The Renegades: Nick (16 page)

“My grown son didn’t get no claim,” the burly man roared. “And he was
in
the Run. He’s a white man, too.”

Another man stepped out of line. “My brother lost out, too,” he said.

“Now let’s just see about this,” another one said, stepping out of line and moving toward Callie. His hard gaze was fixed on the clerk who was helping her.

A general muttering began to rise.

The bald clerk raised both hands as a peacemaking gesture toward the men who were advancing on him now from three directions.

“Calm down now, folks, calm down. There’s no conflict here,” he said smoothly. “Mrs. Sloane did not say that she was registering the claim
for Mr. Smith
.”

He rustled the paper in front of him.

“According to these records, Mr. Smith’s claim has already been contested by her, Mrs. Calladonia Sloane, and she has won. The land in question will be registered to her, in her name, and, as you can all plainly see, she is white as a lily.”

His tone and assured way of speaking soothed the protesters instantly. Callie stood stunned—and silent—as his pen began to scratch across the page of his ledger.

He was putting Nick’s claim in her name—and she dared not stop him! She could say
nothing, absolutely nothing, or she would lose his claim forever.

She took a deep breath to steady herself and realized that it was all right. A few months from now, when all the furor died down, she could sign it over to him.

The clerk seemed to take a year to finish with his notations in the ledgers, but finally he handed her a deed made out in her name. Then she gave him her own certificate.

“And what is your full legal name, sir?” the clerk asked Baxter, starting the whole process all over again.

It took only seconds, it seemed, to sign away what had taken her months of dreaming, weeks of hard traveling, and days of unspeakable work to achieve. Her mind skittered away from that, and from the thought of her baby growing up in town in rented quarters.

Right now, she had to concentrate on the present. She had to pray that Baxter would keep his word so she wouldn’t have to kill him with her bare hands, and go to jail with Nick instead of getting him out.

“You should know that I carry a purse gun,” Callie said to Baxter, as they left the Land Office. “And that I’m a dead shot. Don’t try to get away from me and don’t try to tell that Cap Williams again that he’s got the right man locked up.”

Baxter cast her a scornful, sidelong glance.

“Ain’t I done
told
you my word is good? Ain’t I kept ever’ promise I ever made to you, girl? I got my name on that claim like I said that first day, didn’t I?”

Callie walked faster, practically running, wondering how quickly she could get the gun out of her purse if Baxter tried to slip away into the dusty, crowded street. He walked beside her like the honorable man he claimed to be, however, and gave no sign of any troublesome intentions.

When they reached the jail, she stepped back to make sure he went inside, but that wasn’t necessary. He stepped right in ahead of her and hailed Cap Williams, who was sitting at the battered table in one corner.

“Sheriff, I need to talk to you.”

“Mr. Baxter! What can I do for you today?”

Nick leapt to his feet and, as she followed Baxter in, he strode to the bars. His eyes met hers with a look so intense it made her shiver.

“I’ve come to set somethin’ straight,” Baxter said, never once looking at Nick. “This here ain’t your bank robber, so you’ll have to turn him loose.”

Cap Williams turned red.

“What are you talking about, man? You’re changing your story?” he asked angrily.

“Yep. I reckon I done made a mistake.”

“How can that be? How come you’ve not realized that ‘til now?”

“All of a sudden, you might say,” Baxter drawled, not the least perturbed by Williams’ bluster.

“Got t’ thinkin’ about it,” he said. “Got t’ recollectin’ how it was. That yahoo I seen runnin’ acrost the bank lot to th’ big black horse was a lot older rascal than Smith here, hair as white as my old grandpa’s. His hat like to blowed off when he come past me, an’ he had to jam it back on his head.”

“You sent me to arrest a black-haired man.”

“Don’t recall that I ever said
that
. I give you his location, yes, but then I never seen Smith without his hat ‘til I walked past the jail this mornin’, and it jist hit me like a streak o’ lightning that the robber’s hair was white.”

Cap Williams clearly ached to rip Baxter limb from limb.

“As if you can’t tell what color hair a man has in spite of his hat!”

“Not always,” Baxter said, solemnly shaking his head.

“So you say now Smith is innocent.”

“I do. To a posse, to a judge, to whatever powers that be.”

“You’ll swear it?”

“On a stack o’ Bibles. I remember now, clear as ringin’ a bell. This here Smith is not your man.”

