The Texan and the Lady (34 page)

Jennie put her hands over her ears. She’d never been around guns much, and the sound of both Colton and Austin firing at once rang in her mind as if someone had installed a huge bell.

Glancing at Colton, she wondered how the man was still moving. The left side of his shirt was covered in blood from his wounds reopening, but his grip on the Colt seemed granite.

Suddenly shouts came from the barn. The huge doors flew open, and Colton’s men stormed out like rescuing cavalry in one of her dime novels. The remaining outlaws surrendered without another shot being fired. As quickly as the storm had started, it stopped, leaving the smell of sulfur and blood clouding the air.

Austin stood and helped Jennie to her feet. “It’s over, darling,” he announced as he watched Colton’s men rounding up the outlaws. “My job here is finally over.”

She could still hear the ringing in her ears. Looking out across the dusty yard, she saw Delta running toward the house, her skirts fighting her progress.

“Colton!” she screamed as she passed the hitching post. “Colton!”

Jennie looked at Barkley. He stood despite the pain and smiled as his wife cried his name. Using his hand, he tried to cover the blood on his shirt. When she reached him, she hugged him wildly, crying and laughing at the same time.

“I thought you were hurt,” he said questioningly in his rough voice.

“It’s nothing.” Delta didn’t stop hugging him as she raised her arm, bandaged between her elbow and wrist with what looked like a row of cotton lace from her petticoat.

Colton buried his head on her shoulder, and Delta held to him so tightly even death would have been afraid to claim her man.

“Easy.” Austin touched Delta’s shoulder, making no real effort to pull her back. “You’ll squeeze out what little blood’s left in him.”

Others joined them on the porch. Barkley put his arm around his wife, the Colt still gripped in his fingers. “How many hurt, Sam?” he asked in a voice only slightly softer than usual.

“Link took a bullet in the calf, and another brushed just over his eyebrow. A few of the fellows are carrying him from the barn now. We wanted to make sure it was safe first.” The foreman looked around, checking to ensure none of Lawton’s men were in the house. He continued. “West was hit in the hand.” Sam gave the report without emotion. He’d learned that was the way the boss wanted it. “Mrs. Barkley here has a few flesh wounds that’ll need tending. The rest are just black eyes and bruises that’ll heal fine.”

“Send someone to town to fetch Audrey,” Colton ordered. “Do what you can until she gets here. I want Link and West brought into the ranch house for care. We may have more men hurt on the range, so saddle up as soon as you can.”

“What about the doc?”

“I’ll put my money on Audrey.” Colton motioned for Austin to lift Delta off his shoulder. “Tell the redhead the stitching she did on me didn’t hold in one spot.”

“Yes, sir,” Sam answered. “I’ll send men to check on the lookouts and the others.”

“Tell them to get in as soon as they can.” Colton tried to straighten. He’d been very lucky to have only lost a little blood. “It’ll be raining by sundown.” With his last words he almost fell into Sam’s arms. The tall foreman lifted his boss and looked at Austin.

“If you’ve got a few men ready to ride,” Austin shoved his guns back into his holster and moved off the porch, “I’ll take care of these outlaws. We’ve got a jail just waiting for the likes of them.” He glanced back at Jennie. “I’ll be back. We need to talk.”

True appeared at Jennie’s side, hugging Jennie’s skirt as they watched Austin move away and Sam carry Colton into the house. “Were you afraid?” True asked.

“Yes,” Jennie whispered.

“Not me,” True lied. “I’ve been in tougher spots than this one and made it through. One time I was in the middle of this gunfight and all I had was a knife.”

“True!” Jennie smiled at the child. “Could you finish your tale later over a meal? Right now I need to help Delta.”

“You bet,” True answered. “Only this is the truth, I reckon.”

Jennie nodded. “When you finish the story, we’ll talk about a bath.”

True tried to pull away, but Jennie grabbed the ragamuffin by the shoulder. “No one as brave as you are needs to be worried about a little water.”

“I’m not afraid of nothin’.”

“Prove it!” Jennie challenged.

Three hours later, after helping Delta make Colton as comfortable as possible and tending several minor wounds, Jennie dragged the copper tub to the corner of the kitchen, near the stove. Before True finished the meal, Jennie started heating water for the child’s bath.

