by Shirl Henke
His smile deepened, carving harsh grooves in his handsome face as he thought of the seeds of gossip he had gleaned the other night at Jacobson's fancy dance. Lissa's "dear friend" Dellia had been eager to divulge every juicy detail about Lissa's reaction to Jesse Robbins at the rodeo. His instincts had been right when he had caught her fleeing from the Diamond E stable before the horse race. Her lips had been swollen from that filthy breed's kisses and her expression breathless with desire. She was a beautiful slut, but he would never take the leavings of an Indian. Lissa Jacobson had rejected him, and for that she would pay.
He could never face old man Jacobson with the truth about his precious daughter. Marcus would have him whipped and gutshot if he even hinted at it. But if dear little Cridellia happened onto the two of them, well, the stubborn old coot would have to believe her.
But first he had to find out where they sneaked off to for their dirty rutting and then let the ice-blooded little Evers twit get an eyeful.
"Mornin", Miss Dellia. You sure look pretty as a buttercup in yellow," he said as she blushed and batted her pale lashes.
"Why, thank you, Yancy. I... I came down to the stable to see your new horse. Pa says it's even faster than Thunderbolt was." In fact, she was not in the least interested in horses, but any excuse to meet Yancy Brewster suited her purposes. Since he had paid her such court at the Jacobsons' dance, she had decided to act boldly.
"He really is a beauty. I haven't named him yet. Maybe you could help me with that?" He extended his arm with a gallant flourish, and she blushed beet-red and seized it like a hungry child would a shiny peppermint stick.
"It was too bad about Thunderbolt," she said as they entered the stable. The magnificent white had come up lame after the race against Robbins and had to be destroyed when a fracture had been discovered in his right foreleg.
"Yeah, well, that damn—pardon me for swearing in front of a lady—that breed ran into me apurpose. Good as put the bullet in Thunderbolt's brain."
Dellia shuddered. "I can't see how Lissa can be so ..." she groped delicately for the words, then said, "so infatuated with that savage. Her poor pa would be beside himself if he ever knew."
"Mebbe he ought to be told—to save him from more disgrace, you know." He let her digest the idea.
"But we couldn't just repeat speculation. Even if she confessed a certain carnal fascination for him—well, Mr. Jacobson would refuse to believe it was anything more. He's always spoiled her," she added spitefully.
"I know, but I think she's meeting the breed somewhere."
"For illicit—" She stopped with a gasp of mortification.
"Biggest favor we could do for her and her pa is to put a stop to it. Have him kill the Injun and send her back East. You're her friend, Miss Dellia. You might be able to learn something when you visit the J Bar. Sort of keep your eyes open."
"Yes, then we might have evidence enough to open Mr. Jacobson's eyes."
She jumped at the idea of removing her beautiful rival, just as he'd thought she would. He showed her his new chestnut, and they discussed various schemes for spying on Lissa and Jesse Robbins. By the time he walked her back to the ranch house, his plan was in place.
* * * *
Jess and Tate had taken turns watching Sligo to see when he would again leave a message in the line shack. This morning, he finally headed to it with Jess following carefully behind. Sligo was unwittingly baiting the trap that would lead to a final showdown. Jess watched him dismount and enter the line shack. Paydirt.
Jess was on edge as always just before a case broke, but this time he knew the impending violence had little to do with his agitation. Soon the reason for his being in Wyoming would be gone. And so would he. "I should feel relieved," he muttered to Blaze, but instead he felt a peculiar anguish that he had never before experienced. Somehow he knew it would follow him all the way back to Texas and never leave him.
For the past weeks they had been lovers, meeting at the pool where they had first been tempted to madness. As he waited for Sligo to emerge from the line shack after leaving his message, Jess ruminated over the disturbing conversation they had had after a passionate interlude in the water yesterday.
Lissa had lain on the blanket with the sun dappling her skin gold through the rustling leaves, watching him dress.
"That gunman is here from Texas, isn't he?" she asked. "Pardee."
He had paused, his shirt pulled over one shoulder. "Yeah, Pardee's here. His men are slipping into town a few at a time. I don't want them to raise any notice from the Association."
