At last Ransom spoke, the words a soft rasp of sound. “And you, Miss Mason? Do you think you know? Did your brother reveal to you just who he thought I might be?”
“Do you really think that you would be free at this moment if he had?”
Lettie held the hard gaze directed to her with a great effort, held it partly from pride, partly from the knowledge that to avoid it would be to court disbelief and therefore death.
There was nothing to indicate that he would let her go even if he accepted what she said; still, there was always a chance.
Oh, if she only had a pistol! Henry had shown her how to shoot years ago. A heavy army-issue Colt would give her the advantage, would allow her to take the Thorn back to Natchitoches and turn him over to the authorities. He would not expect her to be a threat; that was something he reserved for himself.
It did not do to think of such things. Instead, she concentrated on the man’s appearance, trying to impress it on her memory. It was difficult to do at the distance he had maintained between them. His eyes were indistinct under the shadow of his hat brim, but it appeared they might be that indeterminate color known as hazel, something that might explain the different eye colors attributed to him. His hair, where it could be seen, was a dull dark brown, and his skin was rather swarthy. His features were obscured by the mustache, which extended in a drooping curve onto his angular cheeks, though they appeared regular enough, with a hard, cynical cast. He might have been an attractive man — once, in a raffish fashion, before he had been marked by the life he had chosen.
Alerted by the searching intensity of her gaze, Ransom took a step backward, at the same time making a swift gesture of dismissal. “I advise you to go home while you still can. Not just back to where you are staying, but home to the North, where you know what you are doing and can meddle in local affairs in safety.”
A sharp retort rose in her mind, but she suppressed it. Her voice soft and yet dry, she said, “Your concern is overwhelming. I take it that you are releasing me?”
“I never held you,” he answered with equal softness. “If I had, you would have known it when I let you go.”
Lettie stared at him as her heart began to jar in her chest and a curious languor crept along her veins. She could feel the heat of a flush spreading upward until it reached her hairline. Fear and revulsion swept over her in waves, but beneath it was something that she recognized only vaguely and yet which left her aghast. It was a definite response in the innermost reaches of her being to the leashed strength and the sheer male force she recognized in the man before her. It was a betrayal, one for which she despised herself, though she could not deny it.
Wrenching her gaze from his by will alone, she swung around in a swirl of tan skirts and plunged away from him.
The climb back up the slope to where she had left the buggy was the longest one Lettie had ever made. She could feel the Thorn’s gaze upon her, was aware of his satisfaction with the way the exchange between them had gone. She half expected him to come after her, to lay hands upon her, to say he had changed his mind and she could not go. There had been the timbre of a threat in his last words that made it seem entirely possible.
Once in the buggy, she sat with her hands clenched in her lap while long tremors shook her from her head to the tips of her high-button shoes. She could not understand what had just happened to her, could not believe that she had spoken as she had to her brother’s killer. The things she had said came back to ring in her ears, and she was amazed that she still lived. Not that she would take any of it back. The pleasure of telling the Thorn to his face exactly what she thought of him would have been worth the cost, was worth even the self-knowledge she had gained.
She had left the tablecloth that had contained her lunch beside the spring as well as her hat. It didn’t matter; she wasn’t going back. Gathering the reins, slapping them against the haunches of the mare, she turned the buggy and sent it wheeling in the direction of Natchitoches.
The wind fluttered the hood of the buggy and whipped the sand raised by the horse’s hooves, whirling it up into Lettie’s face. The sky grew darker. Now and then there came the distant rumble of thunder, but the rain held off.
The road wound endlessly. It had not seemed so far coming as it did now on the return journey. She felt driven, as if the furies were on her trail, and once she thought she heard an echo of horse’s hooves as if she was being followed. Imagination, she told herself, or else an echo sent back by the woods; why would the Thorn want to follow her? Still, she sent the horse along at a brisk pace and cast as many anxious looks behind her as she did at the dark clouds gathering in the sky.
It was odd how alike the rutted roads looked traveling in this direction. The impression of a main military highway was much less. Lettie paused several times as the road forked, uncertain of which branch or turning to take. She always chose what she perceived to be the most well-traveled road, but as time passed, as nothing she saw looked familiar and the landmarks she expected to see failed to appear, the fear that she had made a mistake grew. She searched her map, but without the sun as a guide or some hint of where she was, it was useless. She fully intended to ask the first person she saw to direct her, but there had been no houses, no settlements, no other travelers for miles.
Her arms and shoulders ached from the unaccustomed strain of driving. She found that she was clenching her teeth and forced herself to relax. Ahead of her was a ford for some creek that should not have been on the road she was traveling. With a frown between her eyes and her mouth set in a straight line, she guided the horse down the incline that led to the creek and under the huge cypress trees draped with moss that stood with their roots in it.
Two men, with long, rough hair under shapeless hats and faded ill-kempt clothes, astride wild, stunted-looking horses closed in on Lettie from either side. So overwrought was she that she did not stop to question their purpose but snatched up the buggy whip. As they came alongside the buggy, reaching for the reins, she struck them with all her strength.
