Patch came in the front door and went immediately to the rocking chair. He prowled around the rocker, sniffing at Toby’s legs and feet. I watched pensively as the tom chose one of Toby’s big toes as a place to rub his jaw. Toby smiled down at the cat, waiting.
Patch sat down on the floor and stared up at the person in the rocker with a fixed, unwavering expression. The tip of his long tail twitched once, and without visibly tensing a hair the cat leaped. He landed lightly in Toby’s lap, kneading to find a proper settling place.
Patch’s ratchety purr sounded loud in the silent room, striking an odd note in the quiet left from Toby’s story. The cat made me thoughtful.
Patch was never one to take to people, yet he’d picked out my visitor for attention from the outset. I wondered if there was something to the cat’s actions. I knew well enough animals had the ability to sense goodness or badness in people, and I believe the creatures of the wild long before I listen to a man’s lengthy stories.
There was more to Toby Markham than just his words.
“Aren’t you ever going to eat breakfast?” he asked.
I focused my eyes on him. “Why?”
“Aren’t you hungry?”
“What’s that got to do with you?”
He was affronted. “I’m hungry, myself. I thought maybe you’d spare something for me.”
“I gave you some broth earlier.”
He gestured expressively. “Broth! I want some thing solid in my belly. Like eggs and bacon. Maybe some fried ham.”
I said nothing, staring at him. He flashed the bright grin at me, bringing to light the charm I’d caught a glimpse of before. The pallor of his face and weariness in his eyes had disappeared again.
I sighed and stood up, tired of fighting him for fighting’s sake. “I’ll fix us both something.”
Toby was right to remind me to breakfast. I found myself eating well to fill the hole in my belly, and realized I’d had no supper the night before. He ate with the appetite of a healing man over the worst. I shook my head at him.
“You must not have eaten for days.”
He nodded as he scraped up the last of his eggs. “I didn’t stop to take time to eat with the Barstows after me.”
“No, I don’t expect food came first with men like them on your trail.”
I took the empty plate and fork from him and took them with mine to the sink. Then I turned and faced him sternly.
“It’s time you got back to bed. You got up too soon.”
“I heard the dog barking. It sounded like trouble. I just thought maybe I should check the rifle.”
“The rifle is my concern.”
“Lonnie…” he paused, then went on. “After all, you’re only a girl. A man is better with a rifle.”
I felt heat in my face. “You don’t know the first thing about me, mister, yet you go claiming you’re better than me. If there’s one thing I’m not, it’s helpless.” I pointed toward the bedroom. “Go to bed.”
He smiled. “No. Not yet. First I want something from you.”
My hackles came up. “From me?” I asked coldly.
“I want to know your side of the story.” He saw the refusal in my face and put up a hand to halt my quick words. “Lonnie, I told you my troubles. I only want the same treatment from you. Fair and square. I want to know what happened when your family was killed.”
“You know as much as you need,” I said woodenly.
He stroked the cat. “I’m only curious. I don’t plan to argue about it with you. But some men never tell of getting shot, and you’ve got my story.”
I had to admit to myself—grudgingly, of course—that he was right. But I couldn’t understand his interest. What did it matter?
“Why do you want to know?”
He frowned, hunching his good shoulder. “I don’t really know. But why would a girl stay out here by herself when her whole family’s been killed?”
The question took no special thought, and the answer came quickly, easily. “It’s my home, Toby. My land. Would you pick up and leave something you loved if it was yours, free and clear?”
He smiled faintly, thoughtfully, still stroking the cat. “It would depend on what prodded me to leave.” He looked me straight in the eye. “Tell me what happened. Call it an even trade. My tale for yours.”
“I never counted stories as tradeable goods,” I told him, pouring a bucket of water over the dirty dishes. I’d let them soak in the barrel and wash them later.
“Lonnie,” he said softly, gently, “why weren’t you killed with the rest?”
It crept across the room quietly, carefully, pulling an answer from me even though I’d rejected the demands before. My voice was hollow, not mine, but I was the one speaking. I sat down on the rag rug before the rocker and folded my legs beneath me, staring into my lap.
“Because I wasn’t here. I’d run off. Against what my ma told me, for I was a girl always chasing daydreams rather than tending to my chores.”
I swallowed and lifted my eyes to his. “I really do understand why you left home, Toby. I understand what makes a man wander. I used to do it myself.”
