Dorothy Garlock - [Wabash River] (25 page)

“Whoa, now,” he chortled happily when she turned and sat down on his lap. “I can’t start kissing you again. I won’t be able to stop with just a few kisses.” He lifted her off his lap, sat her down beside him and tucked her shoulder beneath his. His fingers closed around the softness of her breast as if he had to touch her. “It’s a damn good thing you’re wearing the buckskins. I’m having a hard time keeping my hands off you.”

She untied the belt at her waist, grasped his hand and slipped it under her shirt. His fingers quickly found the soft, warm flesh of her breast and closed around it possessively. A thrill tingled through her and she heard his quick intake of breath.

“Darling . . . am I too bold?” she whispered, her mouth open and warm against his neck.

“Ahh . . .” His palm rubbed her nipple, his fingers cupped and squeezed. His palm went to caress her other breast, then to the smooth satin plane of her belly; his wandering hand caressed as it explored. Her skin was the softest thing he had ever touched. “Too bold? Hell, no!”

“I like it when you touch me.”

“I want to touch every inch of you, but . . . I can’t now.”

“Why not? I’m yours . . . and I want you to.”

“It’s too dangerous here. Someone could slip up on us.”

“The frogs are still croaking.”

“If they stopped I’d never know it.” He pulled his hand from beneath her shirt, tucked the blanket around her and held her close to his side. “I can wait. When we mate I want it to be slow and last a long time. I want to look my fill at all that you hide beneath your shirt and britches. I’m going to look into your eyes when I’m fully joined with you and know that you’re truly mine and that I’m yours.” He said the words so solemnly that they were like marriage vows. “I may never get enough of your sweet body,” he whispered raggedly.

“I hope not.” She nipped his neck gently. “You said you didn’t know pretty words,” she teased. “Those were the most beautiful words I’ve ever heard.”

“I wasn’t trying to make them pretty. I just wanted you to know how I feel.”

“I’m proud that you . . . want me that way.”

“Once I have you, I fear I’ll be as lusty as a bull moose in season.”

“You don’t scare me a bit.” He hugged her close, laughed softly and she added, “You didn’t laugh when you were at Quill’s Station.”

“No, I didn’t,” he admitted. “I guess I didn’t have anything to laugh about.”

They sat quietly, Rain’s back against the trunk of the aspen, Amy’s head on his shoulder. Time assumed a dreamlike quality. No unnatural noise intruded on their privacy, and the moments were filled with the simple pleasure of being together. The past hour had been utter bliss for them both, an almost surreal interlude. Rain had never loved, felt, enjoyed so deeply before. He had never been so intensely alive as he was when he held Amy in his arms, and he knew that she was giving herself to him openly and honestly.

Such an excess of happiness, he mused thoughtfully, came to only a few men. He thanked God that he was one of the lucky ones.

Thirteen

The hour before dawn is the darkest, the stars their brightest. In the quiet of the morning, when the furred and feathered creatures are asleep in the forest, the slightest sound is obvious.

Rain’s soft whisper brought Amy out of a sound sleep. Instantly alert, she sat up on her pallet and reached for her clothes. She dressed quickly and left the wagon. Rain loomed noiselessly out of the darkness. She strained her eyes to see his face.

A hand on her shoulder, he whispered, “We’re about ready to move out. Gavin is hitching up. You drive. I’ll be ahead, Gavin behind. Be as quiet as you can.”

She drew back from him, looking up. His face was almost visible now. His arms drew her to him again, and he kissed her gently. They held each other for a few seconds, enjoying being close.

When Rain left her, Amy reached into the wagon for her powder flask and shot bag. She hung them over her shoulder and picked up her rifle. When she climbed up on the wagon wheel, she was surprised to see Eleanor sitting on the seat wrapped in a dark shawl, her white face a blur in the darkness. Neither woman spoke. Amy placed her rifle on the floor at her feet and took the reins when Gavin brought them to her.

Rain led them steadily along a narrow track. The only sound was that of the wagon rolling and the muffled sound of horses’ hooves on the leaf-strewn floor of the forest. Black wilderness surrounded them as they moved through the nighttime of morning. Amy held her eyes wide open so she could see Rain’s shadowy figure ahead. Soon she realized he was circling the town. After a tense time the eastern sky began to lighten and the houses in town took shape. Here and there faint lights shone from windows.

