Sweet Cherry Ray Read online

  The Parker kids gathered around her as she slipped the pitchfork under the animal’s dried carcass. The dead thing easily lifted, and she carried it out into the sunshine.

  “Would ya look at that,” Laura exclaimed in an awed whisper.

  “Yeah,” Cherry breathed as she studied the animal’s carcass.

  In the brighter light of the full sunshine, she could see more fur clung to the dried skin than she had originally thought. She could also see that the flesh of the eyelids had receded as well, revealing two empty eye sockets.

  “It’s givin’ me the willies!” Pocket whispered.

  “I ain’t sure this is a coyote,” Cherry said. “It just looks a little…different somehow.”

  “Let’s take it back to town and ask yer pa, Cherry,” Billy suggested. “He might know for sure.”

  “Yeah. He might.”

  “I wonder what happened,” Laura sighed as the children and Cherry walked back to town. Cherry carefully balanced the dead animal carcass on the old pitchfork. It was a curious find. It made a body wonder about what else heat and dry air could do.

  “I don’t see any wounds,” Billy said.

  “Maybe it just took sick,” Pocket suggested.

  “Maybe it was female, and she run in there to have her pups,” Billy said.

  “Oh no!” Laura gasped, covering her mouth with her hands. “What if she had pups and then she died? Her pups would’ve died too!”

  “Oh, I’m sure there weren’t any pups. We didn’t find any,” Cherry said. She saw the tears welling in Laura’s eyes, and her own heart felt the need to offer comfort. Still, a lump caught in Cherry’s own throat at the thought there may have been a litter of coyote pups that wandered off and were eaten by hawks or the like.

  “Well, what in tarnation is that?”

  Arthur Ray looked up to see Otis gazing off toward the edge of town. Looking for himself, he chuckled when he saw Cherry carrying a pitchfork and three children following after her like she were their ma. He squinted into the sun, trying to make out what was on the pitchfork, but he couldn’t.

  “Looks like Cherry’s been up to somethin’,” Arthur chuckled.

  He smiled. Oh, how he loved his beautiful daughter! And oh, how he worried for her. At nineteen, Cherry Ray was the loveliest girl in Blue Water. It had become harder and harder to hide the fact, yet Arthur kept trying. He knew the likes of Black Jack Haley and his boys—knew how they fancied a pretty face. It’s why he’d been dressing Cherry like a boy the past few years—to keep her pretty face, soft brown hair, and sparkling blue eyes from being noticed. Oh, in his day, Arthur Ray had been a man to contend with. Riding as a Texas Ranger before the war, there wasn’t an outlaw or criminal that didn’t fear the name of Arthur Ray. Yet without his leg, he knew he was easy prey—that his daughter was easy prey because of it. And so he’d decided to hide Cherry—hide her until the day someone shot Black Jack Haley between the eyes and made Blue Water safe again.

  “Pa!” Cherry called as she and the Parkers approached her pa and Mr. Hirsch. “Pa! Look what the kids found out in the old shed outside a town.”

  “Looks to be a dead coyote,” Mr. Hirsch said as Cherry gently laid the animal carcass on the ground.

  “Nope,” Arthur mumbled.

  Cherry watched with pride as her pa’s eyes narrowed.

  He studied the animal for a moment and then said, “That there’s a red wolf.”

  “A wolf!” Pocket exclaimed.

  “Yep,” Arthur said. “Probably a purty mean ol’ boy in his day too. Look at the size of them paws.”

  “But it’s so small,” Billy said. “I thought wolves were bigger.”

  “Oh, this one was bigger, boy,” Arthur said. “But he’s all shriveled and dried up now. Ain’t much left to him.”

  “A wolf!” Laura whispered in awe.

  “Pa,” Cherry began, “why do ya think he’d be out in that old shed?”

  Her pa started to answer but was interrupted as Remmy Cooper rode up, reining in before them.

  “There’s a rider comin’!” he exclaimed. Remmy Cooper was a hired hand on a nearby ranch. Cherry had always fancied him as handsome, and she smiled as he looked at her.

  “Black Jack?” Mr. Hirsch asked.

  “Nope,” Remmy said. “Ain’t one of his boys neither. But he looks the sort that might join up with an outlaw.”

  “Better ride on and tell Sheriff Gibbs, Remmy,” Arthur said. “Not that it will help none,” he added under his breath.

