The Lawman Takes a Wife

by Anne Avery

  What if, what if, what if. There were so many things that could go wrong and so little she could do to stop them if they did. And, oh! how much easier it would be if only there was someone to share the worries and responsibilities with her, someone on whom she could depend, no matter what.

  Molly drew her shawl closer about her shoulders, shivering a little in the cool night air. She didn’t usually waste time thinking about such things, but tonight, somehow, she couldn’t stop.

  When she reached Main Street, rather than crossing it as she usually did, then walking down Elm Street to get home, she turned to the right. She’d pass the store on the way.

  And the jail, a small voice inside her said.

  She stifled the voice and kept walking.

  This time of night, even Main Street was quiet, the buildings dark except at either end of the street where Elk City’s three saloons were lighted and open for business.

  A burst of masculine laughter coming from somewhere ahead of her made her stop. When the jail door opened, spilling the faint light of an oil lamp across the walk, she muttered a word she would have washed Dickie’s mouth out for using and shrank into the shadowed doorway of Dincler’s Barbershop.

  A moment later, half a dozen men stepped out, laughing and joking among themselves. They clumped off the boardwalk and into the street, clustered like reluctant partygoers leaving the fun.

  “You take good care of your guest, now, Sheriff, you hear?” one of the men called.

  “Don’t let his snoring keep you up!”

  The attempt at humor brought more laughter from the men, but not a word from the sheriff. He stood, a silent presence in the faint wash of lamplight, watching them, neither friendly nor distant. Simply…there.

  The laughter died. A couple of the men shuffled their feet.

  “You did good, Gavin,” someone said at last. “Just want you to know that. You did good.”

  The others murmured agreement. They would, she knew, have been more comfortable if the sheriff had laughed or joked right back at them, or made one of those vulgar comments men were prone to when they thought ladies weren’t present.

  One among them broke the spell by clapping a companion on the back.

  “Come on, boys. The night’s still young. Wouldn’t want to upset the missus by comin’ home too soon, now, would we?”

  To Molly’s relief, they headed away from her, down toward the other end of town and the two saloons whose lights shone in the distance. She hadn’t worried that any of them would bother her if they did discover her huddling in the shadows, but men were as gossipy as women, no matter how much they denied it. The last thing she needed was word going round that she’d been hiding in the shadows outside the jail at an hour when a sensible woman would have been home and in bed.

  To her dismay, the sheriff lingered in the open doorway.

  He propped his shoulder against the frame, crossed his arms over his chest, and tilted his head to stare at the star-swept sky. The light behind him outlined the broad shoulders, deep chest and long, powerful legs, but left his face in shadow.

  Why didn’t he just go in?

  Why didn’t she just walk past? a mocking little voice inside her head demanded. A polite nod, a friendly greeting. Good evening, maybe. Or maybe just, Sheriff. And he’d say, Ma’am, or, Evening, and that would be it.

  And if he did say something, she’d just explain that she’d been startled by the men suddenly emerging onto the street, which would be true. He’d nod, and maybe he’d apologize for having startled her, and then she’d say she had to get home, and he’d say, Of course, and maybe, Good night, and then maybe he’d go in and shut the door and forget all about it. Forget all about her.

  Her stomach twisted, just at the thought.

  Molly peeped out of her hiding place. The man hadn’t moved an inch.

  He made a compelling figure standing there, his big, powerful body cast half in golden lamplight, half in shadow. She still couldn’t see his face, but she remembered with disconcerting clarity the strong lines of cheek and jaw, the piercing clarity of those blue-gray eyes that seemed to take in everything at a glance.

  From the look of him, he might have been a thousand miles away.

  Was he thinking of his wife? she wondered. Or of another woman, perhaps? A woman he’d loved so much that his wife had chosen to divorce him rather than live with the constant reminder that he had set another before her?

  It had to have been another woman. She’d scarcely met the man, but she couldn’t imagine anything else he might have done that would have driven a woman to the scandal of divorcing him.

