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Even Coulson, a place as wicked as they came, did not deserve to be decimated by disease.
To his bones, he felt Moreland Ranch calling him home, where the air was fresh and the trees tickled the sky.
This was not a town a man wanted to linger in. It had more saloons than legitimate businesses and more brothels than saloons. Wild and rowdy was the rule of the day and more so, the night. This was a town without a single church to redeem the lost souls of its inhabitants.
The sooner he loaded the supplies he had purchased into the wagon and headed back home, the happier he would be.
He figured he ought to pay a visit to the barber before heading out, since his hair hung well past his shoulders. Hell, he hadn’t shaved in days...since before he left the ranch.
What he ought to do was not what he was going to do. He could shave on the trail if his face itched.
A man stumbled across his path. He caught the fellow’s arm to keep him from landing face-first on the boardwalk. Out of long habit he studied red eyes and felt the skin under his fingers for unnatural warmth.
As he’d suspected, the man was merely drunk, so he straightened him and pointed him on his way.
Crowds had not always made him uneasy. In his former life, before fever had decimated Amberville, he hadn’t minded them...he’d even enjoyed the hustle and bustle of town.
Not anymore. Ghosts haunted crowds.
Not the vaporous departed...but there was always the flash of a stranger’s smile that reminded him of a neighbor who had died while Lantree had wiped his brow. Or the high-pitched laugh of a woman sounding like Abigail Steen, who had fought for her last breath while she gripped his hand.
He shook his head, took a long, slow breath of air. He filled his lungs with the fresh, muddy scent of the Yellowstone River.
As soon as he deposited his wages he would load the wagon and be on his way.
It was no accident that the bank was located only a few doors down from Sheriff Johnson’s office. The sheriff was a giant of a man with a mean reputation. A thief, or a drunk, would think twice before robbing the bank.
He strolled past the sheriff’s office with a nonchalant stride, but he was anything but relaxed.
A fresh set of wanted posters decorated the lawman’s front door. He needed to look at them, but he hell and damn did not want to. The closer he got, the harder his heart beat, the more damp his armpits felt.
He slowed his pace and scanned the broadsheets. Relief eased his heart back to its normal rhythm...one more trip to town without seeing his “likeness” staring back at him.
He dreaded the day that he would see his twin brother’s face staring back at him.
In spite of his brother’s crime, he loved him and the thought of him being captured or killed made the blood hitch in his veins.
Then again, in an odd way, it might be a relief to see the broadsheet. It would mean he had not yet been apprehended, had not faced a noose or an itchy-fingered bounty hunter.
With that worry put to rest for the moment, he felt lighter in his soul. Home was only days away with its crisp air and polished blue sky.
The three years he had spent working for Hershal Moreland had been some of the best he had known.
Moreland Ranch was a bit of heaven on earth. Its southern border lay along the Yellowstone River and its northern border stretched to the mountains. The house had a view of both the Beartooth Range and the Crazy Mountains.
He’d spent more than a few quiet hours fishing Big Timber Creek where it cut through the ranch.
The land had given him a place to heal, but it was Hershal Moreland who had found a broken soul and brought him home, given him sanctuary and shown him a new way of life.
There had been a time when he’d believed that the only life he could be happy with was that of a medical doctor.
With what Boone had done, he believed he owed something to...well, he didn’t know to whom, but he’d felt that dedicating his life to healing in some way made up for his brother’s crime.
Life had certainly set him straight on making anything up to anybody. The fever that had swept through his town like a putrid wind claimed the old, the young, sweet mothers and their little babies.
Hadn’t touched him, though. The ones who depended upon him, upon his skill as a healer, died all about him, but he remained standing with his stethoscope dangling about his stooped shoulders and his confidence buried along with most of his fiancée’s family.
He’d never blamed Eloise for calling things off, not even when she’d accused him of incompetence, taken off her engagement ring and flung it out the window of the schoolhouse-turned-hospital. How could he say, with her loved ones lying dead, that she was wrong? That the bitterness in her gaze was undeserved?
