The first time he speaks to her she's a bouncy ten year-old in pigtails and a calico dress, begging for penny candy, only to have her father angrily refuse to let her have so much as one lick of anything. Ever since Mother died last year, he runs the store, and what he says goes.
She won't stand for it.
There are some cavalry men in the corner, intently studying the flour and sugar, and one in particular seems to tower over the rest. Seeing her predicament and appearing slightly amused, he comes over, his feet wrapped in a confidant gait. He draws her aside with ease, much to her father's shock and displeasure and despite her kicking and screaming—she always could hold her own.
He speaks to her in a hushed whisper, so quiet a dropped pin would render it difficult to hear.
"Hey, kid, you in the market for candy?" She nods furiously, resisting the urge to spit in her father's direction. He pulls her shoulders square, and she squirms.
"Now listen. I can get you candy, better 'an anything your daddy's got here. But you gotta behave for him, y'hear? I know your daddy pretty well, and if everyone isn't following his orders, he's mad as a hornet. When he's mad, nobody's happy, and when nobody's happy, nobody comes around, and when nobody comes around, you don't get your candy.
Y'understand?" She grits her teeth but gives him a sharp incline of her head.
"You needn't talk down to me, soldier. I know what you're sayin'."
"That's a good girl." He pats her back; she recoils.
Just then her father comes up, jerking her away from the man and sending a scathing look in her direction before lifting his head.
"Forgive Jane, O'Rourke. She can get unruly at times."
The man smiles, not in a glittering and flawless way but an honest one, with a few crooked and yellowed teeth.
"Don't apologize, Mr. Thrift. It was quite refreshing, actually. We could use some of her enthusiasm over at the fort. Maybe you'll let her come around sometime?"
"Well…" he looks down at her, wide eyes pleading with him in a way she knows he can't resist.
As expected, he relents.
"Alright. Sometime. But if you soldiers go making her into some sharpshooting tomboy, I'll have to withdraw. I'm doing my best to raise her as a proper lady like Martha, God rest her soul, would have wanted."
"Thank you for the warning, Mr. Thrift. We'll take that under advisement. Goodbye, Janey." He winks at her, a devil-may-care twinkle in his eyes, and then leaves.
After that he always does bring her candy, a little sack every two weeks full of peppermints, molasses, and lemon drops. She never questions where they come from, though when she's a bit older and more observant, she sometimes she hears him conferring with another man in hushed tones about "O'Rourke Enterprises" and wonders if there's any connection.
But it's only later that she begins to wish they were flowers and boxes of chocolate.
###
The first time he puts her on a horse, she's terrified—despite the fact that's it only Sunny, a gentle and chronically bored mare—and he's appalled, not at her fear but at the fact that her father has never let her near any animal of equine origin in all her eleven years. She's ready to dismount and run for cover at the store before the ride even begins, but he's not going to let her off so easily; the captain gave him special permission to teach her at the fort, and he's not blowing a chance to pass on his wisdom.
He walks the horse for a while, letting her get the feel for being in the saddle. As she's starting to look a bit more comfortable, he slowly backs off, keeping her in view but letting go, praying Sunny will remain docile like she does with skittish troopers.
The mare stops walking and reaches her head down, chewing on a bit of shriveled up grass. Not finding it to her taste, she starts up again, waddling her way towards the guard tower.
Suddenly a shot rings out from above. Sunny's ears perk up and she bolts, the terror the sound causes her translating into an emphatic buck.
O'Rourke's stomach churns as he watches her rider's knuckles go white.
"Janey, don't try to hold on, just…"
"Indians!" the trooper in the tower cries out.
O'Rourke stops mid-sentence. "Indians? What in tarnation…" He rushes to the base of the tower. "Who are they, Trooper? Hekawis? Shugs?"
"They're…oh…"
"Trooper, what tribe is attacking?"
The man looks down from the tower and says sheepishly, "Sorry. False alarm. They're just our scouts."
He sighs, muttering a few curses under his breath and then shouts up to the soldier, "Well now, aren't you proud of yourself, Trooper? You've scared a first time rider to death by riling up a gun-shy horse…"
"I never knew Sunny was gun-shy!"
"Yeah, well thanks to you Janey'll probably turn out the same way! Horse shy, too!"
"I don't know, sir. Look over yonder." The trooper points, and he spins on his heel, prepared for anything but what he sees.
But there Janey is, pulling Sunny into a tight circle, keeping complete control of the spooked mare. There's a china doll smile painted on her face as she brings the horse over to the guard tower. She's straight in her saddle, no worse for the wear, and her father will never be able to tell she was almost thrown.
"I do okay?" she asks, bright innocence radiating from her eyes. His face breaks out in a broad grin and he lifts her down from her perch, placing a kiss on her left cheek before putting her down.
"You did just fine. You're a regular wrangler. Hey, how does that sound? Wrangler Jane."
She looks surprised and thrilled. Placing her hand over where he kissed her, she stutters, "I…I like it. I like it just fine, O'Rourke."
From that day forward almost everyone calls her Wrangler when her father's not around. Usually the commanding officers still insist on "Miss Thrift," but they're never around for very long, so it doesn't seem to matter.
A man will come along someday and break that trend—along with his heart.
###
Despite her good marks in riding, it's another two years until he teaches her to shoot a gun. Her father's too busy with the store and its financial troubles to worry about her activities. She minds her manners in his presence, of course, and so he continues to believe F Troop hasn't corrupted his proper young lady.
Still, she's leery about letting O'Rourke teach her to use firearms; she remembers all too well that her father specifically pinpointed "sharp-shooting" as an acquired quality that would force him to withdraw her from their company, and she wouldn't give up the time she spends with the troop for all the gunpowder in the West.
