Mittman, Stephanie (15 page)

If
one little gunshot did this to her, he didn't want to think of her reaction
should the Tate boys ever catch up to them. He moved his good leg, shifting his
weight, hinting with his body that they should go back to the fire. She made no
move, just held on all that much tighter for his having even suggested it.

So
he just stood there, letting her burrow into his armpit with her shoulder, her
hair tickling his neck, the outer curve of her breast rising and falling
against his chest, and tried to think about other things. There were plenty of
problems to occupy his mind: food, shelter, safety. But none seemed to be as
pressing as how to stop Sweet Mary from rubbing her thigh against his privates
and making his bones turn as limp as a dead snake.

He
felt the sudden change in her. Her body stiffened.

Her
weight returned to her own feet. She slipped the baby from the sack on his
chest and turned toward the fire.

"Sweet
Mary?" he said quietly, his concern for her masking his own sense of loss
at her sudden distance. "You all right?"

She
didn't answer him. She just started walking toward the fire, her body rigid,
her steps flat and determined.

"Now
where are you going?" he asked. Again, she didn't answer.
"Look," he said to her back, "I shoulda told you where I was
going. I shouldn'ta shot without you knowing it was coming. It was right of you
to be scared."

She
plopped down silently by the fire, the baby in her arms, the heat suffusing her
face. She winced, and he guessed the sunburn hurt. Hell, nothing, probably not
even her pride, hurt.

"I'm
sorry I scared ya," he said.
But I ain't sorry about the way you was
clinging to me, Sweet Mary,
he added silently. He bent his good knee so
that he could somewhat squat in front of her and dropped one hand between his
legs to hide any evidence of her effect on him. She looked up at him with
glistening eyes.

"I
don't understand anything. I thought we had to be really quiet so that the
Tates wouldn't know where we are. Then you use your gun. I don't get it."

She
was right, of course. He'd been careless. And with Mary Grace and the baby
depending on him, he couldn't afford to be. "We're closer to home than to
Oak Creek Canyon by now, Sweet Mary," he said. "And I figured we were
all hungry. We ain't seen hide nor hair of 'em since the flood, and the boy's
gotta eat. He ain't gonna grow on grass like a damn cow."

Somewhere
in his explanation was an admission that he'd been reckless. She caught it
despite his efforts to disguise it in concern for his son. If the child even
was
his son. If he wasn't, she and the baby were in for some rough times on their
own.

"You
don't think the Tates are still after us, do you?" she asked.

He
shrugged. "Think they'da caught us by now, but you never can tell. Men
like the Tates coulda been sidetracked by anything. Your mama ever tell you
that story about the tortoise and the hare?"

"You
think we're the tortoise?" she asked, wanting to believe that in the end
they would beat the Tates to safety.

"We
sure ain't the hare." He laughed. It was like a game to him suddenly, with
his parents' ranch so near. Somehow, feeling as tired and beaten as she did,
she just couldn't see it that way. He turned away from her and pulled his knife
from his belt. It gleamed in the firelight, and her voice caught in her throat.

"I
don't belong here," she told Sloan, realizing he was preparing the animal
he had shot for roasting.

"No
one belongs here, Sweet Mary. This is the desert. We'll be at my folks' before
ya know it, eatin' the best food, sleepin' in the softest beds. Just wait till
my mama sees this little cowboy." He chucked Ben under the chin.
"She'll be willin' to forget everything when she sees him."

"It's
a good thing Mason Tate doesn't know who your folks are," Mary Grace said,
taking off Paddy's smelly garments and letting the fire warm his naked body.

"Sweet
Mary, I'm not exactly a nobody. Mason Tate knows where my folks are, same as
most people in the territory." He twisted around, turning his head to look
at her. She hadn't realized until then that he had been shielding the dead
animal from her sight.

"But
then don't you think that's the first place the Tates will go looking for you
and little Pad... Ben?"

He
shrugged as if that didn't worry him.

"Is
there something I don't know?" she asked him in exasperation. "Some
reason that we, or you, and the baby will be safe there?"

"There'll
be four, maybe five of us, against just three of them," he said, turning
back to his work.

"That's
it? That's the whole plan? You're kidding, right?"

"Hmm?"
he answered, intent on threading the animal onto a stick and positioning him
over the fire. The bile rose in Mary Grace's stomach. She'd been a vegetarian
since she'd left home, when even the gray patty between the halves of a sesame
seed bun made her stomach turn to mush. And that wasn't
animal
like this
was animal. She kept her eyes on Sloan and her mind on the danger at hand.

"It
never occurred to you that you were endangering your whole family, did it? That
your mother could get killed? Your father? Ben?" She held the baby tightly
and he squirmed.

Sloan's
face was blank, as though he hadn't thought about the consequences to his
family.

"Well,
what would you do?" he asked finally.

She
didn't know. She was tired, bone tired. She was hungry, and filthy, and sick of
being scared. She missed her home and the comforts of her century. She wanted a
cold drink, a hot meal, and a soft bed. And she didn't want to look down and
check out what she felt crawling across her foot.

"Oh
my God!" she whispered as the giant spider crawled over one foot and onto
the other.

"What?"
he said, turning around to stare at her.

Her
eyes never left the hairy beast, bigger than the width of her foot, and now
resting on it, two of its legs edging over the top of her moccasin.

"That?"
Sloan asked, coming closer and pointing to
her leg. "It's just a
tarantula." He reached down and put his hand where the spider would crawl
onto it. She had never had a braver deed done for her, she thought. But he
didn't drop it and step on it, or run his knife through it, or any such thing. Instead
he let it crawl from one hand to the other, alternating his hands so the spider
didn't run out of places to crawl.

