A Stone Creek Collection Volume 1

by Linda Lael Miller

  “Maybe he’s come to work on the railroad,” Mrs. Porter speculated suddenly.

  Lark hoped the look on her face would pass for puzzlement, though it was actually apprehension. Had she realized the railroad was coming to Stone Creek, she wouldn’t even have gotten off the stagecoach at all, let alone taken a room and applied for the recently vacated teaching position at the town’s primitive little school. Indeed, she’d been settled in before she’d known, with the last of her funds spent to secure living quarters.

  Mrs. Porter smiled brightly, setting two bone china teacups on the table with a merry little clatter. “I’m referring to Rowdy Rhodes, of course,” she explained, her tone cheerful, her eyes alert. “Mr. Porter always complained that I just say things, out of the clear blue sky, with no sort of preamble whatsoever.” She paused, frowning a little. “Yes, I’m sure he’s here to help build the railroad.”

  “It’s quite all right,” Lark said. Everyone else in Stone Creek was excited at the prospect of train tracks and a depot linking them to such far-flung places as Flagstaff and Phoenix; the economic benefits were considerable. To Lark, however, the coming of the railroad meant disaster, because Autry owned it. By spring, the countryside would be crawling with his minions and henchmen—he might even show up himself.

  Just the thought of that made her shiver.

  Mrs. Porter sat down, then poured tea from the lovely pot, which matched the cups and saucers. Looking at the delicate objects, Lark was seized by a sudden and poignant yearning for the life she’d left behind. Unfortunately, that life had included Autry Whitman, and therefore been untenable.

  “How are things going at school?” Mrs. Porter asked companionably, but the questions she really wanted to ask were visible in her eyes.

  Who are you, really?

  Where did you come from?

  And why are you so frightened all the time?

  A part of Lark would have loved to answer those questions with stark honesty. Her secrets were a very heavy burden indeed, and Mrs. Porter, while an obvious gossip, was a friendly woman with motherly ways.

  “Little Lydia Fairmont is finally learning to write her letters properly,” Lark said, glad of the change of subject. “She’s a bright child, but she has a great deal of trouble with penmanship.”

  Mrs. Porter sighed and stared into her teacup. “Mr. Porter loved to read,” she said. “And he wrote a very fine hand. Copperplate, you know. Quite elegant.”

  “I’m sure he did,” Lark replied, saddened. Then, tentatively, she ventured, “You must miss him very much.”

  Mrs. Porter’s spine straightened. “He’s gone,” she said, almost tersely, “and that’s the end of it.”

  Feeling put in her place, Lark busied herself stirring more milk into her tea. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to pry.”

  Mrs. Porter patted her hand, her touch light and cool. The house was large, and it was cold, except for the kitchen, since the fireplaces in the parlor and dining room were never lit. When she wasn’t at school, where there was a potbellied stove and plenty of wood, Lark either shivered in her room, bundled in a quilt or read at the table where she was sitting now.

  There had been no snow since before Christmas, but the weather was bitter, just the same. Would the winter never end? Though spring would surely bring trouble, Lark longed for it with helpless desperation.

  “No need to apologize, dear,” Mrs. Porter said graciously. “Have another lemon tart.”

  Lark, who had been hungry ever since she’d fled Denver, did not hesitate to accept the offered refreshment.

  The back door opened, and Mai Lee, Mrs. Porter’s cook, dashed in, a shawl pulled tightly around her head and shoulders. She carried a grocery basket over one arm, with a plucked chicken inside, its head lolling over one side.

  “Make supper, chop-chop,” Mai Lee said.

  “Have some tea first,” Mrs. Porter told the woman kindly. “You look chilled to the bone.”

  “No, no,” Mai Lee answered, hanging up her shawl and setting the basket decisively on the worktable next to the stove. “Stand here. Be warm. Cook chicken.”

  Mrs. Porter rose from her chair, fetched another china cup and saucer from the breakfront, with its curvy glass doors, and poured tea, adding generous portions of sugar and milk. “Drink this,” she told Mai Lee, “or you’ll catch your death.”

