“A pity,” Ash replied.
“Yes,” Tamsin agreed. “A pity.”
Hours later, she rolled up in her blanket a short distance from the campfire. Ash and the two Ute men were still talking, and the woman, Shadow, was nursing her baby.
Tamsin had found the Indian woman fascinating. She and Shadow shared no common language, but they had managed to communicate. Tamsin had admired Shadow’s fringed leather dress and her beautifully fashioned moccasins decorated with dyed porcupine quills. She even played with Shadow’s baby, an adorable three-month-old boy with huge, sparkling, ebony-colored eyes.
For the second night, Tamsin found herself tired beyond belief but unable to sleep. She kept thinking of the cougar. If it had crossed the hills, would it follow them to this campsite? Ash had told the Indians about the cat’s strange behavior, and they’d assured him that their dog would keep close watch during the night.
“He is a bear dog, that War-et,” Wrestler had said. “He is small, but he has the heart of a grizzly.”
Shadow had showed Tamsin how to make a soft bed of pine boughs. Using only pantomime, she had explained that the pine needles would keep away insects and snakes. Tamsin was all for that.
But even though her bed was comfortable, Tamsin could not stop her thoughts from racing. Everything that had happened since she’d hit Ash and escaped this morning kept spinning in her head: the mountain lion, the furious dash down the canyon, the beauty of the wilderness, and Ash’s fury when he caught up with her.
She ached all over from her fall. Somehow, she hadn’t lost her pistol when Ash had landed on top of her. She’d managed to conceal the heavy weapon until she’d unsaddled her horses. Then she’d slipped under Dancer’s neck and hid the weapon in one of her bags.
Ash had told the Indians that they were heading east in the morning. He intended to take her back to Sweetwater. She couldn’t let that happen, but short of shooting him, she wasn’t sure how she could get away.
“Slide over, Mrs. Morgan.”
Tamsin’s eyes snapped open and her heart skipped a beat. Ash was standing right over her. She had been lost in her own thoughts and hadn’t heard his footsteps.
“I said move over, woman.”
She pushed herself up on her elbows. By the fire, she could see Wrestler standing, looking in their direction. “What?” she asked. “What do you—” Fear raised gooseflesh on her arms.
Ash pulled off one boot. “I’m coming to bed.”
A heavy weight seemed to crush her chest. “With me?”
He removed his other boot and stood them beside his rifle, then tugged at his shirt. “You heard me,” he said. “Where else would a man sleep but beside his loving wife?”
Chapter 8
“You can’t do this!” Tamsin whispered thickly.
“Shut up, woman. It’s for your own good.” Ash’s trousers and socks followed the shirt, leaving him wearing only his hat.
She clutched the blanket against her as Ash neatly folded his clothing and laid it next to his boots. “You cannot sleep here,” she insisted.
“You want me to tell Wrestler that you’re not my wife? That I lied to him?” Ash balanced his hat on top of his boots. Then he seized the edge of the blanket, jerking it tighter over her breasts to give him room to ease under. “That’s better.” He lay down beside her and slipped his left arm under her head.
Tamsin tried to get up, but she was tangled in the blanket. Fear and a curious excitement made her tremble. “I don’t want to do this.”
Ash pulled her close. “Wrestler likes your hair,” he whispered. “He’s offered to trade me two horses and a stack of beaver hides for you.”
She pushed against his naked chest with both hands, trying to put distance between them, but Ash was as unmovable as a granite wall.
“Stop squirming,” he said.
“Get out of my bed!”
“Wrestler said he’d make you first wife. You might want to consider it.”
The suggestion shocked her nearly as much as having this naked bounty hunter wrapped around her. “Marry him? I’d sooner wed you.”
“I haven’t proposed,” he reminded her.
“I should have said I’d sooner wed the devil.”
He chuckled. “I make it a practice never to marry a woman who’s likely to shoot me.”
“I don’t think this is funny.”
“Taking Wrestler for a husband would beat hanging, wouldn’t it?”
