The Pony Express Romance Collection

by Blakey, Barbara Tifft; Davis, Mary; Franklin, Darlene

  Oh no! She had just shot somebody.

  In a frenzy, Kimimela pulled spare ammo from her skirt pocket and grumbled as most of the remaining bullets fell to the ground and rolled every which direction. She shoved the last two rounds into her weapon.

  “Why you little—” the dirty man growled. To her horror, he tied the reins around the horn of his saddle and looked ready to dismount. What wouldn’t he do if he got his hands on her? She cringed.

  Kimimela’s heart beat as fast as a pair of hummingbird’s wings, but she fired again. The first bullet ricocheted off a nearby rock, but she squeezed off another shot. It hit the ground in front of the shooter’s horse, causing it to buck. She had frightened an innocent animal. Her concern for the poor beast was interrupted as the man turned the air blue with profanity. A wave of heat swept over her face at the coarse language.

  “I’m not after you anyhow.” The gunman reined his horse around and galloped in the direction of Gabe’s runaway pony.

  For a moment, Kimimela heaved several breaths in and out to regain control of herself. She shoved her gun back into her pocket with hands that trembled so badly it was a wonder she didn’t drop the weapon to the ground along with her stray bullets. Her eyes again caught sight of the crumpled man in buckskin lying on the ground.

  “Gabe!” she hollered.

  Kimimela yanked her skirts out of her way, bolted toward her friend, and knelt beside him. She wasted no time in assessing his wounds. His dark Cherokee skin had paled due to the open wound torn through his shoulder. Blood soaked the front of his buckskin shirt. A strange mix of energy and panic surged through her body as she touched his shoulder to try and stem the bleeding. Gabe slid his eyes open. Deep-brown irises stared up at her in a silent plea for mercy.

  He grimaced and then groaned. Kimimela needed to get him back to the station quick…or he would die.

  Survival was Gabriel Jackson’s only thought as he reached for the knife sheathed on his belt.

  Probing fingers slipped beneath his shirt, poking into the injury in his shoulder while another hand stayed his grip on the knife. The smell of gunpowder hung in the air. He struggled to recall what happened and why he’d flown through the air and dropped to the ground with a painful thud. He remembered the sound of gunshots and an excruciating pain searing into him. Another groan escaped his lips as he felt pressure applied to his wound.

  “It’s all right, Gabe. You’re safe now.”

  He raised his head and stared into the face of a dark-skinned woman crouched on the ground beside him. His friend, Kimimela, or Kimi as he liked to call her. The world spun like a top; his strength ebbed. He bit back a curse and sank back to the ground. Dear Lord, what had become of the mail pouch? He tried to wrestle his brain around the terrible consequences should the mochila fall into criminal hands.

  The thoughts howled in Gabe’s consciousness. Hadn’t he heard rumors that the pouch contained vital documents crucial to a government investigation? It was his job to protect it, and now he’d failed.

  “Don’t you worry about a thing. I’ll take care of you.” Kimi’s words brought a small measure of comfort.

  Opening his eyes again, he saw a blurry image of the raven-haired angel hovered over him. She yanked at the hem of her skirt. The sound of tearing fabric skimmed across his awareness. The pain deepened as Kimi pressed some dry, rough cloth into his wound.

  With an embarrassing cry, he twisted to escape the agony. Digging his boot heels into the ground, he attempted to scoot his body away from the angel with as much strength as he had left.

  “The pouch,” he muttered when he finally found his voice. He had to get it to the next way station, or he could lose his job. “Kimi, leave me, and go after the mail pouch. It’s important, please.” How he hated begging, but he was desperate.

  “Gabe, are you crazy? I can’t leave you like this. You could die.”

  He thought he heard a catch in her voice, and he wished he had the strength to hug her, but he continued, “If outlaws get their hands on government-issued mail, there could be anarchy and uprisings. Lots of innocent folks could get killed.” His pursuer, the mochila, and visions of what was left of his family jumbled together in a kaleidoscope of jagged images. Pain blurred reality.

