The Gunman's Bride (17 page)

“We’ll talk over your loco train robbery,” Bart stated bluntly, “after I take care of what’s important.”

“You do that,” Ford responded as he walked toward the door. “Meantime I’ll join my pals in that outhouse of a garden you got out there.”

“Stay out of my wife’s vegetables!” Bart hollered.

Laughing, Bob Ford climbed the stairs and banged the door shut behind him.

W
hile Bart did his morning chores, Rosie worked to put her home back in order. To her relief, she discovered that the cramps she experienced the night before had not led to any spotting, and she still carried the tiny life inside her. Fierce with determination to protect her unborn baby, she made up her mind to do whatever it took to keep the child safe.

After all, how well could the baby grow if its mother was constantly fretting and scared to death? Bart kept telling her to trust Jesus and stop worrying. It was about time she learned how to do just that.

With this outlook firmly established in her mind, Rosie ran Bob and Snort out of the house the minute they tried to come back in. When Fancy elected to disobey her orders, she took her broom to his backside until he sprinted howling through the door. Sweeping didn’t take as long as she had expected, but setting the house to rights required far more than a lick and a promise.

Bart’s shirts and britches lay in a heap by the dressing screen. Not a single dish, cup or spoon had been washed in days. A ring of some undetermined scum encrusted
her fine black iron pot, and she couldn’t bring herself to ask what it was. Worst of all, the house stank of stale cigarette smoke and whiskey. If she hadn’t known better, Rosie would have thought she was walking around in a low-class saloon.

She had just filled the cookpot with boiling soapy water when she heard the front door open. Thinking it was Fancy again, she grabbed her broom and swung around.

“It’s time to go,” Bart announced. “I’m taking you back to town.”

Rosie stiffened and propped the broom up against the table. “I’m not going back to town until Monday morning. If you want to run somebody off, get rid of your pals.”

“This isn’t something to argue about, Rosie. While I was out tending the stock, I made up my mind.”

Planting her hands on her hips, she lifted her chin. “You made up your mind? Don’t I have a mind to make up, Bart Kingsley?”

“In this case I’ve made the decision for you. I’ve thought it all through, and it’s for the best.”

“What’s best is me living with you in our house—by ourselves. I’ve done some thinking, too, Bart. There was a time when just the thought of your outlaw days scared me so much I wanted to run away from you. The very notion of Sheriff Bowman searching the Missouri law records sent me scampering off to Raton to hide out with the Kilgores.”

“I remember. That was a plumb crazy notion you took into your head, girl. I knew the sheriff couldn’t track me down on the little information I’d given him. But this
is different. Bob, Snort and Fancy are real mean men, Rosie. They’ve got a bad streak in them a mile wide, and I want you to stay clear of this place until they’re gone.”

“You don’t seem to understand that I’m not afraid anymore, Bart.” She wiped her hands on her apron and came to stand before him. “You told me to put my faith in Jesus, so I am doing just that. More than a year ago I decided I wanted a different life than the one my pappy had planned out for me. I left Kansas City to find my new path. I gave up marriage to a wealthy man to go after my dream. I left my good job at the Harvey House so I could keep the dream alive. I’ve been scared. I’ve been poor. I’ve worked my fingers to the bone—all for that dream, Bart. And just when I thought I’d lost it forever, I realized I had found it right here in this little dugout with you. So don’t tell me to start running away again. I’m through with that. This is my house. Those are my chickens out in the yard. That’s my kitchen garden those outlaws are defiling. And you’re my husband. It’s my dream. It’s what I believe God planned for me all along. I’m not turning my back on it. Do you understand me, Bart Kingsley?”

“Plain as day. But the fact is, that little dream of yours is in danger of getting blown to pieces if you don’t do what I say. You’re coming with me to Raton if I have to hogtie you, Rosie.”

He reached out to take her hand, but she jerked away. “Bart! Don’t do this!”

“I don’t have a choice,” he said, grabbing her around the waist and slinging her over one shoulder. “You’ve got a city-girl way of looking at things, but dreams
don’t always work out as neat and pretty as you paint them.”

As he spoke, he carried her into the sunshine and deposited her on the seat of the wagon.

“Bart!” she cried as he circled in front of the horses to take his own place. “Please, Bart, let me stay here.”

“Better gag her!” Snort hooted. “We don’t want no female squallin’ all the way to town.”

