Swept Away (10 page)

“No one’s hanging on to me. I’m going to take care of myself. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to the attic.” She scooped up a small stack of female-looking things. “Can I have a basin of water, Dr. Riker?”

“Sure, if you’ll call me Dare.”

Rosie shrugged, which wasn’t an agreement.

“You expect to scrub the floors up there?” Dare asked, smiling.

“No, well, that’s not the first thing I’ll do with the water at any rate. First, I’m planning to wash the sleep out of my eyes. Then I’ll turn my attention to tidying. Scrubbing floors will come later.”

“I’ll get it for you, and a towel,” Dare said.

“I’m much obliged.” Rosie walked out, heading for the attic. Luke heard her steps on the staircase, which he’d left down.

Luke realized he’d been staring out the doorway she’d walked through. But she’d been gone quite a while and still he could see her, like a blaze of red light at sunset that burned into his eye and stayed after the light was gone.

Luke forced himself to look away and caught Dare riveted on the same spot Luke had looked.

Slugging him on the arm, Luke said, “Quit staring.”

Dare shook his head. “Imagine how pretty she’ll look in clothes that fit and without that sunburn peeling her face.”

“You don’t need to imagine one single thing about Rosie.”

Dare picked up the tray; Rosie had neatly loaded the dishes back on it. “So,
are
you planning to hang on to her?”

Luke was tempted to throw a fist again, because he didn’t want to answer. Throw a fist at a man who was risking his
own life to regain Luke’s ranch. Maybe he wasn’t much of a grown-up yet, just like Dare said. But looking after Rosie had given him some mighty grown-up notions.

“Just go get the woman a basin of water.” Luke hesitated before he added, “I’ll take it up.”

Dare left the room with the food tray, laughing.

C
HAPTER 7

Jonas Cahill, Broken Wheel’s parson, came to visit late that evening, and Ruthy enjoyed meeting the quiet man with the warm smile.

He wasn’t given to the teasing between the others, but he was definitely one of them, judging by all the backslapping and smiling.

Jonas was the shortest of the men, an inch or two under six feet, while the others stood above that mark. The preacher had red hair, cut short, though it still curled uncontrollably. It reminded Ruthy of her father.

He was quite a contrast to the others. Vince’s hair was short and neat, a rich brown. Dare was a shaggy blond with a slightly darker mustache. Luke’s hair was overly long, and so black it looked almost blue in the lantern light.

They met in the kitchen, where Vince took his place by the door as if he were the guardian of the group. His arms were crossed and his clothes were as neat as any big-city lawyer.

Dare paced. He’d locked his front and back door so they’d have time to scatter if anyone came needing doctoring. The lantern burned. Since Vince and Jonas had come
calling, there was no need to douse the lights. Only Luke and Ruthy would need to duck upstairs.

Jonas and Luke sat at the table with Ruthy as she poured coffee.

“We’ve got the papers in order.” Vince dropped them onto the rectangular oak table. “These are legal documents, signed by a judge. They should force Greer to leave the premises. Doubt he’ll obey them, but serving these papers puts us on the right side of the law.”

“I’ll deliver them tomorrow.” Luke grabbed the papers, his eyes burning with anger. “I hope he wants to fight about it.”

“No, Luke, you can’t. He’s got that narrow canyon into your place guarded.” Dare quickly described where the watchmen had stood on the ranch on his only ride out there, nearly a month ago now. “Word is, he keeps lookouts there, armed, day and night. They might let you ride in, but Greer would see to it you never rode out.”

“Pa sometimes stood sentries out there. Comanches got restless from time to time, and we had to be on our guard, although we got on with them well in the normal course of things. The Kiowa were friendly most of the time, too. I played with them as a kid, along with my friend Gil. I even went hunting with a few of the young bucks. Anyway, I can get past those guards in the dark.” Luke gripped the papers as if he were personally crushing the life out of Greer with his bare hands. “I’ll slip out as soon as the town quiets down.”

