Dorothy Garlock - [Wabash River] (27 page)

A look of stunned disbelief came over Rain’s face. “You’ll do no such thing!”

“I’ll do as I damn well please. You know as well as I do that Tally wouldn’t get a mile from here before one of them,” she jerked her head toward the loafers in front of the building, “killed him for his horse.”

“Do you think you could stop it?”

“I know damn well I could. You don’t have any confidence in me either. You still don’t think I can take care of myself, do you?”

“Goddamn it! You don’t have to take care of yourself. That’s my job.” His dark eyes, bright with anger, raked her face and his nostrils flared. Rain’s fury was real. Amy had never seen him display such anger. Violence smoldered in his eyes. The tension in him was so strong that she was shaking from the impact of it. Still, she was determined not to back down.

“Mount up, Tally. Let’s go. I’ll catch up with you before night, Rain.”

“Damn you to hell!” Rain directed his anger at Tally. His voice was cold. “You stupid son of a bitch. Every man in this place will be hot on your trail as soon as you leave here. Look at them! They’re interested. They know she’s a woman and because she’s wearing britches they think she’s as common as a brothel bitch. They’re waiting to see what she’s going to do. As soon as she leaves here, they’ll be after her like a fish after bait. Do you want her raped by that bunch?”

“I . . . I ain’t asked her to go,” Tally stammered.

“Stop blaming Tally. I’m perfectly capable of deciding things for myself.” Amy stared unblinkingly at him, seeing what her actions had wrought in him and not letting it deter her. “Come on, Tally.” She wheeled her mount. Rain jumped his in front of her and grabbed the thin leather strap of the bridle.

“You knew I’d back down if you threatened to go off with him, didn’t you? You were right. I’ll back down. He can come with us. But I’m warning you, he’ll crack when things get tough. When that happens I’ll dump him as if he were so much worthless baggage. Understand?”

“What about me? If I crack will you also dump me as so much worthless baggage? I didn’t realize you chose your
friends
by how useful they were to you. Tally and I will do our share of the work, and we’ll be no burden to you.”

For a long moment their eyes locked—blazing amber burning into dark fire. His hand left the bridle and closed tightly about her wrist and lifted it up between them. She resisted the pull with all her strength.

“I’ve never laid a rough hand on a woman before, but by God, you’re tempting me to beat you!” His voice quivered and his jaws snapped shut when he finished speaking.

“Don’t try it. You might find me a bit harder to handle than Eleanor.”

Amy looked Rain full in the face. It was a face she didn’t know, a dark face turned livid with tight-lipped fury. Silence swirled around them as their eyes battled. Color drained from her cheeks, but she looked steadily at him and waited for him to make a move. His hand fell away from her wrist and he moved his mount back.

“Move out. We’ve attracted enough attention here.” His voice was low, heavy, almost tired.

Amy was free of his grasp, but not the aura of anger that surrounded him like a heavy fog. She turned her mount and followed him, knowing that Tally followed her. She closed her eyes and gripped the saddle horn. Her breasts rose with a slow, indrawn breath. She felt sick.

The happiness of the night before seemed a dream to her now. She asked herself if she would ever understand this man who could be so sweet and gentle one day and so stubborn and vicious the next.

Fourteen

It was almost noon. The sick feeling in the pit of Rain’s stomach was still there. It had lain there since early morning. The fear he had felt when the horse Amy was holding was shot had unnerved him to the point that he had been unsure about his ability to shoot the fire arrows. He had had to put the thought from his mind that a mere few feet separated her from the bullet that went into the horse’s head.

Now he wondered if that was the reason he had been so angry about Tally Perkins. Perkins wasn’t much of a man. If he were he would have come right out and asked to join them. Instead he had sneaked along behind, probably hoping Amy would take pity on him, Rain thought irritably. He would do just as he had said if Perkins didn’t measure up. This wasn’t the trip to break in a new trail hand.

Another thought came to Rain that irritated him even more. He remembered his stepfather, John Spotted Elk, saying that a woman needed taming like a horse. Keep a strong hand on the bridle, pet them a little, and they would not mind the halter. But let them get the bit in their teeth and they would make a man miserable and themselves too. He had let Amy have her way this time against his better judgment. It was not a good way to start their life together.

