Beautiful Bad Man (28 page)

Bedrooms would be on the second floor, finding the right one would be the problem — and dealing with the wife. He stopped to listen every two or three steps, heard nothing but his own breath, heavy from climbing with the body.

The first two rooms he tried were empty, the next two small, with small beds and small occupants. At last he opened a door and heard masculine snores and breathed in slight scents of tobacco, shaving soap, and hair pomade. Close to the bed, his eyes adjusting to the dim light, Cal made out Van Cleve, flat on his back, alone.

Lighting the bedside lamp didn’t wake Van Cleve, throwing a dead man across his belly did. “Wh-what!”

Eyes wide, mouth open, the rancher tried to get out from under the corpse, making frantic sounds Cal thought better suited to a farm animal. Like a pig. He shoved the muzzle of his pistol under the man’s jaw, hard. “Shut up.”

Except for a squeaking sound with each breath, the rancher did shut up. The pungent odor of urine overrode the more pleasant scents.

“I thought about just coming in here and sticking a knife in you, easy and quiet,” Cal said conversationally, “but that doesn’t seem like enough. You need to see what’s coming and know you bought it for yourself.”

As his finger tightened on the trigger, a door in the side of the room opened. Van Cleve’s wife stood there, light from a lamp in her hand shining on blonde hair falling over the shoulders of her white night dress. “Webster, are you all right? I thought I heard....”

Her surprise was as ugly as Cal’s, but she was the one who dropped the lamp and fled back the way she’d come, screaming. Cal was the one who cursed himself for wasting time indulging anger. Flames jumped from the spilled lamp oil to the wool carpet.

Aside from Van Cleve and the woman, there were two children and servants in the house. Cal grabbed Van Cleve by the neck of his night shirt and yanked him out from under the body.

“You are one lucky son of a bitch. Get up and put out that fire.”

Cal raced down the stairs, out the back, and across the yard for his horse. His own luck showed signs of having run out.

G
ETTING OFF THE
ranch proved no more difficult than ever before. Once well clear of the furthest pickets he’d ever spotted, Cal pushed his horse to a steady jog, heading home in a roundabout fashion. Leaving Van Cleve alive had to be the absolute worst thing he could do — except for killing the man with his wife as witness or letting a fire get going in a house with who knew how many others in it who didn’t deserve killing.

He calculated the consequences. One day to send someone to town. Another day for the sheriff to round up a mob and get out here with them. Of course Van Cleve might try for vigilante justice with his own men, and they wouldn’t come down the town road in a bunch either. One day then. Twenty-four hours.

He could pack and disappear within an hour of reaching home. Forcing Norah to pack and taking her to Carburys’ would only cost another few hours. Except she wouldn’t stay. Sooner or later she’d return home, and Van Cleve and the law would both be after her. The law would be sure she knew where her husband had gone. Van Cleve would still be after the land.

Memories of how it had been that day in the yard, Preston knocking her over with his horse, flashed through Cal’s mind. She’d fight back now. She had a rifle and a pistol, knew how to shoot, and she’d fight.

No woman, however defiant and determined, could hold off a group of men intent on doing her harm. For all the gun work he’d done these last years, he wouldn’t try it himself unless he was in a fort, a well stocked fort. Without conscious thought, he slowed his horse, bringing it to a stop.

Taking her with him would be easy. She’d said she wanted to leave and start over somewhere else. He’d find a safe place for her, leave her there with the money.... Who was he trying to fool? No place was ever going to be safe for a woman who would soon be clumsy with Cal Sutton’s child. His bad seed.

Forrest took advantage of loose reins and inattention and ambled forward. Struggling with his own thoughts, Cal let the horse go.

He didn’t want to leave Norah in some strange place, trying to take care of a child by herself. Hell, he didn’t want to leave her at all, but he couldn’t be a father. He absolutely could not. She’d have money. She wouldn’t be like his mother.

She’d throw herself heart and soul into it, the same way she’d tried to with Hawkins’ legitimate.... He jerked his confused horse to a halt again. His child was as legitimate as Hawkins’ had been. She’d said it that night when he’d tried to tell her she could avoid what had already happened.
“We’re married. I don’t need to know that.”

