A Wanted Man

by Linda Lael Miller

  What, exactly, did that mean?

  With Pappy, it was hard to tell. He might have done it because he knew how highly Rowdy valued the pinto, but it could have been a petulant gesture, too. The note certainly implied the latter, but Rowdy wasn't sure.

  And he decided not muddle his brain by debating the matter.

  He made sure Paint and the other horse had plenty of hay and water, Pardner getting underfoot throughout the process, then headed back toward the house. He was fit to be seen now, but his groin still ached, heavy with the need to finish what he'd started with Lark.

  The fire was high in the stove, and the coffee smelled better than good.

  Rowdy hung up his hat, took off his coat and gun belt and glanced at Gideon, who was sitting at the table with a book open in front of him.

  Pardner lay down where it was warmest and sighed.

  "Was Pa here tonight?" Rowdy asked, and he watched his brother closely while he waited for the answer, because he knew Gideon might lie for a variety of reasons.

  Pappy might have told him to, for one.

  Or he could be covering for the old reprobate.

  Gideon shook his head. No color rose in his face to refute the silent assertion. His gaze was direct, and there was no apparent restlessness in his hands or feet. "Me and Pardner, we been here ever since we shut up the jail at suppertime." He smiled. "Mai Lee brought a basket by, around sundown, and we had ourselves a feast. Fried chicken and biscuits."

  "That's good," Rowdy said, instantly reminded that he'd had a couple of feasts himself that evening, outside the one at Maddie O'Ballivan's supper table.

  In his mind he heard Lark's voice again, repeating a fevered litany with increasing desperation. Rowdy— oh, Rowdy, please—

  He shoved a hand through his hair, turned his back to Gideon to pour a mugful of steaming-hot coffee. Maybe he should have stayed out there in the cold a little while longer and pondered the mysterious workings of Payton Yarbro's mind.

  Gideon frowned. "Why'd you ask if Pa had been here?"

  "Paint is back," Rowdy said.

  "What?" Gideon asked, sounding surprised. "I went to the barn right after supper, and Paint wasn't there— only my horse and Samson."

  Rowdy risked turning around. He was still so hard he hurt, but the lantern light was dim enough, and he was settling down a little.

  "Pa must have come back, then," Gideon mused.

  "And not very long ago, either," Rowdy agreed with a nod, after a sip of his coffee, "if it was around suppertime when you checked on the horses." He frowned. Was Payton still lurking around out there in the dark someplace, he and the black gelding? "He left a note. 'Keep your damn horse.' That's all there was."

  Gideon grinned. "I know you and Pa get along about like lamp oil and well water, but it sounds to me like he was trying to do something good for you."

  Rowdy gave a contemptuous snort, but deep down he wondered if Gideon wasn't right. Even hoped, just a little, and against all good sense and reason, that it might be so.

  Gideon's chair scraped against the floor as he shoved it back, and his grin was gone. "Why do you hate him like you do?" he demanded tersely. "He's your pa."

  Rowdy considered that undeniable fact. Whether he liked it or not, and whatever he called himself to escape the fact, Payton Yarbro was his pa. Not John T. Rhodes. He'd never be his real self, for better or for worse, until he took back his right name.

  And that, of course, was never going to be possible.

  Suddenly he felt bleak inside. Hollowed out.

  While Rowdy was pondering all these things, Gideon waited stubbornly for an answer.

  "I don't hate him," Rowdy said, and realized in the moment he spoke that it was true. He didn't need the old man's admiration, or even his approval. If he never saw Pappy again it would be a month too soon, but he didn't hate him. Not even close.

  "You act like you do."

  "I'm not the one who knocked him clear back into the lean-to when he tried to leave the first time," Rowdy pointed out lightly.

  Gideon reflected on that, sagged a little around the shoulders. "Was he really such a bad pa to you?"

  Rowdy shrugged, took more coffee. "He could have been worse. The fact is, he wasn't around enough to tell what kind of pa he'd have made."

  "Pa never laid a hand on me," Gideon said. "Not even once. That's why I feel so bad about breaking his nose and all."

