The Outlaw's Bride (14 page)

“This is why we’re good together. This and everything else that’s happened between us in that little house.”

She kissed him again, and when she drew back, his blue eyes grazed over her. “Oh, Isobel,” he breathed. “Oh, darlin’…”

She sighed, her eyelids heavy. “Noah, how can I ever leave you?”

“Don’t leave me, Isobel. We’ll head for Chisum’s right now, and I’ll get him to sell me the land.”

She studied the nodding heads of silver grass in the distance. “Why not?”

He ran a finger down the side of her neck. “Not a reason in the world.”

Arriving late that afternoon at South Spring River Ranch, Noah and Isobel walked hand in hand up the steps of the front portal. John Chisum opened the door before they could knock.

“Why, it’s Goldilocks and Papa Bear!” he chortled. “Come on in! Plenty of guests here—two more won’t hurt.”

Clearly in no mood for Chisum’s nonsense, Noah took his boss’s shoulder and spoke in a low voice. “John, I want to talk to you.”

“Sounds serious.”

“It is.”

Chisum held out a hand in the direction of the hall. “Kindly excuse us, Mrs. Buchanan,” he said.

Isobel nodded, watching them go and wondering whether Noah’s dream would come true at last. Dusting her skirt, she sat on the edge of a blue sofa.

“I don’t suppose you’ve heard the news,” Sue McSween said.

“News?” Isobel looked around her at the earnest faces of the woman, her husband and three other guests. A chill slid into her stomach.

“Rumor has it,” Sue said, “that Sheriff Brady is threatening to place my husband in confinement.”

“Jail,” Alexander McSween clarified.

“The jail in Lincoln is no more than a hole underground.” Sue glanced at her husband. “Some say the sheriff intends to run water into the jail and drown Mac.”

“You cannot allow yourself to be taken,” Isobel told the lawyer.

“I’m duty bound to be in Lincoln for the opening of court on April first—three days from now.”

“But I was told the opening was April eight,” Isobel declared.

“It’s been garbled,” Sue said. “We think District Attorney Rynerson, that great hairy ape, may have switched it deliberately so that in the confusion Mac could be arrested. Or ambushed and shot.”

“No!” Isobel rose to her feet. “Not another good man. We won’t allow it.”

“We’re all riding with Mac, Mrs. Buchanan,” another of the guests put in. “Mrs. McSween, Mr. Chisum. All of us.”

Isobel looked at McSween’s protectors—every one of them soft-handed and pale. None wore a gun.

“Well, Miss Goldilocks,” Chisum said as he stepped into the room. “Looks like you and your husband are landowners—soon as Buchanan produces the pot of gold he claims to have. Congratulations!”

Noah wore a broad smile. “I’m a mighty blessed man,” he said. “A beautiful wife. Land. Good friends.”

“I’m so happy,” Isobel murmured as he drew her close.

Noah smiled. “Let’s head for home, honey. I’ve got some digging to do.”

“Noah,” she said with a sigh. “First we must escort Alexander McSween to Lincoln Town. Sheriff Brady plans to kill him.”

W
hile Isobel recounted her conversation with the McSweens, Noah studied the determination in her face, the hope in the eyes of Sue McSween, the fear in the posture of Alexander McSween and the others.

“You go on home, boy,” Chisum said. “Plow your land. Start a family. We’ll watch over Mac. Some friends of yours are…uh…taking care of things in Lincoln Town. The Regulators.”

“What about Dick Brewer? Is he with them?”

“No, I reckon Dick’s still at his farm, mending fences and keeping a sharp eye on his own back.”

Noah could never knowingly allow an innocent man to ride into an ambush. “I’ll go with the rest of you,” he announced. “You’ll need protection.”

Chisum shook his head. “Buchanan, you just spent a good quarter of an hour in my library explaining how you planned to lay down your six-shooter and start a family. How you’re a loyal husband now. How you want to be a peaceful rancher. You’re not changing your mind, are you? I’d hate to have to change mine.”

