“Not alone, you’re not.”
She closed her eyes for a moment and prayed for strength. Her first thought was to try reasoning with him. Appearances to the contrary, no one was trying to harm her. But she couldn’t reassure him of that fact without telling him more than she meant to. As she started walking, she thought she’d try to ignore him, but i
t wasn’t easy to ignore a man six feet three inches tall and weighing, she’d guess, somewhere over two hundred pounds. And, too, he glowered.
Since it was quite unusual in Denver City to see a woman who wasn’t for sale, she caused quite a bit of commotion as she walked down the wide, dirty paths that served as streets. She stopped at tents with crude tables set up outside them, the tables covered with goods from the East. Often, people in the East sold everything they owned to outfit themselves with wagons and basic necessities for the journey to the gold fields, and when they arrived they sold it all for a few pans and shovels and maybe for a bit of land near a stream.
Maddie looked at lanterns, then picked up a very pretty lace collar. As she did so, three dirty miners stopped, their hats crushed to their chests, and stared at her. She turned and smiled at them. “Good morning.”
They nodded back to her.
“Have you found any gold yet?”
One of the men reached into his pocket, but as he withdrew his hand, Captain Montgomery was there, a big hand clamped down on the smaller man’s wrist.
Maddie was embarrassed as well as outraged. She grabbed the captain’s wrist. “My apologies, gentlemen,” she said, and turned away.
“He could have had a gun in his pocket,” ’Ring said from behind her. “I was just protecting—”
“Protecting me from what? A few lonely miners?” She turned and faced him. “Captain Montgomery, go away! Leave me alone!”
“I am going to protect you no matter what I have to do. No matter how unpleasant this is for both of us.”
That did it, she thought as she turned away. Now he was insinuating that it was a burden to have to spend time with her. She marched ahead of him, her fists clenched at her sides. All along the road were curious men stopping to look at this tall, elegant-looking woman being followed by an even taller man. The men began to nudge each other since they could tell that the woman was very angry.
Now I’m an object of ridicule, Maddie thought, and wondered how in the world her life had come to this.
It was at that thought that she decided to stop this charade. She turned to him and gave him her sweetest smile. “Captain Montgomery, I’m hungry.”
“But you just ate.”
What happened to men who were eager to do the bidding of a woman? “Yes, I did, but I’m hungry again. Couldn’t we find someplace to eat?”
He looked over her head. To tell the truth, he was very hungry. He had been living on dried beef and hardtack while everyone else ate fresh meat and, even better, fresh vegetables. But after the opium in the whiskey, he wasn’t going to trust eating at her table. “There’s a wagon over there, and I think they’re selling food.”
Within minutes she had both his hands loaded down with plates of food and a loaf of fresh bread to take back to Edith. She smiled up at him. “Could you please hold this for me while I make a trip to the…you know?”
He looked at the food, steam rising from it. Beef. Potatoes. Corn bread. Peas. He hardly heard what she was saying, but nodded and went to sit on a bench at the side of the wagon. He was so hungry that he’d finished his plate of food and was halfway through hers before he realized she hadn’t returned.
“Damn her,” he muttered. “Damn me,” he amended, and set off to find her. There was no way to track her in a town, but she was distinctive enough to cause people to notice her wherever she went, so he asked questions. There didn’t seem to be a man in town who hadn’t seen her, but their directions were all contradictory.
It was nearly an hour before he found her, standing in a group of Ute women and laughing. He had only a moment to wonder how they were communicating before he bore down on her.
The squaws saw him first and warned Maddie. She started to run straight into the camp, with ’Ring behind her, yelling at her to stop. The Indian women, always ready for a laugh, did everything they could to block ’Ring’s progress, until he had to pick one of the women up and set her aside.
Maddie ran through the village as fast as she could, dodging children and dogs, once bumping into a brave and apologizing profusely, but not slowing down her run. When she reached the end of the camp, she doubled back and ran toward town.
As soon as she reached the edge of town she slowed to catch her breath and smiled. She’d outwitted him as well as outrun him.
A few seconds later she felt a hand on her shoulder, and when she looked up and saw him with something akin to triumph in his eyes, she gave him an I’ll-show-you look, then screamed. “Help me! Help me! Please don’t hit me again!”
Eight men leaped on ’Ring at once, and she went scurrying away. Twenty minutes later he was close on her heels again. Looking over her shoulder, she saw that his usually perfectly combed hair was mussed, there was a red place on his cheek and dust all over his clothes. She grinned and kept running.
She wasn’t sure when she began to enjoy the game, but enjoy it she did. She hid in an empty barrel and nearly giggled aloud when he stood not a foot from her and looked around. She ran into a group of men who were rolling dice on the ground, grabbed the hat off one of the men, and crouched down into the group. The men swarmed closer to help hide her. In fact, one of the men crouched much, much too close and she gave a squeal of protest when, she wasn’t positive, but she thought he pinched her thigh. She jumped, then saw Captain Montgomery turn and see her, so she started running again.
She ran into one of the many saloon tents, paused at the high, rough bar, her head on her hand, and whispered, “Whiskey.” She downed the shot in one swallow, held out the glass for another shot, then saw Captain Montgomery in the doorway. “He’s payin’,” she said, and ran toward the back. The bartender and a couple of men held the captain while he dug money out to pay for her whiskey.
Outside, she quickly asked two men to give her a boost to the top of one of the few buildings in Denver City that had a roof. The men did so gladly, but with a great deal of fumbling hands all over her body.