Summer Moon (30 page)

Epilogue

Dallas, Texas. October 1890.

Kate listened to the hushed murmur of many voices in one place—a sound not unlike the prairie wind moving through tall summer grass—and gazed from her front-row seat at the standing-room-only crowd packed into the Dallas Opera House. Ladies and gentlemen in their Sunday best, some with older children in tow, filled every seat, crowded the aisles, and oozed through the doorways.

On her left, Reed shifted uncomfortably and tugged at his thin black tie. She laced her gloved hands together and placed them squarely on top of the two-page program in her lap, then leaned over and whispered to him.

“Darling, if you tug on that tie any harder, it’s going to come undone.”

His new black suit, complete with a matching wool vest sporting tiny, real gold buttons showed off his deeply tanned skin and sky blue eyes to perfection. There were touches of silver at his temples now, creases in the corners of his eyes and permanent smile lines around his full mouth, but to her the changes made him even more handsome.

She wasn’t without more than a touch of gray hair of her own. Thinking of her hair, she resisted the urge to reach up and see if any of the pins had escaped the elegant twist her daughter had created for her not an hour ago in their hotel room.

“Mama, please.” The fifteen-year-old had started pestering Kate the moment she sat down at the dressing table in their suite of rooms. “You simply
must
let me do something a bit more modern with your hair. You have worn it in that topknot for years.”

Now, as she looked down at Allison, her heart swelled with pride. As if she sensed her mother watching her, the girl turned and smiled up at her.

“Your hair looks lovely, Mama. I told you it would. Daddy likes it, too.”

“I think he does,” Kate said, keeping her voice low.

“He does what?” Reed wanted to know. He leaned over Kate, smiled at Allison. “What are you up to now, darlin’? Is it going to cost me anything?”

“Nothing, Daddy. I just told Mama that you liked the way I styled her hair.”

“I like it any way she chooses to wear it, you know that.” He pulled his watch out of his vest pocket, flipped the gold piece open, checked the time, and then snapped it shut. “How many more people are they going to crowd in here? It’s five minutes past seven.”

The room was stifling already. Hushed conversation had given way to a louder din as folks tried to hear each other over the low roar.

Allison looked around. “Do you think Daniel’s nervous?”

Kate was the first to assure her. “Of course not. He’s a gifted orator.”

“And a fine teacher,” Reed added proudly. “Did you know your mother taught elocution?” He reached for Kate’s hand. She looked around the room and blushed but didn’t let go.

“Of course. You’ve told me a hundred times already.” Then Allison groaned, “Oh, no. Here comes that obnoxious reporter from the
Dallas Herald
again.”

A spare young man in a full checkered suit, his oiled hair neatly parted in the center, was making his way between the occupants of the front-row seats and the stage, carefully easing past gents’ crossed legs and ladies’ skirt hems.

“Mr. Benton!” The reporter smiled and waved from down the row. There was a hush from those seated nearest them as the man propelled himself along, hastily apologizing as he pushed on through. Winded, he stopped before the Bentons and pulled a wrinkled wad of paper out of his sagging coat pocket.

“Thomas Barkley, reporter for the
Dallas Herald
.” He reintroduced himself as if they could forget anyone so obnoxiously tenacious. “I hope you folks don’t mind a few more questions.” Barkley licked the nub of a pencil and scribbled the date at the top of the page.

Allison groaned again and started fanning herself with her program. Kate patted the back of Reed’s hand in a soothing fashion, praying he would be patient.

“The presentation is about to begin,” Reed said coolly, keeping his voice even, setting Kate at ease.

“Is it true, sir, that you were a Texas Ranger during the seventies, at the height of the Indian wars?”

“Yes, it is.”

The reporter wasn’t dismayed by the curt brevity of Reed’s answer. Kate wished the crimson curtain would rise. Around them, more and more folks were beginning to fall quiet and began to turn their way, hanging on every word of the exchange.

