The Law and Miss Penny

by Sharon Ihle

  "I do," said Oda.

  Concerned by the knowing look in her mother's eye, but much too short on time to do anything but continue to plead her case, Mariah said, "Cain will probably cause us more harm and a lot more trouble than any of us ever imagined if we tell him who he is now. I say we stick to our story." Then she turned back to her father, making one final effort. "If I can think of something to do with this horse before Cain gets back, will you promise to let things go on the way they are?"

  Zack tucked his chin up against his throat and stared down at his daughter in surprise. "What's got you in such a state? You haven't gone and let yourself get all google-eyed over that man, have you?"

  "Oh, Dad," she said, purposely using that term. "For heaven's sake, no. I'm just afraid he'll come back before you two give me a chance to do something about this horse." From behind her, Mariah could swear she heard Oda muttering under her breath.

  Zack scratched his head. "I don't know."

  "Well, I do," Mariah said, unlatching the stall. "And I wish you'd just promise to leave things be."

  Because he still couldn't say no to Mariah, Zack slowly nodded his head. "All right, missy, but just you watch yourself around that man. He tries anything a'tall, you come running to me, hear?"

  "Thanks, Dad, I will. Now why don't you and Oda go get those mules ready." She blew him a kiss and then stepped inside the stall.

  "You go ahead, Zachariah," said Oda. "I'm gonna stay and help Mariah." Once her husband was out of earshot, she leaned across the waist-high door and whispered, "I seen you in the hallway last night."

  Mariah sucked in a breath of air stale with urine and animal droppings. Turning to face her mother, her movements slow, deliberate, she said, "I, ah, couldn't sleep, so I took a little walk."

  "I also seen where you went on that walk. Right into the marshal's room."

  With her mother's gaze boring into her, there was no way in hell that Mariah could deny the obvious. She lowered her gaze. "All right, I did go to his room, but I—Oh, my God. Did you tell Zack?"

  "What do you think?" Oda smirked. "He'd a' been screeching like a scalded cat by now if he knew what I knew."

  Although she was relieved, Mariah knew by the look in her mother's eyes that she only had a temporary reprieve. "Are you planning to tell him?"

  "That depends on you. If you go to your father and say that you've changed your mind, and that you think it's time we sent the marshal on his way, then he'll never know a thing about what's been going on with you and that man."

  Tears stung the backs of her eyes and Mariah stared at her mother. "I can't do that. I love Cain."

  "Love." Oda grumbled to herself, and then to Mariah. "Love ain't nothing but trouble. Haven't you learned that much from me here lately?"

  Mariah's smile was ironic as she softly said, "I never learned a thing about men and their ways from you. I had to find out about them pretty much the same way you did, I guess."

  At those words, Oda did something Mariah had never seen her do: She began to cry. Sick at heart, Mariah rushed to the stall door, put her arms around her mother, and said, "Oh, please stop, Mother. I don't want to hurt you, but I can't stand the idea of having to send Cain away. Can't you understand? Try to remember how it was with you and... Storm."

  Sniffing back her tears, Oda gripped her daughter's arms. "That's exactly why I want you to stop seeing Cain. He'll be nothing but trouble for you. Nothing but heartache and trouble."

  "No, no." Mariah released her mother and backed deeper into the stall. "What I have with Cain isn't the same."

  "No," Oda whispered. "I suppose it isn't. It's worse, because you are living a lie. The marshal doesn't know yet who he is, but when he does—"

  "You think I don't know that? Of course I do, but what if this is all I ever have? What if I never feel this way about another man as long as I live?"

  Oda stared at her, measuring her with sad blue eyes, but she didn't say a word.

  Feeling her mother's empathy, if not her approval, Mariah went on. "I don't mean to belittle or slight the way you feel about Zack, but can you tell me you felt the exact same way about Storm?"

  Oda blushed, her normally robust complexion darkening to an almost purple hue. "No, I can't. It weren't the same," she quietly said.

  "Then you do understand." Mariah stepped forward to take her mother's hands. "What I feel for Cain is at least what you had with Storm, and maybe a little of what you have with Zack—it could even be both, I don't know for sure."

