Jacey's Reckless Heart

by Cheryl Anne Porter

  He met her gaze with a frown already tugging his mouth down. “What? What could be a girl?”

  “Your baby. The one you think I’m going to carry. You kept calling it your son. It could be a girl.”

  She watched several emotions play over his face before he conceded, “All right. It could be a girl.”

  “That wouldn’t change anything for you?”

  He stared as if afraid to look away, as if he thought she’d go for his jugular if he did. “No.”

  Jacey nodded, looked down, fiddled with Knight’s reins, and then tilted her chin up at a questioning angle. “Then, what about your spurs?”

  Zant blinked. Sniffed. Swiped his hand under his nose. And frowned. “Jacey, what the hell are you talking about? Do we need to find some shade and get you some water, girl?”

  Jacey scowled. “It’s not the heat. And I just had a drink from my canteen. I know what I’m asking. I said, what about your spurs?”

  “And I’m asking you—what about them?”

  She looked down to his stirrup and stared at his boot heel. Large-roweled silver spurs. He’d been wearing them since the night he’d thought he had his hands on Papa. “Where’d you get ’em? And why?”

  “In Nogales. Before I came back to Tucson. And because I felt it was time to get my own pair. Why—you want some now?”

  “No. I have my father’s.” Through with questioning him, Jacey fell silent again.

  But still the man’s gaze stayed riveted on her. Heat that had nothing to do with the shimmering desert bloomed on Jacey’s cheeks. She frowned and looked over at him. “What’re you starin’ at?”

  He didn’t answer her, except to finally look away and glare at the far mountains. She thought she heard him say, under his breath, “Beats the hell out of me.”

  * * *

  “Beats the hell out of me,” Zant muttered. Why’d she go and bring up the baby? Yesterday at Buckeye’s, when she’d questioned him out at the fence about his mother, was the only time he’d even thought about his plan since they’d left Tucson two days ago.

  Well, at least now she knew why he felt the way he did—about a lot of things. But was being with her causing him to lose his edge, softening him toward the Lawlesses? Maybe making him think twice about such a cruel plot as his? Cruel plot? Zant frowned. Since when had he thought of his intentions as a cruel plot? Far from it. They were just. They were warranted. He stole a quick glance at his companion. Damn her for being so little and ornery and painfully desirable.

  But, no. Hell, no. It wasn’t her wearing him down. It was this desert. It had a way of doing that to a man. Made you think about nothing but your next patch of shade, your next drink of water. Made you wary of rattlers and Gila monsters and scorpions. And not just with regard to yourself. You’d best have a care for your mount, lest you find yourself afoot and as good as dead out here. Plenty of bleached bones about to testify to that.

  Having thus sidetracked his thoughts to the daily concerns of survival, Zant turned to Jacey. “Come tomorrow, about nooh, if we keep heading west, we’ll be at Two-finger McCormack’s place.”

  With her dark eyes shaded by her hat’s floppy brim, she looked over at him and grinned. Knowing why, he grinned right back. She then chuckled and shook her head. “Papa’s best stories were about Two-finger. He said bad luck chased that old outlaw like coyotes do field mice.”

  “Yeah. I heard the same. Heard he got the name Two-finger because he blew the other three off his hand while cleaning his own gun.”

  Jacey went wide-eyed and leaned over her pommel, giving in to her hilarity. To Zant, the musical sound was like tiny tinkly bells. But the desert citizens apparently had different opinions. Lizards dived into rock crevices. Furry creatures scurried under yuccas. Two wrens took wing. But Zant’s chest swelled with sudden high spirits. He wanted more than anything else to hear more of her unrestrained laughter. So he quipped, “I wonder what he looks like after so many years. You think he’s got a three-legged horse and maybe only one eye by now?”

  Grinning ear to ear, Jacey sat up, stared wide-eyed at him, and gurgled out, “You think there’ll be enough left of him to recognize?”

  Zant pretended to consider that. “Well, maybe if he’s lost an arm or a couple legs, we can just roll him into a corner and search his place, see if he has your keepsake.”

