Angry voices drew nearer. Sam didn’t bother with the shirt’s buttons as he strapped on his gunbelt.
“My guess is Levi Reed is looking for me so he can finish the job he started with his knife.”
“What makes him want to kill you?” She tried to pull on her shoes.
“I sent his brother to prison.”
“But—”
Sam grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the window. “I don’t have time for a discussion, Sarah.” He opened the window. “I’ll lower you down as far as I can. You’ll have to drop from there.”
She stretched for her bundle. “What about you? It’s not me he’s looking for but you. If you hide, I’ll tell him I don’t know where you are.”
He took her parcel and tossed it out without bothering to look at where her collected belongings landed.
“My things!” she cried as he reached for her next.
“They’re waiting for you,” he grunted as he lifted her over the windowsill. “And don’t worry about me,” he said, as if he thought she was still thinking about him. “It will take more than the likes of Reed and his men to kill me.”
Sarah glanced at the drop below. “I can’t ...”
He didn’t wait for her to finish. He locked his hand around her arm and shoved her off the ledge.
Clinging to him, she whispered as she dangled, “Don’t drop me ... I’m fragile. I’ll die!”
“No, you won’t. I promise. You’re about as fragile as I am lucky.”
Her hands slipped along the sleeve of his shirt.
“Go to the mercantile and buy what you need. I have credit there. I’ll get the horses and pick you up as soon as I can.”
Sarah’s shoe slipped off and sailed downward, landing with a plop. “I can’t do this!” She clung to his arm. He didn’t understand. She wasn’t brave.
“You can,” he ordered more than encouraged as he swung her away from the building and released his grip.
Sarah held her breath, too frightened to scream as she dropped. The hard hit she expected ended as more of a thump in the weeds growing between the hotel and the wooden walkway.
Jumping up, she straightened her skirt and lifted her knotted bundle, trying to act as if she hadn’t just tumbled from a hotel window. Luckily, the street was deserted. No one saw her graceless fall.
Slowly she moved onto the uneven walk, gingerly testing each bone for breaks. Glancing back, she frowned at the window where Sam had been only a moment before. What kind of husband drops his wife over the ledge? What kind of man figures any trouble coming is bound to be looking for him?
The racket from the hotel window grew. Pandemonium rumbled down to the street below.
Sarah ran toward the mercantile. She heard shouts. An angry voice answered back. Then gunfire.
“He’s dead,” she whispered to herself as she stomped away in shoes she’d never had time to tie. “My no-good, drunkard, backstabbed husband is dead. Left me with three kids and no roof over my head.” She laughed without humor. “Just when I think things are as bad as they can get, they take a turn for the worse.”
Ten minutes later she wasn’t surprised to learn that she couldn’t touch any of the money Sam had at the store. The shopkeeper, a short, barrel-chested man who introduced himself as Mr. Moon, claimed he might need the balance to pay for Sam’s burial expenses.
He greeted other women who came in the store to browse, and did his best to ignore Sarah. She guessed Mr. Moon thought, as she did, that Sam must have died amid the gunshots the whole town had heard.
Sarah circled inside the store trying not to listen to the whispers of other customers. “He’s finally been killed,” one said. “I’m not surprised. Men as mean as him don’t live long round here,” another muttered. “Did you hear what they say he did in Fort Worth one time ... ?”
Sarah concentrated on the clocks for sale behind the counter. Granny Vee had an old clock on her wall. It hadn’t worked in years, but Granny still dusted it twice a week, telling Sarah that folks have something fine when they have a clock.
The gossips’ voices invaded her thoughts. Sarah focused on the ticking. She didn’t want to listen. They said that Sam was no better than a hired gun. “Some men hunt bear or deer,” one said. “What kind of man hunts men even if they are outlaws?”
“That’s his wife, I’ve heard,” another whispered back. “She’ll be leaving him when she finds out about him.”
“Not a woman in the state that would stay,” the other replied, “not married to Sam Gatlin.”
Munching on a cracker from the barrel beside her, she tried to pick out her favorite clock as though she had the funds to consider such a purchase, but each tick eroded her thoughts to worries.
