"Cody, how do you know where we're going?" Shanna asked the next afternoon, unable to bear the silent ride any longer. "The map Zerelda gave me only showed me how to get to where Jesse would be waiting. He was supposed to lead me to where he and the rest of his gang hid out — where JT's staying."
"I travelled this whole state and all the area around it during the war, Shanna. Our entire regiment camped and spent the nights in the caves in these mountains one week. Besides, they'll probably find us first. The kind of men we're going to run into won't feel safe without a lookout posted, even this far away from civilization."
"Do you think we'll be in any danger from them, knowing where they're hiding out?"
"You should have thought of that before you started out, Shanna." At the look of fear on her face, Cody relented and softened his voice. "No, Shanna, we won't be in any danger. I know most of these men, and they're handy enough with their guns not to be afraid of the law coming after them. The law probably already knows where they are, anyway, but it would take an entire army to capture them. Men like these choose their stronghold well — make sure it's a place they can defend, or at least run from without getting trapped."
"I don't understand why Toby's father would be living with men like these," Shanna said, unwilling to let the silence return after Cody had started talking again. "From what I've learned, he's not one of them. He's not an outlaw."
"No," Cody agreed. "JT's an honest man. He's probably just glad of the company, no matter what kind it is. He came out here at first to get away from people, but I imagine it got pretty lonesome after a while."
"I'm glad he's not one of the outlaws."
"There won't be anything keeping him from returning to live in polite society with you, Shanna," Cody snapped. "If you do talk him into marrying you."
"That's not what I meant," Shanna fumed. "I wouldn't want Toby to have an outlaw for a father."
"What if he was, Shanna? An outlaw. Would you be willing to live out here with him? Give up any hope of having Toby grow up and make something of himself?"
"Thankfully, that's one decision I won't have to make," Shanna shot back at him. "Toby will be able to have all the advantages I can give him in a few months."
"Yeah, you'll have your money and even a husband and a father for Toby. Tell me, Shanna, will you melt in JT's arms like you do mine? Will you be as eager to make love to him as you were to me last night?"
The walnut pools of Cody's eyes threw daggers at Shanna, but rather than firing her anger further, she fought back the pain his words gave her. She slowly shook her head.
"No, Cody. I can't lie to you and say I haven't thought about that part of what I'm doing, and I'll probably never make love to him without having your ghost between us. But make love to him I will, if he insists on it in our marriage. I'll do what I have to, in order to keep Toby by my side."
"You'll have to keep your eyes shut pretty tight or the lights off and shades drawn down," Cody warned her in a bitter voice. "His face isn't pretty."
"And he lost part of one of his legs, also. I'm aware of that. Zerelda told me."
Cody pulled his stallion to a halt and turned it across the trail.
"Shanna, you can't...I can't....
"Go on back if you want to, Cody. As you said, the men probably have a lookout posted. I'm sure one of them will find me sooner or later. Just tell me how much farther I have to go."
"It's not too much further, little lady," a voice drawled beside the trail. "I'll see you safely there, if Cody wants to head back."
A roan stallion stepped onto the trail, the man on its back nodding slightly to Cody as he rode up beside Shanna's mare. Cody's stallion laid its ears back at the scent of another stud, and Cody took a firm grip on his reins to hold the dun in place.
"Hello, Frank," Cody said. "Thanks for the offer, but I don't reckon I'll take you up on it. 'Course I wouldn't be as apprehensive about Shanna with you as I was when I found her with Dingus."
Frank snorted softly and pushed his hat up from his eyes. "Well now, Cody, Mamaw did send the message to me. Problem was, I was out hunting, and Jesse got it first. I wouldn't have let him go in my stead, if I'd've known."
"I believe you, Frank. What I don't understand is why you're still riding with Dingus. Hell, man, don't you know he's going to get all of you killed sooner or later?"
"Maybe so. But he's my little brother. We've always been together, 'cept when we rode with different outfits at times durin' the war. Mamaw expects me to take care of him."
"Yeah, he always was her favorite. Best thing you could do for him, though, would be to talk him into giving himself up and taking his medicine."
"He'll never do that, Cody. Somethin' snapped in him during the war — even before that, when he took that whipping. I can't talk any sense into him."
