Mary Connealy (82 page)

Red took his eyes off Belle to face his wife. “What are you—”

“Don’t you speak to me that way, Red Dawson.” She jabbed him right in the second button of his broadcloth shirt. “I am an adult woman, not a child. If I think a calf needs to be thrown and branded, then I’ll do it.”

Red’s mouth formed a hard straight line as he glared down at his wife.

His wife glared right back.

It wasn’t much of a standoff, because Red quit glaring and started grinning. “You roped that calf like a real cowboy, honey. And you were riding to beat all, too. Scared me half to death, which is why I blew my stack. I’m sorry. I’m so proud of you.” He circled her trim waist with one arm, yanked her against him, and swooped down to fetch himself a kiss right there in front of all of them.

By the time he quit, the whole group was clapping. Cassie had her arms tight around Red’s neck and her toes dangling off the ground.

“What else did Belle teach you to do while I was gone?”

“I can’t wait to tell you. I missed you, Red. And Michael learned to clap his hands.”

“I missed you all something fierce.” He hugged her hard then set her on the ground. With his arm around her waist, they walked together toward the gathering of children.

Silas walked over to Belle. “You promised me you wouldn’t start spring work. You just had a baby.”

Wade thought Silas sounded more resigned than mad.

“I didn’t do a thing, Silas.” Belle raised both hands to shoulder level as if it were a robbery. “Emma worked with Cassie. I gave advice and watched from the fence. I kept my promise. Besides, I trusted you with the roundup. I knew you’d be back.”

Silas kissed her on the nose. “Thank you.”

Belle’s return kiss was much warmer. “Tanner’s double the size since you left.”

Silas turned to look at the baby, and they headed toward the group.

Loneliness welled up inside Wade as he watched that smiling crowd fussing over babies. Red hoisted Susannah high in the air.

She squealed with laughter and yelled, “Papa’s home!”

Red accepted his warm welcome-home from sweet, beautiful Cassie. Silas was welcomed just as thoroughly by that tough-as-nails Belle Tanner…Harden. Wade was so impressed he decided he’d try to learn the woman’s new name. This husband just might last.

He looked sideways at Abby. “You want to go meet ’em all?”

Abby had been watching, too. Now she turned to Wade. Her eyes were sad, aching. He wondered if she was thinking about her Flathead village or her mother or her husband. She’d lost so much.

Soft feelings had sprung up between Abby and Wade last fall. Had she ever thought of
him
with a sad, aching look in her eyes? But why would she when she had a warrior at her side?

“Abby, when we get to my father’s ranch, there’s a woman there who cooks and cleans for us.”

“Your mother?”

“No, my mother died a long time ago. But Gertie runs the house. She has her own private room and there’d be one for you near her. She would welcome your company. She’s always been able to handle my father, and she’ll teach you how, too.” Wade smiled, but he didn’t feel one ounce of happiness. “She could never teach me. But she spent a lot of time taking care of me after—” Wade fell silent.

Abby hesitated. “After what?”

Wade tensed and didn’t answer. There was no good reason for her to go home with him. He only knew he wanted her by his side when he faced his father. “If you don’t go with me, then I’ll go with you, Ab. I’m not letting you just wander off alone into the wilderness.” He said it as if he was worried about her, and he was. But he was almost as worried about himself.

“I will go as far as your ranch. If staying there suits me, I will stay until it no longer suits me.”

“Thank you.” Wade exhaled like a weight had lifted. He rested a hand on her upper arm and guided her around the corral to where the happy families congregated.

They saw Susannah squirming to get down. Red let her go and took the baby in his arms. Susannah went scurrying off toward some scrub brush nearer the cabin.

“Susannah, come back here.” Cassie smiled at the active little girl and went after her.

Wade reached the group just as a rattling sound jerked everyone in the group around. Only one creature made that deadly rattle. Wade, Red, Silas, and Belle all drew their guns.

“Susannah!” Cassie was in their line of fire. With a wild leap, Cassie hurled herself forward, stretched flat, inches above the ground.

A rattlesnake uncoiled from the brush, launching itself at the toddler.

A dull
thud
and the snake’s head stopped. Momentum carried the rattling end of the snake forward. The snake’s coils twisted around her and Susannah.

