Dorothy Garlock - [Colorado Wind 03] Read Online Free PDF Page A

Damn! For several weeks now, off and on he’d had the pain. This was the worst one yet. A doctor in Kansas City had told him he had worms. The concoction he had given him to kill them tasted so vile that Kain had taken half of it and tossed the rest out the train window on the way to Dodge City. Now he wondered at the wisdom of his impulsive action.
    The pain passed, but left him shaken. He stood still and waited, hoping it was over. He’d never known physical pain and this pain robbed him of his strength. He resented it. Right now all he wanted to do was lie down and sleep. He felt his stomach. It was sore, but the pain had gone.
    Once he was back at the hotel, Kain stretched out on the bed. He had a sudden yearning for Colorado and tried and true friends such as Griffin and Cooper. He thought of Lorna and her beautiful voice, and of Mrs. Parnell. A picture of Vanessa floated into his mind, but it was an incomplete picture. He wondered, once again, what she would look like without that damn bonnet.
     
    *  *  *
     
    Vanessa sat beside Ellie on the wagon seat with one booted foot on the rail in front of her. She shifted the reins so she could pull her hat down tighter on her head. From a distance she looked like a young boy in the breeches and shirt, and that was just what she wanted folks to think she was. She wore her hair braided in a tight coronet that fit snugly into the crown of one of Henry’s old broad-brimmed hats that came down over her ears. Ellie had been horrified when Vanessa had first put on the pants, but after a few encounters with passersby, she saw the wisdom of the disguise.
    Vanessa liked the freedom the breeches afforded her when she climbed up onto the wagon seat, or rode astride, although she had been wearing a split riding skirt for years.
    The first few days after they had left Springfield, Vanessa had thought her arms were going to be pulled from their sockets, and she often had to exchange places with Henry, who rode the horse alongside the wagon and kept an eye on the extra mules tied behind. But now her arms had developed muscles, and the reins in her leather-gloved hands no longer caused blisters.
    As the day wore on, Vanessa looked behind from time to time to the wagon that had pulled onto the trail to follow them when they left Dodge City. It stayed a mile or so back and made no attempt to catch up. She and Ellie talked about it and wondered if it was carrying a family going west or a rawhider going out to find the buffalo herds. They met several wagons going toward Dodge City, but the only people who passed them were a troop of soldiers. The captain leading the platoon had tipped his hat to Ellie and kept his men well out to the side so as to not stir up the dust until they were far ahead of them.
    That night they pulled off the trail and camped beside an abandoned soddy. There was a pole corral of sorts, and after Vanessa and Henry set a few crossbars right they turned their stock inside. After that they explored the soddy like curious youngsters while Ellie prepared the evening meal. The soddy was dark and smelled musty, and Vanessa wondered how anyone could have lived there.
    “I found some pieces of blue glass,” she called out to Henry just before she heard the angry rattle of a snake. “Oh! Henry, let’s get out of here!”
    They bolted for the door.
    “What was it, Van? I saw some spoons and things.”
    “Snakes.” A cold shudder ran down her back. “We’ll not do that again, Henry. Stay out of places like that, hear?”
    “Oh, golly, Van. I never saw anything.”
    Ellie was shaking out the cloth she insisted on using on the fold-down table when a man approached their camp and stopped some fifty yards off, his hands held up. Vanessa recognized him as the old man who had witnessed the fight and had spread the word about the pies. Nevertheless she sidled over to where she had leaned the shotgun against the wagon.
    “Howdy,” he called. “Is it all right if I come