Pete (The Cowboys)

by Leigh Greenwood

  “You not feeling good?” he asked.

  She looked startled by his question. “I’m feeling fine.”

  “You’re about as talkative as a corpse.”

  “I don’t have anything to say.”

  “You chattered like a magpie when we first started. You tired?” They’d been in the buckboard for nearly six hours. Pete was so used to working long hours in the goldfields, he didn’t realize a woman used to staying in the house all day would probably be exhausted by now. “You are tired, aren’t you?”

  “A little.”

  “You mean you’re about to keel over. Why didn’t you ask me to stop?”

  “That wouldn’t help. It would just take longer to get to town, and you wouldn’t like it.”

  Did he come across that ruthless? “I’m not used to being around women. I don’t know what they think, what they feel, or what they need. You’ll have to tell me.

  “Is that why your store failed?”

  “Huh?”

  “Not understanding women. I would imagine women did most of the shopping. From what I can see, men don’t like it much.”

  “Probably.” He wondered if he’d ever learn to think before he opened his mouth. This business of pretending to be somebody else was tricky. Just as soon as he could find those men and get his money back, he was going to light a shuck to anywhere south of Wyoming Territory.

  Only abandoning Anne still bothered him. Getting the papers that proved she was married to Peter was the only way she’d be safe. But he couldn’t even be sure she’d be safe then. Women like Anne needed a man to take care of them, especially in a place like Wyoming. Men generally wouldn’t work for a woman. And if she found one who would, he’d probably steal from her. He ought to stay until she got proof she was Peter’s widow. Then, before he left, he could make sure she had a good foreman. Of course it meant he’d have to actually run the ranch until then. It wasn’t something he’d planned to do—he’d vowed to have nothing to do with cows when he left Texas—but it wouldn’t be hard. Jake had taught him well. He might even like it enough to stay.

  What man wouldn’t like stepping into ownership of a huge ranch, becoming a wealthy man overnight? He didn’t mind the work. It couldn’t be harder than working in the goldfields. Having his own bathroom made it look even better.

  A man could get used to being rich. Peter Warren was dead. Belser didn’t deserve the ranch. As far as Pete was concerned, if he decided to stay, he wouldn’t be stealing anything from anybody. His conscience tried to tell him otherwise, but he wouldn’t listen.

  But even as the idea occurred to him, he knew it wouldn’t work. First, he didn’t want to be married. He liked his freedom. After a dozen years of wandering where he wanted, doing whatever he liked, he wasn’t about to give it up for the shackles of married life. Second, if he did want to get married, he didn’t want an innocent like Anne, even though she was very pretty. He liked strong women. Last of all, he wanted to find the men with his money.

  He couldn’t put off looking for the men much longer. Even though he was certain Belser had hired them to do the killing, he didn’t want to give them time to leave the area with his money.

  “You got some friends in town?” he asked Anne.

  “No.”

  “I thought all women were friends. There aren’t enough of you to have enemies.”

  “I don’t have any enemies,” Anne said, her eyes downcast. “I don’t know anybody because neither Mama nor I went to town much after Papa died. It’s too far, and Uncle Carl didn’t want to bother with us. He said he could buy us anything we needed.”

  “I suppose that’s why you have so many ugly clothes.”

  Her smile was faint. “He didn’t think a woman should draw attention to herself.”

  “What have clothes got to do with that?”

  “Uncle Carl thought a woman ought to work hard for her keep. He thought nice clothes made women think too much of themselves, set too much importance on what they wanted, what they thought. He said if a woman had nice clothes, she wouldn’t work very hard for fear she’d mess them up.”

  “I’m surprised he ever got married.”

  “Uncle Carl was very rich. Lots of women wanted to marry him.”

  It made him smile to think what Isabelle would have said about such a man.

  “Do you find that funny?” Anne asked.

