Salvation in the Rancher's Arms. Kelly Boyce

shook off her memories of last night and glanced behind her at Ethan and Brody. Both were dressed in their Sunday best, though it was only Tuesday. Brody, at nearly fifteen, had taken another growth spurt. The hem and cuffs of his suit betrayed the evidence that she had let them out as far as they could go. She’d have to get him a new one, but their credit at the haberdashery was overextended as it was.

      “Maybe you could wear one of Robert’s,” she’d suggested. But the idea had been met with stony silence. In the past year, her brother had turned sullen and moody. The sudden distance between them pained her, but nothing she tried had bridged it.

      “You warm enough, Ethan?” The little boy’s small body was pressed against Brody’s, seeking either warmth or comfort, maybe both.

      “Yes, ma’am,” he whispered.

      Freedom pulled back on the reins and cast a glance in Rachel’s direction. “It’ll be jus’ fine, Miss Rachel. Ain’t nothin’ you can’t handle. You jus’ remember, those boys—” she jerked her head back toward Brody and Ethan “—they be countin’ on you.”

      Rachel nodded. “I’m fine, Free. Just get us into town.” She would have driven them herself, but Freedom had insisted. She didn’t have the energy to argue with the woman, who had been with her since Rachel was Brody’s age, coming to help out when Rachel’s mother fell ill.

      She’d been a godsend, then and now.

      “Hunter says the reverend is making all the arrangements,” Rachel said, peering out over the jagged landscape. In the distance, the rising sun hit the mountains, turning their peaks a golden pink. The early April air still held the bitter nip of winter here in the small valley. Pockets of snowfall had yet to melt away in some spots, but the promise of spring filled the air with the rich scent of wet earth.

      “Yes, I ’spect everyone in town has heard the word.” Nothing stayed secret in Salvation Falls for long. No doubt by the time Hunter had reached her doorstep with the news, most of the townspeople already knew.

      “When we get there, take the boys directly to the church,” Rachel continued. “Reverend Pearce will be waiting for them. I’ll walk to Doc Merrick’s from there.”

      The rushed burial couldn’t be helped. Three days had passed since Robert was killed. They had to get him in the ground without delay. Rachel understood. She welcomed it. It would keep her busy, keep her focused. Wouldn’t allow her time to stop and think and worry and fret.

      If she kept moving, she’d be fine.

      * * *

      A strange sense that she was living someone else’s life crawled over Rachel as she walked down the pathway away from the white clapboard church. The structure shone like a beacon in the morning sun, but she turned her back on it once Freedom had taken the boys inside. Rachel had stopped at the bottom of the steps, refusing to go in. She wasn’t on good terms with God today.

      The cool spring air cut through her thin shawl. She was used to wearing her heavy coat lined with buffalo hide, but it didn’t seem appropriate attire for burying one’s husband.

      Not that Robert had proven to be much of a husband.

      She stopped midstride and took a deep breath. That wasn’t fair. No, it was fair. It just wasn’t right. The man was dead. Best let the bad memories and disappointment die with him. It wasn’t going to do her any good hanging on to them.

      Hunter had had little information to give her about how Robert had managed to get himself killed buying cattle in Laramie, but Rachel had her suspicions. And she suspected that, when she spoke to the man who had brought her husband’s body home, they would be confirmed.

      Doc Merrick met her at the door to his office. Merrick wasn’t a real doctor, at least, not the kind who fixed broken bones and ailing stomachs. Dr. Bolger managed that end of things. Merrick yanked teeth and helped prepare bodies for burial. He might have been a regular doc at one point, but if he was, it was well before Rachel could remember. Either way, she was glad for him. It meant one less thing for her to do. And she’d seen enough death in her life, so she was happy for Merrick’s abilities.

      “Got Bobby all set, Rachel,” he said, taking a deep draw on his corncob pipe. The sweet, pungent smoke wafted around them. “Can’t tell you how sorry I am ’bout this. Sad day to be burying a man this young.”

      Rachel nodded, following Merrick inside to the cramped little room. Small glass bottles lined the shelves against the wall, and oddly shaped instruments, whose purpose she didn’t want to think about, hung on hooks near the table. A lump rose in her throat and grew to the size of one of the crab apples growing on the tree next to the barn.

      “Sheriff Donovan brought over a suit for ’im.” Merrick nodded at the closed pine box coffin sitting atop the sturdy table. The pale wood stood out in the dim confines of the office. Light struggled in through the dirt-encrusted window, adding a weak glow to the room.

      “I’ll be sure to thank him,” she said. No doubt Hunter had given Doc the one suit he possessed straight out of his own closet. She shouldn’t be surprised. Hunter and Robert had been friends since they were young boys. They may have had a falling-out years before, but Hunter wasn’t the kind of man to hold a grudge past death.

      Rachel touched the edge of the pine, letting her fingers trail over the smooth surface. The estrangement had been her fault. Both men had paid court and she’d chosen Robert. She wondered how different her life would have been had she made a different choice all those years ago. Funny how she had known both men most of her life, yet the man she buried today was more of a stranger to her now than on the day they’d married.

      Maybe she had never really known him at all. It was a sad thought.

      “Can you open it?”

      Merrick started. “Open—oh, Rachel, you don’t want to do that. It’s been three days, and...well...” He shook his head, the bushy white hair bobbing with the movement.

      “I know,” she said. She knew what happened to a body after death. “But I need to see.”

      Merrick hesitated but Rachel fixed him with a hard stare until he relented.

      “Here.” He handed her a stark white handkerchief.

      Rachel took a deep breath, the scent of formaldehyde and whatever else the Merrick kept in those bottles, stung her nostrils. She placed the handkerchief over her mouth and nose, and gave him a nod.

      It took Merrick a minute or two to pry loose the nails and slide the top toward him, revealing the body within from the chest up. Rachel took a step forward and peered down into Robert’s face.

      Except it wasn’t Robert’s face.

      At least, not the one she remembered. Robert had had a sense of animation to him, whether he had been angry or excited or somewhere in between. This man, this face, was still and gray, the eyes and cheeks already sinking into the hollows in the bone. Even his pale blond hair appeared stiff and lifeless, darker even, as though the sun’s reflection had slipped beneath a cloud leaving it cast in shadow. The body in the box was not Robert. It was an empty shell he’d once filled.

      “The sheriff said he was shot.” There was no evidence of a bullet wound.

      “One to the chest. Straight through the heart. Probably died instantly. Guessin’ it would have taken a man handy with a gun to manage such a thing.”

      Rachel bit down, forcing the lump in her throat back. At least he hadn’t been shot in the gut. Whatever their differences, she would have hated to know Robert had suffered. She closed her eyes and nodded once again, waiting until Merrick hammered the lid back into place before reopening her eyes.

      “I’ll bring him up to the church,” Merrick said. “Reverend said the service would start at ten. I’ll have him there before people start arrivin’.”

      “Thank you,” Rachel whispered. Something hollow filled her chest. Sorrow? Regret?