Colorado Bride (33 page)

He picked up the rope he had brought with him, uncoiled it, and began to recoil it again more to his satisfaction. “After all I’ve said, do you still want to stay with Mrs. Simpson?” he asked Found, and the boy nodded without hesitation. “Good. I hoped you would, but now you’re going to have to help me take care of Mrs. Simpson.”

“Katie too,” said Jake, who had come up to join them in time to hear Lucas’s last remarks.

“Women don’t see things like a man,” Lucas continued, “and sometimes you have to think for them.”

“But you can’t let them know what you’re doing, or they’ll take the hide off you quicker than boiling water.” Lucas could see that Jake’s wandering off into personal revelation was confusing the boy. Of course, Carrie’s way of thinking had confused him too, but he wasn’t discussing that now.

“Look, Found,” he said, starting over, “Mrs. Simpson comes from a different part of the country where nothing is like it is out here, and she doesn’t understand the way some people act. She doesn’t believe they will do anything bad to her, but we know different.” Found nodded his head in agreement and Lucas felt encouraged. It was the first time anybody had gotten an unsolicited response from the boy. “She thinks everybody is good, and even though I’ve told her they aren’t, she won’t believe me. So we’re going to have to see that nothing happens to her. And the most important thing is to make sure she’s never left at the station by herself. There’s no way of knowing when someone will come riding up the road, or who it will be. Do you understand? Will you help me?” Found nodded eagerly.

“There’s more. I’m not sure you’re going to like it, but if you mean to stay here, you might as well know,” Jake added, determined Lucas shouldn’t overlook any of the hardships of living under a woman’s dominion. “Women put a lot of importance on things that a man wouldn’t give much thought to if he was left to himself. And it doesn’t do any good to try to reason with them. They’re not going to change. Some of the things they can get upset about real quick are being dirty, bad table manners, cussing, drinking, smoking, and tracking manure into the kitchen. Katie will near-about kill you if you don’t scrape your boots real good. And all the while they expect you to work like a pack horse and turn over your pay to them. Makes you wonder why any man would ever let himself get talked into marrying. Sounds like that kind of life just wouldn’t be worth living, but of course you won’t have to worry none about cussing unless you make up your mind to start talking.”

“It’s not as bad as Jake makes it sound,” Lucas said, unable to repress a grin at the crusty bachelor’s chafing over the constraints imposed by female companionship, “but he’s right about having to learn to live differently. I know it’ll be strange for you at first and it won’t be easy to learn how to do things all over again, but you’ll have to if you want to make Mrs. Simpson happy.”

“Katie too,” added Jake. That female can be downright tyrannical when she has a mind to.”

“There’s still one more thing. Can you read or write?” Found hung his head. “I didn’t think so, but I expect Mrs. Simpson will want to teach you. Are you willing to try to learn?” Found raised his head, and it was clear from the eager light in his eyes that he would swallow all of the indignities previously named if he could just learn to read and write.

“Okay, we’ve given you a lot to remember, but I want you to think it over. You’ve got to make up your mind to learn to live like Mrs. Simpson wants you, or you have to leave right now. It can’t be any other way. Now let’s see if you know anything about horses. Can you catch that sorrel mare over there and bring her to me.” Found took the coiled rope Lucas held out to him and jumped down into the corral.

“Do you think he’ll stay?” Jake asked, his eyes on the boy as he worked his way through the milling horses toward the mare.

“Yes, I do, and I think he’ll do everything he can to do exactly what Carrie wants of him.”

“Poor little blighter,” commiserated Jake. “Makes you think living in that cabin might not be so bad after all.”

“I didn’t want to scare him off, but I can’t take a chance on his doing something to cause Carrie to run off by herself again. And if
you
ever let her out of your sight …”

“I’ll make sure I’m halfway to Arizona before you get back,” Jake said emphatically. “I like Mrs. Simpson. She’s got a lot of guts for a female, but I’m not about to get my neck wrung because of the fool things she does.” Lucas directed a threatening glare at Jake, but the shorter man didn’t back down. “You know damned well she’s the most unpredictable woman, and she won’t do what you tell her no matter how many reasons you give her.”

