Prairie Song

by Jodi Thomas

  Grayson knew it was senseless to argue with her now. She was primed for a fight and that wasn’t at all what he wanted from her. “If you want it that way,” he answered, thinking of other things they’d done together besides argue.

  “I not only want it that way, I plan to have it that way.”

  “Agreed!” He didn’t miss her surprise. Without waiting for her to answer, he threw his jacket over the chair and unstrapped his gunbelt.

  Her eyes grew wide. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m sleeping here tonight. Whoever hurt them might just try to get to you. They got past the guards to Cherish, but they’ll have to kill me to get to you.”

  “But you can’t sleep here.”

  “Why not? I have many nights before.” He sat on the couch and began pulling off his boots.

  “But that was before I knew you could talk.”

  Grayson laughed. “Among other things.”

  “But it wouldn’t be proper.”

  “You asked for my help.” He knew she had no one else to turn to or she wouldn’t have come to him. It was starting to look like everyone in this town wanted Cherish and Maggie out of this house.

  He unbuttoned his shirt. “If I help, I stay.” He didn’t want to tell her, but he’d had to pull all the rank he could to get the army to loan him even two men from Camp Wilson. They’d be going back at dawn unless he had more proof about the Knights.

  Maggie’s gaze fell to his chest for a moment and her face softened a fraction, but then she remembered how he’d lied and humiliated her. There was no room in her life for another man she couldn’t trust. What had happened two nights ago could never be erased but she would make sure it was never repeated. From this point on, her lovemaking with Grayson would only be in her dreams, never again in reality.

  “You can stay on the sofa.” Her chin rose slightly. “But I swear I’ll kill you if you force yourself on me.”

  “I didn’t before, and I never will,” he answered as he relaxed against the couch. “You’ll come to me, Maggie.”

  “Never!” she screamed a moment before she slammed her bedroom door.

  Bar rolled on his cot, opened one eye to stare at Grayson a moment, then, fighting to keep down a smile that tickled his lips, he fell back asleep.

  Fog thickened over the town. Shouts of drunken cowhands from the saloons had quieted by the time Brant Coulter opened the door of the mission and slipped inside.

  Silently he headed toward the flicker of light in the back of the mission. If Father Daniel was there, he’d be in the light; he had hated the darkness since he’d been locked in a cellar while a murderer slaughtered his parents.

  Near the back of the mission, Brant spotted Daniel kneeling by the altar. At first Brant thought the priest was praying, but as he neared, he saw several guns and knives spread out beneath the altar.

  Brant walked up behind the priest. In one flicker of the candle, Brant grabbed Father Daniel and pulled him to his feet.

  “I have a few questions. We have to talk.”

  The priest showed no surprise at seeing Brant, or fear at his sudden assault. He twisted Brant’s fingers from his shoulders and motioned with his head toward the back door.

  They walked out of the church without a word. Both men were so similar in height and weight that their shadows mirrored one another.

  When they stepped into the night air, Daniel leaned his head back and took a long breath, as if he knew what was to come. Brant leaned against the wall of the church and lit a thin cigar.

  “I want to know who hurt Cherish,” Brant said as he exhaled a cloud of smoke.

  Father Daniel shrugged. “It wasn’t one of the group. They wouldn’t hurt a white woman. Frighten, maybe, but hurt, no.”

  “Then who? Daniel, I have to know.”

  “It was Margaret’s husband. He’s been asking too many questions around town. Our guess is that he believes the old story about the Knights leaving a stash of money with Hattie. He’s tried every legal way to get the house but that giant keeps getting in his way. He’s been snooping around far too much for him to stay healthy.”

  Brant dropped his cigar and ground it into the dirt. “Daniel, you’d better be telling the truth for once. We owe Cherish one.”

  “Agreed. I wouldn’t lie about this. Remember what we used to say: ‘closer than brothers.”’

  Despite himself and all else between them, Brant smiled and raised his hand. As their fingers clasped he echoed, “Closer than brothers.”

  The priest turned his gentle gray eyes toward Brant. “Want me or one of the boys to kill Westley?”

