Alma's Mail Order Husband (Texas Brides Book 1) (15 page)

“I don’t have to admit anything,” Alma fumed.
“And I’m not going to stand here listening to any more of this! I’m
going to help my husband bring in the steer that
you
wanted,
Allegra. He’s doing this for you. Just remember that when you start
throwing accusations around.”

Both Amelia and Allegra opened their mouths
to respond, but Alma didn’t wait to listen. She hauled her horse’s
head around and tore away from them at top speed.

Alma caught up with Jude in a dry gulley not
more than a couple hundred yards from the opening of the box
canyon. The steer started in surprise when he heard the sound of
her horse’s hooves approaching, and he almost jerked the lead rope
out of Jude’s hand.

Alma saw the steer rolling his eyes and
pulling back, and she stopped her horse a little distance away. She
dismounted and walked up to Jude, leading her horse by the
reins.

“What are you doing here?” Jude asked.

“I decided to come with you,” she told him.
“I thought you might need a little help bringing him in.”

“I don’t need any help,” Jude shot back. “I
told you that.”

“You might not need help,” Alma admitted,
“but I didn’t want you bringing him in by yourself, just in case he
tried any funny stuff.”

Jude grinned. “Alright. Just come along for
the walk, then. It beats walking all the way back by myself,
anyway.”

Alma fell in next to him, and the steer
settled into a steady pace. “You sure were right about him
following you when you’re on foot. He’s always been a vicious
brute, but I guess that’s because we’ve always been on
horseback.”

“You see?” Jude replied. “You might have a
thing or two to learn from me after all.”

“You’re right,” Alma returned. “Allegra just
said a few minutes ago that we shouldn’t have doubted you. We
should have trusted you. We’ll know better next time.”

“I guess we were all wrong about each other,”
Jude agreed. “Let’s make a pledge to give each other the benefit of
the doubt from now on. We’ll all know that each of us has something
unique and important to bring to the running of this ranch. We
should respect that.”

Alma beamed. “Alright. It’s a deal. We’ll
talk it over with the others when they come in tonight. I think
they’ll be happy about it, too.”

Jude stopped and regarded Alma. “Now if we
could only get your father to agree, we’d be set.”

“You know,” Alma replied. “I think we should
take the same position with him.”

“What?” Jude gasped. “You don’t mean give him
the benefit of the doubt, too, do you? We can’t do that!”

“Why not?” Alma asked. “He’s not completely
out of his mind, you know. He has some very good points and
opinions about a lot of things. We could do a lot worse than to
take his advice on things.”

“Do you mean,” Jude growled. “That you should
have taken his advice about me? Are you going over to his side now,
and wishing you could undo our marriage?”

“It’s not like that,” Alma replied. “You
don’t have to get all worked up about it. I’m just saying that
giving him the benefit of the doubt and listening to him every now
and then wouldn’t hurt us at all. In fact, it could only help us to
build a stronger relationship with him.”

“I won’t give him the benefit of the doubt,”
Jude snapped. “If I did, I’d be admitting he’s right about me, that
I killed all those people, and that I misled you about who I am and
everything else.”

“You don’t have to admit anything, just to
give him the benefit of the doubt,” Alma insisted. “You could just
show him you respect him enough to explain yourself to him. He’s
not completely off his rocker. He’s right about some things.”

“Like what?” Jude asked.

“Like the fact that we have nothing but your
word on who you are,” Alma told him. “Amelia and Allegra just said
exactly the same thing, and they’re right.”

“Oh, that’s just great!” Jude burst out. “Now
you’re repeating what they said, and you’re taking your father’s
side against me. That’s just terrific!”

“I’m not taking anyone’s side.” Alma stopped
in her tracks. “We’re doing it again. We’re arguing about the same
thing all over again. We should just put it aside and let it play
itself out. We shouldn’t give it the time of day.”

Jude stopped, too. “You’re right.” He circled
her waist with his arm and pulled her against him. “Whatever
happens, let’s not let anything that anyone else does come between
us. Let’s stick together, through thick and thin.”

Alma smiled. “For better or for worse?”

“That’s right.” Jude kissed her, and their
walk back to the house took longer than expected.

