Fred and Garland exchanged glances and Fred said, “Ever’body knows who those two are runnin’ from. You take what you need. We’ll settle up when you get back.” As Jason picked up the few items he needed from the sparsely filled shelves, Fred asked. “You say you’re leavin’ in the mornin’?” When Jason nodded, Fred said, “You can stay at the house tonight if you want to. Patty Witcher’s gone back home. We’ve got room.”
“I appreciate it, Fred, but I reckon not. I’ll be leavin’ pretty early—no sense in wakin’ everybody up.” He thought about it for a couple of seconds, then said, “I wouldn’t mind beddin’ down in your barn, if that’s all right.”
Jason was treated to a big supper that night, courtesy of Lena Hatfield. She said nothing about it, but Roseanna suspected that Lena had finally seen the true worth of Jason Storm. She had recanted some of her thoughts about him when she first learned that, contrary to being a gun-slinging drifter, he was, in fact, an ex-deputy marshal. The fact that he was seriously wounded but still felt obligated to help the people of Paradise Valley was the thing that finally won her over. She no longer discouraged Roseanna if her friend showed an interest in the broad-shouldered rifleman.
Hatfield’s store had been hit hard by the outlaws, but thanks to Patty Witcher, the store lost nothing during Cantrell’s second visit to the town. Fred and Lena were still confident that they could survive if the rest of the town stuck with them. Dr. Taylor’s boy, Mike, had already talked to Fred about driving a team of mules to Helena every two months for new inventory, and there was plenty of produce to be had from the farms close by. With confidence that they had seen the last of Cantrell and Booker, there was a positive atmosphere at the table that night.
Whenever she thought no one was watching her, Roseanna would steal a glance at the quiet man across the table from her. Almost every time when she looked away again, she was met with a wry smile from Lena. Jason, on the other hand, was reluctant to even steal a glance at Roseanna lest she might think him too bold. He was not feeling especially robust at any rate. The day’s activities had been a strain on his healing wound and he did not feel at full strength. It was Roseanna who noticed the small spot of blood on his shirt. “Jason,” she exclaimed, concerned, “your wound—you’ve pulled it open again and now it’s starting to bleed.” He looked down, surprised. The wound had been aching, but he was not aware it was bleeding. “We’d better go right over and see Dr. Taylor,” she said.
“I don’t think it’s that bad,” he said. “Just a little too much strain on it today. It’ll stop bleedin’ in a minute.” He got up from the table. “I’ll go take care of it.”
Roseanna popped up from her chair. “I’d better have a look at it myself.” She pushed him toward the back porch and the pump. “You’ll probably make it worse,” she scolded. “Take your shirt off.”
On the back porch, she lifted his bandage and examined the wound. She was distressed to see that it had bled quite a bit. “Jason, dammit,” she said, “you need to let this thing heal proper, and that means to rest. Why don’t you forget those two outlaws and give this wound time to heal?”
“I can’t do that, Roseanna. Those two men are responsible for a lot of hurt to some good people, and they’re just goin’ to keep on doin’ it until somebody stops ’em. And I reckon that job falls on me.”
“You can at least wait until you’re fit,” she pleaded.
“Their trail is already cold, I need to go as soon as I can.”
“I guess there’s no use trying to talk sense into that hard head of yours, is there?” She replaced the old bandage with a fresh one, then handed him his shirt. “Well, that’s about the best I can do. At least the bleeding has stopped for now.”
“I appreciate it, Roseanna.” He gazed into her eyes for a long moment, but said nothing until he buttoned his shirt. “I reckon I’d best get on out to the barn and get some shut-eye. I’ve gotta leave early in the mornin’.”
She didn’t say anything for a few moments, but continued to meet his gaze, a troubled frown upon her face. When he opened the kitchen door, she reached out and took his arm. “Jason,” she started, then took a deep breath. “You’ve been married before and so have I. We’re neither one as young as we used to be, but I think it would be a good idea if we got married. I’d be a good wife to you, and you might learn to love me after a while. There’s no use in us both being alone when it seems to me we’d be a good match.” When she saw that he was rendered speechless, she continued. “I’ve got the start of a good farm east of town or we could live in your place on Blind Woman Creek. I’ll go either place.” Having said her piece, she released his arm and waited for his reply.
