My Heart Belongs in Ruby City, Idaho

by Susanne Dietze

Maybe she should change the subject. “Didn’t you get my letter about what happened? But—you couldn’t have. I just mailed it a few weeks ago.”

  Johnny tugged off his hat. His dishwater-blond curls were in need of a good washing. “I don’t know about that letter, but I decided to come the minute I received your note about your intention to move to Ruby City. It was time for me to make a change, and truth be told, I missed my sister so I thought I’d drop in for a visit. Or longer. Seems like there was some important information I missed from that second letter, though.” He looked from Tad to Theodore.

  Rebecca offered a hasty, passionless explanation, hoping to spare everyone’s feelings by sticking to the barest of facts. Theodore didn’t need any more guilt over not meeting the stagecoach in time, Tad already felt bad enough, and she certainly didn’t want to dwell on how taken she’d been by Tad that she married him on sight and still got jittery when she remembered their kiss.

  She might be able to undo the mistake of their marriage, but she could never undo that kiss.

  Johnny’s laugh drew every eye, so thankfully, no one saw her blush. He swiped his tearing eyes. “I’ve never heard something so unbelievable in all my days.”

  “Nobody has,” Cornelia agreed.

  “It’ll be over soon enough.” Theodore moved behind the counter. After his vehement response to her being in the saloon and stitching up Bowe, Rebecca couldn’t help wondering if he referred to her annulment when he said things would be “over soon” or if he meant he was done with her altogether.

  It was difficult to diagnose the emotions swirling in her stomach.

  “Where are you staying, Johnny?” Tad changed the subject, bless him.

  “I don’t rightly know. I’d planned to bunk with Rebecca and her husband, but er, I’m not sure about that.”

  “There’s no spare room upstairs, anyway.” Theodore didn’t look up. What about the small rooms he’d mentioned for children? At her stare, he met her gaze, and then looked down again. “They’re full of furniture and wares I haven’t sold.”

  Rebecca’s mind whirled. Would Mrs. Horner allow Johnny to sleep on the horsehair sofa? “I’m at Mrs. Horner’s boardinghouse until things get straightened out. Maybe she’ll have an idea.”

  “Tell you what.” Tad clapped Johnny’s shoulder. “If you don’t mind sleeping in a barn, there’s plenty of room in the hayloft at the livery.”

  “I’ve slept worse places.”

  “Just come on down when you’re ready. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’d best ask your stagecoach driver if he’s heard anything new about the Gang.” Tad doffed his hat and exited out the front.

  “Thank you kindly.” Johnny turned back to Rebecca. “Gang?”

  Theodore shook his head. “A group of four robbers troubling the area.”

  Trouble seemed a mite too mild a word. “They shot Tad and pointed guns at me.”

  Johnny gaped. “They held you at gunpoint? Aw, sis.”

  “It was all in that letter you missed. Come on, let’s go to the livery and get some supper.”

  Theodore’s brows rose, but she didn’t invite him to join them. It wasn’t as if Theodore offered her brother any hospitality—not a bed or a basin, or even a cup of water. Besides, it might be best if they both cooled down from their argument.

  As they moved toward the door, a slender figure slipped into the mercantile. The miner’s wife, with the two malnourished girls at her side, offered a shy smile. “Oh, you’re still open. I’m so glad.”

  Rebecca hadn’t seen her since the day they’d met, when she’d offered the woman credit. Today, twin spots of peach bloomed in her cheeks. Rebecca patted Johnny’s arm, her age-old way to tell him to wait a moment. She couldn’t leave yet, considering Theodore’s feelings toward the miners and credit. “How can I help you, Mrs. Evans?”

  “It’s Miss. Eloise Evans. These are Pauline and Wilma.” She nudged the girls, and they dipped their heads in greeting. “Their pa, Donald, is my brother.”

  The moment she announced her single state, Johnny doffed his hat and grinned. “I’m Johnny Rice, Rebecca’s brother. Nice to meet you.”

  What was this? Raymond had been the flirt in the family, not Johnny, but it seemed things had changed. Johnny was almost as bad as Ulysses.

  “Come to settle your bill, Miss Evans?” Theodore cut to the quick.

