Texas Moon TH4 (5 page)

More men ran for shovels. Children ran to the puddles in the riverbed to fill their containers. Someone shoved Janice away from the pump and began to beat it with more vigor. She staggered backward, found a pail, and wearily filled it, hauling it toward a new line of flame licking beyond the trench.

She had no concept of time. She only knew the eastern horizon was spreading a red glow that reflected the dying fire before the schoolhouse crumbled slowly into a bed of embers. The wind died with the dawn, and the remaining small bonfires were quickly doused.

As her shoulders sagged beneath the weight of one more bucket of water, a hand reached out to take it from her.

"Go to bed. It's over. I'll bring your pail back when I find it."

His voice was raw from smoke and exhaustion, but the unfamiliar accents sent a shiver down her spine. They were crisp and precise, unlike the slow drawl of the town's inhabitants, more like the voices of her past. She took an odd comfort in that and nodded obediently.

She didn't even turn to look at him as she walked away.

Chapter 4

Hell, some days it didn't pay for a man to get out of bed. Peter Mulloney wiped his sleep-grimed eyes and propped himself on one elbow, trying to focus his blurred vision on the circle of men towering over him.

One kicked his hip to induce him to wake more quickly. "Get up. We got some questioning to do." The voice was rough and authoritative and not in the least reassuring.

Mulloney groaned and tried to sit up without tearing every muscle in his back loose from its mooring. Sleeping on the hard ground after a night of hauling buckets and shoveling an acre of dirt didn't make for much of a massage.

"I'm up. I'm up," he grumbled, untangling his legs from the bedroll. Damn, he stank. He reeked. He could almost feel the fumes rising from his smoke-saturated clothes. He'd been too tired to take them off when he'd collapsed at dawn. The way things seemed to go in this damned town, he was better off keeping them on. Maybe his stench would drive them off after a while.

"Grab his arms, boys. We'll haul him down to the jail. Maybe the sight of iron bars will set his tongue to flapping."

Wondering if this was his reward for trying to save the damned town or his punishment for his lustful peeping, Mulloney disbelievingly allowed his wrists to be tied together as they hauled him to his feet. Maybe it was all just a weird nightmare and he would wake up at any minute. The way his head felt, anything was possible.

At his suddenly upright position, he began to cough. He'd breathed in enough smoke to last a lifetime last night, and it felt as if it were all trying to escape at once. His captors took no pity on him. They half dragged, half lifted him from his feet as they hauled him from the trees and into the glaring sunlight.

Peter's last sight before he blacked out was of a woman appearing in the doorway of the little house he'd saved last night. The hair rippling down her back was a glorious pale yellow that rivaled the sun.

Janice clutched her wrapper and watched the sheriff and his men drag the bearded stranger away. She stepped out of sight the instant she saw them, but she had the uneasy feeling the stranger had seen her. He'd looked right in her direction before he fell and the men had to catch him.

Why had he been hiding in her bushes? Why was the sheriff taking him into town? She pushed her hair out of her face and turned toward her bedroom. She didn't believe in standing idly by and wondering, but she couldn't go into town looking like this.

She'd never slept this late in her life. It had to be almost noon. Still, she hadn't gone to bed until dawn. She grabbed a brush and began to pull her hair into a thick knot at the back of her head. She didn't have time to braid it if she meant to find out what the sheriff was doing to the stranger. Men were such idiots. That man might be another of the vagrants, but he had almost single-handedly saved her home last night. It might not be her home much longer if the school board decided they couldn't rebuild the school, but the bearded man's efforts ought to be rewarded and not punished. The sheriff didn't look like he was handing him a blue ribbon or the key to the city.

She shimmied out of her nightgown and struggled into her cotton combinations. Half the town must have seen her in dishabille, with her hair down, last night. She couldn't afford to let them see her in anything less than proper garb now. She had to be the absolute epitome of the staid, old-maid school-marm today to wipe out their memory of last night. Her job hinged on it now that her contract was completed. They might just go looking for a male teacher who could stay with the families of students and use her little house as a school. It would save the town a lot of money, and soothe the ruffled sensibilities of those who believed only a man could teach their little darlings.

Janice jerked on her freshly laundered waist petticoat and reached for her corset, hastily pulling it around her and fastening the front clips. Thank heavens the laces Betsy had tied off had stayed fastened in back. She didn't want to have to struggle with them on her own.

The plain gray walking dress ought to be stuffy enough. There were days when Janice longed to wear pretty striped silks in cherry-red and apple-green, but they wouldn't be suitable for an old-maid schoolmarm. She indulged her desire for pretty things by adding bits of lace and a draping of nice material that almost made a small train over her bustle.

She straightened the horsehair pad over her petticoat, pulled on the gown, and hurriedly fastened the row of innumerable buttons marching down the front. Without Betsy to help her dress, she would have to forfeit the few dresses that fastened down the back. She might eventually fasten them all herself, but she couldn't guarantee they would all be in their proper holes when she was done.

Checking her tiny dressing mirror, Janice adjusted the drape of the skirt over her bustle, fluffed out the frill of white lace at her throat, and scowled at her hair. It looked like a field of wheat.

She hastily brushed it back and tugged a wide-brimmed hat over it. That succeeded in hiding everything but the thick lump of her chignon in back. She would never be blessed with fine curls to dangle at her nape or adorn her brow, but that suited her image just fine. All she needed now was the spectacles.

