The Man from Stone Creek Read online

  He took two buckets and carried them through the schoolhouse and on outside, to the well he’d pulled poor Tom Singleton out of his first day in Haven. Filled them both, taking some comfort in the laborious nature of the cranking required, and hauled them back inside to heat on top of the stove.

  Things had come to a sorry pass, he reflected as he built up the fire, when the best a man could look forward to was a bath in two inches of lukewarm water. Even his old friend and companion Hercules couldn’t be counted on to liven up the night. He felt too fitful to read; there was something on the wind, charging the air like a storm gathering force in the furthest hills, and he was damned if he could guess what it was.

  While the tin buckets sat on the stovetop, taking their sweet time to warm, Sam went outside to groom the horse the major had given him, along with a princely sum of money. You’ll need bribes, dealing with them Mexicans, the old man had said. And have a care how you handle Vierra. Don’t know much about him. Best we could do, though, so you’ll have to keep your wits about you.

  Neptune, heretofore plaguing the patient old horse, settled his haunches in the deep grass and growled low in his throat. To hear him, a man would have thought he was a wolf instead of a squirmy pup who whimpered in his sleep.

  “Hush,” Sam told him, and paused from brushing the horse to listen.

  A wagon, coming close.

  He smiled to himself, and hope surged up his windpipe to swell in his throat. Maddie Chancelor, come to make a delivery? He hadn’t ordered anything from the mercantile, insofar as he could recollect. Maybe she’d gotten tired of harboring Bird while they waited for an answer to the telegram he’d sent, and decided to toss her back in his lap. Maddie was taking a risk, all right, hiding a saloon girl in the rooms above the general store, and he knew she was chafing under the load. If Mungo got wind of the deceit, there’d be hell to pay.

  Sam set aside the brush and waited. He’d left his coat inside, since it was a warm evening, and his gun belt was in plain sight around his hips. If his caller wasn’t Maddie, it might be an awkward thing to explain. This was 1903, after all, a new and modern century, and the world had changed since the old days. Most men didn’t wear a sidearm, at least in town, and that went double for schoolmasters.

  A buggy rounded the corner of the schoolhouse, a moving shadow in the light of a scant moon and a legion of stars. As it got closer, he saw that the rig was drawn smartly by a coal-black gelding, and there was a fancy woman at the reins.

  “Sam O’Ballivan?” the lady inquired, pulling to a stop a dozen yards short of where he stood. She gave the buggy whip a decisive little flick before jamming it into its holder.

  Not a social call, then, he decided.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said.

  Neptune didn’t bark. Instead he seemed to be lying low in the grass, like a soldier dodging cannonballs inside a beleaguered fort.

  “Oralee Pringle,” the visitor announced. The whole buggy shook as she alighted. She was hefty, and dressed in what looked like brown bombazine. The heavy fabric rustled as she approached, and her dyed-yellow ringlets bounced, like her bosom.

  “Evening,” Sam said, thinking he might have to revise his previous decision that it was going to be a boring night.

  Miss Pringle put out a hand almost as brawny as Sam’s own, and he shook it as a matter of courtesy. Round eyes, probably dark blue, peered up at him from beneath piles of lacquered curls. Oralee had been a pretty girl once, he figured, but her best years were behind her, along with a whole slew of rich dinners, given the expanse of the backside he’d glimpsed as she climbed down out of that buggy.

  “I’ve lost one of my girls,” Oralee said forthrightly. “Wondered if you knew anything about her. Bird of Paradise, she calls herself.” The brothel and saloon owner gave a little snort of derision. “Damn near not worth the trouble she causes me. Sent her over here with supper in a basket to welcome you to town, before I lit out for Tucson.”

  Sam held her gaze. There were times when a man had to lie, though he’d never favored it. “It was a fine supper,” he said. “And I’m obliged, but I haven’t seen the girl since.”

  Oralee pondered the reply, and Sam would have bet she didn’t believe him. “Troublesome little thing, and too skinny by half for most of my customers. Skittish as all getout. Split Garrett Donagher’s head open with a lamp I had sent all the way from Boston. Once he came to, he fair took my place apart, looking for her.”

