As they climbed up another steep rise, Celia peered through the veil of muslin she wore to protect her face from the sun and the trail dust. She felt a jolt in her chest when Roy twisted around in the saddle to look back at her. Beneath the brim of his hat, his hair shone golden in the sun, and the black patch over his eye gave him a reckless, pirate look.
An outlaw. A criminal. A man who lived by his guns.
Celia let her thoughts drift back to Stuart Clifton and Horton Tanner, the two suitors she had only a few short months ago pinned her hopes upon. When she’d imagined kissing them, she’d wondered if Mr. Clifton’s moustache would tickle, or if she could tolerate the taste of Mr. Horton’s chewing tobacco.
But with Roy... When he touched her, when he looked at her, she could not think at all. She only felt, with every fiber of her being. It had seemed as if all reason had abandoned her, leaving nothing but a throbbing yearning that started somewhere deep inside her and spread and spread until it consumed all of her.
A woman would be foolish to give in to such a yearning. I’m not a fool, she had declared with a touch of haughty pride. But perhaps she was. Perhaps every woman had the right to be foolish, just once in her life.
* * *
By the time twilight fell, exhaustion dominated Celia’s thoughts. They were in the canyon country now, a maze of plateaus and gorges with vertiginous drops down to the riverbeds. Controlling the horse on the precarious trail had taken all her concentration.
Ahead of her, the path widened and Roy reined to a halt. Baldur’s hooves clinking on stone was the only sound as Celia caught up and halted alongside the buckskin. Some twenty paces up the trail, the glow of a bonfire danced among the evening shadows.
Roy leaned closer to her and spoke in a murmur. “There’s a party already camped by the spring. We have no choice but to join them. It’s the only place for miles around with water.” He hesitated before adding, “They might be the rough type of men. Best tell them that you’re my wife.”
Not waiting for an answer, Roy urged Dagur into motion again. Celia followed, keeping close. If she hadn’t been so tired, she might have laughed at the way life seemed to be taunting her. Now that she had discarded the dream of a husband and home, she was forced into pretending that she was some man’s wife.
They emerged into a rocky clearing bordered by a circle of soaring cliffs. Darkness was thickening now. A pair of big, bearded men stepped forward to greet them, rifles firmly clasped in their hands.
“Looking to camp for the night,” Roy called out.
“Just the two of you?” a deep voice called back.
“That’s right. Only me and my wife.”
One of the men gestured toward the fire. “You’re welcome to join us. Supper’s just about ready and there’s plenty. No need for you to cook.” Despite the friendly invitation, the man did not relax his grip on the rifle.
“Obliged,” Roy replied, in the laconic manner of many Western men.
They dismounted and took care of the horses, letting them drink from an old iron bucket chained to a rock basin. Water coursed down the cliff in a narrow stream, so slow it made no sound as it gathered into the hollow depression. While she moved about, Celia could feel the eyes of the men following her, and she could hear them talking. In addition to the pair who had greeted them, there were two others, a man and a boy of no more than ten.
Finished with the chores, Roy led her to the light of the fire. One of the men jumped up from the big stone he’d been seated on. “You sit here, ma’am. It’s nice and flat.”
She managed a polite nod. “Thank you.”
Roy gave her arm a tiny squeeze, as if to tell her that these men were not the rough kind, even though they carried guns. In silence, he settled her on the flat-topped stone, and then sank to sit cross-legged on the ground beside her.
The third man, the only clean-shaven one, lifted a blackened stew pot from the fire and began to ladle food onto tin plates. The boy darted about, handing out the portions, starting with Celia, with a curious look at her. Celia tensed, but she did not avert her face to hide the scar on her cheek.
“Name’s Gus Osborn,” the clean-shaven man said, not interrupting his serving of the stew. “This here lad is my son, Gus Junior, and the other two are my brothers, Ben and Walt.”
One of the bearded men spoke up. “I’m Ben. And since there’s a lady present, we might make it Augustus and Benton and Walter.”
