by Loree Lough
Oh, you’ll be soup for Uncle Sam’s Injuns;
It’s ‘beef, heap beef,’ I hear them say.
Get along, git along little dogies,
You’re going to be beef steers by and by.
Whoopee, ti yi yo, git along little dogies,
It’s your misfortune and none of my own.
Whoopee, ti yi yo, git along little dogies,
For you know Wyomin’ will be your new home….
The stranger’s song, sung sad and low, hung in the wind like the mists that hovered over the Rio Grande in the early-morning hours.
He hadn’t seen the river or her mists—or anything else Texan—in a long, long time. The man had been right; Chance was bone tired. Tired of hiding, tired of walking, tired of wondering where his next meal would come from, tired of worrying if, next time he lay down to sleep, the law would find him.
Chance drifted off to sleep as the rustler sang the next verse in his ode to the cattle, and dreamed of his stint as a cowboy. He’d been born on a ranch, had lived his first twelve years riding the range. Working the ponies and punching cows came as naturally and as easily to him as counting money to a banker. He’d participated in a dry drive or two before the fire took his parents and destroyed the ranch. His pa and the ranch hands often passed the long, lonely nights singing sweet and low to keep the cattle calm…and the cowboys awake….
When he woke, the stranger and his horse were nowhere in sight. But he’d left a few of his belongings behind. Maybe he’d gone to scare up another rabbit….
He’d no sooner had the thought than Chance spied a piece of wrinkled brown paper poking out from between the knife and its leather sheath. “Had me two of these,” was all the gritty, printed message said. The old fellow hadn’t seemed the type who’d know how to write…or the type who would have known Chance would be able to read what he’d written.
Shaking his head in wonderment, Chance lifted the heavy-handled knife and turned it over and over in his hands. Hopefully, he wouldn’t have call to use it. But he said a silent thank you to the rustler for the generous and unexpected gift.
Now, he whacked at the knee-high grasses that he hoped would fill Mamie’s belly. He’d take as much as he could carry in his saddlebags, too, because there was no telling where he next meal would come from. Or when. He dropped an armload near her front hooves and, because she’d always been a finicky eater, Chance watched…and hoped. She preferred barley, wheat, and hay to wild grass, and he wasn’t at all sure she’d accept his paltry offering. Using her nose, Mamie shoved the grass to and fro, as if searching for something more appetizing beneath it.
“Don’t rightly know what I’ll do if you decide to get all persnickety on me,” he said when she lifted her head to nuzzle his cheek. “Tell you what,” he said, scratching her nose, “if you eat that mess, I promise to buy you the biggest bag of oats I can find, first chance I get.”
She snorted, then dipped her head. Almost immediately, her pliable lips brought the grass into her mouth, and she chopped it into pieces with her hard incisors. Nostrils flaring, her thick pink tongue tossed the food to the back of her mouth, where it was ground down by her powerful molars.
He wanted to unsaddle her, give her a much-needed brushing, let her roll around on her back as horses are wont to do after a long, hard ride. But he couldn’t chance it. And though Mamie surely wanted her rider’s seat removed even more than the rider wanted to remove it, she continued to chew the grass he’d brought her. “You’re a bone-seasoned filly, I’ll give you that.”
Chance plucked a few ripe blackberries from the nearby shrub and popped them into his mouth. Chuckling, he said under his breath, “Bess would wail me good if she could read my mind right now….”
He’d been standing there, one hand on his horse’s rump, the other acting like a bowl for the blackberries, thinking how much Bess and Mamie had in common: Strong, hard-working, willing to go the extra mile for anyone they’d taken a liking to. Both were sleek and hard-muscled, too. “I love you, W.C. Atwood,” she’d said the last time they were alone, “and I always will.” It must have taken all the willpower she could muster not to press him for all the gory details, and he loved her all the more for that. Someday, maybe he’d have the chance to sit her down and spell it all out.
