Chapter Eight

Blood pooled across the leftover snow, and Eliza landed on her feet beside Royal and straight into Ransom’s arms. Royal’s grunts of shock and pain thudded in her ears.

“You all right, darlin’?” Ransom’s soft drawl covered her, smothering her with love, removing any lingering doubt. After all, he’d told Ahab Perkins she was his woman. No doubt at all.

Arms tight around his neck, she nodded, heart pounding, and longed to stay there forever. However, Ahab Perkins, tense as a coiled spring, crossed his forearms and laid his hands atop both guns. Just moments ago, his thug had threatened to rape and kill her. Shivers well beyond the winter cold rattled her bones.

“Sugarplum,” Royal groaned, then gasped out more words, “what you go and do that for?”

“What? You beast.” Anger rather than terror shook her now. “I just heard you say you were going to defile and kill me!” Holding Ransom’s hand tight, she stepped away from the carnage, swallowing bile. Her stomach churned at the memory of cold steel clanking against bone. While she knew well how to use a knife, it was only melons she’d practiced on.

Ahab Perkins knelt down, rolled his eyes, and yelled to a small boy. “Jessy, get some whiskey from Rattler and pour it on.” The gang’s leader rose and kicked at Royal’s head. “Nothing important got nicked, fool. Keep infection out and you’ll be raising hell outside of a week.” He stood and eyed Eliza top to toe with something more like admiration than lust. “Clever woman you got here, Canyon.”

“It’s Jack now,” Ransom said proudly.

“Aw, I see it.” Ahab sneered. “Canyon gets a rich woman and goes respectable on me.”

Canyon? When things calmed, Eliza would find out the origin of that alias. But now, Royal shrieked like a demon as Jessy poured whiskey on the bloody ribcage. “Aw, honeysuckle,” Royal implored, “if you hadn’t left me, I could have gone respectable myself.”

Eliza’s toes shuffled angrily at the look on Ransom’s face. “I never left you, Royal. We had nothing between us.”

Ahab’s voice turned hard. “You keep a knife in your boot, Miz Stony Brook?”

“I do.” She boldly faced the outlaw, and threw some bravado at him. “It wasn’t hard to get at, even with my hands tied.” Eliza lied. Truth was, her tormented muscles still screamed. It had been an excruciating five miles, slicing the ropes at her wrists, her healing rib pounding with each hoof step.

“Makes me trust you even less,” the outlaw said casually.

His dark gaze bore into her so hard Eliza’s knees weakened. The pressure of Ransom’s hand at her back infused her with such uncommon strength she understood they had far more between them than just desire and infatuation. To protect him if need be, she would get her knife from the dirt and sling it into Ahab’s heart before he could blink.

She decided a demure bow of her head was better than another defiant stare. “I mean you no harm. I came to find Ransom.”

That was true at least. A bunch of the hoodlums had emerged from a ramshackle cabin and stood, legs apart, watching and waiting.

“Too much coincidence. Who all knows you’re here?” Ahab’s bold gaze set new fright tumbling through her veins. He knew who she was. And she could identify him. All of them.

With his boot, but lightly, Ransom nudged the weeping Royal. “Let’s get him inside. The gals”—he pointed to Jessy, who Eliza was startled to realize was actually a young female—”can find some rags and patch him up.”

Eliza longed to look at Ransom, to share questions and answers but reckoned he had a plan of some kind. Meeting his gaze would be her undoing. She had to trust him. She had to. More than that, she wanted to. He likely wasn’t too keen on Royal having been her lover, but after all, Ransom hadn’t much lived the life of a monk himself.

As he and Rattler grabbed Royal’s arms and legs, not too gently, she figured it out. His order for her to tend her nemesis was his way of giving her shelter in case of gunfire. Mistrust rolled off Ahab Perkins like sweat on a hot day as he led Firewalker to a decrepit hitching post. She could almost smell it.

“Fine horse,” Ahab mused dangerously.

Inside the ruined homestead, Jessy took such quick charge Eliza reckoned the girl wasn’t unfamiliar with gory wounds. To hear what Ahab said to Jack and catch sight of her beloved, Eliza stood close to the empty window socket while following Jessy’s deft, infrequent orders. Peeking out was easy, especially after Jessy shooed her away in frustration.

“Don’t you know nothing?” the outlaw girl complained.

