Anita Mills (12 page)

The sun shone overhead, but the camp was a mudhole when Spence walked through it to cross the road to the Platte River. Laying his saddlebag on the riverbank, he eased down the mud-slick slope to fill his wash pan with the opaque water. Mac had said if he let it sit a few minutes, the dirt would sink to the bottom, and he wasn’t going to drink any of it, anyway. He’d seen too much of what bad water could do to a man.

Squatting down, he dug in his bag for the soap he’d bought in Omaha, a thick, gray-white chunk that looked as though its maker had left some of the ashes in it. He laid it and the small towel it was wrapped in next to the pan while he retrieved his razor and shaving mirror. When he looked at the water, he couldn’t see much improvement. Patience was supposed to be a virtue, he told himself, but as pressed as he was for time, he didn’t feel very virtuous right now—just dirty, tired, and cranky beyond reason.

While he waited, he brushed his teeth with a little baking soda and whiskey to get the rancid taste of pork tallow out of his mouth. The fatty meat he’d had for breakfast had been swimming in the stuff, but the other three men hadn’t seem to notice it. Spitting the whiskey on the ground, he screwed on the cap and replaced it in his pack.

Finally, tired of watching the water in the pan, he stripped off his sweaty shirt, then pulled off his boots, socks, and pants. He’d just have to be careful he didn’t swallow any of it, he decided as he plunged into the river itself. Sinking down, he felt the water lift his hair and swirl around his body, and he realized it was damned cold. As quickly as he’d gone in, he climbed out. His wet drawers bagged with the added weight as he picked up the pan, soap, towel, and razor before heading into a stand of cottonwood trees.

He soaped everything he could reach, including his wet hair and the rough stubble on his face, then positioned the mirror in a crevice between a branch and the trunk of a tree. He’d had better lather, he decided as he drew the straight razor along his jaw to his chin. His eye caught movement in a corner of the mirror, and he spun around.

Her first instinct was to run when she saw the nearly naked man, then she recognized him. “Dr. Hardin! What on
earth
are you doing out here?”

His gaze took in her flushed face, the damp hair that clung to her neck and temples, then dropped lower to the decided swell of her abdomen beneath the faded calico dress. Whisking the little towel from a tree limb, he held it over his drawers. “You always sneak up on a man when he’s shaving, Mrs. Taylor?”

“I didn’t see you,” she said simply. “I was just getting water.”

“Well, don’t drink it, or the stuff’s liable to give you typhoid or cholera.”

“If I use it for cooking or drinking, I boil it. But you’re a long way from Georgia, sir.”

“I’m headed for San Francisco.”

“Oh.” Surprised, she couldn’t help asking, “What about your family? Are they with you?”

“No. They’re already out there.”

“So you’re going to join them,” she said, nodding.

Instead of answering, he said, “I heard about Jesse. I’m sorry.”

“So am I.I want to believe I’m in a nightmare, and when I wake up, he’ll be here. But I know he won’t.”

“Yeah.”

She sucked in her breath and let it out slowly. “I’m surprised you took the northern route this time of year.”

“Yeah, well, I thought it’d be easier than crossing the desert.”

“So you’re going to cross mountains.”

“Or die trying, I guess. With Jesse gone, what are you going to do now?”

“Stay with the railroad until after the baby comes. I know they don’t want me, but there’s nowhere else to go.”

“What about Salisbury? You could go back there, you know.”

“To what, Dr. Hardin? We sold the farm to come out here.”

“I know, but you need your people at a time like this,” he said gently. “You can’t raise that baby alone in a damned tent.”

“You know, I get real tired of hearing that,” she responded dryly. “I don’t have any people anywhere.”

“Yes, but surely—”

“Without Jesse, Danny, or my house, there’s nothing back there for me, so I’ve got to stay whether I want to or not.”

“You’ve got no man to take care of you,” he reminded her.

“Is that what you all think I need?” she demanded, her voice rising. “Well, let me tell you something—I’ve been more or less alone all my life, and I’ve managed to survive. As long as I can keep a roof over my head, I’ll make it here or anywhere else.”

“How?”

“I’ll do what I have to. Look, I’m sorry I interrupted your daily ablutions, but I’ve got to fill this bucket and get back, or I won’t get done today.” With that, she walked to the riverbank.

