Bushedwhacked Groom (3 page)

“You should have thought of that before you scared
the bejesus out of my sister.” Grover stepped back, while
never taking his eyes off Lucky, and pulled several
lengths of twine from his saddlebags. “Now back up.”

“Back up?” Lucky stared over the rim of the gorge. “There’s nowhere to go but down.”

Grover grinned. “Yeah. That’s the idea.”

Lucky backed up as far as he could, gulping.

“Now turn around.”

Lucky complied, and felt his hands being tied from
the back.

“Now step down to that stagecoach.”

Tossing the stranger a mystified glance, Lucky again
did his bidding, though it was far from easy trying to
skid down the steep slope with his hands bound.

Jumping down beside Lucky, Grover flung open the
stagecoach door and jerked his head toward the inte
rior. “Get inside.”

A sick, terrifying prospect seized Lucky. “You’re not
thinking of—”

“I said, get your butt inside that coach!”

In short order, Lucky found himself inside the dusty
stagecoach, his tall form doubled over on the floor
boards as he felt Grover binding his feet, then tying
them to his hands. The door slammed and he heard
his assailant’s mocking voice. “Happy trails, partner.”

“Holy hell, you can’t mean—”

“Good riddance, you sonofabitch.”

Oh, God, Lucky thought desperately, this couldn’t be
happening! But it was. Even as he cringed in horror,
the stagecoach creaked into sickening motion, then
went tumbling off the embankment, crashing repeat
edly as it careened down the long stairstep expanse of
dike.

“
Sheeeeee-it!” Lucky screamed, his body mercilessly
banged and jostled and pitched. Then, even as he
thought things couldn’t possibly get any worse, he felt
the entire crumbling conveyance being launched into
sheer, thin space, and then
 
. . .

Everything went black.

***

The bastard had it coming.

This was Grover Singleton’s vengeful thought as he
watched Lucky Lamont plunge to his death as the
stagecoach crashed into the gorge below in an explo
sion of dust and noise. His sister Misti would be tickled
pink to hear the no-good scoundrel had met his
maker. Besides, Misti had offered to buy him an an
tique
Winchester
rifle he’d coveted for ages if he’d only
give the SOB his comeuppance. And he had, in
spades.

Now to be sure . . .

Gingerly Grover maneuvered his horse down the
steep embankment into the gorge, then quickly gal
loped over to the old stagecoach’s final resting place.
Dismounting, he approached the pile of rubble and
moved aside several boards, searching for his victim.

Shit! What was this? No body. Nothing at all but shat
tered wood and twisted metal. His gaze scoured the
wall of dike above him, but he spotted no sign of a
corpse anywhere. Sneezing at the rising dust, he began
rummaging again. He checked through the stack of de
bris several times but still found no hint that a human
being had ever been there. What the hell? What would
he tell Misti now? Where on earth was Lucky Lamont?
Had Lucky gotten lucky after all?

Chapter One

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Mariposa
,
Colorado
, 1911

“I’ve just about had my fill of your tomfoolery,” Cole Reklaw scolded his children as he paced the parlor.

Molly Reklaw cowered on the long horsehair sofa
along with her four brothers, all of them watching their
irate father prowl about while lecturing them soundly.
In his mid-fifties, Cole Reklaw was a daunting figure
with his tall, lean frame, graying dark hair and grim
though handsome features. At the moment he was
more menacing than a snorting bull, with boots shaking the floorboards and hands gesturing passionately. Even Ma and Grandma seemed wise enough to keep
their distance; both women peered in anxiously from the
corridor.

How Molly wished
she
had a hole to hide in! For the
five Reklaw children had gotten in real trouble this time.
Molly’s four older brothers looked a sight to behold and reeked of
stale tobacco and cheap whiskey. Zach, the eldest, had
a black eye; Vance sported a cut on his chin, Matt had bandaged knuckles and Cory a swollen nose. The four had
stayed out all night, getting into another fight at the local
saloon and landing in the county jail.

As for eighteen-year-old Molly, usually she was the
apple of her daddy’s eye; but this morning things
hadn’t gone particularly well for her, either. Even as Pa
was busy paying the saloonkeeper for damages and
convincing the sheriff to release her brothers from jail, Grandma had caught Molly out behind the shed smok
ing a cigarette. Molly’s pleas—that this was, after all,
the year 1911, and surely women would soon get the vote—had fallen on deaf ears. Grandma had hauled
Molly inside by her ear—and thus the five Reklaw chil
dren were receiving their tongue-lashing in unison.