It wouldn’t be easy, moving farther and farther from the warmth of love like that, but he had to do it, and now, it was more for her sake than his own. Maybe in a year or two, God would have pity on him, show him where he might find the proof he needed to clear his name. Then he could go back to Foggy Bottom, where she’d likely be rocking on the big covered porch, watching the horizon. When she spotted him riding toward her, she’d run like the wind until she reached him. And he’d stand beside Mamie, holding the reins in his hands, waiting, waiting….
Laughing and crying at the same time, she’d throw her arms around him, kiss him and—
Mamie snorted and shook her long-maned head, as if to say, “You have more important things to worry about right now.”
He gave her an affectionate pat, then sat with his back against the gnarled trunk of a yellow pine. No matter where this journey took him, no matter how long he stayed away from Foggy Bottom, he’d carry the farm and Bess’s love with him. Drawing up one knee, he hung his hat there and rested his head against the rough bark. Then, closing his eyes, Chance relived his last moments with her.
Other women had said they loved him, had begged him not to go—oftentimes with tears in their eyes. But their words hadn’t been any more honest than their accompanying sobs, and he’d known it. Still, he’d held them and dried their tears and echoed their empty promises. Then, without the slightest pang of guilt, he’d left them as easily and as quickly as their false tears had dried.
Not this time! This time, though Bess had confessed her love in every womanly way, she had not asked him to stay. Odd, he thought now, that he’d written his goodbye on a single sheet of butcher’s paper. That lone tear tracking down her cheek, he reckoned, had been her goodbye.
Mamie pawed at the loamy woodland soil, searching for more chow. Sighing, Chance stood to get it for her. As his bowie knife hacked at the yellowing stalks, Chance wondered if Bess had read his final farewell yet, and if she had, how she’d reacted to it. Her beautiful face appeared in his mind. The vision moved…a mischievous wood sprite, a doting mother, a caring friend…a full-grown in-love woman. And that look, that courageous yet terrified look…. Chance thanked God for it, because it told him she’d be as miserable without him as he’d be without her.
Chance had experienced real fear before, of being orphaned, of being on the receiving end of his uncle’s wrath, of being on the business end of a loaded pistol, of facing the hangman’s noose. None of it had scared him like the thought that she wouldn’t be waiting for him if—no, when—he returned.
Oh, how he loved her! You should have told her, he thought. Perhaps the words would have given them both some sort of comfort, some sort of guarantee….
But he knew better than most that life doesn’t come with guarantees, and the admission put him on his knees. There, on the sun-dappled forest floor, he bowed his head, knife hand hanging limp at side. He’d asked the question a thousand times since that jailer’s wagon overturned on the dusty trail outside Lubbock: Why, God; why me! He ran down the litany of “ifs,” knowing even before he recited the first what a futile exercise it was, and yet he continued:
If he’d left Lubbock a month earlier, as he’d planned, he wouldn’t have been in town on the night Horace Pickett had been murdered.
If his uncle hadn’t harbored such a deep-seeded hatred for him, the testimony wouldn’t have cinched the rope around his neck.
If he’d been caught anywhere between Texas and Maryland, he’d never have met Bess. And if he hadn’t met her, leaving Foggy Bottom wouldn’t be so all-fired hard. He could only hope that Bess knew and understood why he’d left.
For the first time, putting a place behind him, hi
s tears to dampened the dusty earth.
Chapter Seventeen
Bess had been out back, humming as she picked sheets and pillowslips from the clothesline, when the ruckus started.
“I seen ‘im first, Carter; you got no right to him,” shouted the first voice.
Bess rounded the corner as the second man bellowed, “I’ll see you swing before I let you—“
In a single, sweeping glance, she took it all in: Matt’s stunned expression and the fury blazing between the man on the porch and the man still astride his horse. Hitching up her skirts, she ran up the porch steps and wrapped a protective arm around her brother. “What’s going on here?” she’d demanded, scowling for all she was worth.
Her ire seemed to have temporarily quieted their wrath.
