The Ruination of Essie Sparks (Wild Western Rogues Series, Book 2) (8 page)

"We'll find them." He turned an unsettling look on Dooley. "But when we do, you know what must be done with regards to Mrs. Sparks."

"Done? I don't follow."

Laddner glanced grimly up the creek, then at the mountain vistas beyond. "I've spent most of the morning thinking about it. What she must be going through. A fine girl like her. Raised right. That scar-faced savage..." He shook his head and fingered the grip on his pistol. "There's no doubt that he will...
defile
her, as is the wont of all savages like the Cheyenne. We both know the outcome. We've seen it. You must recall that Brassler woman they brought back to the mining camp, found after a few days with those heathens who'd stolen her. And she was not even high-bred. Still," he said, letting this point sink in, "she never was right again. Not fit for human company. Screaming if a man so much as looked at her... only thing she'd tolerate was a pup who wouldn't leave her side."

"We don't know—" Dooley began, but faltered as Laddner tilted a look at him one might aim at a poor animal stuck in the ice. Dooley's frown deepened. "In that case, we must pray for her salvation and sanity."

Laddner sniffed, staring down at the water ruffling down the creek. "I think it would be... un-Christian-like to leave a woman, thusly ruined, to suffer the degradation, the humiliation that would be her fate. Puttin' her down is a mercy only we can afford her. But it's your call, sir. Considering she's got no one in the world to look out for her in her condition... except maybe you. Sir. It might fall on you."

A pregnant pause stretched between them and Laddner watched the possibilities riffle across the reverend's expression.

Dooley reddened and reached for the reins of his horse. Awkwardly, and quite reluctantly, he pulled himself back up into the saddle. "You see that renegade, whoever he is, hangs for what he's done. That's all I want to hear about when you get back."

With a smile, Laddner touched the brim of his hat to the man. "Yes, sir. I will most certainly do that."

* * *

At the river, he set her down on a rock, bracing a hand there to steady himself. He led the horse to the edge, then stooped himself to gulp a few handfuls of water. The afternoon sun had nearly settled between the mountains, but it would still be light for hours yet.

"Soak your feet in the cold water," he instructed. "We will leave again when Náhkohe has rested."

With a petulant look, she did as he asked. The river this high up was icy cold and she gasped as her feet touched it. As she soaked, he filled his water skin and offered it to her. She drank deeply, ignoring her earlier reluctance about the receptacle.

She sighed aloud when she'd drunk her fill and handed it back to him. "What does that name mean, '
Náhkohe
'?"

"Bear," he said, lowering himself down on a rock beside her. "Because he's brave and has seen many battles." Gingerly, he lowered his pants again to loosen the blood-soaked strip of fabric from around his leg and allow some circulation to return. It began bleeding again in earnest. He covered himself again and rinsed the cotton in the stream. He squeezed the cold water over the wound with a hiss of pain.

He caught her watching him warily and he pressed the already wet cloth against the bullet hole in his leggings and leaned his head back against the rock behind him.

The wound needed a hot knife against it, which required fire, which they didn't—couldn't—afford to have. But he would lose either the leg or his life if he didn't take care of it soon. Perhaps once they crested the mountain and were out of sight on the other side... if his strength held...

"Please. You can unbind me now," she said, gesturing to her hands. "Where would I go now that you've got me in the middle of nowhere?"

"No."

With a frown, she pulled at the leather strip where it chafed her wrists. "What do you intend to do with me? Where are you taking me? At least I have the right to know."

"We've been following Little Wolf's trail since we started up the mountain."

Surprise replaced her frown. "What? Where? I saw nothing."

It mattered not to him if she knew how to follow a trail. It mattered little to him what this woman thought at all. "He is still hours ahead of us, moving faster alone."

"And the men from the school?"

He wrung out the cotton again and soaked it in the cold water. "They found the place where we left the creek over an hour ago."

The consequences of that information dawned in her expression. "Will they catch up to us?"

"Not if I can help it."

She stared at the swiftly moving water. "And what of me? Do you intend to kill me?"

He sliced a sideways look at her. She had reason to believe that, he supposed, considering how he'd put the knife to her throat. And dragged her off into the wilderness. In truth, he didn't know what he intended to do with her, but killing her had never entered his mind. "Do you always ask so many questions?"

"Do you always avoid answering them?"

"Most of the time," he admitted. His head ached and he felt like retching. But he took another sip of water to stave it off. Until today, the most English he'd spoken in the last year or so was with the whores at the Lucky Diamond Sporting House in Magic City, and with them, there was little talk. Still, Ollie made sure he was welcome there and he was grateful for that.

A pause that lasted only minutes stretched between them. Then Essie said, "I know your horse's name. Shouldn't I know yours? In case you die, I mean," she added, as if it mattered not to her either way. "That is, if I ever find my way out of this godforsaken place on my own, if you bleed to death." Glancing upward, her gaze followed what he first thought was a hawk, but was, in fact, a buzzard. "Won't someone be missing you? Your wife, perhaps?"

He nearly laughed. "
Wife
? No."

Leaning back against the rock behind her, she said, "You should do that more often."

Opening his eyes at that, he slid a look at her. "What?"

"Smile. It makes you look almost... civilized
.
"

"Then I must remember not to do it." Without thinking, he moved his head so the curtain of hair fell across the scar on his left cheek.

