He shrugged. “Maybe I do know you. Maybe I see some similarities between you and me.”
“Trust me. There’s nothing similar.” She dipped her spoon into the stew and took a sip. “I have to admit, this is good. The best cooking I’ve had since I don’t remember when. Yes, I do. Since I left the wagons, back on the trail.”
She looked at him. “What do you possibly think we could have in common? Look, I appreciate you helping me down the stairs and getting me supper. And sitting with me upstairs. I really do. But you don’t know anything about me, Darby. I made some really bad decisions. Did things I never thought I would do. We drank an awful lot of whiskey, and that was part of it, too. It has a way of clouding your mind. I doubt I would have stayed as long as I did, otherwise. I don’t care if I have another drop of the stuff as long as I live. But now I’ve got to figure out where to go from here.”
“Maybe the best thing to do is just eat your stew. Take care of immediate business. Take care of tomorrow when tomorrow gets here.”
She took another spoonful of stew. “Bad things label you, Darby. Do you really want to be with a woman who has been labeled like me? Look at you. Educated. Handsome. You can do so much better than me.”
“So, you don’t believe in second chances?”
She looked at him with a little disbelief. “Do you? Really? In this world?”
“Yeah, I do.” He nodded and pulled out a seat and dropped into it. “I think you knew in your heart you can’t just be a farmer’s wife. It’s not right or wrong, it’s just who you are. You need something more out of life. You got a little crazy, maybe, and made an impulsive decision. Kind of like I did, leaving school behind and taking the train out here. It turned out your decision was a wrong one, but maybe now it’s time for a new beginning. To start over.”
“I’m a whore, Darby. That label is there and it’s never going away.”
“There you go with labels.”
“I can’t help it. The world is a place of labels. You’re a good person, or a bad one. You’re smart or stupid. A hard worker or lazy. The things I did, I’ll carry the label of whore the rest of my life. I can try to hide from it, but these things have a way of making themselves known.”
“I think maybe you don’t want a second chance. Maybe you want to punish yourself for making a wrong decision.”
“Darby, there’s something I have to tell you. Then you can decide if you really want to stay or not.”
He waited.
She said, “I think I’m with child. I’m sure Granny Tate suspects. It belongs to one of those men. I have absolutely no way of knowing which one. That’s why I wanted to leave. I couldn’t deliver a child in that little cabin with them. I sure couldn’t raise it there. Now what do you think of me?”
He said, “You really don’t understand, do you?”
She shook her head.
“It’s not about mistakes you’ve made, or things you’ve done. It’s about who you are.”
“But you hardly know me.”
“I think we both know a whole lot more about each other than we realize.”
He reached his hand out to her, and this time she took it. She looked at him as though she wanted to say something, but then her eyes began filling with tears.
“Eat your stew,” he said, “before it gets cold.”
44
Jessica sat at Hunter’s with a cup of hot coffee in front of her. It had been three days, and she was now able to cross the street without a whole lot of pain. She was at a table and Darby was with her. Sitting across from them was Jack.
She said, “That man, Two-Finger, hates your father, Jack. Hates him something fierce. Flossy told me the story about how he lost three fingers on one hand in a fight with your father, and then lost his eye in another. He’s here to gun him down.”
Jack said, “He’ll have to wait until next spring, because Pa’s long gone. On his way to California.”
Darby said, “Jess, you mentioned a cabin you were staying in.”
She nodded. “There’s a cabin, maybe a few miles off in the mountains. I’m not good with directions. It wasn’t very big, and it had no stove.”
Jack looked at Darby. “I think I know which one she’s talking about. That stove is in my office now.”
Hunter was putting on another pot of coffee, and was within hearing distance. He called over, “If we know where they are, then why don’t we just ride out and take care of business?”
Jack shook his head. “That place is on a small plateau on an otherwise steep slope. It’s easy to defend, and would be mighty hard to attack. Pa might have attempted it by himself. One man might have a chance. But I know my limitations.”
