Читать книгу The Rustler - Linda Lael Miller - Страница 11

CHAPTER TWO

GIDEON ALMOST GOT HIMSELF SHOT, banging into the jail like he did, in the middle of the night, with Wyatt sleep-flummoxed and in the altogether and all. He had the .45 cocked and aimed before he realized where he was, and who he was dealing with.

“Shit,” Wyatt said, wrenching the thin blanket up over himself and falling back on his cot with a sigh of relief, the pistol still in his right hand. “You oughtn’t to bust in on a man like that. I nearly put a bullet in you.”

Gideon slouched onto the cot opposite Wyatt’s, illuminated by a beam of moonlight straying in through the barred window, and wrenched off one of his boots. “I live here,” he said, and it was clear from his tone that he was none too pleased to be sharing his quarters. “Except when there’s a prisoner, of course. Anyhow, it wouldn’t have been the first time somebody put a bullet in me.”

Therein lies a tale, Wyatt thought.

“Hell of a place to call home,” he said, grimacing a little at the irony of the whole situation. After two years in the hoosegow, he’d ended up sleeping behind bars again. He reckoned it was God’s idea of a joke. “Where do you sleep when somebody gets themselves arrested?”

“Around,” Gideon said, after a long and studious pause. “I’ll be heading out for college pretty soon. I mean to be a Pinkerton man, or sign on as a Wells Fargo agent.”

The underlying message was clear enough: Don’t go thinking I mean to be an outlaw, like you, just because we’re kin.

“Who’d have thought it,” Wyatt mused, in a wry undertone, staring up at the low, shadowed ceiling of the cell. “Two of Payton Yarbro’s boys turning out to be lawmen. He must be rolling over in his grave.”

The boy stripped to his skivvies and stretched out on the cot. “Pappy died fighting for what was right,” he said. “What are you doing here? In Stone Creek, I mean?”

“Just looking for a place to be,” Wyatt answered. He didn’t expect the kid to trust him, the way Rowdy did. He and Gideon might have the same blood flowing through their veins, but in every other way, they were strangers. In fact, he kind of admired his younger brother’s caution, figuring it must have come from their ma’s side, since Pappy had never—to Wyatt’s knowledge anyway—exhibited the trait. “Who shot you?”

“Happened at a dance,” Gideon answered. “I’ll tell you about it some other time.” For a few minutes after that, he was quiet, except for some creaking of the old rope springs supporting his mattress as he settled his sizable frame for sleep.

The silence, though blessed to Wyatt’s ears, did not endure. “I saw you walking Sarah Tamlin home today,” Gideon remarked. “And I reckon you know her father owns the Stockman’s Bank.”

Wyatt smiled in the darkness, though a wing of sadness brushed the back of his heart. Most likely, he’d never really know Gideon, or be known by him, since the boy was bound for some far-off place. College. It was a thing Wyatt couldn’t imagine, though he’d read every book he could get his hands on. “You figure I’ve switched from holding up trains to robbing banks?”

“I’m just warning you, that’s all. Rowdy takes his job as marshal seriously. Brother or not, if you break the law, he’ll shut that door on you and turn the key. Don’t think he won’t.”

“I appreciate your concern,” Wyatt said dryly.

Another pause descended, long and awkward. The boy was brimming with questions, Wyatt knew, but asking them required some pride-swallowing.

“Tell me about the others,” Gideon murmured.

“The others?” Wyatt hedged.

“You know who I mean—Nicholas and Ethan and Levi. Pa told me their names, but not much else.”

“It’s late,” Wyatt answered. “If you want to know more about the family history, why don’t you ask Rowdy?”

“He won’t talk about them.”

“Maybe he’s got reason, and you ought to accept that and let the matter rest.”

“I’ve got a right to know about my own brothers, don’t I?”

Again, a sigh escaped Wyatt. He cupped his hands behind his head and closed his eyes, but sleep, the delicious, dreamless refuge he’d been enjoying earlier, eluded him. “Did it ever occur to you that it might be better all around if you didn’t? It isn’t always so, but there’s some truth in that old adage about ignorance being bliss.”

“Tell me.”

“Will you shut up and let me sleep if I do? I’ve got things to do in the morning—like find work.”

“I will,” Gideon agreed staunchly.

