Forever in My Heart Page 23

  "Ain't that somethin'," he said. "Knew Edie had a kid, never knew she was married. All these years I thought you was a Hart."

  "Holiday," Connor repeated. "The same last name as Maggie, though she's apparently already forgotten."

  Dancer saw Maggie frown. He lowered his Winchester. "Suppose we step inside the cabin and discuss it. Ain't gonna shoot either one of you... yet."

  He relished their startled looks and laughed all the way to the cabin, his high-pitched cackle sounding as if it were breaking at the back of his throat.

  Chapter 10

  The prospector's cabin was built with the timber that had been cleared to make room for it. It was situated on a small knoll, protected by towering pines and aspens on three sides and a wide, shallow stream on the fourth. They went inside as soon as the horses were tethered and cared for.

  Dancer pointed to the two high-backed ladder chairs. "Sit," he said. "I'll manage just fine here by the door." He kept his shotgun lowered but he didn't put it away.

  Maggie's eyes darted around the cabin. As far as she could see, it was mostly as Jay Mac had described upon his return to New York years earlier. A wood stove seemed to be the only addition the prospector had made. Judging by the size of the spider web connecting the andirons to the damper, the stone hearth looked as if it hadn't been used recently. There was still no pump, which meant hauling water from the stream. The furniture was pine and had been crafted with considerable care. Running her fingers over the table surface, Maggie found it smooth and cornered cleanly with hard right angles. Pots and kettles hung on the wall near the stove and there were empty pegs near the fireplace. A colorful rag quilt covered the narrow bed on the main floor of the cabin, but there was also a ladder leading to the loft where Maggie knew Dancer slept.

  What interested Maggie most, however, were the tiered shelves filled with herb pots at the cabin's rear window and the dozens of small glass bottles that were stored haphazardly in the open pantry along with staples like flour, sugar and salt, jams and bacon grease. She squinted, reading the carefully printed labels. Slippery elm. Goldenseal. Peppermint. White willow bark. Ginger.

  "What brings you here?" Dancer asked abruptly. "Can't be a sudden desire to see this old face."

  Maggie and Connor contained their reactions when confronted by the prospector's ravaged face. Dancer was having none of it. He wanted them to look and look hard.

  Dancer's scars were set in white relief against his skin, like a hundred twisted webs stacked thinly on one another. His half-ear was curled and flattened against his head. The left side of his mouth was pulled taut in a perpetually savage grin. His beard drew down from the right, but only covered three quarters of his face. It was thick and ill kempt, black as boot polish and long enough to reach the second button of his blue-gray woolen overcoat. A gold braid epaulet dangled from his right shoulder. A saber swung from his waist.

  His clear, frost-blue eyes would have been uncommon in any face, but in one so disfigured they were especially remarkable. Like twin points of searing light, they burned Maggie and Connor with their heat. "Well?" he demanded hoarsely. "You gonna puke?"

  "Not if you don't talk about it," Maggie said primly. Beside her, Connor smiled.

  Dancer leaned against the door. "All right," he said. "So you know about me and you was prepared. But that don't tell me what you're doin' here in the first place."

  Under the table, where they were out of sight, Maggie's hands twisted nervously in her lap. "I've asked Connor to bring me here because I want to learn about healing," she said. "I know how you cared for my father when he was near to dying, and Rennie's told me what you did for Jarret. She thinks you know as much as any three doctors."

  "Hogwash," he said tersely. "I ain't no doc and I ain't likely to know what any of 'em knows." His eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Your father know you're here, girl?"

  "Yes," she said.

  "No," Connor said.

  Dancer looked from one to the other. "Which is it?"

  "Jay Mac doesn't know," Maggie said. "But then it's none of his business. Connor knows, and since he's my husband, that should be what matters."

  Dancer gave a short bark of laughter and said to Connor, "Ain't it convenient how she remembers she's married when it suits her purpose?"

  "I was thinking the same thing," Connor said dryly.

  "You agree with her comin' here?"

