McKettrick's Choice - Linda Lael Miller [69]
“I thought you were going to kill that cowboy,” she said, without thinking.
“I might have, if you and Tillie hadn’t been there.”
She believed him.
“Eat your breakfast,” he repeated. “We don’t have all day.”
When the meal was over, the cowboys broke camp, exchanging glances but not quite daring to ask about the man who was missing.
Lorelei was trying to work out how to connect saddle and mule when Rafe approached and took over the task.
“I ought to do that myself,” Lorelei said, but without much conviction.
“Watch me,” he said, “and you’ll get the idea.”
She watched, and when it was over, she didn’t know any more about saddling a mule than she had before.
“What happened out there, with Tillie and that cowboy?” Rafe asked, as he helped Lorelei mount up.
She settled herself astride the animal, took a light grip on the reins and immediately discovered that her palms were sore from holding onto them for dear life the morning before. “From what I could gather, he tried to kiss her. That’s what he claimed, anyway. She must have struggled and dropped the doll.” Lorelei’s eyes burned at the memory of Tillie’s grief; even now, the young woman was stricken, kneeling in the back of her father’s wagon and gripping the tailgate, her gaze fixed on Pearl’s grave.
Rafe watched as Holt climbed into the saddle and calmed Traveler with a pat to its glistening neck. The animal was skittish, yearning to run. Strength and violence seemed to course through the gelding’s very veins.
“That explains the scrapes on my brother’s knuckles,” Rafe mused.
Lorelei remembered the cold conviction in Holt’s face when he’d said he would have killed the cowboy if it hadn’t been for her and Tillie, and shivered.
Holt gave the order, and the party mounted up. Rafe sighed philosophically and mounted his gelding. John Cavanagh released the brake lever on the wagon and whistled to the team, Sorrowful riding beside him on the seat and casting the occasional look back at Tillie as the rig and horses rolled forward.
Melina drew her pony up beside Lorelei. A floppy straw hat shielded her face from the sun, casting a netted shadow.
“Poor Tillie,” she said, biting her lip.
Lorelei could only nod.
They rode past the place where she and Holt had found Tillie the night before. To Lorelei’s secret relief, they followed the stream instead of crossing it. The pace was slower than the day before, but just as grueling, because the farther south they traveled, the rougher the terrain became.
Trees gave way to scrub brush and cacti, and the glare of the sun beat down on Lorelei’s head, even through her hat, until her skull began to pound from the inside. Off in the distance, a cloud of smoke bloomed against the sky.
“Indians?” Lorelei asked, trying to hide her dread, when Captain Walton joined her and Melina. They were bringing up the rear, not even keeping pace with the wagon, and she suspected he’d been sent back to hurry them along.
“Not likely,” the Captain said. “Mostly Comanches around here, and they don’t generally give themselves away like that. They favor an ambush. Scream like demons escaping from hell when they’re on you, though.”
Lorelei swallowed and straightened her spine.
“They won’t bother with us,” Melina said. No doubt she’d noticed Lorelei’s reaction and wanted to reassure her. “We don’t have anything worth stealing. When we come back through with the cattle, that’s when we’ll have to be careful.”
Oh, Lord, Lorelei thought.
The smoke plume billowed and grew.
“Maybe it’s a wildfire,” she fretted.
“More likely it’s a homestead,” the Captain suggested, relentlessly realistic.
Lorelei shuddered.
“You ladies had best hurry it up,” urged the Captain, and even he was beginning to look worried now. He rode through the cluster of cowboys to join Holt and Rafe, who were in the lead.
Lorelei peered through the dust, stirred by the hooves of so many horses, trying to guess, by the motions of their hands and heads, what the three men were talking about.
Finally, Holt reined the Appaloosa