"What
are you doing?" she fairly shrieked, climbing atop the rock she had been
sitting on.

"I
told you. It's just a tarantula. He won't hurt you unless you scare him."

"Obviously,"
she said, trying to maintain her calm, "you've never seen
Arachnophobia.
Get rid of this spider. Now!"

He
walked some distance from the fire and bent down, letting the spider loose.
"Arachno... what?" he asked when he returned.

"Never
mind." Her words were clipped, and her fear turned quickly to anger as he
began to laugh at her. He made her feel silly and childish and like some
spoiled rich girl who'd never had to deal with real life before.

A
lot he knew. She'd dealt with the realities of life since she was a small child
in a household where if her parents ever forgave even the smallest of
transgressions, they assured her that God would not forget. And when she'd made
her really big mistake, she'd grown up faster than anyone should have had to.

She
didn't feel the least bit sorry for herself, but she resented terribly the fact
that he seemed to think she was unable to cope with a little adversity. As if
falling through time, being lost on the desert, and being chased by angry
madmen were just some little inconveniences she should be able to take in
stride.

"Come
on," he said, standing in front of her, his hands out for the baby.

She
handed Paddy up but refused the hand he offered to her.

"It'll
cook a while," he said, gesturing toward the meat roasting over the fire
and filling the air with a crisp smell that made her mouth water despite her
mind's revulsion. "Come with me and take Ben's things."

He
led her through the Joshua-tree forest, the flowers filling the air with an
exotic scent that overpowered even the perspiration and the smell of the baby's
clothing she held in her hands, toward a small outcropping of boulders. He
turned sideways to slip between two rocks and then beckoned her to follow.

Moonlight
glistened off a tiny pond. Surrounding the pool were tall rocks, jutting up
toward the stars and providing complete privacy for the three of them. He
handed her the baby and reached into his pocket.

"Soap,"
he said and handed her a small hard dirt-covered clump. "Of a sort."

She
didn't care what sort. She crept toward the water as though it were a sacred
altar and knelt before it as if in prayer. Her knees ached on the hard rock,
but she ignored them as she reached in and tested the water. Warm! It was as
warm as an inviting bathtub, and she let a sigh escape her lips.

"It's
a natural pool," Sloan explained. "When the valley floods, water gets
trapped in here, and then the sun warms it. It don't last long before it dries
on up, but it's real clear 'cause there's a rock bottom, and with the yucca
root, we can all clean up good."

She
pushed up her sleeves. "Give me the baby." He took off the shirt he
had draped around the child and handed him to Mary Grace. She leaned forward
and eased him into the water, first his toes, then slowly his fat little legs
until his raw bottom made contact with the soothing water, and finally his
smooth chest. He
squealed with delight, the first truly happy sounds they had heard him make.
She heard Sloan's laughter behind her, mixing with her own.

Sloan
moved closer, his body nearly touching hers, and tickled the baby's tummy. Ben
laughed and kicked his legs, spraying them both with water.

"If
he ain't the cutest," Sloan said, chucking him under his chin. "All
babies got that little dent in their chins, Sweet Mary?"

"Uh-uh,"
she said, swaying slightly with all the baby's jumping around. Sloan reached
out a hand and steadied her at the elbow. She recovered her balance, but he
left his hand there, anyway. "Some babies have dimples," she said,
dunking the child and bringing him up. "Some babies have clefts in their
chins," she said and dunked again. "Some babies have blue eyes."
Dunk. "Some babies have brown." Dunk. "Some babies look like
their mamas." Dunk.

And
then her hands seemed to freeze where they were, and the spell was broken. She
wasn't his mama. She wasn't even sure Sloan was his dad. She did know that they
weren't the happy little family they seemed to be.

She
lifted the baby, his chubby legs kicking the water and soaking her, his arms
flailing and splashing and finally clapping with the sheer joy of it. She
smiled despite the lump that had grown in her chest. For right now, for this
moment, the baby was hers.

Sloan
suggested that they wash the clothes later, reminding her of the supper that
awaited them. She made a face at the thought of eating the animal but said
nothing, afraid that Sloan might make fun of her for being so prissy.

"It's
already dead," he said as they walked back, his arm around her for warmth.
"We might as well eat it."

Surprised,
Mary Grace nodded. Of course, she
would feed it to the baby, but it
wouldn't pass her lips. She tried to remember if she'd mentioned to Sloan about
not eating animals. She must have. How else would he have known it bothered
her?

He
settled her and the baby on the horse's saddle, sitting sideways, and pulled
the poncho up around them before checking on their meal. She winced when he
wiggled a leg, testing for doneness.

He
removed the animal from the fire and cut it into pieces with his knife. He gave
her a small piece to tear up for the baby. Then he handed her a larger piece
meant for herself. She looked first at it, then at him. Shaking her head, she
held it back out to Sloan.

"I
can't eat it. I'll just wait until we're at your parents' place and have
something there. In the meantime the grass and stuff is just fine for me. But I
agree that the baby should have some protein. I wish we had some milk for
him." She looked down at her chest. Damn useless apparatus at the moment.
"Well, when do you figure we'll be there? The day after tomorrow?"

He
shook his head and held out the meat to her again. "Eat it, Sweet Mary.
Tomorrow we change direction and head north."

"North?"
She examined the meat, the traitorous acids in her stomach rumbling and calling
for her to put the food in her mouth.

"I
got to thinking about what you said. Truth is, I wouldn't want to come running
home to my folks with my tail between my legs, expecting them to bail me out of
another scrape. We been lucky so far, and there ought to be a marshall in
Prescott or Jerome that would be pretty interested in where the Tates' hideout
is, don't you think? Once I get rid of the Tates, then I can go home." He
raised her chin with his finger and looked into her eyes. "So eat."