The dress buttoned up the front, which made it convenient for a mother of a baby. As Beulah fastened each tiny, bone button she idly looked out over the town. It wasn't at all how she remembered it but it was a big enough place that perhaps the part where Bell had taken her wasn't as nice. Places of commerce lined the boardwalk along the street and there was a fair amount of foot traffic. People of all colors and styles of dress were going about their day shopping and conducting business.
A striking figure of a man, tall, lean, long legs clothed in form fitting trousers, striding across the street below caught her attention. She ran her gaze over him appreciatively before realizing it was Matt. He must have checked on the horses before returning to the church for their wedding. His head was bare, his dark hair flashing red highlights and in one hand he held a simple bouquet of flowers. She clasped her hands together below her chin. It was time to go downstairs and get married.
Downstairs in the preacher's parlor the small group was gathered, waiting for her to come down. She paused at the last step of the stairs and took a deep breath. Matt looked up at her and then stared, as though he couldn't pull his eyes away. The pastor, an older man with pure white, soft fluffy hair, had a small book in his hands, ready to begin the ceremony. His wife, not quite so white-haired, plump and busty, held Jonah, who was drooling down his chin. Beulah looked back at Matt and smiled. He looked so handsome. he'd be a perfect man to take for a husband if only he loved her. She hoped his sense of duty hadn't overridden his good sense and he wouldn't come to regret marrying her for protection.
He held out the bouquet, a simple arrangement of daisies, wild flowers and a pink rose. Beulah stepped to his side, took the flowers, and looked to the pastor. On the other hand, she admitted to herself, it was a wonderful feeling to have a man who wanted to protect her and treat her as something precious.
The ceremony was quick, the words spoken matter of factly. "You may now kiss the bride," the preacher said after pronouncing them married.
Beulah tilted her head up as Matt bent down. They paused, inches away, looking at one another for what seemed like ages before she closed her eyes. His lips softly touched hers. Electricity seemed to flow between them and liquid heat pooled somewhere in the region of her belly, spreading like a wildfire through her body. Stunned she pulled away and saw that Matt was breathing heavy and looked as surprised as she did.
He turned to the pastor, handing a folded up bill, accepted the older couple's congratulations, took Jonah and handed him to Beulah, and finally took her by the elbow and led her away. The entire time she was trying to make sense of what had just happened. That kiss was as far from what Hiram Bell had forced upon her as chalk from cheese.
Somehow, without her being even aware of it, someone had brought her things down from upstairs and they were ready to leave. As they left the parsonage, she pulled her wits about her long enough to whisper a thanks to the kindly couple.
"I arranged our lodgings at the hotel in this part of town. It's not quite as rowdy as the ones where prospectors usually stay." He held her bag in one hand and kept his other on her elbow as they walked across the busy street. Dodging horse droppings, delivery wagons, and those on horseback, took a degree of diligence and he didn't speak again until reaching the opposite boardwalk. "We can make an early start back to Sweet Town in morning."
Beulah was disappointed when Matt let go of her arm, switching the bag to his other hand. It would be nice to have a room to themselves, even though Jonah would prevent them from having any sort of real privacy. She looked forward to it just being the three of them, a family now. Maybe he would kiss her again. Kissing was alright to do in front of your children, she reasoned. She remembered her father kissing her mother. She and her brothers and sisters would giggle and try to wriggle between them. Smiling at the memory, she stood next to her husband at the hotel desk. The clerk, a Chinese man with a long braid, fascinated Beulah. She had never seen anyone from China before coming to Deadwood, nor any man with hair quite so long.
The man behind the desk handed Matt two keys and Beulah suddenly shook herself from her reverie. Surely he didn't expect her to put Jonah in a room all by himself? .
"Here's the key to your room. It's right next to mine so if you need anything in the night, you just call out and I'll hear you."
"Separate rooms?" Her mouth felt dry and she licked her lips, unable to raise her face to his, she stared stupidly at the key he'd handed her.
"I thought you'd be more comfortable in your own room."
Her cheeks flamed with heat, from mortification or anger she wasn't sure. "Fine, yes, that's just what I need. A room of my own on my wedding night." Obviously that kiss hadn't affected him the same way, she fumed. Beulah grabbed her bag and swept past him, up the stairs, to find her room.
"We'll stop to make camp soon." The sky above was starting to get that golden glow of twilight. The shadows grew beneath the pine trees around them, so that it seemed at least an hour later on the ground than above. When Beulah failed to respond, Matthieu shifted in his saddle to look back at her. "Did you hear me?"
Beulah gave him a small nod. "Yes."
She had Jonah tied to her back with a long strip of cotton, similar to the way he'd seen some Indian women carry their infants, among those nations who didn't use cradleboards. The little boy's head rested against Beulah's back, his eyes closed and lips pursed, sucking at phantom milk. Matt's own mother had the luxury of staying home and only caring for their household when he and his sister had been little, a life afforded to women of means. Women who had to work more physically for survival needed to keep their little ones close and their own hands free. Enslaved mothers, he remembered dimly from his childhood in Louisiana, had worn their infants in just the same way. Most likely their ancestors had done it back in Africa and it gave him a warm sense of connection that despite all that happened, some traditions passing from mother to child remained.
