Mary Connealy (58 page)

He was holding a smart woman in his arms. He found it suited him. “Well, I’ve already asked for forgiveness, and I feel like God understands. Which means you’re more stubborn than God, and why am I not surprised?”

Belle jerked her arm out of his grip, but Silas caught it and reeled her back in for one last kiss. When she’d calmed clear down to being limp in his arms, he pulled back just enough to whisper in her pretty ear, “I think we’ve been over here long enough.” He said it all scoldinglike, as if Belle was keeping him over here just because she wanted a few minutes of privacy to smooch. “Now you go on back to camp and behave yourself.”

Silas pressed his bristly cheek to her smooth one and slid his arms snug around her waist. “We have to do this, darlin’.” He nodded, his face nudging her chin up and down. “It’s to protect you and the girls. You can see that, can’t you?” He kept nodding, kept her close, marveled at the woman smell of her.

Finally, she nodded, too.

Pulling back, he thought her eyes looked a bit dazed, and she flickered a glance at his lips that made Silas step back before he had to do any more explaining to the girls. He took her hand and led her back to the campfire where she’d sleep well away from him.

He felt a niggling of guilt for not being honest with the new hired hands, and he especially worried about letting the girls call him Pa. Was he teaching the girls sinful lessons? He opened his eyes to see snowflakes drifting down again.

Silas asked God to help him figure out his feelings for Belle and how they matched up with his feelings for women in general.

This being a father business is complicated, Lord. I don’t know how You’ve managed it for all these years. I’d appreciate some guidance.

A breeze moved over him, and the wind carried a whisper that he knew he imagined. It whispered something like,
“If you married her, none of this would be a lie.”

That whisper cracked like a bullwhip in the air and jolted Silas wide awake. He lay there, watching it snow for two hours, his prayers mixed up with remembering the scent of Belle’s hair.

When he finally drifted off, he woke up every few minutes all night long. And it had nothing to do with being suspicious of the new cowhands.

T
he little minx barely left a trail. And Wade considered himself a fair hand with tracking.

Since he’d left his father’s ranch, he’d spent long weeks living off the land in these very mountains. He felt close to God up here. The big sky felt wide enough to hold heaven, and the mountains would make a grand footstool as God watched over His children. Finding he could survive with the strength of his own hands gave him hope that he was a worthy man. It tore down all the mountains of self-contempt his father heaped on him with constant criticism and hard fists. This land made him believe in his own worth.

So Wade didn’t expect to have trouble keeping track of Glowing Sun.

But he did.

She was easy to follow for the first day. The only trail she could take was the one they’d been on.

He pushed his horse and hoped to close the gap between them. But once he was through the toughest passages, there were choices. Scared he’d choose wrong, Wade studied the ground often until he assured himself he was still on Glowing Sun’s trail.

Buck had given him detailed directions to the Flathead camp, and Wade considered several times just riding straight for it as the second day stretched to three, then four. He could go to her village, stay back from it but remain watchful, and wait for Glowing Sun. All he needed was to see her arrive safely.

His common sense told him the woman was well equipped to survive in these rugged mountains.

But if he was so sure she’d be fine, then he might as well go throw in with Belle’s cattle drive and be done with the wild-goose chase. His reason for following after Glowing Sun was to protect her. Abandoning her trail didn’t figure in.

He swung to the ground, checking what looked like the pad of a moccasin on a stretch of damp forest soil, when his horse reared with a wild squeal and jerked the reins out of his hands. Wade made a dive for the suddenly frantic animal and managed to swing himself up onto the buckskin. Even with Wade’s hand pulling hard on the reins, the horse ran nearly a hundred yards back in the direction they’d just come. Only then did Wade manage to halt his gelding. Snorting and wheeling, the horse must have been far enough from whatever upset him because, though he fidgeted, he let Wade take charge and hold him nearly in place.

“Wade!” A woman’s voice. Glowing Sun.

Wade turned, trying to locate her.

The horse stopped and perked its ears forward.

