Prairie Moon

by Maggie Osborne

  The candles were lit on every table, even though only one other table was occupied at this early hour. Mirrors artfully hung on flocked wallpaper reflected the soft glow of candlelight and the gleam of silver, crystal, and elegant bone china.

  “We’ll each have a whisky.” When the maître d’ departed, Cameron looked at Della across the vase of wild asters. “Should I have ordered tea or sherry for you?”

  Once she would have pretended a faint rather than take a sip of whisky in public. But the incident about when to eat had reminded her who she was now. She lifted her head. “I suspect I’ll like the whisky here better than the cheap bottle back home.”

  “Is your room adequate?”

  “It’s wonderful. Large, airy, and tonight I’ll sleep on a cloud. Are you expecting someone?”

  “No.”

  He sat with his back to the wall, giving him a full view of the room and entrance, which seemed to interest him more than anything Della said. His restless gaze scanned the room, rested briefly on Della, then returned to the entry doors and began the circuit again.

  The soldier would always be part of him, she decided. Or perhaps the habit of vigilance had come with a sheriff’s badge or the years of bounty hunting. She admired him for the good he had accomplished, for his courage and dedication. But it was disconcerting to talk to a man who appeared to be only half listening.

  She sipped from the whisky glass and let smooth, liquid fire slip down the back of her throat. Very nice. And much better than anything else she might have ordered if she had wanted to be oh-so-proper. She had never liked sherry.

  A revelation struck her in the midst of a sentence and her eyes widened.

  Her sudden silence brought Cameron’s gaze to her face. “Is something wrong? Della?”

  “You don’t care what I’ve done in the past,” she whispered, staring at him. “And you don’t care what rules I break. You like me anyway.”

  What a thing to say to a man. Her mother must be spinning in her grave.

  Flustered, a blush of embarrassment tinting her cheeks and throat, she waved a hand. “I mean, I think you like me anyway. I didn’t intend to put you in an awkward position, or—”

  His full attention went into the smile he turned on her. “I do like you.”

  “I like you, too.”

  Good Lord. There must be something about expensive whisky that loosened one’s tongue and trampled good sense. Next she’d be handing him her room key and suggesting they return upstairs. A violent wave of heat shot from her collarbone to her forehead. What was she thinking? She must be losing her mind.

  Helplessly caught in the moment, her gaze locked to his and a shiver tingled up her spine. Cool blue eyes, narrowed in speculation, moved slowly to trace the shape of her lips, the angle of her jaw and throat. Swallowing hard, Della tried to look away but couldn’t. Her breath quickened, and her stomach felt tight and hot.

  “There are green flecks in your eyes,” Cameron said, his voice rough.

  “There’s a tiny scar near your upper lip.”

  A commotion erupted at the entrance to the dining room, and Cameron’s gaze swung toward the sound of raised voices. Instantly he jumped to his feet and reached inside his jacket for his pistol.

  “Get away from the table. Now!”

  “What?” Della looked over her shoulder in time to see a wild-eyed man strike the maître d’ with the butt of a long-barreled pistol. The maître d’ crumpled to the floor. Good Lord. She could hardly believe her eyes.

  “Move, Della!”

  In two seconds she was up and pressed against the wall, away from the line of fire. Oddly, time seemed to slow, giving her the leisure to notice details.

  The other couple sat frozen in their chairs, horrified faces shifting from the man in the entry to Cameron.

  The man appeared to be drunk, slurring words and stumbling a little. Della couldn’t see him well in the candlelight, but she guessed him to be in his late twenties or early thirties. Aside from his wild expression, half frightened, half belligerent, he didn’t look like the sort of man who would rush into a dining room waving a gun. Of course, she didn’t know what such a man ought to look like.

  “Are you James Cameron?” he shouted.

  “I am.” Cameron stood steady and relaxed, the pistol in his hand at his side.

  The man waved the long-barreled gun. “I’m Harvey T. Morton. It’s the last name you need to know.” He lowered the long-barrel to his side. “Draw, Cameron.”

  “Go on home, Harvey Morton.”

  “On the count of three. One . . .”

