Daisies In The Wind Read online

  The cabin’s interior was no better, but not much worse, than she had expected after viewing it from outside.

  Dust four inches thick coated everything: the floor, the crude wooden counters and shelves in the kitchen, the window ledges, the battered, camel-backed horsehair sofa that was the only real piece of furniture in the cabin. And a musty odor pervaded each room. The place had not been aired in ages.

  Rebeccah took careful stock, trying not to be daunted by the tasks looming before her. Grimy, yellowed gingham curtains drooped at the windows. In the kitchen there was a scarred wooden bench, several three-legged stools, and a long wooden table. She was relieved to see the cast-iron stove in the corner. Chipped and old though it appeared, it was a welcome sight, as was the large fireplace and chimney. Old Amos Peastone had lived a Spartan existence, it seemed, for the cabin lacked much in the way of beauty and comfort, but to Rebeccah’s relief he had possessed at least the basic kitchen essentials: iron pots and pans, a skillet and coffeepot, as well as dishes and eating utensils stacked on the dusty shelves. Rebeccah took a swift inventory and found a voluminous yellow slicker folded inside a box on the pantry floor, alongside a bucket, a box of safety matches, and coils of rope. Not exactly a treasure trove of luxury, but in terms of usefulness they would certainly do.

  She made her way carefully to the bedroom at the rear of the cabin. It was nearly as large as the parlor and almost as barren, but it did boast a faded red-and-blue rag rug on the floor. There was an iron bedstead, a straw mattress, and a worn blue eiderdown quilt. Across from the bed was a chest of pine drawers, with another kerosene lamp on top of it, as well as a pair of brass candlesticks and a cracked enamel pitcher and bowl.

  Welcome home, Miss Rawlings.

  The walls seemed mockingly to echo the words around her.

  Grimly Rebeccah rolled up her sleeves.

  It was several hours later before she felt the house was habitable for the night. Exhausted, but oddly satisfied, Rebeccah surveyed her accomplishments. The floors were now swept and scrubbed, as were the countertops—and the musty odor in the cabin had been banished by blustery fresh air from the opened windows, as well as the pungent aroma of lye soap and vinegar.

  Much better. There was still a great deal to do, but as Rebeccah carried her bucket and rags from the bedroom into the kitchen, she reminded herself not to be persnickety. She had slept in far worse places than this when she was on the run with Bear and the gang. They’d camped under trees in pouring rain, in open fields beneath blizzarding snow, in abandoned mines and damp caves. They’d holed up in flea-bitten hotels; burned-out, rat-infested shacks half the size of this cabin—and twice as filthy—in smoky backrooms of saloons and brothels.

  At least this place is mine, she thought, setting down her bucket near the stove and regarding the scrubbed-down kitchen with satisfaction. All it needed was a little more elbow grease, some new slipcovers and needlework pillows, her paintings to brighten up the walls, perhaps some fresh curtains —white lace ones would be wonderful—and a few feminine touches: a tea table with a lacy doily tossed across it, her books displayed on a painted shelf, some pretty china knickknacks set about here and there, maybe some wildflowers blooming in a vase....

  Her mind raced with possibilities. Oh, yes, this little cabin would be her haven, far preferable to the anesthetic little room in Miss Wright’s Academy that she’d shared with two other teachers. Rebeccah shuddered, remembering the dull-green walls; stiff, dark curtains; and rigid, narrow beds with their ugly maroon coverlets.

  How she’d dreamed of leaving, of having her own home. When a solicitor had shown up at the Academy more than a month after she’d been rocked by news of Bear’s death, Rebeccah had been stunned to learn of how carefully her father had arranged for her future. He had left her wonderfully provided for, with hefty bank accounts in her name in both Denver and Tucson. There were even some shares in railroad stock. And the ranch in Powder Creek.

