“One moment,” the dark-haired beauty said, pulling away from him. She looked squarely at Slocum and studied him closely. “How do I know Leonard sent you?”
“You don’t.”
“Why should I go with you, then?”
“No reason other than I’m a man of my word, and I say Leonard Hawkins sent me to escort you to him in Espero.”
“I don’t know you.”
“Have a good trip, Miss Madison. Most anyone in Dexter Junction can tell you how to get to Espero,” Slocum said, tipping his hat. He walked off, not caring if she stopped him or not. Hawkins had drawn him into a chore that could have been delightful.
The woman was certainly pretty. Even after traveling halfway across southern Texas, she was a flower without compare. Escorting her to Espero could have been pleasant, except that Mac had been gunned down, and Slocum had no idea why the man had died. Mac hadn’t seemed the sort to go through life without making enemies, including those willing to cut him down from ambush. As true as that might have been, Slocum had the gut feeling the murder tied in with picking up Miss Madison.
He was better off without the burden of knowing the motive for Mac’s killing or why such a desirable woman had become a mail-order bride. A filly that good looking could have had her pick of men in Houston, rich ones, ones who could bury even a wealthy hombre like Leonard Hawkins under a pile of gold coins. She hadn’t had any trouble striking up an acquaintance with the man on the train, even if he had turned tail and run off the instant the train stopped at the depot.
“Sir, wait. Wait!”
Slocum groaned. He had been afraid the woman would come to her senses. Without a friend in Dexter and no easy way to get to Espero, she had to rely on his goodwill.
“Is there a stagecoach from this town to, uh, Espero, where you said Leonard waits for me?”
“No stage,” Slocum said, “as far as I know. I’m a stranger in these parts. I can ask and see you on the stagecoach, if those are your druthers.”
“Why, uh, yes, yes, it is.” She stood primly on the platform, her single case at her feet.
Slocum went to the ticket agent and asked after a stage.
“Ain’t got one goin’ there no more,” the man said, pushing back his green eye shades. He wiped some ink from his hand on a filthy apron. “When the railroad came through, it well nigh killed the stagecoach company. They folded their tents and crept off into the night without payin’ the feed bill or much else.”
“The only way to reach Espero is on horseback?”
“If that’s the way you want to travel.” The agent leaned to peer past Slocum at the woman. “You can get a buggy over at the livery. Won’t cost more ’n fifty–sixty dollars.”
Slocum involuntarily touched his pocket, where Hawkins’s money rested. If he paid that much for a buggy, he wouldn’t have much left from the initial payment. His mind rolled over the possibilities. If he took her back, he stood a chance of collecting the other four hundred promised dollars, no matter that Mac had been gunned down. Hawkins wouldn’t be happy, but if Slocum delivered his bride safe and sound, Mac’s death might not matter that much.
He had to remind himself that Hawkins dealt with death and made money from it. If no one in Espero died, there wouldn’t be any funerals.
Slocum thanked the agent and asked what the woman wanted to do. She chewed at her lower lip and looked around. The train vented a long, loud whistle that made her jump. Somehow she ended up in Slocum’s arms. He noticed how well they fit together before she pushed herself away and watched the train pull out. They were alone on the platform now. In less than a minute the train vanished around a bend on its way to Eagle Pass on the Mexican border.
“I must place myself in your hands, sir,” she said.
“Slocum,” he said. “John Slocum.” It took her a moment to understand what he said.
“Oh, your name. You already know me. Miranda Madison.” She held out her hand, palm down as if she expected him to kiss it.
He took it in his huge hand and shook, being sure not to crush the fingers. She withdrew and looked a little sick at having touched him.
“Something wrong, ma’am?”
“You, uh, how do I say this politely? You smell like some wild animal.”
“A horse,” Slocum said. “I’ve been in the saddle for the past two days to get here.” He had been astride his horse much longer than that and couldn’t remember his last bath.
“Do I have to ride in such a fashion?”
Slocum considered what to tell her. Mac’s horse had a saddle, and letting her ride would make the trip faster and cheaper for him if he didn’t have to buy a buggy.
