“Would not,” Lafe said in his brother’s absence; then after pondering a moment, he added, “Would he?”
Reagan shrugged her slim shoulders beneath her too-large shirt. “He’s sellin’ me, ain’t he?” Then, with feigned concern, she said, “Maybe you ought to go with him, just to make certain he stays out of trouble. That boy can’t lace his own boots without help.”
“Boots is sometimes passin’ stubborn,” Lafe mused, “but I expect that you’re right. One sister’s enough. I don’t need no other.” Lafe turned and started off in search of Luck, while Reagan pulled and strained with all her might. She worked the rope until she feared she’d pull her hands clean off, feeling the hemp bite into the tender flesh of her wrists; then all at once her bonds gave way.
Freedom!
A heartbeat later she was sprinting through the tall grass, ducking and weaving her way through the throng.
At the edge of the crowd, she glanced back and saw Lafe pause, then slowly turn toward the dais. Then, seeming to realize that he’d been duped, he set up a hue and cry. “Ah, damn it all, Reagan! You get yourself back here this minute, or I’ll have to tell Pa!”
The threat spurred Reagan on. She’d had enough of Luther Garrett and his crazy schemes.
Somehow she had to elude them, outwit them, find a place to hide, to gather her wits and decide just what to do next.
Holding her battered felt hat tightly to her head, she rounded a wagon and, from the cover it provided, dared another look back.
A dozen yards to the rear, Lafe was coming on fast. Close upon his heels came Luck, who, gaining ground, grabbed his brother’s arm and swung him around to face him. “Jackass! What’d ya leave her alone for, when I told ya to watch?”
Lafe bellowed a defensive reply, and in an instant their exchange dissolved into bickering and the placing of blame. Luck, insulted and outraged, swung his fist at his brother, and the two went down in a confusing tangle of limbs.
Giddy with relief, Reagan left the shelter of the wagon and ran through the clearing, past hide-covered tepees, outside of which Indian wives tended their cook fires, past bark lodges where men lazed in the tall grass under the emerging stars... not slowing until the stitch in her side became too much to bear.
On the fringes of the encampment, a few yards from a crudely fashioned lean-to, she finally paused.
The structure, a three-sided affair built of supple skins stretched over sapling poles that had been driven into the ground, was empty, and except for the sleek bay stallion grazing nearby and the campfire burning before the lean-to, the place appeared to be deserted.
Glancing around, Reagan warily approached, catching a whiff of whatever the absentee owner had left on the spit. It was charred beyond recognition. Edging closer, she sniffed the stuff suspiciously and felt her stomach rumble.
How long had it been since she’d eaten? A day? Two? Long enough that her stomach felt hollow and her limbs shaky and weak, barely able to support her now that the crisis had passed. She couldn’t go on much longer without some sort of sustenance, and she reasoned that at this moment, she had a far greater need of a meal than did the person who’d so carelessly left his supper to broil over an open fire.
With barely a twinge of conscience, Reagan lifted the skewer off the spit and slid the blackened meat from it.
To her delight, she found that only the outside was blackened. The meat within was tender and succulent. Reagan picked her portion clean, threw the bones into the red coals, and was reaching for the remaining piece when Luther Garrett’s voice issued from the lengthening darkness. “Well, she can’t have gone far, so find her, ye simpleminded .... ”
The rest was lost on Reagan. At the sound of Luther’s voice her throat had gone tight and that same sinking sense of desperation that had clawed at her vitals since this nightmare had begun back in Bloodroot came winging back full force.
The untouched portion of her pilfered dinner still clutched tightly in her bloodless fingers, she slowly shrank back into the lean-to.
There was safety in the shadows, and only the sure knowledge that more than a thousand miles of rough country lay between her and civilization kept her from dashing headlong into the night.
Missouri Territory was a vast wilderness teeming with all manner of dangers unheard of in Kentucky, and there was not a farm nor a settlement to be found between here and Saint Louis. A woman alone, unarmed, and without adequate provisions could not hope to survive the journey back, and Reagan was terribly aware that if she was going to make good her escape, she must find another way.
