CAROLINE AND THE RAIDER

by Linda Lael Miller

  Early the next morning, before the sun was even up, she awakened to wash and dress. Knowing she would have to ride, she wore her dusty divided skirt and the soiled shirtwaist that went with it. She had just finished pinning up her hair when someone knocked at her door.

  She opened it, expecting to find Guthrie standing there. Instead, she was confronted by Marshal Teemo and a man she didn’t recognize. Her heart slammed against her rib cage and sent color flooding into her face as she considered the possibility that Guthrie had betrayed her true identity and purpose. It seemed likely that she was about to be arrested for conspiring to break Mr. Flynn out of jail.

  “Mornin’, Miss Flynn,” the marshal said cordially, touching the brim of his impeccably brushed hat.

  Caroline remembered with a second jolt that Guthrie had introduced her to the lawman as Seaton’s sister. “Good morning,” she said, barely able to squeeze the words past her throat.

  “This here is Mr. Rafe Binchly, ma’am,” the marshal continued. “He’s the man that witnessed the robbery and killing.”

  Caroline sized up the man who had been partially responsible for Mr. Flynn’s conviction—he was tall and slender and completely nondescript—but the look in his pale blue eyes was uncomfortably direct. “Good morning, Mr. Binchly,” she said formally.

  He shook her hand and nodded.

  “Rafe and I figured you might like to join us over at the jail for some breakfast,” Marshal Teemo went on. “We already invited your cousin, and he’ll be along right away.”

  Caroline had never taken a meal in a jailhouse, and she hoped she wouldn’t be making a steady habit of it in the future. She was hungry, though, and not much inclined to venture into the dining hall across the street. Besides that, she liked and trusted John Teemo. “Thank you,” she said. “I’d like that very much.”

  A moment later, Guthrie joined them in the hall, minus his dog. He gave Caroline’s elbow an eloquent little squeeze, but said nothing.

  The sun was pushing away the night with slender golden fingers as Caroline and her three escorts reached the darkened street below. A smiling, cheerful woman was adding a chunk of firewood to the jailhouse stove when they came in.

  Using her apron for a potholder, the woman lifted a huge blue enamel pot from the top of the stove and poured coffee into waiting mugs. Her graying blond hair glinted in the cozy lantern light. “John,” she reprimanded good-naturedly, “you might trouble yourself to introduce me.”

  “My wife,” the marshal complied, with a slight smile.

  Guthrie jumped in just as Caroline opened her mouth to speak, and it was a good thing, too. She would have offered her real name.

  “This is Miss Caroline Flynn,” Guthrie said. “And I’m her cousin, Jeffrey Mason.” He put a slight emphasis on the first name, probably warning her to be careful how she addressed him.

  After that, Caroline was afraid to say much. She was an honest person, and lies tended to snag themselves on her tongue. She enjoyed a hearty breakfast of hot blueberry muffins, fried sausage, and scrambled eggs with the men, thinking drifters and drunks must make a point of getting themselves thrown into the city jail just so they could eat Mrs. Teemo’s cooking.

  When the meal was done and the sun lit the sky, Caroline, Guthrie, and Mr. Binchly set out for the sight of the robbery and killing in Mr. Binchly’s buckboard. Tob appeared at the last minute and bounded up into the wagon bed to ride with his tongue hanging out.

  Caroline climbed back over the seat to perch beside her canine friend on a wooden toolbox. She ruffled his loose hide, and he made a sound of affectionate welcome.

  Presently, Mr. Binchly stopped the wagon on a curve in the trail. There were enormous rocks up ahead, standing like giants on either side of the makeshift road.

  Guthrie got down from the wagon seat and held his hands up, and Caroline let him lift her down, even though his touch sent shards of spiky fire surging through her veins. Tob jumped down after them.

  Mr. Binchly gestured toward the rocks. “They was waiting for the stage on the other side of them boulders, five or six of ’em,” he said, lifting one hand to rub the white stubble that covered his chin. The haunted look in his eyes tightened Caroline’s throat and made it impossible for her to so much as glance in Guthrie’s direction. “Two of ’em were up there,” he said, gesturing toward the top of the outcropping, “and the rest were on horseback. That tall one, Flynn, he shot poor old Cal Walden dead.”

