by Easy Jackson
“It sounds enchanting,” Hawkshaw said. “The dream of a lifetime.”
Tennie ignored his sarcasm. She knew he was worried about his future.
“Wash won’t mind you staying there. He wouldn’t want the boys to sell it, though.”
“That’s right, Mr. Hawkshaw,” Rusty said, nodding. “Even falling down, it’s still ours.”
Gid wondered how Lafayette was coming along with the saloon. “I bet it looks jim-dandy by now.”
“Better hope the next group of saloon girls he gets will be easier to get along with than the ones he had before,” Tennie said. “I hope Wash returns before they get there.”
The boys began kidding Gid, saying he was going to fall in love with all the new saloon girls and would probably get fired for mooning over them instead of doing his job. Gid played along with them, talking about finding a little Irish colleen, encouraging them to tease him.
Badger wasn’t the least interested in talking to Gid about women. He turned to Tennie. “Will Rascal even remember me?” he cried.
“Of course, Rascal will know you,” Tennie said. “We haven’t been away that long.”
“Speaking of dogs, I don’t have a hankering to wake one up,” Gid said, “but I’m just a little perturbed thinking about cousin Maribel showing up down here in Texas.”
“Clamp it, Coltrane,” Hawkshaw said, standing and throwing money on the table. “I don’t ever want to hear that woman’s name again. Take Miss Tennie Marshal to the hotel so she can moon over her wandering boyfriend in private. You can sneak these little hooligans over there tonight.” He left the café, the door swinging shut behind him.
“Is he mad at us?” Badger asked.
“Heck no,” Gid said. “He spoke three or four sentences. Didn’t you hear him?”
The men standing at the bar on the other side of the room were beginning to speak louder in brash, rough tones.
Gid rose. “Best get out of here before things get a little tetchy.” He took the last piece of cornpone and stuffed it into his mouth as they headed outside. “Money’s on the table,” he hollered as he opened the door, spewing pieces of cornpone as he talked.
“You boys best catch up with Mr. Hawkshaw,” he said once they were outside. “I got to escort Miss Tennie back to that there hotel and can’t no little Granger mugs be showing up in downtown Waco during daylight.”
* * *
Tennie wanted to dream of Wash again that night, but she didn’t. Once the boys were back, they all fell into deep dreamless sleep, and Tennie had a hard time rousing them before dawn to get them out of the hotel and the town square before they could be seen.
Gid was waiting for them outside. “Hello, little partners.” Turning to Tennie, he gave her instructions from Hawkshaw. “He said for you to get something to eat at the bakery next door. We’ll get everything ready, and I’ll come back and fetch you when it’s time to go.”
“We have to stop at the telegraph office and wire Mr. Lafayette,” Tennie said.
“I ain’t forgot. And I promise I’ll swing by the post office, too.”
Tennie waited until daylight before going next door. It was a Czech bakery, with flour all over the floor, all over the walls, and covering the arms of everyone who worked there. She’d never seen such pastries and felt guilty for spending money on something so unique and delicious looking just for herself. To ease her conscience, she bought treats for the others to eat along the way.
As she left the bakery and shut the door behind her, she turned and almost ran into the sheriff. She came to an abrupt halt, leaning backward. “We’re leaving this morning. I have to send a telegram to Cat Ridge, and we’ll be heading out.”
“No word from Captain Jones, then?” he asked.
“No, sir.” She wanted to walk away, but he blocked her path, and something in his manner held her.
“You riding back to Ring Bit with that cold-blooded gunslinger and that musclebound bonehead? You’re not taking the stagecoach?”
“No, sir. I’m not taking the stagecoach. I’m riding back with the cold-blooded gunslinger and the musclebound bonehead.”
He remained silent for several seconds, making Tennie wonder if he was about to go into another apoplectic fit. But he had made her see how bad it looked, heading back to Ring Bit, not on a respectable stagecoach, but with a hired killer and a former convict.
“Don’t go through Liver Junction anywheres near dark,” he said. “It’s a favorite place for bandits to rob people at night. Best time to pass is early morning, before the trash can shake off the previous night’s drinking.”
