The Man from Shenandoah (22 page)

“You act like you won,” he chuckled, when he had caught his breath.

“Maybe I did,” she answered, running her fingers through her tangled locks.

A snowflake drifted down from the sky and landed on Ellen’s hair. It melted, leaving a drop of water sparkling in its place, then the moon disappeared behind a thick cloud as other flakes swirled toward the ground. Ellen pulled the hood of the cloak over her head and snuggled into the folds of the cape.

“I grabbed this cloak and ran. I don’t know whose it is, but it’s good and warm,” she shouted in Carl’s direction.

Carl looked around at the eddying flakes, and noticed that the wind was moaning and whining in his ears. It blew the thick flakes into his eyes, and he shut them for a moment. When he reopened them, Ellen was gone!

Chapter 15

“Ellen!” he yelled into the white blanket before his eyes. “Ellen, where are you?”

No voice answered him, no cry cut through the keen of the wind. “Where are you, girl?” he shouted against the wind’s shriek. Still no human sound reached his ears, and he strained to see through the frozen curtain enveloping him.

Panic seized him. Ellen was lost; Ellen, who just moments before was glorious, wild, free. He turned Sherando this way and that, calling her name, trying to see through the storm. As he whipped his body from side to side in the saddle in his attempt to catch her voice in his ears, his arm brushed against his holstered pistol. He tugged on the binding loop and yanked the gun free, then fired it into the ground.

“Carl,” he heard Ellen cry, her voice whipped in all directions by the wind.

He glanced wildly about. “Ellen,” he bellowed, and this time heard her reply off to his left. He turned Sherando in the direction of her voice and called for her to stay in one place. Blindly, he followed her calls, hoping panic would not make her mute before he could reach her.

The wind puffed away a sheet of snowflakes, and he saw the dark cloak just ahead. He cried out “Ellen,” as he reached her side.

She turned, clutching the cloak around her. “Oh, Carl,” she breathed, and gave a great sigh of relief.

“We can’t stay here in the open or we’ll freeze,” he told her, voice raised over the storm. “I wish I knew what direction I’m headed. With all this snow blowing around, I’ve lost my bearings.” He reached over for her reins and looped them around his left hand. “If we’re heading south, we’ll reach the St. Charles before too long, and we can hole up on the bank.”

“Dun Baby should be headed south. I never turned her. I pulled up soon as I lost sight of you.”

“We’ll go that way, then,” he agreed, thankful for her good sense. “I reckon we can’t miss the river.”

Carl turned Sherando and started him off at a walk, wondering which was worse, to trot forward into the uncertain footing of the unfamiliar ground ahead, or to go at a walking pace and slowly freeze. He wished he’d paid better attention to the country as they had traveled through it, and he hoped the river wasn’t as far as he thought it was.

He heard Ellen behind him, shifting in her saddle. The leather groaned in the frigid air, crackling louder for a moment than the wind could moan. Carl gritted his teeth and pulled his hat down lower over his ears, and hoped that Ellen was warmer than he.

The horses plodded along, stumbling from time to time on the uneven ground. Occasionally, Carl dismounted and led the way, stamping a path through belly-high drifts, but the cold crept up his legs, and even when he rubbed his ankles, the loss of feeling persisted while he walked, and he had to remount.

To his frozen senses, it seemed hours later that the horses nosed downward into a gully, and the sound of the wind died abruptly. Carl pulled Sherando to a stop and peered through his ice-encrusted lashes.

The horses had brought them to a narrow ravine, an ancient waterway, protected from the driving wind by an overhang of sandstone. Carl climbed swiftly out of the saddle, gripping both sets of reins in his left hand. He ducked under Sherando’s neck, and stamping his feet as he walked, led the horses further under the overhang. Tying the reins to a creosote bush, he limped over to Ellen’s side, his cold muscles cramping as he used them.

Ellen awkwardly dismounted and rubbed her hands together to move the blood into her fingers.

“I’m glad we’re out of the wind,” she said, her voice quivering as she shook with cold. “I reckon I’m near froze.”

