Authors: Outlaw in Paradise
Jeez,
thought Jesse,
news travels fast in Paradise.
"Not
your fault? So you were just having a bad day? Decided to take it out on—"
"I didn't have any choice!"
Jesse swore at him, on the verge of losing his temper. This
dandified little twerp was as bad as Warren. No, worse—Warren only beat up on
people, not defenseless animals.
Cherney cringed and flung up his hands again. "He started
it," he said in a crying whine. "What I took was peanuts compared to
him."
"Compared to—" Who? he almost said. He bit his tongue in
the nick of time. "Him? Compared to him? You really think so?"
"I'm telling you!"
"What are you telling me?" He eased back a little so the
banker could sit up straight. He should've recognized the signs—God knew he'd
seen them often enough—but in his anger he'd missed them. A lot more was going
on here than met the eye.
"I'm telling you, I didn't do anything he didn't do."
"So what's that to me?"
Cherney straightened his tie with a shaky hand, straightened his
diamond stickpin. He had dark yellow hair the shade of a sepia photograph;
whatever he put on it made it lie flat on either side of a sharp white center
part. "You think I'm the only one who's been skimming? Ha! Wylie's got
fake accounts all over the place. Anyway, I only stole from him," he
added, shooting his cuffs with dignity.
"He
stole from
everybody."
Wylie. Well, well, well.
"My God! Are you going to shoot me?"
Jesse had absentmindedly rested his hand on one of his Colts. He
fingered the butt suggestively. "I'm thinking about it."
"I won't draw against you," Cherney blurted,
stiff-lipped, starting the hand-waving thing again. "Please, I'm a banker,
not a gunfighter. If you draw on me, it'll be murder."
Jesse sneered.
"I'll pay you. How much is Wylie giving you to kill me? I'll
double it. I'll
triple
it. Please—what do you care? I'll open an account
for you, put money in it, whatever you want."
"And then what?"
"Then—I'll go away!"
"What do I tell Wylie?" He kept sneering, but added a
thoughtful look.
"Who cares? You aren't afraid of him! Tell him to go to
hell."
"Hmm." He stroked his mustache and squinted his eye,
exaggerating the thoughtfulness. He kept Cherney in suspense for a minute or
two longer, then growled, "What kind of money are we talking about?"
Cherney was so relieved he collapsed, went all boneless and saggy;
it was like watching a suit of clothes fall off a hanger. "Anything,"
he mumbled weakly; even his lips were flabby. "Twenty, twenty-five
thousand. Just name it."
"That's what you stole from the bank?"
He nodded miserably.
"Where'd you stash it?"
"Accounts. It's still here, just in different names, places.
Nobody's missed it."
"I'll take a list of all those names and places."
He hung his head. "Right."
"So how much did you swipe from Wylie?"
"What?"
"Him personally, not the bank."
He started to deny it, then gave up, shrugging. "Not much.
Four or five."
"Four or five thousand dollars?"
"Yes."
Payday.
"Okay, here's the deal. You got a family, Lyndon?"
"I beg your pardon?"
Jesse hated exiling a family man. "Wife? Kids?"
"No. I'm divorced."
Figured. "All right. Soon as I walk out of here, you put four
thousand dollars in an account in my name. Got that?"
"Yes, yes," he said eagerly, "it's not a problem, I
can do it in ten minutes."
"Good, because that's all the time you've got. That gives you
about nine hours of daylight to go home and pack your things. By ten o'clock
tonight, you're gone."
"I'm gone. You won't regret this, Mr.—"
"And pack light, because you'll be on foot."
"I'll be—what?"
"That's the last part of the deal. Your horse stays here—I'm
liberating it."
"My
horse?"
"I
want her sale papers and pedigree. Put 'em in an envelope and
leave it with the bartender at Rogue's Tavern on your way out of town. And you
never ride a horse again."
He started to sputter. "But—I—but you can't—"
"From now on you're a carriage-riding man, Lyndon. I hear of
you sitting on top of anything four-legged, I come after you. Understand me?
And we won't be making any deals—I'll just kill you. You getting this? Tell me
you understand."
"I—I—I—understand."
"Good. Now let's go open an account."
