Caleb laughed and shook his hand. “I don’t hold any blame toward the town. I figure we’ll find out who shot me, sooner or later.”
Wally glanced at Maggie before he answered. “Well, I sure hope we do. But random shootings like this have happened a time or two outside of town. With no witnesses. . .”
Caleb leaned against the store counter and pushed his hat back on his head. “What you folks need is a sheriff.”
Maggie blew out a breath and folded her arms. She had already been through this with him. Apparently, the man hadn’t bothered to listen.
Wally nodded and hooked his thumbs in the black suspenders he was wearing over his dark blue shirt. “We sure do. I don’t suppose you’re a man looking for a sheriff’s job, are you?”
Maggie turned her head to watch Caleb, waiting for his answer. It was a question that hadn’t occurred to her to ask.
Caleb seemed to be studying the shelf of jams and honey arranged behind the counter. Finally he turned and faced Wally. “I guess it’s something to think about. I did a little bit of deputy service up in Kansas. Small town, kind of like Chance. Of course, we didn’t have a family of renegades running everything, like you’ve got here. That might make the job a little tougher.”
Maggie stared. He hadn’t mentioned any law experience to her. Had he been thinking about offering to take the job? For the first time in a long while, she felt a small spark of hope well up inside. Maybe Caleb was the answer to the town’s prayers.
The walk back to the house was quiet between them. Maggie glanced at his face a time or two, but he seemed lost in his own thoughts. And it wouldn’t do for her to press him on the sheriff matter. But she and Gram could pray for him. She smiled. I mean that, Lord.
***
“Are you sure you don’t need to rest yourself for a while?” Reba asked him again.
He shook his head and walked toward the front room. “I’m sure. You don’t need to worry about me. If I need to lie down, I know where my bed is. For now, I think I’ll just sit out here on the porch and digest that tasty supper you served to me.”
Maggie watched as he opened the door and stepped outside. She picked up the rest of the dishes on the table and made her way to the kitchen. “A shame we don’t have an outdoor kitchen like we did back home,” she said, as she stacked the plates in the pan of hot water. Waving away the steam from the wash pan, she wiped her forehead with one of the cotton towels.
“I’d sure love to have one,” Reba agreed. “Now you get on out there and talk to that boy. I don’t like leaving him alone, just yet. Besides, you young folks need to do some visiting.”
Gram. Always matchmaking. Well this time, Maggie would find her own match. Not that Gram did so bad with Ian. But still. . .“I’ll do no such thing. You go talk to him and I’ll finish up in here.”
Reba shook her head. “As soon as the dishes are done, I’m going to lie down for a while. This heat makes my head ache.”
“Well, you go on right now, and I’ll bring a cool cloth for your head,” Maggie said, giving a gentle push to her grandmother. “No arguing. I’ll spend some time with Caleb as soon as I get the kitchen tidied up.”
***
“Thank you. Is your grandmother coming out?” Caleb asked Maggie as she stepped out the door and handed him a cup of coffee, the last of the brew left from supper.
Maggie fanned her face with the apron she still wore, and stepped to the edge of the porch. “Not tonight. She has a headache and has gone to lie down for a while.”
He took a sip from his cup. “I’m sorry to hear that. Is this something she gets often?”
She turned to look at him. Seated on the porch bench, he was slouching a bit to the left, holding his cup at an angle. Finally giving in to the pain a little, she guessed. He had been pretty stubborn about getting any rest this afternoon.
“It’s the heat. It gets to her these last few years. How does your side feel?” She needed to check his bandage again before he turned in for the night.
He nodded. “Not too bad. And I agree that it is warm. When does it start cooling off around here?”
She shrugged and moved to sit next to him. “We’ll be getting cooler days soon. Maybe in a week or two. Seems to be an on and off thing until winter sets in. And even then, we can have a few warm days.”
They sat in silence, the dusk falling around them. “May I ask what you’re thinking about?” she asked quietly. He would probably think her rude or forward, but there was something about this man that made her want to know more about him.
