by Claudia Dain
"Is that why you asked me out here? To make sport of me?"
She turned her back on him in a sulk that begged to be petted out of her. He accommodated her, giving her just what she wanted from him. He knew everything about this game they were playing.
He stroked down the wild tangle of her hair, holding the length of it in his fist. It was cool and smooth across the back of his hand.
"Your hair's like slick fire," he said, pressing up against her. "Is your mouth the same?"
She turned in his arms, her hair wrapping around her throat and breasts like a red silk cord. She wanted to give in, but couldn't. He was moving too fast.
"You gonna make me beg for it?" he said on a whisper.
"Would you?" she asked back, raising her eyes to his.
"Nah"—he grinned, lifting up her face—"I'm gonna make you beg. More fun that way."
He kissed her then, liking the smallness of her pressed against him. Her mouth was like fire, after he had tutored her some.
It was her first kiss.
She acted as if she liked it fine. She was pressed up against him, her breasts small and hard and high, and her arms wrapped around him. She was holding nothing back, which was just how he liked it.
"You beggin' yet?" he breathed against her throat. That red hair of hers was still wrapped around her, so hot against the white of her throat.
"No, you'd better," she breathed roughly, "you'd better—"
He cut off her air with a kiss that had her hanging on to his belt for balance. When he was done, she laid her forehead against his chest and gulped in air, her fingers still wedged in his belt.
"Are you playing with me?" she whispered, hiding her face from him.
He wrapped his arms around her with a huge smile. This was it. Time to give her what she'd come all the way out of town to get.
"Hell, no, darlin'. I'm not playing with you. I want to marry you."
"You do?" She looked up at him. She had the most powerful blue eyes.
"I do," he said. "Will you?"
She bloomed like a flower, right there in his arms. "Yes!"
He kissed her again, sealing the pledge they'd just made between them. She sure seemed to like his kisses.
"I've got a little something for you," he said as he ended the kiss. His eyes were gentle as he looked down at her; this was the moment, the perfect moment.
"You don't need to give me a thing," she protested but she reached out her hand for whatever the gift was that he had brought her. "I'm just so happy right now, I don't need another thing to make it perfect."
Women said things like that. They didn't mean them. He knew that.
He kissed her once more, in parting, while he gave her the gift he'd brought just for her. Just like a flower, she was, just like a flower that bloomed bright and fresh with the sun on it and then was blown down by the first cold wind.
When she collapsed on the ground, her throat crushed like a broken stem, the wind blew hard at her unbound hair; it flew up and twirled against the sky, glistening red against deep blue. No one now to hold it down, to keep it off her face and out of her eyes. It didn't much matter anymore. He studied her for a minute, that pretty hair flying wild in the wind, and then left her.
She'd got what she came for.
Chapter 1
The train pulled into the Abilene station with a chug and a lurch that rocked his body forward in stiff synchronism. He held himself erect and kept his balance, keeping his eyes on the town coming into view through the dusty windows of the westbound train. Abilene had grown some since he'd last been through—more houses and a wooden church—but had shrunk some, too. The Drovers Cottage hotel was gone, moved to Ellsworth a few years back since the cow trail had moved west. The dance house he'd used was gone and the town looked light a few saloons. Abilene didn't look like the wild cattle town it had been right after the war. Still, it would have a jail and that's where the man in the seat in front of him was headed.
With a final wet hiss, the train gave its last lurch and was still.
"Get up, Jessup," he mumbled. "This is where you get off."
"Name's not Jessup. I tell ya, ya got the wrong man."
"Get up anyway," he said, tired of the whole conversation. Twenty miles of the same bull was wearing his patience thin.
Jessup got up slowly, stretching as he stood, rubbing a hand through his hair, examining his fingernails, stamping his feet in his boots.
"You look fine enough to hit jail," Jack said.
He helped him along with a poke in the back that propelled Jessup reluctantly down the aisle toward the open door of the car. The other passengers, all three of them, watched only to break the monotony; they'd heard enough of the same for the past twenty miles to make them eager only for Jessup's removal from their car.
