Love On The High Plains Collection: The Complete Series

Excerpt from Love On The High Plains Collection

Eastern Colorado 1889

The San Juan Mountains thrust heavenward, snowcapped despite the uncertain warmth of March, clustered below a fiery sunset. In the waning light, the rocky peaks had darkened from their usual blue to nearly a purple tone. On the prairie below, a lone rider atop a silver horse galloped toward the massed rock formations of the foothills. Under his breath he muttered one prayer after another to a God he no longer respected, begging for time… more time… Please, God, let me be in time!

He crested the first hill at a dangerous speed, his horse’s iron shoes clattering and slipping on the loose gravel. Mercury snorted in protest, and despite his hurry the rider patted his mount’s neck and reined in, slowing the pace. I can’t do a lick of good if I kill myself and my horse along the way. And still, the litany repeated unceasingly in the back of his mind. Please let me arrive in time. Please more time. I need a bit more time…

Time was against him, and every metallic clang of horseshoes on rock sounded like the ticking of a clock counting down the hours… the hours of his best friend’s life. Death has been too hard on me. Jesse blinked against the sudden sting in his eyes. A crusty old bounty hunter like Clevis McCoy would not want to be remembered with tears. Most likely with a slug of moonshine and a pistol salute… I can arrange that. Clev wasn’t dead yet. Please. God, let him not be dead yet. Not before I say goodbye… and deal with the urgent business he mentioned in the telegram.

Mercury stumbled and righted himself again. Jesse reigned in a bit tighter. The sun had slipped further behind the mountains, under which Jesse now struggled to see enough to move forward safely. Damned old man. Why did he wait until the last minute? I came as soon as I could… couldn’t turn loose a bail jumper… not even for this. He knew that. Hell, he taught me that. No time. No time.

From over the next hill, a skinny finger of smoke rose towards the burnished and cloud-clustered sky. Those look like thunderheads. Damn it, the last thing I need is rain too.

But Jesse had no wood to knock, and the unwanted rain obligingly began to pour over him, sluicing out of the folds of his black hat in a stream that could hardly obscure his vision more than the sudden veil of droplets between him and his destination. Mercury whickered a complaint as the soil under his hooves transformed into mud.

“Sorry, buddy,” Jesse muttered. “Sorry. We’ll be there soon. Few minutes is all.”

Mercury, it seemed, was unconvinced by Jesse’s reassurance. He continued to mutter and sulk in his equine displeasure with every step.

The slow trek over the hill and into the shaded valley seemed to take a hundred years, what with the rain and the growing darkness, and the horse’s tendency to balk, but in the end, the man and mount clattered up to the front door of a stone cottage nestled between two fat pines at the base of a cliff.

***

Wrapping the reins around one of the pillars that supported the roof of the porch, Jesse stomped up the wooden stairs, water sloshing uncomfortably inside his boots, and knocked on the unfinished pine door. A thick splinter embedded itself in his hand, but he ignored the sting, focused on gaining entry into the house as quickly as he could.

Slowly the door swung inward and Jesse strode forward, scarcely taking in the slight, high-cheekboned, red-haired female form beside him, but offering a cursory tip of his sodden hat, more by rote than out of any sense of courtesy.

The familiar structure spread out before him, illuminated by a crackling golden fire that served to dispel the chill of the early spring rain. The large room consisted of a stove and table to his left, wooden-armed sofa and rough-hewn rocking chair to his right. Beside the rocker, a closed door led to an addition that contained only Addie’s single, tiny bedroom. Beyond the sofa, behind a curtain, the sound of fitful wheezing filtered through to Jesse’s straining ears. He released a shaky breath. Not too late.

“Mr. West?” A soft voice, its normally soothing tone stained with grief and stress, emerged from the figure beside him.

He glanced. The fiery-haired young woman regarded him with a look he recognized in her big brown eyes. I know that look of impending grief all too well. “Yes, Miss McCoy?”

“Want me to stable your horse?”

Normally Jesse would have declined the offer. He preferred to care for his horse himself, being a meticulous type. Besides, Mercury could be unpredictable, though Adeline McCoy seemed to have inherited unusual horse sense–along with her striking cheekbones and dark eyes–from her deceased Kiowa mother. Now, she’s about to lose her father, too. Poor little mite.

Jesse wondered, not for the first time, how old the girl was. While tiny in stature, a hint of curves under her homespun calico dress hinted at growing maturity. Fourteen? Fifteen? Surely no older. He shrugged. You’re stalling. You nearly broke your neck getting here. Don’t delay. She’s a smart, sensitive girl. She can handle Mercury for a few minutes. Suppressing a twinge of guilt at sending the child out in the pouring rain, Jesse answered her, “I’d sure appreciate it if you would, Miss McCoy.”

She nodded, relief in her eyes at the thought of something constructive to do, wrapped a shawl over the bright beacon of her auburn hair and slipped out the door. Her feet, bare despite the cold, made no sound on the floorboards. Jesse gulped, took a deep breath and moved across the room to the curtain. With every step, reality seemed to fade until he could have sworn he was floating. His feet felt numb. His breathing grew shallower with every step until lack of oxygen contributed to his overall dizziness. Reaching the rear wall of the cabin, he laid a hand on the board. The sting of his un-dealt with splinter served to wake him up with a jolt.

“Clev?” he called through the curtain.

The response was a tortured groan. Jesse pulled back the curtain and his heart clenched. The man who lay prone on the stained and foul-smelling bed bore little resemblance to his years’ long friend. Only the gunmetal grizzle on the sagging jowls and the intelligent blue eyes revealed the man who had once been Colorado’s most successful bounty hunter. The rest of him had been rendered unrecognizable by the slow, agonizing process of the disease on his body. Consumption. The deterioration of the lungs, accompanied by sweating, weight loss, and eventually coughing up blood. I’ll never forget the day he told me. He stood as strong as ever, but there was fear in his eyes. It’s no surprise He’d stared down the barrel of a gun, and into the maw of a rattlesnake, and never flinched. It wasn’t the death he feared, but the dying.

“Jess…” the man wheezed. Then his attempt to speak dissolved into a fit of coughing that ended in a mouthful of red saliva being deposited into a filthy handkerchief. Jesse swallowed so he wouldn’t gag at the sight.

“I’m here now, Clev,” Jesse told his friend. “I made it like I promised.”

Clevis gasped, trying to draw air into what was left of his lungs. His face turned even paler and his lips took on a bluish tint. Jesse watched in alarm, not sure what, if anything, he could do to help, and whether his friend was going to expire on the spot, without uttering another word.