Waiting for his leg to heal gave Colt plenty of time to think about what had happened the day he and Clancy were shot. Repeatedly he walked his mind back through every moment of that day. He recalled the way the wind blew and questioned if the birds he heard were actually calls made by men. Sights and smells lingered in his thoughts. When he’d crawled through brush and grass, he’d seen no signs of men.
The mystery of it all puzzled him, and he and Clancy filled their waking hours talking about who could have done the killings.
“If I believed in ghosts, I’d say they fired on us,” Colt said.
“Does seem real strange, and I was quite a tracker in my day.” Clancy rubbed his whiskered jaw. “I even wondered if a small band of renegade Indians could have done it. But nothing I recall showed any signs of ’em.”
“I’ve laid here three days thinking about this and haven’t come up with a thing.” Colt glanced around. “I’m fixin’ to use the crutch Thatcher Lee made for me and get out of this bunkhouse for some fresh air.”
“Walkin’ around helps. At least I can get out of here. I imagine the bunkhouse feels like pris—.” He stopped himself. “I’ll help you the best I can.”
“We’ve turned into a couple of helpless old men,” Colt said.
“Speak for yourself. I’ve got another twenty good years left in me.”
Colt glanced at the old man’s silver hair and weather-beaten face. “How many lines can your face hold?”
“As many as it takes to make sure Anne and the girls are safe and you find the Lord.”
“He doesn’t want me, Clancy. I don’t like church, and my singing sounds like it came from a hollow bucket.”
“Oh, He wants you powerful bad. You just don’t have sense enough to realize it.” Clancy stood and grasped the makeshift crutch. “I don’t always like the preacher’s sermons, either, and my singing sounds like a hurt wolf. It ain’t about that at all. It’s about realizing you need something you don’t have. Something that is more powerful than what any man can get on his own.”
Out of respect for Clancy, Colt kept his thoughts to himself because he wasn’t in the mood for preachin’. The pain in his leg felt like liquid fire. Truth be known, he’d been thinkin’ on God and the stories Clancy had read to him from the Bible. The story about Jacob and Esau had hit close to home. Clancy said they were true, and lately Colt hoped they were.
Sweat streamed down Colt’s face by the time he hobbled out of the bunkhouse and made his way to a shady tree—the one Nancy had climbed. He sat beneath it and stretched out his burning leg. Frustrated with the time it was taking to heal when he wanted to ride out to where the shooting took place made him want to tear into the first man who crossed his path.
“Can you leave me alone?” he asked Clancy. “I need time to think about a few things.”
“Sure. When God is working on a man, he needs time by himself.”
Clancy made his way to the barn, and Colt felt a little guilty for letting the man think he had religion on his mind. Leaning against the oak tree, he closed his eyes and willed the throbbing to end.
“Mr. Colt.”
Nancy’s sweet voice didn’t irritate him at all. That little girl had stolen his heart.
“What can I do for you?”
“That’s what I wanted to ask you.” She sat in the grass beside him, her bare feet caked with dried mud.
“You been wadin’?”
She nodded. “I was looking for frogs. I found a little one.” She reached inside her overalls and pulled it out. “I’m going to feed him some tasty bugs.”
He chuckled. “I always thought little girls played like they were grown women.”
“Sometimes I do. I like both.”
“What about Sammie Jo?”
“Mama makes her learn cooking stuff, but she’d rather be ridin’ or explorin’.”
Alarm weighed on Colt’s mind. “Promise me something.”
She gazed up at him with huge, trusting eyes.
“Promise me you and Sammie Jo won’t go explorin’ very far from the ranch.”
“Why? Because of what happened to you and Clancy?”
“That’s right. This leg of mine hurts powerful bad, and I wouldn’t want you to hurt, too.”
She nodded. “I promise. Sammie Jo’s braver than me, so I’ll tell her what you said.”
“Would she listen to anyone besides you and me?” Colt recognized the older girl’s stubbornness and figured she’d do the opposite of what he or Nancy asked.
“Maybe Thatcher Lee. She’s still sneaking around and seeing him.” Nancy stared into Colt’s face. “He’s a grown man, Mr. Colt. Mama would whip her good if she knew.”
“I’ll say something to Thatcher Lee.” As if he hadn’t before.
“Thank you.” Nancy grinned. Her attention focused on the utmost tree branches. “I sure appreciate you helping me down out of this here tree. Sammie Jo laughs at me getting scared easy.”
“Takes a real smart gal to stay away from danger, and you and Sammie Jo are real smart.”
Nancy wrinkled up her nose. “She thinks she knows everything.”
Colt frowned but kept his thoughts to himself. He feared Anne’s oldest daughter might need to learn a few of life’s lessons the hard way.
