So Wide the Sky Page 5

  He made his way back to the kitchen and reached for the tall pewter pitcher he kept on the uppermost shelf in the pantry. Taking both a tin mug and the pitcher to the table, he sat down heavily and fished out the bottle of whiskey hidden inside.

  For the most part, Drew didn't hold with drinking spirits. He'd seen what liquor had done to some damn fine officers. He'd seen the shame of it and the mistakes they'd made with their men's lives. But whiskey had its uses. Sometimes a man needed something to calm his nerves. Sometimes a man needed something to help him forget. But certainly Captain Andrew Scott Reynolds, grand-nephew to famed General Winfield Scott, had no intention of letting the devil's brew get hold of him. He was a better man than that.

  Pulling the cork, Drew poured a judicious amount of whiskey into the cup. He re-corked the bottle and put it back. There was no sense inviting a second drink.

  Once the bottle was stowed safely away, Drew downed the liquor in a single draft. It burned along his tongue and down his gullet. It kindled a fire in his chest and seared a hole in his belly. But somehow whiskey had never been able to thaw that frigid place where the nightmare lived.

  Nothing ever thawed it.

  Sighing, he pushed to his feet and paused in the parlor to take a cheroot from the humidor and light it with a splint from the fire. He snatched his overcoat from the peg by the door and stepped out onto the covered porch. There was a puncheon bench against the wall, and he settled himself there to enjoy his cigar.

  It was cold tonight and would be colder still by morning. He didn't envy the men on sentry duty. He was glad he'd served his stint as Officer of the Day last week, when the weather had been at least marginally warmer. Still, it wasn't the weather or even the bite of the sharp west wind that chilled Drew Reynolds to the marrow of his bones. It was memories of the summer he was seventeen—and tonight there was no escaping them.

  * * *

  June 1858

  On the Santa Fe Trail

  It hadn't begun like a day that would change a man's life. The same sun that had followed them from Kentucky chased the morning stars away and painted the high, thin sky primrose pink and peacock blue. The same hot wind that had battered them on the Kansas prairie set the gray-green sage to rustling and hummed in the branches of the piñon trees. The animals that had brought them as far as this lowed and stirred, wanting to be watered and fed just as they did every morning.

  Drew had risen with the sun, going about the duties he'd performed each day since they'd left Kentucky. He stirred the embers of the fire and added wood. He fetched water from the creek so his mother could start breakfast. He helped his father and his older brothers with the animals.

  On the far side of the clearing Drew could see that Cassie Morgan was helping her father with their animals, too. She was the oldest in a family of girls and had learned things most females never did–how to plow a field and keep the furrows straight, how to sharpen an ax and turn spindles on a lathe, how to yoke oxen to a wagon and drive a four-horse team. When they were younger, her accomplishments had been considerable enough to convince Drew to let her tag along when he went tramping through the woods or fishing in the creek that divided his father's property from hers.

  When she was a child, acting as her father's surrogate son had pleased Cassie, but since she'd turned fifteen last winter, she'd become more interested in genteel pursuits. She was perfecting her sewing and her cooking. She had taken more interest in spinning and weaving and looking after her younger sisters. Cassie had also developed a sudden and most flattering interest in him. Drew grinned at the memory of how flustered he'd been when instead of greeting him with a cuff on the arm as she had for years, she'd slipped her hand through his and smiled up into his eyes.

  Almost as if she knew Drew was thinking of her, Cassie slid him a sidelong glance from across the clearing. He answered it with their secret smile, feeling the sweetness of the plans they'd made well up in him. She would make him a perfect wife—just as soon as she was old enough, just as soon as he could secure a parcel of land and build a cabin. His brothers, Matt and Peter, had promised to help him do that when the day came for him to claim Cassie Morgan as his bride.

  "Oh, Drew, do stop mooning after Cassandra," his sister Julia teased as she brushed past him with an armload of folded bedding. "The look you get on your face whenever you see her is quite revolting. Besides, she'll probably meet some dashing frontier scout when we reach Santa Fe and forget your name."