Carl helped her walk to a little cup-like depression in the wall of the stream bed and sat her down out of the storm. Returning to the horses, he unsaddled Dun Baby, patting her affectionately. “You’re a good horse,” he muttered. “A stayer like your rider.”

He turned to Sherando and rubbed the gelding’s muzzle and neck. “Let me get your saddle off, boy,” he said.

His hand brushed against the blanket rolled behind the saddle, and he remembered the prompting to bring it along. Untying the blanket and the bag of jerky, Carl unsaddled the gray, and did his best to make the horses comfortable before he returned to Ellen’s side.

“Sometimes I get smart,” he told her. “Put this blanket around you while I see if these bushes will burn. And help yourself to the jerky.”

Carl left the overhang and went out into the ravine to collect brush. Snow fell steadily into the little valley but the wind was cut off, and he could walk up the gully without fighting his way through high-piled drifts. The sky glowed with diffused moonlight, scattered by the clouds and the million snowflakes, and Carl could see where he was going, although he knew it was midnight or later.

Under one bank of the ravine he found an animal burrow lined with dry twigs and soft leaves. He cleaned it out and stuffed it all into his pockets for tinder. A few yards farther on, he came to an old scrub oak with several dead lower limbs that would be dry on the inside. He broke off as many of the dead branches as he could carry, then turned back to the overhang.

“Wish I had an ax,” he told Ellen. “There’s a big oak up the gully a ways. It would keep us in wood for a couple of days, if need be. Hush, the way these Colorado storms blow, we might need it.”

He set to work building the fire, keeping it small, but big enough to warm them, then struck his knife against an old piece of flint he had brought home from the war. When the sparks landed in the tinder, he blew them gently to life, nursing the baby flames with bits of dry grass and leaves, then twigs and finger-sized branches.

When the blaze had a strength of its own, he got up and stepped back to join Ellen. As he let himself collapse beside her, Ellen offered him a piece of jerky. He took it and held it up.

“Seems a shame to eat this critter after it walked all the way across the U-nited States. A hungry man ain’t got much choice, I reckon.” He tossed the jerky into the air and caught it.

“Eat it, Carl. It’ll give you strength.” Ellen shrugged the blanket off her shoulders and threw it around him. “You look froze, so you’d best take the blanket. I’ll get close to the fire.”

“Ellen, I ain’t going to get warm and leave you out in the cold. You take the blanket and get some sleep. I’m going to be fine.” He held out the woven wool.

“You’re
loco
, Carl Owen! I ain’t about to let you freeze yourself on my account. Get over here and we’ll share the blanket.”

“You ain’t afraid of what folks will say?” He took a bite of meat.

“In the middle of a blizzard? Not any more. I reckon this storm in this country makes the rules a mite different.” She eyed him sideways. “Besides, I have your word.”

Carl smiled, then yawned as fatigue swept over him. “And I’m a man of my word.” He scooted over next to the girl and enveloped both of them in the blanket. “My brother Peter used to tell me I snored louder ‘n a mess of locusts. I never believed him, but I best warn you, just in case he wasn’t lyin’.”

She laughed. “That’s silly, to worry about snoring. I always felt like my pa had a right pleasing kind of snore. I missed it all the time he was gone to the fighting. When he got back, even the tool shed was home, once he got to snoring away at night.”

Carl lay back against the rock and earth wall. “Strange what little things will bring a body comfort, ain’t it?” He chewed on the jerky. “A fire goes a long way to help a man forget his troubles.” He took another bite. “You feel the same?”

