The Rustler

by Linda Lael Miller

  Sarah was already there. She tied on one of Doc’s aprons and cleared space for the corpses and even filled some basins with hot water.

  “You oughtn’t to be here,” Wyatt said, when he saw her.

  “Are any of them alive?” she asked.

  Wyatt laid poor Carl on the examination table where Lonesome had rested, just that morning. “You shouldn’t be here,” he said again.

  “I always help Doc when things like this happen,” she told him, unruffled. She got a basin and a cloth and began to wash Carl’s face as gently as if she thought he could feel the touch of her hands, and might feel more pain if she was rough.

  “When Till Crosly damn near cut his foot off chopping wood,” Doc contributed, “Sarah helped me sew it back on.”

  Wyatt felt queasy.

  “Better look and see if they’ve got any kind of papers with their names on them,” Doc said. “Like as not, they have folks someplace.”

  The second body was placed on the leather settee, the third on wooden chairs hastily scraped into a row.

  Wyatt dug through blood-soaked pockets, but he found nothing but a bag of tobacco and an old watch with a picture of a pretty woman painted on the inside of the case. Searching Carl, Doc came up with a worn letter and handed it off to Wyatt.

  “Probably from his mama,” Doc said.

  Wyatt glanced at the return address, penned in a woman’s fine and flowing hand. Home, was all it said. She’d sent the letter to Carl in care of general delivery, Denver. He tucked the envelope, smudged and much-handled, into the inside pocket of his vest. Said nothing.

  “I’ll get Willie to take pictures of them,” Doc said, as calmly as if things like this happened in Stone Creek every day of the week and twice on Sundays. “That way, if their kin should come looking for them, we’ll know who’s who.”

  Wyatt gulped back more bile as Sarah dunked a bloody rag in the basin and wrung it out before wiping at Carl’s face again. When the dead man’s eyes popped open, she closed them matter-of-factly, and weighted them down with pennies from a little bowl on a nearby table.

  Doc dismissed the bystanders, leaving himself and Sarah and Wyatt alone with the bodies.

  Now that Sarah almost had his face wiped clean of blood, Carl looked more like his usual self—except, of course, for the pennies on his eyes.

  “You going to wash all three of them down?” Wyatt asked, and then gulped again, and colored up. Decomposition hadn’t begun, but the bodies stunk to high heaven, because bodies, when they die, discharge worse things than blood.

  “Of course,” Sarah said. “We can’t bury them like this.”

  Wyatt’s stomach did a slow, backward roll. “Why not? Who’s going to see them, once the coffin lid is nailed on?”

  “It’s the decent thing to do,” Sarah replied, trying to pull off Carl’s blood-sodden coat. Next, she’d be stripping him naked.

  “I’m not sure I agree on the decency aspect,” Wyatt said.

  Sarah surprised—and comforted—him with a sudden smile. “They’re dead, Wyatt.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “A person can’t help but notice.”

  Doc took blankets from the cabinet he’d fetched Lonesome’s medicine out of, a lifetime ago, when Wyatt had believed Stone Creek to be a relatively serene community, the incident at the bank notwithstanding. He covered the other two bodies—decency, again, Wyatt supposed—then began pulling off Carl’s boots.

  They were worn at the soles, and lined with old newspaper, evidently contrived to double as socks.

  Wyatt felt the sadness again. Wondered about the letter in his vest pocket, and if Carl and Billy had a ma, like Doc thought, and maybe other kin, too, watching some country road for their horses.

  On a less sentimental note, he reckoned if Billy wasn’t someplace around Stone Creek now, he soon would be. Word of Carl’s shooting would bring him on the run, with blood in his eye. Soon as Billy Justice knew Wyatt had been in town when the shoot-out took place, Billy would lay the blame at his feet and come gunning for him.

  It was the only bright spot in this whole dismal mess.

  “If you’re not going to help,” Sarah told him, “please get out of the way.”

  Wyatt blinked, stepped back. Stepped forward again. “I’ll help Doc bathe these yahoos,” he said. “You go home and look after Owen and Lonesome and your father.”

  Sarah bristled.

  “Go,” Doc told her. “Wyatt’s right. This is no fit work for a woman.”

