Always You (12 page)

Wyatt Holden yanked open the door of the Diamond X Ranch and studied the long-faced man confronting him on the porch.

“You’re Coyote Jack?”

“That’s me, mister.” Coyote Jack spit a glob of tobacco juice at his feet, then lifted insolent coal black eyes. “So now that you sent for me and I’m here, what can I do for you?”

“Come inside to talk.”

He led the Wyoming Territory’s most notorious bounty hunter into the spacious oak-paneled study that had belonged to Jed Holden and shoved closed the heavy carved door.

“Brandy? Cigar?”

With his head tilted to one side, Coyote Jack paused beside the mantel and stroked his gray mustache. A grin split his face as he nodded. “Sounds damned good, Mr. Holden. Don’t mind none if I do.”

As Wyatt poured dear Uncle Jed’s brandy into a fine old crystal goblet, he appraised his visitor. By the time he handed Coyote Jack the brandy and a fragrant cigar from Uncle Jed’s humidor, he’d concluded that he was not displeased by what he saw.

The famed bounty hunter looked every inch as dangerous as his reputation. He appeared to be about forty, tall and big-bellied, and true to his name, he did bear strong resemblance to a coyote. His face was long, his nose had the length and general shape of a snout, his eyes were dark and canny, darting this way and that. Leathery skin and thin gray lips gave him a carnivorous appearance. His stringy black hair was peppered with gray and hung nearly to his thick waist. He wore all buckskin, and black boots, and a black broad-brimmed hat. Two big Colts slapped against his thighs as he sank into the deep old leather armchair opposite the desk. When he put his booted feet up on the low oak table, he was smiling at Wyatt, but there was a meanness in his swarthy face, a viciousness that showed itself in the arrogant curl of his lips, in the hellish glint of his eyes.

He looked to be the perfect man for the job.

“Now that all the pleasantries have been observed,” Coyote Jack drawled, “why don’t you tell me what the hell you need?”

Wyatt’s glance flitted briefly over several items on the desk. He gazed at the wanted poster, then at the silver-framed photograph of Melora, then turned his attention to the mysterious wire he’d received, the one instructing him to get himself to Deadwood pronto if he ever wanted to see Melora Deane alive again. He picked up the wire and absently ran his thumb back and forth along its edges.

“I need you to find someone for me. A woman.”

“And do what with her?”

“Bring her back to me.
Safely
.” Wyatt’s blue eyes narrowed, fixing the bounty hunter with a tersely unmistakable warning. “I don’t want one hair on her head to be harmed.”

“Uh-huh. Any idea where she is?”

“My guess is she’s being held in the Dakota Territory—somewhere not far from Deadwood. I’m heading that way myself.”

He paced across the room, stared out the window toward the Weeping Willow property, then continued smoothly. “I’ll be staying some fifteen miles from Deadwood, though, in a little town called Cherryville.”

“Cherryville’s a mighty rowdy place, Mr. Holden.” The bounty hunter finished his drink in one swig, swung from the chair, and lumbered toward the brandy decanter. He helped himself to another generous splash of the burgundy liquid. “I’d say it’s every bit as lawless as Deadwood and Devil’s Creek, and some say worse even than Deadwood in its wildest days.”

“That’s what I like about it.”

The flashing white-toothed smile that Mr. Wyatt Holden gave Coyote Jack at that moment made the bounty hunter pause and stare. Well, he’d be damned. He’d underestimated his prospective employer. Something insidious underlying that smile and his words spoke volumes. This was no simple elegant dandy, no gentleman of upright morals and pure tastes. This was a man like himself, one who dressed differently, who talked differently, but underneath they were the same.

“Yep, I know what you mean.” Coyote Jack chuckled with approval. “Matter of fact, I like the Peacock Brothel in Cherryville better’n any whorehouse this side of Frisco.”

“Indeed. Miss Lucille does know how to run a cathouse, doesn’t she?” The answer was cool, yet there was an appreciative glint in Mr. Wyatt Holden’s eyes that said far more than his words. “Matter of fact, Miss Lucille is a particular friend of mine, but I don’t want you setting foot in her establishment while you’re working for me. I want you searching for this woman,
my
woman. Day and night. No wasted time, do you hear me? Start at Deadwood and fan out; cover the whole of the Black Hills if you have to.”