“Thank you,” Tennie said, so surprised she could barely squeak the words out.
He stepped aside to let her pass. As she did, he spoke again. “I hope you hear from Wash Jones soon, Mrs. Granger. Me and Wash ain’t always seen eye to eye, but he’s a mighty fine man.”
“Yes. Yes, he is,” she said, and went back to the hotel. She climbed upstairs to her room, shutting the door behind her. As her eyes filled with tears, she turned and slammed her head against the door twice, upset that her actions might cause embarrassment and humiliation to Wash.
There was no word at the post office when she and Gid arrived, nor was there anything at the telegraph office. Tennie sent Lafayette a telegram offering the bald truth.
NOTHING FROM WASH STOP RETURNING RING BIT WITH HAWKSHAW GID BOYS STOP HERDING HORSES END TENNESSEE
The two mares were hitched to a small covered wagon. There was a fancy new saddle on the Appaloosa and an equally expensive sidesaddle thrown inside the wagon. Tennie opened her mouth to ask about them, remembered the few moments Gid had spent beside Inga Milton’s body when her back had been turned, and decided against it. Instead, she asked how much her share of the supplies and wagon would be, but he and Hawkshaw wouldn’t let her pay anything. She wished she had bought them more pastries. They told her they would catch and clean the game, but she would have to be the camp cook. She was happy with that.
Gid got up in the wagon seat with her. She had learned to handle a wagon and team on the way to Texas from Alabama, and she promised to trade off with him.
“That’d be fine, but them there boys need to take a hand,” he said.
Later, Lucas traded places with Tennie, Gid placed the sidesaddle on the Appaloosa, and Tennie climbed up.
“I feel like Queen Victoria or somebody on this thing,” she said, and Gid obliging laughed, understanding the effort it was taking her to pretend all was well.
About an hour outside of Waco, they spied two riders approaching. Gid and Hawkshaw, knowing of the outlaws who nested to the east, immediately took rifles in hand.
As soon as Tennie recognized the riders, she knew the news they would be carrying.
“It’s Mr. Ben and Mr. Poco,” Rusty cried, rising in the saddle and waving his hat to them.
“Who’s that?” Gid asked Lucas.
Lucas likewise waved his hand. “It’s Mr. Wash’s men. They are Texas Rangers who ride with Mr. Wash.”
Gid relaxed his rifle and looked at Tennie. He turned and told Lucas to stop the wagon. Tennie reined the Appaloosa to a halt as the men drew closer, a knot forming in her throat.
When they reached the caravan, the rangers nodded to the others in greeting but rode straight to Tennie.
Ben McNally and Poco Gonzalez-Gonzalez loved Wash perhaps even more than Lafayette did. Ben reached inside his shirt and pulled out a packet of letters and handed them to Tennie.
She took them, looking down at the firm handwriting spelling out her name.
“We were ambushed outside of Corpus Christi by raiders,” Ben said.
Tennie barely heard the rest of it. As he talked, she looked down again at the letters and remembered the beautiful dream about Wash she had experienced. The dream where his love cut across all barriers, and the scars life had put on him were no longer there.
She already knew what the letters would say. She would save them, save them for a time when
she could go off alone to savor and hold dear every word in them.
Poco was saying something about the stagecoach. “We can put you on the stagecoach, Señora Tennie. And escort you back to Ring Bit.”
She blinked her eyes, surprised that so few tears were there. She would cry later. They were all staring at her, waiting for her to reply.
She had to swallow hard to get the words out. “Thank you. You are very kind, but I’ll stay out here on the open range with the others.” She looked down, her mind numb. What was it Lafayette had said? Remembering, she looked up. “These men are good to ride the river with.”
If you missed the first Tennessee Smith western, be sure to keep reading for a special excerpt.
