Mary Connealy (52 page)

“I’ve heard the Flatheads called Salish.” Buck stepped to his horse and slid his rifle into the saddle boot. “We’d been roaming these hills, and one day hunting I noticed an Indian village…must be two days’ ride from here. They’re camped along a river. Maybe if we pushed hard we could get her home before nightfall. You reckon they took her from there?”

Roy stepped closer. “B–but she’s white. Doesn’t she need to be with white people?”

Wade watched the woman. Her eyes shifted. She looked constantly for escape. If they let her go, could she get back to her village on foot? If her home was, as Buck thought, a long day’s ride on a horse, she’d be three or four days walking it, alone in the wilderness. He dropped to both knees beside her. “Wade.” He touched his chest. He pointed at Shorty, Buck, and Roy in turn, saying their names. “Salish? Flathead?” He waited.

“Salish village. Far.” She stared at him, some of the terror fading from her eyes.

“Speak English?”

She shrugged then pointed at him. “Wade.”

“We”—Wade circled his hands to try to include himself and the other men—“take you”—he pointed at the woman—“Salish village.”

“You can’t do that,” Roy shouted, clenching his fists. “You can’t turn her back over to them.”

Wade looked from one man to another, his face stinging in the brisk morning breeze. “What do you think?”

Shorty shrugged. “She looks like she’s been hurt more at the hands of white men than the Flatheads.”

“The clothes, her inability to speak English, she’s obviously lived with them for a long time. Some tribes take in children of whites and raise them. She’d think of them as her family.” Wade watched, sure she planned to run off at the first chance. But that wasn’t the only reason he watched. Despite her wild hair and bruised and dirty face, she was beautiful. Those eyes, as blue as the wide Montana sky, brimmed with tears and terror.

The vulnerability touched something deep inside him. The same kind of thing that had driven him to want to rescue Cassie. But Cassie hadn’t needed rescuing. Belle would pound on him if he suggested she needed rescuing. It was Wade’s own mixed-up desire to save someone…anyone…the way he wished someone would have saved him from his father. And now this woman most likely didn’t need rescuing either. But it went against the grain to return a white woman to an Indian village.

She blinked and two tears escaped her shining eyes and slid down her grimy face. “Wade.” She touched her own chest. “Glowing Sun.”

“She spoke English.” Wade looked up at Shorty. “She knows her name in English.”

The man was quiet, but he was savvy. “Someone must have taught it to her. Or she maybe spoke English when she was young and a bit of it is coming back.”

“That’s your name?” Wade asked. “Glowing Sun?”

“Glowing Sun. Village far.”

Wade’s heart ached to see her cry. But the pain was almost pleasure, because she was so lovely and fragile yet ready to fight a crowd of men if it meant freedom.

“I think we need to calm her down before we take her back.”

Buck came around the horse and patted his son’s shoulder. “Make sure she knows she has a choice.”

“She can’t want to live with Indians, Pa.” Roy looked frantic, as if considering saving the woman from his own father.

Wade smiled, recognizing the reflex. “We could take her with us to the Tanner drive. If we ride hard, we could get
there
tonight. Treat her gently and she might decide she doesn’t want to go back with the tribe.”

“Cold weather’s comin’ on.” Shorty scratched his chin. “Her people might be ready to move to winter hunting grounds, and we’d have a tough time finding them in the middle of a Montana winter. If we don’t take her back now, she might never be reunited with them.”

Wade couldn’t take his eyes from Glowing Sun—such a perfect name for a girl with billowed white gold hair. Her native family could hardly have named her anything else. Moonlight maybe, or Snowbird. She was filthy, her face bruised and bleeding. Even with all that, she was the most beautiful woman Wade had ever seen. Wade watched her eyes, hoping he could head off an escape as he slowly gripped her arm and pulled her to her feet.

She flinched and gasped in pain. He looked down at her battered, bleeding wrists and immediately released her, cornering her between himself and the rock. She crouched again.

Wade held a hand out in front of him, shaking his head. “Don’t run, please.”

She narrowed her eyes as if searching deep in her memory. “Please?”

Wade’s heart lifted. She did know English, at least a little. It might come back if she’d just talk with them for a time. He nodded. “Please.”

