The sun dipped, coming into view below the clouds. Across the next few minutes, the full orange orb descended into view and slipped out of sight. The horizon lit with a golden glow, blazing upward into fiery orange and cooling again into deep blue.
Despite the beauty in the heavens, the wonder in her face was far more fascinating to watch.
In the waning light of day, she leaned against him again. “Thank you. This was beautiful.”
Suddenly taken by her nearness, his tongue stuck fast to the roof of his mouth and refused to form a single word. No sunset could possibly hold a candle to this woman. His woman. Gage rocked to his feet as Spotted Hawk’s words struck home. Yes, he wanted her to be his.
“Gage?” She scrambled after him.
He hadn’t been this near to a pretty woman in a very long time. He planted a gentle kiss on the crown of her head. “Glad you enjoyed it, princess.” His hand strayed to her cheek, fingertips skimming the downy softness of her skin.
Her eyes rounded, and her pouted lips parted slightly. As he continued to caress the curve of her face, her breath grew rapid and shallow. She didn’t resist, only stared back at him.
Gracious, but her eyes were an unusual shade of blue. Pale as ice toward the center, but warming to a deeper shade on the outer edge. A man could get lost searching her gaze.
Warmth flooded through him, and he leaned in ever so slowly to claim her lips. She stiffened in his arms for an instant then melted against him, trembling just a little. He cupped her cheek and drank in her sweetness. She responded, her arms circling his waist. A tiny moan escaped her, and its effect was almost like a siren call. He pulled her nearer and deepened the kiss.
At the plaintive howl of a distant wolf, Dara pulled back, her eyes huge. “What was that?”
Blast it all. Even nature was conspiring against him. He looped his arm around her. “You got nothing to worry about.” Several wolves answered their pack mate’s call. “A wolf’s howl can travel miles. They’re no threat to us.”
Dara wedged her hands firmly against his chest. “Let go.” She squirmed hard to free herself.
He released her. “Why?”
“Take me back. Now.” Panic laced the words. She paced to her horse.
“Wait, Dara.” He caught her arm. “I’m telling you, you have nothing to fear.”
She shook her head. “The scars on my back and shoulder say otherwise.”
“I’ve been watching this whole time. There’s nothing near enough to harm you. Please trust me. Your pa does….”
Her brow furrowed, and her panicky fidgeting stilled. “What does that mean—my pa does?”
Gage shook his head. “If he didn’t trust me, he wouldn’t have hired me to protect you and Becca.”
“Hired you?” Her jaw went slack. “That’s why you came along when we moved the camp? He’s paying you to look after me?”
His gut clenched. “No. It’s not like that. I’m here because I’m fallin—”
Without warning, her palm landed a stinging blow against his left cheek. “Don’t you ever toy with my affections like that. In fact, don’t you come around me again.”
Before he could respond, she scrambled into her saddle and, spurring her horse, galloped toward home.
Chapter Eight
By morning, anger and hurt still bubbled deep in the pit of Dara’s stomach. Fortunately, Uncle William had turned Mr. Wells away from the door without too much of a scene the previous night, and he hadn’t returned so far that morning. Good thing. She had far more important things to consider than the dallying, traitorous Mr. Wells—or his self-centered employer. She gritted her teeth. If Papa was so very concerned for her safety, why couldn’t he be bothered to look after her himself, rather than hiring a handsome nanny to oversee her daily activities?
Dara peered through the windows on both sides of the Pullman car. Seeing neither Papa nor Mr. Wells, she stepped out to the platform, and her breath puffed white in the November air. “Lord, please …” she whispered. “I need Uncle William.” She’d sent a passerby to fetch him more than thirty minutes earlier, and he’d still not answered the summons. “Quickly.”
She scanned the faces moving about. What could be taking him so long?
Matilde’s symptoms had all but dissipated the previous evening—except for the newest symptom of a sore throat. However, when she awoke that morning, the ache and difficulty swallowing had turned to spots and several open sores dotting her tongue, and a rash spreading across her cheeks.
