Anita Mills (19 page)

“So you stayed there until now.”

“Yeah. Well, more or less, anyway. Sometimes I rode the riverboats up to Natchez and Vicksburg, plying my trade.”

“Playing cards, you mean.”

“Same thing. Once a man decides to make his living at something, it’s not much of a game anymore. It becomes like everything else, pretty much work. For a man to make it into the big games, he’s got to have the right clothes, the right manners, the right connections—and once he gets there, he’s got to be damned good at counting his cards, or he’s broke.” He looked across the river again, then shook his head. “There’s nothing much worse than a broke gambler, Rena. He’s got to have a stake, or he can’t play. And every time he sits down at a table, he’s got to have the nerve to risk losing it, or he doesn’t win. It’s a hell of a life.”

“I don’t understand why anyone would want to live like that.”

“There’s nothing like winning—no whiskey, no woman, nothing can make a man feel the way he does when he’s winning. When a man gambles at poker, he’s pitting his skill and nerve against everybody at the table.”

“And luck.”

“And luck. But you can help luck along a little.”

“I suppose that means you cheat?”

“No. I bluff, Rena, and I’m damned good at it.”

“Take two trips to take the wagon, mister!” the ferryman called out. “Dollar apiece! Extra for the wagon!”

“A dollar for each of us to ride that?” Verena asked incredulously. “Just across the river?”

“Ain’t no other way across,” he declared smugly, “ ’less you’re wanting to swim it.”

“No, of course not.” More than a little daunted by the cost, she started to loosen the drawstrings on her purse.

“I’ll take care of it,” Matt assured her. “Put that away—you’ll need your money for the stagecoach fare.”

“No, it wouldn’t be right. I’m not in desperate straits.”
Yet,
her mind added silently. “I just think it’s somewhat extortionate, that’s all.” To be fair, she knew she ought to offer to pay half of the two dollars for Eduardo and the wagon also, but she simply couldn’t afford the added expense. “You know,” she said suddenly, “it doesn’t seem particularly logical to pay for something we aren’t going to need in Columbus, does it? I mean, we
could
walk from the boat dock into town, I’d think.”

“What about your head?”

“It will probably hurt less walking than riding. At least I don’t expect to hit every single rut and bump on foot.”

“All right.”

Jumping down from the board seat, Matt reached into his coat for his money. He peeled off a ten-dollar banknote and handed it to the astonished boy. “Here—
por Eduardo
.”

The kid stared until Matt repeated himself. Then he took the money, turned it over a couple of times as if he still didn’t believe it, and finally slipped it between his foot and the sole of his sandal. As soon as Verena climbed down, he cracked the whip over the backs of the mismatched mules and made a wide circle with the wagon, turning it into its own tracks. It rattled out of sight in a cloud of dust to the sounds of “Get on, Jake! Go, Crow!”

“Don’t you think that was a little excessive?” Verena managed between coughs. “Ten dollars is more than two weeks of teaching wages.”

Matt shrugged. “Everybody needs a stake.” Taking her elbow, he turned her toward the ferry. “Looks like the boat’s waiting on us.”

At water’s edge, she eyed the ferryboat dubiously. “Are you sure this is safe?”

“You watched it come across, didn’t you?”

The river water appeared red and muddy. “How deep is it right here?” she wanted to know.

“Two tickets,” Matt told the boatman, handing over two silver dollars.

“Hit don’t matter,” the fellow said, answering Verena’s question. “Hit ain’t like we was meanin’ to walk across her.”

Once on board, Verena stood in the middle, holding on to one of the windlass support posts, while the man cranked the handle, tightening the rope. Slowly, amid a great many creaks and moans, the ferry pulled away from the river’s edge, leaving a wide, shallow wake of white-tipped red water. Beneath her feet, she could feel the current trying to push the boat sideways.

On the other side, brick-red dirt met the water under the weathered pier. She kept her eyes focused on it throughout the crossing.

“What makes the ground so red?” she asked.

“The same clay that colors the river. There’s a lot of red clay between here and East Georgia.”

“I don’t think we’ve got any of that around Philadelphia.”

“Probably not. But down here bands of it stretch up into the Indian reservations above the Canadian River and across the desert all the way through New Mexico Territory.”

