Click to join
JenniferMuellergroup
Enter Card Pick-up ID below:
The Wolf Within Excerpt
The next station afforded them lunch; Gabrielle walked out on the rancid pork and stretched her legs. A sea of yellow and purple flowers of every shade grew as far as the eye could see with the shadows of the clouds sailing across the treeless prairie. There had been a heavy storm only weeks before that soaked the land with inches of rain and brought the flowers into bloom despite the late time of year. As she walked back, she heard the hostler fighting with the horses as he tried to hook them up. The switch in his hand rose to try to beat them into submission.
"Stop." Gabrielle said quietly. The man turned out of shock he hadn't heard her coming. "Give me his reins."
"He'll kill you ma'am."
Charlie the driver came had come out after eating to hear her request. "Give them to her Zeb let's see what the little woman can do." He started laughing and Zeb joined in. There was no emotion on her face when she turned she could have won at poker with only a pair. He looked again she could have won with nothing. Her heart was like stone even if her eyes glowed like green fire. The laughter died in an instant. Something told him her look was appraising him in a completely different manner. It was as if she was deciding not that he was worth her time, but that she was deciding if he was worth letting live.
Gabrielle didn't fight the horse though she kept a good hold on the reins and she just held her hand out. Charlie couldn't make out what she was saying but deep and lilting he could hear her speaking. The horse quieted slowly and soon was sniffing her hand. She rubbed his neck for a moment before she suddenly grabbed hold of his mane and swung up onto his back. She rode him over to the coach and the hostler hooked him up. With each horse, she talked to them so low that no one could hear her, some she rode over, and some she just led. As they stood there quietly, Zeb was scratching his head at a team of horses that he had to fight with every day for weeks.
Charlie beamed. "After that performance you can ride up top."
"But sir I was hoping . . ." The man that had annoyed her said as he came out of the building with the others.
"My coach my choice and if you push it I'll leave you here for the next coach that comes along. Bob you're in back for a while." The man clamped his mouth closed and boarded sullenly. Bob did too; he wasn't put in back too often.
Helen and Euphemia climbed in after the one other passenger and they were off with no more than the usual lurch as the formerly wild horses took them onward. Charlie started talking about all the close shaves he'd had, run ins with Indians, weather, breakdowns. Gabrielle just sat there facing forward not seeming to hear a word he said, not seeming to notice the terrain that slipped beneath them at breakneck speed. He was used to everyone being impressed with him, and being treated as an equal to the great of the land. This woman though with that look in her eyes, she wasn't treating him badly just not caring about all his exploits.
"Are you comfortable?" He asked at long last instead of just telling her stories.
"I prefer a horse."
"Then why aren't you riding?"
"The two women with me."
"I don't suppose you'd tell me how you know all that with the horses?"
Her answer was firm. "No."
Charlie smiled. She said what she meant or perhaps even more to the point, she said what she wanted even if she knew it might offend. "Most other women would have been up here screeching for their lives by now."
"Is that why you wanted me to sit up here hoping I'd cling to you in fear even though you drive this coach like an expert."
"Now that is the talk I like to hear; praise from the lips of a beautiful woman does my ego good." Not even thinking Gabrielle rested her leg up on the rail around the box. The knife fell into view, a full 18 inches long and strapped to her calf.
The driver looked ahead pretending he didn't see, but she caught the looks out of the corner of his eye every now and then. "Imagine you're just accidentally showing that for my benefit."
"I'm just trying to get comfortable and those stories you told what exactly were they supposed to be? You just accidentally told them to me is that your story."
Charlie laughed heartily. "I'm having a harder and harder time seeing any man getting into your bed the longer you sit here despite the ring."
Those green eyes were a window into her soul and it was a wild look that greeted him, but she would let him live a while longer. "He is a very patient man that knows my knife is a sharp as my tongue."
"Somehow that doesn't seem like a brag and more like a threat."
Gabrielle shrugged her shoulders and they slipped into silence. The warning that the other two women had given them was loud in his head. The laughter didn't surface anymore; he believed it more each minute.