“I can’t believe I’ve raised such a bunch of rascals,”
Cole ranted. He pointed an accusatory finger toward
his daughter. “You, Molly, out smoking behind the
barn—”

“It was the shed,
Pa.
”

“Never mind! My point is, you were behaving like
some cheap floozy, when your ma raised you better.”

“But menfolk smoke,” she retorted, forever the rebel.
“Why can’t I?”

“Because you’re a lady. Or you’re supposed to be.”

Molly jerked a thumb toward her brothers. “Well, at
least I didn’t land in the hoosegow like these fools.”

“Hey, who are you calling fools?” asked Zach, glow
ering at his sister.

“Speaking of which,” Cole added, “you boys are no
better than her, bustin’ up the saloon—”

“But Pa,” protested Matt, “them Hicks boys insulted
us bad, calling Cory here a pantywaist for volunteerin’
at the library. ‘Sides, you always said boys’ll be boys
and we need to sow a few wild oats—”

“Not by becoming habitual felons,” Cole chided. He
eyed his sons narrowly. “And by the way, Sheriff Hackett
mentioned to me that there was yet another train robbery
out near Dillyville the other day. You boys know anything about that?”

All four went wide-eyed at this pronouncement. “No,
Pa,” insisted Vance. “This is the first we’ve heard of it.”

Cole appeared unconvinced. “Are you boys forget
ting that this family had to be exiled to
Wyoming
for al
most a decade due to these sorts of shenanigans?”

“Pa, we ain’t robbed no trains,” Zach argued. Hope
fully he added, “But we did hear Dirty Dutch Dempsey was getting his gang back together.”

“Oh, don’t give me those old rumors,” scoffed Cole.
“Dempsey escaped the
Colorado
pen over twenty
years ago, and he’s gotta be dead as a post by now.”

Vance snapped his fingers. “Then it’s probably them
Hicks boys, always up to no good.”

“And you’re not?” challenged his father.

“Sheriff Hackett should have locked up all them
Hickses ages ago, only he favors Bart and Winky’s widowed ma,” argued Zach. “‘Sides, begging your pardon,
sir, but the sheriff probably only asked you about us ‘cause you used to be an outlaw yourself—”

“Don’t try to lay the blame on me.” Cole shook a finger at his son.

“No, sir,” replied Zach, gulping.

“
Pa, the real problem is, you keep treating us like
children rather than grown men,” protested Matt.

“Because you act like children.”

“
‘Sides, all of us are squeezed up in that rickety old
bunkhouse like rats in a trap,” added Vance. “It’s time for
us boys to move out on our own. You always said one
day you’d divvy up the ranch among the four of us—”

“Hey, what about me?” protested Molly.

“Aw, you’re a girl, and you don’t count,” answered
Matt, waving her off.

“Yeah, you’ll marry up,” declared Vance. “Let your fu
ture husband provide you a spread.”

“So you four sidewinders get to cheat me out of my
inheritance?” Irate, Molly turned to her mother. “Ma, is
that fair?”

Jessica Reklaw, a lovely, auburn-haired middle-aged woman wearing a Victorian-style yellow muslin dress,
stepped inside the room to face her husband. “Cole, Molly has a point. If we do divide up the ranch one
day, it needs to be among all five children.”

Cole smiled at his wife while scratching his graying
head. “Maybe so, honey, but the way these holy terrors
are carrying on, that won’t be any time soon.”

“But Pa,” pleaded Zach, “at least let me have my por
tion now. I’m the eldest. If you’ll just turn over the
lower five hundred—”

“The lower five hundred?” cut in Matt. “So you get the
best piece of land on the whole ranch, with the best
water, the best grassland?”

“
I want that parcel,” put in Vance.

“So do I,” added Cory, who was usually the quiet one.

“Me, too!” declared Molly.

Bickering broke out among the children. At the
sidelines, their father listened for a moment in scowl
ing silence—then, curiously, Cole Reklaw smiled.
“You know, maybe for once you troublemakers have
had a flash of inspiration. Maybe that’s not such a
bad idea, after all, all of you with the same portion of
land.”

“What?” cried Matt. “You’re going to give it to all of us? Why, we’ll kill each other over it.”

“Sure ‘nuff,” agreed Zach with a vehement nod.

Grandma, a huge, sagging-joweled, silver-haired woman, lumbered into the room with her typically
painful gait, dragging her heavy dark skirts behind her.
“Cole Reklaw, the boys is right. Have you up and lost
your mind? You’re gonna give the lower five hundred
to them five and let ‘em plow each other under over it?
You know, I’m still hoping for a great-grandchild or two
one of these days, before I fly off to the sweet bye and
bye, and that ain’t never gonna happen if we have to
bury all five of these heathens.”

