Deep Trouble (10 page)

Shannon’s heart swelled at Gabe’s strong defense of her. She didn’t deserve it. She tried to imagine Bucky saying such a thing. Then she tried to imagine what Bucky would say about the time she’d spent with Gabe. She needed to include the truth of all that had passed between them.

“I saw the way you just kissed her, son.” The parson sounded kind but unrelenting. “If nothing happened between you, then why do you hold each other as if
everything
has happened between you?”

“You’re right that circumstances led us to feel some bit of… affection for each other.” Gabe’s expression turned fierce. He leaned forward.

Shannon was surprised and a bit disconcerted to see the parson back up a half step.

“But we were in a perilous situation. If we clung to each other,
innocently
clung to each other for support, I will not have you calling her a sinful woman.” Gabe gave Shannon a hard look then faced the parson, his shoulders square, his chin lifted in defiance. “I will not marry a woman who is promised to another man. If you forbid our presence in your village, so be it.”

Which meant they were being cast out. Shannon had never been cast out of anywhere before. It reminded her of the devil being cast out of heaven somehow. It pinched.

“Shannon,” Gabe’s voice was cold, “we need to go.”

Then to Parson Ford and the Tsosis he said in a voice that cut like a knife, “We will have to ride on to another place. That will require us spending yet
more
time alone together, and
again
that is improper, but it can’t be helped since the
good people
of Doba’s family have judged us to be unworthy of them. But if our travel together is a sin, it is on your heads, because you’ve forced us to make this choice.” He faced down all three men who’d pushed this marriage on them.

Finally, Doba said, “No harm is done by you staying here another night.”

“I disagree, Doba.” Hosteen taking that position was no surprise.

“You’ve made that clear, Hosteen, but I make the decisions here.”

The old man’s brown, weathered face bent into its deeply etched scowl. His wife’s expression was a perfect match for her husband’s.

“But your time together is finished.” Doba turned to Gabe. “You will separate immediately. Miss Dysart, go along with my wife.”

Shannon almost left, but instead she looked at the older Navajo man who had been so harsh. “I understand that you want to hold your family to the highest standards, sir. I do. I am a woman of faith, as is Gabe… except for the part about being a woman, but I digress. Please at least try to believe that we have not sinned.”

Parson Ford said quietly, “I fear you have most assuredly sinned in your heart, Miss Dysart.”

Shannon had no response to that, because she suspected the parson might be right. “We will leave immediately in the morning.”

To Gabe, she added, “Whatever town is closest is fine for you to leave me. I will hope for a place to wire home, and I will have funds forwarded to me to hire more help and continue my journey retracing my father’s steps. We will have time to speak of it more tomorrow, but you saved my life, Gabe. I—I have been so overset these last days. I believe the trauma of the rescue and my gratitude—well, they—I—truly did forget all about Bucky for an unfortunately long time. I ask for your forgiveness, sir.” She rested her hand on Gabe’s forearm and looked at him, now cold and hurt. “Once you offered to go on my treasure hunt with me.”

“Treasure hunt?” Hosteen’s black eyes opened and gleamed with interest.

“Yes.” Shannon turned to the man. “I have a map to a… a lost city. We are planning—”

“Lost city?” Doba smiled. “I know this land. There are no lost cities.”

“It’s hidden. I’ve got a map that leads into the canyon to the west. I believe I can find it.”

Turning to Shannon, the old man said, “You speak of needing help to find this lost city, in the belly of the canyon?”

“Yes, that’s right.

“No city down there,” Hozho said with complete assurance. “The Supai have a village far to the south. It is in no way lost.”

“I trust my father. I plan to see where his map leads.”

Gabe heard the chill in her voice. She wasn’t about to forgive the old couple.

“And you plan to spend your own money to hire someone to take you down there?” Hozho asked.

“Yes, I have to get to a town large enough to have money sent. All I had was stolen from me before Gabe came to my rescue.”

“My wife grew up in the belly of the canyon.” Hosteen turned to his wife. “If they need to hire someone to take them down there, who better than you?”

“And we can leave tonight.” Hozho caught both her nearly white braids in her hands as if her hair was threatening to stand on end. “Remove their presence from our village.”

Gabe couldn’t decide if the couple was motivated by greed or piety, or maybe the old lady was homesick.

