CHAPTER

4

Do you say I’m deaf and dumb because you don’t trust me to speak?”

After riding hard all day and half of the night, we happened on a clear spring amid a copse of cottonwood and hackberry trees. We judiciously watered our horses to keep them from foundering, picketed them, and made a cold camp beneath the largest cottonwood. A quarter moon hung in the starry sky.

Kindle didn’t respond and I continued. “It cannot be because I sound too much like a woman.”

I dug a stick into the cool, muddy ground and didn’t look at Kindle. I’d hoped with time my voice would return to normal, but it had been weeks since Cotter Black punched me in the throat. My voice had always been more alto than soprano, but now my low voice would crack unexpectedly. I sounded like a young boy whose voice was changing.

“I’m more familiar with this world. It’s safer if I do the talking,” Kindle said. “Why don’t you get some rest. I’ll take watch.”

I tossed the stick into the pool. “When will Little Stick catch up to us?”

“I’m not sure. We rode hard but he can ride faster than we do. The morning, probably.”

“I can take a watch. You need to rest, too.”

“I’m fine. Go on. Rest.”

Without argument, I rolled out my blanket, lay down, and curled into a ball. I heard Kindle’s steady breathing, frogs croaking on the edge of the spring, the whisper of buffalo grass waving in the breeze, and my own heartbeat throbbing in my ears. I would pretend to sleep for a while, then make Kindle give me the watch. Why did he insist on taking everything on and letting me do nothing? Did he think me so useless? Or was he merely trying to protect me? Take care of me?

Of course I knew the answer. He was trying to do both. The question I couldn’t answer was what drove him? Guilt? A sense of honor? Or love?

I squeezed my eyes tight and tried to focus on what we had before: tending to Kindle at Fort Richardson as he healed from two serious wounds, talking late into the night, falling in love, making love in the small fort library and again on the trail the night before we separated. How complete I’d felt in his presence, the way he’d said my name as we made love.

Catherine.

A rough voice in my ear, a knife held to my throat.

He won’t touch you now you’ve been fucked by Indians.

The smell of laudanum and the soft voice of a dear friend.

I’ve taken care of it for you.

I jolted awake and sat up. Kindle sat a few feet away, cradling his Spencer repeating rifle and watching me. Kindle didn’t move to comfort me, merely sat and watched me. “Bad dream?”

I clutched at my chest and thought of Cotter Black whispering vile lies about me into Kindle’s ear, and then doing the same about Kindle into mine, and didn’t answer.

Across the pond, pale light was cresting the eastern horizon. I’d slept longer than I intended. Little Stick was nowhere to be seen. “Will you please rest? I am awake now.”

He walked to me and held out his hand. I took it and stood. He handed me his rifle, but didn’t let go of my hand. He massaged my healing fingers, one at a time, bent them gently into a fist and repeated the action. “How do they feel?”

“They ache.”

“Does this help?”

“Yes. Where did you learn it?”

“From a doctor, as a child.” He continued before I could ask more. “What were you dreaming about?”

“Antietam.”

He knew I was lying. He released my hand, lay on my blanket, and tilted his hat over his eyes.

“I’d love some coffee when I wake.”

I glanced down at his half-covered face and saw him peeking from beneath the brim with a smirk.

“You trust me to make the fire without you?”

“It’s a gamble, I admit.”

I kicked his boot and went to gather firewood.

Ten minutes later I was rubbing a fire stick between my palms, hoping the soapwood would spark the tinder of leaves and grass quickly. I squeaked in excitement when the tinder caught and glanced over my shoulder to make sure Kindle hadn’t heard it. He hadn’t moved, and his face was slack in sleep. I leaned over and blew on the small flame and fed more leaves and grass into the blaze until it was going strong.

When the coffee was on the fire, I took the gun with me to relieve myself near the picketed horses. I led them to the stream, let them drink, and picketed them amid fresh grass. I walked up a small rise and gazed across the plains. I could see miles in every direction. There was no sign of Little Stick, or anyone else. Kindle and I could be the only two people on earth.

I returned to Kindle, who was snoring lightly. His face in repose was the face I fell in love with: clear, honorable, without the tension and worry I saw in every line while he was awake. I longed to reach out and touch him, to run my finger over the beard hiding the scar on his cheek.

I turned away and tried to erase the mortifying memory of the last time I had reached out to him. Intimacy had been the last thing on either of our minds our first days out of Jacksboro. At our first opportunity to talk, to take stock of where we’d been and where we were going, Kindle retreated into himself with barely a glance in my direction.

