Heart of the West (77 page)

"'I have no greater joy,'" Jack McQueen quoted in his preacher's voice, "'than to hear that my children walketh in truth.' But the question that plagues us, Drew Scully, the question that has always plagued us is: What is truth?"

"Come on, boys!" the mine super, Percivale Kyle, was calling out to the dispersing men. "Come on down into town with me and there'll be a bucket of beer for every man jack of you. Line up at the brass rail, boys, at any saloon but the Best in the West, and the drinks'll be on the Four Jacks."

Drew saw a flash of dusky rose and heard Hannah's husky voice saying, "You were magnificent," and Clementine McQueen laughing softly and saying, "Look at my hands. I believe I'm shaking. But that's on the outside. Inside, I feel rather magnificent."

Drew wanted to talk to Hannah and started for her, but Jack McQueen smoothly put himself back into Drew's path. "I would like you to see our dear friend the judge about getting an injunction to shut her up," he said with another of his foxy smiles.

"Get one of your errand boys to do it."

Jack McQueen still smiled, but the rest of his face smoothed and hardened. He leaned into Drew, so close the younger man could smell him—expensive cigars and hair oil.

"Allow me to jog your memory, Drew Scully. First think on how you turned a blind eye when I neglected to mention to the consortium—when they were all panting and eager to let their lease lapse—that there was a great ruddy lode of copper lying just quiet and waiting down in the Four Jacks. And then think on how all I have to do is say the word and that pride-saving stipend your brother collects every week goes as dry as a bull's tit.

"When you're the only game in town, Drew Scully, you get to set the rules. Rainbow Springs was a one-towel shebang before I came along, and you were just another digger." He tapped the tin badge on Drew's chest with a stiff finger. "I own the both of you now—heart, soul, skin, and guts."

Drew's eyes took on a sudden sharpness. "Why not just be shutting down the heap, Jack? Like the lady said, there are cleaner ways of smelting, and I expect there's plenty of room in your profits to allow for the building of a stack-and-flue refinery."

"When I want the benefit of your business acumen, Drew Scully, I'll ask for it. In the meantime you're paid to uphold the law around here, and one of the ways you can do that is to see the judge about that injunction."

Having delivered his order, Jack McQueen turned on the heel of his expense patent leather shoe and walked away. A soft hand touched Drew's arm and a familiar woodsmoke voice spoke into his ear. But her words had a bite to them, and he felt their sting: "How is it you could never stomach the idea of working for me but you don't mind crawling on your belly for that toad-sucking swine?"

As he turned to her, Drew could feel his face growing closed and cold and empty. "Rainbow Springs pays my salary, not the

Four Jacks. And as for me coming to work for you, Hannah m'love, haven't we danced that jig before?"

Her face, always pale, went even paler. "Forget I brought it up."

"You're always bringing it up."

"Yeah, and I'm always sorry afterward."

She planted her parasol on her shoulder, lifted her head, and started down the haphazard path of planks that led through the gumbo toward town. She stopped and swung back around so fast her bustle bounced. "You know, Marshal, even a blind pig manages to find an acorn once in a while."

"Aye?" He stuffed his hands in his jacket pockets and thrust out his chin. "And what's that supposed to mean?"

"You think on it a spell. Maybe it'll come to you."

This time she kept on going. Drew watched after her, wondering what it was he'd done. The woman sure did have a mood on today, and only last night they had made some of the sweetest love he could remember out of years' worth of sweet loving. To him it seemed they had never been closer, and now apparently they were having a fight, though he was damned if he knew the cause of it.

His hand had closed over the rock in his pocket. He rubbed his fingers along its rough edges that were gritty still with dried mud. He stared into the distance a moment, thinking, and then his gaze focused on the super's office, where an old assayer's scale was barely noticeable in the grimy window.

He had turned and started back down the hill when he noticed Pogey and Nash, coming toward him. It was unusual to see them up and about this time of the afternoon; most days found them sitting on their favorite bench on the veranda of the Yorke House until sunset. Somehow the words "drinks are on us" must have carried to them on the wind.

He pulled his hand out his pocket and waved the two old prospectors over. "Pogey, Nash—might I speak with you a moment?"

