They found not one downed tree, but several of them. “Prob’ly blown down in another storm,” Rafe remarked, looking them over.
A large cottonwood fell sometime in the past, pulling its large root ball out of the ground. Sometime later, another smaller tree fell on top of the root ball, making a perfect ridgepole.
Rafe dismounted, tied the buckskin to a sapling. “Gather a lot of wood; a lot! Pile it over close to that root ball. Get a fire goin’, but keep bringin’ in wood. We’ll need as much as you can find.”
He left her to that task and started dragging up smaller logs and leaning them against the ridgepole tree. There was no time to tie them together, so he fit them together as well as he could.
When the shelter was finished, the root ball served as a reflector for their fire and a wind break. The smaller trees against the ridgepole protected them from the worst of the falling precipitation. At the end opposite the root ball, there was enough room for the horses. If they kept the fire going large enough, the horses would get some of the heat, also.
The sleet started just as Rafe laid the last pole onto the ridgepole.
“Build the fire up,” he said to Merita when he ducked under the crude shelter. “Can’t let it go out. But we can’t build it so high it catches th’ shelter on fire. “
Both of them had put on their coats, and Merita brought both bedrolls and laid them by the fire. As long as he’d been moving around, Rafe felt fairly comfortable. But when he stopped, the cold seeped in.
Right under the ridgepole, Rafe could stand upright, but that put him standing half in the weather. Nothin’ to do ‘bout that now , he mused. Just have to hunker down an’ wait out th’ weather.
He knew this sudden change for the worse wouldn’t last more than a day or two. They just had to survive that day or two.
He walked back to the horses, ducking out of the shelter to do so. By the time he
covered the few feet to the horses, sleet covered his hat and shoulders. Ducking under cover again, he shook off the frozen stuff and unsaddled both horses. Then he rubbed them down with the saddle blankets, then turned the blankets over and laid them back on the horses.
“Well, boys, that’s the best I can do. It should help a little.” He patted both horses as he talked. “We’ll try to keep th’ fire goin’ enough for you to get some of the heat.”
When he returned to the fire, he again shook off the sleet that accumulated in the short time outside. Merita sat against the huge root ball huddled in a blanket. The fire blazed merrily in front of her.
On the return trip, Rafe brought their saddle bags and the sacks containing their cooking gear and food. He set about putting together a meal for the two of them.
First, he set a small pot full of water on the fire to boil. At the same time, he put the coffee pot on to boil. While he waited for the water to boil, he sliced fat strips of bacon into a small skillet he carried. The more hot food they could get, the better. Once the water in the pot boiled, he shaved fine bits of jerky into it. He scooted both it and the coffee pot a little farther from the fire to keep them hot. By then, the bacon was done so he dished it up onto their two plates. Then, he sliced two thick pieces of bread and fried them in the bacon grease.
“You’d make somebody a good husband,” Merita said from her blankets.
Rafe looked up from the frying pan and snorted. “Not me. I’ve been too long away from a curry comb for any woman to smooth out my hair.”
With a fork, he speared the fried bread and dropped one piece on each plate along with the two pieces of bacon already there. Good thing this food was ready. It was time to change th’ subject . After he thought this, he said aloud, “Time to eat. Coffee’s ready, too. We’ll have to eat th’ soup out of the pot.”
For the next several minutes, they ate in silence. Then, with genuine respect in her eyes, she said, “This was really good, Rafe. I already feel warmer from the inside.” She kept her gaze fixed on Rafe’s face as she sipped her coffee.
Rafe didn’t know what to say other than, “Thanks.” He tried hard not to meet her eyes. Her staring made him nervous.
To get away from her stare, he started messing with the fire. He shoved some of the partially-burned sticks into the center of the live coals. Then, he put a couple more small logs on top. After that, he scrubbed the pots and pans and their dishes and put them away. By then, the fire needed more wood.
Finally, he said, “I’m gonna go out an’ drag up some more wood.”
