House of Winslow 14 The Valiant Gunman Read online

  © 1993 by Gilbert Morris

  Published by Bethany House Publishers

  11400 Hampshire Avenue South

  Bloomington, Minnesota 55438

  www.bethanyhouse.com

  Bethany House Publishers is a division of

  Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan

  www.bakerpublishinggroup.com

  Ebook edition created 2011

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  ISBN 978-1-4412-7040-5

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of

  Congress, Washington, D.C.

  Cover illustration by Brett Longley

  Cover design by Melinda Schumacher

  To Danny and Jan Meeks

  The Lord give mercy to the house of Danny Meeks, for he oft refreshed me.

  Someone once defined friendship as “two bodies—one soul.” The years have slipped by, and with them many of my old acquaintances have faded from view. But in one of those mysterious alchemies of the spirit, we have grown closer—despite the miles that separate us.

  I’m so grateful that God gives us fellow pilgrims to walk with as we travel toward home!

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  PART ONE

  TRAIL TO WYOMING

  1. A Man for Hope

  2. Trail to Cheyenne

  3. Meeting With the Sioux

  4. Arrow Makes an Offer

  5. First Casualty

  6. “A Man’s Got to Fight for What’s His!”

  PART TWO

  A DREAM DEFERRED

  7. A Man’s Dream

  8. An Old Friend

  9. Rosa

  10. Dan Makes a Rule

  11. Hard-Luck Trail

  12. End of a Dream

  PART THREE

  STORM CLOUDS

  13. Winslow Pays a Call

  14. Arrow Hits Back

  15. Action at the Palace

  16. At the Anchor Ranch

  17. A Man Can’t Run Away From God!

  18. Cabin Raising

  PART FOUR

  WAR IN THE VALLEY

  19. A Cry in the Night

  20. A Desperate Search

  21. Honor in the Dust

  22. A Man and a Woman

  23. “We’ll Turn Wolf!”

  24. A New Beginning

  About the Author

  CHAPTER ONE

  A MAN FOR HOPE

  Hope Jenson Rogers had known from the instant Willis Malloy entered the house that he’d come for her—and it brought a tightness to her throat that made it hard for her to speak clearly. For months she had known he would come, and now that the moment was upon her, she had to force herself to ignore the spasm of fear that gripped her. Stepping back from the door, she said, “Come in out of the cold, Mr. Malloy.”

  “Thanks,” Malloy said at once. He entered the simple room that served as kitchen, dining room, and living area for the Jenson family, shucked out of his heavy wool coat, hung it on a peg beside the door, then swept off his high-crowned Stetson and placed it carefully on another peg. Only then did he turn to face Hope, his black eyes sweeping over her. “I thought we got that all straight—about you callin’ me by my first name.”

  Hope tried to smile. “I guess I forgot—Willis.”

  “Now, thet’s more like it! I ain’t no stranger, am I now?”

  “No, not a stranger.” Restless under the scrutiny of his dark eyes, she said hurriedly, “I was making up some sassafras tea. Come and sit.”

  “Where’s your pa—and the boys?” Malloy was such a huge man that he made the room seem smaller by his bulk. He had a blunt-featured face, with large red lips, black eyes sunk deep under beetled brows, and a prow of a nose. His thick body strained the plaid wool shirt he wore, and as always, Hope was repulsed by the sight of his hands—huge and powerful with tufts of black hair swirling out behind the knuckles.

  “Zane took Cody out to hunt rabbits,” she said. “Pa’s milking the cow.”

  The information seemed to mean something to Malloy, for his dark eyes registered the fact with a gleam of interest. He was a shrewd man for all his bulk, and now he said quickly, “Well, that’s all right, Hope. I come to talk to you anyhow.” Taking a step toward her, he said with a grin, “I guess you know what about, don’t you?”

  “Why—!” Hope faltered, and the impulse came to her to run out the door, but there was no place to hide. She said quickly, “I expect Pa will be back soon.”

