by Tess LeSue
“No, I don’t reckon they would. Cattle are notoriously immune to judgment.”
Now it was her turn to laugh. He was surprisingly funny. You wouldn’t expect it when you met him. And in her experience, men that good-looking seldom had wit.
Laughing broke her tension. She left the rock and joined him, sitting against the tree next to his. She made sure to position herself so she could still see his bulk in the dimness. Somehow the sight of him kept her calm.
A sickle moon was rising, casting ashy light through the still cottonwood leaves and lining everything with silver. Frogs were singing by the creek.
“I reckon it might rain,” Tom said.
Emma looked dubiously at the patches of clear sky visible through the canopy above. The stars glittered, unobstructed by the slightest trace of cloud.
“Frogs get louder when it’s about to rain,” he told her. Emma laughed again. She thought that was about the biggest load of rubbish she’d ever heard. There’d been plenty of bullfrogs back in Duck Creek, and they’d set to croaking up a storm every evening, come rain or shine. They’d never seemed daunted by a clear sky, and neither did these California frogs.
“You wait,” he said. He tilted his head back to look up at the sky. A shaft of silver moonlight fell through the canopy, catching the side of his face. Emma’s gaze traced his silvered jaw and the planes of his high cheekbones. On the surface, he was so calm, she thought. He was a solid presence, quiet, reassuring. But she could see the tightness of the muscles in his jaw, and the two frown lines between his eyebrows. He wasn’t what he seemed, this man. Not one bit. What was he thinking when he was all quiet like this? What caused those shadows that chased across his face? What made him so deathly serious, when clearly, there was a sense of humor in there somewhere? He was a man who needed to laugh more, she decided. He had no call being so grave when he was young and strong and so damn good-looking. Life was his for the taking. So why was he out here in the wilderness with a couple of nuns, instead of off taking it?
As she watched him, his head snapped around. Frightened, she followed his gaze. She couldn’t see anything. His eyes narrowed and the gun rose. His gaze flicked to her, and he lifted a finger to his lips, warning her to be silent.
She froze. What on earth had he heard? What had he seen?
She couldn’t see anything.
As they sat frozen, she realized she couldn’t hear voices drifting over from Second Carrot anymore. It was suspiciously quiet. But it wasn’t that late; there was no way they would have packed in the drinking yet . . .
Then the frogs gave pause.
Goddamn it. She cocked her own weapon and followed his gaze to the embankment. As they sat there frozen, a breeze skittered through their campsite, breaking the perfect stillness. The frogs started up again, and she realized she’d been holding her breath. She exhaled shakily, trying to stay as silent as possible.
Then she heard the voices. They were faint but heading their way. Tom gestured for her to come to him. She crept over, and he pulled her behind the tree with him. She saw him check over his shoulder at the tent. It should be well enough hidden. Emma hoped that the horses didn’t start whickering.
“Maybe they left?” The man’s voice came from the other side of the embankment. It was one of those brutes from Second Carrot. Emma’s blood ran hot and cold. Memories of past assaults were rising like a tide, and it took everything she had to force them down, to not let the fear take her.
She jumped when Tom’s hand settled on the small of her back. He must have sensed her panic, because he gave her a couple of soothing rubs.
“Wouldn’t you?” A second voice joined the first. “There’s a fortune riding on his head. And he ain’t stupid, or he wouldn’t have lasted this long.”
Emma frowned. He?
Tom’s hand went deathly still on her back.
“He didn’t look like no Indian.”
Oh no. No.
“He’s passing for a white man now. That’s what they said in Frisco. And you heard Stu: that was definitely Tom Slater.”
Emma heard Tom’s breath catch. This time it was her turn to lay a soothing hand on him. Startled, he met her gaze. They were only inches apart. She gave a small shake of her head. Stay silent, she begged with her eyes. Please.
The wind picked up, gusting, rustling the leaves overhead. It was a moody sound.