“Reckon I know that area as well as anyone.” Coyote Jack downed his brandy once more and licked his lips. “If she’s thereabouts, I’ll find her. What’s the little lady’s name? And what does she look like?”

“Her name is Melora Deane. And she’s beautiful,” Wyatt said slowly. He turned the silver-framed photograph of Melora around so that the bounty hunter could see it. A pulse hammered in his throat when he saw the glint of purely bestial appreciation in the other man’s eyes.

“I’m going to marry this woman,” Wyatt said in a cold, clear voice. He held the photograph up and shook it in the air for emphasis. “She’s going to be my wife, the mother of my children. Do you understand what that means?”

“Sure do, Mr. Holden. It means you’re one lucky hombre.”

“I make my own luck.” Wyatt slammed the photograph down on the desk. “Don’t cross me, Coyote, or you’ll be damned sorry. Now listen up.” He pushed the wanted poster across the desk.

“Study this man’s face and study it good: Then hunt him down. Because this is the son of a bitch who has her; he’s holding her against her will. And when you find him, you’ll find Melora.”

“You want me to kill him?”

“Damned straight I do. But not until you’ve made him tell you where the woman is. I want her back, no matter what it takes. Keep him alive until you’ve found her—but not a moment longer. Is that clear enough?”

“Clear as a Montana stream.” Coyote Jack stood and thumped his glass down on the desk. His black eyes fastened once more on Melora’s photograph. “I’ll need five hundred dollars now. Another five hundred when I find her.”

“And you’ll get five hundred more when you kill the man in that poster.”

Coyote Jack’s mouth stretched into a wolfish grin. They shook hands. Wyatt peeled out the proper sum of greenbacks and then escorted his visitor to the door. “I’ll be traveling to Cherryville by stagecoach, using the name Campbell. Rafe Campbell.”

The bounty hunter nodded. The fact that he asked no questions pleased Wyatt Holden. He continued briskly, eager to conclude this portion of the business and move on to the other matters that concerned him.

“You’ll be able to reach me at the Gold Bar Hotel. Or at the Peacock Brothel,” he added with a faint, cool smile. “I’ll want a report within the week.”

Coyote Jack touched two gnarled fingers to his hat. “Don’t you worry, Mr. Holden. That son of a bitch who took your woman is as good as dead.”

Wyatt liked the man’s confidence, his swagger. He sensed that Coyote Jack was a man with absolutely no scruples, the kind you could always count on to get things done.
My old pard Cal won’t know what hit him,
he reflected with satisfaction. But just in case, it wouldn’t hurt to have an ace up his sleeve.

A very special little ace.

An ace named Jinx.

When Coyote Jack was gone, Wyatt went directly to the stables and saddled up. His mind click-clacked various strategies as he spurred his horse toward the Weeping Willow Ranch.

Persuading Aggie to go along with what he had in mind would be no problem; the fool would do whatever he told her was best. But Jinx Deane might prove trickier. The snotty little kid didn’t take much to him.

He’d have to play his cards just right or she might refuse to go along.

That couldn’t happen.

He needed the kid, and he’d get her. The easy way or the hard way.

Whatever it took.

The farm was tucked away in a tiny, isolated valley beneath huge mountains fringed by spruce and pine. With the sun burning overhead, Cal, Jesse, and Melora charged toward the small frame house, which looked as poor and plain as an old pack saddle. Yet for all the modesty of the simple wood structure, the landscape surrounding it was spectacular.

Melora had little time, however, to drink in the splendor of towering deep green spruces or to study the craggy granite peaks that loomed up beyond the farmhouse, appearing almost to touch the glowing sky, for they reached the farmhouse in a whirlwind of dust, and before her feet even touched the ground, Cal was grabbing her arm and sprinting with her toward the door.