Pressed tightly against the wall of the lean-to, Reagan peered out around it. The moonless night had completely overtaken the encampment; the hundred-odd campfires flickering in various stages of combustion, combined with the flaming pine knots affixed to the foremost comers of the wooden dais, could no more dispel the darkness than could the blue-white stars overhead.
One of the boys trudged past; Reagan edged deeper into the shadows. At the same time the sound of footfalls and low-voiced conversation approached from the direction of the river. Trapped, Reagan took cover behind the hundredweight bales of fur stacked against the rear wall.
Much to her dismay, the footfalls entered the lean-to and stopped. Reagan held her breath, expecting at any moment to be caught, yet there was only the soft rustle of movement precariously close at hand. Drawing a deep and steadying breath, Reagan gathered her much battered courage around her and pressed her eye to the crack between the bales.
Standing in the shadows was a man; she had the impression of great height, yet her vantage point was poor, and she could see little else. Shifting her position slightly, she leaned her weight on the hand that still clutched her now forgotten dinner, and strained this way and that.
From outside came the stir of movement, followed by the soft thunk of fuel being fed to the fire. The fuel quickly caught, spilling light into the lean-to... a light that partially dispelled the shadows, flickering molten gold over the stranger’s face and form, and providing Reagan with her first clear look at him.
Bearded scarecrow he was not. Tall, well muscled, and stripped to the waist, with an impressive shoulder span and an economy of flesh, he cut such an impressive figure that even Reagan could not help but admire him, and her opinion of men in general was none too high of late. Hair that was glossy and black swung loose about his tawny shoulders, framing a face that could best be described as fiendishly handsome.
Dark brows arched over eyes that were luxuriously lashed. His features were finely chiseled, the arrogant nose, high cheekbones, and clefted chin scraped meticulously clean of whiskers were pure masculine perfection, the stuff of every woman’s dreams... except for the livid scar that slashed across his left cheek, a scar that, by its appearance alone, Reagan judged quite recently attained.
The imperfection drew the left corner of his sensual mouth ever so slightly downward in a perpetual half frown, lending his aspect a formidable air that frightened and intrigued her at once. And she could not help wondering as she observed him if he’d had a tiff with a grizzly bear.
“Much as I enjoy your stellar company, I ’spose I’d better get movin’,” a voice said, issuing from the far side of the fire; its owner remained just beyond Reagan’s field of vision.
“I thought you lost your cache to Dan Wilhelm last night,” the handsome stranger replied. “I believe that ‘picked clean’ was the term you used to describe the state of your finances.”
“For your information, I’m not intent on a poker game. I thought I’d amble on over and watch the festivities. Watchin’ don’t cost nothin’, and Tom Bridger’s waitin’ my arrival with a jug of Monongahela whiskey. You feel like comin’ along? It’s better than brooding, and you know what a social butterfly Tom is. Why, he’ll be plumb crushed if you don’t put in an appearance, this bein’ your last night here and all.”
“Somehow I think he’ll survive the disappointment,” the man in the lean-to said dryly. �
�Besides, I still have to straighten things out with Frank Levie. I’ve tried twice to meet with him, with no success. The way he’s acting, one might think he was avoiding me.”
“Think you can convince him to stay?”
The dark-haired stranger shrugged. “I have to try. Navarre’s depending upon me, and if Frank goes, half of Broussard’s Yellowstone trappers go with him.”
The unseen man whistled low. “That could mean substantial losses for the company. How do you intend to handle it, Jackson?”
Reagan watched as her host slipped into a fringed buckskin shirt, which he belted at the waist. Jackson . . . Funny, but he didn’t strike her as a Jackson. The name Jackson triggered images of iron gray hair and stern features in Reagan’s mind, not the exotic specimen standing before her.
“Frank has always been a company man,” Jackson said, “loyal to Papa and Clay, if not to me. I fully intend to appeal to that loyalty, and if that fails, I’ll do whatever I must to finish the task so that I can leave here tomorrow.”
