The Tenderfoot Trail Page 5

  A few moments of uncomfortable silence stretched between the three of them; then Garrett cleared his throat. “Well, it’s time we were moving out.” He turned to the woman. “Miss Annie, could you please tell the rest of the . . . um . . . virgin brides to get ready for the trail?”

  Annie threw her head back and laughed, a harsh, strident cackle. “Hear that, girls?” she yelled. “We’re virgin brides.”

  From behind the canvas four female voices joined in the laughter, and Garrett felt his cheeks flame.

  Before Garrett headed out with the wagon and the herd, Cobb showed him the supplies stacked in the storage box: .44-.40 ammunition, bacon, flour, coffee, sugar and a plentiful amount of canned meat, beans and peaches.

  “Starting two weeks from this date, I’ll begin riding out to this spot every day,” Cobb said. “Bring the miners’ money here and I’ll give you the five hundred.”

  Garrett grinned. “You’re a trusting man, Cobb. I could keep on riding.”

  “If I thought you were the kind to do that, you’d be hung by now,” Cobb said. He reached into his coat and produced a sheaf of papers. “There’s one more thing you can do for me when you reach the fort. Tack up these posters everywhere gold miners gather—probably the saloons. It’s a list of lovely young ladies who are eagerly looking for husbands.”

  Garrett glanced at one of the posters and the large print across the top that read:CHARLES J. COBB ESQ.

  MARRIAGE BROKER

  Send orders by mail c/o Fort Benton,

  Montana Territory

  Garrett nodded and shoved the posters in his saddlebags. Then, as he tightened the cinch on his buckskin, he said, “One more thing. Who is this man Thetas Kane you and Annie were talking about?”

  Cobb’s smile was thin and faded fast. “Don’t you worry none about Kane. Like Annie said, he’s dead.”

  Garrett opened his mouth to speak again, but Ready rode up beside them and cut him off. “Time to head ’em out, Luke.”

  The young rancher nodded. He turned to Cobb. “Be watching for me.”

  “Adios, Luke. Ride careful.”

  As he trotted away, Garrett glanced back and saw Cobb looking after him. Even at a distance the young rancher saw that the man’s knuckles were white on the stock of the rifle he seemed to carry everywhere and his black eyes were shadowed.

  Garrett moved out trail-drive fashion, the wagon ahead of the herd, he and Ready riding swing.

  The Whoop-Up Trail was well marked, the ground scarred by the passage of wagon wheels and the hooves of countless oxen. Less than a hundred miles ahead lay the Sweet Grass Hills. Ten miles to the east was the cone-shaped peak of Mount Brown rising almost seven thousand feet above the flat. Once the hills and the mountain came into view, they’d be almost halfway to the fort.

  When Garrett mentioned the peak to Ready, the old-timer nodded. “Heard about that mountain. It was discovered back in 1827 by a feller named David Douglas during his crossing of the Athabasca Pass. He named it for a friend of his who was an expert on plants and the like. It’s a right pretty mountain, especially in the winter when there’s snow on the top, but it sure has a homely name.”

  Garrett smiled. “Pity he didn’t know you, Zeb. He could have called it Ready Mountain. Now that’s a crackerjack name.”

  “Damn right.” Ready smiled, pleased.

  They were pushing the herd through open country with rolling hills on each side of the trail. Here and there grew massive clumps of prickly pear and cholla, home to the pack rat, which used the cactus for protection as well as for food and water. A pack rat’s abandoned nest, a spiny fortress of dry sticks and cactus parts, was an excellent fire starter, and as he rode, Garrett scanned each clump, hoping to spot one.

  His shorthorn Durhams didn’t move as fast as rangier, long-legged longhorns, and the oxcart was slowing them even further. But all going well and if the weather held, Garrett was sure they could reach Fort Whoop-Up in seven days, maybe a little less. It couldn’t come fast enough for him. The responsibility of taking care of five women was already beginning to weigh on him, and Zeb became downright surly every time the virgin brides were mentioned.

  At around two in the afternoon, they stopped to give the horses a break and boil up some coffee, and Garrett met all of his charges for the first time. The women tumbled out of the wagon, giggling at him and Ready, and Annie made the introductions, the names and faces flying past Garrett so fast he made no attempt to memorize them—all but one.