“Sounds good, but not yet.” Vince was running this show. Ruthy could tell it, but she wasn’t sure the rest of the men noticed. “We’ve got more to do before we can ride to the Greer ranch—”

“The
Stone
ranch,” Luke snapped. “So he’s living in my house, is he? He didn’t just steal my land, he stole my home.”

“Your house was nicer than his. I’m not sure if he moved in there right after he stole the land or not. I heard someone say his own place was a shack, and his wife nagged him into moving out of it.” Dare’s voice had that dark tone again, just like when he’d mentioned Mrs. Greer before.

Luke wondered if there’d been trouble between Dare and Mrs. Greer. But how much trouble could there have been in the short time Dare had been here? Especially if Mrs. Greer never came to town?

“We’ve got a few things to arrange before we’re ready to face Greer.” Vince went back to his planning. “We need to get Sheriff Porter out of town, and we need Big John before I’m willing to ride out to the ranch.”

“Greer’s got hired gunmen and they’re all hard men willing to shoot first and ask questions later. Just the other day, Greer’s foreman, Bullard—”

“The man who was here last night with his wife?” Ruthy asked.

“That’s the one.”

“And you do business with him, Dare?” Luke scowled.

“I thought about refusing him, Luke. I did.” Dare shoved his hands deep into his pockets, then almost immediately pulled them free again. Ruthy had yet to see Dare be completely still. “But I didn’t want to tip my hand that we’re coming for Greer. And I couldn’t in good conscience refuse to treat his wife, no matter who he is. You know I learned that in a hard school when I had to treat Confederate soldiers side by side with Union troops.”

“Was this in Andersonville?” Ruthy asked. She’d heard
the horror stories of the prison during the war, the terrible loss of life, the starvation and sickness, the cruelty of the Southern captors, and the walking skeletons who’d survived. The bond between Luke and his friends had been forged in that crucible.

There was utter silence in the room. Vince pulled his gun and rolled the revolver with a hard whirl, the gun clicking as he held it at eye level.

Dare stopped pacing, leaned against the dry sink, and crossed his arms. One knee bounced as he stood there.

“That’s where we all met.” Jonas’s voice had a grim quality that didn’t match with a man of the cloth. “We were part of the Regulators.”

Luke ran his hands deep into his hair. Making a mess that Ruthy wanted to fix. She was surprised—no—shocked at just how badly she wanted to touch his hair, tidy it, run her fingers through it. Giving herself a mental shake, she desperately jumped at their connection as Regulators.

“You said that word before. You said you were law and order inside the prison camp. But you didn’t tell me much about what a Regulator is. You have a tight bond.”

“We were a group that kept order inside the prison.” Jonas spoke quietly. “That made us saviors to a lot of the men because there were varmints locked up in there along with decent soldiers. The varmints stole what few rations there were, stole clothing off men’s backs. They called themselves Raiders and they hurt anyone who fought back. Killed more than a few. We got the job of bringing order. Us and a lot of others.”

“But there were men who didn’t think of us as saviors,” Dare said. “More than a few. Yankee prisoners who thought we were helping the Rebs when we rounded up
Union soldiers, no matter what they’d done. After we put a stop to the worst of the Raiders, too many man wanted us dead. So we got pulled out of the prison yard and put to work for the Rebs.”

“Which made us even worse traitors,” Vince added with a scowl.

Dare resumed his pacing. “It’s where I learned doctoring. I got assigned to the camp hospital. Even in there, trying to save lives, I found men who’d risk execution to stab me in the back. They said with pride that they were doing the Lord’s work.”

“Dare means stab him in the back literally.” Luke lifted his coffee and took a long drink of the steaming brew. “He’s got the scars to prove it. There were those who decided we were traitors, working for the Rebel guards against Yankees, our own men. We had to watch out for each other for the rest of the time we were locked up. It’s a bond between us that’s not easily broken.”

“‘There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother,’” Jonas said quietly.

“That’s why we’re here.” Vince liked to talk, and he was the best dressed and the most civilized of the group. But right now there was cold winter in his brown eyes. “That’s why we’re backing you, Luke. You’d do the same for any of us. Though I hope you never have to.”

