Wilderness Courtship (15 page)

“I don’t think so,” he answered, speaking quietly. “But they do seem to respect him here so he’s probably related. The Indians often intermarry to join their tribes in permanent alliances.”

“Like the royal families of Europe?”

“Yes, now that you mention it. Exactly like that.”

Thorne had lifted Jacob into his arms and seemed to be waiting for something so she stood quietly beside him until she ran out of patience. “Why are we just standing here? Can’t we go into town and find a hotel?” She pointed. “I think I see several possibilities.”

“You do. Our guides tell me a proprietor named Goodell offers excellent food and real beds. We’ll spend one night at his hotel before we head for Olympia. But first I want to buy horses from our Indian friends.”

“Is this where I’ll be choosing the one Leschi promised me?”

“I’m not sure. All I know is, one will not be nearly sufficient.” He glanced at her, then at Naomi. “I assume you can ride astride?”

“Of course. Faith and I used to hop on Father’s favorite old mule, Ben, and trot him around the pasture all the time.” She felt a blush rising to warm her already-flushed cheeks even more. “Of course, Mother didn’t know we were doing it or she’d have pitched a fit.”

“I hope Naomi is equally nimble because I’m not sure where I’d find a proper sidesaddle for her in an outpost as remote as this one.”

“I’ll be glad to teach her how to ride like a man,” Charity said with a shy smile and a giggle. “We may not be graceful or totally modest, considering our long skirts, but we’ll do. I promise.”

“You are truly a marvel, Miss Beal,” he said, grinning at her.

“In that case, I think you should begin calling me by my given name.”

“That’s not proper.”

“If we were seated in a drawing room in San Francisco and sipping tea out of china cups I might agree with you. Out here in this wilderness, such formality seems a bit stiff and unnecessary, don’t you think?”

“Will you call me Thorne?” He arched an eyebrow and gazed at her quizzically.

“If that is your wish.”

He bowed slightly, clearly mindful of the child he was still holding. “It is, Miss Charity. And may I say it will please me greatly to hear my name on your lips.”

That comment, along with his obvious good humor and the twinkle in his dark eyes, added even more color to her cheeks and she could feel the warmth spreading to her very soul.

“Then it shall be my pleasure.” She hesitated, wondering how it would feel to actually speak his name aloud rather than merely think it. All she said in addition was, “Thorne,” but she knew her tone bespoke a fondness for him that was unmistakable.

He sobered, nodded and whispered, “Charity.”

The timbre of his voice gave her shivers and sent a tingle zinging along her spine. Never, in all her twenty years, had she heard anything that had thrilled and pleased her more.

“Did you get a look at her?” Cyrus Satterfield asked his Snoqualmie cohort.

“Ai. She is here. I see her with the man and the boy.”

“A big man? Dressed in black?”

“Ai.”

“All right. That’s all I’ll need you for. I’ll finish this myself.”

“No. I go with you.”

Satterfield shook his head and gestured with his lit cigar. “You’ll do nothing of the kind. If you hadn’t shot at that canoe, they wouldn’t even know anybody was after them.”

“You say kill pale woman. I do.”

“No,” Satterfield countered with evident rancor. “You didn’t kill her. All you did was graze her with your musket ball or she wouldn’t be walking around town this very minute.”

“I kill next time,” the brave insisted. “Put poison on ball like we do arrows.”

That got Satterfield’s attention. “Poison? You have such a thing?”

“Ai. Kill deer fast.”

He noted the Snoqualmie brave’s taciturn expression and didn’t doubt that his own life would be in danger if he made an enemy of these Indians. “All right. You can stay with me. But only because I may need some of your poison and instruction on how to handle it. I don’t want to accidentally hurt myself.”

Nodding, the Indian turned and walked away, leaving him standing alone outside the saloon.

Satterfield muttered a few choice curses that referred to both the Snoqualmie’s rotten attitude and a questionable parentage, then shrugged off the unspoken threat he’d glimpsed in the brave’s eyes and entered the building. There was more money to be made before morning, before he would have to mount up and give chase once again.

