Crotch high. Lordy. Now she understood why he hadn’t just stomped it or backed off. If he got bit, it’d be on his—Jacey made an awful face. That would hurt. Poor Zant was in a very delicate predicament. And one she had to get him out of. In a hurry. No telling how long the snake would remain patient with them. So, living up to her reckless reputation, Jacey made a deliberate feint, hoping to make the snake rattle again—but hopefully not strike—so she could better pinpoint it. The snake cooperated by shaking its rattles.
Good. About two arm-lengths away. But who was it facing? Her or Zant? Suddenly afraid to the point of irritation, Jacey fumed. Could this be any trickier? If she knew its tail was to her, then she’d just grab it and sling it, like she did back home when she came across the varmints. Danged things were always underfoot up in No Man’s Land.
Suddenly Jacey realized she hadn’t heard a sound from Zant in a while. Had he already been bitten? Was he even now lying on the ground and writhing? No, if the rattler’d bitten him, he’d be making a bunch of noise and the snake would’ve slithered away. Usually. Sometimes, they just kept biting, depending on how threatened they felt. Jacey, why are you spooking yourself with these thoughts? Just shoot the danged thing. Zant’s expecting it. He’ll get out of the way.
Jacey raised her cocked gun, held her arm out level and steady, yelled, “Now, Zant!” and began firing. Bullets pinged off rock, striking bright flashes of fire, but a few hit something, made no noise. Jacey prayed she’d hit the snake, and not Zant. But figuring Zant’d probably prefer a quick death by bullet over a lingering, painful one like the rattler would deliver, she fired until her Colt was empty. When she finally lowered her arm, all about her was as calm and quiet as Christmas Eve night.
Until the air was split with the most beautiful sound she’d ever heard. “Son of a bitch!” Zant screeched from the other side of the boulder. “You trying to kill me? That damned rattler and his blown-off head flew off that rock and hit me in the chest. I must’ve flung that monster all the way to California. And now my hands are shaking so bad I can’t get my pants buttoned.”
Grinning in relief, glad he couldn’t see her trembling chin in the dark, Jacey called out, “Hey, Chapelo! Aren’t you even going to thank me?”
“Thank you?” He sounded closer, like he was stepping around the boulder. “For what? You damn near shot my … head off. Bullets whizzing by, I’m trying to jump out of the way and get down. Scared the hell out of me.” He then pushed past her, still buttoning his denims, and reverted to rapid, angry Spanish as he tromped back to the campfire.
To his back, Jacey called out, “I did warn you, remember?” He didn’t bother with a response. She grinned again. Big baby. Wasn’t nothing but a little old snake. Shaking her head, Jacey trudged back to the welcome glow of their fire. A sidelong glance across the flames showed her Zant seated on his bedroll and tugging his boots off. He didn’t even look up at her approach. Quirking her mouth, Jacey sat on her own blankets and busied herself with reloading her Colt, plucking bullets out of their confining loops on her gunbelt and expertly poking them into the empty chambers.
The next thing she knew, the campfire’s light was blocked and the outlaw’s stocking feet were standing in front of her. She eyed them a minute before walking her gaze up the long drink of water that was Zant. Looking into his darkness-shaded face, detecting only the gleam of his black eyes, she remained quiet, waiting for him.
“I’m sorry I yelled at you, Jacey. And … thank you.”
Her throat working, Jacey looked down at her gun in her lap, quietly telling it, “It was nothing. You’d do the same for me.”
“Yes, I would.” He squatted in front of her and tilted her chin up until she had to look into his eyes. “And, Jacey, what you did was far from nothing. It was everything—to me. And I know you didn’t have to save my hide. You could have done nothing and been rid of me once and for all.”
Jacey ignored the wrenching heartache at just the thought of him dead and spoke with all the spit and vinegar she knew he’d expect from her. “The thought crossed my mind. But that snake didn’t have anything to do with … what’s between me and you. I don’t run from any fight. And I don’t take the easy way out, Chapelo. So, when the time comes, you can be sure we’ll be on even footing. And it’ll be only my hand and yours that sees this through to the end.”
