The Marshal's Lady

AuthorHouse

Chapter One

As Amber was dressing that morning she studied herself carefully in the mirror and saw the bruises were hardly noticeable anymore. As always, there had been no reason for the last beating except Brett had been drunk and as usual, when he had been drinking he had turned mean.

The good thing that came out of his drinking binges was afterwards he always disappeared for several days. She never knew where he went during those times and she didn't care. For her own personal protection she didn't ask and she didn't want to know. All she knew was those were the only days she didn't live in fear. He was always in a better mood when he returned and seemed to have more money than when he left, leading her to believe he did something illegal while he was gone.

She had met Brett when he had gone to St. Louis on business where she had lived with her family. One afternoon when she had gone to the livery stable where her father was working Brett had come to look at a mare stabled there that was for sale.

Although he had been quite charming she had not been overly impressed with him. But he had impressed her father with his smooth talk and the money he obviously had. When he came by their house that evening to talk to her father about the mare and had shown an interest in her, her father had insisted she encourage his interest.

At the time she had been only seventeen and had just completed her schooling. She had still been under the complete control of her father, who had been anxious for her to marry and leave so he would no longer have to support her.

Brett had seemed nice enough while he had been there and he wasn't bad looking. While he had been courting her he had taken her to restaurants and other places that, until that time, she had only dreamed of going to. He had even taken her to the theatre.

It had been the day they had gone on a picnic that she had seen a side of him she had never seen before. On the way back to her house an elderly man's horse had spooked, causing the man to temporarily lose control of the horse and his buggy had nearly careened into theirs.

When they caught up with the man she had expected Brett to check to see if the man had been hurt and to see if he could help him in any way. Instead, he had jumped out of the buggy and grabbed the man by the front of his shirt and then backhanded him several times while using words she had never heard before.

When he had come back to the buggy he had been his usual smiling, charming self. When she questioned him about his treatment of the man he had told her a man who couldn't control his horse didn't have any business driving.

If she had not been so naïve at the time his treatment of the man that day would have been an indication to her of what her future with him would be like.

When Brett had proposed her father had insisted on the marriage in spite of her objections. Even considering the amount of money Brett obviously had she had not been looking forward to moving to the unsettled and lawless new state of Texas.

At least she knew if she married Brett she would no longer be hungry. There was seldom enough food on the table for the nine of them. Always concerned about the younger children, Amber had more often than not given most of her meager share to one of them.

Amber was the oldest of the seven children. If her mother's behavior when she had left home had been any indication of things to come, there was soon to be an eighth child.

The day before they married Brett had given her the largest sum of money she had ever seen and told her to buy some clothes, saying it would be her last chance to shop for a while. Little had she known at the time how true that statement would turn out to be!

Two days after his proposal they were married and on the coach headed for Texas.

Her mother had talked to her a little about what to expect on her first night as a wife. But nothing could have prepared her for what she had gone through that first night with Brett. Even knowing she had never been with a man he had been rough and unfeeling with her, leaving her hurt and scared.

That had been over two years ago. She had only been off the ranch four times since arriving and those trips had been to the tiny little frontier town of Wolf Creek with Brett for groceries and supplies.

Brett had told her his ranch was several miles from town. What he had neglected to say was several miles was actually fifteen miles over a rough and un-kept road and the population of that town was less than two hundred people. The nearest neighbor was Ben Crayton, an unmarried man whose ranch was five miles away.

They had been at the ranch less than a month when Crayton and another rancher, Nate Price, had come by to talk to Brett. After supper the men had spent the remainder of the evening in Brett's office drinking and laughing loudly.

Brett had walked them to the door when they left and had then come into the parlor where she was. By that time he had been so drunk his speech had been slurred and he could barely walk. Grabbing her by the arm he had pulled her from the chair, where she had been sitting mending a tear in one of his shirts, and accused her of being overly friendly with one of the men.

Nothing could have been farther from the truth. She had found both men to be quite unappealing. When she denied the charges Brett had called her a liar, shoved her against the wall and began hitting her until she was almost unconscious.

Dragging her up the stairs and into the bedroom, he had proceeded to tear her clothes off her and had forced himself upon her. He had never been gentle with her but she had never known real pain or fear until that night.

The more she had cried and pleaded the meaner and more violent he had become. She learned from that experience not to protest or resist when he was in one of his drunken rages.

The next day, without a word to her as to where he was going or when he would be back, he left. The second day he was gone one of the cowboys had come to the house and told her the foreman had gone with Brett. When she had looked at him blankly he asked, "What do you want us to do?"

As they had talked she noticed the man kept looking away from her. She was almost certain the reason for that was because he was embarrassed by the bruises he saw on her face and wrists.

She had noticed from the very beginning that unlike most of the men he was a rather quiet, soft spoken man who was very gentle with the horses. She knew Brett and some of the other men teased him and accused him of acting like a woman because of his gentle nature. When she thought back on it later, she was almost certain when he had asked for her help he had been trying to let her know the men understood what she was going through and sympathized with her.

Having always lived in the city until she had married, she knew nothing about the workings of a ranch but the man had seemed so desperate she had taken pity on him. Taking a deep breath she had gone to the bunkhouse with him to see how she might be of help.

After talking with the men she felt they were all quite capable. It seemed all they needed was someone with a little authority to lead them. So, she had appointed one of the men interim foreman. Since then the two of them had managed the ranch when Brett was away. To her surprise Brett had not seemed to object to that...