“Baxter, you son-of-a-bitch, I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing—”

Baxter pulled himself up indignantly.

“I’m dead serious, Williams. Tryin’ to do my citizen’s duty.”

“Why am I thinkin’ I even
want
to run for this office in the election,” Williams grumbled, “when I get this kind of grief? Somethin’ stinks in this deal, and I aim to find out what it is.”

“Help yourself,” Baxter retorted. “But don’t forget I’m a voting citizen of K County.”

He walked to the door, then turned and looked back at Nick.

“Matter of fact,” he said, “I’ll be home-steadin’ out near the Chikaskia Creek.”

Nick stared back without flickering an eyelid at that news.

“
Neighbor
,” Baxter said to him, “I’ll be seein’ ya.”

He flashed a grin at Callie and disappeared onto the street.

Cap Williams, fuming and muttering, went to unlock the cell.

“I’ve got no reason to hold you now,” he said.

“You never did,” Nick said.

He stepped out as the door swung open, grabbed his hat from the wall peg, and crossed the tiny room to Callie.

“Next time you set yourself up as the law and take out your posse,” he said to Cap Williams, “don’t believe everything you hear.”

He put on his hat and pulled it down in a quick, hard gesture.

The next thing Callie knew, they were outside, Nick’s big hand around her arm, bringing her along beside him so fast it seemed her feet were off the ground. He didn’t stop until they were around the corner of the livery stable and in the quiet shade of the big cottonwood.

“Now,” he said fiercely, turning her back to its trunk and stepping close as if to hold her captive, “what did you give Baxter to take back his lie?”

He sounded furious. He
looked
furious.

“
Give
him? I
traded
him, if you haven’t noticed. Has it occurred to you that you are now out of jail?”

“At what price?”

His imperious tone deepened her anger.

“I didn’t expect you to throw yourself at my feet in gratitude, but isn’t it just a little rude for you to bite my head off?”

“Callie,” he said in his dangerous tone, taking hold of her other arm, “tell me what you did to make him change his story.”

“I signed over my claim.”

Saying it out loud suddenly made it
really
real. She sagged back against the huge tree as all the strength left her legs, and the helpless, despairing feeling came over her again.

Nick stared at her, his eyes blazing pale fire from beneath the brim of his hat.

“No.”

“I had to. It was what he’d planned. Accusing you of the robbery was only meant to get Baxter a homestead, that’s all.”

His eyes narrowed until his long black lashes almost touched.

“So you played right into his hands. Did exactly what he wanted you to do.”

“For
you
! To set you free! You saw what a crazy zealot Cap Williams is; he’d never have found
any
evidence to help you. Why, he would accuse his own grandmother to say he’d caught an outlaw!”

A terrible desolation swept through her, body and soul. She felt nearly too shaky to stand.

“What choice did I have?” she cried. “There was no other way to get you out. Nickajack, you might’ve
hanged
!”

But he didn’t give so much as a flicker of acknowledgment that that was true. His face had set like a stone carving.

“You didn’t have to do it,” he said, his voice like a lash. “You foolishly walked into Baxter’s ambush. I could’ve escaped—”

She began to shake all over. “And
then
what would you do? Live on the run? Never see your cabin and your horses again? Look over your shoulder every minute?”

“That was none of your concern.”

Somehow, that hurt her sharply.

“The devil you say! I couldn’t have lived with myself if I’d walked away and left you there.”

“And now you have nothing. No home. No land.”

Her body turned to jelly. Oh, dear Lord, that was so. She tried to push the truth out of her mind, but it grew and filled her with an inescapable feeling of doom.

“I have my honor. You’ve helped me more than once, and risked your life to stake my claim in the first place. My honor demanded that I help you.”

He let go of her and she felt as if she’d collapse in a heap on the ground. Snatching off his hat, he frantically ran his fingers through his hair, and then slammed it back on.

“Dammit all, Callie, you didn’t have to do this.”

A paralyzing dizziness came over her. She reached for the tree to hold her up and dug her nails into its bark.

“Yes, I did. I’ve sacrificed my homeplace, my lover’s dream, but I
did
have to do it.”

Her lover’s dream
.

Those words quivered in his heart like a thrown knife.

