The Accidental Guardian

by Mary Connealy

  It struck Deb that she’d never been asked to shut up so politely in her life. “I’ll leave you to it, then.”

  “Obliged.” He moved forward at a pace that grew faster until it was the next thing to a run, but not a run, just the next thing to it.

  Twenty miles he’d said.

  It was going to be a long, quiet day.

  CHAPTER

  4

  Deb dropped back until Trace was about thirty paces ahead. She kept that distance, vowing silently never to slow him down.

  She held the horse’s reins, though the animal seemed content to traipse after its master. The dog came back, apparently its hunger sated, woofed at them in a friendly way, and trotted ahead toward Trace. It ranged off the trail in both directions, sniffing the ground, studying the trail as closely as Trace was doing.

  Because leading the horse wasn’t a real job, beyond hanging on tightly to the reins, she dropped back to walk beside the horse’s shoulder, alongside Gwen. The two talked quietly as they followed Trace. The grassland was swallowed up as the trail narrowed and slanted up a mountainside. The woods came in closer.

  They were retracing their steps from yesterday. Deb remembered her relief when they’d emerged from these thick woods, and now here she was reentering them. Only now they climbed instead of descended. Yesterday had been all downward, winding around boulders and ravines, downed logs and washed-out ruts big enough to swallow a wagon whole.

  After an entire day following a trail so narrow the trees brushed the wagons in places, they’d found that big swath of prairie grass. Deb had been able to take a deep breath for the first time in hours. It had a nice level stretch where the wagons could form a circle, with plenty of grazing for the horses and a spring to water them.

  It had seemed so safe and comfortable. Little had she known.

  As they rode back into this mountainous woodland, that weight returned to her. Only now it felt as if there were eyes on them. Guns on them. As if the men who’d done such evil to her wagon train lingered in the woods, watching, waiting to kill again. Her breath shortened, and sweat broke out on her forehead as her eyes darted from tree to tree, boulder to boulder, looking for guns.

  “He’s a barely grown boy.” Gwen’s quiet comment tore Deb out of her frightening thoughts, and she was grateful for it. Trace knew far more about the wilderness than she did. If he was worried, he’d say something.

  But Gwen’s words had caught Deb by surprise. She narrowed her eyes to look at Trace’s back. He was tall and broad shouldered and carried himself with such confidence. He seemed like a full-grown man to her, not old but certainly not a boy anymore.

  “Do you think so?”

  They kept their voices low, not to be secretive but because both children had fallen asleep, and it was much easier to travel with them this way. And Deb didn’t want to distract Trace. Although to her it looked a lot like he was just walking.

  “Oh yes. I wonder if he’s much more than twenty.”

  Little Ronnie whimpered and tossed his head, his eyes fluttering open. He’d slept a long time, yet it couldn’t last the whole trip.

  “Well, he seems at home in this country.” Deb walked along easily. In fact, this was the easiest traveling she’d had in a long while. Usually she walked all day with a child in her arms.

  The wagon had been heavily loaded and the team gaunted up, so they’d walked to lighten the load as much as possible. Deb carried one of the children for long stretches, with Gwen carrying the other. Mrs. Scott drove. Working the reins and the wagon brakes was exhausting—even worse on a downhill slope like yesterday. Mr. Scott spent the day on horseback. He moved tirelessly, helping anyone who needed a hand, scouting the trail ahead or hunting food.

  Today, Deb walked the same as always, but she was empty-handed. She could keep walking too, probably for twenty miles, if Trace did decide to go the whole way without sleeping.

  All things considered, she thought going on was the best idea.

  “There’s a fork in the trail ahead,” Gwen said from her higher perch.

  At that same moment, Trace turned to them. “I need to study this for a bit. Take a break. Eat. Let the youngsters stretch their legs. There’s a spring drizzling out of that rock on the right side of the trail. Refill the canteens and let the horse have a drink.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Gwen said. “My legs could use a stretch, too.”

