Chapter 19

A polished silver sun beat out of a lowering sky, casting a harsh, stark light across the landscape and turning the Platte River to a ribbon of quicksilver. It soaked up the shadows, drained the dimension from the buildings, and leached the life from people's faces. Clouds like dirty batting rolled up in the west, promising rain that never came.

Cass stepped out onto the porch of the cabin, hoping to catch a breath of breeze. She couldn't seem to get enough air in the August heat. She couldn't swallow for the knot always lodged in her throat, or lie down to rest without the walls closing in on her. Whenever she could she fled onto the porch.

Today, while Meggie was taking her nap, Cass had brought her sewing outside to stitch on the dress she was making for the little girl. She settled on the bench and stared up at the tattered bit of sky that hung above the fort. Just being able to see it calmed her, made it easier to breathe. But it also left her hungering for changing colors, bellowing wind, and racing clouds. Only Hunter had ever been willing to give her the sky, and Hunter was gone.

She balled the fabric of Meggie's dress in her fists, remembering how Drew had burst into the kitchen that night two weeks before.

"I knew we were wrong to trust that Indian," he announced, bristling with news.

Cass looked up from where she had been wiping the wide pine table. She could see the malice in Drew's smile, smell his almost feral satisfaction. Her stomach turned inside out.

"It's your friend, Jalbert," he said, as if he were testing her. "He killed the sutler."

"Hunter killed Jessup?" Cass breathed. Her fingers tightened around the cloth, deepening the pool of water on the tabletop. She had been with Hunter not much more than an hour before.

"What—what happened?" she stammered.

Drew sauntered toward her. "They say Jalbert was stealing from the trading post, and Jessup caught him. He knifed Jessup to get away," Drew went on. "The Indian bastard killed him in front of witnesses."

Cass had seen the warrior in Hunter Jalbert. If he had killed someone, he had done it honorably and effectively—and only if he'd had no choice.

"Hunter wouldn't steal," she answered almost reflexively.

Drew moved in closer. "All Indians steal."

Cass staggered under the scope of that condemnation. All Indians—as if the nations and the tribes and the clans were a single entity. As if instead of seeing the human face, what Drew saw was a paper silhouette.

What did Drew see when he looked at her?

But Cass knew. He didn't see his Cassie anymore. She had become someone else. Someone Drew couldn't bring into focus, someone he would never in this life recognize or understand.

She straightened slowly, thinking back to her first encounter with Jessup and the incident with the embroidery scissors. That first mistake had marked her—in Drew's eyes, in the eyes of everyone here. In some odd way it had declared what she was even more clearly, even more decisively than the mark on her face. It showed them how she thought, what she felt—what she was beneath her skin. Now it was time to confirm what both she and Drew had been trying so hard to deny.

"While I may have stolen," she told him softly, "you'd be wrong to judge all Indians by me."

Cass brushed past him, knowing now that she'd declared herself there was no going back.

The days since Hunter left had passed for Drew and her in stewing heat and icy silences. He stayed away from the cabin as much as he could. She toiled from dawn until dark and stared at the fort's small swatch of sky, as if it was all she had.

But for now at least, she had Meggie.

As August crawled by, Cass treasured every question Meggie asked, every snuggle they shared, every scrap of foolery and laughter. She tried not to cling to the little girl and very nearly succeeded. On nights when she couldn't sleep, Cass paced to the foot of Meggie's bed and drank in the sight of that soft, sweet face and those delicate hands. Cass remembered how they'd felt against her skin as they'd traced the lines of her tattoo. She remembered how they'd looked tucked into Hunter's larger ones the day he'd showed Meggie how to fish.

Sometimes she allowed herself to wonder where Hunter was. Far away from here, she hoped. Off to his land in Montana. His tepee had disappeared from the fort's encampment, and she hoped that meant he was beginning a new life somewhere safe.

When Cass came back out onto the porch after checking on Meggie, she noticed that a light wind had begun to ruffle the parade ground's yellowed grass. Halfway down its length she saw Lila Wilcox lumbering toward soapsuds row. She was loaded down with wash baskets and walking as if her bowed back hurt. A few weeks before, Cass would have hurried out to help her, but not today. Not ever again.

Cass thought back to the last visit she and Meggie had paid to Will and Lila's cabin.

Lila had been elbow deep in soapsuds when Meggie ran toward her, waving a bouquet of wildflowers. Lila had wiped her hands and hugged the little girl.