In the meantime, he intended to enjoy himself to the utmost, even if the only whiskey he could get was rotgut and the only woman he could find to warm his bed was from a local tribe. He would have preferred one of the willowy blondes Blackwell had with him, but the short, squat Indian squaws would have to do. If he could find one that had not had her head bound as a baby, so much the better. Those sloping foreheads and elongated heads might be the Indians’ idea of beauty but they turned his stomach.

Chapter Fifteen

T
he lodging he’d been able to obtain in Cowlitz landing was not as luxurious as Thorne would have liked for Charity and the others but it had sufficed. He had not been able to purchase everything they would need for the final leg of their journey, either, though he had been assured that one of the stores in Olympia would be able to furnish the rest of his gear.

Thanks to the needs of the lumbering operations nearby and the brisk fur trade, Olympia had sprung up on the banks of the upper Cowlitz between the river and a snaking finger of Puget Sound. All manner of freighting was being carried on there, both by river and via the sound. To his surprise, there was even a newly founded mail service operating by horseback and canoe between the town and the mouth of the Columbia, far to the south.

Thorne would have preferred to keep to the water as they had so far, but from here on it wasn’t practical. According to information from the men who ran the mercantile, Rev. and Mrs. White had built their mission farm on the part of the prairie called Nisqually Flats, near Fort Steilacoom. Therefore, the fastest, best access to them was on horseback.

Leschi had wanted to tarry with his kinsmen at Cowlitz landing so Thorne and his party had proceeded without a guide. As they traveled in single file along the well-worn trail north toward Olympia and then Steilacoom, he kept a sharp eye out. He wished Leschi had seen fit to come along but he was thankful that the amiable Indian had at least explained the shortest, best route.

In spite of occasionally having to wade through swampland as deep as the bellies of their horses, Thorne and his party were making good time. They had encountered a startling number of cabins and small farms along the trail, many of which were occupied by American settlers. If they had stopped to visit with everyone who had invited them in, it could have taken weeks to finish the day-long ride.

Spotting a ramshackle, apparently abandoned dwelling just off the trail in a grove of trees, Thorne finally suggested they pause to rest and eat some of the food they had brought. If he had been making the journey alone, he would have pressed on but he could tell the women were tiring. Even Charity was starting to look unusually pale. Besides, the sky had darkened as if a storm were imminent and he didn’t want them to be caught in the open if it started to pour.

“Oh, I’d love to get down,” Charity said with a sigh of relief. “Jacob has been napping for the last hour or so and my arms are so tired they’re tingling.”

Thorne dismounted first, tied his horse’s reins and the ropes from the pack animals’ halters to nearby saplings, then laid his rifle and ammunition aside before he reached up to relieve her of the child. The weary boy barely stirred in his uncle’s arms.

“Take him inside and see if you can find a good place for his nap,” Charity said. “I can manage myself and Naomi.”

“Are you certain?”

“Perfectly. These horses are small but I would still rather you did not watch us climbing down. We may not be as modest as we wish to be.”

“All right. Just remember what Leschi told us about Indian ponies and get off on the right-hand side instead of the left. I’ll only be a few steps away. As soon as I get Jacob settled I’ll come back and see to the horses so you won’t have to bother with them.”

The land around the old cabin was overgrown and the place looked deserted. Nevertheless, Thorne knocked before entering.

The door swung open with a squeak, revealing a broken latch, as well as rusty hinges. Stepping inside, he noted a tinge of green moss on the flat surfaces of the rough-sawn furniture. Only the sagging and frayed ropes remained on the bed frames. Chipped, stained dishes were stacked on shelves against one wall. Pots and pans sat empty atop a small, black, wood-burning stove. The place looked as if its former occupants had simply given up homesteading and had walked away, leaving most of their belongings behind.

He shrugged out of his coat, spread it on the hard-packed dirt floor, then laid the sleepy child on it before starting back to assist the women and hurry them along. The sooner he got everyone to their final destination, the sooner the knots of nervousness in his stomach would ease.

Spotting another rifle standing in one corner of the single-room cabin, he delayed a moment longer to have a closer look at it.

