The Secret Bliss of Calliope Ipswich (24 page)

“What are you talking about, Lawson?” Kizzy asked. “Why in all the world would outlaws want to hole up here? In our little town?”

“Because it
is
a little town,” Lawson answered. “It has come to Sheriff Montrose’s attention that the Morrison brothers have been driven out of Tombstone and are thus looking for a new place to spend their time. We don’t know if they’ve chosen Meadowlark Lake for certain, but we have our suspicions. Therefore, until we can be thoroughly convinced that the Morrison brothers are not traveling nearby or considering our town as a place to rest after they’ve committed their crimes, I do not want any of you venturing far from the house without companions.” He looked to Shay, knowing how she adored to take Molly out for long, meandering walks. “That means you need to have someone with you every time you leave the house, Shay. No more walks with just Molly with you, all right?”

Shay nodded. Lawson could see the fear in her eyes
, and he felt sick at having to be the one who put it there.

Smiling at her, he reached out and gathered her into his lap, kissing the top of her head.
“I don’t want us all living in fear,” he said strongly. “We just need to be more watchful for a while. Furthermore, if you ever see a chestnut and white appaloosa anywhere near Meadowlark Lake, you need to inform me or Sheriff Montrose at once. All right?”

“Yes, Daddy,” Evangeline and Calliope assured him in unison.

“And what about you, my littlest angel?” Lawson asked his youngest daughter.

He felt Shay snuggle in more tightly against him. “Yes, Daddy,” she answered—though fear was evident in her voice.

“Shay, why don’t you come help Evie and I go over the guest list and invitations to make certain it’s complete?” Calliope suggested. “With three of us checking the list, it will go faster.”

“And we can sing some songs while we’re working too,” Evangeline added.

“Can we sing ‘Three Little Girls Dressed in Blue’?” Shay asked. Lawson felt her relax a little.

“Of course!” Calliope and Evangeline exclaimed.

“Come on then, darling,” Evangeline said, offering a hand to her littlest sister.

Hopping off Lawson’s lap, Shay and her sisters left the kitchen then, leaving Lawson alone to talk with his wife.

“So,” Kizzy sighed, resting her elbows on the table, “how much danger are we really in, my love?”

Lawson shook his head. “I’m not really sure we’re in any danger. I just want us to be prepared if there happens to be any on the horizon.” He reached out, taking one of Kizzy’s hands in his own. “I’ve told you all I know about it at this point.”

Kizzy nodded, exhaling a worried sigh.

Lawson frowned then, saying, “But I have a question.”

“Yes?” Kizzy prodded.

“Rowdy Gates?” he asked. “Calliope seems a might sweet on him. When did this transpire?”

But Kizzy burst into laughter, shook her head with amusement, and said, “Oh, Lawson! Sometimes I wonder how I ever managed to capture your attention. You’re so observant and wise about everything, and yet you’ve completely missed the fact that Calliope has been in love with Rowdy Gates since she first saw him!” Kizzy laughed again, rising from her chair and embracing Lawson. “You’re such an adorable man!”

But Lawson frowned. “You’re sure? Calliope’s been sweet on Rowdy for a long time?” He sighed, however, chuckling at his own naïveté. “The Tom Thumb
wedding epiphany she had that night we were on the front porch…Rowdy had just been visiting with us.” He laughed. “Rowdy Gates stepped down off the porch and was hardly on his way before Calliope erupted with the inspiration to have a Tom Thumb wedding.”

Kizzy giggled and nodded. “You see? You
did
know! Just not consciously.”

Lawson nodded, wrapped his strong arms around his pretty wife’s waist
, and said, “It’s because you’re always distracting me, my little temptress.”

Lawson kissed Kizzy then—savored the warm, sweet flavor of her mouth. After a moment he broke the seal of their lips, just long enough to chuckle
. “Rowdy Gates, is it? Poor Fox Montrose never had a chance against a rival the likes of Rowdy Gates.”

“No, Judge Ipswich,” Kizzy whispered against his lips. “He did not.”

