by Lynda J. Cox
He turned down the collar of his heavy coat and headed for a vacant table in the back corner of the room. As he walked past the bar, a huge man turned.
“Colt Evans, is that you?”
Colt spun, his hand dropping instinctively for the gun strapped to his thigh.
The other man threw his hands up. “Whoa, son. Take it easy. It’s only me, Bear.”
Colt straightened and grinned. “Bear. I’ll be damned. What are you doing here?”
Bear grabbed Colt and hugged him so hard his spine crackled. “I could ask you the same thing, boy.”
“Let me go, Bear. My ribs can’t take it.” Colt stepped back and studied the man’s face. Bear wore a thicker beard than Colt remembered, and there was so much gray mixed into it he had a grizzled appearance. His shaggy eyebrows were nearly all steely gray. “What are you doing in Rock Springs?”
“Same as you, I’ll bet, Colt. Holing up for the winter.” Bear gestured to the bartender. “Gimme a bottle of whiskey and two glasses. And don’t bring that trash you cut. Bring a bottle of the good stuff.”
A moment later, the bartender handed Bear a bottle and two relatively clean glasses. Bear gestured to the table in the corner of the room. “Your favorite table waits, Mr. Evans. I’ll even let you have the back corner seat.”
Colt chuckled. “As if I could argue with you if you really wanted it.”
Bear sobered, setting the whiskey bottle onto the table. “You worried me half to death when you rode out of Red Deer. Where’d you go?”
Colt eased into the chair in the corner, unbuttoning his coat. He picked up the deck of cards on the table and shuffled them. “Found myself outside of a little town called Federal, over near Cheyenne.”
The whiskey gurgled as Bear poured it into the two glasses. He shoved one across the table to Colt. Colt set the cards down and picked up the glass. He swirled the amber liquid, and then set it on the table without drinking.
Bear raised a brow, but didn’t say anything. Instead, he picked up the cards and began dealing them face up in two separate piles. “Scared the daylights out of me when you left,” he repeated, “especially when me and Hank saw the hand you’d been holding just before Mitch Matthews sat down.”
Colt glanced at the cards fanning onto the table. Aces and eights…a shiver that had nothing to do with the bitter cold crept up his spine. “Any reason you’ve cut them out again?”
Startled, Bear looked across the table at him. “Didn’t know I was doing it. Sorry, Colt. Guess I’m more superstitious than I thought. I still get a chill when I see that hand.”
Colt decided to change the subject. “What have you been up to since I rode out of Red Deer?”
“Turned in my badge. Decided I didn’t like being a lawman anymore. Played a few hands over in Deadwood, and then wandered down to Denver for a few weeks. Thought I’d head on out to sunny California and see if I can’t finally get these old bones of mine warm.” Bear collected the cards and shuffled them. “Too many squatters out on the range now. Times are a-changing, Colt. The wide open range I grew up with is going to be a thing of the past pretty soon. Maybe I can even find some pretty blue-eyed lady to settle down with out in California.”
Colt leaned back in the chair and rested his head against the wall. “Good luck, Bear.” He shut his eyes and saw Amelia’s face bathed in silver moonlight as she had been that night on the glider swing, heard Saul’s laugh, and felt Jenny’s slight weight as he carried her from the top of the granite monolith during the thunderstorm.
“Who was she, Colt?”
“What?” He sat up, opening his eyes.
“Who was she?”
“I don’t know what you’re—”
“You can’t lie to me, boy. Not as long as I’ve been looking out for you. You’ve been dogging my heels, just like a pup, since you was tossed out by your step-daddy so I kinda figure I know you a little better than that.” Bear’s grin stretched his seamed, weathered face. “Who was she?”
“What makes you think I was thinking about a woman?” Colt picked up the glass of whiskey and swirled the liquid again. “Maybe I was thinking about heading back across the street and hitting the hay for the night.”
“And maybe you’re handing out a lot of balderdash at the moment too.” Bear’s grin widened. “She must have been something special if she got under your hide.”
Colt lifted the glass to his mouth and swallowed the entire contents. He seized the bottle and poured himself another one. The whiskey burned all the way into his gut. He knew he would regret it, but he quickly swallowed the second glass too.
