Mary Connealy (40 page)

It didn’t escape Silas’s notice that now Hank had a clear shot right at his heart. Silas raised his hands skyward; his head was spinning too hard for any clear thought, with the crying and primed gun and Hank’s steady, deadly threats.

Things came clear when he heard Hank Tool say, “March yourself right on over to the preacher. You’re doing right by my girl.”

Silas figured it out then. “Hank, I just walked in here to help Lulamae with her horse. She grabbed me. We’ve been in here less than a minute. Nothing happened.”

“You’re not gonna shame Lulamae and my family and live.”

Then Silas figured out two more things: Hank knew exactly what Lulamae had done, and the look on Hank’s face was determined and killing mean.

Well, Silas knew he was stupid, and no mistake. He’d gotten himself good and trapped, and now he could marry Lulamae or die, because whatever kind of lying, sneaking polecat Hank Tool was, his hand was steady on that trigger and his eyes meant business.

Silas shook his head.

Hank leveled his shotgun. Dutch and the banker bought into the game with their sidearms.

“Looks like we’re having ourselves a wedding.” Silas marched forward.

Lulamae sprang to her feet and latched onto Silas’s arm and gave him such a smug, satisfied smile, it was all Silas could do not to shake her off. Not such a sweet little thing after all. And Silas would be switched if he’d marry the little sneak. But right now he didn’t have a notion of a way out as they headed for the church.

“Put your hands down, you coyote. You’re only adding to the shame you’ve caused my daughter by walking through town, letting all and sundry know you aren’t marrying her willingly.”

“I think the shotgun is enough of a clue, Hank.” But Silas lowered his hands even as he knew that was the
last
order he planned to obey from Hank Tool.

Dutch ran for the preacher, and by the time they got to the church, both men were standing out front, frowning at Silas. The version of the story Dutch had told had put the holy man firmly on the Tools’ side.

The gun nearly jabbed through Silas’s buckskin coat as they went inside and up to the front of the church. He expected to look later and find a hole worn into the leather and on past his shirt from the prodding of Hank Tool’s fire iron.

“Dearly beloved …”

Silas ignored the preacher and looked sideways at Lulamae and knew, even if he ended up with his backside full of buckshot, he’d be glad for the scars to remind him of what a fool a man can be over a pretty gal. Outwardly, Lulamae was everything a man could want—pretty as a rising sun on a cool spring morning, sweet-talking as a meadowlark perched in a willow tree, fair-smelling as the first rose of summer.

“We’re gonna be so happy, Silas.” Lulamae smiled. “Aren’t we?”

Silas’s skin crawled. He didn’t answer.

Hank jabbed Silas with the gun and answered for him. “Sure you will be, honey.”

The preacher arched an eyebrow at the interruption and looked back at his prayer book.

Silas was glad the preacher glared them into silence, because “Yes sirree, we sure are gonna be happy” weren’t words that were capable of escaping from Silas’s lips.

Because, besides being a pretty little thing, the woman was also a sneak and a liar. Add to that, Silas had talked to her once or twice on a rare trip to town, and he’d been struck by the woman’s pure stupidity. She was dumb as a post, no offense to posts, which at least did what they were put on this earth to do without any surprises.

Silas thought it over a second and reconsidered the dumb part. After all, who was standing here in front of the preacher with posies in her hand, smiling and eager to say, “I do,” to one of the area’s up-and-coming ranchers, and who was standing here with an angry pa poking him with his shotgun muzzle until he said, “I do,” or died saying, “I don’t”?

“We are gathered here today …”

Silas decided to pick dying over marrying Lulamae. He was going to die before he married
any
woman, no matter how fetching her sweet little hide was. He’d learned that from his ma and all her man troubles well enough. Then, when he’d decided there was a woman who would suit him and he’d proposed, she hadn’t stuck when times got tough.

But he was hoping to come up with a third choice. Some middle ground between “get married or die.” Which, as far as Silas was concerned, were the same thing.

“To join this man and woman in holy matrimony.” The preacher closed his prayer book, and Silas’s stomach took a dive. They hadn’t been married while he’d been daydreaming, had they? He was more than sure he’d never said the words, “I do,” but the way this day was going, maybe Hank had said them for him.

