Finally, she had everything, including her dictionary, crammed into two pillow slips. Good thing, she thought guiltily, that Jed didn’t have anything to take, because there wouldn’t be room if everything had to fit in his saddlebags.
That was something else she hadn’t mentioned to Varnelle. McGee. She would leave it to Jed to explain when the time came. He was standing before her makeshift bookshelf, studying the dozen or so volumes there. Without turning around, he said, “I wish we could take every one.”
“I know. It’s a shame, but I’ve read them all so many times I’ve practically memorized them.”
“I haven’t.”
She didn’t know what to say to that, and so she said nothing. “I doubt if anyone will ever read them again. Or maybe Hector, if he and Varnelle move up here. He’s had a few years of schooling.”
It occurred to her that a man’s pride was a funny thing. Hector had bragged about finishing the third grade. She knew for a fact that Jed was a proud man, yet he hadn’t been ashamed to expose his lack of formal schooling. Ironically, she thought, it required a good deal of strength to be able to admit to weaknesses.
“We’d better get some sleep,” he said some time later. It was late in the afternoon. Jed had just come in from checking the shed for anything that might prove helpful. They had taken time to eat a hasty supper of corn bread and molasses, and Eleanor had said feelingly that she hoped she wouldn’t have to see another pan of corn bread for another year.
Jed had said she might change her mind if the trip took much longer than he planned. “You take the bed,” he said flexing his back. “I’ll take the sofa, I don’t need much rest.”
“You certainly do. May I remind you that it’s been little more than a week since you were beaten nearly to death? You haven’t even recovered from that, much less from sliding halfway down the back of a mountain and hanging there by your fingernails. Your chest is all purple and blue again.”
“What about my poor arms?” he teased. “Wonder they aren’t five inches longer after hanging on to that root all day.”
“A few minutes,” she scoffed. “Trust a man to make something out of nothing.”
He grinned at her, and Eleanor thought of how much she was going to miss this man when it came time to say goodbye. Not only the fact that he was so attractive she was physically aware of him every minute of the day, but the fact that he was such good company. She would have given anything to have met him under other circumstances.
But then, under any other circumstances, he wouldn’t have given her the time of day.
They shared the bed. “We both need our rest,” Jed insisted. “That thing you call a sofa was invented by that guy, Markwiss de Sadie. If you insist on sleeping there again, I’ll be forced as a gentleman to sleep on the floor.”
Eleanor swallowed her laughter and didn’t correct him. He had told her enough about his background so that she understood his shortcomings. Understood, too, how far he’d come unaided. He was a man to be admired, not ridiculed.
Lying stiffly on the far edge of the feather mattress, she considered placing pillows between them, but that might imply that she was uncomfortable sharing a bed with him.
Uncomfortable? She was burning up, and it wasn’t just the warm, sultry breeze that drifted in through the window. Not until the sun had set would the air even begin to cool off.
Thunder rumbled in the distance. She waited to see a flash of light, then muttered, “Backward.”
He rolled over. She lay rigid on her back.
“Backward?” he echoed. “You want me to sleep on my back?”
“Not you, the lightning. I was counting from the thunder, not the flash.”
Long seconds ticked by. After a minute, he said, “When we were kids, George and I used to share a bed. That was before my father added another room onto the house. When one of us wanted to turn over, we’d say, ‘Flip.’”
She rolled over onto her side, facing him. As if on cue, a flash of lightning brightened the room, followed almost immediately by an explosion of thunder. Eleanor drew her knees up and ducked her head under the sheet.
“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of a little thunder.”
“No, I’m afraid of getting struck by lightning. We happen to be the highest thing around, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
More lightning, followed by more thunder that rumbled off interminably, echoing from mountain to mountain.
She felt a hand grip her shoulder. “Come here,” Jed said gruffly.
Without a moment’s hesitation, she scrambled over the lump of feathers pushed up between them and fell into his arms, burrowing her face against his chest. If she were to die in the next few minutes, at least she wouldn’t die alone. As for anything else, she would worry about that after the storm passed.
