Merline Lovelace (12 page)

Observing the peaks mirrored in the lakes’ shimmering surfaces, Suzanne couldn’t help but think the Black Hills beautiful. Of course, she was seeing them at their best. In winter, according to Bright Water, winds shrieked through the canyons, gathering fury with every twisting turn, then burst out onto the reservation at Cheyenne River like white-bearded hounds of hell, blowing snow almost to the tops of the teepees.

Those winds could strike at any time, Suzanne knew. Winter could descend with little or no warning. Bright Water’s tribe might already be traveling west, hoping to beat the snows to the Shoshone Reservation. Or they might yet be using the last weeks of summer to hunt and smoke their kill before the long journey. She hoped so. Dear Lord, she hoped so.

A dozen different emotions pulled at her. The need to reach Bright Water, to make a last attempt to convince her friend to bridge the gap between their peoples, warred with concern over Jack and his showdown in Deadwood. Then there was Matt and Ying Li. Despite her fine talk about Matt being old enough to make his own decisions, Suzanne couldn’t help wondering if he’d made the right one in this particular instance.

He looked so miserable, with his red eyes and pasty white face. He managed to stay in the saddle, although his legs wobbled like wet rope each time they dismounted to walk the horses. Manfully, he hid his grimaces as he lifted Ying Li down. For her part, the girl said little, replying with a shrug to whatever question or comment was put to her. Not until they stopped beside one of the small, sparkling lakes to graze the horses and prepare a noon meal of bacon and beans did she assert herself. Squatting down on her heels, she took over the frying pan.

“Ying Li cook. Missee, Mister Jack water horses. Matt Butts, you sit. Ground hard, saddle hard, all same.”

“I’ll help with the horses,” he insisted.

“You sit.” Suzanne echoed Ying Li’s singsong order with a smile. “Ground hard, saddle hard, all same.”

Her smile won the day. Biting back a groan, Matt lowered himself gingerly and propped his head in his hands. He’d hurt bad enough this morning, when he’d peeled back his eyelids and tried to swallow the fur fuzzing his throat. The past few hours had added a whole new set of aches to the ones he’d collected yesterday and last night.

Last night.

Another groan rose in his throat. Guilt beat at him with the rapaciousness of a buzzard pecking at his eyeballs. Guilt, and a swift, stomach-clenching hunger. As quick as that, he got hard.

He lifted his head and snuck a peek at Ying Li. He still couldn’t quite believe that he…that she…that they…

Sweat popped out on his brow. He was a sinner. A fornicator. His mam would burn with shame if she knew what her youngest had done last night. She’d burn even more if she knew how much he wanted to do it again. And again. He hurt all over just thinking about it.

He’d have to find a preacher as soon as he could.
It wasn’t right, him doing those kind of things with Ying Li, even if she was a hurdie. No, not even a hurdie. Just a whore.

He cringed a bit at the idea of taking her home and showing her off to his mam and pa. Even more at the idea of introducing her to Becky. Then he remembered that he wasn’t going home. He was heading for San Francisco, or wherever his fancy took him once he struck it rich in the gold fields.

He’d take Ying Li with him. He’d find a preacher, have him say the words, then take her with him to the gold fields
and
to San Francisco. She could help with the sluicing and panning. Once they panned a bag full of gold, he’d buy her a new dress, one that didn’t hang on her like that soiled calico blouse and tattered skirt. Some decent shoes, too, so she didn’t teeter and stumble as if she was about to fall over all the time.

“Here,” he mumbled, embarrassed by his sudden, rampaging lust for this woman. “Let me fry the bacon.”

“Matt Butts sit. Ying Li cook.”

“You gotta be as sore as me,” he said gruffly. “You sit and I’ll finish the cookin’.”

She stared at him, as if astounded at the idea that she should take her ease while a man did women’s work, then lifted her shoulders in a shrug.

“L
ooks like you’ve lost your beau.”

The dry remark brought Suzanne’s head up. She paused in the act of loosening the chestnut’s girth and followed Jack’s gaze to the couple sitting some yards away.