They came reluctantly, Pogey cuffing his beard. "Can't it wait, Marshal? I've got me got a terrible dry."

"This'll only take a moment. I've been thinking I could use your help."

Nash's owlish eyes blinked slowly, and a pleased look settled over his seamed and haggard face. "You want to deputize us? I reckon you must've heard about that time I worked alongside of Wild Bill Hickok and the two of us cleaned up Abilene slicker'n spit."

Pogey glowered at his partner. "Kee-rist. The closest you ever been to Wild Bill Hickok was when that patent medicine drummer came through town and charged you a nickel to look at the bullet what killed him."

Drew sucked on the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. "I won't be needing to deputize you, but I would like you to keep what I'm about to tell you under your hats."

Nash laid his finger next to his nose. "We'll be quiet as a stone cow, Marshal."

"As quiet as a hoss thief after a hangin'," Pogey added.

"As quiet as a dropped feather," Nash said. "As quiet as a tree full of owls—"

Pogey snatched off his hat and whacked his partner on the back of the head with it. "Who ever heard of a tree full of owls being quiet? Why there'd be so much hootin' and hooin' going on a feller wouldn't be able to hear hisself think." He wedged his hat back on and turned to Drew. "Don't mind him, Marshal. The man was born stupid and he's been regressin' ever since."

"Aye, well..." Drew took the rock out of his pocket and held it out to them on his palm. "Would you boys be knowing what this is?"

Pogey tugged on his flapjack ear. "It 'pears like just another chunk of copper ore." He pointed with his chin toward the shaft head. "There's whole hoppers down there full of the selfsame thing."

Drew's hand closed into a fist around the rock. "No, this one is different. This is a piece of the truth."

That evening the Best in the West was as deserted and lonely as a cemetery in the middle of winter. Hannah Yorke looked into the mirror in back of the bar and saw a reflection of unoccupied tables and chairs, still billiard balls, and a pair of hurdy-gurdy girls lounging against the wall, their painted faces stiff with boredom.

"Y'all may as well take off, Shiloh," she said. "I don't expect we'll be doing much business tonight."

For a moment the gin-slinger looked as if he had something important he wanted to tell her. Instead he shrugged, then took off his leather apron and slung it over the end of the bar. His teeth flashed white in his face. "There's a new li'l gal at Rosalie's with skin like melted chocolate and a mouth that oughta be declared illegal. Reckon I'll go pay her a call."

Hannah winked at him. "You go have yourself a time, Shiloh."

"Oh, I intend to, boss-lady. I intend to."

Shiloh's booming laughter followed him out the door. Smiling, Hannah made a shooing motion at the hurdy-gurdy girls, and they eagerly disappeared in his wake. Hannah stood alone in the empty saloon, awash in a thousand memories so vivid she could almost hear the slap of cards and the gaudy trill of women's laughter, almost smell the tang of tobacco smoke and the bite of spilled booze. Regrets? Oh, she knew she had them, but in that moment for the life of her she couldn't remember what they were.

She was on her way to her tiny office in back of the bar when she noticed a shadow move in the lamplight spilling out of the card room.

He sat at one of the felt-covered tables, where her customers—when she had them—retreated to play serious poker or buck-the-tiger. Tonight, though, he was alone. His elbows rested on his widespread knees, and he was turning his battered hat around and around in his hands while he studied the floor. It wasn't the same hat he'd worn before. But then, a lot of years had passed since she'd last seen either him or his hat. Seven of them.

She leaned against the doorjamb and crossed her arms over her chest. She took the time to study him, noting the lines of strain around his eyes and mouth that made him look tougher, more dangerous. He had helped himself to a bottle of her better whiskey and had already emptied half of it.

"My, my," she cooed, "look what an ill wind blew in."

His head came up. Their gazes locked hard for a moment. Then he gave her a lazy smile and leaned back, hooking the heels of his boots over the chair rung. He tossed his hat on the table and laced his hands behind his head. "You're like an old trail buddy, Hannah. I wouldn't pass through without stopping to say hey."

