Norman exploded. “You can’t do that. We’ve already paid you to—”
Greene withdrew a sack from his pocket. “Here’s the money you paid me. All of it.”
Norman pushed the purse away. “I don’t want the money. I want you to honor your agreement.”
“My son is dead, and I fear for his wife’s sanity if I don’t turn back.”
“It looks like the only alternative is for all of us to turn back.”
Colby turned to see Naomi behind him. “Why would you think that after you’ve come so far?” he asked.
“We don’t know where we’re going, and we don’t have a leader,” she replied. “I’m not even sure why we’re here in the first place.”
Colby didn’t bother to hide his surprise. “You’ve come a thousand miles, and you don’t know why?”
“We decided as a town,” Norman said.
“You mean, the men decided,” Naomi grumbled.
Norman glared at Naomi. “Naturally our wives would leave such a determination up to us.”
Colby took a harder look at Naomi. She looked about nineteen or twenty. Dark blond hair down to her shoulders and bright blue eyes in an oval face added up to a vision any man would be glad to find on the pillow next to him each morning. If he’d had any desire to become involved with a woman, she would have appealed strongly to him. But after Elizabeth’s heartless betrayal, he couldn’t bring himself to trust any woman.
“I’d be curious to know why she thinks your group ought to turn back,” Colby said to Norman.
“Your curiosity is of no concern to me,” Norman replied. “We’re grateful for your help in fending off the Indians.” Glancing at the remains of the ox, his face showed disgust. “You made a quick job of butchering the ox. You can stay with us as long as it takes your wound to heal.”
Colby hadn’t made up his mind what he wanted to do. They were headed in the same direction so it would be nice to have a little company. And the Indians could attack again.
Besides, he liked Ethan and Ben. Maybe they could take the place of the two brothers who had been adopted by other families after his parents had been killed. He’d always wanted a family, a whole mess of kinfolk stretching to aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents. He didn’t think of the couple who’d adopted him as family. They were just people who provided for him until he was able to take care of himself. They didn’t have any kin he knew of. As far as he could tell, they hadn’t wanted any.
Then there was Naomi. He was attracted to her—no red-blooded man could ignore a woman who looked like she did—but that’s not what interested him. She was different. He couldn’t tell why just yet, but he had felt it from the moment he handed her his rifle. Even in the midst of a battle, she stood out. He’d never met a woman who could do that. He was curious to know more about her.
“Thanks for the offer,” he said to Norman. “Now if you’ll take my advice, we ought to start looking for that new camp. Any time now you’re going to see the Indians coming to collect their dead. As soon as they’re gone, the wolves will come. They won’t attack the wagons, but they’ll kill any livestock that wander too far from the camp.”
“The man knows what he’s talking about.” Mr. Greene introduced himself to Colby, and shook Colby’s hand. “If you hadn’t been here, I might have lost more than a son.”
“And I might have lost one or more of my children.” Dr. Kessling shook Colby’s hand as well. “I’d like you to travel in my wagon.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Colby noticed Naomi didn’t appear happy about her father’s offer. He wondered why she should have taken a dislike to him so quickly.
“We ought to get moving,” Mr. Greene said.
Everyone headed toward their wagons, leaving Colby with Dr. Kessling and his family.
“My wound isn’t bad,” Ethan insisted.
“Maybe not,” his father said, “but it could become infected or you might develop gangrene. I don’t think you’d like going through the rest of your life with just one leg.”
When Ethan started to argue, Colby said, “I know an easy way to make sure it doesn’t become infected or gangrenous.”
“How?” Ethan asked.
“Heat an iron poker until it’s red hot, then thrust it into the wound. That will cauterize the flesh and prevent infection.”
Ethan blanched.
Dr. Kessling smothered a smile. “I don’t think we need to go that far. Get in the wagon, Ethan. You can drive. Ben, you can help him.”
Ethan objected, but his father overruled him. When the wagons started to move, Colby found himself walking alongside Naomi.
“You don’t like me, do you?”
She seemed unsettled by his blunt question. “I don’t know you.” She wouldn’t look at him. “I can’t dislike you.”
“Of course you can. People dislike other people for all kinds of unaccountable reasons. Sometime for no reason at all.”
Naomi turned to face him. “I don’t know where you came from, who you are, or anything about your family. I’m not in the habit of offering friendship to people who just happen along.”
Colby had expected something like that. “Where are you headed?”
“What do you mean?”
“Where are you looking to settle? Santa Fe? California? Somewhere in between?”
“Norman thinks we should settle somewhere beyond Santa Fe. Why do you ask?”
“The West is nothing like back East. There aren’t many settled communities. People come and go. Most want to leave their pasts behind. You’ll have to decide who to trust without that information.”
“Why should anyone want to hide his past if it’s honorable?”
“Because it’s none of your business…or mine. Are you going to tell everybody you meet where you came from and why you left?”
Naomi looked away. She seemed to be attempting to put the same kind of separation between them that the others had.
