Holt's Gamble

by Barbara Ankrum

  She was falling in love with him.

  * * *

  "H'yaw!"

  Jacob's voice rang out above the rush of the Big Blue's current. His bullwhip cracked sharply, then landed with an ineffectual splat in the water a few feet away from the lead team of oxen. "Git up there, you miserable lame-brained tubs a' gleet..."

  Mose and Tulip, the two oxen in the lead, bellowed stubbornly in complaint as the rain-swollen river eddied around their flanks, but refused to budge. They'd planted themselves squarely at the midpoint of the fifty-yard span of water, apparently oblivious to the string of blue oaths Jacob flung at them. The second team shifted restlessly in their wooden yokes, grinding the wagon's wheels deeper into the muddy bottom.

  Waist-deep in water, Jacob snatched his hat off in frustration and slapped it across the wooden oxbow. "I never see'd no animals as ornery as you, you mule-headed piece o' fish bait. Git up there. H'yaw!"

  Kierin tightened her grip on the rocking bench seat at the front of the wagon and tried to keep from smiling. Jacob's temper didn't flare often, but when it did, it was truly something to behold.

  "We takin' in water yet?" he shouted, ignoring her amused expression.

  Kierin shook her head. "The blocks you and Clay put above the axles seem to be doing the trick, but not if it gets much deeper."

  "Ain't gonna get no deeper... less 'n we sink," Jacob muttered irritably.

  "Hey, Jacob. Got trouble?" Mel Watkins called from his wagon as they forded past. Beside him on the seat, his young wife, Elizabeth, held two of their four small children on her lap. She smiled and waved at Kierin. The two older boys, eyes shining with curiosity, peeped out around the canvas cover in the front.

  Jacob waved him on. "Nah, just an ornery team, I reckon."

  "Where's Clay?" Mel asked, leaning back out as they passed.

  "Takin' the rest of the stock across," Jacob answered.

  "When I see him at the other side, I'll send him on back for ya."

  "Be obliged," Jacob called after him. He waded back against the current to the wagon front, the late afternoon sun sparkling off the moisture in his wiry black hair.

  Tulip bellowed again.

  "What do you think's wrong with them?" Kierin asked.

  Jacob reached into the jockey box and pulled out a long-handled crowbar. "They's fractious critters," he muttered with a growl. "But maybe we's hung up on somethin' down below. Gonna have me a look at the wheels."

  "Is there anything I can do?"

  "You 'member how to use this?" He held out the bull whip to her, then stripped his dark cotton shirt over his head and tossed it into the wagon.

  Kierin smiled. "Do bees buzz? Flies fly?" she teased. Jacob had spent hours on the trail patiently teaching her to use the lead-weighted whip made of braided rawhide and she could finally muster a respectable crack out of it. "You just tell me when."

  "Yes, ma'am," he acknowledged with a grin and he waded back to inspect the rear axle.

  Kierin watched Jacob go, grateful that things were so easy between them. Since the night in the wagon, their friendship had blossomed as naturally as the carpet of spring wildflowers amid the long prairie grasses. Some days they'd walk along in companionable silence, admiring the ever-widening landscape of the plains and other days he'd spend hours teaching her something useful like, how to crack a whip or cleat an ox shoe.

  He'd told her, without a trace of self-pity, about growing up on the plantation in Mississippi, about the cotton and the endless work and bloodied fingers he'd had from the picking. Sometimes he talked of Bess and he'd get that faraway look in his eyes as he had that night in the wagon.

  In her turn, she'd told Jacob about raising her brother, Matthew—being more mother than sister to him and about the terrible void he'd left in her life when her pa had taken him West. She'd even spoken to him of Lily—without, she mused, so much as a blink from him—and her regret over not having said good-bye. It seemed a natural consequence of their friendship to share these things with Jacob.

  If only it could be that simple with Clay, she thought. Kierin's gaze was pulled to the far bank in search of his familiar shape atop the tall Appaloosa stallion. Her heart constricted when she spotted him coming back toward the wagon. Head bent in concentration, he guided his horse across the rocky river bottom near the shore.

  The afternoon breeze ruffled through his thick dark hair. It had grown longer since the trail's start and brushed the tops of his shoulders in back. The wildness of it suited him, just as the freedom of the trail seemed to. He rode with the ease of a man at home in the wilderness, in complete harmony with the animal beneath him.

