Ralph Compton Brother's Keeper

by Ralph Compton

  “You know your sis all right,” Ned said.

  “We left her with another friend,” Thal informed him.

  “My pard,” Crawford said.

  “Another cowpoke?” Myles said.

  “What’s wrong with that?” Thal said. “We’re not infants. He won’t let anyone harm her.” No, the real danger, if you could call it that, was from the two of them becoming better acquainted.

  “I still don’t like it,” Myles said. “You haven’t been in these hills as long as me. They are no place for a gal like her. You and me should go fetch her. I’ll put Ursula up at the hotel so we can keep our own eyes on her.”

  “There’s no need for that.” Now that Thal knew his brother was alive—and had seen how much he’d changed—he didn’t aim to stick around that long.

  “The blazes there isn’t,” Myles declared.

  “Permit me to have a say,” Trevor Galt interceded. “I agree with Shotgun. Deadwood is a nest of pimps, confidence men, and worse. Your sister will be much safer here than there. Especially as she will be under my personal protection. I’ll assign a special deputy to guard her room day and night if that is what it will take to convince you.”

  “You’d do that for me?” Myles said.

  “For any of my deputies,” Galt said.

  Thal hesitated. This was the last thing he wanted. He didn’t trust Trevor Galt any further than he could toss Bull. “I didn’t intend to stay all that long.”

  “Nonsense,” Myles said. “You and her came all this way. We should spend more time together than that.”

  “Certainly,” Galt said. “While you two become reacquainted, I’ll send Bull and a couple of others to fetch your sister.”

  “I’ll need to go along,” Thal said. “She might not come otherwise.”

  To his dismay, Ned said, “Why not let me go? I don’t mind. She knows me, so Jesse Lee and her won’t think it’s a trick of some kind.”

  “Jesse Lee?” Myles said.

  “My pard,” Crawford said.

  Trevor Galt smiled. “Good. Then it’s settled. Your sister can stay in the guest suite at the Manor House. At no charge to any of you, I might add, so don’t worry on that score.”

  “Mr. Galt,” Myles said, “you beat everyone I ever knew, all hollow. My brother and me are grateful.”

  Although he didn’t feel the same, Thal nodded.

  “Why don’t you take your brother and his friends out and treat them to drinks?” Galt said to Myles. “On me.”

  “What was that about a job you had for me?” Myles said.

  “Forget about that. Bull and Mateo will take care of the problem. You need to be with your brother.”

  Galt ushered them to the door, bade them to have a good time, and closed it behind them.

  “Did you hear him?” Myles said. “Drinks, and sis’s room, on him. Isn’t he just about the finest gent on God’s green earth?”

  “He’s somethin’,” Thal said.

  Chapter 25

  They were the greatest, most wonderful, most glorious days of Ursula’s life.

  Now that they had worked things out, all was right with the world.

  She spent every waking moment with Jesse Lee. Always an early riser, she was washed and dressed by breakfast in the boardinghouse, and as soon as she was done eating, she thanked Mrs. Peal and excused herself.

  Jesse Lee would be waiting on the porch, and off they’d go to explore Deadwood. They tried different restaurants. They visited every store. They attended all the theaters. In between, they walked and talked. Ursula had never talked so much. About her life on the farm. About everything that had ever happened to her that might be interesting or make him grin. She opened her heart and poured out its contents.

  For Jesse Lee’s part, he wasn’t quite as forthcoming. Ursula figured that was because he wasn’t naturally gabby. He had a reticence about him, but with a little prying, she got him to talk about things in his own past.

  It was strange. Deadwood thronged with people. Thousands upon thousands. Yet it was as if she and Jesse Lee were the only two there. They hardly noticed anyone else. Even stranger, everyone else hardly noticed them. They’d stroll down a busy street with eyes only for each other, and it was if no one else was there.

  To be sure, Jesse Lee was pointed at now and again. The shooting was to blame. He had acquired a reputation. A small one, but a reputation nonetheless. He paid the fawners no mind.