“Thank you,” she said, as if the words just came. She’d been trained in good manners at one time.

Wade smiled. She frowned and jerked her head at him as if she disapproved. Of what?
His
manners maybe?

If someone said thank you, he should respond…. “You’re welcome?”

She smiled.

Wade motioned to his horse.

“Ride?” She looked from him to the horse.

“Please?”

She jerked her chin as if in agreement. “Village.” She swung up on the horse so lightly, it was almost like a moment of flight.

“Well, where are we going?” Wade held the reins tight. He wasn’t fooling himself that she was content to be with them.

The two older men sighed and hesitated.

“The Tanner drive.” Roy was most adamant. Too bad he knew less about this than the rest of them.

“She’s gonna be mad. She thinks we’re takin’ her to…you know.” Shorty looked worried and was smart enough not to say the word
village.

“Yeah, and when she gets mad, it’s something to see.” Wade pulled a kerchief out of his hip pocket and dabbed at the raw wound on his face.

“Will she catch on right away?” Buck asked.

“Depends on how far she is from home. She might be lost with no idea what direction to head. But Indians are mighty savvy about the land. She could have her eye on a mountain peak or some other landmark, know she needs to head west and we’re going east.” Wade lifted both hands in surrender. If his kerchief had been white instead of blue, he’d have been waving the white flag of surrender. “Let’s head for the Tanners for now. We can change our minds later. We’ve got time before winter shuts down on us.”

“Sounds good.” Shorty mounted up.

Buck and Roy followed suit.

“Can we make room on the packhorse for another man?” Wade looked at the woman occupying his saddle. He touched his bloody face again.

“Not without dropping most of the supplies.” Shorty started down the trail.

“If she don’t wanna ride double with you, you’ll find out soon enough.” Buck laughed and kicked his horse.

Wade produced his knife and made sure Glowing Sun saw it. Then very carefully he reached for her wrist and cut the rope dangling there.

She nodded. “Thank you.”

He tore a strip off his shirt and bound her wounds. “You’re welcome.” He didn’t know the words to warn her they were sharing a horse. Wade reached for the saddle horn and braced himself to get clawed again.

B
elle had the herd moving at first light.

By midday they were climbing steadily and the mountain pass was getting narrow. Silas rode ahead to scout the trail, and because the pass was treacherous, Belle wouldn’t let anyone carry Betsy but her.

The cattle were unhappy about the steep, rugged climb, so Belle rode drag to badger the stragglers. She made Sarah give over the lead to Emma because there were talus slides in spots that might give way under a horse’s hooves, and Emma would be better able to stick her saddle. The cattle walked with ever fewer abreast, and the slow-moving herd strung out over several miles.

The sun rose high in the sky, and the mountain trail was ground into a cloud of dust as the cattle churned up the earth. Belle pulled her kerchief over her mouth and nose and fixed one for Betsy, who spent most of her days lulled to sleep from the monotony of the steady rocking of the horse. A fine white dust hung in the air and coated all of them. The cattle all began to look the same under the sifting powder. Belle’s eyes burned and watered, and she wiped the grit from her face wearily until she gave up and let it blanket her.

She bullied and whipped the stragglers as they balked. They were especially cantankerous at places they needed to scramble over rock slides. She saw in the cattle a desire to quit, and she knew how they felt. Still, she pressed them onward, each step an effort. Each inch gained a triumph.

Belle knew that when they got through the pass ahead that dipped low on the mountain like a saddleback, the trail dropped steeply. She watched her first cattle, over two miles further on, reach the summit ahead, skyline themselves, then drop over the lip of the mountaintop. Hours later, when Belle finally reached the top, she looked at the rugged trail going down and back up the mountain. Her stomach swooped at the sight of it. It was late afternoon already and they had to get over it before they could stop for the night.

She took a moment to ask God for strength and to thank Him that she hadn’t realized what this trail looked like until now.