  “Maybe it’s a good thing she isn’t around then,” Sam said easily.

  Oralee narrowed her eyes to slits. “The other girls said Bird was all swoony, after she come back from fetching that basket over here. She took a liking to you, according to them.”

  “I’m flattered,” Sam replied.

  “You don’t look like no schoolteacher I’ve ever seen,” Oralee prodded.

  “You’re not the first person to say that,” he said with modest regret. “What do I look like to you, Miss Pringle?”

  “A lawman, maybe,” Oralee decided. She glanced down at the .45 riding low on Sam’s right hip before shifting her attention back to his face. “Or a gunslinger.”

  Privately, Sam indulged his habit of renaming folks for characters in the books he knew practically by heart. From that moment on, Oralee Pringle was Medusa. Those ringlets of hers could turn to snakes anytime, and with little provocation.

  “You get a lot of gunslingers through here?” he asked.

  Neptune whined and tried to climb up his left leg.

  “Plenty of ’em,” Medusa replied, watching him shrewdly. “And not a few lawmen, too.”

  Sam rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Not likely I’ll run into either, teaching school.”

  “Well, if you do,” the madam said, jabbing a plump finger against Sam’s chest, probably feeling for a badge, “whichever side of the law they’re on, you tell ’em what I’m telling you right now. There ain’t nothin’ goes on in this town that Oralee Pringle don’t know all about.”

  “I’ll be sure and pass that on,” Sam promised, quietly affable, “should the opportunity arise.” He stooped and caught Neptune in the curve of one arm. The pup shivered.

  “Next time you pay off a telegraph operator,” Oralee shot back, “you’d better give him more than a dollar.”

  Hell, Sam thought, but he kept his expression still as a frozen puddle on a winter’s day. He said nothing.

  “Where’d you put her?” Oralee demanded. “Stage don’t come through till Wednesday, and if she’d left town on horseback, I’d have heard about it from ole Dub, over to the livery stable.”

  “If I knew,” Sam said, “I don’t reckon I’d tell you.”

  Suddenly, unexpectedly, Oralee smiled. She had tiny white teeth, like a doll’s, and the effect was jarring in a face the size of a full moon. “I make a real good friend, Sam O’Ballivan,” she said, “and a real bad enemy. You got a yen for Bird, we can work something out. In the meantime, Garrett Donagher is making my life miserable, and that means Mungo ain’t far behind. I don’t need that kind of trouble.”

  “I certainly sympathize,” Sam told her, watching with morbid fascination as Oralee’s curls quivered around her head, fixing to sprout eyes, scales and fangs, “but I can’t help you. And much as I’d like to stay out here and chew the fat with you, Miss Pringle, I’ve got something on the stove.” He put the pup down and it raced for the back door of the schoolhouse like a rabbit for a hole.

  “So do I,” Oralee retorted. “My bustle. The Donaghers’ll be stoking the fire pretty soon, too, if I don’t do something about Bird.”

  Sam enjoyed the stove-and-bustle image for a few moments as he took the madam’s plump arm and steered her in the direction of the buggy. “The way you talk, Miss Pringle,” he said with easy cordiality, “a man would think Mungo and his boys were outlaws, instead of good, upstanding ranchers.”

  Oralee narrowed her eyes as she peered up at him, and they all but disappeared into the surrounding flesh. “N
ow that sounds like somethin’ a lawman would say. If he happened to be fishin’ for information, for example.”

  “You’ve got a fanciful nature, ma’am.” Sam steadied the buggy, thinking it might turn right over on its side if he didn’t, while Miss Pringle climbed aboard. Her pulling horse gave a snorting sigh as she took up the reins, and Sam gave it a comforting pat on the flanks. The poor critter would probably collapse from fright if it ever saw Oralee coming toward it with a saddle.

  She snorted, sounding much like the horse. “We’ll see who’s fanciful,” Oralee said. Then she slapped down those reins and trundled off into the darkness, putting Sam in mind of a ship departing over restless waters and listing distinctly to the left.

  Neptune greeted Sam with a hopeful whimper when he stepped over the threshold into a wafting cloud of steam from the water on the stove. He shut the door, latched it, and bent to ruffle the dog’s ears. “You can breathe easy now, friend,” he told the animal. “She’s gone.”

