A Big Sky Christmas Read online

  Bodie shook his head. “No, but I’m sure she’s fine with the Binghams. I wouldn’t want to intrude on her.”

  “Moses, you mind going and checking on her? I want to make sure she didn’t change her mind about going with us.”

  “Sure,” Moses said with a shrug. He ambled off toward the Bingham wagon.

  Bodie said, “I don’t think Miss Savannah would just up and run off.”

  “She was pretty scared last night,” Jamie pointed out. “It’s hard to tell what somebody will do if they get spooked bad enough. I’ve seen animals bolt right into danger instead of away from it, all because they were too scared to think straight.”

  Bodie looked worried. He drained the last of his coffee from the cup and rose from his position beside the fire. “Reckon I’ll go make sure, too—”

  “I told Moses to do that,” Jamie cut in. “What you need to do is make sure your horse is ready to ride. We’ve got to get moving soon, or the day’s going to be half gone.”

  Bodie squinted and frowned at the eastern sky, which was still almost pitch black with plenty of stars showing. He figured Jamie was a little loco, and a bit of a slave driver, to boot.

  But like the others in the group, he didn’t fully grasp what a difficult undertaking it would be to get the wagons to Eagle Valley in Montana Territory before winter closed in around them and stranded them. Jamie would have to use every available minute of every day to accomplish that goal, and it was going to be hard on everybody, human and livestock alike. They might as well get used to that, right from the start.

  Bodie went to see to his horse, as Jamie had suggested, and the big frontiersman continued making sure that everything was ready for the journey. Any time he found immigrants who weren’t preparing fast enough, he prodded them into hurrying without being overly harsh about it. He was prepared to lay down the law to them if he had to, the law of the trail according to Jamie Ian MacCallister, but they seemed a fairly well disciplined bunch, so he didn’t want to do that . . . yet.

  Once they got started to Montana it might be a different story.

  Not everyone was completely cooperative. When he got to the Bradford wagon, he found the twins, Alexander and Abigail, struggling to get the team of oxen hitched to the vehicle. The huge, stolid beasts dwarfed the children and paid little attention to their efforts to get them into the traces.

  “Where’s your pa?” Jamie asked the youngsters. “He should be doing this.”

  “He’s in the wagon reading the Bible,” Alexander said.

  “Pa always reads some in the Good Book every morning and every night,” Abigail added.

  Jamie scowled. Being spiritual was all well and good, but there was a time for that and a time to get earthly work done, he thought. After all, the book said that the Lord helped those who helped themselves.

  He stepped to the back of the wagon and saw that a candle was burning inside. “Reverend Bradford?”

  “What is it?” Bradford answered without lifting the canvas flap over the opening at the rear of the wagon. He sounded clearly annoyed.

  “We’ll be rolling soon. You need to get your team hitched up. Those kids can’t do it by themselves.” And even if they could, they shouldn’t have to, Jamie thought.

  Bradford pushed the canvas aside and glared out, looking as irritated as he’d sounded. “The needs of a man’s immortal soul won’t wait, Mr. MacCallister. These wagons will.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” Jamie said, making his voice as hard as flint. “If you’re not ready to go when the rest of us are, we’ll leave you here. Whether or not you catch up is up to you.”

  “You’d abandon us here?” Bradford demanded in obvious outrage. “I won’t hear of it. I paid my fee to join this wagon train, just like everyone else. I’ll speak to Captain Hendricks about this high-handed behavior.”

  “Go right ahead,” Jamie told him. “It won’t change anything. I’m wagon master now, and we leave when I say we leave. It’s your responsibility to be ready.” He didn’t like speaking to Bradford this way in front of the man’s children, but facts were facts and they needed to get on the trail.

  “Very well,” Bradford said disgustedly. He set aside his big, leather-bound Bible, pushed the canvas flap back farther, and clambered out of the wagon. “But I still plan to speak to Captain Hendricks.”

  “Go right ahead,” Jamie invited. It wouldn’t make any difference, and he knew it.

