by Tanya Hanson
“Howdy, honeysuckle. No need for that gun.” He stuck a small spyglass in his pocket and then touched his brim. “Been following you for a while. Didn’t recognize ya’ll in time to join you for grub.” He kicked at the fire. “You’re prettier’n ever, sugar. What brings you way out here? A site far from the Stony, I’d declare.”
She wasn’t sure how to react, or what to do or say, for this was the last man she’d ever hoped to see again.
“Howdy yourself, Royal Gitts,” she said at last.
“Why, I’ll take that as a welcome.” He grinned the grin that one time had sent her toes tingling. Even with a new raw-looking scar, he was a fine-looking man.
“What you doing all alone out here?” he asked.
Royal’s tone set her nerves rustling like dry mesquite in the wind. Unlike her erstwhile lunch, the soft wild-eyed rabbit, she wouldn’t let her fear show.
“On my way back to the ranch for Christmas,” she said. “I teach school now, uh…” She scrambled for a location, being off-kilter from Pleasure Stakes and forced a cough while she considered. “Not far off. Cold Spring.”
Royal nodded at her stammered explanation, seemed to accept it. “Heard tell you were a ’marm now.”
“I’ll get to Cahoots by nightfall,” she said.
“Ain’t stopping in at the Southern Star?”
Eliza realized her mistake at once. Of course Royal had known the Willowses and Bowdens were great friends. “Uh, no. They’ve had illness of late, and I don’t want to disrupt their healing.”
Royal tossed her a smile, and she read relief in his expression. Bypassing the Star meant she wouldn’t recognize Oneida, the stolen horse he’d sold Crusty.
Then he leered, eyeing her up and down in a way she didn’t recognize and didn’t like at all. Before, he’d been tender even if he hadn’t satisfied her. Not now. Her clothes were muddy and snow-damp, but she recalled he knew full well what she looked like without any at all. He stepped closer and she moved back, hard against ’Walker’s flank.
“Why, all this chit-chat reminds me of what we had between us, sugarplum. Sure puts me in the mood,” Royal drawled. “I’m about to kiss you. Reckon you’ll like it like you did once before.” He laughed out loud. “Make that twice.”
Fear assailed her, for she was fearfully alone. Best to act like the snooty Eliza Willows he remembered. “You get near me without my invitation, Royal Gitts, and I’ll bite off your tongue.”
With a deadly grin, he hauled her close. “That suits me right fine, sugar. I’ll sure enjoy having you try.”
He held her chin firm while he bent his face to hers.
****
“I’m giving you good advice, Ahab.”
Squatting by a puny fire in a busted-up fireplace, Ransom blew on his frozen fingers, reckoning them kin to the icicles that hung down Gram-maw’s roofline way back when. In his rush this morning, he’d mislaid his gloves in the Southern Star barn. Recollecting last night with Eliza spooned against him got him hard just at the thought and warmed him right up. Truth to tell, if he’d waked Eliza to bid good-bye, he’d never have left at all. He decided to hold off announcing his betrothal to the gang.
Ahab Perkins had made a cozy-enough nest in a burnt-out homestead at Backbone. He lolled against his saddle, two or three others grumbling over cards in what looked to have been a pantry. His little sister, Jessy Belle, sat at his side, wrapped in blankets like a cocoon. For a flash, Ransom wondered at the woman she might have grown into had her brother not led her into a life of transgression.
Ahab pointed outside in a random way. “Pocus, Rattler, and Banjo are sleeping it off in that lean-to.” He guffawed. Ransom had seen the shreds of a one-time shed that provided no shelter whatsoever. “Horses get what’s left of the barn.”
Ransom nodded. One thing about Ahab, he respected horseflesh and usually gave it better treatment than his men.
The decision to turn in Ahab for reward warred in Ransom’s head again, like it had done with each of Nitro’s hoof beats on the trail from the Southern Star. Clip-clop. Re-ward. Clip-clop. Re-ward.
“You best get a move on, Ahab.” He made up his mind fast. Loyalty was a powerful thing. Before Eliza, Ahab and the boys had been all Ransom had.
“I’m comfortable right here, Canyon.” Ahab puffed on a long nine cigar. “Christmastime. Fine hiding, too.”
