Only Love

by Elizabeth Lowell

  “Good. My pack mule is outside. Please load the supplies for me when you’re done.”

  “Cost you three dollars extra.”

  “One.”

  “Two.”

  “One and two bits.”

  “You drive a mean bargain, missy.”

  “Not really. You load Betsy and Clementine’s supplies for free.”

  “They throw in a little, uh, extra for my trouble.”

  Murphy leered cheerfully.

  “One dollar and two bits,” Shannon said coolly. “Do we have a deal?”

  Sighing, Murphy nodded.

  Shannon handed over her supply list and went to the piles of clothing that were scattered about the mercantile’s floor. By the time she had found two warm jackets, four warm shirts, two pairs of wool trousers, and everything else required to turn winter’s icy winds, Murphy had sacked up and loaded her supplies on her pack mule.

  “Add these to the total, please,” Shannon said, dumping the clothing on the counter.

  “Huh. Guess I’m gonna have to order some femi-nine frippery. Gets mighty wearisome for a man to see his gal tricked out like hisself.”

  Shannon’s lips thinned, but she said not one word while Murphy totaled her bill. The amount made her eyes widen.

  “May I see the bill, please?” she asked, holding out her hand.

  “What fer?”

  “To check your sums.”

  Murphy handed the bill over and watched nervously while Shannon checked his addition.

  “You are thirty-one dollars and twelve cents over,” she said after a few minutes.

  Muttering, Murphy subtracted thirty-one dollars from the total. Shannon handed over a fat poke of gold.

  “I have Silent John’s gold scales at the cabin,” Shannon said. “I know precisely how much gold is in that poke. When I return home, I will weigh what is left.”

  Murphy shot Shannon a look that was part irritation and part admiration.

  “Whip sure put steel in yer spine,” Murphy said.

  Shannon smiled thinly.

  Murphy took the poke, opened it, and poured. A mixture of dust, nuggets, and flakes spilled onto one of the scale’s small dishes.

  “Well, I be go to hell,” Murphy said, surprised. “Whip found some new strikes, eh?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “None of this gold come from Silent John’s old claims.”

  Shannon looked startled. “I beg your pardon?”

  “The color and shape is all wrong,” Murphy said impatiently. “Silent John’s claims don’t give no coppery-colored flakes. No pale gold dust, neither. And as for these …”

  Deftly Murphy sorted out some heavy, ragged nuggets of a rich golden hue. He pressed his thumbnail hard against one nugget. When he lifted his thumb again, a crease showed on the surface of the gold.

  “These pretty gals be too jagged for river nuggets, but too blessed pure for anything else,” Murphy said reverently, “Ain’t seen their like since a fast-talking city boy tried to sell me a Colorado claim salted with pure Dakota bullion. That was reddish gold. But this here nugget puts me to mind of some I saw once on a poker table down to Las Cruces. The gold come from the Abajos. Spanish gold, pure as a baby’s dreams.”

  A chill crawled beneath Shannon’s skin as she remembered Reno and Whip talking about bars of pure Spanish gold.

  No, she told herself quickly. Whip wouldn’t have done that to me! Murphy must be mistaken.

  The storekeeper glanced away from the gold and saw the shocked look on Shannon’s face.

  “Don’t s’pose you be wanting to tell me where Whip found this here gold?”

  Shannon swallowed and said firmly, “Silent John’s claims.”

  Murphy laughed. “Don’t blame you none for playin’ close to the vest. If’n I had me any claims rich as these, I sure to God wouldn’t tell no one neither.”

  “Whip told me the gold came from Silent John’s claims,” Shannon said, her voice toneless.

  “Smart man, that Whip. What you don’t know, you can’t spill to strangers. But I seen all kinds of Echo Basin gold, missy, and you can take this direct to God’s ear—not one speck of this here gold come from here.”

  Reno’s words echoed in Shannon’s mind, shaking her.

  Way up in the Abajos, in a crumbling old mine… bars of pure gold so heavy Eve could hardly lift more than one at a time.