“I’m the eldest,” Wyatt recited dutifully. “Nick is a year younger. He’s always been a bit on the delicate side, not much for outlawing. Last I heard, he was living in Boston, writing poems and starving. By now, he’s probably contracted consumption—he’d enjoy a disease like that. Then come the twins—Ethan and Levi. Levi’s a little slow—and Ethan is a born killer. Rowdy is next in line, and I figure you probably know as much about him as he wants you to.”

“What was he like—before?”

“Tough. Fast with a gun. Smart as hell. Not much he was ever scared of, as far as I could tell. That’s how he got the nickname. Ma called him by his given name, Rob—she had a soft spot for him.” Wyatt thought he heard the boy swallow hard, over there on his cot. It struck him—with a brief but hard pang—that he probably knew more about Billy Justice and the members of his gang than he did about Gideon, his own brother.

“Pappy said Ma died having me,” Gideon said quietly, revealing a great deal more about himself in that one statement than he’d probably intended.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Wyatt said.

There was a shrug in Gideon’s voice when he answered. “She’d be alive now, if it hadn’t been for me,” he argued.

“You can’t know that for sure,” Wyatt pointed out, feeling sorry for the kid. It was a rung up the ladder, he reckoned, from feeling sorry for himself—he’d done enough of that in prison.

Gideon was quiet again, but just long enough for Wyatt to start hoping the palavering was over, so he could drift back into oblivion. He slept like a dead man, and rarely remembered his dreams, if he had any, and he considered that a blessing. Other men he’d known, back in Texas, hadn’t been so fortunate.

“There are some things a man just has to let go of,” he told Gideon.

“I reckon,” Gideon agreed, but without much conviction.

Wyatt rolled onto his side, with his back to his brother, and punched down his pillow, though it was already flat, figuring his saddle would have served better. Been cleaner, too. “Good night,” he said, with a yawn.

“What was she like?” Gideon asked. “Ma, I mean.”

Wyatt suppressed another sigh. Stayed on his side, eyes wide-open, staring at the splintery, raw-timbered wall. “She was a fine woman,” he said. “Half again too good for Pappy, that’s for certain. She loved him, though.”

At last, Gideon fell silent, though Wyatt knew there would be more questions, right along. With luck, they’d be ones he could answer.

* * *

THE MORNING AFTER Wyatt Yarbro walked her home from the revival picnic, Sarah overslept. She bolted awake, flustered, and scrambled out of bed, groping for her wrapper, wrenching it on, not bothering to shove her bare feet into house slippers.

“Papa?” she called, from the top of the back stairs leading down into the kitchen. “Papa!”

Dear God, suppose he’d wandered off again? The last time, he’d sneaked out wearing only a striped nightshirt and his best beaver top hat; she’d been lucky then, catching up to him at the corner, but Mrs. Madison, their neighbor, had witnessed the spectacle. Sarah had lied, smiling a brittle smile and explaining, perhaps too quickly, that her father had been sleepwalking lately.

The lying hadn’t been the worst part, though—Sarah lied on a daily basis, to such an extent that she made notes in a ledger book in order to be consistent. No, the terrible thing had been seeing her intelligent, affable father looking so bewildered.

The back door was still locked; Sarah rushed to the front.

Ephriam Tamlin, founder, president and holder of majority shares in the Stockman’s Bank, sat on the porch step, spine straight, a shotgun lying across his knees. He’d stuffed himself into a moth-eaten army uniform, Union blue.

Sarah put a hand to her heart. Drew a deep breath. “Papa,” she said, careful to speak softly, so she wouldn’t startle him.

“They’ve come, Nancy Anne,” he said, without turning to look up at her. “The Rebs are here.”

Sarah sat down beside him, tightening the belt of her wrapper and offering a silent prayer that no one would pass on the sidewalk and see them taking the morning air in such inappropriate garb. She reached for the shotgun, but Ephriam gripped it with strong, age-spotted hands.

“I saw their tent,” Ephriam went on. “Bold as Lucifer, those Confederates. Made camp right on the banks of Stone Creek. Heaven help us all if it’s Quantrill.”

Sarah closed her eyes for a moment, swallowed a hard lump of misery before attempting to speak. She laid a gentle hand on the faded blue sleeve of her father’s coat. “Papa,” she whispered. “Look at me.”

