A Restless Wind

by Brandt, Siara

  “Marsten comes along aimin’ to bite the kid’s head off and tells him that if he ever caught him messing with his saddle again, he’d give him a lesson he wouldn’t forget. That’s when Will slammed the barn door on his fingers. He was scared and in a hurry to get away from Marsten.

  “Marsten didn’t see Emma up there in the loft. She said he just stood there with a mean, ugly smirk on his face, watching while Will ran to the house.

  “Oh, yeah,” Pierce breathed. “Marsten can be one cold-hearted bastard. It’s right amazin’ how much of a polecat a man can be when he’s got it in him. Hetty doesn’t know because Marsten has never let her see that side of him.

  “I’m not saying all I know,” Pierce said low-voiced as his chin went outward in a sudden thrust. “But before long I reckon I’ll be blabbing the truth all over the county,” he said with a mysterious air. “And then see if Hetty gives him the time of day.”

  The worst of the storm was over, but rain was still falling softly while thunder and lightning moved off towards the distant hills. Pierce and Jesse had had a long night of it, rounding up frightened horses and repairing a section of fence in the driving rain.

  Hetty walked into the kitchen and called Will, who, for the last two hours, had been playing quietly on the back porch. She stopped in the doorway of the porch and called him again. Will did not immediately get up, which perplexed Hetty because he was usually such an obedient child. She got the distinct impression that he was afraid to come off the porch.

  Hetty stepped down into the room and kneeled beside him. “Didn’t you hear me calling, Will?”

  “Yes,” he replied, looking up at her.

  “Are you afraid of storms?” she asked.

  “Sometimes,” was his reply.

  “Here, Will. I brought you a molasses cookie.”

  He reached for the cookie but then drew his hand back sharply and winced.

  “Let me see your hand, Will.”

  He held it out. There was a painful-looking mark across the joints of four fingers. The wound was purple and swollen and it had bled some.

  “What happened?” Hetty asked.

  Hetty turned to Emma who had just come up behind her. Emma explained that he had gotten his fingers slammed in the barn door.

  Hetty gently picked up the injured hand. “I imagine it hurts pretty badly, doesn’t it?”

  Will shook his head and grimaced with pain as Hetty examined it.

  “Come into the kitchen,” she told him as she got to her feet. “I’ll bandage it for you. That should make it feel much better.”

  Emma sat with them at the table while Hetty carefully bandaged the hand.

  “How did you get hurt, Will?” Hetty asked, wondering why the boy, usually so talkative, remained silent.

  It was Emma who spoke up. “I was in the loft with the cat and Will was playing in the barn. I don’t know where he came from, but Mr. Marsten was suddenly standing over Will. He yelled at him to stay away from his horse and to leave his saddle alone. Will shouldn’t have touched his saddle, I know, but I don’t think Mr. Marsten needed to be quite so disagreeable.”

  Hetty’s brows lifted as Emma recounted the rest of what she had seen.

  “What did Mr. Marsten do when he saw that Will was hurt and crying?” Hetty asked with a frown.

  “He smiled.”

  Hetty’s hands stilled for a moment and she straightened in her chair. After she finished with the bandage, she said gently, “Both of you go upstairs and put on your nightclothes. After I clean up here, Emma, I’ll brush your hair for you and then I’ll read you both a story. Would you like that?”

  Enthusiastic nods and happy smiles were her reply. On her way upstairs, Emma stopped and turned in the kitchen doorway.

  “Hetty?”

  Hetty looked up.

  “Mr. Marsten won’t be going with us when we go to the new house, will he?”

  “No,” Hetty assured her. “He won’t be going.”

  An hour later, after not one, but three, stories had been read, the children were snuggled peacefully in their beds. Both were sleeping soundly. The day had been a long one and both of them were exhausted.

  In the dimness of her candlelit room, Hetty sat on the edge of her bed and undid the buttons at her throat. She pulled the pins from her hair and let the heavy curls fall loose.