  Drew caught up with his sister and gave her long, reddish braid a tug. "You just wait and see what happens in Santa Fe, feather-wit," he told her. "Neither a scout nor one of those fancy Spanish caballeros will come between Cassie and me."

  Julia laughed as if she knew better, and spun away.

  The small train of five wagons passed the morning grinding its way up one of the rocky ridges that made up the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and faced a steamy afternoon of rumbling down the narrow, twisting canyon on its opposite side. Since Cassie had spent most of the morning walking to lighten the load, Drew took her up behind him on his horse when they stopped for nooning.

  He liked riding double with her, liked having her arms entwined around his waist and the feel of her breasts against his back. But being as close as this made the sweet, sultry longing rise between them. Tempted though they were to lag behind or seek the privacy of a side canyon where they could kiss and touch and be together, they were mindful of the constant threat of Indians. Cassie's father, Jess, had spotted three painted-up braves watching their progress that morning, and he had warned everyone to stay together.

  As the afternoon advanced, the sun burned hot out of a silver-bright sky. The air in the narrow canyon shimmered, and dust devils danced ahead of the wagons, as if leading the way. The travelers lapsed into a weary silence that was broken only by the rattle and jolt of the iron wheels over broken stones, the rhythmic clatter of hooves, and the lowing of thirsty animals.

  Then from somewhere just ahead came the hollow boom of rifle fire.

  Drew pulled his horse up short. For an instant no one in the wagon train moved. No one breathed. Then all at once his oldest brother, Matthew, toppled from the seat of the lead wagon. A second shot dropped one of his oxen in its tracks.

  The men reached for their rifles. The women gathered the children and scrambled for cover.

  All except Matt's wife. Maude surged to her feet in the box of the first wagon and started screaming. Visible as a lightning rod and howling like a banshee, she seemed to lack the presence of mind to take up the reins and get their wagon moving again.

  Until she did that, they were corked up like bugs in a bottle.

  From their vantage point slightly higher in the canyon, Drew could see Peter leave his wife and his wagon and sprint toward the head of the line. Peter would take care of Matt.

  He would get them moving again. Peter was good and solid and capable.

  Drew had hardly completed the thought when he saw the flare of fire high up on the cliff. The impact knocked Peter sideways. He staggered, stumbled, and lay still.

  "Peter!" Drew bellowed, though he figured it was probably too late for his brother to hear him. "Peter!"

  Peter never moved. Blood pooled beneath him and glistened in the sun.

  Behind Drew, Cassie moaned in fear.

  Bile and fury choked him. Drew jerked his rifle from the sheath at the side of his saddle and dismounted. He dragged Cassie down with him. They found cover in the boulders to the right of the trail. From there, nearly twenty yards behind the wagons, they could see the battle unfolding.

  More than a score of Indians had dug in on the cliffside off to the left. Bullets and arrows came thick and fast, ricocheting off the canyon walls and slamming into the sides of the stranded wagons. Safely hidden up in the rocks, the Indians could fire down on the wagons forever.

  From where he and Cassie had taken cover, Drew couldn't get a clear shot at the raiders. Yet he couldn't see how to cross the open ground and reach the
wagons, either.

  Below them, they could see two of Cassie's sisters cowering behind a wagon wheel with their fingers in their ears. The men were shouting back and forth, planning strategy as they paused to reload.

  If only Matt's wife would stop screaming and pick up the goddamned reins, Drew thought. If only she would drive the wagon out of there, they could run the gauntlet and escape. None of them would survive unless she did that.

  Drew's muscles burned with the need for action, but without jeopardizing his position, there was nothing he could do.

  The fire from the hillside came constant as a drumroll. The defenders could hardly show themselves to shoot back, and the firing was taking its toll.

  The horse that had been tied at the back of one of the wagons lay dead, pincushioned with arrows. A firebrand flared, blackening one of the tailgates. A water bucket spewed its precious contents onto the earth.

