Nan Ryan (35 page)

“You’ve caught a cold.”

“I have not. I … I … ah … ah … ah-choo!”

“Yes, you have.”

“No. No, I haven’t. It’s just … it’s … aaah … aaah-choo!”

“You should have known better.”

“Ah-choo! Very fun … fun … fun … ah … ah … ah-choo!”

“I knew you should never have bathed in that cold water.”

“Ah-choo! Ah-choo! That’s right. Rub it in.”

“Think maybe we’d better spend the day here and let you get some rest?” Mollie smiled at the sneezing man.

“Certainly not,” Lew glared at her. “I’m fine, thank you very much. Wipe that supercilious grin off your face or I’ll … I’ll … aah … aah … ah-choo!”

It was early morning.

Mollie had awakened to the sound of Lew’s furious sneezing. She couldn’t help but be amused. After all his stern warnings for her to stay out of the frigid water, it was he who had caught cold. His eyes and nose were already red, and he looked miserable. She could have told him he shouldn’t have gone into the freezing water while he was so overheated, but it would have done no good. He was as hardheaded as she.

She looked at him now and saw a slight tremor rush through his lean body. Almost feeling sorry for him, she said, “I mean it—why don’t we stay here for a while? You look like you could use some rest.”

“Ah-choo! We are going. Get your horse saddled. Ah-choo!”

“You’re the boss, boss.”

“Do me a favor, will you? Ah-choo! Keep your little witticisms to yourself. Ah-choo!”

“Anything you say.”

Without further delay they broke camp and rode away. By noon they had left the lush, flat Verde Valley behind and had reached the mouth of the gigantic, steep-walled Oak Creek Canyon.

In the lead, Lew, still sneezing constantly, coaxed his horse up the rocky twists and turns while Mollie gaped up in amazement at the vermilion-hued canyon with its sandstone walls soaring thousands of feet above.

As far as she could see were pink and red and gold sandstone spires and chiseled walls and towering cliffs. And a roaring creek tumbling down past them as they climbed. As they rode farther up into the vast, colorful canyon, Mollie was delighted to find many crystal pools and eddies, and she laughed aloud when schools of golden trout flashed in the morning sunshine.

Lew was not as enchanted. His head ached and his nose ran and his eyes watered. And he was chilled, although the canyon temperature was pleasantly warm.

By nightfall, when they’d climbed far up into the broad canyon and had chosen a wide, flat, scooped-out cradle of sandstone for the night’s camp, Lew was a sick man. It was more than a head cold. His chest hurt and he was running a fever. But he said nothing to Mollie about his condition, and he shot her an angry look when she inquired about it.

Mollie suspected that he was really quite sick when he unstrapped his gun belt, dropped it to the ground, and lay down beside the small campfire without mentioning supper. Mollie fell to her knees beside him.

“You’re sick,” she said gently.

His eyelids drooped as he looked at her. “A little. Be okay tomorrow.” His eyes closed.

“Want something to eat?”

His teeth had begun to chatter. “I’m … not … hungry.”

“Then why don’t you take your blanket, move in under the rock ledge, and get some rest.”

“I … will … in a … minute.” In seconds he was sound asleep.

Mollie remained on her knees, looking at him. His gun belt and gun lay six feet from him. His rifle leaned against a rock wall. Both guns were well out of his reach. She felt a great rush of excitement. If ever there was an opportunity to get away from him, it was now.

She looked at the handsome sleeping face, pale beneath his tan, and hardened her heart. This seemingly helpless man was taking her to the authorities, uncaring that she would waste away in some federal prison for the rest of her days.

Mollie slowly rose to her feet.

She turned, picked up Lew’s discarded gun belt and strapped it around her hips. Then she went for the rifle, but decided against taking it. She was an excellent shot. The Colt was all she needed.

Hurrying now, anxious to be gone, she rushed to fill her red saddlebags with food. She snatched up the water-filled canteen, grabbed her red-and-blue blanket and rain slicker, and rolled both up in a canvas tarp.

Lew’s sick eyes slowly opened. “Going somewhere?”