Toward the end of the day, Jude and Alma
reached the top of the rise overlooking the house. The slanting sun
lit up the adobe walls and the surrounding countryside, casting
everything into a golden red against the pink and green of the
evening sky.

They slowed their pace even more. “It’s too
late to butcher the steer tonight,” Alma remarked.

“What will we do with him?” Jude asked.

“We’ll stable him in the barn overnight,”
Alma told him. “Then we can butcher him tomorrow.”

“Who will butcher him?” Jude asked. “At least
three of us will have to get out to the pasture to water the
cattle.”

“And that leaves one to stay behind,” Alma
pointed out. “Either you or Allegra will do it. Or else we can go
out and water the cattle and then two can stay to guard them while
the other two come back here.”

“That could work, too, I guess,” Jude
agreed.

“When the girls get back tonight, we’ll talk
about it,” Alma decided. “We’ll figure out what everyone wants to
do.”

“Alright,” Jude replied.

At that moment, Amelia and Allegra cantered
over the hill and streaked past them. The steer only just saw them
and lifted his eyes to snort at them before they were gone. Alma
laughed.

She and Jude walked the rest of the way down
the hill, and they met the sisters in the barn. “You were sure
right about that steer,” Allegra told Jude. “He followed you like a
little tame lamb.”

“Alma says we should stable him in here for
the night,” Jude replied. “We’ll butcher him in the morning.”

“That’s all right with me,” Allegra agreed.
“I don’t fancy the idea of missin’ supper just to butcher him now.
We’ll give him some grain, and he’ll be happy until morning.”

They slid the barn door closed and headed to
the house. But they hadn’t gotten halfway across the yard when
Clarence came out of the house, and in his hands he held a double
barreled shotgun.

“Where is he?” he bellowed. “Where is the
rotten weasel? I’ll blow him to kingdom come!” He waved his shotgun
around, crisscrossing the yard with the barrel.

The thought crossed Alma’s mind that he
couldn’t see well enough to do any damage. But at the same moment,
her father leveled the gun straight at Jude and fired.

Alma screamed and jumped a foot into the air.
The shot flew wide, giving Jude time to retreat back toward the
barn. Allegra started at the deafening noise. “Papa!” she cried.
“What are you doing?”

“I’ll kill him!” the old man raved. “I’ll
make up for all those poor Confederate boys who were gunned down in
their long underwear without so much as a sharp stick to defend
themselves. I’ll settle the score with him if it’s the last thing I
do.”

He raised his gun just long enough to break
it open and slide two fresh shells into the chambers. Then he took
aim and fired again. Jude ducked behind the rain barrel.

In her shock, Alma noticed his milky white
eyes locking with keen precision on Jude, taking careful aim
through the gun’s sights. There was nothing wrong with his
eyesight. Why had she fooled herself all these years into thinking
he couldn’t see very well? What else could he do that they didn’t
know about, or wouldn’t admit to themselves?

He sure was handling that gun well. He looked
forty years younger with the shotgun at his shoulder, facing his
imagined enemy at long last.

But Alma didn’t have time to think about it.
Clarence loaded his gun again and stalked toward the rain barrel.
Alma’s mind refused to function. As a voice in her head screamed,
“Run! Run for your life!”, her body obeyed a different directive.
She found her legs running, but not away, not to find a hiding
place to wait out this crisis.

She ran toward Jude. She ran toward the
source of her new-found joy and fulfillment. She reached the rain
barrel at the same time her father did. He brought his shotgun up
to his shoulder at the same moment Alma threw herself in front of
Jude.

“Stop!” she cried. “Don’t shoot! If you shoot
him, you’ll have to shoot me, too. Is that what you want?”

She fastened her eyes on those milky white
orbs, but she no longer recognized the man they belonged to. His
hair stuck out from his head in a halo of insanity, and his lips
curled back from his rotten old teeth. He wouldn’t have surprised
her by shooting both of them in his single-minded obsession with
the past.

Somewhere in the reaches of his mind, he
recognized her and hesitated. The hint of familiarity and affection
crept into his wild expression. His finger moved off the trigger,
and his eyes misted over with tears.

