Читать книгу Jeb Hunter's Bride - Ana Seymour - Страница 11

Jeb Hunter had been right about the dust. It didn’t take even the hour or two he had predicted for Kerry and Patrick to realize that moving along in the middle of a train of nearly fifty wagons was a grimy business. The first part of the trail out from Westport was level, easy going—the “sea of grass” her father had told them about during those long evenings of planning back in New York. But the endless procession of wagons had worn the actual trail down to bare ground, and each wagon churned up its own little dirt cyclone as they rolled along. Following the example of some of the more experienced travelers, Kerry and Patrick tied bandannas over their faces to keep out the worst of it.

“I guess I won’t have to rub dirt on my cheeks any more,” Kerry joked to her brother as they sat side by side on the wagon seat. “There’s enough natural accumulation of the stuff to disguise the President of the United States.”

“I wish papa had bought us horses instead of these stupid beasts,” her brother grumbled. “Then I could ride out into the fresh air like Captain Hunter.”

All morning they’d watched their wagon master riding from one wagon to the next, checking equipment, giving advice and generally elevating spirits as his flock took their scary first step beyond civilization.

“Horses don’t stand up well enough pulling a heavy load. Papa said it had to be mules or oxen, and oxen were cheaper.”

“If he’d bought mules, I could at least have ridden some of the time.”

Jeb Hunter was riding toward them. “I’ll not have you criticize Papa’s decisions, Patrick,” Kerry said absently, her eyes on their guide. It was his extraordinary, almost golden eyes that drew her frequent glances, she’d decided, but she had to admit that the face that went along with the eyes was ruggedly handsome. He had creases along each cheek that made his expression look severe except when he smiled. He didn’t seem to be a man who smiled often.

“Are you listening to me, sis?” her brother asked.

“What?”

“I asked if you thought we might switch the oxen for mules when we reach the changing station.”

Jeb pulled up to them, and at the very last minute Kerry remembered to tug down the brim of her big felt hat. “How are you boys getting along?” he called.

“Fine,” Kerry mumbled. What was wrong with her? She must be even more tired than she thought. Captain Hunter had asked them a simple question, and she’d felt it inside her like a jolt. He was a fine figure of a man, that was for sure, but she had no business getting jittery around him like a maid at her first dance.

“I wish my papa had bought mules,” Patrick complained, drawing the captain’s eyes away from her. Kerry let out a long breath.

“You’ve got good animals there, Patrick. You might be thankful to have oxen when your arms start aching from those reins. They’re much easier to handle.”

“My arms don’t ache, and I’d give anything to be able to ride out like you do.”

Jeb smiled. “One of these days after everyone’s settled you can ride the rounds with me on the back of my horse. Or, even better, you can ride Storm by yourself for a spell and I’ll climb on up there with your brother.”

Patrick darted a glance at his sister, whose eyes had widened in dismay. “Ah…that’s all right,” he answered. “I don’t mind it so very much.”

Jeb seemed a little puzzled at the boy’s quick refusal. “Well, the offer’s open. And, of course, you can always get out and walk along out in the grass. You and your brother can take turns driving and walking to get a little time out of the dust.”

Kerry found her eyes wandering to the way Captain Hunter’s strong thighs gripped the side of his horse. With a puff of irritation, she forced her thoughts back to the trip. “Do you really think the oxen are a better choice, Captain Hunter?” She was hoping that the captain’s opinion would validate her father’s careful preparations.

“There’re folk who take both sides,” Jeb answered, “but I might go for the oxen for just one reason.”

“What’s that?” Patrick asked.

Jeb hesitated a moment, then said. “It’s a long way to California, and things don’t always go as we plan. If we find ourselves up against it, an ox makes a sight tastier meal than a mule.”

Patrick and Kerry looked down in dismay at the four black hulks that plodded along in front of them. As Captain Hunter tipped his hat and started back to the Burnetts’ wagon, Patrick turned to his sister and said with a weak grin, “At least it’s not fish.”

