The Unexpected Champion

by Mary Connealy

  “We saw three men in that alley and a fourth out here and have been assuming that’s all of them.” John studied the wagon tracks. “I hope they didn’t have someone else there in Dismal to hide our horses, steal them maybe. It’d be a better way to cover their tracks, but a horse thief would’ve had to walk right into the center of town and hope no one saw. And they seemed determined to conceal their faces. Let’s go to town.”

  She heaved a sigh of relief and set out down the tight trail. The trees were so dense John didn’t think he could get off the trail if he wanted to. They canopied overhead and cast shadows as if it was near twilight, even though it was the middle of the afternoon.

  They’d been walking about an hour when a distant rumble caught John’s attention. Thunder, but he couldn’t see overhead to check clouds, or even feel if the wind was picking up. The forest was a natural windbreak.

  “Rain will wash out the tracks.” Penny picked up speed. John considered that he could only somewhat see . . . mostly in his imagination . . . the trail now. If it rained and washed away the tracks before they got to town and returned with their horses, they’d never catch up with those men.

  No, he would catch them. Rain was just going to make it much harder.

  The thunder picked up. A flash was bright enough to light up their heavily shadowed walk. “It’s coming in fast.” Penny moved almost at a run now. And the trail was rough, with brush that seemed to reach for John’s legs and grab at him.

  Finally, they got to a wider clearing, and the clouds looming overhead were nearly black. The first spit of rain peppered John’s face.

  Penny pointed up to where the clouds seemed to reach solidly all the way down to the treetops. “It’s raining hard.”

  A bolt of lightning split the sky. Less than a second later, it was followed by a crack of thunder.

  “Don’t trees draw lightning?” John had worked on a ship during the war, and he knew about storms at sea. Mountains, well, he didn’t know as much.

  “They sure enough do.” Penny pivoted and headed at a right angle to the direction they’d been going. “Head for that downed tree over there.”

  She didn’t even look back to see if he followed her. She just headed there herself at a jog. And of course he went after her. He’d’ve followed exactly what she did without her saying a word.

  “Let’s get under it if we can, that’ll protect us from the rain. At least it might protect us from lightning—or any trees that are struck.”

  The wind picked up. The spitting rain hit like little needles. In the distance, the sky was shrouded with more pouring rain. A loud crack of thunder split the gray curtain, followed by a blaze of lightning.

  John realized he was outrunning Penny. He slowed, caught her hand, and dragged her toward the fallen trunk. It had landed on some boulders, forming a cave.

  There came a thunderbolt so loud, so close, it hit his ears like a blow. The ground shook. Then another burst of lightning flashed right on top of the sound. Glancing back, he saw the bright finger of jagged fire strike a tree and blow it apart. Burning embers blasted in all directions. John felt a slash of pain. He looked to see his arm was on fire—the one he was using to drag Penny along. He slapped at it, without letting her go.

  Thunder roared again. John stumbled from the impact of the sound but kept his feet and ran on. He hit the trunk just as the sky opened up and the rain became a deluge.

  Penny shouted, “Look there. Down low. Crawl in.”

  John towed Penny under the massive trunk. “Get in there.” John dragged Penny to her knees and shoved her past him into the little space. She was scrambling faster than he could push her. He stopped, ready to block the small entrance with his own body to protect her.

  Another lightning bolt hit close enough that John staggered. He looked up, then even higher up.

  A burning tree was toppling right for him.

  “Get in here.” Penny jerked him toward her. He practically fell into the small space. He dropped to his belly, surprised and relieved that he fit.

  “Plenty of room,” Penny shouted over the rolling thunder. The tree crashed to the ground, the limbs lashing at John’s legs as he pushed in deeper.

  He knocked into Penny, and the two of them tumbled to the back of the small shelter. The falling tree now blocked the entrance well enough that no rain got through.

  John was a few seconds gathering his wits, then he shifted away from Penny and spun to look at the branches of the huge tree. Some were blackened, but the rain must have doused the fire. The ceiling of their little den was only high enough to allow him onto his hands and knees.

