Mountain Rose (12 page)

eventually she would get back to her people.

One thing Raegan was sure of—she hoped the Indians found Roscoe soon. She hoped that they would make his death a long and extremely painful one. Never had she felt such hatred for any person.

While the last batch of bread baked, Raegan lit a candle and descended the narrow steps to the cellar. She set the candle holder on a flat rock positioned in the middle of a shallow stream about a foot wide. She dipped her fingers into the flowing water, then jerked them back. It was icy cold. To be so freezing cold it had to come from a spring.

"My step-grandfather was a very clever man," she said with respect, "to build his cabin over such a stream. Meat and other perishables would remain fresh down here for weeks, and some of the hardier vegetables would probably last from one season to the next."

There grew inside Raegan the desire to have a garden. She would start it tomorrow. No, she corrected herself, first the flower beds. To her, having beauty in her life was almost as important as having food. Beauty had been so lacking in the mining towns and camps where she had spent most of her life. Day after tomorrow, she would coax the two men into spading up the garden patch back of the cabin.

She had noted neat rows laid out in the fenced-in plot, the remains of dried-up vegetables buried beneath a growth of weeds. There were also three fruit trees just coming into bloom. Apples and peaches, she hoped. She remembered also seeing gnarled vines covering an arbor. They had to be grape vines.

Raegan sighed happily. A long busy summer lay ahead. Maybe she could even make some jelly. Most likely there was a recipe for it in Grandmother Molly's cookbook.

She had no difficulty finding the ham butt. It sat on a shelf built along one wall. She counted several slabs of bacon and salt pork lying beside it. She sniffed the cloth-wrapped meat and nodded her satisfaction. She could tell from its aroma that it had been sugar-cured.

Holding the meat in the crook of her arm, she picked up the candle and climbed the steps to the kitchen.

She knew her second batch of bread was done by the mouth-watering aroma seeping through the oven door. The parlor clock struck four and she became busy starting supper.

The sun was a great red ball nearing the treeline, as Raegan stood at the stove frying thick slabs of ham and glancing often at the window, watching for Chase to appear. She had just finished setting the table when she saw Sampson descending the hill from the direction of the village. Her heart beat excitedly, and her eyes never wavered from the big man sitting tall in the saddle.

"Stop it!" Her small fist struck at her heart. "Do you want him to hear you beating like a crazy thing?"

She composed her face and tried to dim the glow in her eyes. Chase must never know how she felt about him. He would scorn her if he knew that

his mere presence sent her pulses to racing.

A short time later, she heard Chase and Jamie splattering water while they washed up on the back porch. She went to the door to say that supper was ready, but held back the words. An old woman, astride an old mule, was coming down the same trail Chase had just traversed.

"Granny Pearson." Chase called when the aging mount clumped into the yard and stopped on its own accord. Smiling affectionately, he dried his hands and hurried to help the white-haired woman to dismount.

Her back was badly bent, Raegan noted, and the thin fingers that clutched Chase's arm were knotted and twisted with rheumatism. Nevertheless, she was quite spry as she proved by the brisk way she walked to the porch.

She paused before stepping up on it when she saw Raegan standing in the doorway.

Her piercing blue eyes studied Raegan's face for a moment, then she said in a voice cracked with age, "You remind me of someone, girl. Who could it be, do you reckon?"

Raegan started to say that she looked like her father, and had the old woman known William O'Keefe? She caught herself in time, and glancing at Chase saw that he had been holding his breath, afraid of what she might blurt out.

She smiled down at the old woman called Granny Pearson and answered, "I wouldn't know, ma'am. I only arrived here yesterday. I'm from Idaho."

Granny shook her head in thought. "You sure do look familar." After a short pause, she asked abruptly, "Are you livin' with this scamp, Chase Donlin?"

"Shame on you, Granny," Chase laughingly chastised her when he saw Raegan blush at her sharp question. "Raegan is my wife." He took hold of her arm and helped her up the two steps to the porch.

"Your wife?" The old woman jerked to a stop, "You don't say." Again she turned her eyes on Raegan. When Raegan stirred nervously from the over-long study of her features, she received a toothless smile.

"You sure picked a purty one. Yes, might purty," she said, making Raegan blush again. "Thank God you had enough sense not to get hooked by that man-chasin' Liza Jenkins."

Before Chase, his ears red, could claim there was never any danger of his getting hooked by the widow, Granny spotted Jamie standing off to one side, watching her with amusement. Her face grew gentle. "How are you, boy?"

