“I didn’t think of that. Is it dry up where you live?”
“Terrible,” her father said. “Ranchers are trying to sell off their stock, but prices are too low. I’m afraid a lot of cattle will die if we don’t get the rain we need.”
The roof of the barn came in sight.
“That’s our place up ahead.”
They rolled into the barnyard, and Sally looked around. Everything seemed the same as it was when she left earlier in the day.
“Come on in,” she said. “I’ll show you where you’ll sleep, and then I’ll come out and put Lady away.”
Her parents followed her inside.
“It’s small,” Sally said, “but Johnny has plans to add on later. I wrote to you about when he and Cam built this room.” She threw open the door to the new bedroom.
Her mother walked inside and looked around. “This is nice, Sally.”
“Thanks. I want you and Pa in here.”
“We don’t want to put you out of your room,” Ma said.
Sally shrugged. “It’s the only decent bedstead we have. I’ll sleep out in the other room, like we did when I first got here.”
“On the floor?” Ma frowned at her.
“It’s not a problem. And when Johnny gets home, we’ll move out to the hired man’s room in the barn.”
“You could stay in here with your mother,” Pa suggested.
“No, you two will be in here.” Even Sally could hear the stubborn edge her voice took on.
Pa smiled. “All right. I’ll go get the bags, and don’t you worry about the horse. I’ll take care of her.”
“Thanks, Pa. Just turn her out in the small corral. The harness hangs up inside the barn. There’s a little harness room—where the bunk is.”
“I’ll find it.” Her father went out.
“Do you want to freshen up?” Sally asked her mother. “There’s water in the pitcher. And the necessary is out back.”
A few minutes later, Ma joined her in the kitchen. “Mm, that smells good. What are you fixing for supper?”
“Chicken and dumplings,” Sally said. “It’s the meal I had at the hotel in town, the day I married Johnny, so I’m partial to it.”
“We like it, too. Let me help you. Oh, and I brought you some pecans.”
“Great.” Sally looked up as her father brought in the suitcases.
“I put your mare in the corral,” he said, carrying the suitcases toward the bedroom. “Is it possible Johnny and the posse would come here?”
“What do you mean?”
“Several horses are coming along the road—not from town. The other direction.”
Sally wiped her hands on a linen towel and hurried to the door. She could hear it now, the drumming of hoofbeats. Her heart raced. Was it Johnny, with the sheriff and the posse, as her father had suggested? She couldn’t imagine them galloping in here.
A cloud of dust hid the group of riders from her for a few seconds, but the leaders burst through and pulled up in the dooryard. At the sight of a distinctive pinto gelding, Sally caught her breath. She shut the door and threw the bar across it then grabbed her rifle.
“Pa! Have you got a gun?”
CHAPTER 26
Johnny, Fred Jackson, and the other men of the posse sat on their horses, gazing down at the clear tracks coming up out of a creek bed.
“You were right,” Fred said. “They’re heading back toward Beaumont. Just took a roundabout way, and they stopped to water here.”
“We’d best do the same,” Johnny said.
The men and horses were tired, their throats parched from the dust they stirred up.
Fred turned and looked at the others. “All right, men, water your horses and fill your canteens upstream of them.”
Johnny frowned as he eyed the outlaws’ trail.
“What’s bothering you?” Eph Caxton asked. “We’re heading home.”
“Yeah, and those killers are heading toward our families. Again.”
“Whyn’t they just leave us alone?” Bill Hood Sr. said. “Beaumont ain’t such a rich town.”
“It’s home for them, too,” the sheriff guessed. “At least they seem to like the area. We haven’t been able to drive ’em out.”
“And they haven’t got the money from our bank yet,” Eph said.
Fred nodded. “My guess is, they’ll keep on coming back here until we take ’em down.”
Johnny dismounted and let Reckless wade into the shallow stream. The water was only three or four inches deep.
“This thing oughta be twice this deep,” Bill Junior said as he let his buckskin sink its nose in the water.
While Reckless drank, Johnny walked a few yards upstream to where some of the others were replenishing their water supply. When his canteen was full, he mounted the bank and walked to where the outlaws’ tracks left the streambed. Their trail was plain.
Fred came to stand beside him.
“How come they’ve quit trying to hide their tracks?” Johnny asked.
“Maybe they think we’re not followin’ ’em or that they lost us back in the rocky country. I was never able to stick with ’em this long before.”
“If they’re circling around toward where they started, where do you reckon their hideout is?”
“I don’t know. I suppose it could be over toward the pine woods or even on a ranch.”
“You think a rancher’s behind this gang?”
“Not really,” Fred said. “I s’pose they could be hiding out on some remote part of a ranch. The marshal in Houston thinks Flynn has connections over that way. If that’s so, I don’t know what the attraction is for him over here.”
“Too hot for him over there, maybe.”
“Could be. But I don’t see what we can do at this point except keep followin’ ’em.”
Johnny looked off down the trail the outlaws had left. “Doesn’t make me feel any better that I left Sally alone at the ranch. If they keep on this course, they’ll go right past my house. Again.”
Fred opened his mouth and then closed it.
“What?” Johnny asked.
