She picked up the moccasins and turned them over in her hand. It made her feel good, wearing something he had worn, touching something he had touched.
Slipping out of bed, she went to her hidey hole. Removing the wrinkled picture from the wall, she reached into the narrow opening, her fingers closing on empty air. Standing on tiptoe, she peered into the opening. Her father’s gold watch was gone. And so was the buckskin pouch.
Feeling sick to her stomach, she hurried out of her room and went into Rosie’s bedroom. It was empty. The bureau drawers were open, and empty, as was the small wardrobe that had held Rose’s clothes.
Shaking her head in disbelief, Jassy went into the small parlor and then into the kitchen. Both were empty.
Rosie was gone, and she had taken Creed’s money with her.
Feeling lost and completely alone, Jassy sat at the table, put her face in her hands, and began to cry.
When she had no tears left, she washed her face and brushed her hair, then put on her green dress and new boots. Taking a deep breath, she left the house, determined not to return until she had a job.
*
It took near three weeks to reach Canon City. During that time, Creed’s nerves grew ever tighter, the rage and the anger building within him. The slow-moving cart seemed to close in around him, growing smaller and smaller each day. The cuffs that shackled his hands were a constant reminder of the freedom he had lost. He resented being told what to do, when to eat, when to sleep, and he knew it would only get worse.
The young guard, eager to prove he wasn’t afraid of a half-breed gunfighter, rode him hard after the first day. As if to prove his bravery, Sayeski began ordering Creed around, demanding that he gather wood for the fire, that he unharness the horses at night and put them in the traces in the morning. He was constantly making snide remarks about Creed’s ancestry, or making derogatory comments about hired guns, declaring they were the lowest scum on the face of the earth.
Creed took it as long as he could and then, unable to control his temper any longer, he did what he’d been longing to do since he was first arrested. He gave in to the urge to hit something.
Mort never saw what hit him. One minute he was relaxing against the wagon wheel, jabbering about the superiority of the white race, and the next he was flat out on the ground with blood pouring out of his nose.
Creed was breathing hard as he stepped back. It had been a stupid move, hitting the boy, and he knew he’d pay for it, but damn, it had felt good.
Retribution was swift. Milt and Joe West came running to the boy’s rescue. Creed grunted with pain as the Texan struck him across the back with the butt of his rifle.
“You okay, Mort?” West asked.
“He broke my nose,” Mort complained, using a dirty kerchief to mop up the blood.
“Want me to break his?” Joe West grinned at Creed as if he’d be only too happy to oblige.
“No, I’ll do it.”
Creed braced himself as Sayeski lurched to his feet. He glanced briefly at the two guards who were standing on either side of him now, and then at the other two prisoners, who were sitting in the shade of the prison cart.
Creed swore under his breath as Sayeski came to stand in front of him.
“Why’d you hit me?” the kid demanded.
“Because you’re a little shit with a big mouth.”
A flush crept into the kid’s cheeks as his two companions started to laugh, obviously agreeing with the gunfighter.
Creed saw the indecision in the kid’s eyes, knew the exact moment when Mort decided that hitting back was the only way to save face. Avoiding the kid’s fist was no trouble at all.
The flush in Mort’s cheeks went from bright pink to dull red as his fist closed on empty air.
Milt and Joe West were laughing out loud now, clearly enjoying the boy’s embarrassment.
“Hold him!” Mort shouted.
“What?” Milt stared at Mort, then shook his head. “Forget it.”
“I said hold him!”
Joe West shrugged. “What’ll it hurt to let the kid take a few swings?”
“I don’t know.” Milt shook his head. “It don’t seem right.”
“Just hold him, Milt, or I’ll tell Walt about that little escapade in Amarillo.”
Milt glared at the younger man. “The ’breed’s right, Mort,” he muttered as he grabbed hold of Creed’s right arm. “You do have a big mouth.”
Joe West was grinning as he grabbed hold of Creed’s left arm, then drew his sidearm and jabbed it in the half-breed’s side. “Just so you don’t try anything stupid.”
