by Tanya Hanson
“I don’t understand.” Jessy Belle touched Teresa’s long string of beads. “You look like you belong here. You act like it. Who are you then?”
Teresa looked long at her hands. “I’m a nameless woman from some other life. It’s better that you do not know.”
Remembering the canvas strips tight across her bosom, and living in dime novels as Jesse Ben Perkins, Jessy Belle understood that concept very well. “I’ve done the same. Lived in disguise. I’ll keep your secret.”
“I know that. And I’ll keep yours.”
“Well, you know how I came to be here.” Jessy Belle heard her own bitterness. “I got caught rustling horses and strung up down Pioneer Meadows. Managed to cut my way free. Mr. Redd found me sick and out cold on the road. I pretended to be addled, leastways until I found out who he was and what might lay ahead.”
Teresa nodded. “I made up my own set of lies. Yet Sister Adelaide Eugene claims I’m forgiven. You must tell her of your plight, Mary. If anybody can help you, she’s the one.”
Jessy Belle had to consider the possibility. If the mission gave her religious sanctuary, she’d be safe. Except...Sister Adelaide believed the gang had killed her beloved niece. Nun or not, she likely wouldn’t warm to Jessy Belle staying here ever after as a nun she didn’t want to become.
Likely stealing Blossom would be better all around. Specially with Ahab on the prowl.
“I don’t know, Teresa. I might be better off...on my own.”
Teresa’s head shook now, with such vigor her scarf settled lopsided over her hair. “That’s not the answer. Because you’ll never find yourself. And we all need somebody. Here at least you have folks that care. You have a chance.”
“How do you know that?”
“Come. Let’s finish brushing those dear mules. I’ll take Dolly.” Teresa stood up, and Jessy Belle started on Ditsy. “This is how I came to be here. My stepfather...took advantage. Time and time again. Since the time I was thirteen.”
“Took advantage? You mean, rape?” The foul word came forth soundless, like a soap bubble that was bursting.
Teresa nodded but looked off into the shadows. “Finally I found the courage to tell my mother, and she...she disbelieved me.” Breathing hard, but her hands upon the mule were gentle and caring.
Jessy Belle sagged against the strong Ditsy. Horror grabbed the back of her neck. In spite of all his sins, Ahab had worked hard to keep her virtuous despite the lust of the ruffians who wove in and out of the gang. “Ah, Teresa. No.”
“Mama said the bloody sheets was my natural woman’s time...” Teresa’s voice trailed off into the dim stall. “Mama said I had to be mistaken, if not a liar. As if I could mistake a man’s...”
Teresa’s eyes closed and she shivered. “My stepfather was too good a provider, Mama said. She’d never let him down or embarrass him.”
Bile rose up Jessy Belle’s gullet. She emptied her belly into the straw on the ground. Shivering, Teresa held her close.
“Teresa,” Jessy Belle said when able. “There’s no need to...open old wounds.”
Teresa touched a quick kiss to Jessy Belle’s forehead. “No, it’s fine. Sometimes speaking of it helps me feel clean. Like sweeping away cobwebs. I started keeping a knife under my pillow. Last time he came at me, I...stabbed him. Stole money from his study and ran. Five years now, I reckon. A clergyman finally led me to Sister Adelaide. From a newspaper in a town I can’t reveal, I learned my mama has set the law after me.”
“Teresa, I...” She wanted to grasp her friend close but didn’t know how.
“Mary, I have made my peace. I pray...” She touched the beads. “I pray all day that Mama will find her soul. I am forgiven. I am content here. And safe. Besides, no man would want me. I’m tainted.”
“You are not tainted!” Jessy Belle’s voice burst forth loud as she dared before pain hit her injured throat. “What was done to you was not your fault!” Anger, pity, fear tornadoed inside her head. “You trusted that man! You were a child. His child. He was supposed to love you and keep you safe. But he let you down. Like Ahab did me.” Her words choked her sore throat, and she gagged again.
“Are you all right?” Teresa’s hand and voice were soft.
Jessy Belle shook away her tears. “Yep. But Teresa, your mama let you down, too. Because of that, I know you’ll be a right fine mama to kids of your own.”
