Foxfire Bride (38 page)

"He knows what he'd be getting, Missy. Not your place to decide what would or would not shame a man."

"I took a vow. I'm going to see it through," she said between her teeth.

"So you're going to defy my deathbed wish and kill Jennings."

"Now don't start that deathbed crap again. Peaches, sometimes you make me plain crazy."

"You have to choose. You can throw your life away, or you can grab hold of it."

Fox turned despairing eyes on him. "Look at me! I'm no beauty."

"You are, too, beautiful." It was the first sentence he'd spoken whole, without panting every few words.

"I'm only now getting into the habit of holding my fricking fork properly. And listen to me. I swear."

"So stop swearing. If you can break one habit, you can break another."

"Peaches." Exasperation twisted her mouth. "I don't fit his world and I'd be miserable trying to."

"He's willing to meet you halfway, Missy." He paused to breathe. "In fact, he wants to live away from that world you're afraid of."

"And his father. Imagine what his father would think if Tanner brought me home!"

"His daddy will come around. His daddy isn't marrying you, Tanner is. His daddy doesn't get to choose his son's wife."

Fox threw out her hands. "Why are we talking about this? It isn't going to happen. Tanner will find someone more suitable, and I'll hang. End of story."

"You break my heart."

"Oh God, don't say that." Fox dropped her head. She wished he wouldn't talk at all, the cost was so great for him.

"You don't believe this, but you deserve to be happy," Peaches said quietly. "You didn't do anything to deserve that bastard throwing you away. It wasn't your fault. Let Jennings go, and choose life."

"You're doing it, aren't you?" She glared at him. "You're putting a death wish on me."

An exhausted grin touched his lips. "And I'm going to be leaning out of a cloud, watching to see what you do."

She met his eyes. "I'm going to kill him, Peaches. So help me God, I'm going to make him pay."

"Come here. Lean your head on my shoulder like you used to do when you were little. We'll watch the stars and remember things."

"I'll do the remembering, you just rest."

Fox moved under his arm, careful not to place her full weight against his chest. He tired so easily that she knew they wouldn't sit together long. After a while, she couldn't stand listening to his chest rattle and gurgle so close to her ear and she stood, pretending to be tired herself.

"We've got the worst set of canyons tomorrow," she said softly. "It's going to be a long day. From dawn until whenever we get through. We could finish in moonlight. Will you be all right with that?"

"I'm glad you brought it up. Might be best to put me last in line," he said, pressing his handkerchief to his lips then glancing into the folds. "I took a half teaspoon of salt. Seems to help with the bleeding."

She nodded, her mouth white. "Sleep well, old man."

But she knew he wouldn't. The cold air and the night sweats would keep waking him. And he'd admitted that if he didn't sleep sitting up with his back against his saddle, he felt as if he were suffocating.

Instead of joining Tanner and Jubal Brown, Fox went straight to her bedroll and rolled up in the blankets staring at dark blades of grass. Peaches. Tanner. Peaches. Tanner. How could one human heart hold so much misery?

They entered the canyon before the dawn shadows lifted, leaving camp after Peaches recovered from a frightening coughing spell. The coughing was worse in the mornings, but today had been the most violent attack yet.

While there was still room to maneuver, Fox dropped back and rode beside him for a few minutes.

"Did you take salt this morning?" she asked. He didn't speak, only nodded. "You didn't eat any breakfast."

"Mouth is sore and tender." He struggled for breath. "Hurts to swallow."

Fox stared at the mules' swishing tails. Toward the end, her mother's mouth had turned too sore to swallow. Her voice had been as feeble as Peaches's and resonated with that same odd hollowness. Fox's heart skipped a beat.

"First place we come to that has a bed, that's where we're staying. Tanner and Jubal can go on alone." She expected him to protest, but he only nodded and that's when Fox's heart stopped and she knew he was dying.

No, she'd known for a while. Now she had to admit it. Without another word, she touched her heels to the mustang's flank and trotted up beside Tanner.

"There's a place two days' ride from the other side of the canyons that the Utes use for medicinal magic. It's a series of mineral springs. If I remember right, there's a small trading post there."