Nickajack stared down into her stricken face and could barely feel sorry for her, he was so
full of fury. What a trap corral to run him into! He’d known the sodbusters would ruin the country, but he hadn’t known they’d ruin his own personal life, too.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he said, although his jaw felt so cold and locked-up he didn’t know how he could talk. “Why didn’t you come back to the jail and tell me what he wanted?”

She lifted her head and looked at him, her green eyes huge, her face white as an antelope’s flag, and his heart broke. He couldn’t let her see that.

“You had no right to be hornin’ in on my—”

Her beautiful mouth turned down, and for an awful minute he thought he’d made her cry.

“Well, you needn’t worry about that for another minute,” she said, in a dry, tight voice he’d never heard before, “because from now on you need never lay eyes on me again.”

“From now on I’ll lay eyes on you every day,” he snapped. “What do you think I am?”

He had to fight to keep from yelling.

“You’ve sacrificed your dream for me, and you think I’ll let you live here in town, alone, with it full of rowdies and holdup men and pimps and drunks and chiselers and rounders of all kinds?”

He thought a glint of laughter flashed across the misery in her eyes.

“It’s not funny,” he said. “I’ll have to split my claim with you.”

Her eyes narrowed and she looked as if she could’ve cheerfully shot him.

“You don’t have to do one blessed thing but step back and get out of my way.”

He was standing so close she’d have to climb the tree to get away from him. Still, he didn’t move an inch.

“What I have to do is marry you,” he said. “We might just as well find a preacher and get it done so we can get home before dark.”

T
he look on her face almost shocked him out of his anger, and now
he
wanted to laugh. All of this was craziness, all the
loco
feelings warring through him. But the moment the words came off his tongue, he knew they were right. She’d put him so far in debt to her he had no choice.

Well, that wasn’t all of it, but what did anything else matter? Maybe he did care about her, some, but she loved a dead man and he could never fully trust any woman, ever again.

“Have you lost your mind?” she cried. “I won’t marry you! What a cold idea to even think of!”

“Well, you don’t have to be so scornful about it!”

He felt anything but cold. The idea filled him with a hot, raging fury mixed with fright. What if he started loving her when he lived with her every day? She made him lose control of his feelings more than anyone he’d ever known. Right now he was more furious than any other person had ever made him, man
or
woman.

“Let me tell you, Nick,” she began, her chin stuck up in the air.

“Look,” he interrupted in a ruthless tone, unable to keep from taking hold of her by both arms again, “you’ll have to live with me. If we aren’t married, you’ll never get a school to teach.”

Her stubborn little jaw thrust out. He had to hand it to her—she had sand. She’d dealt with Baxter alone and gotten him out of jail, even if she had done it the wrong way.

“I’ll get a room in town,” she said, in that new, strangled voice. “I’ll find work.”

“Where? How many of these businesses can afford to hire help?”

She hesitated.

“Somebody can.”

“No. You’d be a woman alone. I can’t be responsible for that.”

She glared a hole through him.

“You
aren’t
responsible. You didn’t kill my
… Vance. You didn’t drive me away from the Sloane Valley. I was a woman alone before I ever met you.”

“You have preached nothing but no-obligations to me since the minute we met,” he said. “I’m of that same mind. I won’t be obligated to you for my freedom, not when you’ve paid such a price.”

“I won’t marry you.”

Now she sounded scared.

“You talk about honor,” he said. “I have to split my claim with you, I can’t be responsible for what might happen to you alone in town, and I can’t take time now from the horses to build you a separate shelter and be riding over there to see about you when the snow flies.”

That was the truth. Those were the reasons. He mustn’t let himself care for her. He had probably imagined that feeling, anyhow.

Callie leaned into his grip as if it were a crutch, because if she didn’t, she would fall down. She didn’t have the strength any more even to move without help. She would collapse in a heap on the ground if he didn’t hold her up.

She had failed. The knowledge washed over her in an overwhelming wave.

Vance’s dream was gone, after all she’d suffered to try to make it come true. She had failed him. She had lost him forever, except for the baby.

The baby. How could she take care of it now? The very thought filled her with fear. She had failed everyone she loved, from her parents to Vance to this precious baby. If she took him into danger, if she lost him, she wouldn’t want to live. She
couldn’t
live.

The gun she carried made it possible for her to defend herself, but in town, with a Hell’s Acre full of desperate, unsavory characters and no law yet except for the ambitious Mr. Williams, she would have to be on guard all the time. In her present state of exhaustion, that was impossible to imagine after working twelve hours or more in a café or a store.

