Maureen McKade (9 page)

Libby lowered herself into the desk beside Dylan. “Are you hungry?”

Dylan’s eyes widened when he spied the food and he began to nod, but stopped himself. “Naw.”

Libby unwrapped the brown paper. “That’s too bad, because I was hoping you’d help me eat my
lunch. You see, Mrs. Potts thinks I need fattening up, so she sent all this food with me.”

The smell of roast beef surrounded them and the boy’s gaze fastened on her lunch. “If you’re sure you ain’t—I mean, aren’t—going to eat it all.”

“I’m sure.” She handed Dylan the other package. “And we have cookies for dessert, too.”

Dylan took a monstrous bite. “As long as you’re sure,” he mumbled.

“What did you have for breakfast this morning?” Libby asked, hoping she sounded merely curious.

“Nothing. Didn’t have no supper last night neither. I ate the oatmeal cookies Mrs. Potts gave me.”

“Why didn’t you have supper?”

“Ma was feeling poorly,” he said with a note of defensiveness.

“I tell you what. If your ma is feeling poorly again, you come on over to Mrs. Potts and eat with us. Would you like that?” Libby held her breath, hoping her fury hadn’t spilled out in her tone.

“Can the sheriff come, too?”

“You can bring him if you’d like.” Much as Libby hated to admit it, she looked forward to seeing Matt across the supper table again.

A shy smile graced the boy’s thin face. “Then I’d like to.”

Libby nibbled a cookie and gave the remaining ones to Dylan, who wolfed them down. She smiled gently and touched the boy’s shoulder. Dylan jerked beneath her hand and her lips curved downward. “Did I hurt you?”

Dylan blinked and his dark eyelashes swept across his cheeks. “No.”

Libby’s frown grew. “Did someone else hurt you?”

He shrugged and picked up his book.

She lifted the primer from his hands and asked softly, “Did your mother hurt you last night?”

“No.”

She recognized the lie of omission, for she had often used it herself. Was Dylan also lying to himself? Was he telling himself that his mother wouldn’t beat him again? Did he truly believe tomorrow would make everything better? Overwhelming empathy for the boy filled Libby. His pain became hers, and tears threatened behind closed eyelids.

A small hand settled on her arm. “What’s wrong, Miss O’Hanlon?”

Libby opened moisture-laden eyes to Dylan’s concerned expression. She shook her head and smiled with quivering lips. “Nothing time won’t heal. I know what you’re feeling, Dylan. If you ever want to talk to anybody, or if you need help with anything, you can come to me.”

Dylan nodded, and trusting eyes accepted the offer.

Gently, Libby touched Dylan’s cheek and stood. She moved to the front of the classroom and clapped her hands together. “Time to get back to work.”

The afternoon sped by uneventfully. By three o’clock, sullen gray clouds pillowed the sky and feathered the air with snowflakes. Before Libby allowed the children out of the schoolhouse, she checked each one for buttoned coats and tightly bound scarves.

She tugged Dylan’s cap over his ears and tied the wool scarf around his neck. The familiar smell of bay rum wafted up, and visions of Matt awkwardly helping Dylan dress brought a painful lump to her throat. She swallowed. “Would you like me to walk you home?”

Dylan shook his head. “I’m going to see the sheriff.”

“Have him take you home. You shouldn’t be out in this weather by yourself.”

“I like the snow. It makes everything all clean and white, like it’s covered with sugar.”

Libby smiled. “All right, but you be careful.”

“Bye, Miss O’Hanlon.”

“Goodbye, Dylan.” The boy loped into the swirling snow and disappeared.

She turned from the door to find Seth and Jacob still in the classroom. “You boys should get going before the weather worsens.”

Seth kicked at the puncheon floor with a booted toe. “The sheriff said I had to stay and clean your blackboards and fill the wood box before I left.”

Libby stifled a chuckle at the boy’s obvious discomfort. “Since Jacob was just as guilty as you, I think both of you should take care of the blackboard and wood box.”

Jacob’s lips curled into a scowl. “I’ll bring in the wood.”

Libby worked on the following day’s lessons until Seth and Jacob finished. She glanced out the window and a curtain of white greeted her. “Now get on home before your parents start worrying.”

“Good night, Miss O’Hanlon,” Seth said and received a poke in the ribs from Jacob.

Libby ignored Jacob’s surliness and smiled sweetly at Seth. “Good night, Seth. Good night, Jacob.”

