But there wasn’t much to occupy her thoughts once she’d observed what little there was to see and had mentally checked how hot and uncomfortable she was. On that count, yesterday had been the worst.
For a full minute, Della had believed she could not get out of the bedroll. Muscles she’d forgotten she possessed ached and protested every small movement. Climbing back on Bob for a day’s ride had required every ounce of will power, and the first hours in the saddle had been agony.
Today was marginally better, which encouraged her to believe that Cameron was correct. Surely every day would get a little easier.
As it didn’t improve her spirits to think about hard saddles and chaffing thighs, she focused on Cameron.
He rode tall and easy in the saddle, scanning the open country in front of him. Every now and then he looked back, but not often. It pleased her that he assumed she was keeping up, but it also peeved her because sometimes she wondered if he’d forgotten that she was behind him.
Such thoughts were irksome. It was fine, just fine, that Cameron did not spend as much time thinking about her as she wasted thinking about him. But how could she push him out of her mind when there was little else to look at but his straight spine and the tanned back of his neck?
She could think about Clarence. Since Cameron’s arrival she’d spent less time remembering Clarence than she had in years. So, yesterday, feeling guilty that she’d neglected her miseries, she’d read his letter again and again, and felt her spirits sink below ground level. Finally she told herself that if he’d had time to finish writing his letter, he would have forgiven her. But she didn’t believe it. She told herself that he would never have posted this letter. He would have reconsidered, then would have written an understanding and forgiving response. But she didn’t believe that, either.
Staring at Cameron’s back, watching the dampness between his shoulder blades soak through his shirt, she understood that his coming hadn’t changed the essentials no matter how it sometimes felt. She was still a woman whose last words to her husband had been “I hate you.” Clarence had not forgiven her. And she was a woman who had left her baby behind when she came west.
Head bowed with familiar pain, she didn’t hear Cameron call until he circled back and rode up beside her. Then she glanced up with surprise.
“Is it time to stop?” It looked to her as if sunset were still a couple of hours distant.
“We’ll make camp early. Do you see that elm about a quarter of a mile ahead?”
“I see it.” Elms weren’t common on the open range. Their leafy shade extended an invitation as welcome as a parasol.
“If I remember correctly, there’s a water hole a few yards from that tree.”
Della couldn’t see his eyes behind the blue lenses, but his expression suggested he was trying to gauge her mood. “How are you faring?”
“Well enough that we don’t have to stop early on my account.” That wasn’t true. Relief had eased the stiffness in her shoulders the instant he mentioned they could stop now. But she would have continued despite her aching back and bottom, rather than raise a bump in his all-important routine. He was, after all, making this journey for her.
By now she didn’t expect Cameron to offer an explanation without some prodding. “So . . . are we stopping on my account?”
He scanned the horizon. “I have a hunch that something is going to happen, and I want to set up camp before it does.”
“What’s going to . . . ?”
But he’d given Rebecca’s lead rope a tug and set off for the elm, Rebecca trotting along behind him.
Annoyed, Della sighed, then urged Bob forward. To her way of thinking, Cameron had been easier to get along with back at the farm. There he’d been less terse and more accommodating. Out here he seemed tense and distracted.
Maybe his edginess was a result of being responsible for a greenhorn like herself. Or perhaps it strained his nature to travel with another person. Maybe he regretted his offer to take her to Claire. The last possibility loomed large in her mind.
“Cameron, we need to talk,” she said after dismounting. Lord, the shade under the elm felt good. Three days of traveling into the sun had set her face on fire. The egg white and castor oil helped, she supposed, but she knew her skin must be turning the color of a tomato. She didn’t have the energy or the courage to find her small mirror and have a look.
“Later,” he said. Moving faster than he usually did, he dug a firepit and filled it with twigs and small dry branches. When the flames were jumping, he added thicker branches, then strode toward Rebecca to fetch utensils and the bedrolls.