  Jacey held a hand against her belly as she laughed with him. Her words came with gasping gaps between them. “Yeah … and he wouldn’t be … able to shoot at us … like that old woman back at … Tully’s aimed to do.”

  A score more far-fetched predictions and storied remembrances of Two-finger McCormack accompanied them west, toward their next encounter. And toward the gentle, starry … waiting night.

  CHAPTER TEN

  That warm and windless evening, as the sun set, they made camp alongside a deep, muddy pool that offered the only wetness they’d seen all day. Tracks of various animals and birds encircled it, attesting to its being the only water for miles around. Brackish, warm, a pool in an otherwise dry rill, the liquid was wet and life-giving and therefore welcome.

  Squatting at the water’s edge, Jacey hurriedly filled the small coffeepot and their canteens by dragging them across the surface while Zant held the neighing, restless horses at bay. As likely as not, those two’d drink the mudhole dry once they got at it.

  Done, Jacey capped the second canteen, came to her feet and turned around. “All right. Bring ’em over before they start buckin’ and bitin’.”

  She stepped back as Zant moved in with the now frantic animals. For once, as they lowered their heads and drank, there was no all-out war between the two horses about being side by side. Well, Jacey figured, they were tired and thirsty. But also, maybe they’d come to an agreement that since necessity had thrown them together, they should make the best of it. Maybe they realized that to fight each other now, out here, meant neither one of them would survive. Jacey shook her head, bridling her unguarded thoughts. She was still talking about the horses, wasn’t she?

  She looked away from the animals to the man. And suspended thought in favor of just watching the play of heavy muscle under his sweat-stained shirt as he stretched and rocked from side to side, as if loosening cramped muscles.

  If she wanted … if she dared … she could reach out and touch him. He was that close. Gripping instead the canteens and the coffeepot with two-handed determination, Jacey spoke the next thought that came to her head. “Tired of the saddle, huh?” Oh, that’s great, Jacey. Just let the man know you’ve been standing here leering at him.

  Both sets of reins threaded through his fingers, Zant turned sideways toward her, looking surprised that she was still standing there. He then grinned and stretched mightily. “I’ll say. A few more days of this and my new name will be Flat Butt.”

  Not from where she was standing. Her eyes widening at the splayed-out, masculine sight he made, Jacey found herself incapable of laughing with him. She desperately groped for a canteen cap and finally found one. She fumbled it open and gulped a mouthful of nasty-tasting water. She grimaced, swiped a hand over her wet lips, and offered the open canteen to him. “Me, too,” she offered.

  “You too what?” He took the canteen—his long fingers covering her smaller ones for one brief, electric second—put it to his mouth, and drank deeply. Jacey braced her suddenly wobbly knees. He handed the canteen back to her and swiped his forearm across his lips and dripping chin. He then turned back to the horses, checking to see that they didn’t take in too much water. He smoothed a hand over his stallion’s red coat, stroking, patting.

  But it was Jacey who shivered. “Um, my butt’s flat, too.”

  He turned back to her, frowning. “What?”

  Heat seared her cheeks and neck. “Nothing.” She beat a new path up the shallow incline. Her ranting insults to herself marked each stiff-legged stride. Stupid, crazy, big-mouthed, asinine, lovestruck— She stopped. Lovestruck? No. She jerked around to Zant. He’d squatted
on his haunches and was sluicing water over his neck and through his hair. His denims stretched tightly over his far-from-flat butt and his steely thighs. Oh, yes. Lovestruck. The realization tore out of her in a loud, distressed curse. “No, dammit!”

  Instantly, Zant and Knight and Old Blood straightened up and turned their heads and dripping muzzles to stare at her. “You okay?” Zant called out. He combed his fingers through his thick black hair.

  “No.” She heard the pout in her voice and covered it by squawking, “I mean yes.”

  “Then what were you yelling about?”

  “I wasn’t.”

  Zant stared at her and then exchanged a look with the two horses. He shrugged his broad shoulders. They arched their necks and shivered their manes all about.

  Jacey turned on her boot heel, stalking to the much-used campsite they’d claimed for the night. To one side of the trampled brush and the blackened ring of stones encircling a gray-ash-filled center, she set down the coffeepot and canteens. Tossing her thick braid back over her shoulder, she busied herself with gathering wood for a campfire, which was about all she could do until Zant brought the horses over. Still saddled, they carried the food, utensils, coffee, and bedrolls on them.