  Yet if he’d loved another, why hadn’t he remarried the instant he was free of his first marriage?

  Whatever it was that haunted him, he evidently found no solace in those cold, distant stars for he straightened suddenly and, without a glance to either side, turned and stepped into the building. An instant later, the door clapped shut behind him, throwing the street back into darkness.

  Molly sank into her own shadows, heart pounding, fighting against a sudden urge to knock on the door and ask if she could help, if there weren’t something she could do to fill his yearning silence.

  The thought was utter madness.

  She forced herself to wait a minute, then two, to be sure he wouldn’t return. When she could stand the wait no longer, she tugged her shawl more closely about her and hurried across the street, turned toward home and walked as fast as her feet could carry her.

  Witt picked up the oil lamp he’d left on his desk and carried it back to the single, windowless cell that served as Elk City’s jail. His first guest was a great deal too large for the lumpy, metal-framed bed. Crazy Mike’s big feet, still clad in their heavy miner’s boots—no one had been the least inclined to make him more comfortable by removing them—stuck out over the end by a good eight inches. His head was propped at the other end with only the single thin pillow to cushion the steel frame.

  He looked like hell, but his broken nose had stopped bleeding long ago. One of his friends, an unprepossessing gentleman rejoicing in the name of Gimpy Joe, had washed off the worst of the blood, but that was as far as anyone had been willing to go.

  Mike hadn’t roused to any of it. Having at last yielded to the influence of all the whiskey he’d consumed at Jackson’s, he’d gone from a faint to a dead sleep from which the angels would have a hard time rousing him before he’d slept it off.

  Witt made sure the cell’s chamber pot was within Mike’s reach if he did wake up, checked the lock on the cell door one last time, then retreated to his own small room beside the cell. The only real differences between the two spaces were that the walls of his room were painted wood, not raw metal bars, and he had a window and a door that wasn’t anywhere near thick enough to shut out the sound of Mike’s snoring.

  Eventually, he’d have to find a proper place to live, but for right now, this would serve. So long as he didn’t end up with too many guests like Crazy Mike, that is.

  Slowly, he undressed. Hat, vest, gun belt he hung from nails driven into the wall beside the bed. His boots, side by side, claimed the floor at the foot. With every movement, the soft rustle of the paper bag in his shirt pocket reminded him that there were other things in life besides barren rooms and drunken miners.

  Slowly, he pulled the small bag of chocolates out, then set it on the rickety table beside his bed. In the lamplight, he could see the stains where the oil of the chocolate had seeped through the paper.

  He’d already eaten three of them, and with every slight rustle of the paper, with ever sweet bite of the chocolate, he’d found himself thinking of Mrs. Calhan.

  She’d laughed at him, there in the store. He’d felt it, even though she’d clearly taken pains to cover her amusement beneath that sweet, friendly smile of hers.

  The thought made him droop. He did that to women, made them laugh. A big man like him, clumsy and hulking and likely as not to get his tongue tangled around every other
word, at least when pretty women like Mrs. Calhan were around. He’d often wondered why Clara had married him, knowing how she liked everything around her to be just so. But, then, they’d grown up together and she hadn’t had much to choose from, so maybe he’d just been the best of a bad lot.

  The thought never brought much comfort, but it was better than admitting she had used him until she had a better offer, then discarded him as easily as she’d have tossed out an old shoe.

  Strange how he never felt a fool when he was with men. Not that he’d ever been what you could call talkative, but at least he didn’t mumble and stumble, and God forbid, turn red at every other word. Not when he was with men.

  And not when he was around children, either. He liked children and he usually found, once they’d gotten over their dismay at his sheer size, that they liked him and were comfortable around him. Kids never expected much of a man except that he be a man. But a woman, now…

  Witt frowned, then picked up the bag of chocolates, turning it in his hands, remembering.

  Women like Clara—pretty, marriageable women—seemed to think a man should have a tongue that worked slick as silk and always had just the right words on the tip of it. His tongue had never worked that way and he didn’t expect it ever would.

