Читать книгу The Man from Stone Creek - Linda Lael Miller - Страница 13

CHAPTER FIVE

MADDIE DROVE UP in front of the schoolhouse promptly at six o’clock that evening, the last of the daylight rimming her chestnut hair in fire. She managed the decrepit buckboard and pitiful team as grandly as if she’d been at the reins of a fancy surrey drawn by a matched pair of Tennessee trotters.

Sam lingered a few moments on the steps of that one-room school, savoring the sight of her, etching it into his memory. Once he left Haven for good, and married up with Abigail, as it was his destiny to do, he wanted to be able to recall Maddie Chancelor in every exquisite detail, just as she looked right then, wearing a blue woolen dress, with a matching bonnet dangling down her straight, slender back by its ribbons.

He felt a shifting, sorrowful ache of pleasure, watching her from under the brim of his hat, and the recalcitrant expression on her face did nothing to dampen the sad joy of taking her in.

“Well,” she called, after rattling to a shambly stop, “are we going to the Donaghers’ or not?”

Sam bit back a grin, tempted to reach out and give the bell rope a good wrench before he stepped down, announcing to all creation that he was having supper with the best-looking woman he’d ever laid eyes on. But some things were just too private to tell, even though nobody but him would have known the meaning of that clanging peal.

His insides reverberated, just as surely as if he’d gone ahead and pulled that rope with all his might.

“Evening, Miss Chancelor,” he said, approaching the wagon. She’d hung kerosene lanterns on either side of the buckboard, to light their way a little after darkness rolled over the landscape like a blanket, but she’d yet to strike a match to the wicks. She was a prudent soul, Maddie was, and not inclined to waste costly fuel before there was a true need for it.

She showed no signs of letting go of the reins so he could take them. He resigned himself to being driven through the center of town by a lady, and climbed up beside her, swallowing a swell of masculine pride.

“I don’t mind telling you,” she said, “that sitting down at Mungo Donagher’s table is just about the last thing in the world I want to do this evening.”

Sam smiled. The prospect wasn’t real high on his list, either, but there was a possibility he’d meet up with Donagher’s elder sons, and that was the only reason he’d accepted the invitation. Like Vierra, he was already half convinced that Mungo’s boys were involved in the outlaw gang that had been plaguing both the Arizona Territory and the State of Sonora for several years, but he needed proof—a quantity that was most often gathered one small, seemingly unimportant fact at a time.

“Terran told me about Warren Debney,” he said quietly, just to get it out of the way. If he hadn’t spoken up, the knowledge would have remained a gulf between them, and he wanted as little distance as possible.

He felt her stiffen beside him, and she set the buckboard rolling with a hard slap of the reins and a lurch that nearly unseated him, since he hadn’t braced for it. “Terran,” she said, “sometimes talks too much.”

Sam resettled his hat, needing something to occupy his hands, for it was obvious Maddie wasn’t about to surrender the reins. “He said one of the Donagher brothers probably fired the fatal shot,” he went on, slow and quiet. “What do you think, Maddie?”

She was quiet for a long time, so long that Sam feared she didn’t intend to answer at all. Finally, though, she said, “I believe it was Rex. He’s the meanest of the three, and he and Warren had had several run-ins just prior to the shooting.”

“You were with him? Debney, I mean—when he was shot?”

She swallowed visibly, nodded, keeping her gaze fixed on the road into the main part of town. “He died in my arms,” she said, so quietly that Sam barely heard her over the hooves of those worn-out horses and the rattle of fittings.

He wanted to put his arm around her, but he knew it would cause her to pull away, so he didn’t. They rounded a bend and passed the mercantile, then the Rattlesnake Saloon. Charlie Wilcox’s old nag stood out front, patiently waiting to bear him home on its swayed back. “I’m sorry that happened to you, Maddie Chancelor,” Sam said.

“So am I,” she replied.

Sam shifted on the hard wagon seat. “It must be difficult for you—sitting down to take a meal with somebody who might have killed your man. I didn’t know about that when I roped you into coming along, and if you want to change your mind, I’ll understand.”

