The Texan's Dream (13 page)

Newton interrupted. “I’ll ride with Willis to town, Boss. You go with the ranger.”

Jonathan nodded. He and Newton had known the McLains for years. If they called for help, it was time to ride and ask questions later.

Davis’s gaze took in Kara. “What about her?”

“She goes with me,” Jonathan answered. He had no idea what he’d be riding into, but Newton would have his hands full with Willis. There was no way to get Kara back to the ranch safely, so she’d have to stay with him.

Davis nodded, then moved back to talk to his men.

Jonathan swung from his horse and walked to Kara. He knew she’d been too far away to hear the exchange, but to her credit, she didn’t look as frightened as he guessed she might be.

Jonathan placed his gloved hand over hers where they rested on the saddle horn. “The man with Willis and Newton is a Texas Ranger named Davis. He’s a friend of Wolf’s. He asked me to go with him to meet Wolf’s sister, Nichole McLain. She’s a fine lady.” Jonathan tried to keep his voice calm. The last thing he wanted to do was frighten Kara. “She asked for my help, and I’d like you to ride along with me.”

He thought he’d done a fine job of laying out the facts.

She nodded slowly. He guessed she knew her choices were limited. The men with Davis looked rough. They were probably hard-riding rangers, but to Kara they could have been robbers or killers. This was not a country where it was easy to tell the law-abiding from the outlaws. And, with rangers, it was always hard to tell the saints from the sinners. Jonathan learned long ago to judge a man by his actions and not his appearance.

Within minutes, they were following Davis across open country. The ranger kept the pace fast. Jonathan slowed, putting Kara between him and Davis. If she tired, he wanted to know it before she fell off her horse.

In less than an hour, they reached a line of willow trees that marked the springs. Jonathan knew the place well. As a boy he camped by the springs with the Apache. It was not on any road or near any town, so the land was still untouched. He could almost feel himself stepping back into the time of his youth.

“They’re over here.” Davis guided his horse into the willows. He swung down and tied his horse to a tree.

Jonathan did the same, then helped Kara down. They walked toward the sound of water.

Kara kept close to Jonathan. She felt like she was entering a world she hadn’t known existed. She’d grown up walking in parks and visiting in the country around Pittsburgh from time to time, but none of the land looked like this. Something about it seemed wild and untouched.

As Jonathan passed between two branches, he took her hand. His fingers were firm. Kara made no protest. She had no idea what they might walk into as they moved deeper among the trees until even the sun was held at bay by the branches.

Suddenly, staying home with Snort and H. B. didn’t seem like such a bad idea.

As they moved toward a clearing, Jonathan pulled her close. “Stay back in the tree line and you’ll be safe,” he whispered. “I’ll let you know when it’s safe to step out.”

He glanced at Davis who nodded agreement.

“I’ll stay out of sight as well,” Davis whispered. “I wouldn’t want to frighten the prisoner more, if that’s possible.”

Kara hadn’t heard about any prisoner, but she was too frightened to ask questions.

Jonathan took another step. His fingers tightened for a moment, then let go of her hand. She strained to look around him.

The sight shook her to the core. A woman, dressed in a black shirt and trousers, perched on a rock the height of a chair, a Colt strapped to her side. Her gloved hand held the end of a rope. A younger woman with wild hair knelt beside the rock. A blanket circled around her thin shoulders. The other end of the rope hung about her neck.

Kara watched in horror. The woman in black stood when Jonathan stepped into the clearing. The young woman huddled further into the blanket, pulling on the rope like an animal.

“Thank God you’re here,” the woman in black said to Jonathan. “I only had my horse’s lead rope with me. I didn’t know how long I could keep her without hand-cuffs or chains.”

“I came as soon as I could, Nichole.” Jonathan didn’t say a word about the rope. “Does she speak any English?”

“No,” Nichole answered. “She must have been captured very young. All she wants to do is escape and go back to what she believes are her people. But as near as I can find in the records, the tribe she was traveling with has been moved to the reservation in the Oklahoma Territory. The Indian Agents would never let her in, even if we could find the people she’d been living with.”

Jonathan nodded, as if he’d heard the story before.

