The Rustler

by Linda Lael Miller

  Sarah opened her eyes, saw the stranger standing right beside the buckboard, looking up at her. Again, she felt it, a peculiar jolting sensation that brought a blush to her cheeks, as though he’d read her thoughts and even imagined her shut away in her bedroom, naked, sluicing her flesh with water from a basin. She resisted a humiliating urge to smooth her hair, sit up straighter. “Yes,” she said stiffly.

  “Wyatt Yarbro,” the man said, putting out a hand.

  Sarah hesitated, then took it, though tentatively. His fingers were strong, calloused, and cool as the breeze he’d blown in on. “Sarah Tamlin,” she allowed, feeling foolish and much younger than her twenty-seven years.

  “Would you like some help getting down from there?”

  Short of lifting her skirts and leaping to the sawdust floor, as she would normally have done, Sarah had no graceful options. “All right,” she replied shyly. Then she climbed into the buckboard seat, careful not to let her ankles show, and Wyatt Yarbro put his hands on her waist and lifted her down. She stood looking up at him, stunned by the effect of his touch. Light-headed, she swayed slightly, and he steadied her.

  His eyes were a deep brown, and they glinted with mischief and something else, too—some private, deep-seated sorrow. “I reckon it would be a sight cooler outside, under those oak trees alongside the creek,” he said.

  Sarah merely nodded. Let herself be escorted out of the revival tent on Mr. Yarbro’s arm, in front of God and everybody.

  Rowdy approached as Wyatt reclaimed his pistol from the table set aside for the purpose, his old yellow dog, Pardner, at his heels, and tipped his hat to Sarah.

  “I didn’t see Mrs. Yarbro in the congregation,” Sarah said. She liked Lark, a former schoolteacher who’d stirred up quite a scandal when she took up with the marshal.

  “The baby’s getting teeth, and it makes him fractious,” Rowdy replied. “They’ll be along later, when the heat lets up.” He turned slightly, gave Wyatt an affectionate slap on the shoulder. “I’d introduce my brother properly,” he added, “but it seems you’ve already made his acquaintance.”

  “I’m the good-looking one,” Wyatt said.

  Just then, Fiona Harvey showed up, holding a plate piled high with fried chicken, potato salad and apple crumble. Fiona, who was thirty if she was a day, wanted a husband. Everybody knew that.

  When and if Fiona managed to get married, Sarah would become the town spinster.

  “You look hungry,” Fiona told Wyatt, batting her sparse eyelashes.

  Sarah, who considered Fiona a friend, simmered behind a cordial smile.

  Wyatt tipped his head and flashed a grin at Fiona. “Why, thank you, ma’am,” he said, accepting the plate.

  Rowdy rolled his eyes, caught the expression on Sarah’s face, and winked at her.

  “You’re welcome to come and sit with us,” Fiona simpered, indicating a cluster of women sitting on a blanket under a nearby tree.

  The marshal took the plate from Wyatt’s hands and gave it back to Fiona. “My brother’s much obliged,” he said smoothly, “but we’ve been expecting him, so Lark’s got a big spread on the table at home.”

  “Thanks just the same, though,” Wyatt said.

  Fiona took the rebuff gracefully, said she hoped Mr. Yarbro would come back for the fireworks and the dance that would take up after sunset, and he replied that he might well do that. With a sidelong glance at Sarah, he allowed as how he enjoyed fireworks.

  She blushed again, oddly flustered.

  And Fiona pressed the plate into her hands. “Take this to your papa,” she told Sarah. “Heaven knows, he’ll appreciate a decent supper, the way you cook.”

  “Why, thank you, Fiona,” Sarah said.

  Wyatt and Rowdy exchanged glances, and one of them chuckled.

  Fiona smiled and walked away.

  “Give my regards to your father,” Rowdy said, as Sarah turned to go, once again at a loss for words. The next time she saw Fiona, she’d have plenty to say, though.

  “I’d better see Miss Tamlin home,” Wyatt said, and before Rowdy could protest that Lark had dinner waiting, he’d taken Sarah’s arm and escorted her halfway to the road.

  Since it would be rude to tell him she could get home just fine on her own, Sarah bit her lip and marched along, resigned, carrying the plate like a crown on a velvet cushion.

  An old spotted horse with a long cut on its side ambled along behind them, bridle jingling, reins wrapped loosely around the saddle horn.

