The Outlaw and the Runaway

by Tatiana March

  Boot leather creaked as Dale sank down to his haunches beside Roy. He glanced behind them to make sure they were alone. “Listen, amigo, and listen good. When I ride out for supplies, I’ve been meeting with a man from Washington. My mother is friendly with the family of Chester Arthur, the man who became president after Garfield was assassinated. I’ve been offered a full pardon if I can deliver Mr. Smith. In a couple of weeks, an army unit will storm the valley. It will be a bloodbath. I’ll take Celia with me tomorrow, but you must make sure you get out soon after. If you can’t escape, hide in the canyon at the first sign of trouble. No one will be spared. It will be a bullet or a rope.”

  For a moment, Roy didn’t move, didn’t even breathe. He barely heard the shifting of the horses in the corral, the raucous yells of the men at the gambling table. The single word echoed around his mind, like water rippling in a pond, the circles growing wider and wider.

  Pardon.

  A full pardon.

  A presidential pardon.

  “Could I...is there any way I could...?”

  Is there any way I could do the same? Move away from this life that is no life at all into another kind of life—a life that I have now had a glimpse of—a life that I didn’t even dare to dream about before.

  The sudden flare of hope tore at Roy. It would be no use. A woman like Celia might turn to an outlaw for protection when she had no choice, but she was not for the likes of him. He’d been an outcast from birth, never accepted, and a pardon would not turn him into a different man. Celia would be better off pursuing her dream of independence. Better off without him—a man who knew nothing about love, a man scarred by the cruelty of his childhood and tainted by his years as an outlaw.

  And yet, he could not stop the question from coming out again, in a whisper so rough he could feel the words rasping in his throat. “A pardon...could I...?”

  Dale placed his hand on Roy’s forearm, let it rest there for a moment. “I’ll do what I can. I’ve mentioned your name, assured them that both of us deserve a second chance. But there are no guarantees. Even if you survive when they invade the valley, there’s no knowing what will happen after. Sometimes the wheels of law can gain their own momentum, spin out of control. Promises may get broken. I’m taking a risk, even for myself.”

  Roy nodded. Behind them, he could hear a pebble roll, could hear the stealthy sounds of someone moving in the deepening darkness. He raised his voice. “It’s just a thorn caught beneath the shoe. I’ve pulled it out. The horse should be fine to ride tomorrow.”

  He pushed up to his feet, left Dale with his bay gelding and went to say good-night to Dagur. On his way between the corrals, Roy slipped aside the patch over his brown eye and searched the gloom, trying to see who had been spying on them. Whoever had created that small disturbance was gone, leaving behind only silence and the night shadows.

  * * *

  Celia waited alone in the cabin, turbulent thoughts running through her mind. Chicago. Success on the financial markets. Independence. Never again to face the shame of being rejected by a suitor. Never again to have to rely on the charity of others. Perhaps even to make enough money to buy every piece of property in Rock Springs and rule over the town if she so wished.

  Wasn’t that her dream?

  Without thinking, she lifted her hand to the gold coin in the small silk pouch she still carried around her neck. A talisman. A keepsake. A memory of another dream, one she had tried to forget. As she stood still, her mind strangely frozen, footsteps thudded by the entrance. Then the door swung open. On the threshold, Roy stood framed by the falling darkness.

  “You should have barred the door while I was outside.”

  She ignored his comment. Words that had barely formed in her brain tumbled out. “Making a fortune on the stock exchange and being an independent woman is not my dream. It is not what I truly want. What I have always wanted is a husband and home. That dream turned sour, so I came up with an alternative dream, but it was always second best. I don’t want second best. I want my original dream. My real dream.”

  She could see Roy’s eyes widen. He had pulled the black patch aside, and although seeing all his face usually allowed Celia to read his expression, now his features seemed like a blank mask, giving her no hint of his reaction.

  “I guess deep down I’ve never really given up on my real dream,” Celia went on. “Why otherwise would I have been so ready to ride out of Rock Springs with you? To open my heart to you? To let you into my bed?”