“His eyes were pretty pale, weren’t they?” the second man said, not sounding entirely convinced.
His friend ignored him. “I woulda run off too if I was him.” The two men kept walking. “He wouldn’t stand a chance against all of us.”
“You sure he wouldn’t have camped? He might be up a ways still. He couldn’t be dragging all those women through the dark. Especially those women—they looked the tender sort.”
Tender! She was outraged. She’d show them tender. Those fatheads wouldn’t have survived a single day of her life. Or Calla’s. Or Anna’s.
“If they were going to pitch camp, they would have done it back near town.” There was a long pause. “Maybe he’s gone and turned himself into a wolf . . . They say he can do that.”
A wolf? These two were too dumb to live. And who the hell could confuse Tom with Deathrider? Tom Slater was the least outlaw-looking man Emma had ever seen. He had fine and upstanding written all over him.
“Maybe so. But what about the women? He cain’t be turning them into no wolves.” Only he said woofs instead of “wolves.” Emma bet he was the idiot who wrote all the signs.
“Yeah, I guess.” There was a pause. “You reckon he’s kidnapped those nuns? And that little white girl?”
Emma gasped. “Hush,” Tom whispered in her ear. He’d pulled her tight against him so she could barely move.
“Of course he’s kidnapped them. You saw how jumpy they were.”
“Goddamn.”
Kidnapped! They weren’t kidnapped. And they’d been jumpy because they were alone in the middle of nowhere with men who hadn’t bathed in months and served up possum for dinner, not because they were here with Tom Slater!
Emma flinched when they heard a piercing whistle sound from back toward Second Carrot.
“Looks like they’ve found them!” The pair couldn’t contain their excitement. They were heading to town in a flash, eager not to miss the lynching.
“Hell,” Tom growled once they were gone.
“We should go now, while they’re distracted.” Emma made for the tent, but Tom yanked her back.
“Wait.” He kept his voice low. “I’m worried it’s a trap.”
“How much money is on Deathrider’s head?” Emma asked.
“Too much.” The anger was coming off him like heat from a stove. In the distance, they could hear dogs barking. Tom swore. “If they get the dogs out for us, we’re out of luck.”
Emma’s heart was thundering. “I don’t believe in luck,” she said. The wind had picked up and was blowing her heavy woolen veil. She had to hold it back with her hands.
“I guess you don’t have to believe in luck, being a nun. You’ve got God on your side.”
She pulled a face. She wasn’t sure God had ever been on her side, but if He ever had been, He certainly wasn’t now—not when she was impersonating one of His women.
Still. She was alive and whole, wasn’t she? She had a brain in her head to plan her way out of this mess, didn’t she? So maybe He wasn’t too displeased with her. “I wish your frogs were right and it was about to rain,” she said to Tom. “Rain would sure put a stop to the dogs sniffing us out.” But at the mention of rain an idea struck her. “Rain!”
“Where?” He looked up. There was no rain.
“No, I mean”—she shook her head—“I have a plan. Can you harness the wagon?” She made for the tent, but he grabbed her arm.
“Tell me,” he said tightly.
Tom harnessed the wagon in record time. Emma briefly explained the situation to the others. She pushed Calla and Anna toward the wagon and handed Winnie up onto the seat. “The creek,” Emma told them. Her heart was thundering. It felt like it could just about burst in her chest. “Take the wagon into the creek. Follow it downstream. Go as fast and as quiet as you can.” If the dogs managed to track them this far (which they would), they’d soon lose the trail when it disappeared into the water. Emma’s main concern was that the wagon was slow and their pursuers would be on horseback; it would take them no time at all to catch up to the wagon. “Go, Calla. Don’t wait for us! And if they catch you, shoot to kill!” They both knew what happened to women who got caught. She gave her friend’s arm a squeeze, and then she slapped the lead mule’s flank. “Good luck!”