Bear leaned his elbows onto the table. “Have a couple more, boy. You always got real talkative when you’d had too much to drink.”
“Go to hell,” Colt said.
“Then again, maybe I’ll just catch the train tomorrow and head on into Cheyenne. Can’t be that many towns around Cheyenne. I think I can find one named Federal and look her up for myself.”
Colt dropped his hand to the revolver on his thigh and pulled the hammer back without sliding the gun from the holster. “You stay the hell away from her, you hear me, Bear?”
Bear’s eyes widened and the color leeched from his face at the double click of metal on metal. “You’d pull a gun on me, boy? I ain’t wearing a gun and don’t intend to ever wear one, and you’d pull a gun on me just because I want to know a little more about the lady?”
Colt eased the hammer down. “Let it go, Bear. She’s not in my life and never can be.”
“Was she married?”
“I said, let it go.” Colt sighed. “Damn it, Bear…I’m sorry and yeah, she’s one hell of a special lady. No, she wasn’t married. Probably still isn’t.”
Bear tossed his own drink down and poured another. “Tell me about her.”
Colt shook his head. “What’s the sense?” He surveyed the saloon, thinking it didn’t matter the town, or the name of the establishment, they all were pretty much the same. The sense of loss knifed through him. “What good will that do?”
“Humor me. I’d like to know what kind of a lady got under your hide. I would have bet that it would never happen to you. You got really good at spending the night with a saloon whore and walking away the next morning without so much as a backward glance.”
“She isn’t anything like that.”
“I can imagine she isn’t.” Bear shuffled the cards again and dropped them onto the table, flipping the queen of hearts up. “Imagine she was a real lady.”
Colt stared at the severe countenance of the queen of hearts. “The queen of hearts, she’s your best bet…isn’t that what you used to tell me?” He shook his head, and pushed back a shock of hair that fell over his brow. “She didn’t play by the rules, this time, Bear.”
“The lady or the queen of hearts?”
Colt tapped his finger on the card in the middle of the table. “The queen of hearts. The lady nursed me back to health. Every time I close my eyes, I see her face and taste her again. Every damn night, I dream she’s still next to me and I can feel her under my fingertips…or at least, until I wake up.”
Bear leaned back in his chair and smiled.
“I’ve got it bad, Bear, I know I do.” Colt glared at the card. “Every time she walked into the room, I would feel as if I was something more than a jaded, too-old gunfighter. I really thought I could stay there with her. I thought I could forget who and what I am, and when she looked at me, I knew she never saw me as I am. I almost did forget for a little while what I am.”
The amusement left Bear’s face. “What are you, Colt?”
Colt tore his gaze from the queen of hearts. “I’m a shootist, Bear, and we both know the only way I’ll ever be able to hang this damn gun up is when they plant me six feet under.”
“You’re sure about that?”
He nodded. “Yeah, damn sure. Two of the Matthews boys tracked me down to her place. I wasn’t there at the time.”
Bear caught his breath. �
�Shit.”
“I got there before they could really hurt her, and almost got her killed in the cross fire.” He poured another whiskey and downed it.
“Did she throw you out then?”
Colt refilled his empty glass. “No. I walked out before she could dredge up the words to beg me to take her and Saul and Jenny with me.”
“Who are Saul and Jenny?” Bear picked up the whiskey bottle and poured himself another drink. “She a widow woman?”
“No. She’s raising her brother and sister by herself.” The alcohol was beginning to affect him. A lethargic numbness crept into his limbs. “Living on the run, always looking over her shoulder, that ain’t no way to raise a couple of kids.”
“You should know, considering that’s how you finished growing up,” Bear said. “You know what I think you should do? I think you should get damn good and drunk and go spend the night with one of the girls here. Get her out of your system.”
Colt stiffened. To even think of comparing what he had shared with Amy to the cheap and tawdry acts he had once performed with a whore set his skin crawling.
“Maybe, then again…you shouldn’t do that.” Bear shrugged. “It was just a suggestion. You know, like the hair of the dog.”
