Chapter 30 #2
“We’ve got the herd rounded up and ready for the drive, Pa.” Wade pulled his Stetson off his head and wiped his brow.
The days were long and hot now. Spring had come so late up in the mountains where Wade had wintered that he was having trouble adjusting to the full summer heat. Add to that, he’d only a few days ago finished roundup, and it didn’t seem right at all.
Gertie set a glass of cool water on the table as Wade hung his hat on the elk antlers on the wall beside the kitchen door.
She set a plate of cookies on the table too.
She always had some on hand for him. Wade had to admit, this was a more comfortable life than the one he’d lived in his mountain cabin during the bitter winter.
“Where’s Abby?” She’d been avoiding him ever since Sunday. Wade had to bite back a smile. A spirited little thing, his Abby, but she’d come around.
Gertie and Pa exchanged a look, and for the first time since he’d come in, he really looked at them. Two very worried people.
Wade’s head swiveled to nail his pa to the wall with his eyes. “What did you do?”
Pa got a stubborn look on his face. “I’ve been trying to do better. You know that, son. But that woman is just plain contrary.”
“Tell me right now.” His pa got a sullen look that Wade knew only too well—stubborn, mean old man. But Gertie wasn’t so tough. He turned to her. “Well?”
Gertie’s hands were clenched together, her eyes wide with fear. She’d always been the peacemaker in this house, however she stood it all these years. “She left, Wade.”
“Left? Left for where? When?”
“We don’t know. She was all right and then Mort came in. He didn’t say that much, nothing that should have set her off like that, but she took exception to it.”
He felt empty inside. Lost. She’d left him. Or had she ever really been with him?
“Let her cool off for a time, son. If she wants you, she’ll come back. If she doesn’t want to stay in the white world, you can’t make her.”
Turning to study his father, Wade prayed silently. What exactly had happened? Pa could still bark well enough. But he’d been so much better. He’d been reading the Bible daily. Why hadn’t Abby been patient and given his father more time to grow in the Lord?
Sinking into his chair, Wade stared forward, seeing his future stretched out in front of him without her. He slapped the table and stood. “No, I can’t make her stay. But I can go with her.”
“Wade, you can’t leave us.” Gertie grabbed his arm. “We need you here.”
Stopping at that familiar weight on his arm, Wade looked down at the only person who’d ever loved him while he was growing up.
The woman who had come to him after his father’s rampages and bandaged his wounds, held him, prayed with him.
She did need him. He saw that now. In her mothering, Gertie had needed Wade as much as Wade had needed her. They were both Pa’s prisoners.
If he left with Abby, he’d be abandoning the only mother he could remember.
And would his father fall away from his first steps toward faith?
Could Wade’s actions now be directed by the devil himself to knock Pa off his path back to God?
Why had Abby left? She knew he loved her.
She had nowhere else in the world to belong.
Wade shoved his hands deep into his hair as his thoughts chased themselves in circles. The answer came to him quietly.
Prayer.
The only answer.
“I need time in prayer.” Wade grabbed his hat and went outside, for there’d be no peace to pray in that house.
He’d been in prayer three minutes before he knew where she’d go.
“What do you mean, she’s gone?” Tom Linscott grabbed Wade by the shirt collar and lifted him onto his toes.
“Get your hands off me.” Wade knocked Tom’s hands aside. He’d come charging into this little wreck of a cabin lined with bunks. Tom and all his hands lived in this hovel. Now Wade stood in the doorway shouting. “I don’t have time for this. Abby left. She had a fight with Pa?—”
“I’m going to find your father and shoot him dead.” Tom rammed his fist into his palm with a loud smack. “He’s a complete waste of human skin. I should have?—”
“Will you shut up? Fighting with my pa won’t help me find Abby. I was sure she’d come here. Where else could she be?” Wade turned and strode away from the cabin.
“To town?” Tom followed on his heels.
“There’s no one in town she knows at all.” The sun was setting. Wherever Abby had gone, she’d spent at least one night alone in the wilderness. Wade was half crazy thinking of the danger.
