Texas Moon TH4 (35 page)

With more help than she could manage, she ended up sitting in the stage office, sipping lemonade with Betsy while listening to her retinue top each other with tall tales. Someone had gone to find them a box lunch while someone else saw to it that all her luggage was carted from the station.

Janice wondered if she ought to go shopping in the local store while she was here, loading up on the supplies she might not be able to find farther into the interior, but she feared no one on the other end of the line would help her with the packages.

She asked questions about Butte, but her companions seemed to know nothing about it. In fact, her admirers pretty well ignored everything she said while showing off their own eloquence. Even Betsy began to grin at their antics when Janice asked if Butte might have a general store and one of the men responded with his version of the robbery of the Santa Fe train. Janice thought possibly the connection between the question and the answer was the supplies that didn't reach town, but she couldn't be certain.

She watched the arrival of the stage with a great degree of relief. At the sight of a top-hatted man climbing out and reaching for his suitcase hope surged, but that died instantly when the man turned around to reveal a full beard and a stout stomach. She really couldn't expect Peter to arrive to meet her. She hadn't even been able to send him a wire to tell him she was coming.

They watched their luggage being loaded, then entered the narrow confines of the stagecoach as soon as the driver assured them he was ready to leave. Janice let Betsy wave at their admirers as the horses lurched forward. Her nerves were in too much of a panic to do anything but clutch her bag and pray.

Their only fellow traveler was an older woman with a stomach as large as the lunch basket she carried. The woman opened the basket as soon as the stage reached the edge of town.

"We'll be lucky to get there without being raped and scalped," the woman said into the silence. She didn't seem disturbed by her words as she bit into a chicken leg.

Betsy's eyes went wide, and Janice gave a mental curse. "I didn't think Indians were a problem anymore," she answered, hoping a practical point of view would reassure Betsy.

"Geronimo's on the warpath again. It's a wonder the train got through. Mark my words, he'll kill us all in our beds."

There wasn't any point in telling the woman that she was frightening a child. The woman wouldn't care and Betsy would only worry more. Janice set her lips in disapproval. "I thought Geronimo had returned to the reservation."

The woman shrugged her massive shoulders. "Can't keep an Apache in one place unless they're dead. They'll have to kill them all."

Malevolently, Janice wished the woman would choke on the chicken skin she was shoving into her mouth. "I understand the reservation conditions are not suitable for farming. I don't think I would like to be told where I must live."

Beady eyes glared at her. "When they rape you till you bleed like they did my daughter, you'll be sorry the army didn't shoot them all."

"I don't think this is a suitable topic for a child," Janice announced firmly. If the woman didn't shut up, she would have to personally strangle her. Betsy was so pale her freckles looked like brown splotches across her nose.

The woman grunted and went back to her feeding.

That wasn't a glorious start to their new life. The day didn't improve when it became clear that they wouldn't make Butte by nightfall. No one had informed her that she would be spending the night in an adobe hut in the back of nowhere.

Staring in dismay at the flea-infested sheets they were supposed to sleep on, Janice gave a moment's consideration to turning back. No wonder Peter rode a horse rather than use the "conveniences" of modern transportation. She might have to do the same.

It was too late to change now. The driver had promised they would be in Butte by noon the next day. They had only fifty miles to travel after that.

Fifty miles. Janice groaned as she lay down on the floor wrapped in her mantle rather than sleep on the bed. When her husband decided to desert civilization, he didn't do it halfway.

He didn't do anything halfway. Remembering the times when he had taken her to his bed, Janice quivered. There had been nothing lukewarm about Peter's desires. He might not love her, but he definitely wanted what she had to offer. The knowledge made her feel more feminine than she had in all her years. She was a woman now and not an automaton. The layers of tough defenses she had built were melting away, like calluses disappearing with soothing balm and disuse. To her surprise, she was discovering she liked being a woman.

And so she must find him. It was as simple as that. Her need might not be as physical as Peter's, but it was just as strong. She needed to be a woman again. She needed a family. She would do whatever it took to have one. And she would enjoy every minute of the pleasure required to produce one.

Surprisingly Janice felt refreshed when morning arrived. Birds quarreled outside the station, and the air was fresher and cooler than it had been for some while. Betsy chattered incessantly as they picked at the remains of yesterday's lunch basket and gathered their belongings. Today they would arrive in their new home.

The morose woman was running low on food, and she recited a catalog of complaints as the stage jolted along the rocky trail. Janice tried to ignore her while she and Betsy pointed out the sights from their respective windows. Neither of them had ever seen mountains before but they could see a range of them coming ever closer. Betsy excitedly pointed out a white peak and asked if it might be snow.

The woman didn't answer and Janice didn't know. This was barely mid-September. Would there be snow in the mountains? What if Peter was up there and couldn't travel out? What if she couldn't get up to him?

She wouldn't let the panic take over. She would do whatever she had to do when the time came. Panic had driven her to extreme measures more than once. She wouldn't let it direct her now.

They arrived in Butte without incident. Janice sighed in relief at seeing some form of civilization again and no sign of wild Indians. Betsy eagerly jumped from the coach, causing their fellow passenger to grumble about unmannerly heathens. Janice deliberately pushed in front of the woman to descend next. She didn't mean to miss an instant of this new home.