“Heathens?” protested Vance. “Grandma, you know
right well Ma makes us all read the Bible and go to
church ever’ Sunday.”

“‘Heathens is as heathens does,’” Grandma pro
nounced piously.

“Pa, you’re not really going to give it to the five of us,
are you?” interjected Cory with a stricken expression.
“You’ll never hear the end of the wrangling.”

Cole chuckled. “I agree, son. My point is that all five of you want that same parcel. So I just may use it as an
opportunity to make you grow up”—he nodded to
ward his mother—”and give Ma a shot at those great-grandchildren she covets.”

“What do you mean, Cole?” Jessica asked with a puz
zled smile.

He glanced lovingly from his wife to his mother. “Ma,
remember how, twenty-three years ago, you estab
lished a contest for my brothers and me, announcing
that the best-behaved would win Jessica’s hand?”

Ma’s jaw dropped open and she swatted Cole’s arm.
“You ain’t saying you want them four whelps to fight it
out over their
sister
? Why, of all the foul, evil, unclean
—”

“No, Ma, no,” Cole reassured her, laughing. “They won’t be fighting over their sister but the land.”

“Huh?” Ma asked.

With seven sets of eyes fixed intently on him, Cole
continued. “What I’m suggesting is, what if I offer the
lower five hundred as a prize to the first one of these
five devils to grow up, marry and produce a grand
child for Jessie and me?”

Grandma lit up, playfully batting Cole’s arm. “Well,
now you’re talking! Son, that’s a right fine idea. Make
them whippersnappers work for their portion. Like history repeatin’ itself, eh?”

Jessica appeared appalled. “I think the whole thing
sounds diabolical.”

Cole winked. “What else do you expect from me,
honey?”

“Cole, really,” she scolded.

Meanwhile the “devils” also began objecting. “Are you saying we got to marry up now, Pa?” demanded
Zach.

“Yes, marry and produce an offspring if you want that land—just like I fought to win your ma.” Cole proudly put his arm around Jessica’s waist.

“But your bride came from across time,” protested
Vance. With a cynical eye-roll, he added, “Or so you
say.”

Molly shot Vance a forbearing look. Years ago their
ma had told all five of them the astonishing story of
how she had traveled back in time to be with their pa.
Ma had made them all swear never to divulge this
bizarre family secret. She needn’t have bothered. Al
though Molly’s three elder brothers did believe that
their pa and his outlaw brothers had bushwhacked
their ma off a stagecoach, they’d totally dismissed her “haywire” assertion that she had first traveled across
time in that very vehicle. They had decided her story
was a fairy tale, like Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny.
Though Cory had been a little more open-minded,
he’d still ultimately sided with his brothers.

But Molly knew better. Unlike her boorish siblings,
she was a believer in all things possible in the universe.
Plus, she was educated—Ma had seen to that.
Granted, she hadn’t taken to their ma’s set of
The Har
vard Classics
with the same relish as Cory, but she
loved tales of adventure and had voraciously de
voured every dime novel she could get her hands on—
everything from tales of Deadwood Dick and Calamity
Jane to all of the Horatio Alger stories. She knew all
about the exploits of
Colorado
legend Dirty Dutch
Dempsey, the outlaw turned prison escapee whom
Zach had mentioned. She also loved science fiction, Jules Verne and H. Rider Haggard. Heck, how could
her moron siblings believe in time travel, when they’d
never even opened H. G. Wells’s
The
Time Machine?

Her father’s voice cut into her thoughts. “You mean you men aren’t capable of finding wives?”

“Pretty women are scarce as hen’s teeth in these
parts,” protested Matt. “There’s the Trumble sisters, but
old man Trumble has had it in for us ever since the family moved here and Grandma refused to let him
court her.”

Grandma harrumphed. “You hush up, Matthew
Reklaw. You think I want to spend my waning years
washing out Ezra Trumble’s stinky undergarments or
rinsing his false teeth? I have plenty else to do around
here, I’ll have you know. You five have practically been
the death of me already with your reckless ways.”

“Well, like we told Pa, we ain’t sowed all of our wild
oats yet,” contended Zach.

“To heck with your wild oats,” pronounced their fa
ther. “You four need to start thinking about brides and
babies.” He glanced meaningfully at Molly. “And you, a
groom and a baby.”