Their arguing voices faded behind the closed door. Intent on reaching the boardinghouse before a full-blown blizzard descended upon the town, Libby tossed her long coat on. She turned down the damper on the stove and blew out the lantern.

Somber clouds darkened the day and Libby used the faint lights of town to guide her home. Crunching across the snow, she thought about Dylan. The familiar fear she’d glimpsed in his enormous eyes brought black memories tumbling out of the hidden recesses in her mind. She understood Dylan’s terror and confusion, and her stomach cramped with her remembered torment. She recalled the trapped helplessness when the sadistic blows were delivered, and the
pain of leather rending skin. And all the horrible acts were executed by someone who was supposed to love you.

By the time she arrived at the house, snowflakes covered her head and shoulders and clung to her eyelashes. Pots and pans clattered in the kitchen, and Lenore’s off-key singing met Libby’s ears. A need to be alone with her tortured recollections sent Libby up to her room.

After removing her damp coat and shoes, she pulled the Boston rocker close to the fireplace. She added another log to the flames, then tucked her feet beneath her on the chair and wrapped her arms around her waist. How many times had she told herself not to anger Harrison, to walk softly, and speak only when spoken to? If she did these things then he wouldn’t beat her. So much pain, so much self-recrimination, so much loss. She had believed it was her fault, that Harrison was only punishing her for her misdeeds. After killing him, she’d spent days alone thinking, wondering what had turned Harrison into the monster he’d become. He’d been raised in a wealthy home and wanted for nothing. The man she’d fallen in love with had been thoughtful, courteous, and treated her with respect. Only after the wedding had he revealed the beast beneath the gentleman’s attire. The four years they’d been together, he had chipped away her soul, leaving only a shell of a woman. Despair had controlled the hands that swung the iron poker.

Would Dylan’s mother someday push the boy too far? Would Dylan someday reach the end of his tolerance just as she had? Would Dylan someday kill his own mother? She couldn’t allow him to ruin his life as she had destroyed hers. Before she left in the spring, she would ensure Dylan was free of his mother’s insanity. Matt would help. He cared about
the boy, and maybe he knew of a family who would adopt him.

Branded a murderer, Libby’s future lay as barren as the Montana winter. And as a doctor, Libby had violated the highest decree: preservation of life—and she would bear that burden on her conscience forever.

Lenore passed the mashed potatoes to Libby. “Have some more potatoes and gravy. You need more meat on your ribs if you’re going to survive a Montana winter.”

Libby smiled and handed Virgil Tanner the bowl. “I’ve already eaten two helpings.”

Tanner spooned the remainder of the potatoes onto his plate and poured some smooth brown gravy over the mound. “Lenore’s right, Miss O’Hanlon. You’re just getting a taste of winter. It’s going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better.”

“He’s right, honey. Why, the temperature’s fallen thirty degrees if it’s fallen a notch.”

Libby accepted the remark without comment. “Where’s Mr. Johnson? He didn’t have to work late in this storm, did he?”

“You didn’t hear, did you?” Lenore asked. Libby shook her head. “The bank was robbed shortly before noon. I’m sure George had to get an accurate account of what was stolen for old Pinkney. I swear, if Pinkney so much as loses a nickel, he turns the bank upside down looking for it.”

“Was anyone hurt?” Libby asked.

Eli’s arrival interrupted Lenore’s reply. “Pinkney was shot, but nothing serious,” he answered. “You got any food for a tired old sawbones, or has Virgil cleaned you out?”

Lenore pressed him into a chair. “I always got extra. You sit yourself down and I’ll fill a plate for you.”

“Were the men caught?” Libby asked Eli after Lenore bustled into the kitchen.

He shook his head. “Matt went after them.”

“Did he get them?”

“He’s not back yet.”

Libby’s heart flipflopped. “You mean he’s somewhere out in the blizzard?”

Eli nodded, concern furrowing his brow.

“Shouldn’t someone go out looking for him?”

“Then we’d have more than one person missing. We can only hope Matt found some shelter out of the storm.”

“And if he didn’t?”

“You can’t think that way, Miss O’Hanlon. Matt’s damned resourceful. He’ll be fine.”

“Then why are you worried?”

“A doctor always worries. It comes with the job.” He smiled, but Libby noted the gesture didn’t touch his eyes.

Her hunger fled. Alone in the snowstorm, Matt had little chance of surviving the cold if he didn’t find sanctuary from the bone-chilling north wind. He could become disoriented and lose his way home. In Nebraska, she had seen her share of frozen livestock that had died within twenty feet of shelter. The vision of Matt’s unseeing eyes and frost-covered face brought terror to her heart.

