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  Cole had asked me to marry him, both of us knowing full well I was already wed to Dredd Yancy. His eyes burned with sincerity as we stared at one another, our bodies seeming to bob in a wide, silent sea. Before I could formulate a response, Cole anchored my waist in his strong hands and drew me near, bending to tease my lips and neck with his tongue; it seemed only natural when he began unlacing my dress with practiced fingers.

  I had offered acquiescence with one small word, clutching his shirt in both fists.

  We made love three times in quick succession, as bright day faded to soft gray evening, hidden there in the confines of the bunkhouse on Grant’s property. Cole’s hands knew where to go; his mouth was hot upon my flesh. My body had responded to his touch in unexpected quickening bursts of both pleasure and keen-edged guilt; for even in those moments when I closed my eyes I could not help but imagine it was Axton whose body I wrapped my limbs around.

  Desire became a heavy, complicated knot, its skeins cinching my heart with no regard for mercy. It wasn’t until months later I became aware a child was conceived that afternoon, Cole’s child, eradicating forever the possibility that Axton would not only continue to want me after I had been with Cole, but would be capable of forgiving me.

  Whore, I thought. You are an unforgivable, shameless whore.

  I refused to shy from the truth. At the very least I could be honest with myself.

  In the next second recriminations flooded my mind.

  Stop this. Your son is drawing sustenance from your body.

  You cannot think such terrible things.

  But I am a whore. I am married and have birthed another man’s child. And if I could, I would turn my back on both and find Axton.

  Even your son?

  No.

  Oh dear God, no. I would never leave my son.

  Unaware of the dark quagmire of my thoughts, Cole stroked hair from my temple as he continued speaking. “I’ll find us a room, with a bed and a basin. And I’ll see to it that you’re cared for by a physician.”

  Fannie Rawley had cared for me as tenderly as any healer during the time we spent at their home; how I had longed to remain under her reassuring eye, but we could not continue to endanger them any more than we could seek refuge with Cole’s married sister, who lived with her husband, Quinlan Rawley, on a homestead near Fannie and Charley. Something not quite human – the only way I could reconcile Fallon Yancy’s existence –was perhaps already on our trail. We could take no chances. Never mind the danger of loathsome criminals such as Aemon Turnbull or the man known simply as Vole; the threat of Fallon’s sudden appearance overpowered all others. If not tailing us, he was in pursuit of Ruthann.

  Please keep us safe. Watch over Axton, I beg of you, oh dear God, I beg of you. Please keep Ruthie and Marshall from harm’s way. Let them return to their lives in the future. They deserve no less. I prayed with silent fervor, resting my lips to Monty’s silken hair. Please deliver Fallon to hell, where he belongs. Let him be there already, and all our fears be for naught.

  But I knew it could not be that simple; I sensed Fallon out there somewhere, far more dangerous than I had formerly believed, and more than ready to destroy all that Ruthann and I held dear, for the simple pleasure it would bring him. He despised us for reasons I was only beginning to understand. We had parted ways from Ruthie, Axton, and Marshall for that very reason, praying it would prove more difficult for Fallon to find any of us. Even if Ruthann and her Marshall returned to their original time period they would not be entirely safe from Fallon, for he could follow them there. And so the only logical conclusion I could reach was that Fallon must be killed; the sooner, the better.

  I had reconciled myself to a life without my dearest friend, ready to endure the consequences no matter what the personal cost. I closed my eyes, seeing Ruthann’s beautiful face and the warmth of her direct gaze. I would never have survived the past winter if not for her; she was yet another person my heart ached with loving. How did one begin to separate the two emotions? Were love and pain meant to be intertwined, an inevitable pairing of deepest feeling?

  You and my sister share a soul, Ruthann had said. You are my sister, in this place.

  Together we had spoken of the future – the present, as Ruthie knew the twenty-first century – and therefore I had learned of a man named Case Spicer to whom her sister, Tish, was blissfully wed. This knowledge stimulated many a discussion, the two of us speaking in hushed voices late into the night hours. Prisoners in a Catholic convent in western Illinois, we had talked to ease the desperate fear which would have otherwise overwhelmed us.

