Deep Trouble

by Mary Connealy

  West.

  Like that wasn’t vague.

  It figured a city of gold that had never been found would likely be in a real hard-to-find place, like the middle of the Sonora Desert or the top of some snowcapped mountain. Both of those were west—kind of.

  But even knowing she was probably a lunatic, Gabe had never felt anything sweeter than Shannon’s arms around him. He thought of Annette back in Ranger Bluff, and how he’d connected with her instantly.

  A sister. He tried to convince himself of that. A sister. He’d felt brotherly feelings for her. Why not? He’d never had a sister. That could be how a man felt about his sister.

  And she’d already been as good as spoken for when Gabe had finally gotten close enough to her to know how sweet she was. Up until then, he’d thought she was a likely culprit in the death of his ma. No romantic notions there.

  But he’d felt for Annette much of what he was feeling for Shannon, and there was no one to stake a claim on Shannon. Less than no one. The woman was in desperate need of someone to protect her, love her, feed her, care for her, talk some sense into her.

  They were riding alone, and Gabe had kept his mouth shut mainly out of a rock-solid fear of what would come out if he spoke. But now he realized he was wasting time. If he didn’t know her, then he’d just missed out on a huge chance to change that.

  He opened his mouth to start getting to know this pretty woman with the tough belly and the very warm, tight arms.

  A herd of sheep charged out of a stand of mesquite and spooked his horse.

  Before the chestnut was done rearing and Gabe had it back under control, Shannon was hanging from the side of his saddle, her legs dangling, still clinging like a burr to his waist.

  He looked down, smiled at her ashen face, grabbed her, and pulled her back, in front this time, onto his lap. He liked having her there, and he was done talking himself out of it. She needed him. And he certainly needed her. “Shannon, will you—”

  “Sorry. Crazy dibeh. Crazy sheep.”

  Gabe’s attention was torn from Shannon to a young woman who came bounding up out of that same scrub brush. He’d noticed her at the settlement yesterday… or the day before. Whenever he’d been there. She was the daughter of the parson. What was her name? Gabe fumbled around for it and finally remembered. “Emmy.” That was it. “I’m Gabriel Lasley. Remember me?”

  The girl was a beauty. Dark hair pulled back in a single braid. Her skin tanned by long hours in the desert sun. Eyes an unusual shade of bright, strong blue. What he’d noticed though was the mischief in her expression. After five minutes in her presence, he caught the close supervision of her overprotective mother and the indulgence of her sentimental father. She also had lived with the Navajo so long she knew their language and their life. She was a wild one. She smiled at Shannon with teeth so white they glowed in her tawny skin. “You’ve rounded up a lady to travel with in a single day, Mr. Lasley?”

  “Well, it’s been quite a day.”

  Emmy laughed and looked at Shannon. “I’m Emmy Crenshaw. My father is the parson at the Kinlichee settlement.”

  “I’m Shannon Dysart.” Shannon rested her head against Gabe’s chest as if only his strength were holding her up. Her brown hair had come out of its untidy braid thanks to the long day and the recent brush with catastrophe. Her face was streaked with dirt, she acted like riding a horse was one long brush with death, and she’d been awhile between baths.

  By comparison, Emmy was tidy and clean and comfortable in her skin. And her smile was all for Gabe.

  “Yes, Emmy. We’ll see you after you catch your crazy sheep.”

  The girl laughed and hurried after the flock.

  “You mentioned Parson Crenshaw had a family, but you didn’t mention a young, beautiful daughter.”

  “I didn’t mention any of ‘em. He’s got a passel of young’uns.”

  Shannon glared at him for no reason Gabe could imagine.

  Gabe rode on into a green oasis in the middle of land that up until now had sprouted more rock than grass. The first thing he saw was a line of heavily loaded mules, obviously ready to depart Doba’s settlement. Gabe had left here just one day ago. He furrowed his brow. Not one day, two days? He wasn’t sure.

  This team must have come in from the south, from Flagstaff, after he’d headed east. There were boxes and bags all over the ground, and the now much more lightly loaded mules would probably head… where? Somewhere with a telegraph office hopefully—which Gabe could make use of to explain the delay to his brother.

