The Outlaw Takes a Bride

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

About the Author

Early May 1885, Colorado Plains

J
ohnny Paynter slung his saddle over his chestnut gelding’s back. He and Reckless would work alone today, repairing the ranch’s roundup pen. Johnny didn’t mind being up here at the line shack all alone—it was better than fighting for elbow room in the bunkhouse. Especially when he was on the foreman’s bad side. Still, he couldn’t help remembering that today should have been his day off.

Frantic hoofbeats pounded in the distance. Johnny dropped the girth ring and walked around his horse to stare down the trail. His friend Cam Combes was riding hard.

“What’s your hurry?” Johnny called as the other cowboy drew near.

“Get your gear. You’ve got to get out of here.” Cam pulled his horse to a stop.

“Why?” Johnny asked. “What’s happened?”

“It’s the foreman. Somebody shot him. And Johnny—they think you did it. You got to run for it!”

“What on earth?” Johnny stared at him. The Lone Pine foreman was known to be harsh and short tempered, but Johnny had mostly managed to stay on his good side—except for the words they’d exchanged right before Johnny came up here to the line shack, but that wasn’t serious. “Are you telling me that Red Howell is dead? How did it happen?”

“Nobody knows.” Cam swung down out of the saddle and dropped his pinto’s reins. “Ike found him this morning, on the trail about a half mile from the ranch. You were the only one unaccounted for when he rode in with the news. Red had told us he was riding up here to see you this mornin’. Wanted to know how you were doing with the roundup pen. Now I guess they think you ambushed him or something.”

“That’s crazy,” Johnny said.

“Some of the boys heard you the other night, when Red told you to come up here. They’re sayin’ you had a fight.”

Johnny shook his head in protest. “That wasn’t any fight. I told Red it was my Sunday off this week, and he said too bad, and I said I really needed a day off, and he said—”

“No time to argue. Get your stuff. You’ve got to go.”

“What, go down and talk to the boss?”

“No!” Cam frowned. “If you do that, they’ll turn you over to the law.”

“But I didn’t do anything.” Johnny glared at him. “I didn’t even know Red was coming up here. Don’t you think I should just go and tell them that?”

“No, I don’t. You need to lie low. Better yet, get out of Colorado. Before the sheriff rides up here to take you in.”

Johnny’s stomach felt hollow. “I’m not going to run. I didn’t do anything.” He went back to his horse and tightened the cinch strap.

“I believe you, but I’m not so sure they will. I heard some of the boys talking about a necktie party.”

Johnny froze. “Are you serious? You mean they’d string me up?”

“You know I always give it to you straight. Remember when Buck Higgins blamed you for lettin’ the remuda loose during the roundup?”

“Yeah.”

Cam nodded. “I told the boss you wouldn’t be that careless. Turned out Buck was to blame. I’ve got your back, Johnny, and I’m just saying you’ll be safer if you make a run for it now. Some of them are pretty hotheaded. If I were in your boots, I’d want to get out of here and not take the chance.”

Cam marched into the cabin, and Johnny followed, puzzling over what he had said. It wasn’t Cam’s fault. He was only delivering the news.

“I don’t know what to do—where I could go.…”

“There must be someplace you could hide out for a while, until things quiet down.” Cam grabbed Johnny’s extra shirt from a peg on the wall. He spotted Johnny’s saddlebag on the cot, picked it up, and stuffed the shirt into it. “What else you got here?”

His urgency ignited a flame under Johnny. He shoved the rest of his few belongings into the saddlebag, his mind racing as fast as his pulse. “I guess I could head down to Texas. My brother’s got a little spread there.”

“There you go.” Cam smiled. “That’s what you need—someplace where you can go and take it easy for a few weeks. When things quiet down, you can come back if you want to, and see if the boss will hire you on again. Give the sheriff time to sort out this shooting and find out who really did it.”

“I don’t know, Cam. Just take off without knowing—”

Cam shook his head. “They said the sheriff had gone to the other end of the county, and they don’t expect him back for a few days. Come on! I’ll ride with you. I admit, I’m worried about you. The fellows at the ranch are real riled. If you don’t get out of here soon, you’ll be dangling from the nearest cottonwood.”

“You’d go with me?” Johnny asked.

“Sure. You’re my friend.”

Relief at not having to go alone washed over Johnny, yet at the same time he hated to get Cam more involved than he already was. But that was Cam’s way, he supposed. It wasn’t just little things like the incident with the remuda. Johnny also recollected the time he’d been thrown from a green cow pony and landed on a barbed-wire fence. Cam had wrapped his cuts and ridden back to the ranch house with him, to make sure he got there without passing out, and he’d given up a night off to stay with him at the bunkhouse. He rubbed his forearm through his sleeve and could feel one of the jagged scars he still bore from that. Even though Cam could get a little wild sometimes, he had proven himself a true friend.

Cam rested a hand on his shoulder. “I’m not going to let them lynch you for something you didn’t do. Besides, I’ve never been to Texas. I wouldn’t mind seeing some new country.”

Three minutes later, the two men were riding hard down the trail away from the ranch. Johnny’s mind still whirled. His life was in danger. He could do nothing less than ride away, even though it went against every impulse.

“You said you have a brother in Texas?” Cam asked.

“Yeah. It’s a long ways. And I haven’t seen him for a couple of years.”

“Should be all right,” Cam said. “And it’s only for a little while.”

St. Louis, Missouri

“Seems that feller’s awful persistent.”

Sally Golding jumped and took her hands from the dishwater. Effie Winters, her hostess and her pastor’s wife, stood in the kitchen doorway, scowling down at the letter in her hand.

Sally hastily wiped her hands on her apron. “For me?”

“What’s that make—seven? Eight?” Effie held out the envelope, still eyeing it as though reluctant to hand it over.

“Thank you.” Sally took it, slid it into the pocket of her threadbare black dress, and turned back to the sink. She wouldn’t open it in Effie’s presence. While the Reverend and Mrs. Winters had shown great kindness in taking her in, their hospitality seemed to be growing a little thin. Effie made no secret of the fact that she felt Sally had overstayed her welcome.

But what else could she do? Not many places of employment were open to a respectable widow in St. Louis. Sally had tried to live frugally on her sewing skills, but she hadn’t earned enough to pay rent and buy food for herself. When she had appealed to the minister a year ago, he had spoken to his wife and they had offered her a tiny room in their attic until she could get her feet under her again. It was their duty to help widows, the reverend had told her. The next Sunday, he had announced her move into their home to the congregation, a bit pompously, Sally thought.

“You about done with those dishes?” Effie eyed the clean skillet and saucepan waiting to be dried and put away.