Bride's Flight from Virginia City, Montana Page 3

  Chapter 3

  Hey! Wait! What are you doing?” Zeph shouted. But they didn’t stop. Zeph dropped Cricket’s reins and lit out after them. The boy was already staggering because of his wounded foot, yet he showed no signs of stopping. The girl was racing ahead of him, blond hair flying.

  Zeph got to the boy first, because he had collapsed in the snow, blood all over his foot. “What are you running for?” “They’ll kill us!” “Who’s gonna kill you?”

  “Those riders killed our families, and they’re going to kill us, too! They said they would!”

  “No one’s gonna kill anybody, boy. Those are men from town, and the lead rider is my own brother, the federal marshal. They won’t hurt you. Now stay put before that foot of yours falls off.”

  Zeph went after the girl as the riders bore down on them. He caught her and wrapped his arms around her as she kicked and screamed.

  “Nay! Nay! Nay!” She shrieked and sobbed.

  “Settle down!” snapped Zeph, struggling to hold on to her. “Nobody’s gonna hurt you. Those are men from town. It’s the marshal and a bunch of others, all good men who have kids of their own.”

  “They’ll shoot us!”

  “No, they won’t!”

  She broke free and ran a few yards before Zeph grabbed her around the waist again and picked her up off the ground, legs and arms swinging. The riders reined up right in front of them.

  “Looks like you got a handful there, Z,” said his brother the marshal.

  “You could say that.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Matt, I don’t know what’s going on. I found these kids over by the new homesteads a couple of hours ago, and nothing’s made sense since.”

  “The new homesteads?”

  “Yeah. Down in the flats by the river.”

  “Young lady,” said Matt kindly, “I am the federal marshal, and I am here to help you. All of us are. We rode out to give you as much help as we can. That’s why I’m here talking to you right now.”

  She had stopped squirming and was looking up at him through the blond hair that had fallen down over her face. The marshal took off his hat.

  “I am Matthew Parker, but you can call me Matt. The man that’s got ahold of you is my younger brother, Zephaniah T. Parker. Now this here”—the marshal swept his hat back toward the men sitting on their horses behind him—“this here with the long black coat is another one of my brothers, Jude, and he is the preacher in town, and these other three are all brothers, too. We got a special on brothers today. This is William King, and Samuel and Wyatt.”

  The man with the thick black beard smiled with a big row of white teeth and lifted his black Stetson. “Billy King,” he said, “barrister and solicitor and attorney-at-law for the Montana Territory. I have long sticks of peppermint candy in my coat pocket. Would you like one? Or are you too old for that sort of stuff? I usually keep ‘em for myself; it’s my belief they make me smarter, but sometimes I share if I run into someone special.”

  He swung down off his large black horse and stood by the little girl. He took a long red and white stick of candy from inside his sheepskin jacket and offered it to her in his gloved hand. Zeph had set her down. Slowly she reached out and took the candy.

  “Thank you, sir,” she said.

  “You’re very welcome, young lady. Would you like to walk with me and give one to your brother?”

  She nodded, and they headed back across the snow to where two other men were off their horses and looking at the boy’s foot. The marshal watched them for a moment then tilted his Stetson back and scratched at his head and sandy-blond hair.

  “We got news by telegraph that some marauders were in our neck of the woods. Then Abe Whittaker came in and told us he’d heard shooting down in the flats the day before yesterday. So I got some of the boys together, and we were heading out there to take a look. You see anything?”

  Zeph shook his head. “Just these two kids.”

  Matt glanced over at them. “They say much?”

  “They don’t say anything at all, not where they live or who their folks are, nothin.’”

  Matt rubbed his jaw. “See any smoke?”

  “No. Well, a bit from a chimney, I guess; that’s all.”

  “Abe figured the homesteaders were burned out.”

  “Did he see that?”

  Matt shrugged. “You know Abe. He tells you what he wants when he wants. I don’t know what else he knows. But he’s got that dugout by the river, so he must’ve seen something.” He pulled his hat down again. “Now, look, we got to get out there before it’s dark. We brought along three extra horses, so why don’t you take the gray here and put the kids on it? Then you can get back on Cricket and all ride into Iron Springs and get warmed up.”