“Be careful,” she replied. “I don’t want to have to take care of you with a broken leg.”
With a nod, he ducked out of the shelter. Boy , he said to himself, what have you gotten into? A raider kidnaps your cousin, her no-good husband won’t get out an’ look for her, you team up with a purty woman, an’ get trapped in a storm – with her! You couldn’t ask for a better set-up for trouble.
He struggled in the rapidly-accumulating sleet not to fall and break a leg. Thankfully, he didn’t have to go far to find some sizable limbs and a smaller tree that got knocked down when a large cottonwood fell.
First, he carried the limbs back to the shelter. Merita was wrapped in her blanket and
sitting against the root ball again. Rafe dropped the limbs on the pile and stepped over to the
side of the fire and held his hands out to warm them.
“Cold!” he said when he caught the young woman staring at him again. “An’ gonna get colder, I bet.”
She didn’t reply for several seconds that felt much longer to Rafe. Just stared at him with those big, round brown eyes. Then, in a soft voice, she said, “We need to figure out what to do to keep warm.”
Again, he didn’t know what to say. So he just nodded, warmed himself a little more. “Reckon I’ll go drag up that blow-down I found.”
Before she could respond, he ducked out into the sleet again. It had built up to a couple of inches in the time he’d been warming. The going was treacherous. Twice in twenty feet, he felt the soles of his boots starting to slide. Dragging the deadfall back to the shelter would be an adventure.
Even as he thought this, another thought came to him. Somebody once said adventure is just another word for trouble.
Another slip of his boot brought his attention back to not breaking a leg. He found it a tiny bit easier to walk without sliding by planting his boot heel solidly with each step. This also both slowed his progress and used more energy.
It took him a good half hour to cover the seventy-five yards to the blow-down. He had to move slow and not work up a sweat. Any moisture next to his skin could freeze and drain all heat from his body.
Going back would take longer.
When he got to the blow-down, Rafe stopped for just a minute or so to catch his breath. He knew not to stop long because his muscles would tighten up in the cold.
While he rested, he examined the tree on the ground. Sleet and a little freezing rain almost froze it to the ground. Rafe would expend a lot of energy breaking it free.
He walked along the slender trunk, kicking the wood to break the icy lock. Finished with that, he grabbed the larger end and started lifting. At first, nothing happened. Taking a deep breath, he tried again.
An inch of movement that time.
Another effort, another couple of inches.
Rafe breathed hard from the exertion. He stood to catch his breath and straighten his back muscles. No more than twenty seconds.
Then, on his third try, he got both hands under the butt end of the slender trunk and his feet directly under his hands. As he straightened his back, he pushed upward with all the power he could get from his legs.
For the first couple of seconds, it felt like he tried to lift the very earth from under his feet. Then, oh so slowly, the ice released its stranglehold on the tree. In only seconds, the tree literally popped free.
Once he pulled the entire tree free, Rafe drug it a few yards to make sure it would move. a twenty second rest came next.
&
nbsp; The sleet fell hard and continuously. He used his hands to swipe it off his shoulders and to beat it off his hat as best he could.
He could tell the cold intensified as well. His feet felt like icy extensions of his legs. Moving his toes in his boots required much effort.
In order to pull the blow-down, he had to wrap his right arm around the trunk a little way up from the butt end. There was a limb there that gave him a little purchase. Holding the trunk tightly to his side, he pulled the tree along, digging his heel in every time he made a step.
Head down to be certain of where he stepped, Rafe drug that blow-down toward their shelter. When he estimated he should be close, he started looking around.
At first, everything looked the same. All covered in ice. The late afternoon light was dampened by the clouds and heavy sleet, making it hard to see the few landmarks he counted on to guide him to the shelter.
I’m sure it’s close around here. My sense of direction and distance ain’t that bad . He started looking for the general shape of the shelter. It didn’t take long then to spot a likely-looking shape. Sure enough, at one end, the sleet was melted from the heat of a fire underneath.