She cocked her head, puzzled. "You suspect someone in the Association is involved with rustlers?"
He finished buttoning his shirt. "Could be. Or, more likely, someone working for an Association member who eavesdrops on his boss's conversations."
She had reached for her clothes and pulled on her sheer cotton underdrawers. "As soon as you have all those men ready, Papa says you'll attack the rustlers." He looked at her sharply. She smiled wistfully. "Your rustlers aren't the only ones who have ways of learning what my father's doing. All I have to do is ask."
"He wasn't supposed to talk to anyone about Pardee."
She stood up and walked over to him. "Someone has to tell me what's going on. It won't be long, will it, Jess?"
He knew she meant far more than the showdown with the rustlers. "No, Lissa, it won't be long. We shouldn't meet here again."
"What am I supposed to do? Spend the rest of my life crocheting and gossiping with Dellia Evers? Jess, you could be shot!" She had tears in her voice as she buried her face against his chest.
He stroked her fiery hair. "That's what I've been trying to tell you, Lissa."
"You could quit. Take me with you back to Texas—or anywhere. Anywhere at all, Jess."
He shook his head and put her gently aside. "We've said it all before, Lissa. I am who I am—a breed, a gunman. Maybe because of my blood, I like the way I earn my living. Hell, I don't know. But I can't change things for you, for anyone."
She had watched him as he strapped on his gun. He could see the anger building in her—and something else. Frustration? Despair? Fear? The sooner this job ended, the better it would be for both of them. Yet he knew that as long as he was here, he could not keep his hands off her.
Just then Jess's ruminations were interrupted. Sligo strode from the line shack, mounted, and rode back toward J Bar. Jess watched until the hoofbeats died away, then rode Blaze quickly down to the cabin to check the note.
A grim smile slashed his face. At last something was going right. Sligo's message was perfect. The rustlers were to hit the herd held in the north basin tomorrow night. That should give him enough time to get Pardee's men in place for a nice little surprise party.
* * * *
Early the following morning, Lissa had an unexpected visitor. "I do declare, Lissa, you look positively peaked. Here, have one of these cream puffs. They're sinfully delicious. I swear, I'd steal that Germaine away from you if Papa weren't so attached to old Hattie Greeves. She isn't half the cook Germaine is."
She shoved the platter heaped with breakfast pastries at Lissa, who turned her head abruptly. "Lissa, are you ill?"
Lissa had turned even paler, and a fine sweat beaded her forehead, even though the morning air was cool and pleasant, with a soft breeze wafting in the parlor window. "Just a bit of indigestion from last night's rich dinner. Don't be too certain about how wonderful Germaine's cooking would be—everything she fixes is soaked in rich French sauces."
Dellia eyed Lissa's waist, her pop eyes avidly searching for the smallest increment. "Hmm, you do seem to have put on a bit of weight." In fact the weight gain was more in her breasts than her waist, but Dellia, who was matchstick-thin all over, refrained from mentioning that nicety.
"If you'll excuse me, Dellia, I feel a sudden headache coming on." Lissa rose and fled from the sickening aromas of strong coffee and fresh pastry creams, her face taking on a paler hue accented by her mint-g
reen cotton frock.
"Would you be recovered to ride out to MacFerson's tomorrow afternoon?" Dellia called after Lissa. She could barely hear the choked "no" as her companion raced upstairs with unladylike haste.
"Well, whatever's gotten into her?" Dellia huffed, helping herself to another pastry. Then as she chewed, a slow smile spread across her face. The very idea was shocking beyond belief, of course, especially considering who Jesse Robbins was. But having been raised on a ranch, Cridellia Evers knew barnyard facts of life. Lissa must be in a family way!
And if she was declining Laurie MacFerson's invitation to tea, perhaps she had another assignation—such as telling the father-to-be the news? Rising from the sofa, Dellia rang for Germaine to convey her good-byes to the indisposed Lissa, who would not be the only one to miss the MacFerson's tea.
