The Outlaw Takes a Bride Read online

  © 2015 by Susan Page Davis

  Print ISBN 978-1-63058-259-3

  eBook Editions:

  Adobe Digital Edition (.epub) 978-1-63409-251-7

  Kindle and MobiPocket Edition (.prc) 978-1-63409-252-4

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted for commercial purposes, except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without written permission of the publisher.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.

  All scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

  Cover design: Faceout Studio, www.faceoutstudio.com

  Published by Shiloh Run Press, an imprint of Barbour Publishing, Inc., P.O. Box 719, Uhrichsville, Ohio 44683, www.shilohrunpress.com.

  Our mission is to publish and distribute inspirational products offering exceptional value and biblical encouragement to the masses.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  About the Author

  CHAPTER 1

  Early May 1885, Colorado Plains

  Johnny Paynter slung his saddle over his chestnut gelding’s back. He and Reckless would work alone today, repairing the ranch’s roundup pen. Johnny didn’t mind being up here at the line shack all alone—it was better than fighting for elbow room in the bunkhouse. Especially when he was on the foreman’s bad side. Still, he couldn’t help remembering that today should have been his day off.

  Frantic hoofbeats pounded in the distance. Johnny dropped the girth ring and walked around his horse to stare down the trail. His friend Cam Combes was riding hard.

  “What’s your hurry?” Johnny called as the other cowboy drew near.

  “Get your gear. You’ve got to get out of here.” Cam pulled his horse to a stop.

  “Why?” Johnny asked. “What’s happened?”

  “It’s the foreman. Somebody shot him. And Johnny—they think you did it. You got to run for it!”

  “What on earth?” Johnny stared at him. The Lone Pine foreman was known to be harsh and short tempered, but Johnny had mostly managed to stay on his good side—except for the words they’d exchanged right before Johnny came up here to the line shack, but that wasn’t serious. “Are you telling me that Red Howell is dead? How did it happen?”

  “Nobody knows.” Cam swung down out of the saddle and dropped his pinto’s reins. “Ike found him this morning, on the trail about a half mile from the ranch. You were the only one unaccounted for when he rode in with the news. Red had told us he was riding up here to see you this mornin’. Wanted to know how you were doing with the roundup pen. Now I guess they think you ambushed him or something.”

  “That’s crazy,” Johnny said.

  “Some of the boys heard you the other night, when Red told you to come up here. They’re sayin’ you had a fight.”

  Johnny shook his head in protest. “That wasn’t any fight. I told Red it was my Sunday off this week, and he said too bad, and I said I really needed a day off, and he said—”

  “No time to argue. Get your stuff. You’ve got to go.”

  “What, go down and talk to the boss?”

  “No!” Cam frowned. “If you do that, they’ll turn you over to the law.”

  “But I didn’t do anything.” Johnny glared at him. “I didn’t even know Red was coming up here. Don’t you think I should just go and tell them that?”

  “No, I don’t. You need to lie low. Better yet, get out of Colorado. Before the sheriff rides up here to take you in.”

  Johnny’s stomach felt hollow. “I’m not going to run. I didn’t do anything.” He went back to his horse and tightened the cinch strap.

  “I believe you, but I’m not so sure they will. I heard some of the boys talking about a necktie party.”

  Johnny froze. “Are you serious? You mean they’d string me up?”

  “You know I always give it to you straight. Remember when Buck Higgins blamed you for lettin’ the remuda loose during the roundup?”

  “Yeah.”

  Cam nodded. “I told the boss you wouldn’t be that careless. Turned out Buck was to blame. I’ve got your back, Johnny, and I’m just saying you’ll be safer if you make a run for it now. Some of them are pretty hotheaded. If I were in your boots, I’d want to get out of here and not take the chance.”

  Cam marched into the cabin, and Johnny followed, puzzling over what he had said. It wasn’t Cam’s fault. He was only delivering the news.

  “I don’t know what to do—where I could go.…”

  “There must be someplace you could hide out for a while, until things quiet down.” Cam grabbed Johnny’s extra shirt from a peg on the wall. He spotted Johnny’s saddlebag on the cot, picked it up, and stuffed the shirt into it. “What else you got here?”

  His urgency ignited a flame under Johnny. He shoved the rest of his few belongings into the saddlebag, his mind racing as fast as his pulse. “I guess I could head down to Texas. My brother’s got a little spread there.”

  “There you go.” Cam smiled. “That’s what you need—someplace where you can go and take it easy for a few weeks. When things quiet down, you can come back if you want to, and see if the boss will hire you on again. Give the sheriff time to sort out this shooting and find out who really did it.”

  “I don’t know, Cam. Just take off without knowing—”

  Cam shook his head. “They said the sheriff had gone to the other end of the county, and they don’t expect him back for a few days. Come on! I’ll ride with you. I admit, I’m worried about you. The fellows at the ranch are real riled. If you don’t get out of here soon, you’ll be dangling from the nearest cottonwood.”

