"I didn't come all this distance to just up and leave." His eyebrow lifted as he stared down at her. At first it was damning, condemning her with each flicker of his eyes, but soon his gaze grew taunting. He missed nothing, not the shortness of her gown, nor the bells tied around her scarlet-stockinged ankle. Slowly he moved to her chemisette. Behind the gossamer of cotton, there was just the slightest hint of bosom, more than was proper for a lady. When he met her eyes again, she ached to slap him.
"I won't whore for you, Cain, if that's what you're thinking." Her fury turned her cold and aloof. If she could freeze him out of town, she would.
He only gave her a cynical twist to his lips. "I'm glad to hear that, Widow Smith. 'Cause I don't intend to pay."
She broke from his hold, her eyes like ice. "You're not getting anything, whether you pay or not."
"Faulty gave me a token for you. He implied the thing was just a little souvenir of the saloon, but I know what he gave it to me for. 'On the house,' he said. He all but told me I could have you."
"He had no right."
He grabbed her again, then fished through a pocket in his silk vest. When he found what he was looking for, he pressed the token into her hand. He growled, "If you really are a whore, darlin', you won't refuse this. So prove to me who you are, one way or the other. Tonight."
She opened her palm. The brass token was pierced with a heart. On one side, it was embossed: Mrs. Buck-ner's Parlour House, Fort Laramie. On the other side, which his thumb now stroked, it read in crude capitals: GOOD FOR ONE SCREW. Faulty had a coffer of them, all useless, from an out-of-business cathouse. Dixi and Ivy didn't honor them, so she sure as hell wouldn't.
"Give this to Dixiana." She threw the token at him, her face alive with indignation and anger. The brass coin clattered to the floor.
He stared at her, his expression just as angry, just as desperate. "So are you or aren't you?"
"What you're suggesting, Sheriff, is illegal." She spat out, "I don't think the circuit judge would be pleased to hear about it."
His arm lowered to her waist and he roughly pulled her against him. "And you'd just love to go against the circuit judge, wouldn't you, darlin'? With your penchant for running from the law ..."
His words struck her like a knuckle across the face. By his expression, she knew he hadn't seen the wanted poster. Most likely he believed her a whore who'd committed some petty thievery, then run from the law only to end up in Noble. But she couldn't allow his speculation to continue. If he hung around, digging into her past, it wouldn't be long before he discovered who she really was.
"So what's it to be, Christal, truth or dare? Are you going to tell me why you left Camp Brown the way you did, or are you going to lie back on that bed and honor this here token?"
She didn't even breathe.
His hand rode up her waist until it rested beneath the swell of one corseted breast.
"If you're a whore, you'll honor that token just to be rid of me," he whispered against her hair.
His hand rode higher.
Her heart beat harder. Inside she felt a war was being waged. He might go away if she relented. But if she relented—
"Stop." She pushed his hand away before he cupped her breast. Stumbling from his arms, she went to the bed, where her possessions lay scattered across the mattress. Without forethought, she began stuffing them inside her carpetbag.
"You aren't a whore, are you?" he asked softly, watching her.
She didn't deny or confirm his words. She just kept packing.
"You're still the woman I knew back in Falling Water," he whispered reverently. "You're still fighting to keep your honor. So why are you here, Christal? Faulty's not beating you into working for him—he's too good-natured. There's no apparent reason on earth for you to be here, doing what you're doing. So why are you here, Christal? Why?"
Tears threatened. She didn't dare answer; she just kept cramming all her worldly belongings into the small, worn carpetbag.
He put a hand on hers and stopped her. Slowly he lifted her hand and turned over the palm. The scar gleamed in the yellow lamplight. He met her gaze. Her eyes glittered with unshed tears. The questions went unspoken.
Laughter from the barroom filtered through the floorboards, shattering the moment. Hastily she pulled her hand away and, like a madwoman, continued packing.
He laughed. "What do you think you're doing? You think you're just going to ride out of town like you did last August?" He nodded to the window, which had three inches of snow clinging to the sills. "You're not going to get out of here till the spring thaw." He stepped over and took her bag. He set it on the bureau, far from her reach. "That's right, it's just going to be you and me. . . . For months, darlin' . . . That oughta be time enough to get you out of anybody's system."
"I can leave whenever I want to."
"You'll leave when I let you leave." His smile never reached those ungodly cold eyes. "I'm the sheriff, remember? Nobody here wants me angry and snooping into their business. If it means they've got to tell me when you left and where you were headed, then so be it."
She stared at him, defiance hot in her eyes, but she could find no way out of his trap. She wasn't going to get far in winter, not in Wyoming. Until the thaw and until his back was turned, there seemed no other choice but to play the game his way.
"You've nothing to gain by staying in Noble. I won't honor that token." She tightened her lips.
"When it's time, I won't need a token."
Angered anew, she held her breath and walked past him to leave the room.
His arm shot out to stop her.
"I've got customers," she said through clenched teeth.
"I told Faulty when he suggested—ever so legally, mind you—that I might enjoy the company of one of his girls, that if I liked one in particular, my girl wasn't to be with any other man but me. That was our little understanding."
