Jodi's Journey (2 page)

She'd pushed him too far. He was almost
coming up off that bunk. Jodi raised her hands to stop his
movements. “Okay—okay,” Jodi said with a reluctant nod.

After a moment of silence, she eyed the old
man once more, fighting the urge to run to him and hug him closely.
“But this is about the most intolerable thing you've ever asked of
me, and you owe me.”

“Reckon I do, that's a fact.” Clem sighed and
scooted down a bit in the bed, his face wracked with unspoken
torment. His clear gray eyes registered a fierce pride, but he
never voiced it. Jodi was glad. She could barely stand to see her
best friend in the world bed ridden.

As she turned away, she wiped at her eyes,
her thin shoulders bearing the tension this conversation had
produced.

She looked down at her clothes, muddy and
dirty, and dressed like a man, but she lived in a man's world now.
She had for some time now. That didn't matter. There was no time
for frilly dresses and perfumed baths. That had stopped the moment
her ma had died.

“Well, spit it out, girl, I'm tired,” Clem
barked, rubbing his chin against the quilt.

“I—I hate to leave you—here, like this...”
Her words died in a whisper on her lips. If he saw the tears, he'd
spit at her, and she knew it, but she couldn't hold them in any
longer. She turned away, wishing there was something she could say
or do for Clem.

Clem cleared his throat, not daring a glance
at her. “I'll miss you too, kid. Now, go on!”

Jodi whipped around and saw the old man cover
his face with the back of one hand. Without blinking, she reached
for the laudanum on the table. Her hands shook as she poured him a
swig of it in a cup. She gently reached to hold the back of his
head up, and held him so his lips could sip the intoxicating
liquid.

He looked at her once, and then he closed his
eyes. She slowly backed out of the bunkhouse. “I love you…Clem,”
she whispered after the door shut.

CHAPTER TWO

Clem was right. Esser Crossing wasn't much of
a town, not legally anyway. It had been Henderson Crossing before
old man Esser bought up the land. Most folks still considered it
Guadalupe Valley, Jodi acknowledged as she rode her horse into
town. A town that, since the war, didn't move much, didn't breath,
didn't grow.

Despite the despair in her heart, she could
still hear the mockingbird singing his lonely songs in the top of
the old oak tree that graced the front of Main Street. She glanced
up. The trees still held their magnificence, even against the
harsh, cool winds of a winter that was finally over and a spring
that was beginning. The countryside was greening with the breath of
life about to arrive.

The Swede, the blacksmith, was pounding out
his metals as a chicken scurried across the road. Dust flew from
the north, making Jodi aware that winter still left its
reminders.

A preacher had moved to town, and he was
sadly trying to erect a church with the help of a few farmers who
came to town on Saturdays. It would be a lot of Saturdays before
the church was built, from the looks of it. Oddly, some people just
stood and watched as the preacher worked so hard to get it ready
for his people.

Jodi wondered why everyone in town didn't
pitch in and help the preacher, but they didn't. They just watched
and waited.

The sun shone down on her with a hint of
warmer weather to come, but Jodi's journey would not be a pleasant
one this morning, and she refused the symptoms of spring fever.
Even a smile would be a façade.

The sound of her boots clopping on the
boardwalk made her tense even more, if that were possible. She
watched as other girls her age, in pretty petticoats and bonnets,
crossed the street to the General Store. She sighed, envying them
for their innocence.

She had to do this before she chickened out
altogether. Each step brought her closer to the Silver Cup Saloon,
such as it was. In the beginning, it had been a general store, but
later, as people moved around the town, the need for a saloon grew
with the cowboys that stopped off going north to the trails before
the war. During the war, though, Esser Crossing seemed more like a
ghost town. Old farmers came to town once a week for supplies, the
women still gathered for their sewing and quilting parties once a
month. Some would sit around the fire at the general store and talk
about old war stories or about the Indian raids. Life had gone on,
but progress hadn't.

The wind whistled a lonely tune as Jodi came
to a dead stop in front of the saloon.