"Is everything alright?" he asked.
Her answer was a sigh, followed by, "Of course."
She hadn't seemed happy about their wedding night, and had been subdued all through their travel that day. There was a lot to worry about and she was traveling instead of helping at Bridget's laundry, which he was sure weighed heavily on her mind, but he suspected there was something more. Perhaps she regretted marrying him.
When they stopped for camp, he helped her down out of the saddle and took Jonah while she prepared a little pad of blankets on the ground for him. The baby slept on, hardly stirring when he was laid down.
Beulah began preparing a fire for their supper and Matt busied himself unloading the horses. They had traveled light, more concerned with speed than anything else, and it wasn't long before he was laying out bedrolls for them both.
"How far do you intend to put your bed down from mine?" Beulah asked, her voice nearly as tart as vinegar.
Matt froze in what he was doing. Was she complaining? "I could put it beside yours if that's what you want, but I assumed you'd prefer your own space."
Beulah fed a twisted bundle of grass into the fire to keep it going, as it hadn't passed yet from the kindling to the larger pieces of wood. "I can't imagine where you got an idea like that. I wouldn't have married you if I couldn't stand the thought of you."
He was quiet for a moment, then picked up his bedroll to lay it out beside hers. "You haven't seemed especially happy since I proposed."
"Matt." There was a hint of sharpness in his name, before her face softened and she rose from her spot beside the fire. "With everything that's been going on, with all the uncertainty in the air, you blamed yourself for how worried I've been?"
"I haven't been able to do much to take that worry off your shoulders, have I?"
A soft smile curved her lips and she shook her head. "Just like a man, thinking you're failing because you haven't solved my problems for me."
He got to his feet to circle around the fire toward her, frowning. "Isn't that what your man should d
o for you?"
"You may be a man of God, but you're not God Himself, so I don't think that's a fair burden to put on your shoulders."
In the warm glow of the fire, she looked rather divine herself, he thought. A glorious angel of ebony and gold against the backdrop of the woodland shadows. Before he could think his way out of it, he reached out to cup her cheek in his hand. The air was cool as evening settled in, making the heat of her skin all the more apparent to him.
"Perhaps it's an unfair burden, but I want to make you happy all the same," he pointed out. From the way she was speaking, a glimmer of hope grew in his heart. Perhaps necessity had pushed them together, but that didn't mean necessity alone would keep them together, did it?
"You already do," she whispered.
He leaned in to claim her in a kiss, but before their lips could meet she jerked back from him with a scream. Startled, Matt pulled away and turned to look behind him at what had frightened her so. Nothing was there except the darkness of the woods. "What is it?"
"Hiram! It was Hiram. He came out of the woods and grabbed Jonah." She clutched her hands to her chest, breast heaving with breath bordering on hysteria.
Matt's eyes dropped to the blanket, where Jonah slept no more. Hiram had been thrown off on the road south of Sweet Town and here they were at least a day to the north, but if Beulah said it had been him, then it had been. The monster must have caught a ride on someone's wagon to make good time.
"I'll go get him, but I need you to stay here." Matt stalked to the saddlebags and pulled out his rifle, as well as his sidearm.
Her big brown eyes shone with tears. "You want me to stay here all alone when my son's out there? I swore I'd never be helpless again, Matt. Don't leave me like this."
He set the sidearm into her hand. "You won't be helpless."
Eyes open as wide as she could, Beulah stared into the darkness but saw nothing. No movement, no flicker of light from the moon glow caught in the gaze of an animal, and the sounds seemed to have ceased, too. She turned to another direction, the weight of the sidearm foreign in her hand. Matt had gone to find Jonah leaving her to protect herself. A surge of anger coursed through her veins. She cared nothing for herself! If Bell so much as harmed a hair on her baby's head, she would shoot him dead, even though she had never fired a gun before.
There had been a time when her anger and resentment of his treatment of her had encouraged daydreams of different ways to punish him, and at that time shooting him might have seemed like a satisfactory way to bring closure. Thinking about it now, with an actual weapon in her hand, shooting him was nothing more than a way to keep her family - herself, Jonah, and now Matt - safe. Like exterminating a coyote, it wasn't something anyone should take pleasure in, only done when all peaceful options were gone.
She looked at her hand holding the foreign weight of the pistol and marveled that she wasn't even shaking. A steely resolve had entered her core. No more would she sit back, helpless and hopeless, letting others make decisions for her, determining her fate.
Look at how being under the power of others had worked out for her father, praying his master would keep their family together, but instead he sold her father. They never saw him again. And when the war was over and her family was freed from slavery, they hadn't wanted to leave the relative safety of the plantation they had known all their lives to set out into an uncertain world. No longer slaves, they were treated as such even so. Working in return for room and board in the same small cabin they had always lived in, still at the mercy of the whims of the plantation owners, Hiram Bell's family, their lives hadn't changed much for the better. Many of the other former slaves left, making the Douglass family's workload that much greater, and the owners' anger that much greater as their once great farm fell into ruin. When Bell had taken her for himself, dragging her across the country, she had looked for peaceful ways to escape, but without any success, until Neal Leonetti rescued her.