“Looks like I have,” she agreed.

Ying Li perched on one of the boulders lining the shore of the tiny lake, her hands tucked into her sleeves. Matt crouched beside the cook fire. It hadn’t taken him long to relieve Ying Li of cooking duties, Suzanne saw. He really was a kind soul. Too kind, perhaps.

They made such a contrast, she thought, as she reached up to scratch the chestnut’s ears. Ying Li with her long, ink-black braid draped over one shoulder, Matt with his unruly gold curls. He was almost twice her size, as big and gawky as she was small and delicate. Their differences were more
than physical, of course. They came from such disparate backgrounds, looked on the world with such different eyes.

As did she and Jack.

Her gaze drifted to the gunfighter. He was bent over, checking the shoe on the big roan he’d purchased from the Express company. His shoulders strained the seams of the black shirt. The sorrel leather vest molded his back and ribs. If she ignored the long-barreled Colt strapped to his thigh, she might have imagined him just another cowboy tending to his mount.

She gave the chestnut a final pat and picked her way through the boulders to the water’s edge. The lake was as clear as glass, without a single ripple to disturb its surface. For a moment, Suzanne entertained the fancy that she was suspended in some nether region. Gray, scudding clouds and towering pines above, the same gray clouds and dark pines below.

Boot heels rattled on the stone behind her, and Jack’s image joined hers in the mirrored surface. Like Suzanne, he appeared caught between earth and sky. She felt the most ridiculous wish they could remain suspended, just the two of them, alone with the quiet and primordial pines. Without Matt and Ying Li. Without her worries over Bright Water, or what would happen when Jack found the
man he hunted. Only for a few days. A few hours, even.

Then Jack hunkered down on his heels to wash his hands, and their twin images washed away in a wave of ripples. Sighing, Suzanne knelt and plunged her hands in the cool water, as well. After patting them dry with a fold of her skirt, she claimed a boulder and watched Jack skim a flat rock across the lake’s surface. It skipped three times before sinking. More ripples circled from each spot where it hit the water.

“I’m impressed,” she said. “There’s an art to skipping stones, or so my brother, Sam, informs me. I never could get one to fly.”

“It’s all in the wrist.”

“That’s what Sam says.”

Jack sent another flat, flinty rock across the lake. This one bounced four times. “How old is this brother of yours?”

“He’s just turned nine.”

“That explains some things.”

“What things?”

“I wondered about your menfolk. Seemed strange that they’d let you travel on your own through Indian and outlaw country.”

“I expect my stepfather might have raised some objection,” she admitted, “if he’d been home at the time. My mother tried to convince me to wait
until he returned from patrol, but the situation is entirely too urgent.”

“Urgent how?”

“Are you aware that the Bureau of Indian Affairs has decided to move the Northern Arapaho from their reservation along the White River?”

“No.” Propping a boot on the boulder next to hers, he hooked his wrists over his bent knee. “Where are they sending them?”

“The Powder River Reservation.”

“Powder River, over to Montana Territory? That’s Shoshone country.”

“I know.”

“Why the devil would the bureau force old enemies onto the same reservation? They tried that once, back in ’69, and it didn’t work.”

“I don’t completely understand the politics involved, only that the Dakota Territorial delegation convinced Congress and the president that the Arapaho had to be moved or they’ll remain a threat to the miners and settlers.”

“The delegation heard reports of gold in the White River region, more like,” Jack said cynically. “They want the Arapaho out of the way.”

“I suspect you may be right. All I know for sure is that many of the tribes have already begun their trek west. The few that remain plan to leave before the snows fall.”

“You still haven’t told me why the Arapaho are any concern of yours.”

“I tried to,” she reminded him. “Back at Ten Mile Station. But you weren’t in the mood to listen.”

“I’m listening now.”

“I have a friend at White River, a woman I’ve known since childhood. Her father was an army scout. We were as close as sisters once.”

Her gaze drifted to the gray clouds painted on the surface of the lake. Memories of the hours she and Bright Water had spent together crowded in on her. They were such happy times…until drunken mule drivers had raped and murdered Bright Water’s mother and Suzanne’s own father had died saving his daughter from abduction.

