Wendell had been unkind back in Houston, too—after the wedding. But they’d lived in a safe place, in a sturdy house. Out in the country a bit, and Wendell didn’t come home that often—which Audra soon learned wasn’t such a bad thing.
She and Julia had done well together.
Please, God, care for her.
Wendell slammed the door open. “Where did that girl run off to?”
Maggie jerked awake in Audra’s arms.
“You haven’t found her?” Audra surged to her feet. “Wendell, what could have happened?”
“Ain’t the first time she’s gone off.” Wendell jerked the cigar he was never without from his lips. He was skinny and wrinkled. He had a short supply of hair and a long supply of grudges. Before the wedding, Audra had seen him as wiry. His wrinkles she’d thought of as laugh lines, though he’d never laughed. He was only a bit taller than her, even though she was on the short side for a woman.
But her pa was a large man, a bully, so she’d liked the idea of a smaller man. That seemed safer. Pa had come to owe money to Wendell for a reason she’d never heard. She’d seen the man her father insisted she marry as powerful. Only a powerful man could cow her father. And yet Wendell had been of small stature, so he didn’t frighten her. Her father’s home wasn’t a happy place, so she hadn’t protested much. After nearly three years of marriage, Audra could no longer remember why she’d been so stupid as to believe a man who had power over her tyrant of a father would be loving with her.
“But she never goes off for this long.” Julia often went outside for a long walk while Audra and Maggie took an afternoon nap. But she was always home for supper. In fact, she always made supper. Audra had to move quickly to be allowed to do any work in this household. This time, Audra had awakened to an empty house. Julia hadn’t come home all day. Audra had hunted to the extent she could while carrying a baby. Her fear had turned to terror as dusk had turned to dark. Then Wendell came home, as he always did late Saturday nights. He’d listened to Audra’s worry, complained about his arm being sore and how tired he was from the long week, as if Julia had gone off strictly to cause him more work. He had at least searched. Audra had heard him yelling for the last few hours.
“Something’s happened.” Audra stood and walked the floor with Maggie, too nervous to sit still.
“She’s tryin’ to scare me is all.” Wendell was a cocky banty rooster of a man, and was just as likely to peck and claw and flap.
Since Audra liked her stepdaughter a lot more than she liked her husband, his words were no comfort. Wendell only came home after the store closed on Saturday night and stayed until Monday morning. All part of his plan to keep the men away from his women by keeping them hidden.
“There’s no reason she’d be trying to scare you, Wendell. You weren’t even home when she left.” Audra preferred to keep the peace, even if she had to twist herself into a knot doing it. Julia was much more courageous when it came to facing Wendell’s wrath.
“She fusses all the time about one thing or another.” Wendell puffed on his inch-long stub of a cigar using his left hand. It was so awkward, Audra had noticed it as soon as he came home. Now he cradled his right arm close to his stomach. Had he sprained his wrist? She’d been too worried about Julia to even ask.
“She doesn’t like this cabin and she doesn’t like living way out west.” He took one last draw on his cigar and tossed it to the floor. Stomping on it viciously. She had to get that ugly cigar butt tossed out before Maggie could eat it. He fumbled for his metal tube he always kept in his shirt pocket that held another cigar. He had recently taken to carrying two, as if he was afraid to be without something to smoke.
Jerking it out of his pocket, he stared at it so intently, Audra saw his eyes lose focus.
“Only because she’s worried about the children. The baby will be here soon, and the cabin isn’t tight. We need a better place to live before snow falls. It’s too cold at night, even in the summer.” They lived in an old shack Wendell had found. As far as Audra knew, Wendell had no carpentry skills. He’d have needed to hire someone to help him build a house or repair this one, and that would mess up his plans to keep his womenfolk a secret.
“It’s good enough.” Wendell jammed the cigar tube back in his shirt pocket and reached for Audra in an aborted gesture with his right hand. He flinched and cradled the arm against his body. “I can’t find her. What do you want me to do?”