  Before, she would have been bothered by it, but now she wasn’t. She understood him, understood why he wore his ivory-handled Colt.

  He had said it was part of him, and that made no sense until she realized that it wasn’t like an arm or a leg, it was part of the inner him. Jesse Lee, deep down, was a good man. A man who didn’t do wrong, and who wouldn’t countenance wrong being done to others. He would stand up to the wrongdoers, using his Colt only if he had to. It was his tool for right, as it were.

  And it wasn’t just Jesse Lee. Others lived by the same creed, she came to understand. Wild Bill Hickok, for instance. It was claimed Hickok had killed over forty men, which Ursula suspected was an exaggeration. However many it was, Hickok never shot anyone except those as deserved it. With nearly all those he’d killed, he’d been wearing a badge at the time. Hickok’s fancy Colts were his own tools for right.

  Speaking of Hickok, as they were strolling along Main Street one evening, who should approach from the other way but the famous gunfighter, as folks were taking to calling men like him? As tall as he was, and with those broad shoulders and narrow waist, Hickok would have stood out in any crowd.

  Doubly so with his flowing hair and sombrero, his Prince Albert frock coat, his red sash, and those silver-mounted pistols.

  People parted before him like commoners for a king. They gaped. They whispered.

  James Butler Hickok was more than famous. He was a legend in his own time.

  As the famous man came toward them, Ursula moved to one side as everyone else was doing. Since she and Jesse Lee had taken to going everywhere arm in arm, Jesse Lee moved with her. She smiled, wondering if the Prince of the Pistoleers, as he was called, would remember them.

  Hickok stopped, bestowed a warm smile on them, and doffed his sombrero. “Well, look who it is. Miss Christie, wasn’t it?”

  “Mr. Hickok,” Ursula said, and felt herself blush.

  Hickok’s eyes roved over Jesse Lee. “And you were with her brother, as I recollect. I don’t recall ever being introduced.”

  “This is Jesse Lee Hardesty,” Ursula said. “He and I have been taking in the sights.”

  “And more, I hear,” Hickok said, and addressed Jesse Lee. “Were you the one involved in an affray the other night with Jack Wilson?”

  “Was that his whole name?” Jesse Lee said.

  “Wilson is a bad one,” Hickok said. “He and his partner, Kincaid, go about like they are cocks of the walk. You shot him in the shoulder, I hear.”

  Jesse Lee nodded.

  “What were you thinking?”

  Jesse Lee glanced at Ursula and didn’t say anything.

  “Take my advice, young fellow,” Hickok said. “When you have to shoot, it is you or them. Going for the shoulder, or trying to shoot their revolver from their hand, as a lawman once told me he did, is misplaced charity. It will get you killed. I usually go for the guts. The shock stops a fight as quick as anything except a shot to the head.”

  “I know,” Jesse Lee said.

  “He did it on my account, Mr. Hickok,” Ursula felt compelled to say. “Because I’d asked him not to kill anyone.”

  Hickok regarded her thoughtfully while nipping at his mustache. “That’s decent of you, ma’am. But if you care for this young gentlemen, you might want to change your outlook. When a man goes into a shooting halfhearted, he comes out in a pine box.”

 
; “I understand that now,” Ursula said.

  “Then your young gentleman is lucky.” Hickok placed his sombrero back on. “In more ways than one.” He gazed wistfully about. “I find myself missing my wife, Agnes. It would please me if she were here, and I might send for her yet.”

  “You should,” Ursula said. “A wife deserves to be with her husband.”

  As if he were talking to himself and not to her, Hickok said, “I need to get settled first. I need luck at the tables so I can buy her that home she wants. She’s a gracious lady, and should have that much.” He blinked, and shook himself, and smiled. “Well, listen to me. I won’t detain you any longer. Much luck to both of you.”

  Ursula watched that broad back move off. “He sure is nice.”

  “Somethin’ is botherin’ him,” Jesse Lee said.

  “How can you tell?”

  “You could see it in his eyes.”

  “I hope he’s reunited with his wife soon.” Ursula gave Jesse Lee’s arm a playful squeeze. “Now what about us? Where would you like to go next?”