Della picked up the coffeepot where he’d dropped it beside the fire. “I’ll find the water hole and fill the pot.” Apparently a serious discussion would have to wait.
“No. Stay right here.” When she lifted a puzzled eyebrow, he glanced over his shoulder away from the shade. “I’ll fill the pot. If you want to help, you can pick a spot for the bedrolls.”
“Heaven forbid I should actually roll them out, but I’m allowed to pick a spot.” She was tired, hot, and worried that he’d changed his mind about taking her to Atlanta.
He gave her a long look, then walked toward a small clump of willows, the coffeepot dangling from his fingers.
She moved away from the fire, wishing they had lemonade and ice instead of coffee. Every summer she longed for ice, and tried to remember the sensation of it melting on her tongue. Not once had she ever longed for a cup of hot coffee in August. Coffee wasn’t going to improve her mood or make her feel cooler.
When Cameron returned, he glanced at the bedrolls that she’d opened, and noticed the tree stumps she had rolled up to the fire for seats. The last thing Della wanted to do was sit beside a fire, but once the sun set, the flame’s warmth would be welcome.
Tight-lipped, she watched him prepare the coffee and set the pot over the fire. It appeared to her as if he made a pot of coffee exactly as she did, so why was he so possessive of the chore?
“Where are you going?”
She held up a bundle of items that she’d pulled out of her saddlebags. “I’m going to the water hole to wash out a few things. Do you mind?”
He took off his blue glasses for a moment and rubbed his eyes, a clear sign of exasperation. “I want you to stay here.”
“And I want a bucket of ice.” She stared at him, then pushed through the underbrush in the direction he’d gone earlier.
“You’re a stubborn woman, Della,” he said from directly behind her.
She shoved through the willows, letting the thin branches snap back on him. “There was a time when I was accustomed to sitting idle while people waited on me, but those days are long past.” Stepping into the clearing around the water hole, she examined the animal tracks at the edges, then turned to him, her eyes narrow behind the blue lenses. “It’s hard enough that you’re paying for everything. I need to contribute something along the way. I’m certainly capable of making a pot of coffee.”
He leaned over her, so close that she felt the heat rolling off his body, inhaled the strong male scent of him. “I’ve been roaming the plains for years. It’s faster and easier for me to set up camp. Besides,” he added, speaking through clenched teeth, “I like taking care of you.”
The shape of his mouth always surprised her. His lips could go thin and tight with strangers or when he was irritated, but the lines were sharp and firmly defined. An exciting mouth with no softness or yield.
But she didn’t believe what those lips were saying. No man took a shine to waiting on a woman unless courtship or illness were involved, and neither situation applied here.
She lifted up on tiptoe until she was almost nose to nose with him. “I intend to do my share of the work on this journey. Now that’s how it’s going to be or you can take me home right now.”
“Damn it.” Stepping away from her, he swept off his hat and slapped it against his thigh. “All right,” he said finally, turning to her. “Can yo
u lay a campfire? Can you cook over an open fire?”
“I can learn.” She lifted her chin.
“Do you know how to pack a mule? Are you strong enough to saddle the horses?”
“Have you changed your mind about us going to Atlanta?”
“What?”
“Is that why you’re so obstinate and strange out here? You hope I’ll suggest that we go back?”
To give him credit, he stared as if she’d lost her mind. “Are you saying you want to go back?”
“No, damn it.” She stamped her foot in frustration, something she hadn’t done since she was a young belle. “I’m just trying to figure you out!”
Needing to do something, she kneeled beside the water hole and dipped water into a bucket, then pushed her stockings and drawers inside, along with a sliver of soap. Then it occurred to her that she was washing unmentionables in front of a man.
“Why did you follow me here? Isn’t there something you should be doing back at the campsite?”
He studied the bucket, then turned aside. “You never know what might be hiding a few yards from camp. I doubt you’ll get hurt, but accidents happen.”