  Connor looked around the cabin and tried to imagine Maggie living in it. Her bedroom in New York was larger than Dancer's entire home. There were few amenities and the daily work of living would be more than she was used to. His eyes fell on the potted herbs and the jars of dried teas. "No," he said finally. "I don't agree. But this is what she wants, and she was willing to do what it took to be here. Maggie's more resilient than she looks so don't be fooled by her appearance." The way I was, he almost added. "I want her to come to the Double H with me but she's not interested, perhaps not even if you turn her away."

  "That true?" Dancer asked Maggie. "You're not goin' with him even if I turn you out?"

  "That's true."

  Dancer scratched the whiskered side of his face thoughtfully. His eyes drifted over Maggie. He looked hard at her wedding band. "It's a fact there's things I don't understand here." He laughed suddenly. "On the other hand, there's other things I understand better than one of you, maybe both of you." His hand dropped away from his face. He worked his puckered mouth back and forth as he considered Maggie's request. "Ain't got no special place for you, girl."

  Maggie pointed to the bed. "I'll be fine there. It was good enough for my father."

  Dancer was thoughtful again, then he spoke abruptly. "Don't like it. How'd I know you ain't lookin' to rob me?"

  "Rob you?" Maggie asked. "Why would I want to do that?"

  "Folks do," he said. "It's been tried more times than I got fingers 'n' toes. Rumor in the Rockies has it that I got gold and silver aplenty in my mines." He gestured to Connor. "Tell her," he demanded. "Tell her that's the way of it."

  Connor turned to Maggie. "There's a widely held belief in these parts that Dancer's mined his claim and buried most of the treasure."

  Dancer slapped his thigh and cackled. "What would be the sense in it?" he asked. "Bringin' gold up from the earth only to bury it again? But folks get it in their heads and I can't get it out. Damn me if I can be responsible for what folks is thinkin'."

  "Do you understand what he's telling you, Maggie?" Connor asked. "There's a certain amount of danger here apart from the hardships of living. Tell her how many men you've chased off your land, Dancer."

  "Can't say as how I've chased more than two off that were tryin' to rob me," he said. "But there's a score of 'em buried in the hills, though."

  Maggie couldn't quite suppress her shiver. "I still want to stay," she said, resolute. "I can learn to protect myself."

  "Now I ain't puttin' a gun in your hands," Dancer said. "Most likely I'd get my own head blowed clean off." He ignored Maggie's challenging look. "How long you expectin' to stay?"

  "A year," she said. "Perhaps a little longer."

  "I can teach you what I know in a month."

  Maggie doubted that but she didn't argue the point. Her dark green eyes beseeched him.

  "All right," he said. "You can stay. But when I say git, I mean git. That clear enough?"

  She nodded.

  Connor looked at Dancer. "You're letting her stay here?"

  "Now that's just what I said, didn't I? You ain't gonna try to talk me out of it, are you? That makes no kinda sense either. What did you bring her here for iffen you weren't gonna let her stay?"

  "I didn't say I wasn't going to leave her here," he said. "But I could hope that she'd come to her senses, couldn't I? Or that you'd see this for the folly it is."

  Dancer's eyes narrowed on Connor's hard face. "You ain't one to be talkin' about senses," he said. "Leastways not until you got some of your own."

  Connor's glance became more distant. "You're probabl
y right," he said tersely. His chair scraped the rough floor as he stood. "I'll unload the supplies we purchased in town for you, then I'll be going. Maggie? Do you want to help me?"

  Maggie felt his stiff, cold anger but she followed him outside. She noticed that Dancer didn't follow. "Did you really think I'd change my mind?" she asked.

  "No." He began shifting sacks of dry goods from the wagon to the cabin's small front porch. "But I didn't think it'd matter." To me, he nearly said.

  She put a different construction on Connor's words. "I told you Dancer would take me in."

  "I remember," he said, letting her think what she would. "I didn't think you knew what you were talking about."

  Maggie yanked at her valises and tossed them onto the porch. "That's plain enough."

  "What I don't understand is why he's letting you stay." He pitched a sack of cornmeal hard enough that it split along one seam. Cursing under his breath, Connor reined in his frustration. "And it's not because you're Jay Mac's daughter or Rennie's sister. It's something else."

