Of Peaks and Prairies (Paradise Valley Book 1) Read online

  She wished Thomas wouldn’t ride so close to them. The sunlight glinted off the heads of the arrows that sat at the ready in quivers slung over bare shoulders. She couldn’t see much from where she sat, but she knew enough to understand that they were all in trouble. One false move and they’d all die. The braves wouldn’t show mercy – they’d rip through the entire crew, leaving no one alive. She and Sarah would suffer an even worse fate than the men before they too were killed.

  She shivered again and felt her stomach tighten into a knot of fear. If the warriors did fit an arrow into one of their bows, no doubt Thomas and Dan would be first to fall. The others might stand a chance with their superior weapons. Several, but not all, of the cowboys carried pistols on their hips, and the chuck wagon held rifles and ammunition enough for all. Genevieve knew how to handle a rifle, and she’d use one if she had no other choice. Still, it was unlikely any of them would escape.

  Her heart jittered at the sight of Thomas putting himself in danger. He was now only yards from the line of braves, and she held her breath, chewing on her bottom lip as they waited for a sign of what their fate might be.

  ***

  Thomas watched the line of Indians closely, his eyes narrowing with concern. How long would this standoff last?

  Just then, one of the braves pushed forward from the group and lifted his hand. He held something small between his fingers, and Thomas and Dan squinted. “What is that he’s holding up?” asked Thomas.

  Dan shook his head – he didn’t know.

  The warrior began to speak, but they couldn’t understand anything he said. The men who lined up on either side of him watched the entire exchange closely, bows at the ready. His horse continued forward, the brave still speaking and holding up the small object. It was round and shiny, and Thomas strained to see it. His heart thumped in his chest. This was one of those life-or-death moments, when everything could change in an instant. The world seemed to slow down all around him, and everything blurred but for the man inching closer on his painted horse.

  He drew a deep breath into his lungs and felt his hands tingle as he pictured the clasp on his holster and the trigger of his pistol. All the rifles were packed away carefully in the chuck wagon, since it was too dangerous for a cowboy to carry a rifle in his saddle when herding cattle. He wished he had one with him at that moment. But then again, from everything he’d heard about the occupants of the Indian Territory, they were peaceful unless provoked – and a rifle has a way of provoking that couldn’t be denied.

  “We just want to pass through peacefully,” said Thomas, lifting his empty hands toward the brave. “We have all our food with us – we won’t be hunting yours. We don’t mean to harm you. We just want to take our herd through to Kansas.”

  The brave paused to listen, then continued to speak. He appeared to understand Thomas, nodding his head in agreement, but didn’t respond in English. Instead he continued in his native tongue, coming closer still. Slowly and steadily his pony plodded forward.

  Then Thomas laughed in surprise and sighed with relief. “It’s a coin,” he said to Dan. “They want us to pay.”

  “Are you sure?” Dan tipped his head to one side, his hand hovering above his holster.

  “I think so. He’s holding up a coin – don’t you see it?” Thomas urged Alto forward, his hands still raised toward the brave. When they came alongside one another, both horses stopped. Alto sniffed the nose of the small, bare pony and tossed his head with a snort. They stood side by side, the cowboy on the muscular chestnut stallion and the brave on the wiry painted pony.

  “You want us to pay, is that right?” asked Thomas.

  The brave nodded with a smile, “You pay.” He handed the coin to Thomas.

  It was a dime, and its dull surface glinted for only a moment in his hands before Thomas returned it to its owner. “A dime?”

  The man nodded again and pointed to the closest heifer, then the next, then the next.

  “You mean a dime apiece?” asked Thomas, his eyebrows shooting skyward.

  He nodded once more. “Yes,” he replied. Then pushed the dime into a pocket in his leather pants and crossed his arms over his chest. His lips were drawn into a smile, but his eyes were hard.

  “Phew-ee!” Dan whistled and laughed. “That’s a lot of dimes. You got that much, boss?”

