Page 71 of Now Comes the Mist

“Yes, I remember,” I say softly. “I remember the wolf. But I was dreaming.”

He pats my hand. “You had no idea what was happening, poor girl. It wasn’t your fault.”

But it was. All of it was.

I let out a long, slow breath. “I heard you say Quincey was here. May I see him, please?”

The room seems smaller when Quincey Morris fills it with his warm, cheerful presence. He and Jack exchange a quiet word before Jack leaves us alone, and then the cowboy is sitting beside me with his bright smile and kind brown eyes shining at me.

“I reckon it was about time you called for me.” His broad, friendly accent with its long drawling vowels is soothing, and he is big and solid and sturdy. Everything about him seems reliable and poised for action, and when he bends to kiss my hand, I see the glint of his ever-present pistols at his sides. “I was ready to ride to the ends of the earth to get you whatever medicine you needed. How are you?”

“Better, now that you’re here,” I say softly.

Quincey furrows his brow as he takes me in. I must look very different from the lively, flirtatious girl he had danced with in February, but ever the gentleman, he says nothing of this. “I’ve missed your conversation and your pretty face. You left me bereft when you packed up for the seaside, you know. Though I have been keeping myself busy, staying with our friend Jack.”

“What’s this I hear about you returning to America?”

He gives a light, playful stomp of his boots. “Well, little lady, these feet of mine are getting restless,” he says. “I hunger for those open skies I was telling you about not so long ago. And there’s always work to be done on the ranch. Not to mention I’ve been in England for quite enough time, I think, imposing on good doctor Jack’s hospitality.”

“I don’t think that’s true. You imposing, that is. I think Jack would be happy to have you stay with him the whole year. Anyone would.”

His eyes crinkle at me. “Now that there’s a nice compliment.”

I hold out my hand and he wraps his warm fingers around it. “I will miss you, Quincey Morris,” I say, my heart aching. “You have been a light. You’ve cheered me and made me laugh, and I wish with all my heart that we could dance together again.”

“But don’t you remember?” he asks, puzzled. “You invited me to your wedding next week. I’m sure Mr. Holmwood wouldn’t be so stingy as to refuse me a jig with his bride.”

I swallow against the threat of tears. “I’m not sure it will happen. The wedding, I mean. I feel that it will never come to pass now.”

Quincey’s face crumples with concern. “Lucy, what are you saying? A woman like you has far too much life in her to let a little accident get thebetter of her. I knew it the first time I saw you. I said to myself,That girl has got some grit. You can fight anything you put your mind to, least of all this.”

I can’t help smiling. “You think I have grit? You, with your bravery and your pistols?”

“You’ve got heaps and heaps of grit,” he says seriously. “Grit isn’t just for cowboys.”

“I wish I could tell you everything. I have a feeling you wouldn’t hate me and you might understand better than anyone. Dr. Van Helsing or Mamma or Jack, or even my darling Arthur.”

“You can tell me anything you want to, and I won’t ever hate you. I promise.”

But I cannot stand the thought of seeing his open, honest face warp into disgust. I could not bear it if he turned away, revolted by the sight of me and what I have chosen. “I can’t. I’m not brave enough, and I don’t want you to remember me that way,” I say. “I want you to ride your horse on those grassy plains, in that clean open air, and think of me as a girl you once danced with who had a little grit. Perhaps I’ll be watching you from that big, blue Texas sky.”

“Lucy,” he says, understanding dawning on his face. “Are you saying goodbye?”

My heart is breaking inside of me. “I’m saying goodbye,” I agree. “Because they can fill me with as much blood as they like, and they can give me all the medicine in the world, but they cannot erase this stain from my soul. I am dying, Quincey—”

“You’re talking nonsense,” he says sternly, even as I see his eyes taking in my pallor and weakness. I must be a sight, having lain ill and exhausted and unwashed for a week. “None of what you’re saying is true. And to show you I don’t believe it, I’m entrusting something to your care that I want you to return to me when we dance at your wedding. All right?” He reaches into his breast pocket and pulls out three small objects, which he places into my palm.

I blink my tear-blurred eyes, and when my vision clears, I see a round, smooth grey stone veined with red and gold; a charred lump of silvery metal; and a piece of flat dark flint carved into the shape of a triangle, a sharp point at the tip.

Quincey points at the stone. “That is a piece of my land. Land my family has settled, free and clear, years and years after our forebears were taken by force to a country that didn’t want them, only their labor.That”—hetouches the flint—“is an Indian arrowhead, given to me by a great man. Andthisis a bullet I dug right out of my leg after a run-in with bandits. The dangers of the American West are as great as her beauty,” he adds with a wry smile at my shock.

I run my thumb gently over the items, feeling the weight of their meaning in my palm.

“I carry many talismans of protection when I travel, but these, I keep against my heart. Right here.” He pats his expansive chest. “The stone reminds me of what home means and what it has cost my family. The arrowhead tells me to never forget that the land I stand on was stolen from someone else. And the bullet is a way to remember that life can end in the blink of an eye.” His voice is gruff with emotion. “They are objects of faith, respect, and strength. Choose one.”

“Quincey, I cannot take these from you—”

“You’re not taking them from me,” he says solemnly. “You’re just holding on to one of them for a week. I know you’re a woman of your word, so you better keep this promise, you hear me? These talismans and what they mean to me—home, family, God’s love and blessing—they’ve saved my hide many a time. Now let one of them be a talisman foryou.”

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