The Man from Stone Creek

by Linda Lael Miller

  Sam reached for the boy in earnest, but the major stopped him with a scowl. “Don’t you have a ma?” the old man thundered.

  “No, sir,” Ben replied. “She died havin’ me.” He took a deep breath; Sam saw it rack its way through the kid’s narrow back. “Anyhow, I’m sorry for what happened to your daughter. I had a part in it, and I’d do anything to go back and do things different.”

  “I can tell you this,” the major said after a few moments of pensive reflection. “There isn’t any changing the past. You did what you did, andAbigail did what she did, and that’s the way of it. I don’t mind asking a favor of you, though.”

  Ben waited.

  Sam tried to swallow his heart.

  “Don’t you go wasting a perfectly good life feeling bad over what you can’t do anything about. I don’t want that, and neither would Abigail. She wasn’t the kind to hold a grudge, or to stand idle when somebody was in trouble. If you’d honor her remembrance, then you do right. Learn your lessons and make something of yourself.”

  “Yes, sir,” Ben said.

  “Go on, now,” the major ordered. “I need a word with your teacher, and it’s got to be private.”

  Ben nodded and leaped to the ground. He and the rest of the kids went inside the schoolhouse, on the march. The major could turn just about any bunch into a platoon, just by being who he was.

  “Is it true that boy’s on his own, Sam?”

  Sam nodded. “For the most part. His name’s Donagher. He’s got a stepmother who probably won’t want to bother with him, and an outlaw for a brother.”

  “Part of that gang you’re after?”

  Again, Sam nodded.

  “The boy’s got no other kin?”

  “Not that I know of,” Sam said.

  The major absorbed that, cleared his throat and poised his hands to bring down the reins and get the team and wagon moving. “If nobody takes him in, once the dust settles, you bring him to me. I’ll fetch him up just the way I did you.”

  If the offer had come from any other man in Creation, Sam would have pointed out that raising a boy was a hard job for an old coot, but this was the major. There was nobody quite like him on the face of the earth, and if he said he’d make a home for Ben, he meant it.

  “I’d still like to ride along with you,” Sam said. “At least as far as Phoenix.”

  “Well, I won’t have it,” the major retorted in a tone of finality. “I gave you your orders before you left Stone Creek. And when I give an order, I expect it to be followed.”

  Sam gave a halfhearted salute. “Yes, sir,” he said.

  With that, the major released the brake level, slapped down the reins and was off toward the main part of town, the wagon jostling over bumps and ruts as he went.

  Sam watched him out of sight, and wondered if he’d ever lay eyes on the old man again.

  MADDIE WATCHED through the display window as the wagon passed, driven by an old man. She saw the casket in the back and recognized Abigail’s trunk. Sadness surged up into her throat and made her dizzy with grief. She was drying her eyes and about to turn away, when Undine pulled up in front of the mercantile, at the reins of her smart buggy.

  Oh, Lord, Maddie thought, not now. Oralee had warned her that Mrs. Donagher was in a mood for marketing, but with all that had gone on, she’d forgotten.

  Undine secured the buggy brake and wrapped the reins neatly around the lever before straightening her elaborate feathered-and-flowered hat and climbing daintily down from the seat.

  Maddie moved away from the window and pretended to be busy straightening a stack of denim trousers as Undine whisked into the store, tugging at her gloves and smiling with anticipation. Nobody would have guessed, to look at her, that her husband was in jail, a stone’s throw away, for murdering his own son right in front of her eyes.

  “Who’s that old man I just saw driving down Main Street?” Undine asked.

  Maddie wondered if Undine was already looking for another elderly, prosperous husband, and brought herself up short. She had no way of knowing what was going on in the other woman’s mind and, besides, it was an innocent question. “I think it’s Major J. P. Blackstone,” she said with dignity. “He’s come to get his daughter.”

  Undine pulled a folded fan out of the sleeve of her lavender day dress and flicked it open to flutter it under her chin. “It must be a relief to you. That’s she’s gone, I mean.”

  Maddie was so stunned that, for an interminable moment, she couldn’t speak. She just stood there, stricken, staring at Undine in disbelief.

