“Thank you,” Jolie said, when he released the brake lever and slapped the reins down onto the sweaty, flyspeckled backs of the two horses.

  Daniel only shrugged and sent the team and wagon into a wide U-turn, sending dogs, squawking chickens, and small boys scattering.

  Jolie looked up at a bright satin sky, remembered that she was supposed to be dead, and laughed out loud for the sheer merriment of being alive. “Oh, thank you,” she told Daniel, resting her head against his shoulder for a moment.

  He smelled of soap and sweat and road dust, and Jolie found the combination pleasant. He looked down at her, and she felt his frame tighten beside her as she ran her tongue slowly along the length of the peppermint stick he’d given her. His gaze shifted quickly back to the road, and although Jolie couldn’t have sworn to it, it seemed to her that he pulled away from her slightly.

  “Is something wrong?” Jolie didn’t really want an answer to that question, but she wasn’t able to keep herself from asking it.

  “No,” he answered, and she knew he was lying, but there wasn’t much she could do about it. She concentrated on getting the most possible enjoyment from her candy and kept her opinions to herself. Several times, out of the corner of one eye, she caught Daniel stealing a look at her.

  When they reached the farm, they found Leviticus chasing his tail on the roof of the privy, while Deuter labored near the kitchen door. The bare white skin of his back and shoulders glistened in the hot sunlight as he braced a long wooden plank with one hand and worked a saw with the other.

  He looked up with a delighted grin as Daniel lifted Jolie down from the wagon, but the smile faded almost instantly. Jolie followed the reaction back to its obvious source and saw that Daniel was glowering at the boy.

  “Put on your shirt,” he said, striding around to jerk the parcel out of the wagon with one hand.

  Deuter reached for the garment, which had been resting nearby on the woodpile, and shrugged into it. Ignoring her husband who, to Jolie’s way of thinking, had spoken too harshly, she smiled as she walked toward the young farmhand.

  When she realized that Deuter had been building steps to make it easier to go in and out of the house, she was so touched that her throat constricted a little. “How thoughtful!” she said, smiling.

  But Deuter only nodded and averted his eyes, and Jolie tossed an impatient glance back at Daniel. Then she went around to the front of the house and let herself in that way.

  Reaching the kitchen, she found Daniel standing beside the table, where he’d set the parcel. He was frowning at the thick string tied around the package as though it caused him some deep puzzlement. Outside, Deuter had given up sawing for hammering, and Jolie silently blessed him for his enterprise, even though the noise was starting to give her a headache.

  Seeing a fresh chicken lying in the sink, all plucked and cleaned, Jolie pushed up her sleeves and took the basin down from the wall. When she’d finished ladling hot water into it to wash with, she was surprised to turn around and find that Daniel hadn’t moved.

  Although there had been a lot of silence in Jolie’s life, she’d never learned to like it. Something inside always made her want to fill the void with chatter. “I guess we know what Deuter wants for his dinner,” she chimed, nodding toward the poultry as she carried the basin to the counter, set it down, and began washing her hands with harsh yellow soap.

  Daniel looked at her thoughtfully for a long moment, then folded his arms. “Have a decent dress ready for church on Sunday,” he ordered bluntly. “Use that shiny brown cloth.”

  Jolie silently reminded herself that beggars couldn’t be choosers, dried her hands, and reached for the chicken, which needed cutting into parts. “The sateen,” she said, with a sigh. She hadn’t liked the dowdy fabric, but Daniel had insisted on buying a length. “It’ll make me look plain as a mud hen.”

  “Ilse always wore a proper dress to church,” Daniel pointed out. “Cook some potatoes and gravy to go along with that bird, and boil up some green beans with bacon and onion.”

  “Have a decent dress ready,” Jolie mimicked in a low voice, once he’d gone outside to mind his own business. “Get in the wagon, get out of the wagon, see that you do this, make sure you do that, and fry me up a buffalo for breakfast … ”

  It took an hour to prepare the meal, including peeling the potatoes, raiding the garden for green beans and washing them, flouring the chicken, and mixing up a batch of biscuits for good measure. By the time she was through, the kitchen was muggy and hot and Jolie had no appetite at all, so she served up the food and went outside for a breath of weighted air.

