Dance With A Gunfighter

by JoMarie Lodge

  Gabe, Susan and the Flint family said their good-byes as McLowry waiting patiently, then the two of them headed west, toward home.

  Chapter 23

  The days rolled together as they crossed the desert. McLowry avoided the few towns and settlements on the way, traveling on the rim of civilization. He had no desire to become embroiled in any other people’s lives--no more of the kind of entanglements that seemed to happen to him ever since he’d met Gabe.

  He shot jackrabbits and sage hens for food, and boiled wild onions, sego lily, and squaw cabbage when they grew tired of jerky and pan-biscuits. He, who had always followed silent and mysterious trails alone, who had camped easy with the silence of the night, enjoyed these days with Gabe as his companion more than he could have ever imagined. And at night, he’d hold her in his arms, sharing kisses, but nothing more. He was determined to be honorable if it killed him, and the way he felt some nights, he thought it just might.

  As time passed, McLowry talked more about his years traveling around Texas, the Indian Territories and finally into the Arizona Territory. He talked about the quickness of his gun and how, if he stayed too long in one place, some gunfighter trying to make a name would find him and challenge that speed. To avoid those confrontations, he had kept traveling.

  He asked Gabe, over time, more and more about her father and her brothers. The pain was like a sword running through her the first time she tried to talk about them. Eventually, she told him about their deaths, and how she had been saved only because Chad had shoved her into the root cellar and slammed the door shut. She told him about the guilt she felt, the guilt she lived with every day. His interest in her feelings of guilt surprised her. He thought the feelings were important, and hearing about them seemed to help him understand her and her desire of revenge. She told him she’d want vengeance--and justice--whether she felt guilty or not, and he’d nodded, not exactly agreeing, but not disagreeing either.

  As the days went on, she was able to talk with a little less hurting, and then one night, she even smiled as she told him a story about her brother, Chad.

  "One time," she said, "he was about twelve and stole a jug of Pa’s rot gut. Pa never let the boys or me touch it, but he liked a glass or two himself. Anyway, Chad grabbed it and sneaked off. All of a sudden we heard all this loud yelling coming from way down the road. Me and Pa and Henry all ran outside to see what it was. You know what we saw?" she asked.

  McLowry shook his head.

  "There was Chad, zigzagging from one side of the road to the other, running and screaming hell-bent for leather that the jumping chollas were after him." She began to chuckle and McLowry joined her. "He’d drunk so much of what Pa used to call ‘coffin varnish’ that he couldn’t even walk straight, and he sure couldn’t run. He must have fallen into a patch of cholla because he was covered head to toe with cactus needles, but he swore that not only were they jumping, but that they were chasing him, too."

  She laughed hard then. "I tell you, though, he paid for it. It took forever to pull those thorns off of him. He didn’t touch whiskey again after that."

  The smile on her lips faded suddenly, but before the too-present shadows touched her eyes, McLowry grabbed her and kissed her hard. She stared at him in surprise. "I like to hear you laugh," he whispered.

  "Oh...you!" was all she could force past the lump in her throat.

  One day, when they reached the top of a ridge, they saw spread before them the valley where Jackson City lay. Gabe dismounted. Her hand shaded her eyes as she peered at the familiar hills in the hazy distance. Truly, it was the most beautiful landscape in the world, she thought. Like so many peaks in the territory, they weren’t ranges, but stood alone, jutting out of the ground in odd, irregular shapes, yet tall and independent...much like the people who lived among them.

  "There!" When Jess stepped to her side, she grabbed his arm and pulled him closer, pointing toward the northern horizon. "In the foothills of that mountain that looks like the back of a hissing cat is my family’s ranch."

  "A cat’s back?"

  "Sure, all arched and mad...and the skinny pinnacle is his tail. Can’t you see it?"

  He gazed at her and smiled, feeling her joy, yet filled with regret that their interlude was ending. "I see it," he said softly.

  "Home..." She sighed, her spirits soaring as she quietly took in all before her.

  He kept his eyes fixed on her.

