Desperado's Gold

by Linda Jones

  Before she could reenter the house, Doc Booker came out of the barn, supporting an obviously weak Jackson with one less than steady arm. Jackson stood a full head taller than the doctor, and they looked as if they might topple at any moment.

  “Look what I found in the barn,” Doc Booker called shakily as Catalina ran toward them.

  “What were you doing in the barn?” Catalina asked, her voice shaking as much as Doc’s, but for a different reason. She’d never leave Jackson again, even for half a day.

  “Harold Goodman and a couple of his hands rode out this way. I heard them coming and snuck out the window and hid in the barn.” His voice was full of obvious self-disgust. Running and hiding were new to Jackson. Kid Creede would have crouched in a window with both pistols and plenty of ammunition.

  But it would have ruined their plan.

  “I was so worried … ” Catalina began.

  “I heard the buckboard,” Jackson said, leaning into her as she slipped her arm around his waist. “But I couldn’t get up.”

  Catalina shook her head. “Earlier today, while we were in Baxter … Goodman wasn’t there, and I was afraid he might find you here. And then Millicent Brown said you were burning in hell, and that made me so mad I couldn’t say a word. Not a single word. I was so worried the whole time we were gone that something might happen and I wouldn’t be here.”

  “It’s a good thing you weren’t here,” Jackson said darkly.

  “Why?”

  “Even after Goodman found the grave, he still searched the house and sent a hand to look in the barn.”

  “He didn’t see you?”

  “I was under a goddamn pile of straw.”

  Doc Booker chuckled, an effort for him as he supported so much of Jackson’s weight. “New experience for you?”

  Jackson just grunted.

  “They were looking for you,” Jackson said as Catalina reached out and opened the door. “He knew Doc would be in town on Sunday, but I reckon he figured you wouldn’t be.”

  Jackson got heavier and heavier as they approached the corner. He didn’t speak again until they had lowered him gently to the bed, and Doc was checking his bandages to see if he’d reopened any wounds.

  “Tell me something, Doc?” Jackson asked breathlessly as the old man bent over his thigh. “Why, if Harold wants this place so bad, doesn’t he just shoot you or burn you out? Hell, it should be easy enough, with no one here but you.”

  “And you should know,” Doc added curtly.

  “And I should know,” Jackson confirmed in a low voice.

  Doc was happy with what he found. No fresh bleeding in spite of Jackson’s extra activity. “Few years back, there was a fever made its way through his daddy’s ranch.” Doc glared down at Jackson. “It’s still his daddy’s ranch, in my eyes. That kid never did a lick of work in his life. Harold was just a boy, and somehow the fever passed him by. But his mama, and his daddy, and a good many of the hands and their families had it.”

  Doc stood and walked away from the bed, and busied himself at the stove, making coffee. “Ben Goodman was one of the few men in these parts who knew that I had been a real doctor, once. He asked me for my help, and I did what I could. Maybe I saved a few lives, maybe they were just stronger than the others and would have made it anyway. In any case, Ben felt as if he owed me a debt, and so did many of his men. Some of them are still there. Harold would probably get rid of them, if he could run that place by himself. But he can’t.” Doc suddenly sounded tired. Deeply tired. “They keep me alive. Harold would have killed me himself as soon as his daddy died, if it hadn’t been for them.”

  Jackson closed his eyes and nodded his head. “At least that makes some sort of sense. But there’s one other thing that makes no sense. Doc. Why does Harold want this place? Nothing personal, but it ain’t much to look at, and what I saw of the land this afternoon … well, let’s just say I’m confused.”

  “It’s not the ranch he wants,” Doc said halfheartedly, refusing to look at them. There was a long pause, and Catalina waited patiently for the man to continue. Finally he turned from the stove and stared first at her and then at Jackson. Doc took a deep sigh, a sigh almost of surrender.

  “It’s not the ranch,” he repeated. “It’s the gold.”

  “Gold?” Jackson repeated, finding the strength to sit up.

