Ask No Tomorrows (2 page)

She only had
one chance; she had to catch the noon stage out of Abilene. If she
could cross the road, without being seen, she might escape and wait
out the stage. She’d wait ‘til dark, then try for the
road.

She glanced
down at herself, in her old working clothes she didn’t look much
like a lady.

A spider
crawled across her arm and she thumped it away, her pulse
accelerating.

In her hurry
to escape, she stuffed all she could carry into her small knapsack
and strung it across her chest and back. She’d never been an
adventurer, she knew little about survival in the wilds, but there
was always a first time for everything. Her father had wanted her
to be a genteel lady. He’d even talked about sending her to one of
those all-female schools for the genteel. But Riley had easily
persuaded him that she was more suited for ranch work than most his
hands. By the time she was fifteen she could out shoot most of the
men on the ranch, including her father. She could swim, hunt, fish,
and ride as well as any man, but the art of being a lady had
escaped her attention. There wasn’t much call for being a lady on a
working ranch. And once she decided she was no beauty she began to
work harder to help her father with the ranch.

Her father
became frustrated with trying to marry her off. It wasn’t as though
she was ugly; she had a straight nose, a lot of hair and her smile
was most generous, but she knew up against the other ladies about
she stood no chance of getting the best wrangler. So she satisfied
herself with knowing she was probably the best ranch hand her
father had. And he agreed finally.

One of the
young hands came to the back of the barn and raised a hand over his
eyes to stare out over the prairie; he was only a hairs breath
away. Had he but looked down, she would have been spotted, surely.
“She’s got to be out here somewhere. Don’t look like she took a
horse, so she’s afoot and we can probably catch her.”

Riley felt
another tear roll down her cheek, for being so gullible about the
men; tears of humiliation, tears of lost pride, tears of fear. She
couldn’t give way to hysteria. She had no choice in the matter.
Today, she took on a new persona, one of survival. The one thing
she knew, she could manage almost anything once she set her mind to
it. She’d get out of this somehow.

She sat there
in the heat, wishing she’d thought to get a canteen, but she hadn’t
much choice, there was no canteen in her room. She looked through
the boards of the barn and saw an old canteen hanging on the wall,
but how could she get to it? A horse would also be nice, but she
was afraid they would make too much noise. No, her only option was
to wait until darkness and head for the road.

She would be
thirsty, hungry, tired and hot, but she wouldn’t be
dead!

They hadn’t
spotted her yet and until someone did, she was safe here. If she
hadn’t insisted on planting that evergreen tree by the barn, she
wouldn’t have cover now.

Being still
and quiet when her stomach growled at her and the sweat ran off her
forehead and into her eyes was hard to do. She could think of a
million things she’d rather be doing right this minute. Things she
might never have a chance to do again.

Even if she managed to get away, the stage wouldn’t be about
until noon tomorrow. She’d have to find another place to hide once
she got to the road.
And then what
,
her mind screamed. The road was noticeable and someone would
quickly spot her, so maybe she’d skirt the road and find a rock or
tree to hide behind until the stage came.

Exactly where
was she going? She had no folks to run to, no man to take care of
her. What would she do? Thankfully, she had money, but her destiny
was uncertain at this point.

She’d lived on
the ranch all her life, rarely went anywhere and now she was forced
to leave or die. But she knew her land, every inch of it, and she
got her bearings so she could get to the road and on that stage as
quickly as possible.

“
I’m a coward,” she mumbled to herself. “If dad saw me running
out, he’d roll over in his grave. I should fight them with all my
might. I shouldn’t be running.” But Harry was an expert shot and
she knew he’d try to kill her first chance.

Then she
shrugged, “He’s got me at a disadvantage; I’ll come back one
day.”