  He waited a moment to make sure Bradford was going to help the two youngsters hitch up the team. When he was satisfied about that, he moved on to the area where the saddle horses were picketed.

  Bodie was there, tightening the cinches on his saddle. So were Hector Gilworth and his cousin Jess Neville, who were also getting their horses ready to ride.

  “Did you fellas introduce yourselves to each other?” Jamie asked the scouts.

  “Sure did,” Hector replied. “I’m glad you found somebody to help us with the scoutin’, Jamie.”

  “I’ll try to live up to the responsibility,” Bodie said.

  “Keep your eyes open and don’t do anything foolish, and you’ll be fine,” Jamie told him.

  “Are you takin’ the point today?” Hector asked.

  Jamie nodded. “That’s right. Bodie, you’ll be with me. Hector and Jess, you fellas take the flanks.”

  “Nobody bringing up the rear?” Bodie asked.

  “Not today. Once we’ve gotten farther from town, one of us will drop back from time to time to check our back trail. I don’t really expect much trouble from behind, though. It’s what’ll be in front of us that we’ll have to worry about.”

  “Meanin’ Injuns?” Neville said.

  “And outlaws and bad weather and flooded streams and buffalo stampedes and just about anything else you can think of,” Jamie said with a grin. “This isn’t going to be an easy trip. If all four of us make it to Montana Territory alive, we’ll be doing pretty good.” Of course, Bodie might not be going that far, he reminded himself.

  That all depended on Savannah McCoy.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Edward Bingham was a tall man who had once been handsome. With his gray hair and close-cropped, grizzled beard, now he was distinguished, Savannah thought. His tiny, birdlike wife Leticia had long gray hair twisted into braids and wound around her head. The two of them were a good couple. They suited each other, in Savannah’s opinion.

  They were happy to make room for her things in their wagon and give her a place to sleep, as Moses had suggested they would. They had sold most of their goods before they left their long-time home in Reading, Pennsylvania, bringing with them only what they needed for the journey and to set up basic housekeeping in Montana, avoiding the trap of trying to take everything that some immigrants fell into.

  As Mrs. Bingham prepared breakfast, Savannah offered to help, even though her cooking skills had never been anything to boast about. Living on the road with the troupe as she had, there hadn’t been many opportunities to better them.

  “There’ll be plenty of chances for you to pitch in once we’re on the trail, dear,” the older woman said. “This is your first morning with the wagon train, so I’ll take care of this.”

  Savannah suspected that Mrs. Bingham had her own way of doing things and didn’t want anybody interfering with that routine. She could go along with that for now, but she was determined to carry her weight during the trip, for as long as she was with the wagon train.

  She’d expected to see Bodie Cantrell again this morning, she thought as she sipped coffee and ate the hotcakes and bacon Mrs. Bingham had cooked. So far, though, she hadn’t seen the young man. She supposed he was busy with whatever duties he had as one of the party’s scouts.

  The most important thing, she told herself, was that she hadn’t seen Gideon Kane or any of his men. She would have liked to think that he had already given up searching for her, but she couldn’t bring herself to believe that. She had seen a look of pure obsession in Kane
’s eyes. The look of madness, almost.

  “Mrs. Bingham, do you happen to have a sun bonnet I can borrow?” Savannah asked when they had finished breakfast.

  “Of course. You don’t need it now, what with the sun not being up yet, but you will before the day’s over, I’m thinking.”

  That was true, but the main reason Savannah wanted the bonnet was so that it would obscure her face if any of Kane’s men came by the wagon camp looking for her. She had put on her oldest, drabbest dress, and if she wore the bonnet and kept her face turned away from the street as much as possible, she thought there was a good chance she could go unnoticed. “I just want to get used to wearing one.”

  “All right. I’ll fetch one of my extras,” Mrs. Bingham said.

  When Mr. Bingham went to hitch up the oxen, Savannah offered to help with that, too. He gave her a dubious frown. “No offense, Miss McCoy, but you don’t strike me as a farm girl. Have you ever handled oxen before?”

  “No, sir, but I’m a quick—” She started to say she was a quick study, then switched from that theatrical term. For the time being, she wasn’t an actress.

