Unforgettable

by Rosanne Bittner

  Allyson watched Ethan Temple’s dark, discerning eyes. She had a feeling this Indian scout wasn’t fooled at all, prayed he wouldn’t do any investigating.

  “You two watch out for yourselves,” Ethan told them. “There are a lot of people in this crowd who’ll take advantage of your youth if they can. You can bet this land-grabbing won’t take place without considerable trouble and bickering, and there are a lot of gamblers, drunks, and thieves among this bunch.”

  Allyson reddened a little at the word thieves.

  “It might not hurt to buy yourselves a gun and learn how to use it.” Ethan glanced from Allyson to Toby. “You’ve got an awfully pretty wife, Mr. Harrington. Out in these parts, pretty women sometimes need protecting.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll take good care of her.”

  Allyson wondered why the words stirred such an odd longing deep inside, a special pride in being a woman that she had never felt before. This wild, handsome Indian man thought she was pretty! She watched him remount his horse, a big buckskin for a big man. He got into the saddle with ease and grace.

  “Keep that bonnet on,” he advised her. “That fair skin will burn real quick out here. Either that, or you’ll end up with a lot more freckles.”

  He gave her a grin, and Allyson had never seen a more handsome smile. She watched him ride off.

  You’ve got an awfully pretty wife, Mr. Harrington. She picked up her bag, and in spite of her plain, faded dress and the mud on it and on one side of her face, she felt beautiful. “Let’s go get our supplies,” she told Toby.

  They hurried across the street, and in the distance they could hear the train whistle again. Then came the sound of a locomotive chugging as it picked up speed, carrying the rest of its orphans, and Henry Bartel, to places farther west. Allyson breathed a sigh of relief, but it was also frightening to realize she and Toby were on their own now, in a strange, new land that was unlike anything they had ever known before.

  3

  For the last four days since leaving Arkansas City with his human caravan, Ethan deliberately stayed close to Jane and Bobby Harrington. His curiosity and suspicion about their true reason for being here were getting stronger every day. It was obvious the young couple was innocent of survival in this kind of country, and he worried about Jane, had noticed how several of the single men and even some of the married ones looked at her. Her husband did not strike him as being capable of fully defending her, and he was surprised at his own protective feelings for her, the secret desire she aroused in him. He fought those feelings and wished he could keep his distance, but the couple’s ineptness was both touching and humorous.

  He’d had to help them put up their tent the first night, and the two of them could hardly handle their packhorses. He had taught them the correct way to put on a bridle, the proper commands, how to load an animal so that the weight was evenly distributed. Whoever had sold them the horses in the first place had taken advantage of their youth and ignorance of horse flesh. Those horses were a couple of old nags that could hardly keep up, even though the Harringtons only used them to carry their supplies.

  He had agreed to take some time this evening to show them some pointers on how to use a handgun. The hordes of settlers were nearly at their destination, and once the actual land rush started, he feared Jane and Bobby would have need of such defense. They had already bought themselves a gun back in Arkansas City, but neither of them knew how to use it. He approached their camp on foot. “You two ready to do a little shooting?”

  Allyson looked up from the fire she had built, over which sat a pan that held some leftover stew. “Yes, Mr. Temple,” she answered. “Would you like something to eat first?”

  “Smells good, but I already ate, thanks.”

  “Jane’s a real good cook,” the young man spoke up proudly. “She learned back at the—”

  “My mother taught me,” Allyson interrupted, casting Toby a look that made Ethan wonder. He wished she would have let her “husband” finish the sentence. What would he have slipped and said? The young man’s face reddened a little.

  “I don’t doubt your cooking abilities,” he told her, “but now it’s time to learn something else.”

  She just smiled, and again desire swept through Ethan’s body, but he kept it hidden. “And by the way, call me Ethan.”

  “Then you call us by our first names, too,” Toby said. He took a handgun from his gear, then put on his hat. “Let’s get to it.”