  Booker nodded his head. “Harold’s had quite a bit of success mining his daddy’s property. He had some fancy dude from back East come out and take a look around, and this dude told Harold that the motherlode was most likely on my side of the property line.”

  “Have you ever checked it out yourself?” Jackson asked.

  Doc Booker shook his head slightly. “I’m no miner. I don’t need gold, and I don’t want it. Everything I need is right here, and this is where I’ll stay until the day I die. I swear, gold has made fools of more men … .” He glanced over his shoulder suspiciously. “Aren’t you going to ask me exactly where this gold is? Will I have you to worry about, as well as Harold Goodman?”

  Jackson smiled. Catalina started to defend him, but he laid a hand on her arm and she was silent. It was his dream, what he’d waited for all his life. Gold … enough to make all his dreams come true.

  “You’ve never even considered mining it yourself?”

  Doc shook his head. “Don’t want it, don’t need it. Does that surprise you?”

  Jackson shook his head, and he continued to smile. “Not at all.”

  “Well?” the old man snapped.

  Jackson took his eyes off the old man and stared at Catalina. She knew. She understood. She was the best thing that had ever happened to him, and he didn’t need anything else. Didn’t want anything else.

  His initial reaction, when he’d looked out the front window and seen riders headed for the Booker ranch, had been to check his guns and prepare to die. He’d done it a hundred times.

  But he couldn’t let them know he was alive, and he didn’t want to die. He had, for the first time in his life, something to live for.

  He lifted one hand, and Catalina took it. “Well, Doc,” he said easily, “I hate to disappoint you. A week ago I would have done my best to scare that property out of you. I might even would’ve shot you for it, though I would have tried not to kill you.”

  “Mighty kind of you,” Doc said sarcastically.

  “But I don’t expect to be around long enough to do any mining. We’re headed to East Texas, as soon as I’m able to travel.”

  He couldn’t say the words, but Jackson knew he already had his treasure. He’d found it in the desert, and he hadn’t even had to dig for it. It was just standing there, waiting for him. He liked dreaming of a gold that was warm instead of cold, a treasure that filled him with peace, not insanity. A gold worth any sacrifice.

  Catalina leaned forward slightly. “As if you could scare anything out of anyone with those dimples.”

  Doc Booker shook his head in apparent wonder. “Just when I think I have everything figured out … ”

  Fifteen

  *

  Catalina leaned over the bed, placing her face close to Jackson’s. It broke her heart to see him so pale, so weak. It just wasn’t right.

  He had dismissed Doc’s gold without another word, even though she knew it was what he had always wanted. Would she be enough to make him leave behind everything he knew, everything he’d always lived for?

  She had no doubts about herself, no qualms about leaving behind the conveniences of her time. That was all they were: conveniences, not necessities. All she needed was Jackson. Catalina smiled to herself. A naive and sickeningly romantic notion, that love was all she needed. It was the stuff of romance novels and country songs, but it was true.

  There was nothing in the future — her past — to return to. She would miss Kim, and sometimes she wondered what her old roommate thought about the disappearance. If only there was some way to let Kim know that she was safe, and happy. Happier than she’d ever been.
/>   Without warning, without a change in his breathing or his expression, Jackson opened his eyes. God, that gaze shot right through her. She was defenseless against it.

  “How do you feel?” she whispered.

  “Not great,” he confessed. “Not too bad, considering. I must say, you’re a diligent nurse, watching me so closely as I sleep.” He smiled, taking the bite out of his words.

  “Am I bothering you?”

  “No.” Jackson slid a hand from under the covers and found hers. “If you want, you can slide into this bed with me and keep me warm and watch me all you want.”

  “You’re chilled?” Catalina grasped his hand and leaned forward to lay her lips on his forehead. No fever that she could detect.

  Jackson took a deep breath, and she could hear the subtle exasperation. He wasn’t a man to be babied, but for God’s sake, what did he expect her to do? Sit back and calmly wait to see if infection set in and killed him?

