Felicia Andrews

by Moonwitch

  The figure reached the corner.

  Doug called out again, and the shadow arm lifted. The blade flashed deadly light. He threw himself to one side as his revolver bellowed flame and thunder. The knife thudded into the wall just above his head, but he did not notice it. As soon as he fired, he leaped back to his feet and was running again, as fast as he could toward the spot where he had seen the figure fall. Footsteps raced toward him from the street. Someone shouted, someone else answered. And when Doug reached the corner of the last building, he sagged against it wearily.

  Amanda smiled; it began as a slow tremor at the comers of her mouth, grew until her teeth were bared and a soft bubbling laugh rose in her chest. She blinked rapidly, her head turning slowly from side to side, her lungs filling with the sweet scent of fresh pine.

  Deep in the grove a bird slept uneasily in its nest; and there, across the graying field, a small dark creature scurried through its burrow. A nighthawk soared, invisible against the sky. The wind had a voice.

  And she could hear it.

  A single tear broke from her right eye, and she brushed it carefully away with one finger. Fingers touched at her lips, her cheek, dropped to follow the design of the cougar, the eagle, that lay upon her chest.

  She . . . sighed--long, low, as though a dam had burst within her. And what obstacles there had been had been flooded away in less time than it took for her to realize it. She took a step to the right, to the left, suddenly uncertain about which direction she should be traveling. There was no one she could tell now, at least no one at the celebration. But Sam would understand--and Alex.

  Home, she thought.

  She did not care what Trevor and his damned employer would say. She had to ride home now and tell her family what had happened at last.

  She began walking back toward the hall, broke into an easy trot when she saw the familiar, and patient figure of Grace Bums coming toward her. Mother to us all, Amanda thought in an abrupt and rare burst of affection for the woman. But before she reached her, she slowed, frowned, stopped and glanced over her shoulder at the moon now drifting behind a silver-edged cloud.

  "Missus," Grace was saying as she approached, a plain brown shawl drawn snugly around her shoulders, "are you all right? I thought ... " She quieted, and she stared.

  Amanda shook herself as though she'd had a chill. "Doug," she whispered.

  "What?"

  "Doug, " she said, louder. "Grace, get Bert and Abe. We have to go to town !"

  "What?"

  Amanda reached out and spun the woman around. "Don't ask questions, Grace! Just get them, and tell them, I'll meet them at the wagon. Hurry! Grace, for God's sake, hurry!"

  Doug could not believe what he was seeing, what he was hearing. Badeye was standing in the middle of a small crowd of men, most of them having wandered away from the performance when they'd discovered that the women of the troupe were not as lovely as they'd been led to believe. They were listening intently and they were glaring at the sheriff.

  "Heard 'em arguin'," Badeye insisted to one unbeliever. "I was right there, right at the piano! Heard them arguin', then the poor chile she start screamin' and screamin '. I run up, and the sheriff he goin' out the window like a bat outa hell. I shout, but he don't stop . Then I come down and I see you all here, and ... "

  He pointed dramatically to the fallen figure.

  Doug was too numb to say anything in his defense, to counter the incredible lies the black was telling.

  When the figure had taken his bullet in the back, it had spun around the comer and had fallen up against a rain barrel. It faced him now, hat dropped between its splayed legs, dark blood seeping through the exit wound in its chest.

  He couldn't believe it.

  It was Carla Menoz.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Dawn washed the sky with a pallid shade of gray, and the stars were bleached into oblivion. The moon was a sickly ghost that lingered stubbornly, far beyond its normal hour, as if to challenge the black-peaked mountains of cloud that rose slowly above the northern horizon. The wind that swept ahead of the approaching storm dropped the temperature to a springlike level, the contrast to an average July making it seem as though it were winter.

  And it was winter in the lobby of the Coreville Hotel. Though the lamps were still lighted, a gloom that went far beyond the tinge of the air pervaded the large room. Amanda sat on one of the divans, her back rigid, her hands flat on her thighs. She had allowed herself to doze for several hours, knowing that she would not be able to function properly if her mind was clouded with demands for needed sleep. Beside her sat Abe Burns, awkward and uncomfortable in the still-clean suit his wife had made him wear to the celebration the previous night. Anyone who crossed the foyer to the desk, or used the stairs to the room above, was carefully, almost arrogantly scrutinized by his angry glare. In the far corner, keeping a distance between himself and Abe was Carl Davis. He was asleep, his face pale, his beard virtually gray. Amanda could not look at him; he reminded her of a corpse.

  The women and the rest of the hands had been sent back to Four Aces as soon as Amanda had received word of the trouble; but Abe and Carl she kept with her-for comfort, for safety, for someone to talk to when she could no longer keep silent.

  She had not expected Trevor to show up. And he hadn't. It did not surprise her.

