"Janna, huh?" Ty asked. "Is that your real name, kid?"
She threw him a quick, sideways glance, looked away and nodded very slightly.
Ty's right hand flashed out as he yanked off the floppy old hat Janna always wore. Two long, thick, Indian-style braids fell down her back. The braids were tied with leather thongs. An Indian band went around her forehead and tied in back, keeping any stray locks from escaping the hat's confinement. Her hair was a dark auburn that shimmered with unexpected fire whenever her head moved. In contrast
with the darkness of her hair, the pale, crystalline depths of her eyes looked as brilliant as diamonds. The delicacy of her bone structure and the fine-grained texture of her skin seemed to taunt him for his blindness.
"Well, kid," drawled Ty, narrow eyed, furious with himself for having been deceived and with her for having deceived him, "I'll say this-you made a prettier boy than you do a girl."
Mad Jack's rustling chuckle did nothing to make Ty feel better. He flipped the hat over Janna's head and pulled down hard, covering her to her nostrils.
"Fooled ya, did she?" Mad Jack asked, slapping his hands together in pleasure. "Don't feel bad, son. That's a right clever gal. She's got the Indians believing she a bruja- a witch-and the mustangs believing she's just a funny kind of two-legged horse."
Ty grunted.
" 'Course," Mad Jack continued, looking at Ty's nearly bare, tanned body, "a body what runs around near naked and sneaks up on folks might be accused of tryin' to make folks think he's an Injun. Might also explain why a young lady might want to be taken fer a boy."
"Lady?" Ty asked sardonically, looking up and down Janna's ragged length. "That might indeed be a female, Jack, but it sure as hell isn't a lady. A lady wouldn't be caught dead in that outfit."
Janna ignored the hurt caused by Ty's caustic comments and let her anger bubble forth instead. She turned to Mad Jack and spoke in the cool, cultured voice that her father had taught her was appropriate for reading Shakespeare.
"Of course, you have to understand that Ty is an expert on ladies. You can tell that just by looking at him. Note the fashionably cut pants and the spotless linen shirt. His suit coat is obviously handmade from the finest blend of silk and wool. His boots are fine examples of craftsmanship raised to the level of art. His own skin couldn't fit him better."
Long before Janna had finished her sarcastic summary of Ty's attire, Mad Jack was laughing so hard he nearly swallowed his cud of tobacco. Ty's smile was a bleak warning curve carved out of the blackness of his beard.
"There's more to a man than his clothes," Ty said.
"But not to a woman, hmm?"
"Kid, you don't have enough curves to be a woman." Ty turned away before Janna could say anything more. "I'm going to the Tub," he said, using Janna's nickname for the deep pool in which they both bathed-separately. "Don't worry about hurrying along to scrub my back. I can reach it just fine."
Careful to show no expression at all, Janna watched Ty stalk from the camp. Then she turned and began preparing an herbal tea for Mad Jack.
"Sorry, gal," Mad Jack said, watching her work. "If I'd thunk about it, I wouldn't've opened my trap. You want I should stay with you?"
Janna shook her head. "It's not necessary. I know how restless you get after you've been in camp for a few hours. Ty's mad, but he'll get over it."
"That wasn't what I meant. Now that he knows you're a female, maybe you won't be wanting to be alone with him."
"There won't be any problem," Janna said unhappily. "You heard him. He thinks I'm about as appealing as a fence post." She shrugged, trying to appear casual about her lack of feminine allure.
Mad Jack's faded eyes watched Janna shrewdly. "And you be kinda wishin' it was otherwise," he said after a moment.
She opened her mouth to object forcefully, then realized there was no point in denying the truth, no matter how painful that truth might be.
"Yes, I'd like to be attractive to him. What woman wouldn't? He's all man," Janna said. She added a pinch of herbs to the tiny pot. "And he's a good man. Even when he was half out of his head with pain, his first instinct was still to protect me rather than himself. He'd never force himself on me." She grimaced and added wryly, "Not that he'd ever have the chance. I'd probably say yes so quick it would make his head spin."
Mad Jack hesitated, then sighed. "Gal, I don't know how much your pa told you about babies and such, but more women have spent their lives wishin' they'd said no than otherwise. When the urge is ridin' a man, he'll talk sweet as molasses and promise things he has no damn intention of giving."
"Ty wouldn't lie to me like that."
"You can't rightly call it lyin'. When a man's crotch is aching, he don't know lies from truth," Mad Jack said bluntly. "It's natural. If menfolk stood around wonderin' what was right instead of doin' what come natural like, there wouldn't be enough babies to keep the world goin'."
Janna made a neutral sound and stirred the herbal tea. Despite the faint suggestion of red on his weathered face, Mad Jack forged ahead with his warning about the unde-pendable nature of men.
"What I'm tryin' to say," Mad Jack muttered as he dug around in his stained shirt pocket for a plug of tobacco, "is that's a big stud hoss you found, and he's getting right healthy again. He'll be waking up hard as stone of a mornin' and he'll be lookin' for a soft place to ease what's aching."
Janna ducked her head, grateful for the floppy brim of the hat, which concealed her face. She didn't know whether to throw the steaming tea at Mad Jack or to hug him for trying to do what he was obviously ill-suited to do, which was to be a Dutch uncle to a girl who had no family.
"Now, I know I'm being too blunt," Mad Jack continued doggedly, "but dammit, gal, you ain't got no womenfolk to warn you about a man's ways. Next thing you know, you'll be gettin* fat, and I can tell you flat out it won't be from nothing you eat."
"Your tea is ready."
"Gal, you understand what I been sayin'?"
"I know where babies come from and how they get there, if that's what you mean," Janna said succinctly.
"That's what I mean," Mad Jack mumbled.
Janna glanced up and made an irritated sound as she saw Mad Jack sawing away on a plug of tobacco with his pocketknife. "No wonder your stomach is as sour as last month's milk. That stuff would gag a skunk."
Dry laughter denied her words. "I'm at the age when a good chew is my only comfort. That and finding a mite of gold here and there. I done right well for myself since your pa died. I been thinking 'bout it, and I done decided. I want you to take some gold and get shuck of this place."
The immediate objections that came to Janna's lips were overridden by Mad Jack, who didn't stop speaking even while he pushed a chunk of tobacco into his mouth and started chewing with gusto.
"Now you just listen to me, gal. Territory's gettin' too damn crowded. One of these days the wrong man's going to cut your trail, the kind of man what don't care about sweet talkin' or protecting or any damn thing but his own pleasure. And I don't mean just renegades, neither. Some of them pony soldiers is as bad as Injuns, an' the scum selling rifles to Cascabel is no better than him."
Mad Jack looked at Janna as she worked gracefully over the fire, every line of her body proclaiming both her femininity and her unwillingness to listen to his advice.
"It's gettin' too damn dangerous out here for any woman a'tall, even one wearing men's clothes. You be too good a woman to go to waste out here alone."
"I've done fine for five years."
He snorted. "Fine, huh? Look at you, thin as a mare nursing two foals. You want to get a man, you gotta put meat on them bones."