Ride the High Lonesome

by Rosanne Bittner

  “I just wanted to be sure you understand what’s going through Luke’s mind and heart right now, because I think you’re a really nice woman and that you probably love that man a lot. He needs to go away and think this out, but when he comes back, you two need to stop dancing around each other. Besides, Luke needs you in more ways than one. He’s wrestling with other demons.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that on top of the hurt caused by the woman he loved, Luke is haunted by the fact that he accidentally killed a young boy in the war.”

  Kate put a hand to her chest. “He never told me that!”

  “He didn’t want you to know.”

  “But he told you.”

  “I don’t matter to him like you do. He’s been running from it ever since. Going home to find Bonnie married to his brother only added to his guilt. He thinks anything bad that happens to him is deserved punishment, including losing Bonnie. He figures he’ll probably lose you, too, so he’s scared to care about you.” Sienna stepped even closer. “Look, Mrs. Winters, Luke has a lot of issues, and sometimes they come out in his anger, but the anger is at himself. It’s why he went after those men who tried to hang him and why he’s going to the Lazy T. Anger. A man has to vent that kind of anger, and he’s afraid that if he stays with you, he’ll somehow vent it against you in one way or another.”

  “But I would never blame him.”

  “That doesn’t matter. He would blame himself. War does things to a man. Half the men in this big country are here because of that war. You’re probably lucky your own husband didn’t come home. He might have come home a changed man. Most men who marched off to that war were peaceful businessmen or peaceful farmers, and they ended up seeing more blood and more dying and more horror than they knew could be possible. They were forced to kill soldiers on the other side who were hardly more than fourteen years old. And it wasn’t always just battle they saw. Some saw rape and murder—watched once-ordinary men do things they never thought of doing in their normal lives.”

  “I’m aware of what war can do, Sienna.”

  “I’m just explaining the things Luke struggles with. Men open up to women like me because they know we won’t be shocked, and we won’t blame them or send them away.”

  “Nor would I. I thought Luke would understand that about me. I could tell there were times when he wanted to say something more, but he kept it all inside.”

  “His life and all his plans for after the war changed when he killed that kid and then came home to find the woman he loved married to his own brother. I think he’s finally ready to love again…ready to settle down and put the war and Bonnie behind him. But it scares him, too.”

  Kate’s heart beat so hard she wondered if Sienna could hear it. She felt like crying with relief. “He really didn’t sleep with you?”

  “No, ma’am.” Sienna grinned. “Not that I didn’t want to, mind you. He’s a strong, good-looking man.” She looked Kate over again. “They don’t come much better than Luke Bowden. Hell, he’s riding into danger right now just to protect your honor. He called you a good woman. I’m thinking he’s right.”

  Kate quickly wiped at a tear. “You have no idea what your words mean to me.”

  “Oh, I have a pretty good idea. You and Luke are both stubborn and afraid to love again. I figured I’d come over here and tell you what a fool you are not to keep telling him how you really feel. I know it doesn’t seem right to a woman like you to fall in love with a complete stranger, but that’s not unusual out here. None of us lives by any rules, Mrs. Winters, and with all the dangers in lawless country, life can be too short to waste it letting pride get in the way of desire.”

  Kate wiped at another tear. “What about you? Why do you—”

  “Do what I do?” Sienna interrupted. She laughed, a low, almost angry laugh. “When your father starts selling you to men at a young age, it’s pretty hard to know anything about loving a man.”

  Kate took a quick breath in shock at the words.

  “It’s okay,” Sienna told her. “Actually, I have a favorite client who wants to marry me. It’s taken me eighteen years to understand anything about love. I’m thinking I’ll marry the guy. He loves me in spite of what I do.”

  Kate nodded. “You should marry him, then.”

  Sienna nodded and smiled. “I’d better get going before your reputation is ruined just by standing here talking to me.” She stepped back a little. “You think about what I told you.”

  “I will, but what if Luke decides he doesn’t love me?”

  “Lady, you need to think more positive. And by the way, I need some new dresses. I’ll be by tomorrow, and you can take some measurements.”

  “I’ll be glad to make some dresses for you.”

