Wind Song (32 page)

The look he gave her was so full of anguish that her breath caught between her ribs. "Who…who are you, Luke?"

"You don't want to know, Maddie. Please don't make me tell you."

"Does…does this have something to do with last night? With why you pulled away?"

He didn't answer her; he didn't have to. The look of despair in his eyes was answer enough. She knew she was battling an unseen enemy, and somehow knowing it was a formidable one made it that much more difficult to fight.

"Can't you at least tell me something about your background?" She wanted--needed--to know everything about him. She leaned forward, her face troubled. Earlier she had wanted to forge the past and complete what they had begun the night before. But during the most intimate of moments, something had come between them, and it was painfully obvious that whatever that something was, it stood between them now. Maybe it always would.

"Help me to understand." Sensing his reluctance, she started with something she thought might be relatively simple for him to answer. "Why did you come here? Why did you come to Kansas?"

But even that question seemed to cause him distress, and she sensed a silent war being waged within him.

When at last he spoke, his words were muffled. "Peter asked me to come."

"Then you knew Peter prior to coming to Kansas?'

"Peter and I were childhood friends." He spoke in a flat voice that was so low, she was forced to lean forward so as not to miss a single word. "Our friendship became strained when the war broke out."

"Is that how Peter lost his leg?"

He nodded.

"You once told me you didn't fight in the war."

"I didn't."

"Why not?"

"It was a personal reason. I assure you, it was not an easy decision to make, and it was an even harder one to live with." As was far too often the case, his face remained impassive, but his eyes once again betrayed him. For there was agony there, and maybe even self-loathing.

She pulled her shawl around her shoulders, but not because she was cold. What she needed was protection, and even something as tenuous as her wrap made her feel more secure, better able to combat whatever was keeping

her and Luke apart. "It must have been hard to make such a decision."

"It was. It would have been easier had my best friend understood. Or even my wife."

At mention of his wife, she held her breath, hoping he would continue. Maddie was curious about the woman who had once won his heart. For all she knew, Catherine-Anne was responsible for Luke's leaving her bed last night. "Why…was it so important to you not to fight in the war? Was it fear?"

"No!" He spoke so sharply that she jumped, and he immediately regretted his harsh response. It was fear, of course, but not the way she meant it. He wasn't afraid of dying.

His only fear was not knowing what he was capable of doing should he take up arms. He still didn't know. When he was with Maddie, it was so easy to imagine he could be capable of love--not the carefully controlled love he had allotted his wife and young son, but the kind of love that knew no bounds.

Last night, he had thought such a love possible. But when she'd cried out, it all came back to him, the past, his father, his mother.

He glanced toward the bed where Matthew slept and thought of the many times during the preceding years that he had longed to pick him up, hug him, love him without restraint, without fear, without having to worry about unleashing the sleeping monster within. He felt ashamed now for letting himself be convinced it was wrong to love-wrong to feel love, taste love, show love. He felt ashamed and guilty. He wanted to make it up to Matthew for all the times he'd held back.

He shifted his gaze to meet her eyes, and he wondered, as he had so many times in recent days, if he was even capable of giving such unrestrained love. He wanted to. Lord, he wanted to. But he just didn't know how.

Poor Catherine-Anne. Had she ever suspected how little of himself he actually gave her? Had she ever known how necessary that holding back was?

"It wasn't fear," He said at last.

"Why did Lucy call you a murderer?"

He stood abruptly, and when she drew back he froze. He hated the look of fear that suddenly flashed in her eyes. The look sickened him; it was the same look he had seen on his mother's face whenever he went to hug her.

He clenched his fists at his side. "Why don't you ask Lucy?"

"I want it to come from you. I want you to tell me who you are and what happened to make Lucy hate you so. I want you to tell me why, if you love me, you keep pushing me away."

They stared at each other across the table. Maddie was as unrelenting in her need for answers as he was in protecting her from them.

Even so, it took a great deal of determination on his part now to walk outside, leaving her questions unanswered.

Chapter 27

She stared at the closed door, resisting the urge to follow him. His failure to share his past with her was proof enough that he had no intention of sharing his future or anything else with her.

Feeling weary and disheartened, she checked on Matthew. He was sound asleep and looked like an angel with his long, dark lashes fanning across his soft, rounded cheeks. She ran her fingers lovingly across his smooth forehead. His lids lifted, and his mouth turned upward at the sight of her before his eyes flickered shut again. "Sleep tight, sweetie," she whispered, dropping a kiss on his temple.

She tiptoed outside, closing the door softly behind her. She searched the darkness for Luke and strained her ears for the sound of his footsteps, but all she could hear was the melodious sound of the flute drifting out of the darkness.

All through that long, seemingly endless night, she was haunted by things she didn't understand. What could have happened to put such a look of anguish and despair on his face? So much hatred in Lucy's? And how much of what had happened was responsible for Matthew's inability to speak?

All she had was bits and pieces, and the more she tried to fill in the missing links, the more the questions outnumbered the answers.