They howled and fell back. She lashed the chestnut mare onward, forcing her into the water with its muddy, wheel-hugging bottom and up the bank on the other side. Lettie could hear their yells and curses and the splashing of their mounts as the men spurred them after her.
Then came the crash of a shot, a keening sound, and a hole was ripped in the glazed leather of the cover above her head. Her face set in a grim mask, she laid the whip on the mare again.
Then from farther behind her came the thudding sound of a horse ridden fast. More shots exploded, one of them ricocheting through the treetops. One of her attackers yelled, bawling out an oath. The two men spurred hard, leaning low over their mounts’ necks as they passed the buggy in a clatter of hooves and through fountains of water. They surged up the slope of the creek bank and galloped away down the road.
Lettie called to the mare, pulling her in, gentling the blowing horse to a stop. The mare needed to rest and so did she. It would also be polite to thank whoever had frightened away the two men. He was crossing the ford behind her, drawing even with the buggy.
The Thorn tipped his hat but barely pulled in his mount. The words clipped, he said, “Are you all right?”
Disbelief and the remnants of fright she had had no time to acknowledge until now compressed Lettie’s voice.
“Yes, certainly.”
“You made a wrong turn. Bear right at the next crossroad and that will take you to a ferry that crosses the river. You’ll be below Natchitoches, not at Grand Ecore. Take the next right turn on the other side to go back to town.”
Before Lettie could open her mouth to speak, he kicked his horse into movement and rode away. She stared after him, her chest tight.
Never, never in her life had she been so mortified or so enraged. There was not another human being who had the power to so overset her emotions as this man had. It was incomprehensible. She was usually quite calm and rational, even staid, in her actions. The fault was the Tho
rn’s, because of the things he did and said, his total lack of ordinary regard for people’s feelings.
But what did she expect? He was not an ordinary man. He was a rider of the night, a thief and a murderer. For her to be upset was not unnatural, though she must control it. She would do just that. She would drive herself back to Splendora, very carefully, and if there was any kind of benign providence, the next time she saw the Thorn it would be in a courtroom where he was being tried for murder.
Lettie set the horse in motion once more and refused to look up as thunder growled in a dull bass overhead.
By the time she reached the river, the sky was so dark that it might have been nearing evening. The constant grumble of thunder was like far-off cannon fire, and lightning made white flares overhead. Rain was beginning to fall, dimpling the water. The far bank was almost lost in a gray, obscuring curtain. The rope cable used to pull the railed wooden platform of the ferry back and forth stretched across to the other side, but the ferry itself was a dim shape of railings and uprights against the far shore. Beside the muddy trough that served as a landing, a man draped in an oilskin poncho sat his horse. Lettie knew who it was even before she pulled to a halt beside him.
Neither spoke for a long moment. The rushing sound of the river and the spattering of the rain filled the stillness, growing slowly louder.
The rain began to drip from the brim of the Thorn’s hat. His shoulders moved in a gesture that might have indicated resignation. He turned from the river to meet her searching gaze.
“There is a small problem. The men who shot at you crossed here ahead of us. By the time I reached the riverbank, they were three-quarters of the way over. They are holding the ferry.”
“Holding the ferry? What do you mean?”
“I mean, they are preventing the ferryman from bringing it back here.”
“Why would they do that? Did they think you were after them?” Her voice was sharp, but she did not care.
“They knew it.”
A gust of wind whipped rain in under the top of the buggy. Lettie gasped at the cold wetness, wiping her face with her hand. She looked around for shelter. There was a large oak with spreading branches down a muddy lane to the right. Beyond it was what appeared to be a lighted window in a low shape like a small house. She lifted the reins.
Lightning lighted the sky, giving a blue cast to the features of the Thorn. He leaned in the saddle and reached out a hand to catch her reins. “Not that way. Trees, and whatever may be under them, make fine targets for lightning.”
“The cabin then—”
“It belongs to the man who works the ferry, but I don’t think his wife will appreciate company or that you want to stay there. Three of their five children are down with scarlet fever, and both grandmothers are on hand to help.”
Eight people in the one-room cabin and scarlet fever. Was he telling the truth? There was no reason she could see for him to lie. The buggy rocked in the wind. There was a curtain that could be pulled to keep out some of the rain, but it was so fragile with age and disuse that as Lettie tried to unfasten the thing with one hand, it tore into dusty strips. A tree branch with fluttering green leaves went whirling across the road, followed by stinging bits of bark. The mare reared and whinnied. The Thorn wheeled to go to the mare’s head before she could bolt.
Lettie dropped the broken curtain so that she could use both hands to hold the reins. She looked again at the tree and the low shape of the cabin. Above the wind she shouted, “Maybe they have a barn!”
“Just a shed!” came his answer. He watched her for a moment. With a soft imprecation, he turned away, then swung back again. His face was grim as he called, “Come on, I can show you a place.”