“I believe I’ll ride along, Kai,” Doba told his wife, “if you can handle things for a week or two.”

Gabe didn’t see greed in Doba’s eyes, just a desire for adventure. Of course Shannon had been very careful not to say the word
gold
.

“Go with my blessing.” Kai smiled like a wife of many years who was used to her husband’s occasional wandering.

“And I haven’t been to see my flock in the Supai village for years,” Parson Ford said. “I hate horses. A necessary evil for traveling place to place, but a journey like that, into the canyon…” The parson shuddered. “I’ve shirked for too long. If you’re going that way, I’ll accompany you.” He cast a look of loathing at a horse tied nearby. His expression didn’t suit a man of the cloth.

Gabe looked at Shannon. She asked,” Do I have to hire all of you?”

Everyone but Parson Ford nodded.

“Well, okay.”

“Let’s gather supplies for the trip,” Hozho said. “We need to be on the trail before the sun sets.”

T
hey didn’t make it out of the settlement.

Somehow the hunt for the lost city calmed everyone down, and Gabe and Shannon were allowed to stay the night at the settlement. Probably because no one else could get packed up quickly enough. They were well on the trail before the sun rose the next morning, however.

“There’s the turnoff.” Hozho was leading, and she took off south.

Gabe took the left fork right behind her.

“Come back here!” Shannon shouted, and Gabe turned around and gave her a look of pure pity. Like she was an idiot and a burden and a brake dragging the whole expedition to a halt.

Well that was just too bad. It was her expedition. She’d be a burden and a brake if she wanted to.

She glared at the man who had saved her life. Something she deeply valued.

Gabe had bought her a horse from Doba.

Shannon was very appreciative.

He had also insisted on paying Mrs. Kinlichee for the washing and mending she’d done.

Grateful didn’t begin to describe her feelings.

She knew she was now in the company of a nice group of people who were good Christians, if a bit cranky, and who knew the land was a precious gift, and they wouldn’t be here if not for Gabe’s strong defense.

She was much obliged.

Honestly, he was such a generous man, things ought to be perfect.

They weren’t.

“We can make the shade of that stand of trees by midday.” Gabe pointed at a barely visible dot a long way in the wrong direction.

The man was bossy, and there was no denying it.

Shannon’s pinto snorted, wanting to follow Gabe. The metallic clink of the bridle and the horse’s tossing head stirred Gabe’s chestnut, but he brought his horse under control with an ease Shannon admired. She’d felt a lot safer with her arms wrapped around his waist.

She looked at the sun straight overhead. “There are plenty of trees for shade here. Let’s take a break now.”

“We can get a lot more miles behind us before we stop.” Gabe had been a short-tempered nag all morning. And beyond snapping at her, he’d barely spoken a word.

She badly missed the kind man who’d saved her life. She even missed the snarly man who’d ridden double with her yesterday morning. Especially now that she knew he’d been grumpy because he liked her arms around him.

She suspected his problem now was that she’d angered him by not mentioning Bucky until after she’d kissed him several times. He no doubt had her pegged as a woman of low character.

“I’d much appreciate a break from this ride.” The parson had shown a real bent for whining, which struck Shannon as strange. The man owned the rudest, runtiest mustang Shannon had ever seen. She couldn’t decide if the testy little horse was really as badly behaved as the parson said or if the parson was the cause of the horse’s misbehavior.

Why did a man serve the Lord in the American West when he didn’t like to ride? Yes, it definitely struck Shannon as strange, but she had enough to contend with. She didn’t bother worrying about the parson’s or his horse’s persnickety nature, whichever the case might be.

Doba, who brought up the rear, said, “Let’s rest and eat some of that food my wife sent.”

“At last.” The parson almost fell off his horse. His foot stuck in the stirrup, and he only saved himself because he kept an iron grip on the saddle horn. Almost as if he was used to nearly falling and prepared for the worst.

Shannon dismounted and stalked off toward a stand of scrub pines.

Gabe yelled after her, “Where are you going?”

Turning back to him, she hesitated. “Uh… I just need a moment of privacy.”

Gabe flinched as if she’d jabbed him with a hat pin.

