by Pat Tracy
Yet she also knew she would be predisposed to believe most anything he told her—provided it wasn’t too farfetched, of course. She was an intelligent woman, after all.
“You’re taking a long time to answer my question.”
“I’m not certain I would believe everything you told me,” she stated honestly. “But, even though it makes little sense, I am inclined to trust your account of your time with Night Wolf.”
“I should count myself lucky you’re in such a generous mood.”
“Have I told you that you have an annoying tendency to be sarcastic?”
“Chalk it up to just one more grievance you can lay at my door.”
“So you met Night Wolf at the general store,” she repeated obstinately, determined that he would share his Indian adventure with her, even if they had to stay up all night.
“Damn, you’re a stubborn female.”
“Just chalk it up to another grievance you can lay at my door,” she said with feigned sweetness.
“And you have the nerve to call me sarcastic?” He shook his head. “Lady, you could give lessons on cutting people down to size.”
You’re exactly the right size. Big and awe-inspiring. That inappropriate observation waltzed through her thoughts like a tardy dancer searching for a partner after the music had begun.
“Logan, what happened in the general store?” she demanded.
Abruptly she wondered if perhaps he’d been there to rob it. Was that why he was hesitant to discuss the incident?
“No, Victoria,” he said, his tone resigned.
“No, what?”
“No, I wasn’t at Gealy’s with the intent of robbing the place.”
Good grief! When had he mastered the alarming skill of reading her mind?
Chapter Nine
Logan stared across the campfire at Victoria, battling the urge to either shake or kiss her. As much as he might want to deny it, he found her enthusiasm oddly captivating. There was nothing jaded or hypocritical about the woman. She came across as the most direct and straightforward person he’d ever met. Whatever was on her mind, she said it, which suited him just fine, because he’d never been one to mince words. Although he had to admit he would find her honesty more agreeable if she had a higher opinion of him.
He leaned forward and picked up a stick with which to prod the fire. His ribs were healing; he didn’t experience the flash of pain he’d braced himself for. He was tender, but on the mend.
“I stopped by the store to buy some tobacco.” He put emphasis on the word buy.
“I didn’t know you smoked.”
Her Boston accent laced her words with a snooty scorn that rippled across his tranquillity like a silken leash. Damned if he didn’t find even that appealing.
He was in trouble, if he found himself remotely charmed by this woman’s prissy way of speaking. But he was charmed, he admitted reluctantly.
“I like a good cheroot from time to time.” He tried not to sound defensive. There were some privileges a man shouldn’t have to apologize for enjoying.
She rose and smoothed the lines of her skirts. He almost grinned at the contrast between her aristocratic bearing and her bedraggled state. Her hair was undone and flying wildly around her shoulders. It resembled a reddish cloud burnished gold by the setting sun. That bare patch of skin peeped from the ripped material at her shoulder, and her cheek boasted a smudge. Yet, from her manner, she could have been standing in her Boston parlor, ready to receive the cream of proper society.
He guessed his parents had been right; good breeding showed. They had carried that edict to the extreme, however, when they expected him to marry Robeena Stockard to preserve their family’s prestige within their rarefied circle of acquaintances. It had been of little consequence that his fiancee had slept with his brother. Her betrayal had been secondary to keeping any hint of scandal from the Youngblood name. They were respected bankers, after all. A tawdry public washing of their soiled family linen might negatively effect business. And, of course, that could not be tolerated. So they had taken Burke’s side, claiming that Logan had misunderstood what he saw with his own eyes.
“Well, thank goodness you haven’t picked up the repulsive habit of chewing tobacco,” Victoria mused, moving away from a curling column of smoke.
“Not yet,” he said, jerking his thoughts from the past with a vengeance.
“Goodness, Logan, you’ve enough bad habits to overcome as it is. You don’t want to start adding new ones.”
Victoria rounded the fire and strolled toward him Without an invitation, she gracefully sank next to him on the blanket that he’d spread as far away from her as he could get while still sharing the same campsite. He’d learned his lesson yesterday morning, even though she obviously hadn’t. Getting too close was dangerous for both of them, as well as painful to his body.
Despite his admonition, she stared into the fire. Glimmers of firelight danced over her high cheekbones. Her profile was utterly feminine, utterly appealing. He shifted on the blanket, promising himself a cold bath in the nearby stream after she retired for the night. Fed by frigid mountain lakes, the water should be the right temperature to cool the heat Victoria generated whenever she was within touching distance, and she was within touching distance as she arranged her skirts on his blanket.
He ought to address the barb with which she’d jabbed him. He didn’t have any more bad habits than the next man. Instead, his thoughts swung to undressing. Both herself and him.
“It’s nice to know you have my interests at heart.”
She turned and regarded him with earnest eyes. His stomach clenched. Stunned that she could have such an effect on him, he poked at the fire. He’d been too long without a woman. That was why Victoria was getting under his skin.
“Please tell me how you and Night Wolf came to be friends,” she said, placing her fingertips against his sleeve.
