Excerpted from Pursued
copyright 2011
New Mexico Territory, 1875
There are bad spots. And then there are really bad spots. United States Marshal Samuel Wyatt was pretty darn familiar with both. But this situation was something else entirely.
Specifically, he stood in an outlaw’s cemetery, perched atop Fast Jack Durham’s final resting place, with the cold barrel of a thirty-thirty pressed into his ribs, facing a Justice of the Peace who had just asked him if he would take Henry Jordan – a.k.a. Henrietta Jordan, the only female of the infamous horse-thieving Jordan clan - to be his bride.
Samuel’s gaze hitched to his left. The one-armed cross marking Durham’s grave leered back at him. With its singular appendage and crooked stance, it reminded him only too well of Fast Jack’s final words before departing this earth, a little less than a year ago.
“Judgment day’s comin’, Wyatt. For you same as me.”
Samuel stared at him down the barrel of his pistol. “Appears yours is coming first, Durham.”
Durham grinned then, and coughed, holding a hand to his chest where blood leaked from two fresh bullet holes. “Mebbe so. Mebbe so. But I’ll still have the last laugh.” Another spasm of coughing racked his body and he curled into a shell, drawing his knees upward. When he uncurled, it was with a pistol in his hand.
They both fired. Samuel’s shot ushered Fast Jack into eternity. Durham’s shot, on the other hand, removed a chunk of Samuel’s knee and laid him up for the better part of a year.
Samuel had no doubt that somewhere tonight Fast Jack was making good on his promise.
“Well, do ya?”
The Justice – if he was truly that, Samuel had never seen him before – wiped his nose on his sleeve and stared at him through bloodshot eyes. The thirty-thirty bit into Samuel’s ribs. He shifted his weight off his injured leg and gave the answer that would keep him alive.
“I do.”
Seemingly relieved, the Justice repeated the question, this time directing it to Henry, who glared at him like he’d lost his last marble. It didn’t appear that Henry had inherited the smarts of her oldest brother, Frank, the leader of the Jordan clan. Neither had she been blessed with the sunny disposition of her younger brother, Joey, who never stopped smiling, even while he was ripping the legs off toads. Nor had she gotten the dashing charm of Ross, who was situated between Henry and Frank on the family tree and was known to be quite appealing when he wasn’t killing people.
So far as attractiveness went, the Jordan clan were a good looking folk, tall with fair hair and striking eyes. But when they were stocking the gene-pool, Henry must’ve been fishing on the ugly end. She was all of five feet tall and a hundred pounds, soaking wet. Her hair was straggly and the color of mud caked leather. She had not so much as a hint of a feminine curve on her that Samuel could see hidden beneath the baggy men’s britches and tattered flannel shirt that had grown slick with age. Not that he was looking. He shuddered. Definitely not looking.
“Whyn’t ya skip all this part and get to the end,” she snapped. “I got a coupla coons need skinnin’ for the stew pot t’morra and Little Joey’s getting cranky.”
‘Little Joey’ would be the hulking child-man holding the gun to Samuel’s back. Samuel did not want Little Joey to get cranky, under any circumstances, and certainly not under these. Most cranky people couldn’t shoot the leg off a crow at thirty paces like Joey could.
The tremble in the Justice’s hands was most likely a byproduct of being wakened in the dead of night and dragged to the cemetery at gunpoint. It was hard to say who the justice was more afraid of - the crack-shot with the rifle who happened to be a few bricks short of a load, or the banshee running this show, who happened to have the disposition of a wet cat. Either way, Samuel might have felt sorry for the old man if it weren’t for the fact he had his own set of problems to worry over.
“Let’s see. Yes,” the Justice said, clearing his throat several times and mopping at his brow with a handkerchief. “Um. I can do that. Where was I? Oh yes. Do you take this man to be your husband…”
“Course I do,” Henry snapped, spitting a stream of tobacco juice into the dirt between her boots and wiping her mouth on her shoulder. “If I didn’t intend to marry him, why else’d I be draggin’ your sorry bones out in the middle of the night? Now wrap it up afore Joey grows whiskers. It’s a long ride back to camp.”
The Justice nodded and found his place, his speech halting at first, then he hit his stride and gathered speed, finishing in a rush of words that nearly piled on top of each other in their haste to escape his lips. “For better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health until death do you part I now declare you man and wife you may kiss the bride.”
