Blinking away the vision of the woman curled around the bearskin, Bane turned on his heel and strode away into the night.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
BLAZE’S AWAKENING SENSES TOLD HER IT WAS JUST before dawn. The chill was leaving the night air, and it touched her with a promise of warmth in the day to come. Dew-damp earth and the primal odors of wood and leafy foliage filled her nostrils. Any moment she would hear the first birdsong of the day. She turned over and momentarily buried her face in the fragrant mustiness of her bearskin.
Bane was already up. She heard him moving about their campsite. Minutes later she heard the crackle of a small fire. Blaze lifted her head and pushed her hair out of her eyes. Her brows arced.
“Is that a coffeepot I see?”
Bane merely grunted.
Blaze sat up and straightened her clothes, then raked her fingers through her hair. She watched her companion pull a skillet out of a pack and set it on the fire alongside the coffeepot.
“Is there something special about today?” Blaze asked.
Bane laid strips of bacon in the pan. Nodding with apparent satisfaction, he sat back on his haunches.
“Yes,” he replied at length. “There is something special. It is another day we are alive.”
Blaze’s mouth watered as the smell of frying bacon and boiling coffee wafted in her direction. She allowed the trace of a smile to curl her lips as she rose from her bearskin bed and strode into the privacy of the surrounding trees. When she returned, she sat across the fire from Bane and accepted the tin cup of coffee he offered her.
“Thank you,” she said simply. Their eyes met briefly. Neither flinched away, and Blaze breathed a short, inward sigh of relief.
Things were better. It was a long time coming, but things had improved. Ever since …
Blaze turned away and fingered the coarse, dense hair of the skin she had cured herself. “When it is done, I … I will be healed. We will leave.”
And so they had. She finished the hide late one afternoon. The sun was partially hidden behind the distant peak, its slanting rays setting diamonds in the shrinking snowcap. It was almost eerily silent at the lakeside, not even the scolding of a jay. The perfume of pine enveloped her. Then a trout jumped, its splash startling her. She didn’t hear the footfall behind her, and was only aware of Bane’s presence when his shadow fell over her.
“It is done,” he stated quietly.
Blaze glanced down at the cape in her lap. Yes. It was done. Wrapped in the comfortable numbness of the afternoon’s serenity, she forgot the finishing touches she earlier completed. She replied without glancing up at Bane.
“I’ve … I’ve done everything you told me.”
“And it is well done,” he said so softly she wasn’t certain she heard. When she turned around, he was gone, as silently as he arrived.
When she awoke the next morning, Bane had packed their modest camp. The horses were tacked and ready to ride. Watching Bane mount, Blaze saw his stiffness, the lingering edges of pain. It was amazing he could mount at all, much less ride. She had not thought he would live, and when he survived she had not thought he would heal. But then, she hadn’t thought she could skin the bear either, much less craft the skin.
Or bury her entire village.
The now-familiar hot tide surged through her veins, warming her body, steeling her heart, cocooning her from pain and heartache.
Blaze’s gaze flicked briefly over Bane. He sat erect in his saddle, staring into the distance, the path they would travel. He held the reins loosely, forearms crossed over the pommel, waiting for her. She readied herself quickly, greeted her horse with a brisk neck rub, and climbed into the saddle. Bane started off without a word. He never looked back.
The days on the trail had been long and hard. And lonely. Blaze almost felt she had ceased to exist. Certainly what happened between them faded into nothingness as if it, too, did not exist, had never occurred. Reality became surreal, dreamlike. There was only the endless, dusty road winding down from the mountains toward the plains beyond. And then they ran into a group of settlers headed south out of the Wyoming area.
Initial greetings were reluctant and stilted. A grizzled, weather-beaten old man, obviously the leader, eyed them warily, slitted gaze taking in their buckskins and black, braided hair. When it appeared he wasn’t about to be overtly hostile, Bane asked if he’d heard any rumors of trouble on the trail.
“Yeah,” the old man replied grudgingly from his wagon bench. “Heard ’bout some trouble ’round Laramie.”
