Dorothy Garlock - [Wyoming Frontier] (44 page)

In the fight of the century, Pack Gallagher, Wyoming Territory champion, will be pitted against Moose Kilkenny, Kansas City pugilist who recently defeated the Union Pacific champion. London Prize Ring Rules will be observed. August 28. Tickets: $2.00.

Mara felt as if her feet were glued to the floor. She had not been so isolated at the school in Denver that she had not heard about the barbaric sport called bareknuckle boxing, where two men got into a roped-off square ring and hit each other with bare knuckles until one of them could no longer stand. She was numb and sick and shocked that Pack would participate in such a savage contest. Her husband was a prizefighter, a man considered a tough and who associated with gamblers and all manner of low people. She stared at the poster, unaware of the silence behind her until she heard Nan laugh.

“Are ya goin’ to the fight,
Mrs.
Gallagher? Or do ya swoon at the sight a blood? I’ll sure as hell be there rootin’ for my man. Moose Kilkenny’ll think he’s been run through a meat grinder when Pack gets through with him! Have ya been soakin’ them hands in salt water, darlin’?”

“Shut up, Nan, or I’ll—”

Mara didn’t hear the last of what Pack threatened. She walked swiftly out the door and down the walk toward where they had left the wagon. She had almost reached the intersection when Pack caught up with her, silently and forcefully took her elbow in his hand, and walked beside her.

The twins were sitting in the back of the wagon sucking on peppermint sticks when Mara and Pack reached it. The boys had decided to wait there and hit Pack for the loan of a dollar, but when they saw the looks on the faces of both Pack and Mara, they instinctively knew that this was not the time to ask a favor. Without speaking a word, Pack helped Mara up to the wagon seat, untied the team and drove out of town.

The ride was one of the longest, most miserable of Mara’s life. Pack said one sentence to her all the way home.

“Put up your parasol.”

Mara obeyed automatically. Out of the confusion in her mind, certain things were becoming clear. The man she married had not been eager for her to go to town because he had not wanted her to know that he was a pugilist and that he was not considered “respectable” by the ladies of Laramie. Pugilists were not the cream of society in Denver either. How long did he think he could keep that knowledge from her? Of course, there had to have been a conspiracy between him and the twins, for surely they knew.

The sessions in the barn with Willy were to get him ready for a prizefight with the person called Moose Kilkenny. How could she have been so stupid as not to realize that there had to be something more to pounding on a gunnysack than getting his strength back?

And the girl, Nan, who admitted to being a whore. She loved Pack, and Pack had some fondness for the girl. He had been firm with her, yet gentle. Mara glanced at him. He sat with his brows drawn together, staring straight ahead. What other surprises awaited her? Through sheer will she controlled the desire to cry.

Pack stopped at the house. Trellis came around to help Mara down, and the wagon moved on down the lane to the barn. Inside the house she went slowly up the stairs to the bedroom, took off her hat, placed it carefully in her trunk, and changed into a work dress. Her good shoes had a little mud on the toes which she wiped off before she put them away. Afterward she went downstairs, sat down on the loveseat in the parlor, and stared at the clock on the mantel. She heard Pack come in, go upstairs and then go out again.

When the clock struck seven, Mara was surprised time had gone by so fast. She went to the kitchen and lit the lamp. A fresh bucket of water sat on the wash bench. She ladled water into the washpan, washed her hands, and began peeling the skins off the new potatoes she had boiled that morning.

Pack came in and stood behind her where she was stirring the potatoes in the spider. He put his hands on her shoulders, kissed the hair above her ear, and then took his place at the table without a word. They ate a silent meal. When they had finished and she rose to put the dishes in the pan, he caught her wrist.

“Mara Shannon, this is killing me. We’ve got to talk about it.”

“Not now, please. It’s too new,” she whispered raggedly.

He let go of her wrist, got to his feet and went out. He didn’t come back to the house until after Mara had gone to bed. He came to the room, undressed, and got into bed beside her. He reached for her, and she didn’t resist.

“Good night, sweetheart,” he whispered. With her chin in the palm of his hand, he kissed her softly before he wrapped his arms about her as he did each night, her back firmly against his chest.

