The Vigilante's Bride

by Yvonne Harris

  YVONNE HARRIS

  © 2010 by Yvonne Harris

  Published by Bethany House Publishers

  a division of Baker Publishing Group

  P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287.

  E-book edition created 2010

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise – without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  ISBN 978-1-4412-1216-0

  Library of Congress Cataloging-In-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

  Scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible.

  For Robert, again

  Contents

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER

  1

  CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

  DECEMBER 17, 1884

  “Marry him? I most certainly will not. Why, I’ve never laid eyes on the man!”

  Emily McCarthy jumped to her feet and threw the copy of the Chicago Daily Tribune on the desk. It was folded open to a page of bride advertisements, one of them circled in red.

  “What kind of man advertises in the newspaper for a wife, anyway? Is he crazy?” With hands folded tight to hide their trembling, Emily stared across the desk at an unsmiling Elvira Beecham, director of Aldersgate Home for Girls.

  “Indeed not. Sit down, dear. You’re white as a sheet. Our solicitor checked his references and gave a most favorable recommendation to the board. Bartholomew Axel is a wealthy widower in Repton, Montana. I’m sorry, Emily, but the board has decided it’s time for you to leave.”

  “But not to marry a total stranger. I won’t do that. I’ll go back east and look up my mother’s family. Maybe I can live with them until I find something.”

  “I doubt you can find them,” Miss Beecham said gently. She toyed with a round paperweight on her desk, rocking the glass ball back and forth in her palms. “We tried years ago to locate them, but no one knew your mother’s maiden name, only that she was a shop girl in Richmond, Virginia, before she married your father and came to Chicago.”

  Emily gripped the edge of the desk, fighting a surge of panic. Aldersgate was the only home she’d ever known. She’d been brought there as an infant, found crying alongside her dead mother in a Chicago boardinghouse. She had no memories of any other life.

  “On your behalf, I suggested we accept Mr. Axel’s offer of matrimony.” Miss Beecham paused, as though considering her words. “It’s not unusual for a man to go this route. There are few available women out west, and I imagine the competition is very keen.” She smiled. “Don’t look so sad, dear. Marrying Mr. Axel is an opportunity for any woman. He’s rich and he’s respected. I did what I truly thought best for you.”

  Emily leaned forward and studied the older woman’s face for some sign of compromise. Instead, she saw a tight mouth, seamed shut with resolve.

  She’d known this day was coming, but she’d hoped it wouldn’t. For the past two years she’d tried to find employment on her own. Miss Beecham had taught her to typewrite, and Emily had written dozens of letters and applications, looking for a teaching position or something in an office or a bank. Or perhaps as a governess.

  But Chicago, like the rest of the country, was struggling through the worst depression in the nation’s history. Banks had failed, and unemployment lines stretched for blocks. Aldersgate had had seventy-five applicants one day last month when a rumor got out they needed a hired girl – and half of them were men.

  “Miss Beecham, please don’t make me leave. If you’re dissatisfied with my work, tell me and I’ll – ”

  “I’ve never been dissatisfied with you. You’re a wonderful teacher. The children love you.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Emily. None of this is your fault.”

  Miss Beecham folded her hands and looked across at Emily. “There’s a new law passed about educating Indians, an experiment to ‘civilize’ them, teach them our ways. The government is sending hundreds of Indian girls to white boarding schools and orphanages, like ours, and they are paying handsomely for each Indian student we accept. We can sleep six more girls in your room. Frankly, Aldersgate needs the money. That’s the main reason the board decided you have to leave.”

  “But – ” Emily’s voice caught. A slow, deep breath forced it steady. Eighteen-year-olds did not cry. When she trusted herself to speak, she straightened her shoulders. “This is not what I want to do.”

  “I know, dear. Unfortunately, it’s what the board wants.” Miss Beecham pushed her chair back and stood, signaling the discussion was over.

  Emily clenched her hands together so tight her fingers hurt. A sick feeling dug at her stomach at the thought of marrying a stranger. Married? Why, she’d never even had a beau.

  “What does he look like? How old is he?” she asked, her words stiff.

  “I don’t know. I didn’t think to ask for a photograph,” Miss Beecham said kindly. “Now go upstairs and begin to get your things together. Mr. Axel wants a Christmas wedding.” A girlish smile lit Elvira Beecham’s face. Her hand fluttered to her throat and fussed with the ruffled collar. “Isn’t that romantic?”

  Emily glared at her.

  “He’s taken care of everything. Mr. Phineas Martin, his banker, will meet you in Billings, Montana, and accompany you on the stagecoach to Mr. Axel’s ranch in Repton. Mr. Martin promised me he’ll see to it that you are properly married and settled in before he leaves the Axel ranch.”

  In spite of herself, a rush of hot tears filled Emily’s eyes.

  Quickly, she looked at the floor to hide them. It was all decided.

  The director sighed. “Be sensible, Emily. There’s little a woman – a decent woman – can do here without a husband. Be a good wife to him, and I expect you’ll be happy. He’s provided the best of accommodations for you – even a ticket on the new Pullman car, not the coach.”

