Costello persisted, espousing Ellie’s own argument. “The Raineys mean to have Plum Creek, and they don’t intend to let a woman stand in their way. That’s why I’ve tried to persuade Ellie to sell the place to me. A man stands a better chance against that kind of opposition than a member of the fairer sex.”
Kale studied the down-and-out gambler, while his distaste for the man’s occupation grew into dislike for the man himself. Buy Ellie’s ranch? What the hell with?
“Much obliged, Costello.” He spoke between clenched teeth. “There’ll be no need to sell the ranch. I’m here to take care of things.”
“I’d like to help out, Jarrett,” Costello insisted. “Tell you what I’ll do. You convince Ellie to come to town where she’ll be out of harm’s way, and I’ll take care of the ranch, leaving you free to hunt down the killers.”
Kale clamped his jaws over an objection. Costello’s use of Ellie’s given name rankled him, especially here, inside a house of painted ladies. “Mrs. Jarrett is determined to remain at home.”
“Then you must convince her otherwise,” Costello returned. “With Benjamin dead, what use is that ranch to her?”
Again Kale forced himself to hold his anger inside. Most men would question a woman’s ability to run a ranch; he realized that. But it was Ellie’s choice, and by damn, he intended to see she got her wish.
“She’ll be safer in town,” Costello argued. “In fact, she could likely return to her old job.”
At Kale’s frown, Costello hurried to apologize.
“I’m sorry, Jarrett. You weren’t aware of Ellie’s former occupation?” Speaking, Costello scanned the room. His gaze lingered in lewd fashion on the lifelike painting of a voluptuous nude hanging over the bar.
To Kale’s way of thinking, the implication bordered on slander. “Hold on a cockeyed minute, Costello. I didn’t come here to discuss my sister-in-law—”
“Of course you didn’t,” Costello agreed. “Regardless of what she was before, Ellie made Benjamin a good wife. I’ll vouch for that. But now that he’s gone, I’m sure Lavender would be glad to take her back. She was quite popular at the Lady Bug.”
Irritation which had lain like a smoldering coal in the pit of Kale’s stomach suddenly burst into flame. He kicked back his chair and stood up, glaring down at the gambler. His hands fairly ached to wipe the satisfied smile off that smug face.
“There’s nothing wrong with it, Jarrett. We all have to make a living—one way or another.”
Kale wheeled and strode from the room, desperate for a breath of fresh air. He reached the porch before Lavender caught up with him.
She offered his gun belt without a word, but her eyes spoke volumes, all of it confused. From force of habit he buckled on his guns, tied them low. What the hell was going on? He inhaled a deep breath and tried to still the rage building inside himself. He knew Costello had deliberately baited him. But why? The man had answered his questions about Benjamin, and what he said was sound, most of it.
“Don’t you listen to him, Jarrett,” Lavender scolded. “Ellie’s a fine girl.”
He frowned at her; Costello’s words swirled like a whirlwind inside his head.
“Be good to her, you hear?”
Suddenly he felt as if his brain had been blown to pieces. He stumbled backward, down the steps, away from this woman, this floozy, before he struck out in his rage.
“Like all the others?” he hissed.
Turning, he was fairly knocked from his feet by Holt Rainey and the two men who had accompanied him to the ranch the evening before. They shouldered past without a pause and entered the Lady Bug.
Lavender rushed after them, holding the door frame. “You break my rose-etched glass, Holt Rainey, and you’ll have the devil to pay.”
Gathering his bearings, Kale stared at the horses tied to the hitching rail. He didn’t see the horse Holt rode to the ranch last night, but instead a big black stallion which had been ridden like a bat out of hell.
Studying the horse, Kale suddenly realized what he was seeing. Cautiously, he made his way toward the heaving animal. The stallion was big—but not as big as his hooves. Could this be the puddin’-foot?
Anticipation vied with the anger already simmering in Kale’s gut. Would he find a cracked shoe on this horse? He rubbed the horse’s neck, wiped lather from its flank. The stallion was powerful and deep-bodied. He had been ridden hard and, for what? An orgy in a whorehouse?
