Counterfeit Cowboy

by Lacy Williams

Jesse shrugged. “Who am I to say you shouldn’t have come out to visit your brother? I’ve made my share of mistakes. Sure, it was impulsive, but I don’t know that it was bad.”

  Well, at least he didn’t seem to think less of her for her rash actions.

  Would he think differently if he knew her next impulsive action was falling in love with him?

  * * *

  The baby fussed, and Jesse watched Erin soothe it back to sleep. Nora peeked her eyes open, but when she saw Erin was taking care of the baby, she went right back to sleep. For someone so surly, she was sure quick to let Erin help.

  His ears still felt hot from overhearing her say he was good for nothing. He’d half expected Erin to agree, but her actions indicated she thought the opposite of him. He still couldn’t figure it.

  Erin shivered, and he gathered her close under his arm again. It was getting colder in here. He couldn’t see out the darkened windows, but earlier the conductor had mentioned it looked like snow.

  She didn’t say anything more, only leaned her head against Jesse’s shoulder. She was probably exhausted from a long day of travel; Jesse would let her go to sleep if that’s what she wanted.

  He kept replaying her words from moments ago. My father lied to me. He manipulated me.

  She’d been so quick to dismiss any fault he might’ve had in Daniel’s death. But he imagined she might not think so kindly on the part of his past he still held back from her—the lies and trickery that had led him to five years in prison. He’d thought being a con man would build a life for himself, but instead he’d lost five years behind bars. And now, if Erin found out about it, he would likely lose her, too.

  Honesty was important to her; he could see how badly her father had hurt her with his tricks and deceptions.

  Jesse had thought for a good part of this journey that he might trick Erin’s wallet away from her.

  Even if he’d changed his mind about that, it didn’t change what he’d already done, who he was.

  He couldn’t see any way that she would accept him if she knew.

  And now that he knew he loved her—and he could only surmise she had strong feelings for him as well, or she would never have kissed him—how could he hurt her by telling her?

  “What happened with Pete earlier?” she asked sleepily, interrupting his frantic thoughts.

  With her head tucked between his jaw and his shoulder, he couldn’t see her face. He’d thought she might be asleep, but apparently she still wanted to talk.

  “Just what you thought. He was down at the end of the car, half-hidden behind a few people. Planning to get off at the next stop.”

  “How did you get him to stay?”

  He didn’t want her to know about their agreement. “I told him about Daniel. He was the first person I’d ever told. And now you.”

  She hummed sleepily, obviously pleased.

  “I told him that if I’d had someone like you in my life back when I was fifteen, Daniel might not have died. If I’d been that lucky, I never would have turned away from someone like you.”

  She lifted her head and her eyes weren’t clouded with sleep, as he’d supposed. “Jesse, I’m more than happy to help Pete get settled into a new, better life, but you’re missing the whole point. He stayed because of you.”

  Yeah, but not for the reasons she thought. Because Jesse had paid him.

  “Me? What are you talking about?”

  She began to get that impassioned look. “He came to you in the first place. He understands you—you’re both of a similar background.”

  Jesse shook his head. “You’re not suggesting I take him on, are you? I can’t take care of a kid right now—I can barely take care of myself. I don’t have a job, a place to stay—” And Pete didn’t really want to stay with Jesse anyway.

  “Jesse, you have to admit there’s a reason the two of you—the three of us—met on the train that first day. I believe God put you in Pete’s path for a reason. I can facilitate some things, but Pete needs you.”

  He shook his head again, as what she said began to make sense. He could take Pete if he had a job. But the thought didn’t bring comfort. It brought panic. “Didn’t you hear what I said about Daniel? He died because of me.”

  “But you were just a teenager—now you’re a grown man—”

  “That doesn’t mean I know how to take care of somebody else, especially somebody as needy as the kid is! I thought you could help the lad.”

  “His name is Pete.”

  “I know what his name is.”

  The conflicting emotions inside Jesse made his tone sharper than he wanted it to be, but he couldn’t even consider what she was suggesting—he couldn’t be responsible for another boy. Not someone like Pete, who needed love, and Jesse didn’t have it in him to give.

  “I can’t,” he said.

  “All right.” She didn’t sound happy about it, but at least she’d stopped arguing. “We’ll figure something out. My brother is a deputy in this little town in Wyoming. I’m sure he’ll know what to do with Pete, what the best thing to do to help will be.”

  She settled back down, snuggling against him again. “It’s gotten colder.”

  Before he could say anything else, the train began to slow. Passengers shifted in their seats, some mumbling questions. Jesse didn’t know what the next stop was supposed to be, but it didn’t seem that long since they’d had one.

  And then the conductor came in, announcing, “We’re in the middle of a blizzard, folks. The tracks are blocked up ahead and with the snow swirling the way it is and the temperatures below freezing, it’s too dangerous to try to send men out to clear it. We’re going to go back to the nearest town.”

  As he spoke, the train began to reverse, but before it got any momentum, stopped with a reverberating clanking noise.

  “Just sit tight, folks. I’ll be back with any further news.”

