He started with the Lord’s Prayer and then read from his prayer book. Then he stopped reading and offered a eulogy, extolling David Douglas as a man unique among men, one who recognized all of God’s children, one who had made better the lives of all those he’d touched, helping those in distress.
Hawk was surprised to see Skylar listening attentively to every word the Reverend said, seeming to fight back tears. He nearly set an arm around her to comfort her.
But then he remembered that she had just asked him about money. Her inheritance.
He held still, as rigid as an oak.
Willow, Riley, Sam, and Two Feathers carried the coffin through the back door of the parlor onto the rear porch. From there they led the funeral procession to the massive oak that spread over the back lawn. A double tombstone had already been set at the foot of the oak. His mother lay six feet beneath it. Both her white and Sioux names had been chiseled into the stone. She had asked to be buried here, at Mayfair, beneath the oak. And David had asked to be interred at her side.
So it would be.
The Reverend Mathews finished the service, sprinkling dirt upon the coffin after it had been lowered into the earth. Thelast words were said. Sandra and Megan, huddled together, cried softly. Lily embraced them both, then led them back to the house. People began to drift away from the grave. Hawk remained, Skylar still at his side.
He disengaged her fingers from his arm. “Go in. I’ll be along.”
She hesitated. She began to speak, awkwardly at first, then more strongly and quickly. “Hawk…he…I want you to know that he died easily. He had known about his illness. He was truly at peace with God and himself. It isn’t easy, it can’t be easy, but it was a gentle death. I’m sorry, truly…he was a very good man. Please believe that he didn’t suffer.”
Hawk nodded after a moment. She wasn’t telling him much, but she was trying to give him something. “Thank you,” he told her quietly. “Now, please, go on in,” he urged her, and despite the feeling of warmth her words had evoked within him, his tone was sharper than he had intended.
As he had commanded, she turned and left him.
He stood at the gravesite, realizing oddly enough that Dark Mountain had been the greatest comfort to him today. Death was part of life. It had been a large enough part of his. He’d said goodbye to a mother, a brother, a wife, and a child. Today, he set his father into the earth. He needed sons, Dark Mountain had said. Sons who he could tell about his father. In the telling, he would remember.
He heard a soft whining sound and realized Wolf had come to mourn with him. He hunkered down by the dog and patted him reassuringly. “He’s gone, fellow,” he said, then rose, speaking to the grave.
“Pa,” he said softly, “I hope you knew. I didn’t come to you a very good son. I spent years trying to tell myself what you weren’t—because you weren’t Sioux. Others saw earlier what I didn’t. That you were more Sioux than I, you had all the virtues of the Sioux: courage, generosity, wisdom. I did love you. Somuch. I’m just not at all damned sure what you were doing there at the end, and I wasn’t with you. I mean, Pa, who the hell is she? What was going on? How badly were you hurting at the end?” His eyes blurred. The whites said that Indians didn’t have any emotions. But the whites didn’t understand. Indians felt as deeply and painfully as white people. They just didn’t betray their emotions. “I love you, Pa!” he murmured.
He turned from the gravesite and headed back toward the house. Massive amounts of food had been prepared, and he saw people gathered around the buffet tables that had been set out on the porch.
Skylar had done her job well today. He could definitely acknowledge that fact. Willow had told him she had worked with Megan on pastries and bread all morning, up to her elbows in flour. She had arranged the flowers, set out silver, plates, glasses. Greeted strangers.
Now she stood by one of the buffet tables with Sloan Trelawny. She smiled at what he was saying. Well, Sloan could be a wretchedly charming devil. Hell on women. His manner and dark, striking appearance easily seduced them, and it didn’t seem to matter that he carried the blood of a Sioux war chief. But he was a loner, never letting anyone get too close to him. He’d changed—become more distant from his old friends sometime after the War of the Southern Rebellion, Hawk thought. Whatever had happened, Sloan hadn’t yet decided to share it with him.
Sloan could easily flirt with Skylar and enjoy her company because he would never touch his best friend’s wife. Even though he knew that, Hawk couldn’t help feeling irritated because she seemed to be enjoying Sloan’s company too much. Her eyes were very bright. Her laughter genuine. Talking with Sloan, she was at ease. Absolutely stunning, graceful, dignified, beautiful.
Sloan turned away from her for a moment. Henry Pierpont, looking very much the attorney in a pin-striped suit and starched-collar shirt, approached her, pushing his spectacles up his nose as he handed her an envelope. She frowned. Henry explained something to her. She nodded quickly, smiled, and thanked him.
Then, looking around somewhat furtively, she curled the envelope into her hand.
“That spectacle-wearing little rodent!” Hawk murmured to himself. “What the hell did he just give her?”
Sloan turned back to Skylar, handing her a glass of sherry. Skylar offered him a charming smile and quickly slid the envelope into a pocket in her skirt.
Hawk could tell she liked Sloan. That much was evident. But she eluded him with a few words and a smile, slipping back into the house.
Hawk determined to follow her.
It wasn’t so easy. He was waylaid by his guests, some of them commiserating with him on his father’s death, others congratulating him on his exquisite new wife.
When he finally reached the parlor, he saw her standing before the fire, staring into it, with tears in her silver eyes. “Skylar!”
She started, looking his way. Her hand slid back into her pocket.
She wasn’t going to volunteer any information regarding the envelope. He would most probably get nowhere by demanding she do so.
“Yes?” she said defensively.
“We’ve a number of guests,” he told her.
