She couldn’t lift a sack of flour or a piece of wood without one of the drovers trying to take it from her. On the other hand, Damien Kingsley hadn’t offered anything but a leer. She hated that most of all, because it made her realize that he and the other drovers must be recalling the many times she’d been alone with the Scotsman.
Well, she wasn’t alone with him anymore. He wouldn’t even come near her.
The oddest thing of all to her, though, was Kirby Kingsley’s reaction to her “new” presence in his camp. She certainly hadn’t expected him to be so tolerant. He even seemed amused in a cynical sort of way. She’d seen him talking with Drew shortly after his conversation with her on the riverbank. When their discussion was over, Drew had shot her a quick enigmatic glance, then jumped onto his horse and ridden off to night watch. Kingsley had turned and, seeing her standing there watching, he’d actually chuckled before turning to walk away. She didn’t understand it at all.
Since then, Kingsley had made few appearances in camp. Despite protests about the safety of his actions, he had insisted upon scouting ahead again. He was gone nearly all day, riding in only at night to give directions about the next day’s trek.
All Gabrielle really wanted, though, was the former closeness she’d shared with Drew, and she feared she had made that impossible.
Still, even with all the clumsy masculine offers to help, she stayed busy. Too busy. Three baby calves had appeared at her wagon, shyly dropped by drovers. Sammy was old enough now to stay with his mother, but each night she had to find the other calves’ mothers, and she’d rigged a system of using different-color bandanas to make the feat possible. Honor had taken it upon himself to keep the calves safe, herding them back if they tried to wander off. Billy Bones still demanded her attention, too, and so did Sammy, as did a passel of hungry, lonely drovers.
So the days passed, quickly and busily even as her inner loneliness grew deeper, more aching, more piercing. Kingsley had made it clear that he would find a new cook as soon as possible, and time was escaping like sand in an hourglass.
She looked up from the pans she was scouring to see that Kingsley himself was galloping in, which meant he had news of some kind. He was quickly surrounded by the drovers not on watch. She hesitated in the edge of the circle of men.
“Army says they got those Kiowas. Lieutenant claims it was a glorious victory,” he added dryly. “Army always says that, even when they get their tail whipped, but they tell me there’s no more danger. Not from those renegades, at least.”
The drovers cheered.
“Means we can spread out the herd some now,” the trail boss said. “And go back to regular watches.”
Another cheer.
“But that doesn’t mean there aren’t other dangers out there. Cheyennes are on the warpath, and some of the other tribes aren’t above cow rustling, so don’t get careless.”
The drovers nodded in acknowledgment.
“I’ll ride out and tell the others,” Kingsley said, pouring himself a cup of coffee. “Damien out there?”
“Damien, Scotty, Legs, and Hank,” Terry Kingsley offered.
At the mention of Scotty, the trail boss glanced at Gabrielle. She tried to keep her face from turning red, but, feeling her failure, she turned away as tears stung her eyes. That happened a lot lately, and it was terribly humiliating. Two-Bits wouldn’t have cried.
But even while she tried desperately to control her expression, wondering why she’d never had that problem before, Gabrielle met Kirby’s news with relief. She had feared for Drew, for all of the drovers, every time they left the campsite.
The men finally drifted into a poker game.
Now that the imminent danger of an Indian raid seemed to have passed, Gabrielle decided to ride Billy Bones out into the evening. Night came late, so she had perhaps two hours of light left. She needed desperately to escape both prying eyes and adoring looks.
She found her saddle in the hoodlum wagon and saddled Billy, who whinnied in excitement. He looked a different horse these days, his sides filling out, his coat shining from her frequent brushing. He obviously felt very much the fine fellow again.
Honor whined to go with her. The calves had all found their mothers, drunk their fill, and sunk to the ground to sleep. Only Sammy stood tall, proclaiming his new strength and independence.
“All right,” she told Honor. “But you must stay right beside me.”
He wagged his tail slightly in evident agreement, then watched as she mounted Billy with all the grace of a sack of potatoes. She still hadn’t mastered that particular skill.