  With three quick steps she was around the desk. Smiling, she threw her arms around Emily and hugged her tight. “It’s a blessing, dear. The Lord is giving you a chance to have a home and family of your own.”

  DICKINSON, NORTH DAKOTA

  DECEMBER 23 , 1884

  “B-o-o-o-a-r-d. All aboard!”

  The conductor raised and lowered a red lantern, signaling the engineer it was time to leave the station. Two short whistle toots answered. He swung up the metal steps of Pullman Car 67 and slammed the door. A banging cannonade ran the length of the train as steel couplings clanked together. Bell dinging, the locomotive pulled away.

  Inside Car 67, Emily watched the darkened passenger depot glide past the window. She leaned back against the velvet seat and slumped with weariness. Would this trip never end? She’d left Chicago early yesterday morning. Already she’d traveled eight hundred miles, and she still had four hundred more to go before she reached Billings, Montana.

  Her new home. She wrinkled her nose.

  Montana Territory was a wilderness, a land full of outlaws and Indians and so uncivilized that horses were the only
transportation. Horses! She rolled her eyes. Chicago had electric streetcars and a museum – a symphony, even.

  Frowning, she stared out the window, trying to come to grips with the direction her life was taking. Her knees rocked gently with the rhythmic clicking of the wheels.

  The car gleamed with mahogany panels and armrests, dark and rich-looking. The lush carpet, the upholstery, and the velvet curtains separating her private little cubicle from the aisle were of a paisley-figured burgundy. Below the arched ceiling of the sleeping car ran a foot-wide brass border that caught the light from the oil lamps overhead and glimmered, rosy and wine-colored.

  Despite her fatigue, she looked nice and she knew it. Everything she wore was brand-new. More excited than she, Miss Beecham had taken her shopping with money the board had provided.

  Emily smoothed the pleats of the midnight blue linen skirt over her knees. Miss Beecham had picked it out and also chose the tucked white waist with a ladylike collar so high it tickled her chin. She supposed she should feel very fashionable, very grown-up, but at that moment she was close to tears.

  Ankles together, she stuck her feet out in front of her. Her first high heels, stylish Blucher-cut oxfords with black patent toes and a gray-kid vamp buttoned up the sides to just above her ankles – “low cut, very modern,” Miss Beecham said. Emily made a face at the shoes.

  Ugly old things.

  She lowered her feet to the floor and went over in her head again the alternatives to marrying Bartholomew Axel. There weren’t many. A job was what she needed, not a husband. She loved teaching, loved kids, and that was what Aldersgate had trained her to do. But there were no jobs in the middle of the school year, not unless some old maid teacher ran off to get married. Or died.

  At this point she’d take any kind of work, even wash dishes to earn a living.

  Leaning her cheek against the cool window glass, she scolded herself. Be sensible. You need some way to support yourself – or else a husband.

  She wondered what Mr. Axel looked like. Not boyishly handsome, of course. He had to be a little older than she was to own and operate a successful ranch, but certainly elegant looking, a trifle dashing, perhaps. She hoped he wasn’t tall. She was short, and big men made her nervous.

  Her thoughts turned to her wedding and marrying a stranger. Not at all the way she’d dreamed it would be. The girls at school always giggled when they talked about it. Somehow, it’d never struck her the least bit funny. She wanted to be in love when she got married, totally, completely in love with a handsome man who adored her.

  Mrs. Bartholomew Axel. Her throat tightened.

  So much for love. She sent a quick prayer heavenward for the strength to get through this wedding – and possibly the rest of her life. She’d prayed a lot recently, had gone down on her knees every night since she’d read Mr. Axel’s newspaper ad and begged Jesus to get her out of this. Help me, help me . . .

  Nothing yet. Not a hint of an answer had come to her.

  A white-jacketed Negro worked his way along the aisle with a basket and a big enameled coffeepot. Legs braced against the lurching of the train, he offered refreshments to the special Pullman passengers.

  A few minutes later, she raised the cup to her lips, and her sense of humor bubbled up. She smiled and glanced around quickly, then extended her little finger out from the handle and sipped, imitating the society women she’d seen in Chicago. Why, in no time at all she’d be acting like a rich rancher’s wife.

  With a wobbly little sigh she set the cup in the saucer. She didn’t want to be a rich rancher’s wife.

  The engine labored upgrade. Beyond the window, a cliff-side, slicked with ice, glittered like diamonds in the moonlight. The silhouette of a stag bounded in graceful leaps down the embankment away from the tracks.

  Up ahead, the locomotive belched black smoke. Sparks shot from the funnel as the engine snaked around a curve and out of sight. The train picked up speed, rushing down the other side, highballing it for Montana.

  The car rocked. Lamp oil swirled in the ceiling globes. Faster and faster the landscape blurred past. Up ahead, the locomotive pistons pounded out his name.

  AX-el AX-el AX-el AX-el AX-el AX-el AX-el . . .

  The whistle shrieked.

  Billings in the morning.

  Billings in the morning.

  LEWISTOWN, MONTANA

  One month earlier, shortly before dark, the vigilance committee for the Montana Cattlemen’s Association had caught eleven rustlers. They shot four and hanged the rest, left seven dead men swinging from the branches of two big oaks as a warning to other thieves.

