by Merry Farmer
When she hopped down from the wagon, the rain was even more driving. She grimaced up at the sky and made a break for the tea tent.
“My lady, may I escort you?” John’s teasing voice stopped her before she could go two feet.
Callie turned and there he was, standing straight and tall in his finest suit and waistcoat, starched collar, silver watch fob, freshly cut hair, freshly shaved, rain completely drenching him and forming drops on his glasses. He wore a wide smile and held a bouquet of wildflowers in his hands, looking like a cross between a handsome prince and a drowned boy. Callie could only stand there and gape at him, heart fluttering.
“These are for you.” He handed her the sopping bouquet and took her arm as though they were on their way to some sunny garden party instead of a washed-out frontier tea.
“Oh John, they’re beautiful!” She finally found her voice.
“They’re not the only thing that’s beautiful.”
Callie swallowed and felt her face flush even as the raindrops hit it.
When they entered the makeshift tent the other women sat up and took notice, oohing and ahhing. A small table had been set up in the middle of a circle of chairs and benches, tent poles on either side. The center of the table held the tea, Callie’s empty, dented teapot, and the goodies they’d made earlier. Mrs. Weingarten was still fussing over the table, but even she had taken time to dress in her finest.
“You look lovely, Mrs. Rye,” Lynne Tremaine told her with a saucy smile. “Thank you so much for helping us planning this.”
“You’re welcome, Lynne. You look beautiful too. I keep meaning to ask, how is your neck? I’ve been a horrible friend and should have asked much sooner, but….”
Lynne blushed deep red. “It’s fine. Just a little scratch. I need to serve the biscuits.”
She whirled away, taking a tray and handing it around to the guests. Callie bit her lip as she watched her friend go, wishing she’d taken more time to help with whatever Lynne had been going through on the journey. Perhaps it wasn’t too late.
She struck up a small conversation with Mrs. Costner and Marcus’s wife. More guests arrived, mostly women, but a few men as well. Reverend Joseph joined them with all the uneasy air of a man being forced to congregate with women against his will. Although he wasn’t the only one.
After about ten minutes, Callie noticed that John hadn’t said a word. He merely held Callie’s arm and stood by her side, smiling but not joining in conversation. His eyes darted around the tent with a sharpness in them that said he was looking out for something. Callie tried to include him in her conversations, but rarely did she get more than a yes or a no from him. She’d never realized he was shy. How strange.
Elton Finch, however, was not shy. Callie tried not to lose her smile when she saw him enter the tent, take off his hat, and make a show of shaking the water from his perpetually sunny blond hair. He was instantly the center of the attention of most of the women there. Callie deliberately stepped as far from him as she could. John was only happy to oblige.
“The man Mr. Evans put with us really is awful.” They joined a conversation being led by Mrs. Weingarten’s daughter, Nancy. “He laughs at all the least appropriate times.”
“Our miner is like that too,” her friend answered. “And he spits. All the time.”
“Barney shouldn’t be his name.” Nancy traded a conspiratorial smirk with her friend and with Callie as she caught up to the thread of the conversation. “It should be ‘Barmy.’ I do believe the man is as mad as can be. All he ever does is moan about his gold and the lost deed to the land his brother left him.”
“What gold?” her friend asked.
“Why, remember that great, huge lump of gold he used to wave around? The one he lost in a poker game? He keeps saying that’s nothing to the gold on this supposed land. Keeps worrying that without that deed they won’t let him claim the land.”
“How ridiculous,” her friend laughed.
“The bank is holding the land in trust,” Callie explained, glancing to John as she remembered what she’d been told. “To avoid claim-jumpers. He has to prove his identity by showing them the deed.”
Nancy and her friend blinked. “Oh. I guess that does make sense.” Nancy looked deflated that her gossip wasn’t really gossip.
“What will he do if he never finds the deed?” her friend asked.
Callie shrugged. “I guess he’ll have to prove he is who he says he is some other way. Papers of some sort, a birth certificate maybe?”
