Yes, she would go on at least that much farther. She would spend the night.
If she felt it was safe enough, she might spend several more days and nights there.
Determined to fight off the fear that had been her companion since she left the scene of her parents’ murder, Nicole inhaled a deep, quivering breath, and sank her heels into the flanks of her horse.
She didn’t get far before she saw the figure of a man stretched out, asleep, on a blanket. He was lying beside the stream in the shadow of the very bluff that she had chosen for her own campsite.
She wasn’t certain what to do.
If there was only one man, she wouldn’t feel so terribly threatened. Yet, she reminded herself, it took only one man to kill you.
Should she make a quick retreat before he woke up? Yet if she did, perhaps Sam Partain would be waiting for her when she left the mountain.
So she had to make a choice.
This lone stranger?
Or Sam Partain and his gang?
It did not take much thought to know which she preferred.
This stranger might even help her, whereas she was certain Sam Partain had plans to kill her.
She rode onward, slowly, her eyes never leaving the sleeping form of the man.
She gasped when she was finally able to make out the man’s features.
He was an Indian.
He was scantily dressed in a breechclout and moccasins. And his long black hair was spread out beneath his head.
Breathing hard, she stopped her horse. What should she do? Shouldn’t she fear Indians far more than Sam Partain?
Yet this was only one Indian. Surely he had traveled alone away from his stronghold for one reason or another.
Her eyes widened then, and she no longer wondered why he was there, all alone. She could see red spots on his body.
And she knew what they were, for she had suffered from the same malady when she was ten years old. Measles.
This Indian had measles.
She recalled how ill she had been with the disease. She had been in bed with a high fever for about three days, and she had been terribly weak.
Because the disease was so contagious, Nicole’s mother had put her in a room and let no one enter, not even the servants. When they brought her food, the tray had been set outside her closed bedroom door. After she knew that no one was out in the hallway, she would open the door, take the food and eat what she could, then set what was left back outside in the hallway again.
Apparently, this man had also tried to isolate himself from all others.
She drew rein and dismounted. She secured her horse’s reins to a low tree limb, then tiptoed closer to the sleeping Indian.
Now that she was closer than before, she noticed something else about him. Besides the red spots and the flush of fever in his cheeks, she saw how uniquely handsome he was.
She was so taken by his sculpted features, she paused to stare at his face. For a moment she forgot that she should be afraid, that she was in the presence of an Indian.
She had seen many on the riverfront in St. Louis, where they came in their canoes to trade their rich pelts, but she had never been so close to one.
When the Indian suddenly rolled over onto his other side, groaning, Nicole was shaken out of her reverie. Once again she was very aware of his illness.
His back was covered with spots.