“My grandfather sat on the Supreme Court. My father is a senator. They’ve been talking to me about the Senate and possibly the presidency since I was ten years old. Scared the life out of me. I’ve been dancing to their music every step of the way.”
“I guess I did always know you were running from something. I guess maybe that’s at least partly why we became such close friends.”
“It was that letter from you, telling me you weren’t going back to school. That’s what gave me the courage to step away, too. Don’t you see? You, me, Jessica. The situations are different on the surface, but down deep, we’re three proverbial peas in a pod.”
Jack nodded and raised his brows. “I guess I never saw it that way.”
Jessica suddenly spoke, from the doorway. “You understand me, Darby. Like no one else.”
Jack and Darby both turned to the doorway. Jack had no idea how long she had been there.
She stepped in and said to Jack, “So, cowboy. You still disapprove of me?”
Jack took off his hat and tossed it onto his desk, then sat at the corner of desktop. “I guess I was passing judgment on you. I apologize. An old Shoshone chief who was one of my father’s teachers said once we should never judge each other. We’re all equal in the eyes of the Great Spirit.”
She went over to Darby, who took her in a hug.
“So,” she said, “what do we do now? Where do we go from here?”
White-Eye was in the cell, looking out the window into the office. He said, “Well hello there, Missy.”
She looked up at the sound of his voice and clung onto Darby tighter.
Darby said, “I’m gonna kill him.”
“Outside,” Jack said. “Both of you.”
Darby and Jessica stepped out the door, and Jack followed. He said to Darby, “Why don’t you get her back to the hotel. I’ll stay and watch the prisoner.”
After Darby had returned, he found Jack had put on a pot of coffee. Jack poured coffee into a tin cup and handed it to Darby.
Jack said, “Look, I know you want to put a bullet in him. But we wear these badges, and with them comes a public trust.”
“To hell with public trust. This is too personal.”
“Then think about what it would do to you. It would make you one step closer to what he is. You can’t do that to Jessica. She needs you now.”
Darby gave a reluctant nod. “All right.”
Jack placed a hand on Darby’s shoulder. “Maybe it’d be best for you if you stayed away from the jail while he’s here. There’s other marshal stuff you can do. Walking the rounds, and such.”
Darby nodded.
White-Eye said from the cell, “That’s right. You keep that boy away from me. I’ll turn him inside out, you give me the chance.”
Jack said, “Tomorrow, I’m going to see if Ford has some lumber and I’m going to make a door so we can shut that window.”
White-Eye said, ignoring Jack, “Let me tell you about that little girl. What I done to her. I used her real good. More’n once. Let me tell you all about it.”
Darby let the coffee cup fly. “I’m gonna kill him.”
Jack stepped in front of him. “Give me the shotgun first.”
Darby handed Jack the shotgun, then lifted the two-by-four from the cell door, unbarring it.
White-Eye was grinning and taunting. “You let that boy in here, and I’ll give him the thrashing of his life.”
Darby charged into the cell. Jack called out to him, “He’s going to fight dirty! You have to do the same!”
Then the sounds of a fracas filled the air. Jack went to his desk and laid the shotgun across it, and took a sip of coffee.
He heard grunts. Hard breathing. The sounds of fists colliding with skulls. A crashing sound on the floor. Something slamming into the wall. Jack took another sip of coffee.
Then all was quiet in the cell. Jack waited, and after a couple of moments Darby stepped from it. Darby’s face was bloodied. One eye was swollen shut. His shirt had been torn open, and his badge was gone. His derby had been on his head when he went into the cell, but it was also gone, and his hair was flying like he had just stepped out of a heavy wind. The knuckles of his right hand were battered and bleeding.
“Is he still alive?” Jack said.
Darby nodded. At that moment, Bree came in the door. With all of the commotion, Jack hadn’t heard the wagon outside.
“What happened?” she said, horrified, staring at Darby.
Jack said, “You better bring back Granny Tate.”
46
Darby sat on a small bench in front of the hotel.