  Dutifully Mai Lee accepted the tea, only to set it aside and grab the dead chicken by its neck. “I tell man at mercantile, chop off head,” she announced. “But he no do.” Her eyes glowed with excitement. “On way there, I see Rowdy Rhodes in barbershop. He getting haircut. Dog getting haircut, too. Horse at livery stable, plenty of grain.”

  Mrs. Porter sat down again, poured herself more tea and took a tart, nibbling delicately at the edge. “Mai Lee,” she said appreciatively, “it will be the Lord’s own wonder if I don’t lose you to the newspaper one of these days. You’d be a very good reporter.”

  “I no read or write,” Mai Lee lamented good-naturedly, spreading her hands wide for emphasis before slamming the chicken down on the chopping board to whack off its head with one sure stroke of the butcher knife. “Cannot be reporter.”

  “How did you know Mr. Rhodes’s horse was at the livery stable, let alone how much grain it receives?” Mrs. Porter asked, both amused and avidly curious.

  Mai Lee frowned as she worked her way through the intricacies of the question, put to her in a language that was not her own. “I hear man talking outside barbershop,” she said finally. “He work at stable.”

  “Ah,” Mrs. Porter said. “What else did you learn about Mr. Rhodes?”

  Mai Lee giggled. She might have been sixteen—or sixty. Lark couldn’t tell by her appearance, and it was the same with her husband, who joined her each night, late, to share a narrow bed in the nook beneath the main staircase, and was invariably gone by daylight. Both of them were ageless.

  From the limited amount of information she’d been able to gather, Lark surmised that the couple was saving practically every cent they earned to buy a little plot of land and raise vegetables for sale to the growing community.

  “He handsome,” Mai Lee confided, when she’d recovered from her girlish mirth. “Eyes blue, like sky. Hair golden. Smile—” here, she laid a hand to her flat little chest “—make knees bend.”

  “He smiled at you?” Lark asked, and could have chewed up her tongue and swallowed it for revealing any interest at all.

  Mrs. Porter looked at her, clearly intrigued.

  Mai Lee began hacking the chicken into pieces and nodded. “Through window of barbershop. I look. He wink at me.” She giggled again. “Not tell husband.”

  The pit of Lark’s stomach did a peculiar little flip. She’d seen Mr. Rhodes only from a distance; he might have been handsome, as Mai Lee claimed, or ugly as the floor of a henhouse. And what did she care, either way, if he winked at women?

  It only went to prove he was a rounder and a rascal.

  With luck, he’d move on, and she’d never have to make his acquaintance at all.

  Unless, of course, Autry had paid him to track her down.

  Suddenly Lark was as cold as if she’d been sitting outside, under a bare-limbed oak tree, instead of smack in the middle of Mrs. Porter’s cozy kitchen.

  Mai Lee proceeded to build up the fire in the cookstove, then placed a skillet on top and lobbed in a spoonful of lard. She peeled potatoes while the pan heated, a model of brisk efficiency, and politely spurned Lark’s offer to help.

  Mrs. Porter sat in companionable silence, sipping her tea and flipping through that week’s copy of the Stone Creek Courier. Lark set the table for three, while the aroma of frying chicken filled the kitchen. Steam veiled the windows.

  Lark picked up a book, a favorite she’d owned since childhood, and buried herself in the story. She’d read it countless times, but she never tired of the tale, in which a young woman, fallen upon hard and grievous times, offered herself up as a mail-ord
er bride, married a taciturn farmer, slowly won his heart and bore his children.

  The knock at the back door brought her sharply back to ordinary reality.

  “Now who could that be?” Mrs. Porter mused, moving to answer.

  A blast of frigid air rushed into the room.

  And there in the open doorway stood Rowdy Rhodes, in his long, black coat, freshly shaven and barbered, holding his hat in one hand. Mai Lee had been right about his blue eyes and his smile.

  Lark was glad she was sitting down.

  “I heard you might have rooms to let,” he said, and though he was addressing Mrs. Porter, his gaze strayed immediately to Lark. A slight frown creased the space between his brows. “Of course, you’d have to let my dog stay, too.”

  The yellow hound ambled past him as if it had lived in that house forever, sniffed the air, which was redolent with frying chicken, and marched himself over to the stove, where he lay down with a weary, grateful sigh.