  “We don’t have a lot of time,” Ethan told them. “It’s getting late, and anybody here with children won’t appreciate the noise. I imagine a lot of these people want to turn in early. Big day tomorrow.”

  “Do we really get to go into the promised land and see it for ourselves before the rush?” Toby asked.

  Ethan wanted to laugh at the term promised land, as though they were all on some Biblical mission. “That’s the plan. We go in, come back out, then at noon the next day everybody scrambles for what they want. I have a feeling it won’t be a pretty picture. You two had better be ready. Let me see your gun.”

  Toby handed him the pistol, and Allyson watched Ethan as he studied the gun. He seemed so dark and dangerous in those buckskins, looking so “Indian,” yet the sight of him made her heart rush so that sometimes her chest hurt. She hated deceiving him, after all he had done for them, but much as she had come to look forward to his presence, she realized that somehow over the next day or two, she and Toby had to find a way to avoid Ethan. They had the slowest horses of anyone there, so weak they couldn’t even be ridden. Come the day of the land rush, they would never make it to the best spots ahead of everyone. The only answer was to find a way to sneak in tomorrow night, but they could never do that as long as Ethan was watching.

  She had talked to Toby about finding a way to cheat the others, but he was afraid to try it, sure Ethan would discover them. He could find a needle in tall grass, Toby had lamented. Ally figured he was probably right, but they had to think of a way to get past the man.

  “At least you got a better buy on this gun than you did on those horses,” Ethan was saying. He spun the cartridge. “This is a Colt .38 double-action pistol. Just pull the trigger and it automatically cocks and fires. It’s a good weapon, but with a handgun an amateur should wait until his target is close before firing. It’s not easy for even an experienced gunman to hit something far away with a pistol.”

  “I’ll bet you never miss,” Toby said with a note of admiration.

  Ethan smiled. “Oh, I’ve had my bad days. One secret is to get used to your own guns. They all fire a little differently, and some hit high, some low, some to the right or left. That’s why you have to practice. It’s too bad you don’t have more time for this. All you can do tonight is get the feel of it, how it kicks in your hand, how loud it is. That way you won’t be startled if you do end up having to use it, which I hope you don’t.” He took a leather bag full of ammunition Bobby handed him. “Let’s go. I’ve got some targets set up.”

  He led them to a clearing away from the camp, wishing Jane didn’t look quite so fetching. In spite of the fact that she was married to someone else, he was drawn to her, fascinated by her porcelain skin. Tonight she had already brushed out that long, auburn hair, and it was tied into a tail at the base of her neck and hung nearly to her waist. He wondered how soft it must feel in a man’s hands, how it looked draped around her white shoulders, hiding her full breasts. Surely a woman with skin so white had nipples as pink as flowers.

  He felt like an ass having such thoughts about another man’s wife, let alone the fact that a half-breed had no business having fond thoughts for any white woman. He cursed himself inwardly as he led them to a spot only about eight yards from a row of stumps. On top of each stump sat a can or a bottle, with more “targets” lying nearby, things he had collected that the travelers had carelessly thrown by the wayside, littering the land with no consideration for how it looked or what animals it might harm. The trash these people left to scar t
he land was just one of the things that enraged the Indians about white settlement. They seemed to be the most wasteful people ever born.

  For a half-hour he tutored Jane’s husband, getting behind him at times to grasp his wrist and show him how to steady the weapon. When the young man hit a few of the targets, he gave out a yip and laughed. “Show Jane!” he said eagerly. “She should learn, too!”

  Ethan reluctantly did the same with Jane, a little surprised that Bobby so eagerly let him. Most husbands would want to show their wives something like this themselves, just to prove they were masters of their household and to keep from being shown up in front of their wives by another man. On top of that, most white men he knew would not allow an Indian to stand so close to their wives, touch them the way he had to touch Jane Harrington.

