Yellowstone Memories (14 page)

He tugged on the strap and slashed at the burlap, and out poured a rain of gold nuggets. Down into the snow, glittering in the half light of musket fire and Kirby Crowder’s lantern.

For a moment utter stillness descended on the field—so still that Wyatt heard the almost inaudible clink of snowflakes hitting the buttons on his coat. Musket fire ceased. Jaws dropped, and one man slid from his horse as if in a stupor.

“The gold,” Jean-François croaked. “You found it. You really found it.”

Bétee backed up, snorting, and a rain of nuggets tinkled, like sifted wheat.

Wyatt hauled the saddlebags, still dripping gold, off Bétee’s back and hurled them as far as he could. Which meant … oh, a good four feet away. They splayed in a snowbank with a smattery
splut
, facedown.

All the men leaped from their horses, shouting, and descended on the saddlebags with a flurry of boots and lantern light, knives and fists flailing. A noisy fray of grasping, hollering, and scooping up nuggets.

Jean-François pulled up fist after fist of gold, his openmouthed profile visible in the yellow glow of the lantern.

“We’ve hit pay dirt, boys!” Kirby exclaimed in shrill tones, digging through the snow. “We’re rich!” He giggled gleefully, almost like a child. “I’ll build a new cabin. Two new cabins! Buy the best horses. And thanks to Mr. Kelly, I’ve got a fine idea—I’ll buy that Cheyenne land and open up a coal mine!”

Kirby let out a shriek of exhilaration, and Wyatt froze.
Oh no. Not the land. Not that
.

“Will you hurry up?” Jewel hissed from the horse, reaching out her boot and nudging Wyatt in the shoulder. “While they’re still occupied with the gold?”

“Sorry. I just … sorry.” Wyatt awkwardly pulled Jewel down off her horse, dropping her in the snow several times, and borrowed a knife from Kirby’s saddlebag to clumsily slit her ropes. None of the men noticed; nobody even seemed to care.

“Thank you.” Jewel coldly handed him the rope. “Now excuse me while I take Kirby’s horse. He’s the fastest of the lot; he’ll get me back to Nebraska in a few days.”

Wyatt’s mouth dropped open. He swayed, reaching for Bétee’s spotted rump to steady himself. “You’re going … where? Back to Nebraska? But I thought …”

“What, that you could collect the bounty on me yourself?” Jewel snapped, jerking at a tangle of reins and leads. “Well, forget it.”

Wyatt remembered—vaguely—how to talk. “You must be joking. Surely you don’t think I’d follow you all way in the snow and nearly get myself shot—with my side already busted open—only to turn you in?” He glanced down at his bleeding side, which had leaked onto his pants. A few red-brown droplets stained his leather boots. “For pity’s sake. I’m not going to turn you in. I told that fellow about the bounty to save your life.”

“Save my life? They want to hang me in Idaho!”

“But he’d have shot you on the spot if I didn’t think of something.” Wyatt sneezed, sniffling as he stood there in the snow. “I’m telling you the truth.”

“How am I supposed to know if I can trust you or not?” Jewel turned, her beaded necklace jingling.

“You said it yourself. Look at my character and see.” Wyatt scrubbed a sleeve across his runny nose. “And here. I brought you your earring.”

He held it out on his bloodstained palm.

Jewel swallowed, looking from his hand to his eyes. “You expect me to think this means something?” Her voice shook, and her words came out softer than he expected.

“Sure it does. It’s your heritage. Your past. Part of who you are, even though you’ve changed and moved on. You’re still Arapaho. You still carry your father’s blood.” He glanced over at the men digging in the snow. “And if you don’t hurry up and get on your horse, it might be the earring you wear when they stand you on the gallows.”

Jewel took the beaded feather and tucked it into her ear. “Thank you,” she said softly.

Wyatt tried to reply, eyes fluttering, and sneezed twice. His boots and pants hung damp from snow; his teeth chattered. Smoke had stained his bloody shirt an ugly gray-black. He sneezed again, and Jewel took off her shawl and wrapped it around his shaking shoulders. Drawing him close and fitting the folds snug around his neck.

“You can’t see a thing, can you?” Jewel said in a soft tone. “No matter. I’ll get you home. Bétee will lead the way.” She bent down and picked up the severed rope on the ground and then looped it around the bridle of Kirby Crowder’s solid brown mare, whispering softly in her velvety ear.

“Miss Moreau?” Wyatt tried not to sneeze again. “Pardon, but what on earth are you doing? We’ve got to get out of here!”

