“Did you enjoy your fishing expedition with Ash? He seems to be a pleasant man. All the way here he was a great help, nothing was too much for him to do. And he’s great with horses and everyone we met liked him. I guess you did too.”
“Well, yes,” she said hesitantly. “How did you meet my father?”
“Ash has known your father for years. It’s a wonder you never met him. Ash’s father worked his way up and made a lot of money in the east. I’m sure Ash is the same kind of man.”
Chris looked up at Tynan in bewilderment. What in the world was he talking about? But he just smiled at her and, this time, instead of being dazzled, she wondered if he often used that smile to get women to stop talking about whatever he didn’t want to hear—or from asking questions that he didn’t want to answer.
She smiled back at him but, if he’d known Chris better, he would have known that her glittering eyes showed that she’d just accepted a challenge. She was going to find out who this Tynan—no last name, no first name—was.
Chapter Four
“I need to talk to you,” Chris said as soon as Tynan was seated in the camp and eating one of the fish she’d cooked. She told him just what she’d told Asher, about Lanier being responsible for killing the missionaries, but Tynan didn’t interrupt her, didn’t say a word, in fact.
When she’d finished speaking, he licked his fingers. “Now tell me what you’ve left out,” he said.
Chris was startled for a moment. “All right,” she said, smiling. “The truth is, Mr. Lanier was very good to me while I was his guest and his wife is very sweet, so I’ve felt some twinge of conscience about telling the world what Mr. Lanier did. Of course every word of it’s true, but, when the story comes out in print, I’m afraid Mr. Lanier’s life could be…ah, changed.”
“Not to mention the length of his neck,” Tynan said, looking at her.
“So I left him a letter telling him what I planned to do.”
There was a long moment of silence from Tynan. “So, if we step out of this forest, no doubt Lanier’s men will be waiting for us with rifles, or maybe cannons, anything to prevent that story from going to press.”
She gave him a weak smile. “Yes, I guess so.” Her face changed. “But they are things I had to do. I had to give Mr. Lanier a chance to flee and I have to give this story to the press. Don’t you understand?”
Tynan stood. “I understand that a man has to do what he must, but you, Miss Mathison, need help and I’m not in a position to give it. Prescott’s in charge of this expedition. I’m just the guide. I follow orders and that’s all. Thank you for the fish, ma’am, and now I need to go scout the trail ahead.” He turned back.
“And I wouldn’t consider going alone if I were you,” he said as he picked up a piece of wood and tossed it to the right of her head onto what looked to be solid ground. The log fell through vines and hit the ground a full second later. He didn’t have to say another word. One could leave the trail and walk into deep holes that were concealed by a tangle of greenery.
With that, he left Chris alone.
She stood there for a moment cursing all men everywhere. “Women must do what they must, also, Mr. Tynan,” she said to no one and set about gathering wood for the fire.
Chris stayed in the camp, talked to Asher when he returned, and didn’t mention Hugh Lanier again. When Tynan returned, she glanced at him, but he didn’t look at her. Chris kept her head turned toward Asher, pretending to find every word he said fascinating. But in truth, she was planning how she’d escape these two men. John Anderson’s newspaper office was on the edge of the rain forest, not four miles from where they’d entered the forest last night. If she could get a horse, ride like blazes down the trail, then into town, she could be there and back by sundown. If luck were with her, she could be back before she was missed.
She stood. “I think I’ll take a walk,” she said to Asher.
“I’ll go with you.”
“No thank you,” she said, giving him her prettiest smile. “I have things I have to do.” She widened her eyes. “Female things.” The mysteries of womanhood always stopped men like Asher Prescott.
“Of course,” he said politely.
She walked away from him, past Tynan, then hid in the undergrowth until both men had left camp. Nobody ever slapped a saddle on a horse faster than she did. The poor animal pranced around, lifting its legs. “Be a good boy now,” she coaxed. “We’re going to have a good run.”
“And where would that be, Miss Mathison?”
