The Beloved Woman by Deborah Smith

see one as special as you, they’ll do anything to have her.”
    She began to cry again, to her shame, but coherent thought had nearly deserted her and she was half asleep. “You’re no better than them. You want to make me
a-tsi-na-Ha-i
. A captive. A slave.”
    His hand tightened on hers. He bent close to her, his mustache brushing her ear, and said gruffly, “I reckon that’s partly true. I’ll do anything to have you.” He kissed her cheek. “Now rest, Katie. I’ll leave you alone till you say different.”
    J USTIS PACED THE aisle of the Gallatin-Kirkland General Store, a cigar clenched between his teeth. Rebecca and Sam stood behind the counter, safely out of his way.
    “One more day,” he said angrily. “If she doesn’t eat by tomorrow, I’ll force the damned food down her.”
    “Justis, she’s lost her whole family,” Rebecca said. “Let her grieve.”
    “It’s been a week! What has she swallowed—a little soup, a few glasses of milk. That’s all! I’ve done what I said. I’ve left her alone, I’ve not set a foot in her room or spoken a word to her!”
    He stopped pacing to punch his fist into a smoked ham hanging from a low beam on the ceiling. “She never comes out!”
    “I can’t blame her.” Rebecca slapped a ledger shut and shook a finger at him. “She feels cornered. You ought to give her a fair share of gold and send her back to Philadelphia, where she can start a life among people who’ll offer her a better chance at happiness.”
    “Who’s she got there? Nobody! She even admitted to you that she couldn’t go live with that doctor again, not after his nephew caused such a scandal in the family.”
    “Justis Gallatin, if you
ever
let her know that I told you that story, I’ll have Cookie put a purgative in your biscuits!”
    “Becky!” Sam exclaimed reproachfully, fighting a smile.
    Justis tossed his cigar into the unlit iron stove at the center of the store, then rammed both hands through his hair in frustration. Thinking about Katherine’s experiences with that young dandy in Philadelphia made him itch to fight.
    “Blue-blooded bastard,” he muttered. “He courted her, did all his fancy stuff—read poetry to her, all that high-falutin’ nonsense—and after she decided that he was a fine gentleman, he tried to kidnap her! And then told everybody she was the one at fault! He just wanted an exotic doxy!”
    “Isn’t that what you want?” Sam asked bluntly.
    The air seemed to freeze. Justis faced his friend and saw reproach in his eyes. Rebecca wore a look of horror.
    Guilt was all that kept Justis from anger. “I don’t know what I want,” he said finally, defeated. “Except I never met a woman like her before, and I’m not gonna let her get away.”
    His goal in life was to lord it over the kind of people who had turned up their noses at him for being born the son of dirt-poor Irish immigrants. Courting an Injun, whether for wife or mistress, was not exactly a smart thing to do if he wanted to rise in society, but Katie Blue Song’s appeal overwhelmed her liabilities. And frankly, he wanted her so much, he didn’t care about the consequences.
    “Let her go,” Rebecca urged, shaking her head. “She deserves a husband, white or red, but a husband. I know you can sweet-talk her into some kind of arrangement. I’ve seen how women humble themselves just to get in your good graces.”
    “If you think I can sweet-talk that Injun princess, then you haven’t listened to her boss me.”
    “No, but I’ve sat in her room many an hour over the past week, and I’ve answered a hundred questions about you—are you an honest man, did you really keep her family out of trouble—and I tell you this much, she’s drawn to you despite herself, like a rabbit to a trap. I tried to warn her, without being obvious, about the trap’s success.”
    “I’ve never claimed to be a lonely man.”
    “I told her about Qualla and Big Pumpkin.”
    He thought for a moment. “She