by Lisa Plumley
Grabbing the flowered-porcelain pitcher atop the bureau, she filled the matching basin with water, dipped a cloth inside, and began scrubbing her face and neck clean. That done, Amelia stripped off her wrinkled, muddy-hemmed dress and, humming, scrutinized her appearance in the mirror. Exactly what, she wondered, was the appropriate hair style for a fiesta?
Mason sat on a rock in the shade of a gnarled old mesquite tree at Levin’s Park, a mug of tepid water in his hands, and cursed whoever had decided to host a fiesta right in the middle of his search for Ben and the Sharpes. From the looks of it, the whole town had turned out for music, dancing, beer, and whiskey—including the sheriff and his posse. He’d already spotted several of them wending through the crowds, weapons holstered but at the ready.
Hell.
If he were smart, he’d leave. Take his chances with finding his son tomorrow, or the next day. Eventually he’d find him. He didn’t intend to quit until he did. But without knowing exactly when the Sharpe brothers planned to leave Tucson and take Ben back east with them, Mason didn’t dare wait. He’d lay odds they were at the fiesta, right along with the rest of the town, and he meant to find them.
Beside him, George Hand swallowed the last of his third mug of Levin’s ale, then swiped the foam from his mustache and squinted at Mason.
“I still dunno why you had ta shoot up my bottle of Old Orchard,” he complained, shaking his head. “Perfectly good whiskey—” he mimed aiming a pistol and shooting it “—blam! All shot to hell.”
“I paid you for it.”
In preparation for his escape to Mexico with Ben, James had brought him all the money Mason had saved from his farmhouse near the Gila—along with the news that Curly Top was in Tucson, too. ‘Ye’ll be sorry if ye let that lassie get away,’ he’d said. ‘Take her with ye to Mexico.’
Damned interfering friends. Frowning, Mason yanked his hat lower to hide his face, then scanned the crowd. He wasn’t likely to be spotted here, on the edge of the plaza—but he wasn’t likely to find Ben or the Sharpes from there, either. He’d have to get on the move again soon.
“That ain’t the point,” Hand went on, pushing up from the rock with his beer mug held close against his scrawny chest. He staggered sideways, straightened, then pointed his mug at Mason. “That was perfectly good whiskey in that bottle.”
“It’s over with,” Mason said. Over with in more ways than George Hand could ever have guessed at. He stood, too, leaving his water on the rock behind him.
“So’s your good relations with Cruz and her gals,” Hand muttered, weaving beside him as they walked past the cantina toward the plaza center. Raising his voice to be heard above the guitars playing a Spanish melody, he said, “You had to go an’ bust up her place, didn’t ya’?”
Mason frowned. “It’s not busted up, I—”
“Ya just scared away half her customers,” Hand interrupted, “tearing through there like a damned berserker after them Sharpes is all.” Grinning, he elbowed him in the ribs. “I heard some of them ladies was runnin’ around half-naked, trying to call their fellas back.”
“I didn’t notice,” Mason said. He’d been too busy chasing one of Ellen’s no-good, sanctimonious brothers down the hallways in Cruz’s house. The coward had ducked out a back window in the end, leaving Mason staring after his retreating backside with an eye toward revenge and a gaggle of perfumed, pissed-off whores clustered around him so tight he could barely breathe.
Hell.
At least he knew the Sharpes were still in Tucson. The hell of it was, after the scene at Cruz’s, they knew he was on the loose, too. Mason had no doubt they’d alert the posse and redouble their efforts to get Ben out of town. Time was running out.
He and Hand skirted past a noisy cock fight going in a circle of yelling, half-drunk men down the alley, and headed toward the center of the plaza. There the music was even louder, and the close-packed bodies of dancers and drinkers generated even more heat. The combined smells of sweat, liquor, tamales, and chile-roasted pork were nearly overpowering. Overhead, early fireworks sizzled and sparked the sky with brilliant blues and greens and oranges.
