Forgetting Herself

by Yvonne Jocks

  With a glare and a soothing touch to the mare's nose, Garrison moved on.

  Thaddeas asked, “You think he keeps track of what's going on with the sheep farmers?”

  “He owns the range, doesn't he?” Stuart went back to tightening his cinch, a little more each time the mare released a breath, holding his own breath to keep even the facade of calm.

  He had to get to Mariah....

  “Pa just looks like God, MacCal um,” noted his brother-in-law drily. “God talks more.”

  Stuart carefully let down his stirrups, and the horse barely noticed— almost there. “I'm one of the few folks in this town that doesn't confuse them.”

  Thaddeas swung into his saddle, rode his gelding in a tight circle to accustom it to his weight. “He owns half the Circle-T, is al . He'd rather leave the rest of the range be.”

  Could be Mariah's brother suffered from the same naiveté she did. Putting weight on the

  saddlehorn, Stuart tested whether his borrowed mare would stand to be mounted.

  He wasn't much good to Mariah with a broken neck, either. “He's a Stock Grower.”

  “So are a lot of folks.” Thaddeas watched Stuart mount, nodded approval. “But you don't invite a parson into a saloon and expect to do much drinking.”

  Ready to lead twenty heavily armed cowboys toward his own claim, Stuart guessed that had better be true. In any case, could be he had more in common with his wife than he'd thought.

  He needed the explanation to be true badly enough to stop questioning it.

  The sun sank behind them as they headed out. But not a man flinched from riding hel -for-leather across the darkening range, into what could be full-out war. Nor, as they neared the deadline, did they hesitate to let a sheep farmer like Stuart take the lead.

  Under the drum of hoofbeats and the measured pant of horses, Stuart tried not to imagine Mariah wounded, or helpless, or at the mercy of a bastard like Johnson. If he had not married her, had not dragged her into this, she would be safe. These men had realized that, even if he had not. And now, if anything happened to her...

  But he could not let his thoughts stray there, not and stay sane. He and the cowboys would reach the claim first, and Mariah would be al right. She must be al right.

  If she wasn't, no amount of wealth or pride would ever absolve Stuart's selfishness.

  A sharp whistle cut through the night, as they approached the gulch, and Stuart saw Garrison raise a hand, signaling them to slow down. Before Stuart had even reined in his borrowed mare, he heard it—a distant popping, like dark fireworks, through the summer night.

  Gunfire.

  “We canna stop!” he insisted, wild to do something. Ride. Shoot. Perhaps even kil . He'd never kil ed a man, but if they hurt Mariah ...

  At first glance, his father-in-law showed no concern at al —and Stuart hated him for it. Then he noted a certain brightness to the man's eyes, a tension in his set shoulders.

  “You're the one what knows the area,” Garrison drawled. “How won't they figure us to cross that gulch?”

  Soldiering. Mariah had said. Indian wars...

  Stuart took a shaking breath. “You've done more fighting than me,” he admitted grudgingly. “We'd best figure this together.”

  And with a single, sharp nod, the cattle baron agreed.

  “Rifle!” cal ed Dougie MacCal um, under the barrage of gunfire.

  Mariah bel y-crawled to his side in the stony arroyo where they'd taken cover and handed him a loaded rifle. Then she took the Winchester he gave her and dug her hand into a box of ammunition as if grabbing a handful of candy, slid each round into the loading chamber.

  She had to be careful not to burn her hand on the hot muzzle. She had to be careful not to tremble so hard that she dropped precious cartridges.

  “Rifle!” cal ed Mr. MacCal um, and Mariah crawled back to him, Stuart's old coat protecting her from the worst of the rocks, to repeat the steps.

  Stuart's dark predictions had been horribly true. Mariah was caught in a range war.

  Gunfire exploded to either side of her in blue flashes. Bullets sprayed her with dirt when the gunnysackers aimed too closely. And through it al , no matter how scared she was and how hard she concentrated on her job, one thing frightened her beyond al else.

  Stuart had not come home.

  He'd said he would. He'd promised. And Stuart did not break promises.

  Compared to her fear of what it would take to detain Stuart MacCal um against his word, the night-shattering crossfire—even the bleating of frightened sheep and the awful scream of a wounded horse—seemed timeless and unreal.

