The Smartest Horse in Texas (The Traherns #2) (9 page)

“The paper says she’s mine, and as soon as I sign it over, she’s
yours. I got her for you. Did you leave because of Misty?”

“No. Yes. She was part of it. But he said you couldn’t teach
me...”

“That was when I decided to leave, too.”

We looked at each other.

“You don’t have to go back to him, Dawn. He’s your pa, but you
are of age now. He can’t control you any longer.”

She started to cry, then collapsed on the ground. It caught me
by surprise. I hadn’t quite realized how afraid she was of him.

I untied my blanket and started to drape it over her. She stood
up and pulled it around herself, then leaned into my arms.

She was shaking, and I pulled her close, wanting to shelter her
from her pa and the Indians and anyone else who might want to hurt her. I
kissed the top of her head, then her eyes as she lifted her face to me.

“Thank you,” she said, her voice soft and low. “Thank you.”

I understood why the horses would do anything she asked, because
I felt the same way. “You’re welcome.”

She laid her head against my chest and I wanted it to stay
there. It felt right. This woman felt right.

“There’s something you need to know,” I said. “I checked the
bags in the pantry. When we got back from the store, Lewis put the supplies
away. Whoever filled the bags, filled them wrong. There was salt in the sugar
bag and salt in the salt.”

“So I wasn’t dumb.”

“Not at all. Never was. You need to understand. There’s a whole
heap of difference between book learning and smarts. Hero is smart, probably
the smartest horse in Texas, and he can’t read a word.”

That brought a grin to her face and a sparkle to her eyes. “Hero
don’t need to read. The fillies don’t care. He just flashes those stallion eyes
at them and they line up.”

“You can read a book about how to ride a horse, but until you
put in hours of riding, you aren’t a rider. You know that.”

She nodded.

“Well, you just need more time to be a reader. Then you would’ve
known you weren’t wrong.”

It was just common sense, but she’d been so beat down by the
people at the ranch, that she’d lost faith in herself.

“You know that if you took any of those people back there and
dropped them in the desert, they wouldn’t be able to find water like you can.
You aren’t dumb, you just had a different type of education. One which is very
practical for out here.”

She snuggled close to me again.

“May I kiss you?” I asked.

“Yes.”

I’d never kissed a girl, except when I was a youngster on the
mountains, and my cousin Bo bet me I couldn’t get a kiss from Lucy Kendale. It
hadn’t mattered then, but this was different. I felt for Dawn, strong. I might
even be in love with her.

She raised her head and closed her eyes, then opened them.

“Well? Aren’t you going to kiss me after you asked for one?”

I took my hat off, beat it on my leg. “Um...”

“Matthew, are you shy?”

“Um, I think... I love you and...”

She threw her arms around my neck and kissed me soundly. Once
started, I returned the kiss and we went at it for quite a spell. My heart was
thumpin’ and I was a sweating and I just shook.

Here under the Texas stars, I’d found the one woman who spoke to
that part of me that I hid from the world. The part that wanted a companion, a
completion of myself. Someone I could protect and love and serve.

It had been growing, ever since I first saw her in the corral,
and grew even more rapidly now when she kissed me back.

Did she feel the same for me? Her kisses were heating up as fast
as I was. Did she realize it?

She was a fine woman, a noble woman. I had to control myself,
for I wanted her to know how valuable she was to me. I had to protect her from
myself.

“Whoa,” I said. “Back off a bit. I need to know. Are those
kisses because you’re happy or grateful, or because...”

“I love you.”

It was exactly what I wanted to hear. “And I love you. Dawn,
will you marry me?”

She stared at me in the dim light. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. We’ll find us a preacher and do it right proper.”

“You could have anyone for a wife.”

“I don’t want anyone else. I’m asking you. Will you marry me?
Just as soon as I return Hero to his rightful owner.”

“You’d be leaving?”

“I don’t want you to be marrying a horse thief, so I’ll have to
find Trey and give him back. That might take some time. You could go back to
the ranch and wait until—”

“Never!”

I didn’t blame her. “Okay. We can go to Ft. Worth and I’ll rent
a house for you. We can get married as soon as I get back. Then we’ll head
west.”

“I could wait with the Kiowas.”

“They aren’t there any longer. The war was harder on the Indians
than anyone else.”

“Then I’ll go to my aunt’s place. I can stay there while you
hunt Trey. Aunt Mabel’s lonely, with Uncle Tim gone.”     

“I can drop by your Pa’s place and tell him where you’re at, if
you think he’d worry.”

“No. He’ll find out soon enough. Any idea where Trey is?”

“Nope. He could be dead, but he’d be hard to kill.”

“Why don’t you send out word that you’re holding his horse for
him and need to know where to send it?”

“That would work, but I’d rather deliver him personally.”

I held her, but realized things were getting darker, which was strange,
because the sun had come up.

She pulled back, holding up a hand covered with watery blood.
“Matthew. You’ve been hit.”

“Yes.” I remember saying that, but nothing more.

When I woke up, we were traveling. I was on a travois she had
rigged from brush and buckskin cut from my shirt. She had used her underskirt
to bind my wound, and wrapped me in my blanket, and was now riding Misty,
astride. I glanced at her, saw her bare legs, and looked away, embarrassed. She
was quite some woman. She had done what was necessary to save our lives. I
passed out again, and when I came to, we were at her Aunt Mabel’s house.

George was there, yelling at her, when Mabel came out and
shushed him up.

She sent Dawn inside and looked me over. “I guess you’ll live.
What happened?”

I told her as best I could, going into and out of consciousness.
She made George support me and put me into her bed. “It’s the only one of a
size to fit you. You are a tall thing, like my husband was.”