Kara looked closely at the young woman on the ground, who couldn’t have been out of her teens. If her hair had been clean, it might be more blond than brown. She huddled into a ball, as if protecting something in her lap. She showed no sign of understanding what the others said. For a moment Kara thought the creature must be simple-minded, or insane. She’d heard of people going mad and thinking of themselves as animals.

When Jonathan squatted several feet in front of the young woman, she let out a low sound and pulled the blanket around her. Only the rope about her neck kept her from running.

“Who had her?” Jonathan asked Nichole.

“Apache, we think. I would have asked your sister to come in and try to talk to her, but Allie’s too far along with child to travel. This woman showed up at Fort Supply a week ago. They brought her down to Fort Worth because they’d heard I’ve had some luck with finding families. Somewhere along the line someone put that dress on her, because I’d bet she wasn’t captured in it.”

Jonathan agreed. “The rag looks like others I’ve seen. Well-meaning women of the forts force them on both Indians and girls thought to have been kidnapped from settlements as children. The soldiers’ wives seemed to believe that once the children have on proper clothes they’ll forget the years they’ve lived and return to ‘civilization.’ ”

Kara didn’t miss the bitterness in his voice and wondered if there was a time he’d huddled on the ground with a rope around his neck.

“She’s done everything to escape.” Nichole rubbed her eyes, exhausted. “I’m afraid if she tries again, she’ll kill herself. If it wasn’t for the child, she’d probably have already ended her life.”

“Child?” Jonathan leaned closer.

Nichole nodded. “She’s cradling a little one in that blanket. A girl, I think. Adam tried to get a look at her to make sure she was all right. Our little mother here went crazy. I thought I could help. I waited until the jail was quiet and tried to get close to her. She broke and ran. I followed, trying not to hurt her but not letting her free.”

“If you had let her go, chances are good she’d die out here all by herself without supplies. The baby would never make it.”

Nichole held the rope to Jonathan. “Can you help?”

He didn’t take the offering. “I’ll try.”

Kara watched in disbelief as he sat down a few feet from the wild creature. He talked to her in a language Kara had never heard.

At first the woman appeared to argue. She shouted and waved her hands and cried out as though she were swearing at the world.

Then, slowly, she began to listen to Jonathan.

Finally, she turned her head toward Nichole.

“She thinks we will kill the baby when we see that it is Indian,” Jonathan translated.

“Is it hers?” Nichole asked.

Jonathan nodded. “But she thinks the soldiers, and now us, will take the baby from her.”

A sob escaped Kara. She realized by what Jonathan and Nichole were not saying that there was a possibility the woman’s fears were true.

“We can’t take her back to the fort,” Nichole finally said. “The sheriff can’t find any kin who’ll claim her. She’s so wild, I think they are considering the hospital in Austin for the insane.”

“They’ll take the baby for sure then,” Jonathan added. “And she’ll be treated like an Apache child.” He hesitated and finished the scenario, “And the mother
will
go insane.”

“Can you talk to her?” Nichole asked.

“I’ll try, but you were right about her wanting to kill herself. She saw her husband die in the raid. If it weren’t for the child, she’d already be with him in death.”

Jonathan turned back to the woman and spoke to her once more. Slowly, as the shadows grew long, she calmed. She didn’t panic when Jonathan untied the rope about her neck.

He motioned for Kara to enter the clearing and appeared to introduce her to the woman. Davis had disappeared a few hours before. He now returned with supplies, but he stood at the tree line and handed them to Kara.

When Kara offered water to the captive, the young woman drank a little and gave the rest to her child.

Nichole smiled at Kara, but they didn’t speak. There would be time to talk later.

Finally, Jonathan stood. “You lost her in the woods,” he said to Nichole. “She got away without a trace.”

Nichole nodded.

“She got away?” Jonathan asked, then turned to Davis knowing the ranger would understand what he asked.

Davis agreed to the lie.

“I’ll take her back to the ranch with me. No one will look for her there. At least for a time the child and she will be safe.”

“What then?”

Jonathan looked torn. “If, in a few months, she still wants to go back with the Apache, I’ll take her to Indian Territory myself.”

“It won’t work, Jonathan. She belongs here.” Nichole closed her eyes for a moment but when she looked up the sadness was still there. “She can never go back. Even if you could find what’s left of the tribe, they wouldn’t accept her. They might even blame her for the raid. There are those on the reservation who hate enough to kill her.”

