The Outlaw's Kiss (an Old West Romance) (Wild West Brides)

by Karin, Anya

  September 27, 1878

  Deadwood, Dakota Territory

  The next morning was as gray as the cloud over my heart. I knew I’d done right by helping Itan find Eli. I knew that. But knowing things and feeling them are very, very, different.

  Eli had done nothing wrong. He was as anyone in Deadwood, which is a bit of a funny thing to say, considering the general lack of innocence abounding the hills, but what happened to him wasn’t justice. It was a set up that an angry man perpetrated to get revenge. Base, foul, revenge – it had nothing to do with justice when Eustace Rawls set him up.

  But what I did put my friend, Seth, in a terrible spot. Suddenly, he had to deal with a town that wanted justice for two raids instead of just one. There was also the issue that the sheriff knew exactly how Eli got free.

  On the other hand, those Sioux weren’t going to stop until they found him.

  Knowing and feeling; two terribly different things.

  When the first knock came at my door, I’d not been to sleep, but I chose to act ignorant of the sound anyway. All I wanted to do was write down what happened then burn my journal. If I did that, I thought, I could maybe make everything return to the way it’s supposed to be, the way it was before Rawls had my sweet Eli taken away, like an old, dusty fairytale. Just like an old fairytale though, burning everything I’d written – Rawls’s half confessions among other things – would bring more trouble than it was worth.

  Wishes, after all, rarely get granted in just the way the man rubbing the lamp hopes.

  “Clara? Clara? Are you awake?”

  I rolled over with a grumble, not wanting to see anyone, speak to anyone at all. I couldn’t just pretend to be dead though, I knew father would worry.

  “I’m sorry, father,” I said weakly. “I overslept again.” A lie, but it didn’t hurt anyone. It wasn’t late, either; the sun was just coming up over the horizon. I stood and looked out the window to realize that the gray haze I’d seen from bed was the last remnant of the fires from the night before.

  The little bar down the road from Mr. Swearengen’s Gem still smoldered. “Clara?” He called again.

  “Oh, yes, father, I’m sorry, I was lost in thought.”

  He was silent for a time before I heard his feet scratch the wood outside the door. I knew he was turning the toe of his boot back and forth against the floorboard, trying to figure out what to say.

  “I heard about Eli. Mr. Bullock told me what happened. I’m sorry that you’ve had to live through all this.”

  “Sorry? You’re sorry for what? No, no, I’m sorry. I’m the cause of the trouble,” I said as I opened the door to see my father with very red, puffy cheeks and a nose that looked like it had been recently wiped one too many times. “If it weren’t for me, I –”

  “From what Seth said, if it weren’t for you, the whole damn town would be burned to a cinder like that flophouse down the way. You were brave in the face of danger I can’t even imagine. And I was out, fiddling around at a gold claim instead of protecting my daughter. I’m the one who should be sorry.”

  His hat was clutched against his chest.

  “I’m fine, father. I wasn’t hurt, and I don’t believe I was ever actually in danger.”

  “That’s not how Seth told it. He said you that right after all the explosions and fires started, you and he went out into the street and you refused to back down when one of the Sioux came up and started shouting at you.”

  I shook my head and sat. “Father, no, that wasn’t at all what happened. I foolishly followed Mr. Bullock out of the restaurant into the street and he – Itan – the Sioux, he approached me.”

  Father waved his hand, dismissing me. “No, no, Seth also said you’d probably try to downplay what you did. In sending him to Eli’s jail cell, you do realize you kept this town from burning, yes?”

  “That’s not what it seemed like.” I trailed off. I did know that, but no matter whether I knew it or not, the guilt was still tremendous. Truth is that it didn’t ultimately matter. “But father, they’re going to blame –”

  “You? No, no dear, no one blames you. At least no one I spoke with.”

  “That means they blame Eli, then.”

  Father looked sullenly to the floor. “Yes. It would seem that Eli somehow got word to the Sioux that he’d been incarcerated.”

  “But you know that’s not true,” I said standing up. “He would never have done that. You know that as well as I.”

