Widow Woman (15 page)

"Then we have to get Shag to town."

"But he said—"

"Now I'm saying. Your niece'll let you stay with her family?"

"I'm sure she will, but—"

"Then we're leaving as soon as we can for Chelico. Henry will help me fix a pallet in the wagon. You heat stones and gather your belongings to stay till spring."

Hoofprints marked the shallow snow in front of the shed. Nick had directed his horses around it since the last snowfall a week ago just for this forewarning.

He relaxed some when he saw the new horse in the shed was one of the Circle T's, though not Shag's roan. Still, he slipped into the shack with revolver cocked, rifle tucked under his arm. By the rule of the range anyone riding through got shelter and food. But until he knew who he shared with, Nick's rule was caution.

The effusive aroma of fresh coffee hit him first. When Henry's wrinkled face turned from where he bent over a Dutch oven. Nick eased off the trigger.

"Howdy, Nick. Brought your supplies.” He waved a hairy arm toward a row of tins and two sacks on the table. “Brought oats for that black devil of yours, too."

"Thanks.” He slid his revolver into a saddle bag, propped the rifle by the door and drew off his gloves.

Henry stirred something in a skillet, releasing an aroma that reminded Nick cooking could involve more than opening a can or boiling beans. Henry chattered about his trip. Settling himself on the stool. Nick listened to an account of every frigid step before deciding he wasn't getting what he wanted by waiting.

"Where's Shag?"

"Uh, he felt poorly, so she—they decided I should come."

"Poorly?"

"Pains in his gut. Bad pains."

Nick frowned. “Doctor?"

"Couple weeks back, Mrs. Terhune sent a message. But the doc ain't coming out this weather. ‘Fraid he'd be here till spring."

Nick stood, reaching for gloves and rifle.

"Where're you going?” Henry demanded.

"Get Shag, take him in."

"No! Wait!"

Nick paused, taking in Henry's worried frown. “Aw, hell,” the man finally said, “I told her this wouldn't work. Mrs. Terhune left to take Shag to Chelico, day before yesterday. Took a wagon."

"Alone?"

"Yeah. Well, Ruth, too. Shag didn't want to go, but when he saw he couldn't change Mrs. Terhune's mind, he told her to send for you. She wouldn't, and Shag was so poorly ... Well, I tried and Fred tried to tell her, this is no time of year to be hightailing round the country, a woman alone. She said she wouldn't be alone, she'd have Ruth and Shag. I told her plain, they wouldn't be no help if she broke a wheel or some such. She said she was taking Shag to the doctor and that was the end of it."

"Is she staying in town?"

"Hell, no. She said as soon as him and Ruth got situated, she'd head back. Best Shag could get from her, she promised she'd take a stage ‘stead of riding alone."

Nick slowly returned his rifle and gloves.

Henry shook his head. “I kept telling her my elbow's paining me something fierce, and that's a sure as hell sign of a howler coming down, but she wasn't listening. Just said she'd be back quick as she got Shag cared for and not to tell you a thing. I said that don't work with Nick, but she got that mule look."

He knew that look. So when Henry started speculating that maybe Shag would convince Mrs. Terhune to stay in town after all. Nick didn't put any stock in it.

Rachel doggedly held on to the rough plank door when wind threatened to rip it from her gloved grasp and slam it closed. An eddy of cold air slapped her lined cape and nipped her ankles even through thick-knit stockings and leather tie-ups. She was grateful for the layers of quilted petticoats under her wool skirt.

Another gust spurted and the door swung open abruptly, practically flinging her into the tiny room that served as the stage line's office in Chelico. Righting herself and getting the door closed, she released a huff of breath before turning to an array of grim faces.

She'd caught sight of the horses being put in place, and had rushed the final few yards, concerned she might be too late to secure a spot on today's stage. Now a new worry reared.

"Isn't the stage running, Milton?"

Milton Olman, a scrawny man with one useless arm, collected fees and kept the books for the stage.

"It's running,” came a blustery voice from near the corner stove. A bulky man made bulkier by the theatrical effects of flowing beard and ostentatiously collared coat stepped forward, hands patting his chest. “I'm running it. Aaron Vaw, at your service. A true knight of the ribbons. I shall take this stage through to Miles City, whether I take it empty or whether these citizens cease to shivering in their boots and gather their fortitude and climb aboard."

