Brides of Prairie Gold (20 page)

Cody cantered back to the wagons and instructed Miles Dawson to bring the train up to within a quarter of a mile of the abandoned wagon. After a quick search, he rode toward a sand hill where Perrin stood waiting.

She faced west toward mounds of purple clouds billowing up along the horizon, watching the lightning that flashed across a dark strip near the earth. Rising wind teased dark tendrils from her bonnet and molded her skirts around a curve of hips and thighs, the sight of which made his stomach suddenly tighten.

She looked so alone with the sky and plains behind her, swaying like a stalk in the wind, that his chest tightened sharply and he surprised himself by wanting to clasp her to his chest and shield her from weather and fate and the loneliness imposed on her by the other brides.

He didn't understand his attraction to this woman, didn't want it. Even if he hadn't decided there would be no more women in his life, he would not have chosen a woman like Perrin Waverly regardless of her beauty. She didn't like men, expected the worst from them. She was stubborn and argumentative.

She had been another's man's mistress.

The push-pull of his relationship with her irritated and mystified him. At the end of each day, she approached their meeting with wary eyes and the ever-present chip on her shoulder, clearly expecting a battle of wills. This despite the fact that he had bent over backward to keep his train running smoothly, which meant he frequently ground his teeth, set aside his gut reaction, and acquiesced to many of her requests.

Then, just about the time that he decided to hell with her and her prickly manner, they shared an instant of perfect accord, a stunning moment when he looked into her face and knew that she felt exactly the same emotion he was feeling, or that she assessed a situation precisely as he did. He had never experienced this connection with a woman, this strange unspoken harmony of shared accord.

Such instances threw him off balance by giving him a glimpse of something he couldn't label or identify, but something that made him suddenly ache with a restless loneliness as intense as he felt when riding solo across the prairie. At such times a hollowness opened behind his chest as if he lacked something he hadn't known he was missing.

Riding up alongside her, he frowned down at the oval face tilted up to him. Beneath the lip of her bonnet, her dark hair was parted neatly down the center, drawn toward a heavy knot on her neck. Loose tendrils floated in the breeze and fluttered against her cheeks. Today her eyes seemed enormous, the warm color of his saddle. Her lips reminded him of early strawberries.

He didn't need this. Damn it, he did not want it.

"Tell the women we'll be stopping long enough to bury two people." His voice was harsh, an order, not a request.

She nodded and folded her arms across her breast, facing the lightning that pulsed behind the clouds. "Cholera?"

Watching her face, he suddenly comprehended that lightning frightened her. And he realized that she looked at him with the same apprehensive expression as she regarded the lightning, as if he were hot and dangerous, something wild and beyond understanding, to be feared and avoided.

"It's difficult to tell. They've been dead awhile."

Her thick-lashed eyes swung toward him with a glint of anger. "The previous train passed by without burying them?"

"It won't take long." Several of the brides leaned out of the wagons to watch them talking. It occurred to Cody that at least some secretly hoped Perrin would do something to confirm her reputation as a loose woman, something to condemn her for.

What the hell did they expect her to do? Lean against his thigh and simper up at him? He tossed a glare toward the avid watchers. Hell, no wonder she stiffened and jerked from an accidental touch. "We should be able to make a few more miles after the burial, before the storm hits."

"Cody?" she called as he was turning his horse. He hauled on the reins and glanced over his shoulder. Today was a day of insights. She never called him Cody except when it was impossible for anyone to overhear and read something into it. "Thank you for being willing to stop and bury those people."

Their eyes held. And God help him, he stared at her wind-molded breasts and thighs and wanted to bed her. He wanted to see those cinnamon eyes gazing up from his pillow, wide and feral with desire. He longed to scatter the pins from her hair and bury his hands in its silken weight. He wanted to make that husky voice whisper his name. Wanted to melt the starch out of her bones. He burned with inner wildness at the thought of her shuddering with pleasure beneath him.

He stared down at her. "Did you pin a short length of faded yellow ribbon to my saddle blanket?"

Her eyebrows soared like silky wings. "No."