Another cowboy
came around the corner. “She’s probably long gone by
now…”

Then she heard
Harry’s voice once more. “More than likely she is. I’m sure I
scared the daylights out of her. You should have seen the innocent
look on her face. She shore wasn’t expecting it. Now all that’s
left is to wait. She don’t show up, we’ll just stay here. Since she
ain’t here it’ll be easy to make up a story. Ain’t got no money,
but we got the place, and if she don’t come back, we can probably
sell it before the taxes come due. We can have her declared as
missing and loony as a bin. Everyone thinks she’s strange
anyway.”

“
That’s for sure. Ain’t you gonna go after her and get that
money, though?” the cook asked, coming around.

“
Naw, she might have the money for the cattle, but there’s a
whole lot more around here somewhere. All we gotta do is out wait
her. She’ll turn up dead, or lost. She don’t know how to take care
of herself. She’ll be dead within a month. She’s so gullible
someone will do her in for us.” Harry laughed arrogantly. “All we
gotta do is play it smooth like, and don’t ruffle no feathers. Her
old man even mentioned me in the will. So I don’t reckon this is
gonna be hard to pull off. They trust me. Why, I could probably
have her committed to one of those institutions if I had
to.”

“
Yeah, but this place don’t belong to any of us either…and
besides, I heard tell you gotta be a relative to commit somebody.
Just ‘cause ole Joel Hagen had his wife committed, don’t mean you
could get away with that. You ain’t her husband.”

“
Joe, you are borrowing trouble. The reason I asked her to
marry in the first place was so I could have her committed. Look, I
know what I’m doin’. After I talk to Yates in Dallas, he can fix
this. He can fix anything, legal. Especially if we can declare her
missing or dead or crazy even. I might not be able to commit her
myself, but I could shore convince someone else to do it. Don’t
much matter which way it goes, we win. We don’t have a thing to
worry about. I put the fear of God in her, and Yates can fix
anything so we can rest easy. I really thought I’d have a bigger
battle. We’ll just tell everyone she must have been bereaved more
than we all thought and lost her head and ran away. They’ll swallow
that. She don’t turn up soon we’ll declare her dead.”

“
You talkin’ about that fancy lawyer from Dallas?”

“
The same.”

Jarvis rode
back into the yard and listened to the conversation before jumping
into it.

“
But that’s
her
lawyer,”
Jarvis shouted.

“
Well, it won’t be if she’s gone, now will it? Besides, we cut
him in for a share, he’ll work
with
us. He’s just crooked enough to go for it.” Harry laughed.
“How do you think he got so rich in the first place?”

“
Well, that’s the dang truth…” Joe laughed. “He was braggin’
last time he was out here how he foreclosed on that big property
down in Houston, that’s a fact.”

“
Did you take care of Gordy?” Harry asked.

“
Easy as pie, put a rattler in his bed last night, and he’s
stiff as a board this morning.” The cook laughed.

Good Lord, a
snake! Poor Old Gordy hadn’t stood a chance, the only hand on the
ranch she could truly trust.

“
Good, this is going so easy it makes me uneasy.” Harry
chuckled. “First, we’ll contact the Sheriff; tell him about Gordy
and the snake. Then we’ll mention we ain’t seen hide nor hair of
her in a while. When they question us, we’ll tell them she acted
funny for a while, then poof, we hadn’t seen her.”

“
You don’t think she’ll be back with lawyers and such?” Jarvis
frowned at Harry, as Riley stared at him through the
bushes.

“
Naw, I don’t think so. She ain’t got much back-bone. I don’t
see her fightin’ for what is hers. And there is money on this
property too, we just gotta find it.” Harry glanced at the far
horizon. “She put on a good show fer her daddy, but it was all
talk. She wasn’t half as tough as she made out. I should
know.”

“
You don’t think she’ll be askin’ for no tomorrows,
huh?”

“
Not likely, but to be on the safe side, in a while we’ll ride
on over to Dallas and tell Mr. Yates how she just sorta disappeared
off the place and must have gone out of her head with sorrow for
her pa.”

“
Think he’ll believe it?”