****
Next time, Jesse swore, burning his bottom lip on a sip of the
black acid Swensen called coffee, he was going to pay attention to Cady
McGill's restaurant recommendations. He belched in between fiery sips, not sure
if the "sheepherder's pie" he'd just consumed was going to come back
up or stay down there and poison him. "Bleh," he said for the second
time to Ham, his new best friend, who rolled his eyes and giggled at him.
"C'mon, Mr. Gault, show 'em to me, please?"
"No."
"Please?"
"No."
"Please?"
"No."
"Jus' one? C'mon, jus' show me one. I won't even touch it, I
won't do nothin' but look. Okay? Show me one?"
Jesse swore a long, soft stream of mild expletives while Ham
grinned at him, tickled. Not only had he lost all fear of Gault, now he liked
to tease Gault, play little verbal jokes on him, cornball riddles and puns that
Jesse pretended to walk into blindly. They always sent the kid into gales of
laughter.
"All right, but only so you'll shut up."
"Hot damn!"
"And if you tell anybody—"
"I
won't." He squirmed closer on the bench they were sitting on,
half hidden from the other diners at Swensen's Good Eats & Drinks by the
tall back of the booth. His handsome pixie face screwed up in thought.
"How come?"
"How come what?"
"How come I cain't tell anybody?"
"Because it's a secret."
"Oh." That made it even better. By the time Jesse
reluctantly reached for one of his Colts, Ham was squirming with anticipation.
"This is the Peacemaker," he told him, placing the gun,
butt first, on his two small, flat palms. "That's the Mexican eagle emblem
on the grip. Real ivory. Pretty, isn't it? Single-action .45. The best gun Colt
ever made."
"Wow." Awe wasn't a strong enough word for the look on
his face; the kid was dumbstruck. "Oh, oh, wow," he kept saying,
holding the heavy gun like a priest holding a chalice. "Wow."
"Open it up. Flick that little latch with your thumb."
The cartridge cylinder swung out, and Ham spun it around,
carefully checking all six empty chambers. "I like that noise," he
said, and Jesse grunted in agreement. That clipped, metallic
chink
of revolving chambers was a satisfying sound. "Khhew,
khhew!" Ham pointed the Colt at the empty wall across the way and
pretended to sight and shoot. "Khhew!"
"Get him?"
"Right between the eyes."
"Good shootin'."
"Wish I could draw. You teach me to draw, Mr. Gault?" He
laid the side of the revolver against his thigh, jerked it up, and blasted at
the wall. The gun, which was longer than his forearm, made him look even
punier. When he blew imaginary smoke across the top of the muzzle, Jesse laughed
out loud.
"Who would you draw on?" he asked, slouching down in the
booth, folding his arms.
"Bad guys."
"Like who?"
"Bank robbers and cattle rustlers. And men who call my daddy
a name. Men who give Miss Cady Up."
Jesse nodded thoughtfully. "So you'd just kill 'em?"
"After we done fought fair an' square. Or..." He sighted
at the wall again. "Maybe I just wound 'em. Khhew! Shoot at they hand or
they leg."
"That might be better."
" 'Cause then they be scared o' me an' quit doin' bad
things."
"There you go. And that way you'd never have..."
A whirl of powder-blue skirts, fluttering hands, and flashing dark
eyes diverted him. Cady came at him like a small, compact tornado, taking a
bead on the object in the path of her concentrated fury. Jesse was the object.
"What the hell are you doing? What is wrong with you? Are you
out of your mind?" The questions were rhetorical, because each time he
tried to answer she cut him off after half a syllable. 'Give me that," she
snapped at Ham, snatching the Colt out of his hand. Her anger doubled, tripled,
kept multiplying as she stared in disbelief at the revolver—which began to look
wicked and deadly, practically obscene on top of her soft pink palm. Jesse
reached for it, but she jerked away and clapped it down on the tabletop instead,
as if the possibility of actual physical contact with him was too disgusting to
risk.
"What the hell were you thinking of?"
"He's seven years old!"
"He—"
"What kind of man gives a gun to a child?"
"It's not—"
"Shame on you.
Shame!"
Jesse hung his head. "It's not loaded," he muttered in
defense.
