Outlaw (36 page)

Grabbing the flowered-porcelain pitcher atop
the bureau, she filled the matching basin with water, dipped a
cloth inside, and began scrubbing her face and neck clean. That
done, Amelia stripped off her wrinkled, muddy-hemmed dress and,
humming, scrutinized her appearance in the mirror. Exactly what,
she wondered, was the appropriate hair style for a
fiesta
?

Mason sat on a rock in the shade of a
gnarled old mesquite tree at Levin's Park, a mug of tepid water in
his hands, and cursed whoever had decided to host a
fiesta
right in the middle of his search for Ben and the Sharpes. From the
looks of it, the whole town had turned out for music, dancing,
beer, and whiskey—including the sheriff and his posse. He'd already
spotted several of them wending through the crowds, weapons
holstered but at the ready.

Hell.

If he were smart, he'd leave. Take his
chances with finding his son tomorrow, or the next day. Eventually
he'd find him. He didn't intend to quit until he did. But without
knowing exactly when the Sharpe brothers planned to leave Tucson
and take Ben back east with them, Mason didn't dare wait. He'd lay
odds they were at the
fiesta
, right along with the rest of
the town, and he meant to find them.

Beside him, George Hand swallowed the last
of his third mug of Levin's ale, then swiped the foam from his
mustache and squinted at Mason.

"I still dunno why you had ta shoot up my
bottle of Old Orchard," he complained, shaking his head. "Perfectly
good whiskey—" he mimed aiming a pistol and shooting it "—blam! All
shot to hell."

"I paid you for it."

In preparation for his escape to Mexico with
Ben, James had brought him all the money Mason had saved from his
farmhouse near the Gila—along with the news that Curly Top was in
Tucson, too. 'Ye'll be sorry if ye let that lassie get away,' he'd
said. 'Take her with ye to Mexico.'

Damned interfering friends. Frowning, Mason
yanked his hat lower to hide his face, then scanned the crowd. He
wasn't likely to be spotted here, on the edge of the
plaza
—but he wasn't likely to find Ben or the Sharpes from
there, either. He'd have to get on the move again soon.

"That ain't the point," Hand went on,
pushing up from the rock with his beer mug held close against his
scrawny chest. He staggered sideways, straightened, then pointed
his mug at Mason. "That was perfectly good whiskey in that
bottle."

"It's over with," Mason said. Over with in
more ways than George Hand could ever have guessed at. He stood,
too, leaving his water on the rock behind him.

"So's your good relations with Cruz and her
gals," Hand muttered, weaving beside him as they walked past the
cantina
toward the
plaza
center. Raising his voice to
be heard above the guitars playing a Spanish melody, he said, "You
had to go an' bust up her place, didn't ya'?"

Mason frowned. "It's not busted up, I—"

"Ya just scared away half her customers,"
Hand interrupted, "tearing through there like a damned berserker
after them Sharpes is all." Grinning, he elbowed him in the ribs.
"I heard some of them ladies was runnin' around half-naked, trying
to call their fellas back."

"I didn't notice," Mason said. He'd been too
busy chasing one of Ellen's no-good, sanctimonious brothers down
the hallways in Cruz's house. The coward had ducked out a back
window in the end, leaving Mason staring after his retreating
backside with an eye toward revenge and a gaggle of perfumed,
pissed-off whores clustered around him so tight he could barely
breathe.

Hell.

At least he knew the Sharpes were still in
Tucson. The hell of it was, after the scene at Cruz's, they knew
he
was on the loose, too. Mason had no doubt they'd alert
the posse and redouble their efforts to get Ben out of town. Time
was running out.

He and Hand skirted past a noisy cock fight
going in a circle of yelling, half-drunk men down the alley, and
headed toward the center of the
plaza
. There the music was
even louder, and the close-packed bodies of dancers and drinkers
generated even more heat. The combined smells of sweat, liquor,
tamales
, and chile-roasted pork were nearly overpowering.
Overhead, early fireworks sizzled and sparked the sky with
brilliant blues and greens and oranges.

Mason kept his head low and his eyes moving,
seeking out any sign of the posse or the Sharpes. Townspeople
flowed past, none of them paying any mind to either him or Hand.
They pushed between dancing couples and shouting children waving
confetti-filled
cascarones
—children who caught his eye, made
him pause and look closer.

