Leather and Lace (7 page)

She shoved aside her fragile feelings and left him.

“I’m not done talking yet.”

She kept right on walking. If she stopped, she’d lose sight of what really mattered. Odds were she’d never see him again anyway. Earlier that morning she’d mentally pieced together a southern route to Robber’s Roost. From there, she’d decide which way to go.

Once she readied her gelding, Doc joined her. “Jenkins was mad and drunk last night. By the time I set his leg and dug out that bullet, he was madder and drunker. He upped the reward on you, then dared the rest of his gang to go after it. None of his men are going to waste any time getting here,” Doc said. “Your leaving is against my better judgment, but you face more danger by staying in Vernal. You be careful.” Doc yanked on the girth. “I’ll be praying for God to guide and protect you. Run on in and tell Morgan good-bye.”

Inside the house, she took one last glance at the tidy kitchen, the clean table, and the absence of a woman. She remembered Doc’s offer to marry her. He would, too. She didn’t doubt it for a minute, but the idea of a man putting up with her past was too much for her to think on. And what kind of a mother would she make?

At the sight of Morgan sleeping, she considered leaving without saying good-bye. She hesitated, then touched his shoulder. As he slowly opened his eyes, she smiled with years of regret tugging at her heart. Uncomfortable with their farewell, she stood with her hands behind her back, her revolvers strapped to her hips.

“You’re much prettier when you smile.” Morgan managed a weak grin.

“I’m leaving now.”

“What about us?” he said. “Do you want to walk away from what started in the mountains?”

“I’m getting away from Jenkins. No need to worry about me.” She shifted from one foot to another.

“You’re escaping from him, but are you also running from me? Believe me, I know there’s something between us, Casey. And you can’t deny it, either.”

She swallowed hard. Something in the back of her mind shouted bounty hunter. It made sense, too. “Don’t do this. Don’t confuse me.” She took a step back toward the door. “I’m going to forget about you. My life is heading in a different direction, and I’m doing what I feel is right for everyone.”

“What is good and right is the two of us finding out what happened in the mountains.” His words were stronger, or perhaps his returning strength bolted behind them.

She shook her head. “You must be getting a fever, ’cause you’re talking out of your head. When you’re better, you’ll see I’ve made the right decision. I haven’t forgotten what you did for me or that you entered my camp to use me for bait. It won’t take long for you to remember those motives and what drove you into the mountains in the first place.” Her words ended abruptly, for Doc stepped in from the outside. “Good-bye, Morgan.”

“God be with you” echoed in her ears.

At the sound of Casey’s voice, Stoney tossed his head and responded like an old friend. An extra leather pouch had been slung over her full saddlebags. Nothing else could be stuffed inside any of them.

“What did you put in my bags?” She patted the bulges.

“Provisions.” Doc looped his fingers inside his suspenders.

“I don’t have the money to pay for this. Doc, I can’t even pay for Morgan’s care, and now you give me more things?”

He offered a wry smile. “No need to worry. Tim took care of it.”

“Tim?” Casey’s eyes widened, and she took in the area around her.

“Yeah, he said he owed you. He told me a story about you not taking money from the jobs they did.” Doc stroked the gelding’s neck as though Tim’s words were common knowledge.

“True. And I can’t take this, either. He stole the money to buy these provisions.” She started to lift the bags from the saddle, but Doc stopped her.

“Best you have the provisions to survive than Tim to squander it on women and gambling. A good bit of the money is left, and I placed it in the saddlebag on the bottom, left side.”

“Keep the money for Morgan’s care.”

“And have Tim O’Hare after me? I’m smarter than that, sweet lady.” He touched her shoulder. “I also put a small gift in the top saddlebag.”

“From you?” Apprehension settled upon her. She despised being indebted to anyone.

“It’s an extra Bible. A rancher gave it to me for birthing a baby. I don’t need two.”

Overwhelmed, she hugged the big man. “Thank you. I’ll take good care of it. You have my word.” She swung up into the saddle. A part of her wanted to stay and face Jenkins. It would be over then. But she didn’t have the guts to shoot it out with him. She’d rather learn what the Bible said about such things.

Casey grasped Doc’s huge hand. “I’ll miss you.” She started to add that she’d also miss his cooking, his gruff mannerisms, and his long talks, but a lump formed in her throat. A sense of urgency surfaced. She’d probably never see Doc or Morgan again. She might not see noon.

*****

Morgan fought the sleep drawing him into a world where healing took place and reality seemed irrelevant. He was madder than a riled rattler with the realization that Casey had left. He’d known the infamous lady for only a few days, and when he hadn’t been unconscious, he’d despised her. How did one woman get under a man’s skin so quickly?

She had a rare beauty: red-brown hair that reminded him of a desert sunset and pale blue eyes veiled behind thick, dark lashes. When he walked into her campsite, she looked out of place, as though an angel had taken residence in a man’s world. An angel or a demon? He knew the rumors. A bounty hunter from Missouri said Jenkins had found her in a brothel. One report said Casey and Tim stumbled onto the gang by accident, and Jenkins had to have her. Whatever the truth, she ran from him now.

