“They hang,” Stick volunteered with wide eyes.
“Shut up, Stick,” Levander warned, his shoulders hunched up to his neck in frustration“Of course, you boys can always clear out now and cut your losses,” Kerrigan said. He touched the brim of his hat and said, “Be seeing you, boys.”
As he rode away Kerrigan had a picture in his mind of the five members of Levander's gang hunkered around the front of the house, some standing, some squatting, some sitting. He pictured them around that branding fire the night he was ambushed and tried to figure who had been standing, who had been squatting. He felt a sudden chill as he realized he had seen all five of them around the fire.
So who had snuck up behind him with the shotgun?
As Kerrigan disappeared over a rise, Stick turned to Levander and said, “The Boss ain't gonna like it that we can't rustle cattle no more.”
“Shut up, Stick,” Levander said. “Once the Boss hears what's goin' on, he'll take care of Kerrigan once and for all. But I ain't gonna stick around here waitin' on him. We're clearin' outta here now.”
“C-c-c-can I bring my kitties?” Bud asked.
“There's no room for 'em where we're goin'.”
“Where we goin'?” Stick asked.
“Somewhere Kerrigan can't find us if he comes lookin' again,” Levander said.
Felton Reeves rode into Canyon Creek along the back alleys, the same as he always did, until he got to the Black Horse Saloon. He used the fire escape to get to the second floor and walked down the hall to the second door on the right. The room was empty, but it smelled just like Darcie, of too-strong perfume. Everything in the room reeked of too much: too many flounces on the bedspread, too many bows on the curtains, too many too-bright colors, and too many pieces of furniture crowded into the tiny room. Everything in the room said its owner was trying too hard to make up for a past that had contained too little.
Maybe that was why he felt both drawn and repelled by the place, as he was both drawn and repelled by its owner, Darcie Morton. Felton knew too well what Darcie was feeling, because he'd had the same feelings himself. That was why the money was so important. He was going to have everything he had never had. But he didn't want to be like Darcie and spend his money so people would know he hadn't always had it. That was why he had chosen to court Miss Devlin. She had taste and style. She would make a home for him that wouldn't shout to the heavens, “This here place belongs to a poor man what struck it rich.”
He took off his hat and sat down on the edge of the too-soft bed and pulled off his boots. Then he lay back with his hands behind his head and waited. Darcie would be finished downstairs by midnight. Then she would come to him. He needed to feel her arms around him, needed the chance to talk to her. She understood what he was trying to do. In fact, she was the one who had encouraged him to try to better himself. That was why he felt so bad about leaving her behind so he could marry Miss Devlin. He had tried to tell Darcie about his decision, but he knew it would hurt her, so he had kept quiet.
His conscience had been bothering him lately, though not just about this. While he couldn't relieve himself of the other burdens, he could certainly do something about this one. He had made up his mind as he rode to Canyon Creek that he was going to tell Darcie tonight he wouldn't be coming to see her anymore. He would soon have all the money he needed to buy his ranch, and once he did that, he would be marrying the schoolteacher in Sweetwater, Miss Eden Devlin. And once he was a married man, he couldn't be coming to visit a whore in Canyon Creek.
He was nearly asleep when the door opened and a stream of light from the hall silhouetted Darcie. She was dressed in a shiny satin dress, cut both too low and too short for decency, and had a too-large red feather stuck in her hair. She must have seen him lying there, because she tiptoed in and lit the lantern beside the bed. That illuminated a too-large smile that he knew was because she loved him too much for her own damn good.
Lately, Felton had been fighting the good feelings that rose inside him when he saw her, hoping that if he concentrated on all the things that were wrong with Darcie Morton, he wouldn't feel so bad about leaving her. But there was a thick feeling in his throat, and a heavy feeling in his chest when he looked at her smiling down at him with her green eyes too full of caring.
Nope, she sure wasn't anything like Miss Devlin. In the first place, she didn't come no more than about shoulder-high on him. She had a tiny bosom (which she had cried over because a big one would have meant better tips), which in his opinion she more than made up for with nice wide hips and well-shaped legs. She had tiny feet, which he knew because he had rubbed them for her sometimes when she had been standing too long.
“H'lo sweetheart,” she murmured, sitting down beside him on the bed.
“You look tired. You shouldn't work so hard,” he said.
She turned around and he automatically began to help her out of the shiny dress. It was a ritual he had been through dozens of times with her, but it never failed to thrill him when he touched the sleek skin of her shoulders, and ran his hands down her back to her narrow waist. She always made a big production of removing her garters and stockings, and it always left him wanting her with his heart pounding so hard he couldn't hear himself think.