  I know Cole and Case have the same last name but it’s Axton who reminds me most of Case, I swear, Patricia. I truly believe that Axton is Case in the future, not Cole.

  And so I clung to Ruthann’s conviction; the promise that somewhere in time Axton and I would find one another. We could not be together in this life but at least I retained the assurance of a future life together.

  Let it be so, dear God, let this come to pass.

  I cannot survive this life without the promise of the next.

  And the reproaches blazed anew, as painful as if I stood in the center of a roaring fire.

  Chapter Eight

  The Iowa Plains - June, 1882

  I LONGED FOR AN ESCAPE FROM THE CLAUSTROPHOBIC CON-fines of the wagon bed and so Cole wrapped me in a thick shawl and we joined Malcolm and Blythe at the breakfast fire, where Malcolm crouched poking at golden-brown biscuits with an iron cooking tool. Blythe sat cross-legged on its far side, warming his large, gnarled hands. Both men hurried to their feet at the sight of me, offering polite greetings and gladness at my appearance.

  Despite the shawl and the heat thrown by the fire, to say nothing of Monty’s plump warmth in my arms, I could not contain a shiver. But I was determined to take the air for a moment’s time and restrained further trembling, with effort. Cole settled a tattered wool blanket over the ground and then helped me to sit; I sensed the way he withheld concerned commentary, and was grateful.

  “Those look delightful,” I told Malcolm; my voice emerged thin and pale. I was unaccustomed to illness, to personal weakness in general.

  “Thank you kindly, ma’am,” Malcolm replied, his kind, dark eyes flashing to my face as he reclaimed his crouch beside the crackling fire. “I ain’t much of a cook but I do have biscuits down to an art, if I do say so myself.”

  “And thank you for entertaining Monty. He is quite taken with you.” I smiled at my contented son, whose eyes appeared as bright as gems in the dawn’s light. Despite Malcolm’s striking physical stature and outgoing, demonstrative nature, there existed within him a deep well of tenderness; the baby seemed to sense it and had ceased crying on several occasions after being placed in Malcolm’s arms. I acknowledged, with a sharp pang of guilt, that he had likely held my son as often as I on our journey northwest from the convent.

  “Young’uns always are,” Malcolm affirmed with an air of gentle teasing. “Between my brother and Becky, and Sawyer and Lorie, I have an even dozen nieces and nephews. And it ain’t no lie that I’m the favorite among them-all.”

  “Among the Rawley children, as well,” I commented, recalling the way the youthful offspring of Miles’s three brothers had clambered all over Malcolm during our brief time in their rowdy company.

  Blythe Tilson remained reticent; I’d learned he was an observer rather than a talker. Besides, Malcolm chatted enough for any two people. Though I desired greatly to know, I was hesitant to inquire how my presence would be received by Malcolm’s relations in northern Minnesota, whenever fate decreed we should arrive at their home; I thought of them in conjunction with Malcolm rather than Ruthann, though she too possessed a familial connection. Cole had provided for me all the details Ruthann had been unable to supply regarding her ancestors in this century; the Davis family, along with Malcolm’s older brother, Boyd Carter, had established and settled homesteads along the wooded lakefront thirteen years ago, in the
summer of 1869. One day, many decades from now, their descendants would manage successful businesses in the selfsame area, places with picturesque names to conjure countless striking images in my mind.

  Flickertail Lake. Landon. Fisherman’s Street. The Shore Leave Cafe. White Oaks Lodge.

  Ruthann had been of the opinion that I would be welcomed with love and acceptance by those who resided in her remembered hometown; I attempted to believe this, refusing to point out that her views were based more upon twenty-first century sensibilities than she realized. While descendants of the people living today may very well prove tolerant of an unwed mother – at least, unwed to her son’s father – Malcolm’s family could just as quickly cast me from their favor. And rightly so. Besides my sinful behavior on several fronts, my very presence was a danger to everyone with whom I came into contact.

