Chapter 27 #2
Russ spent an afternoon writing ten pages of explanation and sending them to the territorial governor. He asked for a deputy marshall, since he didn’t trust the authorities in Casey Springs. He made several recommendations. And then he sent Michael with the package to Denver.
If the Devil ever devised a torture, it couldn’t be more agonizing than the one Russ Dewayne provided. Five days with the man Rafe had hated for ten years.
Poetic justice?
Exquisite irony?
But for whom?
They were eventually forced to confront one another. Silence could last only so long.
After those five minutes alone with Shea, Rafe had been allowed no more. He had been asked additional questions. Mostly about who had ridden with him. It was a question that seemed to haunt Dewayne.
After the first day he understood that Shea had returned to the Circle R. So had Clint, he imagined, since he no longer saw his friend from the window.
He was a prisoner. No one tried to hide that fact. Both he and Randall were kept under constant guard, their meals delivered to the room by one of Russ’s sons and the slop pail emptied daily by one of the hands.
There was one bed. But blankets and sheets had been delivered for someone to sleep on the floor.
Randall was intent on Rafe taking the bed after that first day when he’d slept for several hours; Rafe was just as intent on sleeping thereafter on the floor.
He damn well didn’t want any favors from Randall.
It was the third day before they exchanged any words.
It was Rafe who initiated it. “What in the hell does he think he’s doing?”
“Russ is careful,” Randall said. “He’s discovered I’m obviously a liar. He’ll check everything before he decides what to do. You won’t find a fairer man.”
Rafe grimaced, thinking of his first encounter. He felt as if he were going crazy, waiting on someone else’s moves. He wondered whether he’d made a mistake coming here.
Randall watched him carefully. “Take care of Shea for me,” he finally said. “Take care of the Circle R.”
“I don’t want anything from you.”
“It’s not for you. I know there’s nothing I can ever do to compensate you.
But do this for Shea. She so obviously loves you, and the Circle R can give you a beginning.
I’ll never come back, if that’s what you want.
The deed is yours. No conditions.” He gave Rafe a wry smile.
“I suppose you have the money to pay the notes.”
Rafe turned away from the plea in his face. “It’s up at the valley, in a hole in the stable. I didn’t want to lose it in case the wrong people found us. But it’s yours … and Shea’s. And I might well be in prison with you.”
“I don’t think so. Russ will do his damndest for you. He’ll help you with the Circle R.”
Rafe looked at him with startled amazement. “Why?”
Randall shrugged. “After eight years I know him. He’ll feel guilty about what happened in Casey Springs.”
“I don’t want pity,” Rafe said in a voice much like a growl.
“He won’t give you any. It’s a matter of justice to him, like sending me to prison will be. He didn’t particularly care for the way you went about obtaining your justice, but he understood it, and I sure as hell don’t plan to press charges against you. I take it I’m the only one you stole from?”
Rafe nodded.
“Think about it, about the Circle R,” Randall pleaded.
“I think about Shea tied to a man who’s forever marked as a thief,” Rafe said. “She deserves more than that.”
Randall winced. “Once everyone in this valley knows what happened, they won’t give a damn. It will be a badge of honor, so to speak. A war hero unjustly treated. I’ll be the dishonorable one, the one who disappointed them.”
Rafe leaned against the wall, wishing he didn’t feel sorry for the man, but he did. A little. “They’ll forget.”
Randall shook his head. “No. I fooled them, and that’s one thing they won’t forgive.
” He swallowed hard, and Rafe saw a wetness in his eyes.
“I have no right to ask you, I know that, but Shea obviously loves you. Don’t let what you feel about me hurt her.
People here will give you a chance once they know what happened.
Take the Circle R. Make it into what it can be. ”
Rafe hesitated. He didn’t want anything of Randall’s, but if what the man said was true, if the people in this valley could forget about the brand, accept him and Shea …
But what if he was wrong? What if Shea would wear the double burden of a father in prison and a husband who was an ex-convict and outlaw?
What if he did go back to prison himself?
“Just consider it,” Randall repeated. “Please.”
Rafe stood there. “I’m giving the money to Shea, all of it. She can do whatever she wants.”
“I know what she wants,” Randall said. “And she has all the signs of being as stubborn as her mother.”
“Her mother left you,” Rafe said pointedly.
