Felicia Andrews Read online

  Mitchell smiled at her stiffly, nodded to Amanda, and escorted the woman across the lawn toward the second set of tables. Amanda only stared. Then looking down at her left hand, she realized that she would shatter her punch cup if she squeezed it any tighter. Shaking as though a chill had invaded her, she set the crystal down and walked around the edge of the table and into the shadows of a cage of white birch. Her lips quivered. Her chest felt as if a branding iron had seared it.

  "Doug, " she muttered in vicious imitation of Carla's husky voice, "I haven't eaten yet. Oh, Doug, will you help me across this nasty lawn? Oh . . . damn!"

  "Mother," a voice said at her shoulder, "if you think you can uproot the tree just by staring at it, you're going to be awfully disappointed. "

  She closed her eyes briefly, feeling the tight flesh across her face working to rearrange itself into a semblance of her own self. And when she turned, she wondered if she looked as grotesque as she felt.

  Alexander, resplendent in a tan suede jacket and snug trousers, stood with one arm protectively around the waist of Hope Longstreet. She was nearly his height, a porcelain blonde with doll-like features and an almost boyish figure carefully plumped by the ruffles and folds of her dress.

  "I was thinking, " Amanda said.

  The music began again; if possible, it was even louder than before.

  Alexander glanced over the table toward the sheriff and Carla. Though his hair had been combed back over his ears and was parted on the side, there was no mistaking his heritage nor his quiet bemusement.

  "I see," he said.

  Amanda wanted to throttle him.

  "Mrs. Munroe," Hope said in a voice that rang like a pure silver bell, "Alex and I . . . I know you're busy, but I . . .we .. . . "

  Amanda struggled to bring herself back to the present, away from the scene she had just endured, then put a slow hand to her mouth to keep from gasping. Alex was trying very hard to appear manly and impassive, while Hope twisted a lace handkerchief in her hands nervously. They did not need to say anything to her; she knew why they had come to her. And for a frightening, virtually nightmarish moment, she wanted to slap the girl viciously across her prim red mouth.

  Instead she nodded.

  "Mother . . . " Alex began to falter. His eyes would not meet hers, and his left foot began digging into the turf. Hope held tightly to his arm now with both hands, her eyes appealing to Amanda for the courage neither of them seemed to have been able to retain.

  Amanda almost laughed but knew that this moment-for all _ of them-was far too important.

  ''Yes, Little Cat?" she said softly, her own hands clasped at her waist.

  Alexander's head snapped up at his true name.

  "Please," Hope whispered to him.

  "Mother, " he said again, his voice dropping deeply into a cavernous timbre, "I've asked Hope to be my wife. She's accepted. I intend to build a home on the western reaches, and I will take care of her. Always."

  Amanda thought of the old Shoshone man whose people had often camped in those same western reaches of the ranch; whose people had left the Wind River reservation to trade, hunt, visit with her and the rest of Goreville, and would leave before the first snows. Little Cat had worked on the ranch with the horses; and when the old man, his father, finally died and there was no family left to care for him, she had taken him gladly, not from charity but out of love.

  "Your father would be very proud," she said.

  Tears began to swim in Hope's eyes.

  "But," Amanda continued, "do you realize what this will mean, Little Cat? I'm not talking about the work, or the caring-both of which you will do well because you are who you are-1 mean, the people who will look at you, and at Hope, and see . . . what they will see."

  "I am strong, Mother. "

  "And Hope?"

  Hope frowned, her doll's face suddenly shorn of its frail masque. "I," she said, "can speak fur myself. And yes, I do understand what those with small minds will say. And I don't care. If I can survive the talk about what my father did, then I can survive this. You don't have to worry about that, Mrs. Munroe."

  More than bravado, Amanda heard the strength behind the words. Still she did not take her gaze from her son's face. She dared not. She knew this would come-if not with Hope, then with someone else--and she knew that she had to match that strength with that of her own.

  "I will not help you unless asked, " she told him.

  "I will not ask," he said quickly.

  She reached out, then, and touched a finger lightly to his cheek. "You are of the blood," she said softly. "You will not let your children forget that."

  He covered her hand in his. "'The first girl will be called Dawn."

  Amanda caught her breath, looked to Hope who smiled and nodded.

  Dawn. Dawn Wind. It was the name of her mother.

  "Little Cat," she said, raising her head, "you are as stubborn and foolish and wrong-minded as your mother. You do not need my blessing. You would marry this girl even if I forbade it."

  He nodded and smiled.

  "Well," she said in mock resignation, "then I suppose there is nothing for me to do but give it."

  There was no hesitation. As soon as she had spoken, they were locked in a three-way embrace that curtained off the world. And the tightness that had been building in her throat and chest shattered like a glass globe struck by lightning. She wept and grinned, wiped the tears from Hope's face with her fingertips and laughed as Alexander cleared his throat raw, swallowing and blinking until he muttered a low curse and wiped a hand across his face.

