Spirit of the Wolf (3 page)

Like a mama hen, Bess walked among the hands, each
slouched
eagerly over steaming bowls of
stew
. "Is it good, boys? Don't be shy now, there's plenty more!"

"Ain't you gonna set at the table with us, ma'am?" the man named Jeremiah asked.

The only chair left was the one beside her father's...and directly across from
Chance
Walker's. A glance was enough to tell her he'd realized the same thing, for his
mustachioed
mouth slanted in a wry grin.

"We'd be right pleased if you'd join us," he drawled. And without taking his eyes from hers, added, "Ain't that right, boys?"

The men stopped talking and chewing and reaching for food long enough to nod
and voice their agreement. Matt, true to his nature, said, "But before you get all
good and
comfy, sister dear,
would you mind
refillin' the biscuit basket?"

"We could use more 'taters, too," his twin put in.

Chance
stood, ignoring the dull squeal of his chair as it grazed the polished pine-planked floor. In an instant, he was beside her, one big hand pressed lightly to the small of her back. "Y'all just settle down there, Miss Bess. I'll fetch the biscuits and the 'taters for you," he said, pulling out her chair. Then, with what looked suspiciously like a sly wink, he added, "Is it all right if I call you Miss Bess?"

She forced herself to look away from his tantalizing smile and focused on her father. "'Miss Bess' indeed!" she repeated, grinning as she put her hand on Micah's shoulder. "Tell him the rules, Pa."

Micah cleared his throat and blotted his bearded face on a napkin. "We don't stand on ceremony around here,
Chance
. While you're at Foggy Bottom, you're family. I'm Micah. That's Matt and Mark. And this is..."

"
…j
ust
. P
lain
. Bess," she finished
.

Chance
leaned close and whispered into her ear, "Nothin
g
plain about you
, if you don't mind my sayin'
."

The nearness of him and the boldness of his statement caused her to inhale sharply. It amazed her that even after the long ride from Baltimore to Freeland, he smelled like fresh hay and bath soap. His compliment echoed in her mind. She'd always seen herself as quite ordinary, especially when compared to her mother's dark, natural beauty. But the way
Chance
looked at her made Bess feel anything
but
plain.

Not knowing what else to do, Bess dashed into the kitchen to fetch the biscuits and potatoes. When she returned,
Chance
was still standing where she'd left him, beside the empty chair. He took the bowls from her, put them unceremoniously on the table, and returned to his own seat. "So, will you be joinin
g
us, Just Plain Bess?" His words, his gentle smile, even his voice belied his flirtatious attitude.

For a reason she couldn't explain, her heart fluttered in response. "I...I think I'd best get busy scrubbing those pots and pans instead," she said, heading back into the kitchen. "If you gentlemen need anything," she added over her shoulder, "just whistle."

Before she even reached the kitchen pump, Bess heard the sweet, soft imitation of a songbird. Grinning, she wondered which of her ornery brothers had done it.

"Say,
Chance
," one of the men said, "when you're finished chirpin', how 'bout passin
g
the peas?" As she listened to the chorus of male laughter, Bess pumped water into the dishpan.
Oh, y
ou're going to have to keep an eye on this one,
she warned herself, adding hot water from the kettle.

A mighty close eye....

***

Hours later,
Chance
lay back on his bunk, trying to remember when he'd last felt as contented. The bedsheets beneath him smelled like sunshine and spring breezes. Beside his cot
,
a three-drawer bureau. He'd only needed the top one to stow his gear
. A
man on the run had to travel light, for he never knew when he'd be hitting the road in a hurry.

Smiling, he patted his full belly. Yes, his stay at Foggy Bottom w
ould
be pleasant, all right...though six months was a long time to stay in one place. Did he dare risk it?

He stared into the darkness for a long time, hands clasped under his head, thinking about Bess. She was beautiful, with a waist so tiny he could
likely e
ncircled it with his hands, and feet so small he wondered how they
held
her upright. The top of her head barely reached his shoulder, even in the high-heeled boots that had peeked out from beneath her lacy petticoats as she'd scampered up the porch steps.

Would
her hair fe
e
l as soft as it looked
?
Frowning, he tried to come up with a word that described the luxurious color.
Chestnuts,
he decided after a moment
.

And those eyes, big and round as a fawn's.
Chance
didn't think he'd ever seen longer lashes. The sadness in her eyes confused him, though; Bess had a rich daddy, brothers who adored her, a home that was more mansion than house.
What on God's green earth does
she
have to be sad about
?

Surely
she'd
never felt the hot sting of the buckle end of a belt, or spent
days
locked up in a dark root cellar. Certainly Micah had ever forced her outside on a cold, windy night to teach her to appreciate the roof over her head
, a
nd
Chance
didn't suppose she'd ever been
forced
to memorize Bible verses when she got the wrong answer on an arithmetic problem, or stand in front of the entire congregation and admit she'd gone fishing rather than attend mid-week services. She probably didn't know what it was like to sit at a food-laden table
and
not be allowed to eat because she'd nibbled at the crust of a pie without first asking permission....

She hadn't experienced any of those things because she'd grown up in the loving presence of a good daddy. Micah,
Chance
reasoned, had been everything his own father had been...good and decent and rock-solid. If the prairie fire hadn't taken his ma and pa, life would have
turned out
different
ly
for Walker
A
twood...alias
Chance
Walker.

