Under Starry Skies (24 page)

He smiled and stood. “I guess you ladies have pretty much made up your minds, and there will be no room for me to disagree. I want to thank you for all you’ve done, Miss O’Donnell.”

“I have done nothing, Mr. Sanderson. I just take a child’s talents and work with what he has. Your son has been blessed with many talents. As for the gifts, you must realize we’ve all fallen under his charming spell.” She grinned, then paused a moment, thinking. “Oh, I almost forgot. Abigail needs wood at the inn. She said they have more overnight guests than she originally planned and will be burning wood in the fireplaces. She wanted to be certain there’s enough for the kitchen and barroom stoves since she’s expecting additonal guests to arrive later this week. She’s taken a fancy to the sweet smell of the dried apple you delivered a few weeks ago.”

River Roy grunted. “It’s good to see the Mule Shed Inn busy again. I saw Emma coming out of the backdoor the other morning when I delivered some kindling for the kitchen stoves and was stacking it nearby. It wasn’t even daylight yet. She was headed home, lantern in hand. She said she was checking on the linens and guests.”

Maria shrugged as a niggling thought surfaced in her head. Last weekend the Mule Shed Inn didn’t have any guests. Last weekend she had helped Abigail clean rooms and organize the wine cellar. Check on the laundry? Abigail was doing the laundry today.

Later, after River Roy and Lenny had left, Maria tidied up her desk and set out for the cottage, meeting Tye on the path heading her way. He removed his hat and wound his hands around her waist lifting her off her feet as he soundly kissed her. When he came up for air, Maria laughed. “Put me down before someone sees us.”

“I don’t care if the whole world sees I’m in love with you.” He kissed her again but set her on her feet. “I just helped with the most spectacular birth in an Apache camp near here, and I’m hankering for a slew of kids.”

“Don’t you want to work for the army?” she asked. “You could probably help a lot of people. Brett said you’re very talented with languages.”

He shook his head. “Nah, once you’ve lived on the land and understand its moods, its sounds and smells, its seasons, it gets in your blood. I can never leave ranching.”

Together, they continued to the cottage and found Abigail and Brett sitting at the table reading a stack of old letters. They looked exactly like the ones she’d seen in the trunk in her aunt’s attic.

“How did you get those?” Maria asked.

“Shhh…” Abigail pointed to the crate beside the cook stove where the puppy slept.

“A puppy,” Maria whispered in awe and knelt by the crate. “Is it ours?”

“Yes. Shhhh!” she whispered. “We let him have the run of the kitchen, and the poor little thing was so confused he kept crashing and smashing into everything. I think he wore himself out.”

“He’s a gift to you and Abigail from Tye,” Brett explained as his gaze moved to Tye. “How’d it go with the Apaches?”

Tye smiled and gave an evasive shrug. “Just a small band left behind from a bigger one moving south who needed some help with a mother having trouble delivering twin boys. Ironically, Cullen Wade moved in to town a couple of weeks ago and was agreeable to take a ride with me to see if he could help with the delivery. Both mother and squalling sons are going to be fine. The band is allowing them a day’s rest and then is moving onward tomorrow morning. The tribe sees the twins as a good omen. I only wish the mother could get more rest.” He shook his head.

Maria stood, grinning from ear to ear, and wrapped her arm around his waist. “The puppy’s beautiful, Tydall. Thank you.” She stood on tiptoes and kissed his cheek.

He nodded, and the slightest smile formed on his lips. “He may be a handful. Swamp wasn’t easy the first year. He was a bundle of motion and nerves.” He looked curiously at the letters on the table.

“Brett stole them from the trunk in Aunt Emma’s attic,” Abigail explained.

“What do you mean by
I
stole them?” He looked up with narrowed eyes. “You were running the diversion in the kitchen, keeping Millie busy.”

Abigail related the conversation and their antics at the manse. “And there were no Confederate buttons missing from the uniform either.”

“Nor is there any useful information in these letters that could help us discover who killed Henry McNeil.” Brett frowned.

Tye’s gaze circled the group. “You two hooligans stole them for nothing? I’d love to hear your plan for getting them back in Emma’s attic.”

“It gets better.” Abby turned to Maria. “We have to milk Aunt Emma’s cow every evening in order to get an extra quart of milk for the puppy, and we have to give her a few of our eggs.”

Maria slumped down in a chair by the table and held her head in her hands. She couldn’t believe what she had just heard. Before her Abigail and Brett grinned at each other like bumbling simpletons, each looking like the proverbial cat swallowing the canary.