  Maggie climbed into the back of the wagon and began pushing crates and sacks toward Connor for unloading. "I'm not one for looking a gift horse in the mouth," she said. "Is it so important for you to figure it out?"

  "Strangely enough, yes."

  They finished unloading Dancer's supplies and Maggie's belongings in silence. With the wagonload lighter now, Connor unhitched one of the mares and led it to Dancer's small lean-to stable. "You might need her," he said.

  Maggie was speechless. Tears welled in her eyes.

  Connor stood in front of her, his hands at his sides. He wanted to shake her; he wanted to hold her. "You can reach the Double H by following the stream due north. Veer left at every fork. You'll be on my land this side of three hours, but don't try it when there're more than a few inches of snow. The ranch sits in a valley but the passes all drift. You won't make it."

  She nodded, drawing in her bottom lip, knowing that she'd never try it at all. Her dark green eyes held his.

  "That's it, then."

  She nodded again.

  "You don't have to stay," he said.

  "No, you're wrong. It's the one thing I have to do."

  Connor searched her face and saw that the indecision had disappeared again. "I wish you luck." The words were inadequate, he thought, the sentiment too stiffly offered to seem sincere. He reached for her, realized what he was doing, and stopped. "Maggie?"

  She responded to the heat in his eyes and the cautious uncertainty in his voice. She stood on tiptoe and placed her hands on his shoulders. She lifted her face and leaned into him, pressing her mouth full against his. Connor's hands cupped the inward curve of her waist, holding her tightly, supporting her against the length of his body.

  Sunlight warmed them. A breeze lifted her hair so that it fluttered against his shoulders. Her skirt rippled between his legs. His mouth moved over her parted lips. Her fingers slipped around his neck and threaded in his thick hair. She returned the kiss measure for full measure.

  It was Connor who drew away, Maggie who took the shaky breath and laughed a trifle uneasily. Sunlight still caressed them but the breeze had gentled. Maggie's hair fell back from Connor's shoulders, and her skirt drifted along the slender line of her own legs.

  "Goodbye, Connor," she said softly, inadequately. "Thank you." Other things she wanted to say caught in her throat.

  "Goodbye." He climbed onto the wagon and jerked the reins.

  Maggie watched him until he was out of sight, but he never looked back. She turned slowly, saw Dancer watching her from the window, and went inside.

  "Seems like you weren't all that anxious to say farewell," he said, watching her closely. "He know about the baby?"

  Maggie wasn't startled by the question. The baby was the reason Dancer was letting her stay, and she had counted on him to recognize her condition and respond. "No, he doesn't know."

  "He the father?"

  "Yes."

  Dancer reached in his pocket and pulled out a pouch of tobacco. He pinched some off and placed it between his lower lip and his teeth, pressing it down with his tongue. "Damn me if I know what's goin' on," he said. He tossed the pouch on the table. "Help me get these supplies inside. You can put your things under the bed and on those pegs by the hearth. No sense in you takin' the loft now. In a few months you won't be climbin' any ladders and that's a fact."

  * * *

  Maggie never climbed any ladders but she did everything else. As summer wore on she worked by Dancer's side except when he was working his claim. He rarely made demands on her. Instead he had expectations. He didn't ask her to do anything he hadn't done himself, nor did he ask her to do something she'd never done before teaching her first.

  That was how Maggie learned to wash clothes at the stream without having them float away on the current and split kindling without chopping off her toes. She hauled water and baked bread. She swept the floor, mucked the stalls, and cleaned the privy. She learned how to use acid to separate Dancer's gold from the ore without burning herself. She gathered blackberries and raspberries and learned how to make preserves. She weeded, hoed, and harvested vegetables from Dancer's garden and discovered that while some portion of the gathering went to the table and another to the root cellar, there was yet another portion that disappeared to a place not visible from the cabin. She followed Dancer one day as he was hauling potatoes away and came upon his still. That's when she learned about making moonshine.

  In the beginning, it seemed as though she was tired all the time. Dancer swore she could find a way to nap leaning against a hoe. She collapsed onto her narrow bed as soon as the dishes were cleared and cleaned, and she was sleeping by the time Dancer climbed the ladder to the loft.

