by Lynda J. Cox
“You son of a bitch.” Taylor’s hand dropped to his revolver, faster than Colt would have imagined the lawman could move. For one moment, he wondered just how close Taylor skirted the edge between lawman and lawbreaker.
“Don’t slur my mother.” Colt lifted his own hand from his side. “I’m unarmed. Most places, that’d be considered murder.”
“Not shooting something like you it wouldn’t be.” Taylor’s hand remained on the grip of his revolver. “It would come along the lines of doing my civic duty.”
Colt refused to snap up the marshal’s bait. “I also turned down her offer, tempting as it was.”
Something shifted in Taylor’s expression. “I find that hard to believe.”
“Believe it or not, it’s the truth. I didn’t take her up on that offer.” Colt stared down at the cabin again. The breeze switched, carrying the scent of pine smoke from the chimney of the cabin. “She does deserve more than what she offered me.”
“My God, you have feelings for her.” Taylor swept his hat off his head. “I’ll be damned. I would have thought the only person you could ever care about was yourself.”
“Why does it come as such a surprise to you that I could care for someone like Amy? Regardless of what I am, I still—” He broke off, shaking his head. “Never mind, Marshal. I don’t think someone like you would understand it. Everything is black and white to you, isn’t it? It’s cut and dried, and there’s no room for negotiation.”
“What is there to negotiate? You’re a shootist, a killer. She’s an impressionable, vulnerable young woman who thinks she’s in love with you. What kind of a future could you ever give to her? What kind of a life would she ever have with you?” Taylor tossed the lead rein over the saddle horn and mounted. “Evans, I’ll say it again. Leave. Let her have a long, happy life with someone who has a future. If you care at all for her, care for her enough to walk away. She deserves better. You said it yourself.”
****
Amelia knew what a mouse pinned down by five hawks must feel like. The panic, the fear, even the inability to move. As the members of the Federal City Ladies of the Society for the Preservation of Christian Morals encircled her, Helen Morris placed a hand on Amelia’s shoulder. “We are just very worried about you, dear.”
Amelia’s stomach ached with twisting knots. She gestured in the direction of the stove. “Ladies, I can make a pot of coffee, and I have some chocolate cake.”
Before any of the women could respond, the back door flew open.
“Amy, it looks like a damned convention out in the yard. Where did all those buggies—”
Colt halted, and nodded at the five women standing around the table. “Ladies,” he said. Dressed all in black again, with the contrast of the sling against the dark fabric and a day’s worth of beard stubble covering his cheeks and chin, he appeared every inch the dangerous gunfighter the whole town had decided he was—even without his revolver strapped to his thigh.
Mrs. Porter drew herself up, looked Colt up and down, and then stepped forward. “Mr. Evans, I am Mrs. Porter. This is Mrs. Hamilton.”
Thin, eagle-beaked Mrs. Hamilton peered at Amelia first and then Colt over the edge of her wire-rimmed glasses.
“This is Mrs. Ames.”
Portly, short and wheezing, Mrs. Ames snuffed and turned her nose up with Colt’s cool smile.
“And this is Mrs. Black and Mrs. Morris.”
Colt slipped his hand into the back pocket of his denims. “Donnie Morris’s mother?”
“Yes, I’m Donnie’s mother. I was just telling Amelia how disappointed Donnie is with her.”
Amelia had never seen so much devilment fill a grown man’s expression. Colt’s smile wouldn’t have melted butter. “I’ll bet he’s disappointed with her, especially after he left here wearing her handprint on his face. It did clash with that dandified striped suit of his. If I were you, I’d go home and wash his mouth out with soap for whatever he said to Amy.”
“Colt!” Amelia sank into a chair at the table and wondered if she could crawl under it and squeeze through one of the razor-thin cracks of the floor.
Mrs. Morris huffed. “Well, I never—”
“That’s Donnie’s whole problem. You obviously never did teach him how to talk properly to a lady. Hopefully, that highfalutin school for teachers back in Indiana will. Somebody’s got to do it.”
