Sagebrush Bride (2 page)

Epilogue                                                              
39

About the Author                                              
39

August 1865 Dakota Territory

“I need a man.”

The quietly spoken words had nearly the same
effect as though they had been shouted at the top of the woman’s lungs, drawing
every ear and eye within spitting distance. At least seven brows lifted in
silent question, four hat brims rose in consideration, three card hands laid
flat, and a disbelieving jaw dropped in stunned surprise.

The storm of voices abated completely, and the
cessation of sound was punctuated by the noisy thumping of mugs as one by one
they came down upon the wooden tables.

In the ensuing silence even the flickering gas lanterns
seemed to roar in Elizabeth Bowcock’s tender ears.

The glass Josephine McKenzie had been wiping clean
plummeted to the floor, shattering. “Are ya crazy?” she asked. Reaching over
the counter, she slapped a hand over Elizabeth’s mouth to halt her impetuous
words. “What do you mean coming in here spoutin’ off that hogwash?” Her eyes
narrowed in censure.

With an exasperated sigh, Elizabeth smacked her
friend’s hand away from her face. “Where else would I expect to find one?” She
fought back the despairing urge to crawl over the bar and spend her tears upon
Jo’s shoulder. Only the knowledge that everyone’s eyes were suddenly fixed upon
them kept her rooted to the spot.

As though trying to calm herself, she removed her
worn spectacles and blew at a nonexistent speck of dust. Replacing them
haphazardly on the bridge of her softly freckled nose, she straightened her
shoulders and tried to bolster her pride.

She’d never been anything more than Doc Angus’
spinster daughter. When her father had just up and died last fall, it had
seemed only natural she take over his practice. Doc Liz, the men called her.
And no, she didn’t attract men’s attention, with her ugly specs, her baggy
clothes, and her thick, dark blond braid of hair hanging like a donkey’s tail
behind her, but for the briefest moment, with those spectacles gone, she had
felt… well, passin’ pretty.

Maybe it was simply the effect of those four
little words: I need a man. But she did suddenly attract unusual
attention—especially since there was such a shortage of women in Sioux
Falls these days, both marriageable and unmarriageable alike.

Ears perked.

Jo’s dark eyes blazed. The red plume in her auburn
hair shook determinedly. “Not in my place you won’t—leastways not the
kind I reckon you’re hoping for!’’

With a glaring sidewise glance at their unwelcome
audience, Jo came around the bar and seized hold of Elizabeth’s arm. “Look what
you’ve gone and done!” She fired another anxious look over her shoulder. “Good
Lord, no—don’t! Come on, we’ll talk in the back. Quick,” she urged.
“Looks like you’ve hatched yourself a mess o’ trouble this time, sugar.”

With the sound of a chair being raked behind them,
Elizabeth realized her blunder.

Too late.

“Now, now, Miss Josephine, where ya thinkin’ ta
take the gal?” Dick Brady asked, keeping pace behind them.

Elizabeth could almost smell his liquor-charged
breath as he slipped a hand over her shoulder and jerked her to a halt.

“Dadburn it, I said ta wait a minute,” he
blustered.

Squaring her shoulders, Elizabeth swung about to
confront the bristle-faced man.

“I believe, if’n I heard the gal right, Miss
Josephine,” Brady continued, “she said she was needin’ herself a man. I don’t
rightly think you ken help her out with that, now ken ya?” He scratched his
heavily whiskered jaw, his face contorting with the brutish pleasure that skin
scraping gave him. “Best you leave that business to me,” he crowed. “What ya
got ta say ’bout that, Miss Lizzy?” He gazed at her lewdly. “You want me to
help ya out, sweet Miss Lizzy?”

Sweet Miss Lizzy?

Elizabeth’s stomach recoiled at his revolting
proposition. And since when had she become sweet Miss Lizzy?

“Doc Liz!” she snapped. “You oughta be ashamed of
yourself, Mr. Brady—and no! I surely don’t need your help!”

Turning from him, she shuddered with disgust and
started away, refusing to allow him to intimidate her.

