Love's Rescue (32 page)

“I’ll need time,” she finally said.

He answered softly, “You have it.”

As the days grew longer, Jess’s work increased, for the heat of late summer sought to drain the life from growing vegetables and grains. She and the Paiute women worked constantly to keep the garden sufficiently watered. It was the hardest summer Jess had ever known. For more reasons than the weather.

For weeks, she had felt a growing sense of unease. She would jump at sounds and shifting shadows, and even the ranch hands kept their rifles closer than before. Jess wanted to believe that another attack would never come, but she knew as soon as the thought crossed her mind that that would not be the case. Too many fires had been set, too many cattle had been stolen, and too many watchful men had passed by to sweep out the door as of no consequence. Besides, she knew it in her gut.

Furthermore, Jake had assigned cattle-tending to the others so that he and his best horsemen could focus their efforts on breaking the mustangs. He worked longer hours than ever, and in his rare free moments, as well as at mealtimes, he casually kept his distance from Jess. She knew that it was partly to prevent the men from speculating about them and partly to give her time to think. And she quickly found that not being close to him distressed her more than she could have imagined.

In mid-August, she finally sought out her longtime confidant.

“Ho Chen?” Stepping in from the blinding outdoors, she couldn’t see him in the dimness of the cookhouse.

“I am by cooking table, Miss Jessie,” he called.

Jess closed the door quietly, then made her way to where Ho Chen was preparing the noon meal.

“You’re welcome to leave off the ‘Miss,’ Ho Chen,” she said. “I’d hardly be taken for the daughter of a business owner anymore.”

Ho Chen returned her smile. He continued to observe her as she fitfully scrubbed her hands in the washbasin. He turned back to the cutting board. “You are hungry?”

Jess dried her hands. “No, I—” Abruptly, she fell silent. She took up a carving knife and a piece of meat, which she began cutting into cubes. “I wanted to talk to you, if I could.”

Wordlessly, Ho Chen reached up for a string of onions, then began to peel off their outermost skins. He was listening.

“Jake and I have begun to care for each other, and he’s asked me to marry him. I think I even love him, but since the fire, I’ve lived in terror of losing someone again. Now when I think of marrying…” She shook her head, sawing the meat more vigorously. “He’s been patient, Ho Chen—so patient. He’s never once pushed for my answer. I feel my love for him building, but as it does, so do my worries. Now I’m starting to wonder: what will it take to pull me one way or the other? How will I ever know?” She gave up all pretense of helping and slammed down the knife. Her eyes were tearing as they met his. “What am I supposed to do?”

Ho Chen set down his knife and the onions and wiped his hands on a cloth. He thought for a moment, then spoke. “I remember your father say, ‘A man is never any better than he is when he is at his worst.’ You need chance to see Mr. Bennett at time of great trouble to know for yourself what kind of man he truly is. Any man can show kindness when there are no troubles. It is in the trials he must face that he will show his honor or his shame. This is what you must wait for. When you see how deep his worth, love will overcome, and fear will no longer matter.”

Jess reflected on his words. Then she looked up, searching his face. “You think I should marry him.”

“I know you almost four years, Miss Jessie,” he said. “After fire, I see you very, very sad. Then I see you grow happy with this place and these people, and I know your Mr. Bennett. I know his worth.”

She thanked him and excused herself. And as she walked out of the cookhouse, his voice trailed her. “But it is not I who must be certain.” He picked up his knife and began chopping again.

***

September arrived, and still no rain had come to water the land. The grain crops failed. Most of the vegetable garden had survived, though, and Ho Chen worked with Jess and the Paiute women to harvest the plants and to store the vegetables for the coming winter.

Nearly all the mustangs had been saddle-broken. Since autumn roundup was only a month away, the men began to discuss which mustangs to sell in the weeks ahead and which to keep for breeding or for use on the ranch. Jake sent three of the cattlemen to Fort Churchill and to every town between the ranch and Carson City to search out buyers for the mustangs. He and the other cattlemen stayed behind to finish the breaking.

Whenever Jess had a few free hours, she rode to the Indian village to visit Red Deer. Her friend was terribly thin for one so far along in her pregnancy, and Jess feared for her. Though Red Deer always cheered up to see Jess, she was quieter now, and she rose less and less often when Jess arrived. She no longer spoke of the nightmares she’d had, but Jess knew by the dark shadows beneath her eyes that she was still not sleeping well. When she voiced her concern, Red Deer only assured her that such things sometimes happened when a woman was nearing the time for childbirth.

