The Gunman's Bride (15 page)

Rosie drove her buggy to the doctor’s office and pulled it up outside the small frame building. After lapping the reins over the hitching post, she bent to give Griff a pat on his massive head, then stepped over the dog and entered the building.

“Afternoon, Mrs. Springfield,” the physician greeted her.

“Good day, doctor.” She gave the burly man a smile as he escorted her into his examining room. He gestured
to a chair, and she seated herself demurely, hands in her lap.

“Now, how would you describe this problem of yours, Mrs. Springfield?” Taking a notebook, he adjusted his spectacles and stared at her.

“It’s a…a feminine problem, sir.”

“I see. Of what nature?”

“Well,” Rosie said with a flush, “I was ill some time ago, and since then my monthly flow seems to have stopped altogether.”

“What sort of illness did you suffer?”

“A violent stomach ailment. I was nauseated for several weeks. That subsided finally, but my cycles never resumed.”

He lifted his head and gave her a tender smile. “I’m assuming, therefore, that you believe you may be with child.”

“What?” Rosie sat up, startled. “Oh, no, that’s impossible. I can’t have children.”

“You can’t? How do you know?”

Rosie fiddled with the folds of her skirts. She had known this was going to be difficult, but she hadn’t expected this turn of conversation.

Finally she cleared her throat. “I was married before, you see. To my husband.”

“Your husband?” He made a note in his book. “May I ask, Mrs. Springfield, when your husband passed away?”

“Oh, he didn’t. Pass away, I mean.”

The doctor was staring at her with a new look on his face, a look of disapproval. “So, you are a divorced woman?”

“No, the first husband is the same one I have now. But he left me, you see. Back then.” Rosie began to wish mightily for a fan. “I trust this is a confidential conversation, Dr. Kohlhouser.”

“Of course.”

“I am a married woman—and have been for the last six years. Mr. Springfield is my husband. But past events rendered me unable to conceive. So, will you please tell me what’s wrong with me?”

The doctor placed his notebook on his leg and tapped the tip of his pen against it. “I’m going to have to ask you some more questions, Mrs. Springfield—about your marriage.”

She bristled. “I don’t see why. That is none of your business.”

“It certainly is if I’m to learn why your monthly cycles have ceased.”

Rosie sank back into the chair. “All right,” she said glumly. “If you must know, my husband left me two weeks after our wedding.”

“And I’m assuming you had a normal marital relationship with him during those two weeks.”

“No.” She wrung her hands. “We were very young, you see. I lived at home until my father found out what we’d done.”

“Ah. But as you didn’t have a true marriage relationship with your husband, you could not have conceived. So how do you know that you’re unable to have a baby? Were you with another man during the years before you reunited with Mr. Springfield?”

“Another man? Oh, of course not!” She shook her head. “No, I loved him. I loved him so much, in fact,
that I became very ill after he left me. I was sick all the time for more than a year—unable to sleep, unable to eat. My cycle completely stopped, Dr. Kohlhouser. My father is a physician, you see, and he took me to be examined by several doctors, friends of his. They all said the same thing—I’m barren.”

“Will you permit me to send to these physicians for your medical records, Mrs. Springfield?”

“Absolutely not.” Just the thought of contacting men who would rush to her pappy and tell him where she was sent a chill into Rosie’s bones. “That’s all in the past.”

“Do you now have a normal marriage relationship with Mr. Springfield?”

“Yes, I do. But why won’t you simply take what I say as fact, Dr. Kohlhouser, and tell me what else could be wrong with me?”

He shrugged. “I’ll try my best. But a healthy young married woman with your symptoms certainly would seem to call for a diagnosis of pregnancy.”

“I’m not going to have a baby,” Rosie whispered. “I can’t. Please don’t mention it again.”

At the look on her face, the doctor’s own visage fell into tender lines, and he patted Rosie’s knotted fingers. “There now, I know how much you love little ones, Mrs. Springfield. Your work at the school has been exemplary. I’ll see what I can do for you.”

Rosie bared herself to the humiliation of a thorough exam. All the while, the doctor questioned her about every imaginable awkward thing. Had this or that changed? Was she always so emotional? Had her husband noticed anything different about her? She won
dered how a woman doctor might be different, but of course such a possibility was remote.

Finally Dr. Kohlhouser allowed her to dress. “Mrs. Springfield,” he said when she was seated in yet another chair, “I can arrive at only one diagnosis, and it’s based on twenty-five years of medical practice. You are with child.”

A tingle washed down Rosie’s spine as she stared at him. “With child. But that’s impossible.”