"Cassie says Josh went away like Mama did," Meggie began. "She says you're feeling sad, so I brought you flowers."

Lila took the wilting bouquet. "I thank you for your kindness, Meggie girl."

"Cassie says mothers come back from Heaven to watch over their children, so maybe Josh will come back to watch over you and Sergeant Wilcox."

"Maybe he will," Lila said, and blinked back tears.

Cass instinctively reached out to comfort her. "Lila, I want you to know how sorry—"

The older woman jerked away and glared at her. "I told you what I thought the day the wagons came, and I haven't changed my mind."

"Lila, please just let me explain."

"I can't think how explaining would matter much."

Then, ignoring Cass, the older woman squatted down and spoke to Meggie. "I like the flowers, Meggie-girl. And I appreciate you saying you're sorry about Josh. But I'm busy here, and I really need to get back to work." She gave the child a shove in Cassie's direction.

"Lila, please," Cass tried again.

"No," Lila said, and went back to her washtubs.

Cass bent to her sewing again, swallowing down the memory. She'd valued Lila's friendship and Sally McGarrity's kindnesses, and she'd lost it all.

At the sound of footsteps thumping along the path, Cass raised her head. Drew was striding toward her, his shoulders stiff and a scowl twisting his handsome face. Her stomach flip-flopped at the sight of him. He never came back to the cabin in the middle of the day unless something was wrong.

He stomped up the steps. "I have a report to write," he offered by way of explanation.

She stuffed her sewing into her basket and pushed to her feet. "Would you like some lemonade?" she asked, following him into the house.

Drew didn't answer, just jerked to a stop two steps inside the door.

"Meggie!" he yelled at her. "What the devil are you doing with my things?"

Cass stepped around him to see what Meggie had gotten into now. She was perched on the seat of Drew's desk chair, with a paintbrush in one hand and Drew's shaving mirror in the other.

"I painted my face," she announced, and turned her head so they could see.

The child had copied the design of Cassie's tattoo with surprising accuracy—that circle with a star burst radiating from the center. Cass raised one hand to her own cheek, flushed with overwhelming tenderness.

Beside Cass, Drew was quivering like an aspen in a gale.

Reading their expressions, Meggie tried to explain. "I—I just wanted to look pretty—like Cassie."

Drew burst across the room and jerked Meggie out of his chair. "Goddamnit, girl!" he bellowed, shaking her. "Why would you want a filthy tattoo? You're not an Indian. You're white!"

Meggie shrieked and stiffened in her father's grasp.

Cass flew at him. "Don't you hurt her!" she spit. "Don't you dare hurt her. Meggie doesn't understand what she's done. She doesn't understand how much you hate the Indians. How much you hate me!"

Drew released his hold on Meggie and turned on Cass.

The child scrambled back and slumped against the wall. She was tousled from her nap, barefoot, half-dressed, and terrified. Cass wanted to go to her, but knew she had to face Drew first.

"Oh, Meggie understood perfectly well about redskins until you came here," he told her. "She understood everything until you told her your wild stories and your heathen superstitions. She was my sweet, obedient girl until you turned her into a savage."

"You don't deserve a child like her!" Cass shouted back. "You don't know how to care for her or give her the love she needs! You're so bent on avenging your parents' deaths hat you can't spare a thought for—"

Drew grabbed Cass's arm and hustled her out onto the porch. "I don't want you here anymore," he shouted, his eyes black with rage. "I don't love you. I don't need you. I don't even know who you are! You're not my Cassie!"

"I'm not your Cassie," she answered, her throat aching with regret. "Your Cassie died in the Indian camp."

Drew seemed to comprehend—at last. "Like Julia," he said.

"Just like Julia."

Cassie's last and most terrible secret bubbled up inside her. It pushed at her sternum, clawed up the back of her throat. She'd held her peace for all these months, hoping Drew would never have to know how Julia died. But if this was the end of everything between them, she owed him the truth.

"Your Cassie was too weak to survive, so she died just like Julia. She had to be abandoned, left behind."

It took a moment for Drew to realize what she'd admitted, and when he did, his eyes flared hot with rage again.

"Is that how it happened?" he breathed. "Is that how my sister died?"

"That's how all of them died, all the old and the frail and the sick. The Kiowa left them and went on."

She remembered how she'd kept looking back to where they'd left Julia in a grove at the edge of a stream, how Cass had wanted to sink to her knees and weep for her lost friend. How she'd managed to keep on walking.

"And you did nothing?" he accused.