Betsy swung in circles and stared up at the mountains hovering over the tiny town at the foot of the range. Her pale curls flew around her face, and Janice smiled at her daughter's natural exuberance. It was good seeing Betsy breathing freely and behaving like any normal child.

But she couldn't spend her time idling away the minutes. With dismay, she studied the narrow strip of weathered buildings perched on the hillside. She knew something of mining towns, and this one had the looks of abandonment. Whatever the miners had hoped to find here hadn't materialized in any degree sufficient to support a town. Whoever remained must be lingering out of laziness or lack of ambition.

She found the ubiquitous saloon, a barber/doctor/ pharmacist, and a general store. She didn't know if any of these establishments were occupied. A few dwellings boasted curtains in the window. A structure on the outskirts of town looked like it might hold grain, so livestock might be raised in the area. But there obviously wasn't any way to ship cows out. Finding a job here didn't look promising. She would have to hope she found Peter before her dollars ran out.

Jason had insisted on buying the train ticket since Tyler's car had returned to Natchez, but Janice had paid for the stage and their food along the way. Back in Mineral Springs, she could live on the balance of her funds for six months. She wasn't at all certain the same held true out here.

There was no hotel. Janice made this discovery as soon as she looked for a livery to hire a wagon. There was no livery. How would she travel the fifty miles up into the mountains to Peter? How would she know where to go?

It had seemed so easy when she set out. She would hire a wagon and a driver at the livery. In Mineral Springs everyone knew where everyone lived. She had just assumed the driver would know where to take her.

But the reality didn't seem so easy. She didn't even know if anyone lived here, and she doubted sincerely that anyone knew who their next-door neighbors were. It looked like that kind of town.

With some degree of trepidation she asked the man at the stage office if he knew where she could hire a wagon.

"A wagon? What you be needing that for? Ever'thin's in walkin' distance." He was lean and stoop-shouldered with a hank of greasy black hair in his eyes. When he lifted his eyes to her, Janice could see the lack of intelligence in them. She hoped this wasn't the telegraph operator. She needed to send word that she'd arrived safely.

"My husband lives in the mountains. I need some way of getting up to him," she tried explaining.

"Can't take a wagon up them trails. Most folks ride. Know where to get a horse, if you need one." He didn't look particularly interested in imparting the information.

She couldn't ride. Betsy couldn't ride. They would need a pack train to haul their luggage. She hadn't brought everything she owned, but she'd brought everything she could think of that she might need in the middle of nowhere. And she had planned on stocking up on some supplies before she set out. She needed a wagon.

What if he was right? What if a wagon couldn't go up those mountains? Janice sent a panicky look at the blue shadow looming over the town. She had never been on a mountain before. Did they go straight up? Were there even roads or just rocks?

Peter had said bring furniture. There had to be roads.

Stiffening her shoulders, she tried another tactic. "I need to send a telegram. Could you direct me to the telegraph office?"

"This here be the telegraph office. Where you want to send it?"

Oh, Lord, give me strength, Janice murmured to herself. With her luck, this greasy toad was the barber/ physician/pharmacist too. She had brought a supply of Betsy's medicines, but what happened if they ran out? She curled her gloved fingers into her palms and tried to word the message to the Hardings.

Somewhere up the road a man yelled a stream of epithets. A horse screamed in terror. The unexpected sound of wagon wheels suddenly rattling downhill made Janice jerk around to look.

An empty, unhitched wagon bed reeled wildly down the hill—directly toward the stagecoach office where they stood.

Chapter 29

She didn't even have time to think. Grabbing Betsy, Janice dived for the open doorway into the office.

The greasy telegraph operator ran for the farthest corner away from the window where he had been standing.

Betsy screamed as Janice threw her to the floor behind the wall and covered her with her body.

She waited for the explosion of the wagon smashing into the rickety building, the tumble of debris that would bury them. Instead, she heard the report of a rifle, a creak, and an anticlimactic bump against the wooden porch supports.

Astounded more than shaken—there hadn't been time to really panic—Janice pried herself from the floor and Betsy and dared to peek out.

A tall, grizzled man in a disreputable high-crowned cowboy hat strolled down the middle of the dusty street, his rifle still smoking. He kicked at a wagon wheel wobbling in the roadbed and settled it down. The wagon itself rested half on the office porch, its back half buckling one of the posts. Janice stared in disbelief at the axle where the wheel should have been. The man had shot the wheel off.

She stared at the shooter now approaching the office. He seemed vaguely familiar, although she couldn't place him. He was easily twice her age with a graying stubble of beard and a ragged haircut that straggled around his ears. His face was as lean and raw-boned as the rest of him, and he moved with a deceptive casualness. As he drew closer, Janice could see the blank curtain of his eyes, and she shivered. She'd had enough experience with living in frontier towns to know this wasn't a man she wanted to cross.

"Are you all right, ma'am?" His voice was gravelly and lacked any real concern.

"Yes, thank you, sir." To her dismay, her voice was little more than a gasp.

Janice pulled Betsy into her arms and hugged her, needing the reassurance that she was all in one piece. She tried to regain a little more of her composure. "You saved our lives, sir. I don't know how to thank you."