  “Did Mr. Walden go for his gun?” Caroline managed to ask, while Guthrie was already scrambling up the side of one of the rocks to stand in the robbers’ perch.

  “No, ma’am,” Rafe answered sadly. “He handed over the strongbox with no trouble. Flynn just kilt him for the sport of it.”

  A shudder went through Caroline as she imagined the man she’d once loved and trusted shooting a man down in cold blood. It couldn’t be true, she insisted to herself.

  “How did you come to see all this?” Guthrie asked, standing on top of one of the rocks now, his hands resting on his hips. “Weren’t you inside the coach?”

  “I was riding beside Cal,” Rafe answered, his voice quivering ever so slightly. “Didn’t make no sense to stay inside when there was nobody to talk to.”

  Guthrie turned to survey the countryside, his face unreadable from Caroline’s angle of vision. “How is it that they didn’t shoot you?” he asked.

  “The one with the dark eyes—Flynn—he hit me with the butt of his rifle. I reckon they thought I was dead, an old man like me. When I woke up, they was gone. I was bleedin’ from my head, but I put poor Cal inside the stage and then I drove it back to Clinton.”

  Guthrie climbed deftly down from the top of the rock and he and Rafe paced off the scene, again and again, endlessly. Finally, Guthrie was satisfied.

  He thanked Rafe for his time and lifted Caroline into the back of the wagon, where Tob immediately joined her. While Guthrie and Mr. Binchly talked quietly in the wagon seat, Caroline considered the Seaton Flynn she knew and tried again to imagine him robbing a stagecoach, killing the driver.

  It proved impossible.

  Guthrie was quiet after Rafe dropped them off at the hotel, and that troubled Caroline. She wished he’d look at her, tell her what he thought and, at the same time, she was afraid to read the expression in his eyes or hear what he had to say.

  They checked out of the hotel and walked to the livery stable. Occasionally, Tob licked Caroline’s hand, as if to reassure her, but Guthrie didn’t speak until he came out leading two saddled horses, his own and a sprightly little black-and-white pinto.

  Before Caroline could ask, Guthrie said flatly, “I traded my father’s watch for it.”

  Caroline’s mouth dropped open. “You can’t do that,” she protested, when she could speak again. “I won’t let you.”

  In answer, he hoisted her up into the saddle. “You don’t have a choice,” he replied.

  “But your father’s watch!”

  “Don’t worry,” Guthrie said, cordially enough, “I hated the bastard.”

  Caroline was silenced, at least temporarily. Guthrie had tied her carpetbag on behind her saddle, so she didn’t have to carry it, and the morning was clear and bright. When Clinton was well behind them, she rode close to Guthrie and said, “You think Mr. Flynn is guilty, don’t you?”

  Guthrie shifted his hat on his head, and it ended up at exactly the same angle as before. “Yes,” he answered, after a long moment.

  Caroline felt as though she’d just taken a blow, even though she’d known from the first that Guthrie was inclined to take the dark view where Seaton was concerned. “Why are you here, then?” she asked. “Why did you trade your father’s watch for a horse for me to ride if you don’t intend to help me?”

  He sighed and surveyed the surrounding countryside, which was largely flat and covered with grass and scrub. “If I thought you’d go home to your schoolhouse and your guardians and concentrate on finding yourself a good husband, I�
�d do that. But you’re bound to see this thing through, no matter what, and I can’t leave you on your own, knowing that. I’d never get another good night’s sleep if I lived to be ninety-nine.”

  Caroline swallowed and gripped her saddle horn with both hands, the reins held firmly between her fingers. “I guess you probably wish you’d never met me,” she said in a small voice. “That way, you could just get on with your life and marry Adabelle and everything.”

  “You guess right, Teacher,” Guthrie answered gruffly, without meeting her eyes.

  She drew in a deep breath and let it out again. “You must have found Mr. Binchly to be a credible witness.”

  Guthrie glanced at her, and a humorless smile curved his lips for just a moment. “He seemed to know what he was talking about.”

  Caroline swallowed and then bit her lip. “Yes,” she said, finally. “But I still think he was wrong.”