At long last she looked him in the eye. They were traveling east, with the setting sun at their backs, headed for the river road that led to the Donagher ranch. Sam reckoned that, after a mile or two, they’d have to stop so he could step down and light those lanterns, but for now, all he cared about was whatever Maddie was about to say.

“It makes me nervous when any of the Donagher boys come into the store,” she said frankly. “Just the same, I wouldn’t miss a chance to look them straight in the eye and let them know they’re not fooling me for one moment. They got away with shooting Warren, and stringing up poor, harmless John Perkins, too. Maybe they fooled the law, but they can’t fool God, and they can’t fool me.”

Sam sighed as they passed the row of businesses along the main street, all of them closed up and dark, like Maddie Chancelor’s broken heart probably was. He didn’t care for the idea of her drawing the Donaghers’ attention, taunting them with her suspicions. It was akin to stirring a hornet’s nest with a chunk of firewood.

“You probably ought to stay in town tonight. I’d be obliged, though, for the loan of your wagon.”

To his surprise, and cautious delight, she favored him with a soft smile and a shake of her head. The subtle scent of her lush hair teased his senses. “I guess the team and buckboard would be safe in your keeping,” she said, “and I do appreciate your kind concern. But I’ve looked after myself for a long time, and anyway, the Donaghers wouldn’t dare bother me in Mungo’s presence.” Humor flickered in her brown eyes. “Besides, there is the question of your safety, Mr. O’Ballivan.”

He straightened his spine. “I’m not afraid of any of the Donaghers, or all of them put together,” he said.

“I know that,” Maddie replied. “But there’s one Donagher you’d be wise to look out for, and that’s Undine.”

They were passing out of town, and Sam gave up on the hope that Maddie would change her mind and go back to her quarters above the mercantile, instead of venturing into the snakes’ den, with him. “Undine,” he repeated, confused. Unless the lady had a derringer tucked up the sleeve of her dress, he couldn’t imagine how she’d do him any harm.

“She’s set her sights on you,” Maddie said. “Mungo won’t take kindly to that. He’s mean jealous, and he’d as soon kill any man she takes a fancy to as look at him.”

Sam pondered that bit of information, then took a risk. “Did she ‘take a fancy’ to Warren Debney?” he asked. “Or maybe John Perkins?”

“Warren was dead and buried long before Mungo brought Undine to Haven as his bride,” Maddie said, and her eyes took on a haunted expression. “As for Mr. Perkins, she wouldn’t have given him a second look. But she has taken a liking to you. If you ignore that, it will be at your peril.”

Sam rubbed his chin with one hand, as he often did when he was thinking. He’d shaved for the occasion, and his skin still felt raw from the stroke of the new razor. His new white shirt itched, too, so he shrugged inside it, in a vain attempt to find relief. “You sound mighty certain,” he said at some length, “about Undine’s flirtations being potentially fatal for the object of her attentions, that is. Something must have happened to convince you.”

“It’s just a feeling,” Maddie said, narrowing her wondrous eyes a little upon the darkening road. “Woman’s intuition.”

“I think there’s more to it than that,” Sam persisted.

She met his eyes. “Haven is small. There are plenty of stories going around, and I hear most of them because just about everybody in this part of the territory makes their way to the mercantile on a regular basis. Mungo’s temper is legendary—they say he once beat Landry, the middle son by his first wife, nearly to death for leaving a gate open. Ben—the little one—is a friend of Terran’s, and sometimes passes the night with us if the weather is bad enough that he can’t get home. That boy is terrified of his father—and his brothers, too. I always get the feeling, whenever I’m around him, that there are things he wants to tell me—tell anybody—but he’s afraid to speak up.”

“He was in on dangling Singleton down the well,” Sam said. For the sake of the peace, he didn’t add along with your brother. “I’ve been keeping an eye on Ben, trying to size him up. He’s smart as hell, but he’s skittish, too. Yesterday in class somebody dropped the dictionary and he about jumped out of his hide.”

Maddie bit her lower lip. “I worry about Ben, out there alone with those rowdy men,” she confessed. “Undine seems fond of him, though. If it weren’t for her, I don’t think I’d close my eyes at night for fretting about it. If she were to leave—”

It was all but dark by then, and Sam laid a hand over Maddie’s, where she gripped the reins. “Better pull up,” he said, “so I can light those lamps.”

