Medicine Road (19 page)

The raw-boned squaw bent farther over the sick
child. Eye tailing her a glance, Jesse caught the
bounce of the fire's flicker in the lynx-bright eyes.
Under cover of her pretended hovering over the
child, the squaw was watching him like a winghung hawk.

"Yep, that was the time, ma'am," his voice hurried on, wanting to beat the question framing on
Lacey's full lips. "Just happened down the Medicine
Road a ways. Not two days gone."

The squaw glued her eyes to the child, not letting
herself grab any of Jesse's bait.

"Old Black Coyote, that's Watonga, ma'am, he set
a trap for me. But Tokeya Sha, that's me, ma'am, I
was a mite too fancy for him. Tokeya, he jumped up and ran around Watonga while he was a-setting
watching his trap. The shame of getting himself outfoxed thataway like to kilt the old chief. Him and his
best hundred braves. Last I seen of them, those
braves was thinking about making me chief, and
running old Black..."

"Mister Callahan"-the blonde girl's break-in
showed she was through monkeying-"Tim will be
along any minute. If you want something here, say
so and be moving on. Tim will never forget your hitting him, believe me. You'd best not be around when
he shows up. He'll. . .

"He'll do nothing," purred the mountain man,
blue eyes whacking into the emigrant girl like a
thrown knife. "And I do want something here,
Lacey O'Mara. I want you."

Lacey's
mouth
dropped
as
her
eyes
went
big.
Before she could start to sputter, Jesse cut her down.

"Not like you're thinking, ma'am. I don't mean
that. But I do want to tell you how I do mean it. I'm
slow with talk, but when it's in me to come out, I got
to say it. And I got to say it to you, gal. Alone."

"You can't see me alone. Tim would kill both of
us, sure. And I don't care what you mean and I don't
want to hear what you've got to say. I don't want to
see you, I can't see you. I don't want anything to do
with you. Is that clear, Mister Callahan? I've got
more trouble than I can bear now. I can't do anything about you. Oh, go away, Jesse! I ..."

The use of his name slipped out awkwardly, interrupting the rambling flow of her words. To hear her
say it put a hot push to spreading up Jesse's spine fit
to choke his wind off. To have said it caused Lacey
to wallow, blushingly, in her own confusion. Eyes
dropped, she turned her head away, stood, fist clenched, uncertain, angry. The picture of her in the
fire glow, flushed, excited, tight-strung, did nothing
to dim the memory of that cat's grace and strength
of beauty that had first hit the mountain man's eye
without any clothes over it.

"You'll see me, Lacey." He nailed her soft blue
eyes on the cross of his narrow, hard ones. "Make it
as soon as you get the little 'un quiet, and that clabberhead, Tim, bedded down. I'll be down there on
this end of the slough where I seed you this morning. I got to see you and say what's in me. I won't
touch you, without you want it. You'll see me, won't
you, gal?"

"Go away, please. I don't want to see you. I can't
see you!"

"Meeting's breaking up, over yonder"-the mountain man's warning carried Lacey's eyes to the group
by the distant freight corral-"and I got to skeedaddle. I'll be where I said, down by the slough. And I'll
be waiting for you, Lacey."

She didn't answer but Jesse didn't miss the way
her white teeth bit into her lower lip, or how the
dark blood came into her face, thick and fast. A man
could be wrong, and a good many had stood in the
rain all night to find out they were, but Jesse didn't
allow he would waste his time at the slough.

Come an hour from now, and happen Tim got
himself off to sleep without making any fuss, him
and that gold-haired girl would have their talk
down there!

Jesse, leaning his broad back against the big cottonwood log, sucked absently at his stone pipe. The
pipe had been out for ten minutes but a man's mind
will run a back track as good on a cold pipe as it will
on a hot one-providing that track's as warm as the
one the mountain man's thoughts were on. And
Jesse Callahan's mind was really running. A man
could scout a trail just so far, then he had to sit down
and tote up the sign he'd seen. The sign Jesse had
seen so far, had been mostly red.