“Mr. Evans!” Mrs. Porter slapped a small book onto the table. “We are very concerned for Amelia and her well-being and safety. We have come out here to warn Amy of the consequences of living in sin with a man, and especially with a man of your ill repute.”
Colt lifted his brow and chuckled. “Last I heard living in sin required certain acts to be performed.” He sent a sidelong glance at Amy, dark amusement glittering in his eyes. “But then, aside from Mrs. Morris, I don’t know if any of you ladies would know what those acts might be. Do I need to tell you what some of them are?”
Every one of the elderly women in the cabin flushed a different shade of red. Mrs. Hamilton’s mouth formed a shocked circle and her eyes widened behind her glasses. Amelia sank deeper into the chair, her face on fire. Breathing was impossible. She risked a glance at the cover of the small, paper-bound book. The title leaped up at her: The Devil’s Own Desperado: or The Life and Times of the Notorious Shootist and Killer known as Colt Evans. A True Tale of Lawlessness and Degenerate Behavior.
Mrs. Porter pointed a finger at the dime novel on the table. “Are the allegations made in this…this…this book true?”
Colt inclined his head to the book in question. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never read the thing.” He crossed the room to the coffee pot, lifted it, but set it down without pouring out a cup. He leaned against the counter, and crossed one ankle over the other.
“This says you carry a gun with pearl grips,” said Mrs. Porter, sounding more curious than outraged. “And that the barrel is notched for every man you’ve killed.”
Colt laughed. “Pearl grips? No, ma’am, just plain old walnut for the grip. I can go get my weapon if you’d care to verify that fact. And why would I notch the barrel of a perfectly good revolver? Those notches would be a place for rust to start and I don’t want to have to get a new gun. I rather like the one I have. Besides which, any shootist worth his salt knows you notch the grip, not the barrel.”
“The book intimates that you have had carnal knowledge of every dance-hall girl from Denver to Austin.” Mrs. Morris sounded as if she were choking. “And that you gamble.”
“Yes, I do gamble. My game’s poker. I think most of the others are stacked pretty well to the house, but I win more than I lose when I play poker. Unless someone is dealing off the bottom of the deck, but that’s another story. Now as for the other”—Colt lifted his uninjured shoulder—“a man ain’t got that much time to have carnal knowledge of every dance-hall girl from Denver to Austin. Hell, there’s got to be a thousand of them.” His voice grew ragged with laughter. “But there was one dance-hall girl down in Waco…when she danced…”
Amelia lifted her head as Colt trailed off, his gaze fixed on something far away. She glared at him as jealousy twisted her stomach.
“Mr. Evans, this is no laughing matter.” Mrs. Black’s voice grated in Amelia’s ears. “This is a very serious matter. Amy is…was…a proper, well-mannered, Christian young woman. For you to be here, living under her roof, and the two of you living in a state of sin…”
Colt pushed away from the counter. “Ma’am, my mother tried to raise me to respect my elders, but if any of you say anything more about Amy’s morals or virtue, I will say something that I wouldn’t want my mother to hear.” Colt advanced a step on the tiny woman. “Amy is not living in sin. As I said before, living in sin requires that certain acts be performed. She still is a Christian young woman. The fact she let you old biddies in here is proof of that. She should have bolted the door and told you to go away.”
All five members of the Federal City Ladies of the Society fo
r the Preservation of Christian Morals gaped as Colt stalked to the door and opened it. “I suggest you all leave now. And try to remember that not everything in print is the gospel truth.”
The ladies filed past Colt, each of them pulling their skirts to themselves, as if afraid of contamination. Mrs. Morris marched out last, and then pivoted, her mouth opening.
“Not one more word, ma’am,” Colt said. “Please leave now.” He closed the door before she could speak.
Amelia dropped her head into her hands again. “Oh dear,” she whispered, remembering Mrs. Porter’s many quivering chins, Mrs. Hamilton’s eyes widening behind her glasses, and Mrs. Morris left speechless. “Oh dear.”
“I guess I didn’t handle that right, did I? It’s just that when I walked in here and saw all those old bats clutching their Bibles to their chests, and you looking as if you’d just been thrown to the wolves, well, hell…it’s probably about time someone told them off.”
