Foxfire Bride

by Maggie Osborne

Tanner heated river water over the fire then shaved standing in front of a mirror he'd hung from a tree branch. Neither Hanratty nor Brown bothered with a razor. This was fine with Tanner. The rougher and more disreputable they looked, the less inclined anyone would be to challenge their party.

  He'd wondered if Fox would seek privacy for her morning ablutions, but she didn't. She went about washing her face at the river and then brushing out her hair and replaiting it in a no-nonsense manner that suggested she wasn't aware or didn't care that all the men watched her with sidelong glances.

  But of course she was aware. By now Tanner knew Fox was alert to everything happening around her. For that matter so was everyone else in the group. This created a sense of tension, but also enhanced security. It wasn't likely that anything would take them by surprise.

  After breakfast, Fox announced they had a long hard day ahead and explained the reason. "Ordinarily the Paiutes don't attack without cause, but apparently they bushwhacked a rancher's cabin and killed the whole family. Rather than tempt fate, we'll ride past Miller's Station and go on to Fort Churchill."

  "Who's to say the rancher didn't give them cause?" Hanratty asked, tossing out the remains of his coffee.

  Jubal Brown frowned. "The soldiers at Fort Churchill, are they Union or Confederate?"

  Fox gave him a long stare. "They're Indian fighters, Mr. Brown."

  Tanner stepped up beside her. "Strictly speaking, the soldiers are Union since they're paid by the government. But they aren't fighting your war."

  Brown's lips twisted and for an instant Tanner saw the killer beneath the good-old-boy facade. Cutter Hanratty looked like the gun-for-hire that he was. But in Tanner's opinion, Brown was equally dangerous, or more so, because his plain open face and apparent good humor lulled one into forgetting that his reputation was more ruthless than Hanratty's.

  Peaches broke an uncomfortable silence. "With your permission, Mr. Tanner, I'd like to put a pannier on the money mule and stow the gold inside. I think it'll be more secure and less likely to shift and spook the mule."

  "Less conspicuous, too," Fox offered.

  They were correct, Tanner thought, irritated that he hadn't noticed himself. All the mules but his were piled high with supplies. The money mule had a thin lumpy cargo hidden beneath a tarp, and stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb.

  Once the adjustments were made, they rode out onto land that became increasingly dry and barren as the day progressed. The river cut through endless expanses of winter brown sagebrush and grass, the river-bank shrubbery offering the only hint of green in a rolling landscape of beige and brown.

  When the mules weren't kicking up clouds of chilly dust, Tanner could see Fox's braid swaying against the back of her poncho like an arrow pointing forward.

  He'd heard of women like Fox, but he hadn't met such a person before. Undoubtedly that accounted for an interest bordering on fascination. She didn't behave like any woman he'd ever known, which made her appealing in a way that puzzled him.

  It occurred to him that his father would be appalled if he knew that Tanner found himself drawn to a woman like Fox, which wasn't surprising as he'd never lived up to his father's expectations. Somehow he always fell short of the mark. He'd believed that he would stop caring about disappointing his father once he achieved adulthood, but it hadn't worked that way. His father still expected the impossible, and Tanner was still far from perfect.

  His frown settled on the money mule. He hoped his father knew he was coming with the gold. This time he wouldn't disappoint. But he'd believed that before.

  He didn't realize that Fox had dropped back beside him until he felt the heat of the mustang and she shouted his name.

  "Sorry," he said, imagining the scent of bacon.

  "Do you think the kidnappers will mistreat your father?" she asked, squinting against a swirl of dust.

  "I don't know if he's still alive." His hands tightened around the reins. If the bastards killed his father, he'd spend the rest of his life hunting them down. Whatever they'd done to his father, he would do the same to them and more.

  "We'll get there in time. A few long days like this one will put us ahead of schedule." She slid him a look, a flash of blue then gone. "If you can see through the dust, that's Fort Churchill up ahead. They'll send someone out to check on who we are, and I'll request permission to camp within the fort tonight. My question is this: Is Jubal Brown going to be a problem?"

  He'd been asking himself the same question. "I'll speak to him."

  "Better you than me."