Far down the path, Belle saw her cattle plod through the choking dust. Here at the top, with the wind blowing unchecked, the dust had been dispersed. But she looked down that tortuous trail full of switchbacks and drop-offs into what looked like a bowl full of dust. In some places, it hung so thick Belle couldn’t see the cattle. These animals were the work of nearly sixteen years of her life. Now here it was before her. Her life’s work, moving slowly along, no more than three or four abreast, trailing an older steer as cattle are prone to do. She saw Emma in the lead and she saw Silas appear from over the pass far ahead, where he’d been scouting the trail.

The whole day’s journey had been almost no forward progress because of the twisting trail that went around every craggy outcropping. Belle knew the next week would be filled with slow days that accomplished little.

Silas came up to Emma then turned to walk alongside her. They were so far from Belle they looked like miniatures. They walked into a thick cloud of dust and were invisible for a time.

Then there must have been a place the wind would whip in because they were visible again. Emma was turned toward Silas. Belle wondered what they were talking about. Knowing Emma, Belle assumed it was work.

After a time, Silas started to drop back along the herd. Emma picked up her pace a bit, and Silas urged the cattle to do likewise, cracking a bullwhip in the air over their heads and hollering, driving them until the whole line was nearly trotting. He let them pass him until Sarah drew even with him. She walked along with the cattle, following at their new pace. Sarah started moving faster, pushing the herd, passing a few of them as she gained the higher elevations.

Next, Silas dropped back again until Lindsay, who was nearly three quarters of the way to the back, eating as much dust as Belle, rode up beside him. Belle saw Lindsay pick up a little speed and trot her horse toward the front of the line. Lindsay was halfway up the mountain when Emma reached the top. After hanging, skylined against the lowering sun for a moment, Emma dropped out of sight. Then the cattle steadily passing over, out of sight as Belle still trudged downward with a long way yet to go, soon made the top of the hills. Then later Lindsay disappeared.

Belle would be hours making her way to that peak where she could watch her girls again. She knew that Silas had told them everything they needed to know.

The day droned on, and Silas dropped closer to her, urging the herd on as he went. Belle picked up his need to hurry and pushed her stragglers a little harder.

When Silas finally came even with her, he said, behind his own kerchief, “The girls should be making camp by now. There’s a passing fair spot over the hill. Not great, but a little grazing and enough water. The cattle will be tired. I think they’ll be content to stand pat there for the night. But it will be full dark by the time we’ve pushed the rest of them over that hump.”

Belle nodded. The day was getting long for her. There had been no place along the trail to so much as step off the horse and stretch her legs. She’d eaten beef jerky in the saddle, gulped tepid canteen water, and nursed her baby with the kerchief tied over Betsy’s face.

“Have you fed her lately?”

Belle looked at him. His eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot. He was coated with the same white powdered dirt she was. She couldn’t make sense of his question, and she knew she must look stupid. “Fed who?”

“Betsy. Is it close to feeding time? You could drop back a piece and sit down and do it. Get out of the dirt. I can take the herd for a while. You look all in, Belle. Riding drag in this dirt is about all a man’s…I mean…about all a
person’s
life is worth.”

Belle had a moment of wondering how they would have gotten through this drive without him. She had no doubt they’d have done it, but she knew they’d have all been breaking their backs and their hearts to survive it. “It’s okay. She’s just done eating. I’ll finish the drag.”

She thought she saw concern and maybe anger flash across Silas’s face, but both impressions were gone so swiftly she might have imagined it. She was too tired to wonder anyway.

Without saying a word, he reached behind her back, and with swift movements, he unhitched the sling and took it, baby and all, away from her. He hung the carrier over his own back, double-checking with his hands to make sure Betsy was secure, then trotted his horse forward, calling over his shoulder, “I’ll carry her for a while.”

Before her slow reactions could overcome her surprise, Silas was out of earshot. Or at least he didn’t respond when she yelled, “Give her back.”

He rode slightly faster than the cattle, and he gained the high pass and vanished. The summit never seemed to draw any nearer to Belle. He came back after a time, just as Belle was near to reaching the bottom of the trail with the long climb upward left. He didn’t have Betsy.

It had been a good idea to get the baby back to camp and let the girls care for her. She’d never have asked him to do it, but she was glad he had and glad for the weight of the growing baby to be off her shoulders for these last grim hours of the day.