Mollie stopped short. Then squared her shoulders and continued her preparation, determined she’d not let anything he said, or the sight of him sick and trembling, change her mind.

“Yes, I’m leaving, bounty hunter. Don’t try and stop me. If you do, I’ll have to shoot you.”

“Why don’t you wait until morning? It’s too dangerous to ride back down the steep trail in darkness.”

“You think I’ll fall for that?” She looped the reins over her saddled mount’s neck and climbed on his back.

“Be careful, Mollie,” Lew said, sounding almost as if he meant it.

“Same to you, Hatton.”

Mollie rode away into the gathering dusk. Cautiously, carefully she guided the surefooted stallion back down the steep, treacherous trail as an early-rising moon sailed over the canyon’s rim to light her way.

Mollie could hardly believe that she was a free woman at last! Her jailer had been left behind, weak and powerless. By the time he was able to ride after her, she’d be long gone. No dank, musty jail cell for her. Not for Mollie Rogers! She would ride all the way back to Mexico if need be. Where she went really didn’t matter, so long as it was far, far away from Lew Hatton.

The temperature inside the canyon had quickly cooled with the falling of night. It was, Mollie realized, downright cold. She reached behind her, unstrapped the heavy sheepskin jacket, and put it on. As she turned the fleecy collar up around her chilled ears, she wondered if Lew would be too weak and sick to get up and put on his jacket. Would he be able to move into the warmth and shelter of the sandstone cave? Or would he lie there in the cold, exposed and freezing?

Mollie firmly shook her head. Who cared? Let the bastard freeze to death!

Horse and rider dropped lower and lower along the narrow serpentine path. They traveled farther and farther from the chilled, sick man lying under the moon and stars. And closer and closer to Mollie’s longed-for freedom. The steady, rhythmic sound of the horse’s hooves striking the hard sandstone became the only sound as night deepened. Mollie, lulled by the echo, let her head drop forward. She dozed.

The rumble of distant thunder awakened her. She looked straight up, searching for a moon that had gone behind the clouds. A flash of summer lightning streaked across the sky, crashing to its target somewhere back inside the canyon. The first raindrops were huge but sporadic, plopping and hissing against the jutting spires and steep canyon walls.

Within minutes it was a full-fledged summer rainstorm, and Mollie, reining her mount to halt, anxiously unstrapped the heavy tarp from behind the cantle. She drew out her rain slicker, put it on, and wondered if it was raining on Lew. The prospect sent a sharp pain through her heart.

In her mind’s eye she saw Lew, sick and feverish, lying there alone, unprotected, unable to move to shelter, the cold rain pounding down on him, saturating his clothes and chilling his fevered skin.

“Dear God, what have I done?” Mollie wailed aloud. And losing no time, she reined the big steed around in a tight semicircle. “Lew, oh Lew,” she murmured, and dug her heels into the stallion’s sides.

Unconcerned for her own safety, Mollie urged the horse into a swift gallop, anxious to get back to the only man she would ever love. And she
did
love him. She admitted it to herself as the frightening and very real possibility of his death stared her squarely in the face. She had to get back to him. She had to save him! His life meant more than her own. She loved him, had loved him from that first meeting at the Emporium, would love him forever. She could fight it no longer. She loved him and hated herself for so selfishly putting his life in peril.

The rain continued and grew heavier. It came in sheets so blinding that Mollie could scarcely see a foot before her face. But the well-trained horse kept climbing steadily up the wet, slippery trail, his powerful lungs straining with the effort.

Finally, after what seemed an eternity to Mollie, she reached the high canyon camp with its long-dead fire where she’d left the dangerously sick Lew. She bounded out of the saddle, dashed the water from her eyes, and ran to the deathly still figure on the soaked ground. He was lying just as she had left him.

Heart pounding painfully, she fell to her knees beside him, cupped his wet cheeks in her hands and bent to him, pressing her chilled face to his hot, wet one.

