Bullet Creek (2 page)

“That only happened a couple times,” Hawkins grumbled.

As the woman approached, she gazed up at Navarro, an affable light in her expressive eyes. “Hello, Tom.”

Navarro pinched his hat brim. “Louise, nice to see you again.”

“It's been a couple months.” She held his gaze and smiled, her teeth flashing in her wide mouth as expressive as her eyes. She had lips neither too full nor too thin, but just right.

Navarro stared back at her for a long, awkward moment, then caught himself and jerked his thumb at the boy on the buckskin. “Louise, this is Lee Luther.”

She reached up with her hand. “Hello, Mr. Luther.”

“Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Talon. I heard a lot about you on the way down here.”

She arched her brows at Navarro but spoke to the boy. “What did you hear?”

Under her gaze, Tom's face heated, and he turned his eyes to the corral, where several horses were drawing from stock tanks.

Lee Luther said, “Just about how you and Mr. Navarro met in Mexico last year, when you was trailin' them slavers that took your hired girl. Boy, he sure was right, though.” Lee Luther shook his head, his eyes riveted on Louise. “You sure are pretty, Mrs. Talon.”

“Why, thank you, Mr. Luther!” Louise slid her gaze back to Tom. “Or should I thank Mr. Navarro.”

“I never thought it was true at all about pretty women,” the boy continued.

“What?” Louise asked.

“That they was mulish and hard to get along with, and that
redheaded
ones were twice as hard. Why, I knew—” The boy stopped himself, his mouth frozen open. By turns, his smooth face blanched and flushed.

Mordecai Hawkins threw his head back, laughing.

Her smile fading quickly, Louise crossed her arms on her chest. “Who on earth would say such a thing?”

Navarro shot Lee Luther a pointed look, then swung his right leg over the claybank's rump. “Must've been a crazy uncle or some such, eh, boy?”

The boy shifted uncomfortably in his saddle. “Um . . . yeah, that must've been who it was.”

Navarro said to Louise, “I know the stage line only agreed to pay us for the horses, but how 'bout throwin' in a late lunch? My stomach's been kissin' my backbone for the last two hours.”

“It's already on the table,” Louise said, “if you don't mind breaking bread with a mulish redhead.”

“I've managed before, haven't I?” Staring over his heavy Porter saddle at her, his craggy face so dark he could have been mistaken for an Indian if not for the close-cropped silver hair, he broke into a grin.

Movement at the cabin caught his attention, and he slid his gaze around Louise. Two men had just stepped out of the low shake-shingled hovel and were peering his way. One was tall and thin, with ash-colored curly hair tufting around his water-stained range hat. The other was the first man's height but heavier, his round, hairless face shaded by an elaborately stitched sombrero. Both men wore revolvers in cartridge belts thonged low on their thighs, gunman style.

The men held Navarro's gaze. After a time, the man in the sombrero pulled his gloves out from behind his cartridge belt. He lightly slapped the other man with the gloves, and they both turned slowly to the hitch rack, where a silver-gray and a line-back dun stood with dropped heads. The men climbed into the hurricane decks, thanked Louise for the meal she'd served them, then, pinching their hat brims, galloped northeastward from the barn and corrals and onto the main stage road, heading east. The thuds of their horses' hooves faded behind them.

Navarro shifted his gaze back to Louise, who'd turned to watch the strangers depart the station. “Friends of yours?”

“Just passin' through on their way from Tucson,” Louise said. “They ride for Grant Sully.”

To Navarro's left, Mordecai Hawkins said, “I don't know that I like the way they looked you over, Tom. You butt heads with them boys, did you?”

“Not yet,” Navarro said. “Come on, boy.” Ignoring Louise's wary glance, he turned and led his claybank toward the gaping barn doors.

 

When Navarro and the boy had unsaddled their horses and stalled them in the barn's fragrant shadows, with oats and cool spring water, they retired to the cabin. Louise stood inside, wiping her hands on a towel while her hired girl, Billie, cut into a loaf of steaming bread. When Louise saw Navarro, she smiled. “Ready to eat?”