Mason kept his head low and his eyes moving, seeking out any sign of the posse or the Sharpes. Townspeople flowed past, none of them paying any mind to either him or Hand. They pushed between dancing couples and shouting children waving confetti-filled cascarones—children who caught his eye, made him pause and look closer.
But none of them had Ben’s dark hair, his always-ready smile, his freckled, sun-browned face. None of them was his son.
Mason’s gut tightened. He needed to find him. Soon. It would be full dark before long—the only remaining natural light shafted between the buildings from the setting sun, golden-hued and streaked with blood red. Already women bearing lighted oil lamps were making their way along the fringes of the crowd, setting lanterns atop squat adobe walls and hanging them from low tree branches at Levin’s Park.
“Maybe I’ll jist go an’ smooth things over for ya’ with Cruz and the ladies,” Hand offered with a grin. He stumbled over a rock, then righted himself. “G’night, my friend,” he slurred, “an’ good luck.”
Mason nodded him off, watching Hand bob through the crowd. Good luck was exactly what he needed. Either that, or a miracle.
Too bad he wasn’t damned likely to get either one.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Smiling and nodding at the townspeople she recognized—many of them J.G. O’Malley and Sons book customers whom she’d already met—Amelia made her way toward the open-air cantina at Levin’s Park. According to the proprietor at the Palace Hotel, Levin’s hosted the finest fiesta in the Territory, and she meant to get a feel for the community that might be hers if all went according to her book agent plans.
Tall cottonwood and mesquite trees bordered Levin’s Park, hedged by tidy white picket fences. Branches stirred overhead as Amelia left the close-packed street and stepped into their late-afternoon shade. Smiling, she stroked her fingertips along the rough tree bark, surprised to find so many trees growing so well in a place like Tucson. It was like having a little piece of Big Pike Lake, right there at the end of Pennington Street.
At the cantina, customers sat on benches beneath the shade of its ramada, balancing plates of spicy Mexican food on their laps and talking while they ate. Chiles, pork, and roasted corn perfumed the air.
Amelia sniffed appreciatively, her stomach rumbling its complaints over the meager lunch she’d had at the hotel kitchen earlier. Nudging past two ladies with parasols and all-white dresses—the prevailing fashion in the Territory, it seemed—Amelia ordered a drink and a plate of enchiladas, then stepped back to wait for her food.
Music swelled toward her from the bandstand at the far edge of the plaza, mingling with the varied-accented voices of passers-by. Tapping her toes—clad, at last, in a new pair of balmorals—she gazed out in the direction of the music.
Dancing couples swirled past in time with the fiddles and guitars, kicking up puffs of dust in their wake. Amelia watched the laughing, chattering women and the men holding them closely, and felt her stomach tighten with envious longing. Would Mason have held her, have danced that way with her, if he were here?
She closed her eyes and imagined Mason’s hand clasping hers for the dance, his other hand holding her warm and steady at the waist. Humming with the music, she pictured the two of them sweeping along together, close enough to come together for a kiss, and nearly sighed aloud. Dear heavens, but she missed him. How would she ever be happy again, without Mason?
Several pairs of boots, some with jangling spurs, thumped nearby and came closer. Men, circling her? Amelia opened her eyes, and found herself staring straight at the starred badge pinned to the vest-front of the man standing in front of her. Sucking in a quick, startled breath, she raised her chin to confirm her suspicions.
The sheriff.
He stood less than an arm’s-length away from her, a lean-built man with piercing blue eyes a
nd a neatly trimmed beard and mustache. Amelia’s knees quivered, blessedly hidden beneath her pale blue baize skirt. She clenched it in both hands, trying to appear more composed than she felt.
Four or five men, uniformly dusty, stone-faced, and heavily armed, stood behind him. The posse. Dizziness swamped her, leaving her dry-mouthed, trembling harder.
The sheriff stepped closer, his gaze fixed straight on her. He must have discovered her association with Mason, Amelia realized. And now he’d come to question her—maybe to haul her off to jail!
“Pardon me, ma’am,” he said.
Heart hammering, she fought the urge to run. Running had only served to deepen Mason’s troubles in the past.
“S—sheriff,” she stammered, plastering a frozen-feeling smile on her lips.