Jessica said, “Jack, it’s starting to look like you don’t have a whole lot of limitations. But I doubt they’re there now. They move around a lot. As soon as I left, they probably up and moved again.”
Darby said to Jack, “Let’s get your brothers.”
“They left for the fall roundup four days ago. I don’t expect to hear from them for two or three more weeks.”
Jack said to Jessica, “What about Vic Falcone? Is he still in charge?”
She shook her head and explained what happened to Falcone, and to the one she had originally left her family to be with. Cade. And they had sent Lane on his way because he had broken the wrist on his gunhand and would be of little use to them.
Jack said, “So there’s only two of them? Walker and White-Eye?”
“There’s a gambler who rode in. We were staying maybe two or three days south of here at the time. He said he had a run-in with you. You locked him in a tool shed.” She snickered. “Did you really do that?”
Jack nodded and reached for his coffee. “That was before we got the jail built.”
“And since then Walker’s got two others working for him. Two brothers. They robbed a farm down south of Bozeman. Shot the farmer and got some sacks of flour and a couple horses. The law down there is looking for them.”
Darby looked at Jack. “What are we gonna do?”
“I’m going to ride down the stretch in the morning and see if there’s anyone at Zack Johnson’s spread. He and most of his men are very likely conducting their own fall roundup, but he might have left someone at the ranch. I’m going to see if anyone can be spared to stay with Aunt Ginny and the girls. You’ll all be okay here while I’m gone. You have that shotgun. And Hunter’s here, and Chen.”
“Chen?” Darby tossed a glance at the old man behind the bar. Chen was wiping glasses and beer mugs. His long white braid fell down his back. “That old coolie?”
“Don’t call him that. He’s one of the best men I’ve ever known, and I’d lay odds on him in a fight against most anyone.”
“Seriously?”
“Remember when he pulled you out of the top bunk and slammed you on the floor?”
Darby gave a dismissive shrug. “I was hung-over.”
Jack called out to Chen and asked him to come over.
“Darby,” Jack said. “I want you to try to push Chen down.”
Darby was looking at him like he had lost his mind, but Chen grinned. Chen said, “Can I have ten dollars if he can’t?”
Bree had Fred saddle a horse for her. He picked the bay gelding she had ridden the day she rescued Nina. With a rifle in the scabbard, she stepped up and into the saddle. She was in a split skirt and riding boots, and a sombrero was pulled down to her temples. Aunt Ginny hated to see her wear that thing, but it was ideally suited for riding through these hills. It kept the sun off of her head and out of her eyes, and helped cushion her head from any low hanging tree branches. Not that she made a habit out of riding into tree branches, but it was good to be prepared.
“I’ll be back in a while,” she said to Fred.
She rode at first aimlessly through the pine forest that covered the ridge on the western side of the valley, and then got a hankering to visit Jack. So she turned her horse down toward the pass and the small trail tha
t cut through it, and came out behind Hunter’s. She rode toward the jail, and swung out of the saddle. There was no hitching rail yet, so she left the horse ground hitched – which is to say with the rein trailing – and stepped in.
She found the place empty. Both bunks were in disarray. One of the cowhands working for the Circle M had told her a friend of Jack’s from school had come west and Jack had hired him on as a deputy. Apparently he was as inept as housekeeping as Jack was.
She saw a Winchester leaning in a corner and picked it up. It was one of the rifles from the ranch. She thought maybe when the boys got back from the roundup she would ask Josh to build him a gunrack. Josh was not a finished carpenter, but she thought he could put together a reasonably functional rifle rack. Bree had seen the town marshal’s office in Bozeman once, and he had a rack filled with rifles.
