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  He was curious to know why she was going to a place like Tombstone by herself. But he didn’t ask. Such a question would surely make her uneasy.

  Instead, he would see her safely to the outskirts of Tombstone, then hurry on his way. He was anxious to get back home to his ailing father.

  His father did not have much time left on this earth, and it was his father’s health that had kept Thunder Horse from taking his people to the reservation assigned to all Sioux.

  “Thank you again for what you did for me,” Jessie said, hating to say good-bye.

  These moments would stay with her forever. When she was sad and lonely, she would think of Thunder Horse.

  “Go with care,” Thunder Horse said, nodding at her.

  “I shall,” she murmured, then took one last lingering look into his eyes before forcing herself to turn away from him.

  She snapped the reins, and the team of horses responded to her command, taking off in the direction of Tombstone.

  Thunder Horse waited for a moment, then followed a good distance behind her. As he watched her riding ahead of him, his thoughts went again to his people’s situation.

  Ho, yes, the white chief in Washington had given permission for some of Thunder Horse’s band of Sioux to stay at their village until his father passed on to the other side. His father would then be placed with the other chiefs in the sacred burial cave of those who had gone on before him.

  Afterward, Thunder Horse would lead what was left of his Fox band on to the reservation.

  The white chief had met personally with Thunder Horse’s father in Washington, to discuss peace between them. A final agreement had been made that Thunder Horse’s people would join other Sioux bands on the reservation. But on the way home from Washington, his father had become desperately ill.

  When the white chief learned of his father’s illness, he had sympathized with Thunder Horse’s dilemma and had given his permission for some of Thunder Horse’s people to remain at the village, while others had gone on to the reservation. Everyone would come together again after his father’s interment in the burial cave.

  When Thunder Horse saw Jessie reach the outskirts of Tombstone, his thoughts returned to her again.

  He dismounted, tied his horse in a clump of scrubby bushes, and made his way stealthily to the shadows of an outbuilding at the edge of town. He had decided he would not return to his village until he saw who met her . . . whom she had come to Tombstone to be with.

  He hoped that she hadn’t come to live in prostitution as so many of the women in town did.

  He watched her stop at the stagecoach station. He kept watching as several men came out and began talking to her.

  The longer he watched her, the more he was taken by her loveliness, and by her courage!

  Chapter Two

  Jessie tried to remain calm as several men ran up to her as soon as she drew the team of horses to a halt in front of the stagecoach station.

  The men all seemed to talk at once, making Jessie’s head spin as she looked from one to the other.

  “What happened?”

  “Where’s Tom, the driver?”

  “Why are you driving the stagecoach?”

  “Where is your luggage?”

  “Please . . . please . . . !” she cried, waving a hand in the air toward them. “Please stop all these questions. Just . . . justgivemea chance to get off this horrid stagecoach and then . . . then . . . I’ll tell you everything.”

  One of the men stepped forward and raised a hand to help her, which she readily accepted.

  Once she was on solid ground, with her beaded purse, which she had rescued from inside the stagecoach, gripped in her hand, she inhaled a nervous breath. Before she spoke, she looked past them in the direction where she had last seen Chief Thunder Horse. There was no sign of him.

  “Well? Where’s Tom?” one of the men said, bringing Jessie out of her thoughts to the morbid task at hand, for she had the terrible chore of telling these men that Tom had died at the hands of outlaws.

  “I’m so sorry,” Jessie said, her voice catching as she looked slowly from man to man. “Tom is dead. We were ambushed—”

  “Dead?” they all seemed to say at once.

  “Yes,” Jessie said solemnly. “The masked men seemed to come out of nowhere. They killed Tom, stopped the stagecoach, and—”

  “How did you live through it?” a man shouted.

  “I truly don’t know,” Jessie said, visibly shuddering. “Once they had the stagecoach stopped, all they seemed interested in was my trunk. They took it down, but when they opened it and saw that it held no valuables, they cursed, then . . .”

  She stopped before telling the truth of what had happened next, for to tell them that the outlaws had fired their guns into the air and spooked the horses would be to tell them Thunder Horse’s role in rescuing her.

  She knew it was not best to tell them that, although what he had done was valorous. He had saved her life.

  Still, she knew that Thunder Horse would not want to be mentioned. He would not want these men to know that a powerful chief was so close to their town.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” one of the men said, staring incredulously at Jessie. “A mere woman managed to get out of that fracas alive, and then drove a team of horses on into Tombstone.”

  Several others commented favorably about what she had done, while others quietly studied her, as though they suspected that she had left an important ingredient out of this tale.

  “And so they just rode away without another thought of you?” one of the men said, raising an eyebrow.

  “Seems so,” Jessie murmured. “When they saw that only my clothes were in the trunk, they were furious, but fortunately they didn’t shoot me. They were masked. I could never identify them.”

  “Yep, all masked men look alike,” one of the men said, kneading his whiskered chin.

  “Poor Tom,” another one said, then tightened his jaw. “We’ve got to go and get him.”