Bane’s posture never changed, but Blaze knew he was instantly and keenly alert. He nodded his encouragement to the old man.
“Don’t know much. We was south o’ the fort. Just heard ’bout some gang o’ marauders. Bad ’uns.”
The quirk of an eyebrow conveyed Bane’s question.
“Cain’t tell ya much more. Didn’t stick ’round t’find out. Got women with us, y’know?” He cast a lewd eye on Blaze’s body. “Or mebbe ya don’t know. Squaws is different, ain’t they? More like … animals.”
Bane never even blinked although Blaze knew every muscle in his body was tensed. Slowly, ever so slowly, he sat back in the saddle, leather creaking, and straightened his spine.
“Good day to you, then. And good luck,” he said.
The threat implied in the mere tone of his voice was as chilling as the hiss of a venomous snake. Blaze watched the old man pale under his leathery tan.
Bane kicked his horse into a lope and Blaze followed. She didn’t look back, but heard the lead driver crack his whip sharply. The sound of rapid hoofbeats told her they had abruptly quickened their ambling pace south, and she smiled inwardly with grim satisfaction.
Despite her burning curiosity, Blaze did not try to breach the wall Bane had erected by questioning him about the “trouble” near Laramie. She guessed it was partly pride, partly fear of his response. No matter how hard she tried to deny it, no matter the poisoned memories she deliberately pumped into her veins to shield her from the pain, his rejection went to her core. The wound was still raw.
But the atmosphere seemed somewhat thawed this morning. Blaze accepted the proffered plate of bacon and dry, hard, trail biscuit. She looked up at Bane from under lowered brows.
“Bane?”
The nearly imperceptible widening of one eye was her only response. She interpreted it as an invitation to continue.
“That old man the other day, the one who talked about trouble near Laramie …”
“The Sioux nations gather there for the summer,” he replied to her unfinished question, “as I told you. Like any group, any herd, they attract predators sniffing out the weak.”
“You think the scarred man—”
“Yes,” he said curtly. “The carrion eaters will also come.”
“But, do you think he has anything to do with the trouble? With this gang?’
Bane’s shoulders twitched in what might have been a shrug. “I know what you know.”
“And where there’s a stink, you’ll find garbage.”
Was that a smile she saw trying to curl the corners of his mouth? A light in his eye?
“I’m starting to sound like you, aren’t I?”
His teeth flashed white in his bronzed face. He allowed the smile to linger while he kicked dirt on their fire. Blaze helped him pack up the camp, and in nearly perfect unison they swung onto their horses. She noticed while the smile had vanished, so had the almost-constant tension in Bane’s shoulders. He put his heels to his mare, then as abruptly halted her. He turned to Blaze.
“His name is Jake,” he said simply.
“Jake,” she repeated, overcoming the urge to spit. “A dead man’s name.”
Bane’s lips remained a straight, compressed line. But the light had returned to his eyes. Blaze let herself sink into their blue depths.
Like summer lightning, the thing between them sizzled. Life flowed through her veins again. And passion. The passion for revenge.
As one, they urged their mounts into a lope. Only a fading cloud of dust marked their passage through the trees and onto the long, long road.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
IT WAS ALMOST NOON AND THE SUN WAS HIGH AND hot. Carrie’s horse was dark with sweat, and her shirt was plastered to her back. Pushing back strands of strawberry blond hair escaped from her twin braids, she reined in her sorrel and looked around.
The tree-clad mountains surrounded her with undeniable majesty. Although she had grown up in Wyoming, the secluded, wild beauty of the area never failed to awe and inspire her. She heard from travelers who bought the occasional horse from her parents that the forested mountains to the north and west were even more magnificent. But Carrie liked where she was just fine. She watched a hawk make a lazy circle downslope from her position, then headed into the valley to her favorite spot by the stream.
Her sense of well-being increased when she dismounted, hobbled her gelding, and opened the modest lunch her mother had packed for her. Squatting in the shade of a cottonwood tree beside the water, she pulled a slice of buttered bread and an apple from her pack.
