Dorothy Garlock (19 page)

Later she woke, chilled, her muscles tense, her skin prickled with fear. She didn’t know what had awakened her. Logan’s hand no longer gripped hers tightly, but they were still joined. Then she heard the wind sweeping through the empty cliff dwellings above them, moaning like a woman in pain. She thought of what Logan’s mother had said the night she died about the night wind coming to take her spirit along the Hanging Road. Far away a coyote called to his mate, and her answer echoed down from the hills.

A poignant loneliness possessed Rosalee and she turned her head toward the man who lay beside her, wishing with all her heart she could move close to him and his arms would welcome her.

“It’s only the wind in the cliff houses.” His whisper came out of the darkness to reassure her, and his fingers tightened on her hand.

“I thought that’s what it was. It sounds so lonely.”

“You’re cold. Turn over and move your back toward me. We’ll warm each other.”

“I could get another blanket out of the wagon.”

“It’ll be morning soon. Turn over.” He released her hand when she moved.

It seemed like a dream to Rosalee. He lifted the blanket covering him and spread it over her, but left the thickness of her blanket between them. His arm was a pleasant weight across her body and his hand, once again, found hers. She felt the warmth of his breath on her neck and wondered if he could feel the thumping of her heart. She was sure she’d never sleep, but she became deliciously warm and relaxed and sleep finally claimed her.

When next she awakened, only the thin material of her dress was between her back and his chest. His arm held her tightly to him and his face was against her hair. She had never been this close to anyone other than Odell when they snuggled together during the long, cold winter nights. This hard, warm body that curled around hers sent a tide of tingling excitement through her. She didn’t dare move for fear of waking him. She lay perfectly still while the red fingers of dawn crept across the eastern sky, and listened to the birds in the willows, chirping their morning greetings to each other.

“You can lie awfully still. Are you sure you’re not part Cheyenne?” His voice was deep and soft, close to her ear.

“You . . . were playing possum!” she accused.

“Uh huh. So were you.”

“I didn’t want to wake you. Do you feel better?”

“I won’t know for sure until I move.”

“You’re about to find out, because I’m going to get up. We’ve got a lot to do this morning.”

“I don’t think I want to find out.”

“Coward!”

“You’d call a man a coward when he’s down?” There was laughter in his voice.

“Sure. I’m no dummy. I know you can’t catch me if I run.”

“Are you going to?”

“Going to what?”

“Run?”

“Not until I put my shoes on.” She threw back the blanket and sat up. His arm slid from around her. She kept her back to him because her lips would not stop smiling. “Brrr . . . it’s cool this morning,” she said while lacing her shoes. “And the sky is clear. Do you think we should risk a fire?”

“I think so. The smoke will hit the top of the overhang and scatter out. Coffee will taste mighty good.”

Rosalee smoothed her hair back with her two hands and put her shawl around her shoulders before she stood and looked down at him. His sunken cheeks, covered with a shading of dark beard, brought his high cheekbones into prominence. His facial lines were so strong, so thoroughly masculine. His mustache, curved down the sides of his mouth, gave him a fierce look. But now his eyes and his lips were smiling in unison and there was nothing fierce in the look he gave her. She studied him leisurely, thankful to be standing above him. Was she crazy? she thought. Why was she so happy when her home and family had been wrenched from her?

“Yes, I think you feel better today,” she teased when she finally spoke. “But you’ll not be breaking any wild broncs for awhile.”

He laughed with sheer exaltation at her reference to his injured bottom. “You’d win a bet on that, little Rosalee.”

She built a small fire and made coffee while Logan dressed and walked out into the early morning light to look around. The sky was clear with the promise of a warm summer day. He looked down the valley and could see Mercury and the mare standing in the tall grass. Near the camp he saw where Rosalee had stretched a rope between two trees and fastened the bays to it with a slide loop so they could feed. He smiled with newfound pride in the ability of the slim, quiet woman.

