Noble Savage Read online

  Luke nodded. "Us, too. At least until the Bushwhackers started raiding across the border. They burned our barn early on." His eyes grew dark and his face hard. "Murderin' bastards!"

  "Luke--" Reaching across the table, Katie laid a hand on his wrist, feeling its rigidity.

  He pulled free. "Never mind. What's done is done." But his eyes still seemed to look into a dark, bloody past.

  "Sometimes it helps to talk about things."

  "Not this. Let it be, Katie." He visibly took charge of his emotions. "You said your Pa was meeting you in Salt Lake City? Is he expecting you any particular time?"

  "In my last letter I told him to look for me sometime between the fifteenth and the twentieth of November."

  "Then we've got a little over a week before he starts wondering where you are."

  The food arrived, so she didn't tell him that Pa wasn't likely to worry unless she was a couple of weeks late. He knew how uncertain travel from Boston could be. They spoke little while they took the edges off their appetites. For a change the beans were thoroughly cooked, and were well flavored. The cornbread tasted so much like her mother's that Katie felt a sudden pang of homesickness.

  "What are you going to do if Whitney follows you to Salt Lake City?" Luke said after he'd finished his second helping of beans. "Will you tell your pa what he tried in Council Bluffs?"

  "Tell Pa?" She smiled tightly. "Only if I want Whitney killed."

  * * * *

  Black smoke pouring from their stacks in great billows, two puffing engines pulled the train out of the Laramie yards. With any luck, Luke and Katie would reach End-of-Track in two or three days, depending on conditions. Luke had heard that the closer they got to the end of the line, the worse shape the rail bed was.

  The private car had been left behind on a siding in Laramie. Luke hadn't seen Whitney since he left the depot, knew he hadn't boarded either of the two passenger cars. Maybe he'd taken Luke's warning seriously.

  And if he had, then Luke was about as useful to Katie as teats were to a boar hog.

  "Weather's getting worse," Katie said, her voice almost too soft for him to hear. She'd been staring out the window ever since they'd settled into their seats.

  He peered past her, seeing streaks of rain on the mud-spattered glass. Sure enough, the clouds looked lower and heavier. "It's almost cold enough to snow," he said. "Sure hope the Union Pacific keeps their plows handy." He'd seen stuck trains more than once, after they'd tried to bull their way through windblown drifts. Get an engine far enough into a snowdrift and it couldn't back out any better than it could go forward.

  "Even if it does snow tonight, I'm sure it'll change to rain in the morning. We don't usually get snow this early."

  Remembering a hellacious Norther in Texas that had hit in late October one year, Luke said, "You can't ever tell about weather. I hope you're right."

  "So do I." Katie turned in her seat so she faced him. "Luke, I really do appreciate what you did for me back there in Laramie. But, if we meet him again, well, let me handle him, will you?"

  "Handle him? Tarnation, woman! Haven't you already admitted you can't 'handle him'?"

  "Of all the-- What makes you say that?"

  "You hired me, didn't you? That sounds to me like an admission of defeat."

  "Mister Savage," she said, leaning toward him and poking one finger into his breastbone, "let's get one thing perfectly clear. I hired you to make sure nobody came up on my blind side while I'm dealing with Mr. Slime-on-a-Rock Whitney. You handle his lackeys. I'll take care of him."

  He batted her hand aside. "Yeah? You and what army?"

  "I don't need an army. I've got what I need right here." She patted her fiddle case. "And next time I see him, I'll be ready for him."

  "Yeah?" he said again. "Like you were this morning?" Luke deliberately made his bark of laughter harsh and derisive. "Sweetheart, if he'd been a snake, he'd have bit you twice before you even saw him. Why if I hadn't been there, he would have..."

  "We were right out in public, Luke. He wouldn't have dared try anything."

  "Oh?" Luke grasped her shoulders and pulled her toward him. "Well, we ain't exactly private here." As he took her mouth, he couldn't decide whether he was doing this to teach her a lesson or to please himself.

  He teased her lips apart and flicked his tongue along her teeth. Katie stiffened in his arms. "Open for me, sweetheart," he murmured, without lifting his mouth from hers.

