Heart of the West (16 page)

Hannah Yorke had been sitting in a wicker rocker on the gallery of her white frame house, watching the clouds sail across the big blue emptiness of the Montana sky. For once the wind was tame, only stirring itself enough to quake the aspen leaves. And for the first time all year there was the warm breath of summer in the sun.

The dress she wore that afternoon was the fiery red of spring poppies. Humming softly to herself, she spread her hands over her thighs, taking pleasure in the slick feel of the grosgrain silk and its bright color. In the Kentucky coal-mining town where she'd grown up, everything had been covered with a film of soot. She'd had to leave home to learn that the world was not all shades of gray.

She lifted her hands above her head, stretching, reaching for the sky. She was some sore after all the bed exercise of the last few days. At the thought of the cowboy her mouth curved into a wistful smile. She would regret taking him as a lover, but not yet. Not today. His loving had left her feeling a little sad, because he was so good at making her forget. But it was a good kind of sad. She had been world-soured for so long. And so damned lonely.

From the wicker rocker on her porch she could see the whole of Rainbow Springs. She watched the men gather at Snake-Eye's livery and knew what they were about. They came one at a time, looking over their shoulders before disappearing into the barn. How men did so like to play their silly games, making themselves out to be more important than they really were. Men making themselves out to be
men.
She knew them all, and most would greet her if they passed on the street. A few would not. As Rainbow Springs grew up into its own self-importance, those who thought themselves too fine to acknowledge the town harlot would grow in number as well until someday, she knew, she would no longer be welcome here.

She saw Gus McQueen and his new wife roll into town on the buckboard. The dress Mrs. McQueen had on was the sort you'd lay a corpse out in. A Sunday-go-to-meeting dress. Expensive, though—the gray sateen was of the finest quality, draped and trained and trimmed in burgundy faille. It took a fluting iron and hours of work to put that many pleats into a skirt. Hannah watched the rancher's wife go into Sam Woo's mercantile, noting the dainty buttoned kid shoes when she lifted her train and the plain black felt princess hat perched at just the perfect angle on her head. She carried herself as if she had a fire poker strapped to her spine, but there was a dignity about her that Hannah longed to emulate.

Oh, she was a fourteen-karat lady all right. Hannah thought she probably hated her. All starch and breeding and polished manners.

Several minutes later Mrs. McQueen left the mercantile carrying a heavy box that appeared to be full of blue-labeled cans... milk tins? Hannah planted her foot to stop the chair from rocking and sat up straighter. She watched Gus McQueen's wife walk out of town and through the cemetery, toward the bridge and the half-breed camp on the other side of the river. It took a mad kind of courage to go marching alone into a nest of renegade cattle thieves armed only with milk tins.

When Joe Proud Bear came galloping out of the trees, Hannah lurched to her feet, an instinctive cry of warning on her lips that she only managed to stop in time. She knew better than to get involved in something like this. And besides, the girl deserved to get the blue bejesus scared out of her for being such a fool.

Still, a breath of relief shivered out of Hannah's chest as she watched Mrs. McQueen leave the camp unharmed, those dainty kid shoes squelching with dignified purpose through the red mud. When the girl passed Boot Hill, she stopped and stood still for a long time. She pulled a hanky out of her pocket and scrubbed at the front of her dress. When she was through, she balled up the white linen and hurled it away as if it had been defiled. She smoothed her fair hair up beneath her bonnet and resumed her slow, stately walk back to town.

Hannah wasn't sure how she came to be standing outside her gate, on the mud-washed plank walk, waiting for Gus McQueen's lady wife to pass her by. She had learned and accepted long ago the price she paid for being the kind of woman she was, for living her kind of life. Only a fool would think the world had changed just because she had woken up happy this morning.

Company, girls! Sporting girls and fancy girls. Every man's girl and no man's girl. "How do ye do and buy me a drink, mister?" And maybe pretend, if the night is soft and he is kind, if only for a moment, that you are some man's girl.

Hannah Yorke lifted her chin in a challenge, fully prepared to have the young woman draw away her skirts in horror when faced with the effrontery of Hannah Yorke's sinful presence. "Good afternoon, Mrs. McQueen."

