The Lover (15 page)

The day was creeping up on them, for the camp was starting to stir. She heard the hiss of the fire and the jingle of spurs and somebody's low-pitched voice.

But none of it mattered. She was in a place that was safe and warm. She and Eagle Jack were together.

 

When Susanna woke, Eagle Jack was gone. The flap of the tent stood open to let in a little breeze, and if it hadn't been for that, she'd have been even sweatier beneath the heavy quilt. The sun beating down on the canvas felt as hot as the middle of summer.

She sat up with a start. It was noon or thereabouts. Why weren't they on the trail? Had the cattle scattered over a wide range?

A cold hand clutched her stomach. Had they lost more men than Tolly?

Wearing the quilt like a cloak, she scrambled up and looked for her clothes. The tent was empty except for the quilt Eagle Jack had used and Susanna's leather hat.

She ducked out through the open flap. Her chuck wagon was there beside the fire and the clothes and boots she'd worn the day before lay spread out on the grass nearby. She went to get them.

“Well, it's about time you got up, you lazybones,” Maynell said.

Susanna turned to see her coming into camp with her apron full of wild onions. The smell of slow-cooking beef came from the pot. “Why didn't you wake me?” she asked, snatching up all her articles of clothing and turning toward the tent. “May, why aren't we getting back on the trail? How bad are they scattered?”

Maynell proceeded calmly to the back of the chuck wagon and began washing the onions.

“Bad enough,” she said dryly. “We've got cattle scattered from here to the Indian Territories.”

“Then I need to be helping to find them,” Susanna said.

Giving a little to her sore foot, she hurried back
into the tent and started to dress. She pulled on her camisole and then raised her voice so Maynell could hear her.

“I can't believe Eagle Jack didn't wake me and you didn't, either!”

She thrust her arms into her blouse and started buttoning it up.

“He gave me strict orders not to wake you,” Maynell called back. “He said that you came to once in the night but you were so worn out and torn up about it all, you had to sleep some more.”

Susanna felt the heat of a blush flood her face and neck.

“I don't think that man slept a wink for watching over you,” Maynell said.

Susanna stepped into her pantaloons and riding skirt, then pulled on socks and stepped into her still-damp boots. Her foot did hurt, but it wasn't really bad.

“That was very nice of him,” Susanna said.

Her boot was cut in the same place as the gash in her foot, probably by a tossing horn, but it would have to hold together until the drive was over. She had another pair, but not with heels high enough to stay in the stirrup.

Ignoring the pain, she stepped outside again, fastening her waistband as she went.

“Listen to me, Missy,” Maynell said, looking Susanna in the eye, “next time your husband spends the night in your tent, I don't care how
tired and wrung out you are, if you want to keep him, you best stay awake and entertain him, you know what I mean?”

Susanna looked back at her.

“I haven't been liking it one bit for him to sleep out with the men for night guard,” May said, “and now that we've thrown these two crews together he don't have to do that anymore.”

Maynell was half teasing and half serious about what she'd said but she was also trying to see Susanna's state of mind. May knew her well enough to know Susanna was upset over Tolly and May was trying to find out how much so and to distract her from that.

Well, there was work to be done, so she would let herself be distracted. And she would return the favor, for Maynell herself looked pretty drawn around the eyes.

“Thank goodness you don't know everything, Maynell,” she said.

Maynell stared at her. “Now, just exactly what do you mean by that, missy?”

“Only that if I told you everything I know, then you'd know as much as I do,” Susanna said.

“Hmpf.”

“I've got to get to work,” Susanna said. “Where do I go to find the remuda?”

Maynell waited for more information, but when Susanna only smiled at her, she finally gave up. “Over that hill there,” she said. “And once
you're mounted, go in any direction you pick and you'll find cows running around and men chasing them.”

“Two of my favorite things in the whole world,” Susanna said. “It's a beautiful day for both.”

She pulled her hat down and walked away, whistling for courage.

“Better watch out,” Maynell called after her. “You know the old saying: ‘A whistling girl and a crowing hen always come to some bad end.'”

Susanna laughed and waved good-bye without turning around. Somehow, today, the life force felt much stronger than death—maybe because of the bright sunlight and the fresh-washed fragrance in the breeze.

And…maybe because of Eagle Jack.

 

Eagle Jack was surprised—to tell the truth, he was shocked—by the unexpected lift he felt in his heart when he saw Susanna coming toward him with a little bunch of cows and calves she'd gathered. It wasn't anything to worry about, though.

