The culprit set Zach’s tin plate on the ground near the fire, ladled beans into it, and picked up a fork. He squatted down and balanced the plate on his knees before he commenced eating. Zach noticed he kept his left hand in his pocket the whole time.
Something must be wrong with the thief’s left arm. Looked too young for it to have been a casualty of the War. Lots of other ways to get hurt out here. Whatever had happened to his left arm, his right one worked well enough. He forked food into his mouth like he hadn’t eaten in a week.
Zach let him shovel beans for a few minutes. Crook or not, anyone that hungry deserved a meal. When the kid stopped eating, Zach couldn’t figure out what he was doing. It looked as if he used the fork to scratch around on the ground, so he must have eaten his fill. Zach slipped his hand from beneath the cover and cocked the pistol.
“Hold it right there, son. I’d like to know why you’re eating without at least a howdy to the man who provided the food.”
The boy paused, then set the plate down slowly. “I left money here on a rock to pay for it.”
Odd sounding voice, but the kid was probably scared. Zach slipped from his bedroll and stood, but kept his gun pointed at the food robber. “Maybe.”
Zach walked toward the kid, careful to train his gaze so the firelight didn’t dim his eyesight. Sure enough, he spotted a couple of coins on the rock beside his pot of beans, or what remained of them, and his empty plate.
He faced the intruder. “Why not just come into camp earlier instead of sneaking in after you thought I was asleep?”
“I—I was afraid you weren’t friendly.”
Zach thought he also heard the kid mutter what sounded like “...or maybe too friendly.” Must be the wind, he thought, as he neared the boy.
Zach motioned with his free hand. “I don’t begrudge anyone food, but I hate dishonesty and sneaking around. Stand up so I can see you.”
The kid stood, hat low over his face and his good hand clenched.
Zach reached to push the brim back. “What’s your name?”
The kid stepped forward. “None of your business, mister.”
A fistful of sand hit Zach’s face. He heard his assailant run. Mad as the devil, Zach brushed grit from his eyes and set out in pursuit. The kid was fast, he’d give him that, but so was Zach. His longer legs narrowed the distance between them. With a running lunge, he tackled the kid.
“Oof. Let me go.” The lad was all wriggles and kicking feet as he squirmed trying to escape.
Zach wasn’t about to let that happen. They rolled in the dirt. In one move Zach pinned the boy’s good arm. The hat fell aside and a mass of curls spilled around the kid’s face.
His jacket parted and unmistakable curves pushed upward where Zach’s other hand rested. Zach stared in disbelief. Registering his hand pressed against a heavenly mound shocked him and he jerked his paw away.
“Well, I’ll be damned. You’re not a boy.”
The woman glared at him. “Right, and you’re not exactly a feather. Get off me.”
Zach stood and bent to help her but she curled into a ball where she lay. “Ma’am, you okay?”
“Just dandy.” She sat up, moving like a hundred-year-old. She glared at him while holding her stomach with her good hand. The other arm dangled uselessly. “You’ve likely broken the few uninjured bones I had left.”
His temper flared. “Hey, lady, don’t try to put the blame on me. If you’d been honest and come into camp like any other traveler, I’d have shared my food with you.”
“Yeah, well a woman on her own can’t be too careful and I don’t know you or anything about you.”
Zach saw her point. Though most Western men would respect a woman, it wouldn’t help if she ran into one of the exceptions.
“What’s wrong with your arm?”
She glared at him and appeared to debate with herself before she said, “Fell out of a tree. My arm caught in the fork of a branch. Pulled it out of socket and I can’t get it back.”
Well hell. As if he didn’t have enough on his mind. Now that he’d decided not to speak to another woman unrelated to him, this bundle of trouble showed up needing a keeper.
Resigning himself to one more stroke of bad luck, he said, “Take off your coat and come over here to my bedroll.”
The campfire sparked less than her eyes. “I’ll do no such of a thing. Don’t be thinking you can take liberties because I ate your food and I’m injured. I paid for the food.”
