The Lawman's Oklahoma Sweetheart

“I know,” Katrine said, holding the soft, beautiful pillowcase tight against her chest. “I know.”

The second Evelyn left, Katrine slumped back into the rocker, feeling twice as weary as she had before. She propped her elbow on the chair arm and let her forehead fall into her upturned hand. “This is too hard.”

Clint sat on the porch at her feet, looking up at her with an expression of regret that caused a lump in Katrine’s throat. “I know.” She kept forgetting that this necessary charade was as difficult for him as it was for her. Still, he seemed so strong, so in control, where she felt like a weed tumbling across the prairie in hapless gusts of wind. “You need someone to help you.”

She couldn’t help it. “I need Lars.” She tried not to whine the words, but the weariness had stolen all her good behavior. Evelyn was right, she hadn’t slept well since the fire. She looked straight at Clint until he looked right back into her eyes and then she whispered, “Tell me he lives. I need to hear the words out loud.”

“Katrine.” His eyes darted around them, careful for nearby ears. “We’ll go out to the cabin again tomorrow.”

“I can’t wait until tomorrow.” She stood up, pacing the porch. She needed to hear someone else speak the words, to know she was not so fogged up in thought and pretended mourning that it was still true. To know she could call her dear brother a rascal and not be speaking ill of the dead. She turned and simply demanded it of Clint. “I cannot.”

He took one look around, and for that moment she resented his role as protector. She did not want his cautionary nature. Then, to her surprise, he walked toward her. He took one of her hands and pulled her close to him. One strong hand wrapped around her shoulder, the other held her elbow. Not the full, protective embrace he’d offered her after the fire, although she could feel his desire to do so, but a careful, much-as-could-be-allowed gesture. His face hovered just above her head, close and startlingly tender. “He is alive.” His words were as filled with emotion as any she’d ever heard from the sheriff. “Lars will come home.”

Chapter Six

Not half an hour later, Clint found Winona Eaglefeather standing quietly on the edge of the Gilberts’ property where she kept a tepee with Dakota. The Gilberts had become good friends with Winona, as they had watched over Dakota when he first arrived in Boomer Town before Winona had arrived, looking for the boy.

She still had on the plainclothes dress she had worn to the service. When she came from the reservation, she wore Cheyenne dress, but many times in town she dressed in the manner of other Brave Rock women. It was late in the day, but after talking with Katrine he knew the news he carried could not wait until tomorrow.

“I’m glad you came to the service.” It didn’t feel like the right greeting, but Clint couldn’t find other words. “Lars spoke highly of you.”

“Your fun-e-ral—” she worked the new word carefully on her tongue “—is so strange to me.” When Winona had first come to Brave Rock, she could only communicate in English on the most basic level. Now, only three months later, the language came much more easily. That had a lot to do with the amount of time Lars had devoted to teaching her. Lars was an excellent instructor—already Clint had learned a great deal about the area and tracking from the Dane—but Clint knew their motivation to communicate went deeper than a grasp of English.

“Strange?” he inquired. A funeral for a living man was oddity enough, but since Winona could hardly have known that, Clint was curious about her reaction.

“Yes.” She circled one hand in the air, as if reaching for the right word. “So...quiet.”

He’d never had cause to see a Cheyenne funeral, but Lars had told him of the tribe’s colorful spiritual ceremonies. Solemn rows of folk in black couldn’t be further from costumes and fires and sacred dances. “I suppose it must look that way to you.”

“When the Cheyenne mourn their dead, we place a body up high to speed them to the Great Beyond. There is much wailing and crying. Singing and telling stories.”

“We tell stories—you heard Reverend Thornton tell a few about Lars as part of his message—but mostly to each other more than part of the ceremony.” Lije had indeed told several heartwarming tales of the help and support Lars had given people in Brave Rock. Clint had felt his soul warm to the fact that in three short months, this prairie settlement had become a true community. He and Lars were fighting to keep that community safe, and Lars’s own memorial bore truth as to why that was worth the current cost. “Lots of people stopped me in town or after the service and told me stories of Lars. People see it as a way to remember.”

“And headstones.” Her eyes squinted up in consideration of this unfamiliar custom. Brave Rock had no graveyard yet, but even Lije had mentioned they’d need one soon. “Reverend Thornton tells me your people put the bodies down in the ground.”

“That’s true, usually. Only there is no body to bury in this case.” He found his words ironic, given what he had come to say. Still, it wasn’t the kind of thing he could just blurt out.

“You wear black,” she went on, then motioned to her own dark clothes. “We wear red.” He noticed that the elaborate beaded decorations she always wore in her long black braids were a bright red today. Even in American garb, she managed to retain her Cheyenne identity. Maybe that was why Lars felt such a connection to the woman—she had a gift for moving between the two worlds of her life. Lars was little different; he seemed to slide with ease between his Danish heritage, his American future and his time spent learning hunting and tracking on the Cheyenne reservation. It’s what made him such a good role model for young Dakota. Half white, half Cheyenne, the boy was struggling with who he was and where he belonged since his mother had died and his father, prior to his death, had never even acknowledged the boy’s existence. The more Clint thought about it, the more Lars had in common with this aunt and her nephew. Clint would be glad to put an end to their mourning.

“We are so different,” she went on. “And yet death is sadness everywhere.” He did not need to see her wipe a tear from her eyes to know she mourned Lars deeply; it was clear in the tone of her simple words.

“Can we take a walk, Miss Winona? I need to talk to you about something important. Private. To do with Lars.”

She looked at him with curiosity, but turned as he gestured away from where Dakota sat working with some leather outside the tepee. “I have told you all I know. I do not know how I can help you, Sheriff Thornton.”

Clint made sure they were a safe distance before he turned to her. “I have not told you all I know.” He took a breath, fully aware he was bringing danger to Winona’s door but also aware that Katrine could not go on without more support. “Lars is not dead.”

Winona’s eyes, already dark and large, popped wide open. “I do not understand.”

“Lars is alive, but in hiding. He did not die in the fire, but we thought it best to make it look as if he had died. The men who set that fire were looking to kill him for something he had seen, and we didn’t want them trying again.”

“He lives?” she whispered. Her hand went to her chest, confirming Clint’s suspicions that Lars had come to mean much more to her than an English tutor.

“Yes. Only Katrine and I know this, but I fear it’s too much for her to bear alone.”

Winona’s eyes glanced over Clint’s shoulder back in the direction of the church where so many people had mourned just hours ago. “A great lie.”

“Yes, but a necessary one. And only for now. Lars’s life is worth saving at any cost.” After a moment he added, “I know you feel that way.” Lars had known the reasons Clint could pull her into this; she understood the cost, and her heart would make her willing to pay it.

She paused a telling moment before saying, “You speak the truth.”

“He needs supplies brought to him where he hides. And messages. I’ve told Katrine she can write to him but for her to visit is too dangerous. I suspect certain folks are watching her—folks who might aim to finish what they started.”

“Katrine is still in danger?”

“As I said, I believe her cabin was set on fire on purpose. To kill Lars. By the same people who have been setting other fires and doing other damage.” He paused a moment before adding, “Lars and I both believe we know who the Black Four are. I am trying to catch them even now, so that Lars can come home and everyone can be safe.”

“A heavy task.”

“One that is my job as sheriff. Only it makes it hard for me to help Lars. You, though, you slip in and out of town every day. And he is not far from the reservation.” Clint was used to telling folks what to do, to giving orders and planning strategies. It felt odd to be asking, pleading even, for assistance. “Will you help?”