  Behind the rear wagon, Claire Morgan was reloading for her husband. Farther down the line, Drew's mother was crouched beside his father firing relentlessly at the savages who'd killed her sons.

  "We're all going to die," Cassie whimpered.

  "It's going to be all right," Drew soothed her, though he knew very well it wasn't.

  Two more oxen dropped in their traces. The canvas on the second wagon began to flame. In the midst of a deafening fusillade, Jess Morgan staggered backward and fell.

  "Papa!" Cassie moaned, and buried her face against Drew's chest. He hugged her hard and cursed.

  The gunfire from the wagons was dwindling when Drew spotted a small band of braves snaking along the southeastern rim of the canyon. They were circling around, preparing to attack the wagons from the front.

  "I have to go down there," he murmured, half to himself. "I have to warn them."

  Cassie's head came up. Fear and grief had drained the color from her skin, until those pale, clear eyes fairly blazed. "No, Drew!" she whispered. "Please don't leave me."

  He checked the prime on his rifle, charted his course across the open ground. Once he'd done that, he turned to Cassie.

  "Promise me you'll stay here. That no matter what happens, you won't show yourself. That once the Indians leave, you'll get on that horse and ride back the way we came."

  He could see Cassie understood why Drew wanted her promise. He waited just long enough to see her nod.

  "I love you, girl," he told her, and kissed her hard.

  "And I love you!"

  Drew launched himself down through the tumble of rocks toward the open ground.

  Once he reached it, he realized that the Indians had done more damage than he and Cassie had been able to see. His mother was sprawled beside the rear wheel of their wagon, an arrow in her chest. Their hired man lay near her, his head half-blown away. A child lay curled up and still, one of Cassie's stair-step sisters. And still Maude kept screaming.

  Drew sprinted down the slope in a hail of gunfire. He had to make it to the wagons, had to warn whoever was left of the newest danger.

  But before he could reach the wagon at the back, he felt a jolt of impact in his thigh and his left leg crumpled beneath him. He fell headlong, grinding his face in the dirt. He lay there panting and confused, sucking in the thick, grainy dust of the canyon floor. It wasn't until the pain swarmed over him that he realized he'd been shot.

  He lay there dazed, wounded, trying to think. Exposed. Vulnerable and defenseless. He worked the pistol from his holster and started to crawl.

  "Pa! Pa, they're coming around the front!" he yelled above the roaring in his ears, above the constant blast of gunfire.

  But no one answered.

  Shots kicked up dirt on his right and left. An arrow sliced past. Drew crawled faster, dragging his useless leg, leaving a smear of blood on the yellow earth.

  His ears rang. His lungs burned. He ran with sweat. The wagons seemed only marginally closer when he raised his head.

  He saw dust rising at the foot of the canyon. Matt's wife's screaming went suddenly still. The raiders had reached the lead wagon. That meant he'd failed.

  They were lost. Every one of his family and Cassie's would die here, brutally, uselessly. Drew squirmed toward the wagons anyway.

  The firing went on around him. The report of the rifles rang hollow in his ears. Sweat rolled down his temples and stung his eyes, mingling freely with his tears. Still, he clawed at the powdery earth. He pulled himself along, closer to the nearest wagon, toward the edge of the shade.

  New pain exploded through the muscles of his back. It flared white hot, blaring, biting deep. Drew shuddered and fought for breath. The canyon blurred and shimmered around him, tinted orange and yellow by the sinking sun, red and brown with drying blood. Then the colors faded away and blackness swooped in like carrion birds.

  * * *

  Drew sat on the puncheon bench with his head in his hands, sweating as if it were summer, not ten degrees. His heart was rattling around inside his chest, and his half-smoked cheroot lay ground to powder between his feet.

  God Almighty! he thought, letting out a shaky breath. After all this time, why were the memories still so close, so vivid and invasive? He still saw his mother's broken body when he closed his eyes. He could still taste the dust and the blood and the fear, still feel a sharp, fresh ache in those old wounds.

  He should be able to control this, to make it go away. Instead he felt raw inside, as if he'd been split open and exposed to the world. The best of him and the worst. The moments of which he was proudest—and most ashamed. Things he longed to put away and didn't know how.

