An Outlaw's Christmas Read online

  He began to set up the board for yet another game, concentrating solemnly on the task. “Then why do you want to ask Dara Rose about it?”

  “I did not say, at any time, that I wanted to ask my cousin about her very private relationship with her husband,” Piper said stiffly. Maybe she hadn’t said it, but it was very much on her mind, and he’d guessed that, obviously.

  “But you do,” Sawyer said lightly.

  “I do not,” Piper lied. This was an unsettling aspect of her new self—skirting the truth—and she didn’t approve.

  Sawyer’s glance strayed toward the front window then, and Piper realized he’d done that a couple of times in the past hour or so. She’d paid it no mind then, figuring he must be thinking about the weather, which was a concern to everybody, but now she sensed that there was another reason. Was he expecting someone? Waiting for something?

  He wasn’t wearing his gun belt, she noticed now, with relief, but his Colt .45 had somehow found its way to the top of a nearby bookshelf.

  “Last game,” he said, when the board was ready. He yawned then, but it looked and sounded contrived to Piper.

  She studied him suspiciously, decided to call his bluff. “I’ve had enough of checkers for one night,” she told him, rising from her chair and smoothing her skirts, “and this has been a long and trying day.” Leaving the nearest lantern for him, she found a second one, struck a match to the wick, wrapped herself in the same old blanket, not wanting to spoil her new cloak, and started for the door.

  Sawyer didn’t ask where she was going, but he did reach for his .45, shove it under his belt in a disturbingly practiced way, and follow.

  “I’m only going to the privy,” she whispered, embarrassed.

  “Not alone,” Sawyer answered. With that, he squired her outside, down the steps, and around to the back of the schoolhouse. The privy loomed ahead, in a faint wash of moonlight.

  Much to Piper’s relief, he came to a stop at the corner of the school building and stood still, like a guard who took his duty very seriously.

  Piper dashed for the outhouse, used it, and hurried out again, holding her breath.

  Sawyer remained where he was, looking around, listening.

  “What is it?” she demanded, whispering because that seemed to fit the mood of the moment. There was something clandestine about his bearing, and he was so keenly alert she could feel it.

  “Nothing,” he said, taking her elbow and hustling her around front at such a pace that she nearly stumbled once or twice.

  “I don’t believe you,” Piper said.

  He steered her back inside the schoolhouse, shut the door and lowered the latch. “Go to bed,” he told her. “I’ll be staying up for a while.”

  “Why?”

  Sawyer turned his gaze to her at last, and she saw a worried smile lurking in his blue eyes. “Would you rather I came with you?” he asked.

  She reddened. “Well, no, but—”

  “Then go,” he broke in, distracted. “I’ll put out the lanterns and bank the fire in a little while.”

  Piper opened her mouth, closed it again. Huffed out a sigh of frustrated curiosity.

  “Go,” Sawyer repeated.

  She went, but only after filling a basin with warm water and carrying it into the bedroom with her.

  There, she undressed quickly, gave herself a cursory sponge bath, over in moments, and pulled on her nightgown. She hesitated, debating, then got into the spare bed, where she’d slept the night before.

  After a while, the lanterns went out, and she expected Sawyer to join her, but he didn’t.

  She waited, and then waited some more.

  Still no Sawyer. Wasn’t he coming to bed? His bed, that is? It was getting late, and he’d extinguished the lanterns, though she hadn’t heard the stove door open and then clang shut, so he hadn’t banked the fire.

  She got up, finally, and crept to the doorway, peering into the gloom of the schoolroom, faintly tinged with moonlight. Once her eyes had adjusted, she could make Sawyer out. He was next to the front window, but not in front of it, as unmoving as the eternal hills.

  Piper saw the gun then—he was holding it in his upraised hand, at the ready.

  She stifled a gasp.

  “Go back to bed, Piper,” he said quietly. Until then, she’d thought he hadn’t known she was there.

  “I want to know what’s happening,” she insisted.

  “Go to bed,” Sawyer repeated.

  Piper bristled—he had no business giving her orders, being her husband in name only—but she did as he said.

