Brides of Prairie Gold (34 page)

Dropping her head, she wiped her eyes, agonizing over raw hands and the skin peeling off her forehead and nose, disfiguring her. Thank heaven her mother had not lived to see this. Or to see the soiled clothing she wore, another first in her life. Her mother would have disowned her.

A tear leaked from beneath pale eyelashes. She was so tired, so bone-dead fatigued. She hadn't known a person could be this exhausted and still survive. Her stomach rumbled; she was sick with hunger. Beneath her dirty clothing, her dirty skin chafed; she itched all over, tormented by insect bites.

She couldn't go on. The panicked realization settled over her like a chunk of marble about to drop and crush her life.

"Here." A hand reached down, offering a bottle of milky liquid. "This will soothe your sunburn and ease the sting of the insect bites. From now on, rub spit on the bites first thing."

Shoving at stringy loops of hair, she rocked back on her heels and gazed up at Perrin. Old instincts died hard. Her first impulse was to summon her pride and slap Perrin's hand away.

But her face was blistered and burned; she had scratched the insect bites until they swelled and bled. She hurt. Wordlessly, she accepted the bottle, shook it once, then began to slather the nasty-smelling stuff on her face and the back of swollen hands. Immediately the fire diminished on her cheeks and her shoulders. She collapsed in a long sigh of gratitude.

"Are you boiling that water for laundry?"

Augusta stared at her lap and drew a deep breath. A dozen scathing replies died on the tip of her tongue.

"I don't know how to do laundry," she whispered, imagining that she heard her pride crashing in little pieces around her. "I'm trying to get more drinking water, and water to wash myself. I'm dirty." The amazement of it thinned her voice. Tears pooling at the back of her throat threatened to drown her.

"The teamsters set up a bathing area at the river."

"No one told me!" Tears glistened in the sunlight. She could have spared herself the handles of the heavy buckets cutting into her wounded palms.

"Go take a bath." Perrin scanned the disarray of Augusta's camp. "I'll tidy up here. When you return, I'll teach you how to put up a wash. You can eat with Hilda and me tonight. We'll show you how to bake bread and make a basic stew."

Shock widened her gaze. "Why would you do that?"

Perrin stared at her. "Mr. Snow asked the same thing when I wanted to help Cora. The answer is, I don't know. Maybe because it's the fair thing, the right thing to do. It kills me to say this, but you deserve a chance just like anyone else."

"He's going to send me home on the first train going east, he said so." She returned Perrin's stare, too miserable and too panicked to question her next words. "I can't go back. You're the representativeyou have to speak to Mr. Snow in my behalf! After what you did to my father, you owe me!"

"I did nothing to Joseph; I don't owe you anything!"

"You"

"You amaze me." Perrin's hands closed into fists at her sides. "Right now, I am all you have. No one else would help. Just me. Do you understand? You have offended a group of generous, kind-hearted women to the extent that they would rather see you suffer than endure a moment of inconvenience themselves."

"They're nobodies!" The strength of outrage energized a body that had been too weary to stand just minutes before. She came to her feet with a snarl on her lips, hating it that Perm WaverlyPerrin Waverly!had come to her assistance. "Why should I care what a group of nobodies thinks about me?"

Perrin's beautiful face settled into hard angry lines. "Will you for once stop congratulating yourself for being a Boyd? Will you just once stop riding the coattails of your ancestors and think about who you are? Haven't you ever wanted people to like you or admire you because you're you, not just because of an accident of birth?"

Augusta drew back as if she'd suffered a blow to the stomach. "Shut up!" she hissed, shaking.

"What do you plan to add to the illustrious Boyd line?" Perrin asked scornfully. She cast a disdainful glance around the mess surrounding Augusta's wagon. "Helplessness? Selfishness? An ability to offend everyone you meet coupled with a lack of kindness and an inability to care for yourself? Is that your contribution to the great exalted Boyd line?"

"Shut up, shut up! I won't listen to this!"

"Look at you! Why in the name of heaven didn't you ask for help? Is your stupid Boyd pride that overweening?"

Augusta clapped her palms over her ears, scowling at the anger crackling in Perrin's eyes and face. She felt flogged by Perrin's fury and didn't understand it. If they had traded places, Augusta would have gloated.

"None of you would have helped me anyway!"

"The day you bend enough to ask for help is the day you become a real person and not the useless thing you are!" Perrin stepped backward and raised a shaking hand to her face, fighting for control. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I came to help you, not attack you."

Augusta gathered her pride and found the strength to toss her dirty hair. "Dirty water finds the lowest level," she snapped. "I expect no less from you."

Perrin spread her fingers and stared through them. "You and I will always despise each other."

"I have good cause to hate you!"

"And not enough sense to keep from showing it even when I'm the only person willing to help you." They glared at each other, then Perrin dropped her hand and almost shouted. "Go take your bath. Maybe if I don't have to look at you, I'll remember why I'm stupid enough to try to help. Maybe I won't change my mind."

