Gold Rush Bride

by Debra Lee Brown

  The Miwok village was a bustle of activity. Another woman approached, carrying a babe wrapped in beaded buckskin and fur. Kate recognized the infant. The woman who’d helped her smiled—the first smile Kate had seen from her—and held out her arms to accept the child.

  “So lovely,” Kate said.

  The woman thrust the infant toward her.

  “Oh, no, I…” The baby grinned her at her, and her heart swelled. “All right. I’d love to hold him.” She wasn’t certain the child was a him, but when the mother adjusted his tiny garments, his gender was confirmed.

  Kate cradled the child in her arms as the women chattered away in their tongue, flashing her an occasional smile. The babe was a wee strong thing, about the same age as Michael and Hetty’s would be now, she guessed. It had been a long time since she’d held an infant. He was warm and sweet, and reminded her of the twins, Patrick and Frank, when they were his size.

  Out of habit Kate paced a tight circle as she rocked him. A lullaby her father had sung to her when she was a toddler and that she, in turn, had sung to her brothers when they were small, came to mind. She began to sing it, and the women laughed with delight.

  She turned again, the babe in her arms, the final notes of the lullaby on her lips. Then she saw him.

  Still as a statue, Will stood not ten paces from her, staring at her and the babe, his face a bittersweet fusion of warring emotions Kate could only guess at. The bay mare stood saddled and ready at his side.

  “Come on,” he said. “We’re leaving.”

  Her heart went out to him, but she dared not acknowledge his pain. He wasn’t a man who shared his emotions, or who wanted comfort. At least he didn’t seem to want it from her.

  She handed the baby back to his mother and thanked the woman again for her kindness. The woman grasped her arm for a moment, long enough to say something to her that Kate couldn’t understand. Then she and the other woman slipped away into the bustle of the village.

  “She says not to worry.”

  Doc Mendenhall came up behind her. Will joined them, busying himself with the horse as the doctor examined the sizable bump on Kate’s head and pressed gently on her wound.

  “Another couple of days and you won’t know it happened. Except for the scars, of course.” He nodded at her ribs, which were heavily bandaged under her clothes.

  “Scars?” She hadn’t thought of that. The bear had raked clean through her dress, her corset, everything. She was lucky to be alive. “It doesn’t matter. No one will ever see them.”

  Will looked up from what he was doing, and their eyes locked. She felt as naked, now, under his grim scrutiny as she had last night when she’d allowed him to look at her breasts. Heat spread from her center, flushing her face.

  Struggling to fix her mind on something else, anything else, she pulled her gaze away and focused on the doctor. “What did the woman mean? That I shouldn’t worry?”

  Doc Mendenhall grinned. “Really want to know?”

  “Of course. Tell me.”

  “Come on,” Will said, and took her arm less than gently. “Time to leave.” He steered her toward the horse, while the doctor stood there grinning like the cat who ate the canary.

  “Tell me,” she repeated, as Will recinched the mare’s saddle.

  The Miwok man whom Kate had met in Tinderbox—the woman’s husband and baby’s father—called out to them, interrupting the doctor’s reply. He approached, and he and Will shook hands, exchanging words in Miwok. The man handed him an overstuffed cloth sack, then nodded at Kate.

  “Meat,” Will said, answering her unasked question. He hung the sack from the saddle horn.

  To Kate’s surprise, the Miwok man approached her, reached into a beaded pouch hanging from his breech-cloth, and held something out to her. It looked rather like a necklace, though not like any necklace she’d ever seen.

  She looked to Will, unsure of what to do, and he nodded. The Miwok nodded, too. Kate opened her palm and he draped the odd-looking necklace over it. Fashioned from a long strip of leather, it was adorned with seashells and feathers and—

  “Sweet Jesus!”

  “Well I’ll be damned,” the doctor said.

  Kate grasped the enormous bear claw that hung from the necklace and rubbed it between her fingers.

  “It was her kill,” Will said, flashing her and the necklace a quick glance as he mounted the mare.

  The Miwok nodded to her again and gestured with his hands.