As they neared the river the air Amy pulled through her nostrils was damp and cool. She was too tense to realize fully she was about to cross the mighty river that separated east from west. For years she had heard Farr talk about the land west of the river. Now that she was about to go there, all she could think about was Rain ahead of them and the men out there who did not want them to cross.

They reached the river in the gray light of morning. A man came from one of the flatboats tied to the quay and spoke briefly to Rain. Gavin rode up to the side of the wagon.

“I’ll drive it on, lass. Jump down and hold the horses.”

Amy took the reins of Gavin’s mount and untied hers from the end of the wagon. She moved the animals out of the way as the riverman and Rain tried to calm the frightened, balky mules and lead them on to the boat. The hollow sound their hooves made on the thick plank seemed to frighten them all the more. Only Gavin’s strong hands on the reins kept them from bolting.

Amy was so intent on holding the dancing horses and watching the wagon being loaded that at first she didn’t notice the rider racing his mount down the road toward the quay. Then she heard someone shouting her name.

“Miss Amy! Miss Amy!”

Amy was stunned when she recognized the rider. But not so stunned that her mind didn’t register the curses that came from Rain’s lips.

Tally Perkins slid his mount to a stop and jumped off.

“Rain,” he shouted. “Ya gotta hurry!” Tally had lost his hat. His white-blond hair stood out on his head like a pile of straw.

“What the . . . Hell! What are you doing here?” Rain’s angry voice boomed in the quiet of the morning.

“Men are comin’ from the tavern. They’re goin’ to keep you from crossing,” Tally gasped. “Hurry ’n cast off.”

“How many?”

“Ten or more.”

“Tie your horse if you’re going to cross and help with these mules.” Rain issued the crisp command and hurried to help Amy load the horses.

Tally and the boatman led the stumbling, frightened team on to the flat-bottomed boat. As soon as they were aboard, Gavin jumped down. He and Tally tied them to a stout post while the boatman cast off the ropes holding the boat to the dock. Gavin grabbed a pole to help push the heavily laden craft out into the river current.

“Lash down the wagon,” the boatman shouted. “Poke a timber in the back of the wheels to keep ’er from rollin’.”

Rain and Tally jumped to obey. They tied down the wagon and then grabbed poles to help push the boat away from the quay.

Everyone seemed to have forgotten about Eleanor who sat on the wagon seat, rigid with fear.

“Get down off there,” Amy ordered sharply. Eleanor didn’t move or answer, just looked at her as if she didn’t see her. Amy climbed up on the wheel, grasped her arm and shook her. “Get off, damn you! If that wagon tips over you’ll go with it.”

“I’m . . . scared.”

“Who isn’t? Now get off. No one has time to mess with you, damn it.” Eleanor stood and backed down over the wheel with Amy guiding her feet. When her feet felt the solid plank floor, she stood with her hands gripping the wagon wheel as if she were holding on to a life raft. Amy pried her hands loose and pushed her beneath the wagon. “Stay there. I’ve got to see about the horses.”

Amy moved among the nervous horses, crooning, soothing, patting and stroking. The animals calmed.

Angry shouts came from a group of men running toward the quay. All four men on the boat put their backs to the poles and their combined strength moved it out from the bank. They were a dozen yards out on the river when the first shot was fired. Amy heard the impact as the bullet hit the water a yard to the side of the boat. Water fowl along the river rose with a great flapping of wings and fanned out in the sky overhead. The next shot hit the hull of the vessel, and the next one went into the head of the horse Amy was holding. The animal went down heavily, causing the boat to rock from side to side.

“Amy!” Rain shouted. “Get down! Get behind the horses.”

Two more shots were fired that didn’t come close to the cumbersome craft.

“I’ll get ya, ya rat eatin’ sons of bitches!” the boatman shouted. “Afore the summer’s out ever’ blasted one a ya’ll get a pike in yore belly fer firin’ on Red Cavanaugh!”

Another shot was fired. The bullet zipped into the water a dozen feet from the boat.

“Ye can’t shoot no better’n ye can fight, bully-boy,” Gavin shouted, and shook his fist at the man he had fought the night before and at the boy, Muley, who had tried to stab him in the back.

“Tell Perry ta send
men
next time he wants a job done right. Ya ain’t nothin’ but river trash standin’ on the bank beggin’ fer a handout from that cocky chinless bastard.” The burly boatman was of undetermined age. He had a red beard, sparse red hair, and shouted his taunts in a deep booming voice. “Shit eatin’ thieves! Whore’s sons! Lazy, shore huggin’ bastards! What ya agoin’ to do now? Haw! Haw! Haw!”