  She was a very wealthy young woman, the solicitor had informed her expansively, as if expecting her to clap her hands in delight. But Rebeccah had received the news in grim silence. She could not keep the money. Bear had meant the best for her, but all of it, each green-backed dollar, was tainted. She had withdrawn the funds from both bank accounts, sold the railroad stock, and donated the entire amount to the Boston Widows and Orphans Society. Her conscience had demanded it. Yet she had held on to the deed for the ranch, remembering clearly how Bear had told her during one of his visits of winning it fair and square in a poker game.

  So the ranch was not ill-gotten gains. Bear had not lied or stolen to acquire it. She could keep it if she wished. Live on it. Realize her dream of escaping Miss Wright’s Academy and having a home of her own.

  Looking around, tired but pleased with the results of her efforts, Rebeccah felt a trickle of pride. She had already begun to make this place hers—she had put her mark on it. She had braved the chilly darkness outside to fetch water from the stream, set her muscles to aching by scouring the floors on her hands and knees, worked until her gown was no more than a limp rag and her face glistened with sweat. But the cabin was cleaner and more homelike, and she felt as if it belonged to her now.

  Fortunately she had discovered towels and linens in the chest of drawers, and rags, liniment, salve, soap, and some odd tools in a box under the bed. There had even been a barrel filled with kindling in a tiny shed she discovered behind the kitchen, along with another barrel for storing water. All began to seem like precious treasures. She hummed a little tune as she rinsed and dried the skillet, plates, and utensils, then prepared herself a quick supper of hardtack biscuits, beans, and jerky. At last she popped a penny candy from the general store into her mouth for dessert. She leaned her elbows on the kitchen table and closed her eyes, for the first time in hours allowing herself a moment in which to think.

  She would certainly have her work cut out for her here. What was it she had told Wolf Bodine? She would turn this place into the grandest ranch in Montana?

  She groaned and rubbed her eyes. He must think her a complete fool. Well, she would show him—she would show them all.

  But it would take time.

  She’d start small, selling the last of the jewels she’d kept, all gifts from her father over the years. With the money, she might be able to buy some cattle. And if she took the teaching position in town, she’d have a salary to live on and to save. If she was frugal there would be something to put toward building her herd, hiring some ranch hands, adding outbuildings, a corral....

  No one in town need know she was penniless, that she’d given away all of the money Bear had left her. She could let them think she was doing them a favor by taking the teaching position. She could build the ranch slowly, living carefully all the while, taking her time.

  Maybe it wouldn’t become the biggest ranch in the territory, she conceded, rising from the table to carry her plate to the sink, but at least it could become a working ranch, a ranch that would eventually allow her to be self-supporting and independent.

  The wind outside had turned briskly cool. Even though autumn was only just approaching, winter seemed to be threatening already. No doubt it will be here sooner than expected, Rebeccah thought with a shiver, for Montana’s winters were known to be fierce and deadly. She hastened to the only window still open—the one in the parlor—and tugged it shut, then made a careful check of the cabin once more, assuring herself that all the doors and windows were secure. The cabin looked almost cozy, she thought, with its polished floors and gleaming shelves and counters. She’d made a dent, at least, in what needed to be done. A start. It was enough for tonight.

  By the time she’d washed the grime from her face, neck, and body with a cake of lilac-scented soap she’d brought from Boston, stripped off her crumpled dress to don a lace-trimmed pink cotton nightgown, and crawled into bed, every muscle longed for sleep. Yet lying there in the darkened bedroom with a single stubby candle flickering faintly in its brass holder, sh
e found that sleep would not come. Her thoughts kept returning, stubbornly, to the man whom she’d been trying to block from her mind.

  Wolf Bodine.

  For the first time it dawned on her that there was an odd similarity between his name and that of her father. Wolf ... Bear—they were both derived from animals. Her father had earned his because of his size and often menacing demeanor—he’d been Bear since he was sixteen, he’d told her once proudly, though his real name was John Lucas Rawlings.

  She wondered fleetingly how Wolf Bodine had come by his name.

  Never mind. She decided she didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to know anything more about him. Her encounters with Wolf Bodine today had destroyed whatever romantic daydreams she had once entertained about him. The man was rude, insufferable, judgmental, and altogether loathsome.

