“It has a better-fitting tree for their backs.” Morgan voiced the explanation and Grainger nodded agreement.
Morgan eyed Starshine, automatically noting the proud lines of her head. He remembered saddling up other horses at Somerset Hall, under the same filtered light with the same sweet smells of clean horses and good feed, while Socrates and Galileo talked about the colts and fillies gamboling in the pastures. His fingers stretched, as if reaching for a bridle to slip over the head of a high-spirited stallion.
That was what Jessamyn was fighting for—to take those horses and rebuild that world somewhere else, someplace safe from plague. Looking around Donovan & Sons’ much smaller stable, he could almost feel the reality of her crusade.
Then Chaco nosed his jacket, looking for more maple sugar. Morgan chuckled, rubbed his old friend’s neck, and led him out.
“Mrs. Evans may be able to last longer in the sidesaddle than many of us,” Grainger added.
Morgan shot him an incredulous look as he began to saddle up Chaco.
“She regularly kept up with experienced cavalry troopers and outlasted greenhorns. Then she danced all night, if there was a ball to be had.”
Morgan shook his head as he threw the blanket over Chaco’s back. “Well, that is the standard for a horsewoman,” he commented, remembering his mother. “She should also be able to ride over even the roughest terrain, given that London-made saddle.”
“What about Mrs. Jones? Is she—”
“Maggie Jones was as tough as old rawhide when I first met her and she rode astride then. But carriages are her preferred mode of transport now.”
“She might slow them down,” Grainger commented hopefully.
“Especially since she greatly dislikes rising before dawn. And she’s gained two dozen pounds, perhaps three dozen, in the past year.”
Grainger’s eyes gained a calculating gleam in the lamplight. He brought a diagonal strap under the sidesaddle, stabilizing it, and buckled it. “If we cut eight hours off their lead before we’re in the San Juans…”
Morgan gave him a wolfish grin. “We’d essentially be on an even footing.”
“Giving us ways to slow them down, like raiding them,” Grainger completed the thought and slid a Sharps carbine into its neat scabbard on the sidesaddle’s off-side. There were two similar scabbards, one for a revolver and another clearly for a telescope. “Or them to slow us down.”
Morgan shot a sideways glance at Jessamyn’s armament. Cyrus had had her sidesaddle customized for rifle and revolver, too? Did he allow her to ride with him into rough territory as well? His jaw set. She’d need it where they were going.
Jessamyn came out of the depot a minute later, her new dark green riding habit showing her superb figure to its fullest advantage, a broad-brimmed Spanish hat atop her ebony braids. “Good morning, gentlemen,” she greeted the company at large.
A dozen of Donovan & Sons’ roughest teamsters promptly shuffled their feet like schoolboys and doffed their hats. Even Little, Grainger’s big Indian guide, bowed to her. “Ma’am.”
She smiled at all of them impartially, before her gaze exploded with warmth. “Starshine, sweetheart,” she crooned, offering the gentle mare a lump of sugar.
Morgan’s mouth twisted. One day, dammit, she’d see him as a gentleman and she’d smile at him openly. One day, although he hadn’t yet accomplished it on this trip.
Still, there was no time to waste. He lifted Jessamyn into the saddle and waited until she was well settled, with the reins gathered up in her gloved hands. She sat as erect and squarely as a man, the only visible difference being her skirts flowing over Starshine’s side. She slipped her pocket Navy into the revolver’s scabbard and the map tube into the other empty scabbard, the one designed for a telescope.
Then Morgan swung himself up onto Chaco’s back. His old friend pranced a bit, happy to be reunited with his favorite human and back at work, but quickly settled down. Morgan whistled the quick lyrical notes that signaled “saddle up” to Donovan & Sons’ men.
Leather creaked, metal jangled, horses neighed as the teamsters obeyed. Rosie’s bell sang, marking her eagerness to move out. The mules came into line, their bells tinkling sweetly.
Morgan raised his voice slightly as Forrest had taught him beside a flooded Tennessee River. “Listen up, men!”
Combat veterans all, they immediately came alert. Even the horses seemed to grow quieter.
