Yesterday's Magic (11 page)

“Well, you’ve got the hair for it,” Bella
said. “Anyway, maybe I’ll see you later.” Bella took a step back.
There was no need pressing too hard.

Delilah didn’t answer. Bella turned and
headed for the door. When she got to the sidewalk, she turned and
saw that the stage was just pulling up. She started walking, her
heart beating furiously in her chest.

Jed pulled the saddle off his horse and
tossed it, with more force than was probably necessary, towards the
bench. Blankets followed the same path, landing with barely a
sound. His canteen was next. However, it hit the wood at an angle
and wobbled noisily before landing on the dirt floor with a soft
thud.

His horse turned to look at him and he ran
his hand across his coarse mane. “Don’t worry, Midnight” he assured
the animal. “You’re safe enough. You’re too damn heavy to
toss.”

Since he’d gotten the telegram from Bat early
this morning, he’d been as tense as a cornered rattlesnake because
he knew that Bat wasn’t a man prone to crying wolf. Nor was he a
man who got himself worked up over nothing. No, Bat Masterson could
handle more things with his eyes closed and his hands tied behind
his back than most men could on their best day.

If Bat thought there was reason enough to
sound a warning, then Jed was not fool enough to ignore it. So,
he’d ridden out just before dawn to meet Bat’s man. He’d gotten the
description and drawing of the man as well as some additional
details that Bat’s telegram hadn’t included, and started back for
home. Two hours out of Mantosa, it had started to snow.

An hour out of Mantosa, he’d caught up with
the stage. Jed had decided to follow it back to town, thinking it
couldn’t hurt to offer the driver and the unsuspecting passengers a
little added protection. It had, however, slowed him down and the
cold wind, which seemed to be both blowing snow in his face and up
the back of his coat, had chilled him to the point that now most
every bone in his body ached.

Plus, he’d missed lunch. His stomach had been
making noises for the last hour that would have been hard to
explain in polite company.

But it surely wasn’t the time to be worrying
about a missed meal. Not when there was a man who went by the name
of Rantaan Toomay, who was reputed to be a fast draw and so good
with a knife that it almost seemed like the blade had a mind of its
own, traveling around Kansas, picking up a card game here or there,
generally causing a stir wherever he went.

The man had been arrested and tried for
murder; once in Illinois and once in Iowa. Both times, key
witnesses had disappeared. As a result, Toomay had been declared
innocent and released. It was his general demeanor during the
trials that had caused great unrest. He’d acted amused and at
times, had literally laughed at those charged with carrying out
justice.

Blatant disregard for the law was not
something that set well with Jed. If Toomay thought he could waltz
into Mantosa and set a spark to trouble, he had another thing
coming.

And speaking of waltzing, in less than four
hours, he was committed to taking Bella Wainwright to the Fall
Social. Was it any wonder he was in a mood to throw things?

He reached to give Midnight one last pat. Out
of the corner of his eye, he saw the very woman who’d been
occupying his thoughts, walking down the sidewalk, headed toward
the stage, going so fast in her silly shoes that she was almost
running.

What the hell? Was Bella leaving?

The notion caused his empty stomach to pitch
and, while it was pure nonsense, his knees seemed a little weak. He
leaned his weight against Midnight, which caused the horse to toss
his head and snort in irritation.

“Sorry,” he mumbled and moved away. No doubt
his horse was hungry too and didn’t appreciate him acting like a
fool. If Bella was leaving, then so be it. Who cared? After all,
he’d just met the woman. There was no way she could mean anything
to him.

He turned away, determined to ignore the
activity on the street. He dipped a bucket of water out of the big
tank and put it in Midnight’s stall. Then he threw some feed into a
second bucket. He turned, sure that he’d see her standing in line,
waiting to get on.

But she wasn’t there.

He looked up and down the street and if he
hadn’t known she had to be close by, he’d have never seen her. But
he caught a glimpse of bright blue scarf. She’d evidently walked
past the stage and rounded the next corner. Now she stood by the
dressmaker’s shop, safe from view of anyone coming from the
direction she herself had just come from.

She was hiding.

