Arizona Gold (21 page)

He continued with a snicker. “You’ll get your revenge when you scream to high heaven the minute we hit town that Sam Bodine is actually Whitebear, the Apache. I’ll be hung as fast as they can get a rope around my neck. No trial needed. They’ll take the word of a lady any day.

“Especially,” he added to goad, “when she’s considered an
angel
.”

“The billing as an angel was never my idea,” she curtly informed him. “It was Wyatt Earp’s, only it got old after a while. That’s why I now have no job and no place to go…that, plus the fact I lost my audience because they all thought I only had eyes for you. And as for telling everyone who you really are, don’t worry. That’s the last thing I’d do, because I don’t want anyone knowing I was stupid enough to be taken in by you for so long.”

Ryder sensed that some of her animosity had subsided, and it was now her wounded pride that was fueling her hostility. Daring to think there might be a chance he could still sway her to cooperate, he tried a different ploy. “My mother couldn’t believe she was stupid enough to be taken in by you, either. She feels real bad about it.”

Kitty stiffened. “Your mother isn’t stupid. And it has nothing to do with being stupid, anyway. Everyone thought of me as a boy. They had no reason to suspect otherwise.

“Tell her that,” she added. “I don’t want her to feel bad. She was good to me, and I’ll never forget her.”

“So you liked my mother.”

“I certainly did.”

“Then why won’t you help me find the means to give her a new life in Mexico? You know she only wants to live in peace.”

Kitty tried to twist in the saddle so she could look at him in order to convey her sincerity, but when her breast brushed his arm, igniting a delicious tremor, she drew back. “I would like to help her, but not if it means letting you make a fool of me—again—which you would do. I’d never see any of the gold, and you know it.”

“I told you—you have my word. And Apaches don’t give their word lightly. Besides, you’re cutting off your nose to spite your face, because you’ve nothing to lose. You can’t find the gold without me. You’re just being stubborn, and you know it. You also have nowhere to go and nothing to do. You’ve lost your job, and you’ve got to give up your room and probably don’t have much money put back.”

Everything he said was true, but Kitty was still leery. “I don’t think I can take the chance.”

“So what else is there for you?”

She forced a shrug, wanting to seem unconcerned, when all the while desperation was churning inside like cream into butter. “Don’t worry. I can take care of myself.”

“Then to hell with you,” he said, losing patience as they rounded a knoll and the lights of Tombstone came into view. “It’s obvious you don’t give a damn about anybody but yourself. Hell, you’d rather see my mother and all my people perish than take a chance that I just might be telling the truth, all because of your silly pride.”

Kitty winced beneath his angry outburst. She did care about his mother. She was in her debt.

He yanked the reins so hard Kitty lurched forward, but he made no move to steady her. “You can walk the rest of the way. I’m not going to be around when you start screaming.”

Before she realized what was happening, he had grabbed her and lowered her roughly to the ground.

“I told you I’m not going to tell anyone,” she said, staring up at him even though she could barely make out his face in the scant moonlight.

“Well, maybe I don’t trust you any more than you trust me.” He tossed her the reins to her horse. “Take him to the livery stable. Tell them how he injured his leg. They’ll know what to do for it.”

“When I first got to Tombstone, I didn’t tell where your camp is, and I could have, you know.”

He tensed. “What are you talking about?”

“I had almost memorized the trail, anyway, before your mother took me down it, because you had taken me out with you when you went hunting, and then Coyotay and the other warriors took the women to harvest food. I could have described the way to the soldiers, and any scout worth his salt could have found it.”

He snickered. “You couldn’t have learned how to mark a trail that quick.”

“I already knew how. Back home, I didn’t have any friends, so I spent all my time when I wasn’t doing chores exploring the mountains. I learned real young and real fast how to keep from getting lost. So I most certainly could have led the soldiers to your camp had I wanted to.”

“But you didn’t,” he said in sudden wonder. “How come?”

“Because of your mother. She was good to me. She made me see that the Indians have their good side, too, so I certainly wasn’t going to sic the cavalry on her or your people.

“Not even Coyotay,” she added with a disgusted wrinkle of her nose.

Ryder had to laugh. “He’s not so bad when you know him. He was just mad because you wounded his pride as well as him—especially when it was found out you were actually a woman. That made it all the worse—that he had let a woman best him.

“But thank you for not telling,” he said, lifting the reins and making ready to ride. “However, I can’t take any more chances with you. So I’d best be on my way. I’ll drop your guns and holster not too far away so you can find them.”

