Mountain Laurel

  She tried to move away from him, but he was still awake enough to keep a firm hold on her shoulders. “Where?”

  “I’m not going to tell you because as soon as you can you’ll follow me. Damn you!” she said. “Why did you have to come into my life and confuse me? I was fine before I met you. I was free. I had no one who thought he was my keeper, and now…”

  She gave a violent jerk and pulled away from him. He tried to follow her but sleep was too heavy on him and he fell back against the cot. She went to the trunk and got the map out, then stuck it down the front of her blouse.

  She went back to him, bent over him, and touched his hair. With effort he opened his eyes.

  “I’m afraid you’ll be hurt,” he whispered. “You’ll get lost.”

  “No, I won’t, and I’ll stay on the outskirts of the town. I won’t let anyone see me. I’ll be back before tomorrow night. Wait for me. And…” She smiled at him. “Don’t be too angry with me.”

  “I’ll come after you.”

  She could barely hear him now as sleep was overtaking him. She leaned closer to his lips. “Wait for me,” she repeated. “I’ll take care.”

  He didn’t answer her as he lay there, and she thought he was probably fully asleep now. As she looked at him she felt a great deal of regret. She was frightened of these men who held Laurel and she was frightened of some of these men who lived in the mountains, these miners who were far from home and the rules of civilization. She smoothed his thick, dark hair back from his forehead. She would feel a great deal safer with him along. And if he’d started in with all his talk and teasing, she’d probably have been able to forget her fears for Laurel for a little while.

  “I’m sorry, ’Ring,” she whispered to the sleeping man. “I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t have to.”

  She started to pull away from him, but then, on impulse, she touched her lips to his. She had thought he was in a deep sleep, but instantly his strength returned to him. His right arm came up around her back, burying itself in her hair, and his left arm tightened about her waist. He slanted her head so that her mouth was firmly against his and then he kissed her.

  Maddie had kissed a few men before, but kisses had never much interested her. This one did. She felt as though she were drowning, that his lips against hers were taking her soul from out of her body. She put her arms around his neck and pulled him closer to her, as though that were possible, and then, of their own accord, her feet came off the floor and she stretched out on the cot beside him. But there wasn’t room for both of them, so she moved to extend her body fully on top of his.

  Abruptly, unexpectedly, his arms released her and fell to his side. Maddie nearly fell to the floor. She had to clutch his shoulders to keep from falling. She lifted her head to look at him and saw that he was at last asleep.

  Slowly, she got off him, but when she tried to stand, her knees gave way under her and she sat down on the floor. Her heart was pounding in her ears and her entire body felt weak and shaky.

  She sat there for a few moments, breathing rapidly, her eyes wide as she looked at the sleeping form of Captain Montgomery. She brushed the back of her hand against her forehead and felt the sweat that had broken out there.

  “Mon Dieu,” she whispered, and it was a few moments before she could remember who she was or where she was. Then, using her hands, she pushed herself up to a standing position. “I’ll be back,” she said to his sleeping body as she looked from one end of him to the other. “You can be sure of that. I’ll be back.”

  She went to the tent flap, gave him one last look over her shoulder, then went outside to where a saddled horse awaited her.

  Chapter 10

  Maddie skirted the settlement rather easily. After her performance, she felt sure that any man she met would know who she was and would have an opinion of her that wasn’t a true one. What would Madame Branchini have thought of her rendition of Carmen?

  As Maddie made her way up the mountain, her fears for Laurel increased. What if the man didn’t show up? What if this awful man who seemed to be the messenger for the kidnappers attacked her again? She had done what he asked the last time and this time brought him “something shiny,” but what if it wasn’t enough? She couldn’t very well tell him to wait just a minute while she made her way back down the mountain and got the last of the jewelry she had with her. She didn’t think Captain Montgomery would allow her to go alone for the third time.

