One thing he did know. By now, he’d have taken a chunk out of anyone who tried to throw a saddle on his back. Mean McGee didn’t care for saddles. He put up with Jed’s saddle only because Jed always bribed him with a lump of sugar or sweet potato, preferably baked, although he tolerated raw.
Somewhere in the valley a dog bayed. Soon the strident cry was taken up by a dozen other hounds. A man’s voice could be heard in the distance, singing, yodeling or maybe swearing. Sounds in the mountains could be deceptive, ricocheting from rock face to rock face before dropping into the valleys. Some days, in certain places, a whisper could be heard for miles. Other days, other places, a shout died before it traveled a hundred yards.
“What’s all the hullabaloo?” he asked as Eleanor stood to put the dishes in to wash. “Here, I’ll do that,” he said, easing her away from the dishpan. “You don’t want to get that hand wet.”
Without arguing, she moved toward the door to look out over the valley. Due to the height of the trees farther down the slopes and the thickness of the nearby laurel thickets, not much could be seen from the hilltop. Smoke from a few chimneys, a few outlying fields—that was about all.
“Anybody headed this way?” he asked, pouring water from the kettle onto a sliver of soap.
“Not so far as I can tell.” She sounded wary. She was hurting more than she let on, holding her bandaged hand shoulder high. Regardless of what she’d said, he knew from experience how much a burn could throb. Trouble was, when it was your ass that was smoking, there wasn’t a whole lot you could do about it.
The noise was growing louder, the voices coming closer. Someone yelled, “Grab that sunovabitch, he’s a-gettin’ away!”
Eleanor turned, wide-eyed and suddenly so pale her freckles stood out like pepper on grits. “They’re coming this way,” she whispered.
From the sound, Jed figured they were still a good five hundred yards away. Depending on how fast they were traveling, that should give him at least five minutes. Selecting a butcher knife, the blade honed down to less than half an inch wide, Jed said quietly, “I’ll be around back.” At her look of alarm, he said, “Don’t worry, I’ll stay out of sight. If they want to come inside, let ’em. There’s nothing of mine to find.”
“Your jacket,” she said, reaching for it just as he did.
Their hands met—her good one, his free one. Impulsively, he caught her to him and kissed her. One hard, damp smack, all the more disturbing because it invited more, and there was no time for more.
He pushed her away, whispering, “Go out onto the front porch and smile. You’re always wanting company, remember?”
He saw her draw in a deep breath, her eyes dark with something that might be fear…or might be something entirely different. A pulse at the base of her throat was fluttering like a handheld hummingbird.
Why? Because she was frightened?
Or because he had kissed her? Had she liked it as much as he had? Was she as disappointed as he was that there was no time to follow through and see where it would lead?
Oh, yeah, he liked women, all right. He particularly liked this woman for a lot of reasons, not the least because she was totally without artifice. He liked her frankness, her kindness, the feel of her hands on his body and the way her eyes crinkled at the corners just before she laughed. It never failed to get to him, the way laughter seemed to well up inside her like a bubbling spring until it spilled over.
He liked the way she smelled, too, but that was another matter, one he had no business even thinking about. Not at a time like this, with trouble coming up the front way and no way out the back unless he dived off the edge of the mountain.
Easing out the back door, he told himself that if he were a free man, a man without obligations, he might try his luck with her. But he had places to go, people he needed to see. He would help her get away from here—he owed her that much and more. But that was all he would do. He respected her too much to start something he couldn’t finish.
Hearing voices coming up the path, he knelt carefully and leaned down to peer under the house, to see how many men were headed this way. Blasted weeds—she called them flowers, but they were weeds to him. Couldn’t see a damned thing. He was laboriously getting to his feet again, one hand braced against the rough log siding, when he heard a familiar whuffling sound.
He started to grin. McGee? Had to be. According to Eleanor, the only four-legged creatures around besides the hogs and hounds were a team of oxen, a team of mules and half a dozen milk cows.