Jamie grinned good-humoredly. This old, kind-hearted harridan had called him "boy" ever since he met her five years ago. Well, not always. Sometimes she called him Jamie—when she was displeased with him, like the times he took off without telling anyone.

"I'm in fine shape, Granny," he answered. "And how are you gettin' along?"

"Fine, just fine. My old bones act up sometimes, but it's to be expected at my age, I reckon." She turned sharp eyes back to Chase. "You keep an eye on that one, Donlin. You know the slick way he has with wimmen."

Chase lowered his lids, hiding from the shrewd old woman that already he was worried about the same thing. Making his tone light, he said, "Come on into the cabin, you mischief-makin' ol witch." He urged her spare frame through the door as Raegan stepped back. "You're just in time for supper."

"Well I must say it smells good, and I am hungry. Ain't eaten since early this mornin'," Granny said, removing her heavy shawl and handing it to Jamie.

"Why is that?" Chase seated her at the table.

"That Henry Jones came knockin' at my door just at sunrise, complainin' that Meg was tryin' to birth her baby and was havin' a hard time of it, and would I come help her."

"I didn't know his wife was expectin' again," Chase said absently, his attention on Raegan and the graceful way she moved as she put supper on the table.

"That poor woman is expectin' every time she turns around. And unlike her first husband, who gave her four children, none of Henry's git lives or comes to full term." The old woman's eyes burned fiercely. "It's cause he won't leave her alone, always wantin' his pleasurin'."

"So this one died too," Jamie said softly.

"And God's blessing it did." Granny sighed. "Its scrawny litde body was all misshapen. And even if it had lived, it wouldn't have been right in the head. I could see it in the little thing's wide, flat face. And you know somethin' else— Henry would like to be pleasurin' them two stepdaughters of his too. I saw the lustful way he looked at them all the time his wife was tryin' to bring his youngin' into the world. It wouldn't matter a snap of his fingers that them two girls are his stepdaughters."

No one had noticed Raegan's white face, the horror in her green eyes at the scorching denunciation of Henry Jones. Jamie finally noted her aghast expression and reached over to cover the fingers tightly gripping her fork. "Ah, Raegan," he said softly, "you've never heard of such men, have you?"

Raegan shook her head. "It's hard to believe that a man could act so dastardly."

"It doesn't happen often." Chase frowned at Jamie's hand still lying on Raegan's. "But there are a few two-legged animals like Jones."

"Why does his wife put up with such treatment?" Raegan's eyes flashed green fire.

"Meg?" Granny shook her head. "That poor thing had the spirit tramped out of her a long time ago. As far as brutality is concerned, her first husband was worse in a way than Henry is."

"I never knew her first husband very well," Chase said. "He died shortly after they moved here."

"I knew him, knew him well." Granny's eyes snapped. "He was a mean one. Me and Joe was in the same wagon train with him and Meg what brung us to Oregon. Meg and their four youngins' did all the work—makin' camp, hitchin' and unhitchin' their bony old mules. All he did was drive and spend half the night playin' cards."

"What happened to him?" Jamie asked after Granny's long tirade.

"He drowned in the Platte," Chase answered. "It was in flood and his boat got caught in a swift current and overturned. Meg said he couldn't swim."

"Yeah, the old river got him." Granny nodded her white head in satisfaction. "And we was all happy for Meg. Finally she was rid of that lazy no-account, we all said. Said her and the kids could make it, seein' as how they done all the work anyhow. Then along comes Henry Jones, sweet-talkin' her, actin' real nice. And Meg, poor thing, never havin' anyone say nice things to her for so long, she believed his deceitfulness. She didn't learn until after she married him that he was just as lazy as her first husband, and on top of that he was as randy as a ruttin' buffalo."

When Granny opened her mouth to continue. Chase urged a bowl of potatoes on her. "Better start eatin', Granny, food's gettin' cold."

Everyone setded down to the meal then, with nothing said except, "Please pass the bread," or the potatoes, or the ham. Mid-way in the meal Granny looked at Raegan and said, "You're a right good cook, child. This bread is as light as a feather."

Pleasure shone in Raegan's eyes at the praise. "Thank you, ma'am. I found the recipe in my—in Chase's mother's cookbook." She silently berated herself. Again she had almost given away her and Chase's secret. She hurried to speak of something else.

"Why did the man Jones call on you to deliver his wife's baby, Granny? Do you live near them?"

"No I don't. No closer than any of his other neighbors."