  “That’s where I was heading, Matt.”

  “Well, now you can do it faster.”

  “Why’d you need all those extra horses anyway?”

  “Why do you think? The telegram said it was Seraph Raber’s crew.”

  “Raber. The Angel of Death. They sure?”

  “Whoever they are, they’ve left a trail of dead bodies between here and Dakota. Looks like Raber’s work. No one likes killing as much as him.” Matt glanced down at Zeph’s waist. “No gun, I see.”

  “No need, brother.”

  “Suppose Raber jumped you while you were taking care of the kids? How would you have saved them then? The war’s been over a long time, Z.”

  “Not long enough.”

  “Just get ‘em into town.”

  Matt pulled away with the others. Only Jude held back. “You all right?” asked Jude.

  “My boots are wet, and my feet are cold and sore. Getting back on my horse will make a world of a difference.”

  “You given any thought about where you’ll put the kids up?”

  “Some.”

  Jude suddenly smiled. The silver conchas on his black Stetson winked in the falling sun. “What about a good church woman like Charlotte Spence?”

  Zeph reddened. “Charlotte. I guess she’d do. The kids had better mind their p’s and q’s.”

  “Are you telling me she never crossed your mind?”

  “Not much has been crossing my mind lately. The ranch is a lot of work.”

  Jude turned his horse to join the others. “She’s out and around. Saw her on Main Street before we left. I guess you know what she looks like. Take the kids to Miss Charlotte Spence, brother.”

  Ten minutes later they walked the two horses into Iron Springs, the boy and the girl on the gray mare, Zeph back on Cricket. There was maybe an hour of sunlight left, Zeph figured. The town was hopping—wagons, men on horseback, people heading back and forth across Main Street from one shop to another.

  “I guess the good weather’s brought everybody out of hibernation,” Zeph said.

  The boy and girl rode silently on their horse, but at least, Zeph thought, they didn’t act as scared as they’d been. He saw them taking in all the activity and doubted they’d even been in the town before. If they were with the new homesteaders they may not have had the chance yet.

  “Pferdewagen!” shouted the girl, pointing.

  “What?” Zeph looked at her and then looked where she was pointing. There was a cluster of wagons. He didn’t see anything unusual. But the boy was excited, too.

  “Pferdewagen, yah,” he said, rising up in the stirrups, even with his sore foot.

  “What are you two talking about?” demanded Zeph.

  They both pointed—and smiled for the first time. Emerging from the knot of wagons came a shiny black horse stepping smartly and pulling a black buggy. Zeph knew the horse and buggy well.

  “Charlotte Spence,” he said under his breath.

  And then it hit him. The accent under some of the kids’ words was the same accent Charlotte had under some of her words. It was a little like the Germans he’d heard speaking English in Wyoming. And this “Pferde” whatever they were squawking about, tha
t sure sounded like the real thing, the way cattleman Wolfgang Mueller used to talk when he was with his buddies from overseas.

  “Zephaniah Truett Parker, what on earth are you doing sitting in the middle of the street with those two children?”

  Charlotte Spence, in a blue dress with lace at the collar and a matching lace-trimmed blue bonnet, pulled her buggy up in front of them, smiling. She leaned out from under the roof of the carriage. The sun struck her golden eyebrows and sky-blue eyes. Zeph looked down at the ground.

  “Well? Isn’t anyone going to speak to me?”

  Zeph sat up and lifted his hat off his head and gave her a crooked smile. “Miss Spence.”

  “Who are the children, Zephaniah? Aren’t you going to introduce me?”

  “This is Miss Charlotte Spence. She has a spread outside of town. She is also Iron Springs’s librarian. You can say hello.”

  The girl poked her head out from behind the boy’s shoulders.

  “Pferdewagen,” she said and nodded. “Vorsintflutlich.”

  The woman’s eyes widened. “What did you say?”

  But the girl ducked behind the boy’s back again.

