Stepping outside, Tyree sat on the porch rail and rolled and smoked a cigarette. It was a cool, clear night, fragrant with the scent of sage and honeysuckle. Overhead, countless stars shimmered against a black velvet sky.
Grinding out his cigarette, Tyree ambled down to the corral, smiled faintly as the gray stallion came up to him.
“Hi, fella,” Tyree murmured, scratching the stud’s ears. Abruptly, he whirled around, hand flashing for his gun as he heard footsteps behind him. But it was only Rachel.
“Awfully fast with that, aren’t you?” Rachel remarked caustically.
“Middling. Just middling.” He returned the .44 to his holster in a swift, unconscious movement that was not lost on Rachel. “The marshal gone?”
“Yes.”
“You want something Rachel?”
It was the first time he had called her by her given name. She could not explain the rush of pleasure it gave her, to hear her name on his lips.
“You want something?” he asked again.
“Yes. Your promise that you won’t hurt Clint.”
Tyree snorted. “I can’t make a promise like that.”
“Why not?”
“Because sooner or later he’s gonna feel like it’s his duty to come after me. And I’m not going back to prison. I spent eighteen months in that hellhole and I’m not going back. Not for you. Not for anybody. And if Clint Wesley tries to take me in, I’ll kill him. You tell him that. As for Walsh, I called him out and I killed him. Anything else you’d like to know?”
Wordlessly, Rachel shook her head, thinking she had never seen such a hard, cold expression in a man’s eyes before.
Abruptly, the look on Tyree’s face changed and Rachel knew he was going to reach for her. The memory of his last kiss made her knees tremble, and she turned on her heel and ran for the safety of the house, running as though all the hounds of hell were barking at her heels.
Tyree did not follow her.
Chapter Six
The day of the box social bloomed bright and clear. Tyree was sitting on the front porch chewing on a cigar when Clint Wesley came to call for Rachel. The marshal, damn his hide, looked handsome as hell in a blue plaid shirt, black denim pants, and a black leather vest. And Rachel, bless her, looked good enough to eat, all gussied up in a pink and white polka-dot dress. A large white sunbonnet trimmed with long pink and blue streamers was perched atop her honey-colored hair.
Tyree scowled as the young couple went off in a rented hack, laughing and smiling at each other like a couple of carefree school kids.
Tyree had scoffed at the idea of anything as frivolous as a box social. No one else on the ranch seemed to share his opinion, however, and soon he was the only one left at the Lazy H. Even old man Halloran had ridden off to town earlier that morning.
Tyree sat on the porch for over an hour, enjoying the solitude, content to be alone with his thoughts.
It was nearing noon when hunger tugged at Tyree’s belly. The idea of cooking left him cold and he decided to ride into town and grab a bite at the saloon. Ten minutes later, he was swinging into the saddle and riding toward Yellow Creek at a good, fast trot.
He heard the noise of a fiddle and the shrieks of kids having a good time long before he rode into the town itself. Entering the town proper, he saw a dozen couples dancing on a clearing in front of the schoolhouse. Rachel and Wesley were among them, holding hands and laughing as they sashayed back and forth. Farther down the road, several tables were set up. They were covered with gaily colored cloths and piled high with cakes and pies and cookies. Another table, covered with a white linen cloth, stood off by itself, loaded with box suppers all done up in ribbons and bows and fancy paper. The sale of those boxes would be the highlight of the day’s festivities.
Leaving the gray stallion at the livery stable, Tyree sauntered down the main street, his left thumb hooked over his gunbelt, his right hand brushing the butt of the .44 strapped to his right thigh. He could feel the curious stares and disapproving glances of the townspeople directed at his back as he moved toward the schoolhouse, his hunger forgotten.
Yellow Creek wasn’t much of a town, compared to Dodge or Wichita or El Paso. There was a church to please the ladies, a school to educate the kids, a small hotel. Thorngood’s General Store was sandwiched between Bowsher’s Saloon and a Chinese laundry. The newspaper office stood next to the Marshal’s Office. A half-dozen small stores catered to the needs of the local farmers and their families.
