Prologue
Wisconsin, 1902
DOCTOR HANSON EMERGED from the farmhouse
bedroom wiping his hands on a towel, his bleak expression reflecting the
gray spring dawn outside. "There wasn't anything I could do for
her," he said. "But the boy is healthy, poor little
devil."
Ada McKinley, her fingers worrying the
skirt of her shapeless brown dress, looked up at her husband.
"Martha trusted us," she said. "At least as much as she
could trust anybody."
Charles McKinley took his hands from his
bib overall pockets and nodded wearily. "I don't know what else we
can do." Then he straightened his long back. "Bring the
children into the parlor after breakfast. They've a right."
Minutes later Ada received a tiny,
bronzed infant wrapped in a thin cotton blanket from the midwife.
"Aunt Elsie," she said, "make a sugar tit. He won't be
quiet for long."
"What yah gonna call the little
heathen?" the midwife asked sourly. "'Martin' after his ma, or
'Worthless' for his pa?"
"Martha's tribal name was
Swift-as-the-Dawn. Maybe we'll call him 'Swift'."
The old woman snorted. "Good
enough. Most likely run off 'fore he's five anyway, and a blessing, I
say." She cast a scornful glance at the bundle in Ada's arms.
"Better youda told his ma to git on her way and hired one of our
own kind."
Outside in the farmyard Dr. Hanson
shivered in the cutting April wind and set down his bag. Accepting a
trussed laying hen with one hand, he shook Charles' hand with the other.
"Well, I'll be off to the Petersen's now," he said. "The
missus is having a bad time."
"I heard Inez is in the family way
again." Charles glanced at his house and sighed. "They want a
baby so bad. Too bad some have such a hard go of it while others drop
half a dozen and never miss to fix supper."
Dr. Hanson picked up his bag.
"Well, good luck with the boy, Charles. It won't be easy--for him
or the rest of you."
As if in response, a faint, shrill cry
of an infant came from the house, and on the lawn two robins squabbled
over a worm.
Charles McKinley's chin took on a
stubborn jut. "We'll manage. If folks don't like it, they
can--" He broke off, then added quietly, "Where'd we be,
Doctor, if we hadn't at least had a ma?"
Chapter One
Wisconsin, 1920
RAIN DRUMMED ON the shed roof, making
little plopping sounds where it leaked onto the wooden floor. Slouched
against the cobwebbed back wall, Swift McKinley smothered a moan. Oh,
God. Sweetheart, why'd you have to come here now? I can't take any
more....
"G' wan," he said, bolstering
the command with a languid wave. "Don' wan compn'y. Not...t'day."
Aurie Petersen peered down at the tanned
youth, in the gloom nearly invisible except for his white shirt.
"You don't have any choice, mister," she said tartly. "In
case you haven't noticed, it's pouring out there." She moved to
escape a steady drip from the leaking roof, and flapped her long wet
skirt against her legs in a futile attempt to dry it. A moment later she
stepped closer, eyes narrowed and sniffing the air like a bird dog.
"Why, Swift McKinley," she gasped. "You're drunk!"
He snorted. "Don' take a woman
long...start soundin' like a tem...tempernance lady."
Aurie squatted beside him, long, ropey
strands of rain-darkened blonde hair clinging to her neck and soaked
gingham shoulders. "Oh, Swift--" She faltered, then added
softly, "This is no way to handle your hurt.".
"How'd you know? In't your ma thas
gone." Swift pushed himself more upright and squinted at her.
"What're you doin' here an'way?"
"Our best sow got through a hole in
the fence. Papa's afraid she'll pig and lose the litter. He went North,
Mama went west and I came south to look for her. The rain blew up so
fast, I ran in here to wait it out."
Swift hiccuped and slapped the floor
beside him. "Siddown." The next hiccup turned into a bark of
laughter. "Jus' hope a rat doesn' run up your leg."
"I think not," Aurie said,
prim and starched. She stood and backed toward the open doorway.
