Defiant (5 page)

The Utes would take him in, but he'd never been good at accepting charity, especially from people who had lost so much at the hands of the white man.

He had a past that shamed him, a present made unbearably ugly, no future.

Why hadn't he died?

Because he'd wanted it so damn bad?

He heard a whining, and he twisted his body around painfully. The dog was sitting there, its head cocked.

Jake. He remembered that name. Jeff and Jake. He wondered how old the boy was. His own son had been six. His fist clenched against the bed as he remembered the last time he had seen him alive …

“
I
want to go with you,” Drew had said wistfully
.

But Wade had planned to go up high in the mountains, after a herd of antelope. The route was too steep for Drew to ride his own horse, an old, fat mare unlikely to bolt. “Take care of your mother for me,” he said instead
.

And the boy had tried. Wade had found him near his mother, his head caved in, probably by a rifle stock, and his throat cut. He'd probably tried desperately to protect her, flailing small arms and legs. Wade kept seeing that picture in his mind …

The dog moved several feet closer, cautiously seeking a welcome.

“Come here, Jake,” Wade said, inexplicably needing a touch of warmth. The dog wagged its tail tentatively and he approached Wade, resting his head on Wade's leg. Wade placed his hand on the dog's head, rubbing behind his ears as he'd once rubbed Pavel's. A growl of pleasure rumbled from the dog's throat.

“Backward, huh?” Wade whispered. “You don't know when to growl and when not to find someone.”

A tail thumped happily.

“Jake?”

A boy's voice came through the door, and Wade lay back down, using the last of his ebbing strength to pull the sheet over his body. Jake took up a post next to the bed as a tall, thin boy appeared in the doorway. The boy paused there, looked toward the bed anxiously. Then he grinned, obviously pleased to find Wade awake.

Wade looked into the boy's hazel eyes, then noticed the cowlick of reddish-brown hair. The boy's face was freckled, the grin infectious. In five or six years, Drew would have been this tall, this full of energy and life.

“Jake found you,” the boy said.

Wade wanted to will him away. He couldn't bear reminders of what could have been, of the emptiness that lay ahead.

He also remembered Mary Jo Williams's explanation of why she hadn't left him to die.
I
don't like the kind of lesson he'd learn …

Wade tried to sit, but he fell back on the pillow, and the boy's grin disappeared. “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have bothered you. I'll take Jake …”

Wade fisted his fingers underneath the sheet. He couldn't believe that this thin boy and his mother had managed to bring him here alone. It must have taken immense effort, immense will.

“I hear you had some part in it, too,” he said, trying to smile.

The boy flushed with pride. “Can I get you anything?”

“I think you can go start the stove.” His mother spoke from the doorway.

“Aw, Ma.”

“Unless you want us all to starve?” she said.

The boy looked rebellious for a moment, then retreated reluctantly.

The woman approached the bed. Her auburn hair was held back in an untidy knot. She was dressed in a practical high-necked blouse and simple skirt and wore no jewelry except for a plain gold wedding band.

“Thank you,” she said simply.

He narrowed his eyes in question.

“For not throwing his efforts back in his face.”

“As I did to you?”

She smiled. “I don't expect much.”

He was inexplicably sorry about that. “You should,” he said, shocking himself that he cared.

She tipped her head. “Have you changed your mind about dying?”

“No,” he said flatly.

“Why?”

“You don't want to know, lady, believe me.”

“Mary Jo. Everyone calls me Mary Jo.”

Wade was silent. He didn't want to think of her as Mary Jo. He didn't want to think of her at all. He especially didn't want to think how appealing she looked with that slightly challenging smile on her lips.

“Is anyone after you, Mr. Foster?”

He hesitated, then answered because he owed her, even if he hadn't wanted her help. “I expect so.”

“The law?”

“Could be.”

She didn't shy away as he'd expected, but then not once had she reacted as he expected since he'd first seen her. But her gaze did sharpen. He could tell she was every bit as adept as he was at staring down men. Or she was a good actress.