He turned, his kindly blue eyes blinking behind the thick, smudged lenses of his spectacles. This was the man who had been her rock, before and after her mother died. He’d protected her, provided for her. Helped her keep a shattering secret. Now, he looked befuddled, as though he knew he ought to be able to place her, but couldn’t quite manage it.

“It’s me, Papa,” she said. “Sarah. And the war has been over for forty-two years.”

He blinked again, rapidly now, and looked down at his ancient uniform and the shotgun resting across his lap. He was sixty-seven, too young for dementia. “I’ve had another spell,” he said, with a look of such mortified regret that Sarah felt bruised inside.

Gently, she took the shotgun from his hands. “No harm done,” she said, her voice hoarse with emotion. It probably wasn’t true, of course. He’d glimpsed Brother Hickey’s tent and mistaken it for a Confederate camp, and unless he’d followed the creek both ways, he must have walked right through town—dressed up in his old uniform, with the shotgun held smartly against his shoulder, like a soldier on patrol. Heaven only knew how many people had seen him, and were even now passing the word over fences and clotheslines.

“I’m sorry, Sarah,” he said, looking so wretched that fresh tears scalded her eyes.

“Come inside and change,” she replied, with an attempt at a reassuring smile. “I’ll make breakfast, and we’ll go to the bank and attend to business, just like we always do.”

Ephriam nodded, rose stiffly from the step. Looked down at his uniform with a rueful shake of his head. “I’m not the man I used to be,” he said sadly.

“Nonsense,” Sarah said briskly, once they were inside the house and out of sight of the neighbors. She set the shotgun aside with caution and straightened his blue coat. “You’re Ephriam Tamlin, head of the Stockman’s Bank. Now, what would you like for breakfast?”

* * *

THE TELEGRAPH OPERATOR showed up just as Rowdy, Gideon, Lark and Wyatt were finishing up their morning meal. Stood panting in the open doorway, skinny and sweating, a sheet of yellow paper clasped in one hand.

Rowdy immediately pushed back his chair and rose.

The baby, perched on Lark’s lap while she spooned oatmeal into his mouth, started at the commotion, and old Pardner gave a questioning bark but didn’t rise from the hooked rug next to the cookstove.

“There’s been a lynching down near Haven,” sputtered the little man on the threshold. He looked like a scarecrow in Sunday clothes. “Bunch of ranchers caught a couple of cattle thieves and strung ’em up. They want you to come. You and Sam O’Ballivan. I sent Zeke Reynolds out to Stone Creek Ranch with the news.”

A chill trickled down Wyatt’s spine. For a moment, he was out there under that rustler’s moon again, in the aftermath of a storm and a stampede he’d been lucky to survive, distant shots echoing in his ears.

Rowdy snatched the telegram from the messenger’s hand and scanned it a couple of times, in the way of a man who hoped it might say something different if he read it enough. Swore under his breath.

“You’re not a Ranger anymore,” Lark said quietly, gazing at her husband with luminous brown eyes. Her hair was fair, like Rowdy’s, and shorter than most women’s, just touching her shoulders. “And you’re the marshal of Stone Creek, not Haven.”

“If Sam goes,” Rowdy told his wife, avoiding her eyes, “I’ll be riding with him.”

“Me, too,” Gideon said.

Wyatt didn’t speak, and that was a hard thing, not offering to help. If there was one place he couldn’t afford to be seen in, it was that little border town, just outside of which he and Billy Justice and the boys had helped themselves to more than five hundred head of cattle.

“You’re staying right here,” Rowdy told Gideon, but his tone lacked conviction. Like as not, Gideon would get his way.

Meanwhile, Wyatt saw his dream of settling down, living under his own name instead of yet another alias, marrying up with a woman like Sarah and raising kids and cattle, scatter into the air like the fluff from a dandelion head. As soon as Rowdy and Sam O’Ballivan rode out, he would, too—heading in the opposite direction.

He should have known he couldn’t live in the open, like ordinary men.

Rowdy handed the telegraph operator a coin and dismissed him with a muttered “Thanks” and a distracted wave of one hand, reading the message again.

“If you’re going to Haven,” Lark said firmly, getting to her feet, swinging the baby onto her hip in the same motion, “so are Hank and I.”