“And things grow in it?”

“Where there’s water. Enough to run cattle, anyway.”

“I wonder if it’s like this at San Angelo,” she murmured.

“San Angela,” the boatman corrected her. “Ain’t San Angelo—it’s San Angela.”

“I have a letter postmarked ‘San Angelo,’ “ she told him definitely.

“That’s the U.S. government for you, ain’t it? Mr. DeWitt names his place San Angela for his wife’s sister, a nun named Angela, and they go and change it on him, ‘cause somebody thinks it don’t sound right. Like it makes a damned difference to ’em. Be like me namin’ a place Pig, and them deciding Hog sounds better.”

“Is the ground red there?”

“Don’t know. Never been, far as I remember. Used to be called Over the River ’til Mr. DeWitt named it,” he added. “Ain’t nothin’ to speak of there, from what I hear—just some
jacals
and a few shanties—and a place called Veck’s.”

“I don’t believe jackals are native to America,” Verena murmured.

“Ain’t the Indians that live in ’em,” he declared flatly. “Mostly Mexicans and a few white folks.”

She decided not to pursue the matter. Obviously he wasn’t referring to wild dogs in Africa or Asia. And there wasn’t enough time to enlighten him before they landed. Seeing the bank looming, she braced herself. The ferry hit the posts and shuddered, sending a pain shooting up her neck to her head. For an awful moment, she thought she was going to disgrace herself by vomiting. The boatman was securing the rope, but it felt like the boat was still moving.

“That wasn’t too bad, was it?” Matthew said low. Then he noticed she was pea-green. “Lean over the side and let go,” he advised.

“I’m all right,” she managed through clenched teeth. Very gingerly, she turned loose of the post and walked over the board plank laid between the ferry and the dock. “Whew,” she said as the nausea passed.

“You all right?”

“Yes.” Turning her attention to the deep-rutted red road, she squared her shoulders resolutely. “As soon as I get my bag, I’m going to take a bath, and then I’m going to bed and sleep until I wake up, even if it takes an extra day.”

“I thought we’d get checked in, maybe find someplace to eat, and then I’d find out what happened with the train.” Taking her arm again, he began to walk. As soon as they were out of the boatman’s hearing, he leaned closer, keeping his voice low as he said, “If it’s still around, we’re still the McCreadys. If it’s left, I still think you ought to call yourself something besides Verena Howard, just to be on the safe side.”

“I can’t think right now.”

“You don’t like Lizzie or Bessie.”

“No.”

“What was your mother’s name?”

“Mary Veronica—and I don’t much care for that, either.”

“Caroline?”

“Too Southern.”

“Juliette? Now there’s a Yankee name, if there ever was one.”

“No.”

“How about Harriet?—for the Stowe woman,” he suggested.

“No.”

“You don’t look much like a Martha.”

“Good.”

“Catherine? Charlotte? Anne? Margaret?” When she didn’t respond, he sighed. “All right, then—what are you going to name your children?”

She looked up at that. “Since I’ve pretty much decided on spinsterhood, I haven’t given the matter any thought at all,” she responded dryly.

“Any dolls?”

“Two—Amy and Louise.”

“There you go.”

“Mama named Louise, and I can’t say I liked it. And when I think of Amy, I think of some frail little creature.”

“I’ve got a sister Maggie,” he offered.

She took a deep breath, then let it out. “I’ll come up with something when I register.”

“Don’t you think I ought to know it first?”

“What about you? Who are you going to claim to be this time?” she countered.

“Any ideas?”

“How about Ralph? Or Heywood? Or maybe Orson?”

“Heywood?”

“My great-uncle—Uncle Elliott’s father.”

“No. I’d rather have something with a little more dash to it.”

“George? Henry? Frank? John?”

“Do I really look like a Henry to you?” he asked, feigning injury.

“No more than I look like a Lizzie,” she responded sweetly.

“All right—what do I look like?”

“Right now? Maybe an Al—not an Albert—an Al.”

“
Al
?”

“Well, quite frankly, right now you look like a brawler.” In spite of the godawful headache, she found herself suppressing a smile. “I suppose you think of yourself as a Stephen?”

