Without Words (19 page)

Maybe Rankin was just taking advantage of what might be his last chance to charm a woman senseless before a spell in prison, but Bret doubted it. That sugar-tongued devil was bound to be working at getting Hassie to help him escape—either knowingly or by doing something she wouldn’t recognize as dangerous until too late. Rankin only had another two days to subvert her.

No escape scheme of the pretty boy’s was going to work, but if he succeeded in enlisting Hassie in the effort, things would change with Hassie. If Bret couldn’t trust her, he’d have to take her back to Gabe and Belle or find somewhere else for her, and he didn’t want to.

Sometime in the last weeks his original urge to crush the wide-eyed eagerness and softness out of her and make her acknowledge life’s grim realities and unfairness had changed. The joy with which she approached the most simple things had wormed its way inside him and lightened the darkness.

Bret had no intention of letting a useless scoundrel like Johnny Rankin ruin the first summer since the war that didn’t seem like one long, miserable slog. He decided to talk to Hassie first. If that didn’t work, he really would tie her on that useless horse, shoot Rankin, and leave him where he fell. She’d get over it eventually.

A
MONG THE RIDICULOUS
things Bret did was keep Johnny away from the supper fire as if he might grab burning buffalo chips in his bare handcuffed hands and attack with them. With no trees to chain him to, Bret hauled a saddle over, and chained Johnny to that.

Upset by the unfairness of it all, Hassie kept Johnny company until supper was ready. After all Bret never wanted her help with supper anyway. Tonight, as Bret finished locking him to the saddle, Johnny joked about it.

“I guess I’m going to have to escape slowly,” he said with a grin. “Very slowly.”

Bret straightened, looming over Johnny and Hassie both. “You try to escape, and you’ll find out if the ladies still love you with no front teeth and a crooked nose.”

Hassie closed her eyes. Bret really had no call to be so mean about everything.

“I need to talk to you, Mrs. Petty,” he said, crooking a finger. “Let’s go over by the horses.”

Uh oh. He was going to yell at her for being too friendly with a prisoner. He was going to give orders, and she’d promised to always do what he said. Her stomach clenched in a way it hadn’t for weeks as she followed him.

Bret didn’t have Johnny’s angelic good looks. His gray eyes were flecked with black and somber, not a dancing, clear blue. His mouth was a firm line, not curled up at the corners with humor, and his features were harsh, not boyish. Her heart pounded too fast. For some reason she felt like crying.

He leaned against Jasper’s rump and hooked his thumbs in his belt, his words like nothing she expected.

“When I got home from the war, everything was in ruins. Union soldiers tore things up because my family were Southern sympathizers with sons fighting for the Confederacy. Bushwhackers stole livestock and burned the house because of me—the son in the Union Army. So I headed west thinking about trying mining, finding some way to come up with enough to rebuild. And I didn’t get too far before I overheard some talk about a fellow with a price on his head the folks in that area were helping hide out. That’s what started me in this business.”

The horse shifted, and Bret straightened. “I had good luck with a couple more men, and then I picked up a fellow wanted for robbery, a little robbery of a local stage line, nobody hurt. He was friendly, educated, interesting to talk to, and I had to take him quite a ways to get back to where he was wanted. I liked him, and I even had some sympathy for someone getting back from the war, no home, no job, no money. So I started letting him loose when we stopped so he could eat easier, things like that.”

Bret stopped talking and tugged at his shirt, pulled it out of his trousers and his undershirt with it. Hassie stared at the exposed expanse of rib cage—and at the long scar between two ribs. Not a thick rope of scar like the one on her throat, but a thin, straight line.

“I still don’t know where he got the knife. He left me to finish dying, took the horses and everything I had. Once I was up and around again, I couldn’t pick up his trail. Never did.”

Hassie wished she had brought the slate with her, wished she could ask how he’d survived. He seemed to guess her thoughts as he often did.

“I crawled for two days and was just lucky to cross the trail of some families moving west.” He tucked his shirt back in. “Maybe Rankin is as innocent as the day he was born. He won’t go straight to prison, you know. He can tell his side of the story to a judge and jury. But it will be better if he never gets near a knife.”

