As soon as they were out of the house and on their way to the barn to get saddled up, Victoria once again turned her attention to Beartooth’s shoulder.
“I noticed you were moving that arm rather stiffly all through breakfast,” she said.
“Yeah, reckon I was,” Beartooth allowed. “But that’s kinda to be expected, don’t you think? Bound to loosen up, though, after I use it durin’ the course of the day.”
“Probably. But it still bears having another look at. Did the bandage bleed through during the night?”
“Not that I could see.”
“Well, unbutton your shirt so I can check it out.”
As Beartooth began undoing his shirt, Victoria rose up from her place at the table and walked around to stand behind him. More than ever before, Beartooth became instantly and keenly aware of the closeness of her. Of the scent and the woman heat that emanated from her. Of the soft pressure of her breast touching his bared shoulder as she leaned closer to examine the wound. He swallowed, the lump in his throat feeling as big as the plate on the table before him.
“No, it hasn’t bled through. That’s a good sign,” Victoria murmured. “And there’s no redness around the area that might indicate infection. That’s also good.”
“So you might as well just leave the bandage in place, eh?”
“Perhaps. But, since I’m going into town later anyway, I can always pick up some more inexpensive sheeting for fresh bandages. I think it’s safest to go ahead and change this one and take the opportunity to add some more of that ointment Mr. Moorehouse gave you.”
Beartooth made a face. “That stuff stings worse than the doggone bullet did when it split my skin in the first place.”
“Oh, don’t be such a baby,” Victoria said, smiling faintly. “I’m going to take this off and then let the wound air out for a bit while I go get the ointment and scissors and some clean material for a new bandage.”
She began carefully untying the knot that held the bandage in place. As she worked at this, Beartooth slowly turned his head and regarded her beautifully concentrating face from only inches away. Once she had the knot undone, sensing his close scrutiny, her own eyes lifted and met his.
“Victoria . . .” Beartooth said in a low, husky voice.
“What is it? Why are you looking at me like that?”
Maybe he was imagining it, but Beartooth thought he heard a trace of huskiness in her voice, as well. He swallowed again. “Don’t you know? Don’t you have any idea what’s goin’ on inside my head right now? God, this would be a whole lot easier if you did.”
“What would be easier? Me re-doing your bandage?”
“No. That’s not what I’m talking about at all.”
“I . . . I’m sorry. But you’re not making a great deal of sense.”
Beartooth’s mouth pulled tight with frustration as he fought to find the words. “I know I’m not. It’s just that . . . there’s so much I’ve been holdin’ back from sayin’ for so long . . .”
Reaching up, he wrapped each of her wrists in his hands and gently tugged her around in front of him. Then he stood up, still holding her wrists, and pressed her trembling hands tight to his chest. “You know me well enough to know I ain’t much of one for speeches. And I got no way with flowery words like probably roll off the silver tongue of that Rupert character. But havin’ him show up here and bringin’ with him the possibility you might be goin’ away . . . Well, that made me realize something. Something that’s been buildin’ stronger and stronger inside me for a long time now but I’ve been too much of a lunkhead to say or do anything about it.” Beartooth paused, his expression twisting anxiously as he continued to gaze down at Victoria. “Lordamighty, gal, do you still have no idea what I’m tryin’ to say?”
Victoria had her head tipped back, looking up to meet his gaze. The hint of a smile touched her lips. “Are you telling me you don’t want me to go away with Rupert?”
“That’s exactly what I’m tellin’ you! I don’t want you to go away with anybody.”
“Why?”
“Why?” Beartooth echoed. “Well, ain’t it plain? I . . . I want you here. You belong here. You need to stay.”
“I need to stay? That’s your only reason for not wanting me to go?”
“No! There’s lots of reasons. I want you to stay because. . . well, because . . . Aw, can’t you tell? Ain’t it written all over my face . . . ? I want you to stay because I’m in love with you, doggone it!”