When she still saw no sign of William, she strode back to Matilde’s quarters. Fortunately, her friend slept, though fitfully, as Becca watched over her.
Father, I feel utterly helpless. What can we do to ease her discomfort?
Several moments later, the outer door opened, and Dara hurried down the hall to see Uncle William enter.
“Thank God you’re here. She’s developed sores in her mouth and some sort of strange bumps on her face.”
His footsteps faltered before he nearly ran to her quarters.
Fear sparked as she followed.
Uncle William knelt beside the bed. He turned her head one way then the other, the patient rousing. “Matilde, open your mouth, please.”
The freedwoman blinked away sleep. “Hurts, Doctor William.”
He nodded. “Open, please.” She complied, and he directed her mouth toward the lamplight. “Now stick out your tongue.”
Her tongue, splotched with tiny red dots, had even more open sores than when Dara had looked earlier.
Uncle William released her chin and stood. “You rest, Matilde.”
He exited the room, Dara and Becca following.
“Papa, what is it?” Becca whispered.
Once he reached the parlor, he faced them both. “My initial assessment was wrong.” He pressed his eyes shut. “It’s not influenza. It’s smallpox.”
“Smallpox?” Becca breathed. “How do we treat that?”
“No.” Dara shook her head, her eyes stinging. No, no, no. Lord, please. Don’t do this to Matilde. She’s been through so much already.
“There is no course of treatment, other than to quarantine the patient, make sure she drinks plenty of water, and keep her as comfortable as possible.”
“Quarantine?” Becca’s face blanched. “Are we all at risk?”
“No. I vaccinated you both when you were children. You can’t contract this. Connor and I are also protected. I’ll need to check with Mr. Wells.” He looked Dara’s way. “I don’t know what happened between you last night, Dara, but if he’s ill, I’ll be bringing him here for quarantine.”
Her stomach clenched. She would attend to him if needed, but she wouldn’t like it. “I understand, Uncle.”
“Good. Has anyone else been in this train car since Matilde became sick?”
She closed her eyes, pushing away the fear that descended over her. “I don’t think so. Misters Marston and Adgate have come to the door, but they haven’t come inside.”
“Make sure no one does. Once the lesions form in the mouth, she’s at her most contagious.”
Both she and Becca nodded.
“The rash will spread. First the mouth and throat, then the face, followed by the arms and legs, and lastly the palms and soles of the feet. Only after the rash has scabbed over and the scabs have fallen off will she be beyond the contagious period. That will take several weeks. It’s of utmost importance that no unvaccinated people come through that door unless they’re already infected.”
“You are going to help us care for Matilde, aren’t you?” Becca asked.
“I’ll need to find Connor, let him know, then assess anyone who’s been in the camp this week. You’ll have to handle Matilde’s care without me, at least for now.”
Becca tried to look brave. “We’ll do our best, Papa.”
Uncle William crushed them both in a huge hug. “I know you will. Now go see to Matilde.”
“Becca, I’ll be right there.” While her cous
in headed back to the sickroom, she followed William to the door.
He turned. “What’s on your mind?”
“What chance does Matilde have to survive?”
“She’s young and strong. She’s survived difficult things before.”
“Uncle William, please.”
He hung his head. “If memory serves, one in three people die from smallpox. Those that survive often experience horrible scarring, particularly on the face.”
Dara covered her mouth and nodded. “Thank you for being honest.”
“We’ll all feel very helpless in these next few days. Remember to pray. The Lord still works miracles.”
She nodded. Yes, Lord, we’ll need handfuls of them. Please.
Uncle William patted her shoulder and stepped outside, turning to descend the steps. “Are you missing a hair ribbon?”
“No …?” She peeked out after him to see the familiar green strip she’d gifted to Walks In Shadows tied in a perfect bow around the platform railing.
“Someone must’ve thought it was yours.”