  “You’d go with me?” Johnny asked.

  “Sure. You’re my friend.”

  Relief at not having to go alone washed over Johnny, yet at the same time he hated to get Cam more involved than he already was. But that was Cam’s way, he supposed. It wasn’t just little things like the incident with the remuda. Johnny also recollected the time he’d been thrown from a green cow pony and landed on a barbed-wire fence. Cam had wrapped his cuts and ridden back to the ranch house with him, to make sure he got there without passing out, and he’d given up a night off to stay with him at the bunkhouse. He rubbed his forearm through his sleeve and could feel one of the jagged scars he still bore from that. Even though Cam could get a little wild sometimes, he had proven himself a true friend.

  Cam rested a hand on his shoulder. “I’m not going to let them lynch you for something you didn’t do. Besides, I’ve never been to Texas. I wouldn’t mind seeing some new country.”

  Three minutes later, the two men were riding hard down the trail away from the ranch. Johnny’s mind still whirled. His life was in danger. He could do nothing less than ride away, even though it went
against every impulse.

  “You said you have a brother in Texas?” Cam asked.

  “Yeah. It’s a long ways. And I haven’t seen him for a couple of years.”

  “Should be all right,” Cam said. “And it’s only for a little while.”

  St. Louis, Missouri

  “Seems that feller’s awful persistent.”

  Sally Golding jumped and took her hands from the dishwater. Effie Winters, her hostess and her pastor’s wife, stood in the kitchen doorway, scowling down at the letter in her hand.

  Sally hastily wiped her hands on her apron. “For me?”

  “What’s that make—seven? Eight?” Effie held out the envelope, still eyeing it as though reluctant to hand it over.

  “Thank you.” Sally took it, slid it into the pocket of her threadbare black dress, and turned back to the sink. She wouldn’t open it in Effie’s presence. While the Reverend and Mrs. Winters had shown great kindness in taking her in, their hospitality seemed to be growing a little thin. Effie made no secret of the fact that she felt Sally had overstayed her welcome.

  But what else could she do? Not many places of employment were open to a respectable widow in St. Louis. Sally had tried to live frugally on her sewing skills, but she hadn’t earned enough to pay rent and buy food for herself. When she had appealed to the minister a year ago, he had spoken to his wife and they had offered her a tiny room in their attic until she could get her feet under her again. It was their duty to help widows, the reverend had told her. The next Sunday, he had announced her move into their home to the congregation, a bit pompously, Sally thought.

  “You about done with those dishes?” Effie eyed the clean skillet and saucepan waiting to be dried and put away.

  “Almost.”

  “Hmpf. I’ve got some stitching for you when you’re through.” Effie’s heavy footsteps echoed as she walked away.

  Sally bent once more over the dishpan. She worked hard in the Winters home—as hard as a hired maid might do, but without wages. While Effie led the churchwomen in organizing efforts for charitable causes, Sally felt she could show a little more kindness at home.

  Sally continued doing whatever sewing jobs she could get from other people, but her time was limited, as was her means for advertising her services.

  At first she’d tried to save enough to take her back to her parents’ home in Abilene, Texas, but after a few months, she’d had several broad hints that contributing to her hosts’ funds would not be amiss, since she ate out of their larder. Giving most of what she earned to Effie to supplement the pastor’s meager salary meant Sally had saved less than five dollars in the past year. She wasn’t sure the minister even knew of her contributions, but she didn’t dare ask.

  She finished the dishes, dumped the water, and hung up the pan and her apron. She longed for a cup of tea but didn’t dare fix herself one. Effie Winters would accuse her of shirking. She went to the parlor, where her hostess sat on the horsehair sofa with her lap desk before her.

  “You had some mending?” Sally asked.

  Effie pointed with her pen. “My shirtwaist. Heaven knows I need a new dress, but it’s hard to come by enough money for one.”

  Sally hesitated. Was the woman hinting that she should give her more money? If Effie could buy the fabric, Sally could sew a dress for her in a couple of days. But that would take all her time, and if Effie wasn’t pleased with the result, she’d never hear the end of it.

  As she picked up the bundle of mending, she realized it included several items besides the shirtwaist. “I should be able to get to these this morning, after I finish Mrs. DeVeer’s skirt.”

  Effie nodded absently and continued her writing for a moment. “Oh, do you have any scraps for the quilting bee? We’re making that flying geese quilt for the missionary who was here last month.”

  “I may be able to come up with some.”

  Sally climbed the narrow stairs and entered her bedroom, thankful for the one small window at the end of the chamber. In summer, this room became a kiln, nearly stifling her, and in winter she all but froze. But now the cool spring weather kept the attic tolerable, and the window gave her adequate light so that she could do her sewing up here in private and not have to put up with Effie’s sighs and innuendos. Her hosts seemed to be eager for her to move out, yet Sally couldn’t imagine what Effie would do if she left. She certainly wasn’t used to doing heavy housework anymore, though she did some of the cooking and made an effort to help the ladies in her husband’s congregation and nurse the ill when needed.