That it was. Backbone with its shrub-lined arroyos and deep ravines. Even in winter, thick hackberry and cottonwood trees lining the Canadian River provided good cover. Nothing and nobody around, and no need for civilized folk to pass through a forsaken hide town. For those reasons, Ransom knew well, it was likely one of the first areas the local law would look after Crusty alerted them.
Ransom ground his teeth. “I’m telling you, Ahab. I’m warning you. You’re gonna have the law on your ass within a day. You need to hightail it out of here. Now, and fast.”
“How you know that? You let something slip,” Ahab’s eyes narrowed dangerously.
“Not me. Gitts. He didn’t cover his scar.” Ransom explained. “I…well, the rancher at Southern Star knows the mare Gitts passed got stole from Stony Brook.”
Ahab cussed. “How’s that? You didn’t disguise her good?”
Ransom looked at his toes. “I disguised her right fine. It wasn’t me who let loose. I…” He had to confess. After all, Eliza was the sole reason he wasn’t rejoining the gang. “I met a woman.”
Ahab’s smirk was a familiar one, habituated as he was to easy, eager females. He shrugged. “So?”
“I asked this one to marry me.” Ransom held his breath.
“Hell? You been gone, what? Two, three days? Not long enough to get some gal with child.”
Ransom ignored the insults. “It mighta happened fast, but it happened real.”
Ahab howled, then let out a cuss. “So what’s your bride-to-be got to do with a Stony Brook mare?”
Just in case, Ransom put his hand close to the gun belted at his right hip before he confessed. “It was her gram-maw we robbed.”
“What the…” Ahab’s eyes, squinty from years in bright sun, grew big as melons.
“We met by chance. She doesn’t know…” But then Ransom realized she did. His heart sank beyond the puddle of melted snow at his feet. Eliza did know. Of course she did. Hot shame blasted him from forehead to ankle. A complete fool, he hadn’t yowled her name in the act of love like any sensible man. Hadn’t called out the three words a woman ached to hear.
No. Canyon Jack Ransom had shouted out the same inelegant cuss he’d tossed at her when he nearly met his Maker with her pitchfork.
He knew right then, well as he knew anything at all. Eliza Willows was no fool. She’d distinguished him for the outlaw he was. She might have loved him last night, but she didn’t, couldn’t love him now.
“What’s out there?” Jessy Belle, seventeen or so, tensed like a prairie dog facing a wagon wheel. She waved a hand prettier than an outlaw woman deserved. “Over there. I saw something just now.”
Ransom came back from last night to now. Ahab, who didn’t as a rule put his baby sister in uncalled-for danger, stiffened along with her and peered out the wreck of a window. “Ah, hell, baby girl.” Ahab relaxed. “Ain’t nobody but Gitts.”
“There’s two,” Jessy Belle offered helpfully, but Ransom had discovered it first. Eliza Willows, bound, gagged, and tied across ’Walker. His beloved. His bride. Jaw clenched, heart thudded.
Both hands itched, one for his Peacemaker, the other for the Bowie knife never too far afield to grab quick.
“Who you got there? Some law-woman?” Ahab called out and grinned at Ransom as he got up in his lazy way.
Rolly Gitts dismounted and smiled proud. “Better. Heiress to Stony Brook.”
“You don’t say?” Ahab’s eyes narrowed, and he split his glares between Gitts and Ransom.
“Caught up with her five miles back. Reckon she’s up to no good. A decent woman wouldn’t catch herself
dead in Backbone.”
Ransom’s heart fluttered like a girl’s. She had to be catching up with him! She knew who he was but she wanted to be by his side anyway. If she’d set the law on him, he’d have been found by now.
“Let her go. We don’t take hostages,” Ransom said because they didn’t.
Gitts snorted. “She’s mine. Had her twice when I worked Desolation. Woulda snared her hadn’t she gone back to school back east somewhere.”
By now Ransom’s skin was crawling and not with chill bumps. Gitts had her twice? Would have snared her? His heart sank now like a stone, no flitting butterfly. Of course. Gitts’ stupid words had to be true. Else why would he have acted so yellow during the heist on Thanksgiving? Whining and cowering that he was cold? He’d been skittish Eliza would recognize him.
Ah, hell. It didn’t bother Ransom, Eliza having had a lover before him. She’d told him as much. But Gitts? He smacked his fist into his palm but grabbed a hold of his calm. Of all the sonsofbitches in the world.