Once he was gone, Dara looked across the plains. As taken with the gift as the Cheyenne woman had been, she wouldn’t have returned it. Not without good reason. So how had it ended up here, and where was its owner?
As she headed inside again, something beneath her feet hissed. Dara spun toward the railing to find Walks In Shadows lying between the metal train tracks, peering up from under the platform.
“What are you doing here?” She cast a discreet glance to be sure no one was watching. Should anyone see a Cheyenne this near town, there could be conflict.
“I … need … find … Wells.”
Dara’s brows arched then fell. Of course she would need Gage Wells—one of the two men she had no desire to speak to. “Is something wrong?”
Confusion masked the other woman’s features.
“Why do you need Wells?”
She understood that better. “My people … big … no.” She scowled. “Uh. Mmmm … many. My people … many sick.”
Ice filled her veins. “How? How are they sick?”
“Fire … in—” She pinched her cheek then her neck.
“They’ve been burned?”
“No. Fire in …” She held her hands where Dara could see and pinched the skin on one hand.
“Fire in their skin. Fever.”
“Yes.” Across the next several minutes, Walks In Shadows spoke and pantomimed several other symptoms, every one a symptom Matilde had experienced.
“Help me … find Wells?”
Even if she could find Gage, would he know what to do? For all she knew, he’d ridden back to his soddy. If they’d somehow carried smallpox to the Cheyenne, there was no time to waste. Someone with knowledge of quarantine protocols needed to get to them immediately.
“You don’t need Wells. I’ll help you.”
As the railroad crews would soon return from laying track, Gage stalked through the well-trampled lanes of the hell-on-wheels camp. He’d avoided the inevitable too long already. As much as he distrusted—disliked—Forsythe, the man was Gage’s boss, and Gage had somehow compromised his mission to protect Dara. High time he quit skirting the issue and come clean. Tell him he could keep his blasted money if it meant Gage might be able to win Dara’s heart once and for all.
He shook his head. What had happened? He’d spent his day hunched over a small campfire on the plains trying to decipher why Dara had grown so upset. The only conclusion was Forsythe hadn’t told her about their arrangement. But why not?
Rifle in hand, he walked to the sad little tent Forsythe now called an office. He’d watched long enough to know that, prior to Dara and Becca’s arrival, Forsythe had used the Pullman car for both personal quarters and office. The little tent was quite a step down from the warmth and opulence of the Pullman car made to his specifications.
At least Forsythe had the decency to give the girls his large bedroom and move himself and William into what had been his office, rather than forcing the girls to sleep in the tent in the dead of winter. He snorted. Gage wouldn’t have put such a selfish act past the railroad man.
He reached the tent. Knowing Forsythe wouldn’t have returned yet, Gage took up station near the corner. A conversation hummed inside.
“Tell me you can do this without messing things up like last time.”
“I did what you told me,” another man spoke. “I destroyed it.”
“Wrong. We said haul it down the tracks and burn it.” A third voice. “Not toss a lit bundle of dynamite inside when it was near enough to injure anyone.”
Gage’s ears perked.
“That was an unfortunate miscalculation.” Spoken by the second man. “When I tossed the dynamite in the boxcar, the long fuse I put on it musta touched the fuse much closer to the bundle, so it blew too soon.”
“I don’t care what you call it, Vickers. Two men died, another lost a leg, many more were injured, and you nearly took out Forsythe’s daughter and niece. If you’d just burned the thing like we told you …”
“Yeah, I got the idea.”
Gage clenched his jaw. He recalled Vickers from the Cheyenne camp, but he couldn’t place the other voices. He’d heard them before…. Silently, he stalked down the side of the tent, angled to the back side, and sprawled in the frigid grass. He lifted the canvas gingerly and squinted, one-eyed, through the opening he’d created.
“The question remains … can you do this without another catastrophic mistake?”