“Sure wish you’d rethink this thing, Jackson. Saint Louis has a decidedly unhealthy air about it just now, especially where you’re concerned. Why not stay on awhile? You’d be more than welcome at winter quarters, and when you return in the spring, things will have cooled down considerably.”
Jackson just snorted. “You’re sounding suspiciously like Uncle Navarre.”
“Aye, damn it, and if you had a brain in your head, you’d listen.”
“It’s been three months and I can think of nothing else,” Jackson said. “I need to get back, for Clay’s sake, if not my own. I owe him that much.”
“And your father?”
Jackson’s head came up. “What about him?”
“You going to try to mend the rift between you?”
At the mention of his sire, a tic worked furiously in Jackson’s ruined cheek. “It isn’t a rift--it’s a chasm. Clay was the only thing holding the family together. Now that he’s dead, there’s nothing left to mend.”
“I expect I’ve said all I’m liable to say on the subject,” Jackson’s companion replied. “Think I’ll go find Tom. I could use that whiskey right about now.”
The other man departed.
As Jackson turned away to rifle through his saddle packs, Reagan realized that the time had come to slip silently away. Turning just slightly, she tested the hide wall, judging its tautness, tugging against the stakes that held it, grimacing at the soft, almost imperceptible ripple of sound it gave off.
Behind her, her host paused in his rooting. “Josephine, ma petite chat,” he said, “is that you?”
Reagan eased the edge of the wall upward and, clamping her hat to her head with one hand, wriggled her way under the barrier, feet foremost. She was halfway out and already figuring what to do next when something cold and wet nuzzled the sensitive skin on the back of her wrist.
A snuffling sound issued from close at hand, followed by a throaty growl that raised the fine hairs at her nape. At the same time, something tugged at the roasted meat still clutched in her hand, gently, yet insistently.
Her heart pounding high in her throat, and a fist-sized knot in her stomach, Reagan slowly raised her head and froze, nose-to-nose with two hundred pounds of hungry mountain cat.
Inside the lean-to, Jackson Parrish Broussard took the gold timepiece from the flat leather pouch, running his finger over the small compass that had been fitted into the lid and the inscription that encircled the tiny dial.
Fata viam invenient.
“The Fates will find a way,” Jackson murmured.
Clay had truly believed it, yet Jackson did not possess such blind faith. Indeed, he never had.
It seemed that he had always been seeking, searching for something he could not name that would ease the tortured ache inside him. When he was a youth, his restless wanderlust and daring had often landed him in trouble, earning him the sobriquet “Jack Seek-Um,” a name he’d never embraced, but one that would seemingly haunt him to hell and the hereafter, and even into the High Shining.
That endless search had been the motivation behind the gift of the timepiece and compass, which his brother Clayton had presented to Jackson on his twenty-first birthday. “The words are to guide your path,” Clay had said, “the compass to keep that path unerring, and the timepiece to let you know when the time is right to come back home, back to the bosom of your loving family.”
At the time Jackson had laughed. Now, quite suddenly, he saw no humor in it, just heavy, inescapable irony. Clay had given the gift, hoping to guide a wayward younger brother back to the family fold. Yet the family fold was a place where Jackson, the proverbial black sheep, had never been truly welcome.
Almost from the cradle, Emil Broussard—sire to Clayton and Jackson Parrish, patriarch of an old and revered French Creole family—had seemed to harbor an unflinching animosity toward his younger son. Emil would not be happy to know that he was returning, yet cursed and reviled as he might be at his homecoming, Jackson remained determined. He was going home to St. Louis, the city of his birth, and the scene of his brother’s murder, and nothing and no one would stop him.
Sighing, Jackson returned the watch to safekeeping inside the leather pack and stood.
A low growl sounded outside the rear of the lean-to, capturing Jackson’s immediate attention, interrupting his thoughts. “Josephine,” he said again. “Come. Come to Papa.”
He had just started to turn away toward the door of the hut when a terrified screech split the air, and the night exploded all around him.
Something came hurtling out of the shadows. Low to the ground and moving at the speed of lightning, it slammed into Jackson’s knees and knocked him sprawling.
