A Lawman's Christmas Page 2

  Clay drew up his horse with a nearly imperceptible tug of the reins. “Hold it right there,” he said, with quiet authority, when Edrina started to turn away.

  She froze. Turned slowly to look at him with huge china-blue eyes. “You’re going to tell Mama I haven’t been at school, aren’t you?” she asked, sounding sadly resigned to whatever fate awaited her.

  “I reckon it’s your place to tell her that, not mine.”

  Edrina blinked, and a series of emotions flashed across her face—confusion, hope and, finally, despair. “She’ll be sorely vexed when she finds out,” the girl said. “Mama places great store in learning.”

  “Most sensible people do,” Clay observed, biting the inside of his lower lip so he wouldn’t laugh out loud. Edrina might have been little more than a baby, but she sat a horse like a Comanche brave—he’d seen that for himself back at the depot—and carried herself with a dignity out of all proportion to her size, situation and hand-me-down clothes. “Maybe from now on, you ought to pay better heed to what your mama says. She has your best interests at heart, you know.”

  Edrina gave a great, theatrical sigh, one that seemed to involve her entire small personage. “I suppose Miss Krenshaw will tell Mama I’ve been absent since recess, anyway,” she said. “Even if you don’t.”

  Miss Krenshaw, Clay figured, was probably the schoolmarm.

  Outlaw’s well-shod hooves made a lonely, clompety-clip kind of sound on the hard dirt of the road. The horse turned a little, to go around a trough with a lacy green scum floating atop the water.

  “Word’s sure to get out,” Clay agreed reasonably, thinking of all those faces, at all those windows, “one way or another.”

  “Thunderation and spit!” Edrina exclaimed, with the vigor of total sincerity. “I don’t know why folks can’t just tend to their own affairs and leave me to do as I please.”

  Clay made a choking sound, disguised it as a cough, as best he could, anyway. “How old are you?” he asked, genuinely interested in the answer.

  “Six,” Edrina replied.

  He’d have bet she was a short ten, maybe even eleven. “So you’re in the first grade at school?”

  “I’m in the second,” Edrina said, trudging along beside his horse. “I already knew how to read when I started in September, and I can cipher, too, so Miss Krenshaw let me skip a grade. Actually, she suggested I enter third grade, but Mama said no, that wouldn’t do at all, because I needed time to be a child. As if I could help being a child.”

  She sounded wholly exasperated.

  Clay hid yet another grin by tilting his head, in hopes that his hat brim would cast a shadow over his face. “You’ll be all grown up sooner than you think,” he allowed. “I reckon if asked, I’d be inclined to take your mama’s part in the matter.”

  “You weren’t asked, though,” Edrina pointed out thoughtfully, and with an utter lack of guile or rancor.

  “True enough,” Clay agreed moderately.

  They were quiet, passing by the little white church, then the adjoining graveyard, where, Clay speculated, the last marshal, Parnell Nolan, must be buried. Edrina hurried ahead when they reached the corner, and Clay and Outlaw followed at an easy pace.

  Clay hadn’t bothered to visit the house that came with the marshal’s job on his previous stopover in Blue River. At the time, he’d just signed the deed for two thousand acres of raw ranch land, and his thoughts had been on the house and barn he meant to build there, the cattle and horses he would buy, the wells he would dig and the fences he would put up. He could have waited, of course, bided on the Triple M until spring, living the life he’d always lived, but he’d been too impatient and too proud to do that.

  Besides, it was his nature to be restless, and so, in order to keep himself occupied until spring, he’d accepted the town’s offer of a laughable salary and a star-shaped badge to pin on his coat until they could rustle up some damn fool to take up the occupation for good.

  “There it is,” Edrina said, with a note of sadness in her voice that caught and pulled at Clay’s heart like a fishhook snagging on something underwater.

  Clay barely had time to take in the ramshackle place—the council referred to it as a “cottage,” though he would have called it a shack—before one of the prettiest women he’d ever laid eyes on shot out through the front door like a bullet and stormed down the path toward them.

  Chickens scattered, clucking and squawking, as she passed.