Mara was sure she would never sleep, but she did and awoke to the rhythmic sound of someone chopping wood. She knew Pack was not beside her even before she turned and spread her palm over the bedsheet. It was cool. He had not been beside her for some time. Mara went to the window and looked down. Pack was in the yard, stripped to the waist. Piled beside him was a stack of freshly cut wood. Mara knew that because Pack never left wood in a pile. He stacked it neatly, either against the side of the porch where it would be handy for the cookstove, or between the two elm trees beside the house.

She went to the kitchen and prepared breakfast before she stepped out onto the porch and called him. Pack dunked his head in the trough beside the well and washed his shoulders and arms before he came to the house.

“Morning,” Mara said. “From the looks of that pile you’ve been up a long time.”

“Morning.” He put his arms around her, hugged her close, and kissed her. His lips were smooth and soft against hers. “That coffee smells good.”

They sat across from each other. Pack ate a hearty breakfast while Mara picked at hers. He refilled the coffee cups, and when he sat down again, he reached over and covered her hand with his.

“I want to tell you about Nan.”

“You don’t have to. What you did before you married me is none of my business,” Mara said, a tremor in her voice.

“I think it is. I’m what I am, Mara Shannon. I know that you’re disappointed and hurt. Nan is hard to take all at once. I should have prepared you for meeting her and for the less than cordial reception from the women in town.”

“Don’t f-fight that man,” she blurted, her voice shrill.

“It wouldn’t make a speck of difference in their attitude if I backed out of the fight, which I won’t do because I’ve given my word.”

“Your word? For all that’s holy! Do you think more of your word than you do of me?” Anger made her unreasonable.

“You mean more to me than anything in the world.” He spoke quietly but firmly, his dark eyes holding hers. “I’d lie, cheat, kill, or die to keep you safe. This is another matter. I’ve given my word that I’ll fight Moose Kilkenny and I will. I agreed to the match because it will give us the money we need to start ranching.”

“We don’t need money so badly that you have to debase yourself in such a manner.” Tears sprang to her eyes and she lowered her lids. She would not cry! She couldn’t talk or think straight if she did.

Pack’s hand slid from hers when he sat back in the chair, but his eyes never left her face.

“What does debase mean?”

“It means to . . . to lower or degrade one’s self.”

“By whose standards, Mara Shannon? Yours?”

“Everybody’s. It’s what it says in the dictionary.”

“I don’t feel that I’m doing that by fighting in the ring. Your father told me to be my own man, make my own path. I consider this fight a job. I hold no grudge against Moose Kilkenny, and I don’t believe he holds one against me. We’ll be paid for a boxing exhibition.”

“A sideshow, you mean.” She couldn’t keep the hurt out of her voice. “It’s not civilized.”

“It isn’t civilized to push the Indians off their land, but we do it. Most people think it’s all right because there are more of us than there are of them.”

“But the gambling—”

“People have been gambling since the beginning of time. They bet on horses, dogs, cockfights, footraces, anything that’s a contest. That’s the reason why the women were so hostile to us in town yesterday. Their men will be gambling on the results of the fight.”

“Why do they blame you? Why don’t they blame their men?”

Pack lifted his shoulders. “It’s easier to blame me.”

Wildly, she said, “I don’t want you to do it!”

“I can understand that, and I’m sorry if you feel humiliated because of it. But I’m going to fight this one last time. After that I promise you, sweetheart, I’ll not get in the ring again.”

“Why is it always the Irish that do these things?” she demanded.

“It isn’t only the Irish, Mara Shannon. It’s true that we Irish love a good scrap now and then, but not all prizefighters are Irish.”

“I hate when they call us shanty Irish micks!”

Her pain went deep. Pack could feel it. He wished to hell Shannon had never put her in that fancy school where she’d never really been accepted because she was Irish. In spite of the rift between them, Pack was relieved to get everything out in the open. There was one more thing that she would have to be told sooner or later, but he couldn’t bring himself to tell her now.

“Do you want to hear about Nan or not?” Pack asked.

