Yellowstone Memories (11 page)

“But there’s one thing I’ve been planning almost my whole life.”

“What?” Jewel took a step toward him.

Wyatt hesitated, fidgeting nervously with the leather fringes on his vest.

“The truth, Mr. Kelly.” Jewel crossed her arms. “I’ll find out soon enough anyway. You might as well tell me.”

Wyatt sighed. “Listen, miss. I don’t expect you to understand, but I know for a fact those Cheyenne who killed my parents—or their relatives—are sitting on a windfall of coal and natural timber. I’ve been studying the books for years, and that one little piece of prairie’s got more than enough resources to keep the US government happy for years. I’ll manage the land, and they’ll be delighted to hire me for such a fair price.” Wyatt stuck his hands in his pockets. “I’ll finally make something of myself, after all these years. No matter what my uncle says.”

Jewel’s eyes narrowed. “On the backs of the Cheyenne. If they resist, the army will slaughter them, and you know it.”

“On the backs of the people who killed my family.” Wyatt stuck his neck forward. “And isn’t that what you told me? To use my skills and discover my gifts?”

Jewel’s eyes snapped with unexpected fire. “On the backs of the people who were here
first
,” she corrected. “And you know that’s not what I meant when I spoke about your gifts, Mr. Kelly. Not that I condone slaughtering your relatives in any way. But answer me this—is there any chance the Cheyenne you speak of had been displaced from their original homeland already? Perhaps more than once? After years of broken treaties and failed promises?”

“Of course not.” Wyatt waved his hand in irritation, but he did not meet her eyes.

Her voice turned cool. “You’re sure about that? Because I’ve heard an entirely different story. And when your family is starving and you’ve been driven off your designated land and hunting grounds not once but three times—all the while cooperating peacefully and signing treaties that ultimately meant nothing—it makes for ugly politics.”

Wyatt crossed his arms stiffly, a vein pulsing in his neck. “You’ve said enough,” he snapped, his words coming out thin and taut. “I get it. The Cheyenne and Arapaho help each other out, don’t they?”

Jewel ignored his question, taking one step closer. “What would you do, Mr. Kelly, if your family was starving and the Cheyenne took away your land three times? Each time they found gold, or coal, or something else of value, they canceled the treaties they’d agreed on and forced you off your land—sometimes in the middle of winter?”

“I’d take them all out, one by one.” Wyatt’s hands clenched with anger. “If I could shoot worth a lick, that is.”

“Well then.” Jewel crossed her arms. “Consider that a partial explanation of what might have happened twenty years ago. The men who murdered your family deserve to hang for their crimes but so do those who forced women and children out of their beds every time someone found coal or gold on Native land. Not all of those children made it, you know.” Jewel’s voice turned misty. “And not all the women and elderly. What if it were your little daughter or pregnant wife who didn’t make it?”

“I don’t know!” Wyatt cried, gripping his head with both hands. “I’m just very alone in the world, Miss Moreau—and I despise it. I just thought perhaps you’d understand, that’s all.”

Jewel stared, immobile, statuesque. “I understand all right,” she said coldly, folding her hands under her shawl. “You’re right. You aren’t half the man your father was then, if that’s what you consider a good use of your life. Revenge? Blood money?” She shook her head. “None of those will bring you peace. I expected so much more from you, Mr. Kelly.”

“Sometimes the truth hurts, Miss Moreau,” Wyatt whispered, staring out through the trees with hollow eyes.

Then he stalked back to the outhouse to gather up his things.

“I’ll pack the tools on Samson, then, since your pony’s loaded down,” Wyatt called after Jewel as the snow blew harder, stinging his cheeks with tiny ice particles. He tromped through the snow and picked up the ax and spades, hoping he hadn’t straddled the pony with too much weight. Bétee, Jewel called her—or something like that in Arapaho—was strong and sleek, but that much gold would weigh down any pack animal.

“Miss Moreau?”

Jewel didn’t answer, and Wyatt turned, looking for her. He tied the tools to Samson’s saddle and looked around uneasily. Samson reared suddenly, knocking snow off a spruce bough and into Wyatt’s face. He whinnied, ears flicking.