  She was a fugitive.

  “I learn quickly,” she said. “And I’m not afraid of hard work, even though I have to admit I’m not exactly accustomed to it.”

  He thought about her offer for a moment, then nodded. “All right. I can always use a helping hand. Just be careful. Those great brutes are peaceful and slow-moving most of the time, but they can be surly beasts now and then.” He smiled. “Sort of like people.”

  Jamie MacCallister stopped by the wagon when they were almost ready to go. “Everything quiet the rest of the night?”

  “Quiet as can be, thanks to you and Mr. Cantrell,” Savannah said. “Speaking of Mr. Cantrell, I haven’t seen him yet this morning. . . .”

  “He’s around,” Jamie said vaguely. “You’ll be seeing plenty of him during the trip.” He smiled. “I like that bonnet. You look like a real pioneer woman.”

  Savannah smiled. “I suppose for now, that’s exactly what I am.”

  A short time later, the wagons began pulling out of their places in the circle and lining up. As captain, Lamar Hendricks had the first spot in line. The others pulled in behind him as they were ready. The Bingham wagon was about halfway along the column by the time the train had finished forming up.

  Savannah was sitting on the lowered tailgate as Jamie and Bodie rode past. She lifted a hand and waved at them. Jamie nodded and touched a finger to the wide brim of his hat. Bodie followed suit. He didn’t smile; his face was serious in the gray light of approaching dawn.

  That was all right, Savannah told herself. He was handsome in his rugged way, even when he didn’t smile. She was looking forward to the chance to talk with him again.

  But that wouldn’t come for a while. Jamie and Bodie rode to the front of the train, where the big frontiersman paused and lifted his right arm above his head. His powerful voice carried along the length of the train as he bellowed, “Wagons . . . hooooo!”

  With a shuffling of hooves, a creaking of leather, and a rasp of wheels turning, the wagons lurched forward into motion.

  They were off to Montana.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Jamie could tell that the big sand-colored stallion Sundown was glad to get out on the trail and stretch his legs again. To tell the truth, so was he. He was even happier to have a destination and a goal again. The drifting he had done since the end of his vengeance quest had felt right at the time, but after a lifetime of getting things done, he was ready to accomplish something again.

  If he got the pilgrims safely to where they were going, that would be an accomplishment, all right. A mighty big accomplishment.

  The wagons followed a well-defined trail along the Kansas River westward, keeping the stream to the left. Jamie and Bodie rode about a hundred yards in front of the lead wagon.

  It wasn’t really necessary to do any scouting yet. Their route was easy to follow, and as the sun rose behind them, its golden light washed over the plains and revealed the way before them. Once the wagons were out of town, the trail would lead through farming country for the next few days, so there weren’t any significant dangers to watch out for.

  That would change once they swung to the northwest. The country would become more sparsely settled, and they would be traveling through regions where it was still possible to run into roving bands of Pawnee and Cheyenne that might prove hostile.

  As they rode, Bodie said, “I’d sure like to hear about some of your adventures, Mr. MacCallister, if you don’t mind talking about them.”

  “Make it Jamie. And who said I’d had adventures?”

  Bodie frowned. “Well . . . just about everybody who’s ever heard of you, I reckon.”

  Jamie chuckled. “I’m just joshing you, son. I guess I’ve run into my fair share of trouble. Ever hear of a place called the Alamo?”

  “Well, sure.”

  “I was there for a spell, before it fell to the Mexicans, of course. A long, long time ago.”

  Jamie reminisced about that and some of his other exploits as he was growing up a child of a wild, young country. It was a sign that a man was growing old when his own kids didn’t want to listen to his stories anymore, but Bodie was an eager audience, paying rapt attention to the yarns Jamie spun. There had been a time when his boy Falcon had been like that, before he had grown up and become one of the most dangerous gunfighters west of the Mississippi.

  Jamie hipped around in the saddle and peered along the line of wagons from time to time, checking their back trail.

  Bodie followed that example. “You’re making sure Kane isn’t following us, right?”