Charity was loath to admit she was feeling worse by the hour. Hoping she could continue to mask her feverishness, she sat astride the brown-and-white-spotted mare Leschi had given her and watched Thorne until he was out of sight in the cabin.

Thunder rumbled in the distance. To her dismay, her mare and the other horses seemed to be becoming unduly nervous. Since she wasn’t familiar with these small, compact, Indian ponies, she assumed it was their nature to be a bit high-strung and the impending storm probably didn’t help their temperament.

She mustered her remaining resolve, ignored the throbbing of her head and started to dismount. Just as she swung her leg over the saddle, the horse sidestepped, almost causing her to fall. She kicked her right foot free, jumped and landed squarely on the mossy ground. The jarring of the landing made her already-pounding head feel as if it was about to explode.

“Easy, girl,” she crooned, not letting go of the bridle for fear the mare would bolt. “Easy. It’s just me. I know you’re not used to all these petticoats flapping around but I can’t help that.”

With the reins looped around her hand, she grasped Naomi’s horse’s bridle and forced a smile. “Time to get down, dear. Do you remember how I taught you to do it?”

Naomi nodded but Charity could see that the woman was unsure.

“Just swing your left leg over and…”

Suddenly, a whooshing, snorting sound emanated from the forest behind them. It reminded her of the noise a startled deer made when it sensed danger.

Both horses reared back and rolled their eyes, whickering and blowing through flared nostrils. Charity held fast and tried to dig in her heels, but to no avail. She was being dragged along by the wiry animals as if she were as weightless as a feather.

“Naomi! Jump down. Now,” she commanded. “Do as I say.”

To her relief, that authoritative tone did the trick. Naomi alit with surprising grace and speed but to Charity’s chagrin, that action spooked the horses even more.

Naomi’s black-and-white mount pulled free first, wheeled, and headed for the wilds with its ears back and its tail held high. Both packhorses immediately jerked their lead ropes loose from the sapling they’d been tied to and gave chase amid more lightning and crashes of thunder.

Charity hung on to her little mare in spite of its determination to follow the others. Where was Thorne? Hadn’t he heard the furor? She supposed not or he would have come running by now.

She was continuing to try to calm her mare when a war whoop echoed across the glade and made the hair on the back of her neck prickle.

Another more distant whoop answered from the opposite direction. She thought she glimpsed slight movement through the trees and brambles. Here and there she could catch glimpses of brown color similar to that of the Indian clothing she’d noted in Cowlitz and beyond.

No matter which tribe members had made that chilling noise, Charity knew that she and the others were going to be afoot if she didn’t retain at least one horse. She was also convinced that standing out in the open was the worst place to be, especially because any friendly natives would surely have shown themselves by now.

“Naomi! Come on. Never mind the other horses. Help me get this one inside.”

Tugging, cajoling and backing away, Charity managed to urge the mare all the way to the cabin door. What she wasn’t able to do was convince the horse to step foot into the darker interior.

“Thorne,” she shouted over her shoulder. “Help us!”

He wheeled in response to Charity’s cry and saw her trying to coax one of the fractious, half-wild Indian ponies through the doorway.

It would have been laughable if she had not had such a distressed look on her face. “What in the world are you doing?”

“Indians,” she blurted. “Outside. I’m sure I saw them sneaking through the woods and I was afraid they’d steal my horse.”

“Where’s Naomi?”

“Right behind me.”

The mare had its head lowered, its ears laid back, its neck bowed and its feet set, giving Thorne plenty of room to peer over its back. He caught his breath. “Where?”

“Right out there. The other horses ran off but she’s helping me get this one through the door.”

Thorne was already shoving the balky animal out of the way, much to Charity’s obvious consternation. He didn’t care if he made her angry. He had more pressing concerns. He could see most of the clearing and there was not even a hint of his sister-in-law.

About to grab the lone remaining mount and race to Naomi’s defense, he heard a musket boom. The ball hissed by, barely missing his head, and thudded into the log wall behind him.

Charity gasped, then dived for cover.

Thorne darted aside to grab his ammunition bag and his rifle from the ground where he had laid them.

Charity’s frightened pony nearly ran him down as it reared, wheeled and fled.

There was nothing he could do but follow Charity back inside and slam the cabin door.