  Her hair was the color of pale cider, pinned up in back and fluffing out around her flushed face, as was the fashion among his sisters and female cousins back home in the Arizona Territory. Her eyes might have been blue, but they might have been green, too, and right now, they were shooting fire hot enough to brand the toughest hide.

  Reaching the rusty-hinged gate in the falling-down fence, she stopped suddenly, fixed those changeable eyes on him and glared.

  Clay felt a jolt inside, as though Zeus had flung a lightning bolt his way and he’d caught it with both hands instead of sidestepping it, like a wiser man would have done.

  The woman’s gaze sliced to the little girl.

  “Edrina Louise Nolan,” she said, through a fine set of straight white teeth, “what am I going to do with you?” Her skin was good, too, Clay observed, with that part of his brain that usually stood back and assessed things. Smooth, with a peachy glow underneath.

  “Let me go to third grade?” Edrina ventured bravely.

  Clay gave an appreciative chuckle, quickly quelled by a glare from the lady. He didn’t wither easily, though he knew that was the result she’d intended, and he did take some pleasure in thwarting her.

  At that, the woman gave a huffy little sigh and turned her attention back to her daughter. She threw out one arm—like Edrina, she wore calico—and pointed toward the gaping door of the shack. “That will be quite enough of your nonsense, young lady,” she said, with a reassuring combination of affection and anger, thrusting open the creaky gate. “Get yourself into the house now and prepare to contemplate the error of your ways!”

  Before obeying her mother’s command, Edrina paused just long enough to look up at Clay, who was still in the saddle, as though hoping he’d intercede.

  That was a thing he had no right to do, of course, but he felt a pang on the little girl’s behalf just the same. And against his own better judgment he dismounted, took off his hat, holding it in one hand and shoving the other through his hair, fingers splayed.

  “You go on and do what your mama tells you,” he said to Edrina, though his words had the tone of a suggestion, rather than a command.

  Edrina’s very fetching mother looked him over again, this time with something that might have been chagrin. Then she bristled again, like a little bird ruffling up faded feathers. “You’re him, aren’t you?” she accused. “The new marshal?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Clay said, confounded by the strange mixture of terror and jubilation rising up within him. “I am the new marshal. And you are…?”

  “Dara Rose Nolan. You may address me as Mrs. Nolan, if you have any further reason to address me, which I do not anticipate.”

  With that, she turned on one shabby-heeled shoe and pointed herself toward the “cottage,” with its sagging roof, leaking rain barrel and sparkling-clean windows.

  Edrina and another little girl—the aforementioned Harriet, no doubt—darted out of the doorway as their mother approached, vanishing into the interior of the house.

  Clay watched appreciatively as the widow Nolan retreated hurriedly up the walk, with nary a backward glance.

  Chickens, pecking peacefully at the ground, squawked and flapped their wings as they fled.

  The door slammed behind her.

  Clay smiled, resettled his hat and got back on his horse.

  Before, he’d dreaded the long and probably idle months ahead, expecting the season to be a lonesome one, and boring, to boot, since he knew nothing much ever happened in Blue River, when it came to crime. Th
at was the main reason the town fathers hadn’t been in any big rush to replace Parnell Nolan.

  Now, reining Outlaw away toward the edge of town, and the open country beyond, meaning to ride up onto a ridge he knew of, where the view extended for miles in every direction, Clay figured the coming winter might not be so dull, after all.

  INSIDE THE HOUSE, Dara Rose drew a deep breath and sighed it out hard.

  Heaven knew, she hadn’t been looking forward to the new marshal’s arrival, given the problems that were sure to result, but she hadn’t planned on losing her composure and behaving rudely, either. Poor as she was, Dara Rose still had high standards, and she believed in setting a good example for her children, prided herself on her good manners and even temperament.

  Imagining how she must have looked to Clay McKettrick, rushing out of the house, scaring the chickens half to death in the process, she closed her eyes for a moment, then sighed again.

  Edrina and Harriet watched her from the big rocking chair over by the wood-burning stove, Edrina wisely holding her tongue, Harriet perched close beside her, her rag doll, Molly, resting in the curve of one small arm.

