The Renegades: Nick

by Dellin, Genell

  She walked away from it while it cooled and lost its scent, and went to sit on the tailgate of her three-wheeled wagon. Well, she would see him again, because he’d bring back her fourth wheel.

  Shocked at that thought, she pushed it away. She had come out here alone and she could take care of herself. She could get used to being lonely, too. The wheel was the only reason she cared whether she ever saw Nick Smith again or not.

  Callie scooted back to lean against the corner of the wagon bed, pulled up her knees, wrapped her arms around them, and stared out at her new home. A show of possession. Today, she supposed it’d have to be a few furrows plowed, because she had no idea how to build a sod house. Sod, for heaven’s sake! Whoever heard of building a house out of dirt?

  And Nick thought her plow too dull. Well, for his information, there was a file in that box of old tools that came with the wagon.

  He certainly hadn’t been very companionable this morning. No doubt he was mad at himself, for fear she would think he had taken her to raise, no matter what she’d said last night.

  She knew how men’s minds worked. From raising seven brothers she knew it was much the same as little boys’ minds worked. That knowledge might come in handy for more than teaching school.

  Immediately, shame washed through her. She didn’t need to know anything about men, because she was never getting involved with another one. Vance was her true love and he always would be, for there was only one for everybody in the world. She would make their dream become real for the sake of their little one, and she could do it by herself.

  Callie got up and got busy, going to the tool box for the file, then jumping down to the ground to sharpen the plow. She didn’t dare even consider eating breakfast, so she might as well get on with her day’s work. Simply surviving out here would take all her strength and common sense, so she needed to keep her wits about her and start finding out how to make a shelter for her babe.

  Plus, at the border camp, everyone had talked about rushing to register at the Land Office as soon as they could after staking the claim and finding its legal description. She glanced at her wagon with its missing wheel, hoping Nick would return with it today. This was her only transportation.

  Riding away with the wheel and the rim held out from the horse as if they weighed no more than the saddle he’d carried this morning, he had looked like a legendary hero out of a book, a man powerful enough to do anything. Just remembering how his muscles had knotted and flowed under his thin, sweat-soaked shirt and how broad his shoulders had looked above his slim waist and hips, sitting so easily in the saddle, made her go all tight inside all over again.

  She gave the plowshare a hard, swift swipe with the rasp. That was the last time, the very last time, she would allow herself to think about Nick today. She must put her mind to sharpening this plow, making enough furrows that anyone could see this claim belonged to someone, and finding the legal description marker so she could write that down.

  As always, she had a folded leaf of paper or two in her reticule. If she finished plowing before Nick … before her wheel came back, she would walk around her claim for a while with paper and pencil and a canteen of water looking for that information.

  She dropped the rasp. After she’d watered Joe and Judy! Good heavens, how could she have forgotten to take care of her animals?

  “I forgot you even existed,” she told them, leading them one at a time in their hobbles to the bucket she’d filled from her barrel. “Doesn’t that seem impossible, as awful as you are?”

  Once they’d drunk their fill and gone back to grazing, she rushed back to work on the plow. At the rate this was taking, the sun would be saying high noon before she had a single inch of ground plowed.

  Nick surely was against plowing. So then, how did he expect to make a living on his claim? How had he been doing it all this time? Had he lived there steadily since he was a boy?

  No, because he’d mentioned cowboying and eating with other men. Surely that hadn’t happened on his claim he liked to keep so private.

  Settlers hadn’t been allowed to live in the Strip before yesterday; only cattlemen had leased it for grazing. So how had Nick’s family made a home here?

  She let the rasp go still and turned to look toward the mouth of his draw as if he would be there waiting to answer her question. The faint sound of hoofbeats immediately turned her head in the opposite direction. She listened. Someone was coming. From the south.

  Quietly, as if whoever was about to ride up to her wagon was already within hearing distance, she laid down her tools and climbed back into the wagon. Sure enough, the extra handgun that Nick had brought her was there, carefully placed on top of the flour barrel, where she’d see it. He had not left her defenseless.

  She took the gun, checked the load, and slipped it into her pocket before she returned to the tailgate and jumped to the ground. Hiding at the side of the wagon, she listened again. Maybe the rider was coming from the east.

  No, whoever it was seemed to be coming from the south—but sound didn’t travel out here the same as in the mountains. She cocked her head to listen harder.

  Yes. From the south. So it surely wasn’t Nick. Yet it could be, if he’d left his claim by some other way.

  Her heart stopped. What about Baxter? Could he be coming back with his brothers in tow? With Nick gone, and her alone?

  With a hard, fast lurch, her heart beat again.

  Maybe something was wrong at the Pecks’ place. But it was hard to believe that with all those men there, they would be coming to her for help.

  This definitely was trouble, though. Whoever it was was riding in such a tearing hurry that her heart began to beat in triple time. That kind of speed on a hot day like this—on any day—could only mean an alarm.

  She stepped out from behind the wagon, shielded her eyes with her hand, and squinted into the distance. A cloud of dust formed as she watched. She couldn’t yet tell what made it, so she turned back to see where Joe and Judy were. This galloping visitor might inspire them to try to take off in spite of their hobbles.