  “You’ve proved yourself. You’re willing. Let that be the end of it.”

  “Two . . .”

  “Damn it.”

  Della saw Harvey Morton say “three,” but she didn’t hear the word. Harvey’s arm swung up and he fired. The mirror over Cameron’s left shoulder exploded in a shower of glittering shards. A wall sconce not far from Della shattered and fell.

  After what seemed a lifetime, Cameron raised his arm and fired. Surprised, Harvey T. Morton stared down at his chest before he fell to the floor hard enough that Della felt the impact beneath her evening slippers. Harvey Morton said something, maybe he swore, then he rolled onto his back.

  Della’s eyes were so wide they ached. Still pressed to the wall, she stared at Cameron. Not a hair was out of place. He didn’t appear agitated, didn’t seem upset or moved. After a moment he stepped forward, pistol in hand, and walked to the entrance.

  A lot was going on there. One of the waiters was helping the maître d’ to his feet. The desk clerk and several other people had crowded around the doorway. A man wearing a badge arrived, scanned the scene and Harvey Morton’s body, then looked up at Cameron and swore. Della couldn’t see everything, but it looked as if Cameron prodded Morton with his boot, then pushed his gun back inside his jacket.

  “I mighta known this would happen.” Sheriff Bannon stepped up to Cameron. “Killing follows men like you. Gunslingers.” With a look of disgust, he spat on the floor.

  “Hold on.” The man who’d been sitting at the other table came forward. “That man,” he pointed to Morton, “came in here while Mr. Cameron was doing nothing more provoking than having supper with his wife. He challenged Mr. Cameron to draw even through Mr. Cameron tried to talk him out of it. And then,” he stared at Cameron, “Mr. Cameron let Morton draw first and fire a couple of shots before he fired himself. I’ll swear to that in court if need be.”

  “I saw it, too,” the waiter confirmed. “It was self-defense.”

  The sheriff nodded slowly, rocking back on his heels to look up at Cameron. “I want you out of here tonight.”

  “That isn’t convenient.” Cameron’s voice was level and expressionless, but there must have been something in his eyes, because the sheriff studied him a moment, then colored slightly.

  “You can stay tonight, I’ll bend that much. But you leave first thing in the morning.”

  “That’s acceptable.” Cameron turned to the waiter. “You may serve our entrées now.”

  “You have an appetite after everything that’s happened?” Della said when he returned to the table. She couldn’t believe it. “Cameron—you just killed a man.”

  He brushed slivers of broken mirror off their seats. “This must be your napkin.” Holding out her chair, he waited for her to be seated.

  Della sat down hard. She’d never been in a situation like this. She had no idea how a man was supposed to behave after he killed another man. Or how a witness should respond. She replaced her napkin across her lap with shaking fingers. “Do you regret killing that man?”

  His eyes were cold, distant. “Perhaps you didn’t notice the part where Harvey T. Morton fired at me. Twice.”

  Della glanced at the broken pieces of mirror sparkling on their table linen. “That’s another thing. Why in God’s name did you just stand there and let him shoot at you?” Remembering how she had almost collapsed in fear made her mouth go dry
and her stomach cramp.

  “The pistol Morton was carrying is notorious for not firing accurately; plus he’d been drinking. The odds were in my favor that any shots would go wild.” He tossed back the rest of his whisky. “This kind of situation is unfortunate enough. It’s easier on the sheriff, the witnesses, and the man’s family if there is no question as to what happened. From my point of view, I don’t want anyone thinking this was murder. I want everyone clear that it was self-defense. So I’m never going to fire first.”

  “But he could have gotten lucky and shot you.”

  “Yes.”

  Della considered the entrée the waiter placed before her. Bundled veal, rice and tomatoes, corn and beans, served with a basket of warm tortillas. She couldn’t eat a bite. Instead, she asked the waiter to bring her coffee, which she drank while Cameron calmly ate his supper.

  Sadly it seemed a lifetime ago since they had gazed into each other’s eyes and whispered about green flecks and small scars. Were those the same two people who now sat in silence?

