Lynna Banning (13 page)

Damnation! He sat down opposite her. He hadn’t planned on this, hadn’t ever dreamed he could be so drawn to a member of the female gender. He wanted her. But he knew bone-deep he was too vulnerable. He couldn’t afford the risk, wouldn’t admit even to himself how soul-deep his hunger ran.

He clenched his jaw until his teeth ached. What the devil was he going to do for the next sixty minutes?

For an entire hour Ben watched Jessamyn gobble down sliced jerky. While she ate, she bombarded him with incessant questions. Her head cocked to one side, she scribbled in her notebook as fast as he could talk.

“What do you think about Indians having firearms?”

“Damn dangerous,” he growled.

“How did you and Black Eagle get along when you served as the Indian agent?”

“We were blood brothers. We trusted each other.”

“Do you notice any difference now in the chief’s regard for you?”

Ben hesitated. There was a difference; he just didn’t want to explain it to Jessamyn. Mercifully, she did not ask what Black Eagle thought of “his” woman.

Ben himself did not know what he thought of Jessamyn at the moment. The stubborn, overstarched Northerner, sheltered all her life in civilized Boston, had certainly made an impression on Black Eagle. And despite the language barrier she had befriended the Indian chief’s daughter, Walks Dancing. Both things surprised him.

He shook his head. City lady or not, another day in camp and she’d have the whole band of Indians eating out of her hand.
He
was the only one she didn’t seem to-cotton to. Only when her otherwise valiant spirit flagged after hours
on the trail, or after the emotional shock of eating a supper of roasted dog meat did she turn to him for help. Then she was like the feisty little banty rooster he’d once accidentally shut out of his sister-in-law’s henhouse. Head up, squawking, but with feathers that drooped in the mud, the bird had glared accusingly at him with a hard, unblinking eye.

Jessamyn Whittaker had that same fighting spirit. And, Ben noted with an inward chuckle, she had emotional depths she herself was unaware of. He would never forget how she had wept during the audible lovemaking session Black Eagle and his wife had indulged in last night. What an astounding reaction for an unworldly woman of delicate sensibilities.

No doubt about it, Jessamyn was a decidedly uncommon woman. Ben watched her pare off another slice of dried venison, wash it down with the bowl of hot sassafras tea Walks Dancing had set just inside the tipi entrance. He knew he had to get her out of camp as soon as she could ride. Black Eagle had taken too much of a fancy to her.

“Soon as you’ve finished eating, pack up,” Ben muttered over the tightness in his throat. “We’re leaving.” He rose to his feet, his head brushing the top of the shelter.

Jessamyn stuffed another piece of jerky into her mouth and shoved her notebook into the saddlebag. Snapping his pocketknife shut, she handed it back to him, along with the remains of the dried meat. She pulled her boots on over her thick wool stockings and stood up.

“I’m ready.”

Ben eyed her. “No, you’re not. Pin up that hair.”

Jessamyn’s eyes widened and her hand flew to her head. “Oh, my, yes, I’d forgotten all about it. Wait—my hairpins!”

She rummaged in the saddlebag, withdrew a handful of bent wire pins and a tortoiseshell comb. Raising her arms, she began to twist a handful of her thick, dark hair into a loose roll. Ben caught his breath as her shirt pulled tight across her breasts. He couldn’t watch and not want her.
Lord, how was he going to stand the two-day trek back to Wildwood Valley with her?

He turned away, angry at himself for being so intrigued by this annoying bit of single-minded womanhood. Grumbling to himself, he strode outside to saddle the horses.

The entire Indian encampment gathered to see them off. Jessamyn followed Ben to their saddled mounts, letting her gaze roam over Black Eagle’s little band. Everyone was here—the old woman, silent warriors, wide-eyed children. And not one single dog, she noted with a twinge of pain. Also absent was the brave with the hidden rifle. She quietly called that fact to Ben’s attention, and he nodded.

Just as she settled herself on the mare’s back, she spied Walks Dancing limping through the crowd, her undulating steps agonizingly slow. Pausing next to Jessamyn’s horse, the Indian girl handed up a beaded deerskin pouch. Inside lay a beautifully carved comb made of polished bone. Jessamyn’s heart swelled. A gift.

Touched, she withdrew the tortoiseshell comb from her hair and presented it to the young Indian woman. Then, with a final smile, she nudged her horse up the trail after Ben’s gelding. At the first bend she twisted in the saddle to look back. Walks Dancing waved until she was out of sight.

