Claudia Dain Read online

  "You ready, Sue Ann?"

  "Coming, Rob! Did you get the little brown—"

  "Yes, I got the little brown trunk. It's under the boot. Now let's get along. Good day to you, Miss Anne."

  "So long, Anne. I'll see you on Sunday."

  "Good-bye, Sue Ann. Good-bye, Rob," Anne said as she stood on the platform, deserted now that Sue Ann and Rob Weaver had driven off.

  It was a short stop. Even as the Weavers were driving off, the train was steaming up to head farther east. She turned and watched as it built up steam and then churned away, leaving a gray cloud to mark itself; just like God leading the Israelites out of Egypt with a cloud to guide them. And just like the Israelites, she longed to follow that cloud of smoke that led further and further from all she could remember knowing.

  Anne sighed, full of restlessness mixed with a dollop of melancholy, and turned for home.

  The bounty hunter, Jack Skull, was nowhere in sight. She looked, and then sighed again, restless.

  Her house appeared much too soon to suit her restless frame of mind and she stifled another sigh. Her grandfather had built the house and he had built it to impress. And it had, then. It was one of the first frame dwellings built in Abilene and had large windows and a nice porch. There was even some wedding cake trim under the eaves. It was still one of the biggest houses in town; she thought her grandfather would like knowing that. Miss Daphne, left alone with her daughters, had done her best to keep it up, but it was a lot of house for a bunch of women and it took a lot of money to maintain. They didn't have a lot of money. Not anymore.

  "Anyone interesting on the Ellsworth train?" her grandmother asked.

  Anne started a bit in surprise. Her grandmother was on her knees in the dirt, weeding the flowers bordering the front walk, and Anne hadn't seen her.

  "Oh, Sue Ann and Rob Weaver. Sue Ann was visiting her sister in Ellsworth and Rob came to pick her up."

  Miss Daphne nodded but kept her eyes and hands busy with her weeding.

  "Then there was Mr. Dodd from the mercantile. I didn't speak to him, but I heard he had gone to Ellsworth to pick up some dress goods."

  "They should have sent Mrs. Rivers for the dress goods. Chris Dodd doesn't know scarlet from violet."

  "Yes, ma'am."

  Anne edged up the walk, eager to get inside. She had duly reported her activities and conversations and was ready for a fortifying glass of buttermilk.

  "You didn't see that bounty hunter again?"

  Miss Daphne said it calmly enough and kept her eyes on the dirt at her fingertips, but the weeds were flying furiously.

  "No, ma'am," she answered, a little sad that it was the truth.

  Miss Daphne was not through with her yet.

  "Now when is that beau of yours coming round? He's been gone awhile now."

  "You know he said he'd be back at the end of the week, Grandma. He has business to tend down toward Wichita. He told us all when he was here to dinner last week." She did not want to be blamed for Bill's absence when he had announced his intentions to them all; she had done nothing to drive him off, except quietly hold him at arm's length. "He's not my official beau anyway," she argued softly, still trying to get up the path. Was it her imagination or was her grandmother scooting out into the walkway a little more with every weed pulled? "There's no formal agreement between us, you know." There'd be no agreement with any man, no matter his courting skills. She wasn't falling into that trap.

  "Oh, yes, I know," her grandmother said, sitting back on her heels and forgetting the weeds hanging from her fingers. "But he's a better prospect than that shiftless bounty hunter, miss. Don't think I don't know that he's set your petticoats fluttering. It was in your eyes from the moment you came home today and I can read that sort of look as well as anyone and maybe a darned sight better."

  She didn't know what was in her to make her answer back the way she did. Maybe it was the restlessness that seemed to grow with every breath, restlessness that had blossomed since she'd first locked eyes with Jack Skull. Whatever it was, she did it.

  "Grandma," she said, "I don't think he's shiftless. He appears to be both busy and successful at his job."

