This Loving Land - Dorothy Garlock [100]
“She’s all right?”
“Yeah, just tired. Had a killin’ headache accordin’ to Sadie. She’ll be over first thing tomorry. You better let Teresa give you that powder like Summer said.”
“Tell her to get it,” he said dejectedly. “Might as well sleep.”
He closed his eyes and Jack tiptoed out. A feeling that things were not quite right settled on him, but he was too tired to think about it, and headed for the bunkhouse.
Sixteen
Summer never looked back once she climbed into the buggy. She sat in the corner of the soft, leather seat, keeping her eyes straight ahead, and was only vaguely aware when the buggy springs yielded to Jesse’s weight and he was beside her. He flicked the reins and they moved out. The wagon carrying the bodies of Ellen and Travis fell in behind them, Tom’s and Jesse’s horses tied to the tailgate.
Leaving had put such a strain on Summer that she felt faintly ill with weakness. Sadie had burst into tears at the last minute, and begged to be allowed to come with her, and John Austin had come down the ladder to stand mutely perturbed. Watching her with solemn, puzzled eyes, he made no attempt to approach her.
Summer had awakened her brother and explained she was leaving. She didn’t say how long she would be gone, but that it was necessary for her to go without him. He was to mind Sadie and do the lessons Slater would assign to him. She would write to him, she said, and he was pleased that he would be getting a letter. When she was about to leave him he almost dumbfounded her by asking:
“Have you got trouble, Summer? If you have, me and Slater will take care of it.”
Summer laughed before she would cry. “Of course not. But thank you.” She hugged and kissed him and instead of wiggling away as he usually did, he returned her kiss and clung to her for a moment.
It was going to be a warm day. That was only one of the reasons Jesse wanted to get an early start, another being he wanted to be well ahead of the soldiers when they headed out with their prisoners. And foremost, he wanted to leave before it was necessary to explain why he was leaving with Slater’s intended wife.
It seemed unreal to Summer that she was sitting in Ellen’s buggy, leaving McLean’s Keep. She tried to keep her thoughts away from Slater. She needed time to get used to the idea that she couldn’t love him. A few months ago, she would have been delighted to know she had a . . . relative. A lump rose up in her throat that she found difficult to swallow. She wouldn’t think about it now! She would think of something else, anything. See the beautiful sunrise, she told herself. There’s a rabbit, and isn’t that a mockingbird that’s singing?
Before she knew it, her thoughts were back at McLean’s Keep. She wondered if Sadie would be convincing when she announced that she had gone to attend Ellen’s burial, she wondered how long she would wait before she gave the letter to Slater. She had promised to give her time to be far, far away. Oh, Slater, dar—No! No! I can’t think it, I can’t say it, anymore. I must not think of him . . . that way!
A shiver passed over her when she realized how alone and unprotected she would be once Jesse left her. It seemed that McLean’s Keep and everything dear and familiar was dropping away into the distance behind her, and the more it receded, the more vulnerable she felt. Soon, she would have no one at all. Soon, she would have nothing except her own strength and wits to aid her.
The sun was up, and neither Summer nor Jesse had said a word. By the time they left the hills and were on the plain, the sun was far above the horizon. The trail was overgrown and full of holes and jagged pieces of sandstone, which Jesse skillfully avoided. The horse plodded on into the heat of the day. A dead possum lay beside the trail, its body grotesquely bloated. A snake slithered into the grass in front of them with startling speed and disappeared. Summer could not still the revulsion the scaly, diamond-patterned creature aroused in her. The only sound to disturb the eerie peace of the prairie was the