The sun was bright after the dark interior of the car, hitting the dirt and bouncing around in the air as if off a mirror. Jack blinked and Jessup took his chance.
He threw his weight against Jack and smashed him into a seat. He banged his tailbone on the hard wooden edge; pain flared and then dulled. Fed up, he caught Jessup at the open door and lowered his fist like a sledge hammer, not caring if he cracked the man's skull and let out the sawdust. Jessup fell all the way out and down and landed on the platform. And stayed put.
Until a woman knelt beside him to help him up.
It was then that he noticed he'd drawn a crowd. Not a one of them looked happy. He'd remembered Abilene as a happier place, but that may have been because he'd spent his time here drunk.
Abilene had changed, all right.
Looking more carefully at her, the little Samaritan, he felt drunk again. Lust slammed against him hard, leaving him short of breath. She was fair skinned, dark haired, and blue eyed. Full bust covered in lace and ruffle and a rounded bottom draped with a length of blue ribbon trailing down, she was staring at him with accusation in her prairie sky eyes.
If that wasn't enough, she looked as proper as a preacher's wife. If he wanted to get out of town without a fight, he'd need to keep his distance, no matter that he could hear the blood pounding in his ears... and elsewhere. Best thing would be to get away from her right quick and then keep clear of her until he left town. Women like her didn't mess with men like him, he'd learned that often enough to get it straight in his head.
"Get up, Jessup, and move your sorry hide," he snarled, keeping his eyes away from the Samaritan. Jessup, the fight mashed out of him, cooperated. Which was too damn bad, now that Jack thought about it, since he was suddenly in the mood to kick some tail. He left all thoughts of tail by the train with the blue-eyed girl and marched his man toward the center of town.
The snarls of the good citizens of Abilene followed him, not that he cared.
"Brutality. Nothing but blatant and unrepentant brutality," Esther Morris concluded as she watched the bounty hunter and his poor abused prisoner walk away.
"What else? He's a bounty hunter. Nothing lower on God's green earth than a bounty hunter." Isaiah Hill spat, his tobacco juice leaving a brown, wet smear on the wooden platform. Esther backed up to widen the range between them.
"Yeah, but he's more than just a bounty hunter. He's Jack Skull," said John Campbell. As the stationmaster, he knew more about strangers coming in on the train than almost anyone, since he was there more than anyone, even Anne, though just by a hair.
"That was Jack Skull?" Isaiah asked, almost swallowing when he meant to spit "Thought he'd be bigger."
"Big enough," John snorted.
"Jack Skull?" Anne edged in. "I didn't think he was real.... I mean, I thought folks just sort of made him up."
"He's real enough, and you saw how mean he was."
"Well, but he may have had cause," Anne said slowly. "It isn't as if a bounty hunter would bring in a man who wasn't wanted for something. The law—"
"The law makes use of bounty hunters, but don't like them, and you know that's the truth, Anne. Now, don't go making more of the man th
an there is. He's no good. You saw for yourself," John insisted.
"The whole world knows about Jack Skull and what kind of man he is," Isaiah put in.
"I know it didn't look good, his knocking the man down like that for no apparent reason, but I'm sure that he must have been provoked," Anne said quietly.
"A brutal man requires no provocation, Anne," Esther said, her tone severe. "You're too soft, Anne; you mustn't look for excuses when there are none."
"Yes, ma'am." Esther was good friends with her grandmother and it wouldn't do Anne a bit of good if this story got back to Miss Daphne.
"Course she's right," John said. "Well, he's in Abilene now; the best we can hope for is that he jumps back on the train and heads out. It's a quiet town we've got here now and we don't need his kind."
Isaiah spat in agreement.
"Yeah, I'd bet he'll be gone before dark. It don't take no time at all to get a feller locked up."
