Hidden Truths (30 page)

No butterflies,
Amy noticed. She slipped on a dry
shirt. "Memories?"

"Of the Wakarusa River," Hannah said.

"Wakarusa River?" The name sounded familiar, but
there was no river with that name around here. Amy knew every stick and stone
in the Willamette Valley.

Hannah's dark eyes probed her. "You don't remember?
Your mother almost drowned because she couldn't swim. If your father hadn't
jumped in after her..."

Images of a bobbing raft on a wild river drifted across
Amy's inner eye. Her heart jumped. "I don't remember much about our
journey to Oregon," she said. In fact, she barely remembered anything
about her early childhood. Mama and Papa didn't talk about it, so she had no
way of knowing which of the vague images and impressions had really happened
and which were just products of her imagination. Some of her hazy memories
didn't make sense at all, so she concluded that they weren't real.

"I was eleven, so you must have been three or
four," Hannah said. "It was the river where you lost Rosie."

"Rosie," Amy repeated. A half-forgotten memory
resurfaced. Her doll had fallen into the river, and they couldn't replace it on
the Oregon Trail. Her gaze veered to the shelf with the carved horses.
That's
when Papa started making them for me.

"Yes." Hannah giggled and poked her in the side.
"Once upon a time, Amy Hamilton played with dolls, just like any other
girl. Don't worry. I won't tell your ranch hands."

Amy poked her back, and for a moment, their friendship was
how it had been years ago, before her confusing feelings made Amy awkward
around Hannah.
Maybe these... feelings for Rika will go away too.

The memory of full lips and warm breath mingling with hers
flashed through Amy.

She sighed.

Not today.

"
T
HERE
IT IS!" Luke pointed at the wooden palisades. She had never been so glad
to reach a fort — not because she felt threatened by Indians and the fort
provided safety. Reaching Fort Boise meant she could turn around and go home.

The Hamilton horses streamed in through the gate, and Luke
received instructions to herd them to an empty corral. When the last horse
loped into the corral, the tension drained from Luke's shoulders.

"Where can I find Colonel Lundgren?" She wanted to
receive her payment and be on her way. If Phin and Charlie agreed, they would
restock their supplies and give the horses a few hours of rest and then head
out.

"You need to talk to the quartermaster, Captain
Kelling." Lieutenant Moylan pointed to a sandstone building. "He's in
charge of buying horses."

Luke dismounted and waved at Phin to follow her, leaving
Charlie with the horses. She knocked on the door and stepped into the
quartermaster's office.

A tall man in uniform sat behind a desk and wrote numbers in
a ledger.

"Captain Kelling?" Luke asked.

He looked up and nodded.

"Luke Hamilton. I'm bringing the horses Colonel
Lundgren ordered."

The captain flipped a few pages in the ledger. "Ah,
yes. A dozen Appaloosa geldings. Thirty dollars per head."

Thirty?
Luke rubbed the back of her neck. "There
must be a mistake. Colonel Lundgren and I exchanged letters, and we agreed on
forty dollars for each of the geldings and sixty dollars for Midnight, his
personal mount." She took the last letter from her pocket and slid it in
front of Kelling.

Kelling didn't look at the piece of paper. "It says
thirty dollars in my ledger."

"Then your ledger is wrong," Luke said, trying not
to lose her patience. Over the years, Nora taught her to read and write, so she
knew what price was recorded in the letter. "If you ask the colonel, I'm
sure he'll clear up the misunderstanding."

Kelling squinted at the numbers in his book. "There is
no misunderstanding, and I don't need to ask the colonel. Thirty dollars per
head. Take it or leave it."

Phin exchanged a helpless glance with Luke.

"Then I'll leave it — and you get to explain to your
superior why you couldn't procure the horses he needs." Three hundred and
sixty dollars was still a lot of money, but Luke refused to accept less than
what the horses were worth. Years of hard work went into breeding, raising, and
training them. "Come on, Phin. Let's go."

She turned on her heel and strode to the door, hoping he
would call her back. What would she do if he didn't? She couldn't return home
empty-handed.