And yet, at the same time, she's come to discover that O'Rourke has no regard for rules that don't suit him, and when he gets caught breaking them, he always has a cunning, spur of the moment explanation that fools even the cleverest onlooker.
In the end, despite her misgivings, she goes along with him. It gives her a certain joy to defy her father, and she knows O'Rourke is the best shot in Fort Courage; she'll learn from him the right way. In any case, it'll give her a chance to wear the buckskins he and Duffy gave her for her thirteenth birthday, the ones she keeps secreted away with her bloomers for fear her father will find them.
Besides, she's coming more and more to cherish any and all time she and the sergeant spend together.
Her training course is out in the woods a way; her target a bale of hay, painted with what looks—and smells—to be scented Indian war paint.
The gun O'Rourke has selected isn't very large, but it looks ominous as he loads it.
"This is just a warning Wrangler. These aren't dummies. If you're going to learn to shoot a gun, it's better you learn with real bullets. So don't get reckless. Understand?"
"Yes." She says quietly, a tentative strain in her voice.
"Good. Now I want you to watch my hands as I fire. But stand back." She obliges, taking several large steps away from the hay bale.
He shoots, hitting the exact center of the war paint circle.
"You see that, Wrangler?"
She nods, star-struck with his accuracy. He gestures for her to come forward, and she does. He takes her hand and places it in the proper position, then puts his own over hers, completely covering it, like a warm blanket. Her skin tingles at the contact, and she feels almost like she's melting from the inside out.
He slowly goes through the motions of shooting the gun, tugging her along. She blissfully follows his lead, and by the end of the lesson she's finally holding the gun up by herself, though she fears herself unable to shoot it at the same time. Sensing her disappointment, he puts a hand on her shoulder.
"Don't get discouraged your first time out, Wrangler. It won't feel so hard next time. Shooting a gun…it's like learning to ride a horse—practice, practice, practice."
Something twinges deep in the pit of her stomach when they take their leave of each other, and his parting smile embeds itself into her memory.
It looks different today.
She doesn't know why he's decided to take her under his wing these past three years—surely there's no obligation on his part. Nor does she know what to call the warm, weak feeling she gets whenever she's around him.
Later that day she's helping her father in the store and a new shipment of fabric bolts has come in. She's stationed by the table they're on, ordered to talk them up to any woman who happens to pass by.
It was a busy afternoon—or so she's told—but now there's barely a trickle. A few people—mostly her father's friends—weave around the dry goods, waiting for their turn to play checkers and chewing the fat.
Her father is in front of the door, about to close up shop when, all of a sudden, a woman with shoulder length dark brown hair streaks in, almost knocking him down.
"Oh, sir, forgive me…I'm in desperate need of alcohol."
In a slight daze from the impact, Mr. Thrift puts a hand on the wall to steady himself. "What kind? I got rum, whiskey…"
"Whiskey will work well. I'm sorry, sir. Are you alright?"
"Yes, just fine. Wait here. I'll get your whiskey from the back room."
"Thank you, sir."
The woman sags against the fabric table, and, seeing an opportunity, Jane picks up a bolt of material and walks closer to her.
"This cranberry print would go very nicely with your hair, don't you think, ma'm?"
"I'm sorry, young lady, but I'm not…" she trails off as she catches sight of the cloth in question. Fingering the fine fabric, she leans down and puts a silky portion of chestnut hair against it. Her deep brown eyes light up.
"Why…I must compliment you, young lady. You certainly have an eye for these things. I love it. I absolutely love it."
Long after the woman has left the store, whiskey bottle in hand, her precious material wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine, Jane still thinks of that word.
Love.
There's something about it, an unnamed aura whose meaning is just out of her grasp. She savors it like a coveted sweet, letting it pervade her whole body and mind and wrap itself around her, warm as a summer day, hoping to decode it by basking in its perfect glow.
That night, long after she's drifted off, she wakes with a start, as from a nightmare, but she remembers nothing of her dreams. She stares off into the darkness for a long while, wondering what jerked her to consciousness. Something makes her think of the word again, but this time there is no long and harried thinking in a vain attempt to uncover its significance.
She just knows.
For all that it's a single syllable, a mere four letters, in the great and sprawling English language, it's the only word which will suffice to describe what she feels for O'Rourke.
###
Months pass, and she still carries that feeling—that love—inside her wherever she goes. But her days of target practice and horseback riding are drawing to a close.
Her father is starting to need her more at the store—feminine appeal, he calls it. At first she's there one, then two days out of the week, but soon it grows to three or four and eventually every day becomes like that night she stood next to the bolts of cloth. The iron hand of captivity seems to cripple her as she looks out the store windows, like an animal in a barred cage, yearning to be in the cool, fresh air that always seems to course through Fort Courage. She feels trapped, endlessly advertising products she doesn't care about in the least, and longs to feel her finger on the trigger of a gun or caressing leather reins.
But the store's hours are longer now, and there's never time to slip away. In fact, there never seems to be time to do anything for herself save taking the candy O'Rourke sneaks her every other week in the empty flour sack in the corner. She's exhausted, but she wouldn't for the world let her father know it.
One night her father goes out and leaves her in charge of the store, with strict instructions to close at seven. It turns out to be a rather idle evening, and when seven o'clock comes and goes it seems like a windfall from Heaven. She flees to her room, hoping to steal a few minutes of pure, uninterrupted solitude for her own, the like of which she hasn't had in months. She lies back on her bed for a moment, but then something else occurs to her.
Getting up and opening one of her bureau drawers, she pushes aside her bloomers and pulls out her buckskin jacket.
She hasn't worn it at all in what seems like forever, and for a moment she simply stands there, taking in its comforting scent and stroking the surface. It's soft against her fingers.
