The Outlaw's Bride

by Catherine Palmer

  As she stepped to his side, she touched the place on her thigh where Noah’s six-shooter had hung. The holster was empty, the gun confiscated by the guard.

  “Hello, Mr. Evans,” she said, her mouth dry.

  The man stared at her, saying nothing.

  She swallowed. “Mr. Evans, I’m looking for Rattlesnake Jim Jackson.”

  “Snake?” he wheezed. “What fer?”

  “He murdered my father, Alberto Matas.” The words came easier now. “It happened five years ago, when Snake rode with the Horrell Gang.”

  “Aw, not you again.” Evans began to cough. He spat a globule of bright blood onto the white sheet.

  Isobel saw that none of guards intended to move. “Here,” she whispered, blotting his chin with a towel.

  “Snake aims to kill ya, miss,” he grunted as she tucked the towel around his neck. “Hates Mexicans.”

  “I’m from Spain.”

  “Don’t matter. When he was a kid, some of your people done in his whole family. Besides, Snake seen you in the woods that evenin’.”

  “When you shot John Tunstall? Yes. I saw it all.”

  Evans coughed again. “If I tell you where Snake is and you go after him,” he gasped out, “yer gonna git killed.”

  “If I were dead, I certainly couldn’t be a government witness against you.”

  “Well, now…that sits purty good.” He lowered his voice. “Snake’s at the L. G. Murphy ranch, about ten miles northwest of the fort near White Oaks.”

  Isobel stood. “Thank you, Mr. Evans. I wish you a speedy recovery.”

  “Good luck, señorita. Yer gonna need it.”

  Isobel dismounted as dawn cast a pink light over the mountains. The Murphy ranch house sat atop a small grassy knoll in the distance. At this hour no one stirred.

  Perspiration broke out on her temples as she drew her gun and crept through the scrub piñon and oak brush. What would Noah say if he knew what she was doing? No doubt he would berate her for taking matters into her own hands. One of his Bible verses would accompany the rebuke, of course. As if God even noticed a lone Spaniard stalking her father’s killer.

  It wasn’t as though she really wanted to shoot Snake. If she could capture him and take him to the fort, Captain Purington would hold him with Evans until court convened in Lincoln. Then the law could hang them both.

  Her breath sounded loud in the crisp morning air as she knelt beside a rail fence. No matter how distant and unfeeling God was, she needed divine help. Leaning her head against a post to whisper a quick prayer, she saw the faces of her father, her mother, her brother…and the gentle smile of Noah Buchanan. Oh, Lord, keep him safe. Always.

  Cradling her pistol, she flipped open the chamber and counted the six bullets. As she clicked it back into place, a gloved hand clamped over her mouth.

  “Don’t scream. Don’t move.”

  Fear knotting her throat, she struggled, twisting to see the man who held her. A dark hat, a bandanna, shadowed eyes. Gripping her hard, the man turned her to face him. Strong nose…unshaven chin…blue, blue eyes.

  “Mule-headed woman,” Noah breathed. “What’re you doing out here?”

  “How did you know I was gone?”

  “Susan Gates sent for me.”

  “But…but I told her—”

  “Enough’s enough, Isobel. You’re coming back to Lincoln with me.”

  She caught his arm. “Noah—look!”

  The front door of the Murphy house swung open. Scratching his rumpled hair, Jim Jackson wandered onto the porch, a rifle in his arms. He wore only a red union suit, its buttons half undone. As he leaned the rifle against a porch post, Isobel wrestled free of Noah’s grip.

  “Jim Jackson!” she cried out. “Where are the titles to my land?”

  “Get down, Isobel!” Noah hissed, drawing his gun as he tried to push her to the ground.

  “I am the daughter of Don Alberto Matas—a man you murdered five years ago,” Isobel shouted. “Where have you put my family’s land titles and jewels? The ones you stole from my father’s coach.”

  With a loud croak, Snake reached for his rifle, but Isobel cocked her pistol.

  “Hold yer horses now, señorita!” he yelled.

  “Shall I shoot you dead? Or will you talk?”

  “Why should I tell you anything, señorita?”

  “Tell me where you put the titles, or I’ll blast off your head!”

