Pete (The Cowboys)

  A PROPER BATH

  “We’re married,” Pete said. “It wouldn’t be improper. If you don’t like it, I’ll stop.”

  He couldn’t imagine why he was doing this. He’d never washed a woman’s back before. Well, not a nice woman’s back. He had no intention of letting any kind of feeling warmer than friendship develop between them. She was married to someone else. He was crazy to be standing in the bathroom, staring at her. He was insane even to think about washing her back, much less offer to do it.

  What did he think he was going to do, wash her back, get himself completely stirred up, then go quietly to bed with her lying only inches from him? That bullet must have addled his brain. He would back out of here as fast as he could. Forget how adorable she looked, her big black eyes wide with shock, wonder, and … he was certain of it now, expectation.

  “Okay.”

  Too late! One word, and he was lost.

  The Cowboys series by Leigh Greenwood:

  JAKE

  WARD

  BUCK

  CHET

  SEAN

  The Seven Brides series:

  ROSE

  FERN

  IRIS

  LAUREL

  DAISY

  VIOLET

  LILY

  For Anne, who always wanted to be a heroine, this one is for you.

  Copyright © 1999, 2011 Leigh Greenwood

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Epilogue

  Chapter One

  Pete Jernigan became aware of something wet and soft against his cheek. A puff of warm, moist air directly in his face aggravated him. Then a pain somewhere in his head crashed down on him like rocks in a landslide. If his eyes hadn’t already been closed, the pain would have blinded him. He tried to move but couldn’t. Despite the wall of pain, he was keenly aware of the ground. He felt its roughness in piercing detail—the prick of stubby grass against the tender inside of his thigh, the bite of a sharp-cornered rock against his shinbone, the abrasiveness of dried seedpods against his chest, the smart of coarse gravel against his—

  Good God, he was naked!

  The pain made it nearly impossible to think, but he rummaged through his memory for a reason he should be lying on the ground without a stitch of clothes on. He couldn’t find one.

  His horse nuzzled him. Again. That was what had awakened him. At least he hoped it was his horse. The Big Horn Mountains were only a few miles to the west. If it was a grizzly or a cougar, there was nothing Pete could do to stop it from making a meal of him.

  He managed to open one eye. The fuzzy image of a horse’s hoof a few inches from his nose reassured him. He tried to lift his head, but the pain grew worse. He pulled his arms up on either side of him and tried to lift himself, but failed. He waited a few moments. He tried and failed again. Accepting temporary defeat, he rolled onto his back. The pain nearly caused him to black out.

  His horse threw up his head and snorted. Pete feared something had spooked him, that he would run away, but he soon lowered his muzzle to graze. While Pete lay there gathering his strength for another attempt at sitting up, he tried to remember where he was, what he’d been doing. He’d been in the Montana goldfields, but the wanderlust had struck again, so he’d packed up and headed south. The last thing he could remember was making his first camp in the Wyoming Territory.

  Then he noticed blood on the ground. He knew immediately it was his. He put his hand to his head, felt the raw wound that went from front to back of his scalp. He’d been shot in the head. Fortunately, it was only a deep graze. But who had shot him? Except for the two men who had ridden up to his camp last night, he hadn’t seen anyone for days. They’d asked if they could join him. He’d said yes and they’d started to dismount. That was the last he remembered. They must have shot him. Left him for dead. But why?

  His money!

  They couldn’t have known he had more than seventy thousand dollars sewn into the linings of his saddlebags.

  Despite the pain, Pete forced himself to sit up. He had to know. It took a few minutes for his vision to clear, for the pain to subside enough for him to open his eyes to the bright sunshine of a chilly autumn day. It took only another minute to know robbery had been the motive. The camp had been picked clean. Everything was gone—saddle, saddlebags, bedroll, clothes. They’d even taken his coffeepot.

  Pete couldn’t understand why they hadn’t taken his horse, then realized they probably had. Sawbones, named in honor of the doctor who’d fixed Pete’s broken limbs during childhood, had come from Texas with him ten years earlier. He’d probably broken his picket, for which Pete was now profoundly grateful. He’d been left naked with no food and water and Sawbones was his only chance for survival.

  He had to get on his horse. And stay on. Without a saddle, that wouldn’t be easy. Unless he could stand up, it would be impossible. If Sawbones would he down, it would be easier. Pete used to think Hawk was wasting his time when he taught his horse tricks. Now he wished he’d taught Sawbones to lie down on command.

  He tried lifting Sawbones’s hoof, but that didn’t work. The horse stood patiently on three legs, expecting Pete to change his shoe or clean his foot with a pick. Pete tried pulling Sawbones’s head down, but that didn’t work either. He tried getting Sawbones to bend both front knees, but the horse didn’t understand and moved away. Finally, exhausted and dizzy, Pete fell back. He would try again in a little while. He had to sleep. He was sure he had a concussion. Maybe someone would come along. He hated the idea of being found naked, but given the choice of being found naked alive and being found naked dead, he preferred alive.

  He woke up after dark. The chill in the night air caused his teeth to chatter. His skin felt as if it were on fire. He was going to have one helluva sunburn.

