Gabe had no sooner returned to Mrs. Beale’s house than old friends began to stop by as word of her return spread. Molly Pritchard and her mother came by first. When Louisa Zilpher, who had been engaged to Henry, stopped by with her mother, Louisa’s tears fell hard. Gabe didn’t cry, though, and that unsettled Louisa. She quickly left. Other friends visited, even Johnny Henderson, who had joined the cavalry to fight Indians with General Crook. He didn’t seem nearly so handsome anymore. Gabe hadn’t realized how many friends she had in this town. The parade of visitors continued, unabated, until nearly six o’clock. When it ended, the emotional strain left her exhausted.
She went up to her room to lie down for a few minutes before supper, but when she awoke the room was dark. The grandfather clock in the downstairs hallway chimed twice. Could it be so late? She hurried to the window and looked out at a street cast in moonlight. The only light came from the Jackson Saloon up on Main Street. The Beale house was set back a good distance, but so far no businesses had been built in front of it on Main. The view was unobstructed, much to Mrs. Beale’s displeasure. Some views a lady would rather do without, she explained.
The house was quiet. Gabe lit a candle and tiptoed downstairs to the kitchen. A note from Mrs. Beale told her that there was a dinner plate made up for her in the larder. She opened it, but the only food that appealed to her was the apple pie.
She cut herself a wedge. Maybe eating would help rid her of the dull uneasiness that had plagued her all day. Even seeing old friends hadn’t stopped it.
She took the pie and went out to sit on the front porch. After so many weeks of living outdoors or in wickiups, being in a house was stifling, the air too thick, the walls too confining. She sat in a rocking chair and leaned her head against the high backrest, staring up at the stars, her pie plate on her lap. Funny, she thought, how much bigger and brighter the stars seemed when viewed from the desert compared to here in town. The sounds of the hurdy-gurdy and hoots, shouts, catcalls and laughter at the saloon disrupted the quiet of the night. There wasn’t often so much activity in Jackson City, but a cattle drive was going by not far from town. The cowhands liked to get their fill of town life whenever they had the chance. She rocked the chair back and forth, not eating, but listening to the music and watching people come and go from the saloon.
The saloon door swung open and suddenly, in the light, she saw McLowry’s silhouette. She stopped rocking and leaned forward. A woman grabbed an arm, and then another woman took hold of his other arm. Staggering, the three of them stepped onto the boardwalk and from there to the street. The women practically carried him. When he drunkenly turned back toward the saloon, they spun around, unable to fight his strength. They anchored themselves and somehow managed to pull and tug him away from the saloon once more. As they did so, the light from the saloon window shined full on his face. It was haggard, as if he’d been drinking all night, his clothes and hair unkempt. The women looked bright, cheery...and cheap.
Gabe had thought he was through with that kind of woman. How could he have sought them out, after all they’d meant to each other? They were heading her way, whether toward the hotel or the livery stable, she didn’t know. But she did know she couldn’t bear to watch him with them. She stood, and the pie plate fell to the porch with a loud crash.
McLowry stopped in his tracks, and even in the darkness of the night, their eyes seemed to meet. She turned and fled into the house.
Chapter 24
The next morning Gabe was changing from her borrowed dress to trousers and a shirt when she heard a knock at the door to her room. She had already been to the bank to withdraw cash for supplies, and to the General Store to spend some of that money.
Before last night she’d planned to wait in town for McLowry to "meet" her, but now, all that had changed. Obviously, he’d met other women more to his liking. To hell with him! She didn’t need him or anyone else, for that matter. That was one thing about being all alone in the world, it made real clear exactly whom you needed to rely on.
She finished buttoning her shirt, and opened the door.
A very flustered looking Mrs. Beale held her throat and said, "You have a visitor down--"
"Excuse me." McLowry started to sidestep around Mrs. Beale, but the woman threw out her arm, blocking his way.
"How dare you enter a young lady’s room!" Mrs. Beale cried.