Kale lifted the right rear hoof and stared at the cracked shoe which, true to his earlier predictions, now had a chip off the inside edge. What manner of man would ride a horse with a cracked shoe this hard? He had to be nasty-mean—or drunk—or both.
“Adding horse-stealing to your other crimes, Jarrett?” Holt had returned to the porch. He stood on the top step, thumbs tucked loosely in his gun belt. His belligerent tone of voice had not mellowed overnight.
“This your animal?” Kale held Holt’s glare with unwavering determination.
“Yeah, so take your goddamn hands off it.”
Newt and the man called Saint had followed Rainey out the rose-etched door. Now others emerged, and a crowd began to gather on the porch.
Kale spoke in barely controlled tones. “This horse paid a call on my sister-in-law last night, and the rider left a gift. I didn’t get a chance to thank him proper.”
Newt and Saint spread out a little to either side of Holt; their stance dared Kale to draw his guns.
Holt sauntered down the steps, screwed up his eyes against the burnished sunlight. “If you’re accusing me of something,” he taunted, “spit it out plain-like.”
“I think you get my meaning. And I suggest you change your horse’s shoe. If you want to call yourself a rancher, you’d better learn their ways. No rancher worthy of the name would ride an animal this hard on a cracked shoe.”
“You stinking varmint!” Holt lunged at Kale.
Kale, however, was quicker. He turned his shoulders ever so slightly, drew back, and landed a devastating cross to Rainey’s head. The man crumpled to the ground, felled by ignorance of his opponent as much as by the blow.
Stepping back, Kale withdrew his right hand from the punch even as his left leveled his revolver on the crowd.
“One of the boots my brother was wearing when he was killed turned up on our woodpile last night. It was caked with dried blood and left for his widow to find. As you can imagine, it caused her considerable pain.”
The gasps which followed were what Kale expected. In this country, harassing a woman was an unthinkable crime, second only to rape or murder.
Kale waved his gun muzzle toward the puddin’-foot. “This morning that animal’s tracks were all over the place.” He glared back at Holt. “Climb on your horse and go home; tell Matt I’m tired of playing games. I came here to find my brother’s killers, and I won’t let up until I see those responsible behind bars—or hanged.”
He watched the men begin to mount. The one called Saint brushed by Kale, spat on the ground, then glanced from beneath his hat brim. “Don’t rightly know why I’m telling you this, Jarrett…but for what it’s worth, that puddin’-foot’s been missing for the past week. Turned up just this morning outside the corral.”
Kale considered the man and his words without answering.
A few people remained on the porch of the Lady Bug—the bartender and several of Lavender’s painted ladies—flowers, she had called them. Armando Costello lounged in the doorway, chewing on a matchstick. Kale held the man’s gaze for an instant, an instant filled with mutual dislike.
He wondered at his own feelings. Was it only Costello’s comments about Ellie that rankled him? Or was it something deeper? Did he see himself in this gambling man—and dislike what he saw?
The telegraph office was open by the time he rode down the hill. The operator was new, and no records had been kept of the wires Benjamin sent.
With a few discreet questions while he sent his own wires, Kale learned that the former
operator left town suddenly, shortly after Benjamin turned up missing. Kale knew this incident might or might not be connected with Benjamin’s killing. Many people came west to escape the changelessness of their lives, so out here, when a man took a notion to up and leave a place, no one paid it much mind.
Still, it was a coincidence to be pondered. Together with the other things he had learned this day, it was indeed a puzzle. A nagging feeling in his gut told him he had all the pieces, but how they fit together was still a riddle.
He hoped the wires he sent would clear up a few things. After advising his family about Benjamin’s death and requesting information from the State concerning Benjamin’s deed, he added one last wire—to Brady Jarrett, a cousin down in New Orleans.
