Though I am a little surprised by the traveling suit.”
Rayna smoothed her skirt. “I thought I should carry one appropriately feminine costume along for my meeting with General Crook.”
“That’s probably wise.” Meade fell silent and dusted at an imaginary spot of dust on his trousers. Good Lord, how was he going to survive the next week?
Already she was wreaking havoc with his senses, turning him into a blather-ing, anxious schoolboy. How much worse would it be once they reached Holbrook and set out alone for Fort Apache?
He didn’t want to consider it. He’d offered to act as her escort so that she’d be protected, but if he didn’t get a firm grasp on his emotions, Rayna would need someone to protect her from him.
They completed the ride to the station in silence and discovered that the train had already arrived. Fighting the crowd, they made their way through the depot to the platform where a porter took their baggage and pointed them to the Liberty Pullman. Rayna allowed Meade to take her arm, and they fell into the stream of passengers moving down the length of the train.
Ahead of them, a young stable hand and a baggage man were approaching, leading a spirited-looking gray Arabian stallion toward the stock cars. As the crowd made way, Meade stepped aside and paused. “Magnificent animal,”
he commented, studying the horse’s features. “Look at the conformation . . .
the perfect arch of the crest.”
“Yes, he’s a real beauty,” Rayna said lovingly, surprised by Meade’s knowledge of horses. She shouldn’t have been, of course. He was a cavalryman, after all, but as she recalled, the horse he’d been riding at Rancho Verde had been undistinguished. She couldn’t fault him for that, though.
“I imagine he has incredible speed and endurance,” he said appreciatively as the horse drew alongside him. Unfortunately, at that moment the train whistle shrilled loudly, spooking the horse, which had already been unnerved by the crowd and hubbub of the train yard. The stallion reared, clawing the air with his hooves, and as the passengers screeched and scrambled for safety, Meade grabbed Rayna to pull her out of the way.
Naturally Rayna had other ideas. The frightened horse reared again, straining against its lead rope, and the stableboy lost his hold. Before the wild-eyed Arabian could bolt, Rayna sprang forward and grabbed the lead.
“Easy, boy, easy,” she crooned, pulling down hard on the hackamore. The animal shied away, but Rayna held on. The battle between the lovely young lady in the beige traveling suit and the powerful stallion should have been a woefully one-sided one, but it wasn’t. When the horse tried to rear again, 153
Constance Bennett—Moonsong
[ e - r e a d s ]
Rayna applied all her weight against the rope, tightening the hackamore around his nose, and the stallion quieted.
“Good boy. Easy, boy. There’s a good fellow.” A spattering of applause swept through the crowd, and Rayna stroked the stallion’s nose to keep him quiet.
Feeling like an ineffectual fool, Meade watched Rayna turn the spirited Arabian into a docile pet. Why on earth had he bothered trying to protect her? “Strong, beautiful, skittish, and mean-tempered, to boot,” he muttered churlishly as he moved toward Rayna and the horse.
“He’s not mean; he’s just high-spirited,” she said lightly, stroking the animal’s nose. “That’s the price you sometimes have to pay for a horse this well bred.”
“Well, I wouldn’t pay a greenback dollar for him.”
Rayna shot him an exasperated glance, then handed the lead to the stableboy. “Keep a firm hand on this from now on,” she advised.
“Yes, ma’am. And thank you.” The crowd applauded again as the boy led the Arabian away.
“If you’re finished performing feats of derring-do for your grateful public, could we go now?”
Rayna frowned at him as they began moving briskly toward the Pullman car. “What is wrong with you? I very likely averted a serious accident, and you’re treating me as though I’d done something wrong.”
“You could have been killed,” he snapped as he took her arm and helped her up the steps to the car. “That animal obviously needs a great deal of training and gentling before he’ll be fit for anything but showing off.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. It wasn’t Triton’s fault the engineer blew the whistle.”
“Triton?” Meade frowned as they moved into a coach that looked more like a drawing room parlor than a train car.
“The horse,” she replied, glancing around for a seat. “The name is a mytho-logical reference to—”
“I know what it refers to,” he snapped. “How do you know what he’s called?”
Rayna settled onto a reasonably comfortable padded sofa. “I know his name because I’m his new owner. I bought him yesterday.”
Meade glared down at her. “You what?”
She looked up at him innocently, truly unable to imagine where his ani-mosity had come from. “I bought him from a breeder who lives just outside Santa Fe,” she explained. “Papa and I buy a great deal of our stock from him.”
Meade was still staring at her. “What on earth is wrong? You didn’t think I was going to walk to Fort Apache, did you?”
“No, but I expected—” A fellow passenger jostled Meade, and he joined Rayna on the sofa, lowering his voice. “I expected that we’d find a couple of 154
Constance Bennett—Moonsong
[ e - r e a d s ]
serviceable trail horses in Holbrook. I didn’t know you’d go out and pay a king’s ransom for a man-killing stallion.”
“He is not a man-killer, and you’re being contrary for no reason, Meade,”
she said, finally losing her patience.
“That’s because you make me angry with the ridiculous things you do,” he flung back at her.
“If that’s the case, why the devil did you offer to escort me to Fort Apache?”
she snapped.
“Because you needed help and it was the gentlemanly thing to do.”
“Then why don’t you start acting like a gentleman?”
“I will when you start acting like a lady!”
Every head in the coach swiveled toward them, but that didn’t keep Meade from wanting to wrap his hands around Rayna’s lovely throat and strangle her.
Calming herself, she fixed him with her most determined gaze and lowered her voice. “Meade, I didn’t ask for your help, and I certainly didn’t ask to be snipped at, condescended to, and scolded like a child at every turn.”
“I’m sorry. You’re absolutely right. How you conduct yourself is your own business.” Despite his apology, he didn’t sound the least bit remorseful.
“Remember that, or I’ll go back to my original plan and find another guide in Holbrook.”
“Perhaps you should.”
“Perhaps I will!”
They glared at each other until finally Meade turned away in disgust, wondering if he would ever be able to get the last word in on Miss Rayna Templeton.
155
Constance Bennett—Moonsong
[ e - r e a d s ]
13
Despite the tragic complexities of her situation, life became very simple for Skylar over the next few days. It was an endless, exhausting cycle of sleeping and moving on. Knowing the soldiers would expect him to go south to join Geronimo, Sun Hawk headed north instead, leading Skylar through the most rugged parts of the mountains so that they would be more difficult to track. On the third day they came down to the northern foothills of the Caliente range. A storm blew up, and they took shelter beneath a rock shelf, sleeping through the afternoon so that they could cross the long valley under the cover of darkness that night.
The next morning they crossed the Manosa River and slipped into the southern foothills of the White Mountains.