Colorado Bride (30 page)

“But he’ll get away?”

“I doubt he’ll leave without his money,” Carrie said. But when she had opened the pouch, she was less sure of herself. The name “Jonathan Blake” was scratched into the underside of the flap and the pouch was nearly full of gold coins. “Do you know how much is in here?”

“No. I started to count it, but the brat was grabbing at it so I couldn’t keep the figures in my head.”

“Here, let me,” Lucas said. Carrie handed him the pouch and he counted the money swiftly. “There’s about two thousand dollars here. A dangerous amount of money for a boy to be carrying around.”

“Is this your money?” Carrie asked. Found had not taken his eyes off the pouch since he had been dragged up to the porch, and now he looked directly into Carrie’s eyes and nodded his head ever so slightly. “Could you tell me where you got it?” He didn’t move by so much as a hair’s breadth. “Found, I don’t think you stole this money, but it’s most unusual for a child to have such a large sum in his possession. I would like to know where you got it, and I need to know who this Jonathan Blake is. Is this his purse? If so, what is your money doing in his pouch?” Still Found didn’t move.

“You’re wasting your time asking him questions,” Jake said. “It’s plain as a pikestaff he stole it. No kid has that kind of money, especially not a squatter’s kid. I know for a fact his folks could hardly find the money to pay their bill at the store.”

“That’s not the issue here, Jake. All I want is for Found to tell me how he came to possess such a large sum of money.”

“I told you you’re wasting your time. He stole it sure as—

“Be quiet, Jake,” Carrie said, speaking more sharply than anyone had ever heard her speak before. “Please, Found, can you tell me where you got this money?”

“We’re not going to hurt you, son,” Lucas added, trying to see if he could reach the silent youngster. “If it’s your money, no one is going to take it from you.”

“Of all the crazy things—” Jake began, but a cold glance from Lucas cut him short.

“Please, Found, tell us where you got the money.” But the child would not answer Carrie. He just stood there, staring at her out of those big brown eyes like a St. Bernard puppy. “I think I’d better keep it for the time being,” Carrie finally said. “You might lose it, or someone might take it from you. I’ll put it in the cupboard at the station until I get a chance to take it back to the cabin.”

Carrie would have sworn not a muscle moved in the boy’s whole body, but somehow he looked deflated, defeated, and her heart went out to him. The accusing look in those big eyes made her feel like a traitor, and she had to battle a momentary impulse to give him back his money and forget the whole incident, but she knew she couldn’t. If it was his money, it should be kept someplace safe for him. If it wasn’t, well, she’d deal with that when she had to.

“You go on back to the barn with Jake, and we’ll talk about this later.” Jake turned away, his quick, awkward stride indicating his disgust with the way Carrie had handled the whole situation. Found stood looking at Carrie a moment longer, and then he followed after Jake, his slow dragging footsteps telling an entirely different tale.

“Looks like you got more than you bargained for this time,” Lucas said, his tone thoughtful as his eyes followed the boy. “What are you going to do? Do you think he stole the money?”

“No I don’t.”

“I don’t either, but where could he have come by such a sum? That’s the savings of a lifetime.”

“I don’t know. If he would just talk. Why won’t he say anything?”

“Fear, and a distrust of other human beings, I suppose. I think that boy had been very badly treated by someone. And I’ll lay you a bet it was someone he thought was going to take care of him.”

“The money’s gone,” Carrie almost shouted, forgetting she was alone. She had put the money in one of the cupboards while she went about her work and had gone to get it to take back to the cabin with her. But it was no longer there. Found must have taken it, but how could anyone enter the station, take the money, and leave without her or Katie seeing them? Sure, they hadn’t been in the dining room all the time, but they had never been far away for very long. Quickly she made her way to the barn.

“Jake, do you know where Found is?” she asked. Jake was seated outside under a tree, repairing one of the harnesses.

“Lucas was going to take one of the horses he’s breaking for a ride, and he told me to send Found up to watch the cabin. I ain’t seen him since.”

“Where did you put his clothes?”