  Jenny Canfield was small and shapely, a thick mass of yellow hair piled on top of her head with pink ribbons, stray ringlets falling across the forehead of her heart-shaped face. Her eyes were dark, her nose pert, her mouth full and inviting, and in the single instant when their gazes first met, Luke Garrett fell hopelessly in love.

  Jenny was younger than the rest—he guessed no more than eighteen or nineteen—and she had none of the others’ hardness around the mouth and eyes. When the other women looked at Garrett, their gaze was bold and measuring, experienced and knowing of the ways of men, and when they walked their hips swayed an invitation.

  By contrast, Jenny seemed reserved, almost shy. When she realized Garrett was staring at her in open admiration, her face stained bright pink and the lashes of her downcast eyes lay on her cheekbones like lacy black fans.

  Two people noticed right away that Luke Garrett was smitten. One was Annie Spencer and the other was Zeb Ready.

  Annie was amused, her smile cynical, contemptuous of the follies of men. But Ready’s expression was guarded as he kept his thoughts to himself.

  Another man’s thoughts were much more obvious. Garrett saw Jacob McGee’s eyes on Jenny, hot with lust. Aware that Garrett was watching him, the bullwhacker threw him a look of disgust, spat and walked away, a huge, dirty, shambling figure with hands that hung by his side like massive, curled claws.

  Jenny flashed Garrett a demure smile as she stepped away from the wagon, carrying a notepad of some kind and a handful of colored pencils. The young man stood and watched her go, his heartbeat suddenly loud in his ears.

  A small stream ran close to the trail at this point, curving away from the wagon where Ready already had coffee boiling on a small fire. The bend of the stream was hidden from view by a stand of cottonwoods and a solitary willow, and among the roots of the trees grew thick clusters of vermilion butterfly weed, bees droning from flower to flower.

  As he watched Jenny vanish from sight among the trees, Garrett heard Ready yell, “Luke, coffee’s on the bile.” Then, using the old trail cook’s call, he added, “Grab ’er now or I’ll spit in the pot.”

  Garrett tore his attention away from the grove of cottonwoods and stepped to the fire. Ready handed him a cup, his eyes holding a question.

  “Never seen a gal that pretty in all my born days,” the young rancher said. It was lame and he knew it, but he realized that Ready had wanted to hear him say something.

  One of the girls giggled, leaned over and whispered into Annie’s ear. The woman nodded, grimaced and said to Garrett, “Haven’t been around much, have you, cowboy?” Then, casually tossing the statement away as though it was too worthless to even mention: “Jenny’s not that pretty and she’s not for you.”

  Garrett opened his mouth to protest—but a scream from among the trees stopped him before he could utter a word.

  Chapter 7

  Luke Garrett sprang to his feet, the coffee cup dropping from his hand. Ready was also standing, and Annie was looking toward the cottonwoods, her eyes wide and fearful.

  Garrett sprinted toward the stream and crashed through the lower branches of the trees. Beyond the cottonwoods lay a small meadow, strewn with wildflowers, and as Garrett entered the clearing he saw Jenny Canfield.

  The terrified girl was a few yards away and Jacob McGee was standing in front of her, his eyes hot and glowing. The front of Jenny’s dress was torn, the claw marks of McGee’s fingernails angry red welts on her naked white shoulder.

  A
s Garrett hurried toward her, McGee turned on him, his face a twisted mask of fury. “She’s mine. After I’m finished with her, you can have what’s left.”

  Anger flared in Garrett. He stepped away from the girl and crowded closer to the bullwhacker. He brushed aside McGee’s clumsily thrown punch, then crossed a hard right to the man’s jaw. McGee’s head snapped to his left and he stumbled backward a few steps. Garrett had grown to manhood amid the rough-and-tumble of cow camps, where he’d learned to fight with fist, knee and skull. He went after McGee, giving the man no chance to get set.

  He slammed a solid left into McGee’s belly and as the man doubled up he took a single step back and slammed an uppercut into the bullwhacker’s face. Blood splashed from McGee’s pulped nose and the man staggered, his eyes uncertain and suddenly fearful.

