The Devil's Own Desperado

by Lynda J. Cox

  He pried one eye open. “Figured I was capable of making a pot of coffee, Amy.”

  “I better go wake Saul and Jenny and then start breakfast.” She walked past him, halting when he caught her wrist.

  “I didn’t kill him, Amy. I didn’t even shoot him.”

  His eyes were dark with old memories and his face lined with a weariness she had never seen before. So much pain and loss haunted his eyes, aging him years.

  “So, your reputation prevented a shooting this time.”

  He shook his head, letting go of her wrist. “No. Taylor intervened.”

  “I see,” Amelia whispered, not sure she did.

  “Amy, Taylor kept me from being shot in the back.”

  She gasped. A new fear twisted in her. Maybe he never could walk away from who and what he was. She shoved that thought away. Daddy had walked away and left his past far behind him.

  Colt could hang up his gun any time he wanted. He would be safe here. The fact Marshal Taylor had prevented him from being shot in the back was proof of that. And, given enough time, the people in Federal would see that he wasn’t the horrible man those dime novels proclaimed him to be.

  Colt rose and crossed to the perking coffeepot. He poured a cup, and blew across the rim before sipping from the steaming brew. “I’m going to go out later this morning and check the fence lines for you where you’re pasturing those milk cows.”

  “That’s Saul’s job.” Amelia set a pan on the stove and spooned in bacon grease. “Will eggs be all right for breakfast?” This near to him, her skin tingled with heightened awareness. His presence filled the kitchen until she felt as if she couldn’t breathe.

  “Does that mean you don’t want me checking the fences?”

  His tone lifted the hairs on the back of her neck. The lines of his face were set in granite, his eyes icier than any glacier clinging to the peaks of the Medicine Bow.

  “I’m sure Saul will appreciate you checking the fences for him.”

  He set the cup on the counter and braced himself on his good arm. “You didn’t answer me. Do you want me to check the fences or not?”

  “Your shoulder hasn’t healed yet.” The aroma of horse, leather, and bay rum drifted from him, sending her senses reeling. She dropped her gaze to the hand emerging from the white sling. Memories of him plying her with those long, elegant fingers brought an uncomfortable heat to her face and made her inner core clench. She forced herself to look away from him.

  The grease sizzling in the pan and the muted song of the birds in the small bush outside the window filled the silence between them.

  Colt caught her chin in the palm of his hand and her breath hitched. Her skin tingled anew as he caressed her cheek.

  “I want more, Amy.”

  She couldn’t back away. The stove blocked her retreat. “Saul and Jenny will be awake any moment.”

  He shook his head, releasing her chin. “That’s not what I mean, right now.” He rubbed the back of his neck, and closed his eyes for a moment. “I want to stop looking over my shoulder, and I want to stop being Colt Evans, gunfighter. I don’t know if I can, though. Hell, I don’t think you believe I can. When do you plan on telling Saul the truth? That I am the Colt Evans he first thought I was? I don’t think either one of us have thought this through. But I want more than just one night, Amy. I want to hang up the hardware.”

  Amelia’s heart stuttered and she chewed on her lower lip. He was right. She hadn’t thought this through. “I’ll figure out a way to tell Saul that we haven’t been totally honest with him. But you don’t have to leave, Colt. I’ve told you that before. I will never ask you to leave here.”

  “I know.” He turned from her, and stared out the window. Captain crowed loudly from the henhouse. “Even when everyone else in this two-horse town is telling you the best thing you could do is tell me to saddle up and ride on, even when my own better judgment says I should do that before you or the kids get hurt by my past, I know you’ll never ask me or tell me to leave.” He shook his head again and shot a glance at her over his shoulder. “I want to try to stop being the shootist everyone thinks I am.”

  Amelia caught her breath with the anguish darkening his eyes and twisting his mouth into a pained half-smile.

  “What kind of a lowdown cad does that make me, Amy? What kind of man am I, that I’m willing to risk your safety and the safety of those two kids just so that I can grab at a dream? Kinda puts me onto the short side of decency, doesn’t it?”

