by Carol Arens
Morning chores could wait for today. If the men had late coffee and breakfast this one time, they wouldn’t die of it.
Now, under a tangled pile of bedclothes, she stretched her arms wide and splayed her fingers over the sheets. Even though Matt was no longer in the bed, the scent of him lingered. Every inch of her flesh blushed with the scrape and caress of his touch.
Tomorrow or the next day she would pack up what she could, but this sun-drenched, filled-with-birdsong morning she was a bride. Life was sweet, with the scent of coffee that she had not brewed drifting across the hall and into the bedroom.
Along with the aroma of coffee came Matt’s voice singing a low happy tune.
She flipped back the covers and padded naked to the wardrobe. She put on her robe with no nightgown beneath. It felt scandalous and wonderful next to her skin, even though, as a married woman, there was not a bit of scandal involved.
If there hadn’t been a nip in the morning air, she might have walked as bare as she had been born through the house without a bit of shyness. Life as a married woman had come alive with possibilities that she had never dreamed of.
While she couldn’t act on all of them right now, with her daughter recovering in the next room, she would fit in as many as possible. If it meant that laundry, cooking and gathering eggs went undone for now, all was well.
Knowing that they would soon put several states between them and Hawker made her feel at ease. Her marriage would last a lifetime and that brought a smile to her face. With all the good fortune falling about her shoulders she might never frown again.
She tiptoed across the hall, peered in at Lucy sleeping with an arm about each one of her pups. Reassured that the child was truly on the mend, she walked toward the kitchen.
Standing in the doorway, she watched Matt with his back toward her pouring a cup of coffee. His hair, free of his hat, lay loose over his shoulders. It glinted dark gold in a beam of sunshine stealing through the window. His shirt hung on a hook beside her apron, and his jeans hung low on his hips. His toes tapped the floor in time to the tune he hummed.
“I didn’t know you were such a hand with the coffeepot,” she said.
He turned with a smile and held out the steaming mug toward her.
“Morning, darlin’. I was about to deliver this to you in bed.”
She walked toward him, letting the bodice of her robe gape open on purpose. Standing so close that not even the aroma of coffee could have slid between, she took the mug from his big steady fist.
“If I had known that, I would have stayed put.”
His hand cupped the back of her head. He kissed her until she felt hot coffee dribble down her fingers.
“Ouch,” she mumbled against his mouth.
He blew against her lips, took the mug and set it on the table. He sat in a chair and eased her down onto his lap.
“Have I told you this morning how much I admire you, Mrs. Suede?” He slipped both hands inside her robe, and she leaned into him. The tips of her breasts tightened on his calloused palms.
“Yes, but it must have been two hours ago.”
Beneath the robe his fingers fondled a nimble trail down her spine. Marriage in the flesh was ever so much better than whispered gossip had accounted for.
“The boys gathered up some jerky and leftover dinner biscuits. They headed off to mend fences—ought to be gone for hours.”
“Lucy’s sound asleep,” she answered. “Do we dare?”
Matt was a daring man, and strong. He lifted her easily and settled her over, down and around him. Her muscles clamped him in a most intimate embrace. He took her in the chair.
In the days to come, she wouldn’t have her kitchen, with her big polished table and her thoroughly modern stove, but there was no reason they couldn’t bring this chair.
Half an hour later, Matt grinned at her across the table while they sipped cold coffee.
“Mama…Papa…I’m hungry” came a faint voice not far off.
Lucy stood in the doorway on pale, thin legs, with only a slight wobble to them.
Matt scooped his baby up and settled her at the table. Emma grabbed the frying pan.
She’d fill that child with all the eggs, bacon and pancakes her healing body could hold.
Lands, if she wouldn’t see to it that Lucy ate everything that her little belly would accept before they boarded the train.
* * *
The gun in Matt’s hand barked out a shot. The can on the post chimed with the impact, then spun in the air.
