He smiled. “Ma, I want you to meet my wife.”
Ma jerked her head back like a horse getting ready to rear up. “You told me you got married, but you never mentioned her name.”
Gage hadn’t been able to come up with a name so he’d left it out. He slid his arm around Ma’s shoulders, noticing she’d gained some weight, which meant things must be prosperous back in Texas, and turned her to face Bailey. “Here she is, my pretty little wife, Mrs. Gage Coulter. Bailey Coulter, this is my mother, Sarah Coulter.”
Ma sniffled and dabbed a kerchief at her overly pink nose. “Bailey is a man’s name.” She looked Bailey in the eye, and Gage was glad his wife was wearing a dress and had her hair at a more reputable length. Though few women wore their hair cut short. Still, it beat the manly cut she’d had last fall.
“My pa picked it.” Bailey extended a hand and took one of Ma’s. Not a handshake exactly, she just pressed her hand to Ma’s, held on and smiled. “I’ll admit the name’s unusual, but I’m used to it. I’ve found it suits me.”
Gage tensed up, waiting for his wife to say something outrageous.
“We don’t have what we need to haul your trunks home, Mrs. Coulter.” She turned those shining golden eyes on him. “Gage, are the trails open enough you can send a wagon to town tomorrow?”
“A wagon can’t get through, but I can send a packhorse.” Gage looked at the baggage and added, “A string of packhorses.”
“Good. Let’s pick out what you need for overnight, ma’am. Gage, see where you can stack these things until tomorrow. Maybe Sandy will let you store them inside the livery, out of the weather.”
“Now wait one minute!” Mrs. Coulter’s tone froze both of them in their tracks.
“What is it?” Bailey asked. She gave Mrs. Coulter her full attention.
“I just think we need to spend a few moments introducing ourselves. Heavens, it’s so nice to meet the woman my boy married.”
“I’d like that too, but if we don’t move quick, we’ll be riding in the dark. It’s a far piece to Gage’s . . . uh, our ranch. We can visit on the trail. It’s mighty lucky we were even in town or you’d have needed to send a rider out for us and then find a place to sleep in town. And there isn’t a place, except maybe the boardinghouse, and that’s packed high to the rafters with men.”
Gage jiggled her shoulders with the arm he still had around her, hoping to brace her up. “Let’s find you a riding horse and head home. It’ll be past suppertime before we get there. It’s been a long day for Bailey and me.”
“And for you too, I’m sure.” Bailey still held on to Ma’s hand, and though his wife didn’t glare at him, considering Ma was watching real close, he could tell his wife thought he was a thoughtless lunkhead. Which was no more than the plain truth, so he took no offense. Good chance that Bailey already knew he wasn’t the sensitive type.
Ma steadied herself and slipped out of Gage’s grasp to reach for Bailey. “Welcome to the family, dear.”
Bailey liked the sound of that and moved closer to Mrs. Coulter. The two of them stood facing each other, holding hands as if they were going to start dancing around the Maypole.
This was going to be good. Ma would pay attention to Bailey and ignore him. Maybe she’d even be more cheerful, quit all her worrying and crying. Bailey was a strong woman. Ma might toughen up just from being around her.
“I’ve always wanted a daughter!” Ma’s voice rose to a wail, and she threw herself into Bailey’s arms so hard that Bailey staggered backward.
Gage caught her in time to prevent her falling down under Ma again. With wide eyes, Bailey stood there with her arms extended at her sides, staring at Gage. As if he was going to be able to help her.
It looked like Ma wasn’t going to cheer up; she was just going to spread her crying around even more. Gage felt bad for Bailey, who was in for some hard adjustments.
Under any circumstances she’d shown signs of finding marriage to be a trial. But marriage to Gage, with his ma living in the same house, was going to be a nightmare.
At least Gage wasn’t in it alone. “You two go ahead and hug while I haul these things into the livery.”
Bailey nearly burned him to a cinder with those fiery eyes.
His turn to smirk.
Until he picked up a trunk.
“No, not that one!”
Gage had forgotten Ma had a squawk that reminded him of a large bird. Her gray silk added to the feathery image. She let go of Bailey and flew toward him, and he half expected her to lay an egg.