“You can’t be serious, Mrs. Taylor!” he called after her. “You can’t like living out here!”

She swung around to face him again. “Like it? I
hate
it! I hate everything about it, but the Almighty didn’t give me a choice when He took Jesse, so I’m just stuck here.”

“Look, if it’s money you need—”

“I’m not a charity case, Dr. Hardin,” she declared stiffly. “I’ll get by on my own.”

“You’re too damned stubborn for your own good—you know that, don’t you? Listen—let the railroad pay your way back to North Carolina. I’ve got a little money I can loan you, if you think you have to pay me back. Take it and go live with one of your friends until after the baby’s born and you can get on your feet,”

“Friends!” she spat out disgustedly. “The only one who’d have me is poor old Silas, and the last thing he needs is a woman with a baby. The rest of ‘em’s looked down on me as long as I can remember, and I’m not about to give ‘em the satisfaction of doing it again, sir. I may be poor, but I’ve got my pride left. Now, if you’ll excuse me again, I’ve got to get busy.”

If her belly hadn’t been so big, she’d have flounced down that riverbank, but as it was she was just awkward and ungainly as she negotiated her way to the water. Watching her, Spence sighed. “You know, Jesse wouldn’t want you living like this!” he yelled.

She stopped again, but didn’t look back. “Jesse’s gone,” she said evenly. “And if he didn’t care when he was alive, why would he care now? He left me in this fix, and it’s up
to me to make the best of it.” Bending over, she filled the bucket, then straightened her tired back. Struggling up the bank, she saw Spencer Hardin pulling on his clothes, and she felt guilty for what she’d said to him.

“I guess it’s my turn to be sorry,” she admitted as he turned around, buttoning his shirt. “I’m just tired of everybody telling me to do something I can’t. I just have to work things out for myself.”

“Yeah.”

“But it’s good to hear another Southerner. I get homesick for that, you know.”

“I didn’t mean to bully my way into your business.”

“No, I expect Mr. Russell asked you to, didn’t he?”

“No. I just sort of blundered into that on my own.”

“He doesn’t want me here. He thinks I’ll be a nuisance, but I don’t aim to be. All I want is a place to stay until after Jesse Daniel’s born and I can get him to where I can travel. Then I don’t know where I’ll go, but I’ve got the winter to decide.”

He walked over to where she stood and reached for the bucket. “You shouldn’t be carrying things this heavy. There must be somebody around who’d do it for you.”

“I’m not about to give the men around here any encouragement,” she murmured as he took it. “And they
sure don’t need much, either.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“No, you haven’t,” she countered, falling into step beside him. “Jesse wasn’t in the ground a day before they started coming around. You haven’t heard anything until you’ve listened to somebody telling a grieving widow with a big stomach what she needs is another man in her bed to make her feel better. And he was serious enough that he slicked his hair back with grease, thinking it’d make him handsome, when he hadn’t had a bath in six months.”

“Good God.”

“I guess he figured he could save the money he was spending at the hog ranch by marrying me. And that was just the first fellow. You’d think they’d know if a woman was crying, she wasn’t interested in romance, but they didn’t.”

“They don’t see too many good-looking women out here, I’m told.”

“And then there was the fellow from the hog ranch,” she went on. “He came visiting to tell me if I needed any money, he could fix me right up as soon as the baby was born. Said I could make more’n a hundred dollars on payday, and that was with him keeping half of what I brought in. He figured I could get five dollars.” She looked up at him, fixing him with those golden brown eyes. “I don’t understand how a woman could do that for money—I just don’t.”

“No.”

“And he wasn’t about to take no for an answer until I racked Jesse’s shotgun and pointed it at him. It was like he was talking about a piece of meat instead of a person.”

“That ought to tell you you can’t stay here.”

“That’s what Mr. Russell said when I told him I couldn’t go back to Salisbury. I guess he thinks I can just build myself a house on somebody else’s land.” She stopped in front of a wagon. “Thanks. I can take the bucket now.”

“Where’s your tent?”

“I took it down. Everything I own is in this wagon, Dr. Hardin, and I’m not about to give any of it up.”

“You’re living in here?” he asked incredulously.

