Noble Savage

by Judith B. Glad

  He'd come into town just behind the burning newspaper office. The back door dangled from on one hinge, and inside the printing press--or what was left of it--was surrounded by flames.

  Would he find Katie still in the hotel? Anything could have happened to her in the three hours she'd been alone. Luke's mind tortured him with visions of what anything might have been.

  He did his best to stay in deep shadow of the hotel as he eased across a gap and toward the hotel. The wooden siding was rough and splintery, no doubt leaving tokens of his passing in the back of his coat. He ducked around the front corner and into the hotel lobby.

  There wasn't a soul in sight. Luke stuck his head in the kitchen door. Also empty. Stepping lightly, he mounted to the landing, took a quick look out the back window. Not a sign of life. He listened hard. There were no sounds from any of the four upstairs rooms.

  At the first door, he laid his ear against wood and listened again. Are you still here, Katie?

  Silence.

  He pushed lightly, breathed a sigh of relief when the door swung open on an empty room. Using the shotgun barrel to lift the dingy blanket, he bent and looked under the bed. Nothing but dust.

  The room across the hall was just as empty.

  Luke moved to the front, to the room he and Katie had occupied. Its door stood half ajar. The abandoned sock lay beside the bed, just where he'd left it. On the washstand he found a crumpled scrap of lace-edged linen and picked it up, holding it to his nose. Was that here before?

  Luke's gut clenched with worry.

  The door across the hall was closed. Luke tiptoed to it, cursing under his breath when a floorboard creaked under his weight. He listened, but heard nothing. The doorknob turned easily under his hand, and when he pushed slightly, the door resisted. Locked.

  He knocked. And waited, flattened against the wall beside the door.

  After a silent count of fifty, he knocked again.

  And waited again, shotgun at the ready. This time he counted to a hundred before kicking the door in.

  If there had been anyone in the hotel, the racket it made when it hit the wall would have brought 'em running. Luke waited a moment, then slipped through the doorway.

  A wool comfort covered the bed. It was mussed, as if someone had slept on it. The room held an odor of cigar smoke and nothing else.

  As he stood there wondering, he heard a soft sound, one that had no place in an empty building. Luke listened, heard it again.

  He knelt and peered under the bed. Well back, hard against the wall, was a dark bundle.

  He looked more closely, and the bundle resolved itself into a familiar blue caped coat, a frayed calico skirt.

  "Katie?" he whispered, not believing. "Katie, is that you?"

  Chapter Twenty-six

  A faint whisper. "Luke?" The bundle of rags shifted and became Katie. "Luke! You're safe!"

  He helped her scoot from under the bed and up onto it, catching her in his arms. "Hey, sweetheart. Are you weepin'?"

  She clung to him, her hands patting his body, her lips leaving little butterfly kisses across his bristly cheeks. "Oh, Luke, I waited so long...I was so worried about you...are you all right?"

  "I'm fine," he said, trying to hold her weight off his chest. Maybe that rib was broke, after all. "It takes more than a beating to kill a cowboy."

  She sat back and looked at him. Although her eyes widened at the sight of his face, she said nothing. But her fingers gently touched his split and swollen lips. "Oh, Luke, I'm so...so relieved! I thought you'd been--"

  "Hush, now. I'll be fine. Are you all right?"

  "Yes. Fit as a fiddle--Oh! You've got my shotgun! And the fiddle case! How...where did you find them?"

  He had to smile. "They were right where you left them. I reckon the Breedloves didn't think the case was worth their while. I had it fetched from Boot Hill." Luke did his best to get to his feet without grimacing, but he must have been unsuccessful.

  "Oh, Luke! Sit down. Please!" She pulled at his wrist until the bed caught behind his knees. Without protesting, Luke sat back down. God! I could lay back and sleep a week.

  "I probably shouldn't say this, but you look like something the dogs got tired of worrying and left in the dirt."

  He smiled. "Don't make me laugh, please. It hurts too much." He took a deep breath, then let it out. It hurt, but not too much. Maybe bruised and not broke.

  "How did you get away from those men?"