“Jack.” Outside, Ahab spoke the name with heavy sarcasm. “You getting yourself a woman, now, doesn’t fret me a bit. But I damn well know there’s a powerful reward on my head. It wouldn’t surprise me a whit if you and your missy have set the law on me.”

“I haven’t done any such thing, Ahab.” Ransom’s voice landed strong and sincere in Eliza’s ears. “I already told you. I came out here to get you gone. Save your neck by doing so.”

“But you’ve gone respectable on me. You got to do your duty to civilized society, don’t you?”

“I’m advising you to hightail it out of Texas, that’s all.”

“That’s all?” Ahab stopped his examination of ’Walker, likely planning the gelding’s disguise. Then he looked Ransom full on, eye to eye. Shoulder to shoulder, them being similar in height. “That’s all? After all these years. A dozen or more. After all we’ve done together. That’s all?”

Ransom exhaled almost with the whickering sound of a horse. “What do you want from me, Ahab?” he drawled. “I’m doing a good thing right now. I didn’t have to find you.”

Eliza watched Ahab rubbing his chin like thoughtful professors of yore, all the while Ransom patted Firewalker’s flank.

“But you did find me, Canyon,” Ahab said at last. “And what do I want? Hell, Canyon. I want you at my back. Like at Gringo Gorge. If I get my neck stretched sometime down the line, I want you in the noose next to me. That’s what I want.”

Poised with his arm at ’Walker’s saddle, Ransom sighed.

“Well, I don’t want this life anymore. Ahab. I’ve decided to mend my ways. But I’m no preacher or judge. You do what you want. I ain’t turning you in. You got my word. Eliza and I will go our way.”

She trembled with longing. Whatever their way held out to be, they’d face it together their whole lives through. Something Ahab said rankled, though, and she frowned. A dozen or more years? Why, Ransom had been just a boy when he’d joined up. About the age of Benjie Chavez. She remembered the things she had longed to tell Big Ben Chavez. Seemed a lifetime ago. The age of thirteen years wasn’t the time for a boy to make a grown-up decision. Children needed guidance, and without it, why, they became outlaws.

For a flash, she pondered what else Ransom’s life might have been. For that matter, Ahab’s and Jessy’s. Royal’s? She snorted at his whining form. He had no excuse for the miserable life he currently lived. Back in Desolation, he’d been a grown up man with a good foreman and a good wage.

“Nope, Canyon. I’m not seeing it.” Ahab’s eyes narrowed into slits. “Way I do see it is you got a choice to make.”

“How’s that?”

“You got a life here with the gang, Canyon. You got a choice to make. Stay. Or not.”

Ransom’s eyelids fluttered for a second. “Eliza’s the reason for my decency, Ahab. For my new life.” He held out his hand. “You take care of yourself and the fellas, and let me and my bride be on our way.”

Like he felt her gaze on him, Ransom turned to her just at that second, and her insides melted. His bride. But something else in his eyes spoke to her, and she didn’t yet understand. It all came to her quick because outside, everything started up fast. Through the window frame, Ransom tossed her the Winchester from her saddlebag as he slapped ’Walker to a trot and rolled into the sagebrush like a dust devil swirling on the wind.

Ahab fired first, then the hooligans joined in. Jessy looked up from her now unconscious patient and shrugged. Whatever Ransom had been, he wasn’t that man now, and Eliza would die trying to save him. He’d chosen her and their future over his past life. Aiming her rifle, she fired until spent, watching out for Ransom who spurted across the sagebrush. Then Eliza grabbed her Colt from the side of her leg and had at it with the notorious Ahab Perkins gang.

****

Inside Ransom’s head, the shootout lasted forever. Rifle shot cracked the air. Bullets whined. Outlaws dove through mud and tumbleweeds. Heart thudding, he darted for the flimsy cover at hand and gathered his wits about him. Amidst angry cusses and threats, he aimed through gun smoke and prayed for targets.

Finally all went quiet. Likely the eternity hadn’t been but five minutes.

Feet wide apart, Ransom steadied his knees and pointed a Colt in each hand. The drunks in the lean-to revived enough to get out of Backbone. Ahab, of course, was the first to leave, barely pausing to grab Jessy Belle behind him on a fancy gelding he must have stolen in the last three days. He’d left his saddle behind, but bareback and riding double were everyday tasks.

Ransom was glad to see them all go.

“You are a terrible shot, Miz Stony Brook,” he told Eliza. Sudden relief swamped him, and his lungs grabbed for breath.

