tied the buckskin to the porch railing and went to the door, letting his boots echo on the timbers to announce his arrival. Just to be polite, he pounded on the knocker. No reply, just as he had expected. He leaned closer, lined his face with the crack by the door frame and inhaled. A faint smell of wood smoke teased his nostrils.
He left the porch and walked around to the back. The garden plants looked remarkably healthy—a big apple tree laden with fruit on the left, neat rows of vegetables on the right, borders planted with flowers. In the center of the yard stood a well, and the rear section of the property housed a small stable and a woodshed.
Roy examined the well first. It had no pump, only a timber frame and a bucket on an iron chain. Dropping to his haunches, he tested the mud with his fingertips. The earth felt damp, and it hadn’t rained in days. Moving along, he studied the ground. A trail of moisture led to the back door—no doubt water splashing from a heavy bucket someone was struggling to haul inside.
Straightening on his feet, Roy headed for the stable, a small timber construction with a sloping roof. He peered in through the open doorway. No smell of manure. The stable must have been unoccupied for some time, and yet from inside came the frantic buzzing of flies. Roy pulled his eye patch aside to see better in the dark and stepped into the cool shadows of the interior.
In the corner of a stall, he found a burlap sack that gave out rancid odors. He looked around, spotted an old broom and used the handle to poke at the sack. Flies dispersed with an angry buzz. Empty tin cans rolled out, metal waste that could not be burned in a stove. The labels were still clear enough to read, indicating that the tins couldn’t have been there for long. Roy bent closer to study the labels.
Borden’s Evaporated Milk
Van Camp’s Pork and Beans
Winslow’s Green Corn
Satisfied with the results of his search, Roy left the flies to their feast. Outside, he paused to survey the house. A curtain twitched in an upstairs window. Not letting on he’d noticed, Roy ambled back to the front, untied his horse and walked away, mulling over the situation.
Had the girl too been in on the robbery? Had she known all along, perhaps even persuaded her father to become involved? The current between them that he’d taken as an attraction between a man and a woman, had it been something else on the girl’s part? Had it been a bond between two coconspirators in a crime?
Tension held Roy in its grip, new possibilities tumbling around in his mind. All his years on the outlaw trail, he’d dreamed of a home, of an honest life, of belonging in a place, of being equal to other men, able to hold his head high in public. But if he could not have that, could he have what Lom Curtis and Burt Halloran had—a woman who belonged to him, if for no other reason than she had little choice?
Once more, Roy tied his horse to the hitching rail outside the mercantile and went in. He found the clerk crouched between the aisles, refolding a stack of shirts a customer had left in disarray.
“I need a spare horse,” Roy said, offering no explanation. “Where can I get one?”
The clerk pushed up to his feet. Something flickered in his eyes, perhaps relief. “Ike Romney, who owns the livery stable, has a few horses he rents out. There’s a dapple-gray mare Miss Courtwood rented occasionally, with a Mother Hubbard saddle. Romney has a sidesaddle for ladies but Miss Courtwood favored riding astride.”
“That’s interesting to know.” Roy kept his tone bland. “I might need a bedroll and a couple of blankets, too, and an extra pair of saddlebags.”
The clerk sauntered along the aisle, all business now. “Romney sells saddlebags, and we don’t like to step on each other’s toes, but I’ll set you to rights on a bedroll and blankets. Give you a good price, too.” He pulled out a pink blanket in soft wool. “How about this one?”
Roy took a step back, dismissing the question. “You choose. I’ll go and see about a horse and come back.”
He left the store, walked over to the livery stable on the edge of town where a few horses pranced around in a pole corral. After a quick negotiation, Roy bought the dapple-gray mare for forty dollars and the nearly new Mother Hubbard saddle for another fifty, with a bridle and a pair of saddlebags thrown in.
He led the mare back to the mercantile, tied her next to Dagur at the hitching rail and went inside the store. The clerk presented him with a neatly wrapped bedroll and two sturdy canvas bags with something packed inside them. “It’s five dollars for the bedroll,” the storekeeper informed Roy. “I put in two blankets, the expensive kind that don’t itch so much.” He held up the canvas bags. “These are useful to line the saddlebags. Easy to unpack, you can just lift out the contents.” Looking awkward, the old man added, “I put in a few odds and ends that might come in useful. No charge. The contents are on the house.”
Roy settled his bill. When he gathered up his purchases, the clerk spoke quietly. “Don’t forget what I said, stranger. Every man has at least one use for a woman. If that is what you have in mind, do right by her. Make her into a wife.”
Roy pretended not to hear. Outside, he paused to peer into the canvas bags, to see what doo-dahs the storekeeper had provided. Hairbrush. A cake of French milled soap. Small mirror. Hair ribbon in pink silk. Tooth powder. Toothbrush. A length of white muslin, something a woman might use to protect her face from dust while riding the desert trails.
With a sudden pang of nostalgia, Roy realized he’d not come across such feminine items since he was ten years old and his mother died. Closing his mind to the past, he loaded the goods on the dapple-gray mare, mounted Dagur and rode out of town at a slow walk, leading the mare by the bridle. He’d wait until dark. The girl must have a reason why she wanted to hide, and he would respect her desire to remain unseen.
* * *
Celia eased the back door ajar and slipped out into the cool darkness of the September night. The scents of lavender and yellow sweet clover and blue passionflower surrounded her. In the bleakness of her life, her precious garden remained the only source of comfort. Soon the apples would be ripe enough to eat and the potatoes and carrots ready to harvest, and she could supplement her unappetizing diet of tinned goods and oatmeal porridge.
“Good evening, Miss Courtwood.”
Nothing had alerted her to the man’s presence—no snap of a twig beneath the sole of a boot, no clatter of hooves on the street outside, no nervous whinny of a horse tied to the porch railing. Why had he searched her out? And why had he come back now? Earlier, when he’d knocked on her door and toured the garden, Celia had longed to hurry downstairs and stop him from leaving, but the battle of conflicting emotions within her had kept her frozen by the bedroom window, where she had watched him from behind the lace curtains.
“Why did you come?” she asked, staring into the shadows beneath the apple tree.
“The name’s Roy Hagan, Miss Courtwood. Sorry I didn’t tell you before.”
“What are you doing here?” Her voice quivered, revealing her agitation. She battled the urge to hurl herself against his chest, to scream out her loneliness and confusion and rage. If she did, he might pull her into his arms and she could lay her head upon his shoulder and let the tears locked inside her flood out in a purifying stream that might ease her misery.
But she did none of it. Years of tiptoeing around her mother’s sickbed and a lifetime of trying not to add to her father’s woes had taught Celia to contain her emotions, to act with a serene dignity. Right now, the silent clenching and unclenching of her fists at her sides was the only sign of the turmoil that went on inside her head.
Beneath the huge, gnarled apple tree, the shadows shifted, separated and became a man. Standing in the moonlight, dressed in black trousers and a dark shirt, the brim of his hat tugged low, the man looked part of the night. He had uncovered his left eye, leaving the padded cotton patch dangling around his neck by its rawhide strap.
“Can we talk inside?” he asked. Without waiting for an answer, he closed the distance between them, took her by the elbow