The Haunting of Autumn Lake Read online

Aunt Myra laughed. “I thought I’d never see the day when Autumn Lake would admit a man was handsome…any man other than her daddy, that is.”

  Autumn shrugged. “Well, Daddy is a hard man to follow…in any regard.”

  “That he is, sweet pea. That he is.”

  “You suppose that cowboy needs anything out of his saddlebags, Aunt Myra?” Autumn asked. The truth was she was so wound up with curiosity she could hardly endure it!

  “I suppose he’ll be askin’ for it if he does,” Aunt Myra answered. She grinned then, with naughtiness twinkling in her eyes. “Still, we don’t want to leave this poor boy all saddled up now, do we? I mean, after all, he’s been riding long and hard. Got shot at by rustlers too.”

  Autumn smiled. “That’s right! And Daddy did tell me to see to the horse. What kind of seein’ would it be if I didn’t unload him and brush him down? Right?”

  “Right,” Aunt Myra agreed.

  “And if I just happen to catch a glimpse or two inside his saddlebags…” Autumn shrugged with an air of feigned innocence. “I mean, I’m just tryin’ to help a soul in need, right?”

  “Right,” Myra agreed again.

  “It isn’t like I’m gonna steal anything.”

  Myra nodded. “Most cowboys don’t own much worth stealin’ anyhow.”

  Autumn’s smile broadened as her aunt’s eyes continued to twinkle with mischief.

  “I’ll stand out here and watch,” Myra said. “I’ll whistle if somebody’s comin’. All right?”

  Autumn nodded and led the horse into the livery.

  “Hey there, Autumn Lake,” Mr. Chavez greeted.

  “Hey there, Mr. Chavez,” Autumn greeted the owner of the livery in return. “Daddy wanted me to bring this horse over and cool him off, brush him down, and all. Would that be fine with you?”

  “Of course, Autumn,” Mr. Chavez said. “Who does he belong to?”

  Autumn watched as Mr. Chavez patted the horse’s nose and mane to calm him.

  “Some rustlers had a shootout with a bunch of cowboys drivin’ a herd about ten miles back,” she explained. “This horse belongs to one of the men who was shot up.”

  “Híjole!” Mr. Chavez exclaimed. “How terrible!”

  “He looks pretty bad, and I figured the least I can do is care for his horse,” Autumn added.

  “Of course! Of course, Autumn,” Mr. Chavez said, nodding. “You know where everything is, so just take care of him good. Feed him, water him…whatever you need.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Chavez.”

  But as Autumn worked to comfort the horse, her mind lingered only on the shot-up cowboy bleeding out at Doc Sullivan’s house. She brushed the horse with a currycomb, talking to him in a soft, soothing voice, asking him about his owner and where he was from.

  Once she’d fed and watered the dark gelding, she allowed her attention to settle on the cowboy’s rig. Wishing someone would come and let her know how the man was faring, she studied the saddle for a moment. It was a good saddle—a well-used saddle. She could see the rope marks on the saddle horn—evidence that the man was indeed a cowboy by trade and used to roping mavericks and other bovines.

  “Gentry James,” she read as her fingers traced the name that had been etched into the saddle leather with a knife. She remembered then that one of the other wounded cowboys had said that “it was Gentry here that took the brunt of it.”

  “Gentry James,” Autumn repeated in a whisper. She liked the name—liked the way her teeth and tongue felt when she pronounced it. It was a good, strong name—a masculine name.

  “Have you been through his saddlebags yet?”

  Autumn gasped and placed a hand to her bosom to try to ease the pain in her chest caused from being startled.

  “Mama!” Autumn scolded in a whisper. “You nearly scared the life out of me!”

  Vaden Lake smiled, and Autumn knew exactly what her mother was thinking.

  “Well? Have you?” Vaden asked.

  “No!” Autumn told her, again in a whisper. “I can’t think of a good enough reason to go snoopin’ through some strange man’s personal items.”

  But Vaden smiled. “Well, it just so happens that Doctor Sullivan sent me out to find that young man’s belongings…to see if he has another pair of clothes we can put on him. And I sent Aunt Myra over to help bathe the poor man. He’s dustier than a dog.”

