I went back to the bar where Al was still wiping down the counter. He glanced at his pocket watch. I knew it was almost time for him to leave for an hour.
His poor little boy had caught the weakness, a disease that made his legs useless as thin sticks. Couldn’t walk or do much anything for himself. Al’s wife left them, so it was up to him to go home to make sure his boy was taken care of.
“Head off Al,” I said.
“You sure you’ll be ok?” he said, leaning in close. He gave a quick glance over my shoulder at the table.
“Yeah, I’ll be fine. ‘Sides, I know where the shotgun is an’ how to use it,” I replied confidently. “No hurrying back, neither. Read little Joey one of those yarns about the knights and ladies,” I said.
Al smiled, already excited at the prospect. “I won’t be too long,” he said, taking off his apron and wiping his hands before grabbing his jacket and heading out the door.
“That man cares for you,” a voice said from behind me.
I swear on the Bible that I jumped higher than a horse stands tall! Spinning around I saw the older man cozied up to the bar. He wasn’t looking at me, but his cool confidence said he didn’t need to. He had my attention.
“Yes..Mr. Swinny is like a father to me,” I said, hoping I didn’t reveal how startled I was. How did he sneak up on me so quietly and quickly?
“No father to speak of?” he asked, “Seems a common refrain in these small mining towns. The name’s Burke. My impatient friend over there is Dusk.”
“Annie,” I said. “Annie Baker.”
“Well, Ms. Baker, it’s a pleasure. Kilcutta is a fine town,” he said.
I laughed, knowing he was poking fun.
He grinned at me, then got to his real question, “Where’s the privy?”
“Out back,” I said apologetically. An indoor privy was not a luxury Al was going to spring for anytime soon.
Burke nodded and walked out to do his business.
“Did he flirt with you?” Dusk called out from across the saloon.
“What?” I asked, shaking my head at the absurdity of the question. I walked over to the table to clear their dinner dishes.
“Pardon, I meant no offense. It’s just that we’ve been riding for weeks now, and this feels like the first stop we’ve made in a long while,” Dusk said.
“Where are you from?” I asked, hoping to change the subject. “Wait…let me guess!”
The young man looked up at me, waiting for my guess.
I was terrible at this. “New York?” I asked. I had a feeling I couldn’t have been more wrong, but I always dreamed about meeting a man from a big city like New York or Chicago. Some place they drank tea and talked about literature.
He laughed long and hard. He laughed so hard he almost fell out of his seat.
“Rude!” I said, walking away to put the dirty dishes back behind the bar. Outside the sun had set, the last glowing rays of orange light fading in long beams down Main Street. Dusk’s laughter continued as the front door swung open and three men entered.
These men all had a weary look about them. They all had long coats on, covered in dust. Their eyes darted around the room, passing over me and settling on Dusk.
Dusk’s chuckle ended naturally.
I walked behind the bar. “Welcome to the Lucky Diamond Saloon. What can I get you boys?” I asked. Were Al here, he’d be dancing a jig to have this many customers. Something told me these guys were trouble.
They nodded silently between themselves, agreeing on some private matter. “Whiskey,” one man said. He had a scar running down from his right eye to his chin. “Whiskey all around.”
“Three whiskeys coming right up,” I said, placing the bottle on the counter and leaning down to pick up three shot glasses. When I came back up, they’d grabbed the bottle and were drinking straight from it. I knew no good could come from reprimanding them, so I watched in silence as they passed the bottle around.
Burke came in from the outhouse and walked over to Dusk without giving the three men a single glance. He took his seat and Dusk began dealing cards again.
Seeing the card game, the three roughnecks walked over to Dusk and Burke. “Hey,” the one with the scar said, “deal us in,” then taking another long swig of the bottle.
Dusk raised his eyebrows and looked at the man. “What would you play?”
“Poker goddamnit! What a stupid question,” the youngest of the three men said. He had a nervous twitch that occasionally had him shake his head.
“You stupid or somethin’?” another of the men said. This one was pudgy, soft, probably used to a life of leisure. I could see that his shoes were spotless, unlike his two compatriots. He probably spit shined ‘em every morning.
Dusk glanced at Burke and gave a little shrug. “Poker it is,” he said as he began dealing cards around the table.
The tallest of the three strangers was the oldest. He was quiet and had eyes that darted around constantly. He was the first to pull up a chair from a neighboring table and sit down. The other two joined him.
I made to continue cleaning the bar, still angry over them taking the whiskey bottle. I reminded myself that we hadn’t had this many paying customers at once all year, and Al would be real happy once he came back. You can’t have bad luck everyday, my Daddy used to say when he was sober.
“Skirt!” the twitchy one called from across the bar. “Git your big ass over here!”
I swallowed my pride and walked over to the table. A scattering of coins was in the center of the table, and each man was studying his opponents. Burke and Dusk looked calm and nonchalant. The three rude ones were fidgety and kept checking their cards, as if they’d change. “What can I get you?”