“You’re not choosing him over me, are you,
Alma?” Clarence whispered. “Say it isn’t so.”

“I’m not choosing anyone over anyone else,”
Alma exclaimed. “You’re making a mistake. He’s not the killer you
think he is. There’s another explanation for all this. Just listen,
and we can explain it all to you. If you kill him, you’re no better
than those people you want to fight against.”

The old man hesitated again. “Don’t explain
anything. I don’t want to hear it.”

“You have to hear it,” Alma insisted. “Jude
isn’t old enough to have fought in the war. He wasn’t even born
when you fought the Battle of Little Crooked Ridge.”

Rather than calming him down and ending the
stand-off, Clarence’s face twisted up into a hideous mask of fury.
“Is that what he told you? Is that the explanation you think is
going to smooth everything over between me and him? He’s duped you,
but he won’t dupe me.”

Clarence pointed his shotgun at the couple
behind the rain barrel one last time. But this time, Jude launched
himself out of his hiding place so fast, he knocked Alma to the
ground.

He hurtled forward with his arms flailing and
sent the shotgun skittering out of the old man’s hands. It landed
in the dust some distance away. Jude didn’t stop, but attacked
Clarence with all the hostility the old man showed toward him just
a few moments before.

His arms whirled around him like a windmill,
striking and punching and smacking. The first few blows landed with
gut-wrenching thuds. Alma covered her ears and screamed as loud as
she could to block out the sound of those blows.

Jude’s fists landed again and again on
Clarence’s face and body, and the old man winced and whimpered with
each one. He staggered backward and fell to the ground.

Jude gritted his teeth and growled. He
planted his legs wide apart above the old man and drew back his
fists to finish off his opponent.

Alma saw the outcome of the fight approaching
and she jumped to her feet. This time, she threw her body across
her father and lifted her arm to take the blows Jude intended to
rain down on him.

“Stop, Jude!” she cried. “Stop now! He’s
beaten. He can’t do any more harm. Just leave him alone.”

She didn’t expect her words to penetrate his
rage, but he stopped and stared at her, panting and wheezing
through his clenched teeth. She held up her hand in front of his
face until he calmed enough to drop his fists and stand up
straight.

Alma stayed where she was, protecting her
fallen father from her husband’s fury. At last, the light of
recognition entered his eyes, too. He held out his hand and she
grasped it for dear life.

Jude pulled her to her feet and crushed her
against his body in a bear hug. “I thought I was a goner
there.”

“Are you all right now?” she whispered into
his ear.

He nodded with his face pressed into the side
of her neck. “I’m just glad you’re okay. He could have killed us
both.”

A wretched sob drew their attention to the
huddled mass on the ground behind them. Clarence sat with dust in
his disheveled hair. The tears streaming down his cheeks made
little rivulets in the dust clogging the wrinkles in his skin.
“He’s a killer, I tell you. He’ll turn against you in the end. You
mark my words.”

Alma turned on him. “What makes you say that,
Papa? What makes you think he’s a killer, when he wasn’t even born
when the war was fought?”

“Look.” Clarence sniffed his tears away and
pointed a gnarled finger toward Jude. “If you look, you’ll see
it.”

“What?” Alma asked. “I’ll see what?”

“The mark,” he hissed. “The mark of the
Forty-sixth Infantry. There it is! I told you he was there, and he
has the proof right there in plain view.”

Alma followed his finger toward Jude. “I
don’t see anything.”

Amelia and Allegra broke out of their trance
across the yard and came closer. All three sisters inspected Jude,
looking for the sign their father pointed to. “Do you see
anything?” Alma asked them. They shook their heads.

“There it is!” Spittle foamed at the corners
of Clarence’s mouth. “Can’t you see it? It’s right there on the
grips of his pistols!”

Jude looked down at his gun belt, and the
three sisters looked with him. He pulled one of his pistols out of
its holster and turned it around so he could examine the grip.
“Well, I’ll be! And I never even knew it was there!”

Jude held out the gun to Alma, butt first,
and she took it. She brought it right up to her face and looked.
Some artisan scratched a crude skull and crossbones in the bone
handle.