She ran her fingers through her hair, trying to think about something else. But all she could see was the emptiness ahead.
She remembered how, when she was a little girl, her pa would talk to her about getting married one day and having her own family. He would laugh when she’d wrinkle her nose and proclaim that she hated boys and couldn’t see ever marrying one. She had sworn she was going to stay with him forever and that, since her ma had died, she would take care of him. He would say, "We’ll see" in that infuriating tone grown-ups used when they spoke to little kids.
We’ll never see now, Gabe thought, ’cause Pa, you went and left me. You and Chad and Henry left me here without you.
She jumped to her feet, scarcely able to breathe for the weight pressing against her chest. She grabbed her money and fled from the room.
On the boardwalk, her gaze traveled to Calisher’s General Store. She looked through the window at the bolts of yard cloth inside. When she had to sew clothes for the family, it was a chore she hated. She would rather have spent her time with the horses, or ridden herd with Chad and Henry. How strange, that something that had seemed so mundane when she was supposed to do it, now struck her as a task that would be a comfort. She went into the store.
A few ready-made clothes were displayed in a corner of the shop. One frilly dress, pink with satin bows and lace ruffles caught her eye. How Chad would laugh at her if...
The simple, unbidden thought caused the pain of her loss to slam into her again and the world swam before her eyes. She caught the edge of a table and pressed her palms against it, breathing as evenly as she could. A few moments went by before she was herself again. As she slowly straightened, she caught the worried look of the storeowner as he rang up a woman’s purchases. She smiled to show she was fine, and turned away from him, perusing the store, trying to do some of the natural things she had done an eternity ago.
A riding skirt in a deep, rich red tone--a red so dark it was almost black--caught her eye. She ran her fingers over the smooth material. The skirt was heavy serge and tightly double-stitched. Practical, it was split, trouser-like, for horseback riding.
She held it against her waist, and saw that it was her size. Gored panels were fitted at the hips then flared out gently all the way to the hemline, which stopped just at the ankle of her brown leather boots.
She had never seen herself like this. She checked the price--six dollars. Her day’s wages plus two dollars more. She put the skirt down again.
As she walked toward the exit, her gaze melted at the sight of ready-made blouses of soft cottons and linens. She hesitated, her fingers lingering over one that was simply but artfully cut, with tiny, vertical pleats stitched over the bodice. "The road to damnation is paved with temptation," she repeated her pa’s line over and over as she marched past the blouses and out the door.
Dressing for supper with McLowry, she put on her gray britches and white shirt. She would buy his dinner tonight to celebrate her new job. Finally, she would be able to begin paying him back for all he had given her.
"Gabe, it’s me," McLowry called as he knocked at the door.
She opened the door. He stood before her with an odd expression on his face and a wrapped bundle in his arms. "May I come in a moment?" he asked.
"Of course." She stepped aside and let him enter her room.
"I got a job today, Gabe," he said. "At a construction site. Good wages, too--two bucks an hour."
"Jess! I had no idea you were interested in working here. That’s wonderful. I--"
"Here." He handed her the bundle.
Shocked, she looked from the package to him. "For me?"
He nodded, and that funny, lopsided grin he sometimes wore showed up suddenly.
Puzzled, she put the bundle on the bed and peeled back the butcher paper wrapping. She didn’t have it open all the way when she began to get an inkling of what it contained. She stared, all thought flying from her mind as shaky fingers smoothed the paper back and out of the way. Inside was the dark red riding skirt and white cotton blouse she had admired at Calisher’s. Her throat tightened and her mouth went so dry she couldn’t have spoken if her life depended on it.
Watching her reaction, McLowry’s smile disappeared. He looked suddenly embarrassed, as if he had made a big mistake.
She stared at the present, not daring to touch it, as if it might disappear if she touched it.
"You hate them," he murmured.
"Oh my, no!" she cried, finally able to choke some words past the tightness in her throat. With great care, she lifted the clothes out of the wrapping and spread them on the bed to admire them. "Quite the opposite."
