The Man from Stone Creek. Linda Lael Miller

      “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?”

      Sam shook his head, pondering. He’d never had a sister, but if he had, he wouldn’t have turned her out, whether she was a trial to him or not.

      Bird looked crestfallen. “How come you don’t like me?” she blurted. “Most men take to me right away.”

      “I like you fine,” Sam said. “That’s the problem.”

      She went from crestfallen to confused. “I don’t understand.”

      “I don’t imagine you do.” On impulse, he reached out, took her hand, squeezed it lightly. “If you ever need help, Bird, you come to me.”

      She smiled sadly. “It’s too late for that,” she said. Then, carrying the basket, she turned and hurried back into the saloon.

      Sam stared after her for a few bleak moments, patted Dobbin again, then headed back toward the schoolhouse.

      One of these days he was going to stop wanting to save worn-out horses and misguided girls and a whole lot of other things. It would be pure, blessed relief when that day came.

      CHAPTER THREE

      SAM WAS OUT BACK of the schoolhouse, splitting wood for the fire, when Terran rolled up at the reins of an ancient buckboard, drawn by two sorry-looking horses, one mud-brown, the other a pink-eyed pinto. Their hooves wanted trimming, he reflected, lodging the ax in the chopping block and dusting his hands together. If he’d had his hasp handy, he’d have undertaken the job right then and there.

      Terran, perched on the seat, drew up the team, set the brake lever with a deft motion of one foot, and jumped to the ground. Sam’s copper tub gleamed in the bed of the wagon, catching the last fierce rays of the setting sun.

      The boy rounded the buckboard, lowered the tailgate with a creak of hinges, and scrambled in to haul the boxes to the rear, where Sam was waiting to claim them.

      “Too bad you ain’t a lady,” Terran remarked, admiring the tub. “You could give Violet Perkins a sudsing.”

      Sam hoisted the box containing his coffee, sugar, canned goods and toiletries. “There are worse things,” he observed, “than smelling bad.”

      “That depends,” Terran replied, sliding back another box, “on whether or not you’re downwind from her.”

      Holding back a smile, Sam set the first crate on the ground and reached for the second. “Is it true that Violet’s father was hanged for a horse thief?”

      Terran paused to meet his gaze. “Somebody lynched him, that’s for sure,” he answered solemnly. “Maddie thinks it was the Donagher brothers.”

      “I take it there’s no law in this town,” Sam ventured. He’d seen a jailhouse, walking back from the store the day before, but the windows had been shuttered and except