  “You just take it easy now. I’m gonna find a horse and get you to the station. Greta and I are gonna fix you right up.” Confidence laced her tone. She dug into his shoulder with what felt like a fire poker. She was no angel. She was more of a demon.

  “What’s that?” Kimi straightened and looked up the path. For a moment, neither of them moved as he strained his ears to hear.

  At least two horses made their way toward them. Could that man, who had chased him for miles, be on his way back to kill them? Was the villain being chased by a lawman, putting him and Kimi in the cross fire? Worse yet, was a band of outlaws riding in, ready to take advantage of them?

  Gabe shuddered.

  “Gabe, I dropped all my spare bullets and now I can’t find any of them.” Panic laced Kimi’s tone, and fear was etched in her dark features.

  His heart lurched at the thought of her being harmed or taken hostage. It momentarily sharpened his senses.

  “Take my pistol and run, Kimi. Run!” He pulled his weapon from its holster and tried to sit up to hand it to her. The world before him spun, and a wave of nausea sapped what little strength he had. He sank back to the ground.

  An inky black darkness beckoned him, whispering his name in a gentle tone that eased his torment. In that moment, he thought he would perish.

  “C’mon, Gabe, don’t you die on me,” she said as if she could read his thoughts.

  “Run and hide, Kimi! Git!” The sound of galloping horses and men shouting grew nearer. He almost didn’t care if they killed him, as long as she was safe.

  “I said I can’t leave you, Gabe, and I won’t!” She wrapped her tiny hands around his wrists and tugged hard as if to drag him behind the nearby bushes.

  He threw his head back and gritted his teeth to keep from yelling as the pain surged through his body like an evil jolt of lightening.

  “I’m sorry I’m hurting you, Gabe, but we don’t know who is coming. We have to hide.” Kimi huffed and groaned as she struggled to pull him behind some bushes, with no success.

  “Grandma’s waitin’ for me in the heavens,” he sputtered as everything went black.

  Chapter Two

  Wake up, Gabe, please wake up,” Kimimela pleaded with her friend, but he remained still. Two medium-sized bushes provided measly cover, but it was the best she could do. Her friend was too heavy for her to move any farther, and she feared hurting him worse.

  Gabe’s hand rested on his pistol. She took it. His initials were delicately carved into the six-shooter’s pearly handle. The weapon weighed much more than her little derringer, and she hoped she had enough strength in her wrists to fire it.

  Crouched behind a mass of shrubs, she rocked back and forth as she watched Gabe’s labored breathing. “Oh Gabe, I should have paid attention to how nervous Kusi was acting and brought him with me.” If she had brought Kusi, she’d have a means to get Gabe back to the way station. But then again, that no-account varmint might have shot her precious animal, and then where would she be?

  The sound of shouting and hooves grew louder still. There were at least three riders coming around the last bend in the road. She had promised Gabe she wouldn’t leave him, and she was determined not to. She wrapped her fingers around the trigger and prayed for the strength to fire if necessary.

  “Kimimela!”

  The shout rang through the frigid air. She recognized the voice and warmth flooded through her body. Her muscles relaxed. It was Greta and probably a hired hand or two.

  “Greta,” Kimimela called back. “I’m over here. Gabe’s been shot. We have to get him back to the way station. Please help me.”

  Her friends dismounted and rushed to where she knelt beside Gabe. Greta rechecked his wounds. A through-and-t
hrough shoulder wound meant they wouldn’t have to dig a bullet out of him. That was the good news, but those kinds of injuries posed problems of their own. Infection could prove lethal.

  “He’s losing an awful lot of blood. We’ve got to get him back to the way station!” Greta pressed another cloth to Gabe’s shoulder and secured it in place with a narrow strip of material.

  “Thank you.” Kimimela warmed at the gentleness Greta used in tending to Gabe. She hadn’t witnessed many white folks treating the Indians fairly. For the kindness Greta displayed to native people, she was grateful.