He paid her no mind. Instead his gaze fastened on Gabe’s. She was reminded all over again of the time they’d spent in each other’s arms. She didn’t want those memories, though. Not when right on top of them lay the sight of him with those two women stepping out of the saloon. "What the hell are you doing here, McLowry?"
Mrs. Beale, caught between the two, now gawked at Gabe, as if her ears must have mistakenly heard Gabe use a word no young lady would ever utter.
"I want to talk to you," he said.
"Damn you! Get out!" She went back to wrapping a spare shirt and blanket into a slicker, needing to somehow ignore his presence, to obstruct the musical sound of his voice.
"Miss Devere!" Mrs. Beale’s face was tomato red. "We’re forgetting ourselves."
"Last night meant nothing, Gabe." McLowry’s face and words were harsh, as if he had the right to be irritated with her.
"You’ve got that right, McLowry!"
"Gabe--"
Mrs. Beale reared herself up as tall as she could. "In the parlor, if you please."
McLowry flashed a murderous glance at the older woman.
Finally, Gabe could stand it no longer. She touched Mrs. Beale’s shoulder. "It’s all right. I’ll speak with him here."
McLowry squeezed past Mrs. Beale’s bulk and entered the bedroom.
"Gabriella, I cannot permit--"
"I’ll just be a moment." Gabe shut the door against Mrs. Beale’s indignity. She leaned back against the door, holding tight onto the doorknob to stop her trembling.
McLowry had shaved and wore clean clothes, but his face was sagged with weariness, and his eyes were empty. No word came to Gabe’s mind except why?
He walked to her bed and peered at the open saddlebag and the few supplies packed neatly inside it. "I guessed right," he said.
His words confused her. "What did you guess?"
He slid his fingertips in his trouser pockets, taking in everything about her. "That you’re riding out to your ranch today."
"Yes."
"Alone?"
What difference did it make to him? "That’s right."
"I want to go with you."
She drew in a breath. "That’s not necessary."
Soft blue eyes searched hers. "It’ll be hard, Gabe."
His thoughtfulness stabbed at her. It was so like him...even though he had to leave his chippies to do it! She let go of the doorknob and walked to the bed where she buckled her saddlebags shut. What must have been hard for him, she reminded herself, was to leave those "real" women for the "girl" he insisted she was.
She didn’t want to hear the concern and understanding in his voice. She walked to the dresser and picked up some extra cartridges.
"I’ve been given some news, Jess. Wonderful, wonderful news. My brother Chad is alive." Her voice broke and she gripped the dresser top.
He stepped toward her.
"They thought he was going to die. They knew he would, if he stayed here, so they sent him to Denver." She spoke slowly at first, then the words seemed to pour from her. "When I awoke, they didn’t tell me he was still alive because they believed he’d die soon and thought it would be easier for me to not know that he was in so much pain--horrible pain--from his burns and the way his legs were crushed by beams in the fire. But he fooled them all. He made it."
"Thank God," McLowry whispered.
She bowed her head. "He can’t walk, because of what happened to his legs, and he’s very troubled. When I get him home, Jess, he’ll get better. I’ll make sure of it."
"So, you’re going to stay," he said quietly. "You’ll rebuild your home.
"
"I have to, somehow."
"I’ll help you."
Her head jerked toward him, then she walked to the window and stared at the saloon, beckoning last night’s image of him with those women. "You don’t have to bother with me anymore. I’m home now."
"You’re no bother, Gabe."
Her fingers tightened on the window sash. "I saw the women you were with last night. I can’t do it, Jess. I can’t share you. I can’t live the way I did in Tombstone, knowing that every night you’d go to the Crystal Palace, know that you’d go to her." She couldn’t go on.
He stepped up behind her and placed his hands on her shoulders. She pulled away from his touch.
