You Can't Choose Love (19 page)

She was led into an office reminiscent of Wallace’s,
only with a smaller chair. The sheriff sat behind the desk and gestured for
Alma to sit opposite him. Alma sat with as much serenity as she could muster.
I
am a calm woman
, she told herself, over and over,
and I have nothing to
fear
.

Then the sheriff opened a drawer in his desk and
took out a piece of paper. He pushed it across the table. Alma, hand shaking,
picked it up and read:

WANTED

DEAD OR ALIVE

AURORA SIMMONS

$500 REWARD

The drawing of Alma was poorly done, but a
description followed which matched Alma’s appearance almost exactly. It also
had a brief description of the ‘heinous and ungodly’ crime she had committed:
killing an honest and lawful man.
An honest and lawful man who raped his
wife every night and tried to do the same to me
. Alma swallowed, and hoped
that the sheriff did not notice the sweat that pricked her forehead.

She laid the poster down and faced the sheriff. “I
do not know how this relates to me,” she said.

“You don’t?” The sheriff raised an eyebrow. “It is
strange, don’t you think, that the description on this poster so closely
matches you, Miss Abrams? And let us not forget that you have been here just
over a year, and nobody knows anything much about you.”

“I am a widow—”

“Yes, I know that, but where have you been? Who are
you? Are you a killer? We don’t want killers in this town.” He leaned forward
as he said this and laid his hand on the desk. His shirt shifted and Alma
caught a glimpse of his shoulder muscle, which was round and hard. His pistol
hung from a strap on the wall. Alma felt a shiver go through her: a shiver
equal parts pleasure and fear.

The mood was coming over her in which she did not
question her own desires, her own motives. It was a mood that had served her
well and she would use it here.

She locked eyes with him. “I would no more kill
someone, sir,” she said, “than you would take advantage of a poor widowed woman
in your office.” She felt her clit warm up at her own words, and warm up even
more when his eyes widened. She tugged at her shirt, pulling it down and
showing the tops of her breasts. The sheriff gulped.

“Miss Abrams . . .”

“Alma, please.”

“Alma, this is not appropriate.”

“Do not worry about what is appropriate,” Alma said,
unbuttoning her shirt. She unbuttoned it all the way down to her belly and
opened it, showing him glimpses of her pert breasts. She saw in his face that
he was hard – she could always tell when men were hard – and felt an answering
call in her body, an urging, animalistic and primordial. She stood up and let
her shirt flow to the floor. “Do you want me, sir?” she said, in her sweetest
voice.

She walked around the desk, just as she had done
with Wallace, and fell to her knees. Looking up at him under her eyelashes, she
said: “I can bring you more pleasure than you have ever experienced, sir, if
you will let me.”

Sheriff Carson Gill was trembling by now, his whole
body trembling. He breathed out the words: “And what would you want from me,
Alma?”

“Oh, nothing much,” she said. “Just destroy that
pesky, nasty poster. Never mention it again. Is that so much to ask?”

She grabbed the front of his trousers. His cock was
hard and pressed through the fabric of his trousers in a clear outline. She
rubbed, up and down, up and down, and felt her body ache when he moaned. “Yes,”
he said, and grabbed her wrist. “It’s a stupid poster, anyway.”

“It is,” she agreed.

He lifted her to her feet and onto his lap. Alma
opened her legs and split them either side of him, sitting opposite him on the
chair, their groins touching.

*   *   *

Maybe she should have felt ashamed as she left the
office. She did not. She rarely felt shame and she would not feel it now. She
had done was necessary. The poster was embers now, and Sheriff Gill would keep
his mouth shut. Alma could not be absolutely certain of that, but she felt
confident. She had left a good impression.

When she entered Beryl’s the sun was a half-inch
over the horizon. She went upstairs, splashed some water in her face, changed,
and made her way to the offices. Going to her room in the back, she began to
sort through the papers. Events, she felt, would soon come to an impasse. Never
again would she be in a position to be threatened by a poster. She would be too
rich, too powerful. Alma Abrams would make her mark on this world, and nobody –
not her father, not the sheriff, not the miners, no man – would stop her.

She was formulating and reformulating her plans when
a scream sounded from down the hallway. It was a girlish scream, but when she
reached the source of it she saw Wallace, hands clasped on his face.

“What is it, my love?” Alma said, removing his
hands.

He nodded. Alma followed the trajectory of his nod.
Abraham Saville lay upon the floor, hand clutched to his heart, his body frozen
in death. One side of his face looked as though it had melted, slack. Alma took
Wallace to her office and made him sit down. Then she found the doctor, who
came at once to the offices.

 It was all over in around half an hour.
Abraham Saville had suffered a massive stroke and died.

Maybe, somewhere deep down, Alma was a good person.
Maybe she would one day repent for what she had done in her life.

But she was not sad for his Abraham’s death. It
furthered her cause, after all.  

