by Cora Brent
James Dolan lowered his weapon. “Miss Annika Larson, I have the supreme displeasure of introducing you to my younger brother and shame of the family, Mercer Dolan.”
Just then a woman emerged from the saloon. She was dressed far too sparsely for decent company and her hair was an unnatural color. As she purred and snaked her arms around Mercer Dolan, Annika realized with a shock that she was looking at a fancy woman. Mercer appeared to take no notice of her caressing hands.
“Pleased to meet you, Miss Larson,” he said in a falsely sincere tone. Annika tipped her chin up and did not return the compliment. Mercer raised his eyebrows. “And might I observe that you have the look of a schoolteacher.” He laughed and abruptly grabbed the prostitute, kissing her with a sloppy lust which was appalling.
As James shook his head and urged the horses back into motion, Annika stared at Mercer Dolan. Any casual observer would have noticed her mouth gaping open in horror. Not because of the way he was unabashedly reaching beneath the scanty skirts of the painted woman, but because of the thing she had glimpsed hanging out of his back pocket. It was a red handkerchief. She recognized it as she had recognized the penetrating gaze of his dark eyes. It was him, the masked outlaw of The Danes.
Just before the buckboard turned, Mercer Dolan glanced up and noticed Annika gawking. She saw it in his face; he realized she had recognized him. And though perhaps she should have been, she was not afraid.
CHAPTER THREE
Quartzsite, Arizona
Present Day
Jensen waited for him to answer but Maddox couldn’t summon his voice.
“Don’t hang up,” his brother finally coughed. No, that wasn’t right. Maddox refused to think of him as a brother.
Maddox kept silent through a long pause.
“Mad? You still there?”
“I’m here.” Maddox closed his eyes. It seemed he had only heard that voice yesterday even though it hadn’t been yesterday. It had been ten long fucking years. Not long enough.
“Dad’s bad off, Maddox. Keeps asking for you.”
A sick feeling began to grow inside of Maddox which had nothing at all to do with the dickhead on the other end of the line. “He’s in the hospital?”
Jensen sighed. Something like a sob came through the phone. “No, he’s done with that. His liver’s all but gone. He’s home. Hospice started showing up today. They’ll be around until…” Jensen’s voice trailed off.
It didn’t need to be said. Maddox knew what Hospice was. It meant the end was coming. He stood there in front of the bar, breathing thickly into the phone. One of the Mojave Marauders bumped into him with a curse. It might have been a drunken stumble or it might have been an excuse to start some shit. It made no difference. Maddox let it go.
“I’ll be there tomorrow,” he said and hung up the phone. He stared at the light from the screen as it dimmed and then faded to black. His father was dying. How could that be? When Maddox was a boy he knew for a fact that Priest McLeod was indomitable, unconquerable. It was the simple assumption of a child. He recalled earlier how he’d been thinking about the dust which was the fate of every man. Suddenly the idea seemed sickly prophetic.
Maddox was wandering in the dark. Perhaps he’d meant to go straight to his trailer but his head wasn’t right and he found himself at the mouth of the dark desert brush which lay beyond the trailer park extending past Riverbottom Bar.
“Mad,” Grayson called from the dark.
Maddox stopped moving and waited for the approaching footsteps to reach him.
Gray reached his side quietly, standing close and waiting.
“Something up?”
“Yeah,” Maddox said slowly. “Something’s up.”
Gray touched him then, a friendly hand on the arm. A lighter footfall approached and a girl’s voice asked. “Gray, is that Mad? Hey Maddox, Alice called. She was worried about you after you took off.” It was Promise.
Grayson wrapped her in a hug and Maddox felt a stab of envy, hating himself for it. It wasn’t that he wanted his buddy’s girl for himself. Promise and Gray were soul mates if such a thing ever existed. It was their connection that he envied. He remembered feeling that way once. Too briefly and a seeming lifetime ago.