  She did, and Luke tasted sweetness such as he'd never tasted before. Gradually, as he drank his fill of her, she softened, until he felt more than heard a soft exhalation of surrender.

  Her hands crept inside his heavy coat and circled his waist. Groaning, Luke pulled his mouth free of her honeyed snare and nibbled his way across her jaw. He found the icy lobe of her ear and took it gently between his teeth.

  Her fingers dug into his back as she strained even closer. "Luke?" A breathless gasp.

  "You like this? Oh, God, Katie, let me..." With clumsy fingers he unbuttoned her coat, seeking the warmth, the softness he knew was within. "Let me touch you. Oh, yes!" His fingers found her breast, already crowned with a blossom of desire.

  Again he covered her mouth with his and kissed her deeply, hungrily.

  Until loud laughter from the other end of the railcar woke him to what he was doing, where he was.

  With every ounce of will power he had, Luke eased her away. The taste of her lingered on his tongue, the lilac scent of her filled his nostrils. Her eyes, heavy-lidded, slumbrous with desire, looked into his. For a moment, Luke remembered being young and innocent, remembered believing in love and peace on earth.

  Then he reminded himself how he'd lost that innocence--at Antietam and Corinth and a hundred other battlefields. Youth and innocence didn't survive. But strength and suspicion did.

  "We ain't exactly private here," he repeated. "Yet I could have had you and likely nobody would have even noticed."

  And hated himself when her eyes widened in shock, took on the same expression he'd seen in the eyes of too many wounded comrades.

  Chapter Eight

  Once she'd figured out what Luke had been up to, Katie wanted to kill him. Chop him up and feed him to the bears. Gut him and use him for fish bait.

  Whatever.

  He was just like her brothers, darn him! And she'd dug in her heels just like she always did when one of them tried to tell her what to do. Except she'd never felt this way about her brothers.

  Peeking at him from the corners of her eyes, she decided he wasn't gloating about being right. How she detested being in the wrong, then having her nose rubbed in her mistake.

  She knew he wasn't sleeping though--she could almost hear him thinking. When he finally came up for air at one of the water stops, he stood, said, "Back soon," and strode to the back of the railcar. They had stopped again to take on water before he returned, and when he did, he smelled of cold and hay and horse.

  Katie assumed he'd spent the time with his stock. She hoped Salome bit him.

  Shortly after the conductor passed through lighting the lamps, Luke walked the length of the car and into the vestibule. When he came back he said, "Cold out there! I smelled snow, somewhere far off. Sure hope we ain't headed right into it."

  "It won't snow," Katie told him, although to herself she admitted she wasn't any too certain. Those clouds had been low and full. And it was cold--too cold for rain. She shivered. This time it had nothing to do with Luke.

  The train stopped several more times to take on coal, to take on water, to let off passengers. Katie didn't see anyone board. She supposed there weren't many folks traveling west from here by train. Unless you wanted to go somewhere along the Union Pacific route, the stage was more convenient.

  They pulled into Medicine Bow just after six. "Do you know if we'll be here long enough for me to go for a walk?" Katie said, once the train had stopped.

  "Half an hour or so, but it doesn't look like there's anywhere much to go." He du
g into an inside pocket, pulled out a small book. "I'd take it kindly if you'd stay here, keep an eye on things. I need to send a telegram."

  Walking would have been a relief. Her bottom was tired of the hard bench, her body tired of sitting up to sleep. But he was right. Where would she go in the dark in a strange place?

  She handed one of the canteens to him. "See if you can find some water. I want to keep these full." Just as he was about to turn away, she said, "Luke, you were right."

  He smiled down at her, his almost-dimples showing as deep crevasses in the shadowy light. "He...heck, Katie, it doesn't matter who's right or who's wrong. The idea is to get you to your Pa in one piece."

  "I know. That's what I keep forgetting. It's just that, well, I'm so used to taking care of myself."

  "So am I, sweetheart. Don't be surprised if you have to remind me that we're partners." He touched his hat brim and turned away.