She’d said more. She’d said,
“I already love this baby too.”
Too. As in the same as she’d loved the others. That was what she meant. That had to be what she meant. A woman like Norah might put up with a man like him because she ran out of better choices, and she enjoyed what she insisted on calling making love as much as he did, but
too
?

Of course he’d wondered before, wondered when she’d crawled out the window and stuck her rifle in Ike Kerr’s back. Norah fussed over a little damage to a door and sleeping free in a store. She threw a fit over salvaging an abandoned plow. She trusted the law so much she’d been willing to risk Cal’s neck to the sheriff in Fischer.

So what did it mean when a woman like that gave every sign of being willing to shoot a man in the back rather than let Ludlow arrest her husband for something she knew full well he did?

The prairie turned pink and gold before him as the sun rose. Awareness of the world outside his own tangled thoughts swept through him. He was sitting in the open like a target in a shooting gallery. Worse, he’d just passed the kind of small rise he’d used for a stand when Preston....

He set his spurs to Forrest. The horse’s leap forward and a smashing blow to the right side of Cal’s back occurred as one, throwing him forward and to the side. The crack of a rifle sounded like an afterthought.

Grabbing for leather and mane, Cal clung to his unbalanced seat, his mind working frantically. Keep them away from home, from Norah. Carburys’. Their place was close, no more than a few miles, and an old Rebel like Archie could handle whatever arrived on his doorstep.

Some burning, throbbing, not much pain yet, only blood, blood warm and dripping on his back, soaking his shirt. Shouts sounded behind him, more gunfire. With every stride of the racing horse, his grip weakened. No chance for refuge at Carburys’. Some chance for revenge.

Cal slowed the tiring horse as much as he could, wrapped the reins in his fist and let himself fall. Numbness dissolved to agony as the horse dragged him what had to be ten miles before coming to a snorting, bug-eyed halt, still pulling back, dancing in place.

Fighting to stay conscious, Cal whispered soothing words between gasps for breath as he lay sprawled on his back. Forrest quieted. Cal eased out his pistol, thumbed back the hammer, and waited.

His pursuers galloped up. One started crowing even before he hit the ground. “Two thousand dollars! A thousand apiece. What are you going to do with yours?”

“We ain’t splitting even. I shot him. You didn’t do a thing.”

“The hell you say. You got lucky and saw him first is all. You want me to do something, I’ll finish him off. He only just fell. He’s probably still alive.”

“All you can do is be the one gets bloody heaving him back up on the horse.”

Two rough-dressed strangers stepped around Forrest’s hindquarters. Cal shot the first in the middle of the chest, thought he hit the second but realized he’d missed when the man disappeared. Seconds later the sound of a horse leaving at a run thrummed through the air.

No longer able to hold it, Cal let the pistol drop to his side. He’d done everything wrong since he’d first seen the Girl again, made everything worse.

The sky wobbled over him, so intense a blue it hurt in a different way than the fire consuming his back. He fought for a moment then let go, as eager to escape guilt as pain.

Hands turned him and brought pain roaring back worse than before. Cal tried to push them away.

“Hold him while I finish this,” said a voice he’d recognize if it were just closer.

“I never saw so much blood. You sure he’s alive?” He should recognize that one too. Young, always full of questions.

Cal’s mind slid past it, wouldn’t take hold. Whoever they were, they were torturing him, ripping open his back with a hot poker.

“All right, let’s get him in the wagon. You drive. I’ll keep this bandage as tight as I can.”

“What about the body, the horses?”

“We’ll come back.”

“Ma won’t like this.”

“I don’t like it myself. Lift.”

Hands grabbed his shoulders and legs, swung him through the air, and let him down on a surface harder than stone. He wanted to scream, couldn’t, settled for oblivion.

N
ORAH SPENT THE
hours from the time Caleb left till dawn dreading the time he would return only to leave for good. As more time passed and the sun climbed straight overhead, she fretted for the sight of him. Something had gone wrong.

He’d almost been caught and had to run was all. He’d double around and be back before long. Back to say goodbye. Back safe. At worst he’d had to run and keep going. She wouldn’t hear for a while, but she’d hear. Hear that he was safe.

