The Lone Western Wanderer

Chapter Nine

Sarah woke before the wagons stirred.

The fire at the center of camp had burned down to a low red bed.

Someone had laid green wood over it in the night, and a thin ribbon of smoke crept along the ground before lifting into the cold morning air.

For a few breaths she did not remember where she was.

Then her split lip pulled when she swallowed, and she remembered the road, the crowd of men, and Clay’s arm firmly around her waist.

His mouth on hers.

Sarah pushed the blanket aside and sat up.

Her wagon stood a little apart from the larger camp, its canvas patched at one corner. The mule tied beside it had worked one of its reins loose and was nosing at a tuft of dry grass. Sarah climbed down and tightened the knot.

By midmorning the wagons were moving north in a long, uneven line. Wheels groaned through ruts baked hard by the last stretch of sun. Dust rose from the road and settled on hems, hats, and eyelashes. Sarah walked beside her mule to spare the animal the weight of the wagon where the ground climbed.

Violet came up beside her after a time, and her son, Brady, sat on the wagon bench with his legs swinging. He had found a tin whistle somewhere and was making an effort to play it.

“Does he know only that one tune?” Sarah asked.

“He doesn’t know any tunes.”

“I heard that,” Brady called.

“You were meant to.”

Violet kept pace with Sarah. “You came from Arkansas?”

“Little Rock.”

“That’s a long way to come alone.”

“I didn’t plan to be alone.”

Violet nodded once. She did not press.

Ahead of them, Clay walked beside his own wagon.

Tucker sat high on the bench next to Charlotte, holding the reins with both hands while the older woman kept one hand close enough to take them if needed.

He was talking without pause. Noah walked near the ox, one hand resting on its flank now and then.

Clay wore his hat pulled low against the sun. He looked back once, checking the line, then moved toward the rear wagon where a wheel had begun to wobble.

Sarah watched him crouch beside it. He did not call for help. He put his shoulder against the wagon bed, told the driver to hold steady, and worked at the axle with quick, sure hands.

Violet followed her gaze.

“Look, I ain’t going to say nothing, but I know that ain’t your man.”

Sarah felt a prickle on her forehead.

“Don’t have to defend yourself; I know why he’s doing it too,” she said. “He seems like a good man, even if he ain’t your real one.”

“He seems pleased with himself.”

“That may be so too.”

“He has no cause to go kissing women in front of thirty wagons.”

Violet’s mouth twitched. “No. He ought to have asked Everett’s leave first. There were other ways around it.”

Sarah looked at her.

“I saw what happened,” Violet said. “Most of us did. Everett is not a man who sees reason. I don’t blame Mr. McCall for taking the easiest option.”

“The easiest option was not his mouth.”

“What would yours have been?”

Sarah opened her mouth, then shut it.

Violet’s expression softened. “You needn’t defend him to me. I’m not saying he did it graceful.”

“He did it like a man who has never been struck in the face by a woman.”

“Has he?”

Sarah thought of Clay’s startled look after her palm met his cheek. The red mark had stood out bright against his tanned skin.

“He has now,” she said.

Violet laughed outright. Brady turned around.

“What’s funny?”

“Nothing you’d understand.”

“I understand everything.”

“That’s the trouble.”

***

Near noon, Harlan called for a halt beside a stand of cottonwoods where the road bent toward a shallow creek. The wagons pulled in one by one. Men unharnessed sweating animals. Women went for water with pails and kettles. The children scattered until their mothers called them back.

Sarah tied her mule where it could reach shade and took her cup to the creek.

She had almost reached the bank when she saw Everett standing near the trees.

His shirt was cleaner than most, but the cuffs were yellowed and his boots were cracked. He leaned against a cottonwood as if he had been waiting there a while.

Sarah stopped.

There were people nearby. Violet was filling a kettle twenty yards away. Two men crouched farther downstream, washing mud from their hands. She couldn’t see Clay.

“Mrs. McCall to be,” he said, with a smile.

Sarah did not return the smile. “Mr. Kane.”

“You in a hurry, are you?”

“I am now.” She kept her cup at her side and started past him.

Everett stepped into her path.

The creek moved quietly over the stones.

“You’ve got a sharp tongue,” he said. “I wondered if it was as sharp this morning as it was yesterday.”

“I wouldn’t know. I haven’t spoken to you.”

“You ought to mind how you speak around men.”

Sarah looked him over. “You ought to mind where you stand. You’re blocking the water.”

His smile thinned. “McCall isn’t here to do your talking for you today.”