Lenore set a plate in front of the doctor. “Here you go, Eli. Eat up.”

Libby pushed back her chair and stood. “If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go up to my room. I’ve got schoolwork to do.”

“You come on down to the parlor in an hour and have some bread pudding with rum sauce,” Lenore invited.

Libby managed a weak smile. “I’ll be down.”

Helplessness loomed over her like a vulture, and she forced herself to stroll calmly to her room. She
closed the door and leaned against its welcome solidness. A week ago, she’d considered Matt Brandon an illiterate lout. Now the thought of him alone in the middle of a blizzard twisted her stomach into knots. What if he didn’t return? Dylan would be devastated, and Libby wasn’t so sure her own heart would be unaffected.

Chapter 5

T
he parlor was warm, almost hot, and Libby suspected Lenore had added extra fuel for Eli’s arthritis. He sat comfortably on the sofa beside Lenore, who mended one of his shirts. If Libby hadn’t known better, she would’ve thought they were a long-married couple.

Libby managed to eat a small portion of the bread pudding. Her gaze traveled to the window, and she wondered for the hundredth time if Matt had found shelter from the storm. She picked up a needlepoint project she’d begun to pass the time during her weeks of hiding in hotel rooms. Holding the needle with accustomed deftness, she stitched a tight line.

“You hold that needle like you’re a surgeon,” Eli commented.

Libby nearly dropped the pillowcase. “Why do you say that?”

“The way you concentrate on those tiny stitches, like you’re stitching up a vein or artery.”

Libby swallowed. One of her professors in college had made the same observation. She laughed with more breath than sound. “I’ve heard of women doctors, but I can’t imagine myself as one.”

Eli pulled the pipe from his mouth and studied the stem. “I don’t know why not.”

Eli’s comment surprised her and reminded her of her father. Neither man held the common belief that females were too delicate to be doctors. Homesickness welled within her, and moisture clouded her gaze. She wished she could confide in Eli as she’d done with her father.

Libby concentrated on her needlework to make the tears disappear. After a couple of stitches her mind wandered once more to Matt, and the material lay forgotten in her lap.

“What’s got you woolgathering?” Lenore asked.

“I was thinking about the sheriff, wondering how he was,” Libby answered honestly.

“I’m a mite worried myself. He’s too stubborn for his own good, that’s what I say. Why, when Eli first found him half-frozen and more dead than alive, I figured for sure he was headed for the pearly gates, but he pulled through. I always thought it was the whiskey in him—pickled pretty good, he was.”

“Are you talking about Matt?”

Lenore nodded vehemently. “He never touches strong spirits now, only coffee. He’s afraid he’ll get a taste for the whiskey again.”

Libby allowed the new information to sink in. “Did he start drinking after he got the scar?”

“A couple years afterward, but I think the scar had something to do with the it,” Eli replied.

“What do you mean?”

“Miss O’Hanlon, there’s one thing you should know about Matt Brandon. He’s a proud man, and that pride was his downfall a few years back. I hope he’s got more sense now. Although, in all the years I been healing folks, I’ve found pride is like a chronic disease—keeps coming back when a person least expects it.”

Libby wondered if pride made Matt so self-conscious of the scar. She had seen far worse on
others, and they hadn’t seemed as worried as Matt. Why was he so ashamed of the disfigurement?

“Don’t you worry. He’ll be back in time for Thanksgiving. There’s nothing that can keep him from my turkey and dressing,” Lenore assured.

Only freezing to death.
Libby chastised herself for being so pessimistic, but the fear wouldn’t vanish. “Thanksgiving is still two days away. He’ll be back before then, won’t he?”

Eli shrugged. “Depends on how far he has to track the thieves. Matt’s done this before and he’s always come back. There’s no reason this time should be any different.”

Libby nodded and commanded her lips to form a tailored smile. “I’m sure you’re right. I’d best turn in.”

“Good night, dear,” Lenore said.

Eli echoed her sentiments, and Libby returned to her room. Since the fire had burned down to embers, cool air nipped her cheeks. She added more wood and listened to the popping and crackling. The comforting sound should have soothed her, but the underlying fear refused to be consoled.

Matt rubbed his gloved hands together and held them over the tiny fire. “Never thought the day would come when I wished I was back in Texas.”

His voice sounded unusually loud in the tight confines of the dim cave, and Alamo’s ears pricked forward. The wind wailed in the night, and a stray breeze sent glowing sparks shooting upward to disappear in the blackness. Matt shivered, tugging his collar up to cover the back of his neck. His fingers were clumsy, the cold causing them to alternately tingle and grow numb. He stuck his hands under his arms to warm them.

