Noble Savage Read online

"Is that what you want, Katie? To be saved by a daring, gallant knight and carried off to his castle?" His younger sister had loved those sorts of stories, too. But Quantrill's raiders had made sure she'd never meet her gallant knight.

  Katie reared up until his arm across her middle stopped her. "Not on your life. All Ellen ever wanted was to live happily ever after." Her snort wasn't even ladylike. "Not me. I don't need to be saved from any hungry dragons."

  Luke bit his tongue. It wouldn't hurt to let her believe that. But he wouldn't give a wooden nickel for her chances of getting away from Whitney without help.

  Yawning again, she pulled the flowered scarf more firmly around her face. "I swear it's colder than it was in Medicine Bow." She reached up and back, to pull at the blue shawl where it stuck out from under his coat. "This'd do you a sight more good if you'd tie it around your head, under your hat. Didn't your mother ever tell you the best way to keep your whole self warm is to keep your head warm?"

  Chuckling, Luke obeyed. "She sure did." Replacing his hat, he leaned back again and put his arms around Katie's waist. Even through the heavy coat he could feel the heat of her. He tried to relax.

  As if a man could relax with his arms full of soft, sweet woman.

  They slept, then. Or at least he figured she had, for she'd lain still in his arms. He woke once when the train took on water, stayed awake long enough to watch an enormous windmill slide by the window.

  They'd left the snowstorm behind. The clouds still blocked any glimpses of the night sky and the wind still howled beside the train, carrying the fallen snow before it, piling it up in arcuate drifts around every bunchgrass and sagebrush, filling the depressions and scouring the hillocks.

  The engineer seemed intent on making up time, for the railcar swayed and rattled as they sped along. Luke scraped more of the ice from the window with his free hand. Snowdrifts defined the surface of the land, showing it to be almost as flat as the Texas plains he'd driven cattle across.

  He'd expected mountains in Wyoming, but so far all he'd seen were dry and barren hills. After the Ozarks and the Appalachians, the Rocky Mountains were proving to be a great disappointment.

  The rocking grew wilder and the noise of the wheels louder. Was the engineer crazy?

  Scarcely had the thought emerged when Luke and Katie were thrown hard against the back of the seat ahead. As brakes screamed, he fought his way clear of the quilt and Katie's flailing arms. She was atop him and they were both on the floor, thoroughly wedged between the seats.

  "What?" Her head emerged from under the quilt "Luke! What happened?"

  Her knee was tight against his groin. Under other circumstances he would have been delighted. "Sit still!"

  She reared up.

  He gasped. "Damn it, Katie! Hold still!" Grabbing her arm, he pulled her upper body tight against his. "Just sit tight a minute and let me get my breath."

  She relaxed against him. They were face to face, their lips only inches apart. Luke moved his hand up her arm, once more damning the weight of the heavy Union Army coat she wore. He slipped his fingers inside the collar.

  "Your fingers are like ice," she whispered.

  He jerked his hand back. "Sorry."

  "Don't be. I liked it." She caught at his hand, pulled it back to cup her cheek. "May I move now?"

  Knowing that the instant she did, she would feel the strength of his arousal, he said, "Not yet." He tried to distract himself by thinking of the choking dust at the tail of a herd, the terrifying roar of an oncoming tornado, but neither helped.

  He wanted her.

  A draft of bitterly cold air swept across his legs just as the conductor called, "Everybody all right in here?"

  Katie wormed her way backwards, her every move sweet torture. The pressure on his groin eased, only to be replaced by her full weight as she slid her body across his. It seemed an eternity to Luke before she backed into the aisle and rose to her feet. Then she leaned over, offered her hand.

  Luke stared at it, fighting the sharp knife of desire that whittled at his vitals. He took a deep breath, and then another.

  The conductor stood in the door at the front of the railcar. "Folks, we'll have a little delay," he announced. "We've got a bad section of track along here. There's already been one derailment, and they're working to relay the tracks so we can go on. We'll be stopped an hour or two."

  A passenger said, "Any chance of getting more firewood in here? We're damn near froze."

  Katie leaned over Luke. "Are you all right?"

  He nodded. "Give me a hand. I seem to be stuck."