It was only natural that he'd have feelings for her because, in the last day or two, they'd been through quite a lot together.

Including last night, which was really special. But he couldn't let himself get too carried away thinking about making love with her.

It didn't mean a thing, except that he admired
her for her bravery and he appreciated that she had so much heart. This thrill he was feeling was because he admired her. That was all it was.

“Hey,” she called, as she came nearer. “Look what I found in that gully over there.”

Her smile alone was enough to make his day. But every part of her looked beautiful. Even more beautiful than he had remembered it to be.

“Good job,” he said, glancing at the dozen steers she'd found, which looked none the worse for what they'd been through, “throw 'em in with these.”

“Where are you taking yours?” she asked.

“About a mile west to the main herd.”

Her smile faded and some little lines appeared in her forehead as she looked over the cattle.

“Eagle Jack, do you think we lost very many?”

Now she was all business, as usual. Yet she was looking at him in a different way, today. Maybe she, too, was thinking about last night.

“Hard to tell,” he said, as they let the cattle meld together and then began to push them toward the west.

Well, damn, he might as well tell her the bad news and get it over with. He just hated being the one to make her sad.

“We had twenty head of them drown in the mill,” he said. “Maybe a few more. And a whole lot scattered. We'll take a count tomorrow when we get 'em separated from Tolly's bunch.”

Her blue eyes widened. “You think we won't move on until tomorrow?”

“We can't if we don't want to leave some good beeves behind for the next drovers to pick up.”

“That's the bad thing about being off the regular trail,” she said, “there probably won't be anybody else coming this way who could bring them to us.”

He glanced at her with a smile. “Right,” he said. “You're learning, Susanna. Keep it up and you
will
be able to come up the trail as your own boss next year.”

Right then he made a decision. He would try to bring a herd along at about the same time as she did, next spring. Not to watch out for her, exactly, although he could do that, too, but mostly just to see her again.

He'd have to keep in touch with her so he would know her plans about when she'd leave Brushy Creek with her herd. Come to think of it, they might even make plans to travel together.

It was the strangest thing, but somehow he knew that he couldn't leave her forever at the end of the trail. Somehow she'd become a part of him—someone to whom he would always feel a connection.

What kind of connection, he didn't know. It was more than friendship, yet he didn't know if it was love. It was different from what he'd felt for any other woman before.

But it wasn't that he wanted to marry her. It definitely was not that. Eagle Jack Sixkiller was not the marrying kind.

 

Susanna rode through the main herd looking at the condition of the cattle and trying to count them, roughly, although she didn't have the gift that Eagle Jack said Nat had, and that she'd heard other men had, which was to be able to ride through a herd or watch it pass in front of him and know to the cow exactly how many head were in it. There were many different gifts in people.

Eagle Jack's gift was to lighten the load. The tired, tired men had been laughing and perking up ever since he'd ridden up and started talking to them.

She gave in to temptation and glanced at him again, hoping that he wouldn't catch her at it. It wouldn't do to cause him to assume that she was thinking about him all the time or anything like that or that she might be giving more importance to what happened between them last night than he did.

He had meant to comfort her, she knew that. And he did. But for him, that may have been all it was.

She made another mark in her tally book and thought about that. What had it been for
her
?

That
was something she wasn't going to think
about. There was no way she was going to let her life become tangled up with a man's. Not any man's. Not even a man as special as Eagle Jack.

No matter
what
Maynell said.

She smiled to herself and gave a determined nod as she made one slanted mark across four straight ones so that it meant five. Then she snapped the book closed.

Nope, she was on her own at last, she didn't have to answer to anybody, and she was going to keep it that way.

Across over there on the east side of the herd, Eagle Jack was talking to Nat and Marvin and making them laugh again. The men hadn't slept, except maybe a few winks in the saddle, for over twenty-four hours, but they could still laugh because Eagle Jack was laughing. He had already told them that he'd take the midnight guard tonight, which, as a trail boss he didn't have to do, since, as Maynell had noted, the outfit now had enough hands.

Did that mean he'd sleep out under the stars with the men tonight? She'd better hope he did. She didn't want to get used to having him in her tent every night, because someday they would come upon Kansas over the horizon and it would all be over.

She headed her horse toward him. All she wanted was to hear his voice, just talk to him for a
minute to ask how accurate he thought her count might be, and then she'd go out looking for more strays.

He might even go with her.

A rider was coming from the east with a bunch of steers. It looked like Rodney or Lanny—at a distance, she always had trouble telling Marvin's friends apart. Generally they were known as Marvin's boys, although they couldn't have been more than a year or two younger than he.