“
Sure he will. Don’t nobody know her that well, anyhow. We’ll
tell him she ran off, no one’s heard from her or seen her. We’ve
searched all over for her, must be plum out of her head by now in
this heat. Keep your eye out for her though, in case she decides to
run to him too. If you see her, you make sure she don’t run into
anyone else,” Harry instructed. “And I don’t care how you do it
either.”

Jarvis
frowned. “I don’t like killin’ women.”

“
No
different than a man to me,” Harry commented dryly.

Jarvis and Joe
glanced at one another with a frown then shrugged. “Guess it’s no
never mind as I don’t actually do the killin’ myself.”

“
Yeah, you let those creepy crawly critters of yours do the
work for you.” Harry laughed.

Jarvis firmed
his lips. “Better’n gettin’ blamed fer killin’
somebody.”

“
You got a point about that; get lunch ready, I got work to
do,” Harry demanded as he mounted his horse and glanced down at the
older man. “I’ll scout out, see if I can find her.”

“
You a little on edge; her getting away?” Jarvis
snorted.

“
Naw, just don’t want no lose ends when that lawyer comes.
Besides, that girl can be sorta crazy anyway,” Harry said and
whipped his horse about. “We’ll have to concoct a story for him.
Somethin’ he’d believe.”

Riley slumped
against the tree, careful not to shake it.

Crazy or dead, that
’s how Mr. Yates would see it; he didn’t like her.

Chapter Two

West Texas
,
1878

Sam
glanced up at the windless sky, and smiled
. “Nice mornin’ Nodog, don’t you think?” He
looked down at his half-wolf who trotted along beside him. Nodog
whined at him and wagged his tail. He’d been traveling for days now
and enjoying the nomadic country of the wilder side of
Texas.

Sam regarded
Nodog, and smiled. “Kinda barren country, ain’t it?”

Nodog barked
at him. Sam laughed.

Not
more than an hour later, Sam Tanner stared at the dead man hanging
from the tree as tears rolled down his cheek bringing back a memory
he thought he’d long forgot. It had been twenty years since his
father hung from a tree, and ever since he couldn’t stand seeing
anyone hang. The wind whistled through the branches, making music
with the rope as it swung.
Such a forlorn sound.
He pulled his pistol from his holster and shot
the rope into. Then as though it were commonplace, he slid off his
horse and began digging a grave. He didn’t acknowledge the tears or
the man, the less involved he was the better. He swatted the tears
away as he dug into the hard dry earth. He didn’t know the man, but
whoever he was he deserved a better life than this. Everyone
deserved better than this in Sam’s books.

Nodog sniffed
the body, then ran to the bushes and growled.

“
Relax Nodog, this man ain’t gonna hurt anyone. But I got to
get him in the ground; he must have been hangin’ a while. He’s
stiff as a board. Wonder what the poor fella did,
if
he did anything.”

Nodog whined
as he lay down beside the grave and eyed the bushes.

Not five
minutes later, Nodog raised his head and growled once more, as a
young woman rushed out of the bushes and moved toward the dog with
purpose. Without a word, she put forth her hand for the animal to
smell, then relaxed and looked at Sam who had stopped digging and
glared at her.

“
You got any water?” she asked, almost panting.

“
There’s a canteen on my horse there.” Sam pointed.

“
Thanks…” She scrambled to the horse and jerked the canteen
down, thrusting it in her mouth and taking one long swig at a time.
Sam knew from the way she was guzzling it, she hadn’t had a drink
in some time. But his mind was busy with questions. Where did she
come from, and what was she doin’ out here in the middle of
nowhere?

“
Oh…what’s this?” She held up the beautiful dream catcher that
Hattie had given Sam some time ago.

“
It’s a dream catcher,” he answered, wondering how curious this
woman could get.

“
It’s beautiful. What is it for?”

Sam sighed
heavily, wondering if she’d laugh when he explained, “It’s to catch
all your bad dreams with and cast them away from you.”