“You can’t go traipsing off after that brat alone,” exclaimed Jake. “Lucas will have my head if I let you go alone.”
“I have no choice. Lucas isn’t here, and Found will never come to me if I take you along. I’m sure he thinks you’re the cause of all his troubles.”
“Now see here, just because I thought he had no business with so much money …”
“I should have tried to believe him and offered to keep it for him, but I should never have taken it from him. If I knew anything, it was that he has been badly treated by someone, and now I’m afraid that in his eyes we’ve done the same thing. I’ve got to find him.”
“Then take Katie with you.”
“I can’t. There’s a stage due in less than an hour. Just tell me how to find the place, and tell Lucas to come after me as soon as he comes in.”
“He’s going to kill me,” Jake said, sorrowfully anticipating his demise. “He’s going to cut my guts out and roast them over a fire with me watching.”
“Stop trying to make me feel sorry for you, and tell me how to get to that cabin.”
But an hour later Carrie was wishing she had waited for Lucas. It had sounded so easy to find the canyon when Jake had described it to her, but she soon found that to someone used to paved roads and street signs, all canyons looked alike; it was impossible to tell the gray ones from the red ones or the narrow openings from the wide. She was able to tell a sandy floor from one strewn with rocks, but except for the willow and pine trees, she could hardly tell what kind of plants she was looking at. In one swift and awful lesson, she had more than amply proved Lucas’s contention that she was totally unprepared to travel unaccompanied in the wilderness.
Carrie’s mare had not been happy with the saddle from the moment it was place on her back, and she became more difficult to handle the father from the barn they went. Carrie had been able to follow Found’s tracks at first, but they had long since disappeared and the mare seemed to resent her habit of retracing her steps to see if she had overlooked something. Then a covey of quail erupted from a low bush practically under her feet, and me mare reared, unseating Carrie just as she was in the process of leaning down to get a better view of a suspicious-looking footprint in the sand. Carrie managed to hold on the pommel and keep one foot in the stirrup, but she could not regain her seat, and the mare was galloping down the trail. She tried to pull up the runaway horse with only one hand on the reins, but the mare knew she was in control and made a spirited attempt to rip the reins out of Carrie’s grasp. Realizing she couldn’t hold on long with only one foot in a stirrup and her body leaning off to one side, Carrie turned her attention to getting her leg back over the saddle.
She had a firm grasp on the pommel, and she was able to gradually ease her weight over the center of the mare’s back. Given a little more time and the requirement that the mare continue to run a straight course, she would have been able to get her leg over the saddle and probably her foot back into the stirrup. However, the mare made an abrupt turn, and Carrie lost her grip and tumbled to the ground, where she lay still.
Chapter 16
Carrie didn’t know how long she lay on the ground. She wasn’t conscious of the passing of time, but her body felt hot from the sun and she knew she must have lain there for some time. She was suddenly aware of something soft, touching her forehead. For a split second she was petrified that it might be some wild animal, but almost immediately she knew it was a hand. A small hand. She tried to open her eyes, but they wouldn’t move. She tried to move her body, but it seemed to be part of the ground and she nothing more than a spirit caught in its stony crust. She heard a sniff, then what sounded like a soft sob. She tried to move her lips, but nothing came out. Oh why couldn’t she do anything? Had she broken her neck? Was this what it was like to be dead? She felt as if she were trapped inside a lifeless shell, unable to communicate with anyone outside of herself.
A drop of water landed on her cheek to be quickly followed by others, and her eyes flew open of their own accord. It was Found. He was leaning over her, gently touching her face with the tips of his fingers; it was his tears that had wet her cheek. Suddenly she felt as though her spirit moved back into her body and she was herself again. She smiled.
“It’s all right, Found. I just fell off my horse.” The boy drew back in frozen surprise. Carrie was shocked to see fear erase his grief as though it had never been there.
