The Outlaw's Daughter

by Margaret Brownley

  Nose wrinkling in disgust, he shook Patrick James on the shoulder. “Wake up.”

  It took several good shakes before the man’s bloodshot eyes fluttered open. “Don’t know you,” he slurred, his breath foul with whiskey.

  “You will.” Matt tried talking to him, but the man was too far gone to understand. Finally, Matt grabbed James by the collar and yanked him to his feet. Apparently, Matt wasn’t the only one who didn’t want trouble. The saloon’s patrons looked away, and he was able to drag James outside without interference.

  When neither the heat nor glare of the late-afternoon sun revived James, Matt hauled him down to the horse trough and dunked his head in the water. A gelding tied to the railing whinnied in protest.

  Matt apologized to the horse. “Sorry, but it’s for a good cause.”

  Submerged to his shoulders, James flailed his arms wildly until Matt yanked his head up for air. Gasping, James cursed. “Let me go, you—”

  “What’s your son’s name?” Matt all but yelled in the man’s ear. Just thinking of the way James neglected Jesse made Matt want to wring the man’s neck.

  The question solicited more curses, and Matt plunged James’s head into the water a second time. It took several more dunks before James had finally sobered up enough to give Matt the answer he sought.

  “Jesse,” James slurred. “Name’s Jesse.”

  Only then did Matt let him go.

  James backed away. Arms limp, he glared at Matt through a curtain of long, wet hair. Water dripped from his unkempt mustache and beard. He looked and smelled as if he’d just emerged from a watery grave.

  Matt untied the red kerchief from around his neck and handed it to him. He waited for James to dry his face before breaking the news. “Jesse was thrown from a horse.” Not sure how much James was able to comprehend, Matt paused. “Did you hear what I said?” He repeated himself several times, hoping for a response.

  Comprehension dawned on James’s face as slow as wet gunpowder, and he looked like he’d been stabbed. He moved his mouth long before he could get the words out. “He…he okay?” he managed at last.

  Satisfied that James had the right amount of paternal concern, Matt softened his stance, along with his voice. Maybe there was hope for the man after all. “That’s what we’re hoping. He’s staying at the Blackwell farm till we know for sure.”

  James stared at him, his face contorted with pain and what looked like self-loathing.

  Matt was about to say more—wanted to say more—but he knew it would do no good. James looked like a wreck of a man. Matt didn’t want to feel sorry for him, hated feeling sorry for him, but he couldn’t seem to help himself.

  With an irritated sigh, he grabbed James by the arm. Since leaving home at eighteen, Matt had avoided any entanglements or responsibilities that didn’t involve his job. The decision had been made from necessity. Work required his full attention.

  The last thing he wanted—indeed, needed—was to be tied down. But the longer he stayed in Haywire, the more involved he found himself becoming with Jesse and Ellie-May. Now with this man…

  Not good. Not good at all.

  “Let’s get you home.”

  Matt glanced at the row of horses tethered in front of the saloon. Since there was no way of knowing which horse belonged to James, Matt led him over to where Justice was hitched and helped him onto the saddle.

  Untying his horse, Matt mounted behind James. He touched his spurs gently to Justice’s flanks and rode slowly through town. James flopped around in the saddle in front of him like a rag doll, and it was all Matt could do to keep him from falling.

  Upon reaching his destination, Matt practically had to drag James’s sorry figure into the house. Depositing him in a back room on an unmade bed, Matt yanked off the man’s boots and opened a window to let in fresh air. James appeared to be out cold.

  Since there was nothing more he could do for the man, he left the house and rode back to town. Feeling the effects of the long, sleepless night spent at Ellie-May’s farm, he purchased a newspaper and stopped at the Feedbag Café for coffee.

  The hot brew revived him somewhat, which might have been a good thing had thoughts of Ellie-May not kept popping into his head. Recalling in startling detail how she had looked that morning, he imagined he heard her laughter. Felt her touch. Smelled her sweet fragrance…

  Clamping down on his thoughts, he mulled over the bill of fare. After the hearty breakfast Ellie-May had fed him, he wasn’t hungry, but he decided to eat anyway. Without Jesse, he could eat his meal in peace and not have to share.