  One of Mr. MacCal um's herders had driven al the sheep but a smal band of older ewes eastward, onto his own land. Then he'd returned to join the MacCal um men, and Mariah, in the wash that provided the most earthen protection—and they'd waited. They'd waited for Stuart, and they'd waited for the regulators.

  But the regulators got there first.

  Not only did the seven riders, gunnysacks masking their faces, ford the gulch where Dougie had predicted. They even let out a shout of excitement when they saw the ewes. They rode right up, shot at the sheep—

  And the MacCal um men fired back. Mariah, no shootist, took charge of keeping an extra rifle loaded. And though Stuart's coat and hat sheltered her from flying rock, their tartan could not warm her against this kind of cold. Her whole world was loud, violent, dark.

  “Rifle!” shouted the Basque herder, whose name she'd forgotten. She traded weapons with him, burned her hand—blinked away tears to keep loading. Stuart had been right. Men could do

  terrible things—even to her. She only hoped her gullibility had not endangered her brothers- or father-in-law. She hoped she had not cost Stuart more than he could bear to lose, even for her.

  She felt guilty for wishing Stuart here. Worse, she wished it anyway, with al her soul.

  Then something about the gunfire changed, though Mariah kept frantical y pushing cartridges into the Winchester's loading chamber even as she realized it. A single barrage of shots rang from behind the gunnysackers. Shooting faltered into shouts.

  “MacCal ums!” yel ed a voice that sounded vaguely familiar. Cousin Hank? Had Papa's

  reinforcements arrived? Mariah kept loading rounds. “Don't shoot!”

  “Whist,” shushed Mr. MacCal um as his sons and herder stopped firing. “Stay down. Could be it's a trick.”

  Then Mariah heard the most wonderful sound in the world, so wonderful that a grateful sob burst out of her, frightening her in-laws. She heard Stuart cal , “Douglas!”

  Her father hadn't come— Stuart had! He was here, as promised. Stuart was safe. And somehow, he'd even stopped the shooting.

  Between what Stuart knew of the terrain, and what his father-in-law knew of soldiering, the gunnysackers had no chance. The cowboys led their horses carefully across one of the steepest fords on the gulch, divided into two flanks and took the gunmen whol y by surprise.

  The only shots fired were to get their attention.

  Better even than the sight of the regulators reaching high, empty-handed, was seeing how cleverly Da and Douglas had set in for a counter ambush. They'd clearly had advanced notice, thanks to Thaddeas.

  Which meant Mariah had to be safe.

  “Douglas!” he cal ed again, ears ringing. “Da!”

  They rose from the shelter of the wash, then, rifles in hand, blessedly uninjured. Da, Douglas, old Jules, even Kevin, and—

  Stuart stared in a moment of lancing, belated terror. She hadn't!

  Only because of his panicked hesitation did he not immediately rush forward to meet Mariah as she ran toward him. Only because of that did he glimpse movement off to his right—

  Behind a rock, where nobody had been firing before, he saw a reflection of gunmetal.

  Too slowly, Stuart turned, shouldered his Winchester—and realized Mariah was wearing his hat, his coat, their muffler.

  Too slowly, he aimed. Too desperately slo
wly, he fired—not in time to beat the gunman's first shot.

  A spurt of flame lit Idaho Johnson's glassy-eyed determination to kil what, in the night, looked like Stuart MacCal um. The gunman fel back from Stuart's shot, as surely as the mountain lion had. But the lion had not been armed. Johnson began to struggle back up—

  Then jerked backward again, again, when two more rifle shots cracked into the night—Jacob and Thaddeas Garrison's.

  Assured that the “range detective” had been stopped, Stuart spun back to where Mariah had fal en

  —and started to run. No. No... She must not be hurt, had to be al right...

  And as if in answer to his prayer—their prayer— Mariah raised her head to glance in the direction of the gunman. Then she scrambled to her feet, unhurt, and rushed toward Stuart even before she had her balance.

  He caught her to him, clutched her soft body tightly enough to break bones, knocked his old hat off her head as he kissed across her face, his world safe and whole again. “Oh God,” he breathed—

  he who never took the Lord's name in vain. "Oh God, lass. What were you thinking? What in the name of holiness are you doing here?"

