Page 23 of Head Room (Caught Dead in Wyoming #15)

I’d started my day early enough that I had time before the lunch with Mike, Needham, and Needham’s guest. I used it to swing by my house.

It was a blue-sky day. A little cooler than the previous week, but nice in the sun. So I sat outside, getting a little manuscript reading in while Shadow explored his back yard kingdom.

* * * *

Without looking, she knew when the tall one stood and walked away. But she still felt his regard when he reached the opposite side of the room.

“None of this changes the question of what’s to be done with her. She has no husband, she has no parents, she has no family.”

“We could use a laundress, and the regulations do say we’re entitled to one,” somebody offered.

“Yes, but can she do that work?”

“Looks like she’s been doing plenty enough work for those savages,” a new voice from behind her said, and Maggie sensed a sympathy for her in the answering grumbles. But sympathy could evaporate as quickly as dew under a hot sun.

“We can sign her up like she’s a laundress, but we don’t have to make her do the work,” offered Peter, the young one. “We could let her get back on her feet like.”

“Yeah? Then we’d all be responsible for her—and I for one ain’t willing.” That was Stelmen Viess, the bearded one.

“I do think the company as a whole cannot be held responsible for her well-being,” agreed the captain, though Maggie thought from his voice that he didn’t particularly care to be agreeing with Stelmen Viess.

“Then let one person be responsible for her,” the tall one said.

“Who?” asked the captain.

“A husband.”

The jumble of voices exclaiming at the tall one’s answer buzzed in her head with her own thoughts. She’d had a husband. She did not want another.

“She would get pay as a laundress,” offered the captain. “Her husband would have that, as well as preference for private quarters.”

“My God, who’d want her?” thundered Viess. “A bunch of savages’ leavings. She’s probably been bedded by every—”

“Not likely.”

This new voice came from a dark corner, from the man with the empty eyes and the down-turned mustache.

“Aw, c’mon, Major, we’ve heard what Indians do to white women,” said Stelmen Viess.

“Indians have as wide a spread in their treatment of white women as white men do.” His tone made it clear empty-eyes — Major, they called him — put Stelmen Viess at the low end of the spread.

“Some use white women that way, some make them servants, some take them in, marry them, and make them close to a regular member of the tribe.

“They’re about as varied with that as they are with how they treat captives from other tribes. But one thing’s different about this woman.”

Even with her head lowered, Maggie could tell Major had drawn every man’s eye to him . . . except, she thought, the tall one’s. She still felt the weight of his look resting on the right side of her face, the way she could feel the warmth of the fire on her without having to see it.

“What’s different?” a voice from behind her, finally asked.

“Her hair.”

Now Maggie could feel all eyes on her, and she had to fight the urge to curl into a tight ball and try to disappear.

“Her hair? It’s red.”

“That’s right. I figure that’s what kept her alive when they killed all the rest at that road ranch.

A lot of Indians think red hair’s a sign of madness—at best—and the devil at worst. Some bands wouldn’t have risked taking her captive at all.

Likely the ones who took her were afraid enough of her not to kill her.

They tried to subdue her—subdue the devil—by making her a slave.

Beating her would take some bravery, by their view, but that wouldn’t involve the same sort of risk as bedding her. ”

“Well, that theory’s all fine and dandy, Major,” said Viess. “But there’s no knowing if it’s true is there? And who’d be willing to take the chance for a skirt that acts more dead than alive and stinks worse’n a pile of corpses for God’s sake.”

“Me.”

The tall one’s single word cut off the spate of sourness from Stelmen Viess.

Maggie felt her pulse speed up, like the night she’d tried to escape, pounding heavy and loud in her ears.

“I don’t know what you have in mind, Fletcher,” the captain began with worried caution, “but—”

“I’ll marry her.”

“What!”

“Ransom, are you crazy?” someone asked.

The tall one pushed away from the wall and came back to crouch by her side as he had before. She could feel him watching her, feel his breath against the side of her bent neck.

“Will you marry me, Maggie?”

The question confused her, reality and images blurred and blended.

He had traded the horses for her, hadn’t he? So he owned her by Indian ways. Those were clear.

Gregson’s claim on her had been less clear.

Dick Gregson, swallowing from another of those flat bottles, said Maggie had to marry him and tend his house and his girls because she’d been eating his food all those years.

She’d spoken up then, said she’d earned that food by working for it. He’d said he’d show her what she earned, and cracked her across the mouth. He’d fed her before she was worth anything working, he’d said as he leaned over to hit her again, and now she owed him.

She remembered the taste of blood. And the smell on his breath from the flat bottle.

She owed this tall man, too. He’d given horses for her. He could do with her what he wanted. So why was he asking? Was this a trick?

“Ransom . . .” The tense voice was the young Peter. He sounded as if he wanted to cry. “Ransom, don’t do this.”

The tall one ignored him.

“I won’t ever hurt you, Maggie.”

There was that soft voice, again, trying to lure her out, make her risk the believing of promises.

“Will you marry me?”

Asking again. What was she supposed to do? It was like those first days with the tribe. Not knowing what step would be wrong, but knowing that doing nothing would be sure to earn a blow. Better to try, then store each morsel of knowledge, never to make the same mistake twice.

The tall one wanted her to answer a question she had no say in, so she would give an answer, and hope it was the right one.

She didn’t look up, she didn’t speak. But she raised her head slightly, then dropped it.

“The lady said yes,” the tall one said, his voice sounding strange, sadder now.

No blow fell, and she knew she should be grateful. But there was room for only one thought: Ransom. That’s what Peter had called him. The tall one’s name was Ransom.

And now I belong to him.