“Right. And let those guys follow us and cut our throats? No thanks.” Jewel grunted as she tied the rope and patted Kirby’s horse on the muzzle. “Hurry, will you? Give me the reins of that big stallion back there so I can tether her to my lead.”

“By jingle,” Wyatt whispered hoarsely. “You’re right. None of Kirby’s men are paying a lick of attention.”

“It’s either that or we shoot their horses. But I’d rather not.”

Wyatt scrambled for the reins, tearing a revolver from one of the saddles and tucking it in his belt. Then a rifle, and finally a slender pistol. He shook his head at the melee: Jean-François scooping up fistfuls of nuggets, Kirby frantically scooping away snow with his hat and digging in the underbrush. Laughter and fumbling in the snow, curses and brawls.

“Now, Mr. Kelly!” said Jewel, clucking to the horses and pulling the lead. “Get up behind me, and hurry!”

Wyatt reached for her hand, coughing up something bloody, and she pulled him up behind her on Bétee’s rump. She gave a sharp command, and Bétee surged forward—with all the other horses on the lead trudging along obediently behind her. All laden down with packs and rifles.

Wyatt craned his neck to see over his shoulder, not quite believing what he saw. A line of horses moving forward in a blur of snow, and Kirby’s men oblivious. Shouting and pushing.

Well. For a second anyway.

“What in the Sam Hill do they think they’re doing?” Kirby hollered suddenly, looking up from a crouch and jerking his pistol from his holster. “Son of a gun! They got our horses!”

“Uh-oh,” Wyatt whispered, ducking. “Here it comes.”

Bullets whizzed past them right and left, dropping tree limbs, and the horses reared and whinnied, nearly knocking Bétee over. Wyatt yelled and held on for dear life, feeling his teeth knock together. Jewel dug her heels into her pony’s side, giving an urgent command in Arapaho and making a soft sound to the other horses. Soothing and guttural, reassuring. Bétee surged forward under a thicket of tree limbs, and the other horses trotted together, faster and faster.

Ducking into the woods and down a deserted trail, until the noise of gunshots and Kirby’s men died into the sibilant whisper of wind and pines.

“We made it,” Wyatt said, gasping for breath. “They’ll never catch up with us now.”

“Not on foot, they won’t.” Jewel glanced back over her shoulder. “I just hope we can make it back to the ranch before they figure out a way to the nearest town and find appropriate mounts.”

“They’ll be too busy with the gold to worry about us, won’t they?” Wyatt shivered, clutching his elbow close to his throbbing side. “In any case, we ought to call for the sheriff and turn them all in.”

Jewel turned slightly, her expression icy. “And you’re sure you’re not going to turn me in to the sheriff, Mr. Kelly? Tell me now so I can dump you off into the snow. Because I still have my doubts.”

“Of course not. You know I wouldn’t, or you’d have left me back there with Kirby Crowder.”

“That was a clever speech then, that you gave to Jean-François. You really checked up on me in Cody?”

“I did. And I think you should turn yourself in.”

“What?” Jewel whirled around.

A branch smacked Wyatt in the face, and he saw floating lights.

“Turn myself in? You must be joking, Mr. Kelly. Mr. Boulé said it himself—they’ll hang me.”

“Not if you tell them the truth.” Wyatt scrubbed the snow off his face and wrapped his arms awkwardly around her as he slid sideways. “It’s impossible for you to have killed your husband, you know. Besides, we heard Jean-François’s confession.”

“What makes you say it’s impossible?”

“You were in Yellowstone National Park that entire week, serving as a paid scout for a group of botanists and soldiers in southwestern Montana.” Wyatt sniffled from the cold. “After all, not everyone can speak both French and Arapaho with such dexterity, along with a fine understanding of Crow and Sioux—or navigate the mountains and rivers of Montana. So very similar to the terrain of Idaho.”

Jewel gasped. “How did you know about that?”

“I’ve been thinking about that all the way over here from Pierre’s place.” Wyatt groaned in pain as Bétee bumped over a snowy ridge, dropping to a trot over a frozen stream. “I saw an article about the expedition in the courthouse in Cody, and the more I consider it, the more that description of the pretty young guide sounds exactly like you.”

Jewel said nothing, just pulled the reins tighter.

“The article is accurately dated, you know. None of the members of the expedition would have trouble identifying you if you came forward.” Wyatt sniffled. “Fact is, if you played your cards right, you could countersue your husband’s relatives for slander, demand monetary reparations and your due pension as Mr. Moreau’s widow, and swear out your own warrant for the arrest of Jean-François Boulé. After all, he killed your husband and attempted to murder you. I think if we reconstruct the crime scene and his shaky alibis, we could prove it.”

