Desperate Hearts

by Alexis Harrington

  “You wouldn’t need to be a different man, Jace,” she over the ache in her throat. “You just need to take a different path.”

  He shook his head and his smile was shadowed with regret. "Nope. It is too late for me to do that, Kyla. This is the path I chose and there’s no changing it now. Anyway I still have a job to do for you so that you can get on with your life.” He rolled himself into his blankets then and turned his back to her.

  Kyla glanced at the stars again and wondered why that life he referred to didn’t seem as clear as it once had.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Hardesty sat at a corner table in the Pine Cone Saloon, nursing his fourth shot of whiskey. The morning sun threw a bright slash of light across the flooring and up the wall next to him. Saloons looked a lot different in the morning than they did at night—almost as somber as funeral parlors. Shit, what a comparison, he thought.

  Business wasn’t as good in this place as it had been, he noticed. Ever since he started coming in on a daily basis, for some reason customer traffic had fallen off. More often than not, Pete, the bartender, stood behind the counter looking glum and polishing glasses, for lack of anything better to do. That was fine with Tom. He wasn’t in any mood for company.

  He sat here every day now, fidgety and short-tempered, waiting for word from Hobie McIntyre. The few men who came in eyed him with furtive glances and sidled to the bar, or to far tables. No one had the nerve to actually look him in the face. That was fine Tom, too.

  Even Mayella Cathcart had lost her allure for him. Before she had been a little on the docile side, but now she looked as dull-eyed as a cow and had no fight all. Damn, who wanted to poke a limp dishrag who stared at the ceiling the whole time and whispered to Jesus to save her? At least he knew he could count on the redhead to fight back and make it interesting.

  He took another drink of whiskey, and the flame on his anger climbed higher. Where the hell was Kyla anyway? Maybe McIntyre hadn’t bothered to send a wire and was simply on his way back to Blakely. If that was the case, he’d throttle the saddle bum for not reporting in. Throttle him. He poured another shot and knocked it back in one gulp, and another after that. Presently, the frames around the windows grew blurry, and the grooves between the floor planks began to blend.

  Goddamned Rankin.

  Lousy red-haired bitch.

  “Mr. Hardesty, sir?”

  Tom’s head snapped up and he found the general store’s young delivery boy standing a few feet from his table. He was blurry, too.

  “Whatcha want, kid? Cantcha see I’m m-b-busy?”

  The boy extended a package the full length of arm and leaned forward, as if his boots were nailed the floor just beyond Tom’s easy reach. “The stage brought this in the mail pouch for you. My pa said to bring it to you right away.”

  Tom made a couple of lunging passes at the brown paper package before catching it. “I s’pose you think I should pay you for your trouble and—”

  “Nossir,” the boy said, turning tail. He ducked under the swinging doors and ran out to the street before Tom realized he was gone.

  “Hmm, damned kid," he groused and looked down at the package. It sure as hell wasn’t the telegram he’d been waiting for, goddamn it. He tried to focus on the writing in the address but it was too dark in this corner to see much. He recognized his name, anyway. Cutting through the twine with his pocket knife, he tore at the paper impatiently.

  “Jesus Christ!” he yelped, jumping back with his chair. Nestled in its folds he found something that him drop the package on the table as if it contained a scorpion. Both unnerved and infuriated, gingerly he pulled out a leather thong strung with bear’s teeth.

  The same one that Hobie McIntyre had worn around his neck until someone had cut it off.

  So the rumors were true, Tom thought, shaken from his boozy contemplations by everything this message implied.

  Jace Rankin was coming.

  * * *

  After waiting for the shelter of darkness, Jace and Kyla circled Blakely and stole onto Jim Porter’s property outside of town.

  From the road, Kyle saw that the ranch house windows were dark, but a single lantern glowed on the railing. “That means the Midnighters are in Jim’s barn,” she whispered. “He took over after Hank was killed. He’s the only one who knows I went looking for someone to help me.”

  She heard Jace breathe a long-suffering sigh. “He probably isn’t anymore. It’s my experience that people can’t keep secrets. It sure as hell would explain why Hobie McIntyre knew to find you in Silver City.”