Run, run! her instincts urged. But the shaking in her knees had spread, and she doubted her legs were strong enough to carry her anyplace.
“Wh—what can I do for you?”
He tipped his hat. “Would you mind stepping this way, ma’am?” he asked, indicating a place just to the left of the cantina’s kitchens.
Amelia shuffled woodenly sideways, her gazed glued to the sheriff. Would he draw his gun when he took her to jail, or simply order her to go? Should she just tell him she didn’t know where Mason was, or wait for him to ask? Feeling light-headed enough to float clean out of her balmorals, she shoved her hands into the folds of her dress to hide their tell-tale trembling. An unexpected smile creased the sheriff’s leathery face, brightening his eyes as he touched his hat brim again. “Thank you kindly,” he said, moving past her toward the cantina’s counter. “I believe these are my tamales, right here.”
He slid a tin plate overflowing with spicy-scented food from the counter into his hands, then, still holding it, edged past Amelia. “Never stand between a man and his food, ma’am,” he said with a wink. “A lady could get hurt sorely that way.”
Relief rushed through her, threatening to buckle Amelia’s knees right there in front of the sheriff and everyone. Her answering smile felt ghastly, patently false compared with his jovial one. Giving him a stiff little laugh, she nodded and turned to leave.
Run, run! Everything inside her urged her to flee. Instead Amelia made herself walk sedately, head held high, past the cantina kitchens to the right as though she were headed toward the plaza for dancing.
“Señora!” yelled a male voice behind her. “Señora!”
Her breath left her. Amelia stopped, hardly daring to turn around. The voice had sounded Spanish-accented, not like the sheriff’s gravelly tone, but perhaps one of the posse…?
Her heart hammered, sounding loud in her ears. It made the music from the band in the plaza sound muddled, as though they played through cotton-stuffed instruments. Turning slowly, she looked behind her.
At one of the cantina’s cooks, who held a plate of steaming food and a tin cup toward her.
He held it higher, jerking his head at Amelia. “You want this, or no?” he called, frowning.
As anyone would, she figured, considering how peculiar her behavior must seem. Breathing in a big, fortifying breath, she nodded. Calm down! she ordered herself. If Mason had been there, she’d likely have called the sheriff’s attention to them both with her nervousness. With trembling fingers, Amelia opened her reticule for the money to pay for her meal.
That task accomplished, juggling the hot tinware and cup, she darted a glance at the sheriff and his men. The waning sunlight fading into the adobe shops and trees bordering the plaza made it difficult to see clearly, but she could still make them out, seated at the two outermost cantina benches. Some ate from heaped-full plates, and several of them appeared to be speaking intently about something. From such a distance—and with all the revelry of the fiesta going on around her—it was impossible to tell what.
Amelia bit her lip, debating the wisdom of edging closer to listen. If she knew what the posse planned, then perhaps she could find Mason and warn him.
Warn him. It was a wonderful plan, to be sure—except for the size of the city and the impossibility of locating a man who chose to remain hidden within it. Mason had been on her mind all day as she traveled the length and breadth of Tucson delivering books. She’d thought of trying to locate him time and again, and had been forced to admit defeat before even beginning. How did one go about finding an outlaw, even if she were his ally?
Even if she were the woman who loved him.
No, it was hopeless. And yet…Providence had seen fit to hand her the opportunity to find out more about Mason’s pursuers. Maybe she’d be equally lucky later, and find him before the posse did. Deciding it couldn’t hurt to try to learn whatever she could, Amelia held her meal as though searching for a place to sit, and edged closer.
“…ain’t gonna find him no how,” one of the men in the posse said.
The music swelled, drowning out the sheriff’s response. Concentrating harder, Amelia moved as near as she dared, then stopped beside a gnarled old tree at the edge of the cantina’s ramada. A rock jutted up from within the tree’s meager canopy of leaves, forming a perfect seat for listening to the posse’s conversation. Someone had already used it, she saw, judging by the tin cup of water still atop it.
