Jacey's Reckless Heart

by Cheryl Anne Porter

  But Pete nearly crowed as he pointed at Phelps. “See there? What’d Ah tell ya? Ah bet you won’t be callin’ Miss Rosie a liar, now will ya?”

  Phelps ignored Pete as he turned to Rosie. “You seen him, too?”

  Rosie nodded vigorously. “Sí. Two nights ago.” She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. The men leaned in to hear better. “Right here in our cantina. It was very late, and he sat right over there.” Employing great drama, she pointed to a sun-drenched table by the window. All heads followed her gesture, and a quiet reverence befell the men as they stared at the sight. “He ordered a bottle of our finest whiskey. And drank it all himself. He never said another word. But when he left, he gave to me a big tip.”

  A feminine snort from over by the bar turned heads that way. Rosie grinned and winked at Jacey, who was dressed like her and working as a barmaid. What harm could it do to remind these men that they too could leave her tips?

  “Did you see him, too, Catarina?” one of the men called out to Jacey.

  Jacey nodded and wiped the bar down with more vigor than necessary as she spoke out the side of her mouth, “I’ll give you an amen to that. I saw him up close and personal. Real personal.”

  A murmuring buzz traveled around the circle of men. Rosie regained their attention when she added, “Oh, wait, I am mistaken. He did say something.”

  Now Alberto chimed in, walking rapidly over to his daughter as he waved his bar towel like a flag of warning. “No, no, mi hija. I am not so sure Señor Lawless would want us to repeat his words. He is un malo. And despite our years of friendship, I would not wish to anger him.”

  But the men weren’t standing for that. Cries of “Let her speak” made the rounds. Alberto feigned surrender and retreated, mumbling about having tried to stop her, but what is a father to do?

  The men collectively held their breath and leaned in again over Rosie, like tall branches shading a single delicate flower. Rosie put a hand to her waist and tapped a finger against her lips. “Now, what was it he said? Oh, yes. He said he was looking for—no, not looking for—um, hunting down? Yes, that’s it. He said he was hunting down each and every man who rode in his gang.”

  She then smiled brightly and pretended not to notice the shocked looks and paling faces all around her. A tall man with a bobbing Adam’s apple spoke up, but with all the enthusiasm of giving his last confession. “Wal, since Miss Rosie and Miss Catarina seen him, I guess it’s all right for me to tell y’all that my boy said he spied J. C. hisself over by the livery stable just yesterday afternoon.”

  Rosie and the men all stared at this new speaker. But none of them was as surprised as Rosie. Jacey’d been nowhere near the livery stable when she was dressed as J. C. Lawless. And certainly not in the afternoon. But apparently Jacey’s plan was working—rumors were spreading like wildfire. And after only three days, people were inventing their own sightings. This was good. She hoped.

  Through a break in the crowd of men, she saw Jacey shaking her head, as if she were embarrassed by all the lying going on. Grinning, Rosie raised her eyebrows at her friend and then nodded when Jacey gestured that she was leaving out the back way.

  Knowing that dark was descending and aware of Jacey’s intentions, Rosie focused again on the men. “You know, señores, I would not be surprised if others of you saw him tonight. He could be anywhere in all of Tucson.”

  * * *

  That danged Rosie. For someone who professed to hate lying, she sure took to it like stink on a cow patty. In her room now at the back of the cantina, Jacey began shedding her loose-fitting white blusa and brown skirt. Bracing her bottom against the bed’s headboard, she brought first one leg and then the other up to untie and kick off her borrowed leather sandals. Left only in her thin chemise and bloomers, she stripped them off, too, tossing them carelessly onto the bed. A grin tugged at her mouth. Never did see Papa wear one of these even once.

  Naked now, except for her thigh-strapped knife, she unstrapped it and tossed it aside. No sense wearing a weapon she couldn’t get to. From the foot of her bed she yanked up a tied bundle of Alberto’s clothes. She started with the hot and itchy but more manly red combination suit, grimacing as she pulled it up and over her skin. Well, at least since it was dark, and given Papa’s fearsome reputation that kept folks from coming too close, she didn’t have to bind her breasts.

