CAROLINE AND THE RAIDER

by Linda Lael Miller

  He chuckled and shifted comfortably on the ground. “Exactly right,” he agreed.

  Feeling wounded, Caroline folded her arms and scowled. “She’s not the only woman in the world who can have babies, you know. It’s not some rare, spectacular achievement.”

  Guthrie’s eyes glinted with knowing amusement in the firelight. “I never said she was the only woman who could bear a child,” he said quietly.

  Caroline planned to bolt, but Guthrie reached out and caught hold of her hand when she stood. With one deft jerk, he had her kneeling beside him, staring into his eyes. She was as helpless against him as that rabbit had been when it was looking into the barrel of his rifle.

  “Will you be faithful to her?” Caroline asked. Again, she felt as though the words had come from somewhere outside herself; she hadn’t willingly said them.

  “When she’s my wife, yes,” Guthrie answered. He was only looking at Caroline, studying her as if she were a mystery he had to solve, and yet she felt as if he’d let her hair down from its pins, as if he’d touched her intimately.

  Caroline was achy and moist where her legs met. She wanted to break away but, for the life of her, she couldn’t move or even speak. A terrible combination of guilt and longing overtook her, like some raging fire of the spirit, and she could barely breathe.

  Was this the way Kathleen, her beautiful, tragic mother, had felt when men touched her? she wondered. Were these the same dangerous feelings that could make a woman send her own children west on an orphan train, never to know what became of them?

  The thought made Caroline cry out softly, in a misery of confusion, and to her surprise Guthrie made a low, comforting sound in his throat and drew her down to lie beside him. He sheltered her in his strong arms, and she felt his lips brush her temple, but he made no demands.

  He wanted only to give her a hiding place, it seemed to Caroline, and she was all but overcome by that.

  “It’ll be all right,” he said, and Caroline could feel the stubble of his chin against the side of her face. “Everything will be just fine, Teacher.”

  Caroline’s eyes brimmed with tears. Everything would not be fine. Even if she managed to save Seaton from the hangman’s noose and fulfill all her precious dreams of marrying and raising a fine family, there would still be one glaring problem. She was beginning to care for this man, Guthrie Hayes, in a way she’d never imagined possible. And she had a feeling that caring wasn’t going to fade just because she willed it to be so, or even due to the natural wearing away process of time. No, this was the kind of love that settled deep in a person’s heart, heavy as a stone, and stayed, blocking the passage of all other emotions.

  Guthrie stroked her dust-filled, sweat-dampened hair, just as though the tresses were freshly washed in rainwater and perfumed by sunshine and morning air.

  “I’m scared,” she said. She hadn’t planned the words, hadn’t shaped them in her mind. They were just there, all of a sudden, like another entity at the campfire.

  He shifted easily, as though they were lying on a feather-bed instead of the hard Wyoming ground. “Most likely, that’s because you’re riding ahead into tomorrow and the next day and the day after that, in your mind, I mean. Biggest secret to life, Teacher, is that you’ve got to keep your thoughts snug inside the day you’re living.”

  “People need to plan ahead,” Caroline protested, but not very strenously. She knew she should pull free of Guthrie’s improper embrace, but she couldn’t bring herself to do that. She liked being held; it gave her a feeling she’d been searching for ever since she and Lily and Emma had been separated on that railroad platform in Lincoln, Nebraska.

  “Planning for the future isn’t the same as setting up homestead there,” Guthrie replied, sighing the words, as though he were just barely awake. “Too many folks get so busy seeing to next month or next year, they don’t even notice today. A person could miss a whole lifetime that way.”

  The words made sense to Caroline, but then, she suspected anything he said would have done that. She laid her head on the solid warmth of his chest, listened to his heart beating strong and steady under her ear.

  It was thinking of lying in a real bed with Guthrie, feeling flesh beneath her cheek instead of a coarsely woven shirt, that brought Caroline back to the real world. She sat bolt upright and raised both hands to her face.