His chest seemed to puff out about two feet. "I was heading for Calisher’s to get something for you to celebrate my new job, and saw you in there. You made my task a whole lot easier."
She ran her fingers over the soft material of the skirt. Then she pulled back her hand. "They’re too much. I can’t accept them. I truly cannot," she said firmly.
"Gabe," he said in his best Southern gentleman manner. "I can’t tell you how long it’s been since I’ve known anyone I wanted to give a gift to. Please do me the honor of accepting it."
She was forced to turn her head so he couldn’t see the effect his words had on her. No one should be nice to her. She didn’t deserve gifts; she didn’t deserve anything. She strengthened her will, ready to tell him to take them back. One look at his face, though, at his expression, and her resolve crumbled. She couldn’t trust her voice at that moment, so she simply nodded.
His lips spread into a broad smile, his blue eyes sparkling. "Thanks," he said. "Now, why don’t I step back into my room and wait there while you change into your new clothes? Wait until the Ying brothers see you tonight!"
Chapter 8
During the next three days, Gabe worked at the livery stable, relentlessly pursuing every lead, every hint that might tell her the whereabouts of the four men she sought. None had panned out yet. McLowry worked twelve to fourteen hours a day due to all the new construction in town. He made no more mention of leaving Tombstone for Jackson City, and Gabe was too relieved to ask what had happened to his plans. Each evening, they ate dinner together, and then he would escort her back to her room. A little later, she would watch at the window as he disappeared behind the swinging doors of the Crystal Palace.
On Sunday, neither of them had to work. Gabe bought a picnic lunch from the hotel. She wore her new skirt and blouse, and she and McLowry walked to the edge of town to find a place to eat. From time to time, she would glance up at him. With a leather cartridge belt, holster and ivory-handled six-shooter hanging heavy on his hip, and a black hat casting his face in shadow, he hardly looked like a man on his way to a picnic. Yet she felt a spring in her step she hadn’t known could still be found.
Tombstone had been built on the slope of a high plateau, and most of the countryside fell away from it. The town was every bit as freewheeling and wide open as the broad, high landscape that spawned it. They turned off of Allen Street and continued past Toughnut. About a quarter mile down the hillside, McLowry found a secluded spot. Gabe spread out a green plaid woolen blanket and opened the picnic basket. They sat side by side on it, facing the puffy white clouds high overhead and the craggy chiseled blue-gray mountains on the horizon. As they ate crispy fried chicken and pecan-raisin pie, they told each other some of the more interesting gossip they had heard in town. The lunch finished, McLowry rolled himself a cigarette.
He looked relaxed, and took a few slow drags of tobacco, lost in contemplation. After a while, he said, "I think it’s time we move on to Jackson City."
His abrupt statement caught her off guard. She had imagined him restless earlier, but thought he had grown somewhat content with his job and way of life here. "I can’t leave, yet. I’m close to finding them. I can feel it. The only one who’s discouraging is the marshal. He said to give up this pursuit; that no snippet of a girl is going to bring those men down. He’s wrong. I’ll fin
d Tanner and I’ll beat him."
"No, Gabe."
"I will!"
"Not Tanner."
She said nothing more, but leaned back on her elbows, her head tilted so that the sun shone down on her face, her eyes shut. She hoped the sun would take away the sudden chill she felt.
His voice was soft. "You’ve let too many people know who you’re looking for. It’s not safe here for you."
She opened her eyes then, and half-turned in his direction. "I didn’t let too many know. Just people who go to the livery stable."
"All the people go to the livery stable. Talking so freely is dangerous. Word will get back to Tanner, and to the others. If they find you before you find them, they’ll kill you."
She sat upright once again, bending her knees and wrapping her arms around them as she contemplated his words. She pulled at some dry weeds that reached the edge of the blanket. "I try to hold my tongue," she said softly, "but it flaps on. Hell, no one will tell me anything, anyway. It makes me so angry!"
