Secondhand Bride (24 page)

T
here were sprigs of frost on the dirt floor of the cabin when Sue Ellen arose, before it was light out, to build up the fire and put the coffeepot on to boil. Breakfast would be more of last night’s beans; there was nothing else.

She kept her motions slow, though something inside her wanted to hurry, because Jack was already stirring in the musty bed, stretching as he woke. She didn’t want him to suspect what she was planning.

“I’ll bring back some salt pork and the like,” he said, half-yawning the words. The rope springs creaked beneath mattress as he sat up, put his bare feet on the floor.

“That would be fine,” she answered mildly, busy with her tasks. The water buckets wanted refilling, and she’d need more firewood to keep the stove going. The limited supply outside, left behind by whoever had built, then abandoned the cabin, was dwindling fast.

Jack got up, went outside to relieve himself and to check on his horse, and came back. She could feel his gaze on her, studying, weighing, measuring. It was as if he were trying to elbow his way into her mind, read her most private thoughts. Well, she had that much power, at least. She didn’t have to let him in.

She forced herself to smile. “If you’d buy the staples, sugar, butter, and some flour and salt,” she said brightly, taking a bucket in each hand, “I could bake you a cake.”

“I do favor sweets,” he allowed, but the look in his eyes was still cold, musing, probing.

“Good,” she said, and went past him, to make her way to the cistern. It was covered by a panel of rotting boards, and she had to move that aside and kneel and bend from her middle to reach the water. The buckets were heavy, and she strained to draw them up full, one, then the other.

They breakfasted on beans.

“Coffee’s almost gone, too,” she said, when the moment seemed right.

“I’ll fetch you some,” Jack answered, but he sounded distracted, and testy as well. Did he suspect that she meant to escape, that very morning? If he did, he’d watch her from the woods, run her down with his horse, or even shoot her, the moment she tried to leave the clearing.

She decided she couldn’t afford to retrieve her reticule from the woodpile, lest he catch her at it. She felt a plundering stab of sorrow at this realization; her mother’s brooch was in that bag, along with her Bible and her favorite dress. Leaving the old behind, she would have nothing but the new, and that was an insubstantial thing, soil with no seeds planted.

Jack watched her, chewing, and suddenly, he smiled. She was terrified, since his smiles usually presaged some outburst of cruelty, until he spoke. “Maybe I’ll bring you back something nice. A sort of reward.”

She knew he was referring to their intercourse the night before. She’d endured it, for one reason only: Because she had no choice. Did he think she’d been trying to please him? If so, well and good. That would make him less suspicious.

“Lift up your dress, Sue Ellen,” he said.

She flushed, hoping he would mistake her horror for coquettish reluctance.

He was testing her, she realized, and she had to pass through this trial, however she despised it, if she wanted to survive. She did as she was told, and even moaned a little, the way he liked, when he began touching her.

He had her on the table, rutting at her from behind like an animal, and she cursed him even as she made the sounds she knew he wanted to hear. When it was over, she opened her eyes, her palms braced against the rough wood, and pushed herself up.

He wasn’t even looking at her. He was buttoning his trousers, whistling under his breath. How she yearned to get hold of that .44 of his and put a bullet through his forehead, but having learned her lesson the last time that thought had struck her, she schooled her features into a benign smile and even managed a sigh of womanly satisfaction.

“See you tonight,” he said.

She didn’t trust herself to speak; it would be so easy to go too far, say too much, and make him wonder at her acquiescence. So she hummed, very softly, under her breath. It was that or scream hysterically, and she knew that once she got started at that, only a fist or a bullet would stop her.

He went out, mounted his horse carefully, since his leg was still sore from the flesh wound he’d sustained trying to kill Jeb McKettrick.

Sue Ellen stood in the doorway of the cabin, smiling wistfully, as if she sorrowed at the parting, and would be waiting eagerly when he returned.

He raised a hand in farewell, wheeled the horse around, and rode off.

She waited an hour, and it was one of the hardest things she’d ever done. She dusted that filthy cabin, made up the bed, washed out the coffeepot at the cistern. She composed a letter to her father, in her mind, and followed that with a silent recitation of every Bible verse she knew.