“Mrs. Springfield, after your husband left you and your cycles ceased, did they ever begin again?”

“Well, yes, after a couple of years.”

“Sometimes emotional collapse combined with a lack of proper nourishment can cause a woman’s monthly cycle to be interrupted. Your cycle righted itself after time, and when you renewed your marriage with Mr. Springfield, you conceived.”

“Are you sure?”

“As certain as I can possibly be. You have every symptom. Based on what you’ve told me, I would say you’re about two months along. Maybe more. If I’m correct, you’ll deliver sometime around…oh, next January.”

Rosie couldn’t speak.

“Now, I could be wrong.”

“Yes,” Rosie breathed, certain he must be and fearful he might.

“I could be mistaken, and you’ll deliver in December. Or February. We’ll know better as you progress. But if I were a betting man, Mrs. Springfield, I’d wager you’re going to have yourself a baby in a few months. I’ve been
wrong only twice in my career, and I’ve delivered nigh onto three hundred babies.”

“A baby…” she whispered.

“Congratulations. I hope you’re happy.”

“Happy! Of course—oh, a baby!” Rosie jumped out of her chair and ran to the window. She felt light-headed, fairly dancing with joy. But when she looked out at the reality of the bustling street, she had to turn again to the doctor.

“How?” she asked. “How can I possibly have conceived, Dr. Kohlhouser? All those doctors examined me, and they were good men, too. Friends of my father.”

Dr. Kohlhouser shrugged. “As much as I’d like to claim that modern medicine is perfect and physicians never err, I’m sure you know that is not true. Your dear father, as you must have discovered by now, is merely mortal. He makes mistakes. We all do.”

Rosie thought of the speech her pappy had given Bart—about his worthlessness, about the failure he would be as a husband, about the terrible life he would give his young wife. Pappy had been wrong. Very wrong.

“Yes, Dr. Kohlhouser,” she said. “My father made a mistake. And…and I need to forgive him.”

“A wise decision, especially under the circumstances. He’ll want to know he’s a grandfather.” The physician adjusted his spectacles again. “Now, I am going to record my assumption that your husband suffers no difficulty whatsoever with his reproductive system. And you, Mrs. Springfield, are as fertile as the good springtime earth.”

Rosie’s hands slipped down over her belly. For a long
moment she stood in silence, trying to absorb the doctor’s words. She was with child. Through their loving, she and Bart had created a new life. Even now the baby was growing inside her body—developing, strengthening, forming into a beautiful child, the essence of each of its parents.

“A baby,” she murmured again. “A baby!”

Dr. Kohlhouser laughed. “Or maybe two. Now, Mrs. Springfield, here’s what you are to do.”

She listened in a fog as he explained how important it was that she rest, eat properly and take in plenty of fresh air during the months to come. She mustn’t tire herself or corset herself too tightly. The baby needed room to grow after all. She mustn’t be left alone much, and toward the end she should move into town to be close to the doctor when her time came.

“Yes,” Rosie replied to everything he said. “Yes, yes, of course.”

But as she walked out the front door, her head might as well have been a blank slate. She was going to have a baby! Forgetting all about her horse and carriage, her afternoon classes and the doctor’s admonitions, she began running down the street toward the stables.
Bart!
She must tell him right away. How happy he’d be! Oh, she couldn’t wait to see the expression on his face when she told him they were going to have a child of their very own!

“Bart,” she murmured aloud as she rounded the corner of the depot. “Bart, a baby!”

She whispered the refrain as she ran across the platform in front of the Harvey House, oblivious to the late-lunch train and the arrival of passengers who were
startled at the sight of a woman dashing past them, her blue dress flying around her knees.

“Bart!” she shouted as she ran up the ramp into the livery stable. “Bart, where are you?”

“Rosie!” He emerged from the shadows and caught her before she could slam into him. “Rosie, what are you doing here?” His voice was harsh, as cold as steel.

“You’re supposed to be at the schoolhouse!”

She blinked at him and tried to fathom the look on his face. At the same time, it dawned on her that he was hiding something. Something he didn’t want her to know about.

“Bart?” she asked, flashes of fear darting through her mind. “Bart? What’s going on?”

“So, this is the little woman you’ve been telling me about,” a man announced, striding out into the middle of the stable, his pistol drawn. “Rosie, is it?”

She stared at a face worn into crags, at blue eyes hard and glittering. “Who are you?”

“Ain’t you told her about me, Injun?” the man asked, jabbing Bart in the side with his gun. “You better introduce us, pal.”

Breathing hard, Bart pushed the barrel of the six-shooter away from his injured side. “Rosie, this is a pal of mine from a long time back. We used to ride together in the old days. His name’s Bob Ford.”