Stunned to the point of paralysis, he stood there motionless, still holding the kitchen door open until Roseanna stepped toward him and gently took his hand from the door handle, letting it close. He waited a few moments for his brain to process the thunderbolt that had just been released upon it. She took his hesitancy to be a sign that he was not at all receptive to her proposition. “I’m sorry I was so bold,” she said. “There’s no need to give me your answer right now. Think it over while you’re gone, and if you don’t come back, I’ll take that to be your answer. To tell you the truth, I’m not positive that I’m in love with you. I just know that I want to be with you—take care of you. I’ve never really been in love before, so I don’t know how to be sure. If the offer doesn’t appeal to you, there’s no hard feelings. We can still be friends.”
“No, no,” he stammered, finally freeing his tongue. “It’s just that you took me by surprise. I had no idea . . . I mean, I’d be lyin’ if I told you I hadn’t thought about it. I have, too many times when I shoulda had my mind on somethin’ else. I just thought you wouldn’t have any interest in a worn-out old man like me. I don’t have to think it over. You’d be doin’ me an honor. But are you sure you wanna hitch up with the likes of me?”
She smiled, relieved to know that he was in favor of the union. “I’m sure,” she said. “And you’re far from a worn-out old man. I’m planning on at least fifty more years together.”
Roseanna had succeeded in rendering Jason Storm helpless, a feat never accomplished by the most dangerous outlaw. He could only stand there gazing wide-eyed at the woman he had thought about so many times by a lonely campfire, his brain awhirl as he tried to settle it down. Then it occurred to him to ask, “Will you marry me, then?”
She favored him with a bright smile and answered, “Yes.”
“All right, then,” he stammered, still not sure he was not suddenly going to wake up from a dream. “I reckon we’ve got a deal.”
She laughed at that. “I reckon,” she confirmed.
Unsure of himself even then, he shifted from foot to foot nervously for a long moment before asking, “Can I kiss you?” In answer, she stood on tiptoe and offered her lips. He bent down awkwardly and pressed his lips upon hers.
She laughed at his fumbling attempt. “Come on,” she said, “you kiss your horse like that.” Then she put her arms around his neck and pulled him down to her again. After a long embrace, she released him and announced, “Now you know you’ve been kissed.”
“That’s for sure,” he replied with a chuckle. “Biscuit don’t kiss like that.”
Their moment was interrupted when the kitchen door opened again and Lena stuck her head out. “You two gonna stay out there all night? How long does it take to change a bandage? I’ve got a fresh pot of coffee on the stove and Fred and I need some help in drinking it.” She grinned at Roseanna as she held the door open wide for them to enter.
“You still plannin’ to get outta here before sunup?” Fred asked Jason while they worked on Lena’s pot of coffee. His question immediately captured Roseanna’s attention. She hoped that their conversation on the back porch might have changed Jason’s plans to go after the two outlaws. The disappointment registered in her eyes when she heard his answer.
“Yep,” he answered with a noticeable sign of reluct
ance. “The sooner I get started, the sooner I hope to be back.” He shifted his gaze to meet Roseanna’s, but she quickly looked down at her cup, afraid he might read her reaction.
When it was time for him to take his leave, Roseanna walked out to the barn with him, much to Fred’s surprise. Lena had to tell him what he had been too dense to see on his own. The news that the two of them were sparking was met with great satisfaction by Fred, for it meant that Jason would most likely settle in Paradise Valley for good.
Roseanna insisted on helping Jason make a bed in the hay with his saddle blanket as Biscuit watched with minimum interest. “You be careful, Jason Storm. I want you back here safe and sound.” She reached up and gently touched his shirt where she had stitched the bullet hole. “I’ll fix that a little better when you get back. There wasn’t much to work with out at your cabin.” She fixed him with a stern eye and added, “I don’t wanna see any more holes in that shirt.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he replied with a shy grin.
