Noble Savage Page 6

  "Are you gonna be all right? I'd be scared to death to go all the way to Idaho alone. With them savage Injuns and all."

  Katie grinned. "Believe me, Lizzie, there's not an Indian in the West that's as dangerous as some of the men in towns." She hugged her new friend, conscious of a sense of loss. Lizzie was just plain nice. "I'll be fine. Why I'm practically next door to home."

  Katie walked with Lizzie to her parents' seat, said farewell to the rest of the family.

  "I'll never forget how you took me in and cared for me," she told Mrs. Deaton.

  "It was the least we could do," the woman told her, clearly distracted with keeping her children and her belongings together.

  The train slowed, its whistle piercing the frosty morning. People and bundles tumbled into the aisle as it jerked to a halt.

  "Fort Kearney comin' up," bawled the conductor from the end of the railcar. "Breakfast stop!"

  "You sure you'll be all right, Miss Lachlan?" Mr. Deaton asked as he waited for his family to proceed him down the aisle.

  "I'm sure, but thank you for being concerned. I really can take care of myself."

  Most of the passengers got off for breakfast. Katie lingered, using her handkerchief to wipe the worst of the dark lines from her face. There wasn't a thing she could do about the ashes on her hair, for her hairbrush had been in the satchel she'd lost in Council Bluffs. She reset hairpins so that her braids clung close to her head. Now she was ready to face the world.

  Coffee would taste good, if she could get a cup. So far since leaving Chicago, she'd mostly been content just to get a plate shoved her way as a harried waiter passed by. She picked up her violin case and followed her fellow passengers into the dining room. So many of the emigrants had left the train that she found a seat with no problem and was able to enjoy two cups of hot, bitter coffee while she ate her biscuits and ham.

  Feeling well fed, she strolled back to the train. For the first time since Omaha, she felt safe. Smiling, she accepted the conductor's hand into the railcar. She ignored the questioning look he gave her. Let him wonder about the little old lady who grew younger by the hour.

  Back in her seat, she looked down the length of the railcar. There weren't more than fifteen or so people left, one large family, it looked like, and the rest men traveling alone. Would she have the car to herself by the time they reached Cheyenne? Or would she have to move? She supposed the conductor would tell her when the time came.

  "All aboard!"

  As she watched, a lithe figure dashed from the depot and swung aboard. Blazing red hair shone in the weak winter sunlight.

  She wondered how far Luke Savage was traveling.

  Chapter Five

  After Fort Kearny, the train sat on sidings more often than it moved. This gave Katie far too much time to think.

  About a man who had followed her all the way from Boston.

  About a man who'd kissed her until her toes curled.

  They both frightened her, in vastly different ways.

  Much as she hated to admit it, Hamilton Steens Whitney III might be a bigger problem than she could handle. Oh, mostly he made her mad. Sending her those flowers, assuming she was his for the taking. Haring after her for a thousand miles.

  Some of her mad was at herself, for not taking him seriously. His last note, arriving after Charles had told him in no uncertain terms that she wanted nothing to do with him, should have told her that he was more than determined.

  The train slowed for another water stop. Katie leaned her forehead against the grimy window and stared out at the sere autumn landscape. Flat, colorless, the plains gradually gave way along the river bottom to cottonwoods, bedecked with black silhouettes of resting crows and magpies, bare, skeleton branches clutching at low clouds.

  Was Mr. Bloodhound Whitney still trailing her? Or had she left him behind in Council Bluffs? Him and his brawny lackeys?

  She wanted to believe she had.

  She was afraid she hadn't, afraid he might be a bigger problem than she'd ever had to deal with.

  Closing her eyes, Katie pictured the horizon from home. Not gentle, as she had seen from the windows of her room at school in South Hadley, with round-topped trees softening even the steepest hill. Not flat and monotonous, as the view outside the train was. At home you looked up to the high, sharp ridges, or you looked far across vistas stretching a hundred miles or more.

  How she wanted to be there, at home in Idaho. At home, she admitted, where Pa would stand between her and Mr. Horse-face Whitney and she wouldn't have to be quite so strong and brave. I can take care of myself, she repeated silently. But I'd feel a lot easier if Pa were here.

