Counterfeit Cowboy

by Lacy Williams

  “Pete!” The timber of Jesse’s voice changed as his despair took over. “Kid, please! Don’t be dead!” Don’t be dead.

  God, don’t let him be dead!

  Then...a flash of color in the white landscape.

  “Pete!”

  Jesse changed direction and within a few feet, his boot nudged against something half buried in a drift.

  “Kid!”

  Kneeling in the snow, Jesse dug with hands that were about as effective as blocks of ice, but somehow managed to uncover Pete’s face and shoulders.

  Thank you.

  The kid’s eyes blinked open. They were hazy and unfocused. His face was blue-tinged.

  “Stay awake, Pete.”

  Pete’s eyes started to close again, but Jesse shook him by his shoulders. “Kid! Do you hear me? Don’t you dare go to sleep!”

  He knew if the kid succumbed to the cold, there was no saving him. Jesse hauled him to his feet, keeping both arms around him.

  “Can you walk?”

  It would be better if the kid could walk. It would get his sluggish blood flowing. Also, Jesse was already so exhausted he didn’t know if he could make it back to the train. He was pretty sure he knew where the train was, but needed all his wits about him to find it again.

  “C-c-can’t f-feel m’ feet,” the kid mumbled. If Jesse hadn’t been holding him close to his chest he never would have heard the words in the screaming wind.

  “Let’s try it, kid,” Jesse said, but when Pete tried to step forward, his legs folded underneath him. Jesse hauled him up.

  “All right. We’ll do it this way.” Jesse used the last of his strength to lift the kid into his arms. If Jesse took a tumble he might not be able to get up again.

  He wheeled to go back toward the train, hoping the wind and blowing snow hadn’t altered his sense of direction. Feet numb, he could barely lift his legs to walk. Yet somehow he pushed on.

  “Don’t fall asleep, kid.”

  “How can I with you yappin’ at me?”

  “What’d you run away for anyway? Pretty stupid thing to do in snow like this.”

  “Didn’t think it was this bad.”

  “Yeah? That all?”

  There was a long pause and Jesse shook the kid’s shoulders again. “Don’t doze off.”

  “A’right.”

  “So?”

  “You don’t want me around. Thought I’d walk back to the next town.”

  “Pete...”

  Jesse could barely see through snow-encrusted eyelashes, but he recognized the rebellious tilt of the kid’s chin.

  “It’s not that I don’t want you around,” he said through half-frozen lips.

  “Don’t lie.” Pete’s vehemence was probably a good sign. “The only reason you kept me around was to impress Erin.”

  “Maybe in the beginning, but not now. It’s just hard for me. I told you my history with my brother.”

  “I’m not your brother. I’m not gonna die.”

  “You might if you keep pulling stunts like this.” And still might, if Jesse couldn’t find the train. He’d thought they would’ve been close enough to bump into it by now. He started sweeping his feet in front of him, hoping to encounter the tracks beneath the mounds of white snow.

  The kid didn’t say anything again and Jesse thought he’d better keep him talking.

  “Erin’s gonna help you find a place. She’s got the resources—”

  “Erin’s nice, but she helps everybody!” Pete burst out.

  And that was the crux of the matter. It was true. Erin did help anyone she came into contact with—as evidenced by Jesse himself, as well as Nora and her brood, who didn’t even want her help. But Jesse also knew she had a special place in her heart for kids.

  And Jesse couldn’t risk caring for someone else. He already cared too much about Erin—and was about to get his heart ripped out when she went on to her brother’s place. If he cared about Pete and something happened to the kid, he’d be heartbroken, again.

  Pete coughed, a jarring rattle of his chest that for a moment threw Jesse back in time to Daniel’s death.

  “I just want somebody to want me,” the kid said, another of those bone-jarring coughs shaking his entire frail body in Jesse’s arms.