Lissa heard Dellia's carriage wheels grind down the dusty gravel road as she leaned over a basin, waiting for the surges of nausea to abate. It always did after a brutal ten or fifteen minutes, during which she lost all the food she had been foolish enough to consume since arising.
For the past week, she had learned to avoid any breakfast of substance until this accursed meal with Dellia.
"She eats and I throw up. There's justice," she muttered to herself.
But it was justice, inevitable and irrevocable. This past week she had missed her courses for the second time and knew what it meant. She was carrying Jesse Robbins's baby. Her hand slid over her still-flat abdomen protectively. So far Jess had not noticed the slight changes in her body, but it would not be long before her condition became evident.
It won't be long. His words echoed in her mind. He planned to ride as soon as this job was finished, to leave her. Would he still do so, knowing about his child? Lissa was not certain. How can I tell him? She had been the pursuer, the one who teased and tempted until he took what she had offered to no other man. Jess had resented his surrender to their passion; he resented her, the curious white virgin who lusted after an exotic, forbidden man.
Yet she had been as powerless to resist the attraction as he had, and she was going to be the one to pay the ultimate price if he left her. Fear of seeing scathing contempt and condemnation in his silver eyes had kept her silent for the past week.
"I love you, Jess. You must love me." Even as she whispered the words, the sour metallic taste in her mouth told her how bitter and futile it was. He had never said the words. He never would.
Trembling, she splashed her face with cold water and rinsed her mouth, then lay across her bed, trying to think, to plan. She had to tell him before someone else learned.
If Germaine suspected, she would run at once to her father. Lissa had been careful to clean her chamber pot and avoid the hateful housekeeper in the mornings. Of course, since Germaine herself was so often "indisposed" after drinking herself to sleep at night, the woman did not tend to be overly observant early in the day. Still, the thought of Marcus Jacobson's towering wrath made her curl into a ball and lie protectively on her side. She must resolve the dilemma with Jess before her father found out.
Finally, she rolled over and sat up. She was meeting Jess tomorrow afternoon at the pool. Perhaps the time would be right then. She knew only one thing for certain—time was running out for them both.
Chapter Fourteen
While Lissa and Dellia were having their adversarial breakfast visit, Jess and Tate Shannon were having a tense confrontation of their own with Ringo Pardee in a shabby old bar on the edge of Cheyenne.
Pardee straddled a rickety cane chair and eyed the rotted plank floor strewn with filthy sawdust. His eyes were dark and as colorless as deep water; his thin, angular face was etched in cruel contours. He had a hooked nose and a thin, leering mouth. "This place is a dump. You pick it cause they'd serve yer nigger friend?"
Jess stiffened, but Tate placed a restraining hand on his friend's arm. "We both been called worse, Jess. Let it be—for now," he said, his eyes sending Pardee a clear message.
"You know the job I need done, Pardee. Shannon watches my back. You have a problem with that?"
Pardee raised his big, gnarled hands in mock surrender. "No problem, Robbins. Money's good. I gathered me ten of the best guns between here and the Mexican border."
"I asked for twelve."
Pardee shrugged as the fat, greasy-looking bartender waddled toward them with a grayish towel thrown over his sweat-stained shirt. He set down a glass of whiskey in front of Pardee, then looked at Robbins and Shannon, who had pulled up chairs around the plank table. "Ten of my men are worth twenty of them Wyoming boys," Pardee replied as Jess motioned the barkeep away.
"Since we need to ride this afternoon, I reckon they'd better be," Jess said. "The inside man's left a message for the rustlers. They're going to hit a big herd of beeves in the north basin tonight. We have to be there, hidden and ready to give them a little surprise."
Jess began to oudine his plans for the trap, setting up a crude map for Pardee with the used whiskey glasses he commandeered from surrounding tables.
Pardee nodded when the situation was all laid out. "When do we ride?"
"I don't want to draw attention."
"You still think someone with the Association is mixed up in this, Jess?" Shannon asked. "My money's on Brewster."
"You could be right, Tate, but I'm not taking any chances. That's why I picked this place to meet," he said meaningfully to Pardee. "Have the men ride out a few at a time, heading in different directions, then swing northwest until they pick up the
railroad tracks to Laramie about five miles from here. We'll be waiting."
