Adrienne deWolfe (2 page)

Legend of the Sweetheart Tree

If you would know your lady's heart,

The true depth of her caring,

Then take her to the woodland's midst,

The evergreen of sharing.

A tender kiss, a pledge of faith,

Then wait—that wise old tree,

Will crown its boughs with flow'rs of white,

If she's your love eternally.

—Adrienne deWolfe

Chapter 1

Bandera County,Texas

May 1883

Something was wrong with this town.

Wescott Rawlins slung his saddle over his shoulder and dragged his weary, blistered feet out of the livery. His horse had gotten the fool notion to throw a shoe, and he'd walked the crockhead for ten miles to keep his appointment with the sheriff. Never in his twenty-four years had Wes been so happy to see a cluster of oakwood storefronts encroaching on the open range.

The town of Elodea, however, hadn't been so happy to see him.

The blacksmith had been as friendly as a rained-on rooster when Wes asked for directions to Sheriff Boudreau's homestead. The liveryman had paled at the sight of Wes's matched pair of .45s and, claiming he had no horses for hire, had slammed the door in Wes's face.

Having his nose nearly smashed in by a tackroom door wasn't the worst part, though. The worst part was watching Elodea's womenfolk hurry past him as if he'd sprouted horns and a tail. True, he was caked with dust from his Stetson to his Justin boots, but he knew he held a certain appeal for the ladies. Years ago, as a gawky youth, he'd learned to compensate for his freckle-dusted nose and his auburn hair with flirtatious charm. However, his most winning smiles were proving wastes of time on Elodea's fairest, and his friendliest "howdy's" were being answered by hunched shoulders and fleeing bonnets.

Yep. Something was
damned
wrong with this town.

"Mister! Hey mister, wait up. You dropped something," an eager young voice called, causing Wes to halt outside the doors of Sultan's Dance Hall.

A slender boy with opossum-colored hair ran into the center of the road, where sunbeams glanced like shooting stars off a battered piece of tin. Swooping for the object, the boy gaped, his eyes growing round with excitement.

"It's a badge. A
Ranger's
badge!"

Wes half smiled. Now here was the kind of welcome he'd grown used to receiving over the past six years.

"Where'd ya get it, mister?"

Wes's vanity deflated a notch. "Austin, as I recollect," he said dryly.

"You mean you're a Ranger?" The boy caught his breath. "A
real
Ranger?"

"Reckon so."

Gray eyes doubtful, the boy watched Wes retrieve the badge and tuck it carefully into the inner pocket of his vest.

"Well, if you're a real Ranger," the boy said, "how come you're toting that old hunk of tin instead of a shiny new star?"

Shoving his hat back, Wes considered how to answer his young skeptic. Ten months earlier, his "hunk of tin" had deflected a bullet that should have been his ticket to the boneyard. Call him sentimental or just plain superstitious, but he didn't have the heart to trade in the scratches, dents, and faulty clasp for something showier.

Of course, a young Ranger worshipper wasn't likely to understand how his hero could choose sentiment over glamour. Wes ought to know. He'd worshipped a Ranger himself in his youth.

"What's your name, son?" he asked solemnly.

"Danny Dukker."

"Well, Danny, a shiny new badge could reflect the sun and warn off a road agent when I'm tracking him through the hills. Understand?"

Danny's brow furrowed, but he nodded. Wes sensed he'd just scored a point for the underdog, a sport that had always tickled him. Fishing in his pocket, he indulged Danny with a nickel.

"Much obliged for your help, Mr. Dukker."

The boy's eyes bugged out, but whether at the liberty head or the title of respect was hard to say.

Nodding good-bye, Wes pushed past the dance hall's swinging doors. To his surprise, Danny followed him inside, trotting at his heels like a faithful coonhound. Wes thought it strange that a boy who was maybe eight or nine years old could brazen his way up to the counter without the barkeep batting an eye. Why wasn't Danny at the local schoolhouse?

Come to think of it, why weren't the half-dozen other boys he'd seen leapfrogging down Main Street poring over their readers?

Shrugging, Wes turned his attention to the corner of the mirror behind the bar. Monday's lunch menu, "ham an beenes," had been whitewashed on it in big, awkward letters Apparently Danny wasn't the only one who needed schooling in Elodea. Then Wes noticed how the barkeep was fidgeting and glancing at his Colts with their walnut-inlaid butts. Remembering that his badge was in his pocket, he sighed and tossed a quarter onto the bar.

"Bring me a plate of your special, will ya, barkeep? Oh, and shoot a cherry sarsaparilla down this way."

Danny, whose chin was just high enough to rest on the bar wrinkled his nose in disgust. "Pete knows I don't drink that kiddy stuff. I'll have what you're having."

"You will, eh?" Wes caught the frothing mug before it could sail past him. "Looks like you'd best make that two sarsaparillas, Pete."

Danny's jaw dropped. So did the barkeep's.

Chuckling to himself, Wes shook the cherry foam from his hand and strolled to the traditional gunfighter's table: the one in the corner with a sweeping view of the door, street, and stairwell. In spite of his audience, he couldn't stifle another sigh as he eased the saddle from his chafing shoulder and parked his swollen feet. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had to walk a mile, much less ten. Hell, nobody walked in a place as big and hot as Texas.