At the friendly introductions, Celia felt her anxiety ease. And yet there was a tension in the air, the rifles very much in evidence. Covertly, the men were keeping a careful eye on Roy, and Roy was sitting in a casually relaxed pose that did not hide his alertness.
“Gus and Ben and Walt is just fine with me,” Celia said, forcing a lively tone. “Although Gus Junior might be quite a mouthful for a little boy.”
“I’m not little,” the boy protested. “I am seven. And three-quarters.”
Walt burst into laughter. “No word is too big for that boy’s mouth. He reads like a sponge and chatters like a magpie. He’s not used having a woman about, is all. Soon he’ll start jabbering again. We had a heck of a time keeping him silent while we waited for you to ride up, to see what kind of folks you were.”
Celia could think of no reply to that, and Roy remained silent, so she hid her unease by tucking into the food. The stew was surprisingly tasty, rich with meat. Curious about their hosts, Celia observed the men while she ate. Stocky in build, all three had homely features, with a big nose and shaggy dark hair, alike enough for the family connection to be evident at first glance.
“Where you headed?” Roy asked.
“Place called Gold Crossing,” Gus Osborn replied. Around forty, he was the oldest and clearly the spokesperson for the group. “Do you happen to know the place?” he went on. “There’s been a big gold strike down there.”
Roy shook his head. “Not my line of business.”
“What’s your line of business, mister?” the boy piped up.
Celia tensed. She’d learned it was not a question to ask in the West. There might be a grain of truth in Walt’s comment that the boy was a chatterbox.
“This and that,” Roy replied, with a careless shift of his shoulders. “Have been doing some gold transport, for banks and railroad companies. Don’t know much about mining.”
“Didn’t get your name, stranger,” Ben said.
“That’s because I never gave it.” Calmly, Roy scooped up another mouthful. Silence fell, the atmosphere suddenly charged with danger. Celia held her breath. The other men must have noticed the outline of Roy’s pair of pistols beneath his duster, must have some inkling that he earned his living with his guns. Was she going to get her first glimpse at how an outlaw dealt with unwelcome questions?
After he’d chewed and swallowed the mouthful, Roy pointed his spoon at her. “The lady here, she’s Celia Courtwood. And I’m Roy. It’s not short for anything. Just Roy.”
A sigh of relief whooshed out of Celia’s chest. She’d noticed Walt’s hand tighten around the rifle balanced upon his knee. Now his grip eased again. She resumed her eating and listened to the amicable talk between Roy and the men pick up once more.
“You planning to get rich with gold?” Roy asked.
Gus Osborn gave a dismissive snort. “Not me. I have a sensible head on my shoulders. I mean to set up a mercantile and sell supplies to the miners. These two foolish brothers of mine are keen to stake a claim and try their luck.”
The boy, Gus Junior, had finished his supper and was standing up, giving Celia an intense perusal. She fought the urge to avert her face, or to lift a hand to cover her scar. Ill at ease, she lowered her head and scraped the last of the food from her plate into her mouth.
“Mrs. Courtwood, did you come from a catalog?”
“What?” Forgetting her good manners, Celia spoke with her mou
th full. Was the boy asking her how she’d come into being—brought by a stork, or found under a gooseberry bush, or some other such fairy tale concocted to satisfy curious young minds.
The boy stared at her. “Are you—”
“Gus Junior,” his father cut in. “Shut up.”
“But Pa, Uncle Walt and Ben said—”
“Don’t repeat everything you hear.”
“But Pa, they were saying—”
One of the bearded men held up his hand. “I’m real sorry, Mrs. Courtwood. It’s our fault. The boy don’t mean to be nosy. It’s just that me and Ben have been talking about sending off for a woman from a catalog.” He gave an awkward shrug. “You know, a mail-order bride. When we saw you, we wondered if you knew anything about it. If you had any advice on how to go about it and avoid the pitfalls.”
The other bearded brother, Ben, chimed in. “We don’t want to end up with a woman who’s so buttoned up she’ll throw a fit if a man lets his eyes drift lower than her neckline. Or one so persnickety she won’t let a man have a beer in a saloon. Or...”
