“There isn’t anybody but my pa and my brothers . . . and Smoke. They’ll find out when I show up with you by my side,” Cullen said.
Marcy tilted her head to one side, thinking of his response. “Oh, Cullen, I think your father and your brothers might be hurt if you didn’t invite them to the wedding. We could wait long enough to give them time to ride over here.” She smiled then. “We’ll talk about it later.”
He laughed. “You’re talkin’ like a wife already.”
Myra stood at the kitchen window, gazing into the darkness that now hindered her view of the barn. Suddenly, Marcy appeared, walking briskly toward the back door. Myra strained to see her more closely, and was immediately relieved to note no suggestion of disarray in her daughter’s clothing. Thank you, Lord, she thought, and reminded herself of the faith she had in Marcy’s sensibilities. She walked over to the table, so as not to be seen looking out the window, although she could fairly well guess that Marcy had already seen her at the window. “Was Cullen glad to get the biscuits?” she asked, unable to think of anything else.
“Yes,” Marcy replied. “Has Papa gone to bed?”
“He was getting ready to, but I don’t think he’s in bed yet.”
“Cullen will be coming over in a few minutes. We have something to tell you and Papa.”
When they announced their intention to wed, there ensued a discussion that lasted late into the night. Of the three astonished members of Marcy’s family, Jimmy was by far the most excited, Fred was generally pleased by Marcy’s choice, and Myra resigned herself to the idea that it was bound to happen sometime; she only wished that it could have been a few years in the future. All things considered, they took the news as a positive step in Marcy’s young life.
Chapter 15
It had been too long since Cody had the opportunity to pay a visit to Mule Sibley’s establishment to see Mule’s daughter, Brenda. Cullen had left that morning to visit his lady friend, although he maintained it was to return a horse, so Cody decided to scratch an itch himself. When he turned down the narrow lane leading to the trading post, he noticed a horse tied at the corner of the porch. Dismounting, he looped Buttermilk’s reins loosely around the hitching rail and walked in to find Mule and Rena talking to a stranger at the saloon side of the room. “Howdy, Cody,” Mule called out. “Where you been hidin’? Ain’t seen you in a while.”
“Howdy, Mule, Miz Sibley,” Cody replied. “I’ve been kinda busy.”
“Say howdy to Pete Scoggin,” Mule said. “He’s just rode all the way from Miles City, guidin’ a feller and his two sons to Missoula.”
“Four of us and two extra horses,” Pete volunteered, “close to five hundred miles, and we made it in less than two and a half weeks.”
Cody took a moment to look at the stranger. Gray-haired, with a full gray beard, dressed in buckskins, he looked as though he might have been an army scout in his younger years. “That’s a long time in the saddle, but you made mighty good time,” he said.
“Woulda made better time than that if we hadn’t run into a blame war. I was just tellin’ Mule here. Little town west of Coulson, name of Billin’s—we hit there right after ol’ Chief Joseph crossed the Yellowstone with his band of Injuns. They had a dandy of a fight with the soldiers there at Canyon Creek. So we had to stay in Billin’s for a couple of days and wait for ’em to clear outta the way. You could hear the shootin’ from the main street in town.” He paused to finish his glass of beer. “That’s mighty good,” he continued. “All this jawin’ has made my mouth dry. I’d best have another glass.”
Cody looked beyond Rena in hopes Brenda might have heard him come in, but she was evidently doing something in the back of the house. He turned his attention back to Pete’s rambling account of his trip.
“Say,” Pete started up again while he watched Mule draw another beer, “you oughta see this fancy saloon they got in Billin’s. The Gentleman’s Club they call it. Hell, I went in anyway. It’s all decorated up with paintin’s on the wall and a mirror as long as this bar here. Feller there told me that was a woman’s touch. Said this highfalutin woman with a lot of money just showed up in town one day and bought half interest in the saloon. I saw her. She’s a looker.”
“Where’d she come from?” Sibley asked.
“Don’t know. This feller thought she came from Chicago, but he warn’t sure.”