“He was a weak king.”

She was lost for a moment, then she recovered. “Mathilda’s rival?”

“Yeah.”

“How about Richard the Lionhearted? He wasn’t wholly admirable, but nobody seemed to notice it at the time—except maybe Leopold of Austria and the Saracens. And his brother John, of course, who was even worse.”

“Richard.” He mulled that over, then nodded. “All right, that takes care of me, I guess. But Berengaria sounds a tad old-fashioned, don’t you think?”

“You didn’t learn that at a gaming table,” she said. “And I suspect you didn’t learn it on a farm in Tennessee either.”

“No. Actually, when I got to New Orleans, I was pretty much just a backwoods bumpkin with nothing but good looks to recommend me.”

“And your conceit.”

“Yeah. When I looked around, I could see the big houses, the fancy carriages, the fast horses—”

“And the fancy women,” she threw in. “I’m sure there must have been a lot of them.”

“And the fancy women. Anyway, I knew if I ever wanted to run with the set, I’d have to look, sound, and act like I belonged. I emptied my pockets, went down to the docks, and found myself a poker game. The next day, I took my winnings, looked up a tailor, bought a subscription to a library, and started practicing the gentleman act.” He paused to look down at her. “I’m a lot of things, Rena, but I’m not a quitter. Two years after I stepped off that riverboat, I was dancing with a society belle at a ball in one of those big houses.”

“And you supported it all by gambling,” she murmured.

“Yeah.”

“I don’t believe you. If you were that lucky, you wouldn’t be down here walking into a little Texas town.”

“Yeah, well, Lady Luck took a night off. But we’re off the subject, and you know it. We’re Richard and Eleanor who?”

“Eleanor?”

“Eleanor of Aquitaine was a strong woman, Rena. Surely you’ll admit that.”

“Yes, but—”

“How about Herrick?”

“Corinna Goes
Α
-Maying?”

“You taught English, didn’t you?”

“And history—and just about everything else. It was an eight-grade, one-room school, with nineteen pupils between the ages of six and twenty.”

“Twenty?”

“Twenty. He dropped out of school at twelve, but after I was introduced at a town meeting, he immediately declared an intent to finish his education. Unfortunately, he was hoping to give rather than receive lessons.”

“Smitten?”

“And too stupid to understand the word ‘no’ until I finally had to throw the ash bucket over his head.”

“Live coals?”

“Yes. And then I resigned before I could be discharged.”

“Everything the Almighty gives carries a price.”

“Who said that?” she asked curiously.

“Me. And by the way, we’re there, so you’d better make up your mind. Surely you can be Richard Herrick’s sister Eleanor for one night, can’t you?”

“It says Columbus House, Richard. We can’t stay here.”

“It’s a hotel. It says right there ‘Hotel.’ ”

“Yes, but it’s the Columbus House, and I’m not staying here. Sarah Brassfield said she and Seth came to town last winter to get custody of the boys, and this is where they stayed.”

“I don’t follow.”

Grasping his arm, she leaned close to his ear to murmur low, “Bedbugs.”

“Bedbugs!”

“It really did me a lot of good to whisper it,” she grumbled. “But, yes. Sarah said she and Seth didn’t sleep a wink the whole night, so I’m not staying here. Richard Herrick can go ahead and register, if he wants to, but Eleanor’s going down the street to a boarding house.”

Turning loose of him, she gathered up her mended skirt and started walking. For a moment, he stood there, torn between the board hanging beneath the hotel sign that read best steaks west of the gulf of Mexico and Verena Howard. “Damned woman,” he muttered under his breath, “you’re more trouble than you’re worth.” Then he went after her.

“All right, mister, put your hands above your head, and turn around real slowlike.”

Matthew froze as a figure stepped behind him from the dark alley. As his hand instinctively dropped for the Colt, he felt the gun muzzle against his neck.

“Go for it, and I’ll blow your head plumb off,” a low voice said.

He gingerly lifted his hands while considering the possibility of using the knife. But with the cold steel touching his skin, he decided against it. Right now, any sudden movement could buy him that ticket to hell.

His assailant reached around him to lift the Colt from its holster, then threw it halfway across the deserted street. “Where is it?” he demanded tersely.