  “We’re not completely blocked in.” He turned around and sat down with his back to the opening. The little space they were in was about four feet high at the entrance, and just about that wide and deep. “We’ll let the rain pass and then get back on our way to town.” John drew up his knees and rested his forearms on them.

  “The trail is gone. Long gone. We’re going to have the worst kind of work cut out for ourselves finding those varmints.”

  They sat, catching their breath, and their silence only made the violent storm louder. The thunder rolled, the lightning crashed. Wind whipped and howled. Sheets of rain pounded the earth. But they were out of the weather. They were safe. For now, anyway.

  “Have you got any more beef jerky in that magic bag of yours?”

  Penny seemed to relax. She’d been so alert. So eager to snap orders at him all morning. Maybe resting for a spell suited her.

  She dug in the bag and extended two pieces of jerky to him, and he was glad they didn’t have to deal with debilitating hunger on top of everything else. Penny ran a hand through her hair. It’d been in a braid when they’d started the day, but now it was as wild as the weather. Her fingers ran into snarls, so she gave up on her hair.

  He chewed, and in the dimness, there was a sense of peace. They couldn’t get away from each other, and they couldn’t get back to work saving themselves. For once there wasn’t anything to bicker about.

  John wondered how such a pretty, messy woman had found her way to the frontier, but then pioneers came from everywhere.

  “I don’t have much savvy in the woods,” John said easily. “But I’ve been a Pinkerton agent from the time I was twenty. Not counting the years spent in the war.”

  She leaned against the side of the crevice. “Come over here, so you’re farther from the opening.”

  He scooted closer, their knees brushing, as there just wasn’t room enough for him to leave her any space.

  “A lot of men born and raised in the city learned tough lessons about scavenging and following tracks during the war, and I did some, but I spent most of it on a ship.”

  Penny looked over at him. She finished what she was chewing and swallowed. “Cam spent the whole war fighting, and I’ve heard a lot of stories from him and other men at the forts I lived in following my brother around. But I’ve never given much thought to ships. Were you . . . wasn’t there a siege around Vicksburg somewhere?”

  “I wasn’t at Vicksburg, but I was involved with the Anaconda Plan, and Vicksburg was a part of that.”

  Penny frowned comically. “Anaconda? Never heard of that. Is it a Southern city? Chattanooga, Chickamauga, Anaconda?”

  “Nope, good guess. It’s a huge snake. I think they’re from South America. I’d never heard the word before, either. The anaconda kills its prey by slowly choking it to death.”

  Penny winced.

  “General Scott’s plan was to do that to the Southern states. I think he hoped to avoid a shooting war because he had Southern sympathies. Some called it Scott’s Great Snake, but the real name was the Anaconda Plan.”

  “Scott’s Great Snake?” Penny smiled as if she thought he was teasing her.

  John nodded. “The North’s navy set out to control every port in the South, cut the Confederacy in half up the Mississippi, and stop any shipping traffic.”

  The thunder rolled outside, a
nd the rain poured. A lightning bolt hit hard, close to them, again. There was nothing out there that suggested to a man he oughta get back to walking.

  “General Scott was the commanding general of the army for a while, though not during the Civil War, he was past his prime by then. We called him Old Fuss and Feathers, but he was a great man. He was from the South, but he believed in the Union and chose to side with the North.”

  Penny shook her head. “And his plan was to blockade every southern port?”

  “Yep, what an uproar. A lot of generals wanted to march for Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the Confederacy, and put an end to the war. But Old Fuss and Feathers knew the South would fight, and fight hard. He had no stomach for Americans shooting Americans. He hoped his Anaconda Plan would stop the war without years of bloodshed.”

  “I’ve never heard that before. I wonder if Cam knows that.”

  Penny was listening to every word. It made John feel tall and strong. Admired. He hadn’t had many women admire him—of course, he’d been busy with the war and being a detective, which kept him on the move. Still, there was a good chance that this proud feeling added up to his being pathetic.

