Outlaw

by Lisa Plumley

  Taking Amelia by the elbow, she steered her between tables and chairs toward the stage station’s back room. “No matter how big a fool Mason chooses to be, that does not mean you must leave us, too.”

  Halfway to the back room, Amelia dug in her heels. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “I have another life to lead, Juana. I can’t stay here with you. What would James say? And Manuel?”

  Manuel hated her now—she’d seen it in his eyes. After all she’d accused him of, she could hardly blame him. Grief had made her thoughts run amuck, made her seize upon the first opportunity to lay blame on someone, however undeserving.

  “Bah! Who do you think runs this place? The men are always gone, off to Tucson or Fort Lowell or riding half-wild across the Territory with one excuse or another.”

  Amelia laughed, surprising herself.

  “I can use your help,” Juana went on. “And your company. A lady friend is hard to come by here.”

  “Oh, Juana.” Cocking her head, Amelia smiled at her. “Thank you, but I—”

  Juana held up her hand. “Manuel is angry now, yes. But not at you alone,” she said, giving Amelia a determined look. “He did not want Mason to go into Tucson alone. He thought it too dangerous, and now he’s loosed his venom on you.”

  She stared toward the doorway leading to the stage station’s back room, shaking her head slightly. “It was cruelly done, Amelia. I am sorry.”

  “I’m sorry, too.” Amelia glanced at her, twisted her hands within the folds of the calico dress she’d borrowed from Juana. “Do you think he would accept an apology? I don’t want to leave without making amends. What I said to Manuel was horrible.”

  “Still this talk of leaving?”

  “I have to go,” Amelia told her, wishing in that moment it wasn’t true. Something told her she and Juana might have been good friends, given different circumstances.

  A rumbling sounded outside, reaching her through the still-opened front door of the stage station. Distant at first, then louder, Amelia recognized it as the creaks and hoof beats of a stagecoach and team drawing up the winding Picacho Peak road.

  “The passengers we expected for supper,” Juana said, going to the door to look outside. She closed it against the clouds of gritty dust stirred up by the stagecoach’s arrival, then turned to face Amelia again.

  “Mason warned me about this part of you,” she said, folding her arms and smiling at Amelia. “When he asked me to wire Tucson and find out if your books were at the station there. He knew you’d want them.”

  Of course he did—he knew he wasn’t returning for her, Amelia thought. But she could hardly say such a thing aloud.

  “He did?” she asked instead.

  “Yes.” Juana swept past her, heading for the back room to collect the stew and serving utensils and leaving Amelia to follow.

  “In fact,” she said, pausing in the act of stirring the thick, meaty stew, “he said he figured you’d sell every last book in those bags, once you got them back.”

  “Really?” Amelia asked, brightening a bit. At least Mason had thought her competent in one area. That was certainly more acknowledgement than she’d ever received from her father or brothers back home.

  Juana nodded. “He said he’d never met a more determined person in his life, man or woman.” She stuck her hand on her hip, her wooden spoon jutting out sideways. “And of them all, he said, you were the dog-stubbornest.”

  Amelia frowned. “He said that?”

  “Sí.” Steam rising from the stew wreathed Juana’s face—her smiling face—as she lifted the heavy cast iron pot from the stove top. She nodded toward the pinto beans simmering in another pot, motioning for Amelia to carry it into the front room. “That is what he said.”

  Hefting the bean pot in both hands, Amelia followed her through the doorway. There she stopped, surprised at the quantity—and variety—of stagecoach passengers shuffling inside the station.

  Juana glanced over her shoulder. “That is when I knew you and Mason belonged together,” she said, re-examining Amelia with narrowed eyes. She smiled wider. “Only a dog-stubborn woman could keep up with a man like that. When you get to Tucson—”

  “Juana, I—”

  “When you get to Tucson,” she interrupted, raising her voice to be heard over the din of people filing inside, scraping chairs away from the tables, and paying for their meals, “you find Mason. Find him and make him listen to you, pequeña. You and Mason belong together.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  George Hand’s saloon in Tucson was dark and cramped, but since it was tucked into the corner of Meyer and Mesilla streets a good two miles from the courthouse and jail, it suited Mason just fine.

