Stuck Together

by Mary Connealy

  “We’re riding out to the S Bar S. There’s no sign that Lana has come back. You’ll be safe in town while we round up Wilcox, and we hope catching him will keep the Kiowa from wanting war.” Vince’s brown eyes slid from his mother to his horse. Then he asked a question focused directly on Tina. “Will you be all right?”

  Tina knew he was asking her to watch Mother. And she was glad to do it. For all her confusion, Mrs. Yates was very kind to Tina. Too bad she’d decided to fire Missy, but hopefully a woman as forgetful as Mother would get over her upset soon.

  “Go. We’ll mind Mother and the diner and the whole town. And if Lana comes back, we’ll catch her and lock her back in jail and throw Porter in with her.”

  A smile showed a flash of Vince’s white teeth. “Well, a man can’t ask for more than that. Thank you.” He tugged on the brim of his hat while Dare and Jonas kissed their women goodbye. Vince gave Tina a sharp look that made her feel like he’d have kissed her too given half a chance. Then the men left, and Tina got back to work.

  When the morning flood of hungry men slowed to a trickle, she turned her attention to putting on a ham for dinner while Missy washed up. Minding Mother and the diner and the whole town wasn’t turning out to be much different from most days. But Tina fervently hoped Lana didn’t show up to test Tina on the rest of her boastful promises.

  Vince rode hard for Luke’s ranch. Dare was at his side, Jonas just a length behind because the trail was so narrow.

  “We shouldn’t have left them.” Even riding at full speed didn’t keep Dare from being a little overactive. He was moving about as fast as a man could; it was just his brain that wouldn’t quit.

  “You scouted hard, Dare. You know Lana and Porter were heading in a straight line with no sign of them circling back. She’s gone.”

  “Somehow just listening to you be so sure is enough to make me turn and ride back to Glynna.”

  “You don’t trust me? That ain’t right, Dare. You’re the one who told me it was safe to ride out.”

  “I know.” Dare glanced back at Jonas, who tossed a really contented smile at the two of them.

  “Go on back to town if you’d feel better, Dare,” Jonas called out. “We can handle this.”

  “I’ve given it plenty of thought. But just because I think I’m right doesn’t mean I can quit worrying. I followed Lana far enough to know she was making a beeline for the West. No one who’s planning to double back rides for that many hours.”

  Vince grunted as he rode through the tight canyon neck near Luke’s place. They found Luke already saddled up, with two of his men riding with him. “I was about to leave. I’ve had men out scouting all night, and we found where he rode into a dead-end canyon. But he got to high ground and took a shot at Dodger when he got too close.”

  “Is Dodger all right?” Dare’s doctor instincts were always right near the surface.

  “No one was hit. But another one of my scouts, hunting in a different area, came back and said the Kiowa are riding for that same canyon. They got word about Wilcox, too. If those Kiowa kill Wilcox, the government might decide it’s an uprising and send the cavalry in to strike at the Kiowa.” Luke reined his horse around and took off. Calling over his shoulder, he said, “We’ve got to get Wilcox before they do.”

  Vince swatted his horse on the rump with the flat of his hand, and the gelding leapt into a full gallop, stretching out his stride, gaining on Luke. Thundering hooves sounded behind Vince, and he knew his Regulator friends were coming fast. He caught Luke and matched him stride for stride. Dare came up on Vince’s right. Jonas appeared on Luke’s left. The four of them raced over the stony ground of the canyon, shoulder to shoulder, together, fighting, taking care of each other. The hooves of their horses pounded out a drumbeat that felt so right, something made Vince realize he’d always thought of Chicago as home, and Father and Mother as his family. But these men were his real family. They were brothers, closer than brothers, and home was wherever they were.

  “Now we have to go in slow.” Luke reined in his horse. “We want to get close but stay out of rifle range.”

  Luke pointed to a high canyon wall several hundred yards ahead. “I’m not sure what gun he has. I want to get as close as I can and hope we’re closer than the Kiowa so I can talk to them before they charge that canyon.”

  At a much slower pace now, Vince realized they could take a moment to talk. “Do you all think . . . ?” He fell silent.

