Daisies In The Wind (7 page)

She would certainly have her work cut out for
her here. What was it she had told Wolf Bodine? She would turn this
place into the grandest ranch in Montana?

She groaned and rubbed her eyes. He must
think her a complete fool. Well, she would show him—she would show
them all.

But it would take time.

She’d start small, selling the last of the
jewels she’d kept, all gifts from her father over the years. With
the money, she might be able to buy some cattle. And if she took
the teaching position in town, she’d have a salary to live on and
to save. If she was frugal there would be something to put toward
building her herd, hiring some ranch hands, adding outbuildings, a
corral....

No one in town need know she was penniless,
that she’d given away all of the money Bear had left her. She could
let them think she was doing them a favor by taking the teaching
position. She could build the ranch slowly, living carefully all
the while, taking her time.

Maybe it wouldn’t become the biggest ranch in
the territory, she conceded, rising from the table to carry her
plate to the sink, but at least it could become a working ranch, a
ranch that would eventually allow her to be self-supporting and
independent.

The wind outside had turned briskly cool.
Even though autumn was only just approaching, winter seemed to be
threatening already. No doubt it will be here sooner than expected,
Rebeccah thought with a shiver, for Montana’s winters were known to
be fierce and deadly. She hastened to the only window still
open—the one in the parlor—and tugged it shut, then made a careful
check of the cabin once more, assuring herself that all the doors
and windows were secure. The cabin looked almost cozy, she thought,
with its polished floors and gleaming shelves and counters. She’d
made a dent, at least, in what needed to be done. A start. It was
enough for tonight.

By the time she’d washed the grime from her
face, neck, and body with a cake of lilac-scented soap she’d
brought from Boston, stripped off her crumpled dress to don a
lace-trimmed pink cotton nightgown, and crawled into bed, every
muscle longed for sleep. Yet lying there in the darkened bedroom
with a single stubby candle flickering faintly in its brass holder,
she found that sleep would not come. Her thoughts kept returning,
stubbornly, to the man whom she’d been trying to block from her
mind.

Wolf Bodine.

For the first time it dawned on her that
there was an odd similarity between his name and that of her
father. Wolf ... Bear—they were both derived from animals. Her
father had earned his because of his size and often menacing
demeanor—he’d been Bear since he was sixteen, he’d told her once
proudly, though his real name was John Lucas Rawlings.

She wondered fleetingly how Wolf Bodine had
come by his name.

Never mind
. She decided she didn’t
want to know. She didn’t want to know anything more about him. Her
encounters with Wolf Bodine today had destroyed whatever romantic
daydreams she had once entertained about him. The man was rude,
insufferable, judgmental, and altogether loathsome.

And married.

She’d stay out of town as much as possible
and hope she wouldn’t run into him very often.

“I’ll be watching,” he had said before riding
off. Rebeccah shivered beneath the faded blue quilt and stared at
the dark-shadowed ceiling. Someone else had said something similar
to her recently. And though she’d tried to shrug it off, now that
she was here alone on the ranch, with no one else around for miles,
it was hard not to think about that other, more menacing
warning.

We’ll be watching
. That’s how Neely
Stoner’s hireling had put it before she’d sent him scurrying from
the garden at Miss Wright’s Academy, dodging bullets from the
derringer she kept on her person at all times. She couldn’t help
wondering if Stoner would show up himself next time.

Please God, no.

A tight knot of fear twisted inside of her.
The memories brought on by thoughts of Neely Stoner turned her skin
clammy. Her heart began to beat like the wings of a frenzied bird,
and she felt the familiar icy terror building in her chest. She sat
up in the bed and hugged her arms around her knees.
Fight
it
, she commanded herself.
Don’t let him have this power
over you
. Yet it was a struggle to drive away the terror. She
had spent too many nights trying to stop the trembling, forcing
away the sick nausea, the bouts of panic.

Damn you, Neely Stoner.