It wasn’t too dark for Maddox to see the look in Promise’s eyes as she leaned her head back, looking up at Gray with calm love. He kissed her softly and turned back to Maddox.
“Come on over and shoot the shit awhile.”
Maddox didn’t really want to return to his lonely trailer. He was more rattled than he cared to admit.
“I’ll take that offer,” he said with relief.
Grayson used a pair of giant cable spools as chairs. He sank down on one and pulled Promise onto his lap. She nuzzled his neck, resting her head there as neatly as if the space were created just for that purpose. Maddox watched her for a moment. Sometimes he wondered how she would have ended up if she’d run into him first on that awful day when she was terrified and pleading for help. He was glad it had turned out the way it did, that instead she’d found Gray first.
Grayson curled a muscled arm around Promise and peered at Maddox.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost, man.”
Maddox ran a hand through his hair. It was knotted and wild as a result of being loose while he was on the road. “Didn’t see one. But I will.” He coughed painfully. “My dad’s dying.”
Gray swore and looked at the ground. “Damn, I’m sorry to hear that. Priest is a character. He was sick last time he was out, wasn’t he?”
“Yeah,” Mad admitted, cursing himself now for not paying more attention to his father.
Promise was looking at him sorrowfully. “What’s wrong with him?”
“A lifetime of hundred proof. Cirrhosis of the liver,” he clarified when she looked at him blankly.
That she understood. Promise was actually in the medical field herself. A midwife, whatever the hell that was. When he thought about it, and he tried not to think about it, Maddox pictured a whole lot of screaming and bloody, raised legs, culminating with a newborn’s cry.
“Oh Maddox, I’m so sorry,” she finally said in a voice which hurt for him and he managed a small grin. That was the thing about Promise; she was so sweetly sincere. He knew why Grayson had fallen for her.
Gray stared at him as he withdrew a cigarette and lit it with fingers which tried not to shake. “So I take it you’ll be going back home.” Maddox hadn’t told him the whole story, but he must have known something was wrong about the way Maddox refused to set foot in his hometown though it was only a three hour ride away in the same goddamn state.
“I’m going back there,” Maddox said in a tone which he didn’t even recognize. He hung his head and stared at the dark sand and wondered what the hell Rachel had really poured into that shot. His chest felt oddly constricted and he was astonished to find that he was struggling not to cry.
Promise didn’t say anything as she climbed from Gray’s lap and put her soft arms around him in a maternal way. He gladly held her petite body for a minute and there was nothing sexual about it. She didn’t say anything silly or meaningless. She just released him with a sad sigh and paused to kiss Grayson with tenderness before retreating into the trailer. Gray reached for her hand and the two of them stared at one another for several heartbeats. Maddox had the feeling they were having a silent conversation of sorts.
“Ride safe, Maddox,” she eventually said before disappearing behind the door.
“She’s the shit,” he told Gray in a hoarse voice.
“She is,” Grayson agreed. They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes. And then Maddox told his friend all about it. How Gabriela de Campo had been to Maddox what Promise was to Grayson. How it had gotten all fucked up even before Jensen interfered. He told Gray about what they had done and what it done to him.
Gray listened, nodding occasionally, asking pointed questions now and then.
“What about the kid?” he asked
slowly.
“What about him? I never fucking saw him. He’s Jensen’s.”
Gray rolled a short stick of mesquite wood between his fingers. He seemed hesitant to speak. “You sure about that, Mad?”
“Jensen wouldn’t have stood for having something pinned on him if it was mine. No, sorry, not ‘it’, ‘he’. His name’s Miguel. I guess he’ll be ten soon.”
Gray sighed. “Mad, people have reasons for doing what they do, no matter how shitty the excuse may seem. You said he wanted her, right? And sounds like he resented the hell out of you.”
Maddox shut his eyes. “The boy isn’t mine,” he managed to whisper. He wanted Gray to understand that he wasn’t too much of an asshole. He knew Grayson was a better man on his worst day. But even at the reckless age of eighteen, if there had been even a possibility that it was his child growing inside of her, nothing could have persuaded him to ride off without a backward glance.
