For once Broken Bear was indebted to Travis. The man obviously had moved so fast he had kept them from being trapped. He had saved the Red Hair’s life.
But where were they now? The mountainside was trampled with horse tracks, the mud a wallow of valleys and depressions and standing water. How would he ever track them?
He stood at their camp and stared around him with an observant eye. Which logical direction might they have fled? Not back down the mountain. That would have taken them back where they'd come. Not to the right, toward the attack. Perhaps to the left, around the face of the mountain, hidden among the boulders there to cover their passage?
Or west, straight up the mountain and over it?
If he were Travis, which way would he have gone? West or South?
Which afforded the best escape route, the safest way?
After some long thought, Broken Bear turned to the south and headed into the boulders there, searching for tracks.
CHAPTER TEN
By the evening of the first day on the mountainside, Travis came to himself. He was weak and a little disoriented, but Rose found some dried pears in a pouch on his horse and fed them to him. “How long have I been this way?” He wanted to know.
“Since last night.”
Travis looked at the sun setting and frowned. “I’ve been asleep all day?”
“Yes. I was worried crazy about you. I didn’t know what else to do but keep you cooled with a wet cloth.”
Travis coughed behind his hand and pushed to his feet. “We have to get out of here. It’s lucky someone didn’t find us already.”
“We’re going now? It’s almost dark. Are you sure you’re well enough” Rose stood at his side, ready to steady him if he were to fall.
“We have to move.”
“Aren’t the Indians gone by now?” She asked.
“Rose, I haven’t told you this to keep you from worry, but I think someone’s been tracking us. I’ve picked up the sign.”
“Tracking us?”
“All the way from East Texas, maybe from my old camp in the woods there.”
“You mean…you mean before we ever got to Galveston?”
Travis heard the astonishment in her voice. He knew he would have to tell her sooner or later. He suspected it was an Indian from the tribe who had killed her parents. What he didn’t know was the reason for such a long, arduous journey that kept the man right on their heels, though he had his suspicions.
“It’s a man,” he said now. “I think he’s from the tribe who set fire to your house. I’ve seen his prints. Once I…I even smelled him, he was that close.”
Rose looked bewildered. “But why would anyone do that? Why follow us so far?”
Travis had already figured that out. He’d had enough days to think about it and he thought his suspicions were correct. “I think he wants to kidnap you.”
“Me?”
“His tribe takes white women for slaves. They’ve been doing it for years, since the first settlers came here. One of the tribe must have seen you and become…obsessed. I think that’s the word for it, isn’t it? Obsessed? Anyway, he must want you pretty bad because he hasn’t lost us in all these weeks.”
Rose had covered her mouth with a trembling hand. “What are we going to do?”
“We need to get out of here. Our tracker is never far behind. He could be here already.” Travis looked around quickly, afraid by acknowledging the threat he had lent it strength.
Rose hurriedly gathered the blankets to fold while Travis drank a little water and tried to clear his head. He guessed he’d fallen into a fever and still wasn’t over the sickness. But they had to keep moving, that was certain. He studied their position on the mountain and how the shadows were advancing. They couldn’t go fast on the horses in this near darkness. But he would hurry them along as much as he could.
He put up the blankets and canteens on the horses and mounted. Rose waited for him, her face a map of worry. “Come on now,” he said, “I’m all right. I just had a chill, was all. I’ll get over it soon. You can see I feel better.”
As they wove their way down the mountain between tumbled boulders, Travis took every opportunity to look behind for their ever-present shadow man. He probably should have backtracked and caught him out before now. He thought that once they’d left the Texas Territory the shadow would give up and go home, disappear. Not many Indians would wish to track someone this far from home. Yet just a couple of days ago he had seen someone out of the corner of his eyes moving behind them from outcropping to rock pile.
He wasn’t as alarmed as Rose was about it. He could handle most anything thrown his way. That’s how it had always been. He didn’t meditate on problems for long. He simply took control and handled them when they confronted him in the face.
The problem with the lurking Indian was that he kept so much to the shadows and wouldn’t show himself. Another problem was the mind of this lurker. Travis had never heard of a native tracking a woman like this over hundreds of miles, leaving his home territory to do it. It meant there was something dreadful about him, something different from other people, something…very wrong. Otherwise, all Travis knew about him was that he seemed to be very large, wearing a breechcloth, his hair in a long braid, and he was more determined than a man had any right to be.
All through the long night Travis led them down the mountain and across a small, dry valley floor. Three hours before dawn he called a halt to their trek and built a small fire in a ring of rocks. He had a pouch of jerky and hard tack on his horse that he shared with Rose. They had found a small stream in the night and filled their canteens. He was very tired and still didn’t feel well, but his appetite was improving. He hoped to find game the next day. It was going to be a very tough trip without the wagon train for protection and stores, but they couldn’t turn back now. By his calculations they were almost halfway to California. Turning back was out of the question.
Rose curled close to him near the dwindling fire as they fell into quick sleep. Travis woke with sun in his eyes and roused Rose. He held her in his arms where she had lain all night. He shook her a little and said, “We have to get moving.”
