Teton Splendor

by Peggy L Henderson

  Joseph sprang to his feet. He couldn’t give her another second to change his mind about leaving her behind. He had to find whoever shot at them. He gave her an encouraging smile, and she nodded, her brown eyes glistening with tears she obviously fought to hold back.

  He steeled his heart and ran into the forest. Darting around limbs and leaping over deadfall, using every tree and shrub for cover, he backtracked around the small clearing. He gripped his knife in one hand, and his ax in the other. When he neared the area where he thought the shot might have come from, he slowed his pace. He stopped to listen. A slight evening breeze rushed through the canopies of the tallest trees, their trunks groaning as they swayed. Birds resumed their chirping, as did the frogs and crickets.

  Joseph’s mind raced. Who the hell would be shooting at them? Hostile Indians wouldn’t have stopped at one bullet. Besides, warriors didn’t shoot like cowards from behind trees. A sinking feeling gnawed at his gut. The man on the dun horse came to mind. He hadn’t thought about him in weeks. For the first few days after leaving St. Louis, he had kept a watchful eye out for anything suspicious. After a week, he shrugged off his earlier thoughts that the man had followed them from the Ohio. There had been no signs of anyone tailing them, but right now, he was the only person he could think of. Why the hell had he been so careless and let his guard down? Traveling with Chase Russell and Sam Osborne had given him a false sense of security. He cursed at his own stupidity. His lack of judgment almost cost Sophie and him their lives.

  Carefully, Joseph searched the ground. The dirt behind a large downed tree appeared disturbed, and he knelt beside it, his ears honed to any unusual sounds. The shooter had definitely been here. The soft damp earth was trampled with the impressions of a man’s boots. It confirmed that this hadn’t been an Indian.

  Joseph followed the tracks deeper into the forest until they met with hoofprints. He scanned the surrounding area. The shooter had mounted his horse, and had obviously been in quite a hurry to leave, judging by the way the horse’s hooves had churned up the earth. Joseph followed the prints for a while, which led directly to the creek, and back toward his camp.

  “Goddammit.”

  Joseph clenched his jaw and ran along the bank toward where he left Caleb, his eyes scanning both sides of the creek to see if the horse had left the water at any point. His heart pounded fiercely, afraid of what he might find when he reached their small meadow. Would the bastard shoot an innocent child? So far, no other shots had been fired.

  “Joseph,” a frantic voice called from around the bend in the creek. Tall trees obstructed his view, and Joseph redoubled his efforts. By the time the small meadow came into view, Caleb was running toward him.

  “Are you all right?” Joseph called, his eyes scanning for a rider. Moments later, Caleb flung his body at him. Joseph pulled the boy into a tight embrace, lifting him off the ground. Caleb clung to him, his legs wrapped tightly around his waist.

  “Are you hurt?” Joseph asked, waiting for the boy to control his sobs.

  “N . . . no,” he stuttered. Tears ran freely down the boy’s face. “But I heard all those gunshots, and I thought you and Miss Sophie were . . .”

  “Miss Sophie’s fine, Caleb,” Joseph reassured him in a soothing voice. “I know she must be worried about you, too.” He hesitated for a moment, then asked, “Did you see anyone come past our camp?”

  “Yessir.” Caleb hiccupped. “A man rode right past me like the devil was after him.”

  “A white man? What kind of horse was he riding?” Joseph pried the boy’s arms from around his neck. “Can you remember?”

  “He was a white man on a tan horse. I think I seen him before, right after the boat sank.”

  Joseph cursed silently. Who the hell was that bastard, and more importantly, why was he following them? Why had he waited until now to make his move?

  You should have confronted him back in St. Louis. Dammit.

  Joseph glared into the distance. The man could be anywhere at this point. Hell, he could be hiding behind any number of trees, watching and waiting to make his next move.

  “Let’s go get Miss Sophie,” Joseph said. As much as every cell in his body urged him to go after the shooter, he had to stay with Caleb and Sophie. Besides, it was getting dark very quickly. There was still enough time to move their camp to a more secure location if they hurried. He wasn’t going to let his guard down again.

