Cherish the Dream Read online

  Theodora shook her head, her eyes wide with fear. She gripped her hands in front of her, the knuckles of her delicate fingers white with the pressure. “No, I can’t leave him.”

  Blade took no time to argue. He pushed her from the tent and motioned for Peter, who waited nearby. “Stay with Gordon while I talk with his sister.”

  Implacably, Blade pulled her away from the shelter and led her to his own. He hustled her inside and lowered the flap. Roughly, he yanked her to him. As his hands imprisoned her arms, part of his mind recognized that his iron grip was an unnecessary overreaction. Yet her struggle to free herself only deepened his panic. “Did you drink from that lagoon, Miss Gordon?” he demanded. Despite his efforts to remain calm, he heard his voice echo loud and harsh in the canvas enshrouded stillness. “Did you drink that water?” he repeated and jerked her toward him.

  Her head flew back at the abrupt movement.

  “No, I … I drank from the stream we bathed in. I didn’t drink again until you gave me your canteen. Why? Was the wallow tainted? Is … is that what … what you think?” Her face turned white. Her lips trembled. She gripped the front of his buckskin shirt with rigid fingers, her teeth chattering in terror. “Is Tom going to die?”

  Blade ignored her questions as he forced himself to keep his relief from showing in his voice. “From now on I don’t want you to eat or drink anything unless I’ve checked it first.” He maintained his viselike grip on her while he searched her troubled eyes for acquiescence. Once, just once, couldn’t she accept his commands without balking?

  “Please! Stop acting like this,” Theodora complained, averting her face. Tears of frustration rolled down her cheeks. “I don’t understand you. My brother is over there suffering and you’re talking to me about what I should eat and drink!”

  Blade refused to let her go. “Theodora, I want your sworn promise that you won’t drink or eat anything without my supervision.”

  The scorn she felt for his behavior showed on her tightly compressed lips, and she lifted her shoulders in a shrug of disgust. “If you’re going to make such a scene over this then, yes.” It was clear that all she wanted was to return to Tom.

  Blade read the lack of commitment in her expressive eyes. He shook her until her head flew back and forth on her slim neck and her teeth came together with a crack. Damn, he’d get her attention, one way or another. She wouldn’t become a victim of cholera. Not if it was in his power to prevent it. “Say the words after me, Theodora: I swear to God … Say it! Repeat the words to me!”

  His ferocity at last frightened her into submission. “All right!” she cried. “I swear to God.”

  “That I will never.” His words were low and insistent.

  “That I will never.”

  “Never!” he roared.

  “Never!”

  “Eat or drink anything not approved by me.” He shook her again, impatient for her words. “Say it, Theodora!”

  “Eat or drink anything not approved by you.” She turned her head away from him, tears flowing down her cheeks unheeded.

  Satisfied at last, Blade released her and stepped back. He looked at the top of her bent head, her golden curls loosened and disheveled by his brutality. His jaw clenched as he steeled himself to hear her sobs. But she didn’t break down.

  Rubbing her shoulders where he had held her in his powerful grip, she glared up at him in rage. Diamondlike tears sparkled on her thick lashes. “Now may I have your permission to return to my brother?” she asked with bitter sarcasm.

  Without a word Blade pulled back the flap of the tent and stood aside. He strove to keep his expression remote and unreadable. He couldn’t tell her that the thought of losing her had turned him into a wild man. That all he wanted to do was protect her. That he’d give his own life to keep her safe. He couldn’t tell her, because he knew she’d never believe him.

  And because he’d seen the contempt in her eyes.

  They tended the sick man through the night; Blade, Peter, and Julius all took turns helping Theodora. Because the disease was so contagious, no one else was allowed near. The entire camp was still and hushed, and the sounds of Tom’s moans could be heard clearly through the canvas walls. Excruciating cramps spread into his arms, abdomen, and back, and Theodora wished in vain for something to relieve his agony.

  But there was nothing they could do to stop the course of the disease. They couldn’t even administer opium to relieve the pain, for no medication would stay in his stomach long enough to give him relief.

  “Oh, Tom,” she cried in despair as she lifted his head with trembling hands to sponge him once again. “If only there was some way I could help you.”

