Only Love o-4
Page 32
Finally, slowly, Whip pulled away from Shannon. Saying nothing, he struck a match and lit the lantern that sat on a wooden box nearby.
The sudden blossoming of light revealed two heavy saddlebags. A ragged tongue of gold spilled from one of them.
Shannon looked, and knew without any doubt that she had lost Whip to the sunrise he had never seen.
«Shannon, honey girl, I…»
She shook her head, touched Whip’s mouth with her fingers, and watched him with eyes that held no tears. Tears come from hope, and she had none left.
«I will always love you,» Shannon whispered. «Now ride on, my sweet yondering man. Just…ride on.»
21
Shannon walked into Murphy’s mercantile with Cherokee’s six-gun shoved into a belt at her waist and an irritated Prettyface at her side. She didn’t know how much time had passed since Whip left. She knew only that the aspens had been a vivid, living green while he was here and had turned to beautiful, unliving gold since he left.
She felt the same as the leaves. There had been a time of pouring sunshine and growth and beauty; and then the world had turned and everything had changed.
A pity that I’m not like those bright, lifeless leaves, able to lift on the wind and be whirled away forever.
But I’m a woman, not a leaf, and Cherokee needs me. That ankle of hers will never be the same.
Maybe one day I’ll get used to Whip’s loss the same way Cherokee is getting used to her changed ankle. Maybe one day the pain will no longer surprise me, making me feel as though it has just happened all over again for the first time.
As Shannon quietly looked over the merchandise, a miner she had never seen before started arguing with Murphy over the weight of the slab of bacon he had on the scales.
«Five pounds?» scoffed the miner. «Hell’s fire, man, back home I have me a redbone hound what whelps bigger pups than that there miserable hunk of bacon.»
«Then maybe you oughta go back and smoke one of them pups to et with your beans, rather than waste my time with all yer whining and —»
Murphy’s words stopped cold when Prettyface walked out from behind a stack of dried goods near the front door. The storekeeper stepped back from the counter so quickly that the scales jumped, rattled and settled into a new weight.
«Three pounds and some for good measure,» the miner said with satisfaction. «That’s more like it. Folks in Canyon City tell me you’re a real cheeseparing son of a bitch, but I guess they was thinking of some other Murphy.»
The storekeeper grunted unhappily, took the miner’s money, and sacked up the remaining supplies without another word. When the miner turned around with his supplies in hand, he spotted Shannon.
«Well, Lordy me, would you look at this sweet little thing,» he said, walking toward Shannon. «You Clementine or Betsy?»
«Neither,» she said tightly. «I’m Silent John’s…widow.»
Murphy’s eyebrows shot up but he kept quiet.
The miner halted. He looked chagrined at his error, but was no less eager to talk to Shannon.
«Sorry, ma’am,» said the miner. «Mean no insult. No one told me there was more than two women loose in Echo Basin. Can I make it up to you over supper?»
«Thank you, no.»
«Can I come calling?» he asked, walking forward again.
Prettyface’s upper lip lifted in a rippling, gleaming snarl.
The miner stopped dead.
«There would be no purpose in calling on me,» Shannon said neutrally. «I will never offer the kind of companionship you’re seeking.»
«And if you’re of a mind to just help yourself anyway,» Murphy said from behind the counter, «this here gal belongs to a man called Whip Moran. He told me that most particularly, just ‘fore he went off looking for gold. He been gone a month or two, but he be comin’ back soon enough, and there be pure fiery hell to pay if’n his woman is bothered.»
Shannon wanted to object that she was no longer Whip’s woman, he wasn’t off looking for gold, and he wouldn’t be back at all. But she kept her mouth tightly shut. For a time, at least, Whip’s reputation would help to protect her in the same way Silent John’s had.
«Whip?» asked the miner unhappily. «Be that the one what sent them four Culpeppers straight to hell?»
«Yeah,» Murphy said with malicious pleasure. «And if that ain’t enough to take the starch out of your pecker, Whip’s brother is a gunfighter called Reno.»
The miner looked even less happy.
