Short-Straw Bride

by Karen Witemeyer

  Travis!

  A pair of horsemen emerged from the woods near the front of the barn, rifles drawn. Gunfire erupted and male shouts punctuated the air. Was one of the riders Travis? And where were the other brothers? Were they on the far side of the barn, hidden from view? How many of Roy’s men were over there? Meredith peered between the spindles of the chairback, her grip on Sadie tightening until the dog finally squirmed away. If only she could see what was happening!

  Soon the other two brothers rode in, and the torches were discarded in the fray as guns and horses became more important. For a few minutes, Meredith believed the barn would be spared, but when Roy’s men gained their mounts and scattered into the woods, and Travis and his brothers gave chase, the smell of smoke wafted back toward the house. A stronger odor than could be explained by a few smoldering torches lying in the dirt.

  Meredith came out from behind the chair and cautiously made her way down the porch steps. With one barrel of her shotgun still loaded, she shouldered the weapon and stole across the yard. She scanned from the barn to the corral to the trees, checking for any man-sized movement. Just as she determined that all was clear, Sadie rushed past her, ducked under the lowest rail of the corral fence, and set to barking at the barn entrance.

  Tightening her grip on the gun, Meredith bit her lip and followed. “Anyone there?” she called.

  The only answer came from the mule, Samson, which was still kicking up a fuss. The milk cow was nervous, too, sidestepping and moaning an occasional complaint. As Meredith strained to hear any evidence of a human threat, her ears picked out another sound altogether—a muffled crackling from within the barn.

  Hurrying forward, Meredith straddled the bottom fence rail and squeezed her body through the opening between the slats, then ran to Sadie’s side. A blast of heat hit her face when she crossed in front of the doorway.

  Greedy flames were climbing the interior walls.

  The thugs had lit the inside of the barn! Anger surged through Meredith’s veins as she hiked up her skirts and sprinted to her bucket line. Travis and his brothers had no way of knowing that their barn was afire when they set off after Roy’s men, so they’d be in no hurry to return. Capturing the men responsible would take precedence. Which left Meredith alone to fight the blaze.

  In case Travis wasn’t too far afield to hear a warning shot and grasp its meaning, Meredith fired the final shell from her shotgun and dropped the weapon on the far side of the trough. She grabbed two of the full pails she’d prepared earlier and walked as fast as she could without sloshing too much water over the edges.

  “Of all the times to have an uneven gait,” Meredith grumbled. The moment the words left her mouth, her right foot hit a divot in the earth and water splashed onto her shoe. With a grimace, she redirected her path but didn’t slow her pace.

  Once in the barn, she maneuvered to the east wall, where the fire seemed to be the strongest. She tossed the bucket contents onto the burning wood, rejoicing at the hiss of dying flames. But in an instant, new ones rose to take their place.

  Meredith ran back to the trough. “Lord, help me make a difference. Please. It’s not right for good men to suffer on a wicked man’s whim.”

  Back and forth she ran. Dumping water over and over until the trough was nearly dry. Her arms felt like rubber, and her back screamed at her to stop. Her lungs burned from the smoke and heat, but she refused to quit.

  Wiping a soot-covered arm across her brow, she turned away from the barn to inhale a deep breath of clean air. Then, ignoring the weariness that threatened to claim her, Meredith dropped a blanket into the trough and soaked up the last of the water. She’d beat out what flames she could, then refill the buckets at the pump. Surely the Archers would return soon.

  Circling well out of the reach of Samson’s hooves, Meredith trudged back into the barn and turned her attention to the west wall. She slapped at the flames with the wet blanket, but they seemed to tease her, dancing upward, out of her reach.

  Then, as if a furnace door had suddenly swung wide, light flashed above Meredith’s head and heat swooped down on her in a massive wave.

  Lord, have mercy.

  Fire had exploded across the hayloft.

