Grace of a Hawk Read online

  Sawyer’s laughter rendered him momentarily incapable of defense and I dug my fingertips into his ribs for good measure. My hair fell all around the two of us. “Does that make me, by default, the studhorse? I am so very flattered…”

  “You are in need of a strapping!” Laughter hampered my efforts to smack his backside. At last I fell across his chest and closed my teeth about the powerful ridge of muscle that sloped between his neck and shoulder. He was so magnificently made, firm planes and strong, muscular angles, his long bone structure sturdy beneath his skin. I knew every last part of his body, every ridge of scarred skin, every mole and freckle; the length of his limbs, the taste of his mouth, the scent of the hair that grew low on his belly, the changeability of his cock. I was fascinated by all of it, possessive of him to perhaps an obsessive degree; but I knew it was the same for him. Many hours had he spent, tracing his fingertips over my bare body, nothing held back, exploring and marveling, tasting of me as I did of him; how many times each of us had whispered, I never knew it could be like this.

  “I am in need of just such,” he acknowledged, gliding his touch downward to capture my waist in both wide palms, tucking me neatly beneath him. “My daddy would take a strap to me for taking such pleasure in being pummeled by a beautiful naked woman. Holy God, woman, you are beautiful. You near do me in.”

  “Don’t you sweet talk me,” I griped, even as my thighs parted in undeniable invitation. Sawyer caught my wrists lightly in his grasp and pinned them to either side of my head, biting my chin, placing heated kisses upon my collarbones. I trembled, gooseflesh rippling along my limbs at his answering grin.

  “But you are so very sweet,” he murmured, and claimed my mouth for his own.

  Much later, the candle having blinked out of existence, the room flooded with milky moonbeams in its absence, Sawyer admitted, “I am worried about them.”

  I lay with my temple pressed to his heartbeat, nearly asleep to its steady rhythm, but at these words I shifted to one elbow to regard him in the meager light. Sawyer continued stroking my back, digging his thumbs along the hollows of my shoulder blades, and I shivered at both his welcome touch and his concerning words.

  “I am, as well. I figured that Boyd would have sent word by now. He knows our worry.”

  “Can you get a feel for where they may be, Lorie-love? I’ve been attempting every day, to no avail.” Sawyer and I had been able to sense one another from the first night we’d met, but the strength of the bond seemed exclusive to us. Try as I might, I could not establish even a fleeting awareness of their current location. But wait. I thought of how I’d imagined Boyd returning only earlier this evening; for a second I’d thought I heard his voice…

  “I nearly forgot to tell you. At dinner, I had the strangest sense.”

  “When you shivered?”

  “Yes, just then. I imagined Boyd coming into the house and telling Rebecca that he should not have left. It seemed so real in that moment I swore I could hear his voice.”

  “I’m sure those are his feelings. Not that he would admit it. Regret is a sort of weakness, in his opinion.”

  I closed tighter my eyes, straining with everything in me to fix a lock on Boyd and Malcolm; I envisioned the deep reaches of the sprawling prairies to the north of us, cloaked now in darkness, picturing the two of them curled close beneath the paltry shelter of their canvas tarpaulin. But the picture remained a product of my imagination, not an actual sensing. I whispered miserably, “I cannot say where they might be, not with any certainty.”

  Sawyer held me as I would always need holding, tucked close to him, protected in his embrace. His lips near the side of my forehead, he said, “Don’t fret, darlin’. Boyd is a cautious traveler. He’ll look out for them.” He released a soft sigh, the familiar scent of his breath against my eyelids as he whispered, “I miss them both, a very great deal. I haven’t been much apart from Boyd since we left home together in ’sixty-two.”

  I knew this, and that he depended upon Boyd perhaps more than he would admit. I understood there were experiences they shared as soldiers to which only Boyd was privy. Boyd was the last living soul present in the heart of the War with Sawyer, and I compared their friendship to that which I’d shared with Deirdre; she had known what it meant to work as a whore, without words or explanations, just as Boyd knew what it meant to be a soldier. Sawyer did not have to explain himself to Boyd as he often did to me, but I did not begrudge this; it only deepened my desire for us to reunite with them.