  With the wood crooked in her arms, and squatting to dump her load, Jacey gave a start when long shadows fell over her and stretched out on the sandy earth before her. She jerked around. Zant and his two four-legged companions were plodding up to her. Still feeling defenseless in the face of his powerful maleness—at once so foreign and so inviting to her—she stood up and held her hand out. “Took you long enough. Give me Knight’s reins.”

  He separated them from his stallion’s and held them out to her, his face mirroring a quizzical yet assessing look. “You sure you’re okay?”

  “Never better, outlaw.” She snatched at the reins.

  He pulled them back. “No. Something’s eating at you. Whenever you call me outlaw or gunslinger, I’m anywhere but on your good side.”

  She’d die before she’d tell him what was wrong. “Why should that bother you? Do you care if I’m sore at you … I mean, really care?”

  His level stare unnerved Jacey as much as his gunfighter’s stance. But she stood her ground, held her breath, waited for him to speak. He shook his head. “No. I don’t guess I do.”

  Jacey’s heart plummeted. She just wanted to take her horse and get the heck away from him, if only for a few minutes. “Then just give me the reins.”

  He held them out to her, allowed her to grip them, and then refused to let go. Jacey looked up into his scowling face. “I lied,” he said. “I do want to know what the hell’s wrong with you. When we went to the watering hole a few minutes ago, we were getting along just fine. Now you’re a spitting alley cat. How come?”

  Jacey wanted to turn and run. But where to? Out here, alone with him in unfamiliar and deserted and desolate country, she was completely at his mercy. So, she drew in a deep breath through her pinched nostrils and tugged at the reins. But with no better luck than she had the first time. “All right. Fine. I’ll tell you what’s wrong.”

  “Well?”

  “Well,” she repeated with emphasis, “I’m … hungry, is all. I haven’t had a bite since breakfast.”

  He frowned, but then his face cleared. He even grinned. “Then I must be looking pretty good to you about now.”

  Jacey sucked in a dry breath and began choking. Could he read her mind? “What?”

  He grinned and pounded her—unnecessarily hard, in her opinion—on the back. “Tully’s woman. You said she should have eaten him herself. And I said I’d have to make sure you didn’t get too hungry. What’d you think I—Wait a minute. Why, Jacey Lawless”—the ornery sidewinder chuckled in a purely mocking way—“am I starting to look good to you? Is that what’s wrong with you?”

  “Hogwash.”

  He stared at her a moment and then threw his head back and laughed. With her bottom lip poked out far enough for her to trip over it, Jacey snatched Knight’s reins from him and practically dragged the animal away to unsaddle and hobble him for the night.

  Zant’s mocking words chased after her. “Hogwash, huh? We’ll see, Jacey Lawless. We’ll see.”

  * * *

  All was done. The horses were unsaddled, brushed down, hobbled, and left to graze among the tough grasses. The fire burned brightly in the cool and starlit night. Jacey’s stomach was full of Maria’s tortillas and beef and beans and a slice of mock-apple pie. She reclined in her bedroll. Zant did the same in his—across the fire from her. And he’d better stay there, if he knew what was good for him.

  But apparently he didn’t. Her stomach muscles clenched, Jacey watched him roll easily to his feet in a smooth display of coordination and grace. Well, give the devil his due. He was something. Bending over, grabbing his boots by the mule-ear straps, he tugged them on and started in her direction. As he approached, Jacey gripped her blanket and spoke in a low, threatening voice. “I’m not asleep, so tread carefully, outlaw.”

  “Settle down, Ornery. I’m just going to relieve myself.”

  Looking straight ahead at the fire, refusing to admit her blunder, Jacey muttered, “Well … see that you do.”

  He chuckled and stepped around her. Lying on her side, facing the fire, she listened to the grainy shifting of the sand under his boots as he moved farther and farther away. Jacey grinned. Why couldn’t she stay mad at him? She never had any trouble staying mad at anyone else she knew. Even Hannah and Glory and Biddy. Why, if anyone put her in a snit, she’d stay there for days, making everyone around her miserable, until Papa would—

  “Jacey?”