  Twitching all around until the undergarment felt as good as it was going to, she donned the too-big pants, leather belt, white pullover shirt, and silver-studded vest. She next tied a bandanna around her neck, strapped on Papa’s Colt, and sat on the bedside to tug on her wool stockings and boots.

  Then, she reached for her saddlebags, and with great reverence, pulled out Papa’s silver spurs. She swallowed the lump in her throat, even as her hands lovingly traced the spurs’ contours. Hannah’s after the killers, Papa. And I’ll find the thieves. I swear to you.

  Firming her features and her resolve, Jacey attached the spurs to her boot heels. That done, she stood up and walked around, feeling comforted by the jangling music that accompanied her steps. Then she retrieved a thong of rawhide from off the bed, clenched it in her teeth, and bent over at the waist. With practiced motions she twisted her mane of hair into a whirlwindlike knot until it curled up on itself. She straightened up to tie the huge bun up high on her head, and then donned her black slouch-brimmed hat, pulling it low over her brow. There. J. C. Lawless lives. And now, to haunt the streets of Tucson.

  She slipped out of her room and made her way outside to the tiny corral where Knight wickered softly when he smelled her. Stepping up to the fence, she stroked the gelding’s soft muzzle when he arched his neck and stretched out to push against her arm. “No, you’re not going. But it’s working, Knight,” she whispered. “My plan’s working.”

  The gelding snorted and nodded his head, as if he agreed. Jacey chuckled softly. “Now this is exactly why you can’t go. You’d give me away in a heartbeat. I don’t need someone recognizing your ornery hide and giving the lie to everything we’ve done.”

  With that, Jacey gave the big horse a final pat and turned away. She skulked along the adobe wall’s shadows until she came to the latched gate that would admit her into the alley. Depressing the latch, she stepped through and closed the creaking gate behind her. Looking both ways, she decided to wind her way through Tucson’s alleys all the way to the wooden fortress that was Fort Lowell.

  Once there, she’d haunt its outside perimeter and let the soldiers add to the wagging tongues with their own J. C. Lawless sighting. She’d have to be more than careful, she warned herself, because these men, unlike the civilians who seemed to revere the Lawless name, just might take a potshot at her. But the risk was worth the effort, she reassured herself.

  Because her plan was working, and folks were talking about the return of J. C. Lawless. It seemed everyone had seen him, from wide-eyed young boys, to whispering old women, to lolling drunks. And they all had a different, wilder story to tell about their encounter with the outlaw himself. Jacey shook her head and chuckled as she raised her hat just enough to swipe her sleeve over her sweating forehead. How folks loved to talk.

  Resettling her hat and turning into the next mazelike stretch of alley, she figured she didn’t have long to wait until word spread to every corner of Tucson and to the far hills. And when that happened, someone would be flushed out. A guilty someone. Yeah, some thieving skunk who had reason to come see how it was that J. C. Lawless was here. And alive.

  And when that so-and-so made himself known—Jacey hitched at the heavy Colt holstered against her right hip—she, Jacey Lawless, would be ready. With her steps marked by the jangling spurs strapped at her heels, Jacey heard Hannah’s words come back to her. “For J. C. Lawless. For Catherine Lawless. Vengeance.”

  * * *

  Zant turned toward the pinging sound and tensed. Staring at the closed beveled-glass French doors which opened onto a narrow balcony ledge outside his bedroom, he tucked his towel
more firmly around his waist, picked up his pistol, and edged closer to the curtain-paneled doors.

  Cautiously moving aside the sheer material, he looked down onto the night-enshrouded courtyard below. Nothing out of the ordinary. And certainly no one was there. Shaking his head, figuring he must be hearing things, he turned back to the tub he’d just vacated and tossed his gun onto his bed.

  Ripping the damp toweling from around his waist, he finished drying off. One nice thing about being at Cielo Azul was the steady baths and shaves. He rubbed the towel over his hair to dry it. Not to mention the haircuts Anna gave him, when she wasn’t cooking up his favorite meals and exclaiming over how good it was to have him home. Zant snorted. Home. Hardly.

  Ping!

  He jerked toward the sound again and frowned. Dammit. Was someone playing a game? Yanking his pants off the end of his wide bed, he pulled them on and fastened them as he walked over to the doors. Just as he tugged aside the sheers, he remembered his gun. But before he could turn away for it, he heard the owl’s hoot. And froze.