  After closing the door, Sally sat down in her straight-backed chair near the window. She put the bundle of mending on the small table before her. The letter crackled as she took it from her pocket. This was letter number eight, but she hadn’t liked to give Effie the satisfaction of saying it. The nerve of that woman to count her letters! Did she keep as close track of how many Sally’s mother sent?

  Her seam ripper worked fine as a letter opener, and she carefully slit the top fold of the envelope. Tears filled her eyes as she read the first page. Her many prayers had been answered.

  It had taken him long enough, but he had finally proposed marriage. She could leave St. Louis, the city that held so many bad memories.

  She had never had the courage to tell her parents how things really were during her marriage to David Golding, or the manner of his death. She had no desire to disgrace them with the knowledge of the pain and degradation she had suffered at his hands. When she was notified of his death, she wrote to her parents that he had died suddenly, but not that he was shot in a saloon brawl.

  To her shame, Sally had stayed in St. Louis and scraped along for nearly two years after her husband’s death, rather than admit to them how bleak her life had become. What had happened to the courage she’d had as a girl? She didn’t like hiding the truth from her folks. Had she become so beaten down that she couldn’t face those who loved her?

  Now God was giving her the chance to return to Texas and be near them again. Oh, not very near—she would still be a couple of hundred miles from her parents’ home—but close enough that she might visit them after a while. She longed to see her mother’s dear face and feel her father’s strong arms around her. And this time, she would visit as the wife of a respectable, hardworking rancher.

  It would also be a second chance for her at having a family. Maybe this time she would get it right. She had answered the rancher’s advertisement with trepidation, but his letters showed him to be a caring, thoughtful, and generous man. Life with him could only be better than what she had endured with David, and for the last year with the Reverend Winters and Effie. That thought gave her the courage to seek out a new course. Perhaps if all went well, she could finally have the family she had longed for so many years. Children.

  Since David’s death, she had come to think she would never be a mother. The memories of the two babies she had never held in her arms always darkened her mood, and she tried not to dwell on them. She had accepted that she would never know a husband’s true love or the joy of raising a child. But now…now perhaps God was smiling on her. Three or four days of travel would take her to the man who said he loved her and would take care of her for the rest of her life. The man she had never met but had fallen in love with.

  Mark Paynter.

  Johnny and Cam rode together down the dusty lane, looking for Mark’s ranch. The road hadn’t been used much, and they hadn’t met anyone else since leaving the last town behind.

  “It can’t be much farther.” Johnny rose in his stirrups and peered ahead.

  “You don’t think we took the wrong trail?” Cam asked.

  “Not a chance. That big rock was the landmark. He said turn right at the rock that looks like a bread loaf.”

  “Right.”

  Weeks on the trail and scanty food had worn Johnny down. He leaned over to one side and tried to watch his horse’s feet, but he couldn’t see much from the saddle. “I think Reckless is limping.”
/>   “Wouldn’t surprise me. He lost that shoe a good five miles back.” Cam gazed at the chestnut’s hooves as they ambled along. “Well, we’ll be there any time now.”

  The sun beat down with no compassion, and the horses’ heads drooped low. Johnny opened his canteen and took a swig. If they didn’t find water for the horses soon, they’d be in trouble. He ran his hand over his beard, wiping away a few stray drops of water. At the line shack, he hadn’t had a razor. He and Cam hadn’t shaved since they lit out. It would feel good to get cleaned up again.

  “Hey, look.” Cam pointed, and Johnny sighted in the direction he indicated.

  Over the top of a small rise ahead was something that might be a ridgepole. They urged the horses to a trot, but at once Reckless’s limp became more pronounced, and Johnny let him fall back to a walk.

  Cam rode on ahead to the top of the knoll and turned and waved his hat. “Come on, boy! We’re there!”

  Reckless had a hard time navigating the hill, and Johnny swung down and led him the last few yards. They were at the edge of a yard flanked by a small cabin on one side and a large corral on the other. Beyond the corral stood a barn of sorts. Apparently its main use was for hay storage, though one part seemed to be walled in, probably so Mark could secure his saddles and tools.

  “Funny,” Johnny said. “The corral gate is open.”

  Cam frowned. “I don’t see any horses.”

  Johnny looked closer at the house. No smoke rose from the chimney, but a man might let the fire go out in this heat. “Think there’s anyone here?”

  A cow bawled pitifully, and Johnny spotted her in a small pen near the barn. He led Reckless down the hill toward her, looking about as he walked. He spotted a few head of cattle grazing several hundred yards away on the fenced range.

  Cam rode ahead. At the corral fence, he dismounted and eyed the cow.

  “She looks like she needs to be milked.”

  Johnny walked over and stood beside him. One glance confirmed Cam’s assessment—the cow was uncomfortable, all right.

  “Something’s not right.”

  “I saw some cattle off over there.” Cam jerked his chin toward the grassy range.