Little Sam's Angel (16 page)

He caught her by the arm, jerking her back to face him. "Ain't you even going to ask me about your money?"

How many times had she dreamed of what her life would be like without the responsibility of that ranch? She could have that wish now. She could just give up and let it go, if she could allow herself to, but she knew she couldn't. The irony of how hard she would have to struggled to keep something she didn't want struck her, and she gave a short bitter laugh.

"I know you lost it. That's enough. If you're worried about the money I promised for the homestead claim, I'm good for it. Everyone knows that, and so do you," she said, turning her back on him indifferently to walk away.

"Not as far as I'm concerned," he retorted to stop her. "I'm keeping my claim."

Sammy turned slowly to face him and really looked at him, his swollen nose and blackened eyes. He'd made someone else mad which made her think of Gabe and gave a twist to her heart. She had to make herself concentrate on what Pierce said. "Steal it from me, Pierce?"

"It's in my name."

"Which doesn't mean a thing. What fences have you built, what house or barn?"

"None," he admitted, "but the law will say it's all mine."

She smiled bitterly at him. "I'll fight you for it. It's mine, and you know it."

"You won't win, and maybe you'll lose a lot more."

She looked at him, moved a few paces, looking at the ground and then leaned against the building with her hands behind her back to look at him again. "There's a lot of gun hands showing up in Tree Town. Do you know anything about them? Or the attack on Gabe Taylor?"

He ignored the last part of the question, answering only the first. "I need a crew. I'm gonna get married. I need a place, a good place, 'cause she deserves the best, and I ain't gonna let you and any week-kneed hands you got working for you take it away from me."

"How much does she need? And just who is she anyway?"

"You don't know her, and I'm going to see to it that she gets everything you've got," he said bluntly. "You can pack your personal things. The rest stays."

The shock of what he was saying caught up with her. She stared at him, wondering if she was dreaming it all. She had never cared for Pierce's ways, but she had never distrusted him, nor had her father before her, which was the only reason he'd kept his job or been her trial boss. He had always been a steady hand, sometimes too violent, but always loyal, fiercely loyal at times.

"Where were you?" he asked suddenly.

"It ain't any of your business," she said, her voice coming from far away and lacking any fire.

"Over at Taylor's?" he asked hatefully. "You've been throwing yourself at that scum ever since—"

He'd hurt Gabe. She was sure of it, and Sammy exploded, swinging at him with all her might, mad enough to hope she hit him on his already sore nose.

He caught her arm, twisting it back viciously. "If you think you can get him to fight for you, you're wrong. He's nothing but a cowar
d—
woman-raping coward."

"That's a lie!"

"You ask him. Ask him about Brenda. Ask him if he didn't force her to submit to him."

"I don't have to," she said, jerking her arm free and backing away from him.

"He must have told you a real sweet story about how that kid came to be his."

"Danny isn't his, and he didn't tell me tha
t—
she did."

Pierce wanted to hit her. She could see it in his face, and he raised his hand to do it.

"Pierce, I wouldn't do that iffen I was you," a sharp, flat voice said from the side.

Both turned to find four of her men standing there, every one of them with a rifle or shotgun in their hands. Pierce backed off with a sneer on his face.

"Okay, but it don't make no difference. You boys that hold claims for the Rocking M, I advise you to sign them over to me, soon as they prove up."

"If we don't?" one asked.

"You'll wish you had." Then he turned back to face Sammy. "In one week, this land will legally be mine. Make it easy on yourself and get out now."

Sammy watched him walk away, torn so many ways she couldn't think. She heard her hands talking until one sentence caught her ears.

"Should have killed him," Bob, the one that had faced him, said.

"Why didn't you think of that before he got away?" the one next to him asked.

He shrugged. "Figured I couldn't believe my own ears."

"Well, he damned sure meant it," another snapped. "Better go oil my guns."

"No," Sammy shouted. "Get everything that passes for a wagon. Load everything that's usable. If it's busted, smash it so it cain't be fixed."

"Little Sam, you ain't just gonna let him take it?" one asked.

"I cain't fight him," she said, her face and voice hardening, "but I damn sure won't let him win."

* * *

"He just cut the last string he could have held on to," Hedges said in sorrow, dropping heavily into the chair at the table Sally and Morey occupied. He laid a piece of paper down, sighing like his heart was breaking as he did it.

"What is it?" Sally asked, afraid to look too closely at the paper.

"The deed, signed over proper to Sammy." Hedges' voice cracked, and he brushed impatiently at his eyes, sniffing loudly. "He's done give up on everything."

"Ain't there nothing we can do?" Sally wailed.

"Don't reckon. I done tried everything I could think of. He won't listen. Just lays there, staring at the wall."

"Ain't right, just ain't right. Ought to be something we can do," Sally sobbed, dabbing at her face with her apron.

"Just been walked on too many times," Hedges said, his voice still making funny sounds.

“If you ain't gonna tell us what it is, don't talk about it," Morey snapped gruffly.

"Don't see why not now. Ain't no reason you don't know." So he told them, all of it that he knew. Sally was crying uncontrollably by the time he'd finished.

"I heard some of that talk, Hedges. Some said a woman was to blame," Morey said quietly.

"Danny's ma," Hedges said with a nod. "Don't know much 'bout that part of it. Gossip was he was chasing her, making up to the boy, and putting himself in front to stand by her. When he up and left, they figured she'd turned him away. It was her caused most the trouble, prodding the ranchers to use violence against the nesters, no matter what. Ollie figured them stories come from her, a way for her to get back at Gabe 'cause he refused to go after them sodbusters for her."