If
she could find steady work. Not even in town would there be a school until months had passed, and she didn’t have enough money to wait.

If
she could get the school when it opened.

Never in all her life had she felt so abject, so hopeless, so helpless.

“When spring comes, I’ll build you a cabin on your half of my place,” Nick said. “And I’ll not lay claim to a husband’s rights, nor expect you to behave like a wife. So you can hold onto at least one of your dreams.”

That touched her like nothing else ever had. His tone was so tender it brought tears to her eyes.

What difference would it make, except that she’d still be a respectable woman worthy of
a school to teach? What difference, except that she’d have a real roof and real walls instead of a tent to protect her and her baby during the fall storms and winter blizzards? What difference, except that she and her baby wouldn’t be alone in this ugly, noisy town crowded with strangers, some of them definitely dangerous?

Besides, out at the claim she knew Mrs. Peck, and Nick could go for her to help when her birthing time drew near.

The thought gave her strength. She would earn her keep at Nick’s. He had a safe, secure nest with plenty of supplies for the winter, and his companionship, once they got used to this arrangement, would be a great balm to her loneliness.

He wouldn’t really be her husband. This wouldn’t be a betrayal of her love for Vance—it would be an arrangement, only for show. And it would offer her baby more protection than she could ever provide.

She looked up. Nick’s eyes held a mix of impatience and anger and … whatever had been in them that evening when he caught her reading the note from his cousin. Caring. He did care about her as a friend.

“All right,” she said hoarsely, “I’ll marry you, Nick.”

But when she stood in the middle of the tent with the cross on top, surrounded by Nick, the preacher, the preacher’s wife, and the preacher’s wife’s mother, Callie could not believe she had agreed to such a thing. What in the
world
was she doing here?

“Do you, Calladonia Sloane, take this man, Nick Smith, to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

It should have been
this man, Vance Harlan
. Except that that was a long time ago, and Vance was fading from her memory. But without love between her and Nick, this was all wrong, a travesty—a wanton, cruel injustice of life.

She didn’t reply for such a long time that Nickajack placed his hand at the small of her back. Its warmth gave her strength, somehow.

“I do,” she whispered.

Nick made his vows in a strong voice, as if he had already come to terms with the fact that they meant nothing.

The preacher declared them man and wife. “You may kiss your bride.”

Her heart gave a double beat as Nick bent his head to hers, but he gave her only a chaste peck on the lips.

She had to suppress the grievous disappointment that threatened to overcome her. The little peck of a kiss was fine. She only needed comfort and reassurance, not passion,
from a man who was marrying her out of duty. Hadn’t he said they wouldn’t really behave as if they were married?

“Please sign these documents for me,” the preacher said. “For each marriage I conduct, I make one for my own records and one for yours.”

Callie sat down while the kindly preacher drew up two identical certificates of marriage in his beautiful penmanship. Nick folded one and put it in his pocket, then she was on her feet again and they were accepting the good man’s good wishes and those of his wife and mother-in-law.

In what seemed only an instant after that, she found herself and Nick walking back down the street.
Man and wife
. Those were the only words of the whole ceremony she could remember, and they kept ringing in her ears.

The whole world was a hot blur of dust and glaring sunlight that sapped the life out of her, and all Callie wanted was some shade and a stretch of grass where she could lay her body down. Lay down and not think at all.

“You’re exhausted,” Nick said, as she stumbled.

She felt his sharp, sideways glance as he put his arm around her waist to steady her.

“Have you eaten anything today?”

She tried to remember.

“No. I guess not. I … didn’t feel too good this morning …”

“Sit down right here.”

They were passing the open-air cafe and he guided her into the shade of its canvas side, rigged to make a roof instead of a wall in the heat. After Callie dropped into the rickety chair he pulled out for her, he made his way through the scattered mid-afternoon customers at the boards-on-sawhorses tables to the serving counter in the back by the big cast-iron stove.

He moved like a mountain lion, with all the grace and power of an animal that ruled where he roamed. But Nick didn’t want to rule; he didn’t even want to be bothered with anyone else. He loved his solitude. He didn’t want her on his place, yet he had taken her in for the winter.

Even though—no,
because
he was obligated to her. What an irony, for them to be married today with their friendship ruined, when only yesterday they’d been good companions! She felt the heat rise into her face. Yesterday, when all this trouble had started, they’d been in each other’s arms. Now they were married, and that would never happen again.

