The Wyoming Debt

by April Hill

  “Get on the horse. His name is Milo, but he’ll answer to anything you want to call him, just so it’s polite.”

  “And how would you know my horse’s name?” she asked suspiciously.

  “Because Ollie Brewer’s been trying to sell that sack of bones for six months. How much did you pay for him?”

  “Seven dollars,” she lied.

  “You were swindled, lady, which seems only fair, considering. He’ll make it home, though. Maybe with a month or so of rest and eating right, he’ll start looking like a horse again, and less like whatever it is he looks like, now. Get on.”

  Alex scowled, but made no move to get on the horse.

  Will shook his head in disgust. “You don’t know how ride a horse, do you?”

  She sniffed. “Not exactly, but if you’ll stop shouting at me, I’m sure I can do this. It can’t be that difficult, if a person like you can do it.”

  A trace of a grin crossed Cameron’s lips, but he said nothing else until she crossed behind the patient Milo and lifted her skirt to put her foot in the right-hand stirrup. Milo turned his head and watched her, his ears flat against his head, and snorted.

  “Nope,” Will warned. “Try the other side.”

  “What difference does it make?”

  “None, to me, but that’s the way Milo likes it.”

  Alex rolled her eyes. “That’s ridiculous. He’s nothing but a dumb animal.”

  “Now you’ve gone and insulted him. If I was as dumb as you are, lady, I’d do what the animal wants. He may be feeling a little put out, being asked to deal with an idiot.”

  Alex rolled her eyes again, and ignored his advice.

  When she put her foot in the stirrup, Milo whinnied once, reared on his hind legs, and crow-hopped to one side, tossing Alex onto the ground on her rear end. She landed with an audible thump, in a gritty cloud of dust.

  She pushed her hair out of her eyes, sneezed violently, and swore. “Shit!”

  Cameron got down from his horse, helped her to her feet, and led her around to the animal’s left side–the proper side. To her relief, he refrained from remarking about her disheveled appearance, which was worsening by the moment in the oppressive heat and dust.

  “It’s five hours back to my place, maybe more,” he said, pointing to the now grimy red dress “Is that all you’ve got to wear?”

  “Yes!” she snapped. She was still trying to get one foot in the stirrup while also tucking up her dress when she felt Will Cameron’s strong hand on her bottom, shoving her up into the saddle. Alex yelped in surprise, but grabbed hold of Milo’s mane, untangled her skirts and spread them around her as decently as she could, and finally found the other stirrup with her right foot.

  Cameron began fastening her canvas bag behind her saddle. “You got a hat, somewhere?” he asked, indicating the bulging bag.

  “I don’t like hats.”

  “How do you feel about sun-stroke?” Without waiting for an answer, he leaned across her, drew a battered man’s straw hat from his own saddle-bag, and plopped it down on her head.

  “Now, if it’s all right with you, I’d like to get going. Give Milo his head, and try not to fall off on your damned ass.”

  In the first two miles, Alex fell off on her damned ass twice, first into a prickly patch of underbrush that ripped the hem of the red dress to shreds. The second time, she slid off slowly sideways, landed hard, then rolled into a ditch, swallowing a mouthful of dust as she rolled. Ahead of her by several yards, Will Cameron kept riding, while Alex struggled back into the saddle, swearing under her breath.

  Around noon, they stopped along a stream to rest, and to water the horses. Cameron handed her an apple and several hard biscuits, and they sat on two large rocks while they ate. After a few moments of uncomfortable silence, Will made an attempt at civil conversation.

  “I’d like to apologize for a couple of things I said to you this morning, Miss Reynolds,” he began quietly. “It looks like this arrangement of ours is going to take some getting used to, by both of us, until we figure out how it’s going to work. I’m pretty sure what happened back there–the wedding part of it–won’t hold up. I’ve got a sister in Omaha’s who’s married to a lawyer, so I’ll write her and see what I can find out just how legal it was. Even if it stands up, though, there shouldn’t be a problem getting divorced or whatever we need to do, especially since we’re not going to be … well, living together as man and wife. Meanwhile, there’s still the bond to deal with, and I guess we’ll just have to make the best of that until it’s paid off. Would you mind telling me a little bit about yourself? I figure most of what you’ve already told me isn’t strictly true, but if we’re married, even temporarily, I ought to know at least something about where you came from, your full name–things like that. Is Cathy your real name?”