  Although the whiskey was rotgut and the mescal was even meaner, the saloon still found its share of patrons. Men who found the teakwood bar and faro tables of Brown’s Congress Hall Saloon too rich for their blood usually wound up at Hand’s, where the cards fell straight and the soiled doves of Maiden Lane were only stumbling distance away.

  If luck were with Mason, so were the Sharpe brothers.

  Anticipation, predatory and too-long denied, made Mason’s fingers tighten on the drink in front of him. A day of searching for them had whetted his appetite, not blunted it. He meant to find the Sharpes, get Ben, and get the hell out of Tucson and on the road to Mexico with his boy and his life his own again. No matter what it took. Grimacing, he drained his drink, then slapped the glass onto the plain bar counter, motioning for another.

  The bar owner nodded, holding up a hand for Mason to wait while he finished with the saloon’s only other customer, a soiled dove named Cruz. Stroking his wiry, collar-length beard, George Hand leaned over the bar toward her, pouring whiskey into her glass. He was nothing if not solicitous toward Cruz—and all the business she brought into his house.

  Mason watched them, his fingers idly stroking the other glass on the bar counter. His second drink, ordered along with the first and still untouched. He pushed it away, then drew it nearer, drawn from their conversation to the amber depths of the liquor his glass held.

  Whiskey. How long since he’d drank it? He tried to remember, thought of the time in the wagon with Curly Top outside Maricopa Wells, and snatched his fingers from the glass. They came away slick and cold with condensation, cold as Mason felt inside with leaving her.

  “Any luck today?” asked Hand, whisking away Mason’s empty glass. He dunked it into the olla in the corner, swished it around in the pottery jar’s contents, and pulled it out again. Wiping it dry, he set it onto the bar counter beside the whiskey glass.

  “No.” Mason absently lined up both glasses, then took a swig from one. It cooled his throat, slid into his empty belly and reminded him he’d never stopped to eat. “I went clear from Levin’s over to the old plaza where Camp Lowell used to be. Not a damned sign of them.”

  He slammed down his glass, clanking it against its partner on the bar top. Cruz glanced at him from two stools over, all low-cut dress and too-sweet flowery perfume, and winked.

  “Feeling tense, sugar? I can help you out with that, if you want. Make you feel real fine.”

  Mason bared his teeth at her.

  “Not now, Cruz,” Hand said, shaking his head.

  She shrugged and finished her drink, then wiped her mouth neatly. “Mason and I, we’ve got an understanding,” she said, tossing her dark hair over her shoulder. “I just thought we might expand it a little.”

  Hand raised his eyebrows at Mason.

  “She’s keeping an eye out for the Sharpes for me,” Mason muttered. “I spent part of the day over on Maiden Lane. If I’ve got those bastards pegged right, one or all of them will be visiting the cribs before they head east. If they do, I’ll know about it.”

  “Good idea.” Hand reached below the bar counter, raised a whiskey bottle, and started to refill Mason’s second drink. He paused, frowning down at the paired glasses in front of him.

  “What in blazes is the matter with you
, Kincaid?” he asked, thumping the bottle onto the bar. “You ordered that whiskey—you gonna drink it or look at it for another hour?”

  Mason stared at the glasses, one filled with whiskey and the other beside it filled with water, and raised the water. He drained it in one gulp, then saluted the olla with the empty glass.

  “Look at it,” he growled. “While you fill this one again.”

  “Dammit, I make my money off’n whiskey,” Hand grumbled, yanking the glass from the bar and stomping toward the water jar. “At this rate I’ll be havin’ the water vendor in here twice a damned month, and goin’ busted after that.”

  “Good thing you’ve got boarders.”

  “Just you, and you ain’t payin’ me none,” Hand said, slopping a fresh water glass in front of Mason. “At least help me out an’ take a tumble with old Cruz here. Her I make money off of.”

  Cruz smiled. “Lots of money,” she said, smoothing her hand over her ruffled red dress. “What do you say, sugar? I ain’t seen you since Camp Lowell days. Almost forgot what it’s like to entertain a—”

  “No.”

