The Outlaw Takes a Bride

by Susan Page Davis

  She put the thought aside and kept at her kitchen work. She scrubbed the table and the sideboard around the dishpan. She washed every dish they’d used and put away the leftovers, carefully covered so they could use them the next day.

  “I suppose we have mice,” she said with a half smile. All country homes had mice, unless they had a cat.

  When Mark didn’t respond, she looked over at him. He had fallen asleep sitting at the table.

  “Mark.” She touched his shoulder gently.

  He sat up, blinking. “Oh, sorry.”

  “Never mind. I’m finished with my work. I thought I’d get a bath before I retire, if you don’t mind.”

  She watched his face anxiously. He flushed to his hairline and stood, holding on to his injured arm.

  “Do you have plenty of water?” he asked.

  “I think so. I filled the boiler earlier, and it’s warm now. There’s a bucket of cold, too.”

  “I’ll get the tub.” Without another word, he went out the door.

  Sally got her best nightdress and her hairbrush out of her satchel. Mark came in with a round washtub and set it on the kitchen floor.

  “I’ll be outside.”

  “Towels?” she asked.

  He hesitated and then brought two from the kitchen. “That’s the best we have, I’m afraid. Not very big.”

  “Thank you,” Sally said. “I’ll set the buckets outside when I’m done.”

  The water wasn’t very deep in the tub, and she kept her bath short, but being out of her corset at last and washing off the grime of her journey felt wonderful. She scrubbed her skin thoroughly then dried off and slipped on her gown. She hesitated but then went ahead and washed her hair in the same water. Rinsing it in cold jolted her, but at least it wouldn’t smell of smoke.

  At last she sat on a bench near the stove and brushed out her hair. She wished Mark was here, watching her, seeing the cascade of gold. But he was so shy, he probably wouldn’t even think of such a thing. She sighed as she continued her brushstrokes. How could a man seem so open on paper and be so reticent in person?

  When her tresses were mostly dry, she took the empty water bucket to the door and set it out on the step. She looked toward the barn, but she didn’t see any light out there, or any sign of Mark in the twilit yard. Where had he gone?

  Back inside, she set her satchel off the bed and hesitated. If he truly intended to sleep on the floor, she ought to set out some bedding for him. But would doing that confirm that he had no other option?

  CHAPTER 10

  Paint’s hooves beat a tattoo in the darkness. Johnny sauntered to the corral gate and waited. A minute later, Cam drew up and hopped off the pinto’s back.

  “You’re awful late,” Johnny said.

  Cam jumped. “You scared me.” He glanced toward the cabin. “What you doin’ out here?”

  “Waiting for you. I didn’t expect you to spend half the night at the saloon.”

  “Figured you two would want some time alone.”

  “Cam, this isn’t right.”

  “Hold on,” Cam whispered. “You didn’t tell Sally?”

  “No, but I wish I had. I’m miserable, and I don’t think she’s much better.”

  Cam pulled off the saddle and flopped it onto the top rail of the fence. “What happened?”

  “Nothing. I killed a rooster one-handed, and she cooked it, and we ate supper, and—”

  “I didn’t think about you doing all that stuff with your arm hurtin’.”

  Johnny shrugged. “In the morning, you’ll have to help me get her trunk in.”

  “Does she need it tonight?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Cam looked again toward the cabin. “You should be inside.”

  Johnny wasn’t sure what to say, so he stood there fidgeting while Cam took off Paint’s bridle.

  “Why aren’t you?” Cam asked.

  He shrugged. “I gave her the bunk.”

  Cam stopped walking, the bridle slung over his shoulder, and stared at him. “You’ve got to be joking.”

  Johnny shook his head.

  “Look, I know it’s a small bunk, but—”

  “I figure Mark would have built a better bed if he’d lived that last few days before she came, but he didn’t. Anyway, I told her I’d sleep on the floor.”

  “Was she mad?”

  “Not exactly.”

  Cam eyed him keenly. “She expects more from Mark.”