“Ugh, what mother would want to claim that man as her own?” Nancy laughed.
Callie didn’t see the humor. In fact, as awful as Barney was, she didn’t want to laugh at him. John frowned as if he felt the same way. He looked past Nancy’s shoulder instead of at her. When he felt Callie watching him, he turned to her. His eyes flickered to the tea table.
“Excuse us.” Callie smiled at the gossipy women and inched away from them to escape to the table. She didn’t need to tell John that she hated nasty comments like that. He already knew.
More women arrived, and the rain became a driving force. Puddles formed on the tent cloth above them and dripped in spite of the efforts to give them shelter. Callie had a bad feeling and scooted with John up to Mrs. Weingarten. “We should start serving,” she whispered.
“Yes,” Mrs. Weingarten agreed.
Together, they began sorting out teacups, setting out the sugar and cream and pouring. The ladies slowly migrated to chairs, adjusting them to get around drips and to keep their conversations going. Between the talking and the rain, the tent was loud. Mrs. Weingarten poured and Callie asked each woman if they wanted cream or sugar while John passed around a plate of rolls. Not to be outdone, Elton and the reverend took up plates to hand around as well and began to circulate. Things were going as well as could be expected. Callie kept glancing up at the sagging roof above.
As she was finally beginning to relax, John stepped up to her side and asked, “Shannon, could you hand me another plate?”
Callie’s heart plummeted into her stomach like a rock. Shannon. She was right about her ghost still being there after all.
John’s smile faded to concern. Then it flashed to horror. “I’m so sorry,” he said, breathless.
Callie dropped the teacup she’d been holding and turned away. He’d called her Shannon, easy as Sunday.
“It was an honest slip,” John said behind her.
Was it? Callie jostled her way around Mrs. Weingarten as her friend tried to pour another cup of tea. Was all of John’s sweetness and romance just because he was pretending she was Shannon? She’d been so sure…. But no. Tears welled up to choke her.
She just wanted to get away. Past Mrs. Weingarten, she ran into another tight cluster of chatting woman near a tent pole. They fell silent and gawked at her when they saw her face. Callie twisted to find another way out. She had to get away.
“Callie, wait!” John called behind her. She pulled her arm back to prevent him from catching her.
Then there was a sharp scream and a crash.
Chapter Seventeen
John rushed to put a protective arm around Callie at the sound of the crash, then pivoted to the source of the commotion. However stupid he’d been for calling Callie Shannon, there were more important things to worry about. He’d been suspicious when Reverend Joseph and Elton Finch showed up at a ladies’ tea party, and in an instant his fears were proven. Reverend Joseph crashed into the table, reaching with both arms to snatch Callie’s teapot. He jerked back, pulling it close like a ball that needed protecting in some game.
“Drop it!” Finch shouted.
Reverend Joseph pushed past a woman, knocking her into the table, and Finch jumped to tackle him. Both men plopped to the soggy ground. The teapot popped out of the reverend’s arms. More women gasped and shouted and scrambled to back away. The reverend struggled under Finch, reaching for the teapot as if his life depended on it. Finch ground him down, stretching for
the teapot as well.
John blinked. Finch wasn’t trying to stop the reverend, he was trying to get the teapot for himself. Both men scraped to their knees, clawing and punching at each other as they fought to tackle the teapot, knocking and kicking it out of the way as they did. The women under the tent were now in a panic, screaming and stumbling over each other to get out. A heartbeat later, there was a loud, wet rip, and water splashed down on everyone.
John lifted Callie off of her feet and whisked her out from under the collapsing tent into the pouring rain. They had no time to rest and regroup, though. Reverend Joseph had won the fight for the teapot. He clamped it under his arm and twisted to throw a punch at Finch, who was grabbing doggedly at his coat. The two men continued to struggle.
“It’s mine!” the reverend growled.
“Like hell it is!” Finch roared. He wheeled back and punched the reverend.