“It sits off the ground, which makes it easier for me to defend myself from both kinds of varmints, be they animal or human. Anybody wanting to crawl in with me will have to climb up, and when I hear him coming, I’ll have a double load of buckshot ready.” She looked up at the tattered canvas cover for a moment, wrinkling her nose at it. “If Jesse’d lived, Mr. Russell had a cabin over by Fort McPherson he was going to let us have for the winter.” Forcing a smile, she turned back to Spence. “ ‘The best-laid schemes ο’ mice and men gang aft agley,’ ” she said huskily.

“I don’t guess Robert Burns had any better life than I have.”

As soon as she’d climbed inside the wagon, Spence went looking for William Russell, and he found him shouting at a Chinese worker who couldn’t understand him. The poor fellow just stood there, smiling and bowing, while his boss hurled epithets at him.

“Goddamn Chinks,” Russell muttered, throwing up his hands. “I’d sooner have a passel of Negroes working for me. All right—get the hell out of here,” he decided, waving the man away. Seeing Spence, he shook his head. “They send me any more of these yellow boys, and I’m apt to kill somebody over it.”

“I’d like to speak with you about Mrs. Taylor,” Spence told him.

“You and damned near every other man in camp—the woman’s a curse, that’s what she is. I’m supposed to be laying track clear to Laramie, and I’m too far behind for ‘em to be making eyes at the Widow Taylor. So unless you’ve got a notion of how I can get her out of here, I don’t have time to talk.”

“There’s nothing for her back in Carolina. They sold her place to pay for the trip out here. Besides, it’s too late for her to travel that far.”

“That doesn’t help me, does it?” Russell retorted. “I got no room for anybody that don’t work and no time to spend keeping the men from pestering her.”

Spence realized he’d caught the man at a bad time, but he couldn’t wait for a better one. “What about the place out by McPherson?”

“Hell, the army don’t want her either. Those soldier boys’d be as bad as mine, and morale’s worse there than here. At least we pay decent wages, which is more than can be said for the U.S. government.”

“What about the cabin you promised Jesse?”

“I told him the place’s a shack, but he said once the work slowed for winter, he could fix it up enough for ‘em to get through to spring in it. It’s about a quarter mile from where we’ll be making winter camp.”

“It’d be better than a tent, wouldn’t it?” Spence persisted.

“And how the hell am I supposed to make it habitable? Taylor was going to do that, but he’s dead now.” Russell paused to rub a day’s growth of beard while he pondered the matter, then nodded. “Least she wouldn’t be underfoot. Think you could get her to take it?”

“I can try.”

Warming to the idea, the foreman said, “Tell her I got a couple of Chinese fellows I can spare to nail it up some. Surely to God they know how to use a hammer.”

“Thanks.” As he walked away, Spence felt as if he’d settled the debt he owed to Laura and Jesse Taylor.

S
pence leaned forward, scanning the horizon, thinking he had to be insane to involve himself in Laura Taylor’s business. He hardly knew the woman, and he already had more than enough problems of his own. The obligation he’d felt he owed her husband last night had faded in the clear light of dawn. But he was committed to getting her as far as McPherson, he reminded himself, and he’d do it. After that, she was on her own.

Still, he chafed restively at the slow pace, knowing he had a thousand miles of rugged, inhospitable territory between him and San Francisco. He was just going to lose two or three days he couldn’t afford, but it couldn’t be helped.

Even if he could get Dolly and the old mule to run, he suspected the rickety wagon would shake itself apart and strand him out here with no help in sight. It already squeaked, creaked, groaned, and shimmied as the iron-clad wooden wheels ground into the muddy ruts of the Platte Road. The damned thing was just plain overloaded, but the stubborn woman beside him had refused to leave any of her furniture behind, he recalled resentfully. And it didn’t help his temper any that most of the stuff was damned near worthless.

The way his luck was running, an axle was going to break somewhere between Forts Kearney and McPherson, anyway, and they’d be sitting ducks for any war party that happened along. And while three guns and two half-empty boxes of ammunition were plenty for a running chase, they wouldn’t be enough if he had to make a stand. His gaze sought the uneven rumps of the mismatched team for a moment. The five or so miles into Fort Kearney felt like a hundred already, and they’d have another eighty or ninety miles after that before he could abandon the silent woman or her wagon.