Renegade Most Wanted

chapter Eleven



Matt couldn’t tell which pounded harder, Thunder’s hooves tearing up clods of prairie sod in the mad rush toward Dodge, or his heart slamming against his ribs for fear that Emma had been caught on the road with the fire closing in.

If she believed her precious house would burn, a dozen folks talking good sense wouldn’t make her stay put.

Grit and backbone were a pair of qualities that Matt loved best in his wife. Unfortunately, when her house was involved, those good traits came smack up against a lack of common sense and it made his insides feel like a nervous herd of beeves.

“Dear God,” Matt whispered. Bending low over Thunder’s neck, he rode loose and let the stallion stretch out to his quickest stride. “Make her stay in town…damn it, Emma, stay in town!”

She wouldn’t know how fast a prairie fire could spread. It might seem a mile away one minute and the next have a person boxed in. She wouldn’t know how the smoke could kill you before you ever saw the flames.

Stay in town, darlin’, stay in town.

The fire spread from north to south, a blazing arrow headed straight for the road to Dodge. If he could get past the point where the fire would cross over, he’d be able to get to Emma. He’d take her to the boardinghouse and sit on her all day and night if that’s what it took to keep her in a sensible place.

A wolf raced past Thunder, but neither of the animals took the time to threaten or fear each other. The wolf was as bent on his survival as Matt and Thunder were on Emma’s.

The sky turned from crystal-blue to ominous orange in a matter of seconds and wind shot ash, but Thunder didn’t miss a step. His bold hooves kept pounding the ground.

Stay in town…stay in town, stay safe…stay safe.

He slipped his bandanna up, protecting his nose and mouth from the grit that snowed out of the sky. Without a doubt, Thunder breathed in more soot than he ought to. The brave horse, clearly sensing Matt’s urgency, ran without hesitation toward the danger that every other creature had the good sense to flee from.

Matt closed his eyes against a sudden gust of cinders. Thunder slowed, then stopped. The stallion paced in a nervous circle for a moment before he turned south, bolting away from the road.

“Back to the road!” Thunder ignored the tug on his reins and Matt’s shout. He stretched his long neck and ran. Land fell away beneath his hooves in a blur. Who could blame the animal for seeking the safety of the river? It was instinct to want to stay alive. He prayed that Emma had listened to that instinct.

After a moment of cursing his mount’s sudden stubbornness, he heard a panicked whicker. It hadn’t come from Thunder.

Just ahead, Pearl pranced in a circle. Beyond her a wicked pall of smoke smothered the land. She pawed up clods of dry grass and neighed in fright.

Racing forward, Thunder answered, his call no less agitated. Pearl lifted her nose, sniffed, then dashed into the deadly cloud.

Within seconds Thunder followed. Matt felt blinded. The air had grown too hot and thick to breathe.

Pearl would never be out here by herself. She would never have dashed into this hell of heat and blinding soot if Emma hadn’t been inside. He could only pray that with their clearly better instincts, the horses would find her.

Thunder stopped and pawed the ground. Pearl snorted. Lying near their hooves under a swirl of suffocating smoke lay Emma with her face in the dirt and her hair tangled across her back reflecting the red glow of approaching flames.

Matt dropped from Thunder’s back. The descent seemed like a fall from a cliff. Heat blistered his face. His clothes felt as if they were being pressed by a hot iron on laundry day with him still in them.

“Emma!” Her name ripped out of his throat, scalding as though the flames had gotten inside him.

So faint that he barely heard it, she murmured, “Pearl.”

“Get up, darlin’. We’ve got to get where we can breathe.” More murmuring, mostly nonsense, trembled against his ear.

A fit of coughing shook Matt. A nest of hornets buzzing in his chest would have felt better. Without fresh air he wasn’t sure that he could lift Emma onto Thunder’s back. He scooped his arms beneath her and managed to stand, but he still had another foot to lift.

“Come down, boy.”

The good horse, going against every instinct that would be natural to him, dipped closer to them.

Emma was a little thing and it shouldn’t have winded him to set her on Thunder’s back, but the strength had been robbed from his muscles.

It felt like a duel with gravity just to climb behind her. He coughed the order for Thunder to get going. Luckily the stallion understood the need without having to be told in clear words.