  "Oh, Jess, look at the little hill that’s flat on top--the one that looks like a stove-pipe hat." He stepped behind her following her arm as she pointed. "The last year I was in school, the teacher, Mr. Purvis, took the whole class on a picnic up there to celebrate the start of summer vacation. Harry Benson decided to try to kiss Molly Pritchard. She slugged him so hard he rolled halfway down the slope. We fell over laughing. Mr. Purvis didn’t find it funny and made us leave."

  As she chuckled and glanced up at him, he could see how eager she was to go back to Jackson City, despite all her earlier protests about doing just that. He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Even her hair had grown, changed, and was no longer the funny mop he’d learned to...care about. "And what did you do to boys who tried to kiss you?"

  "None did. But if they’d have tried, they’d have gone all the way down the mountain."

  Good, he thought.

  They mounted their horses once more, and this time rode without stopping until they reached the edge of town. McLowry reined in his sorrel. "I have to talk to you."

  "Now?" How could he want to talk when they were so near home? She’d thought she’d hate returning, but instead, with each step, her excitement grew until her need for home was practically a physical ache. She wanted to see Jackson City, to smell it, to feel the familiar dirt and dust of the town under her boots once again.

  He took a deep breath. "If the town were to see you with me, they’d think the worst of you."

  "It doesn’t matter."

  "It does, Gabe. For you and for your future. You go on ahead. Anybody asks, just say you’ve spent this time in Bisbee, and that you traveled back here alone. Tomorrow, I’ll ride into town and in a day or two, I’ll just happen to meet you. How’s that?"

  "Crazy, that’s how it is!"

  "It’s also necessary. I know these town gossips. They’ve got nothing better to do than trash girls’ reputations."

  "What do I care about my reputation?"

  "I was raised in a land and a time when to be a lady meant everything. You’re a lady, through and through, Gabe. It’s not fancy clothes that make one, and not her language. It’s her soul. But these people might not know that. If they decide that a woman traveling around with some gunfighter scum makes her a lowlife as well, they could make your life a living hell."

  She rubbed her palm on the pommel of her saddle, not trusting herself to look into his eyes. "I love you, Jess. Does being a lady mean I have to deny that, too?"

  "Yes."

  The word sliced through her. "No!"

  He winced, every part of him wanting to agree with her and ride down there in the open. But he knew better. He grabbed her wrist. "Listen to me real good, Gabe, cause I’m just going to say this once."

  She clamped her jaw shut, her heart pounding.

  "That’s your home down there. You don’t know, and I don’t, how you’re going to feel when you go back, and how people are going to treat you. You should love it; you should want to make your life there...and I might not be welcome."

  She turned her head, not willing to listen to such madness.

  He jerked her arm, making her look at him again. "If that happens--"

  "It won’t!"

  "If it happens, just remember that I wasn’t planning on staying here, anyway."

  Her face paled.

  "I plan to head up to Santa Fe. I could go now, or I could go later. In any case, you’re going to have to forget about me, hear? Just like I’ll forget all about you."

  She stared at him, stricken.

  He co
uldn’t leave it at that. "We’ll see how it goes, all right?"

  She nodded, then turned her head away. It hurt too much to look at him.

  Slowly, he eased back in the saddle. The words he had said to her made him feel like the lowest kind of cad, but someday she might thank him for them. If it turned out, as he expected, that Jackson was a place where she belonged and he didn’t, he couldn’t bear to think she might not be able to find the kind of love she deserved, even if it did mean his Gabe would be with another man.

  He turned his horse and slowly rode away from her, not letting himself look back, feeling more empty, more lifeless, with every step the horse took.

  o0o

  Gabe went a little ways then stopped and turned to look at McLowry. She watched until he was gone, then nudged her horse forward at a gallop toward the town, away from the pain of his words. He said he’d follow in a day or two. That would be when she’d prove to him how wrong he’d been about her and the people of Jackson City.