  With comforting hands on my shoulders, father looked me straight in the eye. “I know that. And so do you. Seth isn’t sure, but he and Eli have been friends for years, so he doesn’t believe the whispers. But all he’s got to work on is that a few days after a man was tossed into jail on suspicion of collusion with the Sioux, the same said Sioux appear and break him out in rather glorious fashion.”

  I chewed my lips, pushed my tongue into my cheek, as father chewed his mustache. “Will you hand my journal to me?”

  He did, and I thumbed through the last few pages of notes. Things were scrawled about curiosities in Rawls’s story, and concerns over his earlier insistence on taking over father’s gold claim. It was all right there. Right there in my hands. I knew that man had somehow incriminated himself in all this, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

  “Father,” I said, “I’ve got to go talk to Mr. Swearengen.”

  “Al? Why? Clara, you’re hardly dressed. I thought you’d like to go to the claim today to get your mind off this business. That couple of Welshmen is opening up the first part of our mine-shaft this morning, and –”

  “No,” I said, patting him on the chest and pulling on the clothes I’d worn yesterday. “Ugh,” I grunted, smelling the smoke. “No, you go. I’ve got a feeling that he can help me. Help us.”

  Eli’s words were right in the front of my mind. “Swearengen only serves his own interest. If something behooves him, he’ll work himself to death to get it done. Just don’t get on his bad side.”

  “I don’t know what,” I said. “I don’t know how, but I have the very distinct feeling that he’ll have some kind of idea.”

  A knock down stairs, and Davis Clark shouting for my father broke up my rambling locomotive. “Got room on my wagon if you want a ride up to the claims,” he said. “Jeffrey? You up there?”

  Father crossed the room and called down to Mr. Clark that he’d be a minute. “He’s got quite an entourage with him. Four, no, five miners, seems like? I wonder if there’s a reason for it. Hum,” he grunted. “You do what you need to do, Clara. I trust you to do right.”

  “You what?”

  “I’ve been thinking. You’re not the same woman I left New York with. Not by a long shot. And the funny part is I’m not sure what happened. It’s only been two months since we left everything we knew and came out here for this.” He waved his arm around. “For a town full of backstabbing, wild cowboys, and I’m a little ashamed to admit that I think you might be growing into it faster than I am.”

  Resting my hand on my father’s shoulder, I studied his face. “I’d never be here without you. For all my talking about running away to a life of adventure, I’m not as brave as I like to think I am,” I said. “In truth, I wasn’t asleep when you first knocked, nor the second time. I was too much of a coward to answer. I thought you’d look at me the same way Mr. Bullock did after I told Itan where to find Eli.”

  “You impressed him, Clara. You saved the town.”

  Mr. Clark banged on the door again. “Gotta get moving! Daylight’s burning, Jeffrey.”

  Father shook his head as a smile crossed his lips. “Like I said, get out there and do what you need to do. I don’t have any idea what’s going on in that head of yours, but I know when you squint a little, and pinch your nose up like that, you’ve got an idea. And if Al Swearengen can somehow keep those two rapscallions away from my claim, then so much the better.”

  He opened the door, but paused with one foot still inside. “And Clara?”


  “Yes, Father?” I answered as I hurriedly threw a shawl around my shoulders and grabbed a sun hat.

  “I love you, little girl. You do your old man proud.”

  My mouth fell open for a moment, and all I could think to do was hug him and tell him I loved him, too.

  *

  Outside, the mixture of burned pine and remnants of the acrid, stinging scent of dynamite made it difficult to breathe without a handkerchief over my mouth. A burned boarding house was nothing more than a mixture of charred wood and coal muck from a brief morning rain.

  Already, the remaining wood, and the fixtures, were picked over. As I crossed in front of it, a man with a wild look on his face was rooting through a burned dresser, looking for whatever might sell – jewelry, clothes – but found nothing. He pushed the furniture over, and as soon as it hit the ground, a black cloud puffed out around it, then the dresser collapsed into a heap.

  “Hope you weren’t lookin’ ta pick,” he called out. “Goddam’ place’s been ruined already. Hey, wait a minute, ain’t you that girl?”