He leaned against the burnt-up porch, Eliza cuddled against him. Her womanly scent chased the stench of gunfire from his nose.

“Might have been all the smoke,” she said, “but I am a lady. I didn’t aim to kill.”

He wrapped his right arm about her shoulders, dismayed at the deep shudders racking her. “Darlin’, don’t you worry. Ahab won’t be back. Once he leaves, he’s done. That’s for sure.”

Truth to tell, Ahab never worried about anybody left behind. Rattler was shot up bad but would make it. His chum Pocus—Ahab normally assigned pairs—had waved a flag of surrender, dumped Rattler and Rolly on horses and ridden off amidst powerful groans and complaints. Whether they got to safety and succor in time wasn’t first in Ransom’s mind.

As Eliza settled down against him, he marveled at the Christmas miracle she had wrought. What once had been his family had become just what they were. Thugs and fugitives who deserved to get caught. Still, they’d had a past together, and he couldn’t be the one to turn them in.

“What do we do now?” Eliza asked, having caught her breath.

Ransom looked up at the sky grown thick with clouds and kissed her cold cheeks while she shivered. “Wind’s kicked up. Gonna snow before nightfall. Lucky for us, the gang left their food behind.”

“What if they come back for it?”

He shook his head. “Won’t happen. Believe me. Ahab never looks back, not even for grub. It’s his way.” Then he burst out laughing and touched her face tenderly, for he saw fear in her eyes. “Trust me. I know him. He’s convinced himself we got the law after him. He’s long gone.”

“At least we have somewhat of a roof over our heads.” Eliza grimaced as they hurried inside the decrepit homestead. Her voice turned sad. “What about Firewalker? Do you think…do you think Ahab got him?”

“Maybe not.” Ransom didn’t know for sure, but she needed comfort. As for Nitro, he had no hopes at all the gang had left the handsome, healthy horse behind, and grief panged him. Oh well. Thieving horses had paid his wage for a long, shameful time. Losing one himself was nothing he didn’t deserve. He held Eliza close, eager for night, and the fireside, so he could explore all the nooks and crannies underneath her clothes. Her sudden quick breaths told him she wanted much the same.

After Ransom stirred the fire, he tossed on some of the scrubby branches Ahab had gathered. “I’ll settle you in, then take a look along the gully for ’Walker.”

“No. Don’t leave me.” Eliza hung on his hand.

Her shoulders still shook, and he lamented sticking her in the middle of a shoot-out. She’d done real good though. Pride swelled in him.

“If it’s meant he’ll come back,” she said, “he will.”

Ransom hated to imagine getting back to civilization without their mounts, but Eliza wasn’t some namby-pamby female. If anybody could hike out of Backbone with December howling at her heels, it was Eliza Willows. Pride busted even harder inside.

She jumped to her feet.

“What now?” he asked.

“It’s getting dark fast. I want to settle in.” She looked him full on. “I don’t relish the thought at all, but I sense a blizzard coming on. I’ve lived around here longer than you.”

Almost like she was a prophet, snow started to fall. For a flash, brief worry about the horses and the gang snaked through Ransom’s mind. And almost like she read his mind, Eliza stopped her puttering around the ruined homestead and asked, simply.

“What are you going to do now, Ransom?” She breathed out worry in her words.

He knew right off what she meant. His proposal had been accepted; he didn’t worry about her changing her mind. But there was much else he needed to make right.

“I guess we start hiking back to Cahoots when the weather clears.”

Her arms impatiently rustled inside her sleeves. “I know that. I mean, in the long run.”

“I can get your gram-maw’s horses back for you, most like. But I confess,” he said slowly, dumping the remnants of a broken chair into the fire, “I don’t think I can bring myself to say the words to a lawman. About the gang, their habits. How they look. Where they might be. I know they’re bound for New Mexico. But I won’t hold it against you not a bit, should you feel the need.”

“Well, I do, Ransom. I’m a righteous woman. You understand, don’t you?” Her eyes brightened with tears. “My granny was victimized at her own home. That’s a terrible thing. She’s likely not slept a good night through ever since.”

Suddenly his heart froze along with the air swirling around the old homestead, for he knew exactly what she meant. She was a righteous woman. She’d been violated in many ways. She had to turn him in.

And Jack Ransom and his alias Canyon was man enough to take it. He shut his eyes tight and clenched his jaw, but relaxed everything right off. She needed comfort, not him.

“I understand,” was all he said.

“Oh, Jack.”