"You know I can't abide drunkenness, whatever the reason."
Swift thrust his head forward from his
thick shoulders and a brush of coal-black hair fell across his eyes.
"My, aren't we the prop'r one?" he taunted, like he'd done
most of their lives. "T'wasn't always tha' way, though, was it,
Pretty Aurie?"
Memories triggered by his private pet
name for her warmed Aurie's cheeks. All through childhood, she and her
neighbors--Swift, his sister Edie and brothers Harry and Emmet--had
romped and played together like puppies. Then one by one, the elder
McKinleys had slipped into adolescence, leaving only Swift, six months
older than Aurie, to race her across the hilly green pastures. The
summer she turned twelve, Swift--half shy, half bold--had kissed her for
the first time. After that, he claimed a kiss every time she lost a race
to him, until they were fourteen. That year, Mama gave Aurie a stern
warning about such behavior, and Aurie suspected Swift had received a
similar one, because he never challenged her to another race.
Thunder rolled overhead, and the rain
fell in sheets. Aurie couldn't make out the fence posts that marked the
line between the McKinley and Petersen farms. She glanced down at her
sodden dress, and noticing the way it clung to her body, moved from the
dim light into the shadow beside the door.
Swift snickered. "Wha'sa matter,
missy," he said in a sloppy parody of a gossipy town woman of Irish
descent, "afeared the Injun'll 'ave 'is way wi' ye?"
"If you weren't in such sorry
shape, Mister Smart Mouth," she snapped, "I'd pitch you right
out into the rain to sober up." Thunder boomed overhead and she
jumped. "But we're stuck here, so we might as well be civil. It
must be almost five o'clock. I hope Mama and Papa found the sow and
aren't worrying about me."
Swift lumbered to his feet, one hand
stabbing at the wall for balance, and moved toward the door.
"Edie will fuss if you go back to
the house in this condition," scolded Aurie.
"Yes," he said in an odd,
musing voice. "Now Ma's gone, Edie runs th' house..."
"And you and Harry the farm,"
Aurie finished.
"I wish Emmet could have
lived," he said, carefully enunciating each word. "Then it
might have been...all right."
Aurie knew him so well that the pain in
his eyes told her what he was thinking. The death of his favorite
brother in the Argonne, followed by that of his father four months
later, and now that of his mother, had struck the sensitive Swift like
rapid hammer blows. "I'm sorry I was cross," she said gently.
"But you mustn't drink, you know you mustn't."
"'Cause Injuns can't hold their
likker like whites." A bolt of lightning lit the shed like a
fireball and Swift lurched backward. "Aw, maybe we really are bums,
'n I shoun't fight it."
"Don't you ever dare say
anything like that again!" Aurie stomped out of her shadowy
retreat and glared up at him. Swift was five-foot-nine and his broad,
heavily muscled body dwarfed her five-foot-one frame.
For a long moment they gazed at each
other in the rainy twilight. Then Swift made a guttural sound in his
throat and reached for her. Too surprised to move, Aurie found herself
pressed full length against his rock-hard body. His mouth swooped down
on hers with starving intensity, and her lips parted in a gasp of
astonishment.
Locked against him, unaware of the moldy
shed, the pounding rain and the combustible situation, she recognized
nothing except her childhood playmate's desire for her body. Anger
crackled through her veins. Twisting her mouth from his, she sank her
teeth into his lower lip, and tasted blood.
He jerked backward, stumbled, and
slammed to the floor on his back. "Damn!"
Aurie stepped over to where he sprawled,
a stunned expression on his stoic features. "I should kick you
right here, Swift McKinley." She aimed her toe at his groin.
"You drunken lout, I hope Edie gives you hell!"
Hiking her clammy skirt to her knees,
she ran from the shed. The rain had slackened, but she was too furious
to care. Legs churning, she raced through the pasture for home.
Her mind raced along with her. Even
though Swift was drunk, how dare he take such liberty with her? He'd
never given the slightest hint that he thought of her in a carnal way,
and she'd certainly never given him any cause to think that she'd
welcome such an advance.
