Beneath The Texas Sky (18 page)

She had just put Mariah into bed, when she heard a sound muffled by the hall carpet. Someone was walking past her door. Bethanie scolded herself. This was a hotel; of course there were people outside the door. But hadn’t she taken the last room in the hall?

Another set of steps slowly passed the door. Bethanie lowered the wick on the lamp so that the room was almost black. She could see the light from the hall shining under the door.

A third person walked along the hall toward her room. The steps were louder, definitely those of a man. His boots were heavy and made an echoing thud as he drew closer.

Bethanie was wide-awake now. Half her mind told her it was nothing, as the other half demanded that she move around the bed to where she had left a gun by the washstand. Halfway round the bed, her muscles solidified suddenly as the footsteps in the hall stopped. A dark shadow blocked part of the light coming from the hall. Someone was standing outside…waiting.

She heard the unmistakable clank of a key against a metal lock. She held her breath as the knob rattled. To her horror the lock gave with a twist, and light fanned in around her. A stranger in buckskin bolted into the room. He was followed by two other sets of footsteps, and the light vanished with the closing of the door.

Bethanie’s nightgown showed milky white in the darkness as she backed away. Her mind flooded with one thought. The gun!

Frantically, she jumped for her weapon, but a huge arm swung around her waist and pulled her to the floor. The grimy hand covered her half-scream as the man’s two friends ran closer. The smell of cheap beer and tobacco assaulted Bethanie’s senses as she fought violently. In answer to her struggle, his arm tightened and the large hand moved to cover her nose. Within seconds blood seemed to swell into her brain demanding she breathe. She stopped trying to hit him and concentrated on freeing his fingers enough to allow air to pass. He slid a muscular leg over her waist and grabbed both her wrists with one hand.

As he pulled her arms above her head she felt his laughter in her face. “Settle down, lady. We ain’t gonna hurt you none.”

He looked up at his friends. “See, I told you boys this would be the easiest way to get us a few head of cattle. Now we got somethin’ to bargain with. You’ll see how fast that trail boss hands over a hundred head.”

Bethanie heard the two shadowy figures laugh. They
both made a high giggly sound of men who were long into drink and short on brains.

The man on the floor used one knee to hold her down. He held her hands tightly above her head. His weight was pulling her gown dangerously low over her bust. His hot breath stung the clean flesh of her throat. She could see his eyes grow fiery with lust.

“I think we may have found more than we hoped for,” he mumbled as he slid his fingers off her mouth to grab the fullness of one of her breasts.

One of his partners sucked in air, whistling softly. “I ain’t never had a white woman,” he snickered.

As the leader’s hand pulled at her nightgown, Bethanie drew needed air into her lungs and screamed with every ounce of energy left. He abandoned his pursuit and covered her mouth once more.

“Why you…” he began as footsteps sounded in the hall.

Before any of the men could move, the door exploded open and Cain’s shadow blocked the light from the hall. The buckskin-clad man rose from Bethanie and was turning as a blow struck him at the side of the head. Bethanie scrambled to Mariah’s side. She lifted the half-awake child gently and crawled under the bed.

The fight sounded as if a furious storm was raging above them. She could hear the loud, drunken cries of pain from the two smaller men and the powerful slam of muscle and flesh colliding.

“Stay here,” Bethanie whispered to Mariah. She crawled to the washstand and lifted the gun. Cain was strong, but the odds of three to one was not in his favor.

Bethanie heard the clang of metal and saw Cain’s knife slide across the floor to the foot of the bed. The hand that grabbed it was clad in buckskin. Bethanie peeked over the bed and saw two men in a dance of violence
before her. The buckskin arm raised with the knife flashing silver in the night. As his arm plunged toward Cain’s back, Bethanie raised the gun and fired.

Both men fell to the floor.

Bethanie dropped the gun on the bed and reached for the lamp. Before she could turn the key, light flooded the room from the hallway. People rushed forward in a noisy mass, drawn by the sound of gunfire. Mariah crawled from under the bed and scrambled into her mother’s arms. Bethanie held her tight as she advanced toward the two huge men locked together on the floor. The stranger in buckskin was on top. He raised slightly and rolled off Cain as Bethanie neared. Blood spilled from his side and ran across his tan clothing like a tiny red river across sand.