“Lonnie, maybe I shouldn’t have asked you—”
“Maybe it’s time I talked about it.” I shrugged offhandedly. “I never have before.” I took a deep breath. “Anyway, I survived the killings because I’d wandered off. I was left to carry on what my pa began, and I mean to do it.”
“What happened?”
The old familiar guilt-pain clutched at my belly, sickening me. It was a pain I’d not felt for some time. I hadn’t thought about the brutal murders for a long while, but memories of that day were as vivid in my head as if it had happened yesterday.
Still, I tried to keep my voice even and unemotional. “Like I said, I wandered off daydreaming. I went farther than ever before. I stayed longer than I’d been told. Then when I heard a scream, I started running.”
“Away from it?”
I smiled crookedly. “No. To it. By the time I got back here the scavengers were gone. My ma, pa, sister and baby brother were all dead. The lean-to was on fire and the animals had been scattered. I tried to beat out the flames by myself for a long time, once I saw I could do nothing for my folks. Then men came from town, seeing the smoke on the wind. They found me.”
“What happened, Lonnie?”
“I got sick.”
“Just—sick?”
I refused to look at him, remembering my shame. “I couldn’t sleep at night because of bad dreams. I couldn’t eat. It was my fault, you see, because I wandered away.” I shrugged. “Anyway—that’s what I felt. Abner Barton and his wife kept me with them in town and looked after me. When I was better, I came home.”
He swallowed. “When—how long ago did this happen?”
“I was fifteen. Just over two years ago—”
“You’ve lived here alone that long?”
“It’s what I chose to do,” I said doggedly.
“But—a girl? A girl your age working a farm like this? It isn’t possible.”
Suddenly I was angrier than I ever had been before. This reaction was something I’d dealt with for a long time, but to hear it from him hurt me. He wasn’t even giving me the benefit of the doubt, he just dismissed my words and denied me my accomplishments. Without a second thought.
“You’re like all the rest, aren’t you? Just like the others who stare at me and shake their heads, claiming I’m a lunatic and driven out of my head by pain and grief. It isn’t like that, Toby! I do it because it’s what I am. And I’ve done it for two years.”
“How?”
I set my jaw and looked steadily at him. “I learned how to shoot my pa’s rifle in case anyone else felt like bothering me, and for hunting. Me and the saddle mare learned how to plow a field and harvest it. We’ve got crooked furrows, maybe, but the corn don’t mind. With the river there’s plenty of water available, and I made the vegetable garden bigger. Other stuff I trade for in town, at the grocery.” I shrugged. “I ain’t saying it was easy, Toby, but I never figured it would be. It’s a life.” I smiled crookedly. “Mine.”
His surprise was replaced by another emotion which galled me as much as outright disbelief. “Lonnie—”
“I don’t want your pity! I want you healed and out of here.”
He smiled and took up my challenge. “It’s just hard to see you doing all this by yourself.”
“A woman can do a man’s work,” I said flatly. “When it comes down to doing it.”
“Maybe.”
I flipped by braid behind my shoulder. “I’ve got nothing to prove to you. Choose to believe it or not, that’s for you to decide. I know what I’ve done and that’s all that matters to me.”
He was interested and, I thought, compassionate. Maybe my words had gotten to him. “How have you managed?”
“Hard work, steady work.”
He was all farmer now. “How many acres?”
“Forty. Most I let lie. I can’t work the whole place, but enough to get by on.”
“What have you got in the ground?”
“Corn. Vegetables. I’ve got meats stored in the spring-house, and plenty of poultry. I make a decent living.”
He ruffled Patch’s fur and then smoothed it all down again, staring into the distance. “With help you could put the whole farm to work. Turn a profit. It’s good land.”
“I know it’s good. My pa picked it out with a lot of thought to what could be made of it. But I can’t hire help. That takes money I don’t have to spare. I don’t want charity. This is a Ryan place. I’ll work it myself.”
Toby brought his intent blue eyes up from Patch to my face, searching me out. “Seventeen’s marrying age. Past it for some girls. I expect you could have found help without having to hire it.”
I blushed fiery red but felt amused all the same. “There will be no man calling himself a husband here.”
His black brows lanced down. The expression didn’t suit the open, friendly cast of his face. “Why not? Every girl marries sooner or later. At least—she wants to.”
“No,” I said quietly. “This is mine, this land. I’ve already learned what it is to be valued for the land alone, thanks to one of the boys in town who wanted to marry me for the farm. I do just fine on my own. I need no one.”