  Jesse could relate. Since Daniel’s death nobody had bothered to get close, not truly, not until Erin. He and the kid were so similar in so many ways... Jesse couldn’t risk letting Pete into his life, but how could he refuse, knowing how much the kid needed someone? Needed him.

  A hulking shadow ahead gave Jesse a beat of hope. The train. He stumbled forward, frozen head to toe. “We’re almost there, Pete.”

  No answer. Jesse looked down at the face that had become dear to him in the last few days. Pete was pale, and lifeless, snow building on his now-closed eyes and in his hair.

  “Don’t die, kid!” Jesse shouted, shaking his shoulders again. “We made it. And...I want you around.”

  God, don’t let him die.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The outer door burst open again and a snow-covered figure backed inside. Erin rushed forward.

  When the man turned, she saw he carried a smaller person across his chest, also covered with snow.

  Jesse and Pete.

  Heart beating furiously, she ran to them.

  “You found him!” she cried.

  “Take him.” Jesse pushed Pete awkwardly at her. Snow fell from him in a miniature avalanche.

  Erin couldn’t look away from Jesse’s face, his eyelashes matted with snow, a blue tinge around his lips. “Are you okay?”

  “Kid was talking to me,” Jesse gasped. “Fell unconscious. Is there a doctor?” he shouted hoarsely, and a man rushed forward.

  “Pete?” Erin asked, stumbling under the boy’s weight when Jesse released him. Jesse collapsed against the wall near the door, sliding down. The snow pooled around him and began to melt into droplets of water.

  “Can you help him?” Jesse demanded of the man in a bowler hat and nice suit who approached.

  “Bring him over next to the boiler. Not too close!”

  Erin looked over her shoulder but Jesse wasn’t moving. “Jesse!”

  He waved her off. The fact that he could still move and talk must mean he was better off than Pete. Erin would see to the boy and then go back to help Jesse.

  “Looks like some frostbite. I’ll need some warm water—not hot!” the doctor said as he bent over Pete. “Hypothermic, most likely, if he’s been outside for any length of time. Are there any blankets? Let’s get him out of these wet clothes.”

  One of the attendants, probably from the sleeper car, rushed in with some blankets and left them at Erin’s elbow. She helped undress Pete down to his long underwear, her hands shaking. She couldn’t think anything other than a desperate prayer for God to save Pete.

  They wrapped him in a blanket and then the doctor showed her how to briskly rub Pete’s skin, only taking one arm or leg out of the blanket at a time.

  Suddenly, Nora bustled in and nudged Erin out of the way. “Jesse needs you. I’ll help out here.”

  She shooed Erin away. Erin went, grateful even though the other woman hadn’t been particularly kind before this.

  Erin found Jesse slumped on the floor where she’d left him. He didn’t appear to have moved since he’d delivered Pete into her arms. She knelt beside him.

  “Jesse? Did you fall asleep?”

  “’M not asleep,” he slurred. “Can’t go to sleep in a snowstorm ’r you’ll freeze, ya know.”

  He started, opened his eyes. “Where’s the kid?”

  She sighed. “His name is Pete.”

  “Know his name. Where is he?”

  “The doctor and Nora
are taking care of him. There wasn’t room for me, too. Can you get up?”

  “Prob’ly.”

  She took his arm and tried to assist him in sitting up. He barely moved. She jerked away; his coat was covered with ice and freezing.

  “Prob’ly not,” he murmured.

  She suddenly became afraid. She’d thought he would be all right once he’d gotten inside, but what if he had a case of hypothermia, too?

  “Come on,” she coaxed, tugging on his arm again. “Don’t you want to go sit by the warm boiler and get heated up? I’ll help you over there, but you have to stand up.”

  He didn’t move and she began unraveling his scarf, tugging enough to jostle his shoulders when she found part of it frozen together. She moved to unbutton his coat, but his hand moved sluggishly to cover hers. His skin was like touching a block of ice.

  “’Re you undressin’ me? What about propriety?”