  And married.

  She’d stay out of town as much as possible and hope she wouldn’t run into him very often.

  “I’ll be watching,” he had said before riding off. Rebeccah shivered beneath the faded blue quilt and stared at the dark-shadowed ceiling. Someone else had said something similar to her recently. And though she’d tried to shrug it off, now that she was here alone on the ranch, with no one else around for miles, it was hard not to think about that other, more menacing warning.

  We’ll be watching. That’s how Neely Stoner’s hireling had put it before she’d sent him scurrying from the garden at Miss Wright’s Academy, dodging bullets from the derringer she kept on her person at all times. She couldn’t help wondering if Stoner would show up himself next time.

  Please God, no.

  A tight knot of fear twisted inside of her. The memories brought on by thoughts of Neely Stoner turned her skin clammy. Her heart began to beat like the wings of a frenzied bird, and she felt the familiar icy terror building in her chest. She sat up in the bed and hugged her arms around her knees. Fight it, she commanded herself. Don’t let him have this power over you. Yet it was a struggle to drive away the terror. She had spent too many nights trying to stop the trembling, forcing away the sick nausea, the bouts of panic.

  Damn you, Neely Stoner.

  If Stoner thought he could get away with frightening her, he was dead wrong, she told herself. She’d already had practice killing a man today, and it would give her satisfaction to shoot a bullet through Neely Stoner’s evil heart. He deserved it. Her father had nearly killed him that night eight years ago when he found out what Neely’d done—Bear had certainly beat him within an inch of his life and then run him off permanently from the gang. Rebeccah knew that if Bear had believed for one minute that Neely Stoner would have the gumption to show up years later and harass her over some rumors of a silver mine, he would have killed him on the spot, Rebeccah was certain of it. Well, now she might have to do the job herself.

  A heavy Montana wind groaned at the window shutters. Rebeccah burrowed deeper beneath the threadbare eiderdown quilt. She had a derringer under her pillow, another one stuffed beneath the mattress, a third in her reticule. And she’d buy a shotgun in Powder Creek next time she went into town.

  What would Sheriff Bodine say about that?

  “Who cares?” she whispered into the lonely darkness.

  But she fell asleep remembering the expression on his face when she’d asked about his wife and son, wondering what exactly in her question had struck such a tender nerve.

  * * *

  “The teachers in this here school and those other gals—they’re treating you right?” Bear asked, the first time he came to visit Rebeccah when she was thirteen years old.

  “Yep—yes,” she’d amended quickly, remembering the grammar Miss Lindly had been drilling into her.

  Bear seemed to fill the garden where stone-bordered beds of roses and white-and-blue violets nestled among stately oaks and maples, and water splashed in a marble fountain nearby. He paced back and forth, all spruced up in his black suit and starched shirt, his new black bowler set squarely on his head. “You sure, Reb? You were sitting all by yourself when I found you in that library. The other gals, they were all sitting at tables together.”

  “My particular friends are on an outing today. They went to the museum,” she lied.

  Bear peered shrewdly at her and sat down beside her on the bench. He took her slender hand in his great big one, holding her fingers gently, “Ah-huh. Tell me, Reb, you know what to do if anyone gives you any trouble? Put up your fists and give ‘em their due. You remember how?”

  “I remember, Bear.” She remembered so well, she’d given Analee Caruthers a black eye only last week—and received a month’s worth of demerits for it. “Honest, don’t worry about me,” she urged, reaching up to hug him, inhaling the powerful sweat and tobacco scent of him. “I’m fine.”

  But Rebeccah knew he did worry about her. He worried a great deal. And she loved him for it. His visits, limited to only two or three a year, were precious to her—even though the whispers, laughter, and pointed fingers were worse after he’d been there.

  She was glad he wasn’t like the other fathers, so formal and stern, respectable and dull. So what if he looked like an outlaw, a big, striding dangerous man with a booming voice and a harsh, guttural laugh?

  He was hers, all she had, and he loved her more than life itself. That meant everything to Rebeccah.