  Joseph set Caleb on his feet. He retrieved his rifle that the boy had tossed in the grass, and together they hurried back to where he left Sophie. She had to be scared out of her mind. Especially since he’d left her with . . . Joseph snatched Caleb into his arms and broke into a run. When the clearing with the hot water pool came in view, he stopped in his tracks. Walking toward him was Sophie, leading a horse with a man leaning heavily over the saddle. Anger quickly replaced his concern. That damn fool. He should know better than leave the cover of the trees and come out in the open.

  “Miss Sophie, Miss Sophie,” Caleb called and squirmed his way out of Joseph’s arms and dashed past him. Sophie stopped and knelt in the grass, her arms wide open and a smile on her face that brought a groan from Joseph’s throat. The boy fell into her embrace, and she hugged him tight.

  “I told you to stay where I left you,” Joseph said gruffly when he caught up with the boy. Sophie raised her head to look up at him. The relieved smile on her face dissolved quickly, and she hastily wiped at the tears rolling down her cheeks. She released her hold on Caleb, and stood. Joseph cursed. The hurt and fearful look in her eyes made him wish he could take back his harsh words. No doubt it wasn’t she who had decided to leave the shelter of the trees.

  Joseph rushed to her, and pulled her into his embrace. Her body sank against his, and she sobbed into his shirt.

  “It’s all right,” he whispered. “Everything’s going to be all right.” He stroked his hand down her head and back, and held her until her trembling eased. Someone loudly cleared their throat, and Joseph pulled away from the soft woman in his arms, cursing silently.

  He glanced up at the man sitting stooped over on his horse, clutching at his shoulder. His face was drenched in sweat, and his eyes glazed over in pain. He sat straighter in the saddle and met his stare, forcing a grin.

  “Hello, brother,” he rasped between clenched teeth.

  ****

  Joseph pulled his knife from the hot flames of the fire. The blade glowed a deep orange before fading quickly to black. The last rays of the sun were fast disappearing behind the tall canopies of the lodgepole pines that surrounded them. After watching Lucas sway on the back of his horse, there had been no time to move their camp as he had intended. A bullet was lodged deep in his brother’s shoulder. A few inches lower, and it would have been a fatal shot. He held the knife in front of his face, then shifted his gaze to Lucas, who sat inches from him.

  “Ready?” Joseph asked. His eyes darted beyond the light of the fire. Sophie rummaged through one of their packs, searching for her leftover bandages that she had used to bind his wound all those weeks ago. They would come in handy now. Caleb sat quietly on the other side of the fire. Joseph had instructed him to keep his back turned, telling him to keep a lookout for suspicious movement beyond the creek. Truthfully, he didn’t want the boy to witness the gruesome sight of what he had to do.

  Lucas swallowed several times. His face and bare chest glistened with sweat, even in the cool evening air. He met Joseph’s gaze, then nodded with a determined set to his jaw.

  “You’ve had worse than this,” Joseph commented dryly, recalling the arrow he had to pull from his brother’s back a few years ago. Lucas had taunted a group of Blackfoot warriors, leading them on a chase through the mountains for nearly two days. He’d barely escaped with his life that time. Even that hadn’t taught him a lesson to curb his impulsive behavior.

  Quickly, Joseph inserted the tip of the blade into the fleshy hole in his brother’s skin, and widened the opening. Hot blood trickled from th
e wound, first slowly, and then in greater spurts. Lucas flinched, and his pulse throbbed in his throat. He gritted his teeth, a low moan rumbling in his chest. Joseph reached his fingers into the wide hole, and dug out the bullet. He reached for a second knife in the fire. He hesitated for a second, his eyes meeting his brother’s. Cauterizing the wound was the only way to stop the flow of blood. Lucas nodded.

  Joseph held the hot steel to the wound. The stench of burning flesh mingled with the smoke from the campfire. Lucas gasped for air. Joseph sensed he was on the verge of crying out in pain, but he knew his brother well enough to predict that his stubborn pride would never allow him to show weakness in front of a woman.

  “Why were you hiding out in the bushes, Lucas?” Joseph pulled the blade away from the wound. The flesh was seared black, and the bleeding had slowed once again to a slow trickle. No doubt Lucas would count the resulting scar as another proud notch in his reckless lifestyle.