“Your son is beginning a world tour, speaking out for Indian rights, talking about what he calls atrocious conditions on the reservations, even appealing to folks to try and understand the Comanche and why they fought for so long. Did he ever ask you why you did what you did? How do you explain your part in killing off the people he is trying to help today?”

“My son knows what I did and why I did it. At the time, I fought for what I believed in, just as the Comanche fought for their way of life. Men start wars, Mr. Barkley, and at the time they make sense. I think that if you look back through history, you’ll find that public opinion changes like the wind. I’m not the same man I was then. Times change, people change. We didn’t honor our treaties with the Comanche any more than they did the ones they made with us.”

“Are you saying all the killing and raiding that went on back then should be forgotten?”

“I’m saying we need to understand
why
it went on in the first place. Maybe we need to forgive, even if we can’t forget. Listen to what Daniel has to say tonight. He’s able to put it into words a lot better than I.”

“Can I quote you on what you’ve said?” Barkley didn’t look up as he scribbled frantically.

“Just as long as you get it right,” Reed said.

The gaslights dimmed. The packed house fell silent. The only illumination came from the footlights on the stage. Barkley tipped his hat and hurried down the aisle, leaving an outburst of
oof
s and
ouch
es in his wake.

Kate looked over at her husband in the semidarkness. Their eyes met and held. He squeezed her hand and, as the curtain opened, Kate felt the same swell of pride she had already experienced the previous two nights when the curtain opened to reveal a podium at center stage. From the wings on the right, a tall, well-built young man came striding out to face the crowd.

He was secure in himself, at ease as he paused to smile and acknowledge the swell of applause.

Beside Kate, Allison scooted to the edge of her seat. “Don’t I have the handsomest big brother in the world?” She turned around to whisper, “I think that new mustache he’s grown makes him look even older than twenty-eight.”

Kate couldn’t do anything but nod, unable to squeeze a word past the lump in her throat. She watched him through a haze of tears, her son, comparing him to the child she had met that first day when he had kicked and spat and tried to lash out at her in such fear and desperation.

He had grown tall and firm, the image of Reed. Intelligent and inquisitive, Daniel had attended the university and become an accomplished teacher. Tonight was the last night he would appear in Dallas. Tomorrow they would see him off at the train, and he would start on a tour in hopes of teaching the world about a dying civilization, one he believed every bit as important as any of the others already lost to the tide of history, a people who once roamed the plains in countless numbers now reduced to fewer than fifteen hundred souls.

The applause continued, although he had yet to say a word. Many of those in the audience had been here on both previous evenings, and yet they had come to hear him again, to listen to his tale, to laugh, to cry, to wonder.

Finally Daniel raised both hands for silence, and the crowd quieted. Beside Kate, Reed sat as still as a statue, except that his hand was nearly squeezing the life out of hers while a smile as wide as the acres of Lone Star spread across his face.

She concentrated on Daniel again, amazed at his confidence. He scanned the crowd, looked down at where he knew his family was to be sitting and nodded to them.

Then he began. “I’d like to dedicate my speech tonight to my family—my father, Reed Benton, my mother, Katherine Benton, and of course, my sister, Allison Benton. I’m here tonight to tell you a story, the story of the years I spent living among the Comanche and what I learned from them.”

He paused dramatically, slowly stared into the footlights again. He had no notes, no written speech. Kate wiped away a tear that was heading for her chin, glanced down at her hand in Reed’s, and then looked over at Allison, who was hanging on her brother’s every word although she had heard the story many, many times before.

Daniel took a deep breath, drew back his shoulders. His strong, clear voice sounded throughout the hall.

“I remember living on the prairie, riding before I could walk. Back then, I was not Daniel Benton. I was Fast Pony, adopted son of Many Horses. . . .”

Read on for a preview of
Magnolia Creek
the latest novel from Jill Marie Landis Available in hardcover in August 2002

Southern Kentucky May 1866

A young woman clothed in widow’s weeds rode in the back of a crude farm wagon and watched the landscape roll by through a cascading ebony veil draped over the wide brim of her black hat. The misty veil not only cast the world in an ominous dark pall, but hid her auburn hair, finely drawn features, clear blue eyes, and the swelling bruise that marred her left cheek.