  It was a question, and a moment, that Alex had hoped to avoid, or at least to delay, as long as possible. Everything she’d seen about Will Cameron, until now, suggested that he could be trusted. Her sense was that he had bailed her out of a bad situation out of simple kindness, with no devious purpose–a kindness she had repaid with ingratitude, open rudeness, and a growing list of lies. At this point in her life, penniless, friendless, and desperate, it would be wonderful to believe in and trust someone. But Alex wasn’t ready, yet, or far enough away from Jack, yet, to lower her guard and confide in strangers, even one who seemed as basically decent and honest as this stranger. And the more questions he asked, the more she worried that her first impression of him could well have been wrong. The cautious thing would be to keep a cool distance, tell him nothing, and escape as quickly as possible.

  “I don’t see that my life is none of your business, Mr. Cameron,” Alex said coldly, “especially since–as you say–ours is merely a business arrangement.”

  He shook his head. “Business, maybe, but the fact is, you’re going to be living in close quarters with my children, and I’d like to know just a …”

  Alex leapt to her feet. “If you’re so worried about losing your fucking money, why don’t you just paint a number on my back, the way I understand they do with prison work gangs.” She hurled the half-eaten remains of the biscuits at Will’s head.

  Will stood up and tossed away his apple, then took Alex by the upper arm, flipped up her ragged skirt, and laid two thumping thwacks across the seat of her drawers. “You might want to try that answer again. I was hoping you and I could get along ‘til we work this situation out, but until we do, I’m giving you notice here and now that I’m not going to take that kind of sass from you. Now, I asked you a polite question, and I’d like a polite answer–keeping in mind that you’re talking to a real irate husband wearing a leather belt. Now, what’s your name?”

  “My name is Catherine Alexandra Reynolds,” she replied sullenly, “which is all you need to know. Besides, it seems to me that I’m the one taking the most risk in this ridiculous situation. You’ve already shown that you can be violent. I could probably have you put in jail for … for hitting me like that.”

  Infuriatingly, Cameron grinned. “Not likely,” he advised, swinging back up into the saddle. “You’d have to go back to town to file a charge, and from what I saw, there’s a lot of folks there ready to heat up the tar and feathers if you show your face, again. So, why don’t you just climb back up on poor old Milo, and maybe we can make it home before dark–and before I lose my temper and give you the lickin’ you’ve been asking for all day?”

  “I have a better idea,” Alex said. “I will sign an I.O.U.–right here and now–for the full amount I owe you. After that, you can deliver me to one of the bawdy establishments you mentioned, earlier, where I will immediately apply for employment in any position available–short of being a whore. That way, you’ll know where to find me, and should I fail to make good on the note– with interest–you can have me arrested.”

  A dangerous suggestion, and a bluff, of course. The chances were that Jack was already searching for her in ev
ery such place within two hundred miles. In any case, Cameron wasn’t buying. “We’re wasting time,” he said wearily. “Get back on your horse.”

  “You have absolutely no right to treat me like this, or to threaten me,” she said coldly. “You’re an ill-mannered pig, and a bully, and you can go straight to hell, for all I care.”

  Will looked down at his new bride and shook his head. “Tell me something,” he asked, genuinely curious. “Is there some reason you’re bound and determined to get walloped on your damned wedding day?”

  “That’s exactly what I mean,” Alex replied scornfully. “If you’d stop behaving like a savage, perhaps we could get a few things clear before we go any further.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as this. The fact is that I owe you money–nothing else. As even you agree, you are not my husband, except in the eyes of a drunken judge in a filthy, disgusting sinkhole in the middle of nowhere. I’ll get your money, somehow, but until then, I will behave as I please, say and do as I please, and speak my mind whenever and as forthrightly as I choose. If you don’t like it, you may simply leave me here, and ride away. I’ll send what I owe you when I get to California.”

