The King Hill War (11 page)

“I was honored to be invited,” Hawke replied as he walked away.

“Mr. Hawke, will you dance with me?” Hannah asked, catching up to him.

“Of course, I’d love to dance with you,” Hawke said, taking her hand and leading her out onto the floor.

True to their promise, one of the other men was pushing Ian’s chair around in an approximation of his dancing with Cynthia.

“Hawke!” Ian called out after that was over. “Come dance with Cynthia. She deserves a real dance, not something where she’s trying to keep her toes from being run over by my wheelchair.”

“Well now, Ian, you’ve hurt my feelings,” Butrum teased. “And here I thought you and I were dancing very well with her.”

The others laughed, then the music started and Cynthia came into Hawke’s arms.

As they danced, a strange thing happened. It was as if time and space were suspended. To those watching, they were no different from any other couple on the dance floor, but to Hawke and Cynthia there was no one else there. The playing children disappeared, the onlookers faded,
the swirling dancers went away, even the music went silent. And although the dance only lasted a few minutes, the years had rolled away…there had been no war, there were no cow towns and saloons, no long trails through winter’s cold and summer’s heat, and no disillusionment in between. There was just this dance, this moment, and the two of them.

When the dance was over, Hawke and Cynthia stayed together a moment longer than necessary, though not so long as to arouse anyone’s attention.

That night, Hawke was awakened from his light sleep by a sound, the barely perceptible rustle of a piece of hay being dislodged as someone stepped silently into the barn. Reaching over in the dark, his hand curled around the handle of his Colt .44 and he pulled it quietly from its holster.

Then he smelled the perfume…a woody fragrance with notes of vanilla and sandalwood, as well as the fruity scents of fresh citrus.

He put his pistol back in his holster.

“Cynthia?” he called, softly.

“Yes.”

“Cynthia, what are you doing out here?”

“I…I…God help me, Mason, I don’t know what I’m doing here.”

He heard her move again, then saw her when she stepped into the patch of moonlight that spilled in through an open window. She was wearing a white-silk nightgown that was iridescent in the silver spill of the moon.

Hawke moved to her.

She was trembling.

“Is something wrong?” Hawke asked.

“Yes…no,” she said.

“Cynthia, what are you doing out here?”

“I don’t know. I shouldn’t have come.”

Cynthia normally wore her hair bound up, but tonight it was hanging free and some of it fell across her face. She brushed it back, and Hawke, realizing that this was the way she wore her hair when she went to bed, felt a sense of intimacy with her.

“It’s just that, today, when we danced, I could have almost believed that you were Gordon,” Cynthia said.

“I know,” Hawke replied. “I had the same feeling with you, only it was Tamara.”

“Forgive me,” Cynthia said, “but I need this.” She leaned into him, and he felt every curve and rise of her body as she put her arms around his neck and pulled his lips down to hers.

The kiss grew deeper, and lasted longer than either of them expected. Finally, Cynthia found the strength to break it off and pulled away from him.

“No,” she said, her word almost a cry. “We can’t. We mustn’t.”

Hawke said nothing.

Cynthia walked back to the window and stood there, looking outside for a long moment, a softly gleaming pearl in the night.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I had no right to come out here…I had no right to kiss you like that. Please, if you can, forgive me, and forget that this ever happened.”

“Cynthia, you weren’t kissing me,” Hawke said. “You were kissing Gordon.”

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, that is true, isn’t it?”

“So, you see, there is nothing to forgive or to forget.”

Cynthia was quiet for a long moment before she spoke again.

“Mason, there is something I have to tell you.” Her
words were strained, and Hawke knew that whatever she was about to tell him would be painful for her.

“Don’t be nervous, Cynthia,” he said. “There is nothing you could ever say or do that would disturb me.”

“Hannah is…” She paused for a long moment, then drew a deep breath before starting again. “Mason, Hannah is your niece.”

“What?” Hawke said, shocked by the revelation. “Gordon was her father? I had no idea.”

“Neither did Gordon,” Cynthia replied. “I didn’t learn that I was pregnant until after he was killed.”

“What about Hannah? Does she know who her father is?”

“No,” Cynthia said. “And Mason, please, I don’t want you to tell her.”

Hawke ran his hand through his hair. “Cynthia,” he said, “you are asking a lot of me. You do realize, don’t you, that this makes Hannah my only living relative?”

She nodded. “Yes, I know that. That’s why I told you. I didn’t want you to go on thinking that you were completely alone in the world.”

