Brides of Prairie Gold (23 page)

Mem blinked hard. "I just can't believe it came on her so fast!"

"Cholera is like that." Raising the bottom of the blankets, Sarah trickled vinegar on the hot bricks that Perrin had delivered a few minutes ago. She tucked the blankets firmly into place, then watched beads of perspiration roll down Lucy's gray-blue face. The girl moaned and whispered a plea for water before she rolled to one side and vomited weakly into the bucket.

Lucy lay back exhausted. Her lips moved, but no sound emerged. "Pray for me."

Tears streaming from her eyes, Mem backed out of the wagon and dropped to the ground. Sagging against the tail-gate, she inhaled deeply, drawing the cool night air into her lungs. The odors of vomit, diarrhea, sour sweat, and fear hung in her nostrils. She continued to see Lucy's shrunken bluish flesh.

Gradually she became aware that the camp was restless and few people were in their tents. Cody Snow and Heck Kelsey stood beside the arms wagon, talking quietly and smoking with the men on night watch. When she looked toward Smokey Joe's fire, she discovered Smokey Joe was awake, pouring coffee for Perrin, Hilda, Bootie, and Ona. The women sat on logs around Smokey Joe's fire, staring into the flames. Someone moved in the enclosure within the squared wagons, murmuring softly to the cows and oxen. Figures drifted between the wagons, speaking in subdued voices before reforming into other small groups. No one slept tonight.

Leaning on the tailgate of Lucy's and Sarah's wagon, Mem stroked the headache at her temples and listened to the soft sounds of Lucy's dying, to the murmur of Sarah's prayers. Anxious voices floated on the night breeze, reaching her like sighs.

After a while, she scrubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands, then stepped away. It was useless to think she would sleep tonight. Yet she didn't want to join the others who waited, as she did, for Lucy's suffering to end the only way it could.

Stumbling over her hem, she veered from the low fires burning beside most of the wagons, and walked into the darkness, wandering aimlessly toward a clump of cotton-woods that loomed dark and silvery in the light of a half moon.

"How can a person hope to sleep with so many people moving about?" Augusta complained, crawling out of her tent. Lifting a thick blond braid, she pulled her shawl up beneath it, then approached the fire to warm herself.

Cora peeked inside a Dutch oven nestled in the coals. "It's confirmed. Lucy Hastings is dying of cholera," she said in a shaky voice.

"What on earth are you doing?"

"I'm baking cornbread. So is Winnie. Hilda will contribute some butter and Thea can spare a comb of honey." Cora replaced the lid of the Dutch oven and pushed a wave of dark hair out of her eyes. "It's going to be a long night. People get hungry."

Augusta folded her arms across her bosom and contemplated the Dutch oven. It occurred to her that Cora Thorp was mighty free with her provisions. If Augusta hadn't found the Eagglestons' gold, she would have been beside herself at the thought of feeding the camp. But she had found the Eagglestons' money. It was hers. To borrow from, she hastily amended, at least until she was certain that the Eagglestons had left no legitimate heirs.

Since discovering the message posted at the Chimney Rock, she had spent a lot of time thinking about the Eagglestons and possible heirs. The message had not sought information about "my parents" or "my aunt and uncle." The message had inquired about the Eagglestons as one would inquire about friends or a casual acquaintance. She was close to concluding that the Eagglestons probably had no heirs.

"You might have consulted me before you agreed to give away my supplies," she said sharply. Cora was getting too big for her britches, forgetting who employed whom.

In a week the train would arrive at Fort Laramie, and Augusta was considering leaving Cora at the fort. Long ago Cora had worn out her welcome.

Her final decision, of course, would depend on the availability of a replacement. Gazing at the firelight glimmering on Cora's sullen face, she decided instantly that she would hire another maid. Even if the new wench was as sulky and complaining as Cora, she wouldn't be Cora. The new maid wouldn't dare look at Augusta as if trying to read hints of shame or guilt in her employer's face. The very idea.

Adjusting her shawl around her shoulders, she sat on a camp chair before the fire and extended her hands and feet toward the flames. The smell of hot cornbread made her mouth water.