  “What work is ‘fit for a woman,’ Doc?” Sarah demanded.

  “This is no time to talk women’s suffrage,” Doc said. “Go.”

  “I’m sure the deputy wouldn’t allow me to walk home alone,” Sarah said tartly, hands resting on her hips. “After all, I could be accosted on the street!”

  Three dead men, all that blood and a stench that made him want to gag, and she’d almost made Wyatt laugh.

  Almost.

  Doc took the basin and the rag out of her hands and set them aside. “I delivered twins a few hours ago, Sarah. It was a five-mile ride, there and back, on that cussed old mule of mine. Now I’ve got bodies to wash down and embalm. I simply do not possess the inclination to argue with you.”

  “It’s true that she oughtn’t to walk home alone,” Wyatt said.

  “Ha!” Sarah spouted, with a triumphant motion of one hand.

  “At least go upstairs, then, and make us a pot of coffee,” Doc replied coolly. He’d had more experience handling Sarah than Wyatt had, and Wyatt was bent on watching and learning.

  “Women’s work!” Sarah said, flinging up both hands this time.

  But she gathered her skirts and tromped up the staircase to the second floor. The kitchen must have been directly overhead, because things took to clattering and clanking straightaway.

  Wyatt smiled again. Then helped Doc strip down the bodies, one by one, and bathe them. This involved going upstairs, from time to time, to dip more hot water from the reservoir on Doc’s wood-burning cookstove. Wyatt undertook the task, each time hoping Sarah might spare him an amiable word, or even a glance, but she’d put a pot of coffee on to brew, sat herself down in a rocking chair turned to face a window, and paid him no attention whatsoever.

  When the awful work was done, the bodies blanket-draped, Wyatt wanted nothing so much as to get naked himself and slide chin-deep into Rowdy’s big-city bathtub. Well, there was one thing he wanted more than a bath hot enough to scald his flesh and some good old-fashioned lye soap, but he wasn’t going to get it.

  Not that night, at least.

  So he and Doc scrubbed up, as best they could, and sank into chairs to drink Sarah’s coffee. For all her bad reputation as a cook, the brew was a lot better than the acid slop Doc had served them after seeing to Lonesome.

  Sarah didn’t join them, but she made a point of pouring the hot liquid into their cups, her skirt sweeping past the backs of their chairs as she moved.

  “I reckon I need some shut-eye,” Doc finally said, to break the silence. He’d had three cups of coffee by that time, but apparently, he didn’t expect it to disturb his rest. “That was fine coffee, Sarah,” he told her. “Could have done with a dash of whiskey, though.”

  Sarah, still miffed, evidently because Doc didn’t let her wash down naked dead men in his cellar, flounced toward the door. “You’re welcome,” she snapped, wrenching at the knob.

  Wyatt rose wearily from his chair, aching in every bone and muscle. He needed to find himself an easier job—like breaking rock with a sledgehammer in the belly of some mine, or breaking devil-horses to ride.

  “Thanks for the help, Wyatt,” Doc said, and his half smile was tinged with good-natured sympathy.

  He’d been about to offer a word of thanks to Doc, for taking charge of the situation out in front of Jolene Bell’s Saloon the way he had; now, he just nodded.

  Wyatt followed Sarah outside and down the porch steps. She was moving fast, so he had to hurry.

  “Sarah,
” he finally protested, catching her by the arm. “Slow down.”

  She stopped, but only because she didn’t have much choice, given the grip he’d taken. He loosened his fingers, worried that he’d bruised her.

  “I was only trying to spare you,” he said.

  “I don’t require sparing,” she shot back. “I’ve helped Doc prepare folks for burying plenty of times.”

  “Doesn’t this town have an undertaker?” Wyatt asked, exasperated. Why was a task that would have most people either running in the other direction or heaving up their socks so damn important to her?

  “Yes,” Sarah said acidly, “Stone Creek has an undertaker. Doc.”

  She’d managed to pull away, and now she was walking fast again. She’d cleaned up a little at Doc’s place, but her skirts and the bodice of her dress were stained red, and she smelled.

  Or was that him?

