That startled a laugh out of Mel, and just when she’d been wondering if she would ever smile again. “Ringlets?”
“Yep. Grandmother Bradford had a painting done of me. Pa sure didn’t tote any clothes of that sort along on the wagon train we drove west. Yet Grandmother had that painting up in her bedroom, in a place of honor. The suit was light blue velvet, and I had lace at my wrists and neck. I was in all ways a fine, wealthy young gentleman. I mentioned it to Pa. He told me how he’d cut each ringlet off, one at a time. He kidnapped me from Boston, or as good as did. He was afraid if he faced the Bradfords directly, they had enough influence to be named my guardians. Once he realized that, he made a lot of quiet plans. Then the first chance he got that’d give him a good head start, he took me, dressed me in rugged clothes and cut my hair, and we jumped on a train to Erie, Pennsylvania.”
Mel nodded. “I’ve heard of Pennsylvania.”
“From Erie we took a boat ride down to St. Louis. We got off the boat and rode west for days until we caught up with a wagon train. Pa and me in a covered wagon, pulled by a team of mules. I rode a horse sitting up in front of Pa, and we saw wild land and slept on the trail. It was about the finest time a boy ever had.”
“A great adventure,” Mel said.
“Pa had hired men and outfitted wagons with all we’d need, then sent them off when the wagon train started off. He wanted it to be a long way from Boston when we joined it. Pa said he lost himself in grief after my mother passed, and my grandparents had taken over raising me. I remember Pa being lonely but enjoying time with him and wanting more. Once we left Boston, all I could see was that finally I could spend time with him. And at the end of our adventure, Veronica was waiting, who always told me she fell in love with me before she did Pa.”
Mel watched his fond smile and wondered how he could think he’d be happier in a big, dirty, dangerous city, alone. When he loved his family so deeply and fit so perfectly in his saddle.
When she’d thought of him as a half-wit, she might have been generous. A quarter at best.
“You aren’t happy here in the West because you miss the busy city life. In Boston you missed your family and so weren’t happy there, either. You’re a confused man, Cole Boden. If you’ve been craving action and excitement, there’s been enough around here to cure you, I’d think.”
“The thing is, Mel, I feel torn inside. I love both places.”
Mel saw his hands tighten on the reins, and his horse edged sideways until Mel’s leg nearly bumped Cole’s. He turned to her, and blast it all, she wanted to be furious with him, but instead she saw his confusion. A brilliant mind twisted up with two different lives, and he loved both of them.
“I wish I could show you Boston and New York City. There are wonderful things in both places that you’d love. The ocean is beyond imagination, the size of it. Big ships sail into Boston Harbor loaded with people and cargo from all over the world. And the history of our country really comes to life back there where people have family who fought in the Revolution.”
“I have to admit, that all sounds interesting. I can well imagine you loved seeing such things.” Her response must’ve pleased him because the worst of the conflict eased from his expression.
Cole reached up a gloved hand and drew a finger down the side of her face from temple to chin. “Thanks, Mel. I think you’re right. You would like it. My whole family would. Pa knows what it’s like—he lived there—but he won’t talk about it. I think he’s . . . I don’t know, just hoping I’ll forget. Hoping that if we avoid discussing my years in the city, it’ll somehow just fade away as if it never happened.”
“Your pa’s a wise man. He must know better than that.”
With a nod, Cole said, “You’re right, he is wise. But he doesn’t know how to handle this.”
“Is that what’s behind his will with his insisting all three of you live at home? And that made Sadie move home too, though he did it because of you mainly.”
Cole looked down at his hands a while. When he finally looked up, Mel saw his eyes and realized the sky was lightening. While his eyes had looked almost black in the early morning darkness, the rising sun made them shine blue now.
“I love my pa, Mel. I do. In some ways I felt like I was closer to him than Justin and Sadie, mostly because we were such a good team on the trip west. I didn’t realize it then, but he was worried about my grandparents coming and stealing me away. So Pa stayed close at hand during my growing-up years.”