  A painful grin spread across Lucas’ face, and he continued to breathe in rapid spurts. He glanced toward Sophie, who was heading their way.

  “You looked a mite busy at the time, Joseph. I wasn’t gonna spoil the moment for you. Too bad someone else had to.”

  Joseph glared at him. “Lucky for us that man was a bad shot,” he remarked.

  Lucas scoffed. He glanced down at his wound. “Like hell he was a bad shot. He got me.”

  “But he wasn’t aiming for you,” Joseph argued. “Maybe if you hadn’t been spying, you wouldn’t have gotten shot. Serves you right that the bullet hit you.”

  “Well lucky for all of us he decided to hightail it outta there rather than reload his rifle and take another crack at you. He might have killed me with a second round. Who’d you rile so badly that he wanted to shoot you?”

  “Wish I knew,” Joseph mumbled. He stood, and turned toward Sophie. “Let me have those bandages,” he said, holding out his hand.

  “I’ll do it,” she said, her chin raised. “Or did you forget that I’m quite capable of bandaging a wound?” Her eyes widened to add to her challenge.

  Hell, no, he hadn’t forgotten that she could apply a bandage. A flood of heat coursed through him at the memory of her daily ministrations when she tended to his flesh wound. Her tender woman’s touch had held more healing power than a medicine man’s herbs and magic chants. It was for that exact reason that he didn’t want her wrapping Lucas’ wounds.

  Joseph swallowed back his irrational thoughts, and stepped aside. “My brother can be quite the crybaby when he’s wounded,” he remarked with a smirk on his face.

  “Not if there’s a pretty woman tending to me,” Lucas retorted, and flashed Sophie a wide grin.

  Joseph ground his teeth. Sophie glanced from him to Lucas, then back to him. Their eyes locked, an unspoken longing written clearly in her brown depths before she broke contact and knelt to the ground beside his brother. The warmth in her gaze dissolved his irritation quicker than the sun’s hot rays on a patch of snow, and he watched silently while she wrapped the bandages around Lucas’ shoulder.

  Thoughts of her kiss surfaced, and a warm feeling enveloped him, tightening around his heart. In two days, she would meet her grandfather. What would happen after that? Was there a chance that she might choose to stay where she was born rather than return to Boston? Why had he waited so long to make his feelings known? Hell, he hadn’t even told her.

  I love you.

  Three words he never thought he’d say to another woman. He’d fought his attraction to Sophie from the first time he saw her. He’d stubbornly refused to acknowledge those feelings all these weeks. Today, all day, he’d watched her, riding tirelessly and without complaint like she’d done every day since leaving St. Louis. By the time he called a halt for the night, he knew he couldn’t wait any longer. His need to hold her and kiss her was stronger than the desire to protect his heart. It was no use. He had already hopelessly lost himself to her, and watching her return to Boston might just kill him.

  Joseph gathered his rifle off the ground and headed toward the creek. He stood and gazed off into the distance, his senses tuned in to the sounds of the evening. From now until they reached his family’s homestead, he couldn’t let his guard down. As soon as he delivered Sophie safely to her grandfather, he was going after the man who attempted to kill them today. He needed answers.

  “So, you found Raven.” Lucas appeared alongside him, and stared off into the distance across the water for a moment before turning his eyes on him. The knowing grin on his younger brother’s face was more than irritating. The white material of the bandage wrapped around Lucas’ shoulder and chest stood out sharply against the surrounding darkness. Joseph glanced back toward the fire. Sophie sat with Caleb, her eyes on him.

  “She goes by the name Sophia Yancey,” Joseph forced from his mouth.

  “Must have been quite the journey west by the looks of what I saw today.”

  “What are you doing here, Lucas?” Joseph asked gruffly, cutting off his brother’s insinuations.

  Lucas rubbed at his chin. “I really wasn’t expecting to find you here, and especially not with a beautiful woman in your arms. But since you asked, I’m on my way home from a hunting trip. Couple of days ago I ran into a village of Blackfoot.” He paused, and glanced toward Sophie. “I saw Feather in the Wind.”

