by Amy Faye
Chris slipped his pistol back home into its holster and shouldered his way through the crowd.
"What happened here?"
Someone Chris didn't immediately recognize turned to regard him. "He's shot," the man said, as if it were some kind of revelation.
A young man lay on the ground, blood coming out of a hole in his belly in kicks and spurts, his eyes glassing over even as he groaned in pain, holding his hand over the wound as if his life depended on it.
If the doctor were a skilled surgeon, maybe it would have, but Chris's expectations were grim. He leaned in and pressed his own hand down on the wound. Mickey groaned in pain and then sucked in a sharp breath as if he would only have one last chance.
"What happened?"
The man blinked hard, like it was a struggle, and kept his eyes shut a second. Then he opened them again.
"I don't rightly–he just asked me for the time, and then he shot."
Chris cursed. "Did you get a look at him?"
"Tall," the guy said. "Wore a hat. Uh. Dark eyes. Dark hair."
He laid his head back on the ground, his eyes looking around wildly as his body finally started to realize that the jig was up and delirium started to take over.
Chris cursed again. "You're going to be fine, Mick. Don't panic. Just give it a minute, the doc will be here any time."
There was no chance. It had been too long already. He might be able to survive the initial shot, if they hurried. If the doc got there in the next few minutes. The odds of infection were nearly a hundred percent, though, and there wasn't much they could do at that point. Cutting out the rot would be like carving the man in half, with a wound this size and all the dirt and grit on the ground.
People started to stand back. Chris didn't bother looking up. Sheriff Roberts stood over him and the bartender kept his weight down on the wound, trying in vain to keep the blood from spilling out around his fingers.
"Help me get him up. He's got to get to a doctor."
The Sheriff crossed to the other side wordlessly and between the two of them, they managed to get Mickey on his feet. Chris tried to take as much of the weight as he could while keeping pressure on the wound, in spite of his doubts, forcing himself to hope.
The doc wasn't far. When the doc and a nurse met them halfway with a thick stack of bandages, Chris allowed himself just a little genuine hope, in spite of the fact that Mick had passed out from the pain and blood loss. The four of them lifted the unconscious man onto a table. With a long look back, Chris left as the doctor started calling out orders and rooting around to clean the wound out.
He settled himself into a seat and leaned his head back. The Sheriff settled into a seat opposite.
"He'll be alright," Roberts offered. Chris let him think so. He couldn't afford to jinx it, not knowing who'd done the job.
"Yeah, the doc's good at his job."
"What do you know about what happened?"
The question was phrased in an idle way, like he was just asking the only person in the room. Sheriff Roberts had a good way of acting, when he wanted to, like he was your bud. But it was no accident that it was Chris who he was asking.
"I don't know anything for sure," Chris answered. It was the truth.
"Now you know I ain't asked you anything about where you been before," Roberts started, leaving the rest to Chris's imagination.
"Sure. And don't think I don't appreciate it."
"But something in my gut says you know something about this."
"You can take my piece, if you like," Chris offered. He left out that he had another in his room, and that he'd be going right for it after his heart started to slow down.
"I didn't say I thought you did it, Broadmoor. I said you know more than you're telling, and I want to hear it."
"I don't know anything, Sheriff. If I did, I'd come right to you."
"Then guess for me."
Chris let his eyes drift shut and took a long, deep breath. He considered the idea for a minute. He could do it, too. Wouldn't even be that hard. All he'd have to do was come out with as much or as little information as he absolutely had to. Roberts was trying his damnedest to be clear–just a hint would be enough.
The problem was, though, that just a hint would be enough to get him into the room. It would be enough to put him into a situation where he'd just get himself shot.
Chris couldn't do that. He wouldn't. "I don't know anything, Sheriff."
All he could hope for was forgiveness after he dealt with it himself.
Thirty-One
Marie watched the events unfolding in front of her with a cold, twisting gut and a feeling that whatever was behind it, Chris was taking it worse than the likely death of someone he probably didn't even know. Marie had never seen the injured man before in her life, not that it meant much of anything. She hadn't seen half the town before.
And yet, there Chris was, at the center of this maelstrom, as people whispered in voices too low for Marie to make out. It was easier to make out the disconcerted looks on their faces, and much easier to figure out what they were staring at. The Sheriff came before too long, in the tow of a young man with a low hat-brim, and a moment later Roberts helped Chris to take the body away.
Something told her that she ought to have helped, but she just… froze. She should have known what to do. She'd done it enough times, back in New Orleans, but… with all that blood… The man was already nearly knocking on heaven's door, and the odds that he could be saved for love or money were so slim.
She tried to move to follow, but her body wouldn't move. All she could do was watch the blood—so much blood—soak into the grass. She felt strangely detached, almost numb, as if she weren't really being affected by any of the things going on around her. As if none of it were real.
She snapped out of it when someone—a big man, the one from the bar who had left them to their privacy only a little while ago—wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her away.
