Northern Nebraska 1886

Loud knocking sounded at Bets Winthrop’s front door. The noise awakened her when she’d scarcely been asleep. She trembled in her big bed. How many neighbors answered their door to find black hooded men outside? The mere thought of the Black Hoods put goose bumps on her arms, her mouth went dry and she found it hard to swallow. Those creatures seemed to think they had the right to take the law in their own hands whenever a couple cows or horses were stolen.

How many people were subjected to their biased questioning and intimidation? Who else would be out and about when most folks were abed? Being widowed at twenty-three, after vigilantes had hung her innocent husband, made her even more wary of knocks on her door. Frightening thoughts ran through her head. Did they still think, after two years, that she knew something about their identities? What if the Black Hooded vigilantes waited outside her door with a hangman’s noose all tied, and guns in their hands to force her to the nearest big tree? She hadn’t stolen any cattle or horses. Why did someone knock on her door this late at night?

The knocking got louder. She pulled on her old blue flannel robe and slid her feet into scruffy slippers. Grabbing the heavy forty-five caliber gun from the small bedside table drawer, Bets rushed across the living room and edged aside the heavy velvet drape at the big window. She peered slantwise across the long front porch to the spot opposite her dining room outside door.

In the dim light of a three-quarter moon, a hatless Aggie Blackstone stared back at her. Bets dropped the gun onto the padded rocker by the window, rushed to the door, fumbled to unlock it and flung the door open wide. She unlatched the screen door and stared at the woman.

"Aggie! Dear Lord in Heaven! What happened to you?" Bets enveloped her sister in a fierce hug. She stood back and searched Aggie’s features. "Are you all right? Are you hurt? I’ve missed you." She hugged her again even as her tears wet them both. "I’m so glad to see you!"

"I’ve missed you, too, Bets." Aggie hugged her tight, at the same time nudging her backward to the inside of the room.

"Aggie, where did you come from? Are you sure you’re all right? Let me light a lamp." Bets immediately closed her doors and relocked them. She quickly added light to the room and surveyed her sister again. Aggie’s dark braid swung about as she paced the room in agitation.

"No time to talk, Bets. Hide me! Now!" Aggie swung Bets’ heavy drapes shut over the only large window in the dining room.

Bets warily looked her tall, dark sister over from head to toe. She wore men’s sloppy Levi’s jeans. Her green blouse was torn at the shoulder. In contrast, the bright, polished gold of a locket Bets had given her shone in the vee of the blouse front. Her black hair hung in dusty straggles from under a battered gray Stetson hat she’d returned to her head once Bets recognized her.

Sudden bad memories made Bets say, "You should have been here for Mother before she died." She folded her arms across her chest and glared at Aggie. She was in trouble…again. Waiting for Bets to rescue her from a problem…again. Bets could tell.

"Hide me, dammit. I didn’t know she was sick. You want my death on your hands? I hear them coming." Aggie wrung her hands, peeked through a small opening in the drapes, then paced back, forth and around the rooms, seeking a place to hide.

"Who’s coming?" Bets listened. Across the roll of hills the drumming of many horses’ hooves thundered. Sound faded as the riders dipped down along a creek bed. It magnified again as they hit the hill just beyond her small garden shed.

"Black Hoods! Vigilantes!" Aggie’s tone conveyed all the contempt she felt for them. "Dammit again. Hide me!"

Bets looked at Aggie. Desperate green eyes stared back at her. "You’ll fit in my closet behind my dresses." Bets led the way to her bedroom off the living room. She heard the horses coming closer. Her heart threatened to crack a rib and her mouth felt filled with wool quilt batting. Vigilantes were definitely not her favorite people. Imaginations of her own husband’s hanging, and the more recent hanging of a woman at what they now called Hanged Woman Gulch put nausea in her throat.

"Nice dresses," Aggie commented as she pushed in back of the row of dresses on hangers and hooks. "Blue always did look good with your blonde hair."

Bets spared a glance at her best blue dress. The waist was tapered, the bustle modest. Nothing like the dresses Aggie had sometimes worn. Why was she now in Levi’s and an old torn blouse?

"Just don’t get them dirty," Bets said. "You have twigs and leaves in your hair. Be sure none of them show anywhere. There’s not much time." Bets wound and wound a strand of her own blonde hair around a trembling finger and bit a corner of her lower lip. Had she thought of everything necessary to keep Aggie safe?