As Kizzy instigated an impassioned kiss with him then, Lawson surrendered to her alluring ways. All thoughts of danger coming to Meadowlark Lake, or of Calliope being sweet on Rowdy for so long without her father knowing, were swept from his mind. There was only his beautiful Kizzy.

Rowdy stood near the last lamplight in town, glancing from the warm-lighted windows of the Ipswich home to the blackness of night veiling the grassy expanse behind it. He half expected little Shay to show up and urge him on, but she didn’t, and Rowdy began to wonder whether perhaps Calliope had decided not to go stargazing that night.

But just as he was thinking he should abandon his post and hopes of seeing Calliope again, he heard the sound of a door closing. And then he saw it—a tiny lantern light bobbing along in the darkness like a
Georgia lightning bug.

“Patience is a virtue, they say,” Rowdy mumbled to himself, glad he’d had enough virtue to wait as long as he did at the last lamppost.

He’d already reined Tucker nice and tight to the nearest hitching post, and now Rowdy made his way toward the small flame skipping farther and farther away from the Ipswich house. As he stepped into the cool, new grass, he smiled at the tiny flame suspended in the air a ways in front of him. Everything about Calliope Ipswich seemed enchanted—even the way the light in her lantern moved through the darkness.

“Hello?”

The sound of his voice caused such a thrilling tremor to travel through Calliope that she actually quivered for a moment. Holding her lantern up a little higher and peering through the moonlit night, she smiled as she saw him coming toward her.

“Mr. Gates!” she quietly called. “Oh, I was hoping you’d join me again this evening.”

“You were?” Rowdy said as he reached her.

“I was,” she managed. Every inch of her was tingling with anticipation as she looked up into his handsome face. He was smiling at her—not just grinning, smiling—and it made her heart leap in her bosom.

“Well, here I am,” he said. “So what’re you gonna do with me?”

A nervous yet delighted giggle escaped Calliope’s throat. He was flirting with her! It was wonderful. But she didn’t quite know how to respond.

“Well, I have my blanket and was planning on watching the stars again tonight,” she began. “But I’d much rather just sit and talk with you.”

His smile broadened as he took the blanket from where it was draped over her arm, winked at her, and said, “I think that’s a good idea.”

Calliope watched as Rowdy spread the blanket out over the grass. Taking the lantern from her, he set it to one side of the blanket, took her hand
, and helped her to sit.

“Thank you,” she said, tucking her legs to one side.

Rowdy sat down across from her, resting his arms on his knees. “And how was your day, Miss Calliope?”

Calliope shrugged. “Uneventful,” she answered. Then smiling at him, she added, “Until now.”

Rowdy chuckled. “Uneventful, huh?” he asked. “Well, that’s one of them answers that can be either good or bad.”

Calliope nodded and agreed, “You’re right. And in this case I thought it was bad, until Daddy talked to us at supper tonight
. And after he told us what might happen, now I think it might be good.”

Rowdy’s smile faded. “Your
daddy told you about the Morrison brothers?” he asked.

Calliope nodded. “Yes. And that’s why I guess it’s good today was uneventful, right?”

Rowdy nodded. Calliope did not miss how quickly his smile had faded at the mention of the Morrison brothers.

“I’m guessing you know about them,” she ventured.

“What do you mean?” he asked, seeming almost defensive.

“I mean
, I’m guessing you’ve heard of them…or maybe you even knew that there may be some reason they might pass through Meadowlark Lake,” she explained. “Daddy seemed very concerned about it. Oh, he tried to pretend it wasn’t anything too awful important…but I can tell when he’s worried.” Calliope tipped her head to one side and studied Rowdy for a moment. “I wonder where he came by his information? I never thought to ask him.” She shrugged and sighed, “I suppose Sheriff Montrose received a telegram or something.”