  Blue. Recognizing their secret call, perfected in their childhood, Zant quickly unlatched the French doors and stepped onto the narrow, wrought-iron-grilled balcony. Looking down into the dark courtyard, hearing the fountain waters splashing and the crickets chirping, Zant grinned at the sight Blue made standing there and looking up at him. Grasping the balcony’s railing, he called out, “It’s kind of late for me to sneak out, Blue.”

  But Blue wasn’t in the mood for teasing. Looking all around and then putting a finger to his lips to hush Zant, he removed his hat. Speaking just above a whisper, he hissed, “It’s later than you think, amigo. I need to talk to you—now.”

  Zant’s abdomen clenched at his friend’s serious tone. “I’ll be right down.”

  “Good. Conchita nearly caught me out here a minute ago. I had to duck back behind the fountain. I’ll go wait for you in el campo.”

  Zant nodded, picturing the nest of dwellings outside Cielo Azul that abutted the hacienda’s adobe walls. The encampment was nothing more than a small city for Don Rafael’s servants and for those men who’d sworn their loyalty and their guns to the old man. Like a feudal lord and his vassals. “Go on. I’ll find you.”

  Blue nodded and silently slipped away. Zant stared down at the flagstone tile on which his friend had stood only a moment ago. He took a deep breath of the night air, inhaling the cool disdain of nature for the problems of man. Zant chuckled. He’d been reading too much while he was here. He needed to get outside more and do something physical, something reckless.

  Like what? He pictured Jacey Lawless, remembering how she’d looked on the trail when she awakened him with her touch.

  Feeling suddenly too hot for his britches, Zant shook his head, hoping to dispel the image before he could harden from the remembered feel of her breast, the taste of her kiss.… He looked down at his crotch. Too late. Running a hand through his hair in sudden restless agitation, and warning Jacey to get out of his head, Zant stepped back inside and closed the doors, being careful to lock them.

  And that act, locking the doors, more than anything else he could do, sobered him and evaporated his heated thoughts of burying himself deep in Jacey Lawless. He looked at his hands on the cold metal latch. Even here, he didn’t know who his enemies were. No—especially here.

  Instantly, his Spanish blood resettled, withdrew, leaving him alert but not aroused. In only bare minutes, Zant added a black shirt and boots to his pants. With his Colt stuck in his waistband, he edged out of his room and very carefully toed his way down the terra-cotta-tiled curving stairway. The silence of the large, square main rooms downstairs, as he passed by each richly decorated one, seemed to mock him. Zant clenched his jaw until it hurt. Cielo Azul could never be home.

  Once outside, he carefully closed the heavy, carved wooden door behind him, and then stood still in the night’s cool air for a moment as he looked and listened. No telltale footsteps or coughs of a nearby guard. Good. He quickly turned to his right, edging along the fragrant vine-entangled, porticoed walkways that ran the circumference of the courtyard. The irony of having to sneak about his grandfather’s property was not lost on him. But in fact the hacienda was like a brightly colored snake—beautiful but deadly.

  Finally Zant found the narrow, heavy wooden gate shouldered into the adobe walls. Feeling like a confined eagle whose cage door had been carelessly left unlocked, Zant opened the gate and stepped through. To bright moonlight and freedom. To wing-spreading, flight-taking, exhilarating freedom. And to Paco Torres’s well-armed girth. Zant’s thoughts of freedom were rudely interrupted. “At ease, paisano. It’s just me.”

  Under his sombrero’s wide brim, Paco’s broad, reddish-tanned face split into a wide, gleaming smile as he lowered his rifle. “Buenas noches, jefe.”

  Zant smiled at being called jefe. Chief. “Buenas noches, Paco. ¿Dónde está Blue?”

  Paco turned and pointed in the direction of the corrals. The strong odors of dung and hay, which carried on the night breeze and mixed with distance-muffled snorts and whinnies of the horses, marked it better than did the wood railings which enclosed the area. “Allí. Con los caballos.”

  There. With the horses. Typical. Blue liked horses almost as much as he liked women. Zant nodded at Paco as he walked past him. “Muchas gracias, Paco.”

  Paco touched his sombrero’s wide brim. “De nada, jefe.”

  Zant hadn’t gone three steps before Paco called out to him again. “Jefe?”

