The Milch Bride

by J. R. Biery

  “Although,” he added, staring at her downturned face and the baby who suckled with one hand touching her face. “Looking at these bodies, it doesn’t look like you needed a rescuer.”

  “I was terrified. I realized the rifle was over the fireplace. I remembered hanging the holster around your desk chair. I had to get on the bed to feel if the handgun was still there under the pillow.”

  “That was some performance. You were unbelievably brave. I don’t think there’s a braver or more daring woman in these 34 states.”

  “I didn’t know if I could actually fire at them, but it was just like shooting the coyotes.”

  “I’m proud of you and your brave little momma, J.D.” he leaned down to kiss the red spot on his forehead and arm again.

  “I couldn’t believe that monster had our baby.” She curved down to kiss the bright red spot on his forehead too and J.D. released his nipple to reach up and stretch to a standing position. Jackson placed a steadying hand under the soft bare bottom as he wobbled between them. Finally, the baby managed to lean high enough to kiss her cheek with an open-mouthed sloppy kiss.

  “You’re right, he is giving a kiss.” Jackson laughed. “Those little girl babies better watch out for our little Romeo, right J.D.”

  They heard the buggy roll into the yard. Jackson made sure Hattie was decent and opened the bedroom door, even as she managed to diaper the wiggling J.D. and get a short shirt on him.

  “A couple of you men drag this crow bait out of here. We’ll load them onto the buckboard and carry them into the sheriff.”

  Hank stepped closer to Jackson. “Boss, we’ve kind of got a situation out here. Reason those hombres were able to get into the house unnoticed.”

  Jackson looked over at James and Rubye. Both sat, red-faced, where the raiders had tied them into chairs. It was plain from their red faces and rumpled clothes that they had been busy at other things then watching out for outlaws.

  “I see,” he said. “Guess one of you men better ride for the preacher, soon as you let them loose and get this carrion hauled out of my house.”

  “Yeah, believe you’re right, boss.” Hank grinned as he stepped over to untie the mortified couple.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Jackson walked out onto the porch, surprised to see Charlie Dawson climbing down from his buggy.

  Charles hesitated below the porch, watching in horror as one after another, the desperadoes were hauled out.

  Jackson stood there, just staring at his shocked reaction. “What brings you here, Charles, come to see who won?”

  Dawson cleared his throat, looked up in relief as Hattie emerged from the house carrying a clinging J.D. “Thank, God, you and the baby are all right.”

  “No thanks to those hired thugs. You come to tell me what’s really going on, Dad.” Jackson said the last word with real anger.

  Dawson seemed to shrink a little in his suit. “Yes, why don’t you and Harriet walk a little with me? I need to tell you this in private.”

  Hattie looked confused, a little surprised at being included. “Give me a minute to get my shoes.”

  She handed J.D. to his father. The baby cried after her for a second, then curled up against his daddy. Dawson stared hungrily at the child, sighing when he noticed the red knot on his face, then the redness on his tiny arm. “They hurt the baby?” he whispered in horror.

  “Used him to threaten Hattie, planned to rape her again, Charlie, but you already know that. Why don’t you cut out the guff? I know you were the one who sent them.”

  “No, Jackson, you don’t know, because I didn’t. That’s what we need to talk about.”

  Hattie came down the porch steps, carefully walking around the blood trail and stopping to lean up and slip a soft lazy shawl over J.D. before taking him back from Jackson. The tall cowboy put a steadying arm around her and a protective hand on the baby’s back.

  As soon as they rounded the corner beside the garden with the scratching chickens and buzzing bees, he began to talk.

  “I’ve known for some time, Irene’s not been right, not since after Donna had the baby. That business of being left alone with Donna and the baby, but of not really knowing what to do for them, it hurt her, she blamed herself. You have to understand, Irene has always been a sheltered, pampered woman. Such harsh reality, the death of our daughter, it caused a sort of break-down.

  “Come on Charlie, you aren’t going to blame all this on Irene.”