Gabrielle sighed. She’d had precious little time to practice her horsemanship. Her rump still came down when the horse’s back came up.
“Miss, ma’am, uh …” Legs stepped in front of her horse. “It ain’t safe for you to go out there alone.”
No one had cared when she was just plain Two-Bits.
“The Kiowas are gone,” she said.
“But there’s all kinds of varmints out there, Miss. Gabrielle.”
“I’ll have Honor with me,” she said, feeling an acute loss of freedom.
“I’ll go wi’ you,” he said hopefully.
Ducking her head shyly, she shook her head and used the one excuse she knew would work. “I, um, need some privacy. I’m sure you understand.”
Legs’s ruddy half-Indian face froze with embarrassment. “You won’t go far?”
“I won’t go far,” she lied as convincingly as possible.
She refused to wear spurs. No matter how blunt they were, she thought them cruel. Instead, she twitched the reins, and Billy understood. He started off in a long, loping stride, Honor at his heels.
Gabrielle rode and rode, and rode some more. Her duties were done, supper over, a fresh pot of coffee sitting on coals for those coming off watch. She’d even made hardtack for the men to chew during the next day’s drive. She tried to keep track of landmarks. She shuddered at the thought of becoming lost, but she had to get away. She had to think, to plan.
Except her planning so far had led to disaster. You could never tell just one lie, she mused. Even a small one told with good intentions seemed to spawn a pit of deceit.
No wonder Drew hated lies so much. Still, she wondered at the passion beneath his censure. Clearly, he’d been lied to and painfully so. But by whom?
A woman? Was that why he kept such a distance even as his eyes lit with fire every time he looked at her?
She tried to concentrate on her riding, on doing what Drew had instructed her to do. Relax. Go with the horse. Don’t fight him. But she still held on to the saddle horn for all she was worth, and her rhythm didn’t match Billy’s at all.
Honor suddenly barked and ran in a wide circle, then stood at attention, listening. He barked again, then started running to the left.
“Honor!”
The dog paused for a second, then dashed away.
Gabrielle cried out again. She couldn’t lose him. Drew had placed him in her care. Terrified, she clung to the saddle horn and urged Billy into a gallop across the rough prairie after the dog, whose black and white tail fluttered like a flag in the tall grass. She prayed, incredulous when she realized that she wasn’t bouncing as badly as before.
She nearly overran the dog, who was now sniffing something on the ground. She dismounted. A tiny whimper came from the grass. Gabrielle leaned down and saw Honor busily licking what seemed to be a wriggling blanket.
She moved closer, and her foot hit something soft. A cry caught in her throat as she saw a buckskin-clad woman lying still, a red stain darkening her clothing. Gabrielle leaned down and touched her. She was cold.
Gabrielle swallowed hard. The woman’s black hair was shoulder length and in braids, her body slim to the point of being skeletal. The blanket beside her squirmed again, and Gabrielle leaned down to examine it. A child, surely not more than several months old, was swaddled in the wrap, a weak mewling escaping its lips.
A quick inspe
ction showed the child to be a boy, and much too thin. But he seemed not to have any wounds.
The soldiers, she thought. The soldiers and their glorious victory. This woman must have escaped with her child, only to die from loss of blood.
Honor whined and tried to lick the child again.
Gabrielle’s tender heart nearly broke at the orphan child’s plight. An Indian baby. Few would want him even if he did live.
She picked up the child and crooned to it as Honor stood by expectantly, eyes bright and hopeful, awaiting praise for his find.
She gave it. “Good dog,” she whispered with feeling. And for the first time, Honor wagged his tail in feverish excitement.
Why, Gabrielle wondered, had a woman taken a child on a raiding party? Or had she? Both were terribly thin. Perhaps they had been starving on a reservation.
She would never know. But then, she did know that she needed to get back to camp. Sammy’s mother could provide nourishment for the hungry baby. And she would need help to give the dead woman a proper burial.
