Age was going to join them, but Aunt Ginny insisted he stay and have something to eat, and give his horse time to rest. It looked like he had ridden the animal at break-neck speed all the way from town. The horse was covered with lather at its neck and shoulders and flanks.
Bree sat at the table and reached for her cup of tea, and she thought a moment. Three of them trying to track the girl from the meadow. It would take them maybe half an hour to get from the house to the meadow, and then it would be a case of following her tracks. If they could find them, after all these hours.”
Bree said, “Age, you said Nina ran straight into the woods?”
“Yes’m,” Age said. “Mister Hunter thinks she went straight up the ridge behind town.”
Bree looked at Aunt Ginny. “It might make sense to have someone approaching town from the opposite direction. Going through the woods from the valley and up the slope.”
Aunt Ginny gave her a look that said, oh no you don’t, but Bree said, “I can ride as well as any man on this ranch. Better’n some. I know these ridges like the back of my hand. And Pa’s shown me how to shoot a rifle. I’m almost as good a shot as Josh.”
Aunt Ginny looked like she wanted to protest, but the words wouldn’t come.
Temperance was sitting beside Aunt Ginny. She said, “I can ride, but not like you. I’d come, but I’m afraid I’d just be in the way.”
Bree got to her feet. “Could you have Fred saddle a horse for me?”
Bree went upstairs. She was in a gingham blouse and a dark skirt that fell to her knees. Aunt Ginny hated it when Bee wore levis – no woman back in San Francisco would be caught dead in men’s pants, Aunt Ginny had said more than once. But Bree had reminded her this was not San Francisco. Bree had a lot of miles of riding ahead of her, and riding side saddle would just not suffice. She pulled off her dress and the petticoats beneath it, then pulled open the bottom drawer of her dresser and found her solitary pair of levis. She pulled them on, then reached for her riding boots. She grabbed a gray sombrero from a nail in the wall and pulled it down over her head.
Downstairs, she stopped at the gun rack. A couple Winchesters, an old Henry, and Pa’s even older Hawken muzzle-loader. There were empty spaces as Pa had grabbed his Sharps this morning, and Dusty and Jack had each grabbed Winchesters.
One of the Winchesters standing was a .44-40, and took seventeen cartridges. The other was a shorter carbine, a .44 caliber, and it took twelve cartridges. This was the rifle Bree preferred as it was a little easier to handle. A little more maneuverable, especially from horseback. It was the one she usually used for target practice.
The gun was loaded. Pa kept all the guns loaded. If you need a gun, an empty one is of no use to you. Keep them loaded, and treat them like they’re loaded. Regardless, she pulled the lever down partway and opened the chamber a little to reassure herself there was a cartridge there. Something else Pa had said. Always check your loads.
She pulled open a drawer of the cabinet the gun rack stood on and grabbed a box of extra cartridges, and then went out and climbed down the front steps. A horse was saddled and tethered to the top rail of the corral, and Fred was standing by looking restless.
“Are you sure about this, Bree?” he said. “I can saddle up and go with you.”
“I’ll be fine, Fred. You should stay with Aunt Ginny and Temperance.”
He nodded reluctantly.
Aunt Ginny had stepped out the kitchen door and was walking toward the corral. Bree was expecting her aunt to give her grief about the levis, but Ginny said nothing.
Bree slid the rifle into the saddle boot, and then swung up and into the saddle.
Aunt Ginny said, “You really are your father’s daughter.”
Bree smiled and nodded. “I’m heading straight up and over the ridge. I’ll be in McCabe Gap in probably two or three hours.”
“Be safe, child.”
Bree turned her horse and was off at a light canter across the grassy valley floor.
“Fred,” Ginny said. “Hitch us up a wagon. Temperance and I will take Age back to his parents. We’ll wait in town for any word on Nina.”
Bree turned her horse into the woods. This horse was a buckskin, caught in the wild by Pa a couple years ago. Broken by Josh. But a mountain horse is never fully broken. This horse had spirit and was one of Bree’s favorites to ride. It had a mane so blonde it was almost white and one matching stocking, and was full of spirit.
