Читать книгу The Ranger's Bride - Laurie Grant - Страница 11

If it hadn’t been for the tragedy that had necessitated her driving the stagecoach into Connor’s Crossing, Addy would have been amused by the reaction that greeted her as the coach rolled onto Main Street after crossing the bridge over the Llano River.

Dogs barked and scurried out in pursuit of the stage. A pair of ladies strolling onto Main Street—ladies she recognized as two of her best customers—stared in slack-jawed amazement, one of them dropping her parasol. The town ne’er-do-well, lounging outside the barbershop, turned to run inside—no doubt to tell the barber what he’d seen—and ran right into the support pole holding up the roof that jutted out over the shop. As the horses trotted farther along Main Street, cowboys loitering outside the saloon shouted questions at her and the news of a woman driving the stage to patrons inside.

Addy ignored them all, determined not to be delayed. She wanted to tell the story only once. Approaching Miss Beatrice Morgan’s trim cottage, she spied a towheaded, freckle-faced boy of five staring between the slats of the white picket fence. It was Billy, the sheriff’s son, whom Miss Beatrice looked after during the day while his widowed father served as Connor’s Crossing’s sheriff.

“Billy!” she called, “run ahead and find your father for me, will you? Tell him to come to the jail, that I need to speak to him right now!”

If he had no prisoners to guard, Sheriff Asa Wilson spent little time in his office at the jail. Usually, at this time of day, he was ensconced in the general store playing checkers, but there was no guarantee of that, and Addy didn’t want to spend valuable time looking for him. She was eager to turn the coach and its dead passenger over to him as soon as possible so that she could get back to the wounded Ranger in her house.

Still paying no attention to the questions called out by every soul she passed, Addy had just reined in the team in front of the jail and was setting the brake when Asa Wilson catapulted out of the general store with Billy on his heels.

“Miss Addy! I thought Billy had lost his mind when he told me you were driving a st—Dear God, what’s happened to you? You’re all bloody! Are you—are you shot?”

Belatedly, she gazed down at her dress and saw the blood that had dried into dark-brown splotches and streaks across the front of her bodice and skirts. Dear God, indeed! But her appearance was of no concern to her right now.

“No, Asa,” she said, as she took hold of his hand and allowed him to help her down. “I’m unharmed. But…I’m afraid we were robbed back there.” She gestured back up the road that led past her house into town.

“Wilson, there’s a dead man in here,” called the barber, who had apparently been peering inside the coach while she spoke. “He’s all shot up.”

Asa’s eyes flew to her face, and he seized her other hand.

Addy nodded in confirmation, feeling her knees starting to turn to jelly now that she had accomplished her mission of bringing the coach—and the news—to town.

“Th-that’s how I got so bloody,” she told him, aware that more than half the town was clustered around the coach and hearing every word. “I was crouched down in the floor of the stage…and he fell over on me.”

A buzz arose from the crowd at her words, but over it she could hear Asa murmuring, “Dear God,” once again.

“You could have been killed,” he added in a hoarse whisper. “Oh, Miss Addy, I knew I shouldn’t have let you go by yourself!”

Her eyes dropped, uneasy at the naked devotion in his eyes. His kindness and caring made her feel guilty. Ever since she had come to town and made his acquaintance he had always been a gentleman. He’d said he understood that she couldn’t return his feelings just yet since she had only been a widow for half a year. But she couldn’t think about the way she’d been deceiving this good man, not now.

“Asa…there’s five more people dead out there, about three miles out, where we were attacked. The driver, two women—”

“Women?” someone cried. “They killed women?”

Suddenly feeling more weary than she ever had in her life, she nodded and went on. “Another man who was a drummer, and the sh—” She shut her mouth. She had almost said, “the shotgun guard.” Quickly she corrected herself and told the lie. “And a Ranger.”

“There was a Ranger aboard? They killed a Texas Ranger?”

“Where was the shotgun guard? The stage company usually has a shotgun guard riding up top with the driver.”

“I—I—” Addy stammered. Was her lie to be exposed so easily? She thought fast. “The Ranger was riding up on top…I guess he was acting as the shotgun guard?” Then she thought it would be best to mix in as much truth with her lie as she could. “The stagecoach driver was killed first, and he fell off the top. Then I think the—the Ranger grabbed the reins and tried to fire back at them…but they caught up and then the man…inside there—” she shuddered as she gestured at the interior of the coach “—was shot and fell over on me. I guess I must have fainted, for when I awoke and managed to get out from under…the body—” she closed her eyes, and her shudder was not the least put-on “—I found everyone else lying dead outside the coach.”

“Sweet heaven,” someone muttered.

“Sounds like the Fogarty Gang,” someone else said.

“Didja see their faces, Miss Addy? Any of them buzzards?” someone else asked.