Inside the small square house all was clean and tidy, if somewhat cramped. There were cheery blue curtains at the windows, and a Navajo rug brightened the floor. She had a quick glimpse of blue fringed pillows on an old horsehair sofa, some straight-backed wooden chairs, and a hand-carved bench in the kitchen, which also held a woodstove and shelves stacked with dishes and utensils. But what Melora saw first and foremost was the open doorway leading to a small bedroom in back, and through the door she could see a little girl lying in a bed, with a small, thin boy of about five standing at the foot, and another girl, with pigtails, hollow cheeks, and somber eyes, perhaps nine years of age, hovering over her.

“Cal, is that you?” The hollow-cheeked girl turned her face anxiously, her skin pale as cream in the sunlight.

“It’s me, Cassie.” His boots pounded across the parlor. Jesse was right behind him. “Everything’s going to be all right. How is she?”

“Her fever’s worse. I don’t know what to do!”

Cassie threw her arms around Cal’s legs and wept as he reached the bedside and stared down at the child lying on the sweat-soaked pillow.

Melora had followed Cal and Jesse to the doorway. From where she stood near the small yellow-painted bureau she could see how flushed and restless Louisa looked, tossing and turning in the bed, her pink-sprigged nightgown twisting beneath her.

“Hi there, Lou.” She’d never heard his voice so gentle. “It’s me, Chipmunk, Cal. I’m home. I’m going to take good care of you now. Can you hear me, Louisa?”

The little girl focused her glittery eyes on him as he knelt and grasped her tiny hand in his large, callused one. “C-Cal?”

“Yep. In the flesh. And Jesse’s here too. We’re all here, and we’re all going to take care of you.”

“Joe too?” Louisa whispered, her eyes very big.

The older girl, Cassie, let out a whimper. Melora saw Cal’s shoulders tense and noticed that the thin little boy ducked his head to stare down at his shoes.

“No, Louisa, not Joe.” Cal smoothed a damp, stringy tendril of hair back from the child’s brow. “Cal and Jesse, and Cassie and Will—we’re all here to help you get better.”

“My head hurts, Cal. I feel so s-sick. I want Ma.” The child moaned and began to toss more vehemently.

“I’ll sing to you, Lou, just like Ma used to. But lie still,” Cassie begged. And as Cal stepped back, she came forward and clutched her young sister’s clammy hand.

“ ‘Jimmy crack corn, but I don’t care, Jimmy crack corn, but I don’t care...’ “

Little Will joined her, singing lustily, and Melora, staring around the group, swallowed back a swell of emotion. They all were clearly devoted to Louisa and to one another. She felt the palpable love and caring settle over the tiny farmhouse like a tightly woven quilt, and it reminded her of home.

Cal was watching Louisa, his knuckles clenched white, his face so grim her heart went out to him. She knew exactly how he felt, the anxiety, the helplessness. Hadn’t she experienced the same thing watching Jinx recover from falling off her horse, watching day after day as her sister’s legs remained still and stiff and useless?

She turned and headed for the kitchen. Soup was simmering in a pot on the stove; she quickly scooped a bowl from the cupboard and ladled in a small amount of the broth.

“Cal, here, take this.” She spoke quietly as she entered the back bedroom, moving slowly so as not to spill the soup. “Try to get her to drink some soup. It’ll help her fight the fever. And we’ll need to give her a decoction of willow bark. Jesse, can you find some for me?”

“Who’s she?” Will asked, gaping at her.

Cassie too was staring in astonishment. Obviously both of them had been so immersed in Louisa’s illness that they hadn’t even noticed her presence.

“She’s a friend,” Cal answered quickly. “Jesse.” He addressed his brother. “Go find what she needs.”

He took the bowl of soup from her hands as Jesse hurried out the door. Strain showed in Cal’s eyes, but they met hers with swift, unspoken gratitude that filled Melora with a strange warmth. It radiated from her temples to the tips of her toes as she watched Cal, the kidnapper who had borne her off so ruthlessly from her home, turn back toward the small freckle-faced girl in the bed and begin coaxing her to try the soup.

