Portraits

by Stef Ann Holm

“We don’t have anyone to ring.”

  “We could call Nanna. She said she’s getting a telephone.”

  That was all Leah needed—to enable Geneva to phone her at will. It was bad enough her mother-in-law dropped by without any notice at all.

  “No, Tug. We are definitely not getting a telephone.”

  They approached a copse of young aspens that clustered down the center of two long barns with low-pitched roofs. The buildings were new as of last year, but already the boards were weathered and bleached by the blinding sun. Wide double doors made up the entrance, and the odors of dung and sweaty animals wafted through the air.

  Since the swarm of people had thinned considerably down to mostly wranglers and their sweethearts, with a few of Eternity’s citizens interested in the horses, bulls, and calves, Wyatt let go of Leah’s elbow. She instantly missed the warmth of his fingers seeping through the light fabric of her shirtwaist.

  Wyatt set Tug on his feet, and he dashed inside the dim interior before she could stop him.

  “Tug! Wait!”

  Wyatt picked up the pace, but assured her, “Only the roping horses are in stalls. They won’t hurt him. It’s the broncos and bulls corralled out back that can get him into trouble. But he won’t get that far before we catch him.”

  That didn’t appease Leah’s worry. Tug was foolhardy enough to climb through one of the rails to try and meet face-to-face with a workhorse if he thought the animal would let him pet it. Horses of any kind were unpredictable.

  Gathering the fabric of her skirt, Leah hurried after Wyatt into the barn that was poorly lit in the middle, even with the doors thrown open. She skimmed past the horses whose heads stuck out from their stalls, looking for her son. She couldn’t see him anywhere.

  Wyatt ran through the back doors and called out to Tug in one of the severest voices Leah had ever heard him use.

  “Hold it right there, Tug!”

  Leah’s heart did a double-trip when she saw Tug frozen to the side of the corral, his hands and feet stuck fast to the railing as if he had been planning on climbing inside.

  “Owen Edwin! You get down from there right this minute!” Leah ran forward while Wyatt snagged Tug around the waist and pried him off. A billow of dust rising from inside the corral captured Leah’s attention, and her heart slammed in fear as a fleshy bull snorted and kicked at the dry ground with his front hooves. “Owen Edwin,” Leah reprimanded with less steam than she ought to, but she was fairly petrified, “I should tan your hide.”

  Wyatt let Tug go, and the boy tried to keep some of his dignity. “I wasn’t doing anything.”

  “You sure were,” Leah admonished. “That animal could have killed you.”

  “I was just lookin’.”

  Wyatt said, “Just lookin’ and climbing over the rail are two different things.”

  Tug hung his head but didn’t seem all that sorry.

  Catching her breath, Leah stood back and took a really hard look at that bull. A hump protruded from between his shoulders, and his flesh seemed a half size too big for his ungainly body. The gray-dappled skin hung in places, especially beneath his neck and belly. Foot-long horns that could disembowel a man sprung out at his cropped ears with uptilted points.

  “Wyatt,” Leah said, wishing now more than ever he wasn’t actually going to sit on the beast. “You can’t ride on that bull.”

  “I’ve already entered.” Wyatt put up a foot on the bottom corral rung and gazed at the bull. “I hope I draw him. He’s small.”

  “Small?” Leah squeaked.

  “Small for a bull. His name is Cricket.”

  Cricket conjured up a leaping bug, nothing like the ungainly bull before her. But crickets were known for their spring-air action, and the thought didn’t make her feel the least bit better.

  “What’s some of the other ones?” Tug asked, pointing to the pens.

  Wyatt directed his finger on a few. “That one there is Boot Hill. Squirrely. White Lightning. And Popcorn.” Wyatt’s eyes narrowed in on the latter. “From what I’ve seen, Popcorn is a son-of-a—” He cut himself short and rephrased, “He’s a mean customer.”

  “Bet you could ride ’em, Wyatt,” Tug said with all the adoration in the world. “I’ll be watching you.”

  “Yeah . . .” Wyatt’s voice trailed. “I reckon the whole town will. Will you, Leah? Or have you changed your mind?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “But you don’t like rodeos.”

  “No.”

  “You wouldn’t go for a rancher, then?”

  “A man’s occupation wouldn’t sway me from having feelings for him, if that’s what you mean,” she replied.