She pulls on the garment and a pleasant feeling she hasn't had in the longest time washes over her entire body, like a cool splash of water on a hot day.
It doesn't last nearly long enough.
She hears her father trudge through the front door, and he calls to her, demanding to know what they're having for supper. She yanks off the jacket and casts it onto her bed, swallowing her nostalgia as she dashes out of the room.
The rest of the evening is unnervingly quiet, and after supper her father orders her to take an inventory. It seems strange—they never do one this time of year—but she shrugs it off. It's late when she finishes, and she retires immediately afterwards.
It's around midnight when she wakes, drowsy but with absolutely no idea what roused her. Then she detects an odd odor and slips out from under the covers. Her nightgown trailing on the floor, she leaves her room and goes into the hallway, standing at the top of the stairs. The scent is only stronger.
"Daddy?" she calls, uncertainty in her voice.
There's no reply.
Quietly she descends the steps, her heart thumping against her chest in an eerie, uneven drum roll, and on tiptoe she goes into the body of the store. A warm glow lights the room and for a moment she's relieved, but as her eyes drift toward the stove in the corner, she chokes back a gasp.
Piece by piece, her father is feeding O'Rourke's candy to the fire.
She stands stock still, at attention as his eyes flit in her direction, and she realizes it's too late to turn back. Seemingly without a thought, he tosses the flour sack, along with the rest of the candy, into the blaze and turns toward her.
There's a silence between them as the confections sizzle in the fire. Finally, he speaks.
"I found that in the corner. Where did it come from?" His voice is threatening, like a green switch itching to strike, but she says nothing.
"Won't talk? Alright. Then maybe you can explain this to me." With a sharp motion he thrusts something up. For a moment she doesn't recognize it in the dim light, but then all at once the realization crashes down over her like a wave.
It's her buckskin jacket.
He looks at her expectantly, a glare bright as the stove's fire burning in his eyes. Seeing that she plans to maintain her muteness, he drops the buckskin and stands up, taking two long steps toward her. He puts one beefy hand on her nightgown's collar and pulls her face closer to his, so close that she can smell his breath.
"I found that on your bed. Where did it come from?" The sentences form something halfway between a hiss and a roar as his hand creeps closer to her throat.
Her heart pounding, she hastily chooses her words.
"It…it was a gift from the men."
"Was it now?" He laughs, a horrible, mirthless noise that grates at her ears, but in an ironic act of mercy he releases the collar of her nightgown from his steel grip. "Let me show you what I think of their gift." With that, he reaches for the garment and tears it in two in a single motion, tossing half of it in the fire. As that part becomes settled, an unbearable stench filling the room, he throws the other half in alongside it. Tears spring into her eyes, but she refuses to let them fall. He sharply turns to look at her, his face creased with anger.
"I gave you all sorts of freedom, more than you were ever entitled to. I trusted you. And then you go behind my back and do things you know I disapprove of women doing. You're a very ungrateful young woman, Jane. I'm ashamed."
Rage and fear rip at her throat, flames struggling to escape.
She's seen this brand of anger before—her mother, bruised, lying lifeless at the bottom of the stairs... She forces the image from her mind and speaks, her raw, detached voice coming from the deepest part of her soul, shaking her entire body, burning and sickening her.
"You break her spirit, and now you try to break mine…"
The words come out as a lonely, hushed whisper, hardly intended for human ears, but he hears it. Before she knows what's happening she feels his thick hand slap her cheek with so much force as to make it throb.
"Go!" he roars, and she spins on her heel and runs out of the store, skidding to a stop on the porch and grasping for one of the supports, grateful for the sturdiness of the wood between her shaking fingers. She can't go any further, not like this.
But even out here, away from her father's wrathful gaze and stinging words, she refuses to let the tears leave her eyes, because she knows him. And because she knows him she knows tomorrow everything will be alright. Tomorrow he'll apologize, offer to do anything to make it up to her. That's just the way he is—seething with uncontrollable anger one minute, tender and gentle to a fault the next.
"Betty, honey… I didn't mean to…"
She rips her father's posthumous, tearful apology from her mind. She won't think any more about her mother tonight. She'll think of tomorrow instead, when it'll all be over.
If she can hold out until then.
###
When she next wakes the sun is just beginning to peek through the clouds, its beautiful golden rays producing that special element that gives sunrise its good name. But despite this picture of exquisiteness, there's a chill in the air, with an almost supernatural strain to it that fosters a good deal of uneasiness in her stomach. She curls up into a tight ball, guarding herself against the harsh wind, wondering what she's doing out here at all.
Then she remembers.
Daddy and I had a fight last night. He burned my buckskin jacket. He…he…
She staggers to her feet and stumbles through the store door, bleary-eyed, her crumpled nightgown rubbing against her skin. The scent from last night's incident still hangs heavily in the air, choking her lungs with its cruel fingers.
She carefully treads the steps up to their living space, and she feels her heart beating in her throat. She approaches his door and last night's confidence vanishes.
Does she dare...
Without waiting for the question to settle in her head, she bites the bullet and pushes the door open.
She's met by silence.
She looks worriedly around the simply furnished room—the made bed, the straight-backed chair sitting stoically in the corner. Not a thread is out of place and yet he's not there.
Quietly she slips out of the room, quickly combing the rest of the upstairs. It's all in perfect order—save her room—but he appears to be nowhere.
She shakily goes to explore the store, even though the very idea seems hopeless and intimidating.
That's when she hears the pounding on the door.
Timidly she goes to answer it, even though it's unlocked, and when she opens it she sees O'Rourke on the porch.
