Dorothy Garlock - [Colorado Wind 03] (9 page)

The air was very still, the sky impossibly clear. Kain patted Big Red, and the horse nuzzled his hand affectionately. The thought came to him that he would ride out of this place a much different man than when he rode in. He considered that for a moment, then shrugged his broad shoulders. Life was uncertain and death was sure for all. His end would just come sooner than he had expected.

Kain was hungry, but afraid that if he ate the terrible pain would return. After a few minutes he realized he would have to risk it and dug into his pack for the last of his soda crackers. He ate them slowly, then mounted his horse and rode out.

*  *  *

The sun was down. Vanessa went for a short distance after they crossed a dry creek bed before pulling the mules to a halt. John drove his wagon alongside hers.

“Not here, ma’am. There’s a better place on down aways.”

Vanessa waved him on and followed. John turned down the dry creek bed. There was a fold in the ground where a trickle of a spring ran down to the creek and made a small pool.

“Ain’t nobody agoin’ to see us here till they’re right up close,” John explained. “Ain’t no use tellin’ folks where we be.”

“Do you think Mr. DeBolt is all right?” Ellie asked.

“Him? He’ll make out. He’s makin’ sure them horses is scattered to hell ’n yonder. That breed’ll be madder ’n a stepped-on snake. I ain’t met a mean breed yet what wasn’t as sneakin’ as a snake. He be wily as a wolverine, ’n if’n ya ain’t careful he’ll poke a knife in yore back shore as shootin’. Kain ort a killed him. He’s gonna have to anyways.”

“Oh! I do hope not.”

“That’s how tis out here, ma’am. Ya got to do what ya got to do.” John took off his hat and tossed it up into the wagon seat. “We’d best share a fire agin tonight, cook what we got to, then dowse it ’n set back.”

Vanessa and Henry unhitched and Mary Ben began to build a fire on a flat shelf beside the spring.

“Do you think we’ll be . . . bothered?” Ellie asked.

“I ain’t aknowin’ that, ma’am. It jist don’t make no sense to not be ready if we are.”

“Mr. Wisner, does it bother you that you killed a man today?”

“No ma’am. I ain’t never liked that Dutchman, no way.”

“You knew him?” Ellie was shocked.

“I sort a knowed him. He was low caliber ’n meaner ’n all get out. Ain’t nothin’ lower ’n a man who’d kill his own woman. It’s said it’s what he done. I ain’t never heard a him shootin’ it out face-to-face. Backshooter is what he was.” He glanced at Ellie’s white face and cursed himself for his blabbering tongue. “If you’re afigurin’ on eatin’, ma’am, you’d best get at the fixin’ of it.”

“Yes, of course, Mr. Wisner. We appreciate your help, and Mary Ben’s, too. I don’t know what we’d have done without you.” Ellie went to the side of the wagon and unhooked the lid of the chuck box. It was hinged on the bottom and when let down became a table. She took out an iron pot with a bail and began to peel potatoes for soup.

John noticed her trembling hands. The woman had sand, he thought. Sand and grit, but she was scared half out of her wits.

“Mary Ben’s right good at givin’ a hand, Mrs. Hill. ’N we got vittles in the wagon.”

“She was worried about you today.”

“Yes’m, I ’spect she was.”

*  *  *

Morning came and Vanessa was tired, more tired than she had been since leaving Springfield. They had divided the watch as they had done the night before, with her taking the early morning hours. She had half expected to hear Kain’s voice coming out of the darkness and was reluctant to admit her disappointment when he hadn’t come. All had been quiet except for the familiar night sounds. And when the birds began their flutter and chirping in the trees above the wagons, Vanessa rapped on the door to awaken Ellie and Henry.

Ellie was nervous and jumpy but quiet. She sat on the seat beside Vanessa when they pulled out on the trail. Vanessa was beginning to worry about her. She had scarcely eaten the night before, and that morning she had only nibbled on a cold biscuit while the rest of them had eaten cornmeal mush and honey. Even Henry was quiet; his moods often reflected those of Vanessa and his mother. He watched them anxiously, hoping they would smile.

The orange globe rising over the eastern horizon predicted a bright, clear day. A few fluffy white clouds drifted overhead, birds called and flitted in the grass, a flock of crows flew up when they passed, then settled once more on their morning feast. Behind them the sun, when it fully emerged, threw their long shadows before them across the rippling grass. Ahead of them the land lay empty.

