The Gunman's Bride (12 page)

Reward, it read in bold black print. Bart Kingsley.

Rosie froze as she absorbed the message.

REWARD: Bart Kingsley $50, dead or alive. This armed and dangerous criminal is wanted by authorities in the state of Missouri for train robbery and
murder. Vitals: black hair, green eyes, 200 lbs., 6´2". Half-breed Apache.

As the blood rushed from Rosie’s cheeks, she read the list of offenses her husband was accused of committing:

Robberies:

October 7, 1879—Glendale, Missouri, Chicago & Alton line

July 15, 1881—Winston, Missouri, Rock Island line

September 7, 1881—Blue Cut, Missouri, Chicago & Alton line

Accomplice to murder:

July 15, 1881—Winston, Missouri Participated in the shooting deaths of William Westfall and Frank McMillan.

At the bottom of the poster, a notice in boldface type read:

Someone had drawn a circle around the last three words. Rosie swallowed and touched the letters that formed Bart’s name. There was no picture but it hardly mattered. How many men could fit that description?

A
bandoning all thoughts of eating ice cream with her friends, Rosie fled the Harvey House. With the words of the poster fresh in her mind, she suddenly saw the sheet of white paper everywhere. One had been nailed to every post along the depot porch. Three more were glued to the windows of the saloon. Yet another fluttered from a pillar at McAuliffe and Ferguson’s Hall.

Reward. Bart Kingsley, dead or alive.

“Dear God,” Rosie repeated in a breathless prayer as she stumbled over a ridge of dried mud in the street. “Dear God, help…help!”

She didn’t want Bart to die. If God didn’t do something quick, the sheriff would arrest him and throw him in jail. He would be taken to Missouri, where the James gang had left an evil taste in the mouths of the lawmen. Surely they would hang him.

But what if Bart really had shot down those two men in cold blood? He had admitted to robbery. Why not murder?

Rosie stopped and grabbed a picket of the fence surrounding the sheriff’s office. She ought to claim she
never knew Bart’s true history. Then she could teach, buy a little house and live the life she had planned.

No, she thought as she caught her breath. She must stand by the man she loved. She would tell Sheriff Bowman about their homestead and how Bart plowed and hoed until his muscles ached and how he tended his livestock. She would describe how he saved money and planned to expand their home. How good he was to her, and how kind to everyone.

Even though waves of nausea rolled through her again, Rosie knew she would face the sheriff and tell him Bart was a good man. He deserved forgiveness. He deserved a second chance.

Bart swung through the front door of the courthouse and called back over his shoulder. “Come on over for dinner sometime, sheriff. My wife makes a great apple pie.”

“Sure thing, Buck.” Sheriff Bowman stood in the doorway. “You need anything, just holler.”

“Will do.” Bart turned and spotted Rosie. “What are you doing out of bed, darlin’? You’re as green as a new apple.”

“I’ve been to see Mr. Kilgore.” Rosie searched his eyes. “Did you see the poster?”

“The fool thing hung right over my head the whole time I was talking.” He chuckled. “When I first spotted it, you could have knocked me over with a feather. I reckon people just see what they want to see.”

He realized Rosie was still very weak, and the wanted poster had come near to doing her in. As he helped her down the street and onto the hotel porch, he tried to
reassure her. “Sheriff Bowman has me set in his mind as a hardworking man, the cousin of Cheyenne Bill and as honest as the day is long. Shrewd as he is, I don’t think it ever crossed his mind that I’m a half-breed green-eyed stranger who showed up in town right after Bart Kingsley ran out.”

“Oh, Bart. It can’t last long. Someone will guess.”

He shouldered his way through the hotel door and settled her on a settee near the fire. In their room, he quickly packed their clothes, slung the bag over his shoulder and helped Rosie to the wagon.

Not until they had traveled some distance did she finally speak up. “What happened with that man who attacked us? Did he give up the fight?”

Bart pondered his answer for a moment. He didn’t want Rosie to know how much trouble the old snake had actually been. Enough trouble that Bart kept his rifle on his thighs as he drove the wagon down the deserted trail.

“His name’s Harwood, and he refused to give up,” he told Rosie. “He wanted money for a new set of choppers. Ten dollars, to make amends.”

“Ten dollars? We don’t have that kind of money.”

“Don’t I know it.” Bart shook his head. There had been times in his life when he’d had so much cash he hadn’t known what to do with it all. But the money had been ill-gotten—easily gained and just as easily squandered.

