The Outlaw Takes a Bride (2 page)

“Almost.”

“Hmpf. I’ve got some stitching for you when you’re through.” Effie’s heavy footsteps echoed as she walked away.

Sally bent once more over the dishpan. She worked hard in the Winters home—as hard as a hired maid might do, but without wages. While Effie led the churchwomen in organizing efforts for charitable causes, Sally felt she could show a little more kindness at home.

Sally continued doing whatever sewing jobs she could get from other people, but her time was limited, as was her means for advertising her services.

At first she’d tried to save enough to take her back to her parents’ home in Abilene, Texas, but after a few months, she’d had several broad hints that contributing to her hosts’ funds would not be amiss, since she ate out of their larder. Giving most of what she earned to Effie to supplement the pastor’s meager salary meant Sally had saved less than five dollars in the past year. She wasn’t sure the minister even knew of her contributions, but she didn’t dare ask.

She finished the dishes, dumped the water, and hung up the pan and her apron. She longed for a cup of tea but didn’t dare fix herself one. Effie Winters would accuse her of shirking. She went to the parlor, where her hostess sat on the horsehair sofa with her lap desk before her.

“You had some mending?” Sally asked.

Effie pointed with her pen. “My shirtwaist. Heaven knows I need a new dress, but it’s hard to come by enough money for one.”

Sally hesitated. Was the woman hinting that she should give her more money? If Effie could buy the fabric, Sally could sew a dress for her in a couple of days. But that would take all her time, and if Effie wasn’t pleased with the result, she’d never hear the end of it.

As she picked up the bundle of mending, she realized it included several items besides the shirtwaist. “I should be able to get to these this morning, after I finish Mrs. DeVeer’s skirt.”

Effie nodded absently and continued her writing for a moment. “Oh, do you have any scraps for the quilting bee? We’re making that flying geese quilt for the missionary who was here last month.”

“I may be able to come up with some.”

Sally climbed the narrow stairs and entered her bedroom, thankful for the one small window at the end of the chamber. In summer, this room became a kiln, nearly stifling her, and in winter she all but froze. But now the cool spring weather kept the attic tolerable, and the window gave her adequate light so that she could do her sewing up here in private and not have to put up with Effie’s sighs and innuendos. Her hosts seemed to be eager for her to move out, yet Sally couldn’t imagine what Effie would do if she left. She certainly wasn’t used to doing heavy housework anymore, though she did some of the cooking and made an effort to help the ladies in her husband’s congregation and nurse the ill when needed.

After closing the door, Sally sat down in her straight-backed chair near the window. She put the bundle of mending on the small table before her. The letter crackled as she took it from her pocket. This was letter number eight, but she hadn’t liked to give Effie the satisfaction of saying it. The nerve of that woman to count her letters! Did she keep as close track of how many Sally’s mother sent?

Her seam ripper worked fine as a letter opener, and she carefully slit the top fold of the envelope. Tears filled her eyes as she read the first page. Her many prayers had been answered.

It had taken him long enough, but he had finally proposed marriage. She could leave St. Louis, the city that held so many bad memories.

She had never had the courage to tell her parents how things really were during her marriage to David Golding, or the manner of his death. She had no desire to disgrace them with the knowledge of the pain and degradation she had suffered at his hands. When she was notified of his death, she wrote to her parents that he had died suddenly, but not that he was shot in a saloon brawl.

To her shame, Sally had stayed in St. Louis and scraped along for nearly two years after her husband’s death, rather than admit to them how bleak her life had become. What had happened to the courage she’d had as a girl? She didn’t like hiding the truth from her folks. Had she become so beaten down that she couldn’t face those who loved her?

Now God was giving her the chance to return to Texas and be near them again. Oh, not very near—she would still be a couple of hundred miles from her parents’ home—but close enough that she might visit them after a while. She longed to see her mother’s dear face and feel her father’s strong arms around her. And this time, she would visit as the wife of a respectable, hardworking rancher.

It would also be a second chance for her at having a family. Maybe this time she would get it right. She had answered the rancher’s advertisement with trepidation, but his letters showed him to be a caring, thoughtful, and generous man. Life with him could only be better than what she had endured with David, and for the last year with the Reverend Winters and Effie. That thought gave her the courage to seek out a new course. Perhaps if all went well, she could finally have the family she had longed for so many years. Children.

Since David’s death, she had come to think she would never be a mother. The memories of the two babies she had never held in her arms always darkened her mood, and she tried not to dwell on them. She had accepted that she would never know a husband’s true love or the joy of raising a child. But now…now perhaps God was smiling on her. Three or four days of travel would take her to the man who said he loved her and would take care of her for the rest of her life. The man she had never met but had fallen in love with.

Mark Paynter.

Johnny and Cam rode together down the dusty lane, looking for Mark’s ranch. The road hadn’t been used much, and they hadn’t met anyone else since leaving the last town behind.

“It can’t be much farther.” Johnny rose in his stirrups and peered ahead.

“You don’t think we took the wrong trail?” Cam asked.

“Not a chance. That big rock was the landmark. He said turn right at the rock that looks like a bread loaf.”

“Right.”

