Rexanne Becnel by When Lightning Strikes Read Free Book Online Page B

interest: the land.
    There were others, too, though fewer in number. One burly fellow with arms as thick as tree trunks must be a smithy; another wearing spectacles and with well-manicured hands had the look of a solicitor. A graying older man and his son were both doctors.
    One and all they were headed west, lured by the government’s offering of land: a half portion—320 acres—to any man who built a home and put the land into cultivation. The other half portion to his woman.
    Tanner downed the crude whiskey and shuddered as it burned its way down his throat to his stomach. Women. There were a lot more of them heading to Oregon since the Donation Act had passed. Proper women. Wives and mothers. The type of women that a man could stand by, and who would stand by their men. Women who made cooking an art. He grimaced as he set the squat glass down on the sticky bar. He was damned tired of eating his same old beans and hardtack everyday.
    He was damned tired of this fruitless search too. He’d checked out three wagon companies already. This was the last. If he didn’t find Hogan’s granddaughter here, that meant he had outwitted himself: Bliss had taken the Santa Fe Trail to California after all.
    He signaled for another whiskey, only this time he sipped it more slowly. He needed to be sharp if he was going to get any information about the motherless girls in this wagon company.
    His eyes scanned the room, passing, then returning to a familiar face. A tall, lanky fellow, the one on horseback who’d spoken to that woman by the river.
    Abigail Morgan was her name.
    Tanner straightened, then sidestepping a pair of old men arguing about Stonewall Jackson’s role in the Battle of New Orleans, he made his way toward the gangly young man.
    Abigail Morgan was hardly the young grandchild Hogan envisioned. Still, it was possible that Hogan’s grandchild was no child at all, but a fully grown woman. Abigail Morgan was a fully grown woman, he recalled with a slight twist of his lips. Very well grown indeed, and in all the right places.
    He shouldered past a swarthy man punctuating his words with broad gestures, then gave his quarry a quick once-over. The man was a farmer—a married farmer, judging by the shiny new ring on his hand. Tanner’s posture relaxed a little, and when he stuck his hand out in friendly greeting, it was not an altogether false gesture.
    “You’re with Captain Peters’s company, aren’t you?”
    The man hesitated only a moment before taking Tanner’s firm grasp. “I am.”
    “I’ve just joined up with your company today. Tanner McKnight. From Indiana,” he added, sticking to the story he’d given Captain Peters.
    “Victor Lewis. From Iowa.” He motioned to a man next to him. “This is Bud Foley. He’s on our train also.”
    Tanner shook hands with Foley, and the man murmured a greeting that was lost in the noisy atmosphere. When Tanner peered at him more closely, however, the man looked away. “I gotta get goin’, Lewis.” He nodded once at Tanner, giving him a hard, considering look, then sidled away and left.
    Tanner watched him leave with a prickle of unease. There had been something odd in that stare, some edge of smugness. And animosity. Had they met before?
    “So, you’ve joined up with us,” Victor Lewis broke in on Tanner’s musings.
    “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll be riding scout and hunting fresh game.” He gave the younger man an assessing look. “Not everyone can provide for themselves on the trail. You hunt much?”
    “Some,” Victor admitted. Then with boyish pride he boasted, “I was the best squirrel shot in Muscatine County.”
    Tanner grinned. “That will surely come in handy. You have a lot of people to provide for?”
    “Just me and the wife. Sarah,” he added.
    “Newlyweds, right? Was that your wife herding oxen by the river yesterday?” Tanner asked, looking for a reason to discuss Miss Abigail Morgan.
    “I take care of my own stock,” the young man countered.