  “Yeah, that’s what I was meaning.”

  16

  In haste, there is error.

  —Chinese proverb

  At one, Leah collected Rosalure by a gardened pavilion and Wyatt said hello to Leo, who proudly held up his first-prize ribbon for the largest ear of corn. Afterward, Wyatt spent the last of his pay buying Leah and her children a dinner of cold fried chicken, corn oysters, and apple snow. He himself couldn’t eat a bite. His stomach was too tangled in knots over the impending rodeo. The four of them sat on a bench beneath the shady boughs of an elm.

  Wyatt’s gaze continually landed on Leah and he thought about what she’d said. She’d consider being a rancher’s wife. She was willing to give a man who drove cattle for a living a chance. That’s all he wanted, a chance. Her not going to Italy meant she’d be sticking around Eternity . . . unless she won that photography contest and packed up for New York. But until then, if that happened, he had the chance to win her over.

  In his rowdy days, he wouldn’t have thought to settle down with a missus and set up house. But that notion had been foremost on his mind since getting out. And he’d decided Leah was the woman for him. If she’d have him. He had to prove himself to her by winning those contests to keep him above water. He was sinking so fast in the wallet that he was getting desperate. Everything he wanted to do for himself and for Leah relied on money. He was so sick and tired of being nearly busted, he could puke.

  The shimmer of silver winked at the corner of Wyatt’s eye and he veered his attention to the source: a tin badge pinned on a navy lapel. U.S. Marshal Benard Scudder swaggered through the crowd wearing a sugarloaf hat as high as four hands, with his revolver swaying against his beefy thigh. A fat Cuban cigar was clamped between his lips, and his whopping mustache kissed the round of that stogie while he puffed contentedly as if he hadn’t a care in the world. But Wyatt knew better.

  Scudder wasn’t on the up-and-up.

  Last night when Wyatt had been walking home from work, he’d passed the marshal’s office. The window shade hadn’t been drawn, and Wyatt saw Bean sitting in the electric light at his desk swilling down a bottle of beer. If Bean hadn’t been irritating him, Wyatt would have kept on walking, but since the marshal seemed out to get him for some trumped-up offense, Wyatt had sneaked closer to investigate the marshal for a change and turn the tables on the lawman.

  Standing in the shadows, Wyatt had watched Bean tip back on his chair in a good drunk that nearly had him upending himself. He sang under his breath, some obscene barroom ditty Wyatt had heard a thousand times. Then he fumbled for a cigar box and had withdrawn one. Skunked as he was, after he had the stogie in his mouth, he had a hard time striking the match. When he finally got the end to sizzle to a flame, his shaking hand brought the burning stick to his cigar. Only Bean hadn’t been steady enough to light the weed in his mouth. His mustache had gotten in the way. All that wax he’d twirled into it caught fire and went to a quick burn. Scudder bolted out of the chair, and had Wyatt thought he was in jeopardy of going up like tinder he would have bolted inside to lend a hand.

  As it was, Scudder had dunked his head into the ice chest and came out with a wide-eyed look of shock. A mirror hung on the wall, and he’d stumbled toward it. Wyatt had held back a chortle when he got a glimpse of what Scudder had done
.

  The marshal had singed the best parts of that mustache, and rather than having a damn good Brillcream twist of facial hair, it was more reminiscent of cat whiskers. And an ugly cat at that.

  Wyatt had walked on, thinking that Scudder was lucky to be alive, for an inept fool.

  Seeing Bean Scudder today sporting a mustache finer than the one he’d had yesterday had Wyatt wondering how in the hell he’d come about such a growth overnight.

  Wyatt would have gone out of his way to avoid Scudder if he could. But sitting with Leah, he couldn’t just get up and walk away, so he stayed. Scudder spotted him and came over with an expression on his face as if he was full of more information than a mail-order catalog. Wyatt’s stomach turned even more.

  “Mrs. Kirkland,” the marshal dutifully greeted. “Kids.”

  Rosalure and Tug weren’t impressed with Scudder and kept on eating their meal.

  “Is there anything wrong, Marshal?” Leah asked in a monotone. “Do you require my professional services?”

  “No.” Scudder’s eyes stayed on Wyatt, boring in on him while he kept up a slaphappy smile. “Actually, I needed to speak to Mr. Holloway a minute.”