But none of them had Ben's dark hair, his
always-ready smile, his freckled, sun-browned face. None of them
was his son.

Mason's gut tightened. He needed to find
him. Soon. It would be full dark before long—the only remaining
natural light shafted between the buildings from the setting sun,
golden-hued and streaked with blood red. Already women bearing
lighted oil lamps were making their way along the fringes of the
crowd, setting lanterns atop squat adobe walls and hanging them
from low tree branches at Levin's Park.

"Maybe I'll jist go an' smooth things over
for ya' with Cruz and the ladies," Hand offered with a grin. He
stumbled over a rock, then righted himself. "G'night, my friend,"
he slurred, "an' good luck."

Mason nodded him off, watching Hand bob
through the crowd. Good luck was exactly what he needed. Either
that, or a miracle.

Too bad he wasn't damned likely to get
either one.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Smiling and nodding at the townspeople she
recognized—many of them J.G. O'Malley and Sons book customers whom
she'd already met—Amelia made her way toward the open-air
cantina
at Levin's Park. According to the proprietor at the
Palace Hotel, Levin's hosted the finest
fiesta
in the
Territory, and she meant to get a feel for the community that might
be hers if all went according to her book agent plans.

Tall cottonwood and mesquite trees bordered
Levin's Park, hedged by tidy white picket fences. Branches stirred
overhead as Amelia left the close-packed street and stepped into
their late-afternoon shade. Smiling, she stroked her fingertips
along the rough tree bark, surprised to find so many trees growing
so well in a place like Tucson. It was like having a little piece
of Big Pike Lake, right there at the end of Pennington Street.

At the
cantina
, customers sat on
benches beneath the shade of its
ramada
, balancing plates of
spicy Mexican food on their laps and talking while they ate.
Chiles, pork, and roasted corn perfumed the air.

Amelia sniffed appreciatively, her stomach
rumbling its complaints over the meager lunch she'd had at the
hotel kitchen earlier. Nudging past two ladies with parasols and
all-white dresses—the prevailing fashion in the Territory, it
seemed—Amelia ordered a drink and a plate of
enchiladas
,
then stepped back to wait for her food.

Music swelled toward her from the bandstand
at the far edge of the
plaza
, mingling with the
varied-accented voices of passers-by. Tapping her toes—clad, at
last, in a new pair of balmorals—she gazed out in the direction of
the music.

Dancing couples swirled past in time with
the fiddles and guitars, kicking up puffs of dust in their wake.
Amelia watched the laughing, chattering women and the men holding
them closely, and felt her stomach tighten with envious longing.
Would Mason have held her, have danced that way with her, if he
were here?

She closed her eyes and imagined Mason's
hand clasping hers for the dance, his other hand holding her warm
and steady at the waist. Humming with the music, she pictured the
two of them sweeping along together, close enough to come together
for a kiss, and nearly sighed aloud. Dear heavens, but she missed
him. How would she ever be happy again, without Mason?

Several pairs of boots, some with jangling
spurs, thumped nearby and came closer. Men, circling her? Amelia
opened her eyes, and found herself staring straight at the starred
badge pinned to the vest-front of the man standing in front of her.
Sucking in a quick, startled breath, she raised her chin to confirm
her suspicions.

The sheriff.

He stood less than an arm's-length away from
her, a lean-built man with piercing blue eyes and a neatly trimmed
beard and mustache. Amelia's knees quivered, blessedly hidden
beneath her pale blue baize skirt. She clenched it in both hands,
trying to appear more composed than she felt.

Four or five men, uniformly dusty,
stone-faced, and heavily armed, stood behind him. The posse.
Dizziness swamped her, leaving her dry-mouthed, trembling
harder.

The sheriff stepped closer, his gaze fixed
straight on her. He must have discovered her association with
Mason, Amelia realized. And now he'd come to question her—maybe to
haul her off to jail!

"Pardon me, ma'am," he said.

Heart hammering, she fought the urge to run.
Running had only served to deepen Mason's troubles in the past.

"S—sheriff," she stammered, plastering a
frozen-feeling smile on her lips.

