Dorothy Garlock (32 page)

He didn’t. He sat there and lit another cigarette. The lights went out in the cookshack, and she saw Charlie pass the window in the bunkhouse. Billy had probably gone out the back to the cabin he shared with Smith. Jo Bell was trying to decide if it was safe to cross the yard and ask the man to walk away from the house with her so that she could speak privately with him. While she was trying to make up her mind, he stood, tossed his cigarette and, to her astonishment, crossed the yard and came directly to her.

Jo Bell rose on shaking legs. “How did ya know I was here?”

“I saw you looking in the window and spotted that white dress the minute I came outside. Why are you sneakin’ around out here?”

“I ain’t sneakin’. I want to talk to you—where nobody’ll see us.”

“Why?”

“Cause . . . I want ya to help me get away from here.”

“Why?” he asked again.

“Smith Bowman is keepin’ me here and I want to leave.”

“Are you his woman?”

“No! I’m not anybody’s woman . . . yet. Are ya comin’ to talk to me or not? If Smith or Charlie sees me, I’ll have to go back in.”

“I never could refuse a pretty girl.”

“I am pretty. Papa said I was.”

He took her arm and urged her down the row of sumac to the end, lifted her over the fence and followed. They backtracked to a dense clump that shielded them from the house and the ranch buildings.

“No one will see us here but an owl or two. What’s on your mind?”

“My name is Jo Bell Frank. I’ve got to get to Sheridan and see a lawyer or a judge or somebody.”

“You’re the boy’s sister?”

“Charlie? Yes. We came to visit my uncle, but he died before we got here. His wife, our Aunt Maud, is awful sick. When she dies, this ranch will be ours. There ain’t no blood kin anywhere but us. That’s why I got to see a lawyer.” She heard his indrawn breath whistle through his teeth and was encouraged to go on. “I think this ranch is worth a lot of money, don’t you?”

“Bowman foreman here?”

“I guess so. He makes me stay in the house. He said I’d cause t-trouble with the m-men.” Jo Bell let her voice tremble. “I don’t know why he’s so m-mean unless he’s plannin’ on gettin’ Uncle Oliver’s ranch for hiss-self.”

“What does your brother say about this?”

“Charlie’s fifteen. He don’t k-know anythin’. Will you h-help m-me?” Jo Bell sniffed prettily.

“Don’t cry, pretty little thing. I’m thinking on it.”

“What’s yore n-name?” She swayed toward him.

“Vince. Vince Lee.”

“Oh, Vince, I . . . just don’t know what I’m goin’ to do. I’m just . . . scared all the time.”

“What do you want to do, honey?” She was so close he could smell the heat of her body.

“Go to Sheridan ’n’ find somebody to h-help me. Charlie took my money, but I’ve got these.” She put her hand in her pocket and pulled out two gold rings and a diamond-studded railroad watch. “You can have one of the rings if you take me to Sheridan.”

Vince struck a match and glanced at what she held in her hand. Then his eyes went to her face and he drew in a deep breath. He slowly blew out the match. He’d never seen such
eyes. She was the prettiest woman he’d seen in all his born days. Gawdamighty!

“Maybe I want more than a ring,” he said softly.

“Do you want both rings?” He shook his head. “Then what in tarnation do you want?”

“Well—” he hesitated. “We could start with a kiss.”

“A kiss?” She looked at him stupidly for a moment. Then she laughed. “Oh, is that all?” She slipped the rings and the watch back in her pocket and moved her hands up his chest to clasp them behind his neck. “I like to kiss. I haven’t done it much though.”

Her warm lips reached and found his. She melted against him as if she didn’t have a bone in her body. In the circle of his arms and hearing the heavy beat of his heart, she was conscious of a change in his breathing. It quickened. She was having just the effect on him her papa had said she would.

She made to pull her mouth from his. But his hand at the back of her head held her until she decided she didn’t want to pull away even if her papa had said for her not to give too much too soon. She liked kissing. Her arms tightened about his neck and she allowed his tongue to enter her mouth. His hand moved down her back and pulled her tight into the vee of his crotch. He began to kiss her savagely and thoroughly. She arched against him, not understanding the strange new emotions he had awakened in her body. She was only conscious that she wanted more.

Somewhere in the back of her mind she thought,
so this is
how it feels
? This was the power her papa had said she had. Without knowing why or what she was doing, she moved against the hardness that had sprung up between them and was pressing against her belly.

