Behaving Herself

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Behaving Herself Page 19

by Yvonne Jocks


  “I've missed you,” she said, ducking for another hug. That was, in fact, true.

  But she felt deceitful for saying so, nevertheless.

  Jack reckoned the brother would be by sooner or later. That it happened the very next day told him something about just how poor a showing he'd made during their initial introduction.

  “Thaddeas Garrison, right?” he greeted, more cheerful this time, from behind the counter.

  “John Harwood.” So they knew each other's names.

  “What can we do for you this fine day?”

  Garrison's steady brown gaze noted the others in the store— Ned and Charlie, Ham and the widow Parks—then returned, unreadable, to Jack. “Best talk outside.”

  Jack's nerves went exquisitely still . Had he just been called out? For kissing a girl?

  Just how much did big brother know ... or think he knew?

  Garrison didn't look to be wearing a gun, so Jack asked with stoic cheer, "Now why would I want to do that?"

  Did the man ever blink? “Privacy.”

  Not that Jack expected him to say, So I can beat you into a bloody pulp. Stil , a gamble was a gamble; some just proved more fun than others. If this concerned only him, he might refuse just to be contrary. But it likely involved Audra.

  How much did he know?

  Audra put great store in her reputation. Jack might not worship at the altar of respectability, even hers, but neither would he discount it. So, since he'd already anted into this round some weeks ago, he said, “Fine. We'll have a smoke.”

  “I don't smoke,” said Audra's brother as Jack came around the counter.

  Jack paused. “Not even cigars?”

  No answer.

  Jack shrugged and headed out. "Do you chew? We've got some chaw that Ned over there would index

  highly recommend." As if by way of advertisement, Ned spat not too discreetly into a small spittoon he carried with him.

  Garrison silently followed him out the store's front door. Jack was no fool, after all . Behind the store might offer a tad too much privacy.

  The day was beautiful, if a mite nippy for these parts. Jack propped a hip on the hitching rail and proceeded to roll a smoke with steady hands. He wondered just how much danger he'd courted when he set out to woo a schoolmarm—and whether he'd endangered the schoolmarm herself.

  But he kept quiet. If Thaddeas Garrison wanted to talk, let him talk.

  He did. “You'll leave my sister be.”

  Which didn't tell what he knew. In time-honored gambler tradition, Jack stalled for information.

  “Your sister.”

  Garrison nodded.

  “Miss Garrison, the schoolteacher.”

  “That would be her.”

  Jack struck a match on his boot heel and, guarding it from the Texas wind, took a long draw. On his exhale he asked, “You think I'd have truck with a schoolmarm?”

  Garrison stared at him, unimpressed.

  “She's a fine woman, mind you,” added Jack, and honestly. Protesting his innocence right off would hardly convince anyone.

  Garrison's eyes narrowed.

  “But I was of the impression that lady teachers didn't keep company with men.” Jack smiled, shrugged. “Against those rules of their'n.”

  “You one to mind rules?” asked the brother, such an honest question that Jack felt compel ed to answer with equal honesty.

  “Not as a habit, no.”

  There you go, said Garrison's silent stare.

  “But I was of the impression that your sister is,” Jack added, starting to enjoy this. He allowed himself a devilish moment of eagerness. “Do you mean to tell me I'm mistaken?”

  That may have been a step too far. If Garrison had worn a gun, he'd likely have plugged Jack right there. “My sister's got a soft heart. I don't plan on seeing anybody abuse it.”

  Not and survive, was his implication. “You don't think she's got a fine head as well ?”

  "I think she spoke more familiarly to you than she would have at home. I think she put too much store in you attending church."

  “It's a small town,” noted Jack, and took another drag on his smoke. "Folks speak to each other.

  They watch out for their safety, even their souls." Or sometimes they just watched.

  “You can watch out for yourself just fine.” Jack's soul, apparently, didn't merit concern.

  “You don't think she can do the same?”

  “I don't intend on finding out.”

  Jack blew more smoke toward the street. “Wouldn't that be Audra's decision?”

