Frontier Woman (30 page)

Cricket cornered Creed in the parlor before supper. He was stretched out in a chair with a brandy in his hand, staring into space. She hadn’t much time to enlist his aid before Tom came downstairs to join them. Cricket walked up to Creed and stood spread-legged next to him with her fisted hands on her buckskin-clad hips.

“She won’t eat.”

“I didn’t think she would,” he replied quietly.

“She wants to die.”

Creed looked up at her, and she could see the pain in his eyes. “Should I be surprised?”

“We have to do something.”

“I’ve already told you there’s nothing you or I can do to help Amy now.”

Creed had answered exactly as she’d expected. She took a deep breath and said, “But Tom could help, couldn’t he?”

Creed swore loudly and acidly. It was all the assurance Cricket needed that he agreed with her assessment of the situation.

“I’ve thought so, too. I only wondered how he could be made to see that Amy’s still the same woman he married.”

Creed’s bitterness about past wrongs harshened his speech. “He isn’t going to change his mind, Brava. I ought to know. He’s as narrow-minded on this subject as my father was, and Lord knows he never saw the light. You’ll be wasting your breath.”

“I have to try, Creed. All I ask is that you keep Tom in the room long enough to listen to me. Will you do that?” Cricket could hear Tom’s bootsteps on the stairs. “Please, Creed. Will you make him stay here and listen to me?”

Creed struggled with her request. He didn’t want to talk about this with Tom. He didn’t want to be reminded that the brother he’d worshiped had feet of clay. He didn’t want any part of this. But Cricket, who never needed anybody, needed him now. She might never ask again. He had to be there for her. And so he agreed to endure the hurt for her sake.

“All right, Brava.”

He’d spoken so quietly Cricket barely heard him. She released the lungful of air she’d been holding, then took another deep breath as she pivoted to confront Tom.

Chapter 20

CRICKET TRIED TO CATCH TOM’S ATTENTION when he entered the parlor, but he ignored her. He crossed to the liquor cabinet and helped himself to a whiskey, then nodded absently to Creed and sat bent over like an old man in the chair that faced the cold, ash-blackened fireplace. His head hung down between his slumped shoulders and his elbows rested on his spread knees, the whiskey glass balanced in his hands between them.

Cricket self-consciously tugged down her buckskin shirt and walked over to stand across from Tom. Her plan had to work. She glanced over her shoulder to find that Creed had risen from his chair and followed her. He stood behind her, ready to back her up.

“Tom, I want to talk to you.”

For a long time, Tom said nothing. Finally, he looked up at her and replied, “We have nothing to say to one another. I want you to stay the hell out of my life.”

Cricket cringed inwardly at the harshness of Tom’s voice but steadied herself and said, “Amy’s upstairs dying while you sit there pretending nothing’s wrong. Why did you work so hard to keep her alive, if you were just going to treat her like something dirty you were too good to touch anymo—”

Tom lunged from the rawhide chair, sending his whiskey glass crashing into the stone fireplace with one hand, while the other whipped around to slap Cricket. Creed caught Tom’s hand before it struck home, his grip like steel. Disillusionment, disappointment, and anger sparked between the two brothers as their eyes clashed above Cricket’s head.

Tom jerked free and let the momentum carry him completely around and away to the window that overlooked the towering oak in the side yard. He grabbed his head with both hands, massaging the constant headache that never left him, trying to manage some semblance of self-control. At last he turned to face Cricket. “Haven’t you done enough? Get away from me. Leave me alone.”

Cricket could see Tom was suffering. His face was stubbled with two weeks’ growth of beard, and his eyes were red-rimmed and sunken within dark circles of exhaustion. He might pretend he was unaware of the battle for life being waged upstairs, but she had to believe that wasn’t the case.

“What the Comanches did to Amy was—”

“I won’t listen to this,” Tom said, lurching toward the door.

Creed placed himself in Tom’s path. “You’re not leaving until Cricket’s done talking.”

Tom stared at his brother’s stony face, his eyes bleak, his will broken. He sighed raggedly and turned back to Cricket. “Say what you have to say, then, and be done.”

Cricket didn’t know where to start and struggled for words that could make Tom take back the wife he’d shut out of his life.

“What the Comanches did to Amy left a wound, like the lance in her shoulder, that can heal with care.” As Tom’s lips flattened bitterly Cricket added, “Not that what happened won’t leave a scar on your lives. But people can live with scars, Tom, even ugly ones. It’s when the wound stays raw that it festers and you die. Amy loves you and she needs you.”