Above him were the abandoned cliff dwellings. He studied them for a long while, appreciating his long ago ancestors who had built their homes of rock and adobe and stacked them, one atop the other, like three stairsteps. A ramp, wide enough for a single horse, led to the first level. His mind, trained from his war experience, realized the place could be made almost impregnable. Who and what had caused the demise of a people capable of building this structure? Was it sickness? Or were they a peaceful people, killed by the warlike Navajos and Utes?

Logan turned back toward the camp beneath the overhang. This was his land, now. He would not be driven away. He would stay here, by God, and defend his right to it!

They sat on the mattress and ate what was left of the meat and biscuits and drank the hot coffee. When they finished, Rosalee dug into the basket and brought out the fried peach pie. She gave it to him with a shy smile. Their smiling eyes locked as they remembered her saying she had hid it from Ben. He took a huge bite and held it to her mouth for her to do the same. She chewed slowly without tasting, not realizing that the happiness in her face caused troubled thoughts to creep into Logan’s mind.

He didn’t want this sweet woman to give him her heart. It would surely break when subjected to the taunts and insults she’d receive as the woman of a breed. He had to get her back to the
Wasicun
before word got out that they’d been alone and dirt was thrown in her beautiful face—before she was shunned and insulted by her own kind. He loved her too much to cause her that kind of pain.

His dark face closed down as if he had suddenly put on his Indian mask. Only his eyes, searching her face, showed movement. Rosalee knew instinctively that his thoughts concerned her. A chill touched her. Her blue-green eyes probed his dark ones for a reason for the sudden change of mood until he got slowly and painfully to his feet.

“It’s almost sunup. I’ll get the horses and we’ll move camp.” He strapped his gunbelt about his hip and picked up his hat. “I’ll bring Mercury and tie him here where he can see down the valley. He was mountain bred, with strong survival instincts. He’ll let us know if there’s a horse a mile away.”

Rosalee stood. She was almost afraid to speak. Without understanding why, she was convinced that he had firmly put distance between them. Had she been too forward? Did he suddenly realize she had lost her heart to him and this was his way of letting her know her love would never be returned? The thought drove a painful wedge in her heart. She had been a fool to think he might care for her just because he’d said he wanted to see her again. He had been hurt and sick when he came back to her. She felt tears burn her eyes and turned abruptly to put out the campfire.

“I’ll hitch up the team and move the wagon closer. We’ll have to hide it, anyway.” She spoke over the sob in her throat and was quite pleased with the way the words came from her lips.

Rosalee didn’t hear Logan leave, but she knew he had gone. She straightened and watched him walk toward the stallion and mare. He whistled several short, shrill blasts, and the horses began moving toward him. She had wanted to ask if he was up to the work necessary to move the camp, but his attitude forbid any personal conversation between them. She thought about what he’d said about Brutus and realized the same applied to him. He wasn’t a man to be coddled. He didn’t
belong
to her. If he stayed with her it would be because he wanted to.

Logan cut two stout willows and fashioned a travois for the mare to pull. An hour later, most of the contents of the wagon were piled in one of the rooms in the cliff house. Rosalee was fascinated by the strange ruins of which she had previously heard nothing. She found fragments of pottery, some of it black and white, some orange, some red. There were smoke-blackened firepits, arrowheads, and other evidence of the people long gone. All of these things gave her some idea of the people who had lived in this place, loved here, died here.

Using the mare and the travois, Rosalee brought wood up the ramp and stacked it in one of the rooms. The foal, curious and playful, frolicked along behind them. She sniffed at Brutus, lying in the shade beside Mercury, then raced away with her tail in the air. Rosalee envied the carefree young colt. She was secure in the knowledge her mother would see to it that no harm came to her.

Rosalee watched the stallion for a sign the keen eyes had seen something he did not understand.

“His eyesight and hearing are far superior to ours,” Logan explained. “His ears will swivel and twitch. He’ll lift his head and sniff into the wind and become restless. If that should happen, send Brutus for me.”