“My darling,” she said, sobbing now, and fondly, foolishly kissed his closed eyes, his wet mouth, his beard-stubbled jaw, murmuring, “I’ve come back, Lew. I’ve come back. I’ll save you, I will, I promise, my precious darling.”

With reserves of strength she didn’t know she possessed, Mollie struggled to get the sick, unconscious man moved in beneath the overhang of rock and into the dry sandstone enclosure. Talking to him the whole time in low, soothing tones, she pushed him up into a sitting position, moved around behind him, locked her arms over his chest, and dragged him through the falling rain to the dry, warm room of rock.

Once inside, she hurriedly went about undressing him. She didn’t stop until she had peeled away the sopping-wet clothes right down to his wet, feverish skin. Faced with this life-or-death situation, she did not consider her modesty—or his. She was concerned only with making him warm and safe. When she had quickly but thoroughly dried him off—from the thick, soaked hair of his head down to his cold bare feet—she dashed back out into the rain and pulled down the rolled-up tarp from behind her saddle.

Back inside the dry rock room, Mollie took from the tarp her dry red-and-blue blanket. She spread it on the flat rock floor directly beside Lew, then rolled him over onto it. She managed to get him turned onto his back on the blanket and she pulled the blanket up around him, tucking it in under his shoulders.

Absently patting his chest, she said, “My darling, I’ll be right back. I’ll make you well, I will.”

Again she raced out into the rainstorm, led both horses up under the protective rock ledge at the cave’s mouth, quickly unsaddled them, and went back to her patient, unhooking her long rain slicker as she came. Beneath the slicker, her sheepskin jacket was perfectly dry, as was her shirt. Only her boots and buckskin pants were sopping wet. Mollie shed them where she stood, hunched out of the warm jacket, and went to Lew. She swept the blanket apart and put her jacket on him backward, laboring to get his long arms pulled through the sleeves.

“There,” she said, pleased, and her eyes were drawn down his long, lean body to his hair-dusted right leg.

She laid a hand on the network of wide zigzag scars that reached from thigh to shin. Frowning, she let her fingers run the length of the badly scarred leg. Then she anxiously drew the blanket back around him, covering him.

Her journey ended, her tasks completed, Mollie sat there on her heels, out of breath, watching Lew. Despite the heavy jacket and warm blanket, his lean body was still racked with deep, wrenching chills. He didn’t respond when she spoke his name. He coughed and choked when she dribbled water from the canteen onto his burning lips.

Mollie put her hand over her mouth to stifle a sob of despair. She too, trembled, but her shaking was from fear. Fear and guilt. She had left him sick and alone and he was going to die because of her!

“No,” she sobbed, the denial tearing from her tight throat like the wail of an animal. “No, no.”

Shaking almost as violently as Lew, Mollie swept one side of the blanket aside and crawled into it with him, hurriedly drawing it back up over the both of them.

“Please, my love, don’t leave me,” she whispered, snuggling close, draping an arm across his chest and a knee across his thighs. “Speak to me, darling. Open your eyes, Lew.”

Hugging him fiercely, determined to transfer her body heat to him, Mollie lay awake holding him close through the longest night of her life. Caressing him, kissing him, talking quietly to him, she lovingly coaxed him to live.

The rain finally stopped. Daylight was close. Lew, struggling to shake off the last weak chains of unconsciousness, had the sensation of being smothered. Coming slowly out of the fog, he became aware of warm, soft lips covering his own. A mouth, dewy and gentle, was pressing his, over and over again. Kisses. Someone was kissing him. Someone he could not see, could only feel.

Mollie, unaware he was emerging from the fevered coma that enveloped him, was leaning over Lew’s face, kissing him when suddenly his eyelids fluttered, lifted, and his questioning blue eyes were staring into hers.

Tears filling her eyes, Mollie said softly, “Oh, thank God. Lew, Lew.” And she kissed him again, right on the mouth.

“Where are my pants?” was his raspy reply.

“You won’t be needing your pants for a while,” Mollie told him, then blushed hotly realizing that her bare legs were entwined with his beneath the blanket, “but perhaps I’d better get back into mine.”