Prairie Song Read online

  Her ears strained. Listening for the sound to come again, Cherish debated whether she wanted it to be real or whether it might be less frightening to question her sanity. What had the strange housekeeper, Azile, said? The dead walked the house and the walls cried. But Azile’s eyes had the wild vacantness of someone who drifted from reality on the white smoke of opium.

  The creaking came once more, an eerie noise of creeping terror. Waiting like an animal ready to spring for safety, she heard soft footsteps approaching her door. Cherish moved slowly across the room and, pulling her gun from her bag, she melted into the shadows between the bedpost and the wardrobe. She was not some frightened child to be caught unaware. The years of working in army camps near the front lines had taught her to prepare for the worst, even if praying for the best.

  She watched as the doorknob on the hallway door turned. There was a long pause, then a knife’s blade darted out like a snake’s tongue between the door and the frame. With one jerk, the lock snapped back and the door moved inward.

  Slowly, with deliberate pressure, the door opened wide. Cherish strained to see into the darkened hallway, but there seemed to be nothing but blackness.

  “Who’s there?” She made her voice calm, yet her hand trembled slightly as her finger caressed the trigger.

  “You’re awake?” a low voice whispered.

  “And armed.” She moved closer, trying to see into the hall, trying to place the voice in her memory.

  A shadow moved, raising lean arms as if in surrender. “I mean you no harm, Miss Wyatt.”

  “Who are you?”

  A thin man stepped from the blackness into the lamplight. “Father Daniel. We met on the train. I’m sorry to have frightened you, but I need your help.”

  Cherish almost collapsed with relief. The devils she’d imagined vanished from her mind. “But why break into my room? Why not just knock at the door?”

  “This house has a few entrances other than the front door. I’ve known about them since I was a child. I need your help, and no one, not even the woman with you, must know.”

  “What kind of priest are you? You help murderers and use a knife like a key.” Suddenly Cherish was not sure she should lower her weapon. She was not fool enough to think that only robes were needed to make a priest.

  Father Daniel laughed. “Don’t worry. I’m as real a priest as this town has known. It’s just that sometimes the Lord and I must walk a little to the left side of the law.”

  Cherish remembered how he’d saved the man from hanging and knew somehow she owed this mysterious man a favor. “What can I do?”

  The priest disappeared and returned a moment later, half-carrying, half-dragging the body of a man. “I thought I could help him, but we’ve ridden hard for two days. We’ve been out in the storm all night. When we finally got to town I couldn’t just take him to the mission to die, and the town’s doctor is seldom sober enough to be of any help.” Father Daniel looked at her with helpless gray eyes, liquid with his plea. “He’s lost a lot of blood and I’m afraid his wound is infected.”

  Turning up the lantern, Cherish watched the priest lower the wounded man onto her bed. He was covered with mud and blood, but she knew without asking that he was the same man who had almost been hanged that night on the water tower outside the train. “How did you find him?”

  Father Daniel collapsed in the chair by her bed, his words barely a whisper. “He slept in my berth until we reached Bryan. Then I purchased two horses and met him outside town. He seemed to be fine the first few miles, but his bleeding made our traveling slow. We had to keep off the roads for fear of being spotted. Then the rain started and Brant grew weaker.” As the clergyman talked, his words slowed and his body melted into the chair’s comfort. “I thought he was going to die before I could get him here. There was nowhere else to turn. Hattie used to always have room to hide men who didn’t want to be found and you’ll nurse …” Without finishing, the priest fell asleep, his legs stretched out and his head against the back of the chair. He had laid his trouble at her door and now could rest.

  “Hattie?” Cherish whispered, remembering the old invalid downstairs who had once been the owner of this house and now just seemed to go with it like furnishings passed from one person to another.

  Placing a blanket over the priest, Cherish wondered if he’d slept at all in the past three nights. What drove this man of God to risk his life for a murderer? Didn’t he know what he was doing was wrong? Or maybe he didn’t care, for his reason was right. There had to be a bond between these two men, a bond linked somehow by the identical scars on their wrists.

