Kate nodded, murmuring, “I will,” and felt her mood slip a notch as she again looked away, out the open window to her right.
Yes, there was danger out here. But it couldn’t be anything like what she’d just escaped in New York City. Yet the strangers on this train kept telling her that she’d most likely find herself killed or worse before the day of the land run ever came. But what they didn’t know was she’d already faced death. And had lived through the worst. So whatever lay ahead, Kate knew she could face it. She had to. Because in only a few minutes, they’d be in Arkansas City—the last jumping-off point on the rail line leading into the Oklahoma country.
Putting past fears and worries for the future aside, Kate focused on the present, and the practical. First thing, she’d find a place to sleep, and then she’d hire on somewhere doing chores or waiting tables to earn her keep until the run on April 22, six days away. It was a good, simple plan—life for her and her child. On her terms. She’d show them all what Anna Katherine Chandler was made of. She’d show them all.
* * *
Cole Youngblood nudged his black Stetson up with his thumb and exhaled sharply as he stepped outside onto the crowded boardwalk. Closing the door to the Arkansas City sheriff’s office behind him, he stood there a moment, looking all around, thinking about what to do with the information the lawman had just given him. Not that the sheriff had welcomed Cole to town, or had been more forthcoming than the situation warranted. Cole’s mouth quirked. No tin badge was happy to see a gunslinger of his reputation ride into town. Even if it was for personal business. And even if he did have three kids in tow.
He hadn’t lied to the sheriff. He was in town on business. Family business. His own … and Mr. Talmidge’s. But that second part, as Cole saw it, wasn’t anything the sheriff needed to know. Because a promise of complete confidentiality to those who hired his services was a stock-in-trade of Cole’s. That, his fast gun … and quick results. Still, he felt silly as hell with two boys trailing him. And judging from the looks he was getting from the throng of folks who jostled by him as he stepped out into the wagonwheel-rutted street, he figured he looked that way, too.
But not on the second looks, the double-takes. Cole knew that even in a town lousy with hucksters and gamblers, a man of his notorious reputation still warranted a nod, coupled with a respectful sidestep, from the folks who passed by. But seeing one man’s startled expression as recognition dawned in his eyes and he frantically pressed himself against a wooden building to make way, Cole’s mood rankled. It wasn’t every day that a law-abiding citizen was likely to see Cole Youngblood at high noon toting a three-year-old girl in his arms and being followed by two ragamuffin boys who held each other’s hands.
They were still following him, weren’t they? Cole chanced a quick look over his shoulder. They were. Two sets of somber brown eyes looked up trustingly at him. Stopping and turning to face them, staring down at them, Cole felt his heart flip-flop. The boys looked just like their mother. Charlotte. Had it really been two weeks since his only sister had succumbed to that fever? Yeah, it had to be, because here they were already in Arkansas City. Him and three kids he had no idea what to do with. Realizing the boys were still staring up at him and that he hadn’t said a word yet, Cole adopted a serious frown and said, “You keep close to me in this crowd, you hear?”
“Yes, sir, Uncle Cole,” seven-year-old Joey said. “I got Willy’s hand real tight-like.”
“Yeah, an’ it hurts.” Five-year-old Willy frowned to prove it.
Cole frowned right back at him. “Well, you let Joey hang on to you, boy. Better that than being lost among all these folks.”
Willy scowled, much as if Cole had just told him to jump naked into a hot bath with a bar of soap in his hand. But he did finally nod and quit trying to jerk his hand away from his brother’s.
Shaking his head as he turned away, as much at Willy’s expression as at the dilemma he found himself in, Cole started them all off again. How had it come to this? From age sixteen on, once Charlotte had married, he’d made his own way in the world. But now he had her younguns in his care. Fourteen years of keeping his own counsel and living by his gun were hard to undo. He kept forgetting he had three kids dogging him, that he couldn’t make a move without considering them, or without tripping over one of them.
“I want my mama.”
