Under A Prairie Moon
Read Under A Prairie Moon Online
Authors: Madeline Baker
July 28, 1873
A lynch mob was an ugly thing. Dalton Crowkiller stared down at the handful of men who surrounded him, his heart pounding like a runaway locomotive, his throat desert dry, his palms damp. He shifted in the saddle, feeling the rough edge of the noose tighten around his neck.
The big bay beneath him stamped restlessly. In moments, someone would give the horse a sharp slap on the rump and there would be nothing between him and death but a few feet of rope.
He swallowed the bile that rose in his throat as he tried to imagine what those last moments would be like. If he was lucky, the drop would break his neck and his dying would be quick and merciful. If not…
He shook the gruesome image from his mind as his gaze shifted to the woman standing in the distance. The breeze stirred the hem of her long white nightgown and ruffled the collar of the blue silk robe she wore over it. Her hair, the reddish-brown of autumn leaves, tumbled over her shoulders. She was staring back at him, her eyes wide and scared and guilt-ridden.
His gaze imprisoned hers. If she had the nerve, she could save him. She was the only one who could.
Come on, he thought, come on… He stared at her, willing her to find the courage to say the words that would free him. Damn you, I don’t deserve this…
She took a half-step forward, her expression uncertain. Hope flared in his heart. Flared and died when she turned and ran up to the house, leaving him to face his fate alone…
Montana, 1998
With a sigh, Katherine Marie Conley wiped the tears from her eyes. Crying wouldn’t help. Nothing would help. Wayne was gone. Her old life was gone, and it was time, past time, to accept it and get on with a new life.
Filled with determination, she turned away from the pretty, slow-moving stream and looked up at the house that was now her home. It stood on a small grassy rise, a rambling two-story ranch house that had once been the showplace of three counties. A wide cement driveway led up to the veranda, which ran the length of the front of the house and wrapped around the southeast corner where the kitchen was located. A creaky old rocker stood in one corner of the porch.
The property was hers now, hers to do with as she pleased. It was a shame the Conleys had let the place get so run down. The paint, once white, was now a dirty gray. There was a hole in the attic roof big enough to drop a cow through, which was sure to mean a heck of a leak when it rained. One of the upstairs windows was broken. The barn was in even worse shape.
The house had been in Wayne’s family for almost a hundred and twenty-five years. Since he was the oldest son, it had been passed on to him when his grandfather passed away, and now it was hers. Of course, it had been remodeled several times in the course of the last century. The outhouse and wash tub had been replaced with modern plumbing; electricity had done away with candles and tallow lamps. Sadly, no one in Wayne’s family had chosen to live here for the last twenty or twenty-five years.
The house hadn’t been left empty all that time. Wayne’s family had rented it out to hunters or to city people looking for a rustic getaway, but no one had stayed longer than a few days at a time. Wayne had told her that everyone who ever stayed at the ranch claimed to have heard strange noises in the night, or to have seen lights flickering in the barn. Things disappeared. An item left in the living room would mysteriously turn up in the kitchen. Keys were lost. Wayne had dismissed the tales as nonsense.
To Kathy’s knowledge, no one had stayed in the house for the last four or five years. It had taken her two days just to sweep out the cobwebs and make a dent in the dust.
Kathy sighed. She didn’t believe in ghosts or goblins or things that went bump in the night. She didn’t believe in aliens or monsters. She wasn’t afraid of the dark. And she certainly wasn’t afraid of an old house, even if it was supposed to be haunted.
She wasn’t afraid of hard work either. She was, in fact, looking forward to it. Fixing up the old place would give her something to do, something to think about besides Wayne and how empty her life was without him. They had never come here together. Except for the fact that it had belonged to Wayne, there were no shared memories of the two of them in this place. If she was lucky, she would work so hard during the day that she would be too exhausted at night to do more than eat, bathe and fall into bed.
Dusting off the seat of her jeans, she started walking up the narrow dirt path that led to the back porch, imagining how it would look when flowers replaced the tangled mass of weeds and sticker bushes that lined both sides of the path.
She felt a rush of cold air as she neared a huge old oak. Once, when he was telling her about the property, Wayne had mentioned this tree. It had been a hanging tree, he’d said. According to legend, the last man to have been hanged there had put a curse on the ranch. Kathy didn’t believe in curses either, but according to legend, every Conley who had tried to make a go of the place from that time to this had failed. The cattle had been sold, and then, acre by acre, the land had been sold off, until all that remained in the family was the house and the five acres that surrounded it. Five acres where there had once been thousands.
Another gust of cool air brushed her cheek; she glanced up at the leaves of the tree, but no wind moved among the branches. The air was quiet and still. She felt a sudden sense of unease slither down her spine. She thought of the movie she had watched the night before, remembering how the hero had remarked that cold air was a sure sign of a restless spirit.
She was turning away from the tree when she saw what looked like a body hanging from one of the branches. With a gasp, she took a step backward, her hand pressed to her throat. And then she laughed. It was just a drifting shadow.
Chiding herself for letting her imagination run wild, Kathy turned away from the hanging tree. She didn’t believe in ghosts, she reminded herself, but this would certainly be the perfect spot for a haunting if what Wayne had said about the tree was true.
Shaking her head at such nonsense, she walked briskly up the path. She would finish unpacking this afternoon; tomorrow she would decide which pieces of the old furniture she would keep, and then call the Salvation Army to come and haul the rest away. If she started painting on Monday, she could have the downstairs done by the weekend. It would take weeks, perhaps months, to fix the place up. But it didn’t matter. If there was one thing she had plenty of, it was time.