Cain sat up. He slowly plowed his fingers through his thick, white-streaked hair and looked around at the three men he’d been fighting. The leader lay dead, his eyes staring up at the ceiling. One of his friends was unconscious near the fire, while the other whimpered like a wounded animal in the corner.

Bethanie knelt beside Cain. “Are you all right?”

Cain shrugged, his voice shaking slightly. “Don’t worry about me, Mrs. Weston. Important thing is, are you and the child unharmed? If these men hurt you, I’ll send them all to meet their Maker.”

Bethanie noticed that none of the people filtering into her room seemed to think Cain was suggesting anything
out of the ordinary. They seemed merely interested, not judgmental.

With a smile, Bethanie realized how welcome she’d felt to see this face she’d once thought was the ugliest on earth. “No, thanks to you, Cain, we’re fine.”

Cain retrieved his knife and slid it back into its Indianmade case. “Thanks to your shot, I’m alive.” He thought for a minute. “There’s a proverb in the Orient. When you save a man’s life, it belongs to you.”

“Couldn’t we just call it even?” Bethanie touched his shoulder and felt the muscles tighten and withdraw. She made a mental note not to repeat her daring action.

“We’ll call it even, Mrs. Weston, when it is.” Cain’s words were little more than a whisper, but a stubbornness blended among them.

A wiry man with a badge pinned on his vest wandered into the room as if it were a public place. He nudged the body of the buckskin-clad man with the toe of his muddy boot. Glancing up, the lawman seemed to recognize Cain and smiled out of a corner of his tight-lipped mouth.

Cain stood and grabbed the marshal’s outstretched hand. “Good to see you again, Bill.” Cain turned toward Bethanie. “This here’s Marshal Hickok, Mrs. Weston. He used to ride shotgun when I drove stages for the Barlow-Sanderson Company a few years back.”

The marshal removed his hat and nodded respectfully to Bethanie. “Please to meet ya, Mrs. Weston. Sorry these varmints bothered you and your daughter.” He motioned for men to take the body out. “I’ll see to ’um. Now you just rest easy.”

“Thank you,” Bethanie whispered, feeling extremely uncomfortable standing in her nightgown before everyone. She glanced at the small crowd and relaxed as she noticed all eyes were watching two men roll the dead man’s body in a faded rag rug.

Hickok pulled the man’s gun from its holster and spun the chambers. He held the gun to the light, then pulled a rolled ten-dollar bill from a chamber. “At least the fellow was considerate enough to pay for his own burial.”

Bethanie had always heard of gunfighters leaving the chamber under the hammer empty to prevent accidental firing. A man could lose a leg from a black powder burn, even if the bullet only grazed the leg; but packing the empty chamber with money for the undertaker seemed morbid.

Marshal Hickok dusted his hand as if to rid himself of the dead man and turned back to Cain. “Good to see such a peace-loving man like you in these parts again. I knowed if you killed someone, he must have needed it powerful bad.”

“I seen these boys downstairs drinking up courage and knew they were up to no good. That’s one reason I bedded down close by.”

Hickok patted his gun like a fat man pats his belly. “The territory’s full of men like these three. Every one of them huntin’ for that bloodthirsty half-breed, Charley Bent, ever since a five-thousand-dollar reward was posted on ever’ tree from here to Santa Fe. But I heard a rumor today that he and his Dog Soldiers been killed by a group of Kaw Indians down by Fort Zarah. If that be true, maybe some of these bounty hunters will go back to farming and mining.”

Bethanie was turning red from embarrassment down to her toes by now and wondered if the marshal planned on staying half the night to talk. She wished suddenly she hadn’t sent her only wrapper to be washed, for even holding Mariah did little to cover her. She caught Cain’s eye and thought he must have read her mind, for he put his arm around Hickok’s shoulder and started moving him toward the door.

As Hickok turned to talk with his men in the hallway,
Cain looked back at Bethanie. “Good night, Mrs. Weston,” he said. “I’ll spread my bedroll at the foot of the back stairs. I’ll be there if you need me again.”