  As the hours went by with agonizing slowness, she never left his side. She sat on the ground beside his bedroll and held his hand. When she tried to pray, the words stuck in her throat, fear choking her.

  This can’t be happening, she told herself, looking down at Tom’s tortured face. It’s all a bad dream. A nightmare from which I’ll awake and laugh at my foolishness. Dear God, tell me this isn’t real!

  She was vaguely aware that Blade sat across from her on Tom’s other side. He’d helped her nurse her brother through the night, though they’d hardly spoken a word .

  Near dawn Tom ceased his restless movements and lay strangely still. Theodora pressed her hand to her brother’s cheek in terror. It was cold and clammy. Her heart lurched when she saw the rapid change in him. His skin was lax, his cheeks hollow, and he was blue around the mouth. She took his wrist in her shaking fingers, but could no longer feel even a faint pulse.

  So weak that he was unable to move, Tom raised his lids and stared at her, his hazel eyes lackluster and sunken, his golden hair plastered to his skull with sweat, his freckles turned to rusty blotches on his sallow skin. Slowly, painfully, he turned his face to the captain. His lips moved soundlessly .

  Realizing that Tom wanted to tell him something, Blade slid his arm under Tom’s shoulders and lifted him up.

  “Roberts,” the dying man croaked in a guttural whisper. “Take care of Teddy for me.”

  “No, Tom,” Theodora wailed. She placed her arm beneath his back and shook her head helplessly. “You’re going to get well. We’re going to go home together.”

  The compassion in his eyes unmistakable, Blade took the young man’s hand. He gently squeezed the frail, sensitive fingers. His words were firm and clear. “I will, Tom. You have my promise that nothing will ever hurt Theodora as long as I’m alive.”

  Through his pain, Tom gave a twisted grin. “That sounds like a deal to me, Roberts,” he gasped.

  He collapsed in their arms.

  “Tommy! Tommy!” she screamed, clutching him to her. “Tommy! Don’t go! Don’t go away from me! You can’t die! I won’t let you go!”

  On the twenty-fourth day after departing Fort Leavenworth, the members of the U.S. Army’s Scientific Expedition buried their cartographer, Thomas Algernon Gordon—a victim of the dreaded Asiatic cholera. His shallow grave was surrounded by forty men, hatless, with heads bowed. A steady wind, which had arisen during the night, whipped their scarves against their faces and blew the hair into their eyes as Tom’s body was lowered into the earth.

  Theodora watched Peter and Julius solemnly toss spadefuls of dirt on Tom’s makeshift canvas shroud in the gray dawn light. Across from her stood the dragoons and the mountain men with stunned expressions on their somber faces, while beside her Sergeant O’Fallon, the veins on his thick neck standing out like ropes, read from his worn Bible in his booming Irish accent: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death …”

  At the tragic words, Calvin Belknap pushed his thick brown locks out of his eyes, surreptitiously wiping his cheeks of tears at the same time. He wasn’t the only man who stood blinking against the eye-watering wind, grateful for the excuse it provided. The sudden, unexpected death of the exuberant twenty three-year-old shocked and frightened them all, reminding them of their own mortality as
they stood and prayed in the middle of a vast, treeless grassland.

  Theodora glanced up at Blade Roberts’s compassionate face, thankful for his presence. He stood beside her, so close he almost brushed against her shoulder, and watched in quiet contemplation. Despite the previous afternoon’s harsh words, which stood between them like the high, sharp palisades of an army fort, his manner was meticulously correct, and his composure lent a feeling of sanity and order to a world that had suddenly turned crazy.

  Tears streamed down Theodora’s cheeks as she tried to fight the aching pain in her throat. Oh, Tommy, Tommy, she called silently, covering her mouth with trembling fingers to hold back the sobs.

  But this time Tom didn’t answer her unspoken words, and the emptiness sliced through her chest.

  After the passage had been read, Blade turned to Theodora. “I’m terribly sorry, Miss Gordon.” His deep voice was clearly audible. even in the brisk wind. “I’d give anything not to have had this happen.”

