by Sharon Sala
A few minutes later, she gave the last bit of skin on the squirrel a quick yank. It came away from the meat like the peeling off a hot, new potato. Mehitable shrugged. The squirrel was small. But it would make a good stew. She reached for her knife and began hacking it up, dropping the chunks, one by one, into the pot of boiling water.
Beau glanced toward their camp. It was a good thing they weren’t in Indian country. Thanks to this everlasting wind, the smoke from their fire would be noticeable for miles. He could even smell it from here. Then he frowned. That didn’t make sense. He was standing upwind.
Before he had time to consider the thought, something snapped behind him. He spun toward the trees. Instinctively, his hand went to his holster. Just the feel of the pistol against his palm was reassuring, but when he looked back at the camp, Charity was nowhere in sight.
Before he could worry about the fact, a deer suddenly burst out of a thicket, coming toward him at a full run. The animal’s eyes were dark and wild, its body flecked with sweat. He stared as it leaped the creek and disappeared into the trees near where their horses were tied.
Beau stared in disbelief. A few moments later a pair of raccoons came scurrying out of the underbrush and waded into the creek as if he wasn’t even there.
“What the hell?”
Then he took a defensive step back as the woods were suddenly alive with animals.
All running. And in the same direction.
The hair crawled on the back of his neck. Before he lifted his head, he knew. It wasn’t their campfire he’d been smelling after all.
“No, oh no,” he groaned, and started running, yelling Mehitable’s name.
She looked up as Beau came running through the creek.
“Where’s Charity!” he screamed.
“I sent her back to get more wood.”
“Christ!” Beau muttered. “Which way did she go?”
“There,” Mehitable pointed. “What’s wrong?”
Beau pointed toward the other side of the creek. It was crawling with animals of every kind and size. And now the air was darkening with flocks of birds, all in a desperate race to outrun the wind and the fire on its back.
“Prairie fire. Saddle the horses.”
Mehitable’s stomach clenched with fear. She’d seen only one before, and that time six families in a wagon train had burned to death before her eyes. She shuddered with fear. In this wind, only God could save them from a similar death.
Beau started toward the trees at a lope.
“Where are you going?” Mehitable screamed.
He paused long enough to look back. “After Charity. And if the fire gets too close, don’t wait.”
Mehitable drew her gun. It was a stupid thing to do, but what he said scared her so bad that she did it out of instinct.
“You better make it back or so help me God I’ll kill you myself,” she snarled.
Beau never looked back.
Charity was lost. She knew it as well as she knew her own name. What was worse, she knew she was still within shouting distance from the camp because she could smell the fire. All she would have to do was shout out and Hetty or Beau would come running. But the shame of failing again, and at the simplest of tasks, kept her silent. Instead, she began to mark her own trail, aiming sticks in the direction she was walking and stacking rocks by the sides of trees. Every now and then she would break a limb, leaving it dangling down at an angle. Not because it told her where she was at, but just to make sure she wasn’t walking in circles.
Time passed and frustration set in. This didn’t make sense. Camp couldn’t be far. The smoke was so thick she could taste it. She cursed beneath her breath. It was all the fault of these infernal winds. They mixed everything up. Then she frowned. That made no sense. As hard as the wind was blowing, it should be impossible to smell smoke, or anything else, unless she was standing in it.
She looked into the trees, then up at the sky. The hair rose on the backs of her arms.
“No. Oh no.”
There was too much smoke. Unless Hetty was cooking a moose, there was no way their campfire would cause all of this. Terror struck. She started to scream.
Beau was shouting her name as he ran. When he came upon the first marker she’d left, his heart skipped a beat. My God, she gotten herself lost and was trying to find her way back. The smoke was thick now—burning his nose and bringing tears to his eyes. Without hesitation, he began following her trail.
“Char-i-tee! Char-i-tee! Where are you?”
Less than ten yards ahead of him, a cougar came out of nowhere, as startled to see Beau as he was to see it. It froze and crouched flat, its yellow eyes glittering, its mouth twisted into a snarl.
“Get!” Beau yelled, and went for his gun.
The cat hissed, but at the moment, fire was a greater foe man. It leaped off the path and disappeared. Beau holstered his gun and kept on running into the smoke, still shouting Charity’s name.
When Charity first heard his call, she turned toward the sound like a baby turns to its mother’s breast. A sense of peace filled her heart. She should have known. It was Beau.
“Here!” she screamed. “I’m here!”
Seconds later, he emerged through the smoke at a lope and caught her in mid-leap, and for a split second, allowed himself the luxury of holding Charity Doone in his arms. He’d found her. They were together. He took a deep breath and then reality surfaced as the acrid smoke slid down his lungs. Unless a miracle occurred, they would die together, too. He grabbed her by the shoulders, fixing her with a swift, hard look.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Then follow me, girl, and whatever you do, don’t let me go of my hand.”
They started to run back in the direction Beau had come, blindly following instinct rather than trails, as the smoke was too thick now to see. Small limbs from low-hanging branches slapped them in the face. Stinging. Cutting. Laying open the flesh. And still they ran.
Just when Charity feared all was lost, Mehitable came running through the trees, leading their horses.
