Unexpected (7 page)

He shrugged. “I have
nowhere else to be.”

How could he seem so unaffected, so casual?  He had seen what Butch’s men could do yet he was willing to stay and help them out?
“Mr. Reid—“

“—I can m
anage myself.  No need to worry,” he interrupted before she could protest again. His eyes focused directly on her. Then he smiled.

Josie could feel the heat rise to her cheeks.  Thankful
ly her little brother broke the rising discomfort she started to feel from his scrutiny.

“He’s got a sword,
” Thomas blurted out.

Her
attention went to her brother then to Cogan with an unspoken question in her expression.

“I
t was a gift from an old friend,” he said glancing around the table at the three of them.  He knew what this was about. Guns were the weapons of choice nowadays and swords were mainly for decoration or status, but this sword was very old and very special to him.  He’d never give it up.

“It’s really neat Josie!”
Thomas said excitedly. “He said he’d show me how to use it. It’s almost as long as me!”

Hattie made a sound of
protest but before she could say anything Josie did. “Mr. Reid—“

“—Cogan.”

She took a deep breath for patience. “Fine. Cogan.  Although we appreciate your help we can’t let you show Thomas how to use weapons.  Swords are dangerous and—“

“—but Josie!” Thomas began protesting, but the two kept talking as though he hadn’t said a word.

“I’m making him a wooden one.  I would never let the boy play with mine.  It
is
too dangerous,” Cogan cut in sending a look to Thomas and winking.  The boy giggled. His eyes went back to her.  “At least until he can learn how to use it.”

“
Wait a minute Mr.—Cogan, Thomas is only ten.”

“I learned how to use one when I was younger
than that.  There’s no harm in the boy learning how to defend himself with a wooden sword.  It teaches him discipline Josephine.”

“It’ll
encourage him to use weapons,” she countered.  Why didn’t this man understand that?

“
And?”  He was settling in for an argument.  He knew where she was coming from but there was no harm in teaching the boy some self-defense.  More than likely he’d probably need it. 

At that moment Hattie stood up and excused herself
tapping Thomas on the shoulder and indicated for him to grab his empty plate and follow her.  This was a discussion he didn’t need to be privy too.  He gave her a disappointed look but obeyed.

Josie
paused as Hattie and Thomas left the room. It wasn’t for their benefit.  Hearing her full name on his tongue caused an odd feeling to go through her. It was a long time since she’d heard it like that, or said in such a deep male voice. Was she supposed to like it?  She did.

He
took her silence as an opportunity to make his point and leaned forward placing his forearms on the table. “I’m willing to stay and help you out, but Thomas needs to start learning how to look after himself too.  You can’t expect things to always settle on you and your older brother.  What if he’s caught alone by one of Butch’s men?  You two aren’t always going to be around when you are managing a spread this big.”

“He’s too young,” she repeated.

“He’s not.  This land requires us to grow fast despite advancing technology.  How do you expect him to cope if something were to happen to you two?”

Now that set her back.  She never considered that.
For some reason she thought that Thomas would always have her and Ryker to protect him, but what had happened the day before yesterday, told her that may not be true. “I don’t know.  I just don’t like it.”

“It’s not doing any harm.”

“I don’t want him to learn to hurt people.”

“
He’s a young man. You’re raising him like a coddled woman.” His eyebrows rose in challenge.

“That’s so unfair.  I
am a woman and I can shoot just as good as any man,” she protested not liking the label that women were weaker than men.  Some women weren’t.  She certainly didn’t think she was.

“You sure set some double standards
then honey.”

Her mouth fell open.
Now she could see that he purposely goaded her to see how ridiculous she was being. “I had too.  Pa wanted to make sure—” She was going to say ‘his kids could defend themselves’ but she’d just admit what he was trying to point out. “Oh for gosh sakes!” she tossed her napkin on the table and stood up to walk toward the window that looked out the front of the house. She placed one hand on her hip and the other rubbed her forehead.  Cogan was right.  She knew he was.  She just didn’t want Thomas tainted in such a way.  Ryker had a bitterness about him that she didn’t want her little brother to have.

Cogan just watched her. 
She had a lot of responsibility for one so young and her stress was showing in her demeanor.  Yet, he was pretty sure this was a done deal.  She knew he was right, but she was damn stubborn. 

Without turning around she spoke. “If he gets hurt I’ll blame you Cogan.”

“He won’t.”

She released a deep breath. “He’s so young and innocent.”

“For a man living in the wilds of southern California it isn’t unusual for a boy to learn so young.”

“It’s not so
wild.  The town has about six hundred people and more and more are coming because of the approaching railway.”

“Yeah, that’s why your brother ended up
at the end of a noose.”

Oh
, he had a point there.  A good one. She finally turned around and came back to the table taking a seat while meeting his eyes.  “Ryker’s not going to like this.”

“Ryker’s an invalid for the next few days so you have some time to think about how to present it to him.”

“Me?” Her eyes widened. “I think that should fall on you.  If you think I’m stubborn, you haven’t met the like.”

He dug back into his steak that was now lukewarm.  It’d been a while since he had such a good meal and he sure as hell wasn’t going to complain about a cold steak.

“Cogan?”

“I heard you.” H
e lifted his eyes to hers. “Think about it.  You want me to tell your brother that Thomas will be learning to use weapons.  I don’t sugar coat things.”

“You are th
e most frustrating man I’ve met,” she said watching closely.

He actually
paused then grinned like it was a compliment.

It took her a moment but she actually smiled too, then unable to hold his confident gaze looked away.

Cogan stared at her a moment longer before he returned to his meal.  Hell, she was beautiful, and even more so when she smiled.  It was unfortunate that she didn’t do it more often.

