Daughter of the Sword (45 page)

Getting out the shears, she hesitated, nerving herself as she gripped a handful of hair close beneath the ear. She'd so often detested the trouble of brushing and washing the long curly mane that she should've been glad to be rid of it, but as she took a deep breath and chopped away, it felt like a mutilation. Still, it had to be done. Later, with a mirror, she could even out the jagged edges.

When the cutting was done, she put the long tresses beneath the bed, not quite able to throw them out. Hanging the sheathed Bowie at her side beneath the trousers, she took her equipment and Conrad's hat, then went around to the stable without passing through the main cabin. A wavery gray was showing in the east, but she'd be several miles away before even Johnny stirred.

Nuzzling for a treat, Chica accepted part of the apple that was Deborah's breakfast and made no trouble at being prepared for the road at this unseemly hour. She never puffed up with air, as many horses did, so that the cinch later got loose and let the saddle slip to one side or the other.

“We're going to look for the man who gave you to me,” Deborah told her, leading her through the stableyard and mounting only when they were well away from the buildings. Picking up the rutted road along the Kaw, Deborah let Chica pick her own gait but was glad it was a trot.

Even this early it wasn't cool. For weeks the sun had sent down scorching heat as soon as it toiled heavily into the sky. Spurts of powdery dust rose from Chica's hooves, and as the sky lightened, Deborah saw gaping cracks where grass was worn away beside the road and there was nothing to hold the parched earth together.

She wondered how many of the prairie chicks were finding enough food. Most of them, of course, wouldn't have lived this long. They were tasty morsels for skunks, wolves, coyotes, foxes, and birds of prey. But these also ate vast numbers of rodents and rabbits, which, unchecked, would destroy the prairie chickens' food and shelter.

Johnny said that half the prairie birds built nests on the ground and another third selected weeds or small shrubs. If this drought stretched on, every creature from field mouse to man would suffer. No legislating or planning could change that. It
did
seem that with all the natural travail man was heir to, he wouldn't try to create more!

Deborah passed a wagon whose encamped owners were beginning to stir. She spoke, and received a cheerfully unsuspicious return. As she rode on, she realized she'd been holding her breath, another tightness added to the binding around her breasts, and she laughed, taking a deep breath and whistling as Thos might have done.

She might be recognized in Lawrence, so, though tempted to inquire there about the Hunters, she decided to pass around Mount Oread. Rather than push Chica to reach Westport late that night, she'd camp in some ravine tonight before it got dark, then enter the Border Ruffians' town tomorrow while she could look around in daylight.

If she learned nothing in Westport, she'd ride to Wyandotte, and if that was fruitless, she'd spend the night at the Shawnee mission. Leavenworth the next day, then probably Independence.

And then?

Oh, surely one of those places would turn up news of him! His English accent was sure to be noticed. But if she learned nothing? Nothing at all?

Her shoulders drooped before she set them straight. If a return through Westport yielded no clues, she'd go to Melissa Eden and ask if she knew Dane's whereabouts. So long as it couldn't interfere with her search, Deborah wasn't going to worry about scandalization over her clothes. If Melissa knew nothing, Deborah could only go back to the smithy and hope Dane was still alive and would be in touch.

Almost as desperately as she wished for that, she hoped she wouldn't meet Rolf.

It was getting hot. The cut ends of her hair prickled and stuck against her neck. She unbuttoned her shirt as low as possible without showing the binding. Chica had lapsed from a trot into a smooth, graceful single-footing that, though slower, was much easier on Deborah's spine.

They were halfway to Lawrence when Chica nickered and a horseman rode out of the trees in a ravine. The horse was gray. And the rider was Conrad.

Quelling the impulse to whirl Chica and run, Deborah instead took the offensive. “You pretended to go home, but here you are, following me!”

“I didn't follow you, dear girl.” His tone was humorous, but there was a light in his eye that told Deborah he wasn't to be blandished. “I went home to send a wagon for Rebe's tools and to tell Dr. Challoner that he'd best take up residence at the smithy as soon as he's mended, but then I cut across country. Far from following, I've been waiting for you for hours.”

“Sara told you!”