  "Are you hurt? You looked like you were in pain." Her face held innocent concern. Had she really been unaware of where her knee had been, how she had dragged her soft body over his?

  Once on his feet, Luke saw her more clearly. Her cheeks were rosy, far more so than the cold should make them. She wouldn't look into his eyes, either.

  "Yeah," he said, under his breath, "I was in pain, all right. Prime, glorious pain."

  The quick flash as she lowered her eyes told him what he'd guessed.

  She knew damn good and well what she'd done to him.

  Chapter Nine

  "Nice."

  Luke's grin brought even more heat to Katie's face, if that was possible. She couldn't believe she'd really done that--crawled all over his body like a...well, just like the injured 'coon Ma had nursed once.

  Bandit had liked to be warm. He'd climb all over a person, seeking the warmest place to be. And that usually had been an armpit or under her skirt. Katie had taken to wearing trousers whenever the 'coon was inside the cabin.

  Somehow she didn't think that would slow Luke down, not if he took a mind to get under her skirts.

  The realization that she might be tempted to let him brought more hot blood to her cheeks. "Well, don't blame me!" she snapped. "I got off you as fast as I could."

  "Sure you did." His fingers moved along her neckline, just barely touching the base of her throat where a pulse hammered. At her immediate retreat, he said, "Just fixin' your collar. It was all stood up."

  "I'll take care of my own clothes." She bent over and tugged her fiddle case loose from the tangle of gear between the seats. It was unharmed. "Hold this, please."

  In a few moments Katie had straightened out the mess, gathering the scattered canteens, replacing the packet of dried apples in the gunnysack, and retying the thong closing the stiff rawhide container of portable soup. She took her fiddle case back from Luke and scooted over against the window, setting her feet on his bedroll.

  All the while she didn't say a word, not quite knowing what to say. How does a body admit to being a fool?

  "You can sit down now," she said, her voice a tad rough. "I doubt this stuff will pack any closer together." She hadn't realized how little room for Luke's feet there had been, what with his belongings and hers. No wonder he'd sat sideways.

  "You're embarrassed, aren't you?" Luke's voice was low enough that it couldn't be heard in the next seat forward. "Don't be."

  "I wouldn't be if you hadn't said anything."

  "I didn't say anything!" he objected, holding his hands up, palm out. "Just that it was nice you didn't get hurt."

  "Oh! You...you...! You're as bad as my brothers."

  There was sudden steel in his voice. "Sweetheart, I keep tellin' you. I ain't your brother. I ain't anything like your brother."

  Her attention caught, Katie stared into his eyes. There was strength there, and suffering, and perhaps a little laughter. Something else, too. Something hot and hungry, that quickly hid itself behind lowered lids. "Well, sometimes you act just like them, especially when you tease me."

  "And sometimes I don't. Just remember that, Katie. Sometimes I don't act like your brother."

  It sounded almost like a warning.

  Sniffing, she turned her shoulder to him and clutched her quilt around her. Outside she could see lanterns and torches moving about, could occasionally hear a far-off shout. Mostly what she saw
was the bottom side of tipped-over railcars, their iron-wheeled trucks hanging uselessly in the icy wind.

  With a shudder, she closed her eyes, not wanting to think of what would happen if their train derailed. Especially if it happened on one of the long, high trestles like they had crossed between Cheyenne and Laramie. She'd been grateful it was night when they made the Dale Creek crossing--nine hundred feet of spindly iron bridge holding up who knew how many tons of train and cargo.

  Even the short bridges frightened her, for her imagination drew graphic pictures of what would happen if the train jumped its tracks. Last winter in Boston there had been a really terrible train wreck, killing dozens. Almost weekly while she'd been in the East she'd read newspaper accounts of exploding boilers, jumped tracks and washouts.

  Katie squeezed her eyes shut, told herself to go to sleep. But it wasn't until Luke's arm pulled her tight against his warm chest that she truly slept.

  At last the train moved again. Luke couldn't reach his pocket watch, but he didn't much care anyhow. The dark and the cold told him all he needed to know. Morning would come, eventually, and Katie would wake.

  Wake and pull herself from his arms. If he had his druthers, that wouldn't be for a long time.