Jess continued weaving late at night, hoping to finish the blanket before the baby came. She became adept at twisting in colored yarns with consistent pressure, and her fingers bled where the woolen strands chafed them. Still, she kept at her task, no longer weaving for Red Deer’s baby but for Red Deer herself. Completing it would encourage Red Deer to fight for her very life. Into the orange background, Jess had woven colorful symbols: a large gray wolf to signify the child’s father and, opposite it, a circlet of the yellow flowers for which Red Deer had been named. In the very center, she wove a cradle basket like those the Paiute women fashioned for infants. Immediately beside it, with its graceful neck curved, stood a beautiful and nurturing doe, colored red.

It was on her return to the ranch after a visit in the Paiute village that the relative peacefulness Jess had come to know was shattered.

At first, only a single crack! echoed from the direction of the compound. Jess slowed Meg, alarmed by the odd sound. In the next instant, the entire ranch resounded with an explosion of gunfire.

The anticipation was over.

With a sharp kick, Jess sent Meg flying toward the distant buildings. She was already gripping her gun. The loss of her family might have been the start of a fanatical swath of terror, but she would allow no other settlers to be harmed, no matter their origins. This would be the end of it.

Her eyes scanned the rapidly passing landscape to see mounted ranch hands racing in from the range.

As she neared the compound, she saw several horsemen with bandanas over their faces firing on the ranch hands, who fired back. One of the cattlemen fell.

Blood pounded in her veins. Four of the outlaws headed for the gate of the farthest corral…and the mustangs.

Jess cocked the hammer of her gun as she rounded the stable. She leveled the revolver.

BOOM!

The report from her gun was lost in the roar of the others; yet one horse fled, its saddle empty.

A sound like a buzzing bee whizzed past her ear. Blinking back the fear that seized her, she aimed again and fired.

Her eyes found Jake’s as he mounted Cielos. He yelled something she couldn’t hear, gesturing violently with his gun.

Jess ignored him.

Several ranch hands were on foot, but most of them had gained their horses and were preparing to counter the attack.

Jess saw a renegade leap from his horse and reach for the mustang gate. She fired, splintering the wooden post near his hand.

The man jerked back, seeing a horse with an empty saddle charging toward him. He dove out of its path.

The mustangs, mares, and foals panicked, throwing themselves against the far side of their corrals in an effort to break free of the enclosures.

All at once, Taggart was riding on Jess’s left, Seth on her right. The three parted ways as the outlaws rode in from every direction. Jess was determined to hold her own.

When she found herself free from pursuit for a moment, she scanned the fracas for Jake. A galloping horse suddenly reared before her, its eyes rolling white as it fell over backward, crushing its rider beneath it. She saw Jake, thirty feet away. He was holding off two renegades while a third gunman rode in, unseen, behind him. With a stab of her heels, Jess sent Meg in an arching leap over the fallen horse, barely registering the irate expression Jake was directing at her.

Holding out her gun, she sighted along her arm and focused on the curled fist of the outlaw behind Jake. She pulled the trigger. Jake’s expression changed to bewilderment. He turned to see a pistol flung from the hand of the man who had been aiming at his back.

***

Jake’s eyes snapped to Jess. She was moving again, firing. Another man dropped his weapon.

Her words from months earlier suddenly taunted him: I usually hit what I aim for, Bennett, and I’ve never yet hit a polecat in the foot. He had dismissed those words then. He respected them now.

Jessica Hale knew how to shoot.

A shot ripped across Jake’s forearm, burning like a hot knife. With one eye on Jess, partly to admire her and partly to protect her, he rushed into the battle once again, driving Cielos into the thick of it.

***

As Jess reloaded her gun, her eyes darted about the riot of men and horses. She glimpsed Ho Chen near the smithy, brandishing fire irons with steel-eyed purpose. Paiutes with bows had positioned themselves around the corrals, and they had begun streaming arrows toward those least inclined to end the fight.

