Authors: Ellen O'Connell
“You have other news too, don’t you? Good news.”
“Oh, Norah, I don’t want to make you sadder.”
“You won’t. What kind of friend would I be if your good news made me sad? You’re expecting, aren’t you?”
Becky nodded, her eyes searching Norah’s face.
“Don’t you ever doubt that your mother will be there for you when the time comes,” Norah said. “You know that.”
“She says that, but the troubles with Mr. Van Cleve....”
“You still look as slim as ever. The troubles will be over long before your time comes.”
“How can you...? You think your husband’s going to do something, don’t you? What he’s already done is awful. How could you marry him? I can hardly look at him he’s so scary, and I can’t believe Pa and Ben helped him. Ben acts like he’s some kind of hero. He murdered those men, you know he did.”
“They were coming to kill us.”
“You don’t know that. You can’t be sure.”
“We could have waited to see, I guess. Like rabbits.”
“Rabbits?” Becky looked bewildered. “What have rabbits got to do with it?”
“I’ll tell you some time.” Norah handed Becky the coffee cups, picked up two glasses, the water bucket and dipper, and led the way back outside before Becky could ask more questions.
Silence reigned outside. “Is someone going to tell me about it,” Norah asked, “or will I have to worm it out of Caleb once you’re gone?”
“Webster Van Cleve doubled the bounty,” Mabel said.
Norah sank into the empty chair at the table, letting Becky join Ethan on a bench. “Two thousand dollars? He’s saying he’ll pay someone two thousand dollars to kill Caleb?”
“Killing and scalping.”
“Pa!” “Archie!”
Archie puffed on his pipe, showing no signs his wife’s and daughter’s horrified disapproval affected him. “Got to have evidence of some kind.”
After that the men talked of weather, crops, and livestock. Becky and Mabel discussed the coming move to Topeka as if they hadn’t talked about it ever before, and Norah sat silent. Would more men try to kill someone for two thousand dollars than one?
She strongly suspected it made no difference except that Webster Van Cleve had just moved past tiresome into some other category that would have Caleb disappearing for most of the night.
She didn’t want him risking it. No matter how much she wanted to stay here, the price was too high. She had only one weapon to use to try to convince him, and she wasn’t sure how effective it would be, but she’d have to use it before he disappeared tonight.
Caleb came to supper with the wary look that Norah didn’t see too often any more. He was going to tell her he was leaving and would be back by morning, not to worry.
If her news wouldn’t dissuade him, she’d go with him, even if that meant following him on foot in the dark.
“These are good,” he said, forking up green beans. “You have a green thumb.”
“Anyone could grow anything with the water the way you fixed it. I have rhubarb pie for dessert.”
He was as nervous as she was, and that gave her pause. He cleaned his plate, pushed it aside, and beat her to the subject on her mind.
“You know women like my mother learn ways to make sure they don’t have babies.”
“I didn’t know, but I suppose they have to.” Already she didn’t like this conversation.
“I can find out what they do.”
He had some of the same look on his face he’d had the night he’d told her about Jason. She really didn’t like this conversation.
“We’re married. I don’t need to know that.”
“You already lost two, and you’re still young. We need to make sure there aren’t any more.”
“I don’t want to make sure of any such thing. I want more, and it’s already too late. My monthly flow didn’t happen last month and it’s ten days past due again. I was waiting to tell you, and then I thought I’d tell you tonight. I thought it would make you see we have to leave. You know they’ll come after you if you kill Van Cleve. If Ludlow and his deputies can’t do it, he’ll get up a posse or vigilantes or whatever he needs, and if they can’t catch you or kill you, they’ll bring in federal marshals. I don’t want you to do it. I’m asking you not to do it. I want to leave and start over somewhere else.”
He ignored everything she’d said except that it was too late. “You’re not sure. You can’t be sure so soon.”
“I’ve been through this before. I’m sure.”
“I thought you never had any children. You didn’t have any. You never said a word. I never would have.... This isn’t supposed to happen. It can’t.” He looked as wild as he had as a boy all those years ago.