"I was in town yesterday morning," he said, still so close she could feel the warmth of his breath against her ear. "I thought I’d come and see you...that you’d be feeling strange and lonely. Then I saw the parade of visitors start up. I could see your happy expression as you greeted people at the door, and I watched as you walked outside with them and said your good-byes." He hooked a thumb to his cartridge belt. "You have lots of friends here, Gabe. It made me realize...you don’t need me anymore. I guess I got used to being needed, because it hit me hard. I got drunk. Seems the only ones who dared get close enough to see I got to my hotel room in one piece were a couple of women. And believe me, as soon as they got me to my room, they left."
Puzzled, she glanced up at him.
"This morning, I thought that maybe you would need me at least one more time--to go with you out to the ranch. To be beside you when you faced it again."
He waited for her answer.
His words reminded her of a similar feeling she’d had when she saw how much the people in Dry Springs appreciated him and all he’d done for them. She rubbed her brow, then looked at him a long while, her head cocked. "You are a sore trial to me, McLowry. But sometimes, a wonder, too. Maybe we’re both too ready to try to go it alone, and maybe that’s not good for either one of us."
She picked up her shotgun and saddlebags and walked out to the livery stable, telling a tight-lipped Mrs. Beale that she was going out to the ranch. McLowry walked behind her, tipping his hat as he strode out the front door.
Some ten miles out of town, an old flappy-tongued saguaro marked the beginning of her property. Gabe slowed her gray as they reached it, her head suddenly light. The ancient cactus was nearly seven feet tall. Years ago, Chad and Henry had tried to cut a chunk out of it, until Pa stopped them. They’d sliced it from a spot about five feet off the ground, downward about a foot-and-a-half, and peeled it back some, but the sliced piece wasn’t cut through all the way and removed. Instead, it hung open like a flap and had dried, making it look like the saguaro was sticking its tongue out at passersby. Gabe often thought, who was to say it wasn’t?
As they came in sight of the burned ruins, Gabe’s chest constricted so much she could scarcely breathe. The barn was still standing, and the horse stable and corral, and a few outbuildings. But the house was completely gone.
Only two men were left. Luke Murdock and Will Tanner. Only two men left...
She got off the horse, unable to tear her eyes from the destruction before her.
"They didn’t let me come see it before," she said, her voice hushed as if she were in a cemetery. "They said it would upset me too much. Just like they said it would upset me to know Chad was still alive. If I’d of known, he wouldn’t have to be living in some home for the poor and the sick."
She firmed her spine and walked closer to the house. Jess stayed with her, watching her carefully.
"Even now, my eyes see the house that once stood here," she whispered.
McLowry gingerly stepped onto the ruins of the burned house and tossed some charred boards out of the way until he found the root cellar where Gabe had hidden. He crouched down, looking at the small area. The smoke from the fire must have billowed upward, leaving a pocket of air around her. He’d heard from people in town that somehow she’d crawled out, found her brother pinned under a house beam and, the fire raging around them, had pulled him to safety. It truly was a miracle they had survived.
He saw her walking toward him. He met her halfway so she wouldn’t have to face the cellar again. "The foundation of the house is still solid," he said.
Her mouth was set in a firm line, her eyes desolate. "That’ll make it easier to rebuild."
"You can put up a small two-room place to start with, then add other rooms over time."
She nodded, scarcely listening, her gaze never leaving what had once been a happy home. "Tanner did this. To think, I was right there in his hideout, one day from confronting him, face to face, and I couldn’t find a way to kill him. Damn his soul! Damn them all!"
She turned away and ran past the well, the barn and then farther, along a stretch of brown gravel desert broken up only by cactus and ocotillo until she reached a jagged break in the land. Below, large, smooth rocks formed the path of the arroyo, the wash that brought water from the mountaintop to the ranch and made living here possible.
McLowry followed slowly, knowing she needed time alone.
He found her sitting on the ground, her back to the ruins, staring out at the arroyo and the desert beyond. He sat at her side.
"I will rebuild this ranch," she said firmly. "I’ll rebuild a house for Chad."
"You’re a strong one, Gabe," he said.
"No, Jess." She shook her head. "I’m not tough or strong at all. I’m so damned weak!" Her fist pressed against her lips.
"Don’t, Gabe. You’ll handle this, and do what’s necessary for you and your brother."
