Chapter 5

By the time Ian and Caleb reached the rise after hearing the gunshot, Neelie stood surrounded by a half-dozen children. Smiling, she gripped the brim of her sombrero and waved it in a flamboyant bow.

Duff clapped. “That was grand, Miss Neelie.”

“She’s faster than a bolt of lightning with that gun!” Nicolas Zanzucchi punctuated his statement with a low whistle.

“Ma’am,” Ian said, “I don’t appreciate your disregard for common sense. You have no business showing off your shooting skills in front of the children. And on a Sunday, no less.”

“Mr. Kamden, I hardly think cougars care whether it is the Lord’s Day or Tuesday when their stomachs take to growling.” A grin teased the corners of her mouth. “Do you?”

“A cougar?”

“Yes, Faither.” Maisie stretched out her arm, pointing. “It’s dead. Right there.”

Ian looked in the direction Maisie pointed and saw a cougar lying lifeless in the tall grass, less than twenty feet from the children.

Angus stepped toward Ian. “Miss Neelie saved us.”

Ian swallowed his frustration and returned his focus to the woman shooter, who set the sombrero atop her curls. “Thank you. They were so determined to see you shoot, that I thought—”

“We sure was.” Duff hooked his thumb under the blue bandanna tied around his neck. “That’s why we were following her.”

Caleb placed his arm around his sister’s shoulders. “I, for one, am glad she had the presence of mind as well as the skill to protect our children.”

“Of course, I am, too,” Ian said. “Neverthless, I’m not sure a woman shootist is the kind of influence we want for our children in this wagon train.” No one on the trail needed the distraction. Least of all, him.

That night, Ian lay under a waxing full moon, chiding himself. Caleb and his sister had been reunited less than twenty-four hours before Ian had scolded her for giving a shooting exhibition on a Sunday. What right did he have to decide she didn’t belong with the caravan? So what if she was different than any woman he’d known and his children were enthralled with her larger-than-life persona and skill? He sighed, looking at the myriad stars overhead. If he were being honest, he’d have to admit that Neelie’s differences and his concern for his children weren’t the only reasons he wanted her gone from their midst. She challenged him and intrigued him. And he found the latter especially unsettling.

Upon his announcement that he didn’t appreciate her influence on the children, Neelie had shrugged out of her brother’s embrace and walked away without speaking a word. The children started after her, but Caleb stopped them. He had held his tongue, but the look of disapproval he sent Ian was just as strong as the one from Angus.

Ian had gone to Caleb’s camp to apologize to Neelie, but she hadn’t returned. He’d made his apologies to Caleb, but Caleb hadn’t been the one judged and offended. He’d seen Neelie return to camp before dark, but by now she was bedded down. His apology would have to wait until morning.

Sitting up, Ian pulled his pillow onto his lap and kneaded it like he’d watched Rhoda do with bread dough. He was finally ready to lay back and try to find sleep again when he heard twigs snap not more than thirty feet out from where he lay. What if the cougar Neelie shot wasn’t the only one roaming this area? He reached for the rifle that lay alongside his pallet. Probably just a fox or a coyote minding his own business. He’d just about convinced himself of that when he saw swift movement. Not an animal, but the silhouette of a petite person wearing a sombrero.

Neelie.

Standing, Ian blinked hard to focus his vision. She carried a pack. His gut clenched. It wasn’t safe for her to be out here alone. He grabbed his hat from the ground and, rifle in hand, set out after her. His steps intentionally light, he followed Neelie toward the line of elms and cottonwoods. She was headed for the river and would be hard to track in its muddy water. He couldn’t let her get that far. By the time he reached the edge of the trees, he’d lost sight of her in the dim light. An owl hooted in the distance. The river meandered in near silence.

No footfalls. Had she heard him and hidden?

“Ma’am, it’s Ian Kamden.”

Neelie stepped from behind a tree and chuckled. “Of course it’s you. Who else would it be with those clomping steps and a growling burr?”

“Fair enough.” Ian hooked his thumb on his coat pocket. “I want to apologize. I was wrong about you and your reasons for shooting amid the children. I jumped to conclusions. I was wrong to judge you; wrong to think you didn’t belong. You do belong on the trail with all of us. You do.”

Neelie lifted a shoulder and let it fall. “I’m not so sure. But it doesn’t matter. I have a job to get to. I was on my way there when I found Caleb.”

“Your brother didn’t object to you leaving at this hour?”

“He doesn’t know.”

“You left your family without saying good-bye?”

Neelie tucked a curl behind her ear. “It’s for the best.”

How could she say that? He’d seen the joy on her face at seeing Caleb alive.

“I’m not the sister Caleb knew in Tennessee. Time has passed. Things have happened.”

Ian propped his rifle against the trunk of a tree and took a step toward her. Neelie’s brown eyes glistened in the moonlight. Had she been crying? It was obvious even to him that something dreadful had happened to close her heart. Why else would she wear a man’s clothes and be so secretive? “I don’t know why you think you have to be so tough, and I probably have no right to even mention it, but my guess is that someone hurt you.”

She looked away.

“Might have even been your husband. Rest his soul.”

When Neelie took slow steps toward a couple of fallen trees, Ian followed. She sat on one and set her pack on the ground. He settled on the other, facing her.

“Your wife, she was a good woman?” Neelie asked.

“Yes. And she deserved better. I knew my wife leaned toward infirmity.” Feeling the weight of his decisions, he leaned forward and rested his forearms on his thighs. “I was afraid I might lose her when she birthed Maisie. I never should have—”

“And I should never have boarded that stagecoach west to join Archie in New Mexico Territory.”

She’d traveled west alone. This was a woman of incredible strength of character and determination.

“He didn’t die in the war.” She stood, and he did, too. “Someone killed him. Later.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I suppose I should be.” Moonlight drew long shadows across her face.

“He mistreated you?”

Neelie blinked hard then scooped up her pack. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“Please come back to camp.”

She glanced upriver.

Anyone could’ve knocked him over with a hummingbird feather when she started off toward the encampment. Ian followed, his mind spinning with questions he didn’t have the freedom to ask. Not if he had any hope of returning her to her brother.