"Really, Doc, I didn't know you spent so much time thinking about me. I'm not that important."
"You're important to me, Anne," he said, smiling down at her.
There was something wrong with this conversation. Everything about it was out of balance. She just couldn't think what to do about it.
"Thank you. I guess that's what makes you a good doctor, your caring about us all."
The train moved off, a loud, dark noise that moved faster as it left Abilene behind. How many times had she wanted to run out of Abilene? Plenty, but she hadn't wanted it enough to make it happen. She saw that now.
She was full of excuses, full of reasons why she couldn't leave Abilene until later, always later. But the truth was, she couldn't leave her family. She loved them. They loved her. Their love was what had kept her from drifting off like the wind, caught up and carried on into the hazy distance of the unknown.
"Oh, but I care about you in a special way, Anne. You must have felt it," he said.
They were alone, in that place where prairie, town, and tracks met. It was a lonely place without the train to fill it. Loneliness was a frightening place with Doc Carr.
"No," she said, pulling her arm free again and keeping herself away from him. "I sure didn't. You have a good day, Doc."
He stood in her way, smiling and pleasant, but still, he stood in her way. She didn't know what to do. If he'd been rude or forceful, she could have fought back, maybe, but he was being nice. What could she do but be nice in return?
"I will. Thank you, Anne. You know, I was almost married once, back in Texas," he said, looking out at the prairie that rolled all around Abilene. She couldn't seem to stop herself. She hesitated and looked out to where he was looking.
"No, I didn't know. What happened?"
"She refused me," he said and then he started to chuckle. "Can you believe that? She turned me down cold."
"I'm sorry, Doc. That must have been hard to take."
She sort of felt like she should pat him on the shoulder or some such thing, to offer comfort somehow. That's what she would have done, if he hadn't said all those strange things about her being special.
"Oh, it was harder for her, all told," he said. "I even offered her my mother's cameo as a token. She laughed, she actually laughed and said she'd never accept me. She didn't want to marry me. She didn't want my children in her."
"Doc—"
This was getting too personal. She didn't need to know all this about Doc Carr's past. She didn't want to know it.
"But, like I said," he interrupted, turning to face her, his eyes lit with amusement, "it ended up hard on her. She should have accepted me. She should have agreed to be my wife."
"Well, but a woman knows her own heart and she'd just have to follow where it led her, wouldn't she? She couldn't marry a man she didn't love, a man she didn't want to live her life with, could she?"
Of course she couldn't. Anne felt like crying, it hit her so plain and so hard. Of course she couldn't. A woman wouldn't marry a man for anything but love and the belief that they would build a life together, day upon day, trouble upon trouble. She hadn't married Jack because he needed her. She'd married him because she needed him. She needed him like air, like sun, like—
"You aren't listening, Anne. And you need to listen. I'm telling you something real important," Doc said.
"I'm sorry, Doc. It's just that, well, I just figured out something that—"
"Here's the cameo." He held it out toward her. It was beautiful, a woman's profile in ivory, her hair pulled up to cascade down around her white shoulders. "You'd take it, wouldn't you, Anne?"
"It's lovely, but I couldn't take it. You give that to your wife. You just need to find the right woman this time."
She really had to get on. She wanted to find Jack. She wanted to get away from Doc and his cameo and his conversation.
Doc laughed. She didn't laugh with him. Something was wrong about that laugh. It was cold and hard, just like the wind blowing her hair into her face. They were too alone. There wasn't any life around them. There wasn't any noise, nothing but the sound of the wind and Doc Carr's laughter.
"I've found her," he said, still holding the cameo out to her. "I've found her more than once, Anne. It's not so hard to find a woman to marry you if you know the right words."
"That's fine, Doc. Well, I need to get on."
"No, Anne. You don't need to get anywhere," he said.
She watched him come to her as if he were coming out of the dust and the wind; hands first and then arms and then eyes. He was still smiling when he put the cameo with its velvet ribbon around her throat. The wind seemed to force him on her. She couldn't seem to push him off. She wasn't even sure she tried.