She had hated saloons from the first taste
she'd had of them, collecting her drunken father too often. And
he'd cursed her and embarrassed her till she hated admitting he was
her father. She'd thought those days were over.

Jodi was out of her depths in here and knew
it. She didn't know what to expect of Hunter Johnson. Her cousin
hadn't described the man to her. No one had. Perhaps Clem was right
about that. Maybe her cousin had never met Hunter Johnson
either.

She'd donned her father's responsibility long
ago, and this was something she had to do.

Music filtered the dusty air as her gloved
hand touched the saloon's glass knob of the door. The music,
although lively, brought nothing to the heart, Jodi noted. It was
more a banging than music. She allowed the tune to flow over her
before she took a deep breath and opened the huge, glass door. Old
Hal, the barkeep, had ordered that door special from Denver. She
marveled at how no one had shot it up yet.

Moving quickly, she entered the smoke filled
barroom with all the trepidation of a prisoner about to be hung. No
one, not one soul, knew how badly her knees were shaking at this
moment.

Her eyes teared for a moment, unaccustomed to
the haze. Tobacco and whiskey permeated the air like a woman with
too much perfume, stifling. Her stomach roiled. Smoke whirled like
small tornadoes through the air, destroying any chance of a good
breath. It took her a minute to adjust to the different light
filtering through the room. Oil lamps flickered, ghostlike, against
the dingy walls as Jodi imagined all the killings that went on here
on a regular basis. Her own drovers had told her about some of the
goings on here.

The bar was a beautiful mahogany wood with
spittoons lined up and a brass rail for a foot-hold. The mirror was
the fanciest one she'd ever seen. It was etched around the inside
of the frame and it was shining.

Jodi squared her shoulders, determined not to
run, as a drunk bumped into her, his breath nauseating her
further.

She'd never begged any man for help and just
the thought of it made the bile rise in her throat. But with what
she hoped was some form of dignity, she forced it down.

One of the women leaning against the bar
ambled toward her, her skirt swishing like a fishtail in water. A
sideways smile glittered on her made up face. Her clothes were too
young for her body, and her face too old for make-up. Her cheeks
were too red, her eyes too brilliant, and her lips were brighter
than a tomato gone ripe, Jodi acknowledged silently.
Do men want
women like this?
she wondered.

“Well, what in the world have we got here?”
the woman drawled, her flashing eyes taking Jodi in with little
more than contempt.

“Ain't rightly sure, Bonnie, best leave it
alone. It don't look too friendly,” the barkeep said, his eyes
nailing her with dissatisfaction for her intrusion into their
world. It was obvious even to them she didn't belong here.

“I'm looking for Hunter Johnson,” Jodi said
in a strangely steady voice. How had it sounded so steady while
everything inside her shook?

“It's a girl,” the woman said with a snarly
laugh. “Well I'll be danged. I'd of never known it.”

For a split second, the insult stung, but
Jodi let it roll off her back. What did she care what a harlot
thought of her?

The woman stared, glancing from her head to
her toes, as though she didn't believe what she was seeing. She
seemed obviously confused by Jodi's appearance, as was Jodi by
hers.

Jodi looked down at herself for a minute and
realized that, as much as she hated to admit it, she was no prize
either. Granted, she didn't look like much in her father's outfit,
but she had never been taken for a boy before.

“A girl?” several shouted, turning their
heads in her direction.

“You came to the wrong place, honey. He's not
in here.”

When Jodi twisted her head in question, the
woman explained, “He lives out back, in the shed. That's where
you'll find him more than likely.”

Jodi nodded. “I'm obliged.” She moved toward
the back door and turned the knob. She stepped out the door with
trepidation. Her heart bumped against her chest as she saw the
doorway to the shed. It was open, so she walked in.

It was a simple wood shed, piled with hay and
tools and not much else. There was a pot bellied stove that had a
pot of coffee warming on it. But there was no furniture, nothing to
show a man lived here.

The man, if he was a man, was face down in
the hay.

Jodi approached him cautiously. She couldn't
see his face, but she could tell he was breathing.