“Just shut up and get in the wagon,” Bart snapped.

Rosie sat in utter shock as her husband pulled his hat low on his brow and gave the reins a quick flick. Ford and his boys scrambled onto the moving wagon bed, but Bart hardly seemed aware of them. Glowering, he grabbed his rifle and set it across his thighs.

She couldn’t believe he actually had carried her over his shoulder to the wagon! Despite her fine speech about her dreams and God’s plans, he had tossed her around like a sack of potatoes. To think that the man could be so rough—never mind that he had no idea of her delicate condition.

She glared at him from the corner of her eye. Maybe he was worried about the outlaws, but that gave him no right to treat her worse than he treated his cows and horses. She crossed her arms and set her jaw as the wagon bounced down the track. Once those men had gone, she would give Bart Kingsley what for!

If he truly loved her as he said he did, he would have listened more closely to what she was saying. He would have taken her feelings into account. Most of all, he would have run off those pals of his a long time ago.

“So tell us about the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, Injun,” Bob Ford said from the back of the wagon.

“I’m busy,” Bart growled.

“You said you’d talk once you got them chores done. So talk.”

Bart gave the reins another flick. “I said I’m busy.”

“You want us to ask little Rosie? She used to work at the Harvey House, didn’t she?”

“Leave her out of this. We’l1 talk later.”

“How’re us boys gonna rob a train if we don’t plan it, Injun? You know better’n anybody how important it is to lay out a good scheme. Now, when does the richest train roll through town?”

Bart had clamped his jaw shut, and Rosie had never seen him look so dark. Was he angry with her? Was he mad at Ford and his boys? Or was Bart actually considering robbing one of the trains that passed through town? A chill washed into her bones when she heard him begin to speak.

“Any one of ’em could be loaded,” he began. “You’ve got three or four a day pulling up from Albuquerque and Lamy. They go through Las Vegas, Wagon Mound and Springer picking up passengers and freight on their way east. Then you’ve got the trains down from Denver. They’ve come all the way from Kansas City loaded with goods and settlers.”

“You reckon we could take a bigger haul off the westbound traffic?”

“Probably. Hard telling, though. There’s some good money going east these days. Gold and silver coming out of the territories. Rich cattlemen taking their profits to banks in Missouri.”

“Sounds like a pretty good flow both ways.”

Bart nodded. Rosie could hardly believe her ears. Was
he just trying to pacify these outlaws, or was he actually discussing which train to rob? For all she could tell, he was helping them plan an armed holdup. Was he going to join them? Had her worst fears come true, that Bart had been lured back to his old ways by the temptation of easy money?

For a moment she considered grabbing the rifle off his lap and peppering all three of those filthy criminals in the wagon bed. How awful to think of needing to escape from Bart. Tears of anger and dismay filled her eyes at the injustice. Just when they had begun to build a normal life, a life more fulfilling and passionate than she’d ever dreamed possible, everything had come crashing down.

Bart had slid back into the role he’d worked so hard to leave behind him. When Rosie took a closer look at the man she loved so deeply, the sight of him sent a curl of panic shooting through her stomach.

His black hair blew away from the angles and planes of his face. The high Indian cheekbones, his father’s legacy, had bronzed to deep mahogany. Instead of the clean, starched white shirts she had sewn for him, Bart wore his rugged buckskin jacket. His faded denims and boots, the holsters on his thighs and the ammunition belt around his waist forced her to see what she wanted so much to deny: Bart looked every bit the gunman he was.

Even if he didn’t really intend to rob one of the inbound trains, he wouldn’t stand a chance in town if he showed up looking like this. Sheriff Bowman was no longer around to identify him, but there were three deputies who would.

Besides, a whole town full of people no doubt had read the wanted posters describing a green-eyed Indian. To top it off, Bart was in league with a man who loved to boast that he’d shot Jesse James. That would seal Bart’s fate.

“We want to stop a train that’s pulling into town, don’t we, Injun?” Ford was asking. “Ain’t I right about ’em bein’ slower comin’ in? There’s that switchback and all.”

“The switchback isn’t used these days,” Bart responded. “The train used to have to climb to the summit with all those steep grades and sharp curves. That was an eight-thousand-foot pull. But there’s a tunnel now, so the trains aren’t so slow coming in, but they’re not so fast going out either.”

“So either way might work?”

