She tried to think back, but the fear she was almost holding at bay chittered at the edge of her thoughts and kept them from forming.
Get hold of yourself! Full moon was the night Malachi and I made lo-- Don't think of that now! How many nights ago was the moon full? A week? No, more than that. At least ten days. It wasn't full dark when the moon rose that night, was it?
But the days are getting shorter. And the moon rises... Stop it, Nellie! You're getting bogged down in details. There's no moon, and when it comes up, it'll be last quarter. Not much help.
She eased sideways, still clinging to the rock behind her. A pebble rolled under her foot and she teetered, her fingers losing their grip. Quickly she stepped back toward the cave entrance. Below her was a pit of darkness. She looked up, for the first time.
Even in camp she had never seen the stars so bright, so sharp. The dark bulk of a mountain reared against them just before her. She looked to either side and saw more peaks, sharp, jagged walls of black silhouetted against the diamond-strewn sky. This place is high in the mountains, perhaps even higher than the lakes where Malachi and I-- Once more she blocked off the thought. To be distracted might be dangerous.
Would be dangerous, she realized as she reached out with one foot, seeking a place to step. Pebbles rattled away, then sound cracked and echoed as they fell, bouncing, down the steep drop just ahead of her.
Oh, how I hate edges!
Shivering, she stood still, her hands grasping protrusions from the rock wall behind her, her fingers going numb with a combination of cold and tension. Although she had been out here for many minutes, now, and had come from a pitch-dark cavern, she could still see nothing more than faint, pale patches against the total darkness. I'd be inviting disaster to try to feel my way down. One wrong step...
Nellie took a deep breath, exhaled in despair. I'm not ready to risk my life to escape. Not yet. There will be other chances.
An inch at a time, she edged back into the tunnel, laid her left hand on the wall, and started back into captivity.
* * * * *
The mule train straggled along the now well-defined trail. Malachi watched it go, then turned back and looked at the campsite behind him. The sign he'd made showed up well. It wouldn't be missed by anyone seeking the party that had left so much evidence of its presence here.
Murphy had smoothed the face of a split log enough that words written on it in charcoal were legible. Malachi had written Nellie's name and the brief message large, then below it had drawn a map showing where they had gone. It was spiked to a tree, high enough that a man would have to climb to pry it loose.
Now if only that grizzly doesn't take it into his head to knock it down. Willard had seen the bear yesterday, down by the river. The salmon were running, and pretty soon every bear in the valley would be after them. Better keep the professor in the uplands for a spell. It would be just like him to try to bluff a bear.
"Nellie, where are you?" Would he have known if she was dead? He'd read of people sensing the death of a loved one, had disbelieved, just as he had scoffed at talk of ghosts and haunts. Now he wasn't so sure. There was an awareness of her within him, as if she had just stepped into another room.
Or am I just refusing to face the truth?
God knows he'd faced enough truth in his life, from the day his ma had died, birthing a little sister who had never drawn breath. From the day he'd crawled into the wreckage of their farmhouse near Manasses and found the bodies of his pa and grandmother. From the day of his first battle, when he'd fired his rifle until he had no more ammunition, then had used it like a club.
As he had so many times before, he pushed those memories far, far down into the black depths of his mind. "Let's go," he said to Rogue. "Standing here isn't going to bring her back."
If she does come back here, will she find her way to the new camp? An unarmed, possibly injured woman, on foot... She doesn't even have shoes! He had her boots in his saddlebags, unable to let them be packed with her other clothing. Her boots and her cotton flannel nightgown, which smelled of honeysuckle.
"Let's go," he said again to Rogue. His horse seemed as reluctant to leave the campsite as he was. The pack string was already out of sight.
The new campsite was in a stand of timber, just back from the edge of a lake. They spent the first day there cutting logs to make a corral. Malachi welcomed the hard labor, for as long as he was working up a sweat, he hadn't the energy to worry and wonder about Nellie. Or to regret the lack of skill that made him let Willard be the one to continue searching for her.
