The Outlaw Takes a Bride (5 page)

Johnny tried to make that fit over his grief, but the hard knot still sat in his chest. Having a small ranch of his own was every cowpuncher’s dream. But building up Mark’s ranch wouldn’t bring him back, and hiding from the law to do it… He tried to push that thought away. He hadn’t done anything wrong.

From outside, a distant bellow wafted to them. Johnny shoved back his chair.

“I forgot about the cow. She’ll need milking again.”

Cam joined him and puttered about the barn, taking stock of their new assets. When Johnny had milked the cow, he let Cam turn her out while he carried the bucket of milk to the house. He set it in a corner with a dish towel draped over it. Mark must have had a springhouse, or a root cellar. Or maybe he kept things like milk down the well to keep them cool. He would have to explore those possibilities.

He noticed a drawer on the front of the worktable. He and Cam had missed it last night. Johnny pulled it open. A jumble of small items lay inside, and he took them out, one by one, in the dimness and held them up toward the window.

Two sheets of writing paper and an unused envelope he set aside. A pocket knife. A carriage bolt. A key, but to what? It looked too small for a door key.

The next item he recognized immediately. He’d seen the miniature portrait of his mother many times. Pa had insisted she have it made before he went off to fight in the war twenty-four years ago. Someone musthave sent it to Mark after she died. Johnny gazed at it for half a minute. He had no family left. Even after Ma and Pa died, he’d had Mark out here, where he could reach him if he really wanted to. He wiped a tear that trickled down his cheek and set the portrait on the table.

The drawer was nearly empty, and he fished out two horseshoe nails and a few coins totaling forty-five cents. Those he slipped in his pocket. Spending Mark’s spare change didn’t rankle him nearly as much as the thought of selling the herd or the land. He heard Cam’s steps on the stoop and scooped the things back into the drawer and closed it.

“Bossie’s all set. Now what?” Cam asked.

Johnny turned to face him. “I was wondering if Mark had a root cellar or anything like that. Maybe we should do some more looking around outside. And if we want to keep cooking, we need to find out where he got his firewood. Or maybe he burned mostly coal in that stove. There was some coal in the barn.”

“All right. I guess there’s plenty of work to do around here.” Cam smiled at him. “Before you know it, this will feel like home sweet home.”

Sally settled into her seat on the train, her heart pounding. She had actually done it.

She scooted over to the window and gazed out at the back of the station and the freight cars standing in the rail yard. She hoped she would never see St. Louis again.

Face turned to the window, she waited for the wheels to turn, taking her to her new life.

“Beg pardon,” a man said. “Might I sit here?”

Sally looked up at the middle-aged gentleman. He had a large mustache, and his sack suit, felt hat, walking stick, and folded newspaper told her that he wasn’t wealthy but at least a part of the respectable middle class. A quick glance about revealed that the car’s seats were filling fast, so she didn’t suspect he had ulterior motives.

“Of course.” She shifted her handbag to the window side and made sure her skirt didn’t spill over onto his part of the seat. She had worn her mourning gown but had a new traveling dress in her luggage. She had been able to purchase cloth for the new dress with the money she’d received for making Mrs. DeVeer’s outfit. For the last two nights, she had sat up stitching it. She hoped she’d find an opportunity to change shortly before they reached Beaumont. She wanted to arrive looking fresh, not rumpled and dusty. She hoped Mark would like the new dress.

The man removed his hat and stuck it and his stick in the rack above the seats then sat down with a sigh.

“William Thormon,” he said with a brief smile.

“Oh, Sally Golding.” She extended her gloved hand, and he took it for a moment.

“Traveling far?” he asked.

“Yes. Beaumont, Texas.”

“Texas?” He eyed her keenly. “And I thought my jaunt to Tulsa was a wearisome distance. Whereabouts is Beaumont?”

“Southeastern Texas.”

“Near the coast?”

Sally nodded. “It’s east of Galveston and Houston. Not far from the Louisiana line, actually.”

“Hmm. It’ll be hot down there.” He eyed her black dress and shawl.

“Yes.” Sally didn’t think she owed him an explanation of why she was going. He could plainly see that she was widowed. But he seemed like a decent man, and she didn’t want him to think otherwise of her. “I have family there.”

“Of course.” He seemed relieved and opened his newspaper.

Sally folded her hands demurely in her lap. Through the black cotton of her gloves, she could feel her thin, gold wedding band. She had almost discarded it after David died but thought better of it. She was glad she’d kept it when she moved into the Winterses’ home. The reverend would surely have disapproved if she’d stopped wearing it.

She had held on to it for the journey, too. All along she had known that somehow she would leave St. Louis, and whether she returned to her parents’ home or went elsewhere to make a new start, the ring would lend her a modicum of respectability, and perhaps even protection. Predatory men would think twice about pursuing a woman who wore a wedding ring.

She glanced at Mr. Thormon. He seemed engrossed in his newspaper, but he looked up and smiled, as though he had sensed her gaze upon him.

“May I offer you my paper when I’ve finished with it?”

“Oh, well—yes, thank you. When you’re done. That would be nice.”

He nodded and went back to his reading.

Sally felt her face flush. She certainly didn’t want the gentleman to think she was grasping or flirtatious. She turned toward the window. They had left the city behind and were hurtling across the plains. The trees and fence posts in the foreground whipped past so fast, her stomach started to lurch. Better to focus on something more distant. A herd of cattle, gently sloping hills.

