by Rosie Harper
She took his face in her palms and kissed him gently. It was as passionate and loving as kiss as any they had shared, but Hardy couldn’t help but think that she was kissing him goodbye. “I’ll see you at the meeting tomorrow?” she asked.
“I think it is a great idea. I’ll be cheering you on, but Caleb needs me to mind the herd. I hope it goes well and you have my vote,” he said, choking on the words, trying to hold back the emotions that seemed to be ripping him apart. He’d lost her, he knew it. His stupid pride had made sure he lost the most incredible woman in the world. He helped her up onto her mare and watched as she cantered out of sight.
He walked back inside, past his log cow. His earlier triumph seemed somehow pointless now. He so wanted to impress her, wanted her to understand he was doing it for her – because she deserved the best man, the best of everything. He wanted to give her the moon and stars, but couldn’t even give her a home. Oh, he knew she already had a home, but he meant one that his sweat and toil had built for her. He slammed the door behind him, and ripped off his boots, crashing into bed without even undressing.
He knew sleep probably wouldn’t come, but closed his eyes anyway. All he could see behind his lids was her sad face, and he bolted upright once more. Shit, he needed to go after her. To tell her he hadn’t meant it. He’d learn to live with the comments. If anyone was worth it Mariette was. But he knew in his heart that he would resent her, would resent feeling small. That it would ruin whatever love they had for each other, would replace it with anxiety and rage. No, he thought as he lay back down, much better to have loved her and lost her before he drove her from him.
He awoke the next morning feeling groggy, and tired but he dragged himself up and out to the stable. Melissa was usually kind enough to have made he and Caleb breakfast before she set off for her own work at the newspaper, and often made sure he had a filling evening meal before he headed back to the empty shack. As he looked around now it hit him that this would be it now. There would be no more midnight rides into town, spending a few hours in Mariette’s arms. What a fool he was. But no man could live that way, knowing his wife was in charge because she held all the power.
Thankfully Caleb worked him hard, Bartlett’s herd were all finally looking healthier and fatter. They had to drive them out to find the main herd, and he would need to stay with them to ensure everything was fine for a few days. He hadn’t been looking forward to the solitude before, but now being alone with his thoughts and hundreds of cattle made him feel downright petrified for his sanity. But, Caleb was a good boss and he had a new wife he wanted to be at home with. Hardy would never begrudge the man that. As he set up camp Caleb did a final circle around the herd. “All okay so far. Be careful though, if they do start to butt heads keep your distance, but make a lot of noise. They’ll soon back off from one another,” he said as he came back to be sure Hardy had everything he needed. “That stew should see you through,” he nodded at the large pot Melissa had insisted they take with them that morning.
“You got lucky there Caleb. Melissa is such a wonderful lady.”
“That she is, as is Mariette. Nobody out here would ever think anything of her being wealthier than you my friend, though I know that is probably on your mind.”
“How did you know?” Hardy was surprised. Caleb had never struck him as the observant type – at least not of humans. He could spot even the slightest problem in his herd a mile away.
“I’d love to claim I’m some kind of genius, but Mel let it slip. Life is hard enough out here my friend, when you find a good woman don’t be daft enough to let her get away.”
“I may already be too late, I think it’s all over,” Hardy said sadly.
“It’s never over, if she loves you she’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. Think about it. Do you want your life to consist of nothing but this,” he gestured at the herd and the tiny tent and camp fire. “Or, do you want it to be full of love, a family, happiness. You’ve got all the time in the world to work it out!” he said with a grin as he turned his horses head and began to head back to his own loving wife.
Hardy did just that, sat at the fire and thought about what it was he truly wanted, and every time Mariette’s smile, her dry wit, her loving caresses were what came to mind. Not once did the idea of being a wealthy man from his own efforts. He wanted to jump on Blaze’s back and head home, to tell her that he had been stubborn and wrong, and beg her – night and day if he had to – to give him another chance.
Chapter Six
The newspaper office was quiet. Mr Cole had gone home, there were four days until their next issue so things were a little less frantic now. Melissa had gone home to make supper for Caleb. Mariette sat at her desk, tears pouring down her cheeks as she thought of what she had lost. She put her hands on her warm belly, wishing she could feel the heartbeat, or the sturdy kick of the life growing inside her, so she had some reassurance that she hadn’t lost Hardy from her life completely. But it was months too early to feel anything. She wasn’t even sure if Melissa’s hunch was right, though she prayed that it was. Hardy Williams was a stubborn bloody fool.
But she couldn’t bring herself to wish that she had never laid eyes on the man. She loved him and she prayed that somehow he might change his mind. Hell, she’d give up every penny she had if it meant he’d marry her. She hated that they had parted last night, that she’d had to give up hope that she could convince him to accept her as she was, as she accepted him as he was. But she could understand. Texas was very much a man’s world, she of all people knew that. Men wanted to be men, and for some reason they believed that meant that they had to be the provider.
