A Wanted Man

by Linda Lael Miller

  Lark stared through the peeling bars of the cell, brought there by Sam on that Monday morning, unable to credit what she was seeing.

  Rowdy was locked up, a prisoner in his own jail. He looked haggard, his eyes bleak.

  Without a word Sam brought Lark a chair, set it facing the cell, and she slumped onto it, shaking.

  When the outside door shut, she started a little but didn't look around.

  "My name," Rowdy said, "is Robert Yarbro."

  Lark swallowed, blinked back tears. Put a hand over her mouth.

  "I'm sorry, Lark. Sorrier than you'll ever believe."

  "You're... you're a train robber?"

  "I was," Rowdy said.

  She swayed, caught hold of the chair seat on both sides, in an effort to steady herself. "And now you're going to prison?"

  Rowdy nodded. "Probably," he said.

  Lark thought she'd be sick. "What's going to happen to Pardner?" she asked.

  "I'm hoping you'll look after him," Rowdy answered.

  Lark nodded, began to weep.

  "I love you, Lark."

  She looked up at him, stunned.

  One side of his mouth quirked upward, but his eyes were filled with sorrow. "I know I picked a hell of a time to tell you that, but it's true. And there are some other things I have to say, too."

  Lark waited, dazed.

  Rowdy loved her.

  He was going to prison, if not to the gallows.

  And everything that might have been glowed in Lark's heart, then dissipated like smoke.

  "I never killed anybody," he said. "Except for my loving you, that's the most important thing for you to know."

  She believed him, believed he'd never ended anyone's life, maybe because she couldn't bear not to, but more because she knew killing simply wasn't in him, and nodded again. Tried to dry her face with the back of one hand, but it was hopeless, because more tears came.

  "I was married once, too," Rowdy went on. "Her name was Chessie, and I loved her. When she had our son, Wesley, I stopped riding with the Yarbros and tried to settle down. Make a farmer of myself. But then Chessie and the baby both took sick of a fever, and they died. I buried them together, and then—" he paused, swallowed "—and then I went back to robbing trains. After six months or so, I gave it up. Drifted around, punching cattle mostly, until I ended up in Haven, and Sam appointed me marshal."

  "Not Gideon?" Lark whispered. "He wasn't—?"

  Rowdy shook his head. "No," he said quickly. "Gideon never knew. Thought his pa was a saloonkeeper."

  It was something, at least. Gideon was innocent of any crime; he still had a future. Lark clung to that while the rest of her world collapsed around her, post upon beam, brick upon brick.

  "When.. .when we made love," she began miserably, "were you using me, Rowdy?" Things would have been easier if he said yes, whether it was true or not, and they both knew it. If he'd used her, thought she was a whore, the way Autry had, she could hate him.

  And hatred would be a relief in this case, compared to the love that yawned inside Lark like some unfathomable chasm of the soul.

  She saw the struggle in his face.

  "No," he said, after a long time. "I wasn't using you, Lark. I'd have asked you to marry me, if my past was different. I'd have given anything to be an ordinary, honest man and have you to come home to every night. I knew I oughtn't to have touched you, but the truth is, I wanted you so much I couldn't help it."

  She stood, faced him through the bars.

  "I love you, Rowdy Rhodes," she said, "or Robert Yarbro, or whoever you are. And I'd have married you gladly, if you'd asked. I'd have learned to cook and sew and I'd have carried your babies under my heart, and I'd have sung again, too, just because I couldn't hold it in, for being so happy. But none of that is going to happen, is it?" She leaned forward, pressed her face between the bars, touched her tear-wet mouth to his, lightly and very briefly. "Is it?"

  "Not with me," Rowdy said. "But you're a beautiful woman, Lark. You can have all of it—the husband and the songs and the babies, too."

  "No," she said, shaking her head. "I don't want anyone else."

  Behind her the door opened and closed again.

  The time Sam O'Ballivan had allotted to them was up.

  The world was ending.

  Rowdy looked past Lark, then back at her face, deep into her eyes.

  "Go teach school, Lark," he said. "Once you walk out of that door, put me out of your mind. Whatever it takes, do it."

  She couldn't put him out of her mind, much less her heart, but she nodded anyway, turned away, and dashed past a solemn-faced Sam O'Ballivan into the cold, bright sunlight of the worst day of her life.