“Robert Ford,” she mouthed. “Robert Ford…the man who killed Jesse James.”

“That’s me. Not only that, but I saved young Bart from a bullet a time or two.” As he spoke, two more men emerged from the shadows. “And now me and my
buddies have come to town to pay you folks a friendly visit. For old times’ sake, if you know what I mean.”

As Rosie turned to Bart, Bob Ford began to laugh.

“R
osie, get on back to the schoolhouse,” Bart barked. “Stay with the Kilgores tonight. We’ll talk about this tomorrow.”

“You mean we rode all this way and we ain’t gonna get us a home-cooked meal?” Ford complained. “Now listen here, Miz Kingsley, don’t pay your husband no heed. You head on home tonight and whip us up somethin’ dandy to eat. We been livin’ on beans for almost a month now.”

Rosie glanced at Bart. To the best of her knowledge, she’d never seen him truly angry until this moment. Now she remembered, by the stance of his body, what became of men like that toothless Harwood fellow who tried to cross him. His bare biceps were bunched and knotted. Big fists clenched, his knuckles had gone white as bone. The muscle in his square jaw worked as he gritted his teeth, and his eyes sparked with a burning green flame.

“I told my wife to go back to work, Ford, and she’ll do as I say.” His head snapped toward Rosie, but his eyes stayed on the intruder. “Get out of here, woman!”

Her hand covering her stomach, Rosie started for the door. But when she crossed into the shaft of afternoon sunlight, she stopped and swung around. “Tell me one thing,” she demanded of Bob Ford. “I want to know how you found Bart.”

“That’s easy. Injun writ a letter to Frank James a while back. Frank mentioned it to some of the boys, and word leaked out. Everybody knows where he’s been hidin’ out.”

Rosie stopped breathing. “Everybody?”

“Didn’t I just say that? Are you deaf or some thing?”

“Watch how you talk to my woman, Ford,” Bart snarled. “She’s no lowlife like you.”

“I ain’t a lowlife, Injun. I’m famous, don’t ya know?”

“Yeah, you pulled the trigger on Jesse. That sets you real high in some people’s books.”

Bob frowned. “For your information, Injun, I
am
famous. I’m makin’ a name for myself as the man who shot the most wanted outlaw in the United States of America. Once I get rollin’, folks will line up and pay good money just to get a gander at me. I’m fixin’ to get plumb rich off my reputation.”

“Well, why don’t you get your famous hide out of Raton and take it someplace where people care.”

“Now, watch how you talk in front of the lady, Injun.” At this, Bob guffawed, and his two companions joined in the laughter. Sobering after a moment, the outlaw nodded at Rosie. “Don’t worry, Miz Kingsley. We ain’t gonna cause you no trouble. We just got tired of Las Vegas and thought we’d head over your way to visit a spell. Ain’t that right, boys?”

“Tired of gettin’ run out of places on account of
your famous reputation, Ford,” one of them countered. Then he tipped his grimy hat at Rosie. “They call me Snort, and this here’s Fancy. Pleased to meet ya, Miz Kingsley.”

Rosie gave the two men a quick scrutiny. Snort, a skinny, brown-haired fellow with a big nose and an enormous walrus mustache, wore a pair of six-shooters strapped to his thighs and cradled a rifle in his arms. Fancy, the dirtiest, greasiest, smelliest man Rosie had ever laid eyes on, had a mane of thick black hair and a stomach twice the size of his hips.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” she greeted them in as polite a tone as she could muster. “Bart, I’d like to speak with you a moment, please.”

“Better do what the lady says, Injun,” Bob admonished.

Accompanied by derisive laughter, Bart took Rosie by the elbow. As soon as he had propelled her outside, he placed his big hands on her shoulders.

“I want you to stay away from the homestead, Rosie,” he said firmly. “Don’t even think about going anywhere near it. Ford’s not having much success at cashing in on killing Jesse, and he may be on the dodge from the law. I suspect the boys want to hide out at our place a few days, but I’ll run ’em off as quick as I can.”

“Bart, that man could ruin you!”

“My reputation’s the least of it, girl. No telling what these fellows have up their sleeves.”

“But what if the law finds you? They’ll take you away to Missouri and they’ll hang you.”

“Rosie, don’t you remember what we said about Jesus? He said we’re not to worry. Now I want you to
stop frettin’. I know how Ford operates, so let me handle this. Go back to the school and act like nothing’s going on. I’ll let the boys ride out to the homestead and stay with me for a couple of days. I’ll feed ’em and let ’em rest, and then I’ll send ’em packing. It’ll be all right. But I don’t want you around, hear? They’re rough men. Killers.”

