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They went back into the house. Button came in last, having had to climb down from the roof. They stacked their weapons along the front wall where they could easily get them at the slightest next alarm. Justin knew there would almost certainly be one.
“Ah, it’s nice to be back in the comfort of your hospitality, Sara.” Francis stretched his arms. He was such a big man Justin figured he was liable to poke a fist through the ceiling.
“Don’t make yourself too comfortable,” Sara said. “You’re not staying in the house.”
“What?”
“You can always go back and get a room in Bentley at the hotel. If you intend to camp here, you’d best gather up your stuff and haul it out to the goat shed. You’ll be sleeping with the boys again.” She glanced toward the small trunk he’d had sent ahead of his arrival that had been taking up space in the tiny living area. “And take that wine barrel with you.”
“You don’t want me drinking in front of the kids?”
“No. In front of me.”
“But it makes me cheerful, a delight to be around.”
“It makes you less smart than Boxo.”
“Who’s Boxo?”
She shook her head and waved a hand for them to go.
Justin and Scamp helped carry Francis’s things out to the goat shed, including the barrel of wine. A shelf halfway up held straw. The two boys slept there most nights, with the wind occasionally whistling through the cracks and the one open knothole. Francis grumbled as they crossed the hard ground toward the shed.
“I fear I’m not as welcome here as I’d hoped. Does your mother feel nothing for me?”
“Oh, she feels something,” Scamp said.
Justin didn’t mind Francis taking along his little barrel of wine. The first few times Francis had bunked with them on the straw of the goat shed he’d sprawled out and taken all the room. He was one big fellow. But after he’d had a good dose of his wine and fallen asleep, they usually rolled him to one side, took his blankets, and then they slept just fine.
They got to the shed. Francis hoisted his trunk up onto the waist-high shelf where the hay was stored.
“If you put that up there, one of us won’t be able to sleep on the hay,” Scamp said.
Francis sighed. He picked the trunk back up and lowered it to the floor beside where Justin had put the wine barrel. He sighed again. “It’s Thanksgiving and I’m at the children’s table once again.”
“Hey,” Justin said. “That’s no way to make friends.”
“I’m sorry.” Francis lifted himself up to sit on the edge of the hay shelf. He looked at the two boys. “Isn’t your aunt capable of affection and appreciation?”
“She’s my mother. Why ask Justin? Why don’t you talk to me?” Scamp said.
“No offense meant, Scamp, but Justin here is more newly arrived and it’s his aunt. His views may be fresh and more objective.” Francis winked at Scamp, but Scamp still frowned.
“Do you think that just you showing up all full of yourself should mean that Aunt Sara swoons into your arms because you’re such a big, sure-of-yourself fellow? And you are a quite big person.” Justin’s neck was getting sore from having to look up at Francis.
“Something like that.”
“It’s because you haven’t done anything yet.”
“Come now. You both know I write those dime novel adventures of Tornado Trey Calvin under the penname of Ben Blunt. That’s something isn’t it? I even brought you a few recent copies you can read.”
Justin shook his head. “When you spin those yarns, how do you make the characters interesting?”
Francis tilted his head, looked at Justin as if seeing him for the first time. “Well, that’s an astute enough question. Truth is, with dime novels, I don’t have to put everything on the page. I’ve got good guys and bad guys, even though life isn’t as straightforward as that. But it does help me to know what each character likes and doesn’t like, and especially what he wants. And a flaw or obstacle is a good idea. We all have at least one or two. Tornado Trey got shot in the knee once and has trouble getting around. Yet he’s pure devil on horseback. What’s your flaw, Justin?”
“I guess I’m kind of dumb about a lot of things out here, like tracking and such.” He glanced to Scamp, who nodded.
“I was surprised he didn’t try to pick up a rattler or a scorpion when he got here,” Scamp said.
“That’s stretching it some, but yeah I was pretty dumb. Just a few days ago I charged right at a lone Comanche.”
“Sounds like an act of bravery to me,” Francis said.