She should start back soon. There was no sign of the small band of mares she had spotted earlier in the day. She had been able to track them up into the foothills but had lost them when they apparently headed up the scree from a rockfall. Not that she had much chance of catching up to them anyway. Carrie smiled to herself.
Horses were smarter than most people gave them credit for. She loved and appreciated them, as did her parents. Occasionally it was hard to sell some of them. But it was their livelihood, and she loved caring for them. And she loved the excuse to take off in the middle of the day simply for another glimpse of the wild band. She remembered the twinkle in her father’s gray eyes when they realized simultaneously what caused the approaching dust cloud. He put down the food bucket and turned to her.
“We’ll be able to see ’em in a minute.”
And then there they were, tails flagged as they flew over the dusty ground, fleeing from something real or imagined, heading for the foothills to the northwest. Carrie felt an excited chill run down her spine. One of the mares was a bay with stockings and a blaze, a standout in the herd. Carrie sighed audibly with appreciation.
“Why don’cha saddle up and follow ’em a way? See what you can see.”
Carrie’s heart beat a little faster. She turned to her mother who stood over the washtub, round cheeks rosy from exertion. Lydia Olssen nodded indulgently and swiped a strand of pale blond hair, now nearly white, from her forehead.
There was no way she would ever catch up to the band; it was only the joy of the ride that mattered. Still, she hesitated.
“Go on, now,” her mother said, love in her voice. “You worked hard this mornin’.”
It was all the encouragement she needed. Without a word, she quickly tacked her favorite saddle horse and took off at a gallop.
A soft whicker from her sorrel drew Carrie’s attention, and she pushed to her feet. It was time to go back and help her parents with the afternoon chores. Maybe tomorrow she’d take a little time and look for the herd again. Just for the joy of the ride, of course.
The sun had started its downward arc when Carrie crested a last ridge and saw the modest house with its three corrals, small barn, and thriving vegetable garden. She didn’t see her parents, however, which was odd. Her mother should be out hanging the laundry she was doing when Carrie left, and her father was almost always doing something with the horses. There were only four of them at the moment, but …
At the moment there were five; a horse she had never seen before, looking hard-ridden, was tied to the porch railing.
Carrie’s heart caught in her throat. Something was wrong. She just knew it.
The sorrel responded at once to the pressure of his rider’s heels. Half-sliding down the remainder of the slope, he hit level ground and broke immediately into a lope. Carrie leaned low on his neck, gently urging him to greater speed.
The house grew larger in her vision. She could see the front door was open. A bleached muslin curtain puffed out an open window with the vagrant breeze, and relaxed inside again, as if the house breathed. Terror seized her by the throat. An instant later it started to strangle.
A stranger walked out the front door. He hitched up his pants, spit to the side, then caught sight of her. His hand went to the gun at his hip.
Carrie hauled on the reins, and the sorrel came to a skidding halt. The stranger pulled his gun and, with a slow, evil smile, pointed it at her.
“Come on, girlie,” he drawled. “Get down off that horse. Let’s you an’ me have a party.”
Frozen with horror, only Carrie’s eyes moved. Her gaze flicked back to the front door. The stranger laughed.
“Ain’t no one in there kin help you. Get down, now. Get down.”
His voice had hardened. The smile was gone. He cocked the hammer.
She had practically been born on a horse. She trusted her skills. Carrie wheeled the sorrel and put her heels to his sides. Hard.
A pistol shot rang out.
If she was hit, she felt nothing. She kept riding. With a second set of hoofbeats now pounding behind her.
“Well, Ring, I think yer crazy t’change yer plans, but I ain’t gonna complain about the scenery.” Sandy tipped his hat to an attractive young woman hurrying along the raised wooden walkway. She looked away, cheeks blazing, and when she’d passed, he hurried to catch up with Ring and Rowdy, spurs clanking.
“I don’t know what part of my new plan you think is crazy,” Ring replied. “I thought it was pretty sharp, m’self.”
“But you know you can sell them horses in Missouri.”