  Autumn’s smile broadened. “Well, while Aunt Myra is bathin’ him up, we probably should see if there’s anything he owns that he can wear. We wouldn’t want that poor cowboy runnin’ around without any clothes on, now would we, Mama?”

  Vaden shook her head. “Of course not! He might catch his death of cold.”

  “Then we better look in his saddlebags and see if he’s got anything at all that might keep him modest and warm,” Autumn giggled.

  “We certainly better,” Vaden agreed.

  Yet as Autumn and her mother began to open the cowboy’s saddlebags, Autumn felt a strange anxiety pinch her heart. “Will he be all right, Mama?” she asked. “Did Doctor Sullivan say whether or not that man would be all right?”

  Vaden Valmont smiled. She well understood the expression on her daughter’s face—for she’d owned it herself twenty-five years before. Still, it worried her. Vaden and Ransom—theirs was a rare and wonderful love. It wasn’t a common thing, the passion and devotion they owned for one another. She knew Autumn’s hopes and dreams were lofty—that she wished for someone as wonderful as Vaden’s Ransom to fall in love with. Vaden knew the chances were slim that any man could live up to Autumn’s expectations and hopes. Yet Vaden also knew that God sent miracles to the earth, for she’d been gifted one long ago—Ransom Lake.

  Therefore, in the deepest region of her tender and loving heart, Vaden prayed for such a gift for her beautiful daughter. She prayed that Autumn would one day be loved the way Vaden was—and by such a rare man above men as Ransom.

  Yet false hope and daydreams could cause the deepest heartbreak, and the truth was Doctor Sullivan wasn’t even sure the young cowboy would live through the night. He’d lost a lot of blood and was weak and feverish.

  But with a prayer in that deepest region of a mother’s loving heart, Vaden Lake prayed—and helped her daughter rifle through a strange man’s personal belongings.

  ❦

  “Doc says he’s a strong man,” Ransom began as the wagon rolled toward home. “He’ll recover…but the cattle drive is movin’ on to Denver and leavin’ that boy here without a dime to his name.”

  “Oh, Ransom! Really?” Vaden asked.

  Ransom nodded. “Yep. That boss…that William Jones…he swore to that boy he’d send him his share of his drive wages once the herd reached Denver. And I hope he does. Cowboyin’ is a harsh and hard life. I’d hate to see that young man end up as poor as a church mouse after all this.”

  “Well, we’ll just have to see that he’s fed and cared for until his money comes,” Vaden announced. “He seems like a kind and honest young man. I won’t see him suffering for being so.”

  Ransom chuckled, and Autumn smiled as she watched her father gaze so lovingly at her mother. She sighed, wondering what it would be like to have a man cherish her the way her father cherished her mother.

  “I told Doc Sullivan that Autumn could come sit with the boy on occasion until he’s better,” Ransom announced. “Ol’ Doc is gettin’ on in years, and he can’t watch the boy night and day like he needs to. I told him you might have some time to do some sittin’ too, darlin’. Or Myra, if you’re tendin’ the store.”

  “Daddy!” Autumn exclaimed. “I can’t sit still and watch some man suffer!” The truth was the thought of watching the cowboy was more thrilling than anything she’d ever known! Yet it frightened her too; he frightened her. The effect his voice and appearance had had on her was wildly unsettling, and she wasn’t at all sure how to deal with it.

  Ransom chuckled. “Well, honey, somebody has to watch over him. Would you rather ol’ Doc employ Tawny
Johnson or Nelly Wimber to do it?”

  “Tawny Johnson?” Autumn exclaimed aghast. “Nelly Wimber?” She rolled her eyes with aggravation. “Daddy, you might as well drag the poor man out and leave him in the midst of a pack of howling coyotes. Either one of them will talk him to death.”

  “Oh, and you won’t?” Ransom teased.

  “No,” Autumn assured her father. “I’ll just work on my dolls…scribble a little in my diary and sketch some.”

  “There now,” Ransom said, winking at Vaden. “I knew our compassionate little girl was the one for the job.” He chuckled, glanced over his shoulder to where Autumn sat in the back of the wagon, and said, “Now tell me…what did you girlies find hidden in that poor boy’s saddlebags when you were lookin’ for a set of clean britches?”

