The Rustler

by Linda Lael Miller

  Entering by the kitchen door, Wyatt noticed the envelope propped against the kerosene lamp in the center of the table right away. Took it into his hands.

  Rowdy had scrawled his name on the front.

  After letting out a long breath, he slid a thumb under the flap, found a single sheet of paper inside, along with three ten-dollar bills.

  Thanks, Wyatt. It’s good to know I can count on you. R.

  Wyatt swore under his breath. He didn’t doubt Rowdy’s gratitude, but he suspected the marshal had an additional motive—he wanted to make it harder to leave.

  He checked the clock on the shelf under the far window—it was nearly noon—and saw another slip of paper, folded tent-style. A rueful grin hitched up one side of his mouth. He hadn’t gotten this much mail in a long time.

  The second note was from Lark.

  Wyatt—Help yourself to the food, and if you run out of anything, use our account at the mercantile to buy what you need. Make yourself at home.

  He folded the note carefully and tucked it under the edge of the clock, his throat strangely tight, his eyes burning a little. He jollied himself out of the melancholies by looking around for a third note, from Gideon, or maybe even Pardner.

  Neither of them had written a word, though.

  He went to the larder, a wooden box with a metal handle, opened it up, and found cold meat inside. There was half a loaf of bread, too, so he made himself a sandwich and walked through to the little parlor beyond the kitchen. He hadn’t passed much time in a real house since he’d left the homeplace for the last time.

  His ma had cried that day. Begged him to stay and work the farm.

  He’d ridden out instead. He’d had better things to do, he’d thought back then, than plowing fields and milking cows. No, he’d preferred to rob trains with Pappy.

  “Fool,” he said aloud, admiring but not touching the framed photographs set up on a wooden table near the windows. Lark and Rowdy, posing solemnly on either side of a Grecian pillar. Little Hank, bare-ass naked on a fur rug, in the saddle in front of a grinning Rowdy, cradled in Lark’s arms in a rocking chair.

  The soreness in Wyatt’s throat got worse, and he had to blink a couple of times. He retreated from the row of pictures, scanned the rest of the room. There were two other doors, one open, one closed.

  The open door led to the bathroom, a swanky one with a flush toilet and a copper boiler to heat water, just as Rowdy had said. Wyatt stepped inside the small room and looked into the mirror above the pedestal sink. He needed a shave, he decided, rubbing the dark stubble on his face. Rowdy had left behind a razor and a soap mug, and the tub looked mighty inviting.

  Just go, he told himself. Saddle up Sugarfoot, ask some neighbor to look after Reb and Lark’s mare, and go.

  He thought about supper at Sarah’s, sitting across a table from her, just for one meal. He’d make sure Langstreet didn’t pose any kind of serious threat to her, and leave in the morning.

  First thing in the morning, for sure.

  No matter what.

  In the meantime, he might as well go into the jailhouse, in case somebody came by needing a lawman.

  He was amused to find, when he approached the desk, that Gideon had left a note after all. Scrawled on the back of a Wanted poster and carefully centered in the middle of the blotter.

  Don’t steal anything. If you do, I’ll come after you for sure. Gideon Yarbro.

  Wyatt chuckled. He had no doubt that the kid was sincere. Two lawmen in the family now, Pappy, he thought. And me wearing a badge, too. Guess you must be wondering where you went wrong.

  THE AFTERNOON, blessedly quiet in terms of business, passed at an excruciatingly slow pace. Sarah spent the time examining the books—column after column of figures penned in her distinctive handwriting, every cent accounted for—and wondered if Charles would believe the only lie she could come up with on such short notice.

  Her father’s eyesight had been very poor before Dr. Venable had arranged for a pair of spectacles to be sent up from Phoenix, and she’d fallen into the habit of managing the ledgers for him.

  Flimsy, but it might work.

  Carefully, she recorded the statement in her own small book, which she carried in the pocket of her skirt. Ever since lying had become a necessary art, Sarah had taken pains to record the fibs she’d told, both for the sake of continuity in conversations with others and, she supposed, as a form of penance.