  “Oh. Yes, of course.” Carefully Kate slipped the necklace over her head.

  The Miwok smiled.

  “My thanks,” Kate said to him.

  He said something to Will, and Will responded with the same words. A farewell, she suspected. The Miwok nodded to her again, then disappeared between the teepees.

  “That…meat.” Kate nodded at the cloth bag suspended from the saddle horn.

  “Bear,” Will said.

  She realized with a start that the meat broth she’d all but sucked down that morning had been neither venison nor hare, nor any game recognizable to her.

  “Ready now?” Will offered her his hand, and Doc Mendenhall boosted her up.

  She winced as she settled onto the mare’s back and wrapped her hands gingerly around Will’s waist.

  “We’ll go slow,” he said, glancing back at her. It was the first kind look he’d offered her since last night.

  As they started for the trees, Doc Mendenhall raised a hand in farewell. “The woman,” he said.

  Oh, right. Kate had almost forgotten.

  “Says you’ve got a fine, strappin’ husband there, Mrs. Crockett. And not to worry. You’ll be havin’ your own baby in no time.” The doctor grinned at Will. “No time at all.”

  Kate felt the taut muscles of Will’s abdomen turn to stone beneath her touch. The ride back to Tinderbox was uneventful, and he uttered no more than a handful of words to her the whole long way.

  It didn’t surprise Will to see Matt waiting for them when they rode into town that afternoon. Dunnett’s wagon, still loaded, sat in the street in front of the store.

  Matt lounged in a comfortable-looking depression fashioned from a pile of grain sacks, his hat pulled low over his eyes, his hands laced together across his chest.

  “Is he asleep?” Kate asked, and finally loosened her grip on Will’s waist.

  For the last four hours, as they’d slowly made their way from the Miwok camp back to town, she’d held on to him, so tight she seemed almost afraid to let him go.

  “Probably,” he said, shaking off the confusion of feelings that had muddled his thinking the past twenty-four hours.

  He reined the mare to a halt beside the wagon and eased Matt’s rifle—the one he’d borrowed from him yesterday—out of the saddle holster and poked him with it.

  Matt jumped like a polecat, hands and feet flailing. As he scrambled for his pistol he somehow managed to knock his own hat off.

  “Whoa, boy. Easy.”

  Matt squinted against the sun, his eyes focusing on them at last. “You’re back!” He scrambled down off the wagon, and Will handed him the rifle. “What the hell happened out there?”

  “Grizz decided to help himself to some of Landerfelt’s sugar.”

  “So I heard.” Matt helped Kate off the mare, his gaze riveted to the Miwok necklace. “Lordy.” He fingered the enormous bear claw and let out a long, low whistle. “I seen where it happened, but didn’t know it was so big.”

  “You were there?” Kate said.

  “Tried to catch y’all up. By the time I got there, the Injuns had already hauled the carcass away. They told me what had happened.”

  Will dismounted, stiff from all the riding, unstrapped the game bag and handed it to his friend. “Here, take some of this. For the loan of the rifle.”

  Matt opened the bag, peered inside and grinned. The odor of fresh meat cut the air. Kate’s face blanched. She reached out to steady herself, and Will caught her arm.

  Her fortitud
e amazed him. She hadn’t complained once on the long ride back to town. He knew she had to be hurting. He’d seen where the bear had mauled her. While it was only a flesh wound it had to sting like hell as she’d bumped along on the mare’s back.

  “Go on inside,” he said. “Get some rest. Matt and I will unload the wagon.”

  “I’ll help.” Kate started around the storefront toward the back door. “Just give me a few minutes to clean up a bit.”

  “I said we’ll do it.”

  She stopped, and turned to look at him.

  That night at Vickery’s when she’d been dressed to the nines, Will thought he’d never seen a more beautiful woman in his life. He was wrong.

  She was more beautiful now than he ever remembered her being, standing there in her mud-caked boots and ragged dress, her hair mussed and her freckled cheeks ruddy from the exertion of a long, hard ride.

  He was treading on dangerous ground.

  It had to stop. Now.