Icy reality chilled Augusta's bones. She remembered the earlier scene with Cody Snow, her tears and his implacability. She must be a lunatic to insult Perrin, the one person who might change Snow's mind as she had changed his mind about sending Winnie home, about letting Cora become a bride.

What in the name of heaven was she doing? What kind of insanity pushed her toward destruction?

Swallowing hard, she wrung her hands and frantically tried to perceive a way to backpedal without sacrificing what remnants remained of her dignity.

"I can't return to Chastity," she blurted. Even the thought made her feel suicidal. "If you help me, if you'll make Snow change his mind, I'll pay you a generous sum!" Perrin's mouth fell open. "I have plenty of money. And you"

"My services are not for sale," Perrin mumbled, her face pale. "If you don't leave right now, I swear I'll"

Augusta took one look at Perrin's face, then turned and hurried toward the river. When she considered that her future, her life, depended on the fairness and fighting spirit of her worst enemy, she groaned in despair and began weeping again.

"Goddammit!" Cody pushed back his hat, then swung around to face her. "I wish just once you'd stop interfering!"

"I'll help her. Hilda will help a little too." She stared back at him from flat expressionless eyes. Standing in the sunlight, tendrils of dark hair fluttering from the edges of her bonnet, she was so stubbornly beautiful that she made his stomach cramp. She had felt so right beneath him.

"I'd think you'd stand by cheering when Augusta rode out heading in the other direction! Instead, you want to help her." He shook his head in amazement and disbelief.

"Believe me, I'd love to see Augusta leave. But when I was picked as the women's representative, I promised to be fair. Whether I like it or not, sending Augusta back to Chastity isn't fair! At least not without giving her a chance."

"I gave her a week."

"She's come a long distance in a week. Remember, this is a woman who had never even dressed her own hair before coming on this journey. Right now she's overwhelmed and she's too exhausted to think, let alone function. Give her another week, let us help her, then if she's still falling behind then send her home and good riddance. But let us try. You let us try with Winnie."

Cody ground his teeth. He itched to shake her until her bones rattled, until he knocked the starch out of her spine. Wanted to kiss the pinched expression off her mouth. He glanced at Smokey Joe, who was sorting a bucket of wild strawberries not six feet away.

"I want to speak to you privately."

She glared at him. "There's nothing you have to say that can't be spoken right here." She too slid a look toward Smokey Joe, who made no secret that he eavesdropped on every word.

Fuming, Cody strode toward a field of sunflowers, hoping she would follow. When she didn't, he returned to where she waited, her face stony and turned away from him.

"All right, damn it. I'll give Augusta one more week. That's all. And I'm agreeing to this solely because you asked it, no other reason." To hell with Smokey Joe and whatever he made of this odd conversation.

Perrin nodded, then caught her skirts against a puff of dusty wind, starting to turn away.

"But Winnie leaves on the train coming through the gap now."

She spun back to him, her dark eyes narrowing. "You have to send someone back? Is that it?" she snapped, sarcasm whipping her voice. "Don't punish Winnie because of your contempt for me!"

"My contempt? Or your indifference?" He glared at her. "I just returned from finding Winnie and bringing her back. She spent the night in Murchason's camp," he said, disliking himself for enjoying the shock dawning on her expression as she suddenly noticed the bruises on his face, the cut on his chin. "In exchange for a bottle of laudanum, Winnie spent the night with a bastard named Clavell."

He'd beaten Clavell to within an inch of his life. He wished he had finished the job.

Perrin gasped. "Oh, my God." Her face paled beneath her sunburn and she swayed on her feet as if the marrow had leaked out of her bones. Throwing out a hand, she leaned on his arm.

Her touch made him suck in a quick breath. His eyes narrowed and his groin tightened sharply. Immediately she snatched her hand away and high color flooded her face. She pressed her palms against her stomach, then looked up at him, cheeks flaming.

"Cody" Large imploring eyes searched his.

"No," he said firmly, not mistaking her meaning. "Winnie goes home. If I'd sent Winnie home when I wanted to, she would not have spent the night with Clavell. She'd have only half the distance to travel to get home to Chastity, only half the dangers to face. I hope to Christ that she isn't pregnant."

Perrin nodded once, then walked away from him without a word, her head down, a hand at her eyes.

He watched her skirt swaying from her hips, saw the pale nape of her neck.

Abruptly Ellen came into his mind. Ellen, whom he had trusted and loved. Ellen, who had become another man's mistress while he was on campaign in the Dakotas.

Stiffening, he watched Perrin for another minute, then he turned and strode in the opposite direction. The surest way to avoid that kind of pain was never to love again.

But he couldn't get her out of his mind. Even the wind whispering through the sunflowers seemed to murmur her name.

"Mr. Snow agreed to give you one more week," Perrin said coldly. "Hilda and I will each spell you at the reins once a day so you can get some rest. We'll teach you a few basic recipes so you can teed yourself and maintain your strength. This afternoon, we'll show you how to put up a wash so you'll have clean clothing to wear." Her eyes narrowed. "I hope you have a good memory, because we'll only show you once."