Daisies In The Wind (9 page)

It had been too dark to pick up Jones’s trail
at the creek, but he’d headed back to the Peastone property, taking
the less-used route from the borders of his own land, creeping up
toward the house from the rear, hiding in the trees and brush,
waiting and watching.

He’d seen Rebeccah Rawlings venture
out—stupid woman—to fetch water from the stream, had watched her
lug it back to the cabin in the dark. He’d caught glimpses of her
through the rear cabin window, whisking a broom around. But no sign
of Fess Jones. And then about an hour ago a figure had skulked up
to the cabin on foot. From his hiding place Wolf surmised that
Jones must have left his horse hidden in the brush up the road.
He’d made his way noiselessly toward the cabin, opened one of the
windows, and crawled in.

Wolf had crept closer, but waited. Waited and
wondered—until he heard that scream.

“Do you like milk or sugar in your coffee,
Sheriff?”

“Neither one.”

He watched her as she handed him the cup, so
ladylike, so distant, then settled herself down on the sofa as far
away from him as she could get. That suited him just fine. The only
thing that had brought him back to this cabin tonight was business.
He had no desire to pursue even remotely friendly relations with
Bear Rawlings’s daughter.

She was up to her pretty little nose in
something crooked, Wolf knew it. He just hadn’t figured out what
her scheme was—yet.

The coffee was good, hot and strong. He drank
deeply, then set the cup down and leaned back against the creaking
springs of the sofa. “It’s time for our little talk, Miss Rawlings.
We’ve gone through all the motions of civility. Now I want some
answers.”

“We can’t always get what we want, Sheriff
Bodine, can we?” she replied, her hands clenched tightly in her
lap. Her coffee sat on a crate beside her, untouched, ribbons of
steam still rising from the tin cup. “I wanted a good night’s
sleep, peace and quiet, a chance to acclimate myself to my new
home. But I didn’t get it. That man broke in here in the middle of
the night and attacked me. What kind of a town do you run, Sheriff
Bodine, where a vicious person like that can accost innocent women
in their homes?”

Wolf came to his feet in a surprisingly fluid
motion for such a big man. He stalked toward her and yanked her up
off the sofa with his one good arm. Ignoring her gasp, he pulled
her close, so close he could feel the pounding of her heart and
could see the quiver of her lips as she reacted to his nearness and
the strength of his hold on her. He let her feel his strength, not
hurting her but making sure she recognized that he could do so if
he wanted to.

“No more games, Miss Rawlings. No more
stalling. You’re not an innocent woman. Fess Jones didn’t just
happen to pick on you. He came here because of you—and I want to
know why. What low-down dealings are you up to, and who else can I
expect to turn up in my town hatching some dark and dirty
business?”

Rebeccah knew she couldn’t break free. Even
using only one arm, he was far too strong for her. But she would be
damned before she’d tell some lawman the kind of trouble she was in
and ask him for help. Let him think the worst of her! She didn’t
care. She’d rather fight off a wagonload of desperadoes than come
bawling to Wolf Bodine for help.

“You’re making a pile of accusations for a
man without any evidence to back them up!” she retorted, lifting
her chin. “The last I heard, proof is required in order to lock
someone up. Proof of some crime, or intent to commit a crime. The
way I see it, Sheriff Bodine, you’ve got nothing! And you’re
trespassing on my property. Get out.”

Anger tightened his grip on her. Every muscle
coiled with tension as he fought to control the wrath that surged
through him. Yet through his anger he had to hand it to her. She
was tough. As tough as her father. And no doubt every bit as
unscrupulous.

“Get out!” she repeated when he didn’t say
anything or release her. Only the slightest trembling in her voice
betrayed her agitation. “And take that dead man with you.”

Wolf glared into her diamond-hard eyes; his
own narrowed with menace. He thought she flinched as she gazed
back, but only for a moment, then the lashes fluttered wide again
and she was regarding him with icy rage every bit as determined as
his own.

“I’ll take him, Miss Rawlings,” Wolf drawled.
An unpleasant smile just barely touched the edges of his lips. He
released her so suddenly, she slumped and ended up sitting down
hard on the sofa. Wolf nodded coldly.

“Tomorrow.”

He turned on his heel and strode toward the
door.