“Most likely.” Ring stepped off the sidewalk and headed across the street. He stopped and waited for an ox-drawn wagon to pass, then continued. “Most likely I can sell ’em to the army in Fort Laramie, too. ’Sides, Wyoming’s closer than Missouri.”
Rowdy rolled his eyes. He’d heard the question, and the reply, more times than he could count. Sandy hadn’t shut up about their change of direction since Ring made the decision. Pushing the brim of his hat up, he followed Ring through the swinging saloon doors. Didn’t Sandy realize there was more to their boss’s change of plans than met the eye? Ring asked for news and rumor wherever they stopped, and wasn’t there rumor of trouble up in northern Wyoming? Not to mention tales of an odd bounty-hunting couple, a Mexican gal and a half breed.
Ring strolled up to the bar, removed his hat, slapped the dust off on his thigh, and leaned against the polished surface.
The bartender smiled, the corners of his mouth disappearing into fat cheeks. “What’s your pleasure?”
The men ordered, and when they had their drinks he inquired about a hotel. Finishing his beer and armed with information, he threw a few coins on the counter. And heard the shouts and the thunder of galloping hooves. A runaway? He pushed away from the bar and headed for the door, Sandy and Rowdy in his wake. When he heard a woman’s agonized shriek for help, he broke into a trot.
Carrie was only dimly aware she could no longer hear the hoofbeats following her. It did not occur to her the pursuer must have veered off when she neared and entered the town. She knew merely she was chased by a man who pointed a gun at her … and fired. Beyond that—her parents, what the stranger was doing in their house—she could not think. She could only ride.
And then the town was all around her, enfolding her, saving her. She saw people on the sidewalks pass by in a blur. She sped past a couple of single riders and a wagon. A voice she didn’t recognize as hers erupted from her throat, calling for help.
Others shouted at her, yelled at her to pull up, stop her horse. Panic ebbed, and she leaned back in her saddle, keeping constant pressure on the reins. The sorrel slowed to a trot, sides heaving, and Carrie started to shake. Then the exhausted horse went to his knees.
Ring arrived at exactly the right moment. A rangy sorrel, lathered and over-ri
dden, collapsed, and his rider lurched forward. Ring caught her and pulled her away from the distressed animal before he could roll over on her leg. Once he had her steadied, he swooped her up into his arms.
Huge blue eyes stared at him from a pale and pretty face peppered with freckles. As he watched, the eyes filled with tears and he became aware of the girl’s trembling. An instant later, she burst into sobs and buried her face in his chest. Aware of all the curious stares and muttered questions, Ring turned on his heel and carried her inside the saloon.
A dog’s tail of onlookers followed. Sandy rushed ahead and pulled out a chair at one of the round tables and Ring tried to set the girl down, but she clung to him stubbornly, still weeping. With a sigh, he sat in the chair himself. Awkwardly, he patted her back.
“Come on, now, miss, calm down. Calm down and tell me what happened. Can’t help if you don’t tell me what’s wrong.”
A moment later she looked up at him, hiccoughing. Strands of strawberry blond hair, escaped from two long braids, streaked her flushed cheeks and clung to her sweat-damp neck.
“A … a stranger,” she stammered. “I was out riding, and I … I came home, but … but someone was there … coming out of my house …”
Ring tensed. He glanced quickly at Sandy and Rowdy, then back to the girl. “Go on,” he encouraged.
Carrie took a deep breath. “He told me to get down. He …” The tears welled again. “I knew what he wanted,” she whispered. “I stayed on my horse. Then he pulled a gun …”
Subtly, Ring began to ease the girl off his lap. There was a murmuring in the crowd, and a stocky man with a badge made his way to the table.
“What’s going on here?” he demanded. “What happened, Carrie?”
Carrie rose to unsteady feet and repeated what she had just told Ring.
“Where’re your parents?” he asked tersely.
Carrie’s face crinkled, but she managed to find her voice. “In … inside, I think. I didn’t see them.”
Blaze of Lightning Roar of Thunder Page 14