She pushed herself off the jamb and went to a gramophone that sat on a small table against the wall. She wound it up and put on a tube. "I don't reckon we've shared too many trails lately, though," she said.
Passing
through. He'd said he was passing through.

The gramophone crackled out a tinny rendition of "The Man on the Flying Trapeze." She let it roll through a verse before she tossed him a sidelong glance laced with a hint of a smile. "I don't know if there's a lonelier sound than music playing in an empty dance hall."

"The night's still a pup. They'll remember your charms when the revver's free booze runs out."

"Ain't that the truth." Another smile tugged at Hannah's mouth. She had forgotten how easy he was to talk to, how much alike they were.

She picked up a pack of cards and sat across the table from him. She slid the cards from the case, riffling them through her fingers. He was slouching and drinking slowly and trying to look for all the world as if he hadn't a care. But there was a tension pulling at his mouth, and taut, shadowed lines around his eyes.

She began to lay out a game of solitaire. "And speaking of your daddy—that man sure is shiftier than a dance hall fiddler. You know he euchred your brother out of his share in the Four Jacks? Paid him two thousand bucks for it and, lo, six months later, if copper wasn't discovered running thick as blood through the whole butte and East Coast investors all lined up to start the new venture. 'Course by then your brother was dead and his widow had enough on her plate just trying to keep body and soul together. Now he's poaching on her timberland and trying to pressure her into selling that."

She moved a red queen onto a black king and let a small silence develop between them. The gramophone had long since wound down. She watched him carefully from beneath lowered eyelids. "You'd think having you come riding back into her life would be about as welcome as a spring thaw," she said. "So how come she don't seem happy about it?"

"You've known her real good for a long time now, Hannah. Why don't you tell me?"

She flashed him an easy smile and turned over another card. "It don't take a genius to figure it was either some fool thing you said or some smart thing you neglected to say." She held a three of hearts poised in the air as a thought came to her, and her smile slowly faded. "Lord, Rafferty, don't tell me you've up and married someone else?"

Color spread like a stain over his cheekbones. "There'll always be only Clementine for me."

It was sweetly said, and typical of him in a way. Unlike a lot of men, Rafferty never had any trouble admitting it when he cared for a woman. Hannah started to smile again, but there was something in his eyes that stopped her. He'd always been a little edgy and wild, but tonight there was a tautness about him that almost had a smell to it, sharp and metallic, like blood.

"Well, land, I know that, honey," she said, making her voice light and easy. She laid the red three onto a black four, uncovering a ten she didn't need. "But it's lonely out there and... Oh, what am I saying? There's some women who don't mind being second choice, and some men who 11 settle, but you ain't one of them." Her hands paused over the cards as another thought struck her, this one stealing her breath.

She stared hard at him, at the tight mouth and the hooded, wary eyes. "You went and got yourself in trouble with the law, didn't you?"

He averted his face, reaching for the whiskey bottle. He slopped some into his glass, but then he huffed a laugh that was genuine, even if did still have that sharp edge to it.

"I'm not on some wanted poster if that's what you're saying, though it's not for want of trying. I only know how to do but a few things and most of 'em not very commendable. Like punching cows and hunting bounty"—he cast a rueful grin at her— "and dealing from the bottom of the deck. Well, hell, you can guess which it was I did the most of. And all the while that good and decent brother of mine was here running the ranch and raising up a family and taking care of the woman I... taking proper care of his wife."

The knuckles of the hand he had wrapped around the glass had bled white. He knocked the whiskey back in one swallow. "So I don't know as how I can just ride on in and take over Gus's life. Take her over like she was part of the stock and the outbuildings."

Hannah slapped the ten of clubs down with such force the table rocked. "You expect her to act like those years never happened, like Gus never happened? She was married to him, she bore him five children... buried two of them. Lord, isn't it just like a man to go on insisting she choose between the two of you long after there's no point to it anymore? Instead of just being grateful God's arranged it so's both of you could have her."

She reached across the table and touched the hand that clenched the empty whiskey glass. "Gus might be dead... but you aren't."

He shoved the glass across the table and buried his head in his hands, lacing his long fingers through his dark hair. "Aw, shit."