Brides of Prairie Gold (44 page)

While Augusta pinned up her hair in front of a mirror hung on the side of the wagon, she considered buying another cow if one was available for sale at Fort Boise. Even if the owner demanded us much as fifteen dollars, it would be nice to have fresh milk whenever she liked. And there was never enough butter.

"Oh!" She gasped, and jumped when a strange whiskered face loomed over her shoulder in the mirror. Spinning, she discovered a tall, big-boned man standing directly in front of her. His clothing was trail-tattered and filthy, bits of food had collected in an unkempt beard and mustache. Even this early in the day, he stank of cheap whiskey. "Who are you and what do you want?" she demanded in a voice higher than her normal tone.

She slid a glance toward the other wagons, saw no one. The arms wagon was on the far side of the square. At once, she realized the guards were near the noisy rushing river; they would not hear her if she screamed.

"You're Augusta Boyd, ain't you?" he said, inspecting her bright hair.

"Who are you?" He had the coldest eyes she had ever seen on a man, dead eyes, eyes that had never loved or shown pity. Even Jake Quinton had not frightened her as this man did. His steady dead stare made her stomach cramp in fear.

Her carbine was in the wagon where she could not get to it.

"My name is John Eaggleston," he snarled. His lips thinned when she choked and stumbled backward a step. A grunt snorted out of his nostrils. "You know the name. Damn me, she was right."

"She?" Augusta whispered. The edge of the sideboard pressed against her spine and she could retreat no farther.

"I been looking for this bride train ever since I read Snow's message at the Chimney Rock. Then some skirt up at the fort starts asking if anyone knows the name Eaggleston. Said Miss Augusta Boyd knew all about my brother and his woman, knew all about my money." He stepped closer and his face filled with menace. "I want my money."

"Your money?" She couldn't breathe. Panic lodged in her throat, sent her heart crashing around inside her chest. Cora, she thought wildly, Cora had sent this man to find her.

His hand flashed forward and grabbed the front of her shirtwaist. He jerked her so close that she winced at the stink of rotted teeth and ancient sweat.

"Let me go!" The demand emerged as a frightened squeak.

"You've given me a merry chase, gal." He gripped her bodice so tightly that his knuckles bruised her breastbone. "After your wagonmaster's message, I rode back and found Ed's wagon. Found the graves. Found the hole where Ed must have buried the money box. But I sure as hell didn't find no gold. Been chasing this train since. Seems I was right, since that gal says you might just have my money." He gave her a violent shake that snapped her head back and forth. "Git it for me, girlie. Right now." Releasing her bodice, he flung her back against the sideboard hard enough to knock the air out of her lungs.

Panting, staring in disbelief, Augusta struggled to catch her breath, tried to think. Pushing against the shock of being violently seized was the panic of knowing she had only one hundred and fifty-eight dollars left of the two hundred and sixty-two gold dollars she had taken from Eaggleston's buried box.

She stared into John Eaggleston's dead eyes and knew he would not accept any explanation she might offer for the missing funds.

"How do I know it's your money?" she whispered, one hand pressed to the pulse thudding wildly in her throat. If she stalled for a minute, maybe her mind would begin to function again, maybe she would think of a way to escape.

The man's hand shot forward and gripped her by the throat, his fingers bruising into her skin. He leaned close enough that spittle flew in her face. "Listen to me, bitch. I killed two men to get that money. My mistake was leaving it in Ed's keeping. I ain't making no more mistakes." His cold eyes bored into her. "You got six hundred dollars of my money. You give it back, or I kill you. It's that simple."

"Six hundred dollars!" His thick fingers cut her air, forcing her voice into a thin thread. Despairing, she realized that someone else had found the box and had taken the rest of the gold. But he believed she had it. "Please, let me speak."

He didn't release her, but he relaxed the pressure digging into her throat. His merciless gaze didn't slacken.

A torrent of babble poured from Augusta's lips. She told him about finding the box, told himafter a quick panicked review of her optionsthat she had taken only one hundred and fifty-eight of the gold pieces, which she was holding in safekeeping for him. She swore someone else had stolen most of his money.

