The Outlaw And The Runaway. Tatiana March

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      * * *

      During the week that followed, twice more Roy rode into town and stopped at the mercantile. The first time the girl was nowhere to be seen, but from behind the aisles Roy could hear the rustle of skirts and the soft clatter of feminine footsteps.

      A few moments later, while he was loitering outside on the boardwalk with his associates, Roy noticed the girl staring at him through the big plate glass window of the mercantile. Again, she kept her face averted, slanting a sideways look at him.

      Roy couldn’t figure out what bothered him about the girl so much. It was not just the allure of a pretty female with the kind of figure that could send a man’s blood boiling in his veins. Neither was it the danger she posed, in terms of recognizing him.

      It was those strange looks she was sending him.

      As if they knew each other.

      As if they had something in common.

      The second time Roy returned to the store, the elderly clerk was alone, with no other customers to overhear the conversation. Roy bought a bag of Arbuckle’s roasted coffee beans. As he dug in his pocket for coins, he spoke in a casual tone.

      “The girl who works here, she your daughter?”

      The clerk snapped to attention. “Celia Courtwood?”

      “The girl with light brown hair.”

      “That’s Miss Courtwood,” the clerk replied. “No kin to me. I employ her a few hours a week to tidy up the shelves.” The old man took down his glasses and pretended to polish them with a cloth he tugged out of his breast pocket. Intent on the task, he spoke with a mixture of embarrassment and eagerness. “She needs a husband, in case you might be interested. Her pa is poorly. Between you and me, I think that’s why they came out West. Hoped it would be easier for her to find a husband out here.”

      “I’m a drifter,” Roy pointed out. “I have no use for a wife.”

      “Every man has at least one use for a wife.” The clerk took the silver dollar Roy handed out and made change, ill at ease, but something—the urge to help the girl, Roy suspected—kept him talking. “She’s a lady, Miss Courtwood, mark my words. Don’t let the people in town tell you any different. They’re just a bunch of narrow-minded fools.”

      Puzzled, Roy picked up his purchase and walked out of the store. He had to fight the temptation to find out more, to discover what circumstances could give rise to such bold hints and veiled comments about the girl’s reputation in the community. However, it wouldn’t do to ask too many questions, attract unnecessary attention.

      And yet, as Roy stood on the boardwalk, pretending to be engaged in conversation with his associates while they surveyed the bank, the old man’s comments kept turning over in his mind. Why would a pretty girl like Miss Courtwood struggle to find a husband? And what could the townsfolk possibly have against her? Most of all, what could be the reason why she kept stealing those secretive, somehow hopeful looks at him?

      * * *

      Her heart racing, her face flushed with excitement, Celia hurried home to the small frame house along a dusty side street. He’d come back again, that man with a patch over his left eye. She’d assumed he was just passing through, but perhaps he was planning to settle in the area, and she’d have a chance to get to know him.

      Even as the prospect formed in her thoughts, Celia knew it to be a false hope. The man bore the stamp of lawlessness, guns concealed beneath his long duster, his single eye sweeping his surroundings with the alert tension of a hunted animal. Deep down, Celia had an inkling why he’d come into town, but she refused to accept the idea.

      Unconsciously, she lifted a hand to the scar on her cheek. Despite his disability, the young man seemed so confident, so—so whole. How did he do it? How did he find the inner strength to ignore the curious stares, to shrug off the pitying glances? She longed to learn his secret, to discover the key that might allow her to tell everyone in town to go to hell, which was where they deserved to be.

      Letting the heels of her half boots ring out her anger at the citizens of Rock Springs, Celia clattered up the porch steps and let herself in. The front door opened directly to a parlor furnished with sagging armchairs and crammed bookcases they had purchased with the house. The books had turned out to be a treasure trove, one of the few things that gave her pleasure in this place that had wrecked her hopes.

      In the kitchen, Celia stirred the embers in the big cast-iron stove and got a meal started, oatmeal gruel with tinned milk. The bland fare was one of the few things her father could eat without retching, the tumor in his belly having ruined his appetite.

      By the time Papa came home, Celia had the table set, with a posy of wildflowers decorating the center. Long walks in the desert were another source of pleasure, something that allowed her to leave her worries behind for a few hours at a time.

      As Celia watched her father shuffle into the kitchen and take his seat, a shaft of despair pierced her carefully maintained shield of courage. All his vitality was gone, leaving a thin husk of a man, with sparse brown curls and ashen skin. For as long as she could remember, sickness had been part of her life, first seeing her frail mother succumb to one ailment after another, and now witnessing her father slowly fade away.

      But even in his weakened state, Papa managed an encouraging smile at her. “Celia girl, are you all set for the church social on Sunday?”

      Celia curled her nervous fingers into the cotton apron she wore to protect her threadbare gown. “Papa, it’s no use...”

      “Make your fried chicken,” her father prompted. “Nobody makes it better.”

      The reproach in his tone caused Celia’s sense of helplessness to flare into frustration, and she spoke more sharply than she had intended. “Papa, at a box lunch, men don’t pay to eat. They pay to court a girl.”

      “You’ve got to keep trying, Celia girl.”

      There was such anguish in her father’s eyes, such fear for her future in his manner, it added to Celia’s list of woes. She wanted to tell him their only solution was to go away—to leave Rock Springs and move into some other town—but no business would employ a man in her father’s state of health. The bank manager was only keeping him on because dismissing a dying man might be seen as a callous act that could cost him the goodwill of his customers.

      Moreover, Celia knew Papa lacked the strength for a new start. He loved the house, the books, the quiet town and the few friends who had yet to desert him on her account. Ever since Papa had learned his days were numbered, he’d been looking for a place to die in peace, and she could not wrench him away from what he had found in Rock Springs.

      Celia sighed in resignation and straightened her spine. She’d not been to a church social since she fell out of grace with the town, but how bad could it be? So far, their only weapon against her had been rejection and ugly whispers. Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never harm me, she reminded herself—a gem of wisdom gleaned from one of the old issues of the Christian Recorder she’d found in the bookcase.

      “I’ll try, Papa,” Celia promised, and made an effort to sound positive. “I’ll make my fried chicken, and I’ll wear my blue dress and put rouge over my scar.”

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