Like that holy saint of long ago, Teresa smiled. “I don’t want a man. Now come along. Will can muck up your sickness when he feeds the animals. Sunshine always heals my moods. Let’s go work in the garden for a spell.”
“Garden?” Jessy Belle wrinkled her nose and peeked out the barn door at the dusty yard.
“Behind the chapel.” Teresa still smiled. “We’ve got a spring nearby, with much good water for vegetables and herbs. Maybe a flower seed or two next spring. We’ve enjoyed fresh squash all summer.”
“Oh, flowers. Let’s go. I’m nearly finished with old Ditsy. Flowers surely would brighten this place.” Jessy Belle’s heart lightened, just a little. “My mama had something of a hardscrabble little garden once. Oh, how proud she was of her little swarm of zinnias.”
Her throat clamped. How loud Pa had laughed, stomping each and every one to death after an Easter day binge.
The same laugh still woke her up in the night sometimes.
“Those zinnias must have been lovely,” said Teresa.
Jessy Belle shivered in the hot sun. She had to believe Teresa, about the sunshine healing moods. But so far, something else bad sprouted in her mind. It wasn’t quite the same, her story and Teresa’s. She knelt down to pull a weed. Jessy Belle wasn’t tainted.
And all because Ahab had protected her from thugs like Rolly Gitts.
She pondered, lifted her face to the sun. Did she owe something back to the lost boy who had raised her how he thought best?
The stick Redd had given her poked through her pocket against her thigh. No. No, she did not. Ahab’s horrible message scared and sickened her. He was coming to get her. Or leastways the pearls. She had to hightail it out of here to keep these nuns safe.
Tears she hadn’t shed at her brother’s abandonment flooded her now. Dirt from her fingers mixed with the tears on her cheeks. Teresa had advised her sticking around and finding herself, but Jessy Belle wasn’t sure she’d like what she’d find. Not worth the chance should Ahab find her first.
“Sister Mary?” Cleeland Redd’s deep voice broke through her pain, the tangled squash vine and her tangled thoughts. Upon hearing that strong, stalwart yet gentle voice, the roots of her hair trembled.
So did the nails on her toes. She managed to scramble to her feet. Facing him brought both joy and fright.
“Mary? It’s time we confer with Sister Adelaide,” he said.
She pulled the scarf from her head and wiped her nose with it. Tried to still her pounding heart. Leastways she had a reason for her soft, trembly voice. “It is time, Redd. And now on, you call me Jessy Belle.”
****
She turned her face up to him, proud. Not defiant at all. Like she’d reached the top of some mountain all by herself. And she might have for real, all that dirt streaking her cheeks. Redd smiled.
Her eyelids shuttered quick, though. Like she might need somebody now and didn’t know how to ask.
“Go on, Jessy Belle.” Teresa pushed her gently, nodded first at her, then him. “Sister Adelaide is most kind. She’ll know what to do next.”
“All righty.”
She seemed small and sad, though, when she walked ahead of him toward the mission. Redd followed silent through the dusty yard, but his heart still tugged, his ears still burned. Somehow her words still hung on the gritty September air and he couldn’t help grabbing them.
Couldn’t help hearing once again her small, hurting voice.
What was done to you was not your fault! You trusted that man! You were a child. He was supposed to love you and keep you safe. But he let you down. Like Ahab did me.�
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Her chokes had let him know she’d been fighting down bile. He didn’t apologize for the eavesdropping. Any worthy scout spied upon his foe when he could. Right now, he caught up to walk beside her, to find Sister Adelaide. Instead of ire, being that he knew just who she was, he recalled finding her near dead in the dirt.
Recalled a brother who left her to hang.
A brother who was supposed to love her and keep her safe. Well, Cleeland Redd had let Tawana down, not being around when she sore needed him. He wouldn’t do the same to this pretty blond gal who said she loved him.
Loved him? Thrills trickled up and down his spine as he stumbled, not watching, through a small, stony patch of cholla. Even him learning some Chiricahua and Tawana some American, she had never to his knowledge said those selfsame words to him.
Nor....shame blistered his skin. Nor had he in return. But something twitched across his body, his heart now, thinking of an alive girl who loved him. Not just twitching his manhood, which was just what a normal cock did around a pretty woman.
