ALL NIGHT LONG: Chapter Three
"April 6, 1832, Jefferson
Barracks, St. Louis: 'It is Politics, this War. It is about Profit, and
Power. A man Wants, and thus the end shall justify the means. Old Hickory
may Want all he wishes. He may Want the lead mines. He may Want the Sac
subdued. But I Want a horse--chastising a mounted Enemy is difficult for
even the most dedicated soldier if he shall lack a mount. Congress does
not Want to pay the players, yet demands a performance. I am asked to deliver
the Impossible, but I swore an Oath to serve my Country and I shall uphold
that Oath.' -- Lieutenant Lewis Hudson, from a letter to his mother, Augustina"
Rik stared at the bossy
bit standing in his kitchen, then turned and grabbed his keys off the counter,
ignoring the white envelope propped against his coffeemaker.
He stalked from the kitchen,
well aware he was acting like a jerk. Miz Annie Beckett hadn't really done
anything wrong, except upset his peace and quiet, leave him feeling like
a beggar and springing on him an unwelcome surprise.
Dammit, she was pretty; with
her dark, curling hair, exotic-looking eyes, straight eyebrows, and an
unexpectedly wide smile.
Needing a moment to reorder
his thoughts, Rik headed to the entryway. While he yanked on his dress
boots, the thump of thick-soled footsteps sounded on the floor behind him.
When the woman followed him outside to the porch, Buck started barking,
and she yelped in alarm.
Rik glanced over his shoulder.
She stood with her back to the railing, leaning away from the dog, a position
which pulled the fabric of her blouse tight over a right nice pair of breasts.
He looked away just as she turned to him, eyes wide with alarm.
"Buck, down," he ordered
in a warning tone, and the dog flopped down, laid his nose on crossed paws,
and heaved a gusty sigh, as if saying: You never let me have any fun!
Rik walked down the porch
steps toward the detached garage, where his white dually pickup and horse
trailers were parked, leaving the woman to follow.
Nope, not at all what he'd
expected. Her letters said she'd been working on her project for "years,"
so he'd pictured her older and stern-looking. Sweet young things like her
should be at home giving promising smiles to a husband and tucking little
kids into bed, not roaming alone around the countryside and accepting rides
from strange men.
The air inside the garage
smelled musty, thick with the scents of old gasoline and oil, and as a
sudden heat prickled his skin, Rik pulled at his shirt. He climbed into
the truck and barely waited until she'd done the same before cranking the
ignition. The pickup started with the roar of a well-maintained engine,
and he backed out of the garage.
When he took off in a spin
of gravel, she grabbed for the door handle. "I'm not in any hurry."
"I am. The sooner I get you
to the Hollow, the sooner I can get back to work."
He sped along the narrow
road and around a corner, barely touching the brakes, and her knuckles
whitened. "Relax, Miz Beckett. I've been driving these roads for years,
you know."
"And you can still die on
these roads, you know. Slow down!"
"No point. We're here." Rik
took a sharp left onto a deeply rutted dirt road, then brought the truck
to a swaying halt before a locked metal gate with a NO TRESPASSING sign
sporting an editorial bullet hole smack in the middle of the O.
"It's as far as I drive.
We'll walk the rest of the way."
She gazed ahead at the grassy
field leading to a wooded, rocky patch of land that, in Rik's opinion,
wasn't much to get excited about. Then she climbed out of the truck and
walked ahead. In the sunlight her hair shone like polished mahogany, and
the creases of her skirt skimmed the curves of her bottom.
After a moment Rik followed
her, wishing he'd brought along another soda. Man, it was hot.
"Has the land here ever been
farmed or homesteaded?"
"Nope."
"So these hills, all bristling
with pine, maple, and oak, are as untouched as when he was here."
She talked like a bad movie--and
who the hell was "he"?
"The Hollow's still up a
bit. Go on."
Inside the woods, the light
faded, and the heavy heat eased. The place smelled dank and earthy, reminding
him of hazy, long-ago summer days spent at the Hollow, hiding with his
brothers as they ogled Playboy magazines and guzzled Grandpa Ed's
homemade root beer.
Without warning, Annie Beckett
stopped and bent to look at the ground and Rik almost tripped over her.
"What are these leafy plants
called?" she asked.
"Trillium. Earlier in the
summer they have white flowers," he answered, scowling at the shapely bottom
thrust up toward him.
"Must be pretty." She looked
over her shoulder, and her mouth tightened to a straight line as she realized
what he'd been staring at.
Tough. The woman had a nice
ass, and if she was going to point it at him like that, he was going to
look.
A twig snapped behind them,
and she jerked upright, unease replacing her look of annoyance. "What was
that?"
"Don't worry. The only wild
animals around here are the Nelson boys down the road." Rik rubbed his
palm over his jaw, eyeing her. "But you can probably handle them just fine,
being so used to men and all."
