The moment Harrigan was back on the narrow path, he leaned against the high far wall and closed his eyes. He did not think he had ever been so scared. Pure good fortune had saved him and he swore he would find a way to thank God for that. He heard the soft rustle of skirts and opened his eyes to see Ella crouched at his side.
“Well, that harrowing experience has probably added ten years to my life,” he said, briefly taking her small hand in his and gently squeezing it.
“You owe me your life,” she said quietly, smiling faintly when he grimaced.
“And I bet I can guess what reward you will ask for that.”
“Set me free. Tell Harold you failed. Hell, tell him I died. That would make my life a lot easier.”
“Would it?” He slowly got to his feet, delighted at how close the end of the narrow part of the trail was, because he no longer had the stomach for tiptoeing along the edge of a deep ravine.
“Yes. Then he would cease hunting me or having me hunted down.”
“He would also have your money.”
“True, but I think I would prefer to be poor and alive then briefly rich and quickly dead.”
“Well, much as I would like to repay your kindness, I can’t,” he said as he grabbed the reins of his mount and started to move again.
Ella moved to grab the reins of her horse as quickly as she dared. The man was impossible, she decided as she followed him. Anyone else would do as she asked if she had just saved their life, but not Harrigan. He still went blindly on doing what Harold wanted him to, and ignoring what she wanted.
“I don’t know how you can sleep at night,” she grumbled as, the moment they reached the wide part of the trail, they mounted their horses.
Harrigan was not sure either, although bringing Ella almost all the way across the country with Louise Carson on his trail was an exhausting business. At the end of the day, Harrigan doubted anything could keep him awake, certainly not a guilty conscience. Now, however, he was not sure even the bone weariness he felt at the end of the day was going to help much.
It was hard to convince himself that he was still doing the right thing. There were still a lot of doubts in his mind about Ella’s talk of Harold’s murderous plans, but whether he believed her or not did not really matter. She had just saved his life and all she asked in return was that he did not take her to Harold, a man she hated and feared. It seemed a small return for giving him his life, but he was going to refuse her, and he was disgusted with himself.
To his relief, she said nothing more. He did not want to discuss the matter for fear he would weaken. He was also too full of self-loathing to have a reasonable discussion about anything. Harrigan knew it would never happen, but he found himself hoping that she was so furious with him that she would not say another word all the way to Philadelphia.
It was still early in the day when Harrigan decided to make camp for the night. The near tragedy on the cliff path had exhausted both of them. Ella looked as if she was about to fall asleep in the saddle. He was also feeling every one of his bruises and scrapes.
And, deep inside, there was still the bitter taste of fear, that gut-wrenching terror he had felt as he had fallen. He needed to rest so that he could banish it, hopefully before Ella saw any hint of it. Harrigan knew that a fear of falling to one’s death was not something to be ashamed of, but he ruefully admitted that he did not want Ella to know, that he was worried she would see it as a weakness. He had always been confident, sure of his own strength. This uncertainty was uncomfortable and hard to bear.
“I think we will stop here for the night,” he announced a moment later, turning off the rocky path they followed into a small, well-shaded glade.
“It’s a little early in the day, isn’t it?” Ella asked, then cursed silently, praying he would not now feel compelled to go on, for she was bone weary and eager to rest.
“You began to look as if you would fall asleep in the saddle again.”
“I guess I am a bit tired.”
As they stopped and dismounted, Ella inwardly shook her head over her own foolish pride. She was tired. What was the harm in admitting it? And yet, there was a part of her that rebelled against revealing that weariness, a lurking fear that Harrigan would see it as a weakness. Ella ruefully admitted that she was indeed a great deal like her aunt, for Louise always fought hard to be, or at least appear to be, equal to any man.
After tending to her horse, she sat down before the fire Harrigan was making and struggled not to sigh aloud her exhaustion. As soon as he had begun their meal, he rose, and she roused herself enough to frown up at him. The way she had been staring blankly into the fire had probably revealed how weary she felt, but she was starting not to care if he saw it.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“Just into the wood a ways to see if I can find us any meat to have with our beans and biscuits,” he replied.
“That would be nice.”
“Can I trust you to stay right here?”
She hesitated only a moment before nodding. Not only was she too tired to run, but she knew her poor mare was in sore need of a rest as well. The minute he disappeared into the trees, she allowed her body to slump, crossing her arms on her knees and resting her head on her forearms.
A soft noise yanked away the clouds of sleep sweeping over her mind. She sat up straighter, wondered how long she had dozed as she rubbed her itching eyes, and tried to listen for a repeat of the sound that had ended her little nap. When she heard her mare snort nervously, she tensed and looked around. It was hard to see beyond the fire, to discern anything in the grey twilight and the shadows cast by the trees all around her.
The sound of a twig snapping brought her to her knees. She opened her mouth to call for Harrigan, but instinct told her it was not him, and she pressed her lips together. Two men stepped out of the shadows and she leapt to her feet, her heart pounding. Even in the dim light, the grinning pair looked threatening. Their gap-toothed smiles were predatory, not friendly.