She stays silent, staring at him through eyes she's sure are clouded, unable even to ask him what he's doing here at this hour of the morning. He, in turn, doesn't seem at all disconcerted by the fact that he's caught her in her nightwear. Instead, he poses the question she swears changes her life.
"Where's your daddy, Wrangler?"
It's a long, tense moment before she can bear to form the words on her tongue.
"My daddy's gone."
At that acknowledgment her world starts spinning, and everything that happens next is a blur. Someone from the fort hastily forms a search party, which leaves immediately afterwards, while the rest of the town enters a nail-biting state of anticipation.
The search goes on for ten days and nights, every day bringing a new wave of shot down hopes for the townspeople—that is, nothing.
She doesn't remember changing out of her nightgown, though she must have because suddenly she finds herself in a new buckskin jacket and a pair of pants to match. She doesn't recall eating or drinking either.
In fact, the only thing she can feel the entire time are O'Rourke's arms around her, comforting her during what seems like each and every one of those two hundred and forty frightening hours.
On the eleventh day the frazzled group returns, even the horses appearing to drag their hooves. The leader looks to be the most taxed of all, and something in his dull, strained face tells her what he's going to say, even before the words exit his mouth. When they do he says them in a voice as flat as water.
"I'm sorry, Janey girl. He's gone."
Half of Fort Courage seems to be taken aback by the news; the other half is smug in their confirmed suspicions that "ol' Mr. Thrift" was gonna pack up and leave one of these days.
She takes over her post office and general store duties with a quiet strength, acting as if nothing has happened. The books her father kept are a wreck, and she spends most of her off hours trying to straighten them up.
The problem in running the trading post is that she has to see people all day, every day, and as a result it feels like she receives too many looks of pity, too many apologies for her loss. When she does go out the schoolchildren stop talking as she walks by and just stare. At times they even jeer, until one day when she nonchalantly punches a taunting ten year old out over it.
Her father's disappearance is the talk of the town for a while—Fort Courage's deep, dark secret that townspeople with a mysterious streak drop hints about to outsiders.
The town gossips don't have another scandal to cluck over incessantly until some girl becomes pregnant out of wedlock—then they drop the topic like a hot potato in favor of this newer, juicier piece.
It's only after that that she really begins to heal, and she starts by changing the store's name from "Thrift's Trading Post" to "Wrangler Jane's Trading Post." In time things go back to normal, and Fort Courage accepts her on her own. Indeed, her father seems to be only a distant memory, hovering blurrily on the horizon, visible to only the select few who choose to remember.
Occasionally she still receives a sympathetic condolence from a newcomer who's just heard about the incident; she accepts these graciously, more graciously than she'd like to, because whatever their sentiments, she's not sorry that he's gone.
After all, when was he ever really there?
###
It's a winter day a year after her father disappears when she wakes up with a distinct sense that something is wrong but no idea what it is.
Rising from bed she feels hot, and has to practically force herself to her feet. She casts the buckskins she lay out last night aside and goes rummaging through her bureau, until she finds a summer frock. Thus equipped, she goes down to open the trading post.
As the day goes on she gets more than one odd look from her customers, not only because of her dress but also because there's no fire in the stove.
Around four o'clock, after the mail's been distributed, she's gripped with a pain in her side. It passes after a moment, but her unease grows, and when it recurs several more times—and her state of over heatedness gives way to chills—she closes up shop, then staggers up the stairs to her quarters.
Surely she's just tired, only needs a day to rest. Her father used to complain of having pains in his side when he was burned out. That's probably where she gets it from.
Once she's up in her bedroom she slowly changes into her nightgown and huddles under the blankets, hoping to sleep through the cold and the pain, to find warmth and comfort in her dreams.
The evening passes slowly. Sweat feasts on her face and she drifts in and out of a blurry consciousness, unable to completely fall asleep. She's wracked with worry in her more alive moments, terror in her less ones. The pain will leave, but never for too long.
Night falls and she's suddenly awake, but lacks both the energy and the strength to rise. She feels drained, each pang sucking a little bit more out of an already dry barrel.
The clock down in the store chimes eight and she hears the front door creak open. Someone steps inside, and she wonders how on earth she could have forgotten to lock up.
"Wrangler?"
She sighs as she recognizes the voice.
O'Rourke's.
"Janey?"
She quietly groans as she hears him start to come up. The last thing she wants is for him to see her like this.
If she had so much as an ounce of strength left, she'd get up and lock her bedroom door. But she doesn't, and all she can do is wait and listen to his heavy footfalls on the staircase. At least the spasms have ceased for the time being; for that she's grateful.
She hears his knock all too soon.
"Jane? Are you decent?"
She doesn't reply.
He calls for her again before pushing the door open. Looking around, he catches sight of her pale figure. A few long strides see him at her side, down on one knee by the bed.
"What's wrong, Wrangler?" He puts a soothing hand on her clammy face. She sighs.
"I'm just tired."
Gazing into his eyes, she sees an ardent but gentle ember burning.
"You expect me to believe that? The girl I know wouldn't close up just because she's tired."
She shifts, breaking their eye contact.
"Maybe she's changed."
"I don't think so."
Another painful twinge bites her, and she pulls in a tight breath, silently hoping he won't notice.
"Where does it hurt?"
"It doesn't."
"Wrangler…"
She glares at him through annoyed eyes.
"O'Rourke, I'm just tired! Can't you get that through your thick head? Now leave, please." She lifts a shaking hand and points in the direction of the door, willing him to hurry up so he'll be out before the pain gets any worse.
"Where does it hurt, Wrangler?" His voice is adamant and firm this time; she can tell he isn't going to accept any brush-offs.
There's a strained moment of silence before she answers.
"My stomach." She sounds quiet, almost embarrassed as she says it.
"You eaten today?" She feebly shakes her head.