“Who’s going to mind Stone Creek?” Wyatt asked, not because he cared much about the answer, but because he thought Rowdy might get suspicious if he didn’t say something. “Is there a deputy?”

A slow grin broke across Rowdy’s strained, thoughtful face. “Yes,” he said. “I’m looking at him.”

Wyatt felt hot color rush up his neck. “Me?”

Rowdy nodded. “You,” he said.

At last, Wyatt stood. “I don’t know anything about being a lawman,” he protested, but carefully. “Until two years ago, I had a price on my head.”

“So did I, at one time,” Rowdy said, unfazed. He could be like an old dog mauling a soup bone when he wanted something. Changing his mind wouldn’t be easy, if it was possible at all. “Turned out pinning on a badge was my salvation,” he said, catching Lark’s eye as she set the baby down on the rug beside the dog and moved to begin clearing the table. “That and a good woman willing to take a chance on a former train robber.”

Lark blushed prettily. “If you think you’re going to charm me out of going to Haven, Rowdy Yarbro,” she said, “you are sadly mistaken. As soon as I’ve done these dishes, I mean to pack for the trip.”

“Gideon will take care of the dishes,” Rowdy said. He was watching Wyatt again, though, and there was something disconcerting in his eyes, an intent, measuring expression. They hadn’t talked about the months between Wyatt’s release and his arrival in Stone Creek—there hadn’t been time. But Rowdy was a hard man to fool, and he clearly had his suspicions.

Gideon banged the dishes and cutlery around in the sink, but he didn’t protest the washing-up.

“It might be better if I just moved on,” Wyatt said. “I’m not cut out to uphold the law. Hell, it’s all I can do to stay on the right side of it. You know that.”

“Stone Creek is a quiet town,” Rowdy answered easily. “Most you’d run up against would be drunken cowboys, or railroad workers whooping it up on a Saturday night.”

Gideon grumbled something about getting shot at a dance, and did Rowdy call that quiet? But Wyatt was too focused on staring down the marshal of Stone Creek to pursue the matter right then.

“Gideon Yarbro,” Lark called from the bedroom, where she could be heard opening and shutting bureau drawers, “if you break one of my good dishes slamming them around like that, I’ll horsewhip you from one end of Main Street to the other!”

Exasperated, Wyatt shoved his hands into the hip pockets of his borrowed denim pants. Everything he was wearing, save his boots, pistol and gun belt—he’d left that outside out of deference to Lark—belonged to Rowdy. He sure hadn’t counted on adding a badge to the getup. “Why is a lynching in some other town any of your concern, anyhow?” he asked.

“I wrote you about it,” Rowdy said, still watching Wyatt a little too closely for his liking. “Told you what happened there.”

Wyatt’s mouth went dry. “I guess that particular letter didn’t catch up with me,” he said. He and Rowdy had written each other on and off for years, but it was a scattershot sort of thing. He’d ride into a town, stop in at the post office if there happened to be one, and inquire if there was mail for him, sent care of general delivery. Sometimes, there was. More often, there wasn’t.

A month ago, he’d wound up in Tucson, and there was a letter waiting from Rowdy, full of news about Lark and the baby and his job in Stone Creek. He’d related the story of Pappy’s death, and said if Wyatt wanted honest work, a friend of his named Sam O’Ballivan was always looking for cowpokes.

At the time, Wyatt had regarded that letter as a fluke of the postal system.

Now, he figured Rowdy must have figured he’d wind up in the Arizona Territory eventually, maybe looking for Pappy, and wished he’d never set foot in the post office in Tucson. Or, better yet, thrown in with the likes of Billy Justice before Rowdy offered him a fresh start.

“I can’t stay, Rowdy,” he said.

“You’ll stay,” Rowdy said.

“What makes you so damn sure?”

“That old nag of yours is practically dead on his feet. He doesn’t have another long ride in him.”

“He made it here, didn’t he?”

Rowdy didn’t seem to be listening. “I’ve got a spare gelding out there in the barn. You can ride him if you see the need. Name’s Sugarfoot, and he’ll throw you if you try to mount up on the right side.”