The afternoon sun beat down on them and the river rushed by in a hurry to reach the waterfall that roared somewhere below.

"You needn't hide that on my account, you know. The scar, I mean."

"I wasn't," he lied, but knew it had become second nature to hide it.

She lifted her foot out of the water and touched the place on her heel that the rock had sliced open. "It does seem quite unfair that a scar on a man's face can only make him more intriguing, when on a woman, the same scar would be her utter downfall."

"Intriguing," he repeated incredulously. The woman was shamelessly naïve.

"Yes."

Now he turned to look at her. "And what would you know of scars? You, with your simple life, Essie Sparks?"

She jerked a look back up at him and her fingers darted to the locket that dangled at her throat. "I assure you, my life is nothing close to simple. And as for scars? Everyone has them. Some just carry them under their skin where they're not so easily perceived. To me, scars are a sign of survival. Perseverance. History, even."

He studied her from beneath his lashes. He couldn't see any scars on her. And, for all her talk, he doubted a woman like her would look twice at a man like him if they weren't the only two people on this mountaintop. But her life not simple? He would not lay money on that. She looked like all the other white women he'd met at school who'd had their lives handed to them without strings. Confident in their place. Self-contained.

Yes, everything about her seemed contained except for that hair.

That mop of red that had been tickling his nose for the past few hours as she rode in front of him was something rare. That scent of lavender that lingered on her hair and—as he'd discovered when he'd thrown her over his shoulder—on the rest of her, too, had caused a tightening lower down that even the pain in his leg couldn't mask.

"A scar by any other name would still be a scar," he said at last, biting back the feeling that he was about to heave.

Her pink lips parted in shock. "Do
not
tell me you know Shakespeare!"

He tipped his head back against the rock. "Who?"

"You do! Don't deny it." She wound her hand in circles, trying to remember the words. "'A rose, by any other name, would smell as sweet. So Romeo would, were he not Romeo called, retain that dear perfection which he owes without that title.'" She got to her feet. "'Romeo doff thy name, and for that name, which is no part of thee, take all my
—
'"

Her foot slipped on the wet face of the rock and she lost her balance. She barely had time to cry out before she cartwheeled sideways into the river.

Chapter 5

He couldn't move fast enough to grab her. Into the frigid, fast-moving current she went, and almost as quickly she disappeared under the surface of the water and flew away.

Before he'd even lost sight of her he was ripping his rifle and shirt off over his head and limping along the bank of the river after her. Pain shot through his left leg like a hot arrow, but the fear pumping through him numbed it almost as fast.

She was flailing with her bound hands and gasping for air as she broke the surface ten feet downstream only to disappear again. He saw her surface two more times—clutching for a handhold on the slippery rocks—before he got ahead of her and threw himself across a flat rock, his arm extended.

"Take my hand!" he shouted over the tumbling water. Her green eyes stared up at him, wide with panic, as she reached for him, but her fingers merely brushed past his as the current swept her by.

Below them, maybe five hundred yards from the sound of it, was a waterfall. A big one. He shoved to his feet and ran downstream again. A cataract like that would kill her if he didn't get her out fast. He couldn't think about anything but finding a spot to save her. The sound of her gasping for air and panicked cries made his pulse rock against his insides.

His strides ate the soggy riverbank as he pushed to stay ahead of her, shoving aside branches and tangled shrubs. Finally, a deadfall appeared, lying half in the river. His best and possibly last chance.

He stumbled over a hedge of low bushes and sank down to crawl to the edge of the rotting log. Half lying in the water, clinging to the log, he reached out again for her as she spun toward him. "Essie! Take my hand!"

Her head bobbing half underwater, she looked up at him in real panic and reached her still-bound hands out as the river pulled her under, but this time as she slid by he grasped her wrist and managed to close his fingers around her slender bones and the rope ties. Using all of his strength, he stopped her momentum, pulled her out and dragged her up on top of him.

Falling back against the log, he held her atop him, unable to do more. "
Ómotómeotse
!" he told her. "Breathe. I have you." His fingers spread across her back, searching for the ties on her corset lacing across her back as she coughed and choked up river water. Quickly, he loosened the strings and she inhaled deeply.

Even then she didn't seem able to do more than lie sprawled across him, coughing and sucking in air. He held her, his hand slapping her back. Coughing, she pressed her cheek against his chest, her head tucked below his chin. They lay like that for half a minute before she seemed to come to herself. When she lifted her head from his chest, water still clung to her dark auburn lashes and her eyes seemed full of some emotion he could not name.

His own breath was still chugging in his chest, half from fear of losing her and the other half from the fact that he'd just used up what few reserves he had left. And yet in that moment, he had the impulse to kiss her. That must have shown in his eyes, because she got scared and rolled off him almost as soon as the thought entered his mind.

Her soaking wet chemise hid nothing from his view. He sat up and looked intentionally away from her, but couldn't get the image of her dusky nipples, so visible through the wet fabric, from his mind. "That was a fool thing to do," he muttered.

"A fool thing?" she cried, sitting up and pulling away from him. She sat between his legs on the log, crossing her arms across her small breasts with an accusing look. "I slipped. I almost drowned, thanks to you!" She held up her still-bound hands as proof.