Sweet Autumn Surrender

by Vivian Vaughan

  “They’ll be back,” she murmured.

  “We’ll think of something. We have a week.” When we could use at least a month, he finished to himself.

  She hung the lantern on a peg and proceeded to light a lamp on a side table, all the while watching Kale replace the shotgun on its pegs above the door. “Thank you for not firing at them. I feel much better now.”

  He studied her. Although she appeared calm, her movements fluid and graceful, he knew fear was eating her up inside. That was understandable, what with her folks being bushwhacked by an outlaw, her husband meeting the same fate, her home being threatened by lawless men, and now finding herself with only another violent man to depend on.

  After what had happened to her folks, combined with the horrors Benjamin would surely have told her about him, he knew it would be a hard thing, gaining her trust.

  “I know what you think about me, Ellie, but I don’t go around shooting folks unless there’s no other way. I may as well warn you, though, the fight has just begun. We’re far from done with this thing, and I can’t promise there will be no gunplay ahead.”

  She replaced the chimney on the lamp, then quickly turned her back to him. He heard her stifle a sob.

  “Ellie—?”

  “I don’t know what’s come over me,” she interrupted. “I’m not the weepy kind.” She dried her eyes on the cloth she held. “Just when I found a home and some peace…” She stopped when her voice quivered.

  Kale was hard-pressed not to take her in his arms and comfort her. He resisted, however, considering the fact that he hadn’t been able to get the feel of her softness off his mind since she left him alone up at the grave. He felt guilty about that, her being Benjamin’s widow and a lady to boot. To encourage a closeness between them wouldn’t be fair; it would only add to his guilt.

  When he spoke, his voice was unintentionally gruff. “Peace isn’t a permanent thing, Ellie. Once you’ve found it, it takes a near-constant fight to hold onto it.” He stared at her rigid back across the small table. His voice softened. “But you haven’t lost your home. Don’t start thinking that way.”

  After drying her eyes again, she turned to face him. He noticed how light played around stray ringlets of her hair, framing her face as with a halo. Her eyes were sad, about the saddest he could recall ever having seen, and serious.

  “Kale, I need to tell you something else. About…ah, about how Benjamin and I met. I want you to hear it from me, to believe that I loved him—truly, I did.”

  “Now, hold on a minute, Ellie. Your word’s good enough for me.”

  “But—”

  “Besides, if you start recollecting things, why I might chime in myself. No telling how far you’d run if you were to hear about some of my shenanigans.”

  She smiled. “Are you Jarretts all alike? Taking everyone you meet at face value?”

  Kale considered her question before responding. “That’s pretty much the way of things, I reckon. Benjamin had a saying he got from a book somewhere, ‘Let the dead past bury its dead.’ I guess that means we’ve got troubles enough to keep us busy right now without worrying over something that’s long since gone.”

  Tears sprung to her eyes once again at his gentle tone, at his matter-of-fact philosophy, or perhaps at the fact that tonight at least his calm strength reassured her. Tonight she welcomed his presence.

  Tomorrow the outlaw in him could surface; tomorrow she might be sorry he was here, but tonight…

  Suddenly she clapped her hands to her cheeks. “Excuse me for being so thoughtless. You’ve had a hard day, and there’s nothing more we can do tonight. Why don’t you turn in? We’ll worry about the Raineys tomorrow.”

  At the suggestion of sleep, he yawned in spite of himself.

  “Take the back room there,” she continued. “I’ll put out the light after I bring in some wood for morning.”

  “Let me help.” Removing the lantern from its peg, he followed her out the back door.

  The woodpile was a good fifteen feet in back of the house. As they approached he held the lantern higher so Ellie could choose the sticks of firewood she wanted.

  Suddenly she gasped, her hands flew to her face, and she drew back against his chest. Again he instinctively reached for his guns only to come up short.

  Scanning the area, he saw nothing…no movement, no unfamiliar shapes or forms. Tentatively, Ellie stepped toward the stack of wood, her arms outstretched, then a soft cry escaped her lips.