  With a sigh, Will got down from his horse, glanced around the wooded clearing for a place to sit.

  “You’re right about one thing, Catherine Alexandra,” he agreed, making himself as comfortable as possible on a fallen log. “You and I do need to get a few things clear between us.”

  “Good,” she said, her voice smug. “I’m glad you see that. Now, I’m going to …”

  Will cut her off in mid-sentence by taking her wrist and pulling her down, across his lap. Much of what had happened in the last twenty-four hours had caught him off-guard, but one thing was very clear, and getting clearer by the minute. Catherine Reynolds Cameron wasn’t anything like Maddie, and she never would be. She needed to understand from the beginning who was in charge–and who wasn’t–in the peculiar arrangement they’d just gotten themselves into. And she needed to understand it before they got back to the ranch. There was no way in hell he was going to take this loudmouthed, sullen little hellion home, introduce her as his wife, and have to live for a year with the chaos she could bring into all their lives. Whatever was needed, was needed now–before they got to the cabin, and before the situation erupted in front of two kids who were already confused enough. With that thought in mind, Will steeled himself, swung one long leg over Cathy’s own to keep her in place, and landed a trio of swift smacks to her squirming backside. Shocked by the indignity, his bride responded by pounding her fists on his lower leg, and then bit him–grinding her teeth into Will’s calf hard enough to leave a bad bruise right through the heavy denim of his pants.

  Will shook his head. “All right, lady,” he said grimly. “If that’s the way you want to play it.”

  With that, Cameron pulled his bride’s red dress up to her waist, and shoved an armful of petticoats out of the way, eliciting a stream of profanities from the bride, herself. When he yanked open the back of her ruffled drawers, though, Alex realized that this was a battle she was about to lose. A change of tactics was definitely in order.

  “I’m sorry!” she cried. “Please! I didn’t mean to …”

  The spanking was hard and fast, and from Will’s end, at least, silent. Alex, on the other hand, howled loudly, lustily–and uselessly. So loudly, in fact, that Will couldn’t have heard her apology even if he’d been inclined to accept it–which he wasn’t.

  “Ow! Please, will you just … Shit! Ow! For God’s sake, just let me…! God Dammit! Ow!” Unable to catch her breath between smacks, Alex’s protests and oaths began to meld into one long, hiccupping moan of misery. For his part, Will kept spanking, relentlessly and without a word, until her bared buttocks approached the color of her dress, and until she gave up the struggle and lay sprawled across his lap, reacting to each new smack with little more than with a muffled groan.

  When he finally let her up, Alex stood for a moment, her drawers tangled around her knees. Her face was red, and she was gasped for breath. Finally, she reached down and pulled up the drawers, wincing as the fabric brushed against the livid red splotches he’d left on both cheeks of her rear end.

  “You are a goddamned, miserable cocksucker!” she muttered.

  Will tried not to grin. It wasn’t the first time he’d heard a woman use that word, but it was the first time he’d heard it from a new bride.

  “Call me something like that, again,” he warned, “and I’ll take off my belt and set your damned butt on fire. Now, pull your britches up and get on that horse.”

  They traveled the rest if the day in silence. Late in the afternoon, though, as they came up over a low ridge overlooking a pleasant valley, Will rode up beside her, and took Milo’s reins.

  “We’ll be home, before long,” he said quietly. “I want you to know I don’t like this any more than you do–probably less–but I’ve got a few things to say to you, and I need to say it now, before we get to the ranch, so there’s no more misunderstanding. All right?”

  Alex nodded.

  “All right, then. Here it is. I don’t need a wife, and if I did, this sure as hell wouldn’t be the way I’d go about it, but like I told the judge, I’ve got a ranch and a house and two kids running wild since their Ma died. So, what I do need is all that cooking and cleaning and education you were bragging on back in town. Until now, my daughter, Hannah’s been carrying the load, and that’s not right. She needs help.”

  Alex gulped. If it were possible for a woman to know any less about cooking, cleaning, and laundering that she did, she would have been very surprised. As always, her lies were about to bite her in the ass–again.