“Y’all know we’re racing Charlie Jones but you don’t know where. We’re going to Santa Fe…”
Some puzzled frowns appeared. There were far too many men, too heavily armed, too well equipped, for a quick race over the Sangre de Cristo Pass. Little, the big scout, dipped another piece of cornbread into his mug and ate it calmly.
“In search of Ortiz’s gold!”
Comprehension quickly dawned. Grins broke out. Somebody cursed happily. Morgan glanced at Jessamyn, who took up the thread smoothly. “Specifically, west to the Rio Grande, then northwest along the river to the Three Needles in the San Juans. After that, we turn south over the mountains to the desert and make our way back to Santa Fe.
“Jones made it over the Sangre de Cristo Pass last night, giving him a day’s head start,” Morgan continued. “Anybody know who’s riding with him?”
“His favorite thugs,” Lowell answered promptly, his right as the last member of their party to have encountered Jones’s cohorts in Denver, pausing in his consumption of a chicken leg. Would that boy never stop eating? “The Easterners who stole the Firelight from Nelson.”
“Any of them good horsemen?”
“Experienced with buckboards and buggies. Never heard much talk of any of them as expert horsemen, though,” Mitchell, the usually taciturn Virginian, commented thoughtfully.
“Hard men. Damn good with any weapon you care to mention—pardon my language, ma’am—including mining tools, and can clean out two saloons in less than fifteen minutes,” Rutledge and Calhoun, the two Alabamians added, finishing each other’s sentences as usual.
“That’s quite all right, gentlemen.”
“But his outfitter’s Hazleton’s,” Taylor pointed out. “His saddle is probably loaded with more ammunition than the others’.”
“That’s only one man,” Lowell objected.
“Who’s the best packer in the Colorado and Wyoming territories,” Dawson, the cook, countered. “As well as his brother, who’s the cook.”
“Two men, and another six thugs, plus Jones and his wife,” Morgan summed up the competition. “All dangerous men—but we’re better.”
Agreement rumbled through the circle. He looked around his audience, molding them into a unit in the cold dawn. “For the next five days, we have good terrain—after we cross this pass. We can make time over the San Luis Valley’s rolling hills, as we move up the Rio Grande to the San Juans.”
Nods of understanding went around the circle. Lowell finished his chicken leg and set it aside.
“But we have to arrive at the San Juan Mountains fresh enough to cross those piles of rock. That’s the real challenge: what the spare horses are for, why the pack mules are loaded so lightly. We will not tire our animals by recklessly galloping after Jones. We simply want him and his boys in sight when we reach the Three Needles.”
He could see their eyes now in the first, faint glimmers of dawn. Hunters’ eagerness shone there and the leashed tension of hounds ready to hunt. He’d seen the same look more than once in his fellow Rebels when they heard dawn orders beside the Mississippi or Tennessee rivers. These men were hungry for the chase and the fight to follow, with anticipation blazing in their eyes.
The same fever boiled in his blood and spilled over into his words. “Let those pilgrims think their money can fly them over the rocky peaks. The mountains will separate the men from the boys.”
Teeth gleamed as they roared their agreement, their certainty becoming bloodthirsty. Every man here had seen the high mountains in a wicked mood and the San Juans w
ere some of the worst. Donovan & Sons’ teamsters were the cream, and Charlie’s men, for all their viciousness and expensive gear, were pilgrims, who’d rarely ridden through the wild, high country. If—and that alone would be very difficult—Morgan’s men could make up most of Charlie’s lead, then they should be on an even footing crossing those mountains.
Jessamyn’s eyes gleamed. She held her head high, with her expression stalwart. She looked every inch a warrior’s woman, something she undoubtedly learned beside Cyrus.
A muscle ticked in Morgan’s cheek. Cyrus had been an uncommonly lucky man. He continued, more briskly than before, “Questions? No? Then let’s move out, boys. We need to be on the trail at sunrise.”