"Aw, hell, Malcolm, I ain't sick no more," Tom said. "Let the Injun cut hay. If I don't exercise this shoulder, it'll seize up on me."
"Swinging an ax is more exercise than it needs," Malachi told him. "A sickle's about your speed."
"If I'd wanted to be a farmer, I'd'a stayed in Missouri."
"You hired on as wrangler." Malachi kept his tone mild, for all he was getting plumb out of patience. "Wranglers feed the stock."
The kid threw the hatchet he'd been putting an edge on to the ground. It clanged against a rock.
"If you nicked that blade, you'll be a while putting a new edge on it. Pick it up, Tom."
"Go to hell!"
As he started to walk away, Malachi caught him by the collar. With a quick jerk, he had the kid on his knees. He grabbed a handful of greasy hair and forced Tom to look up at him. "I won't say this but once, boy. You'll take orders from me, or you'll start walking. It's a long way back to Boise City."
The kid tried to pull free.
Malachi's fingers were firmly tangled in his hair. "Well?" he said, when Tom stopped struggling.
"When we get back...."
"That'll be a lot sooner for you than for me, unless you straighten up." He gave a good tug on the kid's hair. "I want your word you'll follow orders. I don't have time to ride you, Tom, and I don't have the patience to put up with a sulky brat."
"I ain't no--"
"Your word?"
"Okay. I'll cut the damned hay."
"You'll follow orders?"
The kid's sullen agreement was grudgingly given. Malachi wondered how long he'd behave.
I should have left him in Boise City. It wasn't the first time he'd had that thought.
When the stock was finally fenced in, the three men walked back to camp together. The kid was plainly tired, and Malachi felt like he'd put in a day's work. Good thing they'd flushed that buck yesterday on the way here. At least there was meat for supper. His belly rumbled, reminding him he'd only had a couple of corn dodgers and a strip of jerky for dinner.
The professor was sitting in his chair outside the big tent, an upright barrel at his side serving as a table. He looked right comfortable.
Next time I lead one of these expeditions, I'm going to bring myself a chair. As soon as he'd thought it, Malachi had to laugh. The next time he led one of these expeditions, snow would be falling in Hades.
He waved Tom and Murphy on to the lake to wash up. "Are you folks all settled in?" he said, eyeing the soft leather slippers the professor was wearing. No wonder they'd had seven big crates of gear. Hadn't the man left anything behind?
"As well as can be expected, considering the lack of assistance. Beckett hasn't had a moment to unpack my personal luggage yet."
Raising an eyebrow at the slippers, Malachi simply shrugged. "We're short-handed."
"That's another thing. I don't understand where Willard has got to. We didn't see him at all yesterday. Isn't his job taking care of the mules?"
"Usually, but he's out looking for Miss Sanders."
"Aren't you all being a trifle unrealistic, Bradley? It's been four days now. If my niece were still alive, surely Willard would have found her by now."
"Unrealistic?" Unable to believe his ears, Malachi stared. "To search for a missing woman as long as there's hope? My God, man! She's your own flesh and blood!"
"No, she is not. She was related to my late wife. But that's ne
ither here nor there. We are wasting valuable time, clinging to a forlorn hope. It's time to get back to the business for which I chartered this expedition. Now tomorrow, we will..."
Resisting the urge to strike the man, Malachi said, between clenched teeth, "Tomorrow, we will finish setting up camp, Dr, Kremer. After that, we'll get you out to do your collecting."
The professor scowled, looking like a petulant child. "Oh, very well. But you'll have to relieve Beckett of the chores you've assigned him. Now that Nellie's gone, he'll have to serve as my secretary and assistant."
"Beckett will continue to do his share of camp chores. You'll have to do for yourself more than you have been."
"That is completely unacceptable! Why man, don't you realize that I'll need someone to press my plants, to transcribe my notes, and to--"
"Do it yourself, Dr. Kremer." Malachi stalked away, afraid that if he stayed longer, he'd strike the man.
Supper was a silent meal. The professor sulked, Beckett seemed afraid to open his mouth, except to insert food, and the kid was nodding over his plate. Murphy had taken his supper down to the lake shore, having told Malachi that afternoon that there had never been a man who riled him as badly as the professor did.