Hell, he’d turned bitter against himself. He’d only really begun to live again when Hershal showed him another way. Over the past few years the old man had become more than kin.
Truly, the only person he’d been closer to in his life was Boone.
But his brother was lost to him. One thoughtless act, an accident really, had made Boone an outlaw. It had also made Lantree who he was...or had been.
“Hell, Boone,” he mumbled. “Why’d you have to draw your gun?”
* * *
Rebecca had been prepared for Montana being an untamed land. During the two months she had spent aboard the River Queen, she’d heard stories of bears, cougars and violent storms that washed folks right away.
What she had not been prepared for was Montana’s natural, shout-out-loud beauty.
Over the past week, she would barely catch her breath over one wonder before another would appear.
She’d watched from the balustrade while the River Queen drifted past grassy meadows surrounded by great trees. She’d heard the wind sighing and moaning through them at night while she slept on deck, gazing up at a sky so sparkling that it seemed to be in constant, glittering movement.
It was the sight of the distant mountains, though, still capped with snow, that brought her to her knees.
Literally.
Getting off the boat a few moments ago, she had been so engrossed by their grandeur that she had tripped over a small piece of baggage that someone had carelessly left near the gangplank. She had hit her knees and stayed that way, staring at what she had been told were the Beartooth Mountains. If at that moment she had been swallowed by a bear or shredded by a cougar, Aunt Eunice would be proven right, but Rebecca would die satisfied.
Although, she realized, still on her knees and gazing at the town, the real danger might come from that direction rather than God’s stunning mountain range.
Was she mistaken that even at this hour of the day the scent of alcohol wafted on the air...and tobacco? Surely her nose was oversensitive, she didn’t really smell sweat and stale cologne?
Even if her nose was conjuring smells, her ears heard things quite accurately. The jarring sound of an out-of-tune piano drifted out of a saloon nearby, along with a woman’s laugher, a man’s cussing...and a gunshot.
By George, she had not imagined the gunshot or the one that answered it.
“Miss Lane?”
Rebecca looked up from where she knelt in the dirt to see Tom, a young, fresh-faced deckhand, looking down at her. He had her trunk slung across his shoulders.
She stood up, dusted off her skirt and tweaked her hat.
“Where would you like for me to deliver your trunk?” he asked.
Sunshine illuminated a smattering of freckles across his nose. He stared with a frown at Screech, who sat on the perch in his travel cage. The bird eyed Tom with a pivot of his yellow-and-blue head.
“Yummy,” Screech said. “Here.”
The bird had not made many friends on the trip, very likely due to his tendency to nip...and screech, which he did with regularity at sunrise.
The safekeeping of her trunk was a problem. She could not have it delivered anyplace in town since she had no intention of getting closer to it than the dock.
“Where are Mrs. Henson and her daughters staying?” Perhaps she could accompany them until she figured things out. She had met the women briefly on the boat when they had come to the lower deck to check on their goods.
Tom blushed. “Those weren’t her daughters, Miss Lane. They were more like...well...I reckon you’d call them recruits. They’ve probably taken up business at the Sullied Gully by now.”
Oh, dear... They had looked like normal women. Aunt Eunice would be stricken if she discovered that the niece she had taken such pains to raise to be a lady had spoken with prostitutes. No doubt her aunt would compare them to Rebecca’s mother.
Tom was beginning to show the strain of holding her trunk.
“Just leave it here beside the dock.”
“But where do you aim to go?” It made her uncomfortable to see his eyes widen in alarm.
“My grandfather’s ranch near Big Timber.”
“That’s near eighty miles, you’ll need someone to get you there.”
“I’ve been told that men who are out of work often act as guides.”
“You sit tight here. Coulson’s not the place for a lady like you. I’ll pass the word around.”
“Thank you, Tom.” She handed him a quarter. “I appreciate your help.”
