Brides of Idaho (19 page)

He picked up his Bible and quickly reviewed his notes.

A sudden rumble of murmurs made him glance up. He saw people looked to the right and followed the direction.

Three women approached. He recognized Mandy and Joanna, but the third was unfamiliar. No. Wait. It was Glory. In a dress. A very pretty dress. She had fashioned her braid around her head in a coronet.

Levi stared.

Glory sent him a defensive, vulnerable look then stared straight ahead.

Glory in a dress. He tried to think if he liked it. He didn’t. Glory belonged in britches. Was there something wrong with him to think so? Shouldn’t he be glad to see her in something more conventional? But he wasn’t. This was not the Glory he knew and loved. Why would she change?

The question badgered the back of his thoughts as she and her sisters found a place to sit, as he led the singing, and even as he delivered his sermon.

He wanted to ask her, but several people spoke to him after the service, and he had to watch Glory and her sisters slip away. As soon as he could get away, he hurried to the stopping house and burst into the kitchen. “Where’s Glory?”

Joanna looked up from doing some mending. “She left. Try her shop.”

He raced to the shop. Pal was gone, but he checked inside anyway just to make sure Glory wasn’t there. She wasn’t. He wanted to ride out and find her, but he’d promised the children to spend the afternoon with them.

And then Mrs. Templeton prepared a nice supper. “If all goes well, this will be our last day here. I hope we can start our return journey tomorrow.”

Levi could not excuse himself without seeming rude. But as soon as he could get away, he ran back to the stopping house, again demanding to see Glory.

Joanna shrugged. “She’s not here.”

“Is she avoiding me?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe she’s avoiding everyone.”

“Why?”

“Why is she avoiding people, or why did she wear a dress?”

“Yes.”

Joanna chuckled. “The first is because of the last. But why she felt the need to don a dress? Well, I expect it has something to do with you.”

“Me?” He backed up two steps as if she’d punched him in the chest.

“You being a preacher and all, I’m guessing she thought she had to be a proper lady before you’d look at her in that… you know… special way. And if you hurt my sister, you’ll be answering to me.”

Levi stumbled from the house. He’d told her he wasn’t free to care. How had his vow turned into such a sacrifice? Was this God testing him?

He’d find her tomorrow and explain his vow. Tell her the whole truth. She’d understand.

Only the next day turned into a blur of activities he couldn’t escape.

Mr. Templeton disappeared right after breakfast, and when Levi tried to slip away, Mrs. Templeton begged him to wait. “He’ll be back soon, then we must be on our way. He’ll want to see you before he leaves.”

Levi expected the man wanted to say a last good-bye, but it was all Levi could do to endure the wait.

Mr. Templeton strode in a short while later, a glow of victory on his face. “I did it, Mother. Just as we planned.”

The pair grinned at each other then faced Levi. Mr. Templeton spoke, but it was obviously for the both of them. “We appreciate how you rescued our grandchildren, and we think you are doing a good work here. So to show our gratitude and help your cause, we bought land you can use to start your mission.”

Levi knew his mouth hung open. He cranked it closed. Forced himself to speak. “You bought land?”

“We studied the options as you showed us around, and did some asking around. There’s one piece of land that seemed superior to all the others. It’s close to town, high enough to not suffer floods, and it’s beautiful. We purchased it and have put your name on the deed.”

Levi’s heart thudded to the soles of his boots and lay there quivering. “What land did you buy?”

“A piece owned by a Mr. Milton.” They handed him a piece of paper he knew was the deed.

The deed to land he had promised Glory he would not buy.

She would never understand.

He must find her and explain before she heard the news from another source. But he could not rush away until he’d helped the Templetons pack up everything, until he’d seen them safely into the hired buggy, until he’d said his final good-bye. His heart felt pulled in two as he kissed the children good-bye. “I’m going to miss you both.”

Emmy hugged him tight. “I wish you could go with us.”

He nodded and hugged Jack, who tried to be brave about this parting, but tears glistened in his eyes as he broke away from Levi’s arms. Levi’s own eyes weren’t without unshed tears. “Keep in touch,” he said to the grandparents, and they promised they would.

He waved to them through blurry vision until the dust obscured them from sight. Then he drew in a deep, steadying breath and turned his heart toward the other half of his pain. He must find Glory.

He’d bought the land. Everyone in town knew it. And everyone seemed to think it was a good idea. Not one person, apart from her sisters, expressed concern about what she’d do with her livestock. They all agreed the work Levi intended to do was so noble it deserved every bit of sacrifice necessary.

She was the only one making any sacrifice. And not willingly. What would they all think if she posted the wanted poster by the door of the general store? They wouldn’t likely be so oh-isn’t-Levi-wonderful then.

The paper practically burned a hole in her britches. She’d kept his secret because she thought he deserved a second chance. Now she knew he was more false than any of them knew.

There was something better than tacking the poster to the wall. She dug out an envelope and paper from the drawer where Joanna kept such things. She wrote a short note, addressed the envelope to the territorial marshal, and put in the wanted poster. Her footsteps driven by anger and a sense of betrayal, she delivered the letter to the ferry man.

She then rode out to her horses and led them from the pasture. For two cents she’d ride five days and disappear into the mountains far to the north.