  Gabe was the only friend she had who understood what it was like to be a half Indian in this wild country. Although they weren’t from the same tribe, they shared a special bond because of their shared heritage. Being part of two worlds, two cultures determined to spar with the other, could be a painful thing at times. Kimimela loved both her Indian relatives on the Sioux reservation and the Scandinavian side of her family. She yearned to participate in traditions of both sides without feeling like she was betraying one or the other.

  Her sister, Louisa, had felt this way as well. At one time they, too, had shared a special bond. Then her sister had gotten sick and died. She couldn’t let that happen again. Gabe couldn’t die, too. She wouldn’t let him die.

  “Four horses are galloping this way.” One of the hired hands shouted and pointed at a band of riders in the distance. “I can’t tell who they are exactly, but they’re a roughlooking bunch, and their guns are drawn.”

  The man who shot Gabe must be coming back, with reinforcements.

  A volley of gunshots cracked the air. One of the hands returned gunfire.

  Fear seemed to come up out of the ground and tickle the soles of Kimimela’s feet. Anger, too. She pressed down her indignation. She had to get Gabe to safety before dealing with the likes of that skunk and his cohorts.

  The men hoisted Gabe’s unconscious form onto one of the horses and tied him to the saddle. Then they mounted up themselves. Greta climbed onto her horse. Kimimela hitched her foot in the stirrup and leaped up behind her. She hugged Greta close as they took off at a gallop.

  They had to get out of there quick, before those men caught up with them. But what if the ruffians followed them to the relay station? Would there be a shoot-out that left them all dead?

  Gabe felt his body being tossed around like a wet ragdoll. He opened his eyes long enough to realize he was back at the way station. Then he was dropped onto his cot at the bunkhouse. He gritted his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut to keep from crying out. When the pain became bearable, he opened his eyes again. He looked at his shoulder, groaned, and then took a deep breath. The less he moved, the less blood he lost, and the better his odds were at surviving.

  Voices bounced off the interior of the structure, but they were muffled as though folks were speaking underwater.

  “Those men don’t seem to have followed us here, but I’m reporting this to the sheriff in town, just in case,” Thomas, Gabe’s friend and fellow rider, announced.

  “Your horse found its way back to the station, Gabe; that’s how everyone knew to come looking for us. The mail pouch was still on your horse,” Kimi soothed. She gripped his hand and ran her fingers through his hair. “A rider had been sent on with it, and those bad men haven’t followed us here, so we’re safe, for now.”

  For a moment he wondered what could have been among the dispatches to make those men want to kill him.

  Two things were juggled in Gabe’s heart: thankfulness for the safety of everyone at the station and worry for his friend’s well-being.

  From the fogginess shrouding his mind he pulled a memory from just the other day. Someone in Salt Lake City had mentioned a gang of liquored-up men bent on preserving the Southern way of life.

  Gabe couldn’t remember the name of the gang’s leader, only that he had been associated with a man named William Quantrill. According to the rumors, this gang of rebels was looking to get their hands on a shipment of government-issued weapons manufactured in California and on the way to Fort Laramie. The documents in the mochila might very well have information on that shipment.

  Gabe shook his head. Tall tales spread across this wild frontier like prairie fire on a blistering hot day. It was hard to tell what to believe.

  “The man who shot me…might be part of a gang…ruthless…Thomas could be in danger,” Gabe sputtered. His shoulder ached something fierce.

  “Hush, Gabe, the rider will be fine. Now let us take care of you.” Kimi’s words floated above him. Her tender voice caused his pulse to quicken. Still, he prayed that his friend would get the mail to its destination and that no one else would be hurt in the process.

  Kimi gave Greta a list of things they needed to sew up the jagged holes in his shoulder.

  “Boiling water and more bandages, needle and thread, a hot knife to cauterize. And of course, some whiskey for the pain.”

  This was not going to be a pleasant experience. Dare he hope for a stick to bite on while they worked?

  He knew Kimi cared for him, as he cared for her. He trusted her to be as gentle as she could during the surgery, but the knowledge that his life hung ambiguously over a chasm of death didn’t escape him. In spite of the searing pain coursing through him, and the agony he was about to endure, he had no desire to die. The weakness sweeping through him told him it was a very real possibility.