Like a bolt of lightning jolting his spinal cord, it suddenly hit Cody, and he blurted, “What did she look like?”
“Like I said,” Pete replied, “she’s a looker.”
“Kinda tall for a woman, long dark hair?”
“Yeah, I reckon. You know her?”
“I might,” Cody replied. “I just might. I gotta go.” He looked at Rena, who was eyeing him, plainly astonished.
“Well, you didn’t stay very long,” she said with a chuckle.
“I know,” Cody said, already walking briskly toward the door. “I gotta go. Tell Brenda I’m sorry I missed her, but I still love her.”
Donovan and Jug agreed, it was too much to be a coincidence. The odds were very high that the mysterious saloon owner in Billings could be Roberta Morris. Donovan could see the tension already developing between his two sons. He understood their eagerness. He felt the same way. He didn’t bother with asking if they were going; he simply told them to get their horses saddled while Smoke gathered up some supplies for the trip. “You’ll be goin’ by way of that stage station to pick up Cullen. Right?”
“Yes, sir,” Jug answered as he followed Cody out the door. “He’d be kinda put out with us if we didn’t.” They were off within the hour.
“I believe if we pick it up a little, we can make it there in time for supper,” Jug urged. “That woman can flat cook up a meal.”
Cody couldn’t resist the chance to tease him. “I don’t know, Jug,” he said. “We’ve been ridin’ these horses pretty hard. Maybe we oughta stop and give ’em a rest. Besides, we’ve got plenty of bacon and some jerky. We can just go ahead and eat our supper now.”
Assuming Cody was japing him, but afraid that he was not, Jug replied, “My horse ain’t tired a bit, and he’s carryin’ a bigger load than that Appaloosa you’re so proud of. So you stop if you want. I’ll wait for you at the station.” He shook his head and said, “That woman serves potatoes and beans at the same time, don’t matter the meat.” Much to Jug’s delight, they arrived at Fred Sullivan’s house while supper was still in progress, and as usual, Myra had enough to feed two extra mouths.
“What are you two doin’ here?” Cullen asked, still seated at the table beside Marcy. He glanced at her and winked. “The news couldn’t have traveled that fast.”
While Myra scurried around to get plates and utensils for them, Cody and Jug sat down at the table. “We came lookin’ for you,” Cody said, “but we’d best talk about it after supper.”
Cullen didn’t understand. “Why?” he questioned upon observing both brothers’ suddenly somber expressions. “What’s wrong?”
“Well,” Cody stalled, “nothin’s wrong. Let’s just let it wait, all right?”
Myra came back from the kitchen then and interrupted. “Has Cullen told you the news yet?”
One look at Cullen’s face and Cody guessed what she was going to say. “No,” he answered, a great big grin lighting up his face, “he hasn’t told us the news.” With no apparent interest in the news, whatever it was, Jug dived into a plate heaped high with food, oblivious of the conversation around him.
“There’s gonna be a wedding here at the Sullivan house,” Myra said, beaming her pleasure in the announcement.
“Why, that’s first-rate,” Cody remarked, delighted by the embarrassed expression on Cullen’s face. “Anybody we know?”
Amid wide smiles all around, Cullen cringed. He wished then that he had simply ridden in one dark night, carried Marcy off, and married her. Even Jug paused between bites to give his brother a big grin. After the wedding announcement, all talk of a mo
re serious nature was forgotten in the conversation that followed. It continued until the dishes were cleared away and Cullen had suffered through a generous portion of teasing from his brothers. Finally, Cody became serious and welcomed Marcy into the family with a strong brotherly hug, assuring her that she was getting the best for a husband. “If he doesn’t treat you right,” he promised, “Jug and I’ll whip some sense into him.” Serious again, he asked, “When are you figurin’ on havin’ the weddin’?”
Myra answered, “We want to wait at least a week, maybe longer, so your family has time to come.” Cody nodded, but he didn’t comment.