“And these two run businesses?” She looked at Tye with a bewildered frown.

“Yep, unfortunately.”

“They connive. They steal,” she said in an exhausted voice, “and the results of their shenanigans mean more work for
me
?”

“Yep, it does appear that’s their plan.”

“I beg you, Tydall, do not leave them alone ever again. Do you hear me?”

****

It was dark when Maria and Abigail headed to Aunt Emma’s stable with a lantern and pail to milk the cow. They took the old worn path winding through the backyard and lined with dense growth to the barn where the earth smelled of damp earth and sharp pine. Earlier, Maria had given Two Bears another lesson behind the shed. An avid, quick learner, he was getting very proficient in recognizing word combinations and figuring out sounds without much help. When the lesson had ended, Maria had confided in Two Bears about the warning she’d received on the chalkboard. He wouldn’t betray her trust, and she desperately needed someone else’s thoughts and advice. The recent happenings made her feel as if she swallowed an ornery cat, and it was clawing its way upward.

“Two Bears,” she had said, “my father always told me to make friends before you need them.”

“He was a wise man.” Two Bears nodded and put his book aside. “What is bothering you, teea-cher?”

“I’ve received a threatening note on the chalkboard in the school house telling me to leave Golden and go home. I think the first time Tye Ashmore and I were shot at on the mountain and later the bag of snakes along the road—”

“—were meant for you?” His sharp, dark eyes looked at her intently, wordlessly. His face was sober like granite and revealed nothing of what he was thinking. Finally he spoke, “You may well have an enemy.”

Maria nodded and felt a wave of apprehension sweep over her. “I believe I do, unless it’s a student playing tricks on me.”

“Even one enemy can be harmful.”

“Yes, and to make things worse, I don’t have any idea who the enemy might be, Two Bears.”

“Abigail? Has she received threats?”

Maria shook her head. A cold knot formed in the pit of her stomach, and she fought to keep her trembling hands steady as she clasped them around the edge of the book in her lap. “I have to learn to shoot,” she admitted. Tears welled up in her eyes.

Two Bears laid a hand on her trembling ones to still her. “Listen closely. You must tell Tye Ashmore and those you trust. You must always carry a weapon. Do not take chances. Do not be foolish. Foolish men are the first to die. Take a different path to the school each morning. We need to find your enemy.”

“I don’t know how.” Maria gave a choked, desperate laugh. She watched Two Bears stare with a hawklike gaze at the forest leading toward the stables of the manse, then let his eyes encircle the entire wooded area at the edge of the yard.

Finally he spoke in a calm steady voice, “Enemies are not always wise enemies. They get careless. Then we will find him…or he will reveal himself.”

Now, as she and Abigail walked down to the barn, she relayed all the information she had told Two Bears. “Let’s discuss it some more when we’re back at the cottage,” she warned as soon as they arrived at the barn. She didn’t want anyone to eavesdrop. Swinging open the solid double doors, she folded both back against the building, propping them open with rocks. Then she remembered Two Bears warning about not taking chances. She bent, lit her lantern, then proceeded inside where she lit three more lanterns hanging on hooks beside the stalls. Yellow light spilled down the rows of stalls on each side of the barn. She picked up the three-legged stool along the way, went to the cow, settled herself, and began milking. The steady swish and ping of the milk hitting the pail filled the barn with a calming, repetitious noise. Farther down the middle walkway, she heard Abigail say, “Brett thinks he might be able to get us a nice carriage and horse at a good price. A family is headed to California in the next few weeks, and Joe Sarowski is selling it for them. He’s going to see him tomorrow.”

Abigail strolled to the end of the barn and started back, looking into the vacant stalls on the opposite side. “Will Singer is sure we can use one of these stalls if we clean it out. I’ll check to see if I can find one without a lot of junk piled in it. We can take a weekend morning to work. I can’t believe this is in such a disastrous state. Lang Redford has two men to help him.”

“I can’t imagine Aunt Emma allowing anyone to keep anything at the house or in the barn next to it,” Maria replied and stood, talking over the back of the cow. “All the junk was probably brought down here or stored in the attic.”

“Yes, and a lot of this gear and belongings are from the men who work for Emma or the Mule Shed. We try to keep the inn’s stables as clear as possible for guests’ mounts or carriage horses.”