  They were remarkably calm, grazing away as if they would never be influenced by what another horse or mule might do. Since they were very near the wagon, she turned her attention back to the dust cloud, which was now much bigger.

  Once again, she walked around to the far side of the wagon to wait. She curled her hand around the butt of the gun in her pocket. This could prove to be an enemy.

  The thought chilled her in spite of the heat, which was already unbearable this early in the morning. If only Nick hadn’t been in such a hurry to leave!

  She brought up short. Hadn’t she told him she could take care of herself? She could. And unless this was Baxter on a wild tear to shoot her as he passed by at a gallop, it wasn’t an enemy. Enemies sneaked up on people. Enemies ambushed each other. Why, this person’s horse wouldn’t have enough wind left to carry him in an escape.

  The common-sense lecture made her feel much better, and she looked around the corner of the wagon. A horse and rider materialized out of the fog of dirt, but it took a minute more before she could make out much about them. They wore such a layer of dust that she couldn’t see it was a boy on a bright sorrel horse until they slid to a stop a few feet from her.

  The lad slumped in his saddle, gasping for breath, as she ran to him. He was no more than ten, about the same size as her brother Adam. In the midst of her panic, a blade of homesickness stabbed her in the heart. Adam had been more upset than any of her kin, except Papa, that she had consorted with a Harlan.

  She turned loose of the gun in her pocket and reached up with both hands.

  “Get down,” she said, “rest your horse.”

  She looked at the horse standing splay-legged and trembling, lather dripping from its muzzle.

  The boy shook his head.

  “Fire!” he croaked.

  He cleared his throat and spat.

  “Prairie fire!”

  Goosebumps bro
ke out on Callie’s arms. She looked behind the boy, then glanced over her shoulder at her wagon. If it burned, she’d lose everything she owned and her hope of survival. How could she have felt helpless only minutes ago, with all that at her disposal? At least with it, she had a fighting chance.

  “Where?”

  She scrambled up onto the tailgate to get water for the boy. When she went back and held it up to him she noticed that her hands were shaking.

  “South of our claim,” he said, “Pecks. I’m a Peck.”

  He took the water and gulped it all.

  “Some neighbors come told us,” he said. “Them and my pa don’t know what to do. Pa says there was a man here named Smith who seems to know the country.”

  “He’s gone back to his own claim.”

  “Pa give me orders to find him,” the boy said, handing the cup back to her, then pulling on the reins. “Tell me where.”

  Callie’s blood rushed to her head. She couldn’t send him to Nick, who had left her to guard the entrance to his lair. And she couldn’t let him ride that horse to death.

  “Get down,” she said. “Stay with my wagon. I’ll go get Mr. Smith.”

  “No, I will. Pa thinks we’ve got time to do something if the wind don’t pick up too much. He wants that man Smith to help us know where to set a backfire and judge the distance and all.”

  “Get down.”

  Eighteen years of ordering younger brothers around had given her an authority not to be challenged. The boy half-fell off his mount.

  “What’s your name? Besides Peck?”

  “Danny.”

  “Well, Danny, you and your mount are both about played out,” she said. “Stay here and wait for me to come back with Mr. Smith. If you rest a bit, maybe you can plow a firebreak around my wagon.”

  While she talked, Callie’s mind raced as fast as her heart, trying to think how to handle this situation now that she had taken control—this situation of saving all her belongings and those of no telling how many other people’s. Not to mention their very lives. She had no earthly idea how to fight a fire except with water, and that was something they’d have to do without.

  “Help me,” she said, rudely ripping the bridle off the Peck horse. “Hold that mare over there until I can get on her.”

  Staggering, the boy ran to Judy and put his arm around her neck. Callie came right behind him with the bridle, and he looped the reins around and held them where his arm had been.

  Awkwardly, she stuffed the bit into the surprised mare’s mouth, her arms shaking the whole time. She could count on the fingers of one hand the times she’d ever ridden horseback—and never bareback.

  But she wouldn’t let herself think about that.

  “Give me a hand up,” she said, as soon as she and the boy got the strap buckled and the reins straightened out.

  He held out his hands, she stepped into them, and suddenly she sat astride the grumpy mare. She pulled her skirts out of the way as best she could and tried to hold on with her legs, the way Nick had done on the black horse.

  “Take off the hobbles,” she said, tying a knot in the reins, “and pray I can stay on.”

  His dust-covered face fell into lines of shocked astonishment—and that was the last thing she saw clearly. From then on, it was Katie-bar-the-door, because Judy did not intend to waste this chance at freedom. Callie pulled on the reins and got her headed in the right direction, and as they plunged into the long, tree-lined draw, she had to drop them onto Judy’s neck so she could hold on with both hands. She twisted her fingers deep into the shaggy mane and prayed.

  Dear Lord above, help her stop bouncing and sliding around in every direction. She should’ve taken time to get the boy’s saddle, too, for this mare’s back was slick as ice on a mountainside.

  Her skirts bunched and tangled again, and although she squeezed her legs harder, her position felt more precarious by the second. She glanced down at the rocky, dry creekbed, but only for an instant. Too far, it was way too far to the ground. She was used to traveling on her own two feet, not even in a wagon, and certainly not on a horse. All her family had ever owned were mules for plowing.