  “Stop joking, Jesse.” She found her voice was shaking. “You’re frozen through, you big oaf. Stand up, or I’ll get some of the men to get you up.”

  Their eyes met and held, his a little less hazy than she expected. He huffed a sigh, but began pushing himself up off the floor, using the wall for support.

  “I’ll be all right,” he mumbled. “Quit worrying.”

  She moved beneath one of his arms and held him around his waist, taking some of his weight. “Between you and Pete, I’ve got plenty to worry about.”

  * * *

  They made their way down the aisle step by painful step. Each movement felt like needles sticking in the bottom of Jesse’s feet. The rest of him still felt frozen through.

  But he was more worried about Pete than himself.

  When Erin guided him down onto a clear space of floor near the boiler, he craned his neck to see the kid. Nora and a man Jesse assumed must be the doctor bent over him.

  “He awake?” Jesse rasped.

  “No,” the man said. “But he seems to be all right. Lucky for him, this frostbite isn’t going to cost him any of his digits. His body is exhausted—and he appears rather undernourished—but I expect he’ll come to in a couple of hours. Perhaps it’s better for him to sleep anyway, it’s probably rather painful coming out of the frostbite.”

  Yes, Jesse could understand what he was talking about. Closer to the boiler, his clothes steaming around him, prickles of uncomfortable sensation crawled all over his body. It wasn’t pleasant.

  His fingers fumbled the buttons of the sweater he’d worn beneath his leather coat, and Erin was there, kneeling before him, taking over.

  He seemed to fade in and out, a strange buzzing in his ears.

  “Soaking wet.” There was Erin’s voice, something to ground him as the pain beneath his skin intensified and he gritted his teeth to keep from crying out.

  He felt the weight of his shirt come off, and a scratchy blanket come around his shoulders in its place.

  “There are a few too many people around for the pants to come off,” she said softly in his ear, hand on his shoulder. “But you’re close enough to the heat, I think they’ll dry out in a bit.”

  She moved to his feet, sliding off his boots with some difficulty, then replacing his wet socks with some warm, dry ones. The intimacy of the action was not lost on him, but Erin was businesslike and quick in her movements.

  He couldn’t stop shaking. He’d gone from shivers to full body tremors, nearly rocking with pain as his body flashed hot and cold.

  “Body heat—”

  And suddenly Erin was lifting the corner of his blanket. She slipped beneath it and she drew her arms around his neck, pressed her warm cheek to his jaw and ear.

  “Wh-what’re you doin’?”

  He tried to move away, but the warmth she was generating felt too good and his limbs felt like jelly.

  “I’m warming you up,” she whispered directly into his ear. “We’re both still dressed. It’s all right.”

  “But—but—”

  “There are ten people here in the five closest seats—most of them watching us. It’s not improper.”

  Still, he pushed away from her. He didn’t want to taint her in any way. But his hands tangled in the blanket and they didn’t seem to work right.

  “Stop,” she ordered softly, right in his ear. Then she sniffed, and he realized with a moment of clarity in the mush of his brain that she was still quite upset.

  “’S all right,” he slurred. “We made it.”

  She tucked her face into his neck, her skin hot like a brand. “I was so worried,” she whispered. “Afraid for you.”

  He realized she was crying for him. Again, like she’d done earlier when she’d comforted him about Daniel, though that other moment seemed like aeons ago now.

  “Nobody’s cared about me since Daniel. Nobody ’cept you.”

  She moved her head, pressing the other side of her cheek against his jaw and neck, spreading her warmth there, as well. Her hair, falling out of its pins, tickled his shoulder and neck.

  “I’m afraid it’s a bit more serious than that,” she whispered.

  Her warmth began to seep into him, began to slowly penetrate the frozen tundra of his body. He groaned at the sensation. Still painful.

  “When you were out looking for Pete...” Her voice seemed to waver in and out. “Thought you wouldn’t make it, I...” He tried to focus on her words, to concentrate, but he felt like slipping into sleep. His eyes fell closed, the darkness deepening. “How much I’ve come to care for you.”