* * *
The sheriff slammed the door shut on the outlaw and threw the keys on top of his desk. They skidded to a stop next to a battered lamp. The tracks on his desk showed that this was his usual way of storing his keys. Jack smiled as he tore up the handbill on Jacob Jessup, no longer at large, but safely tucked away. His eyes scanned the wall where the wanted posters were nailed in twisted rows. John Jacobs, Brazos, Texas Al, Big Nose Pete, Kid Walker; he knew them all, by face and name. There were no new men offered up for hunting.
"Want a drink?" the sheriff offered.
Jack looked up at the man and took his measure. Not many lawmen wanted to spend time with a bounty hunter. Why would this one be any different?
"Sure," he answered and remained standing, waiting. He wasn't going to horn in anywhere unless personally invited.
The sheriff smiled and said, "Have a seat."
Jack sat back in a wooden chair that wobbled unevenly and was scuffed in the seat. The townsfolk of Abilene didn't seem to want to put much municipal money into the sheriff's office.
"Rye?"
"Rye's fine," he answered.
"Name's Lane, Charles Lane."
"Jack Scullard," he said, taking a swallow and enjoying the burn of it as it slid down.
"Scullard?"
"Yeah. Scullard."
"Different version of your name going around these parts," Lane said mildly.
"Yeah. I heard."
Sheriff Lane leaned back in his chair until it hit the wall and balanced. "You know how you came by it?"
"Maybe," Jack said, finishing off his drink. "You want to tell me?"
Sheriff Lane shrugged and upended his own cup. "Talk is that you prefer bringing in the heads, the skulls, to live men; make the same money and a lot easier to tote."
"Makes sense," Jack commented, his eyes on the sheriff's face.
"Yeah." Lane nodded. "Makes sense. Only that's no skull sitting in my cell."
"It takes an experienced lawman to notice the details like that," Jack said wryly.
Lane nodded and smiled slowly. "Yeah, well, they didn't hire me for my smile."
Jack smiled back and set his cup on the stained desk, waiting.
Lane picked up the slack. "How'd you come by Jessup? He's been wanted near on a year."
Jack shrugged as he answered, "Played cards with him last night in a hole just east of here. He fit the description."
"That all?"
"He cheats," Jack said casually. "But, yeah, that's all."
"You didn't think you might have the wrong man? Plenty can match his description; hell, I'm not that far off."
"You think I got the wrong man?"
Lane smiled and poured himself another shot, the front legs of his chair hitting the floor hard as he reached for the bottle. He silently offered his guest another shot; Jack waved him off.
"No, you got the right man, all right. I know Jessup from Ogallala, it just seems like it would have been easy to make a mistake."
Jack's blue eyes studied the sheriff without rancor. He knew he hadn't made a mistake in Jessup. He knew he couldn't explain how he had known Jessup was wanted to a man who didn't hunt men for money. He also knew that Sheriff Charles Lane wasn't liquoring him up to talk about Jessup.
"He fit the description," he repeated, rolling the cup between the palms of his hands, waiting.
Lane nodded and played with his own glass. He didn't drink from it.
"You been collecting bounty long?"
"Long enough."
The two men sat in the shadowed interior of the rough jailhouse, the slanted morning light catching the points of the splinters on the walls and warming the wood to amber. They waited each other out, each comfortable in the deliberate silence, each feeling for the measure of the man in the opposite chair.
"You got me figured out yet?" Lane asked.
"Enough for me to keep sitting here," Jack said easily. "You want something. You going to tell me what it is or do I got to figure that out, too?"
Lane smiled and slapped his drink down on the table. Everything the man did, he did hard.
"There's been some killings out around here. You heard anything about it?"
Jack kept his face blank and his hands easy. "No."
"Women," Lane spat out in disgust. "It's been women that's getting killed."
"What kind of women?"
"Not that kind. Nice women. Unmarried women."
"How many?" He said it very calmly, almost softly.
The sheriff looked him in the eye and wiped his hand across his mouth. "Three."
"That's a lot of killing," Jack said. "Since when?"
"First one was a year ago, then four months after that, then just last month. All nice girls."