Though Wallace had screamed when he first saw the
misshapen corpse of his father, he seemed remarkably calm when Alma returned to
him in his office. He sat in his chair, back straight, hands on knees, and
stared directly ahead. When Alma entered he looked up at her briefly and then
looked back down at the desk. “We were never close,” he said, and shrugged. “I
think he loved me, but we were never close. He was busy. And after Mother died
. . . He never hurt me, but he never showed his love for me.”

Alma sat opposite him and waited. “Tell me, should I
cry?” he said. “I do not feel like crying, but that’s the proper thing at a
time like this, isn’t it? I shouldn’t be able to sit here, calmly, with Father
dead. That makes me a monster.”

“Feel how you feel, my love,” Alma said. “You do not
have to weep if you do not feel like weeping. But . . .” She let the
but
hang, saw the interest tug at his features; his eyebrows raised, his lips
twitched. She folded her hands in her lap and crossed her legs.

“But?” he said.

“It pains me greatly,” she sighed. “I hardly want to
talk about it. I can’t stand it, but I can see that it will pain you more. I
wish there was a way I could keep it from you, but I fear that would be as
unjust as revealing it to you.”

“Tell me, Alma.”

Am I a snake? A wolf? A bat? Perhaps all three.

“Bill Gaston, your father’s friend, was stealing
from him—stealing from all of you. While going over the records I found the
evidence for these thefts. He did it slyly and intelligently as to not arouse
suspicion. A little here, a little there, but over time it has added up. He—”

“Son of a cunt!” Wallace leapt to his feet and paced
up and down the office, fists thumping his thighs. “Damn it, damn it!” he
growled, pacing, cheeks flushed red, breathing through gritted teeth. “He was
like an uncle to me. He was. My Uncle Bill, and this is how he treats me!” He
walked to the desk, opened the drawer, and pulled out a revolver. “I’ll blow
his goddam head off,” he spat, thumbing the hammer. “I’ll blow his head off and
piss on his goddam brains!”

“You have every reason to want that,” Alma said, in
her most soothing voice. She went to him and put her hands on his hands which
clasped the gun. “Of course you have every right to do that. I would never
argue with you over that. But, think about it, my love. What is the most
important thing? It is the business. It is your father’s legacy.”

His face was a wall of rage, but her words somehow
penetrated. His features softened. He sighed, turned to her. “What do you
mean?” he said.

“We should confront him with the facts and make him
sell his portion of the company to you. You will, then, be two-thirds owner of
the Silver King Mining Corporation. He has no way to refuse the sale. You have
all the leverage. He has nothing. He either sells it to you and leaves Calico
or we take our evidence to the sheriff. Do you see? This is the smarter choice,
my love.”

“I would prefer to kill him,” Wallace grumbled.

Alma grabbed the barrel of the revolver and slowly
removed it from his hand. He relaxed his grip and did not fight her as she put
it back in the drawer. “I know,” Alma said. “But this is the better choice. I
only have your best interests in mind, Wallace.”

Has there ever been a larger lie? Has there ever
been a more wicked deceit?

“I know,” Wallace said, lapping up her lies like a
cat lapping milk. “I am afraid that if I confront him, I will throttle him.”

“I will do it,” Alma said quickly.

“Good,” Wallace said, and slumped back into his
chair. “Don’t pay what it’s worth. Pay less than half. Even less if you can.
That’s more than the bastard deserves.”

“Of course,” Alma said. “I will be back in an hour
or less.”

She left the offices and went to her hotel rooms to
collect the folder. When she had it, she returned to the offices and went to
Bill Gaston’s room. Of course, he was not there. He was in, appropriately, the
Round Belly, one of Calico’s three restaurants. Alma made her way to the Round
Belly. When she entered, she was accosted by an old man, all loose teeth and
wispy hairs, who leaned heavily on a wooden crutch.

“What’re you doing in here?” he said, looking her up
and down. “I know you. You’re that girl who came here a year ago, the one
what’s so close with the mining fellas.”

“That’s me,” Alma agreed, looking around the room.

“You ought to be careful with them,” the man said.
“They’re a snakelike bunch, they are.”

“You’re wrong, old man,” Alma said, as her gaze
settled on a fat man stuffing bread into his maw. “There’s only one snake in
this town.”

*   *   *

Bill Gaston looked up as Alma sat down. His chins
seemed to shrivel when he saw it was Alma. His eyes, sunken into his head,
seemed to sink even more. He dropped a bread roll onto his chest and reached
for it with podgy arms.

“You spend a lot of time here,” Alma said. “I am
surprised you find the time to steal from your partners.”

“You’re a devil woman!” he suddenly spat. Bubbles of
spit blew from between his lips. “That’s what you are. A devil woman!”

“As you say.” Alma leaned back. “It might interest
you to know that Abraham died this morning. Quite recently, in fact.”

Bill’s face did not change: just a mass of folded
flesh and fat and sunken features.

“You do not seem very distraught,” Alma said. “Was
he not your friend?”