“Three bowls of that stew,” the oldest one said.
“And after that I’ll take a piece of your pie,” the pudgy one said, grinning up at me.
“We’re fresh out of pie tonight, sorry,” I said. We never had pie. Who orders pie in a saloon?
“He means your pussy,” the young one said with a twitch, still looking between his cards and the pot.
I gasped in scandal. “I’m not that kind of lady!” I said emphatically.
“You’re a bar whore. You all spread your legs for the right amount of change,” the pudgy one said. He reached into a breast pocket and flicked a coin at me. “Got change for a dime?”
My arm shot forward to slap the sass out of him. I could see it in my mind, my hand connecting full force with his soft cheek, his head flying back and him falling out of his chair. It would be something to see.
But it didn’t happen. The oldest man caught my wrist and squeezed me incredibly hard. I yelped in pain and almost fell. From the corner of my eye I saw Dusk bolt upright.
“Easy,” Burke said, putting an arm on his friend. Then he addressed the man who held me, “How about you let her go so we can continue playing?”
The iron vice that held my wrist released. I clutched the sore spot and fled into the kitchen, wiping my tears on my sleeve. I got three bowls from a cupboards, and spat a hefty loogie into each bowl. Pouring a helping of the stew into each, I then found three spoons. I rubbed each spoon on the bottom of my shoe and dropped it into a bowl of stew.
Coming back into the bar room, I could tell that the tension was higher. Dusk and Burke sat across from the three men, and the pot between them had grown larger. I could only see cards still in front of Burke and the man who grabbed my wrist.
“You bluffin’ me? I don’t take kindly to bluffin’,” the old man said.
“Maybe I am, maybe I ain’t,” Burke said smoothly.
I stood next to the table with their stews, knowing that this was not a good time to interrupt.
“You got a real smart mouth on you,” the youngest man said. His knee was bouncing up and down under the table.
“Then it won’t sting as bad when you lose to someone smarter than ya,” Burke replied.
“Watch your goddamn mouth, ingrate.
If you knew who we was…” the pudgy one said.
“Shut up, Cletus,” the twitchy one said.
“You shut up, Wilbur!” Cletus said, lashing out.
“Enough!” the oldest one said. “I raise five dollars,” he said, throwing a five dollar bill into the pot.
“Show him, Jethro,” Wilbur said.
Burke and Dusk looked at one another, then back to Jethro.
“Now that’s a lot of money. A smart man might back down if given enough reason,” Burke said, looking over at Wilbur.
“We’re the Donahue Brothers!” Wilbur said, his knee still bouncing absently.
“Enough gabbing god damnit!” Jethro said, staring daggers at Burke. “You foldin’?”
“Now that depends,” Burke said, putting his cards down in front of him and folding his hands over them. “Donahues…that name rings out. Dangerous men. Would be even more dangerous for some fools using their name, though.”
“You’re staring at the three God-given sons of Elijah Donahue. You can take that to the bank!” Cletus said.
“I dunno,” Burke said. “I heard them Donahue boys were all seven feet tall. Eyes black as midnight. Teeth like knives…”
“Heard they robbed a stagecoach,” Dusk added, kind of as an afterthought. “Killed two people in the process,”
“Nah we killed three!” Cletus corrected.
“Four, actually. The little girl passed away,” Dusk said, eyes leveled at Cletus.
I saw the color drain from Cletus’ face. I heard chairs scrape as the three Donahue brothers jumped to their feet. Before I could turn and run, I was grabbed by Jethro and held out in front of him. I felt the jab of cold steel in my back.
Cletus and Wilbur were also on their feet, their guns drawn on Burke and Dusk. My eyes filled with tears. I didn’t want to die here tonight. A deep sadness went through me as I tried to remember the Lord’s Prayer.
I caught Burke’s eyes, filled with sympathy for me. He had both hands raised above the table.
“Now, gentlemen, there’s no need to involve the lady,” Burke said,”Let her go, we’ll walk outside and work this out.”
Dusk was running his fingers over the crow feather around his neck.
“We only got one thing to say to the law,” Wilbur said, cocking his revolver and pointing it at Dusk.
With a strong kick, Dusk flipped the table on its side. The air was filled with beer glasses, coins, and dollar bills. I saw Dusk and Burke vanish beneath the table.
At that point everything got very slow. I felt a sharp pain in my back and felt a tightness move forward through me. I saw something small burst out of the front of my dress and it was followed by a whole lot of blood. My blood.
From behind the table I saw two huge wolves emerge. I wondered how Dusk and Burke had kept them hidden the whole time. The massive furry blurs struck Cletus to my left and Wilbur to my right.
I fell down, my hair landing in a puddle of beer. I hoped someone would clean my body before I was buried. Then I blacked out.
I was on my daddy’s knee, bouncing up and down. I looked up into his face and he was smiling down at me. My tiny arms reached up to hold him, to hug him. But they couldn’t reach: they weren’t long enough.