She lifted the weapon higher and pointed it into the darkness, her finger on the trigger, ready to fire. No, she decided, all peaceful options were gone.
She wasn't going to stay put while someone else searched out her enemy and saved her son. Surely two sets of eyes and two guns looking for Hiram Bell would find him faster than just one. Even so, as she contemplated stepping away from the campfire into the dense darkness of the forest around their camp, she felt dread. At first she thought the darkness could be her ally, and supply her with an element of surprise. But, a better idea would be to use herself as bait. Bell didn't want Jonah. He wanted her. She quickly fashioned a torch and lit it, holding it high above her head. Let him see her coming from a distance, and with the gun held lower, she might have a chance to shoot him before he could hurt any of them again. She would go in the opposite direction from where Matt had entered the forest, and if Jonah's captor was anywhere near, she would make sure he heard her coming.
Branches struck Matthieu in the face as he moved. Roots rose up beneath him to trip him with every step. Despite the darkness of the woods, Jonah's cries and an obvious trail led Matt ever closer toward Hiram Bell. He hadn't done as much hunting as many of the men on the frontier, nor had he ever hunted his fellow man, but the ease of catching up with Bell nagged at him. Had his goal been to take the baby, wouldn't it have made more sense to wait until Matt and Beulah slept?
The realization felt like breaking through ice into frigid water. Every muscle in his body went tense and Matt quickened his pace. The baby's heartbreaking wails drifted through the trees, drawing him onwards while he cursed himself for not recognizing the trap sooner. All he could do was keep going, though. Turning back to Beulah, leaving little Jonah up to cruel fate, wasn't an option.
Somewhere in the hills a coyote howled, more shrill and urgent than a wolf's voice. Its mate joined it before the howl faded and together they created a cacophony of yips and yowls that sounded more like women and children shrieking than animals.
Chances were good that Bell had gone back toward camp for Beulah, but she had a gun. Jonah had nothing and no one, beyond coyotes and whatever other predators the hills offered.
The look on Beulah's face as Matt left her at the campsite had been a combination of desperation, grief, and rage. It was a brutal combination, and one that could lead to victory or death. He had no doubt she would defend Jonah, or even him, but he worried that she might become so bent on protecting her family that she'd take risks with her own safety.
The baby's cries were very close now, and Matt hesitated just long enough to take a deep breath, as though readying himself for a plunge. His plan was to quickly grab the child and keep running, back toward camp and Beulah. Breaking through the last barrier of branches he saw Jonah laying in the midst of a small clearing, lit dimly by moonlight. Reaching out his arms to scoop the bundle he felt something small and hard against the back of his head at the same moment the click of a gun's hammer being pulled back, stopping him cold.
Hiram Bell had stuck around after all and now had his sidearm cocked and ready against Matt's skull. "Drop your rifle and raise your hands," he growled.
"You're going to shoot me anyway. I don't feel particularly inclined to do as you command."
Laughing, Bell jiggled the muzzle of the gun against Matt. "Good point, Preacher."
If he had any chance of saving Jonah or Beulah, Matt told himself, it was now or never. If he couldn't rescue them, his life wasn't worth living so he had nothing to lose. Spinning his rifle around in his hands he pulled it away from his body before slamming the butt back hard into Bell's stomach behind him. He heard the air whoosh out of his target but felt his own strength ebb as his recently injured ribs flexed painfully. The pistol went off, firing harmlessly into the sky. Before he even had a chance to take advantage of Bell's momentary incapacitation, the man slugged him in the side. Matt fell to the ground on top of his hat, crushing it as thoroughly as his own chest felt. Unable to take a deep breath, immobilized by pain, all he could do was watch as Bell slamme
d one booted foot down on Matt's chest and pointed the pistol at his forehead, grinning down at him.
"Let me share my plan with you, Pastor Whitney. First off, you're going to die."
Matt cared little for his own life at that point. He had failed the two people who mattered most to him. He had promised Beulah he would keep her and her child safe, but now it was certain that they would be at the mercy of this monster.
"After I kill you, I'll use that crying baby to keep his mother in line. She'll do anything for the brat. At least until I get a chance to drop it in a river and tell her it was a tragic accident." His finger rested on the trigger, and his thumb pulled back the hammer.
Matt's eyes darted to the side where his rifle lay, too far away to be of any use. He would never be able to grab it. He closed his eyes, preparing to meet his Maker, knowing that he would have to answer for his failures, but praying that somehow Beulah and Jonah would be delivered from the fate their captor had planned.
A shot rang out and Matt's whole body jerked in reaction.
A rose of blood bloomed on the back of his shirt between his shoulder blades. Such a contrast, the red looking nearly black against the white in the moonlight. The man turned slowly to face his killer and was stunned to see it was her.
"I didn't want to kill you," Beulah whispered, but it had been clear to her that half a second more and Bell would have shot Matt. She chose to protect her husband and son. If she had to to relive the last few seconds she would make the same choice again. It was the only possible way to keep her family safe.
Preacher's Wife (Sweet Town Clean Historical Western Romance Book 5) Page 7