Supper and after-supper coffee finished, Jug announced that it was time to turn in, since they were planning an early start in the morning. Never having received an answer to his earlier question, Cullen wanted to know where they were going. “Come on while we get settled in the barn,” Cody said, “and we’ll talk about it.” When they walked into the barn and he saw Cullen’s saddle and blankets already spread in one of the stalls, he couldn’t help commenting, “Damn, ain’t they ever gonna allow you in the house?”
While Jug and Cody made their beds, they related the story told by Pete Scoggin in Mule Sibley’s saloon. Just as it had struck them, Cullen was taken aback by the news, and shared the feeling of responsibility to act on it. “If we’d known about the weddin’,” Jug said, “we’da gone on without you.” Cody nodded his agreement.
“Why?” Cullen asked, astonished. “It was right to come get me. I’m as responsible as anybody. We need to do this thing together. We don’t know anything about this other person she’s hooked up with, or how many more she’s picked up. No, we have to do this together.”
Jug grinned. “I knew you wouldn’t let us go without you.”
“I will have to explain to Marcy, though,” Cullen said. The words had no sooner left his mouth than they heard her call from outside the barn.
“Hello in there,” she yelled. “Is everybody decent?”
“Well, no,” Cody answered, “but we’ve all got our clothes on.”
“I just wanted to say good night to my fiancé and my new brothers,” Marcy said when she joined them.
“Fiancé,” Jug repeated, and snickered, thinking the word a funny one to call Cullen.
Cullen ignored him and took Marcy by the arm, leading her back out of the barn. “I need to talk to you,” he said.
As soon as they were outside, she turned, put her arms around his neck, and pulled his head down to receive her kiss. “I can’t believe I’m going to kiss you every night for the rest of my life,” she said, smiling up at him.
“You might get tired of it before you know it,” he replied, and they both laughed. “There’s somethin’ I’ve got to do before the weddin’,” he said, and told her of the obligation he felt to accompany his brothers on this one final quest to put a stop to one woman’s evil deeds. She couldn’t understand at first why he felt he had to go with them until he explained that they could not be sure what they faced if, indeed, this was the woman they thought her to be. “Marcy,” he promised, “I’ll be back for you. That’s the one thing you can count on.”
She put her arms around him and pressed her face tight against his chest. “I’ll be waiting here for you.”
“I’ll be gone when you wake up in the morning,” he said.
Chapter 16
They were saddled up and pulled out before daylight the next morning, before anyone in the house was awake except one. Standing at a parlor window, Marcy stood, still in her gown, and watched them until they faded into the darkness. “God, please bring him back to me,” she whispered.
They spent long days in the saddle, pounding out as many miles as possible, past Butte, Three Forks, Bozeman, and Big Timber, stopping to rest only when the horses needed it. The weather turned from chilly to bitter cold as they continued east, following the Yellowstone. By the time they reached Billings, they had been in the saddle a week.
It was close to sundown when the three brothers rode into the busy settlement. “Well, they sure weren’t lyin’ when they said this town sprung up overnight,” Jug commented upon first glimpse of the new buildings in various stages of construction.
“There it is,” Cullen said, pointing to a two-story building near the end of the thoroughfare. It was not difficult to identify the Gentleman’s Club. It was the only one with a three-colored sign mounted over a pair of swinging doors.
“That’s a mighty fancy name for a saloon,” Cody remarked. “But I reckon it’s just the place gentlemen like us need to get a drink of whiskey.” Then he looked over at Jug and pretended to grimace. “I reckon you’ll have to wait outside while me and Cullen go in.” He grinned at his eldest brother, but Cullen’s expression told him that he had no time now for playful banter. If what they had been told was fact, the woman responsible for a world of grief might be inside the rough building with the gaudy sign, and this might be the end of a long, hard road.
There were only a couple of horses tied at the hitching post in front of the saloon when they dismounted. “I think it’d be a good idea to split up when we go inside,” Cullen said, “since we don’t have any notion what this fellow with her looks like. That way maybe we can all keep an eye on each other and see who’s behind our backs.”