  She fell into a light doze, aware of stops and starts, of iron wheels screeching against iron rails, of raucous laughter from the other end of the railcar where men threw dice and quenched their thirst from flasks carried inside their vests.

  While she didn't really sleep, Katie drifted into the almost-dreams that sometimes came to that indescribable place between sleep and waking. They had no form, no coherence, no evident meaning. Just a face, a smiling face. Red hair and mustache, deep not-quite-dimples in his cheeks, a leather vest smelling of wood smoke and horse.

  A rumbly, gentle voice, that warmed and soothed. And promised. She woke listening for it.

  So this was what it was all about--the dreaminess, the impatience she'd sensed in Ellen just before her sister's wedding. And Ma, too. Was this...this needy feeling why Ma had refused to remain in Boston a minute longer than Pa, even though Katie and Ellen had begged her to stay the winter?

  Katie knew, without knowing why or how, that Lucas Savage could become an important part of her life. Only time would tell how important.

  Toward sunset, most of the passengers got off, leaving only Katie and a family of emigrants in the railcar. The mother's voice soothed whining children after the supper stop. When she sang to them, Katie too slept, soundly this time. She didn't wake again until sometime in the dark chill of the night.

  "Miss? Miss, you'll have to wake up now."

  She opened her eyes. The conductor was standing over her. "Yes? What?" For an instant she was frozen with apprehension. The lantern lit his face from the side, stark shadows making his brushy side-whiskers and mustache seem dangerous. Threatening. She reached for her derringer.

  "It's North Platte, Miss. We're taking this railcar off here. You'll have to move to another one." He smiled.

  Now Katie saw the friendly, gentle face she'd seen all day and relaxed, taking her hand from her coat pocket.

  "I'll help you with your baggage. Just show me what you've got."

  "This is all. I can handle it myself," Katie told him. Bless Mrs. Deaton, she thought, shivering as she unwrapped the shabby but still warm quilt she'd covered herself with. The woman had insisted that she take the quilt and a spare pair of wool stockings when she'd discovered all Katie had was what she carried in the fiddle case. Katie rolled the quilt into a tidy bundle that would fit under her arm. "Just this and my case."

  She followed the conductor down the aisle and took his arm to step to the ground. Cinders crunched under her boots as she walked the short distance to the next railcar ahead. The outside air, bitterly cold, smelled of coal smoke and hot oil. Even though it had to be well past midnight, the growl and clash of industry was as loud as she'd heard it in the Chicago rail yards. Torches and lanterns lit walkways between enormous piles of supplies, along which scurried workmen laden with tools or pulling high-wheeled baggage carts heaped with angular and odd-shaped bundles. She wondered if one of them was her trunk, or if it was already in Salt Lake City.

  "Only one passenger car's going on to Cheyenne," the conductor told her as he helped her to step into the vestibule, "coupled onto the back of a freight. Once there, they'll make up a new train for points west."

  "I'll be fine," she assured him, taking back the rolled quilt which he had insisted on carrying. She eased through the narrow door and let it swing shut behind her. Her breat
h made a cloud before her as she peered along the aisle, trying to see an empty seat.

  The lanterns at each end of the car gave little light. Katie moved slowly between the rows of unpadded wooden seats, stepping carefully to avoid legs stretched into the aisle, bundles set wherever there was space. The first empty place she found was beside a large woman whose snores had been audible clear up at the end of the railcar. Katie considered herself a sound sleeper, but there was a limit. She went on.

  "Hssst!"

  She peered through the gloom. It was impossible to identify the owner of the waving hand. For just a moment butterflies fluttered in her middle. She simply didn't want to have to deal with Mr. Toad-ugly Whitney this time of night.

  The hiss came again. "Miss Lachlan!" His voice was muted, but held no hint of crisp Boston inflection. She stepped over still another pair of legs and slid into the empty seat beside Luke Savage.

  It wasn't altogether proper for her, a single woman with no companion, to sit with a chance acquaintance, but she had to admit that she would feel far more comfortable with Luke than she would with someone she didn't know at all.