She complied ably, and he got down to attend to the lanterns. When he climbed back into the wagon box, she surprised him by handing over the reins.

“What else can you tell me about Mungo and his boys?” he asked mildly when they’d traveled a ways. The river twisted and wound alongside the narrow track, whispering stories of its own.

“They own just about everything in Haven, save Oralee Pringle’s saloon,” she said, sighing. Then, with reluctance, she reminded him, and maybe herself, “Including the general store.”

In the beginning, Sam had believed the store was Maddie’s, taken comfort in the idea that she had a way to get along, to provide for herself and Terran. Singleton had said, that first day, that they didn’t have any other family, and he’d assumed she must have inherited the mercantile from her father. Then she’d said she ran the place for somebody else and had to account to Mr. James, the banker. It hadn’t occurred to Sam that that “somebody else” might be a Donagher.

“I work for Mungo Donagher,” Maddie affirmed, sounding as if she’d just awakened from a bad dream only to find out it was real. “Mr. James, over at the bank, oversees the accounts, like I told you, but it’s Mungo who pays my wages.”

“I don’t suppose you can afford to offend him by accusing his boys of gunning down Warren Debney,” he said when he’d considered for a while.

“I’m not so sure he didn’t do it himself,” Maddie admitted softly, and when she looked up at Sam, he saw bleak resignation in her eyes. He’d have done or said just about anything, right then, to give her ease, but nothing came to mind.

“What makes you say that?” Sam asked when he’d absorbed the statement.

Maddie was silent for a long time and Sam was beginning to think he’d asked one question too many when she finally answered. “Until he brought Undine home from Phoenix,” she said, “Mungo was courting me. He told me if I went ahead and married Warren, I’d have to give up managing the mercantile.”

Something elemental and dark rose up within Sam, and he was a while putting it right. He felt as protective and as possessive of Maddie as if he’d been the one about to put a ring on her finger instead of Warren Debney. “And if you’d given in? Married Mungo instead of Debney?”

“He’d have signed the store over as a wedding gift,” Maddie recalled, frowning. “A plaything, as he put it.”

It made Sam’s gorge rise, to think of Mungo Donagher touching Maddie, let alone bedding her. “Some women,” he said in his own good time, “would have taken the old coot up on the bargain.”

Maddie pulled her shawl up around her shoulders, against the chill of the evening, and Sam thought she moved a fraction of an inch closer to him. “I’d sooner take up residence upstairs at the Rattlesnake Saloon. It amounts to the same thing.”

Sam hadn’t thought any image could be worse than Maddie throwing in with the head of the Donagher clan, but sure enough, she’d come up with one. He set his jaw and tightened his hold on the reins. At the rate these horses were traveling, they might be on time for breakfast.

* * *

THE LIGHTS of Mungo Donagher’s long, rustic house winked in the thick purplish gloom of the night. Normally, Maddie would sooner have been thrown to the lions than set foot in that place a second time, but with Sam O’Ballivan beside her, she actually enjoyed the prospect. She even hoped she would come face-to-face with Rex Donagher; she’d find a way to let him know what she thought of him and those cur brothers of his, even though she dared not insult their father. Without her job at the mercantile, she and Terran would be worse off than Violet Perkins and her mother, Hittie.

Mungo himself was waiting to greet them when they pulled up in the dooryard. The ground was unadorned by flowers and there were no curtains at the windows. Had Maddie lived in such a house, she would have planted peonies and climbing roses first thing, even if she had to carry water from the river to make them thrive. Her own plants were spindly and pitiful, and wherever she moved them, shadows followed, robbing them of light.

Mungo’s stance was stern and his countenance unwelcoming. Maddie knew it was Sam he mistrusted, not herself, but she felt a quiver of unease in the pit of her stomach just the same. She’d warned Sam, though, and that was all she could do.

He climbed down from the wagon box, extinguished the lamps to save kerosene for the ride back to town, and then extended a hand to Maddie. All that time, Mungo neither moved nor spoke. She felt his displeasure, invisible but real, roiling in the space between them.

