It took Shanna two full days to make her plans to slip away from the plantation. A strangely rebellious Toby had her almost at wit's end. Over and over he repeated that he would not stay behind while Shanna searched for JT Randolph, though Toby had still not learned the name of the man, lest he let it slip.
"He's my real father," Toby said with a mutinous pout. "I want to meet him and see him for myself."
"You'll see him when I get back," Shanna said in exasperation while they stood at the corral fence watching the ponies frolic. They had managed to leave Melinda in the kitchen helping Susie James bake cookies, but Shanna knew Melinda wouldn't stay away from Toby for long. She had followed him around like a puppy whose long-lost master had reappeared ever since they got back.
"Listen, Toby," she said when Toby continued to glare at the ponies. "Look at Chessy."
"I see him." Toby's lower lip protruded.
"Well, how far do you think Chessy would get trying to keep up with a larger horse, like I'm taking? It's going to be a long ride, and we can't ride double. That would be too hard on my horse."
"You haven't even got a horse yet. And you can't take Brownie. She has to feed Starlight. Melinda said Cody had to have someone from town bring Brownie right home after he got there, so she could feed her colt."
"I've got a horse, Toby. I just don't want to tell you how, in case Cody questions you after I'm gone and you feel you have to lie. If you don't know my plans, you can't let anything slip by mistake."
"Couldn't let anything slip if I was with you, either," Toby said stubbornly. "Besides, you ain't...don't have any business going off by yourself. You should have someone with you."
Shanna clenched her fists on the top rail, trying to decide just how much of her plans to trust to Toby. "All right. I'll tell you this much. I'm meeting someone who knows the way to where I'm going. Will you accept that and stay here, like I've asked you to?"
Toby looked at her and Shanna's heart wrenched when a tear trickled down his face.
"I don't want you to leave, Shanna," Toby said with a sob. "How do I know you'll come back?"
Shanna hugged him close. "Oh, Toby, have I broken any of my promises to you yet? I haven't, have I?"
Toby shook his head against her shoulder.
"And I give you my solemn promise that I'll be back just as soon as I talk to this man, Toby. My solemn, cross-my-heart promise."
Toby pulled away and sniffed loudly. He raised his arm to wipe at his nose, but Shanna caught his arm and thrust her handkerchief into his hand. As soon as he blew his nose, she tipped his face up with a hand under his chin.
"Will you wait here for me, Toby? Please? Believe me, I would take you with me if I could, but this is the best way for me to do this. You'll have to trust me."
"All right," Toby finally agreed. "You better hurry back, though."
"I will," Shanna promised.
Later that night, taking care to step over the board in the hallway that creaked, Shanna left the house, carrying her boots in one hand and a small pack she had found in the closet in the other. She pulled the boots on before she stepped off the back porch and made her way down the drive. At the gate, she turned and whispered a goodbye to Toby, but her eyes were trained on the window of the far bedroom, which she had heard Cody enter over an hour ago.
A short walk later, Shanna rounded the first bend in the road past the Garret house. She heard a nicker and hurried forward, her hand going out to soothe the gray mare she found tethered to a large oak tree.
"Shanna."
Shanna screamed and jumped back from the mare.
"I'm sorry," the voice whispered. "It's me, Susie. Mother told me to be sure and not leave until I saw you on your way and made sure you knew where you were going."
Shanna dropped her hand from her throat. "I almost didn't get going, Susie. You scared me half to death."
"Sorry," Susie said again. "Do you have everything you need?"
"Yes. And I've studied the map you gave me yesterday. The directions are clear enough to get me to where I'll meet your brother."
"Shanna," Susie said in a hesitant voice. "I wish...I wish we'd been able to get word to Frank instead of Jesse to lead you to JT."
"Why, Susie?"
"Jesse's changed. Oh, you'll be safe enough with him, I guess, especially since he knows Mother considers you one of her dearest friends. It's just...Shanna, if you don't feel comfortable with Jesse, promise me you'll get word back to us and wait somewhere until we send someone else to help you. Promise me, Shanna."
"I promise," Shanna said distractedly. The string of promises she had made over the past few months ran through her mind. One more on her shoulders would only add to her burden, but she wasn't going to let anything keep her from the end of her quest at this point.
"Now, I have to get on my way, Susie. Tell Zerelda how much I appreciate all her help."
Shanna swung onto the mare, glad to see Zerelda had provided her with a western type saddle. The old denims of Cody's she had snitched from the clothesline hung loosely on her, and she hitched them up her hips when they slid down with her movements. With one last wave at Susie, she turned the mare onto the road, already thinking ahead to the first landmark on the map in her pocket.