Adding to the confusion was the memory of his kisses and the warm, secure feel of his arms around her. Maybe the truth was here, somewhere, staring her in the face, but she didn't want to see it. Maybe love really
was
blind.

She was tremendously relieved when the first glimmer of dawn announced the end of night, and Lefty's horse could be heard galloping across the prairie. Soon his familiar voice sounded outside her tipi. "This Great Father's day?"

She stepped outside to greet him. "Not today, Lefty."

He grinned. "Me be back."

"Don't go yet. I need to talk to you." She walked to his pony's side. "Do you know anyone who plays a flute?"

Lefty frowned. "Flute?"

"Musical instrument." She tried to think of other words he might know that would convey her meaning, and when none came to mind, she pretended to play a flute to demonstrate.

Lefty nodded. "Flute." He pronounced the word as she had. "Love flute."

Her heart skipped a beat. "I knew it was a love song," she whispered. "But who?" A sudden thought occurred to her. "Oh, no! Not Shooting Star."

"Shooting Star like Wildfire. Call you Ostrich. Flute magic. Make…how you say? Drop in love."

"Drop? You mean fall…fall in love? The flute makes people fall in love?"

Lefty nodded. "Flute make Wildfire and Shooting Star drop in love."

"Listen to me, Lefty. You must tell Shooting Star no more love flute."

Lefty rode off, and all she could do was hope that he would make her wishes known to Shooting Start. As she turned back, something red caught her eyes. Picking Bones was walking toward the tipi to begin her daylong vigil.

Maddie shuddered to think what the woman would do if she found out that Shooting Star was playing love songs to her.

Following her early-morning workout with the Cheyenne, Maddie rode out to the Eldridge camp. Peter emerged from the tent. Tucking his crutches beneath his armpits, he hobbled out to greet her. His haggard appearance shocked her. It seemed that he had aged ten years in a single night.

"Lucy? Is she okay?"

"She had a hard night. The grasshopper raid upset her. Jamie and Caroline had nightmares. I'm afraid none of us got much sleep. Looks like you didn't get much sleep yourself."

"I didn't."

His gaze traveled across the prairie. Only yesterday the area had been covered with wildflowers and tall grass. Today, in contrast, the ground was bare, stripped of every blade of grass or plant, anything green, or even brown. Even the canvas on the wagon had been devoured, and little more than tiny strips of fabric hung from the steel frame. It was obvious that the Eldridges had suffered far more damage than Luke had.

"How much crop damage did you have?" Peter asked.

"We…were lucky. For some reason, the grasshoppers moved on before doing too much damage."

"You
were
lucky. It was all I could do to save the tent. They were all over the thing. As it is, I'm afraid that when it rains, we'll be in for some problems."

"Is there anything we can do to help?"

"That's mighty generous of you to offer. If we think of anything, I'll let you know."

"We have quite a bit of meat in the smokehouse and plenty of dairy products."

He looked surprise by the offer. "We're pretty well stocked with tinned goods, and I just sent the children down to the stream for fresh water. I'll boil it to be on the safe side."

She dismounted and Peter took the reins from her. She walked by his side, marveling at the ease with which he maneuvered his crutches. "Luke told me you lost your leg during the war."

"I don't like to talk about the war. What happened, happened." He wrapped the reins around a wagon wheel. "Lucy's inside."

Maddie found Lucy lying on the cot inside the tent. She looked pale, but otherwise healthy enough. After they had exchanged a few pleasantries, and talked about the horror of the grasshoppers, Lucy told her about the new house Peter planned to build.

"He rode over to Colton this morning and made arrangements for the excess lumber to be sent over here. The workers said they would help Peter put up a house and barn. It won't take more than a few days."

Maddie remembered Luke telling her that prairie fires made him question the wisdom of wood houses. "Do you think you'll have your new house in time for the baby?"

"Perhaps not. But soon afterward." Her face softened. "Peter is truly a hero. There's nothing he can't do, even though he's missing a leg."

The look of love and adulation on Lucy's face brought a pang to Maddie's heart. She wondered if Lucy knew how very lucky she was.

"Lucy, yesterday--"

"You want to know why I called Luke a murderer."

"I find Luke to be a very gentle and caring man. I can't imagine why you would make such an accusation."

Lucy gave her a knowing look. "Don't let your heart blind you from the truth."

Maddie bit her lower lip; she remembered that Red Feather had accused her of the same thing.

"What is the truth? Please, Lucy. I need to know."

Lucy looked up from her pillow and nodded.

"I guess you do. I'm only telling you this because I'm fond of you. I hardly know you, but I admire the way you conduct your life. With no regard of what anyone thinks."

Maddie laughed at this. "That's the first time anyone ever said they admired me."

"It's the truth. My father was a minister, and we couldn't breathe without worrying about what the community would think."

She paused for a moment to adjust the pillows at her back. Maddie assisted her, then sat on a campstool.

"If you're not up to talking, I'll come back."

"I'm all right."

Lucy's face grew dark as she considered the past. "You probably know Luke's wife died in childbirth."