Slowly, still gazing up at him but now wearing a dazzling smile, Victoria withdrew her hands from his grip. Then, equally slowly, her palms glided up over his chest and cupped around the back of his neck. Just before she tugged his head down so that their lips could meet, she murmured, “It’s about bloody time you got around to letting a girl know how you feel!”
CHAPTER 20
In town, Firestick and Moosejaw split up. Firestick got off at the jail, turning his horse over to Moosejaw for stabling, along with the big deputy’s own animal, at Roeback’s livery until they were needed again at some later point in the day. Moosejaw stated his intention to take a turn around town to see how things were shaping up for tomorrow’s big festival day before re-joining Firestick at the jail.
In the meantime, the marshal had to write up a report of last night’s shoot-out to present to the town council this morning. Immediately following the incident, a couple of the members had cornered him on the street and requested that he do so. They’d scheduled a nine-o’-clock meeting in a conference room at the bank to review the matter with him and the rest of the council.
Not surprisingly, given his background, the paperwork aspect of marshaling was Firestick’s least favorite part of the job. But it came with wearing the badge, so he’d not only learned to accept it but had actually gotten pretty good at documenting things to the satisfaction of the council. Since they gave him plenty of leeway and stayed out of his hair for the most part, he reckoned the least he could do was shove some paperwork in front of them from time to time if it helped keep things that way.
The other thing Firestick meant to take care of this morning was get a telegram off to the sheriff in El Paso. Firestick had never met the man personally, but they’d exchanged wires a time or two in the past and the sheriff—his name was Broward—had always seemed competent and accommodating.
On this occasion, Firestick wanted to advise Broward about the four hardcases sent by a man called Kilbourn—all allegedly from his town. Only a limited amount of identification had been found on the four victims, yielding merely the names Jepson and Grover for two of them. Firestick hoped this would mean something to the sheriff—enough that he could see to it a message was delivered and made clear: Don’t send any more men or they’ll meet the same fate.
At the moment, these thoughts were relegated to the back of Firestick’s mind as he worked on his report for the council. Having started a small fire in the office stove to heat up the pot of leftover coffee sitting on top of it, the marshal took a break from his scribbling and got up to go over and see if the coffee was hot yet. Finding that it was, he had just snared a cup and poured himself some when the front door opened and someone came in.
The identity of his visitor was enough of a surprise to nearly make him spill some of the coffee he’d just poured.
Cleo, the soiled dove from the Lone Star Palace Saloon, pressed the door closed behind her and stood there with alternating traces of determination and uncertainty playing across her pretty face.
After a moment of somewhat awkward silence, she said, “You know who I am, don’t you?”
“I do,” said Firestick.
The girl’s mouth tightened. “And I know that you don’t like me.”
Firestick considered this statement a moment before answering. “Not necessarily accurate to say I don’t like you, miss. What I don’t like is the trouble that flares up around you.”
“And that’s all my fault? I’ve never been the one to club somebody or st
art waving a gun around and acting like a jackass.”
“No. You’ve never been a clubber or a gun waver,” the marshal admitted. “Nor have you ever had your skull split open or taken a bullet. But others have, and you tend to be in the middle whenever that happens.”
“And because of that you’re going to run me out of town. What about the men who’ve been directly involved in those outbreaks of trouble?”
“Some of them are dead,” Firestick pointed out. “You might say they’ve left town permanent-like.”
Cleo’s shoulders slumped and a new emotion played across her face, a touch of sadness. “And you think I’ve ever wanted that—that I get some kind of thrill from having men fight over me and end up beating and sometimes killing each other?”
Either she was a hell of a good actress—which, of course, gals in her line of work were expected to be, at least to some extent—or she was genuinely bothered by the kinds of incidents under discussion. In any event, Firestick suddenly felt a lessening of the hostile feelings he’d built up toward her. It struck him that he’d never given her the slightest benefit of a doubt or even bothered to get her side of any of the disturbances. In that way, he realized, he was guilty of treating her as contemptuously as the men who regularly passed her around and used her with little or no feelings toward her humanity.
