Man From Boot Hill (19 page)

The ride back to Ocean was quick and quiet. Although Joseph told Nick a bit about the son who was waiting for him to return, he didn’t ask about anything from Nick’s past. After what he’d already heard, it was obvious that he didn’t want to hear any more.

That suited Nick just fine. He enjoyed listening to the few words that Joseph had to say. Those words were enough to show that Joseph was a changed man. There was a shadow in his eyes, but not the genuine darkness that had been there before. More important, Joseph preferred to talk about the future rather than the past. Joseph sometimes bowed his head in reflection as if thinking about his wife or daughter.

They rode into Ocean early one afternoon. Rain from the night before had left the grass wet and green. A few flowers bloomed here and there, but most of the flowers they could see were already cut and lying at the base of a few tombstones. The
graveyard smelled of warm air and freshly turned soil.

Joseph asked Nick to stand with him next to the specially carved markers of his wife and daughter. The two carved angels were still looking at each other as if no time had passed, and Joseph looked down on them as if he were peeking in on a private conversation between mother and daughter. Nodding once, he turned to Nick and said, “Sammy should be here with me.”

The expression on Joseph’s face, shadows and all, was a good sight for Nick’s sore eyes. He led the way to his cabin, anxiously awaiting his own reunion with Catherine.

When they got there, however, they found the cabin’s windows broken and its door knocked off its hinges.

“What in the hell?” Nick snarled as he swung down from Kazys’s back and ran to the doorway. His gun was in his hand before he even knew his arm had moved. When he saw the mess that was inside, he stormed into the cabin in search of an excuse to pull its trigger.

“Good Lord,” Joseph said as he took a step through the doorway. “What happened here?”

“I don’t know, but Catherine’s gone.”

“What about my boy?”

Nick wheeled around to look at Joseph as if he didn’t know whom he was referring to. He then blinked a few times and dropped his gun back into its holster. “I don’t know. There’s nobody here.”

“By the looks of it, there was a hell of a scuffle. Is there any blood or…?”

As Joseph’s unfinished question faded away, Nick took a slower, more careful look around. “No. There’s no bodies. I don’t see any blood. In fact, it looks more like someone tore through here just for the hell of it.”

“Maybe they were looking for something.”

“Where did you tell your son to go if Catherine didn’t agree to look after him?”

Joseph snapped his fingers, already turning to go outside. “His uncle’s place. I’ll take you there.”

Nick practically flew out of the cabin and onto Kazys’s back. He and Joseph raced through town.

They had nearly left Ocean’s limits again before Joseph reined his horse to a stop.

“This is the place,” Joseph said.

The moment Nick’s boots hit the dirt, his hand was resting upon the grip of his pistol. His eyes darted to and fro, looking for any suspicious movement or any face that he didn’t like. When the door to the little house swung open, Nick planted his feet and prepared to draw the Schofield. The face he saw, however, was far from threatening.

“Pa! You’re home!” Sam shouted as he rushed outside.

Nick didn’t relax until he saw Catherine step through the door. Fixing her hair, she smiled and started to say something, but couldn’t make a sound before Nick ran to her and swept her up into his arms. She laughed and tried once more to
speak. This time, she was cut off by an urgent kiss.

“Well, well,” Catherine gasped, once she had a chance. “It’s good to see
you
, too!”

For the next few moments, all Nick wanted to do was hold on to her tightly, pressing his face into her hair and nuzzling her neck. Once he’d filled his lungs with the sweet scent of her, he allowed himself to loosen his grip.

“I thought something happened to you,” he said.

Catherine winced and asked, “You were at the cabin, weren’t you?”

“Yes. What happened?”

“Someone came into town and made that mess,” she replied while shaking her head. “It’s not as bad as it seems. Sam and I weren’t even there at the time.”

“Who did it?”

“I don’t know who it was. The sheriff says he was probably just after money or food.”

“Sheriff Stilson saw him?”

She nodded. “He saw more of him than I did. In fact, he ran him out of town.”

“And you weren’t hurt?” Nick asked. “Or the boy?”

Catherine looked over to where Joseph was swinging his little boy around and happily wrapping him up in his arms. “We weren’t hurt. Sam was so lonely after you and his father left that I thought it best to bring him here. Seeing as how you two were probably headed for some trouble, it
seemed best if I stayed with him to make certain we were safe until you two got back. It is just Alice here by herself, after all. Sam’s uncle had some business in Sacramento.”

Nick looked toward the front door and saw a thin woman with short black hair for the first time. Alice was so skinny that she looked like she could be snapped in half by a strong hug, but her smile was friendly enough and she waved to Nick the moment she made eye contact with him.