“I drove her to it,” Randall said. “You’re a good man, Tyler.
You always were. I think that’s why I went along with McClary.
I was jealous of you. You were everything I wanted to be: brave, a natural leader, so damned honorable.
You’re everything Sara wanted me to be, the kind of man I want for Shea.
Even if she … never wants to see me again.
” Randall’s last words were almost strangled, and he turned to the wall.
Rafe turned away to give Randall privacy. He realized how much courage it had taken for Randall to say what he said. He didn’t know, however, that he agreed with him, that he, Rafe, could ever be good for Shea.
So he was silent, wondering at the sudden empathy he felt for the man he’d hated so long.
Clint Edwards no longer had a choice. He knew from Kate that one of Rafe’s remaining problems was his refusal to name the other men who participated in the robberies.
He also knew he could no longer lie to Kate and her family.
She hadn’t understood his quick departure that day when Randall and Rafe had been brought in, and he’d forced himself to stay at the Circle R.
But then Kate rode in to see Shea, and they had almost smashed into each other as she was leaving the ranch house and he was going in.
His arms automatically went around her protectively and lingered there. He didn’t want to go, especially when those green eyes studied him with protective reserve. He knew he’d hurt her by avoiding her so obviously.
He wanted to kiss her now, to kiss away that reserve and that hint of sadness. But he had to talk to her first. He took her elbow and led her from the ranch house, out to the horse tethered to the hitching post. “I’ll see you home,” he said.
“That’s not necessary,” Kate said. “I’m very able to take care of myself.”
Clint grinned at the independence he’d come to respect and admire, but the smile quickly disappeared. “I know. But I want to. There’s something I need to tell you … and, later, your father.”
She looked at him curiously but allowed him to help her mount, and she waited as he mounted his own horse.
Clint waited until they were halfway there, until they reached a small bluff that looked over the ranch to the east and the mountains to the west, and then he stopped, dismounting and holding out his hands to help her down.
She hesitated a moment and then slid into his arms, resting in them for a fraction of a second before moving away.
Clint reached out and took her hand, pulling her back. “You don’t know how much I’ve been wanting to hold you,” he said.
She looked up at him with puzzled eyes. “Then why …”
“Because I had no right,” he said. “Because I was lying to you and to your father.”
“I don’t … understand.…”
“I’ve … been helping Rafe Tyler. I took part in those stagecoach robberies,” he said, watching shock replace the puzzlement.
“But … why?”
“He was my commanding officer for a time during the war,” Clint said slowly. “He saved my brother’s life, and mine. He violated orders to do it and was disciplined for it. After the war I heard about the court-martial, and I went to see him. I knew he couldn’t be guilty. Not the man I knew.”
“And the others …”
“All men who served with him, who thought he got a pretty raw deal. We … thought if we pushed Randall enough, the truth might come out.”
“All these months …”
“All these months,” he confirmed as he watched her green eyes cloud.
“Is that why … you …” She couldn’t say the rest, but Clint knew what she was asking and it hurt—God, it hurt. She wanted to know whether he had kissed her, partly courted her, because he wanted to know what her father knew.
“Hell, no,” he said. “I hadn’t counted on … falling in love with you, and I knew … Christ, I knew I would hurt you, but I just couldn’t keep away.”
She looked up at him solemnly. “You fell in love with me?”
His hand went up to her cheek. “Oh, yes, pretty Kate, I fell in love, God help me.”
Kate was already tall, and now she stood up on her toes until her mouth could reach his. Slow to believe she could forgive his duplicity, he hesitated at first, and then his lips met hers with a yearning and hunger he couldn’t control.
Her arms went around him, and he pulled her against him, feeling for the first time he had a right to do so. He felt his independent Kate cling to him, and he knew that whatever came, they could survive it.
He took his lips from hers and brushed them against her cheek. “I love you, Kate,” he whispered.
“It took you long enough to say it, Mr. Edwards,” she whispered. “I’ve loved you for such a very long time.”
“Then will you wait …?”
He didn’t have to say anything else. Their kiss did it for him.
Led by Clint, the six men rode into Russ Dewayne’s ranch at sunset.
He’d found the five men up at Rafe’s cabin. They had gone there when they’d learned, one by one, about Rafe turning himself in. They’d known that Clint would eventually return with some kind of word.