  She had already reached the little picket fence surrounding the two graves before she even realized she’d been headed that way. Pushing damp tendrils of hair back from her face and grateful for the shade of the maple tree, Jolie opened the gate with one hand and stepped through.

  Ilse’s gravestone was made of good black-and-white marble, and a small brass plate had been cast with her name and the dates of her birth and death. Jolie hugged herself, even though it was so warm that her clothes were sticking to her body, as she read that the first Mrs. Beckham had died only sixteen months before.

  Jolie fought down a sense of overwhelming sadness and turned to the small grave next to Ilse’s. A statue of an angel blowing a trumpet guarded this other plot, and sudden tears welled in Jolie’s eyes even as a cool breeze caressed her shoulder blades through her damp shirt. The marker bore only two words … Our Baby.

  Jolie sniffled and tilted her head back to draw a deep breath and bring herself under control. Children died every day, it was a grim reality of life, and if she stopped to grieve each time she encountered a tiny grave, she would get nothing else done for drying her eyes.

  “Dan’l and me might eat all the chicken if you don’t come back inside,” a voice said, and Jolie jumped, startled. She hadn’t heard Deuter approaching.

  Hoping her tears had left no traces on her face, Jolie faced her friend. “How did Daniel and Ilse’s baby die?” she asked.

  Deuter held the gate open for her, neatly closed and latched it when she’d passed through. “Came down with the whooping cough a few days after Christmas,” he said, his voice quiet and somber. “Mrs. Beckham never got over it. She just walked all around the farm, cryin’ and wringin’ her hands. Didn’t seem to make no difference that she had another baby growin’ inside her. She was a little thing herself, and she got so big with that young ‘un—well, she just looked like she was going to topple over from the weight of it.”

  Sensing Deuter’s innate kindness, Jolie slipped her arm through his. “And?” she prompted gently.

  “Something went wrong when Mrs. Beckham started to have that baby.” Deuter paused for a moment, gazing off at a heat mirage shimmering over the wheat, his jawline set tight. “She died, and the doc couldn’t get to the little ‘un in time. Dan’l buried a son and a wife in the same grave.”

  “Tell me about the first child,” Jolie urged, after recovering her own emotions. She and Deuter were nearing the house now, but there was no sign of Daniel.

  Deuter sighed. “Her name was Eugenia, and she was two when she fell sick.”

  Jolie had known enough tragedy in her own life to appreciate the degree of Daniel’s suffering. She felt a rush of sadness, only too aware now of why he’d been willing to marry a woman the world regarded as an outlaw. He’d chosen someone he wouldn’t have to care about, someone who couldn’t hurt him.

  Deuter and Jolie parted in the side yard, Jolie heading around to the front of the house while Deuter went back to building the steps. She walked through the house to the kitchen, where she consumed the one piece of fried chicken that remained, then cleared the table and washed the dishes.

  After those chores were done, Jolie added a leaf to the big oak table in the dining room and spread a length of white cotton for cutting. When supper time rolled around, she was sitting in the rocking chair on the front porch, putting a tidy hem in a sleeveless nightgown. She rose with a contented sigh and went into the house.

  It was a surprise to find Daniel in the kitchen, making sandwiches with bacon and big, juicy tomatoes from the garden.

  “I would have done that,” Jolie said, instantly chagrined.

  Daniel shrugged. “You were busy.”

  Jolie glanced toward the open door and the newly built steps beyond. “Where’s Deuter?”

  “He’s gone to town to spend the night at his sister’s place.” Daniel assembled the last sandwich and carried the platter to the table. “Sit down and eat,” he said.

  Just the suggestion made Jolie’s stomach rumble. She took a seat at the table and helped herself to one of the thick sandwiches. “Does she have a Bible name, too?” she asked, just to make conversation. “Deuter’s sister, I mean.”

  Daniel smiled slightly as he sat down and shook his head.

  The food was delicious, and Jolie chewed the combination of toasted bread, sun-sweetened tomatoes, bacon, and fresh lettuce with pleasure. “Tell me about your family.”