  Remmy nodded and rode off toward the sheriff’s office and jail.

  “I see him!” Billy exclaimed. Cherry looked to see Billy leaning over and looking down the road. “Here he comes! Here he comes! And he looks like a bad one too.”

  Cherry glanced at her pa, who frowned and slightly shook his head. Still, she couldn’t help herself, and she leaned over and looked down the road herself.

  She could see the rider and his horse—a large buckskin stallion. As he rode nearer, she studied his white shirt, black flat-brimmed hat, and double-breasted vest. Ever nearer he rode, and she fancied his pants were almost the same color as his horse, with silver buttons running down the outer leg. Cherry had seen a similar manner of dress before—on the Mexican vaqueros that often worked for her pa in the fall.

  “Cherry,” her pa scolded in a whisper as the stranger neared them.

  She straightened and blushed, embarrassed by being as impolite in her staring as the other townsfolk were in theirs. It seemed everyone had stopped whatever they had been doing to walk out to the street and watch the stranger ride in.

  No one spoke. The only sound was that of the breeze, a falcon’s cry overhead, and the rhythm of the rider’s horse as it slowed to a trot. Everyone watched as the stranger rode closer and closer. Cherry felt her own heart pounding wildly within her bosom. Was the rider a new outlaw come to join Black Jack’s boys? Or was he an outlaw to himself—perhaps come to Blue Water to challenge Jack?

  The rider’s horse slowed its pace to a steady walk. Cherry squeezed Laura’s hand tightly and dropped her gaze as he reined his horse in directly before them.

  “Howdy there, stranger,” Cherry heard her pa say. Cherry could not find the courage to look up at the stranger. As much as she claimed to be fearless, she was, in truth, fearful of any outlaw.

  “Howdy,” the stranger said.

  The sound of his voice was like magic—forcing anyone to want to see what its owner looked like. Instantly, Cherry looked up to the stranger. She felt her jaw go slack, her mouth drop open in astonishment. The stranger was far more handsome than any man Cherry had ever seen—even Remmy Cooper!

  “What can we do for ya?” Arthur Ray asked.

  Sitting astride the buckskin, tall and straight in the saddle, the stranger owned a fine set of broad shoulders, a slightly cleft chin, and a strong, squared jaw. Dark hair and even darker eyes lent him an imposing, threatening appearance, and she knew at once—this was no man to meddle with.

  “Lookin’ for a room,” the stranger said.

  She was nearly paralyzed with intimidation as the stranger glanced at her for a moment. Immediately, his gaze returned to her, his eyes narrowing, his brow puckering into a frown. He studied her quickly from head to toe, his frown deepening as he visually noted the dried-up wolf carcass at her feet.

  “There’s a boardin’ house yonder,” Arthur said, nodding in the direction of the boarding house.

  “Thank ya kindly, mister,” the stranger said, nodding to Arthur. His attention then returned to Cherry. The frown on his brow softened but did not completely disappear as he touched the brim of his hat and said, “Um…ma’am.” He clicked his tongue, and his horse moved on down the road.

  For the first time since her pa had insisted she dress like a man, Cherry Ray resented it. Humiliation the like she had never known was washing over her. She thought of all the saloon girls across the street at the saloon. Hussies or not, at least they looked like women! She doubted
the stranger would have crinkled his brow in disgust at them.

  “I ain’t never seen an outlaw as handsome as that before,” Laura said.

  “Well, I think it’s plum awful that ya’ve seen any outlaws at all, Laura,” Arthur said.

  Cherry straightened then. Handsome or not, it was obvious the man meant no good. She sighed, relieved in the knowledge that the man was a drifter or an outlaw and not someone she might be interested in attracting attention from. Let him have the girlie saloon girls—if that’s where his trail led.

  “Now,” Arthur began, “tell me a might more about this here wolf, Billy.”

  Glancing down the road to where the rider had reined in before the boarding house, Cherry silently scolded her heart for its wild hammering. Another outlaw had ridden to Blue Water. No good could come from it, she knew. Yet Cherry Ray thought she better understood, in that moment, how Oklahoma Jenny’s sister, Pearl, had once been charmed out of her egg and milk money by a handsome drifter—especially if he looked anything like the stranger on the buckskin.

  

  “It’s all we’re needin’ ’round here,” Arthur grumbled as he drove the wagon back toward the ranch.