“The more Harwood and I talked, the more the situation became clear to Sheriff Bowman. I pointed out there’s only one road into Springer. Any fool could have made it to town without asking for directions.”

“Of course,” Rosie said with a sigh of relief. “Did he confess to trying to rob us?”

“Nah. When the sheriff was starting to put the picture together, the toothless devil claimed he needed to use the privy out back of the courthouse. Sure enough, off he skedaddled and never came back. Harwood didn’t rob us or hurt you, and he lost his teeth to boot. That squares it for me.”

“I guess so,” Rosie sighed, snuggled down into the blankets and shut her eyes. “So it’s all settled, then.”

“Everything’s going to be okay.” He studied the rifle on his thighs for a long time. He sure didn’t like what he had to say next, but he didn’t want to keep anything from his wife, especially now, when her health was suffering so much from all this trouble.

Rosie had told him about the long illness she endured when he left her not long after their wedding—a sickness so bad it had rendered her barren. He sure hoped this incident wouldn’t push her over the edge again. Women often had trouble with their nerves, he’d been told. Rosie’s hearty spirit and gumption belied the fact that she was physically fragile. He had to tell her the truth, though, and he sure didn’t like it.

“Well,” he said finally, “there could be one hitch.”

Rosie opened her eyes. “A hitch?”

“Sheriff Bowman sent telegrams to a couple of places to check up on me. I figured he’d come up blank looking for somebody named Buck Springfield.”

“Did he wire Kansas City?”

“No.” Bart took a breath. “But he did send a query to the Missouri law. With my description. A green-
eyed Indian-looking fellow who stands six foot two and weighs two hundred pounds.”

“Oh, Bart,” Rosie murmured.

He gave her a long look. “Things could get interesting, if you know what I mean.”

By the time the wagon arrived at the little soddy, Rosie was feeling better. But as her stomach settled, her head cleared, and she began to understand the import of what had happened.

Bart was again a hunted man. Not only were those awful posters everywhere, but Sheriff Bowman had sent a telegram to Missouri. It couldn’t be long before someone figured out the truth.

Etta knew all about Rosie’s past and the green-eyed man she once married. The livery stable owner saw Bart every day. How long would it be before he pondered the description on the wanted poster?

The only man in town who knew the full truth was Cheyenne Bill. But how had Bart persuaded the boxer to lie on his behalf? And what would it take to make Cheyenne Bill turn against him?

“You haven’t said a word since we left town,” Bart commented as he helped Rosie down from the wagon. He bent and lightly kissed her cheek before scooping her up in his arms and carrying her into the cool, sweet shadows of their home.

“I’m going to put you right here on the bed while I milk the cow and check on the chickens.” After taking off her boots, he settled her beneath the sheets she had ironed so long ago—yet only the day before—when their life was golden.

Halfway to the door, Bart looked over his shoulder. “It’ll be all right, Rosie-girl. Don’t worry your pretty head about anything.”

The moment he was gone, worry was all she could do. Her prayers seemed to go nowhere—the words nothing but ashes in her mouth. The little house began to feel dank and cold, the unlit room filled with threatening shadows. Even the memory of her garden and budding roses did little to quell the dread inside her.

One thing alone gave her comfort—the image of small bright faces, well-worn desks, a chorus of voices reciting the alphabet. Thinking of the children, she slept and did not wake until almost dawn.

Tinges of pink and gold slanted between the open curtains of the two front windows when Rosie began to stir. A meadowlark sang out the promise of another sunny day. She snuggled close to Bart, drinking in the scent of his bare skin. He must have come home after she had fallen asleep. Was he dreaming of her now?

As she ran her hand over his massive shoulder and down his sculpted arm, he turned. His green eyes were misty emeralds in the early light as he gazed at her. “I love you, Rosie,” he murmured. “I love you.”

He did love her, she realized. He loved her so much.

“Bart, I want to keep what we have now. I want life to be this way forever.”

“I can see the worry on your face.” He stroked a finger down her cheek.

“I’m full of worries—full to the brim.”

He shut his eyes and settled her cheek against his shoulder. “You always used to tell me that God is with us
all the time, Rosie. Jesus told us not to worry, too. I was sitting on the church porch when the preacher read it out of the Bible, and I never forgot. Have you forgotten?”

“I know what the Bible says, but only Jesus could be calm with this much trouble facing Him. Bart, you did so much wrong, and it’s going to catch up to you.”

He groaned. “If I could take away the past, you know I would. But I can’t undo it. All I can do is ask you to forgive me for what I did and how I lived.”

“I do forgive you, Bart. But who else will?”