With the gold wire rims settled over her nose, she looked the part she played. It wasn't a difficult role. She'd been too old for her age for the better part of her life. After Betsy was born, she had attacked life with a steely determination that had left little time for laughter. She might have needed to disguise herself when she first came here at the age of twenty, but the years since had made her what she pretended to be: an old maid.

Lifting up her heavy skirt, Janice hurried out the front door and into the noon sunshine. She seldom had time to worry about the plights of others, but specks of Daniel's heroism had brushed off on her somewhere along the line, and she did what she could when she was able. There were times she cursed Daniel for ever befriending her, but she wouldn't be where she was now without him. It behooved her to act in a manner that would meet his approval.

Knots of people gathered throughout town, and from the expressions on their faces, they weren't discussing the weather for a change. The way some of them looked away as she approached warned of the topic of conversation. She hadn't made friends of everybody in town. She was much too opinionated for that.

Ellen hurried out of the dry goods store to catch her hands. "Oh, Miss Harrison, last night was awful! Bobby wouldn't let me go out, but he came home all smoky and wore out and told me all about it. Mr. Holt said they might not have the money to rebuild the schoolhouse. How will my baby ever learn to read or write?"

Janice remembered Bobby leaning against the empty water tank, guzzling from a bottle as he watched the schoolhouse burn. No doubt he thought his heroics in hauling out the tank with the help of half a dozen others allowed him to rest while others worked. She'd called him a shiftless skunk in front of his face before, but she wouldn't talk behind his back now.

"You don't need to worry about that for a few years yet, Ellen. You just concentrate on keeping that baby healthy. There'll be someone to teach him when the time comes." She clasped the girl's hands reassuringly, then hurried on. Once she had a goal in mind, Janice didn't like to be distracted.

A few more women drifted in her direction to commiserate with her over the fire or to find out more gossip. Janice tried to smile at them, but she knew Mrs. Danner was one of the more vocal protesters against female teachers. Rumor had it that her husband had been smitten with Evie Monteigne back when she taught here. The randy old goat had tried to pinch Janice a time or two, but she hadn't grown up on the wrong side of the tracks without learning a few things. He hadn't touched her since she used a hat pin on him.

Janice had difficulty prying herself away from the clacking hens, but she finally managed it. Hat ribbons sailing in the breeze she created, she hurried down the street in the direction of the sheriff's office. She prayed the gossips thought she was going to identify the culprit or to press charges or to make inquiries. Surely they couldn't suspect her real intent or tongues wouldn't stop wagging for a month of Sundays.

She had to do this discreetly or they wouldn't stop wagging anyway. Checking her image in the glass of a store window as she passed, she tucked a straying lock back into her hat, straightened her shoulders, and marched into the sheriff's office.

Her friend Evie would have sashayed in. Georgina, Daniel's wife, would have flown through in a flurry of ribbons and curls. Unlike her friends, Janice could only march like a stern soldier. Her prim gray walking dress had the effect of a uniform. She blinked her eyes to adjust them to the dusky light of the interior, ignoring the stares of the men at the desk.

"Miss Harrison." Ever polite, the sheriff rose from his chair. He was the closest thing the town had to an objective bystander. Even the newspaper held a biased slant on every news story in town. The sheriff never seemed to have an opinion on anything. He just arrested any man who crossed the fine line of the law and let the citizenry do the rest. This was the man she had to appeal to.

"Sheriff." Janice stiffly nodded her head. Now that the glare was out of her eyes, she could look over her glasses and recognize the other men with him. Mr. Holt was here. So was Jason. She exchanged looks with him, then scanned the rest of the crowd—mostly the school board. That answered volumes right there.

"I understand you have arrested the perpetrator of last night's fire." She had established herself as a no-nonsense type of woman. Old maids were allowed that privilege. She used it to her benefit now.

The sheriff nodded grimly. "We think so. He's a drifter, camped at the river behind your place last night. Don't think he did it deliberately. Probably got drunk and fell asleep and let his campfire get out of control."

"Is that the story he tells?" A moment of apprehension shook her. The story seemed very plausible. She hadn't intended to rescue a drunk. She had meant to rescue the man who had saved her home.

"He swears he put out his fire before he went to sleep, but there ain't any other explanation. The school's been closed up this past week or more and there's been no fire in the stove that might have blazed up. There warn't anyone else out there but you and him. Facts is facts."

"Well, I certainly can't debate that," she assured him, but her mind spun. She knew what she'd seen. That man had nearly killed himself trying to save the school. And she was quite certain that without him she wouldn't have a home today. The thought of losing those few precious possessions she had accumulated with such hard work over all these years made her shiver as she spoke. She didn't care if he was a drunk. He didn't deserve to be punished for what he couldn't help.

She turned her gaze to Jason. He had the money and position in this town to make his voice heard. And he was her friend. "I saw the man they put in jail this morning. He's the same man who almost single-handedly saved my house last night. If he started the fire, I'm sure it was an accident, and he did everything humanly possible to put it out. What do you intend to do with him?"

"Well, Miss Harrison, I reckon it's up to a jury. Arson is a serious charge." The sheriff drawled the answer even though she wasn't looking at him.

Janice disregarded this nonsense and continued staring at Jason. He shifted his weight uneasily and ran his fingers through his graying hair. The gray made him look distinguished rather than old. He was still a handsome man, but he didn't seem aware of it. Jason wasn't aware of much of anything but his damned ranch.