Her only fear now was that once he found out about her pregnancy, and he was sure to do so soon enough, that he would insist on marrying her anyway – but she didn’t want him to marry her because of any kind of ridiculous chivalrous code. She didn’t need or want her reputation saved from tarnish. She was happy to ride out any scorn – and was wealthy enough to do so. She knew she had friends who would never forsake her.
She tapped her pen in irritation on then blotter, and tried to focus on the paper she was writing. She had managed to contact an old friend of hers from the Dallas Bugle who had dug up some dirt on the men currently ferreting around Stephenville. She had been so excited when she received his letter, and was excited it had arrived in order for her to present it at the meeting tonight. She dried her eyes, and decided that she had better get on with it or she would not be ready.
A sound on the stair made her jump. She was expecting nobody. Mr Cole, Melissa and Caleb would meet her at the town hall. She was probably just imagining things, her mind seemed to be on overdrive these days. She seemed to drift through a hundred emotions an hour. She began to pack up her things, ready to cross over the street. “Good evening Miss Macardle,” a gruff voice came from the shadows of the stairwell. “So pleased to make your acquaintance.”
“I’m sorry the office is closed and I am about to leave,” she said haughtily, but she could feel the anxiety in her chest. She had been right to be fearful after all. The voice was unknown to her, as was the pock-marked face that eventually moved into the light where she could see him. He wore a black hat pulled down over his face, and held a shining pistol in one hand.
“Oh yes you are, but not without us,” he indicated two men behind him, dressed in black both with gun holsters on both hips. She gulped nervously. “You see, you’ve been meddling where you just aren’t welcome, and there’s folk around that just don’t like that. My boss, well he says that you need to be taught a lesson. And so, you can either go to your public meeting and tell them all that you were wrong, and that your ferreting around has found nothing to substantiate your claims that there are companies trying to buy up land across the State in the hopes that they may contain oil, or you can come with us to meet my boss.”
“You cannot force me to say any such thing. I have the proof, and I will not bow down to anyone who thinks they can send a bunch
of thugs into my office. Now, let me pass,” Mariette was fuming now, and feeling almost crazily courageous. She knew that they were onto something, but this proved without a doubt just how big a something they had dug up. To think that they thought they could intimidate her with a couple of idiots like this.
“Oh yes we can, and we will. Now, shall we leave? And do you want to go across the street, or out of town?”
“I’m going over the street. You may go and crawl back under whatever rock you crawled out from without me.”
“Oh I so love it when they resist,” the man said to his companions. “Tie her up.”
“You cannot seriously think that you will be able to tie me up and whisk me out of town without somebody noticing. There will be people outside waiting to attend the meeting, nobody will let you take me,” she said full of bravado as the two henchman set about their task. She squirmed and wriggled as they caught her, trying to get away, to avoid the ropes they bound tightly around her wrists and then her ankles. The truth was she had no idea how many people would even consider turning out on a dark night for her meeting. But she had to hope.
“Gag her too. Her smart mouth is beginning to annoy me,” he said. “There didn’t seem to be any sign of anyone, but that just might be because of this,” he held up a sheet of paper, on which was printed a change of night for the meeting. She went to protest, but almost retched as a salty, stinking rag was tied around her mouth. “Ah, now that is better. Didn’t anybody ever teach you that a woman should be seen and not heard,” her abductor said with a lecherous grin as he ran a dirt-encrusted finger across her collarbone. He then lifted his gun, and with a quick flick of the wrist the butt connected with her skull, hard. Searing pain made her cry out, and then thankfully everything went black.
When she awoke she was slumped on the floor of a carriage, her abductor was looking inordinately pleased with himself. She wanted to hurl insults at him, to scratch and claw at his already ugly and scar covered face. But mostly she just wanted to cry. She had always known that she had been lucky over the years, that she had tested that luck to its limits and even beyond with her exploits, especially in the early years as a prospector. But even she had to admit that maybe that luck had finally reached its limits. In just one day she had lost the man she loved, and been kidnapped and was being taken to God only knew where.
Feeling defeated she accepted there was little hope of rescue. Nobody would know she was gone, but then she had no idea when they had distributed their ridiculous flyer. Maybe there would be someone who didn’t get it? Surely Melissa and Mr Cole, having only spoken with her an hour or so previously would still be there to realise she was not? She had to pray that someone would raise the alarm. But, she also wondered if these fools had been wise enough to check out the office before whisking her away. She could only pray that the evidence she had been working upon, her materials for the meeting had not been asked for by their mysterious boss, and had been left behind. She doubted if any of them was capable of any kind of initiative.
The journey seemed to take days, but may only have been a few minutes. She drifted in and out of consciousness and was glad of it as her head was pounding from the clump she had received. She was occasionally woken by a jolt in the road, and when she was she tried to find a way to look around, to see where they were. Trying to work out where she was headed for was not hard though, if her evidence was right she would be going somewhere North of Fort Worth, to meet Mr Benjamin Arrandale.