  Wriggling down between the covers, she fumed, but she was afraid, too. Something was definitely wrong.

  She closed her eyes, not expecting to sleep, and was immediately swallowed up by a shallow, uneasy slumber.

  * * *

  IT WAS JUST a feeling, nothing Sawyer could really put a finger on, but over the years, he’d learned to pay attention to the subtler signs. Ever since supper, the fine hairs on his nape had been raised, and there was a familiar sensation, like the touch of an icy fingertip, dead center in the pit of his stomach.

  Hell of a wedding night, he thought wryly. First checkers, and now a vigil alongside a darkened window.

  He could see part of the schoolyard from where he stood, being careful not to make a target of himself. The decorated Christmas tree seemed to whisper and sparkle when it captured a stray beam of moonlight, and the desks and stove were nothing but shadows.

  Something moved, over by the rope swing dangling from a branch of the oak tree.

  A stray dog, probably, or a coyote.

  Perspiration tickled his upper lip and his palm felt damp where he gripped the butt of his .45. The wound in his left shoulder throbbed with every heartbeat.

  Maybe he was loco—after all, he’d married a woman he’d known for two days, and he’d been delirious part of the time, when he wasn’t cotton-headed from the laudanum.

  Wasn’t that proof that he’d lost his mind?

  He swallowed the raspy chuckle that rose to the back of his throat, eased his finger back from the trigger a little. And every instinct urged caution.

  There it was again—something moving, more shadow than substance, at least at first. As he watched, holding his breath, silently willing Piper to stay asleep and not come wandering out here to hector him with questions, the shadow took on the shape of a man.

  And Sawyer recognized the stance, the way the rifle rested across one forearm with an ease that bespoke long experience.

  He’d worked with Chester Duggins, several jobs back, but he hadn’t seen him in years, hadn’t thought of him, either. If asked, Sawyer would have said Chester was six feet under by now, in some bare-ground-and-thistle cemetery, long forgotten.

  “I know you’re in there, McKettrick,” Duggins called. His voice was quiet, just barely audible, but it carried far enough. “Come on out here, and let’s get this over with, so I can collect my money.”

  Sawyer glanced in the direction of the bedroom, prayed that Piper would stay put. She wouldn’t, of course—when she heard the inevitable gunshots, she’d come running. And if Sawyer didn’t happen to be the one still standing, Duggins would shoot her, too.

  He drew a deep breath, let it out slowly, and moved to the door.

  He raised the latch bar, turned the knob as quietly as he could.

  Stepped onto the porch, the .45 in his hand, with the hammer drawn back.

  “Duggins,” he said companionably. “I thought you were dead.”

  Duggins chuckled in the darkness. He was just a form, with a hat and a rifle, and Sawyer hoped to God that he himself was no more than that to the other man. “Near to it, once or twice,” the gunman replied. He hawked and spat. “I thought I’d finished you the other nigh
t,” he went on, “but darned if I didn’t hear otherwise, over at the Bitter Gulch Saloon. I was laying low over there, waiting out the blizzard, and one of the gals hid me in her room. She told me you were here, living and breathing, getting cozy with the schoolmarm.”

  Sawyer didn’t move. He knew Duggins’s friendly chatter was meant to lull him, draw him farther out into the open. Knew there was no way out of this particular confrontation without killing or being killed.

  And he was damned if he was going to leave Piper at Duggins’s mercy. That, if he recalled correctly, was nonexistent.

  “I never figured you for a coward, Chester,” Sawyer said easily. They might have been dickering over the price of a horse or a piece of land, from their tone.

  Duggins stiffened, raised the rifle slightly. “I was tired of tracking you, McKettrick. Plumb worn to a nubbin. Why, I barely managed to get to this burg before your train came in as it was, and then there was all that snow. Vandenburg had been on me for a good week before that, like stink on a manure pile, wanting you dead.” He paused, spat again. “If your death don’t turn up in newspapers all over Texas, and right soon, I don’t get paid.”