“Do you think I don’t love her and need her, too?” Tom’s anguish was palpable. “I can’t forget! I can’t get it out of my mind. I see her lying there bloody and bruised and . . .” Tears stung his eyes, and his chin quivered. “So many . . .”

“You haven’t needed words to tell her she’s been sullied in your eyes beyond redemption. It’s not her wounds that are killing Amy. She’d rather die than live without your love, although Lord knows it hasn’t been very constant. She needs a reason to keep on living. She needs to know the two of you will have a life together with a chance at happiness. And there’s nothing stopping you from having it but your own blind selfishness.”

“Selfishness? How dare you—”

“You’re only thinking about how you feel. What will the neighbors think? How will you be able to endure having a wife who’s been raped by Comanches? What about how Amy feels? It wasn’t even her fault!”

“No, but we know whose fault it was, don’t we?”

Cricket blanched. “I can’t change what happened. But I know how Amy feels and—”

“How can you possibly know how my wife feels? You had to be taught how to be a woman. How would you know what a woman feels when she’s robbed of her dignity like my Amy? Maybe she wants to die because she can’t live with the shame of what happened. You can’t understand feelings like that because you’re no more a woman than—”

“Shut up, Tom.” Creed’s voice threatened as well as cautioned.

A silence descended around them, no one willing to make the next move, to take the next step, until Cricket looked meaningfully at Creed and then back to Tom and said, “I know how it feels to be betrayed by someone I trusted.”

Cricket’s words tightened like an unseen hand on Tom’s throat, choking him with the truth. It was his own cowardice that kept him from telling Amy how much he loved and needed her. He knew her shame was only as great as he let it be, and his fear was the only thing that kept them apart.

But Cricket was wrong. Even if he found the courage now to go to Amy, he couldn’t believe she would ever forgive him for turning his back on her when she needed him most. Because of Cricket his love had been tested . . . and found wanting.

“You half-bitch from hell! Why don’t you go back where you came from? You’ve ruined enough lives trying to be something you’re not, don’t you think?”

The last word wasn’t out of Tom’s mouth before Creed’s fist landed on his jaw. The punch knocked Tom off his feet. Creed didn’t wait for his brother to get up but threw himself on top of him. Tom wrapped his arms around Creed and rolled him over until the two of them were no more than a tangled heap of pummeling arms and thrashing legs on the floor.

“Stop it, both of you!”

The sound of Amy’s sharp, quavery voice shocked the other three people in the room. Both Tom and Creed froze where they were, but their breathing shattered the tense silence with its stormy gusts.

“I’m ashamed of you two. That’s no way for brothers to behave.” Amy held herself upright by sheer determination. Step by careful barefoot step she walked farther into the room. Perspiration covered her face, while her body shivered with cold. The lance wound had broken open and blood seeped through the bandage on her shoulder, creating a huge red stain on her chambray gown. Her eyes were glassy, and she had an otherworldly air about her. Her voice when she spoke again was soft and lightly admonishing.

“I could hear you yelling at Cricket, Tom. I couldn’t let you blame her for—”

Amy’s eyes rolled up, and she crumpled before three sets of horrified eyes. She hadn’t hit the floor before Tom’s arms went around her. He eased her into his lap as he settled on the rug. Once he touched her, something melted inside him, and he poured out his anguish and his fears.

“Amy, Amy, please, sweetheart, don’t die. I love you, Amy. Please forgive me. Please be all right.”

Everything had ceased to exist except the woman in his arms, the woman he loved. When Amy’s eyelashes fluttered open, the cautious, fearful look in her eyes wrenched a groan from deep inside him.

“I love you, Tom.”

Taking care with her shoulder, he tucked her head under his chin and rocked her back and forth. “Everything’s going to be all right. You’re safe with me now. I’ll be here for you, Amy. I’m sorry, Amy. I’m so sorry. Please don’t leave me, sweetheart. Don’t ever leave me. I can’t live without you. My life’s nothing without you.”

Cricket’s throat was tight with tears of happiness. Without warning, her belly rolled and heaved, and she hurried from the room because she was going to be sick. She raced outside, and under the pin oak where Creed had first made her understand she was a woman, with a woman’s needs and desires, she gagged and choked and spilled the contents of her stomach.

Tom’s accusations had pounded her like bunched fists, leaving her battered and broken. His punishing words had struck at her fragile shell of womanhood with deadly accuracy, shattering it so it fell away in great hunks, leaving behind . . . What was she? Cricket was very much afraid that what remained was the same freak who’d attended Amber Kuykendall’s ninth birthday party.

