“I became familiar with this country over a year ago when I accompanied a train full of orphans here to be adopted into various homes, mostly farmers,” Henry spoke up, holding his thin nose slightly in the air. He simply glowed with arrogance. “When we reached Arkansas City, two of the most trouble-making orphans decided to bolt and run. I never found them. When they ran, the girl stole three hundred dollars off of me. She was a little thief who gained her experience at picking pockets in the streets of New York City. Since arriving here, I have learned what happened to those two, and I intend to have the girl arrested. When I told the sheriff here who it was, he told me we should get the land agent in on this, and also you. He said you had an interest.”
“Me?” Nolan looked from Henry to Cy, then began to grin. “Allyson Mills is the runaway thief?”
Cy grinned. “The same. Mr. Bartel here says the boy with her was her brother, not her husband! And she was only sixteen at the time, which means she was not of a legal age to claim that land, let alone the fact that she filed falsely as Mrs. Toby Mills and is a thief. I have a feeling the land agent who was here before me was bribed to let her keep her claim. She might have a lot of friends in this town, but when they find out how she’s been lying to all of them, she won’t get any support. We’re on our way over there right now to arrest the little bitch and inform her that her claim is no longer valid. I thought you might like to accompany us.”
Nolan chuckled deep inside so that his big belly shook. “Well, well. So the poor, grieving widow isn’t a widow at all! She’s nothing but a thief off the streets of New York City, using peoples’ sympathy to get what she wants. I’ll be damned.” He grasped the arms of his chair to help push himself to his feet again. “Thanks for coming to get me, Cy. I wouldn’t miss this for anything.” He walked around his desk to a hat rack, took his silk hat, and put it on.
“I don’t like arrestin’ a woman, Nolan,” the sheriff grumbled. “Especially a pretty little thing like Mrs.—I mean Miss Mills. We don’t even know her side of the story.”
Nolan sniffed. “I don’t give a damn if you arrest her or not as far as what she stole from Mr. Bartel. That’s between her and him. All I care about is the fact that she filed for that land under false pretenses, which means she’s going to lose it. Cy knows how much I want those lots. That little bitch has fought me every step of the way, figuring she had me outwitted. I just want to see the look on her face when she finds out I’ve finally won. Let’s go!”
The four men headed out, the heavy-set Nolan Ives walking with unusual briskness for his size, his eyes glowing with sweet victory.
Ethan leaned back in his chair, rubbing his stomach. He had just finished eating a royal breakfast, cooked and served by his new wife, who was now serving breakfast to other boarders. He watched her, taking deep satisfaction in her beauty, in knowing she was Mrs. Ethan Temple…in remembering a kind of passion he had not known in a very long time. Allyson Temple was awakening to her womanhood, discovering the joy of sharing her bed with a man.
They had not slept much last night, but she’d still gotten up at the crack of dawn to start baking biscuits and cooking sausages. It irritated him a little that she couldn’t take time away from her business on her first day of being married, but he fully understood what all of this meant to her, and he supposed he’d better see about finding a job in town for himself. Ally was not about to give up any of this, but there really wasn’t a lot for him to do here. Ally had her own routine, and he was just in the way; but not at night. At night the beautiful woman he watched serving another table belonged only to Ethan Temple. He could hardly wait for the day to end again, hoped maybe someday he could persuade her to give up the business or at least let others run it so they could have a farm or ranch someplace out of town where it was quiet, and where they could be alone more often in a nice place to raise kids.
Life was going to be damn good. He just had to be patient and not push her too fast on anything. She was young and determined and impetuous, but full of energy and love and an eagerness to please. He wondered now when he would be able to make himself leave. He’d made that promise to his father, and he really was concerned about what was happening in the North; but he hated leaving her now. It was impossible, for the time being, to think about sleeping without her beside him; and now that she was his wife, how could he leave her here alone?