“You don’t have to answer me,” Colby said. “Everybody can have perfectly honorable pasts without wanting to share them with the world.”
“Does that go for you?”
“Definitely.”
She had been watching for gopher holes, rocks, and snakes as they walked through the rough grass alongside the wagon, but now she turned to him. “You don’t look like an honest person.”
Colby was amused rather than angry. “You don’t look like the kind of woman to let a man make decisions for her.”
From the look on her face, he’d succeeded in surprising her as well. “My father decides what’s best for the family. Setting myself against him would mean setting myself against the good of the family.”
“I expect your mother may have felt that way, but you’ve got the look of an eagle in your eye.”
“I don’t know what you mean by that, but I doubt it’s a compliment. I need to look in on Cassie.” With that she lengthened her stride and left Colby behind.
***
“I don’t know how you can stand the thought of living out here,” Cassie said to Naomi. “I don’t see why anybody would want to go to a place where savages kill people for no reason.”
Naomi knew the Indians had good reason for what they did, but Cassie was in no frame of mind to appreciate them. Even though he had fought them, she suspected Colby might even be sympathetic. He was a strange man, and she didn’t trust him. But what really upset her was that she found him attractive. Magnetic. Fascinating. Mysterious. She wouldn’t have felt any of that back in Spencer’s Clearing. Why should she feel that way now?
“I don’t know how anyone could think I could find a husband out here,” Cassie complained. “They’re probably all like that Blaine fella.”
“What’s wrong with him?” Cassie had never left her wagon. What could she know about Colby?
�
��Mr. Spencer told Abe’s father how he killed half the Indians with no more bother than if he was shooting ducks. Not that I care about that, but he got himself covered with blood cutting up that ox and didn’t seem to mind.” She shuddered. “How could any woman think of marrying a man like that?”
“I admire a man who doesn’t hesitate to do what needs to be done.”
“He looks as wild as those savages.”
That wasn’t true, but Naomi figured it would be useless to argue with Cassie. “I have a feeling we’re going to have to get used to a different kind of man from now on.”
Cassie shook her head. “I’m glad Papa Greene is taking me home. I think I would kill myself before I married a man like that.”
Many men might covet Cassie’s youth and looks, but Naomi was certain Colby wasn’t one of them. That’s part of what fascinated her about him. She got the feeling he would marry a homely, penniless woman if he found her worthy of his love. Naomi wasn’t homely, penniless, or interested in marrying anyone, but she found that concept intriguing. Could a man really be like that?
The wagon came to a stop, and Cassie froze.
“What’s wrong?” Naomi asked.
“I don’t want to watch them bury Abe.”
“All you’re expected to do is be at the graveside when they bury him.”
Cassie held her baby so tightly he cried in protest. “I can’t. I can still see the arrow sticking out of his eye. It was horrible. I can’t look at him.”
“He’s wrapped in a blanket.”
Cassie shook her head. Deciding there was nothing she could do to change the woman’s mind, Naomi started to climb out of the wagon only to come face to face with Colby. Having him appear so unexpectedly was a shock.
“How is the young widow doing?”
“She’s still too upset to attend the burial.”
Colby’s arm was like iron as he offered to help Naomi down from the wagon
“It’s good he’s taking her back East. We don’t need women like that out here.”
Naomi released his hand the moment she was balanced on her feet. “What kind of women do you need? Or is it a personal preference?”
Colby didn’t appear affected by the sharpness of her words. “We need women as strong as the men they marry. This isn’t a land where a man can do all the work while a woman stays inside. It takes husband and wife working together to survive. Sometimes that isn’t enough.”
“I suppose you think cooking and caring for children isn’t work?”
“Of course it is, but men out here learn to do that, too. Some women give up and die. Others go back East. You wouldn’t. You’d stick until the end.”
Naomi could hardly have been more surprised if he’d said she had two heads. “Why would you think that? You know nothing about me.”
“Out here, you learn to take a person’s measure right quick. You’re scared of something, but you haven’t run away. You’ve got backbone.”
Naomi didn’t know what to say. It was like he could see inside her head, and she didn’t like that.
She didn’t understand why Colby felt compelled to help them. They were strangers, people he would never see after he left the train. Was it because he wore a Union Army uniform? Was he here to find out why they left Kentucky, to force them to go back? She wouldn’t feel safe until he’d gone. She didn’t know why their whole community was headed for the Arizona Territory by way of Santa Fe, but she was sure it had something to do with the Union Army, with something she had done. There had to be some reason for the nightmares. And all that blood.
***
“I hated to see Roy Greene leave,” Naomi’s father said.
“At least we don’t have to listen to Cassie’s screaming anymore,” Ben said.
“Burying your husband has to be a terrifying thing for a young woman, especially one with a new baby.”
“Naomi wouldn’t have carried on like that. She’s got backbone.”
Naomi wondered why Ben chose those words. He’d never said that before.
“I’m proud of your sister, too, but that’s no reason to disparage the character of someone else.”