Zach exhaled and planted his fists on his hips. “Ma’am, there’s not enough money in Texas to pay me to take liberties with you. If you’ll move to my bedroll and lie down, I’ll put your arm back in place. You’ll likely have to take off your, um, your shirt.”
She looked him up and down as if she weighed him and found him lacking. “I figured you for a rancher. You a doctor then?”
“Ranchers have to know a good bit about patching people.”
She straightened herself and swished past him as if she wore a ball gown instead of a man’s torn britches. Watching the feminine sway of her hips as she sashayed to the other side of the campfire, he wondered how he ever mistook her for male. He followed her and tried not to appreciate her long legs or the way the fabric molded to them like a second skin.
When she reached the blasted bedroll he’d been stuck with, she slid out of her jacket. A grimace of pain flashed across her face as the weight of the light coat slipped down her injured arm. In one graceful move she plopped down on the bedroll.
“You’re sure you can do this?” she asked and looked up at him.
Flickering firelight placed her features in shadow. Moving closer, he figured the poor light played tricks on him, for he couldn't tell the color of her hair. He decided she had light brown or dark blonde curls. Whatever color her eyes were, maybe blue or green, they were big and watched him with suspicion.
“Yes. Sorry, I don’t have any spirits with me to deaden the pain.”
“I never touch alcohol. If you’re sure you can do this, just get on with it.” She unbuttoned her shirt and winced as she slid the injured shoulder and arm free, and then stuck her chin up as if she dared him to make an improper comment or gesture.
He knelt beside her, keenly aware of the differences that proved her womanhood. A chemise of fabric worn so thin as to be almost transparent pulled taut across her breasts. He swallowed and willed himself to ignore the dark circles surrounding the pearly peaks thrusting at the flimsy material. The memory of the lush mound he’d touched briefly wouldn’t leave him. He’d been alone too long and had better concentrate on the job at hand.
“Stretch out and try to relax. I’ll be as gentle as I can, but this will hurt.”
“Hurts already, but I better put my bandana in my mouth so I don’t scream. I’m not a whiner, mind, but wouldn’t want to draw attention if there’s others nearby.” She slipped the cloth knotted around her neck up to her mouth like a gag, then laid down.
She moaned but didn’t fight him. Zach had seen this done numerous times over the years and had performed it twice. He probed her shoulder gently, then rotated her arm to slip it back into place.
He listened for the snick of the bone reseating itself in the socket. When he finished, he massaged the muscles of her upper arm and shoulder. She’d likely be sore for weeks, but the harm she had done wasn’t permanent.
“Have to give it to you, ma’am. You were the quietest patient I’ve ever seen.”
She lay with her face turned away from him. When he leaned over, he realized she’d passed out.
Zach loosened the cloth across her mouth then spread her jacket over her. He used water from his canteen to wet his own bandana and bathed her face. Her eyes opened and she started.
He placed a hand on her good shoulder. “Whoa, take it easy. Reckon you passed out from the pain, but I’m finished. We can make a sling for your arm and in a few days you’ll be good as new.”
“Got to get moving. You’d better do the sam
e, mister.” She tried to sit up, but fell back and closed her eyes in pain.
“Why would I move out at this time of night?”
This time she sat up. “There’s men chasing me who’d slit your throat for that fine hat of yours. Think what they’d do for all your gear.”
Anger shot through him. “So, you were going to eat my food and leave me asleep for them to ambush, were you?”
“No. I wrote you a note on the ground by the fire, but you walked right past it.” She nodded toward the trees. “I planned to stand behind that brush and toss rocks at you ‘til you waked up so you’d see it.”
Zach walked over to the campfire. Sure enough, she’d scratched out a message in the dirt.
Beware two young men here soon - back shooting killers.
He rubbed out the words with the toe of his boot then turned to her. “How soon?”
