Jodi Thomas (38 page)
Authors: The Lone Texan
CHAPTER 40
T
HE LITTLE BOYS AND SAGE MADE IT TO THE BEGINNING of the pass before they heard gunfire. When it came, it sounded like thunder rolling off the hills.
HE LITTLE BOYS AND SAGE MADE IT TO THE BEGINNING of the pass before they heard gunfire. When it came, it sounded like thunder rolling off the hills.
Will looked up at her with his sad eyes. “Jessie’s girls? Are they safe?”
“Yes,” she answered, loving that he worried about others more than himself. “They know where to hide. They’ll be safer when we are away.”
“It’s the men who want our blood,” Andy said. “I was afraid they’d come again.”
“Your blood?” Sage asked.
Will nodded. “Our father said there were bad men who wanted to wipe our blood off the earth.”
“Why?” Sage didn’t think the boys were making much sense, but they both seemed to agree.
“I don’t know,” Will said, “I just heard Father say to Mother that we had to keep moving, keep running, or they’d come.”
The talk of blood gave her a chill, and she kicked her horse.
“Stay up with me, boys,” she said, watching Andy closely. Will handled horses well, but Andy was still learning. She slowed her pace slightly. “We have to go get Miss Bonnie.” If the men were looking for her and the boys, the second place they’d go would be the clinic.
As they climbed, she tried not to listen for shots being fired. Drum and her brother were back there, and all she could do was outrun trouble.
Part of her wanted to ride back and make sure Drum and Teagen weren’t hurt, but she couldn’t risk it. Not now. If one of them had been shot or captured and she rode back, their sacrifice would have all been for nothing.
She led the boys down the pass and along the creek. Teagen had chosen the location of her clinic well; she could ride in now without anyone from town knowing she and the boys were there.
When she neared, she saw a man working on the door to the barn. He was tall, very tall, and lean, but he didn’t stop his work when she rode in.
As the boys slid down from their mounts, Sage said, “Go pack what you can. A change of clothes, extra socks. I need to talk to Miss Bonnie.”
The boys hurried into the house.
Sage walked from room to room until she found Bonnie in the kitchen.
The nurse looked shocked to see her. “Back already? I thought you were staying for Thanksgiving.” Bonnie didn’t give her time to answer. “What’s wrong?”
Sage noticed the table was set for two. “Drum thinks the men who kidnapped me and the raiders who killed Will and Andy’s folks were part of the same band. They’re at the ranch now, looking for us.”
Bonnie paled.
“We have to disappear, at least for a while.” Sage kept her voice low and calm so she wouldn’t frighten the nurse. “How fast can you be ready to ride up to my grandfather’s camp? The Apache will take us in.”
Bonnie shook her head. “Doc, I can’t ride. You know that. I’d only slow you down. Go without me.”
“No.” Sage could not leave her here. “We’ll go slow. You’ll make it fine. I can’t leave you here alone.”
“No,” Bonnie said as she spread her hand across her middle. “I can’t risk a fall.”
“I’ll watch over her.” A man’s voice came from the doorway. “She’ll be safer here with me.”
Sage turned. The tall cowboy who’d been fixing the barn door filled the entrance. It took her a minute to place him. The man who’d bumped into them the first day in Galveston, the cowboy in the saloon at Shelley’s place, the man Drum had talked to on the road one night who’d lost his brother. It made no sense that he’d now be here in her kitchen. His words were meant for her, but his eyes were on Bonnie.
He crossed the room to stand in front of the nurse.
Sage started to ask what was going on, when she noticed neither of them was paying any attention to her.
The stranger spread his hand over Bonnie’s just below her waist. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he demanded.
“I planned to,” Bonnie answered. “I wasn’t sure how you’d react.”
They stared at one another. Sage shook her head, trying to get the picture before her to make sense. “Tell him what? Who is this man? What’s he doing here? What’s he doing touching you?”
Apparently everyone in the kitchen had gone deaf except Sage, who could still hear her questions echoing off the wall.
Finally, the stranger turned toward her. “I’m Bradford Summerfield, the father of this child”—he moved his hand over Bonnie’s middle—“and you’re not taking my family anywhere, Doc. They’ll be safe. I’ll give my life to keep them so.”
There are times in life when the earth tilts too far on its axis for just a second, and everyone in the world is in danger of falling. Sage felt one of those moments. A dozen questions came to mind, like how did Bonnie, who never even talked to men, manage to find a family? Sage wanted to yell for her to stop allowing that man to put his hand on her, but about the time she opened her mouth, Sage saw the tears on Bonnie’s smiling face.
The cowboy saw them too, and he pulled her into his hug. And there they stood, totally forgetting Sage was in the room all over again.
She didn’t try to interrupt them again. She just stared at the pair, wondering why love couldn’t come that easily for her. Bonnie couldn’t have been with this cowboy more than a matter of hours. Neither of them looked like great talkers, but somehow they’d found one another, fallen in love, and started a baby.
He whispered something to Bonnie, then pulled away. “I’ll water your horses, Doc, then you can be on your way.”
While Bonnie packed them food, Sage drilled the cowboy on all she thought he should do. Tell the marshal Bonnie was in danger. Stand guard. Make sure she eats right.