“Let her go, Gitts,” Ransom said again.
Gitts sneered. “I want her. She won’t let me. I’ll get the deed done right now and then I’ll kill her, and we can get out of here.”
Kill her? Ransom’s heart pounded. From the corner of his eye, Ransom saw Eliza twitch in fear. She was slung on her horse in such a way he couldn’t meet her gaze, couldn’t let her know he’d get things righted, and real soon.
“We don’t kill, either,” he said mildly.
“Got to this time. Hell, she knows what we look like,” Gitts said.
Ransom held his breath. Most times Ahab didn’t hold to brutalizing females. Charm worked better. With relief, Ransom watched Ahab nod.
“That she does,” Ahab said. “But Canyon’s right. Besides, she’s his woman. By the way, Canyon, I think she did know.” He tossed Ransom a hard glance, and Ransom read his thoughts. Betrayal was bad, the one thing Ahab never forgave.
“Your woman?” Gitts’ hands scratched at his gun belt as he shot Ransom a fierce frown. “What the hell?”
“You heard Ahab right.” Like he had every right, Ransom headed toward ’Walker and shoved Gitts out of the way, getting ready to untie Eliza. “Met her in Pleasure Stakes.”
Just as Gitts pushed back and reached for Eliza, she jerked suddenly. He slumped to his knees, and a bloody knife fell on the ground.
Chapter Eight
Blood pooled across the leftover snow, and Eliza landed on her feet beside Royal and straight into Ransom’s arms. Royal’s grunts of shock and pain thudded in her ears.
“You all right, darlin’?” Ransom’s soft drawl covered her, smothering her with love, removing any lingering doubt. After all, he’d told Ahab Perkins she was his woman. No doubt at all.
Arms tight around his neck, she nodded, heart pounding, and longed to stay there forever. However, Ahab Perkins, tense as a coiled spring, crossed his forearms and laid his hands atop both guns. Just moments ago, his thug had threatened to rape and kill her. Shivers well beyond the winter cold rattled her bones.
“Sugarplum,” Royal groaned, then gasped out more words, “what you go and do that for?”
“What? You beast.” Anger rather than terror shook her now. “I just heard you say you were going to defile and kill me!” Holding Ransom’s hand tight, she stepped away from the carnage, swallowing bile. Her stomach churned at the memory of cold steel clanking against bone. While she knew well how to use a knife, it was only melons she’d practiced on.
Ahab Perkins knelt down, rolled his eyes, and yelled to a small boy. “Jessy, get some whiskey from Rattler and pour it on.” The gang’s leader rose and kicked at Royal’s head. “Nothing important got nicked, fool. Keep infection out and you’ll be raising hell outside of a week.” He stood and eyed Eliza top to toe with something more like admiration than lust. “Clever woman you got here, Canyon.”
“It’s Jack now,” Ransom said proudly.
“Aw, I see it.” Ahab sneered. “Canyon gets a rich woman and goes respectable on me.”
Canyon? When things calmed, Eliza would find out the origin of that alias. But now, Royal shrieked like a demon as Jessy poured whiskey on the bloody ribcage. “Aw, honeysuckle,” Royal implored, “if you hadn’t left me, I could have gone respectable myself.”
Eliza’s toes shuffled angrily at the look on Ransom’s face. “I never left you, Royal. We had nothing between us.”
Ahab’s voice turned hard. “You keep a knife in your boot, Miz Stony Brook?”
“I do.” She boldly faced the outlaw, and threw some bravado at him. “It wasn’t hard to get at, even with my hands tied.” Eliza lied. Truth was, her tormented muscles still screamed. It had been an excruciating five miles, slicing the ropes at her wrists, her healing rib pounding with each hoof step.
“Makes me trust you even less,” the outlaw said casually.
His dark gaze bore into her so hard Eliza’s knees weakened. The pressure of Ransom’s hand at her back infused her with such uncommon strength she understood they had far more between them than just desire and infatuation. To protect him if need be, she would get her knife from the dirt and sling it into Ahab’s heart before he could blink.
She decided a demure bow of her head was better than another defiant stare. “I mean you no harm. I came to find Ransom.”
That was true at least. A bunch of the hoodlums had emerged from a ramshackle cabin and stood, legs apart, watching and waiting.