By most accounts, the man was a shiftless ranch
hand, unable to find permanent work with decent folks. Mostly he just gambled
with drifters, cheating for his money—and he didn’t do that very well,
from the rumors Elizabeth had heard. How he’d managed to hang around Sioux
Falls so long, she really didn’t know, burning bridges as freely as he did.

Taking her cue from Elizabeth, Jo turned, too, her
eyes lifting skyward in supplication. She hoped it would end there, prayed it
would. Trouble was, she knew better.

Brady moved in front of them, blocking their path.
He leaned his elbows back much too casually upon the bar, all the while eyeing
Elizabeth obscenely.

Darting a look across the room, Jo found their one
chance at deliverance fast asleep, hat on face and all, and she muttered an
unintelligible curse. How dare Cutter sleep so placidly just now? For a moment,
in her irritation, she considered screaming for help, but then decided against
it. How many times had she spouted off to Cutter that she could manage things
well enough on her own? Besides, if she could keep from mopping up blood
tonight, that was the way to go. There was no telling how her brother would
react if she roused him from his nap, particularly to the sound of her
screaming.

Brady scratched his forehead. The scraping sent
another shudder down Elizabeth’s spine. “Well now… I think ya do, Miss Lizzy.
You ask for a man and here I am,” he said with a meaningful grin. He reached
out and seized Elizabeth’s dowdy spectacles from her face before she’d realized
what he intended, looking the shiny lenses over, this way and that, finally
raising a matted brow at her.

“Well, lookee here,” he said finally. “Don’t think
I done spected there was a real lady behind these things.” He looked up at her
meaningfully. “Shame on you, Miss Lizzy. You gonna bother to tell us what else
you’re hiding from us poor fellas?” With a dirty little self-satisfied chortle,
he glanced toward the table where he’d been playing cards with his friends. He
winked, his face contorting hideously with the drunken effort. “Whattaya think,
boys? Think Doc Liz’s been keepin’ stuff from us?”

A round of laughter answered his question as one
man rose, swaying, from the table and headed their way.

The other rose, too, unceremoniously dumping a
petite, dark-haired woman onto the dusty floor at his feet. “Wait right here,”
he demanded, then stumbled forward after his comrades, unwilling to miss any of
the evening’s promising entertainment.

As the enormity of the situation finally
registered, Elizabeth’s heart thudded frantically. How very stupid she’d been.
She could see that now. But she passed these same self-loving clods on the street
every day. Never once had they given her a second glance. She’d honestly never
considered this a possibility.

Actually, she’d expected to pay dearly for the
services she required—had even considered blackmail, in fact. But though
she was a physician, she was only a woman, and while no one hesitated to seek
her out for medical aid, neither did they seem to value her overmuch either.
Threatening to leave the town without a doctor would have done little good for
her cause.

With a sigh, Jo inched closer to Brady, darting
another irritated look toward the figure sprawled comfortably in the corner.
She forced a smile, and slid a hand down Dick Brady’s arm to lessen the sting
of her coming rebuke. “Now, Dickie boy,” she said, looking reproachfully at his
men. “Boys... iffen it’s a woman you’re after, there’s plenty of ’em here
other’n Doc Liz. Why,” she continued on a sweet high note, winking at him
coyly, “Doc Liz here wouldn’t know your heads from your hairy heinies!”

Riotous laughter exploded.

Dick Brady’s smile turned lascivious, but his gaze
remained pasted to Elizabeth.

Her cheeks warming with a mixture of chagrin and
outrage, Elizabeth shot Jo a warning glare, but said nothing. She and Jo were
very unlikely friends—a physician’s prudish daughter and a saloon
madame—but friends they were. Jo would never intentionally malign her,
she knew.

Still, Elizabeth couldn’t quite contain her
indignation. Never had she been spoken to so rudely! Though there was no way
they could know of her grief, Dick Brady’s crudeness was inexcusable. She was
the town’s only physician—no respectable man of medicine would even come
near the place. She deserved to be treated with a modicum of respect.

“But they’s costly,” the tallest man whined. “And
if Miss Lizzy here’s offerin’ for free... ” He shrugged. “Well, then...” The
statement was left hanging in the air as each man mulled it over.