Aaron Vaw's bombastic style didn't impress Rachel, but she would have no contact with him once the stage rolled; he'd be outside guiding the team, she'd be inside. Judging from the shaking heads and long faces, she would be alone inside.

"Very well. Milton, I'll purchase a fare to the Circle T.” The stage didn't deliver her to the door, but the road ran past the main gate. If the weather was too rough for her to trudge the mile to the house, she could ring the bell attached to the gate and summon assistance.

"Mrs. Terhune, there's a bad storm brewing, looks like."

"The stage has gotten through in worse than this, Milton. Here's the fare."

She held out the money. He didn't take it.

"Truly, ma'am, you'd best think on this. Another stage comes in three, four days, and the weather—"

"Nonsense,” roared the driver. “This stage is running. Today. This very moment. And now, at last, we have found one passenger with backbone."

Advancing from the corner, he dramatically removed the money from Rachel's hand and stuffed it into Milton's vest pocket. He took the waybill the clerk held and snatched a pen from his desk. “Your name, ma'am?” She told him, and he wrote it with a flourish. To his demand about baggage, she held up her valise.

"We depart this very moment,” Vaw announced, casting a superior look at the other occupants of the room.

As Rachel crossed me yard to the stage, a large, wet snowflake struck her cheekbone and slid down like a tear.

He was a damn fool to be out in this.

And if he didn't know it, Brujo did. The horse had tried more than once to reach back and nip Nick's leg since they'd started out in this storm.

"Not much farther,” he promised aloud.

A little more along the road, then he'd cut across country and, with luck, they'd reach the shack within an hour. Then he'd sit by the fire and wonder what had possessed him to let Henry's frettings of three nights ago push him out into this white hell.

It had started snowing yesterday noon and blown hard all night. The snow eased off by first light, but the wind whipped drifts around like clouds. The sky hung, weighty and gray just above the ground in stark warning that the storm was gathering strength for a second—and harsher—round.

Nick told himself he wouldn't have much chance to go out the next few days, and he had to keep watch on the herd. But instead of following the creekbed, where cattle would likely gather in fierce weather, he was tracking the stage road.

Brujo gave a snort, ears pricking, then flattening.

Nick focused immediately on what had caused the reaction—something dark whipping in the wind, down near ground level—and he kept Brujo headed toward it when the horse would have skirted wide.

A corner of loose cloth—a piece of coat. A bulky, eyecatching coat with a buffalo collar so wide it almost formed a cape. A coat that hadn't been warm enough to protect its owner. A coat worn by a dead man.

Nick knew the man was dead before he dismounted, holding tight to Brujo's reins in case the unsettled animal got the notion to bolt. Without a horse, Nick could come to the same end as the bearded stranger staring up at him, the skin of his cheeks a strange, blanched color, as if the snow had sifted into the flesh.

A stage driver, by his flamboyant getup.

Brujo snorted, and Nick eased his grip on the reins he'd unconsciously jerked. He saw no sign of stage or horses. The man had been afoot. Fresh snow mostly obscured his path. He must have fallen sometime during the night, and died not long after.

Most likely there'd been an accident in the drifting snow. Horses must have bolted or been hurt, or the man wouldn't have been afoot. Unless he'd lost his head, the way some did in a fright.

Nick's eyes followed what he could of the man's path, and beyond. Somewhere out there had to be the stage the man had driven. Wrecked? Empty?

Brujo shook his head with an uneasy jangle of metal and stiff leather as Nick crouched by the dead man. Nick didn't hesitate as he slid his gloved hand inside the coat. He found the man's money pouch. Then one of tobacco. It took longer to find what he'd sought: a packet of papers in an inside pocket.

The top paper was a waybill. Below the listing of trunks destined for one Marta Grunderschell in Miles City, read a single entry under the heading Passengers:

Mrs. R. Terhune, Circle T Ranch, Wyoming Territory.

Squinting hard against the stinging snow, Nick thought he made out a shadowy shape. But he knew the tricks his own eyes could play on a man. Especially when he'd battled the whiteness for more than an hour, straining to follow a trail near rubbed out.

He wiped across his eyes with a gloved hand, and looked again.

There
was
something.