"Not loaded?"
She stopped short of
screeching, but he flinched anyway. "Come on, Ham."
"But, Miz Cady—"
"Miss Cady, nothing." She took hold of his elbow and
yanked. She had parting words for Jesse. "You give this child a gun again,
Mr. Gault, and you'll have me to deal with. I
will not tolerate it."
With
a furious twirl of skirts, she was gone.
He stared down the smattering of diners who dared look back and
forth between him and the door she'd just flounced through. Damn her and the
horse she rode in on. How was he ever going to live this down? He reached
automatically for a black cigarette and stuck it in the side of his mouth. Lit
it in one try. Blew badass smoke at the ceiling. Hoped nobody noticed his hands
were shaking.
"Evenin', Cady. Say, ain't you best hurry up? Gettin' on for
five, y'know."
Cady shook the hair out of her face and nodded to Levi in the bar
mirror she was polishing.
"I
know, I'm hurrying." Right now
the saloon was sparsely populated, only Jersey Stan and a couple of hands from
the Sullivan ranch. But in half an hour the Saturday night crowd would start
trickling in, and Cady tried never to let those relatively big spenders see her
in occupations like mirror polishing. Or table cleaning or window washing. It
would spoil the illusion. In public, at least, she tried to live up to her
customers' fantasies, and as far as she could tell, their fantasies of her
ranged all over from mother to sweetheart to priest, not to mention madam and
cardsharp. But not domestic servant.
She gave a few swipes to the bottles of booze lined up on tiers in
front of the mirror, then started on the bar.
"Here, I'll do that," Levi protested, trying to tie on
his apron with one hand and snatch the rag from her with his other.
"No, it's okay. See that box behind the door? Came in the
mail today. I think it's the new glasses, so you be unpacking them while I
finish here."
She waited until he dragged the box behind the bar, slit it open,
and began to unwrap the glasses inside before saying, "Levi, I don't want
to worry you, and I'm sure there really isn't anything to worry about, but I
think you should know. I saw Ham today with that gunfighter. In Swensen's. They
were sitting in a back booth together like trail buddies, having a high old
time."
Crouched down behind the box, Levi glanced back at her and said,
"Hmpf."
"And, Levi?"
"Ma'am?"
"Mr. Gault was showing Ham his gun. His
gun,"
she
repeated when he only hmpfed again.
"Mm mm mm. That boy," he said, shaking his head. "I'll
swan."
Cady put her hands on her hips, nonplussed.
"I
thought
you'd be mad as hell. Goodness, Levi, don't you even care that Ham's hanging
around with a hired killer?"
"Well, if that's what he be."
"What?"
He stood up, six feet three inches of lanky bones and beautiful
brown skin. "And I spec' that's what he be, 'cause that's what everybody
say. I saw him with Ham last night, though, and I couldn't see no meanness in
him. Maybe he a killer, but I b'lieve he got a sof' spot for chirn."
"Well, but—even so, even if he does—is that the point?"
"What the point?"
"Maybe he
dotes
on children, but still— Maybe Jesse
James was the world's best father, but would you have wanted him raising
Ham?"
Levi chuckled.
She shook her head, bewildered. "I'm telling you, Levi, there
was Ham at Swensen's restaurant, taking pot shots at the wall!"
"What?"
"Pretending, I mean."
"Oh, pretending."
"Playing with that man's six-shooter like it was a toy."
"I don't like that."
"No. I grabbed him and got him right out of there. And I'd've
smacked his skinny behind, but I figured you'd want to do that yourself."
Levi said, "Well," noncommittally, and went back to
stacking glasses.
Cady shook her head some more. She couldn't get over his attitude.
Levi was the kindest, most loving father she'd ever known, but he was strict,
too. Strict and principled and upright: Ham might sweep up and do chores in a
saloon, but if Levi ever caught him saying curse words or spitting or acting
like a ruffian in any way, his punishments were quick and predictable. So why
wasn't he more irate about his son's friendship with an out-and-out gunman? It
didn't make any sense to her.
"The Five K-Khan—
What is this, Levi?
The
Five Khandha
of Bud—Budd
—" Glendoline gave up and put the book
back on the bar. "What is that, Greek?"