She’d said please. For some reason, that word, coming from her soft lips, made his skin lighten. His glance fell to where she was touching his arm. Such a small, fragile hand. Perfectly shaped. He couldn’t help wondering how it would feel against his heated skin without his shirt’s fabric as a barrier.
Talking about Night Wolf might break the spell she was weaving over him. He ordered himself to withdraw his arm from Victoria’s obviously innocent, yet nevertheless provocative, contact. The arm stayed put.
“It was February.” Logan’s voice sounded gritty to his own ears. He remembered the snow had laid heavily upon the land. It had been his first winter away from home, his first February in the territory. “Night Wolf was trading gold nuggets for supplies.” Logan recalled how the Shoshone chief had stood with quiet dignity at the counter. “There was a time when his people would have had enough buffalo meat to feed them through the winter.”
“I’ve heard about the great slaughters the railroads are sponsoring,” Victoria said. “What a terrible waste.”
Her awareness of the problem and her opinion of it surprised Logan.
“It’s worse than wasteful. When the last of the buffalo are gone, the Indians are going to be left in desperate straits.”
“Do you think all the herds will be wiped out?”
“They’re on their way to extinction now. In a few years, the rails will be laid across the country With them will come farmers, ranchers and towns. There won’t be room for buffalo, or for Night Wolf’s people and the other tribes.”
“Perhaps the Indians could become farmers or ranchers.”
“After living with Night Wolf’s people, I don’t think many of them would settle down to anything as regimented as farming or ranching. They seem to resent keeping schedules. They also think of the land differently than we do.”
“What do you mean?”
He wasn’t sure he could put the alien philosophy into words. “It’s as if they don’t feel the land should he used the way white men use it. They seem to hold it in some kind of trust for the next generation. I think it’
s kind of a religion to them.”
“From what I’ve read, they do worship nature—the sun, the moon, the earth, the water, the buffalo…”
“Well, one thing’s for certain, they don’t seek to amass great fortunes. They live simply, putting their families’ immediate needs first.”
“It sounds like a very satisfying way to live, doesn’t it?”
Logan smiled. “Before you decide to embrace the Indian way of life, you should know their womenfolk put in long days, making beaded deerskin clothing, moccasins, and blankets from buffalo hides. They tan leather, chew it to make it supple, and cook all their food over open fires. They never seem to be in a hurry, but they work from sunup to sundown.”
“Some white women work just as hard,” Victoria pointed out. “Homesteaders’ wives might not chew buffalo hides, but they haul water, make soap, wash mountains of laundry, cook, clean and help with farm chores. Why, I’ll wager their days are longer than their husbands’, because when the men come in from their chores at night, their day’s work is done. With the convenience of lanterns, women work long past sundown. They might not make beaded garments, but they sew their clothes and decorate them with embroidery. And they bake bread and—”
“Whoa! You’ve convinced me. Some white women work every bit as hard as Indian women.”
“Getting back to Night Wolf…” She drew her knees up and encircled them with her clasped arms. “Did he get his supplies?”
“Eventually.”
“What does that mean? Honestly, Logan, this story is going to take all night if you don’t speed it up.”
Victoria’s eagerness sharpened Logan’s awareness of her sitting too damn close to him. He wondered if she would bring that same fervency to bed with her when she made love. This time it was Logan who shifted his position.
“It was a rare sight back then to see an Indian in town. Night Wolf’s appearance at the store drew a crowd of onlookers. It’s hard to know whether people were more curious about him or about the gold nuggets he began taking out of a rawhide pouch.”
“He was alone?”
Logan nodded. “He must have traded for a wagon and team before he showed up at Gealy’s. It was clear he intended taking a full load of supplies back to his village.”
“And was he able to?”
“After a fashion. Gealy was cheating Night Wolf, charging four times as much for the goods as they were worth.”
“How awful! Someone should have put a stop to it.”
“In a way, Night Wolf did. He conducted himself with such dignity that I think he shamed Sam Gealy into being more fair.”
“Good for Night Wolf.”
“But there are people who haven’t got a conscience that can be shamed,” Logan observed. “The sight of gold can have a potent effect, and the size and purity of the nuggets Night Wolf traded was enough to stir gold fever in those watching.”
“Surely they couldn’t rob him while he was in the store.”
“The fever doesn’t work that way, Victoria.”
“I don’t understand.”
“From what I’ve seen, when it gets hold of a man, his first instinct is to look at everyone else as a potential enemy. Each of the men watching the proceedings was plotting to follow Night Wolf out of town, hoping to get the Indian alone.”
“But all the gold would have been at Gealy’s store. Night Wolf would have had just the supplies.”
“And the knowledge of where he’d found the gold. A claim like that could turn a pauper into a rich man.”
“Did Night Wolf realize he was in danger?”
Logan remembered his gaze drifting across the crowded mercantile to the Shoshone chief. In that split second, a silent communication had flashed between them. The Indian had known he was in trouble, but his people’s plight was so desperate he’d taken the risk of coming to Trinity Falls on their behalf.