“She did.” The corners of his mouth twitched, though his expression was grave. “But don't blame her too much. I knew you were planning something. When I asked what it was and vowed I'd haunt the region unless she told, she found considerable relief in letting me worry about you, especially since I could do something about it.”

Deborah flushed at the rebuke. “I didn't want to worry her, Conrad, but—”

“Someone had to cover up for you,” he said equably.

She bit her lip, shamed at troubling Sara—and him—but still determined. “It's no use arguing! I'm going to look for Dane.”

He smiled and shook his head, eyes running over her in a swift caress. “Deborah, Deborah, you harrow up the instincts of my robber-baron ancestors! I
could
take you back.”

She stared at him, instinctively tensing to spin Chica to the side and onward. “That won't work,” he said. “You can't lose me. But I'll go with you.”

“You?”

“That's why I came—to help you find your love.” He moved Sleipner in beside Chica, swept off Deborah's hat, and exclaimed ruefully. “You've cut your hair! I was going to pass you off as my sister, but now you'll have to be my scraggly young brother. I feel like sealing that relationship by giving you a good thrashing.” But from the way his eyes rested on her mouth, she knew that wasn't what he wished most to do.

Her chagrin faded as they traveled on. She hadn't wanted to mix her friends up in her private search, but it was undeniably comforting to have Conrad beside her. Whereas a young boy, orphaned or runaway, might be brushed aside, people would pay attention to Conrad, make some effort to answer his questions. Conrad would have money; that might restore an innkeeper's or saloon owner's faulty memory. Without any conscious decision, Deborah stopped worrying and scheming. Conrad would know what to do and how to do it.

As they came within sight of Lawrence and the familiar slope of Mount Oread, Conrad suggested that after they watered the horses, Deborah should rest and wait while he rode into town and inquired about the Hunters.

“Mrs. Eden might know what a wayfarer stopping at the smithy wouldn't,” he said reasonably. “And much as I enjoy being your escort, there are many places I'd rather take you than to brawling border towns.”

Deborah assented gratefully. If the quest could end here, so much the better. She thought briefly of visiting her family's graves in the burial ground west of town, then decided against it. That could still unnerve her, and she might need all her strength for hunting Dane. Her family deserved a separate time when she could give them the unhurried tribute of full attention.

So she and Conrad skirted Lawrence on the south and he left her a short distance from the Kaw in a ravine shaded by a large single oak which had somehow escaped prairie fires which had probably kept trees from growing heavily, on the south side of the river.

“I suppose I shouldn't help my younger brother from the saddle.” Conrad grinned. “But since no one's watching, I'll have that pleasure.”

He swung her down, strong hands almost closing around her waist. “I won't be long,” he promised. Then he added with a grimace, “If I find your Mr. Hunter, I'll feel more like telling him to leave than bringing him to you!”

His mouth brushed her sheared hair. Then he was back on Sleipner, riding back to town.

Deborah sighed, watching him grow smaller, then disappear in the rolling prairie. Both Sara and Judith had lost the men they loved and married others with whom they seemed happy.

If Dane were dead, Deborah knew she'd have to accept that. After a while she could perhaps open herself to Conrad, let him love her, grow to love him fully. But stupid as it was, she couldn't put Dane from her heart; while they both lived, she was bound to him, just as in a perverted way she was tied to Rolf because he'd given her that first kiss with her own blood on his lips.

She loosened Chica's cinch, rubbed her down with an old handkerchief she'd found deep in one of Laddie's pockets, and rummaged in the pack for the food parcel. It'd be noon by the time Conrad got back. They might as well picnic in the shade before going on. It wasn't hard to find patches of barren ground where small foragers and grasshoppers had eaten grass and plants to the roots. Placing two chunks of limestone where they'd support the coffeepot Sara had provided, Deborah started collecting twigs and tinder to start a fire, using larger pieces to hold it.

Boiling river water would make it safe to drink. Rather than empty her canteen, she went down to the river and was filling the pot when she picked up the sound of hooves.

Conrad? In a few minutes more she knew it couldn't be. The sound was coming from the wrong direction; there were a number of horses.