  Shannon wanted to scream her denial that Whip could treat her so shabbily, but she didn’t let herself make a single sound. She had too much to do to waste energy yelling at a yondering man who couldn’t even hear her.

  In icy silence, Shannon ticked off what had to be done. First she had to get Cherokee’s supplies to her. Then she had to track down Clementine and Betsy. And after that, Shannon had to ride to the Black ranch and back home before the first heavy snows came, closing the passes for the winter.

  For the first time, Shannon was grateful for the two racing mules she had reluctantly inherited from the Culpeppers. Both Cully and Pepper would get a hard workout in the next few days.

  JUST over a day later, riding one mule and leading the other, Shannon reined to a stop in front of Caleb and Willow’s ranch house. Caleb rode in from the direction of the north pasture just as Willow stepped onto the porch.

  “Shannon?” Willow asked, shading her eyes against the sun shining out from behind a thunderhead. “Is that really you?”

  “It’s me,” Shannon said, dismounting.

  “What a lovely surprise! Come in, I’ll have tea on in a minute.”

  “No, thank you. Prettyface, if you snarl again, I’m going to feed you to the crows.”

  Prettyface stopped making savage noises and stood quietly by Shannon’s side as Caleb rode up.

  “Trouble?” he asked.

  “Nothing that can’t be cured,” Shannon said, her voice clipped. “Would you remove the saddlebags for me?”

  Caleb gave her a long look. Then he dismounted, went to the mules, and made an admiring sound.

  “Nice pair of mules,” he said. “Virginia bred, from the look of them.”

  “The Culpeppers favored Virginia mules,” Shannon said, her voice remote.

  “Good stamina,” Caleb said.

  “They’ll need it,” was Shannon’s only reply.

  Caleb started to ask a question, then gave a grunt of surprise as he lifted the saddlebags.

  “Judas Priest,” he muttered. “What’s in these? Lead?”

  “Whip’s gold,” Shannon said savagely, yanking free the cinch strap on Cully’s saddle.

  Willow and Caleb exchanged a swift look.

  “It was my understanding,” Caleb said carefully, “that Whip was working for wages rather than for a share of your gold.”

  “That was my understanding, too,” Shannon said.

  She yanked off the saddle with one hand and the blanket with the other. With a few quick motions she saddled the second mule.

  “But I was wrong,” Shannon said, mounting the mule. “Murphy told me the gold was wrong, too.”

  “You want to chase that by me again?” Caleb asked, puzzled.

  Shannon turned and looked at Caleb, making no attempt to hide the cold fury she had felt ever since she realized how little Whip had truly thought of her.

  “This gold never was dug in Echo Basin,” Shannon said savagely. “Whip paid me off with his own Spanish gold and then lit out for the far side of the horizon. But he made a little miscalculation.”

  “Did he?” Caleb asked warily.

  “Once I figured out what had happened, I suspected Whip had paid me too much, but I didn’t know the going rate, so I tracked down Clementine and Betsy and asked.”

  Caleb measured the flat rage in Shannon’s eyes and decided not to ask who Clementine and Betsy were, and what they had to do with any of it.

  “I was right,” Shannon continued. “Whip paid far too much for what he got from me. So I brought his change. Every damned speck of it.”


  “Wait!” Willow called as Shannon picked up the reins. “You’ve had a long ride. At least come in and rest a while before you set out.”

  “Thank you, no,” Shannon said. “The passes could close at any moment.”

  “But—” Willow began.

  “In any case,” Shannon continued with icy pride, “I respect you too much to bring your brother’s whore into your home.”

  With that, Shannon spun the mule and kicked it into a long, ground-eating lope. The other mule and Prettyface followed at a rapid clip.

  For a time neither Willow nor Caleb spoke. Then Willow let out a long, harsh breath.

  “I wish I knew where my dear brother was,” she said. “I would like to see him again.”

  “So would Shannon,” Caleb said dryly. “Preferably skinned out and nailed to her cabin wall.”

  IT was an icy dusk when Whip rode up to Willow and Caleb’s home, his collar turned up against the wind. Snow flurries gleamed and swirled around him.