  All three of his friends caught his uncertain tone and turned to him, waiting.

  Vince swallowed hard. “Dare, do you think what’s wrong with Mother can be cured?” As they proceeded at a steady walk, Vince hated what he knew his friend was going to say.

  “I don’t think so, Vince. I’ve never heard of an older person getting this kind of dementia and then getting better.”

  “But she’s too young.” Vince’s stomach twisted at Dare’s grim prognosis. “This happens to old people. Seventy- or eighty-year-old people. Not a woman in her fifties.”

  “I don’t know that much about illnesses of the mind. No one does. Vince, I’m sorry, but I doubt your ma is going to get better.”

  “Lana Bullard did.” It made Vince furious, and that was better than the despair he was feeling. “What kind of God lets a woman like Lana get better, but leaves a good-hearted woman like my mother as she is?”

  And that wasn’t a question for Dare; it was one for Jonas. Vince almost wished they were too close to a shootout to talk, yet they had plenty of time.

  “God may know Lana needs more time. God may be hoping to bring her home to himself. Your mother, well, she might be stronger in her faith in this confused state than she was when she spent her time with teas and dress fittings. We can’t understand the working of God, Vince. We can only pray and hope and accept.”

  Silence stretched, broken only by the clopping of horses’ hooves.

  Finally, Vince said, “My grandfather was mad. I never got the impression it was about old age. Now Mother. Do you think the kind of . . . of madness they have is passed on to a son and grandson?”

  His heart pounded at voicing his worst fears to his friends. Vince looked sharply at Dare. The doctor. Who’d just admitted he didn’t know much about these things.

  It was neither the doctor nor the parson who answered.

  Luke said, “A man like you, who’s used to thinking of himself as invincible, would have a special horror at the thought of being as out of control as your mother is. But you can’t worry about what may happen when you’re fifty, Vince. That makes now a nightmare for you. It makes every day of your life something to dread, and that’s a terrible way to live. You have to trust God to take care of you. And for a man who’s the master at taking care of himself and everyone else, that might be the hardest thing you’ve ever done.”

  Breathing a prayer, Vince tried to do it, to turn his life and his future over to God. And as he did so, everything started to become clear. By fearing he’d become his parents, he’d allowed them to have more control over his future than God. That fear was ruling him. He begged forgiveness for not putting his trust in God. As he did so, the dark fears he’d always done his best to control lifted from his heart. He knew in that moment that he was neither of his parents. He could forge his own path, have his own future. And in that future, maybe God hadn’t marked him to be alone. And if he wasn’t going to be alone, he knew exactly who he wanted to be with.

  But first he had to catch a drunken outlaw, stop a war party of Kiowa, protect his brothers, make sure a crazy woman wasn’t going to try to kill anyone, and get back to town. Then he was going to ask Tina Cahill to marry him.

  It was gonna be the longest day of his life.

  Tina handed Glynna a heavy, dripping skillet. It was the last of the dishes. She heaved a sigh of relief to have the cleanup done from the noon herd of men. Missy had gone to get a different dress on, after a splash of water soaked the one she’d worn all morning and through dinner.

&
nbsp; Paul and Janny appeared out the kitchen window where Tina stood. They must have gone out the front door of the diner and rounded the buildings in Broken Wheel to go home, avoiding the kitchen for fear of being given more chores. They’d worked in the diner all morning, and Glynna insisted that her children study every day.

  Tina reached for the basin of dirty water to take it out back and toss it away, but then she dropped the basin and whirled toward the dining room. She shouted to Glynna, “If Missy is changing and the young’uns are at your house, then who’s with Mrs. Yates?”

  Glynna gasped, and the skillet she was drying dropped to the floor with a loud metallic clang. They ran for the dining room, hit the door together and stopped.

  Tina shoved herself through to find . . . “She’s gone.”

  Tina remembered how they’d found Mrs. Yates the last time. “Get the dog. She’ll help us find Virginia Belle.”

  Except . . .

  “The dog’s not here?” Glynna glanced around the room, calling for the dog, but she was nowhere to be found.