  He poured the simmering contents of the kettle into the tub, then lit a lamp in the schoolroom and appropriated the last of the day’s drinking water, adding that to the bath so he wouldn’t parboil himself, and took off his gun belt. He was naked as his first birthday, smoking a cheroot, and longing for his own comforts, up at Stone Creek, when the inside door suddenly sprang open.

  Sam had left his .45 on the table when he undressed for the occasion, and it was a good thing. If it had been close at hand, he’d have shot Maddie Chancelor on the threshold before he realized who she was.

  “You’ve got to do something!” she blurted.

  Sam almost swallowed the cheroot, and then he had to wait for his gizzard to shinny back down out of his throat and settle into its right place. His towel was draped over the side of the copper tub Maddie had sold him at a premium price, and he didn’t reach for it. If she saw more than was proper, and embarrassed herself, well, it would serve her right for barging into a man’s place of residence without so much as a knock or a rousing hail from the doorstep. The cheroot made a sizzling sound as he dunked it in his bathwater.

  She froze, in the midst of revelation, and slapped a hand over her eyes. “Land sakes,” she gasped. “You’re not decent!”

  Sam relished her discomfort, since it was so richly deserved, and for some less honorable reasons, too. “I don’t usually bathe with my clothes on, Miss Chancelor,” he replied. “And suffice it to say, I wasn’t expecting company.”

  Maddie turned her back before lowering her hand so she could see again. “There was a light in the schoolroom window,” she said with miserable dignity, “and the door was unlatched, so I just came in. I assumed you were working late.”

  Sam considered getting out of the tub, with the towel to cover his privates, and pulling on his shirt and britches, but he decided against it. He’d gone to a lot of trouble for that bath, and he meant to suds up and rinse, whether Maddie stayed on or not. “There are some things,” he drawled, reaching for the soap, “that a lady shouldn’t assume.”

  He watched her spine straighten under her trim cotton dress. “The schoolhouse,” she said, “is a public building.”

  Sam soaped his neck, shoulders and armpits, then commenced to splashing. Neptune, lying in front of the stove with his muzzle resting on his paws, rolled a piteous look in his direction. “Worthless dog,” he said with affection. “You’re supposed to bark when you hear an intruder.”

  “I am not an intruder,” Maddie said. She was gripping the doorframe now on either side, almost as if she feared she might turn around and look right at Sam if she didn’t hold on to something solid.

  “I reckon that’s a matter of perspective,” he replied with a private grin. “Did you come here to say something, or just to ruin my reputation as well as your own?”

  Maddie sputtered for a moment or two before she got a coherent word out. “It’s Bird,” she said. “She’s taught Terran to swear like a sea captain. Tonight, when I finished the accounts and went in to start supper, they were playing poker.”

  “Saints preserve us,” Sam said. “Not poker.”

  “Five card stud,” Maddie confirmed, horrified.

  “The devil,” Sam replied with resignation, “has come to Haven and hung out his shingle.”

  She stiffened. “This is not a joking matter, Mr. O’Ballivan,” she said. “I want my brother to grow up to be a gentleman. Gentlemen do not gamble and curse.”

  Sam smiled and settled back in the tub, even though the water was lukewarm by then, and didn’t even cover his knees, much less the flagpole. He relented and covered himself with the towel, which put him in mind of the tents he’d slept in during his cavalry days. “If that’s your definition of a gentleman,” he remarked, “Terran’s beat from the start. He could probably hold his own in the swearing department before he ever made Bird’s acquaintance. In fact, I’d venture to say he’s taught her a new word or two.”

  That was the final straw for Maddie Chancelor. She whirled in the doorway, her eyes fixed stalwartly on Sam’s face and burning into his flesh like a pair of brands. “Come and fetch that—” she paused, swallowed visibly “—young woman before she corrupts my brother!”

  If Maddie had been anybody but who she was, Sam would have stood, just to give her a start. Fortunately, taps had sounded by then, and the tent had flattened out some. Not that she’d have looked at that segment of his anatomy to save her very life.