“I doubt it.” She was fully dressed, but the heat of his skin burned through the layers of her garments. Scents of tobacco and leather, gunpowder, and horses enveloped her as Ash’s long legs tangled with hers, and his bare hip and firm thigh pressed intimately into her flesh.
Ash frightened her tonight, but her own emotions terrified her even more. It had been a long time since a man had held her like this. Atwood’s shoulders were never so wide, nor his body so hard and muscular.
A distinctly male odor emanated from Ash’s hair and skin. It wasn’t unpleasant, Tamsin thought, trying to calm her inner trembling. To the contrary … she found his aroma enticing, almost exciting.
Ash was exceptionally clean. She had watched him scrub himself in the stream before supper, rubbing his limbs with sand and washing his hair with a foamy substance that Shadow had given him.
Then she stiffened as she smelled something else, a hint of alcohol. Was it possible that he’d been drinking? She was sure of it when his mouth brushed hers and she tasted the bite of whiskey. “You’re drunk!” she accused, no longer bothering to keep her voice down. “You’re despicable.”
“I’m not a drinking man,” he answered. “Hardly ever touch the stuff.”
“Don’t lie to me. I smell it on—”
He cut her off with a kiss, a caress so hot and demanding that it seared her lips and took her breath away.
“Tamsin,” he rasped.
She gasped as he threaded lean fingers gently through her hair and slowly drew her lower lip between his. She felt the tip of his warm tongue trace her sensitive skin and heard his nearly inaudible groan.
She tried to turn her face away, but his mouth found hers, and this time his kiss was so sweet and tender that her resistance crumbled.
Against her will, her lips parted and the tantalizing kiss deepened. He cupped her chin in one broad hand, sending giddy sensations spinning through her.
When he drew back, her lips tingled and an odd heat glowed in her stomach. She wanted to run, but her limbs were oddly weak.
He touched her face, tracing the line of her cheek with one rough finger.
“Don’t,” she protested. His breath was warm on her face, his mouth only inches from her own.
Another kiss sent her reason spinning.
“No!” She pushed him away, fighting sensations of heat that spread up from her core.
“What’s wrong? You want me as much as I want you.”
“I’m not one of your whores.”
He pushed himself up on one elbow. “Sorry I’m not Jack Cannon.”
“What?” She gave him a hard shove with the palm of her hand. “What does Jack Cannon have to do with this?” A numbing fear seeped through her. How did he know about Jack?
“Everything.” Ash’s voice deepened. “I know about the two of you. I’ve trailed you since Wheaton, Nebraska.”
“You followed me? Why?” She balled her fist and struck him again. This time he caught her wrist and pinned it to the ground.
“Stop,” she protested. “You’re hurting me.”
“I’ll let go when you stop punching me.”
“All right,” she muttered.
He released her, and she turned her back to him, trembling with anger. “What happened between Mr. Cannon and me is my own business. None of yours.”
“He was with you when you shot Sam Steele, wasn’t he?”
“Jack?” She squirmed around to face him. “I told you, I didn’t kill anyone. The judge shot—”
“Right.”
She made a sound of disbelief. “You’re drunk and a liar. I don’t know why I’m even having this conversation with you.”
“Lady, you could teach me a thing or two about lying. Jack Cannon’s a thief and a killer.”
“You must have the wrong man. Jack’s a rancher. He—”
“Admit it, MacGreggor. You’re his fancy woman, and that cakes you with the same horsesh—”
“Don’t be vulgar. I am not his woman. He took me to dinner a few times. Period.”
“Nice company you keep. Cannon’s face is plastered on wanted posters from Texas to Arizona. He robbed the bank days after you left town.”
She felt suddenly sick to her stomach. “I don’t believe you,” she insisted. It couldn’t be true. Jack Cannon had a bad temper, and he didn’t take no for an answer, but surely he wasn’t a murdering criminal. She couldn’t have misjudged his character that badly. “Why should I believe you? You lied to me when you said you hadn’t been drinking.”
