LeClerc 03 - Wild Savage Heart (12 page)

“Molly … Hawk.”

She watched as the life fled from his body. Even when the gurgling sound of his breathing had stopped, she refused to acknowledge the utter stillness that surrounded them.

“Adam, you promised,” she whispered, tenderly stroking his face, using the hem of her dress to dab at the blood on his chin. “You promised you wouldn’t leave me. You always keep your promises, you never lie.”

Hawk raised his head to the sky and watched as a cloud briefly covered the sun. He felt an overwhelming need to curse the gods for this needless destruction.

Molly shivered as the Shawnee brave chanted the death song of his people. It felt so right, in this wilderness land, that Adam’s death should be announced by the song of a once-mighty people.

Hawk finished his song and slowly lowered his head. He breathed deeply, struggling to control the rage he knew was fighting for freedom. His tortured gaze came to rest on Molly, still sitting on the ground with Adam’s head in her lap.

“He chased my bonnet,” she said quietly, gently stroking his hair from his forehead. “A storm was brewing … the wind was blowing as it can blow only in Charleston … it caught my bonnet and pulled it from my head … I dropped my basket.. . my skirt was threatening my modesty … Adam came from nowhere and chased my bonnet down the street … the dust was blowing and the fruit I had purchased seemed to stretch from one side of Meeting Street to the other … he handed me my poor battered hat and helped me gather up the fruit. . . said he’d be pleased to escort me home,” her voice drifted away to a whisper.

“He laughed,” she murmured softly. “When it started to rain he turned his face toward the sky and laughed … he said it was the most beautiful day of his life.”

Her voice portrayed no hint of the suffering Hawk knew was to come. He wondered how long shock would protect her, and even as the thought formed he had his answer.

“Adam shouldn’t have died,” she said quietly. Slowly she raised her face to his and Hawk saw the ravages of grief blazing in her honey-colored eyes.

“He didn’t deserve to die!” she whispered fiercely, as pain and anger vibrated through her body. “Adam was too kind, too gentle, too young to be lying dead on this hard ground.”

Her eyes spit a bone-deep hatred at him as she slowly rocked the beloved body cradled in her arms. Her voice was so quiet he had to strain to hear her words, words that pierced with the agony of razorsharp knives.

“It should have been you!”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Hawk watched Molly’s rage disintegrate and her shoulders slump in defeat. He helped her to stand, then bent to lift his friend’s battered body. He carried Adam to the wagon and gently lowered him onto a quilt Molly spread on the ground. He watched as she pulled the quilt around his shoulders, tucking him in as tenderly as a child. She smoothed back the hair on his forehead and bent to kiss his lips.

“We’ll bury him in the morning,” Hawk said quietly as she rose to her feet.

Molly nodded agreement, her eyes moving from spot to spot, looking for the right place for his grave. Her face was unnaturally calm.

“It has to be somewhere perfect,” she muttered to herself. “Someplace where he can see the mountains and hear the stream.”

“It’ll be as perfect as I can find,” Hawk replied quietly.

She nodded her head and wiped her hands on her skirt. “I’ll need some water to bathe him. And we’ll need a …” she raised her head and fought the painful word, “we’ll need a coffin.”

“It’ll be done.” As Hawk turned away, Molly noticed the blood dripping from his fingers.

“You’re hurt.” She reached for his hand only to have him snatch it back. “Let me see your hands.”

“It’s nothing, just a scratch.” He hated the unemotional tone of her voice but dreaded the time when she would begin to feel. The short outburst of anger was only a minute showing of the pain to come.

And he knew it would come. All of the steps must be taken before she could begin to heal. The numbness could shatter abruptly, without cause, or it could slowly crumble like a rock turning to sand by the pounding of water. The rage, the tears, the denial, the sorrow for dreams that would never be, the regret for tomorrows that must be faced alone, each step painfully taken before she could find her way back.

She was strong, he knew she would survive. But would she ever be the woman she had been? Or would this change her in some way as yet unknown?