When she reached Eagle Jack and the others, the new arrivals were blending into the herd. It was Lanny who had found them.

“…brought 'em on in,” Lanny was saying to Eagle Jack, “'cause we reckoned you'd wanta hear the news right off.”

“What news?”

“Might be word of your race horse, boss,” the boy said. He gestured with his head at the cattle he'd brought. “This bunch was nearly to the main trail at the ford,” he said, “and over there at the store I met up with a button drummer tellin' about a little mare that could outrun a tornado.”

Eagle Jack sat straight up in the saddle. His eyes drilled into Lanny's. “What'd he say?”

“Said she was short-legged and rough-lookin', so all comers us'ally bet against her. Said she's draggin' in the stake money by the sackful for her owners.”

“
Owners
,” Eagle Jack repeated, in a menacing growl. “Where'd this drummer see her?”

“Someplace south o' Fort Worth. He couldn't recall the name of the place exactly.”

“Did he mention her color?” Eagle Jack asked.

Lanny pushed back his hat and scratched his head. “Reckon not.”

“I want to talk to him,” Eagle Jack said. “Where'd he go?”

Lanny shrugged. “Don't know. He was pointed at the ford when I headed out, but the river's still deep there. I reckon it's too deep to cross.”

Eagle Jack asked for a description of the man. Then he could barely listen for it, he was so eager to be gone. He was already turning his horse to ride out.

“I'll be back by midnight, boys.”

But he looked straight at Susanna when he said it.

She watched him go until he disappeared behind some trees.

“He'll be all right, Miz Sixkiller,” Lanny said. “Eagle Jack, he can handle anything.”

Surprised, she looked at him. What had the boy just seen in her face?

He smiled at her, touched his hat, and rode off. It didn't matter what he thought. Good grief, she was
expected
to love her husband!

Then she couldn't believe that she'd had that thought—especially not right out here in the
daylight. Heaven help her, she was losing her mind.

She turned her horse and started back to camp. She needed to find out what supplies had been lost, if any.
That
would bring her right back to reality.

A
t midnight, Susanna was sitting cross-legged on the ground outside her tent, as she always did when she couldn't sleep. Which, now that she thought of it, always seemed to be when Eagle Jack was gone from camp at night.

This time she was making a list by the light of the fire and trying not to panic. Maynell, who was exhausted and had to get up in a few hours to cook breakfast, had been persuaded to go to bed after the two of them and Cookie had found and organized every scrap of supplies saved from the river.

There hadn't been much.

And that wasn't even the worst of it. From what she'd gleaned from the stories told around the fire after supper and Cookie's and Maynell's recollections, the loss in cattle would turn out to be sub
stantial. More than she would ever have guessed from what Eagle Jack had said.

One of Maynell's mules had died in a watery confrontation with a panicked longhorn cow. Cookie's wagon had broken a wheel, and they'd put the one and only spare one on it today.

Susanna's trunk had been lost, so the one change of clothes she'd carried in her bedroll was now all she had. The bedrolls had all been found, but some of them were still wet.

The medicine box was still with the wagon, thank goodness. But the harness-mending stuff was gone.

Everything considered, the three or four days—or maybe more—that they had saved by not waiting behind the waterbound herds at the ford in the river had cost them dearly. Knowing that scared her so much she couldn't think how to go on.

But they had to go on and they had to do it soon.

If only Eagle Jack hadn't gone chasing off after a useless racehorse this evening instead of staying here to make plans with her! They might even need to change direction and go find a town they hadn't expected to pass near, just to get food.

Which she had no money to pay for.

And now the thought of killing beeves on a regular basis to feed the men made her sick to her stomach. She couldn't spare them. If she didn't go into Abilene with enough cattle to sell, if she
couldn't get enough money out of them to save Brushy Creek, then she was going through all this trouble for nothing.

She could not bear it if she lost her home.

She wrote “beans” on the list, with a pencil that trembled in her hand.

“Flour. Dried fruit. Rice.”

Lots of shopkeepers gave supplies on credit to drives and trusted people to return in the fall with the money. It was done all the time. It was a longstanding practice. She surely would have no trouble at all.

Thank God, both sourdough crocks had come out of the river unharmed. Cookie and Maynell, like most cooks, were so attached to their favorite old pots they'd probably have turned around and gone home if they'd lost them.

She tried to smile. Right there was something really big to be thankful for.

But the sharp claws of panic wouldn't let her go. They wouldn't back out of her flesh even a little.