  Sarah looked back.

  “That’s just Reb,” Wyatt said.

  “What happened to his side?”

  “He had a run-in with a steer a while back. He’s healing up fine, though.”

  Sarah wanted to ask a thousand other questions, but all of them jammed up in the back of her throat. She was sweating, her hair felt as though it would escape its pins at any moment, and she could almost feel the flames of Brother Hickey’s beloved hellfire licking at her hem.

  Mr. Yarbro donned his dusty hat, which made him look like a highwayman out of some dime novel. Sarah was painfully conscious of his hand, cupping her elbow, and the way he moved, with a sort of easy prowl.

  “Are you really a bad cook?” he asked, visibly restraining a grin.

  “Yes,” Sarah admitted, with a heavy sigh.

  He chuckled. “Guess that’s why you’re not taken,” he said. “No other explanation for it, with looks like yours.”

  Sarah was scandalously pleased, and determined to hide the fact. She didn’t think about her appearance much, given the busy life she led and her naturally practical turn of mind, but she knew she was…passable. Her hair was dark, and she kept it shiny with rainwater shampoos, vinegar rinses and a hundred brush strokes every night. She had good skin, strong teeth, exceedingly blue eyes and a slender but womanly figure.

  For all that, she was an old maid, too plainspoken and too smart to suit most men. Most likely, Mr. Yarbro was merely dallying with her.

  “My looks are in no way remarkable, Mr. Yarbro,” she said, “and we both know it.” She paused. Then, ever the banker’s daughter, started adding things up in her brain. “Are you an outlaw, like your brother was?” she inquired bluntly.

  “I used to be,” he said, surprising her.

  She’d expected another answer, she realized. A lie, falling easily from those expressive lips of his. Faced with the stark truth, she didn’t know what to say.

  Wyatt laughed and resettled his hat.

  “What did you do?” Sarah asked, once she’d found her voice. They’d entered Stone Creek proper by then, passing Rowdy’s office first, strolling along the sidewalk past the mercantile and her father’s bank. The sun was setting, and old Mr. Shaefer was lighting the gas streetlamps, one by one.

  “Robbed a train or two,” Wyatt said.

  “My goodness,” Sarah remarked.

  “You’re safe with me, Miss Tamlin,” he assured her, grinning again. “I’ve seen the error of my ways and I’m determined to take the high road, like my brother did. Are you planning to head back to the creek for the dancing and the fireworks?”

  Sarah shook her head, bemused.

  “Then I reckon I won’t bother to, either.”

  So he hadn’t been taken with Fiona, then. Inwardly, Sarah gave a deep sigh.

  All too soon, and not nearly soon enough, they’d reached the gate in front of Sarah’s house.

  He opened the gate for her, stood back politely while she passed through it. When she looked over her shoulder, he touched the brim of his hat.

  “Good night, Sarah Tamlin,” he said. The glow of a nearby streetlamp cast his fine features into shadow. The paint horse waited politely on the sidewalk, nibbling at the leaves of Sarah’s favorite peony bush.

  Sarah swallowed, rattled again. “Good night, Mr. Yarbro,” she replied. Then she turned and hurried along the walk, up the porch steps, into the house. When she pulled aside a lace curtain to peer out, the train robber was gone, and so was his horse.r />
  WYATT ATE TWO PLATES full of supper, admired Lark, who was pretty, made the acquaintance of the other younger brother, Gideon, he’d nearly forgotten he had, and dandled the baby on his knee for a while. The little kid was cute, if a mite fractious in temperament. His name was Hank, and he looked just like Rowdy.

  The big kid, Gideon, gave Wyatt a suspicious once-over and took off for the festivities down by the creek. It was full dark by then, and fireworks spread like chrysanthemums against the sky. Wyatt, Rowdy and the baby sat on the porch steps in front of Rowdy’s small house, conveniently located in back of the jail, listening to the crickets, the sound of distant merriment, and the tinny tune of some saloon piano. Lark was inside, doing the things women did after they’d served a meal.

  “You’ve done well for yourself, Rob,” Wyatt said quietly, using his brother’s given name. “A fine woman, a steady job, a son. I envy you a little.”

  Rowdy leaned back on the porch step, resting on his elbows. Silvery light from the fireworks caught in his fair hair. “No reason you can’t have the same,” he said.