  "Right after the noon break, I thought I saw movement on the hill to the north of us. Did you see anything?"

  "Paiutes," she said before she urged the mustang into a trot and returned to the head of the line.

  Tanner scanned the horizon looking for anything that moved and found nothing. Looking ahead he noticed that Hanratty was leading Fox's string of mules. She rode up beside him, said something, then shrugged and moved ahead, leaving Hanratty with the mules. Tanner almost laughed. He doubted many men, let alone women, had pulled a knife on Cutter Hanratty.

  When Tanner spotted the rooftops and adobe walls of the fort, he urged the bay forward, trotting up beside Fox as he noticed a half dozen men riding toward them, kicking up a long coil of dust.

  She looked surprised. "I can handle this. It's my job."

  "It's my party," he said in a pleasant voice. There were some responsibilities he was not willing to abdicate. "Everyone here answers to me," he added, watching a frown clamp her mouth and forehead.

  "All right," she said in a tight voice, her gaze on the uniformed men riding toward them. "Some things you might like to know. The fort occupies about a thousand acres spread out on both sides of the river. Usually there are between fifteen hundred and two thousand men garrisoned here. The camp is teetotalist and they don't allow cards or gambling."

  When the soldiers were within hailing distance, Tanner rode forward, hearing Fox behind him. Two of the soldiers kept an eye on Hanratty, Brown, and Peaches while Tanner introduced himself and Fox.

  "Haven't seen you in a while," Captain Brightman said to Fox, giving her a smile. "I heard you quit scouting."

  "I'm back at it." She wiped dust from her forehead. "I've been seeing Paiutes off and on all day. They didn't come close, just showed themselves then vanished."

  "You heard they killed the Watson family? Damned shame."

  Tanner interrupted the chat. "We request permission to camp within the walls, Captain. We have our own provisions."

  "Permission granted, Mr. Tanner. You can also graze your animals near the river." To Fox he added, "We don't expect more trouble with the Paiutes, but we didn't expect the Watson incident. It's a long ride but if you're continuing east, I'd suggest you head for the Carson Sink station tomorrow. Best not camp in the open right now."

  Tanner rode toward the fort with the soldiers, irritated that Fox and Captain Brightman fell back, talking like old friends. Maybe they were for all he knew. Once he heard her laugh and he ground his teeth together, not certain why her laughter would annoy him, but it did.

  Once through adobe walls, he could see the fort was a village unto itself, with several adobe buildings stacked on stone foundations. There were corrals, a smithy, a laundry, and general store, everything needed to be self-sufficient. Outside the walls, aspen and cottonwood grew near the riverbanks, but inside the fort the trees had been cut. The compound would be hot as hell in the summer, but there was nothing to impede the view.

  Captain Brightman pointed, indicating a large haystack not far from a ditch that brought water from the river. "You can camp over there. I assume Fox informed you of the basic rules we expect visitors to abide by? Good." He turned to Fox. "My wife is visiting. You're welcome to join us for supper, I'm sure she would enjoy meeting you."

  A half smile formed on Fox's lips and she turned aside. "Thank you, but I didn't bring any lady go-to-supper clothes." When Brightman assured her that she could come
as she was, she shook her head. "We're still a new group," she said, scanning the mules moving past her toward the haystack. "I have my hands full here."

  After Brightman and the soldier rode off, Tanner gave her a look of annoyance. "You can go to supper with your friend, for Christ's sake. I think we can muddle through one evening without you." It offended him that she had indicated otherwise.

  "I don't want to go," she said, watching Brightman and his men skirt the parade grounds. Her eyes were an unreadable gray blue. "I don't get on well with regular ladies. The minute I left, Brightman's wife would laugh at me. She'd make jokes about how I held my fork, and how I sat, and me wearing trousers."

  "You know her?"

  Fox shook her head. "I don't have to know her. That's just how it is." She rode past him to help Peaches with the mules.