"What did you have for supper last night?"
"Uh…chicken and cornbread."
"Did anyone eat with you?"
"The…the cap'n invited himself over." She almost grimaces as she remembers the man's horrible table manners. "He sick today?"
He sighs. "This might hurt, Janey. I'm sorry." He places one hand over the other and taps her stomach several times. She winces in pain, squelching the urge to cry out.
"What'd you do that for?" she demands, trying to keep a calm note in her voice so as not to plunge into hysterics, letting on how much she really does hurt.
He gets to his feet.
"Stay here, Janey. I'm going to saddle up my horse. We're taking a trip to Gulf City."
"Gulf City?"
"Yeah. You need a doctor, and it's the nearest place."
She tenses as another wave of pain hits her.
Moving is the last thing she wants to do.
"Why do we have to go all the way to Gulf? That's twenty miles, O'Rourke. If there's something wrong with me why couldn't you just bring Doc Martin over? Or the medic?" The last word comes out as a desperate, pain-ridden squeal.
"Slaughter?" he snorts. "I wouldn't trust him with a dead cow, much less something as precious as you, honey. And Doc and the missus are out of town. You know that." He leans down so they're at eye level. "I'll be right back."
He leaves the room and she can hear him take off down the stairs. She lies back, pulling her blankets up around her, wishing for all the world she could just fall asleep and wake up to no pain at all.
A chill ripples through the room, and she forces herself up, teetering over to the bureau. Fishing through the drawers, she pulls out the buckskin pants she discarded earlier and pulls them on under her nightgown, shivering all the while, wishing she had a bedpost tall enough to clutch for support. Instead, she eases herself into a sitting position on the bed. As an afterthought, she reaches for her boots and pulls them over her bare feet.
It seems to take an eon for O'Rourke to return, but she does eventually hear his footfalls on the staircase and struggles to her feet, literally shaking in her boots.
The door opens and, stepping in, he hastily inquires, "Where's your coat, Wrangler?"
She gestures to the open closet door and he yanks the garment out, wrapping it around her quaking figure. As he leads her out of the room, she blinks her eyes furiously, trying to keep her tears at bay.
The stairs look ominous below her and the world—already hazy—begins to reel under her feet. Without any prompting he gently gathers her up in his arms and starts down the stairs.
The air is chilly as he steps out of the door, which she quietly notes that he locks.
She won't be back tonight.
She can vaguely see the figure of his horse—waiting, strangely silent in the night, acting eerily unlike a horse ought to unless he's spooked.
Without a word he sets her down, then boosts her onto the animal's back. Her limbs move mechanically from years of experience.
Once she's secured he climbs on in front of her.
"Hang on tight, Wrangler."
The words have an echoey, unreal quality about them, but she heeds their advice anyway and wraps her arms around his waist.
The next thing she feels is a jolt of motion, then a ragged up and down motion unique to a trotting horse. In time it smoothes out to a canter.
The night's landscape swims dizzily before her open eyes, so she closes them, seeking refuge in perfect darkness, unseen by the blinding white snow.
She loses track of the thumps of the horse's hooves, and the frosty wind seems to lose some of its bite. She can barely even feel the pain punctuating her existence.
Part of her wonders if O'Rourke is too late, if she's already gone over, never to be seen or heard from again.
But something snaps to attention inside her, something unidentifiable, but sole property of the human state.
She's still here.
But she swears the only thing keeping her in the limbo between life and death is the fact that she's clinging to him.
###
Her vision is foggy and her head throbs as she opens her eyes. She's confused, then relieved as she catches sight of a familiar face.
"O'Rourke?" She struggles to sit up, realizing all too quickly that her body is smothered by an ache as if from mass bruising. He gently pushes her back down.
"Easy, Wrangler. Don't overdo it."
Letting her aching head fall onto the pillows behind her, she asks, "What happened?"
"You had your appendix out."
She shifts uncomfortably, barely registering the words. "That why I'm so sore?"
"I reckon so. But the important thing is that you're gonna be alright."
She shakes her head in a feeble attempt to clear it, then does a double take and looks back at him.
"What are you doin' here? Don't you need to be back at the fort?"
"Now don't go worrying 'bout that, Wrangler."
She shrugs, not in the mood to argue, and slips into a restless sleep.
When she wakes next O'Rourke is shaking her gently but firmly by the shoulders.
"Janey? Honey, wake up. We're going home."
She opens her eyes and sits up a little too quickly. The pressure makes her wince a little, but nonetheless she swings her feet over the side of the bed and slides them perfectly into her boots. Shakily getting to her feet, she scans the room for her coat; O'Rourke hands it to her and leads her out the door to where the horse is tied to the hitching post.
"Do you think you can mount?"
She nods, and he offers her a hand to step up from. Then he mounts, and, with her arms once again wrapped around his waist, they head in the direction of Fort Courage. It's a slow, uneventful twenty miles, but there are no words to describe the joy in her soul when she sees the trading post.
He brings the horse to a halt in front of the building and climbs off. She follows suit, and as her feet hit the ground he lifts her off them again, pulling her into a bridal hold. Using a key in his hand, he unlocks the door.
The two of them enter, and she closes her eyes for a moment just to breath in the familiar and beautiful scent of home.
He gently takes her up the staircase to her room.
He carries her over the threshold, her white nightgown billowing around her feet like a bridal dress and her heart twinges. He puts her down on her bed, going through all the motions of tucking her in, and she takes comfort in his warm hands brushing against her sheets.
"Now don't go getting any ideas about leaving this bed, Wrangler. The Doc didn't even want you to come home today. He said another week of bed rest, at least."
"A week? But O'Rourke, the store…"
"Don't worry about the store. The fellows and I'll take care of it. You just take care of yourself, Wrangler. We can't have you getting sick all over again, now can we?"