Just like her pa.

She swallowed a bitter taste. If she left, it would be to run from deceit and lies. Why did Pa run when he had three daughters who had once longed for him to be part of their lives?

No more. No more trusting anything a man said or promised. She should have learned that lesson well enough from her father. Only it appeared she hadn’t, and now she had to learn it over again… thanks to Levi.

Levi. She tried to think his name with the same coolness she thought of Pa, but instead it caught like a burr in her brain and scratched along her thoughts, leaving a trail of scraped flesh. She narrowed her eyes, ground down on her teeth, and tried to ignore it, but she suspected it would take a long time for the bruises to heal.

She left the gate of her pasture open and headed away from town without a backward look, her horses trailing after her. Properties she’d dismissed as being too far from town now seemed not nearly far enough, and she rode for two hours before she turned off the narrowing trail and ducked through crowded trees with barely enough room for a horse.

Fifteen yards later she broke into a grassy clearing. It didn’t receive as much sunshine as her former pasture and would likely be dampish, but it was the best she could do. She strung rope from tree to tree, creating a temporary enclosure for the horses, then pulled her camping supplies from Pal’s back. She hadn’t come right out and told Joanna she wouldn’t be back but had given enough hints that when she didn’t return Joanna would understand.

Not until she sorted out her feelings, her sense of having been dealt a dirty deal, would she return to town. Treacherous Levi intended to stay in town, but soon the marshal would ride in and take him away. Only then would Glory go back.

She sat staring at the horses munching down grass with little concern for their future. Her heart felt like a giant fist grinding against everything she valued, trusted, or even dreamed of.

Was she as much a traitor as Levi to turn him in?

But he was a criminal with a price on his head. And she needed the money to buy land. Perhaps she could even buy back
her
land.

If he had known she found the wanted poster, would he have trusted her to keep his secret?

Just like she’d trusted him. And look how that turned out.

She would never trust again.

What about God? Did her decision include God?

The words she’d read so many times in Job, and wondered at how the man could still trust God, crowded her mind.
“Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.”
Job was a better person than she. She couldn’t find it in her heart to say, “Okay, it’s fine,” when everything was wrong.

She spent her days working with the horses and sitting next to her campfire, which for the most part remained dead, and staring into space. She was healing, she told herself. Rebuilding the protective barriers around her heart she’d foolishly let crumble under Levi’s influence.

Three days later she still had not returned to town. She’d worked with the horses all morning and at high noon sat by the cold fire chewing on dried biscuits when the sound of a footfall only inches away brought her to her feet, her hands out ready to defend herself.

Mandy broke into the clearing, laughing at Glory’s alarm. “I almost snuck up on you.”

Glory blew out air as her lungs started to work again. “One of these days you’re going to get yourself shot.”

“You think I’d sneak up on someone I didn’t know?”

“What are you doing here? How did you find me?”

Mandy snorted. “I could have tracked you across rocks. If you really wanted to disappear, you wouldn’t have dragged a herd of horses after you.”

“I wasn’t trying to disappear.” At least not permanently.

Mandy looked around the clearing. “Not a bad place you got here. Maybe I’ll join you.” Then as almost an afterthought, “There’s someone looking for you in town.”

“Levi? I don’t care to see him.”

“It’s a marshal. He says he needs to see you.”

Glory jerked back. “Did he—?” Arrest Levi. But she couldn’t say the words aloud. “Did he say what he wanted?”

Mandy widened her stance, crossed her arms over her chest, and studied Glory with narrowed eyes. “What have you done? Shot someone for whipping their horse? You haven’t stolen a horse, have you?” She studied the placidly grazing horses as if trying to recall where Glory had gotten each. “Joanna sent me to find you and said if you did something that’s going to get you arrested to shoot you on the spot. Do I need to get my gun?”

Glory laughed. She knew Joanna didn’t mean it. It was her way of saying how angry she would be if Glory did something so stupid. “I didn’t break any laws.” She glanced around. “I guess the horses will be okay for a few hours.” But there was only a rope keeping them from wandering away. “I’ll have to come back as soon as I speak to the marshal.”

In no hurry to return, welcoming any excuse for delay until it was almost three hours later, they rode into town.

A tall man, gun strapped to his hip, a star on his chest, rose from a chair tipped back in front of her shop as they approached. He strode to the street and waited for them. “You must be Miss Glory Hamilton.”

“Yup.”

“You and I need to talk.” He glanced about, suggesting they needed to talk in private.

“I’ll let Joanna know I found you.” Mandy rode toward the stopping house.

Glory slid from Pal’s back and led the way to her shop. “We can talk here.”

The marshal pulled the poster from his pocket, unfolded it, and spread it on her worktable. “This is the Rawhide Kid.”

“I can read. I can also see the picture.”

“The man in this picture is Matthew Powers.”

It took a moment for the news to sink in. He lied about his name, too?

“Levi Powers’s brother.”

“Matt?”

“That’s right. Though I can see why you might mistake the two. Heard they look a lot alike. Had to come and see for myself if it was true.” The marshal folded the poster and handed it to Glory. “The Rawhide Kid is in prison as we speak.”

She took the slip of paper with fingers almost lost at the end of arms that were long and heavy.