“Nothing. Let’s move,” Fred said. “Come on, we can be there in two hours if we ride hard. Put your mind to rest.”
Johnny nodded and went to collect his horse.
Sally’s father took the rifle from her hands. “My pistol’s in the brown leather valise. Get it. And keep low.” He went to the side of the front window and pulled the curtains together. “There’s at least six of them. Maybe eight.”
Ma came toward him from the kitchen. “Jeremiah?”
“Stay back,” Pa said.
Sally dashed into the bedroom. Pa had left the suitcases on the bed, and she opened his. Feeling carefully between the layers of clothing, she found his holstered pistol and a box of cartridges. She went to the bedroom windows and drew the curtains then took the gun and ammunition out into the main room. She held the pistol out to her father.
“You’re sure these aren’t friends?” he said.
Sally eased over to the side of the window frame and peeked out at the edge of the curtain. Two men were at the well, and the others were near the pasture fence.
“I only recognize one of them,” she said, “and he’s not a friend. It’s Cam Combes.”
“The ranch hand Johnny let go?”
She nodded. “If it was the posse, Johnny would be out there, and Sheriff Jackson, and the Hoods. People I know.”
“Have you practiced your shooting lately?” her father asked.
“No. And Johnny just bought me that rifle when he left, because I made him take his along. I haven’t even fired it. But I’ve got more cartridges.”
“Let me hang on to the rifle, then. If things go sour, your ma can shoot that Colt almost as well as I can. Give it to her.”
Sally took a deep breath and carried the pistol to her mother.
“What do you think they want?” Ma asked as she turned the cylinder to make sure the Colt was fully loaded.
“I don’t know,” Sally said. “But I don’t trust Cam.”
“Pray, ladies,” her father said grimly.
Sally closed her eyes and opened them again. She could pray with her eyes open.
“Set the extra ammunition on the table,” Ma said.
Sally placed the box where she could reach it easily, sending up disjointed bits of prayer in her mind. Help us, Lord! Don’t let Ma and Pa get hurt. Make me wise.
“One of them’s coming to the door,” her father said from near the window.
“What should I do?”
“Don’t unlock it.”
At that moment, the front door rattled against the jamb.
“Sally? You in there?”
Her knees nearly gave out on her. She looked toward her father and hissed, “That’s Cam.”
“Get to the side and answer him,” Pa whispered.
She stepped to her left so that her body was not in a direct line with the door.
“What do you want, Cam?”
“Where’s Johnny?”
“Why?”
“I wanna talk to him.”
“Go away,” Sally said, as sternly as she could.
“You all alone in there?”
“Go away!”
“That’s no way to treat an old friend. You got some food for me and the boys?”
“No.”
After a pause he said in an amused tone, “You always have food in there, Sal. Come on. Open up. We need more than the milk and butter you had down the well.”
Another voice said, “Somethin’ smells good. What you cookin’, ma’am? We’d sure like to have a bite.”
The door rattled again in its frame.
“You keep away,” Sally yelled.
“Aw, Sally, don’t make me stave in the door,” Cam said, smooth and congenial.
“If you do, you’ll get a belly full of lead.”
He laughed, and a chill ran through her. She glanced at her father, and he nodded somberly, as if to say, You’re all right, gal. I’m here with you.
“I know Johnny better’n you do,” Cam said. “Wherever he’s at, he’s got his rifle with him, and his revolver, too.”
Sally opened her mouth to reply, but her father held up a hand to stop her. He gestured for her to get down. She sank to the floor and crept away from the door, toward the corner of the room where Mark’s bunk had stood.
At that moment the back door, in the kitchen, thudded, and Ma let out a gasp. Sally craned her neck to see. That door didn’t have a sturdy bar, just a thumb latch and a hook for a lock inside.
Pa took three steps to the edge of the worktable, and Ma flattened herself against the cupboard. The door shook again, and the hook screeched against its eye latch.
“Cover your ears,” Pa said.
Sally hardly had her hands clapped to her head before the rifle roared.
All was very quiet except for the thunder in her ears. It faded gradually to a ringing. She lowered her hands and stared at her father. He stood with the rifle still aimed at the back door, but nobody seemed to be worrying about the splintered wood now.
Carefully, she eased up to the side of the small front window and peeked out beside the curtain. She hoped to see Cam and his companions mounting up to ride off. Instead, she saw them in conference near the barn, watching the house while they talked, one of them gesturing wildly.
Her father came to her side and looked out.
“I won’t break your window first thing. Get me something to block it up with.”
Sally grabbed a small biscuit tin off a shelf. He raised the front window a couple of inches, and she stuck the tin beneath the sash.
The men outside froze and looked toward the house. The tallest one, who seemed to be their leader, spoke, and they scattered, taking cover behind the wagon and within the shelter of the barn. One of them led several horses around the corner of the barn.
“They’re digging in for a fight,” Pa said. “Get back and stay low.”
Sally’s mother sat down in the shelter of the cookstove but kept the Colt pointed toward the back door. Gunfire erupted outside, and one of the boards in the wall between Sally and her father splintered. Pa waited a moment then rose enough to peek out the gap below the window sash. His rifle boomed.