Hearing genuine concern in his voice, a slight smile creeps onto her face. She sighs.
"Alright, O'Rourke. One week. But no longer. And you fellows better not go scarin' away my customers, or I'll have your heads."
At that, he grins.
"We'll bear that in mind, Wrangler. I, for one, rather value my head, and I'd hate to see it fall into the wrong hands."
They both get a good laugh out of that one, and even though laughing hurts, she smiles, because the pain is worth it as long as she's with him.
The moment doesn't last nearly long enough. He abruptly stands up and clears his throat.
"Well, my seventy-two hours are about up. I should be going."
"Seventy-two hours?"
She ponders the number for a moment, grasping for its significance. Then it clicks.
"O'Rourke…this was your three day pass, wasn't it?"
He bristles. "And if it was?"
"Oh, I'm sorry. You must have had a crummy time thanks to me."
"Wrangler," he leans over to meet her eyes. "When you need me, I wouldn't be anywhere else." He plants a kiss on her forehead. "Now get some sleep, honey."
He draws her curtains and leaves the room, quietly closing the door behind him.
In time she'll be back on her feet and running the store as usual. But for now, she's happy to follow Dr. O'Rourke's orders and rest in the arms of Morpheus.
Years later, in the wake of Wild Eagle's appendectomy, she remembers the incident with startling clarity.
But she never does work up the courage to ask O'Rourke if he recalls it too.
###
She sneaks into the fort sometimes, before the gates close, and lurks in the shadows, waiting until everyone's gone. Then she climbs the ladder into the guard tower.
Are they supposed to post a guard up here at night? She doesn't know, but if they are she hasn't seen hide nor hair of one.
She stands up there, the wind caressing her hair, leaning on the rail and looking over the edge, thinking of him sleeping somewhere below her, and for a time those thoughts satisfy her.
But the day she walks in, everything changes.
Her name's Georgia, but she hails from Massachusetts—Boston, to be exact. She's a war widow, polite and kind but distant, obviously scarred.
He's fascinated.
At first she's rather unbothered by it, but the more she sees them together the less she can brush it off. And suddenly, whenever she's up in the tower, all she can think of are the two of them. She envisions their trysts and despite herself cries over them, hoping for all the world that her imagination is wrong.
One night up there she conjures up a meeting of theirs near Kissin' Rock. She imagines his hand, reaching for Georgia's cheek, the two of them going in for an ardent, passionate kiss…
The hateful image looms before her eyes, and as the tears well up in her eyes she wonders why she puts herself through this torture.
She's jerked out of her unfortunate reverie by a familiar voice.
"Janey?"
She turns on her heel to look at him, even though she recognizes his voice.
Wouldn't she anywhere?
"Hi, O'Rourke." She murmurs, more quietly than the breeze.
He takes a step toward her; she makes no effort to move away.
"What're you doing up here?"
She doesn't know if that's a note of accusation or mere curiosity in his voice.
The tears sting her eyes, and his shadowy face goes blurry. She turns away as she feels the saltwater stain her cheeks, working up a regular storm on her face.
He reaches out a hand, then quickly retracts it and begins to back off.
She finds her voice.
"No, please, don't go O'Rourke."
He silently complies, stepping forward half a step.
"Something you want to get off your chest, Wrangler?" His voice is full of concern and the hint of protectiveness she senses there makes her glow inside, spearing a ray of light through the rain of her tears and forming a rainbow.
She doesn't speak for a long time, and when she does her voice breaks.
"Oh O'Rourke. Why doesn't he ever notice me?"
He pulls her shivering figure into his arms, up against his shirt. His body is warm against the chill of the night, and she wonders how she could ever have shied away from his touch. All she wants to do is stay here forever, never to return to longing or pain, only the comfort and love she feels here with her bright, shining beacon in the darkness.
He holds her like that for a long while, and neither of them say anything. Her tears, quiet though they may be, show no signs of tapering off and continue to soak into the navy blue of his uniform.
He's the one who breaks the silence.
"I guess we're kind of in the same boat, Wrangler. I asked Georgia to marry me, and she turned me down. She said she's already engaged—to a man who's not in the military. That's why I came up here tonight."
Suddenly she chokes back her own sobs and lifts her head from his shoulder, daring to pull back and look him in the eye, almost ashamed for her imposition.
"I'm sorry, O'Rourke."
He shrugs. "Doesn't matter much. I never have been lucky with women. There'll be others. But who's the one making you cry, sweetheart?"
His voice is so warm and inviting, despite his own obvious pain, and for a moment she considers letting it all out, releasing everything she's kept locked in her heart's most secret chamber all these years, everything she's felt toward him since she laid eyes on him. But she realizes she doesn't want to hurt him anymore than he already is by thrusting her affections on his broken heart.
So she lies.
"It's…it's Trooper Huntley."
"Our Indian scout?"
She nods, the dishonesty of it all strangling her vocal cords.
"Well I can't give you much advice there, unless you want to dress as a squaw and steal his heart that way. Wait, I'll tell you what. Trooper Brinkley knows him really well. You want me to talk to him and see if…?"
"No…no, I wouldn't want to…" she trails off, and he nods.
"I understand, Wrangler. You want to get your man yourself."
And yet she can't help but think, that for a few fleeting moments in the guard tower, she already had him.
###
Almost ironically, something changes between them after that incident. All of a sudden he becomes much more distant, and some of their closeness seems to vanish. The encounters they do have too often end in angry words. She finds herself slipping, calling him "Sergeant"—he's always been O'Rourke to her.