  The distant sound of the train whistle reminded him that it was time to leave town. His job in Haywire had reached a dead end. There was nothing more to be done there. Roberts was in jail, waiting to see the judge, and Blackwell was dead. Much as Matt hated admitting failure, it looked like finding the stolen money was a lost cause. Even if it were buried on the Blackwell farm, as he suspected, it might never be found.

  Shaking his thoughts away, he opened the newspaper and froze. his gaze glued onto the bold print of his brother’s name. Charley had struck again and robbed a bank in Lockhart.

  The sharp pain that shot through Matt’s chest felt like an arrow to his heart. Charley had been such a bright, happy child with so much potential. The bullet that had killed their father had changed all that. It had created hate in Charley where love once resided and had turned his childlike innocence into festering guilt that could never be appeased. No matter how many times Matt had told Charley he wasn’t to blame for Pa’s death, Charley refused to listen.

  Oh, Charley, Charley, Charley…

  Matt wondered where he’d gone wrong. Why hadn’t he known that Charley was heading down the road to destruction? What clues had he missed? What could he have done differently?

  If he didn’t know it before, Matt knew it now. His time and energy would best be spent tracking down his brother. Maybe Charley could be saved; maybe not. All Matt knew was that he had to try.

  Matt pulled a hand-drawn paper map from his pocket and marked the town of Lockhart with a pencil. The holdup before then had been in Austin, twenty-some miles away from Lockhart. The proximity seemed to suggest that Charley was holed up somewhere between the two. It wasn’t much to go on, but it was a start.

  The proprietor, Mrs. Buffalo, arrived at his table to take his order. “I’ll have the roast beef,” he said, folding his map and returning it to his pocket.

  “Where’s the boy?” she asked as she wrote down his order.

  “Jesse got thrown from a horse. He’s staying at the Blackwell farm.”

  Mrs. Buffalo tutted. “The kid gonna be all right?”

  Matt nodded. “Far as I know.”

  “Good to hear,” she said. “Guess you got enough to worry about as it is.”

  He frowned. “You mean because of Jesse’s accident?”

  She shrugged. “That and the escape.”

  Matt sat back in his chair. “I’m not sure what you mean. What escape?”

  She raised her thin eyebrows. “Guess you haven’t heard. The stagecoach robber—Roberts was his name—escaped.”

  “Escaped?” Matt shot up from his chair. “When?”

  “Dunno for sure. Yesterday…” She said more, but Matt didn’t stay around long enough to hear the rest.

  “Cancel my order,” he called as he rushed out of the café and onto the boardwalk.

  Moments later, he arrived at the sheriff’s office just as Keeler rode up. Matt waited for him to dismount and followed him inside.

  “Is it true?” he asked. “Did Roberts escape?”

  Keeler hung his hat on a hook before answering. “Yeah,” he said, his manner and voice reluctant. “It’s true.”

  “Why am I only now just hearing about it? It wasn’t even in the newspaper.”

  Keeler suddenly lo
oked tired. “I was hopin’ to capture him before soundin’ the alarm.”

  Matt frowned. More likely the sheriff had kept Roberts’s escape quiet to save his own skin.

  As if guessing Matt’s thoughts, the sheriff went on to explain. “He escaped without means or even a horse. Can’t get far on shoe leather.”

  “How did he escape?” Matt asked.

  Keeler rubbed his chin. “We were on the way to see the judge. Roberts started acting kind of funny. Like he was gonna faint or something. I tried to keep him from fallin’, and he grabbed my gun.” Shaking his head, the sheriff pulled out his chair and sat. He then reached for a cigar.

  “Why wasn’t he handcuffed?”

  “Dang it!” The sheriff glared at Matt. “What gives you the right to question me?”

  “Somebody needs to!” Matt fired back.

