Desperate Hearts

by Alexis Harrington

  “I got you a new shirt at the dry-goods store.” He stretched the thin fabric tight and zipped the knife along the buttons. A few of them shot to the floor with a faint clicking sound.

  Her mumbling grew softer.

  Another quick slice or two and the shirt was in ribbons. Kyla seemed to be none the wiser but he had no such advantage. Again her slender waist and soft, rounded breasts were laid bare before him. And he felt like an egg-sucking weasel for looking. In truth, though, he was only a man. Impatiently, he grabbed the pillowcase from the end of the bed and threw it over her chest and shoulders.

  Getting her pants off proved to be much simpler than he expected. She lay quietly as tears leaked from the outer corners of her closed eyes.

  Suddenly he noticed that her russet hair was the only spot of color on the bed—the rest of her was as pale as the sheet he covered her with. In fact, she seemed to have slipped farther away from him and this room, as if she’d given up.

  For the first time, Jace really began to worry.

  * * *

  Was this what it felt like to die?

  Perhaps, Kyla thought, and it wasn’t so bad. The pain in her arm faded, and the little that remained didn’t seem to matter now. She floated in a safe, untroubled place where she felt light and free. Oddly, she sometimes seemed to be looking down upon herself as she lay covered to her collarbones with a clean white sheet. Her bare wounded arm was wrapped in clean white bandages. A lot of activity was going on around her, and it was all so crisply detailed, so clear. The smell of hot candle wax and travel dust. The feel of the mattress under her body. The long shadows that arched up the walls. Wind rustling in the trees outside.

  She saw it all, felt it, smelled it. And yet she was not part of it.

  No, dying wasn’t unbearable, but it seemed sad to leave this world in a strange room, with only strangers to watch.

  There was Jace Rankin. Hunched in a chair next to her, he sat with his elbows on his knees and watched her intently in the wavering candlelight. He massaged his forehead and pushed his long hair back so that it rested behind his shoulders. She was wary of his presence. But she was comforted, too, as if she had known him for a long time. Or was meant to know him now. His eyes were piercing blue, burning like low flames in his haggard, beard-shadowed face. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in days.

  Without surprise, she saw Many Braids on her other side. She felt no fear of him now. He chanted in a low, lulling tone while he whisked a fan of feathers over her, head to foot. Now and then he stooped from his incredible height to sprinkle a few grains of pungent-smelling powder on her head and each shoulder. Every time he performed this ritual, she was pulled back into her body, pulled back into the searing agony of her pain.

  She was tired—it was too hard to decide what to do. It would be easier to float away again, to drift on to a place where her parents and others who had once loved her now waited, and even beckoned to her.

  There was her mother, sweet-faced and smiling, with her arms open to her.

  “Mama!” she called, joy and tears making her throat tight. Oh, it was Mother—she had missed her so much.

  Kyla wanted to run to her, to be held in her arms again, to hide her face in her neck, and inhale her scent of honeysuckle. She hadn’t known such comfort, such loving security since the winter night her mother died. It was very tempting to offer herself up to it now. Love was so utterly lacking in her life, so completely lost to her.

  To drift to love and safety, where Tom Hardesty would never trouble her again . . .

  But something kept her tethered to the earth and stopped her from reaching for familiar, outstretched hands. Some reason that eluded her and waited in a mist ahead of her.

  “You stand with one foot in each world,” Many Braids told her. “You must decide which you will choose,”

  Yes, she must decide if it was worth the struggle to go on, if the thing that bound her to the living was worth finding. Kyla gazed down at the fragile body on the bed, her arm and her heart ravaged. Perhaps it wasn’t worth it at all.

  Jace looked at her. His expression was pale and blank, but disbelief colored his words. He sat forward. “You’re too young and strong to die. Too stubborn.”

  He gripped her hand where it lay on the mattress. She didn’t mind now—in fact, it was comforting. He spoke to her, and his voice was louder, almost angry. “Kyla, are you going to let that son of a bitch Tom Hardesty do this to you? Are you going to let him win?”