  “No,” Brant answered. “I do my own dirty work.”

  It was almost dawn when Westley Alexander stumbled out of Holliday’s back door. The beating he’d given Cherish had flamed his loins and he’d taken more than his money’s worth from one of Holliday’s girls. He laughed thinking about how he’d picked a petite young woman with blond hair to climb the stairs with. She hadn’t fought as hard as Cherish had in the barn, and the whore had taken his blows without screaming. Her eyes were the wrong color and for that Westley had made her pay. When he’d left her, she was whimpering in a corner like some little animal, her offensive eyes swollen shut from the wrath of his blows and her white limbs darkening with bruises. He laughed, now remembering how he’d run his hands over her nude body one last time just to see her shiver in fear. The sight had been almost enough to make him want to mount her again.

  Dried weeds moved in the alley as though a breeze had been trapped in one corner.

  “Who’s there!” Westley shouted. He clutched his pocket where he’d hidden the brooch Maggie always wore. He’d seen the boy sell it and found it a simple task an hour later to go into the store and lift it from the case. In a few days he planned to shove it in her face and have a great laugh about how she’d played his widow all these years.

  Something stirred the trash and Westley laid his other hand on the small derringer in his belt.

  The early fog was still as thick as flour gravy. Westley heard a light tapping to his right. He swung around, ready to battle any robber.

  A long, wide hunting blade slashed across his gut in one quick pull, then disappeared back into the fog.

  Westley grabbed his stomach and fell to his knees. His gun fired uselessly into the fog. Blood trickled between his fingers and ran down his pant legs as he fell forward in the dirt and litter of the alley.

  Chapter 19

  At the sound of someone talking, Grayson rolled from his makeshift bed on the sofa. He could see the dawn light filtering through the windows, but he knew he hadn’t slept more than a few hours. Each time Margaret had passed the sitting room to check on Cherish, his senses had become fully awakened. Most of the times, he’d forced his eyes not to open. He didn’t want to see her in nightclothes with her hair trailing down her back like a black velvet waterfall. Even the shadow of her form would remind him of the slender curves that molded so perfectly to his touch.

  He heard the voice again and realized that Cherish’s mumbling had once more awakened him. Pulling his pants on, he went to her room. She was talking in her sleep as she had most of the night. The words could scarcely escape past her swollen lips. “Brant,” she uttered over and over like a frightened child calling the one person she trusted to help her.

  Grayson could make no sense of the name. In the weeks he’d known these women, he’d never heard Cherish mention anyone whose name sounded even similar. He glanced over to Bar’s cot. The boy was missing. A moment of worry raised his eyebrow, then Bar appeared in the doorway of the sitting room.

  “Mornin’, Grayson,” he said as he tried to pull the bandage from his head.

  “Where have you been?” Grayson didn’t miss that the boy was fully dressed.

  Bar dropped to the cot. “I went out to the privy. When I woke I thought I felt fine, but the walk out there and back wore me out. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll lie back down.”

 
He tumbled back into his cot and fell asleep before Grayson could think to question him further. The huge man bent and straightened the boy’s covers. Grayson scratched his rough stubble and wondered if he’d have to tie Bar down to get him to rest as Margaret had ordered.

  Stretching his muscles, Grayson folded himself into the chair next to Cherish. He’d be just as comfortable sitting up and, if she talked again, he wanted to hear every word.

  But Cherish quieted into a peaceful sleep and Grayson closed his eyes. Somewhere in his sleep, he thought he felt Maggie touch his hair lightly. Yet, moments later, when he pulled himself awake enough to open his eyes, she was nowhere in the room. He tried to go back to sleep but the memory of her in his arms allowed him no peace.

  An hour later, with a pounding on the front door, full daylight bombarded Hattie’s Parlor in regiment force. Grayson was up and halfway down the stairs before he realized he’d forgotten his jacket. Maggie was right behind him, already fully dressed with her hair pulled back in a neat bun. For a moment he fought the urge to grab her and kiss her until her face was warm with love and her lips wet with passion. The woman just looked too damn proper in the morning. But he knew if he touched her, the fire he saw wouldn’t be passion.