Stories of women who were abducted by Indians and then rescued, only to be shunned by friends, family, and society played constantly in my mind. During the first two hectic days of running, had he had time to think of what I endured, of the shame that covered me like a pox? Was his polite distance born of duty and responsibility, of respect for what I’d been through, or of disgust?

The idea of freeing Kindle when we arrived wherever it was we were going was dismissed as soon as it came to mind. Though I’d ferociously guarded my independence in New York City, the thought of being alone in the West terrorized me. There were too many dangers, too many men who would do me harm and take advantage of me. Without my profession, I couldn’t survive. I’d flirted with destitution before my practice flourished in New York. Treating prostitutes had saved me. Now I would be fit only for the other side of the bed. If my history with the Comanche became known, even that avenue would be closed to me.

I needed Kindle to survive. His protection, his expertise, his strength. What did I offer him? Clever conversation and intelligence? Stubborness? The latter two were hardly enough to satisfy a man. The former could be bought along with a warm body and a soft bed. The idea of Kindle finding consolation with another woman haunted me and pushed me to bridge the distance between us.

The first night Little Stick had stood watch, I placed my blanket on the ground next to Kindle and lay down. He didn’t move, though his breathing was not deep enough to make sleep believable. I waited, and still he didn’t move. I lifted his arm, pillowed my head on his chest and rested my hand on his stomach above his belt. I didn’t look at him. I couldn’t lest he see my humiliation at stooping to sex acts to secure his loyalty. His shallow breathing confirmed my suspicion; he was awake.

He grasped my wrist before my hand slid halfway beneath the waist of his britches. “This might be the only chance to sleep for days.”

I waited and hoped for a kind word, a reassurance, something, anything to make me believe his love for me was as strong as it had been before. When he remained stiff and silent, I rose, took my blanket to the other side of the fire, and spent a sleepless night crying quietly. My dream of a marriage of equals full of playfulness and passion faded, only to be revived the next day with the easy companionship and flirty banter that had sparked our love affair at Fort Richardson. At night, the distance returned. Our relationship swung like a pendulum from hope to despair and back again.

A frog splashed into the pond and jerked me to the present: the smell of coffee, Kindle asleep. The sounds of Indian whoops made me flinch, grasp my gun, and rush up the bank. The horizon was as clear as it had been moments earlier. I rubbed my forehead, breathed deeply, and tried to forget.

Physically I was almost healed from the degradation the Indians had put me through on the banks of the Canadian River. I flexed the fingers of my right hand. Kindle’s massage had helped. Dr. Ezra Kline had done an admirable job of breaking and resetting them. Though I might not ever be able to perform delicate, internal surgery, they would be sufficient to remove bullets, stitch up knife wounds, and deliver babies—the types of complaints I was likely to see the most in the West anyhow.

Despite riding astride since that morning on the Canadian, my pudenda had healed, though they had lost most of their sensitivity. A blessing or a curse? Would it return once I got out of the saddle? I didn’t know.

My hand went to my abdomen.

I’ve taken care of it for you.

Ezra had taken care not only of my broken hands and other outer injuries, he had also terminated my pregnancy. I squeezed my eyes shut at the memory of his expression as he told me once I woke from a laudanum-induced unconsciousness. He had not asked if I wanted it, only assumed the baby was the result of the Comanche’s abuse. There was a good chance he was right. But there was also the possibility it had been Kindle’s baby he had aborted, though Ezra couldn’t have known. I told myself it was the correct decision, that I would have asked him to do it, or done it myself, as soon as I knew I was with child. I only had to imagine the horror on Kindle’s face at seeing the culmination of Cotter Black’s revenge in the face of a half-Comanche baby to know Ezra had made the right decision. When I dreamt of the baby, though, it had Kindle’s eyes.

The sun was fully over the horizon now and sweat popped out on my upper lip. The cool water of the pool enticed me. I couldn’t remember the last time I had a bath. My breathing quickened. What if someone were to ride up? I would be naked and vulnerable. Should I wake Kindle to keep watch? I searched the horizon again, saw nothing and no one. Kindle snored slightly, and his face had the slack expression of one in a deep sleep. He’d slept so little since we left Fort Richardson I was loath to wake him. I decided to be quick about it, and stay within easy reach of the bank and my rifle.

With my back to Kindle’s sleeping form I placed the gun on the edge of the water and quickly shed my pants and shirt. I unlaced the corset I’d been wearing upside down to flatten my breasts. I removed it gingerly and somewhat painfully. The whalebone ribs left deep lines on my skin. I lifted my breasts and squeezed them, relieved to feel like a woman again, if only briefly. Goose bumps raced across my body when I stepped into the cool water. I inhaled sharply and glanced over my shoulder at Kindle, who was dead to the world. I walked farther into the pool, mud squelching through my toes, wondering idly if there were snakes nearby, when the bottom fell out of the world and I submerged.