Matt prayed that the horse would get clear of danger before he, too, felt weak from the effects of the strangling air. Trusting Thunder to do what needed doing, Matt braced his thighs about the horse.

Run like hell, boy, he thought when the words would not shoot past his raw throat.

Let’s go, Pearl, he said in his mind, but when he looked back she was gone. He thought he heard an equine cry in the distance, but he couldn’t be sure.

In only a minute, the air grew clearer. Roaring flames became a distant crackle. Thunder didn’t slow to a trot until the only sound whistling about their heads was the natural wind.

* * *

“That’s good.” Matt’s voice! Sounding raw…coughing.

“Take a deep breath, darlin’.” Calloused fingers stroked her throat. A stone cut into her back. Fingers pressed her breastbone and then her ribs. “One more time, Emma, breathe!”

She coughed and tasted smoke and charred soot. With a long gasp her body filled with clean prairie air. Breath after deep breath filled her lungs.

Gradually the unnatural lethargy that had overcome her mind cleared. Her gaze focused on his eyes, simmering amber and worried. But relieved, too.

She hadn’t died after all.

“Matt?” His breathing seemed as labored as hers. With a groan that stretched to heaven and back, he snatched her up, freeing her of the pebble biting her back. He rocked her against his chest, so that his mad heartbeat was like her own.

He held her the way Lucy held her rag doll, tender but possessive. Since a rag doll is what she felt like, she relaxed into the embrace, listening to the rush of Matt’s breath near her ear.

“You scared the hell out of me. I thought I’d lost you for sure.” His arms, tight with tension, braced her. Sanctuary in a world spun out of control.

At last he set her away at arm’s length with his steadying hands gripping her elbows. With a quick glance he checked her over from head to boot toe.

How cruel fate was, to bring her this man out of the blue, get her to love him until she couldn’t think straight and then force her to send him away. Her heart was breaking into sharp slivers of regret for what would never be.

Matt had the look of a man redeemed, so thankful that he hadn’t lost her.

But he had lost her. And she had lost him. In only a few hours he and his family would be on the train out of Dodge. How did a body find the strength to face it?

It didn’t have to be this way, though. He had given her a choice. Leaving her land could not be any more heart-wrenching than this. Didn’t the sun rise in Matt’s smile as well as over her land?

She pushed away from him, aching over the parting to come. Knowing that she had a choice, that she could prevent it by giving up her home, only made the pain worse.

“Get up, Matt.” She tried to stand but couldn’t, yet. Matt helped her up and brushed soot from her ruined skirt. “There’s no time for that now. Hawker’s here, in Dodge.”

“So you came to warn me?”

“You can’t think I would be out here for any other reason.”

She took one step toward Thunder with Matt holding her arm. She gazed over the land, burning like a fury in one direction and clear as paradise the other. Small hairs prickled along her neck.

She turned as though in slow motion; her body felt heavy, cold with dread. Her hands flew to her mouth. “Matt, where’s Pearl?”

* * *

Red shoved his hands into his pockets and kicked a dirt clod with a flick of his boot. Standing beside the corral fence, with his wild hair blazing against the setting sun, the boy looked as ill-tempered as a bull stung on his tender parts.

“You can’t make me leave here.” Red stomped another clod, pounding it to dust. “I could take down Hawker blindfolded and turned backward.”

“When your brain begins to grow as fast as your body, son, you’ll know how foolish that sounds.” Matt would give up a lot to be able to stay here, too. It hadn’t seemed so long ago that he had behaved in the same way as Red was now. His mother had looked hurt and deeply worried when he had dug in his heels and refused to relocate to California. Moving away would hurt more now than it would have then, and if it weren’t for those who depended on him, he wouldn’t do it.

To take a piece of barren ground, mix it up with some sweat and lumber, and turn it into a home was a satisfaction that he hadn’t expected. Watching sunrise then sunset on this land, day after day, put a bone-deep longing in him to stay and let his roots grow deep.

With Emma the heartbeat of the homestead, it was going to be nearly impossible to say goodbye. He wasn’t certain that he would be strong enough to do it.

And didn’t Emma depend on him as well as the children? It might be that leaving was as wrong as staying.