  Sienna nodded. “Good.” She turned and sauntered away.

  Kate watched after her, a mixture of joy and relief rushing through her blood. She’d learned something that helped explain why Luke had so much trouble committing to any feelings of love. He felt he didn’t deserve to be happy.

  Big Jim rode by on a big, black gelding. He held the reins to a pack horse. Kate recognized the horse as one of those she and Luke had used on their trip to Lander. It all seemed so unreal, yet in some ways too real. She looked up at Big Jim, and he smiled and tipped his hat to her.

  “He’ll be okay, ma’am,” he said.

  “Make sure of that, Big Jim,” Kate replied.

  Big Jim nodded. “I will, Mrs. Winters.” He kicked his horse into motion and followed in the direction of the posse, which by now had disappeared into the horizon.

  Kate watched after him and put a hand to the bruise on her cheek. Luke Bowden was doing this for her. What a fool she’d been. Of course he loved her! Why else would he care enough to ride into the face of danger and maybe even death, if she was nothing more to him than a casual acquaintance?

  She walked back inside Esther’s Clothing, finding it difficult not to burst into tears in front of Esther…tears of hope and joy. She prayed inwardly that after all she and Luke had been through, God would protect him now and through the winter. Most of all, she prayed God would bring him back come spring.

  Thirty-four

  Luke felt as though he was back at war, wearing a blue uniform and riding straight into a host of gray-clad soldiers. In his mind, the bullets spitting through the air from the rocks above were actually coming from rifles hidden in trees. Lazy T ranch hands yelling from above were southern soldiers giving out that chilling Rebel yell that meant he could die at any moment. The orders he shouted to the men from Lander came from a Union Lieutenant-Colonel named Lucas Bowden, whose responsibility it was to protect the young men under his orders.

  “Charge on!” he heard himself yelling. He kicked Red into a hard run, and while some of the men with him dismounted and climbed into the rocks along the canyon to go after the shooters there, he and those who stayed with him barreled through the canyon toward the ranch beyond. Luke had no idea who fell and who was still on his horse. He only knew there were still riders behind him.

  He’d seen women horribly abused in the war. Never again! He’d enjoyed killing those men at the cabin who’d had the same intentions for Kate, and he would enjoy killing the two ranch hands called Benny and Henry.

  The shooting in the canyon faded as he and the others exited into wide-open land. Luke could see corrals in the distance, as well as a house and several outbuildings.

  The Lazy T.

  Luke glanced back to see a good fifteen men still with him, all whooping and hollering, guns drawn. He waved them on, and they charged through a small herd of cattle, sending the beef running in every direction. Men came out of the house and cabins, some dressed and ready, others still pulling on pants and coats…some armed and some unarmed. A lot of them, taken by surprise, were still barefoot. Luke suspected they figured that anyone coming f
or them would never make it through the canyon, nor would they come so early in the day. They also probably figured Luke wouldn’t be able to gather so many men, certainly not half the town of Lander.

  The element of surprise worked its magic. Luke shot down a man whose rifle was aimed right at him. The few wives and children of some of the ranch hands ran inside cabins, and the air was filled with gunfire and cursing. Fences were pulled down. Horses were run out of corrals and scattered. Luke felt a sting at the top of his left shoulder but paid no attention. He saw one of the men from Lander chase down a young man who was running. The runner turned and fired, and the man on horseback shot back. Blood instantly stained the front of the runner’s shirt, and he went down.

  Lazy T men began throwing down their revolvers and rifles and putting up their hands. Luke rode up to the runner who’d been shot and realized it was one of the two men he was looking for. He lay there looking up wide-eyed at Luke, who pointed his six-gun at him. “I went through hell from that gunshot wound I took from one of you,” Luke growled, “and I know what you would have done to Kate Winters if you could have!” He fired, opening a hole in the man’s forehead.

  Luke turned Red and headed closer to the house, where several men stood with their hands up and surrounded by the riders from Lander. He charged into the gang from Lander and turned Red. “Anybody hurt or killed?”

