The Outlaw's Bride

by Catherine Palmer

  “A shot skinned Billy’s arm—says it matches the one he took in his leg the other day.”

  “How’s Mrs. Godfroy?” Isobel asked.

  “Screaming that Buckshot’s in a room full of ammo. I’m going to that stack of logs near the sawmill to get a better look. If I don’t talk him into surrendering, he’ll die on that mattress.”

  Noah grabbed Dick’s arm. “Let me talk to him.”

  “I’m leading the Regulators, Noah. I’ll do it.”

  Without waiting, Dick ran in a crouch toward the pile of wood a hundred yards from Buckshot Roberts. Noah handed ammunition to Bowdre, whose gunbelt had been shot off.

  “Dick’s behind the logs,” Isobel reported. “He’s trying to get a better look at—”

  “No!” Noah roared.

  Too late. Dick lifted his head just above the line of logs. Buckshot took aim and fired. The bullet struck Dick between the eyes, and he toppled over.

  “No!” Noah’s cry echoed. “No!”

  He started for his friend, but Bowdre and Coe dragged him back. Trembling, Isobel sank against the trough.

  “He’s gone, Noah,” Coe barked. “Let’s get out of here before Buckshot kills us all.”

  As he grabbed Isobel’s arm with his bloody hand, a hail of slugs splintered the trough, causing water to stream out the holes. As soon as the shooting paused, the three men hustled her toward the corral.

  The remaining Regulators were already on their horses. Several men blocked Noah to keep him from heading back to his friend. As the group sped away from the mill, Buckshot continued firing.

  “Dick,” Noah groaned. “We’ve left Dick.”

  “Brewer’s dead, Buchanan,” Billy Bonney said. “The Godfroys will bury him.”

  Noah lapsed into silence. But when Isobel gazed at the man she loved, she saw his tears.

  For almost two days Noah said nothing. When the Regulators arrived at Dick Brewer’s ranch, they gathered on the porch to talk. Isobel joined them, but she noted that Noah sat a short distance away, hat in hand as he studied the ground.

  “We need a new leader,” Billy declared. “With Dick dead, we got even more reason to blast them Dolan snakes to kingdom come.”

  “You want to be leader, Kid?”

  “Sure!”

  A disgruntled muttering followed, then Frank Macnab spoke up. “I’ll put my name in the ring, boys. Everybody knows I’m a cattle detective. Makin’ war on rustlers is my job, and the Dolan bunch is no better than a pack of thieves. I reckon I can get myself deputized easier than any of you.”

  “He’s right,” Charley Bowdre said. “Macnab is used to trackin’ folks down. I’d stick by him as leader.”

  “Me, too,” Frank Coe added.

  “Aw, nuts,” Billy said, flinging down his hat.

  Noah stood. “I’m going to round up Dick’s cattle and take them to Chisum’s ranch for safekeeping,” he said. “I’ll cast my lot with Macnab.”

  “You stickin’ with the Regulators, Buchanan?” Bowdre asked. “Nobody’d think you was yeller if you wanted to leave. With Dick gone—”

  “With Dick gone, I’ve got a job to do,” Noah spat. “It’s called revenge.”

  Without a glance at Isobel, he stalked off the porch and headed for his horse.

  Isobel heard Noah’s boots on the porch of Dick Brewer’s cabin. After the Regulators left, she baked a batch of biscuits and cooked a thick cream gravy. It wasn’t much of a meal, but she knew Noah liked it.

  Head down, he entered the front room and hung his lariat on a nail by the door. Without looking at Isobel, he sat on a stool and took off his boots.

  “Noah,” she tried, his unfamiliar reticence distressing her. “I…I made your supper.”

  He stepped to the table and sat in one of Dick’s rickety chairs. Isobel split the biscuits with a fork and ladled gravy over them.

  As he ate, she turned over memories of the first hours they had spent alone together. Here in Dick’s cabin, Noah had taught her to wash dishes, their hands touching in the warm, soapy water.

  But Dick’s death had changed Noah into this unspeaking, angry bull of a man. A man who frightened her.

  “Will you have more biscuits?” she asked.

  He shoved his plate at her.

  “How many days will it take to round up the cattle?” she asked as she filled it.