The thunder of hooves sounded loudly enough to echo off the cliff in back of her stables. Bets slammed the closet door and ran across the bedroom, through the sitting room and out into the dining room. She pushed aside the lace curtain and stared into her yard. Trembles shook her body so hard she could barely stand. She thought of the poor woman so recently hanged, presumably because she knew who the hooded vigilantes were, or too much about their activities.

Dust swirled in choking clouds as five horsemen galloped their horses into the yard. Sand particles sparkled in the light of the three-quarter moon. One moment there were thundering hooves and the next moment five men sat astride their horses right at her porch edge. Two men’s features were hidden by black hoods. Three more wore dark hoods covering their heads and upper bodies.

Anger replaced her trembling. Bets snatched up the heavy gun from the rocker seat. She ran to the outside door, unlocked it again, and threw it open. The hooked screen door was no actual protection, but she felt better for the barrier.

"You stop right there!" Bets shouted, hoping her voice didn’t tremble like the rest of her. She didn’t like using a short gun.

"There’s a fugitive around here, ma’am. Have you seen him?" The man’s voice was guttural and clearly not his natural tone.

"Why would a fugitive come here?"

"How the hell do we know? Him an’ two others got off with four prime horses. That’s $800 in my book. That’s a hangin’ offense." The man’s disguised voice came muffled by the heavy hood covering his face and upper body. The two holes gave him such an eerie look, Bets’ hand shook. She put both hands on the gun. Being all alone out here, miles from town was not a good idea in these times.

"You think every nag is a prime horse when it’s yours." More anger replaced fear. Bets stared at each man. One wore gloves with fancy gauntlets. Another had sunburned hands, while a third man had pudgy white hands with a ruby ring on one fat finger. Her reporter’s eye took in the breadth of shoulders and colors of their horses. One man developed a nervous sounding cough as he edged his horse a little behind another rider.

The rider in front dismounted and came up on the wide porch.

Bets quickly raised the gun. It shook so badly in her hands she rested the muzzle on the screen door.

"We need to search your house."

Bets’ look darted to two men riding from the porch front around the side of the house. A third man backed his brown and white paint horse, then turned it toward her small barn.

"Don’t you disturb my hogs!" Anger strengthened her voice.

"We ain’t after no hogs," the leader said as he stepped closer. "We’re after horse thieves."

Every head turned at the sound of a galloping horse coming into the yard. Light flashed from the silver badge on his leather vest.

Elation filled Bets, and with a feeling of triumph, she stared at the Black Hoods. That rider might be the youngest sheriff they’d ever had, but he was an expert at upholding the law, and he was here to protect her.

He dismounted, dropped a rein and strode onto the porch, all in one fluid motion. She admired his lithe masculinity, but at the same time, her heart thundered in dread at the possibility of his finding Aggie. If Aggie really was a fugitive, what would he do?

"Sheriff, all we want is to search the lady’s house for a fugitive." The vigilante leader hooked thumbs in his gun belt and faced the new arrival.

"Nothin’ in the stable!" A black hooded vigilante rode back in front of the house. "Ain’t no recent rid horse around."

"Then there’s one fugitive afoot, Sheriff." The leader stubbornly remained where he was, almost to Bets’ door.

"Mrs. Winthrop, any objection?" Sheriff Bill Coble looked down at her from his great height, his gray eyes somber.

Her breath caught in her throat; would he be friend or foe this time? The gun wavered and scraped across the door screen.

Bill opened the screen door as soon as she unhooked it. His big warm hand closed over hers. Thrills shot up her arm clear to her shoulder. She let him take the gun and moved back two steps into the room. His presence erased her fright of the Black Hoods, but increased her awareness that this handsome man was here, especially to help her.

She tossed her head proudly erect, glared at them all, and through stiff lips said, "By all means, gentlemen, search my house. You won’t find anything, or anyone."

"One man is enough!" The sheriff’s tone brooked no argument.

The vigilante leader on the porch entered the dining room, and passed close by Bets. She smelled expensive cigar smoke. Her glance took in the glaze of dust on fancily trimmed boots. Boots that had dark stains around the soles.

He peered around the door into the kitchen. She then heard the squeak of her pantry door as the man banged through her kitchen. The woodshed door stuck as usual, but he tugged it open, then slammed it shut. Behind her, his footsteps circled the dining room table.

Bets wet her dry lips as the man opened the master bedroom door. She turned and watched as he grunted and went to one knee to peer under her bed. She would remember the man was built heavy.