  Mitchell’s men had escaped. Every last one of them. Travis glared at the cut wire that left a gaping hole in his boundary fence and ground his palm into the saddle horn. If it hadn’t been so dark, things might have been different. But Archers knew better than to endanger a horse by racing over rough terrain at night.

  Would there be another attempt? Without Meredith to warn them next time, Travis held little hope they’d be as successful in thwarting Roy Mitchell’s efforts.

  “Look at the bright side—they didn’t get the barn, and none of us were injured in the fray.” Crockett’s quiet statement seeped into Travis. He shifted his focus from the damaged fence to the three hale-and-hearty brothers congregated around him.

  “You’re right.” Travis cleared his throat, buying time to squirrel away his own disappointment and muster a half-hearted smile for the boys. “Things could certainly be worse. With the way those bullets were flying, it’s a miracle no blood was drawn.”

  “I still don’t know how those skunks got past us in the first place,” Neill groused. “I didn’t fall asleep, Travis. I swear it!”

  “I know you didn’t, little brother. Don’t sweat it. What’s done is done.” Travis nudged his chestnut gelding forward until he sat even with Neill. “There was too much ground for four men to monitor, and too little light to see more than a stone’s throw in any direction. I knew going in that our best chance was to have them stumble onto one of us as they were coming in, since they expected us to be at the house, sleeping in our beds. But it wasn’t meant to be.”

  “Speaking of sleeping in our beds . . .” Crockett tugged on the reins until his horse faced homeward. “I’m more than ready to do just that. Let’s head back.”

  Travis nodded, his own energy giving way to weariness now that the danger had passed. “Lead the way.”

  They wound through the trees, sticking to the well-worn paths that would cause the horses the least amount of trouble. No one spoke, too exhausted and dispirited to do more than keep themselves upright in their saddles. But as they climbed the rise that led to home, Neill broke the silence.

  “It’s a good thing you got off that warning shot when you did, Trav, or we wouldn’ta had a chance of stoppin’ ’em.”

  “Wasn’t me.” Travis reined his horse around a large rock, keeping his gaze trained on the ground in front of him. “I saw a muzzle flash near the house. My guess is that Meredith fired the shot.”

  “Meredith?” Disbelief tinged Neill’s voice. “Didn’t you tell her to stay in the house? What was she doin’ out there, and where did she get a gun? You don’t think she was helpin’ ’em, do ya?”

  “Of course she wasn’t helping them,” Travis snapped. “If she were, there’d be no point in making all that racket to bring us charging out of the woods like the cavalry, would there?” Travis bit back the rest of the words that sprang to his tongue, shocked at his vehement reaction. Neill didn’t know Meredith. Shoot. None of them did, really. Including him. Questioning her loyalty was reasonable—more reasonable than blindly defending her character based on two encounters that totaled less than a day’s worth of time in her company.

  Travis grimaced. Was he really so susceptible to a pair of bright blue eyes and a pretty smile? He’d better get a grip on his reactions before he ended up doing something stupid.

  “She probably found one of Pa’s hunting guns,” Crockett said. “The case in the den isn’t lock—”

  “Quiet!” Jim’s sharp voice brought Travis’s head up. “I smell smoke.”

  Smoke? Travis sniffed the air, and alarm gouged through him. He smelled it, too.

  Had a spark from one of the fallen torches managed to catch? He’d not seen any evidence of fire when he signaled the boys to give chase. Had he left their home unprote
cted?

  Had he left Meredith unprotected?

  “Yah!” Digging his heels into his horse’s flanks, Travis charged toward home.

  7

  As the trees thinned, the smell of smoke grew stronger and an eerie orange glow winked at him from between the pines. Travis tightened his grip on the reins and leaned low over the saddle, urging his mount to a pace that bordered on hazardous. So close to home, though, the ground was familiar, and Bexar responded without hesitation.

  The barn came into view, and Travis gritted his teeth. The thing was glowing from within like a jack-o’-lantern, an occasional flicker of flame licking through the hayloft door to tickle the outer walls.