Cole glanced at the ringlet-fringed face of the three-year-old girl he carried. Her little fingers at the nape of his neck worked absently at the longish hair that spilled over his collar. With a brusque motion, he wiped a smudge off her chubby cheek. “You can’t see her, Lydia. She’s … in heaven, like I said.”
“Then I want Papa. I don’t like you.”
Cole huffed out a breath. “You don’t have to like me. But you know about your pa, Lydia. It was only yesterday that we buried that son of a—I mean, he’s in heaven, too.”
Lydia didn’t say anything else, just poked out her bottom lip far enough to trip over. Cole didn’t blame the little girl one bit for not liking him. She barely knew him, and yet she and her brothers had watched him bury both their parents in less than two weeks’ time. But not being one to share his own feelings, much less his own grief, Cole knew he was scant comfort to the hurting kids.
Kaleidoscopic images of himself riding onto his sister’s farm, noting with alarm its rundown condition, and seeing the kids tumbling out of the wood-frame house and begging him to help their mother still had the power to tighten Cole’s chest. He’d found Charlotte dying of a fever, and her husband nowhere around. She’d been able to tell him that Mack had come here to Arkansas City to make the run. She’d said she hadn’t been sick when he left, and that he was supposed to come back for her and the kids once he staked their claim. Like as not the shiftless man wouldn’t have made the effort, Cole suspected. But still, there hadn’t been much he could do for his sister but comfort her and promise to bring the kids here to their father.
Burying Charlotte had done nothing to warm Cole’s heart toward his brother-in-law. Mack Anderson was one lucky son of a bitch that he was already dead before Cole arrived two days ago with the man’s kids. Getting himself robbed and beaten to death by ruffians was only a mite worse than what Cole’d planned for the dirt farmer who’d never provided much for his family. If it hadn’t been for the money Cole made hiring out his gun and bringing it himself to Charlotte all these years, she and her family would have starved to death.
Should have shot the bastard years ago, Cole fumed. But, as worthless as the man had been, his sister and the kids had loved him.
But he was dead now, and that left Cole responsible for Joey, Willy, and Lydia. For now. At least until he found a married female cousin of his, a mother herself from what he remembered, who might take them off his hands. If he could remember her name. Something with an m in it. It would also help if he could remember where exactly, here in this southern part of Kansas, she lived. Dammit, could it be harder? A sudden image of himself roaming the area to look for her and keeping up with three kids at the same time nearly undid him.
Close to cussing out loud just thinking about it, he comforted himself with the thought that he would, by God, remember her name and where exactly she lived. He also felt sure he could get her to keep Charlotte’s kids for good, once he told her he would pay for their keep.
A recurring prick of conscience, telling him he should keep his sister’s children with him suddenly bit at Cole again. But he dismissed it immediately. Him, a for-hire gunslinger, raising these kids? Hell, he couldn’t fill a boot with what he knew about taking care of kids. Especially a girl child.
“Where we headed now, Uncle Cole?”
Cole pivoted, saw the anxious expression on Joey’s face. And knew he was right to search for that cousin. Because the kids needed … something warm and reassuring that Cole just didn’t know how to give, much less name. And that made him feel as if he’d done something wrong somehow. Not liking that feeling, he frowned and spoke mor
e sharply than he’d intended. “To the wagon. Now you boys get on up here in front of me where I can see you.”
They obediently scooted ahead of him, glancing back over their thin shoulders as they continued walking and listening to Cole’s plans. “We’re going back to the wagon we came in. And then out to the camp at Walnut Creek. The sheriff said your pa’s wagon and belongings turned up there. We’ll bed down in one of the wagons tonight and then get out of here tomorrow.”
“I don’t like yer wagon. I just like ours.”
Cole considered the pouting girl in his arms. “Lydia, are you sure you’re not just a little bitty woman?”
“Nope. I’m a little bitty girl. But yer not.”
He tipped his hat to her. “It’s right kind of you to notice, ma’am.”
