The Law and Miss Penny (4 page)

"...Cain?"

Yes, he thought. That had to be it. That was the word he kept hearing over and over as he clawed his way back to consciousness. These folks, whoever they were, had been calling him by name, trying to get him to wake up. Yes, of course, that was it-something that finally made sense. He said the name again, testing it, sounding a lot more confident than he felt. "My name is Cain."

Cain?
Mariah thought incredulously. Was it possible the man didn't even know who he was? She bit back a smile. "That's your name all right, Cain. I guess you're not in as bad a shape as we first thought you were."

Zack and Oda exchanged puzzled glances, but kept their silence. As his daughter's amused gaze met his, Zack slowly nodded and gestured for her to continue talking with the marshal.

"What else do you remember?" she asked, expecting little as she saw the utter confusion in his eyes. "What about a last name? Do you know what that is?"

Of course he knew what a last name was, he thought. Did she think that he'd completely lost his mind? He knew a lot of things. For starters, he was lying alongside the road, one that looked familiar. He'd traveled this trail several times before, he was sure of it. Looking up at the sky to study the shapes and colors of the clouds, he could also claim knowledge of exactly when to expect the next downpour—soon.

What he didn't know was his own height, weight, or the color of his eyes. He saw that the woman peering down at him had violet eyes and black hair, and for all he knew, so did he. He glanced at his boots, knowing without question that his toes were pointing due south. Yes, he knew plenty. But he had no earthly idea what the full name of the man inside those damn boots could be.

"Cain," he said in a defeated whisper. "My name is Cain."

Mariah sat back on her heels, her expression now more than simply amused, and then looked at both her mother and father, giving them a quick wink. If a man ever deserved to be brought down a peg or two, it was this one. Besides that, he had cost them at least a hundred dollars by running the medicine show out of Bucksnort before it had even begun. He owed them that much in labor, if nothing else. And Zack could use some rest. As long as Slater's memory was faulty—and there was no way of telling how long that might be—he would be whoever they told him he was and do whatever they said... including, serving as a guinea pig for Mariah to test her new nostrums.

As she contemplated the perfect name for the lawman to go along with her perfect plans for him, a glint of gold at the edge of his vest caught Mariah's eye. When she recognized the object poking out from beneath the rawhide as his U.S. marshal's badge, her grin widened. Perfect. Not only had she found him a name, but another way to test his memory as well.

Biting her lip to keep from snickering, Mariah said, "Your name is... Law. Cain Law."

Law?
He rolled the surname around in his mind, seeking a comfortable slot, a ring of truth. Law. It felt right and sounded right, too. It fit him as well as his broke-in boots.

Gripped with a kind of savage joy, sure that his complete memory would return now, Cain bolted upright, forgetting about the low, throbbing ache at the back of his head. Lightning flashes went off inside his skull, scalding his brain with their brilliant light. His body went rigid, and he collapsed against the rain-soaked roadway. And then, once again, nothing. Merciful, cold, nothing.

* * *

The rain started up again, this time in earnest. Oda and Zack fashioned a litter out of a canvas flap from the tent they lived in while on the road, and then Mariah helped them carry the marshal to the medicine wagon. Several aborted attempts and strained muscles later, they finally managed to heft the lawman's 200-odd pounds into the rig. Once inside, they unceremoniously dumped him on Mariah's bed. Then they went up the road a short distance, searching for a place to stay for the next day or two.

Before long, Oda spotted a wide flat spot not far off the trail, and they decided to set up camp there. As he did during inclement weather or whenever he feared the family's safety might be at risk, Zack butted the rear opening of the tent against the back of the wagon, creating a two-room home where privacy was maintained, but help was within shouting distance. Tonight Mariah would sleep in the tent with her father and mother instead of in her bed in the medicine wagon. If the lawman should awaken or need further assistance, at least one of the Pennys would hear him.

The A-shaped tent was large enough to contain at least a dozen adults comfortably, and in fact, had been used on occasion to house the medicine show during surprise snowstorms and downpours. A little sheepherder's stove, its cylindrical black chimney stack sprouting through an opening at the side of the tent, served as both fireplace and grill. Amid intermittent raindrops splattering against the cloth roof above her, Daisy trotted up beside the stove, plopped her muddy body down on the canvas floor, and then stretched out to warm herself.

Hobbling to the center of the room, Zack hung a lantern from a strap dangling down for that purpose, and lit it. Then he turned to his family, his concern reflected in his haggard features, and said, "I'd be handing both you gals some mighty tall talk if I didn't admit that I'm a mite worried about keeping the marshal around. Now that we got the poor fellah cleaned up and into one of his own flannel shirts, maybe we ought to wait for the weather to clear and just dump him at the side of the road somewheres along the way."

Mariah laughed. "And waste all those big muscles? Didn't you notice the size of that man's shoulders?"

"Ayuh, and I plainly did, young lady. That's exactly what I'm a-worried about. That young fellah could squash the lot of us flatter than one of the missus's griddle cakes with just a short thump of his fist."

Oda, who was fanning the fire, cast a sleepy-eyed gaze in her husband's direction and furrowed her brow, but kept her comments to herself.

"It'll be all right, Dad," Mariah said, referring to him with a rarely used term. She tried never to call Zack or Oda by anything other than their given names due to the confusion it could cause during a show. "Really it will, and besides—I've thought of one more way we could use him." She hadn't figured on mentioning her further plans for the lawman, but now it seemed prudent to do so. She leaned in close to both Zack and Oda, making sure their "guest" wouldn't overhear. "I'm about ready to test a few new recipes. I thought I'd let the marshal be the first to try them."

Zack rolled his eyes, and Oda groaned.

