Kaki Warner (4 page)

Energized by the warm spell, and thinking this would be a good day to restock his larder, Daniel hurried through his morning chores. A buck would provide enough meat to get him through December and into the new year, and if he could bag a brace of ptarmigan or maybe a hare or two, he would be set through the worst of the winter weather.

Whistling through his teeth, he came around the side of the cabin, then stumbled to a stop when he saw a figure standing beside Roscoe at the woodshed.

Even though windblown snow obscured her features, he could see it was a child, dressed in a coat that was too small and a slouch hat that was too big, pulled low over blonde hair. A red woolen scarf covered the lower half of her face.

A shock of recognition drove the air out of him. It was her. The girl he had heard when he was trapped under the snow. He wasn’t sure how he knew that, but he was certain of it.

“You didn’t come.” Her words sounded clearly, despite the scarf across her mouth and chin. It was the same voice that had haunted him since the avalanche.

He took a step forward. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

She stepped back.

Fearing if he tried to approach she might bolt, he hunkered on his heel to appear less of a threat, and put on a smile. “What’s your name?” he called, working to keep his voice soft and calm.

“Hannah.”

“Just Hannah? No last name?”

“Ellis.”

She was a skinny little thing, no more than five or six years old, wearing a faded blue dress that hung too short, and scuffed, high-top boots that looked too big around her thin, stockinged ankles. One small fingertip poked through a hole in her woolen mitten, and she plucked at it in a worried, nervous way. Except for a cold-reddened nose, her skin was pale against the red scarf, and her eyes looked too big in her small face. He couldn’t tell their color, but the shape of them seemed somehow familiar.

“Are you from town, Hannah Ellis? From New Hope?”

She didn’t answer.

“Where are your parents?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are you lost?”

Words burst out of her, shrill and wobbly. “Why didn’t you come, Daniel?”

Daniel.
She knew his name, so it had to be the girl in the snow. But how? And what was she doing here? Desperate to make sense of her sudden appearance, he struggled to keep the conversation going.

“Come where, Hannah?”

“I’ve been waiting for you.”

“For me? Why?”

“You promised.” She looked back at the trees.

He saw a shiver run through her and realized she was probably cold from standing there so long.

“Would you like to come inside and get warm, Hannah?”

She turned back, her eyes wet. “I want to go home.”

“Where’s that?”

He could sense her drifting away and quickly rose. “Okay, Hannah. I’ll take you home.” Hopefully that was in New Hope, and if not, maybe someone there knew where she belonged.

“What if he won’t let you?”

“What if who won’t let me?”

“The man.”

“What man?”

That shiver again.

Daniel scanned the trees behind her but saw nothing move in the shadows. Roscoe sat beside her, relaxed, his tail wagging. “What’s the man’s name?” he asked, trying to mask his growing concern behind a friendly tone.

The wind gusted, hiding her behind a flurry of powdery snow.

“Does he hurt you, Hannah? Is he mean to you?”

“He talks funny.”

“In what way? What does he say?”

“I don’t know.”

Striving for patience, he tried a different track. “Why doesn’t he want you to leave?”

“It would make the lady sad. She talks funny, too.”

“What lady?”

“I have to go.” She stepped back, fading into the swirling whiteness.

“Wait!” When he saw he’d frightened her, he softened his voice. “I can see you’re cold. Why don’t you come inside and get warm. Then we’ll go into town and find your folks. All right?” Smiling, he held out a hand.

She didn’t move.

Tamping down his frustration, he let his hand drop back to his side. He wished she’d take off the scarf so he could see her face. He had a feeling she was crying, but couldn’t tell beneath the swirling snow that had grown as thick as fog. And yet, oddly, even without being able to watch her lips move, he understood every word she spoke. “Will you wait here, then, while I get my pack and snowshoes? Roscoe will keep you company. Isn’t that right, Roscoe?”

No response. From either the girl or the dog.

“All right, then. I’ll be right back.”

Hurrying toward the cabin, he mentally listed all the things he would need. It was only a five-mile trek to New Hope, but with a child along and the weather unpredictable, he didn’t want to be unprepared. Blankets, food, water, rope, canvas, a hatchet. There was a sled in the barn. He would load everything onto that. He could move faster pulling her on a sled than carrying her on his back.