“But you haven’t told her, and you won’t.” It was a declaration, not a question.

“Please try to understand, Mason,” Cynthia said. “Ian has been her father since birth. He has been a very good father, and he is the only father she has ever known.”

“Does Ian know that Gordon is Hannah’s father?”

“Yes, he has known from the beginning.”

Hawke sighed. “All right,” he said. “I’ll keep your secret.”

Cynthia nodded, then turned and started to walk away. Just before she reached the door, she looked back over her shoulder.

“Thank you, Mason.”

Hawke watched her walk back up the path toward the house. He didn’t know if Cynthia had thanked him for agreeing not to tell Hannah or for not allowing her nocturnal visit to get out of hand. For his part, he was just thankful that he had found the strength to turn away.

WHEN CYNTHIA RETURNED TO HER OWN BEDROOM
, Ian’s deep and steady breathing told her that he was sound asleep. She adjusted the covers over him, then climbed into bed, but didn’t go to sleep.

Did she love this man beside her? It was a question she had asked herself often during the first two or three years of their marriage. She didn’t think she could ever love him, or anyone, with the wild, unbridled passion with which she had loved Gordon Hawke. But over time she came to realize that her appreciation of Ian’s kindness, of his acceptance of Hannah as his own daughter, and of the fact that he was as good and decent a man as she had ever known, was in itself a deep and abiding love.

She moved closer to him and put her head on his shoulder. Without waking, he put his arm around her and pulled her closer to him.

She lay there in the darkness, recalling how Ian had come into her life.

By the end of the war her father’s plantation, Cypress Hill, was a plantation in name only. Only two house servants remained, staying behind when the other slaves left only because they were too old to go anywhere else. There was no one left to work the land, and there had not been a crop planted in two years. Cynthia’s mother and sister were dead, and her father, Langston Rathbone, was, as neighbors liked to put it when speaking politely, “not himself.” Her brother, Edward, was the last hope of reviving the plantation, and he was still away at war.

A few months before the war ended, Gordon Hawke had managed a rare leave and visited. The two of them spoke of the cruelty of a war that had kept them apart for so long, and they shared the emptiness each felt without the other. They made plans for their future, and, in an unguarded moment, took advantage of their precious moments together to give in to the love that drove them both.

Then, shortly after he returned to his regiment, Major Gordon Hawke was killed. He never learned that Cynthia was carrying his baby.

Cynthia was torn with conflicting emotions about her condition. On the one hand she knew that the baby would be a permanent connection to the man she loved with all her heart. On the other, she knew that if she gave birth out of wedlock, it would just about be the end of her father.

She was contemplating these things on the afternoon that she saw a creaky old wagon rolling slowly around the great curving driveway at the front of the house. She recognized the driver as Ian Macgregor, the sergeant major of
the same regiment to which both her brother and Gordon belonged.

Before the war, Cynthia knew who Ian Macgregor was, for though he had worked a very small farm with his father and they were in different social circles, the Macgregor farm was adjacent to Cypress Hill. But she knew very little about Ian other than having often heard her father say what a good man he was. And that he’d been selected sergeant major by the men of the regiment was indicative of the respect everyone had for him.

But what was he doing here now? she wondered.

Ian climbed down from the wagon, then had to grab hold of the wagon seat to keep from falling. That was when Cynthia saw that he was bleeding.

“Sergeant Major!” she called, hurrying down from the porch. “You are wounded!”

“Ma’am,” Ian said, pulling himself up. “I have the sad duty of bringing your brother home to you.”

“My brother?”

Ian reached into the back of the wagon and pulled away a canvas sheet, disclosing the blue-white face of her brother’s body.

“Oh, Edward!” Cynthia cried. “Oh, no, not you too. Not you too. Sergeant Major, where—” she started, and turning toward him, saw that he was lying on the ground, passed out.

“Willie!” she called loudly. “Doney! Come out here, please! I need help!”

The two house servants, a black man in his sixties and his wife, only slightly younger, hurried outside.

“Lord have mercy, Miss Cynthia,” Doney said. “What have we here?”

“It’s the sergeant major of Edward’s regiment,” Cynthia said. “He’s badly hurt. Help me get him inside.”

It wasn’t until later that she realized she had said nothing at all about Edward’s body lying in back of the wagon.

A few days later, when his son Edward was buried, Langston Rathbone suffered a seizure and died. He himself was buried three days afterward, and Cynthia suddenly found herself the sole remaining heir to Cypress Hill.