  Guthrie’s grin was impudently crooked, like always, and entirely too knowing. “What’s the trouble, Teacher?”

  Since Caroline could hardly reply that she was starting to like being held entirely too well, that she was beginning to entertain dangerous fantasies, she was at something of a loss for an answer. She watched the firelight flicker over Guthrie’s features and marveled.

  He was a saddle tramp turned miner, with heaven only knew what kind of dreadful secrets rattling in his past, and yet his appeal was vast.

  “I guess I was just thinking of Mr. Flynn,” she lied, blurting out the first awkward lie that bumbled into her mind. “He wouldn’t appreciate our being so—close.”

  Guthrie stretched languidly, made a masculine sound, part weary sigh and part contentment, and closed his eyes. “I don’t reckon he’s in much of a position to be complaining,” he said. “But if you want to sleep out there in the dark, where the Shoshone can get you, go right ahead.”

  Caroline was terrified of Indians, but she was even more afraid of the feelings she was having. In addition, she was dirty—she certainly wasn’t used to that—and her muscles pulsed with a gnawing pain.

  She got up, without a word, and made her way through the trees to the moon-washed creek nearby.

  She undressed, Tob whimpering protectively on the bank beside her, and waded into the chilly waters of the stream, feeling slippery pebbles beneath her feet. Even though the water was cold, it was a comfort, for it quieted the peculiar sensations being close to Guthrie had inspired. She washed, as though she could somehow splash away what she’d discovered about herself, just a few minutes before, beside Guthrie Hayes’s campfire.

  Chapter

  Late the following day, Guthrie and Caroline arrived in Clinton. The robbery and murder Seaton Flynn was accused of perpetrating had taken place five miles outside this small cattle town.

  Guthrie headed straight for the hotel, a two-story structure of weathered boards that leaned ever so slightly to the right. Large front windows gave the place an aspect of surprise.

  Caroline looked at the building with concern. “Why are we stopping here?”

  Guthrie swung one leg over the pommel of his saddle and slipped deftly to the ground, leaving Caroline staring down at him from the horse’s back. He grinned and resettled his hat. “We can’t go around asking questions about the stage robbery if we look like a couple of saddle bums,” he pointed out. “We’ve got to clean up.”

  There was no denying that Guthrie needed a shave and a change of clothes, to say the very least, and Caroline didn’t want to think how she must look. “You’re right,” she conceded reluctantly, allowing him to close his hands around her waist and lift her down. She was still appalled by the thoughts she’d had about him the night before, while they lay side by side, and she was careful to avoid his gaze.

  When she stood on the ground, he curved his fingers under her chin and lifted. The glint in his eyes told Caroline he’d guessed what was troubling her. “Imagining something isn’t the same as doing it,” he pointed out quietly.

  Caroline swallowed and blushed hard, and she was most relieved when Guthrie turned away to tether the horse to a hitching rail. Tob was already sitting in front of the swinging doors of the saloon down the street, making a low yowling sound.

  “He needs a drink,” Guthrie explained, as he stepped up onto the high wooden sidewalk and reached down to offer Caroline his hand.

  Recalling how the dog had lapped up whiskey out of a bowl, Caroline reflected, “I think he has an unnatural fondness for liquor.”

  Guthrie nodded. “That he does. One time down in T
exas, I won big in a poker game and three or four cowboys came to my camp to let me know they weren’t happy about losing a month’s pay. Tob just laid there, too hung over to help, while they beat hell out of me.”

  Caroline winced at the images that came to mind. “Were you badly hurt?”

  He waited beside the open doorway of the hotel, so that Caroline could precede him. “I was sore for a while, and I had bruises ranging all the way from light green to purple, but they didn’t break any bones.”

  She grimaced and looked around. The lobby was small and shabby, with a worn Oriental rug covering the floor. There was a row of pigeonholes on the wall behind the registration desk, and dusty plants towered in each corner, making the place seem even more constricted than it was.

  Caroline drew in her shoulders, feeling cramped and uneasy, while Guthrie went to the desk. She hoped she had enough money left to pay for two rooms, hot baths for both of them, and good restaurant meals.