She wants desperately to say something to him about it, but deep inside, she knows she never could. It wasn't something they ever spoke of—it was just there, an unspoken bond forged over the years by the flames of trial and triumph. She pines for the old days, wishing she could still find refuge in his arms or seek him out for advice—perhaps even trust her voice to tell him how she cares.
But the thought of it makes her ache. He has Wilma and all the other women dumb enough to look into his eyes and let him melt their hearts. He doesn't need her, not like that, and it snaps her heart in two, because she needs him. It's not a position of her choosing, but nor is it one she'd give up.
The worst part is that she has no idea what brought his sudden coldness on. Did she do something to offend him? Does it wound his virile pride to be seen with a young girl? Or it is it something else, something she knows nothing about?
What she does know is that it hurts to hear the bite in his voice where there was once a special tenderness set aside just for her. And she would let her love lie unreturned for all eternity just to have it gone.
###
When Captain Wilton Parmenter comes to Fort Courage, even before she meets him, he seems to bring a new and refreshing air with him. There's just something different about him, something that sets him apart from the all the countless commanding officers who have filtered in and out of here during her lifetime. She doesn't know what it is, but she sure as heck wants to find out.
When she does meet him, she likes him right off and wishes she had a chance to get to know him better, but, while exceedingly polite and courteous, he seems to be all business, as if there isn't time for anything else. It reminds her a bit of her father's last days running the store, though she hopes with all her heart that Captain Parmenter would never turn out like him.
O'Rourke and Corporal Agarn seem to be pulling them together from the very start, and O'Rourke is the one responsible for their first tryst, of sorts.
She and Parmenter meet under the moonlight, in a quiet spot, and talk for a while about nothing in particular. He's charming, if a bit awkward, and they have a good time.
When a brief silence falls between them, she gazes at his face, bathed in white lunar light and radiating placidness.
Suddenly, without thinking, she places a quiet kiss on his cheek.
It's the first time she's ever kissed anyone, and yet it feels so natural, as if, in that moment, it was entirely meant to be.
He looks at her, surprise but not displeasure in his eyes.
She kisses him several more times before the night is through, and her compliments for him flow like water. She doesn't know what it is—pent up affection that she's never been able to share with anyone or genuine attraction. By the time they part ways, she's confused but feels warm and cozy inside. The memories of their meeting linger long afterwards, keeping her up late into the night basking in the afterglow.
And she knows the familiar longing ache, the shivery and yet hot all over feeling when she wakes up the next morning.
It isn't long after that O'Rourke puts his hand on her cheek and tells her she's in love. It feels a tiny bit like the old days, with the softness in his voice and the chill running up her spine, but it still makes a certain ache swell up and throb in her chest. It doesn't feel right, for the man she's watched from afar with longing eyes for so many years to be telling her that she's in love with another. And yet, there's something very special about Wilton. She can't pinpoint it, but it's there.
For two years she hangs on his arm, trying every trick in the book to get him to notice her, and learning the pain of seeing him with other girls. Her labors are rewarded when he finally begins to reciprocate.
When they're together, she finds herself in a state of total bliss. She opens up with him. She loves him, and being around him. There are no secrets between them.
Except for one.
###
It's two days after her twenty-third birthday that Wilton gets down on one knee and proposes, in his bumbling yet endearing way. They're right outside his office, by that troublesome board he's forever tripping over, and his white gloved hands are shaking as he holds out the ring box, the specimen within a fine example of jewelry making. She knows he sent for it from Philadelphia.
She's numb, and her lips tremble as she gives him her answer.
"No."
He's shocked at her reply; his face makes that plain.
Did she expect anything less?
"But…Janey…" She can already see the tears he's trying to fend off slipping through his guard and out of his eyes. The sight rips her soul in two, and she's almost crying herself.
"Wilton, no. You deserve better."
She spins on her heel and runs, away from him and his office, through the open gates, catching herself as she trips.
Her stomach churning, she turns back for one final look at him in the distance—on his knee, crying, in dress uniform, dust flying up around him and the ring he wanted her to have. He calls to her.
"Jane…please…"
She tears her eyes away from the scene and dashes toward the trading post, bounding up its steps in record time. Slamming the door behind her, she locks it. Taking a step, she collapses, weeping into the floorboards.
Over the months, she'd hoped her feelings would change.
But they haven't.
She tried to alter her mind and heart so it would work, but she couldn't. It's true what they say—she's strong-willed, and somehow she'll get what she wants, no matter what it is, no matter how long she has to hold out for it. She wishes with all her heart that she were the one for Wilton, that she could marry him and forget everything that's happened before this point, but deep down, she knows it couldn't happen. She could never run this trading post, so near to the fort, so near to O'Rourke, or listen to Wilton talk of him, knowing at she could never have him, longing for him all the more while he remained as enticing and unreachable as Tantalus's grapes. And even on another post, she knows there would be a colossal pit, a void only O'Rourke can fill because he always has. Besides, this is home, and she knows in all the earth there's no place quite like Fort Courage—there never has been and there never will be.
It makes her throb inside, because the last thing she ever wants to do is hurt Wilton, who she can't quite place her love for. It's cruel, how much she wants to marry him and yet can't because she'll never make him as happy as he deserves to be. He's special to her in some way O'Rourke will never be. He was her first honest-to-goodness beau, her first kiss, the first man who ever paid a whit of real attention to her or bought her a ring. He brought something extraordinary into her life, the thing every girl dreams of when they hear the words "first love."
But, despite what she told O'Rourke and Agarn all those years ago, Wilton wasn't her first love. That distinction belongs to another man, a man she's loved more and longer, one who's both the cause and relief of her worst heartache. It's a vicious cycle, because deep inside her she knows that it will never pan out as she'd like it to, and yet it's what her heart has always longed for above everything else. It's not about to stop now.