“No. It was plain dumb. I should have sounded an alarm first. I know that now. It’s not just about me out here. Button gave me a pretty cold shoulder about it there for a spell.”
“Ah, Button. The pretty young girl. Does she have anything to do with your wants?”
Justin felt himself blush to the roots of his hair. “No.” He looked away, then turned back to Francis. “Do you know what Aunt Sara likes or doesn’t like? Or what she wants?”
“Haven’t a clue,” Francis admitted.
Justin nodded. “What people like and don’t like matters, but it’s what they do that weighs anything out here. So far, all she’s heard you do is talk.”
“She knows I write those books. You’ve both read them, haven’t you?”
Justin nodded.
Scamp shook his head. “I can’t read yet.”
“What?” Francis’s had rocked back. “You’re thirteen, or fourteen, and you can’t read?”
“There’s never been time to learn.”
“What about school?”
“They’re thinking about starting one. But I don’t know that I could go. There’s still so much to do. Chores and all.”
“Well, if you think I came all the way out west to teach a young boy to read . . .”
“I think you came for a lot of reasons, and all having to do with you.” Justin didn’t mind pressing his point. “But if you want to do something that’ll impress Aunt Sara it has to have nothing to do with you or what you want.”
Francis looked off at nothing, thinking. Then he turned back to them and grinned. “Okay, then. I guess I could teach Scamp here. Let me get out one of my thrilling Tornado Trey yarns out of my bag. You might as well start with something gripping, like The Treasure of the Rattlesnake Well. That’ll help get you going on the basic words and keep you up nights unable to sleep as well.”
Scamp nudged Justin and grinned. Justin thought his cousin would be reluctant. Instead, Scamp said, “I’m going to get to learn to read. How swell is that?”
Francis repressed a sigh of relief when it finally got too dark to read and he and Scamp had to end their reading lesson for the day. Scamp, though, had looked like he could go on for hours more if the light had just held out. They’d been at it steady for quite a spell. Scamp’s eyes glittered and he still clutched the copy of the dime novel in his hands. Francis sure hadn’t expected to come all the way out west to be turning into a schoolmarm, but such were the twists and turns of his life.
“You did pretty good for a first time,” Francis told Scamp.
Justin carried in a small armload of kindling and wood for their fire.
In truth, Francis thought, the boy had stumbled along badly at first. Francis had no skill at teaching, but had stayed with it until at least Scamp was recognizing words. He just about leaped at every opportunity to say “the.” Francis had encouraged him, as had Justin. It may take weeks, but Francis was darn well going to teach Scamp to read. That ought to turn Sara’s head.
Justin put the wood down away from the fire. He carried only a couple of small pieces of it over to add to the fire Scamp had built in a round bed of blackened rocks where they’d had evening fires before, far enough away from the goat shed that sparks couldn’t carry and set the hay and dried wood of the building on fire.
The evening wasn’t cooling much yet, but Francis understood the comfort a fire could provide, even after a blistering warm day. He took off his velvet jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. A step closer to the fire he felt sweat beading his forehead. Might as well undo the buttons of his vest as well. When one side sagged he took out the small double-barreled derringer out of the right vest pocket and put the gun on top of the jacket he’d put folded on the shelf where they would sleep. He’d been carrying the little pearl-handled gun in his vest since the stagecoach robbery. Probably just as well he didn’t have it on him at the time of the robbery, but it gave him comfort now.
As the sky gradually transformed from gray to black, the stars and a sliver of moon emerged. They soon seemed close enough Francis could reach out and touch them. Each puff of still-warm breeze rasped at his nerves, and he began to hear noises, exaggerated by the still calm of the night. The goats murmured in low bleats among themselves, and a horse nickered now and again. He recalled one night where coyotes had begun to howl and howl, far away at first, then nearer each time. Finally, quite near the ranch and goat shed where they slept, a chorus of tiny coyote howls broke out to join in with the adults. It had seemed to go on for hours.