She hurled herself into his arms, and he wrapped her inside himself. For the first time, she said his real christened name, and it fell into his ears like the sweetest music.

“Jack, I don’t mean you. I couldn’t turn you in. I can’t live without you. There’s got to be a way to make things right.”

“Prison.” The word came out harsh. “Only way I can think of. Likely I won’t get my neck stretched if I face up to what I did.”

“No. No! You might be locked up for years.” Her lips tightened sideways as she thought hard. “Granny’s bound to know some powerful lawyers. Why, Circuit Judge Wetzel went to Harvard Law. He’s eaten supper at our table.”

Ransom’s shoulders slumped, doubting her gram-maw would hold any ambitions at all toward his deliverance. “Nope, Eliza. You said it yourself. I did terrible things to her at her own homestead. Now, I got some cash stashed. I could restitute some of those I stole from, but darlin’, thievin’s been my way for years. I couldn’t repay it all in two lifetimes.”

She took his hand and pulled them both back down by the fire against Ahab’s fine saddle. “It can’t have been your fault entirely, Jack. You had no one else to guide you. You were a child.”

It seemed a poor excuse, but it was true. A man now, he knew he’d taken the wrong path then, but the boy he’d been had found it easier to sneak and thieve rather than sharecrop or burrow in a mine.

“Of course you’re right, darlin’, but that doesn’t make it right.” As she snuggled against him, everything bad fled his mind. But he forced out the words. “When I met up with Ahab, we were kin right away. Like me, he was a kid with nobody and nowhere to go. We were smart and quick and…made our own family. Made our own way.” He sighed, touched her cheek, and wiped away one lingering tear. “It was the wrong way. I know now. It was your granny helped me see the right.”

“Granny?” Eliza’s voice and forehead rose in surprise. “Whenever did you ever know her?”

“Never did. I just watched her through the window during Thanksgiving supper. Every thought of my own gram-maw plunged into my head and heart. After thieving your horses, why, guilt about tore me in two.”

“The window? Did…did you happen to see me?”

“Just from behind. Your lovely hair. I had no reality at all you were the one with that pitchfork.” He chuckled deep down despite their calamitous circumstance. “Or the other half of my soul. The part not damned to hell, that is.” His short laugh sounded grim above the cold wind as he gathered her close.

Their lips clung together. Even in the winter air, she tasted like the ripest berries of summer, and he’d die of hunger if he couldn’t have more.

****

Ransom tasted like the bread of life, and Eliza kissed him back, starving, eager, and real. But fear lodged in her throat. Blizzards could kill, and Ahab just might return for revenge this time.

Worse, the man she loved was an outlaw with a price on his head and a debt to society he couldn’t repay on his own. She pulled away and sighed deep. “Oh, Jack, what do we do now?”

“I think you know.” He took her hand and held it against his heart.

“No!” She shouted out the word and stamped the toes of her boots, even sitting down. “I can’t let you go to jail.”

“We’ll get that judge talked to. Whatever he says, I’ll abide by it.”

She started to weep. “But I want a home with you, a life.”

“I know. And I want the same. But I’m an outlaw. Can’t change what I was, what I did.”

Suddenly she wiped her tears. No way did Ransom need to see her behaving like a ninny. Her firm nod shook her hair around him, and he grabbed a handful, bringing it to his lips. Against her nose, his scent was manliness, not fear, and her spirits lightened a bit. If he could be strong, so could she.

“Jack, there are plenty of rewards offered for bringing in the Perkins gang,” she said. “That could help your payback. And I’m sure the law would go easy on you for mending your ways.”

“I can’t be a turncoat, Eliza.”

His stubbornness set her to growling. “You just spend a minute thinking about it. You and Ahab Perkins might have had a brotherhood way back when, but he just shot at you! You could be lying dead at my feet right now, with no future left at all.” Her shoulders shook, her fingers clenched into balls. “And with you gone, why, who knows what my fate would have been?”

She got up again, fumed, and darted around the pitiful remains of what might once have been a happy homestead. Grabbing some old burlap sacks and the blankets left behind by Jessy Belle, she piled them near the fire. “I’ll see what’s for supper. Then we best bundle up tight. High plains blizzards aren’t any fun at all.” She held one sack out to him. “Get the window covered. This will be better than nothing.”

