Foxfire Bride

by Maggie Osborne

  "I couldn't manage setting up a tent," Peaches apologized, the admission coming hard, "but I got Jubal into his bedroll. He's sleeping, but he's restless. Still, he's young and strong. He'll pull through just fine. So far, there's no sign of fever."

  "Have you eaten?" Fox asked, collapsing on the ground. Her back ached like blazes. When Peaches nodded, she said, "Then you get some sleep, too. Me and Tanner are going to be up half the night counting these coins."

  Tanner volunteered to set out Peaches's bedroll but Peaches's had already managed it. He cast them a grateful glance then stumbled off into the darkness, the sound of racking coughs trailing behind. What he hadn't managed was to haul the robbers and Hanratty beyond the light of the fire.

  "I'll do it," Tanner said, following her glance.

  "I'll pour some coffee and set up for the count."

  Before they started the count, they ate bacon and biscuits and the last of the pickles that Peaches had been guarding.

  "I wish it hadn't been Hanratty," Fox said, buttering her biscuit out to the edges. "I hate saying this, but the betrayal would have been easier to take if it'd been Jubal Brown."

  "Maybe." Tanner set down his plate and stretched his shoulders. "Smelling that bacon reminded me that you haven't smelled like bacon for a time." A tired smile softened his eyes. "Did you abandon the fanny beautification project?"

  Fox returned his smile. "Barbara Robb gave me some lotion that I like better. There's not much scent but it feels wonderful."

  They gazed at each other in the flickering light. "I'd like to check that for myself," Tanner said in a gruff voice. "This isn't how I'd anticipated spending tonight."

  "Me either," Fox said softly. It was the understatement of her life. "There'll be other nights."

  But not many of them. And surely not as long a night as this one turned out to be. At the end of the count they were missing sixty coins, too many to leave behind. Exhausted and grim, they fetched the lanterns and retraced the horse's flight. At two in the morning, they had recovered fifty-five of the missing coins and gave up on the rest.

  Too tired to do more than hold each other, they stood beside the dying fire and Fox wished with all her heart that their evening had gone as planned.

  "Several men have died over this ransom money. You'll have scars on your arm for the rest of your life. Jubal will have scars, too. I lost part of an earlobe I sure hope your father is worth all this," she murmured.

  "He is, and more," Tanner said. "Fox?" He tilted her face up to him. "When my father walks away a free man, it will be because of you. I'll never forget that, and I'll make sure he doesn't either."

  Unsaid words hung between them. Fox knew what words she bit off and didn't say. She wished she knew what words Tanner held back. Undoubtedly they weren't the same words she couldn't speak, but she would have liked to hear them just the same.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 17

  In the morning Tanner and Fox covered the bodies with loose rocks, pausing over Hanratty's mound once they finished. "Do you want to say a few words?" Tanner asked.

  "I guess I could." Fox removed her hat and held it to her chest. "Good riddance, you bastard. Amen." She jammed her hat back on her head and walked away. "Let's go. It's going to be a long hot day."

  Before midday they entered the canyon lands where shade was as elusive as water. Here the ground was stony beneath soaring red sandstone formations, and the sun reigned with merciless supremacy.

  Without an experienced guide, a man could wander from dead-end canyon to sheer cliffs until he died of thirst or the sun drove him insane. Tanner looked ahead with gratitude at the red braid swinging down Fox's back. She didn't display a hint of hesitation or failing confidence. She knew where she was going and how to find depressions in the rocks where rainwater collected. The mules carried enough feed to take them to the forage along the Dolores River. She had prepared for whatever might befall them, and Tanner realized that he had been lucky as hell to find her.

  Crossing the country revealed and tested character. Like Fox, Tanner had not been surprised that one of his guards had betrayed him. Fox had believed Jubal Brown was the more likely candidate, but the two seemed equal in Tanner's view. Only a few days on the road had brought him to the realization that these were men more inclined to steal gold than to protect it. He was willing to wager his last nickel that Jubal was making plans already. For whatever reason, Jubal Brown had decided not to steal the gold from Tanner, but he'd marked the kidnappers as fair game. In the end Brown would possess the gold. Maybe the Confederacy would benefit, maybe not.