She'd been captive, powerless. Drew had never understood how powerless she'd been. He kept blaming her for things she couldn't help.

"Goddamn you, Cassandra!" he shouted, and shoved her away.

She stumbled down the steps and sprawled in the dust at the bottom, shaken by Drew's ferocity.

"I don't want you here!" he declared. "I don't want you as my wife! I should never have married you—no matter what we were to each other once. Now get out!"

When Drew spun back into the cabin, Cass climbed slowly to her feet. She could see Meggie staring out at her, hear the child crying in loud, gulping sobs. Cass yearned to go to her, to snatch her up and take her away. But for all that Meggie was the child of her heart, she had no claim on Drew Reynolds's daughter.

Drew himself came back a moment later carrying the wooden trunk Sally McGarrity had given Cass months before.

"Here's what you came with, Sweet Grass Woman. Take it and leave." He heaved the wooden box off the porch.

The trunk landed with a resounding bang at her feet, reminding Cass that she has suffered this same kind of betrayal when her Indian husband Gray Falcon had shamed and denounced her. When he had divorced her in front of everyone, thrown her away—Just as Drew was doing now.

She looked up at Drew, and their gazes held for one charged moment. She'd loved him once so long ago, and he'd loved her. How could their dreams for a happy life together have ended so painfully, so terribly?

Then Drew spun back into the cabin and slammed the door behind him.

* * *

Drew stumbled back against the rough wooden panel and stood there shaking. Goddamn Cassandra Morgan! Goddamn her for what she was, for living when Julia had died, for leaving his sister behind. How could Cass have abandoned her?

How had he abandoned both of them?

He should have shot Cassie that day in the canyon. He should have shot them both. Perhaps he would have had a modicum of peace if she and Julia had died there beside the wagon. Instead, his sister had perished somewhere out on the prairie all alone. Instead, Cassie had lived as an Indian whore, a traitor to her own people. A traitor to him.

In his head Drew heard the whoops of their attackers again, tasted dust on his tongue, and felt the imprint of that pistol in his hand. A shiver racked him as he remembered.

He'd never needed a drink more than he did now.

He pushed away from the door and stumbled toward the kitchen. He took down the pitcher with the bottle inside and reached for a glass. He sat at the end of the bench, filled the tumbler with whiskey, and downed the drink in a single draft.

The liquor bit the back of his tongue, seared his gullet, and vaporized halfway down his chest. He'd learned to like the harsh, unrepentant burn of it. He'd learned to crave the ease it brought, the way it blurred both memory and reality when he couldn't own up to the world anymore.

As the burning subsided, Drew let out his breath. He wondered where his daughter was.

"Meggie," he called out.

The house was silent.

"Meggie?"

Damn the child. She was sulking because he'd yelled at her. Hiding somewhere. Under the bed or around the corner of the house. How far could a four-year-old go, anyway?

She'd come back when she was hungry. She'd come back with that goddamned paint on her face—Cassie's mark, Cassie's shame. If he had to scrub off every bit of her skin, he'd wash that mark off Meggie's face. Just thinking of her painted up like that made his stomach curl.

He picked up the bottle and poured again.

Now that Cassie was gone, he could admit how angry he was that she'd come back. He hated that she hadn't been the girl he remembered. He hated that she'd stirred up memories he thought he'd tamed. He hated her for making him question everything he'd done since that day in the canyon and everything he hoped to do. But most of all he hated her for making him face how he had failed both Julia and her.

Drew wrapped his trembling hand around his drink and brought the glass to his lips. He took a long, deep swallow and hissed with satisfaction at the liquor's spreading heat.

It helped him admit that he had failed them twice. He hadn't aimed that pistol and killed them when he'd had the chance. He hadn't searched for them once he was well.

How did a man endure knowing that he'd chosen to believe that his sister and the woman he loved were dead rather than accept what their time with the Kiowa would make them? How did he admit that he hadn't wanted to bring them back to scorn and degradation? Instead, he had chosen to dedicate his life to avenging the dead.

Drew's eyes blurred with tears. For nine long years revenge had been the whole of him. It had taken the place of loyalty and friendship and love. It had meant more than Meggie's smiles, Laura's embraces, than either Julia's or Cassie's lives. Had it been worth it?

He drank down what was left of the whiskey in his glass, but its heat never seemed to melt that icy place inside him. Nothing did.

Nothing but vengeance drenched in blood would ever quench it. That was how he was. How the past had made him. There was no going back.