The last of the sun’s rays turned the smoke from the distant fire a deep ruby color. Before daylight, if the wind didn’t shift, the blaze would reach the river and burn itself out.

“Least I know better than to run away and leave Emma out here alone. A man has a duty by a woman, to keep her safe from the world,” Red said.

“What you know about women wouldn’t fill a water pail. Hell, I don’t know much more than that even with my extra years.”

The scarlet glow in Red’s hair dulled to russet when the sun dipped below the horizon. Sundown wind pricked the grass and made it whisper around their boots and across the homestead.

“It’s cowardly to run. If you’re too scared to face Hawker, I’ll do it myself.”

Matt reached over and gripped Red’s shoulder. He gave it a firm squeeze. The boy looked away, gazing across the prairie.

He understood Red’s feelings. It hadn’t been so long ago that Matt had been a young hothead. Even now, appearing cowardly would be hard as hell. Out here, cowardice was only one sin above murder.

If he did face Hawker, though, it would not be out of vanity. Keeping his family safe was the only choice to be considered. As much as he wanted to hang on to both his pride and his life, if it came down to it he would make either sacrifice.

“I’ll admit that you’re too big to be tied in the barn like an ignorant colt, but I’ll do it if it means keeping you from getting shot. Don’t think you can beat Hawker, son. You’d never get your gun clear of the leather. The fact that you’ve never killed a man before and he’s laid a score of them in the ground should say all you need to know.”

Red shook his shoulder free of Matt’s grip.

“I’m fast! You don’t know how fast I am!”

“It wouldn’t matter how fast you are. You’re decent inside. If you were to face that killer, there would be a second where you would think about the life you were taking. In that one hair of an instant, he’d have you.”

“You can’t make me go someplace I don’t want to go and you can’t keep me from going to town neither.”

Low on the eastern horizon, a few stars popped against the sky. Soon they’d take their dance across the night. Those glorious sparkling steps never faltered. He’d watched them slide by on his nights sleeping on the trail, always the same.

How could life go on so predictably above when down here, in Kansas, it seemed to develop complications with each new wind?

“I suppose that’s true. But here’s the thing about being a man that you need to learn. Your actions have consequences to the folks who care about you. You’ve got to consider how Emma and Lucy would feel seeing you lowered into the ground up at Boot Hill. And don’t be such a fool to think they wouldn’t see it.”

Red sagged against the corral fence. He freed his hands from his pockets and relaxed his balled-up fists.

Matt leaned into the fence, shoulder to shoulder with Red.

“You see Emma over there rocking on the porch and staring out toward Dodge?”

“She’s been sitting there like that ever since you brought her home half smoked,” Red said.

“If she feels such grief over a horse, think of what she would feel for you.”

“Pearl was a good old blind horse.” Red tried to smooth his hair with the palm of his hand, but it stuck up through his fingers like prickly spikes of straw.

If the outside of the boy couldn’t be tamed, what hope did Matt have of taming the inside?

The front door of the house opened. A beam of yellow light spilled over the porch and shone on Lucy climbing onto Emma’s lap. She drew up her legs and tucked in her arms while Emma wrapped her up in arms full of motherly tenderness.

If it had been difficult telling Red to be ready to take the train out of town first thing in the morning, it would be pure hell breaking the news to Lucy.

“Maybe we ought to see if there’s something we can do about supper,” Red said. “I don’t think Emma’s got the heart for it tonight.”

Matt clapped Red on the shoulder. “Now you sound like a man. A good man.”

It might take some doing to see that Red lived long enough to fulfill the promise of that good man he would be, but Matt would reach out from the grave to see it done if that’s what it took.

* * *

After sundown the wind picked up and a chill crept over the prairie to announce the arrival of autumn.

Emma was beyond grateful to be sitting in her rocker beside the stone fireplace. Who would have thought that creeping cold would seep through the floor and up her legs when only hours ago heat had nearly killed her?

It took some nerve-settling to accept the friendly flicker of fire in her hearth as a blessing after living through a prairie fire. This one’s lapping flames blushed heat against her face and tickled her toes with warmth. The other’s rage had left her with a grieving heart. If it hadn’t been for Matt, she would have perished along with dear Pearl.