“When it comes to riding out, one horse is as good as another,” Wyatt said, but he was thinking of old Reb, the paint gelding, and how sorry he’d be to leave him behind. They’d been partners since that turn of the cards in Abilene, after all, and Wyatt would have been in a fine fix without him.

“You’re a lot of things, Wyatt,” Rowdy reasoned, “but a horse thief isn’t among them. Especially when the horse in question belongs to me.”

Wyatt scowled, said nothing. He was fresh out of arguments, at the moment. Hadn’t kept up on his arguing skills, the way Rowdy had.

Rowdy saw his advantage and pressed it. “And then there’s Sarah Tamlin,” he said.

“What about Sarah Tamlin?” Lark asked, appearing in the bedroom doorway with a fat satchel in one hand.

Wyatt glared at Rowdy.

Rowdy merely grinned.

“She smokes cigars,” Wyatt said lamely. “You told me that yourself, just yesterday. Plays poker, too. Gives a man second thoughts.”

“She does not smoke cigars,” Lark insisted.

“So it’s true about the poker!” Rowdy said, in an ah-ha tone of voice.

“I wouldn’t know,” Lark said, with an indignant sniff.

“I heard she was a member of the Tuesday Afternoon Ladies Only Secret Poker Society,” Gideon said, looking smug. “And she’s not the only one. It might surprise you who goes to those meetings.”

Rowdy chuckled.

“Gideon,” Lark warned.

He turned back to the sink, flushed, and scrubbed industriously at the kettle Lark had used to boil up the morning’s oatmeal.

“It’s just a rumor,” Lark told Rowdy. “Respectable women do not play poker. Or smoke cigars.”

“Whatever you say, dear,” Rowdy replied sweetly.

Wyatt just shook his head, confounded.

“Come on,” Rowdy said to him, beckoning. “I’ll show you around town. Sam can swear you in when he gets here. What I do is, I count the horses in front of the saloons. If there’re more than a dozen, I keep a closer eye on the place—”

Wyatt followed, since that seemed like the only thing to do.

* * *

“THERE,” SAID SARAH, straightening her father’s tie outside the door of his office at the bank, grateful that the place was empty at the moment. Thomas, the only teller, had gone out when they arrived. The train would be pulling in at the new depot within an hour, pausing only long enough to swap mailbags with the postmaster and take on any passengers who might be waiting on the platform—or drop off new arrivals.

It was Thomas’s job, at least in part, to rush back to the bank and report to Sarah if any important visitors showed up. She was always on the lookout for unexpected stockholders.

“I’ll handle things, Papa,” Sarah assured her father, who had turned fretful again after breakfast. She was fairly certain he hadn’t seen her stuff his army uniform behind the wooden barrel of the washing machine on the back porch, but she wasn’t absolutely sure. “If someone comes in to open an account or inquire about a loan, let me do the talking. I’ll say you’re busy. All you have to do is sit at your desk, with your papers—if they insist on greeting you personally, I’ll be careful to call them by name so you know what to—”

“Sarah.” Ephriam looked pained.

“Papa, you know you forget.”

Just then, the street door opened with a crash, and Thomas burst in. Plump, with a constellation of smallpox scars spilling down one side of his face, he seemed on the verge of panic.

“Sarah!” he gasped, from the threshold, one fleshy hand pressed to his chest. “It’s him—the man in the photograph you showed me—”

Sarah’s knees turned to water. “No,” she said, leaning against her father for a moment. “He couldn’t possibly have—”

“It’s him,” Thomas repeated.

“Calm down,” Sarah said hastily. “Remember your asthma.”

Thomas struggled to a wooden chair, in front of the window, and sat there sucking in air like a trout on a creek bank. “S-Sarah, wh-what are we going to d-do—?”

“What,” Ephriam interjected, suddenly forceful, “is happening?”

Even in her agitation, Sarah felt a stab of sorrow, because she knew her father wouldn’t be his old self for more than a few minutes. When the inevitable fog rolled in, shrouding his mind again, she’d miss him more keenly than ever.

“You’re going to take Papa home,” she told Thomas, who had begun a moderate recovery—of sorts. He wasn’t sweating quite as much as he had been when he rushed in, and his breathing had slowed to a slight rasp. “Go out the back way, and stay off Main Street.”

Gamely, Thomas got to his feet again. Lumbered toward them.

