Her gaze again settled on Madeline, and Dulcie’s resolve strengthened. She could do it. She had to do it. For Madeline’s sake.
LEAVING Collie at the Gearsons’ proved more difficult than Rye anticipated. If the boy had carried on, it might have been easier. Instead, Collie remained mute and rigid, letting nothing of how he felt show in his face.
Mrs. Gearson had the two youngest children at home while the older ones were in school.
“Go on up and put your things away,” she ordered Collie without any sign that he’d even been gone.
“Yes, ma’am.” The lad didn’t look back when he trudged into the house.
“What happened to his hand?” Mrs. Gearson asked, more out of curiosity than concern.
“A couple of blisters broke. Didn’t want them getting infected,” Rye replied, fidgeting in the saddle. “He’s a good kid. Hard worker.”
Mrs. Gearson nodded. “When it’s something he wants to do, he can work.” She narrowed her gaze. “You movin’ on then?”
“In a day or two.”
“Surprised you didn’t stay to help Pollard’s daughter with the crop.”
He looked past her, into the dim interior of the house where Collie had vanished. “Time to be leaving.” He focused on her again. “Take care of him.”
“No need to fret about him. We’ll give him a place to sleep, clothes on his back, and food for his belly. It’s our Christian duty.”
He noticed she didn’t mention anything about love or affection.Again, he was struck by the wrongness of leaving Collie with this family.
“If someone else would be willing to take him, would you let him go?” he asked.
She narrowed her eyes. “Depends on who it was. If it’s a drifter like yourself, I wouldn’t. I owe his folks a decent place for him to be raised.”
Rye suspected Collie’s parents would also want their son to be loved. But Mrs. Gearson was right. Collie deserved to know where he’d be sleeping every night. He took a deep breath to ease the burning in his chest. “I’d best find a place to stay tonight.”
She returned to the house as Rye rode away. He blanked his mind, tried not to think of Collie or Dulcie or Madeline. He stopped at the livery and arranged for a place for Smoke as well as permission to sleep there himself. With very little money left, Rye couldn’t afford both a hotel room and a meal.
As Rye cleaned up in the livery using a pail of water, the brawny liveryman, Burt, kept him company.
“I seen you in town before,” Burt commented in between puffs from his rolled smoke.
“I’ve been working at the Pollard place,” Rye said.
“For Dulcie?”
Rye paused to glance at the man. “You know her?”
Burt shrugged. “Sure. She grew up here. Lots of folks know her. She was kind of a wild filly.”
“What do you mean?”
The man held up his beefy hands with fingers stained with tobacco and dirt. “Nothin’. Only that you could tell she was lookin’ for a way outta Locust. Found one, too, with some soldier boy passin’ through.”
Burt’s voice insinuated he knew something more.
“A lot of girls want to get hitched and get their own home,” Rye commented.
“But not all of them get knocked up before they stand in front of the preacher.”
Knowing Jerry, Rye shouldn’t have been surprised. However, the Dulcie he knew was nothing like that girl Burt was telling him about. At least, she hadn’t been when he first met her. Another possibility occurred to him—maybe she had been intending to trap him all along.
It would explain her forwardness. If she caught him, she’d have a man to take care of the farm. Yet, if that was her intention in the beginning, why did she wear men’s clothing that covered her figure? No, he didn’t believe it. Dulcie wasn’t a woman to use herself to gain favor.
“When she come back this spring with that peddler fellah, I could see they knew each other pretty well, too, if you get my meanin’.” Burt winked at him.
Rye’s hand curled into a fist, but he managed to curb his impulse. “No, I don’t,” he said coldly.
Burt’s lewd expression faltered and he covered it with a shrug. “Well, Lamont is back, so it’ll be interestin’ to see what happens.”
It was Lamont who’d told the sheriff he’d seen Pollard arguing with Carpenter when Dulcie said her father was passed out drunk in their barn.
If Burt was right about Dulcie and Lamont, it would explain why she’d been so reluctant to tell Rye about him. Still, if she wanted to clear her father’s name, she’d have to face Lamont at some point.
