Kaki Warner (9 page)

“You said a storm was coming,” Daniel reminded him. “Maybe they left in a hurry without even knowing she was back there.”

“Maybe. But eventually they would have stopped or she would have woken up. Why didn’t they bring her back then?”

“They might have thought she was with one of the other wagons heading west, like they were,” Daniel offered. “Maybe they planned to hand her over to her parents when they reached the fort.”

“How?” Lacy looked from one to the other, her beautiful eyes awash with tears again. “How would they have known who her parents were? Hannah couldn’t have told them. She doesn’t speak, remember?”

Yet she spoke to me.
But Daniel had no reasonable explanation of how that happened, or why she would appear to him and not her family, so he kept that thought to himself. These two were barely listening to him now. No use arousing more doubts about his sanity.

The fire sizzled and hissed, the glowing bed of coals pulsing like a beating heart. Over on the picket line, a horse snorted and stomped. Merlin, probably, trying to kick his way out of the hobbles. Farther off, in the direction of the cantina, an out-of-tune piano plinked a sad tune.

Defeat weighted the chill air.

Tom sighed, his discouragement evident in the sag of his shoulders.

Daniel understood his frustration. They might
want
to believe him, but there were too many missing pieces. Too many questions unanswered. And too many disappointments in the past.

He was disheartened, too. Doubts pricked at him, slowly chipping away at his resolve. Even so, nothing thus far had changed his sure belief that Hannah Ellis was alive somewhere and waiting for someone—for him—to come get her.

“Well.” Rising, he stretched muscles stiffened from sitting in the cold too long, then looked up into the sky. Not a star shone. The moon was just a faint glow behind a thick layer of clouds, and the air tasted like snow. “Guess tomorrow I’ll go up to the fort. Ask around. See if anyone remembers a wagon coming through with a little blonde girl who wouldn’t talk.”

Lacy looked up at him. Firelight danced across her features, emphasizing the weary smudges beneath her eyes, the tense set of her mouth. Yet she looked as beautiful to him as any woman ever had. “You still believe she’s alive, Daniel?”

Daniel.
Hearing the way she said his name in her gentle voice and seeing the hopeful trust in her face, made Daniel almost desperate to touch her, to smooth the worry from her brow and bring the light back into her fine eyes. Instead, he jammed his cold hands into his pockets and forced a smile. “I do.”

“Then I’m going with you.”

Tom let go another long sigh. “We’d best leave early then. It’s a long ride.”

***

The next afternoon, they were five miles short of the fort when the storm hit. Within minutes, wind was howling out of the west, driving snow into their faces, and visibility had dropped to less than twenty feet. The horses grew fractious, slowing to find their footing and tucking their heads against the chilling blast. Squinting against the sting of icy pellets, Daniel studied Lacy, who rode ahead of him. She could barely stay upright, but hunched over the pommel, both hands clutching the horn for balance. Shivers ran down her bowed back.

“Jackson!” he called, moving up beside her, ready to catch her if she started to slide.

Jackson turned and shouted something. But between the noise of the wind and his bad hearing, Daniel couldn’t make it out. “We have to stop!” he yelled and pointed at Lacy.

Jackson nodded and angled toward several large boulders beside a stand of firs. Three of the giant stones were clustered together so that they formed a three-sided windbreak with a narrow space in between. After helping Lacy dismount, Daniel sent her and Roscoe to wait between the boulders and out of the wind while he and her brother set up a shelter.

Jackson untied the saddlebags and emergency supplies. Tossing several lengths of rope and the canvas to Daniel, he shouted, “Tie that over the tops of the boulders. I’ll picket the horses over there.” He pointed toward a small stand of wide-limbed spruces that would offer at least partial protection from the wind.

Daniel nodded and set to work. By the time Jackson returned with an armful of firewood, the canvas was secure and he had a small fire ring waiting at the entrance of the makeshift shelter. While Jackson jammed fir boughs into the gaps between the boulders and Lacy cleared the area under the canopy of snow and rocks and sticks, Daniel started a fire and cooked supper.

It wasn’t much. Leftover hardtack, a can of beans cooked with salt pork and onion, and dried apricots he softened in boiling water. When he saw that Lacy was still shivering, he gathered more snow and boiled the last of his jerky to make a broth in one of the mugs. “Be careful,” he said, holding it out. “It’s hot.”