Creed stared at Mort, his gut clenching as he waited for the kid to get down to it. The boy was short and stocky, his arms and legs well-muscled from years of hard living.
With slow deliberation, Mort propped his rifle against a rock, rolled up his shirtsleeves, flexed his arms and hands.
Standing in front of the half-breed, he took a boxer’s stance, hands up, legs slightly spread. And then he lashed out, landing two short hard jabs to the prisoner’s midsection.
Creed grunted as the breath was driven from his body. Pain spiraled through him and he would have doubled over if not for the two men holding him up. The kid had a hell of a right hand, he mused, he’d give him that.
For the next ten minutes, Mort vented his humiliation on the half-breed, not content to stop until there was blood running from the prisoner’s nose and mouth. Stepping back, he rubbed his bruised knuckles, and then he glanced at his companions, seeking their approval.
Milt shook his head. “I hope Maddigan never catches you alone in an alley,” he remarked, releasing his hold on Creed’s arm.
Sayeski snorted disdainfully. “I ain’t afraid of him.”
“You would be, if you had the sense God gave a goat,” Milt retorted.
“Is that what you think, too, West?”
Joe grinned. “A smart man knows when to back off.”
Sayeski swelled up like a balloon about to burst. “You sayin’ I ain’t smart?”
“I’m not saying anything, kid.” Holstering his sidearm, West released Creed’s arm. “But Milt’s right. You’ve got one coming.”
Ignoring Mort and the others, Creed bent at the waist, taking deep breaths as he sought to control the pain knifing through him. Blood oozed from a cut in his lower lip and he wiped his mouth on his shirtsleeve, then lifted a tentative hand to his nose. Sayeski hadn’t managed to break it, after all.
They reached the prison at midday. Creed knew all about the penitentiary. It had once been his misfortune to share a jail cell with an ex-con who had done some time at Canon City. Built by convict labor, it was made of cut stone. The prison itself fit inside the main building and contained thirty-nine cells arranged in three tiers. The roof was made of tin to reduce the risk of fire. The floors were of brick. Adjoining the prison was a bakery, the kitchen, and quarters for the staff. A massive stone wall surrounded the prison site. It was said that only death or a reprieve could get a man out of there. All work done within the prison was done by convict labor. Prisoners were also put to work quarrying stone and making brick which was used in the building of the town.
An hour after the wagon arrived, Creed found himself locked in one of the dismal little cells. He’d been informed of the rules and just in case he forgot what they were, a copy was posted on the wall, right next to a copy of the Bible. There was to be no talking except outside the cellblock and then only about the task at hand. He would be required to clean his cell each morning at reveille. The blankets were to be folded and placed at the head of the narrow iron bedstead, the litter swept into the passageway outside his cell, the slop jar emptied. He would be allowed to write one letter a month, and to receive letters on Sundays.
Letters, he thought bleakly. He had no one to write, no one who would write to him…except maybe Jassy, and even that was a slim hope. He had made her promise to start a new life for herself, to forget about him. He shook her image from hi
s mind. Apparently she had done just that.
He spent the rest of the afternoon pacing his cell, silently cursing the prison garb he was forced to wear. He’d worn custom-made shirts and boots most of his adult life and he didn’t like the feel of the rough cotton against his skin, or the fit of the heavy black shoes.
He spent the next week locked in the cell, endlessly pacing. His only relief came at meal times, and then only for a few moments when he was allowed to leave his cell to fill his plate from the large table that stood in the passageway. He hated the regimentation of meal times, hated the guard who unlocked his cell, hated being treated like a trained animal. A ring of the bell and he was expected to step out of his cell with the other prisoners, fold his arms and face to the left. At the sound of a second bell, he was to march in single file around the table, take his plate, and return to his cell, all in complete silence.
The meals were filling, but unimaginative. Bread, meat and coffee for breakfast; soup, made of cabbage, potatoes, beans, peas, rice and hominy, meat and bread for dinner; mush and molasses and coffee for supper.