How many times would that scene play over in her mind? Would it be days or weeks or even months before she would stop seeing that long prairie stretching away with only one horse nibbling at the dry grass?

She had sensed what had happened to Pearl before she ever found the voice to ask Matt. His words had come to her along with his arms, gentle but heavy with sorrow.

“It’s a wonder that any of us made it out of there, darlin’.” He’d looped one arm about her waist and tugged her back tight to his chest. “Pearl must have gotten confused with all the noise and smoke. She didn’t follow us out of the fire.”

At her first sob he’d turned her about and folded her up in both arms. He’d stroked her hair and whispered in her ear. He’d let her weep against his chest, first with great racking sobs of denial, then later with heart-wrenching moans of despair.

Not once did he mention his own life-threatening situation. If he had given a thought to Hawker in those moments he didn’t say so and hadn’t since. He’d kissed her hair, pressed her tight to his heart. When her grief turned to trembling, he’d scooped her up, settled her in front of him on Thunder’s back and sung softly in her ear all the way home.

For the tenth time in an hour, Emma closed her eyes and listened for the clop of hooves outside the window. It might not be right to hold out vain hope—better to get on with the realities of life and accept them. Still, maybe Pearl had found a way out of the fire. She might come home. If Emma listened hard enough maybe the clipped gait of Pearl’s trot would thump across the yard. She’d hear it easily over the pop and crackle of the lamblike flames in the fireplace.

Outside, a coyote howled and got no returning cry. Silence stretched long. There was an unnatural stillness on the plains tonight. She pictured the poor beast rambling for miles and still not locating its pack.

From the bedroom she heard Matt whispering softly to Lucy. Quilts rustled and settled when he tucked her in. The smack of his lips whispered against her forehead.

It was a shame about the wolf. How many other creatures had been separated from all that was familiar? Dens and nests ruined, families shattered?

If tonight seemed so desolate, what would tomorrow night bring? With Matt gone, as he certainly would be, would she find herself in the barn keeping company with the pups?

Her house, her dream of dreams, with every comfort a woman could want, should be enough to see her through any despair. Its good solid walls would shut out misery and heartache.

Without a doubt, her home made every one of life’s burdens lighter. Didn’t it?

She glanced about her parlor. Her very own walls glowed amber in the lamplight and shut out the wind that whistled over and under the eaves, leaving her safe and warm. But were they more of a comfort than a husband’s arms?

Footsteps clicked down the hall. The rocking chair across from her creaked with Matt settling into it.

She watched him take off his boots and socks, then stretch his toes toward the fire. Beautiful toes, long and straight, that had carried him thousands of steps to build her this sanctuary.

There had been a time when his mother would have kissed and tickled the baby roundness of them. If Emma gave up this wonderful home and moved to California, Matt would give her a chubby little baby to love and tickle.

At the beginning of summer, that would have been the last star she would have wished upon. Now, well, she didn’t know anything anymore.

“Is Lucy feeling any better?” she asked.

“Still got a bellyache, but she fell asleep.”

“It isn’t like her to refuse to eat her dinner.”

Matt rubbed his hands over his face, then shook out his hair. The fire’s glow caught the bristle of a day’s growth of beard and burnished it with golden lights.

“You didn’t do much with yours, either. I suppose it’s the same grief gnawing at the both of you. Pearl was a good old horse, there’s none to say she wasn’t,” he said.

“She wasn’t so old.” She rocked in her chair and crossed her arms. “Matt, my troubles aren’t the same as Lucy’s. Does she even know that you are leaving in the morning?”

“No. I tried to tell her, but the words to make her understand wouldn’t come.” Matt rocked forward, planted his elbows on his knees and stared down at his feet. “Emma, would my leaving grieve you?”

“How can you ask? You know how fond I’ve grown of all of you.”

Matt looked up, straight into her eyes. “That’s not what I’m asking and you know it… . Will you grieve for me?”

The fool man! Did he want a declaration now, when tomorrow morning he would be riding off and taking her heart with him? Lordy, but she might be grieving more than this house could comfort.