«And Whip told me right forcefully,» Murphy continued, «that Caleb Black and Wolfe Lonetree think of this little gal as one of the family. Any man goes to botherin’ her will answer to them. And her dog ain’t no bargain, neither.»
Shannon gave Murphy a shuttered look and wondered just how «forcefully» Whip had presented his arguments to the storekeeper. Whatever had been said or done, the result was a remarkable improvement. It was clear that Murphy wouldn’t be acting anything but respectful toward Shannon.
The thought of Whip trying to see to her welfare from afar was another knife turning deep in Shannon’s soul. Whip had left the larder full of store-bought supplies, Cherokee’s smokehouse full of venison and fish and grouse, and firewood stacked to the eaves all around both cabins. Reno had found enough gold that Shannon could leave Echo Basin and live in comfort anywhere she wished.
There was no doubt that Whip had cared for her very much.
But not enough to stay.
May God keep you, yondering man, Shannon prayed silently as she had many, many times in long, painful weeks since Whip had left. May you someday find what you want.
And may it want you in return.
«Excuse me, ma’am,» the miner said politely. «I’ll be getting along, now.»
Shannon tore her thoughts from Whip to the miner, who was standing with his arms full of supplies and watching Prettyface with wary eyes.
«The dog is betwixt me and the door,» the miner explained.
«Prettyface,» Shannon said, stepping to the side. «Come here and be quiet.»
After another seething snarl, Prettyface subsided. When Shannon walked toward the counter, the dog followed. But he never took his wolf’s eyes off the miner.
The front door of the mercantile slammed shut behind the miner, shoved by a gust of cold September wind.
Shannon felt the chill and pulled her worn jacket more closely around her body. September had been filled with storms and wild, icy winds. Elk and deer had already left the high country, sensing that the first heavy snows of the season could come at any time.
That was what had forced Shannon to come into town. She needed to buy warm clothes for herself and supplies for Cherokee. The old woman was in no shape to make the trip herself…although Shannon suspected that Cherokee was lying in ambush somewhere back up the trail as Silent John often had, making sure that Shannon wasn’t followed.
«Good afternoon, Mr. Murphy,» Shannon said, approaching the counter. «Would you please fill this order for me while I select some warmer clothes?»
Murphy grunted.
«And Mr. Murphy?»
He grunted again.
«Keep your thumb off the scales,» Shannon said crisply.
The storekeeper grinned. «Whip told you.»
«He didn’t have to. I’ve known for years that you cheated me. Silent John accepted it as the price of doing business close to home. But I don’t. If that means going into Canyon City for supplies, I will do so.»
«No need to get your water hot, missy. I’m not about to go and get in Whip’s bad graces.»
«Or mine?»
«Or your’n,» Murphy agreed. «Folks what is smart enough to come in out of the rain don’t have no trouble with me.»
«Good. My pack mule is outside. Please load the supplies for me when you’re done.»
«Cost you three dollars extra.»
«One.»
«Two.»
«One and two bits.»
«You dri
ve a mean bargain, missy.»
«Not really. You load Betsy and Clementine’s supplies for free.»
«They throw in a little, uh, extra for my trouble.»
Murphy leered cheerfully.
«One dollar and two bits,» Shannon said coolly. «Do we have a deal?»
Sighing, Murphy nodded.
Shannon handed over her supply list and went to the piles of clothing that were scattered about the mercantile’s floor. By the time she had found two warm jackets, four warm shirts, two pairs of wool trousers, and everything else required to turn winter’s icy winds, Murphy had sacked up and loaded her supplies on her pack mule.
«Add these to the total, please,» Shannon said, dumping the clothing on the counter.
«Huh. Guess I’m gonna have to order some feminine frippery. Gets mighty wearisome for a man to see his gal tricked out like hisself.»
Shannon’s lips thinned, but she said not one word while Murphy totaled her bill. The amount made her eyes widen.
«May I see the bill, please?» she asked, holding out her hand.
«What fer?»
«To check your sums.»
Murphy handed the bill over and watched nervously while Shannon checked his addition.