A snarling grizzly lumbered out of a clump of quaking aspens near where Wade had stood just seconds ago.

His horse whinnied and backed away.

Wade patted the horse on the neck to show his thanks. As the bear charged forward a dozen feet, baring its teeth, Wade pulled his rifle from its sling on his saddle and snapped a shell in place.

The bear skidded to a stop. The wily animal had obviously seen and heard a gun before.

“Wade! Help!” She spoke English. Granted, it was only two words, but he’d taught her those words. He didn’t look away from the roaring brute, but the direction of her voice told him Glowing Sun was in the upper branches of a tree just behind the bear. “Hang on. I’ll…save you.” Wade knew it was foolish, but he felt himself grow taller when he shouted the words. His shoulders squared, his chin lifted. Pathetic as it was, he had to grin as he sighted down the length of his rifle.

Sorry, Lord. I know I’ve got a problem with rescuing women. Most of ’em don’t need rescuing one whit. But just maybe this one does.

The grizzly shook its head as if forbidding Wade to take a shot.

Wade waited. If the old grizz didn’t want a fight, it’d have to turn tail and run.

With a furious roar…that’s just what it did. The bear, nearly as tall in the shoulders as Wade’s horse, whirled and vanished into the thickly wooded mountainside.

Wade wasn’t about to go after the old monster, but he’d gotten to know Glowing Sun well enough in their time together that he reckoned if he waited too long she’d climb down from the treetops and run. Trusting his mount, Wade waited until his horse settled down before he approached.

She wasn’t in the copse of aspens. He moved on into the forest, watching the treetops, until he saw her peeking out between the thinning leaves. Looking disgruntled, she sat on a branch so high she should have had a nosebleed. The tree, an oak, magnificent in its fall dressing of red leaves, nearly concealed her, but enough leaves had fallen that he could catch a glimpse.

The claw marks told their story. The grizzly had followed her up a long way, forcing her into the slender upper branches. She clung there now, hanging on to the trunk so far up that the tree bent under her weight.

When she saw him she gasped in relief. He saw her release the trunk then frantically grab it back. Even as far up as she was, Wade could see that terror had her in its grip.

“Just take one step at a time.” He could see her whole body trembling.

“P–please. H–help.” Her voice shook and Wade heard the tears making her voice waver. “W–Wade, help me!”

Wade didn’t think the tree would hold both of them up that high, but the vulnerability in her usually strong voice forced his hand. Grimly determined to get her before she fell, he tied his horse to the tree, said a quick prayer that the grizzly had quit the country, and began climbing.

The ancient oak was as easy to scale as a staircase. It had limbs low to the ground. Probably why Glowing Sun had chosen it to escape the bear.

“Oak tree,” Wade called up.

Maybe if she would talk, her panic would ease. Glowing Sun had been terrified when he’d first found her running from those men, but even then she’d been fighting mad.

How long had she been up here? Wade had set a slow pace. He couldn’t guess how far ahead of him she’d gotten. It was possible she’d been treed overnight, even longer. She must be exhausted, her muscles cramped and cold.

“Oak tree,” she answered, but her face was pressed to the bark, and he could barely hear her.

“I’m coming.”

She risked a glance down and saw him, still with yards to go. But her eyes locked on his, and Wade saw relief. Then her gaze slid to the ground, so far below, and she turned back to the tree, her trembling arms clamped even more tightly around the trunk.

Wade felt like he was scaling a castle wall or climbing a prison tower. Very heroic. Very white-knightlike. He grinned and climbed faster. “Grizzly bear.”

She looked down again and nodded wildly. “Grizzly bear.” She put enough feeling in those words to fill a book.

Wade remembered his mother reading fairy tales to him when he was very young.
Rapunzel
was one of his favorites. Wade had pictured himself climbing to rescue the princess trapped in the tower. He remembered his father’s unkindness to his mother, though he’d been very young when she died and wished he could have rescued her.

The reality of the bark under his hands and the maiden overhead furrowed his brow.
Did
he remember his mother? Maybe he just regarded everyone with the same cruelty his father did.