  She frowned at him, but they climbed out of saddles and edged closer to the barn, leading the horses. Along the corral fence other horses were tied up. Although she couldn’t see it in the darkness, she heard Jace pull the Henry from its scabbard.

  “Just in case they have someone jittery on watch,” he murmured.

  This meeting was a lucky break, she thought. If Jace met these people and heard what the Vigilance Union had done to them, maybe he’d change his mind about helping them.

  Motioning him to drop back, she crept to the door and listened. Inside, she heard the low hum of tones. They spoke quietly—she could distinguish no words, identify no individual voices. Using the code Hank had taught her, she tapped four times, two short knocks, and two long. All conversation from within ceased and a tense pause followed. She glanced back at Jace and he waved her to the side, away from direct line of fire in the event that someone decided shoot through the door.

  After what seemed like an eternity, her taps were answered with two short knocks, the response expected, and the door opened. Jim Porter held a lantern high and searched her face, plainly not recognizing her. Through the narrow opening, she saw a few men behind him sitting on hay bales and crates.

  “Jim, it’s me, Kyla Springer," she whispered. "I’m back.”

  “Kyla?” Finally a big grin flashed across the weathered old rancher’s face, and he gripped her hand and it until she thought her arm might loosen in its socket. Then he clapped her hard on the back. “By God, honey, we didn’t know if we’d ever see you again!” he said in a loud whisper. He turned to the gathering. “Kyla’s here. She made it back.”

  A surge of emotion coursed through her. These were her neighbors, her friends, people she’d known all of her life. It was good to be among them again and in a common cause.

  “I’m sorry to barge in during the meeting, but we need to talk to you for a minute,” she said.

  He pulled the door closed behind him and stepped into the darkness. Putting the lantern on top of a barrel, he asked, “What can I do for you?”

  She glanced over her shoulder at Jace, who lingered shadows. "I’ve brought someone with me, a friend.” That was an understatement, she thought, still yearning for the protection of Jace’s arms around her, feel of his fingertips tracing her mouth, the soft scratch of his beard under her hands. She motioned him closer. He came, but with obvious reluctance. “This is Jace Rankin.”

  The older man stiffened noticeably. It was true, she thought, what Jace had said about people fearing him, people who should feel no threat from him. But Jim recovered almost immediately, and put out his hand. “Mr. Rankin. You’re welcome here.”

  Jace shook the hand offered to him and nodded in acknowledgement. “I’m not ‘Mr. Rankin’ to anyone, so Jace is just fine.”

  “We have some business to take care of, Jim, and if Tom is still at the ranch, you know we can’t go there,” Kyla whispered. No one alive but Jace knew what Hardesty had done to her, but it was no secret that he had killed Hank.

  “He’s still there,” Jim said grimly, hate hardening his creased face.

  “I was wondering if we could stay in your barn without anyone else knowing.” Automatically, glanced around the yard. “We need to keep it quiet.”

  Jim shrugged. “Sure, you can stay. I’m going out to the range for a few days with the hands, but you’re welcome to use the place. You should know, though, there
are rumors floating around town about Mr.—Jace. People have been talking about him, expecting him, but I don’t know why.”

  Briefly, Jace explained what had happened McIntyre and his men, from the afternoon in Cord to the miner’s cabin. “McIntyre might have been keeping Hardesty informed of our whereabouts. Word could have leaked out, and the story took its own turn.”

  Jim Porter shook his gray head. “I’ll tell you, between Luke Jory, Tom Hardesty, and the rest of Vigilance Union, life in Blakely has been more like hell on earth.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "We’ve been inside tonight, trying to come up with plan to get rid of those sons of bitches. So far we’ve gotten nowhere. When Hank died, he took a lot of our spirit with him. I think we might have had a chance with him.” He eyed Jace speculatively. “You two may as well come in—we were about to break up for tonight anyway.”

  Jace groaned inside, trying to figure out a way to avoid it but he felt stuck. Despite the name he’d made for himself, he hated being the center of attention. But when they followed Jim into the barn, the situation became even worse than he’d anticipated.

