as he'd learned to do in prison. The stagecoach rumbling off without them caused a moment's fury, but he refused to think of Benjamin crumpling to the ground, lying still in the roadway without anyone stopping to help. To the occupants of the stagecoach, Benjamin was only a black man, less than an animal, and possibly one of the thieves to their bigoted minds.
Tyler swore at himself for not going back to see to his friend instead of going after this miserable brat who hadn't the sense God gave a goose. But his damnable sense of Southern chivalry had reared its ugly head, and he had gone to rescue the lady rather than help the friend who had stood beside him since childhood.
It didn't make sense. But life would never make sense. He knew that; he just had to remember it at times like these. Watching Evie gulping back tears and terror, Tyler let his mind travel to the next thing to be done if they were to survive this situation. The sun was sinking toward the horizon. They would have to find shelter and water. His horse couldn't travel much farther, particularly with two riders.
He wanted to go back for Benjamin, but practicality told him he had to get Evie settled and his horse watered before he could do anything. He scanned the horizon in all directions, seeing nothing habitable. But a stand of trees toward the west spoke of water.
He held a hand out to Evie. "Come on, we've got to get going."
She didn't look at him. She didn't take his hand, either. She caught up her skirts and rose, somewhat shakily perhaps, but she hid that well as she dusted herself off.
Without a word of question, she followed as Tyler led the horse toward the trees. She knew he was furious with her. She didn't even need to see the set lines of his jaw to know that. She could see the knots of tension in his shoulders, the way he strode with his back straight and turned to her. She had learned to read other people by watching the way they moved. Tyler was bordering on irrational, and she tried not to be afraid. Heroines were never afraid. The heroes always got them out of these situations. Hadn't Tyler just saved her from the outlaws? Who was going to save her from Tyler?
A dilapidated cabin sat among the skinny trunks of oaks someone had obviously planted to keep the house cool. No smoke came from its one chimney. No reply came after Tyler's yell of greeting.
They found a crude well in the side yard and drew up water for the horse. With no dipper in sight, Tyler cupped his hands and dipped some of the muddy liquid for himself. Evie watched him and attempted to repeat the motion, but she succeeded mostly in splattering her gabardine bodice. Getting enough water to quench her parched lips, she gave up the attempt and walked toward the cabin.
Tyler was ahead of her, holding her back with his hand as he knocked, then threw open the door. The interior smelled musty and unused, and a rustle in the darkness warned the inhabitants weren't human.
Stamping his boots to scare off any other intruders, Tyler entered and glanced around. Whoever had left the cabin had meant to return. In the light of the dying sun through the room's one window, he could discern a crude table and chair, and a bed nailed to the corner walls and supported by one post. A faded quilt covered the thin mattress, and an iron skillet still hung beside the fireplace. Dust covered everything, but dust always did. It was impossible to tell how long the owner had been away.
Evie swept by him and immediately began scanning the cabin's meager supplies. "Can you start a fire? I can cook these beans. It looked like there was a bit of a garden out there. There might be some root vegetables for a stew."
Tyler watched her for a minute, hating her for her cool behavior, wishing she would behave like any hysterical female so he could despise her even more. His best friend was dead or dying in the middle of a road to nowhere, and she was discussing beans and stew. In the room's crude interior her trailing gabardine gown and ruffled ruching were as out of place as a ghost in daylight She ought to be cursing the fates and yelling at him to do something.