  “How about to my camp?” Jesse Lee added quickly, “For the peace and quiet.”

  Nothing would please Ursula more. They had taken to ending their evenings around his fire. Or, rather, beside it, since she often sat with her head on his shoulder. She kept hoping that he would kiss her, but so far he’d been, much to her regret, a perfect gentleman.

  It was nice to leave Main Street behind. Jesse Lee rekindled his fire and they sat arm in arm, not saying much, content to be together. She wondered what he was thinking about, and presently found out.

  “Wild Bill Hickok has a wife,” Jesse Lee said out of the blue.

  “A lot of men do,” Ursula said, and giggled.

  “A lot of men aren’t Wild Bill. They’re not pistoleros, like he is. Yet he took a wife.”

  “Why does that surprise you so much?”

  “A man like him. All the enemies he’s made. All those who would buck him out for the glory. Never knowin’ when he might be back-shot. Yet he took a wife the same as any other man.”

  “Imagine that,” Ursula teased.

  “If he can, maybe I can too.”

  “Why couldn’t you?”

  Jesse Lee picked up a stick and added it to the fire. “I was thinkin’ it wouldn’t be fair to the gal to hitch myself to her when I might not live long enough to make anything of the marriage.”

  “Oh, Jesse Lee.”

  “Well, that’s reasonable, ain’t it? A man doesn’t want to do wrong by the woman he cares for. Look at Wild Bill. Hopin’ to get a house for his Agnes. If he can do it, anyone can.”

  “Of course they can, silly.” Ursula laughed. Men came up with the silliest notions.

  Jesse Lee shifted and looked at her. Not a normal look, but a deep, penetrating gaze, as if he were trying to see into her soul. “Do you like me as much as I like you?”

  “More silliness,” Ursula said. “If I haven’t made that plain by now, I don’t know how else I can.”

  “What would you say to bein’ my gal?”

  “I already am.” Ursula pecked him on the cheek. “Where have you been that you haven’t noticed?”

  “No,” Jesse Lee said, and gently taking her hand, he raised it to his mouth and kissed it.

  Ursula sat up. Her heart was twittering and her lungs didn’t seem to want to work. “What are you saying?”

  “I’d like to court you, formal-like. And if things go on as they have been, with us gettin’ along so well, and you cottonin’ to me as I cotton to you, then I’d like for us to stand before a parson and I’ll put a ring on your finger.”

  “Are you proposing?” Ursula asked, the words nearly catching in her throat.

  “I reckon I am,” Jesse Lee said. “Sort of.”

  “Then I say yes. Yes. And yes again.”

  “I know this is kind of sudden. Are you sure?”

  “Don’t spoil it.” Ursula was regaining some composure. She’d grown as hot as the fire, though, and was afraid she’d break out in a sweat.

  “Then it’s settled,” Jesse Lee said, and grinned. “What do we do next?”

  “You kiss me, you fool.”

  Jesse Lee bent, his lips touched hers, and Ursula felt as if a bolt of lightning cleaved her from head to toe. She melted against him as the kiss went on and on. When they finally parted, she was panting.

  “Goodness,” Jesse Lee said.

  “What?”

  “Are all our kisses goin’ to be like that?”

  “Let’s find out. Kiss me again.”

  They kissed, and kissed some more, and after a while, Ursula rested her cheek on his chest and felt more content than she had her whole life long.

  Jesse Lee stroked her hair.

  “So this is love,” Ursula said. “No wonder folks like it so much.”

  “You’re my woman?”

  “And you’re my man.”

  “You’re not goin’ to change your mind?”

  “I very much doubt it.”

  “But you don’t know for sure?”

  Ursula turned her face up to his. “There you go again. Who can predict? We take it a day at a time and see what happens. The way I feel right now, I’ll be yours forever.” To shut him up, she kissed him, which led to more kisses. Gradually he relaxed, and once again she rested with her cheek on his chest, his fingers in her hair.

  “This is nice,” Jesse Lee said.