“She wouldn’t stay away this long.” Audra wished Wendell wouldn’t shout. Maggie had been nursing quietly, on the verge of sleeping. Now the child’s eyes were wide open and frightened, feeding frantically while Audra paced. With another baby on the way, Audra knew her milk supply was nearly used up and they had no cow. Could a woman nurse two babies at once? Audra had no idea. It might be necessary.
Julia had squabbled with Wendell before he’d ridden to town on Monday. She’d demanded they leave or make the house more comfortable. It got cold at night, and the roof leaked. It had snowed one night, and they’d awakened to a layer of the white stuff on the floor.
Instead of saying he’d fix things, he’d boasted about how the men in town were too stupid to notice that he was gone from Saturday night to Monday morning. He’d told Julia she’d be at the mercy of violent men if he brought anyone out to do repairs, and he was too busy and tired after a long week to spend his Sabbath fussing with the house.
“She does this every time she’s upset.” Wendell stormed around the cabin. It didn’t take long. They had three small rooms for four people. The two back rooms were shanties added to this small front room. They slept on bedrolls on the floor.
It was true Julia went for long walks when her father was in a belligerent mood. “She’s never been gone overnight.”
“Maybe she finally took off. If she did, then good riddance to her.” Wendell poured himself a glass of water with his left hand and drank deeply. He’d been tidy and civilized when she’d met him, well dressed and clean-shaven except for a tidy mustache. Only on their way west had he begun to ignore bathing. His face was bristly with his beard. His pants were threadbare and his white shirt was sweat-stained and dingy, even though Julia and Audra washed his clothes every weekend.
Spilled water was the closest the man ever came to a bath.
“Took off?” Audra ran her hand over her stomach and wanted to weep for the new baby on the way. She’d felt contractions a few times while she’d tried to patch holes in the house to slow the wind. After the second time, Julia would barely let her move and did most of the work herself. Wendell wouldn’t help at all. Audra knew she was risking her baby’s life by doing heavy chores. She didn’t want to deliver her baby in this tiny cabin in this remote mountain hideaway.
Enduring Wendell’s touch was her wifely duty. And it had made her a mother at a very young age—with one on the way—after only three years of marriage. He left her alone when she was ungainly from being with child, which was one of the brightest spots in her rather dim marriage. Audra and Julia were always relieved to see him head for town for the week.
“She can’t take off. Where would she go? Rawhide is the only town for miles, and you’d have passed her on the trail if she’d gone that way. Wendell, something’s happened. You’ve got to keep searching for her.”
“Stop yammerin’ at me, woman.” Throwing the tin cup aside, he turned on her, clenching his fist, which turned the ugly scar on his hand bright red. “I’ll keep looking, but I don’t need a woman nagging at me.” Wendell stormed out and slammed the door.
Maggie jumped at the loud bang and started crying.
Tears burned Audra’s eyes, but they didn’t fall. She just didn’t care enough anymore to be truly hurt by her husband.
She sat in the straight-backed chair, one of their few pieces of furniture. They’d left Houston with an hour’s notice, bringing little more than the clothes on their backs and two wooden crates of belongings Julia had thrown together. Julia said her father always decided to mo
ve on like this, and she’d learned what to grab quickly—although Audra wished she’d have left some of the heavy books behind and added more clothes. Julia had built this chair, a ramshackle piece of work, but it stayed on its legs, and Audra was grateful for it.
Audra thought of Julia and found tears after all. Audra loved her baby with a mother’s heart, but she didn’t love Julia as a daughter. Julia was nearly Audra’s age and they were sisters, friends, family. Julia was so strong and hardworking that in many ways Audra felt like the daughter and Julia the mother.
And Julia was fiercely loyal. She wouldn’t have left Audra to cope alone. Not willingly. Where had she gone? What had happened to her?