  She stepped past him and flung the door open to the sight of the sheriff standing between two deputies. The weasel of a lawyer danced behind them as if he’d been tied like a noisy can to the sheriff’s tail.

  Margaret completely ignored the lawyer’s chimes and looked at the sheriff. “If you’ve come to question Cherish, you’ll have to wait until she’s able to talk.”

  “No.” The sheriff looked down at his hat as if someone had mentioned something he should have done, but hadn’t thought about. “I’d like to ask you to come down to the office with me, Mrs. Alexander.”

  “I’m sorry.” Margaret shook her head. “That is out of the question. I have two injured people to take care of upstairs.”

  No one paid any notice as the lawyer shouted, “Resisting arrest! I told you to watch out for her, Sheriff. She doesn’t do what she’s told, even when I tell her it’s the law.”

  The sheriff snorted like a wild animal trying to clear the scent of the little man from his nose. “I’ll have to insist, Mrs. Alexander.” He glanced up at Grayson. “You see, I have an injured man.”

  “Shouldn’t you call the doctor? I’m only a nurse.”

  “Oh, I called the doctor, but I’m afraid I’ll have to take you in. You see, Mrs. Alexander, it’s your husband who’s been stabbed. He was in an alley a few blocks from here and didn’t see who came at him. Right now all the clues we got point to you being the one who assaulted him. I’m afraid you’ll have to come with me for questioning.”

  Only Margaret’s years of rigid behavior kept her from crumbling like a frightened child. Without thinking, she glanced at Grayson for support.

  He stepped around her to address the sheriff. “There must have been some mistake. Mrs. Alexander couldn’t have stabbed anyone. She’s been upstairs with her niece all night.”

  The sheriff looked doubtful. “You were awake all night? No one could have passed out the door without your noticing?”

  Grayson thought of Bar leaving for the outhouse. He hadn’t even noticed the boy. Even if his mind would logically assume she could have left without his knowledge, his heart would never allow him to believe Maggie would stab someone.

  “The guards you had posted had to report back to their camp at dawn, so anyone in the house could have walked the few blocks to the alley where Westley was stabbed.”

  “But no one did.”

  The sheriff didn’t miss Grayson’s hesitation. “We found her brooch in Westley’s hand and Mr. Wallman is ready to swear he heard her threaten to kill her husband.”

  “That’s right,” Wallman chimed.

  Grayson briefly thought of fighting the sheriff and his two half-awake deputies. But someone—Maggie—might get hurt. He tried to make his tired mind think. “It had to have been someone else. Even I told Westley if he wasn’t out of town by dawn yesterday that I’d kill him. I have no more alibi than she and plenty of reason.”

  The sheriff rubbed his chin in thought. His gaze slowly moved across Grayson’s lack of dress. “Appears you might have had reason also, Captain Kirkland. Maybe you’d better come along with me as well.”

  “No,” Bar yelled from the top of the stairs. He held to the railing as he descended. “They didn’t kill Westley. I did. He knocked me on the head and hurt Miss Cherish. I had to teach him. Ain’t no man goin’ to do that to me and get away with it.” Bar’s last bit of strength drained with his words. He would have crumbled down the last few stairs, too dizzy to stand, but Grayson caught him.

  “Damn if this doesn’t beat all. The man ain’t even dead yet and you folks are lining up to confess. Well, I don’t believe no half-grown boy stabbed him, or no Union officer. As for Mrs. Alexander, she strikes me as the most likely. She’s already tried once and what with a lover living right in her house, she might be in a hurry to get rid of an extra husband.”

  He grabbed Margaret by the arm and pulled her onto the porch as both his deputies raised their weapons to Grayson.

  The huge man was already kneeling to lay Bar down and give them one hell of a fight, but Maggie stopped him.