  “No sir, not here to pick,” I said.

  “Yeah, that’s you! You’re the one who did all this! You told that damn Injun where to go! You’re with ‘em ain’t ya?”

  The Gem wasn’t five hundred paces ahead. I walked faster, careful not to step in any of the numerous pot holes or piles or horse droppings that marked the dirt road.

  “Get back here!” The man shouted, beginning to jog.

  Step, step, step, keep going.

  Four hundred feet separated me from the door of the Gem, from relative safety.

  “Hold on, little girl! I just want to thank you for what you done.”

  I heard his feet, getting closer. I couldn’t move any quicker without being reckless and the last thing I wanted was to fall. Just a little ways to go.

  “I said come here, girl! I’m tired of chasing you down, whore!”

  Briefly I glanced backwards. He was gaining on me quickly. Three hundred feet. I started running when I felt the man’s hand on my back.

  “Stay still! I just want to say hello, little girl!”

  He reeked of whiskey and horse manure.

  “No! Stay back!” He grabbed my shoulder, wrenching me backwards. I slapped at his hand, freed myself and kept running. Two hundred feet from the Gem, I saw Mr. Swearengen on his balcony, only he wasn’t in his standard vulture-like, lurking position, instead he was hunched over, but still watching.

  The hand on my shoulder spun me around. “No!” I shouted again, in the very instant that a muck-filled hole in the path sucked my foot, and wrenched my ankle. My knee hit the ground. I looked up just in time to see a flash, and then a crack split the air, so loud my instinct was to cover my ears.

  His hand hit my neck then slid to my waist. I pulled myself up, willing my feet to keep moving.

  “That’s no way to treat a lady,” Mr. Swearengen said in his slow, easy monotone. “Especially not one who saved a town.”

  I froze. There wasn’t anyone following me. Turning slowly, I saw that his hand was in the very hole that had grabbed my foot. And then he jerked, let out a groan and fell still.

  Looking up at Mr. Swearengen, words escaped me.

  “Come on in,” he said then raised a finger before turning to someone inside. “Tammy, will you clean a spot for Miss James? She’s weathered enough trauma I think.” One of his eyebrows twitched as I came to a stop right below him, still stunned. “Enough trauma for a lifetime maybe. The lady should at least have a clean seat.”

  The front door swung open after a moment of clattering passed.

  “He likes you,” Tammy said as she held it for me. “He wouldn’ta shot Grant for just anyone.” A grin stretched across her face. “Though maybe he’d been looking for an excuse, and you just happened to give him one. Hard ta tell sometimes with him.”

  If nothing else, it was nice to see a friendly face. Miss Gretchen waved from where she stood, supervising the girls who cleaned the floor from the top of the stairs. “Let Miss James have a seat, Tammy. She doesn’t need to hear your crass jokes,” she said.

  “I changed my mind,” Mr. Swearengen announced. “Bring her to my office. I’m not of a mood to see the condition of my establishment. Not yet, anyway.”

  And quite a condition it was. All manner of liquids, foods, and other substances I didn’t even hazard a guess at covered the floor. A nearly silent team of women worked ceaselessly to clean it up, though they’d managed little more than a quarter of the room. From the looks on their faces when they looked up at me when I passed, they’d been at it for some time already.

  “This way,” Gretchen beckoned. “Mr. Swearengen’s office is up here. Mind that stuff, whatever it is, on your left.”

  I couldn’t help but giggle at the sour look on her face. “This place is enough to turn an undertaker’s stomach,” she remarked softly when I reached the top of the stairs. “Follow me.”

  Stepping into Mr. Swearengen’s office, I felt a strange gravity, as though I were being introduced to some dignitary, or a president. In a way, I suppose he was the closest thing Deadwood had, whether or not he wanted the responsibility.

  I trembled unconsciously when I entered the room. It’s hard to explain, but it felt so strange to be in his office, like visiting a lion in his den. Out in the wild, a lion is imposing, but in his home?

  “I shot that man because he’s less human than you are. Have a seat.”

  He stood, briefly, but returned to his chair before I’d taken mine. Upon his desk was a quarter-bottle of whiskey, a glass, a revolver that I noticed had five unfired rounds, and a stack of papers.