This wasn't right. He was choking her. The cameo was on too tight. Something wasn't right and she needed to fight. That's what Jack would say. She needed to fight for herself.
Doc was killing her.
She didn't have a gun. It was too heavy and too oily and too ugly with her dress and so she didn't have a gun. Stupid.
And all she'd wanted was to be smart.
All she was going to be was dead.
She reached up and clawed at the cameo, but Doc was too strong. Jack had taught her that lesson; he'd also taught her what to do next. She reached up and dug her thumbs into his eyes. He yelped a little and then pulled the cord tighter while his body backed away from hers, giving her some space, but giving no air.
No air. Just pain. Just panic.
She had lights swimming in her eyes and her head was pounding. She was getting weaker. The wind still blew hard and cold. How long had it been since this started?
When would the wind stop blowing? How much longer before she stopped feeling it?
A rifle shot ripped through the wind, sending it howling away across the prairie. For once, she didn't jump at the sound. Doc let go, twisted, and fell at her feet, the cameo tangled in his fingers. He was bleeding, shot in the hip, his body shattered. But he was still breathing.
She couldn't see clearly, everything was black and bright lights, but she knew who had saved her. She knew. She tumbled to the ground, unable to stand, but she knew who'd catch her up. She knew who'd cradle her as she lay in the hard dust of Abilene.
She felt him before she heard him. The presence that was Jack. The hard comfort of Jack. She blinked against the pounding in her head and saw him in outline against the sky. He held his gun easily, pointing it down at Doc. Doc was grunting, maybe in pain, maybe in anger; she didn't know. She didn't care.
"Cover your ears, Anne; it's going to be loud," Jack said.
She did it. And she closed her eyes. She knew what was coming. He was Jack Skull. He was going to do his job.
With a single shot, Doc was dead. She heard his breath stop. She didn't look to see where Jack had shot him. She didn't want to live with that memory. And then he was kneeling beside her, the smell of gunpowder strong on him.
"Anne," he said, his voice a whisper against her skin. "Anne, talk to me. Tell me you're all right. Tell me you're alive. Tell me I'm a fool for not keeping you in my sight every minute."
Tell him? She couldn't tell him anything, her wind was cut and her throat felt as if it were pressed down to her spine. She could feel him and she could almost see him through the red haze in her eyes. And she could hear him.
"Anne, I'm a damned fool. I've been a damned, lost fool since I first saw you. I haven't taken a solid step on firm ground since you first looked at me with those eyes of yours. If Grey knew how far gone I am for you, I'd have to kill him to shut him up. You talk to me, Anne. You tell me you're alive and that you'll stay alive."
She swallowed gingerly and whispered, "You looked... at me."
She could see him now. His eyes were full of tears and he was staring at her like she was his sole reason for living. Yeah, she could see that. She could see so much; even through the wind and the dust, she could see that Jack loved her.
He chuckled, roc
king her in his arms, and then he laughed, soft and warm. "I'm not taking the blame, Anne. You did the looking. I just tumbled into Abilene, having no idea who the reception committee was."
"And if... and if you had known?" she said with a rasp to her voice, looking her fill of him. Letting her eyes just rest on the sight of him gazing down at her, holding her, loving her.
He traced her face, his fingertips gentle on her skin, his eyes drinking her in as if she were the last water for a thousand miles. Like he wanted to drown in her. Like he loved her.
"If I'd known you were waiting for me in Abilene," he said, "I would've arranged to be born here."
* * *
He was leaving. Jack was leaving, taking the train to Dodge to deliver Jessup to the marshal there. Jessup was handcuffed to a seat already. She wasn't going to share her good-bye to her husband with Jessup listening at her elbow. She had walked Jack to the train, which was right and natural. She knew he'd be back. He might leave, but he'd always come back. He was Jack Skull and a woman would have to be a fool to think he'd act like any other man. She was no fool. No, she was smart.
