The Man from Stone Creek. Linda Miller Lael

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      CHAPTER FIVE

      MADDIE DROVE UP in front of the schoolhouse promptly at six o’clock that evening, the last of the daylight rimming her chestnut hair in fire. She managed the decrepit buckboard and pitiful team as grandly as if she’d been at the reins of a fancy surrey drawn by a matched pair of Tennessee trotters.

      Sam lingered a few moments on the steps of that one-room school, savoring the sight of her, etching it into his memory. Once he left Haven for good, and married up with Abigail, as it was his destiny to do, he wanted to be able to recall Maddie Chancelor in every exquisite detail, just as she looked right then, wearing a blue woolen dress, with a matching bonnet dangling down her straight, slender back by its ribbons.

      He felt a shifting, sorrowful ache of pleasure, watching her from under the brim of his hat, and the recalcitrant expression on her face did nothing to dampen the sad joy of taking her in.

      “Well,” she called, after rattling to a shambly stop, “are we going to the Donaghers’ or not?”

      Sam bit back a grin, tempted to reach out and give the bell rope a good wrench before he stepped down, announcing to all creation that he was having supper with the best-looking woman he’d ever laid eyes on. But some things were just too private to tell, even though nobody but him would have known the meaning of that clanging peal.

      His insides reverberated, just as surely as if he’d gone ahead and pulled that rope with all his might.

      “Evening, Miss Chancelor,” he said, approaching the wagon. She’d hung kerosene lanterns on either side of the buckboard, to light their way a little after darkness rolled over the landscape like a blanket, but she’d yet to strike a match to the wicks. She was a prudent soul, Maddie was, and not inclined to waste costly fuel before there was a true need for it.

      She showed no signs of letting go of the reins so he could take them. He resigned himself to being driven through the center of town by a lady, and climbed up beside her, swallowing a swell of masculine pride.

      “I don’t mind telling you,” she said, “that sitting down at Mungo Donagher’s table is just about the last thing in the world I want to do this evening.”

      Sam smiled. The prospect wasn’t real high on his list, either, but there was a possibility he’d meet up with Donagher’s elder sons, and that was the only reason he’d accepted the invitation. Like Vierra, he was already half convinced that Mungo’s boys were involved in the outlaw gang that had been plaguing both the Arizona Territory and the State of Sonora for several years, but he needed proof—a quantity that was most often gathered one small, seemingly unimportant fact at a time.

      “Terran told me about Warren Debney,” he said quietly, just to get it out of the way. If he hadn’t spoken up, the knowledge would have remained a gulf between them, and he wanted as little distance as possible.

      He felt her stiffen beside him, and she set the buckboard rolling with a hard slap of the reins and a lurch that nearly unseated him, since he hadn’t braced for it. “Terran,” she said, “sometimes talks too much.”

      Sam resettled his hat, needing something to occupy his hands, for it was obvious Maddie wasn’t about to surrender the reins. “He said one of the Donagher brothers probably fired the fatal shot,” he went on, slow and quiet. “What do you think, Maddie?”

      She was quiet for a long time, so long that Sam feared she didn’t intend to answer at all. Finally, though, she said, “I believe it was Rex. He’s the meanest of the three, and he and Warren had had several run-ins just prior to the shooting.”

      “You were with him? Debney, I mean—when he was shot?”

      She swallowed visibly, nodded, keeping her gaze fixed on the road into the main part of town. “He died in my arms,” she said, so quietly that Sam barely heard her over the hooves of those worn-out horses and the rattle of fittings.

      He wanted to put his arm around her, but he knew it would cause her to pull away, so he didn’t. They rounded a bend and passed the mercantile, then the Rattlesnake Saloon. Charlie Wilcox’s old nag stood out front, patiently waiting to bear him home on its swayed back. “I’m sorry that happened to you, Maddie Chancelor,” Sam said.

      “So am I,” she replied.

      Sam shifted on the hard wagon seat. “It must be difficult for you—sitting down to take a meal with somebody who might have killed your man. I didn’t know about that when I roped you into coming along, and if you want to change your mind, I’ll understand.”

      At long last she looked him in the eye. They were traveling east, with the setting sun at their backs, headed for the river road that led to the Donagher ranch. Sam reckoned that, after a mile or two, they’d have to stop so he could step down and light those lanterns, but for now, all he cared about was whatever Maddie was about to say.

      “It makes me nervous when any of the Donagher boys come into the store,” she said frankly. “Just the same, I wouldn’t miss a chance to look them straight in the eye and let them know they’re not fooling me for one moment. They got away with shooting Warren, and stringing up poor, harmless John Perkins, too. Maybe СКАЧАТЬ