He silently shook hands with Chief Grey Eagle, nodded to his old friend the medicine man and the others, then sprang to the back of the now-saddled Indian pony and rode away, humbled by the depths of gratitude in the hidden tribe.
Ivy Ann awakened from her uncomfortable bed on the floor beside the fireplace to the steady drum of rain. She rubbed sleep from her eyes and stole glances at Dan and Laurel, still asleep on the rickety cots. Dan had been furious when she insisted on making a nest of old blankets and a saddle blanket for herself. “You think I’m going to sleep on the cot and let you huddle there?” He staggered a little but fiercely glared at her.
“Dan, I don’t like the way your face is flushed,” she told him. “I’ll be fine. You have to rest.” She observed again the dull color in his cheeks and his listless eyes that showed even an inexperienced nurse such as herself the presence of a low-grade fever. Only when he tried to get up and fell back from sheer weakness did Dan stop arguing.
He looked cooler this morning and Laurel’s tousled light brown curls spilled over the coarse blanket in utter relaxation. At least Ivy Ann wouldn’t have two patients here in this forsaken shack.
She thought of Dan’s full confession the night before. His freighting in of supplies had won the confidence of those he bought from and sold to. One day he’d noticed how the Rock Springs banker carelessly left his keys on the desk while talking with Dan. A niggling idea grew. The next time Dan went to see the banker he carried a lump of soft clay in his pocket. This time the keys didn’t appear but several visits later they did and when his banker acquaintance was called away for a few minutes, Dan made an impression. Later he constructed a crude key and polished it. Then one night he stole down a dark street, used his key, and helped himself. At first he secreted the money in the bottom of his wagon. When he heard of the deserted trapper’s cabin he painstakingly gouged out a cache in the wall, covered by the cot.
“Why, Dan?” Ivy Ann had burst out.
He shrugged. “I always wanted a cattle ranch but never could afford one.”
“And now?” Laurel’s soft voice accused him as her sister’s had done.
Dan’s brittle laugh little resembled his earlier honest mirth. “Prison. A long stretch.” He yawned and Ivy Ann saw his hand tremble. Then Dan closed his eyes and the twins sat silently. A little later, all three slept.
All that day they waited for someone to come. Dan never fell unconscious or grew delirious but Ivy Ann wouldn’t let him ride out for help.
“Are you afraid I won’t keep my word?” he challenged.
Surprise underlined every word. “Of course not. You just aren’t in any condition to ride.” One dimple showed as she couldn’t resist saying, “Look, Mr. Sharpe. We’re keeping still about something that could end with you dead. I’m not going to let you ride out of here, fall off your horse, and lie somewhere hurt. It wouldn’t do any of us the last bit of good.”
He subsided, too tired to care. “You sure pack a mean wallop.” He gingerly rubbed the goose egg on the back of his head. “I’m sorry you had to do it,” he mumbled.
“So am I,” Ivy Ann quietly told him. Then she gathered up the rag ropes and burned them.
Ivy Ann managed to clean up the shack a bit and, by using a few more of the old stores, get a creditable meal. “Good thing we always pack a lot more food than we need,” she said. They ate and she scrubbed the battered tin dishes she’d had to wash in boiling water before using.
Evening melted into dusk. Now nothing remained except to wait.
Chapter 14
Wait. The most difficult word in the English language, Adam thought. He stared into the curtain of rain just outside the rude shelter of boughs that Running Deer had constructed when a downpour caught the two on their way back to the Double B. What went on in his companion’s mind behind the dark eyes that betrayed nothing? Running Deer seldom spoke, and when he did, only in response to Adam’s direct questions. Yet in the space of an hour the Indian, with Adam’s less skilled help, had found dry roots in spite of the cloudburst, built a roaring fire, and provided shelter.
Could he have done as well? Adam wondered. Probably not. He still had a lot to learn about survival in the Wyoming Territory. You still have a lot to learn about forgiveness, too, a voice inside prodded. The memory of Laurel’s expression haunted him. He had originally considered it triumphant that her little joke had gone on so long. Now he knew it for pleading. If she cared as Nat felt sure, the hurt must have gone deep.