“Thank you.” Bethanie thought of asking him to call her by her first name, but instinctively she knew he wouldn’t approve. He was a man who valued his distance from people.

Mariah was too young to feel his withdrawal from the world. She ran holding her arms out to Cain. The huge man lifted her gently, as though she were a priceless treasure. She kissed his cheek and hugged him around the neck.

When Cain looked up, Bethanie thought she saw tears in his eyes. “I’ll be near if you need me,” he said as soothingly as a father would calm a frightened child.

Long days filtered by while the wagon moved through Raton Pass. Bethanie was amazed at Cain’s stamina. Though he must have been twice her age, he never seemed to tire. The mountains grew huge and snowcapped. Forest covered the sloping land in thick shades of green with only scatterings of silvery aspens to sparkle in the emerald forest. Though the late summer days were mild, the nights now required a blanket.

Bethanie loved watching the countryside. After the flat land of Texas, this country quilted her scattered nerves together with its loveliness. The wind blended colors and smells fresher than she had ever known. Crystal streams of icy water crisscrossed the mountains as if in welcome to all visitors.

She saw signs of earlier travelers along the way. Sometimes the rotting frames of less sturdy wagons could be seen from the trail. Once Bethanie even noticed a faded banner across one of the wrecks. “Pikes Peak or Bust” was written in red. Black paint had been splattered across
it announcing, “Busted, By Gosh.” She couldn’t help but think about all the men and women who had traveled here since 1849, their dreams no more at risk than her own right now.

As dusk brushed gold across the mountaintops, Williams, the trail boss, showed Bethanie her first view of Josh’s home. Aspens nestled in a small valley and a huge white house stood guard at the edge of the trees. Though mining was a fever in this country, Bethanie couldn’t help but think ranching would have to prosper in this beautiful valley, at least in the warmer months.

Williams, the trail boss, rode close to say his goodbyes. The men were already turning the herd toward a large pasture farther north. Williams told her simply that Josh had bought the house the first winter he arrived, even though it was several miles from his mine.

Impatience struck Bethanie, and she kicked Twilight into a gallop. She’d waited all these weeks to see Josh. Though she’d told herself over and over she was making the trip to bring news of Ben’s death, she now knew she had to see Josh again. She had to know if her constant memory of him was merely an innocent girl’s dreams. She’d hidden away her ache for him in the darkest corner of her soul, but still the ache was there, as alive and real as it was the day he left. Though she’d been Ben’s wife in every way, there was a tiny part of her that cried out for the wild, undefined love she’d shared briefly with Josh…a part she’d denied long enough.

She jumped from her horse and ran into the house without knocking. She was several feet into the hall before the sight that greeted her sent sudden shivers up her spine. Trash and broken furniture lay everywhere. Discarded whiskey bottles were scattered across the floor, making it resemble an alley behind a saloon more than a home. The large rooms were bare of any life or warmth.

Bethanie stumbled backward in horror. Dirt and
spiderwebs blanketed all but the latest deposits of bottles. The thought that Josh might live in such a wallow sickened her to the core.

“Whata ya want?” A shrill yell came from behind Bethanie.

Bethanie turned to see a fat woman with filthy gray hair hanging in long willow strands from a wrinkled face.

The crow-sharp voice sounded again. “I said, whata you want, dearie?”

Bethanie swallowed hard and tried to make her voice sound calm. “I’m looking for Josh Weston.”

“Well, you can look all you like, but you ain’t gonna find him here.”

Bethanie couldn’t keep the hope from her voice. “This isn’t his house?”

“Sure this is his house, but he stays up at the mine. Don’t come down but once in a while to sleep off a drunk. I’m the housekeeper, since some men broke in here a year ago and busted up the place. He wouldn’t be too happy to know there’s more strangers here, so suppose’n you tell me what you want and be on your way.”

Bethanie could smell the whiskey on the housekeeper’s breath, but she stood her ground. It would be dark in less than an hour, and she had no intention of sleeping outside. She stepped around the old woman and took the first two stairs. “Are there bedrooms upstairs?”

“Maybe there is, but this ain’t no hotel, miss. I ain’t got the place cleaned up from the last bunch of strangers who came in here drinking and fighting. So why don’t you just be on your way before I…”

“Mrs. Weston.” Cain sounded from the porch. “Mrs. Weston, are you all right?”