  Near the end of the meal, Cameron looked across the candles and their eyes held.

  He could have been killed. I cannot love this man. I cannot walk behind another hearse.

  Even if I hadn’t killed Clarence Ward, I couldn’t give her the peace of mind she needs. This was never meant to be.

  Chapter 12

  Since it felt as if they needed a little distance, Cameron didn’t ride beside Della as he’d taken to doing before their stay in Rocas. He rode out ahead for a few days, leading Rebecca, studying the mountains that rose against the sky as they entered the foothills.

  Toward midday two men passed about a mile south, riding east. Later in the afternoon he exchanged nods with a half dozen cowhands heading for Fort Worth. He and Della didn’t exchange more than a dozen words until they stopped for the night. Working smoothly together, they set up camp, then sat down to wait while a rabbit roasted over the fire pit.

  “I always thought it would be empty and solitary out here,” Della remarked, taking off her hat. She removed a few hairpins and let her braid fall down her back. “It surprises me how many people we’ve seen since this trip started.” She started to rise. “I think the coffee’s done.”

  “Stay put. This is a whisky-drinking occasion. I’ll get the bottle and a couple of cups.” Her eyebrows arched and she looked up with a question when he handed her a cup of whisky. “You’ve hardly said a word for three days. Let’s talk about what happened in Rocas, then put it away.”

  “You’re right. This is a whisky-drinking occasion.”

  “You asked if I regretted killing Morton and I didn’t answer. Of course I regret it.” He wished he could leave it at that, but Della had to talk things around from every angle. Maybe all women did. “I would have liked to enjoy our evening without some son of a bitch forcing a confrontation. What makes it worse is Harvey T. Morton didn’t have to die that night. If he’d made a different choice, he’d be alive. I regret that he chose to fire at me. I regret that I had to kill him.” He took a long swallow of whisky. “But Morton had a choice.”

  “And you didn’t.” Lowering her head, she inspected the whisky in her cup. “I’ve thought about it. There’s nothing else you could have done. I guess you couldn’t just wound him . . .”

  “The bastard journalist who wrote about me—he said one true thing. He said, when a man is famous enough to become a target, his safety lies with every assailant knowing any challenge will result in life or death. There’s no other outcome. Someone will die. It has to be that way.”

  “I don’t know how you live like this.” She lifted her chin, bewilderment darkening her hazel eyes. “You’re either a hero or a target. Every man you meet wants to shake your hand or put a bullet in your heart. There doesn’t seem to be anything in between.”

  She was in between. That’s part of what made her special. She seemed to admire him, possibly respect him, but he didn’t sense that she viewed him as heroic or larger than life. She didn’t see him as a legend, or as unapproachable; she wasn’t tongue-tied or awkward in his presence.

  “Do you know anything about Harvey T. Morton?” she asked.

  “I don’t want to know who these men are.”

  “The woman who brought my breakfast told me that Morton made saddles. Nobody knew he even owned a gun.”

  She was going to tell him whether he wanted to hear or not. Cameron finished his whisky and refilled his cup.

  “He and some friends started drinking around midday. As a joke, the friends dared him to challenge you to a shooting contest.”

  “A contest? Like setting up a row of bottles and we try to outshoot each other? Me . . . and a saddle maker?” He pulled a hand through his hair. “Christ.”

  “The friends figured you’d refuse and everyone would have a good laugh and buy Harvey Morton more drinks because he was brave enough to challenge you to the contest.” She lifted a hand to her eyes. “But something went terribly wrong. You could have been killed because of a dare and a joke.”

  The odds were slim, but it could have happened. Knowing she understood released some of the tension in his shoulders.

  “Instead, a joke and a dare killed Harvey Morton.” She shook her head. “That’s sad, and tragic.”

  He cradled his hands around the whisky cup. “It’s never easy to kill a man, even when he’s trying to kill you. If the killing is a mistake or for a stupid reason, then it’s always sad and tragic.”

  “I’ve never seen anyone killed before, not even during the war.” Rising, she went to the fire and turned the rabbit on the spit. “I don’t know if I said the wrong things, or if I offended you. But it just didn’t seem right to sit down and eat supper like nothing had happened.”

