The Outlaw Takes a Bride (9 page)

“What?”

“She says she should arrive on June the fourth.”

“What day is it?” Johnny asked. Everything inside him jumped into position to run away. “Is it June yet?”

“I think so,” Cam said. “It must be. Is there a calendar in the house?”

“Uh…I don’t know. Yeah. Yes, there is. Hanging near the table, remember?”

They looked at each other for a second and hurried inside. The calendar was open to the May page. Johnny took it off its nail and turned to June. “The fourth is a Tuesday.”

“Well, the postmaster said he had thought he might see you at the church service yesterday, so…” Cam let it trail off and stared at Johnny.

“You mean.… No! She can’t be coming…tomorrow?” Johnny gulped. “We’ve got to clean this place up!”

Cam’s face was that of a man who had been cheated out of his last dollar. “We need to stop her.”

“It’s too late for that.” Odd though it seemed, knowing the truth calmed Johnny.

Cam, on the other hand, turned beet red. “But—but—”

“But what?” Johnny picked up the water bucket and poured half the water into a large pan on the stove. “Mrs. Golding is coming here soon, and we can’t stop it. The man she loved is dead. We need to honor his memory by giving her a good impression of his place.”

“We can’t bring her out here!”

“There’s only one northbound train out of town a day, Cam. What do you suggest? She’ll probably turn around and go back to St. Louis when she finds out about Mark, but I doubt she can leave immediately. She’ll need time to grieve, anyhow, and she’ll probably want to see his grave. I wonder if we can find some flowers to plant on it.”

Cam stared at him like some mindless lizard. Johnny tried to be patient.

“Our responsibility is clearly to make her stay as painless as we can. And that means making the ranch as tidy as Mark would have.”

“She can’t come out here,” Cam said slowly, each word falling like a brick. “And we can’t tell her about Mark.”

“Are you loco? We have to!”

“No. Listen to me. When she arrives, you’ll have to give her some excuse to postpone the wedding.”

“Postpone the wedding.” Johnny eyed him keenly. “Oh, no. No, Cam. Absolutely not!”

“Hear me out. Now, this Sally, she’s going to come in on the train tomorrow.”

“Right. That’s why we need to—”

Cam held up a hand, and Johnny stopped. Obviously he would get nowhere until Cam had his say.

“Just listen for a minute,” Cam said. “If Sally finds out first thing that Mark is dead, she’ll be heartbroken.”

“Naturally.”

“Sure. And we’ll have to make arrangements for her to stay somewhere. She’s obviously broke, since Mark had to send her the fare. You know we can’t afford to pay her way back to St. Louis.”

“Well…” Johnny hadn’t considered that. He couldn’t stand the thought of lying to her, but Cam was right that they couldn’t afford to buy her a return train ticket, or to put her up long in a hotel.

“But if Mark meets her at the depot…” Cam waved a hand Johnny’s way.

“No.”

“Think about it, Johnny.”

“I won’t do it.”

“It’s the only thing you
can
do, man!”

Johnny crossed his arms over his chest and set his jaw. He was not going to let Cam browbeat him into lying to the widow Golding and letting her think he was Mark. “I suppose you want me to think of some reason to break up with her and see her get settled in town to support herself as a seamstress, or some such cockeyed scheme.”

“Hadn’t thought of that,” Cam said. “No, I’m afraid it wouldn’t work. You’ll have to marry her.”

Johnny’s jaw dropped.

Cam fixed him with a determined gaze. “Now, before you go getting on your high horse about lying and all of that, consider the alternative. The sheriff spoke to you in town a few days ago. Thought you were Mark. You didn’t correct him. What do you suppose will happen now if you say you’re not Mark?”

Johnny’s heart thumped faster than a galloping horse. “I’ll confess. I’ll have to. It’s the only thing to do now. We can’t drag this widow into a deception, Cam. You’re talking about me living a lie for the rest of my life. About entering into life’s most sacred bond under false pretenses. I won’t do it.”

“Mmm-hmm. All right. So you go to the sheriff and tell him you’re not Mark. You’re Johnny. What does the sheriff do then?”