  “Malcolm will be lonely, even if it is an adventure,” I whispered, and longed for the boy; my arms twitched with the craving to cuddle him close. I tucked my chin at the juncture of Sawyer’s neck and shoulder, which I’d bitten earlier, in play. I kissed the spot now, lamenting, “I wish they were here to know our news. They would be so happy. They’ll be uncles!”

  “They will know the moment we see them again, sooner if we can get a letter to them.” Sawyer wound a strand of my hair about his index finger in a slow, rhythmic motion. “And Malcolm will find many things to occupy his time, of this I’ve no doubt. He’ll be all right. But I miss the sound of his voice, I’ll not deny. I do love that kid.”

  “I love him so. I love both of them. It’s the same as being apart from family. But despite everything I am gladdened to think of them reuniting with Jacob. I wish I could see their faces upon finding him. Malcolm said once he hoped that Jacob resembles Clairee.”

  “I don’t recollect that Jacob looks much like her, though I wasn’t more than a boy when Jacob left home. I was much better acquainted with Clairee. She was fair as a spring flower, but with a temper to light a fire.” Sawyer chuckled and I felt it rumble against my cheek. “She and Bainbridge were well-matched in that regard, I suppose, both possessed of strong spirits. Boyd’s daddy was…well, my mama called him a handful, I recall, and once a devil, though she never knew I overheard this. It would not have been seemly. But she said so to Daddy, and he laughed and agreed.”

  “Your daddy was sweet, wasn’t he?” I pictured the Davises so well from Sawyer’s detailed stories that I fancied I had truly met them outside of my imagination. A loving family, with brothers full of mischief and a shared love of horses. I envisioned James Davis patiently teaching his boys the ways of smithing, of properly caring for hoofed animals, and comforted myself with the knowledge that our own sons would likewise be instructed by Sawyer, someday. A small, warm flame flickered anew in my belly; I was so grateful that we would be allowed this future that, at times, my exquisite happiness bordered on pain.

  “He was,” Sawyer agreed, resting his chin atop my head. “Daddy loved my mama so, and now that I have you, mo mhuirnín milis, I understand in new ways every day how very much he loved her. And how he loved us. I will never forget the sight of my daddy’s eyes when we three boys told him we wished to be soldiers. Lorie, if our boys ever come to us and say they are leaving to fight, I will promptly hogtie all of them and barricade the door, and they will not be let out of our home.” He wrapped me closer, placing a shielding hand over my lower belly. “I understand now that at the time I did not let myself see how much it hurt Daddy and Mama to let us go. How much courage it took for them to watch us ride out, realizing we may never return. Oh God, I beg for the same never to happen to us, Lorie-love, and yet I did that to them. I rode away and knew their devastation.”

  I held fast, not speaking, only listening. I knew nothing I could say would offer as much comfort as holding him, our bare skin warm upon each other’s. Sawyer pressed his mouth to my shoulder and I stroked his hair. At last he vowed, “I have ridden away from those I love and have allowed them to ride away from me for the last time. I aim to get us to Minnesota next summer and build our home, and then let us never travel away from it again. Let us sit upon our front porch, in rocking chairs, as did those of advanced age in Suttonville.” I sensed him smile and knew a measure of relief.

  “You’ll be obliged to take up catfishing and whittling, as did all of th
e elderly gentlemen back home.”

  “That sounds about right,” Sawyer murmured. He resumed caressing my back and I rested my nose against his bristly, unshaven jaw, nodding acknowledgment.

  After a time I whispered, “I worry so for Rebecca.”

  “She loves Boyd.” Sawyer understood exactly what I meant. “It’s plain as daybreak. I know it hurts you to think of leaving her behind. She’s a good woman and I don’t much like seeing her sad, either. Boyd should have…” He trailed to silence, surely feeling that to speak against Boyd’s decision was in poor taste.

  I knew what he intended to say, of course, and finished for him. “He should have listened to his heart. He’s stubborn as a cloud of horseflies.”

  I sensed Sawyer’s smile. “He always said I was the stubborn one.” He was silent for a time before murmuring, “At least some things can always be counted upon.”