Jessamyn’s throat swelled. She had made a friend in the Indian camp. Though they could not talk directly with one another, a bond had grown between the two—a shared understanding. Words were not needed.

Ahead of her, Ben urged his horse into the rock-walled cavern. Jessamyn followed the hollow clatter of hoofbeats into the shadowy opening that led down to Wildwood Valley and civilization.

It was dark before the sheriff called a halt. Parched with thirst, her skin dry and tight from the hot wind, Jessamyn
slid off the mare.

“Are we going to cook supper now?”

“Not tonight.”

Her stomach contracted. She’d eaten cold jerky for breakfast, and since then she’d had only two dried-out biscuits from Ben’s pocket. Now she faced a cold, meager supper, as well.

“Don’t turn around, Jessamyn. Gather some wood. Someone’s following us.”

Her blood turned to ice water.

Ben dropped his saddle a good distance from the fire pit he’d fashioned. “Just keep moving around.”

“Who is it?” she ventured. Her voice sounded tight and scratchy.

“They’ve been trailing us since noon. I wouldn’t put it past Black Eagle to—”

He broke off. “Jess, don’t turn around. Come over here to me.”

“Wh-what is it?” She tried to keep her voice steady.

“Nothing, yet.” He slipped one arm behind her shoulders and pulled her back against his chest. “See that ledge up there?”

She nodded. A lopsided boulder jutted from the rimrock above them.

“I’m going to stake the horses beyond the fire. Make it look like we’re camped a ways off.”

“Oh,” she said in a small voice. “That’s a g-good idea.”

“Stay close beside me. If anything moves up there, you let me know.”

Again Jessamyn nodded. Fear turned her mouth sour. She swallowed hard. Her saliva tasted like unripened grapes.

Ben moved to the stones he’d laid out in a ring, knelt and flicked his thumbnail against a match head. A flame
flared and guttered. He touched it to a twisted wisp of dry dockweed.

Jessamyn watched the grass shrivel and curl as the fire licked at the tinder. She flicked a glance up at the ridge above them. Nothing moved.

Instinctively she moved toward the comforting warmth of the fire, but Ben laid his hand on her shoulder.

“Stay here. Out of sight.” He gestured to her bedroll. “When it gets good and dark, unroll it next to mine and lay your head on my saddle.”

Without waiting for her assent, he gave her shoulder a quick squeeze. Then he picked up her saddle and a single blanket and moved toward the fire pit. Dropping the leather saddle near the flames, he artfully arranged a blanket over three rounded rocks to resemble a sleeping person.

He disappeared into the shadows, then returned leading both horses. He picketed the animals between Jessamyn and the snapping flames, then turned to her. “Roll up in the blanket. There’s food in my saddlebag.”

“But—”

He tossed the blanket over her shoulder and turned away. “Don’t argue, Jess. Eat. Then get some sleep.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll keep watch. Save me the last of that jerky.” He settled himself on the ground beside her, putting his back against a flat rock. Grabbing her hand, he pulled her down next to him.

Trembling, she rolled herself up in the woolen blanket and stared hard at the rocks above them, trying to penetrate the thick darkness by squinting her eyes and not blinking. She watched so long her eyes stung.

Ben touched her blanket-swathed shoulder. “Cold?”

“N-no. Just scared, I guess.”

He extricated his pocketknife from his pants and laid it and a strip of jerky within reach.

“Eat something,” he ordered. He crawled to the fire,
added more wood and returned with something chunky in his hand.

“Here.” He shoved a large fire-heated rock under the blanket next to her body.

Jessamyn curled her shaking form around the warm object and slipped a round of venison into her mouth. Little by little her shaking lessened. Wary, her senses overactive, she lay still.

Below them, a coyote howled. An owl hooted once into the quiet. Jessamyn thought of Black Eagle and his wife, the sounds they made inside their tipi. Mating sounds. Natural sounds.

She nibbled another piece of jerky and turned her gaze on Ben, watched him slip his pistol out of the holster he wore strapped low on his hip. He laid the gun in his lap, his palm resting against the butt.

A cricket scraped a series of off-key notes, lapsed into ominous silence, then began again. Ben’s breathing slowed to a steady rhythm. Jessamyn chewed the lump of dried meat and considered the man at her side.

