She hoped Sidney would show some interest in learning, because it was a big job. But she enjoyed the labor of her hands and took great satisfaction in knowing she could make a good life for herself with the strength of her back. Sidney liked to say he was working with his head not his back. But Mandy figured God had given her a strong back for a reason so she didn’t mind using it.
She cut the meat of both bucks into strips, setting aside a haunch to hang in a cool cave Silas Harden had scouted out. They’d eat venison steaks and roasts, and Mandy could contrive a good stew with the supplies the Hardens had brought for them. The rest of the meat would be smoked and stockpiled for the winter that she’d been grimly warned would come early and stay late.
“Mandy, I’m going to hike around, see if there are any likely spots for mining.” Sidney came out of the house tugging his suspenders over his shoulders. Broad shoulders that had cradled Mandy last night.
She was truly in love with her husband. She knew he wasn’t perfect. He was a city boy, not used to frontier living. But he’d learn, and if he took a notion to hunt for gold for a while, she’d let him. A man needed a dream.
Sidney had the shovel that Pa had packed with him. He slung it over his shoulder and whistled as he headed into the woods.
“Sidney, there’s a cave just a bit up this trail that way.” Mandy pointed to the west. “I don’t know much about gold mining, but a cave might be a likely place to look.” She’d heard of mines and she’d heard of panning for gold. They had no pan, so the cave sounded good.
Sidney turned away from his own direction and walked over to Mandy, who was covered neck to ankle in a huge apron, her hands bloody from butchering, her hair a bit flyaway, because when it had escaped in bits from its knot she’d been careful not to tuck it back in, considering the mess.
Sidney leaned down and kissed her gently, then pulled back to smile. “We’re going to be happy here, Mandy. If I find a vein of gold, we’ll be so rich we can buy and sell that Harden clan and we’ll eat roast beef every day and not have to hunt.”
Mandy knew she’d married a dreamer, but his dream seemed to have shifted. What about being a lawyer? Well, he could always be one of those, too; and in the meantime, she’d keep venison on the table.
“Can you leave that and show me this cave?” Sidney looked uneasily at the deer, as if worried that he’d be remembering this mess when he was eating later.
Mandy fought a smile. “I’d love to walk over there with you.” She set aside her heavy knife, then wiped her hands as best she could on the apron and took it off. She was still untidy and she suspected she smelled none too good, but she left the worst of the mess behind.
They strolled through the woods until Mandy came upon the cave mouth, nearly concealed by a clump of quaking aspen that was just showing the first signs of fall color. Mandy had listened closely while Belle and her whole family talked yesterday, educating her in the way of mountain living. What woods burned and carved well, which were best for building, what plants had medicinal uses. What wildlife was about, some dangerous, some not. Some tasty, some not.
Emma Harden had found a good spring, which is why they’d built where they had. A steady water source made a well unnecessary.
The whole group had talked and taught and been so kind. Mandy had sensed their quiet worry about leaving Mandy and Sidney here alone, but Mandy had convinced them she was a frontier woman, same as them. In the end they’d left her and Sidney to saddle their own broncos, which was the way of the West, be it in Texas or Montana.
Mandy slipped through the nearly solid wall of aspens. The Hardens had stacked rocks and rigged a gate in front of the cave entrance so it was a trick to get inside.
“Couldn’t they find a cave around here that was easier to get in and out of?” Sidney asked. It was his first querulous comment of the day. Of course he’d only been out of bed about ten minutes.
“They picked this and blocked it off to keep out wild animals. I’m going to hang my jerked meat in here. We don’t want to be feeding the local grizzly bears and mountain lions and wolves, now do we?” Mandy grinned at him as they entered the cave. It wasn’t huge but once they’d passed the entrance, they could stand upright in it and it went back nearly twenty feet. The light was dim but Mandy saw that someone had rigged a sturdy branch in one corner to use as a hanger for meat. That was going to save her a lot of time.