“Well now, my pretty, what are you doing out here all alone?” asked the taller of the two men.
“And why should you think I am alone?” she asked.
Ella silently cursed when the men flanked her. Because of her weariness, she had missed a perfect opportunity to avoid them. The shadows of the surrounding trees would have provided her with plenty of hiding places, but she had been too slow to see the threat and lost the chance to run deep into the forest. Neither did she have any weapon to fight them with. Ella fought a choking fear as she debated the wisdom of screaming for Harrigan. He might be close enough to hear her, but if he came running blindly back to camp, that could cause even more trouble. The men would either drag her off into the night or shoot Harrigan.
“Oh, you’re alone, alrighty,” said the man as he inched closer to her. “Only a fool would leave such a tender bit as you all alone in the night.”
“Or a man who felt a need to water the trees.”
“There are two horses here, Johnnie,” said the shorter, stouter man.
“Could just be her supply horse,” replied Johnnie, looking Ella over in a way that made her skin crawl.
“And it could belong to her man.”
“We can hold our own agin one man, Pete.”
“Maybe we should just take her and run.”
“I ain’t of a mind to wait till I find a different place. I be thinking I need a taste of this right now.”
Pete scratched his shaggy black beard, still holding his rifle on Ella, as he peered into the shadows all around them. “You do that now and you’ll be leaving your backside bared for anyone who wants to take a shot at it.”
Johnnie spit, the black tobacco juice only partly clearing his mouth, most of it trickling down the thin greying beard on his chin. “I be counting on you to watch my backside, Pete.”
“I’m to just stand here and watch you have at it, eh?”
“You can have a piece when I’m done and I’ll watch your ass
.”
All the while they talked they paced around her, closing in on her warily, watching both her and the woods at their backs. Ella was both amazed and infuriated at how well they did it, one of them always looking at her while the other checked their backs. The indication that they were not as stupid as they looked was almost as chilling as their words.
“If you touch me, you will die,” Ella said, amazed at how hard and cold her voice sounded, for inside she was shaking with fear.
“And just who be going to kill us, my pretty? You?” Johnnie laughed.
“Yes. Maybe not now, but some day.”
Her soft threat only held them back for a moment. Johnnie suddenly laughed again and lunged for her, leaving Pete to stand guard. Ella tried to dodge him, but he caught hold of her skirts, yanking her toward him. She kicked at him, but gained only curses for the pain she inflicted, not her freedom. A soft cry of fear escaped her as he flung her down onto the hard ground. Even though a voice in her head reminded her that she could be putting Harrigan in danger, she screamed his name as Johnnie pinned her to the ground and began to tear at her clothes.
Harrigan heard Ella scream his name and immediately ran toward the sound. He had already gone several yards before good sense returned. There had been fear behind that scream, which meant Ella was in danger. If he charged into camp without thought, he could easily get her or himself killed.
He stopped and took several deep breaths, fighting to calm himself enough so that he could approach with some semblance of caution. After securing the rabbit he had caught to his belt, he carefully checked his weapons, making sure that both his pistol and his rifle were loaded. Harrigan began to creep toward the camp, struggling to be as silent as possible and to remain out of sight. Both proved almost impossible as he drew close enough to see what had prompted Ella’s scream of terror.
Easing himself down on his stomach behind some shrubs, through which he had a clear view of the camp, Harrigan clenched his teeth as he subdued the urge to roar out his fury and go for the throats of the two men threatening Ella. The sight of one of the men mauling her and tearing at her clothes while the other watched, grinning broadly in amusement and anticipation, enraged Harrigan so much that he felt short of breath. Guilt was a sour taste in his mouth. He should never have left her alone.
Carefully, he aimed his rifle at the man sitting on Ella and pulling at her clothes. That was the one he needed to kill first and not just because he wanted to. If he shot the other man first, the one attacking Ella could easily have time to put her between himself and the bullet he so richly deserved. It was going to be a difficult shot, one that required as much luck as skill. Although he was not concerned about hitting Ella, for the roughly clad man on top of her was sitting in a way that allowed a clear shot, Harrigan was concerned that he might miss. He had to kill the man with the first shot.
Harrigan licked the sweat from his upper lip as he steadied his aim. He fired and for one tense instant, thought he had missed. The man jerked but did not fall, sitting there and staring at Ella. Then he began to slowly crumble on top of her. Harrigan quickly turned his attention to the other man who was wildly looking around. Even as the second man began to fire his rifle blindly into the dark, Harrigan shot him.
In one clean move Harrigan was on his feet and running into the camp. It took only a quick glance at the second man he had shot to know that he had killed him. He then hurried over to Ella, who was struggling to push the dead man off her body. Harrigan pulled him aside and reached for her, frowning when she made an odd strangled noise and scrambled away from him.
“Ella, it’s Harrigan,” he said in a soft, calm voice, and he slowly held his hand out to her. “You’re safe now.”