They stopped for nooning early in deference to the first-time nerves and muscle aches of the new pioneers. Kerry was relieved to climb down from the wagon and stretch her back. She felt as if she had spent the morning inside a butter churn. Patrick so far seemed unaffected by the jolting. He’d been up and down from the wagon a dozen times already, sometimes walking alongside, sometimes running out into the long grass to get a look at the line of wagons stretching out as far as the eye could see.

As Kerry took out two apples and some jerky for their lunch, her brother came walking sedately back to the wagon with a visitor. Kerry recognized the man as their neighbor to the front—the argonaut, Captain Hunter had called him. She tugged on her hat and tensed her shoulders. She’d be glad when she’d met everyone on the train and had been generally accepted as a male.

In spite of her nervousness, the introductions went smoothly once again. Kerry let out a breath of relief and allowed herself to study Scott Haskell from underneath her hat. He was not as handsome as their trail guide, but his face was pleasant, instantly likable.

“I wanted to come back and meet you boys last night,” he was saying, “but I didn’t get in until late.”

“It wouldn’t have mattered how late you came,” Patrick replied cheerfully. “We were up all night trying to get the wagon packed up.”

Haskell’s bushy blond eyebrows shot up. “All night! You boys must be even more tired than I am after working all day yesterday at Iron Joe’s.”

“Iron Joe’s?” Patrick asked.

“The blacksmith, lad. I was a blacksmith up in Pittsburgh, and I earned my team of mules by shoeing just about every other blamed mule on this train.”

“Are you going to be a blacksmith in California, Mr. Haskell?”

“Call me Scott, lad. And you too, Kiernan.” He gave Kerry what started out to be a quick glance, then seemed to catch himself and let his eyes rest on her face.

“So are you?” Patrick persisted.

“What was that, boy?”

“Are you going to be a blacksmith out West?”

Finally he shifted his gaze back to Patrick. “No, sirree. No more smoky bellows for me. No more iron filings itching my hide like a swarm of marsh flies. I’m planning to be rich, Patrick, my lad. The only kind of metal I’m going to be dealing with anymore is gold—pure, yellow gold.”

“Golly.” Patrick was looking up at Scott Haskell as if he had just crossed the Missouri River on his bare feet.

Kerry felt a twinge of impatience. All she needed was for Patrick to get fancy ideas about gold prospecting instead of working with her to set up the ranch. Once they reached California she would need her brother’s help more than ever. “We wish you luck, Mr. Haskell, I’m sure,” she said briskly. “But first of all we have to get there. And we should probably be tending to our lunch before Captain Hunter calls for us to get moving again.”

He turned that disconcerting gaze on her once more, and this time a secret little smile played around his lips. “You’re absolutely right, young man. I’m going to head back to my wagon this minute. But I’ll be looking forward to getting to know you boys better at the meeting tonight.”

Kerry remembered that Captain Hunter had told them that there would be a formal meeting that evening to discuss any problems that might have arisen during their first day. “We’ll be there,” she said wearily. And after the meeting, she would finally get some sleep.

This was the sixth spring that Jeb had set out with a new band of travelers. Every year there were two or three outfits that headed back by the time they reached Fort Kearney. He usually could predict which ones they would be after the first day on the trail.

This trip it would definitely be the Wagners. The man’s wife had not stopped complaining the entire day. And perhaps the Pendletons. They had come all the way from England, but both looked as if the journey was beginning to be too much for them. He wasn’t sure about the Irish boys. They certainly had the spirit for it, but it was a tough thing to leave behind a father barely cold in his grave and head out across a continent. He’d found himself thinking about them frequently during this first long day.

He had to spread his attention around—there were always adjustments to be made at the beginning and these people had paid equally for his help. But he’d swung back to the Gallivan wagon as often as he could. Young Patrick was refreshingly enthusiastic and observant. He’d even exclaimed over the different clouds of dust tossed up by the mule teams versus the oxen. The older boy had less to say, but there was a determined expression on his handsome face that intrigued Jeb. When he’d tried to engage the young Irishman in conversation, the lad’s answers had been curt and uncommunicative. But somehow Jeb sensed a great vitality behind those vivid blue eyes.

