Jodi Thomas (5 page)

The rain started the third day he was out, but the steady drizzle couldn’t erase the memory of her lace gown from his dreams. By the end of the week the need to see her was like a pain deep in his gut that grew worse by the hour. After meeting up with one of the other scouts, he agreed to take the far point for another few days. Maybe he could starve this craving to see Anna out of his mind if he stayed away long enough.

Rain had pounded him for a solid week by the time Chance was finally reunited with the wagons late one afternoon. The sky was as low and brooding as his mood, with rain so thick it seemed to be hanging in the air instead of falling. He had a ten day’s growth of beard and hadn’t seen a hot meal for days. But all thoughts of a shave and a meal and even of seeing Anna were washed away by the sorry sight before him.

The wagons, which were little better than carts, plowed through the mud single file. The thick-legged oxen heaved as they pulled each hoof from the sludgy earth and planted another step into the soft ground.

People, like gray mourners, walked behind each wagon, trudging in the muddy ruts. Every few yards the exhausted men and women would lend a shoulder to push the wagon over a bump or out of a hole.

As Chance walked his horse slowly down the line of wagons, no one looked up at him; they were too tired to care who passed beside them. They’d walked for days in the rain and some of the travelers were so caked with mud that they seemed part of the liquid road they slowly plowed through.

Chance found the minister walking beside the third wagon, a sleeping child on his back. “Why don’t you stop?” Chance shouted above the rain. “There’re cliffs up ahead. You could build fires, dry out, wait for the rain to let up.”

The minister shook his head. “If we stop, the Mexicans who drive our wagons will leave. We’ve come all this way. We will keep going until we reach the German settlement.”

“But these people look half dead.” Chance’s anger was mounting. These families weren’t tough frontiersmen. Hell, he thought, half of them didn’t even have clothes that looked sturdy enough to last one good Texas winter.

“You’ve got to order the people to stop,” Chance yelled above the rain as equal parts of anger and pity blended in his words.

The minister shook his head as he said in a deep voice, “Better they die striving for their dream than in a tent without hope. Tomorrow is Sunday. We will rest then.”

For a few moments Chance walked beside the minister, trying to understand the logic of these strong, stubborn people. They had a dream of freedom and wide open space. Their dream had been his to hold all his life and he’d never placed much value in it. Chance wondered if they knew the price of such determination. Half of them looked like they might die before ever reaching their land, and those who survived this journey would find only hardship. This life they all longed for would rip the hearts out of those who were weak and crippled—out of all but the strongest. This land called Texas was wild and beautiful, but it could turn deadly in the time it took an Indian to string his bow.

Only when the afternoon sky turned from a yellowy gray to the color of smoke did the reverend call a halt to the march. The carts were abandoned for the night and each family spread out tents under the protection of nearby trees and huddled together inside their shelters. A few fires sputtered to life but most families were too tired to bother with an evening meal.

Chance walked through the encampment, wishing he could help, but the help of a hundred men probably wouldn’t make a difference. He’d seen cattlemen who’d worked without sleep for weeks who didn’t look as exhausted as these people. The sudden need to reach Anna and make sure she was all right became a pounding in his chest.

He found her sitting on the wet grass, her tent still rolled and bound in a bundle beside her. In her arms she cradled her carpetbag like a child holding onto a favorite pillow.

“Anna?”

Red, fever-ridden eyes looked up at him.

Chance knelt close. Her face was ghostly pale and her lips were colorless in the cold air. “Anna, why didn’t you put up your tent?”

“It doesn’t help the cold,” she whispered. “I didn’t put it up last night, or the night before.”

Chance looked around and realized that the others seemed to ignore Anna. They all had their own families, their own problems. He grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her close. Even through her wet clothes he could feel the fever in her body. “How long have you been sick?”

She closed her eyes and rested her head against his shoulder.

“How long?” Chance demanded as he bit his glove off his hand and rubbed her cheek with his warm fingers.

Anna shook her head. “From the day after the rain started. I’ll be all right. I just want to sit here and rest.” She looked up at him as if she’d never seen him before. “If I die, promise you’ll bury me. We had a woman die yesterday and I heard someone say that we weren’t taking the time to stop and bury any more.”

Pulling her into his arms, Chance tried to warm her with his own body. He was used to living out in the weather. He’d been without a roof over his head most nights since he was twelve. But not Anna. “You’re not going to die, Anna.”

Her watery green eyes met his as she slowly shook her head. “I don’t want to be left by the road in the mud. Promise me you’ll bury me and say a prayer.”

Her words ripped a hole in his heart as big as his fist. “You’re going to be fine. I’m not going to let you die.”

Anna leaned against his arm and closed her eyes. The rain dripped from her hood and tapped against her face, but she didn’t seem to feel it.

“Stay here.” He pressed his cheek against hers. “I’ll be back in an hour.”

She nodded as he stood. Without looking up at him she lowered her head to her knees.

Bolting onto his horse, Chance kicked the animal hard. Within minutes he was out of sight of the camp and riding north toward the break in the cliffs.