Addy shook her head. “Not really,” she said, though the image of a face half-concealed by a red bandanna as he stuck a pistol in the window flashed through her brain.

She shut her eyes again, suddenly feeling more than a little dizzy. She swayed.

“Miss Addy, didja—”

“Shut up! Can’t you see she’s about to swoon?” snapped Asa. “Back away, gentlemen, back away. I’m gonna take Miss Addy inside so she can sit down where it’s cooler.” Asa Wilson inserted an arm bracingly around her and guided her firmly but gently toward the door of the jail. “You men, stick around,” he called over his shoulder. “We’re going to have to form a posse—and if someone can drive a buckboard out there, those bodies have to be brought in for identification and proper burial. Oh, and Miss Morgan, would you have any smelling salts with you?”

“Oh, dear me, no,” Addy heard Beatrice Morgan say. “But I could run back to my house….”

Beatrice Morgan was a plump old maid of perhaps sixty years who had already come to Addy once for the making of a new black bombazine dress. Black was all she seemed to wear, though who she was in mourning for was a mystery to Addy and the rest of the town.

“No smelling salts, Asa,” Addy protested. The stinging scent of hartshorn always nauseated her.

“Never mind, Miss Morgan, perhaps it would be more helpful if you’d come in and be with Miss Addy,” Asa said. “A feminine presence, you know…just Miss Morgan,” he said, as a handful of Connor’s Crossing ladies moved to follow them. He pushed open the door and ushered Addy and Beatrice Morgan inside.

It felt good to sink into Asa’s big chair while he bustled about, pouring Addy a drink of cold water from the pitcher he always kept on his desk. The cool dimness of the jail office was restorative, too, after the heat of a Texas summer afternoon.

“Here, my dear, let’s elevate your feet on this,” Beatrice said, lifting Addy’s feet and shoving a stack of unread newspapers underneath them. “Addy,” she whispered, “surely we had better loosen your stays, too? Sheriff,” she called in a coy voice, “would you please step out while I…ahem!…assist Miss Addy to breathe better?”

Addy had no need for tight-lacing and had had about enough of Miss Morgan’s fluttering, well-intentioned though it was. She opened her eyes. “Never mind, Miss Beatrice, I’m breathing just fine, truly I am,” she said with as much firmness as she could muster.

Beatrice Morgan looked disappointed. “Well, if you’re sure, dear.”

Asa Wilson cleared his throat. “Well, Miss Addy, I’ll be leaving for a little while anyway. I’ve got to go out there now and organize a posse. I won’t be gone any longer than it takes to capture those no-good bas—Pardon me, ladies, those outlaws,” he amended. “In the meantime, Miss Morgan can stay with you here. And then I’ll take you home in my buggy.”

Addy knew there wasn’t a chance in a million that the outlaws would still be in the area, but she didn’t want to deflate his pride by arguing with him. She couldn’t stay here, though, not with the wounded Ranger awaiting her return!

“But it could take you hours to find their trail and capture the outlaws, and then you’ll be much too busy guarding them to be worrying about me, Asa—though I thank you for your concern, of course. I’m feeling much better, truly I am,” she insisted. “Let me just sit here for a few minutes, and then I’ll just walk on home—”

“You’ll do no such thing,” Beatrice said, clucking disapprovingly. “It’s out of the question for you to be alone tonight. After your grueling ordeal, you need the company of another woman. You’ll come to my house and stay the night. You’ll have a hot bath while I wash the bloodstains out of that dress, and you can wear an old wrapper of mine while it dries.”

“I’m much obliged, Miss Morgan,” Asa said, looking relieved as he strode to the door. “Miss Addy, you do just what she says. I’ll call on you there in the morning.”

If it hadn’t been for the presence of Rede Smith at her house, Addy would have been tempted to allow Beatrice to take her to her home and fuss over her. Addy had already been invited for supper twice and knew that Beatrice Morgan was a legendary cook, and she was sure she would feel much better for a bit of the kindly older woman’s pampering. But she had to get home to the Ranger. Every minute she delayed increased the Ranger’s chance of developing fatal blood poisoning.

“But I’m afraid I can’t—”

The sheriff let the door slam shut behind him, a man on a mission of justice.

“Miss Beatrice, I appreciate your kindness,” Addy began, “truly I do, but I’m fine. I’ll just walk on home. I have so much to do—”

“Addy Kelly, all that stitching can wait. You’ve had a dreadful shock. Walking on home by yourself, indeed! You wouldn’t make it five yards beyond the barber shop! If you won’t come to my house, I’m coming to yours!”

Oh, dear, now she had truly made things worse. She could just picture Beatrice Morgan discovering the wounded man in her bedroom!

