Daisies In The Wind (14 page)

“I sure am,” Billy answered with more
assurance than he felt. They’d picked a bad night for this job—if
they didn’t hurry up and get this spying business over with fast
they’d both get drenched.

“Let’s go,” Billy said as Sam gazed
inquiringly up at him and whined. “Maybe we should leave the horses
here and walk the rest of the way—”

At that moment gold lightning streaked across
the sky. It hit the spruce tree nearest to Joey with an
earsplitting crackle. The boys yelped in fright, and Sam let out a
blood-chilling howl.

But it was the horses that truly panicked.
Spooked, Blue reared straight up. Billy used every trick he knew,
and somehow managed to stay seated, but Joey’s mare bolted forward
so suddenly that the boy was whipped right off his saddle by a
low-hanging branch. He hit the ground with a thud as the mare
disappeared into the darkness.

“Joey!”

Billy jumped from his saddle as the rain
began to pound down. A boom of thunder drowned out his frantic
cries as he tried to rouse his friend, and the next thing he knew,
Blue ran off. In dismay he watched the horse race toward home with
nostrils flaring and a scream of terror that echoed through the
wild night.

Don’t panic
, Billy said to himself
with a gulp. He knelt beside Joey as lightning again split the sky
and wind and rain assaulted them.
At least Sam’s here
, he
thought, fighting back tears of anxiety. The dog crouched beside
Joey, whimpering, his red fur streaming with water. Through the
sickly gray-green darkness of the storm, Billy saw that Sam’s eyes
glowed with fear.

“Joey, wake up. Please, wake up,” Billy
begged, but as he peered into his friend’s freckled face and saw
the blood oozing from his temple, Billy knew that something was
very wrong.

I have to get help
, he thought,
glancing dazedly around as the night exploded in storm. “It’s up to
us, Sam, you and me,” he whispered, his lips trembling.

Billy shoved himself to his feet. Without
Blue he couldn’t ride to town for the doctor. It would take too
long even to run to the Adams place, which was the next nearest
neighbor, after the Peastone ranch ...

The Peastone ranch. It was right over the
rise, less than a quarter of a mile ahead.

Billy remembered what his father had said:
Stay away from her.

But this was an emergency. He needed help,
and he needed it fast. Even a lady outlaw would help an injured
kid, Billy reasoned, and tried to dismiss the scary voice inside
him suggesting that she might have other company, bad company,
someone like Fess Jones, sitting in her parlor right now.

But that was a chance he had to take. Billy
took one final, frantic look at Joey’s bloody face and started
forward.

“Come on, Sam,” he shouted, stumbling through
the wind and rain toward the top of the rise. “We’ve got to
hurry!”

It was the barking that captured her
attention. Over the rushing wind and the thunder and the whoosh of
tree branches it came, incessant and strangely urgent, startling
her as she lit the lanterns, stoked up the hearth fire, and
prepared to last out the storm.

Barking ...

Rebeccah hurried to the window and peered
out. She saw nothing but greenish darkness, slashing rain, and
furiously swaying prairie grasses. The mountains were shadowy
monsters looming in the distance.

But the barking persisted.

And then she saw the small figure hurtling
through the night and the large red dog bounding at its side.

What in the world?
she wondered, her
hand at her throat. She ran to open the door.

A huge gust of wind shook the trees to their
roots and nearly knocked the boy over, but though he stumbled, he
kept running, and the dog beside him barked more frantically.

Rebeccah had the door flung wide by the time
he reached the steps. A great rush of rain and wind flew at her,
but she clung to the doorframe and watched the small figure dart
toward her.

Why, he was no more than ten or eleven. He
was soaked to the skin, his red flannel shirt plastered to his bony
chest, his hair streaming water into his eyes.

“We need help,” he gasped, skidding to a stop
on the porch before her, and as if for emphasis the dog gave two
short yaps.

“Come in! What’s happened?”

She reached for his arm, to draw him safely
out of the violent night, but he flinched back, shaking his
head.

