Where the Deer and the Antelope Play (Code of the West) by Stephen Bly Page B

perspiration from her forehead with a flour sack tea towel. The cold December morning felt refreshing on her pale cheeks and face. She had slept little, spending most of the night caring for tiny Rebecca Marie Franklin.
    Everything about her is so beautiful, Lord. The little fi ngers, the nose, the ears, the little, round mouth. Alert brown eyes looking out at a great, big world. Everything’s new for her. All the joys, all the sorrows . . . Lord, may there not be many sorrows for her.
    Pepper no longer brushed away sweat—but tears—as she stood facing the rising sun over the snowcapped mou ntains to the east.
    I’ve got to tell Tap about the miscarriage before the we dding. No matter what. Every day of my life it ties my stomach in knots. The doctor warned me maybe I couldn’t . . . but I hope it’s not true. Of course, I can still have children. Cute little ones like Rebecca Marie.
    Toting her carefully folded wedding dress to the buggy, Pepper pulled the hood up on her cape, shook hands with a grateful Nat Franklin, and drove north toward McCurleys’. The cold morning air colored her cheeks and numbed her chin, but she kept the tall, gray horse at a comfortable trot.
    I’ll park in the middle of the yard. Surely Tap will be waiting at the hotel. Then he can go out to the corral or something while I bring the dress into the hotel. He’ll pitch a fit, of course, but “the groom does not get to see the dress, Mr. Tapadera Andrews.” And he’ll give me that hurt little-boy look . . . and I’ll . . . I’ll probably kiss him, and he’ll slip his strong arms around my waist and I’ll . . . and that’s all. He absolutely doesn’t get to see it.
    Her mind raced with thoughts of Tap, and the trip passed quickly. She was surprised to find so many rigs parked around the hotel when she arrived right before noon. Robert McCurley, vest unbuttoned and tie hanging crooked, sca mpered from the barn toward the hotel.
    “Pepper, tie that rig off at the barn. I’ll be back out in a mi nute and put it up. Glad you got back safe. If you’re up to it, Mama could sure use some help. The east pass snowed shut, and most of the traffic up to Cheyenne is coming through here. A man will either starve or die of commotion in this business.”
    “Did Tap come in from the ranch?”
    “Yep.”
    “Where is he, Mr. Mac? Is he in the house or the barn?”
    McCurley stopped and squinted his eyes in his wrinkled, leathery face. “He’s gone.”
    “What do you mean, he’s gone?”
    “Oh, he came down yesterday. But he didn’t stay overnight. There was trouble up at Pingree Hill. April’s place caught fire, and Stack Lowery asked him to come up and help find the culprits who did it.”
    “The dance hall burned? Did anyone get hurt? What about April? And Danni Mae?”
    “I declare I don’t know if he told me that or not. He and Lowery needed to recover some stolen funds. But he said not to worry. He’d faced this gang down before.”
    “What gang?”
    “Cain’t tell ya that neither.” McCurley hustled to the porch. “But everyone must be fine, or he surely would have told me. He did say that he’d be gone a few days and then swing down by here to see you. There’s a note fer ya in yer room.” McCurley scooted inside the hotel leaving Pepper sitting in the black buggy.
    This isn’t the way we planned it. We left Denver saying we would just sit out here nice and quiet and wait for the wedding.
    “Miss Pepper, I’m glad to see you made it back safely.”
    A young man in a suit and tie stepped out on the porch. His neatly trimmed sandy hair was parted in the middle.
    “Little Bob! I thought you went to Fort Collins.”
    “Wouldn’t you know, that pass was snowed shut tighter than a cork stopper on a bottle of champagne.”
    Pepper drove the black buggy to the barn. Little Bob took the reins from her gloved left hand and tied off the horse while she retrieved her wedding dress.
    “Yes, ma’am.” He grinned,