  Johnny said nothing. The whole point was he wasn’t Mark, but Cam knew that, and if he said it, his friend would only go into a tirade about how he couldn’t change things now.

  Cam clapped him on the shoulder. “Go on in, Mr. Married Man. I’ll see you in the mornin’.”

  Sally heard the horse come in, and then the men’s low voices out near the corral. She held her breath and listened, but she couldn’t make out their words. After a few minutes, the door opened stealthily. She waited, her heart tripping, but Mark didn’t come near the bed. She heard rustling in the dark. She was certain she heard when he took off his boots, and the moment when he settled down on the pallet of blankets she’d made for him.

  She wished she hadn’t done it. Then maybe he would have come over and asked her what he was supposed to sleep on. Or at least he might have needed to light the lantern to find some bedding. Setting out the bedding was a tacit agreement that he wouldn’t share her bed tonight. Had she made the biggest blunder of her life?

  All was quiet, but she was wide awake, and she knew he wasn’t asleep. This was not the way she wanted to start her new marriage. What if she said something? She wasn’t sure she dared. David would have gone into a rage if she had questioned one of his decisions. She lay silent for a minute, holding back a sob. Above all, she didn’t want her new husband to think she was trying to control him. That would be a big mistake.

  Her pulse pounding, she lifted her head off the pillow. “Good night, Mark.”

  After a long moment of utter silence, he said, “Good night, Sally.”

  Mark was up and gone already when Sally awoke in the gray predawn. He had bundled up his bedding and left it in a semi-neat mound on the floor. She hurriedly dressed, keeping an eye on the door and wishing she had her trunk inside.

  As soon as she was decent, she folded his blankets and stacked them on the foot of her bed.

  A timid knock came at the door.

  “Come in.”

  Mark opened the door and entered, carrying a basket. “Morning.” He glanced at her once and quickly away, but she saw the relief in his expression. He must have shared her anxiety that he would interrupt her while she was dressing.

  “Good morning.” Sally smiled her best smile. “Are those more eggs?”

  “Yes. Got seven this time.”

  “I’ll cook them up for you boys.” She wished she hadn’t said boys, but Mark didn’t seem to mind.

  “Cam’s milking the cow. I’ll bring in some water, and some coal for the stove.”

  She made a quick trip out back to the necessary and then donned her apron and set to work. Cam brought in a full bucket of milk while she was mixing biscuit dough.

  “Oh, thank you,” Sally said. “I can use some of that.”

  Cam set it on the worktable. “Good morning, Mrs. Paynter. Looks like it’s going to be a scorcher.”

  “Call me Sally. How are you, Cam?”

  “Fine and dandy. Anything I can do for you?”

  “You could put a little coal on the fire. I hate to heat up the house, but I can’t bake if I don’t.”

  “I wonder if Mark and I shouldn’t set up an outdoor oven for you,” Cam said.

  “That would be helpful,” Sally said. Overheating the kitchen had seldom been a problem in St. Louis, but she remembered that her mother often did her baking outside in summer, to keep the house cooler.

  “I’ll talk it over with Mark and see what he thinks.”

  When they all sat down to breakfast a short time later, Cam s
teered the conversation to ranch work and improvements the men could make to the buildings.

  “I know you plan to increase the herd of cattle,” Sally said to Mark. “When will you be getting the new stock?”

  Mark hesitated, and she wondered if money was a problem.

  “I’m not sure,” he said. “But I thought we’d take what we already have farther up into the hills next week. The grass will be better up there, and it will be about played out in the pasture here.”

  “Meanwhile, we can work on my quarters in the barn and maybe start building one of those outdoor ovens like the Mexicans use for Sally.”

  Mark eyed him cautiously. “There’s something else I’ve been meaning to get at for a while.”

  “What’s that?” Cam asked.

  “Well, I’m not sure we can do everything right away.” Mark shot a glance at Sally and then looked down at his plate. “I aim to build another room on this cabin, so’s we can have a bedroom separate from the rest.”