Cassie hit the ground on her belly. The rattler’s head was pinned to the ground by a narrow, razor-sharp knife.

Cassie shrieked and flailed at the snake. Red reached the two of them and swooped Susannah into his arms as he tried to get the bleeding snake off Cassie.

Wade, Silas, Belle, and Emma were only a step behind.

Cassie shoved at the moving snake, screaming.

Susannah started crying, frightened by her mother. Betsy and Michael bought into the noise, too.

The group extracted Cassie from the coils and comforted Susannah.

When Cassie was on her feet and double-checked for injuries, Silas looked at Belle. “Did you throw that?” “Not me.” Belle holstered her six-gun.

One by one, they all looked between each other then finally turned and looked at Abby. Wade noticed she only had eyes for the snake.

She strode toward the long, brownish-gray striped creature, jerked her knife free, and beheaded the serpent with a quick, ruthless swipe. Cleaning her blade by stabbing it into the ground, she returned it to the sheath at the back of her skirt waistband and picked up the rattler.

“Supper.” She sounded satisfied. Hungry, too. “Enough for everyone to have a bite. I know how to prepare it so the poison doesn’t—” She turned and looked at the others, all transfixed by the sight of that perfectly thrown knife and that long, still-wriggling snake. “What?” She glanced at the snake.

“You saved her,” Cassie sobbed. “You saved my baby girl.”

“You act surprised.” Abby frowned as if Cassie wasn’t talking rationally. “Far wiser to use the knife than your body. Do you know this snake is deadly if you let it bite you?”

Cassie flung her arms around Abby’s neck.

Abby staggered back a step and held her arms out at her sides, obviously shocked.

“Uh, we’ll probably just have beef stew.” Wade carefully reached for the snake dangling from Abby’s fingers. “Not rattlesnake. Okay?”

He didn’t want to upset Abby; after all, she’d just saved Cassie’s life. But he wasn’t eating snake. If he’d been starving…maybe.

Abby, with Cassie hanging from her neck, shrugged. “Rattlesnake is a special treat, but if the meal is already cooking …”

Wade tossed the snake away with terrified energy coursing through his veins at Susannah’s near miss.

“No, wait. Save the rattle. The children will enjoy playing with it.”

“Let’s wait to get the toy until Cassie calms down a bit.” Wade patted Abby on her arm.

Chaos erupted as everyone rushed forward to thank Abby.

Wade caught Abby looking from one grateful person to another as they swamped her. She acted as if they were foreign creatures. More dangerous to her than the snake.

Before long, Belle had Abby at her side talking. The two were swapping advice on how to best skin a buck.

Cassie gave Wade a smile and yanked on his beard. “It’s good to see you. I didn’t recognize you at first. You look a fright.” She gave him a quick kiss on his furry cheek then turned to go with the women.

“Keeping your knife razor sharp is the secret.” Belle pulled her knife out of her boot.

Abby produced her own skinny blade. “My stone got left behind at my village.”

“It’s sharp.” Belle admired it. “You did this with a stone? Can you show me? We’ve got a whetstone, but I haven’t been able to get the edge I want with it. I always use my strop.” Belle turned to Cassie. “Let’s sharpen yours while we’re at it.”

Cassie produced a knife. Wade was too surprised to notice where it came from.

“You’re carrying a knife now, honey?” Red, looking uncertain, pushed his hat back and scratched his head.

“Belle said I should. A woman has to be able to take care of herself.” Cassie followed after the other women, Emma and Sarah included, leaving the men alone with two babies and Susannah.

“Why did you throw your body instead of your knife?” Abby asked Cassie.

Wade didn’t hear the answer.

Red dropped back to walk beside Silas and Wade. “Uh…I don’t know if Cassie should carry a knife. She might cut herself.”

“Or you.” Wade chuckled.

Silas slapped Red on the back.

Susannah slapped Red smartly on the ear. “I wanna knife, Papa.”

Red groaned.

Silas started laughing.

The three men got along well. Which was a good thing, because without knowing exactly how it happened, they ended up being ousted from the house after supper to bunk down in the barn. Sure, the house was crowded, but Wade had a strong notion that Red and Silas would have liked to sleep next to their wives.

Maybe Wade wouldn’t rush into learning Belle’s new name after all.

A
bby watched the tension grow in Wade until she thought he might snap.