The swifter current caught the boat and spun it halfway around. One of the frightened mules tried to buck. His forefeet slashed at the floor of the craft.

“Get a sledge,” Red shouted as he grabbed the steering oar. “Knock that mule in the head if he tries to break loose. He’ll turn us over sure as hell!”

“Ye best do it, hoe-man,” Gavin said to Tally. “Ye be knowin’ more ’bout mules, ’n I be knowin’ more ’bout boats.”

Tally pulled his pole and went to the mules, making a wide loop around Rain. He hadn’t counted on his anger. He had known that Amy would be madder than a stepped-on snake because he had tailed after her. The first thing that struck him when he arrived at the boat was that Rain was the one to fear. The way he had looked at him was scary! Tally almost wished he hadn’t come.

The muscles of Gavin’s big arms and those of Rain’s stood out as they braced their feet and strained on the poles to bring the boat around so the current could grab it. Soon they were moving downriver and angling toward the western shore and the river was too deep for the poles. From there on they had to trust to the current and steering oar.

Gavin checked the ropes holding the wagon and the timbers behind the wheels. He bent to peer beneath the wagon where Eleanor was huddled.

“Be ye all right, lass?” Eleanor was so frightened that she had been sick. She looked at him with shamed eyes and little whimpering sounds came from her lips. She reached out a hand to him and he took it in his. “Ye’re naught to fear now, lassie. We be across soon, ’n the devils won’t be catchin’ us.”

“I’m sorry . . .” Her eyes flicked to the floor where the contents of her stomach had spewed from her mouth. “I was so scared.”

“I been just that scared, lass. I been on the water more’n ten year, ’n if there be one thing I know tis rivers. I be lettin’ no harm come to ye.” Gavin looked around when the boatman shouted, then turned back to Eleanor. “Stay here. Hold to the wheel so I be knowin’ where ye be.”

“The bush-bottomed sons a bitches is puttin’ out to come after us.” The boatman stood at the end of his craft and shook his fists at the objects of his anger.

“Do we have a chance of outrunning them?” Rain asked.

“None a’tall, mon. They be sittin’ high in the water.” Gavin spoke to the boatman. “Keep steady to the course. I know me a trick or two ’bout boat fightin’.”

“We’ve got five rifles, counting Amy’s, and one pistol. They’ve got twice that.”

“Look what they be carryin’, mon.” Gavin’s face creased with a lopsided grin, because of his cut, swollen lips. “Tis fer Perry’s fancy horses I be thinkin’. Do ye still have the bow and them arrows about ye?”

“I see what you mean.” Rain studied the boat, then cast the big man an admiring glance. “It was good of them to pick
that
boat.” He pulled out his knife and shaved some thin slices of wood from the wagon box. “Get the iron kettle, Amy. We’re going to build us a little fire. We’ll use this and whatever else we can find that will burn.”

“I’ve got a little kindling in the cook box. I always carry some.”

“Good. Get it. Do you have any animal fat?”

“I’ve got that too. Libby put in a crock of lard.”

Gavin reached under the wagon and pulled Eleanor out. She stood, swaying on unsteady legs and holding on to him.

“Buck up, lassie. We be needin’ yer help. Get us some cloth. Some that’ll burn fast. Hurry now.” He picked her up and set her inside the back of the wagon.

Rain started the fire in the kettle with a small amount of gunpowder and the paper-thin shavings. Amy stood over it, shielding it from the wind and feeding it small pieces of kindling. She still did not know what was planned until Rain reached into a compartment beneath the wagon and drew out a bow and a quiver of arrows. He made small bundles out of the cloth Eleanor provided and tied them to the tips of six arrows. Amy dipped them carefully into the grease, coating them on all sides.

The other boat with a thick layer of straw on the deck and a pile on each end was rapidly reducing the distance between them. A score of men lay flat on their bellies with rifles ready, waiting to get within firing range.

“Stay where ye be,” Gavin said when Eleanor attempted to get out of the wagon. “Lie down flat. The sideboards’ll protect ye.”

“Get in the wagon with Eleanor, Amy,” Rain said without looking at her.

“No. I can shoot.”

“Goddamn it! Don’t argue. Do as I say!”

“You need my gun, Rain.”