Jodi Thomas (24 page)

Authors: The Lone Texan

BOOK: Jodi Thomas

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She understood. A horse tumbling with a rider could very easily crush the rider in a fall.

They led the mounts. The slope was steep, but the rain had softened the earth. Sage dug her heels in with each step, knowing that if she tumbled, it would be more than a hundred feet before she stopped.

The moon seemed to follow them down the incline. She kept her distance from Drum. If she fell, she didn’t want to take him with her. Halfway down, they both froze at the sound of a coyote howling in the distance. The black, sleeping earth spread for miles before her. She felt so alone and couldn’t help wondering if the coyote felt the same. She’d never been afraid of the dark, but being alone was another matter. Her vision of hell wasn’t fire and brimstone but isolation.

Drum started down once more, leading Satan. As they neared the bottom, shadows crossed one another over uneven ground, making it impossible to see the solid footing clearly. The coyote howled again, causing both horses to grow uneasy and jerk against the reins.

Drum fought to control Satan with his one good arm while holding the injured one against his side. About the time he gained control of the huge beast, Drum’s foot slid on a loose rock, and he tumbled. Satan pulled free and whirled, almost hitting Sage.

She grabbed the flying reins and spoke to the horse in a language she’d learned as a child, calming nonsense words that settled Satan. With both horses in tow, she carefully continued down.

“Drum?” She moved into the blackness of a ravine. “Drum, where are you?”

Satan pulled at his reins, determined to move to the left. When Sage followed, she found Drummond. Dried brush had stopped his roll a few feet from a shallow creek bed. She tied the horses to the brush and felt along his body, trying to see if he’d broken any bones.

Warm blood dripped from a cut on his forehead, and he moaned when she touched the bandaged wound on his arm. Other than that, he seemed alive and intact.

“Come on, Drum,” she whispered. “Get up.”

He didn’t cooperate.

“Come on.” She pulled on him. “We made it out of the canyons. We’re almost to safety. Come on! We can’t be here come dawn, or they’ll be able to pick us off.”

He moaned and tried to stand.

Sage slid her arm around him and walked him to Satan. He was heavier than she thought he’d be. The horse was well trained and didn’t shy as she helped Drum up.

“Can you stay in the saddle?”

He nodded.

“Then we ride.”

Sage headed north, having no idea where she was going. The land leveled out, and Drum managed to stay in the saddle, but he leaned forward as if fighting to stay conscious. She pushed as hard as she dared in the darkness, and by first light they were into a wooded area. Sage turned southeast and began following a stream, hoping it would lead her toward Galveston.

Drum hadn’t said a word. When it was light enough to see his face, she wasn’t surprised to find the head wound still bleeding. He’d nodded that he was fine every time she’d offered to look at the wound. Now, from his eyes, she could tell that he’d lied. Even before the fall he must have been in trouble. He hadn’t allowed her to doctor him. Getting her away was far more important.

She found a cove well covered on three sides. The one side that faced the water was open, but unless someone rode in the stream, they wouldn’t spot them camped. The morning was cool and the sky busy with clouds so low they almost touched the treetops.

Sage built a fire and took care of the horses. When she returned to the water’s edge, she found that Drum had stripped to the waist and waded into the stream. He was using his shirt to wash away blood from both his face and arm.

Smiling, Sage kicked off her boots and walked into the cool water until she stood in front of him. “You remind me of a wounded bear.”

He looked at her. She saw the fever in his gray eyes once more.

“Drum, let me help.” He looked like he might push her away, but she moved closer. “We need to get you out of here and to the fire as soon as possible. You’re in no shape to be standing in a stream.” She tugged the wet shirt and bar of lye soap from his hand and began washing the infected wound.

He didn’t argue or make a sound, but she knew the lye would burn against the wound.

She cleaned away the blood and then pulled him out of the water. By then he was shaking from fever and cold. After helping him strip off his remaining clothes, she insisted he lie on one open bedroll by the fire, and she covered him with the only blanket.

Near panic, she rushed to do everything that needed to be done. Without her bag of medicines, Sage drew on what she’d learned from her grandfather years ago. The Apache knew natural treatments, if only she could remember them.

She bound the cut on his forehead with a strip of cloth from her shirttail. Then she packed the infected bullet wound with a mixture of dried willow leaves and the soft interlining of elm bark. She found another shirt in his bags and helped him put it on, then she hung the rest of their clothes over branches to dry. Her underwear dried quickly on her body as she moved close to the fire.

She couldn’t tell if he was sleeping or had passed out, but she made a soup from the last of his supply of jerky and wild turnip roots she found growing near the water. He had coffee and beans in his saddlebags as well, but she’d save them for later. The horse she felt sure Daniel Torry had stolen for her had nothing of use in the saddlebags. One broken gun, a pile of old clothes, and several cheap knives. The clothes were too dirty to use for bandages.

She finally decided to use the rags as a pillow for Drum. By nightfall she’d eaten half the soup and had even gotten him to eat a few bites. His fever still raged.

Sage built the fire as big as she dared and then curled beside him. He was so warm she had no need for the blanket but kept it wrapped tightly around him. She’d been so busy she hadn’t had time to think about the men chasing them, but in the stillness, she worried. If they did find them, she needed to be prepared for that as well.

She moved the guns within easy reach and listened. The lone coyote reminded them that he was still trailing them. Logic told her he wouldn’t go near the fire, and coyotes never attacked humans.