  It also hadn't taken long to recognize that Fox was a woman of honor and integrity. He knew the core of her character, and didn't give a damn about the unconventional life she had led. In a crisis, he would rather trust Fox by his side than any man he could name. She was resourceful, courageous, and fearless. Feisty, loyal, and beneath the bravado beat a loving heart.

  This time when he looked ahead, the braid swinging across her back looked to him like a pendulum, ticking down the hours he had left with her.

  That was not acceptable.

  "This is the life," Jubal Brown said, watching with a smile as Fox and Tanner set up camp, the two of them doing the work previously done by five.

  If Fox hadn't understood that he was in pain, she would have taken his head off. But she'd been shot in the leg years ago by a rival guide and remembered the pain of riding and walking.

  "Enjoy it while you can." She pulled her collar away from her throat, wishing for a breeze. "The coffee will be done in a minute."

  Even if they had camped beside a river and had cold water available, they would have preferred coffee despite the unrelenting heat. Coffee was the staple food of the west.

  Stretching, Fox scanned the campsite looking for scorpions or snakes. Satisfied, she sat away from the fire and fanned her face with her hat. All the men had stripped off their shirts, and she wore hers with the ends tied at her waist and her sleeves rolled as high as her elbow. The faces and hands of the men were sunburned but she wasn't. Thanks to the lotions given her by Barbara Robb and Peaches, she'd arrive in Denver with only a light tan. Her skin wouldn't be milky white, but neither would she appear as if she were an uncouth type who'd spent her life in the sun. The realization brightened her spirits a little.

  "How are you feeling?" she asked Peaches, who sat beside Jubal in what Peaches referred to as the invalid section.

  "Hot, sweaty, and tired. Otherwise, I'm in the pink."

  Fox had hoped the dry, heated air would relieve his chest congestion, but that didn't seem to be happening. And seeing Peaches without his shirt shocked her badly. A man who had radiated glossy brown health now appeared ashy and shrunken. She could see his ribs, and his arms had begun to resemble sticks.

  "How much weight have you lost?" she asked, staring.

  "Everyone loses weight on a long trek. You've trimmed down yourself, Missy." He summoned a smile. "Looking mighty fine, you are."

  She thought of the chess pieces packed in a box that hadn't been opened in weeks. "Maybe we'll rest a day at the Dolores River. You could do some fishing maybe. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

  "If I didn't have to eat anything I caught." He smiled and she knew he remembered their arguments last winter about salted fish suppers. There wasn't much that either of them could mention which didn't trigger good memories.

  "Where's Tanner?" Jubal asked, blowing on his coffee.

  "He's looking for fossils." Fox spotted him in the distance, examining a flake of sandstone. "I'll take him some coffee then come back and check on the beans."

  "Look," Tanner said when she approached. He exchanged the flat of sandstone for the coffee she extended. "That's a fern."

  "It's pretty." Amazing, really. Fox could make out every leaf on the ancient frond. The leaves were as clear and well defined as the muscles on his naked chest and arms. Light perspiration had collected in the hollow of his throat and dampened the hair at his
temples. Swallowing hard, she walked to the lip of the canyon and looked down.

  He pushed back his hat and studied her. "I've been wondering about something, but haven't had a chance to ask."

  "Go ahead." At the bottom of the canyon cliffs, late afternoon sun sparkled on the Grand River. She'd heard stories of men dying of thirst up here on the sandstone, within sight of water they couldn't reach. Since Tanner had received the arrow in his arm, she had noticed a dozen ways a man could die out here in the wilderness.

  "You said you went to Denver to find your stepfather. Does he still live there?"

  Fox's attention sharpened abruptly. She held her expression blank but her mind raced to find an answer that wouldn't be an outright lie. "Why do you ask?"

  "Maybe I know him. Certainly my father would."

  "I don't expect you to get involved in an old story."

