The Whippoorwill Trilogy - Sharon Sala Page 0,265

winked—a reminder to each other of their time together on the Amen Trail, when he’d been a practicing preacher and she, a devoted, but somewhat controlling, companion.

“Is the cookin’ done?” Eulis asked.

Alice nodded.

“Then let’s eat,” he said. “My belly’s been complainin’ for hours.”

Alice looked startled. They were behaving as if she would be having her meal with them. That couldn’t be right. Surely she’d misunderstood. Then Letty handed her a plate.

“Here,” Letty said. “You did most of the work so you should get the first dip.”

“But I’m just the hired—”

Letty frowned. “Let’s get something straight right now. There is no “just” in this house. Get yourself some stew and quit fussing. Maybe by next week we’ll have us a table and some chairs, but for now, we’re sitting on the floor.”

Alice took the plate and bit her lip to keep from weeping.

“The last three nights, I slept in the stable. From where I’m standing, this is a drastic improvement, and I thank you for it.”

“You’re welcome,” Letty said. “Get yourself a biscuit to go with that stew and step aside before Eulis slobbers all over your shoulder.”

Eulis blushed.

Alice grinned, and then winced from the pain of still healing facial muscles. She added a biscuit to her plate and eased her bruised and battered body down until she sitting on the floor with the wall at her back.

T-Bone had been sleeping in another room, but obviously heard the clank of spoon to tin plate and came to check things out.

Letty caught movement from the corner of her eye and frowned.

“I already fed you,” she said.

The pup whined.

“And you stink,” she added.

T-Bone sat down in the doorway, unaffected by her criticism.

“There’s a bone in this stew here. I’ll dig it out and give it to him,” Eulis said.

“It’ll be too hot,” Letty said.

Eulis grinned. “Well then, he can sit and look at it while it cools.”

Alice eyed the pair, as well as the rangy pup, and took another bite of her stew, thinking to herself as she ate that these people were unlike any she’d ever known. As for the pup, she remembered it from the alleys down in Denver City. They obviously adopted more than displaced people. She didn’t know how this was going to work out, but for now, she was profoundly grateful.

George Mellin could see the rising water from the window of his cell. Every night when he laid down on the cot, he wondered if he’d be alive in the morning, or if he’d just drown in bed. He couldn’t believe his life had come to this. If he had it to do over again, he would never have married Alice, or fathered their child, although the child was no longer an issue. He wondered a bit about the fact that he felt no sadness for her passing, but didn’t dwell on it. This was a harsh land and no place for the weak. It was simply a case of survival of the fittest.

Still, it seemed he was going to have to face a judge for the disagreements he and Alice had been having. He didn’t consider it anybody’s business but their own, but obviously some did—the some—being that bitch, Letty Potter. If she’d minded her own business, none of this would have happened. Oh, the kid would have died. Nothing could have prevented that. But at least he and Alice would have been back to where they started, which might not have been all bad. At least they wouldn’t have been fighting over dragging that weakling to a doctor—as if they’d had the money for such foolishness. It’s what he got for marrying someone from back east. Those big cities didn’t produce women used to hardships. He should have picked himself a woman who’d been born and raised in the territories. They knew how to make do with little to nothing.

Now, because of the choices he’d made, he was stuck in this cell, waiting for some stranger to make the decision as to how the rest of his life would go—and all because of Letty Potter’s meddling. When he got out, he was going to pay her back in a big way.

As a young man, Joshua Dean had studied law back in Virginia, and had been practicing law for the past twenty years in Atlanta, until the last six months. There were rumors back in the southern states that had not set well with him. His life had been based on interpreting the Constitution of the United