  “No reason except two years in a Texas prison,” Wyatt replied. He’d told Sarah straight out that he’d robbed trains, but he hadn’t mentioned the stretch behind bars. With a woman, a little honesty went a long way.

  “Everybody’s done things they’re not proud of, Wyatt.” Rowdy shifted, looked reluctant. “About Sarah—”

  “What about her?” Wyatt asked, too quickly.

  Rowdy considered a little longer before answering. “She works in her father’s bank,” he said. “Every cowpoke between here and Tucson has tried to court her, but she’s having none of it. I think she’s one of those—well—career women.”

  “Career women?” Wyatt echoed. During supper, he’d learned that Lark had inherited a whole railroad from her first husband, and she ran it from Stone Creek, by mail and telegram, with a baby balanced on one hip. “You mean, like your wife?”

  Rowdy colored up a little. “Lark’s different,” he said. “Womanly.”

  Wyatt considered the fire he’d glimpsed in Sarah’s blue eyes, her slender waist, her delectable breasts, ripe for holding in a man’s hands. He imagined taking the pins from her ebony-colored hair and watching it fall to her hips in heavy, silken waves. She was “womanly” enough for him, and then some.

  “I might as well tell you,” he told Rowdy, “that I intend to marry Sarah Tamlin as soon as I’ve got steady wages coming in.”

  Rowdy’s mouth fell open. “Wyatt, you just met her. She’s got a temper, and she plays poker.”

  Wyatt chuckled. “Poker? Even better!”

  “She smokes cigars,” Rowdy said.

  “I might have to break her of that,” Wyatt replied, enjoying the image of delicate little Sarah puffing on a stogy.

  Rowdy thrust out a sigh. “Wyatt, what I’m trying to tell you is, she won’t have you. You’re an outlaw. She’s a blue-blooded banker’s daughter with a college education.”

  “And I’m not good enough for her?”

  Rowdy started to protest.

  “Hold on,” Wyatt said, handing Hank over, since he felt a little soggy around the posterior region. “I know I’m not good enough for Sarah. Pappy wasn’t good enough for Ma, either, but she loved him until the day she died.”

  Sadness flickered in Rowdy’s eyes. He’d been Miranda’s favorite, her boy Rob, and he was younger than Wyatt. He couldn’t be expected to remember the early days, how she’d laughed and sung under her breath whenever Pappy came home from his travels.

  “She wasn’t happy,” Rowdy said.

  “She bore Pappy six sons,” Wyatt reminded him. “Ma had plenty of chances to leave, Rowdy. She was a good-looking woman. Even after we were old enough to take care of ourselves, she stayed right on that farm. Why do you think she did that?”

  Rowdy relaxed a little. “Ma was Ma. Sarah is Sarah. She’d never throw in with an outlaw, Wyatt. She’d figure you were after her papa’s money, or out to rob his bank.”

  Wyatt stood, stretched. Rowdy and Lark’s house was small, so he’d be sharing an empty jail cell with Gideon until he found a bunk someplace. “Where can a man get a bath in this town?” he asked.

  Rowdy laughed. “We’ve got a real fancy tub right here in the house—hot running water, the whole works. Talk of the town. You can use that.”

  Wyatt didn’t want to disrupt the household, and he felt shy about stripping down under the same roof with a married woman. It was an unfamiliar compunction. “I’d rather not do that,” he said.

  “Then I’ll drag a washtub into the jailhouse and you can heat water on the stove,” Rowdy said, rising to his feet, the baby in the curve of his arm. “I’ve got some extra clothes you can wear until we get you some duds.”

  “Pump water will do,” Wyatt said. “If it wasn’t for that revival, I’d go down to the creek to bathe.” He swallowed a good-size portion of his pride. “And I’ll pay you back for the new rigging, Rowdy.”

  “I know,” Rowdy answered.

  An hour later, alone in the jailhouse, Wyatt poured the last bucket of water into an old tin washtub, dented and spotted with rust, peeled off his clothes, and sank into it.

  It wasn’t the Blood of the Lamb, but for the time being, it would do.

  CHAPTER TWO

  GIDEON ALMOST GOT HIMSELF SHOT, banging into the jail like he did, in the middle of the night, with Wyatt sleep-flummoxed and in the altogether and all. He had the .45 cocked and aimed before he realized where he was, and who he was dealing with.