She looked at him as if he'd
spoken in a foreign language, then made a noise of disgust. "When you're
not being obnoxious on purpose, are you sort of a nice guy? Or do I just
bring out all your sterling qualities at once?"
"Obnoxious? What do you expect?
I said you can work here, but I'm not gonna pretend to be happy about it.
And you might think about being a little nicer to the guy who owns the
private property you're standing on."
"Oh, no. Don't you go there,"
she retorted, her cheeks bright red. "You've got a pretty nice butt yourself,
but I'm not kissing it."
A reluctant smile tugged
at Rik's mouth at that little zinger. She stared at him as if waiting
for something, then shook her head and marched away, hips swishing from
side to side with each forceful step.
He watched her and her swishes
for a moment longer. "Hey, hold up--where you going? This here's Black
Hawk's Hollow, Miz Beckett."
"Please." She stopped and
looked back over her shoulder. "Do my ears a favor and call me Annie."
Closing a hand over the camera
hanging around her neck, she slowly walked around. As far as Rik could
tell, no rock or leaf bud or sapling went unexamined--or untouched.
She stopped, aimed the camera
at the trillium, and clicked a shot with a satisfied smile.
Rik watched her, frowning.
Even if he didn't want her around getting in his way, he had bailed
out on her at the last minute. It wouldn't hurt to give her a chance.
"So it really is a hollow."
Her words broke across his thoughts. "A wooded coulee nestled within the
embrace of a jagged outcropping of brownish red rock and carpeted with
brown leaves and green, spade-shaped trillium."
She talked like she was dictating
to a tape or reading from an encyclopedia, and eyed the Hollow in the same
way she'd stared at him earlier, camera in hand, as if he were a bowl of
fruit to arrange and photograph.
Weird chick.
"What kind of rock formation
is this?"
"Beats me. I'm a farmer,
not a geologist."
She sent him a cool look,
then ran her hands over the rock. Her fingers were long, with short, unpainted
nails, and she traced the grooves and cracks, touching its dips and rises
as if it were a lover's body.
Enough of that! He'd better
get back to work, instead of standing there like a fool checking out some
strange woman who was likely to be nothing but a pain in the butt for the
next few weeks.
But he bet her fingers would
be soft and strong, and she'd be one bossy handful in bed.
"Hard...smooth," she said,
oblivious to his thoughts. "Can't be sandstone. This isn't a glacial region,
is it?"
Glacial would be good, right
about now. He pulled at his damp his shirt again. "Glaciers didn't get
this far south."
"Any caves around here?"
"Some. Not on the Hollow,
though, if that's what you mean."
"How about lead mines?"
"You know your stuff," he
said, impressed. "Most of the lead mines were south of here, at places
like Mineral Point and Galena. What are you getting at? You're not digging
holes or anything, are you?"
"I'm just asking questions,"
she said quickly. "Right now, I'm doing a history of the area and gathering
details. If old Chief Black Hawk was hiding behind a tree, people want
to know if it was a burr oak or a red pine. When you're re-creating worlds,
you need to get the details right."
"I told you Black Hawk and
his band didn't stop here."
"But the army did."
"According to the family
stories, yeah. Fire circles from the camp were still around when old Ole
built the first house."
"Ole?"
"The first Magnusson here.
He bought the land in 1844, years after the war."
"Your family's lived here
for over a hundred and fifty years?" When he nodded, she whistled and said,
"Wow. Impressive."
The bright interest in her
eyes made him uncomfortable. He took a step back. "I've got work to do."
"Then go on. I'd like to
stay and take a few shots. I'll head back on my own."
Rik eyed her skirt and earth-mama
sandals. "It's a long walk."
She arched a brow. "I'm used
to walking, and I'm not the helpless, fragile sort."
No kidding. She'd already
moved away from him, camera in hand, when he said, "You got a watch on?"
"Of course!"
"Good. I'll be back in an
hour to pick you up."
"You don't --"
"Just be ready in an hour.
The sun will be setting by then, and the woods get dark pretty fast. I
don't like the idea of you out here alone." She'd probably fall off the
bluff or something, then sue him. As Rik backed away, he called, "And you
better watch out for the Wailing Woman."
She turned sharply. The tower
of rock behind her blocked out the sun, wrapping her in shadows so that
he couldn't clearly see her face. "Wailing Woman?"
"Our local ghost."
Her smile flashed bright
and wide. "A ghost! That's exactly the sort of detail I'm looking for.
Have you seen it?"
Rik stopped. Full of surprises,
this Annie Beckett. "Nope. But some of my family have, and my old man saw
her once."
"Can I pick your brains later
about the family stories?"
"Do you believe in ghosts?"
"No, I don't, but that's
not what I asked you."
