The Outlaw Takes a Bride (29 page)

Johnny shook his head and hung the towel over the railing. “Can’t be Sunday again already.”

“No, it’s Thursday, but that’s not what I meant. We’ve been married two months, Mark. It’s our anniversary.”

“Oh.” Was he supposed to have done something special? He must have shown his dismay, because she smiled a bit. His heart still quickened when he saw that, though he’d constantly tried to discourage the thoughts of holding her and kissing her—just plain loving her—that still plagued him.

“It’s just a day,” she said, but he could tell it was more to her.

“I’m glad you’re feeling well now. Come and see the windlass.”

She walked out to the well with him, and he demonstrated for her how easy it was to wind it and bring up a pail of water. He’d taken extra care to sand the handle so she wouldn’t get slivers in the new skin of her palms.

“Thank you.” She gazed at him again, but she didn’t smile.

She seemed troubled, and Johnny began to feel uneasy. He wanted to ask if there was anything wrong, but he was afraid she’d say yes, and he didn’t want to hear that. He wanted everything to be calm and peaceful between them, the way it had been lately.

The next morning, Mark rode out after breakfast without so much as a good-bye. Sally heard the hoofbeats and looked out the window in time to see Reckless’s hindquarters disappear on the road toward Beaumont.

No one had brought in the milk yet, which set her teeth on edge. Mark wouldn’t leave the cow unmilked, so Cam must be doing that now. She did up the breakfast dishes and settled down with her sewing. Her hands still hurt when she flexed them, but with her thimble and a leather palm patch, she’d begun sewing again for short periods each day.

She had discovered a new yard-goods shop in town and a possible source of income. Mrs. Ricks, who ran the shop, had taken a liking to Sally’s newest dress. She had started a conversation that ended with Sally agreeing to make her a dress in a complicated new pattern when she felt up to it. In exchange, Mrs. Ricks would give her a dress length of silk. Word would get around town, and Sally knew she would soon get more orders if she wanted them.

Her feelings on that subject were in chaos. One minute she wanted to succeed and tell Mark she could add to the ranch’s income. The next, she was ready to give it all up and go home to her mother. What kind of life was she living here, anyway, with a husband who wasn’t really a husband at all?

Of course, telling her parents would be difficult. That held her back, even on days when she was most frustrated with Mark. She had formed a pattern of her own, Sally realized. With David, she’d never told her family about the bad times. Now she did the same thing with Mark. Her mother had answered her first two letters, joyful that Sally was now closer to home and excited to think they might visit each other. Sally wasn’t sure she was ready for the humiliation of revealing how things really were.

She was studying Mrs. Ricks’s pattern and the way the ruffles fell across the dress’s basque in the diagram when Cam came in with the milk. He set the bucket on her worktable.

“I wondered if you wanted some meat for dinner,” he said, leaning against the table.

Sally kept her eyes on the pattern. “We’ve a bit left from last night. Will Mark be home to eat?”

“Not sure. He was going to go talk to a few of the ranchers about getting together for fall roundup.”

Sally laid the tissue pattern across her lap. “Goodness! Is it coming up soon?” It was mid-July, and she hadn’t thought of much lately besides getting through each painful day and keeping cool.

“Not for a couple of months, but he wants to make sure he’s got everything in place when the time comes.”

Sally nodded. Regardless of her tumultuous feelings, ranch life went on.

“I can wring a chicken’s neck for you if you want,” Cam said.

“Oh, don’t bother.”

“Doesn’t take much, just a quick twist. Not hard at all.”

She shuddered. “No, thank you. Not today. I’ll make out with what I’ve got.”

“Suit yourself.” Cam ambled outside and left the door open, as was Sally’s habit, to let the breeze through.

She sat staring after him, feeling a little sick. Cam almost seemed to enjoy the thought of killing a chicken. That man was a strange mixture of charm and peculiarity. Sometimes he made her flesh crawl.

She spent the next two hours laying out Mrs. Ricks’s pattern on the fabric and cutting out the pieces; then she put the project away and concentrated on making last night’s leftovers into an appealing meal.

Cam came in for dinner at noon, and Mark had not returned. When they sat down together, Sally was afraid the conversation would be stilted, but Cam began telling her about his adventures that morning in rounding up a few of the young steers that had managed to squeeze under the fence where it crossed the creek, and by the end of his tale, he had her laughing.

“Mark should really buy you a horse,” he said. “Then you could come out and see what really goes on out there.”

“He’s talked about it,” Sally said.

“I expect you’d be good at helping with the stock.” Cam gave her an appraising look. “You’d probably have fun, too.”

“I was quite a tomboy when I was a girl.” Sally stood. “More coffee? I really should get back to my sewing.”

He stayed away from the house for the next three hours, for which she was thankful. She worked until her hands ached too badly to continue and made herself a cup of willow bark tea. As she sat in the path of the warm breeze to drink it, Cam bounded in through the doorway, holding the black body of a five-foot snake.

Sally jumped up and backed behind the table before realizing the snake was missing its head.

“Found this fellow in the feed bin,” Cam said. “Thought maybe you’d cook it up.”

“N–no thank you.” Sally’s hands shook as she pulled out the chair farthest away from Cam and the reptile. “Please take it away.”

He laughed. “Aw, come on, you’re a Texas girl!”

“I don’t eat snakes.”

“Mark would eat it. He and I roasted one on the trail one time. Mighty tasty it was, too.”

Sally swallowed hard. “Why don’t you cook it, then? Outside. You and Mark can eat it tonight if you’ve a mind to. I’d as soon not have it in my kitchen.”