But something deep and meaningful twitched him all over, deep in his bones. He almost stopped dead in his tracks but that would be a dead giveaway, and Cleeland Redd had to think things through careful before he gave his heart again.
His fingers possessed a mind of their own, though. Took her hand, and hers curled inside his fist, trembling like a featherless bird.
They arrived at Sister Adelaide’s dark little office.
“Welcome.” She pointed to some old wood chairs better off as firewood.
Polite, holding his breath at what his heart was learning about itself, Redd unlaced his fingers from Jessy Belle’s so she could sit. Her white face discomposed him, his hand ached with emptiness. While her chair peeped like a chick when she sat down, his groaned against his strength and weight. He sat careful of moving too much on the decrepit furniture. Sure enough, that reward money from turning in Ahab Perkins would come in handy for this good nun and her establishment. Surely Jessy Belle would see the sense.
Especially since she’d told him she’d turned respectable now. If he loved her, he had to believe her. And he was fast thinking he did both.
“Child, it seems you have things to say.” Sister Adelaide took her own chair behind a long table, old but polished and carved with flower buds up the legs. After she poured water from a pitcher, Jessy Belle spent some time drinking. Redd shook his head at the refreshment.
“Indeed, she does, Sister,” he said instead, but Adelaide waved her hand to shut him up. Like nuns in school had when he’d spoken out of turn. His cheekbones burned.
“Jessy Belle, Redd has explained how he found you and why you were in such desperate circumstances. How you managed to survive. I am grateful you still have life, God be praised.” Adelaide waggled her fingers, looked Jessy Belle straight on. “But the fact is, we now know your true identity. And you are wanted by the law.”
“Oh, no, Sister. I’ve changed. I truly have changed. Mister Redd will tell you. I came clean.”
“But only after he found you out. Did you come to me, to us, with false pretences?”
Jessy Bell’s pretty forehead wrinkled like a lakebed fried from drought, cheeks fired bright as dawn. “I did. I wasn’t addle-pated at all. But I was scared. I....” She breathed hard, stared at her toes. Redd’s righteous urge to protect flared up again. “The thing is. Ahab has collaborators and fanatics everywhere. After those fool dime novels, some folks admire him. I...had to make sure. And I knew I’d be safe here.”
Sister Adelaide’s gaze upon Jessy Belle’s worried face was kind. “It is true. We give sanctuary to those in need. But Jessy Belle...”
“Oh, I know what you think, Sister. But Perkinses didn’t kill your niece. I swear it, I promise it. I vow it with whatever’s left of my soul.”
“My niece?” Sister Adelaide’s face swiveled in question from Jessy Belle to Redd.
“The girl you raised as your daughter,” Redd said, smoothing things along. Needing Sister to know he hadn’t blabbed her secrets. “Nuns not having kids and all.”
“Oh, yes.” Real grief crinkled Sister’s eyes, and Redd almost wished Perkins were the killer, to alleviate his good friend’s pain. But he believed Jessy Belle. She had lied to him yesterday, but as a scout, he’d told his own lies from time to time in order to preserve his life and safekeeping. And that’s all she’d done.
Hadn’t come easy, him walking in somebody else’s boots, and he’d never tried it concerning outlaws. But Jessy Belle deserved the chance. She loved him.
“Jessy Belle,” Sister Adelaide folded her hands like a prayer. “If you’ve changed your heart, why, that’s a wonderful thing. But I’ve had Pinkertons on the case. I don’t doubt your gang killed my...Elena. She deserves justice.”
“And I don’t blame you one whit. Pioneer Meadows wanted justice. All they got was me. But the gang didn’t kill a single soul. Never been our way. Well, their way.”
“Well.” Sister Adelaide closed her eyes during a long drink of the cold water.
Redd’s tongue turned dry. He believed Jessy Belle, didn’t he? But the Pinkertons...they were a group masterful at deduction. But Jessy Belle, didn’t she sound sincere?
“Tell me your tale, Jessy Belle.” Sister Adelaide set down her cup. “The leader is your brother, yes? Are you well enough to speak?”
“Yes, ma’am. If I go soft.”
“How came you to be an outlaw?”
Sister’s question amazed Redd, why she wondered. Why it might matter.
Jessy Belle leaned back, the chair squawking loud this time. “I loved my mama. But life was ramshackle. Like this place. No offense, Sister.” She glanced from him to Adelaide, worry crinkling her forehead.