  Trace went on studying. Deb had her hands full getting Maddie Sue down off the horse, pinned as she was between Gwen and the large pack. But it helped Deb feel better about how secure the girl was up there.

  The dog came up and stood beside Maddie Sue, so close that she leaned on him and hugged his neck.

  Deb remembered how the dog had growled at first. A dangerous creature, but now it acted friendly as could be. Deb hoped the dog’s behavior was sincere because she could see no way to keep Maddie Sue and the dog apart. They appeared to have bonded, and as Gwen passed Ronnie down, Deb’s hands were too busy to keep Maddie Sue up off the ground.

  Gwen climbed down from the horse, mostly in a controlled fall. But she clung to the saddle horn, then the stirrup, and ended up standing, so Deb counted it as a successful dismount.

  “There are some flat boulders over there we can sit on when we eat. We can take turns watching the horse while we let the children move around.”

  “If we need to, we can use that boulder to stand on to get back into the saddle.” Deb smiled. “You think that will make Trace proud of us?”

  Gwen chuckled. She produced her bag and Deb’s, which had been hanging from the saddle horn rather than stowed in the pack on the horse. She also brought two canteens down with her. They tended themselves and the children, including a dry diaper for Ronnie, and a quick trip into the privacy of the woods for the rest of them. They let the horse drink, its reins tied to a low shrub so it could graze.

  They took out some beef jerky and more biscuits. Gwen also had an apple in her bag, which she cut into five pieces.

  “Look at him.” Gwen nodded toward Trace as they stood eating.

  Deb would’ve preferred to sit since she’d walked all morning, but it turned out it took both women to keep the little ones from harm. Ronnie wanted to stand under the horse and splash in the spring. Maddie Sue wanted to pull the wolf-dog’s hair and look at its teeth while standing on the poor animal’s toes.

  Finally, Deb convinced Ronnie to toddle toward Trace, who was a good fifty feet away. Deb thought to fetch the little boy before he got close enough to mess up any tracks.

  Trace crouched down by the trail to study the ground. Then he stood, moved left, right, looked down again, then side to side.

  “I don’t know what he’s doing, but there’s something to interest him.” Gwen chased after Ronnie, plucked him up, and kept a watchful eye on Maddie Sue. The girl chased after the dog, which seemed to have made a game out of staying just out of reach of her fur-tugging fingers.

  “I wish I’d had the courage to shoot those men.” Deb’s conscience struck. “All I could think of was to stay hidden and protect myself. I saw one, heard their voices, and I can bear witness to their crimes. But I should have fought.”

  She clenched her fists and felt the anger and guilt mix into something ugly. “My gun is a revolver, six shots. I could have at least tried to get them all. I didn’t even have the courage to pull the trigger once.”

  “Stop, Deb. You did the right thing, and you know it. It was before the sun was fully up, you’ve not done much shooting in your life, and you’d only have missed them and brought the men right toward you.” Gwen let Ronnie go, and the boy aimed for Trace again.

  “But I could have sneaked closer. In that terrible firelight I might have been able to get close enough to hit them all. I could’ve at least gotten a look at them all.” Deb looked down, ashamed of herself. “The truth is, all I could think of was myself, my own survival. Almost the first thing Trace spoke of was reading the tracks so he could recognize thos
e men later and bring them to justice. That’s a noble way to behave.”

  “Deb, we’d never been in a wagon-train attack before.” Gwen sounded dry, slightly teasing. “I’m sure with practice you’ll get better at handling such a thing.”

  A smile quirked Deb’s lips. “I hope to have no more such practice, for heaven’s sake.” Her chin came up. “But I am going to change, Gwen. I am. The West is different than where we came from. It’s a land that demands strength of people. A land that tests courage. With the muscles in our backs and the brains in our heads, we can do whatever we want out here, and I intend to accept that challenge and grow strong enough to belong in this wild and rich land.”

  “Rich?” Gwen asked.

