by Deborah Camp
The next day Junior Pullman and Forrest Cole were scheduled to be buried – Pullman on his own land and Cole in the town graveyard. Junior would be interred next to his father. The hotel restaurant was busy that morning, many of the patrons having breakfast before attending one of the services – both held at high noon.
“They’re mostly going out of curiosity instead of respect for the departed,” Lacy said to Bobbie Sue as they both took a quick break in back of the hotel after the busy breakfast hours. Lacy perched on a pickle barrel and Bobbie Sue sat on an overturned shipping crate. “I’d go to Forrest’s service, but I have too much work to do here.”
Bobbie Sue yanked her shawl closer around her shoulders and stretched out her legs. “I have no interest in going to either one.”
A calico cat approached them, its tail held high and proud, and rubbed against Lacy’s skirt. She bent down and stroked the purring creature’s head. “Hello there, Rags. Where have you been?”
“I think she’s taken up with Amelia Tankersly. I’ve seen her in their store a time or two lately. I wonder if John will attend Pullman’s funeral?”
“He might.”
“I heard that Dalton Moon’s going.”
Lacy straightened from petting the purring cat. “To Forrest’s?”
“No. To Pullman’s.”
“That surprises me.”
“You haven’t talked to him since the gunfight?”
“No.” She smoothed tendrils of hair away from her eyes. “I tried to find him later that day and couldn’t. I don’t know where he took off to, but he wasn’t in town. I asked several people and nobody saw him after Pullman was pronounced dead. I was thinking he might have left town for good, but then Uncle Otis said he saw Dalton this morning at the barber’s.”
“That’s where he heard that Dalton was going to the funeral.” Bobbie Sue lifted her face to the sky. “Sun’s shining, but it’s cold.”
Lacy crossed her arms and burrowed deeper into her wool coat. The breeze picked up, swirling around the corner of the buildings and ruffling their skirts. “Maybe it will snow at Christmas.”
“It could happen,” Bobbie Sue agreed. “Haven’t had a white Christmas in a few years.” She slanted a glance at Lacy. “Otis asked me to marry him.”
“Wh-what?” Lacy felt her mouth drop open. “When did that happen?”
“Yesterday morning. I was going to tell you, but then the shootout happened and there never was a good time.” She shrugged and a big grin lit up her face. “I said yes.”
“Of course you did! When’s it happening?”
“We don’t know.” Her face pinked up, making her look too young for the streaks of white in her hair. “Otis says he wants to get a job before we tie the knot. I don’t care about that, but he does, so I’ll go along with it. He’s checking around nearby towns to see if any of them are hiring lawmen.”
“You might move away?”
“Not if we don’t have to.” She shrugged. “Your uncle has his pride, Lacy. He won’t stay idle.”
Lacy nodded, but it felt wrong that her uncle would leave Far Creek. Every one of her kin, including herself, had left it. She’d returned, but at the time she’d felt it was a visit and that she wouldn’t make it her home again. But her uncle had never wanted to pull up roots. Leaving would be sad for him. She couldn’t imagine him being as happy anywhere else. He liked knowing everyone in town, who they courted, who they married, how many children they had, where they went to church, and other tidbits he didn’t share with anyone. Belonging and being known by just about everyone in the area mattered to him.
“What’s going on between you and Dalton?”
Lacy shrugged, not knowing how to answer that question. “It’s hard to say.”
“You still like him, don’t you? Or did watching him gun down Junior Pullman change your dreamy ideas about him?”
She observed Bobbie Sue’s haughty expression and didn’t care for it one bit. “He did what he had to do. Would you have more respect for him if he’d allowed Pullman to kill him?”
“No, I’m not saying that.” Bobbie Sue looked away from Lacy’s steady glare. “I figured you might not want to tie yourself to a man who does that for a living.”
“He’s a lawman just like Uncle Otis.” The need to defend him billowed inside her. “He took no joy in what happened. He took no pleasure in firing Uncle Otis either.”