Drew looked out the kitchen door, north toward the river, toward where the Sioux and Cheyenne encampments were. North to where glory and satisfaction awaited him.

He rubbed his hand across his mouth and poured himself more whiskey.

"To vengeance," he said, raising the glass to his mouth. "May it finally be worth the cost."

* * *

Cass stood with the trunk at her feet staring up at Drew's cabin, at the empty windows and the tightly closed door. As hard as she'd fought it, she had known this moment was inevitable. Still, she hadn't expected it to end like this, with Drew accusing her of things she hadn't done and her declaring her last and most closely guarded secret.

The heat of those emotions slowly died, leaving the taste of ashes in her mouth. As much as she loved Meggie, as much as she had come to understand the dark motives that were driving Drew, she hadn't been able to change things.

She'd failed again.

As Cass turned from the cabin, she realized that a number of people had witnessed the shameful display of Captain Reynolds divorcing his wife. A full half dozen troopers heading back from fatigue duty had stopped to watch. A trio of laundresses stood balancing baskets of clothes on their hips. Sylvie Noonan was sweeping her porch and gawking, probably thrilled to have a prime bit of gossip to tell over afternoon tea.

Cass ignored the lot of them and flung open the lid of the trunk. She pulled out her beaded blanket and her medicine bundle, her tools, her jewelry, and her herbs. She took out her leggings and her moccasins, slammed the lid, and sat on the top.

She tugged the laces from her heavy, shin-high shoes. She'd worn these horrible shoes every day since she'd married Drew. She'd worn them even though they pinched her feet. She'd worn them without complaint and told herself she'd get used to them, that she'd break them in—but she never had.

Now it was time to take them off for good, time to give up the pretense of being something she could never be. She removed one of the stiff, high-polished boots and then the other. She set them aside with both distinct relief and unexpected regret. She wiggled her toes into her elk-skin moccasins. It felt so good to be herself again.

Except for losing Meggie.

Losing Meggie ripped Cass raw and left her bleeding. She refused to leave Fort Carr without saying good-bye, without holding Meggie one last time. She needed to wrap the girl close against her heart, stroke that soft, fair hair and breathe in the scent of her childish innocence. Cass could not go without telling Meggie she loved her. This small, precious girl was the child she could never have. She had made Cass a mother in every way but one, and for the rest of her days Cassie would carry the regret of leaving Meggie.

Drew would never let her talk to Meggie after what had happened between them, but Cass would watch and wait. She would find her chance to say good-bye.

She sweated out the thickening afternoon heat in the shade of the cavalry barracks, but while she watched, neither Drew nor Meggie came out of the cabin. They didn't draw water from the water barrel, take down the short line of wash she'd hung out that morning, or use the privy. The longer Cass waited, the more restless she became. But it was only when she saw the cavalry troopers heading back from afternoon stable call that she dared approach the house.

The kitchen door was propped open with a flat iron, just the way she'd left it. She paused outside, leaning closer, listening for the sounds of movement, the ring of Drew and Meggie's voices. Everything was deathly still. The fist in her belly clenched tighter as she peeked inside.

After the hazy gray brightness of the overcast afternoon Cass couldn't see much, but as her eyes adjusted to the dimness, she saw Drew slumped over the kitchen table. His head was on his arms and beside him sat the pewter pitcher, a glass, and a whiskey bottle drunk down to the dregs.

"Oh, Drew," she breathed around the disappointment that clogged her throat. "Oh, Drew!"

She slipped past him on silent feet, prowled through the parlor and into the bedchamber. She drew back the curtain and looked in Meggie's bed. The child was not there.

Cassie's heart went cold.

"Meggie?" she called out softly, her voice wavering a little. She waited, but there was no answer.

Cass crept back through the silent house, looking everywhere she could think of, trying to keep her fear in check.

Where had Meggie gone? To Lila's or Sally's? To the stables or the bake house? She wondered if she should awaken Drew and ask him where his daughter was.

She stared down at where he sprawled, flushed and slack-jawed. Drew wouldn't know what had become of his daughter.

Cass stepped outside, trying to decide where to look for Meggie next. As she gathered up the bundle she had made of her belongings, she noticed the print of one small, bare foot pressed into the mud left from dumping her wash water. The footprint appeared again a few yards away. Judging from the stride, Cass would say Meggie had been running.

Running away.

Cass knew it suddenly and certainly. The realization chilled her all the way to her toes.