When he took Ephriam’s arm, though, the old man pulled free. “Unhand me,” he said. “This is an outrage!”

Sarah’s mind was racing wildly through a series of possibilities, all of which were disastrous, but she’d had a lot of experience dealing with imminent disaster, and she rose to the occasion.

“Papa,” she said, “poor Thomas is feeling very ill. It’s his asthma, you know. If you don’t get him to Doc Venable, quickly, he could—” she paused, laid a hand to her bosom, fingers splayed, and widened her eyes “—perish!”

“Great Scot,” Ephriam boomed, taking Thomas by one arm and dragging him toward the front door, and the busy street outside, “the man needs medical attention! There’s not a moment to spare!”

Thomas cast a pitiable glance back at Sarah.

She closed her eyes, offered a hopeless prayer that Charles Elliott Langstreet the Third would get lost between the depot and the bank, and waited for the Apocalypse.

By the time Charles actually arrived, she was quite composed, at least outwardly, though faintly queasy and probably pale. She might have gotten through the preliminary encounter by claiming she was fighting off a case of the grippe, but as it turned out, Charles didn’t come alone.

He’d brought Owen with him.

Sarah’s heart lurched, caught itself like a running deer about to tumble down a steep hill. Perched on a stool behind the counter, in Thomas’s usual place, a ledger open before her, she nearly swooned.

Owen.

Ten years old now, blond like his imperious father, but with his grandfather’s clear, guileless blue eyes.

The floor seemed to tilt beneath the legs of Sarah’s stool. She gripped the edge of the counter to steady herself.

Charles smiled, enjoying her shock. He was handsome as an archangel, sophisticated and cruel, the cherished—and only—son of a wealthy family. And he owned a thirty percent interest in the Stockman’s Bank.

Owen studied her curiously. “Are you my aunt Sarah?” he asked.

Tears burned in Sarah’s eyes. She managed a nod, but did not trust herself to speak. If she did, she would babble and blither, and scare the child to death.

“Surprised?” Charles asked smoothly, still watching Sarah closely, his chiseled patrician lips taking on a sly curve.

“We came all the way from Philadelphia on a train,” Owen said, wide-eyed over the adventure. “I was supposed to spend the summer at school, but they sent me packing for putting a stupid girl down the laundry chute.”

Sarah blinked, found her voice. “Was she hurt?” she croaked, horrified.

“No,” Owen said, straightening his small shoulders. He was wearing a tweed coat and short pants, and he seemed to be sweltering. “She did the same thing to Mrs. Steenwilder’s cat, so I showed her how it felt.”

“The girl is fine,” Charles said. “And so is the cook’s cat.”

“We’re going to stay at the hotel,” Owen said. “Papa and me. I get to have my own room.”

“Why don’t you go over there right now and make sure the man we hired at the depot takes proper care of our bags?” Charles asked the little boy.

Owen nodded solemnly and left.

Sarah’s heart tripped after him—she had to drag it back. Corral it in her chest, where it pounded in protest.

“Why did you bring him?” she asked.

“I couldn’t leave the boy with Marjory,” Charles answered. “She despises him.”

Sarah squeezed her eyes shut, certain she would swoon.

“You must have known I’d come, Sarah. Someday.”

She opened her eyes again, stared at him in revulsion and no little fear. He’d moved while she wasn’t looking—come to stand just on the other side of the counter.

“If only because of the bank,” he went on softly, reaching out to caress her cheek. “After all, I have a sizable investment to look after.”

Sarah recoiled, but she still needed the stool to support her. “You’ve been receiving dividends every six months, as agreed,” she said coldly. “I know, because I made out the drafts myself.”

Charles frowned elegantly. His voice was as smooth as cream, and laced with poison. “Strange that you’d do that—given that Ephriam holds the controlling interest in this enterprise, not you.”

“It’s not strange at all,” Sarah said, but she was quivering on the inside. “Papa is very busy. He has a lot of other responsibilities.”

“All the more reason to offer my assistance,” Charles replied. He paused, studied her pensively. “Still beautiful,” he said. A smile quickened in his eyes, played on his mouth. “You’d like to run me off with a shotgun, wouldn’t you, Sarah?” he crooned. “But that would never do. Because when I leave, I’ll be taking our son with me.”