CAROLINE AND THE RAIDER

by Linda Lael Miller

  Until that moment, Guthrie had not really hated Yankees. He’d figured most of them were just green kids, like himself, who’d expected the fighting to be a game and found out it was in deadly earnest. “Which is Pedlow?” he asked, taking up a shovel so he wouldn’t draw undue attention.

  Jacob worked on. “The one standing over by the gate,” he mumbled, “cleaning his fingernails with a bowie knife.”

  Guthrie found the man and measured him in a surreptitious glance. The guard was about his own size, though he was older and beefier, and his skin was so badly pockmarked that his features seemed distorted.

  After a while, Pedlow raised his eyes just in time to catch Guthrie looking at him. The two men regarded each other in silence for a time, then Pedlow turned his head, spat into the muddy dirt, and walked away.

  For three days, Guthrie watched the sergeant, memorizing his habits and mannerisms, learning his routine. He was weak and sick but, by some twisted irony, Pedlow became his reason for surviving. All he had to do when he felt himself slipping was to imagine the brand making contact with Jacob’s flesh.

  At last, Pedlow was put on night duty at the south gate, and that seemed fitting to Guthrie, because he fully meant to travel in a southerly direction.

  An hour after nightfall, he slipped up behind the sergeant and struck him in the back of the head with a rock he’d been saving for that express purpose. He dragged Pedlow behind a line of rain barrels and took his knife and uniform.

  In moments Guthrie had exchanged his own worn, bloody clothes for Pedlow’s Union blue, and his palms sweated where he held the rifle. He kept to the shadows when half a dozen Yankees passed by, a few minutes later, greeting him without particular enthusiasm, and he answered with a grunt.

  When Pedlow started to come to, Guthrie put the heel of one boot on the man’s throat and told him, “It wouldn’t trouble me at all to smash your windpipe like a summer squash, blue-belly, so don’t give me any more cause than you already have.”

  The Yankee made a sickly whining sound, and Guthrie bent to gag him with his own bright yellow bandanna and cuff his hands together.

  After that, Guthrie walked boldly into the barracks and roused Jacob, as well as half a dozen others who looked strong enough to travel. When he marched the men out of the south gate, in the thin gray light of that cold morning, anyone who observed him would have thought he was a Union sergeant, taking a detachment of prisoners out on a work detail.

  Even though, in reality, he and the others had escaped, at that point in the dream Guthrie was almost invariably wrenched back into that stinking prison camp and branded just the way Jacob had been. The experience was so real that Guthrie awakened with a violent start, rising up on his elbows and looking around. Tob, curled up at his feet, gave a soft whimper of commiseration.

  Guthrie’s body was drenched with perspiration. He found his pistol in the darkness of the tent and gripped the handle against a slippery palm. It took him nearly five minutes to untangle then from now and slip into an uneasy, guarded rest.

  A deafening blast sounded, rattling the schoolhouse windows in their frames, and Molly Haggart, a six-year-old with jet black braids and cornflower blue eyes, leaped out of her seat. Waving one little hand in the air, she cried, “Teacher, are we having an earthshake?”

  Caroline’s heart was just slowing down to its regular beat. “No, Molly,” she said, raising her voice to be heard over the nervous laughter of the other children. “That was dynamite. And the word is earthquake.”

  “Maybe somebody’s robbing the bank!” said Johnny Wilbin, his many freckles standing out against his pale skin.

  “Or the old Maitland mine might have caved in,” speculated Pervis Thatcher.

  Miss Phoebe and Miss Ethel’s inherited coal mine had been shut down for five years, but it had made enough money in its time to support the old ladies for the rest of their natural lives.

  “Hush, children,” Caroline said firmly. “If it’s anything we need to know about, someone will come and tell us.”

  “It’s just Mr. Hayes, blasting for copper,” said Martin Bates, the same young man who had told Caroline about Guthrie Hayes’s escapades during the war after proudly pointing him out as a friend of his father’s. “You can’t work a mine without using dynamite. He’s got a place out by Ribbon Creek.”