"You oughtn't see this, ma'am," he was saying softly. She heard him in the same way she heard all the voices around. Where had Chris gone? She'd lost him, when he'd moved away. When she hadn't followed him, even though she'd thought that she would, she'd thought that she wanted to.
Marie's mind started to catch up to the situation a minute later, when she had finally gotten far enough away. When she couldn't smell the acrid, unpleasant smell of gunpowder and the hint of coppery sweetness that was blood hanging in the air. She looked around. Recognized her surroundings.
And more than that, she recognized Chris coming out of the doctor's place, his shoulders set low and hard and a mean look on his face. He glared right at her, but he didn't see her. Whatever he was seeing, she knew the expression because she'd seen it before.
The teacher slipped out of the big man's arms. He made a half-hearted attempt to stop her, but then an instant later he saw Chris and decided that he didn't want to be there any more. Marie understood the doubts but didn't have room to indulge them.
She pressed herself against him as he walked. He looked down at her, from wherever his mind was a million miles away. Then he looked back up. "Go on, Marie, I can't talk right now."
She stood and let him pass, but she didn't leave. "When will you be able to talk?"
He looked back at her for a second, and then seemed to decide that it wasn't worth answering after all. Marie followed after, taking long steps and leaping up the stairs two at a time, regardless of what it might have done for her skirt.
"Christopher Broadmoor, you answer me. If you're going off with your pistol, then you at least tell me why. Tell me what I'm supposed to tell Jamie, if he asks for you."
Chris stiffened when she said Jamie's name. His jaw pressed together like a vise, but after a long moment he turned again and stepped through the back door. It was different, this time. She'd been up to this room twice before, and both times it had been an experience, to say the least.
Now, though, it was silent as she stepped through
the door. Must have been that everyone who might have been up here was outside, gossiping. And they'd be gossiping about her all the more, in a little while. This was no place for a lady. Was she even a lady any more? She'd given away whatever little virtue that she might have had in their eyes.
Chris's door was closed when she got to it, a moment after him. She opened it softly. When she'd first run after him, she'd seen it all playing out in her head, all fire and brimstone. Hit him with the full force and fury of God. But now, she just wanted to stop him. Just get him to see reason because if he didn't then it wasn't just her who would be suffering.
"Why does it need to be you? I know you didn't tell the Sheriff about wherever you're heading."
"I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know anything, and I'm not headed anywhere."
He was packing a bag, though, sure as anything. She watched him pull a box of cartridges out from behind the bed and slip it into a sack.
"Don't you lie to me, Chris Broadmoor, not after—"
She didn't finish her sentence, and she knew she didn't need to. He stopped, at least for a moment, and turned to face her.
"You're right," he said finally. "I shouldn't lie to you. I'm going to deal with this once and for all, and I'm doing it because I have to."
"No," she said, insistent. "You don't have to. You can just let someone else handle it, just this once, Chris. You don't have to handle anything at all."
He smiled. "You're a smart woman, Miss Bainbridge," he said softly. "But in this one case, you don't really know what you're talking about at all."
He tested the weight of the bag on his back.
"Tell me what I'm supposed to tell Jamie. Tell me what I'm supposed to do when the Governor's people come and try to take him."
He closed his eyes, and she knew she had him. She might have hurt his feelings, deep down. If he had any feelings to speak of. But she did what she had to do, and just for once, just for now, that was enough.
Thirty-Two
Chris set down on the bed and dropped his bag, suddenly tired as a wave of something that wasn't entirely unlike regret hit him. Marie was right, as much as he didn't want to admit it. He'd already made his decisions, and there wasn't going to be any take-backs, no matter what he might want. No matter who might get hurt, he'd made his bed and now it was time to lie in it.
"You made your point," he said softly. "You don't have to wait."
The sound of her feet not moving was unsurprising. Then they started moving the wrong direction. His bed sagged as she set down in it beside where he lay. He didn't move the arm that covered his face. There wasn't any reason to move it, not now.
"You know, Chris, it's funny."
She let the sentence hang in the air like it was supposed to make sense to him. Finally he decided to indulge her.
"What's funny?"
"I've been here for months, you know?"
"Not long, really. You've sure made a stir, for such a short stay. Took me a while to work my way up to the talk I've got now." His lips curved into a smile against his own will.
"I've been here for months, and I've heard a fair bit of talk about you, Chris Broadmoor."
"Oh, it's all true," he said, letting the laughter touch his voice. "I made a deal with the devil, and so on."
"I've heard you were a killer, hiding out from the law. Heard you were a spy from Washington. Heard all kinds of things."
"All true," he reminded her again.
"And the one thing I haven't heard is someone talking about you going out shooting men. Not since you got here, anyways."
"I'm sorry to have disappointed you."
He rolled over onto his side and let out a long breath, looking at the little room that was most of his life now. The rest of it was sitting at the foot of his little bed. If she decided to stay, he'd never have a reason to leave the place.
"Shush," she said, a little annoyance, mixed with amusement, finding its way into her voice. "I'm making a point."
"Well, you better get to it, then, 'fore I sass you to death, ma'am."