  “No. Just thinking about something else.” They were approaching the town of Big Bend. Not that it deserved such a grandiose name. The bend was in a creek, and it was little more than a hook to the right. Besides, there wasn’t enough water in the creek to deserve the name.

  “You hungry?” Pete asked.

  Anne shook her head, but Pete didn’t believe her. They’d been too hurried to do more than get a few swallows of coffee before leaving.

  “Well, I’m starving. You ought to eat more. Maybe you wouldn’t be so little.”

  That remark seemed to upset her. He had to be careful what he said. She appeared to be sensitive on a whole lot of subjects. He figured that meant somebody had been picking on her for a long time. He didn’t like that. It wasn’t much of a man who went around picking on a woman to make himself feel big.

  “We’ll see about getting a room in a hotel first. I’m just about ready to get down from this blackboard. How about you?”

  She nodded with a weak smile. “I must admit I haven’t ridden in one all that much.”

  “I’ll fix that. No point in your being stuck in the house all the time. You ought to get out, get to know the ranch. How would you know what to do if something happened to me and you suddenly had to run it?”

  She looked stunned, as though the idea had never occurred to her. “I don’t know. I guess I’d let Eddie run it.”

  “I’m sure Eddie’s a great foreman, but Jake says you ought never to let anybody know more about your own business than you do. Unless you want to lose it.”

  “Who’s Jake?”

  “Isabelle’s husband. Remember, the pair that adopted all those orphans?”

  “Oh. You talk like he’s somebody you knew.”

  Clearly he was never going to learn to think before he opened his mouth. He was just going to have to be more nimble at inventing lies. He hoped he could remember all of them. “I feel like I know him. My friend, the one from Texas, talked about him all the time.”

  “Oh. I thought you might have gone to Texas yourself, maybe met him there.”

  Why hadn’t he thought of that? No reason why this Peter fella had to stay closed up in a hardware store in Illinois for all those years. Besides, he lost the store, didn’t he? Maybe he was off somewhere else.

  “I did, for a while. That’s where I learned about ranches. Of course, Texas ranches are different from ranches in Wyoming.”

  “I thought all cows were the same.”

  “Cows are. The land isn’t.”

  Before Pete had time to explain, the sound of a bullet splintering the wood floor of the buckboard was followed instantly by the boom of a rifle. Somebody was trying to kill him again!

  Chapter Six

  “Get down!” Pete shouted as a second bullet smashed into the buckboard. Anne sat frozen on the seat. Pete thought he was the target, but he couldn’t be certain. He pushed Anne from the seat onto the wooden floor. She tumbled to her right, hitting her head. He hoped she wasn’t hurt, but right now he was more concerned about getting off this trail alive. If they could just get out of rifle range, they’d be safe.

  Pete dropped to the floor and whipped up the reins. The horses didn’t need much encouragement to break into a gallop. He looked around as best he could, but a thick growth of juniper covered the low hills on either side of the trail. He could see no sign of the rifleman.

  Rifle fire followed them along the trail, but the bushwhacker didn’t hit the buckboard again. Still, Pete didn’t pull the horses out of a hard gallop until he was a thousand yards down the trail. He climbed up on the seat so he could look ba
ck, but as expected, he didn’t see anyone following. He pulled back on the reins, and the horses gradually slowed. When they finally came to a halt, he reached down to help Anne back up on the seat.

  “Are you hurt?” he asked.

  She shook her head. She hadn’t moved from where she had fallen. Pete lifted her back onto the seat. All the color had drained from her face. She didn’t look scared. She looked petrified.

  “Let me see where you hit your head,” Pete said.

  She didn’t move. Pete took her face in his hands and gently turned her head. He didn’t see a bruise or broken skin. Apparently her hat had protected her.

  “Does your head hurt?”

  “No.”

  Her voice sounded small, unsteady. She turned to look at the two holes in the floor of the buggy.

  “That man was trying to kill you, wasn’t he?” she asked.

