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The smell of food wafted down the corridor. He had to believe that the lawman had gone to eat.
The smell of food also made Dancing Cloud know that some would soon be brought to his room. He had to escape before that happened. By the time they found him gone he would be on his way to the pond at the far edge of town. He worried about the house that sat not all that far from the pond. If he was discovered there he might be mistaken for an intruder, and shot.
Or perhaps the one who caught him might have a generous, caring heart like Noah Brown, Dancing Cloud hoped to himself.
Dancing Cloud tiptoed down the empty, dimly lit corridor, then on outside. When he reached the road, he limped along, then forced himself into a soft trot. He groaned. The pain in his chest was so severe every inch of the way seemed his last.
“Water,” he kept whispering to himself. “I must reach the healing water.”
He spied a lone horse hitched to a rail alongside the road. Without any further thought he went and pulled himself into the saddle. Holding one hand over his throbbing wound, and bending low over the horse, he guided the steed off onto a fairly deserted side street, then rode on through the city.
The pond.
He had to find the pond.
Chapter 17
I shall not hear his voice complain,
But who shall stop the patient rain?
—ALICE MEYNELL
Instead of turning off the road in the direction of Paul Brown’s house Lauralee swung her uncle’s horse and buggy from Broadway Avenue into the circular drive of the Peterson House. Although she was anxious to get to Paul and get this over with, and knowing that she was taking chances that he might arrive at the Petersons’ before she left to go to his, it was a chance she must take.
She felt the need to change into something less provocative before seeing him.
She would even tie her hair up in a tight bun atop her head and make sure her face was pale without makeup.
She wished to make him change his mind about her. That would make telling him that she no longer wished to see him easier.
Drawing tight rein before the front porch of the Peterson House she left the buggy quickly and secured the reins.
She looked guardedly up and down Broadway Avenue. When she saw no signs of Paul or Clint McCloud she turned and fled inside the house.
She scrambled up the stairs and went to her room and sorted through her clothes. When she found a drab cotton dress that had been worn many times at the orphanage and had been washed repeatedly in strong lye soap and bleach, she smiled mischievously.
“This should do just fine,” she whispered to herself. “I never ever felt attractive in this terrible rag.”
* * *
Seeing the pond shimmering beneath the soft rays of the moon a short distance away, Dancing Cloud sighed with relief.
He had found it.
And none too soon.
He was about to drop from the horse from exhaustion and pain.
Glancing down at his wound he found a small trickle of blood flowing from one end where the stitches had been torn open from the jerky ride on the stolen horse. This steed was not as gentle as his.
Seeing soft lamplight in the windows of the farmhouse that sat a short distance from the pond, Dancing Cloud drew tight rein and dismounted the feisty steed. His shoulders hunched, giving into the pain, he led the horse amid a thick stand of bushes, then went the rest of the way to the pond on foot.
When he reached the water he did not take the time to remove his fringed buckskin breeches or his moccasins. He was too anxious to get in the water and allow the true healing process to begin.
The breeze was cool and the wa
ter was cold and penetrating as he walked into the pond until he was hip-high.
