Theresa Michaels

by The Merry Widows Sarah

“Oh, Lucas. I’m sorry. So sorry that you had to go through that. They didn’t know—”

  “They knew.” He glared at her, his teeth clenched, one hand folded over the other that formed a fist. “It was as the others said. They took all that mattered to us and punished us when we fought back. They wanted us to learn their way. They wanted us to forget our people, forget all we were taught.

  “When I asked why they wanted to do this to us, I was hit. I tried to understand why. I didn’t want to be like them. I had a…a brother and a father. I was not like the others who had no family.”

  “And you missed your father,” she said, hurting for him and not knowing how much talk or touching he would allow.

  “No. I didn’t need him. He did not want me. He did not want Gabriel. He only wanted his whiskey.”

  Sarah saw through the lie. The wounds were there. Lucas had been taken from his father’s side, stripped of his learning of two worlds, forced to behave against what he had known and act against all he’d been taught.

  Oh, yes. The wounds and the anger still burned deep and bright.

  “Lucas, someday you’ll be a man, and hope to love a woman as your father loved your mother. And I hope that you’ll both grow old together and keep that love. But when someone you love more than life itself is taken from you, long before you believe it is right or time, the hurt that you feel can make you forget there are others that love you, others that need you.

  “I’m not saying that’s what happened to your father. But I think it’s true. I think he loved your mother so much that he forgot how much you and your brother needed him. That’s how badly he was hurting. He knows now that the whiskey didn’t help and never will. Now he hurts because he has to face what he did. He can never bring back what was. But he can try to begin again with you and Gabriel.

  “But Lucas,” she pleaded, reaching over to cover his hands, “he can’t do it alone. He needs your help. He needs you to talk to him. I know he loves you. I know that he—”

  “How?”

  “Lucas, he told me. I can see for myself that it’s true. I think you know it, too. He never stopped loving you, he stopped loving himself. You can’t give love to someone else unless you care about yourself first. It would be like…” Sarah paused. She struggled to find a way to chase the bewildered look he wore.

  “You love to draw. But if you draw your pictures and never showed them to anyone wouldn’t that make you selfish?” By his look she was not reaching him. She frowned and tried again.

  “Do you love Gabriel?”

  “He is my brother.”

  “And that’s the only reason you love him?”

  Lucas looked away, then back at her. “No. He makes me laugh. He pesters me with questions that I must find answers for and that makes me think and be stronger. He is younger and I must protect him. Sometimes…sometimes he is stronger than me. He has never shamed me. He tries to be brave like me, he said.”

  “And it would hurt Gabriel very much if you turned away from him? It would hurt you, too.”

  “Never would I do this to him!”

  “No matter what he did? No matter if he tried to take something or hurt you?”

  “Never! He is my brother!”

  He jerked his hands away from her only to grip the edge of the table. There was fire in his glare.

  “Then why, Lucas, would you think that your father ever stopped loving you?”

  “You know nothing. My…she who is gone was leaving him. She was taking us to her people. She no longer wanted to live on the rancheria. He didn’t fight with her to keep us. He said he would let us go. This is the love you tell me he feels? You know nothing!”

  His shout jarred her as he suddenly broke off. His eyes dark and miserable, he shook his head at her and then pushed the chair away from the table.

  Sarah, shocked by what he said, was left with her mouth open. In seconds the missing pieces of Rio’s guilt and actions following his wife’s death fell into place for her.

  But she couldn’t think about Rio now. Not when his son stood staring at her with his pain etched on his young features as clearly as one of his drawings.

  “Lucas, I wasn’t there, but I think if you look in your heart you’ll know that he would never have abandoned you. Maybe he meant to let you go for a little while, but never for always. He loves you and your brother too much. You know that I know you do. I also know that you’re hurting. Please, give him a chance. For your sake and for his.”

  He spun away. She saw his shoulders begining to shake. The first sob was muffled as she rose from her chair.

  Sarah hesitated. Then she went to him and wrapped her arms around his thin body. The child’s tears widened the crack in the wall she had built around herself. She fought back her own tears, but when his arms came around her, she felt them fall.

  They held each other for long minutes. She heard the boy’s sniffles as he attempted to stop crying. She tried to stop herself. When he pulled free of her arms, she let him go and then had to watch him stumble away.

  It was time for him to be alone with his thoughts. And time for her to do the same. She became aware of a dull ache at the back of her neck. She closed her eyes and absently massaged her neck.

  She couldn’t confront Rio about what Lucas had told her. And what did it matter to her? This was something between him and his sons.

  But as she opened her eyes and forced herself to stir the soup and think of what else she could make for supper, she was hit with the realization that Lucas had never intended to tell her about that.

  There was something else. Something that prompted him to ask if she had more paper. And then her response of going to town to get it invited a feeling that it would be too late.

  Too late?

  As in too late because they wouldn’t be here?

  Grasping at straws?

  Maybe, she answered herself.

  Could Rio think of leaving? Silently she ran the thought of the possibilities of such a move, If he left now the floods would cover his tracks.

