A Wanted Man (14 page)

“And of course I’ll have to bake a rum cake. Mr. Porter did favor my rum cake over anything else.”

Don’t ask,
Lark instructed herself firmly, glancing at the calendar, with the red circle marking Saturday’s date.

“Thank heaven Mai Lee will be here to help me with the preparations,” Mrs. Porter rattled on. “She and Hon Sing won’t be moving until the ground thaws out enough to plant vegetables.”

Relieved, Lark smiled and helped herself to a cup of hot coffee. “I was wondering if I might put some of my things in Mr. Rhodes’s room, after school lets out,” she said. Then, at Mrs. Porter’s quick glance, she blushed and added, “Since he’s going to be occupying other quarters from now on.”

“He’s paid up to the first of the week,” Mrs. Porter said.

Lark went to the doorway of the spacious room, looked with longing at the fireplace and the feather bed and the writing desk and the small table with two chairs. It would be almost like having her own home again, what with the separate entrance, and she’d be
warm
.

“I suppose it would be all right if you used the room,” Mrs. Porter mused, sounding less uncertain than before. She was right at Lark’s elbow, but for once, Lark had heard her approaching, so she wasn’t startled. “Of course, if another renter comes along, you’ll have to give it up. I can’t have gentlemen sleeping
upstairs,
you know. It just wouldn’t be proper.”

Lark smiled down at Mrs. Porter. “I won’t bring everything down,” she promised. “Just my nightdress and my hairbrush.”

Mrs. Porter patted her arm. “That’s fine, dear,” she said.

A loud knock at the kitchen door made both women turn.

Rowdy,
Lark thought, with a little rise of her heart.

But it wasn’t Rowdy, she discovered, when Mai Lee answered the door. Roland Franks stood on the step, looking earnest and shy.

“I come to drive you to school, Miss Morgan,” he said, blushing. His ears were red with the cold, and with the embarrassment of presenting himself at a town woman’s door. “Pa said it was all right, so I brung the buckboard.”

Lark could think of no gracious way to refuse. She did not want to give Roland the wrong idea, but she didn’t want to hurt his feelings, either. Lord only knew how long he’d been working up his courage to do her this kindness.

“That’s very considerate of you, Roland,” she said.

Mrs. Porter, meanwhile, stared at Roland in what might have been alarm. He made even her big kitchen seem small and cramped, and there was a sense that if he moved suddenly, he might send every dish in the room crashing to the floor.

Roland went even redder. Fidgeted with his worn hat, clasped tightly in both hands. “I’ll just wait in the buckboard until you’re ready,” he said, and turned to go out.

Mrs. Porter looked as though she might rush over and lock the door behind him. “Merciful heavens, Lark,” she whispered urgently, “that bear of a man is
courting
you!”

“He’s only offering me a ride to school,” Lark said.

“I kept my opinions to myself when Beaver Franks signed up for third grade,” Mrs. Porter insisted, “but
this
—”

Lark reached for her cloak, the lunch Mai Lee had prepared for her, and her lesson and attendance books. “In the unlikely event that
Roland
has…hopes where I’m concerned, I will tell him as gently as possible that I’m not interested,” she assured her landlady.

“I tell you, he’s looking to take himself a
wife,
” Mrs. Porter fretted. “And he’s got you in mind for a bride!”

“Don’t be silly,” Lark said. “I’m his teacher.”

“He’s a grown man and you’re an unmarried woman—”

“Please don’t worry,” Lark said.

“But you haven’t even had breakfast!”

In point of fact, Lark was ravenously hungry, but she knew that the longer Roland’s team and buckboard stood in front of the rooming house, the quicker word would spread. With luck she could persuade him to take the back way to school, along Second Street, and they would not be noticed.

“I’ll be fine,” Lark said.

Stepping outside, she saw that the sky was overcast, the clouds heavy with the possibility of snow. Roland sat rigidly upright in the box of his father’s buckboard, his bare red hands clasping the reins.

Seeing Lark, he flushed again, jumped down from the wagon and waited to help her up into the seat.

She had, foolishly, not anticipated this part—the necessity of Roland touching her in the process of assisting her into the conveyance. The seat of the buckboard was on a level with her head, and there was no step or rung, as a carriage would have had.

She was still deliberating on the logistics of the problem when Roland suddenly grabbed her by the waist and swung her up. She landed on the hard seat with a thump that practically cracked her tailbone.

“Oh, my,” she said.

Roland rounded the wagon and climbed up next to her, tilting the rig on its axles with his weight. The ancient team, a pair of shaggy gray farm horses, shifted within their worn harnesses, as if bracing themselves to pull again.