Five minutes later, they rode out of the depot, a long deadly string of a dozen armed men, with their horses and pack mules. Morgan rode at the head with Jessamyn beside him. Little was just behind him, with Grainger. They wouldn’t need his skills until they sighted the San Juans’ foothills. The spare horses and pack mules were in clusters toward the rear of the column, moving in short enough strings to be easily guarded. Everyone, both men and animals, knew exactly what they were doing and looked well pleased to be about it.
Sunrise’s golden light flashed on bridles and Colt revolvers. Someone began to whistle “Yellow Rose of Texas” in time with the jingle of tack and the steady thud of hoofbeats, the creak of newly tied packs adjusting to frame and mule.
A few minutes later, they began the steep climb up the Sangre de Cristo Pass beside the rushing river. Morgan had timed their departure perfectly: They should have just enough light to manage this, the most difficult portion, and still have a long day afterward for the race.
But how well would Jessamyn manage, riding sidesaddle? She couldn’t grip a horse between her legs, as the men did. She had to tighten her thighs on the sidesaddle’s leaping horn, which struck him as a much less secure method for traveling difficult terrain. Besides, she couldn’t have ridden as much during the past year, while she’d lived in Jackson as a widow.
The trail twisted into the mountains, turning and dropping a bit, where a rainstorm had eaten a chunk, enough to trouble an unwary horseman. Morgan glanced over his shoulder at her, knowing full well he was behaving like a hen with one chick, and opened his mouth to warn her.
As befitted her name, Starshine was moving smoothly and gracefully up the steep wagon road. Jessamyn sat straight and tall on her back, her carriage as erect as any trooper on the parade ground, albeit a trifle higher in the saddle, with the reins comfortably gathered in her hands. She gave no visible cue to Starshine, yet the graceful mare nimbly rounded the corner as easily as if it were a broad Memphis boulevard. Horse and rider moved a few steps closer to the mountainside, avoiding the gap in the road, and returned to pacing calmly up the trail.
Jessamyn glanced up and caught his eye. “Yes, Mr. Evans?” she asked, one eyebrow arched.
Morgan was damn proud of her—but he couldn’t let her see that he’d been worried. He quickly thought of another topic. “Did you see the blue grouse?”
Her head came up fast, looking into the forest. “Where?”
“Sitting on the branch of that fir.” He pointed.
She swiveled around in her saddle, following his finger. “Amazing,” she purred in satisfaction when she caught sight of the bird, almost completely hidden in the shadows. “No way to reach him, though, if we shot him, since he’s on the other side of the river.”
“True.” Take her into the mountains and the famous sharpshooter appeared immediately.
“Do you remember when you shot that mallard and you waded through the mud to fetch him?”
Morgan laughed, remembering the first time he’d ever shot a duck. “How could I forget? My mother scorched my ears about ruining my clothes and trying to catch pneumonia by taking off my boots.”
She chuckled with him. “At least we were allowed to take retrievers with us the next time we went shooting, since our parents agreed we might just hit something.”
“Did anyone train Charlie?”
She glanced at him. “With long guns? He was thrown out of Memphis at fifteen. I assume he had some practice with long guns by then.”
“No talk of it?”
She frowned. “None that I can remember. At least not of him as a hunter. But Father always said Charlie was only interested in hide-out guns. Derringers, revolvers, and so on.”
“Why was he thrown out of Memphis?”
Jessamyn was silent for a long time, her face troubled. “I’m not sure,” she said finally. “It was just after you went to Arizona. He left the day before his parents’ funeral, immediately after my father met with him. His parents died under unusual circumstances.”
“What?”
Her voice was very soft, difficult to hear over Starshine’s hooves. “Their town house burned and they were found dead, in their bedroom. Everyone was surprised that they could have slept through the fire.”
Morgan bit off a string of curses.
“No official action was taken. I believe his parents’ estate went to pay Charlie’s and his father’s gambling debts.”
“If Charlie had anything to do with it…”
“Which might be why my father, acting in his capacity as one of the executors, ordered him out of town. Yes, it could easily explain why he tried to blackmail me and why he wants Somerset Hall so much now.”