Amelia slid her elbows along the table and leaned forward, her head on her hands. Her shoulders shook with silent laughter.
Colt stroked her back. “Amy, I’m sorry. Don’t cry. I’ll go catch them and apologize to them.”
“No.” She sat up and let the laughter have full voice. “Helen Morris was so angry and she couldn’t get a word in edgewise…Oh, Colt, I’ve never seen her at a loss for words.”
A sheepish smile crossed his face. Amelia’s heart twisted. How could she have grown to care for someone as much as she cared for him in so short a time? How had he managed to so fill her heart and her life in a little over a week?
“So, you’re not mad at me?” He seemed for all the world like a chastised boy hoping for a reprieve.
“A little.” Amelia stood, and crossed her arms over her breast. Her heart beat rapidly. “What was her name?”
He wrinkled his forehead. “Whose name?”
“The one you said you knew. The girl in Waco.” Jealousy was a terrible thing, Amelia decided. It made her heart ache.
“The girl in Waco?” Devilment danced in his eyes. “Oh, her. Her name was Consuela. A waist so tiny a man could span it with his hands, long black hair, dark eyes, and when she danced…”
Amelia choked and turned from him. It shouldn’t hurt. It had happened long before she ever met him.
Colt grabbed her arm, and spun her around. The teasing expression was gone. “She took me in for a little while after my stepfather threw me out. She was a dance-hall girl, yes, but I never touched her.”
Amelia studied his face, and then forced the words out. “How many women have you known?”
“As in the biblical sense, ‘known’?”
She nodded.
“That’s a little personal, isn’t it?” He sighed and shook his head. “Not as many as those dime novels have written. I haven’t been a saint, but I’m not putting notches on my gun belt either. Don’t ever believe what’s written about me in those things. If there is anything you want to know, ask me, Amy.”
She glanced at the thin, paper-bound book Mrs. Porter had left on the table. Drawing a deep breath, Amelia asked. “How many men have you killed, Colt?”
He cupped the side of her face and tilted her head up. “Four, and I regret killing three of them.”
Amelia’s heart constricted with the icy fury in his eyes. “Why not the other one? Taking a life is wrong.”
“Not that one.” He dropped his hand. He walked across the room and knelt beside Baby. The puppy thumped her tail on the floor when Colt fondled her ears. “He deserved to die.”
A shiver whispered over her at the tone of his voice. “No one deserves to die, Colt.”
“That one deserved to die.” He rose slowly. “My stepfather, Jackson Hayward, killed my mother. I came home one day and my mother was dead. Maybe it was an accident, I don’t know, but they argued and fought all the time. He never laid a hand on her that I know of, but the screaming and shouting was brutal enough. She had fallen from the second floor landing onto a marble floor. It was my twelfth birthday. He said no one would notice if one more ‘whoring Mexican bitch’ was dead.”
“Colt.” Amelia was certain her heart was shattering into a thousand small pieces. His pain sliced through her, became her own.
“I don’t ever regret killing him. He figured when he threw me out he’d never see me again, and he could lay claim to everything that was my mother’s. He was more than surprised when he saw me in Waco, seven years later.” Colt’s mouth curled in a bitter parody of a smile. “He married her for the money and for a six-thousand-acre ranchero in the Rio Grande bottoms. He was the one who first taught me to fast draw and the one who started telling people how fast I was. Don’t get me wrong, he never once touched me, but that was only because I was beneath his notice.”
Amelia remembered her father telling her that anytime she meant to teach someone else a lesson in meanness, not to be surprised if the pupil learned the lesson too well. “Your mother was Mexican?”
It would explain his complexion and why he appeared to have spent a lot of time in the sun without a stitch of clothing. He wasn’t tanned, it was his natural coloring.
Colt stiffened and his eyes narrowed. “Her great-grandfather was granted a large ranchero by the Mexican government for his services in the Mexican Army. When Texas declared its independence from Mexico, her grandfather sided with the Texans. She was a Texan and an American, who just happened to have Mexican blood.”
“You loved her very much, didn’t you?”