There was no response from Ellen, and Carl turned to look. Her head nodded downward, her eyes closed. Carl put his arm around her and eased her head back onto his shoulder. “You’re all tuckered out,” he whispered. “It’s good you sleep.”

~~~

Ellen woke to the touch of pale sunrise on her cheek, which rose and fell with the motion of Carl’s chest beneath her head. Something held her from moving out of the warmth of the blanket, and she discovered his arm around her shoulders.

She stiffened, then relaxed as she recalled her invitation to Carl to share the blanket.
I ain’t never been this close to him before,
she thought, and remembered with a start the night she had tripped from the wagon and landed in his arms. But he had been another woman’s man then, and now he was free, at least he would be once his injured pride healed over. She bit her lip and eased her head off Carl’s chest. She wasn’t free.

I ain’t been free since the day Rod Owen said he’d give us food and a wagon if we’d go west with his family
, Ellen thought, a sour taste rising in her mouth. She closed her eyes.
Pa and Ma didn’t tell me I was part of the bargain
. But she knew, when they said, “We’ve picked out a husband for you,” that Rod Owen had required her hand in marriage to his son as payment in full.

James ain’t free, neither
. The thought brought Ellen’s eyes wide open. She’d heard he was courting Jessica Bingham, and wasn’t happy that his pa had made a match for him.
He don’t hate me, nor dislike me
, she reminded herself, swallowing her bitterness.
I simply ain’t Jessica
.

She caught her breath, and held it so she wouldn’t cry out. When she thought of James, no stir of passion tightened her body, no urgency bid her hold him in her arms. There was affection all right, like for a brother or a good friend, but no strong heartbeat or racing, heated blood that would melt her natural, modest barriers in their marriage bed.

Who could not love James? All the girls in Mount Jackson said he was handsome, with his crisp black hair and strong mouth. He was respectful, kind, and willing to work long, wretched hours to advance a good cause. Over time he had seemed resigned to the fact that they would wed sooner or later. Who would not love James?
I would not
.

Ellen turned her head, slowly, carefully, breathlessly, so as not to wake Carl. She gazed at his stubbled cheek and jaw line, which filled her vision. She took a shallow breath, and looked for signs of hurt or suffering. His sleep seemed peaceful, undisturbed. All she could see of his unlined face convinced her that there was no pain today. He slept deeply, looking younger than his twenty years.

She inched her face back until she could see his eyes, finely chiseled lids rimmed with light lashes closed over eyes as blue as a Colorado afternoon sky. There was no pain in the hair-shadowed forehead, in the molded ears, in the sculpted nose, or in the slightly parted lips, full and chapped from the cold. There was no pain in his countenance.

Carl ain't James
, she thought,
and James ain't Carl. I would love this man
. Ellen suddenly felt overwhelming peace come over her, and she allowed her hand to sneak up to cuddle his cheek. The stubble of his beard, which blurred the strong line of his jaw, was soft under her fingertips. His eyelids flickered, then opened. He was instantly awake, and his hand trapped hers against his cheek.

“Good morning, Ellen. You’ve a mighty gentle way of waking a man. Was I snoring?”

“No.” He had hard calluses on his hand. “The sun is up. We’d best travel while the weather holds.” She pulled at her hand and he released it. Her face coloring, she sat up. “It’s still cloudy, and we’ve got a long ride.” She shook off Carl’s arm and stood up, brushing the wrinkles out of her skirt.

He grinned, looking up at her. “I reckon I’m rumpled and crushed, but you look like a bouquet of fall flowers, rich and red and full of spunk.” Carl got to his feet. “I’ll see to the horses.

~~~

The clouds hovered low and dark, but the sun shone through enough for Carl to get his bearings as they started off. The plain shimmered white in the weak sunlight, the glare broken only by the dusky tips of sagebrush poking through the snow.

Sherando and Dun Baby struggled in the drifts, tiring easily from the exposure and lack of feed. Carl stopped often, rubbing the horses’ legs to warm them.

They passed Carl’s cabin in the late afternoon, and Carl saw Ellen’s stealthy look at the house as they passed.
I’d give a nickel to know her mind
, he thought.
What does she think of me, after all I done that’s hurt her feelings?

The creek was slushy as they rode through, and Carl dismounted to wipe the horses’ legs once more.

“It’s a mile, mile-and-a-half to Rulon’s” he said. He looked around at the darkening sky, mounted, and reached for Ellen’s reins. “I reckon it’s going to blow again. This time I ain’t going to lose you.”

Carl kicked Sherando up the side of the creek of the creek bed and onto the flat. He headed for the trees, pulling Dun Baby and Ellen along with him. The mare tossed her head and fought the lead, but settled down as she came into the shelter of the oaks.