Crossings (6 page)

“Where's your hat?” she asked, unwilling to endure the shortage of conversation a moment longer.

“Don't have one.”

She waited for him to elaborate, but he kept quiet. Seeing as every man she knew owned a hat, Carrigan being minus one made her idly curious. “Why not?”

“It got swept away in the Carson River last year. I haven't felt like replacing it.” His voice had a rasp of embitterment. “Prices are too high to swap good pelts for one.”

And yet, Helena thought, he had enough money to support his vices. How he managed to get by without an income other than what he made off the furs he traded, and the payment her father had given him for the mustangs, stymied her. Trying to decide what was worth spending money on, and what wasn't, was something she'd just recently been faced with. She wasn't doing a very bang-up job of robbing the balance in one account to pay the bill for another.

The path became rough and rocky, meeting a steep pitch slathered with mud. Bitterbrush and sage overtook most of the lofty pines. She eased back on the reins and hoped the horses would check their gait. For
Helena, sitting astride a horse was simpler than a first grade primer. Commanding a team was another matter entirely. Her driving skills left much to be desired. Flatland, she could manage passably well, but she wasn't worth a darn on grades.

To keep her mind off the trail's perilous conditions, she asked, “Where's your dog?”

“Home guarding the place.”

One of the front wheels hit a chuckhole bigger than a barrel hoop. The buckboard lurched so hard, every joint rattled as if the nails would pop out. Helena's heart jumped, and she suddenly wasn't cold anymore as perspiration dampened her brow. “What was his name again?”

“Obsi.”

She glanced at Carrigan, trying to stifle the queasiness in her stomach. “That's an unusual name. What does it mean?”

“It's short for Obsidian.” Looking dead ahead, Carrigan's eyes narrowed. “Pay attention to the road.”

Settling her gaze forward again, she stiffened. Furious at herself for allowing him to browbeat her, she gave the buckskins some leeway to demonstrate she wasn't an unqualified driver. Daisy and Lucy began clopping along too fast for her comfort, but she didn't want to draw attention to her error. As alarm rushed through her, she squeaked, “What made you think to call him that?”

“His coat is black.” Carrigan snapped his cigarette over the side of the buckboard. “Give me the reins.”

Helena was loath to let him know she wasn't skilled enough to handle the uneven terrain. His impatient order deflated her pride and made her defensive. “I'm capable of getting us there in one piece.”

“Then quit talking and watch what you're doing.”

Her head swam trying to remember the instructions her father had given her for this kind of driving.
She kept her feet spread apart for leverage, conscious of the brake handle near her right hand in case she needed to engage it quickly.

She was keeping a modest pace when suddenly Carrigan seized the reins from her and shoved her head on his lap with his hand. Her muffled cry of outrage was lost in the smoky scent of his coat. She heard him holler at the horses to move right, cursing the command through clenched teeth. The traces on Daisy and Lucy strained as they veered sharply in the mandated direction.

Helena struggled to sit up, her palm on Carrigan's knee. After she pushed at him and demanded he let her go, he relented. Righting herself on the seat and flinging the top of her hood from her eyes, she was about to give him a piece of her mind. But the heavy-handed words melted like sugar on her tongue as soon as she saw what had happened.

A telegraph pole had partly given way, the wire dangling dangerously over the road. She hadn't seen it. If Carrigan hadn't taken the reins from her, their necks could very well have been playing cat's cradle with the cable.

Shaken to the core, Helena sat there paralyzed and feeling as small as a grain of sand. She'd made a horrible miscalculation because of foolish indulgence. “I'm sorry,” she whispered, her voice breaking miserably.

Leaning forward, Carrigan rested his forearms on his thighs, the reins dangling loosely between his fingers. Sun poured over him, his black hair gleaming in the light. He didn't seem angry. To the contrary, he appeared to be more annoyed than anything else. “I'll drive.”

She mutely nodded, grateful he didn't dress her down.

Draping the slack leathers over the box, he turned toward her. “Trade places with me.”