Her arms were wrapped around her daughter, a toddler with golden cherub curls who was bundled in a thick black shawl to protect her from a brisk afternoon breeze. Sound asleep with her head on her mother’s shoulder, the little girl was as oblivious to the chill on the late spring air as she was to the utter desperation in her mother’s heart.

Sara Collier Talbot had traveled for days. She had walked south from Ohio along roads shredded by war, circumvented byways stalled by downed bridges and trails clogged with foot traffic, carts full of soldiers going home and liberated Negroes heading north. Carrying her child, Sara had begged rides in carts, on the backs of crowded wagons, atop piles of straw, wedged herself between barrels of dry goods. She had sold her other clothing to help pay for the mourning ensemble.

She had no place to call home, no money, no pride, nothing but an old weathered satchel that held a fresh petticoat, two gowns for the child, a dozen saltine crackers, and the heel end of a stale loaf of bread. Her love child, Elizabeth, a child born of shame, was the only treasure she could claim.

She shifted her precious daughter higher on her shoulder, stunned that fate had brought her home to Magnolia Creek.

An unexpected breeze skimmed across the open farm-land, teasing the edge of her veil as the sun raked the tops of the trees bordering the road. Behind the protective anonymity of the black veil, Sara contemplated the only other passenger besides herself and Lissybeth riding in the farmer’s wagon.

An ex-soldier still dressed in tattered gray wool, the remnants of a uniform of the once proud Confederate States of America, lay curled up in the far corner of the wagon bed. Sad-eyed, defeated, he was so thin that he resembled a skeleton far more than a man. With no more than a nod to Sara when she first climbed aboard, he had promptly fallen asleep. Thankfully there would be no small talk to suffer.

A pair of scarred crutches padded with rags lay on the wagon bed beside him. He was missing his right foot. His cheeks were covered with sparse salt-and-pepper stubble, his sunken eyes surrounded by violet smudges.

Sara sighed. In one way or another, the war had made invalids of them all.

Looking away from the soldier, she stared out across the surrounding landscape: gentle rolling hills, yellow poplar, sycamore, oak, chestnut, walnut trees all gathered into woods between open fields now lying fallow. Here and there, trails of chimney smoke snaked up from the treetops, signs of cabins hidden in the wood.

The Kentucky countryside had changed very little since she saw it last, but not so the look of the travelers along its byways.

Before the war, back roads pilgrims were mostly farmers, a few tinkers and merchants, or families on their way across the state. The majority were war refugees—many of them Confederate soldiers hailing from Kentucky, men banished and marked as traitors after the state legislature voted to side with the Union. Now, a long year after surrender, those men were still making their way back home.

There were far more Negroes on the roads now. Former slaves who had feasted on the first heady rush of freedom, but now wearing the same disoriented look as the white casualties of war. They wandered the rural countryside searching for a way to survive the unaccustomed liberty that had left so many displaced and starving in a world turned upside down.

Sara had spent nearly all she had to buy the black ensemble to wear while she was on the road. The South was full of widows; the North, too, if the papers were to be believed. The sight of a woman alone in drab black garb was not all that unusual and she blended in, one more casualty of the war between the states.

On the outskirts of town the wagon rattled past the old painted sign that read,
Welcome to Magnolia Creek,
Home of Talbot Mills, Population three hundred and
eighty-one.
Obviously no one had bothered to change the sign. Sara knew, painfully well, that there was at least one who would not be coming home.

For the most part, the town of Magnolia Creek looked the same, the streets evenly crisscrossed like a fancy piece of plaid that was a bit worn and frayed around the edges. The brick buildings along Main Street showed signs of weather and shelling, as battered as their occupants must surely feel.

Melancholy rode the air. She could feel it as she viewed wood-framed homes with peeling whitewashed siding that lined every even street.

A few of the shops and stores around Courthouse Square were still boarded up, their broken windows evidence not only of Yankee cannon fire, but the shortage of replacement glass. The courthouse still remained proud and unbattered. The Union stars and stripes flew triumphantly over the grassy park surrounding the impressive two-story building.