He crossed his legs Indian style and finished his cigarette. "Could be they’re trying to protect you. You’re young--"
"Young? You, too, Jess?" Her hand paused on a shoot of sage.
He ignored her question. "Somebody’s got to protect you. You don’t seem to worry about yourself."
"I don’t need protection. I can get along just fine without you, McLowry, if that’s what you’re wondering." She began to stand, but he grabbed her wrist, stopping her, his eyes steady.
"You’ve just proven everything I said. You go running off without a clue where you’re going, you tell the world what you’re planning, and you’re too damned innocent to take proper care of yourself."
She yanked her hand free. "I’m not that innocent, Jess, whether you want to believe it or not. I know enough about the world and the people in it."
"I don’t think so," he said with a half-grin.
"I know plenty--including about men and women, so don’t you go high-hatting me, Jess McLowry."
He seemed to regard her for a long time before he turned away. She waited, but he wouldn’t meet her eye again. Some kind of discomfort seemed to have built in him. A vein pulsated on his neck. With a sigh, she folded her arms over her knees and stared off at the horizon.
"Hell, McLowry," she said finally. "Who am I kidding? I know why no one takes me seriously, why you think I’m too young, or too innocent, or whatever, despite my years."
He gave her a sidelong glance. "You do?"
"I do." She swallowed hard. "It’s that I’m...different."
His brows rose. "You’re what?"
"Different." She took a tremulous breath. "I was four when my ma died and I grew up following my pa and brothers around as if I were a boy, too. They treated me the same, and I learned I could do everything they could except make proper use of the fly on my trousers."
McLowry laughed out loud. It was a gruff sound, that of a man not used to laughter, a sound that didn’t come easy and seemed to surprise even him that it happened. She smiled, despite herself.
"See what I mean?" she asked with a wry lilt to her voice. "I guess a lady would never say anything like that."
The fine lines at the outer edges of his eyes crinkled, softening his features, and making her stomach flutter with how handsome he was. "I’ve got to admit, I’ve never heard one."
She dropped her eyes. "There are times I wish I knew how to act like a lady, Jess." She felt him draw back as if wary, and hurried to explain. "I mean, even if I didn’t ever use that knowledge, because after all, there’s no need to be lady-like when you’re going to kill four men, but still, it’s something I wonder about." She averted her head, embarrassed by her admission. She couldn’t help but remember seeing him kissing the dancehall girl at the Crystal Palace--Clara, she had learned her name was. She had never gotten any indication from Jess that he even liked Clara, yet he kissed her.
"You’re fine, Gabe." His voice was harsh. "Just the way you are."
"I don’t think so," she murmured. She couldn’t look up at him, yet her gaze couldn’t pull away completely. His hands rested on the blanket, his fine-boned hands, not the square, burly hands of most of the ranchers she knew. But instead of the smooth, soft hands he once had, they now were dark from the sun, with newly formed calluses and cuts and nicks from construction work. "McLowry..."
"Yes?"
Being coy wasn’t her style, but sometimes it was hard to forge ahead. Still, she wanted to know. "What is it that women do to make men take notice of them?"
The shocked look on his face told her how peculiar he regarded her question. "What do they do?"
Her heart two-stepped. "To make men like them."
He sucked in a deep breath. "I never thought about it much."
"I shouldn’t have asked," she said quickly. "I didn’t mean to embarrass you."
"Me?" His voice sounded a little too high. "Not at all." He took on a pedagogical tone. "If I were to give it some thought, I could give you an answer. Well, right off the top of my head, one thing you find when a woman’s around a man she likes is that she just...well, she sort of sashays."
"Sashays?"
"You know."
Her hopes sank. "No, I don’t."
"Well..." He stood up and took a quick look around as if to be sure no one was near. "Kind of like this." He put one hand on his back hip, elbow bent and pointed outward, then walked around in a circle, swinging his hips like the pendulum on a grandfather’s clock.
The sight of the tough gunfighter, who had men cowering when he walked down the street, awkwardly trying to swing his hips, caused Gabe to burst out laughing. He kept it up until she doubled over, holding her stomach and laughing hard. It felt good to laugh like that. She hadn’t laughed since her family was killed.