“McGee, you old devil’s spawn, don’t give me away now,” he whispered.
He heard her greet the visitors, her voice a shade too loud, like she was deliberately wanting to be overheard. Easy does it, sweetheart, just act natural.
“Good morning, Alaska. That’s a mighty fine animal you’ve got there.”
Mumble, mumble. The horse whickered again. One of the men swore. The voice sounded familiar.
Eleanor laughed. “My, and he looks so gentle, too,” she said, and Jed nearly laughed aloud. He’d learned the hard way that once you climb down off McGee’s back you’d better duck out of the way fast if you didn’t want to lose a chunk of whatever body part was in reach of those big yellow teeth.
He heard her say, her voice more natural now, “Do you think we’re in for some rain?”
A familiar voice drawled, “Not till after midnight. Then I figger we got us about a three-day wet spell comin’ on.”
Oh, yeah—he definitely remembered hearing that nasal voice while he was having the daylights kicked out of him a week ago. The other two—so far as he could tell, there were three of them—muttered so that he couldn’t make out what was being said.
“See that there pale streak, like buttermilk spilled onto a washboard? That there’s a dead giveaway.”
Unless he missed his guess, that would be the moonshiner, Alaska. Wasn’t he the brother of the woman Eleanor was counting on to help them escape?
“What we come for is to ask if ye seen any strangers around these parts.” The other voice. High-pitched, younger sounding.
“Strangers?” She repeated it loud enough for him to hear. Jed knew the way her mind worked by now. While she wouldn’t lie outright, she didn’t mind occasionally bending the truth. “Mercy, so far as I know there’s not a stranger within miles of here. Funny you should ask, though. Hector was asking the same thing the other day when he brought my basket.”
Not a stranger within miles, huh? Jed shook his head admiringly. When a woman had seen a man jaybird naked—when she’d cleaned him up, doctored him and bound him up in sheets like one of those Egyptian fellers he’d read about in the encyclopedia, why then, she could hardly call him a stranger.
“Is that a new horse, Alaska? He’s…um, big, isn’t he?”
“Yep, got him off’n a feller t’other day. You don’t want to stand too close, though, he ain’t been trained right.”
Understatement of the year, Jed thought, amused. Why the devil were they hanging around? According to Eleanor, nobody ever stayed much longer than it took to drop off her supplies.
“Smoke don’t rise, neither.” Back to the weather again. Stalling while they looked around. “Hangs real low. You gotta be smart ’bout these things, Elly Nora, else you might get caught out in a bad storm.”
Listening from the other side of the small cabin, Jed wondered if that was a warning. Did they suspect her of harboring someone who might help her escape?
Damned right he would help her, and the sooner, the better. She didn’t belong here any more than he did. Foggy Valley might be a few years behind the times when it came to modern conveniences, but Dexter’s Cut hadn’t even made it out of the Dark Ages.
Her voice came from farther away now. Evidently she had come down off the porch and was trying to draw them away from the cabin.
“Wa-aall…we jest thought we’d ride up here, see if you’d seen any strangers hanging round. If you do, you yell down the hill, y’hear? I don’t
want you a-getting’ mixed up with some no-count flatlander.”
There was a general muttering of agreement from the other two. Yeah, they definitely sounded younger. Evidently they were on foot, if what Eleanor had said was true, and there weren’t any other horses in the valley.
Eleanor assured them she would call for help if need be. Jed heard the three men talking as they moved off down the path. He waited a full three minutes before easing around the corner. She met him there, nearly plowed right into him. He had to catch her to keep from knocking her down.
“They’re gone,” she whispered, looking both relieved and harried. “They were drinking, I could smell it on them.” She shuddered. Her hair had fallen out of its knot to tumble across her face. Impatiently, she shoved it back.
Jed wanted to assure her she had nothing to worry about, but he couldn’t do it, not with a clear conscience. The truth was, they had a lot to worry about. The fact that those weasels had come calling when she said they almost never came up the hill was enough to raise his hackles. Either they suspected something or…
Or they were after something.
