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"Bad enough, girl. They've killed some of our own folks. White folk aren't supposed to mess with Indians and vise versa. That's partly why your father doesn't invite Hawks inside. Married that heathen."
"What heathen?" Katherine twisted her head in puzzlement.
"The Indian girl, the one that follows him around. That's his woman. All Indians are heathen."
"But Mama, she's so young, how could she be so bad?"
"More than likely, they ain't even married, not by no preacher. It'd be my guess she was probably sold for horses by her father. That's how they do things. Ain't nothin' like us."
"Sold…you mean…she had no choice in the matter?"
"Heathens have their way, we got ours. Best not to mix the two. Don't go feeling sorry for no Indian girl, they's killers everyone." Her mother looked at her boldly and Katherine didn't know what to think. "Just as soon stab you as look at you. Remember that, girl."
"But Mama, she don't look like no killer, she just looks like a girl. I bet she's not much older than me…"
"Don't you go socializin' with that girl. You stay away, you hear me!" Her mother had been so adamant. She didn't understand it.
This intolerable land offered little company as it was and her mother wouldn't allow her to socialize with the only girl her own age she'd seen in months.
Katherine soaked this in, but she had a hard time thinking badly of the girl.
Especially if she had no choice but to be with Hawks. She felt sorry for her. Still, she couldn't tell her folks that. They were older and set in their thinking. Katherine prided herself with having a mind of her own even though she seldom agreed with her parents since developing it. Even if she couldn't voice her thoughts aloud she still had it in her heart. People were people to her, unless they did something terrible, like kill or rob. This girl did neither and Katherine smiled at her when she came. The Indian girl smiled back and quickly doused the smile when Hawks returned to her.
Katherine often wondered about the Indian though, she was very pretty and young like her. She would like to have made friends with her, she had so few friends out here, but she knew her mother wouldn't approve. The day her mother spoke of it, Katherine made up her mind to never judge anyone by the color of his or her skin. What did their skin have to do with who they were?
Katherine didn't understand why her parents didn't try to like the girl. But it wasn't her place to ask. She knew when to keep quiet at the table.
That was when they first came out west though. Now Katherine was nineteen with a mind of her own.
She wondered why she never saw the Indian with Hawks any more. What had happened to her? More importantly, what did Hawks want from her and Josh?
Chapter Three
She smelled the enemy before she heard the incessant rattling that sounded more like a hiss. Without thinking she grabbed the axe. With unerring accuracy as though she had already gauged where it was, she struck, and struck and struck. Blood gushed in all directions. Dust scattered but Katherine continued to strike the bits and pieces of rattlesnake.
The sound of her chopping brought Josh running from the barn. For a moment he only stared and then he slowly grabbed the axe and took it from her shaking hands.
Katherine stared at the red soaked ground. Without a word she went back to the task at hand as though nothing had happened.
Josh stared at the blood a few minutes, then at his sister. Glancing up the ridge, he bent his head quickly and dug a shallow grave for the snake.
The throbbing pain of unshed tears choked her as Katherine Hightower hung the remnants of clothes on the line then swept past the barn, the hem of her skirt stirring the dust. She didn't dare let her eyes stray to the freshly marked graves. She couldn't and wouldn't cry again. She'd cried all during the sickness, hot angry tears at first and then heavy sobs for her lack of ability to save them. Now they were gone, and it was too late to cry. She and Joshua had died a little too, she realized as she gazed into her brother's lifeless blue eyes, passing him by the barn door. He was barely sixteen and after what they'd been through could pass for twenty-five or more.
Now the monotony of everyday life seemed to hold no joy as it once did.
Loneliness sliced the air they breathed. What did they have to look forward to? Especially if Mr. Butterfield went out of business.
She lifted her gaze to the azure skies. A cloudless sky offered no hope of rain, the endless days of stifling heat, with no reprieve in sight, Katherine noted. The drought began and her garden dried up before it started. Potatoes, onions and carrots would be the extent of her fresh vegetables, her mind reflected.
A whiff of dry dust rustled her skirt making it billow. Katherine glanced down at her dress, and sighed heavily, it looked more brown than blue, now splattered with blood. She was filthy. She doubted she could get the blood out on washday, but she'd try. She could taste the same grit of her dress in her mouth, as the West Texas wind refused taming.
She and Joshua hadn't thought much about their appearance lately. There was simply too much work to do.
Katherine turned her head away from the slicing wind as the sun beat down on her, but she didn't burn like Josh did, she was thankful. She sighed heavily and went inside the cabin her father built just after he'd signed on as stationmaster. He'd been so proud of his new job and built his little adobe with all the pride of a man with money in his pocket. Little good it had done him, he'd contracted the fever from one of the first passengers that came along. A fever Katherine fought hard to drive out of him, her mother, and her two sisters and the passenger who gave them this dreadful disease. For a short while, it looked as if the concoctions she made on the stove might work, but in the end, death won.
Katherine felt the old hurts stirring and forced herself not to think about it, forced the tears away in one long swallow down the long trail of her throat. The knot that stayed heavy in her stomach made her queasy.
She missed them, she realized with sudden clarity. God, how void life had become without them. She missed her father's big brassy voice bellowing as the noon stage arrived, "Get ready, the dust is flying."