  A tall man holding a coil of rope rode a gray horse into the clearing. Erect, head up, he looked around, checking the preparations to hang the last rustler, a man named Willis.

  He glanced at the thick tree limb overhead and nodded to the waiting ranchers. It would do.

  Guarded by two men with rifles, Willis squinted up at him.

  “Ain’t you Luke Sullivan?”

  “So what if I am?”

  “You the boss of these killers?”

  Sullivan’s mouth tightened. “You got something to say?” He pulled several lengths of rope forward and began to form another noose.

  “My name’s Willis, and I knew your pa, that’s what.” He glanced at the group of fourteen silent, angry ranchers and licked his lips. “I got something you oughta know. Cut me a deal.”

  “No deals.” Eight times Sullivan wound the rope around the top of the open loop and jerked each coil taut.

  Willis stared at Sullivan’s hands. “That’s for me, ain’t it?” he whispered.

  Sullivan didn’t answer.

  Willis swallowed. “Your old man was cheated. That poker game was rigged. He never shoulda lost your ranch.”

  Sullivan’s hands stilled, and he looked down at Willis. “That was twenty years ago and my pa was drunk.”

  “Not that drunk. Bart Axel stole the ranch and a thousand dollars from your pa, and that’s a fact. I helped him do it.” Willis talked fast, his voice thick and desperate. “I worked with Axel. We did it lots a times. Bart set them up, and I was the stranger who sat in at the last minute.”

  “Why?” Sullivan slid the coils together.

  “Axel wanted your pa’s place. He thought the railroad was coming through there.”

  “It didn’t. They laid it ten miles west.” Sullivan’s voice rasped like steel files grating together. He’d been six years old then, and his little world had collapsed. His whole family had died because of that card game. Pa lost everything.

  Two ranchers pulled Willis to his feet. Roughly, they bound his hands behind him, boosted him onto his big spotted mare, and led her under the oak tree. Sullivan rode alongside.

  Willis looked over at Sullivan. “Let me go, and I’ll help you get Axel. I swear I will.”

  Granville Stuart, owner of the giant D-S cattle outfit and leader of the vigilance committee, walked his horse next to Sullivan’s and lowered his voice. “They were running off two hundred head today. We can’t let him go.”

  “I know – didn’t ask you to.”

  Stuart nodded and moved off to another group of men.

  Sullivan watched him swing down from the saddle to help collect their gear and rifles. The snow had started again, coming down hard, big wet flakes that clung to hat brims and coat sleeves. They were all anxious to leave. Some of the men had already mounted their horses.

  Willis sobbed. His shoulders shook, and tears added to the wetness on his face. “Sullivan, I’m sorry ’bout your ranch and your family. I’m sorry . . . I’m sorry.”

  Sullivan stared at him. He rarely thought about his family. It’d been so long he couldn’t remember their faces anymore.

  He tossed the free end of the rope up to a worker straddling a tree limb overhead. The man hauled up the rope and fastened it tight. Another rancher stepped under the tree to hold Willis’s horse.

  The empty noose turned slowly in the air.


  Sullivan caught it, settled it around Willis’s neck, and slid the rope high under the left jaw. He snugged the knot tight behind Willis’s ear to make certain the neck snapped clean and death was instant. That was the most he could do for him.

  Sullivan backed his horse away. “May God have mercy on you. I don’t.”

  He gave a curt nod to the waiting rancher beside Willis.

  At the signal, the rancher threw his hand back and slapped the rump of Willis’s mare, hard. She snorted and bolted from under the tree. Overhead, the branch sagged under the sudden weight.

  Willis kicked once.

  Snow sifted down and blanketed the ground in white silence.

  Sullivan reined his horse around and galloped off alone.

  He’d grown up with the harsh justice of range law, even believed in it. Frontier justice was better than no justice at all, he’d always thought. Until tonight.

  When he got back to the D-S ranch that night, the biggest cattle spread in Montana, Luke Sullivan walked up the front steps of Granville Stuart’s house and told his boss he quit.

  “You’re leaving on account of tonight, aren’t you?” Stuart said.

  Luke blew his breath out hard and nodded. “I know what we’re doing is necessary, but I got no stomach for it anymore.” He turned toward the door.

  “Where you headed?” Stuart asked.

  “Back to New Hope. Don’t know after that.”

  Stuart stood up. “Luke, I hate to lose you. You’re the best ranch foreman I ever had. Stay and I’ll take you off the committee, if that’s what you want.”

  “Thanks anyway.”

  Stuart slammed his hands on the desktop. “Willis could’ve been lying about Axel and your pa!”

  Luke paused with his hand on the doorknob, not turning around. “I doubt it,” he said slowly. “A man don’t lie with a noose around his neck. Not even his kind.”

  “Willis deserved to die three times over,” Stuart said, and leaned forward. “He was a killer as well as a thief. We got him for rustling, but he was wanted in three states for murder, convicted in Kansas for one. You know that?”

  Luke nodded. “Yeah, I know that. And I still quit.” He closed the door quietly behind him.