Gray dropped the stick and straightened his back. He was perceptive. “I see,” he said slowly. “It’s not possible, is it Maddox?”
“No,” he said with bitterness. “Because I never fucked her. My brother fucked her.” Maddox laughed sharply. “Now isn’t that some maudlin soap opera shit?”
Grayson saw through his pain and didn’t laugh. “She still living there in, what was it called?”
“Contention City.” Maddox shrugged miserably. “Yeah, as far as I know. She and Jensen didn’t work out very long and they never got married. He got hitched to some chick from Flagstaff a few years back.”
“Well, maybe your paths won’t cross,” Grayson said helpfully.
Maddox smiled thinly. “You don’t know Contention City. You take a tiny corner of the world which holds fewer than three thousand breathing folks and there’s no avoiding anyone. Particularly if that’s what you’re trying to do.” Maddox shook his head. All this talk about Gabriela and Jensen was irrelevant. Let them see him coming. Let them throw a fucking parade for all he cared. He wasn’t going back for them. He was going to see his father.
Maddox stood and stretched and took a few steps into the darkness, reaching his arms towards the moon as a nearby troupe of coyotes began yipping.
“Hey,” Gray called. “So why is he called ‘Priest’?”
Maddox laughed. “I guess because back in his day the old man was anything but. Even my mother called him ‘Priest’.”
Gray got to his feet and straightened out the spool. “You leaving soon?”
“Yeah,” Maddox stared directly at the moon. It was a curious orange color tonight. “I’ll be out of here by daybreak. Can’t say when I’ll be back. Could be a few days, could be a few weeks.” He felt uncomfortable with the timeline, knowing full well that it depended on how long his father clung to life.
“Mad,” Gray said, “you need to talk while you’re out there, you can always give me a call.”
Maddox smiled. “I will, Gray.”
They lingered in the dark for a little while and talked lightly about things which weren’t important. Grayson didn’t say so, but Mad knew he was eager to get inside and be with Promise. They never got enough of each another. Maddox’s trailer was only fifty yards away. He could plainly hear how they never got enough of each other every day. But he gave Gray a break, thanking him for being what a brother ought to be and then heading across the sandy lot to his own place.
Maddox sat down at his own tiny table and lit himself another cigarette, looking around his living quarters. It was messy and tasteless. Once a finely bred attorney had sniffed it was “like being inside the mind of a sixteen year old pervert”. But she’d taken off her hot suit in the middle of it anyway and let him ride her like a dog.
Maddox didn’t really give two shits what his place looked like for his own benefit. He kept the horny smut posters on the walls for effect, just like he would let his dark hair slide into his eyes as he cast sideways glances at the meat of his choice, waiting for her to squirm and invite him between her legs.
The hour wasn’t very late, but Maddox was sapped from the sun beating down on him during the ride into and out of Phoenix. He stripped naked and jumped into bed, wanting sleep. But the night wasn’t known for its mercy and memories weren’t known for their discretion. He jammed his knuckles into his eyeballs and still saw her face. And there was something else. Maddox was suddenly harder than a motherfucker as he recalled the lusty times he’d almost had her. His hand went low, rubbing the length of his dick as he remembered.
He’d had plenty of other lovers by that point but she hadn’t. Gaby was almost shy the first time he unhooked her bra. Then as he started to suckle those perfect tits she couldn’t seem to get enough. Her fingers would wind through his hair as she pushed them deeper into his mouth, not objecting in the slightest the day he finally removed her panties. She was so wet and so tight he didn’t know how he was able to pull back and stop. But he’d felt her stiffen as his dick tried to find entry and he knew she wasn’t quite ready. She’d heard the talk and seen him treat other girls with casual abandon. He wanted her to trust him. And so he resolved to wait for that if it killed him.