That last part was the thing Samuel had been dreading most. From the corner of his eye, he watched Henry use her tongue as a shovel to dig a wad of tobacco out of her bottom lip. She dropped it to the ground, spit a couple of times for good measure, then folded her arms and seemed to think. Samuel prayed as never before. More fervently even than when he’d been trapped without a weapon in the bowels of the Cimarron with a band of Comanche warriors bearing down on him. Reaching for her reins, Henry gave Joey a curt nod and the boy lowered the gun.
“Nuff time for that later, I suppose. Joey, git the man his horse.”
Samuel exhaled and wiped the sheen of sweat from his face. Little Joey did as he was told, trudging across the cemetery to where a small woolly brown horse and Samuel’s dun were tethered side by side. He untied both horses and started back across the field. Mid-way, he stopped, reached down, grabbed a handful of dirt and placed it in his pocket. Then he headed back to Samuel, handing him the dun’s reins. Henry stepped on board her horse, a blue roan she’d been riding the day she’d captured him. She nodded to Joey and he climbed up on the brown beast, taking his time to get settled in the saddle before leveling the rifle across his lap. Beneath the unyielding stare of the thirty-thirty and both Jordans, Samuel slid his boot into the stirrup. The dun nickered and tossed his head once, shifting his weight to stand square.
With Henry in the lead and Joey riding drag, they picked their way between the rows of long dead bodies, out of the cemetery, and down the trail that led to Rattlesnake Canyon. A half-hour into the ride, Little Joey nudged his scrawny animal to catch up with the dun. He produced a beetle from his pocket and held it out for Samuel to see. “I like bugs. Do you like bugs?”
“Not particularly.”
Still a moon-faced youth, with ears that sprouted like cabbages from the side of his head, Joey was probably all of twelve. Maybe thirteen. Hard to tell, with his simple-minded ways. But when he concentrated hard, or when he was angry, manhood showed in the clenching of his jaw and in the stubborn set of his shoulders. Joey was harder to read than Henry, but he was likeable, which, when it was all said and done, is what made him dangerous.
A few minutes later, the brown had again fallen behind. Joey’s heels drummed his side mercilessly until the animal picked up the pace and was side by side with Samuel. Joey’s grin split his face from ear to ear. “I like bugs,” he repeated. “Do you like bugs?”
Samuel tried a different tact. He nodded yes. Satisfied, Joey slumped in the saddle and the brown horse slowed his pace until they lagged several paces behind.
They rode past the soddie where Old Man Rivers lived. Past the outlying buildings. Past the place where the road forked into two trails, veering east. When the road dipped into the creek and took a sharp elbow to the north, Henry reined the roan to a sudden halt directly in front of the dun, who laid back his ears and edged sideways into the creek bank.
Henry spit off the side of her horse. “You wanna fool my brother, you’re gonna have to do better’n that two-bit song and dance in town,” she hissed. “Ross can spot a liar hun’red miles away. And you are not a good liar, Mister.”
Samuel fingered his reins. “Never said I was. Ma’am.”
She tilted her head and examined him, much like a chicken might inspect a worm. “You looking to die, Mister?”
“Not anytime soon, Ma’am.”
Their eyes locked. He remained silent while her stare burned two holes straight through his eye sockets and out the back of his head. Finally, she looked away. One corner of her mouth quirked upward. “You best put that smart mouth of yours to good use if you want to stay alive. Come on, Joey. Catch up.” Turning back to Samuel, she said, “You do exactly what I told you. Nothing else.”
“Oh, I’ll keep my end of the bargain. You just see to it you keep yours.”
She lifted her hat and slicked a hand over her hair, then wiped her palm down the front of her shirt. “I aint never gone back on my word yet. Don’t intend to start now.” She cast an eye toward the dun. “Just you remember that. And remember if things go bad for you, come tomorrow evening I’ll be riding that fancy little yella pony a your’n.”
Samuel edged his horse alongside hers, crowding the roan to the crumbling edge of the creek. “Come tomorrow evening, I’ll be looking at Ross Jordan through a cell door. And if you don’t keep your word, you’ll be in there with him. You remember that.”
Henry looked more amused than worried. When the roan would’ve moved backward, she spurred him into place without so much as a glance. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you, Mister. Ross aint gonna to take kindly to me gettin’ myself a husband. Especially a lawman. Most especially you.”
