Guardian Bride (32 page)

Winifred to Randi.

"Yes."

"Then I'm going to ride to our place. Kid said he sent a

group of cow hands out to search. I'll steer them this way."

Jessie looked at Ma. "I'll need your shotgun."

"It's in my sewing room."

272

Guardian Bride

by Lauri Robinson

Lila moved away from the door. "Do you have another

gun, Ma? Preferably a rifle?"

"Yes. Why?"

"I'm going to ride into town. Skeeter said the sheriff sent

men in all directions. I'll go tell them we need them out here.

There's a lot of open country to cover." Lila handed Charles to

Ma.

Ma pointed in the direction Jessie had gone. "There's a rifle

and bullets in the long trunk in my room. Be careful, it hasn't

been shot in years. It was Jay's."

Summer closed her eyes, willing Jonas to descend, or to

hear her plea.
Go to September,
she begged
. Go to her and

keep her safe.

Something warm wrapped around her fingers. She opened

her eyes.

August squeezed her hand. "What you want me to do,

Summer?"

Randi knelt down beside August. "I need your help. Can

you help me watch the babies? We don't want them to be

scared."

His blue eyes, worried, glanced up to Summer. She

swallowed the lump in her throat. "Randi is right. Can you

and Jerome play with the babies?"

August looked around, a bit unsure.

Randi rested a hand on his little shoulder. "You told me

Jerome is a good watch dog. Didn't you?"

He nodded.

"We need a good watch dog to watch over the children."

"All right," he said, still not sounding convinced.

273

Guardian Bride

by Lauri Robinson

"Come on," Randi encouraged, as she held one hand out to

Kendra and Joel who were sitting on the floor petting Jerome.

"Let's take the children in the other room. I bet we can find

something for Jerome to fetch. The kids will like that."

"There's a rag ball in my stitching room." Ma glanced to

Summer. "You ain't gonna sneak out if I take Charlie in there

to play with the others, are you?"

"No, I won't sneak out," Summer promised. The feeling of

helplessness had now settled on her shoulders. She'd always

been the one to act, namely because there had only been her.

"I'll be right back."

Ma's words entered her ears, but Summer didn't respond.

Instead, she sank into the chair. Wainwright was near.

September was missing. Dora had been stolen out of her own

home. Everyone had something they could do to help—Jessie,

Lila, Randi, Ma, the men, even August—everyone except her.

She was as useless as a knob on a tree. When had that

happened?

"Holding down the home front can be more work than

riding into the sun." Ma settled another chair near hers. "But

this is where you're needed. September will need you to be

here when she comes home. August needs you to be here."

The fear of not knowing what had happened to September

held strong, but the anger she'd felt toward Snake had turned

into sadness. "Why hadn't he told me Wainwright was here?"

"Men." Ma let out a long sigh. "They think women are soft

and need protecting all the time. I suspect Snake didn't want

to worry you. He's a lot like his Pa. He never wanted me to

274

Guardian Bride

by Lauri Robinson

worry, either. Remember I told you he wouldn't go get Kid

until he was sure Skeeter and I had everything we'd need?"

Summer nodded, recalling the conversation they'd had

that morning weeks ago.

"I wanted to go with him, but I was carrying Snake, and

Jay thought the trip would be too hard on me. He worked

night and day, filling the cellar with meat and gathering

enough wood to last us a year. I knew he was preparing to

make the trip to Missouri, but he never said a word. Not until

the night before he left." She tilted Summer's chin so they

looked at each other eye for eye. "Because he didn't want me

to worry."

Summer shook her head. "That's not the same."

"Maybe not to us, but to men, anything that might cause

worry, is something they think they need to hold in, protect

us from."

"The other men told their wives. Jessie, and Lila, and

Randi, knew."

"Yes, they did."

"Why?"

"I don't know for sure, but the way I see it, they've been

married long enough that they no longer have secrets from

each other."

A chill made the hairs on Summer's arms go stiff.

"Secrets?"

"Yes."

"Did you and Jo-Jay have secrets?"

"Not after he returned with Kid. Oh, we kept surprises

from each other. Like my stitching machine. I had no idea

275

Guardian Bride

by Lauri Robinson

he'd bought it for me until a freight wagon delivered it after

his death. But we never had secrets about important things."

Summer's heart was on the floor again. Somehow she

knew Ma was talking about her father's part in Jonas' death.

Ma's aged and wrinkled, but warm and friendly hands,

wrapped around Summer's. "Trust is like love, honey. You

have to give it to get it."

The red cloth petal looked as out of place lying on the

brown summer grass as it did on the straw hat he'd watched

September decorating for Maisy last week. The girl had been

snatching up the bits and pieces left over from Ma's stitching.

She'd proudly displayed her art work as she fit the scraps

together and stitched them into flower shapes on the new

hat. He'd cut the wide slots in the brim for Maisy's ears, since

the straw was too stiff for September to manage. Snake

plucked the flower from the ground. He'd known he was on

the right trail. A very strong, yet invisible presence had told

him so. The flower simply proved it.

He bit his lips together. Wainwright wouldn't want the slow

moving mule with them, yet the tracks they'd found on the

far side of the corral proved the animal traveled with two

horses. Shod horses. He pinched his nostrils, stopping the

sting that emitted when he sucked in air. The hoof prints had

disappeared as their travels moved out of the tall grass and

onto the stiff, course Buffalo grass that stretched out

endlessly. Hell, he could see for miles, yet at the same time,

between the patches of shoulder high grassland and the

rougher terrain that hid small hills and valleys, he couldn't

see a damn thing.

