Renegade Bride (10 page)

"And you do?" she retorted.

"Better than some. Better than Seth."

"What makes you so wise, Mr. Devereaux, that you know what's best for everyone? If you really were his friend—"

"—I would have put you on the next boat back to civilization and never let you pull a stunt like this!"

Mariah stared at him, knowing in her heart he was half-right about what she'd done. "I said I was sorry. But while we're laying our cards on the table, let's be honest here. You left me little choice, running off in the dark the way you did. Why, you didn't even have the nerve to tell me you were going."

"What good would it have done?" he asked evenly.

Her fingernails bit into the palms of her fists. "You think I should have stayed behind with Hattie and her husband, cowering there like some mouse afraid of her own shadow? Well, you're wrong—"

"Even mice know how to keep away from cats," he replied pointedly.

She narrowed her eyes. "Fine. I don't need you. I'll find someone else to take me. If you're not there to intimidate them with that miniature cannon of yours—"

"Apparently I underestimated your ingenuity, Miss Parsons. I have no doubt you could charm some poor fool into taking you there. Or at least, God knows, he'd try." He exhaled aggravatedly. "Where did you get the mare?"

Retrieving the valise from the ground, she walked toward the mare who was yanking at the tufts of sweetgrass nearby. "Hattie Lochrie sold her to me."

"Why doesn't that surprise me?" He muttered something in his patois French she suspected was derogatory about the female gender in general. Without waiting for permission, Creed stalked over and lifted her up onto Petunia's back with such force she nearly vaulted over the other side.

Mariah grabbed for the saddle horn and righted herself, then whirled to face him. At a loss for words she gasped, "Well, I never!"

"No, I'll just bet you never did," he returned, dumping the tapestry bag unceremoniously in her lap.

Her eyes narrowed. "Why don't you just leave me alone? I didn't say I needed your help to get on Petunia."

"Ha!" he scoffed humorlessly with his back already to her. "I'd like to see you mount with that contraption you've got yourself cinched into. I'm surprised you can even breathe."

"My bodily functions are none of your—" She bit back the rest, realizing she'd nearly stooped to his level. "Ooh! You make me so mad!"

"You're welcome." Without further comment, he headed for his own mount.

"Just tell me one thing, Mr. Devereaux. Why are you so dead set against my going?"

He turned on her. "Look around you, Miss Parsons. Who do you see?"

She glanced around at the vacant hills. "Only you."

"Exactly. How do you think Seth will feel when he learns you've traveled halfway across Montana Territory alone with me?"

She rubbed at the soreness on her bruised ribs. "Under normal circumstances, believe me when I say I would agree wholeheartedly. I have no more desire to travel with you than you do with me. But what good will my reputation do Seth if he's dead by the time I get there? My being there with him could make a difference. I've seen it before with patients of my father's and in the army hospitals in Chicago—so crammed with the dying there was no room left for hope."

Creed scowled, casting about for an argument to refute the logic of her statement. She was right and he knew it. He'd never laid much credence in social mores, but a lady like Mariah Parsons damn well should.

The problem fell, Creed thought grimly, not so much with her but with himself. What had nearly happened between them only moments before when he'd held her could never be allowed to happen again. Traveling two hundred miles in the wilderness with a beautiful young woman would be temptation enough for any healthy man. But Mariah Parsons was as out of his reach as treetop berries to a hungry bear. And she would have to stay that way.

On second thought, perhaps it wouldn't be so hard. That temper of hers was enough to keep any man at bay.

He glared up at her. "If Seth's alive and well when we get there, what then?"

Mariah prayed that was true. "Then he'll understand. He trusts me, Mr. Devereaux. He has no reason not to. Perhaps it's a lack of faith in your
own
scruples that has you worried."

For an instant something flashed heatedly in those odd green eyes of his. She wondered briefly if she'd actually pricked that thick skin. Just as quickly, however, cool dismissal lurked in his expression.

"I never said I had scruples. Perhaps you should have thought of that before you followed me." He turned away to gather up his reins.

"And I think you're a liar."

Her words stopped him cold and he whirled around to face her. "You
what?"

She wondered if she'd gone too far, but it was too late to turn back now. "Seth would never have sent a man he didn't trust after me. Perhaps it's more convenient to let people draw their own conclusions about your scruples or lack of them, Mr. Devereaux. Just as it's easier to pretend you don't care that I just insulted you."

His jaw worked. "I am used to insults,
ma petite."

She remembered the scene at the ticket window with that woman dragging her boys away from Devereaux as if he were dirt. And she recalled the way she'd treated him when they'd first met. Yes, he was used to insults. But instinctively she knew they cut him more deeply than he would admit.

He swung up on Buck's back. "I'm headed into the mountains until I can find a place to cross the Sun. If the weather holds, it will take four or five days of hard riding to reach the gold fields. But it's rough travel and not for the faint of heart."

"And do you think I have a faint heart, Mr. Deve—"

Unexpectedly, his expression softened. "I have seen that you do not. Do you cook?"

"I... beg your pardon?"

"Can you cook? If you come with me, you will do your share. I won't coddle you."

Mariah checked the flare of hope in her eyes. "Eggs are coddled, Mr. Devereaux. I, on the other hand, am more than willing to do my share. I can cook. Can you hunt?"

He tossed her a rare grin, as if to say,
touché.
"At least we won't go hungry."

