The Reaper's Song Read Online Free PDF Page A

nothing.”
    “You did. And I thought about that. But I got to get on to Canada before—” He clamped his lips closed.
    “Afore what?” She cocked her head and studied him out of mistrusting eyes.
    “I just got to do it, that’s all.” With the ease of train travel now, the Galloway brothers could be anywhere. While he had grown a mustache—a beard had itched too bad—someone could put two and two together. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t let go of the way he talked. Up here his Missouri accent stood out like a black sheep in a flock of white. Maybe he should have headed south to Mexico.
    “Then you just git on yer goin’. Deborah and me, we’ll be fine, and our pa will come home any day now. Don’t you worry none.”
    “I wish.” While he muttered it under his breath, the look she shot him reminded him she had good ears. He sat up straighter. What he wouldn’t give for a cup of coffee right about now. Or something stronger. He tried again. Reasoning with her was like tryingto talk a polecat out of the hen house. If it doused you or ate the chickens and eggs, you lost either way.
    “That deer I brought in won’t last forever. The beans are about gone, and we cleaned up the cornmeal this morning. Lessen you got something stored in the back you ain’t tellin’ me . . .” He let the sentence drift off. He knew there was nothing more than what he’d brought in. Even worse, she was down to three bullets for the rifle. The best shot in the world couldn’t live long on that. If he knew more about the edibles in this godforsaken land, he’d have gone out digging for tubers and such. Like his ma did to survive the war. She’d taught him well. But until something sprouted, he didn’t know where to look. Just digging anywhere was a mighty big waste of time and muscle. He hadn’t yet suggested snares for rabbit, but if he couldn’t get her to go with him, short of throwing them both over his saddle, he’d show her how to set some.
    Manda leaned against the chair back, her arms clamped across her skinny chest like a whalebone corset strapped tight. While she tried to hide it, the war within showed on her face.
    Zeb could feel his tightly strung patience taking a breather. At least she was considering what he’d had to say.
    “Manda?” Deborah’s voice was stronger now.
    “Coming.” Like a child released from school on a summer day, Manda sprang from the chair and dropped to the floor beside her sister’s bed. The hand that had tried to beat him senseless only three days earlier now stroked the child’s head with the gentleness of a mother’s touch.
    She needed a mother’s touch herself, not to be the mother. And father and . . . Zeb shook his head. If the defeated men in the South had half the gumption of this young girl . . . He didn’t let that thought go any further. Visions of his own bitter father who’d never regained his heart and health hurt too bad.
    “We’ll go with you in the morning” was all she said.

    They reached Pierre just as night fell. He shifted the child sleeping in his arms. His left arm had gone to sleep hours earlier. Too well he knew the scarcity of the money in his pockets. No way could they stop at the hotel. And he didn’t dare go by the local sheriff’s.
    Light, laughter, and a tinkling piano tune spilled out the door of the saloon. They rode to the end of what appeared to be the mainstreet. All the other businesses wore dark windows and shuttered doors.
    Should he try at the livery? Perhaps the owner would let them sleep in his barn. They’d stopped earlier and eaten the last of the cooked beans and part of the cooked venison. If only he’d had time to smoke some.
    Carting two kids along sure did slow him down. By himself he’d just roll his blanket out in someone’s barn or ask if he could exchange work for a meal and a place to bed down. Many a night he’d spent under the stars. But this night the stars hid behind roiling clouds. He could feel