Anne lifted the canteen to her lips and drank deeply. She worked sunup to sundown to take up the slack until Clancy and Colt were healed. Bone-tired, she prayed God would give her strength to continue on. Sammie Jo enjoyed helping, but Anne believed her enthusiasm had a lot to do with Thatcher Lee. Twice Anne had caught her talking to him when they thought no one was looking. Thatcher Lee knew better, especially if he wanted to keep his job. Anne would have cut him loose a long time ago except he was a good ranch hand and she needed help. No matter that her daughter looked older. Sammie Jo had a few years of growing and maturing before Anne allowed a young man to come courting.
The object of her frustration rode toward Anne with Thatcher Lee alongside her. Sammie Jo’s face flushed red—and Anne knew it had nothing to do with the heat.
“Where have you two been?” Anne asked.
“Roundin’ up strays.” Thatcher Lee tipped his hat. Always the mannerly one, which kept his body free of buckshot when it came to Sammie Jo. “Won’t take long to move the herd into the upper pasture, Mrs. Langley.”
Anne screwed the cap back onto her canteen. “That job took both of you?”
“Yes, ma’am. Sammie Jo had a lot of questions about ranching.”
Anne focused her attention dead center on Thatcher Lee’s eyes. “She has a mama for that. If I don’t have the answers, I’ll find them. Do you understand what I mean? She’s fourteen years old, not eighteen.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Thatcher Lee’s lips turned up slightly.
Anne bit her tongue to keep from using words a good Christian woman had no right to use. But this was her daughter, and she’d work this ranch without Thatcher Lee if he didn’t stay away from Sammie Jo.
After dinner when the sun had slipped just beyond the horizon, she stopped by to see how Colt and Clancy were doing. Clancy had been cleaning out stalls onehandedly, most likely to chase away boredom.
“I need to talk,” she said to Colt. “Do you feel up to limping outside?”
He grabbed his crutch and made his way beside her. She caught a few looks from the other hands as though they suspected something going on between them. Right now she wasn’t in the mood to ask what they were gawking at.
“Thatcher Lee and Sammie Jo are sneaking around.” She blurted out the words in a mixture of anger and near-tears. Not at all as she intended.
“From what Nancy said to me today, I don’t doubt what you’re telling me. Looks like that little talk I gave him went nowhere. You want me to have another one?”
“I told him earlier to stay away from her. I hate to fire him. He’s a good hand, but I’m not risking my daughter’s future on a two-bit cowboy.”
“Maybe he needs to know what you’re thinking. I don’t mind telling him he’s looking at getting fired.”
“Thanks. The only reason I’m asking you is because Thatcher Lee respects you, and he and Clancy have had their problems in the past.” She feared her request made her look like a whining female.
Colt smiled, and it spread across his face. She could get used to his smile and the way he seemed to care about her daughters.
“Were Hank and Thomas friends with Thatcher Lee?”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Always. He was real angry when those two were caught with Double L cows. He and Clancy tried to talk them out of cattle rustling, but it didn’t do any good. Sure glad I rode up when I did, or he and Clancy would have been dead.”
Colt appeared to take in her every word. That made her feel a little uncomfortable but in a special way. Mercy, she’d gotten as bad as Sammie Jo with Thatcher Lee.
“Why do you ask?”
He shrugged. “He’s young. Maybe what Hank and Thomas did—and later finding them dead—makes him want to talk to someone who’ll listen.”
“Maybe so.” She sighed. “I’ll talk to him—see if I can be that ear instead of my daughter.” She laughed. “Raising daughters is hard, but I guess raising boys wouldn’t be any easier. Any suggestions?”
He hesitated. “I think if my ma had taken the time to rein me in when I bullied my brothers, maybe I wouldn’t have ended up in prison. She worked hard and didn’t have time to listen when we needed to talk. But girls? I don’t have nary an idea.”
“No sisters?”
He shook his head. “One of my brothers took up with a woman who had a little girl. The woman did anything he asked, and it nearly got her killed. That’s what worries me about Sammie Jo and Thatcher Lee. She’s so young and…Excuse me. Sammie Jo is none of my business.”
She glanced at the house. A lot of wisdom rode under Colt’s hat. And she understood exactly what he meant about Sammie Jo. Anne hadn’t spent time with another man except Clancy since Will died. Her head warned her not to lose her heart. Colt was a strange man. His eyes were hard, but sometimes she saw a spark of genuine decency.
“There’s some milk cake left over from dinner. Would you like a piece and some fresh coffee?”
“Sounds real good, Anne. Do you mind if I check on Miss Nancy? She found herself a friend today—a frog.”
Anne smiled. “She’s taken with you, Colt.” And so am I.