“It’s not your fault I fell, and I’m not mad at you,” she told him, sensing at once that he thought she was going to hold him responsible for her accident. “I was worried about you when I found the money was gone. I knew you had run away because I thought you had stolen it, but I don’t think you’re a thief, Found. I never did, and it was wrong of me to take your money. I was just worried about your having the responsibility of such a large sum, but I’ll never take it from you again. And I won’t let anybody else take it either.” Carrie tried to sit up, but her head ached and the landscape swam before her eyes. She was tempted to lie back and not move until the agonizing pain had gone away, but it would be dark in another hour, and they had to find some place to spend the night.
“I’m afraid I’m lost, Found. Do you know where we are?”
The boy had gradually relaxed during Carrie’s speech, and he nodded.
“Good. Is your cabin close enough for us to reach it before dark?” Again the boy nodded. “Then we’d better get started as soon as I can get my feet under me. I don’t want to spend the night out in the open. I have no idea what kinds of wild beasts wander over these hills at night, but I don’t think I want to find out.” Carrie managed to get to her feet with Found’s help. She felt a little unsteady, but she could stand. “Okay, “I’m ready, but remember “I’m used to living in a house in a town. “I’m going to have to depend on you to take care of me until we get back to the station.”
Found took her hand and started to walk slowly down the trail, but they hadn’t gone very far when he turned off into a canyon that promised to be bigger than any Carrie had passed yet.
“Is your house up here somewhere?” Found nodded. “Did you stay here after your parents died?” Again Found nodded. “You poor boy. That must have been awful, having to live all by yourself in the house where your parents died. Well, you won’t have to do that again. I’m going to fix up one of the bedrooms in the back of the station for you. You’re too big to need Jake to stay with you, and I need someone to stay in the station to scare away robbers.” She looked at the wild, forbidding loneliness of the landscape and she shivered inwardly. “Anybody who could stay out here by themselves can’t be afraid of anything as harmless as a thief. And just as soon as I get a chance, I’m going to take you to Fort Malone and get you some new clothes. I think you ought to have a horse, too. How would you like that mare I was riding, the one Jake keeps in the barn?” Found’s eyes widened in disbelief, but there was the beginning of a smile on his face. “Well, you can have her. I don’t like her, and to tell the truth, I don’t think she likes me very much either. I’m sure a clever boy like you would have no trouble handling her. Lucas, Mr. Barrow that is, is going to give me one of his mustangs so you don’t have to worry about me not having a horse. Then as soon as you’re a little bigger, I can send you into Fort Malone to pick up the supplies. It’ll be a big help to me not to have to make that trip.”
Carrie continued to talk to Found about anything that came into her head. It was exactly like thinking out loud, and it made the trip to his cabin seem easier and shorter. Besides, she couldn’t stand to walk through the falling twilight in complete silence. It was beautiful country, or at least it would have been if she had been astride a horse, it had been daylight, and Lucas had been at her side, but she didn’t feel too much like taking in scenic wonders right now.
She was beginning to feel very tired when, without explanation, Found led her off the path and into the tall brush that nearly choked the canyon. He was gone before she could open her mouth to protest, b
ut it was only a moment before he returned and beckoned her to follow him once again. In a matter of minutes they rounded some stones that had fallen from the canyon wall eons ago, and Carrie found herself staring at what was probably the poorest cabin she had ever seen. She stopped where she stood and took stock of the situation. The cabin would probably give them a roof over their heads, but she was certain it leaked and doubted the doors could be secured. The small yard was littered with the debris which inevitably collects where humans live. There was no shed or coop to be seen. Carrie decided that if Pound’s parents had ever kept chickens, pigs, cows, or horses, they had been forced to fend for themselves. Not that the cabin looked as if it would offer much protection to its human occupants either.
