Страница 38 из 74
Whip kept talking as though she hadn’t said a word.
«Cal and Willy — my sister, remember?»
«Cal is your sister? I thought he was a man.»
Whip shot Sha
She gave it right back.
«Willow is my sister. Caleb is her husband.» Whip spoke slowly and clearly, as though to the town drunk. «They have a little boy and are expecting another baby before too long. All she has for help is Pig Iron’s wife, and she only speaks Ute.»
«They should send to Canyon City. Or Denver. Or maybe one of your other widows would want the job. I don’t.»
Whip made a frustrated sound and raked his fingers through his hair, dislodging his hat. He caught it with careless ease and pulled it firmly back into place. He wished his temper were as easy to get hold of and keep in hand.
«They wouldn’t treat you like hired help,» Whip said carefully. «You would be like…family.»
«After my step-aunt, I’d rather be treated like hired help,» Sha
«Damn it! All I meant was you would have a safe place to live with good people around you and kids to enjoy and —»
«Their home, their children,» Sha
The thought of Sha
What business of mine is it whose kids she has, Whip asked himself savagely, as long as they aren’t mine?
The rational, reasonable, logical question did nothing to cool Whip’s elemental rage. Teeth clenched, he turned away from the girl who could trigger his temper — and his body — as no one else ever had.
That’s the end of it, Whip told himself. Time to pull up stakes and find another sunrise before she has me so hog-tied I can’t even move.
But first I have to see that the stubborn little witch is safe, whether she likes it or not.
Without a word Whip turned away from Sha
Sha
But she didn’t know what she had done to cause it.
«I wish you could talk, Prettyface. You’re a male. Maybe you could tell me what I did.»
The big, brindle hound nudged Sha
«I thanked him very politely for his offer of a place in his sister’s house,» Sha
Prettyface’s tongue lolled as he panted softly.
«Well, maybe not very politely,» she conceded, «but I certainly wasn’t rude. Not nearly as rude as he was.»
The hound cocked his head to one side, ears erect, looking as though he were about to speak to Sha
«If only you could talk.» She sighed deeply. «But you can’t. So I guess I’ll have to ask Whip why he got so furious when I said I wanted a home and children of my own. It’s not like I was asking him to provide either one.»
Unsettled, torn between anger and hurt, Sha
But when she got to his campsite, all her questions fled. Whip was quickly, efficiently, packing up his belongings.
No! Oh, Whip, don’t leave me yet.
Sha
I won’t cry. I knew it was coming. I just didn’t think it would be like this. In anger.
Sha
By the time Sha
«Leaving?» she asked him evenly.
«I told you I was.»
«Yes.»
Sha
«Thank you for all you’ve done, Whip. If you ever come back through here — oh, that’s right. You never chase the same sunrise twice.» She made a vague, jerky gesture with her right hand. «Well, thank you. Are you certain you won’t take some pay? You’ve done so much and I do have a bit of gold left.»
Whip looked at Sha
«What are you doing?» Sha
«What does it look like?»
The tone of Whip’s voice made Sha
«It looks like you’re packing my gear,» she said.
«Do tell.»
Whip rammed some dried food into a burlap bag and looked around for more.
There wasn’t any.
That, too, irritated him. It reminded him of just how close to the edge Sha
Unless she took a job with Willow.
«Why are you packing my gear?» Sha
«Because you’re coming with me.»
Sha
When Sha
«You weren’t listening very well,» she said. «I’m not going anywhere except up to Rifle Sight to dig for gold.»
«Oh? You going to eat grass while you dig?»
Sha
«Then you better ride as far as your cabin with me. There aren’t enough supplies left up here to keep even a stubborn little idiot of a girl alive.»
«Don’t worry. There’s no ‘stubborn little idiot of a girl’ around to eat the supplies. There is, however, a thick-shouldered, thickheaded blind man with the appetite and disposition of a starving grizzly who —»
Abruptly Sha
«There are enough supplies for a day of digging,» she said with false calm.
Whip looked at the cloud-seething sky and then back to Sha
«By this time tomorrow, it will be storming fit to drown Noah,» he said. «A smart little girl would get her rump moving down the hill to shelter.»
«A smart little girl wouldn’t be up here —»
«Amen.»
«— with a rock-stubborn blind man!»
«Pack up,» was all Whip said.
Sha
With a savage curse Whip turned to her.
«You calling me stubborn,» he said coldly, «is like the pot yelling at the kettle for being black.»
«Do I sense agreement on the subject of your stubbor
«Right now we couldn’t agree on water being wet, but that doesn’t change the facts. There’s no gold in Rifle Sight. There’s a storm coming. There aren’t enough supplies to see you through the storm.»
Sha
She came to her feet in a graceful movement that belied her ragged men’s clothing.
«Fine,» Sha
«Don’t do me any favors.»
«Don’t worry, yondering man.»
Despite their mutual ill temper, Whip and Sha
By the time Crowbait was packed and Razorback was saddled, much of Sha
Prettyface ranged out around the horses and mule as they took to the vague trail down the mountain. The trip to the cabin was accomplished swiftly and in a silence that made Sha