  Keeler’s eyes glittered. “For your information, he was cuffed but somehow had slipped out of ’em. I gathered up a posse, and we searched high and low. Found nothing. Not a trace.”

  “Do you think he had help?” Matt asked.

  “How the heck would I know? All I can tell you is that the man’s as slippery as a greased pig. He’s probably halfway ’cross country by now.”

  Matt thought a moment. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  The sheriff’s gaze sharpened. “You know something I don’t know?”

  “There’s still the matter of the missing money.”

  Keeler scoffed. “We don’t know that the money is still around. Roberts could have gambled it away for all we know.”

  Matt shook his head. “None of the banknotes have turned up. In any case, something brought him back to Haywire.” He doubted a man like Roberts would volunteer to work on the Blackwell farm out of the goodness of his heart. “If it wasn’t the stolen loot, then what?”

  22

  Ellie-May set her hairbrush on her dressing table and stifled a yawn. She was glad Matt had agreed to let Jesse stay. But worrying about him had taken its toll. She’d hardly been able to sleep and had checked on him several times during the night.

  Instead of braiding or carelessly tying her hair back in a ponytail as usual, she smoothed it into a more fashionable bun at the nape of her neck.

  She stared at her pale face and reached for the jar of rouge usually kept for special occasions and hid her pale skin beneath a rosy blush. She then dabbed tinted beeswax on her lips.

  “Can I have some of that on my lips?” Alicia asked.

  Unaware that Alicia had been watching from the doorway, Ellie-May screwed the top back on the jar and returned it to her dressing table. “No, you’re too young.”

  Alicia moved into the room and caught her mother’s gaze in the mirror. “But I want to look pretty, too.”

  Turning away from her dressing table, Ellie-May cupped her hands lovingly around Alicia’s face. “You’re already pretty,” she said. Her heart filled with pride as she gazed at her young daughter. “You’re perfect just the way you are.”

  “How come you’re getting all fancy?” Alicia asked. “Is it because of Jesse?”

  Ellie-May dropped her hands to her side. Getting all fancy? Is that what she was doing? And with the thought came the memory of Matt’s soft brown eyes and winning smile.

  Startled, she straightened and stared in the mirror.

  “Well, is it, Mama?”

  Shaking away the disturbing thought, she forced herself to focus on her daughter. “Is what it?”

  “Are you getting all fancy for Jesse?” Alicia made a face. “Jesse’s a boy. He don’t care what we look like.”

  “Maybe not, but I’m sure your teacher does.” She reached for her hairbrush. “Let’s fix your hair. I don’t want you being late for school.”

  Alicia turned her back. “When is Jesse going home?”

  Ellie-May carefully untied the ribbons on Alicia’s night braids and drew the brush through the long, blond tresses. “Today,” she said as she untangled a knot.

  “Can I wear that shiny stuff on my lips?” Alicia asked again.

  “It’s called lip balm, and I already told you no.”

  “Why can’t I wear lip bomb?”

  “Balm,” Ellie-May said. “It’s lip balm, and you’re too young to wear it.”

  “When won’t I be too young?”

  Ellie-May wanted to say never. Alicia and Lionel were growing up too quickly. It seemed like only yesterday that she’d held them in her arms and nursed them at her breasts. If Neal were to see them today, he would hardly recognize them.

  So far, she’d been able to shelter them both from the ugly realities she’d known as a child. Still, she lived in fear that something might happen to change all that.

  Ellie-May laid the hairbrush on the dressing table and reached for a blue satin ribbon. “You can wear lip balm when you’re a hundred years old.”

  “Ah, Mama. You always say that!”

  “I know.” Ellie-May tied a pretty bow on the top of Alicia’s head and stepped back. “One day, the good Lord willing, you’ll have children of your own, and you’ll tell them exactly the same thing.”

  Alicia folded her arms across her chest, a defiant look on her face. “I won’t make my children wait till they’re a hundred,” she said. “They’ll only have to wait till they’re ninety.”