It had been two days since his fight with White-Eye. One of Darby’s eyes was still swollen shut, and a gash on one cheekbone had scabbed over. He had lost a back tooth, as White-Eye had nailed him with a hook punch in the side of the jaw and the tooth had shattered. It took three plugs of whiskey before he was numb enough for Granny Tate to pull the remaining shards of tooth from his gum with a pair of pliers, then she got out some thread and sewed the gum shut. During the fight, Darby had grabbed White-Eye by the head and pulled him down and brought his knee up and into White-Eye’s face, and now his knee was swollen and it hurt to walk.
Jessica was sitting next to him, close enough that their hips were almost touching, and she was ever so slightly leaning into him, a subtle gesture but one with proprietary meaning.
“Does it hurt much?” she said.
“Only when I smile.” He couldn’t help but grin, but then winced. “Like then.”
“You shouldn’t have done that, you know. Fighting White-Eye. He could have killed you.”
“He didn’t stand a chance. I had too much to fight for.”
That got a smile from her.
He said, “And I had the element of surprise on him. Boxing class at Harvard. And Jack and I were on the rowing team. That kind of thing can build muscle like nothing else. And we got into a few scraps in a couple bars down on the Boston waterfront. Let me tell you, those boys in those waterfront bars know how to scrap.”
She ran a hand along his arm. “You are rather tightly muscled for a scholar.”
He smiled. Then winced again.
“Sorry,” she said.
“Jess, I’ve got to ask you something. I know you don’t know what it is you want in life.”
She shrugged. “Do you?”
“Maybe not long-term. But for now, I think I’ll be content to be a deputy, working for Jack. He’s right. These people here need us, and they’re good people. They deserve someone who will take this job seriously. That is, if you think you might be content to be a deputy’s wife.”
“Why, Darby Yates. Are you asking me to marry you?”
He looked at her slyly. “Maybe. Would you say yes if I asked you?”
“Maybe,” she said, putting on the coyness. “Sometimes, you just have to go out on a limb and take a chance.”
He said, “I don’t have a ring. I do have funds, but I don’t have immediate access to them. Out here, in the middle of nowhere, I don’t see any way to get you one.”
“Sometimes, a girl doesn’t need a ring and finery and such. Sometimes a girl just needs the right man making the right offer.”
He reached over and took her hand. “I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, or where it will lead us. I don’t know how long I’ll be content to remain here wearing this tin star. It might be a week or it might be ten years. But I know I want you at my side. Jessica Brewster, will you consent to be my wife?”
She looked away, still doing the coy act, but with a grin breaking through. “Well, I don’t know..,”
He grabbed her and pulled her in for a kiss. She wrapped her arms around him. Suddenly neither cared that they were in a public place and potentially making a spectacle of themselves.
She pulled back, by only an inch or two. “I knew I would marry you, back in the hotel when I told you my secret, and you could either stay or go, and you chose to stay. Right then, I k
new I’d marry you if you asked.”
“Somehow I knew that very first day, when you rode in on that horse, almost falling out of the saddle. Right then, I knew I never wanted you out of my sight. Strange, isn’t it?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Some people know each other for years before they marry. They have long courtships. But I think there’s a moment, somewhere along the line, when they just know. It’s a yes-or-no moment. And my heart says yes.”
“You’re pretty smart, for a farm girl.”
“Oh yeah?” She was smiling as widely as she could. “Farm girl, is it?”
He was grinning, too. It was killing the side of his jaw, but he was just too happy not to.
She said, “I do have a question, though.”
“Anything.”
“I’m with child. I went to Granny Tate yesterday and she confirmed it. She’s as sure as a body can be, this early on. What are we going to do? I really don’t even know who the father is.”
He shook his head with a smile. “Silly girl. I’m the father. I’m going to raise this child with you. We’re going to be the parents. It doesn’t matter what happened before. This child is ours.”
She suddenly had tears in her eyes.
