Mary Connealy (66 page)

They started the frisky mounts up the trail. The horses smelled the storm, or maybe they knew they were close to home, because they seemed to be as fresh as if they had just started the day. The lively horses roused Belle and Emma somewhat, and they fell into line behind Silas. Every few steps he checked to make sure they were still with him. As they reached the halfway point on the climb, snow began to filter down from the sky, and Silas pushed the horses harder, knowing that when the snow accumulated it would make the going slippery.

But it wasn’t soft snow like they’d had on the high ground. This was heavy. And it was coming from behind them, snowing even in the lowlands. Snow could come by the foot up here rather than by the inch. Add in drifting winds, and the pass still high overhead could be closing up even now.

His mount nickered and fidgeted, sending the metal in its bridal clinking. But it was a good horse and it minded. Silas remembered a series of dead drops near the peak where they’d lost a few head of cattle who stumbled at the wrong time. He wanted to get past those before the drifts started to form.

The snow began to collect until it covered the horse’s hooves with every step. They trotted on through shelter where the snow hadn’t covered the trail, along wind-whipped cliffs that cut through their woolen clothing, along rock faces that rose high overhead, and caught every flake of snow, dropping it down and deepening the going.

Silas looked back steadily, worried about the womenfolk. Time to time he’d see Belle pull little Betsy off her back and tend to her. Silas knew Belle wouldn’t neglect her baby, but he couldn’t quite imagine how the woman managed to feed and change a baby without once getting off her horse.

The last of the stars were blotted out as the clouds moved ahead of them. The wind rose until it whined eerily among the thinning trees.

Silas looked back to see Emma tying her hands on the saddle again. Behind Emma was Belle with their horses strung out behind her.

Silas dropped back. “Give me your reins.”

Emma looked up, her blue eyes vague, her lids heavy. She didn’t obey him. In the normal course of things, Emma would have refused to let anyone do anything for her. But right now, Silas was sure she disobeyed simply because her head was too foggy from exhaustion to understand his request.

He unwound the reins without waiting for her to respond and guided her horse. This time he didn’t carry her. He didn’t think he had the strength.

As they climbed higher, the wind cut more sharply as if to punish them for daring to be abroad in this weather. Silas caught himself dozing. Scared to his boots because the sheer drop-offs that were so treacherous were just ahead, he grabbed a handful of snow off a rock and smeared it on his face. He was already so cold he barely felt it.

“Belle!” Silas looked behind him. Emma sat with her head bowed forward, almost certainly asleep. But he had her reins. He could control her horse. But Belle had to be alert.

Belle didn’t respond.

“Wake up, Belle. Listen to me,” Silas hollered. The trail was too narrow for him to drop back. The wind was so high his voice barely carried. “Belle Tanner, you stop lazing around and wake up and ride that horse!”

He continued shouting until Belle lifted her head. With a jerk, she looked around and realized how dangerous the trail was. Her hands tightened on the reins. “I’m awake.” She shook her head. “Lazing around?”

Silas thought he heard a little spitfire in her voice. Well, if calling her lazy didn’t set her off, nothing would.

“I’m paying attention, Silas.”

“You’d better be, woman,” Silas shouted back. He kept shouting pure nonsense, whatever his thick head could think of, about the cold and the climb and the cattle. Anything to keep himself and Belle going. Finally sure Belle and even Emma after a while were alert, he rode on, talking with them, making his voice carry above the wind.

They were tough women, and they worked as hard as he did to keep their group going, encouraging each other and pushing each other to go on, even when sometimes it didn’t seem like the next step was possible.

Then suddenly, they were at the summit.

“We made it!” Silas shouted and looked back to see Emma and Belle crane their necks to see ahead in the darkness.

“We’re home!” Belle smiled, pure triumph.

“Home.” Emma spoke more quietly, but she squared her shoulders and looked down to realize she didn’t have her reins anymore. She looked up, straight into Silas’s eyes. “Thank you.”

He felt more than heard those words. They filled his heart until his throat clogged with something that
could not
be tears.

