Dorothy Garlock (7 page)

“Good God man! Ain’t ya heard? I don’t pay whores. Whores pay
me
!”

“Haw! Haw! Haw!”

Smith, sitting with his feet up on a bench, his hat pulled low over his closed eyes and a whiskey bottle held between his thighs, sent a little puff of air rolling over his lips. He had heard the same boasts in a thousand way stations and saloons from Canada to Texas and from the Mississippi to California. He wasn’t interested in their card game or how many whores they’d plowed. He wanted to get stinking drunk, sober up enough to saddle his horse and head out across the river. Byers’s place was one of the few places where he was reasonably sure he’d not get knifed in the back and robbed while he was in that sweet oblivion.

“Whata ya think, cowboy? Huh?” A whiskered freighter
nudged his booted feet. “By gum, I bet you played hob with a whore or two. Ain’t ya got a story to tell?”

Eyes green as a cat’s looked unblinkingly into the freighter’s before they closed again. Smith refused to rise to the bait. With the ease of long practice he detached himself from the rowdy group, allowing them to see no expression at all on his face.

The freighter cussed himself for a suck-egged mule. His stomach muscles tightened as though he were in striking distance of a rattlesnake. That one had a devil riding him and wasn’t to be messed with. He moved his chair to the other side of the table.

“If that woman comes down here, I ain’t wantin’ to hear no such nasty talk.” Back at the cookstove, Byers vigorously stirred the contents of the boiling pot. “She ain’t no painted up whore. Rusty saw her in the glass a ridin’ on the seat by the kid. He said she looked like a fine, decent woman. Got blond hair too.”

“How can he tell through a glass if she’s fine and decent?”

“Christamighty! A woman travelin’ with her man ’n’ two kids ain’t likely to be a whore.”

“Musta been hard up, though, to hook up with that puny lookin’ Easterner.” Rucker snorted in disgust. “Betcha two bits he squats down to pee.”

The dealer dealt the cards during the loud laughter that followed the remark. Orvis Rucker was a big, friendly man who liked to talk. Byers had never heard anything bad about him. He was a hell of a muleskinner. It was said he’d take a six-mule hitch pulling a double wagon places where no other driver dared to go.

“If old Rusty saw a stump with a skirt on he’d think it fine and decent. Haw! Haw! Haw!”

“A woman is a woman. Good, bad, ugly, skinny or fat, they all have a glory hole.” All eyes turned to the man who
sat across the table from Rucker. He was a cold-eyed man with a long, narrow face filled with potential viciousness.

“Ain’t nobody arguin’ that,” Rucker said gruffly and shuffled the cards.

“I like ’em skinny. The closer the bone the sweeter the meat. And . . . decent. There’s something about being on top a fighting woman that gets me big as a fence post and hard as a rock. Come to think on it, I ain’t had me a
decent
woman for quite a spell.”

The silence that followed was drawn out, broken only by the scraping of heavy boots on the plank floor and the snores of the man sleeping on a bench. Good women and kids were something to be cherished in this rough, sparsely populated land, and few men would risk molesting one. Outlaws had been known to turn on one of their own for doing the unpardonable.

“Where you from, mister?” Byers asked.

“Kansas, and the name’s Fuller. George Fuller.” He said his name slowly and looked directly into the eyes of each man gathered around the poker table.

“I don’t know ’bout Kansas, but up here a man better keep his hands off a woman less she invites it.”

“And if he don’t?”

“He’ll ride lookin’ over his shoulder . . . that is if he makes it to his horse.”

Byers hadn’t recognized the name, but the man was with Abel Coyle, who was a known gunman, a bounty hunter who operated just inside the law. Coyle was a dangerous man who used intimidation first, and, if that didn’t work, he used his gun. He and Fuller had ridden in about noon and asked for a night’s lodging. After a few minutes of friendly conversation, Coyle had been invited to sit in the card game with the freighters, who were waiting until morning to cross the river. Byers did not like having Fuller and Coyle here, did not like
it at all. He was sure there would be trouble before the night was over.

Smith Bowman took a long draw from the whiskey bottle, then slammed the cork in place. Dammit to hell. Between that slack-jawed drifter with the shifty eye, Abel Coyle, and the Eastern dude with a woman in his wagon, there was bound to be trouble of some kind before morning. He wanted no part of it. If he had any brains he’d push on. He hadn’t stopped here because old Pete couldn’t swim the river, swollen due to the rains up north. He’d stopped because he wanted to get dead drunk. Hell, he’d take himself and his bottle out to the barn and be well out of it.

“Ain’t ya stayin’ to eat, Smith?” Byers asked as the green-eyed man headed for the back door.

“No, thanks.”

“Drinkin’ when ya ain’t et for a day or two’ll rot yore guts, sure as shootin’.”

“Let ’em rot.”

Byers shook his head and watched Smith walk out to the barn, still as steady on his feet as a mountain goat, clutching an almost empty bottle of whiskey in one hand, a full one in the other. He was determined to get pissy-eyed drunk. There would be no help from him if trouble started.

“Come ’n’ get it,” Byers bellowed. “Come belly up to the table. Y’awl got all night to finish yore game.”

*  *  *

“Now hush up yore fussin’, Jo Bell. That ain’t no fit place for a pretty little thin’ like you. Tomorrow, when some of them toughs are gone, we’ll stop in to say howdy to Mr. Byers.”

“But, Papa, it ain’t no fun settin’ a way off up here.”

“Mind me, now. I got to be gettin’ back ’n’ seein’ if we can trail along behind one of them freighters when they head
out. I’m thinkin’ Mr. Byers might know where your Uncle Oliver’s ranch is. He might know somebody to take us there.”

