“But your father was there.”
“Pa was an important man in town.” She fought to keep her voice calm. “He was friends with the mayor and the sheriff, the banker and the only lawyer in the small town near Philadelphia. He was the friendly face of a very well-respected paper. He took all the credit and never did a lick of the work.”
Trace was silent for a long moment. Then he caught Deb’s hand and turned her to face him. His touch was so warm and strong, it stopped her from her embarrassing talk of her father.
Thank heavens, something stopped her.
CHAPTER
13
“You were on your own at a very young age,” Trace commented. “Just like me.”
Deb looked at their entwined hands. Trace waited for her to pull away. He had no business holding her hand.
And then she tightened her grip on him, and the relief of it washed over him like a spring rain.
“What do you mean, ‘just like me’?” she asked.
She’d tried to get him to talk on their walk home, and he hadn’t said much. Now he found the words rushing out. “My pa died in a wagon train massacre just like the one you were in. I was away from the wagons, hunting. I came back and it was all over. I was alone in the wilderness with an old plow horse and my rifle with not that many bullets and winter coming on.”
On a little gasp, Deb said, “Even worse than me. I wasn’t alone. Oh, Trace, I’m so sorry. How old were you?”
“Maybe not worse. You had children to protect and no horse, and honestly it was a terrible situation, I know that. But . . . well, there’s nothing like being completely alone.” Trace shook his head, looking back into the past. “That trail you were on wasn’t nearly as well traveled back then. A better trail heads for Sacramento, but the one you were on veers almost straight south and you still had some rugged country to cross. My pa and I were with a split-off group from a bigger wagon train that went its own way.”
“That’s exactly what we did. We’d only been with the smaller group for a few days.”
Trace held on tight, so tight he was afraid he’d hurt her. But she didn’t protest, so he didn’t let go. “When we took it, well, especially back then, it was a poor trail. When I found everyone dead, I wasn’t even sure where to go. I headed on south since that was Pa’s plan, but the trail as good as disappeared in spots. I’ve found out since then I went the wrong way and twisted around in the mountains. I ended up in a thick forest that was endless. On cloudy days, I couldn’t even see where the sun rose. I was all right in the woods—Pa had taught me a lot—but I just got so turned around.” He shook his head.
“I finally stopped moving just because I had no idea which direction to go next. West, right? It should’ve been simple. But there were cliffs and streams and trails that just ended or curved so slightly I’d be way off course and not realize it for hours. Before I could figure out where I was headed, the snow started falling. Snow like I’d never seen before. Feet of snow would fall overnight. I had to find shelter.”
“How long ago?”
“I’ve been out here nearly ten years now. I was alone for four or maybe five winters—I lost count—before Adam hired on. By then I was past the worst of it. My old horse didn’t survive the first winter, and it was so harsh and food so scarce, I reckon dying was a mercy for him.”
Trace didn’t say it, but he’d suffered, too. He hadn’t known where to find food on a mountaintop. “Old Rex was my only—” Trace realized he was embarrassing himself, so he finished with a shrug—“my only friend.”
Deb’s free hand touched his arm. The touch was so nice, Trace felt a little addled, and it helped him pass through the strange confession of his animal being his friend. It was true, of course, but saying it out loud sounded foolish.
“I’d been here for a stretch when I found Black and Wolf. Both real young, and we were sort of a . . . family.”
He shut up again. Good grief. A family.
He decided to talk about something less foolish. “By spring I couldn’t figure out why I should go on west. There was nothing there for me. Pa talked of homesteading. It wasn’t legal yet, but he said it was coming, and he’d be right there to grab up some land. But I was so lost I couldn’t even find my way back to the trail the wagon trains traveled on. And if I had gotten to a town, I wasn’t old enough to file a claim.”
He had found the wagon train trail eventually. He’d come upon it because of the smell of burning flesh from a new massacre. Not a single person left alive. And he could’ve found his way out then, but instead the sight of those murdered people had awakened a rage within him, a hunger for revenge. Instead of seeking out a town and people, he’d stayed. And he’d guarded that trail.
It was his ugliest sin, and he didn’t want Deb to know what festered in his heart.
“I found broad meadows and rich grassland and decided to stay. I found a water hole in a box canyon where some wild longhorns came to drink. I put up a fence across the mouth of the canyon, left the gate wide open, waited until the cows walked in for a drink, then swung the gate shut and called them mine. They got used to me and had some calves, and my little herd grew. I’d find a few more cows that wanted