Cole smiled; clearly his memories were happy ones. “But I was different from him, too. He’d talk sometimes about the blue velvet suit and the ringlets. He used to tell a story about Grandmother slapping my hands when I spilled my tea on the lacy cuffs of my shirt.”
Mel couldn’t control a snort.
Cole laughed. “That happened, the hand-slapping incident, when I was four. That’s when Pa decided to take me and run before they ruined me.”
“Smart man.”
“But what Pa couldn’t ever make peace with was that some of the things from the city are comfortable to me. He liked to blame the influence of the Bradfords, but I think it was my own mother. There’s a lot of her in me. I was always better at books than Justin. He’s smart as a whip, but he just didn’t take to books. Instead he liked being outside and working with his hands, even when a little tyke. I was neat as a child. Justin and I shared a room, and we were always fighting about him tossing his dirty clothes here and there. We were just different. And Pa didn’t think it was me; he thought it was the Bradfords.”
“What does that have to do with his will?”
“As close as I was with Pa growing up, there’s a gap between us that we never quite closed. When Frank Chastain was dying, shot because of the ranch, he forced Ma and Pa to marry. They were heading that way, Pa says, but they weren’t there yet. They hadn’t known each other very long. That did something to Pa. It dug deep into him the idea that he gained this land with Frank Chastain’s blood. Pa considered it a legacy that had to be preserved. After all, Grandpa Chastain paid for it with his life. The ranch was to be handed down through the generations, held close to everyone’s hearts. Seeing me move back east, then finally come home but want my own house away from the ranch, he thinks he never explained well enough the cost of this land.”
“But you do know the cost, don’t you?”
“Of course I do. But that doesn’t mean I can’t have my own home.” Cole quit talking and looked into Mel’s eyes. The sun was over the horizon now, and they sat unmoving, side by side.
The trail to the mine was a winding one that mainly followed open rangeland. All along these fertile valleys, hills rose, covered with aspens, their branches bare as they awaited the coming spring.
The day was fine. A light breeze swayed the dried winter grass as if God himself swept a hand over the bowing and waving brown stalks. With each mile they rode, the hills grew higher, building toward the mountains.
“Mel, I . . . I know I hurt you that night in the library. My words were clumsy and stupid. A man doesn’t kiss a woman as fine as you unless his intentions are honorable.”
Shielding her heart against what came next, whatever stupid reason he would give for leaning closer, looking deeper, she gathered her self-control to straighten away from him and ride on.
Then his lips touched hers, and somehow she’d leaned closer instead of away.
“You know why we—”
“Cole, Mel, hold up.” Heath’s shout cut off whatever Cole intended to say.
They backed their horses apart and turned to see Heath coming around a bend in the valley. A thicket of shrubs concealed his clear view of them, and Mel hoped that meant Heath had seen the horses but not the riders.
“Before he gets here, Cole, I want this to be clear. You’re not to kiss me again. We are drawn to each other, there’s no sense pretending otherwise, but right now you’re a man who doesn’t know his own mind. And there’s no place for a woman in your life until you’ve
figured things out. Until you decide if you can be satisfied with hard, honest work at the mine and a family surrounding you with love, or if you want a life that will take you far from all of that.” Mel remembered how he’d described his grandfather. “A life that will lead to more wealth so you can keep score with money you don’t need.”
“I just need time. Time to adjust to life back here or find out I can’t.” He gave Mel a lonely look, sad and tinged with frustration. “And it’s not fair to any woman to get involved.”
She heard what he didn’t say. A woman he’d find an embarrassment back east. That was what hurt. Because if he truly cared for her, he’d ask her to be part of his life whatever it held. If her eyes burned a bit, she blamed it on the rising sun and dashed a sleeve across her face to make sure any tears caused by the sun didn’t fall.
“Especially a woman who l-loves . . .” Her voice broke. She cleared her throat and went on, “Who loves her life as it is.”