  Gabe had come to Flagstaff from California on the Beale Wagon Road. Lieutenant Ned Beale had laid it out using his famous Camel Corp. The camel experiment had finally been abandoned, and many of the camels were set loose in the wild. Gabe had seen a pair of them himself during his cavalry days. All he knew about camels was that they had a reputation as mean-natured critters who’d charge a passing horse, so the cavalry riders had learned to stay clear of them.

  “I need to talk to that mule handler over there. I should send a message to my brother Abe telling him I’ll be late.”

  Shannon nodded.

  “You want to let your ma know where you are?”

  Her head stopped moving as if she’d been frozen solid. Shannon’s chin trembled then lifted just a bit. “Mother has washed her hands of me, I’m afraid.”

  “Surely it’s not that bad.” Gabe couldn’t resist touching that little dent in her chin. Which drew Shannon’s wide-eyed attention to him. “You could at least send a few words letting her know you’re all right.”

  With a little shrug, Shannon said quietly, “I don’t have the price of a telegraph message, Gabe.”

  “I do.” He smiled at her struggle with pride. He’d figured out she wasn’t used to being penniless, and she had no talent or inclination for begging or borrowing. “Go ahead and send her a message. It might make things a mite easier when you get back east.” If she got back east. Gabe was thinking about keeping her.

  “I—well—all right.” Shannon frowned. “Thank you, Gabe. I appreciate your generosity.”

  “Glad I can help.” He rode to the man in the lead of the line of ten sturdy mules.

  “Where’re you heading?” Gabe saw the sharp intelligence in the homely face of the mule skinner.

  The man rode a buckskin mare and was checking the ropes on his string of mules. He took overly long studying the way Shannon hugged up next to Gabe. Then he scratched his whiskered face and spit a brown stream of tobacco on the ground. “Ridin’ straight through to Tuba City.”

  “Can I send a message for you to wire to my brother, and another from Shannon here to her ma?”

  “I reckon I could get a couple of wires off.” The man was as lanky as his mules and smelled about as good. But Gabe knew the kind of man who rode a hard trail like this. He was trusted with packages and money, and no dishonest man could make a living at it. If a mule skinner gave his word, he’d keep it.

  “Obliged.” Gabe reached out a hand. “Gabe Lasley.”

  The man shook.

  “And this is Shannon Dysart.”

  “Not your wife?”

  “No.” Gabe wouldn’t lie, but it occurred to him that he and Shannon should have discussed just what to say.

  The mule skinner scowled over Gabe’s answer but didn’t comment.

  Gabe fumbled in his shirt pocket for a piece of paper and a pencil he kept there. He jotted a few words to his brother Abe, telling him where he’d gotten turned aside and not to expect him anytime soon. Shannon got a few seconds with the pencil and paper, too. They handed the notes over along with enough money to send the wires, and the mule train headed out.

  Gabe watched them go, still holding Shannon. He was about to dismount just as a heavily accented voice drew his attention.

  “Back so soon, my friend?” Doba Kinlichee greeted Gabe with a smile. Gabe wouldn’t exactly call the man a friend since they’d only met the once, but he was certainly friendly. It didn’t hu
rt that he had possession of the best waterhole in the area. People came by. Doba was friendly. People paid for food and a place to sleep while they got a drink, watered their horses, and filled their canteens.

  Doba held the horse’s reins while Gabe swung down with Shannon still cradled against him, her arms around his neck. He was reluctant to lose the feel of her, even though she’d been driving him loco all day. “Thanks. We’d like to stay the night.”

  “You and your… wife? You didn’t mention you were married when you came through before.” Doba smiled as if he had done the matchmaking. His face was weathered. His eyes black as a raven. He wore a soft leather jerkin over a faded red shirt. His pants had fringe down the outside of the legs, and he wore a battered black hat with an eagle feather dangling from the beaded band.

  “We have an empty hogan you can—”

  “No, she’s not my wife.” Gabe thought again they should have come up with a clear explanation. He stood Shannon on her feet and wished he’d done that a bit earlier.