  His gaze followed and his breath caught at the sight of a work-worn boot.

  “It’s Benjamin’s. His other one.” She gathered the boot in her arms and stood frozen.

  Again Kale inspected every inch of space within his range of vision, wishing to hell he had a weapon. “Do you see anything else?”

  She didn’t move a muscle. He doused the light. “Go back inside. I’ll be along as soon as I have a look around.”

  She stared at him, hearing only her own heartbeat. He spoke more firmly.

  “Ellie! Go inside. Now.”

  Obediently she turned and walked toward the house.

  A thorough search tonight would be futile, he realized, and foolish, especially unarmed. He would either get himself shot or disturb any tracks the intruder might have left. So after he found no one lurking about the buildings or in the grove of live oaks behind the woodpile, he returned to the house.

  Ellie had coffee making on the fire. She sat in a hide-bottomed rocker, holding her body rigid. Her eyes were as cold and hard as the topaz Benjamin had said they found in the hills around here. The boot was nowhere to be seen. When the coffee was made, she poured it with wooden movements.

  It burned his throat on the way down and warmed the dull chill in the pit of his stomach. He squatted before the fire, holding the cup in both palms, staring into the blue flames.

  His brain whirred with questions, but his first obligation was to Ellie, Benjamin’s widow. He was fairly certain he could protect her through this night. Tomorrow—well, tomorrow was another question. The only thing he knew without a doubt was that she had been put to a test a lot of folks would break under. His first job was to make sure she didn’t.

  “It was meant to scare you, Ellie. If they’d wanted to harm you, they had every opportunity. Actually this is a good sign. It tells us the killer hasn’t left the country.” Turning toward her, he paused, swallowing the scalding coffee while he studied her face. It was frozen in an impassive expression he couldn’t read.

  “This means we have a lead,” he continued. “Come morning I’ll follow their tracks until we find the culprit at the other end.”

  Ellie stared into the fireplace. Life had never seemed so hopeless to her, at least not in a long, long time. If they were so bold in the presence of a known gunfighter, what would they do next?

  “If they were to come around with you here…?” Despondent, she stared into the fireplace. “They won’t stop until they’ve taken this place. I know they won’t.”

  “Now, Ellie, talk like that will get you nowhere but down. We’ll catch them, even if it’s the Raineys themselves. I promise you that. And no one is going to take this place away from you, not with me here to stop them.” He gazed into the leaping flames, hoping to hell he would be able to back up such a bluff.

  Ellie stared straight through the back of Kale’s head, seeing Benjamin as he had stood here in this very room soon after they were married, hearing his voice, his instructions. “I have to do what Benjamin told me.”

  Kale jerked his head around, almost spilling his coffee. “What did he tell you?”

  “Not to leave this place. To stay here no matter what happened.”

  “When did he tell you that?”

  “Different times. He would say, ‘Ellie, don’t give this place up. No matter what happens, stay here. You’ll be safe in this house.’”

  “Safe?” Kale scanned the simple rock cabin. “Safe from who? From what?” That was foolishness. Benjamin would know a l
one woman couldn’t hold out in a place like this, not indefinitely.

  “He said to remember the tunnel,” she continued. “If there was trouble, to hide in the tunnel. People used to hide there when the Indians came.”

  “The tunnel? Where is it? Where does it lead?”

  “Probably nowhere.” Her voice was listless, as though she didn’t really care. “The trap door is under the bed in the spare room. I looked into it once, but it was just a dark hole.”

  Kale had heard stories of such tunnels where settlers could hide until attacking Indians left, or through which they could escape the area altogether. Likely this one was no more than a root cellar, at best. Although he voiced no such concern to Ellie, he had his doubts that any hole in the ground would be of much help against the likes of Holt and Matt Rainey.

  No, the way things were shaping up, it would take more than a tunnel to save this place from the land-grabbing clutches of the Raineys and their hired killers. Tomorrow he would have to find a better way.