"Granny is a midwife, Raegan," Chase explained. She's helped most of the young ones around here into the world."

"Oh." Raegan smiled at Granny, interest in her eyes. "That must make you very proud."

"Mostly it does. Course I feel bad when they don't make it, like today. It hurts tumble, hearin' a mother cryin', seein' the father chokin' on his tears, afraid to let them fall for some asinine reason." She paused a moment, then added thoughtfully, "Men are strange animals."

Chase and Jamie bit their lips not to roar with laughter, and Raegan was hard put to keep a straight face. Granny's words had been said matter-of-facdy, as though they were gospel.

"Were you married a long time, Granny?" Raegan asked, frowning a warning at Chase and Jamie.

"Oh my yes. Me and my Thomas was married fifty-two years. He was a trapper," Granny said proudly. "A bear attacked him one early spring day a couple years back. A day don't go by that I don't think about him." The sadness in the aged voice chased away the mirth in the men's eyes and it grew quiet around the table as everyone tended to eating supper.

Twilight had descended by the time the meal was consumed, and Raegan lit candles to drink their coffee by. She hoped there was kerosene in the fustian bag Chase had dropped onto the porch earlier. When she returned the coffee pot to the stove and sat back down, Granny's keen eyes fastened on Chase.

"So," she began, "I take it you met this little gal in Idaho. Have you been keepin' her a secret all this time? Is that why you've never married any of the wimmen that chase you all the time?"

"You sure are full of questions tonight, Granny." Chase looked a little annoyed. "But no, I never knew Raegan before."

"You're sayin' then that you took to her right off?"

Chase was aware that Jamie was watching him and was waiting for his answer also. From the corners of his eyes he saw Raegan's hands go still on her coffee cup. He squirmed inwardly. How was he to answer his aged, prying neighbor? Her remark "took to her right away" meant in the old woman's mind that he must have fallen in love with Raegan the first time he saw her. How could he answer that he had lusted for her on first sight and that, to his shame, he still did?

Finally, he said teasingly to Granny, "I married her, didn't I?"

Chase felt Jamie's heated glower on his face. He stole a look at Raegan, but she was staring into her cup, her long lashes hiding what she was thinking. He slowly heaved a relieved sigh when the old woman set her empty cup down and rose stiffly from the table.

"Me and my old mule best be gettin' home," she said. "He's probably hungry too." She gave Raegan one of her toothless smiles. "Thank ye kindly for supper. You must come visit me someday."

"I would like that very much," Raegan said, rising also. "Maybe you would tell me about some of the babies you've ushered into the world."

Granny cocked her white head and gave Raegan's features a close scrutiny. "You sure are a purty little thing, and Chase is lucky to have found you."

Jamie took her by the arm and turned her toward the door. "If you're finished flappin' your lips, I'll see you home." He winked at Chase. "I'm told there are some bad injuns' roamin' the woods these days."

That the old woman had noted his tongue-in- cheek reference to those whose blood he shared was evident as she answered smoothly, "Yes, Jamie, I heard tell them heathens is skulkin' round."

Chase snorted his mirth and Raegan couldn't help giggling. Jamie grinned, and draping his arm across the bony shoulders, he guided Granny to the door. "I ought to let them slice off a piece of that sour tongue of yours," he growled affectionately as he led her onto the porch.

Chase and Raegan following behind them, laughed loudly when Jamie received a jab of a sharp elbow in the ribs, making him yell. "Hey, you old shrew," he growled, "that hurt. I feel like I've been stabbed with a knife."

"Then learn to keep a respectful tongue in your mouth, Jamie Hart."

"What did I say?" Jamie asked innocently, boosting the slight body onto the mule.

Granny ignored his question, and lifting a hand to Raegan and Chase, she prodded her mount to follow Jamie to the barn. A few minutes later, Raegan and Chase watched their dim shapes ride down the valley.

"Do they always rag each other like that?" Raegan asked, laughter still in her voice.

"Always." Chase answered. "They both enjoy it. But there's a deep affection between them. Jamie has great respect for Mrs. Tilda Pearson."

The long yowl of a wolf drifted down from a distant hill, and Lobo, sitting at Raegan's feet, pointed his nose at the moon creeping over the trees and answered the challenge. When he loped off into the darkness, Chase stepped off the porch and walked toward the corral, and with a sigh, Raegan returned to the kitchen. Tears glimmered in her eyes when a few minutes later she heard Chase ride away, headed for the village.