Noah bristled. “I will lay down my gun, John. And
I do mean to ranch. But I’ll never let the bunch of you ride into Brady’s trap without my protection.”

“All right, calm yourself.” Chisum clapped Noah on the back. “You can ride with us—you and your wife. We’ll make it a jolly jaunt, how’s that?” Turning about, he leaned in the direction of his kitchen. “Mrs. Towry, we’ve got more company! Tell the cook to add two extra places to the dinner table!”

Early on April first, Noah and Isobel rode into Lincoln ahead of the others. They would make sure the Regulators were in place to guard the arrival of the McSween party.

“What do you think of Sue?” Isobel asked him.

For most of the journey, the two women had ridden together, surrounded by the men. Noah watched them talk and hoped they were forming a friendship.

He shrugged. “Never gave her much thought. Folks say she’s got money smarts.”

“Am I very much like Sue?”

“Sure you are. You’re smart. You’re determined.”

“I’m also angry, opinionated, unforgiving.”

“Whoa, now,” he said. “I’ve seen those in you, but you have good qualities, too.”

“Noah,” she whispered. “I don’t like Sue McSween.”

“Aw, she’s not so bad. Give her time.”

“But you don’t understand….” Her words trailed off. “In Sue, I saw a mirror of myself—a woman driven by a desire for land, power, wealth. I saw a bitter woman, Noah.”

He reached over and took her hand. There were a lot of things he could have said—quick assurances, shallow denials—but he was beginning to appreciate what he
saw in Isobel’s face. A softness was growing, a melting of anger, a gentleness.

“I have been praying,” she said as they rode past Juan Patrón’s house. “Praying as you do. I may…it’s possible I may have been wrong about God…. I think He might be listening to me after all, and I need His help. I want to wipe away the reflection I saw. I want to change.”

Before he could reply, Noah spotted Sheriff Brady. A rolled sheet of white paper under his arm, the sheriff stepped into the street. Four armed deputies accompanied him, two at each side.

“I wonder where they’re headed,” Noah said under his breath. “Courthouse, I’d bet.”

“Maybe it’s the mix-up in court dates,” Isobel speculated as they rode past the
torreón
. “What time is it? No one’s out.”

Noah opened his pocket watch. “Nine o’clock.”

An uneasiness seemed to hang over the street. The usual morning scents of piñon smoke and baking bread were absent. No children laughed or played outside. No women bustled toward the stores.

“Do you see any of our people?” Isobel asked. “Dick or Billy?”

“Squire Wilson hoeing his garden yonder. His son is out in front of the Wilson house. But—” Noah stopped short as a Winchester barrel appeared atop the adobe wall of John Tunstall’s corral. Billy the Kid’s face emerged behind it.

“Isobel, look out!” Noah shouted. A row of rifles bristled up from behind the wall, followed by the men holding them—all Regulators. A fusillade of gunfire shattered the quiet. A hail of bullets slammed into Sheriff Brady. For a moment he hung in midair, mouth open.
Then he toppled to the street. One of his deputies staggered toward the courthouse, moaning for water. The other three fled.

Noah drew his six-shooter as he tried to steady his horse. “Get off the street, Isobel!” he roared.

In shock, she stared as Ike Stockton ran from his saloon with a mug of water for the bleeding deputy. Billy the Kid jumped the adobe wall and dashed into the road where Brady’s body lay. He bent to grab a fallen rifle. “This is
my
gun!” he snapped at the dead man before tearing open the sheriff’s coat and searching the pockets.

“Billy!” Noah yelled. A shot cracked from the window of a nearby house, and a bullet tore through the Kid’s left thigh. Yelping, skipping for cover, he left a trail of blood across the dirt road.

“Noah—it’s Squire Wilson!” Isobel cried, observing the man lying in his garden patch.

“Isobel, take cover!” Abandoning his horse, Noah sprinted across the road. The squire lay in a fetal curl, his hands wrapped around the backs of his thighs.

“I was hoeing onions,” he moaned. “In this godforsaken town, can’t a man even hoe his onions in peace?”