  "In other words, don't pry?"

  "That's not what I said." In fact, she was wildly flattered that he cared enough to be curious. "I'm just not interested in talking about him." But thinking about Hobbs Jennings was a different story. Now that they'd entered the Colorado Territory, she spent long hours every day contemplating Jennings and brooding over how he had ruined her life. First he'd stolen her money, and a comfortable and respectable way of life. Now, because of what Hobbs Jennings had taken from her, she would never fit into Tanner's life. Jennings had stolen the only future she'd ever wanted.

  The moment would be so sweet when she stared Jennings in the eyes, told him who she was, and then emptied her gun into his heart. She had been visualizing that moment for over half of her life, and had never wanted it more than she did now. Every time she looked at Tanner and thought about what might have been, her fingers curled around the trigger in her mind.

  Tanner mopped his face and throat with his bandanna, watching her. "I don't believe you've mentioned what you intend to do after we reach Denver."

  "Does it matter?"

  "You tell me."

  She read what he was thinking. "I've been to Denver several times since that first trek, and I didn't kill my son of a bitch stepfather. He's still alive," she added bitterly. Then her eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Did Peaches say something to you?"

  "Not really. But I have a feeling there's something he could tell if he wanted to."

  "Maybe there is," she said, sounding angry. "And maybe I even wish I could talk to you about certain things. But I can't." She knew Tanner. As sympathetic as he felt toward her, Hobbs Jennings was his employer and Tanner wasn't going to step aside and let her kill a man he'd worked with for years. First he would attempt to talk her out of the killing and when that didn't succeed, he'd feel honor bound to warn Jennings.

  "Fox"

  "There's something I'm curious about, too." This was as good a time as any to put a few questions to him, and she wanted to get his mind away from her Denver plans.

  He placed the fern fossil on the ground and glanced toward camp. "What's on your mind?"

  "I know you work for Hobbs Jennings, but I have a strong impression that your father is also in mining. If that's true, and if your father expects you to take over his company some day, why aren't you working with him instead of for that bastard Jennings?"

  "This thing with Jennings irritates the hell out of me. What do you have against the man? To my knowledge, and I've known him a long time, Jennings is a good decent person."

  "The hell he is," she snapped, walking toward camp.

  "Did you know that he wholly supports an orphanage for girls?" Tanner asked, following her. "Or that he's one of the few mine owners who actually upholds union principles? Do you know that each Christmas he gives every person in Denver who needs one a free meal? Because of his civic efforts, Denver is a safer place to live."

  "Yeah, I know," she said, not looking back at him. "You think the bastard is a fricking saint."

  She was striding, cussing, and if there had been a drop of whiskey in camp, she would have drunk it down. Some days she did well practicing Barbara Robb's rules for respectability. Today, she was falling on her face. Too bad. Maybe she wasn't cut out for respectability. Besides, she only had to appear respectable enough to get close to Hobbs Jennings, a total of perhaps twenty minutes.

  "Give me one specific reason to think differently," Tanner said, following her to the fire.

  Fox lifted the lid on the beans then slammed it back down. "You're entitled to your opinion, and I'm entitled to mine." The idea of making biscuits rose in her mind then evaporated in the heat.

  Grabbing her shoulders, Tanner spun her to face his anger. "You impress me as a fair-minded person in every area but this one. If you're going to malign the man, you should state your reason."

  "If you were Hobbs Jennings, I'd gladly give you a dozen reasons," she said, jerking away from him. Planting her fists on her hips, she glared. "But you're not, thank God. And I don't have to justify myself to you."

  He stiffened and his dark eyes narrowed. "No," he said finally. "You don't."

  Fox watched him walk away, then she glanced at Peaches and Jubal who were shamelessly eavesdropping with great interest. "Not a word," she warned them both, "or you can eat sand for supper."

  They obeyed her warning and no one spoke while they ate beans and bacon without biscuits or bread to sop up the juice. Fox could have made a vinegar pie to supplement the meal, but she'd been in no mood for it. When everyone finished, Tanner scrubbed the plates with sand, not speaking a word.

