by Jane Toombs
Susie McSween immediately returned from Las Vegas and moved into a house she’d had built across the street from Ellis’. She invited Tessa and Jules to live with her again, but Tessa declined. Jules, who’d had screaming nightmares for weeks after the McSween house burned, had finally begun to sleep through the night. He was fond of Rosalita’s sister, calling her Tia Maria and Tessa feared another move might undo all the good.
Surely Mark and Ezra would be coming back any day now with the governor’s new proclamation in effect.
In early December Sheriff Peppin resigned. A few days later a tall young man walked into the schoolhouse as Tessa was dismissing her pupils for the afternoon.
She stared at him, for a moment not realizing who he was. Jules launched himself at the man.
“Ezra!” he cried.
Ezra picked up his brother, lifted him into the air and hugged him before setting him on his feet. Tessa ran to Ezra and threw her arms about him.
“You’re so tall I almost didn’t know you!” she exclaimed. “Oh, Ezra, it’s so good to see you. So good to have you back.”
“I didn’t expect to find you a schoolmarm,” he said.
I’m sorry I couldn’t come here any sooner, but until the new governor pardoned everyone, Peppin had warrants out for most of us.”
“You’ve all come back to Lincoln?”
Ezra hesitated. “Most of us have. Middleton and brown went home to Kansas. Skurlock and Bowdre live over at Sumner now, so they went there. But Billy’s here and lots of others you know.”
Something in Ezra’s voice made Tessa’s heart sink. He hadn’t mentioned Mark at all.
“Has something happened to Mark?” she asked. “Is he all right?”
“As far as I know, he’s fine.”
Ezra, with Jules clinging to his hand, seemed to waver and recede. Tessa felt weighted down with apprehension. “Where is Mark?. Her words sounded odd in her ears. A stranger’s voice.
“Well, the fact is, he left for St. Louis a month or so ago.
Tessa couldn’t speak. Left. Mark had left her.
“He told me to say goodbye to you.” Ezra blurted the words out.
She looked at the worn pine boards on the floor between Ezra and her and they blurred as tears burned in her eyes. She clenched her fists, trying to force the tears back. There’d been no promises. She’d expected too much.
Yet Mark’s touch, his embrace had made its own promise...
“I’m sorry if I’m interrupting a family reunion.” Calvin Rutledge drawled from the doorway, “but I just arrived from Santa Fe and couldn’t wait to see you, Tessa.” The Nesbitt’s all turned to stare at him.
Ezra held out his hand. “Glad to see you, sir,” he said, almost sounding as though he meant it.
“Why Calvin,” she heard herself say in that same stranger’s voice. “I’m delighted you’re back in town.”
As the days passed, Tessa soon found that Ezra hadn’t really returned to her. He wouldn’t stay in Maria’s house, preferring to bed down with Billy and O’Folliard wherever they decided to sleep. He spent most of his time with Billy.
“I’ve tried to talk to Ezra about staying away from the—the tendejons,” Tessa said to Calvin near Christmas when he came by to walk her home from school. “He’s too young to be in the company of such—such women.” She blushed scarlet as she spoke, afraid she was shocking Calvin. She knew ladies never mentioned women of the night—it wasn’t proper—but if she didn’t speak out, how could she enlist Calvin in her efforts to save Ezra?
“I fear you still see Ezra as a boy,” Calvin said. “I believe he sees himself as a man. He wants to do what men do.”
“What Billy does, you mean,” Tessa said. “I can’t utter one word against Billy to Ezra without angering him. I thought that perhaps you might speak to Ezra about--well, about women who…” she broke off, began again.
“I don’t know if my father ever talked to Ezra on such matters. It’s something that should come from a man, even if I could bring myself to…” She stopped once more.
“Ezra and I are not friendly,” Calvin said. “He won’t appreciate advice from me”
****
“Dance with Pablita,” Billy called to Ezra as he swung his own pretty partner about the tiny cantina dance floor.
Ezra shook his head, easing himself into the crowd as soon as Billy’s eyes were off him. He slipped out the back door and took a deep breath of the frosty air. There was several inches of crusted snow on the ground.