“The work could kill you.”
“I’m strong. I know how to look after myself. Hard work only kills them who ain’t fit for it. Use sense and you can get along fine for years—for a lifetime—and I intend to do it. I’ve got no worries here.”
That was a challenge to him. “What if blight struck your corn?”
“I’ve got my garden.”
“What if it goes under?”
“I’ve got back supplies stored away. And—” I lifted a hand to halt his words— “I’ve got a rifle and I’m a fair shot with it. I could shoot my supper. Nothing will drive me from this land.”
“Not even Barstows?”
Our eyes met across the room, steady and set on both sides. It was a strange moment, as if we’d exchanged thoughts and feelings and found one another stronger than we’d expected. Maybe there was some grit to Toby Markham after all.
I grinned to myself. I already knew the weight of my sand. I smiled across at Toby. “No. Not even Barstows.”
Toby at last went back to bed, worn out to the bone. I made certain he was settled, noting he fell deeply asleep almost instantly, then I went out to hoe the cornfield.
Tracker came along and cast about for any scents he might turn up. I slapped at his tail as I lugged the wooden hoe up the hill to the cornfield, and smiled contentedly as I traversed the land. The acres stretching before me meant security, and I respected it accordingly.
Tender green sprouts were up, breaking through the rich soil. The cottonwood tree standing sentinel over the corner of the field dripped white fluff, and some of the streamers sailed away on breezes to land in other fields. Weeds already crept into the plowed furrows, encroaching on the new corn shoots, so I set the hoe to the ground and began to work.
The day was warm, beading sweat on my forehead and running down my temples. My thin dress already stuck to my back. I cleared the field carefully, intent on my work, digging out the stubborn weeds by hand to make certain the corn shoots had half a chance to reach full growth. It was hard work, sure enough, as I’d told Toby, but the kind of work I found pleasure in. It felt good to be out with the sky and the sun and the plains.
I heard the horse snort and jerked upright, clenching the hoe tightly in callused palms. Tracker, I thought abstractedly, Tracker’s at the river. Up wind.
“Good day to you, miss,” said the bounty hunter, tipping his hat.
Fear leaped in my chest. I fought it back down and stared up at him on his dun horse with what I hoped was a suitably innocent expression.
“You back for any particular reason?” I asked.
He studied me, smiling in an odd manner. His eyes were greenish, now he was close enough for me to see him clearly. His hair, beneath his stained gray hat, was sandy-colored. I placed him somewhere near forty years of age, but I couldn’t tell which side.
“I’m doing my job, miss,” he said. “Following tracks.”
“Tracks,” I said blankly.
His face, darkened by weatherburn, creased in a smile. “The ones leading here, miss. The ones I didn’t see before because you kept me on the far side of the river.”
“I didn’t keep you there. I just didn’t invite you onto my land.” I shielded my eyes against the sun’s glare. “I have every right to keep people off my land. “
He shifted in the saddle, hands resting on the saddle horn. “I reckon you do. Now, why don’t you tell me who it is you’re hiding.”
“I’m hiding no one.”
He sighed and pushed his hat back on his head. “Miss, I’m not here to harm you. Once I was a lawman, like I said, and I don’t intend to break the law by meaning you harm. You have no need to be afraid of me.”
“I’m not.”
“You’re afraid of something.”
I gripped the hoe firmly. “I think you’d better go.”
“Not before you tell me who you’re hiding.”
I swallowed and edged away from him, figuring to turn and run when I had the chance. He read it in my eyes.
“This old pony’s done a lot of things, miss, one of which was learning to cut cattle. I reckon he can cut you just as well.”
“You’re on my property,” I said, shaking with anger. “Get off it!”
He kneed the horse closer to me. I felt the animal’s warm breath on my neck as he snorted, pulling irritably at restraining reins.
“Cutting pony, are you?” I asked myself, smiling grimly. Silently I apologized to the innocent animal, then brought the hoe up sharply. It whacked the horse in the nose and shot his head in the air as he jerked back in pain. I ran.
I heard the man curse. I threw the hoe away, realizing it might hinder my flight. Breathlessly I tried to whistle for Tracker, but no sound escaped my lips. I heard the pounding hooves behind me, then fell beneath the heavy body as it hurtled down from above.
It hurt, but I scrambled out from under him and shouted for the dog. I heard the answering bell, but before I could start running again the man’s hand closed on my ankle. He jerked me down.
