Dorothy Garlock (22 page)

I’m coming for you, Mary . . . and hell’s coming with me!

Chapter Twenty

E
LI TENDERLY PRESSED
against the soft underside of his bare arm and pain raced down his side. The inside of the barn wobbled for a moment, the setting sun blurring on the horizon, but he steadied himself and stayed upright. The bullet had passed through one side of the tanned flesh of the arm and out the other; the wound itself was more bruise than blood, though a steady seepage had soaked his shirt.

Still, it hurts like hell!

Even though this pain had been his constant companion since the moment he had been shot, he’d done his best to ignore it, particularly in Hallie’s company. The ride back to the ranch had been in near silence. He’d kept his jaw tightly shut as each rock and bump in the road rattled him as badly as it did the wagon. For her part, Hallie had done the same, occasionally looking back over her shoulder in the direction of the town.

Taking the strips of cloth he had scavenged from the ranch house, Eli started to wind them around his arm. Fresh pain struck, and his breath came hard and fast through clenched teeth.
Goddamn that smarts!
He’d have to keep a close eye on the wound to make sure that it didn’t start to go bad, but he couldn’t dare risk a trip to the doctor, not with an assassin on the loose. He’d have to manage to get by.

What had happened had been no accident, of that there could be no denial. Someone had followed him to the cemetery, far from the prying eyes of the people of Bison City, with the intent to do him in. That his attacker hadn’t succeeded would mean another attempt.

Questions raced through his head, neck and neck with the pain.

Who is out to kill me?

Does this have anything to do with Caleb’s murder?

“What happened to you in town?” Hallie stood in the barn’s open doorway, just as beautiful as an angel, her hair glowing in the sun’s waning light. Her face was lined with worry, the corners of her dainty mouth turned down. Eli somehow managed to smile, shrug, and wince all at the same time.

“Not much,” he mumbled.

“Don’t tell me that,” she disagreed with a soft shake of her head. “I’d have to be a fool to believe that, not after the strange way you acted in the mercantile, not after I saw all that blood on your shirt, and certainly not after you were so silent the whole way back to the ranch.”

“Hallie, I—” he began, but she cut him off.

“Then, just as soon as we get back, you rush out to the barn and hide yourself,” she continued as if he hadn’t spoken a word. “Now I find you wrapping up a wound and still you tell me it’s not much?”

Without waiting for a response, she went to him and took his hurt arm gently in her hands. Already, a small flower of deep crimson blood had begun to bloom on the white cloth, the makeshift bandages doing little to staunch the still-leaking wound. Hallie gasped. “Someone shot you!”

“I just . . . it was . . .”

With his good arm, Eli pulled her to him, pressing her small body close to him and holding her tightly in place. He was filled with the warmth of her. It was heavenly. Burying his face in her hair, he inhaled deeply, her scent and touch filling him with emotions that he’d never before experienced. Desperately, he wished that
this
moment might go on forever, that they would never need to return to the danger and hurt of the world; but she shuddered against him, a spasm of feeling that shook them both. Reaching down, he gently took her by the chin and turned her face up toward his.

As he stared down into the pools of Hallie’s eyes a lone tear broke free and raced down her soft cheek, and Eli knew that he couldn’t possibly tell her someone was out to kill him. With all that she had already endured—the nightmarish night at the river and Mary’s near drowning—he would not burden her with his own troubles. What had happened to him in the cemetery had its roots in something else, something
older
, that had nothing to do with Hallie Wolcott.

“Don’t worry about me,” he finally said.

“How can I help but worry,” Hallie replied.

“What happened to me isn’t something to lose sleep over, mark my words.”

She opened her mouth to speak but instead closed it without a sound. As Eli gazed into her eyes, he thought he saw an emotion swim across her face for a moment, some unspoken thing that had nearly come out and revealed itself, but then it was gone just as quickly as it had come.

“Then I guess I’ll have to believe you,” she whispered.

“Thank you, sweet girl.”

Slowly, she disentangled herself from his embrace and pushed away. The words he had spoken had been meant to calm her, but he could see worry etched on her face. She was not convinced, but she did not feel she had the right to press him further.