The horse wanted to move, to charge through the trees, but Bree kept it on tight rein. She looked about as she rode.
At one point she reined in the horse and sat in the saddle and called out, “Nina!”
She waited. There was no response. She checked the reactions of the horse. Pa had said a horse can smell things and hear things that a human never can. Watch your horse and let its motions tell you what it is hearing or smelling.
This horse was flicking its head back and forth and lifting its fore hooves impatiently. It wanted to run. Bree nudged it on but kept it under rein. She didn’t want to cover ground too fast and miss something.
She rode on maybe five hundred yards, then reined up and called out again. Nothing.
Fred had hung a full canteen from the saddle horn, so she grabbed it and pulled the cork free and took a swig.
“Where could she be?” she said to the horse, though she didn’t expect the horse to understand her. You do a lot of horse riding, you end up talking to your horse. “She’s out here somewhere.”
The horse snorted and flicked its head again. It didn’t know what she was talking about, but wanted to run.
“You be patient, boy. After we climb this ridge up and down, you’ll have your workout.”
She nudged the horse ahead again. The ridge flattened out to a small plateau, and there was a grove of birch. The bark was a yellow-white, and the leaves were fluttering in the wind.
Bree sat in the saddle and waited. She guessed they were almost half-way up the ridge. She had left the ranch house maybe an hour earlier.
Maybe she should ride laterally for a while and cut for sign. That’s what she figured Pa might do. Or Dusty. She turned her horse and began a slow ride across the side of the ridge.
She left the birch grove behind her, and was in pines again. At one point she emerged from the pines onto a rocky section of slope.
She dismounted and let the rein trail – ground hitching they call it. She loosened the cinch and let the horse rest a bit. She pulled the rifle from the saddle because she was not going to be caught unarmed should the horse for any reason decide to bolt. She was Pa’s daughter, and had learned to think like him.
The wind shifted. The breeze was picking up. The clearing she was in provided an open view of the sky, and she saw some dark clouds toward the north.
“We’re gonna get some rain, boy,” she said to the horse.
The horse lifted its head. It sniffed and it shifted its hooves nervously. Something on the breeze had caught its attention. It hadn’t been there a few moments earlier, but when the wind shifted it brought this new scent to the horse.
“What is it, boy?” Bree said, gently reaching for the rein. “Is there a mountain lion up there? Or a big ol’ grizzly?”
She wasn’t afraid. She had her rifle and was a crack shot. She had gone hunting with Pa and Josh once, a couple years ago, and brought down a mountain lion with this very rifle.
She tightened the cinch and stepped up and into the saddle.
“Let’s go check it out, boy.”
She nudged the horse ahead, but she rode with the rifle across the front of her saddle.
Nina was at the bottom of the pit. She had tried to rise to her feet three times, and all three times had collapsed with stabbing pain in her ankle. It had gotten dark, and spent the night in the wet pine straw in total blackness.
Animals called from the night. A wolf howled from somewhere up on the ridge.
Nina curled up, shaking with fear. And she was cold. She cried
at one point. Then she decided not to let herself cry anymore. She had to be stronger than that. Her ankle was starting to hurt even when she wasn’t trying to stand on it and her shoe was feeling tight. This meant her ankle was probably swelling. She reached down in the dark and unlaced her high-top shoe and gingerly pulled it from her foot.
She then curled up again on the cold, damp pine straw and stared up at the darkness overhead. She half expected a wolf to suddenly peer down at her with glowing eyes.
But no wolf showed. Somewhere in the night she fell asleep. She awoke shivering, laid there awake for awhile, then slept some more.
Eventually morning came and she became aware of how god-awful hungry she was. And thirsty.
I’m gonna die in this pit and no one will ever know, she thought.
Her anger at her father now seemed so distant, like it had been long ago. Her thoughts were of Jack. She wanted him to hold her one more time. She wanted to taste his kisses one more time. She didn’t want to die like this. Like some wounded animal at the bottom of some strange pit dug in the middle of the woods.