She started forward toward the cabin, but stopped. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed a grave marker. When she turned she saw there were two of them. She looked toward Found. “Are those your parents?” He nodded, but the soft, open friendliness was gone from his glance. There was an odd mixture there which Carrie couldn’t quite interpret. It looked like a cross between anger and fear, but it was such an unexpected mixture Carrie thought the failing light must have misled her. The markers were starkly simple, two crossed sticks with nothing more than the initial and the last name. In a few years there wouldn’t be anything to show these people had ever lived. Privately she thought that was quite sad, but then she remembered that they would live on in Found, and she felt less melancholy.
“I’m just about to die of thirst,” she said to Found. “Is your well still good?” Found lowered the battered metal bucket into the well and came up with it half full of water, but Carrie didn’t like what she saw. The water was dark and brackish. “I can’t drink that,” she said, drawing back. “It might give me cholera or something.” Without a word, Found disappeared and reappeared a moment later with a small bucket of cool clear water. “Where did you get that?” she asked. “I didn’t see any stream.” Found pointed to a part of the canyon wall that looked exactly like every other part of the wall. Carrie could see nothing until she followed him to where water seeped out of the rocks and collected in a series of small rock basins. “I would never have thought to look for something like this. I could have died of thirst with plenty of water here all the time,” she said, thinking out loud again.
They returned to the cabin and were about to enter the front door when they heard the sound of more than one horse coming up the canyon. Before she could think, Found was pulling her hard by the hand, virtually dragging her into the surrounding brush. Carrie thought it was probably a good idea to know who was coming before she revealed her presence, but her reluctance to meet strangers didn’t account for the look of terror in Found’s eyes. Clearly someone had been in the habit of coming to this cabin who frightened him badly. But they had hardly settled into a hiding place among the scrub pines when Carrie caught sight of Lucas’s head above the low-growing vegetation. Her first impulse was to rush toward him in relief, but some second thought kept her in her hiding place.
He came up the trail looking as if the only thing in the world he wanted was to make sure she was safe. His eyes were glued to the ground and lifted only occasionally to make a sweep of the surrounding canyon walls. His haggard expression testified to the worry that had been his constant companion since he reached the station to find her gone, and the slump of his body in the saddle betokened the dread with which he followed her trail. Suddenly her conscience gave her a sharp prod, and Carrie knew she couldn’t prolong his misery a minute more. She stood up and walked into the cabin yard to await him.
Yet no sooner did Lucas set eyes on her than his expression turned to black thunder, and she could have sworn lightning would flash from his eyes any minute. It was really quite touching, and if it hadn’t been so serious, she would have laughed out loud. She would have to try very hard to remember how he looked before he saw her because it was obvious she was in for a rough tongue-lashing. Under the circumstances, one of them saying things they didn’t mean was going to be quite enough.
When he came closer, she saw he looked more relieved than angry and he was leading her mare, and she was so relieved to know she wasn’t going to have to walk back to the station she didn’t much care what he said to her.
“I was hoping you would have returned to the station earlier,” Carrie said calmly, trying to act as though nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. “Then you might have caught up with me before that treacherous animal ran away.”
As soon as Lucas reached Carrie, he was off his horse and sweeping her up into a powerful embrace. “Are you all right? When I found your mare coming back down the trail, I was worried you might be lying somewhere with a broken neck.” Carrie hadn’t expected this reaction, and it was some time before she could catch her breath and answer him.
“I didn’t fall,” she said, trying to reassure him. “I sort of tumbled off.” Lucas didn’t understand. “I was about to dismount when she was startled by some quail. I would have gotten back into the saddle, but she made a sharp turn and I tumbled off.”
“Were you hurt?”
“No. Anyway, Found came along right after that, and he’s taken very good care of me.” The glance Lucas threw the boy was anything but grateful.
“If I had one grain of sense, I’d leave you this horse, turn around, and never come near that station again,” Lucas said as he released Carrie from his embrace. “You are be most stubborn, hardheaded woman I’ve ever met, and a man would have to be crazy to even think about marrying you.”