His lip curled in fury. He didn't believe her. As casually as swatting a mosquito, he lifted his arm and backhanded her across the face. A snapping sound cracked in her ears, then pain exploded through her head. Blood gushed from her nostrils and dripped on her bodice. She heard a gurgling scream, then saw him raise his hand again. Terror and shock blanked her mind. He meant what he threatened. He was going to kill her.

Perrin woke slowly, stretching, yawning, indulging in the luxury of dozing for another few minutes. When she finally crawled out of her tent, the sun shone directly overhead and the campsite was deserted except for the oxen within the square and the lazy drone of insects. A rare day alone beckoned like a jewel.

Delighted by the prospect of solitude, she reheated the coffee Hilda had left for her, then nibbled a wedge of corn-bread and listened with pleasure to the absence of voices.

Tomorrow she would turn out the wagon and give everything a good cleaning. There was laundry to catch up on, baking she could do ahead. But today was for herself. Maybe she would read awhile, a treat she had not indulged in in weeks. Or she could update her trip journal. Perhaps she would sit by the river and let herself daydream about Cody Snow. There was much to think about.

Something was changing with Cody, she read it in his eyes, felt it in the tension that drew his shoulders when they met to review the day's events. Sometimes she dared hope that he was falling in love with her. Other times she believed he was winning his fight against the attraction that drew them together.

Aching with pessimism, she paused with her coffee cup midway to her lips, her mind a hundred miles away. A full minute elapsed before she realized she was looking at Cora Thorp.

Cora walked toward the wagons, moving with a self-satisfied gait that could almost be mistaken for a swagger. She nibbled at a piece of fried bread wrapped in a strip of greasy paper.

As Perrin watched, coming to her feet with a frown, Cora halted abruptly. Her eyes widened and the fried bread fell to the ground. Both hands flew to her lips, then she spun, searching the line of wagons. Urgent frightened eyes fastened on Perrin.

"Quick!" she screamed. "He's beating her! It looks like he's going to kill her!"

Perrin didn't have a notion what Cora was talking about or what Cora could see from her angle. But the hysteria galvanized her. Grabbing the iron shovel leaning against the wagon wheel, she raced after Cora, who was running toward Augusta's wagon.

Augusta? Someone was beating Augusta ?

When she skidded around the corner of the squared wagons, she saw what she had been unable to glimpse from her campsite, but what Cora had seen from a distance.

A brutish, bearded man was systematically battering Augusta Boyd, shaking her, hitting her, shouting something about money. Augusta flopped in his grip like a rag doll, beyond resistance. Her face and shirtwaist were covered in bright blood; Perrin couldn't be certain if she was fully conscious.

Shock stopped Cora and Perrin in their tracks. Perrin couldn't believe what she was witnessing. She didn't know how long she stood as if rooted to the ground. It could only have been seconds, but it seemed as if an eternity elapsed. In that span of altered time, her gaze met Augusta's, and her history with this spoiled, self-centered woman rose like a specter between them.

Perrin recalled the icy snubs on the streets of Chastity, remembered all the insults and the shame that Augusta had thrown at her in Chastity and during this journey.

Finally she understood a truth she had not been able to acknowledge. As long as Augusta Boyd had breath in her body, there could be no second chance for Perrin Waverly. A week after the train arrived in Clampet Falls, every respectable woman would know that Perrin had been Joseph Boyd's mistress. Augusta would blacken her name, would see that she was ostracized and punished with a solitary and lonely life as an outcast.

In that frozen moment, Perrin gazed into Augusta's swelling eyes and knew Augusta did not expect her to intervene. Placing oneself in danger was not something Augusta would have done; she didn't expect it from another. She gazed at Perrin with dying eyes, filled with resentment and hatred even now.

It was only a blind instinct for survival that made her croak, "Help me!"

Perrin sucked in a deep trembling breath, then dashed forward and planted her feet behind the brute. He was so concentrated on beating Augusta that he didn't hear or notice Perrin's approach. Baring her teeth and gathering her strength, she raised the iron shovel and swung it as hard as she could. The impact of the shovel striking the side of the man's head shot up her arms and knocked her to the ground.

Caught in her skirts, swearing, gasping for breath, she struggled to rise, but was knocked flat again as Cora flew past her with a snarling scream.

The man had dropped to his knees, swaying, holding his bloody head with both hands. Rage contorted his features, as ugly as the obscenities spitting from his lips. One hand dropped to the sidearm strapped at his waist. "You're dead."

