Frontier Secrets

by Anna Zogg

  And with him was Rhett, held hostage at gunpoint.

  She pushed her way forward. “Whitey? What’re you doing?”

  After a glance her way, he straightened. Sunlight flashed off his gun as he holstered it. “Just seeing what this varmint was up to. I think he was thieving.”

  Doubtful. Not only because she knew Rhett’s character, but because he carried nothing. He held one hand up, fingers spread. The other was hidden, but obviously empty. Whitey had fabricated the tale because he was a thug. She’d seen the way he threw rocks at the dogs when he thought no one was looking.

  She drew herself up. “That is not your concern, but the law’s.”

  His lip curled, but he had not yet released Rhett. “Sometimes folks gotta take the law into their own hands.”

  “What’s going on here?” Pastor Charles pushed his way through the group.

  “I caught him skulking around.” Whitey answered before Ellie could. “Up to no good.”

  Charles glanced back at the crowd, then again faced Whitey. “Impossible. He was in church this morning. Can’t say the same about you, though.”

  Although Ellie couldn’t see the pastor’s face, she could see Whitey’s. His eyes narrowed as he gauged the minister. Though Charles was a man of cloth, he was by no means small of stature. And half the congregation stood at his back. Whitey was a bully, but he wasn’t a fool.

  Contempt twisting his face, Whitey spread his hands as he backed away. Without another word, he turned on his heel and stalked down the road.

  Pastor Charles turned to the group, his brow lowered. “We’re a law-abiding town. If you see this sort of tyranny again, I expect you will do the right thing. Or get the sheriff.”

  Several people muttered their apologies before scattering.

  When Charles met Ellie’s gaze, she sighed in relief. “Thank you.”

  He drew closer. “Are you staying for dinner?”

  “Not today.” Her gaze flickered to Rhett.

  The preacher seemed about to insist, then changed his mind. “You know, I’d really like to see your uncle in church sometime.”

  Her eyes stung. It took a moment for her to find her voice. “So would I.”

  “That is my fervent prayer.”

  She held up her hand to keep the pastor from walking away. “My uncle’s foreman, Guy Bartow, will be looking for me later. Could you let him I know I had to leave?”

  “Consider it done.” Charles gave her arm a comforting squeeze before walking away.

  Once she and Rhett were alone, she spoke to him. He had not moved throughout the interchange. “Please hitch your horse to the wagon.”

  Though his eyebrows shot up, he said nothing. After he moved toward her, she saw his fingers curled around the handle of his knife. She sucked in a slow breath. Had he planned to draw Whitey’s blood?

  Perhaps she had not saved Rhett’s life, but Whitey’s. Then the harsh reality struck her—Guy’s friend wouldn’t let this affront go. What if she had inadvertently put Rhett in greater danger by interfering?

  In no time, he pulled his gear off his horse and hitched the gelding to the wagon. Amid the stares of the church folks, they headed out of town. A jumble of emotions battered Ellie as she sat ramrod stiff. Rhett remained silent, his expression serene. Like he hadn’t a care in the world. After what he had been through? Ever since their arrival at the ranch, he had experienced ill treatment.

  Reaching for a tendril of her hair, she wound it around her finger until it tightened into a painful corkscrew.

  Emotions in chaos, the one that dominated was guilt. She was the one who had talked Rhett into working for her uncle. All it had brought him was trouble.

  “I’m sorry.” Ellie tried to speak the words, but they came out as only a whisper.

  Rhett glanced her way, but she couldn’t meet his gaze. With a gentle click to his horse, he urged the gelding up an incline.

  They had been traveling about a half hour, traversing the mountainous road. As the heat of the sun beat down upon them, Rhett peeled off his jacket, revealing a worn cotton shirt. He rolled up the sleeves, drawing her attention to the scar on his forearm and hands roughened by hard labor. The difference in their social standing ground in the heaviness of her responsibility all the more.

  She had choices. He had little. She had money. Had he any at all?

