Colorado Bride (3 page)

“I’ll see you in Hell first.”

“Really, Mr. Lucas, it’s not necessary—” Carrie began then stopped abruptly. Lucas had hit Baca in the stomach hard enough to double him up. Then getting behind him, he gave him a push with his foot that sent him forward at a stumbling run, aimed directly at the watering trough. Baca pulled himself up enough to veer to the right, but Lucas caught him by the nape of the neck and the seat of the pants and plunged him bodily into the large basin. Then he reached in and pulled Baca’s head out of the water by the hair.

“I asked you to apologize.” When Baca continued to blubber angrily, Lucas shoved his head underwater and held it there. Several seconds went by and the assembled spectators watched apprehensively as Baca’s body thrashed about in the trough with increasingly frantic movements. Just when Carrie was sure Baca would drown, Lucas lifted his head from the water.

“You ready to apologize?” Baca started to mutter something that could be taken for an apology.

“Please let him up,” Carrie begged. “I’m sure he won’t bother me again.” Lucas looked at Carrie as if he didn’t quite believe his ears, but he stepped away from the trough. Baca climbed out, stumbling as his unsteady legs tried to hold him up, water cascading down into the dust and turning it into thick mud.

“Empty this trough and fill it again,” Lucas said to Cody, the cook, who had watched the fight from the station porch. “It’s not fit for the horses to use anymore.”

“Are you crazy?” Cody stammered. “Do you know how big that trough is?”

“Empty it or swim in it,” Lucas said, and after a moment’s hesitation, Cody picked up a bucket and started bailing water.

“Buck, get down here,” Lucas called toward the station. When no one appeared, he took his gun belt from Bap and calmly shot out one of the second-floor windows. Immediately they could hear the scrambling of feet from inside the house and a young man, as unkept as Baca and as thin as he was fat, stumbled out onto the porch.

“Thought you might hear that. Pitch Baca’s gear out for him. He’s in a hurry to leave.” Buck looked at Baca, still dripping water and barely able to stand, and at Cody, glumly bailing water from the tank, and decided to do what he was told.

“They won’t give you any more trouble, ma’am,” Lucas said almost nonchalantly to Carrie. Then he buckled his gun belt around his waist, tied his guns down with strips of rawhide, and turned toward his chair under the tree.

“Mr. Lucas,” Carrie called after him. “I must thank you for your intervention. I hadn’t expected to receive a warm welcome, but neither did I anticipate such a reception as this. Then it was too late to turn around and wait for my husband.”

“You should have.”

“Possibly,” replied Carrie, irked by his brusk reply, “but I am not in the habit of running from trouble. Nevertheless, Mr. Lucas, I want to thank you.”

“Barrow.”

“What?” she asked, bewildered.

“Barrow. My name’s Barrow.”

Chapter 2

“But Mr. Riggins called you—”

“First name’s Lucas.”

“Oh,” Carrie replied, now thoroughly irritated by his attitude. “Thank you, Mr. Barrow,
Mr. Lucas Barrow,”
she emphasized. “You’ve done me a very great service.”

But Lucas was already moving with an unhurried stride toward his chair under the tree. Think nothing of it, ma’am,” he said, tugging at the brim of his hat in a salutation before sitting down and leaning back in his chair the way he was when Carrie had first seen him.

Carrie didn’t know whether to make a second effort to voice her gratitude or to turn on her heel, march off to the station, and forget him. She had been favorably impressed when she’d first seen him and she was enormously thankful he had disposed of Baca for her, but that was canceled out by the abrupt, almost rude, way he had rebuffed her attempt to express her gratitude. She knew nothing about him, or any other man of the West for that matter, but she assumed good manners were pretty much the same everywhere. If that was so, Mr. Lucas Barrow was just as rude as he was disturbingly attractive.