Once that surly blacksmith got Two-Step reshod, Wes planned to pay a visit to Sheriff Boudreau's homestead. The sheriff had wired Ranger headquarters with the message, "Trouble's brewing. Send help." Nobody seemed to know what Boudreau was talking about, much less his reasons for being cryptic, so Wes had been ordered to investigate. The fact that he'd been happily stationed in Brownsville at the time, and about as far as he could get from his family's Bandera County cattle ranch, hadn't seemed to matter to his supervisor, Captain McQuade.

But then, McQuade was an old compadre of Cord's from the Civil War. And Cord had an irritating habit of meddling in his younger brothers' affairs. Suspecting Cord was behind the order to bring him home, Wes had taken his sweet time in leaving the Rio Grande Valley behind, and he planned to ride back just as fast as he was able. The last thing he needed—or wanted—was Cord showing up to show him up again.

Especially in front of Fancy.

"Ow!" Banging his knees as he usually did when he was distracted, Wes muttered a few choice oaths about tables. Chairs too. It seemed like furniture had started shrinking the day he turned thirteen.

Pushing back his chair, he let his boots stick out beneath the table and began to study his surroundings. The saloon was unremarkable, but he was determined to find something interesting. Something exciting.

Something to take his mind off his brother's wife.

Through the front window, he could see Milner's General Store across the street. A buckboard loaded with sacks of flour and bolts of fabric waited near the door. A young woman in a sunflower-print dress stood beside it. He couldn't make out her face beneath the brim of her straw hat, which she'd anchored to her head with a scarf, but she stood straighter than a rail, and was just about as slender. He noted the tiny cloud of dust that was rising around her square-toed shoe, as if she was tapping it, and the almost troubled way she turned her head, looking from one end of Main Street to the other. She seemed to be waiting for someone.

He watched her idly, sipping his soda and wondering which of the men he'd seen wandering about town might be her escort. That man would have to be comfortable looking up to a woman. She fairly towered over her wagon's bed, like a female Paul Bunyan, and yet she looked every inch a fine lady.

Just then, a handsome, long-limbed mulatto boy stepped out of Milner's store. Wes realized with a start that the youth was the first person of color—of
any
color—that he had seen in Elodea. Carrying a hammer and a box of carpentry nails, the mulatto called out something to the woman and headed for the wagon.

The youth seemed to have attracted more than the woman's attention, though. A handful of young men emerged from an alley and strolled toward the buckboard, almost as if they'd been waiting for the mulatto to emerge from the store.

Danny chose that moment to reappear, planting himself like a wall in front of Wes.

"So tell me, Ranger," the boy challenged, biting off a mouthful of jerky, "how many men have you killed? And how many niggers and Injuns?"

Wes arched an eyebrow. Adventure-minded youths from El Paso to Galveston always asked the same question, but none had ever phrased it quite so crudely. For the first time, he noticed the uncommon crookedness of Danny's nose, as if a fist had once displaced the bone, and the fading bruises along the boy's jawline, where his stringy, collar-length hair half-hid them.

"I've always been of a mind," he answered carefully, "that what a man does with his gun is a private matter between him and his Maker."

"Yeah?" Danny's face fell. His suspicious gaze raked over Wes's freckles and mustache, his two-week-old beard, and his guns. Finally it settled on the half-empty mug in Wes's fist.

Danny snorted. "Well, it sounds to me like you ain't been a Ranger real long. Either that, or them fancy guns of yours is just for show."

"You know a lot about guns, Danny?"

"Sure. My pa taught me. He killed his first nigger when he was fourteen. And Creed—that's my brother—he shot hisself a greaser about this time last year. Why, Pa and Creed just about run this town." Danny's chest puffed out. "And they sure don't drink no sarsaparilla."

Something cold settled in Wes's stomach. Setting his mug back down, he peered with new understanding over Danny's head. One of the young men held the wagon team's reins, while the rest of the hecklers circled its bed. The mulatto stood protectively in front of the woman, his jaw set and his fists clenched. The leader of the gang, a stout, unattractive youth of about eighteen, sauntered forward.

"Look! There's Creed now," Danny said eagerly, pushing a chair out of the way and pressing his nose to the window. "And there's that uppity Shae. Thinks he's something special 'cause he's got some white-trash blood running through his veins. But Creed'll show him different. You jest wait and see."

The woman grabbed Shae's sleeve, but he shook her hand off. Creed laughed. So did his cronies. Spewing tobacco juice at Shae's boots, Creed made an obscene gesture that was clearly directed at the woman. Shae lunged.

The two youths collided, forming a windmill of limbs as they kicked and jabbed and grappled for advantage. Ducking, Shae broke free, and the two circled like baited hounds before the hooting spectators.

Wes started to rise, then hesitated, recalling a time when he'd been eighteen. Cord had exercised his guardianship over him by wading into a fistfight and dragging him off by his collar. Never in his life had he felt so humiliated. Fancy's honor had been at stake, but when Cord had demanded an explanation, Wes refused to provide one. He couldn't bear for Cord to know that some of the local boys had found out about his wife's former profession.