  “I was protecting the sheep!” she exclaimed, laughing beneath his kisses.

  “Hang the sheep!” And Stuart pulled her so tightly against him that she couldn't possibly speak, hid his own face in her hair so that perhaps none of her father's cowboys would see the tears burning at his eyes. Johnson had thought she was him.

  She'd nearly died, mistaken for him.

  When Mariah managed to wriggle enough freedom to tilt her face up to his again, no

  condemnation shadowed her expression. “You came!” she told him happily. “Oh, you came!”

  As if she could have doubted it.

  “I told you I would,” he reminded her, framing her face in his hands. “I would come through hel for you. You know that.”

  Mariah said, “Yes, Stuart. I know that.”

  And he held her, and trembled, and tried to breathe. She was al he needed in the world....

  Even amidst shouts and gunsmoke, what a bright, fine world she made of it.

  Safe in Stuart's embrace, savoring his touch and smel and warmth again, the burr of his voice and the solidity of his big arms around her, Mariah hardly noticed the rest of the world. She had no reason to. Then little snatches, voices, vaguely familiar, began to register through the blissful y isolating echo of gunfire in her head.

  “This 'un needs a sawbones.”

  “So does the horse; likely deserves it more.”

  “I know you—Stinky Hal!”

  “This 'un's Bucky Bolt! These boys are from the Triple-Bar, Boss! Ever one of 'em!”

  The Triple-Bar, she thought vaguely, her cheek on Stuart's shoulder. The Triple-Bar.

  Colonel Wright's ranch. But no! Colonel Wright was ... was ...

  Not the man she'd foolishly, childishly hoped.

  “Oh, Stuart,” she breathed, horrified yet again by her gullibility. “You were right! It was the ranchers....”

  Stuart said, “Whist, love. So were you.” He kissed her, softly. “It wasna al of them.”

  “Wel I'l be!” Her own brother's voice startled Mariah further out of the prayerful stil ness she'd wrapped around herself and Stuart. “You won't believe it, but this son-of-a-gun is stil breathing!”

  Stuart turned then, too. “Johnson?” he cal ed to Thaddeas, over Mariah's head.

  “That's the one!”

  Stuart dropped his intense gaze to Mariah's, somehow confused and relieved, ashamed and happy al at the same time—and she pressed her lips gratefully to his. She would love him even if he had kil ed that son of a ... gun.

  But she also loved that he preferred not to.

  Somehow, just that old, easy recognition of each other's thoughts, beyond their desperate embrace, embarrassed them both at the same time. They were, after al , surrounded by cowboys and brothers ...

  And fathers!

  “You brought Papa?” Mariah exclaimed foolishly, only now spotting her father amidst the

  movement and shadows. He was tying a gunnysacker's hands together, carefully not looking in her direction. She blushed to realize that he'd seen her and Stuart holding each other like this—but joy overrode any real embarrassment. When hadn't she forgotten herself around Stuart MacCal um?

  And now ... “Stuart, you brought Papa!”

  Stuart ducked his head, self-conscious. “It was... mutual, lass.”

  "How? What did you say to him? Has he said anything to you? Wil you come to dinner on Sunday now? Why did—"

  “Go on,” ordered Stuart gruffly, and turned her toward her father. “Go ask him yourself, and you can tel me. I've sheep to tend.”

  Mariah remembered the poor ewes, sacrificed as a decoy. “Oh!”

  “I'l do it. Now go!”

  So as Stuart stepped away from her and back to work—but not so terribly far, she made sure of that— Mariah navigated the rocky, faintly moonlit ground to her father's side.

  “Papa?”

  “Mariah Lynn.” He tightened a knot, and the cowboy he was tying grunted in pain. “Trust you're wel .” As if they were meeting outside church.

  “Thanks to al of you, I am,” she assured him, taking his arm before he could turn to the next task.

  “And Victoria and Evangeline, for warning us.”

  Thaddeas appeared at her elbow, then. “Victoria's here? I told her to stay in town!”

  Papa snorted and went back to tying up bad guys. Tightly.