If Stoner thought he could get away with
frightening her, he was dead wrong, she told herself. She’d already
had practice killing a man today, and it would give her
satisfaction to shoot a bullet through Neely Stoner’s evil heart.
He deserved it. Her father had nearly killed him that night eight
years ago when he found out what Neely’d done—Bear had certainly
beat him within an inch of his life and then run him off
permanently from the gang. Rebeccah knew that if Bear had believed
for one minute that Neely Stoner would have the gumption to show up
years later and harass her over some rumors of a silver mine, he
would have killed him on the spot, Rebeccah was certain of it.
Well, now she might have to do the job herself.

A heavy Montana wind groaned at the window
shutters. Rebeccah burrowed deeper beneath the threadbare eiderdown
quilt. She had a derringer under her pillow, another one stuffed
beneath the mattress, a third in her reticule. And she’d buy a
shotgun in Powder Creek next time she went into town.

What would Sheriff Bodine say about that?

“Who cares?” she whispered into the lonely
darkness.

But she fell asleep remembering the
expression on his face when she’d asked about his wife and son,
wondering what exactly in her question had struck such a tender
nerve.

* * *

“The teachers in this here school and those
other gals—they’re treating you right?” Bear asked, the first time
he came to visit Rebeccah when she was thirteen years old.

“Yep—yes,” she’d amended quickly, remembering
the grammar Miss Lindly had been drilling into her.

Bear seemed to fill the garden where
stone-bordered beds of roses and white-and-blue violets nestled
among stately oaks and maples, and water splashed in a marble
fountain nearby. He paced back and forth, all spruced up in his
black suit and starched shirt, his new black bowler set squarely on
his head. “You sure, Reb? You were sitting all by yourself when I
found you in that library. The other gals, they were all sitting at
tables together.”

“My particular friends are on an outing
today. They went to the museum,” she lied.

Bear peered shrewdly at her and sat down
beside her on the bench. He took her slender hand in his great big
one, holding her fingers gently, “Ah-huh. Tell me, Reb, you know
what to do if anyone gives you any trouble? Put up your fists and
give ‘em their due. You remember how?”

“I remember, Bear.” She remembered so well,
she’d given Analee Caruthers a black eye only last week—and
received a month’s worth of demerits for it. “Honest, don’t worry
about me,” she urged, reaching up to hug him, inhaling the powerful
sweat and tobacco scent of him. “I’m fine.”

But Rebeccah knew he
did
worry about
her. He worried a great deal. And she loved him for it. His visits,
limited to only two or three a year, were precious to her—even
though the whispers, laughter, and pointed fingers were worse after
he’d been there.

She was glad he wasn’t like the other
fathers, so formal and stern, respectable and dull. So what if he
looked like an outlaw, a big, striding dangerous man with a booming
voice and a harsh, guttural laugh?

He was hers, all she had, and he loved her
more than life itself. That meant everything to Rebeccah.

So she lied to him (after all, he had taught
her how) and pretended everything was fine at Miss Wright’s, even
though she was a pariah among the rich, snippy girls who came from
such fine Boston homes, even though her teachers frowned at her for
squirming in her seat, throwing spitballs at Analee, and drawing
rude caricatures of the vice principal. It didn’t seem to matter
that she was first in her class, that she learned all of her
lessons quickly and with ease, that she was gifted in music and
literature and Latin. She’d have been in danger of being called a
bluestocking if she wasn’t such a rowdy, disrespectful tomboy.

Instead they called her things far
worse—troublesome, quarrelsome, ungainly, disrespectful,
incorrigible.

But Rebeccah never complained to Bear. It
would have troubled him so. He wanted a safe place for her, a place
where she could better herself, could learn to be a lady and how to
go on in a world without guns, posses, dynamite, and men like Neely
Stoner. She instinctively understood all that and was moved by his
concerns, and never once told him that she was lonely and
friendless and utterly miserable.

She would dream at night that she was back
with the gang, galloping like the wind across the Arizona desert,
free and wild and safe from all the watching, critical eyes. In her
dream Bear was riding beside her, grinning at her, racing her, and
she was happy—but then all too often the dream would change. Bear
was gone, everyone was gone, and she was all alone on the banks of
a high, raging river. There were weeds tangled around her legs and
knees, and she couldn’t move. Suddenly Neely Stoner’s cruel face
would loom over her. His hands would reach out for her, and she
couldn’t get away, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t escape those grasping
weeds ... or his hands ... and she’d wake up screaming.