He paused to smile and add, “But it was good while it lasted. I’ll never forget you.”

Digging his heels into the horse’s flanks, he set him into a fast gallop and rode away.

Kitty stared after him in the deepening night.

It was hard to grasp, this all-consuming knowledge that the strong and mighty warrior she had lusted for was the same man she had given her body to so willingly, so freely.

Blended, also, into the maelstrom that consumed like a deadwood fire, was the concession that he was right in saying she was only spiting herself to refuse his offer. After all, she had no other hope at the moment, and should he prove treacherous she would be on guard and ready to leap to her own defense.

And, perhaps most of all, she really had nothing to lose.

Except her heart.

She, took a few running steps and called out to him, but the sound bounced back at her in the night wind.

He was gone.

And never had she felt more alone.

Chapter Nineteen

After quickly looking the horse over, the stable boy confirmed what Kitty, having experience with such injuries, already knew. “He’ll be fine after he rests a spell.” Then, because she looked so dreary, he added, “Things ain’t as bad as they seem, Miss Parrish.”

No
, she thought dismally,
they’re worse
.

Leaving the stable, Kitty pushed her way through the crowds gathered on the boardwalk running in front of the busy saloons and gambling halls. It was late on a Saturday night, and the streets were teeming with cowboys and prospectors out for a wild time.

With head held high, she ignored the leers and crude invitations from the rowdier bunch and quickened her pace. An unescorted lady on the street at such an hour was asking for trouble.

The sounds of gunfire sent her scrambling for cover inside a doorway along with half a dozen other people. She waited a few moments till it got quiet, then peered out to see a man sprawled in the mud and another standing over him with a smoking pistol.

People went their way, and so did Kitty.

It was just another rip-roaring night in Tombstone, Arizona, and suddenly Kitty felt hollow and empty inside. She longed for the peace and tranquility of the country. Living in a bustling town or city would never be her cup of tea.

But where, the emptiness inside her cried, did she belong? Where could she go and what could she do? For the moment, however, she worried that turning down Ryder McCloud’s offer was probably the biggest mistake she had ever made in her life. She could have put her foot down and said it would be strictly business. No intimacy. No lovemaking. Just put the map together, find the gold, divide it up, and go their separate ways. It might have worked. She might have been rich.

But maybe it was just as well. She could not trust him, or herself, either. Not after the glory she had found in his arms.

There was a larger than usual crowd at the Oriental, and as soon as Kitty pushed through the swinging doors she saw why.

A new singer was onstage. Dressed all in red and black, she had enormous breasts that were pouring out of the drastically low bodice of her gown. She had bright ruby-painted lips. Her cheeks flamed orange with rouge, and her eyelids shimmered with purple shadow.

Kitty paused inside the door to stare in astonishment as the woman flounced around the stage, hiking her ruffled skirt up to her waist to display long, black-stockinged legs and unbelievably high, thin heels on her red shoes.

She was singing a bawdy song, the lyrics suggestive to the point of being vulgar.

Kitty walked over to the bar for a quick glass of wine just as the woman spun around, bent forward, and flipped up her skirt to show her nearly bare bottom.

The men went wild, stamping their feet, clapping their hands, and cheering at the top of their lungs.

“The Singing Angel never provoked that kind of carrying on,” she said grudgingly as Morton poured her wine. “They’ll be shooting out the chandeliers before it’s over.”

“Naw, they won’t,” Morton said easily. “Mr. Earp makes everybody check their guns at the door now. I’m surprised you got in with yours.” He nodded to her holster.

Kitty turned to see, and, sure enough, a man she had not noticed before was methodically taking weapons when armed men entered. “I suppose he didn’t bother to look, figuring a woman wouldn’t be wearing one.”

“As for all the hollering and carrying on,” Morton said, “Mr. Earp’s decided maybe he’s been running too quiet a place, so he hired Ramona, there, to pep things up.”

“Well, she’s doing a good job.”

“Hate to see you go, Kitty, and also hate to be the one to pass along bad news.”

She tensed. “Let’s hear it.”

“Mr. Earp said if I saw you before he did to tell you he wants you to clear out of your room by morning. Ramona needs it. She’s new in town and don’t have nowhere to go.”

“I know the feeling,” Kitty said under her breath, then, with a sigh, “I suppose I’ll have to ask Opal if I can crowd in with her till I find something.”