“You’ll be on the train long before I have a need to be grieving, Matthew Suede.” He started to speak, but she hurried on saying anything that popped into her mind, anything to keep him from lingering here in such great danger. “I have a plan. I’ll go into town and make a ruckus of some kind near wherever Hawker is. I’ll call out for the doctor. Maybe I’ll say you cut your hand on a bottle of Orange Lilly and you’re half bled to death. I—”

“Hold on a minute, darlin’.” He scooped up her hands and rubbed his rough thumbs across her knuckles. “You know that’s not what I was asking.”

“It’s got to be the morning train.” Emma tried to snatch her hands back before he noticed their trembling, but he held firm and brought them to his lips. He didn’t kiss her fingers but held them to his mouth. He took a long slow breath. “I’ll say that…that…wolves—or I’ll faint dead away in Hawker’s arms of some fright…that should keep him busy until—”

“Emma.” His breath washed over her knuckles. “Why would your grief not be the same as Lucy’s?”

“I’ve become fond of you.” There was no sense in denying what he must see so plainly on her face. “There’s no point in denying that I’ll miss you.”

“Fond, is it?” He slipped off his chair and onto his knees. Somehow he ended up kneeling between her spread thighs. Yards of fabric and petticoats weren’t enough of a barrier to keep her from feeling the heat of him.

He dropped her hands and cupped her face in his palms.

“I suppose fond is what you feel for Red or Billy or a dozen folks in town.” He skimmed his thumb along her lower lip. She closed her eyes against the draw of him. “Since you won’t tell me true, I’ll tell you how I feel.”

Her eyes flew open.

“Don’t, Matt, don’t.” She shook her head. “You’ll be leaving in the morning.”

“Tell me how you feel…about me.”

She leaned forward, touching her forehead to his, squeezing her eyes shut and hiding the truth. “If I tell you, it might hold you here. You’d be killed.”

He sighed; his breath warmed her lips. His scent shot straight to her heart. As long as she lived she’d never forget the way of him. Wild prairie and horses combined with leather and a bit of smoke from the fire all overpowered by the knee-weakening scent of male.

He found her hand, drew it to his mouth and kissed the wedding band. His gaze held her, demanding her soul.

“I love you,” he whispered, warming the gold. “If that changes what happens tomorrow, so be it… . I love you, Emma.”

Emma tasted the salt of a tear on her mouth and wondered which one of them it had come from.

“My grief is that I’ll be losing something precious, and I can’t choose what it will be.” Emma wiped the moisture from her lip. Matt’s eyes welled, but so did hers. “Come tomorrow, whatever happens, my heart will break.”

She slipped out of the chair. Heart to heart with Matt, she buried her face in his shoulder.

“I do love you, Matt,” she whispered into his shirt, and then she began to cry.

Matt rocked her for a moment, then held her at arm’s length. He looked at her a long time, but didn’t speak.

He unbuttoned his shirt, took her hand and placed it over his heart.

Fire-burnished hair rustled across his open collar when he reached for the buttons of her dress.

He popped them open one by one and spread her dress wide. Work-worn fingers plucked the tiny blue bow that fastened her shift. A couple of tugs at the lacy fabric left her breasts exposed.

The air in her lungs seemed too heavy to breathe. Her heart beat too quickly not to show, but his heart beat the same way. She felt the runaway thrum of it under her fingertips.

With fingers that could as easily rope a steer as wipe away a tear, he touched her chest. He traced the bottom curve of her breast then brushed his thumb across her nipple, all the while gazing at her bare flesh as though that, too, was a caress.

At last he pressed his calloused palm over her heart, then lifted his gaze to her eyes.

“Bone of my bone,” he whispered. “Flesh of my flesh.”

He kissed her, a slow, deep kiss.

“Don’t worry, darlin’.” He buttoned her dress, stood up and drew her along with him. “Whatever tomorrow brings, we will face it together. When we’ve got things sorted out, we’ll—” He nodded toward her bedroom.

This was all wrong. There was nothing to be sorted out except keeping Matt alive until he boarded the train.

And yet the moment they had just shared was nothing less than a joining of souls. Like wedding vows spoken all over again. And she had given herself over to them; the words Matt had recited were true.

She touched her lips with trembling fingers and tasted the promise of her future.

Matt had no more than opened the door to go to his bed in the soddie when a hacking sound came from Lucy’s bedroom. “Papa, Mama! I throwed up!” Lucy’s little voice wept. Whatever that future held, it would have to wait.