  The regulator clock ticked ponderously on the wall, lending a solemn rhythm to the silence, and snow swirled past the windows, as if trying to find a way in.

  Dara Rose shivered.

  “What are we going to do, Mama?” Edrina asked reasonably, and at some length. She was a good child, normally, helpful and even tempered, but her restlessness and curiosity often led her straight into mischief.

  Dara Rose looked up at the oval-framed image of her late husband, Parnell Nolan, and her throat thickened as fresh despair swept over her. Despite the scandalous way he died, she missed him, missed the steadiness of his presence, missed his quiet ways and his wit.

  “I don’t rightly know,” Dara Rose admitted, after swallowing hard and blinking back the scalding tears that were always so close to the surface these days. “But never you mind—I’ll think of something.”

  Edrina slipped a reassuring arm around Harriet, who was sucking her thumb.

  Dara Rose didn’t comment on the thumb-sucking, though it was worrisome to her. Harriet had left that habit behind when she was three, but after Parnell’s death, nearly a year ago now, she’d taken it up again. It wasn’t hard to figure out why—the poor little thing was frightened and confused.

  So was Dara Rose, for that matter, though of course she didn’t let on. With heavy-handed generosity, Mayor Ponder and the town council had allowed her and the children to remain in the cottage on the stipulation that they’d have to vacate when a marshal was hired to take Parnell’s place.

  “Don’t worry,” Edrina told her sister, tightening her little arm around the child, just briefly. “Mama always thinks of something.”

  It was true that Dara Rose had managed to put food on the table by raising vegetables in her garden patch, taking in sewing and the occasional bundle of laundry and sometimes sweeping floors in the shops and businesses along Main Street. As industrious as she was, however, the pickings were already slim; without the house, the situation would go from worrisome to destitute.

  Oh, she had choices—there were always choices, weren’t there?—but they were wretched ones.

  She could become a lady of the evening over at the Bitter Gulch Saloon and maybe—maybe—earn enough to board her children somewhere nearby, where she could see them now and then. How long would it be before they realized how she was earning their living and came to despise her? A year, two years? Three?

  Her second option was only slightly more palatable; Ezra Maddox had offered her a job as his cook and housekeeper, on his remote ranch, but he’d plainly stipulated that she couldn’t bring her little girls along. In fact, he’d come right out and said she ought to just put Edrina and Harriet in an orphan’s home or farm them out to work for their keep. It would be good for their character, he’d claimed.

  In fact, the last time he’d come to call, the previous Sunday after church, he’d stood in this very room, beaming at his own generosity, and announced that if Dara Rose measured up, he might even marry her.

  The mere thought made her shudder.

  And the audacity of the man. He expected her to turn her daughters over to strangers and spend the rest of her days darning his socks and cooking his food, and in return, he offered room, board and a pittance in wages. If she “measured up,” as he put it, she’d be required to share his bed and give up the salary he’d been paying her, too.

  Dara Rose’s final prospect was to take her paltry savings—she kept them in a fruit jar, hidden behind the cookstove in the tiny kitchen—purchase train tickets for herself and her children and travel to San Antonio or Dallas or Houston, where she might find honest work and decent lodgings.

  But suppose she didn’t find work? Times were hard. The little bit of money she had would soon be eaten up by living expenses, and then what?

  Dara Rose knew she’d be paralyzed by these various scenarios if she didn’t put them out of her head and get busy doing something constructive, so she headed for the kitchen, meaning to start supper.

  Last fall, someone had given her the hindquarter of a deer, and she’d cut the meat into strips and carefully preserved it in jars. There were green beans and corn and stubby orange carrots from the garden, too, along with apples and pears from the fruit trees growing be hind the church, and berries she and the girls had gathered during the summer and brought home in lard tins and baskets. Thanks to the chickens, there were plenty of eggs, some of which she sold, and some she traded over at the mercantile for small amounts of sugar and flour and other staples. Once in a great while, she bought tea, but that was a luxury.