The moon had almost set now and shadows lengthened. Bets prayed it was dark in the closet where she kept her out of season dresses. She winced as the wooden hangers rattled. "Don’t you get my dresses dirty!" she yelled. Fright squealed her voice high and loud.

The heavy-set man clomped back into her dining room, stomped over and peered into her sitting room. She heard him thud across her carpet to the second bedroom, the one she now used. He must have been satisfied, for he returned quickly, but paused beside her a moment. She was glad her blue robe covered her from chin to toes while all these men were here.

As the vigilante returned to the dining room Bets suddenly realized she was clinging to the sheriff’s forearm. She snatched her hand back.

"No problem, Bets." Bill’s grin put fine lines out from his warm gray eyes in an otherwise unlined young face. Looking at his sensual mouth sent tremors where tremors should not be. Bets backed farther into the dining room.

The vigilante strode away from Bets and Bill, let the screen door slam behind him, took the porch with two giant steps, and mounted his bay horse.

"I still think there’s a fugitive here someplace," he said. "If we find him in those rocks or the pines, he’s a hung man."

Bets watched anxiously as the five men rode away. "I think the man on the paint horse is Jeb Hexon. He’s about that size and sits his horse with that one shoulder slanted down; remember we noticed that about him? I wish you had arrested them and unmasked them all."

"Bloodthirsty little creature, aren’t you?" Bill said. "I think they would have fought, then where would we be? I agree though, it was foolish of him to ride a known horse like that." He placed her forty-five on the table. "By the way, where is Charlie tonight? I thought he’d be right here."

"He’s in town visiting a friend who got hurt taming a horse."

Bill clasped both hands on his heavy gun belt. One forefinger tapped on the dark leather. Bets felt his obvious scrutiny of her person. She wondered what he saw. She pinched her robe more tightly at the neck and swung the bulk of her hair back over her shoulder.

"You’re prettier every time I see you," Bill said.

"Thank you." She could almost smile now. Bets tilted her head to look up at him. "All the girls around town tell me you’re good at looking them over."

"Now, Bets, how can I know you’re the best of the lot if I don’t compare?"

"A good excuse, and just like a man." Bets set one heel firmly and turned her toe back and forth nervously. While following the movement of the scruffy slipper with her downcast eyes she said, "Seriously, Bill, do you think that leader was that man named Burnham who we’ve heard about?"

"I thought those vigilantes stuck closer to the Niobrara River country."

"It could be anyone I suppose, but why here?" Bets asked.

"A bunch of mares were stolen two nights ago, over east. They must have trailed them this direction. Are you putting it in your paper tomorrow?" Bill said.

"Deke always has the say on what’s printed. You know that." She looked at him seriously. She sighed heavily. He was tall, had dark blond hair so thick it invited feminine fingers, darker brows and lashes the girls all envied, and he was not for her. She’d lost one man, just as handsome, but she’d loved him. She sighed again.

"Tired?"

"It’s been a long day, Sheriff. If you’re finished here I really think you should go before those vigilantes spread rumors."

"Yeah. Young and beautiful widow woman bein’ comforted by the law and all that." He raised one dark brow with a look that made her heartbeat speed up. He might want to comfort her, but she mustn’t encourage that, especially with Aggie to protect. She sighed in relief as he walked slowly across the dining room, searching the floor. The vigilante leader had left one dusty print on her dining room’s wood flooring, then crossed her oval braided rug and lost the dust.

Bets held her breath. She first wet, then bit, her lower lip. What did he look for? Did he see something suspicious? Aggie, don’t make any noise. Don’t sneeze or rattle those dress hangers.

What if Aggie really was guilty? She’d gotten this far… and certainly not by walking. It was a little too far from any town for that. Which direction had she come from? Who was with her and where had they gone? Did they get away?

"Those vigilantes rode in off the prairie," Bill said. He sounded almost like he was accusing her of something. He raised that dark eyebrow again, but his look was so serious Bets had to swallow the lump of fear in her throat.

"I suppose so. I didn’t see where they came from." Thank goodness she could tell the truth on that.

"I did, as I rode this way." His sheriff’s voice spoke next, "Why do you suppose you have an aspen leaf with a pine needle stuck to it here on your bedroom floor, close to the window?" He held the display between thumb and finger. "The prairie doesn’t have aspen and pines."