“Tomorrow? But you—”

“Made a deal—and I’ll keep it fair and
square. I’ll get rid of Fess Jones’s body for you—tomorrow. You can
spend the night with him meantime and think about what might have
happened if I hadn’t been around. Folks who stray outside the law
in these parts have a way of ending up dead. Like your father. Like
that hombre in there. Like many more I’ve seen—and killed. Think
about it.”

And without another glance he was gone,
striding from the cabin with a lithe grace that was no less flowing
for the wound in his shoulder, a wound that must be paining him,
she knew, though he gave no sign of it.

Rebeccah jumped up as the door slammed behind
him. She had to struggle to keep from running outside and hurling
the coffee cups after him. Leaving her here alone with that ...
thing. How could he? What if Jones wasn’t really dead? What if he
got up after she fell asleep and came after her, dripping a trail
of blood ...

Stop it
, she told herself sternly,
and paced around the room in an effort to gain control of her
emotions.
Check on him, you fool. Then bring your blanket and
pillow in here and sleep on this sofa. Don’t be a ninny. Show Wolf
Bodine you can’t be scared by the likes of him or Fess Jones—dead
or alive.

But she scarcely slept a wink all night and
awoke on the horsehair sofa shortly after dawn feeling heavy-eyed
and haggard. Beyond the parlor window pale sunlight and beautiful
country beckoned. But a dead man lay in her bedroom, and Neely
Stoner knew where she was. It was only a matter of time before he
showed up personally, looking for the deed to that mine.

Her troubles seemed to be growing instead of
dwindling. And to top it off, she’d have to face Wolf Bodine again
today.

Sighing, Rebeccah put up coffee in the
kitchen and nibbled hardtack. Somehow she’d have to find a way to
get herself that teacher’s job, or she’d be out of both food and
money within a month. Chewing hardtack, trying not to think about
the flapjacks and sausage and buttermilk biscuits with raspberry
preserves her stomach longed for, she wondered bleakly how soon
Wolf Bodine would tell everybody in Powder Creek exactly who she
was.

“Bear Rawlings’s daughter! Living on the
Peastone place?”

Billy Bodine’s gray eyes widened in
excitement as he set down his glass of milk and regarded Wolf
across the kitchen table. He knew nothing of his father’s wound,
since it was bandaged under his flannel shirt and vest, and Wolf
had been moving about without any visible sign of pain or
discomfort, but Billy had asked first thing this morning, while
washing up at the pump, if Wolf had caught Fess Jones.

“I did. And we won’t have to worry about him
anymore,” Wolf had responded shortly, then had turned on his heel
and gone into the kitchen. But Billy hadn’t been satisfied with
such meager information. He’d followed his father upstairs, pressed
him while he shaved before the brass-framed mirror, and demanded to
know everything that had happened after Wolf had ridden off the
previous night in search of the outlaw.

Naturally Wolf didn’t tell him.

All he said was that Fess Jones was dead and
that Jones had been trying to kill the new owner of the Peastone
place. When Caitlin had inquired in surprise who that might be,
Wolf had set down his coffee: “Rebeccah Rawlings.”

Billy, with his keen memory, had instantly
recalled the rumors that Amos Peastone had lost his ranch to the
outlaw Bear Rawlings. Of course no one was ever sure, since Bear
Rawlings hadn’t shown up to lay claim to it. But when Billy heard
Rebeccah’s name, he put two and two together with amazing
speed.

“Is she an outlaw, too, Pa? Are you going to
arrest her?”

“She could be. And I might.”

“Wait till I tell Joey. He says there’s no
such thing as a lady outlaw. I told him that a lady was just as
likely as a man to be dishonest, but he said that—”

“Whoa.” Wolf’s long arm reached across the
table to grasp the boy’s shoulder. Billy met his frowning gaze.
“You can’t go around calling this lady an outlaw, son. She hasn’t
done anything wrong. And we don’t know that she will. We don’t know
anything about her, so until we do, we have to give her the benefit
of the doubt. It wouldn’t be right to go around spreading
tales.”

Wolf heard in his own words the echo of what
Rebeccah Rawlings had said to him the previous night. Damned if she
hadn’t made sense, much as it irked him to admit it.

His mother agreed. “Every person deserves a
chance, Billy, a chance to be judged on their own merits,” she said
in her brisk, no-nonsense way. As always Caitlin Bodine had come
down to breakfast impeccably dressed in a crisp yellow-and-white
everyday gingham, the buttons fastened up to her throat, her gray
hair tidily pinned into a topknot, and her sleeves rolled up, ready
to work. Though her vision was dim and blurry at best due to the
cataracts that had robbed her of clear sight over her fifty-odd
years, she could still make out shapes, and she worked fiercely
each morning at her toiletry, determined to look neat, clean, and
precise, the way a lady ought, even if she couldn’t see very well
what she was doing.