He quirked a grin and said, “You could win a fight against your weight in wildcats, couldn’t you?” He let go of her chin, his black-eyed gaze making a slow sweep of her face, as if he were trying to find a chink in her armor, a soft spot, an opening. Apparently not finding one, he stretched to a stand, stared down at her, said, “Thanks, anyway. I owe you one.” And walked away.
Jacey finished reloading her Colt, her task made all the harder for her shaking hands and the tears blurring her eyes.
* * *
The next day, about lunchtime, Zant and Jacey found themselves pinned down behind a single boulder outside Two-finger McCormack’s old place. And exchanging gunfire with Two-finger. As luck would have it, Angel Peterson, one of the meaner sorts from the old Lawless Gang, was inside with him and firing away.
In a lull, which Zant used to duck down and reload—Jacey did the same—he shoved bullets into the chambers and spoke rapidly. “Mean old sons of bitches. They need a whipping more than they need anything else.” With his back to the rock and his knees drawn up, he labored over his task.
Done first with her reloading, Jacey rubbed against his side as she raised up enough to peek over the boulder’s rounded top. “Well, I’ll be a—Zant, look at this.”
He looked up. “Look at what? What’re they doing?”
“Just look.”
His gun fully loaded again, Zant popped the cylinder back into place, spun it, and cocked it. Turning around, he edged himself up the rough-sided boulder, noting Jacey’s look of disbelief, and looked toward the cabin. A once-white combination suit, with the left arm and right leg cut short, hung over the end of a long stick and waved back and forth out the window. He turned to Jacey. “I’d say those drawers belong to Two-finger. You think it’s a truce flag?”
Jacey chuckled and said, “That’s what I’m guessing—on both counts.”
“It could be a trick.”
“It could. What do you make of it?”
Zant considered that. Rubbing a hand over his growth of beard, he decided it was a truce flag and not a trick. Because his and Jacey’s heads were poked up over the boulder and no one had taken a shot at them. He turned again to Jacey. “Stay low. Let’s see what they do. Make them make the next move.”
Jacey nodded her agreement, and they both turned to look at the waving drawers. They didn’t have long to wait. From inside the cabin came a sharp-edged voice. “Who are you out there?”
Zant notched his Stetson up in disgust and called back, “You’d know, you old coot, if you hadn’t started shooting the minute we rode up. You’re just damned lucky you didn’t hit our horses before we yee-hawed them away.”
“Don’t fret, stranger. They’ll come back. Now, I’m not goin’ ta ask ya again.” But then he did anyway. “Who are you?”
“I’m Zant Chapelo—the Kid’s son. And the lady is Jacey Lawless.”
After a moment of silence: “J. C. never was no lady. You’re lyin’.”
Zant bonked his forehead down on the warm, solid rock and closed his eyes. From that position, he asked Jacey, “Would you please explain your name to them?”
To his right, Jacey huffed out a loud breath and then called out. “I’m Jacey. J-A-C-E-Y. J. C.’s second daughter. I was named after him.”
Zant raised his head at the hushed but frantic whisperings carrying to them from inside the cabin. Then, a different, rasping voice called out, “All right. We believe you—even though Angel says he never thought he’d live long enough to see a Chapelo and a Lawless riding together all peaceable like. But bein’ who you are don’t change nothin’. What you two want?”
&nbs
p; Zant figured he’d call riding with Jacey anything but peaceable, but he kept that to himself and said, “We just want to talk to you.”
Both old men answered. “About what?” Then, Two-finger, the raspy-voiced one, added, “We don’t know nothin’ about what it is you want.”
Zant turned to exchange a look with Jacey. Just in time to catch her waistband as she went over the rock. “Get down, dammit.” He shoved her onto her bottom in the sand.
She came up clawing and hissing. “They know something. Why else would they have said that?”
Zant clamped his hand on her shoulder, holding her down as he got right into her face and hissed, “So they can draw you out and shoot you. Now, stay put, and let’s see if they know anything. You got that?”
She nodded, but every rigid line in her body said she didn’t like it. Zant raised up enough to see the cabin. “What do you think it is we want?”
