“I went back to look for you the next day,” Beth said
“You did?”
Beth nodded. “Uh-huh. I pretended I was looking for my stocking, but I was really looking for you.” She ran her hand through his hair. “I’m glad I found you again.”
“I, too, am glad.” He tied off the stocking, nodded with satisfaction. “I will help you get into bed, and then I will bring you something for the pain.”
“Where are you going to find a doctor out here?”
“My people lived here for many years,” he reminded her. “Our doctors looked to the land for their medicine.”
It made sense, she thought. She tried to keep thinking about that as he helped her out of her clothes. All her clothes.
She stood on one foot, her hands braced on his shoulders, her cheeks burning with embarrassment, as he helped her into her nightgown, then carried her to bed, tucking her in as if she were a child.
“I will not be gone long,” he said, placing the pistol within reach.
“Hurry.”
The shelter seemed larger without him, the night darker, the storm more fierce. She placed her hand on the pistol, thinking it would give her courage, but it only made her more afraid.
Closing her eyes, she listened to the wind and rain beat upon the thatched roof.
She was almost asleep when she heard a horse whinny. Startled, she reached for the gun, but it was only Chase.
She watched him through heavy-lidded eyes as he fussed around the fire. A short time later, he sat beside her and helped her to sit up.
“Here,” he said, handing her a cup. “Drink this.”
“What is it?”
“Willow bark tea.”
She drank it all, willing to try anything if it would ease the throbbing pain in her ankle.
When she was finished, Chase put the cup aside and tucked her into bed. “Sleep now.”
She nodded, suddenly drowsy. “You should get out of those wet clothes before you catch a chill.”
“Do not worry about me.”
He started to rise when she caught his hand. “Aren’t you going to kiss me good night?”
He hesitated for the space of a heartbeat, and then he kissed her gently.
“Good night, Beth,” he murmured, but she was already asleep.
* * * * *
Beth sat outside, her injured foot propped up on one of the saddles, the book in her hand forgotten as she watched Chase butcher a deer. Ordinarily, such a sight would have made her stomach queasy, but, in this case, it was the man who held her attention. She had never realized a woman could be so mesmerized by the sight of a man’s bare back, yet she thought she would be content to sit there for hours, just watching the play of muscles in his back and shoulders, the way his hair caught the sun’s light. Tall and lean, he moved with an easy grace that was beautiful to see.
She resented the bandage wrapped around his middle because it hid part of his flesh from her sight. She glanced at the jagged scar on his right shoulder and wondered what kind of wound had left it. He would have another scar when the wound in his side healed. Such a shame, she thought, to mar such a beautiful body.
Her gaze slid down his arms, remembering how they had held her. He turned, and she stared at his profile, the finely shaped nose and strong jaw, the high cheekbones. She wished she had the ability to paint so she could capture his image on canvas, and even as the thought crossed her mind, she doubted anyone would be able to do him justice, to capture the wild spirit that dwelled within him, the vibrant masculinity.
Chase stood up, stretching his arms and legs. His side ached, yet there was no help for it. He had to hunt if they were to eat. An Indian woman would have been able to butcher the carcass, but Beth knew nothing of surviving in the wilderness. Perhaps one day he would teach her. Until then, they would have enough fresh meat to last awhile, as well as plenty of dried venison.
He looked over at the deerskin pegged on the ground. Such work was best left to the women, he mused, and then shrugged. He didn’t mind the work. Skinning a deer and tanning the hide were arduous tasks, ones that might ruin the softness of her hands.
He slid a glance in her direction, her beauty striking him anew. He would not have her any different, he thought. He was glad her hands were not rough and calloused from hard work, that her skin was smooth and clear.
His gaze lifted to hers, met, and held. Before he was aware of what he was doing, he was walking toward her, his heart pounding faster with each step.
Beth looked up, shading her eyes against the sun. With the sun shining behind him, he looked like a statue carved in bronze.
Marking her place in the book, she put it down. “Here,” she said, reaching for the canteen at her side. “You must be thirsty.”
With a nod, he took the canteen from her hand and took a long drink. “Thank you.”
“We should have enough meat to last a long time,” Beth said, wondering at the sudden nervousness she felt.
Chase nodded. “How is your foot?”
“Still sore, but not as bad as it was yesterday.”
He nodded again. “What are you reading?”
“Wuthering Heights. Would you like to read it when I’m done?”
A shadow passed over his face, and then he lifted his chin. “I cannot read.”
“You can’t?”
“Nor write.”
“Did no one ever try to teach you?”
“At the reservation, but I refused to learn.”
“Why?”
“I wanted nothing to do with the white man.”
“You should learn to read and to write, Chase. I could teach you, if you like.”
He considered it a moment, then nodded. “I would like that.”
“Good.” She smiled up at him, her pleasure warming him. “What was it like, on the reservation? Why didn’t you like it there?”
“How would you like it if you were taken far from your home and made to live in a way that was not your own?”
Beth glanced around the valley, at the raw, untamed beauty, and then at the man standing in front of her. “I like it fine.”