  The bullwhacker, thick and powerful in the shoulders and arms, outweighed Garrett by fifty pounds. But the young rancher, a searing anger riding him, was without fear, and relentless. He took a right to the chin from McGee, shook it off, and backhanded the man across the mouth with his own left. The bullwhacker let out a bubbling scream as his lips mashed against his teeth. Garrett followed up with another right, a short, powerful punch that was beautifully timed and hit the correct angle of the man’s hairy jaw.

  McGee’s eyes rolled in his head and he dropped to his knees, then sprawled facedown in the grass.

  Quickly Garrett stepped to Jenny’s side, only vaguely aware that Ready and the other four women were standing in the meadow watching him. “Are you all right?” he asked the girl.

  Jenny sobbed deep in her chest and fell into his arms. Garrett, feeling awkward, stroked her hair and made soothing sounds, as he would have done for an injured puppy.

  “He tried to . . . He told me he’d . . .” Jenny couldn’t find the words and her voice faltered to a stop.

  “I know, I know,” Garrett whispered. “It’s all over now.”

  But it wasn’t, not then.

  “Luke!” Zeb Ready’s voice held an urgent warning.

  Garrett turned and saw McGee climbing to his feet. The man swayed for a couple of moments, then spat blood and broken teeth. “Next time you see me, Garrett, I’ll be wearing a gun,” he snarled.

  The young rancher’s hot anger bubbled to the surface. “Damn you, there’s no time like the present,” he yelled. He let go of Jenny, stepped away from her and turned to Ready. “Zeb, give him your Colt.”

  The old man hesitated and Garrett hollered, “Now, Zeb!”

  Ready shrugged, drew his gun and offered it butt first to McGee. The man looked at the walnut handle of the proffered Colt like it was a rattlesnake. His tongue touched his split top lip and he said to Garrett, “If I take that, you’ll kill me. I’m no gunfighter.”

  “You wanted a gun, McGee. Take the damn Colt!”

  The bullwhacker stood right where he was, his hands hanging by his sides. “You go to hell,” he said. McGee looked around the circle of hostile, angry faces. “I need a horse,” he said. “From now on you can drive your own damned oxen.”

  “We don’t have a horse to spare,” Garrett said, his voice cold. “You can walk back to Benton.”

  “Be there by sundown, maybe,” Ready said, smiling as he holstered his gun.

  McGee threw a last look of implacable hatred at Garrett and stomped out of the clearing, wiping blood from his mouth with the back of his hand.

  Ready watched him go, then said, “Luke, you ever run into that man again, step careful. When you see a coward with a gun, it’s time to get scared or scarce, because the bullet he puts into you won’t be in the front.”

  The other girls except for Annie Spencer were clustered around Jenny, comforting her as only other women could. But she looked over at Garrett and her lips formed the words “Thank you.”

  Garrett smiled and touched his hat, then grinned as he heard Ready say, “Luke, a word of advice—a man don’t have thoughts about a woman until he’s thirty-five. Afore then, all he’s got is feelings.”

  The young rancher shook his head. “You’re wrong there, Zeb. Right now I’ve got them both.”

  Ready shook his head. “Then God help us,” he said.

  After Ready left to throw the dregs from the coffeepot on the fire, Annie took his place. “Cowboy, I want to thank you for what you did for Jenny,” she said. “Jacob McGee is an animal. I don’t know why Charlie hired him.”

  Garrett grinned. “I’m getting thanks from all directions,” he said. “It can give a man a swelled head.”

  Annie’s smile was slight and fleeting. “Then don’t let it go to your head, cowboy. I got the feeling you’ll have to save Jenny a heap more times before this here journey is over.”

  As he watched the woman walk away, her straight, wide back stiff, Garrett thought about what she had just said. Did Annie know something about the Whoop-Up Trail she wasn’t telling him?

  And could it be something to do with a dead man named Thetas Kane, whose very name had seemed to scare her?

  Garrett had questions without answers, and that made him uneasy. He didn’t trust Charlie Cobb, and now it dawned on him that he shouldn’t trust Annie Spencer either.