There followed an awkward silence with neither party knowing what to say until finally Roseanna said, “I’d better let you get to bed. You need all the rest you can get for that wound to heal.” She reached up again and quickly kissed him good-bye, then turned on her heel and returned to the house, knowing that Lena would be waiting to question her.
“I’ll be comin’ back,” he called after her.
Chapter 15
He knelt down beside the water, examining the hoofprints again at the fork of the wide stream. There were prints from only one horse. That could mean the two split up, or it could mean that the other horse was already in the water and they both took the right fork. Or they could have been left on purpose to throw him off their trail. Jason paused to consider the choice the outlaws might have made. The left fork cut a winding pattern across a sparsely-treed prairie, while the right fork seemed to lead into the tree-covered hills. There was no contest as to which way promised to offer the best cover and, consequently, the best chance of losing anyone following. And the only tracks he found led that way, so he decided to take the right fork.
He carefully followed the stream as it led him through the foothills before a chain of mountains to the west. His instincts told him that he might be following a blind alley, but he had found no signs of a horse leaving the water. It didn’t seem reasonable that a man would ride that far before leaving the stream, but who could say what these two might do? Climbing higher up the mountain, he finally came to a point that caused him to turn around, for he came upon a small pond in the stream at the base of a waterfall some thirty or forty feet high.
“End of the line,” he muttered to himself, “unless the outlaws sprouted wings.” There were no tracks around the pond, and the ground was bare enough that there would have been. Scolding himself silently, he turned around and started back down the mountain. He had missed their tracks somewhere along the way, a fact that irritated him more than a little.
His luck was no better on the way back down. There were several spots that offered possible exit from the water without leaving tracks—most of them rocky projections that jutted out into the stream. He checked some of them out, but to no avail. With no other options, he returned to the fork and started searching the left one. The results were the same as before; he couldn’t find any sign that someone had ridden out of the water. Finally, late in the afternoon, he admitted that he had been outfoxed, and he didn’t know where in hell they were. Still unwilling to let them get away, he decided to gamble on the possibility that they had gone back to Three Forks and Briny Bowen’s hideout for outlaws.
“Damned if it ain’t startin’ to look like old home week around here,” Briny Bowen declared when Booker walked into his barroom, tired and thirsty. He got up from his usual seat in the rocking chair by the fireplace and went over to the bar. “That friend of your’n was in here yesterday, but he lit out as soon as he bought some supplies. Said he was in a hurry. Acted like somebody was chasin’ him. Said to tell you he was headin’ for Colorado if you showed up.”
Booker only grunted in response, finding it interesting that Cantrell did not wait for a day as they had agreed to do. It didn’t surprise him, however, for Cantrell seemed to have an almost supernatural fear of Jason Storm. At least he had shown up here, so Storm hadn’t caught up with him. I just hope to hell the scared son of a bitch didn’t leave a trail straight to Briny’s, he thought. “Colorado Territory,” he said. “Well, I sure as hell ain’t plannin’ on followin’ him.” When he thought about it, he realized that he was glad to be rid of Cantrell. He could do without the constant squabbling over who was boss. “Pour me a drink of the good stuff, Briny,” he said. “I’ve been doin’ some hard ridin’ and I’ve got a dry throat.”
“You gonna be around for a while?” Briny asked as he uncorked the bottle. “Or are you gonna cut outta here as fast as your partner did?” He wasn’t particularly fond of Booker’s company, but business had been a little slow of late and he hoped the outlaw would lay up for a while and spend a little money.
“I was thinkin’ about stayin’ overnight, long enough to catch my breath,” Booker replied, “let my horse rest up. Then I’m headin’ back east to Dakota. I can’t make any money around here.” He was not overly concerned about the possibility that Jason Storm might show up at Briny’s. As far as he knew, Storm didn’t know about this hideout, and it was not an easy place to find.