  He rolled over and pushed himself into a sitting position. He froze. Sawbones was lying down. If he would just stay down for a few more minutes … Moving was agony. Between the sunburn and his wound, Pete wondered if it wouldn’t be easier to die. A man could only stand so much pain. Getting to his hands and knees, he started toward Sawbones. The horse heard his movement and turned in his direction. Pete talked soothingly to him, murmuring any words that came to mind, hoping the sound of his voice would keep the horse from getting to his feet.

  By the time he reached his horse, he was so weak, he sank to the ground. He continued talking to Sawbones, occasionally stroking his withers. The animal had to stay down long enough for Pete to throw his leg over his back.

  Pete knew it was going to hurt. It would probably cause him more pain than any of his broken limbs. But getting on Sawbones could be the difference between living to find the bastards who’d done this to him and dying in the wilds of the Wyoming Territory, his bones picked clean by wild animals. With that thought in mind, Pete rose to his knees, threw his leg across Sawbones’s back, grabbed hold of his mane with both hands, and held on for dear life.

  For a moment he thought it wouldn’t be enough. Sawbones lurched to his feet, throwing Pete forward, then back. Pete held on to the mane with all his stre
ngth. He knew if he fell off now, he’d never get on the horse again. Once on his feet, Sawbones stood still, waiting for Pete to tell him what to do.

  After the waves of pain had subsided, Pete muttered, “Go home.”

  They’d had no regular home in more than ten years, but anywhere would do. He used the last of his strength to squeeze with his legs. Sawbones started walking.

  Through the endless night, Pete hung on. He had no idea how far they had traveled when the sun rose to reveal that Sawbones had come to a stop near a wagon.

  “Anybody there?” Pete called. His voice sounded weak and far away in the vastness of the open plain. He got no answer. They probably couldn’t hear him. He called again but still received no answer. Digging his heels into Sawbones’s sides, he rode up to the back of the wagon. He looked inside but didn’t see anyone.

  Pete didn’t understand where everyone could have gone, but he’d worry about that later. He needed a place to shield his nakedness and shelter from the sun. He leaned over and let himself fall from Sawbones’s back into the wagon. He felt dull, throbbing pain when he landed on the hard wooden floor. He collapsed and went to sleep.

  Pete awoke twice during the day. Finding both food and water inside the wagon, he ate, drank, and went back to sleep. He awoke and ate once during the night. By the second day, the pain from his sunburn was intense, but the pain in his head had subsided a little. Movement caused his head to pound violently, but he couldn’t remain still, wondering why a wagon amply supplied with food and water had been abandoned. He could see nothing from either end of the wagon but a wide expanse of blue sky. When he sat up, he saw a distant brown ridge in the front, another even more distant behind.

  After a quick look though its contents, Pete decided that nothing had been removed from the wagon. Clothes, food, weapons—everything a man needed for a trip through the Wyoming Territory—was here. He opened a trunk and looked through the clothes inside. All men’s clothing in the style of an Easterner, a tenderfoot, but the clothes looked about his size. He’d apologize to the owner when he returned, but Pete didn’t hesitate to take advantage of his good luck. Using almost the last of his strength, he managed to put on underwear, shirt, pants, and socks. Despite the pain of having clothes rub against his sunburn, he sighed with relief. At least now he wasn’t naked.

  He found a quilt, lay down, and pulled it over him. Tomorrow he’d be strong enough to climb down from the wagon. Tomorrow he’d discover where he was.

  Pete leaned against the side of the wagon as he looked down at the body of a young man who had been dead about two days. The body lay near the front of the wagon, invisible from the direction Pete had ridden in from. Pete figured he’d been killed the day he himself had been shot. Pete couldn’t figure out why the man had been killed and the wagon left on the trail. Or why nothing had been taken. The man looked like an Easterner. He wore a suit too fancy for anyone out here. His hair had been smoothed with Italian oil, his face shaved close. He had every appearance of a dude, a man who would be out of place in the Wyoming Territory.

  Being careful not to move too quickly, Pete knelt down and opened the man’s coat. Much to his surprise, the man’s wallet was still in his pocket. It held $200. Searching the other pockets, Pete found a small bundle of letters addressed to Peter Warren, Springfield, Illinois. Even the man’s pocket watch and chain had been left, the name Peter Warren inscribed on the back of the watch. Pete felt uncomfortable wearing a dead man’s clothes, but it was obvious Peter Warren wouldn’t need them.

  Pete felt like he’d stepped into the middle of a game with new rules. Every killer he knew would do nearly anything for money. Yet the men who’d killed Peter Warren had left over two hundred dollars in the wallet, a trunk full of clothes, a perfectly good wagon, supplies, and equipment worth more than a thousand dollars. Someone very powerful had ordered this killing, someone powerful enough to enforce the order that nothing be removed from the site.

  Pete put the wallet and letters inside the wagon. After he fixed himself something hot to eat, he would search the wagon more thoroughly. He hoped to find something that would tell him what this man was doing in Wyoming and why someone would want to kill him.

  Afterwards, he’d figure out how he was going to bury him.