The burn didn’t go away. Mel wanted to have the last word, then end this conversation before she did something as stupid as cry. “If Uncle Walt can’t be convinced to let me stay at the mines, then I’ll go home to sleep. It’s a long ride, but some of the Blake hands will ride over with me to make sure it’s safe. And I’ll thank you to keep your hands and your kisses to yourself.”
Mel glanced back to see Justin come around the same bend Heath had just emerged from, riding hard and closing the distance between them.
“Remember this too, Cole,” Mel said. “When you speak of a legacy that goes with this land, you’re talking about property and money and gold. But a true family legacy like the Bodens have is about a lot more than that. It’s a birthright.” She glanced at the approaching riders and hurried to make her point. “The Boden birthright is love, Cole. It’s not the blood soaked into the soil of the Cimarron Ranch that makes it precious. It’s the love your grandfather had that made him give his last thoughts to caring for his daughter, for giving his blessing to your pa. That’s a legacy God would want you to claim. No greater love. While you’re deciding what world you belong in, make sure you’re giving God a voice, and make sure your decision isn’t all about your own happiness, but also about the happiness of those who love you with all their hearts—your family.”
Justin and Heath caught up.
Justin slapped Cole on the shoulder harder than he should if he was being playful. “What are you thinking setting off ahead of us? We need to stick together when there are men out here looking for a chance to pick off a Boden.”
“Mel might be in danger too, Cole. Next time wait for us.” Heath made it sound like a direct order. It wasn’t the first time it struck Mel that Heath, for being a former cowhand of the Bodens who’d only recently married Sadie, didn’t act like he worried one bit about what his former bosses thought of him.
It’d been late when they got to the CR last night, and Justin had already gone to bed. Now the men did some talking between them about what Señora de Val’s role was and how in heaven’s name she could have ever crossed paths with the Bradfords.
It suited Mel just fine to listen without comment. She was sick as could be of riding alone with that low-down worm Cole Boden.
23
Cole crawled down into a hole in the ground just like the biggest worm in the world.
Not only was he completely dishonorable in the way he’d treated Mel, but he’d also insulted her. Worst of all, he’d hurt her. He thought she might’ve been fighting tears, and he had never, not once in his whole life, seen Mel cry.
Well, maybe a couple of times. He had a vague memory of her when she and Justin were both still in diapers. Justin had enjoyed stealing toys from her. There’d been some crying then.
But it took a low-down worm to get salt water out of such a strong woman. He’d understand completely if she never forgave him.
He almost wished she’d just punch him right in the nose. He deserved it, and it might make things better between them. Instead she’d ridden in silence the rest of the way to the mines. Once there, Mel worked with Justin, Heath, and him putting the horses up. Through it all she acted like nothing had happened. And although quieter than usual, mostly she was her normal, hardworking, easygoing self.
Even so, he’d made a mess of things. Mel was never going to be his friend again in the way she’d been. And that was a loss that made him wish for something as simple as a fist in the face.
Justin and Heath split off from them to look for Walt in his mine, promising to meet them in the tunnels below. Justin hadn’t even climbed down into one of the pits yet, let alone wandered down the tunnels.
Cole and Mel walked to her mine entrance, went in and climbed down. He wormed his way to the bottom of the ladder, and they went looking for Walt from this direction. Between the four of them, they’d hunt him down. They hadn’t gone far before he came walking toward them, grumbling.
“Trouble?” Cole asked as Mel came up behind him.
“Bill Suddler’s cleared out,” Walt said. “I followed a few of these passageways last night and they’re all short connections between the five mines the Blake hands leased and two others. When I went back to it this morning, I followed the first one I didn’t know to Suddler’s claim. I followed that tunnel all the way up and checked his cabin, too. He kept his horse stabled by his cabin and it’s gone, as well.”
Cole pictured Bill Suddler. He’d heard his brother call him Bull a couple of times and it fit. A man of solid muscle with a temper that made everyone keep their distance most of the time. Bill had been leasing a mine for a few years now, and just because a man wasn’t sociable didn’t make him a murderer. “You made it to the ends of all the tunnels?” he asked.