“You’re here about the money. We ain’t got none of it.”
Zant frowned and looked down at Jacey. She shrugged her shoulders. He turned to the cabin. “What money are you talking about?”
Silence. Then came Angel’s voice. “If’n you don’t know, we ain’t about to tell ya. You think we’re simpleminded?”
Zant bit back his honest opinion and lied, “Far from it, old-timer. But we’re not here about anything to do with money. We’re here about J. C. Lawless himself.”
“Wal, he ain’t here.”
That did it. Zant lost control and screeched like an owl. “I know that, you old fart.” Then, taking a deep, calming breath, he jerked his Stetson off, barely suppressing his urge to bite it and crumple it. His still raised voice sailed across the distance. “J. C. and his wife have been killed. And we’re—”
“We didn’t do it. Go away.”
Near to bellowing again in frustrated rage, Zant slid down the boulder to sit next to Jacey on the hot sand. “Tell me one thing. How in the living hell was the Lawless Gang ever anything to fear?”
He watched as suppressed humor lit up her delicate face. “I guess they were different when they were younger. They’re all old men now. My father and yours were the youngest ones, remember?”
“I do. But if this is all I have to look forward to—being some crazy old outlaw coot without a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of—then I’m beginning to think I should’ve let that snake do his worst last night.”
Jacey grinned, showing white, even teeth. “Sorry I saved you.”
“Yeah, thanks for the favor.” He then crammed his Stetson back on, rested his elbows on his bent knees, and said, “I’m about ready to do just what Angel says and go away. Five more minutes of this, and I’ll shoot ’em both for being so stupid.”
Jacey chuckled. “I think they’re kind of funny. Look what they’ve done to you. You’re red-faced and cussin’ and spittin’ thorns.”
Closer to laughing with her than he cared to admit, Zant feigned being put out with her. “Is that so? Since you’re the one who thinks they’re so all-fired amusing, why don’t you try reasoning with them, missy?”
She raised her arched eyebrows at him. “I think I will.” And she did just that. Pushing her bottom off the sand, she turned and edged up the boulder. Her first words, though, were for Zant. “The flag is gone.” She then turned to call out, “Hey, you inside? We just want some information. I’ve got a piece of spur to show you and some questions to ask. That’s all. I swear it—on my Lawless name.”
Her words and her oath were met with silence, which slowly became a sustained, suddenly suspicious, and too quiet silence. Frowning, Zant joined Jacey in peeking over the boulder. “I don’t like the looks of this.”
Jacey eyed him. “Me, neither. What do you think they’re doing?”
“Well, either they’re reloading. Or they fell asleep. Or they went out a back way.”
“I figured along the same lines.”
Zant eyed the cabin, taking in the jutting foothills behind it, the thick covering of oaks and junipers and the creosote bushes that nestled the ramshackle abode. No movement from anywhere. He picked up a good-sized rock and chunked it at the squatty old house. Jacey ducked behind their boulder with him. But, nothing. No response. He turned to her again. “I guess you already figured, too, that one of us has to go out there and search the cabin.”
“One of us? You’re the one who doesn’t want to end up an old coot. I say you go.”
“Thanks.”
“Just tryin’ to oblige, Chapelo. I’ll cover you.”
Zant yanked his Stetson low over his eyes and nodded. “Just try not to shoot me.”
He made a movement to dart around the covering rock, but froze with Jacey’s retort. “Try not to give me a reason to.”
He looked back over his shoulder at her. Her grin and that sparkle in those damned black eyes of hers said she’d do it, too. “Before this is all over, Jacey Lawless, I’m going to put you over my knee.”
She held her gun up parallel with herself and cocked it. “Now those are the words of a man intent on giving a woman reason enough to shoot him.”
Zant grunted his opinion of that and then slouched around the side of the boulder. No man and no bullets challenged him. Thus emboldened, he skittered to the cabin’s edge, looked back to see Jacey with her Colt trained on the open window, and then edged his way over to it. He jerked around to quickly peek inside, gain an impression, and then jump back to the cover of the outside wall. He thought about what he’d seen. Dirt. Rough furniture. Unmade beds. Dried-up remains of countless meals and scattered clothes everywhere.
