by Bill Brooks
She wound down at last, sat silently, her head tilted over to one side, her mouth open, the blunted teeth showing behind her pale, thin lips. A string of drool leaked from one corner of her mouth, and then she slumped over, her eyes closing as she did so. In a few seconds she was snoring.
She may have been drunk and she may have been half crazy, but she was the second person to tell Cole that someone had paid McCall to assassinate Hickok. And if that were true, then maybe the same party had a hand in the killings of Liddy’s girls. It was a stretch, but it was all he had to go on so far.
The heavy door rattled open. Two people stood in the frame of light. One was Johnny Logan, the other was Lydia Winslow. She waited for Cole to stand. The pain raced through him like a wildfire through dry grass.
“I’ve paid your fine,” she said.
Cole looked at Logan. The damage he’d done to his face couldn’t have hurt half as much as Cole’s head did.
“Are you able to walk?” she asked.
“Enough to get to my room.”
“Come, let’s go.”
Cole thought it strange that Johnny Logan would accept a fine and let him go, considering the circumstances, but he said nothing.
As they stepped outside, Cole could see that the jail was little more than a log structure set in an alleyway in back of Johnny Logan’s office. Cole wasn’t sure of the time, but the sun was already setting beyond the surrounding hills and the sky had begun to turn brassy.
“How’d you know where to find me?” he asked.
“Word spreads fast,” she said.
Cole looked at her.
“Johnny’s face,” she said. “He couldn’t hide it. The woman he sees when he’s not seeing his wife told me about it. I guess after the fight, he needed some special comfort.”
“Tell me,” Cole said, “how was it you got him to let me go without a fuss?”
“It’s a simple matter of economics,” she answered. “Johnny has a wife and a mistress to support. He needs money more than he needs his pride. Besides, he knows that I know all about him and Lulu Divan, the other woman. He wouldn’t want to risk my having a chat with his wife about the matter. I simply suggested that the whole affair of the fight between you two could be resolved in a peaceful manner and allowed him to suggest an appropriate fine for your indiscretion.”
“Yeah. Well, thanks.”
“Come back to my place. I’ll have Jazzy Sue stitch your scalp and we’ll get you cleaned up and feeling better.”
The thought of turning down her offer never even crossed Cole’s mind.
Jazzy Sue washed the blood out of his hair and with a needle and some black silk thread sewed the gash on the back of his scalp together while he nursed the pain with plenty of Liddy’s imported cognac.
“What dat fool hit you wid?” Jazzy Sue asked as she stitched the wound.
“I was told the butt of a shotgun,” Cole said. “It feels more like it might have been the roof.”
“Lawdy, you lucky he didn’t knock you silly.”
“I’ll let you know if he did in the morning.”
She giggled.
Afterward, he sat and let the cognac work its magic. Liddy sat across from him. She had changed from the gray jacket and overskirt she’d worn to the jail into a soft long-sleeved white blouse that had a V down the front and was tied loosely with a loop of string. Her skirt was long and flowing and of a soft black material.
She held a glass of cognac, her long, slender fingers encircling it, the glass and the fingers equally delicate. “Feel better?” she asked him.
His head was filling with a light blue smoke that was both warm and gentle. The sharp edges of pain were slowly receding to another place.
“Yes,” he said. “This cognac does wonders.”
“I’m having Jazzy Sue fix us some dinner. I hope you like roast duck.”
Cole sipped more of the cognac, and lost any thought about his fight with Johnny Logan as he looked into her green eyes that, under the low light, seemed more jade than emerald. He told himself through the warm fuzziness of the liquor that he was making a mistake. He told himself that a smart man wouldn’t allow himself to mix his business with his pleasure. Then he thought of Billy Cook, sitting in that tub of bloody water. Lots of men had made that mistake. He told himself another thing. She had once been the woman Ike Kelly was in love with, and maybe still was. He had no right to violate their friendship. But right at that very moment, he wasn’t able to take his eyes from her.
