West of Paradise (9 page)

Chapter Eleven
The Wild Rose Saloon

K
atherine woke to Tommy’s grinning face. She groaned and rolled over, fumbling out of the blanket and wiping her hair from her eyes.

“Where’s Will?” she asked, looking about for him.

“Gone to town,” Tommy answered. “Getting supplies.”

Katherine nodded in acknowledgement and rose, feeling her body protest as she did. Oh, what she would not give for that lumpy bed back at the hotel. And to think she had thought it primitive! Now it seemed the most luxurious place in the world.

“Guess it’s just us,” Tommy said.

“Excuse me?”

“I said, I guess it’s just us,” Tommy repeated, “’til Will gets back.”

“Yes,” Katherine agreed absently, brushing the dust from her skirt and doing what she could to smooth the tangles from her hair. She was filthy, she decided. Her hair was knotted, and her skin grimy with dirt and sweat. The image of a tub filled with hot soapy water came to mind but she blinked it away, knowing it to be a fruitless wish.

“Yep, jus’ you an’ me.”

Something in his tone made her look up, much as she wanted to pretend he didn’t exist. What she saw made her wish she hadn’t.

He was still smiling, the stupid boyish grin plastered over his fair freckled face. But something in his smile was no longer entirely boyish or friendly, but older, more calculating. It was in his eyes too, and it was there she recognized it for what it was. Katherine shuddered and wished Will hadn’t gone and left her with her hands tied.

She moved away from him, her eyes searching the ground for anything that might be used as a weapon. But the moment she looked away he came at her, still smiling.

“Will—” she began.

“Will promised me a piece of you,” Tommy said.

“I’m afraid things have changed,” Katherine said.

Tommy just grinned that stupid grin of his and made a grab for her. Katherine gave him a hard push, using the palm of her hand and every bit of strength she could muster. It wasn’t much, but he wasn’t expecting it, and he stumbled. Katherine picked up her skirts and ran.

But just like Jack had done, he caught her, his fingers wrapping themselves in her hair, yanking her down to the ground.

“He’ll kill you!” she screamed, trying to bash him with her fists.

“I don’t think so,” Tommy said, blocking her, using his weight to hold her down. “He made me a promise, and I aim to collect.”

Katherine let loose a string of curses then, swearing at him in both English and French, calling him names he had never heard before as evidenced by the shocked expression on his face. But this, too, only momentarily delayed him and once he’d recovered from his surprise Tommy’s face turned grim and determined.

“You are a lyin’, murderous whore,” he said when she’d finished. “And I aim to treat you like one.”

He hit her once, hard across the face and bent down close. But before he could pucker up he was snatched away. His eyes went wide and he gave a surprised cry as Will hauled him off her, his face set in a red mask of fury.

Later, when she was able to think about it without feeling sick, she supposed she should have said something, tried to stop Will. But it had all happened so quickly, and the truth was she felt a certain perverse satisfaction at first. By the time she wanted to say something Will had already left off, giving Tommy a last kick in the face before coming over to her.

“You all right?” he asked, just as kind as you please, untying her hands with fingers stained with blood, knuckles raw and cut from Tommy’s teeth, some of which no longer resided in Tommy’s mouth.

Katherine nodded, dazed, looking away from Tommy’s ruined face. She didn’t know if he was dead or alive and a part of her didn’t particularly care one way or another. After that it was all a blur until they rode into Cedar Falls late that night.

❧

Sadie Parker was perhaps not the most desirable of acquaintances nor the most respectable, but she had been a true friend to Will Cushing for as long as he could remember. It was to her place—The Wild Rose Saloon—he went.

Sadie took one look at them and ushered Will into her parlor, away from the noise of the bar. “Who did this?” she asked, pointing to Katherine’s bruised face. “You?”

“Would I brought her here if I did?” Will retorted.

Sadie shrugged. “Maybe, if you were drunk and feeling guilty.”

“There’s only one woman I’d do this to, Sadie, an’ she deserves it.”

Will directed Katherine into a rosewood chair. She sat without complaint, staring at nothing. He couldn’t look at her face without wincing at the bruise that had already formed.