They lurched into motion with a great clattering of wheels and wagon fittings and hooves over rutted ground, and Lark might have been thrown clear if she hadn’t gripped the edges of the seat in both hands.

Roland cleared his throat and then shouted over the din, “I reckon you know there’s a dance at the Cattleman’s Hall this Saturday night!”

Lark barely refrained from squeezing her eyes shut.
Oh, no,
she thought.

Instead of taking the wide path leading to the schoolhouse, Roland steered straight for the main street of town.

“I’m not much of a dancer,” Roland yelled, making Lark want to cover her ears with both hands. She might have, too, if she hadn’t needed to hold on so tightly to the wagon seat. “But I’d admire to escort you, Miss Morgan!”

They were almost to the jailhouse, and several people passing by on the sidewalks turned to stare at the spectacle of the schoolmarm and the twenty-two-year-old third-grader in the wagon seat beside her, booming out that he wanted to take her to the Saturday-night dance.

Desperate, Lark laid a hand on Roland’s arm. “Roland,” she called, “please stop this wagon.”

Instantly abashed, he drew up directly in front of Rowdy’s office.

“I didn’t mean here,” she said, flustered.

Rowdy should have been off marshaling, rounding up miscreants or something, but instead he came strolling out of the jailhouse, a little grin curving one side of his mouth. His gaze, resting briefly on Roland, was as icy as the creek the town was named for.

“I can’t go to the dance with you, Roland,” Lark said miserably, figuring she might as well get the refusal over with. After all, she’d
asked
him to stop the wagon.

“Why not?” Roland asked, his face darkening and his hands tightening on the reins.

“Because she’s going with me,” Rowdy said mildly, setting aside the coffeepot he was carrying and coming to stand next to the wagon, looking up at Lark.

He was the first man she’d ever encountered who could communicate with his eyes. They clearly asked,
Are you all right?

She felt her face go warm. “Yes,” she said, with a gulp. “That’s right. I’ve already promised to go to the dance with Marshal Rhodes.”

“And anyway,” Rowdy put in helpfully, “it wouldn’t do for a teacher to keep company with one of her students.”

“It ain’t against no laws!” Roland protested. All his shyness was gone, replaced by venomous ire. His small eyes bulged, and even his dull red hair seemed to stand a little on end.

“I’d like a word with you before school starts, Miss Morgan,” Rowdy said pointedly, raising his hands to help her down. Waiting. “About my brother Gideon.”

Lark leaned toward him, fretful and distracted. She should have listened to Mrs. Porter and made up some polite excuse for not riding in Roland’s wagon. She had indeed given the poor man the wrong impression by agreeing in the first place, and now she was in an uncomfortable situation because of it.

Rowdy’s hands felt blessedly strong as he set them on either side of her waist and lifted her easily down from the wagon box. It was odd, how different one man’s touch could feel from another’s; Roland’s grip had an aspect of clutching to it, where Rowdy’s was light and easy.

Despite that, Lark was shaken, placing herself in Rowdy’s hands that way. They were making a scene folks would probably gossip about for weeks.

Did you see that schoolteacher, riding right through the middle of town with Beaver Franks, bold as you please?

She’s from someplace else, you know. Just turned up here one day in her big-city clothes, and took over the schoolhouse like she owned it.

She’s no better than she should be.

“This ain’t right,” Roland said, glowering, trembling all over like a mountain with a geyser about to shoot off its top from the inside.

“Move along,” Rowdy told him quietly.

“I’ll see you at school, Roland,” Lark said warmly, trying to pretend she hadn’t just made a complete and utter fool of herself in front of all of Stone Creek proper and half the countryside.

Pardner came out of the jailhouse and nudged at the back of her right hand with the cold, wet end of his nose.

Rowdy left Lark standing on the sidewalk with Pardner to round the team.

Roland lifted the reins slightly, as though tempted to run him down.

“I asked you to move along,” Rowdy said from the other side of the wagon.

Roland hawked and spat, missing Rowdy by inches. “She’s mine,” he snarled. “I saw her first!”

Lark blinked. The whole wagon shook, and then Roland was toppling sideways out of the wagon. She rushed around the back only to see her student lying on his back in the road, with his arms and legs spread wide.

By now spectators had gathered.

Roland’s face contorted with hatred, but he was a moment getting his breath—a moment Lark used to pray frantically, albeit silently, that he wouldn’t get up and tear Rowdy limb from bloody limb.

“Roland Franks,” she said, summoning all her authority as a schoolteacher, “you behave yourself!”

He eased himself up onto his elbows, dazed. “You had no call to drag me out of my own wagon that way,” he said to Rowdy, wheezing a little. “I could have got hurt.”