“Where’s what?”

“The money.”

Still hoping to slide his knife from beneath his sleeve, Matthew stalled. “What money?”

“Now don’t you go acting stupid with me, Herrick. I know you got a whole lot of money on you. I saw you win it.”

“Oh,
that
money.”

“Yeah—where is it?”

“In my pocket,” Matt said, lowering his hand as if he were reaching for it.

“No, you don’t—I ain’t a fool as was born yesterday,” the voice growled. “You just keep those hands reachin’ for the sky, then come around nice and easy.” For emphasis, he cocked the gun.

At the sound of the click, Matthew knew he’d been had. He turned around slowly. Moonlight reflected in a stranger’s pale, glittering eyes, revealing a grim, determined face. He considered his chances, and decided with the hammer back like that, even if the knife hit home, the gun would fire.

“Just tell me which pocket, then hold real still while I get the money.”

“Look, friend—”

“I ain’t got no time for games, Herrick—which pocket?”

At least he had a chance to keep some of his money. “The right one,” Matt answered finally.

The man reached out with his left hand, patting the coat pocket, then delving into it. Pulling out a sizeable wad of bills, he held it up to the moonlight.

“I’d sure appreciate it if you left me a little stake out of that,” Matt murmured.

“I’m not a fool,” the fellow said curtly. He crammed the money under his shirt, then quickly searched the other coat pocket, finding the neatly folded banknotes. “This all of it?”

“Yeah.”

To make sure, the robber’s fingers probed Matt’s vest and pant pockets, finding and removing three silver dollars and several quarters. Then he jerked on the watch fob, pulling it loose.

“I always hankered for a good gold watch,” he said, stuffing it and the change into his trousers. “All right, turn around and start walking down that alley.”

The words held a warning, telling Matt that he was about to be shot in the back, that his assailant didn’t intend to leave any witness. And there wasn’t another soul about to help him. The hairs prickled on his neck.

“Get going.”

The man didn’t know he still had a knife, and that was his one chance. Sucking in his breath, Matt took a step, dropped his right hand, then dived into the shadows as the bullet struck an adobe wall above him. As the gunman cocked his pistol again, Matt let the knife fly. The second bullet went through his coat sleeve, missing his arm by less than an inch. Unarmed now, Matt rolled behind some barrels, then came up into a crouch, ready to run for his life.

The alley was ominously silent. After several seconds, he took a cautious peek. Holding a barrel top, ready to duck again, Matt inched up for a better look. There wasn’t a sign of anyone anywhere. All he could see was the glint of moonlight on steel. His knife and gun lay in plain view on the dusty street.

It was a trick. It had to be. As soon as he exposed himself, he’d be a goner. Sinking back behind the barrels, he waited.

Then he heard running footsteps, and somebody shouted, “Anybody back there? Who’s shooting?”

It was a kid, maybe sixteen or seventeen years old, looking down the alley toward him. Matthew pulled himself up and dusted off his coat before walking out.

“You all right, mister?” the kid asked.

“Yeah.” Bending over, Matt picked up his knife, turning it over in the moonlight. The blade was dark and wet. “Yeah, I’m all right.”

“What happened? I was coming around the corner when I heard the shots.”

If he said he’d been robbed, he’d be facing a sheriff or marshal, maybe even a ranger, and he didn’t want that. “Nothing, kid,” he answered. “I didn’t see anything either. I guess it must’ve been a drunk trying to shoot up the place.”

“That your knife?”

“Yeah. When he fired into the alley, I threw it.” Before the boy could get a better look, he slid the bloody knife under his sleeve into its sheath. With the kid following him, he picked up the Colt. “Gun must’ve fallen out when I hit the ground.”

“Why didn’t you use it?”

“I was running for cover.”

Clearly disappointed by the answer, the kid declared, “If it was me, I’d a used it—I’d a kilt myself a cowboy.”

Matt eyed him for a moment, then told him, “And if he’d had a friend, you’d have been dead.” Jamming the gun into the holster, he started walking toward the boarding house. To his irritation, the boy fell in beside him. “Look, kid—”

“You got that holster tied down like a gunslinger, mister.”