“I can’t leave anything behind.” She slammed into Gage and clutched his arm. He was pretty sure she was going to turn on the tears again.
“Like I said, Ma, Bailey and I have had ourselves a long day. We’re tired and hungry, and there’s no food closer than my place, which is an hour’s ride on hard trails. We don’t want to be caught out after dark.”
The tears started pouring. Gage knew then he was done for. He just couldn’t stand up to her when she was crying like that. “Why didn’t Pa come with you?”
To help tend her. Pa always handled her better than Gage. Everybody handled her better than Gage.
“He couldn’t leave the ranch, not in the spring. He’s busy with branding.”
“But doesn’t he need you there? I’m surprised you took off on such a long, dangerous ride. I’m surprised Pa allowed it.”
Ma sniffled.
Gage braced himself for more tears.
“I’ve been after him to come for a visit almost since you left,” Ma said.
“You lived in Texas, and the war was going on. It wasn’t easy to get across the Mason-Dixon line.”
“That’s what he kept saying.” Ma sounded baffled, as if the ways of men were a mystery. “He wouldn’t even consider a trip. And once the war was over, he still wouldn’t budge.”
“Maybe because it’s fifteen hundred miles of bad roads with miserable, long hours of discomfort, harsh, sometimes deadly, weather, dangerous river crossings, and trails thick with hungry animals, gunslinging outlaws, and restless Indians.”
“Your pa never wants to have any fun.”
Bailey laughed, then quickly covered her mouth and started coughing to hide the laughter.
Ma wasn’t paying attention. “He finally agreed to let me go on my own.”
Gage couldn’t imagine his pa agreeing to it. Ma must’ve made his life unbearable. Now it was Gage’s turn to put up with her for a while.
He sighed as he surveyed the heaps of trunks and baggage. “I can rent a couple of horses from the livery, but we’ll have to break open the trunks and make more bundles. A trunk isn’t going to ride easy on a horse’s back. And even if I do that, we won’t be able to get it all loaded. When we head for home, you’ll see the trails are impassable with a wagon and rugged going for a horse. Now, you and Bailey get busy picking out what you need to take, Ma, while I arrange for the pack animals.”
Gage took Ma by the shoulders, gently but firmly pried her off of him, turned her, and although he was gentle about it, he pretty much threw her at Bailey. This was what he’d married her for, and he’d paid for it with five thousand acres of canyon grassland. Well, she could just start earning her ranch right now.
16
Bailey’s shoulders slumped, and she struggled to keep her eyes open. She was so tired, she considered lashing her wrists to the saddle. She was so hungry, her stomach thought her throat had been cut. And she was so weary of listening to her mother-in-law fuss, she was tossing two ideas around in her head: gag her new ma; cut off her own ears.
Neither was a good idea, but contemplating it was better than doing it, and only the daydream was keeping her from whipping out her kerchief and silencing Ma Coulter.
There was jerky, but she’d strapped several of the bundles behind her saddle, and the saddlebags were buried among them. Since food was impossible and so was assault, and since she was bringing up the rear, leading a string of three heavily laden packhorses, maybe she could s
neak in a nap.
In the full dark, Gage led the way and had a packhorse of his own in tow. He’d tried to take two but found his ma didn’t like being that far back from him.
Ma Coulter had proven to be a woman of Texas when she swung up on her horse. No matter how fussy, it seemed that a woman couldn’t spend her whole adult life in Texas and not be a skilled horsewoman.
Bailey’s head bobbed low, and her eyes drifted shut. She grabbed for a lasso to tie her wrists.
A wolf howled and sent a chill up Bailey’s spine. As often as she’d heard it, she still thought it was the eeriest sound in the world. It came from the dark woods that lined the narrow, drifted-over path. The trail had been broken by the riders who’d come to Aspen Ridge with Gage and then ridden home. And it wasn’t nearly as deep as the snow on the way from Bailey’s. But they were still plowing through drifts deep in the black belly of the woods, because packing Ma’s things had made them very late. It was colder with each passing minute.
