“Dammit!”
Callie rose stiffly from the dirt where she’d been thrown once more, turning to observe Noah race on foot after the pure bred horse. It slowed down easily now that they were no longer shooting guns in its vicinity.
Cocking one hip and shading her eyes, the young widow shook her head in defeat as she watched the sixteen-year-old youth capture the horse and circle back toward her. Bending to retrieve her hat and slapping it against her thigh encased in the men’s pants she’d gone to wearing around her ranch, Callie muttered more curse words before facing the returning ranch hand and her prize stallion.
“This ain’t workin’, Missus West. No matter what we do, he just ain’t gonna accept gunshots around him!”
The youth and the horse stopped before Callie, both looking apologetic (if an animal could be described as such) as they gazed into the widow’s annoyed expression. Slamming the crumpled headpiece back onto her tangled golden hair, Callie met Noah’s eyes on a sigh and a shrug of the shoulders.
She reached out to pet the horse’s velvety nose as if to tell him it was alright; that he hadn’t angered his master, although Callie was at her wits’ end. It had been over two weeks and the animal remained just as skittish around gun fire as he’d been when she’d first brought him home. How was she ever going to sell her training skills to the Cavalry if the example horse ran at the first crack of a rifle?
Transferring her gaze to the sixteen-year-old, who looked as dusty and disappointed as she, Callie sighed again and took the horse’s reins from Noah. They headed back to the corral, Callie hobbling slightly after her third toss from the saddle while addressing the horse resignedly.
“I don’t know what to do with you, Chance. You’re supposed to be one of the most intelligent animals on the face of God’s green earth. I’m not shooting at you; you should know that by now. You’re my ticket to independence.”
The horse tossed his head as if in doubt of her assurances.
Noah glanced at his boss under his hat as he trailed beside the large equine, seconding her comment. After all, working for the Widow West was his second chance at a life, too. He needed this horse to succeed for his own future as well.
Knowing this, the sixteen-year-old ventured, “It ain’t too late to go get help from that gunfighter, Ma’am. He’s still hangin’ around town.”
Callie felt her face color at just the mention of that silver-eyed, rippling muscled, thoroughbred of a man! Lordy, the way he looked at her sent her insides a-quivering like a jar of jelly left out in the sun too long! This feminine response grated Callie’s nerves, especially since she’d sworn off men in the first place, causing her to snap waspishly at the innocent youth.
“I don’t need to teach the horse how to shoot, Noah, so why do I need that gunman?”
With an overly patient expression crossing his young, blond-whiskered face, the boy replied, giving his boss an arch look, “Quit bein’ funny, Miz Callie. You saw how that man rode. He knows horses, he does. I bet he could train this one around guns right fine.”
Woman and youth held gazes, Noah refusing to look down until his boss heaved a sigh, taking her hat off her head and swiping back tendrils of hair from her forehead.
Glancing away momentarily Callie replied, “I can’t afford to pay him, Noah, even if I wanted to, which I don’t.
“No, it’s gonna have to be you and me, Noah Lawson. Now let me get back up on him, and this time you shoot behind us.”
Callie grabbed the pommel of the saddle while Noah knelt reluctantly and laced his fingers, giving the widow a leg up on the beautiful, skittish, animal Callie had named Second Chance. He was her second chance at life, and now they were giving him many more chances than two to learn to run amongst gunshots.
After Callie gave her ranch hand a curt nod and wheeled away, Second Chance trotting as if he had no cares in the world, Noah shook his head resignedly and strode toward the rifle he’d dropped after their last incident. Bending to pick the weapon up and hefting it reluctantly, the youth muttered to himself, “This ain’t gonna be any different, Miz Callie, mark my words.”
Waiting for horse and rider to break into a canter and get far enough away to resemble a battle situation, Noah sighted behind the pair, finger steady on the trigger. A moment later, holding his breath for steadiness, the sixteen-year-old fired, with much the same results as their earlier attempts. The horse went crazy.
“I told you it wouldn’t work, Miz West! Pull him in!” Noah yelled, dropping the gun once and running after the galloping horse and rider, one hand holding the crown of his Stetson firmly on his head.
Of course he couldn’t keep up, but Noah continued to give chase. When the horse wildly bucked over a tumble weed, Noah watched his boss bounce like a rag doll before sliding from the saddle. Unlike the previous attempts when she landed on the ground in painful humiliation, this time Callie West’s right foot remained caught in the stirrup and Second Chance began to drag his rider across the sandy ground.
