“Appeared that she meant a great deal to you.”
“Eulalie was—is—the mother I never had.” She caught back a sob. “One old woman couldn’t possibly mean anything to you, but she meant everything to me. Thank you.” She turned to look at him. “Do you or Quincy know how the fire started?”
He wiped a sooty hand across his face and she winced when she noted that blisters were forming on his palms. “It’s hard to say—a stray spark on the rug. Maybe one of the animals dragged something too close to the flames.”
Fighting back tears, Anne-Marie longed to reach over and put her arms around his neck and comfort him. She’d made such a mess of this whole ugly incident, and she knew he rued the day he had stopped to help her.
He turned to face her, his features and chest streaked with smoke, his hair slightly singed, his—
Her hands flew up to cover her mouth and drew Creed’s attention from the flaming ruins. “What’s wrong?”
Not trusting her voice, she averted her eyes and took two deep breaths. How was she going to tell him in a respectful way?
“Well?”
“I’m sorry… but it’s you,” she admitted, keeping her gaze fixed on a line of bare thorn bushes.
“Me? I fail to see how anyone could find anything funny about this situation. We’re lucky to escape with our lives.”
A hysterical giggle escaped her. Once started, the laughter took over and she couldn’t stop. Bending forward, she buried her face in the smoky folds of her skirt.
“You!” she burst out, losing complete control when her eyes swept him from head to foot.
Understanding finally dawned on his stoic features. Creed Walker was a funny sight in the blood-soaked nightshirt—not to make light of the situation. He could have died going back in for Eulalie, but still…
She bit her lip until she tasted blood and finally stepped away until she could get her giggles under control, painfully conscious that she didn’t look so good either.
“You blame me for all the trouble, don’t you?”
Creed’s features remained stoic.
“You do, don’t you?” she persisted.
“I don’t blame you.”
“And about me shooting you, it was purely accidental,” Anne-Marie said.
“So you say.”
“It’s the truth. And I certainly didn’t—”
“Enough!” Creed roared. “If you say another word, I am going to turn this wagon around and deliver you straight into the hands of the law. I’m sure they’ll be glad to see you.”
She drew back. “Sorry.”
“Well,” Quincy announced, “I’m going to leave you two lovebirds alone while I see to the horses.”
When he walked off, Anne-Marie settled back to watch Creed lace the material. “I could do that.”
“Have you sewn men’s britches before?”
“No, there’s never been a need, but I imagine I could.”
“I’ll do it myself.”
She focused on the tiny stiches. He was very good. Obviously he had sewn his clothing often. She knew there was more to Creed Walker than met the eye. Somewhere in his background he had been highly educated.
Creed glanced up to study the remains of the smoldering cabin. “What’s your friend going to do once we leave? The shack is gone.”
“She said she’d have it built back up in no time. Eulalie’s used to hard conditions. Now that her head is clear, you would never convince her to leave.”
His gaze scanned the pile of worthless rubble. “It won’t be hard to gather enough to build shelter until spring arrives.”
Sighing, Anne-Marie stared at the burned-out hull of the shanty. “There’s nothing left but ashes.”
“We can bury that cat she loved, if you want.”
“Marbles. Eulalie loved all her pets, but Marbles has been with her the longest. She would take great comfort if we buried the animal for her.”
With the dawn, the heavy layer of clouds had parted and the sun broke through. A few timid rays held no warmth. A cold breeze whipped the limbs of an old cedar, a reminder that spring was not yet here.
“Quincy and I will get the cat. Someone’s bound to have seen the smoke and will come to investigate. We need to move on.”
“But you’re still so weak—”
“Quincy will do most of the work.”
While Creed located the cat, Quincy positioned the shovel and then shoved the blade into the ground, digging a hole beside the river. They completed the work quickly, and then Anne-Marie cleared her throat.
“Lord, we thank You for bringing us safely through the fire. Bless Eulalie, Father, as she rebuilds her home. Send her friends to help her and comfort her in her time of distress. Amen.”