  Miss Daphne's brown eyes narrowed and her lips thinned. The lifeless weeds fell from her stiffened fingers.

  "Are you contradicting me, Anne? Are you taking a contrary position merely to irritate me? Is this how you respect your elders, and after I've taken care of you and your mama and, yes, even your aunt, for all these years? You know full well that Bill is a sight more man than any bounty hunter could ever hope to be. You know that Bill has been seriously courting you for over a month. You know that Bill has been welcomed into this home, my home, which is something that bounty hunter will never be."

  "Yes, ma'am," Anne murmured, her eyes downcast, sorry she had said anything at all. What did it matter anyway? She wasn't getting married, though it made Miss Daphne happy to think she was. Any plan that kept Miss Daphne happy was a good plan.

  "You agree that you are being contrary? You know that the good Lord never meant for a child to be so obstinate with her elders. Now you do what's right, Anne."

  "Yes, ma'am." Doing what was right was all that mattered, really, and her grandmother was certain she knew what was right better than anybody.

  "Very well," Miss Daphne sniffed, satisfied for the moment. "I could use your hands to help with these weeds. I don't want my spring flower show to be anything less than what folks have come to expect."

  There was nothing Anne could say, nothing she could do without acting the ungrateful, unrepentant child she had been accused of being. It wasn't worth the fight. Anne fell to her knees and kept her head bent to her assigned task.

  "Yes, ma'am."

  * * *

  "I think she should look to that bounty hunter and I told her so myself."

  Nell gazed at her sister in horror, her mouth dropping open and staying that way, even though her mama had scolded her about that particular bad habit for thirty years.

  "You didn't!"

  Sarah was enough of Daphne Perkins Todd's daughter to flush, but she stuck to her guns.

  "I certainly did."

  Nell watched as Sarah rolled out the dough, sprinkling flour over the loaf before working it some more. Sarah was ignoring her. Nell made a conscious effort to close her mouth and then turned back to her shelling.

  "Well, I can't imagine why. Bill Tucker is her steady beau and he's over here every chance he can get. It'll only be a matter of time."

  "Humph," Sarah said, pummeling the dough.

  "Besides, what would Anne want with a bounty hunter when she has Bill?"

  Sarah looked up, her blue eyes fierce and her hands wrist deep in bread dough.

  "Has Bill? She doesn't have Bill. And Bill isn't all that regular in his attentions besides."

  "A man has to work—"

  "He isn't working that hard on Anne."

  Nell couldn't withstand her sister's fierce expression any longer and looked down at her shelling. The pile of pecans was building nicely.

  "Nell, have you seen that bounty hunter?"

  "No, I have not." Her tone shouted that she could hardly have been prouder of that fact.

  "Well, go take a look," Sarah said with a smile. "He's a man to see. Don't see many like him in a lifetime."

  "Are you saying he's good looking?"

  Sarah grinned. "That's what I'm saying."

  Nell sniffed. "That hardly makes him fit for Anne. Sarah, he's a bounty hunter! What would he want with a nice girl like Anne?"

  Sarah's grin expanded up to her eyes and she shrugged.

  "Listen, Nell, haven't you even once thought that Bill was just a little too cocksure of Anne? Why, he just expects her to be sitting here waiting for him whenever he happens to roll into Abilene. A man gets a real sudden thirst when water gets scarce."

  "But, Sarah, Bill is so... nice."

  "And he's got a light foot now. How long do you figure he'll stick around if h
e and Anne do wed? One week in four?"

  "But Jack Skull—"

  "I've seen him, Nell"—Sarah smiled—"and I've seen how Anne reacts to the mention of him. Let them dance around each other a bit, and hope Bill sees it. Anne needs to have more than one man caught in her bustle before she settles down and Bill needs to know that Anne's not his for the taking. He should fight for her. She'll need the joy of that memory later, when life wears her down."