  With a sigh, she went to the window and propped one knee on the window seat. The rain, which had let up for a while, was again pounding steadily on the roof.

  She frowned as she recalled all that Emma had told her. It had only reinforced her opinion of Brent Marsten. Hetty had discerned certain things about the man a long time ago, even before she had left for Boston.

  She might have entertained a school girl’s fancy for Brent Marsten a long time ago, but she did not think of him as a possible husband. She didn’t admire him and she didn’t love him. She never had. She never would.

  He had a reputation for being aggressive in business which earned him approval in certain circles. Perhaps other people found that trait admirable, but Hetty had decided long ago that under the outward veneer of sophistication and success, Brent Marsten was domineering, callous and insensitive to others.

  She knew that other women were attracted to Brent and that there were even women who envied her because of his attention to her. The truth was, however, that she found Brent too bold. Arrogant, perhaps, was the word. She sensed that behind the unshakable air of self-confidence was egotism. She had known from the beginning that he anticipated an easy conquest over her.

  Even early in their acquaintance, he had seemed very sure of their future together. He was not so certain now. There were times when his eyes reflected his uncertainty. Beneath it all she had caught glimpses of something else, an intensity in his gaze that almost frightened her. She could not explain it.

  During the past week she had also seen signs of his intolerance towards children. What bothered her the most, however, was his lack of remorse for his behavior towards Will.

  The children had good reason not to like Brent. Pierce had never liked him. Hetty didn’t know the reasons behind Pierce’s dislike. Pierce had never spoken to her about them. But Pierce’s feelings were obvious to Hetty, which she found strange because Pierce was so good-natured that he got along with practically everyone.

  After getting undressed and putting on her nightgown, Hetty blew out the candles. She got into bed and adjusted her pillows. Sleep eluded her so she lay staring up into the darkness.

  She could not help comparing Brent with Jesse. She admitted that lately she had spent a great deal of time thinking about Jesse. It seemed ironic to her that Brent Marsten was so highly thought of because he had acquired status and wealth while Jesse had managed to acquire a different kind of reputation altogether. Wicked, Adalia Sweet had called him. A barbarian according to Alva Peasley. And Amiline? She’d had plenty to say about the man, too.

  But the truth was that in spite of his reputation, Jesse had impressed her. He had demonstrated only sturdiness of character before Hetty. His kindness and consideration toward the Forbes, his generosity in offering his house and his way with the children, those were not selfish acts.

  And there was his easy smile and the sound of his laughter, and the honesty she had seen in his eyes. Those things had stayed with her. Like the kiss, which was something she realized she had never really gotten over.

  Chapter 12

  Jesse watched the upper rim of a full moon rise over the ragged line of distant tree tops. The mellow light grew to bathe the wilderness with a soft radiance. A far-off chorus of coyotes was a wild, eerie echo in the darkness.

  At the sound of an approaching horse, Jesse whirled, his gun leaping to his hand. When the horse and rider appeared, he eased down and holstered his gun.

  After dismounting, the man stepped forward and held out his hand. “It’s good to see you again, Jes.”

  He was a tall man with a direct gaze and a smile that was warm and
sincere under a dark, drooping mustache. The man’s hair was peppered with gray. There was gray in the mustache as well.

  “Wild night,” the man said as they clasped hands. “I had to avoid a rough-looking group of riders on my way here.”

  “You’re likely to run into that kind,” Jesse said as he reached into the inside pocket of his coat. He brought out an envelope and handed it to the other man.

  “Sara left this,” Jesse said and added, “Someone tore the cabin apart looking for it. It’s the deed to the land. Her divorce papers are there, too.”

  The other man looked up in surprise and Jesse said, “Sara had applied for a divorce. She told me it was her intention a long time ago.”

  Dayne Rankin looked at the envelope in his hands and sighed deeply. “Was it so hard for her?” he asked quietly.

