Daughter of the Sword (23 page)

So you share my journey, sweetheart—you have been with me every day, in everything I do.

“One hopes not quite
everything.”
Rolf's voice was strained. He'd been reading over her shoulder.

Flushing, Deborah gave him a rebuking glance and took the pad over to her mother, near the lamp. With Father, Thos, and Rolf peering over her shoulder, Deborah turned the pages she'd later treasure and study, so tremulously elated that she kept fumbling.

The first sketch was of the buffalo wallow. “Where we met,” was penciled in the corner. Next was the smithy, with Johnny and Maccabee. There were Mother and Father in the office of
The Clarion,
but the rest were drawings of the journey west—buffalo, Conestoga wagons, antelope, geese flying overhead, prairie dogs at their burrows, meadowlarks and mockingbirds, hawks and owls, a cavalry patrol, freighters, bull-whackers, tall Osage Indians, handsome Cheyenne, stocky Comanche, Bent's old fort, and then the New Mexican mountains and the plaza of Santa Fe, the inn, La Fonda, the cathedral, and a sampling of the town's Indians,
señoritas, caballeros,
trappers, and scouts.

All of the pages had a phrase or sentence, speaking to Deborah, inviting her to see what he had. She was so happy she was near crying. These days and weeks and months during which she'd felt abandoned, locked away from his thoughts—he'd made these memories for her!

“He has a gift for catching the spirit of people and creatures with a few lines,” Father said. “No wonder he finds it possible to live from his work.”

“Oh, I dare say Sir Harry's name helps a bit,” interjected Rolf. “Some smaller parcels dropped out, Miss Deborah. Aren't you going to see what they are?”

Deborah left the sketch pad in her mother's hands and returned to the bundle. Father's name was attached to a pencil box inlaid with an etched silver map of the New World. For Thos there was a magnificent buckskin hunting shirt, fringed and beaded, trimmed with triangles of black velvet. A fringed blue shawl for Mother made her give a soft cry of pleasure while Thos was jubilantly pulling the shirt on, holding out his arm and giving it a shake so the fringes would dance.

Another shawl, golden brown, had “
JUDITH
” tagged to it. Mother quickly took it and put it on the pianoforte with hers.

Last, for Deborah, was an exquisite lace head covering of black with a carved tortoiseshell comb. As she unfolded the whispering cobweb, a small silver medallion fell out of a bit of tissue.

Lifting it with its delicate chain, Deborah smoothed out its wrapping, and once again Dane's forceful writing spoke to her:

St. Rita's the succorer of lost causes. Perhaps she'll pray for ours. I should be in California by the time you get this, but I'll be with you as soon as the snow melts from the passes.

“Has my agnostic brother turned papist?” demanded Rolf, scowling at the sweet face of the saint.

“With 'Borah so stubborn, he probably figures he needs all the help he can get,” said Thos irreverently, preening himself. He added condescendingly, “That Spanish head thing's all very well, 'Borah, but wouldn't you rather have a shirt like mine?”

“It'd look funny over my dresses.” She laughed. “Mother, how do you think the comb goes?”

“One of the sketches shows a lady with a mantilla.”

Mother searched through the pages till she found the drawing. The girl peered coquettishly over her fan, with lace framing a triangular face not unlike Deborah's own in contour.

How well had Dane known his subject? Deborah thought jealously, and she was glad he'd gone on to California, though heaven knew where there were women at all, savage or civilized, many of them would look at him with more than subtle invitation. She was a fool to torture herself with that.

She was a fool.

As if sensing how her daughter felt, Leticia's hands were comforting as she swept up enough of Deborah's hair to hold the comb in place at the back of her crown. Over this, she arranged the graceful fall of lace and then gazed at her daughter with a startled expression, then glanced at the picture.

“Why, Deborah! Except that her hair and eyes are black, this lady could be you!”

“It could,” agreed Father bemusedly. “Same mouth, same tilting up of the eyebrows.”

Rolf scanned both drawing and Deborah, then grinned sardonically. “It would seem my brother has an eye for your kind of woman, Miss Deborah. But no
señorita
could look as ravishing as you, with that lace setting off the copper in your hair.”