Chris whirled on her heel to face Tynan, her jaw set. “I’m going to take my story to John Anderson and if you plan to stop me you’ll have to tie me here—and you’ll have to watch me night and day. You’ll have to give up sleep and—”
“I understand,” he said and Chris saw amusement in his eyes. “How far away is this Anderson?”
Chris held her breath. “With hard riding, I can be back by sundown.”
“And what did you plan to do about Lanier’s men? What if they’re waiting on the edge of the forest?”
“Run just as fast as I can and pray I don’t get shot.”
He stood there looking at her for a while, then withdrew his gun from its holster, making sure it was loaded. “Maybe I can help some. Which way is this town?”
Chris mounted her horse. “Southeast from the edge of the forest. John’s office is the third building on the right.”
Tynan saddled his horse. “As soon as we drop it off, Lanier pulls a gun and takes it. You got more paper? Why don’t you drop a package off at the freight line—if there is one—then stop and say hello to Mrs. Anderson?”
“Why…yes, that might work,” she said, looking at him in wonder. “There is no Mrs. Anderson but his sister is married to the town doctor.”
“Even better,” Ty said, mounting. “You know how to ride?”
“I can go anywhere you can,” Chris said arrogantly but soon wondered if she were telling the truth. Tynan led a pace that scared her—and her horse. She had to use all the muscles in her arms to control the animal as they ran through the dangerous forest.
At the edge of the trees, Ty didn’t slow down but kept pounding down the road. Chris half expected gunshots over her head but all was quiet. When no one shot at them, Ty halted his horse and turned back to her. “We’re going in the back way. No doubt they’re waiting for us in town. I’m going to drop you off at the freight office and I want you to stay there until you see me. I’ll take the story to the doctor’s wife and leave your horse in back of the freight office. When you see me ride past the front, run out the back and get on the horse and ride like hell. I’ll be right behind you. Think you can do that?”
“Yes,” Chris answered, controlling her horse. “But if they catch you with the story—”
“Don’t worry about me, worry about obeying my orders. My temper’s worse than Lanier’s bullets.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, smiling and he winked at her as he turned his horse and continued southeast.
They paused outside the new, rough little town, the single main street a rutted tract. Tynan sat still for a moment, looking at the town, then turned to her. “I think they’re here.”
“How could you know that?”
“Too many men doing nothing but looking, their hands on their guns. They’re watching for somebody. Give me your story,” he said, and when he had tucked it inside his shirt he looked at her. “You ready? You remember what you’re to do?”
“It’s not exactly complicated.”
“But vital. Come on.”
He led her through the back of the town, skirting in and out of shadows, staying close to the buildings, keeping her inside as he rode protectively on the outside. Once, a wagon came around a building and instantly Tynan pulled her halfway across his saddle into his arms. “You still sick, honey?” he asked loudly. “It’s always that way with the first baby.”
As soon as the wagon was gone, he pushed Chris back. He certainly is a f
ast thinker, she thought.
“Wait here,” he said as they came to the freight building. There was a big loading platform and ramp in back and a hook suspended over the doorway. Chris sat on her horse and waited, jumping at every little sound. With Tynan gone, she suddenly didn’t feel so brave.
“Here she is,” she heard Tynan say, as he walked up on the dock with another man beside him. “She just can’t go another step.” Before she could speak, Ty pulled her up from the saddle onto the dock. “It’s her first one and she’s not used to the sickness yet, so mind if I leave her here while I fetch the doctor?”
“Sure thing. I got eight of my own, but I don’t know what the doc can do. She’ll just have to wait it out.”
Tynan practically smothered Chris in his protective embrace. “If it’ll help her rest easier having the doctor, then I’ll do it.”
“Sure. Here, little lady, just sit right here.”
“How about by the window so she can watch for me? It’ll make her feel better.”
“Sure,” the man said.
Ty escorted Chris to a chair in front of a window looking out onto the main street. “Don’t forget to look sick and give him something to deliver for you.”