  Garrison slapped the cigarette out of Jack's hand—had he meant it to arc into the horse trough, or was that just dumb luck? “Listen to me, you fancy-dan son of a buck,” he said in a growl. "I don't know what designs you have or do not have on my sister. Could be you're just playing me for a fool, and that's fine; your good opinion isn't any concern to me. But my sister's young, and she's got as innocent a heart as I've ever seen. That's a durned sight more precious than anything you've ever won or lost in any of your faro hells, and by that I'm including women."

  Odd how Jack could despise Garrison's arrogance and agree with nearly everything he said at the same time. “Watch the hands,” he warned with practiced nonchalance, fisting and then flexing his fingers, just to anger the man further.

  From the way Garrison's jaw twitched, Jack thought he succeeded. “You leaving town?”

  “Sometime or sooner,” agreed Jack noncommittal y. He could keep his cool now that the brother, losing his, had shown his hand. I don't know what designs you have or do not have... Garrison had no idea how far Jack had gone—how much he deserved that beating. His sister's image remained unsullied.

  Which was as it should be. It wasn't merely an image, no matter who she kissed. Was it?

  “Make it sooner,” said Garrison.

  "Not for you, I won't. You and your family left that little gal down here on her own months ago. As I

  see it, you gave up the right to deal out her life to your liking. If she wants a fellow like me to keep my distance, I assure you she can hold me off just fine all by herself."

  “If she wants you to keep your distance?”

  Jack grinned and touched his cheek where he'd felt Audra's wrath. “She packs a wallop.”

  How long ago had that been? Why was he still here? At the moment, he guessed it was because he'd just been told to leave.

  “You made advances,” accused Garrison, low and deadly.

  “I offered her tobacco,” clarified Jack. “Or something like that.” He hadn't made the advances until much later.

  Garrison opened his mouth, then shut it. The thought of that must have struck him as

  incongruously as it had Jack, original y. Then, recovering himself, he tried again. "Here's my piece; make of it what you will . Assuming I let her stay here—"

  “Let her stay?” challenged Jack.

  "If I ever hear tell you touched her or you scammed her or you hurt her, whether she knows it or not, you will not be safe in this country. Even if our family did not have money or connections, and we're doing fine with both, we've got loyalty you can't even dream of, and we would not stop until we saw you at the end of a rope. Comprende?"

  Hell , if it was his sister, he'd probably feel the same way ... except for one thing. "Now see, Thaddeas,“ Jack said, starting to roll another smoke. ”May I cal you Thaddeas?"

  “No.”

  "That's the problem with protecting folks like your sister from every little temptation that comes along. Not saying I am one, personal y,“ he added, spreading a hand in defense. ”But it seems to me you'd save yourself a passel of grief if you knew the gal could protect herself."

  “Well, I don't.”

  New match, different boot. “You should,” muttered Jack into the windbreak of his palm, around the cigarette. “She can.”

  Garrison folded his arms. “Well then, that ought to satisfy the both of us, shouldn't it?”

  “It
should.” Not that it would. Not either one of them.

  “You heard my piece,” said Garrison. “It stands.” And he turned and strode away, somehow as in control—of himself, if not the conversation—as if he'd gotten Jack to cower.

  Bastard. Now Jack had to wait another couple of weeks before leaving for Fort Worth.

  No way would he give Audra's brother satisfaction by leaving first.

  Audra loved spending the week with her brother—but she missed Jack. She wanted to talk more with him about gambling, and what drew him to it, and what she might do to help him stop. She wanted him to argue with her, to grin at her, to make her insides go shivery.

  She found it so much easier to be bold around Jack than she did around Thaddeas.

  For guidance, she read from Duty and Domesticity: Being, a Gentle Handbook, etc. It wasn't taking.

  Logical y she agreed with almost everything the author wrote. She understood how a seemingly innocent first step off the path of right thinking could be as foolhardy as stepping off a mountain pathway onto a steep, stony slope, and that as surely as gravity, the weakness of human nature would fight her return to righteousness. But the story of a girl whose penchant for fun had led to her ugly death in a sanitarium seemed suspiciously melodramatic.