She heard footsteps at the door and turned expecting it to be Jack, or maybe his deputy friend. But this man looked like no one who would belong at Harvard. He looked like he had been on the trail a long time. He was a little taller than Jack, and his shirt was darkened from one sweat stain on top of another. His face had a bushy beard, and his hair was long and stringy. He wore a battered looking sombrero, and one eye was milky white with a long scar that ran from above his brow to his cheekbone.
“Anything I can do for you?” she said.
He grinned. But it was not a pleasant one. She was reminded of a cat about to pounce on a mouse.
“Yeah, missy. You can come with me.”
“And what, on Earth, would make you think I would want to go with you?”
“I been watching your house for a while. I trailed you into town. I’m to fetch you and bring you back. Then when your Pa comes to get you, we’ll be waitin’ for him.”
“You’re dreaming if you think I’m going anywhere with you.”
His grin got wider. “Don’t make it hard on yourself.”
He began walking toward her, and reached a hand to her. “Why don’t you just give me that there gun.”
She realized she was still holding the rifle. She had to think quickly. He was too close, and approaching too quickly, for her to jack a cartridge into the chamber and have any hopes of getting off a shot. She didn’t really want to kill anyone, anyway.
She had to think quickly. Pa had never actually trained her the way he had Josh and Jack, but she had watched him train them. And he had given her a lot of advice on how to survive, as well as showing her how to shoot and ride.
This man had only one eye that worked. She quickly lunged forward, driving the muzzle of the rifle into the other eye. She didn’t hit the eye but caught his brow, but it was enough.
“Hey!” he called out, pulling back and away, squinting his eye shut and reaching up with one hand.
She then swung upward with the rife stock, catching him in the groin. His eyes widened and he went down on one knee. She then jammed the muzzle of the gun into his ear.
He yelped and folded downward to the floor, one hand covering his ear and the other at his eye. Blood was seeping through his fingers from the gash above his eye. His knees were locked tight.
She pulled the pistol from his holster and set it on the desk, then jacked a round into the chamber.
“All right, get into the cell,” she said. “The back room.”
He got to his knees, then pushed himself to his feet. He was wiping blood away from the gash over his one good eye, and with the other hand still hanging onto his ear.
He turned to make a break for the door, but she fired and a section of wood at the doorway tore up and splintered, and he jumped back. She jacked the gun again, and made certain she was back far enough that he couldn’t lunge at her.
She said, “Get in that cell, or the next one takes out the one good eye you have left. Your choice.”
He stared at her a minute, then turned and walked into the cell. She shut the door, and slid into place the two-by-four Jack used as a bar. The man with the white eye wasn’t getting out.
Jack came running, bursting through the door. Another man about his age was behind him, and wearing a tin star. Must be his friend from back east.
“I heard the gunshot,” Jack said. “We were over at Hunter’s.”
“A man was here, threatening to kidnap me. I arrested him.”
Jack looked through the window into the cell. “White-Eye?”
White-Eye said, “I need me a doctor. That wildcat out there near killed me.”
Jack looked at her with amazement. “You arrested White-Eye?”
She gave him a smug smile. “I am a McCabe.”
45
Darby fetched Granny Tate to come and work on the prisoner. Bree sat behind Jack’s desk. His rifle was once again standing in one corner, and she had gotten hers from her saddle and it was laid across the desk.
Jack said, “You really probably ought to go home, Bree.”
“I think I’ll stick around. Looks to me like you need a second deputy.”
Jack rolled his eyes and tried to repress a huff of exasperation. Bree’s sense of humor could be maddening sometimes.
Jack heard the clopping of horse hooves on the ground and the creak of wagon wheels in motion. “Sounds like Darby’s back.”
Jack opened the door, and held it as Granny Tate stepped in. She leaned on her cane as she walked.
“Thanks for coming, Granny,” Jack said.
White-Eye was watching through the tiny window in the cell. “That’s the doctor? I never seen a sadder lookin’ doctor.”
Jack said, “Shut up, White-Eye, or I’ll let my sister beat on you some more.”