  She pulled against the energy that was dragging her back toward the bed. No, no, it didn’t matter now if Hardesty “won.” That all seemed trivial now, all of it.

  But once more, that nameless elusive thing called to her from the mist, drawing her closer. Revenge?

  “We still have work to do here,” he went on. “Things aren’t settled up between you and me.”

  Her arm throbbed, and her body grew heavy again, as though flatirons were tied to her limbs. Many Braids’s chanting echoed in her head and ricocheted off the shadows in the corners.

  “Kyla.” She felt Jace’s voice in her heart.

  Chanting.

  The bounty hunter’s words.

  Ice blue eyes.

  The sharp-smelling powder.

  The room whirled at a dizzying speed. Colors, voices, textures, and scents all clashed together in a mix that took Kyla’s breath. She plunged deeper and deeper until nothing but night and darkness engulfed her and covered her like a wave.

  Nothing but empty, dark silence.

  * * *

  It was bright now. Kyla could hear someone breathing. It was not loud or labored. More like the deep, quiet breaths of a sleeper.

  Leather and horses. She smelled them close by.

  Barely conscious, she turned her head toward the sound but her eyes were slow to open. And it was so harshly light. It flooded her face and painted the insides of her lids brilliant red.

  Dreams, there had been so many dreams, wild and frightening.

  Finally she opened her eyes just enough to see Jace, asleep next to her on top of the bed she had dreamed about. The shaft of light that touched her face fell upon his well-formed torso. He lay on his side, sheltering her with his body. His hand rested on her uninjured arm as if to protect her. Even in slumber he looked exhausted.

  Dream or not, she was content to find him there. Kyla let her drugged sleep overtake her again.

  * * *

  “Guess where I got this,” Albert DeGroot said and held up a silver dollar for Sheriff Fred Winslow’s inspection.

  Fred was much more interested in the display of plug tobacco on the counter. He made a face at the scanty selection. “Albert, how come you don’t get that Lorillar chaw anymore? That was a lot better than any of this stuff. These just anger up my insides something awful.”

  “Hang it Fred, don’t bother with that now. Look at this dollar.” He held it a little higher.

  Ever since Misfortune’s newspaper went bust a few years earlier, Albert had considered it his solemn duty to dispense news to anyone who stopped by his store with a mind to listen. He wasn’t much for telling a man something straight off, though. He liked to drag it out for the best possible effect. Today he looked as if holding back was going to give him the fantods.

  Fred looked at the coin. “Well, it’s just a dollar.”

  “It ain’t—I got it from Jace Rankin right here at this counter. Last night.”

  The sheriff’s hand froze on the tobacco and he stared at the silver dollar. It gleamed like an evil eye in a shaft of morning sunlight. “Jace Rankin? Here?”

  The shopkeeper put the coin on the counter and crossed his arms over his chest, looking very pleased with Fred’s reaction. “Yes, indeedy. He’s squatting in Chloe’s old house and paying Mildred to bring him his meals. Says he’s got a sick boy he’s taking care of.”

  “Jace Rankin,” Fred moaned to himself, feeling his dyspepsia kick up. That bounty hunter caused a helluva ruckus the last time he was in Misf
ortune, and Fred was getting too old and too fat to deal with big ruckuses. Why would Rankin come back here? There was no reason for anyone to come here anymore, but by God, that didn’t stop the parade of strangers traipsing through this dying little town. And in Fred’s mind, two people in one year constituted a parade. “Didn’t he settle his score with that McGuire feller?”

  Albert drummed his index finger on the coin. “This don’t have anything to do with McGuire. I think Rankin is here for another reason altogether. Maybe he’s hiding out. Maybe that story about a sick boy is something he just made up.”

  “Oh, bushwa, Albert. Who’d chase him?”

  “Well, there’s one way to find out." Albert peered at him over the tops of spectacles. “You’re the sheriff here. You could go ask. After all, he’s trespassing.”