He watched the two brothers as they made their way to the edge of the circle of settlers who had gathered by the big fire Jeb had built a short ways out in the prairie. He had not circled the wagons this first day. That could wait until they were into Indian country.

In the early-spring twilight he could see the faces of his charges. Good folk, generally—steady and determined. He scanned the crowd, but his eyes kept turning back to the striking faces of the two Irish lads.

“Patrick, Kiernan! Come on up front,” he called to them finally. “We never got a chance to introduce you to everyone.”

Patrick looked at his sister, then gave her elbow a comforting squeeze. Kerry closed her eyes briefly. She was exhausted. But she had wanted to get through with introductions. It might as well be now. With her hat tugged down and concentrating on not swaying her hips, she stalked around the circle to the front. “These are the Gallivan brothers,” Jeb was saying, “and I hope all you folks will do your best to make them feel welcome.”

Jeb didn’t dwell on the presentation. There were a lot of issues to cover, and everyone was tired, so he nodded to Kerry and Patrick to take a seat and started in on the meeting.

Kerry sank heavily to the ground. The few minutes of standing in front of the crowd had used up the last bit of strength she had. She had fully expected that any minute someone—a sharp-eyed child, probably—would point to her and cry out, “Why, that’s a girl.” But no one had raised a voice. She was now officially Kiernan, one of the “Gallivan brothers.” And she could sleep a little easier tonight.

After the meeting, Scott Haskell stepped into place beside her as she made her way back up the line to their wagon. Patrick, not yet out of energy, had run ahead of her. The sky had darkened and was slowly becoming spangled with stars. Her father had said that they would have spectacular nights out on the prairie, but the real thing was far beyond his descriptions.

“It looks like our good weather is going to hold,” Haskell observed, matching his pace to hers.

Kerry’s face was hidden by the darkness, so she relaxed as she answered sleepily, “The sky’s unbelievable. I never knew stars could be so bright.”

“We’re lucky. Some trains start out in spring rains that don’t stop for days. They end up eating mud the rest of the trip.”

“My brother and I are prepared to eat anything we have to as long as we get to California.”

Haskell chuckled. “You are two mighty determined lads. How old are you, anyway, Kiernan?”

“Nineteen.”

Haskell nodded. “You’re not too big a fellow, are you?” he asked casually.

“Ah…no. Folks aren’t so tall where I come from.”

“Patrick looks as if he’ll be a strapping gent someday. He’s already almost as tall as you are.” Haskell’s blond hair glinted in the starlight, and he had that same secret smile on his face that had made Kerry uneasy when they’d met earlier in the day.

“I guess he’ll be bigger than I. Our father was a tall man.” She was finding the conversation a little odd. Scott Haskell had barely met them. What did he care about her brother’s height—or hers?

He looked at her steadily in the darkness for a long moment Then he gave a little nod and switched subjects. “I understand you’re headed for the Sonoma valley.”

Kerry shrugged her shoulders to ease out the tension. “Yes. Where are you headed, Mr. Haskell?”

“Scott, please,” he said with a smile.

“Scott.”

“I reckon I’ll look around a bit—see where the veins are running richest. Probably south of San Francisco somewheres.”

Kerry started to reply when suddenly her foot, clumsy in Patrick’s oversize boot, hit a large rock that had been camouflaged by the darkness. She fell off balance directly toward her companion. Scott turned quickly and caught her with strong, sure hands at each shoulder. “I’m sorry,” Kerry faltered, embarrassed. She righted herself, grimacing as her ankle gave a nasty twinge.

“Are you all right?” Scott asked.

“Yes, just…I’m sorry.” She took a step away from his grasp, giving a little gasp as her foot hit the ground. The twinge was turning into a definite throb. “I seem to have twisted an ankle.”

Scott reached out and took her slender hands. He pulled them toward him and turned them over slowly studying them in the starlight. Then he looked into her eyes. “Perhaps those heavy boots are too much for what must be delicate little feet…Miss Gallivan.”