  Deep in thought, Garrett watched a kestrel that had been hovering high over the slope of a nearby hill fold its wings and dive—and the small, violent death that followed was lost in the vast, uncaring wilderness that surrounded him.

  That night after supper, Garrett saw Jenny standing beside the wagon and he left the fire to talk to her.

  He brushed aside more of the girl’s thanks and said, “Saw you carrying a notebook. Were you writing to your folks?”

  Jenny laughed and shook her head. “No, Luke, I don’t have any folks. They were took by the cholera when I was still a child. What you saw was a sketching pad.” She looked up at Garrett from under her long lashes. “Would you like to see it?”

  “You bet I would,” Garrett said. “I’ve never met an artist before.”

  “Don’t call me an artist until you’ve seen my drawings,” Jenny said.

  When the girl returned with her sketch pad, Garrett leafed through the pages and was stunned by what he saw.

  There were landscapes of Fort Benton and of steamboats lined up at the levee, along with sketches of the gamblers and fancy women who worked them. She had drawn Charlie Cobb, capturing the man’s shiftiness and slick good looks, and Annie Spencer, who looked stern and all sharp corners. But what impressed Garrett most were the drawings of the wildflowers Jenny had seen along the way, so precisely rendered and delicately colored they seemed to be blooming right on the page.

  “These are really wonderful,” he said after he’d carefully studied the last drawing. “I think you could become a famous artist.”

  “You really believe so?” Jenny asked, hope showing in her dark eyes.

  “Sure I believe so. People would pay money for your pictures. One time in Denver I saw pictures for sale in a store window that were made by artists, and they weren’t nearly half as good as yours.”

  Jenny drew her shawl closer around her shoulders as the whispering wind caressed her skin with an evening chill. “That’s what I want to be, Luke, a professional artist. But an artist needs money to live until the pictures start selling.”

  “Is that why you plan on marrying a miner? Get hitched to a man who’s struck it rich and can support you while you draw and paint?”

  Garrett said this without rancor, but for some reason he could not understand, it gave Jenny pause. Finally she said, in a voice that faded with each word, “Yes, something like that.”

  The girl laid the tips of her fingers on the back of Garrett’s big, work-scarred hand. “Luke, I want to be an artist more than anything else in the world, and I’ll do anything it takes to realize my dream. Just two or three more trips and I can quit Charlie Cobb and—”

  “Jenny, that’s enough!”

  Annie Spencer’s voice slashed across the quiet of the night like a saw-bladed knife. “It’s t
ime you went to bed, girl,” the woman said. “We’ll be moving on at first light.”

  Garrett saw a flash of alarm in the girl’s eyes. “Yes, yes, of course, Annie.” She turned to Garrett. “Good night, Luke. And once again, thank you for saving me from that awful Jacob McGee.”

  After Jenny climbed into the wagon, where an oil lamp glowed, shading the canvas with pale gold, Annie motioned to Garrett. “Step this way, cowboy. I’ve got something to say.”

  Garrett followed the woman until they were out of earshot of the wagon, then she stopped and turned to face him. “Mr. Garrett,” she said, “in the future, when you wish to speak with one of the young ladies in my charge, please tell me first so that I can properly chaperone her.”

  Garrett opened his mouth to speak, but Annie held up a silencing palm. “Mr. Garrett, all these young ladies are already pledged to their prospective husbands. I do hope that is a thing you will keep in mind as we continue our journey.”

  Before Garrett could say anything in return, Annie turned on her heel and walked quickly away, her back stiff. The young rancher looked after her, his mind churning.

  What had Jenny meant by two or three more trips? And why had Annie so angrily cut her off?

  His sense of unease growing, Garrett had the feeling that Charlie Cobb and Annie Spencer had their own agenda. Did they plan to step over his dead body to achieve their goal, whatever it was?

  From now on, Garrett decided, he’d ride with his gun loose in the holster and his eyes on his back trail.

  He sensed danger all around him—and it was not a feeling that brought comfort to a man.

  And what of Jenny? He had no doubt that he was madly in love with the girl. He had no explanation for how he felt. It was something that just happened. But in a few more weeks would she turn her back on him and marry another man, a man she had never even met?

  That possibility troubled him more than any other.

  Chapter 8