“She can’t go back, and her baby can’t stay.” Jonathan lashed out at Nichole. “Why don’t you just cut the woman in half now and save her the pain of having to rip herself apart.” The fury in his voice shook the clearing.

To Kara’s surprise, Nichole didn’t look the least upset. She stood slowly and wrapped her arms around Jonathan’s shoulders. “It’s all right,” she whispered like a mother. “We’ll find a way. Jonathan, we’ll find a way.”

He nodded, but his eyes told Kara he didn’t believe Nichole.

FIFTEEN

DARKNESS SETTLED OVER THE CLEARING. DAVIS built a fire and brought in the rest of the supplies he’d picked up in town. Kara made coffee, then sliced meat and bread. Jonathan talked with the captive.

Kara walked to the stream to wash the coffeepot.

Nichole followed. She was a tall, beautiful woman—every ounce a lady, even in her strange clothes. She had an easy, southern way of talking that made Kara like her instantly. Though ten years older than Kara, she didn’t make her feel like a child.

They both had black hair and green eyes. If it weren’t for the fact that Nichole stood a head taller, they could be sisters. Everything about Nichole silently said she was a woman of worth, valued by both family and, judging from Davis’s respectful tones, the community.

Kara felt comfortable as they knelt side by side at the stream.

“I see your influence on our Jonathan,” Nichole commented casually. “The anger is not as great within him when he looks at you.”

“It’s not me,” Kara rushed to explain. “I’m only the bookkeeper on the Catlin Ranch. I don’t matter to him.”

Nichole raised an eyebrow. “I suggest you stop looking in the mirror and look into his eyes. You’ll see yourself far more clearly.”

Kara changed the subject. She had no idea how to respond to Nichole’s advice. “Will you come with us to the ranch?”

“No,” Nichole answered. “I have to get back to Fort Worth, but Adam and I will come as soon as we can. The child inside the folds of that blanket looks healthy enough, but I’d like Adam to examine her, as well as the mother. After she’s talked with Jonathan a while maybe she’ll let us near her child.”

They moved back to the clearing and said their good-byes. Davis stood, preparing to escort Nichole home. She didn’t move toward the captive, but crossed her hands, palm up, in a sign of peace as she’d seen Jonathan do.

The captive held her crying baby close and gave no sign in return.

After they left, Kara wasn’t sure what to do, but she wanted to help. She pulled a comb from her bag and moved behind the woman.

At first, the filthy woman was suspicious. Slowly, she let Kara work the tangles out of the ends of her hair. Kara tried to be gentle but it must have been days since the hair had been touched.

The woman talked to Jonathan, and he laughed.

Kara glanced at him with a raised eyebrow. “What did she say?”

“She said my woman is kind. You will make a good mother.” Jonathan hesitated, then translated. “She said I should keep your belly rounded with my sons.”

Kara blushed.

By the time she got all the tangles out of the captive’s hair, her arms ached. Jonathan cut two strips of leather from his saddle and handed them to the woman so she could braid her hair.

“What do we call her?” Kara asked him.

“By her name. It translates simply to Dawn.” He repeated his words in Apache.

The woman nodded. With her hair combed and fear gone from her eyes, she looked even younger.

“I have a change of clothes in my bag. Should I offer them to her?”

Jonathan shook his head. “She’d see it as an insult. I promised her leather to make new clothes as soon as we get to the ranch. I think that might keep her from running, at least for tonight. She doesn’t want to go back to her people in what she calls ‘white women’s rags.’ ”

“Does she know she can’t go back?” Kara wondered if her own situation was the same. If her father had been killed in a fight, there would be nothing to return to. The thought of moving into her cousins’ homes seemed little better than starving. Not that they wouldn’t be kind. But she’d seen how homeless relatives were treated by everyone. For the rest of her life she’d sleep where there was room and do the work no one else in the house wanted to do.

“I’ll tell her there’s no going back later. Right now, we need to let her know she’s safe with us.”

He pulled a knife from his belt and offered it to Dawn, handle first, saying something Kara didn’t understand.

Dawn nodded and spread her blanket beside the fire. She cradled her child close and lay the knife within easy reach.