  Doba’s smile faltered. “You travel with your—sister?”

  Gabe shared a long look with Shannon. “No. I just found her stranded and brought her in.”

  “Just today?”

  Gabe wasn’t a bit good at lying. He waited for Shannon to take over and do the talking.

  The silence stretched far too long. Gabe finally said, “Well, yesterday. She was traveling—”

  “You and an unmarried woman traveled together for days, Gabriel?”

  Gabe noticed movement to his side and turned to see a squat, gray-haired man striding toward him. Wearing a parson’s collar. “What is this, Doba?” The man stopped in front of Gabe, standing shoulder to shoulder with his very outraged Navajo friend.

  A couple who made the parson look like a youngster were bolder than the other residents of Doba’s little community. They walked up behind the parson.

  “Parson Ford, is it?” Shannon swallowed audibly. “Hello. We are looking for a place to stay.”

  The parson cut Shannon off with one cauterizing look then swung his eyes to Gabe. The brimstone in the parson’s eyes reminded Gabe of where he didn’t want to end up for all eternity.

  Behind the parson’s back, Gabe saw the bustling settlement where Doba lived. A dozen or so hogans were scattered in the pretty mountain valley, near a pond fed by a flowing spring. Children were watching them with open curiosity. The adults were more subtle, but Gabe knew they were paying attention.

  He didn’t see a sign of the more kindly Parson Crenshaw, though he saw a half dozen stair-step children who didn’t look Navajo, diverted from their play with Doba’s family by Gabe and Shannon.

  “Gabriel,” Doba said mournfully, “we talked yesterday. You told me you were a man of faith.”

  “And now, today, you ride in with a young woman in your company,” the older man said. “We have children here. We can’t have an unmarried couple traveling together.”

  The parson’s eyes snapped with a bit of temper. “Hosteen Tsosi, I’ll handle this. He’s right, Gabe. You have ruined this young woman. And I clearly saw that there was an affection between you. This can’t be allowed. You will stand before me and do the right thing, or I will—”

  “Now, Parson, nothing improper happened between us.” Gabe wasn’t about to tell the man of God the details, because Gabe was fairly sure that some of what had gone on with Shannon would not fit the man’s definition of the word proper. “I found her. I needed to bring her to safety, didn’t I? You wouldn’t have had me just ride away and leave her—”

  “So you couldn’t have gotten here in what remained of the day? You rode in from the east. The distance isn’t so far between us and Tuba City. You could have gotten to one of these places even if you got a late start. Why did you keep her company over night?”

  “It was late when I found her.”

  “You found her late at night?” Hosteen Tsosi’s face was cut with lines that spoke of a lifetime of deep disapproval.

  “Well, no, Mr.… uh… Tsosi… it was late afternoon. But the sun was already setting by the time we got things straightened away enough to travel.”

  “The sun was setting in the afternoon? In the late spring in Arizona?”

  “We were in a canyon. The rock walls were to the west. I suppose if we’d ridden out of the canyon we’d have had some daylight left.”

  “But you know nothing of canyons and shadows cast from the west?” The parson adjusted his collar, most likely to let off some steam.

  “Well yes, I know about it. I served in the cavalry in the Southwest for a while.”

  “But still you’re afraid of the dark?” Hosteen tilted his chin and had the regal look of a Navajo holy man. His long black braids, streaked with gray, practically quivered with indignation.

  “No, she just needed to rest and recover from the trouble she’d been in.” And now she was in more trouble. Gabe could see in the holy man an unhappy frown, and even more in Hosteen’s fiery eyes.

  “So, you spent the night together?” The parson wove his fingers together across his chest.

  “Yes, parson.” Shannon decided to do some talking. Well, it was about time she spoke up. “But we only slept.”

  “You admit you slept together.” Hosteen jumped on that. The woman beside him gasped and covered her mouth, her wrinkled eyes wide with shock.

  Hosteen rested his hand on her shoulder. “Be strong, Mother Hozho.”

  “No, we didn’t sleep together!” Shannon sounded scandalized.

  “So you stayed awake together then?” The parson sounded even more so.

  “Yes! Wait, no.”