Sheriff Jackson, at the head of the column, stopped his horse and held up his hand. The horses behind him stopped. Fred had cocked his head to one side, and Johnny listened hard. From a distance, he heard an unmistakable pop-pop.
He trotted Reckless up next to Fred’s horse.
“Gunfire,” Fred said.
Johnny nodded, scanning the horizon. He had never ridden in from this direction, but he was certain the sounds came from near his house.
“Let’s go,” he said.
“Wait.”
Johnny shook his head. “I left Sally alone.” He urged Reckless forward, and the tired chestnut set out in a lope.
Behind him, Fred yelled, “Head for the Paynter ranch, men, and be careful.”
The irregular popping became blasts as Johnny got nearer. Reckless’s ears flickered back and forth, as though he needed assurance that he was supposed to run toward the sounds.
Sally’s father sent off a volley of shots then ducked down below the window frame to reload. She tried to yell to him to be careful, since bullets were coming through the board walls, but she couldn’t hear her own voice.
Half a minute later, he repeated the stunt—peek out, pull the rifle up, fire, then duck down. Ma crouched by the stove, watching the back door, her lips moving.
Pa made his move for the third time. Peek, rise, fire. This time, he flew backward and sprawled on the floor. Sally stared in horror as he clutched his shoulder.
“Get the gun. Get the gun.”
He said it over and over, but it took a while for Sally to hear him, and for the words to register.
As she grabbed the rifle off the floor, the back door splintered, and Ma’s pistol roared. Ma fired again, and a huge figure, shadowy in the smoke, sprawled on the kitchen floor.
The front window shattered, and Sally turned toward it. A man’s head and arms, supporting a rifle, appeared in the frame. She swung the rifle toward him without really aiming and pulled the trigger. He flew backward.
When she turned back toward her mother, two men barreled through the ragged doorway at the back. Ma got off one more shot before the next man grabbed her and twisted the Colt from her hand.
He held her mother close against him and leveled a six-shooter at Sally. She saw his lips form the words, “Drop it! Drop it!”
The other man, who wore a blue calico shirt, unbarred the front door to let the rest in. Cam was the first over the threshold. Sally stared at him, hatred rising up inside her.
“Drop it,” the man holding her mother yelled again. “I’ll count to three, and then I shoot this woman. One!”
Five armed men stood in her house. Sally stooped and laid down the rifle. Her father writhed on the floor, clutching his wound.
One of the outlaws knelt by the man her mother had shot as he came through the back door. “Flynn’s dead.”
“What do we do now?” another asked.
Sally tried to keep her face calm. Her mother had killed the gang’s leader, and in spite of the grimness of the moment, she wanted to celebrate.
Cam marched over and stared at Sally. She looked away, unable to meet his malignant brown eyes.
Cam glanced down at her father. “Who is he?”
Sally didn’t answer. Cam hadn’t been in the area very long. If she didn’t enlighten him, he would probably think her pa was a local rancher he hadn’t met. But if she told him, he might take out his anger at her on her father. Johnny had thwarted him the last time they met, but Johnny wasn’t here now. She swallowed hard but said nothing.
Cam stooped and grasped her father’s jacket. He hauled Pa roughly to his feet. “Outside, old man. Now.”
“Cam, don’t,” Sally said,
involuntarily.
Cam shot her a glance and shoved her father to the door. “Wouldn’t want to mess up your floor any worse than it already is, Sal.”
“No!” Sally lunged toward him, but the nearest man caught her around the waist and hauled her back. As she struggled, Sally caught a glimpse of her mother’s pale face.
“You tell Johnny this is from me.” Cam shoved her father out the door and down the steps.
“Cam, he’s my father!”
He looked back at her.
“Please,” Sally said with a sob.
Cam’s chin came up just a notch. “Well, since he’s your pa.” His smile did not reassure her. Cam looked at the men holding her and her mother. “Bring them outside.”
The man holding Sally pushed her toward the door. Her shoulder slammed against the jamb, and she gasped. She hurried down the steps as fast as she could without stumbling, clutching her bruised shoulder. Her mother staggered down the steps and lurched against her. Their captors brought them up short, and they watched as Cam marched Pa a few steps away while another man stood watching the road.
“Torch the house,” Cam called to the man in the blue shirt.
Ma caught her breath, but Sally only pressed her lips together. If they would only spare her parents, she wouldn’t care about the cabin.
The man holstered his pistol and went into the barn, reappearing a moment later with an armful of straw. Meanwhile, Cam prodded her father toward the well.
“Your Sally is a good girl,” he said in Pa’s face.
Pa said nothing but stared at Ma and Sally, his eyes full of remorse.
“Say good-bye,” Cam told him, holding his gun to the back of Pa’s head.
Still Pa kept silent.
Cam glared at him. “For her sake, I won’t blow your head off. Over you go, Pops.”
Cam shoved Pa against the berm of the well and overbalanced him without difficulty. Sally’s heart clenched as her father disappeared over the edge. She heard the water splash, and knew the ringing in her ears had receded. She pulled against the man who held her, but his grip around her waist tightened.
The Outlaw Takes a Bride Page 27