Dance With A Gunfighter

by JoMarie Lodge

  McLowry put his saddlebags in the opposite corner from hers. Hunkering down, he opened them up, pulled out dirty clothes, and piling them on the floor.

  "I’m going over to the barber’s," he said, his back to her. "I’ll get a shave and a bath over there. If you’ve got some clothes that need washing, toss them here with mine. I’ll find a laundry while I’m out."

  She pulled her dirty clothes from the bags and the moment he had them in a bundle he was out the door. She had never seen a man in such a hurry to get his clothes cleaned.

  As she was pulling a clean white shirt and gray britches from her bedroll, there was a knock on the door. Two men carried in a tub, and two women brought pitchers of hot and cold water. She hadn’t realized what a production it would be to bathe in a hotel room. She gave them all some money for their trouble.

  Once they were gone, Gabe lost no time climbing into the hot, clean water. She soaped away the trail dust, washed her hair and then leaned back, shutting her eyes. She tried, for a moment at least, to relax.

  But her mind wouldn’t let her. As soon as her eyes were shut, she drifted back to the day, just two short weeks ago, when she was in her kitchen, serving a meal to her pa and her brothers. On the one hand, it seemed like two years had passed since that time, and on the other, it felt like only yesterday.

  The smell of stewing meat, potatoes and carrots filled the kitchen. A fresh-baked green apple pie sat on the sill board. Pa had just sold some cattle and they were all so happy....

  Then the nightmare struck.

  When she awoke from it, she was in Mrs. Beale’s house in Jackson City. Mrs. Beale had told her that neighbors had been going to warn her pa about some savage outlaws in the area when they saw smoke coming from her house. They said they had found her just past the front porch, sitting on the ground holding Chad. He was dying, and behind her, the house was on fire.

  While she was staying at Mrs. Beale’s house, confined to bed, unable to make her mind accept what had happened, Pa and Henry had been buried. The part that troubled her most, though, was that Chad wasn’t with them. He had been shot, and had been badly burned in the fire. The doctor in town had patched up the bullet holes, but he didn’t know how to handle the burns. Burns were a death sentence, a horrible, painful death sentence as infection set in and the skin rotted away. The doctor knew a hospital in Denver that was reputed to have had some success with burns, so they put Chad on the train in Tucson, and sent him there. It was the only chance he had. The doctor, though, had heard from the hospital. He was told Chad would be dead before the week was up and would be buried in Denver.

  Someday, after Gabe had paid off the Denver hospital bills, the doctors, Pa and Henry’s burials, and all the other expenses that seemed to be hitting her, she would bring Chad home and bury him out on the ranch beside Henry. The two had been so very different--Henry big, lumbering and dependable; Chad slim, quixotic and curious--and yet, growing up, they had been inseparable. Chad would have wanted to be beside his brother.

  The townspeople had visited her continuously, trying to give her their condolences, until finally, she asked them to stay away. She even asked that of Mrs. Beale, who had taken her into her home. Hearing everyone’s words of sympathy was too difficult when she didn’t deserve them. While her family was being destroyed, she hadn't done anything to save them. She had stood there and watched, too scared to move. Later, while Chad was being killed, she had hidden in the cellar. She should have picked up a rifle and used it! Those killers hadn’t known she was hiding in the house. She could have stopped them, could have saved Chad and Henry and Pa. But she didn't. She didn’t!

  And she could never forgive herself for that.

  She didn’t deserve to live. Not when the others were dead. So she lived for one thing only--to avenge their deaths. To see that justice was done.

  Ironically, despite her lofty plans for revenge, after their deaths, she found it difficult to do the simplest daily tasks necessary to get through each day--things like eating, or caring for the cattle or horses. It was even a chore to think.

  The town banker had told her he would take care of everything for her. She needed time to heal, and not to worry about anything else. Some semblance of logic told her it wasn’t a wise thing to do, but she couldn’t face such mundane tasks. Not when she was alone, and her family’s killers walked free, and she couldn’t even convince the law to go after them, no matter how much she pleaded.

