by Jodi Thomas
Sam tugged at the ropes holding his hands and feet to the table.
“You still alive?” A voice came from nowhere.
Sam tried to see through the blood over his one eye that wasn’t swollen, but he saw no one. “I’m alive. Untie me.”
A shadow moved across the light at the door. The boy in the doorway couldn’t be more than fifteen or sixteen. The buffalo gun he carried was bigger than him. Sam thought he looked like Dolton’s youngest kid, but he couldn’t be sure.
“I had to kill them,” the boy said as he sat the rifle down and picked up Adler’s knife from the floor. “You should have seen what they did to my pa.”
“It’s all right,” Sam said in a low voice. “You did what you had to do.”
As the kid cut the leather straps, Sam tried to sit up. As he did, he saw the bodies of both the sheriff and the outlaw. They’d been standing on either side of the table. The boy had shot them both in the head, and the buffalo gun hadn’t left much of the skulls intact.
“You look terrible, Sam Thompson.”
Sam would have smiled if he didn’t hurt so badly. “You know me.”
“Sure, my pa was always saying how he was going to ride over here and kill you one day. He hated you.”
“You feel the same?” Sam coughed up blood.
The kid shook his head. “I used to come over here and visit my sister when you were out. She said you were good to her. She said she wanted to have your baby ’cause you were a good man, and that’d make the baby good.”
Sam tried to breathe. He wished Danni had told him that once. Half the time he felt like she thought she was trapped in his house.
“What’s your name?”
“Eben.”
“Well, Eben, do you think you can get me to town? I’ve got an old sled that will hold us both.” Sam could see the room darkening and knew he didn’t have much time. “You’ll have to get there fast. I think I’m bleeding inside.”
“You’re bleeding pretty good on the outside too, Sam.”
The blackness claimed him before Sam could answer.
Chapter 13
Maggie waited at Nina’s for two days without word from Sam. She was afraid to try to go back to the house even though the snow was melting. Sam could be dead and they could be waiting for her.
With each hour she felt safer knowing they hadn’t found the passage. Nina’s cabin was far enough down into the canyon that the sheriff wasn’t likely to come down, and even if he did, Nina had a plan to meet him at the door.
The old woman kept telling her that Sam was still alive, but it made less and less sense. If he was alive, why hadn’t he come after her? He could have walked the passage and been here even with the snow and mud.
On the third day, a tall man who had the same coloring as Sam knocked on Nina’s door.
To Maggie’s surprise the old woman opened the door and yelled, “What’d you want, Andrew? I don’t have time to visit with no-good Thompsons passing by.”
The tall man didn’t seem to take offense. “I come by to see if you got the boy. We didn’t find his body.”
Maggie pushed past Nina. “What boy?”
The tall man was ten, maybe fifteen years older than Sam, but he had the same dark eyes. He removed his hat. “Sam’s boy. When I saw Sam’s old sled headed into town I knew something was wrong. I know Sam don’t want no one in his business, but all his kin know about the boy. I followed him to the doc’s place in town. The Dolton kid was with him and he told me what happened. A man named Adler pretty near killed Sam, but the Dolton kid stopped it.”
Maggie stood in the cold, trying to take in everything the stranger was saying. Sam was hurt, but he was alive.
“Well,” Nina shouted. “What else, Andrew? I swear, getting anything out of you men is harder than milking a squash.”
“I told the Dolton boy we’d bury his pa and whoever was in Sam’s house. Less said about it the better.” He stood swaying slightly like a tall pine, then he added, “It’s the Thompson way, I guess.”
Maggie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “We have to let the law handle this. Three men have been killed, and at least one of them tried to kill Sam.”
Andrew looked at her like she wasn’t too bright. “Town don’t have any sheriff right now. The men who killed old man Dolton are both dead. There is no one to try and no one to tell.”
“Where’d you bury the bodies?” Nina asked as if the matter of telling was settled.
“Over in the growth of trees between Dolton’s land and Sam’s. The ground was so frozen we couldn’t dig deep, but we covered them good with rocks. By the time the oldest boy sobers up in a week or two, the brother will have thought of a good story. Their pa was fond of taking off for parts unknown. As far as Adler, I doubt anyone will look for him, and the folks in town will just think the sheriff started his retirement early.”
“I want to go to Sam,” Maggie asked. “Will you take me into town?”
“I’ll take you home, but not to Sam. He wouldn’t want people seeing you come to him. He knows there would be talk. If he makes it through this, he’ll come to you. If he doesn’t, he wouldn’t want you to see him die.”