  Alert to the eerie, hissing sound, Jacey tensed. When the sound didn’t repeat after several moments, she dismissed it as a bird and resettled in her thoughts, recalling Papa getting tired of her grumpiness and tanning her seat if she—

  “Jacey?”

  Frowning, Jacy turned over and sat up. There it was again. She looked out into the night, in the direction Zant had gone. If that rotten mud toad thought she was going to help him with relieving himself, then he could.… No, he wouldn’t do that. So, the sound—no more than a rustling of scrawny branches—had to be her imagination.

  Flopping back down, she again took up her fond memories of life at home. Papa’d tan her seat if she so much as raised her voice to Mama. Well, she learned early on not to do that. Which meant her sisters were fair game. They were never any match for—

  “Jacey?”

  Jacey sat up. That was no wind and no bird. It was Zant. If this was his idea of a joke—“What do you want, Chapelo? You think you can scare me with your whispering?”

  Jacey picked up his note of urgency and, yes, the fear in his voice. Was he bluffing her? And if not, what made him think she wanted to see anything that could scare him? “What are you up to? I’m not about to come out there to look at your—”

  “Quiet.” His voice was no more than a squeak. “Bring … your gun. Now.”

  Still not convinced, but nevertheless dropping her voice to just above a whisper, she called out, “Why?”

  “There’s a—” He bit off his words.

  Jacey came to her knees. Was that the sound of rattles she heard? She gave the night her full attention. The dry rasp of a rattler’s warning carried to her. Sweat instantly dewed her lip and seemed to pool under her arms. “Oh, my God.” She said it as a prayer. She swallowed and bent to search out her Colt. “I heard it. I’m on my way.”

  “Jacey?”

  She stood up, wiped her sweating palm on her skirt, and cocked her gun. “Yeah?”

  “Knight’s … hobbling this way. If he … senses the snake, then.…”

  Jacey exhaled audibly. “Then he’ll raise hell, and you’ll be a dead man.”

  After a long moment of silence, she heard Zant’s hissed, “Thanks.”

  Jacey grinned, despite the seriousness of the situation. Then, feeling as ready as she’d ever be, she stepped off her slee
ping bag and away from the reassuring glow of the campfire light.

  Plunged now into the relatively pitch-black night, she blinked until her eyes adjusted somewhat to the covering darkness. But having no idea which cactus or bush or rocky outcropping he’d chosen, she could only place one booted foot cautiously in front of the other. No sense stepping on the snake. And that was another thing—it’d be nice to know where the danged rattler was in relation to Zant. And to her.

  What she did know, though, was the critter would be none too pleased with her approach. In fact, it’d be pretty riled about now. Instinct would have to guide her. Suddenly, Jacey was shoved forward from behind. That push was too solid to be instinct. Stumbling, tripping, fighting to keep her feet, she barely got her hand over her mouth before she cried out. The renewed alarm of big rattles being shaken—very close by—greeted her flat-footed halt. The sharply in-drawn breath she heard had to be Zant’s.

  Behind Jacey, Knight whuffed and blew and nudged her again. Her heart in her throat, she turned, but was barely able to discern the black gelding from the surrounding night. Reaching out, groping, she located him and rubbed her hand over him. He faced her head-on. With no choice and hating it, she thumped his tender muzzle and hissed, “Git.”

  Startled, the horse reared his head and stepped back as best he could with hobbled feet. But his retreating footfalls, as be headed back in the direction of the campfire, were a welcome sound.

  Jacey closed her eyes in a moment of prayerful thanks. And then traded her gun from one hand to the other, so she could wipe each damp palm down her skirt. The snake rattled again and stirred. She froze. It was on her left. Sounded like it was about waist-high to her. Which meant, if its coils started on the ground, it was about fifty feet long. Or much smaller if coiled on the sun-warmed boulders next to her. Jacey prayed it was lying atop a boulder. Okay. Waist high to her. Which put it about … crotch high to Zant, who had to be on the other side of the boulder, since she hadn’t knocked into him yet.