"If he ever even looks at Shanna again, I'll kill him, Frank."
"Well, reckon that will be JT's responsibility from now on," Frank mused.
"How...he knows I'm coming?" Shanna broke in. "And why?"
"He knows," Frank told her, his blue eyes, a paler shade than Jesse's, studying her closely. "Mamaw wouldn't have let you come out here without tellin' us why she was sendin' you."
"Has...has JT said how he feels about my arrival?" Shanna asked, heart in her throat.
"Nope. Just said it was all right to bring you on in," Frank said. "You'll have to talk to him about his feelings on going back with you. JT's not one to open up easy these days, even to his friends."
"Yet he told Zerelda and Cody about being in love with my mother," Shanna replied.
"Yep," Frank said. "But they're the only two knowed about it until here in the last few days. And I'm not real sure how JT's takin' it, 'specially since Mamaw had to tell him in her letter that your mother was dead. And that he had a little boy."
Shanna's hand went to her jacket pocket, feeling for the letters. They had become almost a part of her the last few months. Giving a deep sigh, she lifted her reins.
"Then I guess I better go on and talk to him. Are you going back, Cody?"
"No," Cody denied, though his fingers whitened on his reins as he turned his stallion out of the way. "I'll see it on through now."
The three horses made their way on down the faint trail through the mountains for another two hours. Shanna paid no attention now to the beautiful scenery around her, her mind filled with questions about her long-delayed meeting with JT Randolph. Her eyes kept focusing again and again, though, on the broad back ahead of her. Cody kept his stallion a good length in front of Shanna's mare while they rode, leaving Frank to lead the way. The trail was wide enough for two horses to ride side by side, but when Shanna urged her mare to walk a little faster, Cody moved his stallion to the center of the trail.
Shanna gave up trying to talk to Cody and followed behind the other two horses, left alone with her thoughts. Frank finally slowed his horse to a snail's pace and lifted the hat on his head. He waved it once toward the top of a high hill, then settled it back and rode forward again.
Frank's actions again brought to Shanna's mind where she was headed, and she gazed around her, even turning in her saddle to look behind her. The timber-covered mountains around them were smaller than the mountains in New York, but their thick cover would surely hide anyone approaching. On the other hand, they would give good cover to anyone leaving the area. She hadn't seen the man Frank waved to, but he would have had a good view for a long ways from his position.
When Shanna looked ahead again, she saw they were coming into another valley. A crude log building sat in the valley, a corral filled with horses beside it. A man opened the corral gate and let the horses out, while another man on horseback herded them down the valley.
"Kept our horses near until we knew who all was coming," Shanna heard Frank say to Cody. "Not that we really didn't trust the little lady, but it pays to be prepared."
Shanna gazed at the hillsides surrounding the valley. The dark mouths of several caves dotted the steep slopes, huge trees growing right to the entrances on some, bare granite rock outlining others. Their horses splashed across a small creek, and a door slammed. Glancing back at the log house, Shanna saw two men walking away from it.
Frank pulled his horse up and nodded at the men. "They'll be going to tell JT you've got here," he said as Shanna rode up beside him. "He'll probably want to see you alone. You'll have to climb a little ways up to that cave there."
"You mean, he lives in a cave instead of that cabin?" Shanna asked in astonishment.
"His choice," Frank said with a shrug. "Hell, it's warmer up there than it is in that cabin in the winter. Wind just whistles in the cracks between the logs, and I can't seem to get anyone interested in helping plug 'em."
"What do you men do here all the time? I think I'd go crazy, just sitting around all day, or playing cards, or...well, I'd just go crazy after a while."
"Some do," Frank acknowledged. "Some do. Look, there come Jesse and Ben back now. They're waving you to go on up to JT's cave."
"You're not going up there alone, Shanna," Cody cut in grimly. "I'm going with you."
"No, Cody," Shanna said, shaking her head. "I am going alone. This is something I have to do without your help."
"You've done plenty without my help the last few days," Cody growled. "I'm going with you."
"Not unless JT says it's all right, Cody," Frank said mildly. But his hand rested on the gun at his hip. "I know you can outdraw me, Cody," he said, glancing at the sixgun strapped to Cody's thigh, "but the rest of these men here all kind of take to JT, too. They're grateful to him for sharing this place with them and sort of protective of the privacy JT wants."