«You are thirty-one dollars and twelve cents over,» she said after a few minutes.
Muttering, Murphy subtracted thirty-one dollars from the total. Shannon handed over a fat poke of gold.
«I have Silent John’s gold scales at the cabin,» Shannon said. «I know precisely how much gold is in that poke. When I return home, I will weigh what is left.»
Murphy shot Shannon a look that was part irritation and part admiration.
«Whip sure put steel in yer spine,» Murphy said.
Shannon smiled thinly.
Murphy took the poke, opened it, and poured. A mixture of dust, nuggets, and flakes spilled onto one of the scale’s small dishes.
«Well, I be go to hell,» Murphy said, surprised. «Whip found some new strikes, eh?»
«What do you mean?»
«None of this gold come from Silent John’s old claims.»
Shannon looked startled. «I beg your pardon?»
«The color and shape is all wrong,» Murphy said impatiently. «Silent John’s claims don’t give no coppery-colored flakes. No pale gold dust, neither. And as for these …»
Deftly Murphy sorted out some heavy, ragged nuggets of a rich golden hue. He pressed his thumbnail hard against one nugget. When he lifted his thumb again, a crease showed on the surface of the gold.
«These pretty gals be too jagged for river nuggets, but too blessed pure for anything else,» Murphy said reverently, «Ain’t seen their like since a fast-talking city boy tried to sell me a Colorado claim salted with pure Dakota bullion. That was reddish gold. But this here nugget puts me to mind of some I saw once on a poker table down to Las Cruces. The gold come from the Abajos. Spanish gold, pure as a baby’s dreams.»
A chill crawled beneath Shannon’s skin as she remembered Reno and Whip talking about bars of pure Spanish gold.
No, she told herself quickly. Whip wouldn’t have done that to me! Murphy must be mistaken.
The storekeeper glanced away from the gold and saw the shocked look on Shannon’s face.
«Don’t s’pose you be wanting to tell me where Whip found this here gold?»
Shannon swallowed and said firmly, «Silent John’s claims.»
Murphy laughed. «Don’t blame you none for playin’ close to the vest. If’n I had me any claims rich as these, I sure to God wouldn’t tell no one neither.»
«Whip told me the gold came from Silent John’s claims,» Shannon said, her voice toneless.
«Smart man, that Whip. What you don’t know, you can’t spill to strangers. But I seen all kinds of Echo Basin gold, missy, and you can take this direct to God’s ear — not one speck of this here gold come from here.»
Reno’s words echoed in Shannon’s mind, shaking her.
Way up in the Abajos, in a crumbling old mine… bars of pure gold so heavy Eve could hardly lift more than one at a time.
Shannon wanted to scream her denial that Whip could treat her so shabbily, but she didn’t let herself make a single sound. She had too much to do to waste energy yelling at a yondering man who couldn’t even hear her.
In icy silence, Shannon ticked off what had to be done. First she had to get Cherokee’s supplies to her. Then she had to track down Clementine and Betsy. And after that, Shannon had to ride to the Black ranch and back home before the first heavy snows came, closing the passes for the winter.
For the first time, Shannon was grateful for the two racing mules she had reluctantly inherited from the Culpeppers. Both Cully and Pepper would get a hard workout in the next few days.
JUST over a day later, riding one mule and leading the other, Shannon reined to a stop in front of Caleb and Willow’s ranch house. Caleb rode in from the direction of the north pasture just as Willow stepped onto the porch.
«Shannon?» Willow asked, shading her eyes against the sun shining out from behind a thunderhead. «Is that really you?»
«It’s me,» Shannon said, dismounting.
«What a lovely surprise! Come in, I’ll have tea on in a minute.»
«No, thank you. Prettyface, if you snarl again, I’m going to feed you to the crows.»
Prettyface stopped making savage noises and stood quietly by Shannon’s side as Caleb rode up.
«Trouble?» he asked.
«Nothing that can’t be cured,» Shannon said, her voice clipped. «Would you remove the saddlebags for me?»
Caleb gave her a long look. Then he dismounted, went to the mules, and made an admiring sound.