  “I have.” She approached the counter, released the girls’ hands, and pulled a nickel from her bag. “I’d also like to purchase additional beans and rice, please.”

  Cornelia’s mouth soured. “No more credit.”

  Theodore stared at Rebecca. “It’s fine, Corny. We’re happy to serve Miss Evans.”

  In that moment, Rebecca’s heart softened. He was willing to work with Miss Evans for Rebecca’s sake, if not Miss Evans’s, but that was a start. Small thing though this might be, Theodore was making an effort to cooperate with Rebecca, maybe even to please her, after their argument.

  She was still angry, still hurt, and still hoped he didn’t mean those things he said about her combing Bowe’s hair. His gesture was a hopeful sign for their future, though.

  Miss Evans lifted her purse. “No need for credit. I can pay cash.”

  “Very well. What sort of beans?” Theodore led her to the foodstuffs. “We just got in a shipment of navy and lima….”

  She should offer him a gesture, too. “We’ll be at Mrs. Croft’s at six, Theodore, if you’d care to join us. Now, Johnny, we really must visit Uncle Giff and get you settled.”

  “You have an uncle now? Do tell.” With a final doff of his dirty hat to the room at large, and a smile for Miss Evans in particular, Johnny escorted Rebecca out the door.

  Ulysses slumped on the bench outside the mercantile but rose to full attention at the sight of them. His features wrinkled in an exaggerated display of vexation. “So you won’t marry me because you’ve already got a man too many, but you’ll take up with this young feller? Is it my age? You can be honest, now.”

  “Ulysses, I assure you, your age has naught to do with it. And you should know, I’m keeping this fellow, no matter what anyone says.”

  “Serious now?” The teasing spark in Ulysses’s eyes cooled.

  “Of course I am.” She ignored Johnny’s questioning look.

  Ulysses sputtered for words for a minute before pointing at the mercantile. “Now, missy, that’s just—do your husbands know about him?”

  This was so much fun, being the one to tease Ulysses for a change, that she didn’t bother to correct him about her multiple so-called husbands. “They most certainly do. He’s my brother Johnny.”

  Ulysses blinked. Then he gripped Johnny’s right hand and pumped it so hard Rebecca feared her brother’s shoulder would pop from its socket. “Welcome to Ruby City, sir.”

  She leaned into Johnny. “Ulysses Scruggs was one of my first friends.”

  “How do you do, Mr. Scruggs.” Johnny’s smile combined confusion and amusement.

  “Mr. Scruggs was my pa. Call me Ulysses.” Then he eyed Rebecca. “You’ve still got the smell of the saloon about you, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

  “Not at all.” She waved farewell and led Johnny away.

  “You were in the saloon?”

  “Yep. My dress is soaked in whiskey, too. I stink.”

  Johnny eyed her as if she’d grown wings. “You sure have changed, Rebecca.”

  “Of course I have.” She’d been on her own since he left when she was sixteen and Raymond enlisted. They hadn’t seen one another in six long years.

  Then she caught sight of Tad in front of the Idaho Hotel, talking to Mr. Kaplan beside the stagecoach. For better or for worse, coming to Ruby City had changed her beyond the differences that came from six years of life.

  Not that she wanted to dwell on why that was, because if she did, she spent far more time thinking about Tad than Theodore, to her shame.

  What gal wouldn’t be changed by marrying the wrong cousin?

&n
bsp; Tad shook Kaplan’s gloved hand. “I’ll let you be on your way then, Kap, so you can get to Silver City by dusk. Glad to hear you haven’t had any trouble lately.”

  “I’m takin’ precautions, but the Gang’s activity seems to have lessened up since you got shot, sorry though I am that it happened.” Kaplan climbed back to his perch atop the stagecoach. “Are you healing up?”

  “Good as new.” Tad rotated his shoulder to demonstrate.

  “I heard you had a pretty nurse.” Kaplan cackled at his own joke. “I still can’t believe she wasn’t your missus. Craziest thing I ever heard told.”

  “You and everybody else, Kap.” Tad patted the side of the empty stagecoach. “Godspeed to you.”

  Kaplan saluted. “Take care, Deputy.”

  Tad backed away from the cloud of dust kicked up by the stage, but before he could make his way back to the livery, his name was called from the hotel porch.

