“Nope.” Bailey knew what a wolf acted like, and this wasn’t it.
She knew exactly where she’d put her bullet if she took a shot. But she didn’t fire. Only a fool pulled the trigger when they weren’t sure what they were shooting at, and Bailey was no fool.
In the moment of taut silence, Bailey felt hot liquid course down her right side, and her left arm throbbed and burned. Her hand burned with pain. She was bleeding from at least three places, but the wounds weren’t bad enough to slow her down. She’d tend to them when she didn’t have someone to aim at. She didn’t stand, as Gage had, because she didn’t want to turn her attention for even a second.
The rustling stopped. The only sound was the restless movements of the horses. Even Ma had fallen silent. Gage reached down, and she let go of her rifle barrel for a single moment to slap her left hand in his and let him yank her to her feet. It ripped at the wound on her arm, but she stowed the pain away for later.
They stood side by side. Aiming at the woods. Neither fired.
The wolves yipped and snarled now instead of howling, and they weren’t getting closer. They’d found something, no doubt that carcass Bailey had smelled, probably from an earlier kill. And now they were content to feed on that. Although who could ever be completely safe when there was a pack of hungry wolves nearby?
Gage wobbled, and Bailey ignored her own pain to grab his arm and steady him. Once his knees stiffened, she went back to holding her long gun two-handed, but there was a certainty in Bailey that whoever or whatever had been there was gone. Whether she knew that by sound or sight or smell, she wasn’t sure, but she knew it just the same.
Bailey spared a glance at Gage and saw a black streak running down his face. Blood. “They’re gone. And I’m not chasing into those woods after them.”
Gage nodded and lowered his pistol.
Bailey followed suit with her rifle. A glance back to the trail told her something dark was across it, barely visible, mostly buried in snow.
Had Gage been stabbed, too? He’d propelled over his horse’s head; she hoped that’d thrown him past the sharp object in the road.
“Is my horse hurt?” Gage turned and almost fell.
She caught him again and looked at the flowing blood on his face. “Your stallion sounded hurt. There’s something across the trail that’s sharp, a downed tree maybe.” Bailey knew that whatever stretched across the path had to be connected to whoever hid in the woods looking on. It was no accident, no tree that fell at random. And whatever had poked her had been sharpened to a point.
“Your horse jumped right up. He may be injured, but he’s standing. He’d have probably run off, except the packhorse tied on stopped him.” She pulled a kerchief out of her pocket. “You’re bleeding.” She dabbed at the head wound.
Gage took the cloth away from her and pressed it to his temple. “I took a knock on the head. If you can help me get to my horse, I can mount up and stick a saddle. What happened? My horse went down at a full gallop.”
“Let’s get you mounted up, Gage. Whatever’s across the trail is dangerous. I’ll have a look, see about getting the packhorse across that barrier.”
The stallion tossed its head with a panicky whicker as she approached. She untied the pack animal, then ground-hitched it and hoped it was well trained enough, or tired enough, not to run off. With wolves behind them, the barrier in the trail ahead of him and the woods too thick to enter, she thought he’d stay put. And if he didn’t, right now, she was in too much pain to care.
She led the stallion well away from danger. The normally well-trained horse was so jumpy she lashed it to a scrub tree rather than trust it to stay hitched. A horse this nervous might take it into its head to run for the barn.
When she reached Gage, she hesitated. They had to get home, but he was so unsteady. It shocked her because she’d never seen Gage show one bit of weakness, unless she counted when his ma was crying and he looked desperate and at a loss for words.
She dropped her voice. “Can you ride?”
“Yeah, I can do it,” Gage said. He sounded confident, yet staying in the saddle . . . well, she’d believe it when she saw it.
He grabbed the stirrup.
She saw his Stetson tossed aside on the trail. “Hold still.” She let go, retrieved the hat, and handed it to him.
“Son, are you all right?” Ma sounded tearful, but at least she hadn’t dismounted and gotten herself stabbed.
“I’m fine, Ma. Let’s get back to riding. My horse just tripped over something.”