Instead what killed him was her willingness to believe the worst about him when it came time to make a choice. She’d opened herself up to his brother. It was only once, Jensen insisted, but they were both dead to Maddox by that point. When he found out there was going to be a kid in the middle of it all, he took off, unable to bear witness to their happy ending.
Maddox was still flogging himself but there was a fury to it now. He was going come hard and in anger.
“Shit, baby,” he gritted his teeth as the spasm took him, “WHY? Fucking why??”
When it was done Maddox rolled over, waiting for his breathing to calm down. Then he wiped his own semen on his thigh and fell asleep.
It was still dark when he woke up but he resolved to be on his way. After showering quickly and packing only as many belongings as could be neatly stowed on his bike, he quietly shut the door to the trailer.
The crunch of the sand under his feet was incredibly loud as he made his way across the lot and over to the bar where his bike was parked. Easing out slowly, not wanting to wake anyone, he reluctantly left Quartzsite and his boys.
The dark coolness wouldn’t last long. Already the eastern sky was beginning to lighten. Maddox accelerated on the Interstate.
He was ready to go.
CHAPTER FOUR
Contention City, Arizona Territory
1888
James insisted that she call him by his first name. Annika noticed how the city marshal relaxed once the wagon moved beyond the wild saloons in the heart of town. He drove slowly, asking her questions and listening thoughtfully to her answers. An occasional cough seemed bothersome to him as he kept turning his head away and making apologies. Annika wondered if he was troubled by consumption.
For Annika’s part, despite her exhaustion and the approaching darkness, she was happy enough for the companionship to willingly delay arrival at the schoolhouse. Elsewhere it would have been terribly improper for a handsome single man to escort a young, unmarried woman, but she supposed driving beside James Dolan would make no headlines here. Not if the spectacle she had just witnessed in the middle of town was any fair indicator.
Except for confirming that he was unmarried, James had said little about himself. Curious about the man at her side, Annika tried to prod him along.
“There must be all kinds of reasons which bring people out this way,” she said, looking around at the varied collection of meager shacks and tents which dotted the landscape.
James coughed again and gave her a grim smile. “Not many,” he said. “Gold is what brings folks here.”
“Is that what brought you here?” Annika bit her lip over her boldness. Mother had always warned her it was a distasteful trait in a lady.
However, James didn’t seem to mind. “My father wished to avoid the draft. He said he didn’t scrape for ten years to come to this countr
y only to meet his end on a battlefield for a cause he didn’t understand. He had a pocket of carefully saved coins, a willing wife and three young sons. Only now do I realize coming out here was for him a move of desperation. The news of the Scorpion mine had already reached the east and gold fever is intoxicating to a man living in a dark city hovel.”
“The draft was in ’63. You must have been very small at the time.”
“Yes, I was barely four when we left New York. Mercer was still in swaddling blankets. We made it as far as Kansas and lingered for a year before moving on.”
“You said three sons. So you have another brother.” It would be interesting to meet the man who was a cross between James and Mercer Dolan.
“I did,” James said soberly. “Sean was the eldest. Kansas and a cholera epidemic took him.”
“Oh,” Annika shifted, grimacing. “I’m sorry. I lost two sisters when I was young. Scarlet fever.”
James seemed lost in the past. The reins were slack in his hand and he stared dreamily into the distance. “Did you know that the Hassayampa River, when full, is prone to stagnation? Breeds mosquitos. Six months after our arrival there was an outbreak of malaria. Carried off the folks lightning quick.”
“How awful,” she said, sadly thinking of him being so young and in such a strange, forbidding place. “So then who looked after you and….”
“Mercer,” he finished. “We turned out to be fortunate. The most stalwart soul west of the Mississippi, Lizzie Post, had descended on the Territory bound to make herself a name, single woman or not. She secured one of the early placers and made a fair penny off it. Now she raises cattle on a small spread outside town. Lizzie took us in and raised us.”