Unaware and unconcerned by his thoughts, Molly grabbed his hand and held it firmly. She looked at the deep, bloody trails across his palm. A quick glance at his other hand confirmed that it was in equally appalling condition.

“Good Lord above,” she whispered, “what have you done?”

“The rope,” he replied, trying to pull from her grasp.

“What rope?”

“Rope burns, from holding it too tightly.”

As she looked at the cuts, Molly realized the extent of his effort to save Adam. She stared at his abused flesh and an unwanted thought drifted through her mind … it shouldn’t have been Adam who died.

“What?” Hawk asked, hearing her mumble too softly for him to understand the words.

“He shouldn’t have died,” she replied. She felt anger begin to grow, replacing the numbness that had protected her. “He shouldn’t have died!” Hawk searched for words to console her, but found none. He agreed with her that it shouldn’t have happened, but it had, and nothing could change it.

Molly dropped his hands as if they suddenly burned her flesh. She took several steps away from him, her eyes widening with rage.

“It should have been you!”she said softly. “You’re the one who should have died, not Adam. Adam was kind and gentle and loving. You’re a savage who doesn’t deserve to live.” Her voice grew stronger until she was nearly screaming. “You should have died! You! Not Adam! You!”

She barely noticed as he straightened his shoulders and proudly lifted his head. The stoic expression, once so familiar to her but now rarely seen, returned to his face.

“I hate you,” she snarled through clenched teeth. “I hate every breath you take. You should be the one stretched out on that ground, slowly turning cold!” Again, as quickly as it had come, the rage left. Her shoulders slumped and she pressed her hand to her eyes. Slowly, with footsteps older than time, she walked to the bucket of water. Lifting it, Molly set it on the table near Hawk and motioned for him.

When he stood beside her, Molly gently bathed his injured hands. She rubbed a salve into the cuts and abrasions then carefully wrapped them in clean cloths.

“They’re going to be pretty sore for a few days,” she said quietly.

“I’ve suffered worse.” Pulling away from her, Hawk walked to the wagon. He gathered together various pieces of planking, some that had been boxes for storage, others that had been the bed of the wagon, and carried them away from camp.

Molly could hear him hammering as she walked back from the river, carrying a bucket of water in each hand. There was one final chore she could do for Adam. But it wouldn’t be a chore, it would be a final act of love. To prepare his battered body for burial.

By the time Molly had washed Adam and dressed him in his best suit of clothes, Hawk returned with the coffin. Molly lined it with her best quilt, and from her favorite silk gown she made a pillow for Adam’s head.

Throughout the long, lonely night, Molly sat beside Adam, occasionally reaching out to touch his face or smooth his hair, knowing that all too soon even that small thing would be denied her. Hawk sat beside the fire, now and then sipping from a cup of coffee, his dark eyes rarely leaving Molly’s face.

She never slumped, holding her shoulders up, her eyes glued to Adam’s face. She didn’t speak. In fact, since his return with the coffin they had exchanged no words. It was almost as if she were unaware of his presence, wrapped so deeply in her grief that nothing else could enter.

And she didn’t cry. Hawk worried that she would bury herself in grief so deeply that she wouldn’t be able to return to the world. He had seen it happen before at the Shawnee camp. A warrior’s woman would grieve so deeply at the death of her husband that she seemed to will herself to join him in death.

At last the morning sun lighted the sky. Hawk picked up a shovel and walked up the hill, past the cabin that glistened with the light of a new day, beyond the garden with its neat rows of green leaves pushing through the ground. He walked to the very crest of the hill and with the mountains as his witness, Hawk dug the lonely grave for his friend.

“Shall I ride out to find a preacher?” he asked when he returned to camp. He noticed that she had taken the time to dress in the gown he remembered her wearing at her wedding. Her hair was neatly combed and a small hat with a tiny veil rested on her head.

“No,” Molly replied without hesitation. “We don’t know the people around here and I couldn’t bear to listen to them mouthing false platitudes as people seem to do at a funeral.