  "Mariah... it's all a lie."

  "Yes, it is, but I don't intend to do a damn thing about that until I absolutely have to." At the thought, she trembled from head to toe. "Just tell me the honest truth: Could you or would you have given up either man, your lover or your husband?"

  Oda looked at her daughter, staring long and hard as fresh tears rolled down her cheeks. "It don't matter what I did, or what I think now. You can't have Cain for much longer. He's bound to remember who he is someday soon, and then he's going to wind up hurting you. Hurting you real bad."

  Mariah couldn't help but concede that much. It was the truth. "Maybe he will, but it's my hurt and my heart that will have to suffer. I'm willing to take that risk for as long as Cain wants me. Please, Mother, I beg you—keep what you know to yourself, and help me figure out what to do with this horse."

  Oda, wishing to hell she'd brought a cigar with her, wiped her hand across her mouth in an effort to still the sudden trembling there. Then she dried her cheeks and leveled her pale blue eyes on her daughter. "We might get rid of this here horse the easiest by just taking him to the edge of town and turning him loose."

  Mariah now believed that nothing on earth would be able to drag what Oda knew about Mariah and Cain from her, and that drew a wealth of emotions from her. She threw her arms around her mother, hugging and squeezing her, mingling tears, memories, and their very hearts.

  Then, swallowing the lump in her throat, Mariah smiled and said, "Thanks for everything." She glanced at the horse, wiping her eyes as she studied the animal's flaxen mane and tail. "I'm afraid if we turn him loose, he'll just find his way back here again, and we'd still have the same problem. We need to figure out a way to disguise him."

  "You mean like put a hat and coat on him and call him Brother Law the Second?"

  "Something like that, I suppose," Mariah said, laughing through the remnants of her tears. "But I think it'd work better if we were to figure out a way to color his mane and tail. Maybe if we dye it with a little ash from the blacksmith's fire! What do you think?"

  "Dyeing sounds good, but I never seen no sorrel with a black mane and tail. Ought to be red."

  Red. But where to get red dye, and right this minute? The more Mariah thought about keeping Cain's past a secret from him, the more sure she became that she could pull it off. After all, day after tomorrow they'd be on the train to Silverton, a sleepy little mountain town where they would all be safe and no one would recognize Cain as Slater. Durango's sheriff and the infamous Doolittle Gang posed the only danger she could think of, and so far, none of them had come forward to identify him.

  If her luck could just hold out for another thirty-six hours, long enough to get out of Durango, Cain would be hers—maybe, she dared to hope, forever.

  "I have it," Mariah said, struck with inspiration. "I believe that Colorado is the Spanish word for colorful, and for a very good reason."

  "Ah." Oda nodded in understanding. The color of Colorado's soil ran the gamut from light chestnut to rich terra-cotta, and the hillsides around Durango leaned toward a deep rust color. Once an item of clothing was stained with this soil, it never came clean again. Oda broke into a rare grin. "You thinking we ought to give that horse a little mud bath?"

  Mariah matched her mother's grin. "I'll just go get us a bucket."

  * * *

  Cain knew exactly what he planned to do with at least half, if not all, of the twenty dollars as he stepped across the threshold of Gephart's General
Outfitting Store. He was going to buy himself a new hat, something that suited him better than the ridiculously pious Brother Law skimmer he'd been wearing of late, something closer to the kind of hat he assumed he had been wearing the day he'd been injured.

  Maybe, Cain figured, if he could start dressing more like himself, he'd begin to feel more like himself, and thereby remember exactly who he was. It was suddenly very important to him to remember everything from the past, because until he did, he wouldn't be free to offer himself completely to Mariah, the way he should have before he let her into his room that first night, the night the memories of his father had come flooding back.

  Sure that the day his entire memory would return was near, Cain fought his way through the crowded little store which advertised everything "from soup to nuts," and went toward the rear, where the clothing was on display. Dogging his footsteps, Artemis labored to keep up with him as he continued firing an endless round of questions.