"I know the place. Once we reach the mineral springs, it's familiar territory on in to Denver."

"Tanner?" She gazed at him with damp eyes. "I'm asking you to buy the trader's bed and give it to me and Peaches. You and Jubal go on to Denver. I'll stay with Peaches until" the words strangled her, "until it's over."

Tanner reached out and took her hand. "I'll buy you the whole damned trading post. Take whatever you think might help."

She looked at him, loving him, her heart in her eyes, then cantered along a narrow strip past the mules and Jubal to take her position at the head of the line.

The canyons were terrible. In places the rock ledges narrowed to two feet across. They couldn't stop for the midday meal, but the moment they would have stopped became memorable because two of the mules went over the ledge about that time. Fox counted four heartbeats before the mules hit the river and vanished in the speeding, raging waters.

She thanked God it hadn't been Peaches, and then for the next eight hours she worried that one or two bags of gold coins had gone over the ledge with the mules and were now unrecoverable.

But Peaches was there at the end of the day. A yellowish froth bubbled at the corners of his lips, and he was too fatigued to talk when Tanner lifted him off his horse and wrapped his sweat-drenched body in blankets. Tanner propped a saddle behind Peaches, and Fox bathed his face, her expression set against the sucking sounds Peaches made in his struggle to breathe.

"The ride gets easier now," she murmured. He wouldn't have to face the canyons north of the Ute springs. By then his suffering would be finished.

Fox and Tanner spun when they heard Jubal's shouts. Jubal was running up from the river as if his leg was fully healed, a large brown bear not ten feet behind him.

Instantly, Fox's eyes swung toward the saddlebags and packs piled near the tethered animals. Where the guns were. Cursing, she swept a glance across Tanner. He wasn't wearing his gun either. And Jubal was headed straight toward them, bringing the bear with him. If Jubal brought that bear to Peaches, Fox vowed to shoot him before she shot the bear. Assuming she could get to the weapons.

Apparently Jubal realized what he was doing and veered off. And the bear stopped, distracted by a slab of bacon that Jubal had laid out beside the fire for supper.

"Stay here," Tanner ordered, already hunched over and moving into the darkness, heading toward the packs with the weapons.

Fox swore then looked down at Jubal who had circled around to them and now sunk to the ground holding his shot-up leg and muttering curses. "I'm going with him."

She caught up as Tanner pulled his rifle out of the pile of gear. Fox found her own an instant later. The bear rampaged through camp, slashing at bags, snuffling near the fire. His huge paw swiped forward and a shower of gold coins arched in the firelight before the ripped bag fluttered into the flames.

They fired at the same moment then fired again until the bear went down and stayed down. Slowly, Fox walked forward, scowling at the devastation the bear had caused in such a short period. Loose flour, salt, and sugar lay thick on the ground. Utensils were thrown around the site, most now dented. The leather had been ripped across Tanner's saddle.

But what she focused on were the hundreds of loose coins gleaming in the flicker of firelight. She was so sick of worrying about those coins, picking them up, counting them.

Every muscle ached from the tension of getting through the canyons. For the last two hours she'd been thinking about a quick supper and then sleep. But that wasn't going to happen.

"Well," she said into the silence. "I was wondering if the mules that went over the ledge were carrying any of the money bags. I guess not."

Tanner looked as angry and weary as she was. "I swear I know every individual coin by sight." He stretched his neck and rolled his shoulders back. "I'll pick them up. You tend to Peaches."

"I'll check on him then come back. It'll go faster with both of us working at it." She shook a cramp out of her leg and nodded to Jubal. "Might as well get some fresh meat out of this. How about you fry us up some bear steaks?"

By the time Jubal had cut and cooked the steaks, Fox and Tanner had collected the coins near the fire and widened their perimeter. Since the bear had ripped open two bags, over twelve hundred coins had spilled on the ground. They filled the dented pots.

Calling on reserves of energy that were running perilously low, Fox carried a steak into the darkness to where Peaches lay and sat down beside him.

"Not hungry," he said between labored breaths.