Rik laughed. "You sure can
try, Miz Beckett."
"Annie!"
"Okay--Annie. Now I've got
a question for you. What's this about, anyway? What are you looking for?"
"As I told you in my letters,
I'm following the journey of an infantry officer who disappeared in 1832."
"You didn't say anything
about the disappearing part," Rik said.
She blinked. "Only because
it was too complicated to go into in a few letters."
Sounded cagey to him. "So
who was he? Somebody important?"
Annie hesitated, then said,
"No."
Puzzled, he asked, "It's
not going to change history or anything?"
"No." Her voice had gone
cool again. "My angle on this project is that it's a unique human interest
story."
"Sounds like a lot of trouble
for nothing."
"Depends on what you call
nothing. Lieutenant Lewis Hudson was an only son. His mother doted upon
him, his father wanted him to go into politics, and his four younger sisters
adored him. He was crazy in love with a girl named Emily, whose father
didn't want her to marry a frontier army officer."
With each quiet word, she'd
walked closer. The breeze fluttered her flowery skirt and ruffled strands
of dark hair that had escaped her braid--but those warm, woodsy brown eyes
had turned hard and sharp, startling him into silence.
"He came from an Ohio family
who'd made their fortune in mining iron ore, then went to West Point and
graduated in the top ten of his class. He was only twenty-two when the
army claimed he deserted. I don't believe that, any more than I believe
a man's life is 'nothing.'"
"No need to get mad," Rik
said, turning away, suddenly impatient to get back to work. "I figure I've
got a right to know what you're up to. Just go on and do your thing and
leave me alone to do mine. That's all I ask."
###
Annie watched Magnusson trot
down to his truck, negotiating rocks, branches, and ruts with an easy grace.
Too bad. She wanted to see him fall flat on his red-necked, bad-tempered
butt.
Nothing was going as she'd
anticipated. And the nerve of that man, insinuating she'd better kiss up
because he had something she wanted!
With a sigh of frustration,
she sat on the ground, cool and giving beneath her, and leaned back against
the rough rock of the Hollow.
What on earth was the key
to this man's cooperation?
Only money came to mind,
though he didn't appear hard up for cash. Still, he'd avoided touching
the check she'd held out to him, and when she'd written to him, it had
all been no, no, no--right up until she offered money.
Of course he must need money;
everybody needed money at some time, for one thing or another.
The easiest, most convenient
way to handle this would be to board with Magnusson--an option she'd resorted
to often enough in the past--and offer him a weekly rental fee too attractive
to refuse. It'd tip the scales of control back in her direction, if only
a little, and give him a reason to be magnanimous.
Annie peered through the
canopy of tree branches toward the sky. Okay. So her plan was a bit underhanded.
But he wasn't playing nice, either, and it wasn't as if boarding with him
would be a breeze. He was uncouth, and he didn't appear to like her much,
even if she had caught him eyeing her bottom.
"Lewis, Lewis," she said,
rubbing her brows. "You better be here. If you really did desert and run
off with some Indian cutie, I'll be pretty ticked off."
As the last echo of her voice
died away, smothered in the silence of the woods, a sudden chill stole
over her. She glanced at the dense brush and brittle spread of brown leaves,
at massive old trees and the dried, rotting hulks of dead ones...but saw
nothing worrisome. No wisps of wailing specters anywhere.
The light was fading, that
was all. Annie rubbed briskly at her prickly goose bumps, then stood. Time
to get to work.
First she roved around to
get a feel for the area: up and down the bluff, then along sloping fields
and a patch of grassy prairie that lay outside the woods. She followed
the progress of a shallow creek as it gurgled around rocks and through
the tangled, exposed roots of trees. Lastly, she climbed the rocky incline
of the Hollow again, surveying the land as far as the eye could see.
So quietly beautiful--these
checkerboard fields colored in green and gold and black earth, the pockets
of woods tucked into seams between fields and rolling hills, all cross-hatched
by country roads and winding, nourishing veins of streams. She glimpsed
other farmhouses, other barns flanked by tall silos, and tiny dots of cattle
in the pastures. Cows and more cows, as if Holsteins outnumbered humans
in this part of Wisconsin. America's Dairy Land was living up to its reputation.
But no traces of war remained.
Whatever pain and suffering had occurred here in 1832, it had left no mark.
Almost no mark, anyway.
The cost of war touched
me but a little, for long ago my innocence died at that place they now
call Black Hawk's Hollow.
The truth she'd come for
was here: she could feel it in her bones.
Annie wondered what the Hollow
had looked like when Lewis was here. Hilly, of course, with acres upon
acres of trees and valleys, and seas of tall grasses and wildflowers undulating
like waves in the breeze. Wild, and untouched.