  Later, after Ellie went to bed, Kale lay down on the bed in the spare room. Tired as he was, however, sleep would not come. His mind jumped around, trying to reason out why Holt and Matt Rainey would use scare tactics in addition to legal means to take Benjamin’s ranch—and his life. It didn’t add up.

  Perhaps Benjamin’s friend Armando Costello could help. He might know something Ellie didn’t. Kale made up his mind to see Costello tomorrow.

  He recalled the episode at Fort Griffin and decided he might as well have stayed there and taken his chances with the soldiers, for all the good his coming to Summer Valley had done Benjamin. The only thing he could do for Benjamin now was to save the ranch for Ellie. And that he intended to do.

  Drifting off to sleep he recalled Mack McKinney and the stake he had given his friend. He grunted, realizing he didn’t even know what enterprise he had invested in. Oh well, Mack would take care of that. At least, he’d better.

  Chapter Three

  Ellie’s eyes flew open. She lay still and tensed, listening for the sound that had awakened her. None came.

  Pale light filtering through her shutters alerted her to the rising of the sun. Somewhere a rooster crowed.

  She tugged at the light sheet wrapped around her legs, stretched lazily, enjoying a comfortable, soft feeling. She inhaled.

  She sat up. Her smile broadened. She hadn’t been awakened by a sound, but by a smell. The aroma of coffee drifted through the quilt which hung in the doorway separating her bedchamber from the living area of the small cabin.

  Coffee brewing, when she lived alone.

  Coffee.

  Kale Jarrett, Benjamin’s gunfighter brother.

  Involuntarily she thought how Kale had best be about the business of living up to his reputation before he ruined it.

  Give him time, she retorted. Slipping out of her cotton nightgown, she fumbled with petticoats and chemise. The day was young, the problems facing them grim.

  With her ears attuned to any sound that might come from the living area, she hastened into the second of her two skirts, another calico. This time she paired the skirt with her next-best cotton waist, even though it was a dingy white from repeated washings. Why hadn’t she remembered to buy bluing when she was in town? She pinned her hair loosely, pushed aside the quilt, and surveyed an empty room.

  Kale Jarrett was nowhere to be seen. No sign of him remained.

  Except the smell of brewing coffee.

  Surely he hadn’t left. She crossed the room; the plank floor felt chilly against her still-bare feet. Granted, she had been less than welcoming last night, but he hadn’t indicated he would run out on her.

  To the contrary, she argued, standing in front of the fireplace. He had specifically said he would help her, beginning today.

  Her heart lurched. Two cups sat on the hearth, one obviously used—coffee dregs still clung to its edge; the other was clean, unused, waiting. She poured it full of coffee, inhaled the damp, sweet fragrance, sipped the hot liquid. It was stronger than what Benjamin made, she observed while studying the quilt that closed off the spare bedroom. Was he in there asleep, having gone back to bed after making coffee?

  Or was he already out hunting Benjamin’s killers? And if the latter…

  Hesitantly she approached the hanging quilt. “Kale?” Her voice sounded ragged with her first spoken word of the day. She tried again.

  When no answer came, she pushed aside an edge of the quilt. The room was empty except for her own furniture: the bed, its covers neatly made; her trunk, containing the only items she had salvaged from her home so long ago; and the plain oaken dresser Lavender had given her when she married Benjamin.

  The room held few signs of its recent occupant. She recalled Kale’s observation about Benjamin’s tidiness. Benjamin had obviously taught his brother well.

  She tiptoed across the room, then wondered at her sanity. Who did she think to disturb?

  At the dresser she picked up a leather shaving cup, the residue of lather on the inside still damp; the spicy scent of soap tickled her nose. A bone-handled razor lay beside the cup, and from the mirror frame hung a strop.

  Where had he shaved? she wondered, chagrined at her inept hostess skills. She hadn’t provided a bowl or pitcher.