Matt glanced at the patient horse. Alamo stood between him and the cave’s entrance, blocking some
of the frigid gusts. Matt had smelled the snow long before the sky clouded over, but he’d thought he’d be able to catch the two thieves prior to the storm hitting. But Mother Nature had her own ideas, and he’d been lucky to find the cut in the sandstone hills.

He didn’t doubt his survival skills, but the loss of the two robbers angered him. The snow would obliterate any sign of the men unless he stumbled upon their bodies. He didn’t hold much hope for that outcome. He’d memorized the horses’ tracks, and if luck rode his shoulders, he might spot the cracked shoe print in the snow or mud someday.

Hell, I’m grasping at straws.
What would everybody, including Libby, think of a lawman who couldn’t even protect his own town? His shoulders slumped as exhaustion stole across him. Ten years ago he’d had a wife, a son, and a small ranch; now all he had was a gun, a horse, and his badge. Not a hell of a lot to show for thirty-eight years. If he froze to death, he’d leave no legacy behind, nothing to mark his passage on this earth.

The thought terrified him.

The wind rattled the windows and flung ice crystals against the glass. The morning sun lay hidden by the blowing snow, and Libby debated whether she should go to school or not.

“The children won’t come in on a day like this, so you don’t have to worry,” Lenore stated, pouring batter on a hot griddle.

Libby sipped coffee from a steaming mug. “But what if someone does show up?”

“You’re thinking of Sadie’s boy, aren’t you?”

“I’m worried about him, Lenore. If he shows up and I’m not there, he might think I abandoned him.”

“He’s a bright boy. He won’t go over in weather like this.”

“He is smart, isn’t he? I wish his mother wouldn’t
fight us every step of the way. Just because she’s a…” Libby glanced around, “soiled dove doesn’t mean she has to ruin her son’s life.”

“I worry about him, too, but you got to remember he does belong to Sadie. I knew a woman one time who loved her children, but she’d have fits and beat them black-and-blue. She didn’t know what she was doing, and afterward she’d cry and carry on, sorry for what she’d done. Maybe Sadie’s like that.”

“That’s no excuse, Lenore. Children shouldn’t have to fear their own parents. It’s just not natural.”

“Sounds like you know from experience.” Lenore’s sharp blue eyes peered at her.

Libby lowered her gaze. “My mother died when I was a baby. My father and older brother raised me, but they never laid a hand on me. If the truth were known, they spoiled me rotten.”

Lenore slid another golden flapjack on to Libby’s plate. “Well, I think they done a fine job, and you aren’t a bit spoiled. Eat up.”

Libby spread pale butter over the pancake and added a few drops of sorghum. “After I’m done eating, I’m going over to the school, Lenore. If the weather improves a few of the children might show up, and I should be there since there won’t be classes tomorrow.”

Lenore sighed and aimed a wooden spoon at Libby. “You shouldn’t be going out in this weather, but I can tell you got your mind made up. My Willard was the same way. Once he got something in his head, dynamite couldn’t get it out. One time he decides we need a new privy and he’s going to make it with bricks. We were the laughingstocks of the county until a storm came through and that privy was the only thing left standing. After that, folks always said they wanted their places built like Willard’s brick outhouse.”

Laughter convulsed Libby. “You made that up!”

“Are you calling me a liar? Because if you are, I’m
going to have to throw you out of my kitchen.” Lenore’s wink belied her threat.

Libby smiled and shook her head. “I would never call you a liar. However, I would say you had a gift for storytelling.”

“My pa, now, he could tell a good story. I remember many a night listening to him spinning some yarn.” Lenore’s gaze turned inward. “I can still see him sitting under the old oak tree, pipe in his mouth and wearing patched overalls. Ma called him lazy and no-good, but I’ll always remember how safe I felt listening to that deep voice of his.”

“Is he still alive?”

“He died about twenty years ago. Consumption got him. Ma died a few months later. We always figured a broken heart took her, because no matter how much she complained about Pa, she loved him.”

Libby nodded. She would never know that kind of love. When she had killed Harrison, she had forfeited her own chance at happiness. The threat of the law someday finding her would haunt her forever.

She finished the flapjack, though she didn’t taste the last few bites.