Then Cora was standing over him, bashing at his head with a chunk of granite. He elbowed her in the thigh and she fell backward with a howl of pain.

Lunging, Perrin clawed at the hand scrabbling for his gun. If his fingers hadn't been slippery with his blood and Augusta's, she couldn't have wrested the pistol from his grip. And it helped that Cora struck his shoulder with the rock. Finally, she had the gun and pulled to her feet. Then his fist caught her squarely in the stomach and she doubled over, tears of pain leaping into her eyes.

The pistol fired.

When the puff of smoke cleared, she was panting hard, staring in horror at a ragged scarlet hole in his chest. Flat expressionless eyes glared at her, his lips pulled back from his teeth, then he toppled slowly backward into the dirt. Cora jumped forward, gasping and sobbing. She struck him again and again with the rock until Perrin's voice penetrated her fear.

"In the name of God, stop!" She couldn't get enough air into her lungs. She was strangling. "He's dead." The gun weighed a hundred pounds. After letting it drop from boneless fingers, she staggered away from the wagon and vomited into the short, dry summer grass. She had shot a man. Had killed him. She didn't even know his name.

When she straightened, holding her stomach, her face the color of whey, Cora was poised beside the man, gasping and gripping her rock, ready to strike in case he suddenly sat up.

Augusta lay sprawled against the wagon wheel, drenched in blood. Her nose had been broken, her lips cracked. Both eyes were swelling shut, her throat was badly bruised. For an instant Perrin thought she was dead. Then Augusta's chest lifted beneath her blood-soaked bodice, and she made a whimpering sound.

"Jesus, God!" Miles Dawson and the teamster named Frank arrived at a dead run, kicking up dust as they skidded to a halt and stared wide-eyed at the scene. "What in the hell happened? How badly are all of you hurt?"

Now Perrin noticed that her hands were bloody from the struggle for the gun. Smears of crimson soiled her skirt and waist. Red speckles dotted Cora's face, hands, and waist. Augusta was awash in blood. Blood soaked her bodice, matted her hair, drenched her face and hands, splashed her skirt.

"It's my fault!" Cora said, breaking into sobs and covering her face. "I just wanted to embarrass and scare her, that's all. I didn't really think I never dreamed that he would"

Perrin fought to move past a numbing sense of unreality. She grasped Miles Dawson's arm and spoke in a low urgent voice. "Ride to the fort and get Cody." She glanced at Augusta. "Bring back a doctor if you can find one."

"We can't leave the arms wagon unguarded," Miles said. He looked at the dead man and swallowed, his eyes bugging.

Perrin dug her fingernails into his arm. "Do as I tell you, damn it." Leaning forward from the waist, she glared at him with icy authoritative eyes. "Get Cody!"

Miles peered at her face, then took off at a run toward the horses. Perrin pointed at Frank. "You can leave the arms wagon unguarded long enough to fetch some buckets of water. And I'll need help getting Augusta into her wagon. Don't just stand there, get us some water!"

Cora wiped her eyes and nose with the hem of her skirt. She hovered over Augusta, shuddering at all the blood. "Will she live? Oh, God, if I'm responsible for killing her"

"Get a blanket and cover him. Please. I can't stand to look at him." Kneeling, she examined Augusta, who was breathing heavily through her mouth. The damage to her face was shocking. Perrin swallowed hard, then lowered her voice to a soothing tone.

"Augusta? Don't try to talk, just listen. As soon as Frank gets back with the water, we'll make a bed inside your wagon, then move you. Miles has gone to the fort to find a doctor." Gingerly, she stroked Augusta's shoulder, then stood as Cora returned with a blanket and flipped it over the dead man.

"Think, Cora. Does anyone on the train have any laudanum or opium? I don't know if she's hurting right now, but she will. And it's going to be bad." Panic swelled in her throat. "Oh, God. I killed a man. No, I can't think about that yet. We need clean rags to wash her. And we have to get her out of that bloody dress. If Miles can't find a doctor" But she wouldn't think about that yet either.

The lumpish form beneath the blanket drew her gaze like a magnet. She had murdered a man. It didn't seem possible. She had shot him in the heart. Her empty stomach revolted and bile flooded her mouth. A silent scream rang in her head. Oh, Cody. Hurry. I need you.