By the time the rain let up enough for Adam and Running Deer to reach the ranchhouse then follow to the spot where Nat led them to the rest of the rescue party, despair filled Adam. No one could find a sign after the rain, not even Running Deer. “How do you know they were ever here?” he asked Hardwick, who slouched low in his saddle, his hat brim down and collar turned up against the weather.
“Found tracks we recognized under a tree where the rain hadn’t soaked through.” Hardwick’s terse reply warmed Adam but he chilled again when Hardwick continued. “Found somethin’ else, too.” His keen eyes bored into Adam. “You said the twins rode out alone?”
“That’s right,” Thomas broke in. The hours since his daughters failed to ride in had aged him.
“Well, they weren’t alone all the time.”
With a southerner’s quickness to take offense, Thomas drew himself up and his voice turned icy. “What are you implying, sir? That my daughters planned to meet someone here?”
“Simmer down,” Hardwick told the irate father. “I’m just sayin’ we found tracks of three different horses.” His voice softened. “Look, Tom, no one in this country would believe anythin’ bad about your girls. It appears some galoot came along and—”
A call from Running Deer a little to one side of the clearing interrupted Hardwick’s speculations. Adam, Nat, and the others hurried to him. The Indian silently held out a sodden bit of color-dulled cloth.
“Why, that looks like the scarf Ivy Ann wears so much.” Thomas Brown reached for it.
A rare, slow smile crossed Running Deer’s unreadable face.
“Where did you find it?” Hope flared in Adam’s chest.
Running Deer pointed to a nearby clump of trees and Adam reached them in one leap, closely followed by Nat. Yet a thorough search disclosed no more clues.
“Spread out and search every inch of ground,” Hardwick ordered. Adam stuck with Running Deer. Nat joined Thomas. The hands paired up and agreed to meet again in an hour, or to fire three shots if they discovered anything more.
For the second time that day Adam realized how far short his newly acquired woodcraft fell compared to Running Deer’s skills. If the situation hadn’t been so terrifying in its unknown possibilities, Adam would have rejoiced in the education he received in noticing seemingly trivial things. Running Deer left no area until he had examined the smallest patches of ground. Even when their steps clattered on rock, the tracker’s intent scrutiny checked out each broken branch or overturned stone. Fifteen minutes later he dug a second bit of torn cloth from under the edge of a dislodged rock.
“Running Deer, you are a wonder!” Adam burst out in admiration. He fired into the air three times to summon the others, excitement sending relief through his tense body. But when the rescue party reassembled, to their dismay two other pairs had also found bits of scarf!
“Wind blow hard.” Running Deer’s sweeping gesture told the sad story. Then he turned back to his search, closely followed by a discouraged Adam.
It felt like a month later when the tracker’s pleased grunt brought Adam out of his misery to stare at a track in the softer earth alongside the rocky path. Deep, partly filled with rainwater, it offered a spurt of hope.
Hardwick pushed his hat back from his grimy forehead and his eyes glistened. “Isn’t there some kind of old tumbledown shack back a ways from here?”
The Indian straightened from measuring the track with his open palm. “Pony carry two. Make heavy track.”
A
gain Adam’s spirits dragged in the muddy earth. He saw Nat’s concern, heard Thomas gasp, and noticed the way the searchers shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. If the horse that made the track carried two persons, one must be hurt. Hardwick’s observation about three horses plus the return of Laurel’s horse could mean just one thing and Adam didn’t want to consider it. Maybe not, he told himself. Perhaps someone came along and offered assistance because the twins only had one horse between them. On the other hand, why would a Good Samaritan of the mountains head toward some obscure hut miles away from Antelope instead of going back to the Double B?
A frantic prayer for their safety sprang from Adam’s trembling heart and he silently followed Running Deer, who methodically continued his tracking.
Darkness descended before they reached the long-forsaken and overgrown trail Hardwick vaguely remembered might lead to the shack. A few more tracks and his statement that “one pony go, one follow” dished up speculation while the men drank hot coffee and ate the steaming supper Hardwick handily prepared.