  His hand flew to his tiny Bible in a pouch around his neck. He said a prayer. If he was dying, he wanted to be right with his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

  Chapter Three

  Kimimela shivered as she lit the fire in the cookstove. It still snowed this time of year in Utah Territory, and the wind contained an icy edge to it. She wished she could spend the morning huddled under her warm quilts, but she had to make breakfast.

  She cranked the handle of the coffee grinder until her arm ached. When she finished grinding a sufficient amount of beans, she pulled the tiny drawer from the contraption, dumped the grounds into the coffeepot, and set it on the stove to brew.

  The words of one man passing through on the stage rang in her mind like the clanging of the dinner bell. Half-breed. That’s what he’d called her and told her she had no business working for decent white folks. Her jaw clenched while she added a bit more saleratus to the biscuit dough, just enough to make it rise well. Then she kneaded it. By the time she placed the small mounds of dough in the baking tin her heart still ached, but she refused to let the tears fall over such a mean-spirited remark.

  After she popped the biscuits in the oven, Gabe stirred and tried to sit up on his cot in the corner of the room.

  “Gabe, you were shot only five days ago. You need to stay in bed and get some rest.”

  “I don’t want to risk losing my job.” Gabe groaned as he tried to stand.

  Kimimela rushed to his side in an instant. “Here, let me help you.” She wrapped an arm around his waist. His flimsy nightshirt did little to cover his muscled body. Heat flooded through her at the impropriety. Then she shook her head and told herself she was being silly. When he had been shot, she had checked his wound and later sewn it up. There was no reason to be so embarrassed. So why did her face flush and her pulse quicken?

  “Let me sit down in the chair,” Gabe said as he shuffled the few steps to the dining table.

  Using a great deal of tenderness, Kimimela eased him into the seat. “Please, be careful, Gabe. You don’t want to rip those stitches loose and bleed to death.” She hated sounding so desperate, but besides Greta, Gabe was her only friend. If anything happened to him, who would listen to her stories of the Sioux tribe?

  “You worried?” Gabe flashed a bright smile and winked at her.

  Kimimela’s heart pounded so hard she could almost hear it. “I need to finish making breakfast.” She ducked into the lean-to and sliced a few strips from the slab of bacon. When she returned, Gabe was peeling the bandages off his wound.

  “Gabe, don’t do that,” Kimi
mela said. A festering injury was the last thing the man needed. She placed a cast-iron skillet on the stove and laid the slices in the pan to fry. When she turned to face Gabe again, he was poking at the half-healed wound in his shoulder.

  “Gabe,” she sighed and walked to him. He fussed at her mothering as she rewrapped the bandages. When she finished, he thanked her and looked up at her with eyes that spoke of yearning.

  “Why don’t you check the bacon?” Gabe said with huskiness in his tone.

  Kimimela hurried to the stove and turned the slices over in the pan. She set the coffee on the back and then pulled a steaming tin of biscuits from the oven. The delicious aroma filling the room made her mouth water.

  Silence filled the space between Kimimela and her friend. She busied herself putting some beans on to soak for supper that night. As long as she was cook, no rider would go out into the frigid elements without hot food in his belly.

  “Do you know who shot you, Gabe? Or why?” Kimimela wanted the shooter to pay for hurting the man she cared about. The word love flew into her mind like a pesky crow, but she quickly shooed it away. Burying her sister Louisa had taught her how much it hurt to lose someone you loved, and she was afraid to let her heart venture that direction again. She carried to the table an armload of tin plates and cups and a handful of flatware.

  “I heard rumors about the contents of the mochila—government contracts for guns.” Gabe reached to help her but winced and placed a hand to his shoulder.

  Kimimela wished she could give him a shot of whiskey for the pain, but the company’s owners, Russell, Majors, and Waddell, frowned on the use of intoxicating liquors.

  Gabe continued, “When I was in town last week, somebody mentioned a band of rebels from Texas. They’re looking to intercept the shipment and use the weapons to declare war on a group of abolitionists in Kansas. But those are just rumors.”