She remembered walking Main Street for hours the day she had first moved into town, recalled staring into storefront windows at all the bright new things. Now she barely gave those same windows a second glance as the wagon rumbled by.

The farmer finally reached his destination, pulled the team up before the dry goods store and set the brake. Sara gingerly lifted Lissybeth off the floor beside her. The exhausted soldier didn’t even stir as she stepped from the back of the wagon onto the wooden porch that ran the length of the storefront. She thanked the man for the ride and when her stomach rumbled, Sara stared longingly into the store’s dim interior before she turned away and started walking toward Ash Street two blocks away.

“Not far now, baby,” she whispered to Lissybeth. “Not far.” She prayed that she was doing the right thing, that once she reached the Talbots’ fine, familiar house, a hot meal and safe haven would be waiting, even if only for a night.

Number 47 Ash Street came into view the moment she turned the corner. Set off behind a white picket fence with a wide lawn, it was still the grandest house in town.

Sometimes late at night she would lie awake and wonder if the magical time she had spent living in the Talbots’ home had been real or merely a figment of her imagination. Her life before the war seemed like a dream; at fifteen she had moved in to care for Louzanna Talbot; at seventeen, after two glorious, golden weeks of a whirlwind courtship she had married Dr. Dru Talbot and thought to live happily ever after.

Five years later, it was hard to believe she had ever truly been the innocent, starry-eyed girl that he had taken for his bride.

Now she was not only Dru Talbot’s widow, but a fallen woman in the eyes of the world. She was no better than a camp follower. She was a woman who had lost the man she so dearly loved to war, a woman who then put her faith and trust in the wrong man and now had nothing save the child of that union.

Sara lingered across the street from the Talbots’, staring at the wide, columned porch that ran across the entire front and side of the house and tried to make out some sign of movement behind the lace curtains at the drawing room windows. Then, mustering all the confidence she could, she shifted Lissybeth to the opposite shoulder and quickly crossed the street.

The gate in the picket fence hung lopsided on its hinges. The flower beds bordering the front of the house overflowed with tangled weeds. The same, deep abiding sadness she had felt earlier lingered around the place, one that thrived beneath the eaves and lurked in the shadowed corners of the porch behind the old rockers lined up to face the street. The lace draperies at the windows, once so frothy white, hung limp and yellowed behind weather-smeared, spotted panes of glass.

A sigh of relief escaped her when she spotted a familiar quilting frame standing inside the long parlor window. An intricate bow-tie pattern made up of hundreds of small, evenly cut squares of print and checkered pieces was framed and ready to finish quilting. Louzanna Talbot’s world had been reduced to fabric patches and thread that bound cotton batting between patchwork tops and backing.

Sara stared at the front door while trying to shush Lissybeth’s whining. She lifted the brass knocker and stared at the black, fingerless gloves that hid the fact that she wore no wedding ring. She pounded three times, then tightened her arms beneath her little girl’s bottom and waited patiently. When there was no answer, she lifted the knocker again and let it fall, wondered why Louzanna Talbot’s Negro manservant, Jamie, was taking so long to answer.

A flicker of movement caught her eye. Someone was inside the house, standing near enough to brush the edges of the curtain against the window in the center of the door. Sara pressed her nose to the pane but could not make out a shape through the layers of her veil and the sheer curtain panel at the oval window.

“Hello? Is anyone home? Jamie, are you there?” She pounded on the doorframe. “Louzanna? Can you hear me?”

A recluse afraid of her own shadow, Louzanna suffered from severe bouts of hysteria. Sara resolved to stand there all evening if she had to as she pressed her forehead against the windowpane and tried to see through the curtain.

“Louzanna? Lou,
open the door,
please.” She lowered her voice. “It’s Sara.”

Finally, a latch clicked, then another. The door creaked and slowly swung inward no more than six inches. All Sara saw of Louzanna was a set of pale, slender fingers grasping the edge of the door and thick braids of wren-brown hair pinned atop her crown.