  For the first time, Caroline sorely regretted the indulgence of the fancy pink gown she’d bought for the spring dance. It seemed like a frivolous and foolish purchase, now that she could view it with hindsight.

  Guthrie spoke to the clerk stationed behind the desk, a trim man with a green visor jutting out from his forehead, then turned around and handed Caroline a key.

  “How much did it cost?” she inquired, keeping her voice low.

  He favored her with his curious, off-kilter smile. “Don’t worry about it, Teacher. We’ll square up when this is over.”

  Caroline hardly found his reply reassuring.

  The door of her room was the first one on the right, at the top of the stairs. She unlocked it and stepped over the threshold, and Guthrie handed her the carpetbag that had pulled at her fingers with the weight of an anvil while they were traveling.

  “Thank you,” she said, feeling shy now that there were people around. In the night, miles from nowhere, it had been easier to let her guard down. Now, she must remember to acquit herself as a schoolteacher should.

  He leaned toward her and kissed her lightly on the forehead. “I’ll meet you downstairs in an hour, and we’ll have some supper,” he told her, and, after nodding, Caroline closed the door.

  The room was tiny, with the ceiling sloping so low over the narrow bed that she could have reached up and touched it while reclining, and the window looked out on the noisy, bustling street below.

  Opening her carpetbag, Caroline took out her favorite blue and white calico dress and spread it on the bed. She was trying to smooth away the wrinkles with her hands when a knock sounded at the door.

  Caroline turned, and was startled by her own image. She hadn’t realized there was a mirror, however cracked and cloudy, on the inside of the door. “Who’s there?” she asked, and her voice trembled as she took in her tangled, unkempt hair, her dirty clothes and scuffed boots, her smudged face.

  “It’s Molly, ma’am, come about your bath.”

  Just the thought of soaking in a tub of hot water lifted Caroline’s spirits. She turned the knob eagerly.

  A plump young woman with curling brown hair waited in the hallway, twisting her apron in strong, work-roughened hands. “There’s a tub down at the end of the hall, there,” she said, gesturing. “We can fill it for you, or else you can use the water what’s left from the last bath.”

  Caroline suppressed a shudder. “I’ll need fresh water, please,” she said, “and do be sure to wipe out the tub very carefully before you fill it.”

  The maid looked put out. “That costs extra,” she warned, waggling a finger. “Hot water what ain’t been used yet is five cents.”

  Caroline produced a nickel from the pocket of her skirt and offered it without further comment.

  “I’ll knock when your bath’s ready,” the maid replied, with a shrug. She examined the coin, then dropped it into her apron pocket. “Mind you don’t take too long in there, neither. There’ll be lots of folks wanting a dip tonight.”

  Twenty minutes later, Caroline stepped into a small room reserved for bathing. There was no lock on the door, so she dragged a chair in from the hallway and braced it under the knob.

  A round laundry tub sat in the middle of the floor, the water steaming. She’d be all cramped up in that little space, but at least the bath looked sanitary. She hung her clean clothes from a hook on the wall and began stripping off her divided skirt, shirtwaist, and underthings.

  Using soap of her own—indeed, Caroline was afraid to even look at the community bar provided by the hotel—she washed her hair and every inch of her skin. Then she climbed out, stood on the cold, bare wooden floor, and dried herself with a thin, grayish towel she’d found by the washstand in her room and put on her calico dress.

  Back in her room, she stood before the mirror, brushing her hair. Since it would be a long time drying, and she was supposed to meet Guthrie for supper soon, she wound her long tresses into a single plait and tied the end with a blue ribbon.

  Guthrie was waiting in the lobby, clean and shaved, and Caroline’s heart gave a little leap when she saw him. She gave herself an instant, if silent, reprimand for reacting the way she had. She was supposed to be engaged to Seaton Flynn, even if he hadn’t actually gotten around to giving her a ring, and it was about time she started remembering that.

  Or was it already too late?