She heard a noise up top. She wasn’t sure what it was. She waited and listened again. And she heard it again. A sort of snorting sound. Like what a horse makes.
“Hello?” she called out. “Help!”
A girl then poked her head into view at the top of the pit, looking down at her. The girl had a gray sombrero on her head.
“Are you Nina?” the girl said.
Nina nodded, not knowing what to say.
“Hi. I’m Bree. Jack’s sister. Give me a couple minutes and I’ll have you out of this hole.”
Jack felt a sort of fear he had never known before as he rode along the side of the ridge. He was cutting for sign. Sign that was just not there. He called out Nina’s name and listened for an answer that never came. The woman he loved was out here somewhere in the woods. She might need his help, but where was she? Was she even still alive?
Pa had said maybe they should split up so they could cover more ground. Pa rode in one direction. Dusty in another. Hunter in yet another. Harding could ride a horse and had come along, and took a fourth path along the side of the ridge.
Nina had run away from Harding the evening before. The man who was really Harlan Carter wouldn’t say what the argument was about, but Jack could only guess.
Jack shouldn’t have had a thought like this, a thought of revenge, but it suddenly crept in on him. If something happened to Nina, then Carter would have the gunfight he seemed to itching to have. Jack was his father’s son, after all.
There were no more tracks to follow. The trail was too old, and to make matters worse, it was starting to rain.
Around noon, they began converging at the settlers’ camp. First Johnny, then Dusty and after a while, Hunter. The women were preparing food as the men would need to eat. Aunt Ginny and Temperance were there, and helping. Ginny had used her credit at Franklin’s to stock up the settlers’ supplies so a full meal was being prepared. Chicken, potatoes, biscuits.
Aunt Ginny told the men that Bree was out in the woods searching, too.
Johnny stood by Ginny, a tin cup of coffee in his hand. He said, “We’ll take a few minutes to eat, then we’ll continue the search. Right up until dark.”
Dusty was standing by him, a plate of food in his hands.
Ginny said, “I told Fred if Josh should come riding in, to send him into town to help.”
Johnny nodded.
Jack came riding up and swung out of the saddle. “I’ll take some of that coffee.”
Aunt Ginny said, “You should eat.”
“I’m not hungry. I just want a quick drink of coffee and then I’ll switch saddles with a horse from Old Jeb’s remuda, and then I’m off again.”
“You need to eat, Jackson.”
Pa said, “Your aunt’s right.”
Dusty looked up. Motion at the edge of the meadow had caught his peripheral vision. Bree was on a horse and behind her on the saddle was Nina.
“Jack,” he said. “Pa. Look.”
They followed his gaze. Aunt Ginny had just poured Jack a cup of coffee, and he let the cup go flying into the grass and ran toward them.
“Easy,” Bree said. “The girl’s got a badly twisted ankle.”
Jack reached for her, anyway. She reached down for him and slid off the back of the horse. Jack took her in his arms.
Her blouse had dirt stains on the elbows and shoulders. Her hair had come mostly free of the bun and was flying wildly. There were dirt streaks on her cheeks. Jack didn’t care. He held her tightly like he was afraid to let go.
“Are you all right?” he managed to say.
She nodded. “Bree found me. I’m okay.”
Jack looked up at Bree, tears in his eyes. He couldn’t find the words. Bree gave a nod and a smile.
They were quickly surrounded. Questions were being asked, all at once.
Nina was saying, “I fell into this pit. I twisted my ankle. I thought it was broken.”
“Give the girl some room to breathe,” Ginny said. “Let’s get her back to her family’s camp.”
Harding looked at her and she looked at him, and then he took her in a big hug.
“I’m so sorry,” he said.
“Father, I’m staying. I’m not going to Oregon.”
“We can discuss it later.”
Nina said, “We can discuss it anytime you want. But I’m staying.”
Ginny said to Bree, “You must be hungry.”
Bree said, “I don’t normally drink coffee, but I have to admit that smells almighty good.”
