Cheyenne Wife

Beneath the fabric of his shirt, muscles bunched, expanded, contracted. Were they bare? she wondered. Smooth, slick—

The Indian turned sharply, his gaze finding her on the crates and pinning her there.

Lily gulped. Good gracious! He’d caught her staring. Could he possibly know that she’d been thinking about his chest—of all things?

She shrank deeper into the crates, drawing her legs up under her. Humiliation burned her cheeks. How unseemly of her. How unladylike. Ogling a man. Wondering about his chest. Madame DuBois would indeed be appalled.

Desperate to escape the hiding place that had suddenly become a prison, Lily froze as she heard footsteps. Easing around the edge of the crate, she saw a man—this one rail thin with blond hair—walking from the passageway beside the carpenter’s shop toward the corral.

She’d not seen this man before. Lily was sure she would have remembered. His buckskins hung loose on his thin frame, blond hair streaked with gray lay across his shoulders, a heavy mustache drooped past his lips. His hat shaded most of his lined face.

The Indian saw him, too, watched as he approached. He’d not seen her at all, Lily realized. It was the blond-haired man who’d drawn his attention.

The two men faced each other through the corral fence, a contrast of tall and muscular, thin and stooped. Neither smiled. They didn’t shake hands. A few words were exchanged, but Lily couldn’t hear them.

The Indian glanced up and down the alley, then pulled something from his trouser pocket—a packet of papers, a wad of money, perhaps?—and passed it to the other man. He shoved it in his own pocket and walked away. The Indian glanced around once more, then turned and disappeared behind the stable.

Lily waited for a moment, the feeling of foreboding that had plagued her for so long growing stronger—but for a very different reason this time. Just as the Indian had done, she checked around to see if anyone was watching, then slipped quietly from her hiding place among the crates and hurried back to her room.

“There’s just no easy way to say this, ma’am,” Oliver Sykes said, ducking his head, refusing to make eye contact with Lily.

“What?” She looked back and forth between Sykes and Hiram Fredericks, both men grim faced and solemn. “What is it?”

Standing outside the door to her room, Lily gazed at the evening shadows stretched across the plaza bringing a cooling breeze with the disappearing sun. Sykes had come by to see her father again, then left and had just now returned with Fredericks. They’d called her outside.

“Your pa’s bad off, I reckon you know that,” Fredericks finally said.

“But he’s getting better,” Lily insisted. “He slept straight through the night, and he’s been resting quietly all day. He’s—”

“No, ma’am, that’s not so,” Sykes said with fatherly kindness.

“Yes, it is,” Lily told them. Why were these two men saying such things? She wanted them to leave. “Now, I must go back inside and see to my father—”

“He’s dying.” Fredericks closed his hand over her arm, holding her in place. “The fever took its toll.”

“It was just too much for him,” Sykes added. He paused, then added, “Your pa probably won’t make it through the night.”

Tears sprang to Lily’s eyes. “No…”

“He roused up a bit a while ago,” Sykes said. “He’s asking for you.”

Lily shook her head, her throat tight and thick. “But…”

“Go on inside,” Fredericks said kindly. He guided Lily into the room, then closed the door behind her.

Lily clung to the door, afraid to cross the room, afraid to approach the cot. Her father couldn’t be dying. Fredericks and Sykes meant well, but they had to be wrong—they simply had to be.

“No, Papa, you can’t—you simply can’t,” she whispered. “Not now. We haven’t even…”

But her father lay so still, awash in a gray, ghostly pallor, that she knew the men were right. Tears sprang to her eyes. Lily covered her face with her palms.

“Lily…?”

Her head jerked up at the sound of Augustus’s voice. She rushed to his bedside and dropped to her knees, joy filling her heart.

“Yes, Papa?” she said anxiously. “Oh, I knew you wouldn’t—”

“It’s…gone,” he whispered.

Lily frowned. “What—whatever do you mean?”

With effort, Augustus lifted his head from the sweat-stained pillow, but collapsed again, his lips moving as if trying to speak.

Lily leaned closer, her ear to his mouth. “What, Papa? What is it?”

“Money…” he whispered. “All…gone.”

She looked at him, unable to follow his reasoning. Why was he talking about money—of all things—at a time like this?

“Bad deals…lost it all…nothing left.” Augustus drew in a ragged breath, then wheezed. “That’s…that’s why I came West…to…to start over.”

“No, Papa,” Lily insisted. “That’s not true. You told me yourself that you’d always wanted to come West, to explore, to seek new adventures.”

His head moved back and forth with effort. “A lie. I told you that so…” He coughed. “Thought I could make my fortune over again…in Santa Fe. Thought I could…”

“But, Papa—”

Augustus’s eyelids sank.

“Papa? Papa!”

Chapter Three

Lily stood beside the mound of fresh-turned earth and the wooden casket that would be her father’s resting place for eternity, cold despite the heat of the midafternoon sun that bore down on them.

Augustus had passed away peacefully in his sleep during the night, just as Oliver Sykes had predicted, with Lily at his side.

Hiram Fredericks had made the funeral arrangements; he seemed to be in charge of such things, much like everything else at the fort.

Oliver Sykes, who had worked diligently to heal her father, had arranged for his casket to be built, then had laid him in it. Lily didn’t know who’d dug the grave, here among the other wooden markers outside the fort.

Fredericks read from the Bible, the thin pages rattling in the breeze, his white hair undulating on the unseen current. About a dozen men—most of whom Lily didn’t know—gathered there also. She wondered if they wanted to pay their respects, or simply craved a diversion from their daily routine.

Jacob Tanner, the young man who worked in the kitchen and had brought meal trays to her and her father, stood near the back of the gathering, his hands clasped in front of him, his eyes lowered respectfully. Lily appreciated his presence and felt his intentions were honorable.

Not in attendance was the Nelson family, the people her papa had paid to drive their wagon and assist them in their journey. Nor were the men from the wagon train, who’d come with them to the fort, present for the service.

Lily sniffed, choking back tears—bitter tears. Augustus deserved so much more at his passing. The presence of his friends and business associates in Saint Louis who really knew him and would have truly mourned his death. A carved, marble marker befitting a man of his stature, rather than a simple wooden cross. Men—knowledgeable men—who would have stepped in.