Does she love Wilton? Yes. Yes, of course she does. And that's the very reason she has to let go.
In the end, through it all, she'll always love O'Rourke the most.
And she can't marry the man she loves second best.
###
Wilton requests and is granted a transfer soon afterwards. This time nothing the enlisted men can do will stop him. He's still cordial and polite to her, and never seems to have let on about her rejection to O'Rourke or Agarn—as far as she can tell, they're still shooting Cupid's arrows. She's there to see his stage off, and he even gives her a hug before he leaves.
There's no doubt in her mind he'll find a girl ready to stay with him for the duration. She's out there, somewhere.
The girl she once thought she was.
###
It's a quiet March evening after Wilton's left when O'Rourke rushes into the store, a tad winded.
Leaning up against the counter, he says to her, "Secure your windows, Jane. The Shugs are attacking."
"The Shugs?" She looks up from the paperwork she's doing. "Just let me get my gun." She spins to reach for the weapon, but his voice halts her.
"No Janey. Captain Horton doesn't want you in on this."
"What? O'Rourke, you know I'm the best shot in…"
"I know, Wrangler. But this is the first Indian attack since the old man's been here. He wants to prove something about F Troop. But once he sees that they're nothing special, I'm sure your position will be secured."
"I don't care what he says, I'm…"
"Janey." His voice has a sharp edge to it.
She hesitates, but then gives him a slight bow of her head.
"Good girl, Janey. I have to go." He turns to leave, but something compels her to speak.
"O'Rourke…"
For some reason, she wants him there for just a moment longer.
She walks up to him, standing an arm's length away, wishing she could kiss him with the same abandon she used to kiss Wilton. Instead, she swallows.
"Bring the men back here after you're done. I'll have some food ready."
He nods. "Will do, Janey."
And then he's gone.
###
She's putting out the large plates of egg salad sandwiches she's prepared—she knows he loves them—and stirring the two tall pitchers of lemonade when the door creaks open. She turns as Duffy and Dobbs stumble in, sweaty, Duffy bleeding profusely from the temple.
"You fellows okay?"
Dobbs nods, though a wince tugs at his face. "I'm alright. But you better have a look at Duffy."
The older man waves a hand. "It's just a nick, Wrangler. Bring me a handkerchief."
She pulls one off a shelf, making a note to put it on his account, and hands it to him.
"Where's the rest of the troop?"
In answer to her query, a mob of soldiers burst through the door at that moment, pouncing on the food on the table. She scans the group, searching for O'Rourke.
She doesn't see him.
A burnished, well-groomed man steps in, and she charges towards him.
"Captain Horton, where's Sergeant O'Rourke?"
He slowly surveys her face, then shakes his head.
"I'm sorry, Miss Thrift. He's been killed."
For a split second she's numb, but when the realization hits her she pushes him out of the way, the lance of terror spearing her heart, and she rushes out the door, hoping—praying—that it isn't true.
She approaches the battlefield with trepidation. Arrows and shells bristle the area, with a few abandoned guns lying among them. The fort gates appear tight and secure. Her eyes begin to scan the rest of the combat zone.
They grind to a halt on one spot.
She shivers as she looks on, salty paths already being drawn on her cheeks, and she ducks behind a tree, watching the scene unfold.
Sobs wrack Agarn's body as he leans over an impaled corpse. One hand covers his eyes; the other grasps the arrow.
"Why'd you have to go now, Sarge? Why? F Troop needs you. I need you. What am I gonna do? And what about O'Rourke Enterprises? I can't run it by myself, Sarge. I can't."
He weeps for a few moments more, then, his hand shivering, yanks the arrow out of his friend's chest.
"Don't you worry, Sarge. I'll kill every one of them 'til I find the one who got you. And I'll kill him with this very arrow." He holds its stained tip up against the dark sky, his silhouette in the moonlight striking a horrible, bloodthirsty pose.
The corporal quietly rises, his knuckles white on the lethal weapon wielded by the Shugs, and he heads for his quarters. When she can no longer see him, she steals out from her hiding place and approaches the spot where he just was, dread eating up her insides like acid.
Fresh blood swells up from where Agarn pulled the arrow, and she lays her cheek against O'Rourke's chest, letting the sticky vital fluid run up against her face and into her eye, stinging.
She weeps endlessly, her tears soaking into his uniform, mingling with the blood's metallic scent and his woody, ever-present cologne. His sergeant's stripes shiver under her quaking hands, almost as if she's threatening to strip him of his rank as some kind of twisted, posthumous thanks for leaving her.
After an eternity, she speaks, the words burning her throat like a thousand matches.
"I turned him down, you know. Wilton—before he left, he asked me to marry him, and I said no. I'm the reason he asked for that transfer."
She expects no response but still pauses, aching for one.
"You see, there was a man who'd already stolen my heart. He took it when I was a little girl and he never gave it back. Even in death, he keeps it. My first love. I knew Wilton deserved someone who could love him entirely, with her whole heart. I couldn't do that."
Sadness tightens around her throat like a noose, and she doesn't know where she finds the strength to go on.
"You…you wanna know who that man was? He…he was the man who taught me how to ride a horse and shoot a gun. The man who carried me to Gulf City on his horse when I had appendicitis and spent his three-day pass at my bedside, making sure I was alright, and then ran the store for me until I was back on my feet. The one who comforted me in the guard tower one night when I was crying, even though he was hurting too. He brought me candy every two weeks, and was always ready to go to any length so I'd be happy—or know I was messing up. I don't remember how many times he gave me a shoulder to cry on. He wanted me to get my man—he just didn't know which man I was after. He always thought it was Huntley or…or Wilton. But no. That…" she swallows, "that man was you, O'Rourke."