The Rustler (4 page)

“You're staying right here,” Rowdy told Gideon, but his tone lacked conviction. Like as not, Gideon would get his way.

Meanwhile, Wyatt saw his dream of settling down, living under his own name instead of yet another alias, marrying up with a woman like Sarah and raising kids and cattle, scatter into the air like the fluff from a dandelion head. As soon as Rowdy and Sam O'Ballivan rode out, he would, too—heading in the opposite direction.

He should have known he couldn't live in the open, like ordinary men.

Rowdy handed the telegraph operator a coin and dismissed him with a muttered “Thanks” and a distracted wave of one hand, reading the message again.

“If you're going to Haven,” Lark said firmly, getting to her feet, swinging the baby onto her hip in the same motion, “so are Hank and I.”

“Who's going to mind Stone Creek?” Wyatt asked, not because he cared much about the answer, but because he thought Rowdy might get suspicious if he didn't say something. “Is there a deputy?”

A slow grin broke across Rowdy's strained, thoughtful face. “Yes,” he said. “I'm looking at him.”

Wyatt felt hot color rush up his neck. “Me?”

Rowdy nodded. “You,” he said.

At last, Wyatt stood. “I don't know anything about being a lawman,” he protested, but carefully. “Until two years ago, I had a price on my head.”

“So did I, at one time,” Rowdy said, unfazed. He could be like an old dog mauling a soup bone when he wanted something. Changing his mind wouldn't be easy, if it was possible at all. “Turned out pinning on a badge was my salvation,” he said, catching Lark's eye as she set the baby down on the rug beside the dog and moved to begin clearing the table. “That and a good woman willing to take a chance on a former train robber.”

Lark blushed prettily. “If you think you're going to charm me out of going to Haven, Rowdy Yarbro,” she said, “you are sadly mistaken. As soon as I've done these dishes, I mean to pack for the trip.”

“Gideon will take care of the dishes,” Rowdy said. He was watching Wyatt again, though, and there was something disconcerting in his eyes, an intent, measuring expression. They hadn't talked about the months between Wyatt's release and his arrival in Stone Creek—there hadn't been time. But Rowdy was a hard man to fool, and he clearly had his suspicions.

Gideon banged the dishes and cutlery around in the sink, but he didn't protest the washing-up.

“It might be better if I just moved on,” Wyatt said. “I'm not cut out to uphold the law. Hell, it's all I can do to stay on the right side of it. You know that.”

“Stone Creek is a quiet town,” Rowdy answered easily. “Most you'd run up against would be drunken cowboys, or railroad workers whooping it up on a Saturday night.”

Gideon grumbled something about getting shot at a dance, and did Rowdy call
that
quiet? But Wyatt was too focused on staring down the marshal of Stone Creek to pursue the matter right then.

“Gideon Yarbro,” Lark called from the bedroom, where she could be heard opening and shutting bureau drawers, “if you break one of my good dishes slamming them around like that, I'll horsewhip you from one end of Main Street to the other!”

Exasperated, Wyatt shoved his hands into the hip pockets of his borrowed denim pants. Everything he was wearing, save his boots, pistol and gun belt—he'd left that outside out of deference to Lark—belonged to Rowdy. He sure hadn't counted on adding
a badge
to the getup. “Why is a lynching in some other town any of your concern, anyhow?” he asked.

“I wrote you about it,” Rowdy said, still watching Wyatt a little too closely for his liking. “Told you what happened there.”

Wyatt's mouth went dry. “I guess that particular letter didn't catch up with me,” he said. He and Rowdy had written each other on and off for years, but it was a scattershot sort of thing. He'd ride into a town, stop in at the post office if there happened to be one, and inquire if there was mail for him, sent care of general delivery. Sometimes, there was. More often, there wasn't.