  “No, not all of it. There’s blood on my hands too. The plan wasn’t to hurt anyone, I swear. I just wanted to frighten the squatter’s into wanting to sell and move on. The sheriff recommended some men, men he rode with during the war.”

  “You hired the men who robbed us, who beat my father, who…”

  “Harriett, I’m so sorry. I never meant for anyone to be hurt. When I learned what they did to you and Tom, I told Sheriff Tate they had to go.”

  “But he didn’t listen, right?” Jackson asked sarcastically.

  “No, he told me I would keep my mouth shut or he’d tell everyone my part in it. I didn’t have a choice.”

  “You had a choice; you just made the wrong one.”

  “What about the money,” Hattie interrupted. “Our money from the cattle we sold to pay the taxes.”

  “I have the money, well most of it. I used some of it to pay them.”

  “You used our money to pay them to savage and destroy us?” Hattie stared in horror at this man, who stood in his proper banker clothes and self-righteous pose.

  Jackson swore softly. “You made me pay for that land, when you’d already collected four times what they owed on the tax bill. Your problem Charles is you’re a greedy bastard.”

  “Don’t start about that ranch again. This morning you were insisting you wanted the title back in Hattie’s name.”

  “Jackson,” she grabbed at his arm.

  He turned to stare down at her. “I never intended to take your ranch. I didn’t think you’d ever believe me again unless I gave you the land back.”

  “But I did, after you left. I got to thinking about it; you’ve never lied to me, not once, about anything. I realized you were telling me the truth.”

  He stared down into her eyes, gave her a crooked smile. “Good, because I didn’t get the title changed. Taxes will be sky high if it’s in your name, just high if it’s in mine. But it’s your land girl, to do with as you want.”

  “Good, I’ve got plans for it.”

  “Are you going to tell me what they are?”

  “Eventually,” she grinned at him.

  Jackson shook his head and grinned back. They were past the garden by the well. Hattie took the baby back as Jackson drew up a bucket and passed the gourd dipper of ice cold water around.

  Jackson held the dipper, staring hard at Dawson. The man reached out to touch the handle but waited until it was surrendered. “Harriet, I will write a check for all of the money for the cattle sale before I leave today. I’m truly sorry,” Dawson said as he accepted the water.

  “Go on about Irene,” Jackson ordered.

  “You said we three, Donna, you and me, were the only ones to know about the secret panel, but Irene knew too. She’s the one who showed it to Donna, had her order it along with the rest of your bedroom furniture from that place in Boston. Cost a pretty penny, getting it made and shipped out here. But Irene could always spend money.”

  “When you had the shoot-out, Hogue came to the Sheriff with a bullet in the shoulder and Silas Sweat bleeding from a leg wound. Doc Jenkins fixed up Rafe and told them Silas was a gonner. He bled-out on the table like our Donna did. Sheriff Tate buried Silas’s body that night and we sent Rafe and Able by stage the next day to Abilene.”

  “We asked around town, no one had seen them.”

  “Tate rode them out of town in his buckboard and they met the stage after it was at Red Rim. I thought it was the end of everything.”

  Jackson wondered how many men had been involved in the
lie. None of the ones he asked had seen anything, especially the sheriff. The silence lasted until he asked. “Why did they come back?”

  “It was Irene,” Dawson paced back and forth, twisting his hands together. Jackson wondered if he was imagining Irene’s slender neck between his hands.

  With the pacing, they walked past the buckboard where the bodies had been loaded.

  Hattie seemed to stumble and Jackson caught a glimpse of her chalk white face. He looped an arm under her legs and carried her and the boy toward the house, shouting into the dark interior, “Rubye, come hold the baby.”

  Rubye did, but as she walked past the bloody floors, she didn’t look any too steady either. The house smelled of powder and blood, and Jackson swore. Still cradling Hattie and the baby, he turned and walked back out onto the porch. “Get a blanket and some smelling salts,” he yelled back into the house.

  In minutes he had handed Rubye the baby and had Hattie wrapped in a blanket. He sat in the sun, cradling her in his arms as her teeth began to chatter. He pulled her closer, chafing her arms and pressing his face against hers. “It’s all right, you’re safe, it’s all right darling.”