Sadie put a hand to her forehead. “I guess you best go out to the bar,” she said to Will, “and send Lena in.”

Will didn’t know who Lena was but the bartender directed him to a slim dark woman. He guessed she was Mexican by her accent, although her English was flawless. She excused herself from the lap of a man and Will’s eyes followed her, wondering hopefully if he might get a freebie, for friendship’s sake.

But then he remembered how Sadie was about her girls and guessed he’d be lucky to get a bath and a meal. No doubt Katherine would make out better by virtue of her sex. Sadie always had a soft spot for women in trouble and unless Will was a fool—which he wasn’t—Katherine qualified.

❧

Lena looked at Katherine.“
Qué pasé?”
Sadie told her.

“
Nada más
?”

Sadie gave a shrug.

“Let me take her upstairs,” Lena said in English. “A nice warm bath, a little laudanum, and a good night’s sleep will help. Perhaps.”

Katherine followed Lena upstairs and into a bright room decorated in pink and white. Two silent girls brought out a tub and soon had it filled with steaming water. Lena laid fresh linens and a bar of soap on a stool next to the tub while Katherine undressed in a daze, stepped into the tub, and sat down in deliciously warm water.

She let Lena wash her hair, closing her eyes at the luxury of soap and someone actually washing her hair. The towel Lena gave her was soft and smelled as if it had just come in off the line. The wrapper was silk, skimming over her body like water.

“Come, let’s get you settled. Tomorrow I think you will feel better.”

Katherine focused on the woman, seeing a petite, dark-skinned beauty with black hair that fell past her waist.
She is very pretty
, Katherine thought.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“I am Lena.”

Katherine nodded, as if it was to be expected, and climbed into the bed. Heaven, she decided, the bed was heaven.

And it got better.

A few minutes later a young boy came up with her valise, setting it down at the foot of the bed along with a tray of something that smelled divine. Lena brought the tray close. Fried chicken, greens, and hot tea. For a moment she just sat there and breathed. Then she dove in like the starving person she was.

When she finished she found Lena in a comfortable-looking wing chair upholstered in pink and white stripes. She had her feet curled under her and a faint smile on her lips.

“I’m sorry,” Katherine said, not even certain why she was apologizing. “I was so hungry . . .”

“It is good to eat,” Lena said, with a kind smile. “Nothing to be embarrassed about.”

“The tea was very good. What was it?”

“Orange and laudanum,” Lena said, still smiling.

“Laudanum? But isn’t that . . . won’t it . . .”

“It will make you feel peaceful. You will sleep well, and tomorrow will be a new day, yes?”

Katherine frowned. Would it? Or would it be more of the same? She scanned the room, which was a vast improvement over the last. It was much cleaner for one thing, and the bed she was in—an old four-poster—was amazingly comfortable. A small oval night table with a lamp sat next to the bed, a nice pine dressing table in one corner, and a cushioned chaise lounge chair in the other. The curtains at the window were white with pink blossoms stitched along the hem, and the walls had been white-washed and hung with prints.

What a shame I can’t stay
, she thought. But she supposed she would enjoy it for as long as she could. Drowsiness crept over her and she settled down, drifting into a blessedly dreamless sleep.

Chapter Twelve
Tommy Clancy

J
ack arrived in Leavenworth without being aware of it, and when he woke it was to his old friend Harlan Harris. This time from a chair at the bedside rather than from beyond the cold steel bars of Leavenworth’s jail.

For a long while he simply enjoyed the fact that he was in a room that was clean and free of dust. The bed was the most comfortable thing he’d lain in since God knew when, and a warm breeze ruffled the lacy curtains at the windows, giving him good reason to believe he was in a house with a woman in it. He was about to lie back and enjoy it when a terrible thought jolted him into full alertness. He whipped the covers aside and let loose a relieved sigh. His leg was still there, thank God. It hurt like hell but it was still there.

“I made ’em save it, you know.”

Jack looked over at Harlan who had tilted his chair against the wall and was half-way through rolling a cigarette. He grinned and licked the paper.