  After a silence, Jesse said, “I think Lubin Cade intended for things to be hard for her so that she would eventually agree to sell the place. The money would have come in handy for his bad habits. His only ambitions, it seemed, were gambling, drinking and whoring around.”

  The other man’s brows came together in a frown. “Balendin has talked to me about some of this. Tell me what you know.”

  Jesse’s gaze went beyond the man for a moment, remembering. “I rode up there one night and found Sara and her daughter wrapped up in blankets around a small fire barely big enough to keep them warm. They didn’t have enough wood to last through the night. Sara was sick, but apparently Cade wasn’t worried about that or about them freezing to death.”

  I cut a supply of wood for them that night, made some supper for them and she opened up to me. I guess she needed to talk.

  “Cade had gotten drunk one night and lost a sizeable sum of money at cards. He promised the deed to the farm in place of the gambling debt he owed. The man who won the deed from Cade showed up at the cabin one day to collect. Instead of taking the deed, he signed it over to Sara. He told her he wasn’t going to take a woman’s home from her and that for a home-cooked meal the debt would be forgotten. That man was Galen Bishop. And somehow it seems that playing fair with Sara got him killed.”

  Galen Bishop’s body had been found on a creek bed with nearly a dozen bullet holes in him. Adding to the mystery of his death was that before he’d died, he had sent word to Abe Balendin, sheriff in Baylis, that he’d found Sara Cade and her daughter alive.

  “Galen Bishop was some wild,” Dayne Rankin commented quietly. “But I never thought he was all bad. Reckless as hell, though.”

  Jesse nodded slowly. “The strange part of it was that even though the debt was taken care of, Cade kept pressuring Sara to give the deed over, saying that if she didn’t square his gambling debts, he was a dead man. No one is talking too loud about it, but there’s a suspicion that Lubin Cade had been deliberately plied with liquor with the sole intention of getting that deed away from him and that Galen Bishop was used as a front.

  “Sara refused to give the deed over. And that enraged Cade. He made threats. He bullied her. He tried everything he could think of to get her to sign the deed back over to him. But Sara wouldn’t back down.”

  Dayne Rankin sighed deeply as he stared out across the moonlit landscape. “Unfortunately, it seems that sometimes our sins have a way of reaching out so that the innocent suffer.”

  “It was hard for Sara living there practically on her own,” Jesse went on. “But she loved the place. And she was determined to hold onto it. She wanted a decent place to raise her daughter. It was plain to see that little girl was everything to her. She told me she was going to hide the deed in a safe place and that if something should happen to her, I was to come for it. I wish I’d gotten word sooner. Sara had made light of it then, but looking back, I should have taken her more seriously. I thought that with Cade gone, she was going to be all right.”

  “What happened to Cade?”

  “No one knows. He just disappeared.” Jesse shook his head slowly. “There were a lot of forces at work against Sara. More than I realized. Cade wasn’t the only one trying to get the land from her. Brent Marsten had been pressuring Sara to sell the land to him, too.”

  “Marsten you say?”

  Jesse nodded. “Yes. Marsten runs the old Childers ranch.”

  “Since when?”

  “He bought it right before I left. Marsten’s got a lot of irons in the fire. Buying up land is just one of them. He’s got more land than anyone around here. But he isn’t satisfied. Seems he’s the kind that always wants more. He’s been buying out all the little ranchers and the ones who won’t sell- well, let’s just say they’re likely to be facing a sudden streak of bad luck. But nobody can prove anything.”

  Dayne Rankin narrowed his gaze. “Where’s he from?”

  “No one seems to know. He keeps company with some hard cases thought. The kind of men who will do as they’re told and not ask questions. He claims that it’s necessary because of all the lawlessness around here.

  “Sara’s land joins his. He wants that land. Apparently he has always wanted it. He tried more than once to buy it from Lubin Cade. I think he means to have it, one way or another. He’s not the kind of man who can let it alone.”

  Neither man spoke his thoughts, but both realized that with Sara out of the way, Marsten could eventually acquire the land. It did look suspicious. But suspicions weren’t enough.