  He chewed a bite so long she thought he wasn’t going to answer. Then he lifted his head. “You were right all along. When someone you care about gets killed, you don’t stand back and let things take their course. You don’t wait for the law. Not in Lincoln County.”

  “Noah, what are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that Dick Brewer got killed—as fine a man as any to walk God’s green earth. Buckshot Roberts deserves to die for killing Dick. Jimmie Dolan, Snake Jackson, Jesse Evans—the whole passel of them—deserve to die. And I aim to bring them to justice.”

  “You mean you’ll try to kill all those men yourself?”

  “I mean I will kill them.” He pushed his plate back and stood. “I understand you, Isobel Matas. Finally, I understand.”

  He went into the bedroom. Isobel sat at the empty table staring at the chipped plates and blinking away tears. Her vision of a little adobe home on the Pecos faded. The kitchen garden would never bear fruit. There would be no laughing children, no laundry flapping, no biscochitos baking. Susan and Dick would never visit. The dream was ashes.

  Dick Brewer had not owned many cattle. Even so, the drive from his place to Chisum’s South Spring River Ranch exhausted Noah and Isobel. At night, they took turns sleeping and guarding the herd. During the day, they worked to keep the cattle out of the river and move them east.

  Caring for Dick’s cattle was the least Noah could do for his friend. After meeting Susan Gates, Dick had told Noah about his desire to raise a ranching family on the vast New Mexico range. He had confided that he hoped every one of his children would have Susan’s red hair and gray eyes.

  Choking down the knot in his throat that rose every time he thought of Dick, Noah studied Isobel from a distance. Her riding skirt was dusty from days in the saddle. Her white shirtwaist hung loose. The long gold curls that turned men’s heads were shoved beneath one of Dick’s old hats.

  Isobel had buckled on one of Dick’s holsters, and her pistol now hung at her thigh. A leather cartridge belt studded with bullets girdled her hips. Noah would have figured her for a tough trail hand if not for the soft glow in her eyes each time she looked at him. Where was her fire?

  As they camped each night, she cast sweet smiles Noah’s way. Her hands gently spread his blanket on the thick grass. She never tried to make him talk as they sat beside the campfire. Instead she cooked, dusted his Stetson and read aloud from his Bible.

  Her tenderness was almost enough to weaken him to the point of shedding tears. But when he lay alone in the dark, he saw Dick rising from behind that stack of logs…a bullet slamming into his forehead…his body jerking backward…crumpling.

  No! Dick’s death demanded justice, and Noah was the man to deliver it.

  Noah and Isobel drove the cattle onto Chisum’s spread and left the herd with the hired hands. They found Chisum’s square ranch house empty of guests. But Mrs. Towry, the housekeeper, knew all about the shoot-out at Blazer’s Mill.

  “Buckshot Roberts died the day after you left,” she said as they sat on the sofa in Chisum’s front room.

  “Gut shot,” Noah mumbled.

  “Major Godfroy and Dr. Blazer sent to Fort Stanton for a doctor. I don’t know why they wanted to save that rotten bounty hunter. Dr. Appel drove down from the fort, but it was too late. They buried Buckshot Roberts right beside Dick Brewer.”

  Noah clenched his teeth to suppress a curse and stared out the window.

  Mrs. Towry continued. “Mr. McSween is at Fort Stanton. District court was to start in Lincoln this morning. Everyone thinks Judge Bristol will be staying at the fort for protection. Soldiers will sta
nd guard every day at court. The town should be safe now.”

  Isobel glanced at Noah. “I’m going to Lincoln,” she said. “I want to be there for the trials.”

  Noah frowned but made no move to dissuade her. “Fine. We’ll go.”

  Mrs. Towry took in a breath. “But Mrs. Buchanan has been on the trail for days with those reckless Regulators. Herding cattle like a common cowboy. It’s plain indecent the way you’ve treated your bride. Why don’t you take her home? The fellow who looks after your place told me a coyote got into your chicken coop. Your milk cow got scared and broke loose. Court will go on for weeks, and if I was you, I’d check on my place.”

  “Well, you’re not me, Mrs. Towry,” Noah said, standing and slinging his saddlebag over one shoulder. “I have business in Lincoln.”

  “It is one thing,” Isobel said, throwing open the guest-room door, “to mourn your friend. It is quite another to be rude.”