Silas turned back and looked down in his arms at Sarah with her eyes open, smiling up at him. He boosted her around so she sat, looking forward, while he minded his horse. The vast canyon where Belle had held her steers before the drive was before them. There was still a long climb down to get below the snow line and another ten-mile ride to get to the cabin, but they were home. Silas felt a weight lift off his back.

After the first dangerously steep yards off the peak, the trail widened. In the heavily falling snow, Silas was able to ride back and untie the horses. He unhitched them from Belle’s saddle and from each other. “Hyah!” he yelled and slapped the closest horse on the rump. These critters were almost asleep, too. Just like the people traveling with them. First they walked, speeding up on the wider trail. They passed Belle and Emma. Then they picked up speed, trotting at first, then, when Silas saw them pass the snow-clad ground far below and gain more solid footing, they broke into a gallop. They charged down the mountain. He knew they’d run until they got to the cabin. There was no longer a need to watch them.

He looked down at Sarah in his arms and chucked one gloved hand under her chin. “We made it home, Sarie.”

She smiled and nodded then lay her head back against his chest and went back to sleep.

He rode on up to Belle’s side. “We’re almost below the storm. I don’t have it in me to ride until we get home. I’ll find a place and we’ll camp one more night on the trail.”

Belle nodded.

Sarah stirred slightly and murmured, “‘K, Pa.”

Silas dropped a quick kiss on her curly red head and hugged her close as the horse dropped down out of the rugged peak.

Finally, the snow was behind them.

Belle rode up beside him. “I know where to camp.”

“Lead on, darlin’.”

Belle smiled at him and urged her mount ahead. Belle didn’t go much farther. She picked a well-sheltered spot with an icy cold spring trickling down out of a crack in the mountain.

Silas used the last energy he possessed to get the horses picketed for fear they’d head for home with the other horses. Silas had no interest in taking a ten-mile hike in the morning. Then he built up a roaring fire to make the bitterly cold night bearable.

Belle sat feeding Betsy, both of them mostly asleep, while he did everything to prepare the camp, including finding the last of the beef jerky and urging them to eat it and drink some water.

He settled Emma and Sarah next to each other and covered them with a blanket to share their body heat. He found Belle asleep with a dozing Betsy in her arms. He woke her enough to urge her into the nest of warmth with her girls, resenting that he didn’t have the right to share that warmth.

He intended to fix that—and soon.

Belle stirred awake as Silas covered her, and struggled to sit up. In a voice rusty with sleep, she said, “Silas, we’re home. We made it. Thanks to you.”

“We’re going to be married, Belle, just as soon as I can figure out how to get us to a preacher.”

“But Silas—”

“Go to sleep. Just sleep. Tomorrow we’ll be home, and we’ll figure everything out then.” He stalked away from her, knowing he was already her husband in his heart. But they needed the vows to be said before God.

Belle murmured, “Home.” From across the camp he heard her utter, “I love you.”

Silas lay awake for several minutes trying to believe the other lower pass, nearer Belle’s cabin, would still be open and he could risk taking her to Divide for a wedding. He knew, unless it was completely impossible, he was going to try first thing tomorrow, because he knew he had reached the day when he could no longer be near Belle Tanner and not be her husband.

Rather than having even the slightest twinge of regret at the loss of his freedom, he fell asleep excited about the future and eager to get on with it.

The wind moaned and howled, and the snow fell in the high altitudes, but they were safe. Silas and his girls had made it home.

God, help me get out of here tomorrow. Help me find a way to marry this woman now.

B
elle slept late the next morning.

The sun was already brightening the horizon in the east when her eyes flickered open. The first sight she saw was Silas, crouching by the fire, lifting a coffeepot.

They’d made it. This was her valley.

“Silas, we’re home.”

He looked up and smiled. His face was wind burned, his hair knotted and flattened by his Stetson, though he wasn’t wearing it now. He had a week’s worth of stubble on his face because he hadn’t shaved since the day Lindsay had gotten married.

And he was the most wonderful thing she’d ever seen.

“We made it, didn’t we, darlin’?” A dark look in his eyes reminded her of warm words she’d dreamed in the night.

“Because of you.” She pressed against the ground to sit up, wondering what kind of mess she must be. It was a wonder the man didn’t turn tail and run. She smiled and wondered when the last time was she’d cared about her appearance.

