“I was tending to the animals and helping Aunt Vi mend the lid on her chest.”
“Damned chest,” he hissed. “She doesn’t need all those ribbons and lace. They’re just an extra burden.”
Abby lowered her voice, hoping her aunt hadn’t heard. She couldn’t bear to see the older woman’s feelings hurt. “It doesn’t take up much room, Pa. And it makes Aunt Vi happy.”
He caught her arm, twisting her to face him. “It’s obvious her love of those frills hasn’t rubbed off on you. Look at you. More boy than woman.”
Plain. Abby had heard it all her life. Her mother had been a rare beauty, with hair the color of cornsilk and eyes bluer than a summer sky. Carrie had inherited Margaret’s hair and eyes. Even at the tender age of fifteen, her figure had already blossomed into lush curves.
Aunt Vi was like a little China doll, with milky skin and pale, silvery hair. Her voice suited her, so soft it sounded almost like singing. Each day she insisted on wearing a clean gown and bonnet with matching ribbons. She’d never learned a woman’s chores, could barely cook and sew. But she was the most cheerful woman Abby had ever known. It would be impossible for Violet Market to say an unkind word about another. Her dreamy smile would brighten anyone’s day.
Abby glanced down at her free hand, rough and callused from her labors. Self-consciously she ran it along the slim, boyish figure. She wished she hadn’t been born a girl. Life would have been so much simpler if she had been her father’s son. Angrily she touched a hand to her hat. She had inherited her father’s hair—thick, unruly, the color of carrots. Unbound, it would fall nearly to her waist. Her pale skin had been burned by the sun, despite her constant use of a hat. Her cheeks were tanned to a rich bronze. Thankfully, the Market freckles dotted only her shoulders.
Her nostrils flared as she yanked her arm free. Rubbing the tender spot, she said softly, “I do the best I can, Pa.”
“Starting tomorrow, you’ll have to do better. I’ll need to hunt our food and keep the wagon in repair. If you can’t handle the rest of it, you’ll just have to teach that lazy sister and useless aunt of yours how to help.”
“They do help.” She stared at a spot on the ground to hide the anger she felt at his cruel words.
He gave a snort of derision and pushed past her. “The two of them together couldn’t do the work of a two-year-old.”
When he disappeared inside the wagon, she crouched beside the fire and listlessly stirred the contents of the pot. Carrie was young and scared. In the past month she’d lost her mama, her home, her whole world as she knew it. And Aunt Vi had always lived in a dreamy, happy place in her mind. She was more suited to a parlor, with an organ to play, and jam and tea for lunch. This trek across the west would probably kill her.
Hearing her father’s angry voice from inside the wagon, Abby stood wearily. Her aunt and sister counted on her to stand up to James Market whenever his temper rose. As she had so often, Abby wondered just how strong she really was. She hoped she’d never have to be tested.
Chapter Two
Just before dawn ghostly ribbons of mist hovered between ground and trees, silvering the leaves of a clump of poplars. Lanterns bobbed inside wagons as families rolled from their blankets and prepared for the first day of a journey that would take them across the plains, over the Rocky Mountains, and into the untamed west. In the cool morning air, horses blew and sidestepped in their anticipation. Harnesses jingled as men murmured and swore and hitched teams of mules and oxen. Inside the wagons, babies cried, and children giggled, while women scurried about making certain everything was secure.
While they worked, the men argued good-naturedly.
“Oxen make the best team for this kind of journey.”
“Mules,” another called, hitching the obstinate beasts.
“Oxen. Three to five years old. They’re compact. Not too heavy.”
“Mules are faster. And if your wagon falls apart, you can pack out on a mule. I’d like to see you try that with an ox.”
“If my family is starving, I can eat my oxen.”
“Believe me. If I’m starving, I’ll even eat a mule.”
The arguments were never-ending.
Just outside the circle of light Rourke sat astride his horse watching the flurry of preparations. He felt oddly distanced from these people. This was their train, the business of crossing this vast land theirs. Whatever problems they encountered were their own. The pain and suffering they had yet to endure were no business of his. He had pain enough of his own.
His gaze slowly encompassed the circle of light. The other four wagons had arrived just after dark, bringing the total to twelve as Mordecai had promised.
