Agnes and the Renegade (Men of Defiance) (15 page)

She forced him from her mind, determined not to worry about him. He was as much a part of the land as the land itself was. He knew how to survive.

She looked for him again the next morning while doing her chores. There was only wind. And land. And sun as far as she could see. She remembered Logan saying that Chayton, like the wind, was often there but never seen. He would make himself known when it suited him, not a minute before.
 

In a dudgeon, she took out her frustration on her work. She built a new canvas, cutting stretchers to fit a large portrait. The story she wanted to create came to her in brilliant flashes of images. Chayton, upon his horse, a storm looming behind him, wind fighting him, frightening his horse, which rose up on his hind legs and pawed the air. All she could see were the colors, the storm, the wind.
 

She arranged her paints and brushes, linseed oil, and turpentine so that it was all near at hand. The canvas she’d prepared was longer than it was wide, six feet by four. She stared at it vertically, seeing in the tall and narrow canvas the finished work, then decided to turn it sideways. She adjusted her easel and looked at it again, deciding that sideways was the correct orientation. She squeezed a thick coil of white paint and another of black and another of blue, then set to work on the sky.

* * *

The first thing Aggie became aware of was that her tongue felt swollen. The next was how bright her room was. Sun was beating down against her eyelids. She went to rub her eyes and felt something thick and crusty covering her fingertips. Paint. Caked on and dried. She sighed, realizing she was waking from another painting binge. This time, she woke on the bed Logan and Sarah had sent for her use in the tent. She sighed and relaxed against the pillows. How they’d known she’d need the bed, she’d probably never know.
 

There was a movement near the bed. Cautiously, Aggie opened her eyes again and turned toward the sound. Chayton sat on a chair in front of the screen, watching her. He was bare-chested, his arms crossed. He looked exceedingly angry and—worried.

She sighed again and sat up, wishing, wishing with all of her might, that she could be normal. Her painting was a madness, a sickness that stole her mind and owned her soul. It had been the same with Theo, or perhaps she’d learned it from him. Either way, she could see why he’d shied away from a relationship with anyone.

Aggie climbed out of the bed. She still had her painting smock on. She needed a bath. She needed food. And she was thirsty enough to drain a small lake. She said nothing to Chayton as she walked around the screen and went to her easel and paints, intent on finding the turpentine to get the paint off her fingers.
 

She did not get that far.

The painting she’d been working on confronted her, stole her breath, stopped her in her tracks. Mother of God. It was exquisite. Her best work yet. The emotion on Chayton’s face and the terror in his horse’s expression mirrored the violence of the sky. She could almost feel the storm they were in: the wind, the wet splash of rain.

She wiped the sudden wash of tears from her face. Each work took a piece of her soul. Perhaps she voluntarily gave each a bit of her soul. She looked back at real-life Chayton, who’d come around the screen to watch her. He would be the death of her, she had no doubt, because she’d only just started producing the body of work he inspired.

She poured a bit of turpentine on a rag and scrubbed at her fingers. When she left the painting tent, Chayton followed. Still they didn’t speak. A scent curled around Aggie when she stepped outside—rich, like meat cooking. Her eyes searched for the source.

Over on the south side of the house was a four-sided rack made of long branches. Thin strips of meat were draped over each branch. A fire smoked in the center of the rack. On another fire, one of her large pots simmered with a thick stew.

Good heavens, she was hungry.

She made a quick circuit of her yard to check the horse in the corral. She had a vague memory of tending to him when she’d taken potty breaks, but those breaks had been few and far between over the last few days. How many days had she been out of her mind?

She grabbed a pitcher then went to the pump. She drew the water, collecting it in her hands to wash her face, then filled the pitcher. She drank half of what she’d drawn. She filled the pitcher again and took it inside the cabin. After firing up the stove, she set several pots on top to heat water for a bath. It would take several trips to the pump to fill them all. On her third trip, Chayton stopped her, handing her a bowl full of a stew.

“Eat,” he ordered.