She flashed him a weary smile as she cupped the warm metal in her gloved hands. “Thank you.”

They ate in silence, serenaded by the wind and the sizzle of snowflakes hitting the coals. But deeper under the canopy they stayed dry and relatively warm. Even Roscoe stopped shivering.

After wiping out his dirty plate with snow, Daniel left the others to figure out how they would all fit in that tiny space under the canopy, and went to check on the horses. They were huddled together under the trees, butts turned toward the wind. He fed each of them a measure of grain out of his hat and checked that the picket line was tied securely. Then, forgoing the hobbles, he told Merlin to behave, and went back to the shelter, gathering firewood along the way.

Jackson was waiting at the entrance. “Don’t suppose you’d be willing to sleep out here?”

Daniel dumped the wood, then straightened and looked at him.

“Thought not.” Jackson glanced over his shoulder at the bundled form in the shadows, then turned back to Daniel with his usual scowl. “All right. You can sleep inside, Hobart, but if I catch your hands on my sister—”

“For crissakes.”

“I’ve seen the way you look at her.”

“She complaining?”

“Not yet.”

“Then butt out.”

To keep himself from hitting the idiot, Daniel knelt and tossed sticks onto the flames. “I’m not a fool, you know,” he said once he’d gotten his temper in hand. “Your sister’s a beautiful woman, and I’m . . . well, with this face I could be Frankenstein’s twin brother. I know she would never—”

“Frank who?”

Daniel looked up. “Frankenstein. A sewn-together monster in a book. Don’t you read?”

“Not unless I have to. Lacy’s the reader. But if you’re talking about your scars, you’re wrong if you think that would matter to her. Lacy’s not like that.” He started to say something more when a noise from inside the shelter brought his head around. He listened for a moment, then sighed. “Hell.”

“What’s wrong?” Daniel rose and peered in the shadows. He could barely make out the blanketed lump that was probably Lacy and the hound curled up against her. The noise came again. Cocking his good ear, he tried to make it out. High-pitched. Female. Panicky. “Is that your sister?”

“It’s not for you to worry about,” Jackson said, brusquely.

“Like hell.” Daniel started to shove past him.

Jackson grabbed his arm. “There’s nothing you can do, Hobart. It’s just a dream. She’ll stop soon.”

“Stop what? What’s she doing?”

Daniel thought he wouldn’t answer.

Then, in a weary voice, Jackson said, “She’s calling for Hannah.”

They slept mashed between the stones, shoulder to shoulder, lined up like cordwood. Jackson, his sister, Roscoe, then Daniel. It was one of the longest nights of Daniel’s life. Not because of the storm, or the flap of the canvas over their heads, or Tom Jackson’s snoring, or Roscoe’s stink. Not even because of the woman sleeping on the other side of the hound. It was because his mind wouldn’t stop circling around a single astounding thought: If Tom Jackson was right, and his scars didn’t matter to his sister . . . well, that changed everything.

***

Lacy rose out of her night terror to the murmur of deep voices and a hand stroking her back. Remnants of her dream swirled through her mind, but she couldn’t make sense of it. Something about Hannah, and Daniel Hobart, and a dead cat trapped in a frozen creek.

The voices grew louder. The hand continued to stroke in a soothing rhythm that slowed the frantic beat of her heart and sent the fear back into the shadows. She cracked open and eye, saw daylight, and closed it again. She was lying on her stomach, her face buried in her arms. Her sleeves felt wet. Had she been crying? She wanted to roll over to see who was speaking, but couldn’t make her sluggish muscles obey.

“What the hell are you doing?” the voice on her right whispered.
Tom
. She couldn’t see him, but she knew that tone. “And where’s your dog?”

“Gone,” Daniel Hobart said on her other side.

“So you took his place?”

“She was crying in her sleep.”

“That doesn’t mean you can put your hands on her.”

Lacy stiffened.
That’s Daniel’s hand?

The stroking paused, then resumed. “You know, Jackson, before I start this thing with your sister, I may have to kill you.” Laughter vibrated in the low voice despite the harsh words.

What thing?