“Christ,” Vince muttered when he pulled his mouth away
from hers and looked down at her. “You’re hotter’n a cow town on Saturday night.”

“Does that mean you like to kiss me?”

“Yeah—”

“I like kissin’ you too, Vince.”

“G-gawd,” he groaned. “Where’n hell did you come from?”

Jo Bell laughed happily. “It’s where I’m goin’ that matters.”

“G-gawd,” he gasped again. “I thought you said you hadn’t kissed much.”

“I haven’t. Papa told me what to do.”

“Your Papa? Hellfire! What kind a papa did you have?”

“The best papa in the world.” she said staunchly.

“You . . . didn’t . . . with . . . him?”

“No!” She tried to push him away, but he held her. “No,” she said again. “But he told me . . . things.”

“All right, all right. Just be easy, be easy,” he crooned as if he were soothing a skittish horse.

“I’ve not done more than . . . kiss. Ya’ll not take advantage of me, will ya, Vince?”

“Course not,” he scoffed.
Where in the world had this hot
little thing come from?
She was a dream, a mirage, as sweet as angel’s breath.

“Have you done
it
with a lot of women, Vince?” she asked and let her tongue roam over his lips. “Papa did. He said a real man would do it ever chance he got. He said that nice girls like me would only do
it
with one man and that I wasn’t to give it away. Papa always had a woman along to give him comfort.”

Lord, what was he going to do? If he threw her to the ground and did what he wanted so desperately to do, she might scream and yell rape. If that happened there’d be hell for breakfast.

“Gawdamighty!”

Vince was in agony from holding back. It had been weeks since he’d been with a woman. He had visited his first whorehouse at fourteen. Since then he had been in hundreds of brothels all the way from Texas to California, and he had never seen a prettier woman or one who had fired him up so fast. Was it the plain talk coming out of such a beautiful mouth and innocent-looking face? He knew as sure as his name was Vince Lee that if he did to her what his body was screaming for him to do, he’d not leave Eastwood Ranch alive.

“All right . . . what did you say your name was?” He dropped his arms and moved away from her, breathing deeply in an effort to calm himself.

“Jo Bell.”

“Jo Bell,” he repeated. “The problem is this—if I took you away from here, and they caught up with us, they’d hang me.”

“Not if I leave Charlie a letter sayin’ we eloped to get married.”

“Married?” The wheels began to turn in Vince’s head.
Married to a woman who owned a ranch like this!
Good Lord! All he’d ever had was a horse, a gun, and a few dollars to last until the next job.

Vince was silent for so long that Jo Bell became worried.

“You wouldn’t have to marry me if you didn’t want to.” She spoke in a small sad voice, leaned close to him so that her hair tickled his nose, and blew her warm breath on his throat. The palms of her hands moved up and down his arms. He trembled and pushed his hardness against her. She wanted to laugh. It worked just like her papa had said it would.

“Course, I’d want to,” he said quickly and squeezed her upper arms so tight that she winced. “You’ll need a horse—”

“I got one. That sorrel with the black mane and tail is mine. Papa said he was worth a lot.”

Vince jerked her to him, lifted her, and whirled her around. He had ridden with hard luck all his life. Now in the space of thirty minutes his luck had changed.

“Sit down here on the grass, darlin’. We’ve got plans to make. I’m leaving in the morning, but I’ll be back. Get your letter ready and pack only enough to tie behind your saddle. When you see a circle of stones beside the outhouse door, meet me right here.”

“Oh, Vince! I’m a’thinkin’ I love you!”

His grin was so wide it hurt the cut on his jaw.

*  *  *

Smith and Sant sat in the cowhide chairs on the cabin porch and waited for Billy to join them. In as few words as possible Smith told Sant about his trip to Denver to see Fanny.

“She wants nothing more to do with Maud. She’s cut her out of her life completely. I can’t help but feel a little sorry for the old woman. Fanny put out the story that her folks sold their land and cattle for cash money and headed for Europe where they planned to live in style. The ship sank in a storm and all were lost, leaving her a poor little orphan.”

“For Gawdsake! Who in their right mind would believe a cock-and-bull story like that?”

“Her in-laws, the Brockfords, swallowed it hook, line and sinker. They’re high-society folks in Denver. Fanny was so anxious to see the last of me that she was even halfway decent for a change.”

“I bet.”