Noah rolled the man over, passing a hand across the wound where a bullet had ripped through both his legs.

“It’s all right,” Isobel whispered to the squire’s son.

Noah frowned to realize she had followed him. Scooping up the fallen man, he started for the squire’s house, where his hysterical wife stood in the doorway. She grabbed her son’s arm and jerked him inside.

“Oh, is he gonna die?” she shrieked as Noah carried
Wilson through the door. “My son, my son, are you all right?”

In moments, Noah deposited the squire on a bed and headed back outside again. “I told you to take cover!” he barked at Isobel. “I can’t lose you, girl!”

Taking her arm, he rushed her through McSween’s gate and onto the porch.

Susan Gates threw open the door. “Isobel, did they shoot you?”

“She’s fine,” Noah growled. “Now, get her inside and keep her safe. Tie her up if you have to.”

Susan took Isobel’s shoulders as Noah started out. But he stepped aside just as Billy Bonney staggered into the house. Face ashen, upper lip glued to his buck teeth, he gripped Noah’s arm.

“Buchanan, I need Doc Ealy,” he huffed. “I’m hit.”

Noah had half a mind to let the Kid take what he deserved for pulling a dirty game on Brady and the deputies. But he slipped a supporting arm around the youth and helped him into a back room where Isobel huddled with Susan and the Ealy family.

“Billy took a bullet in the leg,” he informed the women. “Where’s Doc?”

“He went to help the squire,” Isobel told him.

A skinny young man holding a rifle stood. “Dr. Ealy asked me to keep watch over the women.”

Noah recognized him as Tunstall’s store clerk. “Well, boy, I hope you’re ready. The law is sure to come looking for Billy.”

Everyone in the room gathered around as Noah laid the Kid on the bed. “Don’t never get shot, ladies,” he told the two little Ealy girls. “Hurts like fire.”

“Kid, you did a fool thing gunning Brady down,” Noah growled. “Ambushed him. What was that about?”

“It’s not how it looked, I swear. All us Regulators snuck into town last night to keep an eye on things for Mac.” Billy grimaced as Mrs. Ealy began cutting away the lower half of his trousers. “When we seen Brady headin’ our way, we knew he was gonna arrest Mac and then flood the jail and drown him. Brady organized the posse that murdered Tunstall, you know, and he never arrested nobody for the killin’. As sheriff, he weren’t never gonna get his dues, so we settled the matter ourselves.”

“And then went through Brady’s pockets,” Noah said.

“I was lookin’ for the warrant for McSween’s arrest. I knew Brady had it with him, but I didn’t find it before them Dolan dogs shot me.”

“The Regulators were at South Spring the other day,” Noah said. “Did McSween and Chisum order you to ambush Brady?”

Before the Kid could answer, Dr. Ealy hurried into the room. “George Peppin just declared himself sheriff,” the doctor puffed, jerking off his spectacles and cleaning them with the tail of his frock coat. “A Dolan man, of course. They’re saying McSween’s behind the ambush, even though he’s not in town. Peppin sent a message to Captain Purington to bring troops from Fort Stanton. They’ve sworn to arrest McSween and the Regulators, and they’re coming after Billy first.”

“Why me?” Billy hunched up onto his elbows. “A whole passel of us shot at Brady.”

“Oh my!” Dr. Ealy seemed to see the youth for the first time. He peered at the wounded leg. “I don’t like
harboring a criminal, but Christian duty binds me. Mary, fetch my bag.”

While Noah looked on, Dr. Ealy drew a silk handkerchief through the raw hole in Billy Bonney’s leg. Isobel and Susan mopped the trail of blood from the back door to the bed. Mary Ealy kept an eye on the window while the store clerk sawed a hole in the floor of an adjoining room.

“Here comes George Peppin!” Mary cried out. “He’s got some deputies and a bunch of others. They’ve followed the blood in the street. Oh, what shall we do?”

With Peppin pounding on the door, Dr. Ealy hastily bandaged Billy’s leg. The doctor and Noah helped the wounded man into the next room and lowered him into the hole in the floor. They handed him a pair of pistols before replacing the boards. The women placed a carpet and a rocking chair over the spot.