  In her stubbornness, she had convinced him to take a job that he might not have accepted otherwise. The result was more hardship and exposure to cruelty from men like Whitey.

  Remorse grew. Air seemed too heavy to draw in. She must say the words and release Rhett from any obligation he felt about staying on with the Double M Ranch. God would want her to.

  “I—I’m so sorry.” Ellie rested her hand on his bare forearm.

  In that instant, she forgot everything except the feeling of Rhett’s arm. Warm. Muscular. Very much alive. This was the second time they had touched. Or was it the third? One time had been particularly startling.

  We were standing on the porch. And he took my hand.

  She recalled the strength of his fingers. Despite the callouses, she sensed his gentleness. Had seen it when he caressed the salve into Tripper’s wound.

  The breeze that had been blowing moments before dropped to a whisper. Rhett’s horse slowed and then stopped. As did Ellie’s heart. Time expanded as she luxuriated in the feeling of his sleek forearm under her hand.

  Rhett said nothing. Did nothing, except raise his eyes to hers.

  She sucked in a quick, perturbed breath. His blue eyes widened as he pinned her with his gaze. She considered his sculped cheeks and strong jaw, always clean-shaven. However, his lips invited. And she felt their call. Oh, how she wanted to answer.

  Suddenly aware that she leaned toward him, she pulled back.

  And then she could breathe.

  A small smile passed over his lips, one that was free of disappointment. Only a tender empathy lingered there.

  “You have nothing for which to be sorry.” Rhett’s deep voice contained a level of huskiness that sent her heart racing anew.

  What were we talking about?

  Frantic to remember, she looked toward the rocky hills and dry shrubs, searching for her voice. Slowly, she recalled why she had apologized. Still, words had difficulty forming. “I—you—the way everyone has behaved toward you on the ranch. I would never have encouraged you to work for my uncle. If I’d known how he—everyone would treat you.”

  “I regret not one minute of my time there.”

  At his quiet assertion, she swiveled back. “How can you not?” She wasn’t naive. Rhett must have endured much more than she’d witnessed. What had men like Whitey done already? She couldn’t even imagine.

  Mrs. Johnson told her that Rhett didn’t sleep in the bunkhouse with the rest of the men. Where he’d ended up, she couldn’t say. That meant Rhett slept in the barn or one of the drafty, burnt-out buildings on the outskirts. Maybe outside. Yet he never complained.

  “Ellie.” His quiet voice riveted her attention. He tilted his head. “Don’t you realize why I agreed to work for your uncle?”

  A storm raged in her heart and filled her ears. Everything in her said to tell him she didn’t want to hear. Didn’t want to know. Didn’t want to believe what the wistful expression on his face proclaimed.

  Wasn’t he like all the other men in her life? Men who wanted something from her?

  No. Rhett is different.

  That he had proven many times. He had never asked for anything except to merely offer a pure, yet exhilarating friendship. No strings attached.

  “Wh-why?” She swallowed the dust that lined her mouth. “Why did you say yes?”

  A slow smile settled on his lips, lighting his face, making him the most beautiful man she had ever beheld. “To be near you. Even if that means I can nev
er be more than your friend.”

  Friend?

  There was that word again. However, this time, it seemed different. She knew—without a doubt—that he wished for more. But he would never take advantage of their relationship. Hadn’t he already proved, time and again, that he was trustworthy?

  “Are you really my friend?” she dared ask, wanting desperately to hear it again.

  His slow nod followed. “From the moment you spoke to me at Fort Laramie. When you asked if you had offended me.” A small grin played on his lips.

  “I didn’t...” She sat back, utterly confounded. She had? Yes, of course—she remembered now. She had apologized for staring.

  “You won my utter devotion that day.” He spoke in a whisper as though sharing a secret.

  Ellie gaped, mind racing with how to answer such a devastating confession. But she had no need to reply. After a shake of the harness and a click of his tongue, the wagon jerked forward.

  His devotion.