  Not saying anything, Roy went to the table. He lifted the chimney on the oil lamp, struck a match and held it to the wick. From the way the flame flickered, Celia could tell his hands were trembling.

  The silence seemed to grow heavier and heavier. Celia drew a deep breath. She’d sworn never to make herself vulnerable to a man again, never to set herself up for a rejection again, but she had to pursue her dream.

  “Will you be a husband to me?” she said. “Will you be a father to our children?”

  Finally, Roy turned to face her. “Is that what you want, Celia? What you truly want?”

  “Yes.” There was steel in her voice now. Not a plea, but a woman fighting for her right to be loved. “If I settle down in some quiet place, will you come and see me whenever you can? I know Halloran has a wife hidden away in some town, and he visits her. Davies told me about it.”

  Roy seemed to stiffen. He shook out the match with an abrupt gesture. When he spoke, it was in the same kind of fevered outpouring that her words had been. “Do you have the courage for that, Celia? It is one thing to be an outlaw’s woman here, among outlaws. What about being branded one among decent folk? You didn’t fare too well when they shunned you because of your scar, or your father’s role in the robbery. How would you feel if they shunned you because of me? Do you have the courage to love an outcast? My mother didn’t. She didn’t have the courage to love me, her own son.”

  At first, Roy’s grim outburst felt like a blow, but then the vulnerable note in his voice and the bitterness of his final comment made Celia understand. Pity welled up within her. She was searching for the right response when Roy went on, letting out the hurt that must have festered inside him for years.

  “Sometimes, when no one was around to notice, my mother would ruffle my hair, smile at me, give me a kind word. And then, when her husband or her parents entered the room, she would ignore me, as if I didn’t exist.”

  Celia spoke softly. “I’m sorry for the way you suffered. But isn’t it strange how everyone doubts my courage to love an outlaw. And here I’ve been, inviting you into my bed, even without the benefit of marriage. Miss Mabel said it first. ‘Don’t do it, unless you have the guts to watch your man hang.’ And now you’ve said it. ‘Don’t do it, unless you have the courage to stand by me when the world is against us.’”

  She looked up, hoping Roy would see and recognize the steadfastness in her. “I may have been afraid to give in to noisy displays of emotion, but you have cured me of that. And when I first saw you, I desperately wanted to learn your secret, to discover how you had the strength to ignore the curiosity of people over your eye patch. And I’ve learned that secret, too, have learned not to care about the opinion of people who don’t matter.

  “But you have no right to doubt my courage to love. I’ve nursed two ailing parents, seen them grow weaker each day while I witnessed their suffering. I’ve loved them, knowing that they were about to die. And I loved them all the more because my time with them would be cut short.” Celia lifted her chin, forced herself to put into words what she feared most, what they both feared. “Compared to the pain of watching them waste away, seeing you die by hanging would be over quickly. I have the courage to love. To love an outlaw. To love you. But do you have the courage to love me?”

  * * *

  Do you have the courage to love me?

  It felt to Roy as if his very soul
had been stripped bare, exposing doubts and fears he hadn’t even been aware of himself. “Celia, I...” He made a futile gesture with his hand. All those days on the trail, he’d tried to keep a distance between them. Because he was no good for her. Because a woman like Celia could never truly care for him.

  But she had proved that she could.

  Celia repeated her question, gently now. “Do you have the courage to love me, Roy?”

  He let out a long, slow sigh, his shoulders sagging, as if a heavy weight had suddenly been lifted off him. “What you said about second best...the outlaw life is not what I want, has never been what I want. But I’ve never felt able to strive for more. Perhaps I felt I had no right to more. Perhaps I was too scared to reach out for more. But you’ve made me realize that I don’t want second best. Just like you, I want my real dream. A dream of a family and home.”

  He didn’t quite have the courage to meet Celia’s eyes, but he could find the words.