"Mrs. Yorke," Clementine McQueen replied with quiet courtesy. And she said it with true sincerity, too, as if she didn't know that Hannah was as much a real widow as the ring in a merry-go-round was real gold.
Every man's girl and no man's girl.

Hannah suddenly realized that she didn't quite know what to do next. She could hardly invite a lady like Mrs. McQueen inside to take tea.
Oh, Hannah, all that cowboy's good lovin' must have softened your head.
It was ludicrous to think she could become a friend to this young woman of breeding and respectability.

Yet she wanted to feel what it would be like to brush up against the fineness of a real lady like Clementine McQueen. Maybe she would feel more like a lady herself then, in the way that rubbing a piece of silver between your fingers could make you feel rich. "I saw what you just did," she said, and she tried on a smile. "That was right nice of you."

The perfect angel's-wing curve of the girl's fair brows came together in a frown. "I was too late. The baby's dead."

The wind picked that moment to start acting up again. A gust swooped down on them, tearing at the treetops and snatching at the brim of the girl's hat. She anchored it onto her head with one hand, and the movement pulled up her sleeve, exposing her fragile wrist and pale skin, smooth as frothed cream.

"You better stay away from Joe Proud Bear," Hannah said. "He's got a bad case of hate in him for anything white."

"They say he's riding with his father, that he's rustling cattle."

Hannah shrugged. McQueen and Rafferty sold most of their cattle to the government, which in turn was supposed to allot it as free beef issue to the Indians on the reservation lands. Everyone knew, though, that only a third of the beef sold to the government agents made it into any hungry red-skinned bellies. The ranchers got paid, and the government agents took their cut, and the Indians were left with a third of not much, lands that grew little food, and a treaty that prohibited them from hunting. It wasn't fair, but it was life.

Mrs. McQueen's shadowed gaze was focused on the distant camp. She had strange eyes, gray-green like the sea and hinting at deep hidden currents. "They're having a meeting in the livery barn right now," she said. "They mean to hang that boy, hang them all, if they catch them at it."

And your Gus will be right up front leading the posse, Hannah thought, but didn't say it. It was nothing to her, what happened to the Indians. It ought to be nothing to this girl. But then, she supposed, only real ladies like Mrs. McQueen could afford to be nice.

"Joe Proud Bear knows what he's risking. If a man is bent on drowning, he'll find a way to do it even in a desert."

"But what will his wife do then, she and her child? She's so young, hardly more than a child herself."

"Don't fret yourself about the squaw. She's tougher than she looks. And I'll wager she's hardly much younger than you."

The girl turned those sea-deep eyes onto Hannah. "How old are you?"

The question so stunned her that for a moment Hannah was breathless. She felt her lips tighten, felt the lines that bracketed her mouth deepen. She felt her skin sag and the sun pick out all the tiny wrinkles around her eyes. She felt the legacy of every' man, every disappointment, every broken promise, shine on her face like drops of sweat, like tears, for this girl, this child, to sneer at and pity. Oh, God, worst of all, to pity.

She put on the widest smile she owned. "I'm only twenty-nine, so I ain't countin' the steps to the bone orchard yet. And when it comes to pleasuring a man, honey, there are some who say a talented mouth has got it all over a young twat every time."

Hannah expected the girl to reel back in horror at her shocking, vulgar words. But then, she was such a damned innocent that Hannah might as well have been speaking Chinese, for all the girl had probably understood of it. She just kept staring at Hannah with that deep, still gaze. It made Hannah uncomfortable to be looked at like that, as if the girl could see more than Hannah wanted her to know. More than she knew herself.

"I can't imagine what made me behave so rudely," the girl said. "It's just that people out here seem older than they look."

That's because life out here has a way of aging you fast inside yourself, Hannah thought. Inside yourself you can be dead and buried before you're thirty. "You oughta be getting along, Mrs. McQueen. Rainbow Springs might be a bobtailed town, but she's still got her principles. You shouldn't be seen talking to the likes of me."

"I will talk to whomever I please," she said, and although the words were childish and naive, there was a willful tilt to her chin that surprised Hannah. She looked at the girl in a new way, wondering if she hadn't pegged her all wrong.