  If leaving was his intent, this morning’s cutting speech made more sense. He had to know that she would argue against him going. He had to know that she wanted him to stay here and make a stand.

  And if he believed he was protecting her by taking off…

  “Oh, Rio,” she whispered, glancing toward the door.

  He had to realize that since the rain had stopped not only would the killers travel, but others, too.

  She knew there would be someone coming out from town to see how she fared. And what could she say if Rio and the boys were seen?

  Sarah drummed her fingers on the table. She could sit here all day and try to figure out what Rio was planning. How much easier if she confronted him.

  She sighed and leaned back in her chair. She would not make one move without thinking it through.

  She had no right to argue with Rio if he did plan to leave, not when he had the lives of his sons to consider.

  But she couldn’t help feeling that she had a stake in them, too. Gabriel’s sunny smiles and incessant questions. Lucas’s more serious mein. Their presence brought to life the painful loneliness of her own, but they also filled the empty places. Still, she would never do anything that put their lives at risk.

  Rio would need supplies. He could wipe out the little she had remaining, but somehow that didn’t seem the act of the man she had come to know.

  Yet…he couldn’t be thinking of going into town to buy what he needed. Or could he?

  And where would the money…

  Sarah tensed, then leaned forward. The man he killed. Rio must have searched him. And just thinking about what the killer had done, and almost did to her, brought no accusation against whatever Rio had done.

  And he had no one else after him but the last two killers.

  Or did he?

  Could the law be looking for him? Could he have lied about that? He never told her that his wife was planning on leaving him and taking their s
ons with her. What else hadn’t he told her? She then remembered that he’d mentioned the territorial jail.

  Sarah absently rubbed her forehead as the ache grew in intensity. She had two choices. She could sit and wait for him to tell her what was going on, or she could confront him and demand to know.

  Still she remained where she was, battling off the growing fear of facing that cold, hardened stranger she had met this morning.

  Why? Why had he done that to her? Why tear apart…the memories of last night came rushing back.

  She refused to believe him. There had been need—mutual need. But there had been something more, some stronger emotions. And when he’d attacked her this morning she had been shamed that he’d so easily aroused dreams and desire of what might be.

  All she would have now was the strong reminder of her aloneness once he was gone.

  If she believed the man who had spoken to her this morning.

  Only if she believed him, and not the man who had loved her last night.

  What drove Rio to feel guilty? She struggled to remember all he’d told her. Guilty because he wasn’t there. Guilty because he couldn’t stop them from killing his wife, destroying his home and stealing his horses.

  And the man who had held Sarah while she cried out the black secret of her heart, the man who kissed her with a tenderness she had never known would see only the need to protect her.

  By leaving…

  By making her so hurt and angry she’d be glad to see him go.

  And if anyone came looking for him, she could in truth tell what she knew, all with righteous anger coating every word. Every damn believable word.

  Sarah made her choice. She couldn’t be wrong about Rio. She had given him what had never been Judd’s after the first year…her trust.

  And without that, she thought as she shoved back the chair and stood up, without trust, there was no chance of building on the feelings they stirred in each other.

  Now she didn’t hesitate. There no longer was a reason too. And she knew as she went to the door, that she wasn’t wrong about Rio.

  Chapter Twenty

  The air outside was cool, but without the bite of chilling wind. The sky remained a scudding mass of gray clouds. Sarah lifted her face and closed her eyes. There was no smell of rain.

  As she looked about again, she wore a small smile, for there were other potent smells. The churned mud held a musty earthiness and pungent odors rose from the mucked-out leavings from the stalls.

  She walked on the same board pathway that Gabriel had entertained himself on earlier. With every step, she refused to allow doubt to come creeping back as she crossed the yard to the barn.

  The horses crowded the corral fence. The mare’s nickers and the stallion’s snort to attract her attention failed to distract her from the open door. She took several deep breaths, exhaling the last slowly, as if this could bring up the level of courage she needed.

  Sarah was not aware of the silence within the barn itself until she stood on the threshold. No cat came to greet her. No chicken squawks. No cow rattling the stanchion.

  She lifted her right foot, about to step into the barn when she stopped and retreated a step. It felt as if something had pushed her back outside. Her mouth was dry as straw stubble. A chilling tremor snaked its way down her back.

  For all that she felt stopped by some unseen but strongly felt barrier, she was also pulled toward going inside to discover what was wrong.

  And something was wrong.

  She was afraid to go in. And the fear was a stomach-tightening, weak-kneed sensation that strengthened with every second she delayed. She had felt fear like this before, fear that her accounting to Rio had dredged from memory.

  She felt split in two. With her right ear she could hear the horse’s restless stampings, with the left, she heard the painful silence.

  Swallowing repeatedly did not provide moisture for her mouth. She could not call out, then, she realized she didn’t want to. It was a few seconds’ work to call up the layout of the barn, but harder to believe that Rio had not replaced the tools used to muck out the stalls.

  She had to hope. There was nothing else. If Rio had been interrupted, he would not have had the time to put away the hay fork or the manure hook in the tack room.

  And she needed one or the other for a weapon.

