A Gown of Spanish Lace (3 page)
“I don’t know why yer growlin’.”
The man named Sam was the only person in the small company of men who would have dared to speak to “The Boss” in such a fashion. Perhaps he dared because they had traveled together for so many years. Perhaps he knew that under the sweating, stomping, cursing exterior was a man who might—on occasion—be willing to listen to some reason. Perhaps Sam was just too hardened to care what the other man thought of his comments. His gun was faster, and both men knew it.
“He’s a coward,” spoke the prowling boss with a curse and a spit into the thick dust on the floor of the room. “Jest a yella-bellied coward.”
“Ya know thet ain’t so, so I’ll not even favor thet comment with a re-ply,” spoke the first man as he sliced a section from a wad of dark tobacco. He poked the tobacco back into a torn pocket and stuffed the chew into his mouth, tucking it firmly between his stained teeth and droopy lip.
“He covers it. He covers it well—but he’s a coward all the same.” The big, brooding man cursed again and kicked at the only chair in the room. It toppled, breaking once again the leg that had been patched over and over.
“Dawgone it, Boss,” said the smaller man, irritated. “Don’t know how many times ya think thet I can mend thet thing.” It was his turn to curse. But his voice was softer, less menacing.
“Fergit the chair. It’s the boy we’re talkin’ on.” The big man stopped his pacing and turned to the man who sat on one of the log blocks that made up the other seats in the dark room. He leaned close to the tobacco chewer and his eyes shot sparks of fire.
“He covers it.” He almost shouted the words into the face of the smaller man. “He—”
“Back off,” said Sam, the smaller of the two, giving a push to the heavy chest leaning over him. “I ain’t nohow wantin’ to share yer whiskey. Not when you’ve already downed it.”
The big man glowered but straightened and moved back slightly. His hand was trembling. He cursed again, this time more from habit than venom, and moved off to moodily peer out the one window with its broken, smoke-blackened glass.
“What’d he do wrong now?” inquired the smaller man, still seemingly undisturbed. He spit into the corner.
At first the big man just glared as though the other should understand. Then he spoke angrily. “He had a chance to finish thet no-good gunslinger yesterday. To finish ’im. What’d he do? Wing ’im. Jest winged ’im. He’s a coward.”
The smaller man didn’t share the opinion. “Look, Boss—iffen the Kid is wrong—he’s wrong. But he ain’t a coward. I’ve known him ’long as you have. I’ve watched him grow. He ain’t no coward—an’ you know it well as I do.”
The big man continued to stare out the window.
“He can shoot straighter and draw faster’n any man I know,” Sam continued from his perch on the log stool. “He’s strong as a bear an’ springy as a wildcat an’ he has eyes like an eagle—never misses the flutter of a wood moth. He hears the slightest rustle. Leaf can’t fall in a tornado without he hears it, and besides all thet—he’s got this uncanny sense—this feelin’ in his bones when somethin’s amiss. Why, you’d a walked right into an ambush over there in Widder’s Pass hadn’t been fer him. And you’d never got away from thet posse in—”
“Shet up,” barked the man known as “The Boss.”
“Jest remindin’ ya,” said the tobacco chewer mildly, spitting again into the corner.
“Well—ya needn’t. I know all thet, Sam. Think I’ve been somewhere else whilst he’s been growin’ up? I know all thet.”
“Then what’s stickin’ in yer craw? I don’t figger.”
Silence hung in the air while Sam worked his tobacco, and Will Russell, the boss, stared off into the distance. The latter ran a hand through thinning, dark greasy hair. “I dunno,” he said at last. “Jest this—this sick feelin’ in my innards. This—this funny fear—thet iffen it came to it—he’d back down.”
“Back down?” Sam aimed a stream of tobacco into the corner. The big man whirled and moved toward him, his voice lowered, though one could not call it soft.
“Ya ever seed him shoot a man?” he hissed, the sound raspy and harsh.
“Well—shore. He’s got the quickest hand—”
“Have ya seed him shoot a man?” the big man insisted.
“Shore. I told ya.”
“Dead?”