  God recorded both sins and virtues in the Book of Life, according to the preachers. Maybe He’d understand, on Judgment Day, that writing down the lies she told was a form of honesty in and of itself, convoluted as the idea seemed, even to Sarah herself.

  More likely, He’d order her flung into the Lake of Fire, immediately if not sooner. After all, God hated a liar, didn’t He?

  Sarah sighed. If the Lord was as cranky and hard to please as Brother Hickey and his ilk made Him out to be, she couldn’t hope to get along with Him anyhow.

  When closing time finally came—neither Thomas nor her father had returned from the visit to Dr. Venable, who was probably subjecting poor Thomas to all manner of painful cures—Sarah hung the sign in the door, locked up, and headed for home.

  She’d been a fool to invite Wyatt Yarbro to take a meal under her roof—he was an outlaw, badge or no badge—but it would be better than being alone, for all practical intents and purposes, with Charles Langstreet. Owen and her father would also be present, but both of them were children, despite the vast difference in their ages.

  A new worry rose up whole in her mind as she approached her front gate and stooped to pat Mehitabel, the three-legged cat, who sometimes came by to lap up a bowl of cream or sleep contentedly behind the cookstove when the weather turned cold.

  What might Ephriam say when he saw Owen? Once, she could have depended on her father’s discretion, but given the state of his mind, he might blurt out something the boy wasn’t prepared to hear, or understand.

  A chill rippled in the pit of her stomach.

  Owen.

  She could adapt to almost anything, including losing control of the Stockman’s Bank, if matters came to that pass, but seeing Owen hurt in any way would be beyond toleration.

  Charles claimed he’d brought the boy to Stone Creek because he could not remain at school, or at home with Mrs. Langstreet; he’d simply had no other choice. Caught off guard, Sarah had accepted the explanation the way someone at the top of a burning staircase would accept a wet blanket. Now, with the storm of her thoughts abating a little, she knew there had to be another reason. Charles could have left Owen with his aging mother, prevailed upon one of his three married sisters.

  Instead, Owen was there, in Stone Creek.

  Why?

  Certainly not because Charles felt any kindly inclination toward her. She’d begged him for photographs of Owen over the years, receiving only one, sent letter after letter to the child, revealing nothing, always signing the long missives with the spinsterly affection of an aunt. There had been no replies, but given Owen’s tender age, that wasn’t surprising.

  Sarah blinked, realizing she was still standing at the gate, Mehitabel curling into her hem, and worked the latch. The hinges creaked as she passed through.

  Are you my aunt Sarah? Owen had asked earlier, in the bank, his eyes wide and trusting.

  What had Charles—or, more worrisome yet, his wife, Marjory—told the boy about his “aunt”?

  The front door opened as Sarah approached, and Doc appeared in the gap. He was a stoutly built man with gentle eyes, and an old friend as well as physician to her father. The two men had met in the army, serving under General Grant, Ephriam as an infantry captain, Jacob Venable as a surgeon. Ephriam had sustained a bayonet wound to his right shoulder during a skirmish with Confederate cavalrymen, and Venable had tended him. Having a number of things in common, but primarily a shared passion for books, they’d swapped whatever rare and treasured volumes they managed to get their hands on. Both men had been at App
omattox when Lee surrendered, and taken off their hats to the living legend as he left Grant’s presence, proud even in defeat. Every winter they sat smoking in front of the fire in the Tamlins’ parlor, reliving that day and the events that led up to it.

  Now, looking up at Doc, with his graying beard and dignified bearing, Sarah thought he resembled General Lee, for all that he, like her father, had been a Union man, born and bred.

  Doc was also the only person who knew about her book of lies. She’d confided in him, one late night, while keeping a vigil by a dying neighbor’s bedside.

  “Is Papa ill?” she asked.

  “I dosed him with laudanum and put him to bed,” Doc said matter-of-factly. “He was in another one of his states—asking after your mother.”

  Sarah swallowed hard, blinked back tears. She felt relieved that her father wouldn’t be at the supper table, unpredictable as he was. She also felt guilty for being relieved.

  Doc took a seat in the porch swing and patted the space beside him. “Sit down, Sarah,” he said gently.

