Reagan nodded. “My thoughts exactly.”
“Should I brush him back a bit?” Joe held up his rifle.
Reagan shook his head. “Taking a shot will let them know we’re here. We’re just going to have to take our chances. Don’s a smart man. I don’t think he’ll make a move unless he has a clean shot.”
Waddell tightened his grip around the teacher’s neck, carefully keeping her positioned between himself and his former crew. He lowered the gun for just a moment to snatch a knife from the top of one of his boots.
Joe motioned that they should run down the hill and save the teacher. “Right now while Waddell’s attention is divided!”
But Reagan held up a hand to still him. Joe’s biggest weakness, which would abate with experience, was that he tended to rush headlong into things without thinking them through first. There was too big a risk of the woman getting hit by a stray bullet from either side if they all ran in, guns blazing, right now.
If only he’d had more time to react after she stepped off the stage. Now the only solution would be to wait till Waddell and his crew split up, and try to rescue her from Waddell once he and the lady were alone.
Waddell freed the closest horse from its traces with a quick slice of his knife and put the animal between himself and his former crew, then threw the schoolteacher across its back.
Waddell peered beneath the large roan’s neck. “I mean it now, Horace. You all stay back. I don’t have the money anymore anyhow. I gave it to my daughter on account of her daughter who’s ailing something fierce and needs a surgery at the hospital down Seattle way.”
Reagan frowned. Waddell didn’t have a daughter!
Carefully keeping the horse between himself and the disgruntled outlaws in the field next to the coach, Waddell led the animal back into the brush.
“You ain’t got no daughter!” Horace called after him.
But there was no reply.
“Go!” Reagan whispered as he motioned for Joe and the posse to move on down the hill and capture the three men who still remained in the field. “I’ll get the teacher.” Interestingly enough, even though Lenny had led Joe to the gang’s hideout and from there they had trailed the men here, Lenny hadn’t shown up for today’s confrontation. Lenny might be smarter than Reagan had given him credit for. What better way to take over the gang than to send most of the key leaders into what he knew was going to be a trap?
As Reagan leapt onto his mustang, rifle in hand, and spurred it toward the ridge where he would soon hopefully be able to see Waddell and the teacher below him, he heard one of the men in the field whine.
“We oughta’ve just shot the teacher and taken away his shield.”
Horace cussed him good and sound. “You know what they do to women killers ’round these here parts?”
“Can’t be much worse’n what they do to bank robbers.”
“Speaking of which…” The sound of several Winchesters cocking accompanied Joe’s dry words.
That was followed by lots of cussing from the outlaws, and Reagan knew that Joe and the men had done their jobs. At least something had gone right tonight.
Now if he could just keep Mr. Heath’s newly hired teacher from getting her hide filled with lead.
Chapter Five
Charlotte wanted to cry, but really there would be no profit in it at the moment, hanging practically upside down as she was, draped over the horse. The ground sped by at a stomach-sickening pace and much too close to her face, thank you very much! Besides, much of her effort at the moment needed to go simply toward breathing, since the ridge of the horse’s back kept ramming all the air from her lungs. She only hoped her lungs wouldn’t take this moment to seize up altogether, like they were wont to do occasionally. That would be yet another of Mother’s dire predictions coming true.
Somewhere a ways back, a bush had stolen her hat, and now her hair hung like a brown curtain in front of her face no matter which way she turned her head. She couldn’t use her hands to move it out of the way because she was too busy using those to hang on to whatever part of the horse or Mr. Waddell’s boot she could grab or prop her hands against. One moment she propped them against foreleg or boot to keep from falling, and the next she grabbed mane and lifted herself up a bit to aide in breathing, and she was never quite sure which need was going to necessitate the most urgent action moment by moment.
“You are a horrible—oooff!—fiend, Mr. Waddell!”
Waddell slapped the reins against the horse’s flank, urging the poor beast to go faster. “That isn’t the first time I’ve been told so. Now shut up so I can think.”
