Mountain Woman Snake River Blizzard (13 page)

“This way,” she said
.

A doctor dressed in a white coat followed them into the room.
“What happened?”
he asked.

“She escaped from kidnappers and crawled through the snow and rocks,” Kate said.  S
he uncovered Lucille’s feet
first.  “Her knees and hands are the same.”

Kate
turned and gesture
for
the doctor to follow her out of the room.  When they were out of
hearing range from Lucille, she said, “I’m sure she was raped by t
wo men.  They had her in captivity
for a few days.”

The doctor nodded and they went back into the examination room.  The nurse motioned for them to leave.  “We’ll be at Constable Dasher’s office,” Man said.  “We need to send a few wires.”

They put the packs back on the mules
. 
Kate mounted Red Bird and followed Man as they rode to the telegraph office.

The first wire was to Chief
Marshal
Joe Meek and the second to Chief Kinkaid in Coeur d’Alene.  Man advised
both
that as soon as Lucille was able to travel they would put her on the train home and continue aft
er Al Vasquez and Bob Engledow.

They went back to Constable D
asher’s office and found him dozing in
front of the
stove. 
He heard the door open
and
stood.
Kate rushed to stand beside Shad with her h
ands extended toward the heat from
the pot-bell
i
ed wood stove.

“It’s getting colder by th
e minute out there,” she said.

“It’
s that time of the year and we’
re behind on snow,” Dasher said without a glance toward her. 
“
Winter
came in like a lamb,
but mark my words,
we’re in for it now.  Mother Nature had been teasin
g with us a mite, but now she’
ll put the whammy on us.  Snow will be withers deep
to a tall horse within a week.”

“I hope not,” Man put in.  “A
s soon as we get Lucille on the train, we’re going after those two killers again.”

“Good luck on that
, m
arshal.  If’n I was you, I would load them horses and mules on the train and get back
to Coeur d’Alene
as fast as possible unless you want to spend the winter in the loft of my barn.  That’s the only place to sleep in this town.  We ain’t got no hotel or boarding
house.”

“Is that an offer for tonight?” Man asked.

“Sure is
,” Constable Dasher said. 
“
I keep hay and extra blankets up there for weary travelers that ain’t got no place to sleep.
  It sure ain’t much, but it’
ll be dry and out of the wind
.  T
he animals will have shelter.”

“It was a long night on the trail,” Kate said.  “Is ther
e a place to eat in Lewiston?”

“
Now that we do have.  A
couple of widow women opened a café.  Nothing fancy, but they serve good wholesome food.  Sin
ce my Missus
died, I eat there three times a day.  Every week or
ten days, a brother of the
ir
husband
s
’
brings down an elk or deer
for them
.  He lives up in the mountains
.”

“So the women married brothe
rs and another brother furnishes
them meat for the café?”

“You got it figured right.  A
nd they’s sisters,” he added
with a chuckle
.  “We tend to look after our own here.”

“And where could we find this café?” Man asked.  “That noise you hear isn’t an avalanche, it’s my stomach.”

“Go on past the doctor’s office and you’ll see it.  When you finish chow, keep on going an
d at the end of the street, you’
ll see my barn.
It’s the only one, so you can’t miss it.  Put the animals inside and toss them some hay.”

Man and Kate thanked Mr.
Dasher, went out,
and mounted their horses.  When they were even with the doctors, Man turned toward the hitching rail.  “I want to check on Lucille.”

He jumped down and hurried to the door.  He came back in less than two minutes.  “The doctor had her bandaged and put her to bed.  There was no major damage a
nd he said she could travel in a day or so. 
Her feet, knees and hands will be s
ore, but with soft shoes, she’
ll be able to move around some, enough to travel as she will be sitting most of the time.”

“I wonder how
Cliff
is getting along?” she asked.  “I’ll ask tomorrow
when I send a wire to Chief Kincaid,” Man said.  “I’m sure
Roy
and Dan
will want an update on their mother and I’ll put that in the wire.”

They found the barn and Kate climbed the ladder
.
Man handed her the two pa
cks from the mules.  He put the animals
in stalls and gave them a generous ration of oats and hay.  He climbed up and found Kate busily arranging the hay to make a bed.  She saw him and said, “Somebody put bales of hay around the straw bed.  It’ll help keep
the wind from blowing over us.”

Man looked at the
enclosure, brought three more bales,
and placed them outside the opening.  Kate had tossed the blankets that were there to the side.  She preferred to use the buffal
o robe and bear
skin with her own blankets.

Man picked them up and spread them over the top of the hay making a covering.  “This will help keep it warm inside,”
h
e said.

Kate was undressing and put her clothes beside the bed.  He pulled the hay to the opening and closed it.  It was dark inside, but he managed to undress and put his clothes on the other side of their bed.

Kate held the cover up and Man
slid inside and found his lovely Kate as natural as the day she was born.  She wiggled under him and sighed
in contentment
as she clutched him with her arms and legs.  “It has been too long,” she whispered.