He loved her today even more than he did last night, and yet he couldn’t quite rid himself of his doubts about why she had married him so suddenly. He hated himself for still thinking she could have some reason other than just plain loving him, and he scolded himself for his lack of confidence in her. He rose from the table to take his cup to the kitchen to get more coffee when the screen door to the restaurant swung open and four men loomed inside, one of them barely able to squeeze himself through the doorway. It was Nolan Ives.
Ethan slowly set down his coffee cup. He noticed Allyson straighten and stare at the men, then begin to pale. Ethan looked back at them—Ives, Cy Jacobs, and Guthrie’s excuse for a sheriff, Harper Seymour. He did not recognize the fourth man, but he watched them as all four approached Ally with a look of determined authority.
Ethan moved closer, ready to defend his wife against whatever these men had come here for. Others in the room watched the confrontation in bewilderment.
“Miss Mills, I’m here to arrest you for stealing three hundred dollars from Mr. Henry Bartel,” the sheriff announced.
14
Patrons in Ally’s establishment gasped and whispered among themselves at the sheriff’s announcement. The lovely young Widow Mills being arrested for stealing money? One of those present, a reporter for the local Guthrie newspaper, whipped out a small tablet and began taking notes.
At first Allyson said nothing. She only folded her arms and glared back defiantly at all four men who had invaded her restaurant and interrupted her customers’ breakfast. In that one brief moment of silence, Ethan got the distinct impression that Allyson was not at all surprised by the intrusion. She seemed ready for it. He quickly moved to her side, putting a hand to her waist.
“What is this all about, Sheriff Seymour?”
“That’s what I’m askin’ Miss Mills here.”
“Her name is Mrs. Temple. We were married last night.”
“Married!” Nolan Ives looked at Cy Jacobs, both of them in shock. One woman whispered something to another, and Ethan did not miss the word “Indian.” The newspaper reporter was writing fast.
The sheriff nodded toward the thin, ugly man with him. “Do you recognize this man?” he asked Allyson, breaking the stunned silence.
Ethan’s hand tightened around Allyson’s waist, as he realized now who the stranger had to be. Some of the help came out from the kitchen to gawk.
“Yes,” Ally answered, her eyes beginning to fill. The dreaded moment had come, sooner than she thought. “I recognize him,” she said with a strong bitterness. She glared boldly at Bartel. “He is Henry Bartel, and he is a dirty old man who liked to fondle young girls at the orphanage where he worked in New York City! I lived in that orphanage for four years! I know him, all right.”
Bartel reddened deeply. “Dear God,” a woman behind them exclaimed, waving a handkerchief in front of her face as though she was about to faint.
Ethan felt his own anger rising. He had heard enough about Henry Bartel to know he hated the man. Now, somehow, he had found Allyson, something she had always dreaded; yet she seemed to expect the visit. “I think you’d better get this man out of here, Sheriff,” he spoke up, “before I do something to him that will land me in jail! What’s the idea—”
“It’s all right,” Ally interrupted. “I can pay Mr. Bartel back, right now,” she told the sheriff. “All I have to do is go to the bank. If he wants to add on interest, I’ll pay that, too. Just please get him out of my establishment.”
“Don’t you get all arrogant with me, you thieving little slut!” Bartel barked.
At those wor
ds, Ethan lunged at the man, grabbing him by the lapels and slamming him backward onto a table. “I’ve heard a lot about you, you sonofabitch! Did you tell the sheriff here why Ally ran away from you? Did you tell him what you do to little girls?”
“She’s lying!” Bartel growled.
“She’s my wife, so watch what you say about her!”
Ethan heard a click and moved his head just enough to see the sheriff was holding his six-gun on him. A few people got up from their tables and backed away. “Let the man go, Mr. Temple. I know your job is to protect Miss Mills here, but right now she’s under arrest, and there isn’t anything you can do about it.”
Ethan straightened, pulling Bartel up with him. He gave the man a shove before letting go, his mind racing in confusion. Everything had happened so suddenly, he couldn’t think straight. He only knew he had to defend Ally. “I told you, her name is Mrs. Ethan Temple, not Miss Mills,” he told the sheriff.