“Damn it, missy, stay still long enough so I can get my wind back,” he wheezed. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
Since he effectively held me prisoner, I gave up my fight. I stared at him angrily as we sat tangled together on the ground. I was scraped and bruised from the tumble, and I hoped he was equally so.
“That was a pretty mean trick to pull on my old pony,” he said. “Hitting him in the nose with a hoe handle.”
“I couldn’t reach you.”
He laughed, brushing grit and dust from his clothing. He resettled his hat and studied me, a smile creeping from beneath the big mustache he wore.
“Now, miss…” he began, but stopped as Tracker arrived, hackled and snarling.
I grinned at him triumphantly. “You’d best let me go. Tracker doesn’t much care for men who jump on me from a running horse.”
He released me with alacrity, taking care to remain very still. Tracker circled him warily as I brushed grass and dirt from my dress, feeling a scrape on my left cheekbone. I got up and moved to the horse, who obliged me by standing still as I relieved him of the rifle and turned it on its owner.
“Well now, supposing you tell me the truth for a change. Who are you?”
“Dan Michael Loggins,” he said with a strange dignity. “From Missouri.”
“Bounty hunter,” I mocked
“Now,” he agreed.
“Don’t lie to me.”
He placed a hand over his heart. “ I wouldn’t dream of it, miss. Particularly in view of that highly effective weapon you persist in aiming in my direction.”
“You deserve it,” I said, wiping at a sore spot on my nose. “Jumping down on me like that.”
“I had to do something,” he protested. “You were getting away.”
“Thought that horse of yours was a cutting pony. Surely a girl don’t pose much problem to him.”
He smiled wryly, “You plumb knocked any notion of cutting clear out of his jugheaded skull, little lady. Whapping him like that.”
I gestured, done with that. “Tell me the truth. Who are you?”
“I’ve told you once. You won’t get it again.” His green eyes were worried. “Do you truly know how to shoot my rifle?”
“Of course I do. If you’d like a demonstration, I could shoot that hat off your head.”
“No,” he said hastily, “that won’t be necessary. I’ll forgo the demonstration.”
I stared at him hard, trying to fit any Barstow characteristic to him. Trouble was, I didn’t know much. But he worried me, though I didn’t dare tell him my suspicions. Naming him a Barstow to his face would show him I knew what had happened. And that, logically, would lead him straight to Toby.
“What are you out here for?”
“I’m looking for someone,” he said. “Like I told you.”
“That might be true,” I agreed grimly. “Who?”
He glared at me. “Matt Barstow and his gang. As if you didn’t know. I’m willing to bet one of them is holed up in that farmhouse, right now.”
I stared at him blankly, then opened my mouth to deny his statement. But I said nothing as Toby came walking up the rise. He was still shirtless, but wore his boots and carried my rifle. I stared at him.
“I heard you yell for Tracker,” he explained. “I thought you were in trouble.”
“Nothing I can’t handle,” I said dryly, staring down at my prisoner. “I caught myself a Barstow.”
“I’m not a Barstow!” Dan Michael Loggins exclaimed, staring at Toby. “Who are you?”
“He’s no Barstow,” I said wearily. “He’s the man hiding in my house.”
Loggins cursed with great inventiveness. “I would’ve sworn I had one of the Barstows cornered.”
“No,” said Toby, “just me. And you’re lucky I can say for certain you’re not one of them, either. Otherwise Lonnie might have shot you.”
Loggins removed his hat and rubbed a hand through his hair disgustedly. “So all this is for nothing. I’ve lost two days because of you. A nobody.”
“Not exactly a nobody,” I told. him. “Toby’s wanted, right enough, but not by the law. By the Barstows themselves.”
“Why?” Loggins asked quietly, staring fixedly at Toby.
“You’re a former lawman,” I said. “Surely you know who testified against Ben Barstow.”
“Some kid from Minnesota,” the bounty hunter answered. “Some kid who wanted to be a buffalo hunter.”
Toby grinned at me. “See? I told you the truth.”
“So you did,” I said wearily, dropping my borrowed rifle to my side. Let’s go in the house and talk this over.”
“The dog?” asked Dan Michael Loggins.
“Tracker, let him up. He may be stupid, but he’s not worth wasting your teeth over.” I grinned at the disgruntled expression on the man’s face. “Come along, mister.”
He came.