Once the wagon was off into the creek, making more noise than Emma cared for, she helped Tom throw the saddlebags over the pack animals.
“It’s a good plan,” Tom said approvingly as he cinched the last buckle. There was the low rumble of thunder. “Now we want that rain. That’ll stop them from making it even this far, which will give us more time.”
Yes. Please let it rain. Emma mounted her mare. Dear God, I know I ain’t been good. I may have broken more commandments than You ever thought of, but I ain’t knowingly done harm, and I’ve always looked out for those less fortunate than myself. If You could see to it in Your heart to be clement right now and let it rain, I promise I’ll do better. I don’t know how, but I will.
Thunder cracked above and she jumped. She might have been too presumptuous. But then, as they surged into the creek after the wagon, the first fat drops of rain began to fall. Startled, she looked skyward. Heavy drops spattered her face. Maybe there was something to this nun thing after all.
“I guess you were right about those bullfrogs,” she told Tom, but he didn’t hear her over the sound of the wind and the rain.
11
IT WAS A terrifying night. They kept in the creek until it was too swollen to be safe. Emma’s habit was sodden and heavy, and the veil pulled at her neck until her muscles were screaming. They couldn’t hear any trace of dogs or men over the bluster of the wind, and she was in constant fear that they were right behind her. She wasn’t able to see two feet ahead, and she had to trust to her horse’s surefootedness on the slippery creek bed.
When they finally left the creek, Calla, Anna and Winnie had to get out of the wagon and help push it up the banks. By the time they’d got it over the lip of the embankment, they were exhausted. But Tom hurried them on. “We want to be well away before dawn.”
It didn’t feel like dawn would ever come. Without Tom, she might have just sat down in the mud, but he drove them on, sounding as calm as if he were relaxing by the campfire. His calmness was mighty soothing. After a time, the rain slowed and then stopped. It wasn’t just hot now, but humid. Emma rode engulfed in the pungent stink of wet wool and her own body odor.
“We have to make a choice soon,” Tom told her quietly, dropping back to ride beside her. The wretched night was finally fading, she realized, because she could make out his shape in the darkness. “I can take us through ranchero territory, or we can push farther east, into the Apacheria.”
“That’s where Deathrider went,” Emma protested. “If we go that way, we might end up with the Second Carrot men and Hec and Deathrider’s bounty hunters after us. Not to mention the Apaches.” The thought of Hec was enough to make her sit down and cry. Or shoot things.
“With any luck, Hec and the others have run into the Apaches themselves by now.”
“Which is something we don’t want to do,” she said, panicked. She’d heard enough about the Apaches to know that she didn’t want to run into them.
“We have to risk them to get to Magdalena anyway—it’s right in the path of their plunder trails.”
“Their what? No, don’t answer that. I don’t want to know.” She swallowed. “I suppose there’s a good reason you’re even considering it as an option, rather than simply taking us through the rancheros’ lands?”
“The rancheros know me,” he said, sounding wearier by the minute. “I take their cattle up to the goldfields and sell them on. I can’t go by a fake name here; they know very well that I’m Tom Slater. Anyone looking for ‘Tom Slater’ is going to know that I was here. Then we’ll have a dozen bounty hunters on our trail.”
“But why would your friends give you away? Why wouldn’t they protect you?”
“They ain’t my friends. We just do business. I don’t doubt that some of them will shoot me themselves if they can collect the bounty.” He rubbed tiredly at his bristling beard. “Word sure spreads quick, don’t it? That place is no bigger than a fleabite.”
“But they must know you ain’t the Plague of the West!”
“I ain’t betting my life or yours on it.”
Madre de Dios. Apaches or rancheros? If that wasn’t a poisoned chalice, she didn’t know what was.
“There’s a third choice,” he said slowly. “It seems mad for you to suffer because of me. No one knows you here, so there’s no reason for you to risk your lives in the Apacheria. I can leave you here and you can push on through the rancheros’ lands on your own. The rancheros are Catholic; I’m sure they’ll give you safe passage.”