  She rode straight to Mrs. Beale’s house, the grandest house not only in Jackson City, but from there to Tucson. Cozette Beale was married to a circuit judge who spent more time on the circuit than did any other judge in the Territory. Most folks said he did it to keep away from Cozette, who liked few things more than to put on airs because she was a judge’s wife. Despite that, Gabe liked the woman. Mrs. Beale had no children and had seemed to take a special interest in the motherless Devere brood--especially in Gabe. She had always given her butter cookies and tea when Gabe came to town, and told her things about being a "lady" that her Pa hadn’t had a clue about. Things like holding out her little pinky when she sipped tea, and not biting hard into a confection with powdered sugar on top or it’d fly onto her upper lip and make her look like she was frothing. Gabe would leave these sessions and howl at how funny they were--but she remembered them, nonetheless.

  Gabe knocked on the door and in a moment Mrs. Beale opened it. "Gabe Devere," she cried, hardly able to believe her eyes. "Lord of mercy, can it be!" She stepped onto her porch and gave Gabe a big hug. "Oh, child, I don’t believe this. Are you all right?" She held Gabe at arms’ length and looked at her.

  "I’m fine, Mrs. Beale."

  The woman shook her head. "When you took off a few days after the funeral that way, we just knew how bad you were hurting. Some of the men tried to find you, and when they couldn’t we all feared you were dead."

  "I’m glad to be back," Gabe said.

  "Thank God." Mrs. Beale put her arm around Gabe and whisked her into the house.

  McLowry turned his horse back down the side street after he’d watched Gabe’s warm reception and headed back into the desert alone. If she seemed as happy tomorrow and the day after as she’d looked today, maybe she’d forget all about her revenge...and maybe he needed to think about moving on.

  o0o

  Within a couple of hours after Cozette Beale had once again taken Gabe under her motherly wing, she made her a bath, showed her the guest room, lent her a dress, and prepared a huge lunch. Gabe couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so coddled and pampered.

  She sat in the parlor. It was a dark room, with molded wood paneling and dark green wallpaper with tiny yellow and red snapdragon designs sprinkled over it. Mahogany furniture that had been sent from Mrs. Beale’s mother’s home in Vermont was crammed into the room. Mrs. Beale considered her furniture the height of elegance, and was known to polish it daily.

  Gabe could tell Mrs. Beale was full of questions, but had the good manners not to ask them--at least, not yet. To have Gabe return as mysteriously as she’d left, after months of absence, and not know why, was almost more than Mrs. Beale’s curiosity could bear.

  "It must feel good to be back in your hometown, Gabe," she said, pouring them each a dainty china cup of orange pekoe.

  "I’m glad to be here, Mrs. Beale."

  "And of course, you’ll stay in this house as long as you need to, dear."

  Because I don’t have any other home, Gabe thought, as the realization hit her anew. It felt so familiar being back here in Jackson City, sitting in Mrs. Beale’s parlor that, for a moment, she’d almost...almost...forgotten that nothing was the same, and that she was alone. Except for McLowry. "Thank you, Mrs. Beale. You’re very kind." Her eyes grew misty. "I...I’m a little tired, I’m afraid. My head seems to be spinning. It’s wonderful to be back, but at the same time, it’s very hard."

  "Of course, dear." She regarded Gabe with sad eyes. "Here I am blathering. I should have realized. You should lie down and take a long, restful nap. But before you do, I’ve got some big news for you."

  Gabe didn’t really want to hear any town gossip right now. She wanted to go to a room and be alone. In particular, she wanted to take a peek out of a window to see if McLowry’s horse was tethered outside a hotel or saloon. Their parting worried her. He had to be welcome in this town. If he wasn’t, she wasn’t sure she could stay.

  Mrs. Beale was looking at her expectantly. "Of course, Mrs. Beale." She relented. "I’d love to hear your news."

  "I’m not sure how to break it to you. In my defense, let me say I wanted to give you a chance to relax and catch your breath."

  Gabe shifted uneasily. "Yes?"

  "It’s about Chad."

  Gabe paled. "Chad?" she whispered, confused.

  "We told you he had died in a Denver hospital," she said. "The doctors told us it was a matter of time, and we thought the kindest way was to offer you no hope whatsoever. Everyone expected him to die, you see. After the pain you’d gone through, to have given you any hope and then to dash it, we felt would be too cruel."

