Chapter 8 #2
Delaney focused on the potatoes as she considered how utterly alone Roz and Jesse had been. And how thrilled Roz had been to see Morgan. Not just thrilled, but desperate.
“Well, you’re welcome to come with us. We’re on our way to Fort Russell in Wyoming.
That’s near Cheyenne, the state capital, so you can look around there, too.
Then decide if you want to come back here or sell off your cattle and make a new life with more people around you.
My pa and ma live there, so I’m going to settle in.
Maybe be a schoolmarm. That’s the job I had in Texas.
” Unless she decided she needed to help bring those worthless Duncans to justice.
“I’m planning to live with my folks. My folks would be glad to make your acquaintance.
” Delaney felt a pang of worry. “Knowing them, I’ll bet they’re on their way right now to find me and Boone.
We’re days late. No doubt they’re awful concerned.
But we’re going to be powerfully hard to find up here.
We need to get on the trail soon if we hope to cross paths with them. ”
Roz gave a big grin and said, “Suits me fine. We can leave at first light.”
Delaney smiled in return. She realized then that under the men’s clothing and rough ways, Roz Beck was a beautiful woman.
Yep, they needed to get her out of here before some worthless man came along and she married him out of pure loneliness.
A woman as capable and as pretty as Roz deserved to have the pick of the litter.
Delaney decided she’d do her best to help make that happen.
She pictured Roz hurling herself into Morgan’s arms, and Morgan grabbing hold and smiling and spinning her around. She wondered what it all meant.
Boone chose that moment to come up beside Delaney and sink onto a log that was positioned by the fire. The fire pit was well established. It looked as though Roz cooked out here a good part of the time.
Delaney realized she still hadn’t gone into the house. Curiosity almost overcame her manners. “How are you, Boone?” She watched as her brother tossed another piece of firewood onto the flames.
He still had a bandage wrapped around his head. Delaney had been examining him daily, and he seemed to be on the mend now. It would soon be time to shed the cumbersome bandage.
“I’m seeing only one of things today—leastwise most of the time.
My head still punishes me if I move suddenly or pick up anything heavy.
” He gestured toward the small stack of branches he’d gathered for the fire.
“I’m a worthless saddle partner, Delaney.
I’ll make that up to you when I can see straight again. ”
Delaney knew her brother well. He always pulled his own weight and then some.
“You’re a lot better now than when you were unconscious after the shooting,” she said.
“Ma and Pa are tough, but I don’t want them walking into the middle of a gang of killers who want to get their hands on horses.
You know how Ma can be when she has to shoot somebody. ”
Boone shrugged. “I’ll grant you she doesn’t like it.”
“The Duncans are still out there somewhere, although they’ll have a hard time trying to follow after us. Those Marshals are skilled at covering their tracks.”
He turned and looked at her, but very slowly. “You couldn’t see the trail? Really?”
“Morgan said they’ll never find it, but that was before we took their horses.
Near impossible to hide the trail of so many critters.
” Delaney shook her head. “I forget you were knocked out. First, we climbed a mountain no horse should be able to scale.” She went on to tell him about the trip they’d taken.
Roz was listening as closely as Boone. “Roz and Jesse will be going with us. She hasn’t been to town in years. ”
Boone nodded. “How do you manage up here with nary a trip to town? Don’t you need supplies?”
“I remember the nice things Pa and Herman used to bring home from town,” Roz said.
“I had a liking for coffee and enjoyed what could be made with flour. But we don’t need those things.
We have a garden, and I’m a hand with my bow and arrow when we get really hungry.
But I’m careful about saving our bullets.
I usually take one of the cattle to get through the winter.
A bit of beef is always welcome. Mostly I let the herd grow, although I’m not sure what I’m growing it for.
I suppose maybe Jesse will want it someday.
When I leave here, I doubt I’ll ever come back. ”
“Those cows are valuable.” Boone jabbed a finger at the small herd, which was better than fifty head, ranging from spring calves to fully grown cows and bulls with impressive spreads of horns.
“Once we get ourselves out of this knothole, you should come back and get them to market. Cows go for twenty-five dollars a head these days, probably less for the young calves. That means you have more than a thousand dollars’ worth of livestock here.
That’d give you a good start somewhere closer to town. ”
“A thousand dollars! Why, I’ve never heard of anyone having so much money. Can we drive them out with us now?”