To Silas’s relief, the parson droned on. An unlikely time for a sermon, but it appeared that the man dearly loved the sound of his own voice.

Lulamae smiled and batted her eyes and clung to her posies and Silas’s arm. And her pa jabbed him with the long gun from time to time so Silas wouldn’t forget he’d been found in a compromising position with a decent girl.

Silas much preferred the attitudes of dance-hall girls, who’d pull guns
after
they’d collected their money to make men go away.

Not that Silas had any kind of woman he was particularly fond of, and he avoided dance-hall girls out of respect for his faith. But any kind of woman was pure trouble when getting right down to it and best to be avoided. But they smelled good, and a man lost his head from time to time, as Silas had in the livery.

Silas thought of the way Lulamae had smiled and made him feel like she needed rescuing. Now Silas wasn’t a man to dodge the truth when he’d made a mistake, and when Lulamae had gotten so generous with her affections, Silas hadn’t gone running, screaming for the hills like he’d oughta. So everything that was happening to him right now was his own fault.

“Do you Lulamae Tool, take this man …”

The preacher quit with his preachifying and started asking for promises, and Silas knew the time had come to root hog or die. Honestly, he deserved this. He knew better than to let some calf-eyed woman near him. Silas had a normal man’s weaknesses when sweet-talking women were involved.

Hank jabbed him again, and this time Silas wondered if his coat had been torn away and Hank had broken Silas’s hide.

“Will you quit stabbing me? You might as well have a bayonet on that fire iron.”

“Shut up and pay attention, Harden.”

The preacher cleared his throat, glared at them both as if threatening them with eternal fire, turned aside from his vows, and did a bit more scolding, all aimed at Silas, which stung. But Silas wasn’t in any position to clear things up.

“I do.” Lulamae fluttered her lashes, and Silas’s stomach fluttered even faster.

“Do you, Silas Harden, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife …”

Letting her kiss him like that was such a stupid thing to do, he almost deserved to end up hitched to the empty-headed little sneak.

“In sickness and in health …”

But no amount of guilt or prodding was going to shake “I do” loose from Silas. If he belted Hank and jilted Lulamae, he’d have to quit the country, and that rankled something fierce, because he’d just started up a nice little herd on some rugged desert grazing land that he bought for next to nothing because no one could grow a cow on that wasteland.

“For richer or poorer …”

He was going to be a sight poorer all right, because what Silas knew that no one else did was that back up-country, just a couple long, rugged miles on the higher slopes of the San Juan Mountains, was a beautiful valley, lush with belly-high grass and year-round water. This would be the second ranch he’d lost, and leaving it burned him bad.

“As long as you both shall live?”

He might not live all that long, considering his plans for the next few seconds.

Hank jabbed him, which Silas figured was a hint that it was time for him to say his vows.

“If so, say, ‘I do.’”

The honorable thing to do would be to marry Lulamae. He’d had the first few steps of his hoedown, and now the fiddler wanted to be paid. Except Silas’d been set up. His jaw got all tight like it did when someone pushed him hard—like Hank and Lulamae were doing.

Silas looked at the nice glass window straight ahead of him and knew he was going through with it. Or, if he wasn’t as quick as he hoped, he might be leaving feet first out the main door. But before either of those things happened, he’d feed that shotgun to Hank Tool.

Silas turned to face Lulamae. He got nudged right sharp as he moved, but Hank thought he’d bagged himself a son-in-law, so he didn’t pull the trigger when he should’ve.

Silas grabbed the shotgun and shoved the muzzle up. It went off, proving Hank was serious. Silas jerked it out of Hank’s hand and dropped him with a butt stroke to his skull. Silas took two long running steps and dived through that window, knowing Hank had friends in that church and he had none.

Lulamae screamed, a sound so high-pitched it might have broken the window for him if he hadn’t gotten a head start. It liked to have made his ears bleed, but mostly it just made him proud to have done the right thing.

He ran straight for the livery where his horse stood saddled and bridled outside—he’d been on his way home when Lulamae struck.