Celia held up a hand to stem the flow of qualities to avoid in a wife. “I get the point,” she said. “Perhaps the sensible approach would be to correspond with a prospective bride until you can ascertain that she is suitable.”
“A woman could lie,” Gus Junior pointed out. “Women do that.”
“Gus Junior!” his father admonished.
The boy shot him a belligerent look. “You said—”
“Gus Junior!” his father bellowed.
The sharp tone did the trick and Gus Junior fell silent. Celia fought to suppress a smile. Sponge indeed. And not just what he read in books or newspapers. The boy must file away every comment he heard, every bit of gossip that reached his ears.
“It’s all right,” she said, her lips twitching. “Maybe it is a feminine quality to believe that occasionally a slight bending of the truth is allowed.” She turned to the pair of bearded, homely-looking brothers. “If you want to see what you might be getting, my advice to you is to forget the matrimonial advertisements and look in places where unmarried women who need to earn a living might be employed—stores, cafés, restaurants. Roy found me behind a mercantile counter.”
“Would not work for us,” Ben said with an assessing glance at his brother. “A woman will run a mile when she sees our ugly mugs. We reckon a catalog woman is our only chance. And she won’t get no photograph either, to scare her off before she starts the journey out.”
Celia hesitated. It was indecorous for a woman to speak so boldly, but she felt empathy toward the brothers. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking it is only a man’s facial features that can make him attractive to a woman,” she told them quietly, grateful for the night shadows that hid her embarrassment as she went on, “A strong, masculine body can send a feminine pulse racing.”
The brothers bent their shaggy heads together and muttered something to each other. Celia couldn’t quite hear, but it sounded as if they were plotting how a man could take off his shirt in front of a lady and let her have a proper look. Alarmed at the possibility, Celia cleared her throat and provided more detailed instructions.
“If you court a girl, seek an opportunity to help her up to a buggy, or on a horse, and while you are doing it hold her high to demonstrate your strength. I guarantee you it will impress her.” Celia stole a glance at Roy, to see if he remembered how he had helped her into the saddle when they left Rock Springs. He was looking right back at her, and the glint of masculine satisfaction in his blue eye confirmed that he did.
* * *
By the time they had finished supper and were ready to settle down for the night, it seemed to Roy that the tension was thick enough to fall like a cloud of dust over the stone clearing and suffocate them all. Celia could sense it, too, he was sure of it. It would be impossible for anyone not to notice how the Osborn brothers were watching his every move, their rifles always within reach. More than once, two of them had moved several paces away from the fire and conferred in muffled tones, while the third remained seated, keeping a watchful eye on him.
“You and your wife can sleep over there.” Gus Osborn pointed into the shadows where the cliffs formed a small alcove. “The ground is a mite softer there, with a layer of sand.”
“What about posting a guard?” Roy asked.
“We’ve already agreed shifts,” Gus Osborn replied. “You can sleep.”
Roy pushed up to his feet, addressed his words to Celia. “I’ll get the bedrolls.”
He walked off into the darkness. When he was out of sight, he pushed his eye patch aside. Now would be the time. With his superior night vision he could take care of them, make them hand over their guns. But that would mean risking a gunfight, in case the brothers chose to make trouble.
He slipped his eye patch back on, collected the bedrolls, walked back into the firelight and went to Celia, who sat perched on the rock, her eyes darting nervously from one man to another. Roy dumped the bedrolls beside her. “Can you go and spread these out? I need to talk to Gus.”
Alarmed, she looked up at him. “I’d rather wait here.”
“It’s all right,” he told her in a gruff murmur. “I’ll join you in a moment.”
Celia gave a slow nod, but the fear did not leave her eyes. Roy hated to see her worrying, but there was nothing he could do to reassure her, apart from curling his hand over her arm and giving her a tiny squeeze, the way he’d done earlier. Again, it seemed to work, for she pushed away from the stone, picked up the bedrolls and withdrew into the shadows, the heels of her button-up boots clicking on the stony ground. One good thing about the design of women’s shoes, Roy thought ruefully. He could always hear Celia moving in the darkness and knew exactly where she was.
