Dust and the sound of pounding hooves filled his brain. The Quarter Horse in front was stretched out, long and lean. But there was a price to pay for all that muscle. Billy hunkered down in the saddle, keeping his head close to Valiant’s neck. He and his mount kept their attention trained on the animal in front of them.
They broke free of the buildings, and the wood rail fence around the cemetery came into view. The place was small, insignificant, and dotted with weathered wooden markers, a fitting tribute to men who had led small lives. He was determined not to be one of them.
Prince Valiant picked up speed as if he knew he had to put the other horse behind him, and this was the place to make the move. The urge to win was in his blood, if not in his brain. Billy’s pulse trip-hammered in his chest. He was close enough to touch the other horse’s flank.
Prince Valiant nosed in between his opponent and the fence. The red-haired boy raised his quirt to hit the approaching horse, but before he could bring his arm down, Prince Valiant shot past, picking up even more speed. Billy didn’t look back. He and his horse came out of the turn, spotted the railroad tracks two hundred yards out, and lunged for them. He could hear Seth screaming at his horse, cursing him, trying to get every ounce of effort from him. Funny, Billy didn’t hear any stuttering coming from the boy.
The lightning pace of Prince Valiant’s pounding hooves felt like Billy’s pulse. Almost there. They leapt the railroad tracks, turned hard to the left in a spray of dust and gravel, and headed hell-bent-for-leather for the back of the buildings where this had all started. In the distance he saw Gerald gesticulating wildly, arms flailing madly, then he disappeared into the alley.
Billy didn’t take it for granted that he couldn’t hear Seth’s screams or his horse’s hoofbeats. He and Prince Valiant aimed for the alley, charging for it like they were under cannon-fire. They leapt another set of tracks and pounded toward the alley where Gerald had been standing. They slowed and turned the corner, expecting to see Gerald and a crowd—
Billy pulled Prince Valiant up hard, practically putting the horse down on his haunches as they skidded to a stop. In the settling dust, a tall man, dressed in a black hat and long black duster, stood alone, calmly loading bullets into his revolver. Billy scanned the empty alley. The man raised his head, the Stetson slowly revealing cold blue eyes and a bushy handlebar mustache. He slid his gun into his holster and pushed aside his left lapel to reveal a silver star.
Gerald was waving me away.
The absence of pounding hoofbeats from behind could only mean that Seth had understood the signal. Air escaped Billy’s lungs as he sagged in the saddle, regretting his arrogance.
“My name is Wyatt Earp, Dodge City marshal.” The man’s deep voice resonated with confidence. “That is one fine-looking piece of horseflesh, son. But racing it on busy streets is frowned upon.” And, in case Billy had any questions about his immediate future, Earp added somberly, “You are under arrest, and your horse is hereby impounded.”
~~~
Billy stepped into the eight-by-ten cell and winced as the door clanged shut behind him. He could feel Earp watching him but didn’t turn. He needed to take all this in. He appraised the filthy, stained cot to his left and swore he saw something on it move. Or slither. Fighting a feeling of failure that threatened to swamp him like a flood, he trudged to the far wall, turned his back to it, snatched off his hat, and slid to the ground.
He’d started out with a good plan. Go west. Find Hannah. Get off the train in Dodge City for one or two horse races. Same as all his other choices, this one had been just about as smart as kicking a hornet’s nest.
Let’s see, just what have my stellar decisions cost me? The love of a good woman. A relationship with my son. Ever seeing my mother again. A few bones in my right hand. The family fortune. My dignity. My horse.
I am on a roll.
Earp rested a boot on the iron crossbar at the bottom of the cell door and shook his head. Gripping the bars, he chuckled. “I have brought in some sorry sights, but I think you’re about the sorriest. This is the last place a boy like you should find himself.”
Billy rolled his head back against the wall and shut his eyes. “Most of the men you bring in here are, what, drunk and belligerent? Broken and defeated?” Billy’s voice faded, softened to a tone that was merely thinking out loud as he raised his head to stare through Earp. “Is that what a man becomes when he loses everything?”