He had long, black hair and a beard. Oddly,
the black hair shone, as though it had been recently washed. It
looked feather soft and Jodi's fingers itched to move it away to
look at the man. What kind of man lay drunk with shiny hair?

She expected to smell whiskey, but there was
none. There were no empty bottles lying around. Only the coffee pot
sat on the stove.

She felt queasy, but she didn't let on. She
couldn't. She had to force her iron will to stay here long enough
to talk to the man.

Jodi cleared her throat effectively. Nothing
happened. The man didn't move.

“I came to talk to Hunter Johnson. Would that
be you?”

Nothing happened. The man didn't stir.

Clearing her throat again, she moved closer.
He hadn't moved an inch.

“I said, I came to talk to Hunter Johnson,”
she rasped in a louder voice.

Still nothing.

Wanting this over and done with, she walked
over to where the man was lying. She pulled his hair up by one hand
and jerked his head from the hay. One eye popped open, then
two.

Slowly, he looked at her, and Jodi was
startled by the man. Expecting the devil, she found, instead, only
an unshaven, unclean coward. Yet, he was somehow—handsome. It
disgusted her to admit such a thing to herself, but she had to.

It startled her that she recognized him that
way. How could someone like this be handsome?

His dark, blue-black eyes raked her like a
wild man. His beard was long and shaggy. He stunk of sweat and
dirt, but no whiskey. It seemed his clothes were stiff from no
washing. Again, her stomach roiled, and again, she paid no heed of
it. She looked at his long hair. It had felt like silk against her
fingers when she lifted his head.

It didn't add up. His hair was shiny and
clean, yet the rest of him was rumpled, and smelled.

The man had strong, angled features, solid
cheekbones, a narrow chin, but it was his eyes that held her, deep
sapphire eyes that crinkled at the edges, as though he laughed a
lot. She couldn't imagine a man like this laughing. What could he
possibly have to laugh about?

“Are you Hunter Johnson?” She was killing
time, unable to bring herself to ask what she must.

“Last I heard,” he mumbled, his voice deep
and uncaring, but his scrutiny of her narrowing in on her.

“I got a job for you,” she said, frowning at
her own exasperation.

“Don't want it,” he muttered, and then he got
to his feet and looked around the corner, as though he expected to
find something there. “Are you still here?” He turned back to look
at her.

“Look, I’m not here because I want to be.”
She raised her nose into the air with defiance.

But Hunter Johnson wasn't listening; he was
staring wild-eyed at Jodi.

“Well, are you going to stand there all day,
or tell me what it is you want?”

Her face screwed up as she came closer to
him. “You're sober?”

“Yes, of course I am. Why wouldn't I be? I
don't drink.” He looked away from her.

“You don't drink?” She turned her head in
question.

“Never have,” he answered, then flopped down
in the hay again.

“But—”

“But then, I guess you probably figured I
did, huh? Well, you figured wrong. Sorry, I have no furniture here;
I can't offer you a chair, so tell me what brings you to my abode.”
His voice was low and seductive.

“I'm not here because I want to be,” Jodi
said, stymied by her own confusion of the man.

Blue-black eyes pierced her again. “Then why
are you here?” His icy tongue lashed at her.

“I need help,” she began with determination.
The words were dragged from her lips with all the distaste of acid.
Her annoyance of the man was blatant. But he shocked her at every
turn. He wasn't what she expected.

“So does everyone else in this town,” Hunter
mumbled under his breath. He got up, this time to pour himself some
coffee. He looked at her and then crooked his head. “Sorry, but I
only have one cup.”

“I didn't come here to drink coffee with you,
sir.”

He went on ignoring her till she'd had her
fill, then suddenly, she drew out a gun and shoved it in his face.
She cocked it till it clicked and leaned toward the stranger as he
flopped back into the hay.

“I'm here because I got no choice. You are
the last man in the territory that knows how to sit a saddle well
enough to herd cattle.”

Something in her words made him look at her
again, his irritation fading to curiosity. His eyes slowly took her
in, all of her. “That's the truth.”

However, the gun had no effect. He dismissed
it like a pesky fly. He probably figured she didn't know how to use
it.