  Sawyer wasn’t surprised to learn that Vandenburg was behind the attack; he’d figured as much. “That,” he replied, “would be a real pity.”

  “Now, don’t be thataway!” Duggins whined. “None of this would even be happening if you’d just left the boss man’s missus be. Why, if we’d met up in any other circumstances but these, you and me, we’d probably have had a drink together and talked about old times.”

  “I still think you’re a miserable, two-bit coward,” Sawyer said cheerfully. He’d heard a sound behind him, in the schoolhouse, and he knew he was almost out of time. Piper was awake, and she’d walk right into this in another few seconds. His tone was easy as he went on. “You bushwhacked me, Chester. In a snowstorm. And you did it that way because you knew you wouldn’t have a chance in a fair fight.” He stepped down off the porch and moved slowly to one side, so if Duggins fired at him and missed, the bullet wouldn’t go right through the schoolhouse door—and Piper’s heart.

  “I done told you I was fed up with trying to run you to ground,” Duggins complained. “Now, you stand still, and we’ll have this out.”

  “I’ve already drawn,” Sawyer told the other man calmly. “Even if you hit me, which you might not, given how dark it is, I’ll still get off at least one shot—more likely, two or three. And you know I’ll make them count. So why don’t you just lay that rifle down on the ground and step away from it with your hands up, before somebody gets hurt?”

  Duggins gave a low, rough bark of laughter, like he was fixing to spit again. “Hell,” he said. “You’re just trying to talk your way out of this. And you’re wasting my time and your breath, because I mean to kill you proper this time.”

  The whole world seemed to slow down then. Sawyer saw Duggins swing the rifle barrel in his direction, and he’d begun to pull the trigger back on the .45, but before either of them managed to fire, the night ripped apart, rent by a crimson flash of gunpowder and a boom so loud that it rattled the schoolhouse windows.

  Duggins folded to the ground, with the gruesome grace of a dancer dying in midpirouette. His rifle struck the ground and went off, the bullet making a whing sound as it tore away a chunk of the schoolhouse roof.

  Sawyer gaped, stunned, his .45 still unfired in his hand, as Bess Turner stepped out of the darkness and into a thin spill of moonlight, lowering a shotgun, both barrels still smoking, and prodding at Duggins’s unmoving form with one foot.

  “Reckon he’s dead?” she asked calmly.

  Sawyer approached, crouched to get a better look. She’d blown the back of Duggins’s head off. “Reckon so,” he replied.

  “Good,” said Bess Turner, with a sigh of resignation.

  Meanwhile, Piper flew toward them on a run, her feet bare, her hair loose. “What—?” she began, but her words fell away when she looked down and saw old Chester lying there.

  Sawyer wanted to send her back inside, but she wouldn’t go and he knew it, so he saved himself the aggravation and stood, wrapping his good arm around her, holding her against his side.

  “Varmint,” Bess said, and gave the body another poke with her toe, harder this time. The woman’s yellow hair was down, and she seemed to be wearing some kind of silky going-to-bed getup, though Sawyer couldn’t be sure because the moon had slipped behind a cloud and the stars weren’t shining all that brightly.

  “Let’s go inside,” Sawyer said. “Half the town will be here in the next few minutes.”

  Bess nodded and favored Piper with a thin smile. “You all right, Teacher? This varmint here, he didn’t hurt you none?”

  “Er—no—I’m—” Piper choked on whatever it was she’d meant to say after that, and fell silent.

  Sawyer steered both women toward the gaping door of the schoolhouse. The puny light of a single lantern spilled through it, a kind of faltering welcome, it seemed to him.

  Inside, Piper rallied a little, lit several more lamps, and got busy making a pot of tea.

  Bess leaned her shotgun against the wall, near the door, and sat down on top of one of the smaller desks, looking as though the events of the past few minutes might be catching up with her at last.

  Sawyer took a blanket from Piper’s bed, went outside, and draped it over the dead man. It wasn’t much—just a gesture, really—but he couldn’t leave the damn fool uncovered, staring blindly up at the night sky.