Wyatt coughed; his throat throbbed from smoke and cold. “Besides, you couldn’t swing the stovepipe that they say ended your husband’s all-too-short life.”

“I’m certain I could.”

Jewel’s loose hair fluttered in the wind, thick and wild, like a flock of gleaming crows. Wyatt wrapped a strand around his finger and brought it to his lips, feeling something akin to delirium.

“Doubtful. With all due respect.” Wyatt leaned against her shoulder and shook his head. “Not with enough force to kill a man like Jean-François did—and I could prove that scientifically, by demonstrating fulcrums and velocity and borrowing the expertise of a good physician. Although,” he lifted his eyebrows, “I’m sure you could do some serious damage if you wanted to.”

“Thank you.” Jewel clucked to Bétee and urged her through a clearing, looking up at the clouds as if to check for any letup in the snow.

Wyatt groaned, clutching his wounded side. He sneezed again, and Jewel turned. “You’re sick already, aren’t you?”

“Probably. And Samson’s missing.” He reached into his pocket and wiped his nose on a bandanna, shivering. His knees knocking against Bétee’s furry side.

And before he could stop himself, his frozen knees and elbows gave way. He slumped sideways and sort of dripped off the horse, landing in a pitiful heap in the snow. Snowflakes sifting down through the pines and tickling his closed lashes.

Jewel called a sharp halt to her pony and hastily dismounted, falling to her knees beside Wyatt on the pine-needle-carpeted floor. Not much snow had fallen there; sweet scents of spruce and earth welled up in Wyatt’s nostrils like heady perfume.

“Mr. Kelly.” Jewel gently shook his shoulder. “Please get up. We’re almost home. But if Mr. Crowder finds us here, he’ll kill us immediately.”

Wyatt groaned and rolled his head back and forth, too tired and sore to raise his neck off the ground. For a moment the thought of Kirby Crowder’s gunshot sounded preferable to this horrible aching cold. The sharp wind and throbbing ache of his side.

“I can’t leave you here.” Jewel took his face in her hands. “Come. I’ll help you up.”

Wyatt blinked up at her, trying to juxtapose the two images: a black-haired brave raising the spear to kill his father, and an Arapaho girl lifting him, bleeding, off the frozen ground with compassionate hands. Life seemed to have reversed itself, leaving his head spinning, floating, as if under water.

“Why do you care what happens to me?” Wyatt raised himself up on one shoulder, clutching his bleeding side. “The gold’s gone, you know. Our deal is done.”

“Says who?” Jewel combed his red hair back from his forehead with tender fingers. “I never said I was your partner only for the gold.”

“You mean …” Wyatt’s eyes stretched open, and his tongue seemed to stick in his mouth. No woman had ever cared for him, so far as he knew. Not bumbling Wyatt Kelly with his plain face and halting speech. Not him.

“I mean I said yes to you,” Jewel whispered. “To you. Don’t you understand?”

Wyatt’s heart beat fast, loud, as he reached for her.

Jewel tugged him up off the ground and helped him onto his knees then massaged his frozen shoulders until he felt warmth again. “You can do this.” She spoke close to his ear, her voice deliriously sweet. “We’re a team, Mr. Kelly. Partners. We share everything.” She cupped his stubbly cheek in her hand. “You’re not as alone as you think you are, you know. Perhaps you never have been.”

Wyatt, you knothead
. He tried to sit up, despising his own foolishness. Why, if he had saved a bit of gold, he might have had something to offer her—right here, on his knees—and beg her to stay at the ranch.

“I threw all the gold away,” he croaked, letting her rub his cold hands in her warm ones. “I should have saved some of it for us. I could have—”

“Shh.” Jewel pressed a finger to his lips. “Forget the gold.”

“I could have filled my pockets before I threw that saddlebag away, and none of the men would have known the difference.” He pressed shaky fingers to his temples. “Then I could have sent out a hundred men to find Samson and bring him home. I blundered that one, too, didn’t I?” He reached out and rubbed a thumb across her smooth cheek, feeling his throat tighten and burn. “Why, I could have … could have …”

“Listen to me.” Jewel spoke over the sound of the wind in the pines. “There’s a good side to every mistake, Mr. Kelly. An excess of anything corrupts the soul, doesn’t it? Take poor Mr. Crowder as an example. A year from now he’ll be up to his neck in debt, with ten men at any given time ready to slit his throat over card games or liquor or property—and all the gold in the world wouldn’t solve his problems.”