“Guns?” Jessamyn queried, trying to remind herself that he was a man who knew the dark edges of the world, where morals changed like fashions.
He shot her a hard look. “Medicines, more likely. Guns we took from the Yankees but quinine and morphine required hard cash. The way I see it, too many of my friends died to line his pocketbook. Medicines such as the ones which kept Uncle Heyward alive.”
Jessamyn flinched, remembering the Ming china she’d sold for morphine to dull her father’s pain. “Dear God, Morgan.”
He faced her, braced like a soldier for judgment. “I asked Uncle Heyward for permission when I arrived and he agreed. He didn’t ask anything for himself; his only condition was to keep you as safe as possible. I know I risked his life needlessly and I’ll always be sorry for it.”
The ground seemed to shake under her feet. “I didn’t know, Morgan. He never spoke of it.”
His mouth twisted bitterly. “He was a soldier, Jessamyn, even when he was out of uniform. Unless you told him that you’d caught me…”
She shook her head, her brain spinning.
“All he knew was that I came to town on a secret mission for his country. He couldn’t talk about it, as long as the War continued.”
“And he died before it ended,” she said slowly. If her father had accepted the risks, then Morgan hadn’t been the selfish fool she’d always thought. “No wonder he asked to be buried in his uniform at Somerset Hall. We managed it, of course.”
Morgan nodded. “I know. I said good-bye to him there before I headed west.”
She looked up at him, tears rising in her eyes. “I’m sorry I misjudged you, Morgan.”
He shrugged jerkily. “I should have managed matters better so as not to endanger him. I’ll never forgive myself for risking his death in a Yankee prison.”
She hugged him, offering him what comfort she could. “But that didn’t happen, Morgan. Don’t think about that now; think about how we can defeat Charlie.”
His arms came around her in a bone-crushing hug. They clung to each other for a few minutes before he looked down at her, his gray eyes glowing with determination.
“Charlie has a great deal to answer for, Jessamyn. We can’t bring back the past, much as I’d like to see my friends alive again. Or gut him for trying to blackmail you out of the money to save your father.”
“Morgan!” Dear heavens, she’d thought he’d just disappeared into the twilight that evening, and left all responsibility for her behind. Old angers shattered even further.
His big hands rubbed her arms lightly. “But we can follow the map to the end first and laugh at him. Given how frantic he is about grabbing money, it may be a pretty fine revenge.”
She stiffened her spine and threw her head up. “It will be an excellent revenge.”
And she’d pray that the family legends were true and Ortiz’s gold was still there. No matter what, she had to regain Somerset Hall so that her beloved horses would be safe from Charlie.
Chapter Thirteen
Plaza de los Leones, Colorado
Morgan eyed Jessamyn’s glossy head as he carefully tightened the laces on her riding corset, unable to read her expression by the single lamp’s light. He’d hoped late yesterday afternoon she was recovering well from killing the two murderous bastards who’d been about to rape her and the other two women.
Now—now he just hoped she’d survive the ride across Colorado and deep into the San Juan Mountains. God knows, Charlie was a bastard and his men were the worst sort of thugs, capable of any murderous mischief.
But the ride would be long and hard, and the high mountains held their own dangers. They’d be traveling at eight thousand feet or higher for most of the trip. At that altitude, the air was thin and cold. Every step would be an effort, while unnecessary talking and exertion would be discouraged. The working days would be shorter, because recovery time would be longer. His and Charlie’s men came from the Colorado mountains so they’d have no problems. But Jessamyn? Since she’d been living at near sea level in Jackson for the past year, she would be easily exhausted until she slowly adapted.
They were traveling at high summer and the snow was melting quickly. But a heavy snowstorm could strike at any time, killing the unwary and trapping the well prepared in their tents for days. They would cross the timberline, over barren rock, and through ever-present snow at altitudes up to eleven or twelve thousand feet—on slopes covered with gravel and so steep that a single breeze could trigger a deadly rockfall.
Thunderstorms would hit regularly, with lightning bolts that sought out and killed anyone foolish enough to stand erect.