He left her there among the horses and went back to the fire. Hassie threw her arms around Brownie, hugging the warm neck, breathing in the comforting, familiar horsey scent. She had thought he would be angry and give orders. Telling her the story and not giving orders was worse. The burden of deciding what to do was on her now.

She thought back to the beginning, the hotel and brothel, the way he insisted half the bounty for Hammerill was hers, her joy when he let her leave Belle and Gabe’s with him. She didn’t believe Johnny Rankin was bad or dangerous, but she owed Bret and owed him more than gratitude. Respect for his experience had to be part of it. If anyone hurt him.... She shivered in spite of the heat of the summer day.

Her face was wet. She let go of Brownie and rubbed the tears away. Why couldn’t he just once smile at her the way Johnny did? Because it would be foolish that’s why. In spite of herself she was developing fanciful illusions, and he probably knew it.

Her slate and pencil were still back by Johnny. She went back to pick them up, unsure what to say or do.

“I bet he raked you over the coals and gave you your marching orders, didn’t he?” Johnny said sympathetically.

“No orders,”
Hassie wrote, still unsure what to do.
“He only told me a story.”

“A story about the big, bad wolf, and how that wolf looks just like me, I bet.”

She shook her head.
“He is a good man. I’m sorry.”
She meant to write more, paused to consider her words, and caught a look on Johnny’s face for an instant before he hid it.

The look was one she’d seen on many faces. Faces of men who called her “dummy” with a sneer, and this time there had been a trace of malice in with the scorn.

Backing away, she underlined the words already written.
“
I’m sorry
.”

“You’re sorry all right. Sorry and stupid. I could have....”

Hassie didn’t listen to the rest of it. She turned and walked away, hurried to help Bret carry what he needed to prepare supper to the fire.

Bret was right. Let Johnny Rankin try his charm on a judge and a jury. She hoped they would see through him faster than she had.

T
WO WEEKS AFTER
leaving Rankin to his fate, Hassie woke with a start, frightened for the instant it took to realize the shadow over her in the night was Bret.

“It’s just me,” he said softly. “It’s starting to rain.”

A tiny drop spattered on her cheek, so small it dried before another hit her chin. Bret had her slicker, spread it over her. “Go back to sleep.” For a moment his hand curved around her shoulder, then he was gone.

The drops fell faster, wetting her face. She felt around for her hat, propped it so it protected her head, and pulled the slicker high. Going back to sleep could wait. For a while she wanted to stay awake, think about how he’d risen in the chilly night, brought both their slickers from where they were tied on their saddles, and covered her.

He could have just given her a shake and handed her the rolled up slicker to spread out herself, or waked her and told her to go get her slicker, or left her to wake on her own when she got wet enough. He didn’t have to touch her shoulder that way, making her feel warm, cared for, and safe. The rain pattered down steadily now, the sound against her hat and slicker a soporific rhythm.

Breakfast would be on the damp side, she thought sleepily. Maybe even just crackers and dried fruit if it was so wet starting a fire would be more trouble than hot coffee was worth. The string of summer days marred by nothing but an occasional quick thunderstorm couldn’t last forever, but the rain would probably stop by morning.

If she had her way, she’d give the army deserter who had led them back to Colorado a pardon—because the mountains here were the best place she’d ever been. She loved the crisp air, often scented with pine resin, loved the mountain vistas, the late summer days so much cooler than out on the plains, and the even cooler nights.

Since a pardon wasn’t possible, she hoped Bret had to keep combing mining towns looking for the deserter for a long time. A little rain was nice. One cold breakfast wouldn’t hurt, and when the skies cleared, they would be so blue it would seem holy and touch something deep in her heart.

Hassie fell asleep smiling.

Waking to a steady downpour in a dreary gray morning so cold her breath fogged destroyed Hassie’s ideas about the quick return of blue skies. Merely turning her head brought cold water sluicing off her hat down her neck. Before she could pull on the boots Bret had, bless him, tucked under a corner of her slicker, everything she had on was damp. By the time she wrapped up in the slicker, damp had progressed to soggy.