  And when they were finished, she turned to call out, to bring everyone's attention to the joy that she felt . . . and stopped. Olivia was staring curiously at her, Harley behind her with a frown on his stolid face. She looked at Alex and Hope and saw immediately their understanding. With Olivia feeling the way she did now toward the Munroes, this was not the time to announce the engagement. Not on the night of the Peterson anniversary. Their own celebration, then, she thought; a week from now, when Olivia can have no complaints and her sour face won't spoil anything.

  She smiled and waved; Olivia, not at all sure what was happening, waved tentatively back.

  The music, a waltz, floated across the lawn.

  Amanda turned to the young couple and gently pried Hope's hands away from Alex's arm.

  "He has never done this in his whole life," she said to the puzzled girl as she led her son back toward the tables. "But tonight this boy is going to dance with his mother if I have to break his scrawny neck. "

  Hope laughed and covered her mouth with her hands.

  "Your feet!" she called after them excitedly. "His boots weigh a toni"

  Alex scowled as hard as he could, but when he took his mother into the circle of his arms, his scowl broke and his smile returned. "''m not that bad," he said.

  "You'd better not be," she said, looking proudly at him and not caring who was watching. "I have a ranch to run, you know.

  "Everybody knows that, Mother," he said. And when she stared at him, he did not look away. "You should work less and enjoy yourself more."

  "I spent over a month in San Francisco! And I can assure you I didn't spend all that time knitting at Sarah Wilcox's house.

  "You know what I mean."

  She tilted her head as though looking at him sideways would give her new perspective. "You're growing."

  ''I'm grown," he said carefully. "You've just been too busy to notice. "

  She shook her head quickly. "No," she told him, ''I've not been too busy at all. I can see, I'm not blind. But . . . these things, Little Cat, they have a tendency to sneak up on you when you're not looking, even if you're staring them dead in the face. "

  "Then enjoy yourself," he said firmly. ''I'm going to have enough problems with Hope without having to worry about you, too."

  She felt the tears again and fought them. If they were shed now, she would have too many questions to answer . . . and those answers would have t
o come in their own good time. Quickly, then, she buried her face in Alex's chest and let him guide her through the maze of dancers until she could look up again without fear of discovery.

  And when the music had ended and the musicians, amid a laughing storm of protests, climbed down from the platform and made for the tables as though they were afire, she held onto him for a few moments more. They did not speak. There was nothing more, tonight, that had to be said. Then she pushed him away toward Hope, waiting still by the birches, and walked toward the house. Those who greeted her were given a bright, cheerful nod . . . and nothing more; and when Doug intercepted her at the steps, she could not face him squarely.

  "Are . . . are you all right?" he asked, his hat held tightly in his hands.

  "Fine," she said with a shake of her head. "Never better."

  "That's good. "

  "Are you going now?"

  His smile was somewhat forced as he pointed toward the darkness at the side of the house. "Have to get the buckboard. I'd stay, but Carla has what she calls her responsibilities. She wants to get home and get a good night's rest. "

  "That's nice, " she said, still cheerful, still not thinking. "Tell her I wish her well."

  He settled the hat on his head, then nodded to his left.

  "Tell her yourself. I've got to get going."

  She turned and saw Carla walking quickly away from Nate Kurtz, her smile strained, her eyes a blaze of indignant fury. Her left hand was held tightly to her stomach while her right swung stiffly at her side, as if she were carrying an army saber.

  "That man!" she spat when she was close enough to Amanda to hear her. "He should be locked up."

  Amanda laughed. "He's harmless, Carla," she said. "He wouldn't hurt a flea. "

  "I don't care. Nobody should . . ." Suddenly the rage was gone and the almost insolent cast returned to her features. "You are right. I should not be concerned with men like that. And you! Look at you! You look as though you have been eaten by the cat."

  Amanda blinked stupidly for a moment before she realized how the phrase had been mangled; then she laughed and touched a quick hand to her hair.

  "I guess I do," she said.

  "Why? Have you struck gold on your ranch?"

  "Almost as good," she said with a smiling glance toward the distant figures of Alexander and Hope.

  "Well?" Carla's hands were on her hips, her chest unconsciously thrown forward boldly. "Well, is it that big a secret that you cannot tell me after tempting me so much?"

  She heard the buckboard rounding the corner of the house and decided that it would not hurt to tell someone. At the moment it did not matter who knew it, as long she could say something before she exploded.

  "My son," she said. "He's going to be married."

  Impulsively Carla embraced her, then held her at arm's length. "Why, that's wonderful, Amanda!" she said. ''That is the most best news I have heard today. " Then she dropped her hands and looked about her conspiratorially. "Well, perhaps the second best news. "

  "Really?" In spite of herself Amanda was intrigued.