A stage. Listing on its side, like the dead carcass of a giant steer.

"Giddap, Brujo."

He jabbed at the horse's sides and Brujo responded with a determined floundering through the snow. After a few steps, the animal stumbled, nearly going down. Keeping his tone calming, Nick let a stream of self-directed curses slip through his lips. He allowed Brujo to find his own speed.

His eyes never left the stage. Snow rapidly whitened the dark body and gaily painted trim. A few more hours and it would have sunk invisibly into the landscape. There was no movement.

"Mrs. Terhune!” he shouted.

No answer. No stirring.

A chill from inside shuddered across his shoulders.

"Rachel!” His yell seemed to echo within the smothering cloud of snow. He clamped his jaw for fear a third shout might come out a howl.

Brujo, sides heaving, pushed through a last drift and into the relative shelter from the driving wind and snow offered by the protruding wheels of the stage. Nick slid awkwardly out of the saddle, his legs so stiff they didn't feel connected to his body. He forced them to function as he sought footholds to scale the stage's undercarriage, now a vertical wall. He used his arms to hoist himself to the top, then jerked open the door.

The interior below was quiet, and so dark it took his eyes a heart-stabbing moment to adjust.

Then he took in the dead embers of a small fire in the opening of the other window, now forming part of the floor of the enclosure. He sorted out deeper shadows in a corner to become a woman's form, huddled under a cape and several lap robes.

"Rachel."

It came a whisper now, as he dropped through the opening, his boots scattering the fire's pitiful remains. Kneeling beside her, he jerked off a glove and slid his fingers along her neck. Her closed eyelashes didn't lift from her pale cheeks, but he felt the blessed thrum of life under his fingers.

He closed his eyes and drew in one deep, thankful breath. That was all he allowed himself.

She was breathing. But she was cold, so damn cold.

He had to get her blood flowing before he risked the trip to the shack. He pushed aside the robes and cloak, loosened her bodice by unbuttoning where his fingers cooperated and tearing when they didn't, opened his own layers of coats, vest and shirts, then pulled her shoulders flush to his chest. She felt so cold against his flesh he had to fight the instinct to flinch away.

Wrapping his clothes around both of them as best he could, he took off his gloves and rubbed her everywhere he could reach. Shoulders, arms, stomach, breasts, thighs. Trying to force warmth into her through the friction of his touch and sheer determination.

Warmth whispered at his neck, and he realized she'd given a soft sigh. Holding her slightly away, he watched her eyelids lift, drift closed, then fight to rise again.

"Rachel! Rachel, stay awake, dammit!"

He rubbed harder, anywhere he could reach. Her eyelids fluttered and another sigh came.

"Nick?” Her lips hardly moved, but he heard.

"Yes."

"Are you ... is this a dream?"

"No. I'm here, Rachel. I'm going to get you out of this, but you have to help. You understand? Rachel! Goddammit, you stay awake."

Her eyes opened fully at last. “You called me Rachel."

"Yep."

Her brows dropped in disapproval. “You swore at me."

A hell of a time to want to grin. “I did that, too. You can fire me later. First, we get out of here. We have to get to the shack, but I need you to help. You understand?"

She sat docilely as he rebuttoned her clothes, looking around for anything that might aid them.

"Rub your hands together, Rachel. And try to move your feet."

Her movements were slow and awkward, but she was moving. Another hurdle passed.

He hastily buttoned his clothes. She still rubbed her hands and shifted her feet under the layers of petticoats, skirt and robes. Her frown deepened in concentration.

"The stage ... Accident."

"I know."

"Horses ... gone."

"I know. Now, listen, Rachel. We're going to wrap you as warm as I can, then we're going to ride Brujo to the shack. It'll be cold and it might take a long time, but you can't fall asleep again. You have to promise me that.” She didn't answer. “Swear, Rachel,” he demanded harshly.

"I swear."

"Okay. I'm going to look for things we can use. You stay here and keep moving."

He watched to make sure she obeyed, then scrambled out of the tilted coach. Brujo stamped and moved restlessly. They had to get moving soon before the frigid air stopped him, too. Without Brujo, neither he nor Rachel would have much chance; Rachel couldn't walk to the shack, he couldn't carry her all that way, and he wouldn't leave her.