“Amen,” Quincy repeated. “Your words were real heartfelt. That should do it, Sister.” He covered the hole with dirt. “I’ll get the wagon and team.”
Later the three prepared to leave. Eulalie gave Anne-Marie a big hug. Her strength had returned and color was back in her cheeks. “I’ve been on my own longer than you’ve been alive. Don’t you worry about me. You take care of yourself.”
“Now what?” Anne-Marie asked when the wagon pulled away from the shanty.
“You’re the one with the ideas. What do you suggest?” Creed winced when the wagon hit a deep pothole. “Quincy, can you manage to hit deeper ruts? I could use more agony.”
“Sorry—these horses go out of their way to hit holes.”
Heat flooded Anne-Marie’s cheeks. She did not appreciate Creed’s attitude toward her this morning. The wound had left him cranky and difficult. She hadn’t put those potholes in the road. “Are you asking me what I would do?”
“Am I speaking French?”
Well now. She could be just as testy as he could. “I would suggest that we each take a horse and go our separate ways, but we only have two horses—and the gold.” The wind whipped her hair into her face and she brushed it aside. “So I don’t have any ideas.”
“Do you want to separate? Because we can. One horse will pull the buckboard, so you’re welcome to the other.”
He was baiting her but she wasn’t falling for his trick. She hadn’t asked to be involved in that gold shipment, but she had just as much invested in this escapade as these two. If anyone other than Wells Fargo got that gold, she was going to get her share. She was smart enough to know that Creed and Quincy were her best hope for rejoining her sisters in Mercy Flats. Whether she liked Creed Walker or not, she had no reasonable choice but to stay with him for the time being.
She blew out a pent-up breath. “That’s not what I want.”
At the moment, what she wanted was to be home with Abigail and Amelia, drinking hot tea and eating warm muffins in the sisters’ kitchen that always smelled of roasting meat and baking bread. In a few days, the nuns would start to worry about the missing McDougals. The kind women were accustomed to the girls’ short, unexplained absences, but Mother Superior often noted that the McDougals were of age to do as they willed. Only the nuns’ goodness still provided meals and a roof over the three sisters’ heads. In return, the girls worked hard to repay the nuns’ compassion.
For the moment, Anne-Marie had little choice but to accept her circumstances, a bitter pill to swallow. “What are we going to do?”
Creed shifted. “With the gold?”
“The gold—and getting me back to Mercy Flats.”
Creed and Quincy made eye contact before Creed turned to confront her. “Why do you suppose two strongboxes from California, full of gold, were sitting in front of the bank with no guard?”
“Quincy asked me the same thing; I didn’t know then, and I don’t know now. Is there some significance to the coincidence?”
Creed mused out loud. “The way I figure it, a gold shipment means guards, several guards. This particular shipment of gold was sitting there vulnerable. Agreed, Quince?”
Quincy nodded. “That’s how it looked to me.”
&nbs
p; “But the sheriff—” Anne-Marie interjected.
“—wasn’t concerned about the gold,” Creed said. “He was working on scaffolding.”
“Well, maybe he didn’t know about the gold and that’s why he wasn’t concerned about it.”
Quincy and Creed exchanged looks again. “Maybe,” Creed conceded, “but that’s unlikely. A good sheriff knows everything that goes on in his town, and a man responsible for a shipment that size should be vigilant every moment unless he knows the gold is safe.”
“Maybe he isn’t a good sheriff.”
“Right now it doesn’t matter if he’s good or bad.” The wagon hit another pothole and Quincy gave the team a sharp warning whistle. Creed winced. “The sheriff thinks we stole it.”
“And if they were going to hang us for stealing cattle, then they’re bound to hang us for stealing gold, whether we meant to or not,” she murmured.
Creed and Quincy’s eyes met again.
She brightened. “Why don’t we just go back and explain what happened?”
“And how do you propose we do that?”
Quincy shook his head. “We can’t prance back into town and walk up to the sheriff and say, ‘Sorry, Mr. Sheriff, we’ve done taken your gold by mistake.’ ”
“Don’t tempt her, Quince.”
