Chapter 29
Theda told herself she wasn't thinking about Jem. But she was.
She sat outside her wagon in the dark with her knees drawn up and her shawl pulled tight.
The fire in front of her had burned to coals.
She didn't rebuild it. She thought about Joe Pruitt's leg, which was healing cleanly.
She thought about the Wesley baby. She thought about the water supply and whether it would last until the army base.
She was not thinking about Josiah. But her mind kept going back to him. It kept replaying his words. The way that they made her heart feel alive.
The truth was she didn't know what to do with what he'd told her. She'd meant it when she said he mattered to her. She'd meant it when she asked for time. But time felt like a luxury she didn’t have.
She could see the urgency in his gaze. He was terrified of whoever his brother was. It made her heart skip a beat in fear. What were they to face? Would they really be prepared?
Theda was conflicted about Jem, his intentions, what he did and didn’t remember, but her heart wasn’t conflicted. Somehow, she’d fallen in love with him.
Theda scrubbed a hand over her face, then turned her face to the sun. They’d be heading out soon. The days she’d walked alongside the wagon with Jem came rushing back. To go back to simplicity…
Her eyes filled with tears as she found the horizon with her gaze. The fact he was an outlaw, a criminal, what did it mean for them? Could they still love one another? Be there for each other?
She blinked away her tears, focusing a little harder on the horizon. It began to change so gradually she almost missed it. Black softening at the edges, the ridge beginning to separate itself from the dark above it.
She stood, her whole body tingling with alertness.
The shapes appeared on the ridgeline. Seven of them. Sitting their horses in a line against the pale sky, completely still, looking down at the camp below them. Though, she knew there could be more she couldn’t see.
Her stomach dropped. Then Phineas' voice split the morning open.
“Positions. Now. Move.”
Jem had been right. They were going to have to deal with his brother before getting to the army base. Her heart lodged in her throat. She looked up, searching for him. Where was he?
Men came out preaching for weapons. Voices cut across each other from every direction. Theda saw Walt running, saw Declan moving low and fast toward the front wagons. Around her, women were already pulling children toward cover without being told.
Theda ran for the supply wagon. She almost ran straight into Phineas. He stopped her, put his hands on her shoulders.
“You have to hide.” His tone was ragged.
“You can’t let them find you, Theda. “I can’t let them take the diamonds, because they may not leave us alone if I do.
They could hurt Ansel and his family, something I can’t allow to happen.
I will do my best to protect everyone in this wagon train, but you have to promise me, you’ll stay safe. ”
Theda met his gaze.
His eyes were wide, full of fear, the same kind she hadn't seen in them since the night their parents died.
He was her capable, steady brother who held everything together and never let anyone see him come apart, and he was looking at her like a man who had just understood exactly what he stood to lose.
She took his face in both hands the way she had when they were children, when he was the one who needed steadying, and she looked at him straight in the eyes, putting as much strength in her tone as she could.
“I'm going to be all right,” she said. “You hear me? I know what I'm doing, and I'm staying behind the wagons. I won’t try anything, won’t put myself in danger.”
His jaw worked. He put his hands over hers briefly, the way he used to when they were small, making her heart tug with memory.
“Theda--”
“We are going to see each other on the other side of this.” She said it the way she said things she needed to be true. Plainly, and without room for argument. “Now go. They need you.”
He held on for one more second. Then he let go, and turned, and went back to the fight. Theda watched him go.
She pressed her back against the wagon and pulled in a slow breath, then another, willing her hands to stop shaking. She was not as calm as she'd let on. Not even close.
The fear was a physical thing, sitting high in her chest, making it hard to breathe all the way down.
She had lost people before. She knew what it felt like to watch someone walk away and then find out later that was the last time.
Her parents, gone before she'd been old enough to understand that some goodbyes were permanent.
Others since then, people she'd tended and couldn't save, faces she still carried.
She knew the particular weight of that kind of loss, the way it didn't leave, just shifted, became part of a person.
But this.
Phineas was all she had left of the life she'd come from. He was the person who had stood beside her through every hard thing, who had loaded her wagon and pointed it west and said they'd find something better. She could not lose him.