  Now, she got out of the bath, dried herself and put on a set of clothes she had held back from the laundry. She pulled the spindle-backed wooden chair to the window and sat watching the rays of the setting sun cast a glow like gold dust over the hills that surrounded the town.

  She had no idea how much time had passed before she heard the door latch click. The door opened a little way, then stopped. He was still hidden from view. "Oh, sorry," he said.

  "It’s all right, McLowry. You can come in. I’m decent."

  He entered the room then, looking so much like the man she had met at the dance her heart lurched. The beard was gone, and his mustache had been trimmed the way she remembered it. His golden hair was shining and soft from its washing, and the cut freed the waves to spring back into place. He was again her Greek god from Mount Olympus.

  He shut the door behind him and faced her. The air in the room seemed to thicken.

  "Nice haircut, Jess," she said softly.

  He ran his hand awkwardly over the sides and back. "Thanks." At the dresser, he began to fiddle with the pockets of his vest, checking for his tobacco pouch, cigarette paper, matches, the room key.

  "I, uh, bet you’re hungry," he said, not looking at her. "How about dinner?"

  He didn’t have to ask twice.

  Outside the hotel, perched on boardwalks on the steep, narrow streets, sitting on low hanging window sills, and standing in doorways, were people who had come to town for the hanging, along with bands of miners, and women in low-cut frills and feathers. Women didn’t wear dresses like that in Jackson City. Gabe hadn’t imagined they wore dresses like that anywhere. She eyed the men, one by one, but none were the outlaws she sought.

  In the restaurant, McLowry insisted on buying them both a meal of what he called prime rib--a slab of steak so tender she could practically cut it with her fork. With it they had boiled potatoes and carrots, and chocolate cake with a thick coating of white icing for dessert. She was so hungry, she didn’t say a word except how good the food was as it disappeared at an embarrassingly fast pace from her plate. She glanced at McLowry to see if he was horrified at the way she was wolfing her food, but he only nodded and gave her a little lop-sided grin.

  At the meal’s end their plates were taken away. McLowry leaned back in the chair, a cup of hot coffee before him, and rolled himself a cigarette.

  "Would you like to partake?" he asked. The way his eyes twinkled made her realize he still remembered her long-ago experiment. How could a man like him remember anything so inconsequential? She wondered, again, what his life had been these past years. She shook her head in response to his question. "No thanks. I think I learned my lesson."

  He puffed on the cigarette. The scent of sweet tobacco mixed with the strong aroma of brewed coffee were warm familiar smells, home smells. They brought back, with the force of a stampede, all that she had lost. Her chest ached with unshed tears--tears that had not fallen since she awoke in Mrs. Beale’s home and learned of her family’s deaths.

  McLowry began telling her about Bisbee, little nonsense tales that didn’t make much sense and held even less interest to her. Slowly, as he talked, she pulled herself together. And as his tales continued, her interest grew until she found herself listening and with enjoyment.

  o0o

  After supper, they returned to the hotel. As McLowry opened the door to the room he shared with Gabe, he acknowledged that he had been purposely putting off thinking about their sleeping arrangements.

  She was just a girl, he told himself for the tenth t
ime that day, a kid who was grieving over her family’s death, and who needed to realize that she couldn’t avenge their killers. He had to convince her that going after Will Tanner was simply too dangerous. He hoped that after a little while of this revenge idea, she would be so homesick she’d be willing to run back to Jackson without a horse.

  "I’ll sleep on the floor," Gabe announced. Her words surprised him. Obviously, her concerns mirrored his own.

  "That’s all right," he said, feeling gallant. "You take the bed."

  "The floor’s fine," she insisted dismissively. "It’ll be a whole lot better than the ground I’ve been using."

  He could scarcely believe her arguing with him. "I said no."

  "You paid for this room, McLowry. I won’t put you out of your bed." Her words broached no argument.

  "And I," he stated in an equally matter-of-fact tone, "won’t let a girl sleep on the floor."

  She crossed the room and picked up her bedroll. "Then I’m leaving."

  "Wait a minute! You are the most stubborn child."