“Wake up,” Jed whispered, nuzzling her ear through the thicket of wild curls. “Time to go.”
Eleanor came instantly awake. It took only a moment to realize where she was, who was holding her, and what the effect was on both of them. She’d been dreaming….
Judging from the evidence of his arousal, Jed had been dreaming, too.
Embarrassed, she edged to the far side and lowered her feet to the floor. She had slept in her clothes, as her best nightgown was packed. Jed had slept in his clothes because he had nothing else to sleep in. Probably a good thing, too.
“Rain’s over. Let’s head on down the mountain.”
They had arranged to meet at a certain flat rock near the creek, less than a quarter of a mile—a hoot and a holler, as Hector would say—from Alaska’s cove.
Eleanor had taken time to clear away any fallen branches on her way back up that morning, but the squall had tossed a few more across the path. The air smelled of resin and wet earth. It felt cool, but not unpleasant.
They didn’t talk on the way down, but she could tell Jed was having trouble keeping his homemade moccasins on his feet. She heard him cursing under his breath. Finally, he bent and snatched them off, shoving them into the pillow slip he carried.
Varnelle was waiting for them by the rock. In the light shed by a cloud-veiled moon, she gave Jed a long, unsmiling look. “This the one they beat up?”
Eleanor nodded. Jed said nothing.
After a moment, Varnelle said, “I knowed they was a stranger messin’ around here. ’Laska, he told Pap some man traded him a horse for a gallon of shine, but I knowed better. I heard what went on up there, all the ruckus. You was supposed to ’ve left.”
“Are you going to help us?” Jed asked. He didn’t have time for a lengthy discussion, especially not with the sister of the man responsible for his being here. He still wasn’t certain she could be trusted.
“Wait here. Gimme ten minutes to get over to Jessie’s place.”
“Jessie keeps most of the chickens,” Eleanor explained.
“When you hear the dogs start up, then take off a-running. I ain’t promisin’ nothing, but I’ll do what I said this mornin’.”
Eleanor nodded. “I left the rose silk hanging in the bedroom, and some shoes, too. Anything else you want, you’re welcome to take.”
“My horse,” Jed said.
“I didn’t figger on no horse,” said the sturdy redhead dressed in men’s boots and a faded print dress. In the light of the quarter moon, everything was painted in shades of gray, Varnelle’s red hair included.
“I’m not leaving without him,” Jed stated flatly. Behind him, Eleanor huddled on the rock, two large, lumpy bundles beside her. At the last minute she’d crammed in what little food had been left, not knowing how long they’d be traveling, nor even where they were headed.
Foggy Valley? She’d never even heard of the place before Jed had erupted into her life. Had no real idea where it was located, but decisions about where they were going could wait until they were clear of the valley.
“I’m not leaving without McGee,” Jed repeated, his voice quiet, but rock hard. “I wouldn’t mind having my hat an
d boots back, but those are replaceable. McGee’s not.”
“’Laska, he might sell him to you if you was to ask. Might beat the tar out of you ag’in, too.”
“I’m not buying my own horse.”
“How do I know he’s your’n? ’Laska caught him fair’n square. He was a wanderin’ loose.”
“We can’t waste any more time, we need to get started,” Eleanor said, breaking up the duel.
“If this here fool don’t mess ever’thing up over some dumb old horse, you’ll be free an’ clear ’fore anybody knows you’re gone.”
Turning to Jed, she said, “You’re plumb crazy if you think my brother’s gonna give up that ol’ horse, mister. He don’t cotton to strangers.”
“I noticed,” Jed said dryly.
“No telling what he might do if he was to catch you still hanging round here.”
“There’s laws against horse stealing,” Jed said, his voice still smooth as butter. “Laws against ganging up on a man and beating him half to death, too, come to that, but I won’t press charges. All I want is my horse.”