  "Oh, they got tired of their game after a while. Then Lafayette came along and showed me the way back to town."

  Katie looked again at his face, covered with colorful bruises, one eye swollen almost shut, and a crusted cut over his cheekbone. If he was anything like her brothers, he wouldn't want her to make a fuss, no matter how she wished she could.

  A volley of shots sounded from the street. "Sounds like things are heatin' up," Luke said. He rose and went to the window, standing beside it and looking out and down over his shoulder. "Somebody's building a barricade, down a ways," he said after a few minutes' observation. "Looks like they're fixing for a real showdown."

  "Will we be safe here?" Katie knew her question was silly even as she asked it. There was nowhere in Bear River City that was safe. Not tonight.

  Luke shook his head, not taking his gaze off the street below. "Time for us to get out of town." He held the shotgun out to Katie. "Here. This is yours."

  She hesitated. "Your rifle?"

  "Don't know. Up on Boot Hill, maybe? Or one of the Breedloves has it."

  "Keep the shotgun, then. I've got my derringers."

  Luke's expression told Katie his opinion of her small pistols. She didn't care. Family legend was that they'd saved more than one of her kin's lives. And she knew how to hit what she aimed at.

  With Luke in the lead, they crept down the stairs, through the hotel kitchen and out the back door. "Sure wish I knew where the livestock was," he half-whispered as they emerged into the open. "We've got to get out of town quick as we can, and I'm not good for many miles afoot." He eased around to the front corner of the hotel and peered up and down the street. Katie kept close behind him.

  "I thought you said you found Lafayette." She said softly, although she could have shouted and nobody more than a yard away would have heard. "Don't you know where he is?"

  "Last time I saw him was out east of town a ways. Never did see the jennets."

  "Maybe we can rent a horse and buggy at the livery stable."

  Luke turned around and regarded her with disgust. "Are you crazy? We're smack dab in the middle of a war and you want to rent a horse and buggy?"

  "When we left the livery stable, there wasn't anybody about. It can't hurt to try."

  Once more he looked into the street. "I think we'd better stay on this side until we get past the newspaper office. Let's go."

  The back walls of the buildings between the hotel and the upper end of the street looked almost like old friends to Katie as she passed one after another. This was the third time--or the fourth?--she'd come this way. She hoped it was the last.

  Each time they made a dash between buildings, Luke seemed to run more slowly. His face was drawn, his jaw tightly clenched.

  There were almost to the end of the street when the canvas flap that was the back door of a half-tent-half-log saloon opened in front of them. Before they could do more than step back, a man burst through the opening, gun in hand. "Out of my way," he snarled, raising the pistol.

  Luke stepped in front of Katie, shotgun at the ready. "We're doing you no harm, mister. Just let us pass on and we'll forget we even saw you."

  Katie forced herself to smile, as if she hadn't a care in the world.

  After a moment's indecision, the man shouldered by them and ran off toward the other end of the street. A shot thudded into the side wall of the next building as he crossed the gap.

  "Move!" Luke rasped at Katie. He pushed her ahead of him roughly, forcing her to trot.

  They reached the last shan
ty at the end of the street. Now they had to cross. Luke again peered down the street. "I don't know what's goin' on down there, but it's sure keeping 'em interested. How fast can you run?"

  "I reckon I'd keep up with you," she told him.

  "Okay. Run for it!"

  Katie ran as fast as she could. Even so, the street seemed to have widened by another mile. At least this time she wasn't alone. Behind her Luke's footsteps kept time with hers.

  The livery stable was locked up tight, a padlock on the small side door. "There's got to be a back way in," Katie said.

  "Are your guns loaded?"

  Katie nodded.

  "Let me have one, then." Luke waited for another rattle of gunfire before shooting the lock off. "Inside."

  The cavernous barn was dark, with no lantern lit and both big loft doors closed. Snuffles and nickers told her there were horses here, but all she could see were lighter and darker shadows.

  "I guess we pick by feel," he said. "Won't be the first time."

  "You're a horse thief?" Katie teased, wondering why she felt so exhilarated. She should still be scared stiff.

