Arizona Gold

by Maggie James

  “But he didn’t mean to.”

  “You just said he didn’t know what he was doing—and he obviously didn’t know he was killing me. If that man, whoever he was, hadn’t acted when he did, there’s no telling what might have happened. I just thank God he was a good shot. What if somebody else had tried to shoot the gun out of Roscoe’s hand and hit me? No”—she shook her head so hard her hair flew about her face—“I can’t dismiss it as easily as you, Opal. There’s too much violence here. Somebody is always getting killed. And when I think of what happened to Daddy Wade, it makes my blood boil. I just don’t like it here.”

  “Honey, it’s dangerous all over the West. Outlaws, Indians. You’re as safe here as you would be anywhere else, except maybe Virginia, and I don’t think you want to go back there.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Then forget about last night. You’re making damn good money for a woman. More than me, that’s for sure. And you’ve got a nice, clean place to stay. Everybody looks out for you. There’s a lot you ought to be thankful for.”

  “But I’m not happy here, don’t you see? And I’ve tried. I really have. I do my best to entertain, and I have to say the majority of the men in the audience treat me with respect. But I still don’t enjoy it. I grew up outdoors, and I want to ride, raise horses, break them to saddle. I’d even like to learn ranching, maybe have one of my own one day. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life standing on a stage hoping some rowdy doesn’t decide to drag me off of it.”

  Opal spoke around a bite of sandwich, “Which is why I keep telling you to find a good husband while you’ve still got your looks and can pick and choose. Why, there isn’t an unmarried man in that audience who wouldn’t leap at the chance to marry you.”

  “I have told you over and over—I do not want to get married.”

  Opal threw up her hands. “Then all that’s left for you, honey, is what you’re doing or a job like I got. You aren’t going to get hired on at a ranch to do man’s work even if you’re able. What rancher in his right mind would hire a pretty young thing like you? His hands would never get any work done and probably wind up killing each other over you, to boot. And forget pretending to be a boy. You might have got away with that on the ride out here and fooled the Indians, but you couldn’t do it forever, and you know it.

  “Settle down,” she urged, pouring a cup of tea and holding it out to her. “You’ll get over last night.”

  Kitty took the tea and sipped, hoping it would quell her rolling stomach. She was a bundle of nerves, thinking of her plight. “I feel like a prisoner here. There’s nothing to do but hide out in this room when I’m not onstage, and it’s hot and stuffy. I’m miserable here.”

  “Go for a walk. It’s safe during the day. Do some shopping.”

  “I have been to every store in Tombstone. I know all the shopkeepers by their first names. There is nothing I need to buy, anyway. And I have walked this town till I could find every house, tent, and shanty blindfolded. What I want to do is go riding.” She drained the tea and set the cup down with a clatter. “But I’m denied the privilege of even doing that. All the stable owners refuse to rent me a horse, because they say a woman has no business riding out by herself.”

  Opal shrugged. “So ask a man to go with you.”

  “I can’t do that. If I ask someone unmarried, he’ll think I’m inviting him to court me. And it would be improper to ask someone who is.”

  “You’re probably right,” Opal allowed. “And I’m glad they won’t let you go off by yourself. That Apache—Whitebear, or whatever you said his name was—might be out there.”

  “He wouldn’t know me if he saw me,” Kitty pointed out. “Besides, we don’t know for a fact that he ever found out who I really was, anyway.”

  “True, but it’s not worth chancing. That’s why we moved up here, remember? Now relax. Things aren’t as bad as you think.”

  Kitty went to her chifforobe and yanked the door open. Rummaging through her clothes, she took out a citron cotton dress. “I am going to relax,” she said. “I’m going for a ride. If I don’t get out in the wide-open spaces for a breath of fresh air and change of scenery, I’m going to go crazy. I’ve never felt so cooped up in my life.”

  “But you just said they won’t let you have a horse.”

  “I’m going to rent a buggy.”

  “They won’t agree to that, either.”

