Outlaw Hunter

“Are you hungry?” Marshal Prentis asked. “I’ve got a bit of jerky in my saddle.”

Yes, she was! Hungry for food and hungry for a new life.

“No, but thank you. I’ll do.” The last thing she would do is take food that the children might eat.

“Come with me, but walk close, Mrs. Travers.”

Because he touched his gun while staring into the shadows, she did. Danger lay beyond the wagon.

Safety, she reminded herself, lay with the marshal.

He led her to where the horses were tethered. His saddle packs lay on the ground beside them. He lifted a leather flap, drew something out.

He escorted her back to the wagon, then with a nod of his head he indicated that she should sit under it. Because she was not ready to climb back into the cramped confines of the wagon bed, she did.

After a long, hard look at the surrounding area, the marshal crawled under and sat down across from her, his feet crossed at the ankle and his knees spread.

The fringe on the arms of his buckskin shirt swayed in the wind that shot up suddenly from the south.

“You need to eat,” he stated and pressed a slice of dried meat into her hand.

To satisfy him she took a bite. It was tough but surprisingly tasty.

“I’ll save the rest for the children.”

“No need...I’ll hunt some game in the morning.” In the dark shadow under the wagon he frowned. “I won’t let the young ones go hungry. Trust me, Mrs. Travers.”

And didn’t she want to? If ever she’d met someone who deserved trust, it was this man.

Perhaps her hungry days were over. Because of the marshal, she was going home. Once she got there she would never be hungry again...and neither would anyone who belonged to her.

She chewed on another bite of the jerky. The marshal sat silently watching her.

Strangely, she didn’t mind.

* * *

On the morning of the third day, Hattie spotted a tree in the distance. It grew alone on the top of a hill, its bare branches reaching toward the bright blue sky.

She had always loved trees, and it had been three years since she had seen one. It didn’t matter that this one’s leaves had gone for the winter. They would come back in the spring, green and full of life.

Maybe, she would do the same.

Just now, her spirit felt a hundred years old, but once she was back home, in the circle of her parents’ love, spring might come again for her. The dismal pall that Ram had cast over her life would lift.

“You always told us that trees were green and shady, Hattie.” Sitting beside her on the wagon bench, Joe frowned at the tree on the hill. “That looks like a bunch of sticks.”

“Didn’t you read the books that Great-Aunt Tillie told you to?” Libby asked. “Some were all about trees. They go dormant in the winter.”

“Well, except for the evergreens.” Joe turned to glance at Libby sitting in the back of the wagon. “I miss Aunt Tillie and Granny Rose. Things got worse at the Broken Brand when they went away.”

“They were better off with Colt Wesson,” Hattie reminded them, but Joe was right. Aunt Tillie had kept everyone in line, as much as was possible, with her firm spirit and her cane. She’d taught the ranch children to read even though their parents considered it a waste of time.

Hattie had cried for days when Colt Wesson had come home the first time, to bury Pappy Travers and bring the old ladies to their new home.

Maybe she ought to have asked to go with them, but Colt was a stranger to her, and she had been full-term with Seth.

Well, the past was the past. She would do her best to put it behind her. Ram was dead...and Mama and Papa were getting closer each day.

Soon their comforting arms would fold her up.

“I want to see me a leaf...grass, too.” Joe watched Marshal Prentis sitting tall in the saddle, trotting toward the wagon. “Do your folks really have shade all over the place?”

“Shade and a creek nearby.”

“I reckon I’ll need to learn to swim.”

A memory flashed in her mind and she nearly wept with the joy of it. Daddy, years ago when she wasn’t much older than Flynn, carrying her into the water and showing her how to waggle her arms and legs so that she wouldn’t sink.

It must have grieved him terribly when she ran off without a word. She would die of a broken heart if one of her boys grew up and did the same to her.

Her parents would forgive her—she knew it without a doubt—but how would she ever make it up to them?

Filling their home with children would be a start. At least she was coming home with more than her own sinful self.

“Come summer, you’ll all learn to swim.”

Imagining it, picturing the children in her mind while they splashed and laughed, made her smile.

Joy tickled her heart. She hadn’t felt that optimistic spirit in a good long while. “My daddy will enjoy showing you how.”

“If he takes to an outlaw’s brat.” Joe chewed his bottom lip, staring down at his knees. “He might toss me out.”

“Look at me, Joe.” She tipped his face up, his chin tucked between her fingers. Cold sunshine illuminated a dusting of blond fuzz on his upper lip. “What your daddy was or wasn’t has nothing to do with you. You are a good boy and someday you’ll be a fine man. My daddy will recognize that and be proud to have you in his home.”

Thank the Good Lord that Marshal Prentis had come along before the Travers men had turned Joe into an outlaw. At thirteen years old, he had already become proficient at shooting a gun. Next month he would have been included in a holdup or a bank robbery.

The marshal reached the wagon, then turned his horse to trot beside it.

“There’s a place I’d like you and the children to see. It’s a few hours out of the way but worth it. We’ll stop there for the night. If the weather’s not too cold we won’t have to sleep in the wagon.”

His voice sounded deep and smooth. It made her think of fertile soil, tilled and ready for gardening, or a hearth fire banked low but still sending warmth into the night.

Somehow, with all that had happened over the past few days, she hadn’t noticed the rich timbre of his voice.

She noticed it now because it stirred something in her. A little finger of hope tickled her insides, faintly, as though wondering if it was safe to come out.

When she thought about it, it had not been days, but years since she had felt joy over common things, like a bare tree or a deep, masculine voice.