“If I knew you felt that way, maybe I’d have done what you want, but I can’t now. It’s already happened, and I already love this baby too. Give it a little time. You’ll get used to it.”
“Get used to.... You don’t understand.” He rose and started pacing. “I can’t be a father.”
“Are you saying you think I’ve been meeting someone else out on the prairie at night?”
“No, damn it. I’m saying I can’t be a father.”
“Just because you didn’t have...”
His fist slammed on the table, making the dishes jump. “It’s got nothing to do with that. I won’t do it. I won’t be a father.”
“It’s too late. You are.”
“I’m not. I can’t be.”
He headed for the door, hand reaching to yank it open, all caution thrown aside. She almost let him walk out like that but couldn’t.
Without a word, she threw a towel over the lamp, killing the light before he could storm out. Since word about the bounty, Caleb had never walked through the door at night with the light behind him and never let her do it.
She sat alone and motionless in the dark until the scent of scorching cloth cut through the pain and made her pull the towel from the lamp.
Strange that just today Becky had asked about her family because Norah could hear her mother’s voice as clearly as if Mama sat across the table.
Be careful what you wish for.
When she had suggested — proposed — marriage to Caleb, she had been sure farming would bore him after a year, two at the most. He’d leave, the farm would be hers again the way it should be, and if she was lucky he’d leave her with a child. Tonight she’d hoped telling him of the coming child would make him agree to leave.
All of her wishes were coming true, and nothing but losing her babies had ever hurt so much.
H
IS HANDS SHOOK.
His stomach roiled. He’d just accepted — married for years to Hawkins, no children. She’d been so stubborn about keeping the land even when it made no sense.
“I have a home,” she’d said. Why hadn’t she said she had two children buried on the land? Ah, he knew why. You had to trust someone to tell the secrets. She’d finally trusted him, and he’d hurt her.
Hurting her was the last thing he wanted to do. He never should have married her. Never should have let wanting things he wasn’t meant for get the best of him. She didn’t want to hear the words, but they were there, and they were true. Devil’s spawn. Bad seed. Whoreson.
Too absorbed in dealing with the maelstrom of his own feelings to remember, he had come out without putting the rope on Early. The dog stayed at his side as he walked between the fields to the property line and started back. He didn’t want to face her again, didn’t want to see the pain on her face. Why couldn’t she just rage at him?
The sound of Early’s escalating growls broke through his thoughts. He stopped, crouched down, and quieted the dog with a hand over its muzzle. This wasn’t some coyote in the distance or a skunk bumbling along in the night.
Like Early’s rope, Cal’s rifle was still in the house. The back of his neck crawled. Something was out there, something dangerous, and all considered, the odds were that something was a someone planning on collecting a two thousand dollar bounty.
A sharpshooter who moved into position in the dark was a man smart enough to reckon with. He’d have to fumble around some trying to find a position, but if he targeted light coming from the house....
The wheat and corn were both high enough to conceal a man now, but hiding among the stalks and still having a clear field of vision would be close to impossible. The bushes by the creek would put a rifleman a quarter mile from the house, a long shot, but doable for a skilled rifleman. It would be Cal’s choice.
He started running. Norah wouldn’t go out this late to the privy. If she did, she wouldn’t do it with the lamp burning behind her. He was the one so upset he’d almost made the mistake. She’d stayed careful. She wouldn’t do it.
The house was dark. He didn’t slow until he reached the door. She was there, safe. He couldn’t see her but could feel her presence. He wouldn’t be sleeping alone under the ramada tonight after all.
He dropped the bar across the door and lay beside her on the bed without bothering to remove his clothes. Norah’s back was toward him, but he knew she wasn’t asleep. He doubted either of them would have slept tonight even without what lurked in the night.
“I’m going to leave in a little while. Don’t go outside until I get back and tell you it’s safe.”
She rolled over to face him. He ached to touch her, hold her. There’d be no more of that.
“What’s out there?” she whispered.
“Someone looking to be two thousand dollars richer. I think he’s set up down by the creek, and if you hadn’t covered the lamp when I walked out tonight it would be all over already.”