  When he looked at Rubye she was suddenly looking pale. “Dawson take the boy. James Boyd, get another blanket and come take care of your woman.”

  In minutes both women were stretched out, cradled in blankets.

  Dawson stepped onto the porch with the crying baby. Cuddling him close and talking to him softly, “What is it? What’s wrong with them?”

  “It’s shock, damn females,” Boyd muttered.

  Jackson stared at the older man holding and rocking the staunch housekeeper who was as white as Hattie had been minutes ago. “Its shock all right, but you and I have seen it in men on the battlefield before. You can’t expect anyone to go through what they’ve just done without any reaction.”

  “Hank, move that meat wagon into the barn and the shade. I wired the rangers, and I don’t want to take these dead men into town until the afternoon stage arrives.” Jackson called.

  Hattie’s color began to return and she turned toward the crying baby, taking him into the cocoon of her arms and the blanket. “I’m sorry, I just felt all wobbly for a minute.’

  Jackson held her close and kissed her forehead as he motioned for Dawson to sit as well. “I believe we could all do with a shot of whiskey right now.”

  Charlie and James both pulled out bottles, the banker’s flask was silver. Jackson held the flask to Hattie’s lips, patting her back as her face flamed with color and she sputtered in reaction. Rubye managed a little better, grimacing fiercely, as she sipped James bottle.

  Jackson drank from the banker’s bottle, knowing the bonded Bourbon would be easier to swallow then Boyd’s rock gut. Then he let James and the banker pass their bottles out to the men.

  “Might as well finish your story, Dawson, I’m not moving until I’m sure Hattie’s okay.”

  “Of course, of course,” he sputtered, “It can wait.” But when the empty flask came back to him, he shook it, pocketed it, and resumed his tale, droning on in a monotone.

  “Irene took Donna’s loss really hard, really hard.”

  “You said that. Told us she knew about the secret panel. Tell us why Rafe and Able Sweat showed up.”

  “She sent a wire, asked them to come back.”

  “Why?”

  “When Rubye White showed up at our place, all scandalized by the goings on out here, Irene decided to replace Hattie Stoddard for once and all. She kept going on about how unfit she was to be raising Donna’s son. When that fool preacher stopped by and bragged about marrying you, I knew something bad was going to happen.”

  “That was the Sunday they came out and shot the animals?” Jackson asked.

  “I think Irene sent the rustlers out with orders to bring back Donna’s jewelry and anything else of value that they could find. She wanted them to scare Hattie into leaving. When Irene told me, I told her you would never let her go, but she wouldn’t listen.”

  “When you showed up with her at church, Irene snapped. When you told me about the jewelry being stolen, I knew it was Irene. That was one of the things she obsessed about, that horrible girl getting Donna’s pretty things. It wasn’t enough that she had Donna’s son, now she had her husband, her house, everything. But when she showed up in Donna’s clothes, she figured when she found the jewelry she’d wear it too. Some of the pieces were her families, Irene’s mothers and grandmothers. She just couldn’t bear to think of Harriet wearing any of them.”

  “Why didn’t she just ask for them back?” Jackson asked.

  “I don’t know, she wasn’t thinking rationally. As soon as I confronted her, she confessed it all. Showed me the money she’d made from the cattle they’d stolen. She told me we could use it to send J.D. to Harvard. It takes a lot of money to go to Harvard,” she said.

  “I had Doc Jenkins come to stay with her, give her something for her nerves. He told me she would need to be sent off somewhere, to a sanitarium somewhere. I don’t think she can stand it. I don’t think she’ll go. I don’t know that I can stand it.”

  Rubye started crying, “I’m sorry, that means all this was my fault.”

  Hattie sat up, handed Jackie to his dad, and then moved from Jackson’s arms to hug the older woman. “No, no, don’t blame yourself. You had no way to know how it would end.”

  “But I judged you, and you were innocent. The Bible says ‘judge not that ye be not judged.’ Then today, my lord, even Hank knew what we’d been doing. I never even saw you kissing. I just saw your eyes light up when you saw each other. The way you loved the baby and each other, I guess I was jealous.”