One way or another, he couldn't get Watonga out
of his head. First off, he had figured that after the
failure at Jackpine Slash, the Arapaho chief would
give up and go home. That had been before he'd discovered Washakie's story about a white man's being
along with Watonga was true. When he had found
the Arapahoes did have a strange white man with
them, he'd had to refigure that part of it.

Even so, he hadn't been too worried until he'd
run into this emigrant bunch with Lacey O'Mara among them and with the big Arapaho camp squatting hard on them, and with that bad case Tim
O'Mara riding guide for them. Right away he hadn't
liked the looks of all that. Then, when he'd found
the village empty of warriors and just of a size to
match up to Watonga's number of war-party bucks,
he'd really started to sniff his back tracks to see
where he'd missed a sign he shouldn't have. And he
knew full well he had, too. For one thing, there was
something about Tim, beyond his being Lacey's
man and a stand-out settlement tough, that fretted
him considerably. For another, that strapping-big
squaw with her raw-boned build and bold-out approach kept hitting a memory bell that wouldn't
ring. For a third, his "Sioux blood" kept gingering
him about leaving the emigrants to head East on the
Medicine Road.

Just because that bat-blind Choteau & Company
bunch of red-necked Missouri mule heads had
joshed and rough-joked him off his hunch didn't
stop that hunch from working. You don't spend
twenty-two years eating half-raw dog and smoking
yourself over a buffalo-chip blaze without you
building up some trace of what every red Indian is
born with-a sixth-sense nose, touchy as a blistered
heel, for impending disaster.

The mountain man came out of his thinking spell,
head sharp-cocked. "That you, Lacey?" His soft
question went to the willow brush across the sandbar from the log. "Lacey, you hear me?" he repeated
quickly.

He got his answer from a couple of tree frogs and
the chorus of water peepers in the slough fringe
grass.

Waiting five breaths, he eased off the log, went fox-stepping through the dark. There was nothing
in the willows save the wisp of night breeze that
should have been there.

Could have been the wind, he mused doubtfully.
Man gets edgy setting up for something like her to show.

The hour he had given her was gone. Not alone
that hour, but a grudging and nervous half of the
next one. Now he had to admit she'd likely meant
what she'd said. Either that or she hadn't been able
to dodge Tim. Well, if that was the way it was going to be, he would have to brace himself to seeing
her in the morning. That, or forget the whole
thing. Which, all things considered, wouldn't be a
far piece from a good idea. But where was there
anybody around to tell a man how he went about
forgetting something like Lacey O'Mara? Something with a top-cream body like that, and eyes
that went deeper into a man than a broad-head
buffalo arrow?

She came out of the darkness as Jesse moved back
out of the willow brush. Standing there in the
starlight, motionless at the edge of the black filigree
of the trees, she didn't offer to move or speak. Not
even the tree dark or the pale star shine could hide
the poised grace of that figure. When Jesse came up
to her, she looked down and away, as though she
didn't want to see him.

"Hello, Lacey. I'm certain glad you come. I was
beginning to think you wouldn't."

"I didn't aim to...." The voice was strained.
"Please don't talk, yet. I ...

The mountain man took her arm, feeling the way
it went tense under his fingers. "Come on over here,
Lacey. We can set on that old log where you had
your clothes this morning. Don't be feared, gal. Ain't no call to be, I allow." With the words, his
hand tightened on her arm, urging her gently.

She pulled away from him at once, and he let her
go, sensing the bow-string tautness running
through her, knowing that the wrong word or move
could set her off, for good.

"Come on," he repeated easily, turning to lead the
way, not looking to see if she followed, "it ain't going to harm us none to talk."

At the log, he turned to find her at his elbow. "Set
down, ma'am." He made the words sound as calm as
they could, coming from a man that was as tendonloose as a bull elk with a strange cow ramping up to
his nose sniffs. "I'll give it to you, straight out."

She sank to the warm sand beside the log, saying
nothing, still not letting herself look at him. Jesse
followed her down, careful that he left plenty of
sand between them.

