Chapter 37
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Caleb leaned against the tall boulders on the lookout ledge and watched the red-gold sun fit itself down between two peaks. Up in the hills to the south of the camp, some bird was watching, as well, and whistling the notes of its melancholy song.
Once the sun disappeared, the air began to cool quickly. The breeze picked up, sweeping through the bluffs and mountainsides and ravines, sighing softly through the pines. And twilight gradually began to give way to night.
He glanced down at the old mining camp lying in deepening shadow below him. At the far end, where the graves of dead men looked like a neatly ordered garden plot, the wind stirred the dust and lifted it into a tight, whirling cloud, before it all spread out and faded like a ghost at dawn.
Caleb expelled a deep breath through puffed cheeks.
They’d been here two full days since the shootout, and he was restless to get going.
He had a job to do, getting everyone back to Elkhorn.
But until Doc said his patient was ready to travel, they weren’t going anywhere.
Still, Caleb wasn’t built for sitting for too long.
The urge to get moving had been nipping at him all day, and it wasn’t letting up.
Maybe it was also this place, he thought, looking down at the camp.
Dead gray shacks, some burned out, some collapsed in on themselves.
The piles of gravel. The busted, discarded tools and conveyances of a played-out mine scattered everywhere.
Even outlaws that made it their hideout were now mostly dead and gone.
Whatever it was, until they got back on the trail, it was his job keeping these folks safe.
In the hills beyond the creek, a family of foxes started yipping and barking, and it made him think of his dog. This was the time of day when he especially missed Bear.
Caleb didn’t much like going to town too often and staggering back brandy sick.
Bear was all the company he needed. He never complained or rattled on about nonsense.
He was smart as a whip, but, try as Caleb might, he couldn’t get that dog to play chess worth a damn.
Still, Bear kept an eye on things and on his master, and that boy had an unbeatable nose for sniffing out danger.
What Caleb had smelled for the past hour was fresh stewed rabbit, beans, and hot biscuits, and his stomach was rumbling. Doc had said, all casual, that they could do with something other than beans and dry biscuits. So Caleb put out some snares yesterday and skinned four fat cottontails today.
Just then, Sheila Burnett came out of the shack.
She was wearing the hat and the duster she seemed to have become attached to, and she walked with the sure step of a confident woman.
Since arriving here, he’d realized she had a great many of her father’s qualities in her.
She was hardy, despite being a city-bred woman.
She seemed to be able to adjust to whatever the frontier life threw at her.
She even had a sense of humor, but she wasn’t always willing to let it show.
And she kept surprising him. That was the part he hadn’t counted on. A man could admire courage from a distance and still keep himself clear of trouble. But Sheila Burnett had a way of stepping right into his thoughts and making herself at home there.
She stooped over the fire, filled a plate, poured coffee into a cup, and started across the camp toward the trail.
Before she’d gone too far, Lucas Fields appeared in the doorway, looking across the camp at Sheila’s departing back. His arm was in a sling, and he was obviously still hurt from the beating, but he walked to the fire and managed to sit. A moment later, he lit a cigarette and sat smoking.
He seemed to be improving, but Caleb didn’t have to worry about his whereabouts. The young gunslick never moved too far from his mother’s side.
Mrs. Fields was another story. Doc wasn’t sure whether she would live or not. The fever was still high and didn’t show any signs of breaking. If she died, Caleb figured that’d be the time Lucas would make a run for it.
So far, the outlaw had been right about Dodger. Over the past two days, Caleb had kept watching for the killer to reappear. He’d searched the surrounding hills, but he could find no trace of the backstabber. With any luck, he’d gone off to find trouble somewhere else.
Caleb’s instincts were telling him something different, though.
Doc had shared with him everything that Mrs. Fields and Horner said about the fortune she’d supposedly stashed away.
Lucas didn’t seem to know anything about it, but Caleb guessed Dodger knew everything that the sheriff knew.
And that was a lot of money to walk away from.
However, there’d been no sign of him and no sign of Zeke and his posse either.
Caleb guessed he was probably still searching that area around Devil’s Claw pass.
Getting from there to here would be no easy task, and he didn’t expect to see Zeke or anyone else from Elkhorn.
