Dorothy Garlock - [Wyoming Frontier] (44 page)

Rowe leaped to his feet and kicked the gun from Longstreet’s hand. The man stirred and rolled to his knees struggling to get to his feet. Rowe jumped over him and grabbed Katy and pushed her out the door. They fell and rolled in the mud away from the burning building. When they looked back, the burning straw from the loft was spilling through the floor to the stalls below. They watched with horrified fascination as Lee Longstreet, with flames licking greedily at his hair and clothing came running and screaming from the building.

“Don’t run, man!” Rowe shouted to the human torch, trying to make himself heard over the man’s screams of terror. “Don’t run! Lie down and roll!”

In his panic, Longstreet stumbled and fell, picked himself up and ran on, a bright flame in the darkness. His screams, thin and piercing, were a sound Katy would remember to the end of her days.

Rowe and Katy sat in the mud with their arms around each other. Katy held him as though she would never let him go. It was all over . . . and she began to cry.

“Sweetheart! My brave Nightrose. Are you all right?”

“Uh-huh. I was so scared. He was going to shoot you.”

“He would have, had it not been for you. I didn’t see you until you swung the shovel.”

“He set fire to our town,” she sobbed as if that were the reason she was crying.

“The town can be rebuilt. What’s important is that we’re here together. Sweetheart, do you know what was in my mind when I thought he was going to shoot me? I was thinking that I’d not see my Nightrose again in this life—”

“Oh . . .” Katy wrapped her arms tightly around his waist and sobbed.

“Honey,” Rowe said gently kissing her wet cheek. “Don’t fold up on me now. You’ve got to help me get up. I’ve been shot.”

“Shot? Oh, God! Where?” She leaned away from him to look into his face and realized the wet on the front of her dress was blood. She began to panic and couldn’t draw enough air into her lungs.

“My shoulder. I don’t think it’s bad, but I’m bleeding like a stuck hog and I’m afraid I’ll pass out.”

“I’ll get help! Oh, darling, hold on. Don’t you die on me, Garrick Rowe. Don’t you dare die on me,” she choked.

“I won’t. I’ll not go and leave my Nightrose behind.”

At the funerary Rowe lay on what had once been Katy’s bed dressed only in a pair of drawers borrowed from Hank. The bullet from Longstreet’s gun had passed through the upper part of his shoulder and nicked his shoulder blade on its way out. The wound was serious but not life-threatening. He was weak from the loss of blood. Katy had been too upset to dress the wound, so Mary, with Hank’s help, had packed it with burnt alum and bandaged it. Barring infection, Hank had assured Katy, Rowe would be up and around in a few days. Now, after several hours of sleep, Rowe felt able to get up and survey the damage to his town, but Katy wouldn’t hear of it.

A constant parade of visitors had been to see him since noon. Art Ashland came to tell him that he had killed Sporty Howard for what he had done to Goldie and for his part in firing the town. He said that if Rowe intended to turn him over to the marshal, he wanted to know now. He swore that he’d not be jailed for doing something that needed to be done. He said that if there was a possiblity of that happening, he would pull foot for California.

“I don’t see any reason to get the Territorial Law involved in our business here. Have some of the men bury Howard and we’ll forget about him. How is Goldie?”

“She’ll be all right, I guess,” Art said dejectedly and twirled his hat around in his hand. “Lizzibeth says she’s still sore at me.”

“She may change her mind when she gets to thinking about it.” Rowe wanted to add that he would have to change his rough ways if he wanted the love of a woman, but thought it best to leave well enough alone.

Hank came to tell him Longstreet’s body had been found. It was burned beyond recognition and had been identified by the gold watch in his pocket. Complying with the wishes of Vera Longstreet, they had buried him in an unmarked grave on the spot where he was found.

Anton and Hank reported on their survey of the damage. The forest fire had been stopped in the clearing where the trees had been cut for cabins. Trees for the mill had been saved. In Trinity only the saloon/hotel, the mercantile, the eatery, the stone jail and the funerary had escaped the flames. Anton promised the men that additional help would be brought in to rebuild the homes for their families.

There had been no loss of life except for the two men who started the fires. For that everyone was thankful.