  “Then I’ll jest speak my peace before he does.” Malloy put out a massive hand and gripped her arm before she could move. Despite his size there was a quickness in him, and as he looked down at the woman, he seemed to find an obscure pleasure in her obvious fear of him.

  Willis Malloy was a man who liked to inspire fear in others. He was a notorious bruiser, his massive frame and thick skull able to endure considerable punishment, and few men were able to stand before the awesome strength of his fists. He provoked fights often, enjoying watching the fear leap into his opponents’ eyes, and rumor said that he was hard on the women of the town as well—those who would tolerate him. Even now he increased the power of his grip, so that Hope blinked her eyes with the pain.

  He eased up at once, saying, “Sorry, Hope. Didn’t mean to hurt you none. Just don’t know my own grip, I guess.” But he held her arm fast as he said, “I ain’t made no secret of how I admire you, have I? Been comin’ around here for nigh onto two months now tryin’ to get you to go with me to a dance or someplace.” He shrugged, the motion bringing the huge muscles of his shoulders into prominence. “I thought for a while I had some competition—thet you was interested in some other man. But I don’t reckon that’s so, is it?”

  “No. I—don’t see any men.”

  Malloy paused thoughtfully, his gaze running over Hope as he thought about her statement. He was a man who had known many women, but there was something about this one that had intrigued him. All of the women he had known had been coarse and common. But Hope was different. She possessed a fineness that had drawn him.

  Her face was heart-shaped, and her skin smooth and clear, save for one small mole on her right cheek close to her wide mouth. This blemish only served as a foil for the beauty of her complexion. Her eyes were blue with flecks of green, and when she smiled a small dimple appeared on her left cheek. His eyes traveled down her body, which was slim yet provocatively full-figured.

  He had his look, then said, “I’m a man who likes things straight out, Hope. Not much fancy about me. I been thinkin’ about you for a spell, now I come to ask you to marry me.” He watched as alarm came into her eyes and said quickly, “Now, don’t say nothin’ till I git finished! I ain’t no kid, Hope. I’m thirty-seven and I’ve kicked around a lot. I’ve known some women,” he shrugged, “but a man’s got to have his fun. Now I’m ready to settle down, and you’re the woman I want.”

  “Oh, I can’t answer you now, Willis!”

  He brushed aside her protest with a sweeping move of his free hand. “Hope, I done thought all this out, and the way I see it, you gotta think of your family.” His quick eyes caught the sudden expression that statement had brought to her eyes, and he nodded encouragement. “Things ain’t been good for you, and thet ain’t no secret. It’s been a hard thing, this here reconstruction.
Them carpetbaggers have stripped the South, blast ’em! This farm never was much, and with Amos gettin’ sick, it’s gone to pot.”

  “We’re hoping for a good crop next year—”

  “Cotton won’t bring no money,” he interrupted. “And even if it did, you owe so much on this place you ain’t never gonna get it paid for. And how you gonna raise cotton with a sick man and one fourteen-year-old kid?”

  Hope knew he was speaking the truth, for she had said the same thing over and over to herself. Her father seldom spoke of his illness, but he was past the sort of grinding work that raising cotton required. Her younger brother, Zane, was a hard worker, but he was not able enough.

  Malloy saw the harried expression on her face. “And you need a man—a husband, Hope—just like your son needs a pa. You’re jest bein’ wasted, a good-lookin’ woman like you without no man.” He tightened his grip again as he thought of her past, then said with a teasing grin, “That husband of yours, he musta either been a good one or a bad one. Either he was so good you can’t find nobody to measure up to him—or he was such a dud you got a bad taste in your mouth about marriage. Which one was it, I wonder?”

