Trail Angel Read Online Free Page B

men’s faces as they imagined themselves stalking such game.
    Then he finished with a flourish that left every man’s eyes alight with a different kind of hunger. “Follow me and you will come to the gold fields of Montana having saved four hundred and fifty miles and at least six weeks through the mountains.”
    He looked at his empty pipe, seeming to deliberate whether he had time for a second smoke and deciding against it. He looked to have no doubt of the company’s verdict, even as the men moved off to discuss what they had heard.
    Annabelle came to him and offered coffee, hoping to hear what he discussed with Josey Angel. The Colonel declined with a wave of his pipe, as if he could indulge in only one proclivity at a time. Josey Angel, still silent, looked past her as if she weren’t there.
    Standing so close, she saw that his cheeks were thin and his shirt loose, like a son who takes his father’s clothes before he can completely fill them out. He was older than he appeared at first, probably close to her age. Weariness hung over him, like he had seen more years than he lived. His eyes were just as restless as his fidgeting hands, sweeping across the people before him.
    Men with guns didn’t frighten Annabelle. She had known many soldiers, but a gunman seemed different. A soldier was told when to fight, and after the battle he put down his rifle. A gunman always had to be alert, the fight never done. Not until he was dead.
    Annabelle shivered at the thought as Josey Angel’s eyes found her. She felt herself turning red through the chest and face and cursed her foolishness for reacting so.
    The whole time she had been watching Josey Angel, his face had been blank, as if all emotion had bled away from an unseen wound. When she looked back to see his eyes still on her, she realized this wasn’t true. The tiniest twitch at the side of his mouth betrayed him, a movement so slight it would have gone unnoticed on anyone else. Yet on Josey Angel’s blank face it registered as— what? —a smile? An involuntary shudder chased the heat from her face.
    Annabelle was a strong woman. Her mother would say too strong, repelling men when she should be alluring. Her mother didn’t understand, and Annabelle had never been able to tell why she had vowed no man would hurt her again. No man could, so long as she stayed strong.
    That was why men with guns didn’t frighten her. A woman posed no threat to such men. A man who looked at her the way Josey Angel did, that was different. A man like Josey Angel made her feel weak.

C HAPTER F IVE
    Josey woke to find the Colonel watching him. The old man had added wood to the fire at their campsite. Wet with dew, it sizzled and popped like echoes of gunfire. The smell of wood smoke brought back memories he preferred to forget.
    â€œBad dreams?”
    â€œCan they be dreams if you lived them?” Josey couldn’t have been asleep long, but his back was sore. He reached beneath his blanket and found a small stone and cast it aside. “Doesn’t that make them memories?”
    â€œNot when you sleep.”The Colonel smiled. The gesture raised the droopy gray mustache like a cocked eyebrow. “Then they’re called dreams.”
    â€œOr nightmares.”
    â€œNah. You can’t have a nightmare about something you lived through.”
    Josey frowned. Those are the worst kind.
    They listened as the last of what was alive in the wood burned away. After the Colonel’s speech, it had taken the emigrants only a few minutes to decide to hire the guides. They’d requested another day for final preparations, which suited the Colonel and Josey, particularly after they got half their fee in advance. Returning to camp, they found Lord Byron had a meager supper of beans and cornbread already going, and the men enjoyed the prospect of better meals ahead with the well-stocked travelers.
    Now Byron snored softly in the