he traveled. “There’s a train leaving Fort Worth about midnight. If you’re on it, you’ll be in Amarillo by morning.” He lifted her hands and placed his weapons in her grip. “If it’s a partnership, equal and forever that you want, I’ll pledge my Colts that it will be true.”
The silence in the room was complete for the first time that night.
Finally, Charlie whispered what everyone was trying to believe. “You’re giving her your guns?”
Hank nodded once.
When William Randell and Potter Stockton finished laughing, they yelled things like, “You don’t give a woman a gun, you give her flowers,” and “Give a ring.” One of the men even suggested that maybe this girl was the first woman Hank had ever been around. Both seemed to be rehearsing the story that they planned to tell many times over.
Dolly swore at Charlie, calling him a fool for inviting someone so crazy to their dinner. “Waste of good food,” she yelled as the men mounted.
Aggie stood in the doorway, gripping the Colts and looking up at Hank. He saw the fear in her eyes, the uncertainty, but he also caught a hint of a smile on the side of her lips.
They were all laughing, except her. As he turned his horse, he caught a glimpse of Aggie buckling his gun belt around her skirts, and he knew as sure as he knew the sun would rise that she’d make the midnight train.
Chapter 3
Aggie didn’t say a word on the ride into Fort Worth. She sat on the bench of Charlie’s old buckboard feeling like she was waiting for her life to start. She barely noticed the cold wind whipping from the north, or the rustle of brittle leaves that still clung to the live oaks along the creek. Her brother-in-law made this trip each morning and evening, so he knew the road well even in the darkness. Five miles was a long way to travel to work, but between her sister and the cattle auctions, she guessed it might be the only silence he knew.
Hank Harris had asked her to marry him, or at least she thought he had. It wasn’t like any proposal she’d ever heard. He’d offered a partnership, equal and forever. Then, he’d unbuckled his gun belt and handed it to her. And, for the first time in her life, she found she couldn’t say no.
She smiled to herself. Her sister had argued all the while Aggie packed. At one point Dolly even insisted Charlie Ray stop Aggie from going with the crazy cowboy who thought a proper engagement gift was a gun. But Charlie, for once, spoke up and said he’d had enough. He claimed Hank was a good man and if Aggie wanted to go with him the only duty he saw as his was to see that they were married before the train left the station.
Hank and Aggie might be in Amarillo come morning, but they would be wed tonight.
The night air cooled Aggie’s tears as she gripped her hands together in her lap. She’d never been brave, she reminded herself, but the fear of everything remaining the same was worse than the fear of the unknown. She had to go. She had to take Hank’s offer. She had to end the torture of being passed from house to house.
“I never heard Harris swear,” Charlie interrupted as the lights from town blinked on the horizon. “That’s one good thing about him, I reckon.”
Aggie took a breath. “Yes.” She had one brother-in-law in Kansas who thought “damn” should serve as an adjective to every noun he used. Not swearing was definitely a good trait, she decided.
“Though I don’t think he has much money, he always pays his bills at the stockyard. Some ranchers, even after they have the cash for the sale, try to slip by without paying.” Charlie spit a long stream of tobacco into the night. “Paying your bills is good.”
“Yes.” Aggie guessed Charlie was trying to calm her. Maybe he thought she might jump out of the wagon and run away wild into the night. But, to be honest, if he didn’t hurry she was more likely to bolt and run toward the station. Charlie Ray Tucker was the best of her brother-in-laws and he was barely tolerable. After being passed from sister to sister she’d noticed that all their husbands had bad habits.
Closing her eyes, she tried to guess Hank’s.
“If he goes to the whorehouses he ain’t one to brag about it.” Charlie interrupted