  Guthrie sighed.

  “Do you?” Caroline asked, feeling a necessity to make conversation.

  “Do I what?” Guthrie retorted irritably.

  “Do you wish you’d never met me?”

  He gave her a sidelong glance and considered his answer for a long time. “No,” he said. “But I probably will before this is over.”

  Caroline was jubilant. Whatever might happen later, Guthrie was glad he knew her. She didn’t stop to ask herself why that was important. “Maybe you won’t,” she ventured. “Maybe you’ll tell your grandchildren that you helped save an innocent man from the gallows.”

  His tone was wry, and he didn’t look at her as he leaned forward, resting his forearm on the pommel of the saddle. “And maybe I’ll never have any grandchildren, Teacher. Thanks to you, I might spend the rest of my life in a federal prison.”

  The thought chilled Caroline. “That would be ironic,” she observed, “considering your reputation as a raider.”

  “I’m glad you think so,” Guthrie responded dryly.

  “Who did you kill?” The words were out of Caroline’s mouth before she’d had time to consider their impact.

  To her surprise, Guthrie answered the audacious question. “A man named Pedlow,” he said. “He and I had a little encounter during the war. Afterward, he came looking for me.”

  Caroline was so filled with suspense that she could barely breathe. “And?”

  “He found Anne instead. She was home alone.”

  A chill wove itself around Caroline’s soul and closed in, threatening to smother her. The ordinary sounds—the horses’ hooves on the road, Job’s panting, her own breathing—seemed to fall away in silence as she waited, not daring to prompt Guthrie in any way.

  He spoke sparingly. “She died.”

  Caroline squeezed her eyes shut in a futile attempt to keep brutal images at bay. She knew without asking that this man Pedlow, whoever he was, had murdered Anne. “I’m so sorry,” she said, reaching out to lay a hand on Guthrie’s forearm.

  She felt the muscles tense under her fingers, but he didn’t draw away from her.

  “You asked,” he said, the words sounding rusty and harsh as they came from his throat. “Now you know.”

  After that, Caroline didn’t try to make conversation. In fact, if she could have gone back in time somehow and chosen some other subject, she would have.

  A little after noon, they came upon a water hole surrounded by hoofprints and stopped to water the horses. Guthrie took his canteen from over his shoulder and handed it to Caroline.

  “How long ’til we’ll be in Laramie?” she asked, after swallowing two mouthfuls of tepid water.

  Guthrie didn’t look at her directly, and he took several drinks from the canteen before replying, “Three or four days, if we’re lucky.”

  Caroline was disheartened, thinking of sleeping on the ground again. There was no telling what would happen if she had to spend that many nights sharing a blanket with Guthrie. She shielded her eyes from the bright midday sun and scanned the horizon. “Maybe there are some ranches between here and there …”

  For the first time since before he’d admitted killing the man who’d murdered his wife, Guthrie grinned. “We might be able to find a barn to sleep in,” he predicted. “But there’s still only one blanket.”

  Caroline looked away quickly, her cheeks hot. “I wasn’t thinking about that,” she lied.

  Guthrie laughed. “The hell you weren’t,” he replied. Then he brought the inevitable beef jerky from his saddlebags and gave Tob and Caroline equal portions.

  “Once this trip is over,” Caroline muttered, after tearing off a bite of the dried meat, “I’m never going to eat this wretched stuff again.”

  Guthrie grasped her by the waist and thrust her unceremoniously back into the saddle. “Careful, Teacher,” he warned. “You’re tempting fate.”

  Privately, Caroline agreed, but she wasn’t thinking about beef jerky.

  Throughout the coming afternoon, dark clouds moved in, taking over the blue sky and finally obscuring it. Caroline and Guthrie traveled through the rising wind, stopping only once in the late afternoon to rest the horses, and came upon an isolated hay barn about an hour before sunset.

  The structure had a roof but no walls, and it was half filled with musty-smelling baled hay. Caroline looked around, disappointed. She’d hoped for better accommodations, and maybe a woman to talk with.

  “Isn’t there a ranch house?”