«Nice pair of mules,» he said. «Virginia bred, from the look of them.»
«The Culpeppers favored Virginia mules,» Shannon said, her voice remote.
«Good stamina,» Caleb said.
«They’ll need it,» was Shannon’s only reply.
Caleb started to ask a question, then gave a grunt of surprise as he lifted the saddlebags.
«Judas Priest,» he muttered. «What’s in these? Lead?»
«Whip’s gold,» Shannon said savagely, yanking free the cinch strap on Cully’s saddle.
Willow and Caleb exchanged a swift look.
«It was my understanding,» Caleb said carefully, «that Whip was working for wages rather than for a share ofyourgold.»
«That was my understanding, too,» Shannon said.
She yanked off the saddle with one hand and the blanket with the other. With a few quick motions she saddled the second mule.
«But I was wrong,» Shannon said, mounting the mule. «Murphy told me the gold was wrong, too.»
«You want to chase that by me again?» Caleb asked, puzzled.
Shannon turned and looked at Caleb, making no attempt to hide the cold fury she had felt ever since she realized how little Whip had truly thought of her.
«This gold never was dug in Echo Basin,» Shannon said savagely. «Whip paid me off with his own Spanish gold and then lit out for the far side of the horizon. But he made a little miscalculation.»
«Did he?» Caleb asked warily.
«Once I figured out what had happened, I suspected Whip had paid me too much, but I didn’t know the going rate, so I tracked down Clementine and Betsy and asked.»
Caleb measured the flat rage in Shannon’s eyes and decided not to ask who Clementine and Betsy were, and what they had to do with any of it.
«I was right,» Shannon continued. «Whip paid far too much for what he got from me. So I brought his change. Every damned speck of it.»
«Wait!» Willow called as Shannon picked up the reins. «You’ve had a long ride. At least come in and rest a while before you set out.»
«Thank you, no,» Shannon said. «The passes could close at any moment.»
«But —» Willow began.
«In any case,» Shannon continued with icy pride, «I respect you too much to bring your brother’s w
hore into your home.»
With that, Shannon spun the mule and kicked it into a long, ground-eating lope. The other mule and Prettyface followed at a rapid clip.
For a time neither Willow nor Caleb spoke. Then Willow let out a long, harsh breath.
«I wish I knew where my dear brother was,» she said. «I would like to see him again.»
«So would Shannon,» Caleb said dryly. «Preferably skinned out and nailed to her cabin wall.»
IT was an icy dusk when Whip rode up to Willow and Caleb’s home, his collar turned up against the wind. Snow flurries gleamed and swirled around him.
«Hello, stranger,» Caleb said, stepping down off the porch. «We thought you were headed for San Francisco and the high seas. I didn’t expect to see you for a year or two.»
There was a question buried beneath Caleb’s words, but Whip didn’t know how to answer it. He was as puzzled as anyone else to find himself on this side of the sunrise.
«Neither did I,» Whip said. «But here I am.»
«And here you’ll stay. The passes are closed every way but the south.»
«I know. I came in that way. Damned cold on the desert now.»
Whip dismounted and shook Caleb’s hand.
«Where have you been for the past three months?» Caleb asked.
«Here and there,» Whip said, shrugging. «I got as far west as that big canyon where the Rio Colorado lies like a silver medicine snake at the bottom of a deep gorge.»
«Hell of a place, from what Wolfe tells me.»
«It will do,» Whip agreed. «I chased sunrise all the way around that canyon’s edge until I found myself back where I started from. Wild, lonely country, every inch of it.»
«Come on,» Caleb said. «Willow should be finished putting Ethan to bed by now.»
Whip hesitated.
«If you’re thinking of riding off to the high country,» Caleb said, «think again. The passes have been closed for months. They won’t open again for months.»
«I know. That’s why …» Whip’s voice died.
«That’s why you came back? You know you can’t get to her?»
Whip grimaced. «Yes.»
«Just as well,» Caleb said. «Last time we saw Shannon, she —»
«You saw her?» Whip interrupted instantly. «When?»