“I’m sorry,” Charity said, fighting to appear calm and failing miserably. “Naomi was coming with me. I know she was.”

When Thorne made no comment, she assumed he was angry. Well, he had no right to be. She had done all she could. It wasn’t her fault that she had failed. She was only one woman with two hands. She couldn’t possibly have held on to the horse and Naomi at the same time.

Disgusted with herself, she sighed. No, she couldn’t have. And in that case she should have chosen to drag Naomi into the cabin and let the horse be stolen. She realized all that now, when it was too late to do things differently.

“What now?” she asked.

He pointed. “Grab that old long gun standing in the corner and check that there’s nothing blocking the barrel. I’ll show you how to load it. The powder and ball are over here by me. The caliber should be close enough. You can add extra wadding if the ball seems too loose.”

“Papa taught me how to load a gun,” she said. “But how do you know this one is safe? It might blow up when you fire it if it’s been sitting here rusting for very long.”

“We’ll have to take that chance.” Thorne poked the barrel of his muzzle-loader out through a chink in the logs and sighted along it, waiting for a target.

“Maybe they were just after the horses,” she ventured.

“Well, they have them now. And all our supplies.”

Although he hadn’t added, “How could you let them get away?” it was implied.

“I did the best I could,” Charity insisted. “I know I should have let the mare go and held on to Naomi. She was right there, supposedly helping me. I never dreamed she’d run off like the Indian ponies.”

“Did you see any special markings or clothing on the men? Anything that would help identify them?”

“No. Nothing. The horses got all het up and the next thing I knew, they were heading for the hills. Literally.”

As she spoke she was checking the abandoned long gun by measuring the barrel with the ramrod to make sure there was no powder or ball already taking up space in it.

“This one isn’t loaded,” she said. “The rod goes in all the way to the percussion hole. Do you want me to load it for you?”

Thorne nodded. “Yes. Keep the first measure of powder on the light side till we see how it shoots.”

She watched him sight his own rifle, hold his breath, then squeeze the trigger.

The gun went off with a boom that rattled the rafters and brought a shower of dust down on them to mingle with the cloud of pungent smoke from the burned gunpowder.

Jacob began to wail.

Charity was too busy to tend to him but she did call, “It’s all right, sweetheart. Stay where you are. Uncle Thorne is taking care of us.”

He passed her the first rifle to reload and took up the second one. “Wish me luck,” he said, raising the stock to his shoulder and preparing to shoot again.

Charity chose to pray instead.
Father, help him. Help us. And please keep Naomi safe, wherever she’s gone.

There were more unspoken words, more silent pleas, and she didn’t stop praying hard until Thorne had pulled the trigger of the second gun and its breech had held.

If it hadn’t, she knew all too well that he could have had the whole side of his head blown off. That kind of accident had happened to careless men more often than she liked to recall, whether the metal was faulty to start with or they had thoughtlessly filled the breech with too much black powder.

Thorne fired, again and again, and Charity kept him supplied with loaded weapons. As she tore more pieces of fabric from her petticoat to make patches for the musket balls, she wondered what they’d run out of first. It didn’t really matter. Once any of the other components, powder, ball or primers were gone, they would be defenseless.

The firing ceased as abruptly as it had begun. Charity froze, staring at Thorne and trying to read his unspoken assessment of their situation. He looked a lot less worried now than he had before. That was definitely a good sign.

“Are they gone?” she asked, reeling from fatigue and the effects of the fever she continued to deny.

“It looks like it.” He straightened and propped the guns against the wall. “Keep everything loaded. I’ll go have a quick look around.”

“Take a rifle. You have to have something for protection.”

“You keep them,” he said, his gaze locking with hers as if he might never see her again. “If any Indians come through this door, don’t let them take you alive.”

“Whoa,” she blurted, stunned. “I’d rather be a live hostage than a dead memory. Besides, I know you’d rescue me, no matter how long it took.”

“I would, you know.”

Her voice gentled as she reached up to cup his cheek with her palm and said, “Yes, Thorne. I know you would.”

Though he didn’t reply with words, the look in his eyes spoke volumes.