But if Gabrielle had thought it difficult to mount a horse with both hands, she found it nigh on to impossible with one arm holding a baby. She looked up at the sky for inspiration. Fire seemed to consume the heavens as the sun dropped below the horizon. Urgently, she returned to the boy’s mother. Sadness tore at her, but she had to be practical. What had the woman used to carry the child all this way?
Reluctantly, she placed the child on the ground and examined his mother. Though her face was gaunt, she was young, her still staring eyes dark, almost black, her face aquiline. Gabrielle wondered whether she was of Spanish descent, from below the border, and adopted into an Indian tribe. She said a brief prayer over the woman and vowed to convince a few drovers to come and bury her. But she found no cradleboard, no sling.
Gabrielle swallowed hard, then reached to close the woman’s eyes. Finally, she tore the blanket into strips, then fashioned a sling for the baby. She looped it around the saddle horn until she mounted, then placed it around her own neck so she could hold the child securely with one hand while trying to keep aboard Billy by clutching the reins with the other. Praying that Billy wouldn’t choose this particular time to display his friskiness, she pressed her knees against the horse’s sides.
As she started back to camp, the sky melted into a soft twilight blue.
“Bury an Injun?”
“Keep an Indian brat?”
“You must be loco.”
Gabrielle pressed the child protectively to her breast as Damien and the other drovers battered her with disapproval. It didn’t help that several of them had been out searching for her when she hadn’t returned.
“Nits make lice,” Damien added balefully, echoing a sentiment she’d heard before.
In the East, where most of her life had been spent, people shared a fascination for the “noble savage.” But she’d been in Texas long enough to hear accounts of Indian atrocities. From campfire talk she also knew that many of the drovers had lost someone to Indian raids and that Texans—all Texans—seemed to hate Indians with unbridled passion.
But she’d never supposed that hatred would include a helpless infant or his dead mother. Even the adoring Hank had remained silent when she’d asked for someone to go out onto the prairie to bury the woman.
“Where is she?”
The Scotsman’s low, melodic voice broke through the silence. Her own heart thumped at the soft sound that nonetheless dominated the clearing. She hadn’t even noticed him ride in and join the group at its fringes, so intent had she been on protecting the baby in her arms.
As one man, the drovers surrounding her turned to stare at Drew Cameron.
He took a few steps closer, and Gabrielle felt the force of his personality as the other men stood back.
“Kirby won’t like it,” Damien said. “He’s got no more use for redskins than any of us have.”
“Kirby isn’t here,” Drew pointed out.
“He’s checking the watches,” Damien said. “But I’m next in command, and I say you stay here. We can’t risk losing another man.”
Drew ignored him and looked back to Gabrielle. “Where is she?”
Gabrielle thought he could probably hear her heart pound with gratitude that someone understood why she couldn’t let the mother of this child remain prey to every scavenger on the plains.
“Honor can take you,” she said. “He found them.”
“Cameron!” Damien’s voice was a warning.
Drew raised an insolent eyebrow, almost daring Damien to interfere.
“There could be other redskins who escaped the soldiers,” Hank ventured.
He cast a quick look at Gabrielle, then lowered his eyes to the ground.
Legs shrugged. “Hell, I’ll go with you.”
Gabrielle remembered that he was half-Indian himself. She wondered how he stood all the disparaging remarks about at least part of his heritage. She caught his eye, and he shrugged, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“We don’t want that kid here,” Damien said, retreating from one lost position.
“You want to shoot him, Damien?” Drew asked. “All by yourself?”
Gabrielle clung to the bundle.
“I didn’t say that,” Damien said.
“Then what are you proposing to do with the wee bairn?” Drew asked, and Gabrielle didn’t think anyone missed the threat wrapped in his velvet tone.
“She should have left it there, with its mother,” Damien blustered, looking to the others, but suddenly the men were looking away. Down at the ground. Up at the sky.
“Damn it,” Damien said, staring hard at each one of them.