  Mason stroked his whiskey glass, looking down into it instead of at Cruz. Maybe one drink wouldn’t hurt. One horn of whiskey to wipe out all the damned things he couldn’t forget, couldn’t put behind him even with miles of separation. He dipped his finger into the whiskey, tracing moisture round and round the glass rim.

  Hand leaned over the bar. “You ain’t gonna find those fellas you’re looking for tonight,” he said. “It’s clear past midnight already. I ought to just close up anyhow.” He jerked his head toward Cruz. “Go on with Cruz and forgot about it for a while.”

  Forget. Damn, but he wanted to forget everything. Ellen, the Sharpes, Ben. All of it hurt like hell to think about.

  And it was nothing compared with the pain that seared him every time he pictured Amy beside him, loving him.

  Being left behind.

  Hell.

  Mason raised his whiskey, liking its warm weight in his hand. He could taste it, feel the bitter peace it would bring. He inhaled deeply, filling his nostrils with the liquor’s tangy scent. Just one little drink….

  “A little comfort never hurt nobody,” Cruz said, sliding down from her barstool. Mason sensed her coming nearer, smelled her perfume and the clove-sweet scent of the laudanum she drank throughout the day, and lowered his head.

  “No, Cruz.”

  “Why not? You find yourself another fancy eastern lady, sugar?” She touched his arm, wrapping her fingers around it to pull herself up against his shoulder. “I reckon that ain’t never stopped none of my other gentleman callers.”

  “I said no.”

  Mason hurled his whiskey glass. It shattered against the saloon’s whitewashed wall in a spray of liquor and glass shards.

  The motion only fueled the anger already inside him. He wanted to break something. Hurt something. Teeth clenched, he slammed his hand onto the bar top. Pain surged up his arm as he shoved himself from the stool and straightened to his full height.

  “Don’t ask again,” he snarled.

  Cruz jumped backward, staring at him with eyes gone wide. She nodded. “Sorry, sugar. I—I’ll let you know if I see them Sharpe fellas who took your boy.” She cast a hasty glance at Hand, busy gathering up broken glass behind the bar. “See you at the fiesta tomorrow, George.”

  “‘Night, Cruz.”

  She shoved open the saloon doors, letting in cooler night air and the sounds of dogs barking in the distance. A mule brayed nearby, and tinny music drifted over from the Gem saloon down the street. Mason kept his head down, not looking as he heard the doors swish closed again behind Cruz’s departing back.

  Hand straightened behind the bar, holding the cloth he’d used to wipe up Mason’s whiskey.

  “What the hell’s the matter with you?” he asked, shaking the glass fragments from it into the trash. “You ain’t never been one to be mean like that, not even to a whore. You known Cruz a long time.”

  Mason glared down at him. Another man would have shut up. George Hand, only chest-high to Mason, didn’t.

  “What kind of damn help you think her and them painted ladies are going to give you now, since you went all wrathy on Cruz?”

  Looking disgusted, he shook his head, then wadded up the cloth and threw it behind the bar. “I dunno what’s deviling you, Mason, but this ain’t like you.”

  Mason grabbed the full whiskey bottle Hand had left on the bar. The liquor sloshed inside, a siren’s call compared with what he’d been hearing from himself every hour since leaving Amy back at Picacho Peak.

  He’d taken the coward’s way out, sending Manuel back with that key.

  Tell her goodbye, he’d told Manuel. Tell her…and then he’d stopped. Tell her what? That he loved her? Love meant promises Mason couldn’t keep. Lying words said over a bible that would only haunt them both later. Tell her to be happy? To be safe? She would be both.

  If he stayed away.

  Curly Top deserved better. Better than a life lived amongst strangers in Mexico, better than life as an outlaw’s woman. Better than him.

  Just tell her goodbye, he’d finally said. And Manuel had ridden away to keep his promise, leaving Mason to live with the consequences.

  “It just ain’t like you,” Hand said again, spreading his palms along the bar. He looked pointedly at the whiskey. “It ain’t.”

  Mason looked at it too, raising the bottle to the lamplight. “It is now,” he said.

  He headed toward the saloon doors, the whiskey dangling from his fingertips.

