Chapter 26
The sharp snap sounded loud as a gunshot.
Abby looked back and scowled at Wade’s clumsy foot, now square on a brittle stick. Then, on her belly on the ground in her foolish gingham dress, she continued sliding through the tall grass, hunting shadows to use like hiding places.
Thank heaven he’d let her go ahead. Abby stopped her forward progress when she caught herself falling back into that kiss. What had come over her? Why had she let Wade, a white man, hold her close and tempt her into believing she could be happy in his world?
He had let her go ahead with her sneaking, though.
With a twinge of pleasure, she thought of how Wade had not only admitted she was better at sneaking—he’d admitted she was a master.
No doubt it chafed him to admit she was the better woodsman, but he’d done it.
It filled up a strange, empty place in her heart to be respected like that.
Wild Eagle had certainly never conceded that she had skills superior to his.
He had seen her ease her way up close enough to slap the children during games of hide-and-seek.
When she was young, she was the best of all the children when they’d played at hunting.
But older girls weren’t included in the hunts.
She’d known she could help feed her family, but Wild Eagle’s pride had been too great to consider letting her come along.
Instead, he’d forbidden her to go along on the hunts, ordering her to stay in the village where a woman belonged.
But truth was truth. Wade knew who was better in the woods. Now he stood there, not moving, and managed to be noisy. Abby wanted to growl at him through the knife she had clenched in her teeth. He grinned at her, apology and admiration in one sweet smile.
She looked away to keep her attention on her sneaking. She used swells in the ground and the waist-high prairie grass to conceal her as she inched forward.
That sound bothered her, but she didn’t turn back. If there was anyone in the house, Wade had very possibly alerted them.
Another sound came from behind her, much softer, the hush of iron on leather, and she turned back as Wade pulled his Colt revolver and took careful aim at the house.
Abby was approaching from the south. There were two windows on the ground floor and more on the second.
If Wade saw someone at those windows, he’d cover her.
Protect her.
Kill for her.
Die for her.
Abby hesitated to admit it, even to herself, but she felt the same. She knew a fraction of how much Jesus must have loved her because of the determined look on Wade’s face and the deep resolve in her own heart to protect him.
God, please let me be worthy of his love. Please help protect us both. Please, please, please don’t make it necessary for either of us to kill or die.
Abby inched forward. The moving grass would hopefully be mistaken as the blowing wind. She prayed.
Wade aimed.
God, please hear the praying and forgive the aiming.
Nothing. No movement. No sound. Minutes passed. Then half an hour.
Paddy twitched with impatience. Sid wasn’t far behind. He hadn’t heard a thing but that one snap of a twig. “There’s nothing out there, Boog.”
Boog turned narrowed eyes on him, and Sid froze as surely as if he’d been hit with a high mountain blizzard. Those eyes threatened slow, painful death, and Sid had no doubt Boog could deliver that death without a qualm if it meant protecting himself.
Sid hunkered down again. His partner was woods savvy—no doubt about it. But there were animals in the woods, the wind gusted, and trees sometimes had a branch snap and fall to the ground. He dropped his own vigilance and let Boog play his game.
Suddenly, Boog, already taut with acute attention to the area in front of him, stiffened even more, raised his gun, and took careful aim.
“Abby, get down!” Wracked by an icy chill of fear, Wade had to stop her.
She dove low, invisible behind the waving grass.
Silence stretched.
Wade stared at the seemingly empty house. What had scared him? Had God Himself given that warning? Or was Wade reacting to some subtle movement at the window? A faint noise? Or was he scared of his own shadow?
There was nothing.
Then there was Abby. She hadn’t gotten down at all.
She’d continued forward, so smoothly that Wade hadn’t noticed until she emerged from the grass right next to one of the south windows and pressed her back against the house.
With a look at Wade—a smirk—she moved closer to the window as she silently took her knife from between her teeth and eased her head past the glass.
She’d actually ignored him.
No, no, no. Please, God, don’t let her die.
Waiting for a gunshot to end Abby’s precious life, Wade snapped. He screamed loud enough to impress Abby’s Flathead family at a medicine dance and charged from behind the tree. Waving his arms and shouting, he rushed the house. He could draw their fire if someone was inside.
“Wade, no!”
Boog, on his knees crouched low, suddenly reared up and brought his rifle to bear. Then he twisted his body. “Get down!”
