The Whippoorwill Trilogy - Sharon Sala Page 0,291

heartbeat and the next, Robert Lee heard the sound, and at first, thought it was the wind in the trees, only there was no wind. It rose in pitch with the rhythm of his pulse until the pain in the sound pierced his soul. Hearing her grieve like this was almost more than he could bear.

“Ah God,” he whispered.

T-Bone cocked an ear toward the door, his nose quivering. When Letty began to sob in earnest, the pup lifted his head and began to howl.

Robert Lee wanted to howl, too. Instead, he held the reins of Letty’s horse while she went about the business of dealing with a broken heart.

Ashes To Ashes

They dug the grave at the back of the house, in the clearing near the trees, only a few yards from Baby Mary. A steady stream of people had been coming since daylight, filling the yard to wait for the services to start. They didn’t all know Eulis Potter, but they’d heard about what his widow had done to avenge his death. They wanted to see the woman with ice in her veins.

The women arrived bringing food to feed the gathering afterward, giving them an excuse to go into the fine house. They’d expected more in the way of luxurious furnishings, but still found enough to foster envy. Few of them had ever spoken to the infamous Letty Potter, although they all knew who she was. Today was their chance for a first hand view of Denver City’s richest woman.

Alice and Letty had shared a moment when they’d embraced in mutual grief, then Alice had washed Letty’s hair, bathed her as if she’d been a child, dressed her in a clean, simple dress and coaxed her into sitting in a chair beside Eulis’ coffin. People filed by to pay their respects, and to get an up-close look at the woman who was now his widow.

Letty saw none of it—heard none of it—felt none of it. Not the touches of condolence, or the words of sympathy—not even the curious looks. She was gratefully, blessedly numb. It wasn’t until Robert Lee appeared that she was pulled back to the reality of what had yet to be done.

Robert Lee didn’t speak, but when a small man with a weathered face began nailing the lid on Eulis’ coffin, she grabbed him by the hand. With every blow of the hammer, Letty’s grip tightened. By the time the man was done, Robert Lee could no longer feel his fingers.

The men who worked in the Potter mine walked single file into the living room, murmuring their uneasy condolences to a woman most of them feared. When Robert Lee gave them a nod, they shouldered Eulis’ coffin and started out the door.

Robert Lee leaned down and whispered in Letty’s ear.

“It’s time to go now. Will you let me walk with you, ma’am?”

Letty looked up.

“Robert Lee?”

“Yes, ma’am. We need to go now.”

“Oh. Yes. Of course,” she said.

He helped her up and kept a firm grip on her elbow as he escorted her out the door.

She fell into step behind the coffin without notice of the crowd watching her pass, or of the people who fell into step behind her.

She was remembering the days back in Lizard Flats when she’d demanded a nightly bath in hot water that Eulis had to carry up to her room—and the night he’d turned himself into a preacher and baptized her in a moss-covered watering trough down at the livery.

All the months they’d traveled through the territories on the Amen Trail, preaching and singing, marrying and burying, using the false identity of a dead man.

The nights they’d spent alone on the prairie—and the morning they woke up in the middle of a buffalo herd, certain that was the day they were going to die.

The fear she’d felt when they got snowed in at the abandoned cabin, convinced that Eulis was going to die from smallpox—facing down a starving wolf, then killing it with a stick of firewood.

The day she’d discovered the hidden gold mine behind a wall in the cabin, and the shock, then delight on Eulis’ face, knowing that their lives were forever going to change.

Everything was a jumble in her mind—all the times they’d laughed, and all the times they’d fought, and the days she’d wept in frustration, and the times he was always there to hold her hand.

As they were lowering his coffin in the grave, she was remembering the tenderness in his voice when they’d exchanged wedding vows, and