She could see there was no use arguing with the determined spinster. But the excitement appeared to have taken a toll on the old woman, for she looked suddenly fatigued. That gave Addy an idea.

“Miss Beatrice, I suppose you’re right,” she said meekly. “I shouldn’t think of going home right now. In fact, I’m suddenly so tired I can’t even move beyond this jail. I think I’ll just go lie down in there for a few minutes,” she said, pointing to the cot in one of the jail’s two cells. As soon as I’ve rested, we’ll walk down to your house, all right?” She wasn’t worried about using the same cot on which lawbreakers slept. The cells rarely had occupants, and Asa was so fastidious that the whole town teased him about having the sheets laundered after a cell had been occupied.

“Now you’re sounding more sensible!” Miss Beatrice crowed triumphantly. “You do just that! I’ll sit right here and wait. Don’t you get up a single moment before you’re ready.”

As soon as Addy rose and moved toward the cell on the right, she plopped herself down in the same chair Addy had been sitting in. Already, the plump older woman’s eyelids were sagging over her watery, pale eyes. “I’ll be right here, dear,” the older woman murmured.

Addy made a great show of settling herself down on the narrow cot, yawning elaborately while she said, “I declare, I’m suddenly so tired…don’t let me fall asleep, Miss Beatrice….”

Beatrice Morgan’s eyes had already drifted shut.

Addy lay on the cot in the jail cell, listening to the horses’ snorting and stamping of hooves, the creak of leather and the jingling of spurs and bits as the men of Connor’s Crossing prepared to ride in pursuit of the Fogarty Gang.

It took about half an hour, but finally they were ready and Addy heard Asa Wilson call, “All right, men, looks like we’re ready to move out. Sooner we hit the trail, the sooner we catch those no-account bastards and bring them to trial. Now, there’ll be no talk of lynching, is that clear?”

Dear Asa, Addy thought. As upright and steadfast as the day was long. He truly believed that he and his little Connor’s Crossing posse were going to come upon the outlaws, milling around out there among the hills, just waiting to be caught.

Asa was a good man, and Addy was fond of him, and even fonder of his little boy Billy. Billy’s mama had died two years ago during a cholera epidemic, and Addy knew Asa wanted to give the boy a mother again. And so Asa had decided he was in love with Addy, and perhaps he really was. But Addy knew she didn’t love Asa, and probably never would, and that her assumed widowhood functioned as a sort of shield from his ready devotion. She realized that when the year was up since her husband’s supposed “death” she was going to have to either accept the proposal of marriage Asa would undoubtedly offer, or admit that she didn’t love him.

She also knew that all it would take to discourage Asa Wilson was the truth—that she was a divorced woman, not a widow. Shock would widen those clear blue eyes, and then he would look sad. He would say he understood, and of course he would not trouble her with his attentions again. And he would never tell anyone in town that she had deceived them all in order to retain their goodwill, and that she was no honest widow, but a woman who was beyond the pale of respectability—who had actually divorced her husband.

Addy couldn’t tell him, or anyone, the truth. No one must know that her former husband still lived back in St. Louis—assuming, of course, he had not fallen afoul of some liquored-up gambler who caught him cheating at cards.

All sound had died away outside. Carefully, moving slowly to minimize the rustling of the straw-stuffed mattress beneath her, she sat up and then tiptoed to the shuttered window.

By the desk, Beatrice Morgan snored, her mouth slackly open, her head sagging on her thick neck.

The shutter creaked on its hinges as she pulled it open, and Addy froze, but the old woman did not awaken.

Cautiously, she peered out.

The streets were deserted for as far as she could see in either direction. The stagecoach had been moved down the street and parked in front of the undertaker’s shop, no doubt to make removal of the big man’s body easier. Someone had unhitched the four horses that had pulled it. She couldn’t see the livery from here, but she was sure the horses had been put into the corral with hay and water and would remain there until the stage company claimed them.

She had to leave Asa a note, or he’d worry, and perhaps come looking for her at her house. She’d better include Miss Beatrice too, who would be distraught when she woke to find her gone. Careful not to make a noise that would wake the still-snoring woman, Addy grabbed a wanted notice lying on the desk and a stub of a pencil, turned the stiff paper over, and wrote:

Dear Asa and Miss Beatrice,

Thank you for your kindness. I’ve gone on home, as I’m sure I’ll be more comfortable in my own place. I’m going to go to bed as soon as I get there. I’ll be fine, don’t worry. I’ll see you both tomorrow.

Gratefully,

Addy Kelly

Then she tiptoed to the back door and stealthily lifted up the latch and let herself out. So that no one would see her, she would go down the back street, which connected up with the main road at the edge of town. Once she crossed the bridge over the rocky-bedded Llano, it was just a short walk to her house.