Well, hell. Two could play this game. He
moved forward to the door but stayed back far enough that he was
hidden by the dark interior of the livery.

The passengers were making their way out of
the stage. First was an older man, with rounded shoulders and a
long white beard that blew in the wind. Once his feet were on the
ground, he turned to help a young woman. She had long dark hair and
when she turned, Jed could see that she had the brown skin and high
cheekbones of an Indian.

He watched as Bella glanced at them and then
focused her attention again on the stage. Next off was a woman. She
was all bundled up yet moved with the agility of a young person.
Once outside the stage, she turned, making a complete circle, like
she was looking for the person who was to meet her.

He saw Bella take a step forward. Then
another. But she didn’t move with the ease and the grace he’d
witnessed before. Her steps were short, almost jerky. She yanked on
her scarf, as if it were suddenly choking her.

Something was very wrong.

And he was two steps out of the livery before
he realized that she’d stopped. He shifted and saw that the
bundled-up woman had turned back toward the stage and was helping
not one, not two, but three young children to get out.

At the same moment he saw Bella slip back
into the shadows, he heard the sharp click of boots on the
sidewalk. Suddenly Bart was there, smiling and greeting the
passengers, rubbing the little children’s heads with the palm of
his hand. Jed took two steps back and rested his tired, cold back
against the rough interior wall of the livery.

He was glad that his deputy had followed
orders and had met the stage. Now certainly wasn’t the time to be
less than diligent. But he didn’t feel inclined to strike up a
conversation with the man.

Evidently Bella hadn’t been so inclined
either.

She’d slipped so far back that he couldn’t
even see her scarf anymore. But she was still there. Didn’t have to
see her to know it. He could feel it. Like there was some damn
connection between the two of them.

Hell.

It took another five minutes for the driver
to unload all the cases but soon enough, he was up in the seat and
driving off. Bart turned and headed back in the direction of the
Sheriff’s office and Jed waited, sure that Bella would follow.

But she didn’t. And he got tired of waiting
and wondering just what the hell she was up to. He sucked in a
breath and walked out of the livery like a man full of confidence,
not like a man who’d been hiding behind spider webs. He crossed the
street, fully expecting to see her huddled against the wall of the
dressmaker’s shop. But the only evidence that she’d even been there
were small footprints in the fresh snow, obviously made by someone
with insensible shoes.

Knowing that she could only have gone behind
the buildings, he tracked her. Sure enough. He followed her
footsteps and caught a glimpse of her, a hundred yards in front of
him. He watched until she ducked in the back door of the
Mercantile.

He retraced his steps and then walked down
the main sidewalk. He stopped a couple times, exchanging words with
the few men who refused to give into the cold and spend the
afternoon inside. He was ten yards from the Mercantile when Yancy
Tate waved him over. The man sat on a bench outside the saloon and
Jed wondered if his nose was red from the cold or had Yancy hit the
whiskey earlier than usual.

As a boy, whenever he wasn’t playing with
Bart, he was with Yancy Tate. They’d swum in the creek together and
caught frogs to scare the girls. As teens, they’d hunted most
anything that had four legs and gotten damn lucky that neither one
of them had shot the other. They’d laughed and planned and dreamed
of what it would be like to be men.

Then Jed had left home and when he’d come
back for his father’s funeral, Yancy had been there. After the
services, Yancy had come up to offer his condolences and Jed had
felt the trembling in his friend’s hand and had smelled the scent
of despair warring with liquor. When he’d looked into Yancy’s eyes,
he realized that this was a man who’d lost himself somewhere along
the way.

“Yancy,” he greeted the man.

Yancy tipped an imaginary hat. “Jedidiah.
Christ, it’s cold enough to freeze a man’s piss.”

His words were not yet slurred. Maybe today
would be the day. Maybe today he would have the strength to walk
away from the drink. “How have you been, Yancy?”

“Getting by. You?”

“Same. How’s your mother?”

Yancy shrugged and he reminded Jed very much
of the young boy who’d thrown the fish back in the water because
they were so darn pretty. “I’m an embarrassment,” Yancy said.