Under the smears of dirt on her face, Kerry blanched. “I…what do you mean?”

Scott smiled. “Don’t worry, lass. Your secret is safe with me, though I can’t imagine how anyone on this train can actually believe that you’re a male.”

Kerry pulled her hands away from him. “When did you know?” she asked dully.

“The minute I saw those beautiful blue eyes,” Scott answered cheerfully. “I couldn’t believe that God would be so cruel as to waste them on a man.” As her features became more dejected he added gently, “Your face is well disguised by the dirt and floppy hat, lass, but I saw your hands. Those slender wrists couldn’t belong to a man.”

Kerry moved another step backward, only to be reminded once again of the pain in her leg. “The lawyer in St. Louis told us that they wouldn’t take a lone woman,” she explained, a little breathless with nerves at her sudden discovery and the pain.

“And you wanted to come anyway.”

“Yes. My brother and I have to get to California.”

Scott nodded, suddenly serious. “You’re a brave lass, Kiernan. Is it Kiernan?”

“Kerry.”

“Ah. That’s better. You’re a brave lass, Kerry, and, as I said, I won’t be turning you in. In fact, I hope you’ll consider me a friend.”

His eyes were kind and his hand gentle as he gave her shoulder a little squeeze. “If you will keep my secret, Mr. Haskell, I will definitely consider you a friend.”

“Good.” He cocked his head. “But you’ll have to learn to call me Scott.”

She smiled, then sighed. “I guess I’d better, Scott, because I’m already going to take advantage of your friendship.”

“Just ask.”

Giving her foot a rueful glance, she told him, “I’m afraid I’m going to need some assistance getting back to my wagon.”

Scott frowned. “You are really hurt, then. Damnation, what luck. I wonder if anyone in the group is trained in medicine?”

Kerry put both her hands up in protest. “No, please. I’ll be fine. If you’ll just help me to my wagon, I’m sure by tomorrow this’ll be back to normal.”

Scott hesitated. “You don’t want anyone looking at you too closely. Is that it?”

Kerry tightened her jaw against the pain that was beginning to radiate in rings up her leg. Scott grasped her elbows as she swayed. Her hands clutched at his forearms. “Will you help me? Please?” It was not a plea that came easy to her, but at the moment the pain was overriding her usual sense of independence.

Scott bent his head to see her eyes in the starlight, then without a word scooped her up in his brawny arms.

“You don’t have to carry me,” she protested.

Scott shook his head. “You weigh no more than a feather, lass. I could carry you from here to California without breaking a sweat.”

The ache pulsating upward from her foot obliterated all sense of embarrassment she might have felt at this unexpected intimacy with a man she had barely met. “Thank you,” she murmured. Then added in a tired voice, “Tomorrow I’ll be back on my feet.”

But the next day there was no way Kerry would be able to walk and take a turn away from the dust. Her foot had swollen so that even Patrick’s large boot would not fit over it. Patrick had bound it in rags over which Kerry had painfully pulled on a large wool sock.

Scott appeared at breakfast to ask about her injury. He offered to make a bed for her in the back of his much roomier wagon, but she refused, accepting only his offer of help in climbing up onto her wagon seat.

Kerry told no one else of her mishap, but there seemed to be some mysterious network of communication among the wagons, and before they were a half hour out on the trail, Jeb Hunter rode back to them, his forehead creased with worry.

Without preliminaries he said, “I understand you hurt your leg last night, Kiernan.”

She nodded, keeping her face down under the big hat. After her discovery by Haskell, her confidence in her disguise had disappeared. “Just an ankle twist—nothing serious,” she mumbled.

Jeb shook his head. An injury already—the very first day out. He hoped it wasn’t an omen. “Are you sure it’s not broken? We won’t exactly be running into any doctors between here and Fort Kearney. I guess I’d better have a look at it.”