  “Hello, stranger,” Caleb said, stepping down off the porch. “We thought you were headed for San Francisco and the high seas. I didn’t expect to see you for a year or two.”

  There was a question buried beneath Caleb’s words, but Whip didn’t know how to answer it. He was as puzzled as anyone else to find himself on this side of the sunrise.

  “Neither did I,” Whip said. “But here I am.”

  “And here you’ll stay. The passes are closed every way but the south.”

  “I know. I came in that way. Damned cold on the desert now.”

  Whip dismounted and shook Caleb’s hand.

  “Where have you been for the past three months?” Caleb asked.

  “Here and there,” Whip said, shrugging. “I got as far west as that big canyon where the Rio Colorado lies like a silver medicine snake at the bottom of a deep gorge.”

  “Hell of a place, from what Wolfe tells me.”

  “It will do,” Whip agreed. “I chased sunrise all the way around that canyon’s edge until I found myself back where I started from. Wild, lonely country, every inch of it.”

  “Come on,” Caleb said. “Willow should be finished putting Ethan to bed by now.”

  Whip hesitated.

  “If you’re thinking of riding off to the high country,” Caleb said, “think again. The passes have been closed for months. They won’t open again for months.”

  “I know. That’s why …” Whip’s voice died.

  “That’s why you came back? You know you can’t get to her?”

  Whip grimaced. “Yes.”

  “Just as well,” Caleb said. “Last time we saw Shannon, she—”

  “You saw her?” Whip interrupted instantly. “When?”

  “Just before the passes closed.”

  “Did she finally get smart and stay with you?”

  “Nope. She wouldn’t even stay for a cup of coffee.”

  Whip frowned. “Was she looking for me, then?”

  “After a fashion,” Caleb said sardonically.

  “What in hell does that mean?”

  “I’ll tell him,” Willow said from the doorway. “Come on in, Whip. Shannon left a message for you.”

  “Is she—” Whip’s voice dried up. He swallowed visibly. “Is she, uh, all right?”

  “‘All right’ as in ‘not pregnant’?” Willow asked with false sweetness.

  A red that had nothing to do with the cold wind appeared on Whip’s cheekbones.

  Caleb took the reins from Whip’s hand and headed for the barn.

  “Don’t take too many chunks out of his hide,” Caleb said to Willow over his shoulder.

  “Why not?” Willow retorted.

  “Shannon will want some to nail to her cabin wall.”

  “Don’t worry.” Willow’s smile was all teeth and not one bit of comfort as she turned away. “Whip is a big boy. There will be plenty of hide to go around. Come inside, brother dear.”

  Whip looked at Caleb’s retreating back and then at Willow’s. With swift, hard strides he followed his sister. When they were inside, he shut the door and grabbed her arm.

  “Tell me straight up, Willy,” Whip said in a flat tone. “Is Shannon pregnant?”

  “If she is, she didn’t mention it to us.”

  Whip’s breath came out with a harsh sound.

  “I didn’t think Shannon would come here unless she was pregnant,” he admitted.

  “Is that why you’re not halfway to China? You were worried that Shannon might be carrying your child?”

  “I don’t know why I’m not halfway to China,” Whip said, his eyes bleak, haunted. “I only know that I’m not.”

  Compassion softened the angry set of Willow’s face. She could sense her beloved brother’s unhappiness as though it were her own. With a sigh for Whip’s untamed, restless soul, she touched his sleeve gently.

  “Come to the kitchen,” she said. “I’ll pour you some coffee. I’ll make up a batch of biscuits, too. You look like you could use a good meal.”

  “I’ll settle for bread, if you have it. I’ve kind of lost my taste for biscuits. They remind me too much of …”

  Whip’s voice trailed away. With a weary curse he lifted his hat, ran his fingers through his pale hair, and tossed the hat onto the kitchen table. Automatically he pulled off the bullwhip, hung his jacket by the back door, resettled the bullwhip on his shoulder, and sat down.

  With eyes that reflected too many memories, Whip watched his sister go about the homey rituals of stirring up the fire, pouring coffee, and slicing bread. If he looked through nearly-closed eyes, he could pretend that it was Shannon moving around the kitchen, fixing supper, bringing him warmth and food with her own hands.