Besides the hazards arising from the high elevation, there were also those typical of a remote landscape: cougars, lynx, grizzlies, Utes…
He wished, yet again, that he was enough of the rogue she thought he was to tie her up and send her back to Denver, where she’d be safe.
Dammit, if he was to convince her he was a gentleman, he had to take her along.
He held her corset’s strings steady, although it was definitely laced looser than for a daytime corset and far looser than he’d see on a woman gussied up for a very fancy evening. He’d never before laced a woman into a riding corset, which needed the extra flexibility so she could respond to the horse’s movement. Wearing one, Jessamyn could supposedly ride for ten, even twelve, hours a day. “How does this feel? Too loose?”
She shook her head, sending an ebony curl teasing her neck. He eyed it hopefully; he’d always enjoyed making love to a half-dressed woman. It would delay the moment when he had to see her mounted, ready to risk her life. Perhaps they could stretch this out for another five minutes, slip their clothes off and…
“It’s perfect, thank you.” She glanced over her shoulder at him, her green eyes cheerful. “I can finish dressing myself now. I’m sure you’ll want to check all the arrangements, as Cyrus did.”
Morgan frowned. Arrangements? Cyrus left her bedroom early to check on travel preparations? What the devil had the man been thinking of? Why hadn’t he simply taken her back to bed?
Then he remembered their old childhood expeditions, when the three of them had worked together and everyone had a role to play, no matter what society dictated. Like the time he’d wanted to see A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as performed by the theatrical troupe from London, even though the adults said they needed to be in bed early that night. So Jessamyn had plotted a way to manage it. Then Cyrus stole the stepladder she’d noticed in the sewing room, while Morgan and Jessamyn were supposedly napping as befitted dutiful children. Finally Morgan shimmied into Longacres’ private playhouse’s second story first, then helped Cyrus up, followed by Jessamyn. They’d triumphantly watched the play from the minstrel’s gallery, even returning the stepladder without discovery.
Traveling with Cyrus must have been similar, working together to achieve a shared objective.
He kissed her on the top of her head and rose. He was unable, however, to resist a bit of teasing. “At least this morning, I will. But on other mornings, I may want to leave my tent at the same time you do. And the evenings, of course, offer their own possibilities.”
She froze, caught in the act of shaking out her chamois trousers preparatory to donning them, and shot him a wary look. He lifted an eyebrow at her, pleased by her response to a bit of flirting. “The only reason would be to ensure a simultaneous departure on our horses at dawn, of course.”
Jessamyn chuckled at his small joke and set her foot into the first trouser leg. “Please, go talk to the horses and the other men. Drink your coffee and check the packs. I’ll dress, finish my breakfast, and join you.”
Her second leg now safely in, she pulled the trousers up and fastened them. Fully clothed, dammit. Temptation was fading rapidly.
“You make escorting you sound very simple.” She’d sounded exactly as she had when they were growing up—as eager and ready for adventure as any boy. None of the society ladies he’d squired to Consortium clubs
, or the expensive prostitutes he’d purchased, had ever made spending time with them easy. It was almost worth losing the opportunity to tumble her exquisite body back onto the bed.
“Morgan, I want Charlie’s lead cut by every possible minute.” She reached for her shirt. Her simple breakfast of coffee and oatmeal steamed quietly on the table beside her, a silent reminder that she was in as much of a hurry as he was.
Morgan strapped his weapon belt close to his waist, shrugged into his fringed leather jacket, and dropped a kiss on her cheek. She blinked, then smiled at him.
Once out of her sight, he slipped his two Colts into their holsters, butts forward in the cavalry style, and buckled on his spurs. He pulled on his favorite old battered, broad-brimmed slouch hat and opened the door, his leather chaps creaking softly as they softened to his body.
The outside air had the quiet, slightly damp stillness that came just before first light. A few lamps burned, creating fitful reflections in polished metal and still water in horse troughs. Within the sturdy corrals, horses and mules stirred, their ears flickering, then returned to their feed.