  “Deputy, I’ve got troubles here.” The hook-nosed hotel owner’s hands fisted on his hips. “One of my guests said he’d pay me in gold, but even I know pyrite when I see it. He fled like a coward when I insisted on real coin.”

  Tad followed him into the hotel. “Let me get a description from you.”

  Tad left the hotel ten minutes later with notes directing him to look for a man of medium height with brown hair, a scruffy beard, and brown clothes. He sounded like half the residents of Owyhee County, but Tad made inquiries at a few establishments, anyway.

  At the bank, he overheard a beef broker announcing his intent to sell half a herd of cattle. Tad pulled him aside. He’d just filed a claim on the valley land today. Was it possible he could fill it with stock soon, too?

  The livery was his last stop. Pa was alone in the stable office, tallying figures. He looked up and grinned. “Howdy, Son. I just met your brother-in-law.”

  Tad let the reference roll off his back like water from his Boss hat. After everything with Theodore today, Tad couldn’t muster the wherewithal to either protest or join in the laugh. “You don’t mind if Johnny stays, do you?”

  “He’s kin.” Pa tucked the pencil behind his ear. “Becky said she fixed up Bowe Brown in the saloon. What’s he doing back?”

  “Making trouble. I’m afraid I can’t just escort him out of town this time.”

  “Theodore causing trouble, too? Oh, don’t give me that look. Becky didn’t come out and say Theodore was upset, but I’ve known that boy for twenty-six years. I love him, but any excuse he can find to get mad at you, he’ll take.”

  Tad leaned against the desk. “I want to make things better between us, but it keeps getting worse.”

  “It doesn’t help that you don’t think he and Becky would suit.”

  Tad didn’t deny it. “It’s not my place to say so, Pa.”

  “You’re right. Your place is rubbing down the mules that got rented out today.” He chuckled and retrieved the pencil from his ear.

  “Soon.” Tad related the story of his hunt for the man who skipped out on his hotel bill. “I should tell you, I’ll be having supper with a hotel guest, that beef broker. Know him?”

  “Comes through every so often, yeah. Why?”

  “Because he knows someone looking to sell off half their herd of cattle. And I want to buy it.”

  “We aren’t in the business of cows, Son. Ponies and mules, yes, because we’re bound to expand in Silver City.”

  “I won’t be moving to Silver City.” He took a deep breath and looked at his father, willing him to meet his gaze. “I want to ranch.”

  Pa looked up then, smiling an indulgent smile. “In Ruby City? There’d be grass in summer, but the winters are too cold.”

  “That’s why I’ll settle in one of the creek valleys below for winter.”

  Pa’s smile fell. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “I’m looking ahead, toward the future, when the mines have no more to give.”

  “We aren’t miners.”

  “But we depend on them and we live like they do, never settling anywhere. We could run a livery in any town, somewhere with some permanence, but we don’t. We pack up and follow the gold or silver. I don’t want to start over anymore.”

  “But that’s exactly what you’re doing, starting something foolhardy miles away from the only family you’ve got left.”

  True, they’d only had each other—and Theodore—these past few years since Theodore’s pa, Uncle Stanley, died. Before that, they’d clung to one another after the losses of Tad’s and Theodore’s mothers. Tad had been too young to remember much of his baby sisters dying from the measles, but since he was small, it was just him and Pa. They’d never been apart.

  But Tad wouldn’t be far from Pa, and despite the fact that he was starting something new, it would hopefully be the last job change he made. That was one of the reasons he sought a wife and proposed to Rebekah Rhys. He wanted a home, a haven. A family of his own. And she’d wanted those things, too.

  Just not with him, as it turned out.

  “I filed a claim this morning. I was thinking of building a cabin near the creek up here, so I can keep an eye on the herd while it grazes up here in the summer. But I’ve got plans for a homestead down on the claim. This is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. Setting down roots and living in a real home with bedrooms and a river rock hearth and a garden. You could come with me. Put down the pencil and let’s talk.”

  “I don’t want to talk, unless you’re going to tell me you’re not serious. Ranching.” Pa spat the word like he had a stray piece of straw in his mouth. “You need to clear your head. Go on after that Gang of Four and reconsider your priorities.”