It had to be the rotten alcohol. People
were right; even those who didn't approve of Prohibition said it was
dangerous to give liquor to Indians; some Indians turned downright mean
under the influence. Swift had broken the law, but drunk or sober, he'd
never hurt anyone. Still, liquor affected men in strange ways. She'd
seen them misbehaving in town plenty of times.
Recalling her imprisonment in Swift's
powerful arms, she slowed her pace. They'd been friends since they were
babies, but after today, how could she ever look at him without
remembering the feel of his mouth on hers?
The June sun peeped through the storm
clouds, and she shivered.
Inez Petersen was waiting on the front
porch when Aurie galloped up to it.
"Land's sake, girl," her
mother said. "We were getting worried. Papa was just going out to
look for you."
"I waited out the worst of the
storm in McKinley's shed." Aurie wrung a stream of water from her
heavy skirt. She had no intention of telling anyone about her companion
in the shelter, certainly not about his drunkenness and coarse behavior.
Swift had enough problems without her turning on him. "Did you find
the sow?"
"Yes, but the stubborn old broody
ran every which way. Papa had to leave her when the rain got so heavy.
Maybe now he can convince her that home is the place to be in her
condition." Inez smiled fondly at her daughter. "Hurry and get
dried off before you catch your death."
Aurie obediently trotted up the narrow
enclosed stairway to her bedroom, eager for dry clothes and a few
minutes of privacy. As she toweled her hair into damp tangles, her
thoughts returned to Swift, forgiving him. She'd never been able to stay
angry with him for long, although once, when he threw her doll high into
the elm tree and refused to climb up and get it, she didn't speak to him
for days. Considering all he'd gone through lately, maybe it wasn't
surprising that he'd behaved so, so--despicably.
She picked up her comb and took it over
to the mirror on the wall. Had her mother noticed the bright pink spots
in her cheeks? A girl friend once confided her experiences with certain
young men of lusty reputation, but Aurie had never been kissed 'that'
way. Until today. She'd heard boys and men were easily fired up, and her
mother occasionally reminded her to conduct herself in a ladylike manner
and thereby avoid situations like the one in the shed.
Giving her tangles a painful yank with
the comb, she glowered at her teary blue eyes in the mirror. She hadn't
done anything she was ashamed of, but Swift McKinley had some
apologizing to do if he wanted to keep her friendship.
A squirrel scrabbled across the roof.
She tensed, suddenly aware of a difference in the room--the feeling of
something closing in on her, almost a physical presence.
Two invisible arms, unyielding as young
tree trunks, went around her, and from behind a hard body pressed itself
against her. Her heart sped up and perspiration broke out on her
forehead.
The only reflection in the mirror,
however, was her own, her mouth framing a startled "Oh!" She
tried to turn around, but the rigid arms and solid body still held her
captive. Hands seemed to move over her bottom and then the intruder was
gone.
She sat down on her bed with a thump and
willed her breathing to return to normal. This wasn't the first time
she'd experienced an unexplainable physical sensation--a stab of pain, a
prickling on her skin, a warmth in very private places, and once a
mysterious blow to her thigh had caused a bruise--but the only other
time she'd felt the desiring clasp of a man's arms and body was an hour
ago in the McKinley shed.
Trembling and confused, she smoothed her
hair with her fingers, sweeping through its silky dampness to the
feathery dry tips on her shoulders. Continuing downward, her fingers
curved over her high round bosom, soft and warm beneath her dry camisole
and dress, spread themselves across her flat stomach and sleekly
followed the line of her hips. She smiled, imagining those other hands
caressing her in unknown and exciting ways--
"Aurie! Time to set the
table, and Papa wants the calf looked after." Her mother's voice
rang up the stairwell, stilling the nervy little sensations that made
Aurie feel so alive.
Her faint smile lingered as she pulled a
freshly ironed bib apron from the bureau, stuck her head and arms
through its openings, and hurried downstairs.