276

Guardian Bride

by Lauri Robinson

Far to the west, he could make out a hat but didn't know

for sure which of his brothers it was. They'd split up, grid out

the perimeter, and each took a section to search. They'd been

looking for hours already, and this flower was the first sign

they were on the right trail. It most likely was Kid, and closer

in, where the grass swayed, would be Hog. To the east were

Skeeter, then Bug, and Buffalo Killer. None could be seen, but

he knew they were there.

Tucking the flower in his pocket, he climbed back in his

saddle but kept his body low. Wainwright had a long range

rifle. Snake had already been shot by it and didn't want a

repeat.

The tracking was slow going, for they scoured every

possible hiding spot. Wainwright couldn't be traveling much

faster, not with two girls and a mule—who liked to stop for

breaks. He should have told Summer about Wainwright. Told

September as well. But he hadn't wanted to worry them.

Figured they were safe at the homestead.

It was his job to keep them safe. Not let them fret or be

bothered by things. His fingers clutched the saddle horn until

they stung. A hell of a job he'd done. By not telling them,

they hadn't had any reason to be cautious.

The squawk of a crow, irritatingly loud and flying

overhead, caught his attention for a second, but then it was

the sun, angling down that held his consideration. It would be

evening soon, and then night. His stomach plummeted.

The ground beneath him shook, and he spun about,

recognizing the thunder of hooves behind him. Dust clouded

277

Guardian Bride

by Lauri Robinson

around the group, and he tugged on his hat band, shielding

the setting sun so he could make out the riders.

His brothers arrived at his sides before the posse did.

Stewart and Rodney Zimmerman, as well as Sheriff Turley,

led the charging troop. Their horses skidded to a stop,

heaving and glistening with sweat, and stirring up a miniature

tornado of soil and dried buffalo grass.

"Did you find their trail? Which way does it go?" Rodney

asked, as his horse pranced about.

"South." Snake gestured with a head nod. "How'd—"

Stewart Zimmerman pointed at Skeeter. "His wife rode

into town. Told the deputy to come find us and tell us to ride

out here. She said Dora was spotted."

Snake used as few words and the least amount of time

possible in filling the posse in on what August had saw and

what they'd found so far. The group was dividing up, to start

searching again, when a trio of horses rode in from the south.

Kid's ranch foreman, Joe, headed up that group. "Jessie

rode out to the ranch, told us to come help with the search

over here," he said as they rode in. "We found something

along the way. Someone's held up in that old soddy on the far

side of Dry Lake. I left a couple cowboys to watch 'em." He

twisted his horse about. "Come on!"

The rumble of horses, at a full gallop, made conversations,

tough, but Snake had to know. "What did you see, Joe?"

"That gall darn mule of yours! She's braying up a storm

and a man's trying to run her off."

"Wainwright?"

278

Guardian Bride

by Lauri Robinson

"Can't say. I ain't never seen the fella. But I don't think so.

The man chasing the mule was as skinny as a bean pole."

Wainwright wouldn't work alone. He'd have convinced

someone to help with his dirty work. And if Maisy was there,

September had to be, too. Snake dug his heals into Buster's

sides, making the horse surge into a faster gallop. The others

kept up, there was probably close to twenty of them, if he

took the time to count. Which of course he didn't. It didn't

really matter. All that mattered was there was enough of

them that Wainwright would go down.

The short buffalo grass and long prairie grass soon

disappeared and nothing but parched dirt with cracks and

crevices deep enough to trip a horse covered the gray-white

ground. The animals were surefooted, and the men kept their

speed up as they tore across Dry Lake. In the spring, when

the snow melted and the rains fell, over three miles of land

turned into a shallow lake, providing water for animals and

humans, but by this time of the year, when the summer sun

was at its peak and the wind blew Colorado into Missouri and

Oklahoma into Nebraska, the lake disappeared.

The soddy Joe spoke of had been there for years. Probably

some sodbuster who'd once thought the lake would provide

for them year round. When the water had disappeared, the

settler most likely had, too, since no one ever knew who'd

built the crude home.

Snake had been out near the crumbling sod shanty more

than once but had never gone inside. A churning in his guts

reminded him why. The hissing and distinct rattle of the

279

Guardian Bride

by Lauri Robinson

western diamondback had told him the place was infested

with rattlers.

There was a slight slope where the lake ended, and on the

down side of that knoll was where the soddy was built half in

the earth. He held up his hand and as if he had the power to

stop all twenty animals himself, the earth beneath him stilled.

Nobody spoke as the men dismounted and dropped their

reins. The horses felt the urgency as strongly as the humans

and silently shuffled away, cooling their heated shells with

slow, quiet snorts.

The men gestured, indicating the way they'd go, pairing off

in small groups and checking the rounds in their pistols and

cocking their rifles. On his belly, with Sheriff Turley on one

side and the Zimmermans on his other, Snake crawled to the

peak of the knoll. A sagging roof, covered with grass still

tinged green from the moisture the blocks of sod held, stared

up the other side. The place looked as abandoned as ever,

except for the mule sitting on her hind end about five

hundred yards away from the shanty.

He would have smiled if he'd been able to gather the

gumption. Maisy wasn't dumb. She sat just out of rifle range.

How good of eyesight a mule had, he really didn't know, but

Maisy's head pointed his way. Then she leaned her head back

and brayed loud enough to be heard in Kansas City.

The sound made him shiver like a wet goose. Rodney

Zimmerman started to move, and Snake grabbed his pant

leg.

"Not yet, wait a second."