If a single one of the bastards laid a hand on her, they were dead meat. Buzzard bait, Jed vowed silently. “That’s my horse,” he said. “That’s McGee, I’d know that braying jackass anywhere.” His arms tightened around her as they stared out toward the place where the visitors had disappeared.
“I think he bit Alaska,” she confided. “Did you hear what he called him?”
“Probably nothing I haven’t called him a time or two. Did he get him good?”
“He didn’t do it here, but I think it must have been his shoulder, from the way he kept rubbing it.”
“Probably what all the ruckus was a little while ago. Must’ve been trying to strap a saddle on his back. McGee’s not real partial to saddles. I always bribe him.”
Some of the tension had left her face. Something—possibly the thought of Alaska tangling with McGee—brought forth an impish grin that made her look like a girl. For all her troubles, she hadn’t lost the ability to laugh. It was just one of the things he’d come to lo—to like about her.
“McGee’s going with us when we leave here.”
She started to speak, but he laid a finger over her lips and said, “We need him, Eleanor. They know this country a lot better than either of us. We’re going to have to take off like a bolt of lightning and outrun them, at least for the first few miles. McGee’s not much on looks or pretty manners, but he can outrun any horse I’ve ever owned.” For five, maybe ten minutes, he added silently. If they played it right, that should be enough to give them a good head start. After that, he’d have to count on guile and a moonless night.
They went in through the back door and moved directly to the front window, watching the place where the path opened onto the clearing. Jed said, “I don’t trust him not to double back. It’s what I’d do in his place.”
“That’s what bothers me. The twins have been here before to deliver my basket—not that they ever stay.” His arm was across her shoulder, and she edged closer. “But Alaska must suspect something, because the last time he came here was when he caught me trying to get away. I hate it when he’s the one.”
Hearing the soft fervor of her voice, Jed hated it, too. Hated the thought of that bastard laying a hand on her. She had no business being within a hundred miles of this place. “It won’t be long now,” he promised. Cracked bones or not, he was getting her away before those devils got high on popskull and decided to get better acquainted with the widow Miller.
Chapter Eleven
For supper, Eleanor sliced and fried the cornmeal mush. There was a time when she would have been horrified at serving such a meal to anyone, but that time had long since passed. The “Miz Scarb’ra” who once taught third grade at Corner Gum Academy had been replaced by someone named Elly Nora Miller, a woman whose only concern was survival.
“I think they suspect,” she said, searching Jed’s face for the reassurance she so desperately needed. “I know something has changed, I can tell by the way they’re acting. The twins’ eyes never stopped moving, not once. I’m surprised they didn’t climb up on the roof and look down the chimney.”
“Even the dumbest animal is smart in his own way.” Jed forked up a golden-brown bite and said, “Mm-mm. This reminds me of something my mama used to make.”
“But then if they’d insisted on coming inside I might have screamed for help. I don’t think Hector or Miss Lucy would have approved of their breaking into my house.” Leaning back in her chair, she raked her hair away from her face and sighed. “Oh, I don’t know. Everything’s falling apart. We need to get away.”
“No argument there.” He scraped his plate clean, glanced at the empty skillet and looked away. “All they know is that I disappeared. Unless I was dragged off by a bear or crawled into a hole and died, there’s only one place I could be hiding. The question is, do you know I’m here, or am I hiding from you, too? Maybe they’re only trying to look after your interests.”
She glanced at him, lifting one eyebrow, and he chuckled. Amazing, she thought, how two people could become so attuned in such a short period of time. They were nothing at all alike, yet more than once when one of them would start a sentence, the other one would finish it. As if their minds were two sides of the same train, on separate tracks, but both headed in the same direction.
At the moment, they were both aimed at getting away. She refused to let herself think beyond that.
“We can’t wait much longer,” he said, fingering his empty coffee cup.