  That afternoon Pete searched the wagon systematically, paying special attention to the trunk. He found nothing there but more clothes, personal items of jewelry, a large family Bible, and several dozen letters tied together with a string. He combined them with the ones he’d found in Peter’s coat pocket, put them in order according to the dates, and read them all straight through.

  After he’d finished, he sat deep in thought for nearly an hour before reading them all through again. Now he knew what a twenty-six-year-old hardware store owner from Illinois was doing in Wyoming Territory. He had inherited the Tumbling T, a large cattle ranch started by his uncle. If Peter didn’t want the ranch, or didn’t show up by noon on September 4, 1886, the ranch would go to a relative of his uncle’s wife.

  Or anyone strong enough to hold it. Pete knew what it meant if the rightful owner didn’t show up. A range war to claim some of the best grazing land east of the Big Horn Mountains.

  Someone obviously didn’t want Peter Warren to inherit. But Pete still didn’t understand why nothing had been stolen, why all the identification had been left on the body. Obviously the murderer wanted whoever found Peter to know who he was. Pete couldn’t figure out how that could benefit anyone, but it must somehow.

  Instinct urged Pete to collect food and weapons and head down the trail as fast as he could. But the manner of the killing bothered him. Peter Warren’s gun belt was rolled up behind the wagon seat. A rifle lay on the wagon floor. Clearly the man hadn’t been expecting trouble. Nor had he realized he faced it before he was killed. He’d had no opportunity to reach for his weapons.

  That argued that someone he knew, possibly a friend, even a member of his family, had killed him. That bothered Pete even more. You couldn’t depend on much in life, but a man had to be able to depend on his friends and family.

  What should he do?

  He could turn everything over to the nearest sheriff or law officer, but there wasn’t one nearby. Besides, they might start thinking Pete had killed this stranger. The fact that he was wearing Peter Warren’s clothes wouldn’t help his position.

  Besides, it was quite possible no lawman would care about a stranger. The sheriff might just keep the money, sell his belongings, and pocket the money for them as well. That went against Pete’s principles. According to the letters, Peter’s young wife was expecting him any day now. She might need his money. Now that he was dead, she might need it even more. Few things were important to Pete, but family was sacred. His had been killed by Indians when he was five. He had never stopped missing them.

  It was obvious Peter had wanted his uncle’s ranch. He had meant to show up on time. Pete had heard rumors of rustling in this area, but he hadn’t paid any attention. He’d quit ranching when he left Texas and never intended to start again. But rustling was common. If a man couldn’t protect his own cows, someone would rob him blind.

  Still, Peter’s wagon and food had saved Pete’s life. He felt he owed Peter Warren something. Maybe he would try to find his wife, tell her what had happened, return the money, letters, and other personal items. But the main thing occupying Pete’s mind was finding the thieves who’d shot him and getting his money back. He’d worked too hard and too long in too many gold-fields to let some sneaking cowboys take the profits. He wasn’t as good with guns as a couple of the orphans he’d been raised with, but he was good enough.

  Still puzzled as to why the killer had wanted Peter’s body found and identified, Pete decided he would burn the wagon and bury Peter where no one would find him. Tired from so much thinking and planning, Pete went to sleep.

  He spent all the next day looking for a place to bury Peter. He spent the next two days digging the grave, a third day moving the bo
dy. He spent the next day in complete rest. His sunburn didn’t hurt any longer, his wound had continued to heal, and his headaches were reduced to a dull throb. He had been fortunate to survive the gunshot. Sean had always said Pete was the most hardheaded man alive. Well, his hard head had saved his life.

  He made a meticulous study of the area around the wagon, wondering what had happened to the two mules that had drawn it. He found the prints of two riders, presumably the men who’d killed Peter. He studied the hoofprints until he felt certain he would know them again no matter how imperfectly made.

  The day after that he harnessed Sawbones to the wagon. The horse objected to such treatment, but Pete finally convinced him to pull the wagon to a clump of willow and boxelder that bordered a stream. He discovered the missing mules grazing there. He decided to leave them there and burn the wagon. He couldn’t take a chance on being hanged as a horse thief. Though it went against the grain, he would use Peter’s money until he caught up with the thieves. But he would pay it back. Pete had done a lot of things he wasn’t proud of, but he’d never stolen from a dead man and didn’t intend to start now.

  Pete had another important task. He had to go back to his camp and see if he could discover anything that might help him identify the men who’d robbed him and left him for dead. Taking all of the food and clothing, he headed north.

  What he found convinced him the men who’d robbed him had also killed Peter. That made no sense, but hoofprints didn’t lie. The same horses had been in both places. Pete headed south.

  Anne Thompson fought as hard as she could against her Uncle Frank and Cyrus McCaine, the wretched excuse for a man to whom her uncle had sold her, but the two men were much stronger than she was. The other men sitting their horses in front of the Tumbling T ranch house didn’t intervene.

  “You can’t force me to marry him,” Anne said to her uncle. “I’m already married to Peter.”

  “That’s a lie,” her uncle replied. “You haven’t seen that boy in more than ten years.”