  "But Bill has been so sweet in his courting," Sarah argued, eating a pecan in her confusion. When she realized it, she fought the urge to spit it out. Mama never would tolerate eating the food whilst cooking it. "And he and Anne have an understanding."

  "What understanding is that?" Sarah mocked. "That she'll sit like a hound and wait for him at the window?"

  "I don't think it's like that, but a woman should be faithful. And patient."

  Sarah abandoned the dough and stood in front of her sister.

  "Is that so? And what did being faithful get you, Nell? What did it get me?"

  Nell had no answer. She ate another pecan.

  * * *

  "You love me?"

  He whispered it, his voice a caress against her throat, his hands gentle on her ribs, rising to feel the weight of her breasts.

  The moon was dim, the gray clouds scattered across its face, and the air held the bite of an early spring night. But it was spring and that was what she felt in his arms; like a flower opening, earth warming, life erupting. All this she felt when she was with him. He bathed her in desire, showering it back upon her, effusive in his love words and in his courting.

  She had never felt such things before.

  "Yes, I love you."

  She did. It exploded in her with the force of birth.

  "You want me, as I am?"

  Did she want him? Oh, yes, it was all she could think.

  She wanted him, his laughter, his gentleness, his desire. She wanted him, all of him, forever.

  "Yes." She said it against his mouth and it was a plea. He kissed her and she leaned into him, loving his strength.

  "Then marry me," he begged, his hands cupping her, his whisper sending chills over her skin.

  "Of course." She laughed. It was perfect. He was perfect. This moment of her life she would remember forever, for the rest of her life, and she would tell her daughter just how her daddy had proposed. "Of course, yes, I'll marry you."

  "You'll make a home for us?"

  "A beautiful home with fresh bread every day and clean sheets once a week—" She was laughing and sobbing against his chest, rubbing her face against the strength of him, learning his smell, so happy that she hurt.

  "You'll take my name? Have my kids? I want lots of kids."

  "So do I."

  She pulled away to look into his face. He was so earnest, even the light of such a dim moon could show her that. Such sweetness in a man, to be so earnest. Take his name? Nothing meant more to her. She had lived her whole life to take his name and bear his children.

  "So do I," she repeated. "As many as we can and—"

  She never got to say more because he kissed her then. Such a kiss, a kiss to rock the world, a kiss to begin a new life with a new name.

  A kiss to die for.

  A moment of confusion followed by frantic fear was all she had time for. Her forever ended then, on that cool spring night.

  She died silently to fall at his feet in a swish of fabric. He sprayed his seed over her as she hit the ground, the worn fabric of her skirt instantly dusted in dirt. He did not look at her again, but the moon pushed aside the clouds for just an instant to light the body of the woman as she lay alone in the vast dark of the prairie.

  Chapter 6

  He found her just southeast of Abilene, near Council Grove. Horse tracks led right to the spot, tracks not more than a day old. A single horse had brought her to the place of her death.

  There was nothing around for miles except the survey markers; the railroad was set to lay track through Council Grove, but there was nothing here now. She looked about as alone as a murdered woman can look. She lay on her back, her arms open wide, as if she were trying to hug the sky and coming up with only an armload of air. But that was a mistaken image. She hadn't died alone. Someone had done this to her and stayed with her until it had been finished.

  Boot tracks, man-sized, mixed with her smaller footprints. His stride was long, the depth of his boot track deep; a big man and tall. Her boots were scuffed and the soles thin; well worn. His prints led off to the east and then disappeared where he had mounted and ridden off. The tracks were something. He'd come upon this one so quick that the tracks hadn't been washed out by weather.

  Jack bent down and looked close at the dirt that was his only clue. The horse's gait was off, the right rear hoof leaving a heavy print in the hard soil of Kansas. Maybe it was bad shoeing, maybe it was the horse, but it was something. Something to work with. Something to find.

  Only one set of horse prints; she'd ridden with him to her death. The horse had continued on with his rider, the tracks showing the lighter load he carried going north. Abilene was north.