  A moment of gaping, awkward silence opened following his introduction to the men. Then a man in the back wearing farmer’s overalls filled the void. “By God, maybe that’s what we need to do—hire someone from the outside to wipe ’em all out. Every last stinkin’ one of ’em."

  “That’s right! Fight fire with fire!”

  “They should have a taste of their own.”

  “Someone needs to teach them a lesson they’ll never forget. Someone like Rankin here, who isn’t afraid of them.”

  To Jace’s horror, this idea was picked up and carried from man to man like a torch, and it burned hotter with each passing minute. Pretty soon, the men were on their feet, their eyes lit with the fire of revenge hope. Kyla did nothing to intervene, and he sent her a sour look, which she chose to ignore.

  “Now wait a minute,” he said, trying to interrupt the wave of bitter zeal that rolled over them. “I don’t do this kind of—” He turned to Kyla and bent a stern look on her. “You’d better tell them to forget it.”

  “Jace, you’re the only one who can help with this,” she said, talking as crazy as the rest of them. Her eyes gleamed with the same fire.

  “What?” He was astounded. “I didn’t come to Blakely to take on those vigilantes! I told you I wouldn’t do that. I told you from the beginning.”

  “They’ve stolen my cattle in broad daylight, put their brand on them, and told me it was their pay for keeping the peace,” one rancher complained.

  “Luke Jory is charging me now so that ‘rustlers’ won’t steal my stock in the middle of the night. Rustlers, my Aunt Sophie!”

  The farmer in the overalls, the one who had begun this, held out his hands, appealing to the group to hear his story. “Tom Hardesty forced himself on Mayella after he made me let her go cook for him. That was after he moved into your house, Kyla. Now . . . now she don’t even talk anymore. If it wasn’t for the Vigilance Union, he never would have been able to do that to my little girl.” His voice quivered when added, “She’s only fifteen years old.”

  Silence fell again for a moment, and Kyla’s eyes grew as wide as dollars. She turned to look at Jace. She said nothing, but her expression revealed every word of her thoughts.

  “I’ll take care of Hardesty,” he assured her in voice that carried only to her ears. “That’s why I’m here.”

  “But it’s like I told you in Silver City,” she said. “What good will that do when Jory finds another Tom? And you know he will—the world has more than its share of people like him. Evil, greedy, always watching for someone weaker to take advantage of.

  Jace felt his conscience stirring, a sensation that did not like. “Well, Jesus, I can’t save the whole world!”

  “No one is asking you to do that.” Then she gave him a knowing look, the gaze that seemed to examine his very soul. “But maybe this is a good chance to make up for what happened at the Bluebird Saloon.”

  He felt as if she’d punched him in the stomach, as if she had been saving this one vague fact she knew about him to hold over his head. All the air seemed to leave his lungs and he couldn’t get a breath. “Goddamn it, Kyla—”

  “I propose we hire Jace Rankin to wipe out the Vigilance Union," someone then suggested. The proposal met with unanimous approval.

  “Wait a minute!" Jace said, appalled, his voice rising to a roar above their conversation. Grabbing a crate, he stepped up to try and gain their attention, but only the horses in the stalls appeared to heed him. "Listen to me!” he thundered again. "I’m no crusader, saving ranchers and farmers from vigilantes! I’m a bounty hunter.”

  They rallied closer, as if at a leader’s feet, and finally quieted long enough to let him speak. He looked at the upturned faces. It was a new experience to have people hanging on his every word. “I’m a bounty hunter,” he went on in a lower voice. “And I’m one man, I can’t take on this group alone.” He glanced down at Kyla and drew a deep breath. God, he couldn’t believe he was going to say this— “If you want my help, you’ll have to help me. You can’t just hire someone to do your dirty work for you, and then sit back and wait for things to get better, like you’ve been doing. You have to take action and fight for what’s yours.”

  The men shuffled uncomfortably under the bluntness of his words, but from his place leaning against a stall, Jim Porter smiled at him, as if Jace had said exactly what he wanted him to.

  “Well, you men heard him,” he said. “And it’s same thing Hank Bailey told you, too. Are you ready to fight?”

