Kelly Boyce - Salvation in the Rancher's Arms

The pot in the center of the table was meager by most standards, but he guessed the high stakes games didn’t happen in a place like this. The Seahorse appeared to cater to the dregs, picking up whatever the other two saloons had cast out.

Caleb sauntered up to the table and stood at the boy’s shoulder. It didn’t take long for the kid to glance up as the game came to a stop.

“You lookin’ to git in?” the old-timer asked, his voice thin and reedy. What few teeth he had left were nothing more than tobacco-stained stumps.

Caleb gave his head a slow shake. “Come to take the boy home.”

Brody stiffened and threw Caleb a hostile glare before turning back to the cards. “I ain’t goin’ nowhere. I got me a game here and—”

Caleb’s hand came down firm and heavy on the boy’s scrawny shoulder. “The game’s over.”

Showing more balls—or stupidity—than most men, Brody tried to shrug his hand off, but Caleb held firm.

“I don’t know you, and I sure as shootin’ ain’t leavin’ here with you, mister.”

Caleb applied more pressure, gripping the ill-fitting wool coat with his fingers. Brody flinched beneath his hold. “Your sister is ill and needs you,” Caleb said in a low voice.

The boy’s stiff posture registered his shock. Caleb didn’t hesitate. He hooked his foot around the leg of the chair and pulled it back, hauling Brody to his feet in one swift movement. The boy grabbed what few coins were in front of him. It went against Caleb’s instinct to get involved like this, but responsibility for Mrs. Sutter’s current predicament weighed on him. He might be a lot of things, but he wasn’t the type of man who shrugged off his honor when it became inconvenient. Much as he would have liked to.

“Gentlemen, if you’ll excuse us.” He tipped his hat to the men sitting down. No one made a move to stop him.

He led Brody through the saloon, pushing him past the swinging doors and dragging him down the steps. Once they hit the street, the boy turned surly again and yanked his arm from Caleb’s hold.

“Get your hands off me! I was winning. You had no right!”

“You were losing,” Caleb told him. “You think for one second the pair of twos you were holding would stand up against the set of jacks the old timer had ready to play? You think every man at that table wasn’t markin’ you to take a fall?”

“I knew what I was doing.” But the telltale surprise widening his eyes told Caleb different. The bravado was all for show. The kid didn’t have a clue he was being played.

Caleb shook his head. “You don’t know nothin’, kid. You’re so wet behind the ears you might as well have just had a bath in the creek. You don’t think your sister’s got enough to worry about without you gallivanting around acting the fool?”

“We need the money. I’m the man of the family now. It’s my responsibility to watch out for us.”

“There’s better ways to put bread on the table—” Caleb stepped down off the sidewalk, his boots landing in a pile of muck and horse dung. “Aw, crud!”

“It ain’t about bread, mister.” Brody rounded on Caleb while he stomped the dung from his boot. “Maybe my sister believes Robert was in Laramie buying cattle, but I know better. He went to gamble and he lost. It ain’t the first time he’s done it, either.”

“I’m guessin’ it’s the first time he got himself shot dead.” Caleb stepped around the kid and kept walking, heading across the street. He could feel the rain coming. The moisture sank deep into his bones. He didn’t care to be out in it, even if it meant sleeping at the Pagget, a lousy excuse for a hotel. At least the rooms were big enough so that he didn’t feel the walls closing in on him. He’d pass the night under a dry roof and worry about everything else tomorrow.

Brody caught up with him. “We owe money. And if we don’t pay it we’re gonna lose everything. Kirkpatrick bought up Robert’s gambling debts and he was pressing him to pay off the markers or sign over our land for payment. Why do you think Robert went to Laramie? Figured he could make a big strike at the tables and come back and save the day. Instead he got himself shot.”

“And you think you can walk into some hole of a saloon and make all your problems go away?”

“Ain’t none of your business!”

“You got that right.” He didn’t want to hear anything else about their problems. He had enough of his own. All he wanted was to go back to his room and sleep this day off. Although having to face Widow Sutter again tomorrow to iron out the news he had dropped on her tonight didn’t bode well for things improving any time soon.

“And my sister ain’t ill. She don’t get ill. Says she doesn’t—”

“—have the time. So I’ve heard. But she passed out cold in front of me, so I guess she found a few spare minutes.”

Brody stopped, the last of his bravado falling away. “You ain’t foolin’?”

“You ever say anything other than ain’t?” Caleb shot the kid a glare and kept walking. Let him figure it out on his own whether he wanted to follow or not. He’d done his part. He got the kid out of the game before he lost money the family didn’t have. He was done with it. He’d deal with the rest tomorrow. Maybe between now and then he’d be hit with some brilliant epiphany showing him a quick way out of this mess that wouldn’t stress his conscience.

Brody hurried to keep up. “Is she okay?”

Fear edged the boy’s voice, erasing his earlier anger. “Doc came over. I suspect she’s fine. Shock and exhaustion, is all.”

At least he hoped it was nothing more. It sure would be a terrible thing if she were to find herself in the family way now, with no husband to provide for her. His honor might have dictated that he drag her fool brother out of a saloon, but it didn’t extend so far that he’d be taking on the responsibility for a dead man’s family by offering up marriage.

He wasn’t anybody’s idea of a good husband.

He wasn’t anybody’s idea of a good man.

When they reached the hotel, Brody bolted up the stairs ahead of him and ran down the hall, bursting into Room 205, letting the door slam against the wall. Caleb followed at a slower pace, feeling every last one of his thirty years. The life he’d been living all these years was starting to catch up with him. Sooner or later the time would come when he’d have to stop drifting and start thinking about settling somewhere.

But now was not the time.

And Salvation Falls wasn’t the place.

Chapter Four

Rachel cracked open her lids. Warm sunlight pierced her eyes and sent a sharp shooting pain straight through her brain. She bit down on her back teeth to keep from cursing. She sensed Ethan hovering nearby.

“Rachel?”

The mattress depressed and his small body crawled onto the bed. She moved her arm and let him nestle into her side.

“I’m all right, sweetheart. Don’t fret. It was a bad day, is all.” Dr. Bolger had come by and given her the once-over and announced the same thing. She’d decided not to contradict him. She didn’t know how many people Caleb Beckett had spoken to since arriving in Salvation Falls, but it only took one person to spread the word. The news that she and her family were homeless and penniless would travel like wildfire.

Then what? Would they expect her to behave as her mother had, bartering herself to make life easier? The idea made bile burn at the back of her throat. It would be a cold day in July before she ever stooped that low, prostituting herself in such a way. And to what end? Her mother’s actions had done nothing more than make their situation worse, wrecking her father and destroying their family beyond repair. Were the pretty baubles she’d earned worth that?