Leaving Gage, she went to the spot where she’d fallen. “There’s a thick branch across the trail.” Bailey crouched beside it, her hand tightening on the gun. “It was buried in snow; there aren’t any hoofprints on it. This wasn’t here when your riders went through.”
She slid her hands carefully along it and found a second length of wood studded with sharp points, sticking out straight into the trail. In the pitch-black she couldn’t make out what exactly she was dealing with.
“It couldn’t have been.” Gage’s harsh voice came out of the dark. “And it didn’t fall and get buried in snow on a day when it wasn’t snowing. Someone put it there.”
Bailey went back to his side. He made slow work of putting his Stetson on. With his voice low to keep his ma out of their conversation, he said, “That’s why my horse went down?”
“Yep, someone set a trap for you.”
“Like they did last fall on the canyon slope.”
Bailey hadn’t thought of that. “You never figured out who did that?”
“Winter shut us in hard after the last day I came to the canyon. I haven’t done a thing to get to the bottom of it.”
“You reckon whoever set off that landslide did this?” Bailey remembered how the chestnut horse had fallen, and she slid her hands along the animal’s body and found one bleeding wound. It didn’t seem to be life-threatening, just as the pokes she’d taken to her shoulder, arm, and hand weren’t. But she hurt something terrible, and she was sure the horse did, too. She felt a deep scratch in the horse’s saddle and hoped that had protected the critter from worse harm.
“It very well might be. The first day we’re away from the place in the spring, we get another man-trap sprung on us? What have they got planned for us next?” Even though Gage was barely walking, he crouched at the horse’s neck and ran both hands down his legs. “One foreleg is cut, but not deep.”
Pivoting on his toes, still hunkered down by his horse, Gage looked up at Bailey. His hat shaded his eyes, but the cold rolled off his voice. She didn’t have to see those icy eyes to know he was furious. “Maybe I should go into those woods. My prize stallion could have broken a leg over this.”
“We don’t have time for that.” Bailey didn’t even tell him about her stab wounds. She was light-headed, her wounds still bleeding. They had to move while she still could.
“We’ve got to get on. Neither of us wants a shootout with your ma smack in the middle of it.”
Gage’s jaw tightened, and the muscles in his cheeks were so hard that even in the deep shadows of the woods, Bailey could see it.
“Let’s go.” Gage rose from his crouch, using a grip on the stirrup to pull himself upright.
“Can you get up there and stay up?”
Sounding offended, he said, “Not counting breaking wild mustangs, I haven’t fallen off a horse since I was four years old.”
“Good, don’t start now.” Bailey wasn’t one to worry much about a man’s feelings. Most men didn’t treat each other that way, and she was used to acting like a man. “Mount up and let’s head out. But move careful. There could be more traps like this one.”
She decided not to stand there like a hand-wringing maiden to catch him if he fell. Instead, she headed back for her mount. She’d have offered to help him climb onto his horse but figured he could manage, and she had no desire to get her ears scalded with his refusal. And anyway, she wasn’t sure she had the strength.
Bailey made short work of dragging two branches off the trail, one of them crossing lengthwise to trip a rider, and the second with the sharpened pegs stretched down the middle of the trail right in front of the first.
Next, she grabbed the loose packhorse and led it over to tie it back on Gage’s horse. She led Ma Coulter’s horse through the small drift, then untangled reins until she got her own horse and the pack animals all in line.
Gage was on horseback by the time Bailey mounted up.
“Are you ready, Ma?” Bailey decided that unless the woman forbade it, she’d be called Ma. Who had time for Mrs. Coulter all day every day?
“Is Gage going to be all right?”
“Yep.” She hoped. And she didn’t mention her own injuries. “He got bumped up some. Your baby boy will be stiff and sore for a few days, but he’ll be fine.”
“Let’s ride.” Gage urged his horse into a walk. No more galloping.
Anyone who’d set such a yellowbelly trap might set more than one.