There was silence. Sam stared at the scowling face before him. “Don’t think dead. He jest—takes out their shootin’ arm.”
“Exactly. Exactly.”
Sam shrugged his shoulders. The stiff leather vest lifted and fell with resistance. “So what’s yer beef? They sure don’t do no more shootin’ fer a while.”
“But he’s never taken ’em
out
. Never.”
“So—”
“So—don’t ya think folks notice thet? Don’t ya think word gets around? Here’s a feller quick with a gun—but he never shoots to kill. Every gunslinger in the West is soon gonna be in on thet little secret.”
The big man kicked at the sprawled chair, sending it careening across the room to smash into the log walls of the cabin.
He cursed and Sam joined him.
“Good thing this here shack is built sturdy or ya woulda kicked it down by now,” Sam complained.
“Make some coffee,” snarled the big man, and Sam stirred himself from his seat and moved toward the blackened stove near the cabin door.
The big man crossed to lift the chair and study the damage. “Fix this thing when ya get around to it,” he told the smaller man. “I hate sittin’ on a wood block. Most as bad as sittin’ on a rock.”
Sam shrugged, nodded, and shoved some wood into the firebox. He filled the blackened pot with water and slashed open a small bag holding coffee grounds and liberally dumped some into the pot.
Silence followed until Sam had finished his duties and returned to his log seat.
“We oughta get us a few more chairs,” he said more to himself than to the big man.
“Hard to carry behind a saddle,” the boss growled. He reached out a hand to drum his fingers in agitated fashion on the boards of the wooden table.
Silence again. At last Sam spoke.
“So yer worried about ’im?” he asked. His voice was lower now—his manner less defensive.
“I worry,” admitted the big man in response.
“I still think he can handle hisself.”
“Maybe,” replied the big man. “But odds are agin’ it.”
“How so?”
The fingers beat more rapidly on the tabletop.
“Doublin’ up. One man forces a draw—another comes in—gits his attention. First man has a chance for a slow, careful shot with his good hand. Takes ’im.”
“Come on, Boss,” scoffed Sam. “How often ya seed thet happen?”
“It could.”
“Sun could come up in the west, too, I reckon—but I ain’t seen it do it yet.”
“Could happen,” insisted Will.
Sam got up to check the coffee. It wasn’t boiling yet.
“Sure gonna be good to have a decent cup of coffee,” he muttered. “Thet stuff we been drinkin’ tasted ’bout like slop.”
He brought two chipped, stained cups to the table.
“Know what I think?” he asked softly.
There was no response, so after a few moments of silence he continued. “I think yer jest worryin’ too much. The boy is doin’ jest fine. Can’t think me of a better tracker—smarter woodsman—more careful feller at watchin’ his back—why—bet there ain’t an Injun—”
He stopped. The big man had begun cursing and spitting. Sam quickly changed the course of the conversation.
“It’s jest ’cause yer his pa thet yer frettin’,” he hurried on. “Boys are gonna think yer a stewin’ ole woman iffen—”
The big man stirred restlessly and his curses grew louder. Sam went for the coffee, hoping it was boiling. He may have pushed a bit too far. It was time to back off.
“I know he can take care of hisself,” the big man growled. “Iffen he chooses to—thet’s the rub. He’s gotta learn thet ya have to take yer man. Dead men don’t carry grudges. No smart man leaves him a trail of one-armed men carryin’ a full pail of bitter with ’em. Sooner or later one of ’em varmints is gonna turn up and he ain’t gonna be lookin’ to play fair.”
It was a new thought for Sam and the first one he agreed with. He poured the coffee and moved to put the pot back on the stove.
“Too hot to be drinkin’ coffee,” he muttered to himself, even though he sniffed the deep aroma with appreciation.
He returned to his seat and took a drink of the scalding liquid. The coffee burned all the way down, causing his eyes to water. When he recovered he spoke again.
“So what ya plannin’?”
There was silence while the big man fingered his cup.
“Gotta force his hand,” he said at last.
“Force his hand? You mean—make him take his man?”
The big man nodded, his eyes dark and smoldering.
“And how ya fixin’ to do thet? You gonna call him out?”