“I couldn’t tell old Maud the truth, so I told her Fanny had gone to London. It was the first place I thought of that was far enough away.”

Smith told Sant about meeting the Franks and Willa at the stage station and the events that followed.

“It was lucky for old Maud they came when they did. She took it pretty hard when I told her Fanny wasn’t coming. My guess is that it brought on one of her fits and she fell and broke her leg.”

“I’d hate takin’ care of her. With two good legs she’s meaner than a cow with her teat caught in the fence. Tied to the bed she must be a ring-tailed tooter.”

Smith paused and built a smoke. He didn’t want to talk to his friend about Willa and that was the direction the conversation was headed. Willa with her big sad eyes, the proud tilt of her chin, the sweetness of—Lordy, he had to stop thinking about her . . .

“Did you have a run-in with that kid with Rice? I see he’s marked up some.”

“You might say that. Damn fool. I caught him with his gunsight on the silver lobo’s mare and let him have it with the butt of my rifle. He claimed he could crease her down the spinal nerve and stun her long enough to tie her up.”

“The bastard. Most of those shots either miss or kill.”

“I knocked him down. Before he got up he understood what would happen to him if that lobo or the mare were harmed. Corner him and he’s like a rattlesnake. He fancies himself quite handy with a gun.”

“Did he draw on you?”

“Started to. He ain’t as fast as you was at fourteen.”

“Remember when Oliver caught you teaching me the fast draw?” Smith chuckled.

“Yeah. He stormed and raved about it for a while. ‘Teach him to fight with his fists like a man.’ I can still hear him. ‘Smith ain’t going to be no gunfighter.’”

“I miss him still. Sant.”

“Yeah, well, that’s the way of it. We can’t live forever. Get the guitar and play me a tune. I been hankerin’ for music.”

Sant leaned back against the wall, his hands stacked behind his head. This place was the nearest thing to a home he’d had for as long as he could remember. Smith was the nearest thing to the son he’d never had. For several years after Oliver died Smith had grieved, drunk and brawled continuously. More than once Sant had had to step in to keep him from killing someone or from being killed.

Two years ago Sant had found a grassy meadow within the walls of a canyon. A clear stream of water came down the side of the mountain. He and Smith had filed on the land, driven a herd of wild horses and mules into the canyon, and built a pole and brush fence across the narrow opening. It was from this herd that they would cut out the forty head of mules for Cliff Rice.

“I bought new strings while I was in Denver.” Smith came out and sat down on a bench. “I put them on the other night.” He plucked at the strings and twisted a key. “I’ll never forget the day you rode in with this guitar in a gunny sack. You’d come all the way from Sheridan in a raging blizzard—had ice on your whiskers and were about frozen to the horse. It was the day before Christmas.”

“Yeah. I was wore out and wanted to sleep. You plunked on that damn thing till I threatened to get up and bust it.”

“I’ve sure had a lot of pleasure out of this guitar, Sant. I don’t reckon I ever thanked you properly.”

“Shitfire. Ya thanked me till I was blue in the face. Now stop yawkin’ and play
Red River Valley
.”

*  *  *

Willa debated with herself for a long time before she finally relented and gave Maud a few drops of laudanum. The doctor
had said to wait a couple of days. She had waited a day and a half. The hours Maud had spent in pain had taxed her severely and she badly needed rest. Both of them did.

When she was sure her patient was sleeping soundly, Willa left the room, taking Buddy with her. She locked the door, put the key in her pocket and glanced toward Jo Bell’s room. As far as she knew the girl had been there all evening. Willa had eaten supper with Maud, knowing that Inez was expecting Smith. She had no desire to face him in such close proximity until she had settled a few things in her mind—the main one being why he had the power to make her almost mindless in his presence.

A light shone from under the door of the small room at the bottom of the stairs that Inez was using. Willa went through the darkened kitchen and out onto the back porch.

It felt so good to be alone in the quiet night. A half moon rode high in a sky studded with a million stars. The creaking of the wooden windmill was a pleasant sound. Even Buddy was content. He dropped to the porch floor and lay with his head on his paws.

Then from somewhere behind the bunkhouse someone began to play a guitar. She had heard the music several nights ago but only faintly. Tonight it had a strange compelling quality, and was hauntingly beautiful. Willa could not define its particular magic. She only knew that it gave her goose pimples. It drew her as the Pied Piper of Hamelin in the Browning poem had compelled the children to follow him.