The reporter wrote frantically. The widow Allyson Mills has married the half-breed Indian scout, Ethan Temple, who had been working for her as a guard…Allyson Mills, accused of being a thief by a man who runs an orphanage in New York City, admits her guilt! The words conjured up all kinds of images. And what was this about Ally Mills Temple stealing money? It seemed an incredible accusation against a young woman the town had grown to love.
“Like my wife told you,” Ethan continued, “she can pay Mr. Bartel the money.”
“The money belongs to the orphanage, not to Mr. Bartel,” Ally spoke up.
“It was my money!” Bartel protested. “And you lifted it from me, you little pickpocket!”
Allyson kept her eyes on the sheriff. “If you choose to believe the money belongs to Mr. Bartel, there is nothing I can do about it after all this time, but you might want to wire the Holy Mary Catholic Orphanage in New York City and ask them about it. Either way, I’ll pay the money, but I want you to know that at the time I took it I was desperate and had no choice. I always intended to pay it back, but for the moment I just wanted to get as far away from Henry Bartel as I could.” She let her tears show, hoping they would soften the sheriff. “Please don’t arrest me, Sheriff Seymour. I fully admit what I did. I don’t know what kind of lies Mr. Bartel told you about how it all happened, but I was desperate. We were being shipped out West by train and placed in the homes of strangers, people we didn’t know. We weren’t sure how they would treat us. And Mr. Bartel—he’s a cruel, wicked man. I was afraid of him. I just wanted to get off that train.”
“It isn’t the money that’s important, and you know it,” Nolan Ives spoke up. “Those tears aren’t from regret over what you did. They’re from the fact that you know you’re going to lose this place, Miss Mills, or Mrs. Temple, whatever you call yourself. You know that if Mr. Bartel here found you and has gone to the sheriff, then he must have told us everything about you by now, like the fact that you weren’t married when you claimed these lots. The man with you then was your brother, not your husband! You lied about the facts, and claimed these lots illegally!”
Now it all came together for Ethan. Nolan Ives had already gotten wind of the truth about Allyson’s age and circumstances when she claimed her land. He felt like punching the sheriff. The man must have run to Ives right away, and had probably been paid by the fat bastard to let him know anything he might find out about Allyson that could be used against her.
One of the women who’d come out from the kitchen drew in her breath in surprise when she heard Ives’s remark about Toby being Allyson’s brother and not her husband. Ethan realized a lot of people were going to be angry with Allyson about this. They had held a lot of sympathy for the “poor young Widow Mills” when Ally first struggled to get her business started. Allyson had played on those feelings, using them to get people to help her. No one liked being made a fool of. He could feel Allyson trembling.
“We also know that not only were you and Toby Mills brother and sister, rather than husband and wife, but you were also only sixteen and seventeen at the time those lots were claimed,” Ives continued. “Both of you were under the legal age of eighteen.” Ives slipped his thumbs into his vest pockets. “You took these lots under false pretenses, Mrs. Temple, and that means your claim is not valid and this land and everything on it is up for grabs.” He stepped a little closer, his bloated face pink with victory. “There isn’t even any sense in taking this before the review board, because it’s all cut and dried, thanks to Mr. Bartel here. As of now, this place is mine, lady, so start packing!”
Whispers moved through the others present, and Ethan stepped closer to Ives. “You back away, Ives, or you’ll tangle with me again!”
Allyson folded her arms defiantly. “Yes, and Mr. Temple is my husband now, not just an employee. That means that this place belongs to him, not to me.” She looked at Cy Jacobs. “Isn’t that right, Mr. Jacobs? You told me that if I married, my lots and my business would belong to my husband, and no one could take them away from me.”
Nolan Ives turned angry eyes to Jacobs, who fumbled for words. “Well, I…I didn’t know you meant to go and get married practically the same day!” Jacobs answered angrily.
Ethan listened in surprise, his defensive attitude suddenly beginning to change. Ally had already talked to Cy Jacobs about marrying? When? Why? Had she already known Henry Bartel was in town? Here he had just been thinking how some of Ally’s friends would be angry for being used by her, but he was starting to wonder if he had been the biggest fool of all. Something was beginning to make sense now, something he didn’t want to make sense.