  “What did you say?” Noah emerged from behind an ornate bamboo screen, his shirt in his hands and his face dripping wet.

  “You were impolite to Mrs. Towry.” Isobel tried to keep her eyes on his face. “She was trying to help.”

  “And I was trying to make my point.” He stepped back behind the screen. Amid splashing water, she could hear him muttering. “That house is in the past…crazy idea anyway…writing stories and all that nonsense…”

  Isobel marched around the screen. Noah was bent over the washstand, scrubbing his hair with soap. Sputtering, he came up for air. As he blindly reached for the towel, his hand inadvertently touched Isobel’s shoulder.

  She sucked down a gasp. Taking the linen towel from its brass hook, she handed it to him. For a good minute he rubbed his hair and face.

  Then he lifted his head to stare at Isobel. Bright blue eyes shone in a face so haggard and tormented her heart ached.

  “Noah,” she whispered. “What happened to you?”

  “The best man I ever knew got a bullet between the eyes. And now he’s buried next to his killer. If you don’t think that turns my stomach—”

  “Sit down, Noah Buchanan,” Isobel cut in, pointing a finger at the chair near the window. “Sit. Now.”

  “I’m busy.”

  “Sit!”

  Casting her a black look, he obeyed. She drew a fresh linen towel over his shoulders and around his neck, tying it in back.

  “What are you—”

  “It’s time for a haircut,” she said. “My husband may act like a barbarian, but he won’t look like one.”

  She rummaged through a drawer until she found a pair of scissors. “When I was a girl,” she said, snipping at his sideburns, “I was afraid.”

  “Afraid of what? You lived on your fancy hacienda with your rich clothes and your rich parents. What was there to be scared of?”

  “Many things.” She smiled as she drew the comb through his hair and cut the ends. “I was afraid of my horse.”

  “Your horse?”

  “Yes, I was terrified of him. One day my father took me aside and brushed away my tears. He said, ‘Isobel, mija, you must change your fear into anger. Anger will make you strong. And with that strength, you will control your horse.’”

  She snipped the back of Noah’s hair. “From that time, I hid my fear behind the curtain of anger. No one, nothing, could frighten me. I have pursued revenge with that anger—never letting anyone see my fear.”

  “Are you afraid of Snake Jackson, Isobel?”

  “I’m afraid of losing the ones I love.”

  He reached up and took the hand that held the comb. “You lost your father. I lost Dick. You hide your fear. I hide my pain. What’s so bad about that kind of anger, Isobel?”

  She searched his bright blue eyes. “Once a man taught me that there was more to life than fear and pain and anger,” she said. “That man showed me how to laugh at bubbles in dishwater. How to weep over a beautiful story. He taught me that God loves me…that because the Lord is my shepherd, I need fear no evil. That His Spirit comforts me—even in the valley of the shadow of death. Because of you, Noah, I am learning how to really live.”

  He stood suddenly, knocking back the chair as he moved away from her to the window. Isobel watched as he leaned an arm against the sill, his fist clenched.

  Stepping to his side, she laid her hand on his back and ran her palm down the taut muscles. He let out a breath and turned to her, his eyes red.

  “That man died, Isobel,” he whispered in a hoarse voice. “The moment that bullet hit Dick Brewer’s forehead, the old Noah Buchanan died. Buckshot Roberts’s bullet blew away that part of me. I feel anger now, nothing else.”

  “Come, Noah,” she said, taking his hands and drawing him near. “Let me remind you of other things.”

  Isobel shut her eyes as their lips touched. He kissed her cheek, her neck, and she felt protected in his arms. “Noah, we could be so good together.”

  She slipped her arms around him, but when her fingers threaded through his hair, he stiffened and pushed her away.

  “No, Isobel,” he growled, his eyes icy, distracted. “I can’t. I’ve got things to tend to.”

  Pushing away from her, he strode across the room. She heard the door slam as she stood alone, needing her husband.

  Chapter Sixteen

  On the long ride to Lincoln, Isobel pondered her future. Though she knew Dick Brewer’s murder had changed the silent man who rode at her side, she had no doubt that deep in his heart Noah would remain the same. The intense pain he felt over the loss of his friend proved that his gentle nature had not been erased.