  Katie watched him walk up the aisle. Pa had always said you could tell a lot about a man by watching how he handled himself. If that was true, Luke Savage was brave and strong and decent.

  He was also just about the most attractive man she'd ever met.

  Was she the same young woman whose heart had been impervious to the cream of Boston's masculine crop? Feeling lonely when he'd been gone ten minutes? If she wasn't careful, she'd find herself falling in love with him.

  And that would never do. He'd already made it perfectly clear he had dreams of his own, and they didn't match hers. She wanted a family like the one she'd grown up in. Luke seemed afraid to risk his heart again. He'd lost so much....

  Sighing, Katie leaned against the window, staring out across the small platform. A lantern cast a wavering circle of light at one corner of the small depot. Otherwise, it was too dark to see details. After Luke rounded the corner, the area was completely deserted--definitely not a good place for an evening stroll, she admitted.

  A figure moved across in front of the lighted circle. A tall man, clad in an overcoat and carrying a cane. His hat was more in the style of the cities than of the West, with narrow brim and rounded crown.

  He paused, facing the train, head turning slowly as he seemed to look into each window. Instinctively Katie moved back, turning her face away, lowering her chin. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched him.

  His face was in shadow, yet something about him was familiar. She moved farther from the window, still watching.

  His gaze seemed to fasten on her window. Then he stepped forward, removed his hat and bowed slightly in her direction.

  Whitney!

  "Oh, my God!" Grabbing her fiddle case, Katie scrambled from her seat and dashed to the women's necessary at the end of the car. She knew from experience that its door did not lock, so she wedged her back against it.

  Her hands shaking, she clawed at the catches on her fiddle case. They released suddenly and it fell open, its contents tumbling out.

  "Darn it!" She slid to the floor, back still against the door. Hastily she stuffed what she could reach back into the case, until she found the hard leather case containing her ammunition.

  I am not scared, she told herself as, with still-trembling fingers, she loaded the second derringer and slipped it into a coat pocket. Then she checked the load of the first. There's nothing to be frightened of. Nothing! Her knife was securely strapped to her calf, but she still wished she dared carry it openly.

  Should she...? No, this would be enough. If she couldn't defend herself with two pistols and a knife, she might as well give up and go back to Boston with Mr. Bloodhound Whitney.

  How had he gotten here? They had made good time from Laramie, considering the condition of the roadbed. No trains had passed them while they were taking on water or coal.

  Don't be an idiot, she told herself. There's a perfectly simple explanation.

  She didn't want an explanation. She wanted him somewhere far away.

  * * * *

  Luke frowned when he saw their seat empty of everything but his gear and Katie's quilt. He set the canteen down and looked around the railcar.

  She wasn't anywhere to be seen. "You see where the lady went?" he asked the two soldiers sitting one seat back.

  "Nope," one said, yawning mightily. "I been asleep."

  The other hooked a thumb toward the front of the railcar. "She took out of here like the dogs was after her. Went that way."

  Luke went that way too. But she wasn't in the vestibule, nor was she in the next car forward. Worried now, he headed for the stock car. Perhaps she'd decided to check on his animals.

  But she wasn't there either. As he stood in the half-open doorway of the stock car, he was thrown sideways by a sudden jerk. Another engine had been attached to replace the one they'd left at the top of the last grade. They'd be leaving as soon as it had a good head of steam.

  "Shit!" He leapt from the stockcar and ran back. Swinging aboard, he shouldered through the door to the railcar. "Katie," he yelled, pounding on the door to the women's necessary. "Damn it, Katie, are you in there?"

  Every head in the car turned toward him, every face registered shock.

  He shoved against the door. It resisted, but like it was being held shut, not like it was locked. "Katie?"

  "I'm here, Luke." Her voice sounded trembly, almost as if she were crying.

  Well, hell!

  * * * *

  "Well, I couldn't just sit there," Katie said, hoping to erase the dark scowl on Luke's face. Deliberately she kept her back to the window, even though they were so far from town that its few lights had disappeared in the swirling snow.

  "Did he see you?"