They ate, the two of them, sitting directly across from each other, Jazzy Sue serving them the meal at a modest table that was lighted by candles. Cole thought he’d seen Liddy’s beauty already, but there, in the light of candles, in that very instant, she looked glowing. He ate the meal without tasting it. The conversation was kept to a minimum.
Then they adjourned to the parlor where they had first talked. “More cognac, or would you prefer something stronger . . . whiskey, maybe?” she asked him.
“My preference would be for something else altogether,” he said. He felt like he was standing on the edge of a cliff and had decided to jump off just to see what it would feel like to fall a long way.
“I think the cognac has affected you,” she said. Her presence seemed to fill the entire room. He could smell the perfume in her hair. He could feel its silkiness touch the side of his face. He could taste her mouth on his. Even though she sat there across from him and offered no indication that she was being anything more than polite and compassionate toward him.
“I think you’re right,” he said. “I had better go before I say or try something really stupid.”
She sipped from her glass, her gaze fixed on his. “I’m aware of what is going on here between us, Mister Cole. But that doesn’t mean I want it to happen.”
“You’re right,” he said. “It shouldn’t happen.”
“You need to understand . . .” she began.
The cognac was really beginning to bury him beneath a warm, heavy blanket of sweet comfort. “No,” he interrupted. “The reasons don’t matter. I came here as a favor to an old friend, I can’t betray his trust.”
Her face seemed to soften under the shadows and light of the candles. “What was between Ike and me is in the past,” she said. “It’s not Ike standing in your way, is it?” Her voice was smoky and he couldn’t think clearly and the room seemed to shift.
“Let’s just leave it at that,” Cole said. “There’s no point in discussing what I want to happen and what you don’t want to happen.”
“I confess that I find you an attractive man,” she said, lowering her glass of cognac. “But there are two reasons why I can’t allow myself to become involved with you. I want you to know what they are.”
Either he’d had drunk too much, or he hadn’t drunk enough. John Henry Cole waited for Liddy Winslow to explain without wanting to hear what she had to tell him.
“The first thing you need to understand,” she said, “is that I vowed a long time ago not to let myself get emotionally involved with anyone. Ike was the exception. I was young. He was tender with me. He needed me in a way no man had before. It was love and it was something more than that, but I wouldn’t marry him because I wanted more from life than being somebody’s wife. I wanted independence. Most men wouldn’t understand that. And if they did, they wouldn’t appreciate it.” She paused, turned the glass of amber liquid between her fingers, and never once stopped looking into Cole’s eyes. “The other reason I have for not wanting anything to happen between us is that I already have a male friend. A man who I see. It would not be fair to him.”
“I thought you just said . . .”
“I didn’t say I was in love with this man. He is a companion. Someone who doesn’t question me or force his life on me. We share certain things. It’s convenient and without too much demand. I like it that way.”
“I see,” Cole said. He must have showed his disappointment.
“Do you really?” she aske
d.
“Yeah. I really do.” It was a lie, but he didn’t have it in him to argue the point. “I better get going,” he said, and stood, nearly forgetting that he had a head full of misery.
She rose from her side of the table, came around, and touched her hand to his wrist. “No, I don’t think you fully understand what I’ve just told you,” she said. Her face was inches from his, her eyes searching, and, when he breathed, her scent flowed into his senses and mixed with the cognac and left him unsteady.
“You’re right,” he said. “I don’t understand.”
“Maybe in time you will,” she said, and released her fingers from the back of his wrist. “Good night, Mister Cole.”
Then she was gone. He was still standing there, holding onto the back of the chair when Jazzy Sue brought him his curled Stetson.
“You goin’ to be able to put that thang on your head?”
“I wouldn’t go out without it,” he said. She looked at him with the sweet curiosity of a child. “The trick is going to be taking it off later.”
She giggled.
“Thanks, Jazzy Sue. Thanks for the supper and sewing my head back together.”