  Maggie couldn't have said precisely when it changed, only that it did. Gradually she became aware that she wasn't catnapping anymore, that she was strong enough to work more efficiently, and that some evenings she turned back the lamps after Dancer went to bed.

  There were other changes that happened so slowly they were hard to notice. Maggie's breasts grew heavy and tender, her abdomen rounded. There was a nagging ache in the small of her back and her walk had become less graceful. Her moods were sometimes as unpredictable as the weather. She let out the fitted waistlines of her clothes and finally took to wearing a smocked overblouse. She had a habit of smoothing the material over her belly when she was deep in thought, smiling to herself when the baby kicked.

  She'd had a lot of time to get used to having a child—ever since she'd dissolved Madame Restell's Infallible French Pills in the washbasin in her bathing room—but it was only since she'd come to Dancer's that she began to think about being a mother. In Connor's company it hadn't been possible to dwell on that eventuality. Denial had been more important, a critical state of mind to keep him from knowing the truth. Now what she did best was worry.

  She worried that she wouldn't know how to feed the baby or how to play with it. She worried that she'd drop it, or lose patience with it, or not know what its crying meant. She worried that she might spoil it, frustrate it, or not teach it what it needed to know. Was she clever enough to be a mother? Kind enough? Gentle enough? The only thing she didn't worry about was loving it.

  Dancer didn't understand how Connor couldn't have known what Dancer himself had suspected almost immediately. Maggie had given up trying to explain because Dancer thought it was interesting that she came so quickly to Connor's defense. Dancer's high-pitched laughter was always more brittle and grating when he was being superior so Maggie didn't give him many opportunities to tease her. She let him think what he wanted because he would anyway, and satisfied herself that she had made the better choice by not telling Connor there had never been an abortion.

  If Dancer needled her about some things, he was more than understanding about others. He was patient with her slowness and lack of agility as the weeks passed. He never berated her for not knowing something he attributed to plain old common sense. He
asked questions, but he rarely probed and he listened to the answers.

  During the summer, intermingled among the tasks she had to learn, Dancer Tubbs taught Maggie about the things she wanted to learn. When he saw her press the heel of her hand to her back and grimace with pain, he showed her how to prepare white willow tea. When he realized she suffered occasional morning sickness he steeped goldenseal tea with a pinch of ginger to lessen the nausea.

  Dancer was methodical in his approach, showing Maggie how to identify the plant in the wild first. White willow trees had olive-green branches and furrowed, dull-brown bark. A few teaspoons of the inner bark were placed in a cup of cool water to soak for two hours, then brought to a boil and divided into three doses. In midsummer they collected plants that grew in the wild or were specifically cultivated by Dancer. They always went out when the day was warmest, ignoring the heat in order to find plants free of dew and surface water. He showed her how to select a plant in its best condition, choosing the flower when it was about to open or when the shoot had reached its greatest growth point. The herbs were spread out and dried, some preserved in alcohol, others in sunflower seed oil. She learned how to make teas, tisanes, balms, washes, and poultices, and when and how to apply them.

  The leaves and shoots of watercress were an excellent remedy for gout. A syrup made from the bark of the wild black cherry could be used for cough, colds, and diarrhea. Wintergreen leaves prepared in oil relieved a sore throat. As a tea, wormwood was useful for indigestion and heartburn but prepared as an oil it was a powerful poison.

  Somewhat to Dancer's amusement, Maggie wrote everything she learned in a journal. She drew meticulous sketches of the plants, recorded their names, their preparation, and how they should be used. Some evenings she worked well into the night.

  Maggie felt she earned Dancer's grudging respect. He never seemed to mind her curiosity or her questioning except when it inadvertently touched on the personal. She learned a great deal from Dancer Tubbs—except the origin of his knowledge. She suspected most of his sources were Indian but that his experience living among them had not been pleasant; possibly he had learned about healing to survive and had been driven out for stealing the shaman's powers. Dancer never confirmed her suppositions outright, but as they worked side by side, day after day, there were subtle indications that her conclusions were correct.