“All right, farm girl. You’re not going to go and get all weepy on me, are you?”
She laughed through the tears. “I’m just realizing I don’t think I ever knew what the definition of the word happy was. Until now.”
Jack had gone to Hunter’s for a cup of coffee. He now stepped out of the barroom and stood for a moment on the boardwalk in front of Hunter’s and took a look about the town. His town, he sort of thought of it now. Not that he had any illusions about it belonging to him, but when you were responsible for something you sort of developed a sense of ownership about it. He was sure Chen felt a certain sense of ownership toward Hunter’s, even though the establishment belonged entirely to Hunter.
It was only a few months earlier that he had been packing his trunk back at Harvard, leaving school for what appeared to be his usual summer trip home, but knowing he would never be returning to school. Saying goodbye to Darby and figuring he would probably never see his friend again. And now here he was, the town marshal of this little community.
He thought about the letter he had sent Pa. It had been a few weeks, now. The letter was probably halfway between here and San Francisco. He wondered where Pa was. Since Pa was in no hurry, and meandering through the mountains was somehow rejuvenating for him, Jack figured Pa to be anywhere between one hundred and five hundred miles away by now. Sleeping under the open sky in the mountains. Hunting elk or deer for his dinner. Drinking from cold mountain streams. Standing on high cliffs, looking off at the vistas before him. Mountains standing tall with rocky ledges and forests of pine.
He hoped Pa understood. He had told Aunt Ginny, and though it was a little difficult for her to accept that she actually knew so little about the nephew she thought she knew so well, it had not been a disaster. Surprisingly, once she got past the initial surprise of it, she understood. Jack experienced a similar thing with Josh and Bree. Dusty was the easiest to tell, because Dusty had no preconceived notions about Jack. The last hurdle, he knew, would be getting past Pa. Would Pa understand and be accepting, or would he look at Jack with disappointment?
Jack saw Darby and Jessica sitting in front of the hotel. Jessica was someone else he thought he would probably never see again, after she rode off with Vic Falcone and his little band of outlaws. And just two months ago, if anyone had been willing to bet him that Nina would be out of his life, and it would be Darby and Jessica, probably the oddest couple Jack had ever seen, sitting in front of the hotel hand-in-hand, he would have taken that bet.
Jack had known other girls before, but none had taken hold of his heart like Nina had. Aunt Ginny had said he needed to give it time. His heart would heal, and he would be able to put her behind him. And yet, he wondered how much time had to pass? It had been weeks, and yet the pain sometimes seemed as fresh as the first day.
He crossed the open expanse of earth between Hunter’s and the jail, and went in. His rifle was where he had left it, leaning in one corner.
Hunter had asked if Jack really thought it safe to leave his prisoner unattended, and Jack thought it would be safe for a short time. Long enough for him to grab a cup of coffee. The only real danger to the prisoner was from Darby, and he was across the street.
Jack stepped up to the small window and looked into the cell. White-Eye was stretched out on the bunk. His head was resting on the tattered old pillow Jack had found for the bunk, and he had one arm up and across his eyes.
“You still alive?” Jack said.
“Barely.”
White-Eye had emerged from the fight in worse shape than Darby. Jack had found him on the floor, unconscious. Granny Tate had determined he had a concussion, but she didn’t think his skull was fractured. At one point during the fight Darby had slammed White-Eye’s head repeatedly into the log wall.
Well, Jack thought, apparently he and his brothers had made the wall tight and solid.
White-Eye’s face was bruised and swollen. He had taken a punch into his good eye, which was now nearly swollen shut.
White-Eye said, “You know, Walker’s gonna be comin’ for me. And when he sees what you did to one of his men, he ain’t gonna be happy.”
“Walker comes for you, and I guarantee my first bullet will be for you.”
“You keep that deputy away from me.”
“You talk about that girl again the way you did, and next time I’ll let him kill you. We’re a long way from the main trail, White-Eye. Remember that.”
Jack again gave serious thought to building a small door so he could shut the cell entirely off from the office.