“You must’ve known her father then,” Rye said, keeping his voice casual.
Burt nodded. “I knew him. Always a drinker but got worse the last year or so, after the missus died. Seen it happen more than once. A man loses his woman and crawls into a bottle, like he’s goin’ to find her there.”
Rye flinched inwardly at the man’s too-accurate words. “From what I heard, he was a murderer, too,” he said, keeping his tone bland.
Burt shifted, and his gaze turned downward. “That’s what everyone said.”
Rye faced him. “You didn’t believe he was?”
“He used to do some muckin’ out in here so he could buy his whiskey. He had a temper, but I never seen him hit no one.”
“Why didn’t you speak up?”
Burt dropped the end of his smoke and ground it under his heel. “Wouldn’t have made no difference. Everyone figgered he killed Carpenter.”
“Were you one of those who put a noose around his neck?”
Burt swallowed and shook his head. “No, but I didn’t do nothin’ to stop them that did neither.”
“Do you know those who were involved in the lynching?”
“Don’t matter anymore. Frank’s gone.”
“It matters to Dulcie,” Rye said quietly.
The big man sighed. “Yeah, I reckon it does.” He scratched his whiskers. “Y’hear that the Carpenters is leavin’ town?”
Startled, Rye shook his head.
“Heard tell they’re movin’ to Denver. Too many bad memories here, I s’pose.” Burt wandered off.
Rye absently tucked the tails of his shirt in his pants. He couldn’t really blame Carpenter’s widow and stepson for leaving. If he was in their place, he might do the same.
Adjusting his hat, he considered what to do next. If he wanted to find the instigators behind Pollard’s lynching, he’d have to go where men’s talk tended to be careless.
Rye strode across the street and entered the saloon. He walked directly to the bar and ordered coffee and a meal. After the bartender handed him the cup of coffee, Rye went to an empty table at the back to wait for his food. As he sipped the hot bitter sludge, he looked around. About a dozen men sat around in groups of twos and threes, talking in low voices punctuated by occasional bellows of laughter or a loud belch. The stink of stale liquor, dirty sawdust, and unwashed bodies nearly undid Rye’s conviction to learn the truth. But then he remembered the betrayal in Dulcie’s face and his resolve strengthened. After he’d hurt her so badly, he wanted— needed—to do this for her.
Fifteen minutes after he sat down, a plump woman wearing a stained apron brought out a plate of overcooked steak, watery potatoes and gravy, and some beans that looked like they’d been boiled to mush. He ate the bland food, trying not to remember the meal he’d eaten earlier that day with Dulcie and the children.
When Rye was done eating, he carried his plate to the bar and got a refill for his coffee. He remained standing by the bar, trying not to notice how the lamplight turned the whiskey bottles on the shelf a rich amber color, or how the smell got into him, searching for that familiar place that couldn’t deny the whiskey.
Rye’s hands trembled as he fought the restless urge to grab one of those brown bottles and lift it to his mouth. He licked his lips and could almost taste the sharp burn, the promise of oblivion.
No!
; It wouldn’t win. Rye had paid a steep price for his weakness. He had no intention of paying again.
He finished his coffee, not even noticing the caustic taste. “More,” he said to the bartender.
The man shook his head, obviously not liking to serve coffee when he had watered-down whiskey and piss-weak beer to serve his customers. But he returned from the back room with the pot and sloshed more coffee into Rye’s cup. Rye gave him a nod.
“You got somethin’ against liquor?” the bartender asked.
Rye shrugged. “Nope. As long as I’m not drinking it.”
The man grunted and returned the coffeepot to the back.
“Quiet tonight,” Rye commented.
The bartender shrugged. “Usual. Come Saturday night things liven up.”
“Bet it was pretty lively the night of the hangin’,” Rye commented.
“You around then?”
“Heard about it. Frontier justice at its best.”
“Hell, the circuit judge don’t come by but every two, three months. No reason to waste good food on a murderer since he was gonna hang anyhow.”
The bartender’s callous disregard for a man’s life made Rye’s stomach churn and the coffee burned from the inside out.