  Most of the passengers had woken by now and were getting louder as they tried to understand what was happening. A groggy Pete peered around, blinking blearily. Nora’s children slept, except the baby, who peeped, and Nora took her from Erin. Erin crossed her arms over her middle.

  “A blizzard. Do you think we’re stuck out here?” she asked.

  “He said we’re going back to the last stop,” Jesse reminded her.

  “We ain’t moving,” Pete put in.

  Just then, the conductor bustled back in. “Folks, it’s snowing so fast that the tracks are covered going back toward the nearest town, and it’s drifting pretty bad. I’m afraid we’re going to have to sit here until the storm clears.”

  The passengers began to murmur, and the conductor whistled to get their attention again.

  “We’ve got plenty of coal to keep the cars warm. Most likely the storm will blow over by morning and we’ll get the tracks cleared and be on our way. Best thing for you to do is stay calm and get some shut-eye.”

  And with that, he left, leaving a mass of grumbling, alert passengers in his wake.

  Pete stood and brushed past both of them into the aisle. “Goin’ to stretch my legs.”

  “Don’t go too far,” Erin cautioned. “If the passengers get upset about being stuck here, they might start causing trouble.”

  Jesse touched the kid’s arm, expecting it when Pete shifted away from his touch. “And don’t take anything that doesn’t belong to you.”

  Pete grunted without meeting Jesse’s eye and wandered off.

  Erin settled back into her seat, sliding close to Jesse’s side. She leaned her head onto his shoulder, relaxed and apparently ready to doze off.

  Sure, she could go to sleep without anything weighing on her mind. How could she expect him to take on Pete? The kid wasn’t Jesse’s real brother, and after what had happened with Daniel, Jesse didn’t want t
he responsibility for taking care of another person. He couldn’t risk getting close to someone.

  Yet, Erin’s obvious disappointment rankled, as well.

  “Get some sleep,” she whispered. “We’ll worry about things when we get to Wyoming.”

  He settled his head against the back of the seat, but doubted he would get comfortable enough—in mind or body—to actually sleep.

  But the car had grown noticeably colder when he was shaken awake, and he realized he had dozed off.

  “Wha—”

  “Jesse. Wake up.” The urgency in Erin’s voice had him instantly alert, trying to rub some feeling into his face.

  Glancing around the dimly lit car with its sleeping passengers, he couldn’t guess what had disturbed her.

  “What’s wrong?” He reached out one hand to her, and she grabbed onto him, squeezing tightly.

  “Pete’s gone. I don’t think he ever came back from stretching his legs.”

  “You sure?”

  “No! I fell asleep, and just woke up but his seat is empty and it doesn’t look like he’s come back at all.”

  “Try not to panic.” He didn’t know whether to reassure her or just go find the kid to wring his neck. “He probably just got caught with his hand in someone’s pocket and the conductor has him. I’ll go look.”

  She started to stand up, but he glared her back into her seat. “You stay here. I don’t want you coming up missing, too.”

  But he wasn’t with the conductor when Jesse finally tracked the man down. He wasn’t in any of the other rail cars, not sleeping in any of the berths in the nicer—and full—sleeper car, nor in any of the washrooms. Jesse checked them all, disturbing the other passengers.

  When he made his way back to Erin, she was more frantic than before.

  “You don’t think he would try to get off the train, do you?” she asked, plainly worried.

  It had occurred to him, but... “It would be a foolish thing to do. We all heard the conductor say that it’s below freezing and still snowing.”

  His words didn’t calm her. “Then where is he?”

  “I don’t know. But we’ll find him.”

  She wrung her hands. “I just keep thinking...what if he overheard our argument earlier? About what to do with him. He seemed like he was sleeping but he could’ve woken up, and if he thought we didn’t want him—”

  She broke off with a loud sniff.

  Jesse realized what exactly the kid might’ve heard if he had been awake. That Jesse didn’t want him around, and Erin was young, too young to want to take on a kid.

  And if their careless argument had sent Pete out into the snow, he might die. Jesse could be responsible for the death of another kid who didn’t deserve it.

  “Let’s check with any of the passengers and see if they saw him get off the train. Maybe he didn’t wander off.” Even as he said it, Jesse knew what a long shot it was. And if the kid had gotten off in the storm—who knows how long ago?—chances were he was already frozen.

  If another boy died, it would be Jesse’s fault. Again.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Two passengers seated near the door remembered seeing Pete exiting the car. They thought he was probably going into the next car over, because who would go out in a blizzard?

  But none of the passengers in the next car over had seen a boy fitting Pete’s description enter the car. Because it was late, most of the passengers hadn’t been moving around much—a lot of them had been sleeping.

  Erin’s stomach cramped with her worry for Pete; panic seemed to claw at her throat. Why would the boy get off the train in the middle of a blizzard? Even if he’d overheard her argument with Jesse and decided to leave, why wouldn’t he wait until they got to the next town? Why do this? He was probably freezing, and what if he’d gotten hurt? Or lost?

  Jesse shrugged into a sweater one of the other passengers had loaned him. His coat was slung over the back of the next seat and Erin held a woolen scarf someone else had insisted he wear, ready to wrap it around his neck.