“We have to go!” my daddy said, but it wasn’t his voice. His lips didn’t even move. He just kept smiling at me, bouncing his little girl on his knee.
I screamed at the pain shooting through my waist. Someone was twisting a red hot poker through me. I forced my eyes open and through a hazy field of tears I could make out Burke above me, pressing his hands down on my belly. His face was smeared with blood.
“He’s getting away! We have to go!” Dusk said from the front door.
“She won’t make it,” Burke called back to his friend. “A town like this won’t have a doctor.”
“Shit!” Dusk cursed and ran back to kneel next to me. He pulled out a knife. I could see his face was bloody as well, his crow feather matted with the crimson gore.
I looked to my left and saw Cletus Donahue staring at me. No quip left his lips, no biting insinuation. His eyes didn’t see me or anything else, nor would they ever again. A massive wound opened his neck.
I screamed in pain as Dusk took the knife to my belly.
“There’s still a piece of the bullet in there! Hold her down!” he said.
Burke pinned my arms down and looked down into my eyes. “Annie! Annie, this is going to hurt. A lot. Just try to hold still.”
I heard the words but couldn’t stop bucking my hips to stop Dusk’s digging. Surely I should be dead by now, I pleaded.
“Damnit I can’t do this if she’s moving like that,” Dusk said.
“Annie, look into my eyes,” Burke said quietly.
I did.
They changed from blue to a sunlit bronze, glittering with metallic power. These were not the eyes of a man! I tried to look away, but I couldn’t. A very low, slow growl came out of Burke. Some deep place inside me, from ancient times, froze. And so did my body.
There was nothing else but that small place in my mind and the massive predator hulking over me. I knew he could see me, that he was holding me. But all my salvation was pinned on the idea that if I were still, he would pass me by. I felt Dusk continue his work, but it was like reading about it in a book. It was happening to someone else, to a different body.
“Got it!” Dusk exclaimed after something small and hard landed on the floor next to me.
Burke looked away, a glance at his friend, and I could see the desperation in his eyes, the unasked question. Then the pain hit me all at once, a thunderstorm of agony before I passed out again.
I awoke again, jolted up into the air. I had a vague sense of panic before coming down softly into Burke’s lap as he tried to keep the horse at full gallop. The moon was high overhead and the stars were out. It was a beautiful thing to die underneath, and I was much happier to be out from under the saloon’s roof.
I was weak and felt very hot. I was able to move my arm to wrap around Burke’s waist. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” I kept repeating it over and over.
“What’s that?” he asked. “Just hang in there, Annie. Just a little bit longer.”
I buried my face in his neck and kept murmuring, the sound of my voice in my head giving me comfort. It wouldn’t be long now.
I opened my eyes and saw the stars and full moon overhead. I was incredibly thirsty. So thirsty.
“Forgive me, Annie. I don’t know if it’s what you wanted, but it’s done,” Burke said. He was kneeling next to me, his face sad.
“We didn’t have a choice, Burke,” Dusk said, kneeling on the other side of me.
“She’s the one who didn’t have a choice,” Burke fired back.
I heard some rushing sound and sat up. I looked between the two men. “Am I dead? Is this what Heaven is like? A little darker than I imagined.”
“No Annie, you’re not dead. You came close. Closer than anyone I’ve ever seen,” Dusk said. “Things are about to happen very quickly. We had to ask a spirit of the land to heal you.”
Witchcraft! I pulled my hand up to my throat in shock and felt something there. I looked down and it was Dusk’s crow feather.
“What…why…?” I tried to ask, but my head was swimming.
“We’ll have plenty of time to answer your questions in the morning, but what you need to know now is this. The spirit of the river saved your life, but a price will have to be paid,” Burke said.
I stood and looked behind me. Somehow I knew the river would be there. I pressed my hands against my belly and felt smooth unbroken flesh.
“The spirit is within you now,” Dusk said.
I nodded, knowing this to be true. There was another presence inside me. It was not malicious, nor was it possessive. It felt like a little bird sitting on the shoulder of my soul.
“What does it want?” I asked, moving towards the river. I felt different, given this second chance. My world of worries from the
day before were washed from my spirit. I knew the world was something else now, something greater than a tiny dying town filled with slowly dying people.
“It wants to feel alive,” Burke said quietly.
My hands went to my shoulders and cast off my dress. I stepped out of my undergarments. Bare in the moonlight, I cast a glance over my shoulder. Both men had their jaws dropped. I winked and smiled as I ran into the river.
I jumped headfirst, feeling the cold water awaken every part of me. The weakness, the despair, the sadness that was in me all washed away. I was a being of the here and now. I wasn’t worried about the future or the past. I gulped the crystal clear water and was refreshed even more.
John (BBW Country Music Bear Shifter Romance) (Bearly Saints Book 4) Page 96