The girls in the cantina scared him--he might as well admit it. They excited him with their thrusting breasts and curving hips. But frightened him, too. He didn’t want to put his arms around them for fear he wouldn’t know how to act.
A noise to the left, in deep darkness, made Ezra flatten himself against the adobe wall and reach for his Colt.
“Quien es?” he asked. “Who is it?”
A girl’s light voice answered him. ‘‘Only I, senor.” She stepped into the light falling from a window and he relaxed. A child.
She moved closer to him and he saw she wasn’t as young as he’d thought; her smallness had misled him. She gazed up at him from wide brown eyes.
“I know you,” she said. “You ride with Billy.”
“My name’s Ezra Nesbitt. What’s yours?”
“I am called Violet Gabaldon.” Unlike most of the Mexican women, she spoke English with only a whisper of an accent. She smiled. “Why are you not dancing inside?”
He could see little of her figure since she clutched a voluminous shawl about her, but he could tell she was slight of build. Maybe about sixteen. She was very pretty, he decided, far prettier than the women inside. “We could dance out here,” he said, surprised by his own words. “In the snow?” Her nose wrinkled as she laughed.
“Why not?”
“Oh, let’s!” she cried, offering him her hand.
Her shawl fell back as he put an arm about her and he saw her curling hair was lighter than that of most Mexican girls.
Ezra didn’t think of himself as much of a dancer, but with Violet in his arms he spun and circled effortlessly. How light she was! With his hand on her waist he could feel her ribs under his fingers, as delicate as bird bones. He had a sudden longing to bring her to Tessa and ask his sister to take care of her.
He grinned at his foolishness. Violet had a father who seemed to look after her very well.
Except for tonight. But she was safe enough with him. He’d see her home after-- The sound of clapping hands made him stumble. Stop dancing. Release Violet.
Billy stood on the back stoop, applauding.
“No wonder you sneaked out,” Billy said as he approached Ezra. “You had the prettiest girl of all waiting for you.” He smiled at Violet.
Ezra’s heart was suddenly as heavy as lead as he saw how worshipfully Violet looked up into Billy’s face.
“I know you are el Chivato” she half-whispered. “Billy the Kid. Everyone talks of your bravery, how you saved the men in the burning house.”
“I don’t know you, Billy said, putting an arm about her waist, “but I plan to change that.
Let’s go inside”
Violet drew back. “I can’t. Papa wouldn’t--”
“Forget about Papa,” Billy said, urging her toward the door.
Violet pulled away from Billy. Clutching her shawl about her, she fled into the darkness without another word. Billy put his fists on his hips, staring after her.
“Didn’t mean to scare her off,” he said. “She’s as cute as a baby chick. What’s her name, Ez?”
“Violet Gabaldon,” Ezra said reluctantly.
“She your girl?”
Ezra wanted to say yes, but it would be a lie and one Billy was bound to uncover and laugh at him over.
“She’s not anyone’s girl,” he said. “Her father doesn’t let her go out.”
“But little Violet gets out anyway, eh?” Billy clapped Ezra on the back. “Well, I’m goin
g to see her again--you can bet on that!”
Ezra said nothing, there was nothing he could say. Billy was his friend, the best friend he’d ever had, and it was plain Violet liked Billy. She’d be pleased if Billy came calling.
But she was different from the other women Billy knew. It was like Violet was a baby chick, newly hatched and not aware of the dangers in the world. Ezra clenched his fists.
Chapter 11
Soon after the first of the year George Kimbrell was appointed sheriff.
Never aligned with either side, Kimbrell began serving all the outstanding warrants on both sides, on the Regulators and on Dolan’s men.
“The way I see it,” Billy told Ezra and O’Folliard, “we’re gonna have to sit down and talk peace with those bastards who work for Dolan. Can’t be fighting them and the law, too. My plan is to send a note to Jesse Evans, telling him we either want to make peace or fight it out once and for all, let him take his choice.”
On February eighteenth Evans, Dolan and Bill Campbell rode into Lincoln for a peace parley. Billy picked O’Folliard and Jose Salazar to go with him to the meeting,
“Hell,” Billy told Ezra, “if it was shooting we planned to do, you’d be with me. But I told you I mean to make peace if I can. Dolan knows Salazar, maybe even trusts him a little and old Tom didn’t really get mixed up in the war till the end, so they don’t have much of a grudge against him.”