  Audra had not stepped so very far off the path yet ... had she? And, despite her affection for Jack, she did not intend to.

  Not so very far.

  Chapter Seventeen

  A teacher may not ride in a carriage with any man unless he is her father or brother.

  —Rules for Teachers

  Sunday night's game, which Jack found at Ernest Varnes's cotton patch north of Candon, had some ways to go before it managed even a nodding acquaintance with friendly.

  “Ain't never played with you.” Varnes looked Jack up and down with suspicion. “How do I know you won't report us to the law?”

  “Could be so I don't get locked up as an accomplice,” said Jack.

  “I done played with him before,” assured Whitey Gilmer, the Candon blacksmith. When Whitey spoke, his voice as big as his shoulders, folks listened. “He's stand-up.”

  The only reason Jack had sought out this game in the first place was to distract himself. Ferris had gone out and Jack sorely needed some fun. Maybe fun could help him forget Audra Garrison's disappointment in him, Thaddeas Garrison's high-handed warnings, even the dogged awareness that he'd skipped church this morning.

  He'd skipped church for nigh on twenty years, for mercy's sake!

  “Sit down and shuffle the cards, Harwood,” ordered Whitey. Since no one else protested, Jack shrugged off his reservations and took refuge in the familiarity of handling cards.

  He was careful not to look too good at it.

  Temperatures had fallen considerably over the weekend, and the cold edged up from the dirt floor of Varnes's one-room cabin, through the soles of Jack's boots, and up his legs. Old catalog pictures papered the walls—especially advertisements for corsets and stockings, from what Jack could see by soot-stained kerosene lamps—and a small potbellied stove smoked up the place. The empty tin cans piled outside the cabin indicated that Varnes used the stove more for heat than cooking. The place stank of dogs and moonshine, sweat and urine. The table was uneven, carved up in some places and sticky in others.

  This, thought Jack, remembering fine halls with mirrors and gas lighting and gay music, was what happened when people outlawed gambling. Even the back rooms, where the Sunday games had

  moved in big-city red-light districts, were a damn sight better than this. Most, anyhow.

  “Five-card draw, jacks are wild,” he said now, letting Varnes cut before starting to deal.

  Beggars couldn't be choosers. Until he got himself out of this so-called civilization to someplace a little more honest, like Fort Worth or San Antonio or even Abilene, Jack reckoned he'd best make do.

  Skinny, long-mustached Harv Jefferson from Euless had brought moonshine in mason jars to sell .

  The sour-mash liquor scalded Jack's throat and brought tears to his eyes. This was what happened when folks outlawed liquor. If Jack didn't leave the dry townships behind him soon, he'd be finding a reason to hit the laudanum the way Hamilton had.

  Although the storekeeper seemed to be cutting down. Not that it was Jack's place to keep watch on him. Jack didn't owe anybody here anything, except maybe Audra herself.

  “I'm out,” he said, tossing in his cards and awaiting the next hand.

  Audra ... A few more hands of poker, a few more swallows of corn-mash liquor, and Jack could hardly keep his mind on the game—or his less-than-companionable cohorts—for musing on his innocent little schoolmarm. He pictured Audra's pretty sorrel hair curling around his fingers, soft as feathers, when he cradled her head. He remembered the feel of her body drawn against him, her own gloved fingers clutching for support behind his neck, and her hungry lips.

  Then he remembered her eyes, showing her feeling of betrayal that he still was and would always be a gambler.

  He anted up for the next round—at a nickel a game, it wouldn't break him. Had he ever said he wasn't a gambler? No. But she had to go worrying about his business. She was the kind of woman who, well intentioned or not, chased poker players into dumps like this. She looked for evil in a man's pastimes instead of in his heart. Jack had a perfectly good heart, damn it.

  In fact, he had four of them so far ... one more would make a flush.

  He took another swig of moonshine, watched Varnes try unsuccessfully to spit tobacco juice at the old dog sleeping in the corner, and just didn't find it as amusing as the other fellows.