His low, harsh order drove the rest of them to the ground.
“Not a sound. Nothing! Flathead hunting party!” Boog had barely whispered, but the terror in his voice was enough to make Sid obey him without question. Boog was scared right down to his belly, and Sid had never seen the man scared before.
Not one of them moved. Sid might not’ve even breathed.
Seconds passed. Minutes.
A whisper of noise reached Sid, and he stared through the grass that surrounded their camp.
They’d been riding since before dawn, pushing hard after the gold. He’d let Boog and Harv rest at the Griffin place while he’d ridden in for Paddy and made an excuse to Chester for why they’d be gone a couple of days.
Pushing as hard as four hardened men could, they’d brought spare horses and switched saddles to keep going. They’d made good time and now were near the mountain valley where they’d killed off those interfering Flatheads.
There shouldn’t have been anyone here. It had been long enough for the larger tribe to come, bury their dead, and return to the Bitterroot Valley.
But Sid saw through the tall grass a group of warriors.
These riders, ten in all, were armed with rifles as well as bows and knives, unlike those they’d attacked earlier.
If Boog had fired a shot, the Flathead warriors would have been all too ready to fight. It was one thing to come upon a sleeping village with only a few armed men, none of them bearing rifles. It was another to take on ten adult warriors. That was certain death.
The hunting party was far enough away and upwind. They didn’t notice Sid and his gang. Pure luck, because Indians were a noticing kind of people.
Each rider had a deer slung over his saddle as the group rode up the mountain, undeniably on their way into the valley Sid had just cleared of Indians.
His fury grew in direct proportion to the terror he’d felt a few minutes ago.
The Flatheads vanished into the trees that covered the mountainside most of the way to the top, before it dropped off into the lush green bowl of a valley that hid Harv’s gold.
Once they were gone, Boog turned to Sid as if he needed to work his fury off on someone. “Cleared out that valley, huh? It don’t look like they’re gone. It looks like there’re more of ’em than ever.”
“Just shut up! Give me a minute to think!”
Boog’s mouth closed, but it wasn’t because he obeyed. No one ordered Boog around. So he must’ve decided to be quiet for reasons of his own. Probably doing some thinking for himself.
“Let me shinny up there,” Paddy offered, his eyes bright. “I’ll find out how many there are. I’ll count ’em and come back and report.”
“They’ll have lookouts, you fool!” Harv sat up, looking after the hunting party. Then, as if he’d heard something, he began scanning in all directions.
Sid controlled a snort of disgust. Of course, there might be more. He’d been scanning from the moment he’d spotted the riders.
Harv was a bigger fool than Paddy.
“Let him go.” Boog wasn’t suggesting. He was ordering.
Sid should have called him on it. Sid was the boss. But calling Boog on anything could lead to shooting trouble, and neither of them dared fire a shot. It’d bring those Indians right down on their heads. Sid jerked his head toward the upward slope. “Go scout, Paddy, but watch your back.”
Practically drooling with excitement, Paddy slipped into the heavy woods surrounding them and vanished.
Paddy was good—Sid had to admit it. If anyone could get up there, get the lay of the land and come back alive, it was the Irishman. But once he was there, if anyone was stupid enough to open fire on someone, it was Paddy. Then they’d all die.
“I’ve gotta make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid.” Practically growling, Sid stood, crouched down, and headed after Paddy.
“No one there.”
Abby’s terror exploded in something she felt a lot more at home with—rage. He’d run out into the open to draw fire to himself. She grabbed Wade’s shirtfront and yanked so hard, he stumbled forward. “You could have been killed! Are you crazy?”
Suddenly, she wasn’t pulling him forward. He was coming forward all on his own. His arms went around her waist, and he lifted her right off the ground. “Why, Abby Linscott, you were afraid I’d get hurt.”
“No, I wasn’t!”
“You care about me.”
“I’m tempted to hurt you mysel—mmpph!”
Her words were cut off by Wade’s lips, and her terror, flipped to rage, now flipped by this kiss to…to…God help her…to love. She’d been unable to resist kissing him on that overlook, but she’d held back her heart. But now it tumbled free, falling into love.
No, no, no, God. I will not be in love with this man.
It was already too late. She wrapped her arms around his neck until she might have strangled him.
The man didn’t show a speck of fear as he kissed her senseless.