“Evening, Mr. Donagher,” Sam said as cheerfully as if Mungo had been watching the road in eager anticipation of their arrival. “Mind if I unhitch these horses and let them graze on some of this grass?”

Before Mungo could form a reply, Undine slipped through the open doorway behind him, holding up a lantern that glowed almost as brightly as her smile.

“Supper’s ready to be served,” she called. “I cooked it myself, too.”

In the spill of light from Undine’s lantern, Mungo’s face looked hard.

Maddie shivered inwardly and wished it wouldn’t be baldly impolite to fetch her shotgun from underneath the wagon seat and bring it right inside with her. “I’m half starved,” she answered, because Sam didn’t say a word—he was busy unhitching the team—and neither did Mungo.

Undine blinked, as though she hadn’t taken notice of Maddie until that moment. “That’s fine,” she said without conviction. “You come on inside now, Maddie. Let the men tend to those horses.” She nudged Mungo with one elbow and he finally moved.

Maddie glanced in Sam’s direction, and was strangely stricken to see that he’d paused in his work to gaze thoughtfully in Undine’s direction. In that moment, she would have given her meager savings, stashed in a coffee tin under a loose floorboard in her bedroom, to know what was going through his mind.

It irritated her that she was even curious—Sam O’Ballivan was nothing to her, after all—and she swished her skirts a little as she swept up the walk toward Undine.

“Did you send off for those spring dresses I wanted?” Undine asked, addressing Maddie in an overbright, over-earnest tone, eyes sneaking past her to devour Sam. “If I can’t get Mungo to take me to San Francisco for the worst of it, they’ll be the only gaiety in the whole winter.”

Winters in that part of the Arizona Territory were mild; snow was rare and the temperatures seldom called for cloak or coat. Maddie didn’t bother to point that out, since Undine knew it well enough. “I wired the order to Chicago this afternoon,” she said, accidentally brushing against Mungo as the two of them passed on the porch steps. She paused to watch as her recalcitrant host strode toward Sam and the horses.

“That’s fine,” Undine replied, but she sounded distracted, and when Maddie looked at her, she saw that she was still fastened on Sam. Mungo might as well have been invisible.

“Are the boys home?” Maddie asked, referring to Garrett, Landry and Rex. Ben was visible in the doorway, holding a pup in both arms and taking in the scene in shy silence.

Undine gave a tinkling little laugh. “Why, Maddie Chancelor, have you gone and set your cap for one of my stepsons? Here you are, in the company of the handsomest man in the whole territory, and you’re wondering about those ruffians?”

Maddie smiled, even though her stomach rolled at the thought of “setting her cap” for the likes of the Donaghers. She’d sooner die an old maid or even throw in with Oralee Pringle, than have truck with any of them. Worried that Undine’s last remark might have reached Mungo’s ears, she slipped an arm through the other woman’s and hastily squired her into the front room, with its plank floors, beamed ceiling, and tall stone fireplace.

“Are you trying to make your husband angry?” she whispered a moment later, when Ben had gone outside to join Mungo and Sam at the wagon.

Undine blinked, her eyes wide with innocence. “Whatever do you mean, asking a question like that?” she asked, one hand fluttering to her throat.

Maddie narrowed her eyes. “I meant exactly what I said. Mungo is covetous as a rutting buck, and you damn well know it.”

Undine smiled slyly and batted her lashes. “I’m not sure Mungo’s the covetous one,” she purred. “Are you taken with Mr. O’Ballivan, Maddie?”

Maddie’s temper simmered. “No,” she said fiercely, “I am not taken with Mr. O’Ballivan. I just don’t want to see anyone get killed over your silly flirtations, that’s all!”

“Have a care, Maddie Chancelor,” Undine advised. “One word from me, and you and that brother of yours will be on the streets instead of living over the store and collecting a generous salary every month.”

After a deep breath or two, Maddie was able to speak calmly. “And one word from me, Undine, and Mungo will know all about those letters from Tucson I’ve been separating from the ranch mail so you can read them in secret.”

Undine’s cheeks pinkened and her eyes flashed. She bit down on her lower lip.

