by Pam Crooks
“Oh, Jeb.” She raked a trembling hand through her hair.
The pain and anguish in those two words tore at him. A sharp need to take her into his arms burst inside him, but before he could move to satisfy it, the door flung open.
“Here are the things you asked for,” Margarete said, strolling in with a bowl of steaming towels hooked in her arm. “You want anything else?”
“Yes,” Jeb growled. “Privacy.”
She set the bowl down with a thunk. “You can stay here as long as you want, I guess. Pa’s got things for me to do, so I won’t be in here for a spell anyway.”
“Thank you,” Elena said.
Margarete left and Elena waited, obviously expecting Jeb to follow her out.
“I’ll be in the store if you need me,” he said.
She didn’t look like she needed him at all, not for whatever she had to do to ease her discomfort, and certainly not now that she’d gotten a hold on her feelings.
“I won’t be long,” she said.
He pulled the door closed behind him and found Margarete tending to a shelf of untidy fabric bolts.
“Check on her now and again,” Jeb ordered. “See that she’s all right.”
The girl glanced at him, then at the curtain. He suspected she thought Jeb could check on Elena himself, but she shrugged. “Sure.”
Two men were sitting around a barrel. Whiskey, if the spigot was an indication, and since he had a few minutes to kill, Jeb headed over to join them.
One of the men dozed in his chair, chubby legs stretched out with ankles crossed. A glass of the amber liquid perched on his portly belly. He sported a snarled beard that fanned over his chest, and as dusty and disheveled as his clothes were, Jeb decided the old geezer had been planted in his seat and taken root.
A second man sat next to him, this one as tense as the first one was relaxed. He looked Apache, but wore American clothes. Ex-military, Jeb noted. Army blue, with the trimming long since torn off. He glanced up at Jeb’s approach.
“Mind if I have a drink?” Jeb asked.
The Apache shrugged. “Grog’s free for the taking.”
“Generous of the owner,” he said, just to make conversation.
The man grunted. A tin cup hung from a hook on the barrel. Jeb filled it halfway; he took a swallow and felt the familiar burn down his throat.
A small window rimmed with dirt provided a view of the street. Wagons drove by. Buggies and horses. People strolled on the boardwalk. As far as he could tell, it was business as usual in Carrizo Springs.
Jeb needed to find out if de la Vega had passed through this morning or last night. He took another swig of whiskey and scanned the store. Several customers remained, but one woman took up the storekeeper’s time—and patience. She appeared fussy, undecided on a leather belt she planned to buy. The Apache watched them, the tension in him palpable.
Jeb wondered at it. “You from around these parts?”
“Just traveling through.”
“Makes two of us.” The Apache wouldn’t have been in town long enough to know if the revolutionaries had stopped in, then. “What brings you here?”
“Business.” A stream of tobacco juice landed in a pan of ashes at his feet.
Jeb sipped again. The Indian didn’t look prosperous or trustworthy. But hell, he could trade with the devil for all Jeb cared.
“Will that be everything, Mrs. Pennicutt?” the storekeeper asked. The array of belts they’d been looking at landed in a box he hurriedly shoved back onto a shelf.
“Yes, thank you, Henry. Norbert will look quite the dandy on his birthday.”
“Margarete!” the storekeeper snapped, striding back to the counter. “See to Mrs. Pennicutt. There’s something I got to do.”
“Yes, Pa.” She abandoned the fabric bolts and dawdled her way to the counter. Mrs. Pennicutt rooted in her purse for payment.
The Apache’s eyes met Henry’s. Without a word or a glance in anyone else’s direction, he rose and left the store. Henry riffled through a drawer, removed a key and left the same way.
“Humph. Them two’s up to no good,” the old man muttered, one eye squinted open, as if he’d been peeping at them all along.
“That so?” Vaguely curious, Jeb stepped to the window but couldn’t see anything. “Why do you say that?”