  Maddie tried to think of anything in the world except ’Ring. Even though she had not wanted him to accompany her on this trip, he had made himself useful. General Yovington had hired the three people who were supposed to protect her, but they had never been there when she needed them. But ’Ring had always been there. He’d asked her where her manager had been when the Russian students had kidnapped her, and she’d had to tell him that John had left her to her own devices. But Maddie knew that ’Ring would never leave her alone. He would protect her with his life, just as Toby said he would.

  She rode up and up for hours, never seeming to reach the top of the mountain. She ate beef rolled in stale bread as she rode. She drank from her canteen without dismounting. The horse panted and Maddie slowed, but she didn’t allow the poor animal to rest. She had to get to the man before sundown. He’d told her that Laurel would be there if she got to him before sundown.

  It was late when she started to look at the sky with nervousness. The sun seemed to be dropping at an accelerated rate.

  “I wish my father were here,” she said aloud to the horse. “I wish Hears Good was here. And Bailey and Linq and Thomas.” She sighed. “I wish ’Ring were with me.”

  She stroked the horse between the ears. “Maybe he could have come with me. Maybe I could have shown him the route and he could have found some other way to get to Laurel. Maybe we could have made a plan to take Laurel and this whole horrible episode would be over. Then I could take Laurel home, go back east and sing for people who appreciate me. Appreciate me even when I have all my buttons fastened.”

  Even as she said the words, she knew how wrong they were. What if in the fracas that would no doubt ensue there were shots fired and Laurel was hit? She envisioned Laurel. She hadn’t seen her young sister in years but, along with a few photographs, her mother had sent sketches, watercolors, and pen and ink drawings of Laurel, so Maddie knew that she’d recognize her sister anywhere.

  No, she couldn’t risk it. She urged the horses forward. It was better this way, to go alone and give the man—or men—what they wanted. She would exchange letters with him and give him all the jewelry she had and whatever else he wanted. And if the man kissed her again, she’d smile at him. Somehow, that was the most difficult part for her to anticipate. She’d rather part with all her jewelry than give one kiss to a man she despised.

  She was so deep in thought that she wasn’t prepared when the man jumped out of the trees at her. She worked to calm her frightened horse, then thought that her father would be very disappointed in her if he’d seen her so easily surprised in the woods.

  “You’re late,” the man said, grabbing the bridle of her horse. He grinned at her, then ran his hand up her leg.

  Surreptitiously, she dug her heel into the far side of the horse and made it jump away from him. “Where is she?”

  “Who?”

  Maddie tried to keep from glaring at him. “You said that after my third performance I’d see my sister. I sang for the third time last night, so where is she?”

  “Around. You bring me anything?”

  Bullets. Poison. Whips. A firing squad. “I brought a pearl necklace. It’s quite valuable. It was given to me by the king of Sweden.” She pulled the necklace from her saddlebag and looked at it once before handing it to the man. She’d told ’Ring that money meant nothing to her and, in truth, it didn’t. Not money itself, but she loved beautiful things, and the pearl necklace, all the pearls perfectly matched in size and color, was an extraordinarily beautiful thing. He took it into his dirty hands. r />
  “Not bad. Anything else?”

  “The necklace is worth a great deal, not only for its intrinsic value but for its historical significance.”

  He gave her a blank look.

  “It is important that it once belonged to a king and it was given to me, LaReina. You can show it to your grandchildren.”

  He gave a noise that was meant to be laughter. “Yeah, right. My grandchildren. You got the letter?”

  “I want to see my sister.”

  “You’ll see her when I get ready, and now, Miss History, get off that horse and come over here to me.”

  Maddie’s heart jumped to her throat and began to pound. Whatever the man did to her, she had to bear. She could not risk Laurel’s being hurt.

  She realized from the way he looked at her that he knew what she was thinking. And Maddie could tell that her revulsion wasn’t displeasing to him. “Come over here and give me a kiss.”

  It was perhaps the longest walk of her life as she went toward him and tried to prepare herself for touching the man.

