Carol Arens - Wed To The Montana Cowboy

“I would not ask that of a saint.” Screech was a green parrot with a pretty yellow-and-blue head. The bird, she had been assured, would outlive most men. Screech had been a point of stress to her aunt for as long as Rebecca had. They had been abandoned by her mother as a pair. “I’d live in constant fear that your mother might serve him up for dinner.”

“That might not be the worst thing ever,” Melinda declared. They laughed together. This was something that Rebecca would miss down to her bones. “We’ll tell Mama first thing in the morning. You can be on your way when the next paddleboat comes through.”

Melinda stood up. Arm in arm they walked slowly back to the house.

“I’m going to miss you dreadfully, cousin,” Rebecca said past the lump in her throat.

Maybe it was beyond foolish to leave the only person who had ever truly loved her. But she’d gone over and over it in her head. This was something she had to do.

“Not if I go with you!” Melinda’s eyes flashed up at her, sparkling blue mischief in the moonlight.

Having her cousin at her side would be wonderful. The temptation to encourage her to do so was strong...but wrong. Melinda was right about Montana being a rugged place teeming with bears, wolves and who knew what other dangers.

“You know you can’t.”

Melinda shrugged. “I might turn up one day, if Mama tries to give me to the butcher in your place. You’ll answer your door one day and there I’ll be, trailed by a wolf pack and half eaten by a bear.”

Climbing the path toward the house she watched the moon dip closer to the horizon and felt the warmth of her petite cousin beside her.

She prayed that she was not making a giant mistake in leaving the familiar for the unknown.

Chapter Two

Coulson, Montana, June 1882

Lantree Walker listened to the full-bodied whistle of the River Queen . From where he stood on the boardwalk he watched the riverboat’s twin smokestacks blow sooty smoke into the pristine sky.

A stand of trees grew between him and the dock so he couldn’t see how many passengers were disembarking.

In his opinion, the fewer the better.

Not only did newcomers bring their bags and other possessions, they brought unintended disease. Fevers and plagues rarely announced their arrival.

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.