That made six shots and six empty tins lying on the grass.
He hadn’t lost any accuracy over the years, but his speed had slowed some. An onlooker wouldn’t notice the difference, but the drag was there and it would cost him his life.
He reset the cans, then shot them off in quick succession. It would take hours out here, on the far side of the creek where his practicing wouldn’t endanger anyone, to get to where he had once been.
He hadn’t expected to ever use his quick draw again. It was a skill best forgotten by him and everyone else.
Life had a way of changing a man’s expectations, though. At the beginning of summer he wouldn’t have chosen to be a married man, settled in a home built by his own hands. Now, with fall setting in, he’d face a bullet to keep that from changing.
Matt laid out a line of new cans, since the old ones had been blasted into a set of tin peepholes. It was easy enough to shoot down an empty can of beans. A man was another thing altogether.
He set his legs, knees slightly bent. He let his hands lie loose beside his hips, then drew the Colt from his holster with a quick hiss of metal on well-worn leather. Six shots cracked, echoing over the land. Six cans flipped in the air, tumbling and catching glints of sunshine as they fell.
Faster, but not fast enough. If he cut the sight off the tip of the gun barrel, it would make for a smoother glide against the leather and might give him the advantage he needed. No doubt Hawker’s piece had long since been doctored that way.
A ring of sweat dampened the band of his hat. Moisture dripped down his forehead, so he wiped it with his sleeve.
“What are you doing?” Emma’s voice sounded horrified.
She knew what he was doing—it was obvious. She must want admission from his own lips.
“Shooting cans off posts, darlin’. Just what it looks like.”
He crouched and pivoted right, taking aim at a fat gray bug that sprang suddenly into the air from the prairie sod. Grass crunched under Emma’s boots. She touched his elbow. The shot went wide.
“Why?” she asked, her tone flat.
He shoved his Colt back into the holster, turned and gripped her by the upper arms.
“You know why.” Her face looked pale even though he felt her anger rising. Best face this head-on and get it done with. “We’re not getting on that train.”
“Yes, we are, all of us.” As she built a head of steam, her breath came hard and fast. “I told you I’m ready to go!”
“And that means everything to me.” He loosened his grip on her arms and stroked them, the way he might calm a skittish mare. “But I know how you love this place.”
Not being a mare, she was only made furious by his soothing. She twisted away from him.
“You don’t know anything, Matthew Suede!” She backed away with the fingers of one hand pressed to her lips, then swept her skirt along with a snap. “It’s you that I love. How happy do you think I’ll be in my house knowing it caused your death? I’d hate every stick and board. I’d leave, anyway.”
“There are some things a man can’t run away from.”
“I can run away.” She turned her back to him. “I’ll take Lucy and we’ll move west by ourselves. I started once…I can do it again.”
“Emma.” He touched her shoulder. “You said you would stand by me no matter what.”
“I never guessed that you meant this.” With a sharp turn she slashed her arm at the cans littering the ground. “I’ll follow you to
hell, Matt, but don’t ask me to weep over your grave.”
A lark’s song broke the silence that ached between them. In his mind he saw her doing just that, but it didn’t change what he had to do.
“Unless I face Hawker now, that’s how it will be. Maybe not here or now, but somewhere. And it’s not just me anymore. Now that he knows about you, Lucy and Red, no one is safe.” He wanted to hold her and convince her it was true, but her resentment burned too hot. “He’ll follow us wherever we go.”
“If we stay, you’ll die.” She leaned toward him, but didn’t take a step. “I met the man. He’ll kill you and then apologize to me for the inconvenience.”
Silence again. He couldn’t deny that might happen.
“I couldn’t bear it, Matt.”
With a twirl of blue calico, she spun away and ran toward home.
A feathery cloud spread thin over the sky, dimming the sunshine. Matt picked up the cans and set them back on the fence.
* * *
Lucy, while still weak, had begun to show a blush of pink in her cheeks. Already her eyes sparkled with returning health.