  “Go inside,” he repeated. “We don’t need help.”

  “But if three of us work toge—”

  “Damn it, woman, don’t you understand?” He closed the distance between them and watched her eyes widen in trepidation as he approached. “We made a deal and I’m sticking to my part. But we won’t get out of here with you laid up hurt. I’ve got a ship to make. So do you. If we ever get enough damned money together to get the hell out of here, that is.”

  The more he said, the angrier he got—at himself, not her—and the tighter her lips thinned into a hard line.

  “We can’t leave until you’re fit to travel. Understand?” He glared at her, battling the insane urge to grab her and kiss her, to tell her things he shouldn’t be telling any woman, least of all one who’d made him question the tenets that had shaped his life since he’d left Philadelphia and come West.

  “I…I didn’t look at it that way,” she said quietly, her expression a bit stunned. “You’re right, of course, and I’m sorry. I won’t be any further trouble to you, I promise.”

  She turned away, her eyes downcast, and it took every ounce of resolve he had not to reach for her. He ground his teeth as he stripped the mare of saddle and livery and guided her into Kate’s wake, slapping her on the rump.

  “Not takin’ Daisy, there, back to Mustart’s, is ya?” Matt leaned against the wagon and cocked a brow at him.

  “No. What of it?”

  “Just wonderin’ is all. About that, and other things.”

  Matt flashed a glance at the place where Kate had disappeared around the corner of the building.

  “Yeah, well stop wondering. It’s not your business.”

  “Whatever ya say, partner.”

  “And stop partnering me. Help me get the damned tarp off this load.”

  Matt set his rifle up against the storefront and helped him with the tarp. “Good thing ya got the shipment.”

  “Why?” Will flashed a look up the street, then down again. “Place is a ghost town.”

  “Not for long, I’m thinkin’.”

  “What do you mean?”

  They tossed the tarp onto the ground and proceeded to unload the wagon. Kate unlocked the front door from the inside, ducked her head out briefly, then disappeared back inside.

  “Dunnett says some old boys up Bear River way mighta struck a mother lode.”

  “Where is Dunnett, anyway?”

  Matt grinned. “Up the Chinese camp. Drinkin’ and gamblin’ on credit the money ya owes him for the load.”

  “Yeah, well he’ll have to wait on it.”

  “Not long, I reckon.” Matt nodded down the street where a half-dozen prospectors, fresh from Sacramento City by the look of them, just turned into town. “Rumor travels fast in these parts. A strike at Bear River means business for Tinderbox. Lots of it.”

  “Let’s hope you’re right.” As they continued to unload the wagon, Will glanced across the street to Landerfelt’s Mercantile and Mining Supply, still shut up tight as a drum.

  Matt read his mind. “Never came back. Probably down in the south somewhere, spendin’ your money.”

  Money from the goods he’d swindled out of Kate. Will swore as he tossed another barrel onto the ground.

  “Still chapped about that, I reckon.”

  Will didn’t respond.

  “Hey, at least ya got your horse back. For a while, anyway.”

  “That’s not all I intend to get back.” He pictured Eldridge Landerfelt’s face on one of the flour sacks loaded in the wagon, then punched it.

  “Same old Will Crockett.” Matt grinned and tipped his hat back on his forehead. “I woulda thought that wife a yours mighta softened ya up a little.”

  Will shot him a look that would freeze water.

  “My mistake.”

  Kate unraveled the bandage wrapped tightly around her ribs and gently tested her wounds. “Not bad. Not bad at all.” She tossed the bandage into the fire blazing in the potbellied stove and quickly dressed.

  It had been only four days since her run-in with the bear, but today she felt right as rain. And a good thing, too. The store had been amazingly busy since their return from the Miwok village. Just the rumor of a strike at Bear River was enough to divert part of the steady stream of would-be prospectors pouring out of Sacramento City heading south.

  Though the Packett boys had returned to Tinderbox, Eldridge Landerfelt had all but vanished, along with Mr. Vickery’s wagon, a rented oxen team, and what had remained of their combined inventories before Dan Dunnett delivered the new goods.