  Suddenly she caught her frowning reflection in the looking glass. Heavens, she looked a sight! Her fingers fumbled with the pins in her hair in an attempt to tidy it. Catching her eye again, her reflection mocked, her cheeks flushed. She clasped them in her palms. Whatever was she thinking, she, a recent widow?

  And he a gunfighter.

  Chasing that idea, another raced through her brain. This time when her gaze swept the room it was for the answer to a much different question: Where were his guns?

  Those dreadful Colt revolvers were gone.

  Dashing to the living room, she studied the back of the chair where he had hung them the evening before.

  Gone.

  He had taken those guns and set out after the killers. The thought of it stirred her blood. Before he even had breakfast, he had set out to kill a man—or men. No telling how many he’d already killed. Headstrong and lawless, that’s what he was, like Benjamin had implied. Hadn’t she specifically told him how she felt about guns?

  Irritation grew inside her. How could she have let her guard down? Why hadn’t Carson come?

  Why did it matter? she fumed. A man who set out to kill another man before breakfast wasn’t her concern.

  How could a man arise, fix coffee, then blithely set out to kill a man? Or to be killed…

  With a hand to her breast, she forcibly tried to halt the fluttering that came to her heart at the idea of Kale being shot by the intruder he pursued.

  He could at least have waited until after breakfast, she seethed. How could she fix him breakfast if he was gone?

  How could she cook him breakfast anyway? He would have used all the water for coffee; she would have to draw more.

  Moving around the room in a trance of discontent, she found herself in the kitchen staring into a full pail of water. So he had not gone out to kill a man without drawing fresh water.

  What did that prove? Still in a stew, she stomped out the door. Its squawking grated on her nerves, while Kale’s six-guns loomed as large as life in her mind’s eye.

  Taking the trail to the springhouse, she surprised herself by entering the barn, where she stared at Kale’s horse, which switched its tail contentedly in its stall. Across the way, his saddle lay spraddled over the top rail of the fence. Her own horse had returned during the night and now strained its neck through an open window at the rear of the barn, sniffing for the oat bin. Behind him she glimpsed the russet hide of Old Gunnysack, her milk cow.

  So he hadn’t ridden off to kill a man before breakfast. Where had he gone? Outside she paused, chastised by the sudden knowledge of where he must be. She glanced contritely toward the hill, expecting to see him beside his brother’s grave. But he wasn’t there.

  A
gain she had judged him wrong. She continued on to the springhouse, aggravation once more replacing her contrition. Where had he gone, he and his Colt revolvers? To the outhouse? Did an outlaw carry his six-shooters to the outhouse?

  At the springhouse, she sliced several thick steaks from a slab of venison Armando’s men had brought her the day before. By the time she prepared breakfast he would likely have returned—six-shooters and all.

  As was his custom Kale awakened before sunup. But since it was not his custom to awaken alone in a room inside a house, he found himself momentarily disoriented. Quickly, however, a warm feeling spread over his confusion like honey poured on hot Johnnycakes, a feeling that remained even after he recalled the tragedy that had brought him to this place.

  Benjamin was dead at the hands of unknown killers, and now his widow was being threatened. The thought occurred to him that if he could find the killers and help Ellie keep this place, the empty hole left in his life by Benjamin’s death would be if not healed certainly mended.

  As this idea took form, a plan emerged, filling him with an urgency to be about the business at hand. While he set the coffee on to boil and drew another bucket of water, he laid out his activities for the day.

  The first would be to track the perpetrators who left Benjamin’s boot for Ellie to find. That he could do before she awakened.

  An hour later, however, he’d learned only one thing: whoever left that boot on the woodpile knew his way around this place.

  The hard-packed ground and sun-parched grass surrounding the woodpile could have been trampled as easily by Ellie and himself as by the intruder. The garden, the soft sand around the springhouse—in fact, every place where the earth was soft enough to hold a print—had been carefully avoided.

  Finally he pieced together a trail of sorts by aligning crushed blades of grass, a broken pecan limb, and the row of stepping stones which were used to cross the creek below the springhouse.