Gathering his strength, Rafe set off again, pulling the blow-down around the end of the shelter away from the root ball. In another minute, he dropped the tree just outside the shelter and ducked inside.
“I was starting to worry,” Merita said from the blanket she wrapped herself in. “What happened? What took you so long?”
Rafe stood as close to the fire as he could, his hands held over it. “Took longer to break the blow-down free than I figured.”
He opened his coat to let the heat in. Merita had tossed a couple of the big limbs onto the fire while he was gone. Now, Rafe reached out and pulled another large limb inside and onto the fire.
“It’s going to take a lot of wood to get through the night, isn’t it?” Merita’s voice sounded small and almost afraid. Her eyes widened as she stared at him.
“Yep.” He nodded and turned around with his back to the fire. “Soon’s I get a little warmer, I’ll go break some limbs off the blow-down. We’ll have to be sure to keep enough wood close.” A pause, long enough to take a deep breath. “It’s gonna get colder. A lot colder.”
Rafe buttoned his coat, warmed his hands again, and ducked back outside. With his boots, he kicked the ice off some of the limbs farthest from the fire. That part of the tree closest to the fire had much less ice on it. He wanted to save that for later when it got colder so he wouldn’t have to go far to get wood.
He broke off three of the largest limbs and brought them under the shelter. Quickly, he broke the limbs into shorter pieces and stacked them near where Merita sat. From there, either of them could toss the pieces onto the fire.
Done with that, he warmed himself again. When he’d stood by the fire as long as he thought he could get by with, he stepped over to his bedroll and untied it. He folded his ground cloth in fourths and laid it on the ground for as much insulation from the cold ground as he could get.
Merita immediately pulled the folded-over ground cloth closer to her. She glanced up at him from the tops of her eyes.
Rafe swallowed hard. Never had he sat so close to a woman before. And certainly not to one who clearly wanted him to sit close. What was he to do?
After just a brief hesitation, he pulled his blankets around him and sat down. When he sat, he left a gap of a few inches between them.
Merita immediately closed that gap.
Rafe decided all he could do was sit there and take it. Wrapped in both his blankets, he stretched his feet out toward the fire in front of him. He could hardly feel them.
With a sigh, Merita laid her head on Rafe’s shoulder.
Gonna be a long night , he realized.
Chapter Thirty-two
Snake Eyes threw aside the flap on the front of his tent and stepped out in the bright sun the same morning Tess left her cave. Although he could see the fog of his breath in the crisp air, the sun’s warmth held promise of a warm-up.
He stretched his arms overhead and took in a deep breath. The warm smell of bacon filled his nose along with an undertone of wood smoke and horse. A glance over at the women huddled under the trees around the fire with their blankets wrapped around their heads showed him they were all right.
He also saw the two guards he posted over the women standing, covered in their ponchos, some ice still showing on their shoulders. I knew they’d stay awake, he said to himself. After what I did to those two who let the woman escape.
Over at the cook fire, Snake Eyes accepted a plate of food from the cook. “Bacon and beans again?” he asked the cook.
“That’s all there is, Jefe.” The cook shrugged. He was the only one of Snake Eyes’ men who wasn’t afraid of him.
With a nod, Snake Eyes turned and ate his breakfast. A nod of thanks, and he accepted a cup of steaming black coffee.
As he sipped the coffee, he glanced around at his men. They all looked tired. Tired and something else, something he couldn’t place. None of them would meet his eye. Maybe the breed would know.
Looking around, he spotted Whitehorse standing with a group of the men.
“Whitehorse!” he called. Once his lieutenant lifted his head to see who called him, Snake Eyes waved him over.
The breed hurried over, concern clear on his face. “Yes, Boss?”
With another motion of his hand, Snake Eyes indicated he wanted the breed to walk with him. They walked out past the edge of the trees that sheltered his men.
“The men seem tired,” he said when they stopped. “What do you think?”
“They have been working hard for you, Boss,” Whitehorse responded. “You’ve sent them out every day, all day.”