  Zant turned. “Sí?”

  With the moonlight full in his face, Paco grimaced, like something was troubling him. To Zant’s surprise, the big, simple man spoke in broken, heavily accented English. “It is good for you to be home. I am not the only one who says this, who believes you are our one true jefe. Many of the men believe so. Many. You should know this … when the time comes.”

  Frowning, Zant stood rooted to the spot. Touched by the man’s words, but more than slightly alarmed at their underlying implication, he soberly met the man’s black-eyed gaze. Things must have been pretty bad here for the past five years. “I take your words into my heart, Paco.”

  Equally sober, Paco nodded. “Bien.” With that, he resumed his guard duty, turning his back on Zant and pacing heavily around a corner.

  This is turning out to be one strange night. Zant shook his head and started for the corrals. Once there, he stopped and looked around, finally spotting Blue, who was crooning low to his Appaloosa mare and stroking her muzzle. He turned his head at Zant’s approach and nodded to him. Again Zant noted Blue’s unusual grimness as he came to stand beside him. Zant stretched his arms over the top wooden rail and rested a booted foot on the bottom one.

  “What’s with Paco?” he then asked without preamble. “He just gave me a speech—in English—about me being el jefe.”

  Blue did him the favor of not acting as if he didn’t know what he meant. A shrug accompanied his words. “Dissatisfaction, mostly. You don’t know the half of what’s been going on around here while you were in prison.”

  Zant reached out to stroke the Appaloosa’s finely arched neck. “So I gathered. Is that what couldn’t wait until morning?”

  Blue huffed out his breath. The Appaloosa jerked back at the sound. Blue cooed to her until she calmed and stepped back up to be petted. Keeping his gaze focused on the horse, Blue shook his head, speaking as if his words were for the mare. “No. I have to ask you something.”

  “Ask away, compadre.”

  “It’s about the Lawless woman.”

  Every muscle in Zant’s body stiffened. “What about her?”

  Blue finally turned to face Zant. “She’s a Lawless, Zant. A Lawless. Now, I’m the first one to admit that she’s a fine-lookin’ woman. But you know what that name means around here. I used to know what it meant to you. But I’m not so sure anymore.”

  Zant narrowed his eyes at his best friend. “Make your point, Blue.”

  “I’ll make it. F
irst off, I didn’t know it was Jacey Lawless who shot you until Rafferty told us. I knew he was tracking her, but I didn’t know she was in Tucson. Or what she looked like.”

  Feeling a sudden throb in his injured arm, Zant sniffed and looked away from Blue, training his gaze out into the fathomless desert night. “I appreciate that. But I haven’t heard a question—or your point—in there anywhere.”

  “I’m getting to it. I saw you and her … kissing … out in the desert that morning, and—”

  “That’s not your business, Blue.”

  Blue pulled back and straightened up, turning to face Zant. “Well, if it ain’t, it’ll be the first time in our lives. How can you kiss the daughter of the man who killed your father? You’ve changed, Zant. You’ve changed a lot.”

  Zant blinked and went very still. To anyone who knew him, this was a warning sign as obvious as the sound of a rattler’s coils. “Prison will do that to a man, Blue.”

  “So will a woman.” Blue’s words were at once an accusation and a challenge.

  Zant pushed away from the fence and turned to face his angry friend. “Leave it be, Blue. I’m warning you. I have my reasons, that’s all I’m telling you.” He stared steadily into Blue’s eyes, waiting for a sign that he understood not to bring it up again.

  Blue eyed Zant a moment and then looked at the ground, shaking his head. Zant exhaled, hating like hell that a Lawless could bring them to such a pass. But still, he prodded Blue further. “I still haven’t heard your question.”

  Blue met his gaze again. This time there was no flaring challenge. Only concern and some remaining anger. “I guess it’s not a question, after all. I just thought you’d want to know that Quintana got called into the hacienda this evening after supper. He was inside with the old man about ten minutes. When he came out, he started packing and said he was ordered to Tucson. He’s riding out tomorrow.”

  Zant caught and held his breath. Ramon Quintana made Rafferty look like a schoolboy. Exhaling loudly, his mind already working, Zant remarked, “Quintana, eh? What else did that sadistic bastard have to say?”