Certain as ever that he was in over his head, Cole herded them all safely across Summit Street, figuring he looked like a mother duck with her trailing ducklings. Pushing past men and women whose faces reflected the land-grab fever, Cole likened Arkansas City to a tipped-over beehive. A man couldn’t turn around without knocking into some preoccupied soul whose eyes were on a distant point. The sooner he cleared out of here, got the kids settled in with his cousin, and then got on the trail of that runaway maid of Talmidge’s, the better he’d feel.
The better he’d feel? Hardly. Another prick of conscience, this one of a different, even more troubling nature, snapped at him. Because he didn’t like one damned thing about this job he’d taken. It wasn’t the sort of thing he’d ever hired on to do before, that of finding and killing a woman, no matter what she’d done. But much less over some stolen money and jewels.
True, he’d killed a lot of deserving men in his time. Been paid handsomely to do so, too. But not women. Hell, it just didn’t set right with him. Especially tracking down a woman who just got greedy. Didn’t hardly seem like a killing offense, not for someone with as much money as Mr. Talmidge had. Which told Cole that something else, something he hadn’t been told, was going on here. Because Mr. Talmidge, a man Cole had never met but communicated with through the telegraph, hadn’t indicated in his wire that he cared about getting the money or the jewels back. Or the maid. He wanted her dead. And to assure that, he was paying Cole almost three times his usual fee to see it done.
That was strange, too. And troublesome. But he’d accepted the job, Cole now reminded himself, so he’d do it. But first he had to tend to his own personal matter, that being the kids. Which was the hell of it, really. It was his niece and nephews being in need of a home that had finally prompted him to agree to track down a woman. Because Talmidge, a powerful man with a lot of enemies and always some little detail that needed cleaning up, paid well and paid quick—two things Cole needed right now. Quick money and a heap of it.
But he hadn’t been given much to go on. The wire awaiting him in Wichita, one of his usual checking-in points, held only scant details. That, and the telegraph operator’s apology for the message being so spotty. Some problem along the wires somewhere, as the edgy little man had said, that had left him to piece together what he could for Cole and to figure out some of the spellings of names and such. But with the hefty advance awaiting him at his bank, Cole hadn’t worried then about equipment problems and apologetic clerks.
Because the operator had gotten the essentials that Cole needed. Namely, what the woman’s name was and the fact that she was apparently heading this way to the land run. That made sense to him. All this open country. Untold numbers of folks milling about. A body with a reason to get lost and stay lost could do so easily. Still, he’d be damned lucky, Cole knew, if she showed up here in Arkansas City, instead of one of the numerous other jumping-off points along the run’s borders.
But here he was, so it was the obvious place to start. However, with the crowds hereabouts, he surely could use that description of the woman that hadn’t come through. Cole hadn’t had time then to wait around for days for the line problems to be worked out, either. Couldn’t even send one back telling Mr. Talmidge he’d take the job, but that he first had to see to his own personal problem—meaning the kids—and finally to request a description … because the telegraph lines were down altogether when he got there. He hadn’t bothered to leave a message to be sent later, either, because he wasn’t about to head back to Wichita, and wouldn’t be there to get his answer.
But at least, Cole figured, Mr. Talmidge would know he’d accepted the work when the bank reported his withdrawing the money. That’d have to be good enough, because here he was in Arkansas City, where there was no telegraph. And too, he’d worked before with less information than he had now and had gotten the job done. He could do it again. Still, he hoped like hell he didn’t run into this Anne Candless, the name given him by the Wichita telegraph operator, while he still had the kids with him. They’d seen enough of death. The last thing they needed was the sight of their uncle gunning down a woman. They’d be terrified of him after that.
Yeah, they would. But gunning down a woman? Damn. The very thought made him queasy. And if the thought alone did, what then would the actual doing of it be like to live with? Could he really shoot down a woman? Cole had no answers for himself, only the hope that this Candless woman would turn out to be some hellcat of a big vicious woman. An armed hellcat of a big vicious woman. One who drew on him first. After cussing him. And spitting on him. Maybe then, after all that, he could stand the thought of killing her.
