by Moonwitch
H e stopped just short of begging, and she held her rigid pose for a moment longer before turning around to confront him. They were still close enough for her to make out the softened lines of his face, though his eyes were masked, and when she smiled, she saw his lips purse in a smile of his own.
They kissed again-not hungrily, nor fraternally, but with a promise that had her dreaming of meadows and snowcapped mountains even before she had slipped under the coverlet, the echoes of his mount's departure still lingering in her ears.
And the next morning she was waiting for him in the lobby, headband on and laughing when he asked her in comic fear if the rest of her tribe were waiting in ambush at the pass. She had searched for that cord of tension during the entire ride into town, though she admitted to herself that she had not tried very hard. If it was still there and waiting, it had diminished to the point where it did not matter very much; and if it it were gone . . .
She grinned all the way to the station, not bothering now to hide her displays of affection-the holding of his arm, the turning of her face toward his whenever he made a passing comment. And just before he was about ready to step aboard the puffing, impatient train, she threw her arms around him and kissed him as hard as she dared.
"Amanda," he said, and she pressed her fingers to his lips.
"Not a word," she told him. "All the speeching was done and over last night."
''I'll be back."
Her grin became a soft smile. "I know. "
And she stood there, not waving, only watching, until the train had vanished behind the roll of the hills, and the gray smoke that trailed behind it had been caught and shredded by the vagrant wind.
Her smile faded. The buoyancy of her step became somewhat leaden as she walked back up the avenue toward Main Street. ·
In the distance she could hear in combination with the train's steam whistle the rolling tolls of Reverend Campbell's church bell. There were few people on the street now, no women or children at all. Most of the stores were closed until after services were done, and even then would be open only for an hour or so for last-minute Sunday-dinner shopping. Only the restaurant, the hotel's dining room, and the saloons would be ready for customers for the entire day.
She stood indecisively at the intersection, thinking that perhaps she ought to see if Douglas were all right. His brawling the night before had prompted too many reactions in her even now to sort out with any sense. In a way his schoolboy defense of her was somewhat romantic and thereby more than a little flattering. But the fact that he had gotten drunk first not only took the bloom off the rose but made the entire episode shabby and tainted.
No, she thought; if she walked in on him now, assuming he was awake and on the job, either his guilty conscience or his hangover would make the meeting uncomfortable, not to mention explosive. And she was not so sure of herself that she could trust herself not to start scolding him no matter how he was feeling. That, she thought, would be a disaster of the highest degree.
Wind was still tied at the hitching post in front of the hotel, and as she crossed the street to the opposite walk, she found herself staring at the blank facade of the Wooden Dollar.
A temptation, then.
Though she had taken care of Webber's funeral and had been told of the manner of his abrupt passing, she had not yet made good on a promise to herself-that she would talk to the woman Diane herself. Webber, while crude and essentially greedy, was as she had told him he was--about the best man she had known for breaking a fresh horse. Even Sam, in his own laconic way, had complimented Webber; though after the breaking was done, the man was absolutely hopeless in his handling of the beasts. And she had wondered exactly why he had suddenly decided to tum cruel like that.
It was, however, a small wondering, one that was lumped with Carl's wounding as just another of the misfortunes that once in a while seemed to plague the ranch. Nothing special, she'd thought; it happened to them all.
But Carl, when she had seen him back to his bed on Friday, had insisted that he'd owed no gambling debts, made no advances to any of the women, and had, as far as he knew, no enemies at all. The declaration had been temporarily forgotten in her own personal disappointment when she'd received Trevor's note, but now that she was standing at the Wooden Dollar's batwing doors, she recalled it.
And she wondered.
With a quick glance over her shoulder at the deserted stretch of street, she pushed inside and stood for a moment blinking rapidly to adjust her vision to the dim light.
The vast downstairs room was empty. The chairs had been placed neatly around their tables, the upright piano next to the small stage was uncovered and waiting, but there was no one to listen to its tinny, not-quite-true music, and the burly, black-haired bartender whose name she could never recall was not at his post.
Sunday morning in a saloon.
She shook her head and saw, in the honest day's light, how tawdry the place really was. Its velvet curtains flanking the stage were faded and patched; the walls papered in gold and red were streaked with liquor stains; the tables not yet gone over with a damp rag were nicked and chipped and most of them rested on uneven legs. The chandeliers, four of them, that walked across the high ceiling seemed less like crystal now than the cheap faceted glass they really were, and there was a faint stench of liquor, sweat, old beer and ale, that clung to the place like a soiled shroud.
She shook herself quickly, then, to rid her mind of the unfortunate gloom settling there, and had just taken a step further in when she heard a door opening. She looked up, at the gallery that stretched along the back and partway up the right-hand wall, and saw at the top landing a man step out of one of the rooms.