  Penny tilted her head. “All right, so you spent the war on a ship. You didn’t see much action, then?”

  Now it sounded like she considered him the littlest bit of a coward. He wanted to launch into tales of blockade runners and battles at sea and slipping onto Confederate shores to gather information or cause havoc. But that felt pathetic, too.

  “I saw plenty of action,” he simply said. “And then I got back to Philadelphia after the war and signed back on with the Pinkertons, and I’ve been working at that ever since.”

  “And got yourself sent out here to kidnap a child.”

  John glared at her.

  She smiled back, looking not one speck afraid of him. And he’d been told he was fierce.

  “So, how’d you spend the war years?”

  Penny told him more about living with Delia and Abe. Virtually supporting them because Abe could never hold a job. Penny blamed all that on the Chiltons, but John had to wonder. Was Abe a persecuted man? Or was he an idler who lived off his sister’s hard work? Maybe the Chiltons were right to be worried about their grandson. John had only met Cameron Scott for about an hour while they’d dealt with loading Raddo over a saddle. And he was the one with little Ronnie in his home . . . a home that wasn’t built yet. John wasn’t sure what was in Ronnie’s best interests or what he believed about the Chiltons, Cam, or Penny. He needed to stay around and see how the child was treated.

  But before that, he had an outlaw to hunt and hang.

  “When Cam headed west with the army, I went along. He was an officer and the pay was good, and with all the menfolk coming home from war, jobs were scarce. So, Cam stayed in the army. I was living with Abe and Delia in an attic with one tiny bedroom—it was all we could afford. It was so crowded, I decided to go with Cam. We both sent money back home, and Cam had been paid out from the war enough that Abe and Delia could save up and, with the money we sent, make plans to head west with a wagon train.”

  “So, you weren’t involved in that wagon train massacre?”

  “No, we only found Ronnie and Maddie Sue at the tail end of last autumn. Deb and Gwen are sisters who were traveling with Abe and Delia. They saved the children from the massacre, and Trace saved them from the wilderness. Since then Trace and Deb have gotten married. Cam and Gwen too, and the children have come to think of Gwen as their mother. And of course, Gwen’s marriage to Cam makes Deb their legal aunt, so now they have two aunts to love them. My brothers’ children. It makes my guts churn to think of how close we came to losing them in that massacre.”

  “There’s no doubt Cam is Maddie Sue’s father, but Ronnie’s a different matter. Those children may treat Gwen and Cam like parents, but they’ve got no closer relationship to Ronnie than the Chiltons. In fact, legally his grandparents are closer, and they want him. They’ve got a strong case that he should be with them.”

  “The Chiltons hated Abe, and they were always nasty to Delia, trying to get her to leave her marriage and come home. How is Ronnie supposed to live with people that treated his parents so poorly?”

  “I’m listening to your side, Penny, but the Chiltons are well-to-do people who are willing to raise their grandson in fine style. Add to that, they’ve gone to great effort and spent considerable money to find him and offer him a home. We may need to see a judge about who gets to take care of that little boy.”

  “Ronnie thinks of us as his family. We’ve all been living at Trace’s house through the winter, and he’s come to belong with us. It’d be cruel to tear him away from us and travel across the country, just him and you, to make him live with strangers who’ll raise him to believe his parents were bad people.”

  “Like I said, I’m listening to your side. And I’m not going to grab him and run. I’m not that big a fool. I know none of you would sit still for it. Whatever happens, we’ll decide it between us with all sides agreeing on what’s best.”

  Penny jerked her chin in agreement, and John wondered why she conceded so quickly. As if maybe she knew that never in this lifetime would she agree to let Ronnie go, so it was all settled.

  She went on. “We claimed three homesteads between Cam, Gwen, and me, and we are just now building on our claims. Cam’s gonna raise horses and cattle. I’ve got my own claim, and I’ll run cattle on my place, too.”

  “By yourself?” John couldn’t quite picture it. “A woman homesteading alone?”

  That wasn’t right.