Her words crackled with fury. "I sell dances. Nothing else."
"Fine. You won't be sleeping with anyone else anyway. Faulty will keep his eye on you. By now he knows I like you."
"How could he possibly know that?"
He released a dark laugh. "What do you think he thinks we're doin' up here? Talkin'?" He tipped his head back and laughed some more.
She wanted to strike him. In a low, harsh whisper she said, "I don't know why you came here, but I promise you, you will rue the day. If I don't get out of here for months, I swear my only purpose will be to make your life miserable."
He grasped her chin and forced her to look at him. "Go ahead. Make my life miserable. But don't think I can't return the misery. I'm not a stupid man. I noticed it wasn't until I put on a marshal's badge that you decided you couldn't stand me. When I was a damned criminal, you didn't seem to care near as much. There are a lot of ways to be a whore, girl."
Before she could stop herself, she cracked her hand across his cheek. The violence horrified her. It should have brought relief, but it didn't. It was no panacea at all, not for the anger or the agony. Unbidden, tears sprang again to her eyes, perhaps because he'd found her, or perhaps because she still felt the same despair she'd felt when she'd gotten into Mr. Glassie's coach at dawn and left him behind.
He rubbed his cheek, anger glittering in his eyes. "Christal, just you tell me why you left me last August and I'll leave this shithole town right now."
"I'm not going to tell you anything," she whispered, staring at the six-pointed tin star on his chest, desperation nearly choking her.
He nodded, still rubbing his cheek. "Then I'll be here until you do."
"You'll be here till hell freezes over, then."
He looked to the window. It was snowing again; a pattern of fractured ice clung to the panes. A strange desire flickered in the depths of his chilly gaze when he looked at her. "Well, darlin', if this ain't hell freezin' over, then I don't know what it is."
Cain departed her room without another word. Christal could barely pull herself together to return t
o the customers in the saloon. Though she didn't want to admit that he'd gotten to her, it took almost fifteen minutes for her to stop trembling.
Morosely, she picked up her seven gold coins and the black gown that had fallen to the floor. Her heart sank every time she pictured Macaulay. She wanted to trust him. It meant something that he had come for her. Perhaps it was only to ease the unresolved questions in his mind. Still, it meant something.
But she couldn't trust him.
She stepped to the window, clutching the black gown to her bosom, her thoughts dwelling darkly on the past. She could tell Macaulay the truth, place her very soul into his hands and beg for mercy. But she knew she'd never do that. And she knew the reasons why.
Against her will her mind played out an imaginary conversation.
"Christal, trust me, girl, and I'll help you." Cain stared at her, silently demanding she answer.
"My uncle killed them. He gave me the blame, but he killed them," she sobbed.
"I believe you. I'll find a way to absolve you. You know I will, girl. If you're tellin me the truth, I'll move heaven and earth to see you're free."
"Macaulay ..."
"Yes, darlin? Is there something more?"
"I didn't go to jail for his crimes."
"What did they do with you, then?"
"I've been in an asylum. An asylum for the insane."
Christal shut out the picture of Cain's reaction. She closed her eyes and hugged the weeds, but that didn't ward it off. The picture of his face haunted her. She could bear almost any reaction but not the sudden doubt she would find in his eyes. And the revulsion that would follow. The revulsion that he'd almost trusted someone whom society had labeled utterly untrustworthy. Someone locked away from society not just because of her wrongdoing, but because of her inability to understand her wrongdoing. Someone who had never learned the boundaries between right and wrong. Between truth and lies.
Her mouth formed a grim line. She could plead she had had no memory of the crime and therefore no memory to defend herself. But memory was ephemeral. With a will of its own. Unimportant details can be recalled with diamond sharpness, but the name and face of a man who destroyed lives could remain in a fog for years. Memory had damned her at one point in her life, freed her in another. Macaulay would always wonder: Did she escape the asylum because her memory came back . . . or had her memory never left her? Was it memory that was elusive, or just her ability to understand what she had truly done?
She laid the dress on the bed and smoothed the wrinkles in the jet-colored silk. She would never tell him. Whether or not he was the law, whether or not she loved him, she couldn't tell him. He could chase her all over the world, but he was never going to get his answers.
Because she was never going to watch him turn away.
She spent the rest of the evening gaily dancing with whomever had the nickel to pay for it, her only distraction the stormy brooding expression on the new sheriff's face as he stood by the bar and watched her.
By the time Faulty closed down the saloon, her feet hurt, her ribs were sore from too much manhandling, and she was exhausted. Cain went to his rooms, silent and oddly sober for all his shots of whiskey. She watched him go, as silent and sober as he. Then she went straight up to bed without even helping Ivy with the dirty glasses.
But rest eluded her. Three times during the night Christal rose from her bed and walked to the window, clutching her shawl to keep away the bitterly cold drafts. Three times she saw Cain's silhouette in his room above the new jail, sitting by the lantern, drinking. Taking long, pensive pulls on his whiskey glass. Like something was driving him slowly mad.