In the darkest corner of the Oasis, a Stetson
lifted. Eyes as black as midnight peered out to scrutinize the woman in
question. With a lazy effort, Cutter McKenzie removed his boots from the small
bare-wood table and quietly set down the front two legs of his rickety chair.

He’d heard every word, of course, and his
curiosity had finally gotten the better of him. The woman, “Miss Lizzy,” had
said very little in her own defense. On the other hand, it seemed his sister
was near to panicking on the gal’s behalf. Likely the poor woman was frightened
out of her gourd, and Jo, naturally good-hearted, just couldn’t bear to let her
be gobbled up.

Squinting as his eyes adjusted, Cutter focused,
and he saw her, her eyes blazing in the dim light, her expression wrathful, and
more than his curiosity was piqued. Never had he seen eyes so brilliant.
Without trepidation, she snatched her spectacles out of Dick Brady’s churlish
hands.

“Doc Liz,” the woman said, her face pale and
pinched with anger, “is not offering anything at all!” She shot his sister a
withering glance, then turned back to glare at Brady. “And I sure enough would
know a man’s posterior from his head,” she assured them both, her eyes
flashing. “Especially yours, Mr. Brady, since it was I who had to stitch that
miserable knife wound of yours.” She gave him a tight little smile, advising
him without words that she’d reached the end of her tether... that he might
want to see himself off before she was forced to tip her hand.

Brady started visibly, almost as though he’d been
physically smacked, turning a deep, mottled shade of red.

Miss Lizzy, on the other hand, Cutter thought with
a touch of respect, looked right pleased with her little bit of extortion, and
it roused a satisfied chuckle from him.

“Two years past, wasn’t it?” Elizabeth persisted,
further emboldened by Brady’s silence.

“Damn, Brady, how in tarnation did you get stuck
in the ass?” the tallest man asked, scratching his head.

Brady swallowed convulsively. He looked to
Elizabeth, and seeing the resolve there, quickly averted his gaze, slapping his
friend’s shoulder. “Come on, boys, Doc Liz says she ain’t offerin’... and sure
t’Betsy’s she ain’t offerin’. Let’s let her be.”

“Uh-uh,” the friend refused. “I know I plainly
heard her say she was needin’ herself a man, and I reckon I’m more’n qualified
to give her what she’s needin’.” He leered at Elizabeth, speaking to Brady
without turning in his direction. “What’s she got on ya, anyhow, to send ya
scampering like a spooked squirrel? How’d ya happen to get a frogsticker in
that mangy ol’ butt o’ yers?” Tension mounted as the man turned to pierce Brady
with an accusing stare.

Chuckling over Brady’s flustered expression,
Cutter stood, stretching slowly. He was sure Doc Liz could handle herself; the
little harridan didn’t even seem to need his sister’s help. Still, he was ready
to step in if the need arose. In the meantime, he stood back, watching with an
admiring grin on his face as she replaced those god-awful spectacles on her
face.

And damn, if he didn’t suddenly have a hankering
for her eternal gratitude.

She wasn’t a looker, not in the usual way, but she
was pretty, despite her obvious efforts to prove otherwise. And he had to hand
it to her, she had more spirit than Cutter had ever witnessed in a
woman—aside from his sister. Jo had come by hers the hard way, though. A
lifetime of dealing with prejudice did that to a body, it seemed. Some would
say he wasn’t the most agreeable sort himself. With good cause. Their father
had been an Irish trapper, their mother Cheyenne, and that made them nothing
more than breeds, with no place to hang a hat. Didn’t fit in with the Cheyenne,
didn’t fit in with the Anglos, either. But it didn’t matter. He preferred it
that way. Life was safer when you played a lone hand.

Still, Jo never complained. She understood,
without having to be told, how lucky she was to have the Oasis, and she gave it
her best, knowing that money and their father’s name had gotten her further
than she could ever have expected to go in the white man’s world. Aside from
that, folks had a healthy fear of the business end of Cutter’s Colt. Anyone who
tangled with his sister, tangled with him. He’d made that very clear.