Noah stared in horror as Callie’s body bumped through the scrub brush and dirt mounds. Pausing momentarily before doubling his efforts in the chase, Noah began shouting the purebred’s name and whistling between his fingers for the animal to stop. Miraculously it did.
“Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” The youth repeated over and over, running to the horse but wisely slowing his gait as he approached the spooked animal and its dangling owner.
“Miz West! Miz West! Are you alright? Good God!” Cautiously Noah put a gentle hand on Chance’s side, running his other down to the stirrup and freeing Callie’s foot. Her whole body shuddered to the ground as she groaned loudly.
Quickly tying the reins to the brush, Noah knelt by the woman, brushing her hair carefully from her face and glancing over her body for injuries or broken bones. Callie’s clothes were torn, and any skin visible was scratched and oozing blood. Luckily there didn’t seem to be any gushing wounds as far as Noah could see, but he was in way over his head as far as doctoring the injured widow was concerned.
“Talk to me, Miz Callie! Can you get up? Please say yes!"
The youth’s voice cracked as he pleaded for his boss to show some signs other than groaning that she was fine. Just as fear and dread began warring within him like two spitting bobcats, Callie West’s eyes fluttered open and caught Noah’s worried gaze, her own clouded with pain and disbelief. The sting of grains of sand and pebbles embedded in her lacerations began sizzling into Callie’s consciousness, though she bit off another moan, refusing to succumb to weakness.
“Is anything broken, Ma’am? I don’t know what to do!—“
Callie reached out and grabbed hold of Noah’s arm, the strength of her grasp silencing his dithering.
“Nothing’s broken, Noah. Just give me a second and I’ll try getting up.”
Slowly, carefully, Callie rose to a sitting position, grimacing and biting off hisses of agony. Even through the cloud of pain she knew instinctively that any sign of weakness on her part would agitate the youth further. He was already at the end of his tether. So, with the use of his outstretched hand, Callie rose achingly to her feet, biting her lips and closing her eyes.
Dear God, her skin was on fire! This was what sleeping on a bed of nails felt like, she was sure. Looking down at herself, Callie saw the rips and tears of her shirt and pants, and the blood oozing from raw flesh, and she nearly swooned. But, sensing her ranch hand’s perusal, Callie glanced up into his worried grey eyes and attempted a lop-sided smile, taking in the docilely grazing stallion behind him.
“I’ll be fine, Noah. This is the price we pay for doing the training ourselves. Believe me, once we figure out what works, we’ll be sitting pretty. This is just a bump in the road. We’ll get this straightened out, make a name for ourselves as trainers, an’ later start that stud farm. You’ll see.”
Noah shook his head in disbelief, grabbing Chance’s reins with one hand as he replied, “I think I ought to fetch Doc, Miz Callie. If you don’t get those cuts cleaned out completely they’ll fester an’—“
“Hush, Noah.” Callie raised a hand to stem the flow of worry pouring from the youth’s mouth.
“Doc’s a kind soul, but he can’t keep his mouth shut to save his life. If it gets out I’m having trouble, all the nay-sayers will be tellin’ me ‘I told you so.’ No, you just take care of Chance, an’ I’ll go doctor myself. Lesson’s done for today; maybe tomorrow we’ll have a breakthrough.”
The widow creakily limped forward, leaving the boy and animal to follow behind.
Behind her back, Noah shook his head at his boss’s bull-headedness. She was gonna kill herself, that was for certain sure, and Noah wasn’t about to stand by and let that happen. They were doing something wrong, and he knew of at least one person who could tell them what their problem was. And he was going to ask that man whether the widow West liked it or not!
##
The next day Callie felt like a stampede of cattle had run over her with each and every one of their hooves. She could barely roll herself out of bed. Last night had been bad enough. It had taken her over an hour to cleanse her wounds, and during the process she’d cursed worthy of any cowhand she’d ever known. This morning was even worse.
“Oh, dear Lord! There is absolutely no way I’m gonna be able to climb on top of that horse today!”
Callie sat on the edge of her bed in misery, staring down at the floor between her bare feet with her lower lip caught between her teeth as she accepted the inevitable: she was going to have to keep to the house and count on Noah to tend the peach orchard as well as care for the livestock.
The young man could certainly do so, but Callie hated to rely on anyone else; it was a sign of weakness. At least, to her late husband it had been so. Shaking her head slowly, Callie reminded herself that that man was long gone, and she needed to learn to ask for help without expecting ridicule…
As if on cue, she heard knocking downstairs at the rear door. The locked rear door.