Wade shook his head and paid attention to his very own imprisoned princess. “I’m coming to save you, my little damsel in distress.” He grinned at his nonsense. Glowing Sun would probably pull her knife on him and try to run away as soon as her feet hit the ground, so he might as well enjoy the moment.

Glowing Sun frowned, clearly not understanding his words. He noticed she didn’t look away. Maybe if he just chattered she’d forget her long hours of terror.

“I know you must have been kidnapped from your family years ago. From your ma and pa.”

Her forehead furrowed. “Ma? Pa?”

Wade moved up to the next branch. For the first time, the branch he stood on protested at holding his weight. The leaves had turned a stunning glorious red, and some fell as Wade jiggled branches. Still, he felt surrounded by God’s glory in the middle of these leaves. “I’ll slay the dragon for you, release you from your tower prison, and return you to your home.” Wade’s heart fluttered as the next branch he grabbed cracked. He spread his weight. A branch under each foot and one in each hand; he hoped the combination would hold him.

God, lift me up. Bear my weight.

Wade silently prayed with every move. The Bible was full of stories like that. And he decided maybe praying aloud would be for the best.

“‘The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.’” The terror faded from Glowing Sun’s eyes, and she focused on Wade in a new, sharper way. She said, “‘He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.’”

“You know that verse?”

Glowing Sun looked at him as if she were irritated. Wade wanted to laugh. He’d interrupted her. “I’m sorry.”

“I forgive you.”

The girl had definitely been raised as a Christian, both before and after she’d lived with the Flatheads.

She went on. “‘He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of right–right–ness …” Faltering, she quit and scowled.

“‘Righteousness for his name’s sake.’”

Her voice joined his. “‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.’”

This was about the most perfect verse they could have chosen for all Glowing Sun’s troubles. His, too, more’n likely.

Wade thought of his father and how deeply the old man needed God. Wade had no doubt God had led his father in the path of righteousness. But Mort Sawyer had gone his own way.

While he was distracted by thoughts of his tyrannical father, Glowing Sun went on reciting. “‘For thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou pre-pre…’” She stumbled over the words.

He added his voice. “‘Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.’ ”

It occurred to Wade that if he took Glowing Sun all the way home, he’d have to face an Indian tribe, and they weren’t all friendly. He might well be asking God to prepare a table in the presence of his enemies before the day was out.

“‘Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.’”

The branch under his left hand was about double the width of a pencil. It bent but didn’t break. Wade moved as quickly as possible up the ever-narrowing trunk, hoping that if he didn’t leave his weight on any one branch for long, it’d hold. Each one that broke or was even cracked would add to the challenge of getting back down.

“‘Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.’ ”

And with those words, Wade’s fear evaporated. Yes, God’s goodness and mercy followed him. Since he’d found the Lord, he’d found the courage to leave his father’s house, and his life had been so much better.

It gave him courage to know that if the worst happened and he and Glowing Sun fell, then they’d dwell in the house of the Lord forever. There was nothing to fear.

Considering Wade believed himself to be a coward, that was a powerful notion to settle in his heart.

He looked away from his handhold as he drew even with Glowing Sun’s feet. She stared deep into his eyes. It was clear she understood the scripture and it had calmed her. He reached his hand up for hers. She reached down and held fast. Wade nodded, and Glowing Sun lifted a trembling foot from the slender twig it was perched on. She took her first step down.

He went lower. The trunk was leaning too far in one direction, and Wade shifted his weight so he was on the opposite side from Glowing Sun. He descended a step, then another. She came along.

Wade felt the violent trembling of her hand and suspected it was as much exhaustion as fear.

“Just about ten more feet down and we’ll get to the strong branches.”

Glowing Sun looked at him, confused.

Wade touched their joined hands to a branch between them. “Branch.”

She smiled. “Branch. Oak tree branch.”

Another step, then another, one more and Wade got his foot on a sturdy limb for the first time. He breathed a sigh of relief. He descended until that sturdy limb was under his hand instead of his foot.