  Rowdy had known a much younger Payton, with a much hotter temper, especially when he began to get restless. Once or twice when he was little and his old man had hauled him off to the woodshed for a switching, Rowdy would have loved to break that arrogant Yarbro nose, just as Gideon had done.

  "Pa wants you to go to college when you finish your schooling here in the territory," Rowdy said. "He asked me to make sure you do."

  Gideon averted his eyes. He fancied himself a deputy marshal—Rowdy knew he'd worn that beat-up old badge to school that morning, pinned to the inside of his coat—and most likely he was about to argue that college would be a waste of time and money.

  He ought to just get on with being a deputy.

  Rowdy had a response at the ready. Gideon would make a good lawman, in part, ironically, because he had a streak of outlaw in him, along with that youthful idealism of his, but he'd be an even better one with an education.

  Finally Gideon looked back at him. Swallowed hard. "I reckon I'll go when the time comes," he said. "To that college back east, I mean."

  "Good," Rowdy said, surprised.

  Suddenly Gideon grinned. "In the meantime, I don't mind looking at Miss Morgan every day." He gave a low whistle, one that would have raised Rowdy's hackles coming from anybody else but his kid brother. "She was something in that fancy blue dress she wore today."

  Rowdy grinned into his mug, nodded. Lark had been something with that fancy blue dress up around her waist, too. Sweet and warm and juicy as a sun-ripened peach.

  "Miss Langston—she was my teacher in Flagstaff— never wore anything like that blue dress. Folks would probably run her out of town on a rail if she did, and, anyhow, she's about a hundred and she's square."

  "Square?" Rowdy asked, mildly confounded. In his experience, women were round, or they were angular, or something in between, but he'd never run across a square one.

  "Ruby says it's because of her corset," Gideon said wisely.

  "Oh," Rowdy replied, frowning. Still trying to work it out.

  "I guess you'd have to see her for yourself to understand."

  "Guess so," Rowdy agreed. "Speaking of Ruby—"

  "I know," Gideon said, evidently anticipating what Rowdy had been about to say. "I've got to go back to Flagstaff, soon as I can, and let her know I saw Pa and he's headed for Mexico. And give back the livery-stable horse, too, so they don't hang me for a horse thief."

  "I'll go with you," Rowdy said. "We'll leave in the morning, at first light, if the weather allows."

  Gideon looked worried. "Do I get to come back here? Because I really like it better, even if I can't visit Rose's grave. I like being a deputy and going to school."

  "If you want to come back," Rowdy told him, "you can." He liked having Gideon around, and Pardner clearly did, too. He just hoped he wouldn't have to leave them both behind, one dark day, to fend for themselves.

  "You're not dodging that dance tomorrow night, are you?" Gideon asked forthrightly. "Miss Morgan told that big farmer you hauled out of the wagon the other day that she was going with you."

  Rowdy had been about to raise his cup to his lips again, but at the mention of Roland Franks, his arm froze in midair. "He came to school?"

  Now, why hadn't Lark mentioned that, when they were together all that time tonight? They hadn't been busy the whole time, after all.

  Gideon nodded, frowning a little. "She wanted him to stay and take up his lessons again, just as if nothing had happened, but he stomped out of there meaning to ask Lydia's mother if she'd go to the dance with him, and Miss Morgan was upset a
fter that. She put her hands over her face and made a real peculiar sound— I thought she was crying, for a second."

  "But she wasn't?"

  Gideon shook his head. "She got over it real quick, and started up the lessons."

  Damn, Rowdy marveled silently. Lark still thought she could handle Franks. Get him settled right back into the third grade. For an intelligent, spirited woman, she sure had some sappy ideas.

  Rowdy was briefly tempted to saddle up, ride out to the Franks place, wherever the hell it was, and convince Roland that his school days were over.

  He was even more tempted to walk over to Mrs. Porter's, drag Lark out of her bed, try to get it through her boney little head that Franks wasn't longing for the delights of higher education.

  He had another kind of delight in mind.

  Rowdy sighed. Franks wouldn't be bothering Lark tonight, or even tomorrow, in the broad light of day, not after that scene in front of the jailhouse.