A BAD PLACE TO DIE
A TENNESSEE SMITH WESTERN
by Easy Jackson
There aren’t many options for an eighteen-year-old girl in the Old West. Especially an orphan like Tennessee Smith. She can either sell her body in a seedy saloon or take her chances as a mail-order bride. Tennie chooses the latter. Joining a wagonload of women traveling across Indian territory, she arrives in the godforsaken town of Ring Bit, Texas. Her husband-to-be is surprisingly decent. But after tying the knot in a quickie ceremony, he pops even more surprises on her. First, he introduces Tennie to his three young sons. Then he drops dead on their wedding night . . .
Some women would hightail it out of there. Not Tennie. She’ll do whatever it takes to save the ranch and raise those boys. Rusty is thirteen, Lucas is ten, and Badger is six. They need a mother. Tennie needs a job. And the town needs a marshal. Sure, the local gamblers, outlaws, and thieves have no use for the law. Then again, they never met a lawman—or a woman—like Tennessee Smith . . .
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CHAPTER 1
Tennessee “Tennie” Smith counted nine bullet holes in the RING BIT, TEXAS, sign swaying from one chain on the jail across the street. She glanced at the other buildings in town, most of them new, raw looking, and covered in paint that hadn’t yet begun to peel. A third of them had windowpanes with the glass already broken out. She remained seated in the Conestoga wagon, letting the other excited women alight first, while she hoped the man she was supposed to meet had changed his mind.
“Tennie,” Winn Payton said, holding his hand up to her.
She looked at the lined face with its wide white sideburns and thought Mr. Payton had aged twenty years since they had begun their journey from a state decimated by war through a territory of renegade Indians and disgruntled ex-Confederate bandits. She had no choice but to take his hand and get down.
Three dead men lay bound in tarps on the sidewalk, and Mr. Payton began berating several slack-mouthed loafers for allowing the bodies to remain where the women could see them. An older woman took Tennie by the elbow and propelled her to the nearest storefront window to look at merchandise. Instead of looking at lanterns, shovels, and pickaxes, Tennie saw the image of herself reflected in the glass, an eighteen-year-old with soft curling brown hair, dark eyes wide with apprehension, and plummy lips that trembled despite her determination not to cry.
Moving her eyes away, she caught the reflection of a tall, lean man in his thirties walking on the street behind her. His wide-brimmed hat threw a shadow across half his face, but even so, an old scar running downward across both lips, as if made by the slashing of a knife or a saber, was visible. His eyes squinted as he stared at her in passing, causing her to lower her lashes when she realized he knew she had been observing him. She fought the urge to run to him and beg him to please help her out of the plight she was in. Pausing, she turned and watched him stride into a saloon. A man came out of another saloon, followed by a disheveled, dirty, and half-naked woman who screamed obscenities at him.
Winn Payton appeared at Tennie’s side. “Tennie,” he said in a low voice. “If you don’t fulfill your bargain, that’s what will happen to you.”
She nodded, watching the beleaguered man push the drunken woman aside when he caught sight of them.
“The women are here!” he hollered at the top of his voice. Men began pouring out of buildings, most of them dressed in pants tucked inside boots with jingling spurs, wearing long-sleeved shirts and bright bandannas around their necks. A few others were dressed in suits; all wore hats. The better dressed ones swarmed the women, and soon, Mr. Payton was introducing a gray-haired man to Tennie as Ashton Granger, her betrothed.
At one time, he must have been considered a handsome man. Clean, dressed in a somber suit and a new Leghorn hat, his blue eyes were kind, but Tennie could not hide the dismay from her face. He was much older than she thought he would be. He, in turn, stared at her in surprise and appreciation before a look of apprehension made a slow march across his face.
Before Tennie could even say hello, they were hustled into the church, and after one mass wedding ceremony, she found herself sitting on a wagon seat by a man she’d just met heading for a home she’d never seen.
“It’s not far from town,” Ashton Granger said in a deep, likable voice, and Tennie assumed he was talking about his ranch. A series of popping noises came from a distance, and she turned to him.
“The boys in town are just blowing off steam,” he said. “It’s just a little gunfire. No cause for alarm.”