“I don’t require him to.”

“No?” Everett’s eyes dropped to her mouth. The split in her lip had crusted dark. “He looked required yesterday.”

Sarah’s fingers tightened around the cup.

“You can stop this,” she said.

“Stop what?”

“Pretending you’ve got a right to stand over me.”

Everett came closer, and she caught the smell of tobacco and old sweat.

“You think a little boy with a rifle makes you safe.”

“He is more man than you are.”

For the first time, the smile left his face.

Sarah knew she had struck where she meant to. Jacob had taught her, without intending to, that certain men could bear any insult except one that named them small.

Everett lowered his voice. “I know you ain’t engaged.”

Her throat tightened, though she did not move.

“I’ve traveled this road enough to know a story when I hear one.” He looked toward the wagons.

Everett’s hand closed around her upper arm.

It was not a hard grip. That made it worse. His thumb rested against the sleeve of her dress as if he had all day.

“You got a wagon,” he said. “You got a horse. You got enough things packed in there to tell me someone expected you to go somewhere. Maybe you got money, too.”

“Take your hand off me.”

“Or what?”

Sarah had the small pistol tucked at the back of her waistband beneath her overskirt. Jacob’s old revolver. She could have reached it. She knew she could. But Everett was close, and his hand held her arm. If she missed, if he caught her wrist—

“Everett.”

Clay’s voice came from behind him.

Everett turned.

Clay stood six paces away with a coil of rope over one shoulder. He had no rifle in his hands. He did not need one. His face was quiet, which Sarah had begun to understand was not the same as calm.

Everett let go of her arm.

“Just speaking with the lady,” he said.

Clay looked at Sarah first. His eyes went to the place Everett had held her, then back to Everett.

Everett gave a low laugh. “You play fiancé well enough when there’s an audience.”

Clay shifted the rope from one shoulder to the other. “You want to find out how I play it without one?”

Everett looked at Clay for a long moment. Then he spat into the grass beside the creek.

“This road will teach you both something.”

“It’s teaching me already,” Clay said. “I learned who you were on day one.”

Everett’s jaw worked. He walked away toward his wagon without another word.

Sarah stood where she was.

Clay waited until Everett had passed between two wagons and vanished from sight. Then he bent, picked up her cup where it had fallen into the grass, and rinsed it in the creek.

“You all right?”

“Yes.”

“You’re bleeding.”

She touched her lip. Her fingers came away red.

“It’s nothing.”

Clay handed her the cup. “You don’t need to prove nothing to me. I can see you’re strong.”

“You don’t know enough about me to say what I’m like.”

“No,” he said. “I reckon I don’t.”

Violet was watching from downstream. When Sarah looked her way, Violet turned back to the kettle and gave them the privacy of pretending not to see.

Clay picked up the coil of rope again. “Keep near the wagons.”

Sarah’s chin rose. “Don’t tell me what to do.”

His gaze met hers. “All right. Then don’t let Kane get you alone again.”

“I didn’t let him.”

“That’s true. Sorry.”

The answer took the force out of her anger.

Clay looked as if he meant to say something else. Instead, he touched two fingers to the brim of his hat and walked away.

Sarah watched him go. His shirt pulled tight across his shoulders when he lifted the rope. He went to Tucker’s wagon, said something that made the boy grin, then helped Noah secure a trace that had come loose.

She hated that he had made it look easy. She hated that the sight of him walking away left her less afraid.

The camp settled toward evening in a broad patch of grass above the creek.

Samuel and two other men came back with rabbits and one skinny prairie hen.

The women cleaned them. Children gathered sticks.

Tucker followed Clay with a hatchet too large for his hands until Clay took it from him and showed him where to split the wood.

“Not at your foot,” Clay said.

“I wasn’t.”

“You were about to.”

“I know how.”

“Then show me how you know without cutting off a toe.”

Tucker planted his feet wider and brought the hatchet down with both hands. It struck the wood crooked and glanced off.

Clay caught the handle before it could swing again.

“That there,” he said, “is how you cut off a toe.”

Tucker frowned at the log as if it had betrayed him.

Sarah sat near Violet, plucking feathers from the prairie hen. Brady had fallen asleep with his head in Violet’s lap, one fist closed around the tin whistle. The firelight made his lashes look dark against his cheeks.

“He listens to Clay,” Violet said quietly.

“Tucker?”

“Boys listen better to a man who doesn’t shout at them.”

Violet looked across the fire.

Clay was showing Tucker how to set the hatchet down with the blade turned away. He did not see Sarah watching. That was a mercy. If he had looked up and caught her, she would have found some reason to scowl.