  And if he, Rowdy, roused Lark out of a sound sleep and tried to reason with her, she might just be peeved enough to stitch up the seam in her bloomers.

  Besides, he needed to get some sleep, especially since he and Gideon were making a fast ride to Flagstaff and back the next day.

  He'd speak to Lark tomorrow, he decided.

  Before the dance, since he had other plans for after.

  Lark lay restless beside a soundly sleeping Lydia, her face flaming in the darkness of the room they shared.

  What had possessed her to throw herself at Rowdy the way she had?

  All right, the first time, when he'd said all those things about watch springs, and ducked under her skirts, he'd taken her by surprise. She'd practically been in the throes of—she swallowed—passion before she realized what he was going to do.

  But on the way back from Sam and Maddie's, she'd asked him to pleasure her again, like some hussy.

  Mortification stung her cheeks at the remembrance of it.

  She'd lain in the back of that wagon with Rowdy willingly, even eagerly, for heaven's sake. And she'd carried on something terrible while he—while he—did what? Did it have a name, what he did?

  Did other people do it?

  She wished she could ask Maddie, but of course, that would be impossible. She'd die of embarrassment before she even got the words out.

  And what if it happened again?

  She stiffened, remembering her vow to mend the crotch of her best bloomers, the ones she'd worn tonight. Where was her sewing kit?

  Should she get up, light a lamp, and see to the task right now, this very minute?

  She simply couldn't.

  It would be too terrible if Mrs. Porter, or even Mai Lee, got up for some reason, and caught her sewing up her drawers. Why, they might arrive at all kinds of wicked conclusions, and how would she explain?

  No.

  Better to do her mending another time.

  Perhaps after she got home from the dance tomorrow night.

  She could wear another pair of bloomers, after all.

  But what if she succumbed to temptation again? Rowdy would surely tear the second pair, in just the same way, and she knew she wouldn't tell him to stop.

  Her cheeks flamed with renewed heat.

  She wouldn 't tell him to stop.

  Tonight she hadn't even been able to tell herself'to stop, not with any conviction, anyway.

  He'd said he was already seducing her. And then he'd proved it.

  He'd also said she'd ask him to take her to his bed.

  She'd been so sure she'd never do that.

  That's what you ought to feel when a man makes love to you, Lark. It ought to make you moan and writhe and holler out his name when you come undone.

  Was that what she was supposed to feel?

  Lark wasn't sure.

  All she knew for certain was that she wanted to feel all of it again.

  Saturday morning dawned clear and fairly warm, for the twenty-eighth of January. It bothered Rowdy to shut Pardner up in the house, though he'd left him plenty of water and beef jerky to last. But he did it. Pardner was an old dog, and he might just fall over, same as John T. had out there in his cornfield, if he attempted to go all the way to Flagstaff and back. And carrying him in the saddle would have slowed them down too much.

  Still, the dog's howls echoed in Rowdy's ears long after he and Gideon had ridden off.

  They made good time, though. Arrived in Flagstaff at midmorning and tied their horses in front of Ruby's Saloon and Poker House, amid a flock of others.

  Tinny piano music flowed out over the doors, proclaiming it was business as usual at Ruby's. Rowdy wondered how she was explaining Jack Payton's absence to curious customers and anyone else who might show an interest.

  Gideon, he noticed, glanced toward the street. From the boy's expression, Rowdy figured he was watching Rose fall under the wheels of that wagon, as surely as if it was happening right then, and he wondered how many times the kid had relived that day over the ten years since then.

  A chill ran down his spine.

  It was my fault, Gideon had said.

  Rowdy laid a hand on his brother's shoulder, nodded toward the saloon doors.

  Gideon braced up, tore himself from his private reverie and followed Rowdy inside.

  Ruby's place was like a hundred others Rowdy had seen in his many travels—there was sawdust on the floor, and the piano needed a tuning it was never going to get—but Ruby catered to local businessmen, not just cowpokes and drifters, as evidenced by all the suits he saw standing around.

  The bar was fancier than most, made of some gleaming hardwood, intricately carved with curlicues and such. And the mirror behind it had none of the usual murky spots, where the silver showed through.