She smiled a smile of bright teeth and her beauty was a comfort against his pain and weariness.
He was halfway to his hotel room when he ran into Miguel Torres.
“Cole,” he said, his gaze assessing the damage Johnny Logan had done.
“Marshal,” Cole said.
He shifted his gaze. “I’d just as soon you kept my position to yourself.”
“Yeah, I forgot. You said you were on personal business.”
“I’m looking for someone,” he said. “I’d just as soon they not know that.”
“You don’t have to worry about me, Torres. I’ve got enough problems of my own.”
“I can see that.” There was no sympathy or compassion in his manner. He was a man of unchanging characteristics. “There’s some bad business going on in this place,” he said without bothering to elaborate.
Cole started to ask him what he meant when someone shouted: “Hey, ya!”
Cole turned to see Calamity Jane weaving down the street. She was in the company of a miner. They were both drunk. It was a day that seemed to have no end to it.
She crossed the street, nearly got run over by a wagon carrying nail kegs. Ignoring the curses of the driver, she came to stand just inches from Cole, her breath sour. “Jack, ya ain’t got a dollar for me and my pal, Ted, over there, do ya?” When Cole hesitated, she winked and said: “Maybe I could rid myself of Theodore and me and ya could go up to yar crib and have us a sweet time, eh?”
He gave her the loose change in his pocket and would have given her more if she had persisted. She shook his hand like it was a pump handle and she was dying of thirst, then rejoined her friend on the far side of the street. He saw them kiss. When he turned back, Miguel Torres had vanished. Suddenly he was alone and glad of it.
Chapter Twelve
The dreams came hard that night. John Henry Cole tumbled down into them and everyone was waiting for him. Zee held the shattered head of the dead Confederate boy, his Rebel flag wrapped about him like a bloody shroud. She kissed him delicately on the cheek, just below where the Minié ball had entered. His eyes fluttered and his breath came in gasps. Nearby a cradle carved of cherry wood rocked in the wind. In it he saw his infant son Tad. He could hear gunfire in the forests that surrounded the glade where Zee knelt holding the dead boy. The woods were full of Confederate soldiers. He could hear the Rebels howling, their shrieks causing the tops of the trees to explode with blackbirds. Some strange, powerful jealousy rose in his chest at the sight of Zee holding the boy, at the way she kissed him as though she were his lover. The boy turned his head and looked at him, his gaze a mixture of sadness and pain.
Liddy Winslow was there, too—reclined on a quilt of soft yellow flowers. She called to him, held out her arms. Zee smiled, content to hold the broken child that changed from the dying boy to their son Tad. Without willing it, a force drew him toward Liddy and away from Zee and his son. He knew that he was betraying them, but he could not stop himself from going to Liddy. She was warm and sensuous and he lay down atop her, her arms reaching around, holding him tightly to her. She kissed his mouth over and over again and his passion was on fire for her. But then he turned just enough to see Zee. She was crying, the hurt pouring down her cheeks. She was asking him why he was doing this to her. Why was he being unfaithful to her? And shame overcame him, but he could not bring himself to leave Liddy.
Doc Holliday stepped from the trees dressed in Rebel gray, the sunlight shattering off the brass buttons of his tunic. His right hand was perched inside the gray coat. Cole could see the outline of a pistol against the fabric. His smile was craven as his hand slid from inside the jacket, bringing a pistol with it. Liddy, now naked in Cole’s arms, whispered things to him he could not understand. She clawed at him and thrust her hips against his, oblivious to Doc and the pistol he had pointed at them. Cole could not move, could not escape her or him or the Rebels who suddenly came pouring out of the woods from every direction, their heads bandaged and bleeding, their faces contorted in hatred and pain.
Zee’s long, slow wail of anguish rose from an open grave. He struggled to go to her, to set himself free from Liddy. As he struggled, Liddy became Rose, the girl on the stage, and she was frail against him and she was crying and asking him why he was doing this to her. Why was he hurting her in this way? Then Doc pulled the trigger and the sound shattered the dream.