Hallie turned to go without a word and Eli didn’t make a move to stop her.

Hallie stood in the doorway of Mary’s room in the ranch house and looked in. Abe sat slumped in the chair beside the bed, his chin down on his chest, the light from the kerosene lamp flickering across the walls. Hallie was about to move on, to avoid disturbing his much-needed sleep, when she realized that he wasn’t asleep at all; his eyes blinked several times. He took a deep breath, and bent over to whisper to Mary. It was as if the wind were working its way through a crack in the window, so fine was its sound. But Mary slept on.

Hallie sighed. After her talk with Eli out in the barn, she’d come to the house to find companionship, someone with whom she could talk. The thought of being alone was nearly more than she could bear. Pearl and Hank had been nowhere to be seen so she had come to Mary’s room, treading lightly past the barely open door to the room where Mrs. Morgan lay.

Eli lied to me or, at the very least, refused to tell me the truth.
She felt shaken, and a strong sense of unease tickled the fine hairs on the back of her neck. Something bad had happened to Eli while they were in Bison City. Of that much she was certain, but the truth remained elusive.
I so badly want him to confide in me!
Leaving the safety of his embrace had been difficult, but she knew that to stay was to crumple into a storm of tears and she didn’t want him to see her that way. Still, she couldn’t allow her night to end in silence.

Hallie stepped into the room, and Abe turned to her, rising from his seat.

“Evening, Miss Wolcott,” he said.

“Good evening.” She smiled. “I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

“Not at all, not at all.” He smiled warmly. “I was simply regaling my sweet Mary with tales of my youth. She was always quite fond of them, so I thought I might lift her spirits while she rests.”

“Isn’t it difficult to have a one-sided conversation?”

“It is quite ironic that you would put it that way, my dear”—Abe laughed—“as that was what my story was about. You see, as a young lad growing up in the woods around Springfield, a great deal of my time was spent alone with nature, silent as a Sunday at church, my only companions the trees that shaded me, the many animals that lived beneath their boughs, and the gurgling of a stream or two. In those moments I truly began to appreciate the joy one can achieve in the quiet around you.”

“This was in Illinois?” Hallie asked, fully aware of Lincoln’s true background.

“Yes, it was.” Abe smiled as brightly as the flickering kerosene flame beside him. “Life was so much simpler then. I didn’t have to worry about the intrigues of politics, the back room dealings and out-and-out lies of Washington, and I most certainly did not have to deal with the many problems of running a war. They were better times.”

“It certainly sounds so.”

As she watched Abe speak, Hallie was struck by just how convincing he was. If she didn’t know better, if she hadn’t heard of the story from the Morgans, and if she didn’t know what fate ultimately had held in store for the former leader of her nation, she would
swear
that the man standing before her was indeed Abraham Lincoln, the president of the United States of America.

“Isn’t it hard for you . . . ,” Hallie began, unsure of her words. “Don’t you get tired of being the only one to speak? Of speaking of all of the good times, hoping that she will tell a story of her own?”

“Just as it was in my time as a young boy in the woods,” Abe began, his tone solemn yet warm, “there is more to a moment such as this than there first appears. Even though I desperately wish for Mary to awaken from her sleep, I take a great deal of joy in her company, happy that she is still with me and that I am allowed to remain at her side. I certainly cannot force her to speak; so I wait, patient in my vigilance, ever hopeful that she will open her beautiful eyes and be with me once again. Until then, I wait for her voice.”

“Being patient in such a way would be hard for me,” Hallie admitted.

“‘Patience is a virtue’ is an adage that my mother passed along to me as a boy, and I have never failed to put it to good use—both in my political life and behind the doors of my own home.”

“But waiting is so hard.”

“That is only because you do not see the joy in the anticipation.”

