The Redhead and the Preacher: A Loveswept Historical Romance (36 page)

“Stay back, Macky!” Bran said, reaching out to pull her away.

But Bran could tell she wasn’t listening. She was too close to Larkin. She’d put herself in danger. He might have backed down from Bran, but not a woman.

He tried to draw attention away from Macky. “Larkin, someone asked me where the snake was in the Garden of Eden. We’ve found him, you liver-livered son of evil. I’m going to kill you.”

Bran shoved Macky away just as Larkin drew his pistol. But he wasn’t fast enough. A single gunshot rang out before he could fire. Then four others followed and the pistol in Larkin’s hand dropped to the ground in a cloud of dust.

A look of surprise opened Larkin’s eyes wide as he fell, mortally wounded.

At that moment a ribbon of lightning scissored the sky and the wind swirled rain round the onlookers. The two horses in the street whinnied nervously and danced around. Bran turned toward the redhead who’d stormed into his life and grabbed him by the heart.

A smear of red turned her chest into a bull’s-eye. She glanced down at the bright color in calm surprise. Her mouth was open, but no words came. Only the sound of
rattled breath and tears that dribbled down her cheeks. As the sheriff pushed his way through the crowd, she held up the gun she’d bought from Otis Gooden.

“You shot him,” Bran said.

“Yes,” Macky said. “He was about to hurt you.”

This time when she collapsed in Bran’s arms, it wasn’t pretend. This time when he carried her inside the saloon, it wasn’t part of a charade.

“Oh, Macky,” Bran whispered. “ ‘A fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth … My punishment is greater than I can bear.’ ”

“It’s all right,” she whispered, “I didn’t belong in Heaven anyway.”

Outside the saloon the sheriff from Promise was overseeing the removal of Larkin’s body from the street. The judge directed the parishioners to go home and pray for their souls and Macky’s recovery.

Lorraine and Bran put Macky to bed and treated her wounds.

“Looks like I need to open a hospital instead of a school,” she said as she finally pulled up the covers and stepped away from the bed.

“Well, so far your patients are doing well,” Bran said, then felt his voice crack. “Lorraine, I love her. I don’t want her to die.”

“I know,” she said, and laid her hand on his shoulder. “I know what it means to find the person you want to hold on to for all your life.”

“What am I going to do?” he asked, turning away.

“Pray,” was her only answer.

F
or three days Bran prayed beside Macky’s bed but nothing helped. Macky was growing weaker. She was dying.

Finally, desperate for answers, Bran loaded the necessary supplies across Solomon, mounted his horse, and rode into the mountains. The snow, gone in the valley below, was still thick between the rocks and on the ground beneath the trees.

For two days he rode, stopping only to feed and water the animals, until he reached a precipice hanging over a deep valley below.

First he dug a pit in the earth, filled it with dry wood and brush, then covered it with rocks. He lit the fire heating the rocks.

Next to the pit he constructed a beehive-shaped sweat lodge out of willow sticks covered with the animal skins he’d bought from Otis Gooden. By the time the lodge was finished, the rocks were ready. Using forked limbs, he
moved some of the rocks into the lodge. Then he removed his clothes, tied on a loincloth, and entered the lodge.

As the fire heated the remainder of the rocks, the air inside grew warmer and warmer. Bran poured snow on the rocks to make the steam that would force him to sweat out the impurities of his body and eventually ready his mind for whatever message the Great Spirit world would send.

Replacing the cooling rocks with hot ones when necessary, Bran lost all track of time. He didn’t know whether hours or days passed. But finally, when he was almost ready to collapse, he staggered out into the night and fell across the rock extending over the deep river below.

Overhead, the sky had cleared. Stars peppered the black night like a thousand eyes, watching him. The wind whipped across the mountaintop, slashing him with cold. Still he didn’t move, waiting for a sign.

But no sign came.

Back in Heaven, Hank took Lorraine away from Macky’s bedside. “Come outside with me. I want to talk to you.”

“But I can’t leave her.”

“You can’t do any more. Either she will live, or she’ll die. It’s out of our hands.”

Lorraine stood wearily, looking at Macky’s pale face, her chest barely moving, her eyes closed as if in death. Lorraine felt Hank throw a shawl over her shoulders and turn her toward the door. She’d never been in a situation where she felt so lost. “She is my friend, Hank.”