“Did he tell you that?” Bobbie Sue asked, whipping her gaze back around to Lacy.
“Not in so many words, but I know it to be true.”
“You didn’t think it was fair. You told me as much. You were as mad as I was over it. What changed your mind?”
“Bobbie Sue, Uncle Otis didn’t back Dalton up when he should have. It would have gone down better if Dalton had confronted Uncle Otis in private instead of out there on the street, but he had a good reason to let Uncle Otis go.”
Bobbie Sue stood with a huff. “He certainly has wrapped you around his little finger.”
“He has not.” Lacy rose swiftly and the sudden movement had Rags scampering away. “I do like him, yes, but I’m not in . . . that is, I’m clear-headed about him.” She glowered when Bobbie Sue released a sarcastic chuckle. “He’ll be moving on soon. We’ve all known that from the day he arrived here. I’ve always kept that in the forefront of my mind and not allowed myself to . . . well, you know. I’ve kept my distance from him.” Such a lie! When had she become a pathetic liar? She shook out her skirt. “We should go back in. It’s too cold out here.”
They returned to work and Lacy managed to get through the next few hours without making too many mistakes, given that she couldn’t stop thinking about Dalton leaving town. At three o’clock, she told Bobbie Sue she was taking a break. Putting on her coat and tying a scarf around her neck, she walked to the jail, hoping she’d find Dalton there. What if he’d left town right after the funeral? He wouldn’t leave without telling her goodbye, she argued with herself. He cared too much about her to wound her that way.
She was so caught up in her musings, she nearly ran smack into him as she approached the jail and he stepped out onto the boardwalk.
“Oh!” She pressed a hand to her thudding heart. “I was just . . . that is, I’m glad you’re here.” The dark circles under his eyes were hard to miss. His demeanor was so serious she felt it seep into her, weighing her down even more. “Are you okay?”
He tipped his head to one side in a quick, almost negligent gesture. “Did you need something?”
“Yes.” She edged around him and went inside the jail. “I wanted to talk to you.” Unwinding the scarf from her neck, she turned to face him. He leaned against the wall, crossing one ankle over the other. “You went to the Pullman’s funeral?”
He nodded and stared at his black boots.
“Did many people attend?”
“A respectable amount, I reckon.”
“Why did you go?”
His dusky lashes lifted to reveal his dark brown eyes. “I killed him, Lacy.”
The rawness in his gaze unraveled her and she wanted to embrace him, comfort him. “I know, but he was ready to kill you.” She clasped her hands, holding herself back because she wasn’t sure what he needed from her. “I’m still surprised you went to the funeral. You didn’t like him. Hardly anyone liked him. I would have felt two-faced if I’d been there.”
“You think I’m two-faced?”
“No!” She waved her hand, erasing that notion. “I’m just trying to understand, that’s all.” She let her hand drop, wishing she knew exactly what to do to smooth his prickly places.
“It’s not that complicated.” He crossed the room to the stove. Taking a tin cup from the wall shelf, he poured himself a cup of coffee from the pot that was a permanent fixture on the stove. “I wanted to pay my respects to his widow and son and send up a prayer that Junior’s soul would find peace.”
Tender emotion swelled in Lacy’s throat as she stared at his broad back. He s
ipped at the coffee and then turned around to her. The sadness in his eyes made hers burn.
He brandished the cup. “You want some?”
“No, thanks.” She sat in one of the chairs near his desk. “How are Carmella and Trey taking it?”
“Neither of them shed a tear during the service. His ranch hands were there and they seemed ill-at-ease. I don’t think they knew how to act or if they’d still have jobs.” His boot heels rapped on the wooden floor a he rounded the desk and sat behind it. “Whit Whittier wasn’t there. I heard that he’d disappeared overnight.”
“Wonder why?”
He nodded. “I think he killed Cole.”
She rounded her shoulders against the horror of that. “You don’t think Carmella or Trey will sell the ranch, do you?”