  “They're at the MacCal um homestead,” Mariah assured her brother, giving him a much deserved hug as wel —but continual y peeking toward where Stuart was doctoring the sheep.

  “The little...” Thaddeas shook his head, eyes narrowed. “I cannot wait to see how she explains herself this time.”

  “Best go fetch your sister home, then,” suggested then-father, handing the last uninjured bad guy off to Hank Schmidt. Almost under his breath he added, grudgingly, "And that Taylor girl, too, I reckon."

  Mariah thought of what her father's notice would mean to Evangeline and gave him a hug, even as he took command in his usual, imperious way. "Schmidt, you and the boys take these murderin'

  dogs into town; give that deputy some help standin' guard so's he don't forget where he put them.

  Sheriff and I had best pay a cal on the Colonel."

  He scowled down at Mariah then, but more in his distracted, thinking way than with any real anger. He added, reluctant, “Reckon Mariah's sheep farmer wil want to be there, too.”

  “ 'Mariah's sheep farmer,' ” announced Stuart, “has got livestock to tend.” He even looked up from the ewe that struggled to her feet under his competent hands. "I guess I can trust you to handle it."

  Papa nodded slow chal enge at the return jibe. “You guess.”

  Mariah wanted to laugh. But there were things she should have said from the start, things left too-long unsaid. "Papa—have you ever wanted to do something you knew wasn't proper, but you did it anyway? Even once?"

  Coiling what was left of his rope, Papa surprised her with a simple, “Yep.”

  “Wel ...” She took a deep breath. "I knew you wouldn't want me seeing Stuart, and I did it anyway.

  No matter how wonderfully it's turned out—and oh, it has— I owe you an apology for deceiving you. You deserved more than that. You stil do. Can you forgive me?"

  Her father looped the rope onto the saddlehorn of his buckskin gelding. “Yep.”

  And the last of the shadows that had clung to her marriage fel away, leaving her feeling free and unfettered— and perhaps a bit too confident. She dared ask, "Did whatever you did wrong turn out anywhere near as wonderful as Stuart has for me?"

  Pausing, her father looked down at her for a long, quiet moment—and she realized that at some point, beneath his gruffness, the affection had returned to his steely eyes. "Ain't none of your business, Mariah Lynn."

  But he almost smiled as he said
it. And when he focused on someone just beyond her, and she felt Stuart's warm, heavy arms wrap around her waist from behind, Papa did not even scowl—even if the hint of a smile vanished, for the moment. Her father's smiles never did last long anyway.

  “Someday,” announced Mariah happily, leaning her head back into Stuart's chest, “you two are going to be great friends.”

  Both men spoke at the same time. “I doubt it.”

  Mariah laughed her delight. Stuart just held her, unforgettably there whether she saw him or not.

  And her father, shaking his head in disgust, rode off to see justice done.

  When they reached their sheep-wagon, Stuart swung his wife into his arms, carried her into the wagon—to their bed—and made love to her until she forgot her own name.

  But she never once forgot his.

  In the hushed, naked intimacy afterward, they held each other as if they need never let go again ...

  and perhaps they need not. Seen pragmatical y, everything might not be al right.

  But of the important things—far, far more was right than he'd ever dared dream.

  “Your da offered me a job,” he admitted, despite that it was two months after the fact. Having seen more of the men from the Garrison outfit today, he supposed that maybe, maybe, it wasn't quite the insult he'd first thought.

  “He did?” Mariah's voice tickled him, reflected her incredulity. “Doing what?”

  The idea was sil y enough that Stuart could not say it without a smile. “Cowboying.”

  She laughed, and he let her. He loved her laughter... and her tears, and her voice, and her silence.

  He loved her optimism and her disil usionment, her strength and her loyalty.

  He would do anything for her, should have done it months ago. “If you want me to ...”

  And Mariah stopped laughing. “You aren't serious!”

  “Dougie can file on my claim, take over the flock.” He propped himself up on an elbow, so that she could see just how serious he was. "You deserve more than to be made outcast, just because I'm stubborn enough to run sheep in cattle country. Surely those great ugly beasts canna be that different from sheep...."

  “No,” decided Mariah firmly.

  “No?” He felt relief, except... she did not mean to even discuss it?