The missile fell with him, but didn’t seem to slow. Borne on the wings of a mindless panic, it cursed and clawed its way up, off, and past a stunned Jackson, scrambling to all fours, then gaining its feet, seemingly determined to get away.
Jackson was every bit as determined to prevent the intruder’s escape. Rolling to his stomach, he thrust out a hand, grabbing a handful of baggy breeches, dragging what seemed to be a ragged urchin down and beneath him.
Slight of frame, weighing no more than a half-filled sack of grain, it was garbed in clothing two sizes too large and screeching like a banshee. “Let go o’ me, damn it, or so help me, I’ll scream this place down around your ears!”
Jackson just smiled and cocked an ear toward the din rising from the evening’s festivities. Hoarse shouts, raucous laughter, and the scrape of a country fiddle filled the air, punctuated by an occasional gunshot. “Go on and scream, if you feel you must. Somehow I doubt that anyone will notice.” His smile, never genuine, abruptly faded. “Now, just who the hell are you, and what are you doing in my camp?”
Seeming to see the truth in his statement, the waif swallowed hard. “I wasn’t hurtin’ nothin’, honest, mister. I just needed a place to lay up awhile. Nobody was around, so I figured it was safe enough. I didn’t mean no harm.”
“Any harm. You didn’t mean any harm.”
“Ain’t that what I just said?” the youngster said impatiently. “Anyway, I was fixin’ to leave when I ran into a panther. God almighty, it was near big as a house, an’ for a minute there I was certain I was done for.”
Jackson shifted his weight, frowning down into the urchin’s features, abruptly aware that the body beneath him was not the gawky frame of a half-grown boy, but soft and pliant, almost feminine.
Jackson stared hard at the face beneath the brim of the battered hat, a cold trepidation gnawing at his consciousness. The features were shadowed, yet even in the half-light he could see their fragility. Reaching out, he grasped the slightly rounded chin, turning the face aside, studying the curve of the cheek, the line of the jaw.
She must have sensed the moment when realization struck him, must have seen amazement, then genuine horror dawning, for his hand was instantly, forcefully batted away. Yet her protest came too late. She tried to
twist away from him, but he straddled her and clamped both hands down over her shoulders, his fingers molding the delicate bones, pinning her to the ground. “Who the devil are you?” he demanded, “and how did you get here?’ ’
The girl remained stubbornly silent.
“Where is your guardian? You must have one. You can’t be here alone.”
“Why can’t I?” she burst out suddenly. “I’m old enough to look after myself!”
“Are you?” Jackson said, circling her wrist between thumb and forefinger. “Well, you haven’t been doing a very good job of it, now, have you? You’re thin as a fence rail.” It was a slight exaggeration on his part. In truth, the body beneath him was as lithe and supple as a reed; her rounded bosom and delightfully soft hips left no doubt in his mind that she was no child. She was definitely a woman fully formed, and unless he missed his guess, quite the fetching piece beneath the oversize men’s rags she wore.
But whose woman?
“What’s it to you?” she shot back angrily. Then, when he made no move to release her, she softened, and her eyes, a pale silver-gray and too large for her small, heart-shaped face, grew suspiciously moist. “All right, so I missed supper a time or two! You try eatin’ a full meal after you’ve been tossed belly-first over a mule the biggest part of a day, why don’t you?” She sniffed loudly, sweeping Jackson with a derisive glance. “You gonna keep me here all night, or what?”
“You still haven’t answered my question,” Jackson reminded her. Lessening his hold on her, he slowly stood, bringing her up with him, yet he did not release her. He had the uneasy feeling that the moment he let her go, she’d run like a hare before the hounds, and he was strangely reluctant to lose her just yet. “How long has it been since you’ve eaten?”
She glanced at him and then away—nervously, he thought. “I had a bite off yonder spit whilst I was waitin’. I guess it was your supper, huh?”
Jackson shot her an impatient glance. “While... while I was waiting. And yes, it was my supper.”
Bride of the Shining Mountains (The St. Claire Men) Page 2