The Man from Stone Creek

by Linda Lael Miller

  The Ranger laughed, even as he bound Undine’s hands behind her with a bandanna. “Maddie needs a lot of things,” he said. “But looking after isn’t one of them.”

  Hardly daring to believe his luck, Vierra stooped, picked up a couple of bags of gold, carried them to his horse, tucked them away in his saddlebags. As he went back for more, O’Ballivan lifted Undine onto the horse, then swung up behind her. He gave Vierra a salute.

  “Adios,” he said. “And thanks.”

  Vierra merely nodded, watching as O’Ballivan rode away with his prisoner, never once looking back.

  MADDIE TRAVELED BACK across the river in the middle of the afternoon, astride a burro, leaving a concerned and fitful Terran behind at Refugio. She rode past the schoolhouse, past the jail, past the Rattlesnake Saloon, the hem of her skirt dripping river water.

  There were others in town—folks had come from the surrounding countryside, as well as Tucson and Tombstone, to help. They’d brought wagons and food, medicine and blankets and clothing.

  But Maddie might as well have been all alone when she came to a stop in front of what had once been the general store.

  The roof had caved in and the walls were burned to cinder.

  She’d grieved before.

  For her parents, for Warren. Even for Jimmy.

  But this was something different.

  An ending of another sort.

  “Maddie?” She looked down, saw Oralee standing alongside the burro, looking up at her, one hand shading her eyes from the sun.

  “I don’t know how I’ll pay the mortgage now,” Maddie said.

  Oralee smiled. “Oh, I got my money back,” she answered. “So don’t you worry about that part.”

  Maddie frowned. The whole town had been destroyed. How could Oralee have recovered the fifteen hundred dollars she’d invested in the mercantile?

  Oralee laughed at her expression. “Practically the only thing in Haven that could stand up to a fire like that one was the safe in the Cattleman’s Bank. Elias James opened it right up, soon as the dial was cool enough to touch, and handed it over.”

  “Why would he do that?” Maddie asked, mystified.

  “He owed me,” Oralee said cryptically. “That’s all you need to know about it, Maddie Chancelor.”

  Maddie sighed. Tried to smile and failed. “I guess your safe must have come through the fire, too,” she mused.

  Oralee nodded. “I mean to rebuild,” she said. “First chance I get, I’m going to order me some lumber and hire some workers. I could put up another mercantile, too. Probably not till next year, though. There won’t be much of a town here for a long while.”

  Maddie said nothing. Nor did she try to hide the tears that sprang to her eyes.

  “What are you meaning to do?” Oralee asked kindly.

  “I don’t know,” Maddie admitted. “It’s as if the world came to an end.”

  Oralee reached up, patted Maddie’s hands where they gripped the reins. “Sometimes,” she said, “an ending is just what a body needs to make a new beginning.”

  Maddie was still taking that in when the sound of an approaching wagon distracted her as well as Oralee. Both women watched as a peddler drove into town, and, sitting straight and proud beside him, was Bird.

  They pulled up and Maddie reined the burro around, staring. Bird was plump with well-being, and her face was scrubbed clean of bawdy house paint. She wore a red calico dress with a bonnet to match.

  “I ain’t comin’ back to work for you, Oralee,” she announced first thing. The man beside her, who must have been half again her age, wore a bowler hat and an open smile. “This here’s my husband, Albert J. Hildegarde,” she said.

  Albert J. Hildegarde tipped his hat. “Best regards of the day, ladies,” he said.

  Bird took in the ruins of the mercantile. “You need a ride someplace, Maddie?” she asked.

  “I just might,” Maddie replied, squaring her shoulders and lifting her chin. “Where are you headed?”

  “North,” Albert answered. “Got to pick up some supplies in Phoenix. Looks like folks around here will be needing goods.”

  Maddie let her mind rest on Sam O’Ballivan.

  She loved him, all right. She wouldn’t have given herself to him, even in the aftermath of a disaster, if she hadn’t. If she pressed him, he’d probably marry her, take her and Terran back to Stone Creek with him.

  But she knew he didn’t love her. He hadn’t had time to get over Abigail.