Libby forged through the dense drifts, glad she’d worn her trousers beneath the heavy skirt. She arrived at the building out of breath and sweating beneath her warm clothing. Thankful that Seth and Jacob had filled the wood box, Libby started a fire in the black potbellied stove. She thawed her fingers and took a shovel to create a path from the school to the outhouse and to the woodpile. After bringing a couple of armloads of wood in, Libby sat down and caught her breath.

She’d only been in the chair a minute when the door opened and Dylan entered.

“Good morning,” Libby greeted, surprised and
concerned to see him. “I wasn’t sure if anyone would come to school today.”

“I seen it worse than this,” Dylan remarked. “Last year there was a drift bigger than me. I tried walking over it, but I fell in and the sheriff had to pull me out.”

“Don’t try that now. The sheriff isn’t here.”

With red hands, Dylan fumbled with his coat buttons.

Libby knelt down to help him.

“You think the sheriff is all right?” Dylan asked quietly.

“He’ll be just fine. The sheriff can take care of himself.” Libby wished she felt as confident as she sounded.

Dylan sighed. “That’s what I thought, but Ma said nobody could survive that storm last night.”

“Is your mother still feeling poorly?” Libby removed Dylan’s threadbare scarf from around his neck.

Dylan shrugged. “She’s okay, I guess.”

“Did she hurt you?”

“Naw.” He pressed his right cheek to his shoulder and a haunted expression touched his somber eyes.

Libby frowned and tilted her head to view the side of his face. A faint blue and purple swelling shadowed the area below his eye. She swallowed, but the fury refused to abate. “Did she do that to you?”

Dylan’s chin jutted forward. “I ran into a door.”

He wasn’t ready to confide in her yet. “Go ahead and sit down.”

She moved to her desk and studied the vulnerable boy. His shirt was wrinkled and his dark hair mussed. Obviously he’d dressed himself for school.

When no other children arrived by nine o’clock, Libby moved her chair closer to the stove. “It looks like it’s just you and me. Bring your desk over here so we won’t get so cold.”

Anxiously, Dylan dragged the wooden seat up beside Libby. “You mean you’re just going to teach me today?”

Libby nodded. “Is that all right?”

A toothy grin gave his answer.

“Why don’t we start with some new letters,” she suggested.

Flakes of snow sifted in through a crack in a corner of the room, but Libby kept the stove filled to keep them toasty warm. Lunchtime showed little change in the weather, and Libby split her generous meal with Dylan. During the afternoon she gave him a lesson in arithmetic, and the boy caught on to addition and subtraction quickly.

The wind and snow diminished in the afternoon, and by four o’clock, they could see Deer Creek.

“Would you like to clean the blackboard for me, Dylan?” Libby asked.

A smile lit up his face and he nodded eagerly.

“You think the sheriff is back?” Dylan asked after the board was spotless.

“I don’t know. What do you say we walk over to the jail and find out?”

A few minutes later they bustled down the main street and into the sheriff’s office. The room was cold, and there was no sign anybody had been there in the past twenty-four hours.

“It doesn’t look like he’s back yet,” Libby stated. A haphazard pile of papers in the center of the messy desk drew her attention. “What are those?”

“Wanted posters,” Dylan answered. “The sheriff looks through them most every day.”

Libby shifted uncomfortably. “Has he gotten any new ones lately?”

“He gets ’em all the time.”

She inched closer to the scarred desk. “Do you think he’d mind if you and I looked at them?”

Dylan grinned. “Naw. Maybe we can catch us an outlaw.”

“Maybe,” Libby said weakly. She removed a dirty tin plate from the chair and lowered herself into the scuffed seat. Her buttocks shifted across the slight ridge in the middle of the worn cushion. Obviously Matt had spent many hours sitting there, and the padding had molded to his shape. Libby closed her eyes, slowly rubbing her hands over the chair’s arms, and envisioning Matt behind the desk. The faint smell of bay rum tickled her nostrils and her eyelids lifted, but Matt wasn’t there. Disappointment replaced her tantalizingly wicked thoughts.

Dylan propped an elbow on the desktop. Tentatively, Libby reached for the stack and studied the first outlaw. Weasly eyes under bushy eyebrows peered at her, and a scruffy beard lent the picture a villainous overtone. She shivered.

“What’d he do?” Dylan asked.

“It says he’s robbed two trains and shot a passenger.”

Dylan screwed up his face and studied the number across the top of the paper. “One thousand dollars.” His sparkling gaze found Libby. “If we got him, we’d get one thousand dollars. That’s a lot of money, isn’t it?”

“It sure is. Who taught you how to read numbers?”

“The sheriff. He teached me while we looked at the wanted posters.”