Once during the War, Malachi had ridden guard on a freight wagon carrying barrels of black powder. He'd felt this way then, too. As if the least spark could set off an explosion that would blow them all to Kingdom Come.
His rage at the professor's callous disregard of Nellie's fate had overcome the fear he'd lived with ever since discovering her gone. For a moment there, he'd wanted to pull his belt gun on the old man. He'd had a brief vision of Dr. Kremer lying on the sandy ground, a hole between his sightless eyes.
He glanced at the sun, sinking toward the mountains across the lake. Two hours or so until dark. There was time to unpack the rest of the professor's gear. Those blotters would be needed tomorrow, and he could almost hear Nellie saying, "If we don't keep dry blotters in the presses, the plants will mildew. What a waste that would be."
Beckett could worry about the professor's presses, but Nellie's was still full, and its blotters hadn't been changed since she disappeared. The least he could do was take care of her plants for her. He'd watched her often enough to know what to do.
One of her precious mystery plants was in there, one she'd found at the lowest lake on their way down. She'd never forgive him if it mildewed.
She's alive!
He'd taken to saying those word to himself a hundred times a day. Promise or prayer? He wasn't sure. All he knew was that if he couldn't believe she was alive, he wouldn't care to go on living.
* * * * *
"Tell me about how you found Buttercup." With many years' practice at enduring situations she couldn't change, Nellie found it fairly easy to accept her captivity, now that she was no longer chained. Not that she wouldn't escape if she could, but she wouldn't fret about what she couldn't do. Once she'd made up her mind that she might be stuck here a while, she found Gertie to be one of the most interesting characters she'd ever met.
Of course, she wasn't above using a bit of guile and every smidgen of charm she could muster.
Gertie patted her cheek. "Lord love you, it does me good to see you smile like that, My Girl. I was gettin' a mite troubled, the way you was moonin' around here, lookin' like you'd lost your last friend."
Oh, my, I won't even have to work around to it. "Well, yes, I was mooning, but it's because...well, do you remember how you felt when your...when I disappeared?"
"I don't want to talk about that. You're here now, and that's all that matters."
Nellie took her hand, no longer wincing at the touch of filthy, callused skin. "Yes, I'm here, but not of my own free will." She squeezed. "If you'd asked me to come with you, I mi-- I would have. But you didn't ask. You just stole me away in the night."
Gertie jerked her hand free. "You wouldn't a' come. Them men, they'd have stopped you."
"They might have tried. But I would have made up my own mind."
"No man ever let a woman make up her own mind. Mine didn't. He was your pa, but he didn't give a damn about that. All he cared about was gold." She jumped to her feet and paced around the cavern, circling the campfire. Over by the entrance, Buttercup opened his eyes and watched her, his great head turning as his gaze followed her every step.
"I thought he was the handsomest man ever to come along the pike, that man of mine. Tall, with hair black as coal, eyes green as grass. He had a silver tongue, too, he did. Callin' me his darlin', his precious gem, his sweet dumpling." Her hands cupped her wrinkled cheeks. "Oh, he told me I was the most beautiful woman in the world. Me, who was plain as puddin', and a scrawny beanpole to boot."
"Oh, you poor--"
"I loved that man. I'd'a gone anywheres with him, done anything for him."
"Did he... Were you married?" Although Gertie was not her mother, Nellie was curious if 'Her Girl' had been born in wedlock.
"Oh, yes, we was wed. In a church, with my folks lookin' on. My pa was a God-fearin' man. He'd've never let a daughter of his go without her marriage lines. We settled on a farm down the road a piece from Pa's, made a crop." Gertie stopped her pacing and seemed to stare off into the distance--or the distant past.
"I loved that man. Loved him so much, even when he made up his mind after a couple of years to go off lookin' for gold. I never even argued. Jest packed up and went."
"Were you...did you have any other children?"
"Had one. He died of the diphtheria when he was just a tyke. Abner his name was. Your brother."