  “I am amenable to suggestion,” Sam told Maddie, delighting in the pink flames on her cheekbones and the righteous glitter in her eyes. “I can’t hand Bird over to Miss Pringle, or the Donaghers will get her. I can’t bring her here without the whole town knowing and running the both of us out on a rail. I’m afraid I’m fresh out of ideas.”

  Maddie bit her lower lip. “It’s a long time till Wednesday,” she lamented. “Four whole days.”

  “Yes,” Sam agreed. “By that time, Terran could have earned himself eternal damnation—if he hasn’t already.”

  Miss Chancelor blinked, and Sam would have sworn she had something sour in her mouth and meant to spit it out. He was right, in a manner of speaking. “I do believe the devil has come to Haven,” she snapped, “and passed himself off as a schoolmaster!”

  Sam sighed, and Neptune gave him another sorrowful glance. “I suppose Terran could bunk in here for the time being,” he said. “Tell him to bring a bedroll, though, because I’m not sleeping on the floor.”

  Maddie blinked again, and Sam wondered if she needed spectacles and was too vain to wear them. “I’m not so sure that would be an improvement,” she answered, calmer now. He could tell she was weighing the nays and yeas of the matter. “You carry a sidearm. For all I know, you’re a gunslinger. Besides, folks will know Terran left home, and they’ll wonder why. They’ll talk.”

  “I reckon they’re already talking,” Sam mused. “It’s dark out. You’re an unmarried woman, and I’m an unmarried man. Here I am, taking a bath. There you are, watching me—”

  “I am not watching you!”

  “I don’t reckon the gossips will slice the story that fine.” He paused, savoring her indignation. “Do you?”

  She trembled with the effort to contain a whole new burst of female fury. “I do wholeheartedly despise you, Sam O’Ballivan,” she said with an evenness of tone that was clearly hard-won. “Perhaps you’ve fooled everyone else in this town, but you do not fool me.”

  “I don’t seem to have much credibility with Miss Oralee Pringle, either,” Sam said sadly, repressing a grin. The bathwater was just plain cold now, and goose bumps swept over his flesh in nubby little legions.

  Maddie’s wonderful eyes widened. “Jupiter and Zeus,” she spouted, “if you’ve so much as set foot inside the Rattlesnake Saloon, the school board will see that you’re on the outbound stage with Bird!”

  “Would that bother you, Miss Chancelor?” Sam asked, settling back just as if the water was warm and deep, fit for soaking in. “My being shown the road, I
mean?”

  “Bother me?” she countered, but she took a moment too long in doing it. “I’d get up a marching band and hold a parade!”

  Like as not, Sam reflected, he’d be dead of pneumonia before that happened, and miss the spectacle. “Miss Pringle paid me a visit tonight,” he allowed. “Fortunately, I was fully clad at the time, and chopping wood out back, like the gentleman I am.”

  “What did she want?” The words were measured out carefully, like scoops of something precious, sold by the ounce.

  “Bird,” Sam replied with a slight but involuntary shiver that had nothing to do with the fate the girl would meet if she fell into Garrett Donagher’s hands, and everything to do with the fact that the fire was dying down and a night chill was rising through the cracks between the floorboards. “The telegraph operator took my bribe and sent the wire to her folks up in Denver—I watched him do it—but he must have gone straight to Oralee after that.”

  “Tarnation,” Maddie said.

  “Did Bird teach you that awful word?” Sam teased.

  She bristled again. God, he loved it when she bristled. It was almost worth freezing to death in a copper bathtub. “I’m leaving,” she told him, as if she expected an argument.

  “It’s past time,” Sam said.

  Maddie disappeared in a twirl of skirts and he heard the schoolhouse door slam in the distance.

  Neptune whined.

  “Sorry dog,” Sam said, hoisting himself out of the tub and tucking the towel around his middle like a loincloth so he could open the stove door and chuck in some more wood. After that, he pulled on his pants and shirt. He’d brew some coffee, he decided, take the chill off his bones.

  Half an hour later there came a light rap at the back door.

  Neptune managed a halfhearted growl, probably trying to make up for his earlier shortcoming.

  Sam swore. He was in no mood for company, or somebody who needed rescuing. “Who’s there?” he demanded.