The Reluctant Bride (46 page)

“I’m not about to get hurt until I’ve been married to you for at least a hundred years.”

“Welt will tell you that much time in my company is liable to paralyze you.”

“I think I’ll see about finding something to interest Welt. Maybe something blond and pretty.”

Russ laughed. “How can you make jokes at a time like this?”

“I can’t think of a better time. Otherwise, I’d ride into Boulder Gap and kill Stocker myself.”

“I forgot,” Russ said. “Stocker’s driving the herd toward the gap. I left the boys when I heard the rifle shots.”

“Then we’d better go help them.”

“We?”

“After standing off two men alone, you don’t think I’m going to stay back and watch anymore, do you?”

“No, I don’t. Can you ride bareback?”

“Just watch me.”

They caught two horses in the corral, mounted up, and rode as fast as they could, each with a handful of horse’s mane in one hand and a rifle in the other. The sound of rifle fire reached them when they were barely halfway back.

“Keep well under cover,” Russ said when they reached the passage. “I don’t think anybody will shoot at you, but you could be hurt by a ricocheting bullet.”

The men at the cabin didn’t hesitate.”

He felt certain they’d thought a man was inside, but that was unimportant now.

“What happened?” Russ asked when he reached the spot where Oren had taken cover behind the wagon.

They tried to run the herd through at a gallop. Maybe they thought the cows would jump the wagon. When Buck and I started waving our hands and shooting in the air, the herd split into half and turned back on itself. They’re all tangled up out there. The rustlers can’t get close enough to get a good shot at us.”

“It’s not the rustlers I’m worried about,” Russ said. “Keep your eye out for Stocker. Tanzy thinks he’s crazy enough to kill me himself.”

Russ saw Tanzy picking her way through the boulders. “Stay back,” he said, but he didn’t expect her to listen to him.

She didn’t.

“What’s going on?” she asked when she reached them.

They’ve lost control of the herd. It’s milling around in confusion.”

“Where’s Stocker?”

“I don’t know.”

“His hatred for you has driven him a little crazy. If he sees his plans falling apart, it might push him over the edge.”

“I see another bunch of riders coming,” Tim called from his high perch. “It looks like the sheriff and the posse.”

“All we have to do is hold them off until the sheriff can arrest them,” Russ said.

Stocker was out there somewhere. Russ wouldn’t feel safe until he knew where.

It all ended rather quietly. The posse outnumbered the rustlers and was able to arrest them with ease. The rustler Tanzy had heard talking to Stocker couldn’t wait to explain that he’d been paid to take the cows, that Stocker had been with them but had slipped away when he saw the pass had been blocked.

Meanwhile, Welt had shown up with the two men who’d attacked the cabin, one of them wounded. Once the rustlers had been secured and the herd turned, they all started toward town. They hadn’t gone fifty yards before a burst of rifle fire sprayed the ground at Russ’s feet. He grabbed Tanzy and dove under the wagon. Buck, Oren, and Welt scrambled behind the rocks.

“It’s Stocker,” Tim called out to Russ. “He got up on the other side of the pass. Keep down. He’s trying to kill you.”

Bullets smashed into the bed of the wagon, one of them penetrating and biting into the ground right next to Tanzy.

“Get under the front of the wagon,” Russ said. “The bullets can’t get through the seat and the wagon floor.”

“There’s not enough room for both of us” Tanzy said.

“I’m going to get out and see if I can get a shot at Stocker.”

“Let someone else do it,” Tanzy said. “If you kill him, the murder will follow you for the rest of your life.”

“I can live with that. I can’t live with knowing I let him hurt you.”

The shooting stopped abruptly.

“You can come out now,” Tim called. “The sheriff just killed Stocker.”

“I guess that’s all I need to know,” the sheriff said to Russ and Tanzy. “I’ve got all the information I need for the trial. Now that everybody knows you didn’t draw first on Toley, it looks like you’re going to be a hero in this town.”

“I don’t care about that,” Russ said, “as long as people no longer believe I’m a liar, a thief, and a killer.”