  Someone must have alerted Ruby to their arrival, because she came sweeping out of a side room, her red skirts swirling around her, and headed right for them.

  "Gideon Payton," she said, putting her hands on her rounded hips, "I've worried myself sick about you."

  "I left you a note," Gideon reminded her. But he took his hat off and twisted it nervously in his hands.

  Ruby was a force to be reckoned with, it appeared. She'd have had to be, Rowdy figured, to hold her own with Payton Yarbro all this time.

  Her gaze sliced to Rowdy. They'd only met once, and briefly at that, but it was plain she remembered him.

  "My office," she said summarily, and turned in a flurry of skirts and expensive perfume to glide across the saloon toward the same door she'd just come out of a minute before.

  Gideon followed right away.

  Rowdy left him to it. He had no business with Ruby—he'd just come along because he didn't want Gideon making the ride alone.

  He didn't want any whiskey, the day being so young, so he took a seat at an empty table, resigned to wait. A dancehall girl offered him a drink and whatever else he might enjoy, and he politely refused.

  He tapped his fingers idly on the tabletop and scanned the room for a second time. There sure were a lot of suits in this saloon, he thought, for a cow town like Flagstaff.

  Then, finally, it registered.

  These weren't bankers or storekeepers.

  They were rangers, hard-eyed and watchful, and there must have been a dozen of them.

  Rowdy was glad he'd worn his badge, but truly it wasn't much comfort to him just then. There were Wanted posters all over the West bearing his description, and even his image, in a few cases, and some or all of these men must have seen them.

  He'd known there would be an encounter, of course, but he'd expected to be in Sam O'Ballivan's company when the introductions were made. Even if some of the men were suspicious, Sam's presence would have automatically put a lot of their questions to rest.

  Damn.

  Why hadn't he thought of this?

  Because he'd been thinking about Lark Morgan instead, that was why.

  One of the men peeled himself away from the bar and approached, tall and spare, with weathered features
and a dark handlebar mustache streaked with gray. His hair reached almost to his collar, trailing limp from under his round-brimmed hat.

  "Robert Reston," the ranger said, putting out a hand.

  Rowdy almost swallowed his tongue before he realized, in the split second between the first name— which was his own—and the last, that the man was introducing himself, not making an identification.

  "Rowdy Rhodes," Rowdy replied affably. "Have a seat."

  "Obliged," Reston answered, and pulled back a chair. His gaze rested a moment, thoughtfully, on Rowdy's badge. "You're a marshal," he said.

  "Stone Creek," Rowdy confirmed.

  "Stone Creek," Reston repeated. His eyes were brown, and luminous with the many sorrows he'd witnessed, but there was intelligence in them, too, and it was sharp as a razor fresh from the strop. "You know Sam O'Ballivan and Major Blackstone?"

  Rowdy nodded, wishing he'd ordered a drink when he'd had the opportunity. He didn't need liquor, but he wouldn't have minded having something to do with his hands. No matter how good a man was at keeping his face impassive, his hands could give him away.

  "I know them," he said mildly.

  "You put me in mind of somebody," Reston told him, narrowing his eyes a little. "I can't say who it is, though."

  Rowdy shrugged, even though his insides were jumping. Kept his hands still, and his feet resting easy on the floor. "Maybe you rode through Haven," he said, "while I was the marshal there."

  "Haven," Reston echoed. "That's down south, isn't it? Around Tucson someplace? Never been there, far as I can recollect. Why'd you leave it to come to Stone Creek? If you don't mind my asking."

  Rowdy knew it didn't matter to Reston whether he minded or not. "Sam O'Ballivan sent for me," he said.

  "Made you a ranger?" Reston asked, raising an eyebrow so bushy that it could have served as a mustache had it been on another part of his face.

  Rowdy hadn't planned on volunteering that he'd been sworn in as an Arizona Ranger, given that the major had asked him to keep it a secret, but Reston and the others would know soon enough. Tomorrow, in fact, when he and Sam rode to Flagstaff. They'd settled their plans the night before, while putting the team away in Sam's barn before supper.