  “Don’t try to tell me you’re not taken with Sam O’Ballivan,” Undine warned lightly. “I saw the way you looked at him when you were out at our place for supper.”

  Maddie’s right hand clenched into a fist. She’d never struck another person in her life, but she wanted to then. Oh, how she wanted to land a haymaker in the middle of Undine Donagher’s smug, china-doll face.

  “I’d go after him myself,” Undine went on blithely, fanning herself and making her way toward the stack of dress books Maddie kept at the far end of the counter, “if I wasn’t a married woman.”

  Maddie opened her mouth, closed it again. Unclenched her fist.

  Undine glanced back, over her shoulder. “Is something wrong?” she asked sweetly.

  “What’s going to happen to Ben?” Maddie heard herself ask.

  “Well, I thought you were going to keep him,” Undine answered, sounding puzzled. “At least, for the time being.”

  Maddie swallowed. “I can’t give you credit,” she said.

  Undine blinked. “What a strange thing to say!” The fan went faster. “I’m still Mrs. Mungo Donagher, you know. And I sold you this store for a very good price.”

  “Cash only,” Maddie said. “That’s the rule.”

  “Well, I never!”

  Maddie stood her ground, half expecting Undine to either come at her with her claws bared or to storm out of the store in an indignant flurry of costly lavender.

  “Oralee Pringle is behind this, isn’t she?” Undine asked. “Hateful woman.”

  “Business is business, Undine. Oralee has nothing to do with it.”

  Undine slapped open one of the dress books, huffed out a sigh and began to peruse the fashions she’d looked at a dozen times before. “Very well, then,” she said in the tone of one graciously overlooking a gross injustice, “I’ll pay cash for whatever I buy. It’s not as if I’m poor, like you.”

  Maddie set her jaw. She’d have liked to send Undine packing, in no uncertain terms, but the truth of it was, she was poor. She had Terran to support and a payment to make to Oralee, come the first of the month, and she’d need every sale she could make in the meantime to do it.

  “Your last order ought to be in soon,” Maddie said, and took refuge behind the counter, for Undine’s protection, not her own.

  Undine nodded distractedly, pulling off a glove to wet an index finger on the tip of her tongue, the better to flip pages. “It would serve you right, Maddie Chancelor,” she said without looking up, “if I waited to make my purchases in California. Things take forever here. In San Francisco, there are real dress shops. A person can walk in, try on what they like, and walk right out again with it. Nobody there would wait weeks and weeks for their clothes to roll in on a dusty old stagecoach.”

  “I’m sure you’re right, Undine,” Maddie said.

  Undine looked up at her, her eyes suspicious.

  “How is Mungo?” Maddie asked cheerfully, reaching for her feather duster and wielding it with a passion, nearly toppling a pyramid of tobacco tins in the process.

  “I want this blue sateen ball gown, the one from Paris, France,” Undine said, jabbing a finger down onto the page in front of her. “If you can promise it will be here before Christmas.”

  Maddie paused. She knew the dress Undine was referring to; she’d yearned over it herself, in idle moments. As if a storekeeper in a town like Haven would ever have need of such a thing.
“It costs twenty-five dollars,” she said. It was an exorbitant price; a spinet could be had for less, or a good pony cart.

  Undine opened her handbag, reached inside and brought out several gold coins.

  Maddie stared. Of course she’d seen gold before, but only rarely. Folks around Haven traded mostly in small change and paper money.

  “Twenty—five—dollars,” Undine said pointedly, laying the coins down, one by one, in a shiny row on the counter.

  Maddie peered at them. Blinked. “These are Mexican,” she said.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Undine cried on a gust of exasperation. “They’re gold, aren’t they? Take them across the street and give them to Banker James. He’ll trade them for American currency, I assure you!”

  Maddie didn’t touch the coins. They glowed like small pale suns, though, against the dark, polished wood of the countertop. “Where did you get these?” she asked, honestly puzzled.

  Undine hesitated. Her eyes darkened ominously and her mouth tightened. “I sold some of the cattle,” she said at last.