A dozen men there glanced up at his arrival, then went back to work, all moving with the speed and dexterity of long experience. Tin clinked against tin once, in the unmistakable sound of a mug being refilled.
As he’d expected, he found Lowell with the mules. That young man was rapidly becoming one of the best packers Donovan & Sons had. At the moment, he and Mitchell, one of Mosby’s former guerrillas, were finishing securing a load with a diamond hitch and grunting at the strain. They hauled strongly on the rope, each throwing their full weight against it with a foot braced on the mule, until it was taut. Finally satisfied, they grinned at each other and stood erect, then quickly tied off the rope ends.
Mitchell jerked his thumb at Morgan then started lairing up the next pack, wordlessly giving Lowell a few minutes to chat. On this expedition, Morgan had ordered two-hundred-pound loads for the mules, not the typical two-hundred-fifty pounds, for faster travel and on the slim chance there would be gold.
The younger man picked up his mug and came over to Morgan. “Mornin’, sir.” He dipped a piece of cornbread into it and ate. Where had he found that much milk? Was it cow’s milk?
“Morning. How do the new Main and Winchester aparejos look?”
Lowell swallowed quickly. “The new pack saddles? Stock’s a little light but Daly says they’ll do for this trip. Picked up some new techniques on padding aparejos to make the mules more comfortable, too. Heard ’em from Clancy in Sacramento, who says they worked well on Crook’s last campaign.”
Morgan’s ears pricked up eagerly. If the pack masters had solved that old problem…
As Napoleon had once said, an army travels on its stomach. Donovan & Sons was a California-based outfit, originally founded to carry mining supplies and ore across the Sierra Nevadas on wagons and pack mules. Any Donovan & Sons expedition into rough country therefore usually preferred pack mules—and the weakest link was the mules’ skin. Because of that, Donovan & Sons used aparejos, pack saddles with flexible willow ribs interspaced with hay padding, which were the most comfortable available. But fitting the aparejos to the individual mules was a difficult art, which few pack masters understood. Most threw up their hands and called unhappy pack mules unsuitable for hard work.
But contented pack mules were animals that could keep up with a horse’s thirty miles a day throughout a long trip, while eating less and staying calmer than their more glamorous cousins. Mules were also more comfortable in extremely rough terrain, such as the San Juan Mountains.
Morgan had bet everything on an old map and his pack mules, even before he’d lost twelve hours to the attack yesterday. But if Clancy’s new techniques were good enough to supply the army of a top Indian fighter like Crook, they might give Morgan a few more hours a day of travel time—and help him catch up that much sooner to Charlie Jones.
“You’re sure about this?”
Lowell nodded. “See for yourself. Look at Rosie, Daly’s bell mare. Not a body bunch or a belly bunch on her. No sore tail, sore withers, sore loins, kidney sores…”
Morgan whistled softly. If his head mule skinner’s all-important bell mare was happy, then the mules would surely be happy. Plus, those mules would follow her, given every opportunity. The horses would, too, if left to their own devices, since horse herds were naturally led by top mares—and Rosie was definitely one of those.
Lowell nodded agreement and finished his glass of milk, then wiped his milk mustache off his beard shadow, which truly made him look caught between youth and adulthood.
“What’s Jones packing in on?”
“Heard they’re all horses. Good ’uns and plenty of ’em. Some ex-cavalry but lots of Thoroughbreds, too.”
“Morgans?”
Lowell shook his head and glanced back at the other packer, who was just finishing lairing up the next pack for loading. “Some but mostly bigger breeds. Heard he wanted all of ’em to double as riding stock.”
“Not many likely to be good in the mountains, in that case.”
An unholy gleam of laughter crept into Lowell’s eyes. “Not like ours. Especially not like your Chaco.”
Morgan grinned back. He’d demanded Morgans, Mexican-bred Barbs, or saddle-broke mustangs. “Yup. I’d best see to him, before he kicks a stall down.”
Lowell snorted in disbelief at that prediction.
Morgan chuckled, slapped Lowell on the shoulder, and headed for the barn, whistling softly. He had good men, good horses, and good mules. He had a fair chance to bloody Jones’s nose.