She was a fool to take him at his word, a fool to follow him, but she seemed to have little choice; neither she nor the horse could stay out in this storm. It might be wiser to take her chances with a bolt of lightning, but she had the distinct feeling that it would be dangerous to let the Thorn know she thought so. At any rate, it was too late for objections. He was leading the mare in a turn so that they were headed back the way they had come.
The promised shelter sat at the end of the track some yards off the main road. Built of logs, perhaps half as wide as it was long, it was quite small, little more than a hut. To one side was a lean-to sagging with the weight of a Virginia creeper vine. Off to the right was a large spot of blackened ground and timbers that looked as if it was from a burned building.
The Thorn stopped beside the buggy as Lettie pulled up. He reached for the reins. “You get inside. I’ll see to your horse.”
Lettie was only too glad to comply. The skirt of her carriage dress was soaked to the knees with rain, and her bodice was so damp and clammy that every gust of wind seemed to penetrate to the bone. That she could be so cold now when she had been so insufferably hot earlier was unbelievable.
Her hands were shaking as she climbed down and hurried to pull open the door of the hut. The wind snatched the flimsy panel of split logs from her hand and sent it smashing against the wall. She grabbed for it, then fought it shut as she whipped herself inside, closing out the sweeping sheets of wind-blown rain. There was no inside latch, but the tight fit at one corner where the door sagged kept it in place.
Lettie stood in near darkness. There were no windows in this small building, no other entrance or exit except the one through which she had come. Faint glints of grayness shone through the unchinked logs, but that was the only light.
As her eyes began to adjust, she could see the pale shape of her own hand, but little more. To make matters worse, the dense gloom seemed to be alive with small rustling noises. They were caused, she thought, by the wind through the cracks shifting and stirring what appeared to be a pile of cornhusks against the back wall. She could not be sure that was all, however. The place smelled of dried corn and mildew and mice.
She stood still, listening. Above the storm, she thought she heard the Thorn speaking to the mare in the lean-to and the animal’s snuffling response. Was that a scrabbling noise of tiny, clawed feet? She couldn’t tell. She was not afraid of mice, had never been one to scream and climb on chairs when they appeared, but neither did she like the thought of one running under her skirts and climbing among her petticoats. Either they had to go or she would.
Taking a deep breath, she slowly bent and caught her soggy skirts in both hands, lifting them above her knees. With a quick running step, she dashed among the corn-husks, kicking the pile so that they flew up around her, scattering across the rough, warped floorboards. A mouse squeaked and ran, vanishing down a knothole. Another scuttled toward the corner. Lettie went after it. It leaped up and slipped away through the opening between two logs just as the door flew open.
“What’s going on in here?” the Thorn demanded.
The wind behind him flapped his oilskin and sent the cornhusks whirling. A blowing mist of rain spattered across the floor, wetting half the hut. The open door let in the gray-purple light.
“Getting rid of the rats,” Lettie snapped. “What does it look like? Would you close the door!”
Ransom choked on a laugh that he turned at once into a cough. He had expected to find her subdued and fearful, even backed in a corner. He should have known better. Just as he should have known she would have slender and altogether delectable legs. He moved to comply with her request. There was rich amusement in his voice that he did not trouble to hide as he said, “Need any help?”
Was he daring to laugh at her? Belatedly, she remembered to let go of her skirts. They dragged at her waist with their heavy wetness. “Thank you, no. What is this place?”
“A corncrib. Have you never seen one before?”
“Not,” she said with glacial politeness, “to my knowledge.”
“It’s used to store the corn crop until it can be shucked and the kernels removed from the cobs for feed or else taken to the gristmill. The people who lived here were burned out, not by the Yankees but by a fireplace
fire that spread to the barn. This is all that’s left.”
There was a slithering, sliding sound as he finished speaking. He appeared to be removing his oilskin, taking off his hat, and slinging water from its brim. Her voice sharp, she said, “What are you doing?”
He paused. “Making myself comfortable.”
“But I thought — that is to say, you aren’t staying?”
“Now why would you think that?”
“You have foul-weather gear, and there must be other things you have to do, other places you must go to.”
“Not,” he said, mimicking her earlier chilly accents to perfection, “to my knowledge.”
What he was doing was dangerous and Ransom had the liveliest awareness of that fact. He preferred to think of it as something preordained, even though he knew better. He should leave her in this shelter, mean as it was, and ride on; he might have done just that had he not felt to blame for her being there.
He had followed her earlier because they had both been going the same way, back to Natchitoches, but he had deliberately allowed her to take the wrong turn when he could have stopped her. He had wanted to know if her deviation from the correct route was accidental or if there was some reason for it; he had been curious about what she would do when she discovered her error, if it was one. And it had seemed best that she not know he was behind her. The less anyone knew of his movements the better, of course, but he also didn’t want her to feel that he was menacing her.
But because he had kept quiet, she had been attacked at the ford by those two pieces of scum. Instead of being at Splendora where it was safe, she was here, and so was he. She should not be left alone, not simply because it was rough country but because the two on the other side of the river might come back. He was responsible. He would stay, her self-appointed guardian. Whether she wanted one or not.
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