“Now that Stocker’s hands have had their say, I don’t think anybody’s going to believe that anymore. They’re liable to stumble over themselves trying to apologize. Me included.”

“I don’t want that either. I just want to go back to my valley and live the rest of my life in peace.”

“That seems fair,” the sheriff said.

Tardy was waiting for them when they left the sheriff’s office.

“When are you starting back?” he asked. “I’m going with you.”

“What does your aunt say?” Tanzy asked.

“She says you and Russ have been the first to get a decent day’s work out of me, so she might as well let you finish the job.”

“That’s not exactly what I said, Richard Benton,” his aunt said, coming up behind him, “but it’s close enough. He’s injured,” she said to Russ, “You will give him time to recover, won’t you?”

“It was just a knock on the head,” Tardy said. “I’ve had worse.”

“Nevertheless, you ought to take care of what brains you do have.” She turned to Russ, and her expression changed. She looked embarrassed, but she also looked sad. “Tanzy told me she’s been teaching you to read.”

Russ figured if Ethel knew, there was no point in trying to keep the secret. Besides, he could read now. He nodded.

“Then you never read the letter I sent you.”

He shook his head.

“You didn’t get anyone to read it for you?”

“I was too ashamed to admit I couldn’t read.”

“What did you do with it?”

“I burned it.”

“So you never knew what was in it?”

“No.”

“So you didn’t know.”

“No.”

“I offered to help you escape. When you didn’t reply, I thought you’d rather hang than …” She looked as though her gaze had turned inward and she was staring into the past. A moment later she sighed and refocused. “I was very foolish to have wasted so many years. I should have made better use of my life.”

“What are you talking about?” Tardy asked.

“None of your business, young man. You’ve already caused quite enough trouble as it is.”

“Me! What have I done?”

“I think she means the diary,” Tanzy said.

“Oh,” Tardy said, his umbrage evaporating.

“Ethel, could I see you for a minute?” the sheriff asked.

“What for?”

“It’s about Stocker’s will.”

“I don’t know anything about it. You’ll need to talk to his lawyer.”

“I have. That’s why I want to talk to you. Guess who he left his ranch to?”

“I have no earthly idea.”

“He left it to his only relative who never asked him for money: you.”

For the first time in her life, Ethel Peters fainted.

“I’m going to miss Tardy,” Tanzy said. “It was fun having him around.”

“He’s not going to miss us,” Russ said. “Now that his aunt owns the biggest ranch in Colorado, he’ll have all he can do to learn enough to be able to handle that place in a few years. He’s already trying to talk one of the boys into being his foreman.”

They were headed back to the ranch in Ethel’s buggy. She was still too dazed to protest when Tardy offered it to them.

“It was funny listening to him assure his aunt that she didn’t have to worry, that he could tell her what to do,” Tanzy said. “And she let him.”

“Don’t expect it to last long. Ethel Peters is one strong-minded woman.”

“Did you know she was still in love with you?” Tanzy asked.

“I never had the slightest suspicion. She was always the one who criticized me the most.”

“That should have been a dead giveaway,” Tanzy said. “Women never bother with men they don’t like.”

“Is that why you’ve been pestering me ever since you got here?”

Tanzy punched him. “It was the other way around. You were the one who wouldn’t leave me alone.”

“If I had, you’d have left town with nowhere to go and nothing to do when you got there. You ought to be thankful I stopped you.”

“I am, but I couldn’t tell you. You’d hold it over me for the rest of my life.”

“I’m only going to hold one thing over you.”

“What’s that?”

“Your promise to love me forever. You do that, and you can do anything else you like.”

“If I do that, I can’t do anything you won’t like.”

That’s what I like: an obedient wife.”

Tanzy hit him again, but not very hard. Russ laughed, put his arm around her, and pulled her tight against him. The valley was beautiful, but it was still too damned big. It would take him forever to get to the cabin and have Tanzy to himself. He had a lot of years to make up for, and he was in a hurry to get started.

About the Author

Leigh Greenwood is the award-winning author of over fifty books, many of which have appeared on the USA Today bestseller list. Leigh lives in Charlotte, North Carolina. Please visit his website at
http://www.leigh-greenwood.com/
.