McLowry tumbled onto the blanket and laughed right along with her.
He was close, close enough that if she reached out, she could touch him. "If I ever did anything like that," she said, composing herself again, "I’d scare them all away for sure!"
"Them?" he asked.
"All my future beaus."
"Ah," he said lightly, his smile vanishing. "Them."
He put his hat on the ground and stretched out, flat on his back, his arms folded and tucked under his head like a pillow. His expression was hooded, his eyes staring off at clouds that coiled like wisps of clotted cream. She wished she knew what he was thinking.
She stretched out beside him and rolled over onto her stomach, propping herself up on both elbows. Blue eyes met hers.
Her gaze explored his face, taking in each feature until she memorized every inch of his golden-tanned skin, sweet butter mustache, and winged eyebrows. She found the shape of his nose perfect, as were the planes of his cheeks, and the line of his lips. She had never seen a man so handsome.
"What else can a woman do, Jess?" The words tumbled from her lips and now hung in the air, expectant. She prayed he wouldn’t say she was wasting her time even asking such a question, that there was nothing she could ever do to interest a man in her. To interest him.
She held her breath and waited. The pale blue of his eyes seemed to deepen. They searched her face, her mouth. Then his breath drew in sharply. He stood up and took a couple of steps before turning to face her. "The one thing you can do, Gabe, is to forget about such questions. Forget about men and what it takes to make yourself desirable to them. When you’re back in Jackson City and ready to settle down, there’ll be time enough for all that. Then it’ll just come to you, natural. And right."
He turned his back to her.
Horrified, she realized how inappropriately she had acted, how she must have embarrassed him with her questions. She rose to her feet. "I’m sorry," she whispered, quickly packing up the picnic basket, wanting to run from him.
He grabbed her arms, jerking her hard against him. His gaze zeroed in sharply to her lips. She could feel his breath mingling with her own, feel the tension building between them. "Do
n’t trust the men around here, Gabe." His hands tightened, hurting her now. "They’ll use you and leave you. And you’re too good to be treated that way. Remember, don’t trust anyone." Her chest ached from his nearness, his words, his anger. Then he let her go.
"Don’t even trust me," he said. "Especially not me."
She stared at him without speaking.
He picked up his hat, bunched their picnic blanket under his arm, and walked away.
o0o
"I’m out." McLowry threw down his poker hand, and picked up what little was left of his money. He strode over to the bar and asked for a whiskey while the others continued playing. It had been a long time since his luck had turned so bad.
Luck, hell. He had learned years ago that luck played only a small part in poker. Concentration and remembering which cards you’d seen, figuring out which cards the other players were most likely trying for, and then computing your odds against theirs, was the way to win. If the odds were with you, over time, lady luck would be right there, too.
He never played long odds, and he never staked everything on one play. Slow and steady, he was in for the long haul. That’s how he usually won. Except tonight.
Tonight, he couldn’t concentrate. Instead of seeing the cards, he kept seeing big, brown eyes that looked at him as if he were George Washington, Daniel Boone and the whole Lewis and Clark expedition all rolled up in one. The trouble was, heroism was the last thing on his mind when he looked at her.
Who was he trying to kid with his construction job and his hands off ways? He had made a living as a gunfighter and a gambler. They had kept him in liquor and card games, and what else was there in his life, anyway? He knew what he had become. His spit wasn’t good enough to shine the shoes of a girl like Gabe.
She was the one thing in his life these days that had any goodness to it, and it was up to him to make sure she got back home safe--and pure. He would be damned before he would allow her to become corrupted the way everything else he touched had. Everything else had either turned bad or died.
"What’s the matter, handsome?" Clara strolled over to him at the bar then leaned against his shoulder and dragged her fingernail along the ridge of his ear. Ever since he had arrived in town, she had given him the eye, but he had ignored her.
Dance With A Gunfighter Page 8