Carol Arens - Rebel Outlaw

A hand grabbed his collar, dragging him backward. From the corner of his vision he saw uncles and cousins leap off the porch and run toward the brewing fight.

Colt reached behind him, grabbed Cyrus’s collar then bent over at the waist. His cousin flipped, landing in the dirt with a grunt.

Quicker than Colt could step away, Cyrus tripped him with a boot hook to the back of the knee.

He and his cousin rolled about in the dirt, toward the barn then the house. They exchanged a mouthful of cusswords before they each felt the crack of a cane on their backsides.

Aunt Tillie, having climbed down from her seat on the wagon, stood over them, poking the stick that she had never really needed for walking, in Cyrus’s belly, then Colt’s.

The two men broke apart, sitting on their rumps in the dirt like shamefaced children. Great-aunt Tillie had always been the peacemaker between brothers and cousins. Although she was now elderly, and they were grown men, it didn’t make a difference.

“Cyrus,” she said with a frown, “you will apologize to your cousin.”

“Shouldn’t have jumped you from behind,” he mumbled. “Still doesn’t change the fact that you ought to snatch a bride and bring her home, just the way it’s always been done. Time you took your rightful place and made your pappy proud for once.”

The last thing he intended to do was make the man who had named him after firearms proud.

Colt stood up warily. Cyrus did the same. They might have gone at each other again had Aunt Tillie’s cane not been swinging.

“Colt,” Great-aunt Tillie said, “you will apologize to your cousin for throwing him on the ground.”

“I’m sorry for that, Cyrus.” He wasn’t, not a bit. His cousin would have been insulted had he reacted peacefully. But since Aunt Tillie set great store by a handshake, he stuck out his fist. “Just so you know, if the day comes that I do take a wife, I won’t need to kidnap her...and I won’t bring her here.”

“Colty, dear,” his grandmother said with a chuckle and a smile, “a lady does want a bit of romance. I was all aflutter when Grandpappy Travers tossed me across his saddle.”

The real story was that she nearly shot him through the heart. But Colt wouldn’t point that out to Grannie Rose, since she was fairly glowing with the inaccurate memory.

To his knowledge, the only woman to come willingly to the Broken Brand had been Great-aunt Tillie. She’d charged the ranch in the dead of night with a six-shooter blazing, intending to bring her sister home. The trouble was, by then Rose had fallen in love with Grandpappy.

Great-aunt Tillie had stayed on ever since, watching over Rose and teaching each new generation of children to read. For an ignorant outlaw gang, the Traverses were well-read.

“Come on.” He took his trim, straight-backed great-aunt by the elbow. “It’s time to go.”

“It was time fifty-six years ago,” she stated with a glare at the assembled Traverses. “Whichever one of you that takes over better make sure the children don’t run wild. Make them learn their letters.”

Colt lifted Aunt Tillie onto the buckboard seat even though she could have climbed up on her own. Seventy-six years looked easy on her.

He climbed up after her, picked up the reins then clicked to the horses.

He drove a slow circle about the yard while Aunt Tillie scowled at one and all and Grannie Rose blew kisses.

Colt hoped he was doing the right thing by taking the women from the only home they had known for most of their lives, but, damn it...the place was barely fit for pigs.

“You’ll rue the day, Colt Wesson!” he heard Cyrus call out behind him. “A man can’t set aside his kin!”

* * *

Holly Jane Munroe sat at a lace-covered table and stared out the window of her shop, The Sweet Treat. Balancing a knife in her fingers, she whirled a curlicue on the top of the cake she was frosting without even having to look at it.

She sighed and wished that Billy Folsom wasn’t standing in front of the bank, staring back at her. He twirled his hat in his fingers, brushed a strand of curly hair from his forehead then tugged the tips of his heavy black mustache.

With an inhalation big enough to be noticeable from across the road, he stepped off the boardwalk. The poor fellow looked nervous; clearly buying a sweet treat was not the first thought on his mind.

There was nothing to be done about it, then, but to hurry behind the counter, setting row upon row of cookies, chocolates and pies between them.

And smile—she owed her swain that much, since he likely didn’t want to be ringing the tinkling bell over her front door any more than she wanted him to be.

“Good afternoon, Billy.” She hoped the smile would conceal her feeling that the sooner he was gone the better.

Billy was handsome...he was young. At twenty-one years old he was only two years her junior. The Folsoms had sent far worse her way over the past few months.

“Miss Holly Jane,” he stated with a nod of his head. He wiped his damp brow with his sleeve. “I’ve come to... Well, that is, I’m here to—”

Billy crushed his hat in both of his fists. He inhaled a huge lungful of air.

“Will you marry me, Holly Jane?”

“I’m sorry, Billy, but no.” It was hard to miss the relief that darted across his expression. “Please tell your grandfather that I have no intention of marrying anyone. Besides, what do you expect Lettie Coulter would have to say about that?”

Lettie and Billy had been sweet on each other since fourth grade.

“Thank you for the turndown, Holly Jane.” He crammed his mangled hat on his head, grinning. “Pa’s going to be put out some...again.”

“Take this with you.” Holly Jane handed him the cake she had just frosted. “That might sweeten him up some.”

“Might, but only for a while.” Billy stretched across the counter and kissed her cheek. “Be careful, Holly Jane. I spotted a Broadhower two blocks away.”

“I’ll be safe enough. You might want to go out my back door, though.”

“Much obliged.”

Billy glanced out the front window then hurried out the back door.

Holly Jane watched him trot down the path that passed through the oak grove behind the shop. With fall a week old, the leaves had begun to show some color. This evening, she hoped the walk home would be pretty enough to wipe her mind clean of troubles.

And thinking of trouble, it had been avoided by only seconds. The instant that she closed the back door on Billy, Henry Broadhower stormed in, red-faced and breathing hard.

“Good day, Henry.” Henry was close to thirty years old and already beginning to lose his hair. His round belly rose and fell with his breathing. “I said no to Billy, if that’s what’s got you riled.”

“Would have got me riled, but looks like you’ve got some common sense, for a frilly girl.”

She smiled at him because it was the easiest way to deal with the man. “What’s wrong with a frilly girl? Sugar and spice makes for a more pleasant town, don’t you whink.”

“Having no Folsoms in it would make it a better place.”

“Say what you came to, Henry,” she said with a sigh. In her opinion the town would be better off without a Folsom or a Broadhower to spread animosity. Their feud had caused tension for as long as she could remember.

“I’d be pleased if you’d become my wife, Miss Holly Jane.”

“I’m sorry, Henry, but no.” Even a frilly girl set her hopes higher than marrying to settle a feud.

When the color began to rise in his face once more, she plucked a cake from the case, apples and cream by heavens, and set it in his hands.

“Give your family my regards,” she said, walking to the front door. Henry passed through it, slump-shouldered and grumbling.