Morgan saw the grit in her eyes in the mountains of Utah when he shoved his Winchester under her chin. If she feared him, she didn’t show it. The calm speech and soft voice indicated a woman of confidence. He’d expected Casey O’Hare to use her beauty to wiggle out of his hold, but instead she challenged him with a sharp mind—repeatedly. How else could she have survived all those years with Jenkins? She’d lived among one of the most hardened gangs in American history. Casey might have noble intentions of ridding her life of Davis Jenkins, but without help, that animal would not stop until he caught her.

Forget her. She’s not worth it. Look at what she’s done over the years.

Yet she’d put her life on the line for him. Took care of him when anyone else would have left him to die. Risked her life with Jenkins hot on her trail. Morgan had learned just enough to drive him crazy, just enough to wonder if his best-laid plans were wrong. The God he acknowledged in good and needy times might be trying to tell him something . . . or warn him. If he’d have stuck to God’s ways these past four years, then maybe he could decipher the message.

*****

Six hours passed, and still the confusion of what began in the mountains of Utah and continued until this morning in Vernal tore at Casey’s heart. She lifted her tearstained face to the late morning sun and willed the bittersweet memories of Morgan to fade.

This is insane. I hardly know the man. How could I let him torment me so? He had no right to confuse me this way—saying things that most likely meant nothing to him.

She hated to think his reasons for asking her to stay were to trap Jenkins, to satisfy lust, or to earn a bounty. Certainly the past seven years had taught her to be a better judge of character.

She shoved her raging thoughts aside and attempted to dwell on the future. Living in the past invited an early grave, and the only way to clear distance between her and Jenkins was to take advantage of the present. She didn’t need Morgan . . . just like she hadn’t needed Franco. Now why did she think of him? He’d been dead over three years.

Casey shook her head in hopes of dispelling painful regrets. She patted the full saddlebags. Guilt possessed her in one breath for the way Tim got the money, and thankfulness claimed her in another because maybe he cared for her after all.

My poor wayward brother. How much more I want for you.

He’d never been able to save much, but then neither did most of the outlaws. Even Jenkins talked about the ranch he’d one day own in Mexico. They all talked big about buying ranches, cattle, and horses, then settling down, but few managed to hold on to anything except their horses and guns—and seldom their lives. Instead, they all spent their money on horses, fancy saddles, guns, liquor, poker games, brothels, and anything else that fed into their lives.

For Tim, it was always, “I’ll quit after the next job.” But that last job never happened. In the beginning, when she and Tim left home to escape Pa’s beatings, all Tim wanted was to earn a few dollars and take care of Casey.

“I’m joining up with the Jenkins gang,” he said one night while they camped near the border of Missouri and Kansas. “I talked to a few of his men in town, and they could use another gun.”

“That’s wrong, Tim. We’re doing fine by ourselves.”

“We need the money.”

“But you could get killed or sent to prison.”

He pressed in close to her as though someone other than the darkness could hear. “I promised Ma I’d take care of you. I’ll ride with ’em for a few jobs, just long enough to save a little money. Then we’ll head to California or Oregon and buy us a pretty stretch of land.”

Casey stared into the face of her seventeen-year-old brother and searched for the right words to change his mind.

“Have I ever lied to you?” he said.

“No. But what would I do while you rode with them?”

He smiled, that boyish grin that always melted her heart. “They said you could cook for ’em. Nothing else.”

And she’d believed him.

When would it end? The blood and the victims of selfish greed haunted her. What did it do to him? The sound of a cocked rifle. The smell of gunfire. The taste of violence. The feeling of fear and despair that twisted her gut. She dug her heels into Stoney’s sides. Keep moving. Soon it will be over. Soon.

Casey remembered the Bible tucked into the saddlebag. Beginning tonight, she’d read by firelight, and the thought gave her something to look forward to. Surely the answers plaguing her miserable life were written within those pages. Sometimes she felt like a prairie twister, ready to tear up everything in her path. The anger frightened her as though she might end up like Tim.

“If you can’t handle this, then work for Rose,” Tim had said when she asked him last winter to leave the gang.

“Sell myself for the next meal?” Casey said. “Working in a brothel? At least here I’m only fighting off one man.”

“Then quit whining. I’m tired of hearing it. You want a better life? Stop fighting Jenkins, and he’ll take care of you.”

“I’d rather be dead.”

“Suit yourself.”

As twilight crept in around her, much like the old quilt she used to hide under during storms when she was a kid, Casey urged Stoney up through the aged formation of weathered rock. She recalled from past rides through the area how it changed magnificently in color from red and white to yellow and black: the beauty of a land totally suspended in time.

Tomorrow I’ll see the beauty on the other side of the cliffs. The realization brought a spark of hope, fueling all her secret dreams, like wearing a dress and not a gun belt. She knew large patches of deep green pine and waving blades of grass stretched for miles. Beautiful. Utterly breathtaking. Perhaps solitude was the best form of freedom.