  It was curious, but she could have married another man, even without love, just to put a roof over Terran’s head, and her own. With Sam, things were different.

  It would kill her to look into his eyes, day after day, night after night, and see duty there, and unflagging honor, but not love.

  Not love.

  “If you meant it,” she said to Bird, “Terran and I would be obliged for a ride as far as Phoenix.”

  “What will you do there?” Oralee asked. She sounded worried.

  “Survive,” Maddie said. She looked back at the store again, took it all in, so she could remember not only what it was, but what it became. “Just survive,” she finished.

  FOLKS STREAMED INTO Tucson from Haven, brought there by kindly friends and strangers, in the backs of wagons, mounted on borrowed horses. All of them looked stunned.

  As Sam came out of the marshal’s office, he reckoned the same thing was happening over in Tombstone. People had a way of putting aside their own concerns when calamity struck, and doing what needed to be done.

  A tug at his sleeve deflected his attention and he looked down to see Violet Perkins standing next to him, with an ice-cream cone dripping in her free hand.

  “Hullo, Mr. SOB,” she said cheerfully.

  Sam smiled, ruffled her hair.

  “I guess that was Ben Donagher’s stepmama you just put in jail.”

  He nodded. “You look real pretty today, Violet,” he said, noting her clean face and ruffled dress.

  She shoved the ice-cream cone upward. “Want some?”

  Sam grinned. “No, thanks,” he said.

  “My mama’s getting married,” she told him. “To the man who rescued us from the fire.”

  “That was quick,” Sam commented, but he was pleased. Women had to make their way in the world as best they could.

  “His name is Seth,” she went on. “He bought me this dress and this ice cream, too. He has a house with a porch and a yard. His wife died three years ago and he’s been right lonesome.”

  “Do you like him, Violet?” Sam asked gently. He didn’t know what he could do about it if the answer was no, but he had to find out, or the child’s well-being would prey on his mind from that time forward.

  She nodded. “Mama does, too.”

  “That’s good,” Sam said.

  Violet looked back over her shoulder, nearly spilling the ice cream to the sidewalk. “I guess I better go. Mama and Seth are in with the justice of the peace. They ought to be hitched proper by now.”

  Sam leaned down, kissed the top of her head.

  She took the opportunity to hook an arm around his neck, stood on tiptoe and smack him on the cheek with ice-cream lips. “Thanks for the dress and the storybook, Mr. SOB,” she whispered. “I knew all along they was really from you. And thanks for letting me go to the outhouse whenever I wanted, so I didn’t wet my bloomers.”

  Sam blinked hard. Before he could bring himself to say “You’re welcome,” or anything at all, she’d turned away, skipping off down the sidewalk.

  He crossed to the telegraph office, sent a wire to the major.

  “Assignment done. Coming home. Bringing some people with me. I’ve got a boy and a dog to spare. Do you still want Ben Donagher?”

  He was across the street an hour later, paying for a team and wagon and a whole passel of other things, when the telegraph operator tracked him down with an answer.

  “Damned right I do,” the major had replied. “Think I know who else you’re bringi
ng along. Will have your place readied up. Come on home.”

  Come on home.

  Sam meant to do just that.

  It slowed him down considerably, traveling by wagon, with his gelding tied behind, and it was past nightfall when he pulled up alongside the river on the Haven side. He rode the gelding across and was met on the shore by none other than Ben. The dog was beside him.

  “Maddie wanted me to leave with her and Terran, but I said I’d stay,” the boy told him, his face full of hope. “Go on up to Stone Creek with you.”

  Sam froze halfway between the saddle and the ground. Let himself down slowly. “Maddie left?” he asked when he thought he could get the words out without tripping over any of them.

  Ben nodded. “With Bird and her peddler husband,” he said.

  Sam swore. “You know where they went?”

  “Phoenix,” Ben said helpfully.

  Sam rubbed his chin. He needed a bath and a shave, but between taking Undine Donagher to jail in Tucson, buying the wagon and new clothes for everybody but Neptune, he hadn’t had the time. “How long have they been gone?”

  Ben shrugged. “Left this afternoon,” he said.