It was Douglas. He was buttoning his shirt with one hand, trying to tuck it into his trousers with the other.
All thought of talking with Diane fled. She backed away as quickly and as silently as she could and fairly ran down the street toward Wind. She tried to keep on her toes, to lessen the pounding against the boardwalk, but her footsteps sounded like cannon and she threw several glances over her shoulder toward the saloon's doors.
She did not want to be seen. She could not trust herself to speak.
There was only a fast-growing pain somewhere deep within her breast that felt as though she had been invaded by a tongue of unadulterated fire. It spread to her throat, to the bile rising in her mouth, and when it broke tears in her eyes, she flung a forearm over them and rubbed as she ran, hoping that the additional pain would blot out what her mind's eye would not yield.
She had thought he had come, drunk or not, to protect her from Eagleton. She had thought, though only for a moment, that perhaps he really loved her.
But when he had been driven off so ignominiously, he had not even the strength to find himself the woman he was supposedly going to marry. He had not even had the courage to go to Carla Menoz.
She shuddered as she leaped onto Wind's back and spun him around to race back up the street and kept her eyes straight ahead so she would not have to see him compound his sin by either waving or gaping as she rode by him.
Yet, by the time she had left Coreville behind her, much of her shame and her anger was directed at herself. For being so foolishly confused that she did not know her own mind and thus expected others to make her decisions for her. For thinking that somehow, despite the unannounced engagement, Doug would not tie himself to that woman but would return to her instead-even though she didn't want him.
And if she did not want him, she asked herself suddenly, pulling on the reins so sharply that Wind nearly threw her, then why was she so furious? So suddenly embittered?
She looked back toward town . She looked back for a long time before she headed for home.
NINETEEN
Carl Davis rode slowly across the broad, undulating field, every few yards wincing expressively at an imagined twinge where the bullets had passed cleanly through his shoulder. His horse, a small and aging dun mare, was already showing signs of sp
orting her shaggy winter coat. He slapped at her thick neck lovingly-grinning at the puffs of dust that took to the air-and let his squinting eyes continue their scanning as he searched for strays that had been left behind in the drive from the high grazing pasture. It was not hard work; it was only tedious, and generally he had left it to the younger, newer hands. This year, however, despite the properly healing scars of his injury, he had not been able to regain the stamina he once had had, and he had thought of several excellent excuses for his taking this undemanding task in case anyone should ask him about the change in routine.
The worst part about it was--no one did.
Young pups, he thought, trying and failing to give himself some righteous anger.
Suddenly the mare ducked her head, and he stopped.
A tiny dark figure appeared in the middle distance, and he thought at first it might be the missus, though why she should be way out here he did not know. Five minutes later, however, he grinned and rubbed a hand hard through his unkempt beard. It was Harley, probably come to visit. He waved, the figure waved back, and he eased himself into a slump in the saddle, taking off his scruffy hat and wiping at his creased and sweaty brow with one sleeve.
It was, he thought as he waited patiently for his old friend, about the most perfect day he had seen in several weeks, if you don't count the day he had opened his eyes and discovered he was still alive. The sky had taken on the fragile, icelike quality of late October in the mountains, and the infrequent white and gray sails of cloud were hard edged and determined.
The air was as crisp as a winter-crackling fire, a refreshment for the lungs so long bound in a house, and a stimulant for the blood that lay too long inactive. The last of the autumn flowers were slowly losing their blooms, and the razored brilliance of the forest's foliage was beginning to fade into a monotonous and dying brown.
At times like this the land appeared to be extraordinarily vast as though, despite the jagged, rocky horizon, it had no dimensions but forever.
Harley at last pulled alongside, smiling and nodding, his dark eyes glinting.
They passed a few obligatory pleasantries as befits friends of nearly a lifetime, noting to each other the signs they had seen, the harbingers of the first snowfall that Carl confidently predicted would come within the week. He also claimed, to anyone who would listen, that it was going to be a cold winter and a miserably long one. The bears he had spotted, and the few beaver and muskrat left, were growing unusually thick coats for this time of year, and the cougars were hunting more frequently and more boldly to build up their body fats for the lean pickings to come.
"Hear you takin' that there job," he said then, trying not to sound as disappointed as he was, hoping Harley would not note the reproof in his voice.
Harley scratched at his neck idly, spat dryly over his horse's flank. "Thought I would, " he grinned. "Ain't no use otherwise. You doin' too damned good a job around here. I taught you good. "
Carl laughed. "M'be. I thought for sure, though, you'd haul right over here soon as the girl sold that accursed damned place."
" I had the idea, yeah," he said, shifting his weight to pull one leg to his saddle. "Wilder, though, he says he don't like anythin' about the winter. He says he's goin' to spend it all in some fool place like Savannah or Atlanta. Imagine. Goin' all that damned way just to stick away from a little bit of snow. "
He shook his head at the folly of men he did not understand.
