by Zack Wyatt
Marion, wearing a new black dress, turned to the man. “Mr. Mylius, are you certain I can’t pay you something for all the trouble I’ve put you to?”
“No trouble, ma’am.” Sylvester Mylius pushed a sweat and dirt stained hat back on his head. “Those ten acres ain’t much more than an overgrown corral. Don’t use them except in spring to break a few head of mustangs. Your stock’s doing me a favor by eating the winter grass to make way for the spring growth.”
Marion shook her head and looked up at Sands who merely shrugged in reply. Her lips pursed thoughtfully when she turned to Mylius again.
“What about storing my wagon? That has to be in your way.”
“Nope. That old barn ain’t used for nothing much except when I’m breaking mustangs. Don’t expect I’d have gone in there all winter if it weren’t for ya’ll.” He paused and glanced down at the ground. “Really, ma’am, you ain’t putting me out none.”
Apparently Marion noticed the embarrassment that crept into the man’s voice, because she backed away from pressing him further. “Mr. Mylius, it’s a neighborly and Christian thing you’ve done for me. Do you by any chance have a favorite pie or cake?”
The rancher’s head rose, a smile upturning the corners of his mouth. “I’ll admit to a sweet tooth ... especially when it comes to peach pie and chocolate cake.”
Marion let the matter drop there—an unspoken promise that Sylvester Mylius would get his pie and cake in return for the favor he had performed for the young widow. Sands expected the rancher would receive a steady supply of home-baked desserts, more than adequate pay for some winter grass and use of an old barn.
Mylius glanced toward the sky. “’Spect ya’ll ought to be heading on back to town now. I got my chores and it’ll be dark soon.”
“Reckon you’re right.” Sands nodded then stuck out his right hand, shaking Mylius’ when the old rancher grasped it. “I’ll be out by and by to check on the stock and see if they need anything.”
“Be looking for you, Josh.” Mylius smiled the smile of a man who realized those visits would also include the delivery of a fresh chocolate cake or peach pie.
Taking Marion’s arm, Sands led the young widow to a small buggy he had rented on credit in town. After helping the redhead into the uncovered rig, Sands took his place beside her, lifted the reins, and brought a sleepy old gray to life with a cluck of the tongue.
Sands glanced at the western horizon and the sun that hung low there. He estimated the time at four o’clock. Plenty of time to get Marion back to the boarding house before sundown.
The last thing he needed was the added worry of protecting the reputation of another woman. Elena was enough worry for any man to take on.
“It’s a warm day for this late in winter,” Marion said as her eyes took in the surrounding countryside of rolling hills brown with winter grass. “Sun feels like a gentle autumn afternoon.”
“Almost too warm,” Sands answered, leaving unsaid his hope for a blue norther to drive the Comanche bands to their winter lodges.
“Ohio is probably blanketed in snow by now,” Marion said. “And the ponds frozen over. Just perfect for ice skaters.”
Sands turned and stared into the smiling face that met him. For a moment the beauty reflected there caused his words to slip away. He awkwardly cleared his throat and looked back to the two wagon ruts that served as a road.
“You hail from Ohio?” he asked abruptly to hide the twinge of embarrassment that suffused him.
“My family had a farm outside Columbus. When I was twelve my father sold it and moved to Texas,” she said.
“Illegal immigrants,” Sands chuckled. For over a decade before the war of independence the Mexican government had decreed it illegal for any further immigration from the United States. The decree had done little to stop the families who crossed the Red River from the east.
“We had a farm for a couple of years. Then one summer my father broke both his legs when his horse shied from a copperhead and threw him,” Marion said. “He lost planting by the time he’d healed, so he went to work for Linn Imports in Linnville. Been working for Mr. Linn ever since.”
Marion turned to the ranger. “Does your family hail from Texas.”
Sands shook his head. “Tennessee originally. Grandpa came down when Stephen Austin’s daddy was out drumming up new settlers for Texas. He settled near Austin.”