Sometime in the night Drum’s fever broke, and he slept soundly. She was furious that he hadn’t told her the wound on his arm wasn’t healing. When he came to his senses, she planned to give him a piece of her mind. He was impossible to understand. He’d risked his life to save her, then he’d made her mad by telling her he wanted to bed her. The coyote probably had better courting skills than the man beside her. If her brothers knew half the things he said to her, they’d probably shoot him.

Sage smiled. She was flattered and insulted at the same time. Maybe Drum was right for her. They were both crazy. In the morning, if he was better, she’d explain one more time why she wasn’t interested in him.

When she awoke with a start, her first thought was that he’d died. She moved her hands over his cool body until she spread her fingers over his heart and felt the steady beat.

“I’m all right,” he whispered, turning to face her.

She rose to an elbow and looked into his wonderful clear gray eyes. “You gave me quite a fright.”

“Sorry.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Yesterday was a fog. I remember falling and then riding. I remember you taking my clothes off.” He lifted the blanket off his chest. “That last part I wish I could remember more clearly.”

Sage smiled. “I think you’ll live. How about some breakfast? We’ve got beans and coffee.”

An hour later, they’d eaten and she’d checked his wounds before allowing him to dress. Drum wasn’t shy about his body; he had no reason to be. She told herself she was a doctor and had seen hundreds of bodies, but she still caught herself admiring him. Drummond Roak was a sight to see as he walked out of the water, his nude body sparkling in the morning sun. She knew she shouldn’t, but she took her time looking.

He dried off and pulled his pants on before she stepped close enough to wrap the wound on his arm. It looked much better but would still require watching.

“That cut in your hairline has stopped bleeding.”

“I’m fine.” He pushed her hand away.

“You were almost dead yesterday. You’ll be weak today.”

He nodded. “All right, we take it slow. Stop bossing me around.”

She tied off the dressing around his arm, knowing that he was angry. He didn’t like being hurt or bossed. Her first urge was to yell at him, but she decided to take another route. “Can we start over, Drum?”

He frowned at her.

She didn’t meet his gaze. “I feel like I’ve been fighting with you since birth. Can we just start over and be friends from here on out? If we work together, we’ll have a better chance of staying alive and making Galveston.”

He was silent for so long she wasn’t sure he would answer. Finally, he said, “I don’t want to be your friend, Sage. I want to be a great deal more than that, but if friendship is all you’re offering, I’ll take it for now.”

She nodded. “It’s all I’m offering. Despite how I hate you and you drive me crazy sometimes, you’re one of the few people in this world I trust. When I was kidnapped, I knew you’d come after me.”

“Then trust me now, Sage. I’ll get you home safely. I promise.”

When she stepped closer, he wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “Friends?” she whispered.

“Friends,” he said, kissing the top of her head.

They mounted and headed back toward Galveston, staying in the tree line so no one could spot them easily. After five hours of riding, they stopped long enough to rest the horses and let them graze on the small clumps of grass still green beneath tree branches.

“I’m so hungry I could almost eat grass,” Sage complained.

Drum had spread out to rest. He didn’t open his eyes when he answered, “I can’t risk a shot, even if I saw a rabbit, and we don’t have time to fish.”

She sat down beside him. “I know. Maybe we could find the coyote and strangle him for lunch.”

Drum laughed.

Sage sighed. “Tell me about Whispering Mountain. It was spring when I left. Spring of 1856.”

“I know the date,” he said.

“What’s changed since I’ve been gone?” She lay beside him.

“Teagen and Jessie’s three girls are growing like weeds. Emily is about ten now and proper as any lady. She even talked Teagen into ordering her one of those English riding saddles. Rose has decided she wants to be a teacher like Mrs. Dickerson. She skipped the first grade after a week of school and went right to the second. Bethie is five, with the most beautiful mess of auburn hair you’ve ever seen. She thinks she wants to grow up to be Apache. All the girls ride well, but Teagen says his Bethie rides like you did when you were her age, free and wild.”

Sage laughed. These were details her brothers left out of their letters.

“Travis and Rainey live in Austin most of the time, but they still stay at their place on the ranch in the summers. Duck’s as wild as ever. Last I heard, he was building a fort in the trees as a hideout from the girls. Rainey had another baby this past spring, but I forgot what they said it was. I haven’t seen your family for months.”

She smiled, remembering the little boy they all called Duck. Travis had saved him from men who’d killed his family and planned to sell him. Duck wouldn’t talk when he came to them, but he followed Travis around like a baby duckling follows his mother.

“Tobin is still trying to keep up with his busy wife. They spend time up near the capital every winter, but come spring, he has to be with his horses. I can’t remember how many kids they got. In fact, when I’m around all the McMurrays, it’s hard to tell whose kids are whose. There’s a whole batch of little ones. Teagen says when they all hit school age, they’ll have to build a second room onto the schoolhouse.

“The main house has doubled in size, and there still doesn’t seem like enough room. Martha is retired but comes over almost every day to help out. Last time I stopped by, she filled my saddlebags with ginger cookies.”

Sage leaned back next to him and said simply, “Thanks.”

“Anytime,” he answered as he closed his hand over hers. “You’ll be there soon.”

A half hour later they were riding again, but something had changed. There was a truce between them. She knew it wouldn’t last, but she was thankful for it now. They did have something in common, she realized: They both loved Whispering Mountain.

An hour before nightfall, she spotted the thin curl of smoke a few miles ahead of them. She pulled her horse beside Drum and pointed.

“I know,” he whispered. “I’ve been watching it.”

“What do we do?”

“It’s not the raiders, unless it’s some kind of trap. Which is not likely. My guess is it’s just a traveler like us.”

She agreed. “Do we ride around, or do we go closer?”

Drum grinned. “We ride in. They might have food they’re willing to share.”