“No, but changes will be made. Trey said that he has no real beef with the railroad. Says he’ll hear them out and be fair and square about it. Carmella told me that she wanted peace and to be left alone.”
“Trey has a mean streak,” Lacy said. “But Junior made it worse. Maybe with him gone, Carmella will be a calmer influence on Trey and he won’t be flying off the handle and getting drunk every chance he gets.”
“He has a lot of respect for his mother. I could see that.” He propped his boots up on the desk’s edge and took another long pull of the coffee. “My gut tells me Trey knows that Whittier killed Forrest Cole and that he might have even been there when it happened. But I can’t prove it and nobody’s going to confess to anything.”
“You don’t think Junior shot him?”
“No. I think Junior told them to shoot him.” He set the coffee mug on the desk. “If you hadn’t noticed, Junior was good at giving orders, issuing threats, throwing his weight around, and not much else.”
She unbuttoned her coat. “That was Junior Pullman, all right.” Leaning forward a little, she captured his gaze. “Are you sure you’re okay? You seem so quiet and . . . well, sad.”
He took another swallow of the coffee before he answered. “Taking a life is never easy and it shouldn’t be. It tears a piece out of your soul that you’ll never get back.”
Stunned at his candid answer, she mulled it over. Just when she thought she knew him, he threw her for a loop. “Then why do you take jobs like this?”
“I do this work to stop people from getting killed,” he said, his brows lowered and making his eyes seem even darker. “A lawman is a peace officer. Or he should be. Folks don’t hire me to fill their graveyards. They hire me to bring law and order back to their lives. That is usually done by jailing a few of the rowdier drunks and cheating gamblers and by running no-goods out of town. If I had to draw and shoot every place I went, I’d quit this job in a second.”
“But your reputation is as a fast draw.”
“Just because I’m fast on the draw doesn’t mean I like to draw blood.” He set his coffee cup down with a thud. “When I came here I thought I’d be able to reason with Pullman and his followers. Then I met him and that changed my mind. There was no reasoning with him. The more you tried to get him to meet you in the middle, the more he pushed you to the edge of the cliff.” A dry chuckle rumbled from him. “The crazy thing is, I doubt the railroad will lay tracks anywhere near Far Creek.”
She frowned. “But they’ve been scouting this area for months.”
“They’re looking all over the west, trying to find the best routes. From what I hear, the agents are looking more toward Olathe. They’re all terminating in Topeka.”
“No matter.” She waved aside the topic. “Like you’ve said, the railway will change everything for miles around.”
“But the ranchers around here don’t have to worry about their land being bought out from under them. All those meetings and Junior stomping about, waving his fists, having people shot at, hiring a Regulator . . .” He rolled his eyes. “All that for nothing, really.” He set his boots on the floor again and rested his elbows on his knees. Dropping into silence, he stared moodily at the scarred floor.
Lacy rose from the chair and went to stand in front of him. He looked up at her, a question floating in his eyes. She let her heart guide her hand as she removed his hat and set it on the desk, then ran her fingers through his hair. He closed his eyes on a sigh and wrapped his arms around her. Applying a little pressure at the back of his head, she had him lean forward to rest his cheek under her breasts. She combed her fingers through his curling hair and realized she already missed him and he wasn’t even gone yet.
“I do believe you’re all heart above the waist and all guts below it,” she whispered. “I was so proud of you yesterday.”
He jerked as if she’d shocked him. “Proud? Of what?”
“Of you standing up to Trey and Junior. When you stopped Junior from hitting Carmella again, I wanted to run to you and hug you for it.”
“You shouldn’t have seen any of that, Lacy. You had no business standing out there where a stray bullet could have ended your life.”
She took his face in her hands and made him look up into her eyes. “Far Creek is a better place because of you, Dalton Moon.” She made a face of remorse. “I’m sorry for doubting you. For not welcoming you at first. You’ve certainly made me eat crow.” Smiling, she brushed her thumbs across his temples and forced the next words past lips that trembled slightly. “I guess you’ll be moving on soon to the next town that needs you.”