  It was at that moment that an arrow went flying toward the man. It missed his head by only an inch and stuck into a tree a foot away from him.

  The man’s reactions were slow, Maddie was glad to see. She had thrown herself to the ground while the man was still standing and staring stupidly at the arrow. Maddie looked up at the arrow and saw that it was Crow, and she felt some tears of joy come to her eyes.

  “Get down,” she said to the man. “Indians.”

  She looked at the naked fear on the man’s face and knew that he, like most of the men now in the West, was from the East. His knowledge of Indians was what he’d heard around campfires at night—stories that were the equivalent of ghost stories and had about as much to do with the truth as ghost stories.

  “What is it?” he whispered, fear in his voice.

  “I hope we aren’t being attacked. How are you at surviving torture?”

  He turned to look at her, his eyes wide. “Torture?”

  “I’ve heard that the Indians around here have vowed to kill all white men they catch out alone. Their hatred of the white man has increased since the white man has been taking the sacred yellow rock from their land.” She hoped that Hears Good was close enough to hear, because if he was, he was having a good laugh over this. Any Indian who had an ounce of brains knew that a good horse and rifle were worth all the yellow dust in the world.

  “I’m getting out of here,” the man said, and started to get up.

  She caught his pant leg. “Wait! I want to see my sister.”

  “You’re more fool than I thought you were if you think I’d bring a kid like her out here.”

  Maddie felt panic rising in her. It didn’t matter that her father’s friend, Hears Good, was near her, not if the man didn’t have Laurel. She grabbed him by the shirtfront. “Where’s my sister?”

  “How the hell do I know? I’m just a messenger.” He jerked away from her, but she caught him again.

  “Where is she? Who does know about her? Who has her?”

  “I don’t know and I don’t care.” He gave her a shove that sent her sprawling, then started running up the hill.

  Maddie was right behind him. “You said that you’d have my sister here.”

  As he mounted his horse, he looked down at her. “You oughta be glad I didn’t bring her, what with Indians all around.”

  She grabbed his bridle. “You don’t have her, do you? This is all a joke. Laurel is safe somewhere and I haven’t been told.”

  The man reached into his canvas pants. “Here,” he said, and flung something to the ground, then jerked the bridle out of her grasp. “I’ll see you in the next place. Bring something else. Bring gold.” He started to rein his horse away, but then, with a nervous look around, he glared down at her. “None of this ain’t any of my business, and I don’t care nothin’ about any of you, but, lady, I’ll give you some advice: They don’t like that army man of yours snoopin’ around. They don’t like it at all, and if he sticks his nose where it don’t belong, that little girl is gonna be killed. They’re a mean bunch.”

  Maddie grabbed the bridle again. “Have they hurt her?”

  “Not yet they ain’t, but then, you been obeyin’ them so far, ain’t you?” With that, he reined his horse away and started traveling west as fast as the terrain would allow him to move.

  Maddie stood there, stunned for a moment, and then she began to frantically search the ground for what the man had thrown down. It wasn’t difficult to find. It was a dirty linen handkerchief tied into a knot. She sat down and, with shaking hands, carefully untied the knot.

  When she had it unwrapped, she drew in her breath. There, lying on the linen, was the gold and sapphire ring that Maddie had sent Laurel from Italy just last year. Their mother had written that Laurel was so proud of the ring that she never took it off.

  Carefully, Maddie rolled the linen back around the ring and held it in her palm. She wasn’t going to cry; she wasn’t even going to allow herself to feel. They did have Laurel.

  She looked around her at the trees in the fading light. “Hears Good?” she said softly, but no one answered. Right now what she most wanted was to see and talk to someone familiar. “Hears Good,” she said louder, but still no answer.

  She puckered her lips and gave a whistle that imitated the call of the mountain lark, but no answering call came to her.