But not tonight. He wasn't going to let that happen tonight. He had bad news to give, and he didn't want it to hurt her any more than he could help. But he figured it probably wouldn't matter if he waited until she changed into her silk Chinese robe and got comfortable first.
When she was lying beside him enfolded in his arms, somehow the words wouldn't come. He kissed her once, feeling sorry that she wasn't ever going to have more than this too-small room, and too little attention from men who cared too little about whether she was happy or not.
“What's wrong?” she said, playing with the frayed collar of his shirt. “You're awful quiet tonight. Didst trip pay off like you thought it would?”
“Yeah.”
“And you got the money put in the bank right and tight?”
“Yeah.”
She snuggled closer and he could feel her belly against his groin beneath his Levi's, and her small, pointy breasts poking through his shirt against his chest. It felt too damn good! He pushed her away abruptly and sat up, brushing his fingers through his hair.
“What's wrong?”
This time he heard the worry in her voice, and he felt awful knowing what he was about to say. “Nothing's wrong,” he lied.
He hadn't fooled her, because she left the bed and came around to kneel on the floor in front of him. She took his hands in hers and looked up at him. “You can tell me, Felton. Whatever it is, I want to help.”
She wasn't making this any easier. He took her hands and used them to get her to stand up. Then he lifted her into his lap and held her there. Her hands sneaked up around his neck and she started playing with the hair that hung over his collar, and his ears, and pretty soon he had to kiss her to get her to stop.
One thing led to another and pretty soon she had his shirt open and was sucking on one of his nipples. It was his own groan of pleasure that brought him back to his senses. He stood up and she fell off his lap and the only reason she didn't end up on the floor was because she had a good grip on his hair.
“Ouch!”
She let go, but by now she was getting mad. “What's wrong with you?” she demanded, the shape of her mouth, her eyes, even her eyebrows all announcing her confusion.
“Noth—”
“Don't tell me nothing, Felton Reeves. Because something sure as hell is the matter with you tonight! Now spit it out.”
He forked his fingers through his tousled hair and said, “I gotta talk to you.”
She gave him an exasperated look. “So talk.”
“Maybe you better sit dow
n,” he said.
“Get on with it!”
“I've been courting a woman in Sweetwater and I'm going to marry her,” Felton blurted.
Darcie turned completely white, and he really thought for a moment she was going to faint. He got her to sit down on the bed and pushed her head down between her knees. “Take a deep breath,” he said
She fought the hand he was using to hold her head down, and when he let go and she came up, he wasn't sure whether it was all that blood that had rushed down into her head or just plain fury that had her so red in the face. That wasn't so bad. What really worried him was that her eyes were kind of watery, and she had her jaw clamped tight, like maybe she was trying not to cry. He didn't know what he was going to do if she cried.
“Do you love her?”
That question surprised Felton, and before he could think of the right answer under the circumstances he said, “Of course not!”
“Then why are you marryin' her?”
That question put him in deep trouble. But he figured after everything he had been through with Darcie he owed her an honest answer. “Because I'm starting a new kind of life in Sweetwater, and I want a respectable wife to help me fit in.”
“Did you ever think maybe I hoped someday to start over too?”
He shrugged. “I never thought about it much.” And that was the truth. But maybe he should have. “You can still do it,” he said.
“Not without you,” she said flatly. Then she sighed and slumped onto the foot of the bed. “I guess I was just kiddin' myself.” She looked up into his eyes and he felt his stomach sink clear to his knees. “I was hopin' . . . I kept thinkin' all this time . . . that you were puttin' that money away for us . . . that you were plannin' to take me away from all this. . . .” She gestured around the too-littered room, with fingers wearing too many rings. “That was pretty stupid, huh?”
She rose and walked over to the dressing table, sat down in front of the mirror, and began to take out the pins that held her coal-black hair in a mass of too many curls. “I want to be respectable too,” she said. “I was hopin' that in Sweetwater, with us legally married and all, I could start over and be somethin' . . . I don't know . . . maybe better than what I am.”
She turned and tried to catch his eyes again, but he kept them on the floor. “I know how you feel about this place, about how I dress and such like, and I made up my mind that when you proposed and I had that new chance, I'd change. I'd be more . . . better . . . than I am now. But I see that was just some fairy tale I was makin' up for myself.”
She smiled faintly. “I can't hardly blame you for grabbin' at a chance for what I've always wanted myself, can I? But I think you better leave now, Felton. And I don't think you better come back here anymore.”
