McKettrick's Choice - Linda Lael Miller [128]
Breathless, Lorelei scrambled to obey. Melina followed, and Sorrowful belly-crawled to join them. Lorelei waited for an arrow to thud into the dirt, inches from her nose.
Nothing happened.
Lorelei’s hands began to sweat where she gripped the rifle. She watched Mr. Cavanagh’s boots go by as he paced beside the wagon, swearing a colorful oath every once in a while.
“Do you see them?” Lorelei finally found the nerve to ask.
“No!” Mr. Cavanagh barked.
“Shouldn’t you be under the wagon, with us? It wouldn’t do at all if you got shot.”
“Hush up, Miss Lorelei,” he said. “I am tryin’ to think.”
Lorelei, for her part, was trying not to think.
“It’s the cattle,” Melina whispered. “They want the cattle, just like Holt said they would.”
“Well, maybe if he just gives them a few—”
Melina looked surprised by this suggestion. “He won’t.”
“That seems unreasonable.”
“He didn’t travel all the way to Reynosa so he could give away the herd, Lorelei!”
Lorelei sniffed. “You needn’t be so brusque about it.”
“Give them some of yours, then,” Melina challenged.
“I will,” Lorelei decided. “They can have several. By the time they cook them, and eat and dance around the fire the way they do, we’ll be safe and sound in Laredo.” With that, she started to crawl out from under the wagon, bent on going right out there and presenting her proposal to the first Indian she happened to encounter.
Melina grabbed her shirt and pulled her back with surprising strength. “If you try that again, I swear I’ll scalp you myself!” she hissed, wide-eyed. “You let the men handle this!”
“Shut up down there,” Mr. Cavanagh ordered. The wagon shifted and creaked, and Lorelei figured he’d climbed into the box to get a better look at whatever was going on. She wished she could see, too.
Lorelei held her tongue as long as she could. Then she called, “Excuse me, Mr. Cavanagh, but do you see any savages?”
“I see a bunch of cowboys cinching in the herd,” he replied, none too graciously.
“Maybe you shouldn’t stand up there, like a lightning rod in a rainstorm,” Lorelei suggested.
The wagon shimmied as Mr. Cavanagh jumped to the ground. His boots appeared, and then his face. He was bending from the waist, and he looked unfriendly.
“Miss Lorelei,” he said evenly, “if those Indians do show up, I’d just as soon fight as answer any more of your infernal questions!”
Lorelei blushed.
He straightened again, mercifully, and Lorelei heard riders. She got her rifle ready.
The next face she saw was Holt’s. He crouched in Mr. Cavanagh’s former place, grinning. “You can come out now,” he said.
“You might have announced yourself,” Lorelei said. “I almost shot you.”
“What happened to the Indians?” Melina asked. She crawled out from under the wagon, and somebody helped her up.
“They kept their distance,” Holt told Melina, but he was still looking at Lorelei. “Maybe we’ve got a few ghosts riding with us yet.” He extended a hand. “Are you coming out of there?”
Even the dog was gone.
Lorelei ignored Holt’s hand and crawled back into the sunlight.
“If they want cattle—the Indians, I mean—you may give them some of mine.” She got to her feet, brushing off her trousers and avoiding Holt’s gaze.
He was too close, and she could feel him watching her. He stood. “I won’t give them a damn thing,” he said. “Except a bullet.”
Lorelei felt exasperated. “Not even to buy safe passage?”
“Comanches don’t make deals like that,” he told her.
“And if they do, they don’t keep them.”
“One too many broken treaties, I guess,” Lorelei said. Now that her terror was ebbing, she felt irritable. “It’s no wonder they don’t trust us.”
“Hellfire and spit,” Holt muttered. “I didn’t break any damn treaties.” He strode away, still talking, slapping at his thigh with his hat. “All I’m trying to do is get these cattle back to San Antonio—”
“Now he’s going to be even harder to live with than usual,” Rafe said, with humorous resignation. He was standing right beside Lorelei, and he’d almost startled her out of her skin, popping up out of nowhere like that. She was glad she’d left the rifle under