“In the tack room. I ain’t had time to do anything more. I figured he could sleep in the loft if he had a mind to.” Carrie turned her steps in the direction of the tack room, but she knew before she got there that Pound’s clothes would be gone.

“Well I’ll be damned,” Jake said in amazement. “He’s run off already. It’s a good thing we took that money from him. I told you he was a thief.”

“He’s not a thief. He told me that money was his, and my taking it away is the very reason he left. I had no good reason not to believe him, and I ought to have let him keep it.”

“Do you mean he stole that money again?”

“He
never
stole it,” Carrie insisted. “We were
the
ones who had no right to it, and I’m going to tell him so the minute I find him. You said his folks lived in one of the canyons in the hills behind the station. Tell me how to find it.”

“You can’t go traipsing off after that brat alone,” exclaimed Jake. “Lucas will have my head if I let you go alone.”

“I have no choice. Lucas isn’t here, and Found will never come to me if I take you along. I’m sure he thinks you’re the cause of all his troubles.”

“Now see here, just because I thought he had no business with so much money …”

“I should have tried to believe him and offered to keep it for him, but I should never have taken it from him. If I knew anything, it was that he has been badly treated by someone, and now I’m afraid that in his eyes we’ve done the same thing. I’ve got to find him.”

“Then take Katie with you.”

“I can’t. There’s a stage due in less than an hour. Just tell me how to find the place, and tell Lucas to come after me as soon as he comes in.”

“He’s going to kill me,” Jake said, sorrowfully anticipating his demise. “He’s going to cut my guts out and roast them over a fire with me watching.”

“Stop trying to make me feel sorry for you, and tell me how to get to that cabin.”

But an hour later Carrie was wishing she had waited for Lucas. It had sounded so easy to find the canyon when Jake had described it to her, but she soon found that to someone used to paved roads and street signs, all canyons looked alike; it was impossible to tell the gray ones from the red ones or the narrow openings from the wide. She was able to tell a sandy floor from one strewn with rocks, but except for the willow and pine trees, she could hardly tell what kind of plants she was looking at. In one swift and awful lesson, she had more than amply proved Lucas’s contention that she was totally unprepared to travel unaccompanied in the wilderness.

Carrie’s mare had not been happy with the saddle from the moment it was place on her back, and she became more difficult to handle the father from the barn they went. Carrie had been able to follow Found’s tracks at first, but they had long since disappeared and the mare seemed to resent her habit of retracing her steps to see if she had overlooked something. Then a covey of quail erupted from a low bush practically under her feet, and me mare reared, unseating Carrie just as she was in the process of leaning down to get a better view of a suspicious-looking footprint in the sand. Carrie managed to hold on the pommel and keep one foot in the stirrup, but she could not regain her seat, and the mare was galloping down the trail. She tried to pull up the runaway horse with only one hand on the reins, but the mare knew she was in control and made a spirited attempt to rip the reins out of Carrie’s grasp. Realizing she couldn’t hold on long with only one foot in a stirrup and her body leaning off to one side, Carrie turned her attention to getting her leg back over the saddle.

She had a firm grasp on the pommel, and she was able to gradually ease her weight over the center of the mare’s back. Given a little more time and the requirement that the mare continue to run a straight course, she would have been able to get her leg over the saddle and probably her foot back into the stirrup. However, the mare made an abrupt turn, and Carrie lost her grip and tumbled to the ground, where she lay still.

Chapter 16

Carrie didn’t know how long she lay on the ground. She wasn’t conscious of the passing of time, but her body felt hot from the sun and she knew she must have lain there for some time. She was suddenly aware of something soft, touching her forehead. For a split second she was petrified that it might be some wild animal, but almost immediately she knew it was a hand. A small hand. She tried to open her eyes, but they wouldn’t move. She tried to move her body, but it seemed to be part of the ground and she nothing more than a spirit caught in its stony crust. She heard a sniff, then what sounded like a soft sob. She tried to move her lips, but nothing came out. Oh why couldn’t she do anything? Had she broken her neck? Was this what it was like to be dead? She felt as if she were trapped inside a lifeless shell, unable to communicate with anyone outside of herself.