"Have you heard whether the rest of us are in danger?" That was the fear that had kept her awake and worried. She thought the women who tended Lucy were mad to place themselves at such risk. If cholera decimated the train, it would be their fault. Which would be small comfort to those who sickened and died.

"I overheard Mr. Snow and Mr. Coate talking," Cora replied, gazing into the flames. "From what they said, it sounds like Lucy drank some bad water. That's how she got it. I think that's what they said. Anyway, Mr. Coate went around asking each of us if we'd scooped any water from that puddle near someone's old camp, you know, close to where we stopped last night. He thinks Lucy drank water from that puddle either last night or this morning."

Augusta stiffened and her eyebrows rose. "He didn't ask me!"

"I answered for you. I knew you didn't drink no water from a puddle. Not you."

"Well, you're right. But I might have." Irritation brought color to her cheeks. "He should have asked me directly."

"Maybe Mr. Coate don't like being insulted." Firelight shone as fiery pinpoints in Cora's dark eyes. A sly expression pursed her lips. "Course, I guess I know what that's all about. When are you going to admit you got a powerful hankering for that man?"

Augusta sprang to her feet, sputtering with outrage. The smirk on Cora's thin lips made her fingers twitch with fury. "How how dare you! How" She could hardly speak through the rage choking her throat. Shaking, she stood so close to the fire pit that it was a wonder her hem didn't burst into flame. "I will not tolerate any more insults from you! When we reach Fort Laramie, I'm putting you off this train. I was going to give you enough money to go home, but your filthy mouth has changed my mind. I don't care if you starve in the streets or have to sell yourself to the soldiers! You deserve whatever happens to you!"

She watched the smirk fade as Cora slowly rose to her feet, the lid of the Dutch oven forgotten in her hand. Augusta was so furious that she wanted to slap the wench and box her ears. Since she had vowed to control such un-Boyd-like feelings, and it was a promise she meant to keep, she spun on her heel and stalked away from the fire, moving into the darkness away from the camp and the temptation to slap Cora's face.

She didn't stop until she entered a copse of mature cotton-woods. After checking over her shoulder to make sure the distant fires of the camp were still within sight and she was in no danger of getting lost, she lifted her skirts and climbed a gentle incline toward a grassy rise at the top. At the highest point, she could see the broad expanse of the Platte flowing across starlit plains like a wide silver ribbon. Like so many things, the river's appeal was deceptive.

Quicksand lurked beneath its shallow depths. It was too muddy to support bathing or drinking. Along this stretch, the water contained enough alkali to poison man and beast. Leaning against the trunk of a tree, Augusta glared at the sluggishly moving water and decided it was exactly like Cora. Deceptive, muddy-spirited, and poisonous.

"You shouldn't wander this far from camp, Miss Boyd. Especially alone, and never at night."

She jumped and her heart slammed in her chest. Whirling, she searched among the tree trunks, straining to see him among the shadows. "Where are you? Show yourself at once!" It was just like an Indian to creep up on a person and scare her half to death.

"Forgive me. I didn't intend to startle or frighten you." Webb stepped up beside her as the moon emerged from behind a slow-drifting cloud. Silvery light bronzed his skin and made his eyes appear lustrous and bottomless. A wandering night breeze toyed with the fringe on his jacket and leggings, ruffled the hair loose on his shoulders.

Augusta caught an involuntary breath and her fingers closed convulsively on the edges of her shawl. "Did you follow me?" she demanded in a whisper, gazing up at him. He stood too close, close enough that her skirts almost touched his leggings. A tremble of awareness began in her toes and jolted upward, shooting fingers of strange heat through her body.

Discovering herself alone with him, where no one could see or hear them, was her worst fear. And her constant fantasy. She feared he would rape and kill her. She fantasized that he would take her in his arms, crush her to his wide chest, and kiss her with such passion that both of them blazed like twin columns of fire. This fantasy held the power to bring perspiration to her brow and a violent blush to her cheek, though she hated such daydreams and was shamed by them.

"I saw you leave the camp." His strange accent emerged from the darkness like a caress, making everything he said seem exotic and disturbingly intimate. "I came to escort you back."

This was how her fantasy began, with these very words, spoken in the same dangerously intimate tone.