“I don’t understand why Mr. DeBolt didn’t come back,” Ellie said after almost an hour’s silence.

“He may have gone back to Dodge.” Vanessa didn’t believe that, but she wanted to keep the conversation going. It made the time pass more quickly.

“No, dear. He wouldn’t have turned back. He’s out there somewhere. Maybe those men found him—”

“That isn’t likely. He took their horses and left them afoot.”

“I wish he’d come back. I liked him, and I liked the way he treated Henry.”

“I liked that too, although at first I was afraid for Henry to go with him. But Henry did just fine and he was so proud that he’d helped.”

“I know. If his father had lived he would have had a strong man to guide him, and Henry might have been different. I’m afraid, Vanessa. I’m afraid of what will happen to him in the years ahead.”

“Henry will always have a place with me, Aunt Ellie. You know that.”

“I know, dear. But you will marry someday and have a family of your own. Your husband may resent Henry. I’m so hopeful Henry will have male kin who will look after him.”

“You’re still young, Aunt Ellie. You’re not yet forty years old. You’ve devoted your life to Henry and me, and you act as if your own life is over. I’ve seen men look at you a second and third time. You should have married and had more children.”

“Oh, no! I never even considered another man after I lost my Henry. If you could have known him, Vanessa, you would understand. He was so handsome, so . . . in command. Why, he would walk into the hotel dining room and everyone would jump to wait on him. In the shops the clerks would leave others standing in order to serve him. He was that kind of man, sweet and generous, and he made me feel like a queen. I’ve thought about each of the thirty wonderful days I was with him. I met him the second day he arrived in Springfield. He was a banker from Chicago, and he had business with the bank presidant. I was waiting for a friend. We talked and three days later were married.”

Vanessa had heard the story of how Ellie had met Henry Hill many times. She listened now while Ellie’s voice softened as she told of the picnics and the walks in the park with her lover. She told about his renting a buggy and driving to the preacher’s house. After the ceremony he had told the minister to send the marriage certificate to the hotel. The desk clerk had given it to Ellie and it was one of her most treasured possessions. Ellie described the lovely room they had shared after their wedding, and then her voice became dreamy as she remembered.

The day passed uneventfully. Henry drove the Wisner wagon late in the afternoon and John rode the horse ahead to find a suitable place for their night camp. When he returned he guided them to a place along a dry gully that carried water to the river during a hard rain.

By the time they stopped for the night Vanessa had a sharp pain between her eyes from facing the setting sun. As soon as she pulled the mules to a halt she discarded her hat, shook her head and massaged her temples with her fingertips. The unbrushed tangles of curly, coppery hair drifted down around her face and over her shoulders in a glistening mass. The cool air felt so good as it touched her scalp that she threaded her fingers into her hair and lifted it time and again, until it floated about her face like a bright, fiery cloud.

*  *  *

The man concealed in the dense growth of brush that lined the gully could only stare. Kain had kept the wagons in sight for the past two days, and that afternoon he had kept pace with them along an animal path that ran parallel with the river. When he saw John ride out on Henry’s horse, he rode ahead to meet him, and together they had discovered this camp site. Kain asked John not to tell the others yet that he was trailing them; he still had some scouting to do.

Now as Kain watched Vanessa he was aware of two things. That this was the most alive woman he’d ever met, and that something new and strange was making his heart pick up speed and sending a tingling sensation racing over his skin. She was pretty, even beautiful, but more than that, she wasn’t one of those females who were all ruffles and flutters. She was a self-reliant woman who knew who she was, and one, Kain thought, who wouldn’t be shocked to the roots of her being by sex.

In all his travels, he not seen such glorious hair on any woman, and he had thought he had seen the beauties of the world. Now he understood the reason Vanessa wore the bonnet in Dodge City and the old hat on the trail. Her beautiful face, long, supple, swaying body, and glorious hair would stop most men in their tracks. He imagined she had come to dislike the attention, and that was probably the reason for the hostility the day he had bumped into her in Dodge City.

Just looking at her made his heart stop, then race so wildly he found it necessary to draw deep gulps of air into his lungs. He knew with a certainty that he was in love with this woman; completely, utterly, ridiculously in love for the first time in his life. Following that realization came an eruption of regret so acute that for a moment it stupefied his mind. When the feeling passed, Kain DeBolt, self-assured man of the world discovered he had tears in his eyes.