Otherwise, it was empty. Of Angel and Two-finger, at any rate. On the dirty floor was the makeshift flag. He signaled the all-clear to Jacey and then went to the closed door. When she joined him, staying behind him as he indicated for her to do, he opened the door and burst inside, his gun leveled at anything that might move. But nothing did. He relaxed his stance but didn’t reholster his Colt.
At his side now, Jacey grimaced. “Those two stinkers. Just as we thought—gone.”
Notching his Stetson up, Zant took a good look around. “Yep. Right out this back door, I’d say.” He kicked clothes and tin plates aside as he strode to the crude, gaping-open doorway. He looked out, training his gaze on the upward slope of a steep foothill. “Look here, Jacey.”
Stepping close to him, she peered between the doorjamb and his shoulder. She looked in the direction he pointed and chuckled. “I’m guessing that cloud of dust tells its own story.”
Watching the obvious signs of a full retreat up the cactus-studded hill, Zant reholstered his gun and crossed his arms over his chest. He looked down at Jacey, finding himself once again captivated by her fragile size, which made her enormous fighting spirit a never-ending surprise. “Well, there went numbers three and four of the five remaining Lawless gang desperadoes. You think we should go after them?”
Jacey shook her head. “No. I don’t think they know a thing beyond what goes on right here under their own noses.” She then turned to look around the rumpled room. “And maybe not even that.”
Zant scanned the room with her—anything to keep from staring openly, longingly at her—and then started for the front door. “Come on. Let’s go locate our horses and clear out. Wouldn’t want those two old Jaspers to die from the heat while they wait up in the hills for us to leave.”
* * *
“Dammit, Jacey, we’ve been hunting for two hours. Just how far do you think that nag of yours shied?”
“What’s wrong, Chapelo? Am I too heavy for your prissy stallion?”
“He’s not prissy.”
“And Knight’s not a nag.”
“If he doesn’t turn up soon on his own, he’ll be vulture bait when I’m through with him. And quit squirming. You’re about to knock me off the back of my own horse.”
“How can I be squirming? I’m sitting in the saddle. Now head this burro of yours over by that stand of mesquite trees. And move your hand, outlaw, befo
re I slice it off and hand it back to you.”
“Oh, hell, my hand’s not even touching your—”
“Over there! Did you see that?”
“See what?”
“I think I saw a flash of black moving around in those mesquites. Maybe Knight got his reins tangled in a branch. Turn this animal.”
“I am. At least Sangre had the sense to wait close by.”
“Sense? The only reason this swaybacked mule was close by was because he was standing on his own reins and didn’t have enough sense to lift his hoof.”
“It’s a trick I taught him.”
“Oh, for crying out loud. You taught him to tromp on his own reins and thereby take a chance at throwing himself and breaking his own neck? I’m not sure he has the sense to do that.”
“Sangre is a blooded stallion with Arabian lines. He’s not a donkey or a mule or a dumb animal.”
“Then maybe it’s you I’m thinking of.”
“How’d you like to walk until we find that gelding of yours?”
“Fine. It’s too hot up here anyway what with your big-boned self all mashed up against my back. And move your arm.”
“Ouch, dammit. You want down? Then, get—Don’t jump. You’ll … fall on your butt. Like you just did. You okay?”
“I’m fine. I like walking. I was walking before I was riding. Suits me fine.”
“Get the hell back up here. You can’t walk in this heat. I mean it—now.”
“You can’t tell me what to do, Chapelo.”
“I can. And I do all the time.”
“Yeah, and I don’t do it.”
“The hell you—Fine. Suit yourself.”
“I always do. And back off some. That Arabian of yours is blowing his hot breath on me.”
“Whoa, Sangre. Hey, wildcat? Joe Buford’s place is another two-day ride—or five-to seven-day’s walk—northwest of here. You intend to walk it the whole way?”
“I will if I have to. But I intend to find Knight way before that. You can always go on ahead, if I’m holding you up.”
“If I had any sense I would. Now get back up here with me.”
Jacey's Reckless Heart Page 18