A drop of water landed on her cheek to be quickly followed by others, and her eyes flew open of their own accord. It was Found. He was leaning over her, gently touching her face with the tips of his fingers; it was his tears that had wet her cheek. Suddenly she felt as though her spirit moved back into her body and she was herself again. She smiled.

“It’s all right, Found. I just fell off my horse.” The boy drew back in frozen surprise. Carrie was shocked to see fear erase his grief as though it had never been there.

“It’s not your fault I fell, and I’m not mad at you,” she told him, sensing at once that he thought she was going to hold him responsible for her accident. “I was worried about you when I found the money was gone. I knew you had run away because I thought you had stolen it, but I don’t think you’re a thief, Found. I never did, and it was wrong of me to take your money. I was just worried about your having the responsibility of such a large sum, but I’ll never take it from you again. And I won’t let anybody else take it either.” Carrie tried to sit up, but her head ached and the landscape swam before her eyes. She was tempted to lie back and not move until the agonizing pain had gone away, but it would be dark in another hour, and they had to find some place to spend the night.

“I’m afraid I’m lost, Found. Do you know where we are?”

The boy had gradually relaxed during Carrie’s speech, and he nodded.

“Good. Is your cabin close enough for us to reach it before dark?” Again the boy nodded. “Then we’d better get started as soon as I can get my feet under me. I don’t want to spend the night out in the open. I have no idea what kinds of wild beasts wander over these hills at night, but I don’t think I want to find out.” Carrie managed to get to her feet with Found’s help. She felt a little unsteady, but she could stand. “Okay, “I’m ready, but remember “I’m used to living in a house in a town. “I’m going to have to depend on you to take care of me until we get back to the station.”

Found took her hand and started to walk slowly down the trail, but they hadn’t gone very far when he turned off into a canyon that promised to be bigger than any Carrie had passed yet.

“Is your house up here somewhere?” Found nodded. “Did you stay here after your parents died?” Again Found nodded. “You poor boy. That must have been awful, having to live all by yourself in the house where your parents died. Well, you won’t have to do
that
again. I’m going to fix up one of the bedrooms in the back of the station for you. You’re too big to need Jake to stay with you, and I need someone to stay in the station to scare away robbers.” She looked at the wild, forbidding loneliness of the landscape and she shivered inwardly. “Anybody who could stay out here by themselves can’t be afraid of anything as harmless as a thief. And just as soon as I get a chance, I’m going to take you to Fort Malone and get you some new clothes. I think you ought to have a horse, too. How would you like that mare I was riding, the one Jake keeps in the barn?” Found’s eyes widened in disbelief, but there was the beginning of a smile on his face. “Well, you can have her. I don’t like her, and to tell the truth, I don’t think she likes me very much either. I’m sure a clever boy like you would have no trouble handling her. Lucas, Mr. Barrow that is, is going to give me one of his mustangs so you don’t have to worry about me not having a horse. Then as soon as you’re a little bigger, I can send you into Fort Malone to pick up the supplies. It’ll be a big help to me not to have to make that trip.”

Carrie continued to talk to Found about anything that came into her head. It was exactly like thinking out loud, and it made the trip to his cabin seem easier and shorter. Besides, she couldn’t stand to walk through the falling twilight in complete silence. It was beautiful country, or at least it would have been if she had been astride a horse, it had been daylight, and Lucas had been at her side, but she didn’t feel too much like taking in scenic wonders right now.

She was beginning to feel very tired when, without explanation, Found led her off the path and into the tall brush that nearly choked the canyon. He was gone before she could open her mouth to protest, but it was only a moment before he returned and beckoned her to follow him once again. In a matter of minutes they rounded some stones that had fallen from the canyon wall eons ago, and Carrie found herself staring at what was probably the poorest cabin she had ever seen. She stopped where she stood and took stock of the situation. The cabin would probably give them a roof over their heads, but she was certain it leaked and doubted the doors could be secured. The small yard was littered with the debris which inevitably collects where humans live. There was no shed or coop to be seen. Carrie decided that if Pound’s parents had ever kept chickens, pigs, cows, or horses, they had been forced to fend for themselves. Not that the cabin looked as if it would offer much protection to its human occupants either.