East, first, Zerelda's directions had said. Then south when she was well past the chance of running into Liberty's perimeters. South, toward the wild Ozark Mountains, where men could hide and become lost in the wilderness, and where men did exactly that.
The small derringer Susie had slipped to her that morning rode securely in her jacket pocket, giving her a little comfort, though she had never fired a gun in her life. She shrugged her shoulders. It couldn't be that hard. Susie had told her all she had to do was cock and aim it, then pull that little piece sticking down beneath the gun.
There was even a rifle in the scabbard of the saddle. In a patch of moonlight, Shanna pulled it a ways out of the scabbard and studied the mechanism. Looked just like the derringer, only larger, she decided. She hoped it, too, was loaded, as Susie had assured her the derringer was. Not that she would need it, she told herself, but one thing Susie had neglected was showing her how to put new bullets in the gun.
Shanna turned the mare to the right at the first fork in the road. For just a second she thought she caught a sound behind her. It must have been Susie on her way back to her own house. She kicked the mare again and headed on down the road.
The surefooted little mare carried Shanna through the dark night and on into the next day. She came to the waterfall on Zerelda's map near dawn and left the faint trail to ride deeper into the ever more towering hills ahead. Several times she drew the mare to a halt to enjoy the beauty of the countryside around her.
Not farm land, like she had left behind, she crossed brooks filled with clear water bubbling its cheery way over smooth stones and rode up hillsides covered with tall jack pine, elm and oak. Huge granite rocks protruded from some of the scarred hillsides, where rain had washed away the covering soil. At the top of each high rise, she rested the mare and gazed over the undulating waves of hilltops both behind and before her. The peace and serenity of the spectacular views lulled her, soothing her troubled emotions and allowing her, for the time being, to push aside her concerns.
Late the next afternoon, Shanna rode up on a small lake in a valley, where a doe and fawn triplets raised their heads to watch her approach. Showing little fear at Shanna's unexpected presence, the doe calmly walked toward the underbrush, the fawns gamboling and frisking behind her.
Shanna dismounted and led the mare to the lake to drink. She dipped her bandanna — another item borrowed from Cody's attire — into the water and wiped her face. Glancing around to assure herself she was still on the proper path, she saw a huge tree split by lightening on the far shore of the lake. That tree was the next to last landmark. She smiled to herself, amazed that she, having never even ventured onto the bridle paths in New York without a groom in attendance, had found her way through this unmapped country, with only the aid of a hand-drawn set of directions.
It took her a few minutes to figure out how the hobbles worked for the mare. She finally tightened them on the horse's front legs, slipped the bridle off and poured out a measure of the corn she had found in the saddlebags. Stomach growling in hunger, she removed the bedroll from the saddle and spread it on the ground, then sat down and opened her pack to take out some bread and cold meat.
Fighting the drowsiness from her all night and most of the day ride, Shanna gulped down the food and finished off her meal with two of the cookies Susie and Melinda had made. After glancing over at the little mare to assure herself the hobbles were working, she stretched out on the bedroll. Just for a moment, she told herself.
A pain in her side woke Shanna and she grumbled to herself as she shifted without opening her eyes. How in the world had a rock gotten into her mattress? The ache relieved somewhat, she tried to hang onto the delightful half-wakefulness and soothing warmth of the sun on her face.
Sun? Rock? Shanna sat up with a shot, her eyes wide and her brow furrowing as she recalled the sounds in the dream she had experienced just before she woke. She thought a horse had neighed, then been answered by another one.
The pain in her side had been the derringer, she realized, slipping her hand into the jacket pocket as she slowly swiveled her head.
"'Bout time you woke up. Thought I'd ride a little further on and meet you, when you were late. Guess I should have known a city girl wouldn't make as good a time on the trail."
Shanna's grip on the derringer relaxed when she recognized the man kneeling a few feet away. "You're Susie's brother. The one I saw at Zerelda's house that night. Jesse."
The dark-haired man nodded his head, his piercing blue eyes never leaving Shanna's face.
"Jesse. Dingus," he said with a shrug. "I'm called different things — even been called a bank robber lately. You being close to Mamaw, reckon that's no surprise to you."
Shanna shifted on the bedroll in order to see him better. "You're breaking your mother's heart. I hope you know that. You and Frank, both."
Jesse surged to his feet. "Ain't your place to go meddlin' into our affairs. If you want me to take you to where you're going, you'll keep your pretty trap shut while you follow. Elsewise, you can go on back the way you came. I'm only doin' this 'cause Mamaw asked me to."
Shanna stood and shook out the bedroll before she curled it into a roll again to retie it behind the saddle. The icy glare in Jesse's blue eyes warned her to watch her tongue, and she couldn't help remembering Susie's tentative caution about her brother.
