The Rustler (27 page)

Sarah nodded. She'd have to leave the bank to accompany Kitty to the depot the next morning, but she knew, for all her circumspection, that her friend could barely wait to lay eyes on the daughter she hadn't seen in so many years.

“Do you know what she looks like?”

“I'll know her,” Kitty said, choking up a little. “But I'll be a stranger to her.”

Sarah didn't reply.

“Sarah?”

She looked up.

Kitty reached across the table and squeezed Sarah's wrist lightly. “I did something I oughtn't to have done,” she said. “I let Wyatt know I'd welcome his attentions—”

Sarah stiffened.

Kitty's smile was forlorn. “He put me right in my place,” she went on. “There's a man who knows what he wants. And what he wants, Sarah Tamlin, is you.”

Sarah was chagrined at the sense of primitive vindication she felt. She had no reason to mistrust Wyatt—or to trust him, either, for that matter. But she knew if he'd taken Kitty up on her offer, her own heart would have broken.

“Do you love him, Sarah?”

“I don't—I don't know.”

“Take my advice—if he proposes, marry him, whether you love him or not.”

Sarah wasn't about to confide that Wyatt had
already
proposed, after a manner of speaking. If her father hadn't fallen ill, she might have been planning the wedding already, though she had yet to speak with Judge Harvey about Owen. Franklin Harvey was a kindly man, a friend of her father's, and she'd served him supper at this very table, many a time, right along with Doc and Papa. It was going to be difficult to tell him her story, especially when she thought she knew what he'd say in response.

Charles and Marjory Langstreet were Owen's legal parents, and her claim to be the boy's mother would amount to nothing more than hearsay in a court of law. Marrying Wyatt wouldn't change that.

“Sarah?”

She realized she hadn't replied to Kitty's remark.

Kitty didn't wait for a reply, though. “There aren't many men like Wyatt Yarbro. And it's a hard, cold world out there without one, whatever the fire-eaters say about women's rights.”

Doc appeared on the rear stairs before Sarah thought of an answer. He nodded to Kitty, who hastily got up and carried her soup bowl to the sink, smiled at Sarah.

“Owen's regaling Ephriam with wild tales about Wyatt,” Doc said. “I'd swear the old coot is enjoying it. From what little I heard, though, Yarbro would have to be identical quintuplets to get all that done in one lifetime.”

Kitty started up the stairs, returning to the sickroom, and Sarah noticed that her arm brushed against Doc's as they passed, and Doc's neck reddened a little.

He drew up a chair, the one Kitty had just left, and Sarah hastened to fetch a bowl and ladle out soup from the kettle on the stove. It was an old pot; she'd had to toss her good one into the rubbish bin when she couldn't get the black globs, hard as coal and sticky as tar, out of the bottom.

“Thank you,” Doc said. He glanced toward the stairs, then asked quietly, taking up his soup spoon, “Do you think it's a good idea, letting Kitty board here? I know she means to make a new start, but—”

“There'll be talk?” Sarah finished, raising one eyebrow and smiling wanly. “Doc, there's
already
so much of
that
that bringing a former prostitute into the household to serve as Papa's nurse will be practically superfluous.”

The old man chuckled. “I suppose you're right.”

“What have you heard, Doc? You know everything that goes on in this town. Tell me—don't hold anything back.”

Doc looked uncomfortable. “Well, a few people guessed outright that Owen is your boy. I'm a mite bothered that you never told me, though I had my suspicions. When Ephriam went dashing off to Philadelphia ten years back, with Nancy Anne so sick, I figured there must have been
something
wrong, but Ephriam never said, and I didn't pry.” He paused, sighed. “Some say Wyatt is just cozying up to you so he can rob the bank one fine day—even that the reason he was able to turn Paddy Paudeen and those other hoodlums around was because
he's
the leader of the gang.”

It was worse than Sarah had thought, if folks were thinking such a thing. And those damnable dime novels wouldn't help matters. She bit her lower lip, pondering, then asked, “What do
you
think, Doc?
Does
Wyatt plan to hold up the Stockman's Bank?”

Doc considered the question, rubbing his beard-stubbled chin with one gnarled hand. Arthritis had begun to bend his fingers, Sarah noticed, and she felt a pang of pure sorrow. “Ephriam was concerned about that, but he underwrote Wyatt's mortgage on the old Henson place, so that would indicate to me that he'd settled the matter in his mind.”

“I didn't ask what Papa thought, Doc,” Sarah pointed out.

“In my experience, outlaws are generally not the sort to lend a hand with dead bodies or bring a hurt dog to a doctor in a wheelbarrow. I could be wrong, but I'm inclined to believe Wyatt's like Rowdy. We talked, while we were getting those men ready for their coffins, Sarah, and Wyatt told me his mother was a good woman, that she'd be right proud of how Rowdy turned out. They were young, Rowdy and Wyatt and the others, and their pa was as famous as Jesse James. I reckon they followed after him like a bunch of hounds' pups on their first hunt. Like as not, they had prices on their heads before they figured out that they could have chosen a different way.”

“I agree with you,” Sarah said very quietly. “But what if we're wrong, Doc? What if Wyatt
did
come to Stone Creek to rob the bank?”

Doc's battered old face showed real sympathy. He patted Sarah's hand. “You'll have to trust your own heart, Sarah. That's about all any of us can do.” At this, he glanced toward the stairs. “Sometimes, everything in the world seems to be lined up against you. All the evidence says you ought to run the other way. Make the bravest choice, not the safest. It's not the best advice, but it's all I have to offer.”

Sarah stood, bent slightly beside Doc's chair, and planted a light kiss on his forehead. Her mind was full, and so was her heart, and it didn't occur to her until much later that Doc might have meant his advice as much for himself as for her.