“God will.”

“But not those lawmen in Missouri. How long before they come for you?”

“I can handle it, Rosie. I’ve been on the run so long the trail feels like home. It won’t be anything new for me to be churning up dust and riding for yucca country. Staying two jumps ahead of the law is the life I know best.”

“What about me? Will you take me with you?”

“I wouldn’t even if I could. You deserve a better life, Rosie.”

“So you’ll run off and leave me again?”

He was silent a moment. Then he released her and fell back on the pillow. “I can’t let you live with so much fear that you’re sick as a dog. It’s wrong of me to keep you here in this bum dugout, raising chickens and milking cows when you were brought up to be a society lady. But no matter how wrong it is, the picture always changes when I think about giving you up. I did that once, Rosie. I’m not going to do it again—not unless you tell me to.”

“I don’t want to lose you either, Bart. But what will happen to us?”

“I’ve been doing a heap of thinking and even a little praying about all this. I think it’s going to come out all right. The good Lord loves you just as much as I do. Maybe more, though I can’t imagine it.”

“He loves you, too, Bart.”

“I don’t know why.” He sat up in bed and swung his legs to the floor. “Anybody who would love a varmint like me ought to have his head examined.”

At that, Rosie giggled, wrapped her arms around him and kissed him good and long. The cow could just wait to be milked, she thought.

After breakfast, Bart hitched his horses to the wagon for the ride into Raton. He would be late for work at the stable, but he told Rosie he didn’t give a hoot. Their time together that morning had restored his belief in their future.

“Don’t work too hard, darlin’,” he called from the wagon. “You still look a little green around the gills.”

Rosie tried to smile as she watched him flick the reins and set the horses to pulling the wagon down the bumpy trail.

Hands still damp from washing the breakfast dishes, she studied Bart’s broad back as the wagon neared the trees. How many days had she stood just so, waving him off? This should feel right…normal…good.

But it didn’t. Not at all.

If he left, she might never see him again. He could be captured this very day—tossed into jail or killed. Worse yet, he might run. He would abandon her as he’d
done before, heading out of town, hiding from the law, robbing trains for a living. She would be alone out here with no husband, no future, no money, nothing to even keep her alive. It could all happen in an instant.

“Bart!” Shouting, she ran down the trail after him. “Bart, wait!”

“Rosie?” The wagon had stopped at the bottom of an incline. He climbed down and started toward her. “Rosie, what’s wrong?”

“I’m going with you, Bart. Mr. Kilgore offered me that position at the school yesterday, and I’m going to take it. I wanted to live out here with you, but I just can’t. I need…I need…oh, Bart, I need something I can count on.”

He took off his hat as she came to a breathless halt before him. “And you can’t count on me,” he said.

“How can I?” she asked him. “I can’t be sure of anything. But if I’m teaching, I’ll have work and I’ll have the money to survive when…if anything happens to you.”

“Rosie, I promised to take care of you. Don’t say you want to be a schoolmarm because you don’t trust me.”

“I do trust you, Bart, as far as I can. But I have to consider my own future. I’ll take that job and…and maybe I’ll buy a little house, too…just until things settle down. When I’m sure of you…of us…then I’ll move back to the homestead again. Don’t you see?”

“I see, all right. I see that you don’t love me the way I love you. You don’t have faith that I can look out for you and build us a good future. You haven’t forgiven me either. Not the way I asked.”

“I’m trying, Bart. My life hasn’t been easy these past
few years, and I’ve tried hard to make something better for myself. Don’t ask me to give all of that up.”

He nodded. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe you ought to do exactly what you want and never mind what I’m trying to give you. The good Lord knows it’s not much anyhow.”

“Bart, please try to understand.”

“Get in the wagon, Rosie. You go make yourself a good life, and if you can ever see your way clear to pardon me for my past, then we’ll see what comes of it.”

She climbed onto the wooden seat and sat in silence through the long ride. Her impulsive run to the wagon had surprised her. Looking back on her own life, she realized how weak her faith in God really was. Despite prayers and Bible reading, she had little conviction that God would guide her along a path He had prepared just for her.

Instead, she had taken her destiny into her own hands again and again—impetuously marrying Bart once, and loving him again in the face of all that was rational. Running away from her father and Dr. Lowell. Pushing herself at Mr. Kilgore as though she was the only teacher worth having.

But what else could she have done? Just because she and Bart had started to build a life together, just because they loved each other and had taken that love to intimacy, she didn’t have to commit her whole future to him. Did she? Was that what marriage meant?