  Guthrie shrugged, holding his hat on with one hand so it wouldn’t blow off and go tumbling across the prairie. “Probably. But it could be miles away, and it’s going to rain like hell in about five minutes. Gather up whatever you can find for firewood while I see to the horses.”

  Caroline couldn’t remember a time in her life when she’d been ordered about so much. Grudgingly, she searched the ground, finding only dried cow chips.

  She brought back a stack and dropped them under one eave of the barn roof, her lip curled in revulsion. Guthrie chuckled as she wiped her hands on her skirts.

  Thunder shook the ground, then lightning cracked the sky and came knifing down to stab at the verdant earth. The horses nickered and danced at the end of the lines that tethered them to a corner pillar of the barn, and Tob whined and tried to squirm under a haystack.

  “Looks like we’ll have to keep each other warm tonight,” Guthrie said, his eyes dancing as he watched Caroline’s response to his remark.

  Caroline hugged herself and turned away. Rain pounded at the roof over their heads and poured off the edges, shutting them in behind a murky crystalline wall

  She felt Guthrie’s hands come to rest on her shoulders and drew in her breath as he gently brought her around to face him.

  “Caroline,” he began reasonably, “stop worrying. I told you before that I’d never force you.”

  Her lower lip was trembling a little, and she couldn’t seem to still it. Her response came tumbling out of her mouth before she could bar its way. “I’m not sure you’d have to,” she confessed sadly. Behind them, just out of reach of the rain, the little cow-chip fire flickered bravely against the chill.

  He took off his hat and tossed it aside to lie in the hay, then wrapped both arms around her waist. “The pull between us is mighty strong,” he said, and now it sounded as if he were the one being forced. “By the saints, I tried to hold back.” With a low groan of protest, he bent his head and touched his lips to Caroline’s.

  She was determined to stand against him, but that first warm contact brought her onto her tiptoes. She gave a soft whimper as he mounted a gentle invasion, his tongue entering her mouth to conquer. One of his hands came to rest just beneath her breast, and when his thumb swept across her nipple, a sweet, violent shiver racked Caroline.

  “Sure you don’t want to go back to Bolton?” Guthrie asked, in a husky voice, when the enchantment ended briefly.

  Caroline rested her forehead against his shoulder, finding the fabric of his coat damp from the rain. “I’m sure,” she choked out.

  Guthrie’s hand t
railed down her back to her bottom. Boldly, he squeezed her, following that with a painless little swat. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you, Teacher,” he said.

  Then he turned and walked away.

  There were pieces of fallen, rotting timber around the barn, and Guthrie added those to the blaze. They had the inevitable jerky for supper, and Guthrie made a bed for them high in the haystack.

  Night came all too quickly.

  “I think I’ll just sit by the fire for a while,” Caroline said, staring down at what remained of the feeble blaze. She was freezing, and she felt pulled toward Guthrie just as surely as if he’d taken a grip on her hair.

  She heard his yawn from up near the roof somewhere. “Rain’s letting up a little,” he said. “The wolves will be out soon to hunt.”

  Caroline rose to her feet with dignity and smoothed her skirt. Guthrie had a gun, and he knew how to use it. If she encountered any wolves, she wanted to be close to him when it happened. She climbed awkwardly up the stacked bales until she reached the little nest of dryness and warmth Guthrie had made for them.

  She couldn’t see his face clearly, but she sensed that he was smiling, at least inwardly. When his hand came out and closed around hers, she let him pull her down into the bed he’d made.

  The straw felt soft beneath her as she stretched out beside Guthrie, then curled close to him.

  His hand cupped her face, the thumb stroking her cheekbone. Caroline thought she was prepared for the feel of his mouth against hers, but she wasn’t. She gave a little cry and entwined her fingers in his hair.

  Guthrie laid one strong leg across both of hers, and she felt his manhood against her thigh, hard and powerful. Even as her body prepared to receive him, she wondered how she could possibly accommodate his size without suffering serious injury.

  He left her mouth to nibble at her neck, and all the while his fingers were undoing the buttons of her shirtwaist.

  Instinctively, she arched her back, offering herself. “Guthrie?”

  He laid aside the fabric of her blouse and untied the ribbons of her camisole. She gasped with pleasure as he shaped a nipple with his fingers. “Yes?”