  But he said nothing. Jackson drew his fingers from hers and wrapped his arm around her, holding her close. “I’m not chilled. I have no fever. The wounds are healing nicely, thanks to you and Doc Booker.” Surprisingly, his voice was kind. “Just because a man wishes for a woman to warm his bed, that doesn’t mean he’s dying.”

  “I should hope not.”

  Catalina rested her head against his shoulder, easily, so as not to jar anything that shouldn’t be moved. “I don’t mean to smother you, Jackson.”

  “You’re not,” she could almost hear a hint of humor in his voice. “You’re quite light against my chest, as a matter of fact.”

  Catalina lifted her head to see if he was joking with her. He wasn’t. “Not that kind of smothering. Watching over you too closely. Babying you. Worrying too much. I can’t help it, Jackson. I came … a very long way to find you, and I don’t want to let you go.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.” He ran his hand along her back. “Even if I don’t know what you see in a scoundrel like me.”

  “A scoundrel?” she asked, teasingly, but Jackson’s smile faded.

  “You know what I am, Catalina; what I’ve always been.”

  “I know I love you,” she whispered. “And that’s enough for me. That’s all I need, Jackson.”

  He pulled her head back to his shoulder, but not before she saw the spark of bewilderment in his eyes.

  He healed, a little every day, and the infection Catalina had been so afraid of never appeared. The color came back to his face, to his lips, and slowly his strength returned as well.

  No matter how sternly she ordered Jackson to stay in bed, he began to refuse, and Catalina couldn’t help but feel an almost ecstatic rush of relief when he sat up so easily and scowled at her and ran his fingers through his newly shortened hair. He was becoming restless, but it was still too early to think of travel.

  Any thoughts she’d ever had of finding her way back disappeared. This was where she belonged. Some cosmic mistake had been made when she was born — a hundred years too late. She felt more at home in Doc Booker’s cabin than she ever had in Indian Springs, or anywhere else but Grandma Lane’s house.

  Catalina stirred a bubbling pot of beans and bacon. Reluctantly, Doc was teaching her to cook. She told him she’d come from a wealthy family where she’d been kept from such menial duties, explaining away her ineptitude. The lie made more sense than the truth: that she could cook an entire meal in a microwave, or roast a hen she’d bought — plucked and cleaned — at the grocery store, and that, in all honesty, she rarely cooked, thanks to fast food.

  She wiped her hands on the apron that covered the dress Doc had given her, one of several that fit her almost perfectly. They were all plain, high-necked and long-sleeved, and this one was a pretty calico, tiny flowers on a pale blue background.

  “Smells good.”

  Catalina turned slowly and faced the bed. Jackson was sitting on the edge, his hands on the mattress beside him, an almost solemn expression on his face.

  “It’ll be ready soon,” Catalina promised with a little smile. “You really should lie down until it’s time to eat.”

  Jackson ignored her and stood slowly. “I’ve done plenty enough lying down.”

  Catalina’s heart leapt into her throat. Weak as he still was, there was a power in Jackson that took her breath away, even without the persona of Kid Creede that she was so certain had been deliberate. The black clothing, but for the pair of pants he wore, had been replaced. He wore a plain white shirt — the one she had grabbed at the general store and left in Milo’s hands.

  He shaved himself every morning now, and Catalina always watched him out of the corner of her eye as she pretended to mend one of Doc’s old shirts, or one of the dresses that had belonged to his wife. Twice she had stabbed her thumb, painfully, as she tried to do both.

  The cabin seemed smaller when Jackson was standing; the room seemed to close in on her. Catalina shook her head and smiled. “It’s only been three weeks.”

  Three weeks. He should have died, but he stood before her healthy and growing stronger, watching her with those pale blue eyes that saw everything. A second chance; how many people ever really get a second chance?

  Jackson took a step toward her, limping, favoring the leg from which Doc Booker had removed the bullet. He’d been moving around a little since that day Harold Goodman had come calling, that Sunday Jackson had hidden in the barn. They hadn’t seen Goodman or any of his men since, and Catalina wondered what the man was up to. She was certain he hadn’t given up so easily, and the quiet days were like the calm before the storm.