  As he’d expected, folks had heard the shots, and some of them were already gathering at the top of the schoolhouse road, a cluster of moving lantern light and muffled noise.

  Sawyer sighed and went back inside, where he found Piper still fussing with tea and Bess Turner still sitting on that desk, her gaze fixed on something far away.

  “What brought you here tonight?” he asked Bess, very quietly.

  Piper paused in her tea-brewing to turn around. Her hair fell around her shoulders, a waterfall of dark curls, and she wore a flannel nightgown. There was mud on her feet, though she didn’t seem to care.

  “That feller yonder,” Bess said, with a toss of her head toward the front of the schoolhouse. “He got one of my girls to hide him, the night of the big snowstorm. She didn’t know it was him that shot you—didn’t even know it had happened, there at the first—but then, well, these things get around—and Sally Mae, she finally figured out why that galoot was hiding out. She was scared to tell for a while—guess he must have threatened her—but tonight when he got his rifle and lit out on foot, she came and told me. I got my shotgun and followed him, but I was sure wishing Clay McKettrick didn’t live way the heck and gone out in the country.” Bess paused to draw a shaky breath. “I was here, when that feller called you out, but I wasn’t sure what to do. I reckoned if I yelled at him to put the rifle down, he’d probably turn right around and kill me where I stood, so when I saw that he meant to gun you down for sure, I shot him.”

  Piper’s mouth was open. Out of the corner of his eye, Sawyer saw her close it, very slowly.

  “You think they’ll put me in jail?” Bess fretted, looking over one shoulder as the voices drew nearer. “My Ginny-Sue can’t do without a mama—”

  “No,” Sawyer said. “Nobody’s going to put you in jail.”

  Piper moved to Bess’s side, without a word, and slipped an arm around her shoulders.

  A vigorous pounding sounded at the door.

  Exclamations were raised when somebody evidently stumbled over the blanket-covered body in the schoolyard.

  “Hold your horses,” Sawyer said, crossing to open the door.

  Doc Howard spilled into the room, closely followed by several other men.

  “Great scot,” Howard nearly shouted, “there’s a dead man out there!”

  “
Yep,” Sawyer said.

  Attention shifted to Bess, and to Piper, standing stalwartly beside her, chin raised.

  Sawyer would forever remember that that was when he realized he was in love with Piper St. James McKettrick, though he supposed it would be a while before he got around to saying so.

  “What happened?” Doc demanded.

  Sawyer explained, and Piper’s eyes seemed to widen with every word he said.

  “He’s the one that shot you?” Doc said, with a shake of his head. Sawyer had already told them as much, but these were peaceable men, and they had trouble taking it in.

  “Well, where the devil are we going to put him?” another man asked. “We don’t have an undertaker here in Blue River.”

  “The jailhouse will have to do, for the time being,” Sawyer said.

  “Better get him buried first thing tomorrow,” Doc put in. “Can’t have Christmas spoiled. Do we have to report this to somebody?”

  Sawyer nodded. Since he hadn’t been sworn in yet, Clay was the logical choice, and he said so. A certificate would have to be drawn up, signed by Judge Reynolds and probably Doc Howard, too.

  One of the men agreed to ride out to Clay’s place and tell him what had happened.

  Sawyer would have preferred to make the visit himself, but he didn’t have his horse and, improved though his condition was, he wasn’t sure he could make it all that way, anyhow. All this activity had riled up the wound in his shoulder, and it was raising three kinds of hell. Besides, he couldn’t leave Piper alone, especially after all that had happened.

  When the men went back outside, Sawyer went with them.

  Somebody ran to the livery stable, hitched up a buckboard and drove it back to the schoolhouse, and Chester Duggins’s mortal remains were hoisted into the back and hauled away.

  Doc agreed to make sure Bess Turner got back to the Bitter Gulch Saloon all right, though he seemed nervous about it. Little wonder, Sawyer concluded—that wife of his would kick up some dust if she caught wind of the courtesy.

  Inside the schoolhouse, Bess and Piper were sitting there in their nightclothes, calmly sipping tea like two spinsters at a garden club meeting.