“I knew her as Little Hen when we were children, before she took the woman-name of Bright Water. After her mother was killed, she went to live with her father’s people. We visited each other often, and kept in touch by letter when I was at school back East. I can’t just let her disappear into the Powder River Reservation.”

“Sounds to me like that’s her decision to make, not yours.”

Suzanne’s mother had made the same point. Rather forcefully, in fact.

“You don’t understand. Bright Water is a healing woman. She’s quite skilled with the remedies
of her own people, and has spent countless hours working alongside the army surgeons assigned to treat the various tribes. I showed some of her letters to a physician in Philadelphia and he suggested she come East to study with him.”

“Ha! You hounded the hell out of the man until he agreed to your scheme, you mean.”

“What makes you think it was my idea?”

“I’ve been riding with you for three days, woman. I’ve learned a few of your ways.”

All right, Suzanne
had
hounded the man unmercifully, until he’d snarled at her to send the damned squaw back East. Jack Prendergast was rather a gruff sort, she reflected, not unlike Jack himself, with some sort of black cloud hanging over his past. The Misses Merriweather would never speak of it, but neither instructress could deny Prendergast was the finest physician in the city.

“The fact is,” Jack said bluntly, “you’re as stubborn as that rock you’re sitting on and too damned headstrong for your own or anyone else’s good. I doubt you gave this doctor two minutes of peace until he fell in with this crazy plan.”

“Indeed?”

“Indeed,” he mimicked. “My guess is he’s only one of a long string of tormented males who would dearly love to turn you over their knee.”

“I’m sure there were some who entertained such
thoughts,” she conceded with a sugary smile, then patted her skirt pocket. “Perhaps my little Remington convinced them how unwise it would be to try.”

“How good are you with that thing?”

“Not as good as you are with the Colt, I would imagine, but I generally hit what I’m aiming at.”

“That time after the holdup, when you stuck the barrel between my ribs. Would you have pulled the trigger?”

“Yes.”

He studied her for long moments, then slowly shook his head.

“You don’t believe me?” Suzanne asked.

“I believe you. But I’m damned if I can figure you out. One day, you’re pursed up like a prune and all set to put a bullet through my lungs. The next, you’re folding a winning poker hand and inviting me into your bed.”

Heat rose in her cheeks. “You don’t know that I folded a winning hand.”

“Did you?”

She maintained a dignified silence.

“Did you, Suzanne?”

“You’re like a hungry coyote with a chicken,” she said, exasperated. “Tell me, Jack. Do you really intend to take me to Fort Meade and ride off without making any attempt to collect what I still owe you in interest?”

“Yes.”

“Hooah!”

She left him skipping rocks, most of which, she noted with satisfaction, sank after the first bounce.

The skies opened in midafternoon.

Suzanne pulled on the canvas duster she’d purchased with a promissory note from one of Mother Featherlegs’s customers, but the rain pelted her face and dripped from her hat brim down the back of her neck. Their small cavalcade was forced to huddle under a stand of trees until the drenching downpour finally let up. By that time the dirt track had turned to mud and the going was considerably slower.

A little more than an hour later, they caught the distant jingle of bridles, followed by the thud of horses’ hooves on the road behind them. Suzanne’s first thought was that it was a mounted troop, perhaps come in search of her. Her stepfather would have returned from patrol by now and heard about the holdup. He might have wired the post commander at Fort Meade, requesting he send a squad to provide her escort.

A patrol would have been coming down the road ahead, though, from the fort. Not from behind. A number of other possibilities flashed into her mind, not all of them reassuring. She didn’t need Jack’s urging to turn the chestnut off the road and head
into a stand of pine. Matt followed, with Ying Li hunched against his back like a sodden kitten. Dismounting, Jack dragged fallen branches over the grass the horses had churned up. He barely made it to their hiding spot behind the thick stand of pines before a group of riders galloped around the bend in the road.

Jack identified them first. With a muttered curse, he reached down and twitched off the scrap of saddle blanket he’d used to keep the Colt dry.