  Leah made a quick protest. “Do you really have to now? We’re about finished with dinner and had plans to enter some of the field races.”

  Wyatt flashed Leah a brief exchange of thoughts. He didn’t know about any plans to enter races, but appreciated her attempt to get Scudder off his back.

  “This won’t take but a minute, Mrs. Kirkland.” Then he motioned Wyatt toward the back of a popcorn vendor’s cart.

  Reluctantly, Wyatt rose, feeling his dander rise. Once he drew up to the red wheels of the handcart, Wyatt stuck his hands in his back pockets and took on his most intimidating stance. “What do you want?”

  Scudder had the gall to finger that mustache of his, petting and smoothing the two sides from the inside out before saying, “I got a firsthand crack at that new telephone this morning. I used it to make an official inquiry up north.” Scudder eased his hand over the butt of his service revolver, but Wyatt wasn’t in the least bit threatened by the gesture. “There ain’t nobody in Billings, Montana, ever heard of a Wyatt Holloway. Not anyone in the sheriff’s office nor down to the city census bureau. You’re yanking on my chain, boy, and I don’t like it.”

  Though making ignorance a paying job, Wyatt figured Scudder would eventually get around to checking out the Billings story. The marshal had nothing else to do. But Wyatt had also figured he’d be long gone from Eternity before such a question would be asked. Since Wyatt was still in town, and since he was staying, the question became relevant. Scudder was due an answer for his duplicity—if only the man wasn’t such a pain in the ass. Seeing that he was, and that Wyatt now felt he had one over on the marshal, Wyatt decided to be downright obnoxious.

  Pulling himself up to his full height and bracing a hand on the top of the popcorn cart, Wyatt looked down at Scudder as if he was an ant. “A drunkard for a lawman can be abided mostly because he’s so useless it’s no skin off anyone’s nose. But a liar with a tin star on his chest is just about as low as a fellow can get.”

  Scudder sputtered with such injustice, droplets of spit landed on the underswell of his mustache. “What in the Sam hell are you implying?”

  “I’m not implying anything, Scudder. I’m just stating a fact.”

  “I don’t like your tone, boy.”

  “And I don’t like you calling me boy. Just about as much as I don’t like your new mustache.”

  Scudder’s face went pale as chalk. “W-What was that?”

  “Looks real enough, though. I doubt the judges will notice. I reckon you figure on winning this year again, too.”

  For the first time since Wyatt had had the misfortune to be in Bean Scudder’s company, the marshal was at a loss for words. If Deputy Ferris Moon hadn’t come along, there was no telling what Scudder would have said in his defense, because he had none.

  “Eh, Marshal Scudder,” Ferris said, his thin neck lumped with a bobbing Adam’s apple. “We got a problem. Luke Creed and his cronies got a crate of firecrackers out of the auxiliary storage and are setting them off in the middle of Main Street. A rocket shot through the tree in your yard and busted up the bottles. Another broke one of the windows at the bank.”

  Scudder stiffened and pulled out from Wyatt’s spell. “Hang it all! Those damn hoodlums. I had just about every available branch covered! How many did they get?”

  “I didn’t stop to count. I was more worried about the bank window being shattered. I can’t find Mr. Kirkland to tell him.”

  Wyatt broke away and went to Leah. What was between him and Scudder wasn’t as important as Hartzell’s setting things right down at the bank before someone got the urge to vandalize the place. “Do you know where your father-in-law is?” he asked her.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “He needs to get to the bank and see to a broken window. You don’t have any idea where he could be?”

  “I imagined you would. He’s been with you this past week more than anyone else except at the bank.”

  Wyatt thoughtfully gazed in a slow half-circle at the crowd in an attempt to spy Hartzell Kirkland. By pure luck, he saw him standing in conversation with a group of businessmen at the crepe paper-festooned gazebo.

  Turning to Leah, Wyatt said, “I found him. I’ll go tell him what happened. He may need some help getting that window boarded up, so go on ahead to the field races without me.”

  Tug poked with a greasy finger at his uneaten chicken. “Will you be back in time to enter the sack races with me, Wyatt?”

  “I don’t know. If I’m not, your mother can enter with you.”

  “She won’t race in any gunnysack,” Tug declared.

  Wyatt gave Leah a cursory glance. “Sure she will. She said as much to the marshal.”