  Wyatt stopped to look down at his ruined shirt—more properly, Rowdy’s ruined shirt—and when he did, she got farther ahead of him, and he had to scramble to catch up. He wasn’t just hell on the grocery bill, he concluded grimly. He was hell on his brother’s wardrobe, too.

  “Doesn’t it bother you?” he asked, beside her now. “Bathing dead people, I mean?”

  She halted again, put her hands on her hips, and glared up into his face. “I love bathing dead people!” she shouted. “It’s one of my favorite things to do!”

  Wyatt started to laugh.

  Sarah started to cry.

  He took a gentle grip on her shoulders. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “S-Somebody has to tend to them—” Sarah blubbered.

  Wyatt pulled her close. “Hush, now,” he said. “Hush.”

  “It was awful,” Sarah said, her voice muffled by his shirtfront, vibrating through his heart. The crying intensified to outright sobs. “And you stink!”

  Wyatt chuckled. “So do you.”

  They stood like that for a while, and Sarah’s close proximity caused a shift inside Wyatt. He stopped thinking about death; life was on his mind, and all the good things that it had to offer.

  “I’d give anything for a hot bath,” Sarah wailed.

  “I might be able to help you out with that,” Wyatt said, and waited for the explosion.

  She looked up at him, sniffling and teary-eyed and covered in gore, and still as beautiful as an Arizona sunset blazing across the sky. He’d expected her to give him what for, even slap him, but instead she said, “Lark and Rowdy have a real bathtub!”

  “They do,” Wyatt said, amused. “And you’re welcome to use it if you want to.” Generous of him, he thought. Wyatt respected other people’s belongings, but just about then, he’d have helped himself to Rowdy and Lark’s bed, too, if he could lie down with Sarah Tamlin.

  It was too early for that, though.

  “What would I do for clean clothes?” Sarah asked.

  “Reckon you could borrow one of Lark’s dresses. She’s about the same size as you are.”

  Sarah blinked. “It would be scandalous,” she breathed.

  “Absolutely,” Wyatt agreed solemnly.

  “You’d have to promise not to look until I’m dressed again.”

  Wyatt raised a hand, a man swearing an oath he’d love to break. “I promise,” he vowed.

  Sarah’s eyes widened. “I couldn’t.”

  “Sure you could,” Wyatt said. “Just think of it. Peeling off that getup you’re in now. All that hot water. Scented soap—”

  “Stop,” Sarah pleaded.

  Wyatt grinned. “Up to you,” he said. And he turned, betting that she’d follow.

  She did.

  Five minutes later, having taken a roundabout way, in the hope no one would see them, Wyatt and Sarah stepped into the little house behind the jail.

  “That way,” Wyatt said, pointing from the kitchen doorway.

  Everything ground inside him, he wanted so badly to follow her, strip off his own clothes, get right into the tub with her.

  Easy, cowboy, he told himself. Sarah was as skittish as a wild mare scenting wolves on the breeze, and if he made any sudden moves, he might scare her off for good.

  “I know where the bathroom is,” Sarah said, lofty now. Even a little imperious, for all her tumbledown hair and her stained dress. “Lark showed it to me when it was her turn to host the Canasta club.”

  Wyatt grinned. “I’ll see to the horses,” he said, though the horses didn’t need seeing to, since he’d given them hay and filled their water troughs earlier in the evening.

  She didn’t move until he’d gone out the back door and closed it behind him.

  SARAH FELT WANTON, bathing in someone else’s bathtub, even if that someone was a close friend. She knew Lark wouldn’t mind, but it was still a very improper thing to do. She was, alas, alone in a house with an unmarried man, and naked to the skin in the bargain.

  Oh, but the hot water was glorious.

  There was real shampoo, in an actual bottle.

  At home, Sarah lathered her hair with a bar of soap and rinsed it with rainwater.

  She alternately scrubbed and soaked, but when she heard a door open and close in the near distance, she bolted upright. Scrambled for a towel. Her hair down and dripping, she stood in the water, listening.

  “Wyatt?”

  “Yup,” he replied. “Are you decent?”

  Sarah flushed from the roots of her hair to the soles of her feet. “No!”