“Before you ask, I also brought the shotgun,” Catherine whispered.

“You’re one hell of a woman,” Nick said while brushing the back of his hand against her cheek.

She smiled at him and patted his hand. “I’m glad you realize that.”

As the wagon rattled up to the sheriff’s office, Stilson opened the door and ambled outside. His thumbs were hooked over his gun belt and he nodded with mild surprise when he saw who was driving the noisy rig.

“Sorry, but I don’t have any deliveries for you today,” Stilson said.

Nick set his brake and climbed down. “I’m on my way to my parlor and wanted to stop by and have a word with you about what happened to my home.”

The sheriff raised his hands and said, “I did what I could. By the time I got there, most of the damage was already done.”

“I don’t intend on being cross with you. I wanted to give you my thanks.”

At first, Stilson looked at the hand Nick offered as if it might reach out and slap him. He grasped it hesitantly at first, but then responded amicably when Nick shook it in friendship.

“We’ve never been good friends, but I wanted to tell you I appreciate what you did.”

“Just doing my job.”

“Can you tell me what happened?”

Stilson walked around as if he was inspecting the wagon. “It was lucky that I was making my rounds when I heard the noise. I thought it was someone’s roof collapsing or maybe a horse got a burr under its saddle and was kicking in a wall. Turns out it was your door getting kicked in. Far as I knew, you were nowhere to be found, so I went and had a look for myself.

“I saw two of them as I rode up to your place,” Stilson explained as he tapped his foot against one of the wagon’s wheels. “One of them bolted before I could even bring my horse to a stop. The other took his sweet time coming out, even after he saw me, but walked away from your cabin soon enough once he saw I wasn’t just some nosy neighbor.”

“Did you get a look at them?”

Stilson walked over to examine Rasa and Kazys as if he intended on purchasing the horses. “One of them might have been the fella that me and Miguel found in the graveyard that night when the
Van Meter place was raided. Come to think of it, I’m almost certain it was him.”

“Jesus,” Nick muttered as he felt a knot tighten in his stomach. “And the other one?”

“Didn’t recognize him,” Stilson replied while checking to make sure the bridle was secure on both horses. “But he was a different breed from that first one. The fella that ran first, the one that was in my jail, was skittish and moved like he was hurt or scared out of his mind.”

Nick kept quiet, but knew that J. D. was both of those things the last time he’d crossed paths with him, on the Silver Gorge trail.

“The second one was still around after I’d taken a look inside your cabin. I thought I might have to take a shot at him since he didn’t clear off your property right away.”

“What happened?”

Shrugging as he walked around to examine the other side of the wagon, Stilson replied, “He asked where you and your missus were.”

“What did you tell him?” Nick asked, while silently dreading what the answer might be.

“I said you both had moved on.”

Nick’s eyes snapped back into focus and he fixed them upon the sheriff. “What?”

“I said you and Catherine were in a rush to get out and that’s exactly what you did. I made up some story about how folks were talking that you two just up and left without packing more than
some clothes and food into a few carpetbags. The more I told them,” Stilson said, chuckling, “the more I started believing it, myself.”

“What made you think to tell a story like that?”

“There was just an opportunity, I guess. Nobody was home and the damage was done, so I spun the first yarn I could and hoped it would be enough for them to move on. There wasn’t anyone inside your place, so I just figured on getting him to leave of his own accord.

“Men like that are like stray dogs. You show ’em there ain’t nothing to gain from being somewhere and they’ll stay gone. Don’t you worry, though,” Stilson added. “I bowed up and chased him off, just to be certain.”

Nick could imagine it hadn’t taken much to chase off J. D. If Dutch sent another gunman along for the job, however, it was probably a man who didn’t frighten so easily.

His inspection of the wagon completed, Stilson wound up standing next to Nick with his arms crossed. “That fella from my jail was off like a shot. That other one, though…he wasn’t in no hurry. He left, but he made sure I knew he was leaving of his own volition. He seemed pretty happy with himself, though. My guess is that he didn’t have any trouble believing what I told him.”

As Nick listened, he also didn’t have any trouble believing what Stilson told him. In fact, the only
reason for those gunmen to think Stilson was lying was if they already knew better. If that was the case, they would have known where to find who they’d been looking for. Since Catherine wasn’t harmed or even rattled, Nick could only conclude that those two gunmen were long gone.

“I think you might have saved my wife’s life,” Nick said. “And the life of Joseph’s son right along with her.”