Without another word, he rode away from her large brown eyes and visions of naked curves and strawberry lips. Maybe she had pinned the yellow ribbon to his blanket; maybe she hadn't. He didn't know whether to believe her. He couldn't think of anyone else who might have done it.

Damn her. He had more important things to deal with than bits of ancient cake and yellow ribbons, or thinking about rounded hips and small perfect breasts. He didn't want to speculate how her body would feel beneath his, didn't want any of it. There would be no more women in his life. No more betrayals, no more pain written across his heart in a female hand.

Bending over the neck of his buckskin, he galloped back to the abandoned wagon.

Webb had nearly finished digging the first grave. Cody removed a shovel from behind his saddle and lifted his boot to drive the edge into the ground. "Did you discover who they were?" he asked after twenty minutes, taking a break to wipe the sweat from his brow.

Webb nodded toward a man and woman he had covered with a blanket pulled from the back of their wagon. " 'Eaggleston' is carved on the side of the wagon bed. The same name is engraved on a trunk inside."

Mr. Eaggleston had been laid out carefully, his arms folded across his chest, but Webb had found the woman sprawled in a heap at the tail of the wagon, a shovel beside her. "We've been lucky so far," Cody commented before he returned to digging. Because of Webb's judicious campsites and plain good fortune, he hadn't had to dig a grave for one of his passengers. Yet.

An hour later he stood from mounding sand and dirt atop the graves, removed his hat to wipe his temples, then swore between his teeth. Contrary to orders, his train was headed straight for the abandoned wagon instead of staying on the trail as he'd ordered. Miles Dawson rode point, his face flushed and frustrated. Dawson called a halt when the lead wagon came abreast of the graves and he spread his arms in a gesture of exasperation.

"Mr. Snow?" Perrin called.

Cody swung his gaze from Miles Dawson, but not without a narrowed scowl that promised a good cussing later. He watched Perrin and Lucy Hastings striding toward him, the other brides behind them. "What the hell is going on here?" he demanded.

Perrin pressed down her skirts, holding them against the stiffening wind. "Miss Hastings demands, and we all agree, that these poor souls have a service spoken over them."

Irritation reddened his face. A bunch of determined women had overridden his orders and cowed one of his teamsters. He scowled at them, noticing they had gussied up, had washed their faces at the rain barrels, had smoothed their hair. They all wore bonnets and gloves and faces dead set on having their way.

"It's going to rain and we've lost enough time. Get back in your wagons."

None of them moved. "We insist," Sarah Jennings called.

Lucy Hastings lifted her chin in a self-righteous gesture. "It is our Christian duty to give these poor souls a decent burial."

Stepping forward, Perrin fixed him with a stubborn look that Cody was beginning to know all too well. Not a hint of compromise softened her defiant scowl.

"The service needn't be lengthy. You can say a few words, then we'll sing a hymn and end with a prayer. It will only take a few minutes." Twitching her skirts, she walked toward the graves and the others flowed around him, following her. When they reached the mounds, they all turned to look back at him, waiting.

Son of a bitch. Small confrontations like this one, and how they were resolved, could determine the success or failure of a leader and consequently the fate of the train. Cody had seen it happen. Cal Halverson had been ejected from his own train because he hated beans and wouldn't accept a plate of pintos from the wife of an easily offended passenger.

He slapped his hat against his leg and swore. He didn't want a bean or a prayer incident; and it would take longer to argue than to speak a few words. Furious that the brides thought they'd forced him to do something he'd intended to do anyway, only not in front of everyone, he strode toward the graves.

Grinding his teeth, he held his hat against his chest and glared at the freshly washed faces beaming approval at him. "Lord," he began, snapping the word against the wind, "we come before you to commend the Eagglestons into your safekeeping."

When he glanced up, all heads were bowed except Perrin Waverly's. She was gazing at him with a faint smile on her strawberry lips and the hint of a twinkle in her eyes. But he saw gratitude too, and maybe something more difficult to identify.

He held her gaze so long that two of the brides lifted their heads to look a question at him, and he forgot what he had already said. He drew a breath and began again.

All the time he spoke, he was aware that Perrin Waverly watched him with those large, dark, liquid eyes, aware that he didn't do justice to the Eagglestons because his mind was fixed firmly on the rewards of earth, not on those of heaven.