“Because of all of us.” His eyes went past Belle’s shoulders.

Nodding, she glanced to see all three of her girls, still fast asleep. And with the sun well up in the sky. Shameful. “A pretty tough bunch, huh?” She looked back at him and smiled.

He was wonderful and brave and strong. He was everything a man should be.

And she might have dreamed it, but she thought the man had asked her to marry him last night. She wondered if he’d ask again just so she could be sure. Lowering the coffeepot back onto the fire, their eyes held. “So are you going to quit wasting the day away and get going?” Belle challenged.

A smile spread wider. “So we can get married?”

Silas hadn’t spent much time smiling on this cattle drive. All things considered, that was understandable. Belle hadn’t done much of it herself. So now she looked at his smiling face and noticed for the first time that he had a dimple. A single dimple on the left side that for some reason fascinated her. Then she shook off her bemused state as she thought of what he’d said. Belle sat all the way up. “Silas Harden, I’ve had a lot of proposals in my day.”

Silas said dryly, “I’ll bet that’s right.”

“And that is the worst one I’ve
ever
heard, bar none.”

“Is that so?” He stood and came straight for her.

Belle’s eyes widened. “Now, Silas. I haven’t said yes yet.”

Dropping to his knees, he leaned in and kissed her hard with his whiskery face, still grinning. Then staring straight into her eyes, he asked, “Don’t you think I oughta marry her, Emma?”

Belle thought that seemed like yet another strange proposal.

“I think you’re gonna hafta, Pa,” Emma said solemnly.

Belle looked over her shoulder and saw Sarah and Emma had joined the living. They were standing behind her, watching the man kiss the living daylights out of her. Even Betsy was awake and watching.

“We talked it over, Ma,” Sarah said earnestly. “We think you and Pa oughta get married. I mean, I know we didn’t want anymore husbands. Heaven knows up till now you’ve picked a useless lot. But we’re all fond of Pa and kind of used to calling him Pa, and we talked it over with Lindsay, and she’s for it. So we vote for you marryin’ him.”

“You talked it over with Lindsay?”
How long ago?
she wondered.

Emma said gravely, “It was unanimous.”

Betsy, perched in Sarah’s arms, waved wildly and bounced until Sarah almost dropped her. She yelled, “Papa! Papa!”

Sarah tilted her head in Betsy’s direction and nodded ruefully. “Completely unanimous.”

“Thanks.” Silas smiled at the girls. “I’m mighty proud to be your pa, too. And I’m glad to hear I’ve won the election. Majority rules.” Then he looked back at Belle. “You don’t even have to vote. I
am
their pa. You heard ’em, and that’s the way it is. Now, Ma, isn’t it high time you married their pa?”

“Silas, you’re not their…
mmmph
…”

When Silas quit kissing her into silence, he said, “And you hadn’t oughta carry on, kissin’ and such, in front of youngsters. Not with any man, but for sure not with a man you don’t plan to marry. So, it’s settled.”

“Can I say something?” Belle snapped.

Eyeing her mouth as if prepared to silence her again, Silas said warily, “Depends.”

Belle narrowed her eyes at him. “I had no intention of letting you get away without marryin’ me, Silas Harden.”

Then Silas laughed out loud and kissed the daylights out of her, and the girls jumped on his back, and pretty soon the whole family was within a gnat’s eyelash of rolling right off the mountainside.

When the jubilee was over, Silas poured coffee all around and doused the fire. Then he started saddling horses while the women gathered bedrolls. Then he herded them all toward the horses. “We’ve got to get back to the ranch and get to Divide before winter closes in. I’m not spendin’ the winter in the barn. And while we’re there, we can get some lumber to patch up that sad excuse for a cabin.”

“Silas,” Belle said uncertainly. His eyes dropped to her lips again, so she thought over what she had to say with some care. “The thing is, what if we get snowed away? I can’t risk leaving the herd, and I can’t drag these girls over that south pass when they’re so exhausted. But I dare not leave them, in case we don’t get back.”

Silas said shortly, “Just get in the saddle. We’ll be home in four hours…three and a half if we push hard. And we can talk about it then. But we’re going to be married if we have to ordain Emma and have her perform the ceremony.”