  He knew he’d made a fool of himself in Calhan’s this afternoon.

  He’d been staring at Mrs. Calhan and thinking how smooth her skin looked, and how pretty her hair was—brown like a thrush’s wing, with a dozen colors all mixed in so subtly that you couldn’t really say it was brown, but you couldn’t say exactly what it was, either. Maybe if he saw it in the sun, free of that neat little twist she kept it in—

  Witt bit his lower lip, cutting off the thought, and gently set the bag of chocolates back.

  The thought of that drift of hair on her cheek and nape had plagued him something fierce. Even as he’d gone about his business, introducing himself to the businessfolk up and down Main Street and getting the lay of the land, he’d been thinking about those wayward strands of hair and how soft they’d feel, brushing against his fingers.

  The thought of Gordon Hancock’s fingers sifting through her unbound hair had been enough to make him grind his teeth.

  But there was no sense thinking thoughts like that. It wasn’t right, and all it would do would be to lead him into trouble.

  It was only with Clara that he’d ever gotten up the courage to go courting, and that because he’d known her all his life, and she’d been pretty and willing, especially once he’d inherited his father’s house and his father’s savings. But once she’d seen what married life was like with a clumsy brute like him, she’d started looking around for something better.

  There were times when that made him angry, but mostly it just made him ashamed that he hadn’t been able to keep her happy, that he hadn’t pleased her as a man was supposed to please a woman.

  She’d certainly never taken any pleasure from his lovemaking, no matter how careful he’d been to make things comfortable for her, to not put his weight on her or drive into her too hard. At times he’d ached to let go and simply enjoy what everyone else seemed to find a pretty straightforward and simple act, but he never had.

  He could remember her lying beneath him on the bed, staring up at nothing while he’d tried to rouse some feeling in her. He’d tried kissing her, but he wasn’t much of a kisser—Clara had taken pains to tell him so, not long after they were married—and even as he’d shuddered with pleasure at the feel of her soft skin, at the warmth of it beneath his lips, he’d cringed at how she’d turned away, or sighed, or, worse, gritted her teeth and forced herself to kiss him back.

  He’d loved her breasts, so heavy, full and soft, so white beneath his sun-browned hand. She didn’t often let him touch them—she said his hands were too rough and callused. She’d never let him kiss her there. He’d never tried, though sometimes just the thought of them had been enough to make him sweat and ache with yearning.

  Always when he’d finished, she’d rolled away from him and gotten out of bed to wash herself as if his touch had dirtied her. And always he’d lain there listening to the sounds of her bathing, burning with his shame and his need and his hunger. He’d never touched her afterward, but while she slept he’d often lain awake for hours, listening to her breathe and wondering, if he just took her and used her as his blood urged him to, would she cry out then in pleasure and delight?

  It had to be him, some lack within himself that made him incapable of pleasing her.

  Oh, he’d heard the tales that women didn’t much care for such things, but he knew there were decent women who loved their husbands and took as much pleasure from the marriage bed as did their men. His own father had told him once that if he was kind and took the time to please his wife before he took his own pleasure, that she’d respond by giving him back more than he could imagine.

  But then, his father and mother had loved each other, while Clara—Well, if she’d ever loved him, his own oafish need had killed it, and driven her to another.

  Samuel Kroshak had been the kind of man he’d never be. Sleek and gentlemanly, well dressed and of a size to fit in a lady’s parlor without making the chairs creak or the floorboards groan. Kroshak hadn’t looked like an outsize fool if he picked up one of the fine china teacups that Clara had taken such pride in and he’d known about the theater and dining out and just what to say to a lady to make her laugh.

  Clara had met the man at a dance. Witt had been on duty and hadn’t much wanted to go anyway, knowing he’d make a fool of himself lumbering around the dance floor and stepping on her toes as he always did. So Clara had gone alone and had danced the waltz with the handsome stranger who was visiting with friends in town. She’d discovered that folks sat up and noticed when she whirled around the floor on Samuel Kroshak’s arm instead of laughing and taking bets on how long her toes would last, as they did whenever Witt reluctantly led her out.

