McKettrick's Choice - Linda Lael Miller [68]
Lorelei had no doubt that he meant what he said, and neither, apparently, did the cowboy. He snatched his hat off the ground, slapped it onto his head and staggered back toward the camp, one hand to his jaw.
Holt watched him go for a long moment, then turned and walked over to crouch beside the two women.
“Tillie,” he said, with a gentleness so at variance with what Lorelei had just seen that she almost couldn’t believe he was the same man. “It’s all right.”
Tillie pulled free of Lorelei to scrabble about in the grass. Finally, she found the doll, and held it up as evidence. The beautiful china head was shattered, dangling by a bit of thread and cloth. The tiny dress, the one Tillie had been so proud of by the campfire earlier that night, was torn and soiled.
She gave a despairing cry. “It’s not all right, Holt,” she said, stumbling between one word and the next. “Look at her. She’s kilt!”
“I’ll get you another one,” Holt told her.
“Another one won’t be Pearl,” Tillie said with such sorrow that Lorelei’s own eyes filled with tears. “We’ve got to bury her proper, Holt. I got to know she’s buried proper!”
“We’ll do it,” Holt said, and at last his eyes met Lorelei’s.
She nodded silently and stood up. Holt raised Tillie from the ground, gripping her shoulders.
“She was my baby,” Tillie wept.
Holt put his arms around the young woman, his chin resting on top of her head. “I know, sweetheart,” he said.
“I know.” Then he lifted Tillie up into his arms, as easily as if she were a child, and started for the camp.
Sorrowful and Lorelei followed.
John Cavanagh was up, and so was Rafe. The cowboy had saddled his horse by then, and he rode off at a gallop.
John’s face contorted when he saw Tillie being carried, her cheeks slick with tears. “My God in heaven,” he rasped.
“She’s all right, Mr. Cavanagh,” Lorelei said quickly.
“I need a shovel,” Holt said, setting Tillie on her feet.
“A shovel?” Rafe asked, thrusting a hand through his hair. He turned and looked in the direction the cowboy had taken. “Did that son of a bitch kill somebody?” He made a move toward the corral, as if to mount his horse and give chase.
“He murdered Pearl,” Tillie said.
Rafe looked confounded. “Pearl?”
“Just get the damned shovel!” Holt snapped.
Rafe did as he was asked.
Holt dug a grave over by the mission, and Tillie knelt to lay her baby in it with shaking hands. She whispered some private prayer, then looked up at Holt and nodded, just once.
Lorelei put a hand over her mouth as he covered the doll with dirt. The sun was creeping up over the eastern horizon, spilling light ahead of itself, while the moon still stood bright in the west.
Rafe had bound two sticks together with a piece of rawhide to make a cross, and he gave it to Tillie, who stuck it into the ground to mark the place.
The men lingered a few moments, none of them knowing what to say, and finally walked away.
Tillie, still kneeling beside Pearl’s grave, looked up at Lorelei with a plea in her eyes.
“Do you think dolls go to heaven?” she asked.
BREAKFAST WAS a solemn and necessarily hasty affair. With the help of a subdued and thoughtful Mr. Kahill, John brewed coffee, reheated last night’s beans and fried up slabs of salt pork for everybody who wanted one.
Lorelei’s appetite was gone; she shook her head when Holt offered her a plate.
“Eat,” he said impatiently. “We might run across a lot worse than a dead doll along the trail, and you won’t be any good if you’re hungry.”
She accepted the plate. Another time, she might have argued, but at that moment she felt as broken as poor Tillie’s little Pearl.
Holt started to walk away, then stopped, in the grip of some afterthought, and turned back. “Thanks,” he said.
Lorelei was puzzled, and her face must have shown it.
“For looking after Tillie,” he explained.
She swallowed, tried to smile and failed. A strange thought shouldered its way into her mind. If she felt this undone over burying a doll, what must