“Whoa there. What was that all about, fella?” Wyatt patted Samson’s graying head and swatted the snow from his face in irritation. “You mad at me, too? Or you just impatient for your oats?”

Samson’s ears pricked, and he backed up several paces, stomping the snow-softened grass and straining at the lead.

Wyatt heard something. A rustling in the trees and a scuffling. The sound of a low whistle, like a magpie.

“Miss Moreau?” Wyatt loosened Samson’s lead and then the pony’s, letting them drop into the snow. If a wildcat was on the loose, he’d be a fool to leave his horses hobbled to a tree, utterly defenseless.

The underbrush crackled, and Wyatt whirled around, reaching for his rifle.
Nuts
. He’d left it at the outhouse, propped up against the side when he grabbed their tools. No self-respecting man would leave his rifle lying in the snow—especially not the burly Amos Kelly.

Samson backed up and whinnied again, a fearful sound, and Wyatt reached for his Colt. Wildcats proliferated in these parts; one of his neighbors killed one as big as an ox just a few weeks ago.

“Miss Moreau? Where have you gone?” Wyatt stalked through the falling snow, his footsteps carpeted and soundless. An eerie silence filled the gray sky, save the soft rustling of the wind in the firs and the great rushing sound they made in his ears, like a stormy ocean.

Without warning Jewel whirled around a tree, putting a finger to her lips. “Shh!” she whispered, her face white and startled. She ducked her head and flattened herself against the shaggy bark, not moving. “They’ve found us! Didn’t you hear them?”

Then the world exploded. A blast of gunpowder, and a bullet whizzed past Wyatt, blasting the limb off a tree. Needles and snow whirled around him.

“Of all the …” Wyatt threw himself to the ground, pressing his face to the snow. Was Jewel trying to kill him after all, now that they’d found the gold?

Footsteps crunched through the underbrush.

When he opened his eyes, he saw Kirby Crowder standing over him, raising his musket to fire again.

W
yatt rolled out of the way and scrambled to his feet, hands and knees muddied and smarting with snow. Nothing made sense; not the frantic loading of the musket, nor the man in a coonskin cap who lunged after him, barely missing his jacket collar. Two other shadows crunched through the trees, and someone fired a pistol behind him.

“Kirby Crowder?” Wyatt shouted, ducking behind a tree with Jewel as another blast shook the forest. Limbs rained around him, making his ears ring. The acrid odor of black powder hung in the woods over the soft scent of spruce and snow. “I thought the army hauled you off to the guardhouse for poaching.”

“I busted out,” Kirby drawled, calmly reloading. “And I came back for what I intended to do in the first place—but with reinforcements. Didn’t expect to find you and that half-breed gal digging the place up. You’re lookin’ for ol’ Pierre’s gold, too, ain’t ya?”

Wyatt halted as he scrambled for his Colt.
“You’re lookin’ for … Pierre’s gold,”
Kirby had said. Did he not see them shove the gold in Jewel’s pony’s saddlebags?

“You know where the gold’s hid. It’s the second time I seen you down here snooping around, and it’ll be your last.”

“Get outta here, Kirby, or I’ll shoot.” Wyatt steadied his voice to keep his words from shaking as he cocked his Colt. “I don’t wanna shoot you, but I will. You almost blew my head off.”

“You? Shoot me?” Kirby’s laughter echoed through the trees. “I’m shakin’ in my boots, Wyatt. You can’t even shoot a prairie dog. Now come out with your hands up and tell me where that gold’s at, or I’ll fill you both full of lead.”

Wyatt spun around to Jewel. “How’d he know the prairie dog thing?” he whispered, humiliated. “I didn’t tell a soul.”

“What? Forget that.” Jewel smacked him. “The barn,” she whispered.

“It’s our only hope. We’re too far away to reach the horses, and they’ll slaughter us out here in the open.”

“How many guys are there?”

“I counted five. We’re done for if we don’t get to shelter—either from bullets or from freezing to death.” Her teeth chattered, and Wyatt noticed a bluish sheen to her lips.

“See over there in the trees?” Jewel pointed. “Another one of Kirby’s crew. They’re surrounding us. We’ve got no choice but to move while the snow’s the thickest. Cover me.”