Kerry tensed, and Patrick, riding alongside her in the box, gave her a reassuring pat on the knee. “My brother will be fine,” he said. “Honestly. You don’t have to worry about it”

Jeb hesitated. The boys’ independence was admirable, but the health of his band was his responsibility. He’d seen broken legs fester and turn rotten. “I’ll just check it over to be sure,” he said in a tone that left no room for argument. “I’ll come around when we stop for the nooning. In the meantime, Patrick, why don’t you take over the reins and let Kiernan climb in the back to lie down—get that leg propped up.”

“There’s no room back there to lie—” Patrick began, then stopped as he saw the slight shake of his sister’s head. “All right, Captain. We’ll do just as you say.”

“Good lad.” Hunter wheeled his horse and headed back along the train.

“Now what?” Patrick asked after a moment.

Kerry had turned her head and was watching the guide’s retreating form with an indignant expression. She was starting to get a little tired of Captain Hunter’s high-handed ways. Her father had paid good money to hire his services, as had the other people on the train, yet he acted as if he were the one who had the final say in everything.

“I’m not sure I like that man. He thinks he’s the boss.”

“Well, he is the boss in a way,” Patrick said reasonably. “Everyone on the train has to do what he says.”

Kerry turned around on the seat to face her brother. “We’re paying him, remember?”

“But he’s responsible for all of us.”

“Well, he’s not responsible for…” She sputtered a moment, letting her temper build. “For my feet!” she concluded, looking down at her bandaged leg.

Patrick shook his head. “I think he’s going to want to look at your ankle—one way or another.”

Kerry thought for a minute. “As soon as we stop for lunch, I want you to run up and fetch Mr. Haskell—Scott Tell him I need to take him up on his offer.”

Patrick frowned. “What offer?”

“Of help. If my foot’s already been looked at by an expert, Captain Hunter can’t insist on treating it.”

“Mr. Haskell’s an expert?”

Kerry’s chin lifted and her smile held a touch of defiance. “He shoes horses, doesn’t he?”

Scott had agreed to help deflect the attention of the wagon train captain from Kerry’s obviously feminine legs, but only with the condition that she let him really check on the state of her ankle.

“I’m telling you, it’s nothing,” she said, her dirtsmeared face growing red. She’d been without a mother since she was a child and had grown up in a household with two males. She wasn’t used to anyone seeing a portion of her body that should in all decency be covered up.

“Sorry, lass,” Scott answered with a charming grin as he climbed up on the side rail to lift her down from the wagon seat. “If I’m to help out with this little deception of yours, I’ve got to do it with a clean conscience. What if your ankle’s actually broken?”

“It can’t be broken,” Kerry answered firmly. “I can’t afford for it to be.”

Scott chuckled and bobbled her a bit in his arms as he awkwardly stepped backward down to the ground. “It wouldn’t dare,” he clarified.

“That’s right.”

His chuckle turned into a laugh. Against the hard surface of his chest, Kerry felt warm and comforted—the way she felt when she used to crawl up into her father’s broad lap as a child. She put the thought out of her head. She hadn’t needed the comfort of her father’s lap for some years now, and she certainly didn’t need the warmth of a man’s arms. She was just feeling a little weak because of her injury and because the throbbing had kept her awake for yet another sleepless night.

“Well, we’ll just take a quick look, lass. On a strictly professional basis, I assure you.” Now his blue eyes smiled at her. “In my capacity as your…ah…veterinarian.”

Patrick had finished watering the oxen and came up behind them. “Is my brother going to be all right?”

“How about you lift down one of those boxes for your sister to sit on, lad,” Scott answered.

Patrick’s eyes widened and he turned to Kerry. “He knows?”

Kerry nodded. “It seems that my disguise was not convincing to Mr. Haskell. But he has promised to keep our secret.”

“Criminy, Kerry. I told you this wasn’t going to work. It’s not going to work, is it, Mr. Haskell?” Patrick kicked the wagon wheel with his boot.

“It’s Scott,” he said, still holding Kerry lightly in his arms, then added gently, “the box, lad.” Patrick pulled a packing crate from the back of the wagon and positioned it where Scott could easily set Kerry. After she was situated, Scott stepped back and continued, “I can’t answer you for certain, Patrick, but no one else has questioned your sister’s identity. She’s a smart lass. She may be able to pull it off.”