  Tanner looked after her, the anger leaving him as swiftly as it had come. "I'll be damned," he murmured. She wasn't afraid to step in front of a gunslinger itching to squeeze a trigger, but she was afraid of an officer's wife who was probably small and delicate and about as threatening as a kitten, whose only weapon was ridicule.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 4

  Fox woke with a start in the cold hour before dawn, blinking and straining to see through a moonless darkness. When she spotted a man-shaped shadow walking through the camp, pausing to peer at bedrolls, she jumped to her feet and leveled her rifle.

  "You better be Hanratty or Brown, mister, or you're dead."

  "Corporal Hansen here, ma'am. Captain Brightman sent me."

  Hansen approached, easing past the snores rattling out of Peaches's bedroll. Before the soldier reached her, Matthew Tanner appeared beside Fox, holding a Colt in his right hand.

  "Where's Hanratty and Brown? Why the hell didn't they hear this soldier before he was inside our camp?"

  Fox was also interested in the answer to that question. "What do you want?" she snapped at Corporal Hansen.

  "We've got two of your men in the garrison brig. Captain Brightman said you should fetch them and head out." Hansen spoke to the space between Fox and Tanner, not knowing who he should address. "I'll take you there."

  Fox pulled on her boots then looked toward the other bedrolls. If Peaches woke and found no one in camp, he wouldn't know what to make of it. But she hated to wake him before time. Peaches was a man who needed his sleep. Hell, what was she thinking? Peaches would sleep through the final judgment, he wasn't going to wake before someone gave him a shake or the camp bugle sounded.

  "Why are my men in the brig?" Tanner asked as they neared the torches placed at the corners of the parade ground. His stride was long and angry.

  "Captain Brightman is waiting, sir. He'll explain."

  "I want to know now, Corporal."

  "There was a fight, sir," Corporal Hansen explained reluctantly. "A dozen soldiers are injured or in jail." He opened the door of the only building fronting the dirt street that was blazing with light at this hour.

  There was no friendliness in Brightman's eyes. He turned from speaking to a man with a ring of keys at his waist and scanned Fox and Tanner.

  "I'll let you have them, but this is a favor, Fox." He stared at her. "I want you out of here by first light. If these two men are with you the next time you ride this way, keep on riding. Don't stop here."

  "What happened?" Tanner demanded, glancing toward the sound of shouts and cursing coming from the corridor of cells behind Brightman.

  "A member of the watch discovered your men involved in an illegal poker game with some idiot soldiers. Very likely the watch would have broken up the game and let it go at that, but one of your men demanded to know where my men's sympathies lie regarding the war back east and he didn't like the answers. All hell broke loose. The barracks nearby heard the fracas and joined in. I've got ten men back there," he jerked his thumb over his shoulder, "and three in the infirmary."

  Tanner pressed his lips together and knots ran up his jaw.

  "If everyone hadn't removed their weapons before the poker game, we'd have bodies to deal with." Brightman nodded at his jailer. "Bring out the civilians."

  "Do we owe you for any damage?" Fox asked.

  "Just get packed and get moving." Captain Brightman stepped past her and outside, letting the door slam behind him.

  It was hard to say who looked worse when Hanratty and Brown came into the office, blinking at the light. They had black eyes, split lips, bloodied knuckles.

  Jubal Brown gazed down at his shirt, now fit for a ragbag or a bonfire. "Nosebleed," he said by way of explanation.

  "Damn," Hanratty muttered, gingerly touching his swollen eyes then skimming a finger over his lower lip and wincing.

  Tanner accepted their gun belts from the jailer then walked out the door, waiting for them in the street. When they emerged, he turned on them with a coldly furious expression.

  "You not only abused the fort's hospitality, you left our camp unguarded. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't fire your butts right now."

  "Where in hell would your"Hanratty peered up and down the dark street"cargo be safer than in the middle of an armed garrison? Didn't seem to us like there'd be any harm in taking the night off."

  "You've only worked two days," Fox said in disgust. "But you need a night off?"

  "We figured it would be a long time before we'd get another one," Brown said, rubbing a shoulder. "We didn't think we were doing anything wrong."

  "You swore to Mr. Tanner that you could deal with sleeping among Union soldiers."

  "Well, I was wrong, now wasn't I?" A glitter came into Brown's eyes, and Fox stepped backward, frowning. Jubal Brown had impressed her as the weaker of the two men, but she sensed she'd made a mistake. For a minute he looked dangerous and crazy.

