“You have?”
The brisk breeze lifted her hat brim, and a wisp of loose chestnut hair rippled across the bridge of her slightly freckled nose. “Not you, exactly. Someone like you. Someone with words I don’t want to hear.”
“You didn’t get my letters?”
“Two or three arrived from Pennsylvania. But my pa wasn’t about to open any mail from Yankeedom. Threw them right in the fire.”
“Then…you still don’t know?” His swallow ate its way to his gut. How was he going to make it through the telling?
“No.” Her voice dipped to a whisper. “But I figure if it was good news, Jeb would have written or showed up here himself.”
Ben’s tongue felt like sandpaper. His mouth watered for a drop of laudanum. Anything to brace himself against the pain he was about to deliver. “I reckon maybe we should go sit in the shade of the porch?”God help her. And me.
Leading the way, Cora tromped across the field with leaden feet, her shoes sinking into the mixture of clay and questionable loam. How could the girl expect to get anything out of this soil?
Touching her hand to his horse’s muzzle, she mounted the porch and plopped down in a cane rocking chair. Her hat slipped down her back, and she tossed it over to the thick oak door that barred the way between the cabins. Sweat dampened a strand or two of hair above her slightly tanned brow. She motioned for him to pull up the other rocker.
Slouch hat in hand, he perched on the edge of the seat with its half-dozen broken reeds.
Back ramrod straight, she clasped her hands in her lap. “Tell me how my brother died. Did you serve with him?”
A bitter taste rose into his mouth. “We were in Andersonville together.”
She shuddered. Word of the horror must have traveled all the way to the stretches of the Texas frontier in the year since the war’s end.
“We were close friends…” Brothers. Closer than any family member Ben had ever had, digging each other out of a quagmire of misery deep enough to smother any trace of humanity or hope from a man’s being.
“Tell me?—”
The oak door swung open. Ben stood.
An Indian boy, dressed in settler clothes, stepped out onto the porch, an Enfield rifle in hand. He wasn’t pointing it, but he gripped the barrel just above the trigger guard, aiming the barrel above Ben’s head. His scowl said he knew a thing or two about shooting, and he wouldn’t be above trying it.
She’d talked about a brother with a rifle. But how could this Indian boy be her brother? Jeb had mentioned an older brother, Robert. Where was he?
“Charlie.” Miss Scott rose and reached for the weapon. “This is…a friend of Jeb’s.”
“Not Mr. Coffin’s man?” He handed her the rifle, but the set of his mouth said he wasn’t quite sure if he should.
“I’m Captain Benjamin McKenzie.” He extended his hand.
The boy stared at it. “You a Yankee?”
“Yes. Jeb and I both served in the Northern Army. Cavalry, to be exact.” He sat back down, and so did Cora.
She laid the Enfield on the ground at the side of the chair, and Charlie came to stand beside her, placing his hand on her arm. “Where’s Jeb?”
“He’s…not coming home.” She blinked hard and turned her gaze toward the pickets and the prairie beyond. Her voice faltered. “Continue with your story, Captain McKenzie.”
Ben swallowed. “Do you want me to speak in front of the boy?”
“He can handle it. Besides, it’s only him and me here. Your saying will save me from having to repeat what happened.”
Just him and her. The loneliness in that statement thudded like a rock to the bottom of Ben’s heart. The boy and her. No one else? And three hundred acres of ranch, according to Jeb. How could she think of tackling such a horrendous challenge all on her own?
“Captain McKenzie?”
He shook himself and leaned forward, elbows on knees. “Jeb was the bravest, truest friend I ever had. I first met him in Belle Isle Prison Camp in Virginia.” More of a cold, windswept anthill than a prison. Crowded. Miserable. Never enough to eat. “Jeb and I became messmates. Fended for each other.” Ben closed his eyes to the memories and shuddered.
