It's Your Misfortune and None of My Own (Code of the West) (18 page)

“Tap, are you feeling square? You look like you’ve seen the ghost of Joaquin Murietta,” Stack chided.

“It’s been sort of a hard time.”

“Did you two clear the air?”

“Oh, that. You figured it out, too?”

"Uh huh."

“Reverend, what’s the verdict here?”

“Two dead, two will pull through, one is halfway over the edge.”

“And one ran away.” Stack motioned to the trail. “But he won’t come back. Jordan wouldn’t have the nerve to enter that dance hall without an army. Those girls would rip him to shreds before I ever got to him.”

“Reverend, I’m goin’ to drive Miss Cedar back to McCurleys’. We’ve got a mess of talkin’ to do.” Tap stooped to retrieve se
veral spent .44 brass cartridges as he continued the conversation.

“Yes, I know, son.”

“You do? Oh, sure. I suppose everyone could see through it . . . but me. I’ll tie your horse with the others. Stack, I’ve got one of McCurley’s horses tied in front of April’s, and I’ve got papers for that black with the blaze. I’ll come back for them.”

“They’ll be waitin’. You’re stoppin’ by April’s, aren’t you? The girls will be mighty happy to know they’ve been caught.”

“Well, we want to go on.”

“But you’re the one who stopped ’em. You ought to ride back in with the bodies.”

“You can handle it here. You did your job. You brought ’em in. Go back there and take care of those ladies. If the sheriff’'s lookin’ for me, I’ll be at McCurleys’. Or at the ranch.”

“I owe you one. And Stack Lowery pays his debts.”

“One of these days, I’ll probably have to call in that marker.”

The big man reached out and shook Tap’s hand. “I’ll be there. You can bank on it.”

Passing by Selena, Tap glanced at her. There was mud on her face and in her hair. He noticed that she now sported two black eyes.

“Are you goin’ to be all right?” he asked her.

She stood up, still holding the blanket on her shoulders. “I’ll live . . . if that’s what you mean.”

“They didn’t .
 . . take . . .” he stammered.

“They slapped me around and scared me with their talk, but I’ve gone though all that before.” She glanced down. “You fell for that blonde, didn’t you?”

Tap reached over and put his hand under her chin and lifted her face. Then he leaned down and kissed her gently on the lips.

“Why’d you go and do that?”

“I been wonderin’ what those pretty lips taste like.”

He noticed a slight twinkle in her otherwise hurting eyes. “Well?”

“Sweet . . . very sweet.”

“But you’re still riding off with that blonde,” she pouted.

“Yep. But remember, Selena, things aren’t always the way they look.”

“You mean .
 . .”

Tap didn’t look back.

“Reverend, I suppose you know it already, too, but we won’t be needin’ your services right away. In fact, I don’t rightly know if we’ll need ’em at all.”

“I understand. I had a long conversation with Pepper ye
sterday.”

“Maybe someday we can sit down, and I’ll try to e
xplain it all to you.”

“I’ll look forward to it.”

Tap tipped his hat to Stack and hiked up the hill to the buggy. Tying his horse to the back of the buggy, he climbed in and slapped the lines against the drive horse’s rump. They rolled out of sight of the others before either spoke a word.

“Do you often kiss women like that?”

“You mean dance-hall girls?"

“No, I meant so tenderly. Why did you kiss that girl on the lips?” Pepper asked.

“’Cause she’s been beat up real bad the past couple of days. I expect she’s feelin’ poorly on the outside and even worse inside. She just looked like she needed someone to treat her gentle.”

“And it’s your job to see that all women are happy?”

“No, ma’am, but my heart hurts when I see women and children treated poorly. If she’d been five years old, I probably would have done the same thing.”

“On the lips?”

Tap blushed. “Maybe not.”

“Are you going to stop at the dance hall?”

“Nope. Now I need to tell you some things that have been bustin’ to get out for days.”

When they reached the Fort Collins road, he turned the rig west, and neither looked back at Pingree Hill. The sun had started on its downward journey and would be in their eyes for the next several hours. Although the day was clear, a cool breeze blew directly into their faces. Tap pulled his hat down in the front, and Pepper wrapped herself in a bla
nket.

“Pepper, I’m going to do a lot of talkin’. And I probably won’t come up for air too often. Now I don’t mean to be i
mpolite, but there are things you need to hear.

“I believe in bein’ real honest, and that’s why this thing about pretendin’ to be Hatcher was eatin’ me to death. Now the truth is, I’m hopin’ that I can tell you somethin’ that would cause you to want to stay out here in Colorado. Give me a chance to prove myself as worthy a man a Mr. Zachariah Hatcher. I know I can’t be as worthy as him in your sight, but maybe I could be somewhat accep
table.

“Say, are you gettin’ cold? I’ll stop and build a fire and heat some rocks if you’d like,” he offered.

“No, no, please continue,” Pepper urged.

“Let me tell you who I really am. I was born along the Tu
olumne Creek in California.”

“I didn’t know anyone was born in California.”

“My daddy was a prospector. He still is . . . I think.”

“Where is he?”

“His name’s Anson Andrews. He went to Australia to hunt for gold in ’72. I haven’t heard from him since. My mama was a métis. Are you familiar with the term?”

“Only slightly.”

“She was born up in the British possessions of a French father and an Indian mother. She died when me and Stoddard were still pretty young. I barely remember her.”

“Stoddard?”

“My younger brother.”

“Your name is Tapadera and your brother is Stoddard?”

“Yeah, Mama named me. Daddy named my brother. We’re about as different as our names.”

“Where’s your brother now?”

“Most of him is buried at Fort Lincoln, I think.”

“Most of him?”

“He was with General Crook at the Battle on the Rosebud. He served with Captain Noyes, 2nd Cavalry, D Troop. I was told he got hacked up pretty bad.”