***

Bob Engledow ordered Al Valdez to strip Lucille, tie her hands and feet, and h
ide her clothes outside wagon.

“Why?” he asked.

“We’
re going to set up a welcoming committee for
the marshal
s following us.  I don’t
want her running away while we’
re gone.”

“She’ll freeze if we leave her naked,” Al said.

“Toss a blanket over her.  W
e won’t be g
one long.  I have a hunch they’
re close behind us now.  In this weather,
we should be able to get
behind them and put them both on the ground before they know what hit them.”

Bob led the way back down the road to a spot he noticed as they passed.  He gestured to a rock on the other side of the road.  “You stay hidden behind it and I’ll be on this side.  The instant they are past us, we step out and shoot.  You take the one on your side.”

“Be careful,” he warned.  “Don’t let them see you b
efore they are past you.  They’
re both fast and accurate w
ith those Walker Colts
.”

Al nodded and ran across the road.  He looked back and saw his tracks in the snow.  Bob saw them as well.  “With the way the snow
is falling and the wind, they’
ll be gone in a couple of minutes.”

They settled in their hiding places and waited for Man and Kate to ride into the ambush.  Every few minutes, Bob would walk to an opening where he could see back down the road. Finally, after an hour, he walked out to the road and motioned for Al to join him.   “I’m either wrong on them trailing us or they pa
cked it in for the night.  It’
ll soon be dark and we need to find a better campsite.  Should they come later, they would see the wagon.”

Al joined him and they hurried back to the wagon.  Bob looked inside a
nd began to curse.  “She’s gone!
” he yelled.  “The rope you used is on the wagon bed.”

Al ran to where he
’d
hid her clothing.  “It’s still here,” he said.  “She can’t get far with only a blanket and bare feet.”

“Maybe not,” Bob gro
wled, “but which way did she go?
  Her tracks are gone.  We
don’t
have time to look for her.  W
e need to put a mi
le or two between us and those m
arshals.  She’ll be frozen solid or in such bad shape she would be useless to us
,
anyway.”

Al and Bob quickly hitched the mules to the wagon and Bob led the way.  He looked back at the wagon tracks and cursed. 
“
If the
snow
and wind doesn’t wipe them out, we have to keep moving to stay ahead of them.  They can move
a lot
faster than us
on horseback
.  We may consider abandoning the wagon.”

“I don’t like that idea,” Al said.  “It gives us a warm dry place to sleep
and we have too much to carry to load it on the mules without packsaddles
.”

“Then keep them mules movin
g as fast as you can and
put some
distance between us and those m
arshals.”

“What if by some miracle Lucille found them?” Al said.

“I expect they would turn back with her
,” Bob said
. 
“
I can’t see them staying after us if they had to bring her along.  If that should be the case, we have it made.  By the time they get back to Lewis
ton
, we will have disappeared.  They can’t track us with a snow cover.
”

Chapter 7

Kate woke before Man and eased out from under the bearskin and blankets.  It was freezing cold, but she dressed in her
buckskins and pulled
her heavy coat
on
.  She wished for a hot cup of coffee and a fire, but that was impossible in the loft of the barn.  She looked at Man, still sleeping
,
and smiled at her handsome husband, even if he was sporting
a growth of hair on his face.

She climbed down the
ladder, found their packs and coffee pot, went to the rear of the barn,
and built a small fire
out of straw.  The smell of
coffee brought Man back to life
.  H
e climbed down the ladder and hurried to where Kate sat on an anvil watching the coffeepot.
  He ha
d a horrible frown on his face.

“Good morning
,
sunshine,” she teased.  “Coffee is about ready if that would help that awful expression on your face.”

His frown turned to an almost smile and he held his hands close to the warmth of the fire.  “What makes you so chipper this morning?” he asked.

She raised one eyebrow at him and gave him a
suggestive
grin.  “Maybe it has something to do with
wha
t we did last night,” she said.

“Oh
,
that,” he joked.  “It was darn good even if it was so cold it would freeze the balls off a pool table.”

She went to their pack and pulled out a pan.  Man saw her and said, “Want to go to the café for breakfast?”

“
Of course not.
  Who’d want ham, eggs, and
warm
biscuits with gravy
instead of this tough
jerky?”
Kate quickly put the pan back
in her pack.
  “You don’t have to ask me twice.”

Man fed the horses and mules
while they waited for the coff
ee.
  He came back to her when she picked up the pot and filled two metal cups.

They each finished two before they went outside the barn.  “It must have snowed most of the night,” Kate said.  “It’s over knee deep.”

They
walked t
oward the café, but stopped
to check on Lucille.  They found her seated in a
chair.  She saw them and smiled.  “I’m much better today. 
I’m still hurting
, but the doctor says I’m fine otherwise.  Thank you for finding me
and bringing me here.”