“They still live there?” Marion asked.
Sands sat silently for a moment, fighting back the rush of tortured memories that attempted to push their way into his head. When he finally spoke, it was softly. “Buried there ... my family was killed by Comanche.”
From the corner of his eye, he saw Marion’s face slacken in shock. Her voice was as quiet as his when she spoke. “I guess we both share something that we wish we didn’t.” Her hand reached out and took his right to squeeze it gently. “How old were you when it happened?”
“Twelve ... old enough to fend for myself.” Sands shook his head and smiled at the young widow. “I also lie a lot. I wouldn’t have made it if it weren’t for a grizzly old coot named Billy Byrd. He was with a ranging company that patrolled the Fort Parker area. Billy took me in, fed me, saw to it there were clothes on my back, and kept my nose clean. When I was old enough, he took me ranging with him.”
“And you’ve been a ranger ever since?” she asked.
Her hand slid from his, leaving his skin aglow with her warmth. Again Sands felt that uneasiness he had felt that day in the wagon. Also there was the urge to take her hand in his and squeeze it tightly.
He shifted his weight. The rig’s padded seat was suddenly rock hard.
“Other than what little farming my Pa taught me, the only thing I know is ranging,” Sands said, pausing and pointing to the left. “Mind if I stop and give the gray a drink? There’s a creek just over that way a bit.”
Marion shook her head, which set the silky redness of her hair flying in the afternoon breeze.
Reining the gray off the road, Sands gave the horse its head and allowed it to follow its nose to the stream. While it drank, he climbed down from the rig and stretched, then rubbed the small of his back.
“You’re unaccustomed to driving a wagon, aren’t you, Josh?” Marion asked as she stepped from the rig.
“Driven a few, just enough to know what to do and keep myself out of trouble,” Sands answered.
“Thought so.” Marion nodded at his arms. “My father always says a man’s got to keep his back straight when he’s working a team, otherwise he’ll end up breaking his spine.”
Sands smiled. “Expect your daddy’s a man who knows what he’s talking about. I never set well atop any kind of wagon for long.”
Marion moved to his side and turned around. Sands watched her gaze take in their surroundings.
“It’s beautiful here in a different sort of way.” She looked up at him. “It’s a rugged beauty one has to get used to before they can appreciate it.”
Rugged was a mild description of the land surrounding San Antonio. It was hill country that grew more rocks and prickly pear than it did grass. The trees were mostly mesquite and bushy cedar. There were a few stunted oaks here and there. And occasionally there were willows that grew near creeks.
It was a harsh land with summers sent up from the bowels of hell and winters that could freeze flesh to the bone.
It was also a good land, a bountiful land a man could live off of, if he knew what he were doing. Besides the rattlesnakes, homed toads, roadrunners, coyote, and buzzards, deer and antelope abounded. There were longhorns, and rabbits, and prairie hens that added variety to the menu.
“It’s so different than the coast,” Marion continued. “We’ve got ocean, palm trees and long beaches of snow white sand. It’s hard to believe that Linnville and San Antonio are part of the same land.”
“It’s a big nation. We’ve got pine forests in the east and desert in the west,” Sands said. “Heard one feller talking in Austin on
ce who said Texas was like a small continent in itself. That any kind of land a man could find in all of North America can be found right here in the republic.”
Marion’s eyebrows rose. “You don’t say.”
The gray lifted its head from the creek and turned its attention to a small patch of winter clover.
Sands nodded to the horse and tilted his head to the sun which hung close to the horizon. “Think we’d better be heading back.”
“Yes,” Marion said and started toward the rig. She stopped and looked back at Sands. “Josh ... I been thinking about this all day and wasn’t certain how to handle it until Mr. Mylius refused my money.”
She walked back to Sands, her eyes nervously darting between the ranger and the ground. “Since then I’ve been pondering on just what to say to you ... and I guess there isn’t any fancy and proper way to say it.”
She opened a black string purse on her wrist and reached into it. When her hand came free, she held out a coin.