  I SWEAR – ” I started to say, but then thought better and bit back the words.

  Malcolm, uncommonly quiet since the night the storm destroyed nearly all of our supplies, sent a curious look my way, clearly awaiting the rest of the sentence. While I took a moment’s time to be thankful the bulk of our belongings remained behind with Sawyer and Lorie, to be carried along in the wagon come next spring, there was no denying we’d been left in dire circumstances. I kept my fears from Malcolm, best as I could, but he was sharp, too long burdened by the cares of a grown man. I was fooling myself if I thought he failed to understand, even without my directly saying so, that our journey had been made all the more difficult. The twister had destroyed our provisions – extra clothing, my pistol and a box of rounds, and much of the food store. Our money was lost, not even a coin scavenged from the remains of our belongings, of which a few not torn to shreds were scattered for the pickings on the prairie. But far worse, fathoms worse, was the ten-dollar note I’d carried all the miles from Tennessee, which I intended to use towards the filing fee for our land purchase.

  Now gone.

  I’d debated turning back more than once since the storm but kept this possibility from Malcolm, as he’d no doubt bend my ear in favor of it, without letup. A part of me felt that returning to Iowa City would be akin to a kicked dog slinking home with its tail tucked between its hind legs, and I’d had enough of that feeling to last a lifetime, and then some, after the Surrender. Neither could I ask Jacob for the money; not only did my pride prevent this, but he hadn’t such an amount to spare. Further, I understood I could not return to Iowa to be a burden to Tilson or Rebecca. The thought of being near Rebecca for the length of a winter sent me into a near-seizure of hunger for her, but I was wise enough to acknowledge that she would be married to Quade by then, if she wasn’t already, and witnessing her as the wife of another would serve to torture me. Better that there remained distance between us. And I understood well and good it was up to me, and no other, to determine a solution to my lack of funds. God knew I was no stranger to getting things done on my own.

  Malcolm continued to study me from beneath the brim of his hat, wordless, and I figured I might get lucky, that he’d let my words drop just as he would a prickly weed accidentally plucked, but my shoulders sank as he pressed, “You swear what?”

  “I swear if you ask another question, I’m gonna tie a cloth over your mouth,” I said, my tone not quite as severe as the words would suggest; Malcolm rolled his eyes heavenward but I ignored his rudeness. We were, as of this moment, flat penniless – unless I counted our mounts, but I refused to consider selling either Fortune or Aces High, animals I loved, and that without we would exist in even worse condition. We’d been goddamn lucky the stand of blackberry bushes to which we’d tied the animals kept them stationary that night; what food we did possess had been stowed in our saddle bags.

  “I know that ain’t it,” Malcolm groused. And then, truly pushing his luck, he grumbled, “Jesus, Boyd, I ain’t stupid.”

  I closed my eyes, thinking on what Daddy would do if I’d dared to sass, let alone curse, in his presence at age thirteen; just as swiftly a memory struck, of myself somewhere near that tender age, hiding around the side of the stock barn with Beau as we shared Granny Rose’s clay pipe. The pipe was a lovely thing long cherished in Granny’s family, the bowl once carved with a delicate tracery of interlocking flowers, worn smooth as silkwood from six decades of use, though my eldest brother and me didn’t spend much time admiring as we passed it to and fro between drags, coughing with every puff. The memory sparked the acrid taste of raw tobacco leaf along the back of my tongue.

  Why’n the hell do folks smoke this stuff? Beau had wondered aloud, then choked on a wheezing laugh. It’s right foul. Think I’d rather chaw tobaccy any ol’ day.

  In our boyhoods there was scarce a fellow in the South who didn’t dip; later there were many, myself included, that claimed tobacco leaf kept them sane during the War. A fella unable to accurately aim his plug was fair game for disdain, and likely near as much chaw created muck along the roadways as mud in those days, churned to a slogging mess under many thousands of booted feet. Most smoked a pipe in addition, including many a woman. Our granny was no exception, though she smoked on the porch out of respect for Mama’s window curtains, edged in fine white lace. Beau and me dipped when we could steal a pinch from Daddy’s quid, but Beau was fonder than me of the taste of the juice; to this day, I preferred to roll my own smokes rather than pack my lower lip.