  “Yes, look around. The beauty of these mountains, the wealth in lumber, the food to be had from hunting and trapping. Mr. Scott fed our whole wagon train with the use of his rifle. We couldn’t do that in a city back east. And women aren’t allowed to be more than wives and mothers, or spinster teachers.”

  “You ran Pa’s newspaper single-handedly, Deb.”

  The spark of anger flared in Deb until she felt almost big enough for the frontier. “Yes, I did. I gathered the news, wrote the stories, set up the printing press, sold the ads, kept the accounts and paid the bills. And no one gave me credit for it.”

  “You mean Pa never gave you credit for it. I always knew who ran things.”

  “And Ma did the job before me. She’s the one who taught me what it took to run a newspaper while Pa was busy being a showman. He talked in the diner and on the boardwalk and in the taverns while he smoked cigars and played cards. He ate at the restaurants while we scrambled for enough to feed ourselves at home. He led parades and visited with the mayor and spoke up at community events.” Deb darted after Ronnie again when he got too far away and carried him back.

  “While you took notes and wrote the stories later.” Gwen took Ronnie from Deb and stood him on his little feet. The boy squealed in pleasure and immediately headed for the horse. Sighing, Gwen directed him elsewhere as the little tyke protested.

  “It wasn’t just Pa who never gave me credit. Not one man in that whole town ever did. Including the ones who knew I was interviewing them for a story or making purchases and paying bills for the paper and convincing them to buy ads for it. They saw me as an errand girl for our great and wise father.”

  “Who spent every cent we couldn’t hide from him on poker.” Gwen shook her head in disgust. There was no sense saying more; it was a simple fact. They’d worked their hearts out for a man who did nothing and took everything.

  When he died, the paper had closed because no one did business with or bought ads or subscriptions from a paper whose editor was no longer there, even though nothing had changed.

  Deb had tried to keep it all going for a few months, but finally she faced reality and sold the printing press, moved out of their rented house, and headed west, determined to find a place they could work for themselves for the first time in their lives.

  They had dreams of making it in California, and they still would someday. Deb’s jaw firmed as she vowed to herself and to God that she’d find a way to head west. She’d carve out a life for herself and Gwen.

  She’d do it. She was capable. She’d fight for justice for folks like Ronnie’s parents. And she’d run a newspaper again—she had years of experience as proof she could do it.

  She was out here in a land where anyone could succeed if they were bold enough, if they were smart and strong enough. And she was all of those things.

  Before she’d done it for Pa. Now she’d do it for herself. And somehow watching Trace, and knowing he thought first of justice, made something grow inside her. It gave her the strength to do anything she put her mind to. She trusted herself enough to believe.

  CHAPTER

  5

  He didn’t trust himself.

  He was too filled with fury, too hungry for revenge.

  Finding these men and punishing them threatened to take him over and send him galloping down the trail—the fork that led him away from home—with murder in his heart.

  The men who did that to the wagon train were filthy, brutal murderers. They needed to die. Just as the men who’d done the same to his father’s wagon train needed to die.

  Worse yet, from what he’d seen in that wagon circle, he knew these were the same men. The knife wounds, the scattered arrows made to look like the Paiutes had attacked. But the arrows weren’t right. And the little things they’d done wrong were the exact things the men who’d killed his father had done.

  He could catch them. They had a few hours’ start, but driving a herd was slow and his horse would close the distance fast. Knowing they were within his reach added to Trace’s desire for revenge.

  They needed to die for the multiple murders they’d committed today.

  But of course he couldn’t go after them.

  God had given over to him the care of four helpless people, and he had to get them home.

  His throat felt thick with the two tearing needs—to chase these men and to protect this brood.

  Seeing those women come running out of the grass, well, nothing had ever hit him that hard. Not since he’d been left completely alone, a fifteen-year-old who’d considered himself a full-grown man, until he had to be. The aloneness on this high mountain trail had threatened to break him.