“Hair of the dog…yeah. I don’t think so, Bear.” Colt slumped in his chair, tugging his hat down lower over his eyes. “Can’t even think about doing that. It’s just her I want.”
“You do have it bad, son. I never thought I would live long enough to see it. Colt Evans undone by a woman.”
Colt could hear the grin in Bear’s voice. “Go to hell,” he said, no malice in his voice. “Just shut up and go to hell.”
****
A knock on the door startled Amelia. She rushed over and flung it open. Disappointment knifed through her. Rachel Taylor stood on the small porch, a heavy cloak wrapped around her. The bitter wind howled over the house and into the doorway, driving tiny pellets of snow in front of it.
“May I come in?” Rachel asked after a long moment.
Amelia stood aside. “I’m sorry. Please, come in, Mrs. Taylor.”
Rachel walked into the warm house. As Amelia shut the door, she pressed her hand into the small of her back. With the new distribution of her weight, her back ached more and more. Dr. Archer had assured her that was normal.
“I came out here to check on you and Saul and Jenny,” Rachel said. “Are you all right?”
Amelia nodded. “You shouldn’t have come out today. Everyone says we’re supposed to have another blizzard today or tonight. It’s been a winter of blizzards this year.”
“I didn’t come out to discuss the weather with you.”
“To answer your question, we’re fine. The money Colt left for us has helped.”
Rachel pulled off her black woolen cloak and draped it over a chair back. “That isn’t what I meant, Amy, and I think you know it.”
Amelia crossed to the stove, ignoring Rachel’s unspoken question. “I don’t have any coffee to offer you, but I do have some tea left. Would you care for a cup of tea, Mrs. Taylor? I also baked some cookies.”
No coffee? How about some whiskey, then? Amelia closed her eyes, trying to silence the whispered memories and banish the recollection of Colt’s roguish grin.
“It’s Rachel, and hot tea would be nice.” Rachel said. “Where are Saul and Jenny?”
“They’re at the Running Diamond with the Archers today. Rebecca came out here to get them this morning.” Amelia broke a small portion of leaves from the tea block and placed it into a silver tea ball. She pumped water into a kettle and set it on the stove before she turned back to Rachel. “I guess if it starts to really snow, they’ll be staying with the Archers for a couple of days.”
Rachel nodded and sat at the table. “Amy, are you all right?”
Again that hidden question, buried in such an innocuous query. Amelia braced her arms on the counter and dropped her head. She was never going to be all right again, but she couldn’t tell Rachel that. “Dr. Archer says everything is going fine.”
“Amy, I could have asked him that myself. That is not what I am asking.”
Amelia straightened. “What do you want me to say? Do you want me to tell you I’ve forgotten all about Colt? Dr. Archer says the way I feel will be healed with time. I’ve heard from other people in town that I have to move on, that I have to be strong for Saul and Jenny and even for this baby I’m carrying. Dr. Archer said that life goes on and that I’ll get through this.”
“Yes, you will.”
The simple words angered Amelia. “How can I go on when I’m still waiting for him to come back?” Her voice cracked. “Do you know, a few days after he left, I gathered up everything of my father’s Colt had worn. They smelled so much like him, and then the truth hit home. He is gone and he won’t be back and I couldn’t even tell him one last time that I love him.” Amelia dashed her hand against her eyes, wiping away tears she refused to shed and added, “I don’t think I will ever stop loving him.”
The kettle whistled, rapidly rising to a shriek. She poured the boiling water into a cup, and then set the tea ball in to brew. “So, tell me, Mrs. Taylor, how should I feel? How do I go on?”
“You go on because there isn’t any other thing to do. If you love him, how much do you also love his child? Dr. Archer is right and so is everyone else who has said you have to go on. Time will heal this, and for Saul, Jenny, and that baby’s sake, you have to be strong.”
Amelia sucked her breath in. “Do you know how people look at me now? So many of those women in town actually pull away from me, as if carrying a child is contagious, or as if I’m filthy and beneath their contempt. I’ve heard them saying my parents would be rolling in their graves if they knew what I’ve done and what I’ve become. I’m carrying Colt Evans’ child, and worse than that, the baby will be born out of wedlock.”