"He says I get to run the place just like I always did. He says he'll come back now and again just to check that I ain't puttin' him in the poor house and to see Ryan down there to the bank. I don't know, Carl. I tell you, I don't know. Damned funny way to run a spread like that, if you ask me."
"What the missus say?"
"Livy thinks it's great. She says it's about time someone around here knew-"
"I didn't mean Livy, Harl," he said, knowing full well Peterson had deliberately chosen to misunderstand him.
Harley sucked on his lower lip for a few moments, spat again, and shook his head. "She don't say anything. She don't say a single damned word , and I tell you true, Carl, I don't know what in hell's gettin' into that woman."
Carl stared off to the horizon .
Harley grunted and tugged at his hat.
In the trees far behind them they could hear the sudden scream of a cougar at chase, and the horses shifted nervously, bridles clinking, hooves raising dust. Both men spoke softly to them, softly and without thinking, a ritual that came to their lips as quickly and easily as breathing.
Harley slapped at his chest as though an insect had bitten him. "You know somethin'?"
Carl shrugged.
"About the missus, I mean."
Carl shrugged again. His shoulder was starting to bother him, but he would not give a sign.
"She works too hard, if you know what I mean. Alex, he comes over now and then when Livy ain't around, and he tells me what's goin' on back there. I just don't get it. I tell you, Carl m'friend, she's go in' to kill herself before Christmas if she don't slow down soon. She's goin' to kill herself and that's a damned fact. "
Carl's silence was his assent. And finally, without looking to his friend, he lifted one hand and rubbed lightly at his shoulder, trying to massage out the aches that never seemed to want to leave him.
"Damn," Harley said.
"Well ," Carl said, "it's her life, ain't it? We ain't got no call to tell her what to do."
"It's that Eagel fella, mark my words."
"Eagleton," Carl corrected quietly.
"Whatever. He done somethin' to her, I just know it. Now she thinks she can run everything by herself, and by God, Carl, it just ain't right!"
Carl looked away from him quickly. What Mrs. Munroe was doing may not be right-he had to agree somewhat there-but what his friend was showing to him wasn't right, either. He wondered sometimes how Livy stood it, living with a ghost that lived on the next ranch.
"You see this guy Wilder?" he asked when the moment passed.
"Sure."
"Lucky you. I ain't. The missus ain't. Fae asks me one more time what the man looks like, I'm goin' to pound her into that sack of flour she got. What's he look like?"
"Nothin' special. Skinny. Old. Got money. " He laughed shortly. ''I'll tell you, he looks like what Ryan will in about twenty years."
"Poor Mr. Wilder. "
"He ain't so poor. Strange, though. " He shifted again, this time drawing up one leg to rest a knee against the saddle horn. "He left yesterday, y'know, goin' someplace back East, he said. He says before he goes, do I want to buy the place. "
"What?"
Harley nodded. "Yeah. That's what I said. "
"That's crazy."
"I said that, too. Who's tellin' this, shrimp, you or me?"
"Sorry," Carl muttered.
Harley sniffed, wiped his mouth with the back of a hand. "I tell him that and he just looks at me. He says he takes the spring money and the harvest money and he thinks about sellin' again. I tell him there ain't that many people round here what got his kind of money, and he up and asks me how much I got in the bank. I was so taken round I told him . "
"You didn't."
"Couldn't help it. Anyways, he gives me another look and tells me he's doublin' my pay, drops a purse of gold eagles in my hand, and jumps on the train. " He snapped his fingers. "Just like that."
"Damn. "
"Yeah, I said that, too. "
South of the railroad tracks was a series of small farms that were trying to survive by using the streams and rivers for their irrigation works. Spread over nearly forty thousand acres, all of the small farms had sprung up within the last decade.
And all of them were surviving just well enough to keep their owners' hopes up, praying that the next year would be the banner.
Doug rode past the last one before the land rose in moderate waves to sink again to the tracks and to Coreville. He had been searching for a man who had tried to knife one of the girls at
Sophie's; and though most of the townspeople didn't much care one way or the other what happened to the painted females in the saloon, there were laws against assault and murder, and Doug did not see that the law made the distinction between people who worked in banks and people who worked in beds.
Not that it made any difference. The man, whoever he had been, known only as a drifter, was long gone, and Doug's only chance had been that he'd try to hole up in one of the barns before making the run into Colorado.
No luck.
Now, with a chilled north wind blowing in his face, he headed back for his office where, if he were lucky, there would be someone else to chase. He no longer cared to sit behind his desk and greet the visitors who came in to shoot the breeze or pass on a furtive message. The walls tended to close in on him, his deputies' humor grated, and there was always the chance that he would see Amanda riding by, and that would have been too much.