Shanna caught her little mare, then tied the bedroll securely in the rawhide thongs behind the saddle. Before she removed the hobbles, though, she was forced to face Jesse again.
"I...I have to go over in the brush for a moment before we leave."
"Hurry up," Jesse said without acknowledging Shanna's embarrassment. "We spend too much more time here, we might's well stay the night. The rest of the way we're going ain't no country to be riding through after dark."
Shanna stepped around the mare and trudged toward the brush where the deer had disappeared. Concealing herself behind a huge pine, she unknotted the scarf she had used for a belt to hold the too-large denims over her slender hips. After using the handkerchief placed in her pocket in anticipation of stops such as these, she rose and pulled the denims up.
A twig snapped and Shanna glanced around her, expecting to see some small animal. She met the blue eyes and smirking grin of her guide.
"Just wanted to see what was really under them baggy britches," Jesse said with a cold chuckle. "We'll be spendin' a night together, you know."
"You bastard!" Shanna hissed, her cheeks red with mortification at the picture she must have made squatting in the brush. "You'll never lay a hand on me! If that's your idea of payment for guiding me, you can forget it right now!"
Jesse looped his thumbs in the belt holding his twin sixguns and stared at her while Shanna fumbled blindly with the scarf, not daring to take her eyes from him. She managed to pull the scarf tight before he took a step toward her.
"Stay away from me!" she screamed, her hand delving into her pocket.
"If you're lookin' for that little gun, it fell out on the ground there behind you when you set down."
Shanna whirled and dived for the derringer. She rolled over in the leaves and turned around, sitting on her rump and pointing the derringer in Jesse's direction. Her astonished gaze saw him backing away, his hands out to the sides, well away from the deadly sixguns on his hips.
Shanna smiled grimly and placed her index finger on the trigger of the derringer. Suddenly it dawned on her that Jesse's eyes weren't on her. Instead, he looked off to the side, toward the clearing they had just left. Following his gaze, though still keeping the gun aimed approximately at Jesse, she saw a rifle resting on a broad shoulder, pointed directly at Jesse's heart.
"Now, Cody," Jesse said as he backed up yet another step. "I wasn't gonna do nothin' she didn't want me to. You know me, Cody. I jist like to look at a pretty woman, as well as you do."
"Yeah, I used to know you, Dingus," Cody snarled. "When your name was still Jesse and when you were a true neighbor. The only reason I didn't drill you without warning was because of what you and Frank did for my family. You aren't that same person any more and if I ever catch you within a mile of Shanna again, you won't get a chance to get any closer than that to her."
"All right. All right, Cody. Just drop that rifle a little and I'll go. Reckon you're takin' over now to get the little lady to where she's going."
"You reckon right. It's not my rifle you ought to be worried about, though. Looks to me like Shanna's finger's twitching awfully close to that derringer trigger."
Shanna looked at the little gun and saw her finger wrapped around the trigger, her hand trembling waveringly. She gasped and dropped the gun to the ground, then scrambled to her feet.
"Oh, Cody," she said as she ran over to him. "I've never been so glad to see anyone in my life."
Cody ignored her for the moment and waved his rifle barrel in the direction of the clearing. Obeying the unspoken command, Jesse strode toward his horse. A second later, they heard the pounding hoofbeats as Jesse galloped away, and Cody turned his furious glare on Shanna.
"You stupid little fool! If I'd had any idea who you were going to meet, I wouldn't have just followed behind you, waiting until you got lost. Where'd you ever get the fool notion that you could trust Jesse James?"
Shanna set her hands on her hips and stepped closer, blue eyes flashing and her nose a bare inch from Cody's.
"From his mother!" she shouted. "And if you were so worried about me being with him, why did you wait so long to join us? He was probably sitting there watching me sleep for a long time, and I'm sure you saw it if you've been that close to me all the time. Damn you, Cody Garret! You stood back and let that man watch me p...!"
Suddenly Shanna clapped a hand over her mouth to still her words. A blush joined the anger-red of her face and deepened when she saw Cody's lips twitch. She dropped her hand and stamped her foot.
"All right, that's what I was doing over here. I suppose you think it's funny, knowing how embarrassed I am!"
"Not really," Cody said, though his stifled chuckle gave lie to his words. "Serves you right, though. You should have trusted me, like I asked you to."
"Me trusted you? You've known all along it was JT Randolph I was looking for, haven't you? Why didn't you take me to him when I first got here, instead of waiting until I...." Shanna's voice dropped and she looked away from him. "Before I fell in love with you," she whispered just loud enough for Cody to hear.