“I figure they’re only a couple hours behind me, maybe closer unless they bedded down for the night. They’ll sneak up on you. Or one will come in to camp all friendly and the other will come up and shoot you from behind. They’re both crazy and mean as sidewinders.”
“Then we’d better get moving.” He doused the fire, gathered his cooking supplies, and picked up his saddle. Without the fire, it was dark. Moonlight in front of the clouds drifting in let him make out her features. When she sat staring at him, he asked, “You coming or staying?”
Surprise showed in her face. “You mean you’re fixing to let me ride along with you?”
“Where’s your horse?”
“They got him but I have a couple of mules in the gully behind those trees,” she pointed, “‘Bout a hundred yards south.”
“Ma’am, you just pointed due east. Forget it. Wait here and I’ll get them.” He dug in his saddlebags and tossed her the spare shirt he always carried. “Make a sling for your arm with this. Then, if you feel well enough, you can roll up this blasted bed while I fetch your animals.”
Zach stomped off down the gully where he found two heavily laden mules. A man’s heavy sheepskin coat hung over the saddle one mule wore. The animal also carried bulging saddlebags and several sacks tied behind.
The other bore such a heavy load Zach wondered who had heaved all those bags onto the animal’s back. And what the sacks contained. He didn’t miss the rifle in a saddle scabbard, so maybe she told the truth about the danger.
He grabbed the saddled animal’s reins and tugged it up the side of the wash and into his camp. A woven rawhide tethered the second pack animal to the first one. Zach’s uninvited guest might not have food, but she had a hell of a lot of something.
Zach didn’t know what he expected to find back at his campsite, but she stood tying that blasted bedroll in place on Solomon as well as she could with one usable arm. Stepping forward, he handed her the reins of her mule and took over the job of cinching everything down on his horse.
“You can ride the mare instead of that mule. Daisy’s gentle.” He hefted his spare saddle onto Daisy and tightened the cinch. Gauging the woman’s long, shapely legs, he adjusted the stirrups.
She grimaced as she slid her injured arm into the huge coat and adjusted the sling. “Thanks. In that case, I’ll switch a few of these bags and even up the load on the mules.”
As if she could manage one-handed. She could barely slip on the heavy coat. Lord protect him from crazy women. “You mount up and wait while I move some of the sacks.”
The wind hit with an icy blast. Rain or worse would surely follow soon. Her sheepskin coat must have belonged to a man almost a foot taller than her, but she’d need the warmth the extra length offered.
She handed him the lead rope. “Make sure they’re tied on good and don’t spill anything out. Those bags contain all I have in the world. I wouldn’t want to lose any of my stuff.” She met his gaze. “You know how to avoid the Buffalo Gap road? Pa said stay away from it or I’d likely run into Indians.”
“We’ll avoid it.” He was surprised when she managed to mount Daisy unassisted. If she was familiar enough with horses to mount with only one hand, he wondered how she’d managed to lose her own horse.
She let loose a big sigh. “That’s good. I’ve been awful worried about that since I left home. Indians and the quicksand at the river. Pa tried to tell me how to go, but he didn’t draw me out a map. Reckon I’m turned around.”
“Why’d your Pa let you wonder off alone?” He moved a sack to even the mule’s load. Barely any moonlight guided him now. Judging by the weight, this sack likely held clothes.
A stricken look crossed her face. “He died. Knew he was going, so he told me what to do.”
“What happened to your horse?” Some of the packs were so heavy he figured they contained gold or money in some form. He wondered if she’d robbed a bank, but didn’t recall hearing of such recently by a woman or boy.
“Spooked and ran off. I’d just unsaddled her to brush her down some before I hobbled her. That was before I hurt my arm. Saw the two after me go by later with my horse. They almost caught me. I was in a tree above them. Getting down is when I hurt my arm.”
“Good thing you had mules.” He gauged the load and figured he’d evened out the weight between the animals.
“Had to toss my food away to make room for the saddle and me. I was awful hungry when I smelled your campfire.”
“Must be important stuff in all those bags if they’re worth more than food.”