  * * *

  After Anvil had left to take the children to school, Ellie-May made herself a cup of tea. She would have preferred coffee but wanted to save the few beans left for Anvil.

  Matt was also a coffee drinker and might want a cup when he came to fetch Jesse.

  The thought brought a feeling of anticipation, and she willed the butterflies in her stomach to go away.

  She joined Jesse at the table and watched him wolf down a mountain of flapjacks swimming in maple syrup.

  The boy ate like a bear following a long hibernation. Matt was right—she was in danger of being eaten out of house and home and had already used up the rations for the week.

  “I don’t know where you put all that food,” she said. The boy was skinny as a possum’s tail. Pale as the animal’s face, too.

  Jesse finished the last morsel on his plate before looking up. “Thank you, Mrs. Blackwell. That was really good.”

  “Glad you liked it.” She tossed a nod at his glass. “Drink your milk.”

  He picked up his glass and emptied it with one long gulp, then wiped the creamy mustache away from his mouth with his shirtsleeve.

  “Where’s Ranger Taggert?” he asked.

  “It’s early yet. I expect he’s still at the hotel.” She doubted Matt had gotten much sleep at her house and was probably trying to catch up. “Why?”

  “I need to talk to him.”

  “He promised to stop by later to check up on you. I’d say you’re well enough to go back with him.”

  “I need to talk to him now,” Jesse said, looking and sounding serious. “Ranger business.”

  “Ranger business, eh?” She folded her arms on the table. “What’s so urgent that it can’t wait?”

  He glanced around the room as if checking for eavesdroppers and lowered his voice to almost a whisper. “I remember why I came to the farm. I need to tell Ranger Taggert that the man escaped.”

  Ellie-May frowned. “Man?” she whispered back. “What man?”

  “The man we were looking for. Mr. Roberts.”

  She stiffened. “Mr. R-Roberts has escaped?” Alarm racing through her, she sat back. How was such a thing possible?

  Jesse nodded. “Yeah, and now he’s gone.” He brightened and gave her a lopsided grin. “See? My memory came back.”

  “That’s good,” Ellie-May said, her mind freezing on the one comforting thought—if Roberts had escaped before revealing Neal’s name, then her secret was still safe.

  Jesse leaned forward,
looking as grave as a lawyer at a reading of a will. “That’s why I came here. I wanted to tell Ranger Taggert that Roberts had escaped.”

  “I’m sure Matt…Mr. Taggert…already knows by now.” News like that would travel through town with the speed of a bullet.

  She balled her hands in her lap. There was no question in her mind that Roberts knew about the hidden money. He just didn’t know what Neal had done with it. It all made sense now. The money was the reason Roberts had volunteered to work on the farm. It even explained why Anvil had caught him digging around the windmill.

  A sudden, worrisome thought froze in her brain. What if Roberts came back to the farm to look for the stolen money? What then?

  * * *

  Matt knew the moment Ellie-May opened the door that something was wrong. Her eyes were as dark as storm clouds, and the smile on her face looked forced.

  “Everything okay?” he asked. “Jesse?”

  She stepped aside to let him in, and he caught a pleasant whiff of her perfume. “He’s fine,” she said, closing the door. “He’s in the barn with Anvil.” She glanced at the box in his hands. “What’s all that?”

  “Provisions,” he said.

  She blinked. “I’m sorry?”

  “I don’t know if this will replace what Jesse ate, but it’s a start,” he said and walked into the kitchen. He set the box on the counter and began pulling out packages of bacon, flour, tack bread, cheese, and jerky.

  Ellie-May watched him unload with rounded eyes. “You…you really didn’t have to do this,” she gasped.

  He held out a package of bacon. “It’s just a small way to say thank you for taking care of Jesse.”

  “Jesse was no trouble.” She took the bacon from him and put it into the ice chest. “Did you talk to his pa?”

  “I talked to him.” He pushed his hat back with the tip of his finger and nodded. “Not sure it did much good, but…” He studied her. “Everything else okay?”

  She nodded. “It’s just that Jesse remembered why he’d come to see you.”