She wasn't really a classic beauty, Hannah decided. It was her eyes, so wide-set and slightly prominent. And her mouth— a short upper lip that didn't quite meet her full, pouty lower one. Her porcelain frailty and touch-me-not manner were at odds with that mouth. A mouth like that could earn a fortune on the line in Deadwood.

Right now that mouth appeared to have something it wanted to say, but it was having so much trouble spitting the words out that Hannah couldn't help smiling.

"I wonder, Mrs. Yorke..." She stopped, drew in a deep breath, and started over again. "That is, would it be possible someday, if it wouldn't be too much of an inconvenience... will you allow me to make your photograph?"

The smile slid off Hannah's face. Nickel Annie had told her that Gus McQueen's new lady wife had dragged a trunk full of picture-taking equipment out here with her, but Hannah hadn't really credited it. Oh, she could just imagine this young woman's rich blue-blood family peering at her likeness with morbid curiosity.
Dear Mama and Papa: There are many poor fallen souls such as she out west. They call themselves sporting gals, and they are a living, burning shame to the fair sex they have disgraced.

Hannah drew herself up, giving the girl a wary look. "Why would you want to make my photograph?"

"You have an interesting face." A stunning smile came and went. "Good day, Mrs. Yorke. It was pleasant speaking with you. Perhaps we can visit again together someday soon."

Caught off-balance, Hannah could only nod as the girl gathered up her train and started down the boardwalk, sateen skirts softly rustling, shoe heels quietly tapping. The sounds of a lady passing by.

She had taken a couple of steps when she suddenly whirled, walking backward and clutching at her hat against a fresh gust of wind. "Are you enjoying your piano?" she called out above clacking branches of the aspen trees.

Hannah swallowed as if she were choking back a rock. "I ain't found anyone yet who knows how to play it. Shiloh, my bartender, only does the fiddle."

"My father believed that music and dancing and singing all weakened one's character and led to worldliness and sin. I should love to hear your new piano played someday. Oh, I should dearly love to hear it."

She spun around and walked in graceful ladylike strides back toward Sam Woo's mercantile. Hannah imagined holding a recital in the Best in the West Casino, where no respectable woman would be seen dead. She would serve ginger cakes and lemonade from lace-covered tables. All of the ladies would keep their hats and gloves on and sip genteelly from tiny china cups and clap politely when the pianist finished a somber musical interlude. No honky-tonk, of course. Oh, my, that would never do.

Hannah wanted to laugh, but instead her eyes blurred with tears.

Something caught at her throat, something that hurt and made a curious melting feeling deep in her chest. A mixture of sadness and happiness, and a strange sweet ache that after a moment she realized was hope.

"I told you before, cowboy—that critter belongs in a barn."

Rafferty slouched on his tailbone, laid one spurred boot across the other on the table, hooked his hands behind his head, and peered lazily up at Hannah Yorke from beneath the shadow of his hat brim. "There's a number of critters of various persuasions in here. Which particular critter are you talkin' about?"

"The four-legged one." Hannah pointed to the red-and-white calf that stood with all four legs splayed, looking as if it was about to christen the saloon floor. Little Patsy had one dimpled leg across its back, trying to straddle it like a horse.

"Have a heart, darlin'," Rafferty said. His drawl carried with it the Deep South of cypress trees and bayou ballads, and he had enough whiskey in him to make his tongue even slower. With his beard-shadowed cheeks and the dark hair growing long and curling over his collar, he looked disreputable and dangerous and handsome as sin. "That poor little dogie was gettin' lonesome out there in your lean-to with not even an ol' draft horse for company."

"Shiloh's going to quit on me for making him mother that calf, feeding him with a sugar-tit and Lord knows what all."

Rafferty crooked his head back, looking upside down at the gin-slinger, who was busy polishing glasses behind the bar. "He don't mind, do you, Shiloh?"

"No, sir. I don't mind. So long as you pay this child, he's easy."

Rafferty's head fell forward, and a rascal's smile lit up his face. Hannah had to clench her fist to keep from reaching out and trying to capture that smile with her fingertips. And what're you going to do with it, Hannah, you sentimental fool? she asked herself. Preserve it in a glass bell along with the flowers off your wedding cake? Yet there he sprawled, long and lean and smiling up at her, and that same curious melting feeling took hold of her heart again, so that the world suddenly seemed bright and new and full of promise.