  “And I’ll send out a search party for the hooligans that did this to Tom,” the sheriff said, edging his way through the crowd until he reached Jessie’s side. “Ma’am, I’m sorry your trip to Tombstone was marred by the likes of these outlaws.” He removed his wide-brimmed cowboy hat and half bowed toward her. “My regrets are real, ma’am.” He straightened his back and plopped the hat back on his head. “While the men are getting Tom, some will retrieve your luggage. I’ll have it back to you before nightfall.”

  Then he idly scratched his brow. “Might I ask what brings you to our lovely town of Tombstone?” he asked, staring directly into her eyes. “Where can we deliver your luggage once we rescue it?”

  Jessie looked slowly around her at the men. Their attitude had changed at this question and their eyes seemed to glisten suddenly.

  She recognized their prurient interest in her. Did they actually believe that she was there to work in a saloon, dance hall, or worse . . . ?

  “I’ve come to Tombstone to live with my cousin Reginald Vineyard,” Jessie said, noting disappointment in some of the men’s eyes. Others seemed taken aback by the mention of her cousin’s name.

  “I’ve arrived on an earlier stagecoach than Reginald had expected,” she murmured. “Could someone among you direct me to his house?”

  “You won’t find Preach at his house right now,” the sheriff said, looking past her, down the long road, at the white church that sat at the far end. He turned slow eyes back to Jessie. “It’s Sunday. Preach is always at the house of the Lord on Sunday.”

  The men’s way of calling her cousin “Preach,” made Jessie’s eyebrows rise. She never would have guessed that Reginald would become a preacher. Although as children he had been good and kind, he had not been one to go to Sunday school or church services with his family and Jessie’s, who always attended together.

  As an only child, Reginald had been spoiled rotten, always getting his way with his parents. His mother and father had sa
id that he would only have to go to Sunday services when he wanted to.

  And Reginald had never wanted to.

  Jessie thought it odd that the boy she remembered should have dedicated himself to the church. But perhaps he’d had a change of heart after his great silver find. Perhaps becoming so rich so quickly had brought him close to the Lord. Maybe he felt blessed for having been led into a life of luxury.

  Jessie hadn’t set eyes on Reginald for many years, but she recalled that the last time she had seen him, he had turned into a mousy little man.

  She had actually dreaded coming to live with him, but she, too, was an only child, and all of her family was dead.

  As far as she knew, Reginald was her only living relative, as was she his.

  As children, they had ridden horses and played and fussed.

  He’d hated it when she got the best of him in everything they did, because of his tiny size.

  She was also petite and had never regretted it, but for Reginald, being small had become a curse.

  He had to look up at most men from his four-feet-eight-inches height. Even Jessie was taller than he.

  And he wore spectacles with such thick lenses, they made his eyes look twice their size. His eyeglasses had often frightened the girls away, while the boys mocked him and called him “four-eyes.”

  She was suddenly aware of singing. She turned and looked down the long street. At the far end was a lovely church with a tall bell tower.

  The windows were open. The people were singing hymns that Jessie recognized at once, and not just from her childhood churchgoing.

  Her dear departed husband had been a preacher.

  Living in the wild and woolly city of Kansas City, her husband had died on the streets of the city, shot down by lawless gunmen.

  She had had no choice but to come and live with her only living relative in Tombstone, but she had been afraid that this town would not be any tamer than Kansas City. The name itself had sent chills up and down her spine, but she had no place else to go, no one else to turn to.

  She knew she ought to be grateful to Reginald, who had invited her to come and live with him. In his telegram, he had bragged about his house, saying it was the finest in town, which was only right since he was the richest person there.

  She could not help being proud of her cousin, for he had shown them all that size wasn’t all. He was a small man with a huge fortune!

  But even wealth had not gained him everything. He had not remarried since the death of his wife, Sara. Maybe there was only one woman on this earth for a man who was smaller than most.

  “Is that the church where Reginald is the preacher?” she asked, turning to gaze questioningly at the men.

  That brought low chuckles from them.

  The sheriff leaned down into her face. “He ain’t no preacher,” he said smugly. “He just has that nickname since he pretends to be holier than anyone else in this town.”

  “Oh?” Jessie said, confused.

  “But yonder is the church where you’ll find him,” the man quickly added, pointing to it.

  “Thank you for your help,” Jessie said softly. “I appreciate it.” She looked up at the sheriff. “Will you please see that my trunk is taken to Reginald’s house when it is found?”

  “I certainly will, ma’am,” the sheriff said, again taking his hat from his head and giving her a half bow. He watched her as she turned and began walking down the long main street of his town, her purse clutched in her hand.

  Jessie quickly discovered that she had to watch where she stepped, for the road showed signs of recent rain; wagon wheels had made deep ruts in the dirt.

  She lifted the hem of her skirt and walked onward, her eyes misting with tears as she remembered the last time she had been inside a church . . . to attend the funeral services for her husband.

  It had been his church, for he had been a Methodist minister in Kansas City, admired by everyone. One stray bullet had claimed his life.

  That bullet had left Jessie totally alone. Both her father and mother had been gunned down on the streets of Kansas City a few years earlier.