Jed dug the toe of his boot into the fresh
snow. “It doesn’t have to be that way, Yancy.”

His friend didn’t acknowledge the comment.
“You know what, Jedidiah? You’re stirring up talk.”

Christ. Just what he wanted most to avoid.
“Why’s that?” he asked, trying not to sound too interested.

“You always had an eye for the pretty ones,”
Yancy said. “Remember Becky Jane Phipps. You had that girl wrapped
around your little finger.”

Becky Jane had been a year older than Jed and
Yancy and the year she’d turned fifteen, she’d taken a
fourteen-year-old Jed behind the Church and helped him see Jesus in
about ten strokes. They’d regularly worshipped most every week for
the next six months until her folks had married her off to a man
seven years older and the pair had moved away.

Jed had barely been able to eat for a
month.

Yeah, he remembered Becky. All she’d had to
do was lift her skirt and he’d been a fool for her. And when his
father had been a fool not once, but twice, for a woman, Jedidiah
had thought of Becky more than once. He’d been on the same path.
And perhaps that’s what had scared him the most.

Maybe he was more like his father than he
thought.

“This one puts poor Becky to shame,” Yancy
continued. “Keep a man busy all night running his hands through
that hair.”

So Yancy had seen Bella and felt inclined to
want to discuss her. “My hands got enough to do,” Jed said. He
didn’t need to be admitting that he’d been thinking about that wild
hair of hers for most of his morning ride.

“I’m sure,” Yancy said, his tone agreeable.
“Well, she’ll have plenty of takers. Hell, I won two hands of cards
‘cause of her.”

Jed was starting to get a feeling that this
conversation, like most conversations he’d had lately with Yancy,
was going from bad to worse. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about when she came into the
saloon this morning. She’s got a way about her that makes a man
take notice.”

He didn’t have the strength to pretend to
disagree. “What was she doing in the saloon?”

“I don’t know. Seemed to me like she was
looking for someone.”

Just like she’d been looking for someone to
get off the stage. Wasn’t that interesting? “She find ‘em?”

“I don’t know. After a minute or so, she
struck up a conversation with Delilah. Then she left. But not
before I’d won four dollars. Thank her for me tonight, will
you?”

“Tonight?”

“You’re taking her to the dance, right?
That’s what Thomas Bean’s mother told Ed Hossmin’s wife.”

Jed could feel his ears turn hot. They must
have been turning red too, because Yancy, who’d been witness to his
ears turning red more than once, started to laugh. He sounded about
ten.

“Yeah, Jedidiah. You got ‘em talking
now.”

***

Jed purposely walked into the Mercantile like
he didn’t have a care in the world. He nodded at old Mrs.
Hammersmitt who stood in front of the canned goods and then he
nonchalantly ran his fingers across a stack of catalogs from stores
back east. And he thought he was doing a fine job of pretending
that everything was fine, until he came up short at the sight of
the table where Freida kept her sewing things.

It was orderly and arranged in such a manner
that a person could easily find what they’d come looking for. He
didn’t know much about colors and how they all went together, but
it was pleasant to the eye. That was for sure.

She’d
done this. She of the wild hair
and dangerous black eyes. And now she had the nerve to come up and
stand next to him, like she hadn’t done a very odd thing just five
minutes ago.

“Morning, Sheriff,” she said, her voice low
and slightly raspy. It pulled at his gut, making him forget about
being hungry. For food, that is. “Can I help you with something?”
she asked.

Oh, yeah. Two or three times of something.
That might take the edge off the wanting.

He ground his back teeth together. He was his
father’s son. But the son didn’t need to make the father’s
mistakes. “Just looking,” he said.

She frowned at him. “Well, then, there’s a
lovely plaid there on the end that would look just great with your
eyes.”

She sure had a smart mouth.
Full. Ripe.
Probably sweet.
Christ, what the hell was he doing? Thinking
about her mouth was sending him in a direction that was only going
to cause him trouble. Knowing the power her scent had over him, he
took two steps to the left and turned slightly, so that he faced a
pile of mops and brooms. He squatted down, as if his intent was to
examine the straw bristles. “Been busy this morning?” he asked.