“Are you going to tell me why?”

“I killed three men,” he said.

“Did they deserve it?”

No comment could have surprised him more. He had told her the bold truth, half expecting, half hoping perhaps, she would dump him back out in the rain.

“Well, did they?” she prompted.

“You would take my word for it?”

“I'm not sure until I hear it.”

“You're either a damned confusing woman or just plain foolish,” he said rudely.

“I'm neither, Mr. Foster. I just believe in my instincts. You didn't want to hurt my son's feelings, and the dog likes you. That makes me inclined to trust you. I've always thought children and animals have more sense than full-grown folks.”

He just stared at her, not knowing what to think. He'd never met a woman like her, Indian or white. Living alone with a young son. Trying to run a ranch or farm on her own. And then pulling a foolish stunt like taking in a gun-shot stranger. Asking, for God's sake, if he was dangerous.

He muttered to himself.

“I didn't hear you, Mr. Foster.”

“Hell, you don't want to,” he said a little louder than he intended. He thought she would flinch at his profanity, but she merely looked amused.

“You keep telling me what to think,” she said with exasperation and just a trace of humor. “Let me make up my own mind. You still didn't answer my question. Did those three men deserve killing?”

“Yes,” he snarled.

She smiled at the strength of his reply. “You must be improving,” she said with some satisfaction.

Damn, she was stubborn. “I hurt like hell,” he said, wanting to cut off the conversation.

The smile disappeared. “I know you do. I wish I could help more. I do have some more laudanum.”

“No,” he said. “But …”

He felt like a fool. He needed to relieve himself, but he was too weak to go anyplace. And then there was the matter of his lack of clothes.

She understood immediately, and just a touch of humor was back in her eyes. He sensed it lurked there more often than not, and he resented that it was now aimed at his embarrassment over his bodily needs and nudity.

“There's a chamber pot under the bed,” she told him. “If you need any help, Jeff—”

He shook his head. He just wanted her gone.

“I'll have some broth for you shortly,” she said.

“Don't you ever sleep?” Wade heard himself ask. He hadn't meant to prolong the conversation, but he couldn't help wondering. She'd been with him half the night, and then again when he'd had the nightmare.

“I don't need much,” she said. “I never slept well when my husband was away.”

Don't ask, something told him. Yet he did. “Your husband was a rancher?”

“A Texas Ranger,” she said somberly.

Wade was stunned. A Ranger's wife! He'd been running from lawmen since the war.

The news made her efforts on his behalf all the more bewildering, particularly the fact that the law wasn't standing by his bed at this very moment. He wondered about the husband who had married this independent and determined woman. And felt immediately disloyal to Chivita. Gentle, giving Chivita.

Her image was suddenly in his mind's eye. The dark hair that flowed to her waist, the deerskin dress she had made so carefully to please him. Everything had been to please him. It had been that way since he'd been taken in by the Utes ten years ago when he'd had no place to go, when he was a pariah among decent people, his name a curse in Kansas.

He had changed his name, thought he'd changed the man, but the last few months proved he hadn't.

And now he was trapped here. No strength, not even enough for a few steps. No clothes. No horse. No money. And a liability to the Utes, the only people who would accept him if he were to return.

His gaze met the woman's, held for a moment. He was the first to turn away. He heard her retreating footsteps, then the closing of a door. He had a few moments' privacy.

He started to get up off the bed. There were things that had to be done before she returned. He'd be lucky if he could manage them.

I
killed three men
.

He'd said the words so matter-of-factly, yet Mary Jo knew he had been watching her, waiting, perhaps even hoping she would give him some clothes and toss him out.

Well, she'd known the moment she set eyes on him that he was dangerous, that he was all too familiar with guns.

Three men. When? Where? Why?

The law could be after him. Why was she not afraid? Or repelled?

