A Wanted Man Read online

  Remembering all this, Rowdy was almost glad to be alone in a barren place, with only two horses and a dead man for company. He could think about Ma without choking up, but recalling John T. was something else again.

  In some ways, he'd never gotten past the spring of his thirteenth year.

  He'd been helping John T. plow a cornfield one warm spring day, and they'd stopped, in the heat of the afternoon, to rest themselves and the team in the shade of the only tree on the Rhodes place—a single, towering maple, planted by some long-gone homesteader, probably yearning for New England.

  They'd drunk from a water bucket brought along for the purpose, and John T. had grinned at Rowdy and said he ought to start going by Robert, now that he was almost a man.

  Wyatt and Nick had taken to running with Pappy by then, despite all Ma had done to keep them home, and Ethan and Levi were getting restless, too.

  Rowdy meant to stay right there on the farm, run some cattle and raise a few hogs and chicken. Grow corn that didn't wither on the stalk. He wanted to be like John T., not like Pappy. He'd decided then and there to use his given name, and he'd said so.

  John T. had slapped him on the shoulder and looked proud. He'd dipped the ladle into the drinking bucket, and poured the contents down the back of his neck.

  Rowdy'd laughed, and reached for the ladle, meaning to do the same.

  At first, seeing John T.'s face contort, Rowdy had drawn back, afraid he'd somehow offended the man whose respect he'd wanted above all things in life.

  John T. had clasped a hand to his chest and pitched forward onto the ground. Rowdy stood still for a long moment, stricken. When he finally crouched and rolled John T. over onto his back, he knew he was gone.

  He'd sat there, keeping a vigil, until after sunset, when his ma finally came looking for them with a lantern to say supper was getting cold.

  Together, she and Rowdy had loaded John T.'s body onto the plow horse's back and made the slow trip home.

  With the help of some neighbors, they'd buried John T Rhodes two days later, under the lone maple tree out in his field.

  The next time Pappy came home, he'd taunted Ma for crying. Said John T had gotten his just due for coveting another man's wife, and didn't the Good Book say, "Let the dead bury their dead"?

  Rowdy had expected his ma to finally lose her temper, or at least defend John T.'s honor, along with her own, but she hadn't. She'd dried her eyes and let Pa kiss her, and acted sweet and docile around him, even laughed at his stories, and Rowdy had hated her for it, with all the misguided passion of a thirteen-year-old boy.

  Without John T. there to guide him, Rowdy knew he'd never grow into the name Robert. He'd never raise corn crops, either. John T.'s absence was like one giant toothache pulsing through his spirit, worse every day.

  And he couldn't bear it.

  When his pa rode out that time, Rowdy went with him.

  He'd never intended to learn the train-robbing trade, he just fell into it, because he was young and because Pa said the railroad barons were the real thieves, driving good folks off their land and laying tracks across it.

  After the first robbery, Rowdy had been too ashamed to go home, and when the Yarbro name gathered some notoriety and Pa went by Jack Payton, Rowdy had started calling himself Rhodes.

  It had galled Pa plenty, that tribute to John T. Probably still did.

  And that was fine with Rowdy, then and now.

  Gideon prattled like a mouthy woman, that cold, still winter afternoon, and gave his old pa fits in the process.

  "And then this Chinaman, he stuck needles into that little girl."

  Payton was busy ransacking Rowdy's saddlebags. He could feel the law closing in on him, tightening like a noose. Snow or no snow, winded horse or none, he had to hightail it for Mexico.

  Gideon babbled on. "And she got better, too, right away."

  Payton upended the saddlebags, and a black leather pouch fell out with a solid, satisfying thunk. He grinned around the unlighted cheroot jutting out of the side of his mouth. Yes, indeed, Rowdy always had money.

  "Pa," Gideon said, abruptly interrupting his discourse on Chinese medicine, "what are you doing?"

  "Borrowing something from your brother."

  "That's stealing!"

  "No, it ain't," Payton said, impatient. If one of the other boys had talked to him like that, he'd have backhanded them for it. But Gideon was special, if sorely trying at times. "It's borrowing."

  The dog, resting by the stove, sat up and whimpered. Payton had been shut up with that mutt ever since Gideon had gone arescuing the night before, and he'd had his fill of being followed around and stared at.