  Carla looked toward the lane where Doug was waiting, a cigarette dangling from his mouth, his hat pulled glumly over his eyes. "You will not tell?"

  "Of course not. "

  "Then . . . perhaps there will be a double wedding, what do you think?"

  Amanda did not understand. "A double wedding?"

  "Why of course," Carla said. "Your son and his woman . . . and Douglas and me."

  FOURTEEN

  It was not a long journey back to Four Aces; a leisurely ride from the Longstreet ranch should not have taken much more than half an hour. Yet it was deep into the midnight hours, and Amanda was still traveling the main road. The small wagon lurched over ruts and half-buried rocks, the roan mare in the traces plodding as though she were pulling through thick mud. There had been a moment when the animal's instincts told it she was heading for Coreville, but Amanda had suddenly snapped out of her stupor and turned the wagon around.

  And as soon as she had done so, she drifted again; and Four Aces was left behind as the road began to climb-through black tunnels of overhanging pines, across an ebony stream that muttered night thoughts to itself as it snaked between high, reeded banks. The air began to chill. A great dark owl soared lazily out of the foliage, calling mournfully, pricking the mare's ears and tossing her head.

  Amanda noticed none of it. Her first reaction to Carla's news had been one of instant and complete disbelief; but the woman had grinned ferally and had run off to Mitchell before Amanda could recover enough to demand an explanation.

  And when the buckboard had vanished beyond the glow of the lanterns, she had retreated to the house and fetched her woolen shawl. A moment later, unable to bear the inconsequential chatter of several women clustered , inside, she had fled to her wagon and had ridden off without bidding anyone farewell.

  It was as though a cloak of invisibility had been dropped over her; she saw nothing, heard nothing, and felt as if there were nothing in the world, her world, that could touch her again. Not the ranch, the wilderness, the inhabitants of the woodland that stayed well away as she passed in silence.

  The road forked abruptly. To the east it wound through a narrow gap with sides that rose three hundred feet toward the stars. From here it would begin a slow descent into the neighboring valley and the beginning of the rolling plains that swept up into Montana. To the west it continued its gradual climb and would eventually join with another, larger trail that in the snowless seasons was open all the way to Idaho and the Pacific Northwest. Along its path, several miles apart, were isolated cabins well back from the road used by travelers during the winter when the weather was too hostile, and by hunters and trappers for protection against man and nature the year round.

  Amanda took the western trail.

  Without thinking, she turned the mare past the huge dark boulder that marked the fork and listened to the echoes of wheel and hoof that bounced off the slopes of the surrounding mountains. Like gunshot, a part of her thought emotionlessly; like all the armies of Hell set in a single battle against her.

  But the rock faded and the echoes died, and there was nothing but the husked whispers of leaves and grass and the padding of night creatures through the underbrush--and the moon.

  Though August had touched only its seventeenth day, the silver-white satellite was already a day or two past its last quarter; and the light it shed was minimal, only a few degrees more than the stars that ringed it. A slight glowing haze touched its rim, and it was rocked onto its side like a lazy, deflating crescent.

  Amanda pulled the mare to a halt when the road suddenly widened. There was a man standing in its center. She took a deep breath and shook her head, the cloth of her skirts rustling coolly over her legs.

  The man walked to the mare and idly stroked its nose, scratched between its ears above the crown. His face was expressionless, his head devoid of hair. He was tall, far taller than anyone Amanda had ever seen, and of a lean and muscular cast that presented at once an aura of great calm and greater strength. His name was Samuel Adams Johnson, a Sioux brave whom her late husband had won in a card game--won deliberately to free him from a white man's humiliating carnival. Since that time Sam had never left Guy's side and had done more than anyone to teach Amanda the deeper, most profound aspects of her Indian background.

  When Guy died, he had prepared to leave Four Aces; only her stem admonitions about his relationship with Alex stayed him. Most of the time he kept to himself, either tending to the horses or sitting beside the second grave in the grove south of the house.

  The first was Guy's. The second belonged to Elizabeth Loutreau, a black woman who had been with Amanda since her days on the Hudson River in Daghaven, who had taken Sam into her heart, and who had died shortly after arriving in Wyoming.

  Amanda stared at the Sioux brave in his buckskin shirt and breeches and said nothing. She felt neither relieved that he had come after her, nor angry at his int
rusion into her sorrow.

  Sorrow-she stiffened at the thought. It was nonsense. She should feel no sorrow. She was nothing to Douglas Mitchell, quite obviously; and just as obviously he was nothing to her. So there was nothing to be sorrowful about. He had made his choice, and she had to accept it. He was a free man. He could do what he wanted. That he chose to throw his life away on a woman whose very appearance was dangerous, not to mention the undertone of ambition and coldheartedness. Well, he was an adult and entitled to make his own mistakes.

  "You are far from home," said Sam quietly, still touching the mare and calming her.

  "I needed fresh air. "

  "Little Cat worries. "