With the coins left from the twenty-dollar gold piece Sam gave her for the room, Sarah would have to make each selection count. Taking her time, she examined every item she put on the counter. Beans, flour, coffee, salt, matches. All musts. Crackers, soap, a little sugar, a dozen eggs, and bread. All needs. With each item Mr. Moon kept a running total, making sure she wasn’t spending a penny more than she’d pulled from her pocket.
Sarah looked at a sewing box made of tin and a bolt of sturdy gray wool for winter as she tried to figure out if she had enough money left to buy both. The sewing box was stuffed with supplies, but cost almost two dollars. The wool was three more.
A blue dress hanging beside the blankets caught her eye. Though several sizes too big, it was the kind of dress she wished she had. Not fancy by any means, but stylish with lace on the collar and buttons down the front for no reason other than that they looked good. She brushed her hand over the soft cotton.
“That just came in, yesterday,” the shop owner said with a raised eyebrow. “I’d rather it not be handled unless you’re buying.”
Sarah lowered her arm.
“She’s buying” came a voice from the back of the store.
She couldn’t hide her smile as Sam’s big frame stepped from the shadows. One hand rested easily on his holstered gun handle. He’d slung his jacket over one shoulder like a cape.
“Yes, sir, Mr. Gatlin.” The shopkeeper hurried to pull down the dress. “It may be a little big for your woman, but she can take it up, I reckon.” Suddenly Mr. Moon was all sunshine.
Sam stood on the other side of a huge table of supplies. “Wrap anything else she needs; I think my account can stand the hit.”
He remained perfectly still as Sarah added bacon, canned goods, and the wool to her selections. She touched the bolt. “For the kids?”
Sam grinned. “Invisible children shouldn’t need many clothes.” But he nodded at the shopkeeper as Sarah set the sewing kit atop the material.
“My wagon’s out back,” Sam said without offering to help load. “Add a couple bottles of whiskey to the order and a basket of those apples you’ve been unloading.” He glanced along the top row of shelves behind Mr. Moon. “Add a few bars of honeysuckle-scented soap if you have it and the largest carpetbag you got.”
When the man disappeared with his first box of food, Sarah moved around the table, noticing that all the women spreading rumors had hurried out the front door far more silently than they had arrived. “I thought you were giving up the bottle.” She stood by Sam’s side, expecting him to argue with her. “You told me you never drink except when you’re hurt, yet the first time we’re in a place that sells—.”
Without turning to face her, Sam took her hand. “You’ll be needing that bag to carry your belongings in.” He didn’t even act as if he heard her as he squeezed her fingers.
Trying to pull away, Sarah looked down at the huge hand holding hers. Warm blood dripped across her fingers, and she realized his draped coat hid a wound beneath his shoulder.
“You’re hurt!”
“Shot,” Sam corrected. “And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t make an announcement. I took one in the arm, two in the leg. But I think those bullets just passed through muscle.”
His dark eyes stared down at her, and she saw the all-too-familiar pain. “Sarah ...” Sweat formed across his forehead as he fought to remain standing.
“I know,” she answered, aggravation blending with panic in her voice. “Better get you out of town before you fall.”
He nodded slightly and slipped his arm around her waist.
They moved slowly through the back room of the store. Sarah acted as if she were showing him something when the storekeeper hurriedly passed with another load.
“Oh!” Sarah yelled to the round little man’s back as she tried to keep him too busy to notice them. “Could you add six more cans of peaches and three blankets?” They crossed the cluttered storage room, Sam leaning more heavily against her shoulder with each step. “And”—she fought to keep her voice even—“I forgot potatoes.” They made it to the opening when she added, “And, Mr. Moon, Sam just reminded me, he’d like a couple of pairs of your best longhandles. Winter’s coming on.”
They could hear the shopkeeper groan. He’d obviously rather be out bragging about waiting on Sam Gatlin than actually doing so.
Moving as fast as Sam could, they crossed to the wagon. Sarah noticed it was the same old rented buckboard and the same two horses, but Sam had tied a saddled mount to the back. This black stallion was not like any she’d seen for rent at a livery, but there was no time for questions.
Five minutes later, when Mr. Moon finally collected all the extra things Sarah asked for, she and Sam were already in the wagon, their laps covered with one of the new blankets.