"It's not such a crazy idea. Some of the new things I'm working on require a different kind of testing, that's all." She paused, wondering how to explain herself without actually mentioning the secret nostrum she'd been developing of late. One mention of the term "love potion," and her very protective father would send her recipe and her plans for the future up in smoke.

She would have to nudge him a little by dangling one of his fondest dreams under his nose. "I want to keep what I'm working on a secret a while longer, if you don't mind, but I can tell you part of my plans. If this nostrum turns out to be as special as I think it is, we'll finally see one of our products advertised in the pages of
Godey's Lady's Book
—maybe even in the
Bloomingdale Brothers' Catalog
along with Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound."

Zack's whistle was long and low. As before, Oda only groaned.

Sure that her father's endorsement was no longer a problem, Mariah turned to her mother. "It isn't so hard to believe that this nostrum will be popular enough to wind up in a national magazine. Lydia Pinkham must have started out with something like that, and look how big her company got. What's wrong with using the marshal a little to help us on our way—or have you taken a shine to the man?"

"Humph! That'll be the day." Oda turned to her husband. "I'm with Mariah. We might as well get our money's worth out of the man for as long as we can."

Zack rubbed the sparse whiskers on his chin, as he pondered this. "All right then, but Mariah, listen up. You can't let yourself forget who he is and what he might do should you poison him or something. He is a U.S. marshal, you know, and one day, he's bound to remember that."

Mariah laughed. "Don't worry—even though I'd like to, I promise I won't poison him. Besides, how can testing my new products on an injured man be against the law? I'm only trying to cure him."

"I hope he sees it that way when he wakes up. Which reminds me—when he does come around, I think we ought to tell him who he really is. I'm not sure calling the man Cain Law instead of the name his dear mother gave him is gonna bode so well for us once his memory returns."

"But we can't do that. Don't you see?" Afraid the lawman might wake up and overhear them, Mariah lowered her voice. "If we tell him he's a U.S. marshal and give him his true name, he'd probably attach our wagon and make us take him back to wherever he came from. We'd lose the whole show season for sure."

"She's right, Zachariah." Oda, never one to waste a lot of words, wiped her hands on a towel and shot a wary glance toward the back door of the medicine wagon. "There's only one thing we got to worry about if we keep him with us, and that's her." She pointed a pudgy finger at her daughter.

Knowing exactly what his wife was referring to, Zack sighed. "That's something else we got to think about, baby. What if you can't fend the man off, should he take it in his head to have carnival ideas about you the way that crazy Buck Christman did a while back?"

"That's
carnal
ideas, Dad."

"Carnal, carnival—it don't make much difference what you call it if'n he takes it in his head to pin you down and have his way with you, now does it?"

Mariah thought back to the pawings she'd endured while Buck was in their employ, the constant hassles she and Zack had put up with until they'd decided keeping the banjo player with the troupe simply wasn't worth the trouble. Those memories, coupled with the possible results her potion might bring, almost made Mariah change her impulsive plans for the marshal. Then an extraordinarily simple solution struck her.

"I have it," she said, louder than was wise under the circumstances. Whispering again, she went on. "As long as he doesn't know who he is or what his past was all about, it's up to us to tell him, isn't it?"

Zack gave her an uneasy nod. "Ayuh."

"Then why not make him a blood relative?" She paused, trying to think of the perfect family connection, one that would keep the marshal at arm's length but would also prove the potency of her love potion. A cousin, perhaps. Yes. If a man like Slater were to take a liking to her, if he could accept her as his kin and even show a little more interest in her than he ought to, that would be proof enough that her potion worked.

"Why don't we make him my good old cousin, Cain, who joined us to learn the business. How do you like it?"

Zack pursed his thin lips and frowned.

Oda shook her head, grumbling to herself.

"It'll work," Mariah insisted, addressing her mother. "We'll just tell him he belongs to your brother Thomas. He's believed everything else. Why not that?"

Oda stiffened at the mention of her family.

Sliding his arm across her shoulders, Zack gave his wife a little squeeze as he said to Mariah, "Go on."

"There's nothing to go on about. If he's my cousin, he'll just naturally have to leave me be."

Zack glanced at Oda. "That gonna be all right with you?"

She shrugged. "I expect."

Zack gave her a short nod, and sighed in surrender. He never denied Mariah anything if he could possibly help it. "I reckon it might just work at that, but you'd best understand that I'm a-leaving the care and feeding of that man up to you, young lady. If he don't fit in or makes more trouble than he's worth, we'll just be getting rid of him any ole way we have to. Agreed?"

Mariah beamed. "Agreed. Mother?"

"Agreed. Now that we got that all settled, I'd like to get out of these wet clothes." Oda cocked her thumb, inviting her husband and daughter to give her some privacy.

Zack headed for the entrance of the tent. "I'll go on outside and secure that sorrel for the night. Guess while I'm at it I'd best check the saddlebags to make sure I found all the marshaling papers that fellah had on him." He reached into his shirt pocket, withdrew the shiny badge, and tossed it to his wife. "Find a good place to hide this, will you, woman?" Then he stepped out through the flap and into the tail end of the latest cloudburst.

Alerted by the sudden blast of cold air, Daisy got up from her warm bed, yawned loudly, then shook herself off and trotted out the flap behind Zack.

Mariah started up the back steps of the medicine wagon. "I'm going to check on the marsh—" She corrected herself, "—dear Cousin Cain to see if he needs any more salve or a fresh bandage."

"Careful in there." Oda warned her daughter before Mariah disappeared from her sight.

Once inside the wagon, Mariah stood very still in the darkness, listening to the lawman breathe, and picked out his strong masculine scent in the normally floral aroma of her tiny quarters. Although the wooden walls stretched to accommodate a ceiling of just over six feet, the actual bed of the wagon was ten feet long, the width not quite seven, and every inch of space had to be used in the most efficient manner possible.