She stared in fascination, like a chicken whose captor’s circling finger holds it too mesmerized to move. Bets heard her own huge swallow squeak in her ears. She hoped the sheriff didn’t. Surely the prickling sensation she felt all over her head must have drained all color from her face.

She lifted her chin and stared at him. "You’ve known me long enough to trust me, haven’t you? I certainly don’t want more trouble than I already have. Why would a fugitive come here?"

"Suppose I do a little search on my own," Sheriff Coble said. The stern set of his lips and even sterner look in his eyes rattled her.

Bets clamped her lips tight and let out a small "humph" before saying angrily, "Do what you have to, Sheriff Coble. You will anyway."

* * *

Bill hated invading people’s privacy. He hated it when anyone searched his property, or into his past. He glanced at the irate little woman across the room. Damn, but she looked good. Temper sparkled in her blue eyes. Her glossy blonde hair fell in waves about her slim shoulders and she had a figure he’d love to…

"Hell, Bets, I don’t like this either, but I better do it, just to make sure it isn’t someone who’ll harm you." He turned to walk farther into her bedroom before she could see his obvious reaction to her presence. Her bedroom was an even worse place to be. He grew even more uncomfortable and hoped no buttons popped off his trousers.

She’d turned her covers down, letting the white sheets warm from the small fireplace before crawling into bed. The fire in the fireplace wasn’t doing much good with the window open like that. He slammed it down, after noting the dirt smudge on the sill.

Her gasp behind him brought his attention around. "Flew the coop, didn’t he." It was not a question. "Who was it?"

"You don’t really expect me to answer that, do you?" Relief was obvious in her voice as she looked up at him.

He let himself stare into her wide blue eyes, which she quickly lowered as she fingered the pattern on one pink block in her bed quilt. He didn’t want to call her a liar. She’d always been an extremely honest woman. Why this?

Most people claimed they’d hung an innocent man when they hanged her husband almost two years ago. Was this a friend of her husband’s and not so innocent? Whoever it was, he was gone now, and a tracked-in aspen leaf wasn’t likely to hold up as evidence in court.

He walked over to her. She turned her head aside, as though studying the cabbage roses on her bedroom wallpaper. He reached a forefinger and raised her chin so she faced him. He studied the perfection of her oval face, the tiny dusting of freckles across her pert little nose. She backed away, toward the bedroom door.

"This isn’t exactly the proper place for the two of us… alone… is it?" He grinned a challenge into her upturned blue eyes. He liked her blush. Damn it, he liked too much about the woman. He couldn’t let it color his judgment.

"I’ve got cattle rustlers and horse thieves to catch. Why would you harbor either one or the other?" He followed Bets out of the bedroom and across the sitting room. He liked the wiggle of her slim hips under the blue robe.

She moved pointedly toward the outside door. He picked up his hat from the dining room table and fit it on his head to his satisfaction, taking his time.

The full skirt of her blue robe swished across his boot as he followed her to the door. She held the doo knob in her hand, waiting for him to leave.

She didn’t seem inclined to say any more to him. He touched a finger to his hat brim, nodded in farewell, and went out the door. Just maybe there remained enough moonlight to see what kind of footprints were outside her bedroom window. He hated the man already; he better be long gone and far away.

* * *

Aggie had gone! Bets felt such a surge of relief she plopped her trembling body down in the rocker by the dining room window. Her bit of mending lay on the small table alongside the lamp. She’d forgotten about her husband’s forty-five gun but Bill hadn’t. He’d left it beside the lamp. She quickly put it back in the drawer and slammed the drawer shut.

She leaned her head against the needlepoint headrest of the old rocker and out of habit pushed just enough to set the rocker in soothing motion. Would she have used that gun?

Had Aggie really been with a bunch of horse thieves? If they were horse thieves, why didn’t she have a horse? She hadn’t seen her sister in almost two years. She’d appeared out of nowhere at Buck’s funeral, after they’d cut his body down from hanging in one of the trees halfway across the county. No one knew about, or would admit to, the hanging. She knew he’d gone to buy a few cattle; the money had been in his pocket when he left home. He was not a rustler. Either he’d been robbed before the hanging and the vigilantes later thought him guilty, or he’d been robbed during the hanging. There was no way she could let her sister suffer the same fate. She brushed away a tear.

With a sigh, Bets pushed herself up from the chair and slowly walked to her bedroom. She sighed heavily again. Without fail she must clamp down on her growing attraction to Sheriff Bill Coble. He already suspected she had involved herself with a fugitive.