Working to save their town had drawn the residents of Trinity closer together. Mary shared clothing with Katy and Laura. Helga shared hers with the girls from the Bee Hive. Grateful to the men who worked so hard to save his store, Elias handed out blankets and supplies free to anyone who needed them. Art Ashland put his men to work alongside the loggers cleaning up the rubble.

Since the cookshack was gone with the bunkhouse, meals were served to the tired men in the eatery and the dining room of the hotel by Vera, assisted by Helga and the girls from the Bee Hive.

Few lamps were lit in Trinity that night. As dusk came on, the tired population retired to bedrolls on the floor of the saloon or two or three to a bed in the hotel. Helga, Laura, and Julia used Elias’s living quarters at the back of the store and Elias slept on the countertop.

Hank arranged the long room at the funerary to give privacy to himself and Mary and to Rowe and Katy. A partition was hastily erected and a blanket hung over the door.

Katy pulled off the dress she had borrowed from Mary. She slid into bed beside Rowe wearing only her petticoat.

“How are you feeling?” she asked for the hundredth time since she discovered Longstreet’s bullet had hit him.

Rowe lifted his arm so she could snuggle against his uninjured side.

“I’ve been resting all day while you’ve been wearing yourself out running around seeing to everyone, besides waiting on me.”

“I wasn’t shot.”

“I never did ask how you happened to be at the livery. The last time I looked for you, you were in the bucket line.” He placed gentle kisses on her brow.

“It was the strangest thing. It was as if strings were pulling me. When Anton told me you had gone to the livery, I was compelled to go looking for you. I thought I’d die when I saw Longstreet holding the gun on you.”

“As far as I could see there was no way out. I was hoping he’d try to mount Apollo before he shot me. That would have given me a chance. I didn’t even see you until the instant before you swung the shovel. You’ve saved my life, sweetheart, for the second time.”

Katy rubbed her palm over his cheek, rough with a day’s growth of beard and pulled his mouth around to hers.

“I’m beginning to believe this yarn you’ve been telling me about our knowing each other in another life. But you won’t convince me that those other lives were as good as this one,” she whispered between kisses. “I love you.”

“And I love you. You know that, don’t you?”

“Uh-huh.”

“We almost lost our town,” he whispered between the time when his lips were not against hers.

“We’ll build it back.”

“It’ll be a while before we can start the school and the church. Homes for the men’s families come first. They’re as lonesome for them as I’d be lonesome for you.”

“I know. We’ll have to build a new Bee Hive for Lizzibeth and her girls.” The laughter that he loved so much came with her lips pressed to his neck.

“Absolutely! In the meanwhile, Lizzibeth and the girls can work in a couple of rooms at the hotel.”

“No!” She lifted her head so she could look into his face to see if he were teasing. “They will not turn the hotel into a whorehouse!”

“The backroom of the mercantile?”

“No!”

“The jail building?” he asked hopefully.

“No!” The indignant look on her face made him wonder if his teasing had gone too far. “Why are you so interested in finding a new home for the Bee Hive?” she demanded heatedly.

“Well . . . uh . . . I just think it’s an important addition to the town,” he teased, his eyes shining in the near darkness, his lips twitching to keep from smiling. “I’ve heard the girls don’t go to bed in their petticoats . . . like some married women I know.” His hand captured her breast, savoring its weight and shape.

“You’ve only . . . heard?”

“Uh-huh.” His hand moved down her thigh to the hem of the petticoat.

“Where did you pick up this valuable . . . information, Mr. Billy Goat Rowe?” It was hard to carry on a conversation when his roaming hands were causing her heart to jump out of time, her breasts to ache, and her womb to throb.

“Here and there.” His hand, like a gentle thief, reached the soft down that covered the mound of her femininity and his fingers began doing wonderfully exciting things to her.

“You’re not well enough for
that
tonight . . . are you?”

“Take that thing off and I’ll show you,” he demanded huskily. “I want to love my Nightrose.” His lips, close to her ear, nipped the lobe with a gentle lover’s bite.

“I want it too. But I couldn’t bear it if I hurt you!”

“Heart of my heart, love of my life, you’ll not hurt me.”

His smile fired her with a new tenderness. She leaned over him and took his face in her hands, lowering her mouth to his for a long, sweet caress.