Maybe my Prince Charming is waiting
around the corner...and when I wake, he'll come for me.
At nine-thirty she prepared for bed.
Tonight, instead of dragging the light flannel nightgown over her head,
she lifted it high above her like some pagan offering before inserting
her arms in the sleeves. As the soft gown drifted down over her
nakedness, she again felt the urgent pressure of a man's body. Quivering
from head to toe, she leapt into bed. So this was what it was like....
Later, curled in the middle of her
double bed, she received more of the stealthy new messages, and like
Eppie, their prolific barn cat, she longed to stretch and tense and wind
herself about something warm and solid and powerful.
UNABLE TO FALL asleep, Swift lay
motionless in his bed. He'd stayed in the shed until full dark, waiting
until Harry left to visit his fiancee, Lavinia Jenkins. Afterward, he'd
tramped aimlessly about the sodden pastures until the lamp went out in
Edie's bedroom. Finally, wet, chilled to the bone and very sober, he
crept into the dark house and upstairs to Emmet's old room where he'd
been sleeping since his brother left for the Army.
Stretched out on the lumpy old mattress
with his hands under his head, he stared at the ceiling, only a little
lighter than the walls on this moonless night. He'd spent the hours
following his lustful assault on Aurie raging at himself. Now, exhausted
from self-torment and the events of the day, he examined his behavior
more objectively.
What Aurie said about his drinking was
true. No matter what blows life might deal him in the future, he must
never taste liquor again. Offending Aurie--especially after the years of
holding himself apart for fear of showing her this evil side--was the
worst thing he'd ever done. Far worse than beating Ronnie Parks when
they were ten, after Ronnie told the teacher Swift had taken her ruler
so she couldn't smack him with it again.
The Devil must have entered him along
with the liquor to make him behave like that with Aurie. Years ago, Pa
had taken him aside and told him a few things, making Swift understand
why physical competition with Aurie caused him a certain kind of
discomfort.
Pa had threatened him, too, in no
uncertain terms. "No matter how big you get," he'd promised,
"if I ever find out you've touched or spoken to a woman in a
disrespectful manner, unless she agrees to marry you, I'll horsewhip the
Devil out of you." If only Pa were here now to use the horsewhip.
Swift reckoned he'd loved Aurelia
Petersen from the first moment he laid eyes on her, a tiny pink and
blonde angel with a spitfire temperament. He couldn't remember not
knowing her. It wasn't until after Pa's lecture that he realized he also
loved her in a lustful way. He didn't consider his desire sinful until
Emmet, then a sophisticated twenty-one, completed his education on the
subject.
"You've got to understand, little
dark brother," Emmet explained, "that the people around here
mostly tolerate you because they respect Pa and Ma. But when it comes to
their silky white daughters--well, you just keep your filthy Injun hands
and eyes off, or you may wake up drowned in the river." While
Emmet's words were brutal, it was the pain in his voice that had made
Swift want to cry.
After that, Swift, already accustomed to
the closed shoulders of some schoolmates and many of the town people,
went off to high school with a mask on his face and a stone for a
tongue. His framed diploma hung on the parlor wall, but there were no
parents or Emmet to appreciate it.
He pondered his choices. A life of farm
work shared with Harry or as someone else's hired man? A life in town or
a city where he might or might not find work that would pay him enough
to eat regularly and sleep in a clean bed? The nomadic life of a migrant
worker or day laborer? Or as a belligerent wag in literature class once
suggested, "Swiftly hie thee to a Reservation?"
If he stayed here on the farm, what
about Edie? During the past few months, he'd grown uneasy around his
sister. It wasn't that Edie said or did anything different; he just
found himself avoiding her when no one else was around. He wished some
nice fellow would show up on the doorstep and propose to her.
If he left the county, he might never
see Aurie again. That might be for the best, because just the memory of
her soft lips parting under his created a swelling in his loins.
He rolled over and groaned into his
pillow. |
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