Reverend Joseph spun half around with the force of the blow, but he didn’t let go of the teapot. He stumbled several more steps away before Finch caught his coat again. Then there was a sharp, shrill whistle.
John snapped sideways to find its source. Kyle sat astride a dancing horse, holding the reins of another. Reverend Joseph saw him and with a grunt, chucked the teapot up to him. Kyle caught it and hugged it close.
Finch let go of the reverend with a surprised, angry shout. It was the wrong thing to do. Reverend Joseph surged forward, arms and legs flailing, and managing to sprint the distance to the second horse and mount it with astounding speed and agility. In an instant, the two men were off.
“Bastards!” Finch swore and started to run. Not after him, but to his own camp where his horse was tied to the wagon. He threw a saddle over the surprised horse’s back and fastened it.
John broke away from Callie half a second later, dashing to their wagons and Mr. Weingarten’s horse, tied nearby. He raced to untie the lead with wet, clumsy fingers before Finch could free his mount.
“What are you doing?” Callie shouted, running toward him.
“I’ll be damned if I let him be the one to get your mother’s teapot back,” he told her in a grave voice as rain lashed at him, focusing on the wet leather of the lead.
“It’s just a teapot.” Callie wiped rain and wet hair out of her face. She touched his arm as though she would stop him.
“It is not just a teapot,” he shouted.
Callie stumbled, eyes open wide. He’d yelled at her. Later, he would apologize with flowers and sweet words and beg forgiveness, but right then he had a single mission.
The knot tying the horse to its wagon began to come loose, but not quick enough. The sound of galloping thundered beside them as Finch swished past. John watched him for only a moment before doubling his concentration and finishing with the knot. He tried to mount as swiftly and fluidly as the reverend had, but it looked far easier than it was. He slipped on the wet stirrups, missing a few more times before catching his foot and swinging his leg up.
Callie wasn’t about to let him go. As he tried to back the horse up, she grabbed hold of the saddle and stepped on his foot in the stirrup. It was clumsy and dangerous, but she somehow managed to muscle her way up onto the saddle behind him.
“Get down!”
“Go!” She pointed after Finch’s retreating form and kicked the horse herself for good measure.
It jumped forward before John could protest. He was forced to hold the reins and saddle or be thrown. Callie clamped her arms around his torso. They shot off fast, too fast, into the wild rain. There was even a rumble of thunder in the distance.
John could barely see what was in front of him as rain splashed on his glasses. He had to trust a horse he didn’t know to follow men he couldn’t see. All he could do was hold on and lean low over the horse’s neck, urging it to run faster. Ahead, he could make out the blurry shape of Finch and his horse, a dark patch against a darker horizon. At least he hadn’t gotten too far ahead of him. As for Kyle and Reverend Joseph, John could only hope that Finch could see them and was following.
Time melted away. The horse galloped for what seemed like hours, but for all Callie knew, it could have been minutes. They went up over the crest of a small hill, then down the other side. The noise of the rain and the horse’s hooves blended together. She hid her face against John’s back to keep from being pelted as they charged on. The thunder grew louder, or perhaps that was just her imagination or the horse. After a time, as her legs began to get sore, she wanted to pound on John’s back and tell him to stop, to turn around, that it wasn’t worth it. But she couldn’t let go. Her arms were locked around him.
Then, finally, they did slow to a stop. Callie sat straight, her back and legs aching. She panted as if she’d been the one running and not the horse. John’s chest heaved as well and his arms went limp. She peered forward over his shoulder. They were at the crest of another small hill, sparse woods spreading around them. When had they ridden into the woods? Far, far in front of them, Elton galloped on. It was too rainy and dim to see much beyond him. Dim? Surely it wasn’t evening already? They hadn’t been chasing for that long, had they?
“Where are we?” She let her thoughts find words.
“I have no idea,” John answered, defeated. He heaved in a few more heavy breaths. “We’re losing them.”