“Don’t wander off, now,” he said with a doff of his cap. “I’ll send someone down shortly.”
She watched him saunter away. The afternoon sunshine gave him a long, fluid shadow. Tom entered the first saloon he came to.
“I hope he sends someone out soon,” she said to Screech. His pupils flashed, a certain sign of his intelligence. “Because I’m not leaving our goods unattended.”
To be honest, she didn’t have the kind of goods that a thief might be interested in. Still, they were hers and she needed them. And there was the one item of great value, the one she didn’t even dare display so close to town.
Her grandmother’s violin, wrapped carefully in her spare petticoats and centered in the trunk, was more than polished wood. It was a link to the grandmother she had never known.
No matter how long it took, she would sit on top of the trunk like a bird on her nest, keeping her precious cargo safe.
She only hoped that Tom really was arranging an escort to Moreland Ranch. A young man in a bar with alcohol, and ladies after his quarter... Well, his attention might have wandered from her plight.
“Yummy,” Screech said. “Ummm, yummy.”
“Yes, me, too,” she answered, then settled her derriere onto the lid of the trunk.
* * *
Having finished his business at the bank, Lantree walked the isolated path that wound through the trees behind the main street of town.
The boardwalk in front of the establishments would have been a quicker way to get back to his wagon, but this way was more peaceful, more private.
Unfortunately, this path tended to be a dumping ground for drunks who had been tossed from the saloons. He spotted one now, face down in a mud puddle.
With the inebriated as plentiful as fleas on a hound, no one much cared if one of them never came out of his stupor. Boot Hill was home to a fair share of unfortunate alcoholics.
Lantree crouched down beside the man. His skin was an unhealthy color. He touched the man’s throat, feeling for a pulse.
It was there, sluggish under his fingertips. Turning the fellow over, he sighed. The drunk was more a boy than a man. If he kept up this behavior he wouldn’t live long enough to grow a full beard.
“Let’s get you out of here,” he said. Slinging the limp body over his shoulder, he stood up.
The closest thing to a doctor that Coulson could boast was the bartender at the Gilded Cage Saloon. “Doc” Brody had assisted an army doctor for three years so he did what he was able.
Brody would have enough skill to see the kid back to sobriety.
Lantree walked past the River Queen on his way to the Gilded Cage. Only one passenger remained in sight.
This one straggler made him pivot at the hip, stop and stare. She sat upon a trunk beside the dock, apparently conversing with a large green bird in a dome-shaped cage.
Decent women in Coulson were rare. Perhaps she was a lady of the night, but if that were the case, she would just be starting her career.
Her skin looked fresh...lovely even. Her expression was bright and untroubled.
Evidently, the bird must have done something funny because the woman laughed out loud. She didn’t try to hide her amusement coyly behind her hand, but let it out, lifting her face to the sky, looking joyful.
He wanted to weep for her. Give the girl six months, and she would be visiting Doc Brody with sores that she would never recover from.
Maybe he ought to sit down beside her and warn her of the danger, but he had the boy slung over his shoulder.
At any rate, the young woman would resent his interference and he was in no position to advise or heal anyone.
Still, it was a shame to imagine such beauty fading to despair and illness.
A few moments later, he deposited the boy on a chair inside the Gilded Cage.
He approached the bar and signaled Brody with a wave.
“That one’s no more than a kid,” he explained to the “Doctor” and pushed a five-dollar bill in his direction. “See what you can do to get him sober.”
“You and your strays, Lantree.” The bartender poured him a shot of amber-colored whiskey. “Just a dram to keep you warm on the ride home.”
“Appreciate it, Doc.”
He took a sip, enjoying the smooth heat sliding down his throat, warming his belly.
At the other end of the bar, a young man...a deckhand from the Queen, he thought, chatted with Big Nosed Mike. No one knew Mike’s real name, but everyone knew about his bullish reputation...everyone apparently but the boy chatting amiably with him.