To Amelia’s surprise, Rachel grinned and a laugh bubbled from her. “Amy, pregnancy often has nothing to do with marriage. You weren’t old enough when you moved here, and I know you aren’t old enough to know all of the gossip this town has ground out its grist mill, but I know exactly what you’re facing.”
“How could you know?”
“Because I wasn’t married when I was carrying Joshua.” Rachel crossed the room and took the brewing cup of tea from the counter. She spooned sugar in and stirred the steaming liquid.
“But you married his father.”
Rachel smiled and shook her head. “No, I didn’t. Harrison is not Joshua’s father.” She sipped from the cup. “So I know the whispers behind your back that you’re hearing when you come into town, and I know the looks that are sent in your direction. And believe me when I tell you that you will survive this. Everyone who has said life will go on is right.”
“Everyone was right about Colt too?” Amelia couldn’t stop the sarcasm boiling in her voice, but if it had any effect on Rachel, it didn’t show in her expression. “They all said he was trouble for me and Saul and Jenny. No matter that Jenny adored him…”
You had chocolate ice cream, didn’t you, Miss Jenny?
Memory flickered, and she saw that soft, gentle smile Colt had reserved for Jenny.
You don’t talk like that to any lady, but especially not to your own sister.
“…and Saul is trying to be the man he thinks Colt would have wanted him to be…”
Damn the woman. Until Rachel arrived, Amelia had been able to keep most of the memories at bay, except for late at night, when she would sob into her pillow, so that Saul and Jenny wouldn’t hear her heartache.
“…and I will always love him. Your husband wasn’t right about him. Marshal Taylor was dead wrong about him. Those gossiping old hens in town weren’t right about him, but they wanted to believe what those horrid books said about him and not what I know of him. They wanted to believe his past would show up again, and we’d be hurt or killed.”
Rachel lifted her brows. “His past did show up, Amy.”
“Other than being frightened, I wasn’t seriously hurt. Jenny is talking again because Colt was here. Saul is always asking if the things he does would make Colt proud. So tell me again how right everyone was about Colt.”
Rachel sipped her tea before she asked, “Are you through with your tirade, Amy?”
“No, I’m not, but I was also raised better than I want to be at the moment. This town is the reason Colt left, not his past. No one in this damnable little, two-horse town, no one, would believe that Colt Evans could be a decent man. Everyone wanted to believe he was a ruthless, cold-blooded killer.”
“It was his past, not what anyone believed or didn’t believe he was capable of, that made Colt decide to leave.”
I can’t turn you down because I’m not that noble or that strong. Her eyes slid shut again, but this time she didn’t try to banish the memory. She let it wash over her, the moonlight playing over Colt’s face, the smell of him, the warmth of him, the feel of him, the amazing contradiction of tenderness and strength in his caresses and embrace.
“He is a decent man, but practically everyone in this town refused to believe that.” Amelia rounded on Rachel. “If they had given him a chance, maybe his past wouldn’t have mattered so much. But because no one would give him a second chance, his past mattered more than it should.”
“Are you through now?” Rachel set her tea cup on the table, her steady gaze never leaving Amelia’s face.
Anger shot through Amelia. “Do not talk to me as if I am a spoiled child having a tantrum, Mrs. Taylor.”
“Rachel,” she said. “Harrison said that more than once you’ve pointed out the day your parents died, you were forced to grow up immediately.”
“I did,” Amelia said through clenched teeth.
“Then grow up, Amy.”
Amelia recoiled. “How dare you?”
“Very easily, as a matter of fact. No one is denying that your burden at this moment is not a light one, and those gossips in town do not make this any easier for you.” Rachel lowered her gaze to the table and slowly twisted the cup around by its handle. “No one is denying that you love Colt. I don’t think anyone who really thinks about it would deny that Colt cared deeply for you and Saul and Jenny. And if that’s true, stop for a moment and consider how he must feel.” Rachel lifted her head, her intense gaze pinning Amelia. “If he cared for you, if he still cares for you, he is just as lonely, frightened, and heartsick as you are. He doesn’t have what you have, though. He’s all alone and you’re not.”
