The Vigilante's Bride
Page 22
Alone in the big room, she poked sticks of kindling into the firebox of the stove to start breakfast. No one had slept much the night before, and from the looks of Luke when she left him, he was worn out. It had been a nightmare, beginning the afternoon before, when Luke, New Hope’s men, and a dozen Crow Indians rode up with an unconscious Black Otter in a litter.
“Any coffee?”
She smiled, recognizing his voice. “Not yet.” She turned. Still in his bloodstained buckskins, Luke stood in the doorway, his left arm hanging useless in a sling. She glanced away, her eyes filling.
In three steps he was beside her. “Don’t do that,” he said, his voice husky. “I hate it when you cry.”
“I’m sorry. I keep thinking you could’ve been killed.”
“But I wasn’t.”
“Not this time.” She pulled away, filled the big percolator with water, its strainer with ground coffee, and set it on the stove to brew. She didn’t know if Indians drank coffee or not, but it would be there if they did.
Luke slid his hand around her waist and turned her to him. For several minutes he wrapped his good arm around her and watched the flames licking the kindling in the stove.
The air in the kitchen hung heavy with the familiar smell of woodsmoke.
She sighed and wondered why things happened the way they did. Axel and Clete both killed. “What an awful day,” she said, and leaned her face against his shoulder.
Luke nuzzled her ear. “Let’s go upstairs to your room. Or mine. I don’t care which. I want to be alone with you. We need to talk.”
She shook her head against his chest. “We can’t. It wouldn’t look right.”
“After yesterday, I don’t care what it looks like or what other people think. I care what you think.” The words came out harsh. He was angry and hurting, both inside and out. He paused, took a long breath, then said, “That’s what I want to talk to you about. Going upstairs together, I mean. No one would pay any attention to it if we were married.”
Emily didn’t answer right away, but instead let the words soak in, unsure if she’d heard him right. “But we’re not married,” she said softly.
A slow smile drifted across Luke’s face. “Why don’t we change that?” A big warm hand ran up and down her arm, his voice as quiet as hers. He held her away from him and looked down at her, she up at him. “Marry me, before something else goes wrong.”
“I’m not sure I know what you’re saying,” she said.
“I’m saying I love you. What do I have to do – go down on one knee before you understand?”
Emily gave him a wobbly smile. “You’d never do that, not in a million years. Besides, the way you look right now, I don’t think you could.”
“I might just be able to manage it,” he said, backing up a step, as if to show her that he could do it if he had to.
“Don’t,” she said, alarmed. “You’ll never forgive me.”
“You’re too smart to marry me, but I’m asking, anyway. Will you?”
Emily started to throw her arms around him but remembered the arm in the sling across his chest just in time. She checked herself and hugged him gently instead. “Yes, I will.”
He swooped her up with his good arm and swung her feet off the floor. In a hoarse whisper he said, “Yahoo! Thank you, Lord. I must’ve done something right.”
An hour later Doc Maxwell said, “Hold still, Luke. Let me see what we got here.” He dug in his bag resting on the table in the kitchen and pulled out several sharp, shiny instruments. “Throw those in that pot of boiling water over there, will you?” he said to Emily, then slowly rotated Luke’s wrist and elbow, nodding, making noncommittal doctor sounds in his throat. “Like I said, it’s not broke. Just shot clean through. Real nice-looking hole, too.”
“Thanks,” Luke said dryly.
Emily leaned forward, watching everything Doc did, blanching at the run of fresh blood as Doc started probing around in the hole in Luke’s arm.
Across the room, Sheriff Tucker leaned against a cupboard, scribbling in a small notebook.
“What happened to Axel’s men?” Luke asked him.
Before Tucker could answer, Doc’s scissors snipped out a ragged shred of live flesh still attached somewhere inside.
Luke’s jaw clamped shut tight, and he set his teeth hard together and swallowed a groan. He scowled at Doc Maxwell. “That hurt.”
The sheriff looked up from his notebook. “I already had three of Axel’s men in jail,” he said, his voice curt and businesslike. “Then this morning I woke up to find six of the strangest cowpokes I’ve ever seen in my life standing inside my office. They had the rest of the drivers of the Parker herd with ’em, trussed up like turkeys. Said they wanted to swear out warrants against them.”
“Let them,” Luke said.
“No. Under the law, Haldane and those men ain’t done one single thing wrong.”
“What?” Disbelieving, Luke looked up.
“Under the law, I said. After all, they were driving their own cattle, wearing their own brand.” The sheriff shook his head. “Six Injuns with tomahawks and guns, dressed like white men – sort of – every one of ’em madder than I’ve ever seen an Injun. Speaking of which, Doc, how’s Black Otter doing?”
Maxwell dusted a powder that stung like a hive of bees into the raw hole in Luke’s arm.
“Ye-ow!” His patient leaped off the stool, doubled over, his arm cradled protectively against his chest.
“Sit down, Luke. I’m not done yet.” Doc turned back to the sheriff. “The shot busted the chief ’s leg and messed up an artery. He’s in bed in the other room. I expect he’ll be all right in a couple months. His people are all riled up, though, and don’t know as I blame ’em, either. His medicine man’s back there with him now, burning pine needles and rattling bones.”