Brady might be able to shed some light on Armando Costello. If Costello was indeed a two-bit gambler from New Orleans, Brady would have run into the man in his hotel and gaming emporium on Bourbon Street. But for now, Kale wondered exactly what it was he suspected Costello of doing.
He had befriended Ellie, and his talk of her was likely more from lack of social graces than from malice. This shortcoming could also explain Costello’s untimely offer to buy Benjamin’s ranch. Other than that, the man’s arguments that the Raineys posed threat enough had to be considered sound.
Kale picked up Ellie’s supplies from the general store and packed them in his saddlebags, then he headed for the ranch.
But he didn’t ride easy. He tried to take his mind off the things he’d learned in town by studying the countryside. A man never knew when his knowledge of this draw or that cedar brake would save his life.
Prickly pear and bear grass grew in sporadic clusters along the hillsides. In the meadows where he rode, dried stems of shallow-rooted witchgrass crackled beneath the horse’s hooves. With a little moisture this whole country would green up real nice.
But Benjamin would not be here to see it. And Ellie…
Kale knew he was riled at the way Costello spoke of Ellie, other than the obvious truth in the man’s remarks. But true or not, he didn’t like her name bandied about in town like that. If Costello was the friend he professed to be…
No sense getting himself worked up over the gambler, Kale cautioned. He would in all likelihood have to deal with the man to get Benjamin’s affairs straightened out, Costello being a friend and all.
Some friend. He’d come dangerously close to slandering Ellie’s name back there in that painted house, even if what he said turned out to be the gospel truth. One thing he knew for sure, however, Armando Costello was not getting his hands on Benjamin’s ranch.
Ellie’s ranch, he corrected.
Ellie’s ranch…
Kale found himself sitting his horse, reins held in limp hands, his thoughts on the evening before, on the desperation with which Ellie had professed her determination to hold onto the ranch.
Ellie, the lady he had been fearful of offending with his own coarse ways. Kale kicked the bay.
Ellie, who turned out to be nothing more than a common whore.
That development needled him the rest of the way to the ranch, and in needling, revealed to Kale a surprising fact: he was beginning to care for her himself. Not as a man cared for a sister-in-law, but—
Had been beginning to care for her, he corrected, trying to forget the lilt in her voice when she called him to supper, the concern in her voice when she asked him not to wear his guns into Summer Valley, the fear in her eyes. He tried to forget the comfort she brought him at his brother’s grave, the feel of her in his arms. Especially that—the feel of her.
He tried, but didn’t succeed. About the only thing he succeeded at was remembering more than he wanted to of the short time he’d spent with her.
His own thoughtless remarks haunted him. He’d left no doubt how he classified women: ladies and floozies. Lordy, he’d never suspected her of falling into the second category.
How had she felt at his coarse references to floozies and dancehall girls? Dancehall girls, when she herself was…so much more.
He recalled the photograph on the mantel, how he had taken her for a highfalutin lady. Highfalutin, all right, but lady? Not even the chaste gown she wore in the photograph could change the stripes of the tiger underneath.
Underneath…the very word conjured up softness and passion. Kale cringed.
Softness and passion. What had she given Benjamin? Benjamin, of all people. Benjamin had married a common whore.
Nearing the ranch, Kale tried to prepare himself to face Ellie Jarrett, his sister-in-law, rightful heir to Benjamin’s property.
He cursed beneath his breath. What the hell did Ellie’s previous occupation have to do with her role as Benjamin’s wife—or as his widow, for that matter?
But his tortured brain persisted. Her previous life had everything to do with it. She had probably married Benjamin to get away from her sordid life at the Lady Bug and wherever else she’d worked. For a moment he contemplated whether he could have met her before on a visit to some other pleasure palace here or there. What if he had already…?
Abruptly he cut off his thoughts, imploring himself to be fair with her. Fair? Fair with a woman—a whore—who’d married Benjamin for his ranch?
Benjamin…who had deserved so much more.