  “If you leave with Dale Hunter tomorrow, you can wait for me in some safe place, and I’ll join you later. We’ll go somewhere far away. Montana. Oregon. Someplace where no one can find us. But you’ll have to wait for me. It’s too dangerous for me to make my bid for freedom right now, with Mr. Smith ruling the camp with his armed guards. But when he goes away, things ought to settle down again. If you leave now, I’ll find a way to join you. I promise you that.”

  Celia moved closer to him, reached out and fisted her fingers in the front of his shirt. Rising up on tiptoe, she studied his face, her expression a mix of hope and relief.

  “You promise? You truly promise?”

  “I promise,” Roy replied.

  As long as I’m alive, he added in his mind.

  * * *

  For the rest of the evening, they talked, making plans. Roy had a map of the Arizona Territory, faded and torn at the fold. They spread it out on the table and sat down in front of it, poring over the locations in the soft glow of lamplight.

  They chose Winslow for Celia’s destination. Some distance to the east, the town was far away from Prescott, where Mr. Smith might come across her when he resumed his real identity. Moreover, Winslow was an important railroad hub, an added benefit in case they had to rely on public transportation.

  Once they were finished, Roy lit a fire in the potbellied stove. The small stack of firewood in the corner of the cabin would last through the night. No point in saving it now that Celia would be leaving in the morning.

  He stoked the stove until the flames roared, and then he straightened and turned to Celia, who was packing her meager possessions in her carpetbag. Roy pulled his eye patch away and tossed it on the table. Tonight, he wanted everything perfect between them, one final memory to sustain them through the separation.

  Celia put her bag aside and came up to him. Her hair was unbound, tumbling in a flurry of curls about her shoulders. While he’d been busy with the stove, she had put on her amethyst earrings, and the firelight made the stones glitter. She bent her head and fumbled with the rope belt that gathered her borrowed skirt around her waist.

  “No,” Roy said. “Let me.”

  Because of the cold nights, Celia usually removed her clothing quickly and darted beneath the covers. He’d never undressed her, apart from that one time when she fell in the stream while they were crossing the river. Then, in a hurry to peel away her wet garments, he’d done his best to ignore the rush of desire.

  Now he embraced it, let it fill his mind. He bared Celia slowly, while the heat from the fire was building up in the room. As each piece of clothing fell away, he traced her shape with his hands, reveling in the fullness of her figure, the softness of her skin, the subtle scent of vanilla and wildflowers that surrounded her.

  She undressed him in turn, her touch sure and deft as she dealt with the masculine garments. “You seem to know your way around a man’s clothing,” he commented with a faint smile.

  “I’ve done enough mending to figure out how each piece goes on and off.”

  When they were both naked, they stood facing each other, touching, feeling, caressing. He’d left the stove hatch open, and the firewood crackled and hissed, the flames sending shadows dancing on the rough adobe walls. The heat drew a coat of moisture on their skin. He lowered his head and scattered kisses on Celia’s shoulders, on her neck, in the tiny hollow between her collarbones, tasting the slight flavor of salt from the sheen of perspiration.

  Slowly, he eased her down on the bed, settled beside her and gathered her close against him. Had he thought about it before, he would have assumed that on their last night together they would throw themselves into a frantic coupling, let their passion burn as bright as the flames in the stove. But it seemed much more important to simply hold her, to feel her heart beating at the same pace as his, the way it had done on that sunny afternoon when they pledged themselves to each other in an Indian ceremony.

  “Celia, whatever happens, I want you to know that I—”

  “Hush.” She silenced him with a kiss. “Don’t say it. Not now. Save it for when we meet again, for when you come to find me in Winslow.”

  Roy nodded, his lips grazing her cheek. He had wanted to tell her that he loved her, but now he understood she preferred to leave the words unsaid. Something to look forward to. Like a superstition, it seemed that if they didn’t speak of their feelings now, fate would be obliged to let them reunite, for an emotion so powerful must not be left undeclared.