Augusta had no interest whatsoever in attending a depressing service for two strangers. Instead of following to the grave sites like tailing a herd, she turned her steps in the opposite direction, deciding she'd take a peek at the Eagglestons' wagon.

Lifting on tiptoe, she peered inside the wagon bed. Sand and dust furred several trunks and boxes, but it appeared the Eagglestons had been traveling light, without enough provisions to complete a lengthy journey. Perhaps they hadn't planned on traveling as far as California or Oregon.

It didn't matter to her, and it no longer mattered to the Eagglestons. They no longer had to worry themselves sick about provisions or sick oxen. They wouldn't spend another sleepless night weeping in despair over a nearly empty purse.

Jerking her skirts away from the snatching branches of a sagebrush clump, she walked away from the wagon, moving on an angle that blocked her sight of the service. Nor could those at the grave sites see her. There was no point calling attention to the fact that she had chosen not to pretend grief for strangers.

However, should anyone inquire, she could truthfully excuse her absence by pleading a headache. Pausing, she pressed her fingertips to her temples and squeezed her eyes against the pain.

Prior to this hideous ordeal, she didn't recall ever having suffered a headache, although it had occasionally seemed expedient to pretend that she did. Now headaches pounded her temples every single day. It felt as if heavy coins flew around inside her skull, slamming the sides of her head and brain.

The cause of her headaches was money, always money. Already it was evident that she would have to buy more bacon and flour when they reached Fort Laramie, and sugar too.

On the days when they stopped early, she upheld her social obligations by inviting Bootie, whom she had forgiven for Mem's transgressions, Ona, Thea, and sometimes Sarah, to take tea by her fire. One couldn't serve a proper tea without small cakes, which consumed more sugar and flour than she would have believed possible. But even as she urged her guests to take more sugar, she counted each grain they stirred into their cups and silently despaired over their lavishness at her expense. Prior to this, she hadn't dreamed how expensive it was to keep up appearances.

Anxiety was killing her in daily doses. She couldn't sleep, could hardly swallow her food. Every minute of every waking day was a continuing nightmare of anxiety about the future, worrying about that inevitable moment when she opened her purse and found nothing inside except the seam at the bottom.

That was the day she would follow her father to the grave, she thought bitterly. Pride would make the decision for her.

After dashing a tear of self-pity, she pressed a hand to her forehead and continued pacing. Lightning flickered on the plains and she wondered if there was some way to attract it on command. A lightning strike would occur so swiftly as to be painless, and then she would never have to suffer again.

Halting, she braced against the endless lunatic wind, surrendering to a moment of hopelessness. The tragedy of her life and situation overwhelmed her. When she stumbled forward, her heel caught in a depression and pitched her to the ground.

For an instant she lay where she had fallen, staring hopelessly at the sky. Even the earth, even her own shoes and feet conspired against her.

Sitting up, she rubbed dusty gloves against her cheeks, then searched the ground with dulled eyes and not much interest to see what had tripped her.

Her shoe had scraped a thin covering of dirt from something that gleamed like brass. She stared at it a minute, then, leaning, she brushed away more loose dirt and discovered a small rectangular box buried in a shallow depression. The box was made of wood with brass corner bracings and a brass plate engraved with the name Edgar Eaggleston.

Instinctively, she cast a quick glance over her shoulder to see if anyone was watching, then tested the lid of the box and discovered it was not locked. A lifetime of proper behavior prevented her from immediately peeking inside. She reminded herself that one didn't invade another's privacy.

Rocking back on her heels, she listened to the hymn being sung not a hundred feet from where she knelt. She couldn't see the others, but she heard Lucy Hastings's sweet voice soaring like a lark, leading them in song.

The thing to do was to inform Mr. Snow at once of her discovery. On the other hand, it didn't seem appropriate to interrupt a funeral service. And, while she waited for the service to conclude, she might as well have a look inside the box. The Eagglestons were, after all, deceased. It wasn't as if she were invading the privacy of someone who would object; and Mr. Snow would want to know what was inside. Upon reflection, it seemed she had an obligation to inspect the contents of the box.