“It’s not me, it’s Joey.” The boy, who was
thin and dark, with huge, intense gray eyes, stared up at her
pleadingly. He seemed unaware of his own soaked and muddy
condition, of the cold that was turning his lips blue. His face
wore a pinched, desperate look that alarmed her more than his
startling appearance out of the storm. “Please, I think he’s hurt
bad. He fell off his horse when the lightning struck. Please,
ma’am, he’s out there, just over the rise, and he won’t wake up.
You have to help him.”

“Just a minute,” Rebeccah said crisply. She
spun back across the parlor, through the kitchen, and dashed into
the pantry. She grabbed the slicker folded inside the wooden box.
Donning it as she ran, she cast a swift glance over the boy and the
dog.

“You wait here and take off those wet
clothes. There’s a blanket in the bedroom—you can wrap yourself in
that. I’ll find your friend.”

He shook his head. His mouth was set with a
strangely familiar, determined expression she couldn’t quite place,
and then he said emphatically, “No. It’ll be quicker if I show
you.”

He was right. Rebeccah nodded. “Let’s
go.”

They found the injured boy a short while
later. He had come to and was moaning as he lay in the grassy mud,
rivulets of blood and earth streaking his face. Rebeccah never knew
how, but somehow she lifted him in her arms and staggered back in
the direction of the cabin. The dark-haired boy and the dog ran
beside her as the storm lashed out its fury.

It seemed an eternity until they reached the
shelter of the cabin.

“He’ll be all right,” she gasped as she laid
the injured boy upon the sofa. She fired off rapid directions to
the other youth as she examined the gash from which blood still
trickled. “Get out of those wet clothes before you catch your
death. There’s some long flannel shirts in the chest of drawers in
the bedroom—put one on and bring him the other. And take the quilt
from the bed. You can both share it.” Seeing his anxious
expression, she shot him a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, the gash
isn’t deep. I’m going to bandage it for him, and he’ll be fine.
What’s his name?”

“Joey.”

“Joey,” she said, rubbing the boy’s icy palms
between her own. “Joey, can you hear me?”

He stopped moaning and looked dazedly at her.
Rebeccah squeezed his hand. “It’s all right, Joey. Don’t try to
move. You’re going to be fine.”

She worked feverishly for the better part of
an hour, stripping off his soaked garments, buttoning him in two
layers of flannel shirts so long, they reached his knees. While the
other boy warmed his hands and his dog before the fire and watched
her, she deftly cleaned the cut and dabbed on salve.

When Joey cried “Ouch!” as she ministered to
him, the boy near the fire grinned.

“I reckon he’ll live,” he said, much more
cheerfully, and stroked the dog’s damp head.

“I reckon,” Rebeccah responded calmly, and
reached for a bandage. “How would you boys like a nice hot cup of
tea?”

Moments later she handed each child a
steaming cup of tea flavored with a peppermint stick from Koppel’s
General Store.

The two were huddled on the sofa together
now, beneath the quilt.

“Well, let’s see. I’ve met Joey. Maybe you
should tell me your name,” she suggested to the dark-haired
youngster, who clutched his cup between small, sturdy fingers.
Outside, the storm raged unabated, but the cabin seemed positively
cozy, Rebeccah reflected with a little lift of the heart. She
pondered this as she settled in a straight-back chair. It was
surprising how much homier the house appeared with two children
snuggled near a blazing fire, their hands clutching teacups.

The dark-haired boy took one tentative sip
from the steaming cup, licked his lips with a gusty sigh, and
replied, “My name’s Billy Bodine.”

Rebeccah froze on her chair, her fingers
clenched around her cup.
This
boy was Wolf’s son?

Of course he was. The eyes were the same.
Only younger, more innocent. But the intensity and intelligence in
them was the same, as was the sharp, observant way of looking at
the world.

She managed to nod casually. “I’m Rebeccah
Rawlings.”

“I know.”

“Oh. How?” Had Wolf talked about her at home,
with his wife and child? Or perhaps Caitlin had mentioned something
...

“Everyone knows,” Billy grinned, and his
small, handsome face lit up. Oh, he would be a heartbreaker when he
grew up, just like his fath—Rebeccah blocked the rest of that
thought.

“How?” she asked again.

“Easy. The whole town’s talking about
you.”