They were on their way within minutes, Travis watching his back all the time. He felt more vulnerable in the valley, but at least there were a few trees here finally after the long desert. He could see another mountain range ahead and it was forested. Great gray clouds clung to the summits. They were traveling out of the arid landscape into a more fertile one and that buoyed his spirits. He could find game.
#
Rose thought Travis looked himself again. It had been days since his fever and his appetite had returned full force. Once down the mountain he was able to rustle up their first real food. He shot a dove that provided them both a meal from its plump breasts. The horses fed on grass in the valley and there was plentiful water sources from a small lake to varied little streams and creeks that crisscrossed the valley floor.
Ever since he’d told her about the man tracking them, Rose had been fidgety and nervous. The last thing she did before sleep and the first thing when she opened her eyes was to look back the way they’d come, trying to see someone. Travis said, “He’s not going to let you see him.”
“But you said you’ve seen him.”
“That’s different. I’m used to studying my surroundings for threats. I wouldn’t be alive now if I hadn’t learned to use my sixth sense.”
“Sixth?”
“You know, the one that you get when you think someone’s walked over your grave? The one that tells you which fork in the road to take? Things like that. I don’t know what you call it, but it’s something you have to train yourself to pay attention to in the wild. Otherwise, you’re just walking prey.”
The more she knew about Travis, the more she admired him. He was like a force unto himself. He’d lived most of his life alone in the forests of East Texas. Sometimes his silences scared her, making her think he was angry or annoyed, but sh
e came to realize they were just part of him. He wasn’t used to being around a woman all the time, or around anyone all the time. Yet when she needed him to talk to her, he listened carefully to her words and the needs behind them.
She was dirty now and felt as if bugs were crawling in her hair. She’d bathed briefly in the lake they’d found, but she had no lye soap so she had to scrub at her skin with crumpled leaves. Now they were days beyond the lake, climbing another mountain range through dense forest, and the water was scarce. She was dirty again and no doubt bugs were crawling and feasting on her.
It was strange, but it seemed when they had food, there was no water, and when they had water, there was no food. Some days she sat in the saddle dozing and waking suddenly with a jerk. She knew she was wearing down like the little rag dog her mother had made for her when she was a child. Over the years the cloth thinned and the yarn hair came undone and the stitches in the clothes came apart. She felt that way now, going thin and worn and coming apart at the seams. Travis was used to living in the wilderness whereas she was used to four walls and a fireplace to cook in and keep her warm. She was used to dropping a bucket down a well or dipping it into a nearby river, and Travis was used to tracking down the smallest rivulets or catching drops into the canteen from a damp rock face wall. She was used to stew and fried chicken. He ate beans and dried meat and bread so hard it could break a tooth.
As they settled into a night’s sleep, blankets pulled over their heads and pine branches on the ground for their beds, Rose felt a great sadness slip over her. She wished she were not here on a mountain in the damp night with a hardened man she hardly knew. She wished to be in California with her aunt and uncle, safe in a bed, warm and secure. She squirmed on the pine branches trying to find a softer spot. Every time she moved something poked her.
“What’s wrong?”
She caught her breath and held it. “Just trying to get comfortable enough to sleep.”
“Is that all?”
How did he know, she wondered?
“I’m all right,” she said.
“Rose, I know this is hard. Harder than it had to be if the wagon train hadn’t been attacked. But I’m doing the best I can.”
“I know that.”
“We’ll make it, I promise.”
Rose bit her lower lip. He was always so good to her. She turned onto her other side toward him. She took his face in her hands and brought it close. She closed her eyes and kissed him softly.
He gripped her to him and his breath came faster. “Oh, Rose, I want you so much.”
Something in Rose’s mind fell away. A floodgate opened. She knew at that moment she wanted him too and if she gave herself, it wouldn’t be as much a sin as she had once believed. It didn’t mean she was a loose woman to want this good man the way he wanted her.
She kissed him again and this time she took one of his hands and guided it to her bodice. She had wanted this for a very long time, she realized. She wanted to be touched and loved. She wanted to feel his bare skin next to hers.
He was gentle, undoing her clothing without urgency. He kissed her lips, her neck, the lobes of her ears. She sighed into him, like a wind caressing a feather. Once they had their clothes off, he spread his blanket beneath them and covered them with the other. They lay side by side, naked, neither willing to make the first move toward the other. Finally, Rose reached out and brushed her hand down his chest. He shivered under her touch. It was as if she were the one with experience, when in fact she had never touched a naked man before.
They had removed their clothes. He pulled her to him then and their body heat melded together where they touched. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer. She never wanted him to let her go. She could feel the whole length of his body against her and it was like a furnace. He felt hot and smooth and hard. He raised himself on an elbow and leaned over her, caressing her breasts as he kissed her deeply. She arched her back to raise herself to him. Her fingers tangled in his hair.
This cannot be wrong, she thought confidently. This is as right as right can be. I will marry him just as soon as we can find someone to perform the service. I don’t see how God could ever hold this against us.