“I’m not dis-parg-ing her,”—Ben stumbled over the word—“just saying Naomi wouldn’t have carried on like that.”
“You can stop talking about me like I’m not here,” Naomi told her father and brother.
Ben wasn’t ready to give up. “Polly and Toby were planning to get married, but she didn’t throw herself on his grave.”
Naomi hadn’t been surprised when Cassie changed her mind about attending the burial, but she hadn’t anticipated such a display of emotion. Mr. Greene had had to carry her back to their wagon.
Norman Spencer approached her father. “We’re having a meeting to decide what to do.”
“What choices do we have?”
“That’s what we’re going to talk about.”
Twelve men gathered around the dying embers of a small fire. The women and older children formed a second circle. The younger children stayed in the shadows.
Within minutes, the discussion devolved into three separate camps throwing accusations at each other.
“If my wife loses her baby, I’ll break you in half with my bare hands,” Paul Hill shouted at Norman.
Given the size, apparent strength, and barely contained fury burning inside the young man, Naomi hoped Norman would take the threat seriously. From her position on the second row, Elsa Drummond, Polly’s mother and sister to Frank Oliver’s wife Mae, cast burning looks at Norman, his brother Noah, and his father-in-law, Tom Hale. What a tangled mass of inter-family relationships! At the rate they were going, it would be midnight, and they’d still be blaming each other.
Without warning, Frank Oliver jumped to his feet and punched Norman in the face with so much force blood spurted from the broken skin. The impact of the blow knocked him backward where he lay on the ground holding his face.
“You god-damned son-of-a-bitch!” Frank shouted. “It’s your fault Toby’s dead.”
Colby jumped to his feet a fraction of a second after Frank. He locked Frank’s arms behind him and pulled him away from Norman.
In seconds everybody was on their feet, men shouting threats and waving their fists at each other, women attempting to pull their husbands and older sons from the fray, the younger children filled with excitement or fear. Naomi had been aware of the fault lines that had developed within their group, but she felt helpless to do anything to prevent the shattering of their small community. How could they survive in a hostile land when they hated each other so much? Their only choice was to turn back.
Colby forced his way into the tangle of shouting men.
“Stop!” His shout carried over the collective voices. “If the Indians were to attack right now, you’d all be dead in five minutes.”
Naomi hadn’t believed anything would quell the furor, but that did.
“There are ways to settle your differences,” Colby said when he could be heard without shouting, “but this isn’t one of them.”
“There’s nothing that will bring Toby back.” Frank Oliver didn’t attempt to hit Norman again, but his eyes blazed with pain and rage.
“No more than anything can bring Abe Greene back,” Colby pointed out. “You need to mourn for your loss, but right now you have to decide what to do. You have only two options, stay here and hope to hook up with the next train that comes along, or go back to the Arkansas River crossing and hook up with one of the caravans taking the route to Bent’s Fort.”
Both suggestions had stumbling blocks, but the only point on which there was general agreement was the group’s desire to avoid contact with outsiders.
“We can follow the river on our own,” Haskel Sumner suggested. “Mr. Greene said it wasn’t more than fifty miles from the Arkansas to the Cimarron.”
“If you confuse the Cimarron with Sand Creek, you’ll be headed south instead of west,” Colby said.
“Why would we do that?”
“If you strike it below the normal route, it will be dry like Sand Creek.”
“Why should we strike it below the normal route?”
“The trails that were there before the war have been washed out and overgrown. If you make a wrong turn, you won’t reach the Cimarron before your water runs out. Your livestock are so thirsty now, they’ll stampede at the first smell of water.”
Naomi’s father looked up from where he’d been tending to Norman’s lacerated face. “I think we should go back to the Arkansas. It will only take a few days. With all the caravans passing that way, we’re bound to find one we can follow.”
Virgil Johnson objected. “We might as well announce who we are and where we’re from.”
“What do you suggest?” Dr. Kessling asked.
Virgil directed an angry glance toward Norman. “I suggested we not leave Kentucky, but that was overruled.”
“We’re a thousand miles from Kentucky, so there’s no point in bringing it up again,” Dr. Kessling said.
Though he had been excluded from the inner circle, Ethan spoke up. “I think we ought to ask Mr. Blaine to be our guide.”
“No!” The unexpected force of her objection caused everyone to turn astonished gazes on Naomi.
Three
A sense of guilt washed over Naomi, but she refused to let it take hold. She had nothing against Colby, but she wanted him to leave as soon as possible.
Norman Spencer was annoyed she had dared voice an opinion. “What’s your objection? It must be important for you to have practically shouted it at us.”
Naomi felt her face flush with heat. “I didn’t mean to shout. I just think we ought to choose someone else, a professional.”
“I know this trail as well or better than anyone you’ll find,” Colby said. “I’ve traveled it most years since I was fifteen.”
“That makes him a perfect guide,” Ethan said.
To Have and to Hold (Cactus Creek Cowboys) Page 3