Suddenly, as if it were a lightning bolt from a clear sky, Hallie was hit by the realization that much of what Abe spoke of in regard to Mary could also be applied to her situation with Eli. For his own reasons, Eli was reluctant to share with her what happened to him in Bison City, much as she was to tell him of her time in Whiskey Bend or of what had happened in the mercantile.
But that doesn’t mean that I should spend my time at his side pining for that which is not forthcoming!
On the contrary, she should simply accept that he would tell her when he was ready and enjoy each moment at his side for what it was: a joy!

“I think I do understand,” she admitted, truly happy that of all the people she could have found for companionship at the Morgan family ranch, fate had brought her to Abe.

It was as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

“That’s wonderful,” Abe said, and she could tell from the smile shining in his eyes that he meant the sentiment. “Now if you would like, I’d be honored if you would pull up a chair and listen as I tell Mary yet another tale of my younger days. Who knows, there might be something else for you to learn.”

“I’d love to,” she answered.

Yes, coming to this room was a wise decision, indeed!

Even as the sun dipped beneath the far horizon, bidding a final farewell to the day, Hank could see the dark clouds gathering in the southern sky. In the deepening orange and red light, they looked like bruises, purple and angry. Already, the wind had begun to pick up, rustling the trees and pushing the sweet, fresh smell of rain into his face.

Cupping his hand, Hank lit the end of a thin cigar and inhaled deeply. The tobacco burned within his lungs, but he held the smoke for a moment longer before blowing a plume into the night. With another long day finished, now was his time to relax.

“Looks like more bad weather.”

Hank turned as Pearl approached him, her boot heels echoing on the wooden porch. Her blouse and skirt matched the painted horizon in color; yellows and reds that captured the eye. Her hair was piled high on her head, a few curls breaking free and falling toward her shoulders.

“Reckon so,” he answered.

“Leastways this time when the storm comes, we ain’t gonna be out in it. We won’t need two heroes dashin’ to our aid.”

“We just happened to come along, that’s all.”

“That don’t mean I’m not glad for it.” She laughed easily, and Hank grinned in response. Her voice was as sweet and welcoming to him as the distant rain carried on the wind.

From the moment he had first set eyes on Pearl Parsons by the swollen banks of the Cummings, there had been something
different
about her that had captured his fancy. His time on the ranch didn’t leave him with much left over for socializing, but he’d never met a woman quite so colorful, quite so boisterous, and that, in itself, intrigued him.

“This here’s a nice life,” she remarked, looking out at the sprawling grounds of the ranch. “Myself, I’ve always been one for the cities and towns, all of the hustlin’ and bustlin’, everyone havin’ someplace to be. I didn’t have no idea what I’d been missin’.”

“It ain’t the life for everyone,” he admitted.

“But it was for you.”

“I ain’t fit for the town life,” he said, then chuckled. “That sort of life ain’t never done appealed to me. Runnin’ a business or some such, that ain’t for me. A tie ain’t nothin’ but a noose turned upside down, but it’ll choke a man to death just the same.”

“That’s one hell of a way to look at the world.” Pearl laughed heartily.

“Ain’t it though?”

“As a matter of fact, it is,” she agreed easily with him, her eyes shining in the last rays of the day. “Most of the men I’ve had the displeasure of knowin’ were only interested in lookin’ at a woman’s bare bosom or the bottom of a whiskey glass, so it’s nice to hear somethin’ a mite different.”

“Nice to know I ain’t in such company.”

“No, you most certainly are not!”

For a moment, Hank was content just to look at the strange woman standing beside him. If he had had more experience with women, he felt almost certain that he would’ve known what to say, what remark to make to set her laughing again, but the words eluded him. Oddly enough, Pearl seemed just as happy to be silent, letting their smiles do all the talking.

“Mind if I have one of your cigars and share a bit of your company?” she finally said, breaking their silence.

“Not at all.”

Hank handed her a cigar and then struck a match, cupping it in his hands to keep the wind from snuffing it out. Before she dipped her face to the flame, Pearl reached out and placed her fingers against his own; and in that instant, it was as if he had touched the match to his flesh, so strong was the charge that ran through him. As he watched her puff on the cigar, the tip glowing red from her effort, he realized that he didn’t want the moment to end. When she moved her hand away, he was surprised to find himself disappointed.