The tension left his shoulders and his expression softened. “Yeah, I loved her very much. And she was a lady, down to her very core.”
Amelia nodded, and then picked up the small, flimsy book. Grabbing a towel, she wrapped it around the hot handle of the bottom door on the stove and opened the door.
Colt held his hand out. “Don’t do that yet. Let me see that thing.”
Puzzled, she closed the stove’s door and handed the book to him.
He opened it and flipped through the pages. His brow rose and he snorted with laughter. “I didn’t kill Lester Biggs. The damn fool got drunk and shot himself in the leg. He died a few days later of blood poisoning. Hell, I wasn’t even in Cheyenne that day.”
Amelia peered at the page, trying to read the print upside down. “How can you be so certain where you were that day?”
“I know. I was in Abilene. I won Angel in a poker game.”
Amelia allowed herself a small smile. Colt had taken to using the name she’d given his horse. It was a small step, to be sure, and a long way to admitting that he could leave his past behind, but it was a step, just the same.
“I sure as hell wasn’t in Cheyenne, and Biggs wasn’t there either when he shot himself and died. He was in Deadwood.” Colt shook his head.
Amelia took the book from his hand. She skimmed the pages, and then asked, “What about Omaha? It says you killed two men in a saloon brawl there.”
“Omaha? I don’t think so. Never been to Omaha, I know that for certain.” Colt crossed the room, kicking the latch on the bottom door of the stove. “Toss that in here, now.”
“Oh my, this is interesting reading.” She pointed to the book. “I didn’t know that about you. I’m willing to bet you didn’t know it either. Did you know, according to this, your uncle taught you to be a gunfighter?” Amelia giggled. “And that being an outlaw runs in your family? Your uncle was a notorious Mexican bandito.”
“Do they just make this up out of whole cloth? Please tell me there is nothing in there about my mother.”
It was always better to tell the truth, or so Amelia had been told. “I saw a mention in it that she was an actress.”
“My mother was a what?” Colt closed his eyes, a pained expression crossing his face. “I’m glad she’s dead and can’t read that about herself. She didn’t think highly of anyone who took to the stage or performed in the traveling troupes. She’d have my hide if she were alive and knew that was being said about her.”
&nbs
p; “So, which notorious Mexican bandito was your uncle?” Amelia teased, hoping to ease the sting.
“You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you?” Colt leaned against the wall, a slow grin tugging the corners of his mouth. “Well, they’ve got that all wrong. My uncle wasn’t a Mexican bandito. He was an Apache war chief.”
“Oh really? Which one?” Her heart began to thunder at the new glint in Colt’s eyes and a delicious heat stole through her.
“Cochise. I’m sure you’ve heard how much the Apaches liked to take beautiful white women as captives.” His brow rose and that grin widened. “If you haven’t heard, I can tell you…you would have been quite a prize for any Apache male. You would have become the favorite, and it would have taken a lot of horses to ransom you.”
“How many?”
Colt’s smile faded and his voice softened and deepened. “If my uncle really were an Apache, and if I were living with them and had taken you captive, I know there aren’t that many horses on the face of God’s green earth to convince me to give you up.”
Amelia dropped her gaze to the flimsy book in her hand. She tossed it into the banked coals of the stove. “That Colt Evans never existed. The only Colt Evans I know, contrary to what that horrid little book said, is the son of a Texas patriot and pioneer.”
“Did you see anything in there about Brimstone Phillips?”
For a second, Amelia’s breath caught in her throat. “Who?” she finally asked, hoping that Colt hadn’t noticed her hesitation.
“Oh, no one…just a shootist that I heard tell of all the way down in Texas.”
****
Saul and Jenny both stood, arms folded, mouths set in grim lines. Amelia glanced at Colt, hoping for some support from that quarter. Once more, he was taking the coward’s way out. He lifted his brows and smiled with a boy’s roguishness.
“It’s already an hour past Jenny’s bedtime,” Amelia protested.
“Dr. Archer said it’s going to be a total eclipse tonight. I want to see it.” Saul nudged Jenny with an elbow. “Don’t you want to see it too, Jenny?”