Mara looked down at her tightly laced fingers resting on the table in front of her. The vacant feeling in the pit of her stomach expanded. A man like Pack would not allow a woman, even if he loved her, to press him into doing something he didn’t want to do. But, Lord! She’d not planned on loving him so desperately.

Pack watched her but said nothing.

She lifted her lids and looked at him. “You can tell me if you want to.”

The sadness he saw in her eyes was almost more than he could endure. He wanted to pick her up in his arms and take her to the highest mountain where she would never be hurt again. He wished he could think of something comforting to say, but the right words wouldn’t come. Instead, as calmly and as honestly as he could, he told her about finding Nan in the mining camp. He told her that he had given the girl money to buy the barbershop and that she was repaying him.

“I must have been the first man who was kind to her without wanting her body as payment. The man I took her from was a mean bastard who had beaten her every day for months. When I first saw her she was a pitiful little bag of skin and bones. She’s grateful, and I think she loves me like she would a brother.”

Mara sat quietly looking at her hands. After awhile she heard Pack’s chair scrape on the floor when he got up. He went to the water bucket for a drink, then went out the door.

That evening after supper Mara set a pan of warm saltwater on the table.

“You’d better soak your hands.”

Pack looked up at her, but she had turned back to the dishpan. When she was ready to go upstairs, she rested her hand briefly on his shoulder as she passed behind him. He sighed deeply. He recognized her touch for what it was. It was not a loving caress, but a gesture of resignation.

TWENTY-ONE

The thought that pounded in Mara’s head while she went through the motions of cleaning, cooking, sewing, washing and ironing was that she had married a modern-day gladiator. On August 28 her husband would enter an arena much as they had in ancient Rome. He was one of a class of men who fought other men in public for the entertainment of spectators. How could it be called a sport? It was barbaric and uncivilized.

Pack and Willy spent several hours each day getting ready for the boxing match. Mara never went to the barn or the bunkhouse, but occasionally she went to the garden to pick beans or dig a few potatoes. When she came downstairs in the morning Pack would be gone. He appeared for the noon meal and again for supper. The twins, excited about the coming contest between their brother and the unknown Moose Kilkenny, kept their distance.

Mara had retreated behind a wall of polite silence that was not conducive to teasing or laughter or light conversation. She took little notice of things outside the house with the exception of the flowers she had planted along the walk the day Ace January had come to the house. She tended then carefully.

Every day or so a man would ride out from town and spend several hours with Pack either in the barn or the bunkhouse. He never brought the visitors to the house. Mara wondered if the visits had something to do with the boxing match, but she didn’t ask.

Most evenings Pack sat on the porch with her while daylight faded. They stared off toward the mountains and occasionally talked about nothing that was important to either of them. The only time the barriers between them were down, and even then not completely, was in the dark of the night while they were in bed. He held her, kissed her, loved her and made sure that she enjoyed the union as much as he. Their bodies communicated in a way their minds could not. But when morning came, they were again polite strangers.

*  *  *

The last week of August arrived and with it the blistering heat of late summer.

“I’m going into town tomorrow and I’ll spend the night there,” Pack said one evening while they were watching the sky darken. He waited for Mara to comment on that announcement and when she didn’t he said, “On the way, I’ll take you over to stay with Emily.”

“I’d rather stay here.”

“You know I don’t want to leave you here alone, Mara Shannon.”

“For heaven’s sake! Do we have to go through that again? I’ll be all right here with Steamboat if he’s as good with a gun as the twins say he is. And to hear Willy tell it, he’s no slouch either.”

“Willy’s boast is true. That old man can hold his own, but he’ll be in town with me. Emily will be at home. I thought it would give you a chance to get away from the house for awhile.”

“That’s very thoughtful of you, but I’ve things to do here.”

“The boys want to go.”

“I’m not surprised. They’re at an age where a barbaric, bloody contest between two
gladiators
is exciting to them.”

“Mara Shannon, it’s not—”

“No?” She threw up her hands. “I don’t want to talk about it! I’m going to wash the quilts and blankets if it’s a good drying day.”