“She’s everybody’s friend,” he said, taking her hand and leading her away from the buildings and into the open prairie at the edge of town. This time he didn’t try to find a secluded spot, rather he slid his arms around her and pulled her back against his chest, holding her openly for all to see.

“Bran has become everyone’s friend, too.”

“I know,” Hank said. “When I first saw them I never expected it, but they’ve given so much of themselves.”

Lorraine shivered and moved closer. “Bran could have gotten away before the sheriff came, but he stayed. Even after Sheriff Dover told him he would have to arrest him for the soldier’s murder, he stayed at Macky’s side.”

“But then he left. Where is he now?” Hank asked.

“I don’t know. He said he’d return and the judge believes him. Surely they aren’t really going to send him to jail for killing someone who was beating his brother. And nobody believes he was in partnership with Pratt.”

“I don’t think Larkin’s charges will stick. Too many people will say that he was never a member of Pratt’s gang. And the murder warrant against Bran is fifteen years old. There’s talk about asking for a pardon. Macky is the one in trouble. She did take part in the holdup.”

Lorraine turned toward Hank. “I don’t believe that for one minute. She may have ended up with the money, but according to Bran she never got off her horse. She didn’t even know that banker had been shot. Oh, Hank, it’s all so unfair.”

“Look at the sky, Lorraine. The Big Dipper has moved.”

“So soon? I thought it waited until fall.”

Lorraine turned her eyes upward and clasped her arms around the neck of the man she loved.

“Nothing waits,” Hank said. “I was wrong about so many things, Lorraine. Life just moves on.” His arms went around her, his lips nuzzling her ear. “We have to grab it and hang on to what we can. Will you forgive me for not wanting the town to know what we feel?”

“I suppose I’ll have to,” she answered with a smile. “After all, everybody in Heaven can see us standing here in the open. You’re a ruined man.”

“I’m a man who has been restored, Lorraine. Will you marry me?”

“When Bran returns. I won’t go through a ceremony without him.”

“So? We’ll live in sin.”

“Oh, Hank, where is he?”

Hank leaned back, fighting the urge to kiss her. He rubbed her upper arms, spreading a gentle warmth with his touch. “He’ll be back. Wherever he’s gone, it was for a reason. I have the feeling that we’ll know soon.”

“I hope so. Macky is so very weak.”

Suddenly he looked up. “Look, Lorraine, a falling star.”

The streak of silver plunged to the earth and disappeared. There was something ominous about that. In the distance a coyote howled and Lorraine was glad she was in Hank’s arms.

Bran heard the wind, felt it stroke his body. He watched as the mist from the river below formed a black fog that spread across the valley, enveloping him.

Total blackness surrounded him, smothering him, tendrils of cottony fog filling his nostrils as he tried to breathe. Then the wind died and Bran felt as if he were suspended in the air, buffeted by a gentle motion, almost as if he were inside a living—no, a dying thing.

“Why are you here?” A voice spoke.

Bran didn’t answer. He could neither see nor sense another presence.

“I speak to you, Eyes That See in Darkness. Answer.”

“Who calls me by my Indian name?”

“I am all those who’ve gone before, and are yet to come. I answer your plea. You are prepared to offer yourself as a sacrifice to save her life, but it cannot be.”

Bran let out a low moan that carried with it the pain of all those he’d failed. His voice grew louder, its anguish filling the heavens above, its agony churning the river below.

“Nooooo! You cannot take her. She must not die. Take me, but let her live.”

His cry fell across the emptiness, dying into a profound silence.

Then there was another voice, soft, lost, and afraid. “Bran? Where are you, Bran?” A voice he knew too well.

“Macky? Is that you, Macky?”

“Oh, yes. Bran, I need you. Please …”

The darkness didn’t change, but Bran focused on her need, on Macky who was calling out for him. Then the darkness was pierced by a sharp slant of sunlight.

“Use your power,” the first voice said. “If you wish to, you will see her. It was foretold in your naming vision. The power is yours to use, but only once.”

And then he saw her, lying so cold and still, barely breathing. Around her shimmered a haze of silver, almost as if the essence of life were being contained within a net stretched around her.

“Macky,” he whispered. “No. You can’t leave yet. I haven’t told you that I love you.”

Even in his state of half consciousness, he saw her eyelids quiver and open.