  Kitty smiled. “They hinted they would if I’d hire one of the stable boys to go with me. They all look to be about thirteen or fourteen, so they’re hardly married or looking to be any time soon.”

  “Well, I’m not going to argue. Your mind is set.” Opal gathered cups and saucers, stacked the tray, and stood. “I just hope if you do run into trouble there’s another gunslinger around to take care of you.”

  “That one last night,” Kitty said, mind again hooked to the stranger, “who was he? Do you know? I didn’t have a chance to thank him.”

  “Never saw him before. I talked to him a spell before you went on. Said his name was Sam Bodine.”

  “Well, if he’s around tonight, I’d like to thank him for what he did.”

  Opal moved to the door. “He probably won’t be. His kind never hang around for long. Good-looking fellow, though, wasn’t he? Even with that beard covering most of his face.”

  Kitty allowed that, yes, the stranger had been good looking, in a feral, rugged way. But Opal was right. She would never see him again. Perhaps it was just as well, for the way he had looked at her still needled.

  Ryder had been standing across the street from the Oriental Saloon since noon.

  Discovering that the popular so-called Singing Angel was actually Kitty Parrish had struck as hard as a mule kick to the belly. It had all but knocked the wind out of him, because it was too incredible to be true.

  But it was.

  And his self-confidence was shaken.

  After all, he had not pictured Kitty as being pretty. She had been a scrawny, scruffy, dirty boy with long, greasy hair stringing all down her face. As a woman, he had imagined her to be shapeless and plain, easily falling prey to a man’s attentions.

  Hell, he never dreamed she would be the sweetheart of Tombstone, turning the head of every man in town. It was going to make his quest extremely difficult, if not impossible, but at least he had an edge, because she would be appreciative of what he had done.

  All he had to do now was find a way to get to her without being obvious about it. So he had stationed himself across from the saloon to wait for her to come out, only he was beginning to think she wasn’t going to. Most of the women who worked the gambling and dance halls stayed in during the heat of the day. And he didn’t dare hang around all afternoon. It might arouse suspicion, and he did not want that…did not want it to appear he was stalking anybody.

  And then he saw her. She came out the front door, pretty in a yellow dress and matching bonnet. With head held high, she walked purposefully down the boardwalk, and Ryder smiled as she cursed to stumble in her high buttoned shoes. A far cry from the boots she’d been wearing the whole time she was with him. Evidently she was not used to dressing up, but she did a fine job of it. She was a beauty, all right. No denying that.

  He waited a moment, then began to amble lazily down his side of the street, keeping her in sight as she marched by the stores. Every so often she nodded to someone she knew, but she ignored the hoots and whistles from men who ogled as she passed.

  When she reached the livery stable, she turned in. Ryder went down the alley next to it and entered from the rear door to stand in the shadows and listen.

  He caught the tail end of her offer. “…pay you two dollars. All I want you to do is take me for a buggy ride.”

  While Ryder could not see Kitty, the stable boy was visible. With head down, shoulders hunched, he dug into the straw-littered floor with the toe of his boot as he regretted to say, “Aw, I’d like to, ma’am, ’cause that’s a lot of money, but there ain’
t nobody here but me, and the boss would kill me if I upped and took off.”

  Ryder heard an exasperated sigh, then. “All right. Let me take the buggy by myself, and I’ll pay you anyway. And I assure you I can handle a horse. I used to raise them back home in Virginia, so you needn’t worry. And I won’t be gone long. I just want to go for a little ride. Maybe an hour or two.”

  The boy lifted his head to stare at her in horror. “I can’t do that, ma’am. We don’t let our buggies to women.”

  “I thought it was only horses.”

  “Buggies, too. If you was to get hurt, everybody would blame us. I’m sorry. Maybe I can go another time.”

  “But I need to get out of town today.”

  Ryder could not believe his ears. Throughout the time Kitty Parrish—or Billy Mingo, as she had called herself—had been held captive, not once had he heard her sound as though she were about to cry. Now it appeared she was close to breaking, and it made no sense, not over something as trivial as renting a buggy. Whatever her reason for desperation, he quickly decided to use it to his advantage.