  “I know enough about people to know that whatever else you are, and whatever you’ve done in your life until now, you’re not dangerous,” Will went on. “If I thought that, I wouldn’t let you within a hundred miles of my home or my children. With that said, though, I knew the minute I saw you that you were on the run from something. I won’t ask you what it was, but I can see that you’re too good looking a woman and too intelligent to want this situation any more, or any longer, than I do. The way I see it is, you owe me that one hundred and eighteen dollars, and once we get to my place, you’re going to be earning every last penny of it. I’ll expect an honest day’s work, and I’ll pay you whatever’s decent. I’ll ask around and find out what’s right.

  “After you’re paid up, we’re quits. I’ll buy you a train ticket wherever you want to go, and by then, I’m sure you’ll be glad to see the back of me, too. And while you’re here, you don’t have to worry about me bothering you. What’s between us is business, and nothing else. Since you’re an educated woman, though, I will ask you to give my children their lessons, when you can. They loved their Ma, and nobody’s about to take her place, so that won’t be your job, but Hannah’s growing up, so I’d appreciate it if you could maybe help her with the female things, when the time comes.”

  “I understand,” Alex murmured, groaning inwardly as the possible consequences of the lies she’d already piled up. She read and wrote passably in English. She could say “good morning,” “thank you,” and “we need more towels, please,” to the Spanish-speaking hotel maids she had encountered. She had committed to memory and learned to pronounce the lilting, romantic names of several French perfumes. If she hadn’t cheated on all of her mathematics and history tests, she might well still be struggling to graduate from an Omaha, Nebraska high school. Other than that, her education consisted of what she had learned under Jack’s tutelage. But while he was teaching her how to cheat at Blackjack, poker, and various other games of chance, he’d also advised never leaving anything to chance.

  “I understand,” she murmured.

  “Good,” Cameron said, watching her face as he continued. “Now, there’s one more thing I want to get straight, and I’m only going say it this one time. If it’s in your mind to run off and leave me holding the bill for what�
�s happened, I’d think real carefully about it. I’m a fairly easy man to get along with, most of the time, but you’ll find me a real hard enemy. That ‘savage’ Arabella mentioned to Judge Feeney is the man who raised me like his own. He’s the closest friend I’ve got, and the best damned tracker in the territory. Before I married and settled down, I was in the U.S. Cavalry, and Gideon was the ablest scout they had, so if you run, you won’t get far before we catch up to you. And when we find you, I can promise you’ll wish you’d let them put in jail, back there in Big Dooley. Do we understand one another?”

  “I’m sorry you feel you have to threaten me, again, Mr. Cameron,” Alex whimpered softly, managing to bring forth several fairly genuine-looking tears. “You’ve already made yourself exceedingly clear about all of this, and I assure you that I have no intention of abandoning a legal debt and …”

  Cameron chuckled. “Save your tears, Mrs. Cameron. And your promises. I may seem dumb, after what I let myself get roped into back in Dooley, but I’m sure as hell not dumb enough to fall for that act.”

  Alex made a face, but nudged Milo’s sides, urging him forward. For now, and until the she could make good an escape, she would be Mrs. Will Cameron–Cathy.

  * * * *

  As they neared the ranch, Will glanced across at his new bride now and then, trying to tell if she was still angry, but he tried not to concentrate too much on how she looked. Without really meaning to, he had already taken in the soft rise and fall of her full breasts as she breathed, and the curve of her hips below the slender, corseted waistline. He had told himself that the sudden heat and the strong, unbidden but familiar stirring between his legs was nothing but simple reflex, and meant nothing if he ignored it. Yet, somehow, letting himself admire this woman’s ivory complexion and the shining mass of deep golden-streaked hair that fell almost to her waist seemed even more disloyal than being so distracted by her body. Maddie had always worn her light brown hair short and curly, whacking it off by the handfuls with a kitchen knife when it became frizzy and snarled in the same merciless sun and drying wind that left her delicate skin freckled and sunburned, and wrinkled before its time.