He longed for a thick steak, fresh vegetables, fruit. And sweets—he admitted to a craving for apple pie and chocolate cake, fried chicken and dumplings. For sweet pink lips and luminous brown eyes.
Lord, he thought in dismay, twenty years of this slop. Twenty years without a woman.
Twenty years behind bars.
Chapter Twelve
Jassy let out a sigh, one hand massaging the small of her back. She had been working at Mrs. Wellington’s boardinghouse for over a month. Every day, she made the beds, swept the floors, emptied the slop jars, dusted the furniture. Once a week, she washed and ironed the sheets, turned the mattresses, mopped the hardwood floors. She washed the windows, set the table at mealtimes, did the dishes afterward. She had never worked so hard in her life.
A week after Rose had left town, the landlord came to collect the rent. When Jassy couldn’t pay, he had tossed her out. To her relief, Mrs. Wellington had reluctantly agreed to allow Jassy to occupy the small room under the stairwell, deducting the rent and her meals from her meager salary, but she wasn’t complaining. She was grateful to have a place to work and a bed to sleep in.
Taking a deep breath, Jassy finished making the bed in Mr. Cuthbert’s room. Only four more beds to go, she thought. Then it would be time to go down and help Mrs. Wellington prepare the noon meal.
Jassy made the rest of the beds automatically, her thoughts centered on Creed. She wondered how he was doing, if he had received her letter, and if he had, why he hadn’t written her back. Every day, she stopped at the post office, hoping for a letter from Creed, for some word from Judge Parker. And every day she left the building empty-handed and heavy-hearted.
Last night, she had written another letter to the magistrate, begging him to reconsider Creed’s case, to see that justice was done. She had mailed the letter first thing this morning.
After considerable deliberation, she had written to Creed, too, but then she had crumpled the paper and tossed it into the fireplace. She couldn’t write and tell him she loved him, not when he hadn’t cared enough to answer her first letter, not when he had made her promise she wouldn’t wait for him, that she would leave town and make a new life for herself. She couldn’t bring herself to tell him that Rose had stolen the money he had left her and run off with Ray Coulter.
To her shame, she had overheard two of the town ladies gossiping just yesterday, talking about Rose and Coulter and how they’d run off together.
Headed for San Francisco, Mrs. Norton had said, shaking her head with such vigorous disapproval that her hat had almost fallen off. I always thought Ray Coulter to be a decent sort, even if he did work in a saloon. Who’d have ever guessed he’d run off with a harlot.
Mrs. Watson had nodded in agreement. Poor Tess. I don’t know how she’ll hold her head up after this.
Jassy had felt her cheeks burn when the two women turned around and saw her.
The twig doesn’t fall very far from the tree, Mrs. Norton had remarked, and the two women had left the mercantile, their noses in the air.
*
Creed sat on the edge of his cot, staring at the floor. It was Sunday, the longest day of the week. He’d gladly have worked if they’d let him, because anything beat sitting in his cell, waiting for a letter that never came. Of course, he had no one to blame for that but himself. He’d told Jassy to forget about him, to make a new life for herself, and apparently she’d done just that. He wondered if she had taken his advice and left town, if she was happy, if she ever thought of him. He thought of writing her, just to see how she was, but he never did. They had made a clean break and it was best to leave it at that, but damn, it would be nice to hear from her, just once.
Stretching out on his bunk, his hands locked behind his head, he closed his eyes, his mind wandering back in time, back to the carefree days of his childhood.
He had spent the first twelve years of his life living with the Lakota. His father, Rides the Wind, had been a wichasha wakán, a holy man. His mother had been a white woman. She had been badly wounded in a raid. Black Otter, the warrior who had captured her, had taken her to Rides the Wind, who had treated her wounds and cared for her during her long convalescence. By the time she was well again, Rides the Wind had fallen in love with the white woman, and so he had bought her from Black Otter and married her according to the customs of the People.