  Theodora looked up at him, torn by her confused emotions. She was thankful for the help he had given her during that long, horrible night he’d helped nurse Tom with a gentleness she’d never suspected possible in the fierce captain. Yet, irrationally, she also felt that he, as the leader of the expedition, had somehow failed in his responsibility to prevent her brother’s death. His sympathetic words meant little to her now not after the way he’d behaved the previous afternoon. He’d cowed her into submission, but at a terrible price. In her agonized and bewildered search for someone or something to blame, she turned on him. “Tom’s death was needless, Captain Roberts. Had he been forewarned about the tainted wallows, he’d be alive today.”

  The expression on Blade’s hawklike features turned to stone; not a hint of his inner feelings showed in his guarded expression. “And had I suspected he’d be alone out on the prairie, I’d have warned him.”

  At last the dirt filled the grave, and the men shuffled restlessly, no one quite sure what to do next. Then Julius Twiggs laid down his spade, picked up his dusty, weathered sombrero and walked over to Theodora. He took her small hand in his gnarled one, and his grizzled white head bent over her blond curls. The compassion in his brown eyes spoke to her heart, even before his comforting words. “One sad day, Miss Theo. Tom fine boy. Miss him dreadful.”

  “Thank you,” Theodora answered through her tears. “Tom thought so much of all of you, the way you took us under your wings and helped us learn to take care of ourselves. And no one could have been kinder to us than you, Julius.”

  Twiggs’s brief speech seemed to free the others from their state of befuddlement, and one by one they went up to Theodora to shake her hand and murmur the age-old phrases of solace. “I’ve made a cross, Miz Gordon,” Fletcher said softly, after everyone had given her their condolences. “I’ve carved Tom’s name on it for y’. I’ll be right back with it.” He left, heading quickly for his pack, as the rest of the men milled around waiting for the signal to leave.

  “Time to mount up,” Blade ordered. He nodded to Sergeant O’Fallon to assist Theodora to her horse.

  “Wait!” she cried. She gestured toward the mound of fresh earth. “We can’t leave before we mark Tom’s grave.”

  Blade’s mouth was drawn into a firm line; his jaw was hard and unyielding. “I’m sorry, Miss Gordon. We can’t place a marker.” Looking up at Haintzelman, who’d already mounted his horse, Blade continued. “Lieutenant, see that every man and animal moves across this grave. Tell Twiggs to drive the wagon over it as well. I want the earth packed firm and hard. We’ll leave no trace of what’s happened here today.”

  “No!” Theodora screamed. “How will I find Tom again if we don’t mark the place?” Panic took hold of her, and she shook like a child waking from a nightmare. “I’ll never find him again!”

  Blade’s face softened. He spoke with quiet compassion. “I won’t forget this place, Miss Gordon. I’ll bring you back to it one day.”

  Looking around her at the treeless, undulating prairie, with no visible landmark, not even a distinctive bush, Theodora shuddered. She shook her head. “I can’t … leave Tom here without a marker to show me where he is. I can’t do that, Captain.”

  Before Blade could answer, Fletcher returned, carrying a small wooden cross with the dead man’s name scratched across it. “Here, Miz Gordon,” he said as he offered it to her. “It’s rough, but it’ll do until y’ can get somethin’ more substantial.” Blade grabbed the cross from Fletcher’s hand with an oath and broke it savagely over his knee. He flung the two jagged pieces of wood, and they sailed across the tall buffalo grass in a high curving arc, bouncing crazily as they hit the ground. “Dammit, Fletcher, get to your horse!” he roared, his wrath instantaneous. “Just one more word from you, and I’ll place you under arrest.” He doubled his fists, and for a moment it seemed as though he was going to strike the junior officer. Then, with obvious self-mastery, he turned his back. “Sergeant O’Fallon,” he barked as he strode toward War Shield, “put the lady on her horse.”

  At first Theodora struggled and tried to pull away from the bulky sergeant’s hold on her elbow. Then, realizing it was hopeless, she leaned against his solid girth and clutched his sleeve in her trembling fingers. “No, no,” she sobbed against his shoulder. “I can’t leave Tommy all alone out here. Please, oh please, don’t make me go.”

  Gently, O’Fallon led her to Athena. His eyes were tormented as he looked down at her. “There, there,” he crooned in his thick brogue. “Sure and we have to be going now, macushla. The captain has his reasons. And Tom doesn’t need you now, darlin’ girl. He’s with God’s lovely angels.”