He scowled, but Bree was giving her smug grin again.
Jack said, “White-Eye, we’re coming in. If you do anything out of line, there won’t be anything left of you to turn over to a territorial marshal.”
Jack unlocked the door and he and Granny went in. She examined the wound over his eye and thought it needed maybe a couple of stitches.
White-Eye said, “That wildcat jammed a rifle into my ear, too.”
Granny looked in his ear. “Aside from enough dirt in there to plant a potato, I think you’ll be all right. You got a small gash, but it should heal.”
Jack said with a grin, “Should we give it the corn liquor treatment?”
She returned the smile. “I don’t think we have to put him through that right now.”
“Just wishful thinking.”
Darby was standing in the doorway to the cell. He said, “Considering what they put Jessica through, he’s lucky he’s still alive at all.”
White-Eye said, “You ain’t got what it takes, city slicker.”
“No?” Darby charged in, shotgun in hand, pushing the muzzle into White-Eye’s face. White-Eye backed up until he was against the wall. Darby said, “I’ll pull the trigger and blow your brains all over the wall.”
Jack grabbed Darby and yanked him back and pushed him out through the cell door. White-Eye stepped away from the wall, and Jack pulled his pistol from his holster, cocking it with the motion, and had the gun up and in White-Eye’s face before White-Eye could blink.
Jack said, “Don’t try anything fancy, White-Eye, or I’ll finish what he started.”
White-Eye apparently knew a hopeless situation when he saw it. He stood his ground while Jack held the door and Granny Tate hobbled her way out into the main office. Jack then stepped out and shut the door and slid the bar back in place.
White-Eye called out, “They’ll be comin’ for me. Just you wait.”
Jack called back, “Shut up, or I’ll hog-tie you and muzzle you.”
Something in Jack’s tone must have been convincing. White-Eye shut up.
“Bree,” Jack said. “Take Granny Tate home, will you please? And bring a rifle with you.”
Bree got to her feet and grabbed her Winchester from the desk.
Jack escorted Granny out to the wagon, and held an elbow while she worked her way up and into the wagon seat.
“Thanks for coming, Granny,” Jack said. “I may have been a medical student, but you’re the doctor around here.”
“You need anything, you let me know. His wound starts showin’ any signs of infection, you send someone for me.”
“Thanks, Granny. We will.”
Bree hopped up onto the wagon seat and freed the brake and turned the team around.
Jack stepped back into the office and shut the door behind him. Darby was sitting on the edge of the desk. He had laid the shotgun down across it.
Jack stood a moment, looking at his friend, deliberating the entire situation. How to best handle this. He decided to let his temper win out, and he charged at Darby and grabbed him by the lapels of his vest and pulled him off the desk and slammed him into the wall.
Jack said through clenched teeth, “I went out on a limb talking these town folks into letting you stay on as deputy. And by God you’re going to take the job seriously. Do you understand me?”
He let Darby free. Darby took a step to steady himself, then smoothed out his vest.
Jack said, “This isn’t just some lark. These are good people here, and this job has to be taken seriously.”
Darby nodded. “I know, Jack. I know.”
Darby began pacing, reaching with one hand to the back of his neck. “It’s just that, well, when it comes to Jessica..,”
“I know. You’re taken with her.”
He nodded. “I guess I am.”
“Can I ask, why? I mean, I knew her back on the trail. She was trouble all the way.”
“I guess it’s just that I see a kindred spirit in her. To some extent, at least. Someone who’s direction in life has already been mapped by her family. But she doesn’t want that direction. Trying to follow that direction just chokes her off. She had to get away before it killed her. Now, the decision she made to leave the wagons and go with those men was the wrong one. Granted. And she knows that now. But she had to do something. There are people who would say that I made the wrong decision running away from school the way I did to come here.”
It was now fully dawning on Jack. “That’s why you came here.”
One Man's Shadow (The McCabes Book 2) Page 39