Cole’s scowl, much like Willy’s of a moment ago, deepened. It’s plain unnerving, is what it is. But what was most unnerving to Cole was his sudden realization that, yes, he had a heart. And convictions of a moral nature.
With that, Cole stopped beside the wagon he’d bought in Wichita to get the kids here from their dirt farm of a home. Before lunch, he’d hitched the mule team in front of the cot hotel where they’d been sleeping for the past two nights. Tied to the back of the wagon was his big roan gelding, which turned its head and nickered in recognition when Cole smoothed a hand over its muscled shoulder.
Going to the wagon’s front, he set Lydia on the buckboard seat. She gripped the wood under her and dandled her legs back and forth, singing softly, apparently content now that her stomach was full. Cole motioned the boys to climb onto the wagon bed. Willy scooted in obediently with some help from Cole and settled himself cross-legged.
But Joey hesitated. Shading his eyes with his hands, he stared up at Cole. “What about our mules and all of Pa’s tools and lumber? Are they with the wagon?”
“Yeah. You heard the sheriff say so. The army’s been keeping an eye on the gear.” Knowing that Joey felt very keenly his responsibilities as the oldest, Cole talked to the boy as if he were already a man.
Joey nodded, thoughtfully tipping his tongue through the gap where his two front teeth had fallen out. “What are we going to do with the wagon? We don’t need two wagons and two teams.”
Cole nodded his agreement, even as he reflected that this kid held him accountable for every decision he made regarding them. But every day his respect for this practical little boy rose another notch. Seven was a tough age to start being a man. “I believe we’ll look them over, keep the best of the lot, and sell the rest. Folks here wanting to make the run will pay a good price for it all. Especially the mules. And the tools and lumber to build a cabin.”
Nodding as if giving due consideration to that answer, Joey finally said what Cole knew, from countless other conversations with him, was really on the boy’s mind. “Pa was gonna make the run and get us a clean start in Oklahoma. Our land was about farmed out. Wouldn’t nothin’ grow anymore.”
Cole looked down at the boy’s pinched face. He knew what Joey was really asking him, and it made Cole curse the boy’s dead father yet again. Damn you, Mack Anderson. If you were alive, I’d fill you full of lead. How could the man have been so stupid, Cole wondered, as to get drunk and wind up in a crooked card game with the hucksters here who almost outnumbered the decent citizens? And then get himself kille
d and leave Cole strapped with his responsibilities?
Lifting his Stetson to wipe at his damp forehead with his sleeve, Cole then resettled his hat and told his nephew, “I already told you I don’t intend to make the run, Joey. I’m not a farmer or a family man, son. And you, better’n most, know I don’t know anything about caring for kids. Besides, in my line of work, I don’t stay in one place any too long.”
A stricken look claimed Joey’s features. The boy looked down at his feet. Cole narrowed his eyes and tried to deny the emotions that gripped his stomach. Chief among them was a building rage against the unfairness of this situation to him and to the kids. Hell, yes, he saw how his words had affected the boy. And he knew what Joey was thinking—that Cole could change, that he could settle down and stay in one place … and quit killing people for a living. But Cole wasn’t so sure that he could. He’d been doing it for too long. Feared it was in his blood. But still, he wanted to cuss at the heavens.
Just then, Willy sniffed and gave Cole the reason he needed to turn away from Joey’s accusing pose. The younger boy sat on the wagon’s bed, hunched forward, his shoulders shaking, his hands covering his face. Cole rubbed a hand over his mouth and chin. Dammit. Acute frustration with the situation had him all but growling at the five-year-old boy. “Now what’s the matter with you, Willy?”
Willy looked up at him. A world of hurt and tears was reflected in his dark, baby eyes. “You gonna leave us, too, Uncle Cole? Like Ma and Pa done?”
Cole’s heart constricted with the truth. Leaving them was exactly what he was going to do. But he found he just couldn’t voice the words right now. Not to these kids. They’d already had enough hurt and worry to last them a lifetime. And so, for the first time in his adult life, Cole Youngblood hedged his answer. “I don’t want you to worry about that right now. Later on, we’ll figure something out.”
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