She set her water pail down. Her hand shook as she took the bowl. Chayton gripped her arm and led her to the bench in front of her house. She didn’t need prompting to collapse upon it. The stew he’d prepared was different from the ones she usually made. Sweet and savory, with spices she couldn’t identify. It was delicious. She emptied the bowl in record time.

Chayton filled the water in the pots on the stove while she ate. When she was finished, he took her bowl from her. “Do what you are going to do with the water, then we will talk.”

It was a directive he didn’t leave open to discussion. He walked away from her, going around the side of the house. Aggie leaned her head back against the wall. She could hear the water on the stove from the open front door. It wasn’t boiling yet. She didn’t have the strength to move yet, so she sat and contemplated Chayton.

He’d been there the first time she’d awakened from one of her painting binges, crouched by the door, watching her. He’d given her water—she remembered the tin cup sitting on the floor. She wondered what he thought of her. He probably considered her too strange and too much of a burden to stay around for long. And she was. She knew it. No wonder Theo had made the choices he’d made.

After a while, she could hear the water heating up. It sizzled as it splashed out of the pots onto the hot stove. She hoisted herself up and went inside to fetch the things she would need for a full bath: the tub, linens, fresh clothes, soap, lotion.
 

She drew several more buckets of water for the tub, then tempered them with the hot water from the stove. She shut and locked the front door, then barred the windows. In the darkened quiet of her front room, she peeled off her stale clothes and slipped down into the welcome heat of the tub. So soothing it almost put her to sleep again. The soap she used was sweet smelling, made from eastern honeysuckle flowers. When the water started to cool, she washed her hair and scrubbed herself clean.

An hour later, she’d dressed, brushed her teeth, and straightened her cottage. Ready to face Chayton, she stepped outside to find him. He looked up, saw her, looked her over, then made a face as if he were holding back words he’d rather not say.
 

“I’m ready to talk now,” she said, standing by the poles of the drying cage he’d built. She watched him warily, seeing she hadn’t misinterpreted his anger. He straightened from the task of turning the curing meat.
 

“You are a danger to yourself.”
 

Aggie lifted her head, holding her hands behind her back as she steeled herself for the vitriol that was coming.
 

“You live alone, unguarded, uncared for, a woman without defenses. I have never seen someone take so many soul journeys, except for a few medicine men—and one medicine woman.”

Aggie shut her eyes, hoping the tears she felt wouldn’t make a full appearance. It wasn’t by her choice that she was alone. But given who and what she was, she was not a choice fit for any marriage-minded men.

“I think you should become my wife.”

It took a minute for his words to sink in. She blinked, setting a few tears free to roll down her cheek. “What?”

“I no longer wish to live alone. And you cannot survive alone.”

“Chayton, that’s a bad idea, for so many reasons.”

“Explain them to me.”

“We come from different worlds. I-I never meant to stay here. Eventually, I will return to my people.”

“You could choose to stay. Logan has many trading posts. He could sell your artwork as he did my wife’s.”

“I don’t know that I could survive a winter here.”

“I will show you how. I will help you.”

Oh, it was so tempting to accept what he offered. To relax and be what she was. “Chayton, I’m not normal. I will disappoint you in every way a wife could disappoint a husband.”

He made a face. She could almost hear him gathering the words he would say next. “You are an Other. Others are sacred. It is an honor to care for an Other, and an even greater honor to be married to one.”

“What do you mean I’m an ‘other’?”

“Others walk between this life and
Wakȟáŋ Tȟáŋka,
the Great Spirit. They talk more to the Great Spirit than to their own people, but they share the Great Spirit’s purpose with those of us who cannot otherwise know it.”
 

Aggie bowed her head, humbled by his assessment of her madness. How nice it would be to not be alone. To be loved and cared for by someone who understood her. “We barely know each other,” she said, choosing instead to go with an argument he couldn’t refute.

“I have watched you for one cycle of the moon. I have spoken and visited with you for another cycle. You are not unknown to me. I have seen your work. I am not unknown to you.”