It'd been a week since Doc's death. She was still bruised, a long necklace of a bruise around her throat with two vertical lines in the center, where the cameo had been. Her throat hurt when she laughed, but she was all right. Jack had done some scouting and found out some things about Doc Carr.
He'd been a cook for a Texas outfit and he'd been in charge of the chuck wagon on two trips up the Abilene Trail. He wasn't a real doctor. He'd killed seven women that they knew about and Jack was still afraid they'd find one or two more before the story was all told. It sure didn't look like Carr had killed Bill.
That was bad. Bill's killer was still out there somewhere. Of course, some folks still wanted to lay that at Jack's feet, but she didn't care. They were wrong and time would prove it. And if time didn't prove it, she still didn't care.
"You going to kiss me again or you going to make me wait till I get back?" Jack said.
Anne looked up at him, her fingers trailing over his shirt and all the new buttons she'd sewn on. "I'm going to make you wait. You think I'm pretty free with my kisses. I'm going to prove you wrong."
"You sound set and determined," he said, pressing himself against the fullness of her skirts.
"I am. You scared?"
"Yeah, I'm scared," he said. "No man alive wants a determined woman sharing his bed, unless it's that she's determined to put her mouth on his—"
"You shut!" she said, laughing, scandalized. "I'm a proper married woman. You don't talk to me like that. You do, and I'll pull my gun on you."
"Yeah, you'd do that, wouldn't you?" he said, grinning. "You're a fighter. I could tell that by the first look."
She was carrying a gun. She'd been carrying a gun since Doc had attacked her. Now she knew why Jack always wore his. It was a good, safe feeling to be able to take care of yourself, no matter what came off the prairie, hunting up trouble. She felt the heft of it as it lay quiet and comforting in her reticule. It was a smaller one than the one Jack had given her before, a pocket pistol, tighter, easier to carry, easier to shoot. She was getting used to the feel of it.
"That's good," she said. "I don't want any trouble from you."
"Ma'am, you ain't ever gonna have trouble from me."
Trouble? He was all trouble. But she didn't mind. He'd taken her plans and thrown them to the wind to be blown off to Canada, and she didn't mind at all. But in the next instant all thoughts were blown away, even thoughts of Jack.
A man got off of the train. A man. The man she'd spent a lifetime waiting for. Her father.
He had changed some in the fifteen years he'd been gone from her. He was fuller in the jaw, his dark brows shaggier, his nose thickened, his hair lightened with gray. But it was him. She would have known him anywhere.
It was her dream come true, everything she'd ever longed for, every hope realized. And yet it was a nightmare, worse even than Jack's nightmare, because her father, Tim Ross, walked by her with a tip of his hat and an empty smile. Walked by her and kept going. He didn't know her.
She'd found a wanted poster years back with his name and his face and she'd taken it. Wanting something of him. Wanting some way to etch his face in her mind the way her longing for him was etched in her heart.
She turned to follow him without a second thought. He was her father and he'd come back. That's all she knew. All she needed to know.
Jack pulled her away from following her father and snapped, "Get on the train. Now!"
He pushed and she took a few steps toward the train, the iron stair rail bumping her shoulder.
No. She wasn't leaving. She wasn't going to leave her father. Not now.
"Anne, get outta here!" Jack said harshly, just before he knelt on the platform and pulled his gun.
When Jack pulled his gun, he meant to pull the trigger. He meant to empty the gun of shells. He meant to kill. And he was pointing the gun at her father.
"No!" she said as loud as she could. It came out a whisper, a whisper that rocked against the wind coming off the prairie, a whisper that slammed against Jack's soul. "He's my father."
Her father pulled his gun at the commotion behind him, dropped to his knee, and fired off a shot. It spat up chunks of wood from the platform. No. This dream was turning all wrong, twisting into something that couldn't be happening. But it was. They'd kill each other, these two men who were hardened by life and used to killing.