  “Shit,” Wyatt said, wrenching the thin blanket up over himself and falling back on his cot with a sigh of relief, the pistol still in his right hand. “You oughtn’t to bust in on a man like that. I nearly put a bullet in you.”

  Gideon slouched onto the cot opposite Wyatt’s, illuminated by a beam of moonlight straying in through the barred window, and wrenched off one of his boots. “I live here,” he said, and it was clear from his tone that he was none too pleased to be sharing his quarters. “Except when there’s a prisoner, of course. Anyhow, it wouldn’t have been the first time somebody put a bullet in me.”

  Therein lies a tale, Wyatt thought.

  “Hell of a place to call home,” he said, grimacing a little at the irony of the whole situation. After two years in the hoosegow, he’d ended up sleeping behind bars again. He reckoned it was God’s idea of a joke. “Where do you sleep when somebody gets themselves arrested?”

  “Around,” Gideon said, after a long and studious pause. “I’ll be heading out for college pretty soon. I mean to be a Pinkerton man, or sign on as a Wells Fargo agent.”

  The underlying message was clear enough: Don’t go thinking I mean to be an outlaw, like you, just because we’re kin.

  “Who’d have thought it,” Wyatt mused, in a wry undertone, staring up at the low, shadowed ceiling of the cell. “Two of Payton Yarbro’s boys turning out to be lawmen. He must be rolling over in his grave.”

  The boy stripped to his skivvies and stretched out on the cot. “Pappy died fighting for what was right,” he said. “What are you doing here? In Stone Creek, I mean?”

  “Just looking for a place to be,” Wyatt answered. He didn’t expect the kid to trust him, the way Rowdy did. He and Gideon might have the same blood flowing through their veins, but in every other way, they were strangers. In fact, he kind of admired his younger brother’s caution, figuring it must have come from their ma’s side, since Pappy had never—to Wyatt’s knowledge anyway—exhibited the trait. “Who shot you?”

  “Happened at a dance,” Gideon answered. “I’ll tell you about it some other time.” For a few minutes after that, he was quiet, except for some creaking of the old rope springs supporting his mattress as he settled his sizable frame for sleep.

  The silence, though blessed to Wyatt’s ears, did not endure. “I saw you walking Sarah Tamlin home today,” Gideon remarked. “And I reckon you know her father owns the Stockman’s Bank.”

  Wy
att smiled in the darkness, though a wing of sadness brushed the back of his heart. Most likely, he’d never really know Gideon, or be known by him, since the boy was bound for some far-off place. College. It was a thing Wyatt couldn’t imagine, though he’d read every book he could get his hands on. “You figure I’ve switched from holding up trains to robbing banks?”

  “I’m just warning you, that’s all. Rowdy takes his job as marshal seriously. Brother or not, if you break the law, he’ll shut that door on you and turn the key. Don’t think he won’t.”

  “I appreciate your concern,” Wyatt said dryly.

  Another pause descended, long and awkward. The boy was brimming with questions, Wyatt knew, but asking them required some pride-swallowing.

  “Tell me about the others,” Gideon murmured.

  “The others?” Wyatt hedged.

  “You know who I mean—Nicholas and Ethan and Levi. Pa told me their names, but not much else.”

  “It’s late,” Wyatt answered. “If you want to know more about the family history, why don’t you ask Rowdy?”

  “He won’t talk about them.”

  “Maybe he’s got reason, and you ought to accept that and let the matter rest.”

  “I’ve got a right to know about my own brothers, don’t I?”

  Again, a sigh escaped Wyatt. He cupped his hands behind his head and closed his eyes, but sleep, the delicious, dreamless refuge he’d been enjoying earlier, eluded him. “Did it ever occur to you that it might be better all around if you didn’t? It isn’t always so, but there’s some truth in that old adage about ignorance being bliss.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Will you shut up and let me sleep if I do? I’ve got things to do in the morning—like find work.”

  “I will,” Gideon agreed staunchly.

  “I’m the eldest,” Wyatt recited dutifully. “Nick is a year younger. He’s always been a bit on the delicate side, not much for outlawing. Last I heard, he was living in Boston, writing poems and starving. By now, he’s probably contracted consumption—he’d enjoy a disease like that. Then come the twins—Ethan and Levi. Levi’s a little slow—and Ethan is a born killer. Rowdy is next in line, and I figure you probably know as much about him as he wants you to.”