Hardwick’s persuasive voice and bright eyes in the firelit circle of rescuers splashed into a little pool of silence. “The way I figure it is, whoever’s ridin’ that second horse is the one who kept droppin’ those little bitty pieces of scarf. Maybe they were tied and came off in the wind. Or maybe the person leavin’ the trail didn’t count on a storm.”
“But what’s it supposed to mean if that is what happened?” Thomas wanted to know. His hands gripped his tin cup until they resembled claws.
“I’d say someone—” Hardwick paused and Adam’s nerves silently screamed for him to continue.
“Someone for some reason and none of us knows why must have put one of the twins on his horse and the other moseyed along behind leavin’ signs for whoever came when Laurel’s horse got home.” Hardwick raised his coffee cup in tribute and silently drank to the resourcefulness of a tenderfoot woman smart enough not to panic but to leave evidence of her pursuit.
Hours later Nat stirred beside a wide-awake Adam. “Are you asleep?”
“No.”
The strong hand that used to comfort a small boy now gripped Adam’s. “We may not know where they are but God does.”
“I know.” Yet dread never left Adam’s heart and mind. He shifted on his pine-needle bed. “Nat, sometimes God lets things happen. Even to those who love and serve Him.”
“And sometimes He doesn’t.” The big hand squeezed harder. “Remember what Jesus said? ‘Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.’* I’ll bet there isn’t a man here tonight—including Running Deer who prays to the Great Spirit—who isn’t thinking of and praying for them.”
Strangely calmed, his faith bolstered by the unshakable tone in his older brother’s voice, Adam clasped Nat’s hand until his own ached, and a little later he fell into an uneasy sleep. He awoke to a fiery, red-streaked sky that made Hardwick mutter. The search party gulped hot coffee and ate meat slapped into cold biscuits as they traveled behind Running Deer into a world where faces, rocks, and even trees reflected the awe-inspiring heavens. Deeper into the mountains they went, buoyed by Running Deer’s steady progress and infrequent pointing to tracks. The red in the sky died. Gray-black clouds roiled and gathered. Running Deer stopped dead still and sniffed the air.
“By the powers, smoke! “Hardwick gave an exultant yell. Running Deer’s rare smile came once more and he bounded down a little corridor made where branches along the little-used trail had been broken by the passage of animals. Minutes later the little group rounded a bend. Before them stood a rotting shack. Moss splotched the roof but from a crooked tin pipe came a white wisp of smoke.
“Laurel? Ivy Ann?” Thomas pushed aside the others and ran to the weathered door of the dirty cabin with his rescue party close behind. Without stopping to knock or use the caution Hardwick would have advised, Thomas Brown crashed open the door.
“Daddy!” A woman with a soot-stained face from trying to heat water in the decrepit fireplace rose and flung herself into her father’s arms.
Adam looked past the twin he knew was Ivy Ann, but a changed Ivy Ann with a look of maturity he’d never seen in her face. Laurel sat propped on a blanketed cot, her bandaged ankle straight out in front of her. Her pinched face had never been more beautiful to Adam. He crossed the small room with giant strides and loomed over her. “Laurel, my darling, are you all right?”
Bright tears gathered. So did color more glowing than that morning’s sky. “I hurt my ankle. Mr. Sharpe, Ivy Ann, we came here and—” she faltered.
Dan Sharpe shrugged his shoulders, the flush of fever dulling his eyes but not his audacity. “I might as well ‘fess up. The girls just captured themselves a bank robber.” He pointed to the sacks on the rickety table, still gaping open and spilling out incriminating evidence. A ripple of shock filled the cabin.
The doctor in Adam took over. He marched to the second cot and examined Dan’s head. “How did you do this?”
Dan’s mouth twitched. “Took a bad fall.” His eyes laughed.
“Is that right, Laurel? Ivy Ann?” Adam looked from one to the other. Something about the whole thing didn’t feel right.
“He took a terrible fall,” Ivy confirmed from the depths of her father’s embrace. “I wouldn’t let him ride for help.”
“That’s right.” Laurel told the stunned group. “We made him swear he’d confess the robbery. He gave his word.”