Not a lot of sentimental attachment to her animals. Delaney thought that was a trait most folks on the Frontier shared. Don’t get too attached to an animal you might need to eat someday.
Delaney arched both brows. “Not now. Not when killers might be on our trail. We have to keep moving until we get shut of them.”
“Fair enough,” said Roz, nodding.
Morgan returned then with three dead grouse and a rabbit. They soon had them cut up and in the pot. Once everything was prepared for their meal, they had a stretch of quiet. Delaney rested with her back against a fallen log and sipped a steaming-hot cup of coffee, then caught herself waking up.
Then Jesse came running toward them, shouting something about a prairie fire. He had a stick in his hand, and he whirled around as if it were a sword and he were fighting a charging enemy. He turned and rushed off just as suddenly.
Roz laughed, ignoring him as she stirred her stew.
Delaney had four big brothers, and she was a schoolteacher. She was used to boys with their wild imaginations.
“Time to eat,” Roz hollered.
Jesse skidded to a halt, spun back around toward them, and came running again. A starving boy, Delaney well remembered that.
Roz scooped the hot stew onto a plate as the boy chattered on.
Delaney noticed the men in their party walking toward them from different directions.
The sun was sliding behind the mountains that lined the western side of the beautiful canyon.
Delaney saw Boone walking with Owen, the two of them talking with serious expressions as they kept their eyes on their prisoners.
Delaney and Roz filled plates as fast as they could and handed them out.
Owen and Morgan saw to feeding the Duncans.
Then, realizing how hungry and exhausted she was, Delaney collapsed back to where she’d been leaning on her log.
Boone was already there beside her, finishing his meal as she began hers.
A few moments later, Owen sat down on her other side. “We leave at first light,” Owen said after he scraped the last bit of his stew and ate it.
“Do you have things to pack, Roz?” Morgan asked. “I can help you gather what you need. I don’t know if you’ll want to come back here. It’s a mighty long way to the next ranch, farther yet to a town.”
“I’m done here, I believe. But I will want to herd my cattle to town and sell them. So I’ll need to come back for them. I have little enough I want to take with me. For this trip, I’ve already packed what I need.”
She jabbed her fork toward two bedrolls near the fire. “I’ve got saddles for two horses. The mustangs closest to the barn, the gray and the pinto, are the best trained, so we’ll ride them. Jesse and I are ready to go.”
“We’d best let your horses out of the corral so they can graze for a bit. Will they bother your cattle?”
“No, they’re good friends.”
“Friends? Your cows and horses are friends?” Morgan asked.
“Oh, yes. Friends with each other, and friends of mine and Jesse’s.”
Delaney considered Roz’s longhorn cattle. She’d been taught to give longhorns, even seemingly gentle ones, a wide berth. They had a mean streak in them.
Yet Roz seemed to be done with the subject and took her stewpot off the fire to haul it into the cabin. Delaney got up and poured more coffee. Roz was back in time to have a cup and was eager to taste it.
Morgan gave Roz a smile of approval as he looked at her two bedrolls. He must like a woman who could pack light. “First thing in the morning then. We’ll be out of the canyon before the sun rises. It’s a tough trail getting out of the mountains, but we should be in Cheyenne in a few days’ time.”
A few days? Delaney remembered how they were two days away about . . . seven days ago. If the train were running, it was a one-day trip. She leaned closer to Boone. “I wonder where Ma and Pa would be if they did strike out looking for us. It’d be a shame if we didn’t cross paths with them.”
“We’ll head for Cheyenne and round up our folks later. Hopefully, if we miss each other, they’ll send a wire to the fort to see if we’ve turned up. So we should be able to bring them on home fast.”
“I wonder if the Duncans have gotten themselves new horses yet.” Delaney looked at the outlaws they’d rounded up. And the horses they’d confiscated. “And I wonder who they had to kill to get back in the saddle.”
She saw Owen’s face grow serious beside her. The flickering flames in the twilight set off his unruly blond hair and flashed in the blue of his eyes. He’d heard what she said and understood exactly what she meant.
It didn’t mean they’d do things different. It just meant they were dealing with the lowest kind of folks, who all needed to be in prison.
Boone began snoring gently and drew Delaney’s attention.