  Goddammit to hell, I ain’t having no luck, I’d responded to Beau on that long-ago afternoon, irritated upon realizing the bowl no longer burned. It was my misfortune that Daddy found us just as I spoke these words, the left corner of my mouth clamped around the pipe stem while I tried in vain to relight the tobacco with the end of a small, dried reed we’d first jabbed into the woodstove.

  Boys, you’s fixin’ to get yer hides walloped, Daddy said conversationally, holding out one wide, gnarled hand for the pipe. My daddy was a big man, fifteen stone as Mama liked to tease, with a full beard and a thick black mustache that hid his upper lip unless he smiled, dark eyes that could snap like the devil’s own coalbed.

  I didn’t dare refuse and handed over the pipe, which Daddy tamped with the ease of a knife through warm butter. I dropped the reed and hastily ground it beneath my boot; Beau looked as though he meant to run, but then considered the outcome and thought better.

  Daddy’s gaze moved between us, his two elder sons, and there was a gleam of humor in his eyes as he used Granny’s pipe to gesture; he rumbled, Now, I seen you boys bare as eggs since you was born, an’ when you got hair on your chests an’ ballocks to match the hair on your heads, then you can smoke yourselves pipes, we clear as a May mornin’?

  We’s clear, Daddy, Beau and I said, in near-perfect unison, and I scrubbed a knuckle over my chest in the here and now, thinking, Well, I got plenty to match these days.

  What I’d been about to say to Malcolm, but had not, was that I swore someone was following us. The thought was a little niggling beetle chewing at the back of my mind. Had Sawyer been riding Whistler at my side I would not have hesitated to speak my suspicion, but despite everything he’d contended with in his young life, Malcolm was a boy, not a man, and under my protection to boot. I would not rouse his already fractious nerves even more with mentioning what was likely a result of my tired, over-addled mind. But then, I wasn’t one to second-guess myself. I’d not survived the War by pure good grace; at least a part of it came from learning to trust my instinct, and when I felt that certain coldness on the back of my neck, it wasn’t a thing to ignore. I shifted position, casual-like as I could, and peered over my right shoulder. I half expected to catch a glimpse of a telltale flash of blue.

  There was nothing but waving prairie grasses, across which we’d traveled since first coming upon the Mississippi River, way back in Missouri, and I felt a mite foolish at my tetchiness. The prairie was a sight rather pretty in its own way, I’d not deny, endless fields of blooming wild grass, land that sloped gradually from one rise to the
next; now, as August dwindled, there was a fair amount of gold amongst the green. Yellow daisies, those I recognized, and coneflowers of deep pink and creamy white. The clusters of pale purple blossoms, spiked like spears, Rebecca had called hyssop; these grew beyond her dooryard back in Iowa City, and I’d imagined picking great walloping armloads and presenting them, as I would if properly courting her.

  I gritted my teeth, refusing to finish that thought.

  Malcolm and I had crossed many a small waterway here and there on the trail, where the road petered out and took up again on the far side. Copses of trees, mostly willows and cottonwoods, whose leaves shivered and rustled in a companionable fashion, grew near the creek banks; though I felt a certain comfort in the occasional thick stands of trees, I was suddenly glad they had thinned some on the main route, as I reckoned fewer trees meant fewer places for anyone trailing us to seek cover.

  Yancy? I wondered, and my upper lip curled at just the thought of the man’s name. But it seemed unlikely that he would venture northward, when his kin – his two boys – were still in Iowa, dozens of miles south from Iowa City. There’d been no word of Yancy’s whereabouts as of the day Malcolm and I departed. I would not know, one way or the other, if the man had since surfaced until I could send word to Sawyer, or receive word from him. As we were on the move, I could reliably post a letter, but would be long gone from any posting office before one could make its way back from Sawyer and Lorie. I had promised them I would write when I could, to assure them that we were safe…and so that Rebecca would know the same. I tightened my knees around Fortune’s flanks, as though the mare could possibly carry me beyond my memories. My horse responded accordingly, increasing her pace. Malcolm cried, “Hey!” and heeled Aces, riding to catch up.