  It made her stomach flip-flop to see him approach. The memory of his kiss made her press her lips together in silent warning. She could still taste his kiss and remember how his arms felt around her. Desire ebbed through her again, making her pulse thud in her ears.

  At that moment, Clay looked up and his eyes found hers. He urged the black horse forward with his knees and held her with his smoky gaze. His expression betrayed nothing of what he might be thinking as he approached, but his steely eyes met hers squarely, almost arrogantly, as if challenging her to be the first to look away. When she didn't, an appealing smile crept to the corners of his mouth.

  "What's the problem? We stuck?" he asked over the noise of the bawling animals.

  "Jacob's gone to check," she told him. "Mose and Tulip refuse to move and the others seem a little spooked, too."

  Clay gave an understanding nod. "Water's pretty high and running fast," he said, unfastening the leather thong on his gun belt where it spanned his muscular thigh. "Almost lost the cow driving her across." He handed her the weighty holster, then stripped off his shirt. "You okay here?"

  Kierin's eyes fell of their own accord to the sweat-sheened contours of his chest. He swiped the wadded shirt across his face and across the back of his neck, brushing away the beads of moisture there. The gesture made her mouth go suddenly dry.

  "Kierin?" he asked again, tying the horse's reins to the brake handle.

  Her head snapped up guiltily. "Huh? What?"

  A smile tipped one corner of his mouth. "I asked if you were all right here."

  "Oh, yes. Perfectly fine." She swallowed back the lump of humiliation in her throat. Lord, she couldn't even look at him anymore without making an utter fool of herself.

  "Good girl." He eased down off the horse and lowered himself gingerly into the chilly river. "Waugh-hh!" he gasped. "By damn, that's cold."

  "Clay," Jacob shouted from the other side of the wagon, "We got us a hunk of dead wood wedged in the spokes o' the right front wheel. Stuck tight. We gots to back the team up to git it outta there."

  "All right. I'll get up by Tulip and see what I can do." Clay braced himself against the flanks of the animals as he maneuvered himself to the head of the team.

  The oxen both bawled and shifted uneasily in the water. "Back, shh-h-h," Clay told Tulip. "Back up, girl."

  The wagon moved almost imperceptibly backward and Jacob braced his shoulder against the wheel, reaching below the level of the water to the snag. "Not yet."

  "Shh-h-h, back, Tulip."

  Kierin watched Jacob try again, the muscles in his shoulder straining against the wheel. Out of the corner of her eye, Kierin saw a flash of movement in the water. Her eyes darted upstream and caught the zigzag motion of a huge dark snake headed directly for Jacob.

  "J-Jacob! Behind you!" she screamed. "Snake!"

  Chapter 10

  Jacob whirled around, flattening himself against the wagon with a look of stark terror on his face. A strangled sound escaped him that was not quite a word, not quite a scream.

  "Jacob— get up! Get up in the wagon!" she begged, reaching out to him with her hand.

  He couldn't move. Paralyzed with fear, Jacob pressed himself against the wagon, black eyes riveted to the oncoming devil.

  "Clay!" Kierin's voice was hoarse with fright. Awkwardly, she tugged the heavy pistol
from the holster in her lap. Clay struggled against the current, frantically trying to reach Jacob. The oxen rolled their eyes in panic when they spotted the snake, heaving in all directions in their yokes. As the wagon lurched and bucked sideways, Kierin was thrown painfully against the hickory bow. Clay's gun flew out of her hand and fell with a hollow clatter to the planked floor at her feet.

  The black serpent was coming fast, carried by the swift-moving water—unerring in its deadly aim.

  Fifteen feet. Kierin fumbled for the fallen gun.

  Ten feet. Oh, God, where is it? she screamed silently. Her fingers closed around the stock.

  Five feet. She yanked the gun up, but the tip flailed wildly as she tried to balance its weight.

  Two feet. The water exploded and blew the black serpent apart in two pieces, raining blood and bits of flesh down on the wagon. Kierin stared down at the cold gun in her hand in disbelief, then up at Jacob.

  His eyes were closed and his throat worked up and down convulsively. Shock had turned his dark skin to pasty gray and she knew it mattered not a bit to him who had fired that shot.

  Clay reached them as she lowered the pistol. "By God, what a shot!" he shouted. Gingerly, he inspected the severed head of the snake and let out a low whistle. "Cottonmouth," he said, revealing the starkly white interior of the snake's mouth. He gave her a puzzled frown. "I thought you said you couldn't shoot a gun."