When she looked up again, she realized he’d moved to the drying rack he’d set up, with thin strips of meat hanging on it. He reworked the fire. The smoky heat rose up through the ladder of branches, flavoring and drying the meat. She could see that the strips of venison were nearly done; they’d shrunken and dried until they were stiff to the touch.

“How long was I gone?”

“Three days, working but not aware, one day sleeping.”
 

She wondered how long before he’d returned that she’d been absorbed by her work.
 

“Your current painting had only part of the sky done when I arrived,” he answered, as if reading her mind. “You were not alone long.” He looked at her. “I tried to talk to you, but soon realized you were not you. Do you remember that I brought you water and food?”

“No.”

“You did not eat, and only drank a little. It is as if you were taken over by a vision. A waking dream. For me, it is like seeing a turtle walk out of her shell—something that should not happen, but is somehow sacred. I watched over you. I have watched over you before. Many times.”

She smiled. “Maybe that’s why I miss you when you’re not here.”

“I have always been with you. Since the first night you arrived.”

“Why?”

“Because the wind gave you to me.”

Aggie’s heart tore a little bit at the thought that she would get Chayton mixed up in her odd life. She wasn’t normal. She would never be normal. And the worst of it was that she didn’t want to be normal. She loved her creative life. But, God help her, how she yearned to be loved by a man.
 

No—not just any man. This man, who stood before her, bare-chested, wearing some of his necklaces, his breechcloth and leggings, his long, black hair braided and wrapped in strips of hide. He’d survived the worst that life had to offer and stood unbent by the weight of his losses.
 

She stepped forward and he stepped forward. In seconds, they were body to body. She lifted her hands to the bare skin of his sides. She was afraid of looking up, of lifting her face to his, so she stared at his throat, breathed his scent, felt the rumble of her heartbeat in her ears. When he reached for her waist, a shiver rippled through her. He leaned down and nuzzled the side of her hair, her temple, her cheek, moving ever so carefully to kiss her.

She lifted her face, a little, then a little more until their faces were against each other. His breath was warm against her chin and neck. She was breathing fast, too fast, but she wanted—wanted
something
. Her lips parted. Her gaze lifted to his. She saw his nostrils flare, his expression harden. Then he took her face in his hands and held her for his kiss, rough and hungry. She opened herself to him, meeting his tongue with hers across the boundary of their teeth. He tilted his head sideways, melding his mouth to hers. She stood on her tiptoes to leverage their connection.
 

One of his hands moved to her hair, fisting it, pinning her for another plundering kiss as his arm pulled her tighter against himself. She reached up his back and hooked her hands over his shoulders. She could feel the strength in the play of his muscles beneath her hands. She looked up at him, saw the shadows that filtered through his eyes. The lines bracketing his mouth tightened.
 

He abruptly released her and stepped back, then turned and walked away around the cabin. It took her several long moments before she followed him. When she did, he was nowhere to be seen.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Aggie stood in her tent early the next morning, looking over her paintings with a critical eye. She’d been unable to sleep, fretting over Chayton’s decision that they should marry. Her heart rejected every objection she came up with. She was tired of being alone, too. If he meant what he’d said, then she knew she would go down that road with him. And he’d proven he would take care of her. Not only did he understand her madness, he thought it sacred. She could look the world over and never find that in another man.

Still, it was such a big decision—not one to be made casually. How she wished she had someone to talk to about it.
 

She glanced around her again at her paintings, seeking to distract herself with busywork while her mind resolved the matter of her future. A few of the pieces needed to be retouched. Most were ready to go. If she stopped now, by the time the storm painting dried, she’d have plenty of time to get the pieces down to Denver so that she could work out the frames for them. Framing them would deplete the last of her reserves. Maybe she could sell a few pieces to Logan before she left. Or perhaps his patronage would cover her framing expenses. The two large works could be the show’s anchor. In total, she had over twenty pieces of varying sizes and compositions. She set up her palette with the colors she needed, then moved about the tent, doing the touch-ups, signing the works “A. Hamilton” and marking the year on them.