Helena stood. There was no way out of putting her ankle between Carrigan's spread legs. Her tapered crinoline made it awkward to maneuver around him, though she tried to do so without touching any part of his body. This caused her to step on his foot, and as she was muttering a quick apology, his hands covered the swell of her hips. She tensed, heat infusing her cheeks. The strength in his fingers was evident even through the starched layers of her underclothes. His unyielding touch elicited a tingle deep inside her that pulsated outward until it reached her every nerve ending. She rarely lost her composure, but she found she couldn't move. If Carrigan hadn't finally slid her over his lap and propped her on the seat next to him, she would have remained there dumbfounded.

She felt his gaze on her, but she couldn't look him in the eye. When at last he slapped the horses' rumps and they were off, she breathed a sigh of relief. Needing to blot out the incident, she closed her eyes and fought off making an inevitable comparison. It had been Kurt who first made her heart dance with excitement. Who first made her senses spin when he was near. He'd been dead for nearly four years, yet there were still times when he stole into her thoughts, and she couldn't help imagining what could have been. Everything changed the year she turned seventeen. There was no going back. Her future was based on a foundation of the past. Love would forever be unattainable for her, and so would a devoted husband.

Carrigan's ability to kindle something within her had her pensively staring at the endless gray scrub. It had to be his blatant masculinity that dazzled her. Everything about him spoke glaringly of his strength, from the way he held a pair of reins in his broad hands, to his indomitable walk.

As Van Sickle's station with its five barns came into sight, Helena felt a confounding urgency to know
more about Carrigan. A kind of panic set in as the reality of what she was about to do hit her full force. She was going to wed herself to a man she didn't know beyond what rumor dictated. Just thinking of it nearly shattered her.

“I need to know what your full Christian name is,” she said with deceptive calm. “Mr. Van Sickle is going to ask.”

“Jacob Henry Carrigan.”

“Where were you born and raised?”

“Red Springs near the Yellowstone River.”

“Do you have any family?”

“Mother and sister.”

“Your father?”

“Dead.”

“Just like mine,” she said softly, wondering about the circumstances of Carrigan's loss, but not pushing that far. “What made you come to Genoa?”

This time she got a reaction out of him. “You don't question my past, and I won't question yours.” Steering the horses up to the front of a large, two-story frame house, Carrigan added without inflection, “It's the present that counts anyway. I could be wanted by the law elsewhere, but you shouldn't hold it against me so long as I'm showing a willingness to walk a straight path now.”

She swallowed hard. “Are you wanted by the law?”

“No,” he answered in a clipped voice that forbade any further questions.

But Helena wasn't ready to quit. She had to ask one more to lay the hearsay to rest. “Have you ever killed a man?”

His eyes grew contemplative, then he gave her a long, steady look that robbed her of her wits. “Too many to count.”

*  *  *

“You married him,” Emilie blurted, staring at the gold band on Helena's finger. “Lena, I can't believe you went through with it.”

“I had no choice.” Helena unhitched Daisy from the buckboard and walked her to the stables.

Emilie was on her heels. “Of course you had a choice. You could have given up the station.”

“No, I couldn't.”

Helena passed through the wide wooden doors. The building's interior was dim and smelled of hay, grain, and livestock. Dust motes swirled down from the high ceiling, stirred by the owls that used the rafters to roost. Horses nickered upon her entrance as she led Daisy to the stall next to Lucy's.

“You keep saying you're doing all this because it's what Father would have wanted,” Emilie said, “but I don't think you even loved him.”

Helena's steps faltered, and she gasped, “How can you say such a thing?”

“Because you haven't cried for Father, but you cried for Mother when she died.”

She had mourned her mother's passing like no one else. But she'd been crying for two graves, when only one marker was visible. Her tears had come from the loss of another life, part of something gone forever. Truly crying over Mother would come when Helena couldn't bear the burden anymore. And tears for Father would come when everything inside her overflowed.

“I do cry for Father,” Helena said quietly. “But no one can hear me.” She gave Daisy a drink of water, then took the bucket away after ten swallows.