  Bobby’s behavior just did not fit that of a husband, but Ethan didn’t have time to try to get these two to admit who they really were. Besides, he didn’t mind stooping down behind Jane and having her hair brush his lips. It smelled nice, in spite of there being no bathing facilities these last few days. Her skin was soft to the touch, her wrist feeling so tiny in his big hand. It was warm now and coats were not necessary. Her luscious body seemed to fit perfectly against him as he pressed behind her to support her wrist while she fired the gun several times. When she hit a target, she gasped and smiled, turning her face so that it was only inches from his own.

  Never in his life had Ethan been so tempted to kiss a woman just for the hell of it, and never would he have thought he’d have such urges for a white woman. He had just always figured he would and should be attracted only to Indian women. This was a new feeling for him, and he straightened, declaring that was all the practice they could get in. They both begged to try a little more, and he allowed it, but told them they were on their own. They had to learn to shoot without him standing behind to guide them.

  They each hit a couple more targets, and their interaction as they celebrated learning the “ways of the West” did not at all appear to be that of a man and his wife, or even lovers. Ethan found himself hoping there was no such relationship between them, that Jane Harrington, or whoever she was, was a free woman.

  Frustrated by his own desires, he finally declared it was getting too dark to practice any more. “Watch how you handle that thing when you go back,” he told them. “Remember you don’t have to cock it first by hand to fire it, so it can easily go off. On most expeditions like this, more people get hurt from gun accidents than anything else.”

  “Yes, sir, we’ll be careful,” Toby answered. He checked the gun to be sure all the chambers were empty.

  “Thank you for helping us,” Allyson told him.

  Ethan watched her eyes. Was she feeling some of the same forbidden emotions he had felt for her? Something in those big, blue eyes made him wonder. Damn her, he thought. If only she wasn’t so pretty, or so mysterious, or so brave and determined. He would be glad when this whole thing was over with and he could leave “Mr. and Mrs. Harrington” to their new life and not have to set eyes on Jane Harrington again.

  “You two watch out for yourselves from here on,” he told them. “I’ll be busier than ever.” He tipped his hat and left, his disturbing thoughts for Jane interrupted when he heard men shouting back at camp. Obviously another fight had broken out, over cards or who should get a position “up front” in the morning. Ethan wondered how much worse the arguments would get once this crazy mixture of people began scrambling to claim their land.

  Allyson sat down in the grass, her feet aching so badly that she began unbuttoning her shoes. “We’ll never get back here in time tomorrow to get the best lots,” she complained to Toby. “Somehow we’ve got to find a way to stay close by tonight instead of going all the way back. If that one family hadn’t offered to let us ride part way, we’d still be way back behind everybody.”

  “Ally, watch how you talk,” Toby said quietly. “And I still say you’re crazy to think we can sneak through tonight.”

  Allyson sighed, rubbing at a stockinged foot. “Well, my feet can’t take walking all the way back and doing this again tomorrow.” She looked over at a group of well-dressed men, all milling near the railroad tracks, not far from the watering station. “See that big, fat man over there wearing the fancy suit and smoking a cigar?”

  Toby looked. “What about him?”

  “It’s men like that who will get the best pick, and it isn’t fair. They can afford to come in on the train. They’re the ones who’ll get here ahead of everybody. It took us five hours of walking since before sunrise to get this far. Now we’ll have to walk all the way back to the border and do this again come tomorrow noon. Do you realize how much walking that is, Toby? By the time we get back tonight we’ll be wishing we were dead, and these old horses of ours might be dead. Even if we ride them, we’ll be behind.”

  Toby glanced around at the hundreds of people who milled about just in the immediate area. As far as he could see, thousands more were inspecting the land, plotting their strategies to claim the choicest spots. In the distance he could see Ethan Temple riding among them, keeping an eye on everyone. Throughout the crowd soldiers kept watch. “Ally, this is the best we can do. We’ll never get away with trying to do anything illegal.”