Tennie knew it was probably more than that. She had already been warned about Ring Bit by a man who had stayed overnight on their wagon train. He had begged Tennie to run away with him rather than have her go to Ring Bit, but Mr. Payton had chosen that day to have the older women tell the younger ones what would be expected of them on their wedding night. After that, Tennie lost all desire to escape with a buffalo hunter who carried with him the overwhelming odor of something dead. Better to take her chances in Ring Bit, even though he had described it as a wild town unsafe and unfit for women.
Tennie stole short glances at her new husband. His skin was gray, and his breath came hard after every exertion. But he did not force himself upon her, and for that, she was thankful. Tennie knew before the night was over, she was probably going to be crying. To get her mind off it, she asked how the town got its name.
“It’s named after a cruel bit used at one time here on wild horses,” he said.
Tennie sighed, feeling fate had put a ring bit in her mouth. After that, she remained quiet.
The first sight of his ranch gave the impression of something that had once been worked on with care, but of late, had been neglected. Fences were falling down, the barns leaned, and one of them had a hole in the roof big enough to put a cow through. The porch of the ranch house had poles stuck under it hither and yonder, trying to hold up a sagging roof. Beside a broken gate, three boys with sullen eyes and turned-down lips watched them approach.
Granger helped her down. Taking her by the hand, he led her to the boys. “Tennie, these are my sons. Rusty is thirteen, Lucas here is ten, and little Badger is six. Boys, say hello to your, er—” He paused. “Say hello to Miss Tennie. We were married in town this afternoon.”
They mumbled something while Tennie said hello. Rusty had reddish hair and freckles. Lucas and Badger resembled their father, blue-eyed and dark haired. Rusty and Lucas looked as slender as spring grass, but Badger still carried baby fat with him.
“We don’t want her here,” Badger said. “Why did you marry her?”
The look on his brothers’ faces said they agreed.
Tennie felt her heart sink. Mr. Payton had only said the boys were “a little rambunctious,” but she recognized malevolence when she saw it.
Granger reprimanded the boys then said, “Come, Tennie. I’ll show you the inside.”
She followed him through the house. It told the same story the outside did, of something once cared for and let go. The woman in the tintype on the mantle looked like Rusty.
“She’s been dead three years,” Granger said.
Tennie wished the woman had never died.
Granger
indicated a chair for her to sit in. Before sitting down, she gave the cushion a surreptitious shake. Not to her surprise, a small grass snake slithered away. The boys looked at one another from under brows lowered in anger.
Granger looked old and tired. Tennie didn’t even try to talk. When the boys announced two riders were approaching the ranch, everyone looked relieved.
Tennie walked outside onto the porch with the others, careful to miss the rotten boards. One man on horseback and another driving a wagon stopped next to the gate. She scanned their faces. With a start, she realized she recognized the one on horseback as the man she had seen in town.
Instead of carrying his guns under a jacket, he had them in the open. Two belts loaded with extra cartridges crisscrossed his leather vest. The collarless shirt he wore belonged to a workingman. Two guns were by his side, one facing butt backward. The one on his left faced butt forward. Both holsters were tied around his striped wool pant legs.
In the dime novel she and the other women had devoured on the wagon train out west, it proclaimed that was the way of a gunfighter, to allow swift removal of a pistol without having it hang in leather. Examining his face closer, Tennie thought him to be in his late twenties or maybe early thirties. By any standard, he looked like a man who knew far more about the bad side of life than he should have.
He sat with ease in the saddle, yet Tennie sensed he took in every corner of the house, every tree, and every shadow by the barn someone could be hiding in. As his eyes fell on her a little longer than the others, she also knew he recognized her. She turned away and studied the man in the wagon.
With thick brown hair poking from his hat, he looked equally tall, but bigger built. He, too, carried a rifle, along with enough ammunition to blow up half an army. The man with the scar began to speak, and Tennie turned back to him.
“Howdy,” he said in a deep, clear voice. “My name is George Washington Jones; my friends call me Wash. This is Ben McNally.” He motioned his head toward his friend. “We’ve got a sick man with an arrow in his abdomen. It’s too tricky for me to get out. We can’t get the doctor in Ring Bit sobered up enough to operate. Somebody in town told us you were a good hand at doctoring.”