“Netty told me about this. I thank you for your kindness, but I think Jamie and I have enough to get by on until my father arrives.” She pressed the coin into Sands’ palm.
“But ...” Sands stared at her, “… the dress ... Netty?”
“I know what you told her. It was appreciated. But Netty had this dress. She took it in a little for me,” Marion explained. “This will more than do. I don’t need to go and spend money that isn’t mine.”
“But ...” Sands started.
“No ‘buts’ about it, Joshua Sands,” she said firmly. “I appreciate your gracious offer, and the spirit in which it was made, but the need for it has passed.”
She leaned forward and lightly kissed his cheek in thank you.
That was the way it started. How it went beyond that point, Sands wasn’t sure. But his arms encircled Marion’s slim waist, and his lips covered her mouth.
There was a brief instant of resistance, or perhaps it was uncertainty, then she returned his kiss, her arms on his back, pressing herself to him. That was for one heartbeat. In the next, she pulled from his embrace, back-stepped, and glanced to the ground.
“Marion,” Sands started.
She shook her head. “I don’t know why I allowed that to happen. I didn’t mean to. I …”
She stammered, and Sands heard a quavering in her breathing.
“I ...” she began anew, “I think we should both forget about what just happened.”
Sands nodded, then helped her back into the wagon. As he climbed back aboard and took up the reins, he realized that she was right. It would be for the best, if he forgot. After all, what did one kiss mean?
Yet, somehow, he knew he was going to have one hell of a time trying to forget that solitary kiss from the lips of Marion Hammer.
Chapter Nine
Sands felt naked and vulnerable. In spite of the loaded and powdered long rifle slung securely to his saddle, he felt as though someone were standing at his back with a finger on the trigger of a cocked pistol.
His right hand kept going to his belt to seek the familiar weight of his two pistols. Instead, only the light-weight Colt six-shot, revolving pistol lay tucked there. It provided little comfort.
Stovepipe’s two-week delivery date on the side arms stretched to two and half months before their actual arrival. And today, Captain Jack Hays led a patrol of thirteen men northwest of San Antonio along the Pedernales River carrying the untried weapons.
Two and a half months since we saw these damned things! Sands cursed to himself. In addition to his skepticism of the weapon’s ability, he and his companions hadn’t been given time to adjust to the pistol. No one had fired more than six rounds with the revolving pistols.
Sands leaned back to rest a hand on his bedroll. Snuggly packed there, he felt the bulges of his old pistols. He smiled without humor. If need be, the Colt could be discarded and the two single-shot pistols could be reached with relative ease. Although the time needed to do even that could cost a man his life.
“You planning to be at the Casa tonight?” Will Brown’s voice intruded into Sands’ thoughts. “Adela promised she’d bake a big cake ... big enough for the whole company!” Sands did his best to smile at his companion. Today was Will’s eighteenth birthday. The fact that they rode patrol with untried weapons did nothing to reassure Sands that Will would live to see tonight’s celebration.
Sands nodded and tried to widen his smile.
“Good.” Will beamed. “I was afraid you’d planned to be with the Widow Hammer tonight. You two have been keeping pretty close company the past few months.”
“Wouldn’t miss the shindig for anything,” Sands assured him. “Most of the company’ll be there.”
Will’s grin widened, then his face abruptly sobered. “Are things getting serious between you and Mrs. Hammer?” Sands raised an eyebrow, as though he wasn’t certain what Will meant.
Will shrugged. “Just rumor I reckon. Some of the boys say that you’re working up the courage to ask her to marry you.”
“Like you said ... just rumor,” Sands answered, feeling a twinge of rootless guilt when he did.
Since that January afternoon, he had been Marion’s constant companion. At first he made up excuses that required him to visit Netty’s boarding house. The time of pretense had long since passed. He went to the Widow Barrett’s for one reason and one reason only. And he had no doubt that Marion knew that reason.
