The Lone Western Wanderer

Chapter Seven

The wagons stopped before noon beside a low stretch of cottonwoods where the road bent west and dropped toward a dry wash.

Clay jumped from his bench and stretched his back.

The road had been hard since dawn. Nell lowered her muzzle toward a thin patch of grass and began pulling at it without much hope.

Samuel came over from the next wagon, wiping axle grease onto a rag. His dark beard had gone dusty around the mouth.

“Your wheel’s making that sound again,” Samuel said.

“It ain’t making a sound.”

“It is.”

Clay listened. Somewhere a baby cried. A mule brayed with its whole head thrown up.

Then Clay heard it. A small, regular complaint from the left rear wheel.

He looked at Samuel. “Might be a little sound.”

Samuel gave a short breath that was nearly a laugh. “You’ve got good ears when it suits you.”

They went to the wheel together. Clay crouched in the powdery dirt, checked the hub, then ran his fingers along the iron rim. The wood had dried and shrunk in the heat. It needed water worked into it before they set out again.

“I’ll see to it,” he said.

Samuel nodded toward the wagons farther down the line. “Everett’s been selling water from his barrel.”

A man with a cracked hat stood beside Everett, holding out two coins in his palm. Everett took them, then dipped a tin cup into a barrel and passed it over.

“For water,” Clay said.

“For water.”

“That’s a mean way to make a living.”

Samuel folded the greasy rag and tucked it into his belt. “Men make a living from all sorts of things.”

Clay watched Everett count the coins into a leather purse. “He’s got enough to share.”

“He didn’t get that wagon full by sharing.”

Clay did not answer. Everett spoke as if every road belonged to him because he had traveled it before. He had a way of looking at people’s packs and wagons that made Clay want to cover his own pockets.

A shout rose from beyond the bend. It wasn’t loud at first. He heard a man’s voice, then another. A few men stopped what they were doing and turned their heads.

Samuel looked up too.

“What’s that?” Clay asked.

“Trouble, likely.”

Clay was already walking.

The road beyond the cottonwoods lay open and bright.

Heat trembled above it. A little ways off stood a young woman in a brown traveling dress next to a dusty quarter horse.

Her skirt was dirty at the hem. One sleeve had torn near the elbow.

A carpetbag lay on a small wagon, and beside it was a wooden chest with a brass latch.

She was alone.

That was the first thing Clay saw. The second was Everett standing too close to her.

Two of Everett’s companions had come along behind him. One was broad through the shoulders and red-faced from drink, though it was scarcely noon. The other wore a gray coat despite the heat. They stood on either side of the horse like they had some claim to it.

The young woman had her back to the wagon wheel. Her chin was high, but her hands were closed tight at her sides.

Everett reached toward the chest.

“You don’t need to carry all this alone,” he said. “We’ll see it gets where you’re going.”

“I said no.”

Her voice was clear. It shook at the end, though she tried to hide it.

Everett smiled as if she had said something amusing. “No need to be prickly. A lady on the road requires a little help.”

“I don’t require yours.”

A few men from the wagon train had gathered at a distance. They watched without stepping in. One of them said something Clay could not make out. Another laughed.

Clay felt his jaw click.

The woman was pretty. He noticed that only after he had noticed everything else.

Long brown hair had worked loose from its pins and fell in curls over one shoulder.

Her face was pale beneath the dust. Dark brows.

Blue eyes that moved from Everett to the men around him and back again, measuring the room she had left herself.

There was no room.

Everett put one hand on the wagon side, close beside her head.

“Wagon needs a coat of paint, I’d bet. You steal it?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “I found it, and it done me fine, paint or not.”

“You headed west?” he asked quietly.

She searched for an answer.

“Maybe you’d fare better with a man’s name attached to you.” Everett reached for the woman’s arm.

Clay stepped into the road. “Take your hand off my fiancée!”

The words came out plain. He had not planned them. For one short moment, even he did not know what he had said.

Everett’s hand stopped in the air.

The young woman looked straight at Clay.

He kept walking until he stood beside her. He had his rifle slung across his back and his old hat low over his brow. He could feel every eye on him now. His heart knocked once, hard, against his ribs.

Everett looked him over. “Your what?”

Clay put an arm around the woman’s waist.

He did it because Everett was close enough to touch her again. That was what he told himself. He felt her go still beneath his hand. Her dress was warm from the sun. Too warm. His palm nearly slipped against the cloth.

“My fiancée,” Clay said. “You heard me well enough.”

Everett’s mouth curled. “Did I?”

“You did.”

“I ain’t seen her with you.”

“She was waiting on family back east.”

The woman drew a breath. Clay felt it against his arm.

Everett looked from Clay to her and back again. “That so?”

Clay met his eyes. “That’s so.”

“You two write letters, then?”

“We did.”

Everett’s companions shifted. The red-faced man spat into the dirt.

Everett did not move away. “Funny thing. I’ve been on this road since spring. Seen plenty of young men claim a woman when there’s a pretty face and no husband near. Ain’t usually hard to tell when they’re lying.”

The woman turned her head toward Clay. Her eyes had narrowed. She looked ready to say something sharp enough to draw blood.