“Thanks, I appreciate that.”

“Figured you would. Doc wanted to cut it off, said it was infected. But I told him you were mighty partial to it and a pretty good shot to boot.”

Jack relaxed, allowing himself the luxury now that he knew he still had his leg. Since arriving he’d been afraid of only one thing: surgery. It was so much easier for doctors to remove a limb rather than make the effort to save one. He’d seen it happen. He’d also seen men die of gangrene too. Men too stubborn or too proud to live without that limb. He wasn’t sure which category he fell into but if he was going to lose a part of his body he wanted to have a say in the matter, not wake up and find out about it after the fact.

“Where am I, Harlan?” he asked.

“In Leavenworth, at Mae’s place. You remember her?”

“I remember. How long.”

“A day and a half, I guess. We found you early Wednesday morning. Doc Jones took the bullet out an’ stitched you up.”

“Katherine . . .” Jack breathed, remembering.

“Eh? What’s that?”

“I don’t think it’s her, Harlan.”

Harlan raised a bushy brow.

“I think . . . I think Alanna’s still out there, somewhere.”

“What are you talkin’ about?”

Jack winced, trying to sit up a bit. “See, they look the same, but . . . Alanna would have shot me. She would have made sure I was dead. This woman, this Katherine, she couldn’t even hold the gun without shaking. And she aimed away from me, to make Will
think
she did it.”

“Will? Will Cushing?”

“Yeah, it was him that ambushed us, him and some kid.”

Harlan gave him a skeptical look. “You want to run that by me again?”

Jack sighed. “The woman I was bringing in was not Alanna McLeod. She only looks like Alanna. But Will must’ve found out and came to rescue her. He and some kid ambushed us. But the real Alanna is still out there and now this innocent woman is in the hands of Will Cushing.”

Harlan shook his head. “You sure you’re feelin’ okay? I mean, a coupla days ago you wired me an’ said you had her. Now you’re tellin’ me you made a mistake?”

“I know,” Jack said. “It sounds crazy, but Alanna would never have left me alive. Never.”

“Then why didn’t she stay? Why’d she go with Will?”

“I don’t think she had a choice.”

“Well, I hate to tell you this, Jack, but whoever she is she’s got a whole shootin’ party after her now, an’ if she looks like Alanna then it ain’t gonna make no difference in the end. They’ll kill her just the same an’ find out their mistake after.”

“Jesus. I gotta get out of here.”

“You gotta rest,” Harlan said, letting his chair down and looking hard at Jack. “You gotta rest an’ think real hard about what happened. You don’t want to make no mistakes about this an’ you’re in no condition to do much of anything right now.”

Jack cursed silently; Harlan was right.

Harlan smiled. “Listen, Jack, just take it easy for a few days. Mae’ll take good care of you an’ I’ll be back to check an’ let you know if I hear anything. An’ think about what you told me, okay?”

“I will, Harlan, but I remember Alanna. I remember the way she looked at me when she shot me. It’s not the same woman; I don’t know how, but it isn’t her.”

❧

Jack rested. But not for the few days Harlan had suggested nor the week Doc insisted upon and certainly not for the ‘as long as you like’ Mae had offered. Instead, he allowed himself the night. The next morning he rose and carefully set both feet upon the floor. He grabbed hold of the bedpost, using it to pull himself to his feet.

Pain shot through his leg, and he fell back with a curse, sweat breaking out on his brow. Jack breathed, deep even breaths until the pain faded. Then he tried again, wincing as the weight settled, the pain flaring again. He gritted his teeth, forcing himself to remain standing.

He focused his gaze on the double windows a few yards away and began to hobble toward them, thinking all the while,
I’ve got to get out of here
. If he was right about who she was, or rather, who she wasn’t, then it probably wouldn’t take Will long to figure it out and God only knew what Will would do when he did. The thought of an innocent woman in the hands of Will Cushing was not a pretty one.

Jack cursed himself again for being so single minded, for not listening to her, and for not really seeing her. But he had been so certain, so intent on bringing Alanna to justice, and blinded by any other possibility. He still didn’t understand how two women could look so much alike.