  Before Jessie was born, her father had been a notorious outlaw, called Two Guns Pete. When his wife had announced that she was pregnant, he had hung his holstered pistols on a peg on the wall and had not taken them down again.

  The law had never caught up with him. No one recognized Two Guns Pete in that peace-loving man who came to Kansas City with a pregnant wife.

  But all that changed one fateful day when his daughter Jessie had been seventeen. He was spotted by Bulldog Jones, an outlaw he’d double-crossed when they rode together in the same outlaw gang.

  This man had apparently searched high and low and finally found his old rival buddy. It had taken only two bullets to take him and Jessie’s mother away from her, leaving her orphaned and penniless.

  Although her father had been a loving and doting father, as well as a devoted husband, he had squandered his money away, gambling.

  The young Reverend Steven Pilson had taken Jessie under his wing. Eventually he had married her.

  She had learned to adore this soft-spoken man, but had never loved him with passion. It was an easy, sweet love.

  As she continued walking down the middle of the street, still clutching her beaded purse to her side, Jessie noticed the false-fronted buildings on each side, among them saloons, gambling halls, and whorehouses.

  Through the doors of the saloons she could hear the rumble of voices, poker chips rattling, and dealers calling the cards while presiding over games of poker, faro, and monte.

  She could smell the strong, offensive odor of whiskey.

  It was obvious to her that this was a wicked city, one that did not close down even for God’s special day.

  Suddenly Jessie saw a crowd of men in front of a row of small square buildings. In each one, sparsely clothed young women were standing in the front window.

  Among them was a very pretty Chinese girl who seemed no older than fifteen. Her eyes met Jessie’s with a mixture of emotions in them—shame, pleading, sadness . . . fear!

  Jessie was stunned to see such a young girl there, for she knew very well what went on inside. Jessie had seen the same shameful buildings in Kansas City.

  They were called “cribs,” where prostitutes practiced their trade.

  But none had ever been on the main street of the city like these were, in Tombstone. She was beginning to believe that this town was far more wicked than Kansas City had ever been.

  She made herself look away from the pretty Chinese girl and focus on what lay ahead of her. Surely her life here would be a decent, comfortable one. Her cousin had found a mountain of silver, as he had described it. He must have all the comforts anyone would ever want.

  Finally reaching the lovely church, she slowly climbed the steps, then went inside.

  The pews were filled with people.

  She smiled as two women scooted over, giving her a place to sit. After getting settled in among the people in the back row, Jessie stared straight ahead, at the man who stood behind the pulpit, then softly gasped.

  She couldn’t believe her eyes.

  Her cousin was at the pulpit. He was reading verses from the Bible as the Methodist minister stood aside.

  Reginald’s reddish brown hair, which at one time had been so thick, was now thin, yet hung long to his white collar. He wore a black suit, white shirt, and narrow tie.

  He seemed even tinier than Jessie remembered. In fact, he seemed almost shrunken, his shoulders slouching, as though they carried a heavy weight.

  When Reginald was finished, the minister thanked him. “Reginald, every town should be as lucky as Tombstone to have such a fine citizen as you,” he said, placing a gentle hand on Reginald’s thin shoulder. “You know the Bible well and practice its teachings in your daily life.”

  Everyone said, “Amen.”

  Jessie watched Reginald go to his seat among the congregation.

  She co
uld tell that he was still a man very much caught up in himself. He was obviously pleased by what the preacher had said about him.

  She was puzzled that he had shown no sign of recognition as she came in the door. He couldn’t have helped seeing her as he had glanced up from the Bible when she’d entered.

  Had she changed that much since they had last seen one another?

  She didn’t think she looked so different. The only real change in her was not yet apparent: she was pregnant.

  She placed a hand on her stomach. She had only realized that she was with child during the long, tedious journey from Kansas City.

  But it wasn’t at all obvious to anyone else. She would not be showing for a while.

  Finally the church service was over.

  Jessie slipped out of the building before everyone else and stood back. She watched Reginald again as everyone came up and shook his hand; he stood beside the preacher as though he belonged there.

  She saw how he peered through his thick eyeglasses as though he had difficulty seeing. Surely that was why he hadn’t recognized her. His eyes must have weakened since the last time they were together.

  And he had other signs of physical decay. She could hear him wheezing and wondered if he had some sort of chronic lung problem.

  She began to pity him and decided that it would be her job to make this man happy. She would care for him when he was ill. She would make him glad that he had taken pity on his widowed cousin.

  When everyone else had gone past Reginald and the preacher, and even the preacher had left the church, Jessie shyly went up to Reginald. She reached out a gloved hand toward him.

  “Hi, Cousin,” she murmured, watching for his reaction.

  Reginald gazed intently at her through his thick glasses, even adjusted them on his long, thin nose, then smiled and reached his arms out for Jessie. “Jessie,” he said between wheezes. “I’m so glad you made it safely to Tombstone.”

  He stepped away from her, still peering at her through his glasses. “I thought you were to be on a later stagecoach,” he said questioningly.

  She started to tell him about the ambush, then stopped. She didn’t want to get into it again.