The Rustler (20 page)

Sarah could not judge, lest she be judged herself.

“What am I going to do?” Kitty begged, in a broken rasp.

“We'll think of something,” Sarah said.

More lies? Some kind of elaborate ruse? Kitty, boarding at Sarah's house and pretending to mourn a rancher husband who had never existed?

It wouldn't work, of course. Just as Kitty said, as soon as Davina alighted from the train, folks would be eager to tell her that her mother served liquor and sold her body in the Spit Bucket Saloon.

None of Kitty's finer points would matter. And Kitty
did
have finer points. She was a good poker player, for one thing, and she sewed beautifully and painted delicate florals in watercolor, too. Last night, after the fire broke out, she'd fought the blaze toe-to-toe, just like everybody else in town.

“It's no use,” Kitty said. “I'm going to get my savings out of the bank and catch the first train out of here.”

Kitty, unlike many of the respectable women in town, had a bank account of her own. She hadn't saved a fortune, but she'd have enough to start fresh somewhere else.

“Don't go yet, Kitty,” Sarah said. “Give me a chance to think.”

Kitty didn't answer. She just rose off the bench and hurried out of the store.

And Sarah watched her son, eagerly preparing to enter school.

She wasn't free to tell him the truth—Charles had a say in the matter, too, whether she liked it or not. But one day, far in the future, he might come back to Stone Creek, full-grown, like Davina, and want to know why everything she'd told him had been a bold-faced lie.

W
HERE THE HELL
, Wyatt asked himself, as he rode alone down the ridge to take a closer look at the Henson place, was he going to get three hundred and fifty dollars? Or even the money to buy nails, lumber and tools to put the homestead back in working condition?

And those questions were only the first of many.

Rowdy and Sam were on their way back from Haven, where they'd been tracking not only murderous vigilantes, but Billy Justice and the rest of his gang. Rowdy was Wyatt's favorite brother, and there had always been a deep bond between them, but if Rowdy had stumbled across the truth about that failed attempt at rustling, he wouldn't hesitate to arrest him. Rowdy was that sort of man—he did everything to the fullest extent of his knowledge and ability, whether it was outlawing or keeping the peace. The badge he wore might have been a mere convenience to some folks, but it
meant
something to Rowdy, and he would stand behind it, in conscience and in action.

Wyatt grinned soberly at the thought, leaning back in the saddle a little as Sugarfoot navigated the steep descent. Rowdy had grit, and he had gumption, both of which were qualities Wyatt knew he too possessed, but he hadn't used them in the same way.

He'd been a train robber, an intermittent cowpoke on various ranches all over the West, but he'd never built anything, never owned anything. Never chosen a way of life, planted his feet on a piece of ground, dug in his heels and held on. Much as he'd wanted a wife and family, it had always been a pipe dream, something he consoled himself with when he got lonesome, which was often. The woman in his flights of fancy had never had a face—she was a figure in a calico dress, albeit a shapely one, calling him in to supper after a day of hard work.

Now, she was Sarah Tamlin.

Reaching the dooryard of the old house, Wyatt felt fresh despair, a bittersweet desolation that ached in his very soul. How could he bring Sarah, a genuine lady used to all the better graces—pianos and china dishes and spare rooms—to live in a place like this?

With a sigh, he swung down out of the saddle and left Sugarfoot to graze untethered on a patch of overgrown grass by the well. The threshold of the house—more of a cabin, really—was low. Wyatt ducked his head to keep from bashing it against the door frame and stepped over.

He could see the sky through the gaps left by the fallen roof, most of which lay in the center of the cabin. Vermin scuttled through the wreck. One room, with a potbellied stove and a stone fireplace. The stove was rusted, the fireplace was crumbling. Like as not, there were birds and mice nesting in the chimney.

Wyatt added mortar to the list of things he couldn't afford to buy.

He shoved a hand through his hair, trying to imagine Sarah there.

The effort was a bust. Her bedroom in town was probably bigger than this whole place.

He picked his way over to the potbellied stove, opened the door and looked inside. A snake hissed, raising its head to strike.

He slammed the stove door shut again and straightened.

Went back to the threshold and stood looking out over the property, gripping the door frame with his hands—a well falling in on itself, a shell of a barn that would have to be razed and cut up for firewood. And fifty acres of decent grass—not enough to call a ranch, really, but he could run a few cattle. But it would probably be a couple of years before he made a profit, and in the interim he'd have to make at least two mortgage payments.