Dear Lord, she was
married
to him—to that handsome stranger over there who was buying food for her because now she was his wife—when what he really wanted was to
walk off and leave her where she sat. How had she let this happen?

And he didn’t even know about the baby. Oh, dear Lord, would he throw her out for not telling him beforehand? How would he feel when he found out he’d taken on still another mouth to feed?

Vance’s baby wouldn’t come until spring, though, and by then she’d be moving out of Nick’s house. It wouldn’t be right to take half his land or let him build her her own cabin, but at the moment she wouldn’t argue with him. If he could help her survive through the winter, that would be all she could accept from him.

Once the baby had come and the Chikaskia school, which she really believed would be hers, had been assigned, she would make other plans. Surely six months or so of providing for her would fulfill his sense of obligation.

Soon he was at her side again, carrying a small cloth sack full of food and a canteen, pulling her out into the sun again, striding off toward the livery stable. He seemed to be growing more tense by the minute.

“Everybody was all right when you left this morning?”

“I don’t know,” she said, hurrying to keep up with him. “I threw hay to the young ones, but it was too dark for me to really look them
over or see any of the mares in among the trees.”

She stood in the shade while he collected her team and wagon and the yellow filly, paid the man, tied his young horse to the wagon, and drove to her. Exhausted, she nevertheless tried to climb up over the wheel by herself, but he got down to help her. Then he handed her the sack of food and slapped the lines down on the backs of her team.

She ought to insist that he ride his horse and let her drive her wagon, but the very thought made her know that she was stretched to the limits of her endurance. Her arms ached and her head hurt, and if she had to use them to try to control Judy and Joe, she would break into a million pieces. Or into tears.

“Eat,” Nick said.

Pulling at the drawstring, she opened the sack. The fragrance of buttermilk biscuits and fried ham floated up to her and her stomach growled. She didn’t feel hungry, though. She felt sick, and so defeated she could die.

The baby had to have food, though, so she forced herself to choke one sandwich down. Nick slid the strap off his shoulder and held the canteen out to her.

She drank long and deep, also for the baby, and then put the food on the floor and stood up.

“I have to rest,” she said, and went back into the box of the wagon.

She wouldn’t be able to sleep, but she had to lie down because she couldn’t hold her body upright anymore. Never had she felt so broken and drawn down. She felt bent toward the earth as if she were dying. She had done just what she’d sworn not to do: she’d given up the only land she’d probably ever own.

It didn’t count that she’d also broken her vow not to give a man power over her life. Nick didn’t want it. All he wanted was for her to be gone—but she had no place else to go.

The stars were out when she woke, the wagon stood still and Nick was gone. Quickly, her mind panicking, she sat up.

He was in the pen with the young horses, talking to them in a low, sweet tone that blended his words into the sultry air. Home. They were home.

Her heartbeat slowed upon seeing he was safe, then picked up again. How could she think of Nick’s cabin as home when she’d only been staying here for a few days, when it didn’t belong to her and it never would?

Now she had no home.

The back of this wagon, right here, where she sat all covered in grimy dust and dried sweat, was the closest thing to a home that she owned.

The knot in her throat grew huge and threatened to choke her. She scrambled down off the wagon, forcing her stiff arms and legs to work, and flew into the house, grabbed some towels, then a pitcher from the kitchen, and ran out the back door. When she reached the spring, she stripped down to her skin and poured the cool water over her grimy body, head to toe, over and over again.

It shocked her hot skin and woke her completely, but it did nothing to wash away the battering day just past or to cool her feverish heart.

Nick would do the chores before he ate, Callie knew, so by the time he came in through the back door carrying his boots, with his hair slicked back, his shirt off, and his wet jeans clinging to his skin, she had fresh, cool water poured into mugs and a semblance of a supper laid out on the table. She would earn her keep; she would maintain her independence; she would manage her life separate from Nick’s.

In spite of the fact that the sight of his copper skin gleaming in the lamplight made her want to stare at him for the rest of the evening. His skin called so relentlessly to her hands that she ached to touch him.

She turned her back and moved things around on the table.

The nap in the wagon had unsettled her,
that was all it was. This whole, long day she had been torn apart by too many emotions that ran too deep, and now she didn’t know what to feel or how because her plans were gone and her life was raging out of control.