He was making wide circles on the bar with his polishing cloth and punctured her bubble of hope with a brisk shake of his head. “Nope, you can’t. She’s got to get out, too, on account of her brother. Mr. Earp heard about her letting Nate sleep off his drunk in her room last night and blew his stack. Says he’s not having men bunk in with women even if they are kin. Of course, he’s never had any use for Nate anyhow, and I think that’s the main reason he told her to move.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Kitty took her wine and turned toward the faro table to tell Opal how bad she felt for her.

“She ain’t back there,” Morton said.

“But she’s usually working at this hour.”

“Not anymore. She got mad and quit.”

Kitty stared at him, aghast. “You don’t mean it. She loved her job here, and she’s the best caller in the house, and you know it.”

He shrugged. “You’ll get no argument from me there. From nobody else, either. But when it comes to her brother, Opal can get real huffy. Nate might be a rowdy son of a bitch sometimes, and Opal might get real mad and bust him over the head once in a while, but she won’t put up with anybody else bad-mouthing him. So when Mr. Earp told her that he didn’t want Nate coming around here, she told him where he could stick his faro game.”

Kitty groaned.

Morton laughed. “Oh, don’t worry. As good a caller as she is, she won’t have no trouble finding another job.”

“I still want to talk to her. The Oriental is probably the nicest place in town to work. Is she upstairs?”

“Nope. She and Nate have been gone most of the day trying to find someplace for her to stay. She said if they found anything she was getting the hell out of here tonight.”

“I wish I could do the same.” Kitty finished her wine and went upstairs, feeling as though the whole world was tumbling down around her. She could not even turn to Opal, because she had problems of her own…as well as a brother Kitty did not care to be around.

Again, she was plagued with remorse to think how foolish she had been to let her pride and anger turn Ryder away. They should have just used each other and then gone their separate ways. No one would have been hurt, and—

She had reached her room, opened the door, and her hand flew to her mouth to stifle a scream. It was a shambles.

The mattress had been slashed to ribbons and the stirring of the air from the door opening sent a thick cloud of feathers flying.

She batted them away from her face to see that the chifforobe doors hung open. Her clothes were strewn everywhere and some of the gowns appeared to have been ripped apart.

Behind her, footsteps clattered on the stairs, and then Opal was calling, “Oh, you’re back. I’m glad. I wanted to see you before I left to tell you where you could find me, and—” She saw Kitty’s expression as she stared into her room. “What are you looking at? What’s wrong?” Opal hurried to join her.

“A robber…”

It was all Kitty had time to say before Opal let out a scream that lifted all the way to the rafters, followed by her shrieking, “Oh, God, he’s been here again. That savage has been here again, and he’s going to kill you and me both over that goddamn map.”

She grabbed Kitty by the front of her blouse and began to shake her as she pleaded wildly, “Give it to him. Give it to him before he kills us, please…”

Opal had turned hysterical in the blink of an eye. Kitty slapped her to get her to hush, then immediately wrapped her arms around her to comfort and apologize.

At the sound of people rushing upstairs to see what all the ruckus was about, Kitty quickly told Opal, “It wasn’t him. I know it wasn’t him.”

Opal, sobbing wildly, slung her head from side to side as she tried to pull from Kitty’s tight embrace. “It had to be him. Give it to him, Kitty. It’s not worth dying for. Give it to him and be done with it, child. You’ve got to.”

Kitty was tempted to tell her that it could not have been Whitebear, because she had been with him all day long. She held back, however, for two reasons—one, because Opal was too panicked to listen, and, two, because Kitty did not, despite everything, wish to betray him. Revealing he was actually a renegade Apache would be a death sentence.

“It wasn’t him,” she repeated.

The room was filling fast, just as it had the previous night after Nate had stumbled in, and she did not want anyone to overhear Opal’s raving.

“It was the Apache,” Opal insisted.

Morton shoved into the room, a big scowl on his face. “I swear, I’m starting to agree with Mr. Earp that you women are nothing but trouble. What’s all the yelling about this time?”

“Somebody was just looking for something to steal,” Kitty said lamely, staring at Opal with eyes pleading for her to keep her suspicions to herself.

Morton glanced about and gave a low whistle before saying, “Well, Mr. Earp should have hired somebody to take Ben’s place on the landing. I can’t keep an eye on the bar and up here, too, especially on a Saturday night.”

Opal began to calm down a bit but urged Kitty, “Come with me. Pack your things and come with me tonight. I found a place. It’s not much, just another shanty, but there’s room for you.”

“What about Nate?” Kitty asked.

“Oh, he’s not going to be around for long. He never is. He’s just waiting now for Roscoe to get out of jail. Since he didn’t kill Ben when he shot him, he’s only doing thirty days. They’ll ride out when he’s free. So I’ll help you clean up this mess, and then we’ll both get the hell out of here.

