“I’m no town-bred miss, mind you.”
Ross’s grin faded to mortification. “Best take care not to sass the colonel, Sister.”
Clay merely chuckled, and she began loosening the mooring lines. He helped Ross position the horse atop the boat’s cleated bottom, then reached for her setting pole like he was born to it. She startled slightly at the touch of his hands on hers.
“Allow me,” he said. At her amusement, he added, “Rather, give me the pole. Betimes my parlor manners follow me onto the frontier.”
She curtsied in reply, earning his appreciative wink. When he turned his back to her, she blew out a silent sigh. Just when she had him boxed up in her thoughts, contained to a quiet corner, out he’d spring again and surprise her, leaving her topsy-turvy.
They shoved off just as effortlessly as they’d done since Pa was alive. Clay threw the heft of his muscled frame into the crossing, and they reached the west shore in record time, a feat that left Ross wide-eyed.
“Ever lost a passenger or animal?” Clay asked.
“In a sudden squall, aye,” Ross replied. “A sow and a goat but no two-legged folk.”
Clay was studying the far shore from which they’d embarked, eye on what Pa had called the River King. It was a towering, fully leafed hardwood, lightning struck at the center but still standing strong.
“Ever consider building a rifle platform in that silver maple?”
Ross and Tessa stared at him.
“Ponder it,” he added, handing back her pole. “Might make a fine lookout with so much sign reported.”
He led his horse up the sandy bank, then swung himself in the saddle. With a fare-thee-well, they poled back across the Buckhannon, the west wind hastening them.
“Pa never saw a need for such,” Ross said in wonderment as they bumped up to the shore.
“And Pa got himself killed,” she replied.
The remainder of the afternoon was spent awaiting the expected party that never materialized, fishing, and pondering the treed platform. Ross even shimmied up the giant maple to determine a suitable height. Soon she was peering up the soaring trunk to see the worn soles of his shoes dangling.
“You all right?” she called.
“Speechless is what I am. Up here you can see clear to Fort Tygart.”
“I’m not much concerned about that,” she answered, setting her jaw against the poison itch now at her back. “The colonel keeps harping about sign. Any of that to be had from up there?”
Silence. And then, as if the wind had knocked him from his perch, there was a soul-shaking rustle as Ross came crashing down through the branches in a flurry of torn leaves and twigs. Breathless, he landed with ankle-bruising force, nearly toppling her.
“The colonel ain’t wrong.” Winded, face stricken, he began backing up the riverbank toward the trail to home. “There’s half a dozen redmen or better at the falls.”
Perilously close. Breath snatched, heart in her throat, Tessa followed him. They were no longer walking but running, she herself hardly slowed by her ten-pound rifle. The fat crappie they’d caught for supper stayed on the bank.
14
They burst into the Swan clearing, alerting Zadock stacking wood and Jasper corralled with the horses. In one agile leap, Ross jumped atop the nearest mount and dashed north to sound an alarm.
Tessa looked about wildly. “Where’s Cyrus?”
“Gone hunting,” Jasper replied as coolly as if she’d merely warned of wasps.
Soon all were barred inside the cabin save Ross and Cyrus. Cyrus’s fondness for turkey, the deafening shot that brought one down, might spell the end of him.
And Clay? Tessa paced by the hearth, the sound of guns being readied and positions taken in the adjoining blockhouse raking her nerves. Clay was out there somewhere. Lord, hedge him in.
Just as she’d heeded Ma’s advice and settled on a chair, a terrific roar tore through the cabin. She started, staunching the urge to throw her apron over her head like she’d done in childhood. The very cabin seemed to shake.
Who had shot—and why?