  The older man’s eyes hardened. The muscles in his jaw were taut with suppressed feeling. He was silent for a time before he said in a low voice, “I wasn’t much of a father to Sara. It’s been sixteen years since I have seen her. Her mother left me when Sara was only six. Ran off with another man. My fault. I was some wild in those days. I wasn’t the husband or father I should have been.

  “I’d like to make it up to Sara. If I get the chance. I’d like to get to know my granddaughter, too. I don’t know if they’re still alive, but I’ll keep hopin’ until I know different. I’ll tell you that I’m mighty frustrated right now, wondering.”

  While the moon rose, the two men talked for a while longer until Dayne Rankin thrust out his hand again. “Good luck, Jes. I will do all that I can on my end. You will get all the support and authority you need.”

  The wind blew against Jesse from the open space before him. He sat alone, thinking back to that night when he’d been half dead from two bullet holes. His eyes narrowed as he remembered how cold it had been. Damned cold with snow covering the ground and the sharp, raw wind lashing against him like shards of glass.

  At that time he’d been crossing the lines of both sides of the law. It had turned into a chance to change his life, however, and save him from the darker existence that he had been sliding into. Dayne Rankin had been the one to save him. Jesse owed the man for his friendship and his steadfast loyalty.

  Jesse found it ironic as hell that now he was going to do everything possible to get back into that life of violence and to actively seek out the company of outlaws. That he was about to work hard to establish a reputation as a rustler, a thief, even a murderer. Whatever it took. It was the only way to infiltrate Thrall’s operation.

  The men backing him were counting on his reputation and his knowledge of outlawed men, not to mention his ability with a gun. It was agreed by all concerned that those things were necessary to find the murderer of Galen Bishop and to discover the whereabouts of Sara Cade and her daughter. In the process, hopefully, he would learn the identity of Thrall and put an end to the violence in the region.

  Jesse tossed a stone with a quick flick of his wrist. He stared out at the star-studded darkness and contemplated that success in this game meant something else as well. He was thinking about Hetty and what her reaction would be when word reached her that he was a member of Thrall’s outlaw band.

  The memory of that kiss stayed with him. He couldn’t forget that day when he had stood looking down into her eyes in the old barn. He could still recall the powerful hunger that had seized him when she had been in his arms, could still feel the soft
ness of her lips. Lips that had hungered for that kiss, too.

  The physical attraction between them was something he could deal with. It was a natural force of nature between a man and a woman. What disturbed him was something deeper than that.

  He knew he had been spending too much time at the Circle I. And he admitted to himself that he went not only to fetch things for Rachel and the children or to see how John Forbes was getting along. He also went because he wanted to see Hetty. More than once, he’d found himself impatient to see her.

  He couldn’t allow himself to be distracted by her, he knew. A man playing as dangerous a game as he was about to play needed to be focused. If he got distracted, there was the chance that he would start making mistakes and he couldn’t let that happen. The game could turn deadly. Not just for him, but for others as well.

  He wouldn’t let himself be distracted then. He’d stay undistracted. As simple as that. But something was telling him that it wasn’t going to be that simple. And tomorrow wasn’t going to make it any easier.

  Chapter 13

  “I agree. After making the trip by horseback, she probably won’t be able to walk for a week.” Pierce held his hands out wide. “But there’s nothing I can do about it. She’s set on proving something.”

  Pierce followed Hetty off the porch, still trying to convince her of his innocence in the matter. “Yes, I imagine riding on a fancy side saddle in a Boston park is not the same thing as riding for miles through the wilderness,” he said. “But you know as well as I do that she’s one who has to learn the hard way.”

  “After I came back and started riding again, I could barely move for the first few days until the stiffness went away,” Hetty informed him.

  “I tried to talk her out of it,” Pierce said and turned as the front door opened.

  “You practically challenged her with those stories of wild women cowgirls,” Hetty said with a shake of her head. “Really, Pierce. I think you actually enjoy provoking her.”