  "What about after we get to Silverton, Cain? You gonna stay with the medicine show when it moves on north?"

  "How many times are you going to ask me that same question, son? I already told you I don't know." His attention caught by a table piled high with leather goods, he absently added, "I suppose I'll stay on with the show as long as they'll have me."

  "Oh, yeah, that's right." Artemis gulped and dragged his hand across his brow, sure he was sweating. Why couldn't he keep the questions he was supposed to ask the marshal straight in his mind, or hell, even remember half of them? If he wasn't careful, he was going to do what he usually did when given even the smallest of jobs: mess up.

  Cain fingered the French calf cigar case he had picked up from the table, and popped the snap, opening it. The case was lined with red satin, the nickel frame embroidered with wildflowers. Cain chuckled to himself, imagining Oda's expression should he present her with such a gift, and decided the $I.45 price tag would be worth her look of surprise.

  He turned to Artemis, handing him the cigar case, and said, "Would you mind holding this for me so I can go try on a few hats?"

  "I sure can. Whatever you want." Artemis grabbed the case, cradling it in his palm as if it were made of eggshells, and began to wander around the store as Cain disappeared down an aisle filled with children's clothing and stacks of shoes.

  Cain spotted the men's hats displayed against the back wall, but as he started in that direction, the women's millinery section to the left of them caught his eye—specifically, a lavender and black hat topped with a pair of frothy lemon-colored ostrich tips.

  His original mission forgotten, Cain took the bonnet from its wooden perch and turned it on his fist. It was a leghorn shade hat made of chantilly net and finished with shiny black beads, elegant satin ribbons, and the eye-catching yellow feathers. Without even closing his eyes, Cain could see the bonnet nestled in Mariah's ebony hair, and then he imagined her strutting proudly down Main Avenue the way every other woman in town did.

  Without so much as batting an eye at the outrageous $14.65 price, Cain asked the clerk to box the hat for him. Then, down to less than five dollars, he looked around the store for Artemis. He found him practically drooling over a harmonica he'd picked out from a collection of musical instruments.

  "Find a good one, did you?" Cain asked as he approached him.

  Artemis's eyes were as big as the tambourine he'd just returned to the shelf. "Look at how this mouth organ shines. It must be made of pure silver."

  Cain took the instrument from the kid and read the engraving on the side. "It's a Richter from Germany, and although the plates are brass, the thing does have silver covers. Good eye, Artemis." Cain turned it over and read the price-tag. "Eighty-five cents. You have expensive taste. You going to buy it?"

  "Buy it?" Such a thought had never occurred to him. Now that it had, Artemis began to laugh. "Oh, glory be, no. Billy don't ever let me carry no money around."

  "Billy? Who's that?"

  Artemis knew then that he'd finally gone and done it: He'd messed up worse than ever. His throat closed up on him and something began to squirm in his gut. "Ah, Billy's my brother."

  Cain frowned as he stared at Artemis. The kid had turned white, and his hands, including the one which still held the harmonica, were shaking. Even though the day had warmed to a comfortable 77 degrees, Artemis looked as if he'd just climbed out of a snow cave.

  "I don't think I'd be wrong if I were to guess that your brother is not a very nice man. Does he beat you,son?"

  Not sure how he even got into this conversation, much less how to get out of it, Artemis rolled his eyes. When he opened his mouth to speak, to deny at least the beating part, the only thing that came out was a strangled, gurgling sound.

  As he saw the terror in the young man's eyes, Cain's temper snapped. "Where is this brother of yours, Artemis? I think maybe I ought to go have a little talk with him."

  "Oh, God, no. God in heaven, no, no, no. You can't do that." Just the thought of the marshal confronting Billy prompted Artemis to do something he'd worked and worked at training himself not to do in public. He began to cry.

  "Take it easy, son." Cain moved up close to Artemis in an effort to shield him from curious or amused customers. "I'm not much of a family man, but I do know this isn't the way brothers should feel about one another. What does Billy do to keep you so afraid of him?"