“Oh, Bart!”

“They’re not going to kill
me,
Rosie. I’m their pal.” He shook his head and studied the cloudless sky for a moment. “God help me, I’m their
pal.
”

“Bart, there are things I need to talk to you about. Important things. I need to tell you—”

“We’ll talk later, darlin’. Now go on, before Ford and his sidewinder buddies get itchy feet.”

He gave her a little push that sent her down the ramp. On the platform she turned to call him, but he had vanished back inside the stable. Breathless, she stood immobilized for a moment as passengers and baggage boys scurried around her. As she stepped onto the street, the stable’s side door slid open, and four men on horseback thundered down the ramp. As they galloped out of town in a cloud of dust, Rosie realized that one of them was Bart.

Having blamed her tardy return on the doctor visit, Rosie managed to get through the rest of the school day. She claimed an illness she truly felt, and the Kilgores were more than happy to put her up for the night. The next few days, however, were an endless torment.

Rosie couldn’t concentrate on the lessons she was teaching. Bart promised to come for her, but he didn’t,
and she feared the cause of his absence. Each day, Rosie went to the livery to see if Bart had been at work there. The stable owner told her he hadn’t seen or heard from her husband. As much as the man hated to lose Bart, he’d been forced to hire a replacement.

If Rosie had briefly dreamed of a happy family—herself, Bart and their baby—she squelched that image the moment she realized the seriousness of her situation. The men who had invaded her life were outlaws. Killers, Bart had said.

And although Bart had denied it, Bob Ford
was
famous. There wasn’t a soul in the territory who hadn’t heard of the killing of Jesse James by a member of his own gang. If Bob Ford made Bart’s true identity known in town, that would be the end of everything the two of them had worked so hard to build.

Sick at heart, Rosie drew the curtains in her classroom on a hot Friday afternoon after the children had gone home for the weekend. The blue light dampened the usual cheer that seemed to settle in the quiet room at the end of every day. After putting away her texts, she drew her summer shawl around her shoulders and tried once again to figure out what Bart was doing and why he had not come for her.

Had he been too worried about exposing himself to return to town? She knew he wouldn’t easily give up the livery stable job that had supported them so well, not when the sugar beets were still so many weeks from harvest. What if he had been kidnapped by those outlaws and forced to participate in some heinous crime—a bank robbery or train holdup? What if he’d been obliged
to shoot someone? Straightening desks as she circled the room, Rosie made her way to the door.

What if Bart wasn’t even at their homestead anymore? Maybe the lure of the old life had drawn him away. What if he’d gone off and left the cows swollen with milk and the chickens unfed?

Bart wouldn’t do a thing like that…would he? As she locked the schoolroom door, Rosie tried to swallow down her greatest fear. What if Bob Ford had killed Bart? He might have shot Bart to get the money they’d buried beneath the cottonwood tree by the stream…or lynched him for refusing to go along with him and his boys on some outlaw scheme…or stabbed him in an argument.

If Bob Ford would shoot Jesse James in the back of the head for reward money, what would keep him from doing the same to Bart? Dead or alive, Bart was worth fifty dollars!

“Dear God, please don’t let him be dead,” Rosie prayed as she left the school yard. “Please keep him alive, and show me how to reach him. And please help me to stop worrying!”

She had been so preoccupied—with the baby, the effort to conduct her lessons with some semblance of normalcy and her anxiety about Bart—that she hadn’t sorted through everything clearly. Now as she stepped onto the porch of the Kilgores’ home, Rosie felt a sudden certainty stab her heart.

Bart was dead—killed for the fifty-dollar reward!

Propelled by dread, she rushed into the kitchen and grabbed Mr. Kilgore’s rifle from the top of the cupboard. Just as Mrs. Kilgore was descending the stairs, Rosie
ran out the back door. In minutes, she hitched up her buggy, climbed onto the seat and urged the horse into a trot.

“Mrs. Springfield!” Mrs. Kilgore called from the kitchen door. “What’s the matter? Where are you going?”

Rosie turned briefly and gave the kind woman a wave. “I’m going home, Mrs. Kilgore! If I’m not back Monday morning, send a deputy out to the homestead.”

“A deputy? Oh, my!”

But Rosie’s buggy was already rounding the corner and rolling out of town. The mild-mannered mare couldn’t know what had gotten into her mistress as Rosie worked the reins like a madwoman along the rutted trail. The buggy bounced and jounced into ruts and over hummocks. Rosie’s hair tumbled from its knot, fell around her shoulders and slid down her back. Her stomach began to ache, tighten and cramp.