He made love to her all through the night. Rose felt the bright pain of the first penetration, but later pain was replaced with high pleasure. No one had told her she shouldn’t enjoy sex so she had no old wives’ tales or harmful baggage holding her back from enjoying the experience of lovemaking. Travis was a kind and gentle lover and Rose could not get enough of him. She arched her back and pulled his shoulders down to her as he rose above her. She nibbled at his earlobes and stuck her tongue into his sweet mouth. She breathed the word “love” and he repeated it back to her.
When dawn finally came they both slept the sleep of the exhausted and satisfied, curled like kittens into one another’s arms beneath the sheltering limbs of a great forest glade.
#
Broken Bear lost two days tracking south across the mountains and then retracing his steps to the scene of the wagon train ambush. He was absolutely furious with himself, but he took his anger out on the trapper, Travis. He muttered beneath his breath, cursing him. Although he had probably saved the Red Hair, he had escaped from Broken Bear, too, and that was unacceptable.
By the time he returned to the wagons, the corpses were already rotting and drawing flies and carrion eaters. Buzzards flew overhead and Broken Bear saw a coyote slink off into the rocks carrying what appeared to be a human hand.
Disgusted with himself, Broken Bear rustled through the wagons and opened trunks looking for anything the raiding party might have left behind. He found a handful of grain that he carefully wrapped in a cloth. Under a buckboard he found a crumpled felt hat and set it on his head.
He glanced up the mountain as the sun passed overhead. He knew now which way the trapper had gone. He’d catch up with them. It might take a while, but he’d find them for sure. He spent the evening sharpening his knife on a whetstone discovered in an overturned wagon. As soon as the sun lowered, he started up the mountain. Straight up toward the darkening sky where the stars hung overhead and his destiny waited.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Rose thought she would be shy with Travis the morning after they made love, but he had smiled so gently at her all her worries disappeared. She thought of him as her husband now and though there was some lingering guilt about not being properly married by a minister, she believed God might overlook that small sin.
They had not been on their way for long when Travis said, “We’re heading toward Tucson. I know someone there who can help us. It’s going to be too hard to make our way alone.”
“Does your friend have a wagon train?”
“No, he used to be a trapper with my father a long time ago. He left Texas and said he was heading to Tucson. He’s a good man, someone I can trust. Maybe he’ll come with us or he can find us a scout to lead the way. I’ve never been this far west and we’re off the trail. It’s already June. We need to get across the Rockies before the fall when cold weather sets in.”
Tucson was south of them so the detour would take them days out of the way, but Travis told her they had to do it. For the next week they seemed to be going into lower elevations, with the dry mountains at their back. Water was more plentiful, but game grew scarce again. One day they had nothing at all to eat and that night Rose lay in his arms, but could think of nothing but her hunger. She thought if she could have caught even a lizard she might have eaten it. A lizard, a bug, anything.
The following day they saw a ranch ahead with smoke coming from a chimney of the sprawling ranch house. Rose’s heart leaped at the thought of seeing other people and of real food and a roof over her head.
They were greeted suspiciously at first, but once the rancher realized they weren’t cattle rustlers or outlaws, he took them in to meet his wife and offered them supper. Rose washed herself from a big cauldron of steaming water the ranch woman set out back of
the house for her. She had a fat bar of soap and a good, thick length of muslin for drying herself. She felt halfway human by the time she joined everyone at the table. There was baked chicken, stewed goat meat with potatoes, a pot of green beans, and cornbread. The ranch family consisted of five children all under the age of ten and two ranch hands who were as silent as they were lean and rugged.
Rose tried not to act as starved as she felt, but she couldn’t seem to get enough food. She ate until she thought her stomach would burst. The rancher, Mr. Calhoun, brought out a jug of whiskey for the men after dinner. Rose helped clear the table.
“You’ve taken on a far journey,” Mrs. Calhoun said. “I thought I was brave to follow my man this far to make the ranch. But California…that’s a very long trip from here.”
“Is it? I expect you’re right, but I have no choice.”
The woman gave her a pitying look. “I’m sorry about your family.” Travis had told them about how they’d been killed. The woman continued, “We’ve had some raids on our place, too, but so far we’ve been able to run them off. Mainly they want our cattle. They’re about as hungry as the rest of us, but if we let them take too many, our enterprise will fail.”
Rose liked that word, “enterprise”. She smiled at the other woman and began to dry the dishes for the cupboard. “I’d say you’re the brave one. Making a living must be hard here and having so many children to care for, too.”
Mrs. Calhoun glanced at her brood where they sat near the fireplace playing with marbles. “It don’t take much to come up with a batch of younguns. Were I you, I wouldn’t start my batch while on a perilous long trip, though.” She eyed Rose’s waist.
Rose blushed. She hadn’t thought of that. The woman was right, she didn’t need to get herself pregnant, but she hadn’t any idea how to keep from it. She almost opened her mouth and asked the older woman how she might avoid it, but she just couldn’t get the question out of her mouth. If she had her mother here, she could have asked about these personal things, but as friendly as Mrs. Calhoun seemed to be, it was just too embarrassing to ask such a private question.
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