Weeks on the trail and scanty food had worn Johnny down. He leaned over to one side and tried to watch his horse’s feet, but he couldn’t see much from the saddle. “I think Reckless is limping.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me. He lost that shoe a good five miles back.” Cam gazed at the chestnut’s hooves as they ambled along. “Well, we’ll be there any time now.”

The sun beat down with no compassion, and the horses’ heads drooped low. Johnny opened his canteen and took a swig. If they didn’t find water for the horses soon, they’d be in trouble. He ran his hand over his beard, wiping away a few stray drops of water. At the line shack, he hadn’t had a razor. He and Cam hadn’t shaved since they lit out. It would feel good to get cleaned up again.

“Hey, look.” Cam pointed, and Johnny sighted in the direction he indicated.

Over the top of a small rise ahead was something that might be a ridgepole. They urged the horses to a trot, but at once Reckless’s limp became more pronounced, and Johnny let him fall back to a walk.

Cam rode on ahead to the top of the knoll and turned and waved his hat. “Come on, boy! We’re there!”

Reckless had a hard time navigating the hill, and Johnny swung down and led him the last few yards. They were at the edge of a yard flanked by a small cabin on one side and a large corral on the other. Beyond the corral stood a barn of sorts. Apparently its main use was for hay storage, though one part seemed to be walled in, probably so Mark could secure his saddles and tools.

“Funny,” Johnny said. “The corral gate is open.”

Cam frowned. “I don’t see any horses.”

Johnny looked closer at the house. No smoke rose from the chimney, but a man might let the fire go out in this heat. “Think there’s anyone here?”

A cow bawled pitifully, and Johnny spotted her in a small pen near the barn. He led Reckless down the hill toward her, looking about as he walked. He spotted a few head of cattle grazing several hundred yards away on the fenced range.

Cam rode ahead. At the corral fence, he dismounted and eyed the cow.

“She looks like she needs to be milked.”

Johnny walked over and stood beside him. One glance confirmed Cam’s assessment—the cow was uncomfortable, all right.

“Something’s not right.”

“I saw some cattle off over there.” Cam jerked his chin toward the grassy range.

“Yeah, I saw them, too. Come on.” Johnny left Reckless ground-tied and walked toward the house. He was bone tired, and he didn’t want to sleep on the ground again tonight.

The cabin door was shut, and he knocked on it. “Mark?” Silence greeted him, so he knocked again. “Anybody home?”

Cam sidled up to him and reached for the latch. The door opened under his touch. “H’lo, the house!”

They looked at each other.

Cam hopped over the threshold, and Johnny hesitated only a moment before following him.

Lying facedown on the floor of the one-room cabin was a man dressed in twill pants and a frayed chambray shirt. Johnny’s stomach flipped.

“Well, you said it,” Cam said. “Somethin’ ain’t right.”

Johnny stooped and grasped the man’s shoulder and rolled him over. Staring sightless up at the ceiling was his brother, Mark Paynter.

S
ally trudged to the post office through the rain, holding her black umbrella over her head. On most days, Effie or the pastor went for the mail, but on miserable cold winter days or ones where a body could drown by stepping off the sidewalk into a pothole, Sally had the privilege.

She didn’t mind going out in the rain, though it meant she would have to change her entire outfit on her return. The umbrella did little to protect her black bombazine skirt as it billowed in the wind. However, making the unpleasant trek herself meant she would see the letters before Effie and the Reverend Mr. Winters did.

She had received only one additional letter from Mark since his proposal. It arrived a fortnight past, and in it he had said he would await her response before writing more about their future. He sounded as though he wasn’t confident that she would accept his offer.

Sally prayed that he had received her answer soon after penning his doubtful thoughts. She had sat down as soon as possible and answered that hesitant missive, of course, and assured Mark that he possessed her heart and she now waited only for his word to leave St. Louis and join him in Beaumont, Texas.

At the post office, she opened the door, stepped into the doorway, and turned so she could stand inside while collapsing her umbrella. She slid it into the holder inside the door and glanced about. Two people stood at the counter, awaiting their mail. When they had finished their business and left, she smiled at the postmaster.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Beamus.”

“Hello, Mrs. Golding. It’s a pleasure to see you, though I suspect getting here was not very pleasurable.”

Sally laughed. “You’re right. It’s coming down pretty hard out there.”

“Let’s see.…” He turned to the rack of cubbyholes behind him. “I know there’s something for the minister. Oh, and here’s one of those Texas letters for you.”

Sally schooled her features so that she wouldn’t show her elation when Mr. Beamus turned back toward her and held out the two envelopes.

She glanced at them just long enough to assure her that her own letter was from Mark, not her mother, and tucked the letters into the deep pocket of her cloak.

“Thank you very much.”

“Anytime.”

The door opened behind her, and she left with a nod to the newcomer, plucking her umbrella from the stand as she passed it. She opened it and plunged into the downpour again, after closing the door firmly behind her.

When she got back to the parsonage and slipped in the back door, the kitchen was empty. She had time to slip her own letter into her dress pocket and was hanging up her cloak when Effie entered.

“Heavens, that umbrella is dripping all over the floor, and your tracks—why, your shoes must be soaked.”

“I’m afraid you’re right,” Sally said serenely. “I’ll mop the floor after I’ve had a chance to put on some dry clothing.” She held out the reverend’s letter. “Here you go, for Mr. Winters.”