Tyree took a place against the schoolhouse wall, his hooded amber eyes watching Rachel’s every move. She was by far the prettiest girl in town and though Tyree hated to admit it, she was the real reason for his presence at what he considered a foolish waste of time and energy. Men of all ages vied for Rachel’s attention, willingly waiting in line just to dance with her, telling her jokes and clowning around like schoolboys in hopes of making her smile.
No one ventured near Tyree.
The dancing went on for another quarter of an hour, and then the fiddler put his fiddle away and the contests began. Clint Wesley entered the pie-eating contest and won first place. Overcome with the thrill of victory, Wesley grabbed Rachel and kissed her soundly on the mouth, smearing her face with cherry pie as several of the local gents cheered him on. The blacksmith won the wrestling match, which came as no surprise to anyone. He had arms like oak trees and a chest like a beer keg. A young, freckle-faced boy of about fifteen won the foot race, while a fairly attractive young woman won the archery contest.
Tyree watched it all with a curious sense of scorn and envy. It was all such nonsense, stuffing pie down your throat, or chasing a greased pig, or engaging in a tug-of-war across a mud puddle. And yet, for all that, everyone appeared to be having a good time.
It was nearing two o’clock when the mayor called for quiet. “Ladies,” he began, bowing formally to the group of women clustered around the table bearing the box suppers. “Gentlemen. It’s time for the bidding to start. As you know, any man who buys a basket will not only buy a delicious lunch, but will be entitled to share the meal with the charming young lady who prepared it. The proceeds will, of course, go toward building a new parsonage for the Reverend Jenkins and his lovely family.”
The mayor inclined his head toward the minister and his family as he picked up the first basket. “This one smells like fried chicken and apple pie,” he said jovially. “What am I bid?”
Rachel’s basket was the fifth one offered. Clint Wesley made the first bid, at a dollar, and in a matter of minutes the bidding had gone up to ten dollars as every eligible young man in town bid on Rachel’s lunch, and a chance to be alone with her.
“Ten dollars,” the mayor was saying. “Going once, going twice—”
“Fifteen dollars.”
Heads turned. A few of the older women gasped out loud, a few of the younger ones stared enviously at Rachel. Fifteen dollars!
Clint Wesley threw a hard look at Tyree. Very quietly, the marshal raised his bid to sixteen dollars.
“Twenty dollars,” Tyree called.
“Twenty-one,” Wesley said, answering the challenge.
Tyree glanced at Rachel, who stood blushing furiously beside the mayor. Then, throwing Wesley a wry grin, Tyree bid fifty dollars, knowing the marshal could not afford to match such an outrageous bid, not on a lawman’s pay.
The mayor looked at Wesley askance. Slowly, Clint shook his head.
“Sold to the stranger in black for fifty dollars!” the mayor declared with a broad grin. “Hope you enjoy it.”
With the basket paid for, Tyree followed Rachel to a shady spot near the schoolhouse, dropped down beside her on the blanket she spread on the ground.
“You must be awfully hungry,” Rachel muttered, “to spend fifty dollars on a lunch you could buy for fifty cents at the restaurant down the street.”
“It’s your company I’m buying,” Tyree replied candidly. “And we both know it.”
Rachel’s cheeks flushed at that.
Wordlessly, she opened the basket, filled a plate with baked ham, potato salad, a slice of fresh-baked bread, salad, and strawberries. She handed the plate to Tyree, poured him a glass of cold cider.
Rachel ate without tasting her food, conscious of Tyree’s predatory gaze, and of Clint’s presence only a few yards away. Millie Cloward sat beside Wesley, her basket between them. Millie was a plump young woman with mousy brown hair and placid brown eyes. She was not popular with the young men, and at the moment she looked mighty pleased to have a handsome young man like the marshal all to herself. Clint Wesley responded to her ceaseless chatter automatically, more interested in keeping an eye on Tyree and Rachel than listening to Millie ramble on about her sister’s wedding.
After a few moments, Rachel put her plate aside and regarded Tyree with frankly curious eyes. “Why did you come here today? I thought you said this kind of thing was silly, and no fit way for a grown man to spend his time.”