Unwilling to slow her pace, she urged the horse up the bumpy track. The buggy seat swayed, its springs tossing her this way and that. Perspiration streamed down Rosie’s temples. Her dress dampened and her corset poked her ribs and pelvis. The cramping in her stomach increased, but she couldn’t stop.

“Bart,” she cried as she guided the mare up the last hill toward the dugout. “Bart, please, please don’t be dead!”

When the buggy crested the rise, she could see lamplight through the paper window panes. The sight calmed her a little, but she kept the horse at a canter until the buggy was almost to the dugout.

At the sound of the wagon and the mare’s hooves, the front door swung open and three men emerged. “Rosie!”

She recognized him right away, although the slanting late-evening sunlight revealed only his silhouette. “Bart, thank God! You’re alive!”

Pulling back on the reins, she drew the buggy to a halt and set the brake.

“Rosie, why are you here? I told you to stay away.” Even though his words admonished her, Bart’s voice was soft with relief. He held out his arms, and Rosie slipped down into them.

“I was so worried about you, Bart,” she said as she hugged him close. “You told me you would come back to town, but you didn’t. Your boss gave your job away to somebody else. I’ve been sick with fear.”

“Aw, Rosie.” He held her away and studied her face. “I told you not to worry. Everything’s going to be all right.”

“How can you say that? Those men are still here. You’ve lost your job. And I’m…I’m…” Convulsing with a sudden sharp pain, she bent over double.

“Rosie? What is it?”

“Bart, I’m sick. I…I need to lie down. Take me inside.”

“Oh, darlin’, not again.” He picked her up in his arms and pushed past Fancy and Snort, who had been gawking. “Get your lousy hides down there and put a clean blanket on the bed,” Bart barked at the two men, who shuffled into the house.

“Well, if it ain’t the missus.” Bob Ford rose from the little table Bart had built. Swaying, he held up a half-
empty whiskey bottle. “’Bout time we had a woman to entertain us.”

“Shut up, Ford,” Bart growled. “Rosie’s sick.”

“Sick? How’re we gonna have a fandango with a sick woman? I’m in the mood to kick up my heels and I sure ain’t gonna do it with you, Injun.”

Bart ignored him and laid Rosie gently on the rumpled blanket. He knelt beside her and took her hand in his. “What’s ailing you, Rosie?”

“Oh, Bart,” she whispered. “My stomach hurts. It really hurts. You may have to fetch Dr. Kohlhouser.”

His green eyes narrowed. “Fetch the doc? Rosie, what’s wrong?”

Biting her lip against the pain, she looked away. How could she tell him about their baby in the midst of such chaos? In the past three days, their tidy little home had been turned upside down. The table was littered with empty whiskey bottles. The floor was buried under an inch of dust and trash. The room smelled of rotting food, liquor and unwashed men.

“Rosie?” Bart repeated as he laid a hand on her shoulder.

When she looked at him again, what she saw startled her. Gone was the clean-shaven man whose broad shoulders haunted her dreams. Bart looked almost as bad as he had the day he’d crawled out from under her bed at the Harvey House dormitory. His chambray shirt and denims were stained. His hair hadn’t been washed or combed, and he couldn’t have had a bath in days.

“Bart, what’s happened to you?”

“Me? I’m fine. It’s you I’m worried about.” He rubbed
the backs of her hands with his thumbs. “Listen, you just rest now. I’ll brew you a pot of tea. How’s that?”

“I don’t want tea, Bart. Why haven’t you shaved?”

He frowned. “I haven’t been thinking about shaving, Rosie. That’s the last thing on my mind.”

“How many of those empty bottles are you responsible for?”

He turned his head, as if seeing the mess for the first time. “None. The boys have been here three days, and they…well, this is how it always is. This is how we live.”

“But not you,” she murmured. “Not anymore. Right? Have you milked the cows and fed my chickens?”

“Yes, Rosie.”

“What about the sugar beets?”

Smoothing a hand over her damp brow, he gazed down at her. “Why don’t you get some rest, darlin’? It’s plain you’re overwrought.”

“I am not overwrought!” She rose up on her elbows. “Just look at my house. You and those criminals have made a pigsty of it.”

“Now, Rosie,” he whispered, attempting to calm her. “I’ve been working as hard as I can to…um…get along with Bob and the fellers. Would you just settle back until they’re ready to leave?”

“I’ll run them off myself. Hand me that rifle.”

Before she could climb out of bed, Bart took her shoulders and pressed her back onto the pillow. “Rest, Rosie,” he commanded. “We’ll work things out in the morning.”