In her mind, she heard words--words
in faded ink on brittle paper, memorized long ago--and as always, she 'heard'
these in a young man's deep, pleasant voice: I have tried to preserve
a bloom. I know not what it is called, but its blue color reminds me of
your eyes. When I see these flowers, I think of you and such thoughts,
Dearest Emily, help me keep faith during these tedious days and nights.
I am pleased your father warms to the idea of our marriage, but of course
he is right to be so concerned. It is no life for a delicate soul.
The long-ago "bloom" Lewis
had sent to his sweetheart, Emily Oglethorpe, had been a bright blue chicory
flower.
It grew in fields or along
ditches, so Annie made her way toward the road. Before long, she spotted
several chicory plants growing beside a thicket of frothy Queen Anne's
lace.
Camera in hand, she walked
around the flowers, taking in details and angles, colors and textures.
The sky, under a setting sun, had faded to a delicate pinkish purple.
Satisfied with the light,
she got down on her belly in the dirt, twisting her body to the angle she
needed for the perfect picture of a wild chicory's periwinkle flower, its
simple little face tipped toward the fading sun.
To be safe, she snapped another
six shots from several other angles, then stood and brushed dust and grass
from her skirt and blouse. Almost absently, she plucked a blossom in memory
of the blue-eyed sweetheart who'd never married her dashing young officer
or subjected her delicate soul to a life on the frontier.
Annie tucked the flower into
her hair, then glanced at her watch. Almost time to go. She turned toward
the road and in the distance spotted a white truck cresting a hill.
She perched on the gate,
watching as Magnusson turned off the road and drove toward her, bouncing
along the uneven ground. He parked, leaving the engine idling.
"Hey," he called as he opened
the door and jumped to the ground, sending up puffs of dust beneath his
boots. "Let's go."
Annie slipped down from the
fence. "Thanks for picking me up. You really didn't have to, but I appreciate
it."
He tipped his head to one
side, frowning a little, and Annie noticed his shirt was the exact same
blue color of a chicory blossom. "You got a weed in your hair."
She sighed, and said, "It's
a pretty flower."
Without waiting for a response,
Annie climbed up into the truck. After a moment Magnusson slid into his
seat, put the truck in gear, and sent them lurching slowly toward the road.
Although he didn't speak,
she was still aware of his solid male presence beside her, and scooted
closer to the door. Several long seconds passed before she risked a quick,
discreet peek at him. Her gaze settled on his hands; on long fingers with
half-moons of dirt beneath the nails and reddish hair on his forearms and
hands that almost glowed in the golden light.
She eyed her dusty legs and
dirt-smudged skirt, the blouse glued to her skin again by perspiration--and
she wore a weed in her hair, as he'd so kindly pointed out.
Oh, well. Getting ravished
by Vikings wasn't on her agenda, anyway. "Mr. Magnusson?"
"Call me Rik. It's shorter."
"You live alone, don't you?"
He hesitated, then said,
"Mostly."
Not the answer she'd hoped
for, but close enough. "I bet you put in some long days working your farm,
which leaves that big house empty most of the time."
The tips of his mustache
turned down. "Get to the point."
"I have a proposition for
you."
His gaze lingered on her
mouth before moving to a point below her face, then back to the road. "No
offense, but I'm not interested."
The air inside the truck
had grown hot and tense, and her skin flushed with anger--his intent, no
doubt. Annie counted to five before saying calmly, "I'd like to pay you
to rent a room at your place."
"Forget it."
"I'm offering because it'll
save me a lot of travel time between my hotel and the Hollow." And the
Black Hawk Inn was expensive, so moving on-site would save her money, too.
When he still said nothing, she added dryly, "That means the sooner I finish
my work, the sooner you can get rid of me."
Another moment's hesitation.
Then, "No."
"Two hundred fifty dollars
a week. That's some easy money, Mr. Magnusson...Rik. What do you say to
that?"
He didn't answer and remained
quiet for so long that Annie feared she'd misread him. Maybe money wasn't
the key to this man's cooperation, after all.
When he halted the truck
at a stop sign at the top of a hill, he turned toward her. "Do you always
offer to move in with strange men, Miz Beckett?
"If it's necessary, yes.
My work takes me all over the country, often where there are no hotels
or bed-and-breakfasts." He continued to stare at her, and she added, "I'm
used to living with strangers. And my instincts about people are quite
good."
His brows shot upward. "Yeah?
And what do your instincts tell you about me?"
"That you're a decent guy,
and can be trusted to do the right thing." God, she hoped so, anyway.
"Anything else?"
"You don't like me very much."
"I don't like surprises,"
he said after a moment.
Trying not to sound desperate,
she asked, "But will you at least think about it?"
He put the truck back in
gear and turned the corner. Several nerve-wracking moments passed before
he glanced her way, and said, "Yeah."