Deep Trouble (8 page)

“So you couldn’t have gotten here in what remained of the day? You rode in from the east. The distance isn’t so far between us and Tuba City. You could have gotten to one of these places even if you got a late start. Why did you keep her company over night?”

“It was late when I found her.”

“You found her late at night?” Hosteen Tsosi’s face was cut with lines that spoke of a lifetime of deep disapproval.

“Well, no, Mr.… uh… Tsosi… it was late afternoon. But the sun was already setting by the time we got things straightened away enough to travel.”

“The sun was setting in the afternoon? In the late spring in Arizona?”

“We were in a canyon. The rock walls were to the west. I suppose if we’d ridden out of the canyon we’d have had some daylight left.”

“But you know nothing of canyons and shadows cast from the west?” The parson adjusted his collar, most likely to let off some steam.

“Well yes, I know about it. I served in the cavalry in the Southwest for a while.”

“But still you’re afraid of the dark?” Hosteen tilted his chin and had the regal look of a Navajo holy man. His long black braids, streaked with gray, practically quivered with indignation.

“No, she just needed to rest and recover from the trouble she’d been in.” And now she was in more trouble. Gabe could see in the holy man an unhappy frown, and even more in Hosteen’s fiery eyes.

“So, you spent the night together?” The parson wove his fingers together across his chest.

“Yes, parson.” Shannon decided to do some talking. Well, it was about time she spoke up. “But we only slept.”

“You admit you slept together.” Hosteen jumped on that. The woman beside him gasped and covered her mouth, her wrinkled eyes wide with shock.

Hosteen rested his hand on her shoulder. “Be strong, Mother Hozho.”

“No, we didn’t
sleep
together!” Shannon sounded scandalized.

“So you stayed
awake
together then?” The parson sounded even more so.

“Yes! Wait, no.”

“Which is it, miss?”

“It’s—” She swallowed so hard Gabe heard it. “Neither.”

“I don’t believe
neither
is a choice.” Hosteen looked sideways at the elderly woman with him. Both shook their heads and looked back at Shannon.

“You were either asleep or awake.” The parson slapped his hands together behind his back and scowled. “And you were by your own admission together.”

“It’s just that I wasn’t up to travel.” Shannon laced her fingers together. But Gabe thought the way she did it looked like she was begging the parson and his friends to believe her. Gabe thought begging was an idea with merit.

“But you were up to sleeping… and not sleeping.”

“Our time together was perfectly innocent, Parson,” Shannon insisted.

Mother Hozho made a sound that was amazingly rude.

“So nothing sinful passed between you? Two attractive young people alone overnight? Two young people that I saw with my own eyes were holding each other very close?”

Gabe should’ve put her down right away for sure.

“Well…” Shannon swallowed, if anything, even
more
loudly and caught Gabe’s arm with both hands as if to keep from falling over. “Nothing… much.”

Gabe thought under the circumstances she should have kept her hands off of him, but he couldn’t just knock her down, now could he? So he let her hang on.

“Nothing
much
?” The parson’s voice rose an octave. Gabe knew about octaves because of his mother and her love of playing the piano. The parson was hitting very close to a high C. “Explain this
nothing much
to me.”

“I have young children here, Mr. Lasley.” Doba decided he needed to get involved with the conversation.

Thank you very much, Doba
.

“Is Parson Crenshaw here?” Gabe asked. He sounded like a merciful man.

“He and his wife are visiting a sick woman a few miles to the north,” Doba said.

“Our whole community saw you ride in here with her in your arms.” Hosteen’s mouth curved down so it was nearly lost in the layers of wrinkles.

“Impressionable young children, Gabriel.” Doba shook his head.

Gabe never got called Gabriel except when he was in trouble. By his ma. But it was looking like he was indeed in trouble right now. He decided to interrupt before he found himself married to the woman and then shot just for good measure. “We couldn’t travel, Parson. Shannon needed a chance to recover.”

“She was injured?” The parson’s brimstone eyes fastened on a very healthy-looking Shannon.

“Sh–she—yes.”

“I see no injuries.”

“Well, she had a nosebleed—” Gabe pulled her closer. He’d been protecting her ever since they’d met. He wasn’t about to stop now.

“I have one of those on occasion,” Doba said. “I hold my nose for a few moments then I continue to work.”

The nosebleed sounded like a poor excuse even to Gabe. He was sure the parson agreed. “And besides, she’d been through a lot, and she was very upset.”

“I was very, very upset,” Shannon interjected.

Gabe considered adding just a few more
verys
. It was worth a try.

“You can’t even keep your hands off of her now, in front of me and Mr. Kinlichee and his family.”

Gabe moved to let go of her, but he was sorely afraid she might collapse.

“I would say, Miss—what was your name again?” Parson Ford straightened the coat of his black parson’s garb with a few quick, indignant tugs. “All I remember is that it isn’t Lasley.”

Gabe heard Shannon hesitate as if she thought the man, once armed with her name, was going straight to Shannon’s mother to tell of her sins.

“It’s Dysart. Shannon Dysart.”

“Well, Shannon Dysart,” the parson spoke as if he were handing down an eleventh commandment that he’d just received straight from a wrathful God, “I’d say that your upset has just begun.”

“When did you say your brother was gonna show up?” Tyra Morgan looked a long time at Abraham Lasley.

She would be well satisfied if Gabe turned out to be half the man his big brother was. Gabe didn’t look like Abraham. She’d seen Gabe a few years back, and he’d been dark haired and dark eyed, not fair like his brother. Abraham often said the six older brothers, of which he was the oldest, were the image of their pa, but Gabe took after their mother. He’d made a point of saying it to Gabe, too. An old family tradition of teasing.