Earp scratched his nose. “Listen, son, I’m not your priest—”
“And I’m not your son.”
“True enough. But you are in my cell. And that means you’ll listen when I talk.” Apparently taking Billy’s silence as agreement, he went on talking. “For what it’s worth, you may be dead broke—stripped of everything ’cept your long johns, and I’d still say you’ve got more going for you than ninety percent of the mongrels I haul in here.”
Billy dragged his knees up and rested his hands on them. “You don’t know anything about me. Everything I had going for me is gone.”
Earp fell silent. His hard, empty eyes studied Billy for a few seconds. In the next instant, his stare drifted. Absently, he stroked the long bushy mustache that all but hid his mouth. “I know that what you think is going to kill you today will make you stronger tomorrow,” he blinked and returned to the moment, “if you let it. That’s the ticket, son. You have to choose to get back up and keep swingin’. You’re the kind who will. That’s what separates you from the hapless drunks.”
Long after Earp left to make his rounds, Billy pondered the lawman’s words. Get back up and keep swingin’.
His gaze traveled round the cell. Bricks, bars, and cobwebs. No exit, no hope.
Hannah would have told him to pray, to trust that God had a plan.
Disgusted, he snorted aloud at that thought. Some plan.
It had seemed so right and easy a month ago to take this path and thumb his nose at his father’s threats. Billy could still hear the fury in the voice, warning him to calculate the losses.
“I told you before,” Frank Page had said from the settee in their lavishly appointed parlor, “try to find her, contact her in any way, and I will cut you off—stop your tuition payments and cease paying your gambling debts. All of it will end. You’ll be out on the street with nothing.”
Billy hadn’t doubted it for a second, but he’d prepared. Those gambling debts were a farce. He’d been saving money. Finding the Pinkerton report had only confirmed that his next step was the right one.
“She hates you,” his father hammered. “I made sure she knew you abandoned her because you were afraid of losing your inheritance. She will not take you back. She has settled nicely into that bawdy mining town. Seems it suits her.”
Billy didn’t miss the implication, but then again, his father simply didn’t know Hannah. Perhaps if she’d been abandoned in that town, alone with a child to take care of, that might have put a different light on things. But Hannah wasn’t alone.
“Hannah may not love me anymore,” Billy said rising to his feet to stare down at his father, “but she would never hate me. Not even me.”
Did he still believe that? What if she were cold to his arrival? Or worse, indifferent? Hope was not in abundant supply at the moment. He didn’t know how he was going to get out of jail, much less get to Hannah. He wanted to ask God for a miracle, but as Billy surveyed the cell again, he knew he couldn’t ask for such an extravagant gift from Someone he didn’t know. The thought filled him with an ice-cold emptiness that struck deep at his soul.
~~~
At dusk, the office door opened and Earp walked in, stepping aside for Eleanor. Surprised to see her, Billy stood up and met them at his cell door. “Eleanor, I’m so sorry about your deposit. I’ll pay you back, I promise.” He had no earthly idea how, but he wouldn’t let another woman down.
“Eleanor here has called in a favor,” Earp said, a scowl expressing his opinion of this development.
Billy didn’t un
derstand. His gaze ricocheted back and forth between the two.
“It is within my capacity as marshal,” Earp continued, “to drop the charges and return to you your fine horse.” A pair of keys materialized in his hand and he unlocked the cell door. He looked at Eleanor. “We’re square?”
Eleanor slapped him on the arm. “We’re square.”
Earp cast an irritated glance back at Billy. “Your horse is out back. Now, get out of Dodge.” He didn’t wait for a response. Earp turned and let himself out into the orange glow of sunset.
Eleanor shifted away from the cell door. “Earp confiscated the bets. They’re in your saddle bag—minus my winnings. Seems that since you finished the race, you won it.”
Billy shook his head in amazement and pushed open the door. His freedom and his money had been given back to him through the kindness of a woman he’d met only hours before. “Why are you helping me?”
Eleanor shrugged, dropped her gaze to her feet. “It’s what needed to be done.”
“But why?”