  He didn't know what had gotten into him--the man who'd failed everyone who'd ever relied on him--taking on responsibility for Katie's safety. His sister, his pa, and his mates in the Army had all suffered because Luke Savage wasn't man enough to keep them from harm.

  Now Katie was depending on him to protect her. If he was a real man, he'd tell her the truth. That he didn't carry a gun because he didn't think he could ever look down a barrel at another human being again without turning yellow.

  Hell! She was a better man than him. That little derringer she carried--she was prepared to use it. He'd seen that in her eyes. Katie Lachlan wouldn't let Whitney catch her again.

  Not unmarked, at least. Luke cursed under his breath. That lady's gun she carried held one cartridge. Something like a .45 caliber. Big enough it ought to stop a man, if she could hit him.

  But Luke had seen men struck by minie balls who'd kept fighting, men bloody from shrapnel who'd refused to give up. If Whitney was as crazy as he seemed, who was to say that he'd even notice being shot, lest it hit him somewhere vital?

  If it didn't, what would Luke do? Trip him?

  And while he was doing that, what would the swell's henchmen be doing?

  Luke's fingers curled reflexively around a gun butt that was laying along a track somewhere back in Kansas. He forced them straight again, moved his hand up to stroke lightly across the untidy braids circling Katie's head where it rested against his shoulder. "I'll keep you safe," he vowed.

  If only he knew how.

  * * * *

  While their train was being remade in the Rawlins yards morning came, gray and windy. The conductor had suggested that no one get off, since they would be away as soon as possible to make up for the three hour delay. He did send a couple of roustabouts in with more fuel for the inadequate stove.

  Katie had been awake for some time, but had not moved from her position against Luke's shoulder. He was warm, and his arm around her felt so comforting. As if she was safely at home, in Idaho. When the conductor made his announcement, she yawned and sat up, rubbing her eyes. "I guess that means no coffee this morning."

  "Oh, I reckon we can contrive," Luke said, smiling down at her. He raised his voice. "Anybody got a stewpot?"

  One of the other passengers had a small saucepan that sat unsteadily on the top of the stove. Katie filled it from one of their canteens while Luke attempted to roast coffee beans. He held a poker inside the belly of the stove, dangling a tin cup from its hook.

  Soon all the passengers were joining in the communal breakfast preparations. They huddled as close to the stove as they could, joking, holding each other up as the railcar jerked with each new coupling.

  The only other woman present, a Mrs. Frenkel, contributed cold cornpone. "It's a little squashed, but I don't reckon that'll hurt the taste none," she opined.

  "Here's some bacon," a tall man in buckskin offered. "Don't reckon we can cook it much, but it's better'n none atall."

  "My Ma used to tell of how they ate bacon raw, on the way West," Katie said. "She said it beat rattlesnake all hollow."

  "Folks in Kansas ate grasshoppers one year," Luke said, grimacing. "There wasn't anything else, once the 'hoppers got through stripping every green, growing thing."

  The smell of scorched coffee beans filled the railcar as Luke pulled the cup from the stove. He poured them onto a plate someone held out, refilled the cup.

  "I recall when we'd have given a month's pay for coffee smelling that good," a young man in a Union Army coat much like Katie's remarked, sniffing. "Mostly what we got was roasted dandelion root, or worse."

  "Me too," Luke agreed, shaking the cup so the beans wouldn't stick. "That's when you had a month's pay to give."

  "Amen, brother." He grinned at Luke. "I was in the Third Indiana Volunteers. What was your outfit?"

  "Started out in the Kansas Militia," Luke began. "Damnation!" He jerked the cup from the stove, dumped its smoking contents on the plate Katie held. "A body's going to have to be mighty thirsty to drink that," he said, frowning.

  "Oh, pooh," Katie told him, shaking the plate. "Once we get them all ground, you'll never notice." She gave one last shake. "I think one more cup will about do it."

  The young ex-soldier, who'd told her to call him Eldred, took the plate from Katie and set it on the floor. With the handle of his sidearm, he started pounding the hot beans, cracking them into a fairly fine meal.