They had not stopped since leaving the ramshackle settlement by the river where they had landed. Rain wanted to put as many miles as he could between his group and that place. The settlement was the hangout of raiders and thieves who had been run out of Saint Genevieve. He had been through it a few times on his way to the thriving mining town. The town had over three hundred houses, an academy, and eight or ten stores. The whole region was not in very good repute. Workmen from the lead mines were continually engaged in brawls and proprietors were frequently at odds. Nearly everyone carried a concealed dagger, sometimes two, while others wore a brace of pistols. Lawyers, boatmen, merchants, officers in civil and military authority, and river pirates all mixed at candlelighting time. One of the leading amusements of this wild, half-savage wilderness population was shooting at each other with rifles and pistols, or pinning an ear to the wall with a stiletto.

The trail Rain took south ran back from the river among trees with lofty limbs meeting overhead so that the sun came through in small, scattered patches. The floor of the forest was thickly bedded with old leaves and there was no undergrowth. They passed through quietly, but overhead the trees were noisy with brilliant, chattering parakeets. Rain led his party out of the forest and turned west, heading for the hilly country. He stopped at a spring that seeped out of a rocky bluff.

“We’ll noon here,” he said to Gavin.

The day had grown hotter by the hour, but here the air was surprisingly cool. The faint breeze smelled of pines and cedars, and Amy saw them scattered among the hickory, elm and a few types of shrub she had never seen before. To the west were the first of the low, rounded hills that gradually became higher, knobbier and rougher.

Amy handed the reins of her horse over to Tally when he reached for them. She occasionally watched him as she gathered wood for a small, quick fire. He was good with animals and seemed to be anxious to make himself useful. Even the balky mules obeyed him. He led the horses and mules to water and then tied them so they could graze on the tender grass.

Rain saw to his own horse and then, without a word, took up his rifle. In a few noiseless strides he disappeared. Feeling utterly miserable, Amy watched him leave. After relieving her aching bladder behind the bushes and washing at the spring, she returned to camp to start a small fire next to the bluff, using hickory because it made a thin smoke. The fact that Rain had ignored both her and Tally since leaving the settlement was making her sick inside. She tried desperately to pull her thoughts off her disappointment when Eleanor came to the fire with the big teakettle.

“Tell me what to do.” The request was low and hesitant,

Amy took off her hat and rubbed the sleeve of her shirt across her forehead to cover her surprise. The open, honest look in Eleanor’s eyes was also a surprise. Her hair was braided in Indian fashion, and the long ropes hung down over her chest. To Amy she was even more beautiful than when she wore it high and puffed. Her soft, white shirt was open at the neck and the sleeves were rolled up past her elbows. The toes of sturdy shoes showed beneath her dark skirt. It seemed to Amy that Eleanor had finally adapted to the trail. And she looked years younger.

“Amy? Gavin says I must help. And . . . I really want to.”

“I’ll be glad for your help. Two of us can get the meal ready much faster than one. Fill the kettle with water for tea while I cook the meat.”

Eleanor hurried to the spring, walking around Gavin and Tally who squatted on their heels beside the wagon, looking closely at one of the rear wheels.

“Another day is about all the wheels can take without grease,” Tally said.

Gavin had been watching the scene between Amy and Eleanor and was relieved to see Amy accept Eleanor’s help. He saw Eleanor hurrying to the spring and tried to bring his attention back to what Tally was saying.

“I’ll work on them tonight.”

“Is that the truth, now? I don’t be knowin’ much about wagons and such.”

“That’s all I do know—wagons, mules and farming,” Tally said wistfully.

“Ye’ll be learnin’ fast enuff. Rain’s a good man, fer all his gruff ways. His job is to take the lassie to Belle Point. Tis rough land ahead. Ye was wrong not to be askin’ to join afore we left Quill’s.”

“I know that now.”

“It rankles him that his woman went against him. I can’t be sayin’ that I blame him. Twas shamed, he was.”

“I never wanted to cause trouble for Miss Amy—”

“Tis done, lad. Ye do as the mon says if ye be wantin’ to keep body ’n soul together.”