  “And I’ll blast off yore sassy head!” Snatching up his rifle, Snake crouched just as Isobel pulled the trigger. The bullet hit the front door. As she squeezed the trigger a second time, Noah grabbed her by the waist and hurled her to the ground. A bullet zinged past her head and buried itself in a tree trunk behind them.

  “Someone’s firing from upstairs!” Noah shouted.

  “You made me miss my shot!”

  “Head for that arroyo.”

  As Noah dragged her toward the protection of the nearby ditch, Isobel aimed at a face in an upper window and fired her third bullet. A return shot struck a fence post, causing a spray of sawdust and splinters to explode beside them. Isobel took aim at Snake as he scampered around the side of the house.

  “Asesino!” she hollered, pulling the trigger. “Murderer! Thief!”

  A slug plowed into the dirt beside her. Another hit a rock and ricocheted. As Noah was tugging her down into the ditch, she squeezed off her two remaining rounds.

  “Oh, if I could only get my hands on that man—”

  Her words hung in her throat as she caught sight of a crimson stain spreading across Noah’s sleeve.

  His blue eyes darted back and forth as he scanned the landscape. “C’mon—this way!”

  “You’re…you’re wounded!”

  “That’s what happens when folks shoot at you, darlin’. Follow me.”

  Running in a crouch through the low shrubbery, they approached the road. The fire in Isobel’s blood still pumped like lava through her veins. Yet the man she loved had been shot defending her.

  “Get on now!” Noah lifted Isobel in his arms and slung her onto the horse. Swinging a leg over his own saddle, he shouted, “Go, Isobel! Ride like the wind!”

  Pistol drawn, Noah rode just paces behind Isobel. If Snake and his cronies gave chase, it would be close. Noah’s arm was on fire, and he knew that spelled trouble.

  “Are you badly hurt, Noah?” she called over her shoulder.

  “I’ll live.”

  “Then we should circle behind the house. They won’t expect it. Por la venganza!”

  As she spurred her horse, Noah reined his. Busy thanking the Creator for a relatively safe exit, he hadn’t quite caught her drift. Maybe it was the loss of blood, but his head didn’t feel right. Hadn’t he just rescued Isobel? Hadn’t he just dragged her to safety as bullets flew around their heads? Hadn’t he just gotten himself shot trying to get her away from Snake Jackson?

  “Isobel!” he bellowed, goading his horse. “Isobel, get back here!”

  A branch raked his hat from his head as he followed her horse’s flying hooves through a thicket. Stifling a curse, he gritted his teeth.

  “We’ll take cover there,” she cried, wheeling her horse around. “Behind the privy.”

  “Isobel!”

  But she was off again. When her horse galloped across a stretch of open ground, shots rang out from the Murphy house. The horse shied, dancing sideways as Isobel fought for control.

  Jaw clenched, Noah started across the clearing after Isobel. Bullets seemed to come from every direction. Feeling vulnerable without his hat, he hunkered down low.

  “Isobel!” he called over the commotion.

  “Noah—to the outhouse. My horse will follow yours. I can’t leave now. I’m too close!”

  “Close to getting yourself killed,” he growled. “Get out of here, darlin’, and I mean now.”

  Hostility bordering on hatred flashed from her eyes as she swung her horse away from the privy. He followed, this time steering clear of
the road in case of an ambush. When they had ridden a couple of miles without hearing pursuit, Isobel reined her horse to a stop.

  “Where are you taking me?” she demanded.

  “Home.”

  “I have no home—and you just made certain of it.”

  “Snake Jackson won’t give up those titles, Isobel, even with you shooting at him from behind a privy.”

  She shook her head and looked away. “How little you understand me, Noah Buchanan.”

  “You can say that again.”

  “At Fort Stanton, I will recruit soldiers. They’ll be brave enough to fight by my side against Snake Jackson.”

  Noah snorted. “We’re not stopping at Fort Stanton, Isobel. Or in Lincoln. I’m taking you to Chisum’s ranch.”

  “You will have to keep your gun on me, vaquero, because I mean to return to the Murphy house. I know my mission.”

  “So do I, señora.”

