Linda Miller - The Man from Stone Creek

“Seven o’clock, then,” Undine chimed, twinkling. “The ranch house is five miles east of here, along the river trail.”

Sam nodded. “I’ll be there,” he said.

“Bring Miss Chancelor here along with you,” Mungo added. It wasn’t an invitation. It was an order, thrust into the exchange like a fist.

Maddie opened her mouth to protest.

“That’s a fine idea,” Sam replied before she could get a word out.

Undine’s face fell. Mungo took a hard grip on her elbow and ushered her toward the door. “I’ll send a ranch hand back for the goods we bought,” the rancher announced without turning his head.

“I was just being neighborly,” Undine was heard to say as Mungo fairly hurled her outside.

Maddie stared after them, confounded.

Sam O’Ballivan helped himself to a towel, four cotton shirts and a shiny new bucket.

“This tub costs eight dollars,” Maddie pointed out when she’d had a few moments to recover. “I don’t—”

Mr. O’Ballivan paused, took a wallet from the inside pocket of his coat and inspected the contents thoughtfully. Even from where she stood, Maddie could see that he had plenty of money, and that made her wonder even more.

“I think I can cover it,” he concluded, replacing the wallet.

“Who are you?” Maddie demanded. It was her nature, after all, to be forthright, and she’d held her curiosity in check as long as she could.

He added three pairs of socks to the pile. “You don’t have much of a memory,” he said. “I believe I’ve already introduced myself.”

Maddie rounded the counter and advanced, setting her hands on her hips and forcing him to stop and face her. “I guess you didn’t notice that Mungo Donagher doesn’t want you coming to his house for supper.”

Sam’s mouth quirked again, though he didn’t actually smile. “Now that hurts my feelings,” he said. “The invitation sounded sincere enough to me.”

Maddie gave an exasperated sigh. “Oh, it was sincere, all right. Undine meant every word of it. It’s Mungo I’m worried about.”

“Now why would you worry about Mungo or anything else, Miss Chancelor?”

Maddie knotted her hands in her apron, so she wouldn’t box Sam O’Ballivan’s ears. “You’re new in Haven, and you obviously have the sensibilities of a hitching post, so I’ll tell you,” she said. “Mr. Donagher is a hard man. He’s vengeful and he’s rich, and when folks get on his bad side, they tend to meet with sudden misfortune.”

“I do appreciate your concern, Miss Chancelor, but I’m not afraid of that old coot. Do you have any storybooks?”

Maddie blinked. “Storybooks?”

Sam’s eyes danced. “For kids,” he explained with the sort of patience one usually reserves for an idiot.

Maddie gestured toward a table in the far corner of the store, followed determinedly when Sam headed in that direction. She was about to pursue the subject of his identity again when she noticed the reverent way he chose and examined a volume of fairy tales. It made her throat tighten.

“My mother used to read those stories to me,” she said, and then could have bitten off her tongue at the hinge. Mr. O’Ballivan’s gaze came straight to her face, and she felt exposed, as if her memories were no more private than the goods displayed in the window at the front of the store.

“Did she?” he asked quietly.

Maddie swallowed, nodded. Looked away.

Sam caught her chin between his thumb and the curve of his forefinger. His flesh was calloused, giving the lie, yet again, to his being a schoolmaster. He turned her head so she had to meet his eyes.

His touch made her nerves spark under her skin. She wanted to pull away, but she couldn’t quite make herself do it. In fact, she couldn’t even speak, so she just stood there, like a fool, astounded by her own weakness.

“How is it that you’re not married, Maddie Chancelor?” Sam asked gravely, and let his hand fall back to his side.

Maddie moistened her lips. It was a forward question, one he had no right to ask. She was surprised when she heard herself answer. “I was engaged once,” she said softly. “He was killed.”

She waited for the pain that always came when she merely thought of Warren, let alone mentioned him out loud, but it didn’t come.

“I’m sorry,” Sam O’Ballivan said solemnly.

“It’s been five years,” Maddie answered, and was grateful when the bell jingled over the door. She’d been alone with Mr. O’Ballivan, or whoever he was, for much too long.

* * *

ONCE HE’D SETTLED UP his bill and Maddie had promised to send Terran around in a buckboard with the things he’d bought, Sam left the store. The basket Bird had brought him the night before was on the bench on the sidewalk, where he’d left it.

He’d return it to Oralee Pringle, with his thanks, and ask her about Bird while he was at it. A good part of his mind stayed behind, though, worrying at Maddie Chancelor like an old dog with a soup bone.

She’d loved a man, five years ago, enough to say she’d marry him.

Why did it open a hollow place inside him, knowing that? Maddie was a beautiful woman, and she must have had suitors right along. Had she laid her heart in the casket, with her intended, and closed the lid on it for good? And why should it matter to him, anyway, when he was all but promised to the major’s daughter?

He crossed the street, weaving his way between horses and wagons, and strode along the wooden sidewalk toward the Rattlesnake. The tinny strains of an out-of-tune piano spilled over the swinging doors and he paused outside, trying to shake off his melancholy mood.

An old, swaybacked horse stood at the water trough, square in front of the saloon, a little apart from the others, reins hanging loose. He was spotted, and his ribs showed.

Sam paused to pat him. “You look about as sorrowful as I feel,” he said.

“You brought the basket back.”

Sam turned his head, saw that Bird had stepped out of the saloon to stand on the sidewalk. In the light of day, she looked even younger than she had the night before. She wore a red dress that showed her legs and too much bosom, and her face was freshly painted.

“I’m obliged,” he said, still stroking the horse. “That was the best supper I’ve had in a long time.”

Bird smiled and took the basket. “I guess you meant to thank Oralee,” she said. “She’s gone to Tucson. Won’t be back until tomorrow sometime.”

Sam nodded.

Bird lingered. “That’s Dobbin,” she said, indicating the horse. “He’s a pitiful old fella, isn’t he? Belongs to Charlie Wilcox. Stands out here, patient as the saints, all day every day, waiting for Charlie to finish swilling whiskey and ride him on home. Charlie’d never get back to that shack of his if it wasn’t for Dobbin.”

Sam felt a pang of sympathy for the horse. Wished he could put him out to pasture, with Dionysus, come summer, and let him eat his fill of good grass.

He stepped away from Dobbin, stood looking down at Bird.

“You gonna ask me how old I am again?” she asked, smiling up into his face.

“I’d like to,” he said, “but I reckon I’d be wasting my breath.”

“I’m seventeen,” she told him.

More like fifteen, he thought, sorrier for her than he was for the horse. “How did you end up working in a place like the Rattlesnake Saloon?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Just makin’ my way in the world,” she replied without a trace of self-pity. “We’ve all got to do that, don’t we?”

“I guess we do,” Sam agreed. “Don’t you have any folks?”

“Just a sister,” Bird said. “She’s married, and I was a trial to her, so she showed me the road. You comin’ inside?”