“At least that doesn’t hurt,” Luke muttered, glaring at Maxwell.
“You’re right there.” Doc smiled blandly. “Don’t work, neither. Sit down, I said.”
Sheriff Tucker ignored the exchange and continued. “Well, I wasn’t about to argue with six Crows. So I locked Axel’s men up for rustling their own cattle. Probably kept them alive, though.”
“How’s that?”
“The Crows said Haldane got away, escaped when they were bringing him in. Don’t know as I believe ’em, though. There was no way to prove he killed Jupiter, and they knew it. I just figure we won’t be seeing him again. And if they’d brought him in, I’da had to turn him loose for lack of evidence. At least, that’s what the boss says.”
Luke’s snapped his head up. “What boss?”
Tucker’s lips thinned, and his voice went frosty. “The whole Department of Justice, the Attorney General, and the President of these United States, Mr. Sullivan. They are my bosses. And I was wrong when I figured you couldn’t do much more in Repton. Before I came out here today, I got a telegram from Washington. Seems a whole lot of folks are upset down there.
They say I got a federal treaty violation against the Crow Nation, a shootout between – if you can believe it – two groups of white men on a Indian reservation, and every man-jack of you swearing the Crows weren’t involved.”
“They weren’t,” Luke said firmly.
“Then how come I got a Indian chief with a bullet in his leg and a scalping to explain?” He sighed. “I just may have to go to Washington on this myself.”
“Sheriff,” Luke said slowly, “if you do go to Washington, would you mind taking New Hope’s deed with you?”
Tucker’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“Because it’s wrong. Part of New Hope land belongs to Black Otter and his people. The government made a mistake when they drew up the treaty.”
Unblinking, Sheriff Tucker stared at Luke for a full minute, his face hardening. Pushing himself away from the table, he gave a disgusted snort. “The U.S. government made a mistake on a treaty, you say? In the middle of all this mess I got, you really expect me to tell Washing
ton that?”
“Please, Sheriff,” Emily broke in. “The Crow are good people. They don’t deserve this.”
Sheriff Tucker started for the door. Hand on the knob, he turned around, as if he’d just remembered something. “By the way, I heard outside in the hall that you and Mr. Sullivan are getting married. Is that a fact?”
“Yes,” she said. “Next month. We just decided.”
Luke went to Emily and with his good arm pulled her close to him. “In Repton. A big church wedding next month when Molly gets back. You’re invited. The whole town’s invited.”
“Well, well, well. Congratulations! That’s mighty nice, Mr. Sullivan. Tell me,” he said, smiling, “you plan on having a large family by any chance?”
“Half a dozen,” Luke said, beaming at Emily.
Tucker’s eyebrows shot up. “Six?”
“At least,” Emily said.
Tucker’s smile faded. He went out the door and shut it quietly behind him. Outside, he untied his horse and swung himself into the saddle. Halfway back to Repton, he looked at the mass of black clouds piling up on the horizon and churning toward him across the sky. A sobering thought flickered through his mind like the distant lightning.
Six little Sullivans. Six of them. And probably every blasted one a redhead.
Tucker raised his eyes to the rainy skies overhead. “Hey, Sir – if you can hear me up there – any chance you could make ’em all girls?”
A mile-high tree of lightning blazed in the sky, and an instant thunderclap exploded like artillery.
“I was afraid you’d say that,” Tucker muttered. “Soon as Luke said he was marrying her in church, everything changed.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To Bob Lemen, “Cowboy Bob” Lemen, a former Minnesota state legislator, writer, amateur historian, and horseman, who helped vet some of the details in this book. His Web site – www.lemen.com – has thousands of insights into good horsemanship and Old West history.
To Mary Margret Daughtridge, who was always there and willing to put down her own writing to read for me.
To Ron Kent, my crit partner and head cheerleader, never too busy to brainstorm over coffee.
To Monica Harris, my eagle-eyed sister-in-law and first reader.
To Dr. Rosemary Harris, who made certain the medical history and details were accurate and who inherited her mother’s weakness for cowboys.
To Jolie Bosakowski, who dragged her high-stepping grandmother in and out of more horse barns than she cares to count.
To David Long and Luke Hinrichs, two editors this writer was lucky to have in her corner. Their encouragement and support meant so much.
And to Mary Sue Seymour, my agent, for unfailingly good advice.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Yvonne Harris earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Education from the University of Hartford and has taught throughout New England and the mid-Atlantic. She lives in Southern New Jersey and teaches writing at a local college. She is a winner and three-time finalist for the Golden Heart Award. The Vigilante’s Bride was a 2009 finalist and is her first historical romance novel.
She is the author of Hindu Kush, a romantic suspense, and For Honor, winner of the 2002 EPPIE . Before she turned to fiction, she wrote business articles for magazines.
Though Yvonne and her husband live in New Jersey to be close to family, she was raised in Alabama and considers herself a Southern writer.
Table of Contents
COVER PAGE
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT PAGE
DEDICATION
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