  Daniel’s gaze sliced to her face, and Jolie felt a sudden chill even though the breeze coming in through the open door was a warm one. “They’re no concern of yours,” he said.

  Jolie lowered her sandwich back to her plate, all appetite gone. “Well, that was certainly a gracious remark,” she snapped.

  “I told you before; Ilse is dead.”

  “I wasn’t asking about Ilse. I wanted to know about your mother and father and your brothers and sisters.”

  Daniel continued to eat. “They raise tobacco,” he said, looking a little sheepish.

  “Why didn’t you stay in North Carolina and raise tobacco with them?”

  “I wanted a place that was all my own, so I came west and homesteaded.”

  He’d obviously built up a large and productive farm, and Jolie had great respect for the accomplishment, but she couldn’t understand why someone with a home and a family would want to go traipsing off to the other side of the country. “Don’t you get lonesome for them?” she asked. “All those other Beckhams, I mean?”

  “They write now and again,” Daniel answered, taking another sandwich.

  Jolie was determined. “Which one do you miss most?”

  Daniel washed down a bite of food with a swallow of milk. “I guess that would be Enoch, my youngest brother. He and I have written back and forth about him coming out here to help me work this place, but he’s got a wife and two little ones to feed, so he’ll probably stay right where he is.”

  Feeling hungry again, Jolie went back to eating. Daniel refilled her milk glass from a yellow crockery pitcher.

  Presently, he pushed back his chair and hooked his thumbs through his belt loops. “I’ll be going up to Spokane to hire a harvest crew the first of the week,” he announced. “And I’m taking Deuter along.”

  Jolie gathered the crumbs from her sandwich on the tip of one finger and ate them with a flick of her tongue. “Aren’t you afraid I’ll run away?” she asked, raising one eyebrow.

  A moment before, Daniel’s manner had been almost indolent. Now, he was leaning toward her, his eyes narrowed. “Like I said before, I don’t figure you have anyplace to go. But if you try, I’ll track yo down, take my five hundred dollars out of your hide and turn you over to the authorities in Spokane.”

  “Five hundred dollars?” Jolie practically choked o the words, so enormous was the sum. “Blake and Rowdy took five hundred dollars?”

  Daniel nodded, rose, and took his plate to the sink “I would have thought you’d know that. It must have been mentioned during the trial.”

  Jolie’s eyes remained wide. “I suppose it was, but to tell you the truth, I wasn’t paying much attention to details. I just wanted to put this place behind me while I could still touch the ground with both feet.”

  After filling a basin with hot water and adding soap flakes, Daniel washed the few dishes they’d used brushing Jolie aside when she offered to help. Another troubling silence fell.

  “I guess you won’t be able to afford the new manure spreader now,” she said, standing in the tiny porch Deuter had built and watching as the sun dipped behind the barn, making a fiery splash.

  She was aware that Daniel was standing directly behind her. When his hands came to rest gently on her shoulders, she closed her eyes, letting the fearsome pleasure wash over her.

  He made no mention of the manure spreader when he turned her in his arms, cupped one hand under her chin, and tilted her head back for his kiss.

  Jolie’s toes curled inside her shoes as she tried in vain to get some kind of grip on the earth. And when Daniel touched his mouth to hers and parted her lips with his tongue, she seemed to float up to meet him. Sweet fire blazed up around her, consuming her, and yet Jolie was not a martyr but a queen. Even though her heart was pounding with joyous terror and she was so dizzy she feared she’d swoon, it came as a shock when Daniel gently set her away from him.

  “I think I’ll go into town for a few hours,” he said gruffly.

  Jolie held her dignity close, like a woolen coat on a bitter January day. Her life had certainly not been a sheltered one; she knew what kind of company Daniel would seek out when he reached Prosperity, and she was frightened by the furious jealousy she felt.

  “Good night to you, then, Mr. Beckham,” she said evenly. And only when she’d washed and brushed her hair and changed into her brand-new nightgown did Jolie stretch out on Daniel’s bed to weep.