  “You’ve had a bath,” she said. The effort to cover her embarrassment only resulted in more of the same.

  Guthrie chuckled. “There’s a tub next door, above the saloon. While Tob was quenching his thirst downstairs, I was making myself presentable.” He offered his arm, just as he had the night of the dance, and Caroline accepted it.

  He ushered her out onto the sidewalk, since the hotel had no restaurant of its own, and across the street to a dining hall with fly-specked windows and a sawdust floor.

  “I’m afraid this is the best place in town,” Guthrie whispered into Caroline’s ear. His breath was warm, and it set her flesh to tingling.

  Caroline looked around at the rough-hewn trestle tables and benches. The sawdust was speckled with tobacco juice and spilled food, and the wails could have used a good whitewashing. If this was the best Clinton had to offer, she thought, may God deliver her from the worst. “Very nice,” she said.

  Guthrie grinned and seated her at one of the empty tables, taking the place directly across from her and setting his hat down on the bench beside him. “I’ll say one thing for you, Teacher—you do know how to roll with the punches.”

  Caroline met his eyes. “I suppose I am resilient,” she said, shrugging one shoulder. In another part of the room, men laughed loudly at some joke. “This is almost like being in a saloon.”

  A harried waitress approached the table, hands resting on her hips. Her dingy hair was pulled back from her face, sleek as a layer of onion. “We got chicken and we got beef,” she said bluntly. “What’ll it be?”

  “I wonder,” Caroline began, sitting up very straight, “if I might have a look at the kitchen?”

  Guthrie gave her a surprised glance before shifting his attention to the waitress, whose lips were stretched thin across her teeth.

  “Fancy lady, are you? Well, maybe you’d rather take your supper down the street at Miss Brayson’s rooming house. ’Least there, you’ll know nobody spit in the soup.”

  Caroline’s cheeks burned with temper as she rose from the bench. “I believe I’d prefer that,” she said, with hardwon moderation. “Exactly where is this rooming house?”

  “Caroline,” Guthrie interceded, under his breath.

  She paid no attention. “If you’ll just give me directions, please,” she said to the waitress, making sure she didn’t slouch.

  Guthrie rolled his eyes and stood, hat in hand. There was utter silence in the room while the other customers waited to see what would develop.

  The waitress looked sheepish; probably, she would be reprimanded for driving off customers. “It’s three streets to the west, on the corner. T
here’s a sign in the yard.”

  “Thank you,” Caroline said. She would have strode imperiously out of the dining hall on her own if Guthrie hadn’t taken her arm and propelled her along as though leaving had been his idea.

  “Did it ever occur to you,” he demanded, giving her a little shake when they reached the sidewalk, “that I might have wanted to stay? You could at least have asked my opinion!”

  Caroline found the setting sun and started off in that direction. “You’re perfectly welcome to stay if you want.”

  Guthrie made a rolling motion with his shoulders, rather reminding Caroline of a rooster with his feathers ruffled. “Thanks to you, Teacher, I won’t be able to set foot in that place again.”

  “Why not?” Caroline inquired, holding up her skirts as she crossed a side street.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Guthrie grumbled.

  Reaching the other side of the street, Caroline stopped, her hands resting on her hips. “You’re afraid they’ll think you’re a henpecked husband!” she trilled, delighted.

  Guthrie looked around in anxious annoyance to make sure no one had overheard, and his neck went a dull red. “I’m not anybody’s husband,” he reminded her crisply, “and if I was, I sure as hell wouldn’t let any woman tell me where to eat!”

  Caroline set off in the direction of the rooming house, leaving Guthrie with a choice. He could join her, or he could try his luck in some other eating establishment. He must have been as tired of beef jerky as she was, because he fell grudgingly into step beside her.

  The food at Miss Brayson’s was unimaginative and tasteless, but the place was clean. Caroline and Guthrie consumed their suppers, and Guthrie paid for the meals. Then they excused themselves and left.

  Since twilight was falling, the stores were about to close. “What about Tob?” Caroline asked. “Has he eaten?”