Emma sat with her on the porch, rocking under the warmth of a blanket and watching a bank of rain clouds roll in with the sunset.
From across the creek, she listened to the crack of Matt’s gun. The ominous firing had gone on for hours without a letup. His relentless practice made her skin prickle with dread.
There was nothing she could do to change his mind. Not reason, not anger, not even giving up what meant the most. She had lied when she had told Matt she would leave this house no matter what. If all that was left of him was this place born of his sweat and his blisters, she would never leave it.
Lucy snuggled against Emma’s breast, then popped her thumb out of her mouth.
“Mama, when I was sick I heard my heart talk to me.”
“Did you now, and what did your heart say?” She stroked a web of fine blond curls away from Lucy’s forehead, but they sprang right back into place.
“Drink the icky tea so I would get better and you could be my mommy forever.”
Her heart constricted under her corset. Mercy, had the child turned back from the grave for a mother’s love? Looking back at her own past, Emma knew she would have done it, too, had she ever been given that chance.
Chilly wind pushed the storm closer to the homestead and swirled the dust in the yard into puffs and sooty streaks. She wrapped the blanket a little tighter and hugged Lucy close to her chest. The shared warmth and mingled breath made her want to sit so forever.
“I wanted you to be my real mommy, so I drank it even though it tasted bad.” She popped her thumb back into her mouth. Her babylike fingers brushed over Emma’s heart with the rhythm of her sucking.
“Your heart spoke true, sweetie. I love you as much as any mother ever loved her little girl.”
How could she not have known it from the very first day?
If the worst happened to Matt or if it didn’t, this child was hers.
* * *
Rain slapped the bedroom window, carried by a sidelong wind. Emma bent her forehead to the glass and felt the beat of it. Even though the storm turned the yard to muck, which would end up on her floors, she was grateful for it.
A gunfight couldn’t happen in a downpour.
Earlier, Matt had come in from his quick-draw practice just a few paces ahead of the storm. Not a word had passed between them in the hours since.
Emma touched the glass. She traced the zigzag trail of a drip of water. It looked like a giant teardrop.
Anger had made her a fool tonight. How she regretted telling Matt to sleep in the dugout with Red and Billy.
In a world that seemed suddenly out of control, this might be the one thing she could change. She dashed out of her room, down the hall and out the front door into the night before she realized that she had forgotten to put on a robe or shoes. Cold mud squished between her toes, but she pressed on toward the sod house. She banged on the door. “Matt!” she cried.
The door opened and she threw her sodden self into his arms.
“I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I will stand by you… . Please come home.”
Red sat up in his bed, rubbing his hands over his hair. “What’s going on?” he mumbled.
“Go back to sleep,” Matt said and closed the door. He swept her up and ran through the downpour, back to the house.
* * *
Matt made love to his wife three times, each time intended to be an eternal vow. He longed to smash the clock in the hall, its relentless tick reminding him that there was nothing eternal about this night.
Rain pummeled the roof and flew against the windows. Under the covers, Emma faced him pressed tight to his side. Her breath, puffing warm against his neck, smelled sweet.
The even rise and fall of her ribs didn’t fool him into thinking she was asleep. “Emma, we need to talk,” he whispered.
She shook her head, then turned toward the window. The warmth of her round behind snuggled into his crotch.
“Some things have to be said…to be arranged.”
“Unless you are going to tell me you are the fastest gun that ever lived and I don’t have a thing to worry about, don’t say a word… . I won’t hear anything else.” She tucked one hand under her cheek and reached back to rest her other hand on his hip. The movement pivoted her back so that her breast pointed up. He watched it jiggle with her heartbeat.
She was as frightened as he was. He could nearly hear her heart thumping through her skin.
He covered her breast with his hand, to still and comfort her. He brushed his fingers slowly over the plush mound, not in passion but hoping to still the quivering.
