The Beloved Woman (22 page)

Justis held on to the saddle and bent forward, clutching his stomach. After he’d emptied it of half a bottle of whiskey, he sat down in the mud by Watchman’s legs and looked around the town square.

Gold Ridge appeared the same as when he’d left. To hell with it. He wished he were anyplace else, and if he could think of a better place to be miserable, he’d go there.

“Got to start over,” he said out loud. Dimly he realized that the crowd in the saloon had filtered outside to watch him. In fact, people had come out of the adjoining establishments to watch him.

Someone splashed through the rain and the mud toward him. “You organized your own welcome home party, I see,” Sam yelled, bending over him.

Rain dripping in his eyes, Justis looked up his partner. “I didn’t find her. Not nowhere, not any of the way between here and the whole goddamned state of Pennsylvania. That doctor in Philadelphia hasn’t laid eyes on her since she left to come here. She’s hid out. She knew I’d look for her.”

“Come on, get out of the weather, friend,” Sam ordered gently. He and another man helped Justis up.

“Don’t mess with me. Take care of m’horse.”

“I’ll send Noah after him. Let’s get you to the hotel.”

Justis swayed. “That damned room,” he said in a deadly soft voice, as new bitterness and pain washed over him. “That room full of her things. Yeah.”

Now he knew where he could go to be even more miserable.

* * *

T
HE WEATHER HAD
remained rainy for the past several weeks, and now that the march was so much farther north, sleet mingled with the rain. Katherine had gotten used to hearing her teeth chatter and to struggling through mud that made her feet feel like lead blocks.

When they made camp for the day she helped Walks Smiling get the children settled under a wagon, then went on her rounds, wearing a piece of heavy blanket wrapped around her head like a scarf and another blanket around her shoulders as a coat. She had given her gloves to a child, and she stopped frequently to warm her fingers over the cooking fires.

She could only dole out what few medicines the government made available, and those were only what the suppliers could scrounge from towns near the trail. Fevers and pneumonia were epidemic. A crew was kept busy digging graves each time the marchers camped for the night.

Katherine tried not to think about the fact that the journey was only a third finished. November had not yet ended. Thanksgiving, a holiday she had enjoyed while living in Philadelphia, had come yesterday. No one had noticed.

T
HE SOFT KNOCKING
at the cabin door woke Justis from a groggy sleep. Fully clothed—the way he slept most nights because he got drunk before he got undressed—he rose from bed, shoved an untouched plate of biscuits onto a table, and carried his whiskey bottle to the door with him.

“Who the hell is it?”

A timid female voice answered. “It’s a … a gift, Mr. Gallatin.”

He swung the door open and glared down into the
fearful eyes of a dark-haired young woman. Lamplight cast her small shadow toward a black, windswept night. “Who sent you?” he demanded.

“Friends of yourn over to Pearl’s house. They p-paid Pearl already. She sent me over fer the whole n-night. They says you n-need some cheerin’ up r-real bad.”

“Come in ’fore you shiver to death.”

She stepped inside, hugging herself through a heavy shawl that covered a low-cut cherry-red gown. Justis slammed the door and she jumped. He eyed her angrily. Women. More trouble than they were worth. And this one was just a little bony nip. But a pretty one. She tried to smile. At least she had all her teeth.

“Don’t be scared of me,” he told her.

“I heerd that you got a bad temper.”

“Not the kind that hurts women.”

“Oh.” She dropped her shawl on a chair, then surveyed the place with furtive glances. “It’s sure warm and cozy in here.” She stared at logs scattered around the stone hearth and whiskey bottles lying about the floor. “A mite messy, though.”

“What’s your name?”

“Franny.”

“Well, Franny, I’m drunk. And I haven’t had a woman since last spring. So maybe you’re the best present anybody ever gave me.”

“I’m sure good at my work. You wanta see?”

He squelched an urge to shrug, and nodded instead. Then he went to his bed in one corner and sat down with his back against the rough log wall. She removed her gown and stood by the fireplace wearing nothing but red slippers, black stockings, and red garters.

Justis directed her to turn around, to walk across the cabin, to stroke her breasts and thighs. She complied without the least bit of shyness and began to sway sensually under his intense, slit-eyed gaze.