"It'll save time if we don't whale around the brush
now," he began nervously. "I never been in love with
a gal in my life, Lacey. Now, I reckon I am. I want
you to come on to Californy with me...."

"Jesse!"

"Don't break in on me!" The mountain man's order was rough. "I got it all in mind what I want to
say. All I ask is that you set still and give it a listen.
After that, you can have your own whack at it. How
about it, gal?"

"All right...." The answer was so low that it almost took a Minniconjou ear to hear it. But it came
without hesitation, and Jesse marked that.

"We'll take the kids and go. Now. Tonight. You
don't take nothing but them. Last I seed of Tim, he
was killing a gallon jug with Andy Hobbs. I reckon
the way he's asleep now, a mule could stand hipshot atop him, without Tim missing a snore." He paused,
side-eying her before hurrying on. "That little gal of
yours has got the lung fever. I seen it too many times
in Injun kids to miss calling it. Best chance she's got
is to get where it's mile-high and skin-dry. Your doctor told you that and, by damn, Californy is full of
places to fit that prescription. As for Johnny, he's cut
to size for my kind of cub. Coming to you, Lacey,
God help me, I can't tell you how it is. I got it in me
so strong I can taste it. I want to go on tasting it from
here till the lantern goes out. That's all, gal. I can't
say it no better."

The silence that mushroomed up was so thick
Jesse thought he'd strangle of it. Still, when she
spoke, the halting, soft way of it let him know he
hadn't read her eyes wrong.

"You don't have to say it any better, Jesse. You've
said it beautiful. I've never been in love, either, Jesse.
I don't even know that I am, now. I only know how
it feels when you look at me and how it squeezes
here inside when I look at you. I've never felt it that
way, before. But, Jesse, the whole thing's crazy. All
of it. If it wasn't for Kathy, I might see it, might go
with you. I..."

"What about Kathy?" Jesse interrupted harshly.
"What's she got to do with it, Lacey?"

"She's got to get back to a doctor, Jesse. I'm
afraid Kathy's going to die! And I've got to get her
there. Give her that chance. She's got to have that
chance, Jesse ..."-the girl's voice trailed off helplessly, her words as dead as the hope within
them-"and I guess you know where the nearest
doctor is."

"Yeah. The Army surgeon at Fort Laramie"-he
tried to give it to her softly-"and she'll never make it. That baby's going to die, Lacey. I allow you know
that."

"Jesse! Kathy's got to have a doctor ... !"

The mountain man said nothing, knowing that
where a mother's got a dying child she's rightfully
got her mind flowed-over for anything else. After a
long minute he asked the question that had been on
his mind from the moment she had told him she was
Mrs. O'Mara. "How about you and Tim, Lacey gal?"

The emigrant woman hesitated with her reply.
When it came, it was low-voiced with awkwardness.
"Tim near hates me, I guess. I've not given him the
kind of love a man has a right to expect from his
woman. That bitters a man like nothing else...."
The girl paused, her voice dropping lower still.
"Tim's not the children's father, Jesse. I married Tim
only to get Kathy out here. Their real father, my first
husband, died three years ago in the settlements.
Scraping around back there to feed the children
those three years, with the baby sick and all ..."-
another pause to let the embarrassment creep, thick
and heavy, into the emigrant woman's voice before
she concluded haltingly-"oh, I'm so ashamed,
Jesse!"

The mountain man said nothing, waiting for her
to continue. After a moment, she did.

"Well, when Tim told me he was taking this train
as far west as Salt Lake and offered to take me along
if I'd marry him, I just shut my eyes and said yes.
Tim's a Mormon, you know, and I thought he would
at least be good to us. But, oh, Jesse, it's just been
hell! The whole shameful thing of it. So, when he refused to guide these folks back, I stayed with them
to get Kathy back to the doctor like I told you. That's
the whole story, Jesse. Of course, I never loved Tim, and, now that he's back, I'm terrified of him. Jesse,
he's up to something, I know he is. I can feel it, and
I'm scared to death!"