Time. She thought of all the bumper stickers she had seen—So many books, so little time. So many men, so little time. So much chocolate, so little time…
She smiled as she wiped away the last of her tears. A hot fudge sundae was just what the doctor ordered.
* * * * *
The sound of a woman crying roused him from a deep, dreamless sleep. How long had he been drifting this time, he wondered, floating weightless, mindless, at the edge of eternity?
He watched the woman wipe away her tears and knew, at last, what Hell was. It was being able to see a woman and not touch her; hear the soft sound of her weeping, and not be able to comfort her. He had always been a sucker for a woman’s tears; this one had wept as though her heart were breaking, and there was nothing he could do about it. Nothing at all.
He stared up at the hanging tree, and wondered when it would end.
* * * * *
Pressing a hand to her aching back, Kathy dropped the roller into the pan and admired the newly painted walls of the downstairs bedroom. She had picked a soft shade of blue called Mysterious, and it had done wonders to brighten up the room. She had painted the adjoining bathroom the same color.
She sat down on the rusty old bed she had dragged into the center of the floor. It was one of the few pieces of furniture she was keeping, at least for the time being. Head cocked to one side, she mentally redecorated the room. First on the list was a new bed. A blue print spread and dust ruffle for the bed. White curtains, or maybe vertical blinds for the two windows. Maybe a cute little white wicker desk and chair for one corner. A white ceiling fan. She had already ordered new carpeting; a rich dark blue, it would be delivered in a few days.
Rising, she gathered up the paint roller and pan and carried them out to the service porch, then went back and rolled up the plastic sheeting she had used to cover the floor. Tomorrow she would paint the living room, Wednesday the kitchen, Thursday the library, Friday the dining room. Next week she would start on the second floor.
After cleaning up the mess in the bedroom, she went into the bathroom and turned on the water in the tub. A long soak in a hot bubble bath was just what she needed to soothe the ache from her weary muscles. Climbing up and down a stepladder had strained leg muscles she didn’t even know she had.
She added some scented bubble bath to the water, then stretched her back and shoulders. She didn’t think she had ever worked so hard in her whole life as she had in the last few days, but it had been worth it. She needed the distraction, the sense of accomplishment.
Slipping out of her paint-splattered clothes, she pinned up her hair, then stepped into the tub, sighing as the deliciously hot water closed over her. Ah, she thought, her eyelids fluttering down, heaven.
* * * * *
He stood in the doorway, staring at the woman reclining in the tub. Once, he would have felt guilty for spying on a woman while she was bathing, but no more. He had few diversions these days, and he took his pleasure when and where he could find it.
Before, troubled by her tears, he had not paid much attention to the woman’s appearance. Now, he noticed that her skin was the color of warm honey. Her hair was a dark reddish-brown and slightly curly. Her eyebrows were delicately arched, her nose was small and turned up a little at the end. Her lips were a pale, pale pink.
His gaze moved over her softly rounded shoulders, his hands itching to reach out and touch her skin. How long had it been since he had touched living flesh, since he had caressed a woman? He clenched his hands into tight fists, his gaze sliding lower. She was covered in frothy bubbles from her shoulders down, but he had no trouble imagining the rest. Full breasts, a trim waist, long shapely legs. She was tall and slender and auburn-haired, reminding him all too vividly of the woman who had literally been the death of him.
* * * * *
Kathy sat up with a start, her gaze darting toward the hallway. She crossed her arms over her breasts, shivering, as a draft of cold air whispered over her skin. She could have sworn she had seen a man standing in the doorway. A big man dressed in black from head to foot.
Grabbing a towel, she stepped out of the tub and tiptoed to the door. She glanced up and down the hallway, but there was no one there.
Blowing out a sigh of disgust, she padded into the bedroom and put on her nightgown. Deciding to spend the night in the living room to escape the smell of the new paint, she grabbed a pillow and a couple of blankets from the bed. She spread the covers on the floor, plumped the pillow, then slid under the covers and closed her eyes. The first thing she intended to buy was a new bed. She hadn’t kept the king-size bed she had shared with Wayne, or slept in it again after he died. She just couldn’t.
A new bed. A new life. Tears filled her eyes. She didn’t want a new life, she would have given anything to have her old one back.
* * * * *
He wandered through the house. He hadn’t been inside for a while…he didn’t know how long it had been. Time no longer had any meaning for him, but the house was as he remembered it—large rooms with oak trim around the doors, vaulted ceilings, a huge stone fireplace in the parlor, three bedrooms upstairs.
He wandered into the kitchen. The Conley family had made a lot of changes in the last hundred years. The old iron cook stove was gone and in its place stood a shiny white stove with silver knobs and a black door that reflected everything in the room, except him. The old ice box was gone too, and a new gleaming white one with black handles stood in its place. There were a couple of odd-looking contraptions on the counter that the woman had brought with her. The countertop was new too. Once made of rough wood, it was now made of small, square, shiny tiles.
He walked back down the corridor until he came to the parlor. The woman was sleeping on the floor. In his time, it had been unheard of for a woman to live alone, especially a young and beautiful woman like this one.
Moving closer, he saw that she had been crying again. What was it that caused her such grief, he wondered. And why was she here, living in the house of the man who had killed him?