I remember Dawn, wearing one of her aunt’s dresses, bathing my
wounds and settling me down. She figured the Indians shot me with her rifle.

She got out the Bible and read to me, with Mabel correcting some
of her words, but she was mostly able to read it. The sound of her voice was
comforting, especially when the fever was upon me.

I must have rambled on about Hero, because next thing I heard
was George, declaring he was going to hang me for stealing Hero.

Mabel said she would have none of that talk, and I heard
hoofbeats as he rode away.

“He’s going to get Pa,” Dawn said, her face white. “He wants Pa
to hang you or put you in jail.”

I’d been waiting for this moment. It almost seemed unreal.

Mabel came in to the room. “Did you steal that horse?” she
asked.

“Yes, Ma’am. It was during the war.”

“What side were you on?”

“Confederate.” I hoped I had given the right answer.

She snorted. “What happened?”

So I told her about my cousin, and Hero, and having to escape.
“He was just a standing there, all saddled and ready to go. He even had a
bedroll on him. I’d like to give him back, now that the war’s over, but I don’t
know where Trey is. It’s been two years.”

I passed out again. Next time shouts woke me. Dawn was there,
and I asked her what was going on.

Dawn smiled, looking happy. “You missed all the fun.”

“What happened?”

“Pa came and Aunt Mabel loaded her shotgun. She told Pa to turn
around and go home. That I was here, nursing you, and he wasn’t going to get
either one of us. That we could figure it all out when you were well enough to
talk.”

“Oh. She also told George to go stay with my Pa until he could
get the noose out of his rope. Then I stepped out with a rifle in my hands.”

“Pa said he was quit of me, riding through the countryside with
no clothes on.”

“I said, ‘I guess you’d have rather I drowned in the river.”

“He said, ‘What did Trahern do to you?’ And I said, ‘Saved my
life. I didn’t see you tryin’ to save me from the Indians.’”

She smiled at me. “He doesn’t have a hold on me anymore. It’s
like you said. I’m of age. I can choose my own life now.”

“You don’t want to choose a life with a horse thief,” I said,
leaning back into the pillow. I felt so weak and tired, I wouldn’t be able to
stop a kit fox right now.

“I’ll do what I choose.”

Now when women set their mind on something, you’d best get out
of the way. Seems she and Aunt Mabel had decided on me for her.

I fell asleep wondering what I should do. I wanted Dawn, more
than any woman I’d ever seen, but I didn’t want to drag her into my life if it
meant jail.

The next day Dawn was laughing. She told me the news as she
changed my dressing.

“Aunt Mabel’s corrals weren’t high enough. We found Hero in with
Misty this morning, acting all important like.” She handed me some broth to
drink. “I guess he’s done what he set out to do.”

“He is for sure the smartest horse in Texas. Now when I send him
back to Trey, he’ll leave a part of himself behind.”

“Once we find out where Trey is.”

I nodded. “And if he wants to press charges.”

The cloud hung over me as I
tried to get well. Get well—in time to hang?

Three weeks later I got ready to leave.

I didn’t want to leave Dawn or give up Hero, but I had to. “Trey
might throw me in jail. I don’t think he’ll have me hung.”

“Your cousin? I wouldn’t think so. He should be glad to get Hero
back.” She looked at me with those big blue eyes of hers. “Do you really have
to go?”

“Yes. I’ve been having a hard time livin’ with myself. I have to
do the honorable thing. No matter what the cost.”

“I’ll wait for you. No matter how long it takes.”

“I don’t deserve you.”

“I love you, Matthew Joseph Martin Trahern,” she said. “Now get
that horse returned and get yourself back to me so’s we can get married and
start some little Traherns of our own. I expect I’ll breed as fast as that
filly.”

My face grew hot. “Yes,
ma’am. I’ll leave first thing in the morning.”

We went inside and I washed up while she and her aunt put the
food on the table.

The dogs barked and I walked over to the door, checking the
rifle standing next to it.

“Hello, the house.”

I looked out and there was this handsome gent all dandied up,
but looking like he knew how to get things done, sitting on a long-legged horse
near Mabel’s front gate. Now it always pays to call out when approaching a
house or a camp, because you might get welcomed with a gun.

“Hello, to you,” I said.

“This the Cumming’s place?”

“It’s Mabel Cumming’s place. You looking for work?”

“Not me. I’m headed to California. Looking for Matthew Trahern.”

There was only one reason I could think of why anyone would be
looking for me. I took a deep breath. “That’s me. How did you know...?”

“I heard some talk in the bar, back in Ft. Worth that Matthew
Trahern was working on the Cumming’s place. I was wonderin’ if you were any kin
to Trey?”

“Yes, I’m his cousin.”

“I’m Gage Courtney. Trey said he had kin all over. I’m headed down
the road, but thought I’d stop and say howdy. I know Trey would do it for me,
if’n things were switched.”

“Get down and stay awhile. Rest your horse. There’s hay in the
barn and good water for him.”

“Thanks.”

“Traveled far?”

“Purt near the whole country. I come back to Tennessee looking
for my Ma, Abigail Courtney. She was gone. But I ran into your brothers and
sister, and they said that my Pa had come back to get her. We thought he was
dead. My folks left me a message with them for me, that they’d moved to
California. He’s got hisself a place there.”

“Which of my brothers and sisters?”

“There was a new preacher in the area, holding both a wedding
and a meeting, so it brought the folks down off the hills like a swarm of ants
finding a picnic. A bunch of your kin was there. But I’m speaking of Ruth and
Jonas.”