 

S
AM'S COWPOKES WERE KIDS
, all right. Some of them didn't look old enough to shave. Beside them, Jody Wexler and his bunch seemed like seasoned men.

Seeing Wyatt's approach, the riders came toward him, converging from several directions. He waited for them, sitting straight in the saddle, and though he had a strong urge to resettle his hat, he didn't. If this bunch got the idea that he was nervous about giving orders, they'd be unmanageable.

It would be a while before he could keep their names straight, but he shook hands with each one of them, no one bothering to dismount, and it was clear that they all recognized the name Yarbro.

“Seems we're a mite shorthanded,” Wyatt observed. The boys looked as though they hadn't bathed since spring, and it seemed unlikely that they used their free nights to sleep, what with town, and the attractions of whiskey, women and poker so nearby. “Does Sam post a night guard over this herd?”

One of the cowpunchers—his name was Thaddeus if Wyatt recalled correctly—nodded, pushed his hat to the back of his head. He was blond, and put Wyatt in mind of a younger Rowdy, which might or might
not
be a good thing. “We take turns. Three of us ride herd from sundown to sunup, and two of us have the night off.”

“Who's riding tonight?”

“Me and Jimmy and ole Robert E. Lee, here,” Thaddeus answered.

Robert E. Lee, if that was really his name, looked to be about fifteen years old. “Bobby-Lee,” the boy said. “That's what I like folks to call me.”

“Well, Bobby-Lee,” Wyatt said amicably, “you can stay in the bunkhouse tonight, after supper. I'll ride with Jimmy and Thaddeus.”

This offer, which Wyatt considered to be a generous one, caused some consternation in the ranks.

“You ain't gonna send me packin', are you?” Bobby-Lee asked, while his four companions shifted in their saddles, probably wondering similar things about themselves. “I need this job, and I'm a good cowpoke. Just because a man falls off a horse once in a while—”

The other four hooted at this.

“You damn near got yourself trampled!” one of them said, slugging Bobby-Lee in the shoulder with such force that he had to grip the saddle horn with both hands to hold his seat.

Wyatt suppressed a grin. “If you give me cause, Bobby-Lee,” he said, “I'll send you down the road straightaway. Same goes for the rest of you. For right now, though, I'm just trying to get an idea how this setup works.” With that, he rode off, made a slow circle around the circumference of the herd.

The cattle themselves looked to be in fine shape, well fed and well watered. The cowboys, on the other hand, couldn't fight off half a dozen spirited old ladies on burros, should said old ladies decide to take up the rustling trade. He'd see what he could do about recruiting some real ranch hands, first thing, though he supposed if Sam O'Ballivan hadn't been successful at it,
he
probably didn't have a chance in hell.

Because he had a few hours before he had to take up the night watch, Wyatt selected a sorrel gelding from the horses Sam had offered him his choice of, switched his saddle from Sugarfoot to the new mount, and headed back toward Stone Creek.

First, he left Sugarfoot at the livery stable.

Second, he rode out to his own place, to make sure his lumber had been delivered, and no outlaws had moved in in his absence.

Everything looked on the up-and-up. He inspected the lumber, put the tools away in the ruined house, and hoped it wouldn't rain. With luck, he could spend Sunday working on the roof.

He hauled a few beams out of the house, and worked up a good sweat, and by the time he got back to Stone Creek, it was almost sundown. He drew rein at Sarah's gate, hoping to have a word with her.

She must have seen him through the front windows, because she came out before he'd even dismounted. He saw both a welcome and a stand-back in her eyes.

“You missed lunch,” she said.

“I was out at Sam O'Ballivan's.”

She shaded her eyes with one hand. “You'll be staying out there from now on?” she asked. He couldn't tell from her voice whether that was a sorry prospect or cause for celebration.

He decided not to get down off the new horse. “Yes,” he said. “How's your father?”
How are you?

“He seems to be holding his own,” Sarah said.

After that, they were stuck for conversational fodder, the both of them. Wyatt probably would have tipped his hat and ridden off if Owen hadn't come shooting out through the front door like a live bullet out of a hot stove.

“You're famous, Wyatt!” he whooped. “You're
famous,
just like Rowdy and Sam and Jesse James!”

“What?” Wyatt asked, frowning.

“It seems you're the hero—if it can be called that—of two brand-new dime novels,” Sarah said, in a tone that could have been called friendly or cool. Or both.

Owen vaulted over the picket fence and jumped up and down on the sidewalk, waving a couple of cheap volumes that looked more like magazines than books.

“I especially enjoyed the part where you robbed the bank,” Sarah said mildly, but with a certain edge to her tone. “You went in with ‘two six-guns spitting hot lead' and managed to marry the banker's daughter by the end of the story.”

Wyatt scowled, leaned in the saddle. “Let me see those,” he said, snatching the books from Owen's upraised hand.

He scanned the covers, read the print on the back.

His stomach churned, although he'd been looking forward to supper up until a moment ago, given that all he'd had since breakfast was a tin of peaches.

“Did you really
do
all that stuff?” Owen asked, still jumping around. He put Wyatt in mind of something he'd seen once in Mexico—a pod with a worm inside it, trying so mightily to get out that it hopped all over the place.

“I can't say,” Wyatt said grimly. After all, he hadn't read the books, and had no way of knowing how much truth they contained, if any. He handed them back down to Owen, though his gaze shifted to Sarah. “I'll tell you this much, though. I never robbed any bank—or married anybody.”

“There were a lot of copies over at the mercantile,” Owen said helpfully. “You ought to go and get some, before they're all gone. Folks were buying them up fast!”

Wyatt winced, wishing he could find the men who'd written those books and throttle them by the neck until their eyes popped out of their heads. But they probably lived in Chicago or New York or some other Eastern place. Someplace where they'd know
all about
the Wild West.