The last town Bret had searched was a day’s ride behind them, the one they’d been heading to half a day ahead. Half a day on a dry trail over firm ground.

“Nothing for it but to saddle up and keep going,” Bret said philosophically as he dug their winter coats out of the packs.

Hassie nodded glumly. By the time she got the coat on under her slicker, it was damp too.

The rain sometimes slowed to a drizzle, sometimes came down in sheets, but never stopped. By noon, or what she guessed was noon since the sun never showed, Hassie was shivering.

The horses struggled in greasy mud that stuck to their hooves and was probably sucking off shoes. If anyone else had traveled this way recently, their tracks had long ago been washed away.

A tantalizing hint of wood smoke hung in the air once, giving thoughts of shelter in some generous soul’s cabin or barn. Bret caught it too, for he stopped and studied the pine forest on each side of the road, but after a minute he shook his head and pushed on.

Hassie understood. She couldn’t pinpoint the direction the smoke came from either. Finding the source in the heavy forest and rain would be impossible.

By the time they reached the town of Silver Creek, her teeth chattered. She had hours ago withdrawn her thoughts of pardoning the army deserter for anything and moved on to reconsidering her feelings for Colorado, the mountains, and everything west of Missouri.

Bret reined up in front of a building with a hotel sign and dismounted. Gunner crawled under a bench along the front of the building, looking as miserable as Hassie felt. She lifted her head a quarter inch up from her collar and peered through the rain at Bret in surprise. He always went to a stable first, always took care of the horses first.

He reached up to help her off the horse without explanation, and she used his help gratefully. Cold and stiff as she was, getting down on her own might mean taking a header into the mud.

Built of rough lumber, painfully plain, and as dark as the day, the hotel had only warmth to recommend it. An iron stove radiated heat in the middle of the small lobby, and Hassie couldn’t get to it fast enough.

The two men playing checkers at a table on the other side of the stove glanced up and went back to their game. One thing about her dripping slicker, it reached to the floor and hid her unconventional, unfemale clothing.

She pulled off her sodden gloves, shoved them in a pocket, and held her cold, red hands out to the stove.

Dripping every step of the way, Bret squelched his way to the desk at the back of the room. Hassie tried not to look at the puddle forming at her own feet. The unfinished bare wood floor was probably a wise choice in these parts if it rained like this often. For the first time Hassie considered the mountains in winter—snow, wind, bitter cold. She sidled a little closer to the stove and leaned in.

Click, click, click, one of the checker men jumped his red disc over every remaining black checker on the board and swept them all away.

“Ha! That’s three in a row for me. You set up again and reconsider your strategy while I take care of these folks.” He rose and ambled to the desk, a short, gray-haired man who pushed a lot of stomach ahead of him.

He was the proprietor and a chatty, nosy sort. Hassie smiled, half-asleep on her feet as she listened to Mr. Phineas Vance commiserate with Bret about the weather and work at prying more information out of Bret than his name.

“We need two rooms,” Bret said after finally admitting the direction they’d come from and that they’d been on the trail since first light.

“Sorry, this weather has driven a lot of folks off the trail. I’ve only got one room left.”

“Fine. Mrs. Petty will have that, and I suppose you can manage a hot bath for her.”

The changed tone of Mr. Vance’s next words woke Hassie right up. She’d heard that tone before, knew what was coming, and knew Bret was in no mood to be politic about it.

“You said your name is Sterling,” Vance said.

“It is. Mrs. Petty is a widow traveling with me.”

“This is a respectable hotel. I don’t rent to women in trade.”

“Good. Mrs. Petty is a respectable widow, and you’re renting to her.” The low fury in Bret’s voice was as much of a threat as waving a gun. So far it had never gotten to that, but hotels were usually happy to rent two rooms after a token protest.

Mr. Vance showed no sign of being intimidated. His checker-playing friend rose and moved stealthily toward the rifles hanging on the back wall. Hassie made an inarticulate sound of fear, and Bret looked back. All he said was, “Don’t,” and the checker player froze in place.