Bringing up the rear, she listened for anyone who might be following them while she pressed against her wounds. The one on her side she could control by pressing her left arm against it. Her right shoulder, though, was trickier. And with her right hand, wounded but not too badly, controlling the reins, she had to satisfy herself that she wasn’t losing much blood and just leave off tending it until she could get home.
17
The rest of the journey was slow, but there was no more trouble. Bailey’s tension finally eased as they rode out of the dense woods into the open space around Gage’s house. The moonlight made everything visible for the first time since the accident. And when her tension left, it stripped away the grit she’d used to get home.
Now the pain pulsed from her wounds. Her stomach swooped. She fumbled with the buttons of her coat and saw the front of her shirt was soaked in blood.
“Hang on tight. I’m going to get my men out here.” Gage drew his gun and fired into the air. The noise made her horse jump, and Bailey grabbed at the saddle horn to stay upright. Her head spun.
Armed men came boiling out of the bunkhouse.
Gage snapped orders. “Ike, see to my horse. He’s hurt.”
A skinny cowpoke Bailey vaguely remembered meeting came fast and reached them just as they got to the house. He caught the reins. “What happened, boss?”
“He went down on the trail. Someone put a big branch across the road. His foreleg is cut, and I’m not sure what else. Look him over careful.” Gage dismounted.
Several of his men had come close to listen.
“You’re bleedin’, boss.” An older man, the foreman named Rowdy, stepped closer. He raised his voice, “Manny, fetch a lantern out of the house.”
One of the men ran into the house and ran out with a lantern, which he lit and brought over to Gage.
The oldster took the lantern and lit up Gage’s face. The man said, “You all right, Gage?”
“I’m fine. I just took a hit to the head. Ike, you tend my chestnut, the rest of you, lend a hand with the baggage.”
The men split up, heading for the packhorses. Someone lit a second lantern and carried it onto the porch. All the men milling around worked on Bailey’s nerves. She could handle almost anything except large groups of men.
Rowdy stayed by Gage, and they talked quietly. Ike stripped a pile of supplies packed behind the stallion’s saddle, dropped them to the ground, and led the horse away.
Bailey dismounted, tied her horse to the hitching post, then headed straight for Ma, thinking it would help keep her from fretting to be with another woman. She helped Ma down.
“Let’s go on inside.” Bailey watched Ma abandon her and rush to Gage’s side. “Someone help my boy. He hurt himself when he fell off his horse.”
Gage froze in midsentence. In the moonlight, with the help of the lanterns, Bailey saw Gage’s face turn so red it nearly shined in the dark. No man liked to admit he’d fallen off his horse. A horse going down and taking the rider along was completely different.
His men, working over the packs, stopped to look at Ma, then turned back fast to unstrapping and hauling. Bailey thought she heard a few snickers.
Rowdy rubbed his hand over his mouth. Then with a somewhat unsteady voice, like he was fighting not to laugh, he said, “You get your ma and your wife settled, Gage. We’ll get these things inside.”
So Gage had mentioned he got married. Had he told Rowdy before he’d come to Bailey’s or just now? And did Rowdy know Gage was supposed to have been married for a while now?
She shook her head, but only once. The motion made her dizzy. The cowhands ignored her, so did Gage and Ma. Everyone ignored her, which gave her the perfect chance to get out of the crowd. Something she needed to do while she could still walk.
“Let’s go inside, Ma.” Bailey thought her bleeding had stopped, but she was weak and in pain. She could probably use a woman’s help. She went to Ma.
The woman barely spared her a glance. “I’d better oversee the unloading.”
A heavy trunk landed hard on the ground.
“Be careful! Some of my things are breakable.” She rushed away from Bailey toward the trunk. Manny jumped aside to avoid Ma running over him.
“Now, you men handle my things gently,” she said.
Normally, Bailey would have pitched in and helped, but with all the men surrounding her, and her wobbly knees, she gave up on Ma.
Most likely the woman would be worse than no help, anyway. She’d find a chair out of the way and sit down awhile, gather her strength, then find bandages and heat some water for herself. She walked toward the house, slowly.