“Mount up,” she screamed.
Beau all but threw Charity into the saddle then mounted his horse on the run.
“Ride!” he yelled. “Everyone ride… and don’t look back!”
A few minutes later they came out of the hollow, racing up the slope of the land and out onto the rolling prairie. It was then that they took time to rein up and look behind them. All they could do was stare in growing horror at the pillar of black smoke rising into the sky, and then below, to the layer of fire beneath.
“Are we safe?” Charity asked.
Beau couldn’t help himself. He reached out and cupped the side of her face where the scratches still bled. Her blood was warm beneath his fingers.
“Not yet, girl,” he said softly. “But we will be.”
Mehitable looked back at where they’d been.
“I reckon that squirrel’s gonna be a mite too done to eat,” she muttered.
They looked at each other and then, because they were still alive to do the deed, laughed until tears made clean tracks down their cheeks. Filled with the joy of being able to breathe, Beau yanked his hat from his head and waved it high in the air.
“Yeehaa!” he shouted.
Charity’s heart swelled at the sight of him there; undefeated, indomitable, and fell the rest of the way in love. But there was no time to dwell on the fact that Beau James was not a man who would take another man’s leavings.
“Let’s ride!” he yelled.
Neither the horses or the Doone sisters needed a second urging. The horses leaped forward, taking them all out of danger.
The elation that came with outrunning the fire soon dissipated. The next few days became a series of frustrating failures. At each way station they came to, their inquiries netted the same results. Yes, a preacher had been on board, but he’d taken the next stage south. By their best guess, they were about five days behind him, but c
losing in. Trail weary but determined, they kept on moving.
And then everything came to a halt.
The stage line ended in a place called Thomasville and when Randall Howe was nowhere to be found, they had to face the fact that his trail had come to an end.
Beau James was fit to be tied, cursing himself up one side and down the other for not following his inclinations and striking out on his own. If he had, the bastard would already be rotting in the ground.
Mehitable was disappointed beyond words. She kept staring at the distant horizons with her customary squint, as if trying to conjure up an image of where the man could have gone.
Charity was strangely quiet. Her days on the road had been healing for her in more ways than one. Channeling her anger into a purpose had been healthy. But anger wasn’t the only emotion that she’d begun to channel. After the way the preacher had tossed her aside, she’d planned to hate all men. But the days and nights she had spent in the company of Beau James had changed that forever.
His quiet ways and cold handsome face intrigued her. His kindness charmed her. And ever since the prairie fire, there were times when she caught him watching her. It was those moments, more than anything else, that made her wish she could turn back time. If only she’d noticed him before. Before she’d committed her unpardonable sin.
So here they were, stuck in Thomasville with no idea of where to go next. Without benefit of a hotel, they made camp at the creek outside of town. The night was hot, made hotter by their campfire and the rabbits Beau had shot earlier sizzling over a makeshift spit. The air was still. Nearby, horses stomped nervously, as if sensing the trio’s dilemma.
“I think we should just give it up,” Charity said. “We’ve been gone too long. There’s the ranch to run and things to do.” She couldn’t look either Will or Mehitable in the face as she continued. “After all, it’s not as if he killed me. I’m still breathing.”
Beau stood up with a jerk. “Well I’m not breathin’ so easy. And I won’t be until I get him in my sights.”
Mehitable sighed. She was torn between wanting to avenge her sister and worrying about her beloved ranch. Granted she had good hired help, but things still happened.
She looked at Charity then, seeing the changes that the days on the trail had brought. Gone was the fussy young girl with the flyaway dreams. In her place was a hard-eyed young woman who rarely smiled. She remembered Charity’s smiles. Virginity wasn’t the only thing Randall Howe had stolen from Charity. He’d taken her joy, as well. It was that alone that made Mehitable say what she did.
“Let’s give it one more day,” she said. “There’s a freight wagon due in tomorrow. We’ll talk to the driver. If he ain’t seen the man, then I vote with Charity to go back.”
Beau stared into the fire until his eyes began to burn. His hands fisted as he looked up, straight into Charity’s face. His voice was quiet—too quiet.
“I’ll see you ladies back to the ranch and then I’ll be movin’ on.”
Charity’s face crumpled. It was just as she had feared. Whatever Beau had done for them, he’d done out of a sense of duty, not because he cared for her in any special way. She jumped up from the fire and disappeared into the darkness.
“What the hell?” he muttered, and turned to Mehitable for understanding.
She shook her head. This was why she’d never bothered with marrying. It was the getting to it that was so damned much trouble.
“Ain’t you goin’ after her?” Beau asked.
Mehitable snorted. “It ain’t me that she’s runnin’ from. It’s you. I reckon she thinks you’re quittin’ because you’re disgusted by her.”
He turned pale in the firelight. It was then that Mehitable knew his true feelings.
Beau’s guts were in knots. That he’d hurt Charity, however innocently, was more than he could bear.
“Miss Hetty, you know that ain’t so. Go get her. You have to tell her she’s wrong.”
But Mehitable didn’t budge. “Nope. You’re the one who needs to do the talkin’. She already knows how I feel about her. It’s you she’s mixed up about.”