  "Just because you decided to call it that?" Gideon challenged, reddening a little, in tiresome conviction. Damn, if he wasn't like Miranda, too, Payton thought. All his sons were, to one degree or another, but she hadn't had a hand in Gideon's raising and could not have imparted her influence. "You'd better put that money back, Pa. Right now."

  "You going to make me?" Payton asked. He dropped the pouch back in the saddlebags, and Gideon looked relieved—until he realized the saddlebags were going, too.

  "You said you weren't an outlaw anymore," Gideon said, moving into Payton's way when he made for the door.

  "And you said you wanted to be one," Payton retorted. He didn't like speaking harshly to the boy, but maybe it was the best thing, considering present circumstances. Turn him sour on his old man, once and for all. The ire might carry him right into college and out the other side, with something more to trade on than a fast gun and an even faster temper. "You don't have the stomach for it."

  He pushed past Gideon, blinked in the bright dazzle of sunlight on snow.

  "What about Ruby?" Gideon asked. "What about the horses and that thousand dollars you wanted me to fetch back?"

  "When the road thaws out between here and Flagstaff," Payton called, already halfway to the lean-to, where there was a perfectly good pinto gelding awaiting him, rested and ready to cover a lot of territory fast, "you go see Ruby, then turn in that livery-stable nag. She'll make it right with old Charlie, Ruby will, and you won't be hanged for a horse thief." He went into the lean-to. He'd have favored a less memorable mount than that splashy paint, but borrowers couldn't be choosers. He commenced to saddling the gelding, patted the horse he was leaving behind. Gideon had followed him all the way out there, and the dog was with him. "You can have old Samson here, for your very own."

  "I don't want your stupid horse, and you can't just leave, Pa. You can't take Rowdy's money and his horse and even his goddamned clothes and act like there's nothing wrong with it!"

  "You just watch me, boy," Payton answered, slipping the bridle over the pinto's head and adjusting the bit. That done, he threw on the saddle blanket, then the saddle. When he'd cinched it and fastened the buckle, he headed for the doorway of the lean-to.

  Gideon didn't move out of his way. His face was rigid, and his eyes flashed. Steam snorted from his nostrils, he was breathing so hard. He might have been quite a hand at the train-robbing trade, given the training and experience.

  Payton sighed. "Step aside, Gideon."

  Gideon still didn't move.

  Payton advanced.

  And Gideon landed a haymaker in the middle of his face, knocked him flat on his backside, and spooked the pinto so that it nearly trampled him.

  "Damn," Payton gurgled, trying to stanch the blood flowing down the front of his shirt. "You broke my nose!"

  "Like I said," Gideon told him, flexing the fingers of his right hand and looking serious as all get-out, "you aren't stealing Rowdy's money or his horse. In fact, as a deputy marshal, I could arrest you. Throw you in that cell in there in the jailhouse."

  Payton tried to smile, which wasn't easy, given that he felt as if a mule had just kicked in his face, and he was too woozy to get up out of the manure and sawdust covering the floor of that lean-to. "You wouldn't do a thing like that to your own pa," he said. "Would you?"


  Gideon offered him a hand.

  Payton hesitated, then took it.

  Gideon jerked him to his feet, wrenched one of Payton's arms behind his back, and marched him straight for the jailhouse. When had the kid gotten to be so bull strong?

  "Listen to me, Gideon," Jack reasoned, still bleeding from the nose like the proverbial stuck pig. "This is a small town. If you put me in that jail, folks are going to notice, and that will cause Rowdy problems you can't even begin to imagine."

  "There's a back door," Gideon said. He wrenched said back door open and hurled Payton through it. "Let folks talk all they want. And whatever these 'problems' are, I figure Rowdy can handle them."

  Before Payton recovered his balance, Gideon was on him again, shuffling him into the cell, slamming the door, turning the key in the lock.

  Stunned, Payton stared at his youngest son—his favorite—from between bars with rust spotting them wherever the grimy white paint was peeling off. He'd outrun U.S. Marshals and rangers, Pinkertons and railroad agents, and now he'd been thrown into the hoosegow by a sixteen-year-old boy.

  If it hadn't been so damn tragic, Payton would have laughed out loud.