"In town?"
"No, but in the area, maybe thirty square miles."
"That's a lot of ground to cover."
"Yeah, but with the railroad hooking everybody up... makes it easier."
"Yeah," Jack whispered, his eyes on the splinters in the walls, now nearly invisible since the light had shifted. But he'd feel them if he banged up against that wall.
"We've been working hard to keep things quiet; don't want the people to get in a hanging fever. The U.S. Marshal's been working on it, but it's a big area and he—"
"You want me to nose around."
"Yeah."
Jack sat and studied the sheriff's silence. He was a big man, black of hair and eye, with a crooked nose and high cheekbones. He didn't look comfortable asking favors.
"These women," Jack said, "they bloodied up, beaten, anything like that?"
"No, clean as Sunday."
"Pretty gals?"
"A mother's dream."
Jack paused and could feel a line of sweat make its way down the side of his neck just as his next question made its way up into his throat.
"Strangled?"
The silence between them was heavy. The heat of the day was building, but it was nothing against that silence.
"Yeah."
Jack could read the sheriff's thoughts easily enough, especially since he didn't think Lane was making much effort to hide them. He was a stranger, he was a man given to violence, and he knew a lot about something that was being kept secret; it was a lot to add up and it added up pretty quick. Jack gave the man credit for not throwing a noose around his neck right then.
"There've been a couple of murders down around Red River Station that sound about the same," Jack offered. "Nice girls, marrying age, strangled and left. I've been following the trail left by the killer. It's one of the reasons I came north."
"Trail led you here? To Abilene?"
"Yeah, seemed to. I hadn't heard about any more murders, but with the marshal keeping them quiet, I guess I wouldn't have."
Lane poured himself another shot and poured one for Jack without asking permission. They both needed a drink.
"You followed him up from Texas," Charles Lane said as he sipped his drink. "He seems to have settled himself in Kansas for a spell."
Jack took a long
swallow, emptied his glass, and set it down softly on the scarred desk. He studied his dusty boots for a long moment before turning his gaze on the sheriff.
"Looks like I'll be stayin' awhile."
Chapter 2
Anne left the train station only after everyone who was getting off had gotten off; that included the bounty hunter. The way he had looked at her sent her stomach rolling into the middle of her knees. Bill sure didn't make her feel that way.
Not that he should. No one should. It was completely unacceptable and highly improper. Miss Daphne would have a fainting, screaming fit if she found out that a bounty hunter had looked at her as if she were the last meal for a hundred miles.
Miss Daphne would not hear about it from her.
But she might hear about it from Esther Morris.
They thought she had defended Jack Skull's actions because she was softhearted, but they were wrong; that wasn't it. At least not all of it. It was worse than that. She was taken with Jack Skull.
She'd never looked at a man and had such a jolt of feeling fire through her. She knew without asking how wrong that was. But knowing that what she was feeling was forbidden, that the man himself was forbidden, didn't seem to be helping her any. He was the most blatantly compelling man she'd ever seen and, rough as he looked, she'd wanted to walk right up to him and tuck herself under his arm.
That was bad.
The way he'd looked at her, it didn't seem that he'd have minded much. It was a look that had made her forget to breathe.
That was real bad.
No man had the right to kick the breath out of her; that he was a bounty hunter didn't make it worse or better. He was a man and that was bad enough.
Anne allowed herself a soft sigh as she walked up the path to her house, that is, Miss Daphne's house. Sarah met her as she opened the door.
"Anybody interesting this time?"
"Let her be, Sarah," Nell, Anne's mother, said as she hurried forward for her share of the news. "Who would get off that would be of any interest to us?"
Sarah shot her sister a look, but held her tongue on that issue.
"No one much," Anne said as she untied the strings to her bonnet and hung it on a stand near the door. "I spoke a bit with John Campbell, just pleasantries and such." Telling her mother, aunt, and grandmother about the prisoner falling at her feet and the bounty hunter looking her over was not on her list of open topics.