  “Ah, I was referring to something less physical,” Leah said. Eyes as brown as walnuts took on a hue of panic. “Such as horseshoes.”

  “I’ll play you horseshoes if you sack race with Tug.”

  Before Leah could offer further debate, Wyatt was off.

  * * *

  The big east window to the Eternity Security Bank lay in shards on the floor in front of the teller’s cage. Glass had flown behind the radiators and spewed across the deposit stands. A streak of black powder left a trail as the skyrocket had scudded to a stop at the rear wall and mercifully burned itself out before razing the building.

  “Will you look at that?” Hartzell blazed peevishly. “The trouble with kids today is they have no respect. Luke Creed’s daddy is going to be paying for this, I can tell you that.”

  Wyatt stayed in the doorway, his chest heavy. If he crossed the threshold to the inside, he’d be swept back in time. And he didn’t want to make that journey. When he’d volunteered to help nail up the board until a new plate of glass could be installed, he hadn’t volunteered to stick around. But Hartzell had wanted to unlock the bank and make sure nothing had been tampered with. He’d asked Wyatt to stay, and in the light of everything that had happened to Hartzell, Wyatt couldn’t deny him. The problem was, Wyatt didn’t want to be in any banking institution. Ever again.

  A bank held nothing but sour memories for him: his days of reckless drinking, disobedience to society, and the need to cause trouble.

  “Come give me a hand with this glass, would you?” Hartzell had grabbed a broom and was sweeping the worst of it into a pile.

  Wyatt moved forward, torn by conflicting emotions. The dark-paneled walls seemed to close in on him. Lemon oil and ink permeated from the wooden tables and hardwood floor. The odor of ledgers and old papers oozed from the shelves behind the cage. And all around was the smell of money. Dirty. Pungent. Rich. He could hardly breath. His head ached to think of all that cash locked up in the vault.

  Forcing himself to forget where he was, Wyatt bent down and picked up the dustpan. He and Hartzell cleaned up most of the glass, dumping
the sharp pieces into several trash bins.

  “Those ruffians can blow my window to smithereens, but nobody can crack open my National safe,” Hartzell said as he unlocked the teller’s cage door and entered. Wyatt held back. He couldn’t get close to the metal cage, not without seeing Pierpont Farnham sitting behind it at a desk and looking mad as all hell when he realized he was being robbed.

  “Come on over here, Wyatt.” Hartzell moved around the clerk’s counter. “I want to show you something.”

  “You don’t need to show me anything.”

  “You said you didn’t trust your money in a bank. Let me show you just how protected your money would be in the No. 5. Just take a look at this here.”

  “I’d rather not.”

  “Oh for chrissake, Wyatt. Humor me and come see my National safe.”

  Wyatt heaved a sigh and walked through the teller’s cage. He drew up alongside Hartzell, who stood at a gigantic black safe with gold trim and lettering.

  Hartzell patted the side with pride. “Nobody can pick out the combination of this safe. The tumbler is silent.” To prove his point, Hartzell spun the dial. “Nothing. Not even with a stethoscope could you pick up the numbers. Can’t blast through the casing either. Solid steel. Won’t even rip a hole in it. Come on, take a spin at it.”

  “I’d rather not,” Wyatt repeated.

  “I just want you to see that the safe is secure. One spin. Give it a whirl.”

  To appease Hartzell, Wyatt grasped the dial and turned it.

  “See there!” Hartzell beamed proudly. “Not a peep.”

  Sweat popped out on Wyatt’s forehead, his underarms. What Hartzell didn’t understand was that Wyatt didn’t need dynamite or the ability to crack a safe to get to the money. None of that mattered. The bank’s layout was so common, he could walk through the building in his sleep. All he’d need to pull off the job was a disguise, his Colt aimed and cocked as if he meant business, and he could be in and out within minutes. People did whatever you wanted when they were scared. And Wyatt had scared a great many people in his life.

  He could rob again. He knew that now. The old instincts and reactions hadn’t left him. That’s not to say that he wanted to pull off a holdup. It just meant that some things were never forgotten. How he could move through a bank, take command of the occupants, and leave with bags of money was something that once learned was still in his head. He fought off thinking about the money in the vault. He needed some so badly, he could taste the metallic gold coins as surely as if he were biting on one to test it for authenticity.