  “That means,” Tina said, swallowing hard, “Virginia Belle took Livvy with her.”

  Glynna and Tina exchanged a horrified glance, and together they dashed for the front door.

  Vince realized just what a winding, twisting path they’d taken as they neared the narrow-necked canyon. They’d made their way back nearly to Broken Wheel.

  “Luke, how close to town is this canyon?” He was thinking of the Kiowa coming and that Wilcox was too quick to pull a trigger. Vince’s family and friends were all back in town, where it was supposed to be safe. But they were bringing the trouble straight for them.

  Luke glanced sideways at Vince. “It’s a few miles to the west. But the land is so broken, there’s no direct route back to town, except maybe on foot.”

  “And of course Wilcox would never walk anywhere.” Vince glared at Luke, which wasn’t one bit fair. “And Indians are known for never getting off their horses.”

  Luke’s eyes narrowed. “I see what you mean. This trouble could spill over to Broken Wheel mighty fast.”

  “Not only that,” Dare said from Vince’s right, “if Wilcox is holed up in a canyon close to town, we might be riding straight toward the place where he meets up with Duffy, or whoever is selling him liquor. And that could mean we’re riding to face more than one man.”

  From what should have been a simple if touchy situation, rounding up one worthless drunk, they’d gone to rounding up a group of men bent on keeping their illegal business secret. White men weren’t even supposed to live in Indian Territory, which was why Broken Wheel had always been a quiet little town full of unsociable types. Probably some of them were hiding from the law. Yet one of the few crimes committed against Indians the government would enforce was the ban on liquor sales.

  Vince could see this ending up with soldiers coming in, the Kiowa being rounded up, maybe killing involved in that, and then whoever was left alive in the tribe would be penned up on a reservation, while every man in and around Broken Wheel was run out of the territory. Vince didn’t have much to lose, and Jonas could be a preacher anywhere. Lots of folks in the West would welcome a doctor like Dare. But Luke would lose everything.

  As Vince and his friends rode slowly for the varmint Wilcox, a war party of Kiowa rounded a mesa and came charging in from the south. They were all headed for the same rugged, flat-topped canyon.

  Kicking his horse, Vince surged ahead of his saddle partners, driven to stop this before it turned into something a lot bigger than a cowpoke who’d drunk himself stupid and fired off some reckless shots.

  He was ahead about ten paces when, just seconds later, Luke caught up to him. “You let me talk to ’em, Vince. I know you like taking charge, but I’ve got a better chance of calming Red Wolf and his people down.”

  Knowing it to be true wasn’t the same as liking it. Even so, Vince eased back just a hair as they rode closer to the armed Kiowa. One of the war party screamed and raised his rifle high. A harsh guttural command given by Red Wolf stopped the next shout from his warriors.

  Then, to Vince’s surprise, Red Wolf shouted, “Stop, Luke!” It was so fierce that Luke pulled up. They were close now, just twenty or so yards from the Kiowa.

  “I’m here to make this right, Red Wolf.” Luke’s voice carried across the stony ground. “The man who shot you works for me, and I will see to his punishment.”

  “I don’t believe in your laws, old friend. I trust you, but you can’t make promises for others. The best you can do is to arrest your man for another crime. You’ll punish him for that, but not for shooting at me as I stood peacefully beside you. That isn’t justice—not as the Kiowa understand it.”

  Vince felt compelled to speak for the law in this mess. “I’m the sheriff in Broken Wheel, Red Wolf. I will arrest Wilcox for shooting you. I give you my word I won’t let a judge look away from this.”

  Red Wolf glared at Vince, then Luke. One of his warriors roared a string of words in the Kiowa language. A rapid back and forth between Red Wolf and this man was interrupted by other warriors, all of them sounding furious.

  Vince knew exactly how they felt.

  “The rest of you stay back.” Luke spoke low enough to not interrupt the wrangling Kiowa, then rode even closer.

  Luke was talking mostly to Red Wolf with some stumbling between English and Kiowa. Red Wolf raised a hand high, and Vince saw the white of the bandage around his side, beneath his shirt. The white looked garish against the natural colors of his buckskin clothes. His hair hung down in two long braids that dangled in front of his chest.