He leaned over and set his empty cup on the porch floor. “Life, I guess.”
Well, that could mean anything. Maybe he just didn’t want to talk. She could be content to sit here with him in the coming darkness.
He cleared his throat. “Mostly, I guess I was thinking about my wife. How much she would have liked it down here. She would have loved the heat. Winter in Illinois can be rough. She always spent winter huddled in a mass of blankets and shawls, even indoors.”
Maggie nodded and stared at the first star she’d spotted in the sky tonight. “I’ve heard northern winters are hard on stock and humans, alike.”
He hesitated before he spoke again. “What about you? Do you think about. . .Ian a lot?”
Her throat closed a little as she contemplated his question. It wasn’t something she discussed with anyone, even Gram. “Yes. I think about him every day.”
He sighed. “At first, I couldn’t get Amanda out of my mind. But then, gradually, I learned that life had to go on. Sometimes I almost wish I could forget her completely, but it would be wrong not to remember the love that we shared, the joy she brought to me for those short years.”
Maggie’s heart wrenched at the sadness in his voice. She shifted her weight on the bench. “I thought that Ian and I would be married into our old age. And when he died, well, I was lost for a while. Sometimes I think I still am.”
Caleb patted her arm. “I think everyone feels that way. But God didn’t plan for us to stop living when someone we love dies. We have to go on. Make the best of things. Have hope and know that He has another plan for us. Whatever it might be.”
Maggie smiled and wiped away the tear that had managed to escape from her eye. “Are you sure you haven’t been talking to Gram?”
He laughed. “Your grandmother does have a positive way of looking at life’s problems.”
“It’s what she calls everlasting joy. What God gives to us to sustain us even when times are hard. And He knows she’s seen enough bad times. I want things to be better for her here. That’s why we came. For a better life. But, so far, it seems like things have just. . .well, not exactly lived up to what we were hoping for. Praying for.”
Caleb reached for her hand and she allowed him to take it. “It will be better, Maggie. I promise, it will.”
Chapter 10
Caleb opened his eyes to sunshine warming the room. It had been four days since someone shot him. His side still hurt, but it would heal if he just took it easy another couple of days. Maggie had done a good job. And he had enjoyed having her sit in here and talk with him at night. Especially on the porch last night. For the first time in a long while, he had spoken aloud about Amanda. His mother had always said that getting things out in the open was the cure for whatever ailed a person.
Until this chance meeting with her, he had, for too many years, ignored the fact that a man needed the company of a woman. But Maggie Price had stirred that want in him again. If only it was possible she felt the same, Lord. But there was no need to dwell on those feelings. Maggie was a born southerner. The pain of the war was still embedded deep in her heart. She would never forgive him for his Union ties.
A soft knock sounded at the door. “Come in,” he said, surprised that his voice was beginning to recover.
Reba pushed open the door, carrying his breakfast. “I thought it was about time you woke up,” she beamed, placing the tray on the table and pulling it around cl
oser to the bed.
“It looks wonderful,” Caleb smiled, attempting to push himself up in bed. A spasm of pain shot through him, but after a moment it passed, and he ignored the slight twinge that remained. “I should have been up earlier and eaten in the kitchen.”
“Don’t be silly. You needed the rest. Here, let me help you.”
Reba was a small woman, but very capable, he thought, as she helped pull him into a sitting position. Maggie had told him that she was devoted to caring for others. And he could plainly see the compassion in her face.
“Thank you,” he managed through his gritted teeth. In another minute, the pain would slow and he would relax. Memories of his old bullet wound had returned, and they weren’t as rosy a picture as he’d painted of them these past ten years. He still had a ways to go before he would be feeling his old self. And being up so long yesterday probably contributed to the soreness.
“There now,” she said, tucking a large white cloth in the front of his shirt. “And please call me Reba.”
“Then you better make sure you call me Caleb,” he teased.
“Do you need anything else, any help?” Reba offered, pausing before she went out the door.