  “Isn’t it, though?” Ursula would be happy to sit there forever, just the two of them and the fire. She had never been so happy.

  “What do you reckon your folks will say?”

  “I don’t know and I don’t care,” Ursula replied. “You’re not courtin’ them. You’re courtin’ me.”

  Jesse laughed. “I admire how you stand up for yourself. How you didn’t let your brother force you to go home.”

  “I love Thalis dearly, but sometimes he treats me as if I’m ten years old,” Ursula said. “I’m a grown woman.”

  “I noticed.”

  Grinning, Ursula snuggled against him. “When he comes back we’ll break the news. I hope it gives him a conniption.”

  “Poor Crawford,” Jesse Lee said.

  “Why poor?”

  “He’ll need to find a new pard.”

  “I’m your partner now,” Ursula said. “And if you don’t think I am, go marry him instead of me.”

  Jesse Lee kissed the top of her head. “You make me grin.”

  “Good.”

  The next half hour seemed an eternity. When they rose and Jesse Lee escorted her to the boardinghouse, Ursula clung to his arm as if for dear life.

  “I hate being parted from you, but I suppose it has to be until we’re man and wife. Then we won’t have to ever be parted again.”

  “We’ll be like Wild Bill and his Agnes.”

  Ursula stopped and took his chin in her hand. “Promise me something,” she said solemnly.

  “Anything.”

  “Promise me that if anyone or anything tries to come between us, you won’t let them.”

  “You can count on that,” Jesse Lee said.

  Chapter 26

  Ursula awoke the next morning with a smile on her face. She lay in bed a few minutes, enjoying memories of the night before. Their stroll through Deadwood. All those kisses. Their talk with Wild Bill Hickok. All those kisses. Jesse Lee proposing. And all those kisses.

  Springing out of bed, she hummed as she washed, hummed as she dressed, hummed as she floated down the stairs and took a chair at the kitchen table.

  She was halfway through her oatmeal when Mrs. Peal remarked, “You look positively radiant today, my dear.”

  “Do I?” Ursula said, feigning ignorance, when in truth she was so happy she felt lighter than air.r />
  “Be careful you don’t split your lips, smiling that much.”

  Ursula laughed. She would tell Mrs. Peal about Jesse Lee’s proposal later, when they were alone. She finished eating, skipped down the hall to the front door, and stepped out to the greet the man she loved.

  Jesse Lee was waiting.

  So were others.

  Ned Leslie was leaning against the rail, and three other men were lounging by their horses out at the street. Ned straightened and brightened and took off his hat. “Miss Christie. It’s marvelous to see you again.”

  “What’s this?” Ursula said.

  “They showed up about an hour before daybreak,” Jesse Lee said, not sounding pleased. “Thal sent them.”

  “That’s right,” Ned said, nodding. “We’re to fetch you to American City to join him.”

  Ursula was stunned. She’d looked forward to another delightful day with Jesse. “I thought he wanted me to stay here.”

  “He found Myles,” Ned said, “and Myles wants to see you. But he can’t come here, so Thal sent me to take you to them.”

  Ursula glanced at Jesse Lee. “I don’t know,” she said.

  “You don’t want to go?” Ned said. “I thought the whole reason you came to the Black Hills was to find Myles.”

  “It was,” Ursula said. But she still didn’t want to. Not and spoil her happiness.

  “I don’t savvy,” Ned said. “What’s stoppin’ you?”

  “It’s too sudden,” Ursula said. “Give me a minute to talk to Jesse Lee while I make up my mind.”

  Looking thoroughly confounded, and not a little crestfallen, Ned placed his hat back on. “I’ll be over by the horses. Take as long as you need.” He went down the steps.

  Ursula stepped to Jesse Lee. “What do you think?”

  “They’re your brothers,” Jesse Lee said.

  Ursula frowned.

  “You came all this way because you were worried about Myles.”

  “I know, I know.”

  “If you don’t go, then what?” Jesse Lee said. “You wait here for Thal to collect you on his way back to Texas?”