Nellie bit her lip, not sure what to say. A wave of sorrow swept over her, almost as if the babe really had been her brother.
"We was in Californy when I knew I was increasin' again. Up on the Yuba. I tried to get Max to go back home then, but he wouldn't listen. My, but it got cold that winter. There was weeks where he couldn't work the claim. There weren't no gold in it, though, leastways not enough to be worthwhile. Come spring, Max gave up and we come north."
Seeming calm again, Gertie sat on the floor next to Nellie. She took Nellie's hand, held it in her lap. "You was born in the summer. We was somewheres in the mountains. I don't recollect where, but it was hot--hot and dry. Max made me a cradleboard and I carried you on my back all that summer whilst he prospected every creek we crossed. We stayed with some Injuns come winter, and you liked that. Them squaws thought you was an ugly little thing, with your white skin, but they made over you all the same."
For a long time Gertie said nothing. Fascinated now, Nellie prompted her. "Where did you go the next summer?"
"Oh, we meandered all over the place. Finally Max found color in a river over west of here, and we followed it up, with him pannin' every little bar and shallow all the way." She shook her head. "He found color here and there, but it wasn't ever enough. It was like he couldn't quit, the way some men can't quit when they start drinkin'. Even when we couldn't get down to the river, it bein' in a deep canyon, we kept followin' it. Max said that the source of the gold--he called it the 'mother lode'--was bound to be up high."
"But he never found it?"
"Not so far as I know. We come over the divide and down into this valley when the aspen was yellow, and we wintered here. I swan, we near froze to death before we got us a cabin built. And we'd've starved but for the elk and deer winterin' down in the flats."
Again she paused, and this time Nellie saw her smile.
"You learned to walk and talk that winter. My, you was a busy little thing. Into everything. I taught you to sing a little song--" She hummed a tune Nellie recognized, despite the cracked voice, as "Deck the Halls."
"You went about the place 'fa-la-la-ing' the whole day long."
"I hope my voice was better then. I can't carry a tune in a bucket."
"It don't matter when a child sings. They're makin' a joyous noise, and that's what counts."
Again a long silence, and Nellie wondered if Gertie had lost herself in her me
mories.
But at last she said, "Spring came late, and by the time the snow had all melted, Max was fit to be tied. He wanted to prospect this valley, and move on before winter. One day he headed off downstream." Her hand waved in an indeterminate direction. "He never came back."
Oh, no! "What did you do?"
"Do? I done what I had to do. Soon's I figgered he wasn't comin' back, I started layin' up food for winter. I knew there wasn't no chance I'd get out of here that year. You and me, we chased food wherever we could. I learned what fixins were good to eat, learned how to snare a deer. Max had took his rifle, and all I had was a knife." She shook her head. "Once I snared me a cat. Wasn't he spittin' mad! I had to leave him caught there, and it pained me to do it. But he must'a got hisself loose somehow, because when I went back a couple days later, he was gone."
"So we wintered here?"
"Nope. You was took before winter. We was up in the hills back of here, and I set you down and told you to wait whilst I climbed up to check one of my traps. When I come back, you wasn't there. I looked and looked. And finally found you down that chasm."
Nellie couldn't listen as Gertie told the rest of the story again. Part of her wished there were some way she could stay with this poor old woman, even while she thought about how she could use this new knowledge to escape.
She became aware that Gertie was once again squeezing her hand.
"But now I got My Girl back and we're gonna do jest fine. You're big enough now you won't be gettin' into mischief."
Almost hating herself for her duplicity, Nellie said, "Ger-- Ma, remember you said how much you loved Max ...my father?"
"Oh, my, didn't I love that man! No matter what he done, I never stopped lovin' him."
"Well, I love a man, too. And if I stay here, I'll never see him again." The instant the words tumbled from her lips, Nellie knew they were the truth. She loved Malachi Breedlove.
She clutched Gertie's hand with both of hers. "Don't make me give him up, Ma! Come back with me, instead. We'll take you with us when we go back outside. But please, please, don't make me give him up!
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