“Darcie, I—”
“Unless you're goin' to tell me you've changed your mind, I don't want to hear it,” she said in a voice that waver
He grabbed his hat, buttoned his shirt, and stomped his feet down into his boots, not stopping until he had the door open and was halfway out. The hell of it was, after hearing what she had to say, he was damn close to saying he had changed his mind. But out of the corner of his eye he saw a garish stack of ostrich-feather headdresses that no decent lady would be seen dead wearing. If he took Darcie with him, it would mean bringing the past along. He wanted a clean break. A new life. She had said she didn't blame him. And he would have to be satisfied with that.
“Good-bye, Darcie.”
“Good-bye, Felton,” she said. “I hope you have a grand new life.”
As Felton rode west toward Sweetwater he had a lot on his mind. He had done what he had set out to do. With Kerrigan so suspicious of how he made his money, it was best he put Darcie Morton behind him. He supposed it was excitement over his “grand new life” that had him feeling so sick to his stomach. He had no explanation at all for the lump that stayed in his throat the whole damn way home.
Chapter 15
A man's eyes will tell you what
his mouth is a'feared to say.
KERRIGAN FACED THE ROOMFUL OF RANCHERS IN OAK Westbrook's study and admitted, “I don't have proof that'll stand up in court, but I have a pretty good idea who's stealing your cattle.”
“Is it nesters?” Oak demanded.
Kerrigan took off his hat and rolled the brim in his hands. His lips twisted wryly. “Well, yes and no.”
“What kind of answer is that?”
“Not the one you wanted, I'm sure,” Kerrigan said. “But that's all I'm willing to say right now, except you won't be losing any more steers.”
“Give us some names and we'll go string up the varmints,” one of the ranchers said.
“When I have the proof I need, I'll bring them in and turn them over to the law,” Kerrigan said.
“Sheeeit,” Cyrus muttered. “What do we do now? I can't stand any more waiting. My wife is driving me nuts!” He scratched the bald spot on top of his head. “I don't like bringing this up, but I gotta ask, Kerrigan. You had any luck seducing that Miss Devlin?”
Kerrigan was struck dumb for a moment. If he said the word, he would have his thousand dollars and the ranchers would very likely have the lever they needed to end the sexual boycott Miss Devlin had instigated. But he found even the mention of Eden's name in such a conte distasteful that it was all he could do not to grab Cyrus by the throat and throttle him.
There was no way Kerrigan could voice his change of heart about seducing Miss Devlin without the need for explanations he would rather not make right now. And it could do Eden no good for him to lose his temper with Cyrus. When he opened his mouth, all that came out was a curt, “I'm making some progress.”
“You got a pretty good idea who the rustlers are,” Cyrus mimicked. “And you're makin' some progress with Miss Devlin. But that don't solve my problem. I want my wife back now!”
“I have a suggestion about that,” Kerrigan said.
Suddenly he had the full attention of every man in the room.
“Oh, yeah?” Cyrus asked suspiciously. “This better not be some maybe it'll work kind of idea, Kerrigan, because this is one time when all I want to see is results.”
“You'll get them,” Kerrigan promised. “But it means talking with the nesters.”
In an instant Oak was on his feet and nose to nose with the gunslinger. “What the hell is this all about? If we'd wanted to talk to those no-good, sodbusting yokels we could've done it six months ago. We're paying you good money to—”
“You're paying me to make sure you don't lose any more cattle,” Kerrigan said in a dangerously quiet voice. “And I'm doing my job. But you have some other matters that need to get settled. As I understand it, the nesters have claimed all along that they weren't the ones rustling your cattle. They were telling the truth.” He paused to let that sink in and continued, “Did you ever stop to wonder who might be ruining the nesters' crops and cutting their fences if you weren't doing it? Or why?”
Kerrigan let them stew on that for a while.
“I suppose you have an idea who the culprits might be,” Oak said.
“The same gang who's responsible for the rustling,” Kerrigan answered promptly.
“That don't make no sense,” one of the ranchers said.
“Sure it does,” Kerrigan contradicted. “When did the nesters first start fencing off water?”
“Must've been about nine months ago, in the spring,” Oak figured.
“What reason did they give?” Kerrigan queried.
“They claimed they were retaliating for us cutting their fences and running our cattle on their land,” Oak said, a note of wonder in his voice as he realized what he was saying.
“And when did the rustling s
tart?” Kerrigan asked, once again tracing the history of unrest in Sweetwater.
“Right after that, I guess.”
“You all say you didn't cut any fences, or burn any homes. They all claim they didn't rustle any cattle, or shoot your son. And it seems nobody on either side killed Pete Eustes. So that leaves some third party doing all kinds of mischief,” Kerrigan concluded. “And keeping both sides suspicious of each other so no questions get asked or answered.”
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