Weak with fear and anticipation, revulsion and yearning, Augusta sagged against the tree trunk, staring up at his mouth. Her breath quickened and her bosom rose and fell beneath her fingertips. Even as her lips dried, a shameless dampness flooded her secret woman parts.

She gazed at him helplessly. At this point in the fantasy, she stroked his hair. She wanted to know if it was coarse or soft. In the fantasy she did what she longed to do now, she ran her palms over his chest and shoulders, exploring the rocklike muscles she had seen bulging in the sunlight. And then he pulled her firmly against his body and she felt his hardness.

A dizzying feeling of faintness overcame her at the thought of his hard man's body pressed against hers.

Webb frowned at her, then she heard a sharp intake of breath as he read and understood the yearning in her eyes. Slowly, giving her every opportunity to step away and stop him, he raised his hand to the braid trembling on her shoulder.

"I have never seen a more beautiful woman," he murmured in a low thick voice. Gently, he tugged her braid, drawing it through his palm. "You are gold in sunlight, silver in the moon."

This too he had done and said in her fantasy. She wet her lips and her mouth parted. Her breath emerged in tiny explosive gasps. When the back of his hand brushed her shoulder, she twitched as if lightning had scorched through her clothing and set her skin on fire.

For the first and only time in her life, Augusta burned for a man, wanted him, needed him to quench the fires he ignited within her body. She felt paralyzed, unable to move. Cataclysmic desire shook her frame, resonated through her body. Her bosom swelled with quickening breath, and she couldn't think, couldn't reason, didn't realize that her expression had gone slack and sensual, that her passion for him burned in her eyes.

"Oh, God," she whispered, her voice breaking on a half sob of despair and longing. She stared at the firm hard lines of his mouth, trembled violently in his shadow as he stepped forward.

Helplessly, she sagged against his chest as his arms came around her. Then she buried her hands in his hair and raised her trembling lips.

Mem didn't mean to spy on them.

She heard Augusta first, moving through the cottonwoods, and she froze in silence, listening hard, worried that it might be a stalking wolf. By the time she spotted Augusta standing atop the rise, glaring toward the river, it would have embarrassed them both for Mem to announce her presence. No one welcomed the knowledge that she was being observed unaware.

While Mem stood quietly, wondering if she could withdraw without calling attention to herself, Webb appeared out of the shadows, his arrival so silent that she had not heard his approach. Her first glad instinct was to call his name and press forward and join them. But before she spoke, she noticed the taut body postures and sensed an abrupt tension so heated that it almost crackled. The shout of greeting died on her tongue.

A minute passed and then it was too late. If she called out now or made a sudden noise, they would assume that she had been silently snooping. Damn. She was trapped into doing exactly what would have mortified her to contemplate. That she was in the appalling position of lurking in a dark patch of woods, spying on two people, shocked her nearly as deeply as the sickening realization that she could not look away.

Pressing a hand against her mouth, she stood as still as a stone and helplessly watched as Webb walked to the tree trunk Augusta leaned against. She couldn't overhear what they said to. each other, but she didn't need to. The gist of their words reflected on Augusta's sensual expression.

Wistfully, Mem gazed at the moonlight shining luminous on Augusta's oval face and sudden tears swam in her eyes. Augusta Boyd in the moonlight was so beautiful that no mortal could hope to compete. Her face had softened and glowed with inner passion. Bathed in shimmering moonlight and trembling beneath Webb's intent gaze, she was a wood nymph, a fairy goddess, the quintessential male dream of beauty and sensuality.

And Webb Mem saw him in profile, tall and strong, his shoulders swelling with desire. He stood wide-legged, his manhood rampant, his hair fluttering back from his face. He looked down at Augusta as if the world had vanished and only this woman remained, only this moment of tension and desire in the moonlight.

Mem bit her lip and lowered her head. She would have bargained the remainder of her life to have Webb Coate look at her as he looked at Augusta. And she would have flown into his arms as Augusta did. She would gladly have surrendered her virginity, her unknown bridegroom, her reputation, the rest of her life, to drink passionate kisses from Webb Coate's hard mouth, to sink to the ground in his arms and surrender to the rapturous mysteries only he could reveal.

But it was Augusta whom he kissed. Augusta's buttocks that he cupped and pulled roughly against his hips. Augusta who moaned and whimpered in his muscular arms.