  “Ransom Lake!’ Vaden scolded. “How dare you imply that Autumn and I would—”

  “What did you find, Vaden?” Ransom interrupted, his eyes twinkling with mirthful knowing.

  “Well, we didn’t find any clean britches, that’s for sure,” Autumn answered. She knew there was no fooling her father. So, she figured, why even try? Ransom Lake knew his wife too well, and in knowing Vaden Lake, he likewise knew Autumn.

  “That boy didn’t have a stitch of anything to his name, Ransom,” Vaden expounded. “Nothing but a worn-out old comb, a few hardtack biscuits, some jerky, and old letters that we didn’t read.”

  “You didn’t, huh?” Ransom asked, his eyes narrowing as he looked at his wife with suspicion.

  “No, we did not, Daddy,” Autumn defended her mother. “We left his letters alone…though they looked rather like love letters to me…didn’t they, Mama?”

  “They did,” Vaden agreed.

  Ransom chuckled and shook his head. “You girls. You’ll be lucky if that cowboy don’t come agunnin’ for you when he’s got his senses about him.”

  “Daddy…can I walk from here?” Autumn asked abruptly.

  “Well, sure, honey,” her father said, slowing the team so that Autumn could safely leap from the wagon.

  “And do you mind if we visit Jethro on our way home, Ransom?” Vaden asked, taking her husband’s arm and snuggling against his broad shoulder. “He’s so little time left, and I want to visit with him as long as I can before he goes.”

  “You bet, baby,” Ransom said.

  “You be home before dark please, Autumn,” Vaden called as the wagon moved away.

  “I will, Mama,” Autumn called, tossing a wave to her parents. “I just want to linger in the beauty of September awhile longer.”

  “Me too, my love! Me too,” Vaden Lake called as Ransom turned the team onto the road leading away from the house.

  Once the wagon was out of sight, Autumn closed her eyes and sighed. She was alone with her beloved and tranquil early autumn. Slowly she stripped the ribbon from her hair. The soft September breeze cooled her as her long dark hair cascaded over her shoulders and down her back to her waist. She ran her fingers through it, combing out the heat of the day, loosing her rather rebellious nature.

  Autumn opened her eyes and gazed up into the azure of the sky above her. The sky was not the same blue as the wounded cowboy’s eyes; it wasn’t nearly as deep and enthralling. Yet it was beautiful all the same. Soft white clouds drifted slowly overhead, and the breeze rustled the changing leaves of the nearby maples and oaks. It was one of the most beautiful sounds in the world to Autumn—the sound of drying leaves brushing together in their autumn dance in the gentle wind.

  The sound of the leaves reminded Autumn of the old oak nearby. Giggling with sheer delight, she quickly unlaced her boots and stripped off her stockings. The wild grass felt cool and refreshing beneath her feet as she hurried to the old oak. Perhaps today would be the day, and she must be quick if she meant to compete with the squirrels who would be busily gathering acorns the moment they began to fall from the old oak.

  Autumn tossed her shoes and stockings aside as she reached the old oak to see that indeed many acorns had already fallen.

  “You can have the nuts you need,” she spoke aloud to any squirrel or chipmunk that might be listening. “I only want their hats for myself.”

  There was something so enchanting about acorn hats—at least to Autumn Lake there was. In truth, Autumn owned bowls and bowls full of acorn hats. She’d been gathering them since she was a tiny child. Her mother and father still enjoyed lingering in telling stories of Autumn and her acorn hats. To Autumn, the tiny brown nut hats were somehow so marvelous and rich with beauty that she could not deny herself collecting them. In her heart she felt she would never quench her desire to find more—to hunt out the little brown treasures and adore them.

  Thus, dropping to her knees, Autumn began to search for acorns she knew were strewn in the grass beneath the old oak. At once her gaze fell to several acorns who still donned their coveted hats, and she quickly picked them up, dropping them into her apron pocket. Giggling, she searched for more, and as she searched she listened to the sounds and scents of Mother Nature’s early autumn. Somewhere overhead, geese were making their way south already. Yet a meadowlark still sang nearby. Someone was burning cedar, and Autumn inhaled its comforting, savory scent. She could smell the cool grass beneath her feet—the bark of the old oak. She could hear the cattails bumping their velvet brown blooms against the bottom of the old covered bridge nearby.