  When she tried to stand, she found that her legs were shaking. Unsteadily, she made her way to the tree where the arrow was. She pulled it out and looked at it. It had the two tiny marks on it that were Hears Good’s symbol.

  “Where are you?” she shouted, but the forest was quiet. Why won’t he show himself to me, she thought, and tried to keep her mind on the question. Anything to keep her mind off Laurel.

  She ran in the direction that the arrow had come from, but he wasn’t to be seen. When she was out of breath, she stopped running. If Hears Good didn’t want to be seen, no one on earth, not even her father, would be able to find him.

  But why, she wondered. Why would he follow her yet not let her see him?

  The answer came to her instantly. Because there was someone else nearby, someone who Hears Good wanted to avoid.

  With that thought she began running down the hill, slowing only long enough to catch the bridle of her horse. If Hears Good was nearby, then perhaps her father was also. She tripped over ruts and scrub oak and scraped her hands on rocks as she tore down the mountain.

  She was tired and it was full dark when she came to a stream and allowed her horse to drink while she replenished her canteen. She looked all around her but saw no one. It was too dark to see much now, and there was only a quarter moon. Her father had taught her how to travel at night, and she’d heard stories of men who’d traveled for days, moving only at night.

  “Come on, boy,” she said to the gelding, and picked up the bridle. For what seemed to be the thousandth time, she whistled the call of the mountain lark but received no answer.

  Because of the darkness, she had to travel much slower than she’d moved on the trip up the mountain, and with each step she took she felt her mood growing worse. She was tense and angry over Laurel having been taken as well as angry that her friend, Hears Good, a man she’d known all her life, was so near yet wouldn’t come to her. How long had he been following her? She remembered Captain Montgomery saying that many people were following her. He must have seen some sign of Hears Good before now.

  She stumbled over a rock and fell face forward into thorn bushes. When she came up, she was cursing. At that moment she hated every man on earth. She hated men and their stupid talk of war, these men who had taken a child to use in the war they were trying to start. She hated the miners who liked to look down her dress as much as they liked to hear her sing. And most of all she hated ’Ring Montgomery because…

  She wasn’t sure why she hated him, but she did. Part of her also hated her father because she was so close to him
and he wasn’t coming to help her. Why didn’t Hears Good go and get him and the others? Why—

  She was walking along, so involved in her thoughts that it was a complete surprise when a strong arm came out of the dark, encircled her waist, and then a hand slipped over her mouth. The action caused an immediate reaction in her. It was as though she were a keg of gunpowder and someone had lit her fuse. Suddenly, she became a ball of energy and she began kicking and clawing and fighting, and she managed to get her teeth into the palm of the hand that was over her mouth.

  “It’s me,” she heard Captain Montgomery say. “It’s just me.”

  If that was meant to calm her down, it had the opposite effect. When she bit him and he released her mouth, she began screaming at him. “I don’t want you. I hate you. Get away from me.” She kept fighting him, kicking back with her heels, banging her head against his chest.

  He wrapped his arms around her, pinning her arms to her chest. This effectively kept her from biting or clawing him, but her heels were still free to kick, so he lowered her to the ground and threw one of his legs over both of hers.

  “Quiet,” he said soothingly as he stroked her sweat-drenched face. “It’s all right. You’re safe now.”

  “Safe?” she screamed in his ear. “I was more safe with just the mountain lions for company before you came. Why aren’t you asleep? I was afraid I’d given you enough opium to kill you.”

  “It wasn’t enough. Here, stop that,” he said when she again tried to bite him. He put his whisker-stubbled cheek next to her smooth one. “I’m here with you now and you’re safe.”

  Maddie stopped fighting him because she had to, because he had her pinned so that she couldn’t move, but her anger was still raging inside her. “Get off of me! Go away and leave me alone. I don’t need you.”

  He didn’t move away even an inch, but still held her securely. “Yes, you do need me. Tell me what’s happened. Tell me what you did, where you’ve been.”