  Thomas did a quick calculation. It would total about three hundred dollars, a lot of money by anyone’s reckoning. His heart fell at the thought of it, but he nodded slowly. “Yeah, I guess I do. It’s a shame to spend it all here, but I don’t think we have much of a choice.”

  “Don’t seem as though we do,” agreed Dan.

  Bill rode up beside the men and raised an eyebrow in question. “What do they want?”

  “Three hundred dollars,” said Dan.

  Bill blew out a short burst of air, his mouth dropping open. “Well, I guess that’s better than wanting our scalps.”

  “Yes, it is,” replied Thomas. He dipped his hat at the Indian and smiled. “Three hundred dollars, coming right up.”

  Immediately the line of braves relaxed. They broke formation, trotting down the valley to surround the herd. They mixed with the cowboys, smiling and talking, examining pistols and trying on Stetsons. The cowboys joined in, inspecting the warrior’s ponies and the stones and beads the braves wore around their necks and sewn into their clothing. There was a bounty of laughter and exchange of pleasantries in the various dialects of the Five Nations and Texans. Even Vaquero joined them, sullen as always, but genial as he could force himself to be given the situation.

  Thomas withdrew the required amount of cash from his saddle bag and handed it to the Five Nations leader. After a few minutes, the braves began to disperse in pairs and threes. They turned their ponies eastward and disappeared over the rise, waving back to the group as they left.

  Thomas sighed in relief, letting his breath drift from his lungs in a long stream of air. He felt a wave of panic pass out of his body as he relaxed his guard. Things could have been much worse. He was sure they were in trouble when he saw the line of men appear across the valley ahead of the herd. Thankfully, they’d only wanted a toll on the animals passing through their territory. He hadn’t heard anything about the toll when he asked around in Fort Worth weeks earlier. Surely someone could have mentioned it and saved him from almost having a heart attack right there on the Chisholm Trail.

  He drew a deep breath into his lungs and closed his eyes for a few moments, willing his body to calm down. It was a heavy burden, carrying the responsibility for the well-being of so many. He felt it keenly. What if he’d made a wrong move and caused the slaughter of the cowboys, of Bill, Sarah and Cookie – and Genevieve. He couldn’t bear to think of how she might have suffered because of him had things gone differently.

  He shuddered at the thought and rubbed his hands back and forth over his eyes. “Thank you, God,” he whispered under his breath, stood in the stirrups and turned around in his saddle to face the group. “Let’s move out!” he called. He squeezed Alto’s sides and the stallion obediently stepped forward to lead the way.

  He hoped that today’s encounter was all the drama they’d face on the journey. He clicked his tongue and glanced back over his shoulder to see the longhorns trudging along behind him, clashing their horns to find their place in the pecking order. He smiled. One of the dangers of the trail was coming across a band of braves – they’d done that now and lived to tell the tale.

  They still had a long way to go and barely enough time in which to travel it, but for the first time since they’d started out, Thomas began to feel as if maybe things were going to work out after all. The knot that had sat like a constant rock in the pit of his stomach unraveled just the slightest bit.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Sarah stood at the riverbank, bent over the washboard. Genevieve watched her for a moment before slipping and sliding down the bank to join her. She laughed, clutching at tussocks of grass to gain her balance.r />
  “Careful,” Sarah turned and chuckled at her. “Very graceful!” she teased.

  Genevieve gave an exaggerated bow. “Thank you, Madame. I live to entertain.”

  “How’s Cookie doing with supper?” asked Sarah, wiping a wet hand across her forehead and stretching out the ache in her lower back.

  “He seems to be well this evening. At least so far.” Genevieve grimaced. “I came down here to see if I could help you. Cookie says I’m getting in the way.”

  “I’d love some help,” said Sarah with a sigh.

  Genevieve quickly removed her stockings and shoes and dipped a foot into the water. “Oh, it’s colder than it looks.”

  “Yes, but you’ll get used to it in no time. It’s really not that bad.”