  "I can't..." she murmured, confusion etched on her face. "I didn't—I mean I was going to but—"

  "Haw, haw, haw!"

  Kierin's head snapped around at the sound of the raucous laughter from the eastern shore, audible even over the rush of the river. On the far bank, she saw a tall, gray-bearded trapper slapping his knee in a fit of glee. Beside him stood a two-wheeled cart hitched to two pairs of mules, half in and half out of the river. Perched on the seat of that rickety vehicle was a young Indian woman who held a smoking rifle in her hands. She was ripe with child and her quilled doeskin dress was pulled tightly across her swollen belly.

  "Ain't she a caution?" the trapper shouted in a deep baritone voice that rivaled the volume of his laugh. "I'll be ding-dong damned if she cain't shoot the ear off a fly."

  While Kierin and Jacob exchanged astonished looks, Clay squinted across the glare of the sun-flecked water.

  "Ben?" Clay called. "Ben Crowley?"

  The old man shaded his eyes with a bear paw-sized hand and let out a whoop. "Well, if that don't beat all. 'Zat you, Sprout?"

  Clay's face brightened like a candle-lit birthday cake. "It sure as hell is, you old grizzly eater. What're you doing so far east?"

  The old man let out another sharp laugh. "Remindin' myself why I left." Crowley hopped aboard his cart and slapped the traces across the backs of the mules. The Indian woman beside him stowed the rifle beneath their feet.

  When Crowley's wagon pulled up alongside theirs, the old trapper reached down and seized Clay's hand in a bone-crushing squeeze and the two men slapped each other hard on the shoulder.

  "God, it's good to see you again, Ben," said Clay. "How long has it been?"

  Ben ran his fingers thoughtfully through his scraggly beard. "Five winters, near as I can figure." Eyeing Clay speculatively, he added, "You filled out some since then, boy."

  Clay smiled broadly and slapped him on the arm again.

  "Oh, Ben, I'd like you to meet Jacob, the man whose neck your friend here just saved. Jacob—Ben Crowley."

  Jacob, who was still recovering from the shock, extended a hand to the older man. "Pleasure's mine, suh."

  "Ben. Just Ben," Crowley corrected, pumping Jacob's hand. "An this here's Wakinyela." He cupped a hand on her shoulder. "That's her Sioux name, but she answers to Dove."

  Dove was even younger than she'd looked from a distance, and Kierin doubted she was over twenty. Her features, strong yet utterly feminine, were marred only by the thin slash of a scar that ran across the length of her cheek. Her straight black hair, neatly plaited and tied with leather thongs, rode along the top of her swollen belly. They were an odd pair, the trapper and the girl, Kierin thought.

  Ben's gaze fell on her. "An' who's this pretty thing?"

  "This is... Kierin, Ben," Clay told him. He couldn't bring himself to tell the old man the lie.

  If Ben caught the hesitation in Clay's voice, he didn't mention it, but nodded approvingly. "You always was one with an eye for beauty, boy."

  Kierin's cheeks flushed pink and she smiled back at the grizzled old trapper. She prepared herself for his bone-crunching handshake, but when his hand swallowed hers, it was with surprising tenderness.

  "Ma'am, it's a downright pleasure," he said.

  "Mine too," she agreed. "If you and Dove hadn't happened along when you did..."

  "Fair shot, ain't she? Taught her everthin' she knows," Ben bragged. "Well, ain't we a sight, jawin' in the middle o' the river. Let's get over to dry land an' we'll do us some serious palaverin'."

  The offending deadwood had worked itself free during the fracas, but not before damaging several spokes on the wheel. Clay mounted Taeva and led the still-nervous team of oxen slowly across the span of water, and Jacob rode with Kierin in the wagon.

  By the time they reached the shore, the decision to stop for the day had already been made. Theirs wasn't the only wagon suffering damage from the crossing. The Tolefson wagon had broken a hound, while two other rigs had taken on water and their supplies had to be dried out.

  Ben and Dove set up camp beside Clay's wagon and while the light was good, the men worked on repairing the wheel. Dove helped Kierin prepare the evening meal, contributing freshly picked wild onions and Lamb's Tongue to the common stew pot. Kierin was glad for the company, but she wondered about Dove's curious silence. She had yet to hear the girl utter a word, either in her own tongue or in English, though she understood everything that was being said to her. She seemed to communicate through those expressive eyes of hers—bright, inquisitive, and brown as ripe buckeyes.