  Murmurs of agreement swept through the group. “Hell, yes, I’m ready. I can’t afford to lose one more head of cattle to those thieves.”

  “I’m tired of payin ’em for the privilege of grazing stock on my own land.”

  “I want to see Luke Jory fall from that throne he put himself on.”

  “All right, then,” Jace said, catching a glimpse Kyla’s face, beatific as she gazed up at him. This was almost worth it to see her look at him like that. “I’ve got business to take care of first. We’ll meet again in a week, and in the meantime don’t talk about this with anyone. Not anyone.”

  The meeting broke up then, and while most of the men didn’t go so far as to shake Jace’s hand he were one of them, there was a lot of smiling and hat-tipping.

  As he watched the last of them go, he shook head in disbelief. He’d never been part of a group in his entire life, and long ago had grown accustomed his solitude and the sound of his own thoughts conversation. Now, with absolutely no intention doing so, he had agreed to lead these people in a battle against the Vigilance Union.

  “Shit.”

  * * *

  “Jace?”

  “What.”

  “Will you tell me what happened at the Bluebird Saloon?”

  Kyla waited in the darkness for his answer. They bedded down in the only empty stall in Jim’s barn, she on one end, and he on the other. They had done the same thing many times out on the open prairie, fully dressed as they were now. But somehow the shelter of the barn made it seem all the more intimate to her, and she was keenly aware of Jace wrapped in his blankets a few feet away. Moonlight cut through the hayloft window and threw a square of light between them.

  “Aw, damn it, Kyla.” He sighed, more with weary resignation than irritation.

  “Was it really bad?”

  She heard the straw rustle on the other side of the box, and he sat up and leaned against the wall. A gray-white slice of moonlight fell over him, accentuating the shadows of his cheekbones and his mantle of hair.

  When he began speaking, chills flew over Kyla’s and scalp. It was as if she were listening to some other man, a stranger whose voice she didn’t recognize.

  “I’d been trailing a cattle rustler and it was turning out to be more work than the reward was worth. Losing propositions have never much interested me, so I stopped in Paradise Creek to think over
my next move and get a meal and a beer.” Kyla saw him cross his ankles in the low light. “I was halfway through a steak supper when a woman walked up to my table. She had a little kid with her, a girl with big blue eyes and gold hair. They were both dressed like they’d gotten their clothes from a charity barrel. I don’t think I’d ever seen two people who looked so tired. And the woman, she kept glancing around her like she thought she might be followed. The little girl—I think she was about five years old—she just stared at me with those big blue eyes.”

  “What did they want?” Kyla whispered.

  “The woman asked me to take her and her daughter to Pendleton so they could catch the train. The stage wouldn’t be in Paradise Creek for a week, and she was in a panic to get away before her husband found out she’d gone.”

  “Why?”

  He shrugged. “She said she was afraid he’d kill her. She pulled out a lace handkerchief with some gold coins tied in it to prove she could pay. Oh, I sure as hell didn’t want any part of that. She asked me two more times—practically begged me. It wasn’t like I didn’t notice the bruises on both of them. But I wasn’t about to get involved in some mess between a husband and wife. Anyway, that wasn’t the kind of work I did, nursemaiding women and kids. I chased bank robbers and horse thieves. I thought Hank was somewhere in town, so I told her to go to find him. Maybe he’d help her.” He wrapped a blanket around shoulders, as if taken with a sudden chill.

  Kyla knew he could see her in the moonlight, but didn’t look at her. “Did Hank help her?”

  He shook his head. “She never talked to him. When I saw him late that night at the Bluebird, I found out he’d been gone most of the day, seeing about a horse he wanted to buy. It was pretty quiet in there at that hour, quiet enough to hear a gunshot that came from a house at the end of the street.”

  “Oh, no . . .” Kyla moaned, horrified, and pressed hand to the base of her throat.

  “Well, we all ran down there to have a look.” His voice grew suddenly rough and he paused. “There she was, and her little girl, too. But her husband hadn’t shot them. He’d shot himself after he slashed their throats with a skinning knife. I’d never seen so much blood.”