“But you were not brought here by force,” Chase replied bitterly. “No one forced you to leave your home, or tried to make you learn a new language and a new way of life. Your children have not been sent away to school.”
“I know. I’m sorry for making light of it. Forgive me.”
“There is nothing to forgive.”
“It must have been awful for you,” Beth said, wanting to understand and knowing she never would.
“Yes,” he said. “Awful. Awful to watch our old ones give up hope, to watch our young men grow old before their time, to hear our women weep when their young ones were taken away. At the Indian school, the children were forbidden to practice their religion, or to speak their own language. The teachers cut off their hair and made them wear the clothing of the whites. Our children sickened and died.”
Beth looked away, ashamed of what her people had done to his. No wonder he was bitter.
“My people yearn for home.” He made a broad gesture that encompassed the valley and the high purple cliffs. “They are part of the land. Their blood has nourished the earth. Their bones are buried here, in the land of their ancestors.”
“Maybe someday they’ll be allowed to come back.”
“Do you think so?”
“No. I’m sorry, Chase, I wish…” What did she wish? That he was still living wild and free with the Apache? If that were true, she might never have met him and even though she’d known him only a short time, she couldn’t imagine her life without him.
“What do you wish, Beth?”
“I was going to say I wished that the Indians had never been sent to the reservation, but it would be a lie because then I might never have met you. I know how selfish that sounds, but I just can’t help it,” she finished in a rush, then stared up at him, daring him to chastise her for thinking more of her own happiness tha
n the good of his people.
The hard expression faded from his face as he knelt beside her. “I am glad I met you, too,” he said, smiling.
“You don’t think I’m terrible?”
“I think you are beautiful.”
“So are you.”
“Foolish woman. Men cannot be beautiful,” he scoffed, but she could tell he was pleased, and flattered, by her words.
“You are,” she insisted.
He knelt there for stretched seconds, trapped in the warmth of her gaze, and then, unable to deny the longings of his own heart, he bent forward and brushed his lips across hers.
He had no idea how long they kissed. It might have been an hour or a moment, but when they drew apart, he knew something had forever changed between them.
* * * * *
Chase woke with a sense of foreboding. Rising, he pulled on his moccasins and padded noiselessly from the shelter.
Outside, the horses were stirring restlessly. He watched them a moment, noticing that they were looking east, toward the entrance of the rancheria.
Hurrying back into the lean-to, he grabbed his shirt and rifle.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, perhaps. Go back to sleep.”
“Something is wrong. Tell me.”
“I do not know. Something has spooked the horses.”
Beth sat up, his alarm communicating itself to her. Moving carefully, she stood up, the pistol clutched in one hand.
“I’m going with you.”
“No.”
“Chase…”
“You will wait here. Please, Beth.”
“All right.”
She followed him to the door, watched him throw a bridle on the roan, then vault onto the horse’s bare back.
And then she heard it, the distant sound of hoof beats.
In the clear morning air, she could see riders coming toward them. The intruders had not yet spotted the lean-to, which was built near a stand of timber and hard to distinguish from the forest itself.
“White men,” Chase muttered.
Beth stared hard at the men riding toward them. Unless she was mistaken, Joby Berland was riding at the front.
“Chase, get out of here!”
“I will not leave you.”
“They won’t hurt me!” Beth cried. “Please, go!”
Dismounting, he ran toward her. “I will not go.”
“You must! Please, go. Hurry. I don’t see Dusty with them.”
“I will find you,” he promised.
“Go!” The men were close now. They’d seen the horses. Soon they’d see the lean-to as well.
Chase grabbed her and kissed her hard, then swung aboard the roan.
“There he goes!”
She heard Berland’s cry as Chase disappeared into the forest.
Praying that Chase would get away, she limped away from the lean-to and hobbled into the path of the oncoming horses.
Several of the men swore as they reined their horses to a dirt-scattering halt. Three of the men, Berland among them, detoured around her and kept going.
“Miss Johnson,” Sean Harvey said. “What the hell…heck, are you doing here?”
A dozen answers crossed Beth’s mind. Then, with a sob, she collapsed on the ground. “Help me,” she begged, and burying her face in her hands, she began to cry.
She was immediately surrounded by men, all offering her their kerchiefs as they demanded to know if “that dirty redskin had laid a hand on her”.
“No,” she said vehemently, “no, he didn’t hurt me.”
She was sitting up, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, when one of the men who had gone after Chase came back.
“We lost him,” Fred Walker said, dismounting.
“Lost him!” Sean Harvey hollered.
Walker nodded morosely. “He jumped off his horse and lit out on foot. But don’t worry, we’ll get him. Joby’s got him trapped in a box canyon. He wants the rest of you to come up and help flush the redskin into the open.”
Harvey looked thoughtful for a moment, then nodded. “All right. I’ll stay here with Miss Johnson. The rest of you go on.”
Walked grinned as he swung into the saddle. “Pick out a tree with a sturdy branch,” he said. “We won’t be gone long.”
Beth felt suddenly sick as she realized the men meant to hang Chase as soon as they caught him. She stood up, clutching the blanket in hands that trembled. “Mr. Harvey, where’s Dusty?”