“What are you talking about?” Tom demanded.

“Our courtship.”

Courtship?

The hand went away as the big body beside her shifted. Cold air moved along her side where he had been. “Up and at ’em, Jackson. The snow’s stopped, and we’re burning daylight. I’ll get the horses.”

***

It was only five miles farther to the fort, but it took two hours for them to plow through the deep drifts that had piled up in the night. Luckily, it was powdery snow, and although it reached almost to the horses’ bellies, they were able to move through it relatively easily.

Her brother took the lead again, and with his horse’s legs hidden in the snow, he looked like a top-heavy ship plowing through a sea of white. Daniel Hobart brought up the rear with the packhorse, and for the first time, his hound wisely followed in the horses’ tracks, rather than running ahead to cut his own trail in snow that came to his head.

Lacy was acutely aware of the man riding behind her. She could almost feel his intense gaze pinned on her back, and twice whipped around hoping to catch him and embarrass him into ceasing his scrutiny. But he simply grinned back, dark brows raised in question, his fine teeth a stark contrast to his cold-reddened cheeks and darkly stubbled jaw.

She didn’t know whether to be flattered or irritated by his attention. She had just begun to think of him as a friend. And now he wanted to court her?

She had no interest in being courted. All she cared about was finding out what had happened to Hannah. She could think no further than that.

But still, it was nice having him near. There was a quiet assurance about Daniel, a steadiness that had been missing from her life for too long. If she allowed it, she could grow to depend on that calm strength too much.

It was early afternoon when they reached Fort Middleton. It looked a bit forlorn, poking up out of the snow on such a lonely stretch of road, and Lacy wondered how much longer the army would keep it in open.

It had definitely had its ups and downs. Originally built to hold Middleton Pass during the war with Mexico in 1848, it had been largely abandoned after hostilities ended. Then, with the onset of the Indian wars, it had enjoyed a brief revival until the reservations were established. Now its sole purpose was to keep the pass secure for pilgrims moving west—after the horrific tragedy at Donner Pass over the Sierra Nevada almost twenty-five years ago, the government wanted no more travelers stranded over the winter. But with railroads now able to offer cross-country passage at a fraction of the cost, time, and danger of travel by horse or wagon, fewer pilgrims came this way.

In fact, Lacy noted only one canvas-covered wagon parked outside the log walls when they rode through the gates. Within the compound, there were even more signs that Fort Middleton was falling into disuse. The blockhouse at the corner of the stockade enclosure was deserted, the parade grounds empty. Of the two residences set aside for married officers, one was boarded up. And although the quartermaster’s stables appeared to still be in use, there were half the number of horses in the paddock than when Lacy and her brothers had come here last year, asking about Hannah.

It appeared Fort Middleton was in its final decline.

“Wait here,” Tom said, stopping beside the flagpole outside the post headquarters. “I’ll give our hellos to the man in charge and see if they have any rooms available in the unused residences.”

As it happened, the un-boarded house Lacy had noticed when they had arrived was kept in readiness for visiting dignitaries, although no dignitaries had visited in over sixteen months, and none were expected for the foreseeable future. Tom and his family were welcome to use it.

“I told them you were our brother,” Tom said to Daniel as they led the horses to the stable. “Thought it would cause less speculation.”

“Did you inquire about Hannah?” Lacy asked.

“We’re invited to dine with Commander Phillips tonight. We’ll ask then.”

Phillips had been in charge last year when they’d come looking for Hannah. He hadn’t been much help then, and Lacy doubted he’d be much help now. Still, they had to ask.

After leaving their soiled clothing with the lady at the camp laundry, they went on to their borrowed quarters, a small house with drooping lace curtains in the windows and a pot of dead daisies on the front porch. Inside was a dining and kitchen area with a hearth, a small parlor, and a single bedroom off which ran a steep set of stairs that led up to a narrow, low-ceilinged attic with a window on one peaked wall, a cot on the other, and unused furniture stored in between.

The house was freezing and had a musty odor. Luckily there was ample firewood stacked beside the hearth, which Daniel used to get a fire going. There was also a working pump in the kitchen and a small hip tub on the back stoop, although the men decided they would go back to the bathhouse behind the laundry, where they could also get a shave.