  “What did she say, Zephaniah?”

  “I don’t know, Miss Spence—”

  “Oh, stop that. My name is Charlotte.”

  “It seems to me she’s talking like a cattleman I knew in Wyoming, a gentleman from Germany by the name of Mueller.”

  “Who are these children? Where are they from?”

  “It’s hard to say, Miss Spence. I found them wandering in the scrub not far from the river and the new homesteads.”

  “Well, where are there parents?”

  “I don’t know. They won’t tell me.”

  Charlotte Spence placed one high, black, tightly laced boot into a puddle of mud and melted snow and then the other. She came up to the children on their horse and stood stroking the gray’s neck. Part of her face was in shadow and part in the light. Zeph tried to keep himself from looking at the small freckles sprinkled across her nose and just under her eyes.

  “I am Miss Spence, and you may call me Miss Charlotte,” she said to the boy and girl, with her brightest smile. “I know the words you are using very well. Would you like to have a ride in the horse and buggy?”

  The boy shrugged, but the girl smiled and nodded.

  “Well, then, you must tell me your names and where you are from. That’s only polite.”

  Neither of the children spoke for a moment. Then the boy said, “I am Cody Wyoming. And this is Cheyenne, my sister.”

  Miss Spence blinked. “Pardon me?”

  “We are Cody and Cheyenne Wyoming.”

  Miss Spence looked up at Zeph and he looked away. A smile curled her lips once again.

  “Very well, Cody and Cheyenne, it’s a pleasure to meet you. And where did you say you were from?”

  The boy and girl said nothing.

  “Where did you learn those words you just used?”

  Silence.

  “Well, let me tell you a secret. I learned those words from my grandmother. Did you learn them from your grandmother?” “I learned them from my aunt Rosa,” the boy said. “And where is your aunt Rosa?” “Pennsylvania.”

  Miss Spence nodded. “I know the words because I am from Pennsylvania, too. I grew up there. And I rode in the horse and buggies like you did all the time.”

  She looked at Zeph. “Until you find their parents, these children are staying with me.”

  Chapter 4

  The sun was just coming up, the weather was still mild, and Zeph let Cricket plod slowly through the mud and puddles back to town. His ranch was only about two miles out. It used to be five miles, but things had started changing again in the last three years, especially with talk of the Union Pacific putting a branch line through. That hadn’t happened yet, but the town was prospering just the same.

  He’d left Byrd and Holly, his ranch hands, to take care of the day’s chores. He needed to see his brother Matt and find out what was going on with the homesteaders and what they’d found out. Were the kids’ parents alive? Were any of the homesteaders alive? Then he’d need to swing by Sweet Blue Meadows and the Spence ranch to see how Charlotte was making out. It was the polite thing to do.

  So she’d been born and raised in Pennsylvania. He’d always thought her family had hailed from Texas. Did that mean her father and brothers had been Pennsylvanians, too? They’d fought on the side of the Union. All of them killed except the one brother who made his way to the Montana Territory and started the Spence ranching operation—and finally died of his wounds and left it all to Charlotte. Who now ran the whole thing with a ten-man crew as if she were the legendary brother himself. Ricky Spence, who could handle Indians and outlaws and hard men with one hand, and cows and bulls and beef shipments with the other.

  He’d met Ricky twice. Once at a meeting to press the Union Pacific into building the connection to Iron Springs they’d always said they would, the other time when they were both part of a posse hunting down a gang that had robbed a gold shipment out of Virginia City, just south of them. Ricky coughed up a lot of blood on that ride. Zeph had made sure he got back to the Spence homestead all right. That was four years ago. Ricky never left the house again.

  Zeph remembered how Charlotte stood with the lamp while he walked with Ricky up the steps to the porch. Blood was running down the front of Ricky’s jacket. Zeph got him in the door, but no farther. Charlotte blocked his path.

  “I’ll take it from here, Mister Parker.” Her voice had been like iron. But as he turned to go back down the steps she grasped his arm. Her eyes were a soft blue and gold, the lamp just inches from her face. In almost a whisper she said, “Thank you, Z.”