  "He must have. He bowed to me." Her hands no longer shook, but her belly felt hollow. "Luke, I'm no coward."

  "No," he said slowly. "No, I wouldn't call you a coward. Foolhardy, maybe."

  "Why you--" Too late she saw the slight twitch of his lips. "Seriously, Luke, he scares me. The way he keeps appearing. It's as if nothing I say to him makes any difference." She shuddered. "I might as well be a doll in a store window, for all my feelings matter."

  Luke took her hand, held it between both of his. His finger smoothed across her knuckles, sending tiny shivers up her arm. "Are you sure it was him?"

  "Yes!" She bit her lip. "Well, not absolutely positive. It was dark, and I only had a glimpse--"

  "Maybe you've been fretting about him so much you expected to see his face, so you did." Turning her hand over, he stroked lightly across her palm.

  Warmth spread to wrist, to elbow. Katie tugged, but her hand was firmly held. The fingers kept stroking, circling, lightly. Oh, so lightly!

  Everywhere they touched, she burned.

  "Luke!"

  "We'll stay together from now on," he told her. "That way, if he really is still following us, he won't think you're his for the taking."

  His words made her shiver again, but for far different reasons. The prospect of Hamilton Steens Whitney III laying his hands on her, of his touching her as Luke was right now, sickened her.

  Katie's pride told her to remind Luke that she'd been taking care of herself for a number of years now, that her parents had raised her to depend on no one. Her common sense said that maybe she wasn't a match for Mr. Crazy-as-a-hoot-owl Whitney after all, no matter how many derringers and knives she carried.

  If that really had been him on the platform, then he was serious threat. He wasn't acting like a reasonable person at all. He was crazy. And unpredictable. So her fear might be justified, no matter how ashamed of it she was.

  "All right, Luke," she said. "I'll stick to you like a cocklebur until we get to Salt Lake City."

  His grin was wide and cocky. "This could get to be real interesting."

  * * * *

  There was a stove in the back end of the railcar, and there was even fuel for it. Several of the passengers took turns stoking it, for the night grew bitterly cold. Ice drew its delicate traceries across the windows and the shallow breaths of sleepers hovered in clouds about their
faces.

  After the soldiers got off at Fort Fred Steele near midnight, the remaining passengers clustered into the seats nearest the stove, for all the good it did them. Its heat quickly dissipated in the drafty, high-ceilinged railcar.

  "You got any shawls or scarves in that case of yours?" Luke asked Katie as they were settling their gear about them.

  "A couple. Just a minute." She pulled the case onto her lap and delved inside.

  Luke noticed that she was careful to keep the lid between his eyes and its contents. In a moment a bright, flowered scarf emerged. She fussed some more, then pulled out a shawl, soft wool, with fringe, which she gave to him.

  "Hand me the cheese, will you? I need to wedge it in with these things so they won't shift."

  Luke bit his tongue. He'd be damned if he'd ask her again what she had in there. "Want the jerky too?"

  "Yes, please." She tucked it in, pulled out still another shawl, this one bright red and silky. "There, that should hold it."

  After she'd closed the fiddle case, Luke set it and his saddlebags firmly along the end of their seat. He wished he dared open his bedroll, but there were too many curious eyes about. He buttoned his coat over the blue shawl and settled himself back against the saddlebags. "Come here," he said, holding his arms out for Katie.

  To his surprise, she came into his arms without protest. Tucking her feet up under her skirt, she spread the quilt across herself and him, tucking it in around them. "We used to sleep in heaps in the winter," she murmured, "all of us kids."

  "In heaps?" His lips brushed her temple as he spoke. He felt her shiver.

  "That's what Ma called it. We'd all pile into Ellen's bed--she's my older sister--with our blankets. It was the best way to stay warm, and Ellen always told the most exciting stories."

  "Fairy tales?"

  "Oh, no. Ellen's stories were always about daring, gallant heroes who saved beautiful princesses from unspeakable dangers. Then they carried them off and married them." She yawned. "Just thinking about them makes me feel sleepy. I could never stay awake long enough to hear the endings."