“You
will
get hurt,” Rowdy said, “if you ever try to spit on me again.”

“You think you can take me—Marshal?” Roland shook himself, but he didn’t get up off the ground. He’d gone a muddy shade of crimson and, despite the cold, he was sweating.

“I know I can,” Rowdy replied, with such cold certainty that a little chill ran down Lark’s spine. He unbuckled his gun belt and handed it off to Gideon, who had been a mere flicker at the edge of Lark’s vision a moment before but had now solidified at Rowdy’s side.

“If you’d like to settle the question once and for all, just get up.”

Roland sat cross-legged in the dirt. “I could be injured,” he said. “It wouldn’t be right to hit a man who’s injured.” His gaze swung, resentful, to Lark. “I ain’t comin’ to school no more,” he added. “I got my pride.”

Rowdy stepped back so Roland could stand.

Roland lumbered to his feet, swayed and then climbed up into his buckboard. He released the brake lever with a screech, slapped the reins down on the horses’ backs, turned the wagon in a wide loop in the middle of the street and headed the other way.

Lark closed her eyes, mortified.

Now, thanks to her, Roland would never read beyond a third-grade level.

“It’s over, folks,” Rowdy told the gawking townspeople, startling Lark by taking hold of her arm and propelling her in the direction of his office. “Go on about your business.”

He all but flung her over the threshold.

“Gideon,” he told his brother, gesturing, “you go over to the schoolhouse—it’s around the next bend and down the hill—and tell the kids today’s a holiday.”

Gideon scrambled to obey.

Lark sputtered. After several false starts, she said, “You have no right to cancel an entire day of school!”

“Miss Morgan,” Rowdy said, grim-jawed, “I just did.”

“By what authority?” How was she going to explain this to the parents? Some of those children traveled miles to attend class.

“By the authority of the Rhodes Ordinance,” Rowdy replied.

“The Rhodes—”

“Ordinance,” Rowdy finished for her. “When I need a law, I usually just make one up.” He gestured toward the open doorway of the jailhouse. “There’s bad weather coming. Like as not, you’d have had an empty classroom anyhow.”

Narrow-eyed, Lark looked past him and saw flat, lazy flakes of snow drifting down, thickening fast to fury.

P
AYTON
Y
ARBRO SETTLED
himself contentedly in Rowdy’s fancy copper bathtub, up to his chin in water hot enough to scald the hide off a boar. He took a swig from his flask, then set it aside, clamped a cheroot between his teeth and lit it with a match, after making two tries because of the heavy steam.

There was a special softness to the air, a certain muffled purity like the silent chime of some celestial bell. Payton knew, even without a window to look through, that the snow had finally come.

He sighed, thankful he’d made it to Rowdy’s before the ground was blanketed in white. He’d have left a clear trail then, and probably frozen his ass off into the bargain.

He wished he could send Ruby a telegram, since she’d surely have heard about the train robbery by now, and let her know he was all right. He didn’t dare contact her so directly, of course, because the law would be keeping track of whatever came and went over the wire. He’d stay right where he was until he’d rested up a little. Once Rowdy got him a horse and staked him to some traveling money, he meant to head straight for the Mexican border.

A bang from the main part of the house made him stiffen, then reach over the side of the tub to grab one of his .45s off the floor. He cocked the pistol and waited.

The door of the bathing room swung open, and Payton nearly shot the damn dog.

“Dern fool critter, sneaking up on a man like that,” he scolded. “I almost blew a hole right through you.”

Pardner approached and stuck his nose over the side of the bathtub, shoved it right into the side of Payton’s bare arm. It made for an unpleasant contrast to the luxurious heat of the bathwater, and he flinched.

“Get out of here,” he grumbled, but not too forcefully. He wasn’t much for keeping useless critters around a place, but this one made quiet and undemanding company.

The dog sat down on his hind end and panted, in no recognizable hurry to get lost.

“Pa?”

It was Gideon’s voice, coming from outside the door.

Payton set the .45 down and reached for the flask again. “Can’t a man bathe in peace around this place?” he grumbled. “What do you
want,
boy?”

“Rowdy’s in the marshal’s office, sparking the schoolmarm,” Gideon answered. “I figured while he’s busy, I’d come and talk to you about letting me ride out with you when you go.”

“You’d slow me down,” Payton answered. “You don’t know shit about horses or shooting, and I’d have to wet-nurse you all the way to Juarez.” He winced. He hadn’t meant to give away his intended destination.

“Is that where you’re going? Juarez?”

“No,” Payton lied and, to his exasperating credit, Gideon did not believe him.