Navarro stared at her. Her husky voice made everything she said sound sultry. As she held his gaze, her smile turned into a grin, and he felt his own lips pull upward. Damn, but she was a fine woman. He liked her crooked smile and the smoky way she looked at him, one eye slightly squinted as though she were always laughing.

“Are you goin' in, sir?” Lee said, tentative, from behind him.

Louise chuckled. Navarro shook his head and stepped aside so Lee could get past him.

Looking first at Louise, then at Navarro, Lee shrugged. “Well, she asked if we're ready to eat. I know I am.”

Navarro dropped a hand on the boy's shoulder and returned his gaze to Louise. She enjoyed another moment, then turned her attention to Lee. “You men have a seat and dig in. I'll get the coffeepot.”

Over a dinner of venison stew, thick slices of freshly baked bread, and strong black coffee, Navarro, Louise, and Hawkins discussed the horses and other details of the stage business. Lee Luther chatted shyly across the table with the pixie-faced Billie, who wouldn't look at the boy when she spoke and only picked at her food.

Afterward, they gathered in the shade on the east side of the cabin, where a barrel, some mismatched chairs, and a bench had been placed. They sat down to a dessert of dried apricot pie with big dollops of buttery cream. When Billie had replenished their coffee cups and taken away their dessert plates, Navarro leaned over to Louise and whispered, “Care for an introduction to your new hitch stock?”

She looked over the rim of her coffee cup. “Certainly.”

Arm in arm, holding their coffee in their free hands, they strolled across the yard to the corral, where the new horses were still milling, sweat-silvered and nervous in their new surroundings. The other horses regarded them with wary curiosity, a tall bay wandering up close to the fence dividing them, lifting his head and snorting.

“They're beautiful,” Louise said.

A black-and-white calico pranced back and forth along the far rail, expanding and contracting its nostrils as it blew, the west-angling sun gilding the adobe-colored dust in its coat. “Watch that calico. He tends to shoulder nip when you're not looking. That dapple gray? He's a fighter. Might want to separate him from other troublemakers. He'll make a good lead, though.”

Leaning his elbow on the top corral slat, Tom turned to Louise, quickly running his eyes down the length of her body. He looked away, embarrassed. “That's a nice-lookin' dress.”

A flush rose in her high-boned, finely wrought cheeks. Her eyes shined humorously. “Why, thank you.” She paused. “I wore it because I knew you were coming.”

They both turned and stared at the horses. Finally, she chuckled softly, and they were able to look at each other again. Tom removed his hat and brushed a big brown hand through his close-cropped gray hair with a sigh. “You know, I been thinking.”

“Oh?”

He looked over her shoulder into the distance. “I might pull up stakes here. Maybe head north, start my own horse ranch. I've got some money saved, and ole Vannorsdell agreed to sell me some mares and a couple stallions. Good ranch stock.”

The crinkles around her eyes went smooth. She blinked. “North, eh?”

The look on her face wrenched his heart. “I'm gonna be needin' help,” he added quickly. “I know enough cowboys I can hit up to sign on, but I'll be needin' someone to keep a house. Cook, clean, tend a garden—”

The laugh returned to her eyes. “Did you have somebody in mind?”

He smiled and cocked his head. “I guess I was wondering if you might be interested. I mean, you know horses and all, and you've got a good head for business.”

She arched a brow at him. “So you'd be hiring me on to clean your house, tend your horses, and keep your books?”

“No!” Tom looked exasperated. “No,” he said softly. “That's not what I'm saying.”

She smiled. “What then?”

Keeping his eyes glued to the corral, he said, “I was askin' if you'd consider hirin' on as my wife.” He could feel her gaze on him. When she didn't say anything, he said, “Of course, it'd be a hard decision to quit Butterfield, I know”—he paused—“and I know how much it means to you, runnin' this place, and I suppose you don't really want—”

She put a hand on his arm to stop his rambling. He turned to look at her, the tenderness in his eyes a sharp contrast to the hard angles and lines of his face.

“You'd want to marry a mulish redhead?” she said softly.