“Well, what do you know? I had you pegged wrong, Sal.” He stood there grinning, and she wanted to throw something at him.

“Just get it out of here, please.”

“Awright, awright.”

He went, laughing, and Sally stood for a long moment with her hands clenched around the chair back. When she at last spread her fingers, her hands hurt terribly. She sat down where she was, facing the door, and pulled her teacup across the table. No more sewing for today, and perhaps she would use Dr. Neale’s salve again, though she’d forsaken it for the last few days.

She brought her Bible to the kitchen and read for the next half hour, letting her doctored hands rest on the tabletop. After a while, she was able to put the headless serpent out of her mind and focus on the words before her.

At last she heard a horse approaching, and she leaned to watch through the doorway. Mark and Reckless appeared as they slowed to a halt near the corral. She rose and fixed a bowl of cottage pudding for Mark and added a little fuel to the fire to heat up the coffeepot.

She began to fear he wouldn’t come into the cabin, but after about ten minutes, his form blocked the light from the doorway.

“Hello,” she said. “Did you eat dinner?”

“Mrs. Caxton fed me.”

“Good. I made some cottage pudding, if you’d like some.”

“Thanks.” Mark hung up his hat and gun belt and made his way to the table.

“Coffee with it, or milk? There’s plenty of milk.”

“I’ll take some of that,” Mark said.

She poured him a glass full and sat down across the table from him.

He took a bite of the pudding.

“What’s the word?” she asked, trying to keep her tone light and cheerful.

“I saw the sheriff in town. He said the outlaws are about again. He may get up a posse and go after them.”

The thought of being alone if a gang came to the ranch terrified Sally, but she would probably be more frightened if she knew her husband was out chasing them. She pushed the thought aside, not to be deterred from her purpose. Mark ate in silence, and when his bowl was empty, he looked over at her and smiled.

“That was good. Thanks.”

“Mark, there’s something I need to say.”

He sobered and cocked his head to one side. “Go ahead.”

“Please don’t leave me here alone with Cam again.”

They gazed at each other for a moment. “What are you saying?”

“I’d rather be here alone than with Cam. Leave me your rifle if you need to go somewhere, and I’ll be fine.”

“But those outlaws…and Cam saved your life.”

“Maybe so. Or maybe not. I don’t know. But I do know that I don’t want to be here alone with him ever again.”

Mark took a swallow from his glass of milk. He set the glass down. “Did he do something?”

“Not really.”

“He told me about the snake just now. You didn’t like that.”

“It’s not just the snake. It’s true I don’t like them, but he seemed to enjoy frightening me with it.”

“He’s like a kid that way.”

“That way and…others.”

“What do you mean?” Mark’s eyes narrowed. “What else?”

She felt her face flush, and she couldn’t hold his gaze. “Nothing specific.”

“There must have been something.”

“Sometimes…” They sat in silence again. Mark’s patience outlasted her, and she blurted, in a low voice, “Sometimes I’m afraid of him. And I mean him, not the snake.”

Mark frowned. “What sort of things does he say?”

“It’s not always what he says. It’s the way he says it. Take this morning, for instance. He asked if he could wring a chicken’s neck for me.”

Mark’s lips twitched.

“Yes, it’s funny, isn’t it?” Sally’s anger made her voice rise, and she made herself take a deep breath.

“Sorry.”

“Well, then he went on to tell me how easy it was to do, and I could almost imagine him doing it to…to a person, Mark. Call me fanciful if you want, but that man scares me.”

“Sally…”

“And the day I was burned. I didn’t tell you, because everything was so hectic, but…he touched me, Mark.”

“What?” Alarm tightened his face. “To check your burns?”

“No, before that. In the house.” She glanced toward the dish cupboard. “I was getting down the luncheon things. He came up behind me. Too close. And he touched my neck.”

“It couldn’t have been accidental?”

She hesitated. “He said it was, and he apologized in an offhand way, but it didn’t feel like that when it happened.” Sally buried her face in her hands for a moment. She could still feel Cam’s fingers on the back of her neck, almost a caress. She shuddered. When she looked at Mark again, he was sitting still, staring into space. “Look, I know he’s your friend.” Sally shook her head helplessly. “He’s not like you, Mark. He drinks, and he—”

“He’s never come near you after he’d been drinking, has he?” Mark’s voice rose.

“No.”

“Good. I’ve tried to make sure of that.”

“Then you don’t trust him.”

Mark let out a deep sigh. “I don’t know as I’d go that far, but I’ve tried to keep any…unpleasantness…away from you. I’ll have a word with him.”

In that moment, Sally knew she had made up her mind. She stood. “I’m afraid a word isn’t enough. I’ve decided to visit my parents. I’d like to take the train to Abilene tomorrow.”

Mark’s stunned expression wrenched her heart, but maybe this was what he needed.

“I’ll pack this evening,” she said. “I’d appreciate it if you’d drive me to the depot tomorrow.”

“How long will you be gone?”

She hauled in a deep breath. “I don’t know, Mark. Our marriage doesn’t seem to be working. It isn’t a real marriage at all.”

He said nothing but watched her guardedly. She hadn’t intended to hurt him, but nothing else seemed to work with this man.

Sally pushed the chair in. “If you want me to come back here—and truly make a life with you—you can contact me there. I’ll leave you the address.”

“Sally…”

She waited, praying he would have sense enough to walk around the table and take her into his arms. Short of that, even a simple “Don’t go” would be enough. She waited, searching his brown eyes for the spark of love and determination she needed from him. But she saw only hurt.

“I’m sorry.” He got up and walked slowly out the door, fumbling for his hat as he passed the pegs.

Sally stood watching him go, tears streaming down her cheeks.