A month ago, he'd wound up in Tucson, and there was a letter waiting from Rowdy, full of news about Lark and the baby and his job in Stone Creek. He'd related the story of Pappy's death, and said if Wyatt wanted honest work, a friend of his named Sam O'Ballivan was always looking for cowpokes.

At the time, Wyatt had regarded that letter as a fluke of the postal system.

Now, he figured Rowdy must have figured he'd wind up in the Arizona Territory eventually, maybe looking for Pappy, and wished he'd never set foot in the post office in Tucson. Or, better yet, thrown in with the likes of Billy Justice before Rowdy offered him a fresh start.

“I can't stay, Rowdy,” he said.

“You'll stay,” Rowdy said.

“What makes you so damn sure?”

“That old nag of yours is practically dead on his feet. He doesn't have another long ride in him.”

“He made it here, didn't he?”

Rowdy didn't seem to be listening. “I've got a spare gelding out there in the barn. You can ride him if you see the need. Name's Sugarfoot, and he'll throw you if you try to mount up on the right side.”

“When it comes to riding out, one horse is as good as another,” Wyatt said, but he was thinking of old Reb, the paint gelding, and how sorry he'd be to leave him behind. They'd been partners since that turn of the cards in Abilene, after all, and Wyatt would have been in a fine fix without him.

“You're a lot of things, Wyatt,” Rowdy reasoned, “but a horse thief isn't among them. Especially when the horse in question belongs to me.”

Wyatt scowled, said nothing. He was fresh out of arguments, at the moment. Hadn't kept up on his arguing skills, the way Rowdy had.

Rowdy saw his advantage and pressed it. “And then there's Sarah Tamlin,” he said.

“What about Sarah Tamlin?” Lark asked, appearing in the bedroom doorway with a fat satchel in one hand.

Wyatt glared at Rowdy.

Rowdy merely grinned.

“She smokes cigars,” Wyatt said lamely. “You told me that yourself, just yesterday. Plays poker, too. Gives a man second thoughts.”

“She does
not
smoke cigars,” Lark insisted.

“So it's true about the poker!” Rowdy said, in an ah-ha tone of voice.

“I wouldn't know,” Lark said, with an indignant sniff.

“I heard she was a member of the Tuesday Afternoon Ladies Only Secret Poker Society,” Gideon said, looking smug. “And she's not the only one. It might surprise you who goes to those meetings.”

Rowdy chuckled.

“Gideon,” Lark warned.

He turned back to the sink, flushed, and scrubbed industriously at the kettle Lark had used to boil up the morning's oatmeal.

“It's just a rumor,” Lark told Rowdy. “Respectable women do not play poker.
Or
smoke cigars.”

“Whatever you say, dear,” Rowdy replied sweetly.

Wyatt just shook his head, confounded.

“Come on,” Rowdy said to him, beckoning. “I'll show you around town. Sam can swear you in when he gets here. What I do is, I count the horses in front of the saloons. If there're more than a dozen, I keep a closer eye on the place—”

Wyatt followed, since that seemed like the only thing to do.

 

“T
HERE
,”
SAID
S
ARAH
, straightening her father's tie outside the door of his office at the bank, grateful that the place was empty at the moment. Thomas, the only teller, had gone out when they arrived. The train would be pulling in at the new depot within an hour, pausing only long enough to swap mailbags with the postmaster and take on any passengers who might be waiting on the platform—or drop off new arrivals.

It was Thomas's job, at least in part, to rush back to the bank and report to Sarah if any important visitors showed up. She was always on the lookout for unexpected stockholders.

“I'll handle things, Papa,” Sarah assured her father, who had turned fretful again after breakfast. She was fairly certain he hadn't seen her stuff his army uniform behind the wooden barrel of the washing machine on the back porch, but she wasn't absolutely sure. “If someone comes in to open an account or inquire about a loan, let me do the talking. I'll say you're busy. All you have to do is sit at your desk, with your papers—if they insist on greeting you personally, I'll be careful to call them by name so you know what to—”

“Sarah.” Ephriam looked pained.