  I wished to pose these questions to Malcolm, wanting his opinion on the matter, but had not yet found an opportune or appropriate moment. Despite our brief acquaintance, I knew he and Cole shared a long history, and therefore I trusted him. Furthermore, I quite liked Malcolm. There was an effortless amiability in his manner, a wayward sense of good humor, however tempered by a deep, guarded well of sadness. The little I knew of Malcolm’s heartache came from Ruthann and Cole, both of whom had mentioned a woman named Cora, Malcolm’s lost love. Empathy and curiosity welled within me but I would never stoop to inquiring after her.

  “Are you hungry at all?” Malcolm asked, peering at me with a faint crease denting his otherwise smooth brow. “This is a terrible way for a new mama to travel, I do apologize. You look right peaked, poor thing. Eat, if you’re able.”

  Though my stomach sent out mild protests, nursing the baby sapped my energy like nothing I had ever known. I recognized I must retain my strength and let Cole take Monty so I could handle a plate and fork. Cole tucked the baby in the crook of his left arm and cupped my elbow with his free hand. Nodding southward, Cole commented, “It wasn’t too very far from here that Malcolm and I first met. We were but sprouts, both farther from home than we’d ever dreamed possible. I’d never seen a sight like the expanse of prairie we traveled over that summer. Land so wide and empty it seemed we’d never reach the end.”

  Inspired by the storytelling quality of Cole’s words, Malcolm’s eyes took on a subtle shine. “Ain’t that the truth? What a fine dinner your dear mama served the afternoon we met. Remember them fireflies at dusk?”

  Cole laughed, nodding. “I don’t know that I’ve ever seen so many at once, since then. How glad we were for your company. And how jealous I was of Aces High! I begged Pa for my own horse from that moment forth, until he was fit to whip my hide for pestering.” Addressing me, Cole explained, “I spent most of those days walking alongside the wagon. Walking and walking in the heat of the sun, blisters across my heels every night. I didn’t have a fine horse to gallop away from the monotony.”

  I listened with fascination despite my aching head and the slight haze across my vision.

  “Aces High has been with me since the day I rode forth from Cumberland County,” Malcolm said, glancing with fond pride in the direction of the picket line where the same horse now grazed, before returning his attention to me. “I’d spent my boyhood in the hollers of Tennessee, you see, where the sun rose late and set early and you couldn’t see the horizon unless you climbed to the topmost ridge and then shimmied up the tallest pine. I never knew something so big as the prairie existed. I’m not too proud to admit it frightened me no small amount.”

  Blythe nodded as he listened to Malcolm’s descriptions; he wore no hat in the early part of the day and I revised my assumption of his age; he appeared younger in the fire’s light, perhaps mid-thirties rather than past two score. Craggy-featured and with unruly hair, he offered an unexpected smile. When Blythe spoke, the sound of the southern lands was predominant in the cadence of his speech, more pronounced than the hint of it in Malcolm’s. Almost shyly, Blythe murmured, “We was raised but a stone’s throw from one another, young Malcolm, an’ we never met ’til now. Ain’t that somethin’? I’ve traveled far an’ wide in my time but I never found me a place quite as pretty as the hollers of home.”

  “It’s a funny thing how life sorta comes around full circle,” Malcolm replied, nodding agreement. “Later that same summer your father and I met just yonder, in Iowa City.” I did not believe I imagined the way his eyes tightened as he added, “It’s a town I could do without ever revisiting, if you want the truth.”

  I should have bitten my tongue. “Why is that?”

  Malcolm fixed his gaze on the fire and gone was the sweetness of youthful memories, replaced by the stern, uncompromising regard of a man who had endured depths of pain I was only beginning to understand. I sensed a torrent of anguished words – the heaviness of guilt, the sting of bitterness, the razor of remembered agony – all held in check by his powerful will. He said only, “It was where I disobeyed Lorie.”

  Blythe politely took up the conversational reins, drawing Malcolm’s focus as he inquired, “Lorie, your sister?”

  “I love Lorie as well as my own kin, though we are not related by blood. Lorie is wed to my brother’s dearest friend, Sawyer.”