At the mention of food, Mariah's stomach growled and she covered the offending spot with her hand. Creed reached in his saddlebag and tossed something to her. She regarded the brownish lump questioningly. "What is it?"

"Pemmican."

She stared at him blankly.

"The Blackfeet make it from pounded cherries, dried meat, and buffalo suet. You
eat
it, Miss Parsons."

"Oh." She invested the syllable with all the enthusiasm she could muster and bit into the edge of the lump he'd so generously identified as food. Though she'd prepared for the worst, it was quite good.

When she looked up, however, Devereaux was already urging his horse up the hill.

"Wait! Does that mean you'll take me?" She nudged her mare after him with a kick of her heels.

"Do I have a choice?" he returned over his shoulder.

She couldn't help the giddy smile of relief that curved over her lips. "Everyone has choices, Mr. Devereaux," she called.

"Peut-
ê
tre,"
he answered, then to himself, he repeated, "Perhaps."

Chapter 5

In the place known to French trappers as
terres mauvaises,
or badlands, in the Missouri Breaks, the two men slowed their horses to a trot and entered the narrow chasm in the massive rock wall single-file, trailing a loaded packhorse behind. The smaller and infinitely dirtier of the two went first, signaling to a lookout perched atop the high column of rocks above them like a hawk in search of dinner.

The straggly-haired lookout smiled toothlessly, then sent out a long plume of tobacco juice in reply, which landed exactly between their two horses. "Hey, Downing—who's the dandy?" he asked with a low, mocking laugh.

"Save it, Blevins," warned the scruffier of the pair—the man named Downing. He glanced at his companion who, indeed, wore the dandiest clothes he'd ever laid eyes on. From his brocaded satin vest to the finely made black wool frock coat, the man looked as out of place as a piece of fine crystal at a slop trough. Unlike Blevins, the lookout, Downing knew better than to point that out to a man like Reese Daniels.

"Hey—" Blevins called again, still chuckling. "Where the hell is Étienne? He decide to stay behind for a little nookie with one a them smooth-skinned white whores that was shippin' in?"

Downing's shoulders stiffened beneath his grimy calico shirt, but he ignored the question. More accurately, he avoided it. Time enough, he reasoned, to explain why he had come back without Étienne. Time enough to imagine all the ways Pierre could make him suffer for letting his bastard brother die.

He'd ridden with the LaRousse brothers for three years now. It occurred to him that all those years wouldn't mean a thing once Pierre learned about Étienne. He smiled ironically. There was little loyalty among thieves.

The serpentine path to the camp led through a series of high-walled switchbacks assuring the near-invulnerability of the hideout. The light of the setting sun washed the stone walls red. Long, menacing shadows poured thickly over the towers of rock.

At the end of the path, the trail opened up into a surprisingly large box canyon, littered with scrub pine, broken rocks, and graze for their stock. A slender waterfall trickled over a smooth rock spill, feeding a creek that disappeared beneath the canyon walls. Its soothing, tinkling sound belied the tension in the air as the two men trotted into camp.

Downing spotted Sam Bennett, Poke, Petey Ford, and a young Piegan outcast known as Running Fox ensconced in a heated game of cards near the cool edge of the stream. They tossed a cursory glance at the pair as they dismounted. Petey, the youngest at seventeen and the only one Downing gave a damn about, nodded in silent greeting. He was learning, Downing thought, as he turned his gaze toward the woman turning meat on a spit over the fire.

Raven was a beautiful young Blood squaw of twenty or so. A hint of a smile lit her agate-colored eyes briefly as she caught sight of Downing, but she extinguished it before the man lounging cross-legged against the willow backrest near the low fire could see.

The deadly-looking knife in Pierre LaRousse's hand stilled against the smooth sharpening stone he held against his buckskin-clad leg. He was a big man, though his height was made less noticeable because of his lean, youthful build. Blue-black hair fell around his face and past his shoulders, hiding the old white scar that traced his cheekbone.

He was handsome, Downing mused, the way a fine, deadly weapon was handsome, with sharp, straight features and the rich hue of his mother's peoples' skin. Among them, he was called Red Eagle, and in deference to his long-absent mother, a lone black-tipped feather dangled from his long hair. His father's legacy, a large silver crucifix, dangled blasphemously from a chain at his neck. He spoke a curious mixture of Sioux, English, and the tongue of his father, a French-Canadian named Emile LaRousse.

Flat, expressionless eyes the color of a starless night studied the two as they approached. Downing had imagined more than once that ice would form on the half-breed's eyes if he didn't blink. He felt a sudden chill invade his bones.

"So, you 'av come,
mitakola,"
LaRousse observed, regarding Daniels.
"Il y a long temps."
He braced a forearm over his cocked knee and dangled his deadly-looking blade between his legs.

"H'llo, Pierre." The stranger slid off his mud-flecked black hat, slapped it against his equally muddy thigh, and ran a hand through his shock of white-blond hair. "You're lookin' mean as ever."

Pierre smiled and glanced at the burdened pack-horse tied to the scrub pine beside the others. Two long, heavy-looking crates straddled the pack's saddle. "'Ave you brought what you promised?" he asked, dispensing with preliminaries.

Daniels inclined his head with a vague smile. "I always do what I say I will."

Pierre got to his feet in one fluid motion.
"C'est bon.
If zey are what you say, zen we talk. Poke! Bennett!" he yelled. "Unload ze crates and break zem open."