"You're late," Cady said automatically, as she did every
day when Glen decided to mosey in to work. She picked up Levi's book, but had
no better luck than Glen at pronouncing the title.
The Five Khandha of
Buddha.
She looked up at him questioningly.
"No, it ain't Greek," he said with dignity. "It's
about Buddha."
"What's Buddha? Ohhh," Glendoline said wisely, wriggling
her blond eyebrows. "Oh,
I
know. Buddha's a religion, and it just
happens
to be the religion of a certain Chinese lady who lives on Noble Fir Street.
Over her daddy's laundry," she threw in, in case anybody wasn't sure which
Chinese lady she was referring to.
Levi plucked the book out of Cady's hand and stuck it under the
bar, not looking at either woman. He didn't like to be teased, especially about
Lia Chang, so Cady quit grinning at him, at the same time she slipped Glen a
good-natured wink.
But then she remembered she was mad at Glen. "I noticed you
had a pretty good time last night," she said sourly. "What with one
thing and another."
"I did," Glen assured her, patting her ringlets,
"why, I surely did. Last night was just plain fun. I swear—"
"Glendoline."
"What? Oh." Comprehension dawned. "You're mad
because I sat on Sam Blankenship's lap."
"I didn't even see that." Although it didn't surprise
her.
"No?" She put her finger on her cheek, which meant she
was thinking hard. "What else did I do?"
Cady could've ticked them off on her fingers: you came in late,
you got drunk on the job again, and you left early and went home with Gunther
Dewhurt. "I'm talking about you and that gunfighter."
"Mr. Gault? Mmmm," Glen hummed, like a cat purring.
"He's dreamy, isn't he?"
"Dreamy? Well, I guess so, if you like hired killers. Glen,
when are you going to get some sense? Why in the world... oh, hell. Never mind,
it's none of my business."
"That's right," Glen agreed tartly. "I know what
you're thinking," she mumbled after a snippy little pause, facing the bar
mirror to stuff cotton down the bust of her yellow satin dress. "You think
I do it on purpose. Go after rotten men and let 'em treat me bad. Well, don't
you?"
Cady shrugged. But she thought of the day, eight months ago, when
Glendoline first showed up at the Rogue looking for work. She had a split lip
and a black eye, and that was only what showed. People were shocked, but not
really surprised; most had a suspicion about how Merle Wylie treated women, and
Glendoline had worked in his saloon for almost a year—long enough to become a
lot more than one of his bar girls. What had surprised everyone was that she'd
finally gotten up the gumption to leave him.
"We've had this conversation before," Cady said.
"You do what you want on your own time, I won't say a word. But here in my
saloon, you go by my rules."
"But I do!" Nobody could do wide-eyed innocence like
blond-haired, blue-eyed Glen. No wonder the sheriff was in love with her.
Which reminded Cady. "You weren't very nice to Tom last
night, either."
"I don't know what you're talking about." She finished
padding her bodice and looked around for something to drink. "Anyway, I'm
as nice to old Lily Leaver as he deserves."
"Why do you call him that when you know he hates it?"
"Huh? I think it's cute."
"Cute. You—" She sighed. They'd gotten off the track.
Cady and Glendoline were about the same age, but as far as men went, Glen had
eons more experience. So what was it about her that always made Cady feel old,
practically grandmotherly? Once she'd put that question to Levi, and he'd
answered in two words: "She's stupid." Cady didn't believe she was, though,
not really; Glen just didn't
think.
"We were talking about Gault," she reminded them both.
"It's looking like he might stick around for a while."
"You think so?" She pinched her cheeks, studying her
face in the mirror.
"Yeah, and I don't think you should be cozying up to him. You
know what I'm talking about," she said when Glen opened her mouth to utter
some wounded protest. "He's dangerous—you only have to look at him to see
that. So leave him be, Glen."
Don't
take him home with you,
she
meant, but she didn't say. It wasn't necessary; they really
had
had this
conversation before.
"I saw
you
talking to him, too."
"That's beside the point. Shoot, here comes Curly Boggs and
all those Witter ranch boys. You take care of them while I get dressed."
She untied her apron and threw it on a shelf under the bar.