  For long hours, they lay together, occasionally talking in murmured whispers. He let his hands roam over Celia’s feminine shape, already worried there was something he might forget: the feel of her breast cupped in his palm, the texture of her hair, the scent of her, the small sounds she made when he touched her just right... Again and again, he memorized them, making sure they would remain branded in his memory forever, for as long as he lived.

  “Lie on top of me.”

  Startled by Celia’s request, Roy stilled.

  “I want to feel your weight on top of me.”

  He knew he was courting temptation, but he leaned over Celia, gave her another deep, hungry kiss and stretched out on top of her, his legs sliding between hers. Quivering with the effort of restraint, Roy arched his back and studied Celia’s face.

  “You promised to stop me from going too far,” he reminded her.

  “That was then. This is now.”

  Celia wrapped her legs around his hips, anchoring him in place. Her hips tilted to receive him and her nails dug into his back, urging him on. She lacked the boldness to put her desire into words, but Roy understood. Unable to resist the unspoken invitation, he shifted into position. The promise to hold back had been made in another place, another time, and if Celia felt no longer bound by it, neither should he.

  With a murmured request to let him know if it hurt too much, Roy eased himself inside Celia, a couple joining in the most intimate act there could be between a man and a woman. The pleasure of it! It swept through him, and he clamored for more, but he suppressed the instinct to hurry. Carefully, he pressed deeper. When he met a barrier, he paused. Taking his weight on his elbows, he framed Celia’s face in his hands and met her anxious eyes.

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  She nodded, another wordless response. He lowered his head for a quick, hard kiss, and then he flexed his hips and pushed all the way inside her. He could feel her stiffen beneath him, could feel the gasp of pain she trapped between gritted teeth.

  He had no experience of virgins, so he soothed her the way he would soothe a wild horse afraid of humans, afraid of the unknown. With whispered comments, he praised her beauty. He promised her the pain would ease and soon grow into pleasure.

  Only when she gave him another one of those silent nods did Roy allow himself to resume his motion. He meant to keep it easy, but the first thrust shattered his control. He had wanted her so badly. It woul
d be over too soon, too soon for her to find her way, too soon for her to learn to match his movements.

  But then he felt Celia’s hips rise to meet his, and he gave in to the need that drove him. As he moved inside her with deep, steady strokes, he felt Celia tighten around him, heard the small, rhythmic cries of pleasure she tried to suppress and knew he had brought her to completion. With a few final powerful thrusts he took his own release.

  The explosion of pleasure robbed him of every trace of sanity. He’d never felt anything like it. For a moment, he believed his heart had ceased beating, and then he felt it pounding against his ribs with such ferocity it frightened him.

  Bracing his weight on his elbows, he lowered his head to hide his face against Celia’s neck. He was too afraid to let her see the depth of his emotion, the power she held over him. He remained absolutely still until his senses began to function again. Then he lifted his head and searched Celia’s face. Her eyes were closed, her skin flushed, her breathing swift.

  “Celia?”

  “Yes,” she replied. The gravity of her voice, the somberness of her expression revealed to Roy that her thoughts mirrored his. By creating the possibility of a child, he had sealed their union with a tie stronger than any vows spoken before a priest. For he would move heaven and earth to ensure that any child of his would grow up safe, with a happy home and a father to protect him.

  However, Roy decided not to spoil the moment by discussing the future. There would be time enough in the morning. For the rest of the night, he held Celia in his arms, wishing for each hour, for each minute to last a little longer. But then the rooster crowed in the chicken coop behind the cook shack, and the horses neighed in the corrals. The light outside grew pink and golden, and a new day rushed in—the day that would see Celia ride away from him, with no guarantee of when they would see each other again...

  * * *

  Celia swept one last look around the interior of the cabin to make sure she had packed everything. Feeling sentimental, she let her gaze linger on every inch of the primitive dwelling, every rustic piece of furniture. Despite all the danger and upheaval, it had been a happy home for them.