And Jem…
She pressed her fist against her sternum and made herself breathe.
Leland, a fair man doing his best. Della, who had sat with her through more late nights than she could count and never once asked for anything back. She stood to lose all of them at once. Tears clouded her vision.
Something moved behind her. She spun and drove her elbow back hard, twisting into it, and her fist connected with something solid, and arms came around her anyway, locking her in place. She opened her mouth to scream when he spoke.
“Theda.” The voice was low and urgent and close to her ear. “It's me. It's me, calm down, it's just me.”
Josiah.
She stopped fighting. Her whole body went slack for one moment and he held her up through it, both arms around her, his chin coming down toward her shoulder.
“I've got you,” he said. His voice was shaking. She could feel it against her. “You're all right.”
She turned in his arms and looked at him. There was a cut along his jaw she hadn't seen before and dust and sweat on his face and his eyes were moving over her, looking for damage, not stopping until he'd found none.
“I thought you were with the other men,” Her voice came out unsteady.
“Leland's taking care of it…I had to make sure you were okay, that you would be…” He stopped. His jaw tightened.
She looked at him. At the shaking in his hands where they held her arms, at the fear in his eyes, and something in her chest pulled loose.
“I'm all right,” she said.
“I can see that.” He didn't let go. “You hit hard.”
“I’m not going down without a fight.”
Something moved across his face that was almost a smile and didn't quite make it. His hands were steadying now.
“I know things are complicated between us, Theda. I know they can probably never work out. I don’t know what will happen with my brother. If your brother can trade the diamonds for safety, or if he has some other plans…I don’t care what he wants, I'll give it to him if it means keeping you safe.”
She shook her head.
“I’m sorry that I asked for time,” tears streaked down her face. “What if this is goodbye?”
“Theda.” His voice was very low. “It’s not goodbye. We’ll see each other again, I’m certain of it. But…I had to at least see you one more time, to tell you…how much I care for you.” His eyes were full of worry and emotion; she felt lost in them.
He pulled her in, one hand firm between her shoulder blades, and she pressed her face against his shoulder and closed her eyes .
She let herself soak him in for a moment, his smell, the feeling of his breathing in his chest. He felt safe, like she could stay there forever.
The noise of horse riders came closer. She pulled back and looked up at him.
“You’ll be okay too, right?” she asked.
His eyes stayed on hers. “I will be.”
“Go,” she said. “I'm here. I'm not going anywhere.”
He looked at her one moment longer. Then he pressed his hand briefly against the side of her face, just once. He pulled his other hand from his pocket, with a knife in his palm and held it out to her handle first. His eyes moved over her face. Taking her in. Making sure she was all right.
She took the knife. His hand closed briefly over hers around the handle. Just for a moment.
“Stay behind the wagons,” he said quietly. “No matter what you hear. Promise me.”
She looked at him. At the set of his jaw and the steadiness of his eyes and the grief sitting plain and unguarded in his expression.
“I promise,” she said.
He held her gaze one moment longer. Then he turned and was gone, moving low and fast toward the other men, where he’d be in the thick of the confrontation, and she watched him go before she made herself look away.
She tucked the knife into her belt and grabbed the rest of her medical kit.. She had one hand on the wagon frame, preparing to get to the next wagon, when Della came around the corner.
She pulled up short when she saw Theda, her eyes dropping to the kit, then back up.
“Where are you going?”
“Closer to the front, I have to get closer to what’s going on. What if someone gets hurt? What if Phineas gets hurt?” Theda kept her voice low. “If anyone goes down, I need to be able to reach them. I can't do that from back here.”
Della looked at her for a moment. She had a shawl pulled tight around her shoulders and her hair was coming loose from its braid and her expression was taught.
“But Phineas would be furious if he knew you intended to put yourself in danger, not to mention Leland or Jem--”
“I have to help. I know I promised them to stay safe, and I will if I can, but if something happens, I won’t forgive myself I could help but I didn’t.”
Della hesitated for a moment, then she nodded with a sigh.
“I'm coming with you,” she said.
“Della…” Theda shook her head.