At the sound of a whip cracking, Rourke turned toward a wagon to his left. He recognized the stocky man. The Market wagon. A mule kicked frantically.
“Goddammit, hold him still or I’ll turn this whip on you.” James Market’s angry voice lifted above the morning sounds.
Rourke watched the small, slender figure struggle with the nervous team while James Market untangled the harness and approached the first mule. It backed away from him and the man swore again.
“So help me, this is your last chance. Hold that animal still until I get him in the harness.”
The diminutive silhouette fought the kicking mule. Rourke saw the thin arms tremble under the animal’s tremendous strength and felt a surge of pity for the boy. Market wasn’t only impatient, he was unreasonable.
When the mule tossed his head in fear, the halter was ripped from the small hand struggling to hold it. Swearing viciously, James Market raised his whip.
With a muttered oath, Rourke began to swing from the saddle. No man, not even the lad’s father, had the right to use a whip in that manner.
A firm hand on his shoulder caused Rourke to spin around. Beside him, Mordecai Stump sat astride a chestnut mare.
“Not thinking of meddling, are you, Rourke?” His voice was as soft as the morning mist.
Rourke’s body actually flinched as he heard the first crack of the whip. Mordecai could feel the coiled tension in the muscled shoulder beneath his hand.
Rourke’s eyes narrowed. “And what if I am?”
“I wouldna’. In my years, I’ve found it best to let families solve their own problems. You step between those two, you’ll have them both scratching at your eyes.”
“You’d stand by and let a man whip his own kin?”
Mordecai shrugged and removed his hand from Rourke’s shoulder. In his anger, his Scottish burr was even thicker. “I’ve no use for a man who would do such a thing. But life has a way of evening the score.”
“Maybe.” Rourke glanced at the Market wagon. His fist clenched and unclenched in impotent fury.
The two men stared at each other for long silent minutes. Mordecai heard the man beside him suck air into his lungs. Slowly Rourke unclenched his fist and clamped his fingers around the horn of the saddle. Almost as if, the Scotsman thought, he was clamping the lid on his own emotions.
As Mordecai’s horse moved away through the lifting shadows, Rourke wondered what would have happened if the old man hadn’t stopped him. He might have ended up killing Market in front of his kid’s eyes. Stump was right. Better to stay out of it. It wasn’t his fight.
Gradually the mule settled down, and the team was hitched to the wagon. All the while he worked, James Market unloaded a stream of oaths on the slight figure who worked closely beside him. When they were finished, Market began lashing the last of their belongings to the wagon floor. The youth hurried to the stream with two buckets nearly as big as he was.
Pulling a cigar from his pocket, Rourke bit the end and struck a match. Puffing lightly, he emitted a stream of smoke, blew out the match, and slid from the saddle. He wasn’t going to meddle, he promised himself. He was just going to satisfy his curiosity.
As he made his way toward the stream, he glanced at the sky. It was so light now he could make out the faces of the people around him.
The figure was kneeling at the edge of the stream, dipping the first bucket into the icy water. From the back, Rourke could see where the whip had split the shirt neatly open from the top of the shoulder to a spot where it was tucked into the waistband of faded britches. A narrow ribbon of blood trickled, leaving the shirt clinging in sticky red patches.
“Need some help, boy?”
A head swiveled. Two eyes rounded in surprise. Leaning against the trunk of a tree was a tall stranger, with a stream of smoke swirling above his head. His hair was dark and shaggy, curling over the collar of his shirt. His shoulders were broad; the muscles of his arms visible beneath the sleeves of his shirt. He had one booted foot crossed over the other in a careless pose. But there was nothing careless or relaxed about this man. A gun and holster rested against a muscular thigh. Dressed all in black, he looked like the devil himself. The handsomest devil Abby had ever seen. Without blinking, he met her gaze. It was his eyes that held her. Gray, almost silver in the morning mist, they were fixed on her with the most piercing look she’d ever seen.
“Thanks. I can manage.”
Rourke nearly swallowed his cigar. The voice was low and husky, but definitely feminine.