“The Injun comes through every now and again. Hauls somethin’ he don’t want no one to see.” Mrs. Pennicutt left, her purchase wrapped and clutched to her bosom. “My name’s Roy Marsh, in case you’re interested.”
“Roy,” Jeb said with a curt nod and declined to give his own. “A store like this, the owner would do business with lots of different suppliers,” he said. “Could be the Apache is a dealer of some sort.”
“He’s a dealer all right.”
The disgust in Roy’s tone challenged Jeb’s curiosity further, but he shrugged it off. How the storekeeper stocked his inventory—and with what—had nothing to do with him. Or Elena.
Another time, another place, he might have pursued the oddity to get the answers he wanted. But not today. And considering his intention to move to California as soon as he could, not ever again.
The store had emptied of customers. Margarete meandered back to the dry-goods section. Jeb gestured to her to check on Elena instead and, with a roll of her eyes, the girl complied.
“Don’t believe me, do you, boy?” Roy demanded. He straightened in his chair with great effort, reached toward the barrel’s spigot and topped off his glass.
“Doesn’t matter to me one way or the other.”
“I’m in this store every dang day. I see what comes in. What goes out. And who. I’m tellin’ you, what he’s buyin’ from that Injun ain’t on any of these shelves.”
Jeb threw back the last of the whiskey, returned the cup to its hook and wondered if the man was delusional from too much whiskey.
“What’s it to you, old man?” he asked.
A faraway look stole into the rheumy eyes, lucid in spite of the liquor. “Place used to be mine. Started it in an ol’ shanty back in ’66. Took me thirty years to build up to the size it is today. My store was the only mercantile in town then, just as it is now. If folks can’t get what they want, they got no place else to go.” He roused himself with a shake. “Henry bought me out, but lets me sit here as much as I want. Hard to let go, if you catch my meanin’.”
Jeb couldn’t imagine devoting his entire life to one endeavor. Not after the past six years, anyway, when he’d moved around so much he rarely slept in the same place twice.
He’d wanted to, once. Devote his life to one thing. But the General had destroyed that dream.
“Mr. Carson?” Margarete’s voice yanked Jeb from his musings. “Your wife needs a fresh blouse. She asks if you’ll bring her valise in.”
He nodded, not bothering to correct her assumption of his marriage to Elena, and strolled outside. He had no desire to be married anyway. And what woman would want him?
Not Elena. Not if she knew what kind of man he really was.
He shook off the thought and paused on the boardwalk. After the dimness of the store’s interior, stepping back into the sunshine took some getting used to. He tugged his brim lower and slid his glance up one side of the street, down the other. Not a sombrero in sight.
He strode toward Elena’s mare and untied one of the straps securing the valise to her saddle. A narrow alley separated the mercantile from the druggist’s shop, and as he started on the second strap, he noticed the Apache and the storekeeper on the far end.
Strange place to do business.
This time his curiosity refused to be quenched. Jeb slipped into the shadows, out of sight from anyone who might be looking his way. The men spoke in low tones, too low for him to hear, but he could see Henry reach into his apron pocket and withdraw a wad of bills as plain as the sun in the sky.
The Apache counted each one before stuffing the bundle into his boot. Henry dropped the key he’d taken from the drawe
r into the Indian’s palm and pointed into the distance, to a location Jeb couldn’t discern. The Indian strode away.
Jeb debated going after him. But within moments, the low rumble of wagon wheels made the decision for him. The rig lumbered past the entrance to the alley, giving him only a fleeting glimpse, but whatever the team hauled, they labored from the weight of it. He waited until the sounds died away and the back door of the mercantile slammed shut before inspecting the tracks the wheels made. The depth confirmed his suspicions of a heavy load.
Well, hell. Nothing he could do about it, not with Elena waiting on him. He returned to the street, tilted his head back and read the sign overhead: Bell’s Groceries and Fine Sundries. Henry H. Bell, Proprietor.
He committed the name to memory. It was a habit of his, remembering details. Might be he’d have to recall this one some day.