“I ain’t stripping in front of everyone,” True complained.

“There’s no one here but me,” Jennie answered as she pulled off the child’s coat. “If someone comes in, all I have to do is pull this blanket across and you’ve got all the privacy needed.” She lapped a quilt over a rope she’d strung between a hook on the fireplace and the top of a kitchen window. “But I’m keeping you in the same room with me because I’m not taking any chances of you not scrubbing down to the hide.”

Uninterested in True’s complaining, Jennie stripped off the first layer of clothes. Most of the dirt came with the garments. Shirt and pants came next, along with shoes that looked like they were three sizes too big for the child.

“Now, pull those long johns off and step into the tub.”

True slowly did as told, swearing every step of the way in broken curses. Climbing into the tub, the child covered her eyes waiting for the water to hit.

But Jennie just stood there, the bucket high in her hands looking as if she’d been frozen in mid-chore. True parted her fingers and opened her eyes. “Well!”

“You’re a girl!” Jennie whispered.

“Don’t make no crime out of it. A fellow can’t do nothing about that.”

Jennie set the bucket down. “True, you’re a girl. All this time we all thought you were a little boy.”

“I liked it that way. Folks leave a boy alone, but if they know you’re a girl, they think they got a right to see to your raising.”

Jennie laughed suddenly. “We’ve got a little while before Audrey gets through tending Colton. When she has time, are we going to have a surprise for her!”

True groaned as the water hit the top of her head full force. Jennie took to bathing the child as she’d taken to shooting. Full force and deadly.

An hour later not even True’s own mother would have recognized the child. Jennie had combed her hair and dressed her in a white shirt. True had refused to wear a dress, so they’d compromised with a pair of Link’s long-outgrown pants that were at least clean. Without the layers of clothes she looked so thin Jennie didn’t see how she could be more than six or seven at the most.

When Audrey arrived with Austin and Sheriff Morris, True stayed in the kitchen, embarrassed by her new outfit. No matter how many times Jennie told her she was pretty, True didn’t change. She’d learned a long time ago that girls couldn’t have half the fun as boys. She sat quietly at the table and drank her milk, silently plotting her escape. She’d be on the next train, before Jennie had time to burn her traveling clothes.

Audrey went straight to Colton’s room and ordered a bottle of whiskey delivered and shooed everyone out but Delta.

When Austin and Spider entered the kitchen, Morris smiled at True, but Austin paid her little attention. He wasn’t in the habit of talking to children, and little girls had always made him nervous. He could usually think of even less to say to them than he could to little boys. True, of course, was the exception; he could talk to that boy all day and still wonder who was learning more by the conversation.

“Want a cup of coffee?” Austin asked Spider as he moved to test the pot resting on the corner of the stove.

“Sure.” Spider sat down beside True. “How you doing, kid?”

“Fair,” True answered. “I’ve had better days. The gun-fight wasn’t so bad, but the bath liked to killed me.”

Spider laughed, and Austin sloshed coffee over his hand. He yelled and turned toward the table in disbelief.

“Who are you?” Austin slammed the hot pot down and moved to stand beside the little girl who sounded so much like True.

Spider looked up in disgust at Austin. “How long you going to deny this child, McCormick?” Spider’s voice was sharp. “She’s about the bravest, cutest little girl I’ve ever seen.”

“Girl!” Austin felt like his brain was full of coffee grounds. “Girl!”

“Oh, stop the farce. You know True is your child, and I think it’s pretty low of you and her mother to let the kid run around half-wild.”

“Father?” Austin rubbed his hand through his hair. He had to think. Hell, he had to say more than one word at a time. Slowly he looked from True to Spider Morris and said, “I’m her father? I’m True’s father?”

Spider got up to get his own cup of coffee. “I know that, son. I’ve known it for days, but I figured how a man and his woman raise their kid was none of my business.”

Austin stared at True, who raised both eyebrows and grinned like an innocent angel. Austin looked back at Spider. “I guess you know who the mother of my child is?” Austin was afraid to guess at this point.

“Of course.” Spider handed True half a cup of coffee and smiled as she added half milk. “I think Jennie Munday would have been a great mother. But you never know, when the father of her child ain’t willing to give her his name.”

Curiosity shoved astonishment aside. “Who told you all this?”