“Do you think Mr. Hawkins would repay me if I bought a buggy?”
“What was his plan for transporting me from here to, uh, Espero?” She looked around, lost. “Wherever Espero is.”
Slocum hadn’t asked and had thought Mac knew such details.
“I’ve got a spare horse. Let me see to getting a buggy for the trip. I can get some grub, too, since trail rations might not set well with you.”
“I am tougher than I appear, sir,” she said indignantly.
Slocum left her on the platform and spent the next hour haggling over the buggy, which set him back half his poke. A decent supply of food for the trip cost him another ten dollars, but Mac’s horse took to the harness as if it was used to pulling rather than being ridden. Slocum settled in, snapped the reins, and got the flimsy buggy rolling through the potholed main street of Dexter Junction. He rounded a corner and drove straight for the railroad depot.
As he pulled up, he saw the man Miranda Madison had spoken with on the train jump from the platform and dash across the tracks, heading for the storage sheds.
“That man bothering you, Miss Madison?”
“What? Why, no. He’s just someone I spoke to on the train.”
“He lit out like someone’d set fire to his ass.”
“Sir!”
She protested, but Slocum doubted such mild profanity offended her at all. She had the appearance of a hothouse flower, but he sensed a toughness to her that Hawkins might have a hard time accepting.
He took her case and stowed it amid the supplies, then helped her into the buggy.
“You don’t have both horses hitched up?”
Slocum had tied his to the rear of the buggy. He knew from experience that the horse refused to pull in harness. The pinto was a saddle horse through and through. With a quick snap of the reins, he got Mac’s horse to pulling through town and out onto the road back to Espero.
“This is such wild country,” Miranda said, staring at the thick undergrowth amid the trees. “Those brambles could cut a person apart. They look as if they would leap from the forest and engulf the road in nothing flat if no one traveled here.”
“This is the Hill Country. Things grow fast. You’re likely right about the bramble bushes clogging up the road without constant traffic along it.”
He stared ahead as he drove, alert for any hint of an ambush. In places the vegetation closed in on either side until reaching out would let him drag his hands through thorny plants. The buggy was light enough to be upset if a javelina attacked. A three-hundred-pound pig weighed more than the buggy. If the horse spooked, they could be left to the tusked fury of an angry pig.
“You lived in Houston all your life?” Slocum asked.
“What? Houston? Oh, no, I came from Chicago. I made my way down the Mississippi to New Orleans, then from there took a ship hugging the Texas coast. That’s how I came to Texas.”
“Your marriage prospects must have been better in Chicago or New Orleans—or even Houston. What made you answer an ad from Hawkins?”
“He answered my ad, Mr. Slocum. And my life has not been all beer and skittles, not at all.”
He looked at her curiously.
“The only time I ever heard anyone say that, it was a remittance man from Manchester.”
“Oh, I picked up all manner of odd phrases while floating down the river.” She made an airy motion with her hand, dismissing the topic.
“Does your family know you advertised for a husband?”
“You are remarkably nosy, Mr. Slocum. My business is mine—and my future husband’s. The truth is, my family died of cholera. I avoided coming down with the disease, but it left me adrift in a world I hardly understand. My letters from Leonard have shown him to be worldly-wise and a caring man.” She hesitated, then asked almost timidly, “Is he as rich as he claims?”
“I don’t know how rich he claimed to be, but he is certainly well off. Planting people pays well.”
“I don’t understand. ‘Planting people’?”
“He’s the town undertaker, but he’s rich enough. His brother’s the bank president and his youngest is town marshal.”
“He is related to a lawman? Tell me more about the marshal.”
That surprised Slocum. She was more interested in Junior Hawkins than his oldest brother.
“I can’t say I know him. He’s got an ailment that kept him from coming to fetch you. Could be that consumption doubles him up in pain.” Slocum snorted and added in spite, “Junior doesn’t strike me as the sharpest pencil on the teacher’s desk.”
