Fate, though, had had other ideas.
Some men would have been glad that their sons were following in their footsteps. For Conrad’s sake, Frank would have given anything for that not to be true in their case.
Unfortunately, the clock couldn’t be turned back. The tragedies of the past couldn’t be erased.
This time, even in his musing, he heard the rustle of footsteps behind him. Turning, he saw Meg coming toward him. Enough starlight filtered down into the canyon for him to recognize her slender figure.
“What are you doing here?” he asked quietly. “You’re supposed to be asleep.”
“That’s easier said than done.”
Even from here, Frank could hear Salty sawing logs. He laughed and said, “Yeah, I reckon you’re right. He’ll quiet down after a while, though.”
She sat down on the piled-up logs beside him. “I was thinking about what happened earlier today, Frank.”
“You mean when those fellas grabbed you and Salty?”
“Before that. I’m talking about when you and I walked up the creek from camp.”
Frank had thought that might be what she meant, although he’d hoped that it wasn’t.
He wasn’t going to waste time pretending that he didn’t understand. He said, “We came mighty close to making a mistake there.”
“Would it really have been a mistake, Frank?”
“I think it would have been. Some things, it’s just hard to get past.”
“Like the difference in our ages?”
“Yeah, that and the fact that I’m too blasted old and set in my ways to ever settle down again. At least, not until I get too decrepit to ride a horse, and you wouldn’t want me then.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” Meg said. “Anyway, you haven’t heard me say anything about settling down, have you?”
Gruffly, Frank said, “Well, that’s what you deserve. A gal as young and pretty as you ought to have a husband and a home. A passel of kids, too.”
“That sounds good … if I ever met the right man.”
“You will,” he said. “That is, if you ever stop gallivanting around and getting into all these shooting scrapes with a couple of old mossbacks like Salty and me.”
She laughed. “I’ve had more fun the last year than all the rest of my life put together.”
“Well, then, you’ve got a mighty odd notion of fun, that’s all I can say. I seem to recall nearly drowning in the ocean, and being half frozen to death, and getting shot at a lot.”
“I guess it’s the company I was keeping while that was going on that made it enjoyable.”
“Maybe so. But it’s no life for a young woman.”
Meg sighed and leaned her head against his shoulder. “Don’t worry, Frank. I’m done. I’m not going to throw myself at you anymore.” She paused. “One of these days you’re liable to regret not taking me up on it, though.”
“I don’t doubt it for a second.”
They sat there in companionable silence for a while. Back at the camp, Salty snorted loudly, then grew quiet.
“Hear that?” Frank asked. “He rolled over.”
“Yeah. I guess I’d better go back and try to get some sleep.” Meg stood up. She rested a hand on Frank’s shoulder and bent over to brush against his cheek. “Good night … Uncle Frank.”
“Get on with you,” he growled in response to her mocking tone. She laughed lightly as she turned to walk back to the bedrolls.
She was wrong about one thing, despite what he’d told her. He wouldn’t regret this, because he knew he was doing the right thing.
But sometimes being an honorable fella was damned inconvenient, he thought with a sigh.
Chapter 14
Palmer had been following Joseph and Charlotte Marat all day without them being aware that he was anywhere around. Their Indian ancestors would have been ashamed of them for being so unobservant, Palmer thought.
For one thing, they didn’t appear to know what they were doing or where they were going. They roamed back and forth among the little valleys between the mountains, seemingly aimlessly.
Maybe there was some method to their madness, but Palmer was damned if he could see it.
Sometime during the afternoon, he heard a single shot. Then, an hour or so later, another shot was followed by a whole flurry of gunfire that echoed through the mountains, sounding like a small-scale battle.
It was hard to be sure, but Palmer thought the shots were at least a mile west of the area where he was following Joseph and Charlotte.
They heard the guns, too, and seemed to be quite agitated by the shooting, reining in their horses and looking around wildly. Palmer, watching them from the top of a wooded knoll about a quarter of a mile away, wondered if they were going to turn around and ride back the other way to see what all the shooting was about. He supposed that if they did, he would have to follow them.
But the shots stopped after a few minutes, and after a few more minutes during which Joseph and Charlotte talked animatedly, the two of them resumed their wandering. Palmer continued spying on them, staying out of sight.
That went on the rest of the day. As dusk began to settle down over the rugged landscape, the Marats made camp again. Palmer climbed to a ridge where he could watch them.
As he settled down to a cold supper, he told himself, not for the first time on this long day, that he was acting crazy. He should have been twenty miles closer to Calgary by now. Somebody, either his former partner Yeah Mow Hopkins or that vengeful old-timer Stevens, would be on his trail, and lingering around here was just giving them a chance to catch up to him.
But the mystery of those guns Marat had mentioned was an intriguing one, and Charlotte’s beauty was intriguing as well. Often, guns were worth their weight in gold on the frontier, and if that was the case here, Palmer wanted to get his hands on some of that loot.
Marat and Charlotte had stopped where the ground swelled up into a thick stand of pine trees on top of the ridge. Palmer’s horses were on the far side of those pines, picketed so they could graze but not wander off.
The shadows were already thick enough to hide him, so after he had eaten, he crawled over to a spot where he could look down the hill at the camp. He placed his rifle on the ground beside him as he lay on his belly.
They had built a big fire again, just as they had the night before. They wanted to be found, Palmer realized as he avidly watched Charlotte prepare supper.
That was why they had been wandering around all day. Someone was supposed to meet them in this area, but they didn’t know exactly where.
So they just drifted, thinking that sooner or later they were bound to run into whoever was searching for them.
They had built the fire for the same reason, to guide whoever was supposed to rendezvous with them to the camp. That would be the person, or persons, who had the guns, Palmer speculated. The situation made sense now, even though he didn’t know all the details yet.
So all he had to do was sit back and wait, he told himself. When the right moment came, he would make his move.
In the meantime, he had to suffer the torture of watching Charlotte Marat walk around down there. Her long dark hair, the curves of her body in the tight-fitting shirt and jeans, the sensuous grace with which she moved … those were maddening reminders of just how long it had been since he’d been with a woman.
The smell of coffee and bacon didn’t help matters, either. He was hungry for more than Charlotte.
Guns, he told himself. Gold. He tried to keep his thoughts focused on the things that were truly important.
Under the circumstances, he couldn’t help but be distracted. So he didn’t know anyone else was around until the cold, unyielding ring of a gun muzzle suddenly pressed against the back of his neck and a harsh voice ordered in a whisper, “Don’t move, you son of a bitch, or I’ll kill you.”