  “I’ve got to fix supper for company and—”

  “Sit down, please,” Doc repeated.

  Sarah sat. Doc and the teller, Thomas, were the only people in Stone Creek who knew for sure that Sarah ran the bank, though there were surely others, like Sam O’Ballivan, who suspected it.

  “You’re not going to be able to keep up this charade much longer, Sarah,” Doc told her quietly. “Ephriam’s condition is deteriorating. Heartbeat’s sporadic, and there are other bad signs, too. He’ll need a nurse soon—if the town had a hospital, I’d have him admitted, for an indefinite length of time.”

  “Is he dying?” Sarah could barely force the words out. An only child, conceived late in her parents’ lives—they’d both been forty when she was born—she’d never achieved true independence from them. Except when she’d attended college in Philadelphia, she’d never been away from home.

  Doc patted her hand, smiled sadly. “We’re all dying. Life is invariably fatal. But to answer your question, Ephriam could live another twenty years, or never awaken from the nap he’s taking right now. The point is, he’s suffering from dementia, and folks are bound to take notice, if they haven’t already.”

  Nothing Doc said came as a surprise to Sarah, but she still needed a few choked moments to absorb it. She’d spent so much time and effort hiding and denying the problem that facing the truth was a challenge.

  Doc put a fatherly arm around her shoulders. “You’ve fought the good fight, Sarah,” he said. “Run that bank as well as any man could, better than most. But it’s time to let it go.”

  “You don’t understand, Doc,” Sarah answered miserably, wringing her hands in her lap. “Papa and I will have nothing to live on, if his salary stops coming in.”

  “Ephriam has always been the thrifty sort,” Doc said, a frown puckering the flesh between his bristly eyebrows. “He must have saved a considerable amount, over thirty years.”

  Sarah’s eyes burned. “There were bad loans, Doc, a couple of years back, during the worst of the drought. Papa used his own money to cover them, so the Weatherbys and the Connors and the Billinghams wouldn’t lose their ranches—”

  A muscle ticked in Doc’s jaw. “And of course they never paid him back.”

  “They couldn’t,” Sarah insisted. “Now that the railroad’s come as far as Stone Creek, things are getting better, but you know Mrs. Weatherby’s a widow now, with four young children to feed, and the Connors got burned out and had to go live with their folks up in Montana. They might or might not be able to make a new start. Jim Billingham pays what he can, when he can, but it isn’t much.”

  “Oh, Lord,” Doc said. “Is the house mortgaged?”

  Sarah shook her head. “The deed’s in my name,” she answered. She looked back over one shoulder at the big house, the only home she’d ever known. There were six bedrooms, in total, because her parents had hoped to have that many children, or more. “I suppose I could take in boarders,” she said. “Give piano lessons.”

  Doc lowered his arm from Sarah’s shoulder and took her hand, squeezed it lightly. “You’re the sort who’ll do whatever has to be done,” he said fondly. “Ephriam’s lucky to have a daughter like you.”

  Privately, Sarah believed her father would have been better off with a son, instead of a daughter. If she’d been born male, there’d be no question of giving up control of the Stockman’s Bank—a man would be allowed, even expected, to take over the helm.

  Sarah didn’t mind hard work, but taking in boarders was one step above beggary, in small, gossipy communities like that one. There were already several women offering piano lessons, so pupils would be hard to come by. She’d be pitied and whispered about, and keeping her spine straight and her chin up in public would take some doing.

  “You could always get married,” Doc said. “Any one of several men in this town would put a ring on your finger, if you were agreeable.”

  Wyatt Yarbro ambled into Sarah’s mind, grinning.

  She blushed. The man was a self-confessed outlaw, despite the badge pinned to his shirt, and for all that he’d walked her home the night before, and stopped by the bank that very day to offer his assistance, should it be required, marriage wouldn’t enter his mind.

  Men like Mr. Yarbro didn’t marry, they dallied with foolish women, and then moved on.

  “I’d have to love a man before I could marry him,” she told Doc forthrightly. Although she would have married Charles Langstreet the day she met him, and certainly after she discovered she was carrying his child—if he hadn’t admitted, after Owen’s conception, that he already had a wife.