“Who is it?”

Almost as soon as she’d whispered the question, Suzanne had her answer. Even if she hadn’t recognized the leader’s thick black mustaches and swarthy complexion, there was no mistaking his prominent beak.

“Big Nose Parrott,” Matt exclaimed.

“In the flesh,” Jack confirmed grimly.

“Why is he riding for Fort Meade? He must know the soldiers will shoot him on sight.”

“He’s probably going to cut east and head for the Badlands. Word is he holes up there.”

Suzanne knew that the bandit could hide forever among the twisting canyons and dry gulches that formed the Badlands of the Dakota Territory. Her pulse tripping, she watched the stage robbers gallop toward them.

“They’re certainly in a hurry to get back to their hideout,” she murmured.

“Too much of a hurry,” Jack said, his eyes narrowed.

“Do you think someone’s chasing them? A posse, perhaps?”

“Could be. We’d best stay where we are for a while until we know for sure.”

The outlaws were bent low in their saddles. Mud flew from their horses’ hooves as they thundered past. Suzanne had just let out a ragged sigh of relief when the lead rider suddenly reined in. She recognized him from the holdup. It was the one with the crossed bandoliers and wide-brimmed hat banded with silver conchos.

The others pulled up, milling about in a loose circle while he dismounted and walked a few yards farther down the road. Kneeling, he examined the muddy track. After a moment or two, he rose and shook his head.

Jack cursed, low and long. “They’re not being chased. They’re tracking someone or something.”

“Us?” Matt asked with a gulp.

“Your guess is as good as mine, kid.”

The dismounted outlaw gestured as he gazed back along the road. Big Nose twisted in his saddle, searching behind him. He said something to his men and brought his mount’s head around. Slowly, the gang began to retrace its way.

Suzanne’s stomach constricted. It wouldn’t take the robbers long to find where they’d left the road.
Their horses’ hooves had sunk too deep into the rain-softened earth for Jack to completely cover them.

“Should we make a run for it?” she asked softly.

He flicked a glance over his shoulder at the wooded slope behind them, then at the young couple on the dappled gray.

Suzanne guessed what he was thinking even before he shook his head. Neither Matt nor Ying Li was a good enough rider to make it up that steep slope without tumbling right out of the saddle. For the same reason, they couldn’t risk breaking cover and trying to outrun the outlaws.

That left only two options. Let Big Nose find them, or retreat deeper behind the trees and shoot it out. With her double-barreled derringer and Jack’s six-shooter against eight or nine heavily armed men, the options narrowed down to one.

“What do you propose?” she asked quietly. “Should we wait for them to spot the tracks, or ride out of the trees now?”

“I propose you three stay right where you are, keep your mouths shut and let me handle things.” His glance went from her to Ying Li, hardening when it lit on Matt. “You got that, kid? Let me handle things.”

Matt nodded, but his glance was worried. Big Nose and his men hadn’t shown any indication
they intended to molest Suzanne during the bungled holdup attempt, but then, they’d hardly had time to show their true colors before the bullets started flying and the stage horses bolted. Who knew what the robbers might do to her this time? Or to a young Chinese girl? More to the point, what dangerous risks would Matt take if he felt compelled to shield her and Ying Li?

And what risks would Jack take? He’d thrown her down in the dirt and covered her body with his the last time they’d encountered Big Nose and his gang. What did he plan this time?

A sick feeling curled in Suzanne’s belly. “You’re not going to do something foolish, are you? Like try to take them all down yourself? Jack, you won’t…?”

“Quiet!”

Swallowing her sudden, gut-twisting fear for the man beside her, she peered through the pine boughs. Big Nose and his men had backtracked almost to where the three horses had plunged into the woods. Suzanne held her breath, praying they’d miss the churned-up grass and leaves, knowing they wouldn’t.

When the bandoliered outlaw swung out of his saddle and kicked aside the branches Jack had dragged over their tracks, the sick feeling in her stomach congealed into a hard, tight ball.

“Here!” he called to the others. “They took to the woods here!”