Plus, he had to admit to being impressed by the guts it took for her to show up here this morning and air her side of things. Maybe he was getting gullible in his old age, but damned if he didn’t feel inclined toward giving her a fair hearing.
“Reckon your side of it ain’t exactly been no picnic, either,” he said, taking the hard edge off the tone he’d been using up to now. “Why don’t you take a seat and maybe we can come up with a better plan than me havin’ to run you out of town. There’s enough coffee in the pot for another cup if you’d like some—though it’s heated over from yesterday so I’ve got to warn you it’s mighty stout.”
Cleo shook her head. “No thanks.”
She moved forward and sat down in the chair hitched up in front of the marshal’s desk. Firestick settled into his chair on the other side.
“Those men who got shot last night,” Cleo said, “do you know their names?”
“Only two of ’em. Jepson and Grover.”
Cleo’s mouth tightened. “I figured they’d be part of it.”
“The other two had no identification on them. One wore a derby hat, the other was a feisty, potbellied little Mexican packin’ twin Colts in cross-draw holsters.”
“Bob Miller and Diego Olmos,” Cleo said glumly. “They all work . . . or worked, I guess I should say . . . for Josiah Kilbourn.”
“Kilbourn. That’s the name they used. Said he hired ’em to bring you back on account of you broke a contract with him and took off owin’ him money.”
“That’s a lie!” Cleo’s eyes blazed. “I only took what was owed me, and I never had no kind of contract with Kilbourn. One person can’t lay claim to another. In case everybody forgot, we fought a war not too long ago that freed slaves.”
“Whatever his reasons, Kilbourn seems to want you back awful bad. Bad enough to pay four men to come after you.”
“They’re on his payroll. It wouldn’t have cost him any extra to send them to try and fetch me back. The only reason he wants me is because I made him a lot of money. Trouble was, the things he wanted me to start doing in order to earn it . . . well, I refused. When he threatened me, you’re damn right I took off.”
Once again Cleo’s eyes blazed angrily. Then, abruptly, they shifted, took on a vaguely sad, faraway look that she aimed down at the floor. “Look, Marshal, I know what I am. I make no bones about it. I’m a whore. I could make excuses, tell you a sad story about my bad breaks. But what would be the point? I’m what I am and where I’m at because I’m a girl who does what she has to in order to get by.” She lifted her gaze and fixed it on him flat and steady. “But there’s a limit, even for whores. At least there is for this one. And I won’t go beyond that for Kilbourn or anybody else.”
Without knowing what Kilbourn had demanded of this girl—without wanting to know, beyond what he couldn’t keep from imagining—Firestick felt a strong surge of loathing for the so-called man. “What’s the lowdown on this Kilbourn varmint?” he said. “How much power does he have in and around El Paso?”
“A pretty fair amount among the lowlifes and criminals.”
“What about Broward, the sheriff thereabouts? He do anything to try and stand in Kilbourn’s way, or is he paid to step aside?”
“Far as I know, Broward’s on the up and up. But he can only do so much. Kilbourn is a slippery snake who knows how to slither in and out of the swamp he operates in without sticking his neck out too far.”
Firestick nodded. “That’s good to hear. About Broward, I mean. I’ve had a few long-distance dealin’s with him in the past and that was my take on him—that he was honest. I’m fixin’ to get a wire off to him this mornin’ and fill him in on what happened to Kilbourn’s boys when they came around here. I expect him to bend Kilbourn’s ear with the news. Any luck, that should be enough to make Kilbourn back off from tryin’ anything more where you’re concerned.”
Cleo’s eyes brightened. “That would be a relief. And I guess I owe you an overdue thanks for last night, too. I’m sorry one of your deputies got hurt and four men had to die, but I’m certainly grateful you stopped them from getting to me. Lord knows, Earl wouldn’t have put up much resistance and Arthur couldn’t have stopped them alone.”