Matt spoke first, pointing a forefinger at the man on the porch. “He rode up, asked if a man by name of W.C. Atwood had been around these parts.” Then, aiming the same digit at the man on horseback, he added, “Whilst I was tellin’ this one I ain’t never heard of any such person, that one rides up and starts barkin’ orders, sayin’ he’d followed that galoot’s trail right to our door, and if I didn’t tell him where I was hidin’ that fella, he’d hog-tie me and—“
Standing beside him, Bess hugged Matt a little tighter. Ever since that afternoon on the Baltimore docks, she’d known this day could dawn at any time. The presence of these two angry men explained Chance’s agitation earlier that morning. She didn’t care what they threatened. No one at Foggy Bottom would help them slip a noose around Chance’s neck. Not if she had anything to say about it! Lifting her chin and raising her left brow, she said, “Will one of you…gentlemen…please explain why you’re on Beckley property, making threats?”
“Didn’t mean no harm, ma’am,” said the first. With his thumb, he shoved his hat farther to the back of his head. “Name’s Carter. Chuck Carter, and I’m the sheriff in Lubbock, Texas.”
Her whole body stiffened at the mention of the town. She could only hope the sheriff hadn’t noticed her reaction.
“I’m here to collect a prisoner,” he continued, elbow resting on the saddle horn. “Ever hear-tell of a man by name of W.C. Atwood, ma’am?”
She frowned. “No, the name isn’t at all familiar, I’m afraid.” Bess brightened a bit to add, “There’s a family down the road a piece,” she said, pointing east, “whose name is Atkins. Maybe you’ve got your names mixed up.”
The sheriff grinned and shook his head. “No ma’am,” was his patronizing reply, “there ain’t no mix-up.”
Bess aimed a glare at the other man. She would have recognized him anywhere. He was the filthy sailor who’d picked a fight with Chance that day on the docks. “I suppose you’re looking for this Atkins fellow, too?”
“His name’s Atwood. W.C. Atwood. And yeah, I’m huntin’ him, too.”
“Why?” Matt wanted to know. “What’s he done?”
“Killed a man with his bare hands,” said the man in the saddle. “Broke his neck and stole his watch.”
Under her hand, Matt’s shoulder tensed. “In Lubbock?”
“That’s right,” the sheriff said. “He was about to pay for his crime when he escaped.”
“P-pay for it?”
“Another hour or so, he’d-a been lookin’ up a limb. Ain’t that right, Sheriff?”
Carter stared hard at him. “Shut up, Yonker,” he grated, “can’t you see you’re scarin’ these nice folks?” He poked around in his shirt pocket for a second or two, then withdrew a many-folded sheet of paper. Leaning forward, he handed it to Bess. “That there’s the feller we’re lookin’ for, miss,” he said. “He look familiar to you?”
She held in her hands a wanted poster exactly like the one hidden in beneath the desk blotter in her room. Matt peered over her shoulder. Surely, the striking likeness to Chance wouldn’t escape his scrutiny. Her voice was thin as she said, “I’m sorry, but I’ve never seen this man before in my life.”
Bess quickly summoned the strength to aim a carefree, friendly smile in their direction. Just as quickly, she realized it had been an exercise in futility, for their visitors no longer had any interest in anything she had to say.
Sheriff Carter had turned slightly in the saddle to face north, a steely, determined expression on a face shaded by a wide-brimmed hat. What had so completely captured his attention? she’d wondered, following his gaze.
In the fleeting moment that ticked by, she saw what Carter had seen…the silhouette of a horse and rider. She guessed the distance to be a mile or more, yet she’d have recognized the way he sat a saddle anywhere. Run, Chance! was her silent warning. Run as fast and as far as you can!
Somehow, she must distract them, and give him the head start he needed. But how?
“Here’s your wanted poster, Sheriff,” she said, holding it out to him.
Her words seemed to have fallen on deaf ears, for Carter had wheeled his horse around, gripping the reins so tightly that the leather squealed against the snaffle rings. The hackamore bridle tightened as his horse responded by rearing back its mighty head, ready and willing to obey his master’s next instruction.
In an eyeblink, he was bulleting toward the shadowy figure on the horizon. “You ain’t goin’ nowhere without me, Carter!” Yonker shouted, pressing his own horse into action. “I aim to get my fair share of that polecat!”