But Heather Thomas hadn’t returned his father’s love. She had hated the Indians, and she had hated her husband. She had tried to turn her son against Rides the Wind, but Creed had loved and admired his father and nothing his mother had said could change that.
It had been during the summer of his thirteenth year that the army attacked the village. Rides the Wind had been killed defending a handful of children, and Heather had been rescued from the savages at last. Creed had begged his mother to let him go, to let him see if he could find Black Otter and his family, who had managed to escape the slaughter, but his mother had refused. Turning a deaf ear to his pleas, she had dragged Creed back east where she spent the next two years trying to civilize him.
Determined to turn her son into a gentleman, she had burned his clothes, cut his hair, and refused to let him out of the house until he agreed not to speak the Lakota language. To her everlasting regret, Creed had refused to become a gentleman. To spite her, he got involved with a bunch of young toughs. He smoked cigars and drank cheap whiskey, got into street fights and saloon brawls. And because she abhorred guns and violence, he bought a .44 Colt and practiced with it every day.
By the time he was seventeen, his mother had given up on him. He had been nearly full-grown by then, ornery as sin, and when he was arrested with three other boys for busting up a saloon, she had refused to bail him out. Instead, she had let him sit in that damn jail for two months. When he got out, he sold everything he owned and headed West. He had intended to return to his father’s people, but by the time he made his way back to the Lakota, it was too late. Most of Black Otter’s band had been killed in a skirmish with the cavalry the winter before; the survivors had been sent to the reservation in chains. As much as he had wanted to stay with his father’s people, he couldn’t. He had stayed a year, and then he had run away. The reservation had been too much like jail. And he’d vowed never to go to jail again…
Creed stared at the iron-barred door and swore softly. So much for never going to jail again, he thought bleakly.
After leaving the reservation, he had gone to Denver looking for a job, but the only thing he was any good at was fast drawing a Colt, so he had hired out his gun, riding shotgun for the stage line. He had prevented six robberies in the first nine weeks, killing four men and capturing seven others.
That quick, he had a reputation as a fast gun. Men who had once looked at him with scorn because he was a half-breed now treated him with respect. Miners and bankers sought his services, hiring his gun, paying him sizeable amounts of money
to guard a mining claim, a bank payroll, a gold shipment.
And what did he have to show for it? Not one damn thing.
With an oath, he slammed his fist into the wall, relishing the pain that splintered through his hand, because it gave him something else to think about besides luminous brown eyes and his own wasted life.
*
Jassy’s steps were slow and heavy as she walked back to Mrs. Wellington’s boardinghouse. She hadn’t really expected to find a letter from Creed, but she couldn’t help being disappointed just the same. She had been so sure he had cared for her, and even though she’d promised to forget him and make a new life for herself, she had hoped that they could still be friends, that he would at least answer her letter.
“Hey, Jassy.”
She glanced up at the sound of Billy Padden’s voice.
“Where’ve you been keeping yourself?” Billy asked, falling in to step beside her.
“I’ve been working.”
“Working? You? Where?”
“At Mrs. Wellington’s boardinghouse.”
Billy frowned in disbelief. “Mrs. Wellington hired you? To do what?”
“Everything she doesn’t want to do, that’s what.”
“How about meeting me tonight?”
“I don’t think so.”
“C’mon, Jassy. I’ll take you to dinner at the Morton House.” His hand slid up her arm. “And then maybe we can take a walk down by the river.”
“No, Billy.” Firmly, she removed his hand from her arm.
“Why not?”
“You know why not.”
“Aw, don’t be like that. I won’t do anything you don’t want me to do.”
“Hah!”
“I promise.”
“No, Billy.”
“Tomorrow night?”
“We’ll see,” she said, hoping he’d go away.
That night, overcome with loneliness, Jassy sat in her room staring out the window. Maybe she should go out with Billy Padden. He wasn’t a bad sort…but he wasn’t Creed.
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