  But it wasn’t Shannon, and Whip knew it all the way to the bottom of his painful, seething soul.

  There was a rustling sound and a thump at the back door, as though someone had brought firewood and stacked it outside. Then the door opened and Caleb walked in with a pair of saddlebags thrown over his shoulder.

  Whip didn’t even look up from his coffee.

  Caleb shut the door and glanced at his wife. Willow shook her head slightly. Caleb almost smiled. He had guessed that Willow would be too tenderhearted to tear much of a strip off Whip’s thick hide.

  Caleb, however, wasn’t.

  “You said Shannon left a message for me,” Whip said. “What was it?”

  Willow looked at Caleb.

  “You forgot your change,” Caleb said sardonically.

  Two saddlebags thumped heavily onto the kitchen table.

  Whip glanced at them without interest. Then his eyes narrowed and one hand shot out. Muscles corded in his arm as he lifted the joined saddlebags, testing their weight.

  He hissed a word that made Willow flinch.

  “That tears it,” Whip snarled, letting go of the saddlebags. “Of all the stupid—”

  “Did that gold come from Shannon’s claims?” Caleb interrupted.

  “What damned difference does it make?”

  “To me, none,” Caleb retorted. “It made a hell of a lot of difference to Shannon, though. The difference between being a widow and a whore.”

  Whip uncoiled out of the chair and slammed into Caleb, pinning him against the kitchen wall in a single wild rush.

  “God damn you, she isn’t a whore.”

  “Whip! Stop it!” Willow cried, grabbing one of her brother’s arms.

  Caleb stared into the quicksilver violence of Whip’s eyes and smiled almost gently.

  “Hell, I know that,” Caleb said. “But if you’d feel better trying to beat the same words out of me, we can do a turn or two around the back yard.”

  Whip stared at Caleb’s level, compassionate eyes, took a deep breath, and stepped back.

  “Sorry,” Whip said, looking at his hands as though he had never seen them before. “I’ve been on a hair trigger, lately.”

  “Then you better sit on your hands for a few minutes,” Caleb suggested dryly. “I’d hat
e to have my brisket parted by that damned bullwhip of yours.”

  Slowly, Whip sat down.

  “The long and the short of it,” Caleb said, “is that Shannon came here riding one fine racing mule and leading another. She had a hellhound as big as a pony at her side.”

  “Prettyface,” Whip said.

  “If you say so,” Caleb muttered. “Looked to me more like the north end of a southbound burro. Anyway, Shannon got off her mule and asked me to take the saddlebags. As soon as I did, she peeled the saddle off the first mule and put it on the other.”

  Whip frowned. “Sounds like she was in an almighty rush. Something must have been wrong. Really wrong.”

  “Same thought occurred to me,” Caleb said. He hesitated. “Do you know some women by the name of Betsy and Clementine?”

  Whip shot a look toward Willow, who was fussing over some stew she Was warming up for him.

  “I don’t exactly know them,” Whip said in a voice that went no farther than Caleb’s ears. “I’ve never even met them. They live around Holler Creek. They’re, uh, saloon girls, if you take my meaning.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

  “How did you hear their names?” Whip asked.

  “Shannon mentioned them.”

  “What!”

  Caleb took a deep breath and hoped that Whip had a good grip on his temper. If the two of them got into a fight in the kitchen, there wouldn’t be enough left of the room to make breakfast in.

  “Seems that someone named Murphy told Shannon that her gold couldn’t have come from Silent John’s claims,” Caleb said.

  “Murphy! Damn his blood-sucking soul! I figured he would just take the gold and shut up.”

  “According to Shannon, you figured wrong on something else, too,” Caleb said.

  As Caleb spoke, he casually went behind Whip’s chair.

  “What was that?” Whip asked.

  “You, uh, overpaid her,” Caleb said.

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Caleb took a concealed breath, gathering himself for the fight he knew was coming.

  “When Shannon learned the gold wasn’t hers,” Caleb said, “she went to Betsy and Clementine and asked them what the going rate for their favors was.”