  Joseph clenched his jaw. Why would his brother bring up his former wife, the woman who had tossed him aside five years ago? He concentrated his gaze on the treeline beyond the creek. His feelings for her had vanished over the years. Lately, the only woman in his thoughts sat twenty yards behind him. Sophie was as attracted to him as he was to her, he was sure of it. Her stolen glances over the course of their journey, her willingness to fall into his arms earlier today, her response to his kiss; it all confirmed it. But were her feelings strong enough to keep her here, with him?

  “She told me she wants you back.”

  Lucas’ words jolted him as if he’d been punched in the stomach. His head whipped around to stare at his brother.

  “She has a husband. And a brother who would just as soon kill me than have me look at her,” Joseph said through clenched teeth. The thought of the woman he used to call his wife left a sour taste in his mouth.

  “Her husband and brother were both killed in a raid against the Crow. She has no other blood relatives who can take her in. She wants to come back to you.”

  Joseph laughed slowly. “I’m sure there’ll be another warrior she can marry.”

  Lucas shrugged. “Some men have more than one wife.” His chin jutted toward Sophie.

  “I’m not interested in two wives,” Joseph growled. He stared at his brother, daring him to say another word. He was fully aware that Lucas was merely taunting him, but with his heart in turmoil over Sophie, he was in no mood to play along at the moment. “I’ll take first watch. Get some rest and I’ll wake you in a few hours.” He turned on his heels and headed further upstream, letting the darkness swallow him up.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “What a magnificent view!”

  Joseph resisted the urge to turn around in his saddle to glance back at Sophie. Instead, he gazed off into the distance, taking in his familiar surroundings. By tomorrow, they would be at his folks’ homestead. The snow-covered jagged peaks of the Teton Range rose steeply from the valley floor in the distance. The mountains’ imposing presence and regal stature were like silent white guards welcoming him home. Growing up below these mountains, he’d become accustomed to the view, but something struck him differently today. Sophie’s incredulous wonder and gasps of surprise and delight throughout the day infected him with excitement. Through her eyes, he saw the mountains in a fresh, new way.

  All day, Joseph had led them closer to the vast valley below the Tetons that his family called home. He couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. Warmth filled his heart as he watched and listened to Sophie’s reactions to the land. His eyes roamed the beautiful scenery that spanned before him. When was the last
time he stopped to even truly take notice? Sophie opened his eyes to the splendors of the land he’d taken for granted for so long. Unencumbered by foothills, the mountain range rose from the valley covered in coniferous forests, which gave way to alpine meadows. In the early parts of summer they were strewn with wildflowers. Would Sophie be here next season when the flowers bloomed in all their yellow and purple glory, or would she have chosen to return to the gray and crowded mansions of Boston?

  Joseph followed the course of the Snake River that wound its way toward the mountains. An almost euphoric excitement passed through him. There was so much he wanted to show her. Should he take her past the string of glacial lakes that shimmered like jewels on a sunny day along the base of the mountain range, or through the wetlands along the river to observe the moose and elk that called the area home? How much time would he have to show her his mountains, and perhaps convince her to stay?

  You have all winter. If she has plans to return to Boston, it’s too late in the season. She’s going to have to stay until the snow melts the following spring.

  Of course, just one winter here might send her packing the minute the passes cleared. For now, they had been lucky with the weather, but the season was rapidly changing. The leaves on the aspen trees had already begun to change color from their summer green to spectacular shades of yellow, and fiery reds.

  “Is there always snow on those peaks?” Sophie asked. Lucas, who brought up the rear of the group, had kept up a lively commentary about the landscape and any animals they saw throughout the day. A herd of pronghorn had spooked Caleb’s horse a while ago, but the boy had managed to control the skittish animal before it bucked him to the ground or took off running. They’d stopped to listen to the bugle of an elk as he called out a challenge to any other bull in the vicinity. The fall rut was about to begin.

  “This late in the year, there’s not much snow,” Lucas said. “What you’re seeing is mostly ice, and it never melts. Me and Joseph used to climb right up them peaks. If it ain’t ice you’re standing on, it’s pure granite.”