Varnelle stood on first one foot, then the other, as if she needed to relieve herself. From her place on the rock, Eleanor watched the two of them, wishing they would stop bickering and get on with setting things into motion. The last thing they needed now was for Varnelle to change her mind.
Sliding down from the rock, she joined the other two. “Please, can’t we just forget McGee? I’d rather walk a hundred miles than have to spend one more night here.”
“All right, I won’t go after my horse.” Jed nodded to the redhead. “Get started then. We’ll wait until we hear the dogs and then light out for the road.”
Varnelle’s eyes narrowed. Even in the near dark, Eleanor could tell that she was suspicious of Jed’s easy capitulation. Thinking quickly, she said, “I’m sorry not to be able to tell Hector goodbye. Will you tell him for me? And thank him for all the lovely things he’s done for me? The candy? He knows the kind I like best and always tries to bring me some little thing.”
That was rubbing it in, perhaps, but she had to do something.
As if she’d needed the reminder, the other woman turned and disappeared in the direction of the village. “Wait for the dogs to start up,” she called back softly.
They waited. For several minutes neither of them spoke. The settlement below was silent. There were fourteen houses in all, with the usual assortment of outbuildings. Eleanor happened to know that the chicken farm was some quarter of a mile away.
“Maybe you could come back for McGee,” she suggested, knowing she didn’t really want him to take the risk. If Alaska or any of his friends caught him a second time they might kill him to keep him from bringing the law down on their heads.
Jed claimed to be part Cherokee. When it came to sheer wiliness, she would match his Indian blood against any other man she had ever met, but he, better than anyone, should know that the Millers didn’t fight fair.
Jed was so silent, she wondered if he could have fallen asleep. Had ten minutes passed? Five? It seemed hours since they had left the cabin, leaving a lamp lit in case anyone was watching.
“You know where McGee’s being kept?” he asked suddenly.
She started at the sound of his voice. Except for a chorus of tree frogs, it was dead silent. “The Hootens live over in that direction, about the second house over.” She pointed in the general direction of the house she had visited only that morning.
Jed turned in the direction she had indicated. He lifted his face as if he were listening. And then he placed two fingers between his lips and let out a soft, penetrating whistle.
Chapter Fourteen
Without a bribe it took several minutes, but Jed managed to gentle the skittish horse. Eleanor thought McGee must be glad to see him after spending a week with Alaska, who wasn’t known for his kindness toward any creature, twoor four-legged.
“I’ll need a minute to tie your bundles on,” Jed said softly. “Stand clear, he doesn’t like strangers, remember?”
Didn’t like anyone, so far as she could tell. He bumped his head against Jed’s a time or two, hard enough to cause Jed to stagger, but perhaps that was considered affection.
“Stand still, you damned churnhead, or I’ll send you back where you came from,” Jed growled.
The horse bared his teeth, but stopped trying to knock him over. Eleanor said, “Good horsey,” and felt like an utter fool.
Thunder rumbled sullenly. Wind sent a flurry of leaves showering around them as Jed fashioned a bridle from the clothesline he had coiled over his shoulder. Cutting off the excess, he used it to tie together the two pillow slips. “You heard the lady, dammit, be a good horsey and stand still while I—” He positioned the makeshift saddlebags and stepped back, “There, that does it.”
Eleanor wondered how he could see in the darkness. She could barely make out what he was doing. The white shirt helped. Lifting his hands to the horse’s head, he whispered words that were part profanity, part encouragement. “Easy, boy, there’s a lady present. I can’t talk to you the way I usually do, so be a good fellow now, y’hear?”
McGee stomped impatiently and tossed his head. Eleanor had visions of racing headlong through the pitch-black night on the back of a runaway horse.
A clap of thunder seemed to ricochet forever before grumbling off into the distance while a single star hung in the sky. Even as she watched, it was swallowed up by the same clouds that had swept over the moon only moments earlier. Rain was on the way, and would likely overtake them before they found a place to stay for the night. She had no idea how far it was to the nearest boarding house, much less the nearest town.