It hurt to look honestly at herself. She’d never be a lady like Amy. The sooner she faced that fact, the better for everyone involved. But was she also a failure as a woman? That conclusion was painful to face, yet Cricket knew she must. It would be better if things could simply go back to the way they’d been before Jarrett Creed had come into her life. Then there had been no choices to make, and she’d known exactly who she was, and what she was. Now nothing was clear anymore. She straightened up and wiped her mouth with her sleeve. One thing was for sure. She would no longer try to be what she was not.

Creed had followed Cricket outside but paused when she turned from him to be sick. He stood ready to help, but the hand Cricket stuck out to keep him away made her wishes plain.

“Are you all right, Brava?”

“Why wouldn’t I be? Isn’t it about time we got started for Galveston?”

Creed didn’t like the brightness of Cricket’s eyes, or the flat, uncompromising line of her lips. “You don’t look well to me, Brava.”

“I’m fine,” she snapped. “Now, are we going to Galveston to meet Commodore Moore, or are you ready to send me home to Rip?”

Creed’s stomach dropped when he realized Cricket must have taken Tom’s vituperative words to heart. “What Tom said—”

Cricket’s shrill voice interrupted him. “I don’t want to talk about Tom or Amy any more. I think enough’s been said. I’m going to saddle Valor. If I’m not mistaken, my welcome here has worn rather thin.” She turned on her heel and walked away from Creed toward the stable.

When Creed reached the parlor he found Tom still on the floor with Amy asleep in his arms.

Tom looked up from his wife when he felt a presence in the room. His cheeks flushed, but he swallowed hard and said, “I owe you and Cricket an apology.”

Creed ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. “It’s a little late for that. I don’t think Cricket’s planning to hang around long enough to hear any contrite words you have to spout. She’s saddling Valor now.”

“I’m sorry, Jarrett. For everything.”

It was an apology for more than what he’d said to Cricket, and Creed knew it, but the chance for whatever help Tom could have given to rescue their mother was long past. Creed found he was no better at forgiving than Tom had been. “It’s too late, Tom. Sorry won’t help now.” He pivoted and headed out the door.

“Jarrett—”

Creed paused but didn’t turn around.

“Can I tell Amy that you and Cricket will be back to visit us when your business is finished?”

Creed sighed and hung his head. “I don’t know, Tom,” he said finally. “I just don’t know.”

Cricket found the view of Galveston harbor from the deck of the 600-ton Texas Navy sloop-of-war
Austin
breathtaking, for the other six ships of the navy authorized by the Texas Congress in 1837 were docked there as well. The oceangoing steam side-wheeler
Zavala
; the 170-ton schooners
San Jacinto, San Antonio,
and
San Bernard
; and the 400-ton brigs
Wharton
and
Archer
made an impressive picture of naval power.

Yet even the magnificent ships couldn’t keep Cricket’s mind from straying to the awful things Tom had said to her.
Half-bitch. Half a woman. Not a woman at all.
Dear God, she’d let herself care . . . and the names hurt.

“These ships will ensure the Mexican government never invades Texas by way of her gulf coast.”

Cricket started at the sound of the quiet, authoritative voice and turned to look down into the face of Commodore Edwin Ward Moore. The commander of the Texas fleet was two inches shorter than she was and didn’t look much older than she did. His skin was fair for a seaman, an indication he’d spent more time in his cabin plotting strategy and courses than he had on deck. He had ordinary brown hair and nondescript features, except for his bright blue eyes, which sparkled when he smiled, as he did now.

“Welcome aboard the
Austin
, Mrs. Creed. I’m sorry I didn’t have a chance to greet you sooner, but I’ve been busy making preparations to set sail tomorrow morning. You seem to have survived your first sailor’s supper very well.”

“I enjoyed meeting the captains of the other ships, and the food was as good as the company,” Cricket said sincerely.

It had surprised her when the captains of the Texas fleet accepted her buckskin attire at the supper table in stride, since they’d all been dressed formally in tailored blue naval uniforms trimmed with gold epaulets and shiny brass buttons. Had she been dressed in silk they couldn’t have been more polite and considerate. She hadn’t been aware of Creed’s warning stare which had dictated that anything less would not be tolerated.

The talk at the table had all been of the man who stood beside her now. The captains of the
San Antonio
and
San
Bernard
had spoken glowingly of Moore’s exceptional seamanship, which he’d refined as a lieutenant in the United States Navy. Moore, they’d said, ruled by sheer dint of his personality. It was apparent he was well liked by his subordinates, and the full measure of their respect for his leadership was evidenced by the toast offered by John Lothrop, captain of the
Zavala
: