“Hey, kid,” someone yelled at Ruth. “You’re next!”
Ruth swallowed and handed the baby to the man standing next to her. She ran her tongue lightly over her front teeth, praying she could keep most of them.
“I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” She prayed silently as she dragged her feet toward the four-legged keg of dynamite. “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he … he …”
The stallion turned a jaundiced eye in her direction, seeming to smirk, as if he was amused at the idea that she’d even think of getting on him. He looked meaner than Satan himself.
Approaching the animal, Ruth caught her breath and tried to hoist herself onto the broad back. It took three men to hold the horse now. Bert snorted, his eyes wild. After several minutes of her feet flailing the air and failing to get a leg up, someone took pity and hefted her onto the brute’s back.
For a moment the stallion stilled. Taking a deep breath, Ruth dug her hands into the mane to get a firm grip. Then she waited.
The men stepped back, freeing the horse.
The stallion stood meek as a lamb.
She flashed a lame grin. What was wrong here? Praise God! The Lord had seen her point and he was assisting—
Suddenly the horse lunged, jarring Ruth’s teeth. Horse and rider shot out into the middle of the corral. Bert jumped straight up, as if someone had lit dynamite under him, and landed stiff-legged. Ruth’s brain ricocheted against the top of her head. Bert, all twelve hundred pounds of him, jumped again, humping his back and twisting in midair. Ruth slid to one side but by some miracle managed to right herself when the horse went the opposite direction on the next jump. She saw stars, then planets shattering around her. Stark terror of being pounded into the ground beneath Bert’s hooves was all that kept her hanging on to his mane.
On the next buck she lost her grip. A wicked spiral of the stallion’s back sent Ruth sailing though the air, straight toward a water barrel. She crashed into its side, splitting the timber wide open. Icy water gushed everywhere, and she landed in the snow face-first.
The last coherent sounds Ruth heard were the men hesitantly, but politely, clapping.
Silence. Dylan heard nothing. Why was there no sound? For weeks now the first sound he’d heard every morning was either the baby or Ruth.
His eyes popped open. He didn’t recognize where he was at first and then remembered they were in Shadow Brook. A boardinghouse. He rolled over, wincing when his shoulder reminded him he wasn’t healed yet.
He groaned.
His head felt like it was stuffed with cotton, his mouth dry. When he sat up, he couldn’t focus. He blinked, trying to clear his head. He tried to stand, but his legs and arms didn’t feel a part of his body. He stumbled and nearly fell face-first into the braided rug. Holding on to the bedpost, he managed to remain upright but felt on a tilt. What was wrong?
Drugged. Someone had slipped him something!
Ruth. What had she done to him this time?
Hearing a commotion outside, he looked out the window to see a number of cowboys hightailing it out of town … toward the corral. Now, why did instinct tell him that whatever was going on involved Ruth?
His mind began to clear. Jamming his hat on his head, he took a step toward the door before realizing he was in his socks. His boots were nowhere in sight. He’d had them on when he—
Ruth. She’d taken his boots. If she thought that would stop him, she had another think coming. If she thought she could talk the cowboys out of holding the cow as collateral for his bet or use his injuries as a reason for letting him out of the competition …
The more he thought about her embarrassing him, the madder he got. Thankful that he hadn’t stabled the horses yet, Dylan mounted and galloped toward the corral, intent on stopping Ruth before she made a fool of him.
As he neared the corral, he heard yells and calls. His horse skidded to a halt and Dylan slid off, dropping the reins. The sound of men’s laughter and hooting filled the charged air.
Walking gingerly across the snow-packed ground, Dylan gravitated toward the noise. Something told him that the answers to why he’d been drugged—and where his boots were—were there. The closer he got to the melee, the more certain he was of it.
He reached the corral in time to see Ruth fly through the air and into the water barrel tied to the corner fence. He winced when he heard the dull thud of her body hitting wood and bouncing off like a rag doll, her black hair flying when her hat flew off.
Two men jumped off the fence and ran to divert the still-bucking bronco, while two other hands grabbed Ruth’s arms and dragged her outside the fence.
Rage cleared the last of the fog from Dylan’s mind. Rage and cold fear—fear like he’d never experienced before. Had the woman lost her mind?
Ignoring his stocking feet, he jumped the fence and sprinted across the corral in the direction they’d dragged Ruth. She lay unconscious, her head cushioned by her crushed hat. A cowpoke bent over her, patting her cheek in an attempt to bring her around.
“You okay, girlie?”
Dylan jerked the man away from Ruth and dropped to his knees to pull her into his arms. Feelings he’d never had before washed over him. Warmth. A need to protect. A need to love.
Too late. Ruth was dead. Crazy, stubborn, misguided Ruth. Ruth, who’d rescued Rose from fire but had tried her best not to love her. Ruth, who had stubbornly followed him across a territory with the idea of finding some distant cousin. Ruth, who had bullied him, saved his life, stood beside him, cared for him. Ruth. His Ruth.
Closing his eyes, he rocked, tenderly cradling her close to his chest, her coal black hair spilling over his arm.
“I’m sure sorry,” one of the cowhands said. “We had no idea she was a woman. Then when we realized she was a girl dressed like a boy—”
Dylan looked up at him. “Couldn’t you tell she was a woman? How could you miss it?”
“Well, we didn’t know at first,” another put in, “but then when we did, it was too late to stop her.”
“You let her ride that horse anyway?”
“She was determined,” another said.
“We didn’t think she’d get hurt,” the first added.
Dylan bit out, “You should have known she wasn’t an experienced rider. The bet was for me to ride!”
The men looked at each other. “We just thought … well … we thought we’d play a little trick on her, ’cause she dressed like a man, tried to fool us—”
“She wanted to keep me from losing the cow,” Dylan said softly, “and keep me from killing myself.”
He continued to rock Ruth gently, his mind filled with memories. Memories of this woman on the wagon train taking care of the other girls, reading her Bible, teaching Glory to read and write, trying to persuade Glory to take a bath. Ruth laughing in the firelight, sunlight tingeing her hair.
He saw a spirited Ruth determined to follow him though she hadn’t a clue how to survive on the trail. But she had survived. Ruth, who wouldn’t hold the baby more than she had to, but still found a gutsy way to keep her alive those first few days. A furious Ruth facing an irate Ulele and then jumping on a horse and making a run for it, clinging to him like she’d never let him go.
Never let him go.
But she had let him go. Why? Perhaps she did love him. Had she taken his wounds because she loved him?
Tears stung his eyes and he held her closer, the pain of loss nearly suffocating him. He’d never wanted to care. Not about her. Not about anyone. He’d pushed her away because she got to him. Made him hope for things that were impossible. He’d been ornery and rude to her, made her think he’d ridden off and left her to fend for herself in an unforgiving land, but she’d stood her ground all the way. He’d been surprised by her determination, shamed by her willingness to take on the responsibility of a homeless child. She was a good mother, once she got used to the idea. Then she’d taken to
it like a bee took to honey.
She’d pulled those arrows out of his shoulder when a weaker woman would have fainted. She had refused to let him die. She had found water, worked day and night to bring down his fever. When he was sharp with her, unreasonable, she’d stood up to him and gave back as much as he dished out. He’d never met a woman like her.
He loved her.
The power of that revelation hit him in the middle of his chest like a sledgehammer. He’d never thought love would find him, never wanted it to. But love had attacked him in the guise of this good-to-the-bone woman. He’d been a fool to tell himself he could leave her, that he could live without her or the baby. They were a family—an unusual one, but a family nonetheless.
Suddenly the cowhand’s admission registered. They’d known she was a woman and yet they’d set her on that bronco. A bronco that had never been ridden and, from the looks of at least three limping cowboys, hadn’t been yet.
Dylan gently put Ruth aside before his rage clicked in. He stood up and lashed out with his fist, which landed solidly on the nearest cowboy’s jaw. The man rocked back on his heels, his knees buckling before he recovered and threw a solid punch into Dylan’s belly.