Pausing to look inside before pushing through the swinging doors, Cullen scanned the barroom from end to end. There was no sign of the woman they had come to find. Once inside, they paused to survey the evening crowd, which was sizable considering there were only two horses out front when they rode up—an indication that the saloon was obviously popular with the local citizens. “It is pretty fancy—that’s for sure,” Cody commented as he glanced at the paintings on the walls. Jug grunted his concurrence. They walked over to the bar and ordered a drink. “That table in the corner looks like a good spot to watch the stairs,” Cody said.
Cullen agreed. “You and Jug go ahead,” he said. “I think I’ll stay here at the bar.” He watched as they casually strolled over to the empty table in the corner. There had been no planning between them as to what they were going to do when and if they found Roberta and her companion. All three were relying upon their natural instincts and reactions to take care of whatever transpired, but generally, Cullen supposed they would turn the two of them over to the local law. None of them liked the idea of shooting a woman, no matter how vile, but they were dead set on stopping her, whatever it took to do it. He turned his attention to the bartender then. “I hear a woman owns this place,” he said. “Is that a fact?”
“That’s right,” the bartender, Floyd, replied. “You fellers new in town?” When Cullen replied that they were, Floyd asked, “You boys with the railroad?”
“Nope, just passin’ through on our way west,” Cullen answered. “The woman who runs this place, is she from around here?”
“No, she’s from Chicago. That’s about all anybody around here knows about her except she comes from plenty of money.”
“Is her name Roberta?” Cullen asked.
“Rebecca,” Floyd corrected, “Rebecca St. James. Her brother, Jack, is here, too.”
“Is he here in the saloon?”
Floyd paused to look around the room. “I don’t see him right now.”
Cullen nodded. “Rebecca St. James,” he repeated. Fancy name, fancy saloon, he thought. “I’d sure like to see Miss St. James. Does she come in the saloon?”
“Oh, sure,” Floyd replied, “she’s here most of the time.” He glanced up at the open railing on the second floor. “She’ll likely show up pretty soon. She’s the reason most of these customers come in every night.” He chuckled then. “There’s a sight more men come in than there was when Raymond Tower owned it. I expect it’s a good thing she showed up when she did. Old Mr. Tower died in his sleep right after she bought into the place. I mighta been out of a job.” He was called away then by a customer at the other end of the bar, leaving Cullen to continue his surveillance of the barroom.
Leaving her new quarters on the second floor of the saloon, Roberta walked out into the open hallway. As was her custom, she paused at the top of the stairs to look over the busy barroom below her. There was already a good crowd in the room and it was early yet. Before I’m through, she thought, I’ll run every other saloon in town out of business. The thought brought a smile of satisfaction to her face. Preparing for her usual grand entrance, she took several steps down the stairs and paused. Already several of the patrons had spotted her and interrupted their banter to witness her arrival. She favored them with a sweeping gaze and a smiling face. Her gaze fell on two men seated at a corner table, and her smile froze, stunned, not certain her eyes weren’t playing tricks on her. She suddenly needed to grasp the stair rail to steady herself. It was no illusion. Cody and Jug McCloud were sitting at one of her tables. They had not spotted her yet, for neither looked her way. Maybe it was merely coincidence that they had stopped in her saloon. How could they know to look for her here?
With that hope in mind, she carefully took one step back up, pausing to see if they had noticed. When there was no sign that they had, she took a moment to scan the room again to see if Jack was around, but he was nowhere to be seen. Glancing at the bar, she was stopped cold by the tall, dark-haired man gazing back at her. The icy hand that gripped her heart almost caused her to cry out when Cullen raised his empty glass toward her in a deadly toast. Her reaction was automatic. She turned and fled up the stairs to her rooms.
“Upstairs!” Cullen shouted, and Jug and Cody scrambled after him as he ran toward the steps. Taking them two at a time, he stopped at the top with his brothers right behind him. They were forced to take a minute to decide which of the doors she had escaped behind.
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