besides that, you’ll only be in my way.”
“If it weren’t for King Copperhead, Leland, I’d take to my bed and cover my head with a dozen quilts. But what do you intend to do with someone who, it says right here, is charming and at the same time the most deadly of them all? Of all the brothers he takes the most pleasure in violence. Did you see this, Boone?” She shoved the paper in front of his eyes. “He delights in it!”
He was silent because he didn’t rightly know what he was going to do. Not with Leland or any of them.
According to the plan, they, as homesteaders, were supposed to look weak, victim-like. To his mind that was no plan at all.
Smythe, who had been collecting firewood, dumped his load beside the circle of stones Boone had set out for the night’s campfire.
With his strides crisp and his back straight, the lawyer crossed the clearing then wriggled down between him and Melinda. The dog-wolf followed but turned aside to snuffle through the brush, his tail wagging and resembling bristles on a worn broom.
Mathers had seemed to feel the beast would be helpful. But so far his disposition seemed mild; they hadn’t heard so much as a growl out of him.
“You are my charge,” Smythe said to Melinda. “I won’t have you putting yourself at risk.”
“As your husband, I say the same.”
Melinda gave them both a sincere smile, a lovely one, in fact. “I would never dream of being a burden to you, Stanley. Or, Husband, of putting you at unnecessary risk.”
Odd that her apparent compliance didn’t ease his concern a whit.
“Still, I can’t help but wonder, Boone, what you will do about the youngest, Bird King, who calls himself King Vulture? It says right here that he is unpredictable.” She jabbed her slender finger at the words on the page. “Apparently charming one moment but the next nearly as wicked as Leland.”
“Sounds like they consider themselves royalty,” Stanley said.
“According to Mathers, they rule the town, even make other folks call them by their last name first. ‘King’ So-and-so.” He took the papers from Melinda and handed them to Smythe. “The only law that’s observed in Jasper Springs is at the whim of the Kings. Says here they hanged a boy barely out of the schoolroom for trying to defend his sister from Horny Toad. Doesn’t say what happened to her.”
Silence stretched for a time, broken only by the chirrup of crickets, the croak of frogs.
Suddenly there was a tussle in the shrubbery. Branches cracked and leaves scattered.
Billbro trotted out with a limp rabbit in his jaws. He set it before them.
“Good. One of us is a hunter,” Stanley observed. “We won’t starve.”
* * *
Riding down the main street of Jasper Springs, the wagon wheels laboring over the rutted road, Melinda thought the town must have been well cared for at one time.
Flowerpots decorated the raised boardwalk. A banner advertising a long-gone Fourth of July celebration was strung from one side of the street to the other. Looking past the banner, toward the end of Main Street, she saw a fountain gurgling in the town square.
Sadly, Jasper Springs now resembled a ghost town more than anything else. Those pretty flowerpots were cracked, growing weeds, the banner faded and tattered. The spring-fed fountain sounded lovely but no one was around to enjoy it. It would be easy to imagine that no one lived here any longer.
At least there were trees to soften the dreariness of the place. Dozens of them grew around town, their fall colors bright and beautiful. What a satisfaction to know that the outlaws did not control everything.
Melinda adjusted her drab bonnet and tried to fluff her brown dress. Sadly, no amount of encouraging could make the homespun fluff.
She reminded herself that she was not here to look her best but to pose as a homesteader’s wife. To appear dutiful, hardworking and, most of all, vulnerable.
That is what her new husband must believe she is, if his hesitation to let her read about the Kings was any indication.
“Humph!” He would need to learn that she would not wither at the first sign of trouble.
Stanley, sitting beside her, the team’s reins gripped in his smooth, lawyer-like hands, looked at her in question.
“It’s nothing,” she said, even though it was. If a man was going to rely upon a woman’s help, he had to respect that she could actually help.
Boone rode in front of the wagon, sitting tall on Weaver the mule. A rifle lay square across his thighs. To her mind, he looked far too commanding to be a meek farmer, even given his humble mount.
Far too handsome, as well.
As if reading her thoughts, her admiration of the masculine image he presented, Boone twisted in the saddle.
It felt as if he looked past her eyes and into her mind, saw himself the way she saw him: bold, well formed, commanding. A smile tweaked one side of his mouth. He arched an eyebrow.
She held his gaze for an instant then quickly glanced away. For all the good it did now. No doubt he felt the heat of her blush all the way from here.
Deputy Billbro kept pace with the mule, sniffing the air and learning things about the place that mere humans were unable to perceive.
“Where is everyone?” she asked softly. It was too quiet. A muttered voice might be heard for a block. “It’s midday. You’d think folks would be about.”
All of a sudden Weaver brayed. The sound echoed all over town. A curtain swayed at the window of the bank but then fell back into place. A baby cried but was quickly silenced.
Jasper Springs was not deserted, after all; it only seemed so.
Boone reined in the mule. Stanley halted the wagon beside him.
“We’ll visit the mercantile for supplies,” Boone said. “Make our arrival known.”
Melinda wiped a spot of dirt from the wagon bench and smeared it on her cheek to make herself look weary, which she was not.
“Slump your shoulders, Boone. No one will believe that a man of your size is a weakling.”
He arched a brow but did as she asked, but really, it didn’t help much. He was a fine, strapping man and there was no hiding it.
Stanley slumped his shoulders, too, but it didn’t make a difference, not that she would ever point that out.
The dog didn’t need to act dusty and matted, he was naturally that way.
Early this morning they had discussed Mather’s plan, how they would give the appearance of easy victims to attract the interest of the Kings. This would not be easy for Boone. She had noticed him chafing at the idea even from the first mention of it.
Stopping in front of the mercantile, Boone hid his rifle