Ella blinked, clutched her torn bodice together and looked around. Her stomach clenched as she saw the bodies. When she glanced down at herself and saw the dark stain of the man’s blood on her gown, she moaned, turned away from Harrigan, and was violently ill.
A small, rational part of her mind was aware of Harrigan as he held her while her body shook from the violent retching. She sat limp, unable to think clearly, as he washed her face and helped her into her nightgown. Harrigan wrapped her in a blanket and urged her to sit near the fire. Ella clutched the blanket close and stared at the flames, listening to him remove the bodies from their campsite.
It was not until he sat next to her and put a rabbit on a spit over the fire that she began to break free of the shock that had such a stranglehold on her. She found it difficult to grasp what had just happened. One minute she had been dozing peacefully by the fire, the next she was being mauled by a filthy man, and then it was over, the enemy dead and supper on the fire. It seemed like a very bad dream.
“Where did they come from?” she asked, not really expecting an answer.
Harrigan tentatively put his arm around her shoulders, tightening his hold slightly and pulling her close to his side when she did not resist his touch. “Probably just out on a hunt. I found no horses, just an odd sledlike contraption loaded with animal skins. I think they were just walking by and saw the fire.”
She shook her head. “I think that might be the most frightening part of it. It was all just evil chance.” Ella looked at him, a little startled by the tenderness of his expression.
“I saw no sign that he got what he was after,” he said quietly, the statement holding a hint of a question.
“No, he didn’t.” She shuddered. “He just touched me, mauled me some,” she whispered, shivering with remembered horror. “I wish I could have a very long, very hot bath.”
Harrigan touched a kiss to her forehead. “After we eat, I might be able to heat a little water for you so that you can wash up, if that will help.”
“Yes, thank you.” She looked at the rabbit, then gave him a shaky smile. “Your hunt was successful.”
He briefly hugged her. “It was not worth the price you had to pay.”
“You couldn’t know that would happen. We haven’t seen a single sign of a person since we entered these mountains. You couldn’t know that two pieces of filth would appear the moment you left. It was the first time you left me alone in these hills, too. I was so at ease that I was half asleep. That’s how they were able to slip up so close without me seeing them.”
“You’re just trying to talk me out of my sense of guilt.”
“Yes, because you carry no guilt for this. It was just one of those things that happen, that cannot be planned for or protected against.”
“Why didn’t you scream when they first arrived?”
“Because I was already trapped. I was afraid that you would just come running and then be shot. They had seen that there were two horses here and were watching for a companion. I couldn’t warn you and I could do nothing to help you.”
Harrigan poured her a cup of the strong coffee and handed it to her. “Were you hoping that I would just stumble by and see them before I got too close?”
“I guess I was,” she replied, feeling the heat of the coffee warm her chilled insides. “They just wandered by, didn’t they? Oh, hell, in truth I wasn’t thinking too much at all. I saw that I couldn’t get away, that I had no weapon, and knew that you couldn’t rush blindly back to camp without putting your own life in danger. Once that creature grabbed me, I didn’t do any more thinking, which is why I screamed then.”
“Well, you were probably right to think what you did. I did start to run blindly back to camp when I heard you scream. I was halfway here before the voice of reason returned. It was not easy to cling to, either. Not when I saw that pig on top of you,” he added in a soft harsh voice, strong emotion roughening his tone.
Ella stared at him, suddenly wishing she could see him more clearly in the firelight, hearing the feeling behind his words and wanting to see if it was reflected in his eyes and his expression. “I will recover.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. I’m alive. I don’t believe they intended to leave me that way.”
She blinked and pulled away enough to look him full in the face. For one brief moment he looked as if he was considering his right to claim that, then he smiled. “There is no need to look quite so pleased with yourself.”
There was the hint of tartness to her voice, and Harrigan welcomed it, for it meant that she was beginning to recover from her ordeal. “I do not like to be in debt.”
“Especially to me.”
“Ashamed as I am to admit it—yes, especially to you.”
She frowned at him for a moment, then shook her head, making a soft noise of disgust. “Men can be so pigheaded.” Before he could reply to that insult, she added, “I think the rabbit is done.”
Ella was a little surprised that she had any appetite at all, but decided that a change from beans and biscuits was enough to stir her hunger. As soon as they had finished eating, Harrigan heated up a small stewpot of water. He allowed her some privacy to wash up, keeping his back to her the whole time. It was not until she crawled beneath the blanket of their rough bed that he began to watch her, and Ella quickly felt uncomfortable beneath that steady, intent gaze.
“I will be fine, Harrigan. Truly, I will,” she assured him.
Even as she said the words, she realized that they really were the truth and not just said to comfort him. It would be a while before the horror of the incident faded, but she was confident that she would recover from the attack. There were two things she could tell herself to ease the horror—the rape had not been completed, and she was alive. Repeating these things to herself over and over had already begun to work. She had washed all trace of the man’s unwelcome touch from her skin. Now she just had to push the chilling memories from her mind or, at least, end their power to leave her afraid and trembling.
Wild Roses Page 19