Anne-Marie narrowed her gaze on Creed. “Very amusing. My sisters and I have managed to pull off some pretty brilliant cons—”
“I noticed how brilliant the three of you looked screaming your pretty little heads off in that jail wagon,” he noted.
“There you go again, insinuating that if it wasn’t for me, we wouldn’t be in this—”
“I’m not insinuating, I’m telling you flat out, if it wasn’t for you—”
“Look.” Quincy dropped the reins and threw up both hands. “Right now it doesn’t matter who had the gold. We’ve got it now.”
“You mean we’re going to keep it?” she asked incredulously. She picked up the reins and put them in Quincy’s hand.
“Yes, we’re going to keep it.”
The cold finality of Creed’s tone concluded the conversation.
Easing to the back of the wagon, he stretched out, giving a low moan.
Anne-Marie turned to help. “Here, let me do that.”
“Woman, leave me alone.”
“You are so… so churlish!”
“You make me churlish—whatever that means.”
“I do not. That’s a horrible thing to say to a woman.”
Quincy whipped the reins. “Both of you are giving me a headache.”
Cortes and his three compadres topped the horizon. The disheveled horsemen focused on the smoldering ruins of what once had been Eulalie’s cabin.
“Looks like there’s been a fire,” Butch observed.
Turning slowly in his saddle, Cortes glared at him. “What is your clue? The smoke still curls from the ruins.”
“Well, guess that settles it. The Injun, the nun, and the black ain’t down there,” Ollie said. “Guess we won’t be stirring up that scary old crone anytime soon.”
Cortes’s gaze strayed to the mound of fresh dirt located near the stream. “We no know the indio hasn’t been here. We will see for ourselves.”
Ollie, Rodrigo, and Butch passed a series of uneasy looks. Ollie bent and muttered out of the corner of his mouth to the other two men. “What do you think?”
Rodrigo thought for a moment and then said, “Even being touched in the head, he’s still had the smarts to get us into and out of plenty of schemes, but lately he does seem odder than usual.”
“Better do what he wants,” Butch advised. “That’s a lot of gold.”
Ollie snorted. “ ’Pears to me that one of them there meteors must have hit ’em instead of a horse kicking him in the head.”
Nodding, the three men slowly fell in behind Cortes and rode toward the old crone’s shack.
When the outlaws reached the creek, Rodrigo reined his horse around a bucket sitting on the bank. “Must be the old lady’s water bucket.”
“Maybe.” Cortes chewed the stub of the cigar absentmindedly. “Maybe, no.” He stood up in the stirrups, spotting the set of wagon tracks leading away from the shanty. “Someone has been here.” He kneed the horse forward.
The riders approached the smoldering ruins with caution. Climbing off their horses, the men stood for a moment, assessing the situation. The place was deader than a cemetery.
“Can’t we just leave?” said Butch. “It’s plain to see the shanty burned down. There’s nothing living around here now.”
Cortes set his jaw. “Our outlaws could have buried the gold here, planning to come back later and get it.”
“But where? No sir, I ’spect they’ve got the gold with them right now. If it were me, well, I wouldn’t let that gold outta my sight for one minute.” Butch looked around. The other men were nodding silently.
“Idiots!” Cortes’s dark eyes narrowed with contempt. The indio, the negro, and the monja. They would pay for making Cortes look the estúpido.
Oh, they would pay.
Six
I’m worried.” Anne-Marie drew her brows together when she turned from checking on Creed again. He had slept since they’d left Eulalie’s, and she had barely been able to rouse him throughout the day. “His fever’s come up.”
“I’m not surprised.” The buckboard rattled along the rutted road as Quincy scanned the back roads.
“What are you looking for?”
“Southern patrols.”
“Creed needs proper food and warmth.”
“I know.”
There was no shelter or food to be found. Huddling deeper inside a buffalo robe Eulalie had given them, she watched the passing scenery. Patches of dirty snow littered the hillsides, but a thin sun made the temperature bearable.
A back wheel hit a pothole, jostling Creed. Upon hearing his groan, she quickly turned around, shooting Quincy a censuring look.