  Caroline made a mental note of that information and determinedly turned the children’s attention back to their work. Once school had been dismissed, however, and she’d washed the blackboards, swept the floor, and brought in the flag from its holder beside the front door, she rushed to the livery stable and asked for a horse and buggy.

  After paying the ten-cent rental, she set out for Ribbon Creek.

  It was four-thirty in the afternoon when she found Mr. Hayes’s camp by the smoke of his campfire and drove in.

  Furious chickens scattered before the swaybacked horse, flapping their wings, and Tob came loping toward her, barking uncertainly.

  Guthrie Hayes was not inside his mine, as Caroline might have expected, but standing over a washtub, the sleeves of his underwear shirt pushed up, his arms up to the elbows in soapy water. She saw him fidget with his eye patch, then come toward her at a leisurely pace, passing a clothesline where several pairs of trousers were hung out to dry.

  “Hello, Miss Chalmers,” he said, in that impudently cordial way of his. His hands were resting on his hips now, and he wasn’t wearing a hat, so his rich brown hair glistened in the sun.

  Caroline leaned slightly forward in the buggy seat, still holding the reins, and squinted. “I could have sworn you were wearing that patch over your right eye yesterday.”

  Mr. Hayes touched the patch briefly, then dropped his hand again. “You were mistaken, Miss Chalmers,” he said politely.

  She sat up straight and wrapped the reins carefully around the brake lever. “I don’t think so,” she replied. Tm usually right about things like that. I notice details. Will you help me down, please?”

  He hesitated a moment, then walked toward her. When Caroline stood and his hands closed around her waist, she regretted forcing him into this particular courtesy. Jets of sweet fire shot down her legs from the points of contact, curled her toes, and raced upwards again to collide hard at the crux of her thighs.

  Caroline drew in her breath and her face went pink when she saw that Mr. Hayes was aware of her scandalous reaction. He was smiling his tilted smile, and his gaze was fixed on Caroline’s mouth.

  For one moment, she thought he was going to have the audacity to kiss her.

  Instead, to her profound relief and boundless disappointment, he let her slide down the length of his frame to stand, trembling, on the ground. He was still so close that she could smell sunshine and sweat on his clothes and feel the hard heat of his body.

  “You know,” he said easily, “it isn’t entirely proper, your coming out here alone.”

  Caroline’s heart pirouetted over a beat, and she felt perspiration dampen the space between her breasts. “Surely you’re a gentleman,” she said, although she was sure of no such thing.

  His green eye twinkled. “If you say so, Miss Chalmers.”

  “Perhaps you wouldn’t mind—stepping back? Just a little?” Caroline inquired breathlessly. Even though it was a mild April day, with a fresh breeze coming down from the mountains, she was feeling the heat of August.

  “Of course,” Mr. Hayes replied. But he didn’t move.

  Except, that is, to lower his mouth to Caroline’s.

  She stiffened when his lips touched hers, as though she’d stepped into a puddle of lightning, and gave a little whimper of both protest and acquiescence before he kissed her in earnest.

  It was in every way unlike the discreet pecks Seaton had stolen during their walks together, or in the parlor, when Miss Phoebe and Miss Ethel weren’t around. Guthrie’s lips were warm and supple, and yet they tamed Caroline’s, with the skillful aid of his tongue.

  Caroline’s eyes had drifted clos
ed after the initial shock, but they went wide again when she felt this first brazen intrusion. To her utter mortification, she could not pull away; her tongue moved against Guthrie’s like an eager lover.

  Finally, he drew back, his lips curved into a sleepy smile, his hands still resting on Caroline’s waist. “Did your gentleman friend ever kiss you like that? This man you claim to love?”

  Caroline’s cheeks flamed, and she twisted away from Guthrie’s grip to smooth sweaty palms over the skirts of her checkered gingham dress. “Of course he did,” she lied. “All the time.”

  Guthrie’s expression bordered on a smirk. “Did he, now?” he teased. And then, as easily as that, he turned and walked back to his washtub. “That was a test, Teacher, though whether you failed or passed is a difficult question to settle. You may think you love Seaton Flynn, but you don’t.”

