Love's Rescue (21 page)

At the compliment, Jess looked over to read sincerity in his eyes. Inwardly, she was pleased that he had recognized her efforts—more pleased than she cared to admit. She pulled her hat lower on her head and gazed studiously at the cattle. “Then you’d best start paying me like one of your ranchmen, Bennett. By now, I’ve earned it.”

Jake considered the matter pensively, a smile playing on his lips. “Yes, Miss Hale, I guess I’d better.”

Touching a spur to Cielos, Jake rode on, calling to the others to begin making camp.

***

Jess stood by herself and watched a glorious twilight turn the mountains into silhouettes of jagged peaks and sweeping slopes. The night was quiet except for the rhythmic chirrups of crickets and the peaceful lowing of cattle. As a warm, sage-scented wind washed over her, Jess pushed her hat from her head, letting it hang around her neck from its strings. The wind swept wisps of hair back from her face, and, loving the feel of it, she shook out her braid and let the breeze wend its way through her sun-streaked tresses.

A dull pain fanned out from her stomach. Today was the seventh. Three months ago, her life had changed forever. Three months ago, she had lost the people she never believed she could live without. Jess looked around her, taking in the countryside she had come to know as home since then. This place had taken her in. Something about it had helped her to continue on.

Not wanting to rejoin the men just yet, Jess returned briefly to camp to take a small plate of biscuits and salt pork from Ho Chen. She noticed an explosion of silence among the cattlemen when she stepped past with her long hair unbound, and she saw several unblinking eyes when she stepped past again—eyes that feasted on the play of firelight along her shining hair. The men’s forks were motionless on their plates. She left as quickly as she’d come, embarrassed but not yet willing to bind her hair again.

Jess stood far from the men, as before, to eat her supper—by herself but not alone. The place filled her; the night filled her. And yet it wasn’t that, but something more. She remembered what Jake had once said about feeling closer to the Almighty out here. Perhaps Jake had been right about that. Because, for the first time in a long while, it seemed He wasn’t so very
far away.

***

Diaz relaxed against his bedroll, lightly scraping the point of his knife over a piece of wood that was beginning to take the shape of an antelope. Seth played a few notes on his harmonica, and Diaz glanced up.

The vaqueros near him had finished dinner. Now they settled down to smoke, play cards, and repair their gear. Ho Chen was scrubbing pots near the chuck wagon. Taggart headed out on horseback to circle the herd for the first watch. Jake was writing in his notebook. The señorita…she was standing by herself beneath the stars.

Seth decided on a song and began to play. With his thumb, Diaz dusted the miniature antelope before putting his knife to it again. His gaze shifted to the boss. Jake had stopped writing. He was looking beyond the camp to where Jess was standing to gaze at the stars, his notebook and pencil forgotten. A full minute passed before the boss’s gaze shifted back to his immediate surroundings. When his eyes moved in Diaz’s direction, he was plying his knife, carving, carving.

After a little while, Diaz contemplated the boss once more. He was writing determinedly again. With a glance at the other vaqueros, Diaz decided that they hadn’t seen what he had.

He turned his full attention back to his whittling, hoping his mustache concealed his smile.

***

Once they returned to the ranch, everyone resettled into his or her normal routine. The Paiute women had kept the garden while they were gone, but now Jess took over watering and caring for it so that they could see to their families and homes.

The first morning she walked out to see the crops, she was thrilled to note their progress. An ocean of green stood inches above the ground, but the creek was noticeably lower than it had been when they left. The lack of snow and rain would indeed mean trouble come summer, as Jake had said.

So, assisted by Red Deer and Two Hands, she watered and weeded each morning while the men delivered calves and foals and saw to the overall maintenance of the ranch. Often, when Jess saw a flurry of excitement near the stable or barn, the three of them would hurry over to watch a tiny, sodden calf slide from its mother or to witness a wobbly new colt or filly take its first steps. Jake was usually there, and more than once, he and Jess shared proud smiles over the heads and hats of the others who had gathered. As she and Ambrose used to do as children, she dreamed up names for the foals, now including Two Hands in her game. Many of the names they both liked best stuck.

In the afternoons, Jake took her shooting as he had before, giving her plenty of practice time as the days grew longer. Lone Wolf always rode along to be their eyes and ears while Jake and Jess focused on the use of the revolver.