  He wished he could blame the freshness of these memories on Cassie's return. But if he was honest with himself, he had to admit that the memories were always there. Lurking just below the surface of conscious thought. Waiting for some provocation so they could rise from that cold, viscous place inside him. And when they did—

  "You all right, Captain?" It was the sentry walking his rounds who spoke as he came down along the neat row of log cabins that served as the officers' quarters.

  "I just stepped out for a breath of air," Drew answered, his voice sounding rusty and thin.

  "Then you must be breathing mighty deep, sir," came the young soldier's reply.

  Drew's shoulders stiffened. "And why do you say that, corporal?"

  "Because you were sitting in that very same place, in that very same position, when I made my rounds an hour ago."

  Drew supposed that was true. His knuckles ached with the cold. In spite of the sweat still crawling down his ribs, the tips of his ears had begun to burn.

  "Thank you for reminding me how long it's been," he answered with a grimace that he hoped would pass for a smile. "I have a lot on my mind."

  The corporal bobbed his head as if he understood. "You go on into the house, sir. Get some rest."

  Drew came to his feet and went inside as if he meant to take the corporal's advice. But instead of making his way to his bedchamber, he returned his overcoat to the peg, lit both of the oil lamps in the parlor, and set them atop his campaign desk. Before seating himself, he took the bowl from his wooden paint box and filled it from the water bucket.

  With meticulous care, he laid out the things he would need. The metal tubes of pigment, the ivory palette, the three small badger-hair brushes, and a rectangle of fine rag paper. Using a slightly larger piece of blotting paper behind it, Drew tacked both papers to the lid of the box.

  There was something soothing about preparing the paint, about the slow, smooth circles it took to mix the pigment and the medium, about the way it kept a man's mind from wandering. When he had moistened and then thinned the colors to his satisfaction, he began to paint.

  Though he had easily mastered the tight, meticulous drawing style taught to cadets at West Point, Drew painted without sketching first. He let his brush flow across the paper, let the colors and movement take him. Painting was one of the few spontaneous acts Drew Reynolds ever allowed himself.

  Tonight he used a sweep of ye
llow-green to conjure up the prairie they'd ridden through this afternoon and one of brown for the gash of dun-colored rocks where they'd made their stand. He painted quickly, the way the grass was winnowed by the wind, the way the winter light grayed and flattened the mass of stones. He painted with a fierce and focused concentration that didn't allow for thought or memories.

  He flinched at the sound of Meggie's voice.

  "Papa? What are you painting, Papa?"

  Drew had to take a long, slow breath before he could turn to where his daughter stood in the bedroom doorway.

  "I'm painting something I saw this afternoon."

  She came toward him, barefoot across the rough, chill floorboards. She'd catch her death of cold. He ought to get up and search for her slippers.

  Meggie stopped beside him and regarded the painting with a critical eye. "There isn't any red," she said after a moment. "You never paint with red."

  Instead of answering her, Drew washed out his brushes and put them away. He reached to scoop his daughter up in his arms.

  "So, Meggie, what brings you out here in the middle of the night?"

  "I had a nightmare," she told him. "I was afraid."

  Drew looked down at his child and nodded. "I know how scary nightmares can be," he answered. When he continued, his voice had gone rough and low. "Sometimes I have nightmares, too."

  Chapter 5

  The sobbing woke her, the dry, persistent fight for breath; the soft, pitiful gasps of a frightened child. Cassie came awake clutching the edge of the buffalo robe, her fingers tangled in the thick, rough hair. She swiped at her cheeks with her hands, feeling guilty and ashamed. Only the dream ever made her cry.

  She might have known she'd dream tonight, after being driven from her home by her Indian husband, after being used by Standing Pine to bait the soldiers, after coming to a place that seemed so strange.

  "Cassandra?" Sally McGarrity pushed back the blanket curtain and stood in her nightdress and cap, a candle in her hand. "Cassandra... all right? Have... dream?"