Nina agreed. “No one needs to ever know you were here. That’s how Sam would want it.”
Maggie hadn’t slept in two days. She was exhausted and frightened and worried. “What about Web?”
“I’ll keep him here for a few days. You go rest. Sam will come to you as soon as he can.”
Maggie could not bring herself to ask what would happen if Sam died. She couldn’t think about it without falling completely apart. As if watching her own life happen mindlessly, she wrapped in a black shawl of Nina’s and climbed up behind Andrew Thompson. He didn’t say a word to her on the ride to town or when he helped her off the horse at her back door.
She climbed the stairs to her rooms and collapsed into bed. Sixteen hours later, she woke to the sun shining in. Like a wind-up toy, she moved about her rooms, taking a bath, dressing in the same dull clothes she always had dressed in, tying her hair back in a neat bun at the back of her neck.
Her time with Sam seemed more a dream than reality. The dullness covered her as she cleaned the glass from the store floor and decided to leave the storefront boarded up for a few days. The sheriff must have kept his word and told everyone she was visiting friends because no one came by to check on her and no one expected the store to reopen until the new year.
Every ounce of her body wanted to walk to the end of town and visit the doctor. If Sam was there, she told herself all she needed to do was see him and know he was alive. She didn’t even need to talk to him. But deep down she knew she wouldn’t be able to leave him if he was hurting or even dying, and she also knew he wouldn’t want anyone to know.
Sam Thompson was a private man. Somehow if she told anyone her story of all that had happened since the robbery attempt, she’d be betraying him.
Three days passed, then four, then a week. Maggie no longer measured time. She’d set her logical mind in motion. She’d wait for Sam to come even if he only came to say good-bye. If he died, she’d somehow find Nina’s cabin and take Webster. She’d sell the store and go back East where no one would know she wasn’t the boy’s natural mother. She’d live as a widow, for Nina was right—that was exactly how she would feel.
On the third day of January, Maggie reopened the store. Christmas and the storm were over, though snow remained packed on most of the roads. Every woman in town seemed to need to shop. A few asked about her broken door, but none asked about how her Christmas had been.
Midmorning Maggie was busy adding up purchases with both of her part-time employees restocking as fast as they could. Several women were shopping while an equal number just seemed to be visiting when suddenly a child’s cry rattled the store.
Every mother reached for her children as a toddler shoved past ladies’ skirts and ran toward Maggie.
She jumped from her stool and ran around
the counter just in time to catch Webster.
“Ma Ma,” he cried. “Ma Ma.”
Maggie hugged him to her. “It’s all right, Webster. I’m here.” The sun had just come into her world.
The mercantile was silent as a tall man walked slowly toward her. His arm was in a sling and she noticed his hat hid a bandage, but no man in the world had ever looked better. Even with a thick start to a beard, she saw only perfection.
Maggie smiled at him and for a moment there was no one else in the room. The hunger and love in his eyes told her all she needed to know.
Webster had stopped crying and was playing with the bun at the back of her neck. Though Sam only looked at her, Maggie became aware that everyone in the room was looking at him.
“Ladies,” she said in a bold voice. “I don’t believe you’ve met my husband.”
Before anyone could think of a question, Sam circled her waist and pulled her around the counter to her small office.
He leaned over carefully as if he were still very sore and whispered in her ear. “You’ll need your coat. I’m taking my wife home.”
Maggie didn’t hesitate; she turned to the coatrack and began pulling on her coat. The journal lay open on her desk to the page where she’d written One wish—a loving man for one day.
“One day’s not enough. I’ll take a lifetime.”
“A lifetime of what?” Sam asked.
“Of loving you.” She smiled at him. “And of doing all kinds of things we’ll never speak of.”
“I don’t want to play a game, Maggie. If you come with me it’s for real. Forever.” He kissed her again with Webster wiggling between them. “And I’m not taking the time to shave before I kiss you again.”
“I’d like to go home now. It’s about time we had that Christmas we planned.” For the first time in her life, she feared her heart might explode. “The girls can handle the store until I get back.”
Sam took her hand and led her out the back door where an old sled waited. “On the snow, we can make it home in this, but as soon as I’m able, I plan to teach you to ride.”
“How hurt are you?”
“Doc says I need several days of bed rest, so I thought I’d better come get my wife.” He winked at her.
Maggie could hear all the ladies gossiping inside, but she no longer cared. After all, she was a Thompson now, and Thompsons keep to themselves.