  "Go on back to the camp," Tanner said after Jubal averted his gaze. "Start packing up." He gave Fox a glance that told her to remain behind. "What do you think?" he asked when Hanratty and Brown moved away in the darkness. "My instinct is to leave them and go on alone, but that would create problems of a different kind."

  Fox scuffed her boot in the dirt. "If we didn't have the cargo," she, too, looked uneasily up and down the deserted street, "I'd say leave them behind."

  Tanner glared at a point somewhere above her head. "They disobeyed. They broke the fort's rules. They instigated a fight."

  "If you fire their butts, then we've got two angry and resentful gunslingers who know about the cargo," Fox said slowly. "Who's to say they wouldn't come after us themselves?"

  His glare lowered and settled on her face. "I'm thinking the same thing."

  "It's your call." Whenever he looked at her, Fox felt her stomach roll over and her mouth go twitchy. She started thinking about how handsome he was, and how long it had been since she'd been with a man. Sighing, she tilted her head, checked the sky, and guessed they had less than an hour before first light.

  Tanner fell into step beside her. "Much as I'd like to leave those two behind, we'll keep them a while longer. See if anything else happens. Are you comfortable with that?"

  That Tanner involved her in the decision both surprised and pleased her. When Tanner had insisted on riding out to meet Captain Brightman she had wondered if they were going to bump heads over who was in charge of what.

  "I'll decide the route," she said, feeling her way on this issue. "You decide personnel questions."

  "Someone is cooking breakfast," Tanner commented as they walked into the chaos that accompanied breaking camp. "I smell bacon."

  Fox was glad he couldn't see her face as she rubbed her hands on her trousers. He was smelling her. "Not in our camp. We'll skip breakfast and settle for an early lunch."

  Peaches was awake and loading the mules; she passed him on her way to the ditch to wash the bacon grease off her hands and cheeks. He lifted an eyebrow and Fox murmured, "I'll tell you the story later."

  Without the gold, they could have dispensed with Hanratty and Brown. But they had the gold. Fox suspected this wo
uldn't be the only time she would regret those gold coins.

  Forty minutes later she led them out of the adobe walls surrounding the fort, ignoring the growl in her stomach.

  At midday Fox signaled a brief stop, urging the party to grab something quick to eat and allowing the animals to graze although there wasn't much forage among the clumps of sagebrush.

  When everyone had slaked their hunger on biscuits and ham and cheese, and had gulped down cups of scalding coffee, Fox addressed the company.

  "I'm sure you've noticed that we're being followed." Peaches nodded, but the others hid expressions of surprise by squinting at the low hills rolling away from the river. "I don't know if it's the same group of Paiutes tracking us, or if it's different groups."

  Tanner took a spyglass from his saddlebags and scanned the horizon. "I see them." He handed the glass to Cutter Hanratty. "Will they attack?"

  Fox shrugged. "All I can say is they haven't yet. We're about four hours from the Carson Sink. It was a pony express station before they shut down the express. That's where I want to camp tonight. In the meantime, if the Paiutes decide to take us on, we'll spot them coming long before they reach us. The groups I'm seeing are no more than eight or ten strong, so I'd say we're about an even match." She tossed out the remainder of her coffee. "Let's go. And keep up the pace."

  Swinging into the saddle, she suppressed a groan. Her fanny was saddle sore and her thigh muscles ached like blazes. Two long days were showing how soft she'd become during her time cutting ice. And if Fox was stiff and aching, she figured the others were, too. But the men would never complain as long as she didn't. Hanratty and Brown, maybe even Tanner, would rather step into quicksand than let a woman best them.

  "The situation can't be too bad if you're smiling," Tanner said, trotting up beside her. The sun blazed high and hot, and he'd removed his jacket, riding in a vest and his shirtsleeves. From the look of it, he'd have a sunburn on his arms and face before they called it a day. When she said as much, he shrugged. "I spend most of my life inside or down in a mine shaft. The sun feels good. I doubt it's possible to ride out here for any length of time without getting a burn."