“No,” she said, horrified at the thought of leaving him. They were hunting him, for heaven’s sake! What kind of person would she be if she abandoned him to the mob?
“As far as I can see, those are our only three choices.”
“No,” she said. “There are always more choices.” She cut him off when he made to speak. “No! Let me think.”
“There’s no other way,” he said tiredly.
But there was. He just wasn’t going to like it.
* * *
• • •
“THERE’S NO WAY in hell.”
Emma didn’t appreciate his tone. This was an excellent plan.
“No one is going to believe I’m a woman,” he growled.
“Not an attractive woman,” she agreed, “but then no one expects you to launch a thousand ships. And the veil will hide your face.”
“They’ll know it’s me.”
“I doubt it. You didn’t know it was Anna.”
“I’d met her once. They’ve met me dozens of times.”
Emma’s plan had required her to come clean about Anna. She hated to ruin Anna’s disguise, but she needed to steal it for Tom. There was no choice. They didn’t have any another suitable clothes for him; Calla’s habit was far too small, or she might have dressed him up as a nun, and she couldn’t give him her habit, because Hec was still after her and she needed to stay hidden. Also, she still needed him to believe they were nuns; she couldn’t have him doubting her. And she didn’t have time to sew a whole new habit out of the navy cotton. So he couldn’t be a nun. And as for the gowns stored in her trunk, they were low-cut and fancy beyond belief—there was no way he’d pull that off. Besides, even if she had been able to sew a habit, or if he had fit into one of her gaudy gowns, there was still the problem of his face. No one was going to look at that chiseled face with its aquiline nose, strong jaw and beard, and believe he was a woman. Even if he shaved off the stubble. Some boys could have done it, but not this one. Posing him as a veiled señora was the best option. And it would work—she knew it would. If she let out the seams and the hem a little, the dress should fit him. And the lacy veil would cover him from head to waist.
“No one will ever suspect it’s you! Why on earth
would they? It’s a perfect disguise!” she insisted.
He had a face on him like a mule. “I’m not doing it, so you can get the idea right out of your head.”
“Anna, can you go and change? Throw the widow’s weeds out to us once you’re done, will you?” Emma went blithely on as though he wasn’t being contrary.
“Oh, thank heavens, these beads keep snagging on everything.” Anna had pulled the veil off as soon as Emma had revealed her identity, and she was eager to shuck the fancy dress off too.
Tom had been shocked to find out that it had been Anna under the veil all along. “But . . . why?”
When Emma told him why, he lowered his head and pinched his nose between his fingers. She wondered if he was prone to nosebleeds.
“Are you telling me that she’s wanted by the law?”
“We’re not sure,” Emma said primly. “But we assume at the very least his friends might have formed a lynch mob.”
He took a deep breath. “So we may have four posses out for us, if the man she hit with a frying pan has friends?”
“It seems so.” She’d given him what she hoped was a charming smile.
“Are there any more you want to tell me about? Lynch mobs? Marshals? Any armies on the march for us?”
“Not yet, but give me time.”
There was a ghost of a smile at that. But it hadn’t lasted long. Now he was back to being difficult again. She could deal with it. She was just going to jolly him along until he gave in.
“Sister Emma?” The black dress glittered in the sun as Anna thrust it from the wagon. Emma snatched it off her and held it out to him.
Tom shook his head vehemently. “There is no way in hell.”
But there was. Not a pleasant way, but a way nonetheless. And this time the way included one hell of a lot of guilt. “You’d rather leave us here, in the middle of nowhere, at the mercy of men like those bastards in Second Carrot, than keep protecting us?”
“I said I’d stay with you,” he growled.
“Stay with us? And put us in danger because everyone thinks you’re the Plague of the West? Because of you we just got chased out of town! If you stay with us, we’re going to end up shot through a dozen times over.”