She sure didn’t see any gold, but that wasn’t her project. “I’ve got a deer to cut up and a hide to tan. Then I’m going to chink the cabin and barn. Two people would make it go a lot faster.” A hint she wished he’d take.
“Maybe later, honey.” Sidney came near and tossed the shovel on the ground. He wrapped his arms around her waist and kissed her. When he finished he said, “I’m so proud of all you know how to do. You can really tan a deer hide?”
“Sure. It’ll be great, strong leather when I’m done. I’ll use the deer’s brain to tan the hide then smoke it to keep it soft.”
“The brain?” Sidney flinched.
Patting him on the chest, Mandy smiled at her city-boy husband. “We can use the hide all winter as a blanket. I even know how to make moccasins and pants for you. You might want them if you’re doing hard work. They’re a lot sturdier than broadcloth.”
Sidney kissed her again. “I have married myself a fine woman.”
The next kiss lasted longer.
“Now I want you to quit distracting me and let me get to work.” His smile told her he was teasing.
She smiled back. “Good luck. I hope you find a wagonload of gold.” She almost added, “But don’t get your hopes up,” but why discourage him? She’d leave that task to the Rocky Mountains.
“I’ll be back here in a while to hang the haunch of venison so I’ll see you soon.”
“Bye.” Sidney turned to the very barren walls of the cave with a bit of a bewildered look on his face.
Mandy couldn’t help him. She had no idea how to go about finding gold.
Slipping out the narrow opening of the cave, she started thinking of what they’d have for a noon meal. Something encouraging.
Mandy needed to keep her husband happy.
Beth needed to keep her husband alive.
“We are not going to some fort hundreds of miles over rugged desert and mountains to turn you over to a firing squad.”
“It’s the only way to keep you alive, Beth.”
“No, it isn’t.” Their tree trunk rounded a curve in the flooded arroyo and Beth yelled, “Hang on.”
She could have skipped yelling. Alex was watching the banks as carefully as she was. He’d already seen the curve ahead and gotten his arms wrapped tight around the branches he balanced between.
But she felt like yelling so it suited her to do it. They’d been floating along all morning, half the time squabbling, half the time sitting in grudge-soaked silence, all the time clinging to their tree. It had a tendency to slam into the bank like it was going to right now.
Beth sat leaning against the roots. Alex was on the other end of the tree. He’d slid closer to Beth slowly, inch by inch, until they were almost within arm’s length of each other. But that last gap between them had no branches so there was nothing for him to hold on to. So they’d stayed apart, when Beth would have dearly loved him to hold her in his arms through this wretched ride.
They clung to their handholds as the tree jammed straight into the sheer wall that lined this arroyo. It hit so hard Beth lost her grip for a second, but she scrambled to regain it and stayed atop the God-supplied raft. The top ten feet of the tree snapped off with a sharp crack. Beth wondered how long before their boat was battered down to firewood. There were no low banks to climb out on.
The collision sent the tree spinning. Beth ended up downstream of Alex, but it wouldn’t last. The tree would swivel again soon though. Many branches had been stripped away, leaving the top of the tree slender, but the roots were tough and still showed some green in places scraped raw. So t
he current tended to catch them and hold them back, letting the top of the tree get ahead again. They finally settled in again, with the rushing waters.
Beth’s legs dangled into the flood. It helped her keep her balance to straddle the tree. She was exhausted, starved, and battered from the events of the last twenty-four hours. She wanted her ma so badly she felt like, inside, she’d reverted to a three-year-old. But outside, where it counted, she was a lawfully wedded woman trying to talk some sense into the half-wit she’d married. “It isn’t the only way to keep me alive. We’ll just make our way back to Mosqueros. I’ll be safe there.”
“But that man will keep coming. He’ll be after me, and from the underhanded way he went about trying to take me in, I’d say he was definitely more interested in the ‘dead’ than the ‘alive’ on that wanted poster. And if he’s gunning for me, you could get caught in the crossfire.”
“I’ll be careful. Pa was a major in the army during the Civil War. He might know someone who could give you advice.”