How like Rolf to wound and flatter at the same time! Refusing to meet his eyes, Deborah longed to see how she looked. “Take the lamp to the mirror, child,” Leticia suggested with a smile. “And then we'd better have dinner! Build up the fire, Thos, and I'll make the biscuits.”

Holding the lamp to reflect her face in the small mirror, Deborah saw a curving mouth, large, dark-lashed, wine-amber eyes, flawless skin—a face that echoed the enchanting one in Dane's sketch.
I
—
I'm beautiful!
she thought. She quickly added:
It's the mantilla and the lamplight.
But she wished that Dane could see her so.

Putting down the lamp, she fastened the medallion around her neck and slipped it between her breasts, where the cool metal swiftly warmed.

He hadn't forgotten her! He'd thought of her as he drew people and animals and scenes of his journey; he'd sent her a way to see with his eyes, mysterious beauty for her hair, a saint to lie near her heart as a constant remembrance.

It made her sad that there was no way to send a gift back, but perhaps if she prayed very hard, he'd feel that and know how she loved him.

Rolf read his letter during the meal, including Dane's wish that he share it with the Whitlaws. It could have been the story of thousands of west-bound travelers. For safety, he'd joined a trade caravan, its wagons groaning under loads of iron and tools, mirrors, gewgaws, powder and lead, ribbons, stroudings, woolen goods, and all manner of cloth from cotton to bombazines, velvets and silks.

He'd met and painted half a dozen kinds of Indians, traveled along the Arkansas River, Sand Creek, Cimarron, the Rio Colorado, camped at Council Grove, Pawnee Fork, Point of Rocks, Rio Gallinas, and more than a score of other places, including the crumbling adobe ruins of Bent's Fort, blown up by William Bent when the War Department refused to buy it from him in 1852, five years after his brother Charles, governor of New Mexico, was murdered in the Taos rebellion of Indians and Mexicans against the new power of the conquering United States.

A group of Texans had tried to annex New Mexico during the time when Texas had been a republic, but though the people of Santa Fe had been glad to see the
gringos
marched off to prison in Mexico, Santa Fe had come to depend on trade with the United States, first by pack-train and then by wagon, beginning in 1821, when William Becknell took his first wagons over the trail. Merchants and women were glad to see the caravans, and if some of the men weren't, bloodier brawls could be seen in any frontier town.

Dane ended by saying that Rolf couldn't consider his western tour complete without going over the trail and on to the coast. Why didn't he start early next spring?

“Will you?” Thos asked longingly as Rolf, tight-lipped, folded the letter and thrust it into his pocket.

“Who knows?” Rolf looked around at the Whitlaws in a way that gave Deborah an uneasy feeling, as if a hawk had nested among quail or a wolf had curled up by its prey. His mouth lost its grim set, curving in a smile. “California, Pike's Peak, Oregon—lots of places to go in your country! I want to see them all.” His eyes fixed on Deborah. “Still, for me this will always be the center of your world.”

Father sighed. “It's certainly the eye of the hurricane!”

By now all the Whitlaws must have been as aware as was Deborah that Judith was huddling under her blankets in the dark lean-to, growing hungrier with every minute Rolf lingered. Rising, Deborah began to clear the table, and Mother joined her.

“We've already had Christmas!” said Leticia. “What wonderful presents, and so kind of Dane! Perhaps it's as well we opened them now so we won't be distracted by them on the Lord's birthday.”

Rolf's chair grated as he pushed it back. “It's not time to declare the holiday over yet,” he said, and he looked as if he wanted to say more on the subject but caught himself. “Some people from the literary society are putting on
Macbeth
this Saturday at the hotel. Shall we see how they manage?”

“Oh, let's!” cried Thos. “Sara's never seen a play!”

So once again, though with Dane's presence renewed by his gifts, Deborah felt more troubled than ever about it, Rolf had engaged another evening.

He told the family good night. Thos went out with him to the stable, and Mother got Judith's shawl from beneath hers. “I'll call Judith now. This pretty thing should help make up for her discomfort. It was kind of Dane to remember her.”

“Mother!” Deborah glanced up from the dishes. “Do you realize that we're still hiding Judith from Rolf?”