The wolves howled again, this time several of them. It must be a pack, and they sounded closer than they had just minutes ago.
“What were you thinking to live so far from town, son?”
Bailey slid her hand to the pistol she always wore. It wasn’t there. It was in her saddlebag, shoved beneath one of the bundles tied on behind her saddle. Her rifle was gone, too. She’d paid only passing attention to Gage stowing it somewhere out of sight. It sure as certain wasn’t in grabbing distance.
“The town wasn’t even here when I moved in, Ma. And I was just looking for a nice patch of grass.” Gage’s voice, deep and raspy, had taken on a tone that made Bailey nervous. He was sounding like a pouting five-year-old. She figured the way he talked to his ma, and she to him, must be how they always acted toward each other.
Bailey needed to fix that before she started whining and nagging like Ma, or pouting like Gage.
Before Gage could say more, the wolves howled, this time even closer. He drew his gun.
“What is that?” Ma Coulter shrieked.
“Gage, my gun’s in my saddlebag. I can’t get to it.” Forgetting to keep her gun within grabbing distance was so stupid, she wanted to punch herself. “Give me your rifle.”
She could act ladylike when it didn’t matter, but if wolves attacked, she wanted a gun at the ready.
“They’re not that close,” he said.
They howled again, an unearthly sound.
“Gage!” Bailey’s voice cracked like a bullwhip. “They’re close enough! You can’t handle two guns at once. Give me one of ’em.” Bailey rushed her horse, dragging the packhorses along, past Ma Coulter. The trail was just barely wide enough to get past.
One more howl, closer than ever. Gage jerked his rifle free of the sling on his saddle and pulled his horse to a stop just as Bailey caught up to him. He thrust his rifle into her hands.
“Keep moving.” She checked the load in the long gun. “I’ll get back to bringing up the rear.”
“We’re less than a half hour from home,” Gage said, speaking low for her benefit only. “We may have a fight on our hands.”
“They shouldn’t attack a group of riders like this.”
“Nope, it’s strange they’re coming.”
Sniffing, Bailey said, “What’s that smell?”
Gage, who’d been acting baffled since his mother showed up, suddenly was himself again. Tough, trail-savvy. “Dead animal. Blood. I wonder if that pack made a kill around here. They may be hungry. It’s been a long, cold winter.”
“If it’s about an animal they brought down, once we’re past it, they should leave us alone.”
With a nod, he glanced back at his ma and said sharply, “Ma, we’ve got to move faster. Keep up with me.”
Gage tried kicking his horse into a run. But with the packhorse to drag along, he was slow getting going.
Bailey pulled her horse to a stop and let Ma Coulter pass. She gave Bailey a fearful look. “Why do you live in this savage place?”
As if there weren’t a thousand ways to die in Texas.
“Hang on tight, Mrs. Coulter. We’ve got to make a run for it.” Bailey slapped the old nag on the rear—the old nag meaning the horse, not Ma Coulter, although Bailey was sorely tempted.
With three packhorses to convince, Bailey was slow picking up speed.
The wolves helped. Soon they were trotting, closing the space between her and Ma Coulter with every stride.
She had the rifle cocked and pointed straight up. Her eyes never rested on any one spot. It helped to catch any unusual movement if she looked back and forth, always moving, studying the woods. At last their horses had all broken into a gallop.
“I think we’re losing them,” Gage called out.
The howling did seem to fall back some. They kept up the pace, and Bailey judged they had about fifteen minutes at most until they’d be home and done with this long, strange day.
They reached a stretch where the trail narrowed and thick underbrush came so close, a wagon would scrape its sides on the trees getting past. Not much moon shone in the dark, thick woods. Ahead, Bailey saw lighter sky and hoped that once they were done with this tight stretch, she could relax.
With a shout, Gage’s horse went down. Barely visible in the dark, she saw Gage fly over its head. The horse screamed as if in pain.
Bailey couldn’t see if his horse landed on Gage or not. The packhorse behind skidded to a stop, nearly sitting down on its haunches to keep from running over the horse ahead of it.