Valise in hand, he reentered the store and strode toward the back room. Margarete was nowhere in sight, and he didn’t give the storekeeper a backward glance. He knocked once, then walked in.
Elena sat on the bed, her back to him. She wore only her chemise with her skirt, her blouse tossed aside in favor of the clean one she waited for. The chemise had been unlaced. One strap fell over her shoulder, and the garment sagged against her spine.
He closed the door. His eyes clung to the bare curve of her shoulder and wouldn’t let go. She was almost completely dressed, but the part of her that wasn’t stirred his blood.
“Thank you, Margarete,” she said, half turning toward him. “I—oh, Jeb!”
She bounded off the bed with a squeak of horror, one hand yanking her chemise closed while the other snatched her blouse from the mattress and pressed it to her chest, right over the warm towels she was using. “I thought you were Margarete!”
The shock in her tone amused him. “I know.”
He walked closer and set the valise on the bed. She took a hasty step back.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded.
“I couldn’t find Margarete. And you wanted your valise.”
“You shouldn’t be in here.”
“No rule against it.” And if there was, he wouldn’t care.
She backed up until she couldn’t go any farther. “Get out.”
She looked less flushed now that she’d been out of the sun for a while, but the rising color in her cheeks revealed the slow burn of an inner turmoil.
“You’re acting like you’re afraid I’m going to hurt you,” he growled. He moved closer, defying that turmoil. “Are you?”
She angled her face away and drew in a quick breath. “Yes,” she said. “No, I mean. No, not at all.”
He reached out and gently lifted the hair off her shoulder, his fingers lingering over the satin texture as he brushed the strands aside. The chemise’s strap slipped down, gifted him with a glimpse of her upper breast before she jerked it back up again.
“I could, I suppose, hurt you,” he mused. “But if I was so inclined, I would’ve done it last night. Or this morning. Maybe this afternoon. Any damn time I wanted to before now.”
She shifted her stance, as if she were ready to bolt, but he kept his body in front of her, preventing it.
“You’re safe with me, Elena.” It became imperative he convince her of that. He had no intention of freeing her until he did. “All right?”
She avoided looking at him. “All right.”
Still he didn’t move. “You feeling better yet?”
“Yes. The hot packs helped. My…milk let down so, yes, I’m feeling better.”
“Good.”
“I’ll be ready to ride again as soon as you leave.”
She looked at him then, her features accusing him as the reason for delaying her. Reluctant to, he stepped away.
“I’ll wait for you out front,” he said and remembered the hat he intended to buy her. “You want any extra groceries? Might be awhile before we see another town.”
She adjusted the paraphernalia she clutched to her chest. “You’re low on coffee. And if you want to get some vegetables, I could make a stew for us.”
He realized he’d buy her anything she wanted. “That it?”
“A few tins of peaches? For dessert.”
He filed the items in his head and marveled at her efficiency.
“Now, please go.”
Another time, another woman, he would’ve rebelled. He had little tolerance for being told what to do by a high-handed female.
With Elena, it was different. He left, not because she’d told him to, but because she was so anxious to find her son and he was keeping her from it.
In the narrow hall outside her room, he noticed Margarete eating a sandwich in the kitchen. She stared out the window, her expression wistful. She’d forgotten all about Elena, he was sure, so deep were her thoughts. No wonder her father called her lazy.
He pulled back the curtain and reentered the main room. After making his purchases, he paid his bill, leaving a little extra for Margarete’s help, then packed the supplies on his horse. Elena still hadn’t appeared, and he was left with the unfamiliar task of waiting on a woman.
He leaned a shoulder against a wooden post and lit a cigarette. Behind him, the door slammed.
“Saw somethin’ out there, didn’t you, boy?” Roy said. He carried a checkerboard under his arm. Evidently it was time for him to head home.
“Nothing to get excited about,” Jeb said. “No proof of anything.”