  Moving the lamp near the bed, she turned the wounded man’s face toward the light. His skin was ghost-pale but warm to her touch, telling her that he was still alive and that the wound probably was infected. His jawline was hard and straight, his dark hair a touch too long, and his mouth pulled tight in pain.

  She wasn’t sure what she’d expected to see when she finally looked at the bandit, but even beneath the mud, his good looks shocked her. Why had she thought his face would be scarred, his nose broken, his mouth twisted in a permanent sneer? But here was the face of a young man with a long Roman nose and chestnut brown hair. She might need a shovel to remove all the mud from him, but Cherish aimed to see just what this man, who had dared kiss her as no other had, looked like.

  Even now, as she touched him, she felt her heart race. For the first time in her life she wanted to touch him as a woman touches a man and not just as a nurse touches a patient. This outlaw covered with blood and mud was somehow the key to unlocking feelings she’d never allowed out.

  Cherish slipped into her wrapper without taking her eyes off the man in her bed. She’d need hot water and bandages if she was to do him any good. Somehow she had to find help, but who? Grayson was the most logical choice. He’d hauled water for their baths and firewood. Maybe she could get him to bring up a few more loads. He’d be the least likely to talk because he hadn’t more than nodded since she’d met him. Plus, if Maggie trusted him so completely, he must be worthy of trust.

  Tiptoeing into the sitting room, Cherish stumbled over Grayson’s discarded clothes. She could hear his heavy breathing coming from the couch and knew it would be no easy task to wake a man who had worked as hard as he had since before dawn.

  With her usual passion for neatness, she straightened his damp clothes and folded them over a chair by the fire. A crumpled telegram fell from his pants pocket and curiosity made her take a moment to glance at it.

  Cherish couldn’t believe what she saw. She moved closer to the fire and read the message again. It was addressed to a Captain Grayson Kirkland and the short message left no doubt that he’d been assigned to a new job.

  She read the last sentence three times. “More details with Friday train arrival.” She’d been on the Friday train as had the priest and the wanted man. Since Grayson couldn’t have possibly wanted her, he must be hunting one of the two men. Yet, why was he playing this game of not understanding English? He obviously read it. Was he playing Maggie and her for fools, or was Maggie a part of this and, in her usual overprotective way, hiding the truth from Cherish?

  Folding the paper, she replaced it in the pants pocket, then walked soundlessly out of the room. When she was safely back in her bedroom she bolted the door and whispered, “Wonderful. Some rest I’m going to get. I know two facts for certain. Grayson is a Union officer probably looking for one of two men, and they’re both less than ten feet away from him in my bedroom.”

  Chapter 6

  Dawn sifted through the thin curtains and ribboned the bed where the stranger lay. Cherish’s hand trembled slightly as she dug once more for the bullet lodged in his chest. Tiny white lines formed around his mouth, but the man the priest had called Brant didn’t cry out. He was awake and with her each step, though he didn’t speak or open his eyes.

  “There!” Cherish let out long-held breath. “It’s out.” Before, when she’d worked with a gunshot
wound, she’d always tried to remove herself as much as possible from the person near death and think only of the bullet to be dislodged. But she found that difficult now. Even as she worked she thought of this stranger and how he’d touched her in the darkness of the train. His kiss had been unlike anything she’d ever dreamed a kiss could be. Just the memory warmed her blood as she watched his mouth tighten in pain.

  His face was relaxed for the first time all night. He’s finally passed out from the pain, she thought. Even though he hadn’t said a word, she’d known he’d been with her, trusting her with his life. She felt him watching her work as he’d forced his body not to jerk when she cut into his infected flesh.

  Quickly, she cleaned and closed the wound, marveling at his silence. When the wound was bandaged, Cherish wiped his pale face with a cool cloth. She had to admire this murderer for his courage. She’d seen men who endured a tenth of the pain she’d put him through scream for hours. Now, touching his face, she thought of how totally he’d placed himself in her hands. The sleeping priest beside the bed would have been no guard if she decided to run into the sitting room and tell Grayson a murderer lay near death in her room. The stranger had trusted her with his life.