“Be careful.”
“I am, ma’am, I am.”
Turning around, she wrapped the heavy buffalo robe around herself tighter in an effort to block the wind. “It wouldn’t do us any harm to have a nice meal and a warm bed, either, you know.”
“No, ma’am, it wouldn’t.” Quincy’s eyes softened. “Are you warm enough?”
“Yes, thank you.” She was only being polite. The robe helped, but a fierce wind stung her nose.
“Do you have any ideas?” They couldn’t just wander the countryside like gypsies. They had no food, no clothing, no shelter, and it would be dark before long.
“I’ve been thinking… there’s a mission up ahead. Creed and I overnighted there during a rainstorm a few months back. We could hole up there until Creed’s leg is better.”
“How far?” She frowned. “It’ll be dark soon.”
“Three, maybe four miles. I figure we’ll take shelter in some rancher’s barn tonight and then start out first thing in the morning. There’s always an egg lying around for the taking. We’ll be warm and fed, and then with a little luck, we’ll reach the mission by late tomorrow afternoon.”
Anne-Marie turned to look over her shoulder at Creed again. “I don’t know, Quincy. The nuns are so busy with prayer and… he needs care, and soon.”
“The mission is deserted now, ma’am—by the looks of it, has been for years. I don’t know what else we could…” Quincy’s voice faded when the buckboard rounded a bend, and they found two young, strong Indian warriors sitting astride war ponies in the middle of the road.
“Oh, give us grace, oh Lord,” Quincy murmured.
Anne-Marie sat up straighter when Quincy set the brake on the wagon. The old buckboard clattered to a halt a few feet in front of the horses. “Who are they?” she whispered.
“Look to be Apache. They must be from the encampment.”
The Indians, wearing war paint, regarded the three travelers, their dark eyes traveling slowly over the wagon and its occupants.
; “Do you suppose they understand English?” Anne-Marie whispered.
“The way our luck’s been running? No, ma’am, not a word.”
The four sat in the middle of the road, sizing each other up.
Finally one of the Indians broke away, kneeing his horse to the back of the wagon. Anne-Marie closed her eyes when he slowed, peering into the wagon bed.
“Oh, Lord, Lord, Lord,” Quincy agonized in a low whisper. “Miss, if you got any pull with the Man upstairs, now might be a good time to use it.”
Anne-Marie winced. She didn’t have any pull; chances were the Man upstairs was pretty put out with her right now. Would He even want to keep caring for her when her choices brought trouble everywhere she turned? The nuns who’d raised her would say yes. They’d claim no one was irredeemable. But after the events of recent weeks, Anne-Marie wondered if she’d tested His patience too far.
The Indian shouted in a tense, guttural tone to the second Indian.
Surprise flickered across the warrior’s features. Cutting his horse around the wagon, he joined his companion. The two men gestured at Creed as they conversed in animated tones.
“What are they saying?” Anne-Marie longed to turn around and look, but she was too scared to move a muscle.
“I’m not sure we want to know.”
One of the warriors trotted back to the front of the wagon and leaned over to grab the horse’s bridle.
“Have mercy,” Quincy groaned when the Indian started leading the team down the road.
A young man led the buckboard into camp and a crowd gathered. Anne-Marie had never seen so many Indian men, women, and children—and all were peering at her curiously.
The lead warrior shouted orders, and two young braves scattered to various tents. The women crowded closer, some touching Anne-Marie’s skirt, eyes bright with curiosity.
When the wagon rolled to a stop a tall, lean man wearing breech-cloth stepped from his tent to view the spectacle. Parting the crowd, he made his way to the back of the buckboard. Surprise and gladness registered on his handsome features when he apparently recognized the injured man, followed closely by worry when he focused on the blood-soaked bandage around Creed’s right thigh.
“Who is that?” Anne-Marie asked.
Quincy bent closer. “Can’t say for certain, but I’d guess it’s the tribal chief.”
My Heart Stood Still (Sisters Of Mercy Flats 2) Page 6