  “You still got your horse?”

  “Yep,” the boy answered.

  “Well, get him. If we’re going to catch up to that peddler’s wagon, we’d better be on the move.”

  Ben hesitated only a moment. Then he fetched his horse and crossed the river with Sam. The dog rode with Sam.

  On the other side, Sam put Neptune in the back of the wagon, with the crates and packages, and hoped he wouldn’t chew anything up. Ben climbed into the box alongside Sam, after they’d secured their tired horses behind.

  They’d traveled less than an hour when they came upon the camp.

  Maddie came out to meet them, looking tired and dirty and forlornly surprised. Sam didn’t speak to her. He just got down from the wagon, turned Ben’s horse and the gelding loose to graze, and then unhitched the team. Ben and the dog had long since gone to greet Terran, but Maddie lingered.

  “That’s a fine team and wagon,” she said when the silence got too long and too uncomfortable. “I gave our horses to Mr. Maddox, the blacksmith.”

  Still, Sam said nothing. He didn’t trust himself.

  Maddie seemed bent on starting up a conversation. “I guess I should have waited to say goodbye, and thank you for all you did,” she said softly, “but Bird and Albert were heading out right away.”

  “Guess so,” Sam said.

  A tear slipped down Maddie’s cheek. “You’ll be going on to Stone Creek, I suppose.”

  Sam finally faced her, set his hands on his hips. “It’s home,” he replied.

  “Ben tells me you’re an Arizona Ranger.”

  He thrust a hand through his gritty hair. “I think I’m through with rangering,” he allowed. “I just want to settle down at Stone Creek and concentrate on ranching.” Then, carefully, “What are you meaning to do, once you get wherever it is you’re going?”

  “I’ll look for work.”

  “What kind of work?”

  She shrugged. Spread her hands. “Whatever I can find,” she said.

  “I’m in the market for a wife,” Sam heard himself say. In the next moment he wished the ground would open up and swallow him without a trace. I’m in the market for a wife, he’d said. Like he planned on buying a cow off the auction block.

  “What about Abigail?”

  The question startled Sam right out of the tangle of embarrassment he’d gotten himself wound up in. “Abigail,” he said, “is dead.”

  “But you loved her.”

  Sam looked away, made himself look back. “I should have loved her,” he said. “But I didn’t. Oh, I fooled myself for a long time, but once I met you, I knew the truth of it.”

  Now it was Maddie who was flummoxed. “Once you…met me?” She almost whispered the words, and put one dirty, tremulous hand to her throat.

  “I love you, Maddie.”

  She just stood there, without saying a word.

  “I’m an old-fashioned man,” Sam said, moving to take her upper arms in his hands. “When I lay down with you, it was because I wanted to make you mine. Not just for one night, either. For always.”

  She cried harder, and he wondered if he’d insulted her somehow, mentioning their lovemaking, or if she still cared for Warren Debney and didn’t know how to go about telling him.

  “Oh, Sam,” she said finally. And she put both her arms around his neck. “Sam.”

  He kissed her, tentatively at first, and then with everything he felt for her. She responded with a fervor that made him wish they were back in that Mexican springhouse. But the fact was, they weren’t. They were within a hundred feet of another wagon, and Terran and Ben had to be considered.

  Sam lowered his hands to Maddie’s waist and held her away, but he kept the distance slight.

  “I love you, Sam O’Ballivan,” Maddie said, smiling up at him, even though she was still weeping. “I love you.”

  He caressed her breast, felt her nipple harden deliciously against his palm. “Then I suppose you ought to marry me, before the both of us wind up with bad reputations.”

  She laughed, and the sound made Sam’s heart swell.

  “The sooner the better,” she said when she’d recovered.

  He kissed her again.

  Then he gave a whoop of joy, lifted her right off her feet and spun her around in a circle. Neptune had rejoined them, and he ran ’round and ’round, barking with delight.

  Ben and Terran were drawn by the festivities, too, their faces bright with curious pleasure.

  Sam set Maddie back on her feet and nibbled lightly at her ear. Felt a shiver go through her.