“If my silence is going to aid in your escape, then”—she paused to readjust her balance—“you had better believe that I’ll do just as much talking as I possibly can!” She spat out a hank of hair that had jostled into her mouth on that last word and tried to think of something else to say. “So do you have a wife?”
“A what!?” Waddell pulled the horse to a stop for a moment and turned them in a circle as though assessing their location. “No, I definitely don’t have a wife. Why?” He chuckled maniacally and urged the horse forward again. “Are you volunteering for the position?”
“Of all the—most certainly not!” Charlotte propped her hands against the rippling brown of the horse’s foreleg and tried to catch a full breath, to no avail. “I was only asking to make conversation. So what did you think of the statehood?”
“Lady! Be quiet!”
“It’s just that Washington became a state just a couple years ago, and I wondered what a man such as yourself thought of it because—”
“Lady!” Waddell jerked the horse to a stop once more. But this time he grabbed a handful of her hair and wrenched her neck back. He stripped one of his gloves from his hand with his teeth. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I said”—he crammed the glove into her mouth—“I needed silence.” He released her and urged the horse forward again.
Charlotte tried to spit the glove out, but it was too large to budge. She felt a nip of panic begin to set in as the need for more oxygen tightened her chest. She put all her concentration into breathing and hanging on.
How was she to have known the man was so dishonorable? Despite what she’d seen of him in Cle Elum, and despite the lingering look he’d given her when he climbed aboard, he’d seemed at least close to a gentleman when they’d been in the coach together. He with his top hat and coattails, and she attempting to read the perfectly tragic tale from Mr. James Fenimore Cooper about The Last of the Mohicans between jars and jostles. And then he’d held a gun on her! A real gun! And stuffed her mouth full of sweaty leather!
She probably should have been quiet when he asked her to. The edges of her world started to turn black, and Charlotte wasn’t at all certain it had to do with lack of oxygen this time.
“Ma! Didja hear?” Twelve-year-old Zoe Kastain slammed open the door and practically stumbled across the kitchen threshold of their cabin in her excitement to share the news she’d just heard in town.
At the sideboard where she stood chopping potatoes, Ma jolted at the loud interruption. She turned a look of exasperation on Zoe. “Child! I do declare! How many times have I told you that ladies do not go about yelling and bumbling? One of these days I’m going to end up chopping my finger off when you bound in here like that! Walk properly. Speak quietly. And only then will I hear what you have to say. Now go on.” She motioned with her knife toward the door. “Go out and then come back in and try again.”
From her place at the table where she was shucking peas, Belle grinned and crossed her eyes.
Zoe squinted back at her. But that was as far as she let herself go. She dare not reveal her irritation with her sister’s propensity to needle her every imperfection, for then she’d only receive another lecture from Ma about her temper. Instead, with slow purposeful steps, she retreated out the door, closed it behind her, counted to five, and then quietly opened it and stepped back into the kitchen. She carefully fold
ed her hands before herself, lifted her chin in an elegant air, and spoke ever so quietly.
“It seems that Mr. Heath has gone and hired a teacher.”
“What!?” Belle practically screeched in her excitement and almost spilled all the peas on the floor when she lurched out of her seat.
Even Ma dropped her knife and spun toward her, enthusiasm sparkling in her forget-me-not blue eyes.
Belle rounded the corner of the table. “We get to go to school? How did you hear? When will the teacher get here? Is it a man teacher? Or a woman?”
Fully confident that all the power now lay in her hands, Zoe sealed her lips and purposefully smoothed imaginary wrinkles from the apron of her pinafore. She let the silence stretch, pressing her lips even more tightly together lest in her excitement the words should spill from her before she’d eked out every satisfaction at making her family wait for the news.
“Ma! Make her tell!” Belle pleaded.
Ma only smiled, took up her knife, and set to chopping once more. But she did lift one brow at Zoe.
Zoe had to admit to a little relief at the silent command. For much as she was enjoying torturing her older sister with her knowledge, it was also self-torture to withhold it. She burst out, “Deputy Rodante just done—”
“I don’t know why you call him Deputy Rodante as though we haven’t known him almost all our lives, Zoe. Just call him Joe. It’s not as though we aren’t going to know who you are talking about.” Belle ended her interruption with a huff.