  "Every soldier is, once or twice." He moved away and Katie soon heard him open the gate to the small pen in which several horses had been last night. "Ah, there, my beauty. Friendly are you?" His voice was a croon. A man who loved horses.

  "I'll be right back," Katie called softly. She felt her way along until she came to the end wall. There had been a coil of rope and some gunnysacks. There! When she grabbed the gunnysacks, she saw that they'd been lying on top of a metal bin. It was about a quarter full of moldy grain. Quickly Katie scooped some into one of the gunnysacks and tied its mouth closed. This is becoming a habit. When I get home I'll have to send the hostler money to pay for all the feed I've stolen.

  Something thumped against the outer wall. "Who's there?" As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them. The last thing they wanted was for someone to find them in here.

  She stood totally still, listening. Another thump. The sound seemed to be getting farther away, as if whoever it was moved toward the back end of the barn. But it sounded like footsteps. Of many feet.

  Her belly a mass of ice, her legs frozen in place, she stared into the darkness toward the barn door. Moving slowly so she would make no sound, she drew back against the wall and crouched. With her dark clothing, she should be invisible, as long as she kept her face averted. She just hoped that Luke had been listening.

  A moment later there was a squeal of protesting hinges. Then nothing. Only the occasional nicker of a drowsy horse broke the silence inside the barn.

  Outside was a different matter. The noise level had increased again, an enraged growl that waxed and waned like the breaking of storm waves on a beach. Only when she'd walked the storm-ridden beach, Katie hadn't felt like she was caught in the middle of a war.

  "Katie?" Luke's voice. "Katie, where are you?"

  She was afraid to answer.

  "Katie," Luke called again. Laughter, of all things, sounded in his voice. "You'll never guess who found their way back."

  All Katie could think, with a vast sense of relief, was Now he won't have to steal a horse.

  They packed some horse blankets Luke had found into a second gunnysack and tied the two together with a length of rope. Luke slung them across Lafayette's back. "Sure wish you'd take a rider," Luke told the mule. "I sure don't cotton to ridin' Salome."

  "I'll ride her," Katie said. She owed the cantankerous donkey something for coming to the rescue last night. "You're in no shape to fight with her."

  To her great surprise, Luke agreed. He must be hurting a whole lot.

  Before they left the stable, she took time to open all the gates in the stable and push the doors wide enough ajar that escape was possible. Perhaps the stable was perfectly safe, but in the event of fire, she wanted the livestock it housed to have a fighting chance.

  Katie used the last of her pilfered rope to fashion a lead line for Lafayette. While she was working, Salome tried to take a chunk out of her coat sleeve. Sheba would follow Lafayette, even without guidance. A good thing, because Luke seemed to be moving more slowly and having trouble concentrating.

  Full dark had fallen by the time she led the animals around the end of the livery stable and up the same gulch they'd followed last night. Only last night? It seems ages ago.

  Once they were safely out of sight of town, she aimed Salome up the hill to the west. Somewhere in that direction was Evanston. It was up to her to find it.

  But first she had to find a place they could spend the night. She needed daylight to find her way overland. Besides, Luke was in no shape to be riding.

  It seemed to Luke they'd been riding for hours when Katie finally halted Salome and slid from the ass's back. He'd been half-lying along Sheba's back for most of the ride, alternately dizzy and queasy. When he tried to force himself upright, his ribs protested with a sudden knifelike pain.

  "Can you get down?" Katie said, her hand on his shoulder.

  "Sure can," he said, and let himself slide to one side. The trouble was, his legs seemed to belong to somebody else. They just sort of folded up and let him sprawl on the ground.

  "Luke! Are you all right?" She knelt beside him, clutching at his shoulders.

  "Fine," he mumbled. "I'm jus' fine." He rolled over and looked up at her. "Tired is all. So tired." He felt himself drift toward sleep, then caught at a drifting thought. "Whitney? Where's Whitney?"

  "He's gone," Katie said, "with the Breedloves. I told them his family would pay them a big ransom to get him back."