“No offense taken, child. We have many needs.”
“A hideous slum, backwater St. Louis. Pa coopered. Made barrels enough to keep starvation from the door.” She hung her head. “But he came to spend an unrighteous pocketful on beer and whiskey. Mama did her best. Even taught me to read the Scriptures. Ahab would have none of it. I was six....”
Her voice turned so lost Redd ached to take her in his arms against his heart. Might have if he wasn’t sitting across from a nun, pretend or not. Her habit with the black bat wings never failed to discompose him.
“Go on, if you can, child.”
Jessy Belle’s fingers tore at the calico dress, and Redd gave in to taking her hand, holding the withering bird tight against his knee.
“I’m a woman grown now, ma’am. But when I was six, Pa shot dead a little pup my mama had befriended for my birthday present. Laughed the whole while. I screamed so hard...Ahab held me back.” Jessy Belle’s breath heaved, and she sat a spell looking out the window like she didn’t see a thing. Redd’s thumb found its way rubbing the top of her hand. As if some miracle, ’Gade came through the door and laid his head on Jessy Belle’s lap. And she kissed it.
Finally Jessy Belle looked at Sister Adelaide again, free hand rustling ’Gade’s fur. “Mama took Pa to task for it. He didn’t much like being back talked by a female, so he whacked her against the bricks on the hearth. Wasn’t the first time, truth to tell. Just the worst time. And the last.”
Then Jessy Belle’s fingers wrung his like a swift current might sweep her away. And he held tight as he could without snapping her bones.
“Mama was bleeding. Not moving.” Her whisper took on a new edge, clear and unmoving like glass. “Ahab was thirteen. Got her a blanket. I dabbled water on her face. Pa, he left for the doctor, but he never came back. Died that night in a beer brawl. In between, Mama slowly drew her last.” She looked at Redd then, beseeching. “Made Ahab promise to care for me. And she made me promise to safeguard her own mama’s pearls.”
“Had you no friends? No sheriff?” Sister Adelaide asked this of her, her tone soft as a cloud, for Redd couldn’t think of a thing to say. Cold horror swamped him, same as finding his mama dead at The Devil’s hands.
Jessy Bell
e didn’t reply directly. Didn’t look at him or Sister Adelaide. “Ahab had no learning, no money. Just a kid sister to drag along. He proved right good at robbing folks” She looked at him then.
For one second, no more.
“We started small,” she said. “Picked pockets. Drifted in some mercantile and out again with goods stuck in our boots. Under our hats. Tied in my hair.”
“A preacher, a neighbor should have taken you in,” Sister Adelaide muttered, cheeks tight.
Jessy Belle glanced first to her, then Redd. Eyes bleak as midwinter. “Sometimes there’s nobody else but yourself. And sometimes along the way, Ahab attracted other boys to move along with us. Some good. Some evil. Then he started in, nabbing horses. And me? Well, I never let him down. Nor him me...until last week. For all his sins, Ahab protected my virtue.”
“Just not your life.” Redd still tugged at her hand but anger roiled, letting a female die in your stead. A sister yet. Find Ahab Perkins and he’d send him on to hell himself.
“No, he didn’t. And for that he might be damned to hell. Mama told me once of Cain and Abel.” Her blue gaze bore into Redd’s, deep, into his soul. “And I ain’t cussing this time, Redd. I stopped doing that. I learned Hell is a true place. But so is Heaven.”
“We have taught you well in just a short time, child.” Sister Adelaide nodded at Jessy Belle, who smiled.
Right off Redd figured Adelaide was still wearing her nun disguise, and he himself must go along. Teresa might have bared her soul, poor tragic girl—and Redd would never blush or regret his snooping—but Adelaide’s secrets still must be kept. She had the fake postulants to protect.
“Yes, you did.” Jessy Belle said, almost too soft for an ear to hear. “I fear I have found my truth.”
Sister Adelaide smiled with triumph. “You may stay here. But you must reveal yourself to the sheriff. If you confess your crimes it’ll go easier for you, I’m sure. He will have questions for you. Your answers might lead a posse onward to apprehend your brother. Whether or not he killed my....Elena, he is a wanted man and known horse thief.”