Ezra nodded, trying not to show his hurt at not being included. “I understand. But don’t trust Evans and Dolan too far.”
Billy laughed. “You think you need to give me that advice?”
It was a bitterly cold night. Ezra, who’d planned to hang around outside the meeting house to wait for Billy, retreated after an hour, half-frozen. As he headed for Susie McSween’s, where he knew Tessa was visiting, he saw Houston Chapman, Susie’s one-armed lawyer from Las Vegas, coming out through the gate.
Ezra wasn’t sure whether he liked the lawyer or not. Susie thought Chapman’s feistiness and persistence would get Colonel Dudley removed from his command at Fort Stanton as well as recover the cattle from Tunstall’s estate that she felt belonged to her husband.
Maybe. All Ezra could tell so far was that Chapman had managed to insult pretty much everyone in the county. He wondered if that was the best way for a lawyer to go about his business. Colonel Dudley hated Chapman and Dudley still had the army behind him. A bad enemy to make. “Hello, Mr. Chapman,” Ezra said as he passed.
“Ezra.” Chapman nodded without breaking stride.
Ezra went on toward the house and had a foot on the step when he heard a whoop, then a burst of laughter. He turned.
The peace meeting was over, Ezra made out Billy, O’Folliard and Salazar in a crowd of Dolan men. Nine of them, including Dolan himself. He tensed, eased off the stoop and into the deeper darkness by a fence. What was happening?
Judging from the voices and the singing, it was a ground-hog case the group was drunk. Ezra watched them converge on Chapman. He saw Billy edge away from the group, saw Evans grab him from behind.
Damn!
Ezra dashed across the street and around the rear of two buildings, coming out at a lane into the road where Billy and the others stood. Keeping next to a corral fence, he edged as close as he could without being seen, stopped and eased his Colt from its holster.
“…just to show you’re as peaceable as all of us, you got to dance,” a man Ezra didn’t know said, his voice slurred by drink. His pistol was out and pointed at Chapman, who, like McSween never carried a gun of any kind. Ezra decided the man threatening Chapman must be Campbell because he recognized all of the others.
“I’ve no intention of dancing or of doing anything else for a damn drunken crowd,” Chapman retorted. “Am I speaking to Mr. Dolan?” he added.
Evans answered. “No, but you’re talking to a damn good friends of his.”
“I take it then that Mr. Dolan prefers to hide behind the guns of his good friends.” Chapman spoke tartly, seemingly not in the least afraid.
He sure got guts, Ezra thought, his gaze shifting from Chapman to Evans who still held Billy’s arms pinned. There was no way he could get a clear shot at Evans.
“I don’t hide behind anyone!” Dolan cried. He sounded as drunk as Campbell. “I resent that remark, sir!”
“You ain’t dancing, yet,” Campbell told Chapman. “I mean to see you dance.” he prodded him with the muzzle of his gun.
“You can’t scare me, boys,” Chapman said. “You’ve tried it before and it’s no use. Get out of my way, I’m going on.” He brushed aside Campbell’s pistol.
Two Colts roared. Ezra couldn’t be certain whether Dolan or Campbell fired first.
“My God, I’m killed!” Chapman cried, staggering back and falling onto his side.
Ezra saw Billy break away from Evans, giving him a dear shot at Evans now, but he hesitated, finger on the trigger. O’Folliard and Salazar joined Billy and the three of them darted up the lane toward Ezra. He lowered his pistol.
“It’s Ezra,” he said as they neared, careful not to move until he’d spoken.
The four of them hurried toward Patron’s house, one of the Regulator’s meeting places.
“Damn, there’s nothing like a shooting to sober you up,” O’Folliard said.
“We going to leave Chapman lying there?” Ezra asked.
“He’s as dead as they come. Nothing we can do for him,” Billy said.
Ezra knew Dolan’s men might make trouble if they went back, but it seemed wrong to leave the dead man in the street. Like they’d had to leave Brewer at the mill. For a moment dread raised the hair on his nape as the thought came to him—how many more of their men would die and be left behind?