  Pilar watched Daniel’s reflection in the mirror over her vanity table, her dark eyes luminous. With nimble fingers, she worked her glistening black hair into a single plait over her shoulder, and she’d exchanged her colorful dancing dress for a wrapper of threadbare white velvet. “Why did you do it, Daniel?” she asked, in her careful, accented English. “Why did you marry that woman?”

  Daniel sighed and slapped his hat against one thigh. He’d come to the Ivory Rose intending to swill a little whiskey downstairs and then ease the natural stresses of his body with Pilar. From the moment he’d stepped through the swinging doors, however, he’d been able to think of nothing and no one but Jolie. Even Ilse’s features were indistinct in his mind, and that fact troubled him more than anything. “You know why I married her,” he finally answered. “Chilver and January and the rest of that bunch meant to string her up just because she was handy.”

  Pilar secured her braid with a faded pink ribbon and turned to look directly into Daniel’s face. “Do you love her?” she asked, keeping back any opinion she might have had concerning Jolie’s guilt or innocence.

  Daniel felt his blood rise. “Damn it, what kind of question is that? I’ve known her for less than two days!”

  “And yet you no longer want me,” Pilar pointed out, with a little pout.

  He shoved splayed fingers through his hair and sighed again. “It wouldn’t be right,” he said quietly, at great length, “my being a married man and all.”

  “Most of the men who come in here have wives,” Pilar responded evenly. “Besides, this isn’t the same. Not if you don’t love her.”

  Daniel was certain he didn’t have tender feelings for Jolie, but he sure as hell wanted her, and he couldn’t begin to deny the fact, even to himself. So he decided not to discuss it at all. “I’d better be getting home,” he said. Then he turned and left the room where he’d taken his pleasure so many times, with nothing asked in return except money. He’d never been expected to open his heart, to care.

  On the stairs, Daniel encountered Ira January, the slick young gambler who’d started up his own timber business, cutting trees in the foothills and planing lumber in a new mill. Folks said he’d won the necessary capital in a poker game down in San Francisco. Daniel didn’t like him much, and he’d never taken the trouble to work out why that was—he just avoided the man whenever he could.

  Now, January stopped him by laying one beringed hand on his arm. “It would seem,” he said, “that the honeymoon is over. Has Mrs. Beckham proved to be an unsatisfactory wife, as well as a robber and a murderess?”

  Daniel wanted to knock January backward through the banister, but he didn’t because he would have had to pay damages and he didn’t have the money to spare, thanks to Jolie’s bail and the things she’d needed just to look decent. He let his contempt show plainly, though, glaring until the gambler retreated down the staircase a few steps.

  Although he looked nervous, January laughed, showing white teeth that overlapped slightly in front, and shrugged. “Pilar is a tasty little confection. I don’t blame you for not wanting to give her up.”

  Daniel’s right hand bunched into a fist, but he relaxed the muscles by force of will and walked around January and on down the stairs. He’d learned to restrain his temper long ago, rarely allowing himself to forget that one blow could knock out a man’s teeth or even kill him.

  When he reached the street, Daniel looked up to see legions of stars crowding the dark sky, and he thought there must be other beings out there somewhere, struggling with concerns of their own, and dreaming dreams.

  He untied his gelding, a giant gray draft horse with a streak of mule in him, and swung wearily up into the saddle. For himself, Daniel had long since decided it was safer not to dream at all.

  Reaching the farm about twenty minutes later, he noticed first thing that there was a bright yellow square of light glowing in the upper part of the house—his room. Scowling, Daniel dismounted and led his horse into the barn, where a single lamp burned, blending with moonbeams to cast a shimmer over the hay.

  Deuter sat on an overturned nail keg, rubbing oil into a worn leather harness. He greeted Daniel with a companionable nod and nothing more, and Daniel was grateful. He put the horse away for the night and wandered reluctantly toward the house.

  Daniel had worked from sunrise until long after twilight had fallen, and strong as he was, his big body ached with fatigue. He needed to stretch out on his own bed—the only one in the house that would accommodate his frame—but there was a problem.

  Jolie.

 

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