  “Don’t know about them back at the canyon, but Toby over there took a bullet in the arm,” one of them answered. It was Bill Pate, a bank robber from Illinois who was in love with a woman named Sienna. “I think that’s it,” Bill finished.

  Luke reined in Red when the horse skittered sideways, as excited as the man who rode him. “Whoa, boy,” Luke soothed. He scanned the faces of the men who stood there in the cold, some of them still half-dressed and shivering from the wind. He didn’t see the second man he was after, but a mean-looking, hard-built old man caught his eye. The man stood on the steps of the sagging porch across the front of the main house. “Get over here!” Luke ordered.

  The old man came forward, his dark eyes on fire with anger. “You got no right comin’ to my place and killin’ my men!” he spit at Luke.

  Luke dismounted and charged toward him, unbuckling his gun belt and throwing it down as he walked. “It’s you, isn’t it? You’re the bastard who cornered Kate Winters and hit her!”

  The old man clenched his fists. “That whore deserved it! She was askin’ for what my men was gonna do to her back at that cabin! They seen you and her nekked together!”

  The man hardly got the words out before Luke’s big fist landed into the old man’s mouth, splitting his lip and knocking out two teeth. The old man spit blood as he got to his feet. He barreled into Luke, knocking him down, and the fight was on. Men from both sides began shouting and circling the fighters, each man cheering on either Luke or the old man.

  Luke was aware of Bill Pate picking up his gun belt and looking on with concern. He’d grown to like Bill, and real friendships were hard to come by in outlaw country.

  Fists flew. Luke’s rage over all the wrongs in his life and over what the old man had said about Kate knew no bounds. He quickly had the old man on the ground and landed a fist into his face and ribs and gut over and over until the man lay there like a rag doll. Finally, some of the men from Lander managed to pull him off.

  “You’re killin’ him, Luke!” a man called Sam told him as Luke pushed back.

  “I want to kill him!”

  “Leave him be!” another yelled. “He already looks half dead. Let him suffer! He won’t give us any more trouble after this!”

  It was only then that Luke realized his hands hurt from all the pummeling, and that the old man represented everything Luke hated: the war, Bonnie, his brother, himself killing that boy. Panting, he backed away. His clothes were filthy from groveling in the wet dirt, and his left shoulder felt on fire. He realized then that he’d never even noticed this whole morning how cold it was.

  “Luke, looks like a bullet might have skinned across your shoulder there,” Bill told him, walking up and handing him his gun belt.

  Luke grabbed the gun belt and strapped it on. He looked around at all the men. “Where’s the other man who was at that cabin? I know all of you know who I’m talking about. Their names were Henry and Benny. I shot one of them, a young man lying over there by that privy!”

  A Lazy T man walked over to look, then turned to the others. “It’s Benny! Anybody seen Henry?”

  “He was back at the canyon,” one of them answered.

  “Let’s go, men!” Luke mounted his horse and glanced down at the old man, who still lay unconscious, his face a bloody mess. He turned to one of the ranch hands who stood close by. “Is he the owner?”

  “Erin Sanders,” the man answered. “Yeah, he’s the owner.”

  “You tell him he’d better not show his face in Lander again, and if any one of you men makes trouble for Mrs. Winters or for anyone else in town, you’ll regret it. The men in Lander will be watching you!” Luke turned Red and started off. “Let’s go check on the men in that canyon.” He charged Red back toward the canyon, a myriad of emotions running through him, his hands aching and his shoulder burning. His jaw hurt from one of Erin Sanders’s blows, and his heart ached over what Sanders had said about his men seeing Luke and Kate naked together. It made him sick that the men heard it that way, even though he had no doubt they’d suspected all along.

  He wondered when it happened, when he’d grown so defensive and angry and in need of revenge for the smallest of wrongs. He didn’t used to be this way. If he could stop thinking about that little boy he’d accidentally killed in the war, stop thinking about seeing men’s legs and arms cut off while they screamed in sickening horror, stop thinking about going home to find Bonnie holding a baby fathered by his own brother, maybe he could be the Luke he used to be before all that happened. Now he’d taken advantage of a good woman, taken his pleasure in her without telling her he loved her. Kate had told him it was all right, but he knew in his heart it wasn’t. He wished he could get rid of all this anger and start over. Maybe spending the winter in Atlantic City would help. Maybe he would go back to Lander in the spring and Kate would be waiting for him, just for him, the way Bonnie should have done.