And then she left, not walking purposefully, like she had a destination in mind, but strolling, bending now and then to pick a dandelion green. If Jack came out of the woods, she’d say she meant to cook them up with the salt pork he’d promised to bring back.

She reached the edge of the woods, stiffened in spite of her stalwart intentions, and stepped into the trees. There, she waited, behind the trunk of an ancient, twisted oak, her heart hammering so hard that she could barely breathe.

One minute passed—she counted it second by second, and then another to follow. And another.

He didn’t come.

She made her way to another tree, waited again. Counted again.

No shout, no crashing of horse’s hooves, beating through the brush, bearing him down upon her like the wrath of hell itself.

Exhilaration surged into her throat, and only an inborn prudence kept her from shouting in triumph.

She traveled from oak to pine for a while, then took bolder strides, stopping every few minutes to listen. As she proceeded downhill, there were fewer and fewer trees, but there were red boulders. If she heard anything, she could hide among them.

The sun was high when she came to the wide creek, and recognized it, from her time with Holt, as the border between the Circle C and the Triple M. She crouched in the shelter of a rock pile on the shore, splashed water on her face, then drank from cupped hands.

All this time, she’d been on the Circle C, probably only a few miles from Holt’s house. The knowledge both comforted and grieved her. Help had been so close and yet so far.

She surveyed the creek, wondering whether she ought to cross it there, where it was deep, and the water traveling fast, or go on downstream a ways, where it might be shallower.

She looked back over one shoulder and felt a prickle on the nape of her neck. Better to cross, she decided. Even a few yards of water would be a barrier, though not much of one, to a man on horseback.

She prayed she’d meet someone—anyone—before Jack caught up with her. There would be no convincing him now that she’d only been gathering dandelion greens, and she couldn’t claim she was fishing, either, since she didn’t have a pole.

She shaded her eyes with one hand, looking for a fallen log, but there was none. If she wanted to get to the other side, she’d have to scramble from rock to boulder to slippery stone. She tied her skirts up around her waist, so they wouldn’t drag her under by their weight if she fell in, and the first cold jolt of the water bit into her legs as she waded to the closest stone.

She’d made it to the middle when she heard the approaching horse, and panic seized her. She lost her footing, slid into the rushing water, felt herself being swept along by the current, pummeled by the force of the stream. Her face and hair doused, she was blinded, and could not see the rider, nor could she hear anything over the roar of the creek itself.

She spun wildly, helpless, going under and coming up. Her skirt came untied, and pulled her under the surface as effectively as an anchor.

And then her head struck the rock. She was going to die, she thought matter-of-factly, as the darkness took her over.

T
om Jessup couldn’t swim, but it wasn’t in him to stand by and let a woman drown. He spurred his horse into the wild water, groped for the lady’s hair, and finally caught hold of it on the third try. He dragged her up, sodden and heavy, into the saddle, and reined toward shore.

On the sloping bank, he leaped down, hauling her after him, and laid her out on her back, so her head was lower than her feet. She was blue, and she didn’t make a sound.

He pressed his ear to her chest, heard a faint heartbeat. But she sure wasn’t breathing.

He put both hands to her stomach and pushed as hard as he dared. Water gurgled out of her nose and mouth, and she began to cough. Encouraged, Tom repeated the process.

She blinked, opened her eyes, looked at him blankly, then rolled over onto her belly and vomited.

Tom stroked her back, wishing he were a smarter man, who knew what else to do, and when she seemed to be through, he wet his handkerchief in the creek and washed her face. She was unconscious again, but she was breathing. Thank God, she was breathing.

He scanned the surrounding landscape, looking for a horse and seeing none, wondering where she’d come from, on foot. They were miles from anyplace, and if he hadn’t been out looking for strays, he’d never have seen her.

Crouching beside her, he debated with himself.

He ought to take her to town, where there was a doctor, but it was too far, and if the water in her lungs didn’t kill her, the ride probably would. No, he’d best head for the ranch house on the Triple M. Somebody there would know what to do.