Tyree shrugged. “So I changed my mind. You gonna sit there and glare at me all afternoon just because I outbid Wesley for your lunch?”
“No. But you must have known Clint and I planned to eat together.”
“Then he should have topped my offer.”
“He can’t afford to spend fifty dollars on a box lunch and you know it.”
“Lucky for me, his being so poor,” Tyree said, grinning at her. “Come on, cheer up. What’s in that tent, yonder?”
“A fortune-teller. I hear she’s quite remarkable.”
“That right? What say we go take a look? I’ve never seen a gypsy before.”
Rachel smiled at Tyree, suddenly pleased with the thought of spending some time with him. He had obviously bought her supper because he wanted to be with her, or maybe just to irritate Clint. Whatever the reason, she didn’t care. She knew only that she was suddenly, unaccountably happy.
“I’m game if you are,” she said agreeably. “But it’s just a lot of hocus-pocus.”
The interior of the tent was stark and dim, the only furnishings a small, round table made of dark wood and a pair of straight-backed chairs that had seen better days. A fat white candle sputtered in the center of the table, casting eerie shadows on the canvas walls.
The fortune-teller was seated behind the table, facing the doorway. She was not a gypsy, after all, but an old Apache squaw with iron-gray hair and sunken cheeks. A shapeless red dress hung loose on her frail frame.
A full minute went by before she acknowledged their presence with a faint nod. Then, staring at them through fathomless black eyes, she spoke in a raspy, faraway voice.
“Sit, my children. Give me your hand. Lady first.”
Feeling suddenly apprehensive, Rachel took a seat and placed her right hand into the claw-like palm of the old woman.
A moment passed by, and the tent was silent save for the sputtering flame.
“There has been trouble in your life,” the old woman said tonelessly. “You think it is over, but it will rise again when you least expect it.”
Nodding to herself, the Apache woman turned Rachel’s hand over and ran a gnarled, bony finger across Rachel’s palm. “You are not married, though two men desire to have you. One loves you with his whole heart and will make a good husband and provider. There will be little excitement in your life if you marry this man, yet you will live in peace and want for nothing. The other man also loves you, though he does not yet know it. Life with this man will be turbulent at times, but if you marry him, you will never regret it.”
Rachel leaned forward. Despite her earlier skepticism, she felt herself drawn into the hypnotic web of the old woman’s eyes and voice. “How shall I know which man to choose?”
The Indian woman cocked her head to one side, as though listening to a distant voice that only she could hear. “When the time comes, you will know which man is right.”
Rachel gazed intently at the fortune-teller, believing the woman’s words in spite of herself. She waited for the old woman to go on and was disappointed when the seer dropped her hand and turned to Tyree.
“You now.”
For a moment, a strange stillness hung over the dingy little tent. The Apache woman’s depthless black eyes looked hard at Tyree, as if seeking to penetrate his soul.
“You are of the blood,” she murmured, taking Tyree’s hand in hers. “It has brought sorrow into your life, but it has also made you strong. Perhaps too strong.” There was a long silence as she stared past Tyree.
Was she gazing down the long corridor of Tyree’s past, Rachel wondered, or peering into the murky darkness that was the future?
The candle sputtered, the soft hiss sounding overly loud in the taut stillness that shrouded the tent. Rachel glanced sideways at Tyree. His eyes were intent upon the face of the old woman, his expression almost frightening in its intensity. He believes her, Rachel mused incredulously. He believes every word.
The old woman took a deep breath, and her hand tightened around Tyree’s. “I see great turmoil in your future,” she predicted in a voice heavy with sadness. “And great pain. But you will triumph, and in the end you will find that which you thought forever gone out of your life.”
The gray head drooped. The withered hands withdrew. The ancient eyes closed. The reading was over.
Tyree pressed a twenty dollar gold piece into the Apache woman’s hand before following Rachel outside. The sun seemed extraordinarily bright after the tent’s gloomy darkness, and Rachel took a deep breath, feeling as if she had just escaped from some sorcerer’s dungeon. Here, in the sunlight, it was hard to remember how convincing the old woman had been.