This abandoned mining camp was a good hideout, and he understood why it had gone undiscovered for so long.
Before long, Sheila came around the boulders onto the wide ledge, and they exchanged greetings.
“Getting dark fast,” she noted, handing him his supper.
“Much obliged for the food. My stomach was about ready to drag me right over the edge and make straight for that fire.”
She smiled and gazed down at the camp. Lamplight was beginning to glow in the shack door.
“Can I sit a minute?”
“Sure.”
Caleb ate as he watched her settle down. She sat cross-legged, half facing him so that she could see the camp at the same time. She took off her hat and laid it beside her, smoothing her hair back with both hands.
She was a very pretty woman, and—whatever he thought of her before—she was a damn sight prettier now. From the furrowed brow, he knew something was troubling her. So he waited until she was ready to get to it.
“Do you think Dodger might have gone for good?” she asked finally.
She’d been through a great deal, and he knew the possibility of Dodger showing up was wearing on her.
For these past two days, she’d stayed pretty close to her father, but she wasn’t one to be kept under anyone’s thumb.
Caleb had already seen that. In fact, she was much tougher than he’d initially given her credit for.
Even so, he had a strong worry that once all this trouble was behind them and they were back in Elkhorn, she’d might be more than ready to go back to her normal life in the East.
And, as much as he hated to admit it, that thought was a damn burr under his saddle.
“Gone for good?” Caleb shook his head slowly. “Sooner or later, he’ll show his face. The question is whether he’ll come at us alone or get himself a gang of gunslingers to back his play.”
She pursed her full lips and looked off into the shadowy mountains.
“I agree. That’s why I cleaned and reloaded all the guns you collected from the outlaws.”
He cocked an eyebrow at her.
“I do know how to care for a gun, Mr. Marlowe. I told you, I went shooting quite often in New York.”
“That ain’t it.”
“No? Well, if you’re worrying about Lucas having access to them, you needn’t trouble yourself. My father is keeping an eye on him and on the guns.” She hesitated. “Not that I think he would do anything to hurt us, considering his mother’s condition.”
What he was going to say was that he could barely taste gun oil in the stewed rabbit at all, but he decided to hold off teasing her. Those two lines in her forehead were still there.
“How is she?” he asked instead.
She shrugged. “No change, really. My father says if the fever breaks tonight, she has a chance. If it doesn’t, we might be digging a grave for her tomorrow.”
He liked the matter-of-factness of how she spoke.
He studied her as once again she stared down at the camp.
The thick braid was gone. Her long, brown hair fell in waves to her waist. She had a scratch along her jaw along with a smudge of dirt on her cheek, and the duster she wore looked like she’d been driving cattle through Texas dust. She didn’t seem to be bothered by any of it.
His gaze moved back to the smudge of dirt, and before he could stop himself, he found himself wondering how soft her skin might feel beneath his thumb if he reached over and brushed it away. The thought came sudden, stirring something low and restless in him.
Caleb shifted slightly where he sat and forced his attention back toward the fire.
He reminded himself that her acceptance of everything was probably because she knew this frontier living was only temporary. With all she’d been through, Sheila would have stories to tell back in New York that would make her friends stare with shock and admiration.
Damn it.
“It’s been really good having a chance to spend time with my father. He sees me as a grown woman. I haven’t always felt that in the wording of his letters.”
Caleb focused on his plate of food.
“I’ve been able to help him, and I’ve seen the look of respect in his eyes.”
In spite of the situation they were still dealing with, Caleb didn’t think he’d seen Doc this happy since he’d met him.
“And thank you for not telling him about my coming out to your ranch that first night. I know now it was a foolish thing to do.”
Caleb touched the brim of his hat. “Your secret is safe with me.”
“But I was right. Wasn’t I?” Her blue eyes sparkled, and he read mischief in them. “I mean, about asking you to go after him.”
“Based on what I knew then, my answer was justified.”
“Justified or not, I was right. Admit it, Marlowe.”
“Only if you admit that I was right shooting them rustlers who came after me and my cattle.”
“But you shot them dead. Every single one of them.”
He put the empty tin plated on the ground and leaned toward her, frowning. “We ain’t really gonna have this conversation again. After everything you’ve gone through?”