He grinned. “I guess I could use some company.” Maybe Reba would give him a little bit more information than Maggie. “And my clothes. I think it’s about time I got up and around all day.”
“A little talking sounds nice to me. I’ll just go get my own cup. Nothing better than having a nice chat over tea or coffee. And you’ll be up soon enough. I don’t want you tearing that wound open again. I‘m afraid you overdid it yesterday.”
***
Caleb waited until she was comfortable in her chair and had filled him in on how she thought he was doing. Their conversations had been nice and polite. But today, he planned to get some information. Get to know Maggie and Reba better.
He stirred cream into his coffee until it was a rich, caramel color. “So tell me about how you and Maggie happened to come to Texas. She didn’t really tell me much.”
Reba took another sip of her coffee. “We came in ‘66. Not long after the war was over. Ian had married Maggie and we were all looking to move along. Our area was too ravaged. We knew it would take years to get it back in order.” She paused. “And the government had sent all those people down there, telling us what to do.” Her eyes met his. “We knew we had to leave.”
Caleb frowned and nodded. Gunfire, bloody faces, the city lit by flames in the darkness. Sometimes he woke from a bad dream to smell the stench of Atlanta still in his nostrils. The city had evaporated in the blaze set by the Union army. His ears still heard the cries of people as they ran to escape, his skin still felt the heat of the inferno.
He cleared his throat and hid away the memory. “So you found Chance and thought it was the perfect place?” His curiosity was hankering to know more, but none of it was any of his business. Still, he felt drawn to this southern woman and her granddaughter.
Reba smiled and set her cup on the table. “Ian always said that Chance found us,” she laughed. “We had another place in mind, but we settled here, once we saw the land.”
Caleb nodded and sopped his second biscuit in the pool of honey on the plate. “It looked to be good farming land, what I saw of it, when I was headed this way. I’ve been up in Kansas for a few years, so all these hills and trees are a wonder to me,” he smiled as he took a bite.
“Is Kansas where you are from? I was thinking Maggie said Illinois,” Reba said, beginning to rock her chair in time to the piano music that had started up in the saloon.
“I was raised in Illinois. But after the war, I. . .” he hesitated, “I went home and married the girl that had waited for me. We were happy for a couple of years, then she. . .well she caught a bad fever and died. So, I joined the army for the next three years. After that I did a little deputy work up in Kansas. The last few years, I’ve been punching cows for a big ranch up near Kansas City.”
Reba, a tender expression on her face, shook her head. “I’m so sorry about your wife. Maggie told me. Life is hard so much of the time.” She offered a smile. “And I guess the army wasn’t for you?”
He took his last bite of egg and put the fork on the plate. “It’s not much of a life for anybody, that I can see. Mostly nothing but hard work and danger. In the war, you had to dodge bullets. Out there, you’re dodging bullets and arrows. I guess I fooled myself that it would fill the void Amanda’s death left inside. I was wrong.” He shrugged. “Too young, or foolish to realize that you can’t out run your sorrow.”
Reba nodded and took another sip from her cup. She turned her eyes to the window and seemed to lose herself in private thought for a moment. “I reckon most folks on both sides have been a little bit lost since the war.”
Caleb remained silent, watching her. She was young for a grandmother, or at least it seemed so to him. Surely the war had been hard on her. Maggie had spoken of the two sons she lost. One at Shiloh. The doctor, he thought. He cleared his throat. “Is Maggie around? I’d like to ask her something.” If he talked much more to Reba, the woman would have his entire life history out in the open. That’s what he got for thinking he was going to get information out of her, he chuckled to himself.
Reba jerked herself back to the present. “Oh, no, I’m sorry. She left a while ago. Said something about looking for your rifle.”
Caleb almost choked on his last swallow of coffee. He slung the cup to the table. “Get my clothes for me, Reba!” What had possessed the woman to go back to the shooting site? Whoever had been out there earlier in the week hadn’t been looking for him. And they were just back of Maggie’s cabin.