“What about other family?”

“As far as I know, I don’t have any. Sounds lonely, doesn’t it?”

Pepper hugged her shoulders in response.

“Are you gettin’ hungry? I might have a little supper left from the McCurleys down in my saddlebags. We can stop and check on it.”

“No, no, please continue.”

“One of my father’s friends settled into the store business in Sacramento, so me and my brother were left there to get our schooling and all. We stayed with those folks until . . . Stoddard stayed there until he joined the army.”

Pepper shaded her eyes. “When did you leave home?”

“I never figured I really had a home, but I left those folks when I was fifteen. Things were just beginnin’ to open up in the Comstock, and I hiked over the Sierras to ‘see the elephant.’”

“Did you work in the mines?” she pressed.

“Only for a little while. I found out I get real nervous down in those shafts, so I worked up on top, helpin’ around at the . . . eh, I was always . . . anyway, I got by. But as soon as I saved up a little, I went down to New Mexico and hired on with old John Chisum out along the Pecos.”

“So you’re a cowboy?”

“I did my share of ropin’ and brandin’ over the years. But sometimes I’d hire on to ride guard for the stage line, or to make sure things didn’t get out of hand at a gambling house, or to see that Indians didn’t attack a survey party . . . and stuff like that.”

“You mean, you’re a hired gun?”

“Straight up, I guess you could call me that.”

“No wonder you took on all of Beckett’s gang.”

“That was foolhardy. I figured you and the ranch were worth fightin’ for.”

“So you bounced around New Mexico with your gun for sale?”

“West Texas, New Mexico, Arizona. I even served as a deputy marshal in San Bernardino, California, for a few months.”

“And you probably know every dance-hall girl in three states.”

He looked over at her to see if she was angry, serious, or joking. Her green eyes revealed nothing.

“But how did you meet Zachariah Hatcher?”

“That’s getting ahead of things a bit. First, I’ve got to tell you about prison.”

“You served time in prison?” she gasped.

“It’s a long story. Last year I was workin’ as shipment guard on a run between Tucson and Globe City. And there was this lady—”

“Somehow I knew a woman was in this,” Pepper inte
rrupted.

“Miss Cedar, I promised I’d tell you the truth. Now I’d just as soon skip this part if you want me to. I ain’t necessarily proud of it none.”

“No, no, go on.”

“Me and this lady in Globe City was being real chummy. Ever’ time I’d come into town, we’d do some visitin’.”

“I can imagine.”

“One night we were sittin’ in a room at the Intern
ational Hotel in Globe City where we were . . . ”

“Visitin’?”

“Right. A red-faced man waving a gun burst into the room claiming to be the woman’s husband. Now, Miss Pepper, it’s the honest truth, I didn’t know this lady was married at all. But here he is, rantin’ and ravin’ and threatenin’ to shoot me, when all of a sudden this raven-haired woman pulls my revolver off the night table and kills him dead with one shot.”

“Her own husband?”

“Yep. As you can imagine, quite a ruckus broke out. She’s a sobbin’ and cryin’ over the man she just murdered, and all I want to do is get out of there. So I leave her to explain how she killed him, and I jump on my pony and ride north.”

“And she told them you killed her husband?”

“Not directly. They just jumped to that conclusion and wouldn’t listen to her confession. The next thing I know, most of Arizona is chasin’ after me, includin’ Stuart Brannon himself.”

“Brannon, the hero in all those dime novels?”

“That’s the one.”

“There really is such a man?”

“Oh, yeah. He’s for real. They cornered me up in some rocks in Yavapai County—Brannon and four or five others. I told Brannon what really happened, and he promised me a trial, so I gave up.”

“What happened at the trial? Did the wife back up your story?”

“She disappeared. No one knew where she was. They put out papers to have her arrested, but I can’t stand to think about any woman going to jail, so I didn’t tell them what really happened.”

“And they convicted you?”

“Yep. Crime of passion, they called it. Gave me ten years at A.T.P. in Yuma.”

“How long were you there?”

“Six months. Then I escaped.”

“How did you get out?”

“The warden’s wife helped me. She’s a good woman.”

“Did you kiss her gently to make her feel better when you left?” Pepper quizzed.

“What? Nothing like that. But she did lend me sixty cash dollars.”

“Why sixty?”

“’Cause they were offering fifty dollars to any Mojave Indian who brought an escaped prisoner back to A.T.P. So when I got caught, I offered him sixty dollars to let me go.”

“When was this?”

“About a month, six weeks ago. You see, I made my way up to northern Arizona and hopped a stage to Utah. But before it got too far, we were chased by a bunch of Navajo warriors. It seems they were out to get revenge on whites who had killed an Indian family that week. We were the lucky ones that ended up being the target.”

“And Zachariah Hatcher was on that stage?”

“Yes, ma’am, he was.”

“As it turned out, all of ’em got killed but me. Your Mr. Hatcher was the last to go, and I took care of him most of the night. That’s when I learned about the letters, the ranch, and how you two had never met, and all that.”

“So then you decided to be Mr. Hatcher?”

“I had promised him to come up here and tell you what happened. But when I get to Mexican Wells, one of the girls there thought I was Hatcher. It gave me the idea to try this scheme.

"Miss Cedar, I read those letters you wrote to him so many times, I felt like I knew you. Hatcher had everything goin’ for him, and then one lousy day ends the whole thing. I figure most of my life’s been pretty shallow and empty, so maybe it was my turn to have a break. I was hopin’ maybe we’d hit it off, and I’d tell you later.”

“Like when they came to arrest you for escaping from prison?”

"I kind of hoped I could put that part in the past. Arizona officials won’t come up here. Someday I’ll find Rena, and she’ll—”