  Blythe persisted, “And your brother is wed to my cousin Rebecca, ain’t that right?”

  There were too many connections for my tired mind; I set aside my plate and leaned against Cole, thankful beyond measure for his solid strength.

  “Yes, Boyd and Becky been wed for many happy years. They was most overjoyed to learn of your intent to rejoin them.” A smile elongated Malcolm’s mouth, restoring animation to his handsome face. “I can nearly catch the scent of all the baked goods being prepared in your honor, Tilson.”

  A quiet yellow slice of sun crested the horizon as if to emphasize this statement and a small prickle of hope caught me unaware. In that golden-tinted moment I let myself believe my son and I would be welcomed, that all would be well; we would find sanctuary in Minnesota and then, next summer, we would venture west to Cole’s parents, to claim our own homestead acreage.

  But I should have known better.

  Cole and I had less than a day left together and somewhere, beyond our perception, the timepiece had already begun its rapid ticking toward zero.

  I woke with no earthly idea where I was, aware of nothing but the fact that something was dreadfully wrong. Buried alive was my first thought, for I lay prone beneath heavy layers, unable to lift arms or legs. Inundated by blistering heat and dull pain, I turned my head to the side in an attempt to determine a single point of orientation. Met by little but darkness, fear drummed an increasing beat inside my head. A small bundle tucked close to my breasts shifted with small, mewling grunts.

  Monty, I realized, groping for facts through the haze in my mind. Outside, the wind had gained in strength, causing the canvas covering stretched over the wagon’s ribs to flap like a flag.

  Something is wrong.

  Cole…

  My tongue scraped the backsides of my teeth but no sound materialized. I could not manage the requisite strength to lift to one elbow, disabled by weakness. No way to gauge how many hours had passed since retiring to bed; the fever had gained in severity while I slept. I realized Cole was not in the wagon. Often he slept near the fire, the better to keep watch with the men. Encroaching swiftly now was the recognition of danger, beating like the hooves of cantering horses across the hot, feverish plain of my awareness.

  They’re coming.

  They’re coming because of me and I have to warn the men.

  Oh dear God, it is my fault.

  Cole…Malcolm…

  Monty’s grunting gained in strength and a small scuffling beyond the wagon met my ears. My shoulders sank with momentary relief. Cole must have heard the baby. Any second he would emerge from the windy predawn and I could warn him that someone was approaching our position, and just as swiftly he would reassure me that no one had followed us these past weeks of travel; no Fallon Yancy on
our trail, my agitation nothing more than a nightmare conjured by a fevered mind.

  To some extent, this was correct; it was not Fallon or his men closing in on our camp, using the gathering storm as cover.

  A single gunshot cracked the air.

  Monty shrieked at his highest register and began wailing.

  I whimpered, clutching him close to my chest as mounted horses surrounded our camp; buzzing, shouting chaos reached my ears through the wind.

  “Stand down, we’ve got you surrounded!”

  “Drop that sidearm! Toss it aside!”

  “On your goddamn knees!”

  “This man’s been shot!”

  “I told you to hold your goddamned fire!”

  “Where is Patricia? Tell me at once!”

  I knew that last voice and whimpered anew, bending as best I could around my baby’s soft, vulnerable body, my own a pitiful, fragile shield.

  “You will not go near her, you son of a bitch!”

  No, oh please no, I begged, hearing Cole’s roaring shouts followed by a ferocious struggle.

  Another gunshot and I lurched as though the bullet had pierced my flesh; Monty’s sobbing cries were at once muted as my ears rang from the inside out. Who had been shot?! Seconds later Dredd Yancy’s head and shoulders appeared at the oval opening to the rear of the wagon. Clad in riding garments, wool cloak, and a wide-brimmed hat, he lofted a lantern and peered inside, containing his shock and disbelief with monumental effort.

  His lips moved, forming my name.

  I closed my eyes, trying to hide Monty from his sight against my fevered body.

  Oh dear God, no…

  Dredd disappeared from view. More shouting, cursing, threats. The ringing subsided enough for individual words to penetrate.