“So the peace treaty didn’t work out?” he said finally.
“Oh, we made peace all right. Drank to being friends, which wasn’t such a good idea. It might still have gone okay if we hadn’t come on that one-armed lawyer. Poor bastard.” Billy touched the handle of his Colt. “Ain’t no peace anymore. One way or another, I’ll get Evans.”
In March, when Governor Wallace came to Lincoln, Billy had a secret meeting with him that only Ezra knew about. Billy didn’t tell him the details, but Ezra heard enough to know the warrants outstanding against Billy for the Brady and Roberts shootings would be withdrawn if Billy appeared before the grand jury in April with his account as an eyewitness, of the Chapman killing.
Billy and the governor plotted a fake arrest for Billy with the militia, under the captaincy of Billy’s friend, Juan Patron, acting as the arresting officers.
But something went wrong. Both Billy and O’Folliard were taken in by Patron, but then the sheriff’s deputy stepped in and threw them both into the miserable cellar jail in Lincoln. Instead of putting them under house arrest.
Wallace himself came to town to see to Billy’s release into the custody of Juan Patron.
Ezra joined the welcoming crowd of Regulators waiting for Billy at Patron’s store. “I been in that jail twice now and that’s enough, Billy said. It ain’t fit for a dog.” “They still have you handcuffed,” Ezra said.
Billy grinned, wiggled his right hand back and forth, and a moment later held up the hand, free of the cuff. He slid it back into the handcuff with equal ease.
“One reward for having big wrists and small hands,” he said
While Billy was waiting under house arrest at Patron’s, Ezra decided to seek out Violet Gabaldon, who’d been on his mind since the night they met. He rode out to the Gabaldon ranch across the river from town.
Her father, Vincente, at first refused to let Ezra see his daughter.
“I’ll bring my sister with me if that would help,” Ezra told him. “My sister is the school. She--”
“Ah, Senorita Nesbitt,” Vincente said “I know her. She lives now in Maria Zamora’s house, no?” “Yes, sir,”
Vincente eyed Ezra. “I hear you ride with el Chivato. With Billy the Kid.”
“H
e’s my friend, yes.”
“I have nothing against the young man. I admire his boldness, his courage. But, you understand, the life he leads, and you with him, is not suitable. Not at all suitable.”
“I understand, senor. But I only wish to speak to your daughter. Here, in your house, in the presence of my sister--what harm is there in that?”
Vincente half-smiled. “You do not believe such a request is the beginning of a courtship? I think it is. Still, I will permit one such visit, out of respect for your sister. Come tomorrow. It will be only the one time. No more.”
Ezra left the Gabaldon casa, where he’d had not had so much as a glimpse of Violet, and went straight to Tessa.
“Why, Ezra,” Tessa said, “I had no idea you were courting a girl.”
He flushed. “All I want to do is see her again, talk to her for a while. “It’s you and her father that mention courting, not me. I don’t aim to get married. A wife means a house and staying in one place. I don’t intend to be tied down, not ever.”
“I’ll go to Vincente Galbaldon’s house with you, if you wish,” Tessa said, “I think, though, if you’re not serious about Violet, you had better tell her so right away.”
“All this fuss over talking to a girl! What does Violet care whether I’m serious or not?
She’d probably rather Billy came to see her anyway.”
“Billy? What does he have to do with this girl?”
“Nothing. He thinks she’s pretty and she is, but he doesn’t know her any better than I do.”
By the next day, when Ezra and Tessa set off Gabaldon’s, she was full of information about the family.
“Violet’s mother died five years ago,” Tessa said. “She wasn’t Mexican. She came from Kansas. Maria hints there was something peculiar about her death. She was shot, supposedly by a young cowboy she surprised trying to steal a horse from their corral. Violet’s father killed the cowboy,’ “So?”
“Well from the way Maria tells the story, it’s plain there must have been talk about Violet’s mother and the cowboy before the killing. Vincente, I think, is suspected of killing the two of them when he found them together. Now there may not be a word of truth in this. He’s probably a perfectly innocent man. Since that time, though, he’s kept his daughter practically a prisoner in the house.”