She was none too steady as she mounted the porch steps empty-handed and listened to Ma squawk about breakables. She realized then that she was about to face her darkest fear.
Not a frightening cluster of men, though that was bad.
Not moving into a house, knowing she had to face a wedding night with Gage, though that should have been it.
Not giving up her land to marry a stranger, though she knew the papers Gage had given her were only as good as his word; no court would let a married woman own land separate from her husband.
Not her pa finding out she’d turned her homestead over to Gage. That would come, and Pa would be loud about his complaints, but Bailey had heard it all before.
Nope, her darkest fear, the one thing that drove all the other fears to the back of her mind . . .
What if Ma’s visit was permanent?
The ride had cleared Gage’s head . . . mostly. As he turned to protect his men from his mother and help with the hauling, he watched his wife step up onto his porch. She was moving wrong, not her usual fast, take-charge way.
Of course, she was exhausted and half starved, but he didn’t question the reflex that sent him rushing toward her.
Bailey reached for the post at the top of the two steps. The lantern light gleamed on the bare skin between her coat sleeve and her leather glove, bright red. Blood. That scarlet hand grabbed at the post and missed. Her knees buckled.
She toppled backward off the stairs. He sprinted the last few steps and caught her before she fell to the ground.
“You’re bleeding.” She didn’t respond. He looked down into her face, eyes closed, skin as pale as ash. Unconscious.
He roared, “Rowdy!”
Swinging her up, he carried her inside and went straight to his bedroom at the back of the house. He called over his shoulder, “Bring a lantern, Rowdy. The rest of you men, let Ma tell you where to take her things.”
So much for protecting them.
That was the last thought he gave to anything but his wife.
He laid her down right on top of the blankets. Rowdy rushed in, boots clomping, lantern in hand, to light up the room. Gage stripped Bailey’s gloves off, and the lantern flared on vivid scarlet. Her right hand was coated in blood.
“She didn’t even tell me she’d been hurt. She said something sharp had stabbed my horse. It m
ust’ve stabbed her too, and all she did was take care of me and get us back on the trail.” Purely ashamed of himself, he added, “She even lifted that branch out of the way while I sat on my horse.”
He tossed her hat aside and unwound the scarf from around her neck. Next, he took off the heavy buffalo robe and found her shoulder was bleeding. The whole front of her sleeve was soaked in blood.
“Get her uncovered, Gage.” Rowdy had the best healing skills of any of them.
Gage reached for the buttons that went down the front of her dress and hesitated. He looked up at Rowdy, who only tore his eyes off the sleeve when Gage stopped.
“What’s the matter?”
“I think you should step out while I undress her. It ain’t fitting that you should see my wife’s . . . uh, my wife’s . . .” Gage shrugged. “And tell my ma to come in here. The men can get her things to her room without my help.”
Rowdy blushed, something Gage had never seen before. The old man nodded and hurried out. “When you’re down to the wound, cover the rest of her up and I’ll come back. I’ll heat water and get bandages while you make sure she’s decent.”
Gage went back to unbuttoning and knew he shouldn’t be doing this. If she was conscious, she’d probably punch him in the mouth. She’d already proved herself capable of that.
When he got her dress open, he heaved a sigh of relief. She had woolen underwear on. Spikes on that branch had to pierce her tough buffalo coat and long-sleeved dress and long underwear, lots of protection and still she was bleeding.
She’d been stabbed in the hand, at the base of her thumb.
There was a hole poked in her arm a couple of inches down from her shoulder. He drew the knife out of his boot and carefully cut the sleeve away.
A puncture—he had no idea how deep—but it hadn’t gone all the way through. He pulled up her shirt at the waist and found an ugly cut, as if the spike had raked along on her skin but hadn’t stabbed into her. He shifted her around to pull the blanket over her up to her neck, leaving her injured arm outside.
As he tucked the blanket around her neck, he saw an ugly red scratch right below her ear. It was only a mark. The scratch hadn’t bled. He could imagine one of those spikes scraping along her neck, inches from an artery that would have left her bleeding to death.
Fire and Ice Page 13