Reba stood, shaking her head. “Oh, no, Caleb! You’re not able to ride, just y–”
“Now!” he said giving her his best I’m-in-command voice. “Maggie might be in danger.”
Reba’s face paled. “I’ll get them.”
He eased his legs over the side of the bed. Pain pierced his side and he clenched his jaw. He’d felt worse. If he could get on his horse, he would manage.
Chapter 11
Pulling Ace behind her, Maggie stepped quietly through the soft bed of leaves that lined the floor of the forest. The brush and thorny vines were still crushed from the pathway they had made a few days back. It was easy enough to find the spot where Caleb had been when she tripped over him. The pool of blood had soaked into the leaf-strewn ground leaving a dark stain.
She walked a path in all directions around the area. It was possible that Caleb had pulled himself on the ground before passing out, even if he had no memory of it. But if he had, there should be a trail of blood, and she found none. At last, she concluded that he must have fallen where she had found him.
Sitting down on a rounded boulder, she let her gaze wander over the ground at her feet. She had seen no sign of another horse in the forest, so the man that shot Caleb must have been on foot. She pulled her feet onto the rock and wrapped her arms around her legs. She was no lawman, no detective. She had wasted a good two hours, and probably tramped all over signs, if there were any. She was no help to Caleb.
She balanced her chin on her knees and sighed. How had she come to this point in life? The war had destroyed everything normal that she’d known. It had seemed things were looking better when Ian came home and asked for her hand. Tall, blond, handsome in a rugged sort of way, he had been ten years her senior. But he seemed to have eyes for only her, once he was home.
Later, he teased her, telling her he knew of her secret admiration for him. Even now, she snorted. He’d never so much as looked at her before the war. Of course, she had been a gangly girl, a bit young for him. She was only sixteen when they wed. If he was still alive, they would be coming up on their tenth anniversary.
“Oh, Ian. I miss you.” A tear ran down her cheek and her voice was absorbed by the brush and trees, barely adding a sound to the ordinary hum of the forest sounds. He would know what to look for, what telltale signs the ground
offered as a clue to the shooter.
Shaking off the despair, she stood and started searching again. Maybe, just maybe, she had missed something the first time. But, aside from a few trampled bushes and scuffed up places on the ground, she found no clue. And no Winchester. Caleb was right. Whoever had pulled the trigger that day, had also taken his rifle.
Appalled that tears still flowed down her cheeks, she wiped them dry with her shirt sleeve. It wasn’t like her to be so despondent.
The reins still clutched in her hands, she drew Ace closer to her, and rested her cheek on his. She smiled and breathed in the smell of grass that he’d been chomping while she searched. She patted his face and stepped away. “Time to get back home, boy.”
Pulling on the reins, she walked him through the woods towards the clearing. Ace always preferred open territory and there was no use taking a chance he might spook in the trees.
A sound to her left caught her ear. “Whoa, there boy,” she spoke softly and looked around. For a moment, she saw nothing. Then she turned. Heart in her throat, Maggie stared into the barrel of a Winchester rifle. And the hands holding that rifle belonged to Hobart Sayer.
“Well looky here what I found,” he grinned, showing a mouth full of grey, broken teeth. A stream of tobacco juice leaked from the side of his mouth, leaving a rusty, wet trail down his chin. “I found me a cowboy to shoot a few days back. But today’s prize is gonna be a whole lot better. I told my brother’s this looked to be a good place to hunt,” he laughed. “And you‘re the prize catch, Maggie darlin’.”
Caleb! Hobart had been the one that shot him. She stared at the rifle in the man’s hands. A Winchester, probably Caleb’s. She shuddered and gripped the reins tighter. The temptation was strong, but she knew better than to reach for the pistol in her belt. Wait a few minutes before trying anything desperate. She cleared her throat and prayed her voice wouldn’t shake. “What do you think you are doing out here, Hobart? Get off of my property!”
Caleb's Rain Lily Bride (Texas Frontier Brides Book 1) Page 6