  Kierin ladled helpings of the savory-smelling stew onto the sturdy tin plates, absently wondering if the baby Dove carried belonged to Ben. The spark of affection between the two was unmistakable, just as it was between Ben and Clay.

  Clay.

  She smiled, remembering the look that had transformed his face when he'd recognized Ben at the river. The change had taken her breath away. Free for that moment from the ghosts of his past, Kierin glimpsed the man Clay could be if only he would allow it.

  She released a long breath. Providence, she decided, had seen fit to put Ben in their path. For that she was grateful. Who knew what would come of it?

  * * *

  Ben Crowley was a man who enjoyed his food. His manner of eating was at once artless and fascinating. He used the spoon he'd been given, but Kierin supposed that the lack of one would prove no obstacle to him. With each savored bite, he hummed a little tuneless melody which clearly held a note of appreciation. Already on his third helping of stew, he mopped the last spot of gravy from his plate with the remains of his biscuit and popped it into his mouth, relishing the taste. He patted his belly and waggled his shaggy eyebrows at Kierin.

  "A man can forget a lot of things about civilization," he said, "but good food ain't one of 'em. You think you kin teach Dove to make biscuits like these?"

  Dove and Kierin exchanged conspiratorial smiles. "I already did," she told him with a laugh. "Not bad for a first attempt, mm-m?"

  A look of awe crossed Ben's face and he let out a bark of laughter. "Wal, I'll be cornswaggled. You made these, Dove?" The girl hid her shy smile behind her hand. "By jingo, girl, I knew you had possibilities. I reckon I'll have to lay us in a supply o' wheat flour at Kearny in that case."

  Clay set his empty plate down close to the flickering fire of buffalo chips. "Does that mean you'll be traveling with us for a while, Ben?" he asked hopefully.

  "Can't find much argument agin' it," Ben answered. "Me an' Dove's headed back to the Absarokas. Got me a trap line up there and a
cabin big enough fer two." He glanced at Dove's ripe belly. "Or three."

  "You said Dove was Sioux?" asked Kierin.

  The old trapper nodded, fishing an intricately carved bone pipe out of a small beaded deer-skin bag tied to his waist. "Dove's folks was Lakota—all killed by the same Pawnee raiders that took her for a slave. Now that she's marked," Ben's explained, indicating the slash on her cheek, "she ain't of a mind to go back to the Sioux. I bought her from a lickered up Pawnee named Coyote Runs back in Council Bluffs four months ago."

  Ben poked a thin stem of stiff grass into the blackened bowl of his pipe and scooped out the old, spent ashes. "And if yer tryin' to reckon if it's my babe a-growing in there, I'll save ya the trouble," he told them matter-of-factly. "It ain't. The rest is Dove's business an' none 'a mine. I'm long past my prime mating years anyway," he said with the characteristic bluntness Clay remembered. "She says she wants to go with me and I'm glad fer the company." He rubbed his gnarled fingers across the smooth stem of his pipe and smiled at Dove.

  Clay frowned slightly, regarding the old trapper in a new light. It hadn't occurred to him before this moment that Ben might have regrets about the solitary life he'd chosen. Oddly, Clay mused, it was the path he seemed destined to follow as well.

  He looked up and found Kierin studying Ben and Dove with an almost wistful expression. The firelight played across her delicate features and her hair took on the brilliant color of the flame. A wave of desire shot through him so strong it made his breath catch. God, she's a beautiful woman, he thought, unable to drag his eyes from the sight of her. The image of her struggling to save Jacob from that snake rose in his mind. Her feisty spirit and her sense of loyalty surprised him again, and again. She deserved more than she'd been handed in life—more than he would ever be able to give her.

  Ben tamped a good-sized pinch of tobacco into his pipe then lit it with the glowing end of a piece of dead grass. "Sprout, you still remember the old place we had up in the Bitterroot Range?"

  The Bitterroots. The name sent memories rushing back to Clay. It had been home—as much of a home as he'd known for years. Ben had found him in '42—young, green, and stubbornly alone in the foothills of those mountains, trying to eke out a living as a trapper. The old man, who would become more of a father to Clay than his own had ever been, gathered Clay under his wing and taught him his trade. Ben took him into his world, explained the ins and outs of fur trading, and instilled in Clay a deep and abiding respect for the Indians who shared the land with them.