  “It looked that way,” Pete said. And he would give odds that if he had been killed, the bushwacker would have then turned his fire on Anne. As Peter’s wife, she stood to inherit the ranch on his death.

  “He came very close.”

  “Naw. Anybody good with a rifle would have gotten me with the first shot.” Which told him that the bushwhacker wasn’t one of the two men who’d killed Peter and nearly killed him. Those men had been deadly accurate.

  “But why would they want to kill you?” Anne asked.

  “To get the ranch.”

  “But it would be my ranch if you died.”

  “They probably think you’d be so anxious to leave, you’d sell it for a low price. You’ve got the best grazing land in the area. Any one of fifty people could want it.” He didn’t want her to realize how close she might be to becoming a target.

  “If they killed me, they wouldn’t have to buy it, would they?”

  “I expect they would prefer to buy. Much less trouble that way.”

  “Then why don’t they offer you money?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe they think I saw them when they tried to kill me the first time.”

  “Did you?”

  “No. It was dark, and they were coming up to the campfire. I didn’t see anything but shadows.” Boots and spurs, but nothing he could remember. He started the horses moving again. “We’re safe now. He won’t try again.”

  “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  “Go on into town, get a hotel room, and eat. I don’t know about you, but I’m starved.”

  “You’re just going to forget it?”

  “No, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I can’t go after that man. I don’t have a horse. Besides, he’d be gone long before I got there. There’s no use telling the sheriff. He won’t know any more than we do.”

  “But you’ve got to tell the sheriff. Owen is a good man. He’ll go after him.”

  Pete knew there was nothing to go after. The ground was covered with needles under the junipers. There wouldn’t be any prints. If the bushwhacker picked up his spent shells, there wouldn’t be any evidence that there’d even been a bushwhacker. Except for the holes in the buckboard.

  “Okay, I’ll tell the sheriff. But first let’s find a hotel so you can lie down and rest. You’re worn out from riding in this contraption. Having to dodge bullets can’t have made you feel too chipper.”

  Her laughter was unexpected.

  “No, not chipper, but I’m also not scared to death. I thought I would be, but I can’t be scared with you acting like you get shot at every day. Does this sort of thing happen a lot in Illinois?”

  Not in Illinois, but it did in the goldfields. “No, but it’s happened a lot since I got to Wyoming.” He had been so busy worrying about her, he’d forgotten Peter would probably be having a fainting spell about now.

  “You must have the luck of the Irish.”

  “Sure do. Got it straight from an Irishman, my old partner, Sean O’Ryan. He said I’d need it to survive without him.”

  “I didn’t know you had a partner.”

  Damn! Him and his big mouth. “I didn’t for long. Now it’s time to stop asking me questions and decide on a hotel.”

  The town of Big Bend owed its existence to an army fort two miles away. Saloons and houses of prostitution stood side by side with merchants, blacksmiths, and lawyers’ offices. The town boasted two banks but no church. All the business was congregated on either side of the main street. Private homes occupied the few streets that fell away from the main street. The Big Horn mountains in the background formed a beautiful backdrop.

  They’d reached the Grand Union Hotel. It looked like a decent place. “This hotel all right with you?”

  “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been here.”

  “Well, if you don’t like it, we can go someplace else, but it looks fine to me. As soon as we get our rooms, you can freshen up while I look after the horses. After that we’ll get something to eat. Then we’ll see about doing some business.”

  “Won’t somebody at the hotel take care of the horses for you?”

  “That’s something else Jake used to say. Always take care of your own horses, and you’ll never be left stranded.”

  Anne seemed to have heard enough of Jake and Isabelle that she no longer questioned references to them. Now he had to figure out why Anne seemed to be drawing into herself. She was small enough already. If she kept shrinking, she’d soon disappear.

  Pete put his arms out to lift her down from the buckboard. His hands almost met around her waist. She put her hands on his shoulders, leaned her weight against him. He felt her tremble. He couldn’t understand why she should be afraid. Certainly not of him.

