Mittman, Stephanie (36 page)

Ben
nodded. Hope didn't die as easily as everything else seemed to in the
territory. But they needn't have made the trip. There was no way Ben Westin was
leaving Tombstone without checking with Western Union. No matter what kind of
fuss Anna might kick up.

He
needed to know where his son was. Or his son's body.

Sloan
had hardly slept all
night. Finally, toward morning he'd nodded off,
only to be awakened by Mary Grace's weak, disheartened voice.

"Gone."

"What?"
He started at her words, shaking his head and trying to clear it. For a brief
moment he'd forgotten everything except that Mary Grace was lying next to him,
her hair teasing his nose.

She
sat up on the edge of the bed, swaying slightly. He edged close enough to put a
steadying hand around her waist.

"What
did you say?" he asked. His throat was scratchy. The hours of crying
silently as he lay next to her still form came back to him.

She
tried to rise, but his arm was in her way.

"Where
are you going?"

"Bathroom."
It was the first answer he'd gotten since she'd shown up with Doc Woods the day
before.

"Where?"

"The
bathroom," she repeated.

"Out
in the hall, turn left."

He
let her go. She rose to her feet, wobbled badly, staggered, and reached for the
bedpost to catch her balance.

"I'll
take you." He rose, straightened the clothes he had slept in, and ran his
fingers through his hair. He guided her toward the door as if she were blind or
feeble. She didn't lean on him, nor pull away. She simply let him lead her out
the door and down the hall.

"Will
you be all right?" he asked her awkwardly at the door to the water closet.
On the trail the one thing she had complained of, the only thing, was lack of
privacy at times like this. Now he was sure that if he came into the room with
her, she would hardly notice.

She
didn't answer his question but walked in and shut the door behind her. He
waited for what seemed like forever. How long
had
it been? He thought of
his father's watch, resting in his bottom drawer at the Bar W. What his parents
must have gone through, believing him dead.

He
heard her pull on the chain and the rush of water that followed. A short time
later she opened the door. In the light of day she was astonishing. Her skin,
reddened by the sun just days before, was the blue-white of fresh milk. Her
green eyes were bigger than he remembered, sunken in her face and dull,
surrounded by dark purple circles. Her cheeks were bones beneath the flesh,
hollows where a smile should end.

He
took a bony arm and led her back to their room. Outside their door was a
package wrapped in brown paper and some folded clothing. He bent his good knee
and retrieved them, pushing Mary Grace into the room in front of him.

"When
did you eat last?" he asked her, too angry to
keep the fury
out of his voice. He touched her through her thin muslin blouse and felt bone
after bone down her rib cage. "Dammit, couldn't you even take care of
yourself?"

Her
eyes raised slowly to his, full of pain but dry, as if she had no more tears to
shed. "You look different," she said in the flat tone that had
completely replaced her lilting voice.

He
ignored her, ripping open the package and finding a dress inside. "This
your wedding dress?" He threw it on the bed and limped to the armchair
near the window. "Put it on."

As
though he had spoken to her in a foreign language, she stood in the center of
the room, confused and unmoving.

"I
said put it on. Now do it before I do it for you. You are gonna dress, and then
we're going down to breakfast, which you're gonna eat. You understand me?"
How the hell was he supposed to leave her here like this and go do what he had
to do?

And
still she stood there, like one of those store-window dummies. Fine. She wanted
to stand there like a dummy, he'd treat her like one.

Pushing
off on the arms of the chair, he rose and came quickly toward her. He stood
behind her, his leg brushing against her skirt. From within the waistband of
the skirt she'd slept in, he pulled her blouse free, and then bunched up the
bottom in his hands. With a jerk that rocked her, he whipped the cloth over her
head, catching her arm to steady her before searching for the button which held
her skirt in place.

The
skirt puddled around her ankles and Sloan just left it there, circling around
to face her and work on her underthings. He unbuttoned the top two buttons of
her camisole and reached within it. Her skin was as smooth
as ever, and he
took her small breast in his hand and caressed it.

The
thought that he might never again touch her body, see her face, or smell her
hair twisted his insides into a knot, and his hand clenched and tightened
around her softness. A small rush of air escaped her lips, and he realized he
was hurting her.

Her
hollow eyes stared at him as if seeing him for the first time.

"What
is it that's different?" she asked.

He
took his hand out from her underblouse and rebuttoned it. "Shaved. Now put
on the wrapper." He reached for it and handed it to her. She held it by
one sleeve. The rest of the dress hung to the floor beside her as if she wasn't
even aware it was there. He balled it up and thrust it at her chest, picking up
one of her arms and pressing it against the fabric. When she made no move to
put the wrapper on, he grabbed her by the arms and shook her.

Her
head wiggled back and forth as if she had no control over it and only stopped
when he dragged her to him and pressed her tightly against his chest. She was
limp in his arms. Inside him something fierce welled up until he couldn't
contain it. His sob shattered the silence, and he let go of her and sank down
on the bed, his head in his hands.

"Don't
do this to me, Mary Grace. I've got a job to do, and you're the only thing
gonna see me through it."

He
didn't know how long she'd been pressed against him, her hands stroking his
hair, her voice murmuring above his head that everything was going to be all
right. He only knew she was warm and close and soft, and his hands went around
her. Her drawers were wet against his face, soaked with his own tears, and he
kissed her through them, kissed her on her
belly, his hands slipping into the open
seam and kneading her bottom, pressing her closer and closer.

His
back hit the bed, taking her with him. His head was smothered beneath her
chest, her hands still tangled in his hair, her voice still calming him.