Hardwick said heavily, “He may be a robber but I never knew Dan Sharpe to go back on his word.” He sent a piercing glance at Ivy Ann. “I reckon ‘twas you who rode the horse that followed the first one. Why’d you leave pieces of your scarf?”
“I wasn’t sure I could find my way back out of here,” she admitted. “You see, I’d started back for help after Laurel got hurt. Then I went back to leave the canteen with her and saw Laurel’s horse heading for home.” She paused. “Anyway, Dan had come along and found Laurel hurt so I came after them.” She rushed on. “We got here and Dan fell and I’ve been taking care of them and praying for someone to come.” She looked up into Nathaniel Birchfield’s face and something passed between them, something to be taken out and examined when the present crisis became nothing but an adventuresome memory.
“If it hadn’t been for Running Deer you’d have been here a lot longer,” Nat said soberly. With one accord they turned toward the open doorway.
“Why, where is he?” Adam left Laurel and raced back out the shabby door. Only the grumble of thunder in the distance and a few large rain drops spattering on the ground greeted him. “Running Deer?” Adam cupped his hands around his mouth. “Running Deer!”
A rough hand that still held kindness fell on Adam’s shoulder. “It’s no use, son. He’s gone.” Hardwick lowered his voice. “He did what Chief Grey Eagle sent him to do.”
“I didn’t even thank him.”
“The way I hear tell you did that a long time ago when you and that brother of yours went to a certain hidden village and you saved Running Deer’s life just like you saved my wife’s.”
“How did you know?” Adam whirled. “We promised not to betray the location of the tribe.”
“Son, this is my country and I pretty much know what’s happenin’.” Hardwick grinned but his steady look never wavered. “I’m also known for keepin’ my mouth shut, so don’t worry none. Now come back inside. We’ve got to decide whether to make a run for it or stay here tonight.” He glanced at the storm-laden sky. “I person’ly vote for stayin’. The horses are tired and it will give the girls and Dan a little extra time.” He sighed and his good humor faded. “Sure hate to find out Dan Sharpe’s a thief. He’s gotta be punished and they’ll give him a lot of time for this. Maybe since he surrendered nice and gentlemanlike, and since everyone will get their money back, the judge won’t go too hard on him.”
Later that night when the newcomers disposed of themselves as well as they could on the floor and were joined
by Dan who refused to let Ivy Ann sleep on the floor again, Adam heard Hardwick whispering. He strained his ears to hear.
“Sharpe, if I thought there was more to all this than the girls are tellin’ I’d horsewhip you ‘til there wasn’t enough left for trial.”
Adam’s heart skipped a beat when Dan retorted half under his breath, “Go to the devil, Hardwick. Are you questioning the word of the two finest girls that ever hit the Wyoming Territory, or anywhere else?”
Hardwick grunted and subsided. Adam lay awake to marvel. Rogue, rascal, and bank robber, Dan Sharpe still recognized and bowed before the simple goodness of Christian women. How right Nat had been about the need for such women in this wild place! How many would-be Dans remained for the Brown twins and others to influence, to catch before they turned to crime and wickedness?
He thought of Mark Justice who continued to baffle his pards by accepting Jesus Christ. One or two even came to church with Mark occasionally. God grant that the tiny seeds being dropped along the way, as Ivy Ann had dropped pieces of her scarf, would take root and not be blown away with the first wind that came.
For another day and night the new fall storm imprisoned the group. The cowboys made no attempt to hide their admiration for the plucky twins or their disgust for Dan, the fallen. Thomas beamed and lamented, “If only Sadie could know everything’s all right!”
Hardwick offered the opinion that Running Deer would stop at the Double B before heading home. Adam couldn’t keep himself from staring at Laurel and checking her ankle often merely to be close to her. Nat and Ivy Ann exchanged furtive glances that brought color to both faces and warmth to Adam’s soul.
Pale sun greeted the new day. A weary band of riders swept into the Double B in late afternoon. Laurel and Ivy Ann waved goodbye to Nat, Adam, and Hardwick who officially escorted Dan Sharpe back to Antelope and to jail. Limping inside, they bathed and fell into their beds.
Wildflower Harvest: Includes Bonus Story of Desert Rose Page 13