  “No, Grayson,” she called from the steps. “I’ll straighten this out at the sheriff’s office. Right now you have to take care of Bar and Cherish, at least until Azile returns.” She pulled the sheriff along with her as if knowing she had to leave fast before Grayson did something dangerous. “I’ll be back in an hour.”

  Grayson wanted nothing more than to charge the guns and take Maggie away with him. He’d never been left minding the nest in his life and he didn’t like the trapped feeling it gave him now. But he knew she was right. Someone had to stay with Bar and Cherish. He watched her go, her head high, her back straight. The sheriff and the lawyer were hurrying to keep up with her.

  Without a word, Grayson lifted Bar and carried the boy back up the stairs. He might not know much about nursing, but he could at least keep them safe until Maggie returned.

  Margaret told the same story to everyone at the sheriff’s office. She knew nothing of Westley’s stabbing so her answers were short. By noon, she had the feeling that the sheriff wouldn’t even have investigated the assault except for all the gossip. One deputy, who everyone called Wart, kept filling the sheriff’s mind with what something like this might lead to if he didn’t take action now. So the sheriff continued to hold her for questioning as, one by one, everyone in town stopped by to watch.

  As the day passed she grew impatient with the deputy named Wart. He reminded her of a molting chicken. Big blotches of skin could be seen beneath thin hair. He strutted around, nervously toying with every object in the room. His clumsiness seemed the only constant in his personality, for he’d be all talk one moment, then silent the next.

  Finally, the sheriff could endure no more of her complaining or of Wart’s dropping things. The sheriff obviously thought it would be no great chore to break a woman’s story—any woman’s—but then he’d never met Margaret. “Lock her up,” he finally ordered as he grabbed his hat and headed toward the door. “She’s to talk to no one until I’ve checked her story. And, Wart, get her anything a woman would need.”

  “Where you going?” The deputy looked even more nervous at the thought of being left alone with Margaret. She had taken several opportunities to correct him on his behavior. The idea of spending an evening with her reminding him not to slurp his coffee or put his feet on the desk seemed no less than a death sentence.

  “I’m going over to the hotel to see how Alexander’s doing. If he dies, we got a murder. If he lives, all we’re messing with is a wife who cut her husband. I can hardly haul in every husband or wife who tries to make themselves single. If he’s not dead by nightfall, I might as well let her go home.”

  The deputy nodded. He started to take Margaret’s arm,
but hesitated. As the sheriff closed the front door, he opened the jail’s only cell and waited, as if expecting her to jump at him at any moment.

  Margaret stepped inside. “I will need”—she began with a frankness that allowed no discussion—”clean blankets and sheets, a bucket of hot water, a broom, a mop, lye soap, and ammonia. I’ll not spend the evening in such filth.”

  The deputy hesitated only a moment before running to get all she’d requested. Then he stood and watched in amazement as Margaret cleaned the cell completely.

  When she was finished, she rolled her sleeves back down and looked directly at the deputy. “Please bring that table and chair. I don’t intend to sit on a freshly made bunk.”

  As he moved to obey, she asked, “Where on earth did you get a name like Wart?”

  “It’s my initials.” He answered as if being called on by his teacher. “Washington Andrew Randolph Tucker.”

  “Well, your folks should have been ashamed of themselves for calling you such a name, Mr. Tucker. Every single name of yours is a fine one, but the initials will never do.”

  Wart nodded his agreement and asked if she’d like an extra chair brought into her cell.

  As Margaret nodded, the office door opened with a pop. Holliday’s large bulk waddled in carrying a tray of food.

  The deputy rushed to hold the door. “What’s all this?” he asked, almost knocking the tray from her hands as he tried to look under the cloth.

  “The lady’s supper,” Holliday answered with a shake of her head to indicate she’d just wasted words saying the obvious.

  “She can’t have any visitors.” The deputy tried to sound as if he had some degree of authority, but Holliday walked right past him.

  “Well, the food ain’t company. Open that cell door so I can set her tray down.” Holliday looked at Margaret. “Now don’t you worry none, miss. This ain’t my cooking. I got it over at the hotel.” The old sporting lady set the tray on the table.