"Let
me love you, Sweet Mary. Let me love you before I go."

She
rolled off him and scurried away to the edge of the bed, her eyes as wild as
her hair. "Go? Go where?"

"He
was my son, Sweet Mary. Before him I was no one. Nothing important."

"Don't
do this," she begged, panic rising in her voice.

"I
have no choice," he said simply. It was a matter of honor, and of love.
"Now get dressed. I want to see you eat before I go."

***

The
restaurant was the closest thing to civilization Mary Grace had seen since her
fall off the bridge in Oak Creek Canyon. It should have made her happy to be
handed a menu, helped into a chair, and poured a cup of real coffee. But none
of it mattered. Nothing did.

She'd
been without hope before. She'd searched for the child she'd borne with no real
expectation of finding it. She'd made a career of searching for children, never
knowing how tragic the results might be. She'd fought her way back from the
brink of despair, only her work keeping her from ending it all with a bottle of
pills or a razor blade.

She
couldn't do it again. Wouldn't do it again.

"Eat,"
Sloan said, nudging her arm. "It's getting cold." In front of her sat
a plate of eggs, a bloody steak beside it. There was toast, done to perfection
and smothered with butter, and a small dish of some kind
of jam. She
lifted a wedge of toast, made it halfway to her lips, and then returned it to
her plate.

Sloan's
voice was more a hiss than a whisper. "Do you want it shoved down your
throat in front of all these people, or are you gonna eat it yourself?"

He
was a blur through her moist eyes, but she didn't need to see him to know that
he was fed up with her. And why not? It was her stupid plan that had killed his
child. The child he thought was his, anyway.

His
hand cradled the back of her head, his fingers holding her hair tightly enough
to prevent her head from moving. A forkful of food came toward her mouth.

"Not
the meat—" she tried to say, but the fork was in her mouth before she was
finished. She hadn't eaten meat by choice in at least ten years, but he
couldn't know that. On the trail, with the exception of that awful thing he'd
killed and she'd pretended to eat, there had been only fruits and grasses. She
raised her napkin to her lips and felt him yank on her hair.

"Don't
even think of it, Sweet Mary," he said between gritted teeth. "You
ain't starving yourself to death as long as I'm around."

And
how long would that be? No doubt he'd be gone soon enough and then she could
eat or not eat, as she pleased. She could live or die, as she pleased. But for
now she hadn't the strength to fight him.

She
pushed the steak into her cheek so that she could talk. "I'll eat the
eggs."

He
let her hair go and she spit the meat out into her napkin and took a swig of
coffee to get rid of the taste. Her whole mouth felt coated in fat. What were
they doing eating and drinking and acting as though the world were normal when
the baby they both loved was dead?

She
pushed back her chair and ran from the room, tripping as usual on the hem of
her dress. She stumbled and was caught once again by Sloan's strong arms.

There
wasn't a pair of eyes in the dining room that wasn't focused on the two of them
as he struggled to bring her back to her chair and sit her down in it. He
smiled politely at the patrons around him and then took his own seat once
again.

"Eat
your goddamn breakfast so
I can get the hell out of here and lay my son to
rest proper." His jaw was clenched, and she noticed dimples in his cheeks
for the first time.

"I
can't." She must have sounded as hopeless as she felt, since his shoulders
sagged and he touched her gently on the cheek.

"Please,
Sweet Mary. Don't make it harder."

She
took a bite of eggs. They were sweeter than she remembered eggs tasted. So was
Sloan's smile of relief as he watched her swallow.

"There's
a good girl. You'll need your strength for when I get back." He winked at
her, a sad imitation of a lusty pass.

"You
won't be back." She took a bite of toast and found it difficult to focus
on his face. It seemed to be fading out in front of her.

"Don't
you get all trancelike on me again," he said. "And eat that meat
now."

She
couldn't argue. It took too much will. When he put a small piece of steak in
her mouth, she simply swallowed it. If it had been one of those poisonous
desert plants he'd warned her about, she'd have eaten that, too.

"I'll
be back.
I
promise." He went back to eating his breakfast, apparently satisfied that
she was eating hers. "I'll come with you." She said it quietly, as if
it might pass his notice and he would agree unwittingly to allow her to risk
her life along with his.

"No."

"But..."

"No."
There was no anger in his voice, just a finality that she understood. After
all, she'd been there herself, and some things were meant to be borne alone.

But
she was finished bearing them. Let him find his baby and bury him and see what
solace he found in a stone marker with a name on it. She wasn't going to hang
around and watch. "I won't be here when you return."

"Do
what you have to," he said quietly.

She
wiped at her cheeks with the back of her hand. They were quite a spectacle in
the sedate dining hall. Sloan used his napkin to dry her tears. "I don't
know what I have to do," she said. "I only know what I can't do. How
does anyone know what to do?"

"The
Havasupai say you gotta let reason guide your head, love guide your heart, and
hope guide your feet," he answered.

"I
have no hope."

He
smiled a sad smile at her that crinkled his eyes and deepened the two dimples
she hadn't yet gotten used to. "Then I guess you won't be goin' nowhere
till I get back." He rose from the table and pulled out some money from
his pocket. He counted out a few coins and left them next to his plate.
"Come on," he said, extending his hand. "I'll see you to our
room before I go."

Silently
she followed him up the stairs, never more aware of his bad leg as he took the
steps slowly: new step with the left, same with the right, new step with the
left, same with the right. At the door he pulled out the room key and a
pocketful of neatly folded money. He handed both to her.