The cold water rushing over my body was glorious. I broke through the surface, soaking wet and laughing. Kindle stood on the bank, eye patch flipped up on his forehead, half-awake, gun drawn, looking around for danger. When he saw me in the middle of the pool, laughing, he looked angry at first, then his face cleared. “Taking a dip?”

“A bath, actually. Though I don’t have soap. I didn’t mean to wake you. It’s deep in the middle.”

“Of course it is. It’s a spring.”

“Ah. Right. I checked the horizon before I got in. No one and nothing. See for yourself.”

Kindle holstered his Colt, picked up the rifle, walked up the rise, and was gone. I leaned my head back into the water and ran my hands through my shorn hair. Kindle’d taken a knife to it our first day, so I could pull off the ruse of being a man more easily. I closed my eyes, leaned back, and floated, thinking of how wonderful it felt: cool water beneath me, the sun warming my chest and face, the only sound the water flowing through my fingers as my arms moved lazily back and forth, keeping me afloat. I smiled and was almost content for the first time in months.

I opened my eyes. Kindle watched me from the bank, eye patch over his left eye, the rifle held lightly in his hand. I treaded water and waited for him to say or do something. When he didn’t, I sat up, keeping my nakedness submerged.

“Did you see anyone?”

“No.”

“Are you well rested?”

“Enough.”

“The eye patch is growing on you, isn’t it?” I said.

“No, but now that I’ve used it, I’m committed to wearing it.”

He didn’t move, but his eye flicked down to the water.

“How long did you watch me?”

“Not long enough.”

“Yet, still you stand on the bank.” I held out my hand.

Without taking his eye off me, he put the gun on the bank, removed his boots, and walked into the pool fully clothed. He stopped and tensed. “God Almighty, that’s cold.”

“You’ll get used to it.”

He stepped forward cautiously. “Are you going to tell me where—” With a shout, he dropped into the pool. When he came up I saw a glimpse of Kindle as a child. Carefree, happy, and laughing.

“Right there,” I said.

He splashed my face and treaded water a few feet from me.

“Have I told you about how I met General Sherman?” I asked.

“No.”

“He was bathing. In the middle of a creek, naked as you please. He asked me to throw him his soap. I think he assumed I would have bad aim and he would be forced to stand up and show off his assets.”

“And did you have bad aim?”

“No. I plopped it right in front of his face.”

Kindle grinned and inched closer to me. The water was crystal clear, giving him an unrestricted view of my entire body, but he kept his eyes steadily on my own. “We shouldn’t stay in here too long. You’d be surprised how quickly a man can cross the horizon.”

I nodded. “I miss your scar.”

“The eye patch doesn’t make up for it?”

“No.” Tiny droplets of water clung to Kindle’s beard. With a hand shaking from the cold as much as nerves, I reached out to touch him but pulled my hand back, the sting of rejection too fresh. Kindle’s penetrating gaze never left my face.

“Tell me plain,” I said. “Are you with me out of a sense of obligation?”

“Obligation?”

“I cannot bear your pity.”

Kindle turned his head away, his jaw working, pain clear on his face.

“Your brother said—”

His head snapped forward. “Whatever he said was a lie.”

“Was it? Why don’t you want me?”

“Is that what you think?” I didn’t answer but kept my eyes squarely on him. His voice thick with emotion, he said, “I don’t deserve to be with you. I brought it all on you, and I’ll never forgive myself for it.”

My stomach seized. I wasn’t sure I was ready for Kindle to take me, but surely the anticipation of the event was worse than the act itself. Get it over with. Secure his love and loyalty and move on.

I reached out and touched his face. He grasped my hand and kissed my palm, and I was in his arms. He kissed me like a drowning man hungry for air. His lips and tongue were so familiar I almost forgot where it was leading.

He turned me around so I faced away, wrapping his arms around me. He ran a finger along the corset grooves lining my breasts. “You have your own scars.”

“They will heal.”

“I’m not talking of these.” His finger traced my nipple before cupping and gently squeezing my breast. His other hand slid down my stomach and between my legs. Kindle’s breathing quickened as his fingers stroked me tentatively. I closed my eyes and thought only of Kindle, of the first time he touched me, of the passion he ignited in me at Fort Richardson. Or tried to.

Kindle stilled and I opened my eyes. Four men on horses were on the rise above the pool, watching.

“Don’t stop on our account,” one of the men said. “Though, if you ask me, she don’t look like she’s enjoying it overmuch.”