  “You’ve known from the beginning who I am and what I do.”

  “It’s one thing to hear about a legendary gunfight, and another to see a killing before my eyes. Hearing and seeing are different things.”

  She’d been lovely the evening he took her to dinner in Rocas, the kind of woman a man was proud to display on his arm. But she was most beautiful, in his eyes, in everyday dress, doing everyday things. Watching her at the fire made his chest tighten and hardened the muscles in his thighs.

  She knelt beside the rocks, adjusting the spit. Her face was rosy in the firelight, her long braid lay over her shoulder. In her photograph, he’d noticed that her hands were slender and now he knew that she kept her nails short.

  He tried not to think about her body, but of course he’d noticed. In her wedding photograph she’d been tightly corseted, and she’d worn a corset that evening at the Grande Hotel. At her farm and here on the trail, she let herself be natural. In Cameron’s opinion, she didn’t need a corset. Her breasts were full against the white shirtwaists she wore. Her waist was small, flowing into a flare of hips made to receive a man.

  Biting down on his back teeth, Cameron turned away from the fire and faced the moonlit shadows dappling the hillside. The day after tomorrow they’d be out of the foothills and into the mountains. The nights would turn cold.

  “I’m not criticizing,” Della said from behind him. “Society needs lawmen who are willing to pull the trigger. I’m just saying that witnessing it up close is new to me, and a little shocking, I guess.”

  He hadn’t taken her feelings into account, hadn’t thought that it might be the first time she’d seen a man killed. It was hard to imagine there was anyone in the West who hadn’t witnessed a killing. That’s how cynical he’d become, living in rough border towns and hunting outlaws. Della reminded him there was another world that he didn’t often visit, where shoot-outs and killings were not everyday occurrences.

  “Cameron?” When he turned, she was standing beside the fire, holding their supper plates. The sadness that he hadn’t seen since the night it rained had returned to her eyes. “I couldn’t live like you do. Not knowing if this is your last day. Wondering if the next man who comes in the door will shoot you.” She dre
w a breath and met his eyes. “I couldn’t live like that.”

  The way she spoke, slow and with reluctance, told him that she was saying more. She was saying, don’t come closer. He nodded. It was best this way. He ought to feel relieved.

  But the long, hot hours riding in the sun gave a man time to ponder. And sometimes an idea shimmered in front of him, as possible and real as a heat mirage, and just as deceptive and insubstantial.

  Lately he’d had the idea that maybe he didn’t have to tell Della that he was the man who killed Clarence. There were several arguments in favor of saying nothing. First, telling her wouldn’t change anything. Clarence would still be dead. His last letter still wouldn’t say what Della needed to hear. If Cameron kept his silence, then he and Della could remain friends. He could imagine himself stopping in to visit over the years, and her being glad to see him. He could even imagine more than that. He could imagine that maybe . . .

  This was the place where his argument fell apart and an imperative for truth kicked in. Telling her the whole truth about her husband’s death was the right thing to do. Because she deserved the truth was why he’d searched for her. If he didn’t tell her the whole truth, his secret would wedge between them like a wall of dishonor.

  But that night in Rocas . . . she had leaned toward him in the candlelight with her lips parted and her eyes soft and almost shy, and he’d realized that she was drawn to him.

  How many times over the years had he gazed at her photograph and imagined her looking at him as she had that night? In that moment he had glimpsed a different world and a different life, and for a brief while that life had seemed solid and possible.

  Now he understood that even if he never told her about Clarence, she couldn’t accept his life. He understood. He’d never expected that any woman could. But for one fleeting moment at a candlelit table in Rocas, he’d let himself hope that he was wrong.

  When he turned, she’d dished up the rabbit and rice and was holding his plate, biting her lip as if she had more to say but wouldn’t let herself say it.

  He took his plate and sat on the ground. “A man can’t retire from being a legend.” He kept his voice flat, tried not to sound bitter. This was the life he’d chosen and created. He’d found it satisfactory until Della stepped out of the photograph and into his life.