  Hope shook her head, speechless. She had long ago managed to blot out memories of her first marriage. She had been barely out of girlhood, only sixteen years old, when she married James Rogers. He was older, nearly twenty-five. When Fort Sumter fell, he was one of the first to enlist in the Confederate Army—and then was one of the first to fall—at Manassas, the first battle of the war. Hope had been filled with girlish, romantic notions, and when he had asked her to marry him before he left for the war, she had trembled, then said yes. They had only a week together, and for a tender, untaught girl with no knowledge of marriage, it had been a terrifying week. Her mother had died two years earlier, and there had been no other woman to give her any help or instructions. James Rogers was a rough young fellow, selfish and taking, so Hope’s first week of marriage had left her bruised and frightened.

  When the news came that her husband had fallen at Manassas, her first reaction was one of tremendous relief that he would not be coming back to subject her to his rough hungers—and her second was guilt that she felt such a thing.

  Her baby was born nine months after the wedding night, and she had shown no interest in men for the past ten years, though several had come seeking her, drawn by her beauty. Ignoring their advances, she had mothered her son, and cared for her brother and father in their small cabin on the hill farm in the Ozarks. After a while, the men of the hills had finally given up on her.

  But now this! Hope trembled as Willis Malloy held her arm, despite her efforts to pull free. His very touch brought back vivid memories of her brief experience with James Rogers, and she whispered, “Please! Let me go!”

  “Why, that’s no way to talk to a man, Hope!” Malloy said. Instead of letting her go, he took her chin and forced her to look up at him. He lowered his voice, saying, “I think I know what’s wrong with you. That boy you married, he didn’t know how to treat a woman. You need a man who knows how to please you—and that’s me!”

  “I—can’t leave my father and brother, Willis.”

  “Who said you had to leave ’em?” He grinned when his words caused her to open her eyes wide. “Thet’s somethin’ you didn’t expect to hear, did ya? But I’m a careful man, Hope, and I’ve done a lot of thinkin’ on this thing. Now look at this, your pa’s gonna lose this place. Everybody knows he owes more on it than it’s worth. And Gerald Tibbs, the banker, told me as much—private like.”

  “He didn’t say that!”

  “Shore did,” Malloy insisted. “He’s carried the note with nothin’ on the principal ever since Amos got sick, but now he’s gonna call the note.” He saw the stricken look on her face and pulled her a little closer. “Now, don’t let that bother you none. What I got in mind will be good for all of us. When we marry up, I’m pullin’ out of Arkansas. Never did like it nohow!”

  Hope stared up at him. “Where will you go?”

  “Going to Wyoming, Hope. I bought a place there, a ranch, and got me enough money to go to Texas and buy up a passel of wild cattle. We’ll drive ’em to Wyoming, take up some free graze. Now that the railroads are all the way into the East, we can feed out the stock, take it to the railroad, and make a lot of money.” His eyes were gleaming with excitement, and he suddenly pulled her close and kissed her.

  Hope, taken off guard, could do nothing, for his strong arms held her as though she were a child. He reeked of tobacco and whiskey and unwashed clothes, and as he pulled her closer, she could think of nothing but the touch of his rough lips.

  Finally releasing his strong hold, he stared at her, then smiled. “You’re a bashful little thing—but I’ll teach you a few tricks after we’re married.”

  “I can’t marry you, Willis. I don’t . . . love you!”

  A smile parted his thick lips, and a hearty chuckle rumbled in his chest. “You been readin’ some of them romance books, girl! You need a man, and I need a woman, and thet’s all there is to it! Now look,” he spoke firmly. “When the bank takes this place, where will you go? You ain’t got no place, have you? And no money? But I’m offerin’ to marry you, and since I’m a generous man, I’ll take care of your pa. He can go with us and stay as long as he lives. And Zane, he’ll make a good hand. He’s the best horse rider around here already, and I’ll need him to git started.”

  Hope stood there, confused and frightened. She had thought many times of her family’s future, and it was always a grim picture. They had no relatives to take them in, and she hated the idea of living in town, of being a maid or a waitress—which were the only jobs she could do.