“Well, I am married now, and Mr. Temple is most certainly of a legal age,” Allyson told Jacobs. “You can’t just take this place away from me so easily now, Mr. Jacobs. My husband and I will contest this all the way to the federal court at Muskogee if we have to.”
Ives’s face was a dark red from rage. “What the hell is this all about, Jacobs?” he demanded. “When did this woman come and talk to you about getting married!”
Jacobs looked from Allyson to Ethan. “Just a couple of days ago.” He put his hands on his hips. “What kind of a mock marriage is this, anyway?” he demanded of Ethan.
Ethan suddenly wondered that himself. He was caught unprepared, torn between the duty of defending his wife and a growing anger at the woman himself. She had done it again! She had lied and cheated to keep her land and business, only this time she had used him to do it. He felt like a total fool, and discovering all this in front of a roomful of people only made him angrier. “Maybe you should ask my wife that,” he said.
The words were spoken calmly, but Allyson caught the note of rage behind them. She looked up at Ethan with tear-filled eyes, and even through the blur she could see his face was even darker, his near-black eyes on fire. “Ethan, I—”
“Save it for later.” He looked at Cy Jacobs. “The point is this place is apparently mine now. We’ll pay off Henry Bartel and that will be the end of it.”
“No, it won’t,” Jacobs answered, suddenly looking victorious.
Nolan Ives took hope in that look. People in the background stood staring and listening, many shocked at the things they were hearing about Allyson Mills. She had lied and cheated, stolen money, then married a half-breed just to hang on to her property! How could she sleep with an Indian? Was her business that important to her? Was there no end to the woman’s deceit? Many of them had had pity for the poor young widow, but now they knew she was no widow at all, never had been.
“Tell me, Mr. Temple, what tribe of Indians are you related to?”
Allyson felt a growing alarm.
“Cheyenne,” Ethan answered.
“And are you registered on the Cheyenne reservation as being legally entitled to government allotments and entitled to live free on the reservation if you would so choose?”
Ethan bristled. “I am.”
Jacobs glanced at Ives and grinned, then looked at Allyson. “You married the wrong man, Mrs. Temple. Your husband is offic
ially an Indian, not a white man, which means he cannot own this land. This land was purchased from the Indians by the government, for sale to white settlers only. Indians can’t claim it, and your husband here is registered as a Cheyenne.”
Allyson shook her head. “No, that can’t be. He’s…he’s also half white. That has to count for something!”
Of all the insults Ethan had had to endure over the years, nothing hurt more than that remark. He had ignored that little voice that had told him there had to be a reason for Allyson Mills to suddenly want to get married. Now he knew what it was. Disappointment and anger raged in his blood.
“If he’s registered as an Indian, there’s no changing it after the fact,” Jacobs was telling Allyson, both of them talking as though Ethan wasn’t even there. “A half-breed has to choose, lady, one or the other. Ethan Temple chose to officially be Indian.”
Allyson stiffened, struggling to find some kind of legality to her claim. “You never mentioned Indians couldn’t own anything. I—” She turned and looked helplessly at Ethan. “And you never told me you were officially registered as an Indian under federal law!”
The words stung. He had actually let himself believe this woman loved him for himself, that she had come to overlook the fact that he was Indian, had married him out of honest love and desire. Stay away from it, Ethan. He could hear Hector’s words so clearly. You goddamn fool, he told himself. He was so stunned that for the moment he could find no words to answer her.
Allyson immediately realized how her remark must have sounded. She had seen Ethan Temple angry before, but there was something in his dark eyes now that went beyond that. “Oh, Ethan, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded,” she said quickly, but she knew it was too late. Her heart pounded with panic. If she lost Ethan’s support, she was doomed. Her business! Everything she had worked for!
“Your claim that Ethan Temple owns what you have here is invalid,” Jacobs spoke up, his whole body puffed up with arrogance.
Unforgettable Page 19