  Maddie frowned. In her experience, ranchers bought cattle on the other side of the river and sold them in the Territory. “In Mexico?”

  “It’s none of your business how I conduct my personal affairs!” Undine snapped, and then blushed at the unfortunate choice of words. Garrett Donagher’s ghost might as well have been standing right there in the store with them.

  Maddie waited tactfully.

  “Do you want to sell me this dress or not?” Undine demanded.

  Maddie weighed one of the coins in her palm, decided it was roughly the equivalent of a five-dollar gold piece, and scooped up the other four. “I’ll send in the order by wire,” she said.

  “Good,” Undine said. “And remember—it has to be here before Christmas.”

  “Is it a gift?” Maddie asked innocently.

  “Yes,” Undine replied tautly, wrenching her glove on and closing the dress book with a force all out of proportion to the task. “For me.”

  “Happy Christmas,” Maddie said.

  Undine reddened, though not in her usual fetching way. In fact, she looked downright florid, and somehow, coarse. “I’m going to visit my husband,” she said as forcefully as if Maddie had asked, then swept to the door in a rustle of skirts and crisply starched petticoats.

  “Give him my regards,” Maddie called after her.

  Then she opened her hand and looked down at the gold coins.

  The profits from that one enormous sale would nearly cover her first payment to Oralee.

  So why did she feel as though she wanted to fling them into the street?

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY

  SAM WAS SITTING on a river rock, near the place where Abigail was found, when the night sounds suddenly ceased and he heard a horse on the other side. He laid a hand on the butt of his .45, but he was too late. A gun barrel pressed into the back of his neck.

  “Some Ranger you are,” Vierra said, and leather whispered as he holstered his pistol. “I could have killed you three times over.”

  Sam let out his breath, stood slowly and turned. If he hadn’t known Vierra was wounded, he’d have knocked him into the scrub brush. “You didn’t waste much time getting back here,” he said after he’d unclenched his jaw. “I thought you’d still be lying around in that hut, letting some pretty woman ladle springwater down your gullet.”

  Vierra laughed, but there was an edge to the sound. “I couldn’t stop thinking about that gold,” he said. “If I don’t get my hands on it soon, I’m going to have to kidnap Pilar.”

  Sam started for the schoolhouse. There was a light burning inside, on the table, and coffee cold on the stove, left over from a lonely supper of canned ham, cinnamon pears and more strawberry pie. “I’ll have no part in that,” he said as Vierra fell into step beside him. “Why’d you leave your horse on the Mexican side?”

  Vierra’s grin flashed in the night. “He doesn’t speak much English.”

  Well, Sam thought, disgruntled, he’d heard the horse, anyway. He’d be a while getting over the chagrin of letting Vierra sneak up on him like that, though.

  They stepped inside, Sam in the lead. He turned to look back at Vierra, who’d paused on the threshold.

  “Where’s that good-looking woman you had stashed here before we headed south?” he asked.

  Sam tensed, then bent to put yank open the stove door and throw some wood on the fire. In a sidelong glance, he saw Vierra’s smile fade. His arm was in a sling, but otherwise he didn’t seem much the worse for wear.

  “Something’s wrong,” he said.

  “Abigail’s dead,” Sam told him. Some things had to be said bluntly.

  Vierra stared at Sam as he straightened and took the coffeepot by the handle, checking its weight. Still enough for the two of them, though there’d be plenty of grounds floating around in the bottom.

  “What?” the Mexican demanded, none too promptly.

  Sam set the coffeepot down on the stovetop with a clunk. “Mungo Donagher’s youngest fell in the river. Abigail went in after him. She was a good swimmer, so I figure her heart must have given out. She had spells.”

  Vierra hauled back one of the chairs at the table. “Sit down,” he said.

  Sam wasn’t in the mood to argue, so he sat.

  Vierra pulled a flask from inside his shirt and shoved it at Sam before taking the other chair, turning it around backward and straddling the seat. “Drink,” he ordered.

  Sam unscrewed the top, poured a good dose of Mexican whiskey down his throat and nearly died of strangulation. “What is this?” he demanded when he stopped coughing and caught his breath. “Kerosene?”