  Caroline watched in amazement as he took a blue cotton shirt from the suds and tossed it into a bucket of somewhat clearer water. Once he’d rinsed the garment, he wrung it out, gave it a hard shake, and hung it expertly on his clothesline, along with several pairs of trousers.

  She was so overwhelmed, first by his kiss and now by his pure nerve, that she couldn’t speak.

  “What are you doing out here, Caroline?” he finally asked, watching her as he returned to the washtub to scrub another shirt.

  Her mouth moved, but nothing came out, so she tried again. That time, she managed to speak. She would simply let his outrageous claims pass, for now. “I’m here to find out what your decision is. A-about Mr. Flynn, I mean.”

  He shrugged. “I haven’t made a decision,” he said, industriously rubbing another garment along the tin ridges of his washboard.

  Caroline began to pace. She’d never seen a man do wash before, and the sight was all the more disconcerting for all the other shocks she’d suffered already. She knew she should get back in her rented buggy and leave, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. “I’m surprised you don’t have a wife, Mr. Hayes,” she said.

  “After that kiss,” he responded, giving her a cocky wink, “I think you’d better call me Guthrie.”

  Caroline turned away for a moment, her arms folded, because she was sure every bit of skin she had showing was crimson. When she looked again, he was rinsing the second shirt.

  The muscles in his tanned forearms corded powerfully as he wrung out the garment. “Well?” he prompted.

  “Is that a condition you’re setting? That I have to call you by your first name, I mean?”

  He considered. “Yes.”

  “And if I do, you’ll promise to rescue Mr. Flynn?”

  “No,” he replied, snapping the wet shirt and pegging it to the clothesline.

  Caroline’s frustration was rising. “This is not a game, Mr. Hayes. Someone’s life is at stake!”

  “Guthrie,” he corrected intractably. “And someone else’s life ended during a stagecoach robbery.”

  “All right!” Caroline yelled. “Guthrie!”

  He grinned. “You don’t love him,” he reminded her. Apparently he’d finished his laundry, because he was tugging down the sleeves of his underwear shirt.

  Caroline entertained a fantasy wherein she drenched Guthrie Hayes with the entire contents of his washtub. Of course, she didn’t dare follow through, but she did derive some pleasure from imagining it. “I do love him,” she insisted.

  “No, you don’t,” Guthrie replied calmly. Then he gestured grandly toward a smooth-topped tree stump beside the embers of a campfire. “Have a seat, Caroline, and I’ll explain it all to you.”

  Mr. Hayes’s arrogance was exceeded only by his bad breeding. “It’s Miss Chalmers to you!” she said, folding her arms and stubbornly standing her ground.

  “Not if you want me to get your beau out of jail,” Guthrie reasoned cordially. “Now, Caroline, sit down before I forget that I was raised to treat even bad-tempered hoydens like ladies.”

  Caroline edged reluctantly over to the stump and sat. “What happened to your eye?” she asked, to distract him from the fact that she’d had to concede that particular battle.

  He bent and poured himself a mugful of coffee that looked thick enough to grease a wagon axle and regarded her over the rim for a few moments before answering. “Maybe I lost it in the war,” he said cryptically. “Would you like some coffee?”

  She smoothed her skirts. “I would prefer tea.”

  Guthrie executed a mocking half bow. “I’m sure you would, Teacher, but all I’ve got is coffee.”

  Caroline remembered the consistency of the stuff and unconsciously curled her lip. “No, thank you,” she said, with cool politeness. “Now, if we could get down to business—”

  He dragged up a wooden crate and sat next to her. “What business is that?”

  She drew a deep breath and let it out slowly, struggling to control her temper. “Mr. Flynn’s rescue, of course.”

  Guthrie swirled his coffee cup, watching the dark waves and ripples. “Are you always this persistent?”

  “Yes,” Caroline replied, quite truthfully. She’d never failed at any task she’d really set her mind to, except for finding her lost sisters, and she hadn’t given up on that, of course. It was just that she’d had to give Mr. Flynn’s predicament priority, since it was a matter of life and death.