Chapter Five
The pie had been a spur-of-the-moment idea, conceived after she returned from Benjamin’s grave. Wrapped in a cup towel to avoid soiling her good skirt, she rolled out the crust, then filled it with wild plums she had put up last spring.
The fact that Kale would learn from strangers the very thing he refused to let her tell him sickened her. Although he professed not to care about her past, his remarks concerning floozies and dancehall girls clearly showed the categories into which he placed women: those who were ladies, and those who were not.
Very likely he would return from town feeling the same way about her that she did about him.
If the previous idea had unnerved her, this one struck a blow she was not expecting: that Kale would hold her past in the same contempt with which she scorned his was unthinkable, yet more than possible. For although she knew the truth about herself, and Lavender and the girls knew it, the fact remained that to most people in Summer Valley and elsewhere, she had been reared in a house of painted ladies, and therefore was one herself.
Wasn’t that the reason Lavender had insisted on her marriage to Benjamin? And wasn’t it the primary reason she agreed?
But Kale was worldly where his brother had been wise. Kale would see the truth as the world saw it, not the truth as it really was.
Clearly there was no chance for them to meet each other on neutral ground.
The gunfighter and the floozy…they were too far apart, one in truth, one in image.
The gunfighter and the floozy.
While she rolled the piecrust, however, she had the hardest time remembering that Kale Jarrett was a gunfighter. No sooner would she remind herself of the fact than a contradictory image would negate it: Kale carrying well water, Kale brewing coffee, Kale dealing with Holt Rainey on the porch the night before—restrained, strong, confident.
After she finished the pie, she recalled Benjamin’s boots, which she had decided to offer Kale; she really should clean them first.
Although she had knocked mud off the first one before storing it in the trunk, red clay still clung to the sole of the one they found on the woodpile the night before. She took them both to the front porch, where she had a clear view of the road to town. Cleaning the boots, her thoughts lingered on the man who would wear them.
The gunfighter who would wear them, she reiterated, gazing defensively around the countryside. This was her home, and in spite of everything and anything she intended to keep it. She would not return to the Lady Bug and sell her body. She would work to keep this ranch, and she would have to do it alone. She couldn’t depend on a gunfighter to help her. He would only get her so tangled up in his crooked schemes that she would end up losing he
r home.
Not until she saw him top the hill did she realize she’d been sitting here all this time with one purpose and one purpose only: to await the return of Kale Jarrett.
Quickly removing the towel from around her waist, she took it and the boots inside the house. Within seconds she stepped out the back door to find Kale racing toward the house like a band of wild Indians was after him.
He drew rein and slid from the saddle. “Grab a bucket, Ellie. Grab a bucket!”
The sight she saw swept Kale’s alarm through her system like the mass of blowing tumbleweeds which swept a trail of fire down the hillside. Already the first wave had hit the fence.
Kale stripped his saddle blanket from the bay and set about putting out the fire—the second one in as many days.
For an instant when he topped the hill overlooking Benjamin’s valley, he had thought a heavy fog hung in the air. His next idea was that he was imagining things, because like the first time he sat his horse atop this hill, the valley was filled with smoke.
This time a mass of tumbleweed had caught fire and was blowing rapidly toward the house. The skeleton-like balls of dried weed spewed and flared in the last rays of the day’s sun, rolling with ever-increasing speed ahead of the gusting wind.
Sinking his spurs to the horse, he made short work of getting down the hill. By the time he slid from the saddle, Ellie had emerged from the back of the house. At the sight of fire, she froze in mid-stride.
He watched terror ignite her eyes, while his own anger flared at the perpetrators of such a vile deed.
On his instructions she moved toward the well. He unbuckled his cinch, jerked his saddle from the bay, and began beating flames with his saddle blanket. Some of the tumbleweeds caught up on the picket fence, others tumbled over it into the yard.
Ellie came running with a bucket of water. Kale yelled to her. “Throw water on the window frames.” He turned his attention to the fence. One portion was already gone. He thrashed at the flames until they were quiet on one end, then moved to the opposite side.
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