Gabrielle gave Drew a tremulous smile, moved by that deep streak of decency he kept trying to deny.
A wistful ache settled in her heart. He was so close, yet so far away. His eyes studied her, gentling at the sight of the baby, but he was still withholding that part of him he’d given so briefly one summer afternoon.
Legs snorted. “If’n we’re goin’, we’d better be on our way,” he said. “Due west, you say?” he asked her.
Gabrielle nodded, her eyes still on the tall Scotsman. “Thank you. Thank you both.”
Drew shrugged. “Got some shovels?”
“In my wagon,” she said breathlessly as she stared at his golden eyes, a huge lump blocking her throat. Only the wriggling child in her arms forced her back to reality.
Drew’s eyes followed hers to the bundle. “What are you going to do with him?”
“How did you know it was a him?”
His mouth turned up in that grin she’d missed. “He doesn’t chatter.”
Indignation mixed with cautious hope at his teasing. “All females don’t chatter,” she retorted. “I certainly don’t.”
Legs grunted impatiently. “I’ll go saddle the horses,” he said. “You’d best get the shovels, Scotty. Sometime before dawn,” he added dryly before starting toward the remuda.
Drew fell in next to Gabrielle as she headed for the wagon. “What are you going to do with the baby?”
“Feed him.”
“With what?”
“Sammy’s mother,” she replied.
“Have you ever milked a half-wild longhorn?”
“No.”
“Ever milked anything?”
She hesitated, saw the tightening of his jaw, then admitted sheepishly, “No.”
“Don’t start now,” he warned. “Get one of the men to do it. Most of them come from farms.”
“But they—”
“Just smile at them,” he said. “Hank’s your best bet. He has the worst case of puppy love I’ve ever seen.”
“But—”
“And don’t worry about the bairn. None of them will hurt the wee one.”
“Because of you,” she said.
“Nay. They were just talking. Most of them have reason to hate Indians, but none would hurt a bairn.”
She loved the way he said bairn, t
he way the sound rolled lazily off his tongue.
They reached the wagon, and she hesitated, then held out the baby for him to hold. Drew took him readily, his arms holding the child with ease, his mouth curving into a smile as he looked down at the tiny bundle without a trace of embarrassment or awkwardness. She watched a moment, transfixed by the image, then climbed into the wagon to find two shovels and the scrap of cloth she had taken from the Indian woman’s dress.
When she emerged with them, Drew gave her a sad, world-weary gaze. “He’ll have a hard life, no matter what you do.”
“He’ll not,” she said fiercely. “I’ll make sure of it.”
“And how will you be doing that, lass?”
“I’ll raise him,” she said, realizing at that moment that she meant it.
“’Tis not like a calf you can give back to its mother,” he warned.
Gabrielle looked into his eyes, but knew there was no use protesting. He was as sure of her fickleness as he was of his own name. She would simply have to prove him wrong. Somehow. Some way.
Legs rode up, leading another saddled horse. He looked at the baby in Drew’s arms, then at Gabrielle, then shook his head as if at two crazy folk. “You ready, Scotty?”
“Aye,” Drew replied. He looked back to Gabrielle. “You said the dog could lead us?”
Gabrielle reached down and petted Honor, then held out the piece of fabric for him to sniff it. “Go find her, boy,” she said.
The dog wagged his tail as if in understanding, then started out in an easy lope toward the west.
Drew smiled as he handed the baby back to Gabrielle. Their hands touched for a moment, but he jerked his away as if scorched. He took the two shovels and handed them to Legs, then mounted the second horse without stirrups, his body seeming to soar into the saddle in one graceful movement.
“Don’t try to milk that cow,” he warned Gabrielle again. “Swear it.”
He knew her too well. She wished she knew him as well.
She nodded.
“Not good enough, lass. I want your word on it,” he persisted.
“I will not try to milk the cow,” she replied obediently.
His eyes, still filled with doubt, pierced her one last time before he and Legs rode off into the night.
Scotsman Wore Spurs Page 22