* * *

“Don’t scream.”

The man’s sweaty hand was clamped over her
nose and mouth so tightly, she could scarcely breathe, much less
scream. But Rebeccah tried anyway. It was reflex born of sheer
panic.

He cursed. His fingers dug harder into her
cheeks, his knobby palm jamming cruelly against her lips.

“Don’t scream!” he barked. “I told you. Not
that anyone can hear, but I hate the sound of a woman’s screams.
I’d as soon kill you as listen to your squawks, understand?”

Rebeccah nodded helplessly, drenched in a
sweat of terror. She remained perfectly still, peering up at the
stranger pinning her to her bed, praying he would remove his hand
so she could breathe freely again.

Darkness smothered the room, but for the thin
bars of silver moonlight squeezing in through the drooping
curtains. In the dimness she could only just make out an unshaven
moon-shaped face; small, dark, glittering eyes; long, greasy
hair.

No. Please; no. Don’t let this happen.
Don’t let him touch me.

“You gonna keep quiet?”

She nodded again, as best she could.

He gave a satisfied grunt. His hand slid away
from her mouth, and Rebeccah breathed in the fetid stink of him.
She fought back the urge to retch. He smelled even worse than he
looked.

“Who are you?” she whispered hoarsely, aware
that he was shifting his weight from her, leaning back.

“I’ll ask the questions, girlie.”

From somewhere deep inside, beneath the
agonizing fear and the vise of dreadful memories, a burst of
defiance made her demand, “What are you waiting for, then?”

“Uppity little cuss, ain’t you?” the man said
softly. He drew back his hand and struck her hard across the
jaw.

Triangles of red blinding light stung her
eyes. Her vision blurred—the round, grimy face above her swam in a
gray mist.

“There’s more where that came from if you
don’t keep quiet and pay attention. Neely Stoner sent me. I’m Fess
Jones. You’ve heard of me, I’ll wager.”

She’d heard of him. Fess Jones—cold-blooded
murderer, outlaw, gunslinger. He’d killed eight men, two women,
maybe more. He was infamous back east. The newspapers screamed of
his exploits as one of the Wild West’s most brutal outlaws, dubbing
him Savage Fess.

“Stoner wants that silver mine your pa left
you. So do I. See, him and me are pards, girlie. We’re goin’ to
split everything from that there mine fifty-fifty. All you have to
do is hand over the papers and the map. Then, little girl, you get
to stay alive.”

He was after the mine. The mine. He isn’t
here to rape, Rebeccah told herself, struggling against the
squeezing terror.

Think!

Rebeccah knew she couldn’t reach the
derringer under her pillow. Not before he could stop her. Her lips
felt cracked and dry. She tried to figure out a plan, though the
pain in her jaw and head hurt so badly, it dulled her senses.

“Well?” Jones prodded, poking her side with a
finger. “You kin talk now. Where’s them papers?”

Rebeccah met his squinting, feral gaze,
trying to sound more calm and assured than she felt while flat on
her back with a slimy killer kneeling over her. “I already told the
other man Stoner sent—I don’t have any papers to any mine. And I
know nothing about a map.” She forced herself to stare earnestly,
innocently into those cold, vicious eyes, forced herself to speak
slowly, though her heart was thumping. “Mr. Jones, if I had what
you want, I’d give it to you. I would. But Bear never mentioned any
mine to me. Neither did his solicitor. Don’t you see? It’s all
rumor. There’s nothing to it. So, please—go away and leave me
alone.”

He hit her again, even harder than the first
time. The room exploded into prisms of red and black and dazzling
white. Pain rocked through her jaw, sharp as a sledgehammer. There
was a buzzing in her ears.

“You’re lying.” She heard Fess Jones’s snarl
as if from a great distance. “I’m counting to ten!”

Little whimpers of pain tore from her
lips.

“One! Two! Three ...”

Rebeccah fought to clear her throbbing
head. Think ... damn it ... think. He’s stronger and meaner than
you are, but for God’s sake, he isn’t smarter.