With Noah standing watch, Isobel settled into the chair, and Susan took a stool nearby. The two Ealy girls crawled onto their laps.

Taking the Bible from a table, Isobel began to softly read.
“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul.”

Peppin stomped into the room, his boots thudding on the wood floor. “We seen the trail of blood leading to the door, Buchanan, and we aim to find out where Billy Bonney has got to.”

“You’re wasting your time, Peppin,” Noah answered. “My wife is reading the Good Book to calm the children.”

Peppin snorted as his deputies began overturning furniture, tossing pillows to the floor, ripping curtains
in their search for the Kid. Isobel kissed the cheek of the girl on her lap, and continued.

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me.”

She rocked on the loose floorboards while the intruders tore up the house. If Sue McSween was unhappy with Dolan’s men before, Noah realized, she was going to be furious when she saw what they had done to her home.

It was all he could do to stand by while the men smashed china plates, tore velvet upholstery and uprooted ferns. Isobel stroked the little girl’s golden hair and kept rocking. As the vandals stormed out of the house, Isobel’s voice continued.

“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,”
she read.
“And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

The McSweens’ home was raided two more times that day in search of Billy the Kid. The final inspection was undertaken by Captain Purington and twenty-five cavalrymen from Fort Stanton. Billy stayed hidden with his six-shooters under the floor, beneath Sue McSween’s carpet and the Bible-reading Mrs. Belle Buchanan.

Isobel tried to calm her fears as Noah left to intercept the McSween party as they got to Lincoln. Later, Noah reported that Isaac Ellis, a McSween sympathizer, had put the group up in his house on the outskirts of town. Peppin, Captain Purington and his soldiers wasted no time in arresting McSween on the warrant retrieved from Sheriff Brady’s body.

“Mac refused to surrender,” he told Isobel that evening
as they sat on a bench on Juan Patrón’s back porch. “He said Brady’s death canceled Pippin’s status as deputy and didn’t make him sheriff.”

“But you told me Mac turned himself in,” she said.

“He surrendered to Captain Purington on the condition they take him to the garrison and hold him in protective custody until court convenes next week.”

“Such lawless men, all of them.”

“You should have heard the shouting match between Purington and Mac’s buddy Dr. Leverson. He’s English, but he’s got friends in high places. Says he knows the secretary of the interior, Carl Schurz. And he’s pals with Rutherford B. Hayes.”

“The president of the United States?”

“Yup. Leverson accused Purington of ignoring the Constitution by searching the house without a warrant,” Noah explained, chuckling. “Finally the captain cursed the Constitution and Leverson for a fool. So Leverson started urging the soldiers not to obey a captain who would show such contempt for the Constitution. By that time, Purington was mad as a rattler on a hot skillet.”

Isobel shook her head. “Everyone in Lincoln is so angry. I’m…I’m afraid, Noah.”

He slipped his arm around her and kissed her forehead. “I’m here with you, darlin’. Nothing’s going to happen to either of us.”

“Who told the Regulators to assassinate the sheriff?”

Noah pondered for a long time. “I don’t know. I’d like to think our men are better than that. But, Isobel…I’m just not sure.”

“Will it calm down now that the soldiers are here?”

“Captain Purington’s got a twelve-pound mountain howitzer and a Gatling gun at Fort Stanton. Fear of him bringing them to town ought to keep folks in line. District court will bring a lot of people to town—people who don’t want to get shot at.”

Isobel leaned into Noah’s embrace. “I don’t know where Snake Jackson and my land-grant titles are. I saw two more murders today. That makes six since I came to Lincoln County.”

An image of Noah’s adobe house filtered through her thoughts. She wondered how the cow and the hens were faring. Would the corn and beans have sprouted in her garden? How high was the river flowing? Had it rained?

Her sigh drew Noah’s attention, and he cuddled her closer. “Isobel, I’ve got my land, and I’ve got you beside me. I’m not going to let those slip away. Not for anything.”