  “It doesn’t make you any kind of cad, Colt.” She brushed her hand down his back. “Daddy came out here for a dream. He came out here to be the minister of the Methodist church, but he also came out here because he wanted a safe place to raise his children, someplace where a man’s past didn’t matter.”

  Colt turned back to her.

  “I was seven, almost eight, when we came out here. Daddy’s dream was to have a safer place to raise his children, have a place of his own so he could raise a few head of cattle, sit and watch the sun set. He dreamed of sending Saul to college and me and Jenny to finishing school and he dreamed of leaving his past, Brimstone Phillips, far behind him.”

  “Brimstone Phillips?”

  Amelia nodded. “Daddy stopped being Brimstone Phillips when Saul was born. He left Brimstone in the past. Even when he and Momma were killed, no one took any credit for killing Brimstone Phillips. Instead, everyone mourned the senseless death of Reverend Phillip McCollister. And he never stopped dreaming, Colt. Never.”

  “His dreams never had the potential to put you in danger. Mine could.”

  Amelia shook her head. “Boy’s gotta have a dog, girl’s gotta have a kitten, and a man’s gotta have a dream or two.” She gestured to the window. “This place, Daddy said, the West, is a place to dream. A man can have big dreams out here, he said. And out here, no one can stop a man from making those dreams a reality because no one asks who you are or where you came from, only what you can do.”

  “I don’t need a big dream made reality, Amy. Just this one.” Colt sighed. “I’m going out and check on those fences. I need to get my head clear.” Colt opened the door and his spine stiffened. “Damn early for company.”

  “What?” Amelia peered over his shoulder and couldn’t suppress a sigh. “Donnie Morris.”

  Colt shook his head. “If you want to send Saul out with breakfast for the both of us, I’ll be following the south line.”

  Before Amelia could stop him, he left the house.

  Colt walked to the gleaming black buggy, his gaze running over the handsome bay in the traces. The animal was a damn fine piece of horseflesh. Donnie sat in the seat, not moving as Colt approached him. Colt glanced over his shoulder at the cabin. Amelia stood in the doorway, but out of earshot.

  Donnie stammered, “You’re still alive?”

  “That surprises you? Or disappoints you?”

  “No, I’m not disappointed. But I was worried about Amy and the kids because I heard there was some trouble at Silas’s place a few hours ago. I heard you were involved.”

  “Trouble you started.”

  Donnie gulped. “Jed and I were just talking.”

  “Morris, the next time you talk to some drunk who thinks he can call me out, I hope you try to talk him out of it. I almost killed that man because you lied to him.”

  “I thought maybe if he showed up, Amy would realize the kind of danger she’s in because of you.”

  Defeat slammed into Colt. It was a dream. That was all it was, and he knew it. No matter how he grabbed at it, he could never catch it or ever have a hope of holding onto it. He could never stop being a shootist. Not until a bullet ended his life. And probably then, he’d spend all of eternity with a marble slab over him proclaiming to the world that he had been a shootist.

  “Come down from there, Morris. I need to talk to you.”

  Donnie blanched whiter than milk and his Adam’s apple bobbed against the tight celluloid collar circling his throat. He climbed down
from the buggy and Colt grabbed the man’s arm and dragged him to the barn.

  Inside, Colt turned on a heel and said, “Listen to me. Neither one of us deserves that woman, but at least you don’t have a past that could show up at any time. So I’m going to tell you to do something and I hope to hell you do it. Marry her, and marry her damn fast.”

  Donnie’s jaw dropped. “Is there a reason I need to marry her fast?”

  “Don’t be an idiot.” Colt leaned closer to Donnie. “No, there’s no reason, other than if you don’t, I might start to think I can. Marry her, Morris, and treat her right. Because if you marry her and don’t treat her right, you’ll answer to me.” Colt spun Donnie to the house and gave him a slight shove. “Go ask her, and this time when you talk to her, try not to be wearing her handprint when you’re done.”

  Colt didn’t wait to see Donnie walk to the house. He couldn’t bring himself to watch that, knowing when Donnie left the house, it would most likely be to start wedding plans. Colt saddled his gelding and made his way quickly away from the cabin, heading to the southern fence of the small farm.

  ****

  Amelia waited for Donnie on the porch. He doffed his bowler. “I heard that was some trouble in town last night and I came out here to see that you and the kids are okay.”