Cody glared at Frank for a second, then swung down from his horse, making no move toward his pistol when he stood on the ground. He walked over and lifted his hands to Shanna, pulling her from the mare and gripping her waist for a moment.
"I don't want you to go up there alone, Shanna."
"I have to, Cody. Besides, I'll probably be spending a lot of time alone with JT pretty soon."
Cody dropped his hands as though her words had scorched his palms, and Shanna immediately regretted them. She could feel his pain, along with her own, yet she had only spoken the truth. When Shanna lifted a hand toward his shoulder, Cody turned away without a word, leaving her clutching at thin air.
Shanna lowered her arm and looked at Frank. "I'm going up there now."
Frank nodded agreement and walked beside her toward the hillside. "Cody — he's in love with you, huh? Wonder how JT's gonna react to that?"
"He won't have any reason to react." Shanna's voice wavered and she blinked against the mist in her eyes. "If he agrees to marry me, I'll never see Cody again."
"Love," Frank said with a shake of his head. "Funny thing, love. So many different kinds of it — love a man and woman have — love for your maw and paw. Wonder if love can be learned?"
"I don't know," Shanna replied evasively. "Look, I can go on from here by myself." She stopped at the foot of the hill, a few dozen feet below the cave.
"Suit yourself."
Frank strode away, leaving Shanna to stare above her alone. She stood for several long moments, waiting for the apprehensive pounding in her chest to still. Suddenly she saw a movement at the mouth of the cave and a shadow that could belong to a man standing there. The shadow stepped into the sunlight, taking on form and substance.
JT. Joshua Tobias Randolph. Curious, Shanna watched him closely as he made his way down the hillside, leaning on a wooden crutch under the arm on the side of his body with the pantleg folded up. Everything she had heard about this man ran through her mind, and she peered closely at his face, but his hat was pulled down almost to his nose, leaving barely enough room for his eyes to look out beneath the brim.
"Thought we might as well get this over with out here in the daylight," JT said as he stopped in front of her. His gravelly voice held a pronounced drawl, deeper than any Shanna had heard since she arrived in Missouri. "Don't reckon you want to buy a pig in a poke, though I never had any doubt about how you would look, you being Diedre's daughter. Me, now, that's another matter."
Without warning, JT leaned on his crutch and removed his hat, while staring directly into Shanna's face. She gave a soft gasp as he revealed the scar that ran from his hairline down to his left eye and the wrinkled tissue on his forehead. Then she moued her mouth in puzzlement.
"Is that all that's the matter with your face?" she said without thinking.
"All? Ain't that enough?"
Shanna ran her eyes over the rest of his face. His hair was still dark brown, though gray had begun invading it at his temples. His eyes were blue, the same color as Toby's, and she immediately saw the resemblance to her small brother. The straight nose, the high cheekbones — and a dimple in only one cheek. The lips were a little fuller than Toby's, but her mother had had a small mouth, too, thinner than Shanna's own.
The shoulders, encased in a spotless white shirt, were wide, and the shirt followed the contours of his body to a trim waist, surrounded by a leather belt. He wore no gun. The denims hugged his thighs until they met his knees, one leg of them, as she had already noticed, ending about a foot above the ground. The other leg stood firmly, holding him in an upright stance, and a run-down, leather boot encased his right foot.
"Well?" JT prodded, drawing Shanna's eyes back to his face.
"Well, what?" she returned. "I understand you got that wound on your face rescuing your men on the battlefield. Seems to me you'd be proud of it, rather than using it as an excuse to drop out of life."
JT threw his head back and laughed. "You even sound like Diedre," he said as he moved over and sat down on a nearby rock. "I hoped maybe she might say something like that to me, but I never had the guts to go back and find out." He shook his head sadly. "She always...always liked to touch my face, though. Sometimes I still dream about her fingers on it. Her hands were as soft as powdered sugar."
JT placed his hat back on his head and motioned for Shanna to sit beside him. "Now," he said. "Tell me about my son. I...I'll want to talk to you about Diedre after while, but it's still pretty fresh in my mind, and I'm having a little trouble with it. She...well, she was still alive to me, until a few days ago."
"Why didn't you come back for her?" Shanna couldn't stop herself from asking. "She might have truly still been alive, if you had."