  "You let me out of here, you ungrateful little whelp! I'm going to kick your ass from here to Sunday breakfast!"

  Gideon found a rag and shoved it through the bars. "If you could," he said, "you'd have done it out there in the lean-to."

  Pardner, who had witnessed the whole sorry episode, suddenly gave a little woof and dashed for the front door, jumping up and pawing at it.

  "I guess Rowdy's back," Gideon said.

  "Shit," Payton said. He jammed the rag against his bloody nose, winced at the pain and sank down onto the only piece of furniture in that cell. "That's all I need."

  The door opened, and Rowdy came in. Stopped to make a fuss over the damn dog.

  "I arrested Pa," Gideon said, taking a stubborn stance and folding his arms. Maybe he and Rowdy would get into it; the spectacle would be some consolation to Payton, if not much.

  "I can see that," Rowdy replied evenly. He took off his hat, hung it on a peg, then shed his coat, too. He'd put in a hard night, from the looks of him, but Payton didn't much care. He had his own problems to worry about. "Make some coffee, will you, Deputy?" Rowdy added.

  Gideon nodded, grabbed the coffeepot and hurried outside to get water.

  "What happened to your face?" Rowdy asked idly. Gideon had left the cell key lying on Rowdy's desk, and Rowdy looked right at it. Made no move to use it, though.

  Hope sprang up in Payton's heart, just the same. "Gideon sucker punched me," he said. "Let me out of here. I'll just leave, and there'll be no trouble. You have my word on that."

  "You know how I value your word," Rowdy said dryly.

  Gideon came back in with the coffeepot, his face as white as last night's snowfall. "There's a dead man tied to one of those horses out front," he said.

  "Just make the coffee," Rowdy replied wearily.

  -10-

  It was along toward evening when Rowdy came.

  Lark, sitting in the rocking chair close by the cook-stove, with a quilt-bundled Lydia sleeping in her lap, knew it was him by the way he knocked.

  Mrs. Porter had gone to bed, worn-out from the long night just past and the wearying day that followed. Mai Lee was off somewhere, probably helping Hon Sing with saloon duties neglected during the crisis with Lydia.

  "Come in," Lark called.

  Rowdy opened the door and stepped over the threshold, Pardner with him. And Lark saw the grim tidings in his face, even before he voiced them.

  "How is she?" he asked, nodding to indicate Lydia, as he hung up his hat.

  "Weak," Lark said, "but she'll recover, thanks to Hon Sing."

  Rowdy took off his gloves, stuffed them into a pocket in his coat, shed the garment, and laid it over the back of one of the chairs at the kitchen table.

  "What about you, Lark?" he asked, very quietly, stopping at a little distance and watching her with eyes that would see right through any lie she told. "You look pretty done in yourself. Have you had anything to eat? Slept a little, maybe?"

  She managed a thin smile, shook her head. Waited.

  "Well," he said philosophically, "neither have I."

  "Rowdy," Lark said.

  "No," he sighed, gazing down at Lydia's still, sleeping form. "The doctor didn't make it home."

  Lark closed her eyes, held Lydia a little more tightly. "Where is the—where is he now?"

  "At the undertaker's," Rowdy answered. "I took him to his house first, but Mrs. Fairmont didn't want him laid out there." He sighed again. "I reckon I can't blame her."

  "You've gathered, I suppose, that Mabel Fairmont isn't the most dedicated mother?" Lark's eyes burned. What was Lydia going to do? Was there a family somewhere—grandparents, perhaps, or aunts and uncles? Anyone who might take her in?

  "I gathered that much, all right," Rowdy said.

  Pardner, sitting as close to Lark's chair as he could without being in her lap, gazed mournfully at Lydia. Nuzzled her cheek with his snout.

  Lydia stirred, smiled a little, tried to stroke the dog's head. Murmured a greeting.

  Meanwhile, Rowdy went to the sink, rolled up his shirtsleeves and pumped water to wash his hands. That finished, he headed for the pantry and came out with a bowl of eggs and a loaf of bread.

  "Supper," he explained.