How,
how
could she have been walking around whistling and sleeping in for hours on this very morning?

She got up, thrust her pencil and paper into her pocket, and began to pace, in spite of her sore foot. One thing about it, she would never sleep tonight, no matter when Eagle Jack came home.

Came
back
. Not came home. This wasn't his home, or hers either.

She paced the length of the camp, turned and then came back again.

There by the fire, she stopped. The soft, rhythmic fall of hooves was on the air. She listened. Two horses. If it was Eagle Jack, he was bringing a visitor, or else he had found Molly.

If it wasn't Eagle Jack, then she should be careful. She was the only person awake in the entire camp, and trouble could come too fast for the sleeping men. The ones on guard were with the herd, at least a quarter mile away.

Her pulse began to beat even faster. She tried to slow it by thinking sensibly.

Another thing to be thankful for was that her old pistol had stayed with them, too, in a box lashed to the top of the wagon. It hadn't even gotten wet and it was now in her tent. She went in after it.

When she stepped out with it in her hand, Eagle Jack was riding up to the wagon. He caught her movement from the corner of his eye, and turned as the horses stopped.

For one, hopeful moment she thought he'd found Molly. Then she saw that it was a mule he was leading, a mule loaded with supplies.

Such a mix of savage feelings attacked her that she didn't know which to acknowledge first or what to say or do. He had gone right ahead and taken care of the supply problem without a word
to her, and now she'd be in debt to him for the rest of her life.

She could've shopped much more wisely and probably bargained better than he did because she was desperate. She wouldn't have bought all those extras that he usually did. Why, Cookie's wagon even carried chocolate to drink.

No, Eagle Jack had gone gallivanting off and left her to find out all the bad news for herself and try to figure out what to do about it all by herself while he was wildly spending her money.

He stopped his little caravan and grinned at her.

“All I can say is, ‘Thank God I'm not riding the bay horse',” he said. “Put up your gun, won't you? I promise, Susanna, there's not a snake within miles.”

The firelight on his face lit his gorgeous cheekbones and made his eyes sparkle.

“I don't limit myself to snakes,” she said. “Lots of other wild critters run at night, too.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, and me and ol' Jasper, here, are wild as they come,” he said, as he stepped down off his horse. “That's why we're a little nervous when we see that hogleg in your hand.”

She didn't move. “A mule named Jasper, hmm?” she said.

“So the man says. He can move right on through the country, too, can't you, Jasper?”

“Eagle Jack,” she said frostily. “Did you ever think that the owner of your beef herd may not want to pay for all these expenses?”

He turned from untying the mule from his mount and gave her a funny look. He raised his eyebrows. “The owner of my beef herd?”

“Right. And that I, the owner of your wet herd, cannot afford to pay for extras like a pack mule?”

He kept on giving her that strange look that she couldn't read. “You lost a mule yesterday,” he said.

“Which you didn't bother to tell me about,” she said.

He went back to unfastening his rope.

“I wasn't about to start listing all your losses with you in the fit you were in,” he said. “I knew you'd find out soon enough.”

He sounded so calm and matter-of-fact that she tried hard to use the same tone and not sound like a hysterical woman.

Which was what she really wanted to be. She wanted to scream and throw things and have a tantrum at the unfairness of it all. Hadn't she worked like a hired hand for all these years and planned and scrimped and saved and sacrificed, and now she couldn't even buy food?

“So is that the same reasoning you used to buy all these supplies without asking me? That I'd find out soon enough?”

He shook his head. “You don't have to pay for a doggone thing,” he said. “It's taken care of.”

“You can't make love with me
one time
and then start taking care of my debts,” she blurted.

She hadn't known she was going to say that.

Despite her efforts to sound calm, her voice trembled a little. And she fought them, but tears filled her eyes.

He turned and looked at her, then he left the mule tied to the horse and came toward her.

Slowly, with that flowing panther walk that proclaimed he owned the world. That walk she loved so well.

“Annie, baby,” he said, “I'm not going to start taking care of your business. I know how you love to plow through life all on your own hook.”

That startled a chuckle out of her.

“You need to know that's more than fine with me, because I'll never settle down anyhow,” Eagle Jack said. “The whole idea of getting hitched scares me plumb silly.”

That remark relieved her. But somehow it pricked her pride, too.

Then she forgot it.

He stopped in front of her, close enough to touch her, but he didn't. He held her perfectly still, mesmerized by the power of his burning dark eyes.