  "I’m not a child, so you can stop bossing me and feeling responsible for me. I’ll see you in the morning." She marched toward the door, hand outstretched for the knob.

  "Stop! We can work this out."

  Her mouth curved into a frown, but she waited.

  "We’ll split the bed." He didn’t bother to mention that if he was lucky at the saloon tonight and found the warm comfort of a mature woman’s bed, she would end up with this one all to herself anyway.

  But instead of her agreeing to his sensible terms, he watched her face redden from the roots of her hairline to the neckline of her shirt. Her back stiffened up straighter than a fence post. "I may not look like a lady, but I know what’s proper between men and women. I’ll sleep on the floor or outside. Take your pick."

  It took a moment for him to even realize what had gotten her so riled up. Cold fury struck him that this scrawny slip of a girl, wearing men’s clothes, her hair chopped off like a boy’s, would dare talk to him about what’s proper. "You think I’d--" He couldn’t even say it. He waved his arm in the direction of the bed. "Damnation! Believe me, your virtue is safe with me. What do you think I am?" He took a step toward her, then stopped, realizing that would only make the situation worse. "I swear if you aren’t the most troublesome girl I ever tried to do a good turn for! I should have left you on that mountain!"

  "Maybe you should have!" Her cheeks flamed.

  He glared at her. "Sleep on the blasted floor, then. But you’ll stay in this room where it’s safe and warm. Do you hear me?"

  She didn’t answer, but began opening and shutting dresser drawers. In the bottom drawer she found a spare blanket, pulled it out, unfurled it with one hard snap, and spread it on the floor. "This will be quite comfortable, thank you!"

  "Quite," he mimicked. He tried to squash his anger. How had she managed to provoke him so easily? Taking his tobacco pouch from the dresser top, he sat on the wooden chair near the window and rummaged in his vest pocket for cigarette paper, still smarting at her reaction to his perfectly respectable suggestion. If he wanted to be disrespectful, it sure as hell wouldn’t be with a skinny chit like her.

  She plopped herself down on the blanket. Facing away from him, she pulled off a high leather boot and sock, then straightened her leg and wriggled her toes.

  A jolt hit him as he stared at her small foot and narrow ankle. As she leaned over to the other boot, his gaze traveled to her tiny waist and shapely hips. He jumped to his feet. The pint-sized room offered no reprieve. He placed his tobacco sack back on the dresser and moved in front of the window, looking out onto a narrow street. "You’re about how old now? Eighteen?" he asked.

  "Try twenty."

  Twenty? Had it really been that long?

  "Why do you ask?" she said.

  He shrugged. "Nothing. Just curious."

  "How old are you?" she asked.

  He turned and faced her. "Why?"

  "Same reason."

  He walked to the bed, took the pillow, and tossed it over to her, then sat back in the chair and lit his cigarette. "I gave up counting birthdays years back. I’m twenty-seven or so, I guess."

  "Really? I thought you were older."

  His eyebrows lifted, but he said nothing.

  She tucked the pillow against the wall, then scooted around to sit with her back pressed against it, her legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. "Where do you hail from, McLowry?"

  "South Carolina."

  "You’re a long way from home."

  "After the War, there was no more home."

  Silence, then, "I’m sorry. I should have realized--"

  "It was a long time ago."

  She ran her palms back and forth along the rough coarse cotton of her trousers. When she spoke, her voice was hushed. "Time doesn’t matter in something like that though, does it, Jess?"

  He wanted to tell her he never thought about his boyhood any more. Not about his parents, or his friends, or his little sister. But to his surprise he, who had easily and readily told other women words they wanted to hear, couldn’t lie to her. "Maybe not," he admitted. "But time makes it easier to get through each day."

  She went still and he saw in her eyes surprise that he understood the struggle she was going through. Her gaze drifted away then, unseeing, to that terrible world of memories.

  He remained silent, taking in the measure of her, while a caution grew within him. He couldn’t allow her too close. There was danger to that. Danger in forming any attachment to another person, or in letting them form one for you.

  But despite his warnings, something about her was burrowing deep.