But a short time later, even after Louisa had swallowed down the decoction of willow bark that Melora had steeped in hot water, the child was no better. Actually she was worse; the fever burned through her with fierce intensity. Her skin was flushed and clammy, and her eyes were wild—huge, dark, darting eyes like those of a puppy in pain. She thrashed about on the bed until Jesse and Cal had to hold her down to keep her from throwing herself to the floor.

When at last she dropped off into an exhausted, fever-racked sleep, Cal stepped back from the bed, his face drawn.

“I’m going to Deadwood to get a doctor.”

Jesse grasped his arm. “Let me go, Cal. It’s too dangerous for you to be seen there. Someone might recognize you—”

“No. If there’s no doctor in Deadwood, I’ll have to ride to Cherryville, or on to Stockton, or someplace even farther, and you don’t know your way around well enough. Besides, Jesse, those towns are too rough for a boy alone. I’m sorry, but I’m not going to take a chance on losing you too!”

Jesse fell miserably silent at these words. Melora stared from one to the other of them. What did Cal mean about losing Jesse? He seemed to be saying he had lost someone else. Their mother perhaps? Or another brother?

Joe.
She remembered how shaken they’d all looked when Louisa had asked for Joe. He was the one Cal had mentioned last night during the storm, the one who played the fiddle at family barbecues.

Cal was gone before Melora had time to do more than glance at his set face. The farmhouse felt oddly bereft without him, Rascal’s flying hooves leaving behind only a veil of dust that whirled up through the leaves of the spruces.

She glanced around at the sad, silent faces in the little bedroom where Louisa lay ill and found herself shepherding everyone out into the parlor, even Jesse, who shook off her hand but followed close behind.

“Everything is going to be just fine,” she told Cassie and Will as they paused beside the sofa. She made sure that her reassuring smile included Jesse, but the boy didn’t smile back. He merely hitched his thumbs in his pockets and watched her suspiciously, obviously the only member of the family besides Cal who knew that she wasn’t really a “friend,” that she wasn’t present in their home by her own free will.

“Cal will bring a doctor for Louisa, one way or another, and she’s going to get better in no time. Now, in the meantime, let’s fix some tea and toast in case she wakes up and wants something to eat.”

Five-year-old Will lifted hopeful, trusting green eyes toward her, and a pang speared through her heart. This is how Cal must have looked once as a young boy; he and Will shared the same thick chestnut hair, the same alert, dark-lashed green eyes that missed nothing and that were set beneath slashing brows. They also had similarly firm, sturdy features, she noted, and she also saw that Will’s young jawline already hinted at the same strength and stubbornness his brother possessed. As a matter of fact, the resemblance among all three brothers was strong, yet each had a distinctive look about him that was all his own.

Will, for one, had dimples, two of them, that puckered his little cheeks as he smiled up at her.

“Will, Cassie, come along.” Melora held out a hand to each of them and started toward the kitchen. “It’ll be suppertime soon. Maybe you both will help me get it started.”

“I know how to cook,” Cassie offered shyly. “Mrs. O’Malley from the farm down the road comes now and then and helps me put up supper, and she taught me how to bake lots of things.”

“Did she? Well, that was very kind of her. Then you and I will fix supper together—two pairs of hands work much quicker than one.” She smiled. “When Cal gets back, he’s bound to be hungry from all that riding.”

“He likes fried chicken,” Will informed her.

Melora beamed at him. “Well, wait until he tastes my fried chicken. Jinx claims it’s the best in the whole Wyoming territory.”

“Who’s Jinx?”

“My little sister. She’s a little bigger than you, Cassie. She’s eleven, and her favorite Sunday supper is fried chicken and mashed potatoes, with blueberry cream pie for dessert. I don’t suppose anyone here likes blueberry cream pie?” she inquired innocently.

Her grin spread as Will and Cassie clamored out, “We do!” in unison. She saw Jesse watching her from the parlor, his eyes hard and wary.

He looked so much like Cal that she almost laughed.

“Come on, Jesse. Help us.” She went to his side and spoke in a low tone. “We’ll leave the door to Louisa’s room partially open, just like it is now, so that we can hear her if she calls out, but she needs to sleep, and the children need to get their minds off their troubles.”