Maria set the pail aside, smoothed down her skirt, and grabbed a pitchfork. She took a forkful of hay from a nearby pile and tossed it in the cow’s manger. “There you go, Blossom,” she said soothingly. She patted the cow on the neck. “Have a good night, you ol’ gentle girl.”

“Over here,” she heard Abigail call to her. “Bring the lantern, will you?”

Pitch fork still in hand, Maria went to the open stall where Abigail had disappeared.

“Look!” Abigail explained. “A trunk!”

“And not ours.” Maria shook her head, leaning against the pitchfork, its tines dug into the barn floor. “Haven’t you learned your lesson from the escapade with the letters in Aunt Emma’s attic?”

“Oh, horsefeathers, Maria.” A grin spread over Abigail’s animated features. “Aren’t you curious?”

“The trunk has a lock on it,” Maria warned again.

“But this is all abandoned rubbish—dry-rotted, rusted, and without any sensible order.”

“Still, the trunk doesn’t belong to us.” Maria watched in dismay as Abigail removed a hairpin from her hair and bent over the rusty lock. In a matter of seconds, she had sprung the lock and removed it from the hasp.

“I mean it,
Abigail
…” She blew out a disgruntled breath. “Oh, please don’t ever tell anyone you pick locks.”

Abigail waved her hand to silence her. “Hush. You know how to do it, too, only you’re always so afraid of getting caught!”

“Thus, a good reason
not
to do it,” Maria countered.

“But this is worthless junk.” Abigail threw open the trunk’s lid. Inside piles of men’s shoes, belts and clothing were packed away with wool blankets, old tin plates, and a battered hat. From the corner of the trunk, Abigail pulled out a Confederate coat and held it up to the lantern’s yellow light. She stared at it a moment, her face bleaching white. “Oh, my. Oh, dear,” she said in a low breath. “It’s missing a button.”

The whinny of a horse approaching from outside the barn sent them scrambling to refold the coat and jam it back into the trunk, snapping the lock into place. With only minute to spare, they hurried outside the stall and shut the door.

Leading his horse, Lang Redford came sauntering into the barn. He stopped short when he encountered both women. His dense, little ratlike eyes looked suspiciously at them. He spit some chew onto the barn floor. “I wondered why all the lanterns were lit.”

“We came down to milk the cow,” Maria stammered.

“The cow is over there.” Redford jerked a thumb over his shoulder and down the aisle toward the front of the barn where Blossom had already lain down for the night.

“We’ve already milked her,” Maria said.

“Then what were you still doing here?”

Abigail came to her rescue. “Brett Trumble is hoping to get us a carriage and horse for a good price. We thought we could stable it in one of the empty stalls once we clear it out. There’s no room at the Mule Shed, and we only have a lean-to at the cottage.”

“And where would you two ladies get enough money to buy a horse and carriage?” Redford scoffed. “I hear, the Mule Shed is barely making ends meet, and you, schoolmarm, are lucky you make enough to put a sack of potatoes on the table.”

“Where did you hear such nonsense?” Abigail stepped forward brazenly. “We are doing just fine at the inn. Every day we get more people for dinner and more people stopping for the night to rent a room.” She looked at Maria. Her face was clouded with an uneasy, unsettling expression.

“Let’s go, Abby.” Maria pulled her sister by the arm. “I doubt Mr. Redford wants us to bore him with the operations of the inn. We’ve milk to put away in the spring house, and we have to feed the pup.”

“Now you don’t have to hurry off, little ladies, on my account.” Lang Redford stepped forward and blocked their escape.

Maria could smell the whiskey on his breath. She wished she had a gun in her apron. Tye and Two Bears were right; she needed to be armed. She tipped the pitchfork upside down, tines pointing upward, handle on the barn floor. “You need to bed down your horse, Mr. Redford. Looks like he’s had a long ride.”

When Redford made no motion to let them pass, she warned in a confident voice she hardly felt. “I have school work to do.” She gestured for Abigail to leave and started to brush past him, following her, when his hand shot out to stop her. It was at that very moment a large yellow tabby cat came sailing through the air into the barn as if it had wings. The old she cat let out a long, low screeching sound, tumbled under the horse, before righting herself and scrambling out between the its front legs. Startled, the horse reared back, almost tearing the reins from Lang Redford’s hand. In the ensuing commotion, Maria managed to grab the milk pail, set the pitchfork aside, and slip out the door with her sister, leaving Redford struggling to calm the agitated horse.