"I saw you smile at him," Glen called after her.
"You even laughed at something he said. I heard you!"
Cady flapped her hand and kept going. "Owner's
prerogative," she threw back. It would've made a better exit line if she'd
thought Glen had the slightest idea what "prerogative" meant.
In her room, she took a long time deciding what to wear. That
wasn't like her; she had eight or nine "saloon dresses," as she
thought of them, all in different colors, and normally she just pulled out the
one she hadn't worn in the longest time. Now she stared and stared, plucking at
a gaudy feathered shoulder or a jet-beaded bodice, dissatisfied. Why all this
girlish indecision? She knew, but she didn't care to think about it. She
reminded herself too much of Glen.
Finally she yanked out her dark green taffeta and threw it across
the bed. She found the green high-heeled shoes she wore with it, and the little
fake-emerald tiara thing she sometimes stuck in her hair— men were crazy for
jewelry, the flashier the better. She hadn't had time to wash her black fishnet
stockings, so she'd have to wear a pair of flesh-colored ones, she guessed,
even though they wouldn't be as good with the green dress, which had black
lacings across the bosom. The green bracelet that looked like jade, the jet
earbobs, her little onyx pinkie ring... Was that enough? What about the pale
green cameo on a black ribbon around her neck? No, she decided; no. Even if you
did deal blackjack in a small-town saloon, it didn't mean you had to decorate
every appendage you had with jewelry. Enough was eventually enough.
She undressed behind her screen and put her robe on over her
underwear. She had a little time left; she'd bathed earlier, and she'd gotten
dressing down to ten minutes flat—which was pretty darn good considering she
had no maid. "You move your big fat butt," she said to Boo, who
hadn't opened his eyes or even twitched his tail since she'd come into the
room. She put her hand on the back of his head— and the cat jumped and squalled
as if she'd electrocuted him. "Excuse me," she said to his arched,
resentful back. "Terribly sorry, no offense. But it is my chair." He
let her pick him up, all fifteen pounds of him, and settle him on her lap,
whereupon he yawned, purred, and fell back into a coma.
"Some pet you turned out to be." She ran a finger around
his ear, halfheartedly trying to tickle him into wakefulness. He'd appeared on
her doorstep last winter, scrawny and scabby, fresh from a fight he'd obviously
lost. She'd liked nursing him back to health, and especially his heavy, earnest
devotion afterward, when he'd lumbered after her everywhere, a black, constant,
overweight shadow. But she'd succeeded too well, because now all he did was
sleep in her chair, or in her lap on the rare occasions when he relinquished
the chair. "Boo, you are a deep disappointment," she murmured,
coaxing a soft purr out of him before he went back to snoring.
She let her head fall against the high back of the padded rocker,
closing her eyes, smiling a little. This was nice. In an hour the noise from
the saloon would be deafening, but this time of the day it was still nice.
Sundays were the best, though. The Rogue closed down for the Sabbath (unlike
Wylie's bar, which stayed open all day every day, even Christmas). Sunday
mornings she took care of any leftover bookkeeping matters and saw to any
emergencies from the night before—broken chairs, shattered mirrors, and the
like—and usually by three or so in the afternoon she was free. She didn't go
out, didn't ride over to the old River Farm and wander around the orchard—that
was strictly a Friday afternoon pleasure. On Sundays she stayed in her room and
listened to the quiet. Sat in this chair, propped her feet on her crocheted
footrest, lit the tasseled lamp on her piecrust table. Put on her mail-order
spectacles and opened a book. Or wrote a letter to the only friend she still
kept up with from Portland. Or read the Paradise
Reverberator
she'd
saved from Friday, for the local gossip and the smattering of "world
news." "Ahhh," she would say from time to time to Boo.
"This is the life."
Every great once in a while she'd wonder if she was happy or not,
considering that the finest hours in her week were the ones she spent alone in
a rocking chair with a cat on her lap. But usually the question didn't trouble
her; she was either too busy or too tired, or enjoying too much the respite
from business and tiredness, to think about it. And whenever she was seriously
blue, which luckily wasn't often, she had a saying that always put whatever was
getting her down in the right perspective:
It beats canning salmon.