  Kroshak had come visiting the day afterward, then the day after that. Witt blamed himself. He’d been such a blind fool that he hadn’t seen what either of them were about until it was far too late to stop it.

  He remembered clearly the day Clara had told him she wanted a divorce, that she didn’t care what it took but she wanted out, wanted to be done with him. Her demand had shamed him, but it hadn’t surprised him. Not by then. He’d agreed to take the blame, even agreed to perjure himself and say he was the adulterer, not her. He’d thought of it as payment due for all his other failings as a husband and a lover.

  In the five years since, he’d occasionally considered the possibility of remarrying—assuming he could find a decent woman who wouldn’t expect too much of him, that is—but the thought of such a cold union had chilled him to the bone. Occasionally he’d taken comfort with a whore, but it had been shallow comfort, and fleeting, and he’d paid far more for it in guilt and shame than he’d ever paid in gold.

  Now here he was, little more than a day in town and already having troubling thoughts about a woman who’d been kind to him. A decent widow woman with children to raise and a reputation to protect.

  Witt eyed the small, crumpled paper bag on the side table, remembering Mrs. Calhan and the way she’d looked when he’d opened his eyes after tasting that first chocolate. As if she were going to laugh, not at him, but with him. As if she understood exactly how he felt with that sweet chocolate melting on his tongue, spilling all that gooey filling. Like he’d been given a taste of paradise, right there in the middle of Calhan’s General Store.

  The memory alone was enough to start him wanting.

  With a curse, Witt roughly turned down the lamp until the flame winked out, plunging the room into darkness.

  Chapter Five

  “An’ then he grabbed the gun, an’ you all know just how crazy ol’ Crazy Mike can be! Mike tried to shoot ’im again, but that didn’t scare him none. Nosirree! Mike got off a half dozen shots, mebbe more, but the sheriff, he just went a’wadin’ in there an’ grab
bed that gun, an’ then he clobbered ol’ Mike. Wham! Straight to the jaw!”

  Tom Seiffert, at twelve the envy of all his peers because he swept out Jackson’s saloon, a known den of vice and depravity, was holding court in the alley behind Dincler’s Barbershop.

  Dickie, relegated to the far edge of the circle because he was the smallest and youngest, tried to squeeze between two of the older boys so he’d be close enough not to miss a word Tom said.

  “But then ol’ Mike, he got up, mad as a gut-shot bear, a’roarin’ an’ a’ragin’, an’ he goes at the sheriff again.”

  “What’d the sheriff do?”

  “What’d he do?” Tom looked around his crowd of awe-struck admirers, clearly relishing the attention. “Why, the sheriff hit’im again, that’s what he did. Pow!

  Right to the chin. Laid ol’ Mike out flat on the floor, just like that!”

  “Oooh!”

  “He really flattened Crazy Mike?”

  Tom nodded. “Flatter’n a mackerel!”

  Seven boys’ eyes went wide with awe and envy that one of their number should have witnessed such a memorably heroic deed.

  “Ain’t nobody ever done that before,” said one, looking around him as if for confirmation. “Leastwise, not that I ever heard of!”

  “An’ you got to see it all?”

  “Yup.” Tom’s skinny chest expanded with the sweet air breathed by those who held their audience in the palm of their hand. “Saw every single bit of it, first to last.”

  Dickie forgot that, as the littlest, he was supposed to keep his mouth shut. “And Crazy Mike really shot at the sheriff?”

  Tom’s head bobbed. “Yup. That first shot just missed the sheriff by a hair. An’ the second went whistlin’ right by me!”

  “Weren’t you scairt?”

  As one, seven boys swayed forward to hear the answer. Dickie almost stopped breathing.

  “Scairt? Me!” Tom grinned. “Heck, yes, I was scairt! What d’yuh think? I ain’t never had no one shootin’ at me before. I ducked under the nearest table so fast you’d’uv thought I was a jackrabbit.”