He'd worked for enough bosses
during
his ten years on the run to know a good one from a bad one, and Micah was a good one. If only he hadn't said that confounded prayer before they ate....

Everything about the man, from his folded hands and bowed head to his tight-shut eyes, reminded
Chance
of his Uncle Josh, deacon of the King's Way Church.

Josh Atwood, his father's only living relative, had taken
Chance
in after the fire.
He’d l
ived a happy, sheltered life to that point in his life. Then, suddenly and mercilessly, the gentle, loving lessons of his parents were replaced with the harsh, sometimes brutal 'disciplinary' methods of his uncle.

One month to the day after he buried his parents,
Chance
had been in the cemetery, standing between their tombstones when Uncle Josh joined him. "W.C.,"
he'd s
aid,
"startin
g
right now, you're going to begin earnin
g
your keep
around here
. There'll be no more molly-coddlin
g
. 'Spare the rod an' spoil the child,' the Good Book says," declared his uncle, raising the Bible high above his head.

"Are you gonna hit me with the rod...or your Bible?"
he’d
asked, grinning.

His uncle failed to appreciate young W.C.'s humor, and the boy endured the first of many beatings that
day
.
Chance
couldn't help but wonder how
his pa and uncle, both
raised by the same mama and papa, could have become such different men. His father had been so loving, so tender and kind, while Josh had been....

Whipping and chastising his nephew didn't appear to satisfy the uncle. Ridicule and shame, it seemed, were as important in the rearing
of
a child as food and water.
And
Chance
endured it, mostly because he wanted to believe it when his uncle said, "I'm doing these things because I care about you, boy."

He'd stopped believing
that,
once and
for all, when Josh testified at the
murder tria
l
. "Heard him arguing with Horace that very afternoon," Josh had said. "Heard him tell Pickett if he ever caught him threatening a woman again, he'd break his fat red neck." Leaving the witness stand, he'd stood beside
Chance
and
,
with tears in his eyes and a sob in his throat,
said
"May the Good Lord forgive you, W.C."

He hadn't been anywhere near Lubbock when the murder was committed, but who were the good people of Lubbock to believe...the angry young man who rarely attended church, or the good deacon who'd provided a home for his dead brother's orphaned son?

During his years with Uncle Josh, he sometimes had vivid dreams...memories of his parents' caring ministrations. Waking was heartbreaking, because then he was forced to admit that never again would he experience th
eir brand
of love. The images were fiction, no truer than the stories written by that Dickens fellow.

T
he Beckleys seemed an awful lot like Josh Atwood, praising God for clean water and hot food, thanking the Almighty for bringing the hired hands safely from Baltimore to Foggy Bottom. If life hadn't taught him anything else, it had taught him this: When something appeared too good to be true, it was. And he had the scars up and down his back
—put there by the good Deacon Atwood—to
prove it
.

Chance
rolled onto his side and decided that here at Foggy Bottom, he'd earn his keep, just as he'd done on every ranch and farm between
Lubbock and
Freeland these ten, lonely years. He'd exchange idle talk with his bunkmates, with Matt and Mark Beckley. He'd show Micah the respect and courtesy due him as owner of the spread.

Exchanging niceties with lovely little Bess would be the easiest part of his job.
May as well enjoy your stay for as long as it lasts,
he told himself, grinning slightly.

He had very little to call his own. Family and home were mere words to him. Why, he'd wasn't even free to use his given name
!
But
Chance
had his life, and he had his freedom
—such
as it was since the U.S. Marshalls tacked pictures of him
on
every lamp post
,
fence rail
,
and wall
throughout the southwest. "WANTED," the posters said, "DEAD OR ALIVE: W. C. ATWOOD."

He'd traveled about as far from Lubbock, Texas in ten years as a man could go. And when things started looking too cozy in Freeland, Maryland, he'd head still farther east. Right out to the Atlantic Ocean
, then
north, all the way up into Canada!

The Rangers' authority stopped at the Texas border, but U.S. Marshalls could chase a wanted man from Maine to California if they had a mind to. And oh, they'd had a mind to!
Chance d
eliberately let his trail lead them southwest, from Old Horse Road beside that battered, overturned jail wagon, into Mexico
, praying he’d get lucky, and
the marshals
would
believe he'd holed up
in Tijuana
with a pretty se
n
orita.

He
had not been
lucky.

Two years ago in Kansas, the relentless marshals almost caught him. If not for the outlaw gang that hid him in their shack on the outskirts of town....

Chance
shut his eyes tight, hoping to block the horrible memories of running for his life, and when he did, Bess's beautiful face came into view. Her easy, honest smile. That lilting, lyrical voice. Those sad, doe-eyes.... She was everything he'd ever learned about angels, and then some.

His 'too good to be true' rule gonged in his mind.

W.C. Atwood
—alias
Chance
Walker
—sighed
deeply. He'd have to be careful here at Foggy Bottom. Very careful. He'd had women. Plenty of them. But he'd kept them at an emotional arm's length, because
gut instinct told him that
the surest way to jeopardize his freedom was to go and fall in love.