“Good,” Briny said. “Horace can fix you some supper and you can put your horse in the corral. I’m glad to have somebody to talk to. Horace ain’t much for conversation, but he makes a mean pot of beans and bacon.” He chuckled and added, “You might decide to stay around a while longer.”
“I might,” Booker allowed.
After he had another drink of whiskey, he took his horse around to the side of the building, where he found Horace coming from the barn. In possession of a usually pleasant disposition, Horace lit his face up with a smile when he saw Booker approaching. “How do?” he greeted him cheerfully.
“Unsaddle him and give him a double portion of oats,” Booker directed. He took his saddlebags off and drew his rifle from the saddle sling, then stood watching Horace for a minute or two as he led his horse toward the barn. Satisfied that he was going to do as instructed, he turned and went back to the saloon.
It was later on in the evening when Jason slow-walked Biscuit through the narrow pass that led to the creek where the French trappers had built their log trading post. Not wishing to announce his presence, he guided Biscuit through a stand of pines on the north side of the building. When he was almost to the base of the cliff and even with the back corner of the corral, he dismounted and made his way up to the edge of the trees, where he knelt beside a large pine and took a closer look at the horses inside.
There were four horses in the corral. If there were more in the barn, he couldn’t say, but one of the horses he was looking for was in the corral. He had made it a point to pay attention to Cantrell’s and Booker’s horses when they rode away from Paradise. The gray that Booker rode was there in the corral. He was confident that it was the same horse. As far as Cantrell’s, he wasn’t sure. The brutal killer had ridden a sorrel, much like one he was now looking at, but he didn’t remember that Cantrell’s horse had a white blaze down its face like this one. If he recalled correctly, Cantrell’s had a stripe. Maybe Cantrell’s sorrel is in the barn, he thought, but most likely it would be with Booker’s horse. It appeared that they had split up back at the fork of the stream after all. Withdrawing carefully from the big pine, he went back to his horse and retraced his steps to the path that led to the front door of the saloon.
There were no horses tied up at the rail in front as he slow-walked Biscuit toward the porch. His intention was to surprise whoever was inside the saloon, but that plan was altered when a large black dog suddenly erupted with a warning blast and launched itself off the edge of the porch. Biscuit kicked at the unfriendly brute as it nipped at his heels. Drawing hi
s rifle as he dismounted, Jason hit the ground ready to fire, but no one followed the dog. When he saw that he was not about to be attacked, Jason aimed a well-placed boot that caught the cur in the ribs and sent him yelping under the porch. I should have shot the son of a bitch, he thought, now that the dog’s actions had alerted anyone inside.
As Jason feared, Booker jumped up from the table where he had been eating his supper with Briny and Horace, and ran to the window. Briny followed him by only a few seconds. “That gawdamn bloodhound!” Booker swore. “How the hell did he find this place?”
“He was here before,” Horace replied, “lookin’ for your friend Cantrell.”
“The hell you say,” Booker spat, and with no one else to blame, cast a smoldering gaze in Briny’s direction. “Why the hell didn’t somebody tell me he’d been here before?” No one answered. He drew his pistol. “Well, he’ll wish to hell he never found me,” he threatened and leveled it at the door.
“Not in my place,” Briny protested. He had a superstition about lawmen being murdered in his establishment, certain that the only reason the law had refrained from coming down on him was because there had never been any direct trouble from him. And although Jason Storm was no longer a lawman, he was recently enough retired that they might still consider him one of their own. “There ain’t no need for him to know you’re here. You can hide in the caves till he’s gone.”
Booker hesitated. There was little time to make a decision, but maybe he could avoid a shoot-out with the dangerous man-hunter. Although he was not fearful of a direct confrontation, he was practical enough to consider the possibility that he might come out second best in a gunfight with Jason Storm. Why risk it? He decided. “All right,” he said, anxious now that there was no time to lose. “Let’s get goin’!”
Storm in Paradise Valley Page 20