“Dammit!” the widow cursed, forcing herself into an upright stance and shuffling painfully for the bedroom door, snagging her white dressing gown off the foot of the bed in the process. Noah would only get worried if she ignored his knock, so, gaining the upper landing, Callie yelled downstairs, “Comin’! Be patient!”
The youth stopped knocking; he must have realized she could only move so fast. It was several minutes before Callie maneuvered the stairs and hobbled to the kitchen door, pulling it open to face her ranch hand, one hand on the door knob and one pressed against her stomach.
“Jesus Christ!”
Noah stared at his boss, the blasphemy slipping past his lips as he took in her appearance. She looked like she’d been worked over by professional fighters. Although Callie’s face was unmarred, her eyes were dull and pain-filled, her lower arms sported various bruises, and her slightly hunched posture told the truth: the widow was in no condition to do any physical labor.
Realizing he was staring, and that he was seeing his boss in her sleepwear, Noah flushed to the roots of his blonde hair, eyes skittering away, looking at anything but the widow in what was obviously her nightgown and robe!
It was one thing for the youth to peer unabashedly over saloon doors in an attempt to spy the scantily clad saloon girls employed there. It was a completely different situation to see his female boss in her bed clothes. As long as he’d lived here with the Wests, Miz Callie had always been fully clothed when he’d seen her. Her appearance today showed just how poorly she must feel, if she forgot how she looked before answering the door.
Staring pointedly at the door frame and not at the woman, Noah stammered, “I—I took care of all the livestock, Miz West. I figured I’d check the orchard when it gets hotter. I thought I might g—go into town and get some feed for Chance, if that’s alright with you.”
The lie came easily to Noah’s lips. Ever since Callie had taken him in against her husband’s wishes, after the Indian attack, the youth felt a bond between them, never stronger than right now. She had come to him in his hour of need, taken care of him when everyone else would have sent him to the home for orphans in Fort Worth.
Now it was his turn to take care of her, even if she didn’t want him to do so. The widow needed help with her fledgling business; Noah Lawson was going to get her that help, even if Callie West didn’t accept that she required it. To do so he needed to get to town; hence the white lie.
Noah made the mistake of glancing up just then, catching Callie’s narrowed gaze pinned on him, already suspicious.
The youth squirmed inwardly, adding quickly, “Do you need anything from the general store, Miz Callie?” Hopefully he’d side-tracked her suspicions.
Maintaining her deep study of the teenager, Callie replied slowly, “No-o-o, I don’t think so. You aren’t sneakin’ over to get the doctor, are you, Noah Lawson? Or my sister? Lord, that woman worries over worrying!” She’d thrown down the gauntlet at last. Truth or lie, boy!
“No, Ma’am!” Noah replied readily, relieved to be able to answer in the affirmative. But wait till she knew the reality…
“Good! ‘cause you know how I feel about them and their gabby ways. I don’t need Sam and her dithering, or all the eligible men in Round Rock circling around here, tryin’ to give me advice. Understand?”
Noah met the widow’s gaze with a guileless one of his own, crossing his fingers behind his back hopefully. After holding her assessing study for several seconds, the youth quietly expelled a held-in breath as Callie stepped back from the door, clearly accepting his answer.
“Then get on, boy. I can’t seem to move much yet, so hustle back home to tend the orchard. If I do feel better I’ll try to get to water the trees, but—“
“Don’t you do it, Miz Callie! I’ll be back plenty early. You just rest and clean your wounds. I mean it, Ma’am! If you don’t want me fetchin’ Doc, then you’d best take care of yourself!”
Callie raised her brows at the orphan’s strong admonishment. Smiling gently, Callie replied, “Well, well. Aren’t you becoming a grown man? I’m glad to be here to see it. Yes, sir, Mr. Lawson. I won’t do anything more physical than make a cup of coffee. Is that alright?”
Her grin brought an answering one to Noah’s face.
“That sounds more like it, Ma’am. I’ll be back in no time.”
The teen touched the brim of his hat, turned, and jumped off the wood porch, jogging to the barn to hitch the mule to the wagon, his subterfuge safe for the time being.
##
Staring into the man’s eyes from across the poker table, knowing he would render his opponent penniless in about ten seconds, Sonny McQuade exhaled a stream of smoke toward the ceiling and admitted to himself that the town of Round Rock had not gotten any friendlier towards him in the two weeks he’d been calling it home.