She followed the signs, trotting along to the east, following the course of the Overland Trail. A mile or more out, Meggie crossed the dusty wagon ruts toward the river. The ground was softer here, the blowing grass taller, and the trail easier to follow. Cass wondered just how far a four-year-old would dare to wander by herself.

She'd covered nearly four more miles of Meggie's trail when she suddenly saw the ring of trampled grass. She ran toward it, feeling the surge of foreboding prickle through her blood. She recognized the sign of horses, the cut of unshod hooves in the sandy earth.

Indians, she thought, though it wasn't immediately clear whether they had been here before or after Meggie. Then Cass found the doll she'd made lying trampled in the grass.

Cass stumbled to her knees, crushing the bits of cloth and buttons and horsehair to her chest. "Meggie!" she screamed in the rising wind. "Meggie!"

But Meggie didn't answer.

She'd been taken by the Indians, stolen away.

Cass wrapped her arms around herself and doubled over. Sobs ripped up her throat. Cass knew exactly how Meggie would be treated. She would lose herself just as surely as Cassie had, and Cass refused to let that happen.

She pushed to her feet and studied the ground. She didn't read sign as well as most warriors did, but she could see that the riders had been on stallions, which meant it was a war party. They had passed through half an hour before. Too long ago for Cass to overtake them on foot.

Cass had almost decided to go back to the fort and tell Drew and Ben McGarrity about Meggie when she found the clear, unmistakable print of a Cheyenne moccasin. If Meggie had been taken by the Cheyenne, Cass had a far better chance of getting her back if she went alone. Once the army was involved, there would be bloodshed.

She forged ahead, running along beside the war party's trail. The Cheyenne had crossed the Platte at a gravel-bottomed shallows well hidden by the overhanging bank. They had ridden across with what appeared to be very little difficulty. Cass had to ford the river on foot.

The storm that had been brewing all day came to a boil directly overhead. Thunder mumbled menacingly. The trees along the river churned. The sky hazed darker and darker. If she didn't cross the river now, she'd get cut off.

Cass stripped down to her chemise and drawers and waded in. She had to fight the current to keep from being swept downstream. She had to fight to keep to the narrow ridge of stones that marked the ford.

Above her, lightning cut jagged streaks across the sky. The clouds roared in answer. Rain gushed down in torrents, dimpling the river like waves of gooseflesh.

Cass fumbled on. Rain washed down her face and blurred her vision. The river swept up to her chin. She gasped for breath, and then, when she could barely see or breathe, the footing evened out. She waded on, stumbling up the northern bank into the raging storm.

She donned her skirt and moccasins and headed off, tramping through the rain, peering at a trail that was quickly being obliterated. Long, wet grass dragged at her as she stumbled forward. Her breath rasped in her throat and her muscles burned. If she could follow this track until the Cheyenne turned north, she would have a fair idea of where they were taking Meggie. But the hoof prints were swiftly being washed away, and the trampled grass was springing back.

Then all at once, a man on horseback loomed out of the storm. Cass screamed and swung at him instinctively, slamming her bundle of belongings into the horse's side.

His gelding danced and reared, his hooves flying.

One grazed Cassie's shoulder and knocked her back onto the grass. She scrambled to her feet, her heart jerking wildly. She raised her pack again, ready to fight. Then she heard her name.

"Cass! Goddamnit, Cass!"

The rider was wearing a white man's hat and a white man's duster. Yet in the shadows she could just make out the breadth of his jaw and the faint, soft bow of his lower lip.

"Hunter?" she gasped.

He reached out a hand to help her mount. "I've been waiting and watching the fort. I guess I knew you'd need me."

Cass went breathless and wobbly now that she knew who he was. Still, she ignored the gesture, standing stiff and straight in the pouring rain.

"The Cheyenne have taken Meggie! I have to keep following their trail so I can get her back!"

"Take my hand," Hunter said.

"I have to get her back!" Cass's voice grew shrill. "I can't let them keep her."

The brim of his hat dipped, spilling rain. "Take my hand."

"Are you going to help me find her?"

She thought she saw him smile. "Of course."

Cass slid her foot on top of his in the stirrup and swung up onto his horse. His arms closed around her, and he pulled her back against his chest. Even through the duster she could feel his heat. Even through the frenzy of her own desperation, she felt her muscles trembling and sensed she'd reached the limits of her strength.

She felt Hunter's warm breath brush her temple. "Which way do you think the trail was heading?"

Cass gestured off to the right.

He nudged his horse in that direction. "We'll find her, Cass," he whispered against her ear. "We'll find her, and we'll get her back."