“Charlie and Willa won’t talk to me,” Jo Bell whined. “They go off with that old dog and talk so I can’t hear.”

“Pay them no mind, honeybunch. Charlie, keep a eye out. If anybody comes nosin’ around, shoot off the gun. I’ll come a hot-footin’ it out here.” Gil moved over close to Willa. “Stay by the wagon,” he murmured in a conspiratorial tone. “There’s a bunch a horny bastards down there that’d be between yore legs before ya hit the ground.”

Willa let his words wash over her knowing full well he was trying to frighten her into staying away from the station. He needn’t worry about that tonight. She wasn’t foolish enough to go into a place where men were drinking. Tomorrow would be soon enough. Her mind was racing ahead. She would talk to the station keeper and, if he was a decent sort, ask him to help her.

She watched Gil hug Jo Bell and whisper something to her. The night swallowed him as soon as he stepped out of the light from the campfire. Willa looked toward the station. Light streamed from the open doorway and the front window. The evening was cool and alive with the sounds of masculine voices, crickets, and the occasional hoot of an owl.

“Don’t be scared, ma’am,” Charlie said. “I’ve got the rifle and I can shoot.”

“I’m only scared of the future, Charlie.”

Willa needed to touch someone; needed the contact with a warm, caring human being. She clasped the boy’s hand tightly with hers.

“Things has got a way of workin’ out, ma’am.”

“Charlie, if I ever have a boy, I want him to be just like you,” Willa said suddenly. “You’re sweet, gentle, caring, and dependable. I pray that you don’t change. Don’t let this land make you hard and unfeeling like the people back at
Hublett.” She stopped herself before she added—and conniving like your father.

“Ma’am . . . ma’am—”

A great tenderness welled in her for the boy who was so thunderstruck by her words of praise.

“What’er ya butterin’
him
up for,
ma’am?”
Jo Bell, sulking as usual, sat on the end of the wagon. “You’d better be butterin’ up Papa or he’ll tie a can to yore tail like he’s done a few others.”

Charlie turned on her. “Shut yore mouth, Jo Bell,” he said threateningly. Then to Willa, “Pay her no mind. Sometimes I think she’s rotten clear through.”

“She’s spoiled, but not rotten . . . yet. Do you have another gun, Charlie?”

“We have an old shotgun. You expectin’ trouble?”

“Papa Igor and I traveled a lot. We always had weapons close at hand. A time or two we needed them.”

“Didn’t that mean old dog warn ya?” Jo Bell asked hatefully.

“One time we had a thief try to make off with our horses,” Willa said, ignoring the girl. “Buddy got him down and took a bite out of the seat of his britches. He’ll let us know if anyone comes near.”

“The shotgun is under the wagonseat. I’ll douse the fire a bit,” Charlie said kicking dirt onto one side of it. “Me’n Buddy’ll bed down here under the wagon. If he growls, I’ll tap on the bottom with the rifle butt.”

“Jo Bell,” Willa called from the end of the wagon. “Do you want to go to the bushes with me?”

“I can go by myself.” The surly voice came out of the darkness.

“Suit yourself.”

Willa walked a short distance into the trees. Buddy padded along silently behind her. After she had relieved herself and
straighted her clothes she knelt down and put her arms around the shaggy dog.

“Oh, Buddy, what are we going to do? We’re alone in wild new country—dangerous country. We don’t have Papa Igor to put things in perspective for us. But I think he would tell us not to let ourselves be pushed into anything, to wait and see what happens. Tomorrow, after I meet Mr. Byers, I’ll decide if I should seek his help. If he’s a decent man, he’ll not let Mr. Frank strip me of Starr’s clothes as he threatened to do.”

Back at the wagon, Willa sat on her pallet and took the pins out of her hair. She looked out the end of the wagon, staring into the shadows. A poignant longing for her mother and Papa Igor surged through her. Thinking of her mother’s life, Willa smoothed her hair from her cheeks and hooked it over her ears. Words her mother had said came back to her.
There may come a time in your life when you think you can’t
go on, but you will.
Tears trickled from Willa’s eyes as she recalled the forlorn look on her mother’s face when she spoke of the man who had deserted her and their child.

Willa removed her dress and pulled on the nightgown she had carefully mended over her underclothes. Not since the night the mob burned the house had she completely undressed, and not a night passed that she didn’t wake up suddenly, her heart thudding wildly in her breast.

She sat for a long while looking out the back of the wagon, thinking about her former life and worrying about what lay ahead. Finally she lay down and pulled a blanket over her. Life goes on and so does heartache and uncertainty. Filled with tension, she listened to the leaves whispering through the cottonwood trees and the occasional loud guffaw of laughter coming from the station. Soon the tiredness of her body overcame her restless mind and she slept.

5

W
illa awakened suddenly and sat up. The wind had come up. A fierce gust rocked the wagon, but that was not what had awakened her. An urgent tapping on the bottom of the wagon sent her slipping out the back to stand against the tailgate. Charlie crawled out and stood beside her.

“I heard two shots.”

“Something woke me, but I didn’t know what it was.”

The campfire had died. It was pitch dark. Willa and Charlie stood close together, the dog beside them. A bright ribbon of light shone from the doorway and window of the station house.

“They musta lit every lamp they got. It wasn’t that light a while ago. Whata ya think happened, Willa?”

“Someone got drunk and shot off their gun. There doesn’t seem to be a fight going on. I don’t even hear any loud talking.” The cold night air caused her to shiver.

“You’re cold. Go back to bed. Me’n Buddy’ll stay up and watch.”

“What time is it?”

“It’s between midnight and mornin’, but the birds ain’t makin’ a racket yet.”