Dorothy Garlock - [Wyoming Frontier] Read Online Free

home in such an untidy state, but there was no help for it.
    Mara resisted putting the horse to a faster pace because of the injured man, but she had no control over her heart. It was beating faster. She could hardly wait to call out to Cousin Brita that she was home.
    A column of blue smoke curled lazily from the cobblestone chimney until, catching the wind high up, it was swept away. Mara could smell it now. It smelled of pine and reminded her of the pine chips her mother used in the trunk to keep the bedding smelling fresh. Her eyes, shining with happiness, were glued to the homestead. The only activity was centered around the long low building at the back. Several horses were tied to a rail fence that penned more horses.
    Suddenly Mara realized that a sea of waving grass covered the land her father had plowed and planted. That thought was swept away immediately as her attention was drawn to the house. The shape of it was the same, yet somehow it was different. She was soon near enough to see bare ground in front where there used to be flowers and green bushes. The picket fence and the swinging gate were no longer there. Each turn of the wagon wheels brought new revelations, each more dismal than the one before. A front window was boarded up with flat weathered plank, and the front door was folded back and propped open with a wash tub. Firewood was piled on the veranda where the porch swing used to hang. Several large logs lay on the porch, an ax head buried in one of them. The beautiful latticework was gone from around the bottom of the veranda, and the cornices and fancy fretwork no longer decorated the eaves of the porch.
    Mara watched with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach as a dog raced out from beneath the porch to nip at the heels of the horse as it pulled the wagon up the rutted drive to the front of the house.
    Mara was stunned with disbelief.
    A man in a black coat came from inside the house and stood on the veranda as she approached. While he waited, he smoothed his gray hair back with the palms of his hands. Mara stopped the horse and stared at him.
    “What ye be doin’ here, miss?” he demanded in a deep Irish brogue.
    Mara was so astonished she was unable to speak. Her eyes widened, her breath quickened, and for an instant his face was a blur. The man looked so much like her father it was uncanny, yet she had never seen her father look so disreputable. A rough stubble of whiskers covered the man’s face, the front of his shirt was dirty, his face was bloated, and his eyes were watery. He leaned against the porch post, rubbing a trembling hand across his mouth. He was an older, unkempt version of the man who had come to Denver five years before. He was Cousin Aubrey, and he didn’t even know who she was.
    “Who be ye?” he asked again, squinting his eyes to get a better look at her.
    His harsh voice jarred Mara out of her stunned state of mind. She was tired, dirty and frightened. She had a dying man in the back of the wagon. Her temper ignited and flared. “I am Mara Shannon McCall and I live here!”

Chapter
    TWO
    “Who did ye say ye be?”
    Mara stared at Aubrey for a full minute while her mind accepted the fact that this was reality and not the homecoming she had dreamed about during the long journey from Denver. A small dart of panic shot through her but was overridden by a hot flush of anger.
    “You heard me. I am Mara Shannon McCall, Cousin Aubrey. I’ve come home!” She wrapped the reins around the brake and climbed down from the wagon seat.
    “Ah, Jesus! Ah, Godamighty! Sure ’n ’tis Mara Shannon, herself. Why’d ye go ’n come here fer?”
    “Because I wanted to!” she retorted sharply. Anger and disappointment were keeping tears from her eyes.
    “Cullen . . . ain’t goin’ ter like it none a’tall.”
    “Cullen? What’s he got to do with it?” Mara pushed at the straw hat that had slipped to one side of her head and looked beyond Aubrey to the boy who came out onto