By the end of the second week back at the ranch, Jess still hadn’t hit the target once, though she had whittled down the rock beneath it until Jake had teasingly praised her gift for forging pebbles. She’d answered back that she’d probably have better success with a cannon, and so the evening went.

When Jake holstered the gun for the last time one Saturday night, Jess lauded her efforts. “At least I knocked down the
tin once!”

“A rock chip flew up and hit it,” he said dryly.

“Yes, but wasn’t it exciting?”

“I’d like it a lot more,” he answered with concern, “if I felt certain you could protect yourself.”

At his allusion to the arsonists, Jess’s levity faded fast. “I’ll get along just fine, Bennett. I’ve always been able to take care of myself.”

“How do you figure that? Since we’ve met, you’ve gotten yourself into one scrape after another. You take risks with little forethought—”

“I think things through very carefully before I take risks,” she threw back. “Every one of them has been worth it!”

“Worth it?” He stepped toward her, his voice rising sharply. “You roamed the streets of a Unionist town alone, you were attacked by an angry mob, you nearly had a burning house fall on you, and you keep running away from a safe haven, determined to get killed by whoever didn’t succeed the first time. Jess! Does this seem rational?”

His dismissal of the fact that she had done so out of love for her family stung bitterly. “I have no regrets,” she yelled, “and don’t you dare talk to me about safe havens. I had one—you were there when it burned to the ground!”

At the shout, Lone Wolf came running. He stopped, chest heaving, his bow in his fist.

“Why are you being unreasonable?” Jake pressed, staring down at her. “I wasn’t the man who started the fire!”

“Unreasonable?” Angry tears ran from her eyes, and she no longer felt any desire to halt her words. “You ruined my life!” She took a deep breath.

“How did I—”

“You killed my father!” she screamed, finally freeing all that she’d caged inside. “You could have let my father save Mother and Emma, but you held him back until it was too late! And then, when the flames were everywhere, you let him go!” Lone Wolf put a warning hand on her arm, but she shrugged it off. “It’s your fault! You let him go, Bennett, and he died. He died!” she cried, glaring at him through her tears.

Jake spoke again, gently this time. “Jess, your mother and Emma…they were trapped. There was no way to save them. Isaac knew it. I think he just didn’t want to live without your mother.”

Hatred was thick in her voice. “So you let him die.”

“You were there, Jess,” he said softly. “You saw what happened. He was half crazed, and he pulled a gun.”

A gun? She couldn’t believe it…wouldn’t let herself believe it. “Liar! There was no gun. You let him go. You did everything but push him through the door!”

“Jess!”

She envisioned that night. She knew her father carried a concealed four-barrel derringer, and she hadn’t seen his gun hand when Jake had backed away. Jake was telling the truth. She’d been wrong to accuse him, to blame him, but she was too ashamed of her words and too full of pain to back down. It had felt like someone had driven a knife through her heart, but she realized now that it hadn’t been Jake. “Leave me alone,” she hissed. She gathered Luina’s reins, gained the saddle, and whipped her into a run.

***

Knowing she was too upset to be reasoned with, Jake let Jess go without pursuing her. The sun had set and the sky was growing dark. He and Lone Wolf watched her ride away.

“I was there,” said Lone Wolf.

“I know.”

“She is wrong to say this to you, my friend.”

“She’s hurt and angry. I cut open old wounds tonight.”

“You did so to understand her anger. I saw this.”

“Yes, I know. Some part of her knows the truth about that night.” For a moment, Jake allowed himself to relive it—the vicious struggle…Isaac’s maniacal strength…the wild desperation in his eyes when he pulled the gun.

“The fire?” Lone Wolf asked. “Yes, I also believe she knows. She cares for you, my brother, but she is afraid to care too much. She fears she will lose all once more.”

Jake frowned, tracking the dot on the horizon. “I know. I’ve known that fear myself.”

Lone Wolf glanced at him. “Many seasons have passed. You must let Olivia go.”

“She filled my heart, Lone Wolf.”

“That was true once, but no longer. I think a green-eyed falcon fills it now, my brother.”

Jake didn’t answer.