Finally, they were ready to leave. Sage turned to Bradford and added, “If you hurt her, I’ll shoot you.”
“If I hurt her,” he answered. “I’ll load the gun.”
“Fair enough.” Sage took the reins and motioned for the boys to climb up. Bradford helped Andy, making sure his feet were in the stirrups.
Sage glanced back as they rode away. The cowboy had his arm around Bonnie. They looked like a settled couple. The only thing that worried her was that they seemed to have settled faster than water in a shallow well. She made a promise to herself to keep an eye on the cowboy.
Sage smiled. Both of them were old enough to know their own minds. If Bonnie wanted the cowboy, and he obviously wanted her, who was she to stand in their way?
She glanced back one last time. At the rate they were moving in the relationship, they’d have a half dozen tall, thin kids by the time she got back from the winter camp.
CHAPTER 41
D
RUMMOND AND DANIEL TORRY MADE IT TO TEAGEN’S side about the time the arguing started between Sage’s big brother and the judge. Teagen was a man of logic, and his tolerance of fools was a gnat’s worth of time. To him, the judge stopped being rational when he insisted that the boys needed to leave immediately and suggested his sister, the doctor, come along.
RUMMOND AND DANIEL TORRY MADE IT TO TEAGEN’S side about the time the arguing started between Sage’s big brother and the judge. Teagen was a man of logic, and his tolerance of fools was a gnat’s worth of time. To him, the judge stopped being rational when he insisted that the boys needed to leave immediately and suggested his sister, the doctor, come along.
When Drum caught Teagen’s glance, he turned his gaze to the hills, silently passing the message that Sage and the boys were gone.
Teagen nodded slightly in understanding and took a breath as if reconsidering the judge’s threat. “All right, Judge Calvert. I’m trying to see your logic. If that man is the boy’s guardian, I should hand them over, but it’s really pointless to argue, since the boys are not on my ranch.”
“What?” shouted a thin man dressed up like a man of wealth. He’d only opened the carriage door to listen before, but now he stepped out.
The judge frowned at the thin man and shook his head at Teagen as if he wouldn’t be fooled with a lie.
“If you don’t want to take my word that the boys are not on my ranch, I’ll let you in to look. But just you. No one else.”
“As a gentleman and the boys’ only relative, I object.” The man with the judge looked about as much like a gentleman relative from England as sock puppets look like real farm animals. In fact, Drum decided, sock puppet was a good parallel. Someone had dressed him up in clothes that almost fit but still controlled the strings to his every action.
Judge Calvert stared at Teagen. “The man’s got a right to say who comes on his land, and I’ve never known a McMurray to lie.”
The relative huffed. “There’s always a first time.”
If looks could kill, the stranger’s body would be splattered from the bridge to the border. Teagen was not a man anyone would dare call a liar.
The judge lifted his hand. “He doesn’t know you, Teagen, or he wouldn’t be so foolish.”
“Who are you calling a fool, sir?” the relative shouted.
Drum swore he could see Teagen building steam. “Mister”—Drum looked directly at the stranger—“your being a fool is the only thing keeping you alive right now. Teagen is an honorable man. He wouldn’t shoot a man in cold blood, but as for me, I get paid for it. About two bits would be my price if McMurray wanted to hire me. You’d be dead before a scream would have time to crawl up your throat.”
The fool had enough sense to back away, sputtering an apology.
Daniel loaned the judge his horse and stood guard while Drum and Teagen took Calvert back to the house.
When they stepped on the porch, Calvert turned to Teagen. “I’ve no need to look around if I have your word that your sister and the boys are not here.”
“You have my word,” Teagen answered.
“And if you knew where they’ve gone, would you tell me?”
“No,” Teagen answered honestly.
The judge considered his answer. “That English fellow’s got all the right papers and enough money to hire a gang of hard men to see he gets what he wants, but I can’t say as I blame you. There’s something about the man I don’t trust. With or without the boys, when I get back to Austin, I plan to do some research.” He took out his pipe. “They keep saying that the boys are with your sister. If they are, she’s in danger. These men plan to get what they came after with or without me. I wouldn’t want to think of her getting in their way and, if she was my sister, I sure wouldn’t want her going along with this crew to wherever the relative suggests.”
“I’ll tell her that if I see her,” Teagen answered. “But my sister is a woman with her own mind. She doesn’t take much to being told.”
Drum almost swore in agreement.
As they turned to head back to the horses, gunfire rang out from the direction of the bridge.
Drum was in the saddle and riding full out before Teagen could calm his horse enough to mount. They both reached the bridge with their guns out and ready.
Shelley Lander had climbed out of the second coach and was waving his arms wildly. “Hold on, Roak,” he shouted. “Hold on; the men are just letting off a little steam. Don’t start firing at them. We’ve come a long way to get the boys, and now they feel like they’ve been tricked.”
Drum disliked Shelley and wouldn’t have minded killing the man, even if he was the brother to Sage’s first husband. He held his gun level and glared at the gambler.
If the man named Charlie, whom Sage had described as the outlaw who’d been so cruel to her, stepped from the carriage, Drum wasn’t sure he could stop his gun from accidentally going off three or four times. But if anyone else rode with Shelley, he didn’t show himself.
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