  “I’ve been considering,” he said as they neared Lincoln. He hadn’t spoken more than a few words for three days, and his declaration surprised Isobel.

  “What have you considered?” she asked.

  “I think it’s time we ended our arrangement.”

  She tried to squelch the dismay that rose inside her. “Why is that?”

  “We’ve pretty much wound things up. I helped you find the name of your father’s killer. I protected you from Snake Jackson and the others. You can’t testify against Evans and Snake, because the Regulators didn’t name you as an eyewitness in their first report. So you’re off the hook on that. District court will put an end to Lincoln’s troubles. Dolan might go free because of his connections in Santa Fe, but his men will wind up behind bars.”

  “And I helped you get the land you wanted from John Chisum. So our contract is fulfilled.”

  “Reckon so.”

  Isobel nodded, but inside she felt frantic to sort out the real meaning behind Noah’s words. Did he want to be rid of her? Did all that had passed between them mean nothing? Or did he love her and fear for her safety as he carried out his plan to avenge Dick Brewer’s death?

  “What will you do now?” she asked. “Continue as Chisum’s trail boss?”

  He scowled at the sun-dappled road. “You know what I’ll be doing.”

  “Buckshot Roberts is dead. What more do you want, Noah?”

  “I want to bring Jimmie Dolan down.”

  “Will you ambush him on the street like the Kid did Sheriff Brady? Will you become a bounty hunter like Buckshot Roberts?”

  “I’ll do whatever it takes, Isobel. Dick wouldn’t let Tunstall’s death rest. I’m not going to let Dick’s death rest. And the man behind both murders is Jimmie Dolan.”

  “What’s to become of me while you wreak your revenge?”

  “Look, I didn’t take on your entire future the night I married you, Isobel. We struck a temporary bargain. Do whatever you want.”

  “Then I shall ride with you in pursuit of Jimmie Dolan.”

  “No, you won’t!” He whirled on her, his blue eyes flashing. “I’ve already lost Dick, and I’m not going to lose…” He bit off his words. “Stay at McSween’s house through the trials. Susan Gates will be in a fix over losing Dick. She’ll need comforting.”

  “And what about you, Noah?”

  “I don’t need your c
omforts, Isobel. You saw that three days ago.”

  “Three days ago, I saw a man whose best friend had been murdered. One day you’ll wish me near.”

  “No, I won’t. If I need a woman, I’ll find one with no strings attached. I don’t want to be tangled, Isobel.”

  “And I tangle you.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “So, you will throw away your stories, take down the lace curtains, let the kitchen garden go to weeds. Those days with me meant nothing. You’ll forget our laughter, my burned eggs, the typewriter—”

  “Don’t. Just don’t talk about that, Isobel. I don’t want to hear it.”

  “You said you wanted to make our marriage real. You took me to Chisum’s house to buy land for us.”

  “That was before Dick got killed.” He reined his horse and studied her, his eyes dark. “I’m sorry I steered you wrong, Isobel. Sorry I made you think there could be a future for us…like I was good for you.”

  “You are good for me.”

  “No. You don’t know what kind of people I come from. I told you about Mrs. Allison and her library. But my daddy was a gambler. He left after I was born. My mother sold herself to keep food in our bellies. Then she died of a fever and left all us kids orphans. I’m no better than Snake Jackson. His folks left him an orphan, too. It was only the luck of the draw that got me on as a stable hand with the Allisons.”

  “Luck? Don’t you mean God? Didn’t He put you with Mrs. Allison? Are you not the man who reads the Bible and prays each day? The man God shaped to write ‘Sunset at Coyote Canyon’? Who was that man, if not you?”

  “But I’ve got my daddy’s roving blood, Isobel. I’m a wanderer. Chisum didn’t want to sell me land because he thought I couldn’t sit still long enough to care for it. I may have fooled you into thinking I was a good man, but the truth is, I’ve got an outlaw’s heart.”

  Isobel blinked at the tears blurring her vision of Lincoln’s dusk-shrouded road. So this was how Noah would end their union.

  “It is your choice,” she told him. “I am now both Isobel Matas and Belle Buchanan. You are a good man and a rootless drifter. Neither of us can continue to be both. We must choose. Choose well, Noah.”