  The two women worked side by side for some time. They’d take a piece of laundry and dip it into the water. After placing it on the washboard, they’d run the soap over it – back and forth. Then they’d scrub the fabric up and down, up and down, dip it into the water, then back to scrub over the washboard again. Finally when it was clean, they’d wring it as dry as they could by hand and lay it in a clean basket on the riverbank.

  “How long have you and Bill been married?” asked Genevieve, dipping a checked shirt into the river water.

  “We were married last October.” Her cheeks blushed pink and a quiet smile flitted across her pretty features.

  “Really? So you’ve not been married a year, then?”

  She nodded and grinned at Genevieve. “That’s right.”

  “Where did you meet?”

  “In Cutter’s Creek. Bill was working on a property there, just for a short time, and I was staying with some friends. Well, they became friends, anyway.”

  Genevieve frowned, “What do you mean?”

  “They invited me to stay – it’s a long story. Let’s just say that someone was after me, a horrible man, and Sam and Estelle Todd let me stay with them since I had nowhere else to go, really. And Bill saved me too.”

  “Bill saved you? What happened?”

  “From my life… everything. That’s when I knew …”

  “You knew what?”

  “That I loved him.”

  “Oh, that is so romantic.” Genevieve stared at the glassy water that gurgled swiftly by them, her eyes dreamy.

  “Yes, I suppose it was romantic,” mused Sarah.

  “Oh. Well, I’m glad you’re here with us now.”

  “Me too. It’s really been such fun getting to know you and riding on the trail. I’ve never done anything quite like it before. I haven’t traveled much, you see.”

  “Me either. I never left Texas before, so even though Indian Territory doesn’t look much different, it’s exciting to think about where we’re headed and what we might see along the way.”

  “It sure is.” Sarah was quiet for a moment, then spoke again without looking up from her scrubbing. “Why didn’t you say you were married?”

  Genevieve stopped washing and stood straight, stretching her back and breathing a big, deep sigh. “I’m sorry. I should have told you.”

  “No, it’s fine, really it is. I don’t mind. I just wonder if you want to tell me now – why are you running from him? What happened? You didn’t say before, and it’s okay if you don’t feel comfortable sharing it with me. But…”

  “Nothing.” She stared at the ground and fought the urge to leave. She hated to talk about it. All she would feel was their pity. What had happened was in the past; it couldn’t be changed, and pity wouldn’t do a thing to help her. It would just add to her sadness.

  Sarah’s face filled with compassion and she reached for Genevieve’s hand, taking it between her own. “My dear Genny, I know what it feels like to be on the run, as if there’s nowhere to turn and no one you can trust. I also know that a woman doesn’t run from her pa and her husband without good reason. The others might not realize it, because they aren’t women and they’ve never been married – well, most of them haven’t. But I know. You wouldn’t have run if you had any other choice.”

  Tears filled Genevieve’s eyes at Sarah’s tenderness. She’d never met anyone who understood, who believed in her, who trusted so implicitly in what she told them. She began to cry and her sobs punctuated the words that jumped from her mouth in short bursts, filled with thick emotion.

  “He’s not my pa, he’s my stepfather. He’s a hateful man, and married Ma right after Pa died. Ma was frightened. Since Pa left us with nothing, she thought we’d end up in the poorhouse – or worse, with her working at the saloon. She didn’t want that for me, either. She was born into privilege and had married Pa for love. They’d moved from Philadelphia to Texas because Pa liked the odds of working the land out west, but he never really took to farming. He ended up down in the mines, and that’s where he died. I was only twelve at the time.

  “Ma met Fred at church, and he seemed like a nice honorable man. So when he asked Ma to marry him, she said yes. It wasn’t until after the wedding, when he took us to his ramshackle house on that old piece of dirt he called a farm, that we realized what he was really like and what we’d gotten ourselves into.

  “After Ma died, he treated me mean. Made me take care of him. Then when he decided he wanted to remarry, he gave me to his best friend Quincey. He promised him my hand and didn’t say a word to me about it. When he told me, he said he just wanted me out of the house so he could marry again. So I ran away right after the ceremony and stowed aboard the chuck wagon.