  James patted her, “It’s not your fault old girl, its mine. Feeling like I do for you, never saying the truth to you. Just watching them fall in love made it that much worse. Knowing I didn’t have any right to speak because I can’t offer you a home, a decent life. I’m just an old cowhand, with nothing of my own.”

  Rubye laid a hand on his cheek and smiled at him. “I’m an old maid without anything of my own. All I need or want is you.”

  Hattie turned to smile at Jackson. “We would never have known what our feelings were if you hadn’t forced us before the preacher.”

  “That’s right. That’s why we’re doing the same for you two. Here he comes now,” Jackson said.

  “But,” James started to protest, as Hattie rose with Jackson and the baby beside her. Charles Dawson stood as well and Hattie put an arm around him. “It will work out, Mr. Dawson. No matter how terrible it might seem at the moment, it always works out.”

  He stared at her in shock, “That’s what Donna always said when I would worry.”

  “She’s always here, protecting J.D. Don’t you feel her too?”

  Before he could answer, the preacher swung down from the buggy. “I’m surprised to be back at this house so soon. I’m really shocked by what this young man had to tell us.” He scowled at Rubye White and James Boyd, both of whom had the grace to blush and look at their feet.

  The preacher winked at Jackson and continued in his sternest voice. “Shall we move inside to conduct the ceremony?”

  “Not today Reverend. We thought a garden wedding might give us a little more room. But we have some things we need to take care of in Star. I’m sorry we ran you out for nothing, but if you can come back tomorrow around noon, with your missus, we’ll have some neighbors in and a meal ready to celebrate.”

  The preacher stared, clearly surprised. “Will you promise James Boyd to do the right thing by Miss White tomorrow?”

  The embarrassed cowboy looked up. “I want nothing more than to do the right thing and make her my wife.”

  Rubye stared at him and when he reached for her hand she squeezed his hand back. To everyone’s surprise she blushed and her eyes filled with tears. James pulled her into his embrace, “You going to do right by me tomorrow, sweetheart?”

  Rubye nodded, then leaned down a couple of inc
hes and tucked her face into his shoulder, overwhelmed with embarrassment.

  Jackson changed the mood. “All right men, let’s mount up, remember to ride armed.”

  The preacher looked more confused. But in all the commotion, no one bothered to explain.

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  The men had loaded the four dead bodies into the buckboard like so much cord wood. Jackson and Cliff tied their horses to the tail gate, then mounted up to drive, each checking and loading their guns. Jackson looked around, scowling. “Where’s Tony? He should have been the first to ride in today. Hank ride ahead, see what you can find.”

  “I’ll check Maria’s house. Maybe he pulled a James today.”

  Jackson laughed, shook his head. “Did you see how red those two got?”

  “Yeah, almost makes you feel guilty for teasing them. Almost.” Cliff laughed.

  “Oh, Hank, check the Eastman spread if you don’t find him in town. He was supposed to be keeping watch there,” Jackson hollered.

  Hank waved as he put his horse to a gallop.

  Jackson looked back at the ranch, waving to the small crowd that remained. He knew the two young hands would stay close, rifles ready. James Boyd would not be distracted by Rubye again. He would be wary and guard them and J.D. Even as he watched, the irritated preacher turned around to head home. Behind the riders in his group, he saw Charlie Dawson in his red-wheeled buggy.

  His father-in-law had been behind all this trouble, if not at the end, at least in the beginning. He had done it for profit. Probably the only thing that ever prodded Charles Dawson was his greed. No, he hadn’t come to the ranch because of greed. He had loved Donna, spoiled her rotten with his love, but had loved her. And, Jackson knew he loved the baby. Surprisingly, he seemed to be fond of Hattie. But why had he told them now? Did he expect Jackson to forgive him as easily as Hattie seemed to have? Despite all she had suffered, she always had the ability to look at other people with compassion. All the way into town, he pondered what could be in the man’s mind and heart.