  “Now, I think that’s a capital idea,” Cam said. “And while we’re at it, we should build a decent bedstead for you and the missus.”

  Sally’s face burned. She jumped up and lifted her plate and silverware. “Anyone want more biscuits?”

  “I’d take another,” Cam said.

  She hastened to the worktable and stood for a moment with her back to them, trying to calm herself and willing the blood to leave her cheeks. Cam was a charming man, but he was a bit more blunt than she cared for.

  Mark and Cam continued their conversation while she filled her dishpan with warm water and began to do up the dishes. She couldn’t hear everything over the clinking of pottery and pans, but she caught the words lumber, sawmill, and money.

  When they rose, Mark brought his dishes over. “Where would you like your trunk?”

  “Oh, right there at the foot of the bed, I guess.” She turned to look at the scanty floor space. “Thank you.”

  They brought it in, and Sally kept busy while they arranged it.

  Cam drove away in the rented wagon with his pinto tied behind it. He was back in an hour. All day the men kept busy. Even with his arm in the sling, Mark hammered, carried, and held boards in place for Cam. After the noon meal, they put a harness on Mark’s horse and ground drove him around the barnyard to get him used to pulling in harness then repeated the process with Cam’s paint.

  Sally determined not to slack or feel sorry for herself. She arranged her things. The little house was so clean that she didn’t feel she needed to scrub everything. She did some extra cooking and went out back to survey the vegetable plants in the garden, where she salvaged some beans and root vegetables. The early garden was about done, but a few things still produced.

  At midafternoon, she followed the sound of hammering to the barn, carrying a tray with cake and cool milk. She found them in a small room inside the barn, where they were constructing a bunk bed between saddle racks and a feed bin.

  Mark smiled when he saw her in the doorway. “That looks terrific.” He and Cam came over to take the food and cups from the tray.

  “Mighty good,” Cam said after his first bite of cake. “Mark, you picked yourself a winner.”

  Sally smiled. “Thank you, Cam. I’m stewing what’s left of the chicken for supper.” She turned to Mark. “Do you have any seeds for planting a second garden?”

  Mark hesitated. “Look in one of the crocks in the kitchen. I think I put the leftover seeds there.”

  “Thank you.” She smiled at him. “When do you think I should plant the next round?”

  “Uh…” Mark looked toward Cam.

  “Not yet,” Cam said.

  Mark nodded. “If you plant now, it’ll come up during the worst of the heat, and everything will die off.”

  “Wait a few weeks,” Cam said. “Maybe the middle of August.”

  Sally hated to wait that long. She wanted to see new plants popping up through the soil. But she supposed they were right. Meanwhile, they would be without fresh vegetables for a while.

  “Once we get this bunk squared away, we’ll lay out where to build the addition to the cabin,” Mark said.

  “Are you sure you want to?” Sally asked. “Maybe you should wait until your arm heals.”

  “No, I want to get it done.”

  She took that as a good sign. Mark wanted them to have their own bedroom and therefore privacy. “Thank you.”

  He nodded gravely, and she wished Cam wasn’t there. She longed for her husband to take her in his arms and hold her while he described his dreams for the place. But Mark seemed to be a shy man, much more so than she had guessed during their correspondence. She hoped that was the only reason he held back. She looked at their handiwork.

  “Well, Cam, you’ll have a bed. Maybe later, you can make some more furniture.”

  “I’m thinking I’ll build a bunkhouse in the fall, if we make a profit this year,” Mark said.

  “A bunkhouse? Do you anticipate hiring a lot of men?”

  “Not right away, but Cam will need a bigger place than this.”

  She nodded, wondering how much Mark felt he owed his friend. “Just don’t overdo it,” she said, eyeing his sling. Should she have made him more willow bark tea?

  “I’ll see that he doesn’t,” Cam said.

  The following morning, Johnny worked with Reckless in the harness for two hours while Cam worked on the farm wagon. After dinner, they hitched the horse to the repaired wagon.

  “I’ll drive him,” Cam said.

