Outlaw Hearts(48)

“What’s going on?”

Miranda recognized Hap Dearing’s voice. She knew what they would all think, and it made her want to crawl into a hole. Before she could make any reply, Clarence began carrying on about how she had lured him here and made him think he could kiss her. Through tears he told how she had suddenly changed her mind and started screaming and fighting him. “She’s just trying to get me in trouble, Pa,” he wept. “I know I shouldn’t have come out here with her. I’m sorry, Pa.”

“Get back to camp!” Gaylord commanded his son. Miranda could not see his face well, but she could sense his fury.

“Your son followed me here deliberately,” she told the man. “He’s handing you a pack of lies to get himself out of trouble. Can’t you see that? He attacked me! He tried to force himself on me!”

“Enough!” This time it was the reverend who spoke up. “We will go back to camp and talk about this.” The man turned and stormed away, and the others followed, no one offering to walk with Miranda. She walked behind them, shaking from Clarence’s abuse, wishing she could bathe and wash off his touch, the saliva he had left on her neck. How ironic that she had spent several days with a notorious outlaw and never once felt threatened the way she had felt around Clarence from the first day they left Independence. How she hated him! She knew already no one was going to listen to her side of the story. Their minds were made up. Clarence had given a convincing performance.

She longed for a friend, someone to turn to. She needed someone’s understanding at this moment, but when she looked at the faces around the fire when they reached camp, she saw not one kind face. Hap Dearing and his men looked at her as though she were wearing rouge and a red taffeta dress. One of them looked ready to burst out laughing as his eyes boldly roved over her, as though to say he knew all along she was easy. The Jennings men, as well as the brother-in-law James Gaylord, and their missionary friend Adam Hummer, all gave her accusing stares, the Reverend Jennings glaring at her with his nose in the air like a pious judge.

“Mrs. Hayes, we have already discussed the possibility of leaving you behind at one of the forts,” he told Miranda. “I am terribly sorry, but that is what we are going to have to do.”

Miranda felt the panic setting in. If they left her behind, she would have to go on with strangers she didn’t know anything about. And what kind of people would be at the place where they would leave her? How long would it take to find someone new to travel with? If she had to wait too long, she would never make it all the way to Nevada this summer. She would be stranded in the middle of nowhere. “I did absolutely nothing improper,” she told the preacher. “Your nephew has been harassing me ever since we left Independence. I have asked him time and again to leave me alone! He has spread lies about me and—”

“I won’t listen to any more to your own lies!” Clarence’s father roared.

“Why do you think I screamed and fought him!” Miranda shouted back. “Does that sound like a woman who had lured him out there for illicit purposes?”

“You just wanted to get me in trouble, to try to prove it was all me!” Clarence put in, the tears still coming. “You touched me! You said if I came out there with you, you’d show me about women!”

Miranda closed her eyes. Oh, how she wanted to kill! She felt on fire, full of rage, and she breathed deeply for control. She needed to scream and cry, but she was determined not to crumble in front of these pompous asses. She held her chin high and faced the reverend. “If you want to believe your nephew over me, there is nothing I can do about it,” she told him calmly. “I am telling you that you are wrong, Reverend, and if you leave me behind, the sin will be on your head for abandoning an innocent woman. I hope it haunts you forever!”

She saw the man flinch, saw the hint of doubt in his eyes, and she hoped he’d choke on that doubt. “Go ahead and leave me behind. I really don’t care anymore. I would rather walk the rest of the way with my trunk on my back than to spend the next two months with such people. And you call yourselves Christians!”

She turned and walked away, almost anxious now to be left behind so that she would never have to look at their faces again. You’re a survivor, Miranda Hayes, she told herself. You’ll make it to Nevada with or without them. Everyone had tried to tell her she couldn’t do this, but by God she would!

“There’s a trading post not far ahead,” she heard Hap Dearing telling the reverend. “It’s not very big, but at least there are supplies there in case she gets stranded for long. Lots of people stop there. I expect we could leave her off there. The sooner, the better. All this trouble is slowin’ us down, and I don’t intend to lose any time. If you want to stay along with me and my men for protection, I’d get rid of her at the trading post. There’s men there that can look after her.”