Miranda’s reaction made him wonder even more. Declaring Junior Hawkins to be a tad on the simple side let her relax visibly. She had been worrying at her linen handkerchief, running fingers along the lace patterns, and now she tucked it away in her left sleeve. For the first time since leaving the train station, she flashed him a genuine smile.
“It’s good to know about my betrothed’s family . . . before I meet them.”
“You’re marrying into the family, but you’re marrying Leonard,” Slocum said.
“An undertaker,” she mused. “He hadn’t mentioned that.”
“Some folks might find that occupation disagreeable. He might not have wanted to scare off such a lovely woman.”
“You think I’m pretty? Why, thank you, John. That’s kind of you to say so.” She trained those bright blue eyes on him, studying him intently now. “You’re quite handsome yourself, if you’d take a bath and cut that shaggy hair.”
“Here we are, just met, and already you’re trying to make me over.”
Miranda took it as a joke rather than a criticism and laughed in delight.
“I am going to enjoy this trip more than I thought.”
“You only learned of it a few hours back,” Slocum said. “You thought Hawkins was in Dexter Junction, not fifty miles down the road.”
“Too bad it’s not farther.” She looked sharply at him when he reacted. “I mean the weather is superb and the road is clear. The journey is a grand adventure for me.”
Slocum wondered how this was possible for a woman who had traveled the breadth of the country by herself to end up in a tiny Texas ranching town in the middle of nowhere. Her sidelong look at him made Slocum wonder if she judged his reaction to what was likely an outrageous claim.
He had no time to respond. The buggy took a sharp turn in the road. On either side, close in, the vegetation cut off escape. Ahead in the road were two road agents with bandannas pulled up over their faces and rifles leveled.
“Oh, John, what are you going to do?”
Miranda clutched at his arm. He jerked free and went for his six-shooter at the same time the two outlaws opened fire. The first slug missed him by a country mile. The second cut the crown of his Stetson.
“Damnation, that hat cost me a week’s pay.”
Miranda sputtered and tried to pull something from her clutch purse. Slocum half stood and interposed his body between her and the two mounted outlaws. With careful shooting, he spooked one man’s horse, causing it to rear. He had hoped to see the outlaw thrown, but the horse turned and blundered into the other skittish animal. For a moment, Slocum thought they would go down together and give him a decent shot at their riders.
The smaller of the two expertly jerked at the reins and kept control. This let the rearing horse settle down.
“John, shoot them!”
He braced his gun hand against the buggy and squeezed off the most accurate shot possible. The nearer rider jerked and clutched at his thigh. Better yet, he dropped his rifle. Another shot set the pair to fleeing.
“You did it, you chased them off!” Miranda settled down. In a much calmer voice asked, “Who were they? Just common thieves?”
“Could be,” Slocum allowed, but he doubted that. The coincidence of being stopped both ways along the road were too great.
“Are there so many road agents?”
“These parts aren’t safe,” Slocum said.
He settled down and reloaded. As he did, he ran the memory of every shot, every twitch, every rearing horse over in his head. The man who had dropped the rifle had been the sniper killing Mac on the way to Dexter. But the other? The man was smaller. Tiny clues came to Slocum through the flapping duster, pulled-down hat brim, and bandanna hiding the face. The second road agent was likely a woman. Whatever the two wanted, robbery hardly seemed to fit the bill.
With a snap on the reins, Slocum drove forward slowly until he came to the fallen rifle. He bent low, scooped it up, and looked at it.
“That’s fancy etching on the receiver,” Miranda said. “The outlaw is sure to want that back. I mean, he must have stolen it and would want to steal it back from you.”
“All he has to do is ask me for it,” Slocum said, sliding the rifle behind the buggy seat. “I’ll give it back one bullet at a time.”
“You are a violent man, John.”
From her tone he tried to figure out if that appealed to her. Killing wasn’t something he went out of his way to do, but if it came down to losing his own life or taking another, he had no qualms about pulling his Colt Navy’s trigger as many times as it took. Since he had signed on to protect Miranda Madison, however reluctantly, a couple more trigger pulls protected her, too.