  “No sense two of us getting stove up if he takes exception to this,” Johnny said.

  “If he does, you can’t pull hard enough with one arm to slow him down.” Cam shook his head. “You’d just be going in circles until you ran into something again. I’ll do it.”

  Reckless stood quivering in the harness while Cam climbed to the seat. Johnny patted his horse’s neck with his good hand.

  “Now you behave yourself. Cam’s not going to hurt you.”

  Reckless’s ears shifted, one back toward Cam and the creaking wagon, the other forward toward his master.

  “I mean it,” Johnny said softly. “Nobody’s chasing you. You’re just going to help us out. Be a good fella.” He gave one final pat and stepped back. Sally had come from the house and stood beside him.

  “Think he’ll wreck the wagon again?”

  “I sure hope not,” Johnny said.

  “All right, crow bait,” Cam said in his most winsome voice. “Show the lady what a handsome fellow you are.” He clucked, and Reckless stepped gingerly forward. They went the length of the barnyard.

  “Now comes the tricky part,” Johnny said, and Sally clutched his arm as though she was in mortal fear.

  Cam turned the horse in a wide, slow circle and headed back toward them. When the wagon was aligned straight, he clucked to Reckless and fluttered the reins on the horse’s flanks without popping them. Reckless snorted, shook his head, and picked up a trot. He high-stepped and twitched his ears, but he didn’t bolt. Cam made him trot over close to where Johnny and Sally stood then pulled gently on the lines.

  “Whoa.”

  Johnny grinned and reached to scratch Reckless’s forelock. “What a good horse.”

  “I’ll take him down the road a ways and turn around past the boulder,” Cam said.

  Johnny nodded. “Take care.” He watched the wagon roll slowly down the dirt road. When it was out of sight, he turned to Sally. In the sunlight, her calico dress was a bright maroon with a small gold-and-black print. It brightened up the drab barnyard.

  “What?” Sally asked softly.

  He realized he had been staring.

  “Nothing. You look nice.”

  She smiled. “Thank you.”

  Johnny’s chest tightened. He ought to compliment her more. Her smile made things look so much brighter—so much more doable. Maybe they could make this marriage work.

  “We want to take the wagon into town and get some lumber for the spare ro
om.”

  “You’re going to start on it already?” Her blue eyes sparkled.

  “That’s the plan. Maybe you should tell me what you’d like?”

  Her cheeks flushed pink, and she gazed up at him, her lips parted. “Really? Oh, Mark, thank you! Suppose you show me where you’re aiming to put the door.”

  She took his hand, and Johnny’s heart cannoned. He gulped and walked with her to the cabin. Inside, all was shadowy, but Sally’s presence beside him was solid and real. She smelled good. Her soft hand warmed his rough one. Her hair brushed his beard as she turned her head. Johnny caught his breath.

  “Where will it be?” she asked.

  “I was thinking over there, where the coal scuttle is now. What do you think? We could go off the back, if you want, but that would cut into the garden spot.”

  “No, don’t do that. I’d like it off to the side. Or even the other side, near where the bed is.”

  Johnny looked over toward the bunk, conscious that he was still holding her hand. His face heated on principle. “I hadn’t thought of putting it there. We could. Then I wouldn’t have to move the stovepipe.”

  “It would be farther from the stove, but that might be a good thing,” Sally said. Suddenly she stepped directly in front of him and gazed up into his eyes. “Mark, you are glad I came, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  How she got into the crook of his arm, Johnny wasn’t sure, but he pulled her in close, and her hands sneaked around to his back. She laid her head against his chest. He’d never felt anything so glorious.

  “We’ll put it wherever you want,” he said.

  “And a window?”

  “Yes, a window. Two if you like.” It was reckless, since he wasn’t sure he could pay for it.

  Outside, the wagon’s creaks and Reckless’s trotting hoofbeats came closer. Paint nickered from the corral.

  “Guess Cam’s back already,” Johnny said.

  Sally pushed up on her toes and kissed his cheek. “This will work.”