“Bran?”

“Yes, Macky. It’s me.”

“But I can’t see you.”

“No, it’s my spirit speaking to you. Feel its strength, Macky. Know that I am with you, loving you, keeping you from harm.”

“How is that possible?” she whispered.

“I do not know. Only that you are the vision I did not see as a boy. I see you now. I am the comfort you sought. Be strong, Macky. I give you my strength, my life; and my heart.”

And the dark roiled in, surrounding Bran, and he knew no more.

“You’re awake!” Lorraine let out a cry of joy and rushed to Macky’s bed. “I don’t believe it.”

Macky looked around, her mind still fogged by the dream. Or was it? She could remember the coldness. Then a voice, Bran’s voice. It spoke to her as if he were with her. She looked around again.

“Bran?”

“He isn’t here. He disappeared over a week ago. The sheriff from Promise is out looking for him.”

“He’ll be back soon,” Macky said confidently.

Lorraine looked at Hank and then back at Macky. “How do you know?” she asked.

“I just do. He loves me, Lorraine. He told me. Bran told me that he loves me.”

“That can’t be. Bran hasn’t been here, Macky,” Hank said. “We don’t know where he is.”

“Neither do I, but he’ll be back and I have to get well. I know what I have to do. Get me something to eat and some clothes.”

“Macky, you may be filled by the Holy Spirit, or by the spirit of love, but you’re not moving from that bed. You hold her down, Hank, while I get some broth.”

But Macky didn’t attempt to move. She merely lay there, a secret smile on her lips.

“What really happened, Macky?” Hank asked.

“I don’t know but I heard Bran’s voice. He said that he loves me. That he’s coming back.”

“He ought not to,” Hank said. “The judge will have him arrested. There’s something you don’t know.”

“There are probably a lot of things I don’t know. What I do know is the most important thing.”

“The marshal is dead.”

“I know. I killed him.”

“And they found Pratt’s silver-trimmed saddle in his office, along with a bag of gold from the Sylvia.”

Lorraine returned with the broth and sat down on the bed. Macky opened her mouth to protest, and found it filled with soup.

“You can probably preach a sermon and mine for gold. But this is my saloon. You’re in my bed. And if I’m going to give it up, I run the show.”

“What day is this?” Macky asked.

“It’s Sunday. You’ve been delirious for ten days.”

Macky swallowed the thick, meaty liquid and tried to concentrate. “Is the judge still here?”

“No, he’s gone back to Denver,” Hank said. “Do you want me to get him?”

“I certainly do.”

“And suppose he decides that you’re well enough to take off to jail, Mrs. Kate Adams?” Lorraine said, filling the spoon once more.

“Oh, that’s all right, as long as Bran isn’t arrested. And the only way I can be sure of that is to talk to the judge before Bran gets back. In the meantime, I’ll just lie here and drink soup.”

Two days later Macky was going crazy with boredom. Finally, after promising that she was only going to walk down to the general store, Lorraine allowed her to leave the saloon.

The short walk from the saloon to the store took what seemed like forever because of the number of times Macky had to stop and assure the townspeople that she was going to live. Finally, almost light-headed from her ordeal, Macky reached the store and sank down on the seat outside.

“Mrs. Adams, I’m so glad you’re all right.” The woman standing beside her was Mrs. Pendley. The shy little girl who’d claimed Macky’s heart climbed up on the bench beside her, while the mother shared her news.

“We heard about what happened, and my Lars and me, we decided that maybe you was being punished for helping us out. Lars, he decided that if you got well, we’d do the right thing.”

Macky swallowed back the ever-present lump in her throat and stared at the woman. “Right thing?”

“Yep. We’re going to get your man to marry us proper. We’re going to have another baby and we want to join your church.”

“I’m sure that my husband—I mean the preacher will be pleased to say the words over you, when he gets back.”

Mrs. Pendley glanced around. “Oh. He ain’t here?”

“No, he’s away on business. Say, I don’t suppose you’d be willing to give me a ride home in your wagon, would you?”

“Yes, ma’am, we’d be pleased to help you.”

On the way, the little girl told Macky about her ordeal in the woods. “It was like you said, I knew that the angel would help me, just like he helped Gingerbelle draw the water from the well. I just waited. But the puppy felled in the water and I had to help him out.”