  He, however, would have to start being a little afraid of himself. He was beginning to find her too attractive. She was tiny and she was young, but she was a woman. A very pretty woman. He would have to be dead not to think her pretty, not to think of doing more than treating her like a brother.

  He’d do better if he didn’t let himself think about that.

  He picked up the saddlebags he’d borrowed from Uncle Carl’s closet and headed toward the hotel.

  The lobby was typical. A lounge area was to the right as they entered. Overstuffed chairs and tables were covered with magazines, a few books, and an occasional newspaper. A profusion of spittoons and cuspidors indicated that the patrons were mostly male. The desk was on the left, the stairs just beyond that. A restaurant at the back of the hotel could be seen through a set of doors with glass panes.

  Pete walked up to the desk. “I want a room for the night,” he told the man behind the desk. “Make it a nice one. I just got married. This is my wife’s first trip to town.”

  The man, probably on the shady side of forty, smiled at Anne with a look that in other circumstances Pete would have called a leer. “Your wedding night, is it?”

  “No, but it’s close enough.”

  Anne blushed rosily, but at least she didn’t turn white. That was an improvement.

  “I can give you number six,” the clerk said.

  “Does it have a private bath? I don’t want to be sharing with every stranger on the hall.”

  “It has its own bath,” the clerk said, offended. “It’s our best room. It’s on the back corner, so the street noise won’t disturb you.” He grinned broadly and directed another look at Anne. Much more, and Pete was going to have to have a talk with him. “How many nights will you be staying?”

  “Just one.”

  The clerk looked disappointed. Pete took the key from his resisting grip.

  “We’ll take good care of it. Now where do I find it?”

  “It’s on the second floor,” the clerk said, clearly annoyed. “Take the stairs to the first landing. It’ll be at the end of the hall.”

  “Come on,” Pete said to Anne. “I’m starved.”

  It took only a matter of minutes to reach their room. “Not bad,” Pete said when he unlocked the door. “I’ve stayed in a lot worse.”

  He was pleased to see that Anne appeared impressed w
ith the room. A huge mahogany bed competed for dominance with an equally huge wardrobe. Two chairs with a table and lamp provided an inviting corner for relaxation. Tables with extra lamps flanked the bed. Pete dropped the saddlebags on the bed and opened the bathroom door. He was pleased to see a washstand and bathtub with a mahogany surround.

  “I’m off to see about the horses and drop in on the sheriff,” he said to Anne when he came back into the room. “I’ll leave you to wash the trail dust from your face.” He rubbed his finger along her cheek. “Fix yourself up pretty. I want to show you off to all the locals. Sort of rub it in. After all, one of them could have caught you if they hadn’t been so slow.”

  Anne watched the door close behind Pete, her hand on her cheek where he had touched her. So many conflicting emotions bombarded her mind that she couldn’t think clearly.

  She was still shaken by the attack on the road. It was one thing for Pete to tell her he’d been shot. She could even empathize with some of the suffering he had endured while his wound healed, but it was all remote, unreal, something she’d heard about. The shots this morning had been real. There was nothing imaginary or remote about them. In case she forgot, she had only to look at the holes in the blackboard to remember how close they’d come to being killed.

  She found it difficult to think of herself as being in the middle of a murderous plot to take the ranch from Pete. Nothing like this had happened on the Tumbling T since she’d been born. Uncle Carl’s rule had been supreme. Now Uncle Carl was dead and someone had twice tried to kill Pete.

  Only they had failed. Pete was still alive. She found that hard to explain.

  The Peter she remembered would never have had the strength to get on a horse and stay on, conscious, until he reached someone who could care for him. The Peter she remembered would have panicked if anyone had shot at him. He certainly wouldn’t have shoved her to the bottom of the buckboard and calmly driven to safety. Neither would he have known when they were out of rifle range. He would have raced all the way into town.