She went to her closet and carefully picked up several twigs and leaves hidden behind a pair of her shoes. She dropped them in a waste box by the small fireplace. Hastily glancing to the window where she thought she caught a flash of movement she marched to that window and jerked the heavy blue velvet drapes in place, shutting out all view into the room.

Fumbling in the now darkened room she located the matchbox and struck one alight. Quickly removing the glass chimney she lit the lamp wick and hastily dropped the hot match in a tray. More slowly and thoughtfully she replaced the chimney. The bright glow of the lamp displaced most of the shadows.

She liked this room. She’d given up the master bedroom off the dining room after Buck died. This room suited her very well. The pink cabbage roses were a cheerful note on the cream colored wallpaper. The blue velvet of the drapes shut out the light when she needed to catch up on sleep after any late night meetings she attended to cover for the newspaper.

Bets sighed about the complexities of human nature. Why couldn’t Aggie be content with being a ranch wife, settle down in one area and raise a family? Instead she ran a saloon in Denver, then she raised vegetables for city folk, next she tried teaching school but lost her temper with the older students and got fired. Where had she been the last couple years?

Well, I know where I’ve been. I guess that’s all I can handle.

She hung her robe on a hook inside the door of the closet. I really need some different colors besides blue. She spared a glance for her black mourning gown hung at the far end of the big closet. Aggie must have been hidden behind that when the obnoxious vigilante searched.

She closed the closet door and removed her slippers. In her cotton nightgown she turned a moment to the cheval glass mirror in the corner. With lamplight glowing on her face she surveyed herself.

Perhaps Bill liked the way she piled her blonde hair in a cluster of fat rolls atop her head. Or maybe he liked it better as it was now, hung in a mass of pale gold around her shoulders. She loved the way his eyes complimented her even when his words did not. Would he sometime often see her that way, while she brushed her hair out after a long day? Buck had always liked it that way and ran his fingers through her hair. She wished he could again. Would Bill feel that way, too?

No wonder people never guessed Aggie was related. Dark-haired Aggie took after their father and Bets looked like their blonde, Swedish mother.

Bets walked to her high bed and climbed between the covers. She didn’t need to be thinking along those lines at all. She needed to think how she could keep Aggie from being jailed, or hanged. It reminded her of the many other times she had had to look after her, even though Aggie was the elder by a couple of years.

The lines she really needed to concentrate on were the printed lines of the newspaper office. She wouldn’t have her articles and ads done if she didn’t rustle her bustle in the morning.

Bets scarcely had her head on the feather pillow. Sleep refused to come. What if Aggie waited someplace outside? What if a couple Black Hoods lurked around in the shadows? She hoped Bill had gotten rid of them by his presence around the buildings. She hoped Aggie stayed clear of Bill, too, until her story was told.

Bets lurched upright, threw aside the covers and swung her feet to the rag rug beside the bed. She fumbled a match alight and felt for her heavy outdoor shoes. The match burned down and she lit another, hoping the glass lamp chimney had cooled enough to handle.

Just because those vigilantes, and probably Bill, hadn’t found Aggie, it didn’t mean she wasn’t out there, hiding, waiting to come back in.

Bets tied the sturdy shoes, thrust her arms into her robe and belted it tightly. Knowing her way around her own home, even in the dark, she headed for the kitchen. Her outdoor lantern sat on a shelf by the woodshed door. She struck a match and lit the lantern, blew out the match and tugged open the door to the woodshed.

"Aggie? Aggie, are you here?" she called softly.

No answer.

Moving carefully through the woodshed, she stepped from the outer doorway and into the back yard. The lantern didn’t create much light, but maybe Aggie would be looking for it and come to her, so she would know where she was.

Bets sheltered the light somewhat, fearing the vigilantes might be waiting for just such an appearance of hers, to give away Aggie’s presence. Night sounds skittered and fluttered, and a horse nickered in the stable yard, alert to her presence.

"Are you here?" Bets called very softly. She circled the outhouse and called by its door. No answer. She hurried to the barn door, looked inside, then went around to the stables. No answer. Her two horses came immediately to the corral fence.

"Oh-oh," Bets said, "Bayboy is missing."

Relieved that Aggie had likely gotten well away, she trudged back to the house. She blew out the lantern to leave in the kitchen, and made her way through the house by feel. In her bedroom she removed shoes and robe, blew out the bedroom lamp, then crawled into bed.

Where would Aggie be in the morning?