A tear rolled down Audra’s face and a dam broke. It wasn’t possible that Julia had taken off. She was a sensible girl. Yes, she went for long walks. Julia loved nature and talked with enthusiasm of fossils and rivers and rocks. She read her books on the subject over and over and wrote papers that she often got Wendell to mail off for her, trying to get scholarly magazines to publish them. It was one of the few kindnesses Wendell showed his daughter.
But she’d never leave. Audra knew that with unshakable certainty. Something had happened to her friend.
Hugging Maggie close, she let her tears fall. It was right to cry when your best friend, your sister, got swallowed up by a merciless land.
CHAPTER
4
“Finish eating. You can get some rest, and then we’ll get you back to Rawhide first thing in the morning.” Rafe wasn’t listening to her. He was too busy giving orders.
Julia decided it was time he found out she wasn’t going to obey. “No. I can’t go to Rawhide. Absolutely not. I have to go home . . . now.” She clenched her fist, fought down her temper. Stay calm. Reason with him. Make him understand.
“If I’m out all night, Audra will be crazy with worry.” Julia’s voice broke, and she jammed her fingers into her hair and pulled it, hoping the pain would distract herself from the panic and stupid crying. She breathed through the tears that were cutting off her voice until she got control of herself. All she and her family had been through since they left Houston in the spring, and Julia had held up well, mainly because Audra needed her to be strong.
Rafe just stared at her. Honestly, that long, quiet look helped get her tears under control better than if he’d been nice.
Which he wasn’t. Yippee.
It was obvious he was waiting to issue some new order.
“What?” She might as well let him go ahead.
“We’ve been talking in circles, Julia. First it’s your pa, then there’s a baby. You live in Rawhide, you have to go home, you can’t go to Rawhide. The town where you say your pa has a store is twenty miles from here, yet you say you live a half mile from the cavern. None of these things match up, Jules. And who in the world is Audra? Is she the baby?”
Julia glared at Rafe. She had explained her situation very carefully, several times. She inhaled slowly. “Can you sit down, please, and listen to me for a few minutes. I will say this one more time and try to make it clear.”
Rafe’s eyes flickered to Ethan, who stood in the doorway off to Julia’s right. Rafe was on her left, so she couldn’t quite see what passed between them.
Probably confusion. The Kincaid brothers seemed to be easily confused.
“We live outside of town. A long way. Our cabin is about a half mile from the cavern.”
“No, it’s not.”
Rafe didn’t sit, and Julia really wished he would so they could pretend like they were having a normal conversation, which might help keep her from screaming when she thought of how worried Audra must be by now. And this was Saturday night. Father would be home. That should have been a good thing; it was better than if Audra was alone. But Father had a knack for making everything worse.
Julia gritted her teeth. “Yes, it is. It’s a very steep trail, and I discovered the cavern while hiking. I’ve walked that trail many times. I know how far I walked.”
“There’s a fast-moving creek right over the crest of that mountain. There’s no way across. You have to go around, so it’s a lot longer than half a mile.”
“I have a way across.”
Rafe frowned and exchanged another look with Ethan. He stepped toward her and took her head in his hands to have a closer look at her temple. “Do you think you were unconscious long? A head injury might explain why you’re a bit addled.”
She shoved his hands away and snapped, “Just be quiet and listen.” She fought her way back to calm. “My father didn’t want us living in town. He said it was dangerous. So he found a place outside of town and he only comes home on Saturday nights when the general store is closed.”
“The general store is owned by a man I know well. Your father owns a saloon.”
Julia threw her hands wide. “Whatever he owns, we live a half mile from that cavern.”
“Your pa leaves you alone out there?” Rafe scowled.
“Yes, with Audra, my stepmother. I’ve got a baby sister named Maggie and there’s a baby on the way. In the afternoons, when Maggie sleeps, Audra lays down for a while. The floorboards creak and the door scrapes when I open it, so I can either sit motionless for two or three hours every afternoon or I can go out for a walk. I’ve had an interest in geological history for most of my life. So when I found the cavern, of course I explored. And I found a fossil.”
“And a fossil is . . . ?” Rafe arched a brow and waited.