Her hand landed on the door handle.

"Wait," Kelling said. "Maybe we can
compromise. What do you say to thirty-five per head?"

That bastard!
Luke was sure the rest of the money
would go into his own pocket and the colonel would never learn about it.
"I'm saying no."

"Forty dollars is a lot of money for a horse,"
Kelling said.

"Not for one of mine. These aren't second-class,
untrained colts. They were carefully selected and trained to be cavalry horses.
Colonel Lundgren knows their worth, so I'll go and talk to him now." She
swung open the door.

"Wait," Kelling said.

Luke turned around.

The captain's jaw muscles tightened. She could almost hear
his teeth grind against each other. "Forty dollars is practically daylight
robbery," he said. "But fine. If you somehow got the colonel to agree
on it..."

"He agreed." Luke held up the colonel's letter but
bit her tongue and forced herself not to say anything else. Making enemies
wouldn't help her family or the ranch.

He slammed his ledger shut. "All right. I'll inspect
the horses, and if they are as good as you say, I'll get you the money."

Luke gave a terse nod. She followed Kelling out the door and
to the corral, where he looked at the horses' hooves, checked their teeth, and
slid his hands over their backs.

He might be a son of a bitch, but at least he knows
something about horses.

Kelling couldn't hide the gleam of appreciation in his eyes
when he looked at the Hamilton horses. "All right," he finally said.
"Forty dollars per head."

"Sixty for Midnight." Luke pointed at the black
gelding.

A dark glare hit Luke, but she didn't look away.

"You'll have to sign for the money," Kelling said.

"Not a problem. I'm keeping my side of the
agreement." She let the words hang between them as she followed him back
to the quartermaster's office.

Captain Kelling walked to his desk and opened a drawer. A
key unlocked a wooden box, and Kelling counted out twenty-five double eagles.

Bastard.
Just the fact that he had five hundred
dollars right there told her he knew about her arrangement with Colonel
Lundgren. Sharp parting words lingered on her tongue, but she swallowed them.
She had her money. Now she just wanted to get out of Fort Boise and back to her
family.

She pocketed the money, nodded at Phin to follow her, and
walked through the door. "Phin," she called before he crossed the
parade ground to join Charlie.

Phin stopped and turned.

"Here." She handed him twelve of the golden coins.
"It's safer if you hold on to half of the money until we're home." If
something happened to one of them, her family would still have half of the
money.

Instead of pocketing the coins, Phin stared at them.
"That's a lot of money."

"And I have a lot of trust in you."

Their gazes met. Silent understanding passed between them,
and then Phin nodded.

"All right." Luke clapped him on the back.
"Let's go home."

*  *  *

"Dammit!" The rough curse drifted through the gray
half-light of dusk.

Luke paused outside of the sutler's store.

Muffled groans and grunts came from a dark alley. Boots
scraped over the packed ground.

"Hold her still!" a man hissed.

Clothing rustled.

Luke dropped the sack of provisions and hurried into the
alley to see what was going on. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness, and she
stopped.

Two men knelt in the alley and forced the struggling limbs
of a Shoshoni woman to the ground. A third man stood over her and fumbled with
his pants.

Normally, Luke stayed away from fights that weren't her own,
but she couldn't ignore this.

One of the kneeling men looked up. He jerked when he saw
her. "Bill!"

The third man, his pants half-unbuttoned, turned and Luke
recognized one of the soldiers who had wanted to drive away her horses and
blame the Shoshoni. He studied her with cool eyes. "You can have a turn
with her — after we're done."

Blood pounded through Luke's head, and she spat out her
words. "Let her go."

"Don't get your feathers in a ruffle," the man
said. "She's just an Injun."

"Let her go," Luke repeated. Her hand rested on
the grip of her revolver.

The three men exchanged glances.

Luke tensed. She kept her gaze on Bill, the apparent leader.

"Back off." Bill straightened to his full height.
"She's not worth fighting over."

"If she's not worth it, then just walk away," Luke
said.

Bill's gaze flickered down, to Luke's weapon hand, then back
up to her eyes.