  She straightened her spine when she realized Edrina had followed her into the little lean-to of a kitchen.

  “I like Mr. McKettrick,” the child said conversationally. “Don’t you?”

  Keeping her back to the child, Dara Rose donned her apron and tied it in back with brisk motions of her hands. “My opinion of the new marshal is neither here nor there,” she replied. “And don’t think for one moment, Edrina Louise Nolan, that I’ve forgotten that you ran away from school again. You are in serious trouble.”

  Edrina gave a philosophical little sigh. “How serious?” she wanted to know. “Very serious,” Dara Rose answered, adding wood to the fire in the cookstove and jabbing at it with a poker.

  “I think we’re all in serious trouble,” Edrina observed sagely.

  Out of the mouths of babes, Dara Rose thought.

  “Do we have to be orphans now, Mama?” Harriet asked. As usual, she’d followed Edrina.

  Dara Rose put the poker back in its stand beside the stove and turned to look at her daughters. Harriet clung to her big sister’s hand, looking up at her mother with enormous, worried eyes.

  “We are a family,” she said, kneeling and wrapping an arm around each of them, pulling them close, drawing in the sweet scent of their hair and skin, “and we are going to stay together. I promise.”

  Now to find a way to keep that promise.

  Chapter 2

  The snow was coming down harder and faster when Clay returned to Blue River from the high ridge, where he’d breathed in the sight of his land, the wide expanse of it and the sheer potential, Outlaw strong and steady beneath him.

  Dusk was fast approaching now, and lamps glowed in some of the windows on Main Street, along with the occasional stark dazzle of a lightbulb. Clay had yet to decide whether or not he’d have his place wired for electricity when the time came; like the telephone, it was still a newfangled invention as far as he was concerned, and he wasn’t entirely sure it would last.

  At the livery stable, Clay made arrangements for Outlaw and then headed in the direction of the Bitter Gulch Saloon, where he figured the mayor and the town council were most likely to be waiting for him.

  Most of the businesses were sealed up tight against the weather, but the saloon’s swinging doors were all that stood betwe
en the crowded interior and the sidewalk. A piano tinkled a merry if discordant tune somewhere in all that roiling blue cigar smoke, and bottles rattled against the rims of glasses.

  The floor was covered in sawdust; the bar was long and ornately carved with various bare-breasted women pouring water into urns decorated with all sorts of flowers and mythical animals and assorted other decorations.

  Clay removed his hat, thumped the underside of the brim with one forefinger to knock off the light coating of snow and caught a glimpse of his own reflection in the chipped and murky glass of the mirror in back of the bar.

  He didn’t commonly frequent saloons, not being much of a drinker, but he knew he’d be dropping in at the Bitter Gulch on a regular basis, once he’d been sworn in as marshal and taken up his duties. Douse the seeds of trouble with enough whiskey and they were bound to take root, break ground and sprout foliage faster than the green beans his ma liked to plant in her garden every spring.

  One glance told him he’d been right to look for Mayor Ponder and his cronies here—they’d gathered around a table over in the corner, near the potbellied stove, each with his own glass and his own bottle.

  Inwardly, Clay sighed, but he managed a smile as he approached the table, snow melting on the shoulders of his duster.

  “Good to see you, Clay,” Mayor Ponder said cordially, as one of the others in the party dragged a chair over from a nearby table. “Sent a boy to fetch your trunk from the depot,” the older man went on, as Clay joined them, taking the offered seat without removing his coat. He didn’t plan on staying long. “You didn’t say where you wanted your gear sent, so I told Billy to haul it over to the jailhouse for the time being.”

  “Thanks,” Clay said mildly, setting his hat on the table. At home, the McKettrick women enforced their own private ordinance against such liberties, on the grounds that it was not only unmannerly, but bad luck and a mite on the slovenly side, too.

  “Have a drink with us?” Ponder asked, studying Clay thoughtfully through the shifting haze of smoke. The smell of unwashed bodies and poor dental hygiene was so thick it was nearly visible, and he felt a strong and sudden yearning to be outside again, in the fresh air.