He waited, needing to hear her explanation. She pursed her lips, thinking. “I was a Hannah.” She raised her head as the confession left her lips, her eyes swimming with memories. “But no one ever came for me.”
Billy felt as if he’d been punched again by Earl H. Goode. For the first time, he noticed the sadness in the lines of her face, and it cut him deep.
What kind of man left a trail like that?
A man like me.
Holy God, had he done that to Hannah? The thought horrified him. He’d never contemplated for one second the ashes he might have left her in. Oh, sure, she would have cried, but he’d figured she’d go on with her life. What if he’d left Hannah empty and used up like Eleanor? Had the sparkle left her shimmering ocean-blue eyes? Did the smile on the sweetest lips he’d ever tasted mask a broken heart now? If he found Hannah to be a shell of a girl like this, he’d spend the rest of his life trying to make it up to her.
But what if there was no coming back from this? What if Hannah was in Defiance, wasting away? Hell or high water, he had to make this right and give her a measure of peace.
Deeply troubled, he took Eleanor’s hand in his. “Thank you, Eleanor. Thank you for giving me a second chance. And tell Earp I’ll keep swinging.”
~~~
Five
Hannah Frink snapped a red-checked tablecloth into the air and let it drift like a snowflake onto the table. As it floated down, it revealed Emilio stacking firewood in the dining room’s fireplace. The spring day was warm, but here in the Rockies the temperature plummeted after sunset. One of Emilio’s duties as the hotel handyman was to keep the fireplaces and stoves always ready for a fire. Felling trees and chopping them into firewood not only made the girls’ lives easier, the job had turned a scrawny, teenage boy into a young man with broad shoulders.
Surprised by her thoughts, Hannah blinked, flung her long blonde ponytail over her shoulder, and commenced smoothing out the wrinkles in the tablecloth. Lately, her friendship with Emilio, the boy she and her sisters had rescued from a life in Mr. McIntyre’s saloon, had changed. Or at least in her mind it had. She would find herself admiring those shoulders or that warm, sweet smile he always had ready for her and her son, Little Billy. Emilio had one dimple on his left cheek that only showed when he grinned a certain way. And being so fair herself, she was captivated by his tawny skin and straight, shoulder-length black hair, evidence of his Mexican heritage.
Emilio cleared his throat, drawing Hannah’s attention. He had emptied his arms and stood before her, crushing his dusty hat in his hands. “I was wondering, Miss Hannah, if you and Billy would like to go with me to pick yarrow?”
At first Hannah heard only his voice, not his words. She loved the deep velvety sound of it and the way his accent touched every syllable. Rather soft spoken, his voice fell like a gentle spring rain.
She was taken aback by the request, though, because of the subtle hope in his penetrating, dark eyes. “Yes, of course … wait. What?” Why did this request feel different from the dozens of times he’d asked her to help fetch firewood or supplies before? She was babbling but couldn’t help it. “I’m sorry … help you pick what?”
His smile broadened, and Hannah’s heart fluttered. A good two inches taller now than this time last year, Emilio had turned into a handsome young man right in front of her. He filled out that red plaid shirt nicely too. She rather liked the way his muscles strained against the fabric as he shook his coal-black hair out of the way and placed his hat back on his head. “Yarrow. Tomorrow, after the lunch rush.” He dipped his head to pardon his exit, and rushed from the room like a little boy with a secret.
Perplexed by the emotions dancing around inside her, Hannah plucked another tablecloth from the stack on the table beside her. She hadn’t even thought about another man since Billy had run off. Goodness, she was sixteen, not sixty. Maybe it was time to be a young girl again with a handsome beau on her arm. Well, two beaus, if she counted the seven-month-old boy upstairs in his crib. She giggled at the thought and decided to go check on the little cherub. These tablecloths weren’t going anywhere.
~~~
As promised, after lunch the next day, Hannah met Emilio out back of the hotel, and he did indeed have a surprise. A small, but well-muscled, black-and-white pinto nibbled greedily at an apple in his hand.
“Oh my, Emilio, where did you get him?” She approached the horse slowly, hand extended to stroke his nose.