Alex shook his head. “I’m going in, Beth. And you’re coming with me. I’ll face my punishment like a man and y–you’ll be set free. I’ve been half out of my head for a long time. I should have gone back and faced this years ago. But I was too much of a coward.”
“What happened, Alex? Why did you run? Is that why you were acting so crazy on the stagecoach? Is that why you can’t do any doctoring unless you keep me at your side?”
Alex kept his eye on the bank.
Beth was always looking, too, hoping to find a lower spot where they had a chance of climbing out. But there’d been nothing.
“Ever hear of the Red River War?” Alex sounded so tense Beth almost stopped him. If he sank into that awful place he’d gone when she left him alone with Mr. Farley at the general store, Alex might not remember to hang on to the tree.
“That’s not familiar. I’ve heard of a Red River in Texas.” Beth adjusted her grip, wondering if she was going to have to shimmy along this tree at the risk of her own life to drag her husband out of his dark thoughts. “We don’t have to talk about this now, Alex. It might be best to wait until we’ve reached the shore.”
As if he hadn’t heard her, Alex said, “I was in the cavalry when it broke out. I’d defied my father’s wish to go into business with him. He was part owner of a railroad back East and very wealthy. But I was always drawn to doctoring.” Alex raised his eyes to meet hers and she felt that deep connect. “You understand that, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do.” It was a tie almost as binding as their wedding vows and the ties of the flesh.
“I fought with my father for years, and when I went off to college, I was so rude, so defiant. When I was finally ready to practice medicine, I deliberately chose the West, the military because I felt led to the great need I believed was out here in the frontier. And I got here and the campaign started they called the Red River War.”
Beth sat silently and prayed for strength for her and Alex. Her eyes still locked on Alex’s, letting him draw strength.
“The Indians had a choice. Register and go peacefully to a reservation or be taken there by force. Only trouble was too many of the Indians were starving on the reservations. They’d go in, surrender, and then stay put until they realized none of the promised food was coming. Then they’d run away. Die on the reservation, die off the reservation. Some choice, huh?” Alex gave her a bitter smile.
“So, I was helping the cavalry round up the ones who’d refused to surrender.” Alex shook his head. “It was so awful. It was nothing like I thought it would be when I set out to be a doctor. I had to go right onto the battlefield with the soldiers—guns firing, sometimes cannons. Knifes, bows and arrows. Hate, so much fighting and killing and hate. My job in that carnage was to save the wounded. It was so stupid. Why not just fight to begin with, instead of having the battles then trying to tend to those ugly wounds? Severed limbs, gut shots, men slashed by knives. And it wasn’t just men. There were women and children in some of the Indian villages, and I had to tend to them, too. Little children savaged. Women dead or dying. Both soldiers and Indians lay side by side, bleeding. And I had to save the soldiers first. Even if one of the cavalry men was clearly beyond saving, I had to tend him while a less badly wounded warrior or even a woman or child lay close at hand. I could’ve saved them if I’d been allowed to give up on the soldiers.”
“So you deserted when you couldn’t take that anymore?” Beth wanted to hold him. She was afraid she’d send them all into the water if she scooted forward, but he needed her. Right now his pain was almost as bad as that of the bleeding, dying soldiers. She moved forward, carefully, an inch at a time, knowing she shouldn’t—but her heart wouldn’t allow her to stay away from someone who needed her so badly.
“I was kneeling beside a dying man who was soaked in blood. He’d been slashed across the belly and his insides were spilling out. He was—was—” Alex flinched, swallowed hard, and went on. “He was trying to put himself back together, out of his head, just driven by some freakish instinct. I picked up my doctor’s bag and it was soaked in blood. My hands, my clothes, the ground, the whole world was soaked in blood.”
Alex rubbed his head. “There were horses, too. Someone was shooting horses. I can’t remember exactly what I saw, but I can hear those horses screaming. The gunfire. My bag swimming with blood.”
