The Gazebo. Kimberly Cates

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СКАЧАТЬ but her eyes never left his. Grudgingly, he allowed her credit for a measure of pride, no matter how foolish.

      He was a Kiowa warrior. She was merely a woman.

      In the torpid heat of a late summer afternoon, they stood there for one endless moment, linked by misery, frustration and the birth of an awareness neither of them was willing to acknowledge. The mule, as pathetic a creature as Jonah could recall seeing, even here in the east—began to graze on the dried grass at the edge of the road. Jonah told himself he could stand in the middle of the road as long as she could. Unfortunately, he hadn’t eaten in far too long and he needed to make water.

      So he did something to break the stalemate. Lifting his head, he closed his eyes and loosed the fierce, wild war cry that had once echoed across the plains.

      Startled, the mule threw back its head and brayed, adding to the cacophony. A pair of crows erupted from the top of a dead pine. Jonah had the pleasure of seeing the woman’s face grow pale as milk from a starving cow.

      It had been more than ten years since Carrie had heard such a cry. She had almost managed to block it out, to the point of renting a man who was part Indian. Now it came roaring back like a relentless nightmare. On that dreadful night so long ago she had barely escaped with her life. Hundreds of others, including both her parents, had been slaughtered, victims of the Minnesota Massacre, a wild rampage that had lasted more than a week.

      Taking two steps forward, she jabbed him hard in the belly with the rifle barrel. “Don’t you ever do that again,” she hissed, as wild color rushed up to replace her pallor. “You can walk till you drop in your tracks for all I care, then I’ll drag you the rest of the way and feed what’s left of your miserable carcass to the hogs!”

      Carry didn’t have a hog, but as a threat, it was about the worst she could think of. She only hoped he believed her. Having seen him up close—seen his eyes, which didn’t match the rest of him, even as they simmered with hatred—she was even more conflicted than when she’d stopped to offer him a ride.

      The man was a prisoner, she reminded herself. An Indian, no different from the ones who had murdered nearly an entire settlement. He might not have been a part of that particular event, but he’d done something awful, else he wouldn’t have been in jail. Given half a chance, he’d probably wrap the rope around her neck and strangle her.

      Just as well she’d had second thoughts about letting him ride with her. She was sorely tempted to turn around and drag him back to the jail. He could rot there for all she cared. The trouble was, she needed him—needed someone, at least, and he was the best she could do. Unless she was willing to wait another year to get her first field planted, it was this man or nothing.

      With a show of boldness she was far from feeling, she tested the knot, nodded, and climbed back up in the cart, wincing as she settled her tender backside onto the hard, splintery seat. Her hand throbbed all the way up to her shoulder—she had a hardened criminal on the other end of a rope, and she was just now starting to wonder if she’d have the courage to let him off the leash long enough to do any work.

      This might not have been one of her better ideas.

      Just before she slapped Sorry into motion again, she turned and glared over her shoulder. “Out of the kindness of my heart, I was willing to let you ride. Well, you flat out used up any kindness I had to offer, so you can just damned well crawl, for all I care.”

      As if he could understand a word she was saying. All the same, she said it because it needed saying. At least God, if He happened to be listening, would know her heart was in the right place.

      Over her shoulder, she spoke again in a loud voice, enunciating each word clearly. “And just so you don’t go getting any crazy notions, I can shoot the toenail off a one-legged crow at a hundred yards. I’ll shoot you dead if you try to run away, you understand me?”

      Jonah understood every word the woman spoke, but he had long since learned the advantage of keeping such knowledge to himself. The woman was weak and foolish. She lied. She was also afraid of him, but Jonah did not make war on women.

      Uttering not a word, he weighed his options. He had been away from his farm for twelve days. His horses were pastured. There was grass. There was a creek for water. One of his mares was due to foal soon. He needed to be with her, for she was a foolish animal, but first he must retrieve the deed to his property and the bill of sale for his stock before his parole ended, which would be when the circuit judge arrived. Even then, his chances of convincing a judge of his honesty were low. He had paid for everything he possessed, but there was no way he could prove the money he had used had not been stolen.

      Overpowering his captor would be easy, but would accomplish nothing. They’d been traveling somewhat west of north. By now he was beginning to recognize a few familiar landmarks. When they passed the one-lane road that led to his own property, he focused his mind on the thought that one way or another he would reclaim his freedom. He had not come this far and survived this much to give up now. He had no way of knowing where the woman was taking him, but he knew it could not be too much farther. She had not brought along food.

      So he walked behind the cart, breathing in the sweet, dusty air of freedom. While his mind turned over various ways he might prove his innocence, his gaze rested on the straight, narrow back of the woman. When she lifted her ugly straw hat he saw that her hair was thick and pale and shorter than his own. Only children had hair so short. She was not a child, but she was young. Even with two good hands she would be no match for the willful mule. The mule knew it. The woman still held onto her illusions.

      He studied her bandaged hand and wondered how grave the injury was. Though her arms were pink, he thought it was from the sun, not the telltale signs of an inflammation streaking up from under her wound. He had seen people die from such an inflammation.

      Jonah didn’t particularly want his captor to die. He had heard the jailer tell her she must feed him. By remaining her prisoner now, he could build his strength and have a far better chance of escaping.

      Shortly before they turned off the main road, she stopped to allow the mule to drink from a broad creek, beckoning for him to do likewise. He refused to be grateful, even when he was able to use the opportunity to step behind a massive gum tree and relieve himself. When the rope between them pulled even tighter so that he could barely lift his hands, he muttered under his breath. His trousers securely buttoned again, he moved back into the clearing just as the woman emerged from behind another tree, adjusting her skirt. For reasons he didn’t even try to understand, Jonah felt like laughing.

      She had turned off the main road a mile back, following a smaller road until they turned off once more. Jonah fixed in his mind the landmarks. Eventually they came into a clearing. Passing by a cabin that was scarcely larger than his jail cell, she stopped outside a barn that looked as if it would take only one hard wind to collapse.

      “You’ll sleep in there.” She pointed first at the prisoner and then at the gaunt, tin-roofed structure with a collapsed shed at one end.

      Jonah could have told her he would be far more comfortable sleeping out under the stars, but that would require speaking her language. Silence could work to his advantage. He was still attached to the cart, though he could easily have freed himself, but to what end?

      Instead, he waited for the woman to unhitch the mule. When she turned to look at him, a frown on her face, he saw that she was even younger than he had first thought. Turning abruptly, she picked up a stick, marched across the clearing and drew a line in the dirt surrounding the house. Turning back, she said, “I’m going to untie you now, but you’re not to step over this line, you hear?”

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