  “Did any of you read in the Register,” he said, tossing a four of diamonds, “how that Carrie Nation woman got herself locked up in Wichita?”

  “Who's Carrie Nation?” asked Varnes, discarding a perfectly good queen.

  “That ax lady,” said Whitey in a growl. Everything Whitey said came out in a growl.

  Jefferson, who'd been rolling a cigarette, lit it and inhaled deeply. "The one what murdered her folks up in New England?"

  Whitey said, “The one from Kansas. Thinks liquor's a sin.”

  “Got herself jailed in Wichita busting up a fine hotel saloon and can't post bond,” clarified Jack. He felt some righteous satisfaction at that. If it weren't for folks like the now-famous Mrs. Nation and her Woman's Christian Temperance League, he'd be playing cards in a perfectly good bar instead of watching Varnes spit at the dog. Most bars had spittoons.

  But he could too easily imagine Audra following in Mrs. Nation's footsteps, given enough time and incentive.

  Varnes's moonshine must have packed more punch than he'd suspected, for Jack to make the mistake of even mentioning it. One oughtn't discuss good women in a drinking establishment—no matter how poor the establishment or how many thousands of dollars' damage the woman had done.

  Hell , they hadn't even mentioned Miss Lizzie Borden's name outright, and half the country believed she ax-murdered both her folks, no matter what the jury found!

  Jefferson raised his jar in a toast. “Well, here's to the law. Sometimes they get it right.”

  They toasted that, even Jack. The mash liquor was getting better by the swallow. Somewhere along the line, they'd finished the hand and started another.

  “If you read the paper,” said Whitey in his raspy voice, “you seen they brought that colored son of a bitch into Dallas.”

  “The man from Corsicana way?” Jack asked carefully. That fellow stood accused of outraging and killing a white woman a few weeks back, but had yet to stand trial. Since white men who

  committed similar crimes rarely got any press, Jack questioned the facts here.

  “If the law could do something right, they'd lynch the son of a bitch.”

  “Folks have been trying to lynch him,” Jack pointed out. “That's why he's in Dallas.”

  “They'll string him up soon enough,” assured Jefferson.

  “Why not let the man stand trial?”
Jack thought the suggestion reasonable but, faced with three disbelieving glares, he decided not to pursue it.

  “Damn them,” muttered Whitey, though on the burly blacksmith, even a mutter carried weight.

  Jack didn't think he was talking about the law or the mobs in Dallas and Corsicana. “Thinkin' they can do whatever they want to our women ...”

  From there, talk moved to colored folks in general, and the menace of the nearby Mosier Valley coloreds in particular, and why the world was bound for hell . Seems it had something to do, Jack would later remember, with race mixing and colored folks running for office.

  By then, the card playing could not have been less fun. Before dawn, Jack cashed out and left the other three commiserating about how the South would rise again.

  He shouldn't have drunk so much. Luckily, Queen was a steady horse, letting Jack take as many tries as he needed to mount. She even knew her own way back to the Candon stables—a good thing. Central Texas boasted few winter days that could freeze a man dead if he fell off his horse, but this might be one of them. But even when Jack dozed briefly, in the saddle, he would jerk awake and notice that his mare headed slowly but steadily back in the right direction.

  He'd been in this place too damn long.

  With an eight-mile drive ahead of them just to reach the train depot, Audra and Thaddeas left for Fort Worth very early on Monday morning. As her older brother drove the rented buggy onto Main Street, turning the opposite direction from the mercantile, Audra looked back. She thought that, beyond the pool of their swinging sidelights, she saw a single lamp burning in the store window.

  She turned forward again and huddled closer to her brother, snug under coats and blankets, and she wondered if the lamp meant Jack was awake.

  As much as she looked forward to this outing with Thad, she looked forward to telling Jack about it even more. Yes, he was still a gambler, and unrepentant. She could no longer entertain such foolish fancies as those that had warmed her Christmas morning. But he had also proven himself to be her friend.

  “Try to get some sleep,” suggested Thaddeas, hearing her sigh.

 

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