The two men rolled on the snowy ground, going after each other with a flurry of fists and shouts as the other men formed a circle and cheered their chosen opponent. The melee gathered steam as the cowhands joined in. Fists flew as they all waded into the brawl, yelling and shouting.
Chapter Thirteen
Ruth slowly gained consciousness, aware first of a piercing pain in her left side, followed closely by a whole new host of aches and pains throughout her body. Then she became aware of men yelling. Yelling loudly. The noise was deafening, causing her head to pound even more. She wanted them to stop. Someone had to make them stop!
She tried to move, but she couldn’t. She tried taking a deep breath, but a sharp pain near the base of her skull rendered her helpless. She lay back again. Then she remembered.
Bert. The bronco—the ornery horse had thrown her. Rats. There went Rose’s milk.
She’d warned Dylan against betting the cow; she’d warned him that this would happen. But would he listen? Noooo. He had to enter this silly contest. It didn’t matter that he was barely able to remain upright on a tame horse, much less a bronco that nobody could ride.
Ruth opened her eyes. Blur. She was blind!
No. That was sky. Blue sky. She relaxed and her eyes focused. She realized she was in the middle of a free-for-all. Snow and fists were flying everywhere. Grunts of pain and fury filled the air. Blood. Men’s feet flew out from under them like broken stilts. The group was going crazy.
Then she saw him.
Dylan. Smack-dab in the middle of the whole mess! Well, if he hurt himself, it served him right!
Then she saw Rose. The cowhand still held the baby, but Rose’s head was bobbing like a cork as the man egged on one of the fighters. Rose was clapping and laughing at every blow Dylan landed, as if she was cheering him on. Ruth sat up gingerly, amazed.
Then it occurred to her. Bert. That bronco had never been ridden, had tossed several experienced cowboys straight into the ground, and yet she’d been put on him. They tricked her! No wonder the cowpokes had snickered when she hadn’t been able to muster enough leverage to mount without help. They had known she was a woman—why, they probably made side bets on how far the bronco would throw her!
Did Dylan know? A slow, warm fuzziness crept over Ruth. Somehow she knew that he did know, and that was what had sparked the brawl. He was fighting for her—the woman he swore he’d throw to the wolves without a second thought. Her insides turned to mush and tears filled her eyes. He loved her; the big buffoon was fighting for her and the baby—the family they’d created.
Happiness puddled from the corners of her eyes as she watched the marshall down one cowboy, then another. She loved this crazy man, this man who’d been so afraid to care about her. She loved him heart and soul and loved the baby as much, maybe even more, though she didn’t see how that was possible. Love was love, and she had enough to supply both Rose and Dylan for the rest of her life.
Now she had a choice. Would she admit her love, stay and help him fight, or get up and walk away from it all? Walk away from the baby, away from Dylan? She could ride until she found a town that had work for her; she could earn enough money to return to Denver City. She could do that.
Then she remembered a Scripture verse she had read this morning before they set out on the trail. It was from Jeremiah 18. God told Jeremiah to go to the potter’s house. As Jeremiah watched him work on a clay vessel, it “marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.”
The words struck her because one day in Sulphur Springs, she’d encountered an old Indian inside the livery. He’d been working there in the warm barn, forming pots from the earth, his hands making a beautiful vessel out of a shapeless lump. The old man’s face was weathered and lined with age, his eyes ageless. Ruth had stood watching him, commenting on his skill.
In broken English he’d told Ruth that people were like his pots. Some were already baked—set in their ways, inflexible, hard. “They miss out on a lot of good in life,” he’d said.
But then he picked up a lump of unformed clay and began to mold it into a pretty shape. “Some are like this clay, ready to become something useful. They go through the fire and come out of the oven beautiful.”
She’d held a pot in her hands, almost sad that it could no longer be molded. One of the pots had a bump along the bottom edge, a bump that would be there until the pot was broken. A flaw. The pot had a flaw, like all people.