Lucas didn’t like to agree with Jake, but he had come to grief too may times when trying to change Carrie’s mind to refuse to admit the truth. The woman was enough to make a grown man groan with desire, but she would also make him howl with fury.

“Would you look at that,” Jake said, interrupting Lucas’s train of thought. “Slipped the noose over that mare’s head just as neat as you please. That kid’s pa may have been a sodbuster, but he knows something about horses.”

For some reason Jake’s words struck Lucas all wrong, and it took him a minute before he could figure out why. He hadn’t seen any signs of ground being plowed at Pound’s cabin except for a vegetable garden near the house. Whatever Found’s father was doing, it wasn’t farming. He watched Found leading the mare over to them, and an idea came to his mind.

“I’m glad to see you know something about horses. You can help me break this bunch, but we’re going to let Jake here take this one. I’ve got some questions I want to ask you.” Found looked puzzled and a little disappointed he wasn’t going to be able to work with the mare, but he calmly listened while Lucas explained to Jake what he wanted done. Lucas watched Jake work with the mare for a few minutes, and once he was satisfied he was doing exactly what he wanted, he turned back to the boy.

“Maybe you can help me with something, Found, something that would help Mrs. Simpson too.” The boy stared at Lucas impassively. “Do you remember when I said you had to help me protect the women?” Found nodded. “Well, protecting them is more than just doing what they want you to do. There are some people around here who want to stop one of Mrs. Simpson’s stages and take something that doesn’t belong to them. They’re already robbed one stage, and I’m sure they’re still around somewhere planning to do it again.” Lucas had decided to tell Found about the robbery on a hunch, but the boy’s reaction told him his hunch had paid off. Found’s expression changed from one of bland inquiry to nervous, self-conscious fidgeting. Clearly he knew something.

“I’m going to let you in on a secret,” Lucas said, squatting down so he could be on the boy’s eye level. “I haven’t told anyone else, not even Jake or Mrs. Simpson, so you’ve got to promise you’ll keep it a secret. Is it a deal?” Found had stopped fidgeting for a moment. At last he reluctantly nodded his head. “Okay, I’m not really a wrangler. The reason I’m here is to catch those thieves before they can steal any more gold. And I need your help. They may intend to come here to the station, and if they do, they mean to hurt Mrs. Simpson and Katie. Now, I don’t want that to happen, but I haven’t been able to find any trace of them. Do you know of any strange men moving among those hills behind your father’s cabin? The man I’m looking for is just about as tall as I am, weighs about forty pounds more, has a rough beard and uncut blond hair, and wears two black-handled guns tied down with the handles forward. He usually goes by the name of Jason Staples.” Found’s complexion lost its color, and the boy looked petrified.

“I don’t want to scare you, son, but it’s important to catch this man, not only for Mrs. Simpson’s sake and the gold, but for everyone else. He’s a dangerous man, so if you know something, I want you to tell me. Anything will help, even if it’s not much.”

Found looked too scared to move. “Maybe it would be for your protection too,” Lucas added. “Why are you so afraid of him?” Found didn’t speak. Instead he turned away and Lucas thought he was going to leave, but it turned out he was looking for a stick. When he found one that suited him, he returned to where Lucas was still squatting. He started to draw something in the bare earth beside the corral. For the best part of a minute Lucas couldn’t figure out what it might be, since Found wasn’t a particularly good artist, but after a while he recognized the series of canyons that reached into the mountains from behind the station.

“I know those canyons,” Lucas told him. “What are you trying to tell me?” Found continued to draw, adding more canyons and valleys and passes to the ones he had already drawn until he reached a part of the surrounding area Lucas had not yet explored. In the middle of a series of twisting, almost blind canyons, Found began to scratch out rough pictures of riders on horseback until he had eight of them.