“As long as Jeb Hunter doesn’t insist on seeing my ankle,” Kerry added grimly, stretching her leg out in front of her. Her foot, bandaged with strips of cloth she had torn from a petticoat last night, stuck awkwardly out the end of her too short, borrowed trousers.

“Maybe he won’t even come around,” Patrick suggested hopefully, but before he had even finished the words, all three lifted their heads at the sound of a horse riding toward them. The wagon master was approaching their wagon, his eyes on Kerry.

Scott pushed back the brim of his hat, then stood awaiting Jeb Hunter’s arrival with crossed arms. “Afternoon, Captain,” he said in a loud voice, drawing the trail guide’s gaze.

Kerry twirled around on the box so that her bad leg was partially out of view.

“Afternoon,” Jeb answered gruffly, pulling his horse to a stop a few feet away. “I came to see the lad’s bad ankle.”

He dismounted and walked toward them, but Scott took a step closer, cutting off his approach. “He says it’s fine.”

Kerry watched as the two men came to a stop opposite each other. Something in their demeanor made their positions look more like a confrontation than a conversation.

“I know,” Hunter said, with just a brush of irritation in his voice. “But I’m going to check it out just to be sure.”

He started to take a step around Scott, who reached out and put a hand on his arm. “I’ve looked at it myself,” he said. “There’s no need for you to bother.”

“Scott’s an expert,” Patrick chimed in.

Jeb Hunter looked down at Scott’s restraining hand. “An expert?”

Scott removed his hand and spoke in conciliatory tones. “I’ve worked with this kind of injury before,” Scott said. “Ankle sprains and the like. I think Kiernan’s going to be just fine if he keeps off it for three or four days.”

For the first time since her injury, Kerry was oblivious to the pain as she watched the exchange between the two men. They were not destined to be friends, that was clear. And it looked as if it would take little to set off a spark of animosity between them. “I wish everyone would stop talking about me and my blasted foot,” she said, making her voice as forceful as she could in its low range. “Mr. Haskell says it’s fine, and it’s practically stopped hurting. So I’d like to just forget the whole incident.”

Jeb Hunter looked over at her and frowned. “Did you get it properly bandaged?”

“Yes. As we said, Mr. Haskell is something of an expert.”

He took a step backward and turned his glance back to Scott. “The lad seems to take your word for it, Haskell, and it was nice of you to help out. But in the future I’d appreciate it if you remembered that I’m the one responsible for the health of the people on this train.”

Scott gave a bland smile. “Sure, Captain. We all know that you’re the boss man.”

Hunter seemed to hesitate for a moment, trying to decide if Scott’s comment had carried hidden sarcasm, but he evidently decided not to press the issue. “Fine. We’ll be getting started again here in about twenty minutes.” He nodded to Patrick, then turned with a last caution to Kerry. “Stay off that foot, then, Kiernan.”

When he mounted up and rode away Kerry discovered that she’d been holding in a deep breath. She let it out slowly. “Well, that’s one crisis past.”

Scott dropped to one knee beside her. “But I’m still going to look at your foot, lass.”

She winced in pain and embarrassment as he deftly pushed the trousers up her slender leg and began to unwind the cloth strips. Her ankle was puffy and grayish blue. Scott gave a low whistle, then looked up at her with a wink. “Now I’ve heard of a nicely turned ankle before…”

Kerry laughed and found herself relaxing in spite of herself under the influence of Scott Haskell’s charm. By the time he had gingerly felt along each side of her ankle, declared that there appeared to be no broken bones and rebandaged it, she had lost all her self-consciousness and was enjoying his banter. Though his detection of her secret had undermined her confidence in her disguise, it felt good to know that she had at least one ally on the train besides Patrick. She was determined to get to California on her own and wasn’t looking for help from any quarter. But it didn’t hurt to know that once in a while she could let down her guard and be assured of a friendly face.