  As soon as she had had her warning of Douglas's trouble and had convinced Grace that she was neither drunk nor finally crazy, she and Abe had taken the buckboard into town, Bert following on a borrowed mount. A crowd of some size had gathered outside the sheriffs office, augmenting rapidly as rumor spread and the affair at the Theater Hall sputtered to a halt. She had pushed her way through the quietly conversing men, only to find her way blocked at the door by Phil Latham. He seemed, by turns, angered and frightened and did not recognize her for several seconds. And when he did, it was Abe's imposing heft that convinced him to open the door and let them in.

  Someone outside shouted an epithet at her as the door closed and had her hand not been on Abe's arm, he would have waded into the crowd to find the detractor.

  It was quiet inside.

  Cole Anders, looking and feeling foolish in his pinstriped suit, had yanked off his stiff collar and tossed his jacket over the chair behind Doug's desk. His badge gleamed dully in the office's candlelight, and he kept wiping a hand over his face as though he felt himself in a dream from which he would awaken none too soon. He rose when Amanda addressed him, then slumped back into the chair with a resigned shake of his head.

  "What do you mean, you can't do anything?" she demanded, her voice harsh with the effort to keep from shouting.

  He shrugged apologetically. "He says I got to do it right, so there's no question later." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, indicating the cell block.

  "I don't believe it, " she said. "Will he at least let me talk to him?"

  "I guess so, Mrs. Munroe. But you got to go alone ." He looked steadily at Abe and Bert. "They got to stay out here."

  "He ain't goin' to rape her, " Abe muttered; and Bert only snorted his disgust and leaned back against the doorframe.

  Amanda took a step toward the cells, turned, and looked down at Cole. "Tell me all you know, " she said flatly. "I don't care how dumb it is, tell me. "

  Anders grimaced, wishing fervently he were somewhere else, preferably in the middle of Apache country. Then, with eyes that kept darting toward the growing muttering outside, he explained how Doug had been found leaning over the body of Carla Menoz, gun in hand. Badeye Jones was claiming that Doug had stomped into the Wooden Dollar, gone up to Diane's room from which he later heard shouting. Yes, Cole told Amanda, Badeye said that Carla had gone up there not five minutes before. By the time the piano player could break down the door, Diane was dead-stabbed and thrown onto her bed-and Mitchell was chasing the other woman down the back alley.

  Badeye was too late to save Carla's life .

  "This is a bad dream, isn't it?" Amanda said, more to h
erself than to the deputy. Then she looked to the floor. "What does Doug say?"

  Anders gave her a disgusted look. "He denies it, of course. What the hell do you think he'd say?"

  "Do you believe him?"

  The deputy began to examine his nails carefully. "He's had a hard time with that woman lately," he said softly, choosing his words slowly. "She wouldn't talk to him none."

  "That's a reason for killing her? Come on, Cole, you know him better than that."

  "M'be. I sure as hell hope so. "

  Wonderful, she thought as she walked away toward the cells; with friends like that, Doug won't need a trial at all. His own people will hang him.

  He was sitting in the last cell, his back to the damp stone wall, knees drawn up and hands dangling over them. His hat and gunbelt were gone, and his shirt was open almost to his waist. Smudges of sweat-clogged dirt clung to his cheeks, and his hair was pressed wetly around his temples. When he heard the footsteps on the stone floor, he glanced up and slowly swung his legs over the side of the straw bedding when he realized who his visitor was.

  The door was unlocked. She pulled it to her and stepped inside.

  "You look terrible,'' she said, her hands fluttering with no place to light.

  He grinned and shrugged with a tilt of his head. "I been better, believe me." Without her asking, then, he explained what had happened from the time he had entered the Wooden Dollar, and when he was done, he sagged back against the wall. "It's crazy, Amanda. I thought people knew me better than this, but they all listen to that drunken, half-blind idiot."

  He spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. "I figured I'd be safer in here than out there. I didn't like what I was hearing."

  Amanda stared at him for several long seconds, did not realize she was moving until she found herself sitting beside him and slipped her arm around his shoulder. He sat up and embraced her tightly, and she felt a shudder course through him, making her fear for a moment he was going to weep.

  I'm an idiot, she told herself then.

  And there was no argument from any of the shadows that lurked in her mind.

  She rose from the divan and walked slowly to the nearest window. The street was deserted now and would be for some time. A lot of drinking had taken place the night before, most of it dividing the town into those who supported their lawman and denigrated the loud testimony of the black, and those who were willing to give vent to their frustrations by believing anything anyone said about an Indian with a badge. Not a few fights had broken out, but neither Cole nor Latham were willing to make any arrests. They wanted their boss alone in the jail . . . alone, where they could protect him as best they could.

  Shortly after Amanda had promised Doug the services of a lawyer, Nate Kurtz had stormed into the jail and demanded to know what kind of insanity had taken over his town. When it was finally explained to him, he had sobered instantly, approved of Latham's plans for the sheriff, and then spent an hour talking with Doug, while Amanda stood in a comer of the cell and listened.

  Now she was waiting.