Now that he thought about it, there
had
been differences, subtle ones to be sure, but had he bothered to pay attention he might have seen them. He might have noticed that she hadn’t aged a day since he’d seen her five years ago. That might not be surprising at home, but here, well, people get old fast, no matter how well they took care of themselves.

Not to mention the tears and denials; he couldn’t imagine Alanna crying, or pretending to be anyone other than who she was. The incidents with the gun were the big clues. Alanna would have aimed and fired as calmly as she might have ordered dinner at some fancy hotel. And she sure as hell wouldn’t have missed, not twice. Christ, he was only surprised that Katherine
hadn’t
shot him. He hadn’t been particularly nice to her, and if the truth were told he’d actually treated her worse than some of the men he’d brought in. Damn. He’d let it all get too personal. But then he shook his head.
Water under the bridge
, he told himself. Nothing he could do about any of that now. What he could do was find her.

The question was where would they be headed? Where would Will go? Jack lowered himself onto the bed and brought his injured leg up. The bandage was spotted with fresh blood from his effort, but the pain had subsided to a vicious throbbing as opposed to the poker hot flare. He wished Harlan would come along with that bottle of whiskey. Now would be a good time to let himself get good and drunk. That way when he left tomorrow he’d be all miserable and hungover and his leg wouldn’t bother him.

It came to him a moment later.

Where did everyone go when there was no place else? Home.

It made perfect sense. Will had come from Boston and there was a good chance Alanna had too. Once Will found out he didn’t have Alanna, he would probably head east, either in the hopes of finding her or to seek refuge with his sister.

Jack had been east two years previous, trying to get a lead on them. He had managed to get in touch with Will’s sister again, Eliza (now Eliza Pratt), a mousy woman who said she hadn’t seen her brother, didn’t want to, and would he mind not coming around? No one else he’d spoken to knew anything either, except that Alanna may have come from wealth, a notion Jack had dismissed at the time. Why the hell would she be robbing trains if she came from money? Now, however, he wondered if that idea wasn’t worth investigating.

Tomorrow
, he told himself,
I’ll leave tomorrow
.
First thing
. And with that thought firm in his mind he closed his eyes and let himself drift off.

Events, however, conspired against him and he was forced to wait an additional day and a half for the Pinkerton Agents. They had wired Harlan, telling him to hold Jack until they arrived. Like Jack, they were eager to bring Alanna McLeod to justice. They wanted to hear his entire story
before
he left.

Jack waited—for Harlan’s sake—using the time to go on over to the Silver Slipper and gather Katherine’s belongings which Shorty had been kind enough to hold onto. But he cursed every idle minute, knowing that the longer he waited the further away Will and Katherine got.

Finally they arrived, and the four of them gathered at a table in the Silver Slipper where they were treated to Shorty’s iced peppermint tea and scones. Harlan immediately lit a cigarette.

The Pinkerton agents—Jim Woolbridge and Larry Sweet—were complete opposites, not only in appearance, but in temperament as well. Jim was the younger of the two, big like Harlan. He wore his hair short and his beard and mustache trimmed neatly. He smoked a pipe and spoke with an educated drawl. He didn’t smile or give the slightest hint what he thought about Jack’s story, and he didn’t touch the scones. He did, however, compliment the tea.

Larry Sweet, on the other hand, was lean, shorter than his partner, and better dressed than the average Fed. His suit was new and well-made, and he told Jack straight off that he didn’t buy the ‘other woman’ story for a second. As far as he was concerned it was simply another ploy by Alanna McLeod to escape what she so richly deserved: death.

Jack had met them both before, briefly, and even then they hadn’t exactly been the best of friends, being men of quite different temperaments. But now there was real rancor. He could tell by the way they interrupted one other that neither had respect for the other. Jack briefly wondered why, although he didn’t particularly care for either of them and the sooner he finished telling them what they wanted to know the sooner he could be on his way.

Finally they let him talk, without hiding their incredulous looks. At one point Larry looked at Jack as if he’d performed some devilish trick.