“What? Cover you?”

“Shoot, for goodness’ sake!” Jewel pushed the barrel of his Colt toward the forest. “Distract them while I get to the barn, and I’ll cover you while you run.”

The forest curved to reveal a dilapidated barn behind the outhouse, and Jewel crawled backward on her knees. She slipped behind a shrub and then into a stand of aspens. Wyatt could barely see her; a wall of snow blew in from the north, making it almost impossible to open his eyes.

Wyatt watched her go, and a strange emptiness welled up in his chest. Jewel’s strength somehow fortified him; when she was with him, she made him feel capable. Confident. Better than he was.

All he could do now was steady his shaking hands long enough to aim.

Wyatt blasted his revolver into the bushes then cocked and let the second bullet clink in the chamber. Two shots whizzed past him, and one grazed the skin of his shoulder, leaving a burned streak. Wyatt aimed, trying to see through ice-clouded glasses, and pulled the trigger. He heard a groan. A curse.

Had he really hit somebody? Wyatt lifted his head, surprised to see one of the men on the ground, holding his bleeding arm.

Well I’ll be
. Wyatt glanced down at his revolver in surprise.

“Wyatt Kelly, you little runt! I’ll skin you alive for bustin’ up my arm,” a man’s voice rang through the woods. “Come out now and I’ll kill you quick-like. If not, you’ll take whatever I decide to dish out—and I won’t make it pretty.”

Wyatt licked his lips and tried not to picture what the man had in mind, and instead scooted backward on his elbow and belly. He scooched to the side and fumbled in his pocket for more bullets and then hastily reloaded his Colt.

He’d just aimed through a patch of spruce limbs when somebody grabbed him roughly by the collar and threw him to the ground. Knocking the breath out of him.

Through a snowy haze Wyatt saw a musket butt raised to strike him. A hand slapped his revolver to the ground, and Wyatt clenched his eyes shut. Preparing himself for the blow and the bullet that would knock him senseless, into the arms of a God he’d only just begun to think about.

A rifle shot echoed against the trees, and Wyatt heard a yelp of pain. He opened his eyes in surprise to see the musket butt waver and fall. The man doubled over, leaning against a tree for support. Blood leaked through his shirt and coat, spattering in crimson drops on the white snow.

Wyatt gaped a few seconds, so shocking was the sight of another man’s blood and the reality that he’d been granted another few seconds to live.

Run, you blockhead!

Sanity overcame his woozy senses, and Wyatt scrambled to his feet and darted into the snowstorm toward the barn.

“Did you really shoot that guy?” Wyatt leaned against the barn door with Jewel from the inside, panting hard. The whole structure had suffered years of neglect; wind whistled through open windows, and creaking shutters flapped open in the wind. “You’re a very good shot. I’m … well, impressed.”

“Of course I shot him.” Jewel loaded her rifle again and pointed it through an empty knothole in the slats of the barn wall. “And I assure you, if I’d wanted to kill my husband this way, I could have at any moment.”

Wyatt took a step back. “I believe you.”

“But I didn’t.”

“I believe you again.” Wyatt’s own words surprised him. But he felt they were true, the same way hot coffee warmed his insides, shaking off the chill of winter.

“Let’s barricade this place.” Jewel set down her rifle and pulled an old plow against the door. “My only hope is that they’ll run out of ammunition, if we can hold them off long enough.”

“They’ll try to bust inside by sheer force.” Wyatt helped her push, sneezing as dust rose up in a fine cloud. “There are five of them, you know. Maybe more.”

Jewel picked up a pitchfork and shoved it sideways across the door frame, into the latch. “Then we’ll conserve our ammunition and pick them off one at a time. We can do this.” Jewel met his gaze. “Do you believe me in that, too?”

“I want to.” Wyatt’s nose dripped with cold as he knelt down beside her, pushing the plow flush against the door with his shoulder.

“No. That’s not good enough. Do you believe me?”

Wyatt shoved the plow harder in place and felt a surge of strength flow from his heart. “You know something? I do believe you, Miss Moreau. I do. I will. I choose to.” He felt light suddenly, relieved—as if something heavy had fallen away.