She had a flaw too. Many of them, actually. The Jeremiah verse gave her hope that perhaps God could still mold her life into something useful, even though she was marred. Perhaps she could be useful, despite the flaws.
But not if she was already “baked,” already set in her ideas of what God was doing in her life. She’d assumed that because she could never have children, a husband and family were out of the picture. She’d hardened her heart against the possibility. But was she being so headstrong in her prior notions that she was blind to God’s taking her in a new direction? Was it possible that God was now bringing love into her life—and a child—and that she had been too much of a “baked pot” to recognize the gift?
So, Ruthie, what are you going to do about it? Are you going to set aside those old beliefs and open yourself to a new direction? Or are you going to walk away with your old thoughts and patterns and miss out on the blessings God stands ready to give you?
Of course, there was still one barrier left before she could give her heart to Dylan. Unless they were spiritually matched, she couldn’t think of a life with him. Could she trust God right now, even if she had no idea of the outcome?
One thing she knew: she hadn’t come this far to see some cowboy destroy this man she loved. Holding her aching side, Ruth pushed herself up and managed to roll to her knees. She squinted against the sea of brawling fists, searching for a weapon. A shovel leaned against the corral railing.
Shoving herself to her feet, she stumbled through the fighting cowboys and grabbed the shovel. A moment later she was in the middle of the chaos, her screaming pain forgotten, fighting alongside Dylan.
When Dylan spotted her, his mouth fell open as he stared in amazement and relief before he ducked a roundhouse by another cowboy. “I thought you were—,” he yelled.
“Dead?” Ruth smacked the shovel against a cowpoke’s head, knocking him out cold. “You’re not that lucky, McCall!”
Grinning widely, Dylan hooked his arm around Ruth’s waist and pulled her to him for a long, thorough kiss while the battle raged around them. When their lips parted, he smiled down at her. “You’re some woman, Ruth Priggish.”
“You’re some man, Marshall McCall.” They both ducked swinging fists and reentered the fray.
A man knocked Dylan down. As he crawled
out from between the legs of two fighting cowpokes, he called out, “Hey, Ruthie?”
“Yes?” She took a wide swing and clunked a man over the head.
“Been meaning to ask you something.”
“Can’t it wait?” She dodged an oncoming fist, bringing her weapon squarely down on the man’s hand. The cowpoke yelped and backed off.
“Don’t think so—at the rate we’re going we’re not likely to live to a ripe old age.” Dylan swung a hard left.
“Yeah.” She brought the shovel down, nearly tripping over her feet. At the rate they were going, life was mighty risky. “You’re right. What’s the question?”
“Want to get married?” he asked, shoving aside a windmilling cowboy with a left hook.
Her eyebrows shot up.
“Later,” he added, felling another attacker.
“Later?” She swung the shovel and leveled a cowboy, who went down like a shot.
“Not too much later—say, later this evening?”
She bit down on her lower lip and hauled off and let another man have it. She had some serious thinking and praying to do, but “later” sounded good to her.
“How’s that rib, cowboy?” Dylan smiled as they rested on their horses before the last descent into Shadow Brook. Rose lay contentedly in Dylan’s arms.
Ruth gingerly touched her aching side. The doctor had bandaged the cracked rib at the horse corral and shook his head over the angry dark blue bruises, which proved to be plentiful. Bert had done a job on Ruth Priggish.
“I’m fine, Mr. McCall.” She flashed a merry smile. “Never better in my life.”
Dylan sobered. “I still can’t believe you’d love me enough to risk your life for me.”
“It wasn’t entirely unselfish. If something happened to you, what would happen to me and the baby?” She leaned closer to touch his sleeve. “Love isn’t that difficult to understand, Dylan. Sacrificial love is mystifying, but maybe that’s because it comes from God. God’s love for you, Dylan McCall, knows no bounds. Is it so impossible for you to accept such perfect love? A love that’s true and born of grace and compassion, not the twisted form Sara practiced.”
Ruth Page 20