“There usually isn’t. That’s how they get away with it.” A loud exhalation revealed his disappointment. “Been a pleasure talkin’ to you.”
He began to shuffle down the boardwalk. Jeb contemplated the old man’s stubborn curiosity about the storekeeper’s business dealings.
Could be his need to know was just natural, since he once owned the place. Or maybe he had a grudge that needed satisfying. Still, if the man spent his days sitting in the store, no one would know better than he what transpired in Carrizo Springs.
After all, folks needed to eat. Henry Bell’s mercantile was the only one of its kind in town. They’d come here for their groceries and sundries. Especially someone with a baby who needed milk, diapers, soft food to eat.
“Hey, Roy?”
The old man slowed, turned back to Jeb.
“You ever hear of Ramon de la Vega?” Jeb asked. “A revolutionary. Supports Zapata and his cause.”
“Humph. Who hasn’t? He and his men have folks scared plenty with their killin’ and thievin’.” The rheumy eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“Just wondering if he’s been around, is all.”
“Nope. I’d know it if he was. All of us would.”
“Reckon so.”
“Anything else you been wonderin’ about?”
“That’s it.”
His hand lifted in a wave. “Good day to you, then.”
Roy resumed his trek down the boardwalk. Pensive, Jeb scanned the Texas horizon and the land it encompassed. Land that sprawled for hundreds of miles in any direction.
The revolutionaries were hiding out there.
Trouble was—where?
Chapter Seven
Elena slid the last of the chopped vegetables into the pot of stew, added salt and pepper and replaced the lid. It’d be at least another half hour before they ate dinner. What was she supposed to do until then?
Dusk would settle soon. She’d resisted stopping to make camp when there was still daylight left in which to ride. Their stop in Carrizo Springs had cost valuable time, but there’d been no help for it.
Tomorrow, though, they would cross the Mexican border. Surely, once there, they would learn something of the revolutionaries’ whereabouts. And if they didn’t…
Her disappointment had been swift and cutting when Jeb told her there’d been no sign of them in Carrizo Springs. She knew, then, de la Vega was too shrewd. Stopping in the little town would’ve been the easiest, most logical thing to do. Carrizo Springs had whatever he might need for Nicky.
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br /> The worry nagged at her that her baby wouldn’t be properly cared for. That she and Jeb would fail to find him quickly, that de la Vega was far too cunning for her, or Jeb, or the entire United States. What if he just disappeared with her son, as Jeb feared could happen?
The worry worsened every hour she was away from him. It was killing her, this worry, and she simply couldn’t let it. What good would she be for Nicky then?
Leaving the pot to simmer, she strode toward her horse. Pop had always claimed plenty of honest work was as therapeutic as his elixir, and she rummaged in her valise until she found the leather-backed brush she used to groom her horses. Jeb had already removed the saddles and hobbled their mounts next to a stalwart cottonwood, and with long front-to-back strokes, she slid the soft bristles through the mare’s coat, over and over again, until the mare nickered in pleasure.
“Feels good, doesn’t it, girl?” Elena said, patting the long neck. She thought of the endless hours of riding they had put in today, of how the mare had pushed on in the heat, a credit to her loyalty and docile nature. “You deserve to be pampered tonight, don’t you?”
The mare swung her head toward Elena and nickered again, as if she agreed. Elena smiled and resumed the brushing, taking comfort in the familiarity of the routine.
“You’ve got a way with her,” Jeb said. “She likes you.”
He approached from the stream where he’d bathed while she cooked supper. He wore no shirt, but carried a clean one in his hand and was in no hurry to put it on. He was bootless, too, his hair wet and combed back without a care to the neatness of it.
Her brush strokes faltered. His masculinity overwhelmed her. He made her feel flustered and unsteady.
She didn’t like feeling flustered and unsteady.
She avoided looking at him and bent to the task of grooming the mare with renewed vigor.
“I was there when she was born,” Elena said. “I’ve raised her since she was weaned.”
“That so?” He paused a few feet away.