  Jubal crossed his arms over his bare chest and raised an eyebrow at Fox. "You used to smell like bacon all the time, but you don't anymore. Now you smell sort of like milk. Why is that?"

  "Just shut up and mind your own business. I'm turning in." Peaches was the only one of them to whom she said good night. She pulled a light blanket to her waist and turned her back to the fire.

  She didn't know what time it was when Tanner woke her, but the sky was on fire with a million stars and Peaches snored with a resonance that told her he'd been asleep for a while.

  "What is it?" she said, jumping to her feet with her gun in her hand.

  "Nothing's wrong." Tanner ran his hand down the braid laying over her shoulder. "Come with me."

  Her impulse was to refuse, but the back of his fingers brushing the upper slope of her breast crumbled any thought of resistance. Silently she let him lead her away from the dying embers of the fire.

  "You were pretty certain that I'd come with you," she said when she saw that he'd spread a blanket on the ground at the base of a sandstone tower.

  "I hoped you would." Sitting, he patted the space in front of him. Although the temperature had dropped, the sandstone held the day's heat, making the spot he'd chosen comfortable despite a cool night breeze.

  They sat facing each other, their knees almost touching. Tanner took her hands. "What the hell are we fighting about?"

  Fox started to answer, then closed her lips on a frown. Casting backward, she reviewed their earlier conversation. Tanner had asked a question that she hadn't actually answered, then she had asked a question that he hadn't answered, and then somehow or another, Hobbs Jennings had come into the conversation and they had exploded at each other despite knowing each other's opinion beforehand.

  Her shoulders slumped and she withdrew a hand to cover her eyes. "I don't know."

  "This wasn't quite as crazy an argument as the one we had about where my wife should live, but almost" Gently, he smoothed a loose tendril off her cheek. "Listen, I don't agree with your opinion of Hobbs Jennings, but you were right. You're entitled to think whatever you like, and you're entitled to keep your reasons private. I won't mention him again."

  It was a generous almost-apology considering Fox had raised Jennings's name, not Tanner.

  "I'm sorry," Fox said in a low voice. "I've been moody and irritated lately."

  "We're less than a month out of Denver."

  Letting her head fall back, Fox gazed up at the winking, flashing stars. "I don't have any edu
cation to speak of," she said, speaking quietly. "I spent a lot of my growing up years disguised as a boy, working on the San Franciso wharves. I cuss, I smoke, I don't often say no to a glass of whiskey. I've lived alone with a black man for years. I've made this trip a dozen times, the only woman in a company of men. I've lived with Indians. I've killed a few men, been in fights with a few others."

  She wasn't speaking to Tanner. She was listing all the reasons why she could never be accepted in his world because she needed to hear them herself. And maybe, just maybe, he needed a reminder, too.

  "You saved my life. You're going to get this gold to Denver and save my father's life. The people I spoke to in Carson City have nothing but respect for you."

  Unconsciously fingering her shot-up earlobe, Fox blinked at the stars. "There aren't many old guides out here in the wilderness." The risks were too great. Guides died from gunshots, snake bites, scorpion stings, bear attacks. They drowned or fell down cliffs or off horses. Indians or bandits killed them. Their eyesight failed, their limbs broke, their hearts gave out. "I have no future," she whispered.

  "I think you do," Tanner said, an urgency in his voice that she hadn't heard before.

  Fox placed her fingertips across his lips, her chest aching. "No." She didn't want him to say something out of pity that he could only regret. "I know who I am. I know my place."

  And she knew how it would all end for her. Every now and then she got mired in the might-have-beens and struggled to find a way toward Matthew Tanner's life. But the answer was always the same. Her future had been foreordained the day Hobbs Jennings dumped her on the doorstep of her mother's cousin. Nothing would change that. For a brief time she'd been given a glimpse of happiness, allowed moments of joy that she'd never imagined. Those moments would never come again, she knew that. And what would life mean if her only joy lay behind her, never to come again? It was better to face the hangman than to live an empty life without this man.