From a distance came the constant din of the hounds, their barking, howling and baying punctuated with shouts and sporadic gunshots.
“They shoot chickens around here?” Jed asked. She knew he was trying to ease the tension, but Eleanor wasn’t fooled. Neither was McGee, judging from the way he was dancing around. Danger surrounded them like a cold wind, sweeping up from the valley below.
“Come here, let me lift you aboard.”
“I think I’ll walk.” Danger or not, she wasn’t ready to climb up on a fidgety horse named Mean McGee, not if she had to run every step of the way to freedom.
Ignoring her protest, Jed lifted her by the waist. Holding her in midair, he said, “You gonna ride sidesaddle or sensible? Make up your mind fast, we’ve got to move out.”
“Put me down, I’ve changed my mind.” She grabbed his shoulders and struggled to free herself as another gunshot rang out.
“Lift your skirts,” he said, any hint of teasing now gone from his voice. “It’s now or never, Eleanor.”
Oh, God. They were coming closer.
She hoisted her skirts above her knees and he settled her astride the skittish animal and swung up behind her. The tiny part of her brain that wasn’t paralyzed pondered how he managed to pull himself up when there were no stirrups, no saddle horn—nothing at all to grab on to.
By then they were moving, though, and all she could do was dig her fingers into the sinewy thighs that cradled her hips and pray that they wouldn’t be shot in the back or garroted by a clothesline as they made a mad dash though the very heart of the settlement.
“I th-thought—we were g-g-going to t-take the road,” she chattered, bouncing like a rubber ball on McGee’s bony back.
“Shortcut. No time.”
The next shot was closer. Something zinged through Miss Lucy’s apple tree. “Hurry, hurry,” she urged, her fingers digging deeper into his thighs.
They had just cleared the last barn in the settlement when the rain began. In reaction to an unspoken command, McGee settled into a bone-shaking lope that quickly ate up distance. Even so, by the time they were halfway across a newly plowed field they were both soaked to the skin.
Blinded by rain and pitch darkness, Eleanor swept an arm across her face. One of Jed’s arms came around her waist to steady her and s
he cried, “Hold on to the horse!”
“McGee knows what he’s doing. Can’t have you slipping off, I’d never find you in this rain.”
A little farther on, the field began to slope steeply up the hillside. Searching desperately for something to lighten the moment, Eleanor tried to think of all the jokes she’d ever heard about mountain cows being born with one set of short legs so as to graze on the steepest pastures, but nothing could take away from the gravity of their situation. Jed would have heard them all, anyway, and besides— McGee’s legs were all the same length.
“Oh, God,” she whimpered when she felt the gelding’s hooves slip on the rain-slick mud. She bit her lip to keep from crying out in panic.
“Easy, we’re almost clear,” Jed said as they skirted past one of the outlying farms.
A non-Miller farm, she was almost sure of it, belonging to one of the few families that had been “allowed” to go on living there. How on earth could such a people exist in this enlightened age, she wondered, not for the first time. To think she had almost become one of them. Trapped forever in the Dark Ages….
They kept on going, and Eleanor breathed a sigh of relief. Just because these people weren’t Millers didn’t mean they would protect a pair of strangers from an armed mob.
It seemed like hours later when, numbed by cold and the relentless pounding of her tender behind, she felt McGee slow to a walk. Jed whispered to him, talking him down as if he were a blooded racehorse, and the miserable creature finally came to a halt.
“Attaboy, easy does it, take a breather now—you did good, real good.” And to Eleanor he said, “Sorry. I was afraid to try to hold him back until we were in the clear.”
The rain drummed down steadily, chilling her to the bone. Her damp drawers had slipped up, her sodden hose down so that her knees were completely bare. Everything else was soaked through so that it stuck to her like a cold second skin. Her whole body ached, her hair was plastered to her face, and she had no idea where they were, much less how far they still had to go. What’s more, she didn’t care, she simply didn’t care.
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