For a moment Maddie was afraid Mungo’s wife might hurl the lantern at her, since she was still holding it. Instead she extinguished the flame and set it aside. “Come and see how pretty the table looks,” she said as cordially as if no hard words had passed between them.

The long trestle table at the far end of the front room did look festive, set with glistening china plates and water glasses of cut crystal gracing a pristine cloth edged with lace. Undine’s fancy tastes had been the talk of Haven when that order rolled into town on the weekly stagecoach.

Maddie felt a hunger that had nothing to do with food as she took in the sight of that table. Silver candlesticks, with beeswax tapers waiting to be lit. Elegant flatware. A bouquet of wildflowers, spilling over the sides of an exquisitely painted china vase.

“It looks wonderful,” she said, and she meant it.

Undine seemed pleased. “Mungo has promised me a spinet,” she said, well aware, it appeared, of Maddie’s secret yearning for a home of her own. “We’ll have it sent from San Francisco, if I have my way.”

You always do, Maddie thought uncharitably. Her fingers flexed, missing the smooth ivory keys of the piano she’d played at the orphanage in St. Louis and, before that, in the churches and tents where her father had preached the gospel.

Don’t remember, she told herself firmly.

She was spared further conversation with Undine when Sam, Mungo and the boy trooped in. The puppy was missing and Maddie presumed Ben had left it outside.

She saw Sam sweep the well-set table with a glance as he passed, following Mungo toward the kitchen, and knew he wasn’t impressed by the china and cut glass; he’d been counting the places.

Feeling remiss, Maddie did the same. The total was seven, which meant that unless Ben was to have his supper in the kitchen, as children often did on such occasions, two more people would be joining the festivities. If the boy had already eaten, then Garrett, Landry and Rex might make an entrance at any time.

Maddie steeled herself for that. The exchange with Undine had shaken her a little, but she quickly recovered and followed the men to wash her own hands.

Anna Deerhorn, the Donaghers’ cook and housekeeper, was in the kitchen, and sure enough, she’d put a plateful of food on the big round table by the windows. Ben took a seat.

Anna met Maddie’s gaze and gave a nod of greeting.

Maddie smiled. “That embroidery thread you wanted came in on Wednesday,” she told the other woman, and pulled a small package from the pocket of her skirt. She’d wrapped the bright floss carefully before leaving the mercantile to pick Sam up at the schoolhouse.

Anna took the package with another nod and a whispered, “Thank you,” and Maddie glanced warily at Mungo, wondering if she’d somehow betrayed a secret.

Mungo, as it happened, was too busy keeping a suspicious eye on Sam to pay any mind to anything else going on in the room, but Maddie was still troubled. If she got a chance to speak to Anna alone, she would take it.

They’d all washed up, in the basin Anna kept refilling with hot water from the reservoir on the cookstove, and taken their places at the table in the next room—Undine had seated herself squarely between Mungo and Sam, Maddie saw, with rising trepidation—when a clamor arose in the kitchen.

Nobody moved, and Mungo, who had been glowering at Sam since they’d sat down, didn’t look away.

Maddie felt a little trill of fear when the door between the two rooms swung open, and Garrett, Landry and Rex strolled through, single-file, all of them looking as though they’d just come off the trail.

Garrett, the firstborn, was tall and broad through the shoulders, with dark hair and watchful blue eyes. If he lived to old age, which wasn’t likely, given his reputation, he’d look much as Mungo did now. Any woman who didn’t know him would mark him down as handsome, Maddie supposed, but he was no stranger to her, and she kept a careful distance.

Landry, the second son, was a plain man, smaller than Garrett, with a narrow face and small eyes that flitted constantly from place to place, like a rodent on the lookout for a hungry cat.

Rex, like his eldest brother, was at least six feet in height. The resemblance ended there, though; his features were oddly blurred, as though reflected in moving water, his skin pitted by an early case of smallpox.

When their eyes fell on Sam O’Ballivan, Rex and Landry came to a standstill. Garrett, seeing that his father’s attention was focused elsewhere, winked at Undine, who blushed and lowered her gaze.

Well, Maddie thought. I should have guessed.