As he stuffed jerky, matches, and other emergency supplies into his pack, he wondered again what she was doing out here, and what kind of parents would let a child wander off by herself in the middle of winter. These mountains were full of dangers, not the least of which was the cold. If it had been his child . . .

He pressed his lips tight, unable to finish the thought.

After lacing his pack closed, he slung it over one shoulder and threw the blankets over the other. Picking up his rifle, he opened the door and almost tripped over Roscoe, who was parked on the porch. “What are you doing up here,” he asked, surprised that the hound had deserted his charge. But when he looked over at the woodshed, he saw that the blowing snow had settled as the wind died, and there was no sign of the girl.

Damn.
Dropping his gear, he stepped off the porch and into the yard. “Hannah?”

No answer.

He strode toward the shed, his irritation building. Now he’d have to waste valuable time hunting for her. “Damn it, Roscoe!” He glared down at the dog trotting happily at his side. “You were supposed to stay with her.”

The hound grinned up at him like he had good sense.

She wasn’t in the woodshed, and the snow was too churned up to show him which way she had gone when she left. In fact, he saw no small tracks that might have belonged to a child, either coming or going.

“Hannah?” he called again.

Silence.

Slogging through the snow, he circled the cabin, then the barn, then went into the woods and checked for signs of her there. He called until his voice grew hoarse.

Nothing. Somehow she had disappeared without leaving a single trace.

Alarmed now, he returned to the porch. Quickly, he laced on his snowshoes, then grabbed his rifle and pack. Calling Roscoe, he started down the road at a rolling jog, snowshoes slipping on the wet, slushy snow, anger building as blood pumped through his laboring body.

He would find Hannah’s parents and give them hell for letting her run loose in this weather. Then he would get Doc, and anybody else he could round up, and start combing these woods.

He’d already lost one child because he hadn’t been there to help.

He wouldn’t lose another.

***

It was midafternoon when he reached New Hope. Doc Halstead wasn’t in his office, so Daniel continued on into the town’s business district.

There wasn’t much to it, especially now that half of the right side of the main street had been damaged by the snowslide. In front of what remained of the Mercantile, Homer Cranston was loading lumber out of a buckboard and sliding it through one of the shattered front windows of his store.

Daniel stopped beside the wagon. Relaying several planks up to the storekeeper, he asked if there was a family in town named Ellis.

“Ellis?” Cranston paused to scratch his whiskered chin. “Only one by that name around here. Widow.” He hooked a thumb in the direction Daniel was headed. “Last house on the right. Lives there with her brothers ever since—”

But Daniel didn’t want to chat, so with a terse “Thanks” and a backward wave, he called Roscoe and continued down the street.

He had worked himself into a fine temper—both at the girl and her family—for causing him this worry, for forcing him to make this trek when he had better things to do, but mostly for making him doubt his own sanity.

He didn’t like feeling responsible for the girl. Feeling responsible for anybody. That’s why he lived in such a remote place. He just wanted to be left the hell alone. Was that too much to ask?

The last dwelling was set fifty yards from its nearest neighbor, and unlike other houses he’d passed, there were no spruce garlands, or wreaths, or bright calico bows to mark the Christmas season. Place looked as forlorn as the dollhouse sitting in his cabin.

Not intending to stay long or go inside, he didn’t unlace his snowshoes, but stopped a few yards from the porch. Cupping a hand to his mouth, he called loudly, “Hello, the house!” then waited.

Roscoe plopped beside his leg, panting from the long run. Shadows moved behind the drooping lace curtains, then the front door opened. A big dark-haired man stepped out—the same one Daniel had seen with the blonde woman who always stared at him in that sad, puzzled way whenever they crossed paths. Was she the widow—Hannah’s mother? That realization rattled him, and for a moment he thought about turning and walking away. Then he remembered the lost child, standing in the snow. “You Ellis?” he called.

“Tom Jackson.”

“Anyone living here named Ellis?”

“My sister. Why?”

“She have a daughter named Hannah?”

A change came over the man’s square-jawed face. Moving to the top of the porch steps, he crossed his arms over his wide chest and glared down at Daniel. “Why you asking?”