  Cradling his wounded arm, Noah reached for his hat, then remembered he’d lost it. He ran a hand across his damp hair and let out a sigh. No hat. No breakfast. A hole in his arm. And one crazy spitfire. This arrangement was turning out to be some kind of fun.

  As angry as she felt at being deterred from her goal, Isobel was worried about Noah’s wound. She insisted on bathing his arm in the clear, icy water of the Rio Bonito.

  “It’s a clean wound,” she informed him as they sat under a tree near the stream. “The bullet passed through. God was with you.”

  “He’s always with me. You, too.”

  “How can you say such a thing? He is God! If you saw the churches in Spain, you would understand His majesty.”

  “Honey, I see it just fine in the New Mexico sky. Majestic as He is, God told us, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’ He loves us, Isobel.”

  “If God loved you, He would not have let a bullet go through your arm.” As she bound his forearm with a strip of cotton torn from her petticoat, Isobel struggled against her own guilt. Noah had been injured protecting her. She didn’t like it that such a man could be hurt. He had seemed so strong, so invincible. Like her father.

  Noah brushed a strand of hair from her forehead. “Didn’t your daddy ever let you do anything wrong, so you’d learn from your mistake and be a better person?”

  Isobel thought back to the first time she had taken her horse over a fence. Though her father had warned her not to do it, he had stood by and watched as she disobeyed. When she’d fallen, he had been the first to her side.

  “Why do you reject Him, Isobel?” Noah asked.

  She tugged a necklace from inside her blouse. “I carry God with me, you see. You can never accuse me of rejecting Him.”

  Noah lifted the gold crucifix with his fingertips. “You carry Him, but you won’t let Him carry you. You keep Him on this cross so He won’t interfere with your plan to wreak vengeance on Snake Jackson. You think you can direct your own life, Isobel. But you’re wrong.”

  “You know nothing about me or my plans. You treat me like a child—forcing me to run when I should stay and fight. You are a coward.”

  He turned his head, blue eyes piercing. “A coward?”

  “That is what I said.”

  He gave a little grunt. “I must be slipping. I used to be a commonplace vaquero. Now I’m a coward.”

  “If you had stood by my side—”

  “But you’re right. We should have fought it out with Snake and his pals from behind the privy. Then, when Dick came to claim our rotting bodies, he could say, ‘Yup, these two are dead as doornails, but they sure were brave.’”

  “I have no intention of dying at Snake Jackson’s hand,” Isobel shot back.

  “You have some kind of holy halo to keep bullets away?”

  “Mock me if you will. I shall never run from my destiny, Noah. I am not afraid of death.”

  “Well, you and death can get together and have a little tea party one of these days. But until our arrangement is over, you’re staying right here.”

  They set out again without speaking, and it was not long before they arrived at the gate to John Chisum’s spread. Isobel caught her breath as they neared the house. Rosebushes had leafed out and were beginning to bud. Once dry grass had brightened to a soft green. The stream ran high and swift through the valley.

  Isobel softened as she recalled the sweet days she had spent with Noah on this land. Now he had brought her here again. If she went to his house, she would fall into that dreamworld again and surrender her quest. Or was a life with Noah her true quest?

  She studied him as he unlatched the gate. It seemed forever since her hands had slipped over his broad shoulders. Since his arms had held her close.

  “Noah,” she said, “when will our arrangement be over?”

  His eyes were soft as he regarded her. “When things calm down in Lincoln. When I’m sure you’re safe from Snake Jackson. When I convince Chisum to sell me some land.”

  “I see,” she said, trying to imagine the day he would look into her eyes and bid her farewell.

  “Howdy, Buchanan!” A slender, mustached man with deep brown eyes and thinning hair strode toward them. “Where’s your hat, partner?”

  “Looks like we may end our arrangement sooner than we thought,” Noah spoke under his breath. “Here comes John Simpson Chisum.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  John Chisum took Isobel’s hand and kissed it. His thick brown mustache—each end waxed into a curly point—brushed over her bare skin.

  “Hey there, you old coot,” Noah said as he and Chisum embraced.