Shocked twisted the old woman’s face into a thousand wrinkles. “Mrs. Weston,” she whispered.

“Yes;” Bethanie answered, her low voice bearing a ring of steel. “I’m Bethanie Weston, and I’d like to see
if there is a room clean enough to sleep in.” She moved up the steps. “Tomorrow we’ll begin cleaning this place.”

The old housekeeper wiped her hands on a filthy apron. A touch of worry blended through her bloodshot eyes. “Your room is at the top, Mrs. Weston. It’s been closed off ever since I’ve been here, but Mr. Weston told me to sweep it out every once in a while.”

Bethanie opened the door the woman indicated, fully expecting to see more trash. To her surprise the room was orderly, but dusty. All the furniture was draped with sheets, as if waiting to be unveiled. As she pulled the covers, she was delighted to find finely carved, delicate furnishings.

The housekeeper let out a long breath as Bethanie smiled. “I knew Mr. Weston was married, even if he never talked about it to no one in these parts. There ain’t a man in the territory who would buy the things in this room unless he had a woman in mind. Besides, I see you wear the same kind of band he does on your finger.”

Bethanie realized the woman’s mistake. She thought Bethanie to be Josh’s wife. She twisted the ring that had once been her grandmother’s. If she told the woman of her mistake, there was a chance Josh would get the news of Ben’s death before she could tell him. Also, she might get more work out of the old drunk if she believed Bethanie to be the wife and not just the widowed sister-in-law. Bethanie bit her lip and decided saying nothing was not really a lie. After all, she
was
Mrs. Weston, and she did own half of the mine. Cain eased the silence by bringing Mariah and the bags.

Though Bethanie was tired, she and Cain worked until midnight cleaning the bedrooms and hall. They scrubbed a room clean for Mariah and put her to bed before starting on Bethanie’s room. The housekeeper kept disappearing,
but Cain did the work of three people. Before they said good night he had hauled all the broken furniture that had lined the entry and halls outside to burn. As he walked toward the barn, Bethanie wondered at his unyielding devotion. It was as though he couldn’t sleep without first seeing that she and Mariah were comfortable.

Bethanie bathed and crawled into her bed, smiling contentedly at the warm room around her. The fine oak furniture reflected the glow of the fireplace in golden tones of warmth. Whatever Josh’s reasons were for buying this house and these furnishings she could only wonder, but the room made her feel at home. She dared to hope he would welcome her and not still resent her. She fell asleep feeling Josh was near for the first time in three years.

In the darkness of the house before dawn, Bethanie’s nightmares returned. In her dream, the room was cold and barren. She heard shouts from outside. Suddenly her mother was yelling, “Run, Bethanie, run!” She climbed down from the bed. She was running for the woods behind her house, running until her lungs were on fire. She heard her mother scream behind her. Then she was falling, falling into blackness.

A cry of horror escaped her lips and woke her to reality. Bethanie sat up in the cold room and felt sweat bead across her body. Though it was only a dream, to her emotions it always seemed real. The dream never ended. She always woke at the same point.

She lit a candle and filled the room with shadows. Tears stained her eyes and she wished Ben were close. His presence had kept the dream at bay for so long; Bethanie had almost forgotten the hollow fear that echoed each pounding of her heart, each shallow breath. She rose slowly and dressed. There would be no more sleep for her tonight.

She pulled the blankets from the bed and noticed two chairs turned with their backs together by the window. They’d been against the wall when she first looked at the room, and she hadn’t thought of moving them. As she draped the bedcovers over the chairs and opened the window, she couldn’t help but wonder if Cain had done the rearranging. To her knowledge, he’d never been inside the ranch house, much less her bedroom back in Texas. Someone must have told him of her habit of airing all the covers every morning. A habit passed down from her Shaker mother. His thoughtfulness never ceased to amaze her.

As if her thought of Cain drew him to her, a light knock sounded at her door. Bethanie pushed the bolt back and opened it without hesitation. She knew it would be Cain. The housekeeper was probably sleeping off her drunkenness. No one else could have passed Cain to get to her door.