“Yes, and they’ve found nothing. Nothing!” Snake Eyes spat out the words right on the heels of the breed’s.
All Whitehorse could do was nod, hang his head, and then raise his eyes to meet his boss’s. Then he waited.
Snake Eyes glared at the breed, angry, but knowing it wasn’t the man’s fault no sign of the woman had been found. He jerked his head away and stared off toward the camp. After a couple of minutes, his temper cooled, and he turned back to Whitehorse.
“Is that all?” When he saw the questioning expression on the breed’s face, he added, “All that you think about the men?”
“No, Boss.” Whitehorse took a second before he went on. “We’ve been stopped here a long time, Boss. Longer than we ever stopped before, and longer than we ever planned to stop anywhere. Our plan has always been to hit hard an’ fast an’ get back to Mexico where nobody’ll chase us. That’s worked real good so far. Th’ men don’t see why we’ve changed our plan this time.” A pause, long enough to take a breath. “An’ we’re runnin’ out of food.”
When he stopped, Snake Eyes just stared at him. He knew the breed had more on his mind, even though that was the most he’d heard the man say at one time. “What else? There’s more you want to say. Go ahead.”
“Boss, I don’t want to make you mad.”
“You won’t. Go ahead an’ say it.”
Whitehorse looked at Snake Eyes’ face as if evaluating whether he should go on or not. He met his boss’s stare directly. “All right, Boss. This is it: A lot of th’ men think you’re too worried about this one woman. Sure, she got away, an’ that don’t set well with none of us. But she’s prob’ly dead out there on the prairie somewhere. How could a woman survive by herself, anyway? With all this weather? Why, she prob’ly froze to death yesterday in all that cold. Or maybe died that first night. Else, how could she leave no tracks?” He stood up straighter, determined to take whatever came like a man. “That’s all I got to say, Boss.”
Snake eyes glared at his lieutenant for several seconds. His anger threatened to flare up, but he worked to control it. He gritted his teeth, and the muscles at the hinges of his jaws grew hard and round as steel balls.
He inhaled and exhaled noisily thro
ugh his nose. “All right. Here’s what we’ll do. Send a man east and a man west to hunt meat. Tell them to kill something or run a couple head of cattle in here. Then you an’ four of the others will ride back north to see if you can find any sign. I want either that woman who got away, or that woman th’ men saw with that other hombre.” Another look around the camp. “Get ‘em together an’ sent out. Tell th’ men two more days, then we hit th’ trail.”
Watching the breed walk away, Snake Eyes felt the little mouse feet of a shiver run up his pine. The first that that came to his mind was, Somebody just walked across my grave .
Chapter Thirty-three
Tess left her cave shelter in the middle of the morning. With the sun, the sleet had melted and the air warmed. Her rest over the past day and a half helped. At least she was rested.
But hunger and thirst were a very different story. The little bit of jerky she’d stolen was gone two days before. Water was iffy, but with the sleet melted, there could be more available for a day or so.
Thinking about water, and especially food, caused her mouth to water. Surprising considering I’m so dry inside.
Worse, her stomach growled, and she felt a stab of real pain in her belly.
I’ve got to find something to eat. If I don’t, there won’t be any energy left. And this close to home, I’m not going to lay down and not be able to finish this .
When she climbed out of the arroyo, Tess quickly found a natural cistern among some low rocks. It held a couple of gallons of melted sleet, and the water tasted wonderful. She drank all she could hold, hoping having her stomach full of water would dampen the hunger pangs.
It worked for the first hour.
As she walked, her strength faded more. The makeshift sandals she made out of the cowhide also began slipping more on her feet. These two things scared her. For the first time, she wondered whether she’d ever see her home again.
“No. Don’t even let those thoughts start.” She knew she must be stern with herself. That would be the only way she’d make it back home. “Stay positive. I’m going to get back home. And one of the first things I’m going to do is tell Edward to get out.”
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