  Artemis squeezed his eyes shut hard, hoping the act might wring every drop of moisture from them as he tried to figure out what to do next. How could things have turned so badly on him? What had he done to make it all go so wrong? This wasn't how things were supposed to go—the marshal wasn't supposed to be asking him questions. In spite of his efforts, several tears escaped through his puckered lids and ran down his cheeks.

  Feeling at least partly responsible for Artemis's distress—he had, after all, backed him into a corner with all the questions about his brother—Cain patted his trembling shoulder. "Forget I mentioned Billy, Artemis, but if you ever change your mind and you do want me to have a talk with him, all you have to do is ask. Understand?"

  Artemis blew his nose on the sleeve of his shirt. "Yes, sir," he said between hiccups.

  Cain took the harmonica from the young man's hand, and then impulsively reached over and grabbed a two-dollar sheepskin banjo off the shelf. There were, he decided then and there, worse things than not remembering who had raised you. Sometimes knowing was harder to live with.

  Keeping his voice calm and compassionate, Cain smiled at Artemis as he said, "I figure anyone who can play music the way you do ought to have his own instruments. Consider these as a little gift for being such a good helper."

  Didn't it just figure. No sooner had Artemis finally capped his well than along came Cain to blow the lid off again. Tears spilled down his cheeks before he could even think to slam his eyelids shut, and he began bawling like an orphaned calf. A squeaky "Thanks" was all he could manage to say before Cain spun on his heel and headed for the cash register. After lagging behind awhile so he could wipe his nose and his tears on his cleanest shirtsleeve, Artemis flashed a grin as broad as Cain's shoulders. Then he followed his new hero out of the store.

  * * *

  Mariah and Oda had just finished "bathing" the horse and cleaning their hands when Cain and Artemis returned from their mysterious trip to town. As they strolled in through the wide back entrance to the barn, Mariah could see that Artemis was beaming.

  "Look what Cain got for me at the outfitter's store." He held up the harmonica in one hand and the banjo in the other. "They're mine and no one else's... forever."

  "Put them in the back of the medicine wagon," Cain said as he quickly tucked the hatbox under the bench seat of the supply cart. "I think we've held up this trip to the hot springs long enough."

  As Artemis disappeared around the back of the wagon, Cain approached Oda. "This is for you," he said, handing her the cigar case. "It's just a little something to thank you for putting up with me the last few weeks."

&nb
sp; It was a good thing she hadn't lit a new cigar yet, or it would have fallen from her surprised mouth into the bedding straw and most likely set fire to the barn. She looked from Cain to the cigar case and over to her daughter. Her mouth twisting into an almost bashful grin, she said, "That's pretty fancy. You sure it's for me?"

  He pinched her cheek. "I'm sure. Now what can I do to get things moving around here?"

  From behind him, Mariah said, "You can help me finish hitching the mule to the supply cart."

  Careful to appear businesslike and cousinly, Cain kept his voice brisk as he said, "Right away."

  As he reached under the animal's belly to pull the harness strap up tight, Mariah leaned against the wooden seat and eyed the package Cain had placed there. "What's in the box?" she asked, more than a bit curious after witnessing his generosity with both Artemis and her mother.

  Cain wanted to wait until he and Mariah were alone before he gave her the bonnet, so he only lied a little as he said, "I bought myself a hat."

  "Oh." The word was barely audible. Mariah hadn't really expected Cain to be out buying gifts for her, and she was most certainly happy to see that he'd spent his twenty dollars on tangible goods rather than on a few moments with a wild saloon girl, but still, she couldn't help feeling a few pricks of disappointment. In fact, she was so distracted by the thought that Cain had slighted her, Mariah forgot to take Artemis aside as she'd planned, to let him know what she'd done to disguise the horse. And why. When the young man's voice cried out from the other end of the stable, Mariah was as startled as anyone.

  "Hey. Somebody's been messing around with Big Red."

  Chapter 13

  Mariah hadn't known she had it in her to move so fast, but when she heard what Artemis had to say, and realized that all their work might have been for naught, she practically flew down to the stall. She found him gawking at the big sorrel.