“We’ll bury him ourselves. His wife and his best friend, seeing him to his final resting place.”

One last time, Molly ran her fingers through Adam’s hair and gently kissed his cold lips. She stood back and watched as Hawk fitted the lid in place and nailed it firmly down.

Without help, he hefted the heavy box onto his shoulder, carefully balanced it and then began the walk up the hill. Molly didn’t concern herself with the formidable display of strength he revealed, carrying the coffin by himself. To her it was the thing for him to do.

Molly watched as Hawk slowly lowered the wooden box into the rich ground. She ignored the signs of life around her, concentrating instead on each shovelful of dirt hitting the lid, forever separating her from the man she loved. Her world had come to an abrupt halt and yet birds chirped in the trees, unaware of the human tragedy beneath them. The wind blew sweetly against a face dry of tears and the soothing gurgle of the water went unheard by ears straining to hear a beloved voice.

When the hole was filled and the prayers had been recited, Hawk turned away to give Molly time alone. She knelt and placed a handful of wild flowers on the new earth. Words of farewell drifted through her thoughts but none left her lips. It was too final to say those words aloud.

She slowly rose and backed away from the grave. “I’ll be back,” she whispered softly. “I won’t leave you alone. I’ll come to visit and tell you of the things that go on.”

Turning slowly, Molly moved toward Hawk and walked silently beside him back to camp.

“I’ll have a noon meal prepared shortly,” she said quietly, breaking the silence.

“We need to talk, Molly.”

She nodded, unaware that he had called her by her name for the first time. “Well eat first.”

In a surprisingly short time they had changed into everyday clothes and were eating the meal she had prepared … or rather Hawk ate and Molly pushed the food around on her plate.

“You need to make some decisions,” he said quietly when he realized she wasn’t making any effort to eat.

“Decisions?”

“Not today or even tomorrow,” he reassured her, even though she had shown no evidence of alarm or concern. “You need to be thinking about what you want to do.”

“I have no intention of changing any of the plans Adam made.”

“If you want to return to Charleston I’ll take you.”

“No! I will stay here.”

“Molly, I’ll be heading north before winter sets in and you can’t stay here alone,” Hawk replied, trying to hide his exasperation at the thought.

“I will not return to the life my father had planned for me. I escaped him once, he wouldn’t let it happen again nor would he ever let me forget that I chose to defy him.” She stood and carried her still-full plate to the slop bucket. She scraped it clean, grabbed Hawk’s plate from him and scraped it.

“I wasn’t finished,” he said quietly.

“Now you are!” She dropped both plates into the bucket of wash water and began scrubbing them. “And I don’t want to hear another word about me going back to Charleston. I will not leave my home.” Molly found ways to keep herself busy for the remainder of the afternoon. She was aware that Hawk was using the ox to pull the final log into place but she kept her back turned until the activity was finished. She wanted to ask why the ox hadn’t been used before. Why he had chosen the more dangerous method that had cost Adam his life, instead of employing the strength of the ox. But she felt the brittle rage begin to grow and she knew it would consume her if she began to question him.

She didn’t fear the rage but it led to other emotions, ones she wanted, needed, to control. Now she walked around in an indifferent haze but freeing the anger would also free the pain and the torment, and Molly doubted she could survive the agony.

Far too soon, the lowering sun turned the sky into a tapestry of colors, apricot and mauve swirled over aqua while cobalt blue faded into the gray of night. Oblivious to the beauty of the sunset, Molly wrapped her arms around her body and tried to control a shiver racing up her spine. Wishes and prayers were futile as she fought to hold back the night. The first of many nights that she would be forced to sleep alone, without the comfort and security of Adam’s arms.

She prepared Hawk’s evening meal but refused even to pretend to eat. As he sat on a stump, Molly slowly walked toward the setting sun and the lonely grave on the hillside. The wild flowers had been scattered by the wind and already the summer sun had started to dry the dirt so that small cracks were appearing on the surface.