The Shoshoni woman took advantage of their distraction. She
freed one of her feet and kicked out. Her foot hit the back of Bill's knee.

Mud spattered when Bill crashed down.

One of the other men drew his revolver.

A flash from the revolver's muzzle lit up the alley, and a
bullet whizzed past Luke. Chips of sandstone sliced her cheek.

Luke swung up her revolver.

Boom!

The man went down, screaming and clutching his thigh.

"Stop!" Luke yelled. She cocked the weapon but
didn't fire. If she could help it, she didn't want to shoot anyone else.

"Hey!" someone shouted behind Luke, but she kept
her gaze and her revolver trained on Bill.

"What's going on?" Sergeant Johnson shouldered
past Luke.

Relief trickled through Luke. "These three
soldiers," she spat out the word because they didn't deserve the title,
"tried to force themselves on a woman."

She looked around. The woman had disappeared in the chaos.

Maybe that's a good thing.
Luke hoped she would be
safe from the soldiers in the future.

"Walters!" Sergeant Johnson shouted.
"Goddamnit, button your pants!"

The man named Bill flinched and did up his buttons. "We
didn't do anything, Sergeant."

"Yeah," his friend said. "No woman here,
see?"

The third man groaned and pressed his hands on his thigh to
stop the bleeding.

"I'll take Mister Hamilton's word over yours every day
of the week, Walters," Sergeant Johnson said. "But I'll let our
superiors decide what to do with your useless asses." He waved at two of
his men to drag away the injured man. "Come on. I bet Captain Kelling will
be happy to throw you in the brig."

Luke groaned.
Oh, wonderful.
Of all the men in the
fort, it had to be Captain Kelling who would decide on a punishment for the
three would-be rapists. If he heard that Luke was involved, he might decide
that there had never been a woman in that alley. She gritted her teeth and
prepared for another battle.

Traveling home would have to wait for a while.

S
UNLIGHT
DANCED over the Molalla River as it meandered through the valley, a murmuring
rivulet instead of a raging torrent.

Amy stopped to allow Ruby a mouthful of water. She uncorked
her canteen and took a swig. Cool water trickled down her parched throat. She
had been in the saddle since sunup — her routine for the past few days.

Since you were stupid enough to almost kiss Rika.

As much as she tried not to think about it, the thought
intruded again and again.

She told herself she wasn't really avoiding Rika. Dozens of
tasks kept her out on the range: checking springs and waterholes to make sure
they weren't clogged with debris after the flood, riding line to keep the
horses from drifting off the Hamilton land, and seeing how far along the hay
was.

Yeah, sure.
Truth be told, the main ranch would have
kept her busy too. The shed could do with a new coat of paint, and Phin's cabin
needed to have a wood floor installed, but she decided to leave that to the
boys.

Thinking about Phin's cabin brought back images of Rika.
With a grunt, Amy lifted the reins and directed Ruby away from the river.

She rode along the gurgling stream bordering the eastern
corner of their land. Something rustled in the hazel bushes ahead, and a
squirrel skittered across the path.

Ruby tossed up her head and pranced sideways.

"None of that, girl." She stroked Ruby's neck,
then pulled the mare's head around and urged her up a hill.

One of their line shacks lay below. The small cabin held
enough supplies to feed a ranch hand for a few days so he didn't have to return
to the main house. Since she was there, she might as well check and see how
much flour and coffee beans were still at the shack.

Dusk settled over the hills. Maybe she would stay at the
line shack overnight. She had done it before, so Mama wouldn't worry as long as
she came home before breakfast.

She urged Ruby into a gallop, glad to have something to do
other than think about Rika. When she neared the cabin, she slowed to a lope,
then a walk.

The cabin's corral lay empty, and the grass grew high.

Still, the fine hairs on the back of her neck prickled.

Ruby's ears flicked forward.

"Someone here, girl?" Maybe a traveling man or a
wrangler in search of a job. Amy didn't mind. They were welcome to a few of the
supplies, as long as they left a coin to pay for what they had taken.