  She felt no fear of Brant now as she touched the dark brown whiskers along his jawline. His features were strong, but not hard. There was something boyish and reckless about him that made her want to know the person behind the tough man. She wanted to know what had molded a man so hard that no pain seemed to touch him.

  “We’re very much alike, you and I,” she whispered. “We keep our pain within, never letting anyone see.” She thought of how the loneliness she felt was like an invisible open wound over her heart. She pushed back from people, never allowing herself to get too close. The very trait that had made her a good nurse had also cheated her out of knowing how it felt to be in a lover’s arms.

  Closing her eyes, Cherish leaned against the headboard and tried not to think of anything but Brant surviving the next few hours. There was nothing to do but wait and see if infection set in. During the war, she’d had plenty of experience with gunshot wounds. More men died of the poisoning from the black powder than from the bullets. Brant might be one more notch on the black powder’s handle of death.

  Bar slipped into the room, carrying another bucket of water. His thin, half-grown shadow moved over the wall as silently as he moved about the house. She’d enlisted his help when she’d found him sleeping on the stairs and he’d helped her all night without once complaining. “You think you’ll need any more water, Miss Cherish?”

  “No, thanks,” she whispered as she straightened. “You’d better get some sleep, and remember, in the morning you never saw this stranger.”

  Bar moved closer. “He ain’t no stranger, miss. I’ve known him and Father Daniel all my life. Though I haven’t seen Brant Coulter around here for a few years. Last time I saw him, he was downstairs arguin’ with Miss Hattie about somethin’.” Bar sat down by the fire as if thankful to have someone to talk to. “Miss Hattie told me later that Brant and Daniel was like me when they was kids, just kind of on their own. She said she didn’t remember either of them ever havin’ folks.”

  Cherish pushed a strand of blond hair back from her face. “I think I understand. The outlaw and the priest were childhood friends. Then one turned out good and one bad.”

  Bar looked confused. “What do you mean?”

  Cherish smiled at the child. “I mean one does good things and the other bad things.”

  Bar tilted his head as if letting this new thought wash around in his brain. “I don’t know. I can’t tell who’s good and who’s bad much any more. Like Miss Hattie. Folks say she ain’t no good. Some won’t even speak to her on the street. But she lets me live here when those folks that don’t speak to her ain’t offerin’ me a home. Even last winter when Azile tried to throw me out ‘cause she said feeding me was a waste of good food, Miss Hattie wouldn’t hear of it. Not that she can’t be meaner than the devil from time to time, but I owe her just as I guess Brant and Father Daniel do.”

  Cherish saw his point, but tried to make him understand about the two sleeping men. “Yes, but Father Daniel is helping save a life and this man killed another man.”

  Bar shrugged. “I’ve seen a few men that needed killing. I reckon if Brant Coulter kilt him, the guy musta provoked him mighty.”

  Father Daniel shifted in the chair, startling Bar. The boy crawled into the shadows like a half-wild barn cat when the barn door is suddenly opened. Cherish was shocked at the fear that danced into the boy’s dark gypsy eyes.

  “I gotta go,” he whispered and vanished.

  Father Daniel stretched and smiled shyly. “I’m sorry about falling asleep like that. How is our patient?”

  “I think he’ll live.” Cherish studied the priest, trying to find some clue as to what had frightened Bar. There was only kindness in the priest’s face. And mystery.

  Father Daniel stood and faced the morning light. “I’ll come back for him as soon as I can.” He moved toward the door. “I thank you for your help. I’d best get to the mission before the whole town wakes up and knows I was here. There’s a back trail behind the barn that leads right into the grounds of the mission.”

  Cherish watched him go, wondering why she hadn’t told him about Grayson, or Grayson about both men. Who would she have betrayed in the telling? A priest who had done her no harm, or a Union officer who slept in the sitting room? She knew the law would see her as having helped a criminal, but her hatred for any Union soldier made her hesitate. The war could end easier on paper than in the heart. Hadn’t the Union imprisoned a doctor only months ago for treating the man who had shot Lincoln? Grayson seemed a reasonable man, but the world was full of men who had been poisoned with four years of hatred.