  He was back.

  Sitting right there at her kitchen table.

  She'd known he would come, of course. Sent Mai Lee out on her errands early, sighed with relief when she shut the door behind Lark, off to the jailhouse with Mr. O'Ballivan.

  Now he was pretending they'd never met. Sitting in his own chair again, where he'd always sat. Asking a lot of questions about Lark, trying to confuse her.

  But Ellie Lou Porter wasn't confused. Not now. The clarity was so keen, in fact, as to be painful.

  "I made a rum cake for your birthday," she said.

  He frowned, looked convincingly puzzled. "Where is Lark?" he asked.

  "I don't know," Mrs. Porter said, for she was "Mrs. Porter" even to herself. She hadn't been Ellie Lou for ever so long—certainly not since she'd become a wife, when she was just sixteen.

  She'd had such hopes as a young bride. Such hopes, and every reason to entertain them.

  Mr. Porter was prosperous. He'd built this lovely house for her. Founded the Stone Creek Bank. Made a name for himself in the community, hardly more than a cluster of homesteads, when they'd first come here from Chicago.

  She'd waited for babies to come.

  But a year passed, and then another.

  Mr. Porter became anxious. He needed an heir, he said. Couldn't she give him even one son, after all he'd given her?

  She'd cried.

  He'd slapped her for the first time.

  Started spending his nights at Jolene Bell's soon after that, not caring who knew.

  Not caring that people whispered and pointed and pitied her.

  Still, she'd brushed his coats and lighted his cigars and made him a rum cake every year on his birthday, because that was his favorite. If she just tried hard enough, she reasoned, he'd love her again. He'd stop hitting her, leaving bruises on her where no one could see.

  But he never loved her, and he never stopped hurting her, either.

  She'd grown to accept his rages. Mr. Porter was an intelligent man, respected in Stone Creek, even though he went awhoring on a regular basis. So did a lot of other husbands, after all, though no one ever talked about it.

  She must have deserved it all, she thought.

  She must have done something very wrong.

  Then one night he'd come home from the bank, very late, and calmly announced, right here in this kitchen, that he was leaving her. Taking up with some tawdry woman he'd met at Jolene Bell's. She could have the house, he told her grandly—take in boarders to make ends meet.

  She'd be fine.

  And then he'd opened the trapdoor in the floor and gone down to the cellar. He'd kept spare money there, a considerable sum in a metal box with a lock on it, thinking it was a secret.

  But of course she'd known. Hoped he was saving it for that Grand Tour he'd promised her, long before, on their wedding night. It had sustained her, that dream, even though some part of her always held it false.

  And now he meant to spend the whole of it on a saloon whore.

  She'd crept after him, picked up the shovel she used to turn over the soil for her garden every spring. He'd laughed—laughed—when he turned around, with the box in his hands.. .his big hands that he'd closed into fists so many times to pummel her spirit, as well as her body.

  She'd swung t
he shovel then, hard.

  And he'd looked so surprised when blood spouted from his broken nose. He'd called her a name, and started toward her, and she'd bashed in the top of his head with the edge of the shovel. Heard it crack like a melon under a cleaving knife.

  It had taken her almost three days to dig a hole in the cellar floor big enough to bury him in, working frantically whenever Mai Lee was out of the house.

  And now, here he was back.

  She'd known he would come.

  Oh, yes, she'd known.

  Lark rushed through Mrs. Porter's back door, her eyes glazed with fresh tears, and stopped when she saw Autry Whitman rise slowly out of the chair no one ever sat in.

  He smiled. "Your hair is different," he said. "But that's what whores do, isn't it, Lark? They dye their hair and paint their faces."

  Instinctively she turned to run, then stopped.

  Mrs. Porter was sitting calmly at the kitchen table, murmuring to herself.

  "What have you done to her?" she demanded, turning back and finding Autry standing directly behind her.

  "Not a thing, Miss Morgan," Autry said. "But I plan to do plenty to you, you little slut." He reached out, grasped her hard by the hair.

  Lark cried out from the pain.

  "Did you really think you could get away from me?" Autry snarled, flinging spittle into her face.

  "Let me go," Lark said.