Finally, when the night melted into dawn, she was able to relinquish some of the shock and horror at his finding her and accept her situation. Leaving Noble in the dead of winter was useless. The weather made it impossible, dangerous, even with the best of conveyance. And she had none. For now, she would have to stay. But she didn't have to talk. Until he knew the truth, he would never hear it from her.
The sun rose and sleep embraced her in long, dark shadows. But she dreamed of being the new sheriff's bride, dressed in white satin and tulle. Behind them Baldwin Didier hung from a scaffold, his stately form limp in the breeze. She married the man she loved. And never again did she wear black.
"Can't you come down on the price just a bit?" Christal asked Jan while admiring a bolt of sky-blue wool. It was the next day, and she had defied her fear of the new sheriff and gone to the mercantile. Now she pulled her shawl closer and licked her chapped, cold lips, all the while coveting the beautiful fabric. A gown fashioned out of the wool would be becoming. Better than that, though, it would be warm.
Jan wrinkled his forehead and looked down at the ledger in front of him to see what he'd paid for the cloth. During the pause, Christal glanced around the store, nervous at the thought of running into the sheriff. Peterson's was crowded with cowhands out of work because of the snow and lonely old miners with nowhere else to go but the stools near the black potbelly stove. Nowhere did she see Macaulay. She gave a small prayer of thanks.
"I just don't know, Christal," Jan said, shaking his blond-gray head. His lined Scandinavian features clouded with doubt. "It cost me almost ten dollars for the whole bolt. If you want half of it for five dollars, I just can't see how—"
"If you must have six, then what if I pay you three dollars now and three in a few weeks?" She looked at him hopefully.
"Don't you mean a few months? The last time I gave one of you girls credit, I never did get all the money."
She ran her hand along the soft wool, a melancholy wistfulness on her face. She couldn't spend her gold pieces on luxuries. That was her savings. She would need those seven gold coins in the future to find Didier. To run from Macaulay. But the bolt of wool would cost too many dances.
Too many. Always too many.
There was always an easier way. Dixiana and Ivy Rose had many nice dresses.
Slowly, she drew back her hand. "All right. I'll bring you the money as soon as I have it." Her words possessed a hope that she knew was a lie. There would be no warm new gown for her this winter.
"I'm sorry, Christal. I'll try to save it for you."
"Thank you." She sighed, put on her gloves, and turned around. Her gaze collided with that of the new sheriff of Noble.
"Good day to you, ma'am," he said quietly, tipping his black felt Stetson. The ice in his eyes left her breathless.
"Good day, Sheriff." She made haste to walk away but he followed. Bitterly, she wondered why she even tried. His threats last night had made it clear she was never going to depart Noble without him knowing all about her. Until she could shake his interest, he was going to be like a ghost at her side. There, even when he wasn't.
"I need you to come to the jail with me, ma'am. There's something I want you to see."
A poster with Christabel Van Alen's face on it. The thought ran over her like a full-steam locomotive. Forgetting herself for a moment, she stared up at him as if he'd just pulled his six-shooter.
"Darlin', you don't look too well."
She calmed herself and tried to think rationally. He wasn't going to show her the wanted poster. He didn't know anything about it. Because if he did, he'd have ridden into town and arrested her last night. Besides, even he admitted that the only reason he'd even taken the sheriffing job was to find out about her. He knew nothing; she meant to keep it that way.
"I really can't go with you. Faulty needs me to—"
"It's just next door." He took her by the elbow.
She looked around the general store, but there was no one who could intervene. Macaulay was the sheriff. They'd bow to his desires every time. She wasn't the only one in Noble with something to hide.
"What is this about?" she asked woodenly as he led her to the door.
"You'll see" was all he offered.
They walked next door in silence. The bitter cold weather didn't help her uneasiness. The wind whipped down the cent
er of town, skimming across the frozen ruts in the road, whistling through loosened clapboards, rattling unpainted false fronts. From the east to the west, there was no one in sight on the road. The frozen silence in the middle of town was eerie.
"In here," he said, and waved his hand through the door. She stepped into the jail. She already knew it well. Many a time Faulty had had her pick up the saloon's liquor there. It was now converted to a jail, and she was surprised how little had changed. The walls were still crumbling whitewashed brick, steel bars still divided the room where the kegs used to be stored. She stared nervously into the new jail cell. A canvas army cot and a bale of hay were the only things it contained. A rush of anxiety passed through her. She wouldn't let him—or anyone —put her in there. After the asylum, she wouldn't be locked up again.
"Sit down."
A table and chairs had been brought from the store. Reluctantly, she allowed him to seat her. On the opposite wall, a store-bought calendar caught her attention. The picture of a rosy-cheeked blonde dressed in ermine and blue satin stared at her from the top of the calendar. The date "1876" was printed in gold embossed letters across the girl's plumed chapeau.
1876. It was going on four years since she'd run away. The thought depressed her. She had so much to accomplish, and yet all she did day after day was struggle for survival. Dismally she wondered if she wasn't being a fool in thinking that she'd get revenge on Didier. Without money she was powerless, and her time and energy were overwhelmed in fighting for subsistence. Suddenly she was as close to giving up as she'd ever come. That blue wool at the mercantile beckoned her. It was so warm ... so soft . . .
Fair Is the Rose Page 17