  Fred shook his head and took one step backward. “No, sir. Not in my opinion he ain’t. Anyways, I’m more than willing to look the other way. We’ll just wait and see if something happens.”

  * * *

  Insistent knocking brought Jace out of his doze. Automatically he reached for his gun before he realized someone was pounding on the door downstairs.

  He glanced at Kyla. She still slept—and he knew it was only sleep, not unconsciousness. Her fever had finally broken just before dawn.

  The knocking continued. God, it was probably that nosy Mildred DeGroot. Now that this crisis was finally over, he might be able to do some of the cooking and be rid of her once and for all. She had delivered the meals they had agreed on, but her personality grated on his nerves like sandpaper on a sunburn.

  He sat up on the edge of the mattress. His back creaked and his knee joints popped. All the hours and days spent in the spindle-back chair had stiffened him like an old piece of leather. He’d finally decided to lie down for a couple of hours but his muscles were still tight. He jammed his shirttails into his jeans and headed for the hallway in his stocking feet.

  When he got downstairs, he saw Mrs. DeGroot’s bulky shape through the lace curtain on the front door window. She had opened the screen door and leaned close to the glass to peer in.

  He knew her curiosity itched at her like woolen underwear. Over the last four days, she’d asked all kinds of questions about him, and “the boy,” and tried every way possible to wangle an invitation into the house. Jace managed to deflect her prying with flinty looks and by simply not answering. But she would not give up.

  He heard her turn the knob. Crossing the parlor in long, swift strides, he yanked open the door.

  She jumped back a good three feet, no small trick for a woman of her girth. Her multiple chins quivered slightly, and with her hand on her chest, she stared at him with an expression of mild horror.

  “Mr. Rankin! Land sakes, you gave me a start. I—I thought maybe you left. I came by earlier and no one answered.”

  Jace conceded that might be possible. The last couple of nights had been a stretch of hell on earth and he was worn out. Glancing past Mrs. DeGroot he could see that the day was well past its midpoint.

  “Is the boy any better?” She tried to see around his shoulder into the house. “I’d be happy to come up and have a look. What folks are left around here have come to rely on me for their doctoring since Miles Sherwood passed away.”

  She babbled as much as her husband did. How either of them got a word in was beyond him. He had to work to keep from closing the door in her face.

  “The boy will be fine, and I imagine he’ll be hungry.”

  She dragged her gaze from his face and gestured at a basket sitting on the porch swing. “Well . . . good, good. I have more beef broth for him, just like you wanted, and fried ham and potatoes for you.”

  He took the wicker basket and fished around in his pocket for a dollar. The food smelled good, and tired or not, now that he knew Kyla would live he felt his appetite stirring again.

  Mildred snatched the coin from his hand as smoothly as a pickpocket. Given the lack of residents it Misfortune, she was probably making more money cooking for him than Albert could drum up at his store. “Is he sick with something catching? I don’t recall that you said what ails the boy.” She peered at him again.

  “I’m glad to hear that your memory works, Mrs. DeGroot. Thanks for the food.” He shut the door and went to the kitchen on legs that felt like lead.

  * * *

  Kyla woke as soon as Jace left the room. She lay on her back and let her eyes roam over her surroundings. Everything seemed familiar but only in a dreamlike way. This room had belonged to a woman, she thought. The flowered paper on the walls, the lace curtains at the windows—no man would have chosen them. Maybe they had finally reached Jace’s friends in Misfortune, and this room belonged to the woman named Chloe.

  As consciousness settled on her she became aware of two things: her arm felt much better, and she didn’t have a stitch on under the sheet that covered her.

  Just a heartbeat ago she would have been furious, outraged. Now she was too weak to do more than note the multitude of questions that spun through her mind. She knew she had been ill; she had a vague memory of a fever yesterday on the trail. After that, everything was a blank.

  The faintest scent of sachet reached her. She pressed the sheet to her nose and smelled lavender. She’d had a room like this once. There had been a bit of lace and needlework, flowers and ribbons. She had been ladylike and feminine. But it had been a lifetime ago, and it had only lasted a brief time.