Where was he going to get the cattle in the first place?

He gave a raspy chuckle. He could always rustle a few, he supposed. Tricky, though, when the curious decided to inspect the brands.

Again, Wyatt took off his hat and raked his fingers through his sweat-dampened hair. He had less than thirty dollars to his name, and he'd inherited his ma's fear of debt. There had been a lot of lean years when he was a kid, years when Pappy didn't send home enough to buy a twenty-pound sack of flour. Time and again, Miranda Yarbro had put on her Sunday best, donned a bonnet, driven herself to the bank in town, and borrowed against the farm, and on three different occasions, they'd faced foreclosure. Once, they'd gone so far as to load the household goods in the back of a wagon, headed out to who-knew-where with only a worn-out pair of plow horses to pull them, and at the last possible moment, Pappy had ridden up with a pocket full of money.

It was one of the few times Pappy had saved the day. Why had he chosen to follow Pappy's lead, instead of his ma's?

Wyatt gave another sigh. He wasn't even riding his own
horse,
for God's sake. And he'd have to work for Sam O'Ballivan—if the job offer was still open, given his poor showing as deputy marshal of Stone Creek—just to survive. Hammer and saw on the Henson place in his spare time, which, given the nature of ranch work, would be nigh onto impossible.

He imagined what Pappy would say, if he'd been standing there.
Take Rowdy's horse and go hold up a train—better yet, a stagecoach. Easy pickings, a stagecoach. Then keep on riding. Forget Sarah. Forget Stone Creek. And for sure forget that worthless hound you call Lonesome—all he'll do is slow you down.

Pappy's image faded, replaced by the small but fierce figure of his mother, Miranda. He could almost hear her voice, see her shaking an index finger under his nose.
Stop running, Wyatt Yarbro. Buckle down and work. That's how you get what you want in this life.

“It's impossible, Ma,” Wyatt muttered.

Things are only impossible before you do them,
she would surely have replied.
Do you think I had an easy time, keeping a family of hungry boys together while your pa was off gallivanting? No. I just did what was there before me to do, whether it was impossible or not. I clawed a living out of that Iowa dirt. I milked cows and kept chickens and sold eggs and butter at the store in town. I mended shirts until my fingers bled. But I kept you all under my roof and fed, long as you needed a home.

He'd have to choose, Wyatt realized, once and for all. Choose between Pappy's way, and his ma's. He couldn't go on doing one thing, wanting all the while to do another.

He'd tried Pappy's method. Wound up in prison, first off, then as a drifter and erstwhile rustler.

His ma's way was harder, there was no denying that. Claim a patch of ground and earn the deed to it. Stand up on the inside, so he could count himself a man.

Wyatt strode through the space where the images had stood, went to peer down into the well. It was crumbling, like the rest of the place, but there was water down there. He could see the faint, muddy glimmer of it, catch the scent of it.

Water.
For an Arizona rancher, it was as good as oil to a Texan.

Sugarfoot nickered companionably as Wyatt passed him, set on examining what remained of the barn. His first impression had been right—there was nothing to do but rebuild it, from scratch.

He paced off some of the land, close in to the house, and found the spring Ephriam had mentioned, a grassy oasis of pure water, feeding into the well from underground. Until he got the latter mucked out, he could hike back and forth with buckets.

He began to feel cautiously hopeful. Sure, the house was small—but so was the one Rowdy and Lark lived in, and they certainly seemed happy enough, and he could always build on more rooms when he'd had time to acquire a bank account.

He smiled. Not that he'd put a cent of his money into the Stockman's Bank. The establishment was the proverbial sitting duck, and it was only a matter of time before some band of yahoos rode in and robbed it bare.

Yahoos, he had to allow, who had not reckoned on Rowdy Yarbro, Sam O'Ballivan, or himself.

All he asked of a benevolent fate, if there was such a thing, was that Sarah wouldn't be in the bank when it happened.

Memories of the stampede down south, when both he and Reb should have been killed, flashed in his mind. He wasn't prepared to call whatever had saved their hides “God,” but
something
had kept them out of harm's way that night.

Maybe there was a reason.

Thoughtful, Wyatt mounted up and rode back to town. Headed straight for the bank.