Firestick shrugged. “It’s what me and my deputies get paid for, miss. We wouldn’t be worth much if we let a pack of scruffy jackals swagger in here and ride off with one of our citizens.”
“Not even a whore?” Cleo said.
“That’s your word, not mine,” Firestick told her. “It’s not for me to judge you or look down on what you do. My only problem is with the trouble that’s cropped up around you practically since you hit town.”
“So that still stands then, doesn’t it? The Kilbourn problem may be solved but there’s still the rest of it.”
“There is if it keeps up.”
Cleo looked dismayed. “But what am I supposed to do? How do I control the actions of customers who show up and decide to act wild and foolish? It’s my job to be appealing to men. Not to sound vain, but I happen to be a little younger and maybe a little prettier than some of the other girls. No matter how nice I try to be to them, they hate me out of plain jealousy. Earl Sterling’s girlfriend, Frenchy, is a classic example.”
“Stealin’ another woman’s man ain’t exactly a way to get in good graces with other gals,” Firestick pointed out.
“No woman can steal another woman’s man if he’s truly satisfied with what he’s got in the first place,” Cleo insisted. “And it’s not like I went out of my way to lure Earl—he came to me all on his own. He’s my boss and, especially considering the way I make my living, how could I turn him down? That makes just another example of what I’m trying to say. Men want to be with me and they get impatient, make trouble. Short of getting out of the business—which I see no opportunity to do—I don’t know a way to control the feelings and actions of others.”
Firestick wagged his head. “I’m afraid I can’t help you there. I don’t usually get called in until the trouble’s already busted loose. But you’re right, controllin’ it shouldn’t fall strictly to you, either. I’ll talk to Sterling about keepin’ a tighter lid on the customers who come around. As for his own actions, it’s up to him to sort them out. He was with Frenchy for a long time. In fairness to you and her both, I’d say he better make up his mind how he really feels.”
“So how does that leave things between you and me?” Cleo sighed. “Are you running me out of town or not?”
“I never said that was a certainty,” Firestick told her. “What I said was that it might have to come to that if things didn’t straighten out.”
Cleo eyed him warily.
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“Look,” he added. “It took guts for you to come here this morning and lay things on the line like you’ve done. I give you credit for that. How about we leave it that I won’t go out of my way to crowd you as long as Sterling starts doin’ a better job of gettin’ things tamed down at the Palace? See where that takes us.”
Cleo stood up. “I can live with that. It’s better than packing my bag and moving on yet again. Thanks for your time.”
CHAPTER 21
The front door had scarcely closed behind Cleo before it clicked open again. So fast, in fact, that Firestick looked up from the report he’d returned his attention to expecting it would be the dove coming back in about something she’d forgotten.
He was correct in that it was an attractive female coming through the doorway. But that was as far as it went. It wasn’t Cleo. It was Kate Mallory.
Pressing the door closed behind her, she leaned back against it and then just stood there regarding him with one eyebrow prettily arched.
Firestick stood up behind his desk. “Kate. This is a surprise.”
“Yes. I can see where it would be.” Her tone dripped with sarcasm.
Obviously she must have seen Cleo exiting. Must have practically bumped into her. And now she was in a mood to tease Firestick about it . . . at least he was pretty sure she was teasing. She couldn’t seriously think Cleo’s presence here indicated anything improper. Could she?
“Come on in, have a seat,” the marshal urged her. “I haven’t had time to make a pot of fresh coffee yet. But I can get one goin’ if you’d like some.”
“No, that’s alright,” Kate answered coolly. “I wouldn’t want you to overdo it, having already been so busy this early in the day.”
Firestick folded his arms across his chest and cocked an eyebrow of his own. “Alright, go ahead and have your fun. But you know it wasn’t what you’re pretendin’ to think it was.”
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