Which man could she bear to live without?
No, that wasn't a question she could answer. She had to stop it somehow.
How?
Her voice was frozen in her throat, her breath pressed down into her lungs with the fist of despair. Everything slowed until she could count the beats of her heart, timing them against the breath she wanted to gulp down into her. Jack was the law. Her father stood outside the law.
It didn't matter. Tim Ross was her father.
In the stretched-out eternity of that moment, she saw blood soak through the fabric of Jack's pants from a thrown splinter, saw the tiny dark hairs covering the back of her father's hand, saw the gleam of metal and heard the distinctive clink of the hammer begin thumbed back for another shot.
Which could she live without?
Jack didn't move. His gun was out, but he didn't raise it, didn't have his thumb on the hammer, didn't even duck in the face of that monstrous black barrel facing him
He was going against every lesson he'd learned to survive, every lesson he'd taught her to survive. He wasn't going to do the one thing he did best: fight. Jack, who slept with his gun by his side; who wasn't comfortable unless he had three hundred rounds of ammunition on his body, who had learned that a gun was his best friend in his fight to stay alive, wasn't going to fight. He was a fighter to the marrow and he wasn't going to fight.
He wasn't going to fire.
Her father fired off his shot. He was too experienced to hesitate when the target was clear and he was too experienced not to miss.
The bullet hit Jack high up on the outside of his right thigh.
Jack flinched as the bullet tore a hole in him; he grunted, but he didn't fire. No, he didn't fire. He looked at Anne over his shoulder, his blue eyes hot with pain and anguish. And resolve. But no regret. Not one ounce of regret. The look in his eyes tore the breath out of her lungs.
Anne felt the breath she had been trying to force rise up in a willing sob as she watched his blood turn his pants dark and wet. He wasn't going to fire. He wasn't going to fire on her pa. She watched Jack lower his gun even more. Never once did his eyes leave hers.
"Go on. Get outta here," he commanded, his voice a growl of loving despair.
He was trying to protect her in every way he could. He didn't want her near when shots were fired, perhaps going wide of the mark, and he didn't want her near, watching as her father killed him, shot by shot. He didn't want her to see him die.
Jack would die, because he wouldn't be t
he one to kill her pa.
Understanding exploded in her heart like gunpowder. He wouldn't be the one to take her father from her; not again. He would let himself be shot to death, piece by piece, wound by wound, because he loved her. He'd let himself be killed, because he loved her, and he was trying to give her what she wanted. Even if he died doing it.
Love endures all things.
Yes, love endured all things, even death. Even letting your life bleed out so that the woman you loved could have a father.
Tears ran out of her like water. She couldn't stop them. She couldn't make anything stop.
She couldn't make Jack defend himself.
Did she want him to? Did she want Jack to save himself, risking her father's life?
Her father? Tim Ross had never loved her, not like this. Only Jack loved her enough to die for her, but he wasn't going to. Not on her account. Not if she could stop it.
She had to stop it.
Which could she live without?
The man kneeling in the dirt had never been her father; that knowing burst open like rotten fruit in her hand, sticky and spoiled. Tim Ross had never been a father. He didn't know her. She didn't know him. All she had ever had was the dream of him.
And the dream of Tim Ross was nothing but cloud compared to the solid reality of Jack.
Which could she live without?
She moved then, freed from hesitation and indecision. Never in her life had she felt so free, free of the need to find a place in the world, free of the need to be loved. She was loved. Jack loved her and she loved him and that's all there was to know.
She had the answer. It was a question she could answer, after all.
Anne didn't hesitate. For once, she didn't hesitate. Because it was Jack. Because she could do anything for Jack. She was ready for Tim Ross.
Love bears all things.
A shot rang out, deafening, cracking, rebounding. Tim Ross fell on his face in the dust of Abilene, Kansas, shot by his daughter. She'd killed him with the first shot. She hadn't flinched and she hadn't hesitated. Because it was for Jack.
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