“Bones. I found old fish bones.”
“You found fish bones. Someone probably left the scraps from their meal behind.” Rafe sounded as if he were talking to a five-year-old. Or maybe he had the mental age of five; she wasn’t sure.
“Not scraps. These are fossils.”
Rafe’s expression was the very height of skepticism.
Julia forged on. “I went for a walk today, as usual, but I . . .” She rubbed her head. “That man scared me. I doused my light because it gave away where I was. I ran. I must have hit my head and been unconscious for a while, but since I was unconscious, I’m really not all that sure how long I lay there. All I know is when I woke up it was pitch-dark. I tried to find my way to the entrance, and I did find the ledge; it had to be the right spot. I climbed it, but I couldn’t find my rope, and with no sunlight there was no way to see if I was in the right place.” She remembered something else. “I left my lantern down there. I need to get my lantern back.”
“You’re lucky you didn’t splash kerosene and set yourself on fire,” Ethan said from behind her.
She really wished Ethan would move closer to Rafe so she could keep an eye on both of them. “Well, yes, now that you mention it, I am very lucky.” Julia rolled her eyes at the man’s imagination. “Of course I’m lucky any number of other things didn’t happen. I was quiet for a long time because I was afraid of that man. But finally I couldn’t stand being trapped any longer and I called out for help, and . . . and you . . . you were there. You answered. You saved me.” Her voice broke, and she launched herself into Rafe’s arms again. “Please, Rafe. Poor Audra. I’ve got to get home.”
“It’s full dark.” His arms came around her waist, and the strength of them was so wonderful she got ahold of her upset. “It’ll be all night getting you home.”
“No, I can tell you don’t believe me.” She pulled back far enough to look him in the eyes and spoke softly, persuasively, using small words with few syllables. “But I’ll show you the way.” She tried to sound coaxing. Maybe if she offered him a cookie. “I do have a trail. How else could I have gotten there? You don’t think I hiked twenty miles, do you?”
“So, you’ve found some treacherous mountain trail that fords that deep, fast-moving water and you want to go home that way in the dark?”
“Yes!” Julia smiled and gave him a quick encouraging pat on the shoulder. He’d finally started to act like a reasonable, intelligent man.
“No.”
She’d fallen into the hands of a complet
e idiot. She let go of the idiot and sat back down. “I can’t stay out overnight. My father might kill himself searching for me.”
Julia doubted that very much, but she thought it might appeal to Rafe’s heroic nature. He really was heroic. A hero didn’t have to be a genius after all.
“We’ll go at first light.”
He really was bossy, too.
“I know your family will be frantic.” Rafe picked up one of her hands, and Julia noticed for the first time that she had several bleeding fingernails. Then she forgot about her nails as his touch reminded her of his kiss, though she was sure now that he’d only kissed her to turn her attention from her hysterics.
It had certainly worked. And then he’d asked her if she was sixty years old, in a voice that sounded slightly sickened. And she’d slapped him.
If she had it to do over again, she’d slap him twice. Of course she hadn’t been able to see him, either. What if he’d been sixty? She controlled a shudder of disgust.
Standing, she gave him one more chance. “Please, will you help me? Help me get back to my father. Now—tonight. I know it’s a lot to ask. We can talk about going back down into that cavern later.”
“You’re not going down there.” Ethan’s voice turned Julia, so she finally got a better look at Rafe’s brother.
She’d been crying when she’d seen him before. As a rule she never cried. But she’d had an extremely trying day.
Ethan looked like Rafe in general ways. He was an inch or two above six feet, and so was Rafe. They both had broad shoulders and narrow hips. Rafe had close-cropped dark hair. Ethan’s was lighter brown and too long, the ends bleached by the sun. His eyes were different, bright blue where Rafe’s were the color of the blue sky seen through a cold fog.
Ethan straightened from where he slouched in the doorway, and she tried to judge his reasons for being so adamant against that cavern. Fear or stubbornness—or maybe wisdom.
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