Once she had vanished into the shadows, Roy turned to Gus Osborn. The man must have signaled to his brothers, for Ben was standing to one side of the fire, rifle cocked and pointed at Roy. Walt and the boy were nowhere in sight. Roy could hear the boy’s angry protest and knew his father had ordered him to be ushered out of the way.
“I guess you’ve figured out what business I’m in,” Roy said quietly.
“Gold transport, you said.” Gus Osborn’s tone was strained. “Only I reckon you didn’t ask the bank’s permission before you hauled away their gold.”
“That’s right.” Roy held his hands away from his body, waist high, palms out. Not quite in surrender, but the gesture of a man seeking peace. “What do you plan to do about it?” he asked, only giving an impression of mild curiosity.
“Ever kill a man?”
“No. Never hit a woman either, or mistreated a horse.”
For a moment, silence fell. Timber collapsed in the bonfire, sending up a hissing spray of sparks. Roy could see Gus Osborn start at the sound. Roy himself had not moved a muscle.
Finally, Gus Osborn spoke. “You seem to think that hitting a woman or mistreating a horse is a worse crime than killing a man.”
“Seen plenty of men who deserved killing. Never met a woman yet who deserved hitting, or a horse that deserved mistreating.” Roy was talking quietly, making sure his voice didn’t carry out to Celia. “I want no gunplay. Not with the lady around, and the boy. If you have a mind to haul me in, I’ll give you no trouble. I’ll come without a fight, but I need your word that you’ll see the lady to rights. She has no family.”
“Is there a wanted poster out on you?”
“No. Never caught the attention of the law.”
“Well...” Gus Osborn’s voice grew light with the rush of release that came from the ebbing of tension. “Seeing there’s no reward for you, it seems a fool’s errand to haul you off to a sheriff.”
“’Preciate it,” Roy said simply. He turned away and went to Celia. The skin on the back of his neck prickled. If Gus Osborn and his brothers were not the good, sincere men t
hey appeared to be, he’d be dead by morning. There was no way on earth he could stay awake and alert throughout the night. Not against three men who could take turns to sleep.
Chapter Seven
Night settled over the clearing. His eye patch pulled aside, Roy kept watch on the Osborn brothers in the faint light of the crescent moon that had risen in the sky. Two of the brothers slept, with the boy sheltered between them, and the third sat by the fire, a curl of smoke rising from his cigarette, the acrid smell drifting over on the light breeze.
As the temperature plummeted, Roy’s ears picked out a faint sound, like a series of muffled clicks. It was Celia, he realized. Her teeth were chattering. Torn with indecision, he listened. He’d settled as far away from her as possible within the confines of the horseshoe-shaped depression in the rock wall, to give her the maximum of safety in case the brothers did something unexpected.
He’d learned not to trust anyone, but now he would have to trust these strangers, just as they had trusted him to share their campfire. Without a sound, Roy eased into a crouching position and moved over to Celia. She lay huddled against the rocks, curled up into a ball, the cocoon of blankets quivering as her body trembled within.
“Are you cold?” he whispered.
She looked up at him, her eyes wide in a pale, pinched face. “Freezing.”
“It’s colder at high altitude, and the fire is small.” He reached for his gray blanket, pulled it along the ground and spread it on top of her pair of fluffy pink ones. “This will help.”
“You can’t—”
“Hush!” Roy cut in, but it was too late. Behind him came the click of a hammer on a pistol. Barely pausing to slip his eye patch back in place, Roy lifted his hands in the air and pivoted on his heels to face whichever of the Osborn brothers was holding him at gunpoint.
“Everything all right?” the man asked.
With his brown eye covered, Roy had lost the advantage of night vision, but the man’s raspy voice revealed it was Ben Osborn. “My wife is cold,” Roy replied. “She’s not used to sleeping outdoors. Could you add more wood to the fire?”
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