“Are you telling me that is where Jason Staples is hiding?” Found shook his head. “But he did camp there at one time?” Found nodded. “Do you know of any other places he stayed? Please, Found, it is important that you tell me everything you can.” Lucas was certain the boy knew something else, but he didn’t know if he would tell him what it was. “You do want me to find him so he can’t hurt Katie and Mrs. Simpson, don’t you?” Found nodded and started to draw again. It was a picture of a cabin in the canyon where Lucas had found them the night before.

“Do you mean he used your cabin? Did your father know what he was doing? Did he help him?” Found stared at Lucas with such a vacant expression that Lucas decided not to press him for more information. Something had happened that had scared Found very badly, but he had found out far more than he had expected. It just might turn out to be his first solid piece of evidence that the Staples gang was in the area.

“Jake,” Lucas called, going over to where the stocky man was still working with the mare Lucas meant to give Carrie. “I’ve got to be gone most of the day. Take Found back up to the barn with you when you finish with the sorrel. You can teach him to muck out stalls or repair harnesses. Maybe he can help you with the teams. I’ll tell Carrie what I mean to do, but I’m depending on you to make sure she doesn’t follow me. You too, Found. If I come back to find she’s stepped one foot off the place for as much as five seconds, you’ve both drawn your last breath.”

“But what am I going to do if she won’t listen?” asked Jake, already certain his end was near.

“Tie her up if you have to, but make sure she doesn’t leave this place.”

“You can’t tie up a woman! It’s not proper.”

“Is it more proper to be dead?”

“I guess it wouldn’t hurt her too much,” Jake decided, reversing his opinion with alacrity, “but if she takes her gun after me, my death will be on your conscience.”

“It’ll be there either way, won’t it?” said Lucas as he moved toward the house.

“I don’t think he’s got a conscience,” Jake complained to Found. “He don’t really care what happens to the rest of us as long as that woman of his is all right. Come on, let’s go back up to the barn. It won’t do us any good to try and watch her from here.”

Lucas found Carrie still in her cabin, and as he expected, she was not happy with the news that he would be away most of the day.

“But you were gone half of yesterday. Can’t you break the horses in the corral?”

“This has nothing to do with breaking horses. You told me some time ago you didn’t know what I was, but you were sure I was something other than a wrangler. Well, you were right. I’m breaking horses for the company as a cover, but I’ve been sent here to find the gang which robbed one of our stages of a gold shipment four weeks ago. The company is certain they mean to try it again, and it’s my job to stop them.”

For reasons Carrie didn’t have the time or inclination to explore, all of Lucas’s talk about outlaws and danger hadn’t seemed very meaningful before, but now that he was actually going
in search
of gold thieves, it seemed very significant indeed. She had expected all along that he would ultimately tell her what his real purpose was at the station, but she’d never imagined it would be anything dangerous, and she was almost too shocked to think. All she could think of now was that if anything happened to him, he would never know all the things she hadn’t told him. Now she regretted the time she spent teasing him when she could have spent it telling him how much she loved him, time she could have spent listening to
him
say how much he loved
her.
And there were all those unresolved differences standing between them, differences she suddenly realized were not terribly important after all.

“Why would they stay around here if they already have the gold?” Maybe he wouldn’t have to go. Maybe they had already left Colorado.

“There’s an even bigger shipment coming through, and the company is certain they’re waiting around for it. At least we expect they’ll come back to try for it.”

“But why? They already have one shipment.”

“No amount of gold is ever enough for these people. They would rob a stage every week if they had the opportunity and then turn around and waste the money. They don’t think of stealing enough to buy a farm or a business, or even to have enough to live on the rest of their lives. To them it’s a way of making a living, very much like the way you look at your job here at the station. When they’ve spent what they have, they expect to get more the same way.”

“But they can get killed.”

“Most of them do, sooner or later, but there’s nothing you can do to make most of them take up a decent job. It’s not merely the only way they know to get money. They actually despise people who work for a living.”