  By the time Luke and the buckskin-clad man had managed to heat the bacon--nobody could call it cooked, but at least it was warm--Katie and Eldred were serving coffee. Each of them only got a few swallows of the hot, bitter beverage. Just enough, as Luke said, shuddering at his first taste, to put some iron in his backbone.

  Their route led uphill again from Rawlins. They would make a long, slow climb up to the continental divide, then descend just as slowly to Rock Springs and Green River. From there it was only a day's travel to the end of track.

  "Snowin' again," Mrs. Frenkel observed from the seat across the aisle. "Pretty heavy."

  "How can you tell?" Katie wondered aloud. "The wind's blowing so hard it's all going sideways. Maybe that's just what was on the ground."

  The older woman shook her head. "Child, I've been in Wyoming for nigh on to ten year, now. I know snow when I see it, and I'm tellin' you, this is snow."

  "You've lived here? Where?"

  "Up north of Point of Rocks. Me and my man, we got us a little timber, a few head of cattle." Peering through the dirty glass beside her, she said, "This looks like it's settlin' in to stay awhile. It's pilin' up, too, instead of driftin'. Sure hope we get through Bitter Creek."

  Luke came to sit beside Katie. "Is that a bad stretch?"

  "Ain't it, though! Them Union Pacific surveyors, they thought they could save 'em some track, so they cut right through the ridges along there, instead of goin' around. My man, he says the first good snowstorm will pack ever' one of them cuts solid and no locomotive's goin' to push its way through. No matter how much coal they pile on."

  Katie crossed her fingers, hoping Mrs. Frenkel was exaggerating. Besides, hadn't she read of the enormous snowplows the railroad used? Or was that the Central Pacific, out in California?

  The snow continued to fall as they topped the divide and started winding their way down again. When they reached the valley of Bitter Creek, Katie saw what Mrs. Frenkel had meant. In each of the many cuts, snow was piled on the tracks in tall drifts. Their engines slowed each time they encountered one, but the train never stopped except at the watering stations, marked by enormous windmills and gigantic water tanks, or at the occasional flag stop.

  Mrs. Frenkel got off at Point of Rocks, admonishing the remaining passengers, "Lay over at Rock Springs or Green River until the weather clear
s. We're goin' to have a real blizzard, you mark my words."

  They rolled into Rock Springs about five that afternoon. "Supper stop," the conductor announced, surprising them all.

  "I thought there weren't any on this section," Luke said, as the trainman passed.

  "There's not. But I telegraphed ahead, told 'em I had a dozen hungry passengers who'd been real nice about the delay back at Walcott. You'll eat in the crew tent."

  "Hallelujah," Eldred said.

  Katie had to smile in agreement. Three swallows of scorched coffee, a bite of half-cooked bacon and a handful of dried fruit hadn't been enough to fuel her body, given how cold it was inside the railcar.

  * * * *

  Luke kept hold of Katie's hand as they picked their way through the piles of lumber alongside the tracks at Rock Springs. For some reason he didn't want her out of reach.

  They followed the conductor between the depot and more lumber, a dimly-lit route that required constant attention lest they trip over scraps of wood and other debris. At last they reached the crew tent, a great expanse of canvas guyed against the constant wind by dozens of heavy lines to steel stakes driven deeply into the frozen soil.

  The food was meant for men who labored hard from dawn to dark. Beans and bacon, of course, plus cornbread, biscuits, boiled potatoes, gravy, buffalo steaks, and canned peaches. Two aproned old men refilled coffee cups almost as soon as they were empty. Luke cleaned his plate twice, wondering when he'd get hot food again.

  To his amusement, Katie also took seconds, although less than he had. "Where do you put it all?" he wondered, looking at her small stature and slender body.

  "Believe me, I don't eat like this all the time. Just when I don't know where my next meal's coming from."

  "What about all that food you insisted we buy?"

  "That's for emergencies. Besides, can you honestly tell me you'd rather eat cold cheese and chew on jerky instead of this." The spoonful of peaches she'd gestured with went into her mouth. Her eyes closed and a smile spread across her face. "Yummm!"

  "I wasn't complaining. We're not to Salt Lake City yet, and I didn't like the looks of that sky at sundown."