Kara gathered her traveling bag and walked down to the spring. It had been two days since she’d combed her own hair. She guessed it might look almost as bad as Dawn’s had. She unwound it from the bun and combed her long strands free. The strokes felt good running along her scalp. Then, she removed her jacket and opened her blouse so she could wash with a tiny ball of soap she’d found on the washstand in her room one night.

The water was cold against her skin, but felt wonderful. The soap smelled of roses.

She glanced toward the clearing. Jonathan sat with his back to her.

Kara unbuttoned her blouse and continued washing. She was careful to leave on enough clothes so she could quickly become presentable if she heard someone coming.

When she finished, she pulled her hair over her shoulder and twisted it into one long braid.

“I like your hair like that,” Jonathan said from just behind her. He’d moved close without making a sound.

Kara stood. Her fingers fumbled as she frantically tried to pull her blouse together. “I didn’t hear you.”

“I just wanted to thank you for all you did today.” With the fire at his back, she couldn’t see his features.

“I didn’t do …”

“You did more than you know.” He watched while she buttoned her blouse as though he found the action fascinating. “You have a way about you. Dawn was right, a mothering way. In your worrying over whether everyone is fed or cared for, you make people feel comfortable. I think it’s a gift.”

Kara didn’t know what to say. She’d mothered her father and sick cousins from age eleven after her own mother died. No one had ever thanked her for it. It was just something she did. Most young girls would have hated the routine of running a house, but Kara found it calming, satisfying.

She thought it strange that no one except this man ever took the time to notice or to appreciate. Even her father would come home to a clean house, with a meal on the table and ask her what she did with herself all day.

“Were you like Dawn?” she asked before she lost her nerve.

“Worse,” he answered. “Far worse. I fought everyone. At one point Wolf tied me to the floor in a barn for days. I hated him for it, but looking back I see how his action might have saved my life. But at the time, all I wanted was to be free. To run wild. I was like Dawn. I wanted to get back to my people and a way of life I understood.”

“But eventually, you calmed down and made a life.”

“No.” His laughter sounded sad. “I’m still the same inside. And my chains are the ‘white man’s rags’ I still wear.”

Though he said the words calmly, she watched him, knowing there was more than a grain of truth in what he said. He used the “touch of a savage” others thought they saw in him to keep people away. But what if it were really a part of him?

She moved beside him and saw his face in the fire-light. Her heart slammed into her rib cage. Smoky eyes cried out with need, a longing so great it frightened her.

She moved to pass him. She wasn’t sure she wanted to see the savage in him. He both drew her near and frightened her as no one ever had in her life.

When she stepped around him, his hand closed over her arm. “Stay,” he whispered. “Stay with me.”

She jerked free, tasting panic in her throat.

As she hurried away, she heard him whisper, “Then stay away.”

* * *

The ride back to the ranch was made in almost complete silence. Kara tried to figure out the two different men who lived inside of Jonathan. One was kind, thoughtful, considerate. The other sharp, angry, savage.

It crossed her mind that he might be mad. But, if so, she seemed to be the only one to bring it out in him. His men respected him. Nichole and Wolf loved him like a brother.

Maybe she was the one going mad. She’d been in this wild country too long. Except for the night he kissed her so passionately, he never made advances. And as far as she could remember, she had touched him first that night. Maybe she was like some kind of poison that infected him?

He’d been the only man who ever acted like he wanted to kiss her, and here she was thinking he must be mad. If Devin O’oole had ever made an advance, would she have tried to have him committed?

The thought crossed her mind that maybe the next time he asked her to stay, she’d linger a little longer and see if it were the wild man or the tender one who moved closer.

She pondered the possibility for most of the journey and finally decided she’d probably never have the opportunity to find out.

They made good time and reached the ranch house well before sunset. Jonathan talked Dawn slowly into the house while Angela ran upstairs and got the room next to Kara ready for the woman and her child. The hands and retired rangers stared from the safe distance of the bunkhouse, but no one said a word.

An hour later, Jonathan, Dawn and Kara sat by the fireplace in Dawn’s room and ate supper off a tablecloth spread on the floor. Once in a while, Jonathan would tell Kara what Dawn said and how strange she thought everything was, but mostly they spoke in Apache.

When the baby cried, Jonathan stood and offered his hand to Kara. “Maybe we should say good night?”

Jonathan showed Dawn how to work the lock so she would feel safe. She shook her head until, finally, he gave her his knife, and all was right.

