An Outlaw's Christmas. Linda Miller LaelЧитать онлайн книгу.

      CHAPTER 1

      December, 1915

      All but hidden behind a rapidly thickening veil of snow that cold afternoon, Blue River, Texas, looked more like a faint pencil sketch against a gray-and-white background than a real town, constructed of beams and mortar and weathered wood and occupied by flesh-and-blood folks. Squinting against the dense flurries, Sawyer McKettrick could just make out the pitch of a roof or two, the mounded lines of hitching rails and horse troughs, the crooked jut of the occasional chimney. Here and there, the light of a lamp or lantern glowed through the gloom, but as far as Sawyer could tell, nobody was stirring along the sidewalks or traveling the single wide street curving away from the tiny railroad depot.

      Beside him, his buckskin gelding, Cherokee, nickered and tossed his big head, no doubt relieved to finally plant four sturdy hooves on solid ground after long hours spent rattling over the rails in a livestock car. Sawyer’s own journey, sitting bolt upright on a hard and sooty seat in the near-empty passenger section, had been so dull and so uncomfortable that he probably would have been happier riding with the horse.

      Naturally, Cherokee didn’t hold up his end of a conversation, but he was a fine listener and a trustworthy companion.

      Now, the engineer’s whistle sounded a long, plaintive hoot of fare-thee-well behind them, and the train clanked slowly out of the station, iron screeching against iron, steam hissing into the freezing air.

      They waited, man and horse, until the sounds grew muffled and distant, though for what, Sawyer couldn’t have said. He hadn’t expected to be met at the depot—Clay McKettrick, his cousin and closest friend, lived on a ranch several miles outside of Blue River and, given the weather, the trail winding between there and town must be nigh on impassable—but just the same, a momentary sense of loneliness howled through him like a wind scouring the walls of a canyon.

      With a glance back at the station, where he’d left his trunk of belongings behind, meaning to fetch it later, Sawyer swung up into the saddle and spoke a gruff, soothing word of encouragement to the horse.

      There was a hotel in Blue River—he’d stayed there on his last visit—but he wanted to let Cherokee walk off some stiffness before settling him in over at the livery stable with plenty of hay and a ration of grain, and then making his way back to rent a room. Once he’d secured a bed for the night, he’d send somebody for his trunk, consume a steak dinner in the hotel dining room, and, later on, take a bath and shave.

      In the meantime, though, he wanted to attend to his horse. Sawyer gave the animal his head, let him forge his own way, at his own pace, through the deep snow and the unnerving silence.

      The buildings on either side of the street were visible as they passed, though only partially, dark at the windows, with their doors shut tight. Most folks were where they ought to be, Sawyer supposed, gathered around stoves and fireplaces in their various homes, with coffee brewed and supper smells all around them.

      Again, that bleak feeling of aloneness rose up inside him, but he quelled it quickly. He did not subscribe to melancholy moods—it wasn’t the McKettrick way. In his family, a man—or a woman, for that matter—played the cards they were dealt, kept on going no matter what, and tended, to the best of their ability, to whatever task was presently at hand.

      Still, there was a prickle at his nape, and Cherokee, rarely skittish, pranced sideways in agitation, tossing his head and neighing.

      Sawyer had barely pushed back his long coat to uncover his Colt .45, just in case, when he heard the gunshot, swaddled in the snowy silence to a muted pop, saw the flash of orange fire and felt the bullet sear its way into his left shoulder. All of this transpired in the course of a second or so, but even as he slumped forward over Cherokee’s neck, dazed by the hot-poker thrust of the pain, spaces wedged themselves between moments, stretching time, distorting it. Sawyer was at once a wounded man, alone on a snow-blind street except for his panicked horse, and a dispassionate