Gavin’s eyes strayed from Tally’s worried face to Eleanor coming from the spring with the kettle. His eyes feasted on her face. The sun, coming through the foliage of the trees, fell directly on her head. Her hair had broken loose from the braids and was flying around her face. She pushed it from her white cheek with the back of her hand. Her eyes were on the ground, her lower lip caught firmly between her teeth.

As she neared, Gavin reluctantly turned his eyes away, not wanting her to see him watching. He cursed himself as a fool for allowing the warm feeling of joy to come over him when he looked at her. He hired on to take her to another man, he told himself sternly. On the heels of that thought came another. In the next few weeks he would have to store up enough sweet memories to last a lifetime.

Eleanor was awkward around the campfire, but she was willing help. Amy showed her how to stir up a batch of cornpone, wet it with spring water and spoon it into the hot grease after she lifted out the strips of meat. When the meal was ready the four of them ate it and drank the strong tea with hardly a word passing between them.

Nooning over, they prepared to move out. Rain had not returned. Amy wrapped a plate of food in a cloth and set it beneath the wagon seat. Gavin tied Rain’s horse to the back of the wagon.

“Are we going without Rain?” Eleanor asked.

“Aye. Tis what he said to do.”

Gavin didn’t offer to help Eleanor climb up over the wheel and into the wagon. He watched her make several attempts, then turned away and grinned in satisfaction when she finally hoisted herself up and onto the seat as Amy had done.

“We should have left his horse,” Eleanor said to Amy as they moved out.

“He’ll catch up.”

“You don’t sound worried.”

Amy didn’t answer. She found her throat dry and lumpy.

“I don’t blame you for being scared.”

“I’m not
scared!”

“He was boiling mad this morning.” Eleanor threw Amy a quizzical glance.”

“He’ll get over it.”

“Gavin says Rain is the best scout in the territory. I think that if Rain didn’t want Tally along, you should have left him. After all, you didn’t ask him to come. Or did you?”

“I’m not interested in what you think, and I don’t want to talk about it.”

“He’s handsome! Heavens! He’s handsome!” Eleanor sighed deeply. “Dressed in the right clothes he’d have every woman in Charleston after him.” She turned the full force of her violet eyes on Amy. “Gavin says you’re in love with him.”

“In love with Tally? Humph!”

“Not Tally.” Eleanor laughed softly. “Who would look at
him
when Rain and Gavin are around? I mean Rain. Are you in love with him?”

Amy looked Eleanor full in the face, her eyes suddenly hard amber agates, her voice equally hard and full of impatience when she spoke. “I’ve loved Rain Tallman since I was a child. If you’ve got any notion of working your charms on him, you’d better think twice about it. I’ll fight you in every dirty way I can think of, and believe me, Eleanor, I can think of plenty of ways to make your life miserable between here and Belle Point.”

“If you want him you’d better change your ways.” The words were spoken firmly but kindly. “You don’t know much about men, or you’d not have made an open issue about Tally coming with us in front of all those men at the settlement.”

“I love Rain, but I don’t kowtow to everything he says. He was wrong about Tally.”

“You should have gone about it differently. There are ways of working things around so that a man thinks what
you
want was his idea to begin with.”

“If you want us to get along, Eleanor, I suggest you tend to your own business.”

“Don’t be mad at me, Amy. I couldn’t have Rain if I wanted him. Oh, I tried. I tried real hard on the way to Quill’s Station. He looked right through me with those black eyes of his, as if he knew exactly what I was trying to do. I knew then that his heart belonged to someone else. It made me mad at first. I saw you and I thought, why her? What was it about you that was more desirable?” Eleanor laughed. “I’m glad now that he turned me down. You may not believe it, Amy, but I’ve not been turned down often. A man is more exciting if you
can’t
twist him around your little finger.”

“Exciting? Is that what you think love is?”

“Sure. Do you feel excited when you look at Tally? He looks at you as if he could melt and run all over the floor. Flitter! He’d lie down and let you walk on him or stick his hand in the fire to please you. Does that excite you? It’s disgusting is what it is. Rain wouldn’t tail after a woman who didn’t want him, although I can’t imagine a woman who wouldn’t,” she added with a giggle. “Rain calls the shots. He’s a man, a real man, like Gavin.”