And for some reason, Ma looked like she was trying real hard not to bust up laughing.
Zoe frowned. She was missing something, but couldn’t quite figure out what it might be. At any rate, she was not to be put off sharing her juicy news. She brushed Belle’s concern away. “Well, anyhow, Joe come into town not more’n fifteen minutes ago. He said the sheriff was trying to arrest the Waddell gang, when to everyone’s surprise, a woman stepped off the stage and said Mr. Heath done hired her as teacher!”
Belle squealed and clasped her hands over her chest in rapture.
“Course that was right afore Patrick Waddell took the lady hostage!”
Even Ma gave a satisfactory gasp at that information.
Zoe nodded firmly. “Joe done said she was a real lady too. All frills and lace. Sheriff Callahan is after finding her right now. Her and Waddell.”
“All frills and lace?” Belle’s voice sounded a little like someone had her throat in a tight grip. “Did he say anything else about her looks?”
Zoe’s nose wrinkled. “Belle, if ya don’t beat all! Why would Joe say anything else about her looks? He was just telling that she’d been taken captive!”
Belle seemed satisfied with that information. She nodded primly and paced to the window. “Probably has to dress in frills and lace to enhance her appearance. And she’s probably about as helpless and useful as a newborn mouse too!” Belle continued talking, but the rest of the words were muttered beneath her breath so that Zoe couldn’t hear what she was saying.
A glance at Ma revealed she was fighting laughter again. But even through her humor, she managed to ask, “Did they catch any of the outlaws?”
“Sure ’nough! Joe and the posse had them down to the jail just a bit ago. They captured three o’ that no-good gang. Just not Waddell himself. Leastwise, not yet.”
Belle’s hands were still clasped over her heart as she stared out the window into nothingness. “Reagan will save the teacher. I know he will.”
Ma gave Belle a sharp look. “You may be fifteen, young woman, but he’s still your elder and the sheriff. It’s Sheriff Callahan to you, and don’t you be forgetting it!”
Belle’s cheeks turned a bright pink. “Yes, ma’am.”
Zoe never liked the tension that often stretched like a clothesline between Ma and Belle, so to get everyone’s mind on something else, she stepped forward, took both of Belle’s hands, and leaned far back, twirling her sister in a circle. “We’re gonna have a teacher! We’re gonna have a teacher!” she chanted.
But Belle wasn’t so quick to be thrilled. She pulled away and sank into her seat at the table. “Oh, I hope Reag”—her eyes darted to Ma—“the sheriff is going to be okay! And what if the teacher is killed before she even arrives?”
Zoe swallowed at that. Truth be told, she hadn’t even considered that possibility. Best she run straight to her room and ask the good Lord to keep the lady safe.
Reagan kept an eye on Waddell and the teacher down in the gulley as he followed them from the top of the ridge. He’d grown up in these mountains, and he knew that if Waddell kept to his current path, he was going to run into the middle fork of the Snoqualmie River just around the next bend. Then he’d have the man right where he wanted him with no place for him to escape.
Reagan spurred his mountain-bred mustang ahead, urging it to quickly take the trail down to the gulley just before the river. He waited behind the outcropping of the rocky cliff, and then when he heard Waddell’s horse pass, he stepped his black out onto the trail behind him. With a large outcropping of rock to both Waddell’s left and his right and the river blocking the trail before him, Reagan had the man effectively cornered.
Here the river ran into a deep pool before plunging down the mountain. It tumbled away in a swift cataract that descended in a rush of white water through a cut toward the west.
The sound of his Colt six-shooter cocking was loud in the stillness. “Better just hold up right there, Waddell.”
The teacher whimpered softly. She tried to glance his way, but a thick snarl of her brown hair seemed to be hampering her efforts to see who he was.
Waddell, who had been surveying the river while scratching the back of his head, spun his horse around to face him.