It was odd how she and Ben Kearney had become…well, almost friends on this journey. They certainly hadn’t started out that way. She doubted that Ben had many friends outside of Jeremiah and perhaps her father. Women she could imagine the sheriff having—women in large numbers, in fact, given his handsome, even arresting face and those smoky blue eyes. But a woman
friend?

Now he was protecting her, taking precautions to keep her safe from an unseen enemy. She laid the open pocketknife and the jerky strip next to Ben’s empty holster.

“Thanks,” he said. The quietly spoken word calmed her jittery nerves. She forced herself to plan a newspaper layout, compose headlines in her mind, make up lead paragraphs—anything to keep her thoughts off the danger she sensed. And off her growing respect for the taciturn, enigmatic man beside her.

She wondered if her father had ever been afraid. What would Papa have done if he’d been in danger?

Jessamyn drew in a shuddery breath. She already knew the answer. He’d have gone right on with the business of publishing his paper. That’s probably what got him killed.

Tension knotted her stomach. She closed her eyes, then snapped them open again. Ben sat motionless in the shadows, his head resting against the rock, his Stetson tipped down over his forehead. Underneath the brim, his eyes were alert and hard.

“Go to sleep,” he said, his voice quiet.

Her lids drifted shut. After a long moment she let them flutter open. It comforted her to watch him.

A movement caught Ben’s eye. A glimmer of firelight glinted off something—a knife? A rifle? A cold calm settled over him. He slipped his forefinger into the trigger guard.

A twig snapped and an Indian brave stepped into the circle of firelight.

“Running Elk,” Ben said, his voice even. He spoke in Yurok. “I have been waiting.”

The brave grunted. “Iron Hand will sell me the woman?”

“Iron Hand will not.” He switched to English. “This woman is not for sale.”

“How if I take her, then?” The Indian took a step toward the lumpy blanket before the fire.

“You will not take her. I will kill you if you take one more step.”

Running Elk hesitated. “She is worth much, then?”

Ben slid the gun barrel on top of his thigh and aimed it. “She is worth much. Many horses.”

At his side, Jessamyn’s blanket twitched.

The brave spat out. “Iron Hand knows I can get many horses.”

“Iron Hand does not need horses.”

“Guns, then.” The Indian’s eyes gleamed suddenly. “Rifles.”

“Nor guns. The woman belongs to me.”

The blanket jerked again. Deliberately, Ben rolled one booted foot sideways until it touched the reclining lump at his side. When he felt his foot rest against something solid, he pressed, slow and hard.’

The blanket stilled.

“You are an old man, Iron Hand. She is young and strong. I will give her many sons.”

“I am thirty seasons and six. I will give her my own sons,” Ben heard himself reply. “You will give her nothing. Take your companions and ride back to Black Eagle. Tell him Iron Hand does not bargain for what is already his. Tell him also that I make a gift of the life of his brave, Running Elk. Go now, before I change my mind.”

The Indian peered into the darkness toward the sound of Ben’s voice. Slowly he turned away, then grabbed for the blanket covering the stones.

Ben’s gun blazed a streak of red-orange fire, and Running Elk cried out and clutched his wrist.

Ben raised the pistol and sighted over the man’s heart. “Running Elk’s life ebbs like sand emptying from a seashell.”

The brave pivoted. “Iron Hand does not fire at a man’s back.”

Ben chuckled. “Iron Hand values this woman.’ He will shoot if you remain until he counts to three fingers.”

Running Elk muttered an obscenity in Yurok.

“One,” Ben called.

“Two.”

“Thr—”

The Indian vanished into the dark.

Ben breathed out a long, slow breath and lowered the pistol. “Jess?”

A muffled word from under the blanket.

“Let’s go.”

Jessamyn’s head emerged from under the folds of tan wool, her eyes wide. “Go?”

Ben nodded. He grabbed his saddle from under her head. “Mount up. He’ll be back. We’ve got to beat them to the river crossing.”

Her mouth dropped open. “But that’s miles from here!”

“Exactly.” He tossed his saddle on the gelding, then went to retrieve hers. “Now, mount up.”

They rode all night. After the first few hours Jessamyn gave up trying to see in the dark and let the mare have her head. Gus at the livery stable was right. On rocky ground, horses were smarter than humans. The mare stepped daintily after Ben’s gelding, her footing solid and sure. Jessamyn gripped the saddle horn so tightly her hands ached. Every mile of the way she expected something or someone to jump out at her. She’d never felt so defenseless in her life.