He heard her accelerated breathing. “What are you going to do?”
“Kill him. And after that I’ll take care of Van Cleve.”
“And after that, you’re leaving, aren’t you?”
“Yes. I’ll leave you the cash I’ve got left, and I’ll send more when I can.”
“I don’t want money. If you can’t stay or take me with you, I want to know you’re safe. Let someone else take care of Van Cleve. I’ll sell him the land and get that little place you told me to get once. I don’t want you to have to run, to stay running the rest of your life. If you have to go, go safe.”
Whether she reached for him or he reached for her, he couldn’t say, but she was in his arms, burrowed in against him and hanging on in a way he’d thought she never would again. He held her as long as he dared, kissed her on the forehead, and left her to go see if Early was right about the danger in the night.
C
AL CROSSED THE
creek far downstream from where any sharpshooter would set up to target a man walking out of the house. He stayed far from the creek, stealing slowly through the night until he calculated his position was behind where he would lay in wait if he were the rifleman. Now all he had to do was keep his mind on business, not his wife.
An hour after dawn Cal spotted movement in the very clump of bushes he’d have chosen as cover for an ambush. He hated crawling. Dirt, grass, and other debris always worked its way inside his clothes.
He crawled. He slithered down into the creek, across, and up the other bank. He crawled until he was close enough to see the stitching on the gunman’s boots.
He got to his feet, tired, wet, and dirty. Worse, he couldn’t stop picturing what would have happened last night if the man stretched out behind the rifle had an itchy trigger finger and Norah had started out the door without dousing the lamp.
“Was two thousand dollars worth dying for?”
At the words, the man stiffened. He dropped the rifle and feigned raising his hands before scrambling for his pistol, but too slow. Way too slow.
Cal’s bullet made a dark hole in the middle of the gunman’s forehead. He left the body where it lay and went to reassure Norah. After that he’d have to see if he could find where the fool had left his horse.
H
E EXPECTED HER
to be angry. She should be angry. He wanted her to be angry, not pale and resigned, as if she had always expected this of him. She spent her day in the garden while he walked the fields, admired ripening wheat rippling in the breeze and cornstalks almost over his head. How had he ever imagined land like this could be his, half his?
After a silent supper, he lay on the bed, an arm over his eyes. He needed sleep but resting would be the best he’d manage. The familiar sounds of her cleaning the table, washing dishes, wiping and putting away had him picturing her moving, bending, reaching, stretching.
His throat hurt in a way he remembered from long ago, before Henry Sutton had cured him of tears. Mostly cured him, he amended, swallowing hard. Footsteps approached the bed, no rustling sounds of undressing followed. The slivers of light visible around his arm disappeared. The mattress moved slightly under her weight. She pillowed her head on his shoulder, her hair tickling his jaw, a hand spread on his chest.
“I won’t sleep either,” she whispered.
Cal wrapped one arm around her, holding her close. Throwing away another of his uncle’s lessons, he forced out two hard words. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too.”
“I’ll come back after and let you know it’s done. We’ll talk then.”
He felt her nod, her fingers digging in a little as they tensed.
Neither of them spoke more as wakeful hours passed. When the angle of the moonlight through the windows told him the night was half gone, he lifted her off his shoulder, kissed her forehead, and went for his guns.
The buckskin horse he had found staked out two miles away moved restlessly beside Forrest when Cal heaved the body in place and lashed it down. After a few soft words and a pat on the neck to calm the horse, Cal swung up on Forrest and led the buckskin with its grisly burden in the familiar direction of the V Bar C.
He’d slipped on and off Van Cleve’s land from all directions in the last months. Fortunately, the man had less half a dozen gunmen and even fewer cowhands to position around the place, trying to stop further depredations. If he had a hundred, getting to him might be hard.
T
OO BAD THE
bushwhacker hadn’t been thinner — and shorter. Cal untied the body and eased it from the saddle to his shoulder. He left the horse free to help itself to anything growing in the neat garden behind the house and carried the body through the back door he’d already pried open.