God knew she'd loved men who loved the law. In the twelve years she'd been married to Jeff Williams, she might have spent a total of three with him. The remainder of the time he was out riding down outlaws, Comanches, Comancheros, renegades.

She wondered secretly if her acceptance of the stranger wasn't a rebellion from that, from the neglect and the deaths of two men she'd loved.

The fact was she just didn't fear this wounded stranger. She even appreciated his mild words to her son. Whatever he was, he wasn't mean-spirited, despite the deep bitterness that haunted his eyes, his dreams, his words. He had conquered it enough to be kind to her son, and that meant a lot to Mary Jo.

His modesty had also been appealing. He was a gentleman, had been raised to act like one. She wondered what else he had been.

And who might be after him?

She glanced at the rifles on the wall. Both she and young Jeff were crack shots. Her husband and Ty had made sure of that. Texas was not a safe place to live, and no one thought less of a woman if she knew how to protect herself.

Mary Jo went to the door and opened it. It was still raining hard and Cimarron Creek was close to overflowing. Since the house was on a small hill, it was safe, but what few crops they had were endangered.

Mary Jo closed the door and went into the kitchen. Jeff had fueled the wood stove. She put some chunks of ham into water along with pieces of vegetables. Then she started some biscuits.

Jeff was restless, frequently looking toward the closed door to her room. He'd been like a caged wolf these past few days, unable to go out in the storm except to milk the cow and feed the horses and chickens, and he didn't consider
that
going out at all. And he'd been so anxious about the stranger he'd found. “He'll be all right now, won't he?” he asked.

Mary Jo nodded. “I think so. At least, I think he'll live. I don't know about that arm.”

Jeff frowned. “Do you think he might be a lawman?”

“No,” she said gently, “I don't think so.”

“He wore his gun tied down.”

“A lot of men wear their guns tied down.”

“Did he say anything to you?”

She shook her head. She hated lying to her son, but she didn't want to tell him his new acquaintance had so coldly said he'd killed three men.

“Maybe he's a marshal. Or an army scout. He was wearing Indian beads.”

“I don't think so, Jeff,” she said. “He could just be a drifter.”

“Then why did someone shoot him? Did he say?”

She shook her head, telling herself it wasn't a lie. Wade Foster hadn't explained exactly why he'd been shot.

“Can I go see him?”

“I think he needs a little privacy right now,” Mary Jo said. “But as soon as those biscuits are done, you can take some in and see if he can eat them.” She paused. “I'll go see about his gear.”

Jeff's eyes opened wide. “In this storm?”

She grinned at him. “I won't melt, I promise. He might have some other clothes with him.”

Jeff grimaced and she knew why. Buzzards would have gotten to the horse already. But she had done more gruesome things in her years on the plains; once she'd helped bury a neighboring family massacred by the Comanches. Her best friend, Betsy, had been scalped, her older brothers tortured. Their parents had a dozen arrows in them.

The only sight worse than that was her sister being taken by Comanches. Mary Jo was seven then, and she and her eight-year-old sister had been playing with a ball, moving farther and farther away from their ranch house. The Comanches appeared out of nowhere. Mary Jo yelled and started running toward the house, sure that her sister was right behind. Then she heard the terrified scream from her sister and shouts from her parents as they raced toward her. Her mother scooped her up while her father chased the riders and shot at them. But the riders were soon gone and with them her sister. None of them had seen her ever again. Her father had searched for years, and the search had eventually killed his spirit. Only a shell of him remained by the time he died.

Mary Jo wondered once more about Wade Foster's necklace and deerskins. Why in God's earth would he wear the heathen things?

Jeff was scuffing his shoes on the floor, waiting impatiently for the biscuits. She sought a way to expel some of that energy. “Why don't you get some wood for the fireplace?”

He nodded, fetched his oilcloth slicker, and disappeared out the door, eager for some action, even if it was only doing chores. She was hoping there would be a school next year; currently, there weren't enough families to support one, and she'd been teaching him herself from the few books she'd been able to find.