“You wouldn’t have to worry about me at all, Pa. I could keep up. I swear I could. And I could help, too—”

“You’ll stay right here in Stone Creek, like I told you,” Payton answered sternly, though it bruised him a little, hearing the plea in Gideon’s voice, having to refuse his companionship. Of all his sons, he was closest to this one, the youngest, the one he’d had a daily hand in raising. Unlike his brothers, Gideon wasn’t an outlaw—yet—and Payton still had hopes for him. “You aren’t wanted for anything,” he said more gently. “And I’d like to keep it that way. You ride with me, the law will have business with you from that day forward.”

Gideon’s sigh was audible even through the half-closed door. “You want me to ride over to Flagstaff and see about Ruby? I’ve got to return that livery stable horse anyhow. And I have a little money stashed in the shed back home. I could buy myself another mount and get you one, too.”

Payton pondered the offer, decided it had merit.

“You come back here with two horses, folks will be suspicious,” he said. “Still, I am concerned about Ruby. You go there, boy, and you return that horse and tell her I said to get you another one and take a thousand dollars out of the safe. She’s not to go near the bank to make a withdrawal—you make that real clear. And you don’t say anything to anybody else. Ruby will give you some grief about the money. You just stand your ground until she gives over, though, because this could mean your old pa’s life, boy. You understand that?”

“Yes, sir,” Gideon said gravely. “I reckon I ought to go right now.”

“No,” Payton answered. “You do that, and Rowdy’ll be right on you. Wait till tonight, after he’s gone to sleep.” He leaned forward and turned a spigot, so more hot water flowed into the tub. “Leave me to my bath, now, boy. And call this dog. He’s staring at me like I just sprouted a pair of horns or something.”

“Pardner,” Gideon said, sounding glum, “come along.”

The dog got up, turned a half circle, and left, slinking past the edge of the partially open door.

When the last of the hot water was gone, Payton got out of the tub, dried himself off, and donned the clean clothes he’d borrowed from the marshal of Stone Creek.

The marshal of Stone Creek. Payton smiled at that august title.

Miranda would have been real proud, sure that her darling boy had finally seen the light. Rowdy had been, for all practical intents and purposes, the baby of her brood, since she hadn’t lived long enough even to hold Gideon in her arms, let alone get to know him. He’d been a particular favorite with her, Rowdy had.

Poor, naive Miranda. In that moment Payton missed her with a swift ferocity that fairly took his breath away. It came when he least expected it, this keen sense of loss, brutal and sharp-edged.

He leaned across the slowly emptying tub to retrieve the .45 and the flask.

Right then he couldn’t have said which one he needed more.

L
ARK REFUSED
Rowdy’s offer to walk her home to Mrs. Porter’s place, even though the snowstorm was already working itself up to a fine frenzy. If it kept this up, it would be a blizzard before nightfall.

“Some of the children may have come to school,” she fretted.

Rowdy supposed there was some substance to her concern. He’d seen this storm coming before dawn, felt it in his bones as he sat up through the night. He’d had no place to sleep, with his pa sprawled facedown across his bed like he was gut-shot. It seemed unlikely that farm and ranch people wouldn’t have seen the signs, and kept their kids home from school, but it was surely possible. The weather hadn’t stopped Franks from driving to town, after all.

Rowdy had sent Gideon to the schoolhouse earlier, but he hadn’t seen him since, so he didn’t know whether any of the kids had showed up there or not. And there might have been a few stragglers, arriving after Gideon left.

“All right,” Rowdy said, strapping on the gun belt he’d taken off earlier, thinking he might get the satisfaction of pounding the hell out of Franks, and reaching for his hat and coat. “We’ll go down there and make sure.”

“I can get to the schoolhouse on my own,” Lark protested, but she didn’t look as though she really wanted to try it.

“I reckon you can,” Rowdy agreed, opening the door.

“But I’m going with you, just the same.” He was worried that Franks might still be around, waiting for a chance to press his case with Lark, and there was always the possibility that the storm would suddenly get a lot worse.

He’d known folks to freeze to death in this kind of weather, rounding up cows in their own pastures, and even in the short distance between the house and the woodshed.

Lark double-stepped to keep up when he took her arm and strode in the direction of the schoolhouse. Pardner joined them, snapping at the occasional snowflake like a pup, and his presence eased Rowdy’s tension a little.

He’d been all wound up, ever since his pa had chosen his place as a rabbit hole.

“About the dance on Saturday night,” Lark began, her breath huffing white in the snowy air as she hurried along at his side.