When the store owner shoved the last box in the back with an oath, Sam seemed to be forcing his voice to sound calm. “I shot one of Reed’s gang when they stormed the room at the hotel. He had a price on his head.” Sam took a breath and continued, “Tell the sheriff to take the man’s burial expenses out of the reward and deposit the rest of the money with you. I’ll pick it up in a month or so.”
Mr. Moon brightened. “Yes, sir. You know I’ll keep it in the safe for you. Same agreement as always, a five percent charge for handling.”
“One more thing.” Sam gripped the side of the wagon and straightened so the shopkeeper wouldn’t know he was hurt. “The next time my wife comes in here, you’d better be damn sure I’m dead before you turn her down. Understand?”
Mr. Moon looked too frightened to answer.
“And don’t go calling her my woman. She’s my wife. Anything that belongs to me belongs to her. She can take my entire stash out of your safe if she feels the need.”
Sarah glanced at the shopkeeper. He nodded and she knew the next time she came into his store she’d be treated differently.
Lifting the reins, Sarah maneuvered the horses along the back of the stores toward open country. After a few minutes Sam pointed at a path veering off the main road and not north in the direction they’d entered town.
“Take that trail as far as you can,” he whispered under his breath. “I want to make sure we’re not followed.”
She didn’t question, guessing he had his reasons and she’d find out soon enough. He might be bleeding, but there was still a power about him. A wounded lion was still a lion.
They traveled half a mile down the path before she turned to him and asked, “So, what did you do before I came along, just die every time you went to town?”
Sam didn’t laugh.
Sarah knew the pain must be bad. “We need to stop and let me take a look at those wounds.”
“Not yet,” Sam said with clenched teeth. “Not until we’re out of sight of the town. I’ll show you a place. Try to miss as least one of the mud holes between now and then.”
“I was driving a team before I could walk,” Sarah lied. In truth she had only learned to drive a team when they started out on the wagon train. There, every wife drove, everyone walked from time to time.
Sam grunted at her claim as she managed to roll over another mud hole.
Ten minutes later Sarah turned a bend in the road and pulled the wagon off to the side onto a grassy area near a stream. She spread one of the new blankets over grass already brown and helped Sam down. Blood coated one side of his leg like thick paint.
“I hate blood,” she whispered more to herself than him.
“I’m not too fond of it myself.” He smiled. “I don’t mind other people‘s, but the sight of my own doesn’t sit well with me.”
“Take off your clothes and let me count the wounds this time.”
Sam hesitated.
Sarah collected supplies. “Take them off, Sam Gatlin. I’ll not be seeing anything I haven’t seen before.”
He pulled off his once white shirt slowly, trying not to raise his left arm more than a few inches. He stumbled when he stepped out of his pants while trying to hold a blanket up to allow a bit of privacy. Sarah hurried to steady him, but ended up tumbling with him. He twisted as they fell, taking the blow of the ground while she landed atop him.
For a moment Sarah didn’t move. She lay atop the wall of his chest, listening to his heart pound beneath her ear.
“Are you all right?” she whispered as she struggled to sit up.
He didn’t move. His eyes were closed. The corner of his forehead looked purple.
She stood and circled him. The blanket he still held by one corner lay across his waist, barely covering his private parts. “Sam?” Even without his gun belt or clothes he still looked like a mighty warrior. “Sam!”
He didn’t answer. He was one bloody, magnificent creature, she thought, even out cold. Not one ounce of pretty or even handsome on him, but two hundred pounds of solid muscle and power.
Tripping over the new tin sewing box, she found what his head must have hit when it fell. “You dented my sewing box,” she complained as if he could hear her ... as if it mattered.
Sarah pulled their canteen from beneath the seat, thankful she’d refilled it when they’d left the river yesterday. Looking back at him, she shook her head, not knowing where to start.
“You are doing your best to turn me into a widow again, Sam Gatlin, but I’ve got news for you, I’m not going to make it easy on you. If I learned anything from living with Granny Vee, it was how to patch up folks. She always told me doctoring was easier than picking cotton, so that’s why she learned it. But then, she never ran across the likes of you.”