  Only his brothers called him Z. And she’d never called him that again. He shrugged. It had been the kind of sweet moment that got a man’s hopes up. But after Ricky’s death, she was a stranger. He saw her at the library, where he only went to take out books he thought might impress her, and at meetings of the Stock Growers Association, but he was Mister Parker or Zephaniah Truett Parker from then on, and they hardly said more than two words to each other.

  Until yesterday. That was the most time they’d spent with one another in years. He guessed he could thank the kids for that. She loved kids. People in town wondered why she hadn’t applied for the position of schoolteacher. But she loved horses and cattle and her homestead, too. She could only do so much and do it well. She knew where to draw the line.

  Cricket had stopped in front of the marshal’s office. Matt’s horse Union was already there.

  “How’d you know I wanted to go here?” asked Zeph.

  Cricket let him wind her reins around the hitching post, and then she nuzzled the roan gelding. Zeph stretched and walked in the door. He hoped Matt had a fresh pot of coffee.

  He did, but it was almost empty. Zeph squeezed one small cup out of it. Better than nothing. Matt looked like he’d barely slept.

  “How’s Sally?” asked Zeph.

  “Worried.”

  “About what?”

  “Me setting up a posse to go after Raber.” “Is that what you’re doing?”

  “Not much choice.” Matt leaned back in the chair behind his desk and looked at the ceiling. “Three families were in there, Z. Billy King did all the deeds, all legit. From Pennsylvania. They got this far without a scratch. And then Raber comes through. Killed everyone—women, men, children. Lots of hooves cutting up the mud and snow. Five or six riders. The kids said they were in the thick brush. They saw the outlaws, but the outlaws never spotted them. And that’s about all they said.”

  “So they saw most of the killings?”

  “I believe they did.” Matt sat up. “I’ve sent out telegrams trying to locate next of kin. I expect we’ll hear back later today or tomorrow. King had their names: Kauffman, Troyer, Miller. Bird in Hand. Lancaster County. Funny handle for a town. Heard of it?”

  Zeph shook his head. “Did he have the
kids’ names?”

  “No, none of that. Just the adults’.” Matt got to his feet. “Trail’ll be cold. I could use a decent tracker.” “I’m in—you know that.”

  Matt nodded. “We’ve got to bury them first. Jude’ll do a service this afternoon. In the town cemetery. Least we can do. We’ll head out at first light tomorrow. Pack for a couple of weeks. If they’ve left the Montana Territory, we can leave it up to someone else. I telegraphed the federal marshal who’s at Lewiston in the Idaho Territory.”

  “Who’s gonna watch the town?”

  “Leaving my deputy here. You know, Luke, the new man.”

  Zeph put down his cup.

  “Want me to brew another pot?” asked Matt.

  “No, I’m heading up to Spence’s.”

  “Yeah. I should head up there myself and look in on them. Doc Brainerd’s been in to see the kids.” “When was that?” “Last night.”

  “What’d he tell you?”

  “They’re doing fine, considering what they went through. Charlotte Spence couldn’t be happier, Doc says. Treating them like her own.”

  The ranch was three miles north. Two of the hired men, Laycock and Martin, met them at the main house. “Was it Raber?” asked Laycock.

  “Yeah,” said Matt. “You know his trademark. No one left alive.”

  “How’d these kids get out then?”

  “The gang never saw them. They were hiding in the bushes. You think they’d talk about what they saw?”

  “I don’t think Miss Spence will let you ask them,” said Martin. “She wants to get their minds off all that.”

  “Fair enough. But no one’s ever seen Seraph Raber’s face. He could’ve stayed at the Ten Gallon Hat last night, and nobody would’ve been the wiser. Would be something if the kids could tell us what he looks like.”

  “Matt,” said Laycock, “Miss Spence was wondering if Raber knows those two kids are alive.”

  “Who knows?”

  “Because if he did, he might come back for them.” Matt looked hard at Laycock.

  “Especially if he thinks the kids saw his face,” Laycock finished.