Stilson shrugged. “I did my best.”

When Nick returned to his cabin, his wagon was fully loaded. The top was covered by a tarp, which was strapped down to keep all the things secured in the back. Catherine busied herself that entire day with cleaning up and putting their home back together. That evening, she fixed Nick a dinner that was more like a banquet and served it to him at his regular table in the back of her restaurant on Ninth Street.

Although the cabin was still a mess, they spent the night there enjoying each other’s company in their own home. They didn’t notice what was broken or what shelves still needed to be straightened, since neither one of them spent much time out of the bedroom.

Catherine woke up to an empty bed, threw a robe on and searched for Nick. She found him outside, staring up at the stars that were scattered overhead like a mess of silver dust. He wore his rumpled trousers with the suspenders hanging loosely from
the waist. The scars that crossed his naked back and chest showed up like streaks of water in the shimmering starlight.

“Why are you up?” she asked. “What time is it?”

“It’s late,” replied Nick. “That’s all I know.”

Stepping in front of Nick, she leaned back against him and nuzzled in close until she felt his arms wrap around her. “After all we’ve been doing, I’m surprised you have the strength to get out of bed.”

“I wanted to soak in as much of this place as I could…before I left.”

Nick could feel Catherine shrink a bit in his grasp. Her head lowered, but quickly came up again so she could look up at the sky. “Why would you want to do that?”

“You don’t sound surprised.”

“I’m not. Actually, I’m just surprised you let me see you before riding off. I always feared waking up one night and having you just be…gone.”

“You’ve been through so much just to be with me,” Nick explained. “And just when things seemed to be settled, this happened.”

“But it didn’t happen to us,” Catherine said sharply. “You took it upon yourself to ride off with Joseph. I think it was a good thing, and Joseph seems like a whole different man now that he’s back, but this was your choice. It’s over now,” she said, gripping Nick’s forearm. “We can get back to the way it was.”

“Do you know how close you were to getting
hurt? Jesus, Catherine, I didn’t even know those other two were coming back here. They could have…” Nick trailed off as the terrible speculations ripped through his mind. Not wanting to put a voice to those images, he just said, “…and I wouldn’t have even known until it was too late.”

“There’s always something bad that can happen, Nick. If anything, you should have learned that from Joseph. Bad things can happen just like good things can happen. There’s no way to know what’s coming next or when it’ll get here.”

“As long as I’m here, I know something else will be coming,” Nick said. “Usually, it ain’t good.”

“You’ll be able to take whatever comes. And if you think that I can’t handle myself, you really haven’t been paying attention all this time we’ve been together.”

Nick grinned and held onto her a little tighter. “I know you can handle yourself. That doesn’t give me the right to keep putting you to the test, though.”

“If I didn’t want it, I would have left you by now.”

“I’ll only be gone for a little while, just until I know this thing is over and there isn’t anyone left trying to find me. Sheriff Stilson did a real good job of covering up for me and if I stay here, I’ll ruin it.”

“Did he tell you to leave?”

“No.”

“And what happens the next time something comes along?” Catherine asked. “I would think
you’d do what you need to do, but I would never think you’d just run away.”

“That won’t work on me,” Nick told her. “I know you’re just trying to rile me up.”

“I think it is working.”

“Not a bit.” A few seconds slipped away before Nick added, “Well, maybe a little. Either way, I thought this would be a good night to give you something.”

Taking his arms from around her, Nick reached into his pocket. When he took his hand out and opened it, there were two gold rings sitting on his palm. “I didn’t want us to wear these because I was afraid you’d be marked as a target if someone else came looking for me.”

“And since they came around anyway, you figure we might as well wear them?” Catherine asked.

“No. I want to always know you’re with me…no matter how far away I might go. I’ve hidden from a lot of things, but having you as my wife isn’t gonna be one of them.”

Catherine’s eyes locked upon Nick as he took her hand and carefully slid the ring onto her finger. He then slipped his own ring on and flexed his hand to get the feel of it.

“Don’t go,” Catherine whispered. “You’ve got a good business here and I’m not about to leave my restaurant now that it’s up and running. Most folks would call that a life worth keeping.”

“Most folks don’t have gunmen, vigilantes and a
few determined lawmen out to nail their hide to a wall.”

“Then at least give me the chance to try and talk you into staying,” Catherine said as she took Nick by the hand and started pulling him back to the cabin. “After all, this is sort of a second wedding night.”

Although Nick grumbled a bit, he allowed himself to be dragged into the cabin and toward the bed. Once he got there, the furthest thing from his mind was riding away.