“Papa, you know you forget.”

Just then, the street door opened with a crash, and Thomas burst in. Plump, with a constellation of smallpox scars spilling down one side of his face, he seemed on the verge of panic.

“Sarah!” he gasped, from the threshold, one fleshy hand pressed to his chest. “It's
him
—the man in the photograph you showed me—”

Sarah's knees turned to water. “No,” she said, leaning against her father for a moment. “He couldn't possibly have—”

“It's him,” Thomas repeated.

“Calm down,” Sarah said hastily. “Remember your asthma.”

Thomas struggled to a wooden chair, in front of the window, and sat there sucking in air like a trout on a creek bank. “S-Sarah, wh-what are we going to d-do—?”

“What,” Ephriam interjected, suddenly forceful, “is happening?”

Even in her agitation, Sarah felt a stab of sorrow, because she knew her father wouldn't be his old self for more than a few minutes. When the inevitable fog rolled in, shrouding his mind again, she'd miss him more keenly than ever.

“You're going to take Papa home,” she told Thomas, who had begun a moderate recovery—of sorts. He wasn't sweating quite as much as he had been when he rushed in, and his breathing had slowed to a slight rasp. “Go out the back way, and stay off Main Street.”

Gamely, Thomas got to his feet again. Lumbered toward them.

When he took Ephriam's arm, though, the old man pulled free. “Unhand me,” he said. “This is an outrage!”

Sarah's mind was racing wildly through a series of possibilities, all of which were disastrous, but she'd had a lot of experience dealing with imminent disaster, and she rose to the occasion.

“Papa,” she said, “poor Thomas is feeling very ill. It's his asthma, you know. If you don't get him to Doc Venable,
quickly,
he could—” she paused, laid a hand to her bosom, fingers splayed, and widened her eyes
“—perish!”

“Great Scot,” Ephriam boomed, taking Thomas by one arm and dragging him toward the front door, and the busy street outside, “the man needs medical attention! There's not a moment to spare!”

Thomas cast a pitiable glance back at Sarah.

She closed her eyes, offered a hopeless prayer that Charles Elliott Langstreet the Third would get lost between the depot and the bank, and waited for the Apocalypse.

By the time Charles actually arrived, she was quite composed, at least outwardly, though faintly queasy and probably pale. She might have gotten through the preliminary encounter by claiming she was fighting off a case of the grippe, but as it turned out, Charles didn't come alone.

He'd brought Owen with him.

Sarah's heart lurched, caught itself like a running deer about to tumble down a steep hill. Perched on a stool behind the counter, in Thomas's usual place, a ledger open before her, she nearly swooned.

Owen.

Ten years old now, blond like his imperious father, but with his grandfather's clear, guileless blue eyes.

The floor seemed to tilt beneath the legs of Sarah's stool. She gripped the edge of the counter to steady herself.

Charles smiled, enjoying her shock. He was handsome as an archangel, sophisticated and cruel, the cherished—and only—son of a wealthy family. And he owned a thirty percent interest in the Stockman's Bank.

Owen studied her curiously. “Are you my aunt Sarah?” he asked.

Tears burned in Sarah's eyes. She managed a nod, but did not trust herself to speak. If she did, she would babble and blither, and scare the child to death.

“Surprised?” Charles asked smoothly, still watching Sarah closely, his chiseled patrician lips taking on a sly curve.

“We came all the way from Philadelphia on a train,” Owen said, wide-eyed over the adventure. “I was supposed to spend the summer at school, but they sent me packing for putting a stupid girl down the laundry chute.”

Sarah blinked, found her voice. “Was she hurt?” she croaked, horrified.

“No,” Owen said, straightening his small shoulders. He was wearing a tweed coat and short pants, and he seemed to be sweltering. “She did the same thing to Mrs. Steenwilder's cat, so I showed her how it felt.”