“I’m fine,” she insisted. “I grew up on a farm and did most of the plowing from the time I was ten years old. I must have walked thousands of miles behind an old mule. This…” She gestured toward the beach. “This is nothing.”
“Farm girl, eh?”
“That’s right. So I figured being a sourdough’s wife wouldn’t be much harder.”
“You might be right about that.” Frank nodded toward the north. “I was thinking about scouting on ahead with Dog. You want to come with us?”
Meg’s quirky smile lit up her face. “I’d like that.”
Frank went over to Conway and said, “Miss Goodwin and I are going to scout on up the beach a ways. You mind staying here and keeping an eye on things?”
“Nope, that’s fine,” the young man replied. He glanced at Jessica Harpe, and Frank figured Conway planned on spending the break talking to the curvy little brunette. If Fiona was able to follow through on her plan and take the women to Whitehorse, Conway was liable to be disappointed when he had to say good-bye to Jessica and let her travel on to the man who had paid to have her brought up here to marry him. But Frank couldn’t do anything about that. It was just Conway’s bad luck.
He and Meg set off up the beach. Dog ran ahead of them, darting into the woods at times and then running back out onto the sand. As they walked, Meg talked about her life on her family’s farm back in Ohio.
“What about you, Mr. Morgan?” she asked after a while. “You must have had a very interesting life, what with being a gunfighter and all.”
“A lot of hard, lonely trails,” Frank said. “That’s what most of it has been.”
“Have you ever been married?”
“A couple of times.”
Meg frowned. “What happened?”
“I lost them both,” Frank said.
She put a hand on his arm. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories. Although I guess I should have known that I would, with questions like that.”
“It’s all right,” Frank told her. “Life goes on and time passes, and after a while, if you’re lucky you’re left with more good memories than bad ones.”
“What about children?”
Frank had to grin. “I’ve got a boy. Conrad. He had some trouble along the way, but he grew into a fine man.” He grew sober again as he thought about what had happened in Conrad’s life in recent months. “Then he had some more trouble. But he’ll come through it all right. He’s strong.”
“Like his father,” Meg said. Her hand still rested on Frank’s arm.
He frowned suddenly as he realized how easy it was to talk to this woman. But she was
He didn’t have time to ponder on those troubling thoughts, because at that moment, somewhere behind them, the roar of gunshots suddenly filled the cold air.
Chapter 16
Frank whirled toward the sound and saw to his surprise that he and Meg had walked so far along the beach the others were now out of sight. The shots were definitely coming from that direction, though. He broke into a run along the hard-packed sand, calling over his shoulder to Meg, “Stay here!”
“No!” she said as she hustled after him. “You may need my help!”
Frank knew there was no time to argue with her. He wanted to get back to the rest of the survivors as fast as he could. It was possible that they had just spotted a bear or a moose and were blazing away at it, but he had a bad feeling that this was something worse.
A point of land jutted out into the water ahead of them. Frank and Meg had walked around it without him really noticing it. That point cut off the view down the beach.
Instinct suddenly send Frank veering toward the trees on the point. “Follow me!” he called to Meg. He didn’t want to go charging blindly around there until he knew what the situation was. He whistled Dog back beside him, too.
They slowed as they reached the trees. The shooting stopped, and an ominous silence fell over the beach. Frank crouched and held the Winchester at the ready as he weaved his way through the trunks. The thick carpet of decaying pine needles muffled his footsteps. Meg started to say something, but Frank made a curt gesture that silenced her. He didn’t want to give away their presence.
As they neared the far edge of the trees, he went to his belly and motioned for Meg to do likewise. They crawled forward until they could look along the beach and see what was happening.
Meg’s breath hissed between her teeth in surprise. Frank didn’t make a sound, but his jaw tightened. He watched as eight roughly dressed, heavily armed hardcases rounded up Fiona and the nine remaining young women. Conway, Neville, and the other three cheechakos were sprawled limply on the sand. Frank saw blood staining their clothes, and none of them moved.
“My God,” Meg whispered. “Oh, Frank—”
“Shhh.”
