“Why you—,” he said, before lunging at her.
But one silent step forward from Bud made Abe stop.
Leah blinked her eyes in astonishment and, with her heart pounding from anger and fear, she dared greatly and put her hand on Bud’s bare forearm. “Bud,” she said through a closed throat, “will you lead me back to my husband? I don’t know the way.”
Without a sound Bud slipped away into the trees.
“Don’t try to bother me again or Wesley’ll make you sorry,” Leah said to Abe before following the shadow of Bud.
She slipped into her sleeping pad seemingly only minutes before Wesley woke. She did her best to conceal her nervousness from him, but every sound made her jump. Wesley mentioned her dislike for the forest and told her she had nothing to be afraid of.
“Men are the real danger,” he said, eyeing her. “Take those two last night.”
“What about them?” she asked nervously, then calmed herself. “They weren’t dangerous, were they?”
“Maybe you should answer that.”
“Me? Why me? How could I know anything about them?”
He was silent for a moment. “I just thought women were supposed to know these things, that’s all. Women sometimes say they sense when people are good or bad.”
Leah cursed herself for jumping at him. He didn’t know the man from last night was her brother. He didn’t know she’d sneaked away to talk with him. But she was acting so guilty he was going to guess something was wrong.
“Only rich women have time to guess people’s motives. A Simmons like me has to take people as they are,” she snapped at him.
Wesley seemed about to speak but changed his mind. “True to form,” he muttered. “All right Simmons-Stanford, stay close to me.” With that he began to plow through the trees quickly, leaving Leah standing.
“Damn, damn, damn!” she cursed as she followed him.
For most of the day he stayed very far ahead of her. Only now and again did she glimpse his buckskins. Mostly she kept her head down and trudged along behind him, trying her best not to think of her brother Abe. Would he do something in revenge because she’d refused his request?
By twilight she was beginning to convince herself that Abe did have some family feeling and he wasn’t going to retaliate. Still she kept a lookout behind every tree. She half expected to be kidnapped. That would be Abe’s style.
A shot rang out, echoing off the trees and hills, reverberating all around her.
“Wesley!” she cried and knew with every fiber of her body that it was Abe who’d fired that shot. “Wesley!” she screamed and began to run.
Wesley’s big body lay on the forest floor, silent, still, half sitting against the pack on his back. A great, gaping hole was in his chest.
“Wesley,” Leah said with a gasp, dropping to her knees before him. “Wesley.”
He didn’t answer her but lay there completely still.
“He’s still breathin’,” came a voice over her head. “I didn’t aim to kill him.”
“You!” Leah hissed and launched at her brother.
Abe put his hands up to protect himself. “I told y
ou I needed you and since you ain’t got no family feelin’s I had to do somethin’.”
Leah stopped hitting her brother when she realized the stupidity of his words and turned back to Wesley. Bud was kneeling beside Wes, his big fingers probing at the wound.
“He is alive, isn’t he?” she asked again going to her knees.
Bud nodded once as he removed a knife from his side.
“No!” Leah screamed, grabbing the big forearm with both her hands. “Please don’t kill him. I’ll do whatever you want.”