Bucking the Tiger (21 page)

One Month Later

Sunlight streamed into the sparsely furnished hotel room, to spill onto the floor and bed. Lottie lay on her side, propping her head with one hand while using the other to flatten out a wrinkled newspaper. That paper and the thin cotton sheet beneath it were the only things keeping Caleb from seeing every one of Lottie's natural wonders.

“Can you believe this?” she asked.

Caleb laughed under his breath. “You mean the newspaper or the fact that you're naked in bed and I'm not in there with you?”

“Well, I meant the newspaper, but that other point seems awfully strange now that you mention it.”

Sitting on a rickety chair and leaning with his elbows on his knees, Caleb let his eyes drink in the sight of the redhead before finally glancing toward the paper. “What's that?”

“It's last week's edition of the
Rocky Mountain News
.”

“The paper from Denver? Where'd you get that?”

“I found it at the train station. You know what's in there concerning Stakely, Morris, or even you or Doc for that matter?”

“Do I want to know?”

“Nothing,” Lottie said. “Not one word. Soon after we left, there was a mention of the fight outside of Babbitt's, but that was about it. There was one sentence about how some of the town's law may have been indebted to Morris, but even that didn't warrant more than any of the other gossip that's in here.”

“Would you be happier if there was a public outcry for my and Doc's scalps?”

“No. It's just that…I don't know…after everything that happened, I thought there'd be more to it once it was over.”

Caleb walked over to the bed and sat down on the edge. He took the paper from her, glanced over it, and then set it aside so he could see the inviting curves of Lottie's figure under the sheet. “It's over. That's all that matters. Just because it's not splashed across a front page somewhere doesn't mean nobody knows what happened. And it sure as hell doesn't mean all of this was for nothing.”

“I know that,” Lottie said. “I guess I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

“Me and Doc got you out of Denver with all of our skins intact. Nobody's interested in trying to collect those idiotic taxes anymore, and it all got swept under the carpet by lawmen who were too far under Stakely's thumb to do anything else but clean up the mess. I'd say that's plenty of shoes dropping for a while.”

She smiled and traced her fingertips along Caleb's hand and arm. “When you put it that way, it sounds a whole lot better. It sure will be easier to travel the circuit again.”

“There you go.” Suddenly, Caleb twitched and said, “Wait a second. What were you doing at the train station?”

“Buying a ticket. I think I'm going to head back east for a little while and take a rest. After that, who knows? I'm sure it won't be too difficult for me to find you if you plan on staying anywhere near Doc.”

“You take care of yourself, Lottie.”

Nodding slowly, she reached out to take hold of Caleb's half-buttoned shirt. “I will,” she whispered. “But I still need to show my appreciation for what you did when things got a little too much for me.”

A few hours later, Caleb stepped in from the warm night air with a small bundle tucked under one arm. Although the fresh breeze was particularly sweet that evening, he couldn't deny the instinctive attraction of places like the well-known Bella Union Theater. Inside, the smells of smoke and liquor mingled with women's perfume and the sounds of shuffling cards.

Doc sat at a small table facing the front door, sporting a new dark gray suit and eyeing the card games going on around him. Every so often, he glanced at one of the provocatively dressed serving girls making their rounds. Doc cleared his throat and acknowledged Caleb's approach by pushing out the only other seat at the table with his foot.

Noticing that there was no cane anywhere near Doc's table, Caleb said, “I take it you're feeling better?”

“Right as rain. Lottie's not coming?”

“She's getting ready to leave town.”

“Are you going with her?”

Caleb leaned back and surveyed his surroundings. The serving girls had noticed his arrival as well and smiled at him from the bar. “Nah. There's still plenty of money to be made right here.”

“I'm so glad you said that. There are some gentlemen from Charleston who've heard of me and want to have a game.”

Shaking his head and chuckling under his breath, Caleb said, “Poor fools.”

Doc grinned. “And that's not all the good news. Arranging to deal faro here wasn't half the ordeal it was back in Denver. Also, there's no taxes beyond the normal house percentage.”

“Word travels fast.”

“Alas, poor Tiger,” Doc said while lifting his glass. “I knew him well.”

Caleb placed the bundle on the table and slid it toward Doc. “Speaking of which, I got you something.”

“Gifts? What's the occasion?”

“No occasion. Just a little something I picked up before leaving Denver.”

When Doc unrolled the dark brown cloth, he found a pistol that was well maintained but obviously somewhat used.

“It's a .38,” Caleb explained. “I thought it might suit you better than that big Colt.”

Doc picked up the gun and flipped it around his finger. When he tried another twirl, he snagged the hammer on his thumb and nearly sent the gun flying across the room. After managing to catch the pistol, he said, “That'll take some practice.” With the gun flipped around, he looked down at the side of it and his eyes went wide. “What have we here?”

From where he was sitting, even Caleb could see the tiger engraved on the side of the gun. “I thought you might like that.”

“Is this…?”

Caleb nodded. “From Stakely's own holster. Those lawmen were just going to throw them out. I think they're awfully sick of anything that reminds them of those assholes.”

“I might want to get that tiger covered up, lest anyone sees it and gets the wrong idea. Thank you all the same, Caleb.”

“Buy me a drink and we'll call it even.”

A wry grin snuck onto Doc's face as he said, “Actually, I might have something a little better.”

Looking where Doc was pointing, Caleb saw three men at a card table. One of them was Robert Taylor. Just like in Fort Griffin, Taylor sat quietly wearing his fancy suit while sizing up the other players.

“He's been asking for a high-stakes game,” Doc said. “Why don't you do the honors?”

“All by myself? What if I need an accomplice?”

“Just say the word, my friend,” Doc announced as he held up his glass in a toast. “Just say the word.”