  “Ya mean the stranger in town today?” Cherry asked. She hadn’t been able to think of anything else since she’d seen him—the handsome stranger with the vaquero’s pants and flat-brimmed hat. It stood to reason her pa, being the retired Texas Ranger he was, had been thinking of him too.

  “Yep,” he said.

  “Well, maybe he’ll just ride on through. Maybe he ain’t here to join up with Black Jack.”

  “Oh, he ain’t! A man like that ain’t here to join up with another outlaw. No indeedy,” he said. “Not lookin’ like that and with so much strength about him. Nope. I reckon he’s more’n likely here to take ol’ Jack down and gather up his boys for his own reasons.”

  Cherry exhaled a heavy sigh, trying to rid herself of the butterflies flapping in her stomach every time she thought of the stranger. Glancing back into the wagon bed, she frowned.

  “Do ya think Ol’ Red will weather the trip home in one piece?” she asked.

  She smiled when she heard the wonderful sound of her pa’s chuckle.

  “I’m sure he will…but heck if I know what yer gonna do with a dried-up ol’ wolf when we get there. It’s bad enough yer always draggin’ the live varmints home. Now yer draggin’ home the dead ones too.”

  She laughed. “I guess I am a little strange. Still, I promised the Parker kids I’d make sure he had a nice place by the hearth…cool in the summer and warm in the winter.”

  “Mrs. Blakely will have a hen-peckin’ fit, that’s for sure,” Arthur said.

  Cherry looked to the old, dead wolf lying in the back of the wagon. Old Red had once lived—free, fierce, and wild. If he’d been too strong for the wind, rain, and time to take him, then he deserved to have a comfortable place to rest until he did turn to dust.

  “I think he was a might fine wolf once, Pa,” she said. Glancing down at her pa’s empty trouser leg, she put her arms around his still broad shoulders. “He deserves more than to rot away in a dark, lonesome corner of some old shed.”

  Her pa smiled and patted Cherry’s knee.

  “Well, when ya put it to me like that, it makes more sense than just about anythin’,” he said.

  Cherry closed her eyes. She thought of the beauty of the day, of the old dried-up wolf in the back of the wagon, and of her pa. What a sight he must’ve been in his rangering days. Tall, strong, and faster with a pistol than any Texas Ranger that had ever lived, Arthur Ray was a legend. Yet, proud as she was of tales of Ranger Arthur Ray, Cherry was glad her pa’s law-keeping days were over. Though she often wished he was still strong enough to rid Blue Water of its local outlaw, Black Jack, she was glad it wouldn’t be her pa who might one day put a bullet between the eyes of the handsome stranger back in town.

  Chapter Two

  “Well, all I know is he ain’t a-sayin’ nothin’ to nobody,” Lefty Pierce said.

  Cherry watched as Mrs. Blakely handed Old Lefty a fork and said, “Sounds like a bad one to me.”

  “Thank ya kindly, Fiona,” Lefty said, plunging the fork into the piece of cake on the plate in front of him.

  Cherry smiled, delighted by the old man’s white hair and otherwise weathered appearance.

  “Yer welcome, Lefty,” Mrs. Blakely said, forcing a smile at the roughened-up old cowpoke. “We surely don’t need another body joinin’ up with Black Jack.”

  “Pa don’t think he’s plannin’ on joinin’ Jack and his boys,” Cherry said.

  Lefty looked to Cherry, then to Arthur. “That right, Arthur?” he asked. “You think that stranger in town is plannin’ on startin’ up his own gang a outlaws?”

  Cherry looked to her pa in time to see him shrug his shoulders.

  “The man don’t look like the followin’ kind,” he said. “Looks more like the leadin’ kind. And that Colt he’s wearin’—wears it low on his hip like a gunman. Men like that, they either ride alone or do the leadin’.”

  “So why ya think he’s in Blue Water?” Lefty asked.

  Again, Arthur Ray shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t rightly know fer certain, but I do think trouble’s a-comin’…one way or the other.”

  “Maybe a shoot out, like over in Tombstone,” Cherry suggested. “Only with one outlaw gunnin’ down another instead of lawmen doin’ the gunnin’?”

  “Maybe,” Arthur agreed. “I’d hate to see the folks in Blue Water a-standin’ in the middle of two outlaws a-fightin’ fer territory though.”