“Yeah.”

“You ain’t Clay Allison, are you?”

“No.”

“But you’re a gunfighter, ain’tcha?”

“No.”

“Them’s fancy clothes you got on.”

“Look—”

“I think you’re a gunslinger.”

“No.”

“Ever kilt anybody?”

“Yeah. In the war.” Matt stopped. “Anything else you want to stick your nose into before I go inside?”

“How’d you get the shiner?”

“My bed collapsed.” He started up the stairs to the wide porch. “See you around, kid.”

“You sure you’re all right, mister?”

“Yeah.”

But he wasn’t. He was tired, sore, and broke. Flat busted. The damned robber hadn’t left him a penny. And come morning, he’d have to ask Verena Howard to pay for both rooms with money she couldn’t spare. Intending to get a good night’s sleep, he’d left the poker game early with between three and four hundred dollars in his pockets, and now he couldn’t even buy himself a cup of coffee, let alone breakfast.

Now he was stuck here in Columbus until he could get himself a stake. He’d have to earn himself twenty or thirty dollars, then look for a game. Without a stake, he couldn’t even play.

Inside the house, he walked down the narrow hall to climb the stairs to his room. He felt stupid. And angry. Only a fool would take a shortcut through backyards and alleys with a wad of money in his pocket. But he’d been damned tired.

The stairboards squeaked under his feet as he mused on his predicament. He was going to have to do an honest day’s work for wages, he reflected, resigning himself to it. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d found himself broke, and it probably wouldn’t be the last. Easy to come by, easy to lose—that’s what he’d told Verena, anyway. Only he hadn’t lost like this in a long time. And the way he lost it made him feel like a greenhorn fool.

He let himself into his room, closed the door, and loosened his tie. Taking off his coat, he draped it over the single chair, then started unbuttoning his shirt. When he got to the right wristband, he could see the bloodstain where the knife had touched the snowy lawn. At least he’d gotten something for his money. While he hadn’t killed the damned robber, he’d stuck him pretty good.

With that consolation, he sat down on the edge of the bed and reached for the nearly full bottle he’d had the proprietor get for him. Pouring himself a good shot of Tennessee mash whiskey, he downed it, then lay down, propping his boots on the footboard. That was another thing he couldn’t pay for. But at least he could drown his troubles in it.

God, but he didn’t want to face Verena. Now he wouldn’t be going on to San Antonio with her, and he felt a surprising pang of regret. Yeah, in the space of a couple of days in her company, he’d come to admire her for a lot more than her looks. He’d grown to like that good mind, that quick, sharp wit, and he was going to miss those little skirmishes with her. Alone and with little or no money, she’d resisted the temptation to take the easy way, to use her beauty for gain, and instead had retreated behind that tongue of hers, relying on it to hold a besieging world at bay.

But Pennsylvania was a far cry from Texas, and an armor of words was damned near useless when it came to dealing with the woman-hungry Big Als on a wild, brutal frontier. And it sure as hell wouldn’t count for anything with those hardcases hunting her. If they’d had a full brain between them, they’d have already caught her. And fools like that were bound to wise up eventually, probably sooner than later with him out of their way. A lone woman wouldn’t be any match for them.

Damn. He couldn’t let her go on without him. He’d been kidding himself when he’d thought he’d just get off at Columbus and disappear. And he’d even been kidding himself when he was planning to put her on that mail wagon a few miles on the other side of San Antonio. He didn’t know when it had happened, but at some time, somewhere in the back of his mind, he’d realized he had to get her to San Angelo. Everything since then had just been his own struggle against the inevitable.

Until now. Until the Almighty had intervened. Now it was out of his hands. Now he didn’t have any way to get her there. But he had to. All he needed was a stake, the means to right the crazy tilt his world had just taken.

Maybe he could raise a stake. Sell something. But even as he felt the surge of possibility, some inner voice reined in the notion. With the exception of his coat, he didn’t have anything he could part with, and it wasn’t likely anybody’d pay much for something that had a bullet hole in the sleeve. Well, there were his shirts, but while he’d paid a lot for them, they wouldn’t be worth much out here. The same with his boots. And he sure as hell wasn’t about to give up his gun. Not in a place like Columbus, Texas. That just left the knife. But he was damned good with it, and the element of surprise it afforded had saved his life a number of times. Like tonight.