“
I
told him,” Rowdy confessed. He didn’t know why he’d felt such a strong impression that he should tell Calliope that he was the one who had told Sheriff Montrose, but he did, and so he continued. “I saw one of the Morrison brothers’ horses in town one day. Actually, I saw it twice, on two different days. So I told your daddy and Sheriff Montrose that I thought the Morrison brothers might be lookin’ for a town to hide out in.”

He looked to Calli
ope to see her staring at him wide-eyed with astonishment. “But…but how did you recognize a horse that belonged to an outlaw?”

Rowdy almost reached out, grabbed her
, and kissed her before she could run screaming from him. Yet she didn’t look frightened of him—or suspicious. She only looked curious.

“I’ve seen that horse before,” he answered. “It’s a chestnut and white appaloosa, with very unique markin’s.”

Calliope nodded. “Daddy told us that if we saw that very horse, we should tell him or the sheriff immediately.” She frowned and asked, “Where did you see that horse before? How did you know it belonged to an outlaw?”

Rowdy was surprised that she still looked calm. She was sincerely only interested in what he knew and how he knew it. So he decided to tell her the tale. He’d told her father and the
sheriff that the Morrison brothers had tried to kill him—even told them
how
they’d tried to kill him (for the most part). Maybe he’d held back why they’d tried, but that fact wasn’t relevant to the danger the Morrison gang posed to the folks in Meadowlark Lake. The same applied to Calliope. All that was important was that the Morrison brothers had tried to kill him, and that’s how he recognized Arness Morrison’s horse. At least, that was what was important at the moment. And so he did resolve to share his secret with someone besides Judge Ipswich and Sheriff Montrose. He decided to share it with the woman he was in love with. After all, secrets between lovers—it meant certain doom to their future. His mother had taught him that—and proved it to him with the loss of her own life.

“The Morrison brothers tried to kill me a while back,” he began.

“What?” Calliope gasped. She was horrified at the thought tha
t anyone in the world would want to kill Rowdy Gates, let alone
try
to kill him.

“It’s true,” Rowdy assured her, however. “It was a couple of years back. I was livin’ in
Texas, near my mama and daddy’s place. And one day the Morrison brothers rode in lookin’ to get me to join up with them…start outlawin’.”

Calliope’s eyes widened with terrified awe. “They did?”

Rowdy nodded. “They did,” he answered. “My mama…she was killed that day. She jumped in front of my daddy when Arness Morrison tried to shoot him.”

“Rowdy! I-I’m so sorry,” Calliope said in a whisper. She wondered what had happened to the gladness she had felt only moments before. Where had the flirting between them gone? How had their conversation out under a lovely moonlit, starry sky turned to the murder of his mother at the hands of an outlaw?

But he was thinking back now—she could see it in his eyes—the pain of a tragic past. And so she listened as he continued, “Then Arness told Carson Morrison to rope me, and he did. I was standin’ there—watchin’ my daddy leanin’ over my mama and beggin’ her to come back to him—so I didn’t see the lasso comin’ until it was already around me. The Morrison brothers gave me a beatin’ that I thought was the end of me. But it wasn’t. So they tied me tighter and drug me behind their horses for about a mile, I think, before Arness Morrison shot me twice. They rode off and left me to die. I remember bein’ so hurt that I was almost numb to the pain. I remember the sun bein’ so bright overhead and thinkin’ that I hoped heaven would take the misery away.”

He paused
, and Calliope wiped tears from her cheeks.

“Oh
, don’t cry, pretty girl,” Rowdy said, grinning with sympathy and reassurance. “It was a long while back.”

Calliope continued to weep, however
, for it was a horrid story. Furthermore, she well knew that Rowdy was only skimming the top of it. She knew that what he was telling her didn’t begin to describe the terrifying truth of it.

“Your leg,” she managed to sniffle
, “the leg you started lighting the lamps to heal.”

Rowdy nodded. “Yep. That beatin
—or the draggin’ afterward, I don’t know which—broke a lot of things in my body. My stiff leg was the somethin’ that took the longest to heal.”

Calliope brushed more tears from her cheeks. “But
…but how did you…how did you survive? Did your daddy come lookin’ for you?”