The only thing that truly worried her were snakes, and she made a point of making plenty of noise when she needed a moment of privacy. “There’s nothing here except you and me.”
“Possibly. Nevertheless, I’ll wait.”
For heaven’s sake. Rushing the job, she washed her things, wrung them, threw out the water, then silently marched back the way she’d come. If he hadn’t been standing over her, she would have had a wash herself.
“Are you coming with me while I hang these things on the bushes to dry?” Her expression warned against it.
“You go ahead. I need to rebuild the fire.”
“Good.”
When she returned, he was leaning against the trunk of the elm, cradling a cup of coffee between his hands, his hat tilted back on his head. If the tension hadn’t quivered between them, the sight of him would have taken her breath away. He was tall and lean and powerfully built. Smooth cheeked and tan. A dangerous man with cool eyes and pistols on his hips. And they were alone in the middle of nowhere.
Della drew a long, slow breath and poured herself a cup of coffee that she didn’t want. The sun was lower in the sky, but it would be at least an hour and a half before it would be dark enough to go to bed.
“At your farm, we ate and worked and slept by your routines. I didn’t request that you change anything to accommodate me. Out here, I ask you to respect my routines.”
“Is it so hard to understand that I want to do my share of the work? Isn’t that why you fixed my barn roof and mended the fences? Because you couldn’t accept shelter and board without giving something back?”
“It’s not the same thing. Out here, a man has to be alert for every sound, for everything that doesn’t feel right.”
She threw out her hands, spilling half of her coffee. “Cameron, there isn’t another living person within thirty miles!”
“You’re wrong about that.”
She wished he’d take off the blue lenses so she could see his eyes. In fairness, maybe he found her blue lenses irritating, too.
“What I’m saying,” he continued, “is that a routine doesn’t require any thought. When the routine is disturbed, thoughts aren’t as focused.”
Finally his resistance made a little bit of sense. “Traveling with me is a change in your routine,” she said after a minute. “Are you less focused?”
“We’re going to find out.”
Della tossed out the rest of her coffee and gave her skirts an impatient twitch. “What do you think is going to happen?”
“The important things for you to remember are to stay out of the way, and that you are in no danger.” As he spoke, he removed his gun belt, which astonished her. He ate and probably slept wearing his gun belt. But he was removing it now?
“What do you keep looking at?” she said, waving toward the range. She was exasperated enough to almost regret the journey. “There’s nothing out there!”
And he must know it, too, because he dropped his gun belt at the base of the elm and rolled up his sleeves.
Skirts billowing, she strode toward the fire, frustrated by his small mysteries. If he thought being mysterious was appealing then he had . . .
A growling scream shattered the silence. Della spun and froze as a creature leapt out of the sandy soil on all fours, dirt and twigs streaming off his body. A shocked second elapsed before she recognized the creature was a man.
His hair was wild and bushy, coated with sand. Soiled buckskins were part of what made her think he was some kind of animal. In fact, what she was looking at was worse than an animal. As he sprang to his feet, Della saw a tomahawk in one hand and a knife flashing in the other.
Screaming, she dropped to her knees, unable to breathe and certain that she was about to be killed, until she remembered Cameron. But he didn’t fire as she expected. Oh God. He’d removed his gun belt. The one time he needed his pistols, they weren’t within reach.
Shaking with fear, she watched Cameron charge toward the crazy man, armed with nothing but his bare hands. Lord, Lord. Why had he taken off his guns, now of all times?
There wasn’t time to think. The two men came together in a clash of shouts and blows. Della didn’t see how it was possible that Cameron could survive the knife and the tomahawk, and she covered her eyes. But when she dared to look again, Cameron wasn’t dead as she’d half expected. The two rolled on the ground in a billow of dust.