  “Would you put it past him, if he thought there was a chance Miss McCoy had joined the wagon train?”

  “Not for a minute. From what I saw of the man, he’s loco . . . and poison mean.”

  Jamie nodded. “I haven’t met him, but I’ve got a hunch you’re right.”

  The wagons rolled along steadily for several hours before Jamie called a halt to let the livestock rest for a short time. He and Bodie went to Captain Hendricks’s wagon, where Jamie asked the man, “Have you got a map of the route you were supposed to follow? I know where Montana is, right enough, but if you were supposed to go a certain way we’ll try to stick to it . . . as long as I don’t know a better trail.”

  “Actually, yes, I have a map that Mr. Ralston prepared,” Hendricks replied. “I’ll get it.”

  While they were waiting for him to do that, Jamie glanced eastward behind the wagon train again, just out of habit, and stiffened in the saddle as he spotted several riders following the trail along the river and coming toward them. He caught Bodie’s attention, lifted a hand, and pointed.

  A worried frown appeared on Bodie’s face as he looked at the riders. “Kane’s men?”

  “Could be. Let’s go find out.”

  Hendricks had climbed over the seat into the wagon to look for the map. As Jamie and Bodie turned their horses toward the rear of the train, he stuck his head back out. “Where are you going?”

  “Just to check something out,” Jamie said. “We’ll have a look at that map later.”

  He heeled Sundown into a lope. Bodie rode alongside him. Some of the immigrants waved and called greetings to them as they went past the wagons.

  Hector Gilworth and Jess Neville had come in from the flanks when the train stopped. They saw Jamie and Bodie approaching, and Hector asked, “Something wrong, Mr. MacCallister?”

  “Probably not, but come along with us anyway.”

  The four of them reached the end of the wagon train when the newcomers were still about a quarter mile away. Jamie’s keen eyes didn’t recognize any of them as men he had seen the night before, but that didn’t have to mean anything. Gideon Kane was wealthy enough to hire any number of men to do his bidding.

  Bodie suddenly let out a startled exclamation. “I know those fellas.”

  “Friends o
f yours?” Jamie asked.

  “Well, one of them is, anyway. And the others are all right, I think.”

  The four wagon train men reined in and waited for the riders to come to them. As the men approached, Bodie moved his horse out in front of his companions and called, “Jake! What in the world are you doing here?”

  The riders came up and halted. The one in the lead grinned and said to Bodie, “I’ll bet you didn’t expect to see me again so soon, did you, pard?”

  “That’s right. I didn’t.” Bodie glanced around at Jamie. “Mr. MacCallister, this is my friend Jake Lucas.”

  “Three-Finger Jake, they call me, and you can see why.” He held up his left hand with its missing digits. “I blame an old brindle steer and my own dumb luck for that. Call it a souvenir of my cowboyin’ days.”

  Bodie introduced the other two men. “These hombres are Clete Mahaffey and Dave Pearsoll. Boys, this is Jamie Ian MacCallister, Hector Gilworth, and Jess Neville.”

  The men exchanged nods. Jamie studied the newcomers, sizing them up. Jake Lucas seemed to be a brash, cocky young cowboy, while Mahaffey and Pearsoll were older, more hard-edged.

  “I thought you were staying back in Kansas City,” Bodie said to them. “You know, until that other business got cleared up.”

  Jake shook his head. “There’s nothin’ I hate worse than sittin’ around, Bodie, you know that. When I heard that you’d left town, I reckon it put ideas in my head. We got everything squared away and decided to come after you.”

  A frown creased Bodie’s forehead. “I didn’t tell anybody I was leaving with this wagon train.”

  “Well, where else would you have gone?” Jake asked with a laugh. “That sounded like something you’d do, takin’ off with a bunch of pilgrims bound for Montana. There’s a lot of talk about it back in town. In fact, we were thinkin’ we might just throw in with you.”

  Jamie watched Bodie’s face, but the young man seemed to be keeping his features carefully impassive. Even as insightful as he was, Jamie couldn’t tell how Bodie felt about the idea Jake Lucas had just come out with.