  “Which is it, miss?”

  “It’s—” She swallowed so hard Gabe heard it. “Neither.”

  “I don’t believe neither is a choice.” Hosteen looked sideways at the elderly woman with him. Both shook their heads and looked back at Shannon.

  “You were either asleep or awake.” The parson slapped his hands together behind his back and scowled. “And you were by your own admission together.”

  “It’s just that I wasn’t up to travel.” Shannon laced her fingers together. But Gabe thought the way she did it looked like she was begging the parson and his friends to believe her. Gabe thought begging was an idea with merit.

  “But you were up to sleeping… and not sleeping.”

  “Our time together was perfectly innocent, Parson,” Shannon insisted.

  Mother Hozho made a sound that was amazingly rude.

  “So nothing sinful passed between you? Two attractive young people alone overnight? Two young people that I saw with my own eyes were holding each other very close?”

  Gabe should’ve put her down right away for sure.

  “Well…” Shannon swallowed, if anything, even more loudly and caught Gabe’s arm with both hands as if to keep from falling over. “Nothing… much.”

  Gabe thought under the circumstances she should have kept her hands off of him, but he couldn’t just knock her down, now could he? So he let her hang on.

  “Nothing much?” The parson’s voice rose an octave. Gabe knew about octaves because of his mother and her love of playing the piano. The parson was hitting very close to a high C. “Explain this nothing much to me.”

  “I have young children here, Mr. Lasley.” Doba decided he needed to get involved with the conversation.

  Thank you very much, Doba.

  “Is Parson Crenshaw here?” Gabe asked. He sounded like a merciful man.

  “He and his wife are visiting a sick woman a few miles to the north,” Doba said.

  “Our whole community saw you ride in here with her in your arms.” Hosteen’s mouth curved down so it was nearly lost in the layers of wrinkles.

  “Impressionable young children, Gabriel.” Doba shook his head.

  Gabe never got called Gabriel except when he was in trouble. By his ma. But it was looking like he was indeed in trouble right now. He decided to interrupt before he found himself married
to the woman and then shot just for good measure. “We couldn’t travel, Parson. Shannon needed a chance to recover.”

  “She was injured?” The parson’s brimstone eyes fastened on a very healthy-looking Shannon.

  “Sh–she—yes.”

  “I see no injuries.”

  “Well, she had a nosebleed—” Gabe pulled her closer. He’d been protecting her ever since they’d met. He wasn’t about to stop now.

  “I have one of those on occasion,” Doba said. “I hold my nose for a few moments then I continue to work.”

  The nosebleed sounded like a poor excuse even to Gabe. He was sure the parson agreed. “And besides, she’d been through a lot, and she was very upset.”

  “I was very, very upset,” Shannon interjected.

  Gabe considered adding just a few more verys. It was worth a try.

  “You can’t even keep your hands off of her now, in front of me and Mr. Kinlichee and his family.”

  Gabe moved to let go of her, but he was sorely afraid she might collapse.

  “I would say, Miss—what was your name again?” Parson Ford straightened the coat of his black parson’s garb with a few quick, indignant tugs. “All I remember is that it isn’t Lasley.”

  Gabe heard Shannon hesitate as if she thought the man, once armed with her name, was going straight to Shannon’s mother to tell of her sins.

  “It’s Dysart. Shannon Dysart.”

  “Well, Shannon Dysart,” the parson spoke as if he were handing down an eleventh commandment that he’d just received straight from a wrathful God, “I’d say that your upset has just begun.”

  “When did you say your brother was gonna show up?” Tyra Morgan looked a long time at Abraham Lasley.

  She would be well satisfied if Gabe turned out to be half the man his big brother was. Gabe didn’t look like Abraham. She’d seen Gabe a few years back, and he’d been dark haired and dark eyed, not fair like his brother. Abraham often said the six older brothers, of which he was the oldest, were the image of their pa, but Gabe took after their mother. He’d made a point of saying it to Gabe, too. An old family tradition of teasing.

  But whether he resembled his big brothers or not, Gabe was tall and strong and quiet. In that way he was Abraham all over again.