Morris shrugged. “True told me some. The rest I just put together. When you got all the pieces, it ain’t hard to figure out the whole picture. Only thing I ain’t got figured is why you haven’t married Jennie.”

Jennie stepped through the door as he finished. All she heard was her name. “What?” She smiled at both lawmen. “Oh, you’ve discovered my little surprise.” She’d hoped to tell them about True first.

Spider turned on her like a first-year lawyer in a murder case. “Are you or are you not the mother of this child, Jennie Munday?”

Jennie glanced at Austin, knowing he could prove she wasn’t. He alone knew she’d been a virgin the night she’d come to his bed.

Austin didn’t know what to say. If he told Spider she couldn’t be True’s mother, he’d be dishonoring their private love. If he didn’t tell, he’d have to stand by and let Jennie defend herself.

She looked to him for help, but he remained silent, unsure of what she wanted him to say.

After a long moment she turned to Spider. “I’m no more this child’s mother than Austin McCormick is the father.”

Spider slapped his hands together and hooted louder than a pack of wild coyotes. “That’s what I thought. I’m not as easy to fool as you young people might think.”

Jennie threw her hands up in disbelief. “Come on, True. I’m putting you to sleep in a real bed tonight, and don’t you dare even think of bedding down in the barn after I got you all cleaned up.” She pulled True through the room.

True swore as loud as she could over Spider’s laughter.

“And quit that language, son!” Austin yelled. “I mean, young lady.” He looked at Spider, but the old man just shook his finger and nodded his head like they were connected with a string and only operated in unison.

Austin glared at Morris. “Hell, I call True son the same way you call me son. I don’t mean blood kin.”

“Sure you don’t.” Spider giggled like an old gossip telling a lie.

“You’ve lost your mind, old man.” Austin turned his back to the sheriff. “If I’m True’s father, I’m hereby declaring you her grandfather. How do you like that?”

“That’s just fine with me, son. Your mother didn’t happen to be a black-eyed, fiery miss who lived in El Paso about the time of your birth, did she?”

“No.” Austin fought to keep from smiling. “But I’d like to hear that story sometime.”

Spider shrugged. “It was too long ago, and I was too drunk to remember the details even the next day.”

Austin couldn’t stay mad at the old man. He’d grown to care for him and would miss Spider Morris when he rode out. And he would be riding out in a few days, now that trouble was over. The fact hit him like a punch in his gut. For the first time he didn’t want to leave a place three days before he saddled up.

Austin swallowed the scalding coffee and tried not to think about leaving Jennie behind.

Spider grabbed his coat and shouted, “Going hunting! Want to come along?”

“It’ll be raining in half an hour,” Austin answered. “Whatever you’re hunting can wait till morning.”

“Not this.” Spider opened the back door. “I’ve waited six years for this.” He laid down his rifle and picked up the shovel by the porch.

Austin pulled on his coat and followed without asking any more questions.

THE FOLKS IN the kitchen hadn’t heard Colton swear when Audrey cleaned his reopened wound.

“I declare,” she said more to herself than him, “if you ain’t the orneriest man alive, I’d like to meet him. You should be dead, I figure, but you’re still kicking. This time when I say you’d best rest while this heals, you’d better follow orders.”

“Sorry to disappoint you about dying,” he said between swallows of whiskey. “It ain’t from lack of trying.”

Audrey took the bottle from his hand and downed a healthy gulp herself. “For medicinal purposes,” she added, then handed the bottle back to Colton. “You’d best take a few more swallows.”

Colton followed orders as Audrey continued. “Do you think you could stay healthy long enough for me to go over to Chicago and take the test to be a bona fide doctor?”

“You’ll be back before my child is born?” Colton looked at Delta and smiled.

“I don’t think I’d have to learn much more after all the practice I’ve had since I’ve been here. Some days I feel like I do more doctoring than cooking.”

“What about the blood?” Delta reminded her.

“It’s getting where it doesn’t worry me so, after I seen how much a man,” she pointed at Colton, “can lose and still keep kicking. Doc in town told me no one around would go to a woman, but I figure between the Harvey House and the Barkley ranch I could keep busy. Mrs. Gray offered to let me still live at the Harvey House. That way if the doctoring is slow, the rolls are good.”