“It wasn’t anything that could be avoided, more of a medicinal swallow than anything else.”
“Medicinal?”
“Wrestler passed a jug, and it would be bad manners to refuse. Could be dangerous to a man’s health to insult an Ute. They’re proud people.”
“What makes you such an Indian expert?”
“I lived with outlaw Comanches for two years.”
“Comanche Indians?”
“These were renegades, thieving murderers of the worst kind, shunned by their own tribe.”
“And you were one of them?”
He groaned. “I didn’t have a choice. I was ten years old when they killed my father and carried me off.”
She buried her face in her hands, unwilling to listen to him. How could she tell truth from lies when her own mind and body so quickly betrayed her. “You’re not ten now,” she managed. “And you gulped down enough rotgut to give you courage, then crawled under my blanket thinking that I would—”
“I was wrong,” he said brusquely. “I thought you’d be willin’. I’m not a man to force any woman.”
“Now that that’s settled, get your own bedroll.”
“Can’t. How would it look to Wrestler and Mountain Calf, a man sleeping alone on the cold ground when he has a wife to keep him warm?”
“I’m not your wife. You can shoot me, but I’ll not be taken advantage of by you or any other man.”
He swore softly. “Don’t carry on so. I’m not going to rape you.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Does it sound as though Shadow’s being abused by old Mountain Calf?”
Tamsin listened; then her face grew hot as she realized what activity was causing the groans and whimpers coming from the far side of the camp. “Lecher,” she hissed. She’d not heard the couple until Ash mentioned them. Now it was impossible to ignore their lovemaking.
“If I was a lecher, you’d be making more noise than she is.”
“Blackguard!” She tried to slap his face, but he blocked her blow with a muscular arm. “Try anything again, and … and …”
“Maybe I should let Wrestler have you,” he grumbled. “Those are some nice-looking ponies he’s got.”
“You can’t frighten me,” she lied. “You’re a bounty hunter. Your duty is to arrest me. You said that yourself. You won’t let him have me, not even at the cost of your own life.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“I’m a good judge of horses and men,” she said. “I know you wouldn’t turn me over to the Indians. You couldn’t sleep nights if you did.”
“Damn if I’m getting much sleep tonight.”
“Or anything else.”
He grunted and settled down alongside of her, molding his body to hers.
“Please,” she murmured. “Sleep somewhere else. I won’t go anywhere. I promise.”
“The trouble with you, MacGreggor, is that you don’t have sense enough to know when you’re ahead. Now, shut up and go to sleep, before I forget I’m not a snake like Cannon.”
She bit back an oath.
“That’s better,” he said sleepily. “You’re softer than the rock under my spine.” He dropped his arm around her waist. “But I warn you, trying to get away could get you killed. I come up out of a sound sleep shootin’.”
* * *
Sometime before dawn, the dog began to bark frantically. Ash leaped up and reached for his rifle. The horses, banded together in a small roped-in pen, snorted and whinnied, stamping restlessly.
Tamsin stirred.
“Stay where you are until I find out what’s wrong,” he ordered. See if Jack Cannon and his boys are payin’ us a visit, he thought.
Damn if his head didn’t feel like he’d been caught in a prairie twister. His mouth was as dry as gunpowder, and his gut was none too steady as he yanked on his clothes and boots.
He wondered if he was coming down with fever until he remembered the firewater Wrestler and Mountain Calf had shared with him around the campfire. “Nothing like bad whiskey to make a man a fool,” he muttered under his breath.
The Utes were all on their feet. Shadow was throwing more wood on the fire. Wrestler held the yapping dog by the scruff of his neck. War-et’s hair was roached up and his teeth were bared.
“What is it?” Ash called to the Indians.
Mountain Calf gestured toward the far side of the stream. “Gato!”
It was the cougar out there, not Cannon. Ash glanced back at Tamsin, wondering if she’d be disappointed. She’d denied a relationship with the outlaw, but that was to be expected. If the liquor hadn’t been talking, he’d never have mentioned Jack to her.