“He knew.”
“What happened next?”
“He loaded up the wagon and headed out of town. I decided to follow him.”
“Oh, Logan. Not you, too.”
His thoughts were so fixed on the past that it took a moment for Victoria’s disappointed observation to register. He stiffened, swearing that if she insulted his honor or his intelligence just one more time, he would throttle her.
“Me, too, what, Victoria?” he asked pointedly.
She hesitated, staring at her hands, joined around her drawn up knees. “Well, I don’t wish to be unkind, but from everything you’ve told me about this gold fever, it sounds as if…”
“As if?” he prodded coldly.
She raised her gaze and considered him from beneath her knitted brow. “Never mind. It wasn’t important.”
“You’re sure?”
She nodded jerkily. “Go on with your story. What happened next?”
“I wasn’t the only one to ride out. At least a dozen other men, most of them lone riders, had a sudden desire to leave town. And they rode after the supply wagon.”
“Why did you ride out after him?”
For some reason, with night closing over them, the fire burning down to ashes and a cold breeze blowing across them, Logan felt Victoria would believe what he told her. His eyes narrowed. He usually wasn’t one for self-delusion.
“I couldn’t turn my back on a man with enough guts to lay his life on the line for those too weak to take care of themselves. Too many good men went to their graves in the war.”
“You fought in the war?”
Logan nodded. He’d shut his war experiences behind a locked door, knowing one supreme truth—wars, no matter how nobly envisioned, chewed up men, bones, blood and souls. Those who survived were often maimed in spirit, as well as in body.
“Anyway, despite each man’s individual greed that February afternoon, they were united in one goal—to make Night Wolf show them where he’d found those nuggets.”
Logan saw Victoria shiver. He didn’t know whether it was his story or the rising wind that caused her to tremble. To keep from reaching out and drawing her into his arms, his hand fisted around the stick he still held.
“Night Wolf drove his team at a steady trot for the first few miles. Gradually he pressed the horses harder. The men following him picked up the faster pace. There came a point when everyone was pushing their mounts full bore. The men from town were closing the distance. The wagon crested a low hill and dropped out of sight.
“The shelter of the forest was only a couple hundred yards away, but there was no way Night Wolf could make it there before being surrounded. And even if he’d made it to the trees, he’d have had to leave the wagon behind to avoid capture.”
“Then his entire trip would have been wasted.”
“As it turned out, he was smarter than those chasing him.”
“How did he get away?”
“He’d planned a little surprise for anyone who decided to pursue him When the men charged down the other side of that hill, they were greeted by twenty or so Shoshone braves. The subsequent fight was very short and very final.”
Silence briefly settled over their shared blanket.
“It’s sad that anyone had to die, but I’m glad Night Wolf was able to get the supplies to his people.”
Logan didn’t regret the deaths of the cowardly thieves who’d tried to waylay the chief. But he was a man, and he knew men tended to look at things more practically than women.
“Since I was trailing behind the group that had been pursuing the wagon, I heard the gunfire before I reached the rise. I reined in my horse, without seeing what had happened. As far as I knew, Night Wolf had been attacked and killed. But that didn’t make any sense, because with him dead, there was no way they would discover where he’d found the gold.”
“Don’t keep me in suspense. What happened next?”
“I headed to the top of the slope. Before I reached it, though, Night Wolf rode over it toward me.”
“He must have thought you were after gold, too.”
“What did you tell him?”
“The truth—that I didn’t like the odds between him and those who’d followed him.”
“And he believed you?”
“I’m still alive, so he must have.”
“But what made him accept the word of a white man, when he and his people had just killed a dozen who’d tried to hunt him down as if he were some kind of wild animal?”
“I doubt I’ll ever know the answer to that. But I can tell you this, there’s something about his eyes that makes a person think he might be able to read a man’s thoughts.”
“Goodness, Logan, that’s a most amazing story. Why, I’d wager you could write a book about your Western experiences and thousands of people would want to read it.”
“Trust you to think of something like that.”
“Don’t dismiss the idea out of hand.” Her fingers tightened their fragile pressure upon his sleeve. “My acquaintances back east are fascinated by tales of the West. You could become as famous as Hawkeye, the intrepid frontiersman created by James Fenimore Cooper.”
Two thoughts struck Logan. First, if Victoria’s palm stayed on his arm one moment longer, he was going to do something reckless—like press her down upon the blanket and have another sampling of her lips. Only this time he was going to make damned sure he found out what she tasted like.
His second came in the form of a question. How had the woman come by her peculiar fascination with books? He decided it was safer to investigate the latter puzzle, rather than discover what a real openmouthed kiss would feel like.
“Is that why you came west? Because of all the stories you’ve read in those books of yours?”
She gave him an incredulous look.
Why wasn’t he surprised that logical reasoning proved useless when trying to understand Victoria? There was nothing logical about her or her cometlike entry into his world. In that way, she reminded him of Madison. The tomboyish girl had also swept into his life with the spectacular flourish of a shooting star streaking across the night sky.