The Gunman's Bride (6 page)

Plenty of men in Raton had made passes at Rosie, asked her to dance and escorted her to picnics. Wanting to seem like the other girls, she had gone along with these attentions to some degree. But she had always pushed away any serious advances with the excuse that eventually she wanted to become a teacher—and good teachers were always
single!

Perhaps if she truly wanted a husband, she could bat her eyelashes and secure one in no time flat. But what a price to pay for a teaching position. Not for anything in the world would Rosie trade away her freedom.

As she headed for the Harvey House, she studied the townsmen delivering goods to the mercentiles, swabbing saloon floors, marching in and out of banks and driving cattle to the stock corrals by the depot. None of them had the broad-shouldered, rugged physique of the one man Rosie actually might have considered allowing on the fringes of her life.

Bart Kingsley was gone. She had no doubt of it. The town felt empty to her, devoid of the presence she felt sure she would sense were he there.

With a sigh she climbed onto the porch of the Harvey House and fixed her eyes on the distant blue mesas. She didn’t want Dr. Lowell for a husband. She didn’t want a cowboy or a railwayman either. Even if she wanted Bart, she couldn’t have him, and she might as well accept that she never would. Now she had lost her chance at the teaching job.

As the first dinner train whistled through the distant pass, Rosie molded her lips into the Harvey smile and hurried to her station in the dining room.

A
ny small hope Rosie might have held that Bart was in town faded as the days turned into weeks, and the month of April headed for May. Raton came to life with sweet wild grasses that greened the patchy yards around newly white-washed clapboard houses. Lilacs, roses and violets brought from the east blossomed among budding native piñon, aspen, juniper and cottonwood trees.

True to Mr. Kilgore’s prediction, spring fever took its toll. One of the girls up and married a cowboy from the J. R. Jones ranch, and she moved out of the Harvey House to take up her new job raising hogs. Another fell in love with a brakeman from Chicago who wanted to marry her and take her back to the big city. But she was also crazy about a welder from C. A. Fox’s hardware and tin shop, who aimed to make her his wife and settle her in a quaint little house in town. Etta and Stefan Braun failed to keep their romance a secret, and Mrs. Jensen was in favor of firing them both. It was only Tom Gable—who knew he couldn’t find a better chef than the young German—who kept them employed at the house.

Rosie dragged herself to town picnics, horse races and egg hunts with the rest of the Harvey Girls, but it was all she could do to keep her chin up. One afternoon, the sheriff dropped by with some news for the coffee drinkers in the Harvey House lunchroom. The Pinkerton agency had sent word that Bart Kingsley had been rounded up in Albuquerque and carted back to Missouri to face the judge. He’d be hanged, Sheriff Bowman assured anyone who asked him. A man with a record as black as that outlaw’s would be left gargling on a rope for sure.

So that was the end of that. Rosie had to accept it. Bart Kingsley really was no good after all. He had come into her life twice, toyed with her twice and left her twice. Not only that, but she had also been fool enough to believe everything he had told her—twice. All his sweet words and gentle ways had been a sham. His tender touch had served his own selfish aims. How she had managed to fall for such a man twice, Rosie would never understand. She certainly wouldn’t let herself act so harebrained ever again.

In fact, as April wound to a close, Rosie decided she would pursue her goal of teaching just as she had planned. She had heard rumors that Mr. Kilgore had not yet filled his vacant position. If the resolution to extend the school year passed during the coming election, he would be in need of a teacher.

And if not Mr. Kilgore, one of the other school owners in town might be looking for a determined young spinster, though her inquiries at the other schools had come to nothing.

Still hopeful, Rosie scheduled an appointment with
the district school board in Springer, hours away by rail. One Friday, she used her free vacation train pass to travel south to Springer where she sat for examination.

“You have passed with distinction, Miss Kingsley,” the commissioner announced as he handed her a crisp certificate that afternoon after she had sat through five hours of grueling questions. “Any school in the district would be proud to employ you.”

All the way back to Raton on the train, those words curled through Rosie’s thoughts. As the engine struggled up the mountains, her determination grew. She would not think about Bart any longer—no matter that he was locked away in a Missouri jail. No, she would set her sights on that teaching job. Mr. Kilgore’s school had the finest reputation in the area, and with her exemplary performance on the exam, she would secure a position there.

The moment the train whistled into town, Rosie smoothed and dusted her city skirts, descended onto the depot platform and marched straight to First Street. By the time she turned onto Second Street, her heart was pumping harder than it had the whole time she’d been facing the school board. She climbed the schoolhouse steps, tucked stray wisps of hair into her knot and knocked on the front door.

“Ah, Miss Kingsley,” Mr. Kilgore said at the door. “Again.”