A
nna no longer felt the rain tapping against her hood and the icy drops running down her face. She closed her eyes and thanked God she didn’t have to walk any farther in the mud. Sleep’s thick fog was clouding her mind when she felt someone lifting her like a child being carried to bed. She put her arms around his neck and held on tightly.

The stranger carried her to a horse and sat her gently atop the saddle. For a moment she was cold and alone, then his warm body was behind her, holding her in the saddle—holding her in his arms.

They rode in a slow, rocking motion for what seemed like hours. His arms were comforting and warm around her, his heartbeat a steady rhythm in her ear, soothing away the cold, blocking out the loneliness.

As the evening sky turned from soupy gray to deepest black, the horse stopped and the stranger carried her into a warm, dry place filled with shadows and echoes. She wanted to hold onto him, but he pushed her gently away as he whispered words in her ear she didn’t understand. Anna closed her eyes and smelled the woody smoke of a long-burning campfi re. She felt her wet clothes being lifted off her body and then a heated blanket was wrapped around her. When she lay down on a soft bed the stranger’s warm lean body molded her into his own, holding her in his arms until she fell asleep.

Anna awoke slowly. The heat of a fire warmed her face and she smelled the soft scent of pine. Slowly, like a swimmer coming up from deep water, she took in her surroundings. She was lying on a bed of pine needles and straw, with her carpetbag as her pillow. The dark walls around her were made of rock, and the fire before her blocked most of the entrance of a small cave.

A hand drifted a few inches down her shoulder and a body moved behind her. Sudden, uncontrollable fear crawled just beneath her flesh. Anna twisted and saw Chance’s sleeping face only inches from hers. His arm lay protectively over her. Except for his gun, which rested on a rock just above his head, he was fully dressed.

Where was she? Anna searched the shadowy cavity. The place was about ten feet wide and maybe twice that distance long. Chance’s horse was tied up at the highest part of the entrance so that he was out of the way of the campfιre’s smoke as well as the rain. Where they lay, the cave was just high enough to stand up in and wide enough for one bed, and judging from the thick black soot on the ceiling many travelers had used this cave as a lodging. Her clothes had been spread along the jagged edges of the cave’s walls to dry. Anger started to replace her panic.

Her fingers trembled as they traveled down to feel her cotton camisole and petticoats. Someone had undressed her. She glared at Chance. What else had he done while she was out of her mind with fever?

Anna slowly raised her hand and gripped the gun’s handle. As she slid the weapon from its holster, she rolled away from Chance. Her sudden movement startled him and with instinct born on the frontier, he reached for his gun. Its absence brought him fully awake, but the alarm passed from his body as he turned and saw her.

“What have you done?” Anna’s words echoed through the cave.

Wiping the sleep from his eyes, Chance sat up and ran his long fingers through his damp, black hair. “You’re better. Thank God.”

Anna pointed the gun directly at his chest. “Where am I? What have you done to me?” She felt her anger slipping into confusion, so Anna gripped the gun more tightly. If this stranger had harmed her, would she have the strength to see him dead, or would she be a coward as she had been before?

Chance focused on the gun in her hand. In one fluid movement he stood up, bumping his head on the roof of the cave. He cursed colorfully at both the ceiling and at his forgetfulness. For a moment her anger and the gun seemed forgotten.

Rubbing his scalp, he took a step toward her. Anna jumped back, putting the fire between them. “Tell me where I am! Now! Where are the others?”

Chance leaned back against the cave wall, looking bone tired. He folded his hands behind his head and closed his eyes, relaxing, but the twitch of a tiny muscle along his jawline signaled his anger. When his blue eyes opened again, they were as cold as the metal of the gun in her hands.

“Either shoot me, woman, or put down the gun. I’m not planning on spending the rest of my life looking down a barrel.”

Anna didn’t understand his reaction. Why wasn’t he afraid of being shot? Was the man she’d married completely out of his mind? Had the bump he’d suffered damaged his reasoning?

“You’ll spend the rest of your life in the next minute if you don’t tell me what you’ve done to me.”

“I didn’t do anything to you.” His voice was still cold, as his eyes bored into her.

Fighting tears, Anna tried to steady the gun. “I told you I’d kill you if you ever touched me.” She gripped the weapon with both hands.

“Then kill me now,” he shouted, “and stop torturing me!”

It took a moment for Anna to follow his stare and look down. Her breasts were rising and falling with each breath and the ties of her camisole had become loosened, leaving the material curving softly to her body. She was revealing more of her flesh to this stranger than any man had ever seen. A blush warmed her cheeks as she looked up to see Chance move his eyes from her to the fire, and for a moment she thought the fire in his gaze equaled that of the flames.

With forced slowness he knelt down and threw another log on the blaze as calmly as though they were talking about nothing more important than the weather. Anna watched him in confusion. Was he totally without remorse for what he’d done? Or were his crimes only in her mind?

Outside a bolt of lightning flashed, lighting the entrance for a moment with a blinding white flash. The horse jerked against his ropes, fraying Anna’s nerves as she glanced toward the animal.

In the second her eyes were turned, Chance skirted the fire and stepped up beside her. His fingers closed over the gun and twisted it from her grip with one mighty jerk. Then his arm pulled her against him so violently that Anna felt the air leave her lungs.