Satisfied she’d shut him up, she stalked behind the trees and fetched her map, careful to study it, decide her next direction, then conceal it in her skirt pocket—not the hidden one. She wanted to be able to get to it later. This is how she’d conducted herself on the earlier leg of her journey, and of course that had led to disaster. But then, she still had her map, didn’t she?

Studying it, she saw that Hozho was leading them in the direction she wanted to go. No need to take over leading this expedition quite yet. Somehow she thought being in charge of this group wasn’t going to be easy.

When she returned to the group, a few more of them had scattered.

Doba was tending to his horse.

Gabe had his back to where Shannon had left, but he stood there, almost like a sentry, guarding her. He was not happy with her, but still he protected her.

In a moment of what she decided to think of as wisdom, she stepped up to Gabe and confided in him. Only him. “I got my map.”

“Wait a minute.” Gabe’s eyes narrowed, but he whispered, too. “I thought you said those outlaws took your map.”

“How’d you think I was going to lead us to the city of gold?”

Gabe shrugged. “Gotta admit I wondered about that. But you definitely told me your maps were stolen.”

Should she show it to Gabe? Her eyes slid to the others. Not trusting anyone was deeply ingrained. “They took
some
of them.”

She glanced again at Hosteen and Hohzo Tsosi, talking quietly a few yards away as they unpacked a saddlebag stuffed with food. They’d changed very quickly from wanting Shannon cast out as a sinner to coming along. She hadn’t told them about the gold, but had they somehow found out what she searched for? She was going to their ancestral home. That might explain their interest, a simple desire to go home for a visit, maybe even a wish to protect their home from a scheming woman.

She decided not to tell exactly how she’d tricked her attackers. And she’d resume hiding her maps, careful to never let anyone see her hidden pocket.

“But there were more?” Considering he had been pretty much ignoring her ever since she’d mentioned that idiot she’d promised to marry, poor Bucky, Gabe leaned very close now, being secretive right along with her. She wondered if he too distrusted their traveling companions.

“Yes, I’m sure the folks who stole it think it’s the one. They searched me thoroughly and left me to die. It’s not likely they planned to come back and search me again. But if one group of people was willing to kill for gold, another group could be, too. I’d prefer to keep the map to myself.”

Opening his mouth, Gabe hesitated then finally said, “I’m used to trusting people, and I judge these folks as pretty trustworthy.”

“Still, I’m afraid they’ll chang their tune if they hear about the lost city of gold. Hohzo especially seems eager to hate me.”

“She’s harmless, just an old woman with firm ideas of right and wrong. That’s not such a bad thing.”

Shannon arched an eyebrow. “I got real tired of it when she was trying to throw me out of her village. I noticed no one said
you
had to go.”

“Things are a little different for men.”

Shannon snorted. It was the only response she thought necessary.

“It’s not right. It’s just the way things are.”

“Well, I’m very certain the good Lord doesn’t have a different set of rules for men and women.”

“I’m sure you’re right. While we’re talking about men…” Gabe leaned close enough that she could feel his warm breath on her face. Based on the flash of anger in his midnight eyes, he might be breathing fire—her very own personal dragon. “Why don’t you tell me more about
Bucky
.”

Shannon didn’t step back, but most likely only through sheer stupidity. “Not much more to tell.”

“You’re going to marry him, and you can’t think of one single, little, teeny, tiny thing to say about the man?”

Truth be told, there wasn’t much to say about Bucky. Their parents wanted them to marry. Promises had been made. Mostly unspoken but clearly understood. And she’d never minded—much. Bucky was a pleasant enough sort, a lifelong friend. No mouth that breathed fire or eyes that threatened to burn her to the ground; no oversized moustache that tempted her to smooth it. No kisses. At all. Ever. But a nice enough man.

Into the silence, Gabe asked, “Is he named after a horse?”

Drawing in a slow breath to keep from laughing, she said, “I’m not going to dignify that question with an answer.”

There, that sounded good. The truth—that Bucky was named after the Buckstones, his mother’s mother’s family, because they owned a nice chunk of a railroad, and naming him after the family helped him to be remembered generously in an inheritance—didn’t make the man sound all that tough. And out here, people respected tough.

“And what about you, Gabriel? Did your mother name you after an angel?” She prepared to run as she spoke in an overly cute voice. “My angelic little baby, Gabriel.”

