Bride of the Shining Mountains (The St. Claire Men) (4 page)

But whose woman?

“What’s it to you?” she shot back angrily. Then, when he made no
move to release her, she softened, and her eyes, a pale silver-gray and too
large for her small, heart-shaped face, grew suspiciously moist. “All right, so
I missed supper a time or two! You try eatin’ a full meal after you’ve been
tossed belly-first over a mule the biggest part of a day, why don’t you?” She
sniffed loudly, sweeping Jackson with a derisive glance. “You gonna keep me
here all night, or what?”

“You still haven’t answered my question,” Jackson reminded her.
Lessening his hold on her, he slowly stood, bringing her up with him, yet he
did not release her. He had the uneasy feeling that the moment he let her go,
she’d run like a hare before the hounds, and he was strangely reluctant to lose
her just yet. “How long has it been since you’ve eaten?”

She glanced at him and then away—nervously, he thought. “I had a
bite off yonder spit whilst I was waitin’. I guess it was your supper, huh?”

Jackson shot her an impatient glance. “
While... while
I was
waiting. And yes, it was my supper.”

He did not yell at her, or rant and rave as Luther or the twins
might have done in a like situation, and Reagan thought that perhaps he wasn’t
so bad after all. Feeling a little more at ease in his presence, she crinkled
her slim nose at him. “Jesu, you got some sort of fixa... fixa .... ”

Jackson narrowed his gaze and one corner of his mouth curled down.
“I believe the word you were searching for is
fixation,
and no, I
don’t have one. It just pains me to hear such crude talk hurtling from lips as
soft and as red as yours. You really ought to be supervised, you know. In fact,
you ought to be confined to a parlor somewhere, wearing frilly underthings and
mastering the finer points of embroidery instead of here, in this place,
wearing those dreadful rags and consorting with the dregs of society.” He swept
the gathering with an impatient hand. “Do you know how dangerous your situation
is? What kind of men these are?”

“I’ve got a pretty good idea,” Reagan replied, sending him a
meaningful glare, which he blithely ignored. “And my underthings sure ain’t
none of your concern! As for the rest of it, I had book learnin’ once, and I
can read and write and do sums better’n most gals I know. I can sew up a gash,
too, as quick as a lick, and I don’t leave no scar, neither. Seems to me you
could have made use of my talents yourself a while back—”

The moment the words were out of her mouth, Reagan wished to call
them back. She’d always been quick to anger, and just as quick to speak her
mind. Brash, her mother had named her, a trait that, along with her thick sable
hair, she had inherited from her long-dead sire.

Jackson’s grass green eyes flashed his irritation, and that same
tic she’d noticed earlier jumped in his ruined cheek. Reagan hurried to mend
the rift between them. She was beginning to see that he had possibilities, and
might—just might— be her ticket to freedom. “Listen,” she said, “I didn’t mean
no offense. But bein’ where it is, right out there in the open, a body can’t
help but take notice.” She cocked her head and peered at him, narrowing her
eyes to slits. “You happen to kill that grizzly you tangled with?”

As she watched with a kindling interest, Jackson took a deep
breath and let it go slowly. He seemed to be holding on to his temper by
several fragile threads, and it appeared that those, too, were rapidly fraying.
“Where is your father?” he asked abruptly. “I’ll take you to him now, this
instant, before some terrible fate befalls you, like my stuffing a gag into
that lovely and irrepressible mouth.”

“My pa’s dead,” she replied matter-of-factly. “Can’t say as I
remember him much. He died when I was just a wee thing. Mama told me about him,
though. She said he was quite the bounder when he was young.”

“Your husband, then?” he said hopefully. “Surely you must have a
husband!”

“Don’t have no damnable husband, and I sure as hell don’t need
none!” It was spoken with passion, and won her an icy glare from Jackson.

“That gag is looking more desirable by the syllable.” Releasing
her abruptly, Jackson closed his eyes, shook his head, drew a calming breath,
and tried again. “You
must
be here with
someone,”
he said. “An uncle, a cousin, a guardian, then?”

Throughout his inquisition, Reagan was silent.

“What am I to do with you?” he demanded hotly. “I cannot just turn
you loose, and you sure as hell can’t stay here!”

Reagan bit her lip, hesitating. Here was her chance, her opening.
If she waited too long, allowed it to slip through her grasp, Luther would find
her, drag her back, marry her off to a stranger.

Jackson was strange, but she had to admit he smelled better than
most of the hairy vagabonds who’d ventured near to gawk at her, and somehow he
seemed less of a danger, far more interested in correcting the lapses in her
grammar than taking liberties with her person.

It was just enough to hearten Reagan, who was well aware that she
would be forced to take chances in order to gain her freedom. Tipping her hat
back on her head, she wet her lips and took the leap. “You could take me with
you, back to Saint Louis. I can cook a possum a hundred different ways—
porcupine and raccoon, too. I could tend your camp and guard the horses, if
need be. I’m a good shot, and know all there is to know about cleanin’ and
carin’ for a rifle, and I won’t be no bother, honest. You won’t even know I’m
around, unless, that is, you want company, and once we get back to civilization
we can go our separate ways and you won’t have to bother about me ever again.”

Pacing before the door of the lean-to, head down and muttering to
himself, Jackson paused to gape at her. “Are you mad? I can’t take you with me!
Merciful God in heaven, I don’t even know you!”

“Please,” Reagan said, reaching out, taking hold of his arm. The
word was bitter as gall in her mouth, but there were shouts in the
distance—Luther’s reedy voice, and Luck’s and Lafe’s—and this man was all that
stood between Reagan and certain disaster. “I’ll find a way to pay you.”