  Then one of the Kiowa warriors raised a tomahawk. Vince tightened his hands on the reins to get to Luke’s side. Just then a bullet blasted out of the canyon, followed by a volley of shots.

  Every man among them wheeled to face trouble. Vince soon realized, as he was sure they all did, that the shooter was out of range. The bullets were kicking up dirt nearly a hundred feet away. The best rifles around had a range of about three hundred feet, and the entrance to the canyon was four hundred or more. It had to be Wilcox, and there was a good chance he was drinking again or he’d’ve never pulled the trigger. And he’d’ve for sure quit firing after the first couple of shots fell so short.

  Puffs of smoke exploded up from a jumble of rocks perched high at the mouth of a canyon.

  Red Wolf roared an order, and his braves dismounted. Their horses wore no saddles and the Indians didn’t tie them. The animals walked away from the noise, but they didn’t hightail it out of there. Instead they went to grazing.

  Luke grabbed Red Wolf by the upper arm and talked so fast in Kiowa that Vince couldn’t keep the words separate, let alone hope to glean any of their meaning.

  Luke slashed with his hand as he argued with Red Wolf.

  No good in the verbal battle, Vince studied the range of fire and said, “Dare, I’m going to try and get behind him.”

  With a jerk of his chin Dare said, “Let’s go.”

  “No!” Vince said. “I said I’d go. I wasn’t inviting anyone.”

  “You’ll need backup.”

  “I’ll need someone shooting at him from here, as a diversion.”

  The Indians broke off their talk. Luke slapped Red Wolf on the arm and turned to his Regulator friends. “They’re going to give us a chance. One chance to catch Wilcox and lock him up.”

  Vince wondered how long the Kiowa would stay out of the fight. “I’ve got an idea, but I’m going to be the one to try it.”

  “We’re in this together, Vince,” Jonas said.

  “It’s risky.”

  “My ranch, my risk.” Luke tugged on his leather gloves. Another bullet fired from the canyon mouth, and Luke studied the location of the gunman, his eyes blazing with anger.

  “What I’ve got planned is a one-man job. I’m going to ease up to the side of the canyon mouth and scale that bluff. I’ll be in rifle range for a couple hundred feet, but I should be able to stay out of sight
. The cover is only big enough for one man. Besides that, there are stretches with no cover. I’m going to need him to be busy looking somewhere else.”

  “So we’ll string out. We’ll use the cover one at a time.” Dare never did like to be left out of the action.

  “I need the three of you fanned out here,” Luke said, “keeping his eyes away from the path I’m using. And we all know which of us is better at sneaking, because that’s what I did during the war.”

  Vince saw the Kiowa horses grazing a ways off, but the Kiowa themselves had vanished. While Luke might be better at sneaking than his Regulator friends, he didn’t have a patch on the Indians.

  “I’m surrounded by married—or almost married—men.” Vince thought of his mother. He wasn’t married, yet he had responsibilities. He gave Jonas a hard look. “If something happens to me, Missy is the closest thing to family Mother’s got left, and it ain’t very close. But I want your word you’ll care for Mother.”

  “If you’re making arrangements for your death, then this is a half-wit plan.” Jonas was usually serene and wise; right now he looked mighty annoyed. “I don’t want to go back to town and tell Tina I let you get killed.”

  Vince didn’t like it that Jonas had said Tina. Why not his sister? Why not his mother? Vince preferred to think that no one had noticed what had passed between Tina and him, but Jonas had pretty clearly noticed.

  “Then make sure you keep that fool focused right on you when I’m slipping up on him.” Vince jerked his head toward a man-high slab of red stone sitting in the middle of the wide stretch fronting the canyon. “I’m going to try to keep him from seeing I’m gone. Let’s walk over this way.”

  They walked, and before long the gunman fired at them.

  Once they were hidden, Vince turned to Luke. “Trade coats with me.” Vince wore a long black duster. Luke wore buckskin. “Yours’ll fade into the landscape better.”