“He…uh, that is…”
“What?” Beth asked, grabbing Harvey by the arm. “What happened to him? Why isn’t he here?”
“There was a little misunderstanding at the jail, and he was…uh, that is, he got shot.”
“Shot! Is he dead?”
“I can’t say. He was alive last I saw him.”
“You’re nothing but a lynch mob!” Beth exclaimed. “You have no authority, no right, to hang anyone.”
“That damn redskin killed my foreman,” Sean Harvey replied, his voice tinged with anger. “Ned Greenway was a decent man, and that Injun gunned him down. We don’t need no more right than that.”
“You’ll be no better than a murderer yourself if you take the law into your own hands.”
“Redskin’s already been sentenced to hang,” Sean retorted. “We’re just carrying out the court’s order.”
There was no point in arguing with the man, she thought bleakly. If they caught Chase, they would hang him.
Minutes seemed to pass like hours as they waited for the others to return. Beth felt her nerves grow taut as an hour slipped by, and then another. She told herself that as long as the men were still out there, it meant that they hadn’t found Chase.
It was near dusk when the posse returned.
“What happened?” Harvey asked.
“He got away,” Joby said sullenly.
“What?” Harvey bellowed. “How?”
“Near as I can figure, he found a way over the cliffs.”
“That’s impossible!”
Joby shrugged. “That’s what I thought. But we combed every inch of that canyon, and he ain’t there.”
“Where’s Murphy?”
“His horse went lame. He’s riding double with your brother. They’ll be along.”
“Why didn’t he ride the Injun’s horse?”
“Alton’s still trying to catch it. Horse is faster than a jackrabbit.”
Sean Harvey grunted. “We’ll bed down here for the night,” he decided, “and head out at first light. Murphy can ride the packhorse. If the Injun’s on foot, he won’t get far.”
“Like hell,” Walker chimed in. “Apaches have been known to cover over fifty miles in a day. You can be sure this one won’t stop until he’s out of the territory.”
“Fifty miles on foot,” Joby said skeptically. “You’re joshin’.”
“I’m dead serious. My pa rode with Crook. He said the ’Paches could cover more ground in a single day than mounted cavalry.”
There was some grumbling as the men took care of their horses, then bedded down for the night.
Later, lying in her bedroll inside the shelter, Beth uttered a silent prayer of thanks that Chase had gotten away. It wouldn’t be easy, going back home, having to face her parents, but none of that seemed important now. Chase had gotten away, and that was all that mattered.
Chapter Fifteen
Chase huddled, shivering, near the entrance to Rainbow Canyon. His hands and chest were scraped raw from his descent down the backside of the box canyon. It had taken two hours to make his way down the steep rocky slope, and another hour to reach the entrance to the rancheria.
The cold air stung the numerous cuts on his hands and chest; muscles he had not realized he had ached from the arduous climb and descent.
Chin tucked against his chest, he closed his eyes. There was an hour until dawn.
* * * * *
Beth felt a wave of regret as she rode out of the canyon. She had been happy there, w
ith Chase. Like Adam and Eve, they had been the only two people in the world, living off the land. She had needed no one else, only Chase.
And now he was gone, and she knew she’d never see him again.
She uttered a silent prayer that he had escaped unharmed.
The posse rode in sullen silence. Joby Berland had wanted to ride into the desert that stretched away behind Rainbow Canyon to search for Chase, claiming the Indian would be easy to track down now that he was on foot, but the rest of the men had disagreed. Sean Harvey had declared that, without food and water and on foot, “the dirty redskin” would die out there. Besides, his brother had added, they’d been away from their ranch too long already. Posters had been issued for the Indian’s arrest, so even if he somehow managed to survive the desert, he’d be caught sooner or later. And that seemed to be the general consensus of the men. Whatever anger had driven them to ride out after Chase had apparently played out, and now all they wanted to do was go back home.
Home. Beth looked in her heart and knew the big white house in Twin Rivers would never be home again. Chase had become her home, her family.
She blinked back her tears, not wanting the men to see her weeping. They all thought she had been kidnapped, and she let them think so. Had Chase been there, she would have been proud to acknowledge him as the man she loved, but practicality had reared its head. It would be easier to face the town and her parents if everyone thought she’d been kidnapped.
At dusk, the men made camp alongside a shallow stream.
Feeling the need for privacy among so many men, Beth spread her bedroll a good distance from the others.
Huddled beside the fire, she listened to the men talk about crops and cows, about the possibility of a train coming to town, about the upcoming church social. After a time, her thoughts turned inward, and she wondered if Dusty had survived his wounds. And then, no longer able to keep him at bay, she let herself think of Chase, of the kisses they had shared, the sound of his voice, the yearning she had seen in his eyes. She wished now that he hadn’t been so honorable, that he had made love to her when they had the chance. She wished she’d been brave enough, bold enough, to seduce him, even though such a terrible sin would have dammed her soul for eternity…
Chase the Wind (Apache Runaway Book 2) Page 13