  “I wish we could make love,” she whispered. “Right here and now.”

  He nibbled again. “Next time I have you,” he promised, “it will be in a real bed, and we’ll be married.”

  Her eyes twinkled with mischief as she looked up into his face. “Will it be like before?” she teased.

  “Better,” he said. He looked over his shoulder at Ben and Terran, who were standing at a little distance.

  She trembled again. Stroked his cheek with the backs of her fingers. Practically made his knees buckle, as easy as that.

  “Come and have some supper,” she said. “Bird’s got enough rabbit stew in that pot for all of us.”

  They sat around the peddler’s fire, eating and talking quietly.

  When it was time to bed down, Maddie and Bird retired to the interior of Hildegarde’s well-equipped wagon, with Albert in a bedroll beneath. Ben, Terran and Neptune stretched out in the back of Sam’s buckboard, among the parcels, and Sam lay underneath, tired to the bone and grinning like a damn fool.

  It would be several days before they got as far as Flagstaff. Once there, he and Maddie would find a preacher and make it legal.

  Overhead, Terran and Ben began to snore out a soft chorus of exhaustion. Sam listened for a while and then he dozed off himself. When he woke, it was daylight, and Maddie was crouched beside the wagon, beaming.

  “Wake up, Sam O’Ballivan,” she said. “The coffee’s ready.”

  “You sound like a wife,” he teased.

  She laughed. “I’m practicing.”

  He pulled her down beside him, kissed her until they were both breathless.

  “You kiss like a husband,” she said.

  Sam grinned. “I’m practicing,” he told her.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-FOUR

  THE HIGH COUNTRY lay blanketed beneath a dazzling snow, virtually untouched, as far as the eye could see, and sprinkled with diamonds. The air was cold and bracing, and Maddie O’Ballivan sat straight on the wagon seat, beside her husband, taking it all in. Down at Haven, even as far north as Phoenix, the ground was bare and dry. This was like another world.

  “Stone Creek,” Sam said with quiet pride.

  Maddie saw two houses, smoke curling, home-scented,
from their stone chimneys, a variety of outbuildings and a partially frozen stream running through, like a long strand of sky-blue thread. Hereford cattle grazed on summer hay, scattered from wagons by men with pitchforks. Great, towering pines stood sentinel on the sloping hillsides and, in the distance, at the end of a twisting trail, a town nestled, brave and remote and new.

  Sam had told her about the town. Said what it needed was a general store, and he’d build one, if she’d run it.

  Maddie’s heart swelled into her throat. It was hard to believe, looking upon that pristine expanse, that she and Terran and Ben were going to live there. She felt as though she’d died and been reborn.

  In the back of the wagon, Neptune began to bark. It was an exuberant, hopeful sound. Ben and Terran, bundled in the coats Sam had bought for them in Flagstaff before the wedding, fairly jumped up and down with excitement.

  “Which house is the major’s?” Ben asked, poking his head between Maddie and Sam. His breath made a white plume in the thin air.

  “That one,” Sam said, pointing, to Maddie’s surprise, to the smaller of the houses. He’d told her a few things about the setup at Stone Creek, that he and Major Blackstone were partners in the ranching business, as well as rangering, though he reckoned the latter would slow down, now that he had a wife and a boy to raise. But he’d wanted the rest of it to be a surprise, and it was.

  Maddie’s gaze turned naturally to the larger house, a long, two-story structure of stone and timber, with windows gleaming at the front. From now on, she thought, this would be her home. Come the spring, she could plant a vegetable patch, and flowers, too.

  It was a miracle.

  “You’ll be glad to sleep in your own bed again,” she said because she was afraid she’d forget how to speak if she didn’t say something, no matter how mundane it might be.

  Sam had followed her gaze, and now he grinned, the reins resting lightly in his gloved hands. The team sputtered and tossed their heads, anxious for feed and rest and the warmth of a barn. “Actually,” he said, “I’ve never lived in that house, so it’ll be as new to me as it will be to you.”

  Maddie looked into his eyes, forgetting the boys, the dog, the horses tied behind, everything but Sam. “You built it for Abigail,” she mused, with no rancor.