  Vierra ignored the question, leaned forward and crossed himself with his good hand. “¡Madre de Dios,” he muttered. “Dead. Did you love her?”

  Maybe it was the bad whiskey that made Sam answer an inquiry that personal; he didn’t know. “No,” he said, screwing the lid back on the flask and sending it skittering across the tabletop to Vierra. “That’s the hell of it. I didn’t. Not like I should have.”

  Vierra waited.

  Sam wiped his mouth, had second thoughts about the flask, but didn’t reach for it. “The major came and got Abigail today. Took her back home for burying.”

  “If you didn’t love her, what was she doing here in Haven?”

  Sam didn’t speak.

  “She loved you,” Vierra guessed out loud, and crossed himself again.

  “I don’t want to talk about Abigail,” Sam said stonily.

  A long silence ensued. The fire took hold in the belly of the stove and heat rushed audibly through the coffeepot. Vierra rose from his chair, scouted for a mug and poured the lukewarm brew into it, adding what seemed like half the whiskey in the flask before setting the cup in front of Sam.

  “Then talk about Maddie,” Vierra urged.

  Sam shook his head, eyed the concoction warily and took a cautious sip. He felt the muscles in his shoulders slacken suddenly and the sensation was both pleasant and unsettling.

  “I told you about Pilar,” Vierra reminded him.

  “You’re acting like some old spinster at a Lonely Hearts Club meeting,” Sam growled. “I told you—I don’t want to talk. Not about Abigail. And not about Maddie, either.”

  Vierra smiled wanly, but his eyes were solemn. “Life is very short,” he said quietly and in his own good time. “If you want Maddie Chancelor, you’d better do something about it.”

  “If you’re going to carry on like this,” Sam said after a second, still-cautious sip of the doctored coffee, “you might as well go back across the river.” The stuff didn’t taste as nasty, diluted by stale coffee, as it did straight.

  “Now that’s not very neighborly, as you gringos say,” Vierra answered. “And I’m not going anywhere. The men we’re looking for came through Refugio late last night, headed this way.”

  Sam sat up straighter and pushed the mug away. “Why didn’t you say so in
the first place?”

  Vierra shrugged. “We have plenty of time.”

  “Before what?” Sam snapped.

  “Before they try to break Mungo Donagher out of jail.”

  Sam glowered. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Vierra sighed. “I stopped at the cantina to water my horse,” he said. “One of the girls told me the gang had been there the night before. There were more than a dozen of them, according to her, and they were in a real cheerful frame of mind, except for Rex. He was morose, and real put out with his old man for gunning Garrett down. Drank more than his share of rotgut and did some fancy talking.”

  Sam got to his feet, made sure his gun was loaded and there were plenty of spare bullets in his belt. He wasn’t a hasty man, but he felt an urgent need to be doing something, just the same.

  Vierra took a gold watch from the pocket of his vest and checked the time. “They’re planning the raid for midnight,” he said. “That means we have almost three hours to make a plan.”

  “What is there to plan?” Sam demanded. “We have to stop them.”

  Vierra indulged in another sigh. “You’re a schoolmaster, O’Ballivan. Do the arithmetic. There are at least a dozen of them and two of us. Anyway, who cares if they take Mungo Donagher and string him up from a tree? I say we lay low for now, follow them back to wherever they’re hiding out, and watch for a chance to get the gold.”

  “Damn the gold!” Sam raged. “Even a son of a bitch like Donagher deserves a fair trial. Maybe you’re willing to stand by while they lynch him, but I’m not!”

  Vierra raised both hands like a man shielding himself from a burst of flame. “Calm down,” he said.

  “The hell I will!” Sam snapped, and started for the door.

  “What are you going to do?” Vierra called after him.

  Sam didn’t trouble himself to answer. He whistled for the gelding and strode toward the shed, where his tack was stored.

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw the light wink out inside the schoolhouse, andVierra came down the steps. As if summoned by some silent command, the Mexican’s horse trotted out of the brush, dripping river water.

  Silently, but with the air of a man much put upon, Vierra put a foot into the stirrup and swung into the saddle.