“Muriel would take her in. Or Libby.”
“She might have seen Libby, said hello. And she met Muriel at church, but she doesn’t know them at all, and she hates whites. She’d never go to them. She’d see it as begging.” Wade stopped beside his horse, ready to mount up and ride, but to where?
“How about the Dawsons’? She sat at the table with us the day of the jailbreak. Red and Cassie were both there. And you said the two of you stopped by the Hardens’ on your way home, with Cassie and Red there. She knows them.”
Shaking his head, Wade tried to think. His mind spun around. “It doesn’t sound right. But I don’t know where else to try.”
“Let’s go check the Dawson place first.” Tom whirled and charged toward his corral. His black stallion stood there, proud, watchful.
Wade called after Tom. “I’m not going with you. No sense both of us trying the same place.”
Tom stopped and turned back. “Where else, then, the Hardens’?”
“I’ll head that way. Then I’ll see where I’m led.”
“Where you’re led? What does that mean?”
“It means I’m praying as hard as I can for inspiration. But if she did what I’m afraid she did?—”
“What’s that?” Tom’s eyes sharpened, reacting to Wade’s obvious dread.
“Headed out to live in the mountains alone.”
Clenching his fists, Tom said, “No, no one’s that stupid. A woman can’t live out there alone.”
“Abby could. On her own, she’d be fine. Your sister is the bravest, toughest woman I’ve ever known. She could live off that land, even in those rugged mountains. It’s just that?—”
“Just that what?”
“Lonely as it is up there, there are still men who might hurt her.” Such as the rustlers who had escaped.
The men who had massacred her village. “If someone sees her before we do and gets that knife away from her, she’ll be at his mercy.
With all that wild country to cover, the two of us will never find her. ”
“There’ll be more than two of us. My men and I will split up and go south and west of town, toward the Dawsons’. You go north.” Tom whirled toward his horse, yelling for his men as he ran.
“Did you hear that the wild woman ran off?” Paddy sidled up to Sid at the breakfast table. Paddy heard a lot more living in the bunkhouse than Sid heard in the foreman’s cabin.
“No. She’s out alone?” This might be Sid’s only chance to catch that woman. He’d been watching her all week, and she never strayed farther than the garden. He’d planned to waylay them on Sunday morning, but he hadn’t liked the plan any too well.
“Yep, and Wade took out after her. Mort told Chester when he went in to give the week’s accounting last night.”
“So they’re together?”
“Nope, don’t sound like it. She went without him, and he went hunting her.”
All their targets were separated, alone.
Even Mort in the house with only Gertie was defenseless.
Sid wanted to charge into that house and put a bullet in that stubborn old man.
But he couldn’t do that now. Too many cowhands around.
The West was still untamed, but even out here, there was a limit to cold-blooded murder.
Killing Mort Sawyer in front of twenty witnesses was well beyond the limit.
He’d have to pick a better time. For now, he had his chance at Wade and the wildflower.
“Saddle up. I’m telling Chester we’re riding supplies out to the line shack.”
“Are we really going there? Boog’s the best tracker among us.”
Nodding, Sid said, “I think that little woman wants her wild life back. And if she ever gets to that high valley and sees her Flathead tribe is there, she might just move right in with them.”
“Well, then let her go. If she goes off with the Indians, our problem is solved.”
“Not as long as she’s out there, able to recognize Harv’s face.
And Wade’s sweet on her. He’ll be going to try and bring her back.
No, we can’t have her running around. This is our chance to finish Wade too.
Then we’ll come back and pick our moment with Mort.
If we find the wild woman first and use her to set a trap for Wade, then kill Mort, we can take over this ranch in a couple of days. ”
Paddy’s eyes narrowed. Hunger and greed glowed like lantern light out of his beady eyes. “Let’s go.” He whirled to saddle up their horses while Sid told Chester his “plans” to go to the line shack.
Chester didn’t like it, but Sid wasn’t interested in what Chester wanted. Firing Chester was the first thing Sid planned to do when he took over.