Chris nodded as she looked up into Tynan’s beautiful blue eyes. He hesitated for a moment then kissed her forehead. “I’ll be back in a minute, honey.”
When he was gone, Chris lounged against the chair, trying not to show how intently she was watching the street. Across the road were two men, both holding rifles, both wearing guns, their right hands resting on the handles as if they meant to draw at any moment. Chris saw that her hand was shaking as she withdrew from her pocket a sealed letter addressed to her father. She didn’t have to do any pretending to the freightman as she was sure she looked as scared as she felt. And she realized that at least half of her fear was for Tynan. He wasn’t involved in this, had no reason to risk his life on her behalf, but he was.
The minutes passed and Chris began to grow anxious. What was taking him so long? Maybe John’s sister wasn’t there. Maybe—
Her thoughts stopped as she heard gunshots from the end of town where Tynan had gone. She stood.
“There’s no need for you to get upset,” said the freightman from behind his big desk. “Somebody’s always shootin’ at somebody in this town. You just sit there and rest.”
But Chris couldn’t rest as she leaned toward the window to see farther out.
Her breath stopped as she saw what she feared: Tynan was riding hell bent for leather down the street, two men on horseback chasing him, their guns blazing. With wide eyes, she watched him approach, then turned to the freightman. “May I borrow this?” she asked, taking a rifle from a cabinet on the wall.
Before the man could grasp what she was doing, Chris walked out the door, fell to one knee on the porch, propped her left arm on her raised knee and took aim. She dropped the first man behind Tynan with a shot in his shoulder, and was aiming for the second when Ty turned his horse and rode straight for her. There was a ramp in front of the freight office for rolling barrels and now Ty rode his horse straight up it.
Chris stood, stepped back a bit and when Ty bent and stretched his arm out to her, she caught it, put her foot on his in the stirrup and hauled herself up into the saddle behind him. Ty didn’t slow his pace as he went thundering through the freight office, past open mouthed workers, and out the back, down the ramp.
It took longer for the men following to go around the freight office, and Chris heard the scream of the horse as the one man who tried to follow them misjudged the distance and went flying off the side of the freight dock.
Chris hung onto Tynan with all her might, her hair coming unpinned and flying out behind her, her body plastered to his. He leaned forward on his horse and she went with him. There were bullets coming at them but they were traveling too fast to be in range—and the men were shooting from the back of horses so their aim wasn’t that good—or at least Chris hoped it wasn’t.
When they reached the edge of the rain forest, Tynan didn’t slow down, but kept on at a breakneck speed for a few hundred yards. Suddenly, he halted the horse, turned, grabbed Chris and lowered her to the ground. He dismounted behind her.
“Now we disappear,” he said, taking the horse’s reins and Chris’s hand. He motioned for her to climb down into a tangle of vines. She clambered down so fast, she skidded half the way. “Persuading” the horse was another matter and Ty did it with a series of quiet-voiced threats that made Chris’s eyes widen. No sooner had he gotten the animal into the ravine and pulled vines over their heads to cover them than three men came down the trail after them.
Ty held his hand on the horse’s nose to keep it from making a sound while Chris stood close to him, both of them looking up through the vines at the men.
“We’ve lost them,” one of the men said.
“Yeah and we lost four of our men on the way in. Lanier’s not gonna like this.”
“Let’s get out of here. This place gives me the creeps. If they went in here, they won’t come out alive. Ain’t nothin’ but ghosts in this place.”
The first man snorted. “Lanier pays you to shoot ghosts. Come on, let’s go back to the freight office. Maybe the girl left somethin’ there.”
Chris held her breath as the men left and only released it when she could hear them no more. With a sigh, she leaned against the bank and looked at Ty. “How did they know you?”
“Somebody saw us leaving Lanier’s house and she recognized me.”
“She?”
“I think she’s a maid of Lanier’s. Anyway, she told Lanier I was the one who took you, so when he found your letter, he was looking for me too. But I did get the story to the doc’s wife.”