A high bench strewn with grooming accoutrements took up the space behind them. Helena collected a haircloth, dandy brush, water brush, sponge, and comb off it and began to wipe the stiff cloth over Daisy's muddy coat. She had to move around Emilie, who dogged her like a shadow.

“I'm worried about you,” Emilie announced while Helena gave Daisy more water. “You don't eat. You don't sleep. You don't grieve. You may think because I'm younger than you that I don't know anything.
Well, I know enough to figure out that you're hurting just as much as me. Not letting go of what's paining you is only going to make things worse.”

Sidestepping Emilie, Helena took the dandy brush to Daisy's flank, disconcerted by how close to the truth her sister had gotten. “I'm fine, Emilie.”

“Then where is your so-called husband?”

“Gone to pack his things and get his horses.”

“You really are going to let him live in our house,” came her shocked reply.

“His place is with me.” She hung Daisy's harness on an old horseshoe nailed into a post.

Brooms, pitchforks, and shovels lined the outer stall wall. Helena reached into a bin and scooped some oats into the feed receptacle. While Daisy ate, she continued to groom her, using the water brush with its long, soft bristles to wash the feet and legs of the mare.

When Emilie spoke again, her voice held a challenge. “What made him change his mind and marry you?”

Pausing, Helena knew she couldn't tell her sister about the land deal she'd made with Carrigan. Not just yet. Emilie wouldn't see things her way. Right now there was nothing that could be done with the land anyway, but the revenue generated from the Pony Express would bring them relative comfort, as well as accumulating into enough funds to buy a new parcel at a later date.

Helena hoped her tone sounded matter-of-fact when she replied, “He thought it would be advantageous to be married to a store owner.”

“Advantageous to get all the free tobacco and liquor he wants,” Emilie quipped.

Helena ignored that remark while putting a blanket over Daisy's back.

“Miss Lena?” Eliazer came into the stables. The stock tender was thickset, the complete opposite of his spindly wife. He wore a huge beard and mustache,
an old slouch hat, a faded blue shirt, and no suspenders—though he could have used some as the waistband of his pants slid underneath his paunch. Pantaloons of coarse country weave with ample additions of buckskin sewn into the seat covered his stocky legs. The trousers were a dull yellow, and unspeakably homely. He kept them stuffed into the tops of high boots, the heels of which were armed with Spanish spurs. “Which horse do you want to take the western express run today? It's time to saddle one.”

“Maria Jane.”

Eliazer nodded and went to the next to the last stall to prepare the bay mustang with a heavy black mane.

“Is the afternoon rider Thomas McAllister?” Helena inquired, knowing full well James Whalen was the horseman, but wanting to sway Emilie off the subject of Carrigan.

“No.” Emilie's disappointment rang clear in her wistful tone. She had an all-absorbing infatuation for Thomas McAllister that made her face light up whenever he rode hell-bent for leather up Nixon Street. Helena thought her sister too impressionable to be taken by the rider. Not just because his job was dangerous and his life was on the line with each run he made, but because Emilie was too young to know what she was doing when it came to matters of the heart.

“Ignacia could probably use some help with the store,” Helena mentioned as she began the same procedure on Lucy as she had done for Daisy.

“I don't have to like him,” Emilie said, paying no regard to Helena's observation. “He's a killer.”

A lie was on the tip of Helena's tongue, but she couldn't deny the statement. It was true. Verified by Carrigan himself. His flat expression had affected her, for she had seldom seen a face possessing those characteristics. She'd registered a trace of sadness in his features, an underlying complexity that knew a reason and justification for his actions. That inkling
of his far-reaching emotional regret had been what allowed her to go through with the marriage ceremony.

“I'll go help Ignacia, only because I want to,” Emilie said, then wrinkled her pert nose. “I don't know how you can stand the smells in here. You're just like Father. Sometimes I think he liked spending time with the horses better than he liked spending time with us.”

A fond smile lifted Helena's mouth. One of their father's sweetest joys was seeing to the animals, something their mother could never understand.