  Gabe gripped the arms of the chair, barely able to speak. "What are you saying?"

  "Well, we told you that after we patched up his bullet wounds, we’d put him on a coach to Denver because his legs had been crushed and burned by falling beams in the fire. That, too, was true." Mrs. Beale wrung her hands together. "The little we knew about medicine told us that if the bullet wounds didn’t kill him, the infection and shock of his burns certainly would. But, Gabe, he didn’t die."

  The room swayed. Mrs. Beale jumped up and handed her some water. Gabe brushed it aside. "Tell me," she whispered.

  "He’s alive, Gabe. He...he can’t walk. He’ll never be able to walk again. But at least he’s alive."

  "Alive?" She stood, in shock, her hands covering her mouth as the words penetrated. "My God! Where is he?"

  Mrs. Beale took her hands, gripping them hard. "He’s still in Denver. No one was here to care for him. They have houses in Denver, institutions that take care of men and women who are unable to care for themselves and who have no one else. That’s where he is. I’ve been in communication with them, and have the address if you’d like to send him a letter."

  "He was just left there with strangers? In an institution?" She was scarcely able to comprehend the words being said to her, her mind ringing with the thought, over and over, that Chad was alive.

  "We thought you were dead, too," Mrs. Beale cried. "When you ran off, and didn’t come back...what were we to do? The bank sold your father’s cattle. That took care of his medical expenses, but then, once that bill was paid for, the bank wouldn’t give out any more money. They said they needed your authorization to touch your share of the proceeds."

  "Oh, Lord." She shook her head. Banks and money were the last thing she wanted to hear about. "Yes...I understand. I left and…" She couldn’t go on. "Can I bring him home?"

  "If you can take care of him. He isn’t well, Gabe. After all he’s been through, and thinking you were dead as well. He doesn’t talk anymore. Not to anyone. He just sits and looks out the window."

  She remembered the handsome, laughing boy she loved. To think of him reduced to that was agony. But he was alive--it was like a miracle, a resurrection from the dead. Thank you, Lord, she whispered. Thank you.

  "I’ll take care of him," she vowed. "Of course, I’ll take care of him." She began to pace. "I need to rebuild--to
have a home to bring him back to. Oh, Mrs. Beale"--she wrapped her arms around the woman’s neck--"thank you! Thank you so much!"

  o0o

  The next morning, Gabe went to the Western Union to send a telegram to Chad and to the owner of the institution in which he was living. She told them both that she was back in Jackson, and that she would rebuild their house, and then bring Chad home again.

  From there, she hurried down the street, and found herself pacing outside the Jackson City Bank until the doors opened. "I wish to speak with the manager," she blurted out to the peach-fuzz-faced clerk before he’d even had a chance to give his lackadaisical, "G’mornin’, ma’am."

  She was ushered into the small back office and introduced to Mr. Fairfield. Before he opened his mouth, she announced, "I’m here for an accounting of my father’s money."

  "Please have a seat, Miss Devere," Mr. Fairfield said, adjusting the knot on his string tie. He was a tall, lanky man, with an Adam’s apple so protruding and sharp he could have used it to open envelopes.

  Gabe frowned. Taking seats and touching ties meant only one thing. Bad news.

  Her father had owed money on his cattle, Mr. Fairfield explained, and after the deaths, what with her brother’s doctor and hospital bills, and Gabe’s mysterious disappearance, the bank had taken it upon itself to sell the cattle. He had carefully deposited the sale money, as a dutiful banker would do, and then paid the bills owed, including the bank fees, interest, and a seller’s commission. When Fairfield finally gave Gabe her bank balance to look at, she saw that the bank was more adept at robbery than any outlaw she’d ever heard of. She also knew there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it.

  If the bank hadn’t acted, the cattle would have died or wandered away, and Chad wouldn’t have been cared for. She had to give them that. With some cost cutting, she should have enough money to rebuild a small cabin with room for Chad to come home and live, and to, somehow, get the ranch going again on a very small scale. It was her fault she’d gotten into this financial state of affairs; somehow, she would get out of them.