His parents, Bainbridge and Clairee, survived until 1864 only to die within an hour of one another.
“Daddy loved Mama so.” Malcolm’s drawl grew more pronounced the more he spoke of his long-lost Tennessee home. “He couldn’t bear to go on without her. She was the very light of his life.”
The back of my head rested on his left shoulder as Aces walked for a brief spell, and I turned my nose toward his chest, eyes closed as I breathed his scent, lulled by exhaustion and the beat of hooves, by Malcolm’s stories and the security of his arms.
I felt his chest rise as he inhaled; his words rumbled against my spine as he continued the story. “Boyd and Sawyer came for me a few months later, after I’d given up all hope. I figured I was an orphan through and through, but by the grace of God they returned to me.”
“When did you meet Lorie?” I asked when he next paused for a breath.
“My first sight of her was just outside of St. Louis, the summer of ’sixty-eight. I was but twelve years old and I figured she was an angel straight from heaven. My brother and Sawyer, and our old friend, Angus Warfield, rescued her that very night.”
“Rescued her?”
“She worked as a prostitute, was forced into it when she was no more than fifteen. She’d been raised but miles from our hometown back in Tennessee and Angus recognized her. He took her away from the place where she worked, where she lived no better than a prisoner.”
I thought of the way Grandma and Aunt Ellen had always claimed there was a ‘saloon girl’ in our family tree; Ruthie, Tish, and I always assumed they were just trying to spice up our ancestors.
Hours passed while Aces cantered southeast; I’d never realized nor appreciated a horse’s true stamina. Though Malcolm asked several times if I was all right, we kept an overall breakneck pace, not stopping for food or water until late afternoon. He lifted me to the ground a few feet from a small creek and I sank to the ground with my first step, my legs stiff as plywood planks. Despite the gravity of the situation and the weight of urgent stress like a yoke across my shoulders, laughter bubbled from my belly as I ended up cross-legged on the warm earth.
“I’m so sweaty and dirty,” I moaned, laughing harder still, grinding my fingertips against my grimy forehead. “I smell awful.”
Malcolm’s grin – Mathias’s grin – lit up his entire face. “You don’t smell anything but wonderful, believe me. And I would know, as your hair’s been tickling my face for the past twenty-five miles.”
I hooked my chin on my left shoulder, looking up at him as he stood nearby, hands latched on his lean hips. He’d let his hat fall down his back; his hair was wild with disarray, plastered to his temples with sweat as he grinned. He was so handsome, and so very familiar, and a hot, vibrating pulse ricocheted like an electric charge through my center. I mustered a teasing tone to cover my nerves. “Well, you could have said something.”
“I didn’t say I minded, did I?” His grin widened.
“No, but…” I faltered, smile dissipating like dandelion seeds in a rush of air. Increasingly flustered I turned away and rose to both feet, summoning every ounce of willpower to keep steady.
Malcolm sensed my agitation and was intuitive enough not to tease further, leading Aces to the creek; he crouched near his horse and filled his canteen while I knelt a few yards downstream and splashed water over my blistering face. Taking care not to simultaneously peel off my t-shirt I stripped from my sweater, tossing it well away from the water, and then splashed my face again. Malcolm kept his attention pointedly focused on the tasks at hand, while I self-consciously swiped at the sweat rings decorating my collar and armpits. I did smell terrible, even if he was too kind to admit it.
“How much farther?” I asked.
He straightened and offered me the canteen; I gulped gratefully, water trickling over my chin.
“Muscatine isn’t more than five miles. Half an hour, at most.” He nodded at the canteen in my hand. “Have another sip, you’ve lost fluid this day.”
“And you think someone will be willing to ride out to the Rawleys’ place tonight and warn them?” I asked after another swallow of the icy creek water. I pictured Ruthie and Marshall, hundreds of miles west in Montana, unaware of the danger headed their way.
“I pray so. A good rider with a solid horse can make it to their ranch by tomorrow morning if they leave immediately.” Our gazes held for a beat, then longer; my heart thrust with such force I was sure he could hear it. He drew a slow breath, accepting his canteen as I handed it over, bringing it to his lips to swallow two large gulps before saying, “As should we.”
Muscatine appeared on the horizon twenty minutes later, a small town on the Mississippi River. I stared with wide eyes at the sights, at horses and buggies and wagons, men and women moving through their day with no idea whatsoever that someone born in the twentieth century gawked at them. These people had never watched television, listened to the radio, or heard of plastic; stupid thoughts took precedence, keeping distress at bay. I hadn’t slept in over forty-eight hours at this point and the fear of failing to accomplish our goal of getting word to Ruthie and Marshall