He put his arm over her shoulders and sat there with her in silence, letting her soak up the unique feeling of this piece of land that was her home. They remained, without moving, until the sun turned the sky a brilliant red, and they had only the moon to lead their way back to town.
o0o
The days went by quickly as Gabe watched her little house being built. McLowry had helped her select the proper strengths and lengths of lumber, and had hired some men to build the frame, walls, floor and roof. Although he could have done it, it would have taken him a long time--building houses wasn’t anything he’d done before--and she was anxious to send for her brother as soon as possible.
Jess insisted that, when around the people of Jackson City, the two of them act as if theirs was a strictly business arrangement, that Gabe had hired his gun to protect her, along with acting as a foreman to work with the builders and later with her ranch hands. People in town hadn’t liked her hiring a gunfighter, but they also understood why a young woman, having faced all she had, would be afraid to be alone, and would pay for McLowry’s kind of protection--for a little while, at least. It also helped when they realized he would stay out at the ranch, and they didn’t have to worry about encountering him.
McLowry had made up a corner of the barn for himself, with a mattress, blankets, pots and dishes. He slept there and sent Gabe back to Mrs. Beale’s each evening, despite her objections. A part of her realized, however, that staying alone with him could have led to complications she wasn’t sure she knew how to face.
Her new home was considerably larger than she thought she could afford--three rooms instead of two. Her bedroom was on one end, Chad’s on the other, and in the center was a large kitchen with a fireplace for warmth. A wide, covered front porch ran the entire width of the house. Suspicious, she had asked McLowry if he’d spent his Dry Springs money on her. He insisted he hadn’t, but, one day, when she found a white stove in the kitchen--the kind that would have come all the way from Kansas City or San Francisco--and in the corner a big washtub with a real wringer hooked up above it, she knew they hadn’t shown up simply because she wished them to.
He swore he was good at driving bargains and getting people to see things his way. Well, she had to admit that was surely true in her case.
She also saw he hadn’t lied when he said he knew nothing about building houses. Each time he hammered a finger instea
d of a nail, she learned whole strings of new cuss words. Some days, he even looked ready to take up gunfighting again. It had to have been a lot easier.
On her birthday on May 12th, he surprised her with a silver and turquoise necklace, the stones and metal pulled from the land not far from her home. He wouldn’t tell her how he had learned it was her birthday, but she was sure Mrs. Beale must have snitched. She pretended he shouldn’t have wasted his money on her, but she thanked the stars that night that he had.
On the day Gabe and McLowry planned to paint the little house, she arrived early, carrying her few belongings from Mrs. Beale’s house with her. She was going to stay. Her home was almost ready to live in.
The workmen’s jobs had been completed, and all that remained to be done were a few finishing touches. She dismounted, but instead of taking Maggie to the stable, she walked forward, unable to stop staring at the front porch.
McLowry strolled toward her from around the back of the house. "Thought I’d heard you ride up," he said, smiling proudly.
"You did that yourself?" She moved closer, still staring at the wide ramp leading from the yard up to the front porch.
"I didn’t want to say anything, in case I couldn’t build it sturdy enough. But it turned out all right. You can walk up it, if you don’t want to use the stairs, but mainly, Chad can ride his wheelchair on it so he can come and go from the house as he pleases."
"Oh, Jess! It’s wonderful. You are such a thoughtful man."
He seemed a bit embarrassed when she said that, but mostly, he seemed pleased.
They spent the rest of the day painting the house with the white paint she’d bought. Gabe worked on the interior, while McLowry painted the outside. One of the few good things about such a little house was that it didn’t take long to paint it. The window glass hadn’t yet arrived from Santa Fe, which meant the painting was even easier to do.
Once the windows and shutters were installed, she would bring Chad home. She hoped to have everything completed in the next week or two. Neighbors had given chairs, tables, linens, dishes and even a bed to her, so not too much more had to be bought in Jackson City or ordered from a mail-order house.
Dance With A Gunfighter Page 23