His own clothes soaked by then, Tom hoped he wouldn’t take a chill, come down with the pneumonia, and leave his kids without a father. He mounted his horse again, pulling the woman up with him as he went, and turned in a southerly direction.

She was still drooping like little Ellen’s rag doll an hour later, when they rode up to the ranch house.

The two Mrs. McKettricks ran out to meet him, the older, Mexican one, and the one Tom knew as Kade’s wife. They stretched up their arms, and he handed the near-drowned woman down with relief.

“She is half-dead!” cried Mrs. Angus.

“Found her in the creek,” Tom said, dismounting. The two women were trying to support the third between them, but she was unconscious and couldn’t stand. He scooped her up again.

“Bring her inside,” said Mrs. Kade, shivering.

Tom complied. They led him upstairs, with his sodden burden, to a small room with a slanted ceiling and a man’s things lying about, and had him set her in a chair rather than lay her out on the bed.

“Go downstairs and warm yourself by the stove,” Mrs. Angus told Tom, with soothing certainty in her voice and manner. Somewhere nearby, a baby commenced to squalling.

He hesitated; now that he’d gotten into the habit of looking after the woman, he didn’t like leaving her.

The baby cried harder.

“We’ve got to undress this woman,” Mrs. Kade told him pointedly.

He bolted, the cries of the baby shrill against his eardrums.

Downstairs, he got as close to the kitchen stove as he could, wishing the ladies had told him to help himself to some coffee. Since they hadn’t, Tom kept his hands to himself and waited.

Mr. Angus came in from outside, gave him a curious glance, then shouted, “Concepcion! What is the matter with that baby?”

“Angus McKettrick,” the missus hollered back, “I am busy at the moment—see to Katherine yourself!”

The boss gave Tom another disgruntled look, then started up the back stairs. Tom was frozen to the bone, so he decided to risk the displeasure of the household and help himself to some hot coffee after all. If it was the wrong move, he’d have to take the consequences.

He was sipping from a steaming mug when Mr. Angus came back downstairs, carrying an incongruous bundle of flannel and loud displeasure in his arms.

“You know anything about babies, cowboy?” he wanted to know.

“No, sir,” Tom answered. “My Annabel always looked after ours.”

“Damnation,” Mr. Angus muttered, bouncing the bundle. “What the devil is going on around here?”

“Woman almost drowned,” Tom said, relieved that the stolen coffee had not yet come under discussion. “I pulled her out of the creek up north.”

The boss scowled. “Every time I turn around,” he grumbled, “somebody’s getting themselves shot, drowned, struck by lightning, or run over by cattle. Nobody’s got a whit of common sense anymore!”

The baby hiccoughed, and then, blessedly, stopped its wailing.

Mrs. Angus appeared at the top of the stairs. “Angus, get that poor man some dry clothes before he takes sick.”

Angus scowled again. “In case you haven’t taken notice yet, Concepcion,” he said dangerously, “I’ve got my hands full just now.”

His wife rolled her brown eyes. “Put Katie in the bassinette first,” she instructed, measuring out her words in a determined way, “then find the man something warm to wear.”

Angus put the child into a basket and covered her awkwardly with something knitted from different colors of yarn. Meanwhile, the mistress of the house had disappeared again.

“I took some coffee,” Tom confessed, being a man of conscience.

“Have all you want,” Angus rumbled, and stormed upstairs.

Tom peered in at the baby. Katie, her name was. A girl, then.

Angus returned with long johns, pants, a shirt, and dry socks, shoved them at Tom. “You can change in the pantry,” he said. “While you’re at it, I’ll add a little whiskey to that coffee of yours.”

“I still got the day’s work to do,” Tom reminded him, though he did yearn for a dose of good whiskey. He wasn’t a drinking man, but between the shock of seeing that woman tumble into the creek and the long, cold ride back to the ranch, he leaned toward self-indulgence.

“You’ve done enough,” the boss said. “Take these clothes, dammit. I can’t stand here holding them all day.”

Tom did as he’d been told.