“Stop, Ma!” Bailey spurred her horse and caught Ma’s reins. They slid on the frozen ground. Ma’s horse ran into the packhorse ahead.
“Gage! Oh, my baby boy!” The packhorses, Ma’s and Bailey’s mounts, all twisted and reared up as they collided. Bailey grabbed Ma’s arm to keep her from falling to the ground.
In the midst of it, Bailey saw Gage’s horse neigh in a terrible way that wrenched Bailey’s attention to the animal as it surged to its feet. She wasn’t sure where Gage was.
God, please don’t let him be under the stallion’s hooves.
Ma started to dismount. Bailey still had her arm and kept her in the saddle through sheer grit. The stallion, still tied to the packhorse, twisted sideways.
Gage lay facedown, unmoving on the ground.
“Don’t get down.” Bailey used a voice that could make a whole army of Union soldiers snap to attention. She leapt to the ground, rifle in hand, dodging the nervous horses. “You’re safe from wolves up there.”
Safer.
Not safe. But maybe it would keep Ma from getting down and getting in the way.
Bailey sprinted toward Gage. Her ankle hit something. She tripped and went flying. There was a tearing pain in her shoulder and side. She shoved at the ground, and her hand came down on something sharp.
Gritting her teeth to keep quiet and not add to the turmoil, Bailey moved her hand and found the ground, gingerly, realizing she was lying on something that spiked out all over. A fallen tree with broken branches maybe?
She found space between the spearing objects, regaining her feet. She saw her rifle that had flown a few feet ahead and grabbed it, then picked each step carefully until whatever was in the way was behind her. What had she landed on? She remembered the horse’s cry. It’d been a cry of anguish. The stallion had been stabbed by the same thing that’d gotten her. Had Gage gotten stabbed, too?
Ma made some new squawking noise and drew Bailey’s attention. The woman looked like she was swinging down. “Stay up on that horse! There’s something sharp in the path.” Bailey hoped her mother-in-law had at least one obedient bone in her body.
It was too dark for Bailey to see if Ma was annoyed or obedient or both. Bailey didn’t have time to worry about making a good impression on her new mother-in-law.
She dropped to her knees beside Gage just as he groaned.
“Where’s my gun?” Gage rolled onto his back, dazed but still moving, ready to fight.
“Shh, quiet
. . .” Bailey heard rustling in the woods. She reared back on her knees and braced the gunstock against her right shoulder.
He looked right down the barrel of that gun and saw death.
The gun didn’t fire. The man holding it hesitated and just knelt there, a black shadow against the black night. Only a glint of moonlight off the barrel of the rifle told him the gun was there.
No other detail was visible. But it didn’t matter, because Coulter wasn’t alone. He tried not to make a sound, but pure fear made him move fast, even if there was noise.
A few trees between him and the rifle and the worst of his terror faded, until he felt safe enough to be angry.
He’d missed again.
Lucky for him, a coward held that gun without the guts to shoot. It’d saved his life. Knowing how close he’d come to dying built his anger until he regretted not just standing in the shadows and shooting Coulter out of the saddle.
But he’d never done it before. He’d never committed cold-blooded murder. He’d hoped the fall from the horse onto those spikes would be enough, and if not, well, he’d have done what he had to do. But he didn’t want gunplay. He wanted it to look like Coulter had died in an accident.
Fuming, he wondered why Coulter wasn’t alone. All his men had ridden back to the ranch; it should only have been him.
He kept moving away, no sense going back now that there were three of them. He didn’t like those odds. In fact, as he strode toward his horse, he realized he couldn’t handle this alone.
And he didn’t have to. A few people in Aspen Ridge had ridden the outlaw trail and still knew how to get ahold of the right kind of men.
He picked up his pace, eager now to get to town. He was a long way from defeated.
She steadied the gun with her left hand, which caused a tearing pain in her shoulder. She was sure she was bleeding. Her right hand ached as she steadied it on the trigger. She was in pain from every direction, but she ignored it and aimed for whatever—or whoever—moved in the woods.
Gage’s eyes sharpened, and he looked around, saw his six-gun and stumbled to his feet to grab it and aim. “That’s not a wolf.”
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