Dorothy Garlock - [Colorado Wind 03] by Wind of Promise Read Free Book Online Page A

patient with him. Several years before she had discovered he had a skill and ease in using his hands and enjoyed working with leather. She had traded medical services and medicine to a neighbor to teach him how to make whips and quirts. Soon Henry’s work was even better than his teacher’s and the association had ended.
    When they left Missouri they had brought with them several tow sacks of cut, rolled hides that had been run through the splitting gauge to remove the hair. They had had to leave behind the grindstone Henry used to sharpen his knives because it was so heavy, but they planned to buy another when they reached Colorado. It had been a big boost to Henry’s confidence to know that he excelled in something.
    Lightning flashed and Ellie saw Mary Ben climb out of the end of the Wisner wagon with a slicker over her head. She crawled beneath the wagon and sat down beside the dog. Ellie knew she was free to go to bed, but still she sat looking out into the night.
    She thought of her husband and closed her eyes. Once again she saw his handsome blond head, his laughing eyes, and felt his soft mustache against her face. Within two glorious days he had swept her off her feet with sweet and persistent courting. They married and had what were the happiest weeks of her life, followed by utter despair. She never fully believed that he had deliberately deserted her as some of her friends suggested. The years had passed terribly slowly, and then she received the horrible news about his death from his brother in Colorado. But he had left a part of himself with her—their son, Henry.
    Ellie sighed and sought her bed. She regretted nothing. What she hoped and prayed for was that there would be a place for her son where he could work for his keep and have kin nearby to care about him. It saddened her to know that he would never know the fulfillment of such a love as she had known.
     
    *  *  *
     
    Vanessa was awake when John tapped on the end of the wagon to let her know it was her turn to stand watch. She took the shotgun, wrapped a shawl around her shoulders and stepped out of the wagon. The rain had ceased and the air was crisp and cool. She sat down on a box so she could look toward the river and the darkness closed in around her. Her hair was braided in one long, loose braid, and the damp air had caused the tendrils to curl tightly on her forehead and in front of her ears. She brushed them back from her face, then buried her hands in the shawl. The night was quiet. Nothing moved, as least nothing she could see or hear. Her mind wandered to her home in Missouri, and she wondered if the people who had bought the farm had cut the dense growth of raspberry bushes. She thought about the lights along the streets in Springfield and people sitting in their porch swings. It was all so far removed from this quiet spot that it seemed to Vanessa they were alone in the world on an island of floating grass.
    Far off a coyote howled, then another. It made her think of the thin-faced man with the black eyes. Vanessa felt herself go cold. She didn’t want to think of him. There was something about him that frightened her, something evil and dangerous, as if he had no regard for any living creature who stood in the way of what he wanted. He had looked at her as if he were looking right through her clothing. She shuddered again as she remembered his words and the positive way he had spoken them. Leave
my
woman be . . . for now, he had said.
    She heard the coyote howl again, or was it a wolf? She heard the dull thud of the stock pawing the wet sod. There was no other sound and the time passed slowly. The clouds drifted away and a few stars came out. The breeze came up and rippled the canvas on the Wisner wagon.
    “Quiet night.”
    The voice made her freeze with fear. She had heard nothing, seen nothing. Yet the voice reached her from the darkness directly behind her. She made a grab for the shotgun and a large, strong hand caught her