A Wanted Man by Linda Lael Miller Page A

gathered his resolve, reined in the horse and swung down out of the saddle. There was some gear tied on behind, wrapped in an ungainly bundle, and the boy wore an old wool coat and a brown hat pulled low over his face.
    Pardner approached to sniff at his hand, and Gideon grinned at the dog and mussed Pardner’s ears, but when he turned to Rowdy again, his expression was serious as an undertaker’s.
    “This where you live?” he asked.
    “This is where I live,” Rowdy confirmed. “I guess somebody at Mrs. Porter’s must have told you where to find me.”
    Gideon nodded. Swallowed once. “You said to come if I had trouble.”
    Rowdy approached his younger brother, laid a hand on his shoulder. “What happened, Gideon?” he asked.
    Gideon flushed. Chewed a while on what he wanted to say, maybe figuring how to put it. Finally, he said, “Pa took off last night, in a big hurry. Wouldn’t say where he was going, and wouldn’t let me go with him.”
    Rowdy closed his eyes. No, he thought fiercely.
    I’m not ready to run again.
    I’m not ready to leave Lark.
    Damn you, Pappy.
    Damn you.
    “Did I do right to come?” Gideon asked warily.
    Rowdy nodded. Smiled. “Come on along with me,” he said. “I reckon you could do with some supper.”

6
    M AI L EE WAS ALONE in the kitchen when Lark arrived at Mrs. Porter’s and divested herself of the lunch pail and lesson books, which she’d nearly dropped when Rowdy’d kissed her—in front of God and everybody. Hanging up her cloak, she frowned, immediately sensing something out of the ordinary, an uncomfortable shift in the atmosphere.
    The Chinese woman stood at the sink, peeling potatoes, her back to Lark. Her child-size shoulders were stooped, and she didn’t say a word, or turn to offer her usual smile of welcome.
    Lark put aside disturbing thoughts of Rowdy Rhodes and her concern for Lydia Fairmont, renewed when she’d walked the little girl home from school, a nameless fretting that came and went.
    “Mai Lee?” Lark ventured, looking toward the stairs and the inside doorways, expecting Mrs. Porter to appear. “Is something the matter?”
    Mai Lee did not respond. Usually she chattered, in her oddly cobbled English, full of news.
    Still frowning, Lark took the teakettle, which would already have been singing on the stove on any other afternoon, and stood beside Mai Lee to pump cold water into it. Once again she repeated the woman’s name.
    A tear slipped down Mai Lee’s cheek. “He buy house,” she lamented. “He buy garden .”
    “What house?” Lark asked, setting the kettle back on the stove to heat, her voice gentle. “What garden? And who is ‘he’?”
    Mai Lee sniffled, but she still wouldn’t look at Lark. “I save for house,” she said. “Save for garden.” A shiver went through her. “Now, is gone.”
    Tentatively Lark touched her friend’s shoulder. Mai Lee and her husband had undergone staggering hardship and privation before leaving China, by Mrs. Porter’s account. Even now, they slept under a staircase, in a bed hardly big enough for one person, let alone two. They both worked long hours, never shirking, and while they seemed to consider themselves fortunate, given their cheerful spirits and quick smiles, glad of having ample food to eat and shelter, they nevertheless lived with a bare-bones simplicity that would have been difficult for other people—Lark included—to endure.
    Lark was singularly alarmed by Mai Lee’s obvious upset, and still confused by her attempt at an explanation.
    “Mai Lee,” she said quietly, “please, help me to understand. What house? What garden?”
    “House behind jail,” Mai Lee said, her face a mask of wretched sorrow, even in profile. “Me save to buy. Have almost enough. Now gone .”
    Suddenly it was all clear to Lark. Her heart sank.
    Mai Lee and her husband had hoped to purchase the tiny place where she had seen Rowdy last, replacing floorboards. The homestead, one of the first in the