“I know how you like to make love with me,
too,” he drawled, speaking very, very softly. “So I promise you now it won't be just one time.”

She looked up into his twinkling eyes, heavy-lidded now with the memories of their time together and she wanted nothing so much as she wanted to touch him.

But the tears took her then and stopped her hand. They even stopped her tongue.

Eagle Jack smiled at her and reached out to cup her chin in his big, rough hand. He tilted her head up to look even more deeply into her eyes.

“I can't make good on that promise right now,” he said, “because I'm standing guard. But you listen to me. You're stronger than you've ever thought you were and you're gonna buck up right now and set a fine example.”

She could only look at him, wide-eyed and questioning.

“You're my wife for the duration of this drive and I'm the trail boss. We're gonna band together and lead these good men and all the cattle we can gather straight to Kansas and have a good time while we're doing it.”

She expected him to kiss her then, but he didn't.

He fanned out his long, callused fingers and stroked her neck. A trembling thrill took her—it ran through her whole body.

“They're more shaken up by all this trouble
than you know,” he said. “Some of them believe a bad river crossing can jinx a whole drive. Believing that can make it happen.”

He drove that truth into her with his hard gaze.

“I've been fightin' that superstition all day,” he said. “I'll have to fight it for days to come. Help me here, Annie.”

“I will,” she said, and somehow she had the feeling that she was promising more than he asked.

“Don't worry about money and debts,” he said. “Remember—right now it's life and death.”

“All right.”

He did kiss her then—on the lips. A light kiss but long.

All the panic vanished as the heat from him spread through her veins.

The heat and the strength of him.

“I'm the one who first agreed to cross at the bridge,” she said, when he pulled back. “I can't stand it if I don't make the decisions but now I'm scared to death I can't make the right one.”

“Hey,” he said, “it was me, too. I wasn't gonna wait at the ford if I had to teach them damn longhorns to fly.”

She smiled. It felt really good to relax inside herself.

“I've got to stand guard,” he said. “Get some sleep. Tomorrow we'll have a lot of decisions to make.”

She nodded.

Finally, his gaze released her. He turned away and started back to his horse and his mule.

No. He couldn't go. She couldn't bear to let him go.

“Was it Molly?” she asked. “That the drummer saw?”

He chuckled. “It was. We'll find her soon.” He turned to flash a grin at her over his shoulder. “There's your chance for money, Annie girl,” he said, walking backward so he could look at her. “Win you a bundle with Molly.”

“First I have to have something to bet,” she said.

“I'll stake you,” he said, and held up his hand to stop her when she opened her mouth to protest. “For ten percent of your take.”

She laughed. “It's a deal,” she said.

Then she turned, lifted the flap, and ducked under it into her tent. If she didn't get away from him she would run after him and throw herself into his arms.

It was a miracle how much better she felt. It was incredible that the awful panic was gone.

There never was a man who knew her the way he did.

 

The next day, while she was helping Maynell peel some of the potatoes that Jasper the new
mule had hauled in for breakfast, Susanna figured it out. She would think of this trail drive as a time out of time.

Even if she did get attached to Eagle Jack, she would do it with the hard, cold truth firmly in mind. Once they reached Abilene and sold the cattle, that would be the end of their dalliance and she would be entirely on her own again.

Eagle Jack was right: he wasn't trying to take over her business, and she did have to have his help to make this drive, so she should be sensible. The sensible thing to do was to take pleasure where she found it, to make this a wonderful time that she'd remember forever, but not to let him into her heart.

She didn't even know what that was, actually, which would probably be a natural protection to keep her from falling in love with him. She didn't know how to love anyone, for she'd known the minute she decided to marry Everett that she was doing it only to get away from Aunt Skeeter and Uncle Job and out into a home of her own.

Little had she known the perils in that kind of thinking. It had been Everett's home and not hers.

What she must do with Eagle Jack was take and enjoy the fun and excitement he gave her—both of which were so rare in her life—and give only the same. The main thing she had to do was watch herself so that she didn't fall back into her hateful
old habit of always wanting to please the other person.

All her life, from the minute of her birth, she'd been trying to persuade someone that her existence was a good thing. From her mother who deserted her at birth by dying, to the father who'd lit out for the hills soon after that, to the succession of resentful aunts and cousins who raised her, to Everett who used her instead of loving her, to the banker who'd dogged her for two years for the deed to her place, nobody ever wanted her to be wherever she was.

Or to do whatever it was that she wanted to do.

When the word came that Everett was dead, she had promised herself, “Never again.”