Dal was waiting, grinning when he saw their wet clothing and wide smiles. He nodded to Les. “I know you’re worried. Go back and watch Ward cross, then get your butt back here.” He called to her before she was out of hearing. “Stay well downstream so you don’t spook the herd.”
She cut west and found a low spot with an unobstructed view. Slipping off Cactus, she walked to the edge of the boiling floodwaters to watch. In a way there was something beautiful about the steady stream of cattle coming down the bank and entering the water, the drovers beside them. Sunlight flashed on bobbing wet horns that appeared to float across the river. The water sparkled and hurled bubbles of foam into the air.
Then she saw Ward. He’d spotted her and was frowning angrily. By now he knew that none of the steers in her charge had drowned. She narrowed her gaze. By his hesitation at the edge of the raging waters, she could guess that he was having second thoughts about crossing on horseback. Dal had told him not to, but he’d stubbornly refused, insisting no one had the right to stop him. His mount backed away from the water, moved forward, backed away again. Pride would take him into the flood. He wouldn’t ride away and choose the ferry, not after watching her cross. But she could see that he was frightened and regretting a foolish decision.
A great weariness settled on Les’s shoulders as she thought ahead to the punishment she would face tonight. They had lost one steer to the quicksand and one to drowning and more would be lost before the crossing was accomplished, but none of the losses could be attributed to her. Ward would make sure she paid for that omission.
She had started to turn away, deciding she didn’t want to watch him cross, when his horse reared and plunged into the tossing river. White-faced, Ward fell forward and grabbed the horse’s neck even before the churning waters whirled up around his waist.
And then something happened in the middle of the floating horns. The center seemed to collapse as the animals there broke the line and spun into the downstream current. Gasping, Les stepped forward, smothering a scream. The horns swept toward Ward, struck him, and his horse sank beneath the surface. Thrashing in the water, unseated, he tried to grab at the horns around him. Then, he was tumbling in the violent currents, and all she could see were flashes of his arms and legs. Voices screamed on the shore, but Les didn’t hear anything except the rush and roar of the river. The steers that had been swept out of the herd vanished beneath the waves, but Ward was struggling to swim, to break free from the deadly current and thrashing animals and angle toward the bank. He was whirling toward her.
His head bobbed above the surface about twenty feet from where she stood, and his eyes met hers. His mouth opened and he shouted something, but she couldn’t hear. He stretched a hand toward her. Their gazes held as he sped abreast of her, then the current hurled him downriver and dragged him underwater. Dashing forward, Les scanned the turbulent surface and her heart slammed against her chest. Frantically, she searched for some glimpse of him, but there was nothing.
The greatest horror came when she looked down and saw her rope in her hands. She might have thrown him a lifeline, might have saved him, but she hadn’t even tried.
Chapter 21
The Webster brothers found Ward’s body two miles downstream from the point where the disaster occurred. Numb and dry-eyed, Les watched them bring him into camp, draped across the back of Caleb’s horse.
Stumbling, she headed toward a clump of blackjack oak, feeling sick inside. The last thing she wanted was company, and her heart sank when she heard the creak of Alex’s wheels.
“Peach and James are digging a grave,” Freddy said, setting the brake on Alex’s chair.
“Luther has agreed to say a few words. If there’s anything you want, a special hymn…”
Freddy touched her cheek. “We’re sorry for your loss, Les.”
Hysteria choked her. “My loss,” she repeated. Sinking to the ground, she buried her face in her hands. “I could have saved him, but I didn’t.” She kept remembering him reaching out to her. He would have seen the rope in her hands. “I just stood there and watched him drown.”
Freddy placed an arm around her shoulders. “No one could have saved him, Les. He was lost the minute his horse went under.”
Sobbing, she told them about the evening in the gully, about Caldwell’s offer, about Ward’s threats to kill her and the beatings she had endured. At the end, she lifted a tear-streaked face. “Don’t you see? I hated him! When I saw his horse go under I was glad! All I thought about was me. That I was finally free. He wouldn’t hit me ever again. I wouldn’t have to marry him, wouldn’t have to be afraid. And God help me, I was glad!” She stared at them. “What kind of monster am I?” she whispered.
Freddy studied the anguish in her eyes, then she silently rose and walked away, heading toward Grady’s remuda.
Les thought her heart would break. Shoulders heaving with fresh sobs, she sagged against Alex’s chair. “Do you hate me, too?”