No, sirree; they were simply tolerating his presence much like a mother cat tolerates her kittens; they’re there, but she knows for not much longer. So it was with the townspeople; they took his money, but they would breathe a collective sigh of relief when they saw the backend of him leaving Round Rock. So much for making a new home for himself. This town was turning out to be much like all the others in his past.
Sonny shifted in his chair, glancing down at his hand and giving nothing away in his expression. The other feller, on the other hand, was sweating bullets; almost made Sonny curl his lip, being a rather fastidious man himself.
Watching the player opposite him pull out a bandana and mop his brow, Sonny inwardly sighed and decided to put the man out of his misery. Capturing the gentleman’s gaze with his own silvery gleam, Sonny spread his hand out neatly before him, saying tersely, “Four of a kind.”
“Aw, shee-it!” Sonny’s opponent grumbled, throwing his own piddling two of a kind hand upon the table and gulping his whiskey down even though it was still morning. Sonny watched him dispassionately for a moment before reaching for the pot.
“Excuse me, Mr. McQuade?”
The gunfighter glanced up under his hat brim, arms outstretched in preparation of gathering his winnings. The kid standing before him, twisting his hat brim between large fingers looked reasonably familiar, though his appearance didn’t ring a bell immediately. Sonny cocked his head, transferring his rolled cigarette to the corner of his mouth.
“Do I know you, boy?” he queried around the smoke, scooping the money into a neat pile and beginning to separate it systematically. His opponent hastily nodded his head in farewell and shoved back his chair to leave, pockets as empty as his drinking glass.
“Y—yessir. We met at the train coupla weeks back. I’m Noah Lawson, sir. Miz Callie West’s ranch hand.”
The gunslinger’s hands stilled in their activity, hovering over the pile of money as Sonny looked back up at the youth and pinned him in that hypnotizing gaze he adopted when concentrating.
“Go on.”
“Well, sir; remember that horse you caught when it spooked off the train that day we met?”
The gunfighter nodded in slow assent, mind casting back to the event.
“The thing is, sir, it ain’t learnin’ what Miz West is tryin’ to teach it.—“
Sonny held Noah’s gaze dispassionately, even as a picture of the shapely Widow West rose in his memory.
“Maybe it’s just stupid,” the gunman suggested laconically, indicating with a dip of his hat brim that the boy should take the chair recently vacated by his sweating opponent.
Noah complied, shaking his head vehemently and replying, “No sir! Second Chance is damn smart! He just don’t like gun fire!”
“What’re you tryin’ to do, shoot him?” This asked incredulously.
The kid laughed.
“Not at all, sir. We’re tryin’ to get him used to gunfire, so he won’t bolt in battle. Miz West wants to train horses for the cavalry, an’ Second Chance is supposed to be our example horse.”
Silence, suddenly charged and heavy, permeated the corner of the saloon where they sat. Sonny McQuade sat upright, completely still, like a snake before it strikes, blue eyes honing in on the youth with razor-sharp intensity. The smoke from his hand-rolled cigarette wreathed his head as the silence spun out.
Noah shifted restlessly in his chair under the gunfighter’s penetrating gaze, curious about McQuade’s puzzling reaction. The man seemed to have been blasted by an ice wind; he sat so motionless, not even blinking.
Just when Noah opened his mouth to question the gunman, McQuade asked, “Where’d Miz West get that notion?”
Cautiously, continuing to eyeball the rigid gunslinger across from him, Noah replied slowly, “Her daddy, I reckon. He always wanted to own a horse farm; cattle weren’t for him, she told me once. But then her mama and daddy were killed by the same thievin’ Injuns my folks were killed by and that ended that plan. She married Mr. West, and he was a cattle man. But now he’s gone.”
The gunslinger continued to stare unwaveringly at Noah as if he were weighing something in his head, but the youth met him look for look. The older man’s reaction was unusual, to say the least. Noah wondered briefly if the gunfighter might be wanted by the cavalry, for it was at the mention of that subject when McQuade began acting peculiar.
Noah narrowed his eyes on McQuade just as the gunslinger seemed to shrug off his brown study, eyes sharpening once more as he sat back in his chair and returned to separating his winnings. Deliberately he removed his cigarette from between his lips and tossed it into the nearby spittoon to gutter out.
“So what’s all this got to do with me, boy?” McQuade asked, tilting his head down toward the table, face shadowed.