“Well, that was certainly interesting,” Rachel said, laughing.
“Yes,” Tyree agreed.
“Her predictions for you were a little gloomy, don’t you think? I thought fortunetellers were supposed to foretell happy things.”
“I thought she was very perceptive,” Tyree remarked.
“Perceptive, indeed,” Rachel said disdainfully. Now that they were away from the old woman, the whole incident seemed ridiculous. “She said there had been trouble in my life, and that two men desire me.” Rachel laughed again. “Everyone has trouble in their life, and most girls have more than one beau.”
“She knew I was part Indian,” Tyree pointed out. “She wasn’t guessing about that.”
“Be serious, Tyree! Anyone can tell that just by looking at you.”
“Yeah,” Tyree agreed softly. “But she was blind.”
Rachel digested that bit of information for a moment. Was it possible the old woman was really gifted and not just some charlatan? Rachel glanced at Tyree. It was easy to see from his expression that he had been deeply impressed with the old Indian woman’s predictions.
“You don’t believe all that stuff, do you?” Rachel asked, hoping he would say no and dispel the uneasiness that was settling over her. “Not really?”
“I don’t know,” Tyree answered slowly. “When I lived with the Mescalero, there was an old medicine man who could foretell the future with uncanny accuracy.”
“Coincidence, perhaps?”
“Perhaps, but—”
A sudden burst of gunfire near the Blackjack Saloon stifled Tyree’s reply and he immediately turned in that direction, his hand poised over the butt of his .44, his eyes narrowed against the sun.
But there was no danger, and he relaxed when he saw that the commotion was being caused by a half-dozen men shooting at empty whiskey and beer bottles. In minutes, a crowd had gathered around the sharpshooters and money began to change hands as bets were made and paid off.
Tyree watched with interest as a gangly young man with limp brown hair and washed-out green eyes calmly proceeded to outshoot five competitors.
The boy was good, Tyree allowed. Damn good. Fast as lightning. But, even more important, he had a sharp eye and the kind of eye-and-hand coordination that could not be taught. It was a gift, an innate quality few men possessed, one that allowed a man to place his shots exactly where he
wanted them.
“That’s Pauley Norquist,” Rachel remarked. “He’s the best shot in town. He’s won the Thanksgiving turkey shoot every year for the last five years.”
Tyree grunted as Norquist shattered another bottle.
“He is good, isn’t he?” Rachel mused as Pauley drew his gun and fired at three bottles thrown into the air in rapid succession.
“How many men has he killed?” Tyree asked flatly. “Anybody can shoot bottles out of the air.”
“Is that all you ever think about?” Rachel exclaimed, exasperated. “Killing?”
“I think about other things occasionally,” Tyree drawled, and his amber eyes moved over her in a long, lustful glance that brought a shiver to Rachel’s spine and made her heart flutter in a most peculiar fashion.
“He hasn’t killed anybody,” Rachel answered, wishing Tyree would stop looking at her as if he could see through her clothing. “He’s a shopkeeper, not a hired gun.”
There was a sudden cessation in the contests as a swarthy-faced man in a flowered brocade vest and striped pants stepped out of the crowd and put his arm around Pauley’s shoulders.
“Gents,” he said in a loud voice. “I’m prepared to back Norquist, here, against all comers. Anybody got the guts to shoot against my boy for twenty dollars?”
Several men stepped forward, and Tyree watched with real admiration as Norquist beat them one by one.
When the last man walked away in defeat, Norquist’s backer raised up a chubby hand stuffed with greenbacks. “I’ve got two hundred dollars here,” he called out jovially. “And Pauley’s still rarin’ to go!”
“I’ll take that bet,” Tyree said, walking to where Norquist and the gambler stood. “Pick a target.”
“How much of this do you want?” the gambler asked, rifling the bills in his hand.
“All of it,” Tyree said, pulling a wad of greenbacks out of his hip pocket.
There followed an extraordinary contest as Pauley Norquist and Logan Tyree matched each other shot for shot, until there were no more empty bottles left. It was a contest the likes of which Rachel had never seen and she looked at the two men with awe. Truly, they were amazing.
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