“If he tries to attack you now, I’ll be glad to gut him and stake him out on a fire ant mound,” Morgan growled, naming the gentlest revenge he could think of.
Jessamyn’s head snapped around and she stared at him, green eyes wide under her broad-brimmed hat. He stared back, his jaw set. If she didn’t like that penalty, he’d be glad to design another. Perhaps something involving fire and tying Charlie to a bed.
Her eyes widened. Then she nodded an acknowledgment and went back to guiding Starshine through the difficult ride.
It took almost four hours to climb to the top of the Sangre de Cristo Pass beside that steep little stream, first traveling through the heavy mists of a dense stand of Douglas firs. Jessamyn found it a relief to break out into the windswept, rocky slopes where scattered limber pines reached to the sky, the winds keening through their needles. The ground was still icy cold, with deep patches of snow in every shady corner and water trickling from their edges.
At the top, the party paused to rest the animals and enjoy a superb view of the prairies to the east, seen between the cones of the Spanish Peaks. Pacing to stretch her limbs, Jessamyn watched an eagle circling high above, while she restlessly tossed pebbles over the edge.
This was already the longest ride she’d been on in the past year and her muscles were protesting. Yet she still had seven, or more, hours left in the saddle and she was damned if she’d let any of the men think her weak.
She’d never been this far west before, although she’d seen the Rockies, of course, and spent a week in Denver once for a friend’s wedding. But this was entirely different. Nearly a dozen Confederate cavalry veterans surrounded her. She was riding into Ute Indian territory, to race Charlie, his slut of a wife, and his thugs for gold. It promised to be the wildest of rides into the roughest territory—and she was taking Morgan at her side, having pledged to spend it with him in her bed.
A treacherous warmth weakened her limbs at the thought—and the memories it evoked from the train trip. She cursed her own weakness for the man. Was a thought of him the only thing necessary to turn her into a swooning, weak-willed female, who’d beg to be tumbled by a fellow with light-filled eyes and hard, skillful hands?
Morgan Evans. How much did she trust him? To race—and strive to defeat—Charlie with every fiber of his being? Certainly, given that he wanted to defeat Charlie to avenge his friends from the War—and that he showed signs of protecting her from Charlie’s insults.
An attitude that almost made her reconsider her previous opinion of him.
Of course, she could hand over the map to Morgan a
nd wait for him in Denver. It would be the safest course to take, if she thought he’d bring all of the gold back to her. But what if he kept most of it for himself, following the same sharp practices he’d used to build his fortune? Ortiz’s gold was a treasure so great it would sweep most men’s sanity away.
She’d never know if she didn’t travel with him.
Dear Lord, how she wished she could believe he was a gentleman, as she had when she was a child. She snatched up a larger rock, the size of her fist, and threw it out across the trail. It shattered against the rock beyond and fell, tumbling for hundreds of feet.
“Jessamyn?”
She jumped and spun around. She’d been so absorbed, she hadn’t even heard his spurs jingling. “Yes, Morgan?” She stepped back from the verge.
“About the horses at Somerset Hall…”
Why was he bringing them up now? “Yes?”
“If Socrates and Aristotle had some money, do you think they could hire extra men to help them guard the horses? It’s almost fever season now so thieves may get bolder.”
He was concerned about the horses? And his former jailers? She swallowed to force down the lump in her throat. “I’m sure they could.”
He nodded decisively. “I’ll wire the funds from Fort Garland tonight.”
“Morgan—” She automatically started to refuse his charity.
He smiled at her wryly. “Call it a zero-interest loan, Jessamyn, for when you find Ortiz’s gold.”
Did he really believe in the treasure or was he simply tossing a sop to her pride? Did it matter, when it might save her friends’ lives? “Thank you.”
“My pleasure.”
He strode back toward his men, whistling the same call he’d given that morning, causing men and horses to lift their heads. Coffee was poured over a campfire, sending steam hissing up. Horses’ ears pricked forward. Clearly it was time to depart.
Jessamyn tossed the remaining pebbles aside and turned back to Morgan. She was riding west, in search of Ortiz’s gold to save Somerset Hall.
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