  Another one; he hadn't thought there'd be another one so quick. It didn't fit the pattern and anything that didn't fit the pattern made him sweat. He was sweating now and the sun wasn't high enough or strong enough to be the reason.

  He crouched down, studying her in the strong light. Her throat was badly bruised, the skin chalk white everywhere else, showing off the purple and black of her neck like a bold necklace. But it was no necklace. It was the mark of her death.

  He bent closer, studying the mark, wanting it to tell him something about just how the girl had died. He'd seen enough death wounds in his life to have the knack of knowing how it had happened, what kind of round had shattered bone or the length of the knife that had pierced the lung. Or just what it had been that choked off air until air didn't matter anymore.

  The wound around her neck was heaviest in the front; the pressure had come from the back, pulled tight against her wind until she'd run out of air. The mark was even and smooth, not the raw burn of rope, except that there was an oval of uneven bruising and in the middle of that oval, a pair of parallel lines. Deep bruises they were, dark and bold. The pressure had been strong there. But what would leave a mark like that? Not a whip, not a wire, unless barbed wire? But the wound wasn't punctured... it was just like all those others. He'd never seen death wounds like this until finding that first gal, Abbie, down in Texas, and he'd not known what he was looking at then. He still didn't know. And another girl was dead.

  He couldn't just leave her. He didn't know her people, so he couldn't bring her to them. Standing, Jack slapped his hat against his leg and Joe still remained easy. He was learning Jack's ways and knew that the flying, slapping hat was no threat.

  There was nothing for it; he would have to take her into Abilene, hoping Lane could identify her and get her folks told and her body in the ground. He couldn't just leave her, not out in the open with her eyes looking up at the sun without blinking and her arms stretched out and empty. He wouldn't leave her. And that meant the end of the secret, at least in Abilene.

  Jack approached her politely, almost wanting to ask her pardon for the way he had to touch her. Smoothing down her skirts, he lifted her by her outstretched arms, holding her for a moment in a stiff embrace until he could get her body positioned over Joe. Joe made no complaint. There was no blood smell.

  He covered her with his bedroll spread out, but skeins of her black hair fell down to almost brush against the ground. She was a pretty girl. But then, they were all pretty girls.

  Another one dead, and so soon.

  Jack mounted carefully, not wanting to disturb her. He'd come looking for a horse thief and found a body. Jack pulled down on his hat until his face was in full shadow. Another death; he should have known. He'd seen a comet just last night. Comets were omens of disaster.

  * * *

  It was as still as death in
Abilene that afternoon when he rode in, almost as still as the girl lying over his saddle. Her hair swung in tempo with Joe's gait. It was the only thing about her that moved; there was no life left in her. Nothing but that dark fall of swinging hair.

  The folks in Abilene were no more happy to see her than they were to see him.

  "This time he's killed one. And a woman, too."

  "No shame, that's what. He'd do anything for money."

  "No pride either."

  Jack ignored them and tied up at the sheriff’s. Joe, at least, wasn't giving him any trouble. He left the girl and checked the office. Lane was out. Given the mood of the growing crowd, that was bad.

  "What could she have done that he'd have to kill her?"

  Jack turned and walked back to his horse, scanning the onlookers as he did. There were about twenty of them, not counting the kids, and more coming from down the street. Lane wasn't among them. Lane would have looked like a haloed angel about then.

  "What was she wanted for?" someone asked. Jack searched the crowd and pinned the voice to the face. It was Powell, the man who wouldn't let his horses out of the stable.

  "She wasn't wanted for anything, least that I know of," Jack said.

  "Does that mean he just killed her for the fun of it?" a child asked his ma, only to be pulled behind her skirts and held there.

  "I didn't kill her. I found her and brought her in. Can anyone here identify her?"

  "You mean he killed her and doesn't even know who she is?"