  Will was still angry at her for cutting the deal with Landerfelt to begin with. But with the merchant gone, and the Mercantile and Mining Supply closed, Crockett’s Grocery and Dry Goods was the only game in town. Kate opened the door leading into the store and peeked inside.

  Will stood behind the counter weighing gold dust a transient miner had put down in exchange for supplies. He looked completely out of place dressed in his usual buckskin and fur. Knowing now the things she did about his past, she marveled that he’d stayed with her as long as he had.

  Will Crockett was no merchant. And the last thing he wanted or needed was a wife, or any kind of responsibility weighing him down. He’d all but said it the day they’d returned from the Miwok village. His cool demeanor and seeming indifference to her these past few days confirmed it.

  “Kate,” Will said, as she entered the store. The miner tipped his hat to her on his way out. “Here’s another hundredweight for your bag.”

  She reached into the pocket of her old dress and pulled out the leather pouch that had been her father’s. Running her thumb over the smooth, burnished surface, she smiled, remembering him.

  “How much?” Will nodded at the pouch.

  “Nearly six hundred dollars.”

  “Another week and we’re heading west to Frisco, no matter how much we have.”

  “I understand.” She wondered what he meant to do if they didn’t have enough for both his passage and hers.

  She’d given up hope altogether of raising enough to pay back the money she’d borrowed from her mother’s sister. She’d have to work it off in the laundry in Clancy Street, along with whatever Michael and Sean could make. The twins would have to be put to work as well. She’d hoped to keep them in school, but could see no way clear to that foolish dream. Not now.

  Glancing around the packed shelves of the store, she was grateful for Dan Dunnett’s last-minute decision on the levee in Sacramento City to put up enough of his own money to bring back a full load of goods. This time he’d bought only mining supplies and food. If business continued at the brisk pace of recent days, they had a chance.

  “I heard Jed Packett’s voice earlier.” Kate pocketed the leather pouch and smoothed her skirt. “What did he want?”

  “Wanted me take Daisy back to the livery.”

  “Oh.” Technically the mare was still Landerfelt’s property, but since he hadn’t returned as promised, she supposed Will saw no reason to
return the mare. “What did you tell him?”

  Will shot her a cool look. “I said if Landerfelt wants her back, he can come and get her.”

  As if she had to ask.

  “You don’t like him, do you?”

  “No. Do you?”

  “Of course not. He’s a snake and a swindler, the worst kind of man. But it’s different with you. You more than dislike him. It’s almost an…obsession.”

  “The hell it is.” Will skirted the counter and stopped just short of forcing her to step back to accommodate him. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  She looked up at him and for all the world wondered what other terrible secrets he was keeping from her. Secrets she could see storming around in those dark eyes of his. “Maybe I don’t. It’s just that…”

  “What?”

  “Sometimes it’s better to talk about things. To share them with someone who…” Her pulse began to race as a wave of emotion welled inside her.

  “Cares?” His expression softened. He stepped closer, so close that the tips of her breasts grazed his chest, so close that his lips hovered just over hers. “Do you, Kate? Do you care?”

  Her head spun and her heart raced. She didn’t know how to respond to so bald a question from the only man she’d ever met for whom she truly did care. A man who didn’t want her, who couldn’t wait to put her aboard a ship and send her away.

  The words were on her lips.

  If she said them, would he take her into his arms and kiss her as he had that afternoon on the ridge, and again just days ago in the road?

  Or would he rebuke her?

  Fear and doubt and desire clashed inside her along with the certain knowledge that no matter what she answered, the fact remained that she had to go home to Ireland. She had to go back.

  The bell over the storefront door tinkled to life, shattering the moment. Dan Dunnett burst across the threshold, an open bottle of Cheng’s finest brandy in his hand.

  Will spun on his heel to face him. “What is it? What’s happened?”

  “It’s gold!”

  “Gold?” So the rumors were true, then. Kate could hardly believe it.

  “Yes, ma’am. A ton of it.” Dan raised the bottle in a solitary toast. “At Bear River—right up the road.”