renting to rangers because they were never around and if they failed to return in three months, her house rules stated, she got to keep all gear left in the room.
“I don’t like kids,” he mumbled, wishing he’d had somewhere else to bring her besides the office. “And little girls are my least favorite creatures on this earth.”
She stopped twirling and stared at him as if she’d suddenly forgotten how to understand English. But she still remembered how to speak it. “Can I have another cookie?”
Wolf grumbled and opened his jar of prize cookies Noma made for him. He’d been feeding them to the little princess for an hour. She looked no closer to settling down and going to bed than she had when she’d insisted he carry her from Molly’s store.
“You promise to go to sleep?”
“If I eat one more cookie.” She smiled a cherubic smile, as she had the other times, and he knew she lied, but he handed her the jar anyway.
She took two more cookies. “Did you really shoot my uncles?”
“Only one of them.”
Wolf thought she might be upset by the news, but she just shrugged her tiny shoulders.
“I told the sheriff back home that Grandma always said they were worthless, but he sent me here anyway. He said kin is kin even if they’re no-account and how bad could two men named Carrell and Francis be.”
“Aren’t you afraid of me?” Wolf decided maybe she wasn’t a child at all but one of those pixies the gypsies say haunt the deep woods. She looked three, but she’d told Molly she was almost six.
“I might have been. You’re the biggest man I remember ever seeing,” she answered. “But Uncle Orson told me not to be.”
He let out a long breath and smiled. “Finally, we’re getting somewhere. You have another uncle?”
“Uh-huh.” She crawled up in his lap and whispered, “But he’s not like the others.”
Wolf settled her in the bend of his arm. “He’s not? Why not?” Anything was bound to be better than the two Diggers he knew about.
She leaned her curls against his chest and yawned. “I can’t say, but you can ask him.”
Wolf relaxed; maybe his problems weren’t near as deep as he thought. All he needed to do was contact her uncle Orson and send her in the right direction. Hopefully Orson wasn’t an outlaw. Maybe he’d be a married man ready to take on another mouth to feed. “Where does Uncle Orson live, child?”
“With me,” she answered, her eyes half closed. “Sometimes he sleeps in the barn when my grandma yells she doesn’t want to hear his name one more time. But he doesn’t like the barn. The cows keep him awake.”
“Where is he now?” Wolf needed to get the information before she fell asleep. At daybreak he could send off a telegram.
“He’s sitting over by the door. Has been since we came in. Said he wouldn’t walk another step.” She rubbed her eyes. “But he’s too tired to talk anymore, so don’t ask him any questions tonight.”
Wolf caught himself looking at the empty chair by the door before he countered. “But…” It was no use, the child was asleep.
Carefully he carried her to the wide parson’s bench beneath the windows and covered her with his wool coat. “I’ll find out tomorrow,” he said as he tucked her in. “Good night, Princess.”
Just after dawn, Wolf shifted in his chair. His foot fell off the desk, rocking him forward. The thud of his boot against the hardwood brought him wide awake.
For a moment, he thought the child last night had been part of a dream. When the bundle by the window moved, he knew the dream was true.
The thought of trying to get the Diggers out of jail to take on their charge crossed his mind. But even if they weren’t guilty of more murders than he could count, neither of them was fit to raise a child. When they weren’t robbing stages, they drank. Carrell once bragged about killing a prostitute for overcharging him. Francis claimed they got Carrell’s money back by selling the hooker’s
Yvette Hines, Monique Lamont