Will Russell answered that ridiculous question with a dark stare.
“Okay, okay,” hurried Sam. “So thet was dumb. I take it ya got a better idea.”
The big man sipped his coffee slowly, smarter than to gulp it as Sam had done.
“Well—” prompted Sam.
“What’s the one thing thet a man—almost any man—would kill fer?” asked the boss.
“Money?”
The big man cursed. “We got thet,” he reminded Sam. “Stashed away. An’ we can get more—anytime we take a notion.”
“Then—?” Sam let the question hang between them.
“A woman,” said Will simply.
“A what?”
Sam could not believe what he had just heard. The boss only nodded.
“Ain’t no woman within miles of here,” Sam reminded him.
“Thet means we gotta find one.”
“Find one. How?”
“I ain’t got it all figured out yet, but it’ll come.”
“An’ if an’ when ya do find one—how ya aim to get them together? An’ what makes ya sure he’ll—go fer her? He ain’t got no idee what a woman’s even about.”
The big man gave the smaller one a withering look and then turned back to the table as though the absurd comment deserved no reply. He hiked his large frame a little closer to the table and returned to drumming his fingers in an irritating fashion, his brow furrowing with deep, dark thoughts.
At length he turned. “We’ve got a lot of figurin’ to do, Sam,” he said, then nodded his head toward the coffeepot to indicate he’d be needing his cup refilled.
Saturday walks became an anticipated part of Ariana’s week. She no longer resisted her mother’s counsel. She had learned that she was more productive after a stroll in the neighboring woods or along the local stream. Often she invited one or another of her students to accompany her. It became a time to build relationships and teach lessons that could not be learned in the schoolroom. Ariana prayed that she might be able to teach not only about life but also about the Giver of Life. Not just scientific facts of the world but about the One who established the Laws of Nature. Not just mathematics but about the One who made the consistency of mathematics a possibility.
“God has given us an ordered world,” she said often, and she hoped her students would see and understand what she was trying to convey as they looked at the world around them.
If there were any whose children attended the little schoolhouse on the hill who thought that the preacher’s daughter was bringing “too much religion” into the classroom, they never voiced it. Even the owner of the local saloon suggested that “a little law and order wouldn’t hurt” his two offspring any. He thought the world was bound to quickly chip away any “excess goodness” they might obtain.
“We need us some high principles,” said the school board chairman in a community meeting. “And I for one don’t know where to find ’em ’ceptin’ in the Good Book. Far as I’m concerned, thet little gal can pour in ’em all the Bible learnin’ they can hold. Make upright citizens of ’em, the way I see it.”
Others seemed to agree. Ariana thought of her teaching in the local school as an addition to her Sunday school class in her father’s church. Not all the townsfolk felt Sunday services a necessity. So her Saturday walks were one more means of bringing valuable lessons to her students who might not be attending church.
There were those few who had little patience with the biblical teaching. But it could also be said that, by and large, those individuals had little use for any teaching at all.
“Can’t ’magine a boy his age goin’ off to school. When I was his age I drove a team of mules and put in sixty acres of crop each summer,” huffed one elderly man.
“What do young gals need all thet book learnin’ fer?” scoffed another. “Don’t help none with makin’ a pot of stew or hoein’ a garden.”
Ariana chose to ignore such remarks. But she often had to bite her tongue to keep from responding with a lecture.
“If the West is ever to be civilized and prosperous,” she wanted to say, “we need people who are educated. Educated not just in book learning—but in moral living. That’s the only hope for taming the West and making it a place of fulfilled promise for future generations.”
Ariana determined to do all she could to prepare her students for the future, whether or not every townsperson approved.
“You have such pretty dresses.”
The words were spoken with such wistfulness that Ariana almost felt like apologizing. She had chosen Chloe Travis, a seventh-grader, for her Saturday walk companion. The girl was sallow skinned and frail and came from a poor home on the edge of the town. Ariana supposed that the girl’s slight frame was due to the fact she never really had enough nutritious food. Her father seldom worked, and her mother sat in the shade of the front porch from sunup to sundown.