“Don’t you ever be one to start calling folks
names for no reason,” she warned her grandson, peering at him with
effort, seeing only the shape of him, his small frame and dark
head, none of the features that only a few years ago she had still
been able to make out. “That’s no way to be going on. Maybe the
young lady is perfectly honest and respectable. She could be hurt
from being misjudged.”

“Aw, Gramma ... how can it possibly hurt—”
Billy began to argue, but a stern look from his father made him
duck his head obediently. “Yes, ma’am,” he muttered.

Wolf refilled the boy’s milk glass from the
blue china pitcher Caitlin had used for nearly forty years. “Eat
some of your Gramma’s sausage now, and take one of these sourdough
biscuits before you see to your chores,” he said. “And stay away
from Rebeccah Rawlings.”

As Wolf swallowed a forkful of the delicious
sausage and washed it down with fresh-brewed coffee, he tried not
to think about Rebeccah Rawlings spending the night in that
godforsaken cabin with Fess Jones’s corpse. Regret had lashed at
him the moment he’d ridden off and left her like that—it had been a
low-down-thing to do—but something about her refusal to answer his
questions had goaded him into it. Why did she have to be so
stubborn? Why couldn’t she be sweet and respectful and good-natured
like most other women?

He was sorry he’d done it, though. He’d
almost turned right around and gone back and dragged the body out
for her right then, but that would have been like giving in, and
he’d be damned if he’d give in to Rebeccah Rawlings, ever, on
anything. But he’d lain awake in bed all night, feeling bad. At
least now it was morning and he could go to the cabin and take care
of it. Matthew Crimmons, the undertaker, would be in his office by
the time he hauled Jones’s body to town.

The talk at the breakfast table turned to the
desertion of Miss Kellum, the new schoolteacher, and Wolf dragged
his thoughts on to this topic. Billy, reflecting the spirit of the
other children of the town, cackled gleefully at the prospect of no
school for the entire winter. But Caitlin shook her head.

“Wolf, one way or the other, we
must
find a teacher for these children. It’s essential. What are you
going to do?”

Wolf sighed as he met the interrogating gaze
of this hardy little woman with the tiny hooked nose and wrinkled
brown skin. Caitlin Bodine had always felt her oldest son could do
anything. She had implicit faith in him and was fond of reminding
him of this fact. She had firmly believed that he could raise Billy
just fine after the boy’s mother was gone and she had been
confident that he could clean up Powder Creek when they’d first
arrived and found it run by the Saunders gang. Caitlin had always
believed he could solve any problem, conquer any obstacle.

Now she wanted him to produce a genuine
certified and willing schoolteacher immediately, and out of thin
air.

“Any suggestions, Ma?” he inquired with the
ghost of a grin.

“As a matter of fact, yes,” she returned
promptly. She wiped her mouth daintily on her napkin and set it
down beside her plate. “Hold a town meeting. Ask if anyone has a
relative with a teaching certificate, someone who wants to come
west, to settle in a decent, respectable town where the law runs
things regular and safe and people take care of their own. Someone
in Powder Creek must have a nephew or sister or cousin with a
hankering for a job.”

“No, Caitlin, there’s no need for that. I’ve
got a much better idea,” Myrtle Lee Anderson declared from the open
kitchen doorway. Wolf stood up, regarding her with raised
brows.

“Come right on in, Myrtle,” he drawled,
holding out a chair. “Help yourself to a biscuit.”

“Don’t mind if I do. Caitlin, I have to talk
to you. You’ve got good sense. Tell me what you think of my scheme.
I say we ask that young lady who came to town yesterday—the one who
shot Scoop Parmalee—to take over as the new schoolteacher. Word is
she didn’t take the stage out of town with the other passengers,
though I don’t know where she is precisely this morning. Maybe at
the hotel. Anyhow,” Myrtle rushed on, barely pausing for breath as
Wolf’s eyes narrowed on her, “Rusty at the hotel overheard one of
the other passengers say she was a right fine shot for a
schoolteacher. A schoolteacher! Seems she told the other folks on
the stagecoach she taught at some fancy private academy back east.
Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather when I heard
that! If it isn’t a stroke of luck, I don’t know what is!”