“Important to me. Things from my parents and my stepfather.” She paused as if considering whether to tell him more, but she didn’t add anything.
Zach looped the mule’s tether to her pommel. He mounted Solomon, then started out, her beside him and mules bringing up the rear.
“Ma’am?”
“Yes.” She met his gaze, her eyes wide with fear.
Dang, that went right under his skin. Hadn’t he proved she could trust him? “Who are these two men after you?”
She took a deep breath. “My stepbrothers. While my stepfather was still alive but already real sick, they lost a good bit of money at cards to a terrible man who wants me for...well, not for a gentlemanly reason. They agreed to trade me for the IOU as soon as Pa died and wasn’t around to prevent it.”
No wonder she was on the run. “Men from your own family sold you? That’s high stakes for any game.” They passed through the heavy brush near the river.
“They’re crazy mean, the meanest men I ever saw except for the one they promised me to. They hate me ‘cause their Pa treated me like his own daughter, even after Mama died.”
“What’s your plan, then?”
“I’m going east, to Atlanta, where I can be a lady and live with civilized folks like Mama told me about.”
“That where she was from?” He wondered where she’d been for the past few years. Didn’t she know what had happened to Atlanta in the War?
She plowed on. “Mama grew up at Jonesboro near Atlanta before my real father and her married and moved to Texas. He died when I was three. We had a terrible time until she met my stepfather a year later.”
“She plan on going back there to get away, too?”
“No. Pa was always good to us, but we were stuck all alone on his place. Mama was lonely for women to talk to and longed for the social life she’d known in Atlanta. Used to tell me about the balls, teas, quilting bees and such she attended there. How if we were there, I’d have girls my age to visit. Sounded real nice, so that’s where I’m headed.”
“So you’re thinking it will be the same as around twenty or thirty years ago?” For a bit he chewed his lip and frowned. How should he put this? “Ma’am, you know the War leveled Atlanta, don’t you?”
“I’d heard the news but wasn’t sure how much of it was true. Sometimes Rusty and Frank told lies just to upset me. Thank goodness word came after Mama was too sick to understand what it meant to her memories.”
“You heard from any family since then?” Surely she wasn’t bolting across the county without a safe hav
en waiting for her.
“No family left, but I figure it’s as good a place as any to start over. Long way from my stepbrothers.”
He stopped and turned in the saddle. “What’s your name?” He would have sworn the question panicked her, but she answered.
“Price. Alice Price. Yours?”
“Zach Stone. I’ll lead now. Keep up if you’re going with me, Miss Price.”
Chapter Five
To Alice it seemed they’d ridden hours over the rough terrain. She didn’t know why she’d told the man her middle name instead of Mary, but it pleased her she had. After all, she didn’t know him. No point him knowing all her business. Besides, that’s who she’d be from now on. She said the words in her mind, liking the sound of them.
Alice Price, Alice Price. Miss Alice Price of Atlanta, Georgia. Not bad, but when she got to Atlanta maybe she’d take her mama’s maiden name of Hardeman and really get a fresh start.
They’d crossed the Brazos River and were riding in the Palo Pinto Mountains. Pa had warned her there was quicksand so bad whole wagons and teams had disappeared in places along the Brazos River, and she’d dreaded the crossing. The man, Zach Stone, knew a safe place to cross at a shallow spot, and they had no trouble other than getting their legs soaked in the icy water.
He soon turned onto a narrow trail up the side of a ridge. She’d heard Pa say these were tiny for mountains and most folks called them hills, but this one looked high to her. Zach went straight up into the night so she followed.
After a bit he swiveled in the saddle and pointed down. “There’s a campfire.”
She looked back and saw the glow far below them on the other side of the river. Could it be Rusty and Frank? Fear, not cold, sent shivers slithering down her spine.
“Reckon it could be them. If so, I hope they stay put the rest of the night and let us get far ahead.”
High Stakes Bride, Men of Stone Mountain Book 2 Page 3