Run, run
! her instincts urged. But
the shaking in her knees had spread, and she doubted her legs were
strong enough to carry her anyplace.

"Wh—what can I do for you?"

He tipped his hat. "Would you mind stepping
this way, ma'am?" he asked, indicating a place just to the left of
the
cantina's
kitchens.

Amelia shuffled woodenly sideways, her gazed
glued to the sheriff. Would he draw his gun when he took her to
jail, or simply order her to go? Should she just tell him she
didn't know where Mason was, or wait for him to ask? Feeling
light-headed enough to float clean out of her balmorals, she shoved
her hands into the folds of her dress to hide their tell-tale
trembling. An unexpected smile creased the sheriff's leathery face,
brightening his eyes as he touched his hat brim again. "Thank you
kindly," he said, moving past her toward the
cantina's
counter. "I believe these are my
tamales
, right here."

He slid a tin plate overflowing with
spicy-scented food from the counter into his hands, then, still
holding it, edged past Amelia. "Never stand between a man and his
food, ma'am," he said with a wink. "A lady could get hurt sorely
that way."

Relief rushed through her, threatening to
buckle Amelia's knees right there in front of the sheriff and
everyone. Her answering smile felt ghastly, patently false compared
with his jovial one. Giving him a stiff little laugh, she nodded
and turned to leave.

Run, run
! Everything inside her urged
her to flee. Instead Amelia made herself walk sedately, head held
high, past the
cantina
kitchens to the right as though she
were headed toward the
plaza
for dancing.

"
Señora
!" yelled a male voice behind
her. "
Señora
!"

Her breath left her. Amelia stopped, hardly
daring to turn around. The voice had sounded Spanish-accented, not
like the sheriff's gravelly tone, but perhaps one of the
posse...?

Her heart hammered, sounding loud in her
ears. It made the music from the band in the
plaza
sound
muddled, as though they played through cotton-stuffed instruments.
Turning slowly, she looked behind her.

At one of the
cantina's
cooks, who
held a plate of steaming food and a tin cup toward her.

He held it higher, jerking his head at
Amelia. "You want this, or no?" he called, frowning.

As anyone would, she figured, considering
how peculiar her behavior must seem. Breathing in a big, fortifying
breath, she nodded. Calm down! she ordered herself. If Mason
had
been there, she'd likely have called the sheriff's
attention to them both with her nervousness. With trembling
fingers, Amelia opened her reticule for the money to pay for her
meal.

That task accomplished, juggling the hot
tinware and cup, she darted a glance at the sheriff and his men.
The waning sunlight fading into the adobe shops and trees bordering
the
plaza
made it difficult to see clearly, but she could
still make them out, seated at the two outermost
cantina
benches. Some ate from heaped-full plates, and several of them
appeared to be speaking intently about something. From such a
distance—and with all the revelry of the
fiesta
going on
around her—it was impossible to tell what.

Amelia bit her lip, debating the wisdom of
edging closer to listen. If she knew what the posse planned, then
perhaps she could find Mason and warn him.

Warn him. It was a wonderful plan, to be
sure—except for the size of the city and the impossibility of
locating a man who chose to remain hidden within it. Mason had been
on her mind all day as she traveled the length and breadth of
Tucson delivering books. She'd thought of trying to locate him time
and again, and had been forced to admit defeat before even
beginning. How did one go about finding an outlaw, even if she were
his ally?

Even if she were the woman who loved
him
.

No, it was hopeless. And yet...Providence
had seen fit to hand her the opportunity to find out more about
Mason's pursuers. Maybe she'd be equally lucky later, and find him
before the posse did. Deciding it couldn't hurt to try to learn
whatever she could, Amelia held her meal as though searching for a
place to sit, and edged closer.

"...ain't gonna find him no how," one of the
men in the posse said.

The music swelled, drowning out the
sheriff's response. Concentrating harder, Amelia moved as near as
she dared, then stopped beside a gnarled old tree at the edge of
the
cantina's ramada
. A rock jutted up from within the
tree's meager canopy of leaves, forming a perfect seat for
listening to the posse's conversation. Someone had already used it,
she saw, judging by the tin cup of water still atop it.