The slender figure leaned over, filling the second bucket. Rourke studied the softly rounded hips. When both oaken buckets were brimming, she stood and tugged until she had lifted both to the grass. She turned. Rourke’s gaze studied the boyish figure in a man’s oversized pants and shirt. She was slim, but had the soft contours of a woman.
He grinned, feeling at once foolish and awkward. “I guess you aren’t James Market’s son.”
She didn’t return the smile.
He saw the tremendous effort it cost her to lift both buckets. As she moved past him, head high, arms straining, he saw her eyes. Green. Green as the meadows of his home.
She never paused; never looked back. He watched her until she disappeared behind the wagons.
Tossing the cigar aside, he strode back to his horse. Damn James Market, he thought. And damn his arrogant woman.
* * *
A scorching sun burned off the last of the mist and beat mercilessly on man and beast. Dust from the churning wagon wheels swirled in little eddies, rising up to choke the driver of the next wagon. From the front of the train it was impossible to see through the dust cloud to the last wagon in the line.
Aunt Vi had dipped a white lace handkerchief in water and handed it to Abby to tie over her nose and mouth. Still, sand clogged her throat and burned her eyes. Pulling the brim of her hat lower on her forehead, she gritted her teeth and urged the mules on when they fought the reins. Her arms ached from the long hours of driving the wagon. Her cramped muscles protested every rut and hole along the well-worn trail.
In the back of the wagon, Aunt Vi and Carrie lay upon their blankets, holding similarly dampened handkerchiefs to their faces and gagging on the heat and dust. Every other woman and child on the train was out walking beside their wagons. Only these two rode.
“How can Abby stand it?” Carrie moaned.
“I don’t know, child. It’s been hours since we stopped. She has the endurance of a mule.”
“Like Pa.”
The older woman leaned up on one elbow. “Don’t say that. She isn’t like your father.”
“Is too,” Carrie pouted. “They’re two of a kind. All they know is work, work, work. And once they make up their minds, there’s no stopping them. How could Abby allow Pa to sell everything we own and head west?”
“Your sister had no choice.” Violet dipped her handkerchief into a bucket of water and wrung it out carefully before wiping her forehead. “Your father’s running, Carrie. Running from the pain of a dead wife and baby; running from the backbreaking labor of a farm that never yielded anything but failed crops and sickly cattle.”
Violet lay back, ready to expound on one of her favorite theories.
“Maybe everyone in this train is running—from a land devastated by war; from shattered dreams. And everyone is expecting to build a better life.” She sighed. “But if they bring along all the old hatred, all their cherished prejudices, they’ll find themselves with the same old life in a new place.”
“What about us, Aunt Vi? What’s going to happen to us in the west?”
“I’ve heard the land is rich and verdant, and the weather quite hospitable.”
“And the Indians?” Carrie chuckled at her aunt’s sudden grimace. “Maybe I’ll marry an Indian chief and live like a princess.”
“Don’t even think such things, child. I’ve heard horrible tales about how the Indians treat their captives.”
Carrie tossed back her golden curls and noted the soiled smudges on her once-white muslin gown. With a sideways glance, she asked, “Are Indians one of your cherished prejudices, Aunt Vi?”
The older woman’s eyes opened wide as she contemplated her niece for long silent moments. Nodding slowly, she said, “Out of the mouths of babes …”
“What does that mean?”
Violet touched her handkerchief to her flushed cheek. “It means that I will have to give the matter some thought.” In a brighter tone, she added, “We must make dinner tonight for your father and Abby. The poor thing will be too exhausted to cook when we make camp.”
“I can bake biscuits,” Carrie said, feeling a sudden wave of sympathy for her older sister. What must it be like to sit on that hard seat all day beneath the searing sun and handle an unruly team?
“And I’ll make a stew with the last of that venison,” Vi said, rummaging through the sack that held dried vegetables.
It was nearly dusk, and Mordecai knew the travelers were exhausted. When the first wagon reached the banks of the swollen river, he decided to get the train across before making camp for the night. That way, the morning could begin with ease. Signaling Thompson, he waited by the water’s edge.
“Where’s Rourke?” he called as his partner approached.
Thompson pointed to a horse and rider high on a ridge.
“Bring him down,” Mordecai ordered. “He can help get the wagons across.”
“Maybe we ought to wait until morning to cross.”