What was she thinking of, to sit there and do nothing? Pushing to her feet, she frantically looked around and then remembered Cameron’s guns. But the men were fighting between her and the gun belt. Lifting her skirts, she edged around them, unable to see through the dust well enough to judge if Cameron was holding his own. Then she spotted the tomahawk, the blade deep in the ground, well away from where they were fighting. Thank God. But there was still the knife.
When she reached the gun belt she was gasping and shaking and swore at the difficulty of jerking a pistol out of the holster. Immediately she suspected she couldn’t hold it steadily enough to hit anything.
And what if she shot Cameron? Blinking hard, she peered through the dust and tried to identify which man was on top. The attempt proved futile as they kept rolling around, their positions changing. Swallowing, she adjusted the pistol in her hand and tried to decide what to do. She would let them roll up near her, then lower the pistol next to the wild man’s head and pull the trigger. That would work.
But the men were on their feet again, flailing at each other, feet and fists flying. Della tried to follow the wild man with the barrel of the pistol, but the dust made her eyes water. On the positive side, she no longer saw his knife, they were fighting with bloodied fists.
“Good Lord. That’s a woman!”
Through swirls of dust, she returned the wild man’s surprised stare. His fist had halted in midair on a path toward Cameron’s face.
There wouldn’t be a better chance. She pointed the shaking pistol at him and pulled the trigger.
She would have shot him square in the chest if Cameron hadn’t knocked her hand aside. The bullet chunked into the trunk of the elm.
“For the love of God, Della! I told you not to interfere.”
Dust whirled around them, as thick as morning mist. But she spotted blood on his lip and chin. Blood seeped through a slash on his shoulder.
Blood ran freely from the wild man’s nose. One eye was swelling rapidly. Blood leaked from a cut on his thigh.
“Give me the gun. What were you thinking of?”
“I was trying to save your life, you ungrateful bastard.” She looked back and forth between them, her heart still pounding, her nostrils pinched by the stink of gunpowder and dust. “What’s going on here?”
“This is Luke Apple. Luke, this is Mrs. Ward.”
“I’m pleased to meet you.” He wiped his bloodied knuckle
s across his buckskins before he narrowed his eyes on Cameron. “Another minute and I would have killed you.”
“Like hell. But I figure this round is finished. Agreed?”
Mr. Apple inspected Della with frank interest. “Considering there’s a lady present . . . agreed. There’ll be another time.”
“I’d be obliged if you’d fetch our doctoring kit,”Cameron said to Della. “It should be in one of Rebecca’s saddlebags.” He examined the blood seeping from Luke Apple’s thigh. “Tell me where your horse is tied, and I’ll go get him.”
Now Della noticed that Luke Apple was not a young man. What she’d mistaken for dust in his hair was gray, and his sun-darkened face was seamed with lines. His hands and wrists reminded her of gnarled branches.
“I’m not moving until I know what this was all about.” The whole thing was bewildering. A minute ago, they’d been trying like hell to kill each other. Then abruptly they’d agreed to stop fighting, and now it appeared they knew each other well enough to be friendly in spite of trying to kill each other.
Luke Apple lowered himself to the ground beneath the elm and touched his swelling eye. “James Cameron killed my wife’s nephew. I’ve sworn to kill him back. It was the only way to keep peace in the family.”
Cameron pressed his lip, then inspected his bloody fingers. “His wife’s nephew burned the home and barn of a Kansas farmer. When I shot him, he’d just raped the farmer’s thirteen-year-old daughter.”
“My God.” Della’s eyes widened on the old man.
“I’m not saying the bastard didn’t deserve what he got. But he was family. And a man can’t let a family killing go with a never-mind. There has to be retribution.”
“When did this happen?”
“Seven years ago?” Cameron asked Mr. Apple.
“Mighta been eight.”
“You’ve been trying to kill Cameron for eight years?”
“Lord, if she don’t sound just like Green Feather.” He considered Della out of his one good eye. The other was nearly swollen shut. “These things take time. You can’t rush revenge.”
Prairie Moon Page 10