Chris grinned. Now that they were safe, she was beginning to feel euphoric. “I wonder if those freight men have closed their mouths yet? I couldn’t believe it when I realized you were bringing that horse straight on through the building.”
Ty’s eyes twinkled. “I could have taken a paddle to you when you walked out there and started shooting. You should have stayed inside, then when I was out of town, with everybody following me, you could have ridden away, safe and sound. Where’d you learn to shoot like that, anyway?”
“My father. That poor freight man. One minute I’m so ill I can barely sit up and the next—”
“And the next you’re leaping onto a horse behind me. Chris, you were great!” He laughed, taking her shoulders and giving her a hard kiss of joy on her mouth.
Blinking, wide-eyed, Chris looked up at him. When he’d kissed her, a spark of pure, undiluted fire had run through her. “Oh,” she whispered and moved toward him.
He released her shoulders as if they burned him, then turned his back on her. “I got to get this horse out of here and we’d better get back before Prescott misses us,” he mumbled.
Chris felt a little lost, not sure what she’d done wrong. He’d seemed so pleased with her, so happy a moment ago, and he’d kissed her. Not a kiss of passion, but one of friendship, between two people who’d shared a great deal, but when she’d shown interest in him, he’d moved away.
Glancing down at her body, she wondered if maybe she wasn’t appealing to him. All her life she’d been told she was pretty, but her curves were subtle, not exaggerated as was the fashion.
“The maid at Mr. Lanier’s who recognized you, was her name Elsie?”
“Yeah,” he said under his breath, his back still to her. “You leave first and I’ll come later.”
With a sigh, Chris began climbing the steep bank, pushing vines away as she climbed. Elsie was the same height as Chris but weighed thirty pounds more—and all of it equally distributed above and below a twenty-inch waist. If that’s the kind of woman he liked, no wonder he moved away from Chris.
She sighed all the way back to camp, fastening buttons that had come undone in the fracas.
“Are you all right?” Asher greeted her. “You were gone an awfully long
time.”
“I’m fine,” she said, pouring herself a cup of coffee. “And you?”
“I’m all right and I’m glad you got some rest. Tomorrow will probably be another hard day of riding.”
“Yes,” she said, looking at him over her cup. “I am glad to rest. Is there anything to eat? Long afternoon naps make me ravenously hungry.”
Chris didn’t see Tynan until the next morning. Twice, she tried to catch his eye, to smile at him, but he wouldn’t look at her. It was as if he wanted to pretend yesterday hadn’t happened.
Yet, the more he ignored her, the more she watched him. They stopped to make camp in the afternoon and Tynan immediately put Asher and Chris together. Chris sat and watched Ty as he took care of the horses and as he walked past her, she was sure that once she saw him limp. Could he have hurt himself yesterday? He kept that blasted hat pulled down over his face so far that she couldn’t really see his face, but as she watched, she saw him grimace as he lifted one arm to take the reins of the horse. Asher looked annoyed once, but Chris kept on watching every move Tynan made—and the more she saw, the more she was convinced that he was in constant pain.
Chris gave a big yawn. “I think I’m rather tired and if no one minds, I’ll go down the trail and take a nap.”
Tynan turned around and, briefly, his eyes met Chris’s, but he looked away almost instantly. “Don’t go too far,” he mumbled as he passed her and went down the trail into the forest.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather take a walk with me, Chris?” Asher asked. “I would so like to hear more about your newspaper work.”
“I really am very tired. Perhaps another time,” she said as she took up her sleeping roll and carpet bag, and, acting as if she could barely move, she started down the trail behind Tynan.
As soon as she was out of Asher’s sight, she opened her carpet bag, removed her medical kit and started running down the path, hoping she could catch Tynan before he disappeared.
She seemed to have gone a long way and there was no sign of him when she thought she heard a horse neigh. Doing what she knew she shouldn’t, she left the trail to walk to a place where she hoped she could see what was below her.