He looked more like himself with his hair cut short and his face clean shaven. It was easier to separate herself from the horror of her village riding beside Wade as he’d looked last fall. She did her best to turn her mind away from the death she’d witnessed. The gunshots still rang in her ears. The blood was there every time she closed her eyes. She tried to shut it down by focusing on Wade and this strange world of the whites.

She’d let Cassie convince her to don a gingham dress. It pushed up high on her legs as she rode her barebacked pony. Wade had urged her to use a saddle, but she’d refused to load the horse down with heavy leather and iron.

The closer they rode to Wade’s ranch, the tighter his jaw clenched. Tension vibrated off him in nearly visible waves.

A rugged trail opened to lush valleys of grass edging along the mountain slopes. As they rounded an outcropping of rock, Wade pulled up and turned on the trail to face her. “You told me you were a believer, a Christian…is that right?”

Abby wondered what the man was fretting over now. She thought of Wild Eagle and the steady way he faced everything. He rarely laughed, rarely got angry. He was a rock she could lean on. But a rock was hard, and she’d been hurt by that hardness many times. Abby felt like she knew every thought that went through Wade’s head, and if she couldn’t figure it out, she just had to wait a bit because he’d tell her.

“Yes, a Blackrobe lived among our people. He spent part of the winter with us, in our winter hunting grounds. He told us of the white man’s God and how He’d given His life to save us. A beautiful story, a story only God would have written. Our small village embraced Jesus. As I learned more, I remembered stories my own parents had told me of Jesus and Christmas and Easter. When the Blackrobe heard me speak to him in his tongue, he let me say his white words to my people in their tongue.”

“I noticed that you have been speaking English well. Would it be okay if we prayed right now?”

“Prayed? You and I together?”

“Yes. Once we round this bend, you’ll see my father’s house. I don’t want to make a show of praying in front of the cowhands or my father. There aren’t many believers among them. I’d like to go in there with another believer at my side.” Wade shook his head. “I’ve been praying since Red came to tell me I had to go home. I should have let Red come along. He’s a wise man. He fills in for the circuit rider in Divide, but he’d been on the trail a long time searching for me. He needed to get home.”

“What is it you pray for?”

A humorless laugh escaped from Wade’s lips. “Courage.”

“Are you lacking courage? I had not noticed.”

Wade tilted his head a bit. “Thank you. But when it comes to my father…I’m afraid of everything. Afraid of what he’ll say. He has a cruel tongue, Abby. And there’s more. I’m afraid of my own anger. Red told me I’m to honor my father, and I know that’s true. God sets it down in the Good Book as a commandment. But my thoughts toward Pa are angry, even violent. I want to yell back at him all the angry words that I’ve got in my head, and I know that’s a sin.”

“Why is it a sin to tell him of your anger?”

“Because I picture myself screaming, ‘I hate you.’ And in my mind, while I yell that, I punch him and pay him back for all the years and years of hurt I suffered at his hands.”

Abby pursed her lips. “Well, take out the screaming and the punching, but the rest is just honest. There can be no honor without honesty. The words are the same.”

Wade looked at her as if he wanted to see inside her mind. “That’s true. I could just be honest but without the fury. I see rage as a sign of strength. But that’s from Pa. Truth is strong and needs no anger.” He nodded his head then rode up beside her so they faced each other. “It would be a…a light. There is so much darkness on the M Bar S.”

Wade tugged his hat off and hung it from his saddle horn, pulled away a single leather glove, and held out his bare hand. “Will you join me?”

Knowing it was what he expected for some reason, Abby took his hand. When he closed his eyes, she followed his lead.

It was a simple prayer. As he spoke quietly of his desire to be sinless and courageous, a sudden image of her white father kneeling beside her bed, holding her hand and praying with her, flickered and was gone. Was that a memory or her imagination? Was it just once, at the end of his life when he knew the family was dying? Or had it been a normal part of her day? For some reason she thought of bedtime and prayer together. But it was only an impression. There was no memory beyond that lightning-quick image of her father in prayer.

Wade finished his heartfelt words then looked up. Their eyes caught. Their hands held. A moment stretched too long and still neither of them looked away. Wade hadn’t given much thought to riding together, only Abby and him, for a few hours. But as he looked at her, he knew it was well they weren’t together longer.