  “Love might be a luxury you can’t afford, Sarah Tamlin,” Doc said. “You’re a strong, capable woman, but the reality is, you need a man.” His weary old eyes twinkled. “I’d offer for you, myself, if I were thirty years younger.”

  Sarah chuckled, though she was dangerously near tears. “And I’d probably accept,” she said, rising to her feet. She had things to do—look in on her father, start supper for her guests, due to arrive in just under an hour, tidy up the parlor and lay a nice table in the dining room. She said as much, adding, “Will you stay and join us?”

  Doc Venable stood, too. “I’d be honored,” he said.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  OWEN’S FACE WAS SCRUBBED, and someone, probably Charles, had slicked down his hair. Standing on the front porch, gazing earnestly up at Sarah, he held out a bouquet of flowers and bravely announced, “Papa said to tell you he’ll be along as soon as he can. He got a telegram at the hotel, and he’s got to answer it.”

  “C-come in,” Sarah said, stricken by the sight, the presence, of this boy. Accepting the flowers with murmured thanks, she stepped back to admit him.

  Owen moved solemnly over the threshold, a little gentleman in a woolen suit, taking in the entryway, the long-case clock, the mahogany coat tree. Sarah wondered if he ever wore regular clothes and played in the dirt, like other children his age.

  And she wondered a thousand other things, too.

  “Let’s put these flowers in water,” she said, and started for the kitchen.

  “You have gaslights and everything,” Owen marveled, walking behind her. “I thought you’d live in a log cabin, and there’d be Indians around.”

  Sarah smiled to herself. “There are a few Indians,” she said. “But you don’t have to worry about them. They’re friendly.”

  “Good,” Owen said, with evident relief, as they passed the dining room table—she’d set it for five, since her father was snoring away in his room—and the plates, glasses and silverware sparkled. “I wouldn’t want to get scalped or anything.”

  “Nobody’s going to scalp you,” Sarah said, with certainty.

  Owen pulled back a chair at the kitchen table and sat while she found a vase for the wild orange poppies he’d apparently picked for her. “Papa says this is the frontier,” he announced.

  Sarah’s spine tightened b
riefly at the mention of Charles. She hoped Doc Venable would be back from his evening rounds before he or Wyatt Yarbro arrived. “We’re quite civilized, actually,” she said, pumping water into a vase at the sink, dunking the stems of the poppies, and setting the whole shooting match in the center of the table.

  “Do you live in this great big house all by yourself?” Owen wanted to know. He was small for his age, Sarah noticed, trying her best not to devour the child with her eyes. His feet swung inches above the floor, but he sat up very straight.

  “No,” Sarah said, taking a chair herself. “My father and I live here together. Isn’t your house much bigger than this one?”

  Owen allowed that it was, then added, “But I’m not there very much. If I’m not at school, I mostly stay with Grandmama. She’s got all sorts of money, but she lives in a town house. That way, she doesn’t need so many servants.”

  “Do you like staying at your Grandmama’s town house?” Sarah asked carefully.

  “Not much,” Owen said. “You can’t run or make noise or have a dog, because dogs have fleas and they chew things up and make messes.”

  Sarah didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Would you like to have a dog?”

  “More than anything, except maybe a pony,” Owen answered.

  “Do you like school?” A thousand other questions still pounded in Sarah’s mind, but it wouldn’t be appropriate to ask them.

  “It’s lonesome,” Owen said. “Especially at Christmas.”

  Sarah stomach clenched, but she allowed none of what she felt to show in her face. “You stay at school over Christmas?”

  “My mother doesn’t like me very much,” Owen confided. “And Grandmama always goes to stay with friends in the south of France when the weather starts getting cold.”

  “Surely your mother loves you,” Sarah managed.

  “No,” Owen insisted, shaking his head. “She says I’m a bastard.”

  Sarah closed her eyes briefly, struggling with a tangle of emotions—anger, frustration, sorrow, and the most poignant yearning. So Marjory Langstreet did blame Owen for her husband’s indiscretions, as she’d always feared she might.