“This is old news and it’s got nothing to do with what we’ve got ahead of us. Can we get our plans in order before we have to break this up?” Dare asked, as unhappy as Luke at the conversation.

“You think we’ll get a chance at Bullard here at your house?” Luke asked.

“Yep, I think you should keep sleeping here so I have
someone always at hand. You can slip out early in the morning to do your hunting for Greer’s men and sleep at my place so we can have two men to bring Bullard down. Bullard always has a bottle with him and he’s taken to just leaving it here. He doesn’t drink deep. He’s too controlled for that. But he nips at it. I’ve got laudanum, and if I mix it with his whiskey, it’ll knock him cold. I don’t want to use it until Big John gets to town and can take him into custody and haul him away.”

“Big John is a Texas Ranger,” Luke said to Ruthy.

“In fact, I can almost guarantee that Bullard will be in here again and again.” Dare paced a little faster, as if he could run away from Lana Bullard and her screaming.

They must be done discussing the Regulators, leaving Ruthy with a hundred unanswered questions.

“He’s almost as crazy as his wife,” Dare went on. “Big John is checking into him being wanted. He needs proof before an arrest and he can’t find any outstanding charges in Texas, so he’s looking further afield. But no one as ruthless as Bullard can be completely clean. That’s probably why he’s stayed out here, so far from the law, because he’s got trouble on his back trail. John will find what he needs. And as soon as we get our hands on a wanted poster, I’ll dose Bullard with the laudanum and knock him out. We’ll take him while he’s snoring, and Big John will get him on the road to prison.”

“And tear him away from his wife and child?” Ruthy’s hand went to her throat. “That seems so wrong.”

“That baby’s gonna have one lunatic to raise it, instead of two. The one it’ll be missing is a murdering vermin. I don’t see that as a bad thing.” Luke glowered at her, and after that she quit asking questions.

“That takes Greer’s top man out of the fight.” Vince continued with his planning as if no one had interrupted him. “If we take Bullard at night, quick and quiet, Greer might think Bullard ran, deserted him. And if Luke does his job right, honest cowpokes may realize big trouble is coming and just ease away. They might fight for the brand if they’re braced, but once they know the kind of skunk their boss is, they won’t want any part of it. That leaves Greer real shorthanded.”

Luke scowled. “It sounds like you’re going to take weeks before I can ride out and face Greer.”

“You’ll be busy,” Vince said. “Ghosting around, thinning out Greer’s men.”

Luke looked around the room and the other men nodded.

“What about me?” Ruthy asked. “I’m not going to spend the next two weeks hiding in Dare’s house.”

The men looked between themselves, then turned to Luke.

“You brought her to this party,” Vince said. “You got any idea what to do with her?”

Luke looked at Ruthy for far too long before he said, “Oh, I’ve got me a few ideas.”

“What ideas are those?” Ruthy had no idea what these men were talking about.

Luke shook his head. “It’s late. Go on upstairs, Rosie.”

With a little huff she said to Dare, “If you’ll come for me when you don’t have any patients in the morning, I can get something on for a noon meal and get to work tidying the kitchen.”

“I’d be proud to eat your cooking,” Dare said. He pulled open a cupboard loaded with food. “I mostly get paid in potatoes and eggs and other supplies, so I’ve got whatever you need.”

“A nice bit of beef would be welcome.”

“I’ll get some out of the cellar and have it at hand.” Dare shut the cupboard.

“We’ll have stew for dinner, and I’ll make enough for supper while I’m at it.”

“Can I come, Rosie?” Vince gave her a shining smile. “I’d love to eat a meal made by someone who knows what she’s doing. I’m not a hand at cooking.”

“It’s
Miss
Rosie to you,” Luke said in a way that drew her attention. His eyes were glinting at Vince.

“My name is Ruthy. Ruthy MacNeil. Try and remember that, especially if you want to eat my stew.” She stalked out of the room without looking back. She heard them laughing as she ascended the stairs. When she twisted the key in the door’s lock, she couldn’t help imagining it was Luke Stone’s neck.