Clay gave the smallest shake of his head. Do not, he tried to tell her.

For a second he thought she would anyway. There was fire in her face. But then her mouth closed.

Everett noticed. Of course he did.

“Go on,” Everett said. “Tell us his name.”

Clay’s fingers tightened once at her waist. It was a warning, and he hated himself for it. He had no right to ask anything of her. He had dragged her into a lie before she could speak.

But Everett was watching. So were all the others.

The woman said, “I don’t need to answer your questions.” Her voice was low. Angry.

Everett’s smile thinned.

Clay let out the breath he had held.

“And your name?” Everett asked.

The woman’s blue eyes stayed on Clay’s face. “Sarah.”

“Sarah,” Everett repeated. “And you’re promised to this boy. To Clay?”

“I ain’t no boy!” Clay spat. He knew he looked younger. His hair needed cutting. His shirt had been patched at both elbows. Everett called him ‘boy’ because he thought it was an insult, but Clay did not mind being called a boy. He did mind the way Everett watched Sarah.

“And that’s right,” Clay said.

Everett gave a slow nod. “Then I suppose you won’t object to proving it.”

Clay understood at once what Everett meant. His face went hot in the sun.

He had never kissed a woman.

There had been girls at the orphanage when he was young, and later girls in Natchez who smiled at him when he brought in firewood or fixed a gate.

He had spoken to them easy enough. He could make them laugh.

But a kiss had always seemed like something that belonged to a different part of life, a part he would come to when he had a place of his own and a little money in his pocket.

Not here, though. Certainly not in the dust with Everett Kane grinning at him. Besides, the woman looked at him as if she might shoot him if she had a gun.

Clay’s arm remained around Sarah. He thought of stepping away. He thought of saying Everett had no business asking. Samuel would stand with him. Maybe some of the other men would too.

But Everett had chosen his ground well. If Clay backed down, the lie would break. Everett would know Sarah had no one. Everyone would know it.

Clay looked at Sarah.

Her face had gone pale again. Her eyes held his, wide now, but not pleading. There was fear there. He saw it. He saw something else beneath it too. Pride—fierce and hard as flint.

He leaned close enough that only she could hear.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Then he kissed her.

He meant for it to be quick. A touch only. Enough to quiet Everett.

But he’d had no practice at it. He did not know what to do with his hand or his mouth. Sarah’s lips were soft and still beneath his. He smelled dust in her hair and something faintly sweet, maybe soap that had long since worn away under the heat.

For one foolish second, the road, the wagons, all the men watching them seemed to fall quiet.

Then Sarah shoved him back.

Clay stumbled one step in the dirt. His face burned worse than before. He saw Samuel looking off toward the cottonwoods with a studied interest in nothing at all.

Everett’s expression had changed. The amusement was gone, but not the dislike.

“Seems convincing enough,” one of the men said.

A few others laughed.

Everett stared at Clay. “Keep hold of her, then. Road’s no place for a woman alone.”

Clay’s hand went to the rifle strap on his shoulder. “She ain’t alone.”

Everett held his gaze another moment.

“Come on,” he told his men.

They followed him toward his wagon. The red-faced man looked back once at Sarah before he went. Clay watched until all three had passed between the cottonwoods.

Only then did he take his arm from around her.

The men nearby began to drift off. Trouble had passed, and most folks were glad to leave it there.

When they had gone, Clay and Sarah stood beside her wagon. The sun pressed down on the canvas cover. A fly worried at the corner of Sarah’s mouth, and she brushed it away with the back of her hand.

Up close, Clay could see a dark mark along her cheekbone. Not dirt, but a bruise, yellowing at the edges.

“Uh, you been traveling alone long?” he asked.

She turned on him. “You’ve got some nerve.”

“I know.”

“You put your hands on me. You kissed me.”

“I did.”

“And now you mean to make small talk?”

Clay took off his hat and ran a hand through his hair. He was not certain what answer would make things better. “I meant to get Everett away from you.”

“I could’ve gotten him away myself.”

Sarah watched him. Her hands had loosened, but only a little.

“You don’t know me,” she said.

“No.”

“You don’t know whether I wanted your help.”

“No,” Clay said again. “But I know Everett’s kind.”

Her eyes sharpened. “And what kind is that?”

“The kind that sees a person in trouble and acts on it.”

For the first time, some of the fight went out of her face, but it did not leave completely.

“I’m sorry I kissed you.”

“That don’t make it unhappen.”

“No.”

“And I am not your fiancée.”

“I know that, too.”

She looked at him for a long time. He thought she might question him. He thought she would tell him where she had come from, why she was alone, and whose bruise marked her face.

Instead, her hand came up quickly. The slap landed hard across his left cheek.

Clay’s head turned with it. For a moment all he heard was Harlan snorting from the trees.

His cheek stung. He touched it with two fingers.

Sarah stood before him, breathing fast. Her eyes shone.

“That,” she said, “was for the kiss.”

Clay looked at her over his shoulder.

He could have said he deserved it. He did. But the words seemed too easy, and she looked like she had heard too many easy words already.

So he only nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

She blinked, as if she had expected an argument.

For a moment he thought she would tell him to go to hell, though he had never heard a lady say such a thing.