Father and Mother exchanged startled glances. “I—suppose we are,” Mother said wonderingly.

“He's been here half a dozen times to every visit of Dane's,” Deborah went on. “Yet during the harvest, Judith wasn't nervous about his seeing her. It seemed perfectly safe.”

Josiah nodded. “It seemed natural to trust Dane.” His brow furrowed as he pondered over this curious fact that none of them had really noticed before. “Maybe it's because Rolf's young and impetuous, a boy in many ways for all his sophistication. Dane's a man. From the moment one meets him, there's no doubt of that.”

“That must be it.” Sounding relieved, for she was fond of Rolf, Mother hurried off to call Judith.

“You're scowling, daughter,” Josiah observed. “You must know Rolf better than any of us. It's clear he's much attracted to you, which has worried your mother and me, because we knew you cared for Dane. Have you reason to mistrust Rolf?”

He likes excitement,” Deborah said evasively. “He needs to prove himself as much a man as Dane. I'm afraid he might do that, on a whim, in ways that could be … well, pretty terrible.”

But Judith was back, delighted with the shawl, which she stroked as if it had been a soft animal. And after the dishes were done, the family had to look at Dane's sketch pad again before they went to bed.

So did Rolf when he brought the bobsled that Saturday and had early supper with the family before he drove the twins to collect Sara. While Thos ran up to the cabin for her, Rolf turned to Deborah. The bobsled had bracketed lamps, but the moon was so bright they weren't lit, bright enough for Deborah to feel apprehensive at Rolf's expression, or lack of it.

In the pale white luminance, his face was a mask. “You must be flattered, Deborah.”

“Why?”

“Haven't you studied the women in Dane's sketch pad?”

She had, often. There were old women, lined faces reflecting all their seasons and griefs and joys, women of years, proud or submissive, trusting or suspicious. Deborah was sure all these were chosen for character, the challenge to capture the essence of a human being. But the younger women—something about them troubled Deborah, haunted her more than could be explained by tormenting doubts about how well he'd known them.

“I've looked at all the drawings many times,” she told Rolf coolly.

“I'll bet you have! Especially the handsome wenches!” Rolf's lips peeled back from strong, perfect teeth, a rarity in the frontier men, where tobacco-stained stumps were often seen in fairly young people. He laughed harshly. “I thought it the night you opened the pad, and I had a chance to make sure of it after supper tonight. Every young woman in those sketches—Cheyenne, Osage, Comanche, or Mexican—is really you!”

“But—” Her protest died as she remembered the various faces, some gay, some moody, looking from the pages, framed by plaits, mantilla, or blanket, hair blowing free in the wind.

That was what had nagged and eluded her. Costumed and changed to fit the parts, she'd appeared to Dane all along his journey! Had he done it on purpose?

“Now you'll wonder,” continued Rolf, deftly reading her mind, “if he did more than paint those images of you, if he made love to you along the trail in the bodies of other women—”

She covered her ears. “Stop it!”

Regretfully, he shook his head. “I can't. This shows me more than anything else possibly could how deeply you're set in my brother's soul. He's always taken pride, when drawing from life, in rendering exactly what's before him. Now, either as a tribute or because he couldn't help it, he's painted you into every likely female between here and Santa Fe!”

Deborah didn't know how to answer. A fated sadness in Rolf's tone made the nape of her neck prickle. She was glad that Thos and Sara came out of the cabin at that moment and hurried to the bobsled.

Melissa Eden as Lady Macbeth had a chance to prowl daringly in a white silk nightgown that exposed her arms and ankles and would have, under any other circumstances short of a fire in her chamber, made her an exile from decent society. Mr. Montmorency, a lawyer, played Macbeth with much flourishing of a cutlass, which made Deborah think involuntarily of John Brown's merciless use of his sword at Pottawatomie Creek. Macbeth's feet were pointed to the audience so that his death struggles provoked more laughter than horror, but this was compensated for by the most ingenious contrivance of the evening when Macbeth's gory head appeared, reeking with blood, held aloft by the hair. This illusion was created by having Montmorency stand behind the other actors, who hid his body.

Deborah shrieked along with most of the women, then clapped wildly as the gratified thespians took their bows, Mr. Montmorency still gruesomely bloody.