Walt shook his head. “Almost. I’ve got one more tunnel to follow. But I already know where it’ll lead. Sam Suddler’s horse is missing, too. Looks to me like the brothers maybe took off together.”
“The Suddlers were here a long time,” Cole said. “They kept to themselves for the most part. Not a friendly pair. But hard workers who’ve never been troublemakers.”
“How long is a long time, Cole?” Walt asked. “About as long as these other six?”
While Cole would need to check his files to be sure, he’d done some studying. “I’d say about exactly as long as the other six.”
“Calling them hard workers is right, for all the tunneling they’ve done. Of course, they had six men working with them.” Walt glanced back the way he’d come. “You might have to change your mind about ’em being troublemakers.” He gave a small jerk of his chin. “Now let’s go track down some cold-blooded murderers.”
“Cole, get back up here.”
Justin was always shouting about something.
“It’s the sheriff and it’s important. Get up here now.”
“Walt, wait a minute. Come back.”
Walt glared at him, obviously angry at the interruption. He shook his head in disgust and stormed for the pit and the way outside to where Justin’s yelling came from.
Mel whispered, “Uncle Walt must be sure there’s no danger or he’d never let his temper show.”
“So when he’s cranky, you’re safe?”
Mel’s eyes sparked, but even her good humor wasn’t real lively at the moment. “It’s when he gets real quiet that you know you’re in trouble.”
“Cole, let’s go.” Walt’s voice sounded far away, so they’d dawdled long enough. “We got work to do, Mel. Hurry up.”
Catching up was no small trick. Finally, Cole caught up with him about the same time he stepped out into the sunlight, Mel right behind him. Justin and Heath stood beside the sheriff. Justin had his arms crossed, looking impatient.
The sheriff’s expression brought Cole to full alert. “What is it?”
Sheriff Joe said, “Remember that wanted poster you found on top of Skull Mesa, Mel?”
Mel nodded. “Angie found it, but I was there. It was a picture of the man who shot Cole. Only he went by Dantalion here
. The name on that poster was different.” She thought for a second. “Web Dunham.”
“Yep, and he’s wanted all right. I reported him dead and they’re sending the reward money. You, Cole, and I got more than we bargained for.”
“More money?” Cole asked.
“Nope, more information. He wasn’t well-known but he managed to run afoul of the law years ago. For murder. He was arrested, yet he escaped and was never seen again. Until you Bodens brought him in draped over his saddle.”
Mel said, “Do you reckon he carried that wanted poster around with him out of some kind of . . . pride?”
“Not something a normal man would be proud of, but then he’s not a normal man.”
“Dantalion had a lot of secrets and was good at keeping them,” Justin said.
“Ain’t he just.” The sheriff tugged off his gloves and pulled a packet of papers from a saddlebag. “He ran with these men, but like I said, he wasn’t well-known. Some of his friends weren’t so careful, caused trouble up and down the Mississippi for a whole passel of years.” Sheriff Joe passed around the papers.
The one Cole got showed a picture of Sam Suddler. “This poster calls him Snake Smith.”
“Yep, a mighty shifty man. Snake is a fitting name for him. Known to run with his brother, Bull. He’s in this stack, too.”
“Bill and Sam Suddler, not Smith,” Cole said as he studied the posters. Cole quickly explained how the Suddler brothers looked to be involved with all that’d gone wrong at the mine.
Nodding, the sheriff said, “Snake did what little thinkin’ the two of ’em did. Bull was the brawn one. They and some others were called the Natchez Gang for a while. They ran with Arizona Watts and the hired man you called Windy.”
Justin and Cole exchanged a grim look at the mention of two of the three men who’d kidnapped Angie. The Bodens had nurtured vipers. They’d hired those men, who’d repaid their trust by taking Angie in an attempt to lure the Bodens into a trap to kill them.
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