Shaking his head, looking into the past, he said, “I just threw the bag and ran. A coward. I couldn’t do it anymore. I betrayed my country when I ran, and the punishment for that is a firing squad. I’ve been so out of my head. I have dreams about that dying man, my doctor’s bag, those dying horses. I haven’t slept in years because of the nightmares. I tried drinking to shut down the madness, but the drinking made it worse. I had the dreams when I was wide awake then. I haven’t done anything but move, as if I could run away from the horror when it’s stuck inside my head.”
Beth finally reached him and pulled him into her arms. He jumped a bit, as if he’d been so far gone inside his memories that he hadn’t noticed she was close. Their eyes met. It was the same powerful connection they’d had from the very first.
“Until you, Beth. Until you dragged me out of the madness that’s been plaguing me and forced me to help Mr. Armitage. And even as terrified as I was of doctoring again, the strength I stole from you gave me the first moments of peace I’ve had in years. I wanted it so badly that I just took it, took you, took everything you offered.”
Alex slid his hands deep into her bedraggled hair. “And now I could get you killed. I won’t do it.” He shouted the words, his fists clutched her wind-dried tresses. His jaw set into a tight, hard line. “I’ll die myself before I hurt you. I’ll die gladly.”
He pulled her tight and kissed her as if he was desperate for her touch. Desperate to feel her and hold her.
Beth fought back the tears until she heard the tight choking sound coming from Alex’s throat. Then a sob broke free and Alex gave in to tears. Beth couldn’t hold hers a moment longer, despite years of training to the contrary.
Together, they held each other and cried.
“They went over that cliff?” Sophie couldn’t keep the horror out of her voice.
“Yep. I’ve looked hard. It’s a long way down, but I see clear sign at the bottom that they got up and moved, so they survived the fall. And one rider led them up here then went back down the trail.”
Sophie and Clay’s eyes met as they stood silently adding things up.
“If they went down this cliff and he went back to town, then the way to find them is to find him.” Clay arched his brows as if daring Sophie to deny the obvious.
“I’ll go over the side here, Pa.” Sally studied the steep slope and walked along the edge, looking for a better place to go down. “I’ll trail Beth and see where she got to from this direction.”
“Nope, you’re not going down there alone.”
“Where does this end up?” Sophie searched through her memory. This w
as a barren, forbidding stretch of land, and she was only slightly familiar with it.
Clay stared down the twisted and gullied terrain. Then his head lifted and he had a shine in his eyes that lifted Sophie’s dread. “The arroyo. That’s where Beth would go if she had to run this way. She’d head for that dried-up streambed.”
“Except it’s not dried up after last night’s rain,” Sophie reminded him.
“Which means they might be getting swept down, maybe all the way to the river,” Clay added.
“If they don’t drown first,” Sally added somberly. “Remember those floodwaters that almost swept Pa away that first night he came to us?” Sally looked at Sophie.
Only years of practicing being brave kept Sophie from visibly shuddering. “I remember. A flood is a fearsome thing. Where do we go, Clay? Where do we ride to fetch Beth home? Alex and Beth.” Sophie kept forgetting about him. But she glanced at Sally’s scar and knew she’d never really forget. And she’d never be able to repay him. Yes, they’d definitely ride to save both Alex and Beth.
“If she makes it to the water and gets herself a ride on it, I know right where she’ll be able to climb out. And that arroyo twists and turns so much we might even be able to get there ahead of her. If not, we’ll be able to pick up sign.”
“Or meet her heading for home,” Sophie added hopefully as she swung up on her roan. “We can send word to the ranch and have Adam and Tillie look after the young’uns along with Laurie. And maybe Adam can send that wire to Luther, too.”
“You know,” Sally said as she spurred her horse after Clay and Sophie, bringing up the rear, “that man who came down this trail might well be riding to intercept her just like we are. And he’s hours ahead of us.”
No one said more. They were too busy riding for all they were worth without breaking their necks on the steep, muddy trail back to Mosqueros.
Twenty – four
Sidney came in from the woods, his shoulders slumped, the light waning. He’d been gone all day.
Sophie's Daughters Trilogy Page 18