“Too much coincidence. Who all knows you’re here?” Ahab’s bold gaze set new fright tumbling through her veins. He knew who she was. And she could identify him. All of them.
With his boot, but lightly, Ransom nudged the weeping Royal. “Let’s get him inside. The gals”—he pointed to Jessy, who Eliza was startled to realize was actually a young female—”can find some rags and patch him up.”
Eliza longed to look at Ransom, to share questions and answers but reckoned he had a plan of some kind. Meeting his gaze would be her undoing. She had to trust him. She had to. More than that, she wanted to. He likely wasn’t too keen on Royal having been her lover, but after all, Ransom hadn’t much lived the life of a monk himself.
As he and Rattler grabbed Royal’s arms and legs, not too gently, she figured it out. His order for her to tend her nemesis was his way of giving her shelter in case of gunfire. Mistrust rolled off Ahab Perkins like sweat on a hot day as he led Firewalker to a decrepit hitching post. She could almost smell it.
“Fine horse,” Ahab mused dangerously.
Inside the ruined homestead, Jessy took such quick charge Eliza reckoned the girl wasn’t unfamiliar with gory wounds. To hear what Ahab said to Jack and catch sight of her beloved, Eliza stood close to the empty window socket while following Jessy’s deft, infrequent orders. Peeking out was easy, especially after Jessy shooed her away in frustration.
“Don’t you know nothing?” the outlaw girl complained.
“Jack.” Outside, Ahab spoke the name with heavy sarcasm. “You getting yourself a woman, now, doesn’t fret me a bit. But I damn well know there’s a powerful reward on my head. It wouldn’t surprise me a whit if you and your missy have set the law on me.”
“I haven’t done any such thing, Ahab.” Ransom’s voice landed strong and sincere in Eliza’s ears. “I already told you. I came out here to get you gone. Save your neck by doing so.”
“But you’ve gone respectable on me. You got to do your duty to civilized society, don’t you?”
“I’m advising you to hightail it out of Texas, that’s all.”
“That’s all?” Ahab stopped his examination of ’Walker, likely planning the gelding’s disguise. Then he looked Ransom full on, eye to eye. Shoulder to shoulder, them being similar in height. “That’s all? After all these years. A dozen or more. After all we’ve done together. That’s all?”
Ransom exhaled almost with the whickering sound of a horse. “What do you want from me, Ahab?” he drawled. “I’m doing a good thing right now. I di
dn’t have to find you.”
Eliza watched Ahab rubbing his chin like thoughtful professors of yore, all the while Ransom patted Firewalker’s flank.
“But you did find me, Canyon,” Ahab said at last. “And what do I want? Hell, Canyon. I want you at my back. Like at Gringo Gorge. If I get my neck stretched sometime down the line, I want you in the noose next to me. That’s what I want.”
Poised with his arm at ’Walker’s saddle, Ransom sighed.
“Well, I don’t want this life anymore. Ahab. I’ve decided to mend my ways. But I’m no preacher or judge. You do what you want. I ain’t turning you in. You got my word. Eliza and I will go our way.”
She trembled with longing. Whatever their way held out to be, they’d face it together their whole lives through. Something Ahab said rankled, though, and she frowned. A dozen or more years? Why, Ransom had been just a boy when he’d joined up. About the age of Benjie Chavez. She remembered the things she had longed to tell Big Ben Chavez. Seemed a lifetime ago. The age of thirteen years wasn’t the time for a boy to make a grown-up decision. Children needed guidance, and without it, why, they became outlaws.
For a flash, she pondered what else Ransom’s life might have been. For that matter, Ahab’s and Jessy’s. Royal’s? She snorted at his whining form. He had no excuse for the miserable life he currently lived. Back in Desolation, he’d been a grown up man with a good foreman and a good wage.
“Nope, Canyon. I’m not seeing it.” Ahab’s eyes narrowed into slits. “Way I do see it is you got a choice to make.”
“How’s that?”
“You got a life here with the gang, Canyon. You got a choice to make. Stay. Or not.”
Ransom’s eyelids fluttered for a second. “Eliza’s the reason for my decency, Ahab. For my new life.” He held out his hand. “You take care of yourself and the fellas, and let me and my bride be on our way.”