He tore the reins loose of the hitching post, grabbed the mane of his horse, vaulted onboard, and lit out, ignoring the shouts and whizzing bullets from behind, because his horse was the fastest critter in the area.

Shaking shards of glass off his shirt and trying to stop some stubborn bleeding—all at a full gallop—he hit the high country north of town and decided he’d had enough of New Mexico anyway. He left like he’d come into this miserable state fifteen years ago—with nothing.

Except he did have something. He had the sense to never get near a woman again.

He kicked his buckskin, and he got the feeling that the horse felt the same way about Lulamae that Silas did, because that horse settled into a ground-eating gallop and didn’t stop until they were swallowed up into the sky-high belly of the San Juans.

A
nthony being dead changed his body temperature, but otherwise, as far as how it affected Belle, he hadn’t changed much. Her summer had been the same as usual.

Until now.

She swung down off her horse, just back from a brutal two-day ride into a valley at the far end of her property that had led her to a disaster.

Betsy pulled on Belle’s hair and kicked her legs, obviously happy to be home.

Striding to the house, knowing supper would be about ready to hit the table, Belle studied her tally book. Looking at it again didn’t change those numbers one bit.

She had to thin the herd. And she had to do it now.

Snapping the book shut with as much violence as a woman could inflict on a pad of paper, she slid it into the breast pocket of her gingham blouse that was only slightly still tucked into her riding skirt. She’d pushed hard all day to get home.

The news she had couldn’t wait. She fretted as she went to talk to the girls.

The weather was still nice, though the nights were getting sharp. Winter came early up here, but they still had time. Barely.

That part didn’t worry her so much. The disaster wasn’t about running out of time.

Pushing open her sagging door, she didn’t waste time prettying up the bad news. “I’ve got trouble.”

Emma and Lindsay were inside setting the table. Sarah usually kept Betsy in the house and cared for her and did all the cooking while the older girls did chores. But this time Belle had taken Betsy with her. The baby was still nursing, and Belle knew she’d be gone two full days. So Sarah’d planned to work outside more, and she must have, because her big sisters were helping inside.

All three girls turned, giving her their full attention. From their grim expressions, she knew they recognized her tone. Something bad.

“I found a whole herd of cattle I didn’t know I had in that high valley.”

“You knew there were some up there, Ma,” Emma said.

“I thought maybe a hundred head, two hundred, three even. But I must have had cattle sneaking up there all last year. You know I didn’t get up there to check in the spring or the fall before that.”

“Because you were fat with Betsy last fall and feeling poorly. Then she was so little this spring you decided to skip that long trip.” Lindsay’s hands fisted. “I should have made the trip. I should never have let you talk me out of it.”

“A young girl’s got no business out on a long trail like that alone.”

“Emma and I could have gone together. The two of us together are as tough as you, Ma.”

Probably tougher, but Belle hadn’t wanted them in danger. That valley was too close to the low pass toward Divide. If intruders came, they’d come from that direction.

“I’d say now that I should have let you go. I’d have had the whole summer to get this drive arranged. It’s gonna be hard to find hands this late in the year.”

“How many are up there?” Emma lived and breathed cattle and horses even more than Belle. The girl was already figuring.

“There were over six hundred head.”

Lindsay’s blond brows arched.

A hard breath escaped from Emma. “Our grass is stretched thin with the herd we’ve got. We were pushing our luck to make do until spring…and we were hoping we could use that high range.”

“Well, there’s no grass up there. They’ve eaten it to the nub and started heading down closer to the ranch. There’s a healthy crop of calves that I’ve never branded—good, sturdy, fat stock that are over a year old, plus a nice bunch of spring calves. But they won’t be fat for long.”

“We don’t have enough hay to fill in.” Lindsay frowned. “We can’t begin to sell that many head in Divide.”

“We’re going to have to take ’em to Helena.” Belle jerked off her buckskin gloves and gripped them to keep from strangling herself. They’d lose the whole herd by spring if they didn’t thin it. She’d been lazy, and now her daughters were in danger because they could lose everything. She’d let having a baby slow her down. She deserved
all
of this mess. But her girls didn’t deserve it.