After Dawn closed her door, Kara and Jonathan stood alone for a moment in the hallway, both tired, both wondering what to say to the other.

Jonathan finally broke the silence. “I’ve some work to do before I sleep. I’ll have a bath sent up if you like.”

“That would be nice.” She didn’t meet his eyes. “Good night.”

“I’ll be downstairs if you need me,” he said and turned away. “Call me if you hear anything from Dawn’s room.”

“Like what?”

“Never mind. If she’s leaving, you’ll never hear her go. No one will. My guess is she’ll stay, at least for a while. I’ll notify the guard that no one goes near her if she ventures from her room. I don’t want anyone frightening her again.”

The cold, angry man was back, she thought, and wished there was something she could say to mend things between them.

H. B. and Snort’s voices reached her and she noticed the pair heading up the stairs. Kara hurried to her room. She didn’t feel like answering any questions tonight, and Snort looked like a man wanting answers. He’d been a sheriff in San Antonio and questioned everything and everyone around him.

An hour later, as she bathed in warm water, the stress of the past few days seeped from her. Kara dressed for bed, then sat at her tiny desk rewriting the letter to her father.

When she finished, the house was silent. Kara slipped on her robe and tiptoed down the hallway, thinking if she left her letter in the foyer where Angela always put the supply list, it might go out early with a rider headed toward Brady. The mercantile clerk would put it in a mail bag loaded onto the stage. All mail was transferred to the train in Fort Worth. In less than a week it would be in Kansas City where Mary Ann would forward it on to Father James. So many steps. So many chances for one small envelope to be lost. She’d take that chance, Kara reasoned. She had to contact her father.

The sounds of a mother comforting her child drifted from Dawn’s room. Snort and H. B. were both snoring. No light shone from beneath Jonathan’s door, so she guessed all were asleep. The lights in the hallway helped, but something bothered Kara about the house. The dark hallways and shadowy corners never welcomed her.

She hurried through her task, returning to her room as quickly as possible. As Angela suggested, Kara locked the door behind her, feeling as though she’d run through a haunted house.

Kara had the same feeling when she walked the hallway two weeks later with a letter to Mary Ann in her pocket. Jonathan had kidded her that she spent all her salary on stamps, but almost every time the mail went out, a letter went to Kansas City. And one of Mary Ann’s always seemed to be in the mail coming in.

Tonight she’d written her friend all about what Christmas would be like on the Catlin Ranch. From the moment Angela had told her, Kara looked forward to the day. The McLains would come, along with Wolf and his family. For once the old house would be filled with life.

Kara placed Mary Ann’s letter on the table and started back toward her room. When she reached the door to the great room, a sound caught her attention. A muffled thumping came from the area by the windows.

Deciding it must be a loose shutter, Kara felt her way across the room. On most nights, the glow from a dying fire would have lit the room enough to make crossing easy. But no one had built a fire tonight. She brushed the furniture as she moved slowly toward the pale moon-lit windows.

As she leaned out to pull in the shutter, something moved across the courtyard. She froze, not believing what she saw.

An outline of a man shifted again, working his way across the yard from building to building. The shadow was tall and lean, yet crouched and darted like a thief.

Kara’s mouth opened to scream. She whirled to sound the alarm.

Strong arms encircled her. A hand covered her mouth. Her attacker pulled her close against his chest. Panic climbed suddenly into Kara’s heart.

“Easy now, darlin’.” Jonathan’s words brushed against her ear as he pulled her away from the window and into the velvet folds of the drapes. “We don’t want to frighten away whoever it is.”

Anger overrode fear. She kicked Jonathan hard.

The oath he swore was in Apache, but she knew she’d hurt him.

One arm pulled her closer. His hand tightened about her mouth. His words came in an angry rush against the side of her face. “You’re a hard woman to save, Miss O’Riley. Maybe I should just let the trespasser shoot you when you screamed. Then I’d know who he is and be rid of one Irish pest to boot.”

Her foot struck again. Her fingers clawed his hand from her mouth. “You frightened me far more by grabbing me than a shadow moving in the yard did.” She shoved at his chest suddenly, angry and embarrassed. “There’s no need to continue holding me. I’ve no intention of screaming now that I know observing a trespasser advance across the yard seems to be your pastime.”