Rowdy gave her a sidelong glance, reluctantly let go of her once they’d crossed the road. “You’re not about to back out on me, are you?”

She looked at him in quick surprise. “I assumed you were only trying to help me out of a—situation.”

He smiled to himself, but he knew by the flare of color in her cheeks that she’d seen his amusement. “Roland Franks is a ‘situation,’ all right,” he agreed. “If you care anything for his pride, you’ll be at the dance, just like you said you would be. And you’ll be with me.”

“I can’t see how that would appease his pride.”

“You don’t see a lot of things, Miss Morgan. What possessed you to let a full-grown man come to school?”

“He wanted to learn!”

“You can’t possibly be that innocent.”

She stared at him, angry, but worried, too. “He said—”

“He
said,
Miss Morgan, what he knew you wanted to hear.”

“Stop calling me ‘Miss Morgan.’ I don’t like the way you say it—like you’re mocking me.”

“I am mocking you—Lark. When are you going to tell me your real name?”

“When you tell me yours,” Lark retorted. “Perhaps.”

He was tired and, blizzard or none, he expected news of the train robbery his pa had told him about to arrive at any moment. Most likely there would be a telegram sent to Sam O’Ballivan or the major, and once it had been delivered to the ranch, they’d be riding in to demand some rangering of him.

In the meantime, he had to pretend he didn’t know anything about it.

The combination of circumstances made him prickly.

“I do not have the time,” he said, “to keep you out of trouble,
Lark,
so I would appreciate it if you would use your head for something other than a decoration. Franks didn’t come to school so he could learn the three
R
s.”

She blushed. “You have no responsibility to keep me out of trouble,” she blustered. “And
I
would appreciate it if you didn’t make disparaging remarks about my intelligence. I have read Shakespeare,
Mr
. Rhodes, and all the Greek and Roman myths—”

“So have I,” he said, enjoying the look of surprise that sprang into her eyes. “And I’ve got to say, I haven’t found that accomplishment real handy, out here at the tail end of noplace.”

Lark bit her lower lip. “Knowledge,” she said firmly, blowing out the words because the wind was against her, “is valuable everywhere.”

“Not if you don’t use it,” Rowdy argued.

She fell silent, and he hoped he hadn’t hurt her feelings. Somebody else had done plenty of that, in some other time and place, and he didn’t want to add to it.

“I’m sorry, Lark,” he said, as they reached the hill above the schoolhouse. Even with its belfry and bright red walls, it barely showed through the swirling snow.

“I’ve got some things on my mind, but I shouldn’t have taken that out on you.”

She blinked, then smiled. Snowflakes gathered on her thick lashes, and she raised the hood of her cloak in a graceful motion of both hands.

“That was a very nice apology,” she said.

He grinned at her.

They descended the hill and rounded the edge of the schoolyard, the tops of the fence posts already mounded with snow, and there, on the front step, sure as death and taxes, huddled Pardner’s little friend, shivering.

“Lydia!” Lark cried, horrified.

Rowdy barely managed to get the gate open before she would have vaulted over it in her haste to reach the child.

Lydia smiled at them through the tumbling, blowing snow.

Lark sat down beside the little girl, opened her cloak to enclose her inside it, then rummaged in her pocket for the key. Rowdy took that from her, stepped past them to unlock the door and open it.

Lark got to her feet and hurried Lydia into the schoolhouse.

Rowdy went straight to the stove and got a fire started.

“Lydia,” Lark said, chafing the child’s bare hands between her own, “why didn’t you go home when you arrived and no one was here? And where are your mittens?”

“I lost one of them.” Lydia batted her eyelashes, on the verge of tears. “Did I do wrong coming to school, Miss Morgan?”

Lark hugged her, and the sight made Rowdy’s throat hurt, the same way it did when he thought of riding out and leaving Pardner behind with Gideon.

“No, sweetheart,” she said quickly, glancing once at Rowdy, in a silent I-told-you-so kind of way. “No, you didn’t do a single thing wrong.”

Rowdy felt knee-high to a bedbug. Lydia probably would have sat there on that step until she iced up solid if Lark hadn’t insisted on making sure none of her charges had come to school.

He got the fire going, then took off his coat and wrapped it gently around Lydia’s tiny form. She looked lost in the dark folds, and smiled up out of the garment with beatific trust.

“Lydia,” Lark repeated, sitting down beside the child on one of the long benches students normally occupied, “why did you stay?”

Lydia’s lower lip wobbled. “Mabel’s feeling poorly,” she said, her voice very small, even for somebody the size of a newly hatched barn sparrow. “She told me not to come home until I could be quiet, and I don’t reckon I’m
ever
going to be able to do that.”