Francis went over to the small trunk he’d had shipped and drew out a crystal wine glass, one he had wrapped carefully with one of his shirts. “Now for the time of day I enjoy most.” He set the small wine barrel on the shelf where they slept.
Francis caught Scamp shaking his head as he pulled out the cork bung and let wine pour into his glass.
“Is something on your mind, young man?”
“Mom doesn’t much care for a drinking man. It’s why you’re bunking out here with us.” Scamp rubbed a hand across his lips and glanced toward the house.
“Oh, on that note. I brought her a little something.” He set his full glass on the shelf beside the barrel and went over to his trunk, dug around inside until he came up with another shirt wrapped around a matching glass. He unwrapped the stemmed glass and held it up. “You may recall I happened to break a glass of hers in my previous visit.”
“Recall? That’s all she talked about. The glass was the only thing left from her wedding day.”
“Well, why don’t you take this glass in to her and tell her I’d be happy to fill it for her with wine if she would like a glass.” He held out the glass.
Scamp glanced at Justin, then shrugged, took the glass, and headed off in the dark toward the house.
“So you have a crush on this young Button.” Francis eased himself to the ground beside Justin. “Have you told her?”
“Of course not.”
“You do. I can tell. But she knows, doesn’t she.”
“Of course.”
“And what’s she said about it so far?”
“Nothing.”
Francis nodded. “Inscrutable. That’s women for you.”
“Have you ever been married?”
Francis’s head snapped up from where he’d been looking into the fire. “Well, no. No I haven’t.”
“Why is that?”
Justin’s eyes were wide and innocent.
Francis sighed. “I’m a lot of man for any one woman,” he kidded. Truth was, he knew all too well himself. He had worn out his welcome pretty quickly with any of the ladies who caught his interest through the years. “But I see where you’re going with this. You fancy that young Button, and you’d like some advice from me on how to go about her liking you back. While I teach Scamp to read, you’d like me to teach you how to be around women. Right?”
“Like that’s doing you so much good.”
Francis tilted his head at the boy. The conversation could have gone painfully on, but Justin perked up at a sound.
They heard footsteps and Scamp came back into the dim light of their campfire he still held the wine glass in one hand. “She says you’d best keep it. You’re more likely to need it sooner or later than her.”
“Oh, blast it all. I broke one wine glass.”
“Her only one,” Scamp said, which didn’t help.
“One she never used.”
“Didn’t mean she didn’t value it as the last keepsake of her wedding.”
Francis nodded. He took the glass and rose to wrap it up in a shirt and put it back in his trunk. While he was up, he filled his wine glass again. He caught the little rascals grinning at each other. He knew what they were up to. As soon as he was asleep they would roll him to one side and take the blanket away. If it hadn’t always been warm nights he’d have caught his death of cold out here by now. They weren’t fooling him.
“She did seem pleased that you’re having a go at helping me parse out words off the page.”
“She said something good about me?”
“Kinda.”
“Well, hope springs eternal.”
Francis knocked back the contents of the glass he’d just filled and felt a warm glow as he poured himself another glass of wine. This small keg was going to have to last a while. He should have only a glass or two, but he was already way past that. The glass wobbled in his hand, but he straightened it in time. He turned back to find the two boys both staring at him.
He was a big fellow. It would take more than a few glasses of wine to affect him, though he nearly stumbled as he made his way back to the fire. Must be tired as well.
Francis lowered himself back to the ground at the same time he heard a loud braying. “Now what the Sam Hill is that about?”
“Boxo!” Scamp yelled. He jumped to his feet and headed for the house.
Francis was still struggling to get upright again without spilling his wine as Justin shot past him, grabbed the derringer off the folded jacket, and went tearing off into the dark of the night. Justin was out of sight in seconds. Francis stood looking at his glass. Oh, well. A full glass was apt to get spilled if he left it behind. He knocked back the contents of the whole glass, put it down on the shelf, and took off in a shambling run in the direction Justin had headed.