Love had come too late.

*  *  *

Vanessa dipped water into a pan and carried it into the caravan to wash the day’s accumulation of dust from her body. She used the same water to wash her shirt, then sat quietly brushing her hair and thinking about the man who had appeared out of the darkness to tell her the mules were gone. What had happened to him? It had been two days since he had left them. An emptiness flowed through her at the thought of never seeing him again. She stopped brushing and sat staring at the hairbrush, idly picking out the bright red hairs caught in the bristles. Why had he come to help them in the first place? Why was he staying away now? Vanessa shivered without knowing why.

Ellie, with Mary Ben’s help, had a thick stew bubbling in the iron pot suspended on a cross beam over the fire by the time the stock was watered and staked out for the night.

“What are Mr. Wisner and Henry doing?” Ellie asked when Mary Ben returned to the cookfire with an armful of small sticks, the yellow dog trailing at her heels.

“I told him there’s a rabbit run back down there where the brush is caught on a windfall. He’s down there showin’ Henry how to set a snare. We’ll have us a rabbit or two by mornin’.” Mary Ben knelt and fed a few small sticks of wood into the fire. “I’ll get us more wood. Ain’t no use wastin’ the daylight.” The dog had flopped on his belly, but got quickly to his feet and followed her out past the wagons to where a brush pile blocked the dry creek bed.

Ellie stirred the stew. That was the longest group of words she had heard Mary Ben put together at one time. The girl never spoke unless she was asked a question, and until now her answers had been one or two words. Ellie watched her approach with another armload of wood. She was small and sturdy. A softly rounded girl with smooth, sun-browned skin, straight dark brows and curling eyelashes. Her thick, brown, wavy hair, tied back with a thong, came to the middle of her back. The dress she wore had patches on top of patches and was far too small for her. Ellie wondered how she could arrange to give her a dress without it appearing to be charity.

“That dog never takes his eyes off you, Mary Ben. I’ve never seen the like.”

“Yes’m. He likes me. I like him, too.”

“I’ve been wanting to ask you why he didn’t make a fuss the other morning when Mr. DeBolt came into camp.”

“I told him not to.”

“You knew he was out there?”

“Yes’m. But I knew he wasn’t one of them others.”

“Well, for goodness sakes! How did you know that?”

“Cause I knew they’d come ’n took the mules. I told Mr. Wisner ’n he said there wasn’t nothin’ to do right then but wait it out, cause if he made a fuss them fellers would shoot up the camp.”

“Well . . . I swan to goodness. Mr. DeBolt could have been somebody just as bad.”

“No, ma’am.” Mary Ben shook her head. “Mr. Wisner knew he wasn’t no bad man. He’d been trailin’ us most all the day ’n Mr. Wisner’d been lookin’ at him in his glass. He said it was him who’d stood up to that little old bast—to that man in Dodge who beat Henry.”

Ellie was dumbfounded. All this had been going on and she had been unaware of it. Suddenly she wanted to hug Mary Ben, and she did. She put her arms around her, gave her a quick hug, and kissed her on the cheek.

Mary Ben stood as if in shock. She neither drew away nor responded to the gesture. When Ellie’s arms dropped from around her she didn’t move. Ellie stepped back and saw the bewildered look on her face and suddenly realized that a gesture of affection was unknown to the girl.

“Bless you, child. It was a lucky day for us when you caught up with us. I’m so glad you did.”

“Luck didn’t have nothin’ to do with it,” Mary Ben said slowly. “Mr. Wisner seen ya was moving out. He said ya didn’t have no trail sense or ya’d not be strikin’ out all by yore ownselves, ’n ya’d be in a heap of trouble. He said he’d been athinkin’ ’bout us goin’ west, ’n we’d just pull out ’n string along with ya folks.”

“You mean . . . Mr. Wisner was worried about us and came after us?”

“Yes’m. Mr. Wisner said ya was fine ladies ’n ya’d not last out here a’tall. He said that Henry wasn’t . . . that Henry needed somebody to tell him what to do.”

“Well, I do declare! My, my, wasn’t that nice of him? I just never heard of such a thing. We’re very grateful to have you and your father with us.”