  Rhett offered that priceless gift, asking for nothing in return. Besides, what could she give? He was a man who owned little, yet lacked nothing. She, by far, was more impoverished.

  As she reflected on that devastating fact, he said in a low voice, “Bartow and his men are coming.”

  Ellie turned in her seat. In the distance, dust rose in the air.

  Rhett was right. Guy and his men were riding their way. Fast.

  * * *

  “Why?” Uncle Will stomped across the floorboards with heavy boots. “Why’d you leave town without Guy?”

  Ellie opened her mouth to answer, but her uncle swiveled and marched across the room, not giving her a chance.

  “We discussed why I wanted him to drive you. Just this morning.” Uncle Will threw up his hands. “And you agreed.”

  Folding her hands, she merely listened. Clearly her uncle wasn’t yet ready to hear her reasons. Pride wounded, he needed to rant. And pride truly did seem to be the real issue. She had disobeyed his wishes, and he had no idea how to deal with that.

  Sensing the impending storm, the ranch hands had vanished. Even Mr. and Mrs. Johnson had disappeared into their cabin, leaving only Ellie and her uncle in the big house.

  Rhett...

  She took a shaky breath as she thought of him and what had transpired between them before Guy and his men had interrupted their ride home. If she had any doubts about Rhett’s feelings for her, his words had wiped them out. She couldn’t escape one soul-shaking thought.

  He wants to be near me.

  Besides Mama, no one ever desired to be with her. Grandmother never had patience. Father never seemed interested. And God...?

  Only recently had Ellie become aware of His love for her. The realization flooded her with an astonishing humility. Did God truly care for her as Rhett said?

  When she raised her eyes, she caught her uncle’s glare from across the room. Silence reverberated through the room. He apparently had run out of things to say.

  “Why did you abandon Mama?” Ellie had not planned to voice the question, but it escaped without forethought. That had been uppermost in her mind from the moment she’d read it in her mother’s diary.

  If she had thrown her cup and hit Uncle Will squarely in the forehead, he wouldn’t have looked more startled. Color drained from his face as he wilted into the nearest chair.

  “She was waiting for you.” The words of her mother’s diary bubbled up. “Night after night, she put a candle in the window. But you never—”

  “How’d you know about that?” Uncle Will’s hoarse rasp interrupted. “I never put the details in my letters in case...well, we feared Tess would intercept one.”

  That very well could have happened. Ellie remembered Grandmother Tess all too well—she was rigid, disapproving and exceedingly proud. The memory of her sharp tongue and stinging slap still hurt. Only Mama’s loving arms soothed Ellie after a visit to Grandmother’s. But when they returned home, Father was the next torture for them to endure. He often reminded his wife that he had only married her for her money.

  Mama had deserved better. How might her life been different if she had married her beloved William?

  “Why’d you stay away?” Though Ellie tempered her voice, she felt as though she shrieked.

  Her uncle’s face grew haggard. Red-rimmed eyes stared into the past, then met hers. “Remember that attack on my ranch I told you about? Instead of traveling on to Chicago, I returned here. Tess made sure Adel heard the news. She told her my whole operation was wiped out and I’d been killed. By the time I finally reached Chicago, Adel was already married. To my brother. They were on their honeymoon in New York.” Will covered his face before running his hands across his head. “I should’ve...” He took a deep breath as his shoulders slumped. “Doesn’t matter now.”

  For many minutes, silence filled the room.

  “I’m sorry.” Ellie determined to say nothing more about her mother’s life—and her own—with Father. The news would only distress her uncle.

  His chair creaked as he shifted.

  Ellie stared at her hands, clenched in her lap. “Mama kept a diary. Just last night I read about her sorrow. When she thought you’d died.” She took a shaky breath. “That’s why I didn’t stay after church today. They played some of her favorite hymns. And I—I had to get away.”

  Ellie didn’t add that she was in a hurry to get back to Uncle Will. She so wanted to hear that he loved her mother. That Mama had some happiness in a life that had been full of anger, accusations, yelling.

