbidden memory came creeping as I knelt, of Mama straightening a damp, snowy-white underskirt that hung on the clothes line, twitching the material so that it would not dry in a mess of wrinkles.

Lorissa, little one, go and fetch your brothers
, I heard her call, just at the edges of my consciousness. I shivered and nearly rose to my feet to do her bidding.

Instead I caught the basin on my hip and dipped it full at the edge of the water, smiling at Sawyer and Malcolm playing in deeper territory. Inside our tent, I stripped my clothes in the dusky glow of late evening and washed my body in increments, all the tub would allow. I reflected that as a child I had hardly bathed more than once a week; it was living at Ginny's which altered this practice—there, I could scarcely bathe enough to scrub the scent of men from my body.

No
, I told myself, with determination.
No thoughts of that, not tonight.

I combed out my hair until it was soft as the hide of a newborn foal, and did not bother rebraiding its length. I slipped into my clean shift and wrapped into my shawl, ducking back outside to see Sawyer and Malcolm climbing the bank, both soaked to the skin.

“I'm gonna freeze!” Malcolm gasped, and indeed I could hear his teeth chattering.

“Fire's hot,” Boyd said. “Boy, get in dry clothes an' go sit near, before you catch a chill.”

“Thanks, Mama,” Malcolm teased, scurrying into their tent.

“Goddammit, don't get that bedding wet!” Boyd yelped after him.

“You need to get warm, too,” I told Sawyer, who was wet and shirtless, toweling his hair. He grinned at me, almost devilishly; as though responding to the expression in his eyes, thunder rumbled to the west. There was a sharply-delineated cloud ridge there, pewter-gray, silhouetted against a sky gone nearly ruby with the sunset.

“That I do,” Sawyer said, disappearing into our tent.

Boyd perused the eerie array of clouds. He grumbled, “Let's hope it runs outta steam before morning. I don't relish traveling in the rain.”

Lightning sizzled across the western sky, appearing to take giant, crooked-legged leaps along the edge of the massing storm. By the next brilliant pulse, raindrops spattered the ground with a sound like frying bacon, and Boyd hurried to bank the fire.

“I'll check the horses!” he called. “G'night, Lorie-girl.”

“'Night, Boyd,” I responded.

Within our tent and clad in the bottom half of his dry union suit, Sawyer was shivering a little, his loose hair damp down his naked back. Almost before I realized I had moved I was in his arms, holding him close.

“I'll warm you,” I whispered, running urgent palms along his chilled skin, gripped by an overpowering urge to grasp his hands and cup them over my breasts. My nipples pushed brazenly outward against the thin fabric of the shift, needing to be touched.

“You're so warm, sweetheart,” he murmured against my hair. “And so soft.”

Rain sheeted over the canvas and Sawyer moved quickly to secure the laces. We heard Boyd running back, though the driving storm summarily drowned out all sound. Once the entrance was secure Sawyer turned to me and saw something that would not be denied, burning in my eyes. He ordered, low, “Come here.”

We came together at once, kissing deeply, and he lowered me to the bedding. This was more fervency than he had yet allowed, and there was a sense of abandon in these kisses that eradicated any notions I harbored of waiting to be wed before we made love. I shivered as though fevered and bent one leg around his hip, the edge of my shift bunched high upon my legs; I wore no garments beneath. His kisses destroyed all reason, his lips and taste, his stroking tongue that claimed mine as I held fast to his shoulders.

“Lorie,” he whispered, resting his forehead against me, eyes closed as he attempted to catch his breath. He said intently, “I mean to wait…”

I made a sound of immediate disagreement, moving my touch to his collarbones, drawing his lower lip into my mouth, suckling gently, skimming my tongue over the fullness of it. He cupped my breasts, thumbs stroking my nipples, which he had not yet dared, and I moaned, lifting into his broad palms. His hands went heatedly to my thighs, bringing me closer, and I opened my lips upon the planes of his chest, tasting him, our movements urgent and reverent, at once. Thunder exploded amid the restless rain and Sawyer moved suddenly to his back and covered his eyes with a forearm. He said hoarsely, “I promised myself I would wait until we were properly wed.”

He was so honorable; it only served to increase my want, but I drew forth the wherewithal to whisper, “I know…”

“You deserve
no less
,” he said firmly. I curled my arms tightly around my bent knees; my heart throbbed frantically. The way he was lying flat only served to highlight the evidence of his desire, and it took all of my resolve not to climb atop him and simply put the decision behind us, once and for all. But then I recalled Sawyer's face as it had looked the night he and Whistler came for me, the night he found me in Sam Rainey's camp, bruised and bloody, and how I'd been so close to dying without realizing that he was still alive and desperately searching for me. Tenderness flooded my soul, replacing a fraction of the heat, and I lay carefully beside him and rested my head upon his shoulder.

At once he curved protectively, sweetly aligning our bodies. Echoing my thoughts, he said, “I am thinking of how I found you that night, Lorie. I have never known such fear as I rode towards that camp and heard you scream.” His eyes drove into mine as he spoke. “I cannot bear the thought of you hurting. I will cradle you in my arms and protect you, always. And yet here I lay, wanting you so much I feel like an animal. My daddy would strap my hide raw for taking such advantage of you, for letting my own needs overpower me so.”

“Sawyer,” I scolded, touched to my core at his words. “You mustn't punish yourself.” I implored, “You are not taking advantage. You don't think I want you just as fiercely? I can think of nothing else, truly.” Thunder detonated in the sky directly above us, as though in response to my words. I repeated in a whisper, “Truly.”

His lips curved into a half-smile and he said, “I do know that for truth. Your thoughts are so clear to me. That night I pulled the splinter from your foot…”

I smiled, slipping my left leg between both of his, cautiously. He allowed this and I remembered, “You spoke my name for the first time that night, when I crawled over you.”

“I had been lying there dreaming of you and you were suddenly on top of me. Your hair was loose…”

So saying, he reached and curled his fingers into a long strand of my hair, which fell all over the both of us.

“For the first time in my life, I feel whole,” he whispered.

“Sawyer,” I whispered, my ring catching the flicker from the candle flame as I held his face, and in that moment I refused to leave our lives to chance, to wait until we happened to come across a preacher to speak the words over us. The notion struck me so strongly I could not believe I hadn't considered it before.

I said, “We will handfast.”

His eyes burned into mine.

“I will wait no longer,” I said, quiet and adamant. “In my heart, I am already yours. Nothing else matters to me, not a document, or the words of a stranger.”

Tears glinted in his eyes as he whispered, “I've told you of how my grandparents were handfast.”