All he would have to do was give a few more simple
orders and she’d be lying on the bed with her legs around him. He waited for the impressive hardness to grow between his thighs, and he cursed it when it didn’t. This was what Katherine had reduced him to, Katherine and the liquor he drank every night to keep her face and voice out of his mind.

“I heerd that the Injun women used to call you The Stud,” Franny said, and winked.

“Not anymore.” He threw the whiskey bottle against a far wall and it shattered. Franny screamed. “Get dressed,” he told her. “Don’t go bug-eyed—I’m not turnin’ crazy. Here.” He reached into a trouser pocket and removed a five-dollar gold piece, which he tossed on the red heap of her gown. “You’ve a grand-lookin’ pair of tits, Franny, but I’m too tired.”

“You’re what they says you are,” she murmured in a frightened tone as she jerked her gown on and threw the shawl around it. “You’re
cursed.
” She left the cabin without looking back.

Justis put his head in his hands and laughed cruelly.

“B
ELOVED WOMAN
, my son needs you quick!”

Katherine felt a hand shaking her shoulder. For a second she fought the cruel intrusion of reality into her dream. She was safe in a world she’d never seen before, a world of balmy winds and treeless green hills dotted with cattle that were being herded by horsemen outfitted in the Mexican style. Justis was there—somewhere—if she could only find him.

“Beloved Woman, wake up!”

The coldness came back, mantled in freezing December wind. Katherine sat up, shivering. Her whole body ached from sleeping on the icy Kentucky ground. Squirrel and Little Bird were bundled next to her in the better blankets; Little Bird twisted fitfully and coughed. Walks
Smiling, her face no longer plump, curled herself against the toddler and cooed to her.

Katherine held two thin blankets around her shoulders and squinted at the woman who bent over her. Even in the shadows of the waning campfires the woman’s face revealed terror.

“My baby,” she said hoarsely. “He is jerking all over.”

Katherine licked her lips in the hope that the chapped skin wouldn’t break when she spoke. “Mother, I can do nothing but hold him and speak a sacred formula. I have no more white medicines and no more herbs.”

“Your touch alone heals sometimes, Beloved Woman. I have heard people say so. Please come.”

Squirrel stuck a small hand out of his blankets and grasped Katherine’s hair. “Your helper will go too.”

She kissed his grimy, chapped fingers. “My helper will stay and keep his mother and sister safe.”

That flattery satisfied him, and he burrowed inside his blanket once more. Katherine stood weakly, giving her head and her empty stomach time to adjust to the new position. The wind seemed to push icicles through her worn skirt.

“
Hena
,” she told the woman gently. “Go.”

Katherine followed her through the darkness of the sprawling camp, treading gingerly so that the blisters and cuts on her feet wouldn’t start to bleed again. The brogans had fallen apart, and her crudely made moccasins were poor protection from sharp sticks and rocks. The woman who’d summoned her limped noticeably.

They reached an old wagon. In the light of the campfire beside it sat a squat man with skin the color of leather. His dirty turban was askew and his eyes were swollen slits. In his lap he held a toddler wrapped in the filthy remnants of a blanket. As Katherine watched, the child’s eyes rolled back and its body convulsed violently. Its mother began to whimper.

“Greetings … Beloved … Woman,” the man said
in a thick, slurring voice. He grinned at her as she knelt beside him and reached for the child. The odor of rotgut whiskey swept over her.

“Poor little one,” she crooned to the child. She cuddled it to her chest and sat down close to the fire. Rocking back and forth to distract herself from the bitter cold and the pain in her chapped hands, she began to chant. A few seconds later the child relaxed, and its eyelids fluttered together.

“Thank you,” the mother said softly.

Katherine closed her eyes for a moment, willing away a weariness that made her dizzy. She knew the convulsions would return, but she didn’t say so. Instead, she handed the feverish child to its mother. The father rolled sideways and stretched out to sleep, his shoulders hunched under his thin coat.

“If the jerking comes back, rock the child as I did. The charm will keep working, and the jerking will go away soon.”

“Thank you, thank you,” the mother repeated. She handed Katherine a cold chunk of boiled bacon. Katherine accepted it and hobbled away.

A man called to her as she shuffled along. “Come here, long legs, and keep me warm.” She looked straight ahead and kept moving. She wished she hadn’t left her knife at her sleeping spot. “Come here!” he yelled louder. She heard someone shush him. “It’s the Beloved Woman,” the person said. “Be quiet.”