  Mrs. Porter, Lark thought, with frantic relief, was a fastidious housekeeper, and she would never allow a dog. She would surely turn Mr. Rhodes away.

  “It’s two dollars a week,” Mrs. Porter said instead, casting a glance back at Lark. “Normal price is $1.50, but, with the dog—”

  Rhodes smiled again, once he’d shifted his attention back to the landlady. “Sounds fair,” he said. “Mr. Sam O’Ballivan will vouch for me, if there’s any question of my character.”

  “Come in,” Mrs. Porter fussed, fond as a mother welcoming home a prodigal son, heretofore despaired of. “Supper’s just about ready.”

  No, Lark thought desperately.

  The dog sighed again, very contentedly, and closed its eyes.

  Mai Lee stepped over the animal to turn the chicken with a meat fork and then poke at the potatoes boiling in a kettle. She kept stealing glances at Rhodes.

  “I’ll show you your room and get a fire going in there,” Mrs. Porter said, only then closing the door against the bite of a winter evening. “Land sakes, it’s been cold lately. I do hope you haven’t traveled far in this weather.”

  Lark stood up, meaning to express vigorous dissent, and sat down again when words failed her.

  Mr. Rhodes, who had yet to extend the courtesy of offering his name, noted the standing and sitting, and responded with a slight and crooked grin.

  The pit of Lark’s stomach fluttered.

  Mrs. Porter led the new boarder straight to the room at the back, with its fireplace and outside door and lovely writing desk. The dog got up and lumbered after them.

  For a moment, Lark was so stricken by jealousy that she forgot she might be in grave peril. Then, her native practicality emerged. Even presuming Mr. Rhodes was not in Autry’s employ, he was a stranger, and he carried a gun. He could murder them all in their beds.

  Mai Lee set another place at the table.

  Voices sounded from the next room. Lark discerned that Mrs. Porter had undertaken to lay a fire, and Mr. Rhodes had promptly assumed the task.

  Lark stood up, intending to dash upstairs and lock herself in her room until she had a chance to speak privately with Mrs. Porter, but Rhodes reappeared before she could make another move. She dropped back into her chair and was treated to second look of amusement from the lodger.

  Indignant color surged into Lark’s face.

  Mrs. Porter prattled like a smitten schoolgirl, offering Mr. Rhodes a tart and running on about how it was good to have a man in the house again, what with poor, dear Mr. Porter gone and all. Why, the world was going straight to Hades, if he’d pardon her language, and on a greased track, too.

  Rhodes crossed to the table, took one of the tarts and bit into it, studying Lark with his summer-blue eyes as he chewed. He’d left his coat behind in his room, and the gun belt with it, but Lark was scarcely comforted.

  He could be a paid assassin.

  He could be an outlaw, or a bank robber.

  And whatever his name was, Lark would have bet a year’s salary it wasn’t Rowdy Rhodes.

  CHAPTER 2

  PAYTON YARBRO—Jack Payton to anybody who asked—sat with one booted foot braced against a windowsill, in the apartment back of Ruby’s Saloon and Poker House in Flagstaff, smoking a cheroot and pondering the sorry state of the train robbing business in general and his feckless sons in particular.

  He had six of them, at least that he knew of. Wyatt was the eldest—he’d be thirty-five on his next birthday, sometime in April, though Payton was damned if he could recall the exact date. Then came Nicholas, followed in short order by Ethan and Levi, who were twins, then Robert and, like a caboose, young Gideon, who’d just turned sixteen. He’d come along late, like an afterthought, and Miranda had died giving him life.

  Payton tried not to hold it against boy—it purely wasn’t his fault—but sometimes, when a melancholy mood struck, he couldn’t help it.

  She’d driven her ducks to a poor pond marrying up with Payton Yarbro, Miranda had. Five of her sons were wanted by the law, and the sixth, Gideon, was likely to get himself into trouble first chance he got. Like as not, that opportunity wouldn’t be long in coming, for Gideon, like his brothers, was a spirited lad, half again too smart for his own good, hotheaded and reckless. By necessity the boy already lived, without knowing, under a partial alias—went by the surname of Payton.