“Whatever can you be talking about?” Carrie said, trying to keep a straight face. “Found ran away because we doubted his honesty and took his money when we had no right to do either. I had to come after him.”
“You didn’t have to come by yourself?’
“You weren’t around, and Katie had to stay to meet the stage. I figured he wouldn’t come out of hiding if he saw Jake.”
“I know all about your brilliant reasoning. I had it out of Bemis before I broke his stupid neck. I still can’t believe that I was the one who recommended that prize fool to you.”
“As I remember, you gave him a glowing recommendation.”
“You’re not going to get me off the subject on this one, my girl. You blatantly ignored what I said after you went chasing those Indians. You started out in country you’d never seen, you went off alone when you knew nothing about finding your way around a wilderness, and you did it on a horse not accustomed to a saddle. And what for? To chase after some boy who can take good care of himself without any help from us.”
“That’s not the point,” Carrie replied, refusing to be put in the wrong. “I adopted him without even asking him if he wanted to be adopted, and then we practically accused him of being a thief. I couldn’t let him run off thinking we weren’t his friends. A child his age needs someone to take care of him, even if he can get along by himself.”
“I quite agree, but you took a damned awful risk running off in strange country. You could have gotten lost or hurt yourself. Who knows what could have happened.”
“Well, fortunately nothing did, so you can stop worrying about it.”
“So you’re going to go on thinking you were right all along?”
“I won’t have to think for myself at all. You’ll be only to happy to tell me what to think.” Carrie was finding it increasingly difficult to remember that Lucas had been worried about her. “Should we go back, or do you think we ought to spend the night here?”
“Why ask my opinion? You’re the woodland nymph who can dash about without regard for consequences that plague normal folk. I’m sure you can do anything you wish.”
“Well, I can’t give you the spanking you deserve,” Carrie said angrily, “though the mere thought of it gives me considerable pleasure.”
If there’s any spanking to be done, my dear Carolina Marsena Terwillinger, I’m the one who’s going to do it.”
“You’ll do nothing of the sort, so stop act
ing like a self-appointed dictator, and let’s start back. I don’t want Found to be out too late.”
“You don’t want Found to be …” Lucas was unable to finish the sentence, and his unsuccessful attempts to get another off the ground restored Carrie’s good humor.
I’m sorry I upset you, Lucas, I really am, but I couldn’t wait. And I truly thought I could catch up with Found and be back within an hour. It was so easy to follow the Indians I’m afraid I assumed it would be equally easy to follow Found. I never stopped to realize he probably knew as much about living out here as the wild animals.”
The sincerity of Carrie’s apology prevented Lucas from taking his frustrations out on her, and that made him furious. He had come back to find Carrie gone on a wildgoose chase and Jake calmly working on his harnesses. It was a good thing Katie had come out to the barn when she did, or he might really have broken Jake’s neck. And it would have served him right too, the half-baked idiot. He had virtually tricked Carrie into hiring a man he thought would look after her when he wasn’t around only to discover the fool was letting her wander over half of Colorado by herself and making only the feeblest attempts to stop her.
And he had spent a pleasurable hour rehearsing all the things he was going to say to her and what he would like to do to her when he caught up with her only to have it all go out of his mind when he found her mare running loose. Immediately he was plagued by the most awful images of Carrie lying at the bottom of a ravine or canyon with her neck broken, or of her lying on the trail at the mercy of any man or animal that came along. It had been the worst thirty minutes of his life.
And now she had apologized very nicely, just like the Southern lady she pretended to be when it suited her purpose, and made it impossible for him to tell her that she had much more in common with a mountain wildcat than a lady. Of course, he probably preferred the wildcat, but that wasn’t the point. If this girl wasn’t broken to bridle, she was going to drive him to do something drastic, and so far he was making no progress at all. Now she was sitting on that no-account mare and smiling as if she was actually proud of herself for getting in the saddle unassisted.
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