Inside he found Grainger saddling up a big iron-gray stallion with a white blaze on the forehead, who was peacefully chewing a wisp of hay instead of nipping at every passerby. A stable cat placidly washed a paw atop a hay bale only a few feet away, an extraordinarily odd sight near that brute. Morgan missed a step before he strolled forward.
“Morning, Evans,” Grainger said calmly.
“Morning, Grainger.”
Grainger glanced sideways at him. “Captain Evans saved my life more than once, you know.”
“He was a very good man,” Morgan said warily, wondering what this was leading up to. “We were raised together like brothers.”
“So I heard.” His voice was very quiet as he went on but deadly serious. “Mrs. Evans is a great lady and I’ll be watching for her. I know she’s accepted you, but as an unmarried woman, she should have a protector.”
What the devil did Grainger think he planned to do with her? Then Morgan started to laugh at their masculine posturing. “You realize, of course, that Mrs. Evans is more than capable of looking after herself.”
Grainger coughed. “I certainly do, sir. But I’ll still be here as her backup.” He tightened the girth and buckled it into place, followed by an affectionate rub for his mount. The big iron-gray stallion swished his tail and whickered contentedly.
Morgan eyed the big stallion, ready to consider the coming expedition again. What the hell had happened to change that horse?
“You’re riding Sherman?” Chaco, Morgan’s Indian pony, looked out of its stall, ears pricked forward hopefully.
Grainger shrugged. He was probably one of the very few men willing to chance riding that gray devil. “Seems nobody else had taken him out for some time and he was very well rested.”
Some people would have called that fresh enough to buck the devil off.
“Sure you don’t want to change mounts while you can?” Sherman was a fiend of a horse, who was alive only because he had twice as much stamina as any other horse in the Donovan & Sons string. Some fool had “promised” Sherman he wouldn’t be gelded for another year if he brought him safely back from an Apache attack. Sherman had succeeded and Donovan was keeping the fool’s promise, although there was a tally kept of how many months remained before he could be gelded.
“I’ll manage.” Grainger’s mouth twitched in the fitful light. “Besides, we spent some time togethe
r yesterday and seem to have reached an understanding. Didn’t we, Sherman?”
Sherman swung his head around to look at Grainger, happily accepted a good rub on his nose, and went back to chewing hay.
Morgan laughed, reminded of an old mystery. Why the hell was an ex-cavalry officer working for Donovan as an ordinary teamster?
“Did you look at Mrs. Evans’s sidesaddle?” He rubbed Chaco’s nose as he fed his desert-bred horse maple sugar candy, his favorite treat.
“It had been cleaned before it arrived but the men touched it up.”
“How well did it fit the horses?”
Grainger’s eyebrows went up. “It was custom-made in London to fit Starshine, you know.”
Morgan stared. Cyrus and Jessamyn had been living on an Army officer’s salary. How had they afforded a custom-made sidesaddle, especially one from London, the ne plus ultra of saddlemakers?
“Mrs. Evans won a shooting contest against men with her rifle one December,” Grainger answered the unspoken question as he brought out the sidesaddle. “Her husband had made some side bets on her prowess and used his winnings to buy the saddle. While Starshine was her favorite horse and the one used as the model, Captain Evans also asked that the saddle fit American horses, such as Morgans, Southwestern-bred Barbs, and mustangs.”
“Good Lord.” London-made sidesaddles usually fit only Thoroughbreds, making them almost useless for the shorter, stockier mustangs and Morgans found on the American frontier.
“I personally tested its fit on Starshine yesterday, as well as several of our Morgans. It worked well on all of them.”
Morgan’s eyebrows shot up. He’d hoped Jessamyn could use at least one of his horses as a remount, but that had seemed a faint hope. “All of them?”
“Some of the Morgans needed the blanket to be rearranged slightly, to adapt the tree to them. But two of them were calmer under it than under an astride saddle.” Grainger began saddling up Starshine with the calm dexterity of someone who’d handled a sidesaddle before.
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