  Allyson glared at the men standing near the tracks, the fat one pointing at the ground as though to show where he would build something, all of them laughing. She supposed the laughter was over their joy at thinking about the money they would make claiming land near the railroad. One of them began walking off several paces, as though to judge how much room a building would take.

  “That’s where we want to be, Toby,” she said, a determined look in her eyes. “Right where those fat, rich men are standing. They know the best spots to take, and they’ll be here lickety-split tomorrow afternoon to claim them. We’ve got to find a way to get here ahead of them.” She removed her other shoe and began rubbing her foot again. “I’m not making this trip all over again tomorrow, just to get here last and find nothing left. We’re going to claim a couple of lots near the railroad, and before you know it we’ll be rich. There’s a reason we got on that orphan train, Toby, and this is it. Most of our lives other people have taken advantage of us. Even our grandparents wouldn’t help us. I’m ready to show them all, especially Henry Bartel, that we can do just fine without any of them. This is the best chance we’ve had to never again depend on other people.”

  “Ally, we can’t—”

  Toby left the sentence unfinished when he saw Ethan riding toward them. Ethan grinned when he saw Allyson sitting and rubbing her feet. “Quite a walk, wasn’t it?”

  Allyson looked up at him with a scowl. “We’re all right.” She resented the humor in his eyes, but she could not quell the way the sight of him stirred odd, new feelings deep inside.

  It was obvious to Ethan that Jane Harrington was in pain; both she and her husband looked bone-weary. He noticed the shoes Jane had taken off were well worn, the soles probably so thin that she felt every little stone along the way. The toe of one of her socks had a hole in it, which she tried to keep her hand over as she rubbed at her foot. Wherever these two came from, it was obvious they had been poor. Jane’s faded blue calico dress was a little big on her, as though it had been given to her by someone instead of being made just for her. Her long, red hair was twisted clumsily into a bun, and there were dark circles under her eyes. Her slat bonnet hung at her back, and the fair skin of her face was turning red from the sun.

  Ethan couldn’t help feeling sorry for her, and the ache the woman stirred in him simply would not go away. He wished he could do something to help these two find their dream. He admired Jane’s determination to be strong and uncomplaining, but from here on he dared not show any favoritism. His job was only to make sure everyone knew their boundaries and to keep them all from killing each other once the land was opened. He did not look forward to any of it. “Have you decided what lots you want?” he asked.

  Allyso
n nodded toward where the men in suits were standing near the train. “Right over there, near the railroad. You can’t go wrong opening a restaurant and a boarding house right by a railroad depot.”

  Ethan struggled not to laugh. Such big plans these two had. Considering their age and what they had to start with, it was almost comical; yet it was equally sad. He felt an odd ache in his heart at the look of hope and determination in Jane’s eyes, and he also felt alarm. She actually seemed to be serious about claiming land near the railroad. “Jane,” he spoke up, “I hate to tell you, but railroad lots are going to be the first to be taken. A lot of these people can afford the high fares to have a train bring them in. It’s businessmen from the bigger cities, like those standing over there, who will grab up the railroad lots. By the time you and your husband get here, those places will be gone.”

  “Wherever we make a claim, we’ll do just fine,” Allyson answered. “It isn’t fair that those with more money should get the advantage of using a train. All this new land should be for people just starting out. Those men over there probably already own all kinds of businesses someplace else.”

  “Most likely. That’s the way life is. Those who have the most seem to get the advantages.”

  “Well, someday my husband and I will be in the same position.” Allyson began pulling a shoe back on, her mind whirling with confusion as to how she was going to somehow slip past this eagle-eyed scout after dark.

  “There’s a wagon full of supplies back over there behind you,” Ethan spoke up, pointing to a huge supply wagon that a traveling salesman had driven into the new district from the eastern border. “Maybe he has some shoes along that would fit you. Looks to me like you need a new pair. You ought to go and see him. Maybe he can see about getting you a cookstove. He claims he’s got a lot more supplies coming in by train after tomorrow. Get your order in early. He’s going to be a busy man pretty quick.”