"You have to eat something," she coaxed. "It's been almost a week since we had fresh meat." Hoping the scent would entice him, she waved the plate under his nose, but he turned his face away.

She tried to persuade him to try just a few bites, but he waved her off with a weak gesture. Standing, she pulled up the blankets he'd tossed off and kissed his hot forehead.

"How is he?" Tanner asked when she returned to the fire.

"How do you think he is? He's dying," she snapped. Then she looked at the pots of coins they had yet to count and remembered Tanner's father might already be dead. "I'm sorry," she muttered, sitting down. The hunger she'd felt since midday fled and she pushed away her own plate and lit a cigar, blowing smoke at the flames. "Tell me something. Instead of trekking these fricking coins halfway across the country, why didn't you just get the coins in Denver once you got there?" The question had been puzzling her for weeks.

"The kidnappers specifically directed me to bring the coins. The exchange will take place somewhere between the mineral springs and Denver." When Fox stared at him, he shrugged. "That was in a second telegram."

"What else was in that second telegram? Why didn't you mention it?"

"There was nothing else of importance. I didn't mention it because I didn't want you thinking we had more days to get there."

She considered his answer. They had started with three months to reach Denver. But the kidnappers would appear before they reached the city, so they'd had three months to reach a shorter distance than Fox had believed.

"I'm angry that you didn't tell me." But she was too tired to argue. "I guess I can understand why you didn't." He'd built in a safety factor of a few days.

Jubal rose up on one hip, reached under him and withdrew a gold coin. He flipped it into one of the pots. "This gold has been a pain in the ass. Is your old man worth it?"

"Yes." Tanner glanced at Fox and she knew he remembered her asking the same question.

"So we're going to meet up with those kidnappers face-to-face," Jubal added, his interest sharpened. "Guess that settles the question about what the money is really for."

"For the last time, this gold isn't for the Union." Tanner's gaze went hard. "And yes. We're going to meet with the kidnappers."

A slow smile spread across Jubal's face. "I might be leaving this little group sooner than expected. No sense me going on to Denver if there's no gold to protect."

"Once I have my father back, I don't care what you do."

"Well," Fox said reluctantly, "sitting here isn't getting those coins counted."

"We aren't going to count them this time," Tanner decided, shifting his gaze to the pots of coins. "We'll sew new bags then call it a night."

"The kidnappers"

"The kidnappers get whatever we have. I don't see them quibbling over a few hundred dollars."

She held his gaze. "It's your call. I'm willing to do the count."

"Not tonight." Holding her gaze, he spoke to Jubal. "Go to bed."

"I'm too tired to" Fox said after Jubal had limped away without a word.

"So am I." He patted the ground and slipped his arm around her when she moved next to him.

They leaned on each other, smoked, and watched the flames die to embers. Before the light flickered out entirely, they each sewed a new bag for the coins then filled them.

"I love you," Tanner said, looking down at the new bank bags.

"I love you, too." Fox ran her hands up his back, feeling the tense muscles along his spine and the knots in his shoulders. She felt half dead with exhaustion.

"We're going to work it out, Fox. I don't know how, but we will."

"Maybe." She didn't believe it. But if there was an answer, they wouldn't find it tonight. Her brain felt like pudding. She was too exhausted to be amazed that they had finally said the words.

In the morning, it was clear that Peaches could not go on. When Fox brought his coffee, the cup was too heavy to lift to his lips. She held the cup to his mouth, then wiped his chin and sat beside him.

"It's going to be a dry day." And the thin mountain sunshine would be hot. Holding the coffee between her palms, she watched the early sun paint a rosy glow over the snowcapped peaks surrounding them.

"You and me," she said after clearing her throat, "we're going to stay here a few days. Rest up."

"Tanner" Whatever he said next was lost in a fit of weak coughing.

"Tanner knows the way from here. He and Jubal might stay with us for a while, or they might go on alone." She shrugged, and gave him another scalding sip of coffee when the coughing ended. "You'll have to do without biscuits though. The bear tore up the flour sacks."

"A bear?"

Her heart sank. The stink of the bear and the noise he'd made plus the shots Peaches either had been unconscious or his mind wandered. She told him about the evening's events.