In her scrutiny, Jess hesitated a moment too long. One of the outlaws gained on her from behind and swept her from her saddle, knocking the revolver from her hand. As he reined in his horse, she looked up into the leering eyes of the skeletal, balding man from Carson City.

Jess struggled to snatch his pistol. Suddenly, Lone Wolf rode in fast. He flipped his rifle, caught it by the barrel,
and swung.

The man holding her slumped in his saddle.

Jess fell to the ground, her gaze fastened on the rifle sheathed below the pommel. She pushed herself to her feet and yanked the rifle free.

Lone Wolf swung again. The man tumbled to the ground, and his horse skittered away. Immediately, Lone Wolf dismounted and knelt to bind the man with rope.

“Jessica?”

“I’m fine!”

She heard another horse coming up fast behind her, and she thrust the rifle to her shoulder, cocked it, and spun around.

In reflex, Jake pushed the rifle barrel skyward, shooting a glare at Jess as he galloped past.

Lone Wolf leapt back into his saddle and rejoined the fight. Jess smelled smoke—sure enough, flames were rolling up the walls of the smithy.

She saw Jake rein in Cielos and jump down. He dragged an unconscious Doyle up and over his shoulder, then carried him at a run to the cookhouse.

Jess pressed herself to the side of the bunkhouse. She held the rifle at the ready, eyes sweeping the yard.

Half a dozen mustangs were out, running for the open range.

Diaz ran to the gate and pushed it closed. He exchanged gunfire with a masked horseman.

Diaz went down.

Jess screamed.

Reese yelled that he was behind her, watching her back.

Jess strained to see what had happened to Diaz. The thickset man who had shot him fell from his saddle, but a second man was riding toward Diaz to finish him. Jess took aim. Fired.

The man fell backward off his horse.

Beyond him, the burly man stood up, cradling the arm she’d wounded earlier. He searched the ground for his gun. His bandana had slipped away, and his pockmarked face was visible as he yelled to one of his associates. Jess gasped in recognition, reaching for Reese’s horse. “Reese!” The boy hoisted her into the saddle, and she kicked the horse into a swift run. She pulled up beside the man who had once dug his fist into her hair, leveling her rifle on him.

He had called to a mounted outlaw, who was now speeding toward them. Reese ran past her and fired a warning shot. After a brief standoff, the horseman threw down his gun.

Several moments passed. The air seemed to quiet as fewer shots were fired. Only a handful of outlaws remained, barely distinguishable in the dust stirred up by the commotion.

Knowing they were gaining the upper hand against the outlaws, those ranch hands still on foot mounted horses and pursued the retreating marauders.

Seth appeared with several lengths of rope in his hands, and he and Reese began tying the two men. The burly one stared up at Jess. “I never expected to see you again.”

To Jess, that was tantamount to an admission of guilt for killing her parents—and for trying to kill her. “If I’m a surprise, you’ll be simply giddy when you see the jail at Fort Churchill.”

He managed a glare before Seth and Reese led him and his associate away.

Once the yard cleared, Jess shakily lowered her rifle and tried to catch her breath.

The battle was over.

A few ranch hands moved to stand guard at the perimeter. Others ran to the smithy with buckets of water to douse the flames. The wounded ones propped themselves against watering troughs or building walls and held their guns on the groaning outlaws until help arrived.

Spinning her horse around, Jess retrieved her revolver and hurried to the cookhouse, where Jake had taken Doyle. She dismounted, tossing her reins to Will.

“Jake?”

“Over here!”

Jake, Ho Chen, and Lone Wolf were crowded around Ho Chen’s bunk, and Jake was pressing a clean cloth to Doyle’s chest while Ho Chen uncorked a bottle of whiskey.

“I have to tell you—”

Jake cut her off. “Go find Taggart. Tell him to make sure everyone at the Paiute village is safe. Then tell him to send two men after the mustangs.”

“I will,” she panted, necessarily putting off the news of her attackers, “but if Doyle needs a bullet cut out of him, you’d best get him to the house. The light is better, and the main room has more space to tend him.” With that, she was out.

Jess ran across the yard to where Taggart, Seth, and Reese were loading the outlaws into a wagon at gunpoint. All around her, ranch hands were tying bandanas to bleeding wounds. Those with arm injuries used their free hands and their teeth to knot the bandages. Jess was relieved to see Diaz leaning up on his elbow, in pain but managing.