“Yes, sir.” Rosie handed him the document. “I passed the examination.”

“My goodness, these are high marks,” he commented as he studied the certificate. “Mathematics, Latin, history, geography, grammar. Even French. Well done.”

“Mr. Kilgore, will you please reconsider my application for a teaching position?”

He chuckled lightly. “Persistence is indeed a virtue. But, Miss Kingsley, I am assailed by doubts. I simply won’t hire another unmarried woman. Why don’t you take your certificate back to Kansas City and teach there?”

“I’ve made my home here,” she protested. “I belong to a church, I have friends, I’m part of a community I love. I’ve put my savings in Raton’s bank and I’ve proven myself a reliable worker here. Why do you ask me to start all over when you need a teacher?”

“I don’t know that the school election will pass, Miss Kingsley. I’m sorry, my dear. Truly, I am.”

Once again, he shut the door on Rosie. She stood outside, fingers gripping her skirt and jaw clenched against threatening tears.

“I will have that job, Mr. Kilgore,” she whispered over the lump in her throat. “I
will
have it.”

Discouraged but undaunted, Rosie hurried back to the Harvey House and climbed the stairs to her room. Having taken the day off for her trip to Springer, she still had several hours to herself while the other girls waited on the dinner-train passengers. Even though she had thought the free time would be a blessing, she discovered that her mind insisted on traveling down a wayward track.

As she sat on her chair by the window, Rosie couldn’t keep back the memories of those hours she had spent with Bart. How badly she had been fooled! He had told her he’d come to Raton to find her, that she had been the one bright spot in his life. And so she had doctored his
wound, fed him, boarded him and clothed him. Then he had taken his new haircut and his new shirt and gone away again.

They had spent such a short time together, but Rosie knew she would never be the same. In those brief hours with Bart, she had fallen under his old spell. She had trusted every word from his lying lips. She had trembled at the sight of his now-so-masculine physique.

Worst of all, she had allowed him to kiss her in a way no man ever had. Certainly Dr. Lowell had never kissed her in such a way. In fact, she could count only two times he had attempted such a liberty, and both had been utterly repulsive.

Dabbing a silk handkerchief to the corner of her eye, Rosie stood from the window seat and went to her dressing table. She spread her rolled teaching certificate and slid it into the edge of the oak frame around her mirror so that she could see it from any part of her small room. She might be a fool when it came to Bart Kingsley, but she was brilliant in every other area of her life.

As she changed out of her city clothes into her white nightgown, Rosie decided that she had taken enough of what other people dished out. She had come to Raton to get a teaching position, and against all odds, she would have one.

“Dear God,” she whispered as she folded her hands. “I’ve made some whopping mistakes, as You very well know. There was all that with Bart…and then I let Pappy talk me into accepting Dr. Lowell’s proposal…and then Bart again. You can’t be any too pleased with me. But, Lord, I had good intentions in coming out here to Raton to be a schoolteacher, only now Mr. Kilgore says he
doesn’t want me. Father, please work out this problem. Give me a sign so I’ll know what You want me to do. Amen.”

As she slipped between the cool sheets and shut her eyes, Rosie felt the first peace she’d known since Bart Kingsley crawled out from under her bed.

At one o’clock in the morning the screaming whistle of the switch engine woke Rosie with a start. Gunfire shattered the night’s silence. Shouts and cries echoed through the streets.

“Fire! Fire!” someone hollered below the Harvey House dormitory. “O’Reilly’s Saloon is afire!”

Rosie threw open her window to an ebony sky lit with an orange glow. Red sparks shot upward to mingle with the stars and then vanish. Smoke billowed over shingled rooftops. The members of the hose company dashed down the street.

“Laurie!” Etta barged into Rosie’s room. “Laurie, everyone’s going out to see the fire!”

Wide awake now, Rosie pulled on her robe as they ran into the hall. “O’Reilly’s Saloon is a frame building, Etta! It’ll go up like a matchstick!”

“The whole town might burn down! Oh, isn’t this thrilling?” Etta, frizzy blond hair bouncing, hopped up and down in the hall as the other girls assembled. Even Mrs. Jensen, ruffled nightcap in place, had started for the stairs.

Clad in billowing white gowns, the Harvey Girls followed their matron across the street. Gray smoke hung thick in the night air.

Rosie noted with relief that no wind had sprung up
to blow the fire from building to building. Even so, the whole town had come out to view the blaze. Children clung to their mothers’ nightgowns. Fathers lugged buckets of sloshing water toward the saloon. Against the bright orange fire, silhouetted men wrestled heavy hoses to shoot streams of water onto the flames.

“There’s Sheriff Bowman!” Etta cried. “I heard he was the first to spot the fire!”