  “That’s right. And I’m looking forward to it. I’ve been answering to a boss for too long. First back in Philadelphia and then in jobs attached to the forts. Now I’m gonna work for myself. I’ve been breathing easier ever since I staked my claim last fall.”

  John couldn’t hold back a smile.

  “There wasn’t a thing funny about what I just said.” She studied his unfortunately handsome face, wondering what he was up to now.

  “Since I’ve met you . . . has it only been two days?” McCall leaned his head back to rest it against the tree trunk. “I’ve been in a shootout and killed a man.”

  He gave himself a little shake and rubbed one hand over his mouth, looking distressed. There were a few seconds of silence before he went on. “I’ve been kidnapped and knocked out cold by a man who I suspect intended to kill me. We ran for our lives and fell over a cliff while dodging gunfire. And now we’re hiding from a lightning storm under a dead tree like a couple of mushrooms.”

  He glanced over at Penny. “That’s only been since I got here. For you, Raddo chased you all winter, burned down Trace’s house, and ended up dying in a shootout. What kind of life have you led that this madness makes you breathe easier?”

  And then she smiled, too. “I didn’t even mention wading through snow up to my horse’s chest to get to Trace’s or living in one bunkhouse with nine people. Or Cam getting his leg caught in a bear trap. But I’ll stick with what I said. I like this life. I like bossing myself.”

  “The army must be tough.” He smiled wider, then he chuckled.

  She felt laughter bubble up then escape in an embarrassing giggle. The bane of her existence.

  McCall laughed full out. “That is an extremely feminine sound. You must hate it, but it’s pretty.”

  She choked down the stupid giggle, and the heat in her cheeks felt like she was blushing, drat it. Good thing they were in a dimly lit hole in the ground.

  At last she felt able to speak. “The army is tough, but mostly it was just bossy. I wasn’t actually in the army, but I was working for them, and they all know how to give a well-placed order, my brother included. I learned to swallow all my fine opinions and do as I was told because that was the job I was hired for. But the freedom of being my own boss is a wonderful thing.”

  She sat forward, wanting to put it into words, so he could see why she’d choose the mayhem of her life in Nevada.r />
  “The day we rode away from the fort, it was as if I had a tightly wound spring inside me, like a clock wound all the way up. I didn’t even know it was there until I felt it uncoil. Tick by tick, the farther we rode. Cam and I talked about the amazing sense of freedom, like we were birds escaping a cage.” She breathed in deeply of the air she’d chosen for herself.

  He leaned back so his shoulder rested against the tumble of brush that made a back wall out of their shelter, and listened, really listened in a way few men did to a woman.

  “It’s been hard. Easier was the wrong word. There’s nothing easy about freedom. You have to strive. You have to make a plan and stick to it. There was nothing easy about finding out Abe was dead.” That ended any desire she had to laugh. “And Delia. She was the finest woman. Smart and kind and truly devoted to my brother, and so in love with Maddie Sue and her own little son. No, not easy.”

  “I am sorry you lost your brother. I am the youngest in a big family. There were thirteen of us in all.”

  “Thirteen!” Penny gasped. “My goodness.”

  “My father lost his first wife after she had eight children. When he remarried, he had five more. I’m the last, and a straggler by seven years to the next youngest. My oldest brothers and sisters were grown and spread far and wide before I was born. I’ve got three sisters and two brothers I’ve never met. Most of them went west, and the West seems to swallow a person up. I had two brothers killed in the war. Losing them leaves this gaping hole in your life and nothing can fill it.” He shook his head. “It’s a loss you live with forever. I forget how much it hurts, sometimes for days at a time. And then it’ll hit me again.”

  “And when it does,” Penny asked, “do you feel guilty? As if you’ve abandoned them?”

  “As if they weren’t important or I don’t love them enough?” McCall reached forward with his left hand, his right propped on the wall, and touched her upper arm. The offer of comfort warmed her beyond just a simple touch.

  “But no one can hold that great a sorrow forever. Even knowing that, it feels like I’ve betrayed my brother by not thinking of him for days.”