Emilio wiped his hand on his trousers and grinned proudly. “I saved all winter for him. He is good for riding, and he can pull a small wagon.” She rubbed the animal’s nose gently and wondered about the wisdom of putting such a small horse in hitch. “I was going to lead him, but if you are not bringing Billy, do you want to ride?”
Hannah moved her hand to the horse’s halter and hooked her fingers round it. She hadn’t been in a saddle in over a year. Did she dare?
“He is very gentle,” Emilio added. “That’s one reason I got him. In case you or your sisters need to fetch the doctor. If Billy gets hurt, we don’t need to go for help on foot.”
Hannah glanced up, impressed that Emilio had thought of that. Her admiration must have shown, for he cleared his throat and moved away to check the stirrups and cinch. “I call him Cochise,” he said, tugging on the right stirrup and, she thought, fastidiously avoiding eye contact. “I met him once, the great Apache chief. He told me his name means ‘strong like oak.’” Emilio moved around to the other side of the small horse, trusting that Hannah still held the halter. “I thought that was a good name for this boy.”
Warmed by Emilio’s thoughtfulness, Hannah waited contentedly as he yanked and tugged on the saddle. Moving on, he lifted the horse’s feet one by one to check the shoes. She had a strong suspicion that he had already done this and was going through the steps again to appear busy. Compliments and admiration of any kind made Emilio uncomfortable.
“You have to tell me two things, Emilio.”
He dropped Cochise’s rear hoof and rested his arms on the horse’s rump, waiting expectantly.
“You have to tell me what yarrow is, and you have to tell me how you met Cochise.”
~~~
“I told you once that banditos raided my parents’ ranch when I was five.”
Hannah tried to listen to Emilio, but contentment distracted her. Riding behind him on Cochise, she closed her eyes and listened. As they crossed a high mountain meadow, the soft buzz of bees and the musical whistle of spring birds filled her mind. A few strands of hair had come loose from her pony tail and danced in the light spring breeze, tickling her nose.
“They took Rose and me with them. I don’t remember much, just traveling around with them, tending to their horses.”
With her arms wrapped around Emilio’s waist, she couldn’t help noticing how lean and strong he felt. And he’d bought Cochise in case they needed to fetch a doctor for her son. Emilio’s concern for Billy cast him in a more gr
own-up light, a more attractive light.
“Cochise came into our camp one day to trade for horses.”
The mild day and the horse’s rhythm relaxed her, and she smiled to herself as her cheek came to rest on Emilio’s back. Almost dreaming, Hannah could see him as a small boy, feeding the animals and fetching and toting for the bandits. She doubted it was a good life, especially with his sister, that witch Rose, shouting orders at him. She was so glad he had come to live with her and her sisters.
“I like that,” he said rather huskily. “It makes me feel strong.”
She jolted away from him but didn’t relinquish her grip around his waist. “What? Oh, I’m sorry, I almost drifted off.” She replayed his words and the gentle tone he’d used. Unsure of what he meant, she said simply, “You are strong, Emilio.”
They rode in silence. After several minutes, she heard him sigh. “I know. I am like a brother.” He sounded … disappointed?
Hannah’s head was spinning. If this was anyone else but Emilio, she would swear he was trying to drop a hint.
“Emilio,” she began. Do you think I’m pretty? Emilio, do you like me? But she muttered instead, “Sometimes I don’t know what you are.” She hadn’t really meant to let that out, and her fingers clenched with embarrassment. His tan sweat-stained cowboy hat bobbed as his gaze went to her hands. She wondered if she should pull them away, but didn’t.
“I think …,” he spoke barely above a whisper, “that may be a good thing.”
Hannah could hear the smile in his voice and leaned around his shoulder to peek up at him. Sure enough, he was grinning.
She settled back in the saddle and pondered him, hiding her own smile. “Emilio, you wouldn’t by any chance be thinking about—oh!” He had kicked Cochise into a trot, and she had to tighten her grip around him to keep from back-flipping right off the horse.
Hearts in Defiance (Romance in the Rockies Book 2) Page 4