  They made it to the canyon. One man from Lander was dead, another only slightly wounded. Three Lazy T men were being held at gunpoint. A fourth lay dead. It was Henry Kline, the second man Luke had searched for.

  Luke saw Big Jim waiting for him in the distance with the pack horse Luke would take to Atlantic City. He looked around at the men from Lander.

  “I want to thank all of you,” he said. “Some of you have become good friends. Watch out for Kate Winters for me.”

  Most of them nodded and promised to do just that.

  “I’ll be back come spring,” Luke told them. “If Kate has been hurt or abused, whoever did it will pay.”

  “Ain’t gonna’ happen,” Bill told him. “You can bet on it.”

  Luke nodded. “Thanks.” He turned Red and headed for where Big Jim waited with the pack horse. His heart felt heavy at the thought of not seeing Kate for months, but he had to get away. He had to know if he really loved her…and if she really loved him. He had to know he could trust her.

  He rode up to Big Jim and took hold of the rope to the pack horse.

  “You look like you need doctorin’,” Big Jim told him.

  “I’ll manage.”

  “Don’t forget how sick you got from that other bullet goin’ through you, Luke.”

  Luke felt around his shoulder. “It’s just some skin shaved off, I think. I’ll pour some whiskey on it. The bullet never went through on the inside.”

  “If you say so.” Big Jim shook his head. “You sure you don’t want to just go back to Lander now and marry that woman?”

  Luke smiled sadly. “Part of me w
ants to, but I can’t, Big Jim. I have my reasons.” He nodded to the man. “You keep an eye on Kate for me.”

  “You know I will. Did you get the two men you were after?”

  Luke nodded. “I did.” He turned Red and headed south, intending to stay far to the west of that cave, and away from that cabin where he’d made love to Kate Winters. He couldn’t stand remembering. He urged Red into a faster trot, feeling strangely unsatisfied and wondering why people said revenge was sweet. It wasn’t.

  Thirty-five

  Kate came to enjoy her job as a seamstress for Esther. It kept her occupied, and the women in town loved that they could have new dresses without having to wait for the spring shipment from the east. Kate had even made friends, especially, and surprisingly, with Sienna, whose last name she didn’t even know. Sienna never spoke it, and Kate decided not to ask questions. In places like Lander, last names didn’t matter.

  Today was gloomy and deeply cold. She sat near the pot-belly stove in Esther’s kitchen. The woman’s husband, Deter, had ridden out to a hillside a couple of miles north of Lander, where there were actually some trees that could be cut down for wood. Big Jim and two other men had gone with him, taking a wagon they would use to haul firewood to town. Esther had invited several of the women to her house for tea and pie, telling them to bring whatever hand sewing they were working on.

  It felt good to get together with other women. When first coming to Lander, she’d thought it was just a small cow town full of outlaws. But in these long winter months of being alone here, she’d enjoyed these sewing parties, as Esther called them. She’d also made friends with Betsy Heater and used her bathhouse often…always wanting to be clean in case Luke decided to come back earlier than planned.

  She kept telling herself not to get her hopes up. Even as she sat now in a sewing circle with Esther, Emelia, and Nora, plus two of the wives from town—Lynn Tibbits and Darlene Knight—her thoughts were on Luke. Christmas had come and gone, and Lander remained buried in snowstorm after snowstorm. At night, she seldom even heard the tinkle of piano music from the saloons because the deep snows insulated the sound, and the saloons had to keep the full front doors closed against the cold. She’d visited Big Jim at the stables a couple of times, just to see Jenny and Luke’s other horses—a way of reminding herself he had to come back just to get his stock, if for nothing else. Scout had grown into a huge bull that looked intimidating but was as gentle as a cat. The bull even liked to lick her hand. Visiting the stock comforted her. The animals belonged to Luke, and being with them helped her feel closer to him.