Whoever it was, they’d have to find another seat. Moving slowly, trying her best not to call attention to herself, Amelia sat beside the abandoned water cup and spread her skirts neatly around her. She propped her plate on her lap, her drink on the ground beside her, and what she hoped was a nonchalant expression on her face, then listened.
“…after what them easterners said,” said one of the posse members, his voice muffled around what sounded like a mouthful of food, “I don’t reckon he would.”
They had to be speaking of Mason! Excitement thrumming through her, Amelia leaned slightly sideways.
“…neither,” came another voice. “But that ain’t—” the guitars played louder, drowning out his next few words “…chase out there.”
A stooped, white-haired woman passed by Amelia’s rock, carrying several lightened lanterns hung from their handles on a thick pole. Stopping a few feet away, she slid one from the pole and hung it from a tree branch instead, illuminating the area beside the cantina where the cottonwoods grew closer together. A group of children played amongst them, blinking up at the lantern light like months drawn to a bright window.
Move on, Amelia pleaded silently to the woman, afraid her activities would draw the lawmen’s attention toward her listening post. Hunching her shoulders, she nibbled at her enchiladas without tasting them, waiting for the woman to carry her too-revealing lanterns elsewhere.
One of the children yelled something. Amelia’s gaze snapped from her plate to the sheriff. He looked toward the sound, frowned, then resumed his conversation. Craning her neck slightly, she peered toward the children—who now seemed to be playing a game of tag—trying to see them through the sheriff’s eyes.
He couldn’t see them from his place at the cantina bench, she realized; none of the posse could. Her shoulders eased with relief. At least the shouts of the children wouldn’t call undue attention to her. Pushing her food around on her plate in an attempt to seem preoccupied, Amelia waited for the lantern woman to move on.
Finally, she did. Feeling slightly more well-concealed without a whole string of lighted lanterns gleaming a few feet away, Amelia peeked from beneath her bangs in the lawmen’s direction.
“…find him,” came the sheriff’s voice. It wavered in and out, at times overwhelmed by the music and at others coming to her more clearly. “Don’t want…owe it to…tonight.”
A hoarse shout from within the cottonwood trees at her back overrode his next sentence. The children, still playing. She glanced back to see them circled together, leaning over something in the center of their group. She wished they’d play their game a bit more quietly, however impossible a wish that might be.
Under the guise of setting down her tin plate, Amelia leaned forward on her rock
to catch the next statement, made by one of the burliest members of the posse.
“Ain’t them no good son of a—”
Another yell from the children drowned out whatever else he said. Amelia frowned and swiveled on her rock, intending to quiet the rowdies with a schoolmarmish frown or a few quick-spoken words. Instead she stared at the group, shocked into stillness.
This was no game at all. The group of perhaps six or seven children she’d seen had clustered around another child—one nearly a head smaller than them. Now that she heard them aright, the shouts were jeers, obvious from the cruel tones used to deliver them. While she watched, a young boy kicked hard into the center of the circle, and the yelling grew louder.
Amelia glanced quickly at the sheriff. He went on talking, not looking toward the stand of cottonwood trees at all, obviously unaware of what was going on only a little ways away. Then she remembered he couldn’t see the group from his place beneath the ramada, and looked back toward the children again.
Another boy on the edge of the circle scooped up something from the dirt and held it overhead. A rock, she guessed, peering closer. Seconds later, more children scrabbled in the dirt, looking for rocks of their own. Abandoning her plate and cup, Amelia stood, torn between listening further to the sheriff’s plans in the hope of helping Mason somehow, and putting an end to the children’s taunting. Surely one of their parents was nearby, surely they or a neighbor would…
The first rock flew into the circle’s center.
Amelia’s temper flared. No more rocks would fly toward that smaller, outnumbered child. Lips pressed tight together, she marched straight toward the taunting group with all the authority she could summon. Their faces grew more distinct as she approached, and she realized none of them could be more than nine or ten years old. Mostly boys, wearing farm clothes and the occasional child-sized sombrero that shielded their features from her. So young, and already so cruel?
“You there!” she called. “Stop that at once!”