  There was never any question that he’d help four stranded travelers. Any decent man would help, and there were plenty of men who’d be described as less than decent who’d’ve helped them, too. Not the marauders who’d killed men and women in that wagon train, but most men in the West treated women with almost reverent respect. There were just too few women. They were rare and precious and to be protected above all.

  But beyond that simple right and wrong—beyond what any man would do—came a blow to Trace’s gut at seeing that these folks had survived the same thing he had.

  And God had allowed him to come along and help them. Trace considered that a great honor. Which didn’t mean that watching a baby get its diaper changed wasn’t enough to set off a deep panic in his gut. What if he was asked to help?

  That alone gave him a powerful incentive to keep the women happy and healthy. But caring for all of them ran directly at odds with what he wanted to do, which was ignore the trail that led home and keep after those vicious outlaws.

  Trace hadn’t been able to do anything when his wagon train was attacked. Survival took every ounce of his strength, and even then the winter in the High Sierra had almost killed him.

  Things were different now. He was fully capable of fighting back. And the desire to do it was so strong, to take on three men by himself, that he had to call it bloodlust.

  He was on his way home from his first cattle drive. He’d just run his cows to market in Sacramento. Because he’d never been away from his ranch, not in all these years. He’d sent his cowhands on home days ahead of him and then set out to wander. They were there now, he was sure, caring for the good-sized herd he had left, which were on rich winter grazing land so they needed only minimal care.

  He had nothing but time.

  The little boy giggled and pulled his thoughts back to the present.

  He needed to get these folks to shelter. It was October in the peaks of the Sierra Nevada. October was a serious month up here in the thin chilled air of this stretch of the mountains. It was a man’s last chance to get everything ready for the long, hard months of cold. His ranch was at a lower elevation, but they had to ride a trail that climbed to the highlands, then wound down to get home.

  Even at home, lower wasn’t low enough to stop winter from hitting hard. The snow came in feet instead of inches. The wind howled, and the trails locked up deep and tight.

  This wagon train had been traveling dangerously late in the season. Though it could hold off for a month, Trace knew at any minute winter could land flat on their heads, and the twenty miles they needed to travel today would become imp
ossible.

  There’d be no vengeance today. He needed to tend babies and women and dodge diaper-changing duty with every ounce of his cunning. That’d keep him mighty busy for who could say how long.

  Trace straightened from the tracks and turned to see Maddie Sue yanking on Wolf’s tail.

  Swallowing a gasp, Trace fought down the reflex to shout a warning and sprint. At any second Wolf could revert to form. He was friendly to Trace, and he’d accepted the hired hands, but that had been slow in coming and the men were mighty careful.

  They sure as certain hadn’t yanked on his tail on the first day.

  For the most part Wolf was a bad-tempered critter who bared his teeth and growled at most anything new—and a lot that wasn’t new. He was the best protection Trace had at the ranch, and Trace loved him. But that didn’t mean he didn’t recognize the wolfish half of the beast and respect it.

  Maddie Sue wasn’t showing one bit of respect.

  Trace flinched when Maddie Sue dove at Wolf and tackled him to the ground. Wolf wagged his tail and panted while the child wriggled on top of him and stomped on his legs. Wolf licked the little girl’s face, and she giggled and hugged him tight.

  It was just plain odd.

  Trace got to the women and children and, acting as casual as a man could, he picked Maddie Sue up and held her against him. It was awkward because the little girl smiled at him and kicked him at the same time. She reached down and yelled, “Doggie!”

  Trace figured he was holding her wrong somehow. Then he had an old memory from his pa and hefted the child higher and set her on his shoulders with her legs around his neck. Now he could hold her feet. And when his hat went flying and she used his hair as a handhold, well, it hurt, but it beat having her chewed up by the dog.

  “The men I was tracking all followed the north trail. But we need to head south to reach my ranch. It’s the closest shelter.”

  The pretty, dark-haired one, Deb, with those shining blue, intelligent eyes that made her seem smarter than Trace probably was, smiled. “So we’ll be putting some space between us and them?”