Rye forced himself to lean forward and smile conspiratorially. “You help take care of the killer?”
The bartender glanced around warily. “It weren’t just one person.”
Rye guffawed. “Well, I figured that.” He turned and leaned against the bar, making a show of looking at every man in the saloon. “I’ll bet most of these fellahs helped out justice.”
“Maybe. And maybe most of the town was involved, too.” Rye’s mouth grew dry, and he kept his back to the bartender. “That so? That’d make it mighty difficult to arrest anyone.”
The bartender chuckled. “Who says the sheriff wasn’t a part of it, too?”
Rye turned around slowly. Although the bartender was grinning, Rye suspected he wasn’t joking. No wonder Dulcie had never learned anything. Everybody protected everybody else with a conspiracy of silence. He felt sick and empty, like right after Slater had been taken away by his new parents.
A suited man about Rye’s age entered the saloon. He removed his narrow-brimmed derby hat and brushed some dust from its crown as he made his way to the bar.
“I heard you were back, Lamont,” the bartender said.
“Word gets around fast,” the man said. He smiled, revealing a gold tooth.
So this was the peddler Dulcie might have— If Rye finished the thought, he’d wind up punching the bastard. Instead, he had to find out why the man had lied about Dulcie’s father. He pasted on a smile and turned to the peddler, hating his too-handsome face and perfectly coiffed hair.
“So you’re the peddler I’ve heard about,” Rye began.
Lamont turned to him with a salesman’s smile. “My reputation precedes me.”
Rye shrugged. “I heard you were the one who got a man hanged.”
Lamont’s expression faltered. “That man was a murderer.”
“I heard he was nowhere near Carpenter when the man was murdered.”
The peddler straightened his lapels and glared at Rye. “I only told the sheriff what I saw.”
Rye calmed himself, not wanting to scare the man off. “Then I guess he got what he had coming.”
Lamont visibly relaxed. “I don’t think we’ve met. Virgil Lamont, peddler of the ordinary and extraordinary.”
Rye restrained a humorless laugh. “Rye Forrester, drifter.”
Lamont narrowed his eyes. “Forrester, you say?”
Rye nodded warily.
“Any relation to the family down Robles way?”
Rye’s breath stuttered. “I don’t know. I have two brothers, but I haven’t seen them in a long time. Slater and Creede.”
“Creede. That was his name, and his lovely wife Laurel.”
The breath left Rye’s lungs. Was this Creede Forrester his long-lost brother? He drew in a shaky breath and forced nonchalance. “Near Robles, you said?”
The peddler nodded. “Cotton farmer. I heard his wife was from some city out east. Can’t imagine why she chose to live in the middle of nowhere with a farmer.”
“Maybe because she loves her husband,” Rye said, his thoughts still caught up in maybe finding his brother after all these years.
Lamont tilted his head and studied Rye like he was some odd insect. “Don’t you know love is just like those goods in my wagon? It can be bought and sold for the right price.”
Rye smiled grimly. “That’s not love, Lamont. That’s rutting.”
Lamont laughed as if Rye just told a joke. “Call it what you will, Forrester, and I’ll do the same.”
Suddenly feeling overwhelmed by the day’s events as well as the possibility that his brother could be only a few days’ ride away, Rye pushed away from the bar.
“Leaving so soon?” Lamont asked.
“Long day. Gonna be around for a while?”
Lamont nodded. “I’ll be peddling my wares here for a few days.”
Rye smiled a predator’s smile. “I’m sure we’ll run into each other again.”
Rye felt Lamont’s narrow-eyed gaze on his back as he left the saloon. Once outside, he took a deep cleansing breath to ease his trembling. Part of him wanted to get on Smoke and ride to Robles. If he rode hard, he could be there tomorrow night. To find one of his brothers was a dream he’d long ago let die. Only it had been smoldering, not dead, and the peddler had fanned that dream back to life.
But he owed Dulcie. He’d taken away Dulcie’s husband and Madeline’s father, as well as their provider. Now all she had was a farm and no way to do the work needed to make a living on it.
He refused to dwell on the most important reason to stay in Locust—his heart.