  “And now, I just don’t know what to do! I’m miserable over the whole situation, truly I am. Tom must hate me for all the trouble I’ve caused him and the lies I’ve told. Oh, I’ve made such a mess of things! What should I do?” Genevieve threw her arms around Sarah’s neck and cried against her friend’s chest, sobbing loudly.

  After so many years of hiding the pain of her grief deep down inside her and never crying, after so long avoiding the pity of others by pretending everything was fine and dandy on the surface while inside she was filled with fear and pain, now the emotions came pouring out like a wellspring that couldn’t be stopped.

  And as Genevieve cried, the pain from years of torment, the grief over losing her parents and the fear of her uncertain future began to trickle down her cheeks along with the tears. She felt the change come deep inside and wailed as healing began, deep down in the hidden depths of her soul, bringing with it a new dawn – a chance for hope and for peace to grow where none had grown before.

  Sarah patted her back and whispered words of comfort into her ear, shushing away the tears and praying quietly. When finally all the tears were spent, she pulled back to look into Genevieve’s red eyes. Her own glistened with tears as well. “Feel better?” she asked with a smile.

  Genevieve nodded and returned to her scrubbing.

  “I’m going to take these up to put on a line to dry,” said Sarah, scrambling up the bank to carry the basket of clean laundry back to the campsite.

  For a few minutes Genevieve was left alone in the falling darkness with only her thoughts to keep her company. She should head back to the campfire as well, now that darkness was falling. It wasn’t safe to stay out on her own in this country after dark. She gathered her things together and stepped up onto the slippery bank. She grasped for some reeds to steady herself and giggled at the sight she must have made as she danced around trying to gain traction in the wet mud.

  Just then, she heard a splash further upriver. She turned her head to see a spray of water and a head appeared from beneath the surface. Curly hair and a bare chest. It was Thomas, bathing! He ducked beneath the water, then his head popped up again a few feet away. He shook the water from his hair and stood there, staring up at the sky.

  She heard him sigh loudly, as though he was releasing some kind of weight into the air. He must be feeling the pressure, especially after the showdown with the Indians. She pushed a stray strand of hair from her eyes and bent to retrieve the pile of clean laundry in a basket on the bank. />
  Just before she did, Tom stood and moved toward the water’s edge. His strong legs pushed through the water and his chest glistened in the dim moonlight. Clouds skidded across the sky above and threw him into shadow as they hooded the moon. Just as quickly, they were on their way and he was illuminated again. His hair, darkened by the water, was spiked and messy. He ran his fingers through it, shaking free droplets of water.

  Genevieve found herself holding her breath as she watched him. He looked so beautiful under the blue glow of the moon.

  He disappeared behind a clump of bushes that leaned over the riverbank between them. She took a step forward, peering around the bushes – and slipped on the muddy bank. She shrieked as her feet slid down the embankment and flew into the air. She grabbed desperately for the heads of reeds that peeked out of the water, but they came away in her hands. She landed with a great splash in the water below, her head submerged beneath the river’s surface, and she thrashed around trying to find a foothold in the silt and mud. Her lungs screamed for air as she scrambled, unable to catch her balance.

  Just when she thought she couldn’t hold her breath another moment, strong hands grasped beneath her arms and pulled her to the surface. She gasped for air, filling her aching lungs with the sweetness of breath in the cool night.

  Her hair covered her eyes and obscured her vision. She pushed it back with a muddy hand and stared directly into Thomas’ concerned face. His arms were still wrapped around her, holding her up, and she was pushed hard against his strong bare chest. His face hovered just above hers, and trickles of water meandered down the sides of his face and disappeared into the stubble on his cheeks. “Are you okay? What happened?” he asked.

  “I’m fine, thank you. I slipped, that’s all. I was doing the laundry and I guess I leaned out too far on the bank. It’s very slippery.” She was blathering, every nerve tingling as one of his hands continued to caress her arm. She was very much aware of how little separated them. Only her sopping wet dress, his pants, and the river water, slipping by silent and dark, filled the space between them.