  Doubt had disappeared. She needed a weapon.

  The first step into the shadowed interior of the barn was the hardest.

  What if those two men were just waiting for her? If she was caught, or killed, it wouldn’t be long before Lucas would come looking for her.

  Once more those killers would get away with murdering innocents.

  Not while she had a breath left.

  Sarah scanned the center aisle. No Rio, no Gabriel, and no cow. Those men wouldn’t have bothered taking the cow. Maybe she was being foolish beyond imagining. Rio would have turned the animal out in the pasture behind the barn. He could be there with his son right now.

  She wanted to believe that. Wanted it with every tense nerve in her body.

  All she could do was listen to an inner voice yelling that she was wrong. There was no easy way to find them safe.

  Safe. She locked on to and clung tight to that thought. She sidestepped toward her left. With her hands extended behind her, she felt along the wall for one of the long, wood-handled tools.

  Sarah suddenly froze. Her breath was caught in her chest. What her fingers encountered was the long cool barrel of her rifle. She released her breath in a rush as she snatched up the rifle.

  She should have been thinking herself lucky. But all she could feel was despair. Rio had no weapon but his knife. He had refused to wear her handgun. That was hanging beside the door in the kitchen.

  If those killers…

  No!

  She refused to think about it. She cradled the rifle and took courage from the fact that she now was armed with a weapon she knew how to use. Once more she inched along until she peered over the wall of the first stall. Empty.

  Sarah climbed the ladder and searched the loft. Nothing. The stalls below on the left side were empty, too. In the tack room, she used the rifle barrel to poke at the pile of empty sacks. No sign of disturbance.

  Standing in the doorway of the tack room, she wiped cold sweat from her brow. Her rapidly pounding heart allowed her no more than panting breaths.

  No sign of Rio or Gabriel.

  It was then she noticed the smell. It was not one she could identify. Stepping out into the barn again, she found she clutched the rifle, one hand on the barrel, the other positioned to fire. The total silence sank into her bone marrow.

  She forced herself to think of what could have happened here. It was the last thing she wanted to do as a tightness rose in her chest.

  What was that smell?

  She didn’t realize she sidestepped to avoid going closer to it. Her mind was filled with the fact that two people couldn’t disappear as though they have never been. Not when one of them was a small boy excited at being free for the first time in days.

  Or was all this anxiety she felt mere imagining?

  Could that be it? Just imagination?

  It didn’t feel right, and there was no sense of relief. If anything, the fear increased with a force that left her shaking.

  She had to find them.

  The foul odor made it hard to breathe. She started forward, thinking to get Lucas and keep him with her. She even managed a few steps before she felt pulled toward the middle stall. One of the ones she hadn’t checked. The smell of something foul was stronger and her stomach churned. She was breathing through her mouth, and as much as she wanted to stop, to flee, she found herself slipping the latch.

  Rio had mucked out all the stalls. This one had brown-stained hay covering its flooring. An unusually thick layer of bedding.

  And she knew what she smelled. Knew it as if she had lifted the hay. Tried not to think of what awaited as her stomach rebelled and emptied its
elf.

  She was still gagging when she turned back. She had to be sure. She pushed aside the hay. Red comb. Glassy eyes. Little brown head twisted and limp.

  Sarah backed out and slammed the stall door closed. She didn’t need to see more. No chickens. No cats. Now she knew that Rio had spared telling her the worst of those two animals. Animals, not men.

  What if those weren’t the only dead things concealed beneath the hay?

  Sarah backed away. She couldn’t look. Not now. She refused to give in, give up any hope that Rio and Gabriel were still alive. She had to get Lucas!

  She ran across the yard. She cursed her need for privacy and lack of close neighbors. The road was still flooded, she could never make it into town and bring back help in time,

  Had Gabriel seen what those wretched, evil creatures had done? Please, Lord, I hope you spared him that.

  “Lucas,” she called out the moment she opened the back door. The kitchen filled with the aroma of the soup simmering on the stove. Sarah took a few breaths and then found herself hunched over the dry sink, heaving, but there was nothing left. She washed out her mouth, patted cold water on her face and called out for Lucas again..

  She heard him coming down the hall as she loaded her pockets with bullets.

  “What’s wrong, Sarah?”

  “Take the gun belt, Lucas. We’ve got to find your father and brother.”

  “Why?”

  She closed the cupboard drawer and turned around to face him. Within his dark eyes she saw that he already knew the answer.

  “There’s no time to waste, Lucas. Nothing is going to happen to them. We’ll find them. I swear to you we will.” Inwardly she shuddered for what she was about to do.

  “Can you use a handgun?”

  “Rifle,” he choked. One hand swiped across his eyes. “I hunted with a rifle.”

  “Then take it.” She snatched the gun belt from its hook, wrapped it around her hips then belted it.

  “Lucas, one thing. We stay together unless I say otherwise.” He stood waiting while she loaded his pockets with extra ammunition.

  He grabbed her arm. “How…how did you know?”

  Sarah thought about lying to him. The feel of his fingers digging into her arm, and his pleading gaze, would not allow her to lie.