Yet as the passengers began to climb back into the stagecoach, Carrie conceded she could take Lucas’s rudeness better then Baca’s murderous hatred. An angry shout from the ex-station manager drew her attention to where Buck had just tossed a suitcase into the yard; it had broken open when it struck the hard, packed ground and spilled Baca’s clothes into the dust. After a short altercation, Buck began to pick up the clothes while Baca headed for the barn. Carrie decided she would stay where she was until Baca left.

“This is the last of your luggage, ma’am,” Bap said, handing Carrie a battered suitcase from the roof of the stage. “I’d offer to stay and help you take it up to the cabin, but I’m already behind schedule.”

That’s all right. Maybe I can get Buck or Cody to carry them up for me.”

Bap looked as if he was about to make an objection, but he changed his mind. “You sure you’re going to be okay by yourself?” he asked instead. “I could take you back to Denver, and you could wait for your husband there.”

“No, I’d rather stay.”

“I don’t feel right leaving you here by yourself.”

Tm sure there’ll be nothing to worry about once Mr. Riggins is gone. Besides, there’s always Mr. Barrow”

“I suppose so,” Bap muttered, clearly dissatisfied with the way things were being left. “He seems like a dependable sort, he wrangles horses for the stage line, but he’s only been here a couple of weeks. Nobody knows much about him.”

Tm sure I’ll be quite safe. Now you’d better get started. Won’t you get into trouble if you’re late?”

“Naw. There’s so many things that can go wrong, nobody except the home office expects you to be on time, and they’re too far away to know anything about it.”

“Just the same, you’d better be going.”

“I’ll be back in a couple of days to check on you. I wouldn’t want anything to cause you to leave and Baca to come back. I’m looking forward to sampling some of your cooking.”

“I’ll see you get a first-rate meal,” Carrie promised and waved a cheerful good-bye. But when she turned back to the station and saw Baca leading three saddled horses from the barn, she felt anything but cheerful. Cody and Buck tied bedrolls to their saddles, then all three riders mounted and rode toward where Carrie still stood in the yard.

“My orders said nothing about replacing you, Mr. Cody, or you, Buck. You still have jobs here if you want them. In fact, I will need your help to run the station.”

“What kind of man would I be if I was to stay here?” Cody demanded, glaring at Carrie out of vacant, pale blue eyes. “I ain’t working for no woman.”

“Me neither,” added Buck. “And you won’t find nobody else around here anxious to work for you.”

“Won’t be no need,” Baca threatened. “She won’t be here long.”

“My husband and I intend to make this our home, Mr. Riggins.”

“Don’t make no difference what you intend. You ain’t heard the last of me. Nobody pushes Baca Riggins out of any place he wants to stay.”

“I think you’d better go, Mr. Riggins, and take your friends with you. But let me give you a piece of advice before you go. No one pushes
me
out of any place I mean to stay either. I have a right to be here, I am here, and I intend to stay. If you value your good health, you won’t come back.”

“Why you …” Baca’s eyes cut nervously to where Lucas still sat under the tree. He hadn’t moved, but the very intensity of his stillness signified his alertness. “I’ll be back,” Baca blustered, almost more for the benefit of his friends than Carrie. “This is my station, and I mean to keep it.” He spurred his horse forward, the others following quickly and Carrie had to move swiftly to avoid being showered with the dirt thrown up by their mounts’ flying hooves. In a very short time the three men had disappeared down the trail, and Carrie was alone.

Carrie wasn’t sure what to do first, but she knew she couldn’t give way to the feeling of despondency that was creeping through her body like oil through a wick. She couldn’t be sure until she looked at the schedule, but she was certain there was another stage coming through sometime before night. That meant a hot meal had to be ready when it arrived, and she was the only one present to cook it. She certainly didn’t expect the sleepy cowboy under the tree to help, even if he could, which she doubted. With a weary sigh, she bent over to pick up one of the smaller suitcases. When she stood up again, she noticed an exceptionally tall young woman approaching from the direction of the manager’s cabin; she was a big-boned girl, generous of flesh, and rather plain but of a cheerful and open countenance. Carrie put her suitcase down again and waited, surprise and a feeling of relief flooding over her. At least she wasn’t alone.