“What?”
He shook his head. “They’ve been getting steadily farther ahead of us for a while. The horse is getting tired. I had to stop before it stumbled.”
“They?”
His shoulders dropped and he twisted so that he could see her.
“Reverend Joseph and Kyle. They’re not too much farther ahead of Finch. I could see them now and then before we reached these trees.”
Callie absorbed his words, hopelessness spreading through her gut. The day had started in shadow and only gotten worse. A rumble of thunder sounded to their left, fitting her miserable mood. She turned her head toward it, but saw only trees and rain.
“We have to find shelter.” John tapped the horse to walk on.
Callie tightened her grip around his waist as he scanned the area. It was bleak. Trees and small hills. Thick tufts of grass and occasional clumps of bushes. It was a far cry from the barren, flat prairie, but they were still nowhere near the mountains or forests like she’d known in Pennsylvania. She would have given anything for a cave. They were completely out of luck.
“We’re lost,” she said.
John didn’t answer. The tension in his back was enough of an answer for her. He knew it too. He steered the horse down the other side of the hill and walked it through the trees. The ground was muddy, but she saw what she hoped and prayed were the churned up tracks of the men they were chasing. John seemed to be following them, though at a walk, and looking for something along that path. Callie searched too, not sure what would make a suitable shelter. A flash of lightning made her gasp, but the thunder that followed was distant. John closed one hand over hers, clasped above his stomach. She shook it off and balled her hands into fists. He went tense again.
The rain was relentless as they walked on. Callie was ready to settle for anything—anything at all, just to stop. She would sit under the horse’s belly if she had to. But John pressed on.
They came close to the slope of another hill where the trees were thicker. She gave up looking around and stared sightlessly at the back of John’s neck. Everything that had passed between them in the last few weeks flittered through her mind. The way they had slowly, steadily built a relationship, the way they had become friends. All of that swirled in question now. The quiet, intimate hours they’d passed at night. It pained her to think that they were all an illusion, that Shannon was still in his heart.
She thought back to the things John had said. The last time he’d been angry with her he’d put his arm around her and held her close, saying that he’d missed his wife. They’d slept that way ever since, the way he’d slept with Shannon. It made her sick to think that everything between them had bee
n pretend. But why not? Love took months, years to develop, not weeks along a lonely trail. Didn’t it?
She was shaken out of her miserable thoughts when John pulled the horse to stop, then change directions and walked it to the side. Callie sat up, rain peppering her head. It took a moment, but she saw what he saw. Halfway up the side of the hill a cluster of long, thin trees had somehow pulled themselves up from the roots and fallen over en masse. Judging by how green the leaves still were, it may have happened earlier in the storm. Muddy runnels of rainwater were forging twin streams around the clod of dirt holding the roots.
John stopped the horse and dismounted with a stiff groan. He sighed when his feet hit the ground, stretched his back, then turned to reach for Callie. She slid awkwardly into his arms, pushing away and righting herself as soon as she was standing. She didn’t want to look at him, couldn’t talk to him. She was too close to tears. Instead, she marched over to the downed trees. John hesitated, then followed behind.
Sure enough, there was a thick black mark zipping down the trunk of one of the larger trees in the clump. They had been struck by lightning. Callie grabbed a handful of wet skirt to get it out of her way and climbed over the clump of roots to get a better look. The roots looked like a knitting basket after a cat had gotten into it. When lightning took down the one tree, half a dozen others had ripped up with it. None of them were big trees though.
“Callie,” John called through the pounding of the rain.
She glanced up. He was farther down the hill’s gentle slope, where the leafy canopy of branches had crushed into one mass. He beckoned for her to come and see.
She skidded her way down the slope, nearly falling. He caught her and wouldn’t let her arm go this time, even though she tried to yank away. She ignored his stubbornness and looked at what he was showing her.
“We can break off some of the branches underneath and move them to the top to make a shelter. It’s not much, but it might work.”