Before she’d even finished, he was shaking his head. “I’ve trouble
enough already. I cannot take on the responsibility of dragging a backwoods
wildcat over half the damn country. I
will
not.”

Reagan’s face fell. The shouts were growing louder with every thud
of her heart. She felt sick and dejected, and as she turned and dashed headlong
into the darkness her eyes filled with tears. “Go to Saint Louis, then, and be
damned!” she shot back over her shoulder. “I don’t need you! I don’t need any
man!”

Monongahela whiskey was pure bliss in a bottle, and as Jackson
wove his way through the crowd, he had his sights set on oblivion. He was
hoping that if he drank deeply enough, he would effectively drown the memory of
a certain young woman with the vernacular of a stevedore and a decided lack of
fashionable flair.

Take me with you… Please... 1 won't be no bother, honest….

Her plaintive plea seemed to issue from somewhere in the gathered
throng, yet when Jackson scanned the bearded faces of his contemporaries, she
was nowhere to be found.

Troublesome little baggage.
What in
hell had possessed her to solicit the company of a stranger? Did she have no
inkling of the fate that could befall her if she were to take up with the wrong
man?

Her face rose up in his mind’s eye, her expression burned into his
brain. He’d seen that same look once, long ago, on the face of a horse thief
about to mount the gallows stairs, and the desperate, knowing glance and stark
resignation were something he’d never forgotten. In his careworn mind, the
faces overlapped the girl’s pert features haunting and stark above the hempen
noose.

Jackson shook his head to clear it, but the image continued to
plague him, and by the time he found Tom Bridger and his friend G. D.
Strickland, he was racked with guilt and feeling as if he’d kicked some
starving hound for lying in his path.

Strickland, by way of contrast, was disgustingly jubilant. Already
sodden with whiskey, he thumped Jackson’s back, pressing the jug upon him. “By
thunder, I’m glad you changed your mind and decided to join us.”

“What kept ye so long, Seek-Um?” Tom Bridger put in. “Strickland
here said you was lookin’ to buy yerself a bride, an’ the prettiest ones have
all been sold.”

“Nothing could be farther from the truth, Tom,” Jackson replied,
then tipped the jug and drank. A long pull, and he lowered it again, gasping
for air. The whiskey tore a path down his throat, exploding in his belly. He
raised a hand to wipe the water from his eyes, and as soon as the burning
subsided he raised the jug again.

“Not a marryin’ man, eh, Broussard?” Bridger said with a nod of
his shaggy red head.

Jackson passed the jug to Bridger, who took a swallow, then passed
it back again. “My life is complicated enough without a woman in it.”

Bridger smiled his understanding. “Now that I can comprehend
quite well—and respect--unlike Strickland here. A fella like yourself, born to
good looks and a brimming purse, can afford to be selective about the company
he keeps. I, on the other hand, have long suffered the misfortune of bein’ born
to homely parents, and therefore must rely on other means to win the ladies
fair. Through the years my shining personality has taken me where a bonny face
has gotten you, though not without a concentrated effort. ’Tis a chore, I must
confess, to be gallant at all times when in company, schooling oneself not to
scratch a sudden itch, no matter how pervasive, swallowin’ one’s baccy juice
instead of spitting in the corners.” He stroked his fiery beard as Jackson
swilled his whiskey, a purposeful gleam entering his mud brown eyes. “Yes,
sir, now that I think on it, purchasing one’s companion does seem to have its
merits!” Snatching off his hat, Bridger waved it in the air, leaping into the
frenetic bidding with Strickland egging him on.

Jackson watched his companions with a somewhat jaundiced eye. A
gentle pink phosphorescent haze seemed to be rising from the lip of the jug,
insinuating its way around and through him, so impenetrable that the mental
echo of the girl’s voice was soon smothered by the catcalls and obscene shouts
that at times threatened to drown out the voice of the auctioneer.

Thin and reedy, the man’s voice rose, trebling over the din,
barely heard. “Twenty-twenty-do-I-hear-twenty-five-thirty- thirty-five?
Thirty-five prime beaver skins, going once, going twice,
sold
to the gentleman with the
blinded eye down in front! Step up, sir, make your mark, and claim your
blushing bride!”

Bridger lost out as a rotund trapper with a patch over his right
eye waddled to the front, taking the Indian maiden he’d purchased around the
waist, and swinging her into his arms to the raucous tune of his fellows’
jeers, catcalls, and ribald shouts of encouragement.

The evening’s entertainment was almost over, and Jackson felt
nothing but a deep and unsettling restlessness. He was headed home... home to
face the rampant speculation, his father’s deep-seated hatred, the dark rumors,
the regrets.

The girl would go back, too, eventually, back to whomever and
wherever she belonged, which was precisely as it should be. He was not
responsible for solving her difficulties, real or imagined, and he was in no
position to help her. Hell, he was not even certain that he could help himself.

With a past that lay in shambles and a reputation that could not
bear the light of day, he was no fitting influence for an impressionable slip
of a girl, no matter how earthy, how sensual, how desperate she happened to be.

Roused by the thought, he felt that same restlessness he had
acknowledged earlier bite deep into his soul. Jackson turned away, impatient to
depart. At that same moment a loud thump and a muffled howl issuing from the
makeshift dais rocked the crowd up and onto the balls of their feet. From the
corner of his eye, Jackson saw a familiar form borne bodily onto the stage,
caught firmly between two lanky young men, and his blood ran cold in his veins.

She was awash in a thin sheen of mud, from the battered black hat
pulled low over her brow to the trim ankles showing above a pair of clumsily
fashioned boots. But it was her eyes that caught and held Jackson’s attention...
smoky gray eyes that shone with the feral gleam of an animal caught in the
relentless steel jaws of a number-four trap.