She rose and pulled out the drawer under the grinder. There was perhaps half a cup of grounds there, the last of what she’d ground earlier. She reached for the gray graniteware coffeepot, but he shook his head.
“Let me make it,” he said, and took down the two-quart pot from the nail behind the stove. “I can stretch a few beans further than you can.”
Boiled coffee. It seemed almost sacrilegious to drink the muddy brew from a bone china cup when she still had a tiny hoard of tea. But if thick boiled coffee could bolster courage, then she would drink it black and bitter and not complain.
They waited silently as the aroma filled the room, then she stood and was preparing to slide the pot off the fire when he leaned across the table and caught her hand. “Quiet,” he signaled. “Someone’s outside.”
Her eyes widened. “Again?” No one ever came back the same day. Occasionally, not even the same week.
Jed lowered his voice until it was barely a whisper. “You go to the front door. I’m going to slip out the back way. If they want to come inside and look around, let them. I won’t be here.”
He had scouted out the terrain earlier, sensing that the time might soon come when he would need to disappear in a hurry. The shed wouldn’t hide a sparrow and the privy was too obvious. Besides, both were too easy to search. There was only one possible place to hide. It wouldn’t be easy, but as long as he was careful…
They were both standing by then, out of range of anyone coming up the path. Jed gave her hand an encouraging squeeze, then reached for his coat that was hanging on a peg beside the back door. “Go,” he mouthed, and waited a moment until she headed for the front door, a stiff smile fixed on her face. Sweetheart, you’re going to have to do better than that, he thought. You couldn’t fool a dead possum with that smile.
“Hello again,” he heard her say as he eased off the back stoop and ran, doubled over, toward the edge of the property. “Did you decide to bring me some meat?”
Eleanor stood in the doorway, watching as Alaska slid down off the horse and tied him off to a holly tree, taking care to avoid teeth and hooves. Bite him, McGee! Take a big chunk out of the bully!
He didn’t bother to reply, but swaggered directly up the steps to confront her. “You sure you didn’t see no strangers hanging round here?” His breath nearly sent her reeling. He’d been drinking, but he was far from drunk. She hoped.
; “You asked me that earlier, and I told you I haven’t seen any strangers.” Did lying count as a sin when it was in a good cause?
“Got to be som’eres around here, ’cause if’n he’d a gone through the Cut, we’d a’ seen him. Onliest other place he could be is up here. Mind if I take a look around? Wouldn’t want him to sneak in on you.”
You lying, conniving, mean-spirited horse thief! “That’s a fine horse, Alaska,” she said. “He seems to be a sweet-natured animal. I’ve never been much of a rider myself. Actually, I was never able to afford a horse, but…” But what? she thought frantically. She needed to engage him in conversation long enough for Jed to hide.
Where on earth could he hide? There was nowhere to go unless he hid in one of the tunnels. But to reach those, he would have to pass right by where they were standing and go a third of the way down the path.
“Why don’t I jest take a look inside, see that he ain’t hidin’ under Dev’s bed?”
It’s not Dev’s bed, it’s mine, she wanted to shout. Instead, she smiled and said, “Let me show you around, then. I haven’t had time to sweep since supper. The house is in a mess.”
The dishes. Dear Lord, two plates, two cups, two of everything!
“In fact, I haven’t even washed the dishes all day. Shamefully lazy, I know, but then, it doesn’t seem all that important any more.”
“Hurt yer hand?”
“My hand? Oh, my hand. I burned it. On the stove. It hardly hurts at all now.”
“Need a man to take care of you,” he said, his expression dangerously close to a leer.
He didn’t quite shove her out of the way, but it amounted to the same thing, Eleanor thought despairingly as she stood back and allowed him inside the cabin. She willed Jed to hide quickly, because there was something different about Alaska this time. Something she didn’t like at all. Thank God he hadn’t brought the twins to search outside while he looked in every corner of her house.
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