His eyes caressed her face. A corner of his mouth crooked up. “I reckon I couldn't live with no hothouse flower.”

“Would Billie be invited?”

He nodded. “Mordecai, too, if he wants to give up hostlin' for the stage line.”

Her eyes were pensive as she wrapped her hands over the corral and hooked one foot over the bottom rail. “Since my husband died two years ago, I've become right independent. It's a good feelin', Tom.”

“I didn't say—”

She held up a hand to shush him. “I told myself I wouldn't ever marry again. I've had a lot of men coming around wanting to court me, and I've never been the least bit tempted. But when I met you down in Mexico, I felt different. I liked how you saw me as just a nuisance.”

He smiled. “You liked that, huh?”

“You know what I mean. You had a purpose. I could see you were a good man.”

“So . . . does that mean yes?”

She pursed her lips. “When you figure out what you're gonna do, when you have a place in mind, you ask me again and I'll give you my answer.”

“Fair enough.”

She put a hand on his cheek, and he turned toward her. Rising up on her toes, she tilted her head back, lifting her mouth to his. He brushed his lips against hers, then stopped to look at her. She was a strong woman, but she felt delicate in his big arms. The feelings she aroused in him were so strong that he wondered if he shouldn't break away right now and take a cold dip in the creek.

“I'm going to get those plans into place quick,” he warned.

She smiled, understanding, and pressed her warm lips and body to his. He kissed her, holding her tightly, and when she let him go, her eyes stared passionately into his until they heard Mordecai's booming laughter behind them, on the other side of the cabin, returning them both to the moment.

They turned to see Lee Luther angling toward the barn, his cheeks flushed a bright red beneath his tan. Billie appeared around the cabin's northeast corner, striding stiffly toward the front door. Behind her, Mordecai guffawed. Mordecai came toward Louise and Navarro, stretching out his spats with his thumbs. His boots kicked up little tongues of finely churned dust and manure.

Seeing the expressions on Tom's and Louise's faces, the old wrangler shrugged innocently. “The boy was tryin' to ask Billie out to the Rosehill barn dance next Saturday. I could tell it was gonna take him that long to get the words around his tongue, so I helped him out. Next thing you know, they're both scatterin' like donkeys with their tails on fire!”

Navarro turned to Louise. “I reckon it's time we headed back to the ranch.”

She chuckled. “Don't be a stranger.”

“Lee Luther and Billie might need chaperons next Saturday.”

She smiled and swiped dust from his arm. “Tom Navarro, are you tryin' to spark me?”

“You called it.”

“You'll be sorry. I dance like a mule.”

He put a hand to her cheek. “I'd love to dance with a redheaded mule.”

At the same time that Tom Navarro and Lee Luther were starting back, the Bar-V's owner and operator, Paul Vannorsdell, left the ranch headquarters on an energetic Appaloosa.

He followed a horse trail that had existed long before Vannorsdell had single-handedly scratched his ten-thousand-acre spread out of the sage and catclaw nearly twenty-five years ago. The stocky, swarthy rancher, aged sixty-three, rode east of Apache Peak, over the Whipsaw Mountains, and into Bullet Creek Valley on the other side.

The old cattleman was glad he'd been able to leave the Bar-V before Navarro had gotten back from delivering the horses to the Butterfield station. Navarro, the mother hen, would have insisted another man tag along with the rancher, as this was Apache country, and owlhoots were known to fog the dry washes and creek bottoms.

Vannorsdell knew the dangers better than anyone, but he enjoyed a solo ride once a while. Basically a solitary man, like Navarro himself, the old rancher liked to look over the terrain without having to gab or share his thoughts with another, maybe dismount and climb a low scarp, and peering off a mesquite-stippled canyon, remember the old days, when he and this country were wild and free and he didn't have twenty-three wranglers and a cook to administrate.

He was following another trace around a mountain's steep shoulder, passing a tangle of wind-felled, long-leafed trees on his left, when he decided it was time to give the Appy a blow. He reined the horse to a halt under a gnarled ponderosa pushing up from a black lava scarp, fished his makings sack from his blue plaid shirt, and rolled a brown paper cigarette.