  Robert—he’d been Miranda’s favorite, and she’d called him Rob, after some swashbuckling fellow in a book—used his nickname and a moniker meant to stick in Payton’s craw.

  There was no telling what the others had come to by now.

  Maybe Miranda’s prayers had been answered, and they’d all married and settled down to live upstanding, law-abiding lives.

  Of course, the odds were better that they’d been hanged or gotten themselves killed in a gunfight over a woman or a game of cards, out behind some whiskey palace.

  Payton sighed. At least he knew where Gideon was—sulking in the saloon, where Ruby had set him the task of raking the sawdust clean of cigar butts, peanut shells and spittle. Wyatt and the others, well, if they were alive at all, could be just about anyplace. Scattered to the winds, his boys.

  Miranda, God rest her valiant soul, was probably rolling over in her grave. She’d been a good, churchgoing woman, hardworking and faithful—at least, so far as Payton knew—with a Bible verse at the ready to suit just about any situation. She’d never given up hope that her sons would find the straight-and-narrow path and follow it, despite all contradictory evidence.

  She’d called it faith.

  Payton called it foolish sentiment.

  How she’d ever fallen in love with and married the likes of him—and borne him six sons into the bargain—was a mystery to be solved by better minds than his.

  She’d stayed with him, too, Miranda had, even with another man ready to offer for her, if she’d been free. She’d died wearing his narrow gold wedding band and honoring the vows they’d made in front of a circuit preacher nine months and five minutes before Wyatt had come along.

  Pity he hadn’t lived up to her example.

  He shifted in his chair, wished he could shut the window against the bitter chill of that Sunday afternoon, shut his mind against his thoughts, too, but Ruby was a stickler for fresh air, and the memories clung to him like stall muck to a boot heel.

  Ruby didn’t countenance pipes, cigars or cheroots in her private quarters, for all that the saloon and card room were always roiling with a blue-gray cloud of tobacco smoke. She was a complex woman, Ruby—she’d joined a brothel when she was Gideon’s age, and now she was a former madam, retaining an interest in the sinful enterprises of gambling and the purveyance of strong spirits.

  For all her hard history, she was still beautiful and, ironic as it seemed, as fine a woman, in her own way, as Miranda Wyatt Yarbro had ever been.

  Both of them had had the remarkable misfortune of crossing paths with him. He and Ruby had never married, but she’d given him a child, too. Ten years back, she’d been delivered o
f a daughter. Little Rose.

  Payton’s throat tightened at the recollection of the child. Redheaded, like her mother, she’d been smart and energetic and sweet, too, for all her bent to mischief. She’d been run down by a wagon when she was just four, chasing a kitten into the street out in front of the saloon, and they’d had to bury her outside the churchyard fence, in unsanctified ground.

  Innocent as the flower she was named for, Rose had, after all, been a whore’s daughter.

  Behind him the door creaked open. Instinctively Payton stiffened and went for his gun, though a part of him knew who was there. In the end, he didn’t draw.

  “I told you not to smoke in here, Jack Payton,” Ruby said. “It makes the place smell like—”

  He flipped the cheroot out through the window, stood and shoved down the sash. Turned, grinning, to face the second of the two women he’d loved in his fifty-seven years of life. “Like a saloon?” he finished for her.

  She pulled a face. “Don’t go wasting your charming smiles on me,” she warned. “I see right through them. And besides, I know full well you’ll light up again, as soon as I turn my back.”

  Come evening, Ruby would be resplendent in one of her trademark silk gowns, all of them some shade of crimson or scarlet. She’d paint up her face and deck herself out in jewels she’d earned the hard way. For now, though, she wore practical calico, and around her scrubbed face her dark-auburn hair billowed, soft and fragrant with the lilac water she always brushed through it before pinning it up in the morning.

  Looking at her, Payton felt a familiar pinch in some deep, unexplored region of his heart. She deserved a better man than he was, just as Miranda had.

  “There’s a young fella out front, asking after you,” Ruby said.

  Payton raised an eyebrow, instantly wary. “He didn’t offer his name?”

  “Didn’t have to,” Ruby answered, with a slight sigh.

  “He’s one of your boys. I knew that by looking at him.”