  He backhanded her so hard that she would have fallen through the open doorway if his fingers hadn't still been deep in her hair, the nails tearing at her scalp.

  "You gave yourself to that marshal, didn't you?" He tightened his grasp, shook her. "Didn't you?"

  Still recovering from the blow, Lark gasped at a new rush of pain.

  She tried to kick him, bite him. Flailed at him uselessly with both hands.

  He hit her again, nearly rendering her unconscious.

  He was going to kill her.

  She spat in his face. Screamed at Mrs. Porter to run.

  Autry shoved her against the door frame with an impact that forced the breath from her lungs in a single whoosh of air. Her knees gave out, but he wouldn't let her fall.

  "You liked spreading your legs for the marshal, didn't you, Lark?" he growled.

  She nodded, fiercely, proudly. It was the only way she could hope to hurt him, and by God she wanted to do that.

  Autry's voice turned to a croon. "You'd be with him right now, if you could, wouldn't you?"

  "Yes!" she cried out. "Yes!"

  He drew back his hand, and Lark waited for the blow to land.

  But it never did.

  There was a loud boom, thundering against the very walls like a blast of dynamite, and Autry's eyes went blank. He let go of Lark, his hand opening slowly, with a peculiar languor, and crumpled heavily to the floor.

  Mrs. Porter stood behind him, holding Mr. Porter's shotgun—usually stored in the broom cabinet—in a tremulous grip. "Quickly," she said, looking at Lark but not seeming to see her. "We've got to bury him again. This time we'll put the flour barrel on top of him, and he'll stay put."

  Lark closed her eyes, leaning against the door frame, drawing in one quick, shallow breath after another. The cold from outside revived her a little, and she straightened, looked down at Autry.

  There was no question that he was dead. The shotgun blast had ripped through his back and splintered his chest from the inside.

  Lark whirled out onto the step, gripped the edge of the door with one hand and vomited until her stomach was empty. She heard excited voices—blessed voices— in the distance, and then pounding of horses' hooves.

  Help was coming.

  Lark turned, stared at her landlady in disbelief. Mrs. Porter had set the gun aside and raised the cellar door, and she was dragging Autry's body toward it.

  -20-

  It was Gideon who let Rowdy out of the cell, when the blast of a shotgun disturbed the peace of that Stone Creek morning, threw the door open wide and stood back. Gideon, with a sling supporting his left arm and a look of hollow desolation in his eyes.

  "Ride, Rowdy," he said. "Paint's saddled and ready out back."

  Rowdy stared at him. "Did you—?"

  Gideon shook his head. "I didn't fire the shot," he said. A wan, Pappylike grin stretched his mouth. "I just took advantage of the opportunity."

  Rowdy laid a hand on Gideon's good shoulder, in no hurry to grab his chance and leave. "If you didn't shoot that gun," he asked, "who did?"

  The Yarbro muscle bunched in Gideon's jaw. "It came from somewhere around Mrs. Porter's place," he said. "At least, that's where everybody headed. Get out of here, Rowdy. I'll see to Pardner and look after Miss Morgan, too, as best I can."

  It came from somewhere around Mrs. Porter's place.

  Rowdy rasped a curse and bolted. Autry Whitman. Good God, with Pappy dying and all the rest of it, he'd forgotten all about him and the threat he represented to Lark.

  "Not that way!" Gideon yelled. "Out the back!"

  Ignoring his brother's protests. Rowdy hit the sidewalk at a dead run. Pardner, lying a few feet to the side of the door, leaped up and streaked ahead.

  The rooming house looked as though it were under siege when Rowdy reached it, what with all the horses outside.

  Lark, Rowdy thought, vaulting over the picket fence after Pardner, who had bunched his haunches and made the jump without so much as a pause.

  Reston was blocking the doorway, Sam just inside.

  "What the—?" Reston gasped, when Pardner shot between them, closely followed by Rowdy.

  Lark sat in a chair in the kitchen, staring blankly at nothing.

  Rowdy stepped over Whitman's body with no more than a downward glance and went to her. Crouched in front of her chair, took her hands in his.

  "What happened?" he asked.

  She blinked, evidently startled to see him there. "Mrs. Porter shot him," she said. "She shot Autry. She thought he was Mr. Porter—"

  Rowdy looked around, his gaze briefly connecting with Sam's before swinging back to Lark's face. "Were you hurt?"