Several times he nearly stumbled. Very little light came from that sliver in the sky they called a rustler’s moon. But he could follow the sound of the agitated braying. That hadn’t let up.
He could barely see a thing. Justin’s eyes must have been better than his. Bam! Justin fired one barrel of the derringer into the dark.
An arrow flew out of the dark, straight at the large white target Francis’ shirt made in the dim light. The arrow hit him about where his heart was, glanced off his chest and nicked his arm as it bounced away.
Justin fired the other barrel. Bam!
Then shots came from their left, the huge wallop of a shot from the muzzleloader followed by two carefully spaced shots from the Winchester.
Boxo quieted and moved close to Justin to nuzzle him. He patted her furry head.
The sound of galloping hooves started up and soon faded into the distance.
From the left, Francis could now make out Scamp and Button, each holding a gun. Behind them, carrying the shotgun, came Sara. “Unshod hooves,” she said.
“And they shot an arrow shot right at Francis,” Justin said. He turned. “Are you okay? I thought you were a goner standing out all white in the night like that.”
Francis patted around, was okay until he came to the nick on his arm that was bleeding and starting to soak one white shirt sleeve a wet red. “Is the attack over?” He looked at Sara.
“Just some redskins trying to steal a goat. It’s happened often enough before we got Boxo. You’d better come inside and let me look at that arm.” She lowered the shotgun and turned to walk toward the house.
Inside, Francis sat on a chair as she got out her sewing kit. Francis frowned until he saw it also held what passed for first aid materials out here. She worked by the light of the room’s one oil lantern, with the rest of the room in varied degrees of darkness.
“You’d best take off the shirt,” she said.
“Just cut off the sleeve. I’ll get another shirt.”
She narrowed her eyes as she looked down at him. Sara shook her head, but took out her scissors and snipped off the sleeve high on the arm, almost to his shoulder. It fell away. She caught the sleeve as it fell and started to cut it into strips.
He felt a ripple of wet warmth pass through him. He didn’t know what that was, whether from being injured and seeing his own blood, from being close to death and the heat of that moment passing, or something else. That was the thing about being out here and living this way. He experienced a constant rush of new sensations and his emotions had never been more raw or near the edge.
Button came toward them carrying a pan of water. She set it down and held out a damp rag to Sara, who began to clean the wound. “You’re lucky. It’s not deep.”
“Lucky? I saw the arrow bounce right off him.” Button’s voice was up an octave in awe.
Sara threaded a needle. “This is gonna sting just a bit. Seems you already appear to have taken something for pain.” She kept her nose well away from the wine odor on his breath.
As she moved closer with the needle, she managed to flick a finger at his chest, winced as her finger clicked on the hard surface of the money vest of coins under his shirt. She gave a near smile before she repressed it, then started to sew up his wound. “Yes, sir. Mister Francis Marion Gallagher here is one lucky fellow, indeed.”
She hummed to herself as she sewed him up and started to wrap the wound with pieces from his own shirt.
He looked away, didn’t want her to see him wince at the twinge or two of pain. Whether she liked it or not, he was counting on having another glass of wine when he got back to the goat shed.
“It’s always something out here, isn’t it?” he said.
“Yes indeed.” She was humming again. “It certainly always is.”
She leaned close as she worked on him. For someone who spent much time in the sun her skin looked smooth, unblemished, and young. The corner of her mouth twisted into a wry half-smile, putting up with him more than enjoying the task of fixing him. Her eyes, he noticed, were a mix of hazel and pale blue, mottled, unique, and piercing when they fixed on him. He glanced around at what he could see of the room, which looked rustic, a home perhaps, but one hardly worth the effort they put into saving it. Yet they seemed to like living here and flourished nevertheless. She was part and product of her place, a young woman of the west, rough on the edges, laughing one moment, no-nonsense serious the next. She was nothing like the women he had known back east, and had once desired.
Did he still want her? This Sara, homemaker and no-nonsense Indian fighter of the west?
Yes he did. Very much.