Cole surfaced from the dream like a drowning man, struggling against the smothering grip of some dark, bottomless river. His lungs ached for wanting air and his heart pounded. He lay there for a long time, waiting for the effects of the dream to subside.
When the world righted itself in his mind again, he made it to the wash basin and pulled water over his face with both hands. His head ached from the wound. He was soaked in sweat; his skin felt hot, feverish. He wanted to crawl out of it. The room was dark, full of stillness, except for his breathing. He didn’t know what time it was. It felt like he was in a tomb. Someone knocked at the door. He didn’t move.
There was another knock.
He withdrew the self-cocker from the holster, then opened the door. He eased the hammer down on the pistol when he saw who it was.
“Miss Winslow.” At least, he thought he said her name. She looked at him.
“Can I come in?” she asked.
He stepped back. She saw the Remington in his hand. He replaced it in the gun belt and lighted the lamp. She stood there, looking about the room.
“What time is it?” he asked.
“Well past midnight,” she said.
“What’s wrong?”
“I couldn’t sleep,” she said.
The flame guttered in the lamp, its yellow tongue of light dancing back and forth as if it were alive, trying to escape its glass cage. The lamp was nearly empty of oil. She was dressed in the same clothes she had been wearing earlier, the cotton blouse and black skirt, only she was wearing a dark blue velvet jacket that was stitched with black beads across the front. Her hair was loose, cascading past her shoulders. Just to look at her took his breath away.
“I don’t have anything to offer you,” he said, looking around the room. “I don’t even have a bottle of whiskey or a glass to pour it in. You’ll have to excuse my accommodations.”
“I didn’t come for a drink,” she said, slipping into the room. She was close enough to him that he could smell her perfume. Then her hands were touching his bare forearms.
He hesitated, then kissed her. Her mouth was as warm and sweet as he had imagined it to be. His fingers weaved themselves into the smooth silkiness of her thick hair. His left arm encircled her waist and she slid her hands to his sides. Her kisses were passionate, full, and he felt his own passion rising out of places he had long forgotten existed.
It felt awkward, eager, but somehow they managed, without le
tting go of one another, to make it to the bed. His mind raced with questions as to what had changed her resolve from a few hours earlier until now. But they were questions he didn’t want to take time to ask. They didn’t seem important. He unbuttoned the jacket and removed it from her. Then he lifted the cotton blouse over her head and the warmth of her breasts pressed down against his chest. Her hair fell down into his face, a silken shroud, as she leaned over him.
“I don’t know why I’m doing this,” she said, her voice as thick as smoke.
“Let’s not talk.”
Her face closed on his again, her lips brushed the side of his cheek. She kissed the bruise there, and ran the tips of her fingers over his lips, then down across his chest, and down farther still. He shuddered from a deep, deep place. His hands caressed the smooth curve of her back, touched the swell of her hips. Then she stood, removed the skirt and the underskirt, and stood naked before him in the dying, dancing light. She seemed more than his eyes could take.
She knelt before him, took one of his hands into her own, brought it to the side of her face, held it there. Then she looked into his eyes and said: “Is this what you want?”
“Yes.”
He pretended not to see the small flicker of pain behind her eyes when he said yes. She held his gaze for a moment longer, then rose to the bed alongside him and kissed him again, a long, slow kiss that seemed to last forever.
On the bed she moved over on top of him with animal grace and at the same time reached down for him, touching him in a way that caused him to swallow the rush of pleasure it gave him. His hands floated upward, encircling her breasts. The pain from his injuries was numbed by her presence, by the sweet anguish of his passion for her. Her sweetness flowed over him and through him and he finally knew what it was like to stand at the edge of a cliff and jump off and fall freely through the waiting space.
* * * * *
Later, she lay silently in his arms, her breathing even, warm against his chest. Somewhere in the time since she had arrived, the lamp had burned itself out. The only light came from ghostliness of a full moon that crept through the window.