“You must think we’re idiots.”

Jack bit back a rude reply and wrapped his tale up. The two agents left when he was done, shaking their heads in disbelief.

“Those two aren’t going to give her a chance,” Jack said to Harlan as soon as they’d gone. “You know that.”

“Maybe they’re right,” Harlan said.

“I don’t think so. No one knows Alanna McLeod the way I do. None of them had her take aim at them and shoot without blinking an eye. I’m telling you, Harlan, the woman I was with never shot at anyone before.”

“I hope you’re right, Jack. I don’t much want to be standin’ over your grave sayin’ a few words and wishin’ I hadn’t let you go.”

“I’ll be careful,” Jack promised.

Harlan left him then, and Jack breathed a sigh of relief when he crawled into bed that night. His leg was throbbing, fiery pains shooting up and down. For a long time he lay there, unable to sleep, thinking of Katherine as she’d aimed the gun purposely away from him, thinking of Alanna pulling the trigger. And the boy, with his grin of lust and anticipation.

Finally he did sleep, though not for long.

“Jack! Wake up!”

“What?” Jack looked up at Harlan, rubbing his eyes and noting only the barest hint of daylight peeking in through the windows.

“Got someone you might want to talk to,” Harlan said.

“Who? Will?”
Couldn’t be
, Jack thought.

“That’d be nice,” Harlan said. “But I do have one Thomas A. Clancy sittin’ in my jail. He don’t look too pretty; but I guess he may have a thing or two to say about Will Cushing, who he just happened to be spending time with until a coupla days ago.”

Jack bolted up in the bed, all remnants of sleep falling away at Harlan’s words.

“Got you a horse, too. Figured you’d be needin’ one. She ain’t as sweet as that chestnut you had, but she’ll do you, I guess, ’til you get something better.”

“I’ll pay you back,” Jack said.

“I know you will,” Harlan said with an easy smile.

Jack dressed as quickly as he could and limped after Harlan down the stairs and out into the early morning, wincing each time his heel hit the ground.

The sun came up as they turned their horses toward town, bright and orange, glaring over the rooftops, blinding them both for a moment. Ten minutes later they drew up to the jail as the light turned rosy and yellow above the still quiet town. Down by the station, steam rolled out from beneath the locomotives, rising and dissipating into the heat-laden air. Figures emerged from the cloud, yawning as they began their day.

Harlan unlocked the jail and put his fingers to his lips, giving an ear-splitting whistle. Jack pitied Harlan’s prisoners.

“Wake up, Tommy,” Harlan said. “I brought you some company.”

The boy in the cell groaned, rolling over with a muttered curse. “Go away, damn you, I’m tryin’ to sleep.” The words weren’t entirely clear, sounding as if they were muffled in the down of a pillow. Not that there were any down pillows in Harlan’s jail.

“Sleep later,” Harlan said. “I got someone who needs to talk to you an’ he ain’t of a mind to wait ’til you get your sorry ass up.”

Jack stepped up to the bars. The boy swung his feet over the side of the cot and slowly gazed up at Jack.

Jack winced.

Tommy’s face was a mass of swollen purple flesh. One eye was completely swallowed by puffy skin, the other a slit surrounded by dark bruising. His lips (the down pillows) were split in two or three places, three times their normal size, and half his face resembled something out of someone’s demented nightmare. Probably a few cracked ribs as well, by the way he moved, Jack guessed.

“You don’t look too good,” Jack commented.

“I don’t feel too good,” Tommy said thickly.

“Who did this to you?”

“Will Cushing, like I told the marshal there. Who are you?”

“Jack McCabe, bounty hunter. I guess you don’t remember me—or my horse.”

“You goin’ after him?”

“That’s the plan.”

“Good. Kill him for me.”

“I will, if I have to.”

“Son-of-a-bitch ruined my face!”

“Yep, I’d say so. How come?”

“Christ, I don’ know. I was just takin’ what was promised me. Then he comes and lights in t’ me fer no reason.”

“What did he promise you?”

“He promised me a piece of that thievin’ whore, Alanna McLeod.”