“Might.”

“Any bridges?”

“There’s a trestle at Raton Pass. It’s pretty shaky.”

“Hey, boys, how about that? We could stop the engine while it’s on the trestle. It’d only take one of us to keep it in line while the rest of us could work the safe and the passengers.”

“Sounds good to me,” Snort said. “Whatever Injun thinks.”

“What do you say, Injun?”

“I say we just hit the city limits, and you boys better shut your gates if you don’t want the whole town in on this.”

Rosie wanted to shrink into her boots as the wagon jolted down the street past stores and restaurants filled with people she had come to love and respect. How
would they react if they knew of the conversation she had just heard?

Oh, there had been a time when she was just as pristine and pious as any of them. But now, thanks to Bart Kingsley and his pals, she was party to a crime. Just for having listened to their plans she could be brought before a jury! Especially if she didn’t run straight to the sheriff’s office and tell the deputies everything she knew. Yet, if she did, she’d be turning Bart in, too.

She studied his handsome profile as he pulled the wagon up to the hitching post in front of the Central Hotel. How grim he looked. The light had died in his green eyes. His face was as dark as she’d ever seen it.

As he came around the wagon to help her out, she remembered what he’d once told her. He said that his life had become black—as black as a tunnel with no end in sight. And she was the only light he’d been able to remember. Rosie was Bart’s shining light. Now he seemed ready to snuff it all out again.

“Bart,” she whispered as she slipped into his arms. “Bart please—”

“Stay here at the hotel, Rosie,” he cut in. “You’ll be safer where there are lots of folks around you.”

“Safer?”

“Don’t go to the law, Rosie. I don’t want to complicate things, you hear?”

She stared at him as he lowered her to the ground. “Bart, what’s become of you?”

“Just do what I say and don’t ask questions.”

“Oh, Bart.”

“C’mon, Injun,” Snort called. “Time’s awastin’. Let’s
head over to the Bank Exchange Saloon and bend our elbows a spell.”

“Rosie, get inside the hotel quick,” Bart said in a low voice. “Take this and keep it hidden so no one sees.” He thrust a small revolver into her hands. “I’ll come back for you when I can.”

Clutching the gun, she watched him stride away and swing up into the wagon. Without a backward glance, he drove the wagon from the hotel and steered it toward the nearest saloon.

Rosie stayed up in her little room all the rest of the day. She didn’t feel up to going downstairs for lunch, and she knew she didn’t stand a chance of putting on a cheerful demeanor for the hotel’s owners and guests. Instead she sat in a rocking chair by the window and watched the trains pull in and out of town.

All the while she rocked, she held her hands over her stomach as if to protect the tiny life within her body. Visions of small hand-smocked linen dresses, knitted booties tied with white ribbons, quilted flannel coverlets and lacy crocheted blankets flitted through her thoughts and mingled with memories of whiskey bottles strewn about, coarse language and the cold steel of a six-shooter.

Maybe Manford Wade had been sent by God to tell Rosie to stick by Bart. But why did she have to bring a child into the world of outlaws with their foul smell and rough demeanor? A baby, no matter what its heritage, deserved the very best life had to offer.

She wanted picture books and sun-gilded tea parties, puppies and tender gardens for her baby. She wanted the
child to go to school and to learn manners and decorum. She wanted fine clothes and good healthy food and clean skin. Most of all, she wanted loving parents to nurture and guard the baby until the time was ripe for opening windows and setting the child free.

If she told Bart about their baby, would that make the difference for him? Would it pull him back from the brink on which he now balanced? Or would a child even matter to him?

How well Rosie knew that Bart had never experienced the love of a father. His mother certainly hadn’t given him the affection and gentleness he needed. So why should she think Bart would suddenly be filled with glowing images of fatherhood, as she was?

With a sigh, Rosie stood and went to the mirror over the washstand. As the dinner bell rang from the floor below her room, she brushed back strands of loose hair around her neck. What hope was left for her and the seed of life inside her? Even now Bart might be completing the plans that would destroy any dreams for happiness they had ever cherished.

With a weight of sadness heavy on her shoulders, Rosie left her room and made her way down the carpeted hall to the stairs. In the foyer, she followed the rest of the hotel guests into the dining room. Seated at a table by a window, she tried to make herself read the menu, but the words were a blur. She had just settled on chicken soup when a shout from a nearby table startled her.