  Supper. Lark was reminded of the plans she'd made with Maddie, to visit the O'Ballivan ranch on Friday. Though she had barely a hope of getting there, it made her feel a little better to imagine being a guest at Sam and Maddie's table, speaking of pleasant things. After the meal was over, Maddie might even be persuaded to play the spinet.

  Lark ached for music.

  Rowdy cracked four eggs into a bowl, whipped them to a froth with a fork and set a skillet on the stove to heat. The lard he added smelled good as it melted.

  "Do you think there's more snow coming?" Lark asked with a note of dread in her voice, starting to come out of her stupor. For once she was too warm—the kitchen, kept hot because of Lydia, felt close and stuffy.

  "I don't know," Rowdy said, slicing bread and then forking it into the bowl of beaten eggs. "The roads will be impassible for a while, though. No sign of a thaw, as far as I can tell."

  Lark studied him, intrigued. Had there been a hint of relief in his voice, when he'd spoken of the roads?

  "The ground will be too hard for a—" she paused, looked down at Lydia, who was nodding off again "—burial."

  "Do you think she'd eat something?" Rowdy asked, again indicating the child.

  Lark shook her head. "She can take broth, that's all."

  Rowdy set the egg-coated slices of bread in the pan, one by one. They sizzled, and sent up an aroma that made Lark's empty stomach grumble.

  "Gideon told me you put in a rough night," he said. "I'm sorry I wasn't around to help, Lark."

  "You had your hands full," Lark replied. He'd never know, if she could help it, how desperately she'd longed for him, during those dark and endless hours of uncertainty.

  He turned the frying bread—by then Lark's mouth was watering—and then pushed the skillet to the back of the stove.

  When he approached Lark, stood in front of her chair, looking down into her eyes, her heart skittered. Gently he took Lydia from her arms and, his every step closely supervised by Pardner, carried her into the adjoining room.

  All Lark's limbs had gone numb, sitting in the chair for so long, holding Lydia. She stood, and swayed slightly before regaining her equilibrium. Then she followed Rowdy.

  He was tucking Lydia under the covers, quietly promising to build a fire on the nearby hearth right away.

  The sight struck Lark to the heart.

  One day Rowdy would make a fine father.

  Lydia grabbed at his hand when he would have straightened and turned away.

  "My papa?" she whispered. "Did he come home? You promised you'd find him if he didn't come home
—"

  Lark held her breath.

  Rowdy hesitated, indecision visible in the line of his shoulders and the set of his head. "I found him, honey," he said sadly.

  "He died, didn't he?" Lydia asked, brave and small and clinging to Rowdy's hand with both her own.

  Rowdy didn't answer right away. He was probably weighing his words, trying to find ones that would soften the blow, realizing there were none.

  "Your papa's gone," he said. "I'm sorry about that, Lydia—sorrier than I can ever say."

  Lydia sighed, released his hands. "I need to sleep now," she told Rowdy, as Lark watched through tear-blurred eyes. "Can Pardner get up on the bed with me?"

  Rowdy's voice was hoarse. "Sure he can," he told her.

  Pardner looked questioningly up at Rowdy.

  "Take care of your little friend, here, will you, boy?" Rowdy asked.

  At a gesture from Rowdy, Pardner bounded onto the mattress, huddled close against Lydia's side, sighed contentedly and closed his eyes.

  Lydia gave a little shudder, perhaps struggling to hold back tears of grief, flung a small arm across Pardner's furry side and slept.

  Lark meant to step back out of the doorway before Rowdy saw her, but she didn't manage it. Her mind gave the order, but her befuddled body couldn't seem to translate it into action.

  Rowdy's gaze collided with hers as he turned to start the fire he'd promised Lydia, and his blue eyes were bleak with sorrow.

  "I'll set the table," she said.

  "Thank you," he replied.

  The fried bread was lukewarm when they sat down to eat. Rowdy and Lark, alone in Mrs. Porter's kitchen. Even so, with butter and a little raspberryjam, the stuff was delicious.

  They said little, during the meal. Both of them were too tired to talk.

  "Do you reckon I should have made something for Mrs. Porter?" Rowdy asked, later, while he was making coffee and Lark was clearing the table.

  Lark shook her head. "She specifically said she didn't want to be disturbed. Saturday is Mr. Porter's birthday, and she plans to bake a rum cake. Evidently, the process is quite involved."