Logan led the team to drink at the stream and hid the wagon among the thick willows. Exhausted, he leaned against a bolder out of sight of the cliff house and mopped his face with a damp cloth. His legs trembled with weakness. He had seen Rosalee look at him sharply and then away when he made the last staggering trip up the slope leading the mare. He knew she was concerned for him and hurt by his cool treatment. God above! What else could he do? There was the rest of the day and tonight and possibly tomorrow and the next day to get through before Malone came for her. She had worked doggedly since early morning, and now, without being told it had to be done, she was trying to remove all trace of their camp beneath the overhang.

When Logan came up the ramp, Rosalee was standing on the ledge, her hand shading her eyes as she looked back toward her land. The breeze pushed her skirt against her legs and her lifted arm pulled her dress taut to outline her soft, rounded breasts. An ache to claim her for his own, to build his life around her, gnawed at him. He stood completely still, watching her, fighting the emotions that threatened to shake him from his rigid conviction. He wiped his sweating palms on his thighs and continued up the ramp. If Rosalee saw him she gave no indication.

He turned in the doorway of the room where they had piled their gear and stood for a long moment, staring at her. She had made him welcome when he needed someone so desperately, and she had come with him willingly to this lonely place. It was a strange feeling to be trusted so implicitly. Was it
her
trust in him that had stirred him as nothing had? Was it his need to protect and care for someone other than himself that had aroused this feeling in
him
? Another though crowded into his mind while he tried to analyze why this particular woman had come to mean so much to him: Just as the maternal instinct is strongest in a woman, the instinct to protect is strongest in a man. Love, he decided, must be a combination of all these feelings.

They ate the evening meal in silence. Logan led the horses up the ramp and into the cliff house. Brutus lay on the ledge and Logan sank down on the mattress and was almost instantly asleep. Rosalee made a pallet for herself on the other side of the room. Too tired to sleep, she stared into the darkness and listened to the sounds made by the horses stabled in the other room. When she finally dropped off, her sleep was deep and dreamless. She awakened when Logan led the horses back down the ramp.

Breakfast was another meal with only civilities exchanged. When it was over Rosalee went to sit on the ledge where she could see both ends of the valley, and Logan sorted through the supplies he’d bought at the mercantile. He methodically stacked the foodstuff in a tin larder, the tools in a corner, the ammunition and rifles just inside the door. He set aside the package containing the yellow dress goods and the candy sticks he’d bought for Odell until he finished, then he took them to Rosalee.

“A woman in the store in Junction City said this would do for your sister.”

Rosalee looked up at him, her eyes never wavering from his, and accepted the package. She opened it and ran her fingertips over the soft yellow material and the shiny, satin ribbon. Odell had never had anything so fine. She felt a rush of homesickness for her little sister and her eyes filled with tears. She kept her head bowed, hoping he wouldn’t notice.

“Thank you. Odell will think she’s a princess in this.”

“I wanted to get something for you, too, but . . . I didn’t think it would be . . . I didn’t think you’d accept anything.” He stood awkwardly, looking down on her bent head, cursing himself for fumbling for words.

“No! No, I couldn’t accept . . . anything. You don’t owe me or my family . . . anything.” Her trembling fingers continued to stroke the material.

“I think I do.”

“Well, you don’t,” she said firmly.

“I owe you and your family for taking me and my mother into your home. And I owe you for standing between me and Clayhill when I was laid up,” he said stubbornly. Why the hell wouldn’t she look at him? “But that wasn’t why . . . I wanted to give you something that—”

She jumped to her feet, blazing with anger, her teary eyes glaring into his. “I don’t want anything from you! You don’t
owe
me anything! You don’t owe me a damn thing!” she shouted. “I would’ve done as much for a cur someone was going to shoot, and . . . don’t you forget it, Mr. Logan Horn!”

In the stricken silence that followed they maintained that grotesque pose, their eyes locked, ungiving.

“I don’t understand why you’re angry,” Logan said in a voice that shook.

“This is why I’m angry!” She shoved the package against his chest and he grabbed it before it fell to the ground. “My sister doesn’t need your . . . charity, and that goes for me and Ben, too!” She was breathing hard, her soft, young breast rising and falling as she blurted her words. Tears of anger and homesickness rolled down her cheeks, but she held her head high as if they were not there. She smoothed her hair in a swift gesture and turned away from him.