  Even that funny, short haircut of hers intrigued him. He had a hunch that if she wore dresses and had long hair like other women, he could deal with her like he did other women. Without a second thought. Instead, here he was giving her second and third thoughts. He would be damned if seeing her on that blanket, in trousers, a man’s shirt and bare feet wasn’t one of the most tantalizing sights he had ever witnessed.

  He ran his hand through his hair. Music from the dance hall wafted up through the night air. He’s come to Bisbee to find card games and whiskey. Seems he needed to add women to that list. Mature, available women.

  He stood up and strapped on his gun belt. "I’m going out for a while, Gabe. You get some sleep."

  She bent forward. "Isn’t it pretty late?"

  "Not for me. I think I’ll play some poker."

  "Ah, I see." She leaned back against the pillow. "My pa used to go to town, too, for poker."

  He couldn’t tell if she was serious or if she had other ideas about what her father might have been going off to do. Then he wondered about the sensual twists his thoughts had taken. He definitely had to find himself a woman.

  He put on his black, flat-topped Stetson and yanked it low on his brow. "Good night," he said. "Don’t wait up."

  Chapter 5

  His side aches from running...His throat burns from quick gulps of air.

  Red South Carolina clay slaps against his feet with each jarring step.

  Tall, fire-blackened chimneys...

  Glendorra.

  Hot, angry tears wet his face. Around him, charred ruins, land gone fallow, thin, starving strangers.

  Mama...Lucy...where are they? Where can he hear them say, "Welcome home, Jess-boy"? Jess-boy...

  McLowry groaned, turning over on the bed, needing to awake. But the dream pulled at him, dragging him into its swirling eddy of despair.

  Not this part. He tried to wake up. Please, his mind cried, not this part.

  Empty outbuildings, empty slaves’ cabins and barns.

  Mrs. Handley, mistress of the neighboring plantation, stands in the fields, her face dusty, her hair sweat-streaked. Loose-skinned, flapping arms reach out for him, thin fingers clawing. "Jess-boy, is it really you?"

  Church-hospital. Pastor-doctor.

  Mama...Lucy...

  A woman in
white looms before him. Lucy’s suffering ended. Ended. No!

  He pushes away from her. He needs to run. Back to Glendorra. He’ll find Lucy. He’ll...

  "Mama!" He holds her, but she’s already too light, already disappearing from his life.

  "We’ll rebuild Glendorra, Mama. I promise."

  Her cold hand caresses his face, wipes away his tears. "Build a life for yourself and Lucy, Jess. My strong, handsome Jess."

  His chest aches with holding it in. But he can’t tell her, he can’t tell his mama about Lucy.

  "With you, Jess-boy, I know she’ll be safe. Don’t cry, darling. Don’t cry for me."

  "Come home, Mama. Please." But his arms are empty now.

  The woman in white holds the edge of the sheet covering a child’s body. "Say good-bye to your little sister, soldier-boy."

  "No. Let me go, let me--"

  Iron-like fingers grip his wrist. "Be a man. Look at her."

  Clutching the edge of the winding-sheet, she yanks it down.

  "Don’t, please!" He can’t stop crying, but he knows he has to look, to say good-bye to Lucy. He lowers his hands from his eyes. But instead of the golden locks, the doll-like, cherubic face of his eight-year old sister, there, on the cold church floor lies the pale, lifeless form of Gabriella.

  "No!" McLowry bolted upright on the bed, his heart pounding as he struggled to catch his breath.

  He gripped the sheet-covered mattress and looked wildly around the pale-lit room. His heart thumped. For years after the War, he had dreamed about the horror he had found when he returned home--Glendorra in ruins and diphtheria claiming his mother and sister. His father had been killed at Shiloh, and his older brother captured and imprisoned in a Union death camp. At age twelve, a few months before the War ended, McLowry had run away from home and joined the Confederacy. He never saw his sister alive again, and his mother had lived only one day after his return.

  As the years went by, the nightmares had come to him less often. But always before in his dream, it was Lucy he saw under the sheet, looking more like a shriveled little old lady than the pretty little girl who had lived, played and died at Glendorra.