“Because of your pa,” Joey piped in. He
appeared to be recovering rapidly; there was color in his freckled
cheeks, and his eyes held a cheery gleam. “Bear Rawlings did some
mighty awful things in these parts. My ma says he—”

“Shush, Joey!” Billy suddenly realized that
Rebeccah would be hurt if she knew the purpose of the meeting in
town tonight, and about Myrtle Lee Anderson’s idea to run her out
of Powder Creek. He glanced at her face and decided she looked a
little more pale than she had a few moments before, and he knew
that it would be wrong of him and Joey to upset her by repeating
such talk. He was suddenly ashamed of what he’d done tonight,
coming here to spy on her. It was wrong too. And mean-spirited,
though they hadn’t meant any harm.

“Joey, there’s no need to go into all that
right now,” he said quickly. “I’m sure Miss Rawlings isn’t
interested in gossip.”

“Oh, but I am. It’s all right, Billy, I can
take it, whatever it is. Tell me why everyone is talking.”

He hesitated. But her eyes were calm, her
expression pleasant as she set her teacup on a crate that served as
a table. And something very even and determined in her voice
compelled him to go on.

“Well ...”

No. He couldn’t.

“It’s because of the bank robbery,” Joey
burst out. Having finished his cup of tea, he leaned back against
the horsehair cushions and nodded importantly. “The one where my
little cousin Lottie was killed.”

Rebeccah’s heart stopped.
Dear
Lord
.

Something in her face must have alerted even
Joey to her shock, for he faltered, glanced at Billy for guidance,
and then snapped his mouth shut.

But Rebeccah had to know.
“Go on. I want
to hear about it.”

So Joey told her about the bank robbery six
years back, about the teller who’d been shot and killed, and about
how during the gang’s getaway little Lottie Mason, Joey’s cousin,
had been run down by someone’s horse, trampled in the dust while
her ma looked on.

“Oh, God,” Rebeccah whispered. She covered
her face with her hands.

Grief and guilt tore at her.
Bear, Bear,
what did you do?
Yet a part of her knew that her father could
not have been the one to run down the little girl. Bear was too
good a rider, too strong and skilled not to have found a way to
avoid her, even if she had been directly in his path. Bear would
never have been able to live with himself if he had harmed a child,
and in the past six years of visiting Rebeccah he had never shown
any sign of the kind of guilt he would have felt had he run the
girl down. But one of the others—Russ Gaglin, Homer Bell, Fred
Baker—any of them might have done it and been able to live with
themselves.

And Bear had been partly responsible, a
small, cold voice told her. He had planned the robbery, ordered it,
led it every step of the way. He always had.

Billy Bodine broke into her thoughts. “Sorry,
Miss Rawlings. We shouldn’t have told you.”

Rebeccah swallowed. “I needed to know.
Th-thank you.”

What was it Wolf Bodine had said to her?

Don’t expect folks around here to welcome
Bear’s daughter with open arms.

Now she knew why, the whole reason, the real
reason.

Maybe she should follow Wolf’s advice: get on
the stagecoach and leave.

But where will I go? She glanced slowly
around the small, polished parlor with its crackling fire and
thought of the plans she’d had for this ranch, of purchasing Texas
longhorns to fill the rangeland, of building a bunkhouse and
corrals. She thought of her dreams for the cabin, of the new
curtains she’d imagined fluttering at the windows, of the piano she
would someday have, with music and flowers filling the house
...

“Miss Rawlings—are you okay?”

Both boys were staring at her in dismay, and
Rebeccah realized there were tears on her cheeks. She brushed them
impatiently aside.

“Of course I am. It’s just occurred to me
that someone is going to be worried about the two of you. Do your
families have any idea you were out in this storm?”

They looked at each other. “No, ma’am.”
Billy’s cheeks reddened. “And please don’t ask
why
we were
out in it.”

“That’s really not my concern,” she assured
him briskly, though she was puzzled over what they were doing on
her property. “Your horses are probably home by now, and your
families must be searching for you. I’d better find your folks and
tell them that you’re all right—”

Before the sentence was completed there was a
pounding at the door. Sam sprang, growling, from the sofa, where
he’d been resting his head on Billy’s lap. He stared at the door
and growled again low in his throat. More pounding followed.