But whether he resembled his big brothers or not, Gabe was tall and strong and quiet. In that way he was Abraham all over again.

Her sister had been happily married to Abraham since before Tyra was old enough to remember. Adam, their oldest son, was seventeen in a few months, and her nephew had been Tyra’s playmate from her earliest memory.

Tyra had wondered about Abe’s baby brother many times. She’d met most of Abraham’s family, named in alphabetical order as if their mother were afraid she’d forget what order they were born—Abraham, Bartholomew, Canaan, Darius, Ephraim, Felix, and Gabriel, the baby of the family, just as Tyra was the baby of her big family.

Tyra’s pa was slowing down, and would welcome help around the ranch with an eye toward Gabe taking over and running the place when he died. Abraham had assured her that this was all fine with Gabe, but Tyra was the youngest in her family, and she knew how big brothers and sisters could plan a person’s life.

“He should have been here days ago, but Gabe isn’t always the most dependable.” Abe shook his head in affectionate disparagement. “Still just a big kid.”

“He rode with the cavalry for years, Abe.” Madeline poured steaming coffee into Abraham’s cup and took a second to run one hand into her husband’s dark hair. “If he was a kid when he went in, you can be sure he grew up fast.”

Abraham tilted his head back and smiled a private smile at Maddy, Tyra’s big sister.

Tyra wanted like crazy to marry Gabe. It had been a fond wish of her childhood that she’d marry her big sister’s husband. It hadn’t taken much growing up before she’d figured out why that couldn’t happen. Over the years as the brothers had stopped in, Tyra had cast her eye at each of them, but of course, she was always too young. But lately she’d done some growing up and she’d turned her fertile imagination to Abe’s baby brother. The only one of the seven left single.

She’d even met him about five years ago, before she’d turned into a woman. Gabe had ridden through scouting for the cavalry, and she’d let her dreams run wild. Gabe had treated her like a little child.

It was infuriating that he couldn’t have waited two years to ride through. At thirteen it had been hopeless. By the time she was fifteen she could have caught his attention. She was eighteen now, and Abe, her pa, and she agreed Gabe ought to marry her and ranch with Pa. The man didn’t have a chance.

“And he’s been in California visiting your brother?”

“Yep, Bartholomew and Darius live in the southern part of California. Gabriel just up and handed his stock over to a neighbor and spent the last year roaming.”

“Wait a minute.” Tyra shook her head so hard she whipped herself in the face with her single, long dark braid. “I thought you told me you and your brothers all ganged up on him and wrote a whole buncha letters begging him to come and see you before he settled down for good.”

“We did. We hadn’t seen him for a long time. He went through Nebraska to visit Ephraim, and then he went on east to where Canaan farms in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Felix lives in East Texas. He headed to California and was going to end up here before he headed home. I haven’t seen much of him. I moved west when the boy was thirteen, and the only time I’ve seen him since was when he came through with the cavalry. Then he only stayed a couple of days. But Ma always sent her letters, and we’d pass them along to each other. So we stayed in touch that way until Ma died.”

When Gabe had been here, it had been long enough for Tyra to get ideas. “So if you begged him to do it and he did it, why do you sound like he did something wrong?”

“No man abandons his ranch like that.”

“Then why’d you ask him to?” Tyra wanted to fight on Gabe’s behalf. He’d thank her when he finally got here.

“Figured maybe he couldn’t handle his own place. I told my brothers about Maddy having such a pretty little sister. Your pa needed help on his place. Gabe’s gotten too old to still be wandering. We’ll introduce him to you, show him the ranch, and get him settled for good.”

“What about his ranch in Wyoming?”

Abe shrugged. “What about it? Let someone else have it.”

Tyra wanted Gabe, but she wanted to knock Abe over the head with a stout branch, too. “He’s not gonna thank you for planning his life, Abe.”

It didn’t miss Tyra’s notice that they were planning hers along with Gabe’s. But since their plans suited her right down to the ground, she didn’t kick up a fuss about herself. She could have her dream husband and never have to leave home.

“Sure he will, once he sees how pretty you are, Tyra, honey.” Maddy patted her on the shoulder.

Looking into Maddy’s blue eyes, the exact same color as Tyra’s, she knew she was being treated like a child. Tyra was a tough woman. Born and raised on some mighty hard land in southern New Mexico. But she’d be the baby of the family until the day she died.

She did want Gabe though. So she postponed fighting to be treated like an adult. She’d do the fighting after she was a married woman. Then she and Gabe’d stand shoulder to shoulder and tell all their bossy family to leave them alone.

Except for her pa. He needed help, but as long as he was drawing breath, he’d always be in charge of the Morgan spread. The Rocking M was his. He had shed his blood for that land. Tyra had three older brothers who had struck out on their own after they realized Pa was too stubborn to move aside and let one of his sons be a real partner. But now Pa was aching in his joints and he got tired a lot faster. He’d lost a lot of his love of the ranch when Ma had died. She was buried in a quiet grave along with two little sisters. Pa was ready to let a son-in-law in, Tyra just knew it.

She sure hoped that suited Gabe okay, because her heart was set on it.

“So when is he supposed to come then?” Tyra tapped her toe impatiently as she sat at the kitchen table in Abraham and Maddy’s cozy cabin, quiet now with their four sons in school.

Abe grinned. “Why don’t you and Maddy come to town with me? I’ll take the wagon in to pick up the young’uns. It’s the last day, so we won’t make ‘em walk this once. I told Gabe to write if’n he got delayed. If there’s a letter or a wire, we’ll know when he’s showing up.”

Tyra smiled. “I’ll run home and see if Pa needs any supplies, but I’ll be back in plenty of time to ride along to town.”