  How could he have been so stupid? He hadn’t even thought to check the interior of the barn before he went tearing off after Mitchell’s men. He’d simply assumed he’d interrupted them in time. His thirst for justice had outweighed his common sense.

  Travis reined his horse around to the side of the barn closest to the trough pump and pulled up short. A host of empty pails, tubs, and even cooking pots lay scattered beside the trough, firelight gleaming across their tin surfaces.

  Surely she wouldn’t have . . .

  Travis leapt from the saddle and scaled the corral fence. “Meredith!”

  Sadie shot out of the barn and circled his legs, almost tripping him. She barked and dashed back toward the barn. Travis sprinted after her.

  Thick, dark smoke hovered near the rafters, and the stench of burning wood and hay enveloped him. He squinted through the haze, searching the ground for any sign of Meredith. When he spotted a feminine figure battling the blaze along the west wall, relief hit him with such force his knees nearly buckled. Then anger stiffened his joints and propelled him toward the woman whose dark green dress had faded to a sooty gray.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Travis snatched the damp blanket from Meredith’s grip as she swung it behind her shoulder. The rag pulled free without any resistance. Her obvious exhaustion only heightened his ire. “I told you to wait at the house.”

  Meredith pivoted toward him and blinked as if she couldn’t quite understand what she was seeing. “Travis?” A spark of clarity flashed in her eyes before she launched herself at him, wrapping her arms around his waist. “Thank God you’ve come.”

  The contact was so unexpected, it nearly threw him off-balance. Travis didn’t quite know what to do. He’d been shouting and scowling a second ago, and now he had a grateful female pressed up against him. How had that happened?

  “I tried so hard, Travis. I really did.” She tipped her face up to look at him. The soot smeared across her cheeks and forehead made the blue of her eyes even brighter. “I had the east wall put out and started on the west when the flames reached the loft. Do you think you can save it?”

  “Don’t know. The boys and I will try, though.” He separated himself from her and took her hand. “We need to get you out of here first.”

  She stumbled along behind him as he steered her out to the corral. Crockett was already working the pump to fill the trough while Jim and Neill righted the buckets.

  “The heart of the fire is in the loft,” he called out to his brothers. “Do what you can, but don’t put yourself at risk. If the roof catches, get out. We’ll move to containment. Make sure the house doesn’t catch.”

  Travis didn’t release his grip on Meredith until he had her at the fence on the far side. “Go up to the house.”

  “I can help.”

  “No, Meredith! I don’t want you anywhere near that fire.” The very thought made him shiver despite the heat pouring out of the barn.

  “I managed not to burn myself to a crisp for the thirty minutes it took you to get here.” She crossed her arms and glared at him, her spunk reviving. “I think I can find a way to preserve that tradition a little longer.”

  “The answer’s no.” He turned his back on her and strode away, praying she’d obey. If she were one of his brothers, there’d have been no question. He was the head of the family, and his word was law. But she wasn’t an Archer. And he had no idea how he’d handle her if a direct order didn’t work.

  She leapt past him and moved into his path, forcing him to halt. “Let me work the pump.”

  “You’re too tired to lift the handle.” Travis cut her off with a wave of his hand when she opened her mouth to protest. “I don’t have time to argue. My barn’s burning.” He sidestepped her and resumed his long-legged pace. This time she let him go.

  Travis and his brothers fought the blaze as best they could. With ladders inside and out, they doused the loft simultaneously from the barn’s center as well as through the loft window, but it wasn’t long before the fire reached the roof.

  When Neill arrived with another pail of water, Travis waved him off. “Go help Jim and Crock outside.” He shimmied down the ladder, his voice hoarse from the smoke, his face scalded like a cow’s hide after branding. “I’ll get the animals a safe distance away, then meet you there.”

  Neill nodded and jumped to obey, but the determination in his eyes dimmed. Even at seventeen, the boy could recognize defeat when he saw it. And Travis figured that was exactly what the kid saw when he looked into his big brother’s face.