“I suppose.” His expression was taciturn.
Lacy tipped her head to one side, wishing for more from him. She’d made it clear what she wanted. Was he going to ignore that? “Won’t you miss us?”
“Of course, but I’m not putting down roots. Far Creek is your home, not mine. And it never will be.” He lowered his brows, looking as serious as a judge. “You have to understand that.”
Had he slapped her? It felt like it. Was this his way of breaking ties with her? Acting as if she wouldn’t leave this town when he knew better? She shoved his hands off her. “Don’t worry. I won’t be clinging to you and begging you to stay.”
He stood up and held his hands out from his sides. “That’s not what I mean.”
“Then what do you mean?” She pulled her coat tighter around her, suddenly feeling chilled to the bone.
He shoved his hair off his forehead in a gesture of sheer exasperation. “This isn’t coming out right. I’m not in the right frame of mind. We should talk later.” He clamped his teeth together when she whirled away from him and flung open the outside door. “Lacy, listen to me.”
“I have to go, Dalton.” She tried to be calm, tried to not let him see how upset she was, how he could shatter her into pieces. Besides, he wasn’t telling her anything new, was he? He’d always had one foot in the stirrups, ready to ride. “You’ll drop in and say goodbye before you leave, won’t you?”
“Of course.” He rested his hands on his hips, looking perturbed that she’d even ask that of him. “I have things to tie up here. And I have to decide where I’ll go next.”
“Well, fine. Good.” She hurried out, anxious to get away from him before the sob clogging her throat overtook her. What else could she say to him? Saying goodbye would tear out her heart, but she’d do it and she’d do it without histrionics! If he could ride away from her without a backward glance, by gum, she could watch him go with nary a tear in her eye. Brave words, she thought. False words.
But she knew there would be plenty of days after he left to cry and curse his name and the horse he rode in on.
Chapter 16
“I wonder what the marshal’s talking to the mayor about? Do you know?” Bobbie Sue asked, stepping into the supply room where Lacy was counting towels and sheet sets.
“No.” Lacy jotted down the number of sheets in her ledger. Just the mention of Dalton sent a cold splash of anguish through her. He was probably telling the mayor that he was ready to leave Far Creek and they were discussing his replacement. But she didn’t want to talk about that. She didn’t want to think about that.
“None of your business anyway, is it?”
“Well! What’s sharpened your tongue, missy?” Bobbie Sue scowled at her. “I figured if you and Dalton were thick as thieves, you might know what he’s been doing. There was a special council meeting called yesterday and he was there, I heard.”
“We aren’t thick. Not anymore.” She tried to concentrate on the supplies and which ones she would need to replenish. In two weeks it would be Christmas and every room in the hotel would be occupied that whole week and the one after it. Dalton would probably be gone by then. She shut her eyes and closed her mind to that thought.
“Did you have a fight? When?”
“We didn’t.” She heaved a labored sigh. “Bobbie Sue, I don’t want to talk about him. There’s a lot of work to be done around here. I don’t have time to worry about the marshal and what he’s doing or where he’s headed.”
Bobbie Sue held up her hands in mock surrender. “Okay, okay. I hear you.” She squinted her brown eyes. “I also see what’s eating at you. You’re blue about him leaving soon, aren’t you? Has he not asked you to go with him?”
“Why would he ask such a thing?” She shook her head, realizing that she’d shown more of her true feelings than she’d intended. “He’s not in love with me and he knows I wouldn’t traipse off with him like some harlot! At least, I hope he has a higher opinion of me than that.” She forced lightness to her tone. “I don’t chase after men. You know that. He’ll be moseying on soon and I’ll have plenty of other beaus.”
“I don’t doubt it.” Bobbie Sue leaned a shoulder against the door facing and studied Lacy with a smile. “You always have young men trying to win your favor. You’ll quit pining for the marshal after a year or so.”