  "Autry was going to kill me," she told him. "Mrs. Porter saved my life. And now she's...she's..." Tears rose in her eyes, eyes that were already red-rimmed and swollen. Of all the things he regretted, and there were many, giving Lark reason to cry was the greatest. If he could take back only one thing, of all the things he'd done, it would be that. "She collapsed, Rowdy. Mai Lee and Hon Sing are with her, but I think...I think—"

  He stood, pulled Lark into his arms, held her with the fierce closeness of those who must soon let go. "It'll be all right," he murmured into her mussed, fragrant hair. "Everything will be all right."

  She clung to him, shook her head against his chest. "Not without you," she said. "Not without you." She stopped then, looked up into his face. "How did you get out of jail?"

  "I was about to ask that same question myself," Sam put in, from somewhere nearby, "though I'm pretty sure I know the answer."

  Gideon.

  He'd been willing to risk his own freedom, risk college and possibly years of his life, just to turn Rowdy loose.

  "I'm right here, Sam," Rowdy said, still holding tightly to Lark. "No harm done."

  "We'd better move this body," Reston put in. He was one of those restless sorts, the kind who always had to be doing something, setting things right. No doubt he'd rather have thrown Rowdy back in the cell, personally, with Gideon for company, but failing that, he'd settle for loading a bloody corpse in the back of a wagon.

  Sam ignored Reston, spoke to Rowdy instead. Rowdy and, by proximity, Lark. "The major sent for a territorial judge," he said. "He'll decide your fate when he gets here, after consulting with the governor, but meanwhile you've got to stay behind bars."

  Rowdy sighed. Nodded.

  There was no undoing his past. It was as real and as deeply carved as letters chiseled into a tombstone.

  "You could have been clear of Stone Creek by now," Sam went on quietly, speaking to Rowdy t
hough his gaze touched on Lark once or twice, pondering. "I guess I don't need to ask why you stayed."

  Lark gripped the front of Rowdy's shirt as if she was never going to let go. "Rowdy saved your life, Sam O'Ballivan," she said, with sudden spirit. "I heard you say so to Mr. Reston, just a few minutes ago."

  Sam nodded. "That's true," he replied. "Under the circumstances Mr. Robert Yarbro here might have shot me himself, out there at the Franks' place. Thrown in with the outlaws, instead of the rangers, and ridden out with the others. A lot of men in his position would have done just that."

  Lark sagged a little, pressed her cheek into Rowdy's chest.

  He eased her into a chair, prepared to go willingly back to jail now that he knew what he'd come to find out—that she was safe. Still whole. Still Lark.

  "Stay right here where I can keep an eye on you," Sam told Rowdy, waving Reston away when he came forward with his trusty handcuffs. "I've got enough to think about, with a dead man on the floor and another one buried in the cellar. I can't be chasing after you on top of it."

  Rowdy grinned slightly. The matter of Levi's escape still lay between them, perhaps never to be resolved. He hadn't tried to stop his brother from getting away, he'd even encouraged him to run. He'd been wrong to do that and he knew it, but short of shooting Levi, he hadn't had a choice. And much as he hated the idea of doing a stretch in Yuma, maybe it was a chance to do penance not only for himself, but for Levi, too.

  Gideon appeared in the open doorway just then, swallowed hard after assessing the scene. Stepped over Autry Whitman's body to come inside, weaving his way between a half-dozen milling rangers and townsmen.

  He came face-to-face with Sam O'Ballivan, almost first thing.

  Sam thumped a forefinger in the middle of Gideon's chest. "Don't you ever do a damn fool thing like releasing a prisoner again, boy. Even if he is your brother."

  Gideon swallowed visibly, but stiffened his Yarbro backbone. His chin jutted out. "I'd do it again," he said stubbornly, with all the conviction of youth. It was because of that, because of his inherent strength, that he was up and around so soon after taking Willie Moran's bullet. Just looking at him gave Rowdy a strange, throbbing hope that one Yarbro, at least, might amount to something. Might serve as the living answer to all those prayers their ma had offered, always believing, against all evidence. "If I had my way, Rowdy would be a long ways from here by now."