She wasn’t prepared for Gabe to smile. Honestly, it was hard to torment the man back, when he was so often very nice.

“My ma gave us all Bible names. Considering my poor brothers—especially Canaan, Darius, Ephraim—I got off lucky with Gabe.

“C, D,
E… G
? What happened to
F
?”

There are seven of us. Abraham, Bartholomew, Canaan, Darius, Ephraim, Felix, and Gabriel.”

“Seven?” Shannon smiled at the thought of seven rambunctious little boys all with black eyes and dark hair. “That’s wonderful to have a big family.”

Gabe shrugged, “Spent a lot of time wrangling with each other, but it was fun I reckon.”

“Is there really a Felix in the Bible?” Shannon considered herself well read, and she’d certainly been a faithful churchgoer, but she’d never heard of a Felix.

A quick smile bent Gabe’s moustache up at the corners. “There is indeed. Not a nice character according to my brother, who made a point of tracking that down. I think my ma was regretting she’d started the whole alphabetical Bible name thing by the time she had her fourth son. The names got a little hostile. I mean, come on, she could have named Darius David. What would be wrong with Elijah? Lots of Elijahs running around in the hills. But no. She’s gotta pick Ephraim. She said once when she was nagging at us for—”

Gabe’s eyes lost focus, and Shannon knew he was remembering something that he enjoyed. He looked into the distance and stroked his moustache for a moment. “I think it was the time Bart kicked a hole in the back wall of our cabin during a wrestling match. Then he didn’t want to admit what he’d done, so he covered the hole up by moving a quilt rack in front of it. Ma
didn’t
notice for a few days, the weather being mild and the hole being small. But then a skunk moved in and had a litter of kits under Ma’s bed. I think that’s when she told us all that she had some real nice girl names picked out and it wouldn’t have broken her heart to use a few of ‘em.”

His smile was one of fondness. “Ma was one of a kind. She was tough as could be but the finest Christian woman I’ve ever known. She could bake up a ham that was so tasty a grown man might be tempted to cry while he was chewing. And she claimed she could cut out a pair of overalls in any size just by looking at us and whacking away with her scissors on the fabric. No pattern, no measuring. Made the best oatmeal cookies I’ve ever tasted. Played the piano like a dream. We didn’t have much in that old cabin, but somehow Ma had a piano, and she could make music I think brought a smile to Jesus’ face.”

“That sounds nice.” Shannon tried to picture her mother cutting out a pair of overalls, with or without a pattern. The image was impossible to conjure. Her mother had a cook, so baking cookies was out. They had a lovely and very expensive pianoforte in their music room, and Mother had occasionally played a bit of Mozart, but not well, and Mother liked doing everything well or not at all.

“Time for a meal,” Doba called out. “Then we need to be off.”

Gabe shook his head. “I let him tend all the horses. I should’ve helped.” Looking back at Shannon, he said, “You never did tell me much about Bucky.” The moustache was definitely turned down on the corners now. “You shouldn’t oughta be kissing a man if you’re promised to someone else. It’s not right to the man you’re promised to. And it’s not right to me.”

Shannon couldn’t meet his eyes. Honest eyes. Black and deep and wise and honorable. “I know, Gabe. I was so upset and so grateful.”

“So you throw yourself at every man who does you a good turn? My ma had a name for women who did such things and warned all her sons against ‘em.”

The pinch of Gabe’s contempt—well, it hurt. And she had it coming. “Saving my life is more than doing me a good turn, Gabe. I was so—”

“Upset, yep, you said.”

It took all her courage, but she lifted her chin. Gabe had a right to his anger, and she had a responsibility to let him tell her how wrong she’d been. She needed to apologize for her actions and opened her mouth to do so, though with no idea how to explain that the very existence of Bucky had fled her mind before and after their kissing. And certainly during.

“I think I feel sorry for your intended if this kind of thing is what he can expect from you.” Gabe reached up and tugged on the brim of his hat, pulling it low over his eyes. He turned and walked over to the others, leaving Shannon nearly gasping with shame.

Worst of it was he was right. Bucky deserved better.

Poor sweet Bucky. She wondered if he’d gotten her telegraph, the one Gabe had asked that mule skinner to send. He’d be worried sick.