  So she lied to him (after all, he had taught her how) and pretended everything was fine at Miss Wright’s, even though she was a pariah among the rich, snippy girls who came from such fine Boston homes, even though her teachers frowned at her for squirming in her seat, throwing spitballs at Analee, and drawing rude caricatures of the vice principal. It didn’t seem to matter that she was first in her class, that she learned all of her lessons quickly and with ease, that she was gifted in music and literature and Latin. She’d have been in danger of being called a bluestocking if she wasn’t such a rowdy, disrespectful tomboy.

  Instead they called her things far worse—troublesome, quarrelsome, ungainly, disrespectful, incorrigible.

  But Rebeccah never complained to Bear. It would have troubled him so. He wanted a safe place for her, a place where she could better herself, could learn to be a lady and how to go on in a world without guns, posses, dynamite, and men like Neely Stoner. She instinctively understood all that and was moved by his concerns, and never once told him that she was lonely and friendless and utterly miserable.

  She would dream at night that she was back with the gang, galloping like the wind across the Arizona desert, free and wild and safe from all the watching, critical eyes. In her dream Bear was riding beside her, grinning at her, racing her, and she was happy—but then all too often the dream would change. Bear was gone, everyone was gone, and she was all alone on the banks of a high, raging river. There were weeds tangled around her legs and knees, and she couldn’t move. Suddenly Neely Stoner’s cruel face would loom over her. His hands would reach out for her, and she couldn’t get away, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t escape those grasping weeds ... or his hands ... and she’d wake up screaming.

  * * *

  “Don’t scream.”

  The man’s sweaty hand was clamped over her nose and mouth so tightly, she could scarcely breathe, much less scream. But Rebeccah tried anyway. It was reflex born of sheer panic.

  He cursed. His fingers dug harder into her cheeks, his knobby palm jamming cruelly against her lips.

  “Don’t scream!” he barked. “I told you. Not that anyone can hear, but I hate the sound of a woman’s screams. I’d as soon kill you as listen to your squawks, understand?”

  Rebeccah nodded helplessly, drenched in a sweat of terror. She remained perfectly still, peering up at the stranger pinning her to her bed, praying he would remove his hand so she could breathe freely again.

  Darkness smothered the room, but for the thin bars of silver moonlight squeezing in through the drooping curtains. In the dimness she could only just make out an unshaven moon-shaped face; small, dark, glittering eyes; long, greasy h
air.

  No. Please; no. Don’t let this happen. Don’t let him touch me.

  “You gonna keep quiet?”

  She nodded again, as best she could.

  He gave a satisfied grunt. His hand slid away from her mouth, and Rebeccah breathed in the fetid stink of him. She fought back the urge to retch. He smelled even worse than he looked.

  “Who are you?” she whispered hoarsely, aware that he was shifting his weight from her, leaning back.

  “I’ll ask the questions, girlie.”

  From somewhere deep inside, beneath the agonizing fear and the vise of dreadful memories, a burst of defiance made her demand, “What are you waiting for, then?”

  “Uppity little cuss, ain’t you?” the man said softly. He drew back his hand and struck her hard across the jaw.

  Triangles of red blinding light stung her eyes. Her vision blurred—the round, grimy face above her swam in a gray mist.

  “There’s more where that came from if you don’t keep quiet and pay attention. Neely Stoner sent me. I’m Fess Jones. You’ve heard of me, I’ll wager.”

  She’d heard of him. Fess Jones—cold-blooded murderer, outlaw, gunslinger. He’d killed eight men, two women, maybe more. He was infamous back east. The newspapers screamed of his exploits as one of the Wild West’s most brutal outlaws, dubbing him Savage Fess.

  “Stoner wants that silver mine your pa left you. So do I. See, him and me are pards, girlie. We’re goin’ to split everything from that there mine fifty-fifty. All you have to do is hand over the papers and the map. Then, little girl, you get to stay alive.”

  He was after the mine. The mine. He isn’t here to rape, Rebeccah told herself, struggling against the squeezing terror.