  She paused. “I think I’m falling in love with you.”

  “Can’t,” he said matter-of-factly, not sure whether he was dreaming or not. He seemed to be floating, half-asleep. “’M not good enough.”

  She half giggled, half sobbed. “Sure you are. You’re a decent man. Kind enough to help a lonely boy and brave enough to fight through a snowstorm to save his life.”

  He shook his head, the bristles on his chin catching in her loosened hair. Just the small movement depleted the last stores of his energy. “Ya don’t really know me.”

  She reached up and smoothed away her hair, touched his jaw briefly. This entire situation was so bizarre he felt sure he was dreaming. So he told her, “Don’t know about my past, where I been. Things I’ve done. ’M not a good person.”

  She clung to the back of his neck with both hands. “Your past doesn’t define you, Jesse.”

  “Done some bad things. Real bad.”

  She stiffened. It was slight, but he still registered it in his half-asleep state.

  “Maybe we should talk about that in the morning, when you’re more aware.”

  He tried to shrug, but his jellified muscles wouldn’t obey him.

  “How did you find him?”

  “I think I...prayed. Called out to God.”

  “That’s...really good, Jesse.”

  “Hasn’t ever listened to me b’fore. Took my dad. Took Daniel.”

  She was crying again, her tears hot against his warming skin. “He doesn’t promise to answer with a yes every time. But tonight He did. Tonight He answered your prayers...and mine.”

  She sniffled again, was quiet but only for a moment. “Was Pete able to talk to you when you found him?”

  “Yep. Kept him talkin’ most the way back to th’ train.”

  “Why did he run away? Because he’d heard us arguing?”

  “Yep. But I told him... I told him I wanted him around.”

  She squeezed him tightly.

  “Don’t know what to do with a kid....”

  He couldn’t fight the darkness any longer, finally succumbed to sleep, but as he drifted off, he heard one last whisper.

  “We’ll figure it out. Together.”

  Chapter Sixteen

&nbs
p; Jesse was overly conscious of the woman at his side, afternoon sunlight streaming in the window and burnishing her hair.

  Not only because of what they’d shared last night—inadvertent though it might have been on his part—but because the clock was ticking down on their time together. The snowstorm had cleared, the tracks had been uncovered and they were rushing toward Cheyenne, slated to arrive by late afternoon.

  I’m falling in love with you.

  He still couldn’t believe she’d said...what she’d said. He’d tried to shy away from it in his thoughts, but basically had awoken obsessing over it. The way he’d been out of it, he couldn’t determine what had been real or if the entire episode had been a dream.

  And he’d been terrified to ask her. Terrified that he’d imagined it. Terrified that she’d really said it.

  He felt guilty because he was still holding back a load of secrets from her. That he was a con man, that he’d been in prison, that he’d let Pete blackmail him to keep his secrets. Jesse didn’t think those were things that she could just overlook.

  And his burgeoning feelings for her—feelings that apparently mirrored hers—made him loath to hurt her.

  He was in a pickle.

  If he told her, she might not want anything more to do with him. Even Catherine had only pretended she was okay with his life, who he was, and that had only been for the purpose of getting close to him so she could betray him.

  Since his father, he’d been missing out on love. How could he expect Erin to really love him, when she was such a fine lady, not only in her status but as a person?

  He needed to steel himself for when they went their separate ways. It seemed inevitable that they would part ways, possibly on bad terms.

  “Are you all right?” she asked, settled back into her seat, one of Nora’s rugrats on her lap, playing pat-a-cake with Erin’s hands. “You’ve been awfully quiet this morning.”

  He was a bit angry with himself for sleeping away most of the morning. He’d roused briefly when Erin had helped him and Pete back to their seats, once they’d warmed and when the train had been ready to move again, then fallen into a deep, dreamless sleep. When he’d woken midmorning, he’d found Nora’s crew, Erin and Pete all in animated conversation, playing games.