After supper, the camp grew quieter. Wagons creaked as people climbed inside. The last dishes were rinsed in a basin. A few men sat by the fire smoking, their voices low.

Sarah waited until Violet had taken Brady to their wagon. Then she crossed the camp toward Clay’s.

He was sitting on the wagon tongue with one boot braced on the axle. A lantern hung from a hook above him. He was cleaning his rifle with a scrap of oiled cloth. Tucker slept beneath the wagon bed on a pallet, one arm flung over his face.

Clay looked up when she stopped a few feet away.

“You need something?”

His voice was polite. Too polite.

Sarah folded her hands in front of her. She had faced Jacob on a dark road with a pistol at her waist. She had faced Everett at the creek. This was worse in its way.

“I came to speak with you.”

Clay set the cloth aside. “All right.”

She looked at the rifle instead of him. The walnut stock was worn pale where his hand had held it.

“I shouldn’t have slapped you.”

Clay waited.

Sarah lifted her eyes. “You did not ask before you kissed me.”

“No,” he said.

“And you had no right.”

“I know that too.”

His agreement made her pause.

“But,” she said, “I understand why you did it.”

Clay’s mouth moved slightly. “That makes it better, does it?”

“It does not make it better.” She drew a breath. “It means I was wrong to strike you without letting you explain.”

He looked down at the rifle in his lap. “You had cause.”

“I had a temper.”

“You still have one.”

She gave him a hard look.

Then he smiled. The lantern caught the gap in his front teeth, and for an instant, he looked younger than he had at the creek. Younger than he had when he faced Everett.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “For kissing you.”

Sarah nodded once.

“And for making it a poor first kiss.”

The words caught her off guard. “It was your first?”

Clay’s ears colored beneath the edge of his hat.

“That’s not your concern,” he said.

A laugh escaped her before she could stop it. She put her hand over her mouth at once, then winced at the split in her lip. Beyond the firelight, the road lay black and empty. Somewhere in the dark, Everett had his wagon and his men and whatever thoughts he kept behind that clean shirt.

Sarah looked at Tucker sleeping under Clay’s wagon. Then at Clay.

“Mr. McCall.”

“Clay.”

She hesitated. “Clay.”

He waited.

“I do not wish to be alone on this road.”

The admission sat between them. It was small when spoken. It felt larger than anything Sarah had carried from Little Rock.

“I can shoot,” she said quickly. “I can drive a wagon. I know how to mend a harness and set a snare. I am not asking you to take charge of me.”

“I know.”

“But Everett knows you are not my fiancé.”

Clay’s hand closed around the rifle cloth.

“And if he knows,” she continued, “others may know soon enough. I cannot keep fending off every man who thinks a woman by herself belongs to him.”

Clay’s face had gone still again.

“What are you asking?” he said.

She hated the heat in her cheeks. “I am asking if you will keep up the lie.”

“For how long?”

“Until we reach California or I have found a place where I can be safe.”

Clay looked toward the fire. Samuel sat there with his back against a wheel, speaking to Noah. The old man’s laugh came thin but warm through the dark. Violet’s wagon was quiet. The whole camp seemed to be listening, though no one could hear them.

“You understand,” Clay said, “people will talk.”

“They already do.”

“They’ll expect things from us.”

“I know what they will expect.”

“And you’ll have to stay close by me.”

Sarah’s temper rose. “I will not be ordered about like a child.”

“I’m asking you then. Please.”

She had no answer.

Clay set the rifle inside the wagon and climbed down. He was close now, though he kept a proper distance between them.

“I won’t tell you where to sleep,” he said. “I won’t take hold of you unless there’s a reason. And I won’t kiss you again unless you say I may.”

Sarah’s breath caught.

He went on as if he had not noticed. “But if we do this, I need you to tell me when something’s wrong. Don’t wait until Kane has his hands on you. Don’t walk off alone because you’re mad at me. And if I say there’s danger, you listen.”

“You ask a great deal for a false husband.”

“I’d ask the same as a real one.”

Sarah looked down at his hands. They were rough, with dirt still in the lines of his knuckles despite the creek water. Hands that could hold a rifle steady. Hands that had picked up her cup from the grass without making a show of it.

“Very well,” she said.

Clay nodded. “Very well.”

“Then we are agreed.”

“We are.”

She turned to go, then stopped.

He looked at her for a moment, then tipped his head toward her wagon. “Get some sleep, Sarah.”

She walked away before he could see her smile.