  Pa pushed back his chair, yanked open the office door, and disappeared into the barn. Tad stood there a minute. He respected his father, loved him, but right now, he was bound to say something he’d regret if he followed him. He wanted his pa’s blessing but wouldn’t get it here. Not today.

  Tad rubbed his face with both hands. What a day. The saloon brawl, then Theodore’s tantrum, then Pa…the only bright spot in the day was watching Rebecca use her nursing skills. Well, that and meeting Johnny. His presence had made Rebecca glow, like a candle burned behind her eyes.

  “Uncle Giff?” Rebecca’s cheery voice called from the livery door. She kept speaking, but it was hard to make out anything beyond, “This is Madge. Isn’t she pretty?”

  He ambled out to meet Rebecca. Johnny’s face shone, and his hair was damp from the bathhouse. Rebecca had changed into that blue dress of hers, the one that matched her eyes, and twin spots of color brightened her cheeks. “I’m introducing Johnny to Madge.”

  “She’s a mule, sis.”

  “She’s a dear. And that over there is Lady. I helped teach her to lift her foot.”

  “Did you, now?” Johnny quirked a brow at Tad.

  Pa reappeared from the stalls, refusing to look at Tad. “Welcome back, you two.”

  “Thanks for letting me bunk in the loft.” Johnny set down his travel bag. “I’d like to earn my keep, so let me know what needs doing. I’m pretty handy.”

  “Speaking of earning one’s keep, I’d told Mrs. Horner I’d be back soon to clear up supper dishes. You both will join us for supper at Mrs. Croft’s, won’t you? I invited Theodore, too.”

  Her glance at Tad was apologetic. He understood why she included Theodore—she was marrying the fellow, after all—but he didn’t much cotton to spending an evening with Theodore.

  “My treat,” Johnny announced.

  Pa rubbed his stomach. “I’ve been hungry for some of her pot roast.”

  Pot roast that would cost a lot less if the cattle was local. Tad shoved away the acerbic remark on his tongue. He was tired, true, but what man didn’t crave his pa’s support and blessing instead of his disapproval?

  “Tad’s too busy.” Pa waved his hand in dismissal, as if telling Tad to go.

  Rebecca sent Tad a querying look, but Tad shook his head.

  The livery door scraped
open, and Tad turned to help the customer, but it was Orr, his lips compressed in a contrite smile.

  “How-do, folks. Got some news you all might be interested in. Judge Harris fell from his horse outside of Silver City this morning and broke his leg.”

  Rebecca winced. “How painful. Poor man.”

  Tad strode closer. Judge Harris had headed home earlier than expected.

  “The doc told him to lay flat for a spell before he rushed up the mountain to tend some fellers down with a rash and stomach troubles.” Orr’s gaze flitted between Tad and Rebecca, and his shaggy brows rose knowingly. “I think it’ll be a while before Judge Harris returns to Ruby City, if you ken my meaning.”

  Pa rubbed the back of his neck. “No business at the courthouse for a while yet. Bowe Brown and his sparring partners will have to sit in jail a while longer.”

  Tad couldn’t keep his gaze from Rebecca. “That, and no annulment.”

  She blushed bright as a berry.

  Theodore would be apoplectic. But what did Rebecca think? Despite everything that happened today, Tad felt…happy.

  More time. For what, he wasn’t sure. But he felt as if he’d been pardoned from a heavy sentence.

  Rebecca looked at the straw at her feet. “Maybe we should go to him.”

  “What?” Tad couldn’t have heard her mutter correctly.

  She lifted her head but couldn’t quite reach his gaze. “To get the annulment. If he can’t come here, maybe we should go to Silver City.”

  “A courtroom in the sickroom,” Johnny joked, but Pa didn’t even laugh. Then Johnny’s brows furrowed.

  Tad didn’t move. Didn’t even want to breathe. It seemed like nobody wanted anything he wanted. He’d fought Pa over the cattle, Theodore over Rebecca, and he was tired of fighting.

  “Fine.” The word burst out before Tad could pinch it back. Everyone looked at him, surprise on their faces. But why should they be shocked? Hadn’t this annulment been planned for nigh on a month now? “Let’s leave in the morning and take the wagon in case the judge wants to return home with us. Invite Theodore to come.”

  “Are—are you sure?” Rebecca’s eyes were bright.