  He'd already helped her twice.

  Luke rose to let her slide by him.

  "Thank you," she whispered, "but I'd just as soon sit on the aisle."

  "You're gonna make me sit all night long with my knees tucked up under my chin? After I gave up my nice soft bed just to let you sit with me?" Luke liked the way her eyes lit up when she glanced at his long legs.

  "Why then, Mr. Savage, I'd be delighted to sit by the window." She set her fiddle case on the floor by the wall and scooted over to give him room.

  Yep. She was a little, bitty thing, all right. "You wrap that quilt tight around yourself, Miss Lachlan. It's colder than a well digger's...uh, it's mighty cold in here, once we get moving."

  She smiled, and he had the awful feeling she knew exactly what he'd almost said. Damn! It's too long since I've been around a lady. Way too long. His next breath brought him a faint scent, lilacs again. A spark flared in his belly, pulsing as a deeper breath spread the smell of springtime throughout his body.

  "Have you a blanket? I could share my quilt."

  Luke's eyes felt as if they would cross. If she had any idea of how her innocent offer had aroused him, she'd probably get off the train and walk to the next station. "I'll be fine," he said, hearing the hoarseness in his own voice. "I'm used to making do." He pulled his sheepskin coat tighter about his body, as if by doing so he could insulate himself from the heat of her arm where it brushed his. "G'night." He slid down and let his head rest on the back of the seat, his legs extend into the aisle. With any luck, his neck wouldn't be completely broke come morning.

  As he closed his eyes, he heard her soft, "Good night, Luke. Thank you for sharing your seat."

  By the time the conductor called the breakfast stop at Sidney, Nebraska, he was cold, hungry, and so damn sleepy he'd probably doze off with his face in his food. If he had a dollar for every minute he'd slept since she sat down next to him, his pockets would be empty.

  Luke went to check his stock after wolfing down four eggs, half a dozen corn dodgers, and about a quart of coffee. Lafayette was restive, clearly tired of traveling on anything but his own four feet. Salome tried to take a bite out of his arm, and Sheba snuffled into his shirt like the flirt she was. "Another couple of days and you'll be off this train," he promised them. "The conductor says I can leave you with the wrangler at End-of-Track while I see the lady on to Salt Lake City. Then I'll come back for you and we'll start lookin' for a place of our own." He scratched Sheba between the ears. "How does Wyoming sound?"

  Salome tried to bite his other arm, and Lafayette let out a loud bray that sounded more like no than anything.

  Luke laughed. "Well, then you figure it out. I don't much care where we end up. Long as there's good bottom land to be had, I can settle pretty much anywhere."

  After checking their water buckets and feedbags once more, he patted each of the asses and the mule. "You folks talk it over and decide where we're goin', once we get Katie safe to her pa. I'll be back this evening."

  Tarnation! That's what comes of herding cows for too long. You're talking to a mule like he had some sense.

  Of course, he'd known some mules that had better sense than a lot of folks.

  At the stock car's door, Luke stepped aside to let a fellow lead a sorrel gelding up the ramp. "Morning," he said, before he got a good look at the man.

  The other nodded. "Howdy."

  Slanting morning sun revealed the stranger's face, and Luke stumbled to a halt. He'd just seen a ghost.

  Either that, or Japhet Breedlove had a twin brother.

  * * * *

  After Luke went to the stock car, Katie decided to walk the length of the platform. She wasn't used to sitting so much, not even at the Seminary. Both the teachers and her fellow students had thought her crazy for insisting on walking three or four miles a day, no matter the weather. They'd been scandalized the first time she'd done it on showshoes.

  Their train wasn't due to depart until midday. First it had to be assembled.

  A stock car and a single passenger coach sat on a short spur. The adjacent rails held a long string of railcars. Between them, Katie could see a line of coupled boxcars, then farther on more boxcars, their sliding doors gaping open on black emptiness.

  Luke was still busy in the stock car, so Katie started walking, counting boxcars as she passed them. There were eight. Next was a string of flatcars that seemed endless. They held rails and machinery, telegraph poles, enormous crates, bundles of iron bars and bins labeled with cryptic abbreviations and symbols. At the eleventh one, she turned. Looked back. It was at least a half-mile back to the caboose.