As he watched, Tamsin snatched up the blankets and her boots and hurried over to join Shadow.
Wrestler’s inscrutable bronze face glowed in the firelight. The Ute was on his knees, holding the struggling dog with both arms. “War-et is brave, is he not?” Wrestler asked. “Alone, this dog would throw himself into the teeth of the puma.”
“I saw the cat,” Shadow said in her own language. “He came out of the night without fear of the fire.” She handed her sleeping baby to Tamsin and continued adding fuel to the flames.
Her husband nodded. “This man, too, saw the mountain lion. When War-et began to bark, I thought it might be a raiding party.”
“There are hostiles in the area?” Ash asked. “What tribe?”
Wrestler shrugged. “Arapaho and Cheyenne. Together. Angry young men, a few women, mostly warriors. Dog soldiers among them. Those fierce ones who hate the white men for the killings at the place you call Sand Creek. They will not lay down their arms and go to Indian Territory as the white president says.”
Ash frowned. He knew there were scattered bands hiding in the mountains, but he’d not heard of any fighting men in numbers. “How many?”
“Thirty, maybe more. Some men could have been hunting when we saw them pass.”
“We hid,” Shadow said. “The Arapaho and the Cheyenne are not always friends of the Ute.”
“These are not friends to any man,” Mountain Calf pronounced. “Many scalps hang from their lodge poles. All are not white scalps.”
“What is this Sand Creek?” Tamsin asked.
“A disgrace,” Ash said, as he scanned the trees for movement. “In early winter of ’64, John Chivington led an attack on a peaceful camp of Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho and massacred men, women, and children. No one knows exactly how many were murdered, maybe hundreds. But it was pure butchery. I’ve fought Indians when I had to, but it sickened me when I heard of the brutality and senseless killing.”
“You would do well to walk wide of those my nephew speaks of,” Mountain Calf said. “Men who have lost everything have nothing to lose. They would shoot you down like a rabid wolf.”
Ash nodded. “I value my scalp as much as you do, my friend.”
They stood watch until morning light turned the forest from black to a shimmering gray-green. Once they heard t
he puma cough, but it came no closer to the camp.
Later, he and Wrestler searched the far side of the stream. They found cat tracks, larger than Ash had ever seen, and they located a tree with shredded bark.
“The cougar wait there,” Wrestler said, pointing to a limb about ten feet from the ground. “She watched us.”
“She?” Ash questioned.
The Ute nodded. Crouching a few feet from the tree, he brushed aside the bushes to reveal fresh scat and stains of urine. “A female. In her prime. This man believes she craves the taste of horseflesh.”
Ash wondered. The puma had stalked Tamsin’s fire on the far side of the mountain, as it had here. It was unnatural behavior for a mountain lion and growing stranger all the time.
“Mountain Calf does not like this place,” Wrestler confided. “We had planned to go on north to trade with others of our own kind, but now …” He stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Now I think we will take our trade goods and return to our village.”
Ash waited, certain that the Ute brave meant to say more.
“I think I am fortunate that you did not accept my offer for the woman.”
“My wife, you mean?”
Wrestler smiled with his mouth, but his hooded eyes remained cool. “The red-haired woman. I think she brings danger with her. You must not trust her too much, whoever she is. She has power, this female who talks to horses. And this man, for one, would not sleep easy with her at his side.”
“I slept easy enough last night. What did you put in that whiskey?”
A smile spread over Wrestler’s face. “Trouble is, white man, you no can hold liquor.”
Tamsin accused him of the same vice once the three Utes rode off through the trees. “We’ve venison and some sort of roots for breakfast, if you’re not too hung-over to eat. I traded Shadow a pack of sewing needles for enough food to last us through the day.”
Ash rubbed his forehead. “I’ll admit I had more spirits than I should have. I apologize for offending you last night.”
“In more ways than one.”
“I said I was sorry.”
“But you don’t believe I’m innocent. And now you’re accusing me of having an immoral attachment with someone that you say is an outlaw.”
Judith E French Page 8