His eyesight adjusted to the lower light. Mr. Marston faced Vickers directly, and a few feet away, Mr. Adgate.
“That’ll all depend on whether you got your information right. Has it been long enough? Am I gonna walk into that camp and find a bunch of Injuns dead from smallpox, or am I gonna go in there and find ’em none the worse for wear? Ain’t in the mood to get myself scalped.”
Gage dropped the canvas, thoughts firing in a thousand directions at once.
“Consider that your incentive to pay close attention before you steal into their camp. You’ve got two jobs while you’re there. Burn those blankets so no one else gets infected and collect all those knives we gave out. We aren’t here to outfit our enemies with weapons they can turn on us.”
Gage snatched up his rifle and slipped away.
Smallpox … unleashed through infected blankets … and given as a goodwill gift to his friends.
Chapter Nine
By the time the Cheyenne camp came into view, Dara was nearly frozen from the cold and exhausted from the twenty-mile ride, yet there was no time to rest or get warm. She must get to work … and pray the Cheyenne would obey her orders after only one prior introduction.
“Walks In Shadows”—she slowed her pace—“until I see what’s happening to your people, you must stay outside the camp.” From what she’d gathered, Walks In Shadows had been away from the camp several days and returned to find many sick.
She shook her head, obviously not understanding.
“You … stay here.”
She shook her head more emphatically. “I go. Help my people.”
“No. The smallpox will make you sick.”
At her obvious confusion, Dara stumbled through two easier explanations before the woman understood.
Her brow furrowed. “How you … talk my people?”
Her belly lurched. How would she communicate with the Cheyenne? She must convey that she’d come to help, then set up quarantine areas for the infected patients. She hadn’t even considered she might not be able to use Walks In Shadows as a translator when she’d chosen to tell no one, particularly Gage, where she was going.
Oh, Lord Jesus, I’ve made a terrible mistake, and I’m too far away from anywhere to ask for help.
Gage barged into William’s medical tent, praying he’d be in.
“Wells! Thank God.” William shot up from his desk. “I’ve been looking for you all day.”
Gage halted. “You have?” Surprising, given how
firmly the man had turned him away from the Pullman car the previous evening. “Why?”
William dropped his voice to a confidential tone. “Have you ever been vaccinated for smallpox?”
Everything stilled. “Why?”
“I wrongly diagnosed Matilde. She developed the smallpox rash overnight, and you’ve been around her since she’s gotten sick. I must quarantine any unvaccinated persons who’ve come in contact with the illness.”
How had Matilde contracted smallpox? Marston and Adgate had infected the blankets they’d given to the Cheyenne, but Matilde was nowhere near the Indian camp that day. Mind scrambling, he reviewed the events of the visit.
“By all that’s holy …” He’d bound Dara’s wounds with scraps of the infected pieces.
He’d wrapped her in the remnant. They’d carried it straight to her.
“Wells, have you been vaccinated or not?”
He stared at the ground, mind still chewing on the details. “When I joined the Confederacy.”
“You’re sure?”
He finally met the doctor’s eyes. “Yes, sir. What about Becca and Dara?”
“We’ve all had the vaccine. Now if I could just figure out where she contracted it so I can prevent others from getting sick.”
As Gage relayed the details of the overheard conversation, shock filled William’s face.
“You don’t think Connor is involved, do you?”
“What am I supposed to think? I had my doubts about Forsythe long before you all arrived. He’s the one that asked me to translate that meeting. Now today, his bosses and the lackey he put in charge of his daughter discuss what they did. Seems like proof enough to me. They’re all involved.”
William shook his head. “I know my brother-in-law. There’s a lot he does that I don’t agree with, but he’s no murderer.”
“Right now, he’s the least of my worries. We gotta get to that camp and see if we can’t help them.”
“I have one confirmed smallpox patient here, and the men who delivered those blankets could be infected without showing symptoms yet. This could turn into a full-blown epidemic.”
Of Rags and Riches Romance Collection Page 6