The teacher wiggled, gasped for a breath, then slumped across the horse in front of Waddell as though the life had just gone out of her.
Something clenched tight inside Reagan. Was he already too late? “Give it up, Waddell.” His voice portrayed calm, as though he hadn’t a care in the world. He made sure to keep his gun aimed at Waddell’s chest, where no bullet would be in danger of hitting the woman.
Waddell lifted his hands slowly, but the tug that put on the reins caused the coach-trained Clydesdale to back up several quick paces, and its hind hooves slipped over the embankment into the edge of the river.
Startled, the horse whinnied, and the whites of its eyes showed as it lunged forward, hooves scrabbling for purchase.
Waddell, already partially off balance due to sitting so far back to make room for the teacher, lurched to gain a better hold of something, but the Clydesdale’s lunge forward had unseated him, and with a loud curse he toppled from the animal into the river.
For one suspended moment, he righted himself and stood upright, but the current whipped his feet out from under him, and the last thing Reagan saw of him was his top hat disappearing into the white-water rapids.
In the blink of an eye, Reagan was off his mustang. “Whoa there. Easy.” He held out one hand to the wild-eyed Clydesdale.
The teacher still seemed to be unconscious, but the Clydesdale was in danger of plunging both itself and the teacher into the swift current if it didn’t calm down.
Slowly, Reagan took a step toward it. “Easy now. Come on. That’s it.”
After a whuff of his hand, the horse snorted, and bobbed its brown head, hooves prancing in agitation.
A moan emanated from the teacher, who squirmed slightly.
The horse’s ears twitched back, and the muscles along its haunches bunched as it prepared to buck the unfamiliar deadweight from its back.
Reagan leapt forward, and at that very moment the horse raised up to paw the air!
He lunged farther to grab the woman—and caught nothing but a handful of green skirts!
With a quick jerk, he pulled the teacher toward him and clasped her tight before she could strike her head against the ground.
Freed of its burden, the Clydesdale barrele
d past him and bolted up the trail.
Reagan glanced down, realized he had a hold of the teacher’s legs and had clutched her to himself quite upside down, and scrambled to right her into a prone position in his arms. Now what was he to do with her?
He gazed down into a face that was slack and much too pale. Noting the gag stuffed in her mouth, he pulled it out and tossed it aside. Her hair was a wild disarray of dark curls and broken twigs. It tumbled over his arms in a curtain of tangles. And her lips had a bluish-purple tint to them, like the stain summer blackberries left when you ate them straight from the bush. She had less color than the last corpse he’d seen.
“Miss? Can you hear me?” He patted her cheek, hoping to bring her back around.
Her eyes fluttered open.
“Can’t…breathe,” she murmured.
His heart thudded hard against his ribs. Had he rescued her only to have her die in his arms? What would Doc Griffin tell him to do?
She clutched at him and struggled to pull herself upright.
He lowered her feet to the ground but kept his arms about her to steady her. She was tiny, with hardly any meat on her bones. And fear flashed through the green of her eyes.
He should have thought to reassure her. “I’m here to help. Not hurt you.”
The teacher slumped against his chest with her head tucked into the space just below his shoulder.
A protective urge zipped through him, and he gritted his teeth. It was a good thing for Waddell that he’d been swept away by the river.
Being upright seemed to help her breathe, and he could feel the warmth of her little breaths puffing against his neck as he soothed one hand up and down her spine and gently brushed her wild hair back from her face. “You’re all right now, miss. I’ve got you. Just breathe easy.”
He really ought to be going after Waddell. But he couldn’t very well leave the lady here in the woods on her own. Especially when she was having trouble breathing. Tracking down Waddell would have to wait till tomorrow.
The first thing Charlotte noticed was the blessed stillness. No more jarring. No more getting the breaths knocked out of her. The next thing she noticed was the warmth of the cotton twill, and the thump of a steady heartbeat, beneath her cheek. The third was the tight band cinched around her lungs.
Not a Sparrow Falls (Wyldhaven Book 1) Page 6