  You still love him. Admit it. Frank Marshall’s voice rang in her mind. But not until last night did Ellie understand what her father meant. He had raged about his own brother.

  Uncle Will’s jaw tightened, then relaxed.

  She rose to rest a hand on his shoulder. “Mama never stopped loving you. Never doubt that.”

  A deep shudder ran through her uncle. A groan, from deep inside him, escaped. The next moment, he began to cough. He couldn’t seem to catch his breath as he struggled to retrieve his handkerchief. For what felt like hours, he hacked into the fabric. When he pulled it away from his lips, he hastened to fold the material.

  But Ellie already saw the bright splotch of blood. Her heart froze at the confirmation of her suspicions. Her uncle had consumption.

  Chapter Twelve

  From the barn’s upper beams, Rhett watched with interest as a small group of ranch hands clustered near the bunkhouse. They appeared agitated by the recent events—Will Marshall’s announcement of his illness at supper the night before and now the seeming lack of direction for the ranch. Rhett kept his distance from it all. What could he do except continue working and doing what he was hired to do? Besides caring for livestock and fixing fences, Rhett tended to Ellie’s horse, Tripper.

  Two days had passed since his confession to her. And in that time period, he had barely seen her. She appeared wholly occupied with caring for her uncle. As it should be. But as the hours passed, Rhett grew keen to discover what her reaction to him would be now that she’d had time to think about their conversation.

  “Be not of a doubtful mind.” He spoke aloud a command he’d told himself often when he had been hungry or afraid. But this anxiety was new to him.

  Was she avoiding him on purpose? Did his confession repulse her?

  Shaking his head, he sought to rid himself of speculations. His best course of action was prayer. God would reveal His will in good time.

  Rhett again lay in the small spot he’d made for a bed. The shed was no longer a safe place. Ever since he discovered his bedroll and some personal items lying in a mud puddle, he had begun changing his nightly location. Sometimes he slept under the stars while other times he chose the barn. But always he was careful to hide his belongings so that no one would find them.

  When voices rose in the yard, Rhett again peered thro
ugh the slats of wood. Bartow strode toward the group, two of his cronies in tow. His raised tone and waving hand let the loitering men know he wasn’t pleased.

  “Mack,” he called to one man while the rest scattered.

  Their heads came together. Bartow gestured as he spoke. Mack merely listened. After a few minutes, Rhett determined the foreman and two of his men planned to go somewhere. One of them headed to the corral to get the horses, the other retrieved their gear while Bartow stood waiting, arms crossed as he looked around, like he owned the place. The noon sun spotlighted his self-satisfied smirk.

  Rhett had only one possible course of action—follow them.

  Until he could slip away undetected, he had to wait. The foreman and his cronies had a head start, but their trail wasn’t hard to follow. Riding at a good clip, they were apparently anxious to get to their destination and back before dark.

  Rhett came upon them as they were cutting a few dozen head of cattle from the rest. Remaining out of sight, he watched. Soon they were on their way, driving the cattle before them.

  More slowly now, Rhett followed. After a time, they came across a way station. The men herded the cattle into the waiting pens.

  It didn’t take a genius to figure out what was happening. Now Rhett understood Mr. Tesley’s comment about being able to handle the amount Bartow provided.

  “They’re rustling cattle,” Rhett muttered to himself. “Stealing from Marshall.”

  When he had seen enough, he headed back to the ranch. Caution told him to take a circuitous route, so that when he rode back into the yard, it would appear like he’d come from a different direction. Someone was bound to tell Bartow he’d been missing all day.

  No doubt Rhett would get a verbal dressing-down as a lazy, no-account bum for shirking work. But he preferred that to getting shot if the foreman even suspected his secret was known.

  Rhett rode hard to the north, heading toward Casper before turning southwest. Some folks waved in acknowledgment as he passed through town. The route he took was slower, harder, but no problem for his gelding, chosen for strength and stamina. They stopped to take a long drink at a stream before Rhett pushed on, more slowly this time.