  He stepped from the shadows. “I’d be glad to take you, Miss Parrish.”

  Kitty took a step backward, then, in recognition, her hand fluttering to her throat. “You’re the man from last night…the one who shot the gun out of Roscoe’s Pate’s hand.”

  Frightened by the sight of an ominous-looking stranger stepping out of darkness wearing the low-slung double holster of a gunslinger, the stable boy disappeared as though he had never even been there.

  Ryder sucked in his breath as he looked her up and down. How stupid he had been not to see through her disguise. Delicate hands, neck pale and slender, the soft line of her jaw, and rosebud lips begging to be kissed. But he had not seen all that, because he had not looked for it. His view had bounced back from the dirt and grime and sheer messiness of Billy Mingo.

  And her voice had been another deterrent to discovery. Always she had spoken low, husky, not soft and lilting as she did now.

  “Sir?” Kitty prodded, tilting her head at how he was not saying anything…how he was looking at her once more in that strange, thoughtful way. “That was you, wasn’t it? Last night? In the Oriental Saloon?”

  He wiped his hand across his brow, which had become beaded with sweat. “Yes. It was.”

  “And how is it that you know my real name?”

  “Your friend, the faro dealer, told me.” He tipped his hat. “I’m Sam Bodine.

  “I hope I didn’t scare you too bad, having to shoot as close as I did,” he added with a smile to lighten the mood.

  She seemed to relax a little. “Oh, it gave me a start, for sure, but I’m glad you’re as good a shot as me or I wouldn’t be here to thank you.” She laughed, soft and silvery.

  The corners of his mouth pulled in a smile. “Are you saying you’re good with a gun?”

  “I am.” Mischief twinkled in her sea-green eyes. “Want me to prove it?”

  “Why not? It could be fun.”

  “Then I’ll take you up on your kind offer to give me a ride out of this rough and tumble town, and we can find a place where we can shoot.”

  Ryder knew her real motive was to get him to take her for an outing she would not have otherwise. He called to the stable boy, figuring he was hovering nearby and listening in. “Get us a horse and buggy.”

  Kitty offered to pay since it was her idea, but Ryder declined and gave the boy the money himself, figuring the more indebted she felt toward him, the better.

  “You picked a bad time to go for a ride,” he said after they had rolled along for nearly ten minutes without conversation. “It’s boiling hot.”

  She waved a hand to fan herself. “I know, but I thought if I didn’t get away for a little while, I’d lose my mind.”

  He noted she was keeping her distance, squeezing as far from him as possible on the leather seat. “Do you want me to stop and pull the cover up for shade?”

  “No. I want to feel space around me. Staying in my room all the time is positively smothering.”

  “Why don’t you get out a spell?”

  “Where would I go? And what is there to do? It’s terribly boring, but as soon as I’ve saved up enough money, I’m going to buy a horse, and then I can come and go as I please.”

  He stole a glance out of the corner of his eye and wondered again how she could have fooled him so. Then the question struck—what if she hadn’t? What if he had known who she was? Would he have been able to frighten her into handing over her part of the map? He doubted it, recalling how feisty she had been even though she was a captive. She was just not the sort to be easily frightened or intimidated. So maybe it was just as well he was going at her from another angle. After all, she was a strong woman…and also smart.

  “Aren’t you worried about Indians?” It was time to cut to the chase and steer the conversation in the way he wanted it to go. “The bartender told me last night you were captured a while back by Apaches. Seems to me you wouldn’t go anywhere you might run into them.”

  For a heart-stopping second, he feared he had gone too far and crossed a forbidden line. Her face went tight. Her hand stopped fluttering and returned to clasp the other in her lap. With back rigid, head jerking up, she coolly said, “I don’t let myself think about that. It’s in the past.”

  He dared press on. “Was it so awful?”

  She looked at him then, deeply, thoughtfully, as though deciding whether he was worthy of sharing her feelings.