He sat down behind his desk, and looked at the empty coffee cup on the desk in front of him and the kettle standing on the cold wood stove. Another cup would do him well, he thought, but it was already turning off warm outside and to start a fire in the stove would heat the place up intolerably.
It was Thursday. The day before, he had sent a letter off on the stage with Walt addressed to the territorial marshal. Walt said he would deliver it to the town marshal’s office in Bozeman the next day, which would be today. There it would wait until the territorial marshal came through, which he tended to do once every month or so. Essentially, White-Eye could be in this jail for awhile.
A problem, Jack could see, was going to be resources. To keep a prisoner in this jail for what could turn out to be many weeks was going to require resources. Three meals a day. The community was already providing this for Jack and now for Darby. He wondered if Franklin or Shapleigh or Hunter had put any thought into how expensive having a lawman in town could actually be.
This community was large enough that it needed law, even an unofficial lawman like Jack.
“Hey, McCabe,” White-Eye called out.
“What now?”
“I’m hungry.”
Jack pulled a pocket watch out of his vest. It was eighteen minutes to eleven. “It’s not even noon yet. You gotta wait.”
Jack reached for a newspaper. It was a couple weeks old, put out by a press in Virginia City. It had been on the stage the day before. Out here on the remote frontier, getting the daily paper was unheard of. At Harvard, he had read the Boston Globe every morning, but here he would have to take whatever paper he could find.
Jack flipped it open. On page two there was an article about Senator Fenton D. Yates, Sr., D-NY, announcing he was seeking re-election. Senator Yates was Darby’s father. Darby was actually Fenton D. Yates, Junior. The middle initial was for Dobbins, which is where the nickname Darby came from.
Amazing how much Jack knew about Darby, but apparently without really knowing much about him at all.
“Hey, McCabe!”
Jack shook his head. He had the passing thought of asking Granny Tate if she had anything that could act as a sedative and knock White-Eye out f
or a few hours, so he could have some peace of mind.
“Can’t you be quiet?” Jack called back.
“I was wonderin’ what yer holdin’ me for? You never did actually charge me with any crime.”
Jack was new at being a lawman, and didn’t really know any of the protocols. He supposed they probably didn’t really apply here, because his position was little more than honorary. His tin star was more symbolic than official.
“Well, I’m sure you’re guilty of something. You ran with Vic Falcone long enough. I’m sure Dusty could testify to some of the raids and robberies you were involved in.”
“You think that would hold up in court? I ‘spect I’m gonna be a free man once you get me in front of a judge.”
Jack hadn’t thought about that. At the moment, the main thing he wanted was to hand White-Eye over to the marshal and get him out of here.
Jack actually knew the territorial marshal. He was a half-Cheyenne by the name of Dan Bodine who had been a cowhand on the McCabe ranch years ago.
“One thing you haven’t thought about, White-Eye. You were arrested and beaten-up by a sixteen year old girl. That kind of thing can stay with a man. That’ll follow you around for a while.”
There. White-Eye was quiet. Finally. Jack figured White-Eye hadn’t counted on that. Jack went back to his paper.
He then heard the clip-clip of a horse outside. It sounded like it was coming away from town. In one direction was the town, and in the other was the mountain pass the town was named for. The pass leading into the valley. This meant it was probably someone coming from either the McCabe ranch or Zack Johnson’s’ ranch at the far end of the valley. Or maybe one of the farms.
He heard the horse stop outside the door, so he put the paper down and waited. The door opened, and he got a surprise. It was a woman, maybe a little taller than Jessica. She looked to be maybe mid-thirties. Jack found it tough enough to guess a woman’s age, and here on the frontier hard living tended to age a woman early. This woman’s dress was tattered and streaked with dirt, and her face smudged with soot and dust. She looked almost as bad as Jessica had when she rode into town, but there were no signs of bruising. She was just many weeks removed from a bath.
One Man's Shadow (The McCabes Book 2) Page 40