Ephriam was there, with the teller, introduced as Thomas, though whether it was his first name or his last, Wyatt didn't know. Or care.

There was no sign of Sarah. Most likely, she and Owen were still out buying the boy's school gear. Wyatt felt a pang, picturing that. He was gone on Sarah, had been from the first sight of her, but now he was starting to get attached to the kid, too. Owen was another man's son, he reminded himself, and the kid was only visiting in Stone Creek.

“I reckon if you have those mortgage papers drawn up,” Wyatt said to Ephriam, belatedly remembering to remove his hat, “I'm ready to sign them.”

Ephriam smiled, and it seemed to Wyatt that there was a lot behind the expression. Cordiality, surely, but a certain sad resignation, too. Nobody knew better than he did, after all, that the clear-minded state he was enjoying now was most likely temporary. “Come into my office,” Tamlin said. “Thomas, you'll be all right out here alone?”

Thomas reddened, affronted by the question. Wyatt felt little sympathy for the youth, given that he'd warned Sarah of plans to hold up the bank, then left her to face twenty men alone. “I'll be
fine,
” the teller said.

Wyatt spared Thomas a glance as he passed him.

The young man bristled.

Ephriam's office was small and cluttered, like Doc's, but here, as at Venable's place, there was a sense of underlying order.

“Sit down, please,” Ephriam said, taking the chair behind his desk, sort of sinking into it, as though he suddenly found his own weight too great to carry.

Wyatt drew up a chair. Set his hat aside on the floor.

“You've been out to the Henson place?” Ephriam asked, tenting plump fingers beneath a series of chins.

“Yes, sir,” Wyatt said. “I believe I can make something out of it.”

It was only by giving voice to the statement that it became true for Wyatt.

The spread would never be fancy, but it would pay a modest living—someday, that was, and with a hell of a lot of elbow grease.

Ephriam regarded him in somber, measuring silence for a long time. Then he asked, “What are your intentions toward my daughter, Mr. Yarbro?”

Wyatt was caught off guard by the question, though he supposed he should have anticipated it. “I want to marry her,” he heard himself say. “But right now, I don't have much to offer in the way of support, so it'll be a while.” He paused, cleared his throat, sat up a little straighter in the chair. “I do mean to court her, though, and I know I ought to ask your permission, but the plain truth is, I'll be making a case for myself with her, whether you approve or not.”

The banker chuckled at that. “I'm willing to overlook that formality,” he said. “You have my permission, for what it's worth. The one thing I would ask is that you take good care of Sarah.” He spread his hands, apparently drawing Wyatt's attention to their surroundings. “I started with a few hundred dollars in a cash box. Got it mining, in various places. I lived over at Mrs. Porter's, in a room under the stairs, and lent money at interest, five, ten, twenty dollars at a time. Mrs. Porter's husband ran Stone Creek Bank—he was my only competitor. It's closed now, of course.”

Wyatt had seen the other bank, its windows boarded up and an Out Of Business sign tacked to the door. Rowdy had mentioned some bad business concerning the Porters, sometime back, in a letter Wyatt had received in prison, but it had just been a story to him, and since he'd arrived in town, he'd been too busy falling in love with Sarah Tamlin and getting the jailhouse blown sky-high to give the tale much thought.

Now, Wyatt nodded, as if he knew more about Stone Creek's past than he did.

“I hear you turned to and helped Doc get those three men buried, too,” Ephriam said, still studying Wyatt as though there were words written on his face in an illegible hand.

Thinking back on things, Wyatt couldn't recall Rowdy ever saying anything about Doc, but then, he hadn't described anybody else, either, except for Lark. The pages of his few recent letters had been filled with her—how pretty she was, and how smart. How he'd never known another woman like her.

Wyatt's throat constricted. “I thought the only doctor in Stone Creek was Chinese,” he said, recalling something Lark had said, that first night, at the supper table.

“Doc went through a bad patch,” Ephriam said. “Took to the drink, after his wife and daughter died of a fever. Got so bad, hardly anybody even thought of him as a doctor anymore. Made his living as an undertaker. Then, just last spring, he answered the altar call in church one Wednesday night and got himself saved. It took, I guess. He's been stone sober ever since.”

Wyatt had heard of stranger things—like living through a stampede. He didn't speak, because he knew Ephriam had more to say, and he wanted to hear it, especially if it concerned Sarah.