Larkspur by Dorothy Garlock Page A

written out a will and have had it notarized and recorded? Buck thought back over the ten years of sweat he had put into this place. Yarby had more than likely forgotten about the will by the time he had found Buck half-dead from gunshots in four places and had dragged him over the snow to his cabin. After he recovered, Buck had stayed on and the two had become more like father and son than friends.
    Buck wondered about the woman in Wisconsin. Yarby hadn’t been young even twenty years ago when he made out the will. Was she a lost love? By now the woman probably had grandchildren. It was unreasonable to assume that she’d make a trip all the way out here. Forsythe would have downplayed the inheritance—let her think the land was not worth much. Of course, he’d not put it past him and Lee to arrange for an imposter to claim the Yarby’s estate, then sell it to them.
    Buck stood and stretched.
    Cleve, you better hurry. All hell will break loose if they ride out here to take my home.

     

Chapter Five
    K ristin was up, washed and dressed, as daylight began to creep into the room. Feeling renewed and more confident in a dark gray skirt and white shirtwaist, she stood by the window and waited until there was activity on the street below before she put on her hat and fastened it firmly with her hatpins.
    There were a number of things she wanted to find out before she met again with Mr. Mark Lee, and she couldn’t do that unless she stirred herself out of the room.
    With the bag that now held her room key as well as her money and pistol over her arm, Kristin went down the stairs to the lobby. Two men sat in the straight chairs. One was reading a newspaper, the other smoking a foul-smelling cigar that was as fat as a sausage. Kristin paused at the desk, but the clerk was nowhere in sight. She went out the door and onto the boardwalk fronting the hotel.
    A man on horseback passed. He tipped his hat. Kristin nodded. Down the street a buckboard stood in front of a store, and across the street, the barber was sweeping the walk in front of his shop. A half dozen horses waited patiently at the hitching rails. She was toying with the idea of asking the barber about an eating place when a man whose long beard and hair were snowy white hobbled around the corner of the hotel leaning heavily on a cane. Without hesitation, she stepped out and greeted him.
    “Good morning.”
    “Howdy, ma’am.”
    “Sir? Is there an eating place in town other than the one here in the hotel?”
    “This’n suppose to be for the high-toned folks.”
    Kristin smiled. “That’s exactly why I’d rather go somewhere else. I’m not high-toned folk.”
    “Me, neither. I ate there once. Flapjacks they give me wouldn’t cover the top of a teacup.” The old man snorted. “Bonnie, down in the next block, sets a decent table. It’s where I’m goin’.”
    “Thank you. Do you mind if I walk along with you?” She moved beside the old man, fitting her steps to his.
    “Pleased to have ya. Bringin’ Bonnie a new customer might get me a extra biscuit.”
    “I don’t know when I’ve been so hungry.”
    “Come on the train, didn’t ya?”
    “How did you know?” Kristin laughed and waited for him to step down off the walk to cross the street.
    “News travels in Big Timber, missy. Bet there ain’t nobody standing on two feet what don’t know that yo’re old Yarby’s niece from Wisconsin come to claim the Larkspur.”
    “Well, for goodness sake! That takes the cake! And I thought there were busybodies in River Falls.”
    “Hee! Hee! Hee!” The old man clearly enjoyed her surprise. “Yup. Ain’t no town out here big enough for a pretty woman to pass through without folks takin’ a notice.”
    “Thank you for the pretty part of that.”
    “Yup,” he said again. “We’re all waitin’ to see how long it’s gonna take Forsythe to hornswoggle ya out of what Yarby left ya.”
    “Forsythe?”
    “See that sign yonder?” He pointed to a sign