shoving one into Sarah’s hands. “What’s to eat? I’m starved.” He headed toward Eli and the cooking pot, and Sarah didn’t know what to do but follow. She filled her plate, sitting a little away from the others.
“How far are we from Fort Kearny?” Rice asked, finding a place close to River and to the food.
“Around a hundred twenty...maybe forty miles,” answered River, smiling at the boy. “Take about a week, I think.”
“There’s a little store near here. That right, River?” Rice glanced at Sarah to see if she was listening. She smiled to let him know she was impressed by his knowledge.
“At the Cottonwood Creek crossing. At least it was there last year. We ought to be going by sometime in the morning.”
“We gonna stop?”
Eli leaned to the side, making a big show of looking at the side of Rice’s leg. The boy looked at Eli, down at his pants and back at Eli. “What?”
“Don’t see no smoke, but them coins von Schiller give ya must be gettin’ mighty hot by now.”
River laughed. The sound brought back so many memories, Sarah found herself staring at him again. It was hard not to picture the same handsome face in different surroundings, different circumstances.
River turned his easy smile on Rice and said, “Some of the folks will need things, and the rest’ll want to see what it’s like. I reckon we’ll stop.”
“I reckon” was not something Sarah would have expected Daniel to say. Maybe the changes went deeper than she had first thought. Of course they did, she realized, if the reckless storekeeper was now a respected scout. He caught her watching him, and she looked quickly at her plate.
“I’m taking the first watch,” he said. “Thanks for dinner.” He carried his plate to the tailboard and walked away without another glance in Sarah’s direction.
She tried not to gaze after him; she needed to act as if nothing were amiss. Rising to scrape her half-finished plate of food into the fire, she noticed Eli studying her. He would start asking questions if she continued like this, and until things were settled between her and Daniel, she wouldn’t be able to relax. She would have to talk to Daniel tonight.
* * *
River tried to make himself comfortable. The most he could hope for on guard duty was something to lean against, and he had found it tonight in the form of a boulder on a hillside. From here he could look down on both the train and the herd of cattle a short distance away. The horses were picketed near the wagons. He cradled the rifle in his arms and watched the sky darken until all he could make out of the train was the silhouette against a few flickering fires.
How in all the world did she end up out here, on my train? he asked himself. Could she have wanted to find me?
When Rice had first mentioned her name, he had been surprised but honestly thought he didn’t care. She could do whatever she pleased as long as she stayed away from him. But seeing her had changed that. There were too many memories between them and the wounds weren’t as healed as he had thought.
Damn her! What can she want now? Her frightened little-girl act wasn’t going to fool him. He knew her! She had used him, betrayed him! What was she planning now?
River laughed at himself. What could she do on this train that could possibly compare with what she had done six years ago? Since then, he had tried not to think about Sarah Tanton. As he sat in the lonely meadow, he let the memories come back. He told himself he had to remember so he would be prepared for what she did next, but he knew he couldn’t have stopped the memories if he had tried.
Six years ago, he had been working for his father. Sarah was a local girl he had known all his life. He smiled slightly at the memory. She had been a little wild but lots of fun. His folks hadn’t liked her, but mostly he had done what he pleased in those days.
He couldn’t even remember which of his father’s many enterprises had generated the money that was to be in the store overnight. It had arrived in town on Sunday, and rather than calling attention to it by asking the bank to open, the old man decided to keep it in the store until Monday morning. He often had someone stay at the store at night, so a guard on duty didn’t seem unusual. Hardly anyone knew about the money. But River had known, and he had told Sarah.
River shook his head as he remembered. He had wanted to impress her. As if she had been hard to impress! He had been a complete fool, and she had used the information to rob his father.
Damn her! If anyone else had claimed to have seen her running from the scene, he would have called him a liar and stood by his Sarah to the end. His Sarah? Honest to God, that was how he had thought of her. But he had been the one and only witness, and he had found no choice but to turn her in. How could he help but recognize her? She had even been wearing the red dress he had bought for her.
River sighed and tried to bring his thoughts back to the wagons and the stock. They were peaceful and couldn’t hold his attention. Sarah had been arrested that very night. He hadn’t seen her again except briefly at her trial.
But he had tried. Fool that he was, he had gone every day and asked to see her. The jailer consistently reported that she did not want to see him. He had even begged her attorney to get him in. Again he had been refused. He had been slow to believe that she had betrayed him.
“Why, Sarah?” he murmured under his breath. “Why did you do it, and why are you here?”
At her trial, she had denied everything, pretended she couldn’t understand what was going on. She had been sent to prison, supposedly for twenty years. But he was sure his father would have been willing to work for her release in exchange for the money, and his father usually got what he worked for. Something like that must have taken place after he had left New York.
The law might have forgiven her, but he hadn’t. She had pretended to love him when all along it had been his money she wanted. When she realized the old man would never allow her into his family, she had found another way to use him. Well, he wasn’t such a fool now; she wouldn’t use him again.
The moon was making a feeble attempt to light the sky, and River could make out the wagons more clearly. As he watched, one shadow broke away from the others and moved toward the stock.
* * *
Sarah slipped out of the wagon after moonrise. She wasn’t sure how to find Daniel, but she had to try. She was equally unsure of what she would say to him.
The guard was supposed to watch the stock to see that nothing frightened them. Therefore, that was the direction she headed. Moving about in the pale moonlight was more difficult than she had anticipated. The tall grass and brush tugged at her long skirts and made her afraid of stumbling.
She walked what seemed to be a long way from the wagon but saw no sign of River. This was a stupid idea, she told herself. But how else could she talk to him with no danger of being overheard? When she stumbled over a loose stone and came close to crying out, she decided she was never going to find Daniel out here in the dark. If he was any kind of guard he would have found her by now! In frustration, she turned toward the wagons.
One step was all she took. A strong hand fell across her mouth, forcing her head against a hard shoulder while another arm went around her waist, lifting her off the ground. Long quick strides carried her farther from the wagons.
Sarah was horrified! She had wandered away from the wagons and was being carried off by an Indian! That was, she had learned, the worst fear of all the women on the train. She had thought it was foolish. Now she was paying for her disbelief. In her horror she imagined Daniel witnessing her capture and not bothering to come to her rescue.
When her feet were on the ground again, her knees were too weak to hold her weight, and she found herself leaning against the man who still held her. A voice near her ear spoke as the hands slipped away from her. “What do you think you’re doing out here?”
“Daniel,”