“Oh, Abraham!” Bill cried melodramatically, and
brought his hand to his chest. “Oh, my Abraham!” He picked a crumb from his
shirt and flicked it into his mouth. After swallowing, he went on: “He was my
brother. I loved him like a brother. I will miss him so much. He was a beautiful
man. Oh, my friend, my—”

“Oh, do shut up,” Alma hissed. She slammed the
folder down on the table. “Let’s not make-believe, sir, that we are anything
other than we are. You are a thief. I am the woman who is going to save your
life. There, we have our roles. Now, let’s play them. You have stolen from your
partners since the first day you started the business. I have the records right
here. I suppose you assumed you didn’t need to cover your tracks. Nobody cared
enough to go through them. The funny aspect to this, sir, is that
I
would not have noticed them had you and DeBell not banished me from making the
rounds.”

“What a scandalous, reprehensible, unjust—”

“Shall I fetch the sheriff?” Alma asked. She
half-stood. “It really is no trouble to me . . .” She waited, locked his eyes.

“Okay, devil, okay,” he sighed. “How, exactly, do
you propose to
save my life
?”

“Wallace is a kind fellow,” Alma said. She picked up
a bread roll, took a bite, and laid it back down on his plate. Then, she sipped
from his cup, wiped her mouth, and placed it upon the table. “He does not want
to see you, a man who was an uncle to him, fall into ruin. He will buy your
share of the corporation and you will leave Calico. You will leave Calico
tonight, before sunset.”

“This is my home,” the fat man muttered.

“Not anymore.” Alma smiled. “Nobody blames you for
stealing, sir. How can they? Stealing, when the opportunity arises, is
extremely difficult to resist. But being so sloppy about it? Eating yourself to
death instead of tending to your records? Yes, you can be blamed for that. You
have made a grievous mistake, sir, and it is time to take the only lifeline you
have. So, name your price.”

“What if I don’t want to leave?” His voice became
high-pitched; tears appeared in his pitted eyes. “What if I refuse?”

Alma shrugged. “The sheriff,” she said. “Punishment.
Shame. Why must we play this game? Name a price. Let’s begin a negotiation.”

He named a price.

Alma laughed.

“Wallace will pay you one-quarter.”

“That’s less than it was worth when we started!”
Bill protested, his whole body jiggling. “That’s outrageous.”

Alma slammed her fist down on the table. “No!” she
cried. People in the restaurant turned and stared at the table. Alma ignored
them, and spoke in a low, vicious voice. “You stole, you broke the rules. You
have no room for protest. You are lucky to be making
anything
from this,
sir. You played, you lost. Now you pay the price of losing. Agree, or I go to
the sheriff. I have no time for these games.”

“But . . .”

“I will count to three.”

“You cannot be . . .”

“One.”

“This is . . .”

“Two.”

“Please, please!”

“Thr—”

“Okay!” he huffed. “Okay, okay! I agree! I agree!”

*   *   *

The sun had set and Alma was having trouble keeping her
eyes open. Even so, she smiled, and rubbed Wallace’s shoulders, and looked down
with him at the document. Bill had just ridden out of town on a horse that
squealed in protest with each step.

“Before you arrived in Calico,” Wallace said, “I had
no say in the business. None at all. I was ignored by all. Now, I am two-thirds
owner. You are an amazing woman, Alma. You are the most amazing woman I have
ever met. How can I ever repay you?”

“Allow me to ride with you again,” Alma said at
once. “I wish to be at your side once more. I tire of being stuffed indoors.
Also, Roach grows tired. She is not used to being still for so long.”

“DeBell will be angry.” Wallace stroked his beard.
“But, then again, I am majority owner. How can he refuse me? And, it is true, I
have missed your company.”

“So you agree?” Alma said. “I, too, have missed
being out there.”

Wallace waved a hand, as though it was not a big
decision. “I agree,” he said. “Why shouldn’t I?”

“Oh, you make me so,
so
happy, my love,” she
said, with overacting emotion, melodrama, and not a hint of sincerity.

*   *   *

“What is that for?” Wallace had asked, when he saw
Alma tying the hamper onto the back of Roach, but now he saw.

Alma had thought the men respected her for the mere
fact that she rode above them, but DeBell and Bill had been right. It was
impossible, she now saw, for a working man to respect a trouser-wearing woman
who seemed cold and distant, who seemed, to them, like no woman at all. Whilst
she would not wear a dress – she had always hated the things – she could
approach her involvement from a different angle. Instead of sitting atop Roach
with a regal, distant demeanor, she would play the Kind Mother; and her
reputation would flower.

The men emerged from the mines for lunch and Alma
climbed from Roach, took down the hamper, and walked among them. She opened the
hamper and handed them fresh-baked bread, purchased with her own wages, to
accompany their usual midday meal of gruel. The men were awkward as they
muttered their thanks – none of them had ever seen a woman as beautiful as Alma
– but their gratitude was clear in their eyes.

“It won’t take long for the men to love you for
that,” Wallace said, pride in his voice as they rode through the desert from
mine to mine. “They’ll adore you. I bet in a few weeks you’ll be a legend.”

That’s the plan
, she thought.

“You’re too kind,” she said.