"So why now, all of a sudden? Twice, in the last month, after years of bein' a complete mystery that never tried to shoot nobody."
"Nobody ever made a move, 'fore this."
"I don't see anyone trying to do anything now. You're not reacting, Chris, you're going looking for something, and I want to know why. Now, you're going to tell me, or I'm going to rip it out of you."
He leaned up on his elbow. "I believe you would, too."
"Then get talking, mister." She couldn't quite keep the illusion that she was angry with him, but she was doing her best either way.
He laid back. "What if I just promise not to do it again?"
Marie shook her head. "I don't believe you. Tell me what's got you so riled up."
"I'm not riled up."
Chris couldn't help but smile at the way he'd managed to rile her up. "You know full well what I mean."
"I do," he admitted. "You want to hear the story? It's not short,"
"I didn't expect it was. We've got time."
"You sure? If you're going to be staying in my room an extended period, I've got something else—"
She swatted his leg. "Get to talking."
"I don't know how much is obvious, so I'll start at the beginning."
"Alright."
"I come from a hundred miles or so from here. Dad was a dirt farmer, had a few cows that made what money we had. I's the third son, so they call on a favor. Ma died when I was seven. Consumption, they said. Got me a good apprenticeship when I was ten years old with the carpenter."
"Alright."
"I spent a few years doing that. Learned most of what I ought to know. So my mother was dead, and Dad, he never got remarried. So when he got caught out by sickness, I mean… died in the night. I suppose that's how you want to go, if you gotta. By then I wasn't the youngest, no more. They sent us off. I was only a couple years out of being a man, 'course, so it wasn’t all that bad. A couple unpleasant years."
"Okay. I'm not seeing—"
"I'm coming to that. Be patient, now. I don't like talking about this stuff, so I ain't got a quick way to get 'round to it."
She closed her mouth and waited patiently for him to continue.
"I get out of the home, and there's my older brother, waiting for me. He tells me all sorts of stuff, about how we got to get things settled for the family when they get out of the home."
He leaned his head back. It was tempting to make things sound like he didn't have any fault at all. If he tried to squint real hard at the situation, he could see it that way. But that wasn't quite true, was it?
"I ought to have gotten work back home, with that carpenter. Would have been a good life, and I wouldn't have had no trouble. Could have supported the boys until they were on their own feet, too. But Jack, he sounded like he knew what he was talking about."
"So what did you do, then?"
He let out a long breath. "We figured quick money was best. Get a good amount of money settled up before the other boys could join us, right? That way, no problems."
The bartender gave Marie a significant look, one that he could see wasn’t entirely lost on her. "Quick money, we figured. Not quick-and-legal money, if you catch my meaning."
She caught it well enough.
"So, then—"
"No, we didn't kill nobody. Not to my knowledge. But we left some people in some pretty tight spots, and I ain't proud of it."
She blinked but held her face steady. "And then?"
"The boys got out, and we had money, sure enough, but… don't you know how it is, it ain't never enough, so we kept on that way. Things didn't get better, neither. They got worse. Eventually, I ate a shot in my leg. Not too bad, all told, but it put me down in the middle of a job, and they had to move along in a hurry. Nobody really stopped to check on me, 's I wasn't moving a whole lot and they needed to get gone."
She stayed silent. Maybe the questions in her h
ead were too much, or maybe she couldn't find words for them, but they were painted on her face.
"So then, ah—" Chris took a breath and tried to steady himself, but it was too much to hope for. "They gave me a place to stay. Patched me up. Introduced me to their boy, and maybe the most important of all, they didn't tell nobody about the circumstances of our meeting, and I suppose for all that, I owe them about everything I got, don't I? They're—ah, they're dead, though, now, so. I can't rightly pay 'em back."
He laid his head back and stared at his ceiling, his breaths coming unsteadily. Then Marie laid her head down on his chest, not saying a thing, and wrapped her arm around him, and he closed his eyes to hold back the wall of emotion that was threatening to overwhelm him.
Thirty-Three
There was no violence in it this time, when her lips found his. No desperation. Marie could feel something else there to replace it, though. A softer sort of need. His arms wrapped around her slowly, clinging to her and holding her in a grip that was comforting in its tightness.
His beard scratched against her skin, threatening to tickle at any moment, but she held off, because she knew that he needed something that she could offer him. Some sort of comfort. After the excitement of the day, Marie thought, she could use the comfort as well.
Her arms wrapped around him as best as they could, with their weight pressing down into the bed, and pulled him in tighter. He seemed to enjoy the closeness as much as she did. The kiss deepened, their desire tightening them together as much as their arms and the weight of their bodies.
She pushed herself up, off of him, and settled her weight back on her hips. They pushed down on the part of him that made him a man, and he pushed back up against her, his body letting her know exactly how he felt about her.
Marie could feel his eyes on her all the time as she reached down to fiddle with the buttons on her dress, undoing them one by one. The first was easy, but as her fingers fought for grip on the little bead of a button with the second, finally getting it to slip out, she realized that she'd been overconfident.