  He waited, again wondering whether he had gone too far.

  Then, with a resigned sigh, she said, “Actually, it wasn’t. I was disguised as a boy, you see, and since I made a very scrawny boy, the work they made me do wasn’t all that hard. Besides, the Apaches have their reasons for being like they are.”

  He was struggling to keep his voice even, for it was a jolt that she was not condemning them…him.

  Kitty repeated the parting words of Pale Sky.

  Ryder was even more stunned.

  She saw his expression and explained, “One of the women helped me escape, and when we said goodbye, she asked me to spread that message.”

  He listened as Kitty talked on and knew, somehow, that it was the first time she had so completely verbalized her feelings and reactions to her captivity. He sensed she had pushed it back in her mind but now welcomed the chance to let it out, and it flew eagerly, like a bird released from a tangled thicket.

  Suddenly she pointed to an expanse on one side with a backdrop of boulders reaching to the sky. “We can shoot there. I’m going to prove I’m as good a shot as you, Mr. Bodine. Maybe even better.”

  He reined in the horse, then turned and held out his hand to her. “Call me Sam, please. I’d like to be your friend, Miss Parrish. And you don’t have to worry about me doing anything to dishonor you. I may make my living with my guns, but I know how to treat a lady.” Quite a speech, but he had no time to waste in trying to win her confidence.

  She gave him a long, searching look.

  Ryder bit the inside of his jaw to steady himself. He was remembering how she had bathed him…touched him. Lord, if he had known the truth.

  “I’d like that,” she said finally. “I could use a friend.”

  Then, scrambling from the buggy before he had a chance to assist her, she flashed an impish grin and said, “But right now I’m anxious to see if you can outshoot me, Sam Bodine.”

  He thought, in that moment, that she was, without a doubt, the most winsome and comely woman he had ever seen in his whole life. He liked the freshness of her, the wholesomeness. She was happy and perky and cute, and as long as he had been in her company she had made him feel good.

  He also noted the swell of her bosom and marveled, again, over how she had managed to keep her secret. To think such a delicacy had slept on the ground outside his tent all those nights, listening as he—

  “Well?”

  She was frowning at his hesitation.

  He forced buoyan
cy. “All right. Let’s see how good you think you are.”

  “How good I am,” she corrected, frown gone. Ryder glanced around for a target. Even if there was a bottle to be had, he was not about to shoot toward the boulders for fear of ricochet. Then he saw the saguaro cactus with its human shape—round flat head, jutting arms to the sides. “There,” he pointed.

  “I’m going to set a rock on the top, and we’ll see if you can hit from twenty paces.”

  “I can hit from forty.”

  “Think so?” He was amused by her arrogance…and also still very much smitten. “If you’ve got that much self-confidence, maybe you’d be willing to make a little wager.”

  The frown threatened to return, “What do you mean?”

  He shrugged. “An innocent bet, that’s all.”

  “I only have a few dollars with me.”

  “Fine.”

  He set the rock, marked off forty paces, then handed her his six-gun. “I guess I have the advantage, being as you aren’t used to my pistols.”

  “A gun is a gun,” she said confidently, then, without further ado, she aimed, fired, and hit the rock.

  Ryder was impressed. The little gal could shoot, all right. But Coyotay could have attested to that. He did not have to see her hit a rock on top of a cactus to confirm his own belief. What he did have to do, however, was make her happy and at ease with him.

  He set another rock, fired himself, and hit the target, then said, “Well, I guess it’s a draw. Pardon the pun,” he added with a chuckle.

  “I still want to best you, Sam Bodine. How good are you with a knife?”

  “Pretty fair.” He was damn good.

  “I’m better.”

  He sucked in his breath to see her whip a knife from where it was strapped to her ankle and send it whizzing through the air to hit the cactus dead center.

  He gave a low whistle. “I think we’ll declare you the winner.” He did not want to show off too much and went to retrieve the knife—then froze.

  “What’s wrong?” she called when he continued to stand there, staring.