That left only Verena. But as he closed his eyes, he could see her digging in that drawstring purse for twenty-five cents. He could almost hear her indignant howl when he dared to ask her for twenty-five dollars. It’d be damned hard to talk her into risking what little she had on the outcome of a poker game. And if he lost, she’d be stranded, unable to get herself to San Angelo. Unable to get back to Philadelphia. And along about then, she’d never forgive him. No, he couldn’t do that to her.

“You fool—you stupid fool!” Gib Hannah ranted, pacing the clear area by the campfire. “You were supposed to kill the bastard! It was supposed to look like a robbery, but you were told to kill him!” Walking up behind Bob Simmons, he planted a boot in the man’s back. “I ought to kick you into the fire and watch you burn.”

“He threw a knife at me, Gib! Here—take a look at this, if you ain’t wanting to believe me. Danged if he didn’t about take my arm off,” Simmons declared, showing the blood-soaked rag he’d tied around his right shoulder. “He cut me deep, Gib. But I winged him—I know it. I saw him hit the ground.”

“But you didn’t kill him. When I told you to kill him, I meant it.”

“You don’t even know if it’s the right girl,” Charley Pierce pointed out. “Maybe she is, maybe she ain’t.”

“Well, I aim to find out,” Hannah snapped. “But I wanted rid of McCready first.”

“He’s calling hisself Herrick now,” Lee Jackson noted.

“Way I got it figured out, they ain’t got nothing to do with the Howard gal. Notice how he wears that gun all strapped down? Ain’t too many as does that, is there? No,” Charley answered himself. “And that’s my point. First he’s calling hisself Mac McCready, now it’s Richard Herrick, ain’t it? Well, to me, it’s plumb plain he’s hiding from somebody, and it ain’t us! I think he’s running from the law, and she’s probably just his fancy woman running with ’im.”

“Makes sense to me,” Lee agreed. “If’n she don’t know we’re looking for her, why’d she be running, changing her name?”

“That’s because none of you’ve got enough brains or gumption to figure anything out,” Gib muttered. “If she didn’t know before you two got onto the train, she knew it then.”

“Not if she ain’t the Howard woman.”

“I’m saying she is.”

“Then what’s he doing with her?” Lee asked.

“I don’t know.”

“It’s like I told you,” Charley persisted. “They’re on the run, and it ain’t from us.”

“You should’ve snatched her when you had the chance,” Hannah grumbled.

“I don’t know when we’d have done it, Gib,” Lee reasoned. “Ain’t been no time when he ain’t been with her. Besides, if you wanted to do it so bad, you had your own chance back at the Goode ranch. But all you did was stand under a damned tree with a damned cheroot in your mouth, waiting for us to do it for you.”

“I don’t know who made you the boss, anyways,” Bob muttered.

“What did you say?” Gib asked, his voice deceptively soft now.

“You want to hear it out loud? All right—I’m getting damned sick and tired of being pushed around by you. Seein’s as we all got a share in the money, we ought to have a share in the say. I ain’t helping get the girl, less’n I know what you’re gonna do to her. I ain’t killin’—”

His words died at the touch of Hannah’s gun against his head, and his ears never heard the explosion. He pitched forward, reaching out by reflex, and his legs twitched, and then he was still.

An acrid trail of gunsmoke wafted skyward in silence as Gib Hannah looked from Charley to Lee. A faint, almost derisive smile curved the corners of his mouth. “Anybody else got any problem with how I run things?”

It was a moment before either of them spoke. Pierce found his voice first. “Hey, I ain’t complainin’—long as I get my share, it’s all right with me.”

“I just don’t cotton to killin’ no girl, that’s all,” Jackson said, his eyes on Bob Simmons’s corpse.

“Lost your nerve, Lee?” Gib asked, sneering.

“For God’s sake, he was at Gettysburg, Gib! Lay off him—he just don’t think it’s right to kill Jack’s girl, that’s all he’s saying. He ain’t got no problem followin’ you with anything else—that’s right, Lee, ain’t it?”