Til be asking your pardon for not offering to help you in that ruckus with Mr. Riggins,” the girl said in a heavy Irish accent, “but I thought for certain he meant to kill you, and I didn’t want him killing me too before he got the chance to cool down. Whatever did you do to make him leave? And what is a fancy-dressed woman like you doing in a place like this by yourself?”

“I’m Carrie Simpson. My husband is the new station manager, and I’ve come ahead. As for the clothes,” she added with a blush, “they’re all I have.”

“I best be asking your pardon again,” the girl said, blushing rosily herself. “Pay no attention to me spiteful words. It just be jealousy that I don’t look like you, though I know there be no clothes this side of heaven that could turn a peahen like me into a beautiful lady like you.”

“Thank you,” Carrie replied, feeling more embarrassed than ever. “And you don’t have to apologize for not having the courage to face Mr. Riggins. If I had known about him, I doubt I’d have gotten off the stage.”

“For sure you would. Some people just naturally step up to the line when there’s trouble, and you be one of them.”

“The courage of desperation,” Carrie said with an embarrassed laugh.

“’Tis possible, but I doubt it. Anyhow, I’m glad you’re here. Now maybe I’ll be getting something to eat without being afraid of what those wicked creatures had a mind to do if only they weren’t so scared of Mr. Barrow. Ah, I be forgetting me manners. I’m Katie O’Malley, and you can tell from me accent I’ve only just come from Ireland.”

“How long have you been here?” Carrie asked, skipping over the mention of Lucas, but making a mental note to get back to it as soon as possible.

“I be waiting for me husband-to-be to come for me. I’m wondering whether he has got himself held up or if I got the date wrong. I have been here six days already, and I can tell you I was hard set to get through six days of Baca Riggins. Besides,” she said, gathering in a little slack in the waist of her dress, I’m naturally plump, and if I don’t start getting something to eat, I’ll soon be a withered twig like you.”

“Come on inside,” Carrie said. “I’ve got to find something for dinner. I’m sure I can find something for you, too.” Carrie picked up her suitcase and started toward the station.

“I’ll be there afore ye,” Katie said. I’m nigh unto starving. I been staying in the cabin up the road, that’s your cabin by the by, because I couldn’t trust that Mr. Riggins and his friends not to go getting ideas in the middle of the night.”

“Didn’t they offer to feed you?”

For certain they did, anytime I was hungry enough to come down to the station, but I couldn’t eat much, not after the first mouthful, and I was frightful of being in the room alone with those three. No matter, I would watch for the stage and hurry down while the passengers were here.”

“But that’s awful.”

“I’ve no doubt, but ‘twas safer.”

They had reached the steps and Carrie stood staring at the dilapidated station.

“I might as well warn you. Most likely you never saw anything like the inside of this place, so don’t be overset. Though it’ll be small blame if ye are. ‘Tis enough to make your stomach turn.”

They stepped inside and Carrie stared about her in shock. The dishes from the previous meal were still on the table, but more dirty plates were stacked on a table against the wall, several pots covered with the leavings of what had been cooked in them were piled against a corner of the stove, and the cabinet doors stood ajar, their contents haphazardly left open to the ravages of flies and spoilage. The room itself hadn’t been cleaned in months and every surface was caked with grease. Carrie had no idea how she was going to get everything cleaned in time to get dinner ready.

“Here, let me lend you a hand,” Katie offered.

“No,” Carrie said with sudden resolution, “this is my job, and I have to do it myself.”

“Then you’d best be changing your dress, or you’ll never wear it again. There be rooms in the back, probably as filthy as this, but you’ll have some privacy.” Carrie found two rooms, both incredibly grimy, but she made herself ignore the debris for the time being. First things first, and the first thing she had to do was to get dinner ready for the passengers she was expecting.

“There be a stage coming through at half past six,” Katie announced as Carrie came back into the dining room. I’m thinking that leaves us something over five hours to get this place looking decent.” She had already found a big pot, filled it with water, and put it on to boil.