Sam stood, and Maddie wondered if he was still wearing his .45 under his suit coat, or if he’d left it in the wagon, as most dinner guests would.

“I’m Sam O’Ballivan,” he said heartily. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Rex and Landry didn’t look as though they agreed, but they recovered soon enough.

“Howdy,” Rex said grudgingly.

“You sure do get around,” Landry observed. “I’d swear I seen you someplace before.” The unfriendly expression on his face clearly indicated that he knew exactly where he’d seen Sam O’Ballivan before, and had hoped not to repeat the experience.

Sam smiled, unruffled. “It’s a small world,” he said, and sat down again.

Undine watched out of the corner of her eye as Garrett took the place next to Maddie, reached for a cloth napkin and flipped it open.

“Anna’s ready to serve that venison roast any time now,” she said, oblivious to the tension snapping in the air.

Maddie suppressed an urge to move her chair an inch or two farther from Garrett’s. It made her skin crawl, being that close to him, and in her agitation, she happened to snag glances with Sam, sitting directly across the table from her.

She’d have sworn he smiled at her, even though his mouth didn’t move, and she felt reassured.

Meanwhile, Rex and Landry hauled back their own chairs, with a great deal of scraping, and sat themselves down. Both of them kept casting unhappy looks in Sam’s direction.

How, Maddie wondered, had he managed to make their questionable acquaintance in the short time since he’d come to Haven? When the Donagher brothers came to town, word spread like a storm warning and, since the mercantile was the heart of the community, and thus the changing house for the smallest tidbit of gossip, she would have known they were around five minutes after they rode in.

How would a schoolmaster, new to this part of the Territory, know a pair of scoundrels like Rex and Landry?

She could hardly wait to ask him.

The venison roast proved delicious, as did the rest of the meal—a heaping bowl of mashed potatoes, freshly baked biscuits, green beans and corn and peach cobbler for dessert.

Undine spent the entire evening fawning over Sam, and Mungo glared the whole time. Landry and Rex were jumpy, and Maddie, hungry as she was, could barely get a bite down her throat. The whole place felt like one giant tinderbox ready to explode into flames at a spark.

Garrett appeared comfortable enough, filling and emptying his plate more than once and stealing the occasional telling glance at Undine. And Sam seemed impervious to the sullen hostility coming his way from Mungo, Landry and Rex. He listened to Undine’s relentless chatter as though it had been written on a sacred scroll and carried down from Mount Olympus on a platter, and by the time the peach cobbler went around the table, Maddie’s stomach was clenched tight as a fist.

Would this night never end?

It was nearly nine-thirty, by the fancy clock on the sideboard, when Sam declined a third cup of coffee from a devoted Undine, and announced that he and Miss Chancelor had better be getting back to town. After all, he said, he had work to do in the morning, and Maddie liked to open the store for business right on time. She kept it open every day except Sunday.

Maddie fairly knocked her chair over backward getting to her feet.

“Landry, Rex,” Mungo said gruffly, “you go out and hitch up that team.” It was the first full sentence he’d spoken since they’d all sat at the table. “Garrett, help Undine clear the table. I’m sure Anna’s gone out to her cabin and turned in by now.”

Maddie felt regret. She liked Anna, and rarely got to see her.

“Sure thing, Pa,” Garrett said, and waited until his father had risen and turned his back before dragging his eyes slowly over Undine.

Sam and Maddie took their leave. They had gone a mile up the river road before Sam stopped the team, got down and inspected the rigging. Up until then, he and Maddie hadn’t spoken.

“What are you doing?” Maddie asked. She was fitful, anxious to get home to Terran, lock the doors behind her and forget she’d ever gone to supper at the Donagher ranch.

Sam didn’t answer. He just tightened everything and climbed back up to take the reins. Maddie figured he hadn’t trusted the Donaghers’ hitching job, and didn’t pursue the subject.

“You know them,” she said when they’d been rolling again for several minutes. “Rex and Landry, I mean.”

Sam chuckled. “Not as well as I plan to,” he replied, and left Maddie to go right on wondering who Sam O’Ballivan really was, and what he wanted with Mungo Donagher’s outlaw sons.