Beau didn’t know what to say. His feelings for Charity were mixed up with an urge to kill the man who’d wronged her. And then there was the fact that she was the boss’s sister. He gave Hetty a cautious look.
She frowned. “Don’t look at me. I ain’t the one in a swoon.”
He swallowed nervously. “Uh… yes, ma’am. Then I reckon I’d better go bring her back. It ain’t safe for her out there in the dark.”
Mehitable stifled a grin. “I reckon you’d better at that.”
Moments later, he was gone. Hetty tossed another stick onto the fire, hoping that the smoke would be enough to keep off the mosquitoes and then leaned back in her bedroll and closed her eyes. No sense waiting for the pair to come back. The way that cowboy stuttered and stammered, it might take him all night to get said what was in his heart.
The water spilling down the creek made soft rippling noises against the half-submerged rocks. Overhead, a three-quarter moon painted the ground with a luminous glow. An owl hooted from a nearby tree and out on the prairie, a coyote yipped, followed by an answering chorus from the rest of the pack. Charity Doone stood at the creek bank, too hurt to cry.
During the trauma of the last few days, she had learned something about herself. She wasn’t shallow. Things did matter to her. And while she hated herself for being so blind and weak, and Randall Howe for taking advantage of her innocence, something good had come out of this that she would never have believed. She’d found out what she was made of. She’d endured the rigors of the daily hard rides, and survived a prairie fire. But the best of it was, she had learned exactly how much Hetty loved her.
For years she’d believed herself to be nothing more than a burden in her sister’s life. But now she knew that was false. In a way, Randall Howe had almost done her a favor. She and Hetty might have gone through life, skirting the issues of being sisters without knowing each other’s true heart.
And then there was Beau James—her reluctant champion. A strong man. A good man. A man who’d rescued her twice in her hours of need. Over the past few days she’d even let herself pretend that if things had been different—if she hadn’t shamed herself before God and man—then he might have cared for her.
She looked down at the water. Moonlight reflected there, like liquid threads of pure silver, but she didn’t see the beauty, only the shadows of the night in between.
She pressed the flat of her hands to her belly and moaned. It was the truth of it all that hurt the worst. He felt duty-bound to get them home, and then he was leaving. She didn’t know why—she should have been expecting it—but the news had shocked her. Once having learned the truth about her fall from grace, no self-respecting man would want to be around her.
A twig snapped in the trees behind her. She spun around, expecting to see Hetty. The man who came out of the shadows made her heart skip a beat. And because she was so hurt, she lashed out at him.
“What are you doing here?”
Beau flinched. The anger in her voice was unexpected. “You hadn’t oughta be out here in the dark alone.”
“There’s nothing left in this world that can hurt me more than I’ve already hurt myself.”
“Don’t say that,” Beau begged, and stopped her when she would have run past him. “Wait. You don’t understand.”
She laughed then, but it was not a happy sound. “Oh, I think I understand everything just fine. I have disgraced myself and my family.”
Beau’s hands slid up the length of her arms of their own accord. He could feel the softness of her flesh beneath her blouse. And then he thought of that preacher, putting his hands on Charity in much the same way and he froze. What if he was frightening her? What if his touch disgusted her? He turned her loose abruptly.
“I’m sorry, Charity, girl. I shouldn’t have touched you like that.”
To Charity, it was a slap in the f
ace. She’d been right all along. He loathed what she stood for. That’s why he had let her go. That’s why he was leaving the ranch. She looked up at him then. At the way the moonlight lit the contours of his face, making him seem older—harder—even angry. Her voice was trembling.
“I disgust you.”
The despair in her voice broke his heart. “No, Charity, no!”
“Don’t pretend with me Beau James. I can’t bear it. I’ve had my fill of men who say one thing and mean another.” Then she bit her lip to keep from crying. “Besides, I understand your feelings. Yes, I was wronged by Randall Howe, but it was partly my fault.”
“No, Charity, you misunderstood my—”
“Please Beau, let me finish.”
He bowed his head. Even though the pain in her voice was like knives in his heart, he did as she asked.
She sighed then, as if the weight of the world was square on her shoulders. Her gaze bore into him, wanting him to believe—needing him to understand. Not so he might love her. Just so he wouldn’t hate her.
“It was my dream, you see. I’d had the same dream seventeen times. I thought it was God telling me what to do with my life. I told Reverend Howe about it. He was going to help me become a nun.”
Beau’s head jerked up like a gutshot steer. A nun? This was the first he’d heard of such folly. His eyes narrowed angrily as he looked at her there in the moonlight. A nun. Not only no, but, hell no. A woman like Charity Doone was meant for a man’s empty bed and warm embrace. And he had both. If she would only care.
Charity continued her story, unaware of what was running through Beau’s mind.
“I told him everything.” Her mouth tilted in a bitter smile. “I let myself believe something false. I deserved what he did.”
Beau’s face was hot. His daddy used to say that Beau let his anger show more than any boy he’d ever known. Thankful for the gentleness of moonlight and the darkness of night, he cleared his throat. She’d had her say. Now it was his turn.