Although there had never been more than that one kiss, Marion never gave any indication she desired the visits to stop. In fact, she had often assured his return with invitations to dine at the boarding house—with the Widow Barrett’s approval and watchful eye, of course.
But marriage? The thought was distant and alien to him. He admitted his attraction to Marion. And Jamie Hammer had the makings of a boy who’d grow up to be a fine man.
Sands had never considered the possibility. While Marion awoke all sorts of strange and undefined sensations within him—things he had never felt with another woman—not even Elena Chavela—he wasn’t certain exactly what those feelings were. Nor was he in any rush to put a label on them.
The uneasy thoughts scattered when Jack Hays held up a hand to halt the company. The ranger captain waved Sands to his side and pointed toward the top of the river’s bank. The sand there was churned and moist as though cut with a farmer’s harrow. However, no farmers lived this far out from San Antonio. Sands nudged the gelding’s side to move the black up the shallow bank.
When he reached the broken ground, he swung from his saddle. No harrow, but the hooves of mustangs, heavy with riders, had turned the soil. He glanced to each side. The hoofprints disappeared and the reddish-tan sand lay undisturbed.
As he remounted, he called to Hays, “It was a big party. They passed by here less than an hour ago.”
“Comanche?” Hays asked the obvious.
“At least fifty on unshod ponies,” Sands replied. “Tracks break off in two directions, moving with the river. Then they disappear. They were trailing brush to wipe out their tracks. Only an accident they left any at all. The bushes probably did a little skip when they hit the top of the bank.”
Jack’s gaze moved over the rugged, rocky hill country.
His expression said exactly what Sands was thinking—fifty Comanches were too many for a fourteen-man patrol. The object of ranging was to hit the Comanches, do as much damage as possible, then run. In other words, to fight the Nermernuh with their own tactics. Head on European confrontation was never designed for fighting mounted Indians—especially not Comanches who were often better horsemen than the whites they faced.
Jack waved a hand southward away from the large band that had passed here so recently. Sands gave his silent approval. The thought of cowardice never entered the ranger’s mind. Ranging companies were supposed to kill Comanches—not commit suicide. Fourteen men going against fifty braves would be that—suicide.
Sands reined the gelding up the south bank of the Pedernales and fell
into line behind Hays.
Gently rolling hills bordering yawning, unbroken flat lands stretched before the patrol. Here grew thorny mesquite, short, and squat in clumps that resembled overgrown bushes rather than trees. Green sprinkled the semi-barren branches, giving testimony to the early spring that warmed the republic. Unlike the great plains the mesquite here grew freely, unrestrained by white or Indian. Northward, where the buffalo grass sprouted like a luxurious carpet, the Comanches burned the prairie each fall. The devouring flames that seared away the brown grass also burned the mesquite trees that leeched away rich nutrients from the soil.
Here, too, grew cedars and stunted oaks. As with the mesquite, Sands found himself hard-pressed to describe these twisted growths as true trees. He had, after all, seen the forests of East Texas with their towering pines and branching pecans. He had also seen the slender palms of the gulf coast.
The ground bore green traces of early spring grass, but white, the harsh white of rocks, ranging from pebbles to small boulders pushed up everywhere from the sandy soil. At times Sands wondered why men possessed of their full senses wanted to settle this land when the eastern soil of the United States offered so much.
The answer was simple. As harsh and rugged as it was, Texas was a new land. The game was plentiful, and where water was found, a good life could be built. A good life for a man and a family.
Family?
Sands caught himself. What did he know about a family? He had been raised by rangers since he was twelve years old. His Own family was no more than a half-faded memory that often seemed to belong to someone else.
Marion’s image floated in his mind. At her side, Jamie smiled up at the ranger.
Had Will’s words held a seed of truth? Was the urge to settle down and raise a family finally catching up with Josh Sands?
No. As much as he was attracted to Marion, something was missing. Something he was certain should be there between a man and a woman. While he could not place a finger on what that missing something was, he could feel it, something that was awry and wrong.