Before Daniel could answer, the door opened again and a smaller, fair-haired man came out. Daniel recognized him as the other fellow he had sometimes seen with the woman, and assumed he was another brother. As the newcomer moved forward, a third figure appeared in the doorway behind him.

It was her. The woman he didn’t know but couldn’t stop thinking about. The resemblance to Hannah was uncanny. Both blonde. Both carrying that same wounded, bewildered expression in blue-green eyes.

For a moment, he couldn’t draw in air. His mouth went dry, his heart drummed, and all the words he had so carefully rehearsed on the way into town flew right out of his head.

She awakened within him a feeling he thought long dead. And he wasn’t sure he liked that.

“Why you asking about Hannah?” the dark-haired brother demanded again.

Allowing confusion to reignite his anger, Daniel let accusation creep into his voice. “Because you ought not let her run loose, that’s why. These woods are no place for a child to wander around in. Bad things can happen.”

As he spoke, a thunderous expression came over the brother’s face. “What are you saying? You blaming us for Hannah? That what you’re saying?” Hands balling into fists at his sides, he stomped down the steps, his jaw jutting, his smaller brother close on his heels.

Daniel didn’t budge. “I’m saying a responsible parent would keep a better eye on her. She shouldn’t be allowed to just wander off and—”

A big fist slammed into his jaw, knocking him off balance and sending the rifle flying from his grip. Before he could untangle his snowshoes, another blow drove him to the ground. Then both brothers were on him, and they were all rolling in the snow, fists and boots flying while Roscoe hopped around them, barking and snarling.

“Stop this!” A man shouted. “Stop now! Tom, get off him!”

But the blows kept coming, and every time Daniel tried to get to his feet, the snowshoes tripped him up. He fought gamely, giving back what he could, while at the same time trying to shove Roscoe clear so he wouldn’t get hurt. Then a gunshot exploded over their heads, and everything came to an abrupt halt.

“Damn it, I told you to stop!”

Daniel spit blood into the snow and looked groggily up to see Doc Halstead waving an old Army Colt like a flag. “Back away, Tom,” he ordered the dark-haired brother. “You too, Harvey. Now!”

“This is none of your business, Doc,” argued the bigger man—Tom.

“Nobody accuses us of neglecting Hannah,” his brother, Harvey, seconded.

“He doesn’t understand,” Doc said. “Now move away.”

Reluctantly, the men stepped back. “Ought to shoot the son of a bitch,” Tom Jackson muttered. “Him and his dog. Ripped a hole right through my jacket.”

Grabbing the hound by the loose skin of his neck, Daniel held onto him as he regained his feet. The wooden strut of one snowshoe was broken, the laces on the other ripped loose. Angrily, he pulled them off his boots, retrieved the rifle, then straightened, pretending the new bruises and cuts on his battered body were of little consequence. He was gratified to see the other two men were at least as bloody as he was. “You touch my dog,” he warned, more confident now that he didn’t have the handicap of snowshoes to contend with, “and it’ll cost you. Bad.”

Jackson started to respond when a sound drew his attention to the woman on the porch. “It’s all right, Sis. Go inside.”

Ignoring him, she continued to stare at Daniel. Except now she looked more distressed than sad. He was sorry she had witnessed this, but it wasn’t him who started it.

Still bristling, the smaller brother leaned in, teeth bared. “You had no right saying what you did, mister. If you ever come here again—”

“Give it up, Harvey.” Doc put a staying had on the sandy-haired man’s chest. “He’s confused. He doesn’t know.”

“I’m not confused.”

“Hell you are. Crazy as a loon.” Tom Jackson swiped a hand across his split lip. “Ought to give him a pill or something, Doc.”

“He doesn’t know,” the doctor said. “He thinks he heard her—”

“I did hear her. She was at my place just this morning.”

Tom Jackson’s face went slack with astonishment. “She was? For true?”

“Where is she?” Harvey looked around, eyes alight with excitement. “Is she here? Did you bring her with you?”

“She disappeared before I could.”

“Disappeared? What do you mean, disappeared?” Excitement gave way to fury. “What have you done with her?” Both Jacksons started forward.