***

The next morning Ryker was standing at the window bare chested when Josie came in with breakfast. He turned to look at her when she entered

“What are you doing out of bed?” 
She set the tray on the dresser while scolding him.  His eye was still swollen shut and the bruising was worse than the day before. At least he was sensible enough to use the sling for his arm. The white cotton was a stark contrast to his tanned chest.  It was obvious that he spent a lot of time outdoors.

He turned and looked at her.
“Making myself useful sis.” He nodded back toward the window. “He’s got the corral fixed.” Ryker was talking about Cogan Reid who he watched carry a pole that must’ve weighed as much as him on his shoulder and lodged it into place by himself not even looking winded.

“I know.  He’s got a few things done.  I wonder if he sleeps.”

Ryker didn’t remember much from that day, but he sure as hell remembered the man that saved his life. More significantly, the marksmanship.  There are probably only a handful of men in the world that could shoot like that, and that might be a stretch. “He’s a big fella.” He slowly made his way over to a chair beside the bed and eased himself into it.  It wasn’t easy for him to keep standing.  It made him dizzy.  His sister didn’t miss it and reprimanded him.

“How are you supposed to get better?  The doctor said you needed to stay in bed for a few days.
  Ryker, this doesn’t help.” She was exasperated with him.  She could see beads of sweat appear on his brow. 

“I was concerned for the place.” He sighed heavily. “I’m relieved he stayed on
sis.”  For the first time in a long time, Ryker could ease his worries a little.

“
Me too.  I swear he’s done the work of three men since we hired him.”

“G
ood.” He closed his eyes and swallowed hard as a wave of nausea went through him. “I feel like a bloody invalid.  Can you help me get my shirt on?  My shoulder hurts like hell, so do my blasted ribs, and I can’t see a damn thing.”

“You should take the laudanum then.” She retrieved the shirt he indic
ated to that was hanging off a bedpost.

“No, that medicine dulls my mind. 
I really don’t like it. Somehow feeling the pain makes me feel alive.  I think it has to do with making me nauseous and dizzy too.” He grunted and adjusted forward as she slipped the sleeve over his arm. “If that was any indicator, I’m alive as hell.”

She smiled.  His complaining meant he would recover sooner than expected.
“I suspect it’s not so much the medicine but the beating you took that makes you feel ill.”

While Josie was helping her brother
Cogan just put his two horses and the bay in the mended corral when he heard the familiar sounds of approaching riders.

He turned around and placed his hand on the top rail of the corral and waited
as they came over the far rise.  Within a few minutes the sheriff came riding in with a posse of three men, one with a rifle on his hip.  His eyes expertly took in the crowd. By the looks of that man, he belonged to Butch.  The other two, like the sheriff, looked harmless.

Gus
spotted Cogan and nudged his horse in his direction across the yard. The other three followed.

“Nice day
for a ride, huh sheriff?” Cogan said in a greeting that held no warmth as he came within earshot.

“I’ve come to warn you.”
Gus reined up in front of him.  He still couldn’t get over the size of this man.  Yet if Josie put faith in him, he had to be decent.  He hoped.

“Is that right?”
his eyes went to the armed man.

“It seems there was a wild animal attack not more than a quarter of a mile from here.  Two men
dead, and Elroy lost his hand.  He says it was some kind of rabid bear. A huge bear.  It bit it clean off.”

“I wouldn’t put
much faith into what Elroy says,” Cogan replied not the least bit worried. “Grizzlies aren’t common around here and they stick to the mountains in the north.”

“Yeah well, Butch has lost seven men now.”

“Poor bastard.” It was stated in a tone that meant the opposite.

“Now you listen here—”
The man with the rifle started to say but Gus held up his hand to cut him off. 

“I know you have no
compassion here Mr. Reid, but I’d thought I’d warn you in case it comes here and Miss Hamilton gets attacked.”

“Like I said before sheriff.
  Miss Hamilton has my protection.” His eyes went to the three men behind him. “In fact this whole family does.” Then his attention went to the armed man. He looked young.  Too young to be part of a gang. “It seems Butch’s men keep getting killed on the Hamilton lands.  If I were them I’d stay off them.”

“Elroy’s my brother,” s
aid the man who protested earlier.

Well, that explained why he was caught up with Butch.
He was a nice looking kid.  It actually looked like he still had all of his teeth unlike his older brother.  “My sympathies.”

“You son of a—”

“Shut up Deak!” Gus said surprising himself. “Elroy tried to kill Ryker and if he’d succeeded they’d all be at the end of a judge’s rope anyway.”

“Yeah well Butch is going to
hear about this.” He spun his horse around and rode off kicking up dust like he had the devil on his tail.

The other two men still sat behind
Gus.  Cogan’s eyes went to them in question. “You don’t look to be on Butch’s payroll,” he finally said.  They didn’t seem to look mean or stupid enough.

“I’m Bill Tucker
,” said the older man with grey hair. He indicated to the man next to him. “And this here is Merle Ross. My wife and I own the hardware store in town.  Merle and I heard about what you did and asked Gus if we could ride along to meet you.  It’s about time someone stood up to Butch and his men. Most of the folk are too frightened, me and Merle included.” He nodded toward his companion who looked as if he’d be better at crunching numbers than riding with a gun in his hand. He had a bad comb over and wore glasses.

“I
run the post office, the print shop, and telegraph station in town.  Anytime you’re there, come in and I’ll buy you a drink,” Merle said. “I also wanted to let you know that Butch put out a wire for more men this morning.  They should be arriving within the week.  With what he pays them, there’s no shortage of mercenaries.”