She and Matt huddled in stunned silence, blinking into the gritty fog kicked up by the horses’ hooves.
“I always wondered why Chance kept to himself so much,” Matt said when the dust cleared. He nodded at the wanted poster Bess still clutched in her hands. “Now I know….”
“He didn’t kill that man in Lubbock.”
Matt only shook his head. “I never said he did.” He gave the poster one last worried glance, then jammed his hat onto his head. “I promised Chance I’d clean the barn this morning,” he said, and headed out.
“Where’s Mark?” she asked as he crossed the yard.
“Mixin’ feed for the horses, like Chance told him to,” he hollered over his shoulder. When the boy reached the barn, he slid open the wide double doors and faced the house. “Hey, Bess….”
One hand on the door frame, the other over her hammering heart, she looked his way.
“You think he’ll be all right out there?”
The hammering beneath her hand escalated. For the first time since Mary’s death, she felt no inclination to lie to protect her younger sibling. “I hope so,” she’d said to Matt.
God in heaven, she prayed now, I hope so….
***
After supper, as Bess was scouring the skillet she’d fried their chicken in, Micah joined her in the kitchen. “Hey, Pa,” she said without looking up, “there’s hot coffee on the stove.”
He crossed the room and slid a heavy pottery mug from the open cupboard shelf. “Matt told me what happened this morning.”
The last time she’d heard him speak in that gritty, glum tone of voice had been on the day they’d buried her mother. Bess set the pan aside and dried her hands on her apron. Relieving him of the mug, she filled it with coffee, poured a cup for herself, and followed him to the table.
With thumb and forefinger, he repeatedly stroked his bearded jaw and shook his head. “Guess it was just a matter of time ‘til they came for him.”
All day, she’d been fighting tears, but staved them off by throwing herself into her work. Though the silver hadn’t needed polishing, she’d shined it up anyway. Only two days earlier, she’d dragged every rug outside and hung it over the wire clothesline out back, but she’d done it again today, beating the carpet nap with every ounce of energy she had. She’d taken down the kitchen curtains and soaked them in a tub of lye, despite the fact that she’d done the exact same job just last week. Even tonight’s planned menu—chicken pot pie and buttermilk biscuits—became a Sunday feast, complete with mashed potatoes and gravy, butter beans, and turnip greens.
Ever since Mary’s death, Bes
s had been putting on whatever face her father and brothers needed her to wear, regardless of her own moods or feelings. Even now, as she watched Micah’s worried frown, she wondered what she could do or say to comfort him, to ease his concern.
“He’ll be fine, just fine,” she said, forcing a cheeriness into her voice that she did not feel. “I’m sure he’s found a good hiding place by now.”
Micah sighed deeply. “Bess,” he said, reaching into his coat pocket, “I have something for you.” He held the envelope in his left hand, covered her right hand with his.
Blinking back hot tears, she stared at the envelope and folded her hands in her lap. “It’s from Chance, isn’t it?”
Micah nodded. “He gave it to me first thing this morning, and asked that I—“
“Why didn’t he talk to me himself?” she demanded as a sob swelled in her throat. Fingers flexing nervously, she looked at the note. “Why did he feel he needed to say goodbye…that way!”
“Told me he gave it a lot of thought,” her father said, “and figured this way would be least painful for you.”
She thought of what they’d done that morning, remembering with crystal clarity the way he’d held her, breathed into her ear that he’d never loved a woman as he loved her. “You’ve given me something to live for, Bess,” he had whispered. “I swear to God, I’d die for you….”
Less painful? He was gone for good. How could anything make that less painful!
Glaring, she met Micah’s eyes. “And you believed him? He decided to take the coward’s way out, and you let him?” She stood so quickly that her chair tumbled backward and clattered to the floor. “What kind of father are you?” she demanded. “How could you let him just walk away, knowing what it would do to me, without—“
Micah calmly got to his feet and wrapped her in his arms. “I swear to you, Bess, I tried to stop him. But Chance believes his leaving is best, and safest, for all of us.” He tightened his hold. “Under the circumstances, I’m bound to agree with him.”