  “We’re fine, Donnie, thank you.” She pulled the collar of her dress shut. “It is a little early to be out, though, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but I was worried about you.”

  Amelia stared at him. She couldn’t even recall what the kiss he had stolen from her a year ago had felt like. She dropped her gaze to his hands, curled around his bowler. The thought of Donnie touching her in the same manner as Colt twisted her stomach.

  Donnie cleared his throat. “I came out for another reason, Amy. I’ve thought about it, and I was all wrong the other day. So, I came out to ask you to marry me before I have to leave for Terre Haute in a week. Will you marry me?”

  Startled, Amelia shook her head. “Marry you? No, Donnie, I can’t do that.”

  “Why not? I’m asking you to marry me, and I don’t care what—if anything—you and he have done. I won’t hold it against you. You’re a pretty woman and I’ve heard some of the women in town saying that he is handsome, in an unpolished sort of manner, so I could understand if—”

  “But I would hold it against you, Donnie,” Amelia interrupted. She wondered which women in town were talking about Colt’s looks. And what had made Donnie start telling her she was pretty? She sighed, and gazed in the direction Colt had ridden. “I would hold it against you that you aren’t Colt. Don’t you see that?” She turned back to him. “I can’t marry you. When I get married, I want to marry a man I love.”

  Donnie’s face grew red and his voice hardened. “I suppose you think you’re in love with him.”

  Amelia nodded. “Maybe I said the wrong thing. Donnie, you and I have been friends for a long time, but I don’t love you. My parents loved each other very much. I want to be married to a man that I love.”

  “Even though I would never hold it against you, would never throw it in your face that you let him…”

  “Yes, you would hold it against me, because you do now. But I want you to know something. I didn’t let him do anything, Donnie.” Amelia squared her shoulders, not in the least ashamed of what she and Colt had shared a few brief hours before. “It was more that he let me.” She nodded to Donnie’s horse and buggy. “Maybe it would be best if you left now.”

  Donnie turned on a heel, and then pivoted back. “He’s a killer, Amy. He’s a shootist with a past and a reputation he’ll never get away from. One of these days, someone is going to be here to settle an old score with him. Then where will you be? No one in this town will have anything to do with you then, because you’ve chosen to bed down with a drifting, cold-blooded killer. I’m not stupid. I heard from Josh Taylor that you were parading around the house in only your nightshift with him here. It doesn’t take a lot to guess what else has happened.”

  “And I’m sure you’ll tell your mother what Joshua told you, so she can tell everyone in town.” Amelia curled her hands into fists. “Please leave now, Donnie.”

  ****

  Amelia scrutinized the thick, black thunderheads gathering along the spine of the Medicine Bow. Distant lightning flickered through the clouds, glaring off the sugary-white mountain crests. Faint thunder growled in a low undertone. The sound lifted the hair on her arms and a chill skipped over her skin.

  “Saul!”

  The boy ran from the barn.

  “Saddle up and go get Colt. He was down by the arroyo, checking the fencing. It’s going to be a bad one and I don’t want anyone out with this rolling in.” Amelia spun around, looking for Jenny. Hopefully, the young girl hadn’t heard that first, faint rumble.

  Amelia cast another worried look to the sky. The clouds were blacker, more towering, sweeping out in classic anvil shapes in just the few moments she had spared to call for Saul. It was going to be bad. Even the meadowlarks had fallen silent in the face of the approaching storm.

  She had to find Jenny.

  When Colt and Saul rode in a few minutes later, the wind had risen to a mournful howl. Dust swirled in the yard, carried aloft on whirling vortices. Lightning snaked from the clouds into the mountains and the thunder’s voice had grown louder. Amelia searched frantically for Jenny in the eerie, green-yellow light.

  Saul led both horses into the barn, his worried gaze on the advancing black clouds. Amelia grabbed Colt’s arm. “Did you see Jenny when you rode in? She was out picking blackberries.”

  Colt shook his head. “She’ll be back. She’s a smart kid, Amy.” He tilted his head at the wall of clouds. “She’s not going to stay out in that.”