“Louzanna, it’s me. It’s Sara. May I come in?” Sara knew what it cost her former sister-in-law to open the front door at all.

Dru’s older sister was thirty-eight now, but her translucent skin, hardly ever touched by sunlight, was barely creased at all. Her hair was streaked with a few wisps of gray, but for the most part, it retained its fullness and soft brown hue.

Silence lengthened. The knuckles on Lou’s hand whitened. Finally, in a weak, low voice, the woman on the other side whispered, “Is it
really
you, Sara? Is it really, truly you?”

Tears stung Sara’s eyes. She frantically tried to blink them away. “It’s really me, Louzanna. Please, let me come in.”

Another pause, another dozen heartbeats of despair.

Louzanna’s voice wavered. More of her braids showed, then her forehead, then pale, hazel eyes peered around the edge of the door. Those eyes went wide when they lit on the child in Sara’s arms.

“Oh, Sara,” Louzanna’s voice was thready.

“Please, Lou.”

Louzanna clung to the edge of the door, wielding it like a shield, a barrier between herself and a world she had shut herself off from long before the war ever started.

Sara couldn’t imagine Louzanna coping all alone for very long. One of the reasons she had felt she could leave Lou at all was because she knew Jamie would be there to care for her.

“Where’s Jamie?” she asked.

“He’s gone. Gone with the Union soldiers. They took him right after you left.”

The sun was dipping low on the edge of the sky. Dusk was gathered in the thick, overgrown hedges and dense woods that ran behind the homes on Ash Street. Her desperation no longer tempered by daylight, Sara planted her thigh against the door, afraid Lou might suddenly become fretful and edge it shut.

Dear Lord, give her the courage to let me in.

Frantic, Sara spoke quickly, glancing over her shoulder toward the deserted street.

“I’ve come all the way from Ohio. I stopped by Collier’s Ferry first, but my daddy turned me away. I’ve no place else to go. I’m begging you,
please
let me in. If not for me, for my child. She’s innocent of everything I’ve done. Take pity on her and let us in, just for tonight. All I’m asking for is a meal and a place to sleep.”

She remembered there was an old cabin behind the house where Jamie had lived. “We can sleep out in Jamie’s old place. You won’t even know we’re here.”

What did it matter where she slept, as long as there was a roof over her child’s head?

“Lift your veil, Sara.” Lou sounded edgy and fearful, her voice weak, as if unfamiliar with sound.

Slowly Sara shifted Lissybeth, grasped the edge of her veil and lifted it over the wide hat brim to reveal her face. She smiled, but the result was weak and wobbly at best and a painful reminder of the swelling on her cheek. The image of the door wavered as it floated on her tears.

“Oh, my, Sara!” Lou gasped, shaking her head, her eyes gone wide. “What happened to your face?”

“I . . . tripped and fell.” Sara avoided Lou’s gaze as she mumbled around the lie. Daddy had always hit first and asked questions later. Today he had given her something to remember him by before he had turned her away from the family cabin at Collier’s Ferry.

Lou backed up and disappeared momentarily. When the door swung wide enough for Sara to slip in, she moved quickly, knowing Lou’s deep abiding terror of the front yard and the street beyond. Once inside, she turned to her former sister-in-law with a rush of relief that comes after finding something long sought and familiar.

Lou was dressed the way she had always dressed, much like Sara was now, in a black silk gown with black lace trim and jet buttons. A gold wedding band with an opal stone dangled from a long gold chain around Louzanna’s neck. Her faded brown hair and evenly drawn features were the same as Sara remembered, save for added etching at the corners of her eyes.

Louzanna had kept her figure, her slender waist, and dignified stance despite bouts of fear and hysteria that bordered on madness. Though the cuffs and hem of her dress were worn and turned inside out and her gown was wrinkled, she didn’t have a single curl out of place.

Quieted by new sights and sounds, Lissybeth lay her head in the crook of Sara’s neck and sucked her fingers as she stared at Louzanna.