  Danny’s face and that of his little sister, Hope, flashed through her mind. She thought she could smell smoke; thought she could feel the heat from the flames on her back. It was the sun, the merciless Western sun—it had to be. She tried to look over her shoulder, anyway.

  All of a sudden, the horse plunged ahead so fast that Callie’s body whipped backward from the force. She slipped way to one side and fear pulled all the breath out of her body while the strain threatened to tear her muscles.

  But she wouldn’t let go. She couldn’t. Only Nick would know what to do about the fire, and she had to get to him. Nick could save them all.

  She clawed her way back to the top of the mare and struggled into a precarious balance. She managed to bend closer to Judy’s neck and take a new grip on her mane before the mare flattened out into a gallop.

  Nickajack paused with the bundle of hay held high in both hands over the fence of the rock pen. He held his breath to listen. It was hoofbeats, all right: a horse moving fast. Callie?

  His heart thudded hard. Maybe Baxter had come back and scared or even shot her. Maybe she was bleeding and trying to get to him for help.

  Hot regret sliced through him. It had been insane to leave her alone!

  Instantly, he was furious with himself. She had come here alone, hadn’t she? If she had trouble, it was her trouble. He couldn’t watch out for her all the time. And even if he had nothing else to do, that wasn’t his job. He hadn’t invited her to the Strip in the first place.

  But without your help, she wouldn’t still be here, now, would she?

  He threw the hay into the pen with his mares, then turned and ran to the cabin for the rifle. Without even looking in, he grabbed it from the rack over the door and turned back, crossing the porch in two strides, leaping off the end of it, already running. He headed for the bend in the creek, where, in case the rider wasn’t Callie, he could stop an intruder out of sight of his cabin and the spring and pond.

  It must not be Callie, for surely she couldn’t ride either one of her irascible animals. This was one horse coming up his creek, not two and a wagon.

  Whoever it was, they were coming at an erratic rate: loping and long trotting, then galloping again. That made him think it was somebody hurt and trying to hang on. Or maybe trying to stay conscious.

  Who else but Callie would know or even guess that somebody lived up this draw? Or was it an outlaw looking for a hideout?

  Suddenly the pace doubled to a faster lope, which soon fell into a flat gallop. Why in the hell risk crippling a horse by galloping in that rough, rocky stretch where one wrong step could snap a cannon bone in a heartbeat?

  Nickajack ran harder, but before he got to the bend below the low pool of water, they burst into view.

  It was Callie! He stared, blinked, and looked again. She wore no hat, her hair flew loose and long behind her, whipping in the wind like a burnished silk banner, while the nasty-tempered mare did everything she could to unseat her rider. Callie was riding her, though.

  Barely. Clinging desperately to the mane, she slid to one side and then the other, coming dangerously close to falling off twice in as many heartbeats. Her red-gold hair spilled over her shoulders in all directions, half the time nearly blinding her by flying across her face.

  God help her, had she come all the way from her wagon like this? She must have. How had she even managed to mount the devil mare, in between her constant kicks and bites at the mule?

  Then Callie’s hair blew back and he got a glimpse of her huge eyes, which looked too frightened to see him. He ran even harder. If she fell off at this speed, on that ground, there was no way she’d be unhurt.

  As he ran, he tried to think what to do. No wonder “Runaway!” was such a dreaded warning, second only to “Fire!” A man on foot coming at a horse that was already panicked out of i
ts mind, or even a mounted man racing alongside it, basically only made the terror worse and the horse go faster.

  He couldn’t stand still and wait for this to play out, though—he couldn’t.

  Judy swerved hard to the right and ran under the low-hanging branch of a cottonwood, trying her best to scrape Callie off. At first, when Callie looked up, she raised one hand to try to ward off the blow, then, at the last second, she dropped low onto the mare’s neck and passed underneath, unscathed.

  Nick got to them just as they charged up onto the bank that encircled the pond, the mare’s hooves slipping on the slope. Grabbing at the bridle proved futile, for the mare was quick as a cat and veered past him. But as she reached the top and saw the water, she hesitated.

  He grabbed the near rein and pulled. She came around and started to circle, and he stepped to her side at the same moment she jerked her hindquarters around.

  Callie came completely unseated.

  Nick dropped the rifle and caught her in his arms.

  Chapter 6

  The last thing he ever expected to do was to kiss her. All he wanted was for her not to get killed, not to get hurt, not to fall off that damned crazy mare and get trampled. And as soon as he felt the sweet weight of her in his arms, he knew he’d been granted those wishes.

  But he instantly turned greedy for more. There she was in his arms, still wild-eyed with fear, yet gasping with relief, her luscious lips parted and her breasts rising and falling against his chest with her hard breathing. He glimpsed the ghost of her smile before she buried her face in his neck.

  “Oh, thank God,” she said, her lips hot against his skin. “I thought … I’d die … before I could get to you.”

  The words wrapped themselves around his heart. He crushed her closer, and, still struggling for breath, she lifted her face and looked at him as if he were the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.