  What was happening to her here and now was the most important thing she had to think about. And the man who had the answers was on his way to this room. She could hear his footsteps beyond the door. She pulled the sheet up to her chin.

  Their eyes locked as soon as he came in, and he smiled almost jubilantly.

  “You’re awake. Welcome back,” he said.

  “Back?” Her voice croaked from disuse and she cleared her throat. “I didn’t go anywhere.”

  Jace sat in the chair next to the bed, and Kyla pulled the sheet closer still.

  “Yeah, you did. You’ve been unconscious since we got here to Misfortune four days ago.”

  “Four days?” she echoed, dumbfounded. She had lost whole days and had no memory of them? No sense of their passing? It was stunning.

  “And then night before last you . . .” He faltered, and looked away, seeming to take great interest in a loose thread on the mattress.

  Apprehension swept over her. “I what?”

  He glanced up. “Well, you almost died. For hours I wasn’t sure if you’d make it or not.”

  Trying to assimilate what he was telling her, she said, “Many Braids . . . I saw Many Braids. Did you send for him? Is he still here?”

  He gave her an indulgent look. “We haven’t seen him since the night by the campfire.”

  “Yes, yes he was here.” She knew what she saw. “He had feathers and herbs, and he chanted over me. He said I had one foot in each world. I remember that now.”

  “You’ve been pretty sick—a person’s brain can play funny tricks when a fever gets that high.”

  Kyla lifted her brows. She couldn’t have imagined that, or dragged out some old memory to be relived as new in a hallucination. The medicine man performed rites she had never seen before, had no knowledge of.

  “What do you know about him?” she asked.

  “Well, he’s a pretty amazing man. He was a venerated elder of his tribe and a great warrior, too, before the surrender with Chief Joseph. He knows more about herbs and medicines than most white man’s doctors. Sometimes I’ve even thought he knows a little magic. That is, if I believed in that stuff.” He leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees, letting his bands dangle between them. “But he hasn’t been here. I’ll tell you, though, I would have felt a little better that night if he had been with us.”

  It didn’t make any sense but . . . if Jace said the medicine man hadn’t been here, it must have been just the two of them. It was a very odd sensation, though, remembering a dream as clearl
y as a waking moment.

  Suddenly she realized how bad he looked—exhausted, unshaven. His eyes had the same dull, bloodshot appearance they had that morning she met him outside the hotel in Silver City. He obviously hadn’t slept much, or eaten either, for quite a while.

  Kyla had not liked Jace from the moment she met him. He was a killer, a hard, intimidating man who seemed to have no heart. Some of that was still true. Now, though, she was forced to see him in another light. He had saved her life. He had sat by her for days and taken care of her. She did not remember that. She simply knew it was true.

  He could have left her anywhere along the way, at some farmhouse, or with a family here in town. But he hadn’t.

  “What about Hardesty’s men? Won’t they find us here if we stay in town too long?”

  “I don’t think so. We backtracked and sidetracked enough to throw them off. No one comes to Misfortune, anyway. Cord was on a main road. This place isn’t. Besides, I’m keeping an eye out for them.”

  “Where is this?” she asked, gesturing at the room. If they were staying with his friends, why hadn’t he mentioned them?

  He told her then about Travis and Chloe going to Baker City, and about Mildred DeGroot cooking for them.

  So, they were alone together in this house? That, too, would have terrified her last week. Now, after everything that had happened, it seemed a little less daunting.

  Getting well was more important. She knew she needed rest and care. She was willing to allow that she would get both. An astounding thing happened in this room today, something nearly as astounding as the story he had just told her.

  Kyla Springer Bailey began to trust Jace Rankin.

  * * *

  She slept a lot over the next couple of days. Sometimes the disturbing dreams came back, but she never wondered where Jace was—he was always nearby.

  He brought her broth and pablum, which she crabbed about but ate anyway. She let him take care of wound; his touch was surprisingly light and gentle. The acute pain was almost gone now, and the wound had finally begun to heal properly.