Through the smoke, Rosie could barely make out the man kicking down O’Reilly’s door. She recognized a good many townsfolk, including some of the sheriff’s deputies and Reverend Cullen.

“There’s Stefan!” Etta gasped. “Oh, Laurie, I hope he doesn’t get hurt! That’s Cheyenne Bill with him.”

Rosie could see the young German’s blond hair back-lit by the blaze as he unrolled hoses from the hose cart. A stocky, long-haired man on the cart was shouting orders.

“Is Cheyenne Bill a real Indian?” Rosie asked. She had heard rumors the man was popular at glove contests. Some townsmen were said to wager large sums on him.

“Sure he’s a real Indian,” Etta said. “Who’s that other Indian with him? I’ve never seen him before.”

Rosie focused on the broad-shouldered silhouette of a man who had leaped onto the hose cart beside Cheyenne Bill. The stranger’s short black hair glistened in the firelight, and his arms gleamed like bronze as he pulled at the tangled hoses. When he straightened to toss a length of hose to a waiting volunteer, ice washed through Rosie’s veins.

“He’s an Indian, all right,” Etta said. “Oh, look, Laurie. The saloon roof is caving in!”

But Rosie could not tear her attention from the tall man on the hose cart.

“She’s done for,” someone shouted. “Let ’er go, boys!”

As the structure collapsed, the stranger vanished in the throng of men running for safety. But Rosie didn’t need to see him again to know who he was.

Bart Kingsley was back in town.

“I’d open for you, fellers,” one of the local saloon owners was saying, “but me and my cook are too tuckered out to fix up a meal this time of night.”

“Who cares about a meal?” someone shouted in reply.

“Open ’er up for the whiskey! Couple snorts of snake poison ought to be good for what ails us.”

As the men laughed, Tom Gable elbowed his way into the street and waved his hat. “There are too many women and children here for you to turn this into a moonshine party. Come on over to the restaurant, and my gals will fix you up with some hot coffee and cinnamon rolls!”

“How-dee!” someone hooted as a stampede for the Harvey House got under way. Children in nightshirts, women in robes and soot-blackened men abandoned the charred saloon.

“Lord have mercy!” Mrs. Jensen shrieked as the full impact of Tom Gable’s invitation hit. “Skedaddle, girls!”

Hand in hand, Rosie and Etta raced down a side street. The other girls were close on their heels. As
they scampered up the back steps into the kitchen, they found Stefan and the other cooks already slamming oven doors.

There was no time to think. Rosie and her companions rushed into the empty dining room to take up their positions. In moments, the front door burst open as more than a hundred laughing, chattering Ratonians poured into Harvey House. Formality went by the wayside as the waitresses hurried to brew and pour hot coffee.

In no time the aroma of cinnamon, sugar, raisins and hot yeasty bread blended with the tang of smoke. As Rosie raced out of the kitchen, she ran smack-dab into Etta and nearly dropped a whole plate of rolls. In spite of her jitters, she laughed, lifted her tray a little higher and wove her way among the crowded tables.

How silly and free she felt to be dressed in her nightgown and robe. The counter was crowded with children who had managed to escape their parents. Rosie patted sleepy boys on the head and tucked napkins under the collars of wiggly girls.

“Hello, Miss Kingsley,” a lad called out. “We saw you at our school.” Amid a cacophony of giggles, Rosie waved at the young redhead she recognized from Mr. Kilgore’s classroom.

“Are you going to teach us, Miss Kingsley?” a blue-eyed girl asked.

“Lord willing, I am.” She glanced at Mr. Kilgore, who was surrounded by children at a small table.

“Miss Laura!” The shout came from Mr. Gable. “We’ve got fifteen cinnamon rolls coming through the door. Can you help?”

“Sure thing!” Rosie gave the children a wink as she skipped away.

“Right here, Miss Laura.” Mr. Gable was seating a group of Raton’s prominent townsmen at a large table.

“They’re asking for coffee, too.”

For a moment Rosie thought she wouldn’t be able to make her legs move. She was staring into a pair of green eyes that sparkled like rainwashed leaves. The buckskin jacket was gone. So were the holsters and six-shooters. But she knew that collarless white shirt, thick black hair and confident grin.

“Miss Laura!” Tom Gable shouted.

Jumping to attention, Rosie hurried into the kitchen and grabbed a tray of steaming rolls.
Bart!
But Bart had left Raton weeks ago! Bart had been captured in Albuquerque and sent to Missouri to be hanged.

Balancing the tray, she returned to the table and began setting a roll at each place. As she circled the table, she glanced across to find Bart watching her.

“Miss Laura, you got any refills on this coffee?” Sheriff Bowman held out an empty white cup.

Sheriff Bowman at the same table with Bart!