  Katie took a firmer grip on her fiddle case and ran.

  Oh, how good it felt!

  Luke was standing at the foot of the ramp into the stock car when she reached it. His face had a strange expression, sort of far away, and maybe a little puzzled.

  "Were you waiting for me?"

  "Um?" He seemed to see her for the first time. "Oh. Yeah. I was going to walk you over to the depot."

  Katie stopped herself just before she stuck her tongue out. He wasn't her brother. But he was as easy to catch in a fib. She had been the last thing on his mind.

  They walked together to the depot, a raw, wooden building with a few hard, uncomfortable benches. Katie watched Luke's face surreptitiously. Something was on his mind.

  Something unpleasant.

  Shaking her head, she told herself not to be so fanciful. He was a kind, decent man who happened to be willing to travel with her for a while. Until she knew Mr. High-falutin' Whitney hadn't followed her from Omaha, she was just as happy to have a companion.

  Luke knew he was brooding, but he couldn't help it. Finally, after better than an hour in the dismal depot, he turned to Katie, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor. She had her fiddle case open, but the lid kept him from seeing what she was doing.

  "Let's go for a walk," he said.

  She looked up. "Where?"

  "Hell! I don't know. Somewhere. We got another two hours before our train's ready to go--if it's on time. I sure don't want to sit here that long. I'll take root."

  "O.K. Just a minute." Tongue between her teeth, she did some more fussing inside the case. It looked to Luke like she was wrapping something up.

  "That ain't a fiddle you've got in there. Too heavy."

  "No, it's not." She closed the lid and snapped the catches. "There. I'm ready." She scrambled to her feet, fiddle case and all.

  "So, are you gonna tell me what's in there?"

  "I don't think so. Not now." She smiled, but her words were final. "The conductor said town is over south of the tracks. Shall we see the sights?"

  Luke considered taking his bedroll back to the stock car, leaving it with his saddlebags. The rifle it held was probably his most expensive possession. And while he didn't intend to use it for anyth
ing but putting food on his table, he didn't want to find himself empty-handed in a situation that called for it. He slung it over his shoulder.

  Katie grinned at him as he emerged into the wintry sunlight. "You gonna tell me what you've got in that bedroll?"

  For an instant he missed the twinkle in her eye. Then he grinned back. "I don't think so," he said. "Not now."

  Tucked back behind the bank was a small shack from which drifted the aroma of fresh-baked bread. Without a word, they both turned in that direction.

  "My pa always said to carry spare food when setting out into unknown country," Katie said, not quite smiling.

  "We're not apt to get a dinner stop, not with our train pulling out just after noon," Luke agreed soberly.

  They went inside.

  Soon they had a flour sack filled with bread, cinnamon rolls, and a napkin-wrapped packet of what the baker called 'Cornish pasties.' Luke had never heard of them, but from their smell, they were made out of real food. He was digging for his purse when Katie handed the baker a couple of coins.

  "You bought breakfast," she said. "My turn."

  Now Lucas Savage was brought up to be a gentleman. At least his ma had tried to turn him into one. Not all of her teaching had taken, but he did know that a gentleman never let a lady pay for dinner. "Not on your life!"

  "Oh, don't be silly, Luke! I've got plenty of money, and you've been helping me out ever since I ran into you back in Council Bluffs. The least I can do is pay for this."

  "It ain't fitten!"

  "No, but it should be. My Pa says that any woman who thinks she can take care of herself is living in a dream unless she pays her own way. He hasn't much use for the fancy ladies who need a man to take care of them."

  The baker was watching them, a wide smile on her face. Luke put his purse back into his waistcoat, vowing silently that he'd see that she took his money later.

  Katie led the way outside. "Don't sulk, Luke," she said as they headed back toward the depot. "I'll let you pay for supper, if we're still traveling together."

  "I ain't sulking!"

  "Of course you're not." She laughed. "You remind me so much of my brother. He hates it when I win an argument, too."