  But marry Willis Malloy? The very thought of it brought a wrenching sickness to her. Fortunately, at just that moment, they both heard steps on the porch, and Malloy said quickly, “You talk it over with your pa, Hope. I’ll be back tomorrow.” He gave her a careful glance with his black eyes, then nodded. “I expect you’ll say yes. You ain’t really got no choice, have you now?”

  The door opened, and Amos Jenson entered with a bucket of frothy milk. He was very tall and thin as a rail. He had blue eyes and fair hair, and his fingers clutching the rope-handle of the bucket were long and sensitive—musician’s hands, which was what he had been all his life. He could play any instrument, and during the first half of his life, he had played for dances all over Stone County, drinking and chasing the girls. When the war came he had joined the Stonewall Brigade and had gone through every major battle. It was at that time he was converted, and when he came home, he was as active at proclaiming the gospel as he had been at playing hoedowns. He had no education, and two children and a grandchild to support, so his preaching consisted of holding “protracted meetings,” revival meetings in the rural areas.

  After several years of preaching and farming, he had fallen ill and never recovered his strength. He tried valiantly, but the vitality of his youth was gone, and he watched his farm slowly deteriorate. Through it all he never complained but always said, “The Lord will care for us.”

  Now he came into the room and set the bucket of milk on the table before saying, “Hello, Willis. Cold for a man to be out visiting. Sit and have something.”

  “No thanks, Amos.” Malloy shook his head. “Jest stopped in on the way to town. Thought you might need somethin’ from the store.”

  “I guess not,” Jenson said. “Come by on your way back. I expect the boys will come in with some rabbits—or maybe even a buck.”

  “Yeah, I’ll do thet.” He turned to put on his coat, then pulled his hat down over his rough thatch of hair. Placing his hand on the door latch, he paused to give Hope a sudden glance. “You think on it, Hope,” he said, and then stepped out of the cabin.

  Hope hurried at once to the stove and set the teakettle on to heat. She turned to look in the bucket of milk her father had set on the table, noted how full it was, and said, “Lots of milk, Pa. That’s a good thing.”


  Amos Jenson was a quick man—always had been. If he had received an education, he could have been anything. He knew people, and he knew this daughter of his better than she knew herself. Moving carefully, he sat down in one of the cane-bottomed chairs. “I guess Willis came to ask you to marry him.” He saw the sudden jerk of her head and the paleness of her face, and it hurt him. “You don’t have to marry him, Hope.”

  The wind whistled under the door and through the thousand cracks of the old house. It rattled the shingles, which hung on by rusty nails that screeched at the pressure; and the stove belched a puff of woodsmoke as the wind forced its way down the chimney. It was a poor house, but it was all she had ever known. Hope glanced around with desperate eyes, then came to sit down across from her father.

  “I guess maybe I do, Pa,” she said. Her voice was unsteady, and she stared at her work-hardened hands as she told him what Malloy had said about the banker.

  As she spoke, Amos sat before her, a familiar feeling of breathless pain growing in his chest. Whenever it came, he felt an enormous fragility, as if he were made out of thin glass and one stiff breeze would shatter him into tiny fragments.

  But the pain was not bad this day. He knew it was his heart—and he also knew that no doctor could help him. Each day he measured out a little of himself, as a woman measures meal out of a container when the supply is low and there is no replacement. He had only so many days to live, so many words to say, so many sunrises to see. He had told himself that every man has limitations—but the difference was he knew that his were near the end.

  He had been shocked when Appomattox came and he was one of the few ragged scarecrows who’d stacked muskets there. For years he’d lived with death at his elbow, seeing his friends go down one by one, and had assumed that his turn would come. But it had not come—and then when he had been laid low by sickness, rendered helpless by the sudden attack two years earlier, he had been caught off guard. He had made no provision for his children, and the pain that that knowledge gave him was worse than anything his illness had brought.

  Now he was helpless, but still he said, “Daughter, don’t marry him. We’ll make out somehow.” He knew his words were weak, and that she would have to be the strong one. He had discovered long ago that her first brief marriage had been a disaster for her, though he could only guess at the reason.