  But the older man drew back with a frown. “What did you mean leaving your new bride at my place, Buchanan? I was mighty ashamed of you when Mrs. Towry told me about it. Especially when I realized that your wife had taken to sleeping in my new bed and hanging her shiny silk dresses in my wardrobe.”

  Noah turned to Isobel, who blushed a deep red. She lifted her chin. “But Mrs. Towry said—”

  “Buchanan,” Chisum cut in, “don’t you know I’ve been cooped up in a Las Vegas jail for three months? Eating grub that ain’t fit for man nor beast. Sleeping on a hard prison cot. Why, I’ve been living for the day I could get back here and stretch out on my pretty bed.”

  Mortified, Isobel spoke up quickly. “Oh, Mr. Chisum, please, I—”

  “Now I reckon I’ll just have to sleep on my old camp cot.”

  “Sir, I—I’m terribly sorry,” Isobel stammered. “I had no idea. And certainly Noah never intended to offend you.”

  At this the cattle baron slapped his knee and burst into a gale of hearty guffaws. “Oh, I got you good there, didn’t I, Mrs. Buchanan? I had you thinking your husband was in a heap of trouble, right? Camp cot—why, that’s where I always sleep!”

  Noah tucked Isobel under his arm and gave Chisum a punch on the arm. “You had us plumb tongue-tied, you old joker. I should have guessed what you were up to the minute you started in on her.”

  It took a moment for Chisum to control his laughter over the grand prank he had pulled. Isobel saw little humor in the situation.

  “Don’t you mind me, now,” Chisum said. “Everyone knows I love a joke. Welcome to the family.”

  She mustered a smile. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Noah Buchanan,” Chisum said as his sharp brown eyes studied Isobel. “I never would have figured you to settle down. But now that I’ve seen your enchanting bride, I understand. You folks come on into the house.”

  As Isobel and Noah followed, he turned and fixed them with another frown. “You know how I feel about gun fighting, Buchanan. A six-shooter will always get you into more trouble than it’ll get you out of.”

  Without waiting for a response, he strode into the cool shadows of his front room. Isobel had already decided that John Chisum was the most eccentric man she had ever met. He swaggered when he walked. His speech was peppered with sarcasm and loud hoots of laughter. He loved practical jokes that were funny only to him.

  But as Isobel entered th
e cattleman’s opulent home for a second time, she was reminded that, as odd as he might be, Chisum was also a shrewd businessman.

  “Two hundred miles along the Pecos River,” he boasted as Isobel gazed out the front window. “Largest ranch in the territory. I dug those irrigation ditches between the roses and the orchard. Clear water. One hundred rosebushes. We’ll have watermelons this summer. You and Noah come over for some sandía.”

  “I would like that,” she replied.

  Chisum fiddled with the waxed end of his mustache. “Tell me about yourself, Mrs. Buchanan. Your kinfolk. Your friends. What possessed you to up and marry my best trail boss?”

  Isobel spotted Noah talking to Alexander McSween across the room. Evidently the lawyer had sought refuge at Chisum’s ranch.

  “My father owned land,” Isobel replied, reminding herself to make Chisum believe that Noah was a happily married man. “Noah reminds me of him.”

  “You married for love?”

  She glanced at Noah, whose blue eyes were on her. “I love my husband,” she murmured.

  “Reckon you’ll like living in the territory?”

  “I already do.”

  “Reckon you’ll manage to settle ol’ Buchanan down?”

  “I already have.”

  “Then how’d he wind up with that bullet hole in his arm?” Chisum asked, leaning closer.

  Isobel was ready. “He was protecting me, as a good husband should.”

  Chisum grinned beneath his mustache. “I like you, Miss Goldilocks. You’re spunky. We’ll get along fine.”

  He clapped his hands, and the room fell quiet. Isobel noted that others had entered the room, but she recognized none of them.

  “Noah Buchanan, Belle,” Chisum began, “I’d like to introduce you to Alexander’s wife, Sue McSween, just in from St. Louis.”

  A small woman with mounds of curled chestnut hair and almond eyes stood to greet them. Her small lips beneath a prominent nose turned up in a smile. An elegant violet brocade gown trimmed in white ruffles hinted at her husband’s wealth.