JT clapped a hand over his stomach as though Shanna had punched him, and his crutch fell to the ground. He curled his shoulders forward and dropped his head, a deep moan issuing from his throat.
Without thinking, Shanna placed a hand on his arm. "I'm sorry," she said quietly. "Really. I shouldn't judge you. After all, I can't know what you've been through."
JT raised his head and stared ahead of him. "I...I didn't know she'd been sick, honest to God, I didn't. I was so damned young back then — barely twenty, and she was six years older, not that we ever let that bother us. But I didn't have nothin' to offer her, compared to the life she had. I promised her and myself, too, that I'd go back soon as I could give her a decent life — kidnap her, if I had to.
"Maybe...maybe she just gave up on me, or maybe she tried to write and tell me what was going on. But then that damned war came up and there wasn't much mail gettin' through to anyone. After I saw what my face looked like, I thought she'd be better off back there. Then, when they cut my leg off...little lady, I swear...."
JT bit off his words and seemed to be gathering his emotions for a moment before he turned his head to look at her. "It's Shanna, isn't it? I saw you once. You were walking in the park with some of your friends, and Diedre pointed you out. She was awfully proud of you. We...we were looking out a hotel window at the time," he admitted.
A faint blush stole over Shanna's cheeks at his admission. At least, he was being open with her — she had to give him credit for that. And Toby had come into the world from this man's union with her mother. They had to have found a bed — or at least some place — to share their passion.
"I loved my mother deeply," she said, deciding to address the fact of her mother's pride in her, instead of where Diedre had spoken of it. "It's only since she's been dead that I've realized just how much — and how much she must have gone through before she died."
"Your father was a bastard...is a bastard," JT growled. "I'll see him dead before I let him raise my son — mine and Diedre's son. I'll see him in hell before he touches that kid."
"I can empathize with your feelings about that," Shanna agreed. "His name is Tobias, but everyone calls him Toby. Zerelda told me your name is Joshua Tobias. I guess my mother named Toby as close to your name as she dared."
JT breathed out the name with a sigh, "Toby. I have a son named Toby, after me, and still have a part of Diedre alive in him. What's he like, Shanna?"
For the next few minutes, Shanna told JT about her life with Toby and described the boy to him. At one point, she touched the dimple on JT's cheek, telling him of the identical one in Toby's. JT smiled finally, his face taking on a look of wonder and the tenseness leaving his shoulders.
Down below, Cody stood at the log cabin window, watching Shanna raise her hand and touch JT's face. The fading sunlight outlined the two figures on the rock, and though he couldn't see their features from that distance, he could see how close they sat. How their heads bent close together. How they talked to each other effortlessly, their relaxed bodies telling him they shared an easy comraderie.
"Dingus!" Cody turned abruptly from the window. "You got any liquor around here?"
"Sure, Cody." Jesse nodded to a shelf behind him, lined with a row of bottles. "Only thing is, we got a rule around here that we lock our guns up in that closet over there when we start drinkin'. Frank's the only one's got a key to the door. Frank, he holds his booze better than the rest of us do."
Cody unbuckled his gunbelt and handed it to Frank. While Frank placed it in the closet, Cody grabbed the first bottle on the shelf.
"Wait a sec, Frank," Jesse said when Frank started to close the closet door. "Here." He removed his double gunbelt and handed it over. "Reckon I'll join Cody. Ain't been drunk with my ol' friend in a long time. Can't see him drinkin' alone."
"Just so you remember we aren't exactly friends anymore, Dingus," Cody replied.
"Whatever you say, Cody. Might change your mind, after a few drinks of that stuff."
"Not likely. I won't forget how I found you with Shanna."
"She'll have someone else to watch out for her now, old pard," Jesse said with a laugh. "You won't have to worry about keeping an eye on her while we get drunk together."
Cody lifted the liquor bottle and took a long swig without answering Jesse. He withheld the bottle when Jesse reached for it, nodding at the shelf.
"Get your own. This one's mine." Cody pulled a coin from his pocket and laid it on the shelf. "I'll pay as I go. It's probably hard to get booze out here."
"Not as hard as you'd think." Jesse picked up the coin and tossed it to Frank, then reached for the next bottle on the shelf.