But Ian Macgregor knew none of this. For two weeks he was in and out of consciousness as he fought infection and fever.

During that time, he became very important to Cynthia. She had lost everyone, and learned, after her father died, that she was losing everything as well. The taxes had not been paid on Cypress Hill, and there was no money to pay them, so she was given thirty days to vacate. In a strange and disconnected way, Ian Macgregor remained the last connection with what had been her life, and she fought hard to pull him through his illness, praying, daily, for him to recover.

Then, one day, she walked in and saw Ian sitting up on the side of the bed. He was wrapped in a blanket, but there was color in his cheeks and his eyes were bright. It was obvious that his fever had been broken.

“Ian!” she said excitedly. “Oh, Ian, you are well!”

“Yes, ma’am, I reckon I am,” he replied, his face showing surprise that she had addressed him by his first name. He didn’t know that she had been calling him Ian for several days now as she had bathed him, changed his bed covers, and fed him. “Miss Rathbone, I can’t seem to find my uniform.”

“That’s because I burned it,” Cynthia said. “It was filthy and crawling with lice. Believe me, you would not have wanted to put it on again.”

“But that means I don’t have anything to wear now.”

“Of course you do. Edward had an entire closet of clothes,” Cynthia said. “They are all yours.”

Ian shook his head. “No, ma’am, I wouldn’t feel right about wearing Captain Rathbone’s clothes.”

“Don’t be silly, Ian,” Cynthia said. “Edward won’t be needing them.”

Ian was quiet for a moment, then nodded. “No, ma’am, I don’t reckon he will.”

“Ian, I would like to talk to you about something,” she said.

“All right.”

“You knew my fiancé, Gordon Hawke?”

“Yes, ma’am, of course I did. Major Hawke was a fine officer and a good man,” Ian said.

Cynthia ran her hand through her hair, then took a deep breath. “I am carrying his baby.”

“Well, congrat—” Ian started, then stopped as he realized the implications. “Oh. Oh, I see. You and Major Hawke were not married, were you?”

“No. So I’m sure you can see my dilemma.”

“Yes, ma’am, I reckon I do.”

“I need a husband, Ian,” she said.

Ian nodded. “Yes, ma’am, I suppose you’re right.”

“Ian, don’t you see what I’m getting at?” Cynthia asked in exasperation.

Ian shook his head. “No, ma’am, not exactly,” he said.

“I’m asking you to marry me.”

Ian gasped. “I beg your pardon, ma’am?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, quit calling me ma’am. I need a husband, Ian. I want you to marry me.”

“But ma—” Ian started, then stopped in mid-sentence. “Miss Rathbone,” he said. “You don’t want to marry me. You and I aren’t from the same social class. You’re rich and high-toned, and I’ve never been anything but a dirt farmer.”

“I’m not rich anymore,” Cynthia said. “And only you
would call me high-toned. Look, if you don’t want to marry me, I’ll understand. I don’t have that much to offer a man, and I’m carrying another man’s baby.”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong,” Ian said. “I’d marry you in a heartbeat if…”

“If what?”

“If I thought you were really serious.”

“I’m very serious, Ian,” Cynthia said.

“Then, yes ma—” Ian started, and again stopped in mid-sentence. “What’s your first name?”

“Cynthia. Cynthia Diane.”

Ian smiled broadly. “I’d be proud to marry you, Cynthia Diane.”

Cynthia lost the plantation and moved onto the small farm with Ian and his father. Hannah was born there, and they stayed on the farm until after the elder Macgregor, a Scotsman who never lost his heavy brogue, died. It wasn’t until then that Ian told Cynthia of his long held dream of going west. Cynthia had no more ties to Merriweather County, so she went along willingly.

Ian’s background was in farming, so when they first moved west, he tried to make a go of a farm in Nebraska. A two-year drought made it impossible. They spent some time in Colorado Springs, where Ian worked as a wagon driver for a local mining company while spending his spare time prospecting. That didn’t work out either.

Then he read an article in the
Colorado Springs Gazette
extolling the virtues of sheep ranching. Ian had always been a frugal man, and he took the money he had left from selling his farm in Georgia, what he got after selling his farm in Nebraska, and what savings he had managed to accumulate, and bought land and sheep in Alturas County, Idaho.

For the first time since leaving Georgia, he found a successful venture, and within two years had already earned back his entire investment. It wasn’t until his run-in with the cattle ranchers that there had been any cloud on the horizon.

Just before she went to sleep, Cynthia offered a little prayer that the hearing in Mountain Grove would come out all right.