  A low moan from behind her drew Cherish back to the bedside. She knelt beside the bed, trying to hear what the wounded stranger was whispering.

  Slowly he raised his hand and touched her cheek. “Be careful,” he whispered. His eyes were feverish, yet penetrating with intensity.

  “I will.” Cherish leaned to within an inch of his face. “I know the truth about the man in the next room.”

  Brant slowly moved his head from side to side as if she hadn’t heard him. “Be careful,” he whispered, “of the priest.”

  Someone seemed to be calling Grayson Kirkland from far away. He could hear his name, but it was borne on the wind and he couldn’t find its direction. He reached for the answer and touched the face of someone too real to be in a dream.

  “Grayson! Wake up!” Margaret’s no-nonsense voice brought him fully awake. “Grab your gun and follow me.”

  She didn’t wait for him to answer, but disappeared into the hallway. Grayson’s survival instincts had taught him long ago that the time between sleep and full awakening must be kept to a minimum if a soldier planned to stay alive. He grabbed his gun belt, flung it over his shoulder, and followed as he stepped into his pants.

  The hallway was still in darkness, but he could hear Margaret’s steps on the stairs. He soundlessly followed her as he slid one Colt from its holster.

  She paused and waited for him at the bottom of the stairs. As he stood just behind her, she whispered, “I was dressing a few minutes ago and I swear I heard someone passing in the hall. When I glanced out to see if it was Bar, a tall shadow moved down the stairs.”

  Grayson slowly moved around her and entered the hallway that ran from the kitchen door to the foyer. He held his gun ready, for there was no frightened alarmist in Margaret Alexander. If she saw a shadow, then there had been a shadow. He crossed the empty hallway to the large front room that ran half of the length of the house.

  The room was empty except for a few old chairs that had been abandoned, too useless to be sold and too heavy to be carried away. Grayson circled the room that looked like it might once have been a library.

  There was nothing: no window had been opened recently; no exit door; not
even a fireplace that a man could have disappeared into.

  Grayson lowered his Colt and looked at Margaret. She was such a vision in her robe and bare feet. Her indigo eyes were wide with questions and the night had tossed her ebony hair to a mass of velvet. For a moment Grayson wished time would stop and he could just stand and look at her for eternity.

  “I saw a shadow,” she said resolutely as she crossed her arms in front of her. He could almost see the hardness entering her veins and flowing through her. With the light, the woman in the soft robe would disappear into the hard, straight widow with her hair hidden in a bun and her heart closed to all men.

  “We all see shadows in this house.” A voice from the hall startled Grayson and Margaret.

  The housekeeper, Azile, filled the doorway with her colorful dress. The scarves about her head and waist caught the morning sun with rainbow colors. “Evil walks in this place. Take care.”

  Pulling her shoulders square, Margaret said, “The shadow I saw was not a ghost. I swear on the grave of my dear Westley that the shadow was that of a man.”

  “Maybe,” Azile answered as she turned and disappeared as quickly as she had come.

  Margaret tightened her robe belt. “I’ll not be frightened by some crazy housekeeper who dresses like a prizewinning sow at the county fair.”

  Grayson laughed inwardly, wondering just what it would take to frighten this woman made of iron. He’d never encountered such a female. He wondered what kind of man this Westley Alexander must have been to win her and, once he’d won her, how he’d ever been able to leave her. She was not a woman to be bedded and left; she was the kind of woman a man could spend all his life loving and, when heaven called, regret that he didn’t have one more night by her side.

  “Aunt Maggie!” Cherish yelled as she ran down the stairs and into the room. “Are you all right? …”

  Cherish almost collided with her aunt as she slid to a stop. Grayson quickly moved his Colt behind him. He knew without asking that Margaret wouldn’t want Cherish frightened. He thought Margaret’s protectiveness of Cherish was overgrown, but he found himself falling into the same pattern.