  “And Autumn, as a woman…graceful beauty that she is,” she whispered, quoting a poem she’d read in the book her father had gifted her mother last Christmas, “arrives midst harvest breezes…and the farmer claims her, his.” She gathered several more acorn hats, dropping them into her pocket as she sighed, “And she doth kiss him softly, with her lips so ripe and sweet…and the farmer bids her wed him…and again their lips are meet.”

  Autumn smiled and laid back in the grass. It was cool, and her hair felt respite against it. Gazing up into the leafy branches of the oak, she watched the clouds drift slowly across the azure above. Most of the oak leaves still bore some green. But crimson was fast overtaking them, and Autumn smiled at the sure knowledge.

  Skipping to the middle of the poem that her father called scandalous and her mother proclaimed as an ode to nature’s blessings, Autumn whispered, “But what of the farmer’s children? Those of the Autumn bred?” She paused, smiling as she spoke the last lovely lines, “Oh, look and gaze upon them…for they play midst Harvest’s stead.”

  Autumn giggled, feeling quite free and rebellious in voicing such a recitation. She lowered her voice even further, however, as she whispered the final line to the poem from her mother’s book. “And where is Autumn resting, when snow and frost are wed? Her beauty waits for harvest…as she sleeps in farmer’s bed.”

  Autumn sighed. Scandalous or an ode to nature’s blessings, she loved the poem. Her Aunt Yvonne would think it was vulgar, no doubt. But Autumn secretly thought it was delicious! She knew her mother loved the poem as well, for there was a maple leaf pressed between the pages of the poetry book, marking just the place where that poem was.

  Again Autumn combed her hair with her fingers—listened to the cool breeze through the oak leaves and the cattail blooms softly drumming on the old covered bridge. She closed her eyes, and a vision of the wounded cowboy with the dazzling smile and clefted cheeks flashed in her mind. A strange craving overcame her, and her mouth began to water.

  It was true he was handsome, but that was the end of it—or so Autumn told herself, even as his voice echoed in her mind.

  Heaven’s got better-lookin’ angels than I expected, he’d said. The memory caused Autumn to quiver with some strange thrill that raced over her. Oh, it was not poetic in any way, his utterance concerning angels. Yet the sound of the cowboy’s voice resounded softly in her ears, blending with the breeze through the trees and the far-off honking of the geese overhead to make her body and mind feel as velvet and soft as the cattail blooms that gently brushed against the old covered bridge.

  Chapter Four

 
; Gentry James moaned as consciousness began to make him aware of the pain wracking his body and the dry, hot thirst smoldering in his mouth and throat. He felt like hammered horse manure. As he struggled to open his eyes, the pain in his left shoulder and arm throbbed in rhythmic unison with the pain in his left thigh. His head hurt too, as if someone had shot him in the head with a load of buckshot and left it to ricocheting around inside his skull.

  Again he moaned, for the pain in his body caused a great weakness in him that was entirely unfamiliar. He opened his eyes just a moment—just into narrow slits. But the bright light of a sunny day stung his vision, and he closed them once again.

  As his brain throbbed with pain, he tried to think—tried to remember where he was and what had happened to him. Slowly the realization that he’d been shot up washed over him. He’d been on a drive for William Jones—driven the herd with the other cowboys in the company without incident. Without incident, that was, until they were moving the cattle toward some town he couldn’t remember the name of.

  The gang of rustlers had come upon them quicker than lightning struck the ground, and there was gunfire. Gentry remembered shooting two rustlers—dropping them from their saddles and leaving them to bleed out while he helped the other cowboys attempt to keep the herd from scattering. He winced, remembering the pain of the bullet as it grazed his forehead, though he didn’t remember any other pain of being shot—not right off, anyhow. But he had been shot—four times, he remembered a voice saying.

  He could feel the wounds now. Yep—he was well aware of just where the bullets had hit him. One got him in the left shoulder and another in his left forearm. Two more hit him in the leg—the left thigh and back of his left calf. No wonder he felt like hammered mule apples.