* * * *
Tom Conyers looked up at the thin sliver of new moon and swore beneath his breath. They should have done this job the preceding night when there was no moon. "Damn Sligo's lazy ass for not leaving us word sooner."
The man beside him took a deep drag off his cigarette and flicked it onto the dry ground. "Watch out you don't start a grass fire, you horse's ass!" Conyers hissed. His companion quickly jumped down and ground out the glowing butt with the heel of his boot, then remounted as the rustler boss directed the men to split up and approach the large, scattered herd.
"I don't like this, Tom," Bert Hauser said. "Lookit all them cottonwoods 'n tall grass. Even a bunch of narrow ravines—a whole damn army could be waitin' fer us down there."
"Sligo says there's no one posted here tonight," Conyers replied, but he, too, did not like the lay of the land. "But keep yer eyes peeled."
As the rustlers split up and rode into the basin, Jess, Tate, and Pardee's men watched them from their hidden vantage points around the perimeter. Jess turned to Shannon and said with a sharkish grin, "This shouldn't take long."
Once the thieves had scattered onto the open plain, Jess raised his Winchester and fired rapidly three times, then kneed Blaze into a canter and burst from behind the stand of cottonwoods with Shannon riding behind him. All across the shallow basin, flashes of gunfire erupted. Pardee's men swooped down on the surprised thieves, who were caught in the open.
The dark night air was filled with orange flashes belching from revolvers and rifles. The sound of the solid impact of lead sinking into flesh, the death screams of men, and the bellowing of cattle followed.
More than half the rustlers were knocked from their horses by the opening volley. The rest galloped madly in various directions, looking for an opening through which to escape the withering fire. Cattle were hit as well, and the scattered herd quickly caught the blood scent. They bawled in fright, then began a frenzied stampede.
"Turn em!" Jess yelled, aiming his rifle at one of the rustlers, who was riding beside the lead steer, urging it on.
As soon as Robbins's shot knocked the rider from his horse, Jess rode abreast of the steer, reversing its course back toward the tail of the herd. Tate followed suit, turning the cattle behind the leader, and two of Pardee's men who were near enough did likewise. Most of the rustlers were encircled by a bobbing, milling sea of cat
tle. As if to further seal their doom, the faint clouds that had flitted across the moon were swept clear by a strong summer wind. The rustlers were trapped by the very prize they had sought to steal, easy targets for the cold- eyed gunmen who methodically cut them down.
Tom Conyers had been one of the last to ride into the open. As soon as the killing fire erupted all around his men, he turned his big roan stallion away from the ambush at a dead run, heading toward a narrow ravine that would offer him cover. He had almost made it when the sound of pursuit and a bullet whistling perilously close to his shoulder caused him to lean low over his horse's neck, spurring him on.
Jess recognized the tall man on the roan as the one who had issued orders when the thieves rode into the basin. While Shannon and Pardee cleaned up the last of his men, Robbins pursued the leader, hoping to take him alive. Blaze was gaining on the roan.
Just before the outlaw reached the ravine, he reined in and turned in the saddle, knowing he must deal with his pursuer before he could ride safely down the steep incline. He squeezed off two shots but missed his mark, his aim thrown off by the agitated prancing of his roan.
Jess pulled Blaze to a halt and aimed high on his opponent's right arm. The shot hit with wicked impact, knocking the outlaw off the opposite side of his horse. He hit the ground and rolled to the edge of the ravine, trying to crawl over the side. Jess spurred Blaze forward. When he neared the fallen outlaw, he reined in and leaped from the saddle.
"Lie real still," he said, cocking his Colt with a deadly click.
Conyers swore, breathing hard. "I can't. Musta broke something when I fell." He tried to roll over, with the small Colt house pistol he had pulled from inside his vest with his left hand, but Jess stepped on his right arm, eliciting a harsh gasp of agony and immobilizing him.
"Now, you can bleed or you can talk. Your choice. And while you bleed, I'll keep on massaging that bullet inside your arm." His boot moved again, eliciting another oath. "Who brought you here to take down J Bar?"