  “No, she won’t come back. She’s terrified of thunderstorms. She clamps her hands over her ears and runs.” Amelia turned to the advancing storm and sucked her breath in on a frightened gasp.

  The clouds seethed in a mass of greenish-black, writhing and twisting into each other. Lightning ripped through them and forked brilliant, harsh spears into the foothills. A wall of dark rain swept out from the clouds like a black curtain. A few raindrops carried forward by the wind splattered into the dry ground, raising tiny dust puffs.

  Colt twisted around to the roiling sky. “Oh my God. Saul, get over here.” He grabbed Amelia’s arm, and shoved her toward the house. “I’ll go look for Jenny. Are you sure she isn’t in the house?”

  “I’ve looked twice. She’s not there. I was going to check the barn again.”

  “Get in the root cellar, both of you.” Colt caught Saul’s shirt when the boy rushed by him, his voice almost a shout over the fury of the rising gale. “Don’t you let your sister out of that cellar until the storm is long passed. Is that understood? Don’t you let her out of there.”

  Saul nodded. Amelia paused in the doorway. “Please, Colt, be careful.”

  Colt forced himself to grin at her. “I’m always careful. That’s why I’m still alive.”

  He waited for Amelia to usher Saul into the root cellar and pull the door shut before he returned to the barn. Colt debated saddling up Angel. A nearby lightning strike speared into the ground, causing him to jump with the instant crack of thunder. No, Angel would be terrified out in that, just as Jenny had to be.

  He grabbed a slicker from a peg inside the barn door and pulled it on as best he could in the howling winds, hindered by his sling. He made his way up into the hills around the house, shouting for Jenny over the deafening thunder and roaring winds.

  So far, it hadn’t started to rain, but Colt knew that was a temporary reprieve. He shot another glance skyward and flinched. The black curtain of rain sweeping out from the base of the roiling thunderheads marched relentlessly nearer. Damn, he wouldn’t be surprised if the storm dropped down a tornado. He’d seen skies like that too many times in Texas, and they often brought violent, whirling death with them.

  The breath of icy drops touched
his face a second before the heavy rain reached him. It fell in hammering sheets, pushed into horizontal waves with the ferocity of the wind.

  “Jenny!”

  The lightning was all around him, spearing the ground with flashes of blinding light. Thunder snarled and barked. It was as dark as the hour after sunset.

  Where would Jenny run to?

  He scanned the top of a large granite outcropping with the next flash of lightning and caught his breath. Jenny was crouched atop the huge monolith, under the scant protection of a gnarled ponderosa pine growing from a split in the granite. Colt shouted, “Stay there, Jenny. I’m coming up to get you.”

  If she heard him, Jenny didn’t respond in any manner. He scrambled up the rain-slicked rock. He lost his footing and slid back, tumbling to the base. His knee felt as if it was on fire, and his injured shoulder screamed at him. Gritting his teeth, ignoring the pain, he started up again.

  Jenny stared at him as he reached the summit of the tall outcropping. Her eyes were wide with terror, and she had her hands clamped over her ears. She cowered on the granite slab, rocking to and fro. Not sure if it was tears or rain streaking her slender, pale face, Colt knelt in front of her. “It’s going to be okay,” he shouted over the wind and the rain. “I’m going to get you off this rock and get you back to the house.”

  He pulled her to her feet. Her mouth opened in a silent shriek and she flung herself away from him. Her feet slipped out from under her on the treacherously slick granite and she fell heavily onto her back.

  “Jenny, sweetie, it’s only me. It’s Colt. Sweetie, look at me.” Colt grabbed her chin, forcing her to look into his face. “It’s only me, Jenny. No one is going to hurt you. Jenny, it’s okay.”

  She pressed her hands over her ears and shook her head vehemently. Colt let go of her chin.

  “Jenny, we have to get home. Take my hand, Jenny. I’ll take you home.”

  Colt glanced around in startled shock when a chunk of ice shattered on the granite. “Shit. Jenny, we don’t have time to argue this. Take my hand, now.”

  More ice pelted the pinkish-gray granite and hammered into Colt. Jenny winced as a large hailstone hit her head. Colt grabbed Jenny by the waist and flung her over his shoulder. She kicked and flailed, struggling to get free.