"He couldn't'a loved a woman like her," Sally said, her tears subsiding somewhat.

"Having the store in Crystal Creek, Ollie heard nearly every bit of gossip, and he never did think so. He never could figure why Gabe left a good job and went to work for her when her husband died though, until there was whispers that the babe was his."

"We're gossiping. Ain't right," Morey said quickly, remembering all too well what Gabe has said when they first found him, out of his head and nailed to the floor. Sammy had heard words that the babe being his was a lie, too. If Sammy could forgive him for being close enough to a married woman that folks believed the baby was his, then it was no one else's business. He amended that thought. It was no one's business anyhow.

Sally raised her head, cocked towards Gabe's bedroom door. "Thought I heard him moving around," she murmured when the two men looked at her. She turned back to them with a slight shrug. "Guess not."

Hedges drew back her attention back to him. "That Brenda woman told the story that something happened between them when he found her in the mountains that time she got herself lost. But the babe came too early for that to be true."

"Hedges, don't—" Morey started.

"Wasn't nothing but a lie, Morey. Ollie knew like most everyone else. It couldn't'a been Gabe's baby, not from that time. 'Sides the babe coming too early, when she went missing that day her husband got a bunch together to go out searching. They followed her tracks to where Gabe found her and then to as far as he got before that blood poisoning in his arm got so bad he couldn't go no further. Unconscious, out of his head with fever, when they found them, and he sure weren't in any shape for—"

"Hedges, that's enough," Sally said sharply. "Morey's right, we ain't doing nothing but gossiping."

Morey agreed, but for his own peace of mind and for Sammy's sake, he was glad Hedges had told them.

"I hear something," Hedges said, walking to the window.

"I thought I did a while ago," Sally said, joining him.

Morey went to the door, stepping out for a better look. "What in tarnation?"

Wagons were coming, four or five of them. As they drew near, a rider spotted Morey and spurred ahead.

"Brander, what the…" Morey started.

"You better get over there, Morey. I think Little Sam has gone loco," the man called out excitedly.

"Get down," he ordered, grabbing the horse by the head stall. "What happened?"

"Well," he said, leaping of the horse, "Little Sam ordered us ta take everything that was of use. Said to give it ta Mr. Taylor. Said to tell him it was for the boy, not him, and for you ta go after Danny, 'cause there wasn't any reason…" He gulped in deep breath, "…ta leave now 'cause the place was his."

"Fool girl," he exclaimed, jumping to the saddle.

"Morey, you better know, she's madder than a hornet. She came back out wearing britches and Big Sam's gun strapped on. She said she couldn't fight him, but she wouldn't let him win, and she wouldn't let us stay. I'm a'feared, Morey. She might go after him by her ownself."

"After who?" he asked, totally confused now in a situation he had at first thought he understood.

"Pierce."

"Pierce? Why for God's sake?"

"He ain't gonna give her the deed. He threatened to take the others from us, and he's been bringing in hard-cases ta back him up."

"Judas Priest," he said, sinking his heels deep. The horse jumped at a low rumbling coming from the direction of the Rocking M. It sounded like thunder, but there were no storm clouds to go with it. He sank his heels again.

* * *

When Sammy did a job, she did it well. She put a stick of dynamite under each of the peeled logs holding up the porch, ran the fuses out and tied them together for lighting. She fired the inside of the house before she lit that fuse and already had the barn burning when the house went up in a cloud of dust, smoke, and fire.

Every building on the place was burning when she mounted her frantic horse and started on the fences with a rope. Little Sam had learned how to throw a rope well. As soon as one section went down, she shook the rope loose and threw it over the next standing pole.

Fighting the frightened horse constantly didn't stop her, nor did the rider coming in. If it was Pierce, she'd kill him before she'd let him stop her.

It wasn't Pierce. It was Gabe.

Stopping his horse ten feet from her, Gabe asked quietly, "What are you doing?"

"You get out of here. I don't want you around," she shouted at him.

"I guess I can understand that," he said, kneeing his horse closer.

"Stay away from me!" she screamed, backing her horse away from him.

"I want to know why you're doing this," he said calmly, still moving steadily toward her.

"It isn't any of your concern. It's mine, and I'll deal with it in my own way. I'm Little Sam, as good as any man. Doesn't it rhyme nice, just perfect to chant? Stay away."

She dug into her horse’s side with her heels. The startled animal jumped forward, snapping the rope taunt, signaling the horse to back and pull as if it were a fighting steer on the other end.

Gabe lunged his own horse to in front of hers.

Sammy's horse went crazy. The fire, the smell of smoke, his irate rider, all combined to make him explode in a frenzy of bucking. By the time she got him back under control, Gabe was beside her, holding tight to the horse's headstall, and they were a safe distance away from the burning buildings.

"Get down," he ordered.

She was going to fight him, heel her horse again, until she saw the hand that held the headstall. Bandages covered it, soaked through with blood from the unhealed wound.

"Gabe, let go," she cried in anguish.

"Get down," he repeated coldly.

"You shouldn't even be out of bed." She jumped off the horse. From the ground, she pleaded, "Go home, Gabe. Please go home."

"Stay put while I get down."

She shook her head violently, backing away from him. "Go home. I don't want you here. There's nothing you can do."

He settled back in the saddle, ready to herd her with the horse like an ornery steer if she bolted. "Answer my question," he said. "Why are you doing this?"

"There isn't anything you can do. Please go home," she cried.

"Not likely. If you got any ideas on stopping me, you better use that gun. Where is he?"