  “Well, why don’t somebody just walk up and ask him?” Cherry asked. “Why is everybody all fearful of him anyway? We all talk to Black Jack like he’s just a regular feller…and he’s got twenty notches on his gun. Why don’t we just treat the stranger the same way?”

  “Jack holds some sorta loyalty to Blue Water and its folks, Cherry,” Arthur explained. “An outlaw who don’t…well, he might not be as comfortable with folks knowin’ his business.”

  “Well, I ain’t afraid to ask him. I ain’t afraid to ask him nothin’.”

  “Don’t you go nowhere near that outlaw, Cherry!” Arthur growled, wagging a scolding index finger at her. “We don’t know nothin’ about him. Besides…it seems to me you already caught his eye with that dang dead wolf a-layin’ at yer feet when he rode in yesterday.”

  “That the one over there in the corner?” Lefty asked, winking at Cherry.

  Cherry liked Lefty Pierce. He was full of stuff and vinegar. Lefty always had a tale to tell too.

  “Yes,” Fiona sighed. “That would be the one over there in the corner. I don’t know how I’m expected to keep this house clean with Cherry a-draggin’ in every rotten thing she finds.”

  But Arthur wasn’t so easily distracted. “You stay outta that ol’ boy’s way, Cherry,” he said. “You hear me?”

  “Yes, Pa,” she said—but she didn’t mean it. Nope. Cherry Ray had thought of nothing else in the world but the stranger in the vaquero’s pants since the moment he’d ridden into town the day before. He looked like an outlaw—sure enough he did. Still, there was such a feeling of mystery in Cherry’s mind; she was intrigued like she never had been before. She meant to find out more about the stranger—with or without her pa’s permission.

  “That there is the best cake I ever ate, Fiona,” Lefty said.

  Cherry giggled when she noticed the blush accompanying Fiona’s smile.

  “Thank you, Lefty Pierce,” Fiona said. “Would ya like another piece?”

  There was a knock on the front door, and Mrs. Blakely rolled her eyes. “Who could that be?” she grumbled as she started for the door. “Who in tarnation would be droppin’ by at supper time?”

  “I can only think of one feller rude enough for that,” Lefty began, “but I’m already here.” He chuckled and winked at Cherry.

  “Well, what are you children doin’ out and about so late in the afternoon?”
Cherry heard Mrs. Blakely ask.

  It was Billy Parker’s voice that answered. “We was just wonderin’ if we could talk to Cherry for a minute,” Billy said.

  “Can I be excused, Pa?” She figured the Parker kids might want to see where she’d put the old red wolf to rest. Still, she’d rather they waited until her pa had finished his supper and conversation with Lefty.

  “Yes,” Arthur said with a wink. “But don’t you go leadin’ them children into mischief. You hear me?”

  “Pa…now you know I stay clear of mischief these days,” she said, pushing her chair away from the table. “I ain’t been in mischief for months!”

  “And that’s exactly what’s got me worried, girl. Seems like it’s a ripe time for you to step in somethin’.”

  “They probably just want to see the old wolf, Pa,” Cherry said. “I’ll sit out on the porch with ’em a while and wait until ya finished with supper.”

  “Now, yer a young lady, Cherry,” Mrs. Blakely reminded as she stepped out onto the porch. “And ya need to remember to start actin’ more like one.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” she mumbled. She was tired of Mrs. Blakely’s constant nagging. What? Did Mrs. Blakely really think she preferred to dress like a boy? Didn’t the old nag understand she was only doing what her pa wanted?

  “Now you children let these men finish up their supper. They’ve worked a hard day,” Mrs. Blakely said.

  Cherry breathed an irritated sigh as Mrs. Blakely closed the door, leaving her alone with the Parker kids.

  “How long they gonna be?” Billy asked.

  “Not long. Unless they get to talkin’ too deep. Then it could be hours.”

  “Then let’s hope they get to talkin’ deep,” Pocket said.

  Cherry frowned, yet the back of her neck prickled with delightful anticipation—as if certain mischief lurked just around the bend.

  “Why’s that?” she asked.

  “’Cause that new outlaw is sittin’ in the crick yonder…neked as a jaybird!” Laura whispered with a giggle.

  “The one that rode in yesterday?” Cherry asked. Oh, she tried to squelch the wonderful and very familiar wave of mischief rinsing through her—but she couldn’t.