With a grin, Dusty poured her a cup. It was thick and black. Trail coffee. She took a sip.
“I found her in a pit, up on the eastern side of that ridge,” she said. She looked at Pa. “Prospectors were in these hills off and on even before we moved in. I figured it was an old claim that showed no color, so it was abandoned. It looked like it was hand dug. Maybe six or seven feet deep. It’s been empty a long time.”
She took a sip of coffee. “Looked like a deadfall had covered most of it, and pine straw had collected on the deadfall. When it was getting dark, maybe at first glance Nina thought it was just a lumpy spot on the ground. When she stepped on it some branches must have broken and down she went.”
Johnny put his arm around his daughter. “Have I ever told you how proud I am of you?”
She gave a wicked grin. “Not today.”
“Well, Punkin’, I’m proud of you.”
She took another sip of coffee. “You know, I think I’m starting to understand why you men like this stuff.”
“Oh, Lord,” Aunt Ginny said.
Bree went on to explain that Fred had included a length of rope on the saddle. Fred never saddled a horse without including a length of rope and a canteen of water. Bree tied one end of the rope to a tree and then using the rope, climbed down into the pit. After she was sure Nina wasn’t hurt too badly, she tied the rope around Nina’s middle, then climbed out and tied the rope to the saddle horn and had the horse back up.
“The horse pulled her right up and out of the hole, as quick as you please.”
Since Nina was a little shaken up but could ride, Bree brought her to Granny Tate’s. “Granny said it’s sprained quite bad. There’s swelling, and she’s not to step on it for a while. Granny wants to see her again day after tomorrow. She splinted it up to help her keep the foot still.”
Bree then sighed with exasperation. “You know what I did? I forgot to fetch Nina’s shoe. It’s still at the bottom of that pit.”
They all laughed. Ginny gave Bree a hug. Ginny said, “You did fine. You did really fine.”
Jack looked over toward the Hardings’ tent. Nina was sitting in a wooden chair and devouring a plate of food. Her ankle was indeed in a wooden splint. Thin planks six inches wide, tied together with a strip of bedsheet. Jack knew Granny Tate’s improvised splints were better than anything he had ever seen a doctor devise.
He
decided to go over and see how she was doing.
Pa stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “Not now, son. Let them talk. They have a lot to discuss.”
Jack nodded.
Harding was standing about awkwardly while his daughter ate. She devoured a chicken breast and a baked potato and her mother filled her plate again.
Finally, Nina looked up at him. “I’m staying,” she said.
He began to say something but she cut him off before he could get the first word out.
“No,” she said. “You crossed a line last night. As I lay there in that pit, thinking I was going to die, I had a lot of time to think this over. You can go to Oregon if you want. But I’m staying. And if Jack McCabe asks me to marry him, I’m going to say yes. Simple as that.”
Emily looked at her husband. “Carter, I love you. You know that. So believe me when I tell you how hard it is to say this. If she stays, I’m staying too. Whether you do or not.”
Harding looked long into his wife’s eyes. He then looked to his daughter, who was once again focused on the food in front of her.
Jack stood with his coffee in one hand. Bree was telling in greater detail about how she found Nina and got her out of the pit. Pa was beaming with pride. While they talked, Jack allowed a glance toward Nina. He couldn’t tell what she had said to her father, but he watched Harding back up a step. Harding stared at her while she focused on the plate of food in her lap. Jack watched as Harding turned and strode away.
Jack didn’t realize Aunt Ginny was watching the Hardings too until she said to him, “That man is trouble.”
32
The little collection of buildings known as McCabe Gap went wild on the fourth of July. Cowboys and the families they worked for swarmed into town. It was like Saturday night, except women and children were there too. Frank Shapleigh, who owned the hotel, hung a banner with the colors of the flag and the words JULY 4th over his door. He had been doing this every year since he arrived, and a couple bullet holes in the fabric were mementos of previous July fourths.
One Man's Shadow (The McCabes Book 2) Page 27