  “Much obliged for the drink, Hand,” Mason told him. “But you can keep your damned opinions to yourself. At least until I’m drunk enough to forget them in the morning.”

  Tucson was, Amelia decided, quite possibly the noisiest town she’d ever encountered. Horses and mule-drawn freight wagons rumbled by at a dangerously rapid pace, music seemed to spill from the saloons night and day, and overhead the windmills creaked incessantly. Conversations in English, Spanish, and sometimes, unfamiliar-sounding Chinese, swirled around her and added to the confusion.

  Passers-by filled what little space remained in the streets. Farmers and ranchers ducked past Indian women carrying enormous pottery jars on their heads, and tipped their hats to ladies paying calls. Water, wood, and vegetable vendors plied their goods from handmade carts between the shops, making up tunes to entice buyers that remained in Amelia’s head far longer than she wished.

  Children smiled shyly up at her from their parents’ sides as she passed, and each one of them made her think of little Ben. Had Mason found him? Were they all right? She found herself looking closely into each young face, watching for resemblances to Mason. Every glimpse of a dark-haired, brown-eyed boy made her look twice as closely, her heart pounding fiercely.

  It was silly, really, Amelia told herself. As fruitless as her thoughts of Mason were. She had little chance of finding Ben herself—Mason had never described the boy to her. He could have blond hair, or red; blue eyes instead of brown. For all she knew, Ben resembled his mother. Amelia hadn’t the slightest notion what Ellen had looked like.

  Aside from impossibly beautiful, she amended.

  Dabbing her damp forehead with the handkerchief Juana had given her before she’d boarded the stage yesterday, Amelia squinted up at the broiling sun overhead. Not even noon yet, and already her dress, chemise, petticoats and corset felt like a cambric-and-calico prison. She sighed and stopped into the shade of a restaurant’s overhanging ramada to catch her breath, plunking down her satchels on the ground beside her.

  There were no raised board sidewalks here. Mud and manure abounded, making careful attention to where she stepped a necessity. But there were plenty of book buyers in Tucson, and Amelia had visited nearly everyone in her J.G. O’Malley and Sons book order log, making deliveries and taking new orders where ever she could.

  She opened it, thumbing past the pages of new orders she’d taken from the soldiers
at Fort Lowell, where, upon James’ suggestion, she’d stopped before continuing into Tucson. Evidently Jacob had bypassed the fort during his last order-gathering trip into the Territory, and Amelia had found an eager audience for her wares.

  The officers and enlisted men—and their wives—had pored over her J.G. O’Malley and Sons catalogue and listened to her sales talk long into the afternoon, placing order after order to fill her book. Seated beneath the shady cottonwood trees of Fort Lowell’s ‘officer’s row,’ she’d penciled in orders until her hand cramped.

  She’d been successful. Fulfilled her plan to return home with enough book orders to dazzle her father and brothers. With such evident success to her credit, surely they’d be forced to admit Amelia could help with J.G. O’Malley and Sons, too. She’d proven herself a good book agent and a reliable helper, just as she’d set out to do.

  Then why did the accomplishment leave her feeling so empty?

  Tightening her lips, Amelia hummed a low-keyed hymn, pocketed her handkerchief, and tried to think of something else. She looked around her for distraction’s sake, seeing the flat-roofed adobe shops silhouetted against the hot blue sky, the people and wagons streaming by…and cared nothing for any of it.

  All she cared for was Mason. Thoughts of him were never far from her, however she tried to push them away. With him she’d found something far greater than a log filled with orders and the book agent’s position she’d coveted. She’d found caring. Appreciation.

  Love.

  Amelia saw again the respect on Mason’s face when she’d gotten them released from their cell in Maricopa Wells, when she’d driven them away and made good their escape, and knew that no one else had ever seen in her the good things Mason did.

  Or had, before he’d left her.

  A fresh prickle of tears blurred the page in her hands. Blinking rapidly to force them back, Amelia flipped past the last of the soldiers’ orders and scanned the book order log for the location of her next delivery. Better to go forward. Better to get on with what she could salvage, rather than look back at all she’d lost.