“I…I don’t know.”

“Well think, man! He’ll want to know why you didn’t tell him at the start. And you’ll have to tell him Mark’s dead. And then he’ll want to know when your brother died and why you didn’t tell him, and why you buried him on the sly.”

“I didn’t do it on the sly. I never intended to hide Mark’s death, and I certainly didn’t set out to lie to anyone about it.”

Cam nodded tolerantly. “Of course not. But the fact remains, you
did
.”

Johnny’s breath whooshed out of him. He ran a hand through his overly shaggy hair. It was all true. He had made the decision on his own. Cam had offered to stand by him if he wanted to go to the sheriff last week, and he hadn’t taken the opportunity.

“And after he learns that you hid the body of a man who died under suspicious circumstances, he’s apt to start asking around about you. And if he hears anything out of Denver…” Cam stepped closer and laid a hand on his shoulder. “We’ve been friends a long time, Johnny. I’d hate to see you hang.”

Something panicky fluttered in Johnny’s stomach. “I can’t marry her. It wouldn’t be right.”

“I’ll be right there with you. Your best man. And I’ll help any way I can.” Cam’s expression brightened a little. “And you can think of it this way: everything you do will honor Mark’s memory. You can take care of the woman he loved just the way Mark would have. You’ll be doing it for
him
, Johnny.”

Somehow that didn’t seem right to Johnny. If he went through with this, he wouldn’t be doing it for Mark. He’d be doing it to save his own sorry neck. He ran his hand through his beard, which was getting some length to it.

The cow bellowed. She stood waiting at the pasture gate.

“Is it that late?” Johnny squinted at the sun. It was still well above the horizon, but these June days were long on daylight.

“I’ll milk her,” Cam said. “You go finish redding up the cabin. And tonight you can go over her letters again and see if you can figure out anything Mark promised her that we should have ready.”

Johnny went to the cabin and put on a pair of trousers and an extra shirt that had been Mark’s and washed every stitch of his own clothing. As he hung them out, Cam appeared with the bucket of milk.

“New duds?”

“Mark’s,” Johnny said. “I saved the wash water, if you want to wash your things.”

To his surprise, Cam set about to do his laundry while Johnny scrubbed and straightened up in the cabin.

“Hey, Mark,” Cam called from the doorway.

Johnny looked up. “Don’t call me that.”

“I have to. And you’d better get used to it.” Cam came in with an armful of stove wood. “We don’t have much of this left.”

“Yeah, we might have to spend a day up in the hills, cutting some trees.” Johnny frowned. “And we’ll need the wagon to haul the wood in. We’ve got to train our mounts to harness.”

“We’ll need the wagon tomorrow,” Cam reminded him. “It’s almost dark now. I guess we’ll hitch them up in the morning and see how they do.” He dumped his burden in the wood box and walked over to the table. “Hey, what’s this?” He picked up a small folder Johnny had placed there.

“Mark’s bankbook. I found it under the sugar crock.”

Cam opened it and whistled. “Fifty-two dollars. That’s not too shabby.”

“He took some out last month,” Johnny said. “I reckon it was for Sally’s travel expenses.”

Cam squinted at the bankbook. “You’re probably right.”

“I wish we’d come earlier,” Johnny said. If they had, his brother might still be alive. He and Cam could have helped Mark stand off the outlaws. And Mark could marry his bride and have the life he had wanted.

Cam laid the bankbook carefully on the mantelpiece. “Well, that’s good news.”

“It’s not enough to send her back to St. Louis,” Johnny noted.

“No, but there will be other expenses.”

“Don’t forget, Mark had credit at several businesses in town. He may owe more than that fifty dollars to the shopkeepers.” Johnny looked out the window to where his clothes hung limp on the corral fence. “It’s so damp today, things probably won’t dry out before dark.”

“Do we have a flat iron?” Cam asked.

“I haven’t found one.”

“Huh. You don’t want to meet your bride-to-be in a wrinkled shirt.”

Johnny gritted his teeth. He still didn’t like the idea of marrying Sally Golding, but he couldn’t see a way out, short of turning himself in to the sheriff. If he did that, a marshal would probably take him back to Colorado to stand trial, and he didn’t like his chances.