“Forgive me,” the rowdy called. She nodded and didn’t slow her pace.

Squirrel’s dark eyes gleamed at sight of the bacon. Walks Smiling shook her head—she vomited blood these days, and food had little appeal to her. Little Bird was too young to chew the meat and too feverish to want it. Katherine pulled Squirrel onto her lap and handed the precious bacon to him.

He tore into it. Grease ran down his chin and onto his
thin chest. She held him close while he fed her several pieces of the salty pork. “Enough,” she told him. “You eat the rest.”

“Did the Beloved Woman make the babe well?”

Her eyes stung. She knew that he’d seen too much death to be fooled. “No. The babe will travel to the Dark Land, just like the others.”

“Do not cry,” Squirrel said anxiously. He put his arms around her neck. “I forbid it.”

She laughed raspily. “You give silly orders. You are truly becoming a man.”

The next morning Katherine dug a trench in the icy ground a little distance from the road. Walks Smiling sat limply beside the shallow grave, holding Little Bird’s body in her lap. Squirrel cut his long braids off and laid them across his sister’s chest.

“Fly now, Little Bird,” he whispered as Katherine wrapped the toddler’s blanket around his shoulders. He limped away, his face wet with snow and tears.

His mother smiled. Blood rimmed her lips. “Her spirit has gone west. And we are following.”

N
OAH AND LILAC
, both crying, huddled in bed with Rebecca. She kept one arm around their shoulders and cradled her sleeping babe in the other. Cold December sunlight filtered through the room’s heavy drapes.

Her throat dry with fear, Rebecca listened to the clomping sounds of boots on wooden floors, then the door to their private parlor opening and closing. Sam walked wearily into the bedroom, bringing cold air with him as if it clung to his coat. She had never seen his face look so drawn and colorless.

Lilac wailed. “Did they whup Mr. Justis for shootin’ that man?”

He nodded. Lilac wailed again and Noah snuffled noisily. Rebecca shut her eyes and murmured a prayer. Then,
fighting tears, she shooed the children from the room. Sam took his daughter, grown restless from so much noise, and placed her in the cradle near the bed. He slumped into a chair and stared, hollow-eyed, at the floor.

“Was Justis lashed badly?” Rebecca asked in a choked whisper.

Sam nodded again. “But flogging’s meant to humiliate a man more than it hurts him.” He rubbed his eyes. “There was a good-size crowd. Men, women, even some children. The judge came to watch his sentence being carried out.” He raised his head slowly to look at her. “Amarintha watched too.”

Rebecca gasped. “What kind of heart does that creature own?”

“I don’t know.” He stared at the floor again, swallowing roughly. “She cried the whole time—but she never took her eyes away. It was almost as if the pain and blood fascinated her.”

Rebecca covered her mouth in horror. “How did Justis get through it?”

Sam sighed. “Without a sound. They took his shirt off and chained his arms up—” He stopped abruptly, hearing her gag. “Forgive me.”

She took a deep breath. “He just stood there silently through it all?”

“Yes. And he managed to walk back to the jail without help. A lot of people cheered him.”

She made a small, broken sound. “What will become of him, Sam? He’s gone to wrack and ruin.”

“I don’t know.” His voice was a rough croak. “Thirty lashes and sixty days—maybe it’s the only way to make him change.”

She shook her head and said tearfully, “There’s only one way to do that. Get Katherine to come back. And that won’t happen.”

* * *

A
MARINTHA CREPT INTO
the austere bedroom and padded to the massive bed that was its focus. The lamp beside it cast dancing shadows on the rumpled covers.

“Daddy?” she said sweetly.

The judge put his book down and looked at her in pleased surprise, his expression showing how rarely she visited his room. Usually she forced him to go to hers.

“Are you lonely, sweet baby?”

She pouted girlishly. “Yes.” Settling beside him, she curled her feet under the hem of her pink robe. “I have to ask you a favor, Daddy.”

His hand stretched out and idly stroked her arm. “Yes, baby?”

“I want you to let Mr. Gallatin out of jail.”

“Sweet baby! He nearly killed a man.”

“But everyone says it was self-defense, Daddy.”