Amazed that he obeyed, she watched his movements with delight. A moment later, however, her heart turned to lead. Somewhere in the storm, her lovely Firewalker started a tortuous life with a hardened outlaw. And in her gear were ammunition and henskin blankets. Oh well. Scrounging through Ahab’s kit, she found decent amounts of hardtack and jerky, and a haunch of some critter frozen solid. She placed it near the fire enough to thaw. It would be Christmas dinner. As Ransom busied himself covering the window, she took a small iron kettle likely left behind by Jessy Belle and headed to the door.

“What? Where you bound?” Ransom asked in alarm.

“Getting snow to melt. Sage leaves. Snow’s not deep. I might find a wild onion.” She pointed to the jerky. “Beef stew.”

The wind had started to whip snowflakes into icy tornadoes, but Eliza found what she needed, so warmed from energy and resolve she didn’t need to shiver. She dragged a tumbleweed alongside her. In the doorway, she stomped snow off her boots.

“Goodnight!” Ransom called out in a proper cuss. “Little Jessy Belle left behind a stash of flour. Coffee. Salt, pepper, too.”

Eliza burst with joy at such triumphs. “Hurrah. I can’t see a Dutch oven anywhere, but I might rustle up some sort of dumpling. We have enough wood?”

Ransom nodded. “Hope so. Looks like Ahab planned to hunker down for a while. But you set to cooking. I’ll go tear pieces off that old shed while I got the chance.” He wound a flannel scarf around his head. Somehow in the shootout, he’d lost his Stetson. Pointing to the tumbleweed, he asked, “What’s that for? Kindling?”

She smiled. “If need be. But for now, it’s our Christmas tree. I’ll find something to hang on it. Tomorrow’s Christmas Eve, you know.”

“I know.” He smiled back, and the curving of his handsome lips melted her toes.

“I don’t have a present for you.”

His hot gaze touched her from top to toe. “Ah, I think you do. And I…well.” He peered out behind his make-do curtain and headed to the door. “Give me a while.”

“Why?”

He winked at her. “My present to you. Snow might be too deep tomorrow.”

As he requested, Eliza swallowed her curiosity and left him alone to start up her crude stew and dumplings. The scent of the fixings warmed up the place with a simple comfort. Finally, she heard him call out to her.

In the new fallen layer of snow, Ransom stood proudly where the shoot-out had been, above a set of scratch marks. He sucked on his left forefinger, as if he’d used it to make the scribblings and now needed to warm it.

“What? What is it?” She hurried to his side and cuddled against him for warmth.

“A poem. I recalled how you liked the one your pupil wrote.” He turned shy suddenly as if he were a kid again himself, and her heart swelled. “I practiced it well as I could in the snow on the way here. I got no paper.”

Her eyes filled with happy tears as she read his heartfelt words. The misspellings and awkwardly shaped letters didn’t matter at all. It was far and away the best Christmas present she’d ever gotten. Next to her came the soft voice he’d used during his disguise.

“Eliza, my love, you are to me

“Strong like the willow tree

“Pretty too like every flower

“Blooming every summer hour.”

He touched her cheek, and the gesture was somehow more erotic than their intimacies of the night before. How was it she’d known him such a short time but all the same had known him forever? As wind whipped snow around them, flakes started to cover the poem and white out the distance to the wrecked house.

“It’s not much of a first home,” Jack Ransom said as they walked back inside, “but it’ll have to do.”

“It’ll do right fine, Jack.” Happiness exploded through her, and she laughed out loud. Their second night wouldn’t be in a soft regular bed, either.

“Smells good. I’m starvin’, darlin’.”

“I’m hungry, too, Jack. In every single way.”

After a quick intake of breath, he held her, back to front, his lips on her hair. “I longed to kiss your hair first time I saw it from that window. But Eliza…”

Against him, she tensed at his somber tone.

“If I do time, will you wait for me?”

Worry enflamed her, but her happiness outshone it. She strengthened her voice to hold off the trembles. “As long as it takes.”

“Then I can bear whatever my future holds. Long as you’re part of it. Because you’re part of me now. I love you, Eliza. And Merry Christmas.”

Hope helped relax her, and she turned to hold him close against her eager body. “Merry Christmas yourself. And I love you back, Jack Ransom. Forever and ever. Amen.”

Something, or someone stumbled against the battered front stoop, and her heart thudded.

Gun drawn, Ransom opened the door… to a whinny.

“Firewalker!” Eliza shrieked, dashing to throw her arms about the gelding’s neck.

She knew now, for certain, there was nothing else to want.