“She is a wanderer, this bird. You are wise to let her fly, but do not let her become lost to you.”

Inwardly acknowledging the turning of his heart, Jake untied Cielos, but Lone Wolf halted him.

“No, my friend. She will not listen to you now. I will follow and guard her. I will bring her back.”

After a pause, Jake stepped into the saddle. “Jess and I need to work this out, but not tonight. Tonight I only want her safe.”

“She needs to run,” Lone Wolf advised.

Thinking on this, Jake nodded. “Then I’ll let her. I’ll bring her back when she’s ready.” He held out his arm to his friend, and they clasped wrists. “The Almighty has blessed you with wisdom, Lone Wolf.”

“To you He has given the heart of a warrior. You will need it to save your woman.”

Jake touched a spur to Cielos, knowing fully what Lone Wolf meant by “save.” He would need all the strength in his being to save Jess from her fear of love.

***

Jess knew Jake was right. If her mother had been able to save herself and Emma, she would have found a way. Jess knew she couldn’t blame Jake for their deaths, or for her father’s demise, any longer. What he’d said was true—he hadn’t started the fire, and her father had likely been far enough beyond reason to shoot him. With the bandana Jake had given her, Jess wiped her cheeks, wanting more than ever before to return to Carson City, to be near her family and revisit the places that held memories of them. And though she realized he wasn’t at fault, Jess hoped Jake would not follow her. She desperately needed to be away from him.

Coyotes yipped somewhere downstream, drawing her musings to the silvery water of the river and to the silhouettes of herself and Luina cast in shadows by moonlight. This night was so much like another time, years ago, near a river that curved through her Kentucky homeland.

***

“Are you sure we won’t get caught?” she had called softly in her little girl’s voice.

Young Ambrose had slowed his mount, turning to reassure her. “We aren’t doing anything wrong, little butterfly,” he said, “except perhaps spoiling a bit of your sleep.”

“Oh, I don’t mind. I’d much rather be here.”

This particular summer evening, their mother and father had left them in the care of their grandparents, a doting pair who wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that Ambrose and Jess were out riding by the river they loved.

“It’s not much further. Are you warm enough?”

“I’m fine, but I really wanted to ride Isabelle.”

“Danny is more sure-footed. I’ll take you out on Isabelle in the morning.”

“Promise?”

“Promise. Okay, watch out for the low branches. We’re almost there.”

“Do you really think we’ll see them, Ambrose?”

He lowered his voice. “They’re here every night. If they’re shy, I’ll simply tell them a beautiful butterfly has come to visit.” She giggled at the tender way he spoke to her. “Shh, we stop here, Jess.”

Ambrose dismounted and lifted her down from her pony. He tied their mounts to a low branch and took her hand, leading her through the woods toward a dense thicket. Unsure in the dark, Jess clung more closely to Ambrose, who squeezed her hand reassuringly.

At the edge of the brambles, he knelt down and pulled her close beside him. Not at all frightened now, she held in a squeal of excitement. His hand faintly visible in the moonlight, Ambrose eased a mantle of leafy vines to one side. Just as soundlessly, Jess gazed into the clearing beyond it. There, a doe and two young fawns were resting quietly.

Astounded by their beauty and nearness, Jess could hardly breathe. The fawns, nestled cozily against their mother, looked as sweet as new foals, only smaller. The doe licked each one on the head, and Jess decided that she was telling them good night. One laid her head down. After a moment, so did the other. The doe turned her gentle gaze toward the woods to listen and to watch. Careful not to make a sound, Jess looked up at Ambrose, and he beamed down at her.

They stayed there for several minutes, and when Ambrose noticed the doe becoming restless, he led Jess out again, much to her regret.

***

Her childhood memories were filled with similar adventures, nearly all of which had been shared with Ambrose. The moon hadn’t changed, but the river had, and the shadow on the ground was that of a woman now. Jess missed her parents, but it was Ambrose who had always been there for her, and, especially in recent years, she had been there for him. Their closeness had been unique, precious. She remembered the letters they had exchanged since he had returned to Kentucky and how eager he had been to meet little Emma. Suddenly, tears choked her, and she cried out. For a long while, she sobbed loud and long like a child, glad no one was around to hear her bittersweet release of pain.