“Nate’s real sorry, by the way,” Opal rushed to add. “He’s just had too much to drink. He didn’t mean no harm. Just like I didn’t mean any when I bashed him over the head. He gets drunk and doesn’t know what he’s doing, and I’ve had to hit him before to stop him from going too far and probably will, again, but he’s the only kin I got, and I have to look out for him.”

Your kin
, Kitty sullenly thought.
Not mine. And I can’t be as understanding or tolerant
.

“We’ll talk about it tomorrow.” Kitty gently ushered her toward the door. “I need some time alone to think.”

Morton started herding everyone out and advised Kitty, “Lock your door. I’ll send word to the marshal to have someone come up and look around and see if anything is missing from the other rooms.”

“I still think it was that Apache,” Opal said as she left.

Kitty moaned to hear Morton say, as he walked Opal on down the hall to her room, “Now, why would that Apache come back, Opal? That’s nonsense.”

She prayed he would continue to think so…and that Opal would remember how they had agreed to keep it all between them.

After a near sleepless night, Kitty awoke feeling as though she had not even been to bed. A quick bath and change of clothes and she was ready to set out to find both job and place to stay.

A few hours later, however, she felt defeated and frustrated.

No store would hire her. There were either no openings, or it was as Wyatt Earp had predicted—owners’ wives did not like the idea of a young, unmarried woman working for their husbands.

Neither could she find a decent place to stay. Not even a shanty. There were tents available for three dollars a night, but at that rate Kitty would soon be broke. And she did not want to stay in a tent, anyway, knowing she would be taken for a whore. So many operated out of the flimsy canvas structures.

When she arrived back at the Oriental late in the day, Morton again regretted having a message for her from owner Wyatt Earp.

“He says he’ll give you today, and that’s it. If you aren’t out by morning, I’m to take your things and set them on the street. And you, too, if you refuse to leave. He got real mad when he heard about your room getting torn up last night, says you’re some kind of a jinx and there’s been nothing but trouble around here since you came.”

“There’s always trouble in Tombstone.”

“Well, not
Injun
trouble.”

Kitty forced a laugh. “Is Opal still carrying on about that? I swear, I don’t think she will ever get over being scared out of her wits by an Indian who just happened to pick her shanty to break into. She’s going to see Indians in every shadow the rest of her life, I’m afraid.”

“She says it was him, all right, that he’s looking for a piece of a map to Wade Parrish’s gold strike that she gave to you.”

Kitty had to speak around the sudden choking knot in her throat. “That…that’s ridiculous.”

“Well, she should know. She says he’s the half-breed son of Wade’s partner, Dan McCloud, and he wants your piece of map to go with his daddy’s so he can find the gold.”

Kitty ground her teeth together. Everyone in town would soon know, including whoever had killed her uncle and Dan McCloud. They might not stop to think her piece of map by itself would not lead them to the strike. After all, anyone who would torture and murder could not be thinking rationally, anyway, which meant she could be targeted for death, too.

“So you can see why Mr. Earp wants you out of here,” Morton went on to say. “He don’t want Injuns sneaking around. Somebody could wind up getting killed.

“And you want to hear something interesting?” he went on to ask with brows raised. “Some of the soldiers that Opal talked to—”

“Soldiers?” Kitty cried in horror. “What was she doing talking to soldiers about all this?”

“Oh, they just happened to be having a drink at the bar when she stopped by to tell me she had got everything out of her room. One of them had heard something about a robbery here last night and said he reckoned she was glad to be moving, and she told him she sure as hell was but only hoped the damned Injun didn’t follow her to her next place. That started questions, and you know Opal. She answered them.

“Anyway,” he went on, “when she told them the Injun was McCloud’s half-breed, they said they knew of a scout by that name and wondered if it was him. You can bet they’ll find out, too, ’cause they sure as hell didn’t like the idea of a half-breed pretending to be white and working as a scout, and—”

Kitty had heard all she could stand.

Abruptly turning about, she walked back out of the saloon and straight to the bank where she had deposited her meager savings. Withdrawing it all, she proceeded to the nearest dry goods store. She was wearing a nice blue gingham dress with lots of ruffles and lace. She even had on a ribboned bonnet, which she hated, much preferring the kind of felt hat cowboys wore. And her feet hurt terribly, because the high buttoned ladies’ heels were so uncomfortable. But she had wanted to look nice—
ladylike
—while seeking a job and a room. That was, however, now behind her.