It didn’t help much, given that his hand was no steadier than her heart.
Come morning, quaking like that would get him killed.
Some things had to be sorted out no matter the pain of saying them out loud.
With dawn, he’d have to close everything out of his mind but the slide of metal against leather. Until this job was done there would be no home, no children, no Emma.
Things had to be spoken now. Tomorrow, a single thought or feeling that didn’t have to do with shooting Hawker would be the nail shutting his coffin closed. A single loose string at home might mean his end.
“I can’t say that.” He turned her over, ran his thumb alongside her cheek. “That’s why I need some promises from you.”
She shook her head in denial but said, “All right. Tell me what to do to make you come back to me.”
“I need to know that you and Lucy and Red are safe, here at home. If I think that you aren’t I’ll be distracted. Promise me you will stay here. No matter what, you’ll keep everyone here.”
“I promise, just as long as you don’t tell me goodbye. Matt, never tell me goodbye.”
“Why would I? I’ll be home before dark, you’ll see.” All of a sudden the front door flew open with a force that knocked it back against the wall.
“Hope everybody’s decent.” Billy’s voice boomed down the hall. “I’m coming in!”
A second later his big frame filled the doorway.
“Red’s missing and so is his horse. I think he’s gone to Dodge.” Billy’s voice sucked in and out of his lungs. “Jesse caught him in town a few nights ago ready to call out Hawker. I took his gun away and hid it, but it’s gone now, too.”
Chapter Sixteen
Nighttime in Dodge seemed the same in any weather. Rowdy tunes plinked out of open saloon doors, men laughed and argued, cards shuffled and chips chinked on tables. Driving rain or sweltering night made no difference in the buzz of activity.
Life on Front Street seemed as normal as peas even though the tension in Matt’s gut nearly doubled him up.
During the charge from the homestead to town the rain had slowed to a steady drizzle, but the wind howled and swirled.
Cold mist covered his face in a clammy sheet. Lanterns squeaked on hooks up and down the boa
rdwalk. Their sway shot beams of light over the muddy street, then twisted them back to stab jumpy lines on the boardwalk again.
“I’ll ride toward the livery,” Billy said, rising in the stirrups then resettling his weight. “We could use Jesse’s help.”
Matt settled his soggy hat on his head. It wasn’t much cover, but it helped to slow the trickle of rain seeping under his shirt.
“Cousin, if we part ways tonight, take care of my family.” Emma would be grieved to hear that kind of talk, but the ride to town had turned his fingers stiff with cold. If he were forced to face Hawker like this, he would lose.
“Hey now, it won’t come to that. But if it sets your mind at ease, I’ve got your back.” Billy turned his horse toward the livery. Its hooves sucked at the muddy street, slowing what needed to be quick action.
Everything about tonight seemed slowed by the weather. Hawker was likely inside somewhere, keeping his shooting finger warm and swift.
“Where are you, Red?” Matt whispered even though he wanted to shout.
Thoughts of Emma crowded his brain, filled his senses. He closed his eyes, breathed in the moist night air and looked at the images of her behind his eyelids for the length of a sigh. Then he put her away.
Without success, he tried to call up the rash young man he had been, with no ties but the one between his hand and his weapon. That boy was gone, and in his place a husband and father, dead set on protecting what was his own.
He felt his determination swell, but also his vulnerability.
“Come on, boy,” he murmured to Thunder. “Not enough ruckus in the saloon to let on that a green kid is inside calling out a gunfighter. Chances are Red is hiding out behind one of these buildings watching for Hawker.”
Matt hunched his shoulders against the chill and rode a block to the land office. Red knew of the hiding place behind it from their bank-robbery days. It was a logical place for him to be now.
Nothing seemed amiss at first sight. Matt slid off the saddle and tied Thunder’s reins to a bush.
He strode a few steps away from the horse, then stopped to listen. The night sounds that used to strike him as lively and exciting during his trail days now seemed tawdry.