  Luke considered that for a moment, while Katie got up and went somewhere out of his field of view. At last he decided it made no sense. "It ain't like Kiah Breedlove to let a woman loose just to get his hands on money."

  She came back and knelt beside him, sliding one arm behind him and helping him to sit up. "Those three shotguns might have convinced him."

  "Yeah," Luke said with satisfaction. Then his breath whistled between his teeth as Katie squeezed his ribs. "Hold on there, woman. I'm a mite tender around the middle."

  She loosened her hug. "Tender? Luke, are your ribs broken?"

  He considered. "Well, maybe not all of 'em," he admitted, "but one or two, maybe."

  So quick it made his head swim even worse, she'd helped him over to a hollow under a big cedar, leaned him against the trunk, and had his coat open.

  "This is going to hurt," she told him as she tugged on one sleeve, "but we've got to get your ribs strapped up. My brother had a broken rib once and Pa said it could puncture one of his lungs if he wasn't careful."

  She eased him out of the coat, slowly and gently, but it still caused a couple of bad moments. Feeling like a helpless baby, Luke held still under her ministrations. The icy air raised goose bumps on his hide when she finally opened his shirt and unbuttoned his underwear so she could see his ribs.

  "My God, you're nothing but one big bruise."

  "A few cuts, but nothing to worry about."

  Her fingers touched him here and there, softly, like healing kisses.

  Luke gasped.

  "Yes, you definitely have a broken rib. Don't move."

  An uncomfortable while later, he was wrapped tightly from armpit to belly button in strips Katie had torn from her silk petticoat. For the first time since he'd woke up on Boot Hill, he felt like he could take a deep breath without being cut in half. When she helped him turn and lie down on the bed she'd made from cedar branches, his ribs only gave a twinge.

  "I'll be back in a minute," Katie said, as she laid his coat across his torso and one of the saddle blankets over his legs. "I want to feed the animals a bit"

  "Coat pocket," he said, feeling like he couldn't keep his eyes open one more minute. "Food."

  She dug into his pocket. "Oh, Luke, lemon drops!" She leaned over and kissed him.

  For the life of him, Luke Savage couldn't kiss her back. He was asleep even as her lips touched his.
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br />   Feeling the lack of response, Katie drew back. But Luke's face was relaxed, his mouth slack. She listened for a moment to his breathing. Slow and even. He was asleep. "Poor Luke," she breathed, "you must be worn out." She tucked the coat more firmly around his shoulders.

  Neither of them had slept last night. And while her day had been frightful, his must have been hell. He'd been shot. The beating he'd received at the hands of the Breedloves would have put many men to bed for a week. On top of that, he'd led the townsmen to a cache of Dynamite--how in the world did he know where it was?--searched for her, and ridden a donkey bareback for at least two hours.

  Tomorrow she intended to make him tell her more about his adventures while she was being held captive. His terse account during their ride out of town had left a lot out, she was certain.

  She made sure the animals were securely tied, told Salome to leave the knots alone. If they were to wander off, we'd be in a lot of trouble. Tomorrow they'd reach Evanston and she'd send a wire to her pa. Surely he was checking at the telegraph office in Salt Lake City daily, wondering why she was so late arriving. But Pa wasn't one to worry overmuch. He'd taught his children to take care of themselves, and expected them to do a good job of it.

  I don't know how proud you'll be of me, Pa. I haven't done a very good job of taking care of myself. And I've made some really foolish mistakes lately.

  The most foolish of all was falling in love with Luke Savage.

  She picked up the other two horse blankets and returned to where Luke lay on the bed of cedar branches. His face was cool but not cold, his breathing even. Even in the dim starlight, she could see the bruises that marred his face, the ear that drooped as if its cartilage was broken.

  Snuggling down beside him, she pulled the blankets over them both. In the few seconds between getting horizontal and falling asleep, Katie felt Luke's hand grope for hers.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  I'd give anything for a real bed to sleep in was the first thought in Luke's mind. It lasted less than a second after he discovered that there was a warm, womanly form snuggled against him. The lumpy bed of cedar branches under him was no longer important, nor were the aches all over his body.