Weary, she stopped for the night and gathered enough wood to build a small fire. When she finished eating leftover biscuits and bacon from the morning, she opened the Bible to Genesis and read by the dancing flames.

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth . . .” She read through the creation and on to the struggle between Adam and Eve’s sons. Reading about Cain killing Abel tugged at her conscience. She had read as far as Noah when her eyes closed.

The following morning, Casey ignored the rumbling in her stomach to put miles behind her. She picked her way down through low brush and bluish-gray rock lining Nine Mile Canyon. The dry, bleached terrain spread nearly five times longer than its title.

Carved into the stone walls were the signs of an ancient Indian civilization. Are you haunted? What stories are engraved in your rock? She stared at the tall, silent tombs. I’m not afraid. I’ve more to fear from men.

Nine Mile Canyon eventually evened out onto the flats of the lower Colorado Plateau. Casey rested Stoney and took in one of the most majestic views of the country. Shielding her eyes from bright sun rays, she glanced eastward to see huge rock strongholds that stood as stepping stones to higher mountains.

Slowly her gaze moved to the south. She dreaded the ride ahead through parched territory where rattlesnakes and scorpions would be her only companions. Deep gullies, jagged rock, and dry riverbeds invited death to all who attempted to find their way through the rock guarding the Green River.

Many a gang led a posse into a dry canyon here, only to leave them to die from lack of food or water. Tim had once said the smartest men were outlaws, and the most cunning of lawmen had once been on the run. Jenkins had been a young officer for the Confederacy. He never liked losing.

For five days, Casey wound through the treacherous, often confusing canyon lands. She camped near the Yampa and Dirty Devil rivers, then rode on again only to face extreme isolation across the barren flats, west to where the Green and Colorado rivers came together. Only the nighttime ritual of Bible reading offered any element of peace.

Someday life will be better. She’d find her promised land.

She dreaded the next hundred miles. Buzzards circled the sky, and desert fever threatened anyone who braved forward. Luckily the springs flowed freely, and she didn’t have to battle the blazing heat.

At last she reached the part of her journey where the surroundings abounded in rich, earthy hues. Sand and clay formed the orange-red dry land, while greenish-gray sage, twisted pines, and junipers rose from remote spots. At times the clouds in the distance seemed to be outlined in tints of red, or perhaps she merely saw a reflection of the clay-baked earth.

I can’t head into Robber’s Roost. How stupid of me to consider it. Every man there will be looking for Jenkins’s reward. I can sleep a few more nights with my saddle as a pillow.

She studied the lookout points on all sides of the circular shaped hideaway, knowing more than one pair of eyes watched from behind huge rocks. Scanning the horizon line where two flat-topped buttes faced east and north, Casey hid her hair beneath her hat. Perhaps none of them would recognize the lone rider. Foolish thought. She had better sense. They already knew her horse, had heard the rumors.

Lifting her rifle high, she waved to where she knew guards positioned themselves. They’d seen her coming for miles, but the formality of a signal offered them respect, if there could be honor among desperadoes.

Morgan had been right. For a woman, there were worse things than dying.

Forty miles to the west lay Hanksville, thirty miles south lay Dandy Crossing, and fifty-five miles to the north flowed the Green River. Although she faced indecision as to which direction to continue, she held no notions of heading east into more barren territory. Riding through a graveyard had little appeal.

Morgan talked of Texas. The country was an outlaw’s refuge with miles upon miles of huge, free territory, especially for those who wanted a fresh start.

The decision made, Casey rode southeast to Santa Fe along the Old Spanish Trail for another nearly five hundred miles. She wondered about hostile Indians, but they couldn’t be worse than Jenkins.

In Santa Fe, she walked into a hotel. A young man barely old enough to shave scowled at her. “I’d like a room, please,” she said.

“Figured that.” The kid wiped his nose with the sleeve of his shirt. “Gotta have the money up front.”

Casey lifted the saddlebag from her shoulder and dug out a few bills. “How much?”

“Depends.”

Casey lifted a brow and met his gaze. How the kid had lived this long amazed her. Jenkins would have finished him right there. “Depends on what?”

“If you’re runnin’ from the law or something else.”

Casey leaned on the wooden enclosure separating them. “So my money buys me protection from the sheriff or an angry husband?”

“Whatever you need.” He slid her a cocky half smile.

“Neither. I need a room, now. Do I look up your pa, or are we doing business?”

The kid winced for a brief second, but she caught it. “My pa’s gone.”

“Then I suggest you take care of me before I let you find out who you’re riling.”

The kid’s features hardened, and the look reminded her of a younger Tim. He turned the register her way, and she scribbled in Shawne Flanagan—a mixture of her middle name and her mother’s maiden name.

She took a bath, washed her clothes, and slept for twelve hours straight. With a full stomach—more food than she’d eaten in days—she sought out a mercantile.