Rain Shadow(11)

"Yeah. That's all right. Are you sorry you yelled at Rain Shadow, too?  Me and her was gonna stack the wood and then make some stew for Slade.  She's good at knowing how to do things. She showed me to be careful with  the ax and keep it sharp to keep from hurting myself."

Silenced, Anton stroked Nikolaus' cheek with a long thumb. He had  overreacted. He would have reason to be angry if Rain Shadow treated  Nikolaus poorly, but just the opposite was true. His jealousy was  irrational. For some reason, he couldn't seem to help how he felt. "How  about we do these boards together?"

"Okay." They worked silently for a few minutes. "Pa?"                       
       
           



       

"Hmm?"

"Was my mama anything like Rain Shadow?"

Anton's grip on the hammer slipped, and the tool fell from his hands,  landing harmlessly on his boot. He couldn't draw a deep breath. "You've  seen her picture. She had blond hair. Her eyes were green."

"I know. I mean, was she like her in other ways? She's Slade's mama, and  she fixes him special food and kisses his head and things like that.  Did my mama do that, too?"

The hammer might as well have landed smack dab in the middle of Anton's  chest. He picked it up and studied it as if he had never seen such an  ingenious device before. Emily had loved Nikolaus. He'd never doubted  it. She'd given him all her attention and affection. In fact, when Franz  and Annette had lived in the big house, she'd often used her baby as a  reason not to help with chores or join the family.

Later, when Jakob brought Lydia to the farm, Anton had hoped the two  would develop a friendship, but Emily had held herself apart from  everyone. Nothing Anton had ever said or done had gotten through to her.  Even sweet and friendly Annette hadn't been able to develop a  friendship.

Anton wasn't perfect himself. These unexplainable feelings proved that.  The least provocation had him getting all defensive and mad. He had  plenty of other flaws, like his hearing loss. His family had accepted,  compensated, even forgot. Sometimes he wondered if Emily had found him  too flawed. He touched the spot on his shoulder where he'd been gouged  while fencing with barbed wire. A slightly raised, V-shaped scar was  imperceptible through his layers of clothing. His nose was a little  crooked―too many wrestling matches with his rowdy brothers.

Emily had been fair and delicate, her gold hair luxurious and shiny, her  body lush and warm. She'd been hesitant, but accommodating. But he'd  never felt close to her.

He'd never really known her.

"Pa?"

"Your mama was beautiful, Nikky." Anton knelt and held his son's  shoulders in both hands. "And she loved you very much. She rocked you  and kissed your head and washed and pressed your clothes." He ruffled  his boy's blond hair.

Nikolaus threw his arms around his father's neck. "I'm glad. But I miss having a mama like Slade has."

His son needed the comfort and security only a mother could give-a  gentle touch, a soft voice, a loving smile and most of all, attention  and affection. Anton squeezed his eyes tightly shut and hugged the  sturdy little boy.





Chapter Four




From the open flap of her lodge, Rain Shadow watched Anton and Johann  empty an enormous coffin-shaped tub in the dooryard. Saturday night. The  Neubauers had finished baths in preparation for the barn dance.

The evening was warmer than last, but the stream had been icy cold for  her bath. Hair nearly dry, she knelt before the fire and plaited it into  two long braids, carefully entwining slender lengths of rawhide she'd  meticulously fashioned with quills and beads to decorate her hair  without the leather showing.

Her dress was a masterpiece of bead and quill work, geometric designs  bordering the calf-length hem and yoke-style neck and running the length  of the sleeves. Matching beads swung from the six-inch fringe along the  hem. Rain Shadow had worked on the dress while aboard the Nebraska, the  ship that had carried the show to France. Taking the garment from the  trunk and hanging it out, she had been reminded of the voyage and  London, and she almost hadn't worn it.

She'd met Slade's father aboard the ship. He was one of the vaqueros,  then a new addition to the show. She was young. Sixteen. And blinded to  wisdom by the handsome South American who'd swept her off her adolescent  feet.