Sure he’d been about to be dismissed from the gunfighter’s presence, Noah blinked in hopeful surprise at McQuade’s non-committal response. It was better than a flat-out “No.”
Straightening in his chair importantly Noah explained, “We need help. You know horses. That’s apparent. But Miz West? She’s gonna kill herself trainin’ that stallion, Sir. Chance is a good horse; don’t get me wrong. He’s smart, an’ a real quick learner, too. ‘Cept for around guns. He spooks every time. Why, yesterday, he drug her a good fifteen yards before I stopped him!—“
McQuade’s hand shot out and manacled Noah’s wrist, snapping the youth’s startled eyes up to the gunman’s suddenly glacial ones.
“What did you just say?” This was asked in a low, insistent tone that brooked no hesitation on Noah’s part. Uneasy under the icy scrutiny, Noah stammered, “I—I said he d—drug her—“
“That’s what I thought you said, boy. How the hell is she training this horse to get used to gunfire? Is she riding him and shooting away from him? Is she shooting over his head at a gallop? How-“
“She takes off at a trot or a canter, and I shoot past them.” Noah held the gunfighter’s direct gaze, squaring his shoulders in preparation for the gunslinger’s imminent response. He wasn’t disappointed.
McQuade’s jaw dropped, eyes widened, and he uttered a low, “Shit!”
Man and youth stared at each other, both surprised at the other’s reaction. McQuade couldn’t believe what the kid had told him. Shooting around the horse? No wonder the stallion bolted! It was a survival instinct! That animal was a prime piece of horseflesh.
These two imbeciles didn’t deserve that kind of animal! Eventually one of two things would happen: either the horse would harm itself and have to be put down, or one of these two lunatics would end up dead or seriously injured.
Irritated at the widow and this boy, as well as at the situation he now found himself in, McQuade said brusquely, “Leave me be, boy. Go back home and take care of that crazy widow-woman before she maims herself or the horse. If I decide to help your sorry asses you’ll see me there. Otherwise, leave me alone.”
With a quick shooing motion of his hands the gunfighter dismissed the confused teen, who didn’t know what had just happened. All he really understood was the gunslinger hadn’t exactly said yes, or no.
Stumbling to his feet, uneasy under McQuade’s narrow-eyed silver glare, Noah backed away from the table, apologized to the saloon girl he bumped into, and lurched out the door. The gunfighter’s eyes remained trained on him all the way.
##
Holy shit. This was a fine mess he found himself in now, Sonny McQuade sneered inwardly as his blue gaze tracked the youth’s retreating progress. Eyes narrowing, Sonny pondered over his dilemma.
On the one hand, he hated the cavalry and didn’t want anything to do with it or its regulations. On the other hand, that horse needed someone around to protect him! Those two ignoramuses would end up killing the animal. They called him Second Chance, eh? Sonny mused, stroking his chin thoughtfully and staring off into space—
“You ready now, Sonny? Is that why you keep starin’ at me?”
Sonny blinked back into the present, focusing on the saloon girl standing before him in a low-cut, green-satin dress and black lace stockings. She’d serviced him a few times since he’d arrived in Round Rock. With her hand on one curvy hip and a salacious look pinned on his face, the woman’s meaning was crystal clear. Problem was, Sonny already found her form of entertainment boring. She had a limited repertoire of skills…
Sitting back in the chair and cocking his hat in order to look directly at the soiled dove, Sonny let her down gently with a self-deprecating smile.
“Thanks anyway, Sally, but I’ve got things weighin’ on my mind and I wouldn’t be able to… devote…the attention you deserve.”
Sally leaned her hands on the table across from Sonny, affording him an unobstructed view down the bodice of her dress, saying suggestively, “I’m sure I could change your mind, Sonny, if you just gave me a chance. C’mon, now. Give me a tumble.”
Her pleading grate on his nerves, sending Sonny to his feet with a scrape of his chair and a finger to his hat brim. After picking up his money pouch, he rounded the table and stopped close enough beside Sally that she felt his body heat through the thin material of her dress.
Sonny tilted her chin up so he could look directly into her eyes and said the lie gently, “The idea is temptin’, Sal; don’t get me wrong. But the day’s a-wastin’ and I have places to go. Another time, perhaps.”
He trailed a gentle finger down Sally’s neck, giving her goose bumps before turning and heading out the swinging doors, the jangle of his spurs and the image of that loose-hipped gait of his pressing a sigh of longing out of the saloon girl’s lungs, and heart.