“You’re my soul mate, my lover, my husband, my . . . everything. I love you more each day.”

“I wish I could tell you, my Nightrose, what being with you is like for me—”

His mouth sought hers and kissed it with gentle reassurance and then with rising passion. His hand moved over her body, touching her with sensual, intimate caresses. Her senses reeled as they always did when he made love to her. She sighed into the sweetness of his mouth.

The magic never faded.

This was real.

This was forever . . . and beyond forever.

From the journal of Mary Stanton Weston.

Trinity, Montana Territory, July 4, 1879.

I cannot believe that five years have passed since Katy, Theresa, and I were abandoned in Trinity by Roy Stanton. As I look down from our comfortable home on the hill above the mill, I see a busy little town with three churches, a school, a bank, a stage station, and a variety of stores. Trinity has prospered due to the sawmill and logging operations and is a supply area for the ranches beyond the timber. We’re preparing for a day of celebration that will equal that of Virginia City.

Most of the people who came here that fateful summer of 1874 are still here. Mrs. Chandler runs the eatery with the help of Myrtle and Agnes Longstreet. Flossie married a drummer and moved to Oregon. Myrtle grew to be a pretty girl and I think she has a serious beau. Since Agnes wants be a teacher, the hotel man her mother married is going to send her to college in Salt Lake.

Laura and Elias married and have a boy who is the image of Elias. The difference in their religious beliefs seems to be no problem at all. Laura is running the newspaper,
The Trinity Gazette,
with the help of Taylor Longstreet. She thinks the sun rises and sets in that young man and swears he’s going to be a nationally known newspaper man someday.

After the fire, the Bee Hive was relocated in the woods at the end of town. Lizzibeth died two winters ago and Pearl took over. She runs a decent place—if you could call such a place decent.

Goldie married Art Ashland—finally. They went to Denver to make a new life and from what we’ve heard, Art is a reformed man. Hank says that happens sometimes when a man falls in love.

Anton and Helga live in Bozeman with Ian and their little daughter, Nannie. She is a darling child and Anton is very proud of her. On their last visit they told us that they had heard from Anton’s brother, George. He had seen Nan Neal in Europe. He said that Nan was the toast of Paris. Helga said she looked for George and Nan to marry someday. George was wild about her.

Hank, my dear love, is delighted that we are expecting our third child. Theresa and Patrick fill our lives so completely that I wonder about making room for another child. I look back on the life I had before I met Hank and to me, it’s a dreadful dream. My husband is the most wonderful, kindest man in the world. I am sure that Katy wouldn’t agree with me.

I’ve saved the best for last. My dear sister, Katy. who so despised this town when we were abandoned here is its most avid supporter. She is on the school board, heads a civic committee that insisted on town meetings, and is working to bring Montana into the Union and make it the forty-first state. Rowe is busy with the mill, the mine, and his ranch. He stands back and allows Katy full rein with her projects. He loves her to distraction, and woe to the man who does not give her proper respect—even when she pushes too far.

Rowe has built Katy a fine home on the ranch. It has gables, turrets, upper and lower porches, and a gazebo all decorated with fretwork made by the most skilled carpenters. The furnishings are the finest, but Katy insists that their home be comfortable and welcoming. Rowe says he is going to fill each of the twelve rooms with little Rowes that look exactly like his Nightrose. He’s got a good start, but his two black-haired boys look more like him than Katy. For all the fancy house, Katy is still the same Katy she was when she and I broke into the funerary to find a safe place to live. She still wears her hair in one long braid hanging down her back and she still rides astride.

This is my last entry in this journal. It is full. Not a single page is left. I’ll close by saying that Katy and I have found love, real love, and happiness here in Trinity and we’re not one bit sorry that Roy Stanton left us here in this abandoned town five years ago.

Mary Burns Weston

The mystery of the ghost towns began with the abandoned mining towns in the West and has increased with the passage of time. Now, the Old West has given way to the New West. Today’s ghost towns are shadowy remnants of a fascinating past. The settlements left empty as people followed the lure of a new gold or silver strike are like stage settings from which the actors have vanished, and the dramas of their lives are old stories passed on by descendants scattered far and wide.