He'd professed love. Promised marriage. And then, before they'd returned  to America, he'd met a French heiress and married her, instead.

On the voyage home, Rain Shadow had lost every breakfast, lunch and  supper into the Atlantic, clinging to the heaving rails of the Nebraska  and accepting two well-taught lessons: The need to guard her heart more  closely and the need to find her own people. Miguel de Ruiz had seen her  as less than worthy of his respect. She'd taken the agonizing  experience to heart and kept Slade a secret from his undeserving father.  She hadn't been Miguel's first choice. He'd chosen a Frenchwoman with a  heritage. There was esteem in knowing one's origins.                       
       
           



       

She placed her hairbrush in the drawer of a trunk and slipped into her  moccasins. She carried a threefold stigma now-orphan, Indian and  unmarried mother.

For seven years she had searched cities and counties for her family from  one performance to the next, relying on the gold locket to trigger a  response, hoping that someone somewhere would recognize it or the  tintype inside. When that had proved fruitless, she'd come up with the  idea of fame as a lure. Slade was going to be treated decently in this  white man's land if it was the only thing she ever accomplished in her  lifetime.

Rain Shadow stepped from her lodge. She would sit with Slade as long as  she could. Perhaps Johann would forget his insistence that she and Two  Feathers attend the barn dance and meet the members of Butler County's  farming community. It wasn't the dancing, she had danced with the  crowned heads of Europe and performed Lakota ceremonial dances in the  show since she was a child. No, it was fear. Fear of her inability to  fit in with whites when she wanted to so badly.

Slade seemed more restless than usual and begged her to carry him out to the barn for the festivities.

"I would love to, Slade, but you know what the doctor said."

"Does that mean we have to stay here a long time?"

Her gaze flickered around the room. None of Anton Neubauer's possessions  remained in sight since he'd temporarily moved into the bedroom across  the hall. Nikolaus' wooden horses lined the chest of drawers, and  Slade's books and soldiers were piled haphazardly on the bedside table  where the boys had discarded than. She was pleased that Slade had a  friend his own age, but concerned that if they formed a meaningful bond,  it would make leaving difficult for him. What troubled her most,  though, was Anton's resentment toward her for befriending Nikolaus, when  Anton had obviously formed his own subtle bond with Slade.

"It means we stay here until your leg is mended."

Standing, the daguerreotype on the wall drew her, though she'd studied  it a dozen times over the past week. This Anton was younger, his face  thinner, less intense, his hair longer. Although the image was  sepia-toned, his commanding eyes intrigued her. In a dark suit and stark  white shirt, a carnation pinned to his lapel, he stood behind and to  the right of the woman. The long fingers of one hand gripped a spindle  on the back of her chair.

She was beautiful. Soft and fair, a vision of femininity in a shiny,  tucked and ruffled, low-necked dress that displayed her luminous white  skin and the swells of generous breasts. Rain Shadow unconsciously  smoothed the velvety doeskin of her dress across her hips and wondered  what had happened to the angelic-faced woman in the picture.

Perhaps she had died in childbirth, not uncommon for a young woman. Poor  Nikolaus. Anton's intent gaze compelled her to think of him as a  husband...a lover. Warmth suffused her chest. How he must have loved  such a woman.

Perhaps he still grieved. Maybe that was why he was particularly  unpleasant at times. No one knew better than Rain Shadow how difficult  it was to raise a child alone. At least he had his father, his brothers  and sisters-in-law. It was obvious how Annette, in particular, doted on  her nephew though she had two children of her own.

"She's pretty, ain't she?"

Rain Shadow realized she hadn't spoken to Slade for several minutes. "Isn't she, and yes, she's pretty."

"She died a long time ago."

Turning to her son, she feigned disinterest. "Oh."

"Nikolaus says she had yellow hair and green eyes and she went to college."

College. "Hmm." She perched on the bed's edge. "He must miss her a lot."