But marrying wasn’t something he’d given a lot of thought. He’d never courted a girl, and he had supposed he would go on living as a bachelor cowboy for some time yet.

“Maybe I can heat up something else and smooth your shirt out.” Cam opened the cupboard and scanned the contents.

“Do you think I should shave?” Johnny ran his hand through his beard. “I must look scruffy.”

Cam swung around and studied him. “No, I don’t think so. What if Mark sent her a picture? That beard hides a lot.”

“I don’t think she mentioned a picture,” Johnny said. “But I guess you’re right. Any differences won’t be as noticeable if I keep the beard.”

“Yeah, and the folks in town might be more likely to realize you’re not Mark without the whiskers.”

“All right.” Johnny sighed. Had his fear of getting caught clouded his judgment? “I’d better trim it, though.” Mark had only a small mirror, and dusk was falling.

“Wait until morning,” Cam said. “I’ll shave. Then at least one of us will look well groomed.”

“Maybe you should marry her.”

“Oh, no. I’m not the one with the brother bent on romance.”

Johnny scowled. “I’m a little uneasy about that wagon business. There’s still enough daylight to hitch up the horses and try them out. Don’t you think we’d ought to do that? Give them a taste of the harness? And then in the morning, it will seem like routine stuff to them.”

“I guess. Sure. We don’t have an extra horse for her to ride.” Cam headed for the door, and Johnny grabbed his hat. Their horses trotted over to the fence as soon as Johnny whistled.

The sun hung low, and they worked quickly to adjust the straps on the double harness. The fit wasn’t too far off. Reckless was obviously a little smaller than one of Mark’s horses had been. In less than ten minutes, the team was ready. Cam led them over to the wagon, and Johnny bent to hitch the evener to the wagon tongue.

“I’ll hold ’em while you get up on the seat,” Cam called. “Get the reins, now.”

One rein was hitched to each horse’s bridle. Johnny gathered them and climbed into the wagon. He had driven a team hundreds of times, but he wasn’t prepared for the way Reckless and Paint plunged forward the second Cam let go of them. Johnny couldn’t tell which horse panicked first, but they charged across the barnyard, jolting the wagon, and his sawing on the reins had no effect. Paint let out a neigh that sound like a scream, and Reckless jumped away from him, trying to elude the tornado that was strapped beside him. The noise of the wagon rattling behind them probably contributed to the alarm, and Reckless tore for freedom. Paint, on the other hand, pushed against the chestnut, forcing him too close to the gatepost at the corner of the corral. Reckless squealed, and they both crow-hopped to the right, swinging the wagon around.

Johnny realized his danger just before the impact and threw himself across the wagon seat, hoping he could jump clear. The wagon lurched and tilted on its side. He hit the ground in a haze.

T
he spinning darkness in Johnny’s head cleared slowly. Vaguely he heard Cam say sternly, “Ho, now! Whoa, son! Stop that.”

Johnny lifted his head a couple of inches from the dirt. Pain cut through his skull like an ax blade. He closed his eyes. The horses shrieked, and Cam’s voice grew more insistent. “Settle down. Easy, now.”

Johnny tried to push himself up. Pain raced up his arm. He rolled over onto his back and clutched the offending limb to his side. It took several seconds for him to realize it was his right arm that hurt. Just great. What else could go wrong?

Finally, he rolled onto his left side and raised his throbbing head. The team had stopped fifty yards up the dusty road, after dragging the incapacitated wagon that far. Several sideboards and stakes had come off it and littered the ground. Cam had caught up with the horses and now grasped the bridles of the spooky cow ponies.

He looked toward Johnny and shouted, “You all right?”

The horses shied at his loud voice, and Cam struggled to hold their heads low.

“Can you help me?”

Johnny shook his head and winced. Even that hurt.

“We need to unhitch them,” Cam said. “One wheel is smashed.”

“Oh, great.” Johnny got slowly to his feet and staggered to the team, holding his right arm tight against his side. “I think my arm’s busted.”