After a few minutes, she closed her eyes and leaned her head against the window frame. Soon she would be with Mark. Though she had never met him face-to-face, she knew he was one of the kindest, most considerate men on earth. And he knew so much about ranching and cattle. They would make a success of the ranch—she knew it. Mark had written to her that the last winter had been hard, and rain was scarce this spring. But God would provide what they needed. He would sell off his steers, and together they would subsist in the snug little house Mark had described in detail.

Even living frugally on an isolated ranch would be better than life with the Reverend and Mrs. Winters. Effie’s disapproval had turned to hostility during the past week after Sally announced her departure. When her husband wasn’t around, she had begrudged Sally every mouthful of food and berated her for leaving them without a housekeeper. Sally had set her jaw and completed the long list of chores Effie gave her each day. Telling herself she was doing it for Mark and for their future together helped Sally get through it. She had found it hard to squeeze out time to go and purchase her ticket and collect her pay from Mrs. DeVeer.

“Shirking your tasks,” Effie had scolded when she returned to the parsonage.

“I had to finish up some business and buy my ticket,” Sally had replied.

Effie eyed the package that held her dress goods. “And what’s that? Surely you’re not taking on more outside sewing when you should be tending to things here.”

“No, it’s not outside sewing.” Sally had scurried up the back stairs and out of earshot, but the last few days of her visit were almost unbearable under Effie’s mean eye and sharp tongue.

But Sally was here now, on the train to Texas, and the man she loved was waiting for her.

The man she ought to have married the first time, she thought, and then stifled the notion. If God had wanted her to marry Mark back then, He’d have brought him across her path before she became attached to David. Which wasn’t to say God had wanted her to marry David Golding. Sally now believed that was the worst error of judgment she had ever made. But God had smiled on her now. He was giving her a second chance with Mark Paynter.

For the next two days, Johnny and Cam worked around the ranch. Johnny found a few extra horseshoes and tools that allowed him to replace the shoe Reckless had lost. They patched the roof over the bunk and then checked the forty-eight cattle to make sure they were all healthy and properly branded with Mark’s MP brand. They discovered the root cellar, which contained a few potatoes and turnips. Johnny made a batch of butter by shaking cream in a jar until his arm ached. Cam heated a big kettle of water over an open fire, and they washed their clothes. They went through Mark’s small wardrobe and decided what things each of them could use.

On the third day, they knew they couldn’t put off going to town any longer. Cam was getting antsy for coffee, and the other supplies were running low. They ate eggs and pancakes at every meal. Johnny finally admitted he was hankering for something sweet, and they saddled their horses and rode the way they’d been headed when they came to the ranch.

The sun beat down on them. Johnny hoped it wasn’t too far. They crossed over a plank bridge that spanned a trickle of water. He took that as a sign of civilization. About five miles out from the ranch, they topped a slight rise in the nearly flat range, and Beaumont spread before them.

They rode in at a slow trot, taking in the offerings of town. To Johnny’s surprise, most of the businesses sat within a hundred yards of a river, and despite the recent hot weather, it flowed along with an impressive water level. Stock pens covered at least an acre of ground, and a large building near the waterfront bore a sign declaring it a rice mill.

“Rice?” Cam shook his head. “Who’d have thought it was wet enough to grow rice here?”

They let the horses plod along until they passed a sawmill and came into the retail district. The main street boasted a mercantile, a haberdashery, a bank, a hotel, a boardinghouse, a bakery, and farther along, a train station. Johnny counted three saloons, and he was sure there were others down the road, but Cam had pulled aside and dismounted in front of the first saloon.

Johnny hitched Reckless to the rail before the building and followed Cam into the low-ceilinged twilight. He let his eyes adjust for a moment and joined Cam at the bar.

“Them fellers didn’t care who got in the way,” a man was saying to the bartender, who nodded sagely while a few other men leaned on the bar and listened.

“I feel bad for Frank Simon, getting shot like that,” another man said.

The bartender nodded. “We all do. The doc says it’ll take him a month or two to get back on his feet.” He sized up Johnny and Cam as he spoke. “You new in town?” he asked Cam.

“Yeah, I’m out to Paynter’s place,” Cam said with a nod toward Johnny. “What’s going on?”

“Oh, it was three or four days ago now,” the bartender said. “Half-a-dozen hooligans rode in and tried to rob the bank. The fella what owns the grocery came out with a gun to help stop ’em, and they shot him. The sheriff came along then, ’cause he’d heard the gunfire, and he and a couple other fellas ran ’em off, but old Frank won’t soon forget it.”

“Outlaws,” Johnny looked at Cam.

“I’m surprised you hadn’t heard about it out to your place,” the first man said, eyeing Johnny.

The bartender slid two glasses of beer toward them. Johnny put some coins on the bar, and he and Cam carried their refreshment to a table. Johnny hated beer. He’d tried it once, in Denver, and swore he would never drink it again. His mother would be happy if she’d known. But he didn’t want to cause a stir by refusing it today.

“They must be talking about the ones who killed Mark,” he whispered to Cam.

Cam nodded. “The timing’s right.” He took a big swig of his drink.

“We should tell the sheriff.”

“No,” Cam said. “We can’t. Didn’t you hear? They think you’re Mark.”

“You think so?” Johnny glanced toward the cluster of men at the bar.

“Hey, Paynter,” one of them called, “You sure you didn’t see nothing out your way? The sheriff thought they rode in from the north.”