  It killed him to lose twice in one night. The arsonists’ escape had been hard enough to swallow, but believing the barn had been spared had made it tolerable. Now everything was sticking in his craw.

  He pulled the ladder down, kicked dirt over the few flames that had taken root on the top rungs, and carried it outside. As he tossed it over the corral fence, cool air bathed his stinging face. He wanted nothing more than to close his eyes and relish the coolness, but all he could afford to do was cough some smoke out of his lungs and turn back to the task at hand.

  Which apparently included scolding a certain hardheaded woman for not heeding his instructions. Meredith glared at him from where she stood pumping water into the trough, not a hint of apology in her demeanor. Travis stormed past her and worked the knot on Jochebed’s lead line. “I thought I told you to go up to the house.”

  The pump arm creaked as she gave it a series of vigorous yanks, then fell silent as water gushed into the trough. “As I recall,” she said, rubbing her palms into her skirt, “you never forbade me from working the pump. You simply expressed your doubts as to my ability to do so.”

  Travis’s grip on the cow’s rope tightened. “Don’t play word games with me, Meredith. You knew what I meant.”

  “Did I?” She reached for a stew pot and dipped it into the trough. “Seems to me that a man who claims protecting his brothers and his land always comes first wouldn’t be so quick to refuse able-bodied help just because that body happens to be female.” She set the full pot on the ground and crossed her arms over her chest.

  Travis’s eyes followed the movement, noting the curves it accentuated. Yep. Definitely female. He wouldn’t be arguing that point.

  Crockett rounded the barn at a jog, an empty washtub banging against his leg. Meredith unclasped her arms and immediately returned to the pump.

  Travis made no move to stop her, deciding it wasn’t worth wasting more time or breath debating. Having her there did speed the process, and even though he still didn’t like her being so close to the fire, she was probably in no immediate danger.

  At least Jochebed obeyed him without question. More than eager to get away from the burning barn, the milk cow lumbered along beside him to the back side of the corral, where Travis removed the fence rails from their notches and set her free.

  Next he went after Samson, but the old mule was too busy throwing a fit to recognize what was good for him.

  “Enough of that,” Travis reprimanded as he grabbed hold of the mule’s halter and forced the animal’s head down. Samson tried to jerk away, but Travis held firm, asserting his dominance until the animal calmed. “That’s it. Settle down, now.” Travis patted Samson’s neck and slowly unfastened the hitching strap. At the same moment, a thunderous pop!
exploded from within the barn.

  Samson’s eyes went wild, and with the sudden strength of his namesake, he wrenched free and tore across the corral. Travis gave chase in an effort to steer him toward the fence opening, but the old mule was either too blind to see the downed railings or too terror-stricken to comprehend their meaning. Instead, the fool beast raced straight into the barn.

  Stunned, Travis stared at the entrance. What would possess him to run into the fire? Sure the cantankerous thing would run right back out, Travis braced his legs apart and prepared to make a grab for him. Only he never came. The old mule was probably standing in his stall—third one on the right, under the loft—too stubborn to leave.

  “Stupid critter,” Travis muttered under his breath. He had half a mind to leave him in there. Of course, he never could stomach the thought of any living creature suffering. Not when it was in his power to do something about it.

  Digging his handkerchief out of his coat pocket, Travis marched up to the entrance. Heat flared against his skin. Steeling himself, he turned his head and sucked in two deep breaths, then tied the red bandanna over his nose and mouth.

  “No, Travis!” Meredith’s voice barely penetrated the roar of the fire. “Don’t!”

  But he didn’t have a choice. The longer he waited, the more dangerous it would be. Ignoring her calls, he ran into the barn.

  Travis lifted his arm to shield his face from the heat and his head from any debris that might fall as he made his way to Samson’s stall.

  Not daring to get near the mule’s hooves, he entered the adjacent box and scaled the half wall near Samson’s head. “Easy, boy.” The mule shied, but Travis snatched the halter and yanked the animal’s head around while pushing on his shoulder. “Back,” he ordered. “Back.”