  “They’re claim deeds,” he said. “Your eyes fell upon those papers? Claim deeds. As official as anything in these soon-to-be-United States. Or was it the whiskey you were looking at. Would you like a drink?”

  In honesty, I’d never had one, but he’d poured it before I had time to refuse. He pushed it across the desk.

  “I don’t believe I’ve ever tasted it before.”

  “You swallow it, like this.” He grabbed the glass, poured it down and sighed. “Like that.” He filled the glass again and pushed it toward me. “You look like you need it.”

  Following his lead, I quaffed the foul-smelling stuff all in one go. It burned like hellfire all the way to my stomach, and immediately I fell into a coughing fit. As soon as it passed though, my mind eased slightly.

  “Anyways,” he said. “We’ve got business to talk. You did me a good turn by not letting that damned Sioux have his whooping braves burn this place to the ground. I save my thanks for when I mean it. Thanks.”

  “I just did what I had to,” I said. “Eli was –”

  “Framed by the horse’s ass known as Eustace Rawls. The problem is that Rawls has connections, of which you might have heard?”

  “Yes sir, I –”

  “Have you been writing?”

  “What? In my book?”

  He pushed his chair back on two legs. “Gretchen told you to be attentive, did she not?”

  “Yes, she did. How did you –”

  Waving his hand, he said, “doesn’t matter. Give me the book. Rawls and his half-wit aren’t known for their subtlety. They’ve said something foolish in your presence? You’ve made notes?”

  “The other day, just after Miss Gretchen and I spoke, I recorded part of a conversation. Rawls is apparently planning to get father’s claim somehow.” I handed my journal over.

  “It stops partway through,” he said, looking down his nose at me through a pair of half-moon reading spectacles. “What happened after they tittered about the gold claim?”

  “That’s just it,” I said with a sigh. “Someone came along the road and startled Rawls. I’m sure he was about to admit to his complicity in Eli’s arrest.”

  “But he didn’t.”

  I looked down. “But he didn’t.”

  “Good.” Mr. Swearengen set the chair’s legs down with a thump. “That
means you need my help.”

  “I’m sorry. I thought you wanted Rawls caught?”

  “I do, but it makes little difference to me when he’s figured out. But you want him caught now, and you have something I need as well.” He patted the stack of claim papers. “You see these? These are power. The more claims I have, the more mineral rights I have. And the more of those I control when the United States government makes this place a state, the richer I am. You’re following?”

  “Not entirely,” I said honestly. “You want my father’s claim?”

  He shook his head and stood. “Not his. I couldn’t afford that. Star’s told me how much gold is underneath it, and I trust him. Aside from that, having people like your father here is good for business. The more bankers and the less washed-up grotesques like Rawls we have, the more legitimate this place looks.”

  “And that means more business for you,” I said, finishing for him.

  “You learn fast. Maybe that’s why I like you. I’ll get to the point. I want Davis Clark’s claim. Your father has a line in on him and if you get me that plot of land, I’ll deliver Eustace Rawls to you on a platter.”

  “But how? How am I to get his claim?”

  He leaned over, putting his fists on his desk and getting almost uncomfortably close. “You’ll manage. He’s put a great deal of money into it, but it’s not as rich as he thinks. Your father’s claim, though seems to be quite bursting.”

  “I’ll do what I can. If I get this claim, you’ll help me rescue Eli?”

  “I can give you Rawls, but I can’t save your lover. That part is up to you. Of course, if the man who framed him had anything to do with that raid last night, wouldn’t that be a sight?”

  Mr. Swearengen poured another drink and offered it to me.

  “No, thank you,” I said. “I’ll need my wits about me if this is to get done.”

  He smiled half a smile. “Oh, and you’ll want to hurry. Word is a U.S. Marshall is riding from Yankton to investigate the fire. You’ve got three days, possibly four. This has gotten bigger than Deadwood, Miss James.”

  It may well have outgrown Deadwood. But all I could think was that I’d do whatever it took to share that Texas sunset with my Eli.