“We ought to camp soon,” he said. “Sun’s dipping low, and it’ll be too dangerous to keep driving at night.”
“We shouldn’t stop. Those road agents won’t run far and will return to rob us. Or kill us.”
“The horse isn’t up to pulling the buggy much longer, and mine is only saddle broke. He doesn’t take to harness at all.”
“Very well.”
He stared at her, wondering at the sudden change of mind. As he swung around another sharp turn, he cast a quick look back along the road and thought he spotted a rider. The outlaws boxed them in if he stayed on the road. The first double ruts he came to looked uninviting, weeds slapping wetly at the wheels and threatening to wrap around the axle.
Miranda sneezed and daintily wiped her nose with the lace-trimmed hanky stuffed up her sleeve.
“Goldenrod,” Slocum said. “And there’s an abandoned farmhouse.”
“Driving through the weeds causes a yellow cloud to rise up.” She sneezed again, as loud as a gunshot. “Please forgive me for being so unladylike.”
Slocum snorted at that. She was headed for a town passed over by the railroad to marry the undertaker. Society events in Espero weren’t going to be more than a church social, and Slocum hadn’t even seen a church there.
“I’ll check out the house,” he said, fastening the reins around the buggy frame. He waited until he was just inside before drawing his six-shooter so Miranda wouldn’t see how edgy he was. A quick look around showed the only life to be small, furry, and scuttling away. “Come on in,” he called.
“Oh, my,” she said. “I have stayed in nicer places.” She sneezed, then added, “Worse, too. The trip from Chicago wasn’t always first cabin.”
He left her busily swiping at the debris, trying to find a clean spot to lie down. He led the horses to a ramshackle barn and prowled about hunting for sign of a wolf or cougar making its den inside. The place was too dilapidated for such discerning creatures. He put the horses into stalls and tended them the best he could, then returned to the house. Wood remained in a pile behind the house. He hefted a couple logs and carried them inside to the fireplace.
“I brought in the supplies,” Miranda said. “I’m not much of a cook but think I can whip up something. You chose well.”
“It’s not the first time I’ve been on the trail.”
She looked at him. A tiny smile curled the corner of her lips and a twinkle came to her bright blue eyes.
“Nor, I suspect, the first time you’ve been on the trail alone with a woman.”
“You’re partly wrong,” he said.
“What?” Miranda recoiled and straightened.
“I’ve never been on the trail with one so lovely.”
She laughed, dabbed at her nose, and then said, “My, my, aren’t we the Southern gentleman?” Bustling about, she began baking biscuits and arranging the rest to see what sort of meal she could whip up.
“I’ll fetch more water,” he said.
“I suppose I did wrong using what you had in the canteens.”
“Nothing to bother yourself over,” Slocum said. “I’ll see if the pump still works.”
He took the canteens and went outside to the well. The sun had about finished for the day, and bugs whined all around as he gripped the pump handle and began working it. The sucker washer down below had dried out. Without water to wet the seal, he doubted he had much chance of getting water up, if there was even any in the well. But he kept pumping and eventually a rush of water rewarded his efforts. He filled both canteens and started back into the house when he heard sounds beyond the barn.
Canting his head to one side, he listened hard. Someone moving about became unmistakable amid the drone of the insects.
Slocum rushed back to the house and called, “We’ve got company. Stay here while I . . .”
His words trailed off when he realized Miranda wasn’t inside. Putting the canteens down, he drew his six-shooter and began to explore. He homed in on the distant sound, then froze when he heard a loud sneeze. Slocum turned in that direction. It was away from the disturbance he had already located.
Steps slow but steady, he went toward the distant trees where he had heard the sneeze—Miranda? It seemed likely.
The woods swallowed him whole and left him blind. Not a glimmer showed through the dense foliage. Making his way slowly now, he moved as quietly as possible. It wasn’t silent enough.
A rustle from behind caused Slocum to spin around and go into a gunfighter’s crouch, his six-shooter pointed at . . . nothing.
Then a heavy body fell from the tree limb above and the darkness became even more intense as he was knocked unconscious.