She fluttered around the house, sweeping, dusting, scrubbing. Nothing distracted her. Fear kept her on edge, jumping at every sound. When Early stared into the distance, tail wagging, her heart leapt, then fell as she saw a wagon approaching. Archie and Ben. She couldn’t pretend to be glad to see them.

“Caleb isn’t here.”

“I know,” Archie said. “He’s at our place. You need to come.”

Her bones turned to water. Archie jumped down and grabbed her before she fell. “He’s alive. Come on now. Get in the wagon, and we’ll take you to him.”

She jerked away. “No, I have to take our wagon. I can’t leave anything alive here. Caleb says. He always says, don’t go off and leave anything that can be killed. Jeb and Stonewall are out in the pasture, and I can’t leave anything alive. We have to hitch them to our wagon. I have to get the horses. Early has to come.”

Ben tried to stop her babbling by interrupting. “Mrs. Sutton, you need to come right now. He’s....” A look from his father cut him off.

“We’ll get the horses,” Archie said. “Why don’t you pack a few things in case you need to stay with us a day or two.”

Norah stared, unable to move. Archie turned her toward the house and helped her take the first few steps. “Go on now. We’ll be back with the horses in no time, and we’ll all go. Horses, dog, all of us.”

“He’s alive.”

“He is.”

Unfrozen by the promise in his words, Norah hurried to the house. She could tell by the gentleness in Archie’s manner that Caleb was hurt badly, but Archie wouldn’t lie. Caleb was alive. Alive.

She pulled a box from under the bed, tried to think what to take. The blue calico dress. He liked blue. And the green. She couldn’t find the blue dress, started tearing through things in frustration.

When the realization finally struck that the blue dress was on her back, she forced herself to sit on the bed and regain control then packed with some semblance of order. Box held against her chest, rifle in hand, she stepped outside without looking back.

Jeb and Stonewall weren’t hitched but tied to the tailgate of the Carbury wagon. Early, looking ready to jump out at the first excuse, sat in the bed with Ben. The dog didn’t relax until Norah reached the wagon seat.

Once they were rolling toward the town road, Norah forced out the question she’d been avoiding for fear of the answer. “How bad is it?”

“I’m not sure. He lost a lot of blood. We went for Granny Johnson and took her to the house before we came for you. By the time we get home, she’ll be able to tell us what’s what.”

“I’m surprised she would come.”

The old woman had medical skills as good as a doctor, but she also had strong opinions. Her family had been burned out last year and like Joe and Norah had moved back to their original sod house.

Granny was ornery enough to refuse to help a man who had worked for Van Cleve. In her opinion “live by the sword, die by the sword” wasn’t a prediction or admonishment but a statement of desirable outcome.

“Ben sweet talked her.”

Norah managed to throw something she hoped resembled a smile over her shoulder at the boy. “Thank you.”

“It wasn’t sweet talk, it was reasoning,” the boy mumbled.

Finding her courage, she asked, “What happened?”

“He was shot in the back,” Ben blurted. “Shot in the back and he still got one of them. We had the wagon all hitched up ready to take Becky and Ethan back to town when we heard the shots. Pa thought it might be like last time, didn’t you, Pa? You know, the time Cal — I mean Mr. Sutton — got three of them and the others ran off. Bang. Bang. Bang.”

The boy’s words tumbled out fast and excited. “We pulled up when we heard it, being cautious, you know, and then two more shots came. Bang. Bang. And some fellow lit out like his horse was on fire. So we went closer and could see Cal’s — I mean Mr. Sutton’s — horse fiddle-footing around like it was tied to something on the ground, and we went to see, and there he was, and Pa bandaged him up with his shirt and mine, and we put him in the wagon and took him home.”

Before coming to get her, Archie and Ben had taken time to put on clean shirts, Norah noticed. She hoped they’d put it off until after they’d gotten Granny. Ben was still recounting the day’s happenings.

“The horses and the body are still there, except maybe the horses moved off. We put Mr. Sutton in Becky’s room. She’s mad about that because now we can’t get her back to town until tomorrow, and her and Ethan won’t have a room tonight, and she doesn’t like....”

“Ben.” Archie didn’t raise his voice, but the stream of words stopped immediately.

“We’ll get the body and round up Cal’s saddle horse and any others out there after we get you settled,” Archie said.