“All right. But don’t try to get away. Cal left me in charge, and I’ll have my eye on you.” He said it with all the arrogant, insecure swagger of a fourteen-year-old, but beneath it Melora saw a worried boy trying very hard to be a man.

“I’m going to be right under your nose in the kitchen,” she assured him. “For right now no one in this house is going anywhere.”

He nodded, watching her as she hurried back to the kitchen and proceeded to delight Will and Cassie with her plans for a supper that sounded as enticing as a May Day picnic.

So while Cassie showed her the larder, and Will sliced bread for toast and brought out the teakettle, Jesse went out back to catch some chickens.

What am I doing here?
Melora wondered presently, surrounded by the plucked chickens, a bowl of flour, a sack of potatoes, some carrots, and two cans of white beans.
Cal is away, and this is the best chance I’ve ever had to escape. If I can’t figure out a way to ride out of here while Jesse’s back is turned, then I’m no self-respecting daughter of Craig Deane.

But she didn’t want to sneak out. Not right now. She kept thinking about the sick little girl in the next room, whose fever was raging dangerously, and about these hungry little children, with their worried faces and trusting eyes.

After I get supper going for them and check on Louisa, I’ll make my move. There’s plenty of time before Cal gets back. In the meantime perhaps I can find out exactly how to get to Deadwood from here. Then all I’ll have to do is make sure I don’t run straight into Cal while I’m heading there.

But somehow, when the chickens were sizzling in the skillet and biscuits were browning in the oven, and she was stirring beans in a pot while Cassie sliced potatoes and carrots, with Will telling her soberly all about his pet rabbit, Brownie, who sometimes slept in his and Jesse’s room instead of in the barn, and Cassie confiding in her ear that she hated carrots but always tried to eat them so as to set a good example for Will and Lou, the opportunity never arose.

Oh, she did succeed in learning the general direction of Deadwood from the farm, and Jesse did disappear into the barn to see to his chores, and she had a plain view of Sunflower, who’d been fed and brushed and was now tethered outside (saddleless, but that wouldn’t stop her). Yet just as she was stepping toward the door, reminding herself of Jinx and of the danger Wyatt might find himself in, just then Louisa cried out, and Melora whirled and ran into the bedroom, with Will and Cassie at her heels.

Louisa was worse. Much worse, Melora saw at once, and fear sliced through her like a cold knife as she lifted the girl in her arms and felt her hot, dry skin. She was listless now, and aside from that one cry, she didn’t make a sound. Her eyes were glazed with a dull misery.

“Quick, Cassie, bring cool wet cloths. We have to sponge her body and cool it.”

But even as they sponged her face and neck and chest with the cool cloths, Louisa’s skin grew hotter. The fever raged behind her eyes. She was so still and limp that Melora’s heart quaked for her.

“We have to plunge her into a bathtub of cool water,” she decided just as Jesse entered the room. She spun toward him, her hand pointing toward the door. “Bring a tub and fill it quickly. There’s no time to lose!”

Louisa sobbed as they placed her in the cool water. She thrashed about and only quieted when Cassie sang to her again, this time a lullaby. Cassie had a beautiful voice, a voice that could charm frogs off a lily pad. Somehow the pigtailed nine-year-old with the serious manner of a much older girl managed to keep Louisa sitting in that tub long enough for the chill water to steep into her pores and do battle with the fire raging within.

And then, after they had managed to settle her in her own bed again, encased in clean white linens, she seemed better. Wonderfully, miraculously better.

“Her fever’s broken,” Melora whispered, her fingers lightly caressing the little girl’s sweating forehead. She sent up a prayer of thankfulness.

“Who are you?” For the first time Louisa seemed able to focus on what was happening around her. She looked exhausted, she was damp with perspiration from the fever’s breaking, but she was calmer, and the unnatural glitter was gone from her eyes.

“She’s Cal’s friend.” Cassie grinned and squeezed her sister’s hand. “I guess Cal’s finally got himself a girl.”

“You’re Cal’s girl?” Louisa asked in awe, her eyes flitting eagerly over Melora as if memorizing every detail of her appearance.