After another blackout, she came to and found herself seated in front of a desk. She had been tied securely to the chair, and though she was still gagged it was at least a clean rag this time. There was nothing in the office other than the desk and two chairs. Mariette had to hope that meant they hadn’t brought her evidence with them. Melissa would be able to follow the trail. The door opened and a sharply dressed man, with an overly waxed moustache entered the room. He moved to the chair where he sat down with an unmanly grace. He had perfectly manicured nails, and long slender fingers that made her feel oddly repulsed. “What on earth do you want with me?” she spat as he removed the gag. “You have no right to keep me here.”
“You are of course right my dear. I do have no right to keep you here. But you have no right to be interfering in my business. I am doing nothing illegal, and have every right to buy whatever land I choose, if the owners of that land choose to sell it of course.”
“If everything was so legal, then why am I here? You wouldn’t need to silence me if you weren’t treading too close to the line. I have the proof too. You have been poisoning feed deliveries and other essential supplies from your stores. But they are only added to the orders of the farms and ranches that you want to buy. Property all across Texas that was once profitable is now almost at crisis point because you want to buy land that ‘might’ have oil under it. Oil you have no way to access, and may never be able to. Even if buying the land is legal, the rest of it sure as hell isn’t – especially when you are doing it on the back of a huge gamble. You are ruining people’s lives. I hate to break it to you, but that is exactly what newspapers are for – to report just such injustices.”
“You have no proof, and I could sue you for printing such lies. You truly do have a very vivid imagination Miss Macardle.”
“But I do have the proof,” she laughed. Arrandale looked at her with a puzzled look on his pale brow. “And the best part of it is, I was working on it when your goons arrived. They didn’t think to bring it too did they!” A look of icy rage flashed across his face, his pale eyes flashing at the door. Mariette was over the moon, she had judged the men well – he hadn’t gotten his hands on the evidence. Susannah would be sending the Sheriff, Caleb and Hardy to rescue her, and getting it printed as she sat here.
“But there is no proof,” he tried to bluff her.
“You’ve lost this round Arrandale. I may not be able to prove you poisoned every farm, but I do have witnesses to the orders you gave, and proof from one up near Dallas. They noticed the difference a little quicker than most because you got greedy – upped the levels of arsenic. You wanted that one quicker didn’t you. Thought you might lose out to someone else? Or were they just too stubborn and you wanted to teach them a little lesson?”
Furious Arrandale stormed from the room, and Mariette sat there laughing – almost hysterically now. She may have exposed him, she may have saved many families and their land – but she had the worst feeling that she had pushed her luck way past its limits this time. Arrandale clearly had no qualms about using underhanded means to achieve his ends, would think nothing of sending one of his henchman in to put a bullet in her skull. She could only pray that she would be found, and soon.
Chapter Seven
Hardy was racing through the night. Caleb, the Sheriff and a group of men from Stephenville rode in a V behind him. Caleb had taken a minor detour from their route to fetch him, knowing that Hardy wouldn’t want to be missing from a search party for the woman he loved. They raced towards Fort Worth praying that Melissa was right. She had pretty quickly raised the alarm that Mariette was missing, and had then gone up to the office where she knew her friend had been working. She had found the bag of evidence and shown it immediately to the Sheriff – who had scolded her for keeping such information from him, but then galvanised the entire town into action.
“Fort Worth Sheriff is waiting for us at Arrandale’s,” Michael Proud panted as he rode up. He had been sent on ahead to alert the lawmen. He had clearly ridden his horse to the limit. He was foaming at the bit and had sweat pouring from his withers. “Well done Michael,” Sheriff Harper said. Take it easy on your way home. There’ll be a drink or two for us all in the Saloon when we return I don’t doubt.”
Hardy tipped his hat at the eager young man who had done his bit, and then pressed Blaze onwards. The road was a good one, relatively few ruts so they were able to cover the ground quickly, even though the night was dark. He knew now what a fool he had been. Nothing was more important t
han Mariette to him. His pride meant little if anything happened to her. He never wanted to leave her side ever again, and if that meant being seen as less of a man because his wife was wealthier than he, then so be it. He just knew he had to get to her, had to get her home safely.
The mansion was one of the largest homes any of them had ever seen. Arrandale was clearly a wealthy man, though everyone in the party was certain little of it had been through hard work. When the townspeople had heard what this man had been doing to people like them all over the state they had been up in arms, and were determined to see him get his come-uppance. Hardy wanted to kill him with his bare hands for even daring to lay a hand or Mariette, but knew that it would be best if justice were served. Now he saw the manner in which he lived, he couldn’t help but agree. For a man used to this it would be one hell of a shock to find himself in a dirty cell, surrounded by the worst, most violent and unpleasant men on earth. Yes, some time in jail before he was hanged was far greater punishment. A quick death would be too easy.
They found the local Sheriff and his deputies were already in place around the vast home, and now they were all together, they took their places and stormed the doors. It wasn’t long before they were in, and Arrandale had been found in his library drinking brandy. He blanched even paler as he saw their guns, and was more than happy to tell them where Mariette was being kept. Hardy rushed to the tiny room in the basement, barged through the flimsy door lock with his shoulder and almost sobbed as he saw the look of hope and love on Mariette’s face as she realised he was there.