  Mr. Hayes took another sip of his coffee, then tossed what remained into the dying fire. “Well, Teacher,” he said, leaning forward slightly and resting his arms on his knees, “sometimes, you just have to wave a white flag.”

  For a moment, his face took on a haunted, distant expression. “Yes,” he answered, and his voice was rough as rust.

  “What was it?” Caroline asked, genuinely interested.

  “The Confederacy, for one thing,” he said. The look in his eyes hinted at a host of other dreams, all cherished, all lost.

  She sighed, feeling a deep sadness. “There must be something else,” she finally said, her voice soft.

  His grin was sudden and bright, like unexpected sunshine, as he viewed some picture passing through his mind. “If there is,” he replied presently, “it would be none of your business.”

  Caroline was nettled. “I don’t care anyway,” she lied.

  There was a long, difficult silence.

  “Well,” Caroline burst out finally, “you must want something! Everyone does.”

  Guthrie was in no hurry to reply. His gaze slid down over her slender figure and then came back to her face. He shrugged. “I want a wife, Caroline,” he said. “A soft, warm, cushiony wife.”

  Even though she had no aspirations to marry this man, Caroline was stung by his remark. She was as soft and warm as anyone, but when it came to the cushiony part, she fell short. “You mean, you want somebody fat,” she said, for the sake of her pride.

  Guthrie laughed. “I’m sorry, Caroline. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

  “You didn’t,” she lied huffily, straightening her skirts. Then she looked at him directly again. “Have you chosen this—wife?”

  “In a manner of speaking,” he said, with a lusty, contented sigh that heated Caroline’s blood, “Her name is Miss Adabelle Rogers and she lives in Cheyenne.”

  Caroline looked away, hoping to hide the unexpected stab of pain his announcement had caused. She couldn’t think why she cared whether or not Mr. Hayes meant to take a bride, when she was about to marry Seaton. But she did.

  “I wonder what she’d say if she knew you kissed me,” she said, to repay him.

  “She’d claw out my other eye,” Guthrie replied, with amusement in his voice.

  Caroline shuddered and then bolted to her feet. “That was a disgusting thing to say!” she blurted.

  Guthrie regarded her with a patient sort of sympathy that dealt still another injury to her dignity. She was sure he was thinking that she wanted to get Seaton out of jail because nobody else but a criminal would ever want a skinny schoolmarm like her.

  Suddenly, she could no longer bear Mr.
Hayes’s presence, even if it meant saving Seaton from the hangman’s noose. She was near tears, and self-respect decreed that she couldn’t allow herself to let this man see her cry again. “I’m sure the two of you will suit each other very well,” she said, and then she marched off toward the buggy and stepped up onto the runner.

  She wasn’t aware that Guthrie was behind her until he caught her by the waist and gently lifted her back down.

  Startled, she twisted in his arms. She gave a small whimper of protest, then her hands moved automatically to his shoulders, while his mouth found and conquered hers.

  “I’m leaving now,” Caroline told him, in a dazed whisper, when the kiss finally ended.

  “You’re staying for supper,” Guthrie countered, his voice a low rumble, and then he took her hand and led her back to his campfire.

  Chapter

  Tell me about yourself,” Guthrie said, squatting down to take the lid off the pot sitting in the embers of the fire and stir the contents. The savory scent of stew rose in the spring air, intensifying his hunger.

  Caroline was seated on the same stump where she’d sat before, looking defiant and like she wanted to bolt into the woods, both at once. She smoothed her skirts over her knees and lifted her chin a notch. “I’m a teacher,” she replied, in a prim effort to cooperate. “And, as you know, I’m a close friend of Mr. Seaton Flynn—”

  “Don’t you have a daddy?” Guthrie interrupted, slamming the lid back down onto the pot of simmering stew. These Yankees never ceased to amaze him. Where he came from, men looked after their womenfolk instead of letting them wander all over the countryside getting themselves into dutch. “Or a brother?”

  Caroline stared at him. “I beg your pardon?”

  “You must not have any male relations,” he said quietly, sitting on the wooden crate now. “If you did, you wouldn’t be running around the territory like a scalded chicken, pestering men you shouldn’t even speak to.”