Heedless of spilling water, she started to run for the ravine and Chica, then controlled herself and walked, instead. The first riders were coming over a rise to the east. Getting on Chica and trying to outdistance them would simply create suspicion.

She'd known she'd have to face people on this mission, but here she was, wanting to scoot like a rabbit! All the same, if the strangers decided to stop a while, she hoped Conrad would return quickly.

Pulling the hat almost over her eyes, she started making a fire. Or trying to. Her fingers shook till one match after another had to be discarded. The horsemen were pulling up.

“Trouble, sonny?” called a rough voice. “Reckon we could get your fire goin' for a cup of coffee.”

Deborah glanced up. Her heart turned over, seemed to stop. Next to the burly man who'd spoken, Rolf Hunter sat on his tall bay. She ducked her head and mumbled something, hoping he hadn't seen, that in the flashing glimpse he hadn't recognized her.

He spoke to the men, who fell back a distance. Then she heard the creak of leather, followed by his steps coming toward her. There were spurs on his boots, long-roweled, polished. That was all she saw, keeping her face lowered, praying he didn't know her.

“So here you are,” he said after a long moment, when she thought her nerves would break and she'd scream. “Hair cropped, breasts bound, but God! You're beautiful! Stand up, my love. Let me see your face.”

She didn't move, trembling inwardly, trapped, trying to think how to save herself, but even more, how to keep Conrad from riding into this troop. Her upper range of vision caught on dangles of hair hanging from his belt, and she thought of the horsehair trimming Johnny's coat.

This wasn't horsehair. Some was yellow, some was black, there was one dingy reddish cluster, and the rest was brown, from sandy to dark, some straight, some curly.

Eight, nine
… She stopped counting.

Faint with horror, she couldn't move. The Bowie pressed against her leg. But even if she got it out before he could stop her, she couldn't escape that pack of men.

Rolf pulled her to her feet. “I can't handle you gently or the lads would wonder. It's best they think you're what you're dressed as.” His tone was conversational, but the ridge behind each nostril showed white, and in the searing noonday sun, his eyes shone brilliant green, with the pupils contracted to tiny points. “Now, what's this masquerade?”

Her brain hummed. Conrad. Any minute he'd ride into this. She had to think of something! Rolf's arm lifted.

Deliberately, he struck her, obviously calculating the force so that though it staggered her, she didn't fall. “I'm not the soft boy you diddled. You'd better know that right from the start. What're you doing dressed up like this?”

She could think of no way to protect Conrad. If she wasn't here when he came back, he'd look for her. “I'm hunting for Dane. Have you seen him?”

“I've done my best not to,” Rolf said with a harsh laugh. “I go by another name these days: Charlie Slaughter. Like the ring of it?”

“Do you know where Dane is?”

Rolf slapped her again, casually. It jarred her neck, brought tears to her eyes. “Answer my questions before you ask any. How do you like my name?”

“It seems to fit,” she said between her teeth.

He laughed. His eyes played over her, bringing a humiliated flush washing upward to the roots of her hair. “It's acquired quite a luster along the border. We're what you might call specialists at catching runaway slaves and liberating good horseflesh from trashy owners.”

He was still strikingly handsome, but in the seven months since she'd seen him, his features had coarsened. He reeked of sweat, horses, tobacco, and whisky. Only his hair, hanging below his shoulders, was the same raw gold.

A dark blue shirt faced with red silk was slit halfway down his chest, and she suspected her Bowie was on the other end of a braided leather thong hung around his sun-darkened throat. The other Bowie and pistol at his scalp-laden belt gave him a look of restraint compared to the bristling armaments of his men: their Bowies, Arkansas toothpicks, braces of pistols, and scabbarded shotguns and rifles. Deborah made a helpless gesture at them as they loafed in their saddles.

A pack they were. Beasts. And Rolf's whistle could bring them down on her.

“Why?” she asked.
“Why?”

“Why did you break out while I was avenging your family? Why didn't you want me instead of my noble brother, who, I hear, has gone looking for me in St. Louis since his snuffing around here fetched him nothing?” Rolf shrugged. “Let's just say, sweet Deborah, that I've found my
métier
. I've always believed I was a throwback to Vikings. Your border's given me a chance to be myself.”