TWENTY
ALTHOUGH she was fairly certain Madeline was well on her way to recovery, Dulcie still didn’t like taking her into town. Fortunately it was only a few miles, and the sun shone bright, warming the air.
As the mule plodded along, Dulcie tried to keep her daughter talking. It was better to answer a slew of questions than think about what lay ahead or to dwell on Rye. She hoped he’d left town, yet if that were so, she mourned ever seeing him again.
“Where do clouds come from, Ma?” Madeline asked, her head tipped back to look at the sky.
Dulcie glanced up at the fluffy white cloud lazily floating across the wide blue sky. “My ma used to tell me God made clouds. When He’s happy He makes ones like that. When He’s angry, He makes them dark and scary.”
The girl pointed at some wispy clouds. “What about those? When does He make them?”
Dulcie studied the horsetail-shaped clouds. “He makes those when He’s smiling,” she replied quietly.
“So God’s smiling and happy today.”
“I suppose so, honey.”
Madeline wriggled closer to Dulcie. “I’ll be happy, too, if we see Collie and Mr. Rye.”
Dulcie had been trying hard not to think of them, yet she knew how much her daughter adored both. “We might see Collie since he lives in town, but Mr. Rye was leaving.”
“He didn’t even say bye.”
Dulcie hadn’t given Rye much choice when she’d ordered him off her land, but it would’ve hurt Madeline more if he had said good-bye.
“Remember when your pa had to leave, and he didn’t have time to say good-bye?”
“But Mr. Rye’s lots nicer than Pa. Pa didn’t really care ’bout me.”
Dulcie nearly choked on the lump in her throat. Even his young daughter had known what a poor excuse for a father Jerry had been. And that was the man Dulcie had given herself to—a man even a four-year-old knew was no good. Yet she couldn’t regret that foolish part of her past. If she hadn’t met Jerry, Madeline wouldn’t have been born.
“If Mr. Rye stayed in town, you might get to see him again.” Dulcie knew she shouldn’t get her daughter’s hopes up, but she hated
seeing Madeline so unhappy.
Locust came into sight, reminding Dulcie why they’d made the trip. As much as she dreaded the process of finding someone to cut her wheat, Dulcie had to try. She drew the plodding mule to a stop in front of Coulson’s mercantile and hoped Wendell was working rather than his shrewish wife. After climbing down from the wagon, she lifted Madeline down beside her. The girl took Dulcie’s hand without prompting.
Taking a deep breath and ignoring the looks sent her way, Dulcie led Madeline into the store. At the sight of Mr. Coulson behind the counter, she drew a sigh of relief. He was talking to a suited man with his back toward her. A sense of familiarity swept through her as she tried to determine who he was.
Coulson caught sight of her and smiled. “Mrs. McDaniel, you have any eggs or butter for me today?”
“No, I’m afra—”
The man turned around, shocking her into silence.
“You know Virgil Lamont, the peddler, don’t you?”
She barely heard Coulson’s question over the roaring in her ears.
“Madeline, how are you?” Lamont greeted her daughter as if they were long-lost relatives.
Madeline hid her face in Dulcie’s skirts.
“Shy, isn’t she?” Lamont had the guts to comment. He stepped closer to Dulcie, who barely managed to remain in place. “Mrs. McDaniel, it’s a pleasure to see you again.”
Neither his oily undertone nor his lewd scrutiny was lost on Dulcie. She shivered, but regained her composure. “Mr. Lamont. I’d say it was a pleasure, but the last time you were here, you got my father killed.”
“From what you told me about him, it was no loss.”
Dulcie reacted without thought, but Lamont caught her wrist before her hand landed on his cheek. “I see your temper hasn’t improved overly much.”
She trembled with rage. “Let go.”
He held her for a second longer then abruptly released her. Until this moment, she hadn’t realized how much she hated him. Yet she hated herself, too, for letting him do what he’d done to her.
“Why did you lie to the sheriff about seeing my father with Mr. Carpenter?” she asked, hoping he didn’t notice the tremor in her voice.
A Reason to Believe Page 24