  “How do you feel?” Catalina asked softly. Each step Jackson took was obviously an effort, yet he continued walking toward her.

  “Better,” he said smoothly, and Catalina knew it was the truth. The smile grew on his face as he neared her.

  Catalina didn’t move as Jackson came to her.

  “I see I was right,” he said as he stopped before her, so close she could feel his body heat, could smell the soap he used and the lingering scent of cigar smoke. She still hadn’t been able to convince him that smoking those things was bad for him, but she would. Eventually.

  “Right about what?” Catalina had to lift her chin to look directly into Jackson’s face.

  “When I woke up and saw you here I was certain you’d somehow gotten prettier while I slept.” Jackson lowered his face, until his lips were almost on hers. “I thought that was impossible.”

  He laid his lips on hers, and Catalina wrapped her arms around his waist. It was everything she’d always heard a truly great kiss was supposed to be but had never quite believed. Her knees went weak, her stomach jumped, and she could feel the beat of her heart all through her body, a growing, pulsing beat that drove away everything else.

  Jackson wrapped one arm around her and pulled her close, deepening the kiss. Catalina felt jolted, as if there were electricity coursing through her every vein, sparking every nerve. She pressed her hands against Jackson’s back, held her chest against his. Her entire body ached, but it was a delicious ache.

  She would have sunk to the floor if he hadn’t supported her with his good arm.

  He thrust his tongue into her mouth, and Catalina followed his lead. She could feel and hear the moan that escaped his lips, and answered with one of her own.

  A small cry burst from her mouth when Jackson pulled away from her, but he didn’t leave her, didn’t loosen his hold on her. He trailed his lips down the side of her neck, and she threw her head back, baring her throat for him. Fire. She was on fire. Bolts of lightning surged through her body, wild and bright.

  He brought his lips to hers again, firm and demanding, and Catalina felt and heard another groan deep in her throat. She wanted Jackson, and she wanted him now. Here. On the floor beneath their feet. The bed was too damn far away. Miles away.

  “Dang blast it!”

  Doc slammed the door.

  Catalina pulled her lips away from Jackson, but he didn’t release her and she
didn’t slide her hands away from his back. Doc was glaring at the two of them as if they’d committed a great sin … and perhaps in his eyes they had. She’d been so caught up in that kiss, she hadn’t even heard the squeaky door open.

  “I see you’re feeling better,” Doc said, directing his glare at Jackson. There was no kindness in his words, no caring physician’s relief that his patient was healing so nicely. There was just a biting condemnation that Catalina was becoming much too accustomed to.

  “Yep,” Jackson said, releasing Catalina slowly. She wasn’t ready to leave his arms, not by a long shot. She could still feel his lips on hers, his hand at her back, the deep ache he’d started with a simple kiss. Simple? There had been nothing simple about it.

  “Good.” Doc gave them a grin that made Catalina wary. It wasn’t a friendly smile. It was calculating and vindictive. “Starting tomorrow you can help me out around the place.”

  He removed his hat and hung it on a peg by the door, and shucked off his thin jacket.

  “Jackson can’t possibly … ” she began.

  Booker tilted his chin and raised his eyebrows. There was an expression of suspicion and disbelief and harsh judgment on the old man’s face. It was just a kiss, Catalina thought angrily; and then she reminded herself of where she was. Of when she was.

  “Do you really think he’s ready?” she asked, her voice calmer, more reasonable than just moments earlier.

  “Looks like it to me,” Doc mumbled.

  Catalina was ready to argue, but Jackson placed a stilling hand on her arm. “He’s right. I need to get busy, get out of this house, and I might could be some help.”

  Doc practically snorted. Disbelief? Derision? Catalina ignored him and turned her attention to Jackson.

  “It’s too soon. If you’re not able to travel, I don’t see how you expect to be able to … to do whatever it is Doc does all day. You should be resting,” she insisted.

  Jackson stepped away from her, and Catalina looked up into his face. His lips were still flushed from their kiss, and his eyes were unusually bright. “The Doc’s right,” he said softly. I’ll get my strength back faster if I make myself useful.”