  Several other men were adding warmer clothing from their luggage or borrowed from other passengers; they’d volunteered to go search when they’d heard about a boy lost in the snow.

  Jesse slid his arms into his coat; his face was drawn and sharp. Erin knew he blamed himself for Pete’s departure, even though they’d both participated in the conversation. Movements jerky as he buttoned his coat, she knew she had to calm him down before he left and did something reckless.

  She looped the scarf over his head and tucked one end inside the other, looking at his chest so he wouldn’t see the sheer panic she felt and feel even worse. “Be careful.”

  “I will.”

  “Don’t get lost.”

  “Try not to.”

  “I’m serious.” She thumped his chest and her hand was shaking.

  He clasped it in his and raised it to his lips, pressing a kiss against her knuckle.

  Her eyes went to his face. “Come back.” What she really wanted to say was come back to me.

  He held her gaze with his serious brown eyes. “I’ll bring him back.”

  And then he was gone, disappeared into the blowing white snow.

  * * *

  Jesse could barely see in the blinding white wind. Fear clutched his innards as he stumbled down the train’s stairs and then took the long jump down to the ground from the last one. He landed in a knee-high drift.

  The three other men brave enough to follow him off the train exclaimed in surprise when they hit the ground. Ensconced in the safety of the train cars, they hadn’t expected it to be this bad.

  “Follow the tracks,” Jesse shouted. It was only a reminder, they’d already talked out a plan inside, but he didn’t want them to forget and get lost, too. “Don’t lose sight of the tracks!”

  Two of the men set off in the opposite direction and Jesse and one other fellow followed the tracks along the body of the train.

  Within minutes he realized how useless their plan was, because the tracks were completely covered in snow in many places. If they wandered away, there was a chance they wouldn’t be able to make it back to the train.

  The wind bit through all the layers Jesse wore, as if he’d come out in nothing at all. He’d borrowed a pair of gloves from a man on board the train, but even with gloves on and his limbs buried in his pockets, his hands were becoming numb. Feet, too, making it hard to clomp through the drifts of snow.

  “Pete!” he yelled, but the wind stole his voice, snatched it away into the black darkness. “Kid, if you can hear me, come to my voice.”

  The other man stumbled, going to his knees in the snow. It felt like they’d been out for hours, but they hadn’t gotten far at all.

  “I gotta go back!” the other man called out.

  Jesse waved him away. He couldn’t turn back until he found Pete. He’d driven the boy out into this storm with his careless words. He would bring him back.

  Or die trying.

  * * *

  Erin paced to the end of the train car again, peering through the windows as she went. Offering up constant prayers for Pete’s protection and for Jesse’s. From inside, she couldn’t see anything. The darkness and snow obscured everything.

  Most of the passengers had settled again, the conductor had turned down the lights and it was dim inside the car. No one else seemed to share the anxiety she felt.

  As she paced back toward their seats, the empty seats that taunted her, Nora settled a hand on one of her sleeping children. “You should sit for a bit. If they find— When they find him, you’ll be up trying to help everyone get warm.”

  Erin perched on the edge of the seat but quickly stood back up. “I’m too nervous to sit.”

  Nora looked at her for a long
time. Frowned. “They’ve snuck into your heart, haven’t they?”

  Erin looked down, played with one of the folds of her skirt. “We started out as strangers, but somewhere along the way...” She’d been falling in love with him the whole time.

  Nora patted her hand. “They’ll find the boy.”

  Erin returned to her pacing and praying. What was taking so long? Surely Pete couldn’t have got far, not with the blowing snow and drifts...

  As she neared the end of the car, the door burst open. Her heart thundered in her ears as she rushed toward the white-covered shapes that stumbled inside.

  “F-f-freezing out there,” one man chattered. She helped pull them inside—three of them—and then turned back toward the door, but no one else entered.

  “Where are the others?” she asked, because Jesse wasn’t among the men. “Where’s Jesse and Pete?”

  “Fool man kept on going—there’s no way you can see anything in that.”

  “He’ll never find the kid in that mess. Prob’ly get himself frozen looking for ’im,” another of the men said through chattering teeth.

  She rushed out onto the platform, screaming, “Jesse!”

  But the wind screamed back at her.

  Someone pulled her back inside. Nora.

  The other woman shoved her farther into the train car. “Erin. Stop. Don’t panic.”

  But she couldn’t stop shaking, and it wasn’t from the cold. “I w-want them back. Both of them.”

  Nora kept nudging Erin forward. “They’ll come back. And when they do, they’ll need you.”

  Erin prayed she was right.

  * * *

  Jesse trudged through the drifts, head down against the wind.

  “Pete!” he shouted, voice hoarse from breathing the cold air and shouting.

  How long had he been out here? He’d lost all sense of time to the swirling white world that now encompassed him.

  His hands, feet and face were numb. He couldn’t feel any warmth whatsoever. Every now and again he had to wipe the ice clinging to his eyelashes so he could see.

  Was there any way the kid could survive this? Even with the new coat Erin had bought, Pete would be sorely underdressed. Probably freezing.