  Sands of sleep stung her eyes, and she rubbed at them impatiently. This was no time to be weakening, there was too much to do. Ryan, she knew, was no good at this sort of case and she had dragged Tom Lions out of his comfortable bed at four in the morning, talking as soon as he'd opened his eyes, not stopping until the slender, dark-haired lawyer was standing in front of Douglas and shaking his head.

  She was waiting now for him to return to her, to give her an idea of what she could expect. She did not like the feeling she could not banish from her stomach.

  Suddenly the doors of the hotel slammed open and Nate Kurtz thundered in, bellowing for someone to give him something to drink. Abe stirred, grunted, and lumbered behind the desk where he pulled out an open bottle of whiskey. Kurtz nodded to him curtly and strode into the room.

  "Well!" he said, taking a pull at the liquor and choking as he wiped a hand over his mouth. "Damn!"

  Amanda turned to look at him expectantly.

  "I'm sorry, " he told her, pulling at his shirt until it was free of his trousers. "Can't do a thing for him, Mrs. Munroe. "

  "What?" She looked frantically to Lions, who had entered silently in the mayor's wake. "What are you talking about?"

  Lions, his hair still ruffled, his eyes pouched from his abrupt awakening, fell into the nearest chair and crossed his legs at the ankles. He hooked his thumbs around a broad brown belt that he had tooled himself and stared up at the ceiling.

  "True," he said. "Nate has to take himself out of jurisdiction on this one, Amanda. He's known to favor Mitchell. We'll, have to try him, probably in Cheyenne. "

  "Try?" Amanda's fists lifted impotently. "What the hell do you mean, try? He's not really . . . " She shook her head, looked to Abe for help, but the farrier had already fallen back into a half doze.

  "It has to be," Lions said, tenting his fingers under his chin. "The way things are now, he wouldn't get a fair trial in this town if we bribed every man within a hundred miles. Too many rumors, and too many big mouths. And as long as Jones insists on keeping to his story, we can't just dismiss it because Mitchell is the sheriff. " His smile was wan. "Doug wouldn't be the first lawman to break the law, you know. "

  "But he didn't do it, damn it!"

  "Oh, I believe you, " the lawyer said. "And I don't doubt we'll be able to break that stupid old man in front of a fresh judge in a neutral town. But not now. For now he has to stay where he is. "

  "Nate," she said, appealing to Kurtz while he emptied the bottle and tossed it carelessly away.

  He belched. "Can't help you, " he said. He belched again and walked unsteadily to the door that led back to the kitchens and beyond that to the alley and the passageway he had constructed to his home beyond that.

  "I don't believe it," she said, hearing the echoes of that statement already made a hundred times before. "This whole place has gone mad . "

  Lions rose, then, and put his hands on her shoulders. "What you need is rest, " he told her. "Abe," he said without turning around, "wake up that shrimp and the two of you take Mrs. Munroe home."

  "No, " she protested. "I'm not going to leave Doug."

  "He'll be fine," Lions insisted. "I'll be here, and his men don't seem inclined to do him harm. You're not going to do him the least bit of good if you aren't thinking clearly, and you know it. Home. Please. I'll get word to you if anything happens. "

  She hesitated, seeing the wisdom of his advice and at the same time not wanting to desert Doug now. Not now, when she finally understood that all her protestations and procrastinations were merely camouflage for her feelings-feelings that had not really died since the first day she had kissed him. Guilt, then, and frustration played equal parts in her misery, and though she knew that now was the time to be as strong as was humanly possible, she could not help feeling the tears finally breaking behind her eyes.

  She was weeping openly by the time Abe brought the buckboard around to the front, sobbing when Carl handed her up to the plank seat and jumped into the back. She did not care who saw her, nor did she react to the the sometimes cruel and caustic comments that were flung at her as she left. She had too many years of personal failure to purge from her system, too many wasted days and lonely nights to erase from her memory.

  Not once did she think of Trevor Eagleton; it was as though, for her, he did not exist.

  And the following day, when he rode up to the ranch and saw her readying Wind for the trip into town, she could not help recalling an evening in San Francisco, when she had stepped back from the disasters that had struck Harley's friends and wondered if perhaps she wasn't laboring under a curse. Eagleton had laughed at her, jollied the morbid thought out of her, but now she was wondering if it just mightn't be true. After all, she reasoned, if I can believe that my powers--whatever they are--have somehow returned, why can't I accept something that's just as supernatural?

  She vaulted onto the palomino's back and waited, reins held
loosely in her left hand. "I missed you last night," she said when he was close enough to hear.

  He appeared crestfallen. "I don't know what to say, Amanda. I had heard what was happening, but Wilder insisted that I stay in his room and-"

  Her blank gaze became a rage-backed glare. "You mean to tell me you were in the hotel all the time, and you didn't even come down once?"

  He spread his hands in apology. "Amanda, what can I say?"

  "Try 'good-bye,' " she told him and maneuvered Wind around his mount and down the drive to the road.

  There was a gap of several seconds before Eagleton spurred his horse into following, but he did not join her until she was already a hundred yards beyond the gate.