  Seeing her distress, Peter jumped down from his horse and ran over to help. Together Haintzelman and O’Fallon lifted her onto the mare, then mounted and pulled their horses up on either side of her.

  Behind them, the procession was strung out in a double column, waiting. At Blade’s signal, the campaigners rode somberly across the grave, driving the horses and mules before them. Even the wagon wheels crossed the length of it, leaving behind the deep impression of their rims in the sandy soil. No one spoke a word, but Theodora’s sobs could be heard on the morning breeze.

  At the head of the column, Lieutenant Fletcher raced up to Blade, his back stiff with outrage. “Was it necessary for her t’ see that?” he shouted at the captain, and those behind them looked up to watch.

  Blade turned to face the lieutenant. Rage blazed through him at Fletcher’s thoughtless interference. “Better this, Lieutenant,” he said in a low, angry voice that carried no farther than the two of them, “than seeing a piece of her brother’s clothing—or his scalp—on some Pawnee buck.”

  Sick at heart, Peter rode beside the weeping girl. He knew every man in the company was deeply affected by Tom’s untimely death. Peter wondered if Theodora would ever be able to accept her sudden, devastating loss. As the caravan crossed the prairie that morning, Peter knew each member kept his wordless vigil in deference to her.

  By mid-morning, they reached the crest of a rise, and no one could resist turning for one last look at the far-off, deserted burial site.

  Theodora gazed in stunned misery at her brother’s unmarked grave; the only evidence of its location was the line of trampled grass where the entire expedition had ridden. To leave the site, never to find it again, was unthinkable. It was as though the prairie itself stood by silently, like an evil specter, waiting only for them to depart before swallowing up all evidence that Tom had ever existed. How could she possibly return to her father without being able to bring him back one day to the place where his only son lay buried?

  Without thinking, Theodora spurred Athena and raced back across the empty plain. The horrified faces of the men flashed by, but no one had the heart to stop her wild flight to rejoin her brother.

  No one except Blade. Reacting instantly, he galloped behind her. His stallion covered the ground between them effortlessly as they flew past the halted column of men. Within minute
s, he reached out, grabbed her reins, and pulled the mare to a skidding halt. Lieutenant Haintzelman came up quickly behind them.

  “Let me go,” she cried, as she yanked futilely on her lines. Her hat had fallen off in the frantic ride, and her hair had come loose, curling about her shoulders and blowing in the wind. “Leave me alone. I have to go back to Tom.”

  “You can’t go back, Miss Gordon.” Blade’s face was stem and unyielding. He seemed to purposefully steel himself from showing her any sympathy. “Going back won’t help Tom, and you must keep up with us. Staying here will only make the inevitable leaving harder.”

  “Dear God, don’t you have any feelings?” she cried as she slid from Athena’s saddle. She ran down the steep bank, nearly toppling as the toe of her boot caught in a thick bunch of grama grass. With her arms outstretched, she quickly regained her balance and continued her frenzied attempt to reach her brother. Leaping from War Shield, Blade was right behind her. He grabbed her, ignoring her flailing hands, and held her tightly, pinning her arms securely to her sides. She sobbed in despair and fought him until at last she grew still, her anguished cries muffled against his broad chest.

  “You’re going to get back on that horse, Miss Gordon,” Blade told her, “or I’m going to put you on and tie you to the saddle. You can’t stay here, do you understand? We have to keep going. Help me get her back on her horse, Haintzelman,” Blade ordered the lieutenant.

  Together they tenderly lifted her onto Athena, but this time the captain kept the reins in his gloved hand. He led the chestnut mare over to his stallion, then remounted and rode back up the column, his features once again impassive. Behind him, Theodora sat in the saddle, stiff and unbending.

  For Theodora, it was as though she were falling headfirst down a dark, spiraling tunnel. The need to block out reality, to withdraw from normal life, consumed her. She rode behind Blade Roberts, the reins of her horse securely in his hand, and tried to crawl inside herself to a haven of security. To a place where her brother was still alive. But as hard as she tried, she couldn’t hear Tom’s voice. And the stillness inside her was overwhelming.