  She heard him laugh. Then the door opened a little way and his hand came through, holding out a calico dress.

  Sarah rushed over, snatched it from him, and almost shut the door on his arm.

  “Go away,” she said.

  “You’re welcome,” Wyatt replied.

  She pulled the plug in the bathtub, dried herself off, wrapped her hair in the towel, turban-fashion, slipped on her dress, and crept out into the main part of the house.

  Wyatt was sitting at the table, his head bent over an open book. His clothes looked as though he’d passed the day in a slaughterhouse and his hair, shiny as a blackbird’s wing, was mussed. She imagined he’d have to bathe, and thinking of that made her turn red all over again.

  “I should go home,” she said.

  “Yes,” Wyatt agreed, closing the book slowly, almost reverently, and getting to his feet. “Feel better?”

  She nodded, oddly spellbound. Something about seeing Wyatt that way, intent on a book, made her heart flutter. She put a hand to it. “I th-thought you were going to try to seduce me,” she said, and could have bitten off her tongue.

  “I’d like nothing better,” Wyatt said, his gaze sweeping over her, “but when I have you, it won’t be in somebody else’s bed. Since I don’t have one of my own as of yet, I reckon it will have to be yours.”

  Sarah’s breath flowed shallow, and she felt her nipples harden beneath the bodice of LarkYarbro’s calico dress. She knew she should have waxed indignant; instead, she wished he didn’t have so many scruples. “Where do you sleep, if you don’t have a bed?” she asked.

  One corner of his mouth tilted slightly upward. “Out in the hayloft,” he said. “I passed one night on a cot in the jail, but it brought back too many memories, so I moved to the barn.”

  “Oh,” Sarah said.

  He extended a hand to her. “Let’s get you back to your place while the getting’s good,” he said. She came to him, and he took the towel from around her head and watched her hair fall, spiraling with the damp, around her shoulders and breasts.

  There was something so sensual about the act that Sarah’s breath stopped in her throat, broke free with a little gasp.

  If Wyatt had kissed her then, she couldn’t have resisted him.

  But he didn’t.

  He took her home, the two of them moving through the shadows and alleys like a pair of illicit lovers returning from a tryst. He waited until she’d let herself in through the kitchen door.

  And then he left.

  “Sarah?” It was her fath
er’s voice. He came down the back stairs, a lantern glowing in one hand. “Where have you been? What happened to your hair?”

  She went to meet him, midway up the stairs, and gently took the lantern from him. “Papa,” she said, gently stern, “I’ve asked you not to carry these around when they’re lit. You could start a fire.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Sarah, I’m not a blithering idiot!”

  “Hush,” Sarah said. “Owen will hear you.”

  “That boy’s sound asleep,” her father replied. “He and the dog are sharing the spare room.” His spectacles glinted in the light of the lantern. “What have you been doing? Your hair is down, and it’s wet—”

  Sarah retreated to the kitchen, set the lantern in the middle of the table, and went about making tea. She needed something to settle her nerves—and since she wasn’t a drinker, orange pekoe would have to do.

  She’d half hoped Ephriam would retire to his room again—she wasn’t used to all this lucidity on his part and found, to her quiet astonishment, and no little shame, that she missed her father’s normal befuddlement.

  Of course he did not retire, nor did he cease asking questions.

  “You haven’t been with a man, have you?” he asked, causing her cheeks to flame.

  “No!” Sarah cried, and